I said he wouldn’t be missed.
Only his money, Anna said—she would have to find someone else to take the bastard’s room.
I said I would pass the word around. “One thing’s for sure,” I told her, “Walter will be delighted.”
Wednesday, August 24
This morning Ruchay was at breakfast, but Verena did the serving. This evening Anna did the honors, but he wasn’t there. Out hunting for somewhere to live perhaps, or simply avoiding her. She took the opportunity to inform the rest of us that Ruchay was leaving and that his room would be relet. Gerritzen said he had a colleague at work who might be interested.
I had a letter from Walter, who didn’t have much to say. The only event he mentioned was the weekly trip into town, and that with a singular lack of enthusiasm—“There’s nothing there really.” With nothing to read and no one to talk to who shares his interests, he is clearly bored stiff and can hardly wait to board the train for home. Anna will collect him in Berlin next Monday.
This evening’s Working Group was hosted by Risse and poorly attended, with two of the regulars ill and one, Paul Giesemann, on a Strength through Joy week on the North Sea coast. The eight of us present talked for a while about how little the younger workers knew of traditional union methods and how we might put that right without unduly upsetting the local Labor Front leaders. But it was dreadfully hot in the small apartment, and no one objected when Müller suggested adjourning to the Social Club, where we sat outside and drank and played skat by the light of the yard lamps. With some livelier-than-usual music playing on the club wireless and a wonderfully dramatic sunset to look at, it turned into a very pleasant evening, and walking home I felt a rare sense of contentment. Walter was coming home; Ruchay would soon be gone. Things were looking up.
Thursday, August 25
Verena was waiting on the doorstep when Jakob and I arrived home this evening. She looked in shock, and there was a dark contusion on one side of her face. “They took Anna,” she said.
She didn’t need to say who. “When?” I asked stupidly, as if the hour could be important.
She shook her head. “This morning. Late this morning. I tried to tell her father, but he was having one of his bad days. You know what he’s like—he seems to take things in, but then you find he hasn’t. But this afternoon he seemed better. ‘Wait for Josef,’ he said. ‘He’ll know what to do.’”
I didn’t. I felt in shock myself. “What happened to you?” I asked Verena.
“Oh, I was a fool. I tried to stop them, and one of them hit me. It’s nothing.”
I asked her where the other lodgers were.
Herr Ruchay was in his room, Herr Gerritzen not yet home.
“Does Ruchay know?”
“I told him. He looked . . . I don’t know . . . sad, I suppose. But he said there was nothing he could do. That the law must take its course.”
As I realized that I hadn’t asked the obvious question, Jakob beat me to it. Why had they taken her?
“They wouldn’t say. She asked them twice, and they just kept saying she had to come with them.”
There was only one thing to do. “I think Jakob and I should go down to the Gestapo office and find out,” I said, looking to him for agreement.
“Of course,” he said.
I asked Verena if she would stay and look after Andreas and received the same answer. I hesitated for a moment, then said that I doubted Anna would be back by morning, so perhaps she and Marco could sleep here tonight. She nodded.
I went to see Andreas in his room and found him at his lucid best. When I told him where Jakob and I were going, he looked almost hopeful.
I asked if he knew why his daughter had been arrested.
He shook his head rather too vigorously. “She promised she wouldn’t get involved again. Not while she still had Walter to care for. And my Anna always keeps her word.”
“All right,” I said, suspicions confirmed and fears not exactly allayed.
Jakob and I started off. It was still light, but the air was terribly humid, as if a storm was about to break. “It must be a mistake,” Jakob said more than once as we walked, and I hoped he was right.
But if he was, no one at the Gestapo office was prepared to admit it. We patiently explained that we were there on behalf of Anna’s disabled father, but the duty officer refused to tell us why she’d been arrested or where she was being held. He said, “Come back in the morning” so many times that he sounded like a gramophone record on which the needle had stuck.
We argued, but it was like talking to a stone wall. Eventually I noticed that Jakob seemed about to explode—like most men who rarely lose their temper, he isn’t very good at it—and I managed to usher him out before things got ugly. “They can’t do this,” he said once we were back on the street, but of course they can. And do.
Back at the lodging house, I gave Verena and Andreas the bad news and agreed to go back in the morning—Jakob would have to tell Dariusz Müller why I was late for work. Gerritzen came bouncing in while we were talking, pleased with himself for finding Anna the lodger she’d said she needed. The news that his landlady had been arrested sobered him somewhat, but like Barufka he swiftly took refuge in assuming it was all a mistake.
There was nothing else we could do, and I came up to sit by my open window. The air still feels close, but there are flashes of lightning far to the west and the faintest rumblings of thunder. I hope Jakob’s right, and it is a mistake or something so trivial that Anna will soon be released. But what if it isn’t? What if Walter has now lost his mother as well as his brother? If there’s no one to look after him, will the state take him too?
Friday, August 26
I slept badly last night and woke up early this morning. The sky was barely starting to lighten, and rain was falling in a steady drizzle. I dressed and went down to talk to Verena, who was already at work in the kitchen. Was she willing to keep things going until we knew when—I didn’t dare think “if”—Anna was coming home? I said I would help with the meals and other jobs and was sure Barufka would do the same.
She said of course she would.
The Gestapo office opened at eight—I had noticed their hours on my earlier visit with Anna—so there seemed no point in delaying. I ate my jam-filled rolls as I walked, then briefly stopped for a coffee on the way in the probably mistaken belief that my mental alertness would be thereby enhanced.
The office opened on time, but it was more than half an hour before I was seen. I just about managed to keep my temper in check—something of a must for undercover agents in Gestapo anterooms.
When I was eventually seen, it was by the same Kriminalsekretär who had interviewed Anna and me two months ago. And this time he had a name: Gunther Appel, according to the shiny new sign on his desk. At our previous meeting, he had been surprisingly reasonable but not very helpful and today offered more of the same.
Appel told me Anna was under arrest for making several seditious statements. These statements, which he wouldn’t repeat, were of an extremely serious nature, and she would remain in custody until her trial. No date had yet been set for the latter, but when one was fixed, Herr Biesinger would be informed. She was being held in the local prison—the one where Erich had spent his pretrial weeks—but neither letters nor visits would be permitted.
I tried to explain the family situation—the invalid father in need of round-the-clock care, the twelve-year-old son who would soon be back from visiting relations.
Appel leaned back in his chair and asked if I thought the father and son would be better off in institutions.
I said no, of course not.
“Then I suggest you make your own arrangements,” he said.
Was he trying to be helpful? Or just being dismissive? I couldn’t tell. “What sort of arrangements?” I asked, not really expecting an answer.
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bsp; He shrugged and said that was hardly a matter for the Gestapo, though I might have to satisfy the local block warden that any new arrangements were in the interests of all.
“Of course,” I agreed, silently thanking God that Andreas was on good terms with ours.
“Then I think that concludes our business,” Appel announced.
Not quite, I thought. As I got to my feet, I asked him whether we were talking days or weeks. “It will help the boy to know,” I added.
“Weeks or months,” he said tersely.
I risked one more question. “I don’t suppose you’ll tell me who informed on Frau Gersdorff?”
He smiled at that. “You suppose correctly.”
I thanked him for his time and left, wondering why I’d bothered to ask. There were no prizes for guessing who had informed on Anna. The only question was what—if anything—to do about it.
I was already two hours late for work but felt obligated to drop in at the lodging house and share what I’d discovered with Andreas and Verena. Both were shocked, and both thought the same man responsible. “That worm Ruchay,” as Andreas put it.
“She might have said something,” Verena thought out loud, “but who hasn’t?”
I said he might just as well have made something up, but what did it matter? He couldn’t prove anything, and we could all testify that she had just turned him down and that this was his way of paying her back.
Andreas looked at me sadly. “You don’t understand how it works. When people are denounced, the Gestapo go to their records. If there’s nothing in the accused person’s past, then they get away with a slap on the wrist. But if there’s something there, then they see the new offence as simple confirmation. The accused has proved himself—or herself—an inveterate enemy. Why would they let such a person go?”
I knew he was right, but my heart still sank. “And I assume there is something there?”
Andreas sank his chin on two clenched fists. “Of course there is. She was an active member of the KPD before she met Erich’s father, and he was one of Liebknecht’s golden boys—you know who Liebknecht was?”
I said I did.
“Well, her Karl was one of those daredevil sorts whom everyone loves. Except his enemies, of course. The Freikorps kept trying to kill him, and eventually they succeeded. He’ll certainly feature in the Gestapo’s records, and Anna’s name will be there beside his. He wasn’t good to her, but he got himself killed before she realized it. And now his reputation will do her in. The Gestapo won’t care that she hasn’t been active since their precious boss took over.”
Seeing the distraught expression on Verena’s face, I tried to sound more hopeful than I felt. “Maybe they’re not as efficient as people think they are,” I said. “And they still have to prove she said whatever she’s accused of saying.”
“Maybe,” Andreas conceded.
For the moment we just had to keep the house going, I said. For Anna’s sake and Walter’s. And our own. And no matter how ridiculous it sounded in the circumstances, I had to get to work.
Which is what I did. Müller had covered for my late arrival and was clearly upset by Anna’s arrest. I told him what the Gestapo had told me, and he said he’d try to find out more from some “useful friends” he had. The prospect of learning anything new was encouraging; the fact that he had such contacts could only revive those suspicions I thought I’d abandoned.
The next few hours at my desk were less than productive: every few minutes, it seemed, my mind would wander off on its own. Toward the end of my shift, I realized that Jakob might be planning a confrontation with Ruchay, and when the clock chimed, I made sure I was out at the gate before Jakob was. I needn’t have bothered—we got home to find Ruchay already gone. He had told Verena he was spending the weekend at his mother’s, but Verena had then checked his room and found all his belongings in boxes and bags. We guessed that someone else would be around to pick them up.
Which was something of a relief, because I wanted emotions to cool before I talked to him again. I felt like hitting him as much as Jakob did, but that wouldn’t help Anna. As far as I could see, persuading the bastard to withdraw his accusations was the only thing that would.
Verena also had some better news. The block warden had paid an official visit, and Andreas, having one of his better mornings, had convinced his old comrade that the lodging house could function without Anna for a while and that with Verena as a live-in surrogate mother, and Jakob and me as surrogate uncles, Walter would not lack for carers when he returned.
First, of course, he has to be met in Berlin, and since Andreas can’t travel and Verena is needed at home, I am the one who must do it. Being the bearer of this bad news will be unpleasant, hearing it a whole lot worse, but that moment is still almost three days away.
Tomorrow I must go back to Barmen for the monthly treff, and I can’t say I’ve ever felt less interested in what my superiors have to tell me.
Saturday, August 27
I took an early train this morning—when one or both parties fail to turn up at a monthly treff, the next one is held where the last successful rendezvous took place, two hours ahead of the previous time.
My contact was one table down from where Elise had sat, the telltale book beside the half-drunk cup of coffee. Once we had gone through the prearranged greetings, and warmly shaken hands, the two of us left the buffet loudly discussing the weather and headed, as Elise and I had two months before, down toward the river.
He was young for the job, not much more than thirty, and I thought his suit was too well cut for the anonymity he was presumably seeking. He was obviously German, with an accent acquired in Bremen or Wilhelmshaven. He called himself Dieter, and he seemed very keen.
The weather was kinder than it had been on my last visit, sunny and fresh with barely a cloud to be seen. Once we were out on the open path above the river, he gave me Moscow’s replies to the questions I’d sent through Elise. Of the seven names I’d put forward, only Müller’s had set off alarm bells, which was good as far as it went. One or two peals would have shown they knew something and been more reassuring. When I explained that I’d since met Schulte and chosen him, Franke and Opatz for my putative cell, Dieter seemed impressed, which suggested a worrying lack of experience.
Trains went by in each direction, scraping rather than rattling on the underslung rails, and once the noise had faded, Dieter told me that Moscow had high hopes for the Working Group. The only problem was Dariusz Müller, whose party record displayed an unfortunate fondness for sectarian solutions, and whom I should seek to expel. When asked for details, Dieter told me that Müller had initially championed this incorrect line at the KPD Congress of November 1928 and, despite admonishment then, had persisted in his error for several more years. I was tempted to point out that the sectarian approach was then CPSU and Comintern policy, endorsed by Stalin himself, but if the young man didn’t know that already, he surely wouldn’t want to. I told myself that, smart suit or not, he was risking his life for the cause, and to let him have his illusions.
Another train went by. Off to our left, a large group of boys a few years older than Walter were lining up for a football match, and I found myself thinking that within three years they’d all be wearing Wehrmacht grey.
“You seem pessimistic,” Dieter said, picking up on my mood, which of course had much more to do with events back in Hamm than the perilous state of Europe.
I said another war was coming and that there seemed no reason to believe it would be short.
“But perhaps that’s what we need,” he said blithely, as only someone too young for the last war could. “The last war sparked a revolution in Russia and almost another one here in Germany. Next time we can finish the job.”
I told him he might be right and tried not to look too depressed at the prospect. If each new revolution requires forty million human sacrif
ices, I think I’d rather wait for ordinary people to catch up with Marx and find some less corrosive way of bringing their exploiters down.
We parted on friendly terms, and I rode the train back to Hamm feeling relieved that I have another month to try and sort things out at home. To do all I can to get Anna released and, in the event that I can’t, to leave the rest of the household able to ride out the time it takes for Erich or her to return.
Sunday, August 28
Given the circumstances, today was almost pleasant. Verena and Marco collected most of their belongings from the room they rent a ten minute walk away—until we know how long Anna will be gone, Verena is understandably loath to give it up. Marco seems to have taken it all in stride and is looking forward to sharing a room with Walter. Marco gets on well with Jakob, and this afternoon I even saw Gerritzen taking an avuncular interest. Sometimes racial prejudice seems so easy to turn on and off.
Tomorrow morning I’m taking the first train to Berlin. A search of Anna’s room failed to turn up any details of the prospective rendezvous with her cousin, so I’ve been forced to rely on Reichsbahn timetables and guesswork. As far as I can judge, there are only two obvious trains she and Walter might take, and I intend to be there when the first one pulls into Silesian Station. If by any chance we fail to meet up, then I assume Sofie will take her nephew back to East Prussia. She might want to do that anyway when she finds out what’s happened to Anna from a man she’s never met.
Much as I’ve been looking forward to Walter’s return, I have been asking myself whether it might be kinder and safer to leave him where he is. But when I suggested as much to Andreas, he almost bit my head off. This was where Walter’s friends were; this was where he’d hear news of his mother; this was the house his brother would soon come back to. This was where he belonged.
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