by Sharon Maas
‘Pah! When you told me of this Normandy invasion back in June I was at first excited, thinking the end of the war was near. But what has happened since then? Nothing! When are your troops coming to Alsace? What are they doing to liberate us? I believe in fact they have forgotten us.’
‘It takes time, Oncle. The main thing is the invasion has happened and Germany is slowly losing the war, being pushed back bit by bit.’
‘And who is to guarantee that these wonderful glorious Allied troops will ever reach Alsace and push back the Boche over the Rhine? It is my fear that even if the Allies win the war, Alsace will remain in German hands. That the Germanification process has gone too far to reverse. That it is too much trouble to clean this province of the Boche; that the new border will be the Vosges mountains and not the Rhine. Because nothing is happening here. Nothing! Just a load of uniforms strutting around harassing the people.’
‘You are forgetting that I was sent to do just that: to help your own Resistance. And that is what I am doing. Exactly that. It is what Jacques and Henri are risking their lives for.’
‘Humph! Well, they better get on with it.’
Chapter 25
‘It is a car fit for a lady,’ said von Haagen as Sibyl stepped out of the shop. ‘A Mercedes Benz; one of our staff cars I managed to borrow for the day. Isn’t she a beauty?’
He held open the passenger door for her to step in. ‘But not as beautiful as my passenger.’
He settled in, pulled on a pair of black leather gloves, and smiled over at her. ‘And…’ he paused as he switched on the ignition. The car slowly moved forward. It only just fit in the street; had Sibyl reached out, she could have touched the buildings as they crept along.
‘This is the very car Adolf Hitler drove in when he came to Strasbourg in 1940,’ von Haagen informed her. ‘As such it is a historical vehicle. Ah, here we are, out of the unbearably narrow alleyway.’
He accelerated and the car swept into a main street. There was little traffic; it was Sunday morning, after all, and many people had gone to church or were enjoying a family day. Sibyl, who also usually attended the ten o’clock Mass, had gone to early Mass today. Jeanne Dauguet had been Catholic, and so, now, was Marlene Schuster. The car was a convertible, and because it was a lovely sunny day the leather hood was down. So, again, was Sibyl’s hair, but today she wore a turban to keep it reasonably tamed; and a light floral shirtwaist dress, with a cardigan over her shoulders. No stockings though; she could not bear to wear those thick monstrosities, and she had no others.
‘I am taking you to a very special place,’ said von Haagen as he drove out of town. ‘Up near the vineyards. It is almost harvest time, the most beautiful time of year in the Alsace. You really must see it.’
She saw a road sign pointing towards Ribeauvillé and when von Haagen steered the car in that direction her heart began an involuntary racing, a violent thudding which she feared he could hear. Apparently, though, he couldn’t.
‘Here we are. A delightful spot further up this lane.’ He had turned off the main road, on to a dirt track that led towards a copse, tucked into a hillside that rose up between two vineyards. The car came to a halt in the shade of a spreading oak tree. He removed his gloves, opened the door for her, offered her a hand and led her from the car to a spot beyond the tree.
‘Wait a minute, please!’
He strode back to the car and returned with a picnic blanket and a wicker basket, filled with various articles wrapped in newspaper. He spread the blanket, bid her take a seat. She did so. He sat down beside her, waved his hands to embrace the landscape. The vineyards spread out around them in gently undulating rows, the vines a brilliant green; beyond the vineyards, hills of a different shade of green rolled out to a brilliantly blue horizon. To their right, the purple mountains of the Vosges rose in the distance. Best of all, the gurgling of a small stream that flowed from the copse and lost itself among the rows of vines lent a voice to the scenery; a gurgling, cheerful voice, eons away from the hideous clamour of war. After so many weeks almost constantly cooped up in the narrow cobbler shop, Sibyl felt, against her will, liberated. Happy, almost.
Between the hills they could see the spires and roofs of villages. Von Haagen pointed them out.
‘Riquewihr. Ribeauvillé. I will take you there for a stroll afterwards. They are like villages out of a Grimms’ fairytale. And the vineyards…’ He swept his arms wide. ‘In a few weeks they will be golden-brown, and the grapes bursting with succulent goodness. I am a wine man rather than a beer man, even though I like to adapt to company – that’s why I drank beer the other night. But wine! There is a vineyard here, the Château Laroche-Gauthier. Their wines are exquisite. Maybe we can drop in and I will purchase a bottle for you. You can share it with your Oncle, I’m sure he will be pleased.’
Her heart skipped a beat. Quickly, too quickly, perhaps, she said, ‘Please don’t, Herr Major… I really don’t drink wine – ever. I don’t like any alcohol. And my uncle – yes, he enjoys it but he shouldn’t. It’s not good for his health and he would only have to drink alone.’
As she spoke he unpacked the basket. In it were treats she had not seen since the start of the war. A side of ham, pink and fresh. Cheese: the local Munster. A baguette, of course, and cake and – wonder of wonders – a jar of fresh strawberries. A slab of chocolate! A bottle of wine – indeed, it was Château Laroche-Gauthier. He replaced that in the basket at her words, and laughed.
‘I won’t drink if you won’t. But a woman who grew up in Paris, who does not like wine! I never heard of such a thing! But now you are German, aren’t you; and we also have some excellent wine. But what am I saying? If you do not like wine I will no longer discuss it. For me, though, it is the ultimate symbol of sophistication and good taste. There is also excellent grape juice and apple juice to be had at this time of year in this region. I can get some cheaply for you. Anyway – what were we talking about? Oh yes. You are German now. How does that feel?’
‘To be honest, Herr Major…’
‘Fräulein Schuster – how happy it makes me to use that name! – I would be delighted if you would no longer address me as Herr Major. I think we know each other well enough now; you may call me Wolfgang. Or, to be a little more intimate, Wolf.’
It was a delicate moment, an invitation to a higher level of familiarity; she knew the etiquette involved. As a woman, etiquette gave her the prerogative of inviting him into a more familiar form of address, denoting a more intimate relationship. It was up to her to offer him her first name first, and suggest they move from the formal Sie to the familiar Du. But now he had taken the unusual step of offering his Christian name first, suggesting intimacy from her to him; it would be vice versa only if she reciprocated. It would be awkward if she did not do so; the unbalanced forms of address now gave her the advantage. Politeness demanded that she offer him the Du and her first name.
As a woman, she could not.
As an agent, she should. Intimacy was to be encouraged. The more, the better.
For a brief moment she wavered. In the next moment she knew what to do. ‘It was you, wasn’t it, who suggested my new name: Marlene.’
‘I confess, indeed it was. I hope you like it.’
‘Well, I don’t. I was not ready. I was happy with my name Jeanne. I don’t care about Schuster but my Christian name, my baptismal name – well. It was the name my parents chose for me. I should honour it.’
She spoke with more confidence than she felt. How far could she go in crtitisising his actions? But it was a thing that needed to be discussed. It would lead the conversation in a direction she wanted it to take, needed it to take.
‘But you have no choice; it is the law that the name be changed. By suggesting the name Marlene I speeded up the process, which normally would take months. So now you are already German.’
‘I was quite happy being French.’
‘Alsatian-born French. It meant you are automatically German, whether you like it
or not. When the war is over…’
‘When the war is over, Germany will have lost. Surely you know that! Surely every German citizen, much less every German military man, knows this! Germany cannot win; that was clear after the Stalingrad affair. What good will German citizenship do me in a vanquished country?’
He flushed and for a moment she depicted a note of anger in his expression. Had she gone too far? Be bland, boring. Neutral. You have no opinion on anything, political or otherwise. You must blend into the background. Without emotion, without personality. That is how an agent in France survives. You are an observer, a witness, not a player.
Now this. She had broken the rules, spectacularly so. Expressed opinions: an opinion on her new name, and now, worse yet, a political opinion. Worse than ever, the opinion that Germany might just not be the victors. That was just not opinionated, it was downright antagonistic.
But she had to, surely. She needed to get him talking. The role she now played went beyond sabotage and subterfuge; it was about access. Prising out opinions, and thus facts and details, was the whole point of access. Access to him, his thoughts, his feelings; access, hopefully, to secrets he might share. Access, possibly, to buildings she might bomb. Access to worlds currently closed to her. Access, possibly, to military plans. But she had to tread carefully. Antagonism was not the way. She had to open the vault of those worlds carefully, cleverly, cunningly. She needed to take a step back. She had to be warm, accommodating, friendly, attractive.
She laid a placating hand on his arm. It was time to pedal back.
‘I’m sorry. I should not have said that about Germany being vanquished. It is not my place.’
He said nothing. And then: ‘How do you know all this? Who told you? There was a ridiculous leaflet circulating a few weeks ago – did you read it? Did you believe it?’
‘I didn’t need to. I was in France at the time of the invasion. In Paris, where we had access to the news. We heard all about Stalingrad and the carpet bombing of Hamburg and the flattening of Dresden. We know about the Normandy invasion. Everyone in the world knows, except maybe the people of Germany, because you are keeping this information from them. Germany cannot win this war.’
She spoke softly, almost tenderly. She knew instinctively that with this particular man, antagonism would not work. The simple truth, delivered calmly and without passion, not as an attack but as a statement of fact, just might. She had to play her cards carefully, utilising the strategies she had learnt as a nurse. Delve past the layers of ideology and dogma and party line and propaganda in which he was cloaked and poke her finger into the veracities he denied. Stir him into revelation. Yes: it was against the official SOE rulebook. But so was this particular situation. You are on your own, they had told her. There is no script. If you are forced to interact with the enemy, you will have to write the script as you go along. Use your intelligence, your wiles, your intuition.
And so she recounted, for him, the reality of certain German defeat, one incident after the other. As she spoke his entire demeanour went through a process of metamorphosis. He no longer gazed at her with those puppy-dog eyes, so incongruous in an otherwise stiff and formal disposition, the very caricature of a haughty German officer. He looked away, into the distance, so that all she saw was his chiselled profile. His jaw tightened; she could see blood vessels pulsing in his neck, the clenching of muscles. Now it was time to pedal back. Soften the blow. Relate everything to him.
‘Wolfgang,’ she said, ‘look at me.’
That word, that name, did it. He turned back to her and now she could read his eyes. There lay not the heat of fury she might have provoked, nor the coldness of loathing. There lay, raw and blistered, anguish. It was time to poke further.
‘Does it cause you pain, to hear these things?’
‘Whose side are you on?’
‘It’s not a question of taking sides any more. It’s a question of facing reality. You know these things but you have refused to accept them. But you must.’
He shook his head, slowly, as if refusing to accept her words, but knowing he was defeated. As defeated as the Third Reich. Before her eyes, he collapsed.
‘What am I to do? What will become of me! What is the way forward? Ich bin komplett am Ende! I am completely finished!’
It was a cry of anguish, of absolute torment and utter self-pity. She remained unmoved, unpitying.
‘Those are questions millions of people have had to ask themselves and for millions the answer was quite clear, for only death awaited them. War is a terrible, terrible thing. Germany wanted this war and must accept the consequences.’
‘I don’t give a damn about Germany! What about me?’
She smiled to herself. Isn’t that what it invariably boiled down to, with the exception of a few genuine heroes? What about me.
‘Well, what about you? Assuming you survive till the end – it’s not quite over yet; there are still battles to be fought. But if you survive, then what?’
He took time to respond.
‘All I want, all I ever wanted, right from the start of this horrible war, was to lead a good life. It was a life I wanted for all of us. A beautiful home, a loving wife, a family; a garden to grow vegetables in, sweet children to hug me every evening. And of course culture. This is the dream of every German soldier, all they are longing for when the war is over. This is what we all yearn for. Family. Home. Heimat.’
‘We all want to be happy, that’s what it boils down to, doesn’t it. But we cannot be happy if we trample on the happiness of others. War has brought devastation and misery and death to millions.’
‘The Führer had a great dream and it is now shattered. It was a dream of happiness for all.’
‘How could that dream be achieved through killing? Through war?’
‘Sometimes, the means justifies the end.’
‘Even atrocities? How can you ever justify – I won’t even mention them by name. You know what I am talking about. Are you religious, Herr Major?’
The conversation had taken too serious a turn for first names. It seemed – well, inappropriate. She had only used it as a wedge into the inner workings of his mind. Now she was there, she preferred to revert to formalities.
‘Wolfgang – please, call me Wolfgang. Yes, I am profoundly religious. I am a devout Bavarian Catholic.’
‘Then how on earth can you justify the persecution of Jews? The elimination of Jews, as proscribed by your Führer? Is that Christian?’
‘Fräulein Schuster, your questions demand complex responses. Why don’t we just enjoy the picnic and engage in appropriate light conversation?’
Their eyes were still locked: she held his gaze. But then it was as if a curtain drew across his, a blankness, an opaque glaze and she knew she had lost him. As if relieved to have regained the fervour that energized him, he took a deep and audible breath.
‘You see, I cannot, I must not give up hope! There is still hope. We must keep the faith. I cannot let the message of defeat infiltrate the ranks. I must motivate my men, give them the feeling they are fighting for their dream and it will come true. We all believe that Germany is destined to be the perfect society. I believe this destiny is divinely ordained, and will come about even though the future, at the moment, looks grim for Germany. But miracles are always possible: last minute miracles, if the end is God’s Will. We must lead the way and I cannot allow this conversation to destroy my morale! We will fight to the end!’
She shrugged. ‘As you wish. Let us change the subject.’
‘And let us eat! The food is waiting!’
‘Where on earth did you get all these things? I have not seen such a feast since, well, since long before the war.’
‘We have our sources. You needn’t worry your pretty little head about that!’
They spent the following hour eating and discussing the poetry of Rilke, which Sibyl by now had read, and the writing of Goethe, whom she had not. It was as if the initial exchange had never taken plac
e; as if he had wiped his mind free of it, free of truth, free of reality, and all that now mattered was the dream, the vision, the poetry and the beauty and the glorious achievements of culture, German culture. Sibyl participated. It was her job.
Chapter 26
‘As I mentioned earlier, I would be delighted to show you one of the charming villages of the Alsace wine region, Ribeauvillé perhaps, or Riquewihr, both of which are only a few minutes away.’
‘I really should be getting back home.’
She could not take that risk. She had gone to school in Ribeauvillé. As a young girl she had known many of the merchants. Yes, she was now a young woman, grown up, changed, but still, someone might recognise her. All that was needed for her world to collapse was for one dear soul to call out, ‘Sibyl! But you are back! How are you – how you have grown!’
‘But it is early yet. We still have many hours before it grows dark. Let us make the most of them.’
‘Well then, let it be Riquewihr. I think that’s where one of my aunts used to live – a great aunt, in fact, an old lady but very kind to me. I remember well, visiting as a small child, sitting on her lap as she fed me peeled grapes. I would like to refresh my memory, I remember how beautiful the village was.’
It was all she could think of in the frightening spur of the moment – an inadequate story and impossible to confirm since there was no aunt, then or now. Once again she would have to play it by ear.
‘Riquewihr it is!’ They packed the basket with the remains of the feast, loaded it and the blanket into the car, and von Haagen drove off.
A few minutes later they were in Riquewihr. ‘This is the Dolder gate,’ he said as they passed through an imposing rampart, ‘a thirteenth-century defensive gate. Riquewihr itself, of course, is a magnificent example of German medieval architecture. Notice the picturesque half-timbered style, similar of course to that of Colmar but, in my opinion, far more appealing due to the almost enchanted nature of the village as a whole, tucked as it is among the vineyards and rolling hills. As I said before, it’s like stepping into a fairytale. It really is the jewel of the Alsace. I am glad we came here and not to Ribeauvillé, thanks to your aunt!’
