by Ken Follett
She said: ‘Good afternoon, Doctor. Can I help you with something?’
He smiled. ‘How are you, Sister? Is everything going well?’
‘Perfectly, I think.’ Guilt made her add ingratiatingly: ‘But it is you, Doctor, who must say whether things are going well.’
‘Oh, I have no complaints,’ he said dismissively.
Carla thought: So what is this about? Is he toying with me, sadistically delaying the moment when he makes his accusation?
She said nothing, but stood waiting, trying not to shake with anxiety.
He looked down at the cart. ‘Why did you take that into the cloakroom?’
‘I wanted something,’ she said, improvising desperately. ‘Something from my raincoat.’ She tried to suppress the frightened tremor in her voice. ‘A handkerchief, from my pocket.’ Stop gabbling, she told herself. He’s a doctor, not a Gestapo agent. But he scared her all the same.
He looked amused, as if he enjoyed her nervousness. ‘And the trolley?’
‘I’m returning it to its place.’
‘Tidiness is essential. You’re a very good nurse . . . Fräulein von Ulrich . . . or is it Frau?’
‘Fräulein.’
‘We should talk some more.’
The way he smiled told her this was not about stealing medical supplies. He was about to ask her to go out with him. She would be the envy of dozens of nurses if she said yes.
But she had no interest in him. Perhaps it was because she had loved one dashing Lothario, Werner Franck, and he had turned out to be a self-centred coward. She guessed that Berthold Ernst was similar.
However, she did not want to risk annoying him, so she just smiled and said nothing.
‘Do you like Wagner?’ he said.
She could see where this was going. ‘I have no time for music,’ she said firmly. ‘I take care of my elderly mother.’ In fact Maud was fifty-one and enjoyed robust good health.
‘I have two tickets for a recital tomorrow evening. They’re playing the Siegfried Idyll.’
‘A chamber piece!’ she said. ‘Unusual.’ Most of Wagner’s work was on a grand scale.
He looked pleased. ‘You know about music, I see.’
She wished she had not said it. She had just encouraged him. ‘My family is musical – my mother gives piano lessons.’
‘Then you must come. I’m sure someone else could take care of your mother for an evening.’
‘It’s really not possible,’ Carla said. ‘But thank you very much for the invitation.’ She saw anger in his eyes: he was not used to rejection. She turned and started to push the cart away.
‘Another time, perhaps?’ he called after her.
‘You’re very kind,’ she replied, without slowing her pace.
She was afraid he would come after her, but her ambiguous reply to his last question seemed to have mollified him. When she looked back over her shoulder he had gone.
She stowed the trolley and breathed more easily.
She returned to her duties. She checked on all the patients in her ward and wrote her reports. Then it was time to hand over to the evening shift.
She put on her raincoat and slung her bag over her arm. Now she had to walk out of the building with stolen property, and her fear mounted again.
Frieda Franck was going at the same time, and they left together. Frieda had no idea Carla was carrying contraband. They walked in June sunshine to the tram stop. Carla wore a coat mainly to keep her uniform clean.
She thought she was giving a convincing impression of normality until Frieda said: ‘Are you worried about something?’
‘No, why?’
‘You seem nervous.’
‘I’m fine.’ To change the subject, she pointed at a poster. ‘Look at that.’
The government had opened an exhibition in Berlin’s Lustgarten, the park in front of the cathedral. ‘The Soviet Paradise’ was the ironic title of a show about life under Communism, portraying Bolshevism as a Jewish trick and the Russians as subhuman Slavs. But even today the Nazis did not have everything their own way, and someone had gone around Berlin pasting up a spoof poster that read:
Permanent Installation
The NAZI PARADISE
WAR HUNGER LIES GESTAPO
How much longer?
There was one such poster stuck to the tram shelter, and it warmed Carla’s heart. ‘Who puts these things up?’ she said.
Frieda shrugged.
Carla said: ‘Whoever they are, they’re brave. They would be killed if caught.’ Then she remembered what was in her bag. She, too, could be killed if caught.
Frieda just said: ‘I’m sure.’
Now it was Frieda who seemed a little jumpy. Could she be one of those who put up the posters? Probably not. Maybe her boyfriend, Heinrich, was. He was the intense, moralistic type who would do that sort of thing. ‘How’s Heinrich?’ said Carla.
‘He wants to get married.’
‘Don’t you?’
Frieda lowered her voice. ‘I don’t want to have children.’ This was a seditious remark: young women were supposed to produce children gladly for the Führer. Frieda nodded at the illegal poster. ‘I wouldn’t like to bring a child into this paradise.’
‘I guess I wouldn’t, either,’ said Carla. Maybe that was why she had turned down Dr Ernst.
A tram arrived and they got on. Carla perched the basket on her lap nonchalantly, as if it contained nothing more sinister than cabbage. She scanned the other passengers. She was relieved to see no uniforms.
Frieda said: ‘Come home with me. Let’s have a jazz night. We can play Werner’s records.’
‘I’d love to, but I can’t,’ Carla said ‘I’ve got a call to pay. Remember the Rothmann family?’
Frieda looked around warily. Rothmann might or might not be a Jewish name. But no one was near enough to hear them. ‘Of course – he used to be our doctor.’
‘He’s not supposed to practise any more. Eva Rothmann went to London before the war and married a Scottish soldier. But the parents can’t get out of Germany, of course. Their son, Rudi, was a violin maker – quite brilliant, apparently – but he lost his job, and now he repairs instruments and tunes pianos.’ He came to the von Ulrich house four times a year to tune the Steinway grand. ‘Anyway, I said I’d go round there this evening and see them.’
‘Oh,’ said Frieda. It was the long drawn-out ‘oh’ of someone who has just seen the light.
‘Oh, what?’ said Carla.
‘Now I understand why you’re clutching that basket as if it contained the Holy Grail.’
Carla was thunderstruck. Frieda had guessed her secret! ‘How did you know?’
‘You said he’s not supposed to practise. That suggests he does.’
Carla saw that she had given Dr Rothmann away. She should have said that he was not allowed to practise. Fortunately, it was only to Frieda that she had betrayed him. She said: ‘What is he to do? They come to his door and beg him to help them. He can’t turn sick people away! It’s not as if he makes any money – all his patients are Jews and other poor folk who pay him with a few potatoes or an egg.’
‘You don’t have to defend him to me,’ said Frieda. ‘I think he’s brave. And you’re heroic, stealing supplies from the hospital to give to him. Is this the first time?’
Carla shook her head. ‘Third. But I feel such a fool for letting you find out.’
‘You’re not a fool. It’s just that I know you too well.’
The tram approached Carla’s stop. ‘Wish me luck,’ she said, and she got off.
When she entered her house she heard hesitant notes on the piano upstairs. Maud had a pupil. Carla was glad. It would cheer her mother up as well as providing a little money.
Carla took off her raincoat then went into the kitchen and greeted Ada. When Maud had announced that she could no longer pay Ada’s wages, Ada had asked if she could stay on anyway. Now she had a job cleaning an office in the evening, and she did housework for th
e von Ulrich family in exchange for her room and board.
Carla kicked off her shoes under the table and rubbed her feet together to ease their ache. Ada made her a cup of grain coffee.
Maud came into the kitchen, eyes sparkling. ‘A new pupil!’ she said. She showed Carla a handful of banknotes. ‘And he wants a lesson every day!’ She had left him practising scales, and his novice fingering sounded in the background like a cat walking along the keyboard.
‘That’s great,’ said Carla. ‘Who is he?’
‘A Nazi, of course. But we need the money.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Joachim Koch. He’s quite young and shy. If you meet him, for goodness’ sake bite your tongue and be polite.’
‘Of course.’
Maud disappeared.
Carla drank her coffee gratefully. She had got used to the taste of burnt acorns, as most people had.
She chatted idly to Ada for a few minutes. Ada had once been plump, but now she was thin. Few people were fat in today’s Germany, but there was something wrong with Ada. The death of her handicapped son, Kurt, had hit her hard. She had a lethargic air. She did her job competently, but then she sat staring out of the window for hours, her expression blank. Carla was fond of her, and felt her anguish, but did not know what to do to help her.
The sound of the piano ceased and, a little later, Carla heard two voices in the hallway, her mother’s and a man’s. She assumed Maud was seeing Herr Koch out, and she was horrified, a moment later, when her mother entered the kitchen, closely followed by a man in an immaculate lieutenant’s uniform.
‘This is my daughter,’ Maud said cheerfully. ‘Carla, this is Lieutenant Koch, a new pupil.’
Koch was an attractive, shy-looking man in his twenties. He had a fair moustache, and reminded Carla of pictures of her father when young.
Carla’s heart raced with fear. The basket containing the stolen medical supplies was on the kitchen chair next to her. Would she accidentally betray herself to Lieutenant Koch, as she had to Frieda?
She could hardly speak. ‘I–I–I am pleased to make your acquaintance,’ she said.
Maud looked at her with curiosity, surprised at her nervousness. All Maud wanted was for Carla to be nice to the new pupil in the hope that he would continue his studies. She saw no harm in bringing an army officer into the kitchen. She had no idea that Carla had stolen medicines in her shopping basket.
Koch made a formal bow and said: ‘The pleasure is mine.’
‘And Ada is our maid.’
Ada shot him a hostile look, but he did not see it: maids were beneath his notice. He put his weight on one leg and stood lopsided, trying to seem at ease but giving the opposite impression.
He acted younger than he looked. There was an innocence about him that suggested an over-protected child. All the same he was a danger.
Changing his stance, he rested his hands on the back of the chair on which Carla had put her basket. ‘I see you are a nurse,’ he said to her.
‘Yes.’ Carla tried to think calmly. Did Koch have any idea who the von Ulrichs were? He might be too young to know what a social democrat was. The party had been illegal for nine years. Perhaps the infamy of the von Ulrich family had faded away with the death of Walter. At any rate, Koch seemed to take them for a respectable German family who were poor simply because they had lost the man who had supported them, a situation in which many well-bred women found themselves.
There was no reason he should look in the basket.
Carla made herself speak pleasantly to him. ‘How are you getting on with the piano?’
‘I believe I am making rapid progress!’ He glanced at Maud. ‘So my teacher tells me.’
Maud said: ‘He shows evidence of talent, even at this early stage.’ She always said that, to encourage them to pay for a second lesson; but it seemed to Carla that she was being more charming than usual. She was entitled to flirt, of course; she had been a widow for more than a year. But she could not possibly have romantic feelings for someone half her age.
‘However, I have decided not to tell my friends until I have mastered the instrument,’ Koch added. ‘Then I will astonish them with my skill.’
‘Won’t that be fun?’ said Maud. ‘Please sit down, Lieutenant, if you have a few minutes to spare.’ She pointed to the chair on which Carla’s basket stood.
Carla reached out to grab the basket, but Koch beat her to it. He picked it up, saying: ‘Allow me.’ He glanced inside. Seeing the cabbage, he said: ‘Your supper, I presume?’
Carla said: ‘Yes.’ Her voice came out as a squeak.
He sat on the chair and placed the basket on the floor by his feet, on the side away from Carla. ‘I always fancied I might be musical. Now I have decided it is time to find out.’ He crossed his legs, then uncrossed them.
Carla wondered why he was so fidgety. He had nothing to fear. The thought crossed her mind that his unease might be sexual. He was alone with three single women. What was going through his mind?
Ada put a cup of coffee in front of him. He took out cigarettes. He smoked like a teenager, as if he was trying it out. Ada gave him an ashtray.
Maud said: ‘Lieutenant Koch works at the Ministry of War on Bendler Strasse.’
‘Indeed!’ That was the headquarters of the Supreme Staff. It was just as well Koch was telling no one there about learning the piano. All the greatest secrets of the German military were in that building. Even if Koch himself was ignorant, some of his colleagues might remember that Walter von Ulrich had been an anti-Nazi. And that would be the end of his lessons with Frau von Ulrich.
‘It is a great privilege to work there,’ said Koch.
Maud said: ‘My son is in Russia. We’re terribly worried about him.’
‘That is natural in a mother, of course,’ Koch said. ‘But please do not be pessimistic! The recent Russian counter-offensive has been decisively beaten back.’
That was rubbish. The propaganda machine could not conceal the fact that the Russians had won the battle of Moscow and pushed the German line back a hundred miles.
Koch went on: ‘We are now in a position to resume our advance.’
‘Are you sure?’ Maud looked anxious. Carla felt the same. They were both tortured by fear of what might happen to Erik.
Koch tried a superior smile. ‘Believe me, Frau von Ulrich, I am certain. Of course I cannot reveal all that I know. However, I can assure you that a very aggressive new operation is being planned.’
‘I am sure our troops have everything they need – enough food, and so on.’ She put a hand on Koch’s arm. ‘All the same, I worry. I shouldn’t say that, I know, but I feel I can trust you, Lieutenant.’
‘Of course.’
‘I haven’t heard from my son for months. I don’t know if he’s dead or alive.’
Koch reached into his pocket and took out a pencil and a small notebook. ‘I can certainly find out for you,’ he said.
‘Could you?’ said Maud, wide-eyed.
Carla thought this might be her reason for flirting.
Koch said: ‘Oh, yes. I am on the General Staff, you know – albeit in a humble role.’ He tried to look modest. ‘I can inquire about . . .’
‘Erik.’
‘Erik von Ulrich.’
‘That would be wonderful. He’s a medical orderly. He was studying to be a doctor, but he was impatient to fight for the Führer.’
It was true. Erik had been a gung-ho Nazi – although his last few letters home had taken a more subdued tone.
Koch wrote down the name.
Maud said: ‘You’re a wonderful man, Lieutenant Koch.’
‘It is nothing.’
‘I’m so glad we’re about to counter-attack on the Eastern Front. But you mustn’t tell me when the attack will begin. Though I’m desperate to know.’
Maud was fishing for information. Carla could not imagine why. She had no use for it.
Koch lowered his voice, as if there might be a sp
y outside the open kitchen window. ‘It will be very soon,’ he said. He looked around at the three women. Carla saw that he was basking in their attention. Perhaps it was unusual for him to have women hanging on his words. Prolonging the moment, he said: ‘Case Blue will begin very soon.’
Maud flashed her eyes at him. ‘Case Blue – how tremendously thrilling!’ she said in the tone a woman might use if a man offered to take her to the Ritz in Paris for a week.
He whispered: ‘The twenty-eighth of June.’
Maud put her hand on her heart. ‘So soon! That’s marvellous news.’
‘I should not have said anything.’
Maud put her hand over his. ‘I’m so glad you did, though. You’ve made me feel so much better.’
He stared at her hand. Carla realized that he was not used to being touched by women. He looked up from her hand to her eyes. She smiled warmly – so warmly that Carla could hardly believe it was 100 per cent faked.
Maud withdrew her hand. Koch stubbed out his cigarette and stood up. ‘I must go,’ he said.
Thank God, Carla thought.
He bowed to her. ‘A pleasure to meet you, Fräulein.’
‘Goodbye, Lieutenant,’ she replied neutrally.
Maud saw him to the door, saying: ‘Same time tomorrow, then.’
When she came back into the kitchen she said: ‘What a find – a foolish boy who works for the General Staff!’
Carla said: ‘I don’t understand why you’re so excited.’
Ada said: ‘He’s very handsome.’
Maud said: ‘He gave us secret information!’
‘What good is it to us?’ Carla asked. ‘We’re not spies.’
‘We know the date of the next offensive – surely we can find a way to pass it to the Russians?’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘We’re supposed to be surrounded by spies.’
‘That’s just propaganda. Everything that goes wrong is blamed on subversion by Jewish-Bolshevik secret agents, instead of Nazi bungling.’
‘All the same, there must be some real spies.’
‘How would we get in touch with them?’
Mother looked thoughtful. ‘I’d speak to Frieda.’
