The Whistler: A Murderer's Tale

by Ben Stevens

  Curious, he moved forward to take a closer look –

  ‘Marvellous, Erich – truly marvellous!’

  Frau Sasse was suddenly stood beside him, a fluted glass of champagne in her hand. Behind her stood a small group of similarly-aged and attired women, intently watching the young Mischling as the Commissioner’s wife congratulated him.

  ‘Thank you, Frau Sasse.’

  ‘I only wish that my husband had been here to listen to you; he’s extremely fond of classical music.’

  Heinemann nodded and smiled while feeling sickened, wishing that this loathsome woman would leave him alone. But – as he consequently realised – her obvious fondness for him was quite possibly vital to his continued safety.

  Rath had walked over to join the group, savouring his private moment of triumph, and Frau Sasse turned to him and said, ‘Really, Enrich, it seems that your class goes from strength to strength. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Fuhrer himself requests a performance, as your students appear to rival the Berlin Philharmonie Orchestra in terms of excellence!’

  He nodded politely at the extravagant praise, and felt only just able to summon a smile. Frau Sasse’s attendant clique knew that she was baiting the music tutor, verbally pressing on his mental sores: the Berlin Philharmonie Orchestra, from which so many of his Jewish friends had been removed; and the mention of playing for Adolf Hitler, as though this was meant to be the ultimate accolade. She’d perfected this type of cruel psychology, verbally toying with people, confident in her power.

  Her beady eyes narrowed as she stared at Rath, enjoying his discomfort. An uncomfortable silence contrasted with the general noise within the hall, until she at last turned back to Heinemann.

  ‘More power to your elbow, young Erich.’ She walked away, her attendant clique following her like the courtiers of a monarch. Rath left Heinemann without a word, his sense of victory destroyed.

  Heinemann soon found himself embroiled in another tedious conversation with Claus Hartz, whose brief whisky euphoria had dissolved back into the desperate tiredness and depression that never seemed to fully disappear.

  He would have seen a doctor, but he knew that no medicine would be of benefit and he did not want to be seen as being weak. He knew exactly why he felt so bad: too much work and a mental sickness caused by what the Nazis were doing to Germany.

  ‘And how are you liking the job?’ he asked Heinemann, who was surreptitiously trying to watch Marie as she spoke with two elderly women. He also noticed Muehlebach following Frau Sasse like a lost sheep, completely oblivious to the barely-disguised dismissals he was continually receiving.

  ‘Fine thank you, Herr Hartz.’

  ‘The pay’s not good but I can’t help that,’ the factory owner said sharply, as though Heinemann had complained.

  The violinist shrugged, and noticing that Marie was now walking towards the entrance lobby said hurriedly, ‘Together with my grant it means that I’m okay. Now, if you’ll excuse me…’

  He walked over to where Rath was stood talking with two officious-looking men.

  Noticing him, his tutor said, ‘One moment, please gentlemen... Yes, Herr Heinemann?’

  ‘Herr Rath, may I leave if I’m not needed any more?’

  ‘Certainly. You can leave your instrument here if you wish – most of the others are going to do so. I’ll bring them into class tomorrow.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’

  ‘Goodnight then – and congratulations on your performance.’

  ‘Thank you, Herr Rath.’

  Saying this Heinemann moved quickly towards the large, open double-doors that led out to the lobby. Marie was stood by them, putting on her coat and preparing to leave.

  He looked up to see a huge swastika banner above her, and a chill gripped his heart.

  Please, don’t let it claim her – the plea came suddenly into his mind, though he immediately forgot about it as he noticed the cellist smiling at him.

  ‘Can I walk you to the station?’ he asked quietly, his gaze alternating between the floor and an area just above her eyes.

  ‘Of course – thank you,’ she replied, smiling at his nervousness. She felt extremely pleased that he’d asked. As they left the hall Heinemann caught the jealous look Muehlebach flashed at him, and he realised that he was not the only one who found this young woman attractive.

  The two students stepped out into the rain-swept night, and his heart beat a little faster as Marie’s arm threaded through his own.

  ‘I wish I’d worn some more practical shoes, because I think that we’d better walk fast. Otherwise we’ll get soaked,’ she said.

  ...Awakening several hours later, Heinemann for a moment did not know where he was. The room was in total darkness, the fire was out – she was not sitting on the sofa beside him. He lay staring up into the blackness, thinking, the blanket Marie had given him bunched about his knees.

  He’d gone back to her house that was in a pleasant part of Charlottenburg, close to a number of quaint bookshops and cafés. It had felt entirely natural to the both of them that he should do so. Inside the small house they were safe, and after a time the conversation had changed from small talk to more serious matters.

  On this occasion, Marie found that he said little about his own troubles, but was prepared to listen and even offer occasional advice for hers. Her grief over her grandmother’s death was soothed by his comforting words; and easily, with no sense of surprise, she realised that she loved him.

  The fire in the living room had almost died by the time their conversation finished, its dying flames throwing light shadows on the dark walls and ceiling which danced with unpredictable fluidity.

  The two students realised how close they were to one another, and in the safety of the room this realisation was appealing. Without a word they simultaneously turned and held each other, their lips meeting at first gently and then with increasing passion. Shades of darkness and light crossed their bodies and the terrors outside, the nightmare of Germany in 1939, seemed faraway and inconsequential.

  It was Heinemann who broke the spell.

  ‘We can’t,’ he said softly, looking rapturously at the darkened face so close to his own.

  ‘I thought it was the girl who was supposed to say that,’ Marie replied, sounding like a heroine in one of the cheap American movies that were no longer broadcast within Germany. But she adjusted her clothing all the same.

  ‘Please understand, it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just –’

  ‘It’s all right, Erich, I understand. Believe me I do.’

  Her words reinforced the honesty he searched for and found in her face, and he sighed, almost in relief.

  She stood up. ‘I’ll get you a blanket – the sofa’s very comfortable.’

  Returning within a minute, she handed him the folded blanket.

  ‘I’m going to bed, so I’ll see you in the morning.’

  ‘You’re not upset – I didn’t upset...’

  Regarding him with an arched eyebrow, she said, ‘Erich Heinemann, you assume a lot.’

  This might have been a rebuke, had she not been smiling as she said it, and without another word she left the room.

  12

  Over the following three months Heinemann experienced increasing hostility within the university; on several occasions he was roughly pushed in crowded corridors and once punched in the back of the head.

  It did not take the brains of a scientist for him to determine that the students who attended the agricultural and economic classes – who talked loudly about ‘Mother Earth’, ‘Soil’ and ‘Freedom’ in the dinner-hall – might just have something to do with his harassment.

  There was no chance of Marie and him developing their relationship: a month after he’d stayed the night at her house they had their second meeting at a secluded spot by the River Spree, close to the Aalto Theatre.

  There Heinemann curtly explained that their fledgling romance was an illegality under the Socialists. Were it
to be discovered there would be severe punishments for the both of them, and the last thing he wished to do was to place her in any danger.

  No, it had to end now. They should not exchange anything but the most cursory of greetings in the classroom, lest suspicions should be aroused and possibly reported.

  His heart broke as she tearfully agreed. Life without her would be grim indeed. Even his beloved violin paled in her shadow: it did not smile in that curiously upside-down fashion; it did not give him that look.

  But he had to forget about her; he had no other choice.

  Lessons finished for the day, Heinemann left the university building in order to catch the tram to Mette Construction. The weather was warm, the sky completely blue. Students sat on the lawn or on the benches, relaxing.

  Those who were not pro-Nazi pitied the young Mischling as he walked past, a feeling dismissed with varying degrees of ease as they looked about themselves – at the glorious weather, at those other students whom they found attractive. Life was to be enjoyed; they were being educated at one of Germany’s most prestigious universities.

  The half-Jewish teenager’s problems were not their own.

  A black car waiting by the entrance became the focus of Heinemann’s attention; he saw a figure climb out of the driver’s side to stand, waiting.

  Realising who this car belonged to caused his testicles to tighten and his bowels to weaken; but still he continued to walk towards the entrance. There was nothing else he could do.

  And why, he wondered, did they always choose black? What was the purpose? Surely to God a visit from them was bad enough to make even the bravest person threaten to foul themselves…

  It was pure psychology, he realised – people could sit safely in the sun talking about trivialities, but the black cars reminded them never to become too confident, too secure, lest it became they that –

  ‘Erich Heinemann?’

  There was a protective humming in his ears that made him almost deaf to the man’s question; in his mind’s eye he saw the sun-drenched fields of Hegensdorf, the farm labourers slaving to get the hay in…

  This was nice, it was secure: he felt entirely safe amongst childhood memories. He tried to recall the smell of his aunt’s baking but couldn’t…

  Ah, that was why – funny how seeking one memory always brought another! It was the ancient teacher at the tiny parish school, Herr Trutz, who’d informed Heinemann and the other children in the class as to why this should be, one of the many fascinating but factually dubious titbits he’d liked to give their developing minds:

  ‘The only smell a human can remember is that of an orange, children. Why is this, I hear you ask? I’ll tell you: no one knows.’

  But the response he had to give to the question concerning his name... This invalidated this safety, brought him back to the present and the man who was stood waiting beside the black car.

  ‘Yes.’

  The word carried that awful dead acceptance of whatever had been planned for him. Could he have said no? Could he have denied his name?

  Hardly – they’d only asked him as a formality. They knew exactly who he was.

  ‘Get in the car.’

  Observed by the students within the grounds he got into the back of the Volkswagen, sitting beside a man who smelt strongly of tobacco and after-shave. Heinemann recognised neither him nor the car’s driver; they were not the same men as before.

  As the car drove off he saw Marie walking along the path, and he prayed that the Gestapo wouldn’t somehow link her to him. He’d the same safety guarantee as dynamite, and when he was destroyed – which seemed certain to occur sooner or later – there was a good chance he’d take out anyone close to him...

  After a short journey the car pulled into the château’s courtyard. This time no one was washing the cobbles.

  The man sat next to Heinemann said, ‘Get out.’

  The two Gestapo men walked ahead, not bothering to see if he followed. They knew that he would. They opened a different door to the one used before. Inside there were no typing secretaries wearing blood-red lipstick and smoking cigarettes, only stone-walled, dimly-lit passages. At regular intervals there were wooden doors, with nothing other than an iron keyhole adorning them. They appeared solid, strong... and soundproof.

  At the end of a passage, beside a dark stone staircase that led further down to God only knew what, one of the men produced a bunch of keys.

  Without hesitation he selected one and opened a door.

  ‘Get in there.’

  Heinemann did as told, walking into a small, windowless room with a solitary bulb hanging from the ceiling. A damp sheen sparkled on the stone walls. As the door closed he sat on a stone slab set into the wall, staring down at his clenched hands, his mind racing. This was his second visit to headquarters. Most people only ever had one. Though he racked his brain to think of a reason why he should have been brought back here he couldn’t think of one. Perhaps it was just because he was a Mischling – that this was harassment designed purely to make life as intolerable as was possible for him...

  A few minutes later the door opened.

  ‘Come with me,’ said a figure half in shadow. Heinemann followed him along two long passages and up a stone flight of stairs. He found himself in a short corridor, light splashing onto the floor from the open door of the solitary room at the end.

  Motioning for Heinemann to enter this room, his escort then followed him in. It was adorned only with a swastika banner and a portrait of the Fuhrer hung on one wall. Otherwise there was a desk with two chairs either side close to the door.

  A large double window to Heinemann’s left was shut – a fat man stood staring out of it, and Heinemann was fleetingly reminded of Enrich Rath. But there was no tragic sensation of gut-wrenching isolation to Commissioner Sasse, as he now turned briskly round to face the teenager.

  ‘Erich Heinemann, I feel that we ought to have words,’ he said, walking over to seat himself at the desk but apparently content to leave Heinemann standing. The Mischling almost abstractly considered that this room was markedly different to the last one in which he’d seen this fat Commissioner – that had been some kind of office.

  This, however, was plainly a torture chamber, with patches of what appeared to be dried blood on its stone floor. Away from the surface veneer of the typing secretaries this was what the Gestapo was really about –whatever torture and depravities a human being could imagine they could facilitate, and quite possibly a few more besides.

  ‘Erich Heinemann, it has been brought to my attention that you’ve been consorting with a certain Marie von Hahn, whom I believe is a student in your music class,’ Sasse said after a lengthy pause, leaning back in his chair and staring hard at the violinist.

  Swallowing, Heinemann wondered just how the Commissioner had got his information. He must have had him followed, seen him enter Marie’s house. All he could do now was to attempt a damage limitation exercise, in order to protect Marie.

  ‘We had a slight friendship, Herr Commissioner, nothing more,’ he said quietly.

  His fist smashing down onto the table, Sasse’s voice rose to a trembling nasal crescendo.

  ‘You’re not to have these “slight friendships”! I specifically told you to attend only your lectures, and otherwise to consort with no one! You’ve disobeyed everything I told you to do, and I gave you fair warning last time.’

  Certain that a hammer-blow was about to knock him clean out of society and quite possibly even existence, Heinemann stood absolutely still. Only his mouth trembled slightly.

  Sasse thought of his wife and gave an inward sigh – for she would demand a full report from him, should he punish this strangely-famous teenager.

  Consigning Heinemann to a concentration camp would have to be fully justified and at the moment this just wasn’t possible – Sasse had only the dubious word of one of Heinemann’s classmates that the Mischling had slept with a German woman.

  ‘Heinemann – have yo
u had sexual relations with Marie von Hahn?’

  The sneering question carried all the contempt that Sasse felt for the violinist.

  ‘No, Herr Commissioner.’

  Producing a cigar from the inside pocket of his tunic, Sasse lit it, and standing up walked over to the window. The smoke that hung above his head whirled and eddied, illuminated by the sunlight that came in shards through the dirty glass. Heinemann was reminded of a waddling duck in the way in which Sasse blew out his chest; it seemed that at any moment the buttons of his tight tunic might burst. The silence in the room was strangely peaceful; but for his surroundings Heinemann could almost have believed that he was at a job interview, the manager of some office or bank taking his time in considering this sallow-faced applicant.

  ‘I choose to believe you this time, Heinemann, but if I ever discover that you’ve been guilty of racial pollution then, believe me, it will be the worst for you.’

  Racial pollution? White-hot coals of hatred and humiliation burned suddenly in Heinemann’s chest as he looked at the Commissioner, who stood smoking with a smug look. So this short and fat man was racially pure – he was the ideal?

  The hatred and the humiliation suddenly metamorphosed into an insane desire to burst out laughing. Heinemann waited until this entirely inappropriate urge had passed before he apologised, as he assumed he was supposed to do. He’d never felt less inclined to say sorry in his life, but if in doing so he’d get another chance…

  ‘I’m sorry, Herr Commissioner.’

  Sasse ground his barely-smoked cigar out underfoot, the heel of his black boot shredding it, and sat back down.

  ‘I understand that since Christmas you’ve been working at Mette Construction, within the Stettin Industrial Plant.’

  ‘Yes, Herr Commissioner.’

  ‘The factory is having to increase its productivity, which consequently entails longer hours for its workers. I don’t see why this shouldn’t include you. As from tomorrow you will work from five p.m. until midnight, Monday to Friday, and on Saturday from half-seven until five instead of noon. You will also now get exactly half of what you were being paid per hour before. Consider yourself fortunate that you’re being paid at all.’