The End of Law

by Therese Down

  “What do you know of difficult decisions?” he shouted. “Of putting duty to your country above all else? Hmm? What does the likes of you know about how hard life can be? You know nothing!” There was that note of hysteria in his voice. Hedda braced herself for the inevitable.

  Outside in the hall, Marguerite, who had been putting on her coat ready to go out for the evening, stopped and removed it. She tiptoed back across the hall to the kitchen and found Cook had also stopped midway in her cleaning of the kitchen. The two women exchanged frightened glances, stood in attentive silence.

  Back in the drawing room, Hedda kept her mouth shut and watched Walter work himself into a frenzy. He paced up and down the room clenching and unclenching his fists, then he stopped and turned on her again. “I know it was Muller who told you,” he yelled. “I have witnesses! I know he came to the house on Friday.” Of course, this was a bluff, a surmise based on the Brandenburg matron’s telephone call to his office to let him know Karl had asked for Agnette’s whereabouts, gone into the records room and then left. Hedda simply continued to look at him. He took her silence for affirmation. “Don’t play stupid with me. There’s no point – I know you’re stupid.” He clenched his teeth, lowered his voice and came towards her. “There is no point denying what I can prove.”

  Spittle hit her cheek. Hedda turned her face from him in disgust. “Well, if you have proof, why are you shouting at me?” she asked quietly, then turned back to him. His face was inches from hers. She saw how the veins in his temple pulsed, how high his colour was. The numbness began to set in moments before he grabbed her hair and yanked her head back, spoke into her upturned face.

  “I’ll take that as a confession,” he spat.

  Hedda pulled her head forward in order to be able to speak. Even breathing was difficult, so vicious was the angle at which he held it back. “I have confessed nothing,” she managed at last.

  Walter was enraged. Still holding her by her hair, he raised the other hand and hit her hard across the face. Curiously, Hedda felt the sound his hand made rather than pain as he struck her jaw, but the jolting sensation in her neck told her the blow was serious enough. When he let her go, she had difficulty righting her head. She lifted her hand to her mouth and was not surprised it encountered blood.

  “This is how you deal with everything, isn’t it, Walter?” she said thickly, tasting the blood and realizing it was coming from inside her mouth, running down her chin.

  “I know it was Muller!” he shouted again, moving away from her. He had not meant to strike her so soon or so hard. If she disappeared inside that shell of hers, he’d get nothing from her. He ran his shaking hands through his hair, tried to collect his thoughts. There was a lot more at stake here this time than allowing Hedda to be insolent and get away with it. This time, he convinced himself, it was about exposing an enemy of the Reich.

  When he spoke again, it was with some measure of control. “There is little point in this… unpleasantness.” He paced again, more slowly than before. “The facts are these: Muller used his position to gain access to Agnette’s records. He had a… special relationship with you. That, by the way –” and he looked at her with unconcealed contempt – “is immaterial.” He allowed himself an ironic guffaw. “That aspect of all this, believe me, is of no interest to me. I would find it hard to care less about you, Hedda. As long as you do not humiliate me, I don’t give a damn who you screw. Let’s get that clear.” He continued, in a tone one might use to discipline a disappointing child. “What I am disgusted at is Muller – his betrayal of the Reich. Because that is what he did, Hedda. When he told you about Agnette, he betrayed his country. And he…” here Walter grew agitated again, came towards her, widening his eyes and grinning maniacally, raising his right index finger to drive home the point – “he is no saint!” His eyes glistened with malice and he shook his head, smiling all the while. “Are you aware your lover has gassed children? Hmm? Do you know how he was able to get information on Agnette? Because he was busy checking up on how many cripples and vegetables he had to order drugs for, to put them out of their misery!” Hedda could not disguise her horror. “Ah, he didn’t tell you that bit, huh?” Walter was shouting again, his tone triumphant, eyes alight with amused fury. He got closer to her again, his face almost touched hers.

  Hedda closed her eyes. Her face and neck were now very painful. Her mouth was already swelling and her left eye was starting to close. Her mouth kept filling with blood. She said nothing, bowed her head, blood and saliva dripped onto the carpet. Hedda lifted a trembling hand to wipe her mouth, and even through the pain she contemplated the bestiality, the breathtaking cruelty of these men under whose authority her country was dying. Karl had certainly alluded in veiled terms to his part in this horror and Hedda knew he worked with Walter. But he seemed so abject, so harrowed by it all, she had pitied him. Walter’s brutal statement of the truth filled her with renewed revulsion and anger. All these men! Murderers, traitors; every one of them. Her own father included.

  She lifted her head, and through the blood and pain she addressed her husband. “I know what he is. He told me all about it.” She spoke with great difficulty. “I know what you are, Walter, that is for sure. And before you get to it, I know what my father is too.” Then she added quietly, “You are all cowards. You are murderers.” And suddenly she was filled with righteous rage and knew no fear, only the need to spit and scream her derision and horror and hatred into his face. She leapt at him, slapping and thumping his face before he could defend himself. “You are scum!” she screamed. “You beat women, you kill children – you agreed to let them murder your own daughter! You are unworthy! You call the people you murder… by… by drugs and gas and… God alone knows what else… You monster!” Hedda was inarticulate with fury. Walter was still too shocked at her eruption of rage to react. “You call those helpless people ‘unworthy’? You?”

  When Walter finally recovered his wits and knocked her across the room she hardly noticed. When she crumpled onto the floor he kicked her hard and repeatedly while she did her best to defend her face and body by curling into a ball and covering her face with her arms. Her thoughts were still of how foul and degenerate was the betrayal by these men of all that was vulnerable and sacred. Then at last he left the room, tearing the door open and leaving it gaping. He had what he wanted.

  Ignoring Anselm’s screaming, for the boy had emerged from his room at his parents’ raised voices, Walter slammed into his office, removed his jacket and his Parabellum holster, and flung them both on the floor. Hardly able to prevent his hands from shaking long enough to dial the number, he got through to the exchange and demanded the operator put him through to Reichsführer Himmler’s personal number – it was an emergency. The ringing tone sounded two, three, four times. “Pick up the phone!” Walter hissed into the receiver through clenched teeth, though he covered the mouthpiece.

  “Hello?” At last, Himmler’s voice. The greeting seemed to come at the end of laughter. There were voices in the background, the unmistakable tinkling of glass. Walter closed his eyes, tried to modify his tone. He needed to sound as if he were in control.

  “Reichsführer Himmler, sir?”

  “Yes? Is that you, Gunther? What is the problem?”

  “I am sorry to disturb your evening, mein Reichsführer Himmler, sir, but I have some information I think will be of interest.”

  “Oh?”

  “I have proof that Obersturmführer Muller – he works for IV Office, if you recall, sir?”

  “Yes, yes, Gunther – I know him. What has he done?” And then Himmler said something to someone else, which Walter could not distinguish. “I am having a gathering, Gunther – some people. Will this take long?”

  “Not long, sir. Muller is a traitor.” Walter paused. There was silence on the other end of the telephone. “He…” Walter tried to think how to phrase his next words. “You recall what I told you about… my daughter, sir?”

  “Yes.”


  “Well, it seems Muller discovered this. He told my wife.”

  “What?” Himmler sounded shocked. “You are sure of this?”

  “Yes, sir, perfectly sure. She has said so. It has all been most… difficult. She – my wife – told her father. Luckily, he is Ernst Schroeder, the chemist at IG Farben?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “And now my daughter is at home. I had to tell Dr Brandt. He said to get the child out of the hospital – to avoid questions.”

  “I see. Brandt is here, as a matter of fact. A messy business, Gunther. Well, if you are sure, then we must arrest Muller. See to it.”

  “Yes, mein Reichsführer Himmler, sir. Forgive me, but that is why I am ringing. I believe there is a way we can do that quite easily. He is due to meet you at Mauthausen tomorrow?”

  “Yes,” confirmed Himmler, “he is.”

  “Sir, might I respectfully suggest that is an opportunity to not only arrest him, but to incarcerate him immediately?”

  “At Mauthausen? You mean, keep him there?”

  “Yes, sir. He is an enemy of the Reich. I have proof.” There was a long silence. Walter began to lose confidence that he had done the right thing in contacting Himmler so impetuously. Perhaps he would think Walter impertinent, or petty. He began to justify his actions. “What if my wife’s father had not been a T4 employee? Muller might have blown our security completely. As it is, I do not know how my wife will behave, who she might tell. She is, as you can imagine, sir, extremely upset.”

  “All right, Oberführer Gunther,” Himmler responded at last. “It is a good plan. And well done. You have excelled in your duty yet again. Commiserations on the other matter, Gunther,” he added. “It cannot have made for a pleasant weekend. Your wife’s discretion, I am afraid, is your responsibility. Do whatever you need to do, Gunther. I am sure your wife will see reason in the end. Heil Hitler. Oh, and Gunther –” Himmler had been about to ring off when the thought occurred – “how does Muller know your wife?”

  “They are… old friends, sir.”

  “Ah! Well, goodnight, Gunther.”

  “Goodnight, sir. Heil Hitler!”

  Walter had Himmler’s authorization to sort out the problem. Himmler, who knew what Walter had done to Agnette and understood. Himmler, who was so close to the Führer, so senior in the Reich, had agreed instantly that the situation was serious and had trusted him to contain it – however he saw fit.

  When Walter left the drawing room, Hedda had picked herself up from the floor and moved into the hall, drawn by the piteous wails of her son. Marguerite sat with him on the upstairs landing, stroking his hair and soothing him. But when Anselm saw his mother, the blood-soaked blouse, her swollen face, he cried anew, tears rolling down his blotchy face, his body racked with sobs. He held his arms out to Hedda through the banister railings. Looking up at Marguerite, Hedda said softly, “Take him back to his room, Marguerite. Stay with him till he is quiet, and then go. You said you were going out this evening. Go. I will be fine.”

  Marguerite shook her head. “I don’t think you are fine, Frau Gunther,” she practically whispered, all the time stroking Anselm’s hair. “I don’t want to leave you and the children.”

  “Hedda!” Walter shouted to his wife before he reached her, emerging from his office and leaving the door open.

  “What do you want, Walter?” she asked flatly. “I am tired and Anselm is upset. Let’s just leave it.” She spoke from the middle of the hallway, holding her face and trying to make her words clear through the spit and blood.

  “I am afraid that will not be possible,” he replied as he reached her. “You see, you are now a security risk.”

  “What?” Hedda stared into his mad eyes, made a grimace of disbelief. “What are you saying now?”

  Walter sprang forward and grabbed her by her wrists, began hauling her roughly towards the drawing room. Hedda pulled against him, twisting and yanking her arms in an effort to unlock his fingers from their bruising grip. She did not, above all, want to be alone with him. She sensed that she was in very real danger. Anselm’s cries began again and filled the hallway at this new disturbance and he ran from Marguerite before she could stop him, and began to descend the stairs.

  “You will not hit me and get away with it,” Walter snarled at Hedda, tightening his grip on her wrists, his breathing laboured with the effort of dragging her across the hall. At the drawing room door, he released a wrist in order to grab the door frame and achieve some purchase against it to pull Hedda across the threshold. With her free hand, Hedda hit and scratched him for all she was worth.

  Anselm was finally in the downstairs hall and padding on his bare feet as quickly as he could to where his parents fought. “Mutti!” he screamed hysterically, over and over, reaching Hedda and grabbing her skirt. Marguerite, who had come flying down the stairs after him, grabbed him and pulled him away from his mother just as Walter succeeded finally in pulling Hedda into the drawing room and kicking closed the door.

  “I hate you!” Hedda shouted at him breathlessly, her back to the door. “You are a monster! Just give me a divorce. Give me enough money to take the children and get away from you, and you’ll never see us again.”

  “Not that simple, unfortunately,” he snarled back at her, out of breath from the struggle. “Your boyfriend has done you no favours, I am afraid. In telling you so much, he has endangered your life too. Do you seriously think I am going to trust you to keep your mouth shut? Himmler himself knows that you are a security breach, you stupid, stupid, simple idiot! Even your own father knows you are a risk. Who do you think it was who came to me and told me you knew about Agnette? Yes! That’s right!” Walter was luxuriating in Hedda’s obvious horror as her worst fears were confirmed. “Vati! Dear old Daddy! Did Muller tell you what Daddy does for a living? Hmm?” Walter’s face was screwed into an ugly grimace, spittle flecked his lips and Hedda had to turn her head to one side in order to avoid contact with his skin. Tears began to fall unchecked down her face. She was exhausted and heartbroken.

  “Please.” Hedda closed her eyes, raised a hand and gently pushed against his shoulder. He slapped it away. “Please, Walter, stop this. I can’t take this any more.”

  “A pity, because I have a lot more to say.” Walter grew more vicious as his wife finally wilted. “Do you know how many meetings I have sat in with your dear papa? How many of his boring presentations I have endured while he droned on and on about ratio of body weight to litres of gas needed to extinguish cripples and lunatics and Jews… Any filth, you name it, Daddy knows how to dispose of it with optimum efficiency. Oh, and do you know who built the gas chambers and enabled these most efficient ways of delivering cyanide or diesel fumes to little girls and boys? Yes, that’s right! The dashing Herr Muller!”

  Walter released Hedda. She sank to the floor and put her hands over her ears, sobbing desperately in a heap against the door. He bent down and shouted at her. “I am no worse than any of them – these men you so admire. They are no better than me!” And he followed the last word with a swift, sharp kick to her hip.

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Anselm’s voice was shrill and he was kicking the door relentlessly, beating it as hard as he could, over and over again, for Marguerite could not restrain him. After a while, he ceased to scream and cry but continued hitting the door mechanically with clockwork fury.

  Cook was in the kitchen, praying, kneeling on the floor, hands together, lips moving silently, rocking.

  “Ella!” Marguerite suddenly screamed to her. “Ella, call the police! Help me, Ella!” But the cook wouldn’t or couldn’t hear, and Anselm would not calm down, and Marguerite was worried about Agnette. She needed to check on Agnette.

  “Agnette is as good as dead!” shouted Walter into Hedda’s face. “It would be kinder to let her go.”

  “No!” Hedda was again animated. “You are worse than either of them – you are evil and mad!” She lifted her head, stared wildly at Walter through her tears. “Even Karl Mul
ler – who is not even related to Agnette – he could not watch her die.” Walter lifted his hand and slapped her hard across the face again, then grabbed the top of her arms and pulled her to her feet, but she continued, shouting at him above the constant sound of Anselm banging at the door. “And Daddy, whatever else he has done, he rescued Agnette. He got her out of that godforsaken hospital you put her in, while you didn’t even have the guts to visit her, can’t bear to look at her because you know you condemned your own daughter to death.”

  “She was as good as dead!” he shouted at her, shaking her violently. “Agnette died a long time ago!”

  “No!” Hedda screamed. “She is getting better. She is going to wake up.” Walter stopped shaking her, looked at her in horror. “Yes, Walter, Agnette is waking up and you would have killed her.”

  “I don’t believe you – you are a liar,” he responded, his face contorted in a grimace of hatred. But there was fear in his eyes.

  “Why don’t you go and see for yourself, Walter?” Hedda returned, matching his hatred, holding his glare.

  “Well, I’ll tell you who won’t be waking up soon,” hissed Walter. “Your boyfriend, Muller, because guess where he’ll be tomorrow?” His eyes widened and an exaggerated, maniacal grin split his face. Hedda, beyond terrified, just looked at him. “In a concentration camp; that’s where!” Walter relished her shock. “And in a few days, he should be sucking in carbon monoxide with a room full of other scum – probably in a gas chamber of his own design!”