The Whistler: A Murderer's Tale

by Ben Stevens

  In a murky temper Heinemann caught the tram back, and getting off walked along narrow twisting roads with grey and brown, ramshackle buildings either side. Approaching the large house in which he had a room and producing his keys, he then realised that the front door was already ajar.

  Pushing it open he saw the sailor lying just inside the hall, a stinking patch of vomit next to his face.

  Gingerly stepping over the man Heinemann walked upstairs to his room, and once inside considered writing a letter to his aunt. But she was far too astute; he could write the most convincing of lies concerning his situation and she would still realise his unease and his possible danger.

  No, it was better that she hear any news concerning him via Frau Dressler, the friend of Stielke’s who’d originally recommended him for the Academy.

  A few hours later and his stomach began rumbling. He realised that he was extremely hungry – he’d eaten the last of his food that morning. Frau Stielke had already provided him with a derisory sum (obtained from his performances, and minus Stielke’s ‘managerial’ fee) to tide him over until he received his first educational grant, and deducting the smallest amount necessary for some bread and cheese he left his room.

  Again stepping over the insensible sailor who continued to lie motionless by the front door, he walked back out into the street. After a few hundred yards he reached a small parade of shops. A bell rang as he opened the door of one, and a small, mean-looking man with a bald spot that was as shiny as his cheeses looked in his direction.

  The man’s face darkened as he shook his head.

  ‘Not in here,’ he said brusquely.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ replied Heinemann, confused.

  ‘Go on, get out of here.’

  ‘You don’t understand; I just want to buy some food. I don’t know who you think I am –’

  ‘I do know who you are – you’re a Jew. I can’t serve you, I’m sorry.’

  Heinemann shook his head with disbelief. ‘You won’t serve me?’

  ‘I can’t serve you. Please leave!’

  Urgency entered the man’s voice, compelling Heinemann to do as instructed. He tried three other shops: one shopkeeper was openly hostile towards him; the other two mumbled shamefaced about the ‘proper hours’.

  Not once did he think to point out that he was ‘only’ a Mischling, and by the time he entered the fourth shop his patience was all but gone. He’d had nothing to eat since early that morning, and upon being refused yet again he remembered Frau Sasse’s advice.

  The shopkeeper stared incredulous as Heinemann mentioned his association with a Commissioner of the Berlin Gestapo; and then he shrugged and gave the teenager the requested bread and cheese.

  No one sane, considered the shopkeeper, would have evoked Sasse’s name without its owner’s express permission: it was the equivalent of signing one’s own death warrant.

  Back in his room Heinemann quickly devoured the food, and his hunger sated regretted his foolishness. But he’d been forced into playing such a dangerous game; it was entirely obvious to him now that Germany was an extremely bad country in which to be of Jewish extraction.

  Lying down on his bed, he stared up at the ceiling as the day darkened to night outside his curtain-less window...

  The month that preceded Heinemann’s start at Humboldt University proved to be a wholly enlightening time for the young violinist. Performing a recital at least once every three days, he was also frequently invited in the evenings to the Kurfurstendamm, a broad boulevard in the Charlottenburg district more popularly known as the ‘Ku’damm.’

  Lining each side of this boulevard were high-priced bars, clubs and restaurants. Heinemann observed those who frequented such places with a strange mixture of fascination and disgust. They drank and ate to complete excess, snorted cocaine as a matter of course, and as the evening wore on the provided entertainment grew steadily more risqué. At the end of one particular cabaret show Heinemann stared, open-mouthed, as the women who’d danced stark naked began making love to one another.

  He freely drank the alcohol for which he was never obliged to pay, although he refused the cocaine. On the first few occasions his excesses caused him to be sick – and then he enjoyed the way in which drink caused the night to become so vibrantly alive and exciting, and so he was no longer shocked by what he saw.

  He embraced life and love with inebriated enthusiasm, losing his virginity to a woman in the cloakroom of a club. As he shared his first and last cigarette with her afterwards she praised his performance:

  ‘That was your first time, wasn’t it? But you were good, gentle with your hands and with your cock. You know how to treat a woman, unlike most of the bastards I meet here. Thirty seconds and – pffft, it’s over. I might just admit defeat and go back to my girlfriend, you know.’

  She laughed but not unkindly as he choked on the smoke in surprise at her words, and kissed him tenderly before leaving. She was several years older than himself, and though he looked out for her for a while afterwards (it had been one hell of an experience) he never saw her again.

  That the teenage Mischling could frequently be seen conversing with such powerful people as Frau Sasse ensured that he was never harassed, and was allowed into all the bars and clubs along with the social crowd who’d adopted him.

  And aware of the rumours concerning Frau Sasse’s alleged sexual degeneracy, especially with anything canine, Heinemann consequently found it hard to look her in the eye when she talked to him in her customarily patronising manner...

  The end of the month finally arrived, and Heinemann prepared to spend the last evening before his university course began in his room. His door was locked: the old sailor lately had a habit of trying all the doors along the landing in his search for a place to urinate, apparently unable to remember the location of the communal toilet when intoxicated. Heinemann had already awoken once before to discover this bearded wreck of the sea pissing in one corner of his room.

  A yellow-tinged light came from the naked bulb above the bed, upon which Heinemann now threw the few second-hand books he’d acquired from a shop situated close to the Ku’damm. They’d been sold to him in secret by the elderly shopkeeper, including as they did works by such authors as Jack London, who’d fallen from grace since the Buchverbrennung – book-burning – instigated by the Nazi Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels back in 1933.

  Heinemann mentally berated his recent, rebellious behaviour: he was being incredibly stupid by drinking to excess and buying banned literature. So starting from tomorrow he vowed that he’d quietly and diligently begin his studies, melt into the background, become just another student...

  He lay down on the bed, tired from the performance he’d just returned from giving. Sleep stole upon him as he reflected on just what an utter fool he was to have these books in his possession. As if being a Mischling wasn’t dangerous enough, he had to add to the risk by owning such things….

  …The knock at the door was insistent, arousing him from his slumber about an hour later.

  ‘Hello?’ he called out.

  ‘Erich Heinemann?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘This is the Gestapo. Open the door immediately.’

  ‘Shit!’ he whispered fiercely.

  Jumping out of bed, he quickly gathered the banned books and stuffed them into the top draw of the chest beside his bed.

  ‘I said immediately!’ roared the voice from outside.

  Opening the door, Heinemann was barged aside by the two men who entered. Without a word they tore the sheets from his bed and upturned the old mattress. Then one of the men noticed an instrument case in a corner of the room, and opened it to reveal the violin lent to Heinemann by Frau Stielke.

  ‘Please – be careful with that,’ protested Heinemann.

  ‘Shut your mouth,’ said the man, his colleague opening the top draw of the chest and nodding with satisfaction.

  Picking up one of the books he walked ov
er to Heinemann, saying, ‘This book and the others – you know they’re anti-Reich. Where did you get them?’

  Heinemann lied furiously.

  ‘I’m sorry, I had no idea. They’re old copies – they came with me when I moved from Hegensdorf to Berlin.’

  For a moment the man almost smiled – and in that moment Heinemann studied his face. It was long, the skin pitted with pimples and old acne scars. Heinemann had just noticed for the first time that the man’s hair was lank and greasy, when he was backhanded across the face.

  The force of the blow knocked the thin teenager to the floor. Heinemann put his hand to his lips, feeling the bitter tastes of blood and humiliation mixing inside his mouth.

  ‘Don’t lie to me, you kike bastard. I’ll ask you just one more time: where did you get these books?’ asked the man who was now smiling broadly, obviously enjoying himself.

  No – Heinemann vowed that he wouldn’t tell this bastard a thing. In his mind’s eye he pictured the puckish, white-bearded shopkeeper with the sparkling intelligent eyes, the two of them instantly sharing an understanding, so causing the white-bearded man to show him the books he never put on display. Not pornography or anything sordid, but proper literature that caused the mind to be challenged and set one’s life in a different context.

  Having told a particularly crude but still extremely funny joke concerning Himmler and a lubricated rubber truncheon, the shopkeeper had accepted Heinemann’s money, saying, ‘Those blasted socialists will be telling us how to wipe our backsides next.’

  Such trust, such camaraderie, Heinemann would never reward with betrayal.

  ‘I swear that these came from Hegensdorf. Look at them – they’re old; they were my fathers,’ he said.

  The man raised his right hand again – and then his colleague said quickly, ‘And where is your father?’

  ‘Dead.’

  ‘Your mother?’

  ‘She’s dead as well.’

  The Gestapo men were well aware of all of this; the better-looking of the two had asked these questions merely to prevent his colleague from again hitting the teenager. Their instructions had not included physical assault – they were just to search this young man’s room and then take him to headquarters – but his colleague had a particular fondness for violence…

  The man with the pimpled face said, ‘You are to come with us to headquarters…’ He paused, expecting the teenager to adopt a suitably fearful expression as was usual. So he was disappointed when nothing of the sort appeared.

  ‘...Where you will be questioned and your acceptance to Humboldt University reviewed,’ he finished, somewhat lamely.

  The other man gripped his arm, escorting him out of his room and down the stairs to the black Volkswagen parked in the street. Pimple-face drove, and after a short while the car pulled into a large château with a courtyard in its centre. Four soulless-looking creatures who were half-heartedly cleaning the cobbles stared at Heinemann as he got out.

  Escorted into the building, Heinemann entered a scene of perfect normality. Attractive young women typed furiously, cigarettes dangling from their glossy blood-red lips. They refused to make any eye contact with the thin teenager and the two men. Heinemann was led through long corridors and then into a large room where a fat man was sat at a desk studying a file. The door was shut behind him, the two Gestapo men silently taking their leave.

  For a while the fat man failed to acknowledge Heinemann’s presence. At last his attention left the file, and the look he gave the youthful violinist was as venomous as his voice.

  ‘I am Commissioner Sasse of the Berlin Gestapo. Certain... factors have required me to have you summoned here today – to devote my valuable time to you – so that you don’t go and get yourself into trouble.

  ‘Germany now has strict race rules necessary for the survival of the Aryan race. You are half-Jewish, and so subject to a number of these rules and conditions.’

  He paused for a moment. Heinemann licked his slightly swollen bottom lip as he thought – so this was Frau Sasse’s husband. He felt a little reassured; it was well known that Frau Sasse possessed great affection for him, and so would not hear a word said against him.

  Was this the reason, he wondered, why none other than a Gestapo Commissioner was telling him just how things were? Surely he didn’t merit such special treatment otherwise.

  ‘You are however free to engage in your studies, commencing I believe from tomorrow,’ continued Sasse. ‘But you will refrain from engaging in any social activities unless they are absolutely necessary, for example if your course demands – ‘

  Sasse was interrupted as the black phone on the edge of his desk rang. Picking up the receiver he said, ‘Yes?’

  Seconds later he hung up without saying another word, and regarded Heinemann even more coldly.

  Slowly, his every word spiked with evident dislike, he said, ‘You will not read any more banned literature. If it comes to my attention that you have again, you will be in front of a Sondergericht.’

  Judging from his perplexed expression, the Mischling evidently didn’t understand the word. Sasse didn’t bother to repress a sigh of exasperation.

  ‘A Sondergericht is a special court that tries offenders against the state. If found guilty the person is always given a lengthy sentence of imprisonment, or worse,’ he said perfunctorily.

  Or worse – Heinemann wondered what that meant.

  Out loud, he said, ‘I apologise, Herr Commissioner – please excuse my ignorance. I will of course destroy those books.’

  The fat man shrugged, and turning his attention back to the file said, ‘Dismissed.’

  As if the single word had activated it the door opened; Heinemann turned his head to see the same two men who’d brought him here. The teenager realised that the Gestapo could fetch him at any time, make him vanish without a trace; they could put a bullet into his head right now if they so wished...

  In silence he followed the men back out into the courtyard and the car. At his wife’s insistence, Sasse had earlier instructed them to return the half-Jew home once the interview finished; she feared for his safety on the street. The Commissioner shuddered to think what would happen should she ever discover that Heinemann had been hit...

  Having been dropped off right outside his house, Heinemann closed the front door behind him with a sigh of relief. Safely ensconced in his room he played the violin with lightening speed, trying but failing to find an outlet for the frustration, anger and fear he felt for his predicament.

  That the Gestapo trusted him to destroy the illegal literature caused him a wolfish grin of amusement. He knew he was being exceptionally foolish, but he’d no intention of ridding himself of those books – it was his token act of resistance, of defiance, against the Socialists.

  But for all of this, in a way he appreciated Sasse’s straight talking. At least he now knew how the ground lay.

  What Heinemann failed to appreciate was that the dictates of the Gestapo were ever changing, and that straight talking was a concept entirely unknown to them.

  9

  Rapture was not a word that could ever have been used to describe one of Kurt Schmidt’s emotional states; but for all of that he felt something approximate as Heinemann began to play.

  Yes, yes – he was still brilliant! Old age had quite failed to slow those lightening hands, and his phrasing remained sublime...

  But just before he sank fully under the waves of his pleasure, Schmidt reminded himself of what he had to do, following the end of this performance.

  But would Heinemann recognise him – recognise him before the final... end, so to speak? After all, it was not just old age that had changed Schmidt’s appearance – there was also the matter of his severely burnt face.

  No, Schmidt would no doubt have to introduce himself, although once…

  Once a man had recognised him without any introduction at all.

  It had been during the mid-1950s, a time when Schmidt had been hard at
work running the construction company he’d started shortly after the Battle of Berlin’s bloody finale.

  One dark autumnal evening he’d uncharacteristically gone into an inn for a drink – although just a warming coffee or something similar, as he no longer touched alcohol. The regulars had observed the man with the ruined face with some concern. He did not belong here – a coldness seemed to emanate from him, spoiling the warm snug atmosphere of boozy camaraderie.

  One other man did not belong – a man left alone at his usual table in the corner by the locals who knew it to be a complete waste of time trying to talk to him. As always he would stumble out at closing-time completely drunk, growling to anyone who would listen that they did not understand – that the war was not over, not for some...

  Occasionally he was discussed in his absence, the locals pondering as to whether he was a die-hard Nazi. This point of view was not considered for too long, however, for it was a dangerous area – the drinkers rarely talked about their own part in the war, let alone anyone else’s. Better not to know who’d undergone the Allied ‘Denazification’ program, and so instead discuss women and work, the two invariable constants in life along with death and taxes.

  And so none of the regulars knew that the man was in fact a former trade unionist who’d been particularly anti-Nazi, and had consequently survived being incarcerated at the Auschwitz concentration camp upon being found guilty of ‘Undermining the War Machine’.

  And so on this evening, upon observing Schmidt’s entrance, the man’s drink-smeared eyes became clear with horror. It was Schmidt’s sheer bad luck that the undamaged half of his face was exposed to the man upon his entrance, recognition cutting like a knife through the man’s beer haze and making his toothless mouth drop open with terror.

  Schmidt sensed this recognition immediately – he was always alert for it – and so turning round he pushed two men aside as he quickly left the inn.