The End of Law

by Therese Down

  Agnette was in the last room he tried. He assumed the small, thin figure in the bed was her, from the uneven tufts of fair hair that covered her scalp and the stillness with which the child stared at the window. He confirmed her identity by unhooking the clipboard from the end of her bed and glancing at her notes.

  Agnette didn’t react to his presence immediately, but when he drew close to her face and greeted her by name, Karl saw her eyes flicker, and her attention seemed to return to the room from somewhere far away. He introduced himself as if she could hear and understand him, and he told her that he knew her mother and was her friend. He very much hoped, he said, that she was feeling better and he was very sorry that she had been so unwell. Karl then paid careful attention to her notes. And there it was. The tiny blue plus sign stamped apparently innocuously in the top right-hand corner of the second page. It would be ignored or dismissed as insignificant by anyone outside T4.

  Though he had been expecting this, Karl was still surprised at the virulence of the emotion he felt. He feared he would vocalize his fury in some way, so he closed his eyes, breathed deeply. He had to keep a clear head if he was going to do something to save this child. He could not save all the children condemned to murder at this hospital but, if he kept his nerve, he might save this one.

  Karl put the board back on the end of the bed and approached Agnette once more. He touched her face gently and stroked her soft, short hair. “I am going to look after you, Agnette,” he whispered, “and that is a promise.” Her clear blue eyes flickered again but did not turn from the window. She seemed to him like a bird that had lost its freedom and its song, but could not die as long as it could glimpse the sky.

  The young nurse to whom he had spoken earlier opened the door. She was wearing gloves and carried a bedpan in one hand. She appeared startled to find Karl standing over Agnette. “I am sorry, Officer Muller,” she began, though she sounded more resentful of his presence than sorry she had disturbed him. “I must check Agnette – empty her catheter bag.”

  “Of course – please. I was just leaving.” Karl smiled at her, bowed quickly in half salute and left the room.

  Walter was at home. He had decided to join Hedda and Anselm at the dinner table. This was a rare occurrence and his usual absence had licensed Hedda to include her son at the table for the evening meal. Hedda hated dining alone and had been teaching Anselm table manners while enjoying his company. Although he was not able to manipulate alone a full-sized knife and fork, Anselm was now very good at sitting up straight for minutes at a time and had almost mastered chewing with his mouth closed.

  When Walter walked into the dining room in full SS uniform and took his place at the head of the table, both Hedda and Anselm stopped chattering and laughing, and could not disguise how disappointed they were. Hedda became serious and lowered her voice, urged Anselm to be a good boy and sit up straight as she had showed him. Anselm frowned and stuck out his lower lip, folded his arms petulantly and made a “hmphing” noise. Walter was immediately irritated by the evident displeasure the boy exhibited at having to share the table with his father.

  “Do as you are told, Anselm, or leave the table and go to bed. It’s quite simple.” Walter’s voice was measured, but ice cold. The child looked at his mother as if to say “What do you think?” and she widened her eyes, nodding at him to comply.

  “Eat, Anselm,” she added. “Good boy.”

  The cook arrived, placed a plate full of chicken, creamed potatoes and cabbage before Walter and then left the room, returning with a bottle of white wine and a glass.

  “So,” began Walter deliberately, while pushing chicken onto his fork, “how are you, Hedda?” He put the food into his mouth and looked directly at her.

  “I am well, thank you.” There was a long pause during which Walter continued to eat, chewing rapidly, washing down his dinner with intermittent gulps of wine.

  “Although you did not ask, I too am well,” he said at last, smiling at her briefly, his eyes brittle.

  “No! I will do it, Mutti. Stop it!” Anselm was suddenly cross and pushed away the fork Hedda held to his mouth.

  “All right, Anselm. Do it, then.” Hedda was becoming irritable in her nervousness. She wanted Anselm to finish his dinner quickly so that they could both escape Walter’s company.

  Walter watched them, chewing ruminatively, seeming to relish their obvious discomfort. “How is your mother? You went to see her last week. Is she over the flu?” he asked, shovelling mashed potato onto his fork and consuming it with automative enthusiasm.

  “She is better now, I think – it was just a mild dose. Of course you’d think it was the Black Death or something…” She checked herself. It no longer felt natural to make conversation with Walter. Her husband nodded, threw rather than placed his knife and fork together on his plate and wiped his mouth with a napkin, pushing away his plate.

  Anselm folded his arms, pursed his lips and closed his eyes. “No more.” Hedda was happy to push his remaining food to one side of the plate. Immediately, Anselm opened his eyes and beamed at her. “Pudding!”

  “Anselm, what have I told you about manners?”

  “Pudding, pleeease.” The child scrunched closed his eyes again and leaned towards his mother, shouting the last word.

  “Anselm, stop being silly!” Walter’s tone was sharp.

  The boy started visibly, eyes opening wide in shock, then he frowned sullenly at his father, put a finger to his lips and hissed, “Shh!”

  “How dare you tell me to be quiet! Get down from the table this instant and get to bed! There will be no pudding for you this evening. Go!”

  Anselm began to cry loudly, looking abjectly at Hedda. “I want pudding, Mutti. I want my pudding!”

  Hedda shot Walter a resentful glance, then said, “Well, Anselm, I don’t want any pudding tonight either, so how about you and I go to bed, huh? Come on, I’ll read you a story. Would you like a bath?” The child nodded, turning in his chair so that he could use his hands to push himself off it backwards, to the floor.

  “Please, Hedda, call the maid and tell her to put Anselm to bed. I would like to talk with you.”

  Anselm began to cry again; looked imploringly at Hedda and shook his head vigorously. “No, Mama. I want you to put me to bed – you, Mutti. I want a bath with you, Mutti.”

  “The child is out of control!” roared Walter, snatching his napkin from his knee and slamming it down on the table. “Get to bed this instant! Do as you are told!”

  “For goodness’ sake, Walter!” It was Hedda now who raised her voice. “He is three!” Anselm’s crying became screaming. Walter rose, approached his son and pulled him from Hedda’s embrace, put him under his left arm and walked out of the room. The child became hysterical.

  “Walter!” Hedda leapt from her chair and followed him. “Walter, don’t you dare hurt him!”

  Walter stopped in the middle of the hallway and turned to look at Hedda. “What did you say?” he shouted above Anselm’s cries. He began walking towards his wife, apparently forgetful of the small boy kicking and straining against him in the vice of his right arm.

  Hedda closed her eyes, took a deep breath, spoke more calmly. “Please, Walter, don’t hurt him. He’s just a baby. Please.” Walter seemed to consider her words. The maid had come into the hall and now stood uncertainly in the shadows beneath the stairs. Hedda called her, not taking her eyes from Walter’s face. “Marguerite, would you please take Anselm to bed? No need to bath him. I’ll do it in the morning.”

  Walter seemed chastened by Marguerite’s presence and put the boy down. Anselm ran to his mother. Hedda crouched down till she looked into his eyes, took a handkerchief from her sleeve and wiped his nose. “Goodnight, darling. Be a good boy and go with Marguerite. I shall come and kiss you goodnight later, OK?” She smiled, and Anselm, red-faced, nodded, and without looking at his father crossed the hallway to where the maid stood, holding out her hand.

  Walter walked back to the dini
ng room. Hedda remained still for a moment, bowed her head as if in defeat, and turned slowly to follow him.

  “So,” Walter began menacingly through clenched teeth, “you humiliate me yet again, in front of the domestic staff this time.”

  Hedda rolled her eyes, shook her head.

  “Don’t roll your eyes at me!” His voice was low and vicious.

  Hedda had no idea what was causing him to behave so abominably, but she was certain of the danger she faced. “Shall we just get to the bit where you hit me, and skip the nonsense in between, Walter?” She stared at him levelly.

  “You insolent slut!”

  Hedda screwed up her face and looked at him with utter contempt. “What are you talking about? You’re completely mad! You need help, Walter!” Hedda knew that whatever the root of his fury, when Walter behaved like this he needed an outlet, the release or catharsis of violence, and she was his scapegoat. It was inevitable he would hit her. She would rather precipitate the violence than parry with or cajole him. It saved time and energy.

  Walter swept his dinner plate, cutlery, the half-full bottle of wine and the crystal glass to the floor with one sweep of his right arm. Hedda raised an eyebrow and that familiar calm, that distant, eye-of-the-storm feeling, settled in her heart. Good. She would feel nothing until it was over.

  “So,” he began, his chest heaving with the effort of breathing through the anger and talking without shouting, for he did not want the maid to hear. “So, you went up to Berlin last week just to see your mother, did you?”

  Hedda looked totally confused. Her tone when she responded was mock quizzical, as though he already had the answer and she had to guess. “Yes?”

  “So you didn’t use the opportunity to meet a man?”

  “What? What man, Walter? I haven’t a clue what you are talking about.”

  “You are a filthy, foul-mouthed liar and an adulterous whore.” The statement was made as if he were announcing that she had the winning ticket in a raffle. “One of the officers who works for me saw you – he saw you kissing a man outside a coffee shop on Bellevuestrasse. He saw you embrace in the middle of the street. He said it was an officer, but he couldn’t see his face. I suppose he’s lying? Hmm?”

  Hedda threw back her head and laughed out loud in derision. “You mean Karl Muller?”

  He knew it! “Who?”

  “Karl Muller. The man I spoke to at Goering’s bash last summer.” She was suddenly exhausted, her tone became flat. “I did not plan to meet him.” Hedda put her head in her hands for a moment, then pushed back her hair and looked up again at Walter. “I met him by chance at the coffee shop. I have already told you, I knew him once – years ago. I dated him twice – a few times. He was nice, but…” She stopped. She no longer thought Karl boring.

  “But what?” Walter was now sneering. He had what he wanted. She was clearly telling the truth; she was not having an affair. But of far more interest was that Walter had had a hunch the man she was with was Muller, and Muller was occupying his thoughts more and more these days. There was something about that man which was not right, and other people had noted it too; the camp guard at Sachsenhausen, for example.

  One of the soldiers at the Albert Goering incident was surprised at how lenient Muller had been with the Jews and had mentioned it to Himmler. Himmler had mentioned it to Walter as they chatted over drinks at Ribbentrop’s embassy gathering. Himmler confided in Walter that if he had had his way, Albert Goering would be dead. He could not understand why Karl Muller had allowed the Jews on road-cleaning detail to simply walk away on Goering’s instructions. How humiliating for the SS! Still, that was remedied by their executions a few hours later.

  And why had Muller not said that he had had coffee with Hedda? He could have mentioned it to Walter when he spoke to him in Muller’s office days before, but he had kept quiet. Did Muller have designs on Hedda? Well, if he did, it was pretty clear from Hedda that his feelings were not reciprocated. Walter could tell that meddlesome little swine, Schitzel, that Hedda had met an old friend at the coffee shop and nothing more.

  “I don’t give a damn who you sleep with, quite frankly,” Walter sneered into Hedda’s face. He grabbed her face and squeezed it hard, twisting her lips. “But if you make a fool of me, I will kill you.” He released her.

  She flashed at him, chest heaving with loathing and anger. “Always about your ego and your image, isn’t it, Walter? I have told you, Karl is married.”

  “And this is the only reason you don’t sleep with him?”

  “Make up your mind, Walter. Am I sleeping with him or not? Do you care or don’t you give a damn? I’m a little confused.”

  “Where is this wife? I never hear of her. Perhaps she does not exist? Perhaps the way is clear for you to leap into bed with him after all!”

  Hedda rolled her eyes, tears of frustration welling in them. “She is in Leipzig, with her parents. She is not well… apparently.”

  “Oh? What is wrong with her?”

  Hedda tried to think clearly. Her instincts were to protect Karl. “She has some sort of… mental problem or something. Look, I’m not sure. You know what, Walter? It is none of my business. Is that all this was about? This whole… the shouting, the… Why don’t you just ask me, Walter? Why don’t you just ask me if I am having an affair and I will tell you and that is that?” She shook her head again, dropped it into her hands.

  Walter contemplated her distress with interested detachment at first, and then the thing he could not, under any circumstances, say that evening came back into his mind with a startling, stabbing sensation that took him by surprise.

  A few days before, after a good lunch of veal and Riesling in a rather nice restaurant off Potsdamer, Walter had gone back to the office and put his signature next to his daughter’s name, where it had appeared on an alphabetical requisition list from the child euthanasia team in Berlin. He could not tell Hedda how, at Ribbentrop’s embassy “do” the following evening, he had discussed his decision with Himmler, who had put a comforting hand upon his shoulder and commiserated, but commended his great courage. Himmler had been effusive in expressing how impressed he was by this, Walter’s ultimate gesture of loyalty to the Reich. The Führer himself would hear of this great sacrifice for the war effort and the glory of Germany, Himmler had assured Walter, and he had added that it was men like Walter who made Germany great. “Have some more champagne, my dear Gunther,” he had urged, refilling Walter’s glass. “You have done a noble and courageous thing. Heil Hitler!” And Walter had reciprocated the toast and drunk heartily from his champagne glass.

  Now, as Oberführer Gunther straightened his jacket, ran a smoothing hand through his thick blond hair and surveyed the shattered crockery, he forgot about Muller. His eyes passed over the smashed wine bottle, the gravy and wine soaking into the dining room rug. Then he stepped over the debris and made for the door. It was as if an irritating puzzle had suddenly been solved. The stabbing sensation in his chest, he understood as he crossed the hall to his study and a bottle of finest malt whisky, was guilt. That, he realized, was what had been bothering him.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Karl had to think of a way of saving Agnette Gunther. He was more motivated to save her above the other children dying on the Gorden ward because he knew her mother, but, more importantly, he actually could, if he acted quickly enough, save her. He was limited, though, in what he could do. He had already accepted and signed for the consignment of drugs from IG Farben and had supervised their loading into the warehouse on Lutzow Ufer. They were to be distributed to several euthanasia centres – “special paediatric wards” – throughout Germany, by truck, in the next two days. He had until Wednesday before the morphine-scopolamine suppositories and the Luminol barbiturates would arrive at Brandenburg hospital. It was Sunday.

  They were to be loaded onto the delivery truck the following morning. In spite of it being the Sabbath, there were still people in the T4 offices. Servicing the Reich machine was a se
ven day a week job. At the end of the day, Karl stayed late, bade colleagues good evening, complained good-naturedly about the paperwork he had to get through, and waited. He waited till about six-thirty and everyone had gone. Then, estimating that it would take him about thirty minutes’ fast walking to get to the warehouse on Lutzow Ufer Strasse in Tiergarten, he left his office. No taxis operated after blackout.

  Karl really had no idea what he was going to do to the consignment of drugs. He had thought of setting fire to the warehouse, but that was too obvious. He had thought of opening the crates and stamping all over the boxes of drugs. Again, too obvious. Finally, he had decided on covering the labels marked “Brandenburg-Gorden” with labels marked “Sonnenstein” or “Grafeneck” or “Hartsheim” instead. Of course it had pained him terribly to imagine the other consignments reaching their destinations – the thousands of children in west and southern Germany, in Austria, who would certainly die from Wednesday onwards. But if he dwelt on what he could not do, Karl felt he would be completely paralysed or even lose his sanity. He had to concentrate on what he could do.

  It was a dark and rainy evening. More like November than March. A vicious wind whipped his face, and freezing rain joined the assault, stinging and numbing his skin. The blackout and the filthy weather meant there was hardly anyone on the streets of central Berlin. For both, Karl was grateful. He was extremely nervous. If he was caught in the warehouse and subsequently Brandenburg did not receive its delivery, he would be interrogated. If he was caught sabotaging the drug consignment, he would be shot – or worse. The only truly terrifying thing about either prospect was that he would be unable to stop this drug consignment arriving by Wednesday at Brandenburg hospital, in which case Agnette Gunther would certainly be dead by Thursday evening.