The Serpent's Egg

by JJ Toner

  The Air Commodore waved the major general back to his seat. “Gentlemen, we all know this is not 1914. The craft of warfare has moved on. This coming war will be unlike any that has preceded it. It will be fought with advanced machines and technologies that have yet to be devised. The days when armies of men faced each from trenches and charged into deadly machinegun fire across wasteland – those days are behind us. We must adapt to the new realities or perish.”

  Chapter 65

  August 1939

  In the fortuneteller’s house in Kurfürstenstrasss, Greta pushed the door open and parked the pram in the hallway.

  Madam Krauss came bustling out from her lair. “Oh, it’s you. I wasn’t expecting anyone. I meant to lock the front door.”

  “How are they?”

  “They seem fine. Sophie’s a little unhappy about the enforced confinement, and Matilde and David are tired of the cramped conditions, but they seem healthy enough.”

  Madam Krauss looked into the pram. Ule was sleeping. “I’ll watch him for you if you like.”

  Greta reached down, lifted the infant from the pram and placed him on her shoulder. “Thank you. Frau, but Sophie likes to see him.”

  Carrying her basket in one hand and with the baby on her shoulder, she climbed the stairs. The stairs took her to the attic floor under the high, pitched roof. Against one wall there stood a heavy wooden closet. She opened the doors and knocked three times on the back wall. It swung open to reveal a secret room built into the attic of the adjoining house. Matilde smiled at her, leant out and took the basket. She set that to one side and took the baby. Greta ducked her head and stepped into the secret room. Matilde handed back the baby and closed the secret door carefully.

  The room was no more than four meters by five, with no windows. In one corner, David Rosen sat hunched in an old armchair reading a newspaper in the light from a hurricane lamp. Sophie lay sleeping on a makeshift bed set against one wall.

  Matilde unfolded a fold-away table and set out three places. Obviously the food supplied by Greta was sorely needed. She made a mental note to visit more often.

  “How’ve you been, Matilde?”

  “Bearing up,” said Matilde. “We keep hoping to hear something from the British about our visas. I can’t imagine what could be taking so long. And it’s so frustrating that we can’t go round there and ask them.”

  “When did you apply?”

  “Not long before we moved here.

  “When was that? About four months ago?”

  David Rosen cleared his throat noisily. “It’s been eighteen weeks and two days. April 6 is when we applied.”

  “What address did you put on the application?”

  Matilde replied, “Care of Madam Krauss at this address.”

  “I’ll go around there tomorrow and make an enquiry on your behalf.”

  “Thank you,” said Matilde.

  She laid out the food and woke Sophie.

  Sophie rubbed her eyes. Her face lit up when she saw Ule. Ule held up his arms to Sophie and she picked him up. Greta marveled at Sophie’s strength. Ule was not light.

  #

  Greta paid a visit to the British embassy the next day, August 30. The place was in chaos. The reception desk was unattended. Greta wandered from room to room unhindered, and everywhere she went she found embassy staff packing tea chests.

  “What’s going on?” she asked one man.

  “We’ve been told to prepare for evacuation. Can I help you?”

  “I’m here on behalf of some friends who’ve applied for visas.”

  The man shook his head. “The visa office closed last week. Apologize to your friends, but tell them the embassy won’t be issuing any more visas in the foreseeable future.”

  When Greta conveyed the bad news to David Rosen, he was not surprised. He thanked her. He shrugged. “We’re on the brink of war. I thought it was unlikely that we would get out before it started.”

  Chapter 66

  September 1939

  On the first day of September 1939, Radio Berlin announced that a group of Polish soldiers had carried out an attack on a German radio station in Upper Silesia, seizing the station and broadcasting an anti-German message. In response to this unprovoked hostile action, German troops had crossed the border into Poland.

  On the third day, Neville Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, spoke from London. His message was clear, even to those who spoke no English. “This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that, unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany.”

  The French declaration of war soon followed.

  For the next month the population of Berlin sat by the radio listening for every morsel of news from the east.

  #

  The German war machine moved through Poland’s defenses like a hot knife through butter, pushing the Polish army into a small defensive position to the southeast.

  In their apartment in Kolonnenstrasss, Anna sat close to Max on the sofa. “Oh, Max, why did we have to invade Poland and start a war? It’s horrible.”

  “The Poles started it. They refused to give us back the city of Danzig. That’s all we wanted from them, but they refused to negotiate. Then they attacked our radio station.”

  She poked him in the ribs. “You don’t believe any of that, do you?”

  “No. Hitler wanted a war, so he started one.”

  “It doesn’t feel right, Max. I don’t feel German anymore. Do you know what I mean?”

  “I think so, Anna. I feel the same way. We should think about leaving.”

  “We’d have to give up our jobs. We could go to Dresden, maybe. We could live with my parents until we found new jobs.”

  “I meant we should leave the country.”

  She sat up and looked at him. “And go where?”

  “Somewhere. Anywhere.”

  “It would have to be somewhere the people speak German. Austria’s no good. Switzerland’s neutral. Zurich, maybe.”

  “Do you know anyone in Zurich or anywhere in Switzerland?”

  She shook her head.

  “Me neither. I’ve seen Belgium. It’s nice and peaceful.”

  “But they speak Flemish there, don’t they?”

  “Yes, and French and German in some parts of the country.”

  “We’d have to go where they speak German. I wouldn’t want my children growing up speaking a foreign language.”

  The mention of children sent the conversation in a whole new direction.

  Chapter 67

  September 1939

  Max was on the autobus en route to Wittenberg. Anna was shopping with Ebba and her work friends. He had listened to an anodyne domestic drama on the radio with Anna before leaving the apartment. He regretted it now. Some of the ridiculous dialogue was rattling around in his head.

  “Oh Heini, how can you leave me here alone with little baby, Adolfina?”

  “You know I love you and the baby, Agnetta, but my Führer needs me.”

  He shuddered.

  A stray theory had been worming its way through his subconscious for weeks, and it finally surfaced. The theory rested on two solid bricks.

  The first brick concerned his father’s cigarette lighter. He took it out of his pocket, flipped it open and turned the wheel. It sparked but produced no flame. He tried four more times without success. He turned it over and opened the fuel compartment. The material in there was dry. He’d had it almost a year. Assuming it was full of butane when his mother gave it to him, it had taken about a year to evaporate. The last time his father had touched the thing had been in 1916, 23 years earlier. Would his mother have refilled it? She could have, but was that the sort of thing she would do, and why would she? Max had no answers to those questions. His m
other was an imponderable enigma. Always had been.

  The second brick of his theory was those muddy boots. They were far too big for his mother, but someone had been wearing them just before his last visit.

  “But Heini, what if you never return?”

  “Never fear, Agnetta, my Führer will protect me.”

  Maybe his theory was correct. Suppose his father had not died in the War. Suppose he had come back but couldn’t return to the family for some reason. He might have been severely wounded or suffering from shell shock.

  The butane in the lighter should have evaporated long before his mother gave it to him, but as the lighter was working when he got it, it must have been refilled within the past 2 years.

  Could his father be alive and visiting the family home from time to time, perhaps doing repairs in the muddy garden?

  #

  His mother was as scatterbrained as ever. She offered to make tea and then forgot.

  There were no traces of cigarettes or ashtrays anywhere.

  “Have you given up the cigarettes again, Mother?”

  “I hope you haven’t taken up smoking those things. You know how I feel about that. It’s a dirty filthy habit.”

  “The last time I saw you, you were reading a newspaper and smoking, don’t you remember, Mother?”

  “Try not to leave finger marks on the furniture, dear.”

  He pulled the cigarette lighter from his pocket. “I wanted to ask you about Father’s lighter. Do you have any fuel for it?”

  “That was your father’s. Where did you get it?”

  “You gave it to me a year ago, don’t you remember? Where do you keep the lighter fuel?”

  Her eyes glazed over. “We were a handsome couple, Wilhelm and I. I wore a full-length white gown. He was very good looking in those days.”

  “The butane, Mother? Is it in the kitchen somewhere?”

  She shook her head and smiled. “Not so good-looking now, though. You’d like some tea.” She stood.

  “I’ll make it, Mother. You stay where you are.”

  She sat down again, a vacant expression on her face. Max went into the kitchen. Pressing his hand to the pipe on the wall the way she’d shown him as a child, he turned on the tap. The kettle filled with brown water, but the pipe never rattled. Someone had fixed it!

  While he waited for the water to boil, he searched the kitchen for a bottle of butane lighter fuel. Then he ran upstairs and did a quick search of the bedrooms. Before he left, he searched the parlors, front and back. He found no lighter fuel anywhere in the house.

  He had more to ponder on his journey back to Berlin. He probably should have asked her if she’d called a plumber to fix the rattling pipe in the kitchen, but everything about his mother was so fluid, so unreliable, her answer would probably have confused the picture even more. The repaired plumbing was a third brick supporting his theory, although the absence of lighter fuel was inconclusive. She could have refilled the lighter and thrown away the butane container.

  Chapter 68

  September 1939

  On September 17, Poland was invaded from the east by the Red Army. Trapped between two huge forces, and with little or no help coming from the British or the French, the battle was lost. The bulk of the beleaguered Polish armed services escaped into Romania while the members of the Polish government made their way to London to set up a government in exile. Poland never officially surrendered.

  Stalin turned his beady eyes toward Finland and the Baltic States.

  #

  On Saturday, September 23, Max took a tram to St. Angar’s Church. He hadn’t seen Vigo since their last delivery run in early June. He wanted to sympathize with the priest over the death of his charge and close friend, Delma.

  Vigo was nowhere to be found in the church. Max knocked on the parish house door. The parish priest opened the door.

  “I’m looking for Father Vigo,” said Max.

  Father Zauffer replied, “I haven’t seen him for over a week.”

  “Oh, where is he? Is he away?”

  Father Zauffer shrugged. “He sometimes disappears for a day or two. Never for a whole week, at least not without telling me where he’s going.”

  Max was dismayed by the news. “Perhaps you should report his disappearance.”

  “I have reported it to the archbishop. I can’t be expected to run the parish entirely on my own.”

  “Shouldn’t you report it to the police?”

  #

  Air Commodore Frank Scott stared across his desk at the Frenchman. No doubt General Marchand was a high ranking member of the French military establishment – he had the appropriate height, bearing and gray hairs – but what he was suggesting was inconceivable – always assuming that nothing had been lost in translation.

  “Ask the general if I’ve understood correctly. He seems to be suggesting an unprovoked first strike against the Soviet Union prior to any declaration of hostile intent either from them or from us.”

  The Air Commodore’s aide translated the question in stuttering school French, and the French general replied with much manual gesticulation. The Air Commodore tried to interpret the Frenchman’s reply through his body language, but without success.

  “He confirmed what you said, sir. A first strike, a surprise attack. He is adamant that anything less surreptitious would be doomed to failure. He says facing the combined armies of the Germans and the Soviets places both Britain and France in an unsustainable position.”

  The French general shrugged. “Oui, situation absolument impossible.”

  “Ask him if he has any concept of the rules of war. Ask him if he has read the Hague Convention on the conduct of war, which requires a declaration of intent before any hostile action. An attack of the kind that he is suggesting would be in breach of one of the fundamental tenets of that law. Ask him that.”

  The aide passed on the message, which the French general had understood perfectly well. The Frenchman shrugged again. He stubbed out his foul-smelling cigarette in the Air Commodore’s ashtray and immediately lit another one.

  His next outpouring translated as, “Anything less surreptitious would be a pointless act of suicide, an act of supreme madness.”

  The Air Commodore considered his next words carefully. The French general had a point. “Tell him… Tell him we are in basic agreement. Ask him to develop the idea. We’d like a written proposal for an action plan that we can discuss with the War Office.”

  The aide translated.

  “Tell the general I’ll set up a meeting of the entire Joint Forces Contingency Committee when he has something concrete to discuss.”

  Afterwards, the Air Commodore thought about what he’d said. Surely, any surprise attack on such an insuperable enemy would be doomed to failure. Their best course of action might be an immediate, unequivocal and abject surrender.

  Chapter 69

  October 1939

  On a dark, stormy Sunday night in early October, Anna shook Max awake. “There’s someone at the door.”

  “Who could it be at this hour? What time is it?”

  “It’s after midnight.”

  The wind and rain battered at the window. He sank lower under the covers. “Maybe they’ll go away.”

  They hammered on the door again. Max slipped some clothes on. “Who is it?” he said through the closed door.

  “Open the door, Max.”

  Max slid the bolt and opened the door. He found Bruno on the doorstep, looked more disheveled than usual. “How did you get into the building? The concierge must be asleep.”

  “Never mind that. I need your help. Put your shoes on and come with me.”

  “It’s the middle of the night, Bruno, and it’s stormy outside. Can’t it wait until the morning, whatever it is?”

  “No, it can’t. Let’s go.”

  He went into the bedroom to find his shoes.

  A sleepy Anna said, “Who is it, Max?”

  “I have to go out.”

&
nbsp; “Max…?”

  “I won’t be long. Go back to sleep.”

  Bruno had a red Volkswagen, the people’s car. Holding the doors against the high wind, they ducked into the car. Max was aware of a second man huddled in the back seat. Bruno started the engine and set off through the storm. He drove east under a heavy blanket of cloud, toward a dim glow in the sky.

  “What’s this all about, Bruno?”

  Bruno made no reply. They passed through the center of the city, deserted apart from one early coal dray on its way to load up for the day’s deliveries. Some distance to the east of the city, Bruno stopped the car and switched off the engine.

  “You know I trust you, Max. Can I rely on your absolute discretion?”

  The rain hammered on the roof and butterflies stirred in Max’s stomach. Without the car lights and the windscreen wipers, there was precious little light in the car, but Max could see Bruno’s eyes reflecting light from somewhere. He glanced at the man in the back seat and got an impression of a big man with the muscles of a weightlifter. “What’s this all about, Bruno?”