Diary of a Dead Man on Leave

by David Downing

  Two of the yard lamps above our route had been disabled, and we stumbled down the dark and clinker-strewn path to the front of the engine shed, where two other comrades were waiting on the footplate of a hissing locomotive. Once the tarp had been hoisted and unrolled, one of the crew hooked a fire iron through Giesemann’s belt and patiently maneuvered him through the open grate and onto the glowing coals. A fresh layer of fuel was shoveled on top of the corpse.

  We stared at one another for a moment or two, our firelit faces all looking slightly crazed. Killing someone does that to you, at least the first few times. With the smell of burning flesh now filling our nostrils, we left the crew to go and pick up their train. The reek was bringing back too many long-buried memories, and I didn’t envy them their first few miles.

  Back in the storeroom, Müller told us he will see his Gestapo contact tomorrow, say that Giesemann did not turn up for work that day, and ask if he’s been arrested. An obvious diversionary ploy, perhaps, but better than none at all. Before the four of us started leaving at five-minute intervals, he also offered absolution. “We had no choice,” he insisted, looking at each of us in turn. “Now we can go forward.”

  I hope so, although it seems unlikely that I will still be here.

  When my turn came, I made my way back from one violent death to a house still mourning another. The common spaces were empty, everyone shut in their own little worlds. I climbed up to mine and sat in the dark, trying and failing to sort out my feelings about what we had done.

  Why had Giesemann worked for them? Shared beliefs? It seems unlikely. Ambition? Perhaps. The cost of refusing? We might never know.

  It no longer matters, for us or for him.

  So why do I feel that it does?

  Friday, November 25

  As this entry attests, I am still a free man, and until I arrived home this evening, I thought the day had gone well. The two comrades who crewed last night’s loco returned without mishap, having dumped the ash from their boiler in one of the Hannover shed pits. If someone at our depot saw or reported anything suspicious, I would have expected to see the Gestapo, but so far that organization has shown no sign of knowing that one of its men has gone missing.

  All good news, but as so often of late, bad news came close on its heels. Fate and the Nazis aren’t done with these people I live with. As I discovered on reaching the house, today had brought two more bolts from the blue.

  One was Marco’s suspension from school—a suspension that sounds very much like expulsion. Verena will get the full picture on Monday. He got onto another fight, and while it’s unclear what the fight was about—even Marco doesn’t seem to know—the extent of the damage he inflicted before a teacher could intervene appears to have been considerable. The other boy’s parents are party members and were dissuaded from calling the police only by the principal’s promise of drastic action.

  Verena is frantic, and with good reason. It’s hard to imagine another school eager to take Marco on, and seeking one out is bound to bring her son to the authorities’ attention, with what might well be dreadful consequences. The only thin consolation, at least for Erich and Andreas, is that Walter was not involved.

  The other bolt was a letter for Erich, who’s already in trouble for missing his reemployment interview on Monday—it seems that receiving news of your mother’s death on the very same day is not considered a sufficient excuse. This morning’s official communication demanded his appearance at the local Wehrmacht induction center on Monday, December 5, a mere ten days from now. There was no explanation of what for. Is he actually being called up several months short of his eighteenth birthday? If so, that’s terrible news for Walter, who will have only a desperate Verena and an ailing grandfather to look after him. Fewer than two weeks have passed since Erich’s return boosted everyone’s spirits—losing him again will send them through the floor.

  I shall hate to leave them in such a state, but if I stayed, what could I do? Erich, Verena, and Andreas are brave, intelligent people and will do what can be done. All of Germany is at the mercy of these scum, and war is coming. Happy endings will be few, and most of them, I suspect, will be more attributable to love and courage than any survival skills that I possess.

  Saturday, November 26

  This morning I set out for Essen and my final treff. On the journey there, I went through my fictional reasons for not doing all that I’d promised to do—the suspected informers, cautionary rumors, all the doubts raised that needed allaying—and wryly noted how good I was getting at lying to those whom I needed to trust.

  Dieter raised an eyebrow when he saw me walking towards his table in the Stadtgarden café, but otherwise refrained from expressing surprise until I was seated beside him. “What has happened?” he asked, sounding as angry as anyone who didn’t want to be noticed could.

  I went through my litany of problems, ending on the happier note that all were now resolved. All but one. Moscow’s embargo on Dariusz Müller.

  “The group won’t follow anyone else,” I told Dieter.

  He stared into the distance for several seconds, then went to buy us hot chocolates as he worked on his response. “The committee won’t be happy” was the best he could manage on returning.

  “The committee has made a mistake,” I said, pushing my advantage and earning another raised eyebrow. “They don’t know the people involved,” I insisted. “That’s why they send in people like me.”

  He sighed, and I waited for him to accept the inevitable. The chocolate was awful, tasting as bad as it had at the end of the last war. And this one hadn’t yet started.

  “You will have to defend this decision when you get back to Moscow,” he said, after searching in vain for any alternative.

  I told him I’d be happy to.

  “So when?” he wanted to know.

  “This coming week, and then I’ll be on my way.” I asked if the number to call was still the one I’d been given.

  It wasn’t. He recited the new one from memory and had me repeat it several times. He didn’t say why it had changed.

  “An arrest?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said, in a tone that discouraged further questions.

  Something else occurred to me. “If two of us turn up, will they take us both out?”

  Dieter looked alarmed. “Who are you taking with you? Moscow doesn’t want any Jewish refugees.” It might have been a joke but probably wasn’t.

  “A twelve-year-old boy,” I said.

  He looked at me as if I were mad. “Out of the question.”

  I had thought it would be, but in the unlikely event that Andreas renewed his request that I take Walter out, at least I now knew where I stood. I nodded my acquiescence.

  “And next month I shall expect to see someone else,” Dieter said coldly. He gave me a place and time, and the identification procedure the new man should follow. “By then you will be in Moscow,” he concluded, as if saying so made it more likely.

  I said I was looking forward to that.

  There was nothing more. He left first, and I sat watching the ducks upending themselves in the water for fifteen minutes before heading back to the station. There was a band playing on the forecourt, and as I joined the small crowd that had gathered to listen, the music segued from “O Tannenbaum” to the “Horst Wessel Song,” like some ageless horror breaking the surface of a beautiful lake.

  Sunday, November 27

  My time here is almost over. Müller came to see me earlier this evening and told me I must leave within forty-eight hours.

  When I saw him waiting in the hall below, I knew that something was up, but what he told me here in this room was still a shock. It seems the Gestapo intend to arrest our whole group at Wednesday night’s meeting.

  “Someone has told them we’re done with just talking,” he explained.

  “So it’s not abou
t Giesemann.”

  “Not directly. They haven’t found a body, but they must have their suspicions.”

  “So why wait until Wednesday?” I asked. It seemed too good to be true.

  A grim smile from Müller. “I’ve been told to swell the meeting as much as I can—to tell all the regulars to bring along anyone they think might want to join us. That’s one reason. And I doubt they have enough men to make simultaneous arrests all across town. Better to get all their eggs in one basket.”

  Seventy-two hours, I thought.

  “They wanted to know why I hadn’t filled them in on our new plan of action,” Müller observed.

  “And what did you tell them?”

  “That I was waiting until we decided on something concrete.”

  “So there must be another informer,” I said, drawing the obvious conclusion.

  “Yes.”

  “But you’ve no idea who it is?”

  “No, but they wouldn’t still be looking for Giesemann if it was one of the men who saw him off on Thursday. So those are the ones I’m warning. And I’m telling each man the same—that he shouldn’t make a run for it until after work on Tuesday. Some need a couple of days to sort things out before they go—family stuff—and if anyone jumps the gun, and the Gestapo notice, they won’t wait around for our meeting to make their arrests.”

  All of which made sense. “What about the others in the group?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “They’ll be arrested. But none of them have actually done anything, and if they’ve got any sense, they’ll blame it all on those who’ve vanished. I know,” he said, seeing my expression, “but I can’t see any other way.”

  Neither could I, even knowing that not having “actually done anything” was unlikely to save Ottilie and the others. It hadn’t saved Anna.

  When Müller asked if I knew where I’d be going, I told him no, not yet. After we’d shaken hands and wished each other luck, I took him down to the door and watched as he cautiously stuck out his head, like a man half expecting an unpleasant surprise. But there was no one out there, and with one last look back, he disappeared down the street.

  I stood in the hall, hearing the music on the common-room wireless, aware that my heart was beating faster than usual. Two more days in this house, assuming the Gestapo didn’t change their minds. I doubted they would. Catching everyone in one fell swoop would reinforce their sense of who they were. People who pounced.

  Two days to say my goodbyes. To Walter, to Jakob, to all of them. But how should I do it? I could hardly hold a farewell party.

  I would tell Andreas, I decided, and maybe ask him to tell all the others once I was gone.

  The light in the boys’ room was still on, and I could hear them talking to each other. None was showing under Andreas’s door, but why would it be? I rapped softly and heard him say to come in. “And turn on the light,” he added, aware of how dark the room would be to anyone else.

  I did so. “It’s me, Josef,” I said.

  His head jerked up from the pillow. “Ach, is it time?”

  “For what?”

  “For you to leave. I heard that Müller came around to see you.”

  “Yes, he did. And yes, it is.” I told him I’d be leaving on Tuesday evening but wouldn’t be telling anyone else before I went. “I’m not the only one going,” I added, “and we’ve agreed that the fewer people who know, the better. I’ll say goodbye to Walter,” I heard myself promise, “but only at the last minute.”

  The blind eyes bore into me. “Josef, a question,” he said, after what seemed a long silence. “Are you leaving the country?”

  “I hope so.”

  “Could you take the boys with you?”

  I hadn’t expected it, and I didn’t know how to respond. A voice within said yes, but was it one I should listen to? Who was it talking for—them or me? “I don’t know” was what I said. “Do they want to go?”

  “I can ask them,” Andreas said. “Look, Josef, the doctor says I don’t have much time—a few months if I’m lucky, maybe just weeks if I’m not. Verena has her hands full looking after Marco, and the army’s coming for Erich. Walter won’t have anyone.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. For the doctor’s prognosis, for the whole damn mess.

  He answered the former. “Oh, I’ve been on this earth long enough. But I’d like to know they’re safe before I go. If I ask them and they both say yes, will you consider it?”

  I said that I would. And that if I could think of a safe way to do it—

  “Then I’ll ask them tomorrow.”

  Back upstairs, I checked the street for any suspicious activity and allowed myself to consider the possibility. Had I been half expecting such a request when I asked Dieter about taking someone else out? His answer had been vehement enough, and I’d mentioned only one companion. But if that way out was closed, it was probably for the best—putting myself in the comrades’ clutches was one thing, entangling Walter and Erich quite another.

  We would have to get out on our own, which would be more difficult but not impossible. I work at one of the Reichsbahn’s largest yards, from which freight trains leave in all directions, all around the clock. Getting onto one will not be a problem, and if I choose wisely, we should be close to a border long before a winter dawn. But there the problems will start. If I were on my own, I would find a hotel in a small town nearby and look for someone to help me across—there are always men smuggling something. But I have false papers that will probably stand inspection. Erich and Walter do not, and once the hunt for me and the other group members is underway, guests in hotels near the border will all be double-checked.

  I don’t rate our chances of getting away much better than fifty-fifty, but are Erich’s and Walter’s prospects any better here?

  Should I decide, or should I let them?

  Monday, November 28

  Today’s shift at work seemed longer than usual, and each time my eyes or my ears registered movement outside I could feel my heart speeding up. I didn’t think it likely that any of the other five would put the rest of us at risk by leaving early, but you never know what fear will do, and by the end of the shift, I was more than pleased to be on my way home.

  After supper, as I’d promised, I went to see Andreas and found both his grandsons waiting there with him. I still hadn’t made up my mind whether or not to take them with me, but the difficulties I foresaw in getting all of us over the border were inclining me to “not” until Erich’s surprise announcement.

  “I can get us across the border” was the first thing he said once I’d closed the door. “I spent six months working on the stretch near our camp,” he went on, “and I know the way into Belgium. If we can get to Hellenthal, we’ll have less than fifty kilometers to walk, and we can do that in one night.”

  I looked at Walter, whose face seemed animated for the first time in days. “Please” was all he said.

  It was clear they were both keen to go.

  “Are you certain you can find the way?” I asked Erich. “At night?”

  He said he was. After all those nights with the Dudes tracking groups of Hitler Youth, he knew how to find his way around in the dark. “And there must be a train from the yard that can get us close,” he said, as if that were the only real question.

  There was. The night freight to Aachen always carried a few cars for Hellenthal, mostly supplies for the camp and border defenses. It left at 1 a.m. and was scheduled to arrive in Aachen at four-fifteen. I had no idea where it dropped off the cars for Hellenthal or whether they arrived before dawn, but it wouldn’t be hard to get us aboard. And in truth, if I was to take them with me, I had no better plan.

  Saying I knew of such a train had Walter and Andreas almost jumping for joy, but Erich remained all business. “There’s one thing more,” he said. “Verena and Marco have
to come too.”

  My first thought was “crazy,” my second “unwise.”

  “What difference will another two make,” Erich was saying, “either in a car or walking in the dark?”

  And I had to admit he was probably right about that. “You know what will happen if we’re caught?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said simply. “Verena and I will end up in camps and Walter in an orphanage. And Marco . . . I dread to think. But we want to risk it. All of us do.”

  “What about Andreas?” I asked.

  “Oh, I won’t be coming,” the old man said with a mischievous smile. “No, seriously, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.”

  He had it all worked out. East Prussia would be “excellent practice” for death, and no, he wouldn’t have any problem getting there. A blind old man abandoned by two ungrateful grandsons? The neighbors would bend over backward to take care of him, and his friend the block warden would put him on a train and make sure that Sofie was waiting at the other end.

  I was getting used to the idea. Five people under a tarp were as hard—or as easy—to find as three. I looked from one face to another and knew I couldn’t say no.

  “All right,” I said, and finally won a smile from Erich.

  “When do we go?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow night,” I told them. “Just small bags you can carry over your shoulders—you’re out for a hike, not going into exile. And don’t do anything different during the day. Erich, you go to see your boss at the depot and eat humble pie. Walter, you go to school and look miserable.”

  Erich had already talked to Verena, so all I had to do was say yes, repeat my rules about luggage, and tell her to keep Marco in for the day. She nodded and gave me a kiss on the cheek, but the look in her eyes was that of a woman who’s either been sentenced to life or death and has no way of knowing which.

  Tuesday, November 29

  The sun will soon be rising on my last day in Hamm, and before I go down to breakfast, I must put this journal back in its hiding place for the very last time. It’s not something I want to be caught with.