‘When did she leave?’ Ernst asked, feeling more disturbed. ‘This morning.’
‘Then you must have been here all night, Maria.’
‘Yes… Yes, I was!’ And she nodded her head vigorously. ‘I didn’t want to have to get out of bed too early, so I decided to sleep here. But please, Ernst,’ she added, changing the subject and waving toward the couch, ‘sit down and take your boots off and let me fix you some tea. You must be exhausted.’
‘I’m fine,’ he replied, then knelt on the floor by his suitcase and proceeded to open it, determined to distract himself from his dark thoughts. ‘I arrived in Berlin last night but had to report straight to barracks – and yes, I would like a tea. Here, Ula,’ he said, opening the suitcase, ‘I have some presents for you and Alfred. All wrapped up, just like Christmas!’
Already getting over her shyness, Ula unwrapped the doll that Ernst had, in fact, bought only that morning, right here in Berlin, along with Alfred’s box of rattling toys. Nevertheless, she was delighted with it, and for the next half hour or so, Ernst enjoyed his tea, felt better watching his son and daughter playing with their presents, made desultory conversation with his normally pleasant but now clearly uneasy mother-in-law, and determined not to show the anger and suspicion he was feeling over Ingrid’s unexpected absence.
After all, they had agreed to live separate lives, so he could hardly complain...
The practice, however, was more difficult than the theory. As he sat there, sipping tea, appreciating the feminine cosiness of the apartment after the rigours of his sea voyage, he had to choke back his feelings of disappointment and loss. He had just returned from an epic journey, an historically important endeavour, and was not even being welcomed back by his wife... He filled up with self-pity, despised himself for it, and had managed to accept what he had wrought by the time Ingrid returned.
When she walked in and saw him, her face turned bright red. She was wearing a long gray coat and a broad black hat, but removed them first and composed herself. By the time she had crossed the room to kiss his cheek, her face had turned pale again and her vivid green eyes were cautious.
‘Ernst!’ she exclaimed, whispering into his ear. ‘I didn’t realize...’
Not having known the touch of a woman’s body for a long time, Ernst instantly filled up with longing when, for the brief duration of her chaste kiss, Ingrid could not prevent her body from touching his.
‘I know,’ he said as she stepped away from him, leaving only the intoxicating smell of her scent, the seductive warmth of her lips, and the bitter knowledge that she no longer desired him. ‘They didn’t tell us when we’d be returning, so I couldn’t tell you. Still, here I am.’
‘Yes, Ernst.’ Her once-radiant smile was hesitant. ‘Here you are!’ Her gaze slipped away from him, fell on her mother, roamed around the room, then finally, reluctantly, returned to him. ‘So,’ she said with forced gaiety, waving her hand to indicate the children. ‘Have you noticed the change in them?’
The banality of the question almost amused him, and he did indeed smile. ‘Remarkable,’ he said. ‘And Ula looks as lovely as her mother.’
At least Ula liked that remark, blushing and giggling.
‘Tea!’ Ingrid said, trying to sound gay. ‘At least mother’s looked after you. Would you like something stronger?’
‘A little schnapps would be nice.’
‘You didn't ask me for that,' Ingrid’s mother said too shrilly, and then, looking confused, added, ‘Anyway, I have to be going now – and I’m sure you two have lots to talk about. My bag’s packed already.’
‘Mother, you don’t have to – ’
‘No! ’ Ingrid’s mother protested. ‘I can’t stay another minute! I promised to have chocolate with Fraulein Vogt at the Konditerei before I go home, and if I stay here any longer, I’ll be late. I’ve already called for a taxi and packed my overnight bag.’
The repetition was a product of her embarrassment. Clearly she was as relieved as was Ernst when the taxi came for her. When she had gone, after more oddly melodramatic hugging and kissing (which merely confirmed for Ernst that his suspicions about Ingrid were well founded), he felt the oppressive weight of the silence that filled up the cosy room. Having poured two glasses of schnapps, Ingrid handed one to him and sat facing him. As he drank, feeling better with each sip, he studied his playing children, the golden girl and the giggling baby, glanced repeatedly around the room with its heavy, darkly-varnished cupboards, lace tablecloths, doilies and curtains, Germanic bricabrac and paintings, and realized that no matter how homely it was, it was no longer his home. He was a German soldier, an SS officer – the élite of Himmler’s élite – and that made him different.
He no longer needed this.
‘How was the trip?’ Ingrid asked him.
‘It wasn’t a holiday, Ingrid.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that. I just thought it might have been exciting or glamorous. Was it?’
‘No,’ he said, offended at the very notion, ‘but it was certainly worth doing.’
‘Why?’
‘I can’t tell you that,’ he said, though he wished that he could, now remembering with increasing pride how he had hammered the swastika into the snow-covered earth of Antarctica in that vast, haunting silence.
‘Another vitally important secret of the Third Reich?’
‘Your sarcasm is not required.’ He felt a touch of anger, but his sexual desire softened it.
Ingrid had always been attractive – a prize catch, in fact – and right now, even trying to keep her distance, she glowed with an inner light, probably caused, as he bitterly realized, by the man she had come from. He tried to be objective about it, to keep their agreement in mind, but after four months at sea, faced with her sensual gratification, he surrendered to the very emotions he had been trained to despise.
‘Where were you, Ingrid?’
She glanced at the children, then back at him. ‘Do we have to discuss this now?’
‘I’ve been away for four months,’ he said, though he hadn’t intended doing so, ‘and you were gone when I came back.’
‘I didn’t know you were coming back,’ she reminded him.
‘You know what I’m talking about, Ingrid. Why was your mother here?’
‘I was visiting a friend.’
‘All night?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘All night.’
Before he could say anything else, perhaps frightened of his reaction, she told Ula to pick up their toys and take them into the bedroom. ‘Your father and I have to talk,' she explained, ’so you can play in there for a while.’ When Ula had picked up the toys and started toward the bedroom, Ingrid, carrying Alfred, followed her daughter through the door. Returning, she sat down, crossed her legs, and sipped some more schnapps.
‘So,’ she said, ‘let’s discuss it.’
‘All night,’ Ernst said, echoing her words with soft, deliberate malice.
‘You knew before you left that I had a lover.’
‘And you’ve just been with the same man?’
‘Yes.’
‘It’s nice to know that it’s lasting.’
‘Yes, Ernst, it is.’
‘Is he better than me in bed?’
‘I don't think that question’s relevant.’
‘What is?’
‘A lot of other things, Ernst. Sex isn’t everything.’
‘We both enjoyed it once.’
‘I’ve never denied that.’
‘But now you enjoy it more with him.’
‘It’s more than that, Ernst.’
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘lots of other things. Such as?’
‘Love and affection.’
‘You and I are married, Ingrid. Please remember that. Marriage isn’t that easy.’
‘No,’ she said, ‘it isn’t that easy. Maybe that’s why we failed.’
‘I don’t see how I failed you.’
‘You gave me up for
Adolf Hitler.’
‘Be careful about what you say, Ingrid.’
‘I want a divorce.’
He sighed, shook his head in disbelief, then finished off his schnapps. ‘We’ve talked about this before,’ he reminded her, placing his glass on the table that separated them, ‘and you know it’s out of the question. I won’t risk my career with a divorce. Who is this man, anyway?’
‘You don’t need to know that.’
‘Not Jewish, I hope.’
‘No.’
‘Do I know him?’
‘No.’
‘If I discover that he’s Jewish, I’ll turn you in – for the good of the children.’
‘How noble you are, Ernst.’ Ingrid lit a cigarette, blew the smoke toward the ceiling, then gazed obliquely at him through a blue haze. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘for the good of the children let’s remain man and wife. I’ll continue seeing my lover, you’ll continue seeing your whores, and we’ll both live happily ever after, while supporting the Third Reich.’
‘Some day your tongue will get you into trouble.’
‘At least it’s still my tongue.’
The schnapps had helped to calm him down and now kept him in control. He stood up and straightened his jacket, feeling very calm indeed, then walked around the low table and leaned over and slapped her face. Once. No more. A single, stinging blow. Then he straightened up and saw her look of shock and smiled thinly at her.
‘Be a whore,’ he said, ‘but do it discreetly or you’ll get worse than that.’ She didn’t reply. She was rubbing her red cheek. He could hear the children playing in the bedroom and his heart went out to them. They were the new generation, the future, and he had to protect them. ‘I’m going out,’ he said. ‘I won’t bother you with my attentions. Anything I want, I'll get from my favourite whore, who knows me better than you do. I anticipate being back for my supper, so please have it ready. When I’m on duty or at the barracks, you can do as you please; but when I’m here you’ll treat me as your husband. Is that understood?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
‘Good.’
When he left, he closed the door without slamming it– like a dutiful husband.
With most of the day to kill before he had to report to Himmler, he took a packed, clattering tramcar to the city centre, noted with grim pleasure that his newly laundered SS uniform encouraged people to lower their gaze nervously in his presence, disembarked in the Kurfürstendamm, and planned what to do while having his next glass of schnapps in a busy café. Realizing that his relationship with Ingrid was definitely finished and surprised at his lack of emotion about it, he thought of Brigette in the luxurious apartment on Tiergartenstrasse and knew instantly how he wanted to spend his afternoon.
‘Darling!’ Brigette exclaimed in that inimitably sensual, breathless manner when he phoned from the café. ‘You’re back at last from the high seas! Did you bring me a present?’
‘Yes,’ he lied, amused and excited by her husky-voiced, challenging mockery.
‘Was it expensive, dear Ernst?’
‘Yes, Brigette, it was.’
‘Then come straight over, darling! I can't wait to see you!’
He bought her a diamond brooch in an expensive shop on Tauentzienstrasse, then walked to her apartment, still trying to adjust to the contrast between the isolation of sea and the energetic bustle of Berlin with its tramcars, buses, taxis, horse-drawn cabs, and growing number of army vehicles. An occasional mounted Storm Trooper made his way through the noisy traffic on his horse, the Nazi swastika and anti-Jewish signs were visible everywhere, and the green-uniformed, respected members of the Reichswehr mingled on the pavements with the feared Brownshirts, black-uniformed SS, and elegantly dressed shoppers and businessmen. All in all, on the surface, where the fear was not visible, the Third Reich seemed purposeful, energetic, and surprisingly prosperous.
Brigette also looked prosperous, even more so than usual. She came to the door wearing a shimmering lime-green bathrobe of pure silk, artfully opened at the top to expose her voluptuous, bare breasts, and her red hair, immaculately combed, fell around her calculating green eyes and full, sensual lips. Her cigarette was in an ebony holder and her fingernails, Ernst noticed, were painted the same colour as her hair.
‘Ah!’ she exclaimed with a throaty purr. ‘My handsome lieutenant! I’ve missed you so much, cheri!’
She used the French endearment deliberately, making it sound deliciously decadent. Ernst stepped quickly into the room and kicked the door closed behind him. He took her into his arms, pulling her to him, feeling her heat, and she smiled, rubbing her belly lightly against him, then blew a cloud of smoke.
‘Mmmm,’ she murmured, letting her body sink into him. ‘You greedy boy! You poor, famished hero. Did you miss me terribly, darling?’
‘Yes,’ he said, already breathless.
‘And dream about me?’
‘Yes, yes!’
‘And remembered all the things we’d done together?’
‘Yes, damn you! Yes!’
She chuckled, let him feel her heavy breasts, licked the side of his neck. ‘And did pretty boy bring his expensive gift?’
‘Yes,’ he said, almost bursting.
‘You’re so kind,’ Brigette whispered, breathing into his ear, then she chuckled throatily, jerked his hands off her, and stepped away from him. The dressing gown had been tugged off one shoulder, exposing her breast. Ernst could feel his heart racing. Brigette held out her hand.
‘I’m just a child at heart,’ she explained. ‘I can’t wait to see it.’
She was smiling, but meant it, so he gave her the brooch, thinking of the many men who gave her presents, financial and otherwise. While she unwrapped his particular gift, he gazed into the bedroom behind her and noted that the bed was badly rumpled, as if used for more than sleep. Nothing had changed, which was fine by him. No more emotional entanglements: just gratification. Sensual pleasure and duty.
‘Has my precious lieutenant been home yet?’ Brigette asked as she unwrapped his gift.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And how were your lovely wife and children?’
‘Fine,’ he said. ‘In good health.’
‘And you’ve come straight from there?’ she asked with sly, exciting mockery as she tugged the wrapping paper off the box and let it fall carelessly to the carpet.
‘Yes,’ he said, unable to take his eyes off her bare skin, his senses in disarray.
She removed the lid from the gift box, studied the brooch with widening eyes, removed it and pinned it to her silk nightgown where it fell in shining folds and shadows over a perfect breast. She glanced down at it, her lips pouting greedily, then again looked at him.
‘Ravishing,’ she said. ‘Welcome back. Now what would you like to do?’
‘Everything,’ Ernst said, then stepped up to her, slid the dressing gown off her shoulders and lowered his head.
‘Nice,’ Brigette said. ‘Nice.’ When she was ready, she led him into the bedroom and let him share her unmade bed, where he finally felt at home.
Three days later, satiated by his loveless sexual exertions with the diabolically sensual Brigette, Ernst was walking with his beloved Reischsführer, Himmler, through a long dark tunnel that had been carved out of the Kohnstein Mountain, near the town of Nordhausen in the southern Harz mountain range in Thuringia.
‘I have a dream,’ Himmler was saying quietly, academically, ‘of an Atlantis reborn from the ashes of the forthcoming war: a society of masters and slaves, ruled by the élite of my SS. The new temples will be the factories, the laboratories and universities; the new religion will be knowledge and conquest: the return of the Superman. And where will this new order be created? In the Antarctic, Lieutenant!’
The tunnel had only recently been hacked out of the interior of the mountain and was gloomily illuminated by the electric lights strung along its whole length. There were many people still working in it, mostly prisoners from the
camps, few looking healthy, most covered in mud. All took great pains to keep their eyes lowered as Himmler and his entourage of assistants and bodyguards walked past them, watching them laying steel tracks and fortifying the walls that formed the great tunnel, as wide as a highway, at the end of which, as Ernst noticed with relief, there was a circle of light.
‘You understand now, do you not,’ Himmler continued rhetorically as they tramped through the long tunnel, his normally soft voice even more difficult to hear because of the constant banging and clanging of the heavy work going on all around them, ‘just how important your mission to the Antarctic was? The élite of my SS, the best of the best, will find a new home under the ice of the Antarctic, and there, uninterrupted and isolated from the imperfect world of normal men, will be forged into the first of the Supermen. You have found the location for us, Lieutenant Stoll, and should be proud of yourself.’
As they advanced deeper into the cold, dimly lit darkness of the tunnel, Ernst noticed that the slaving prisoners, most of whom looked underfed, were being guarded by immaculately uniformed SS officers, most armed with pistols or submachine guns, some carrying bullwhips. The clothes of many of the prisoners were in ribbons; some had skin that was freshly scarred.
A society of masters and slaves, he thought, and it all begins right here...
‘I’m not so sure, Reichsführer,' he said, emboldened by the favour he had recently found with Himmler, ‘that such an ambitious project, no matter how admirable, would actually be feasible.’
‘I respect you for expressing your doubts,’ Himmler said, feeling kindly disposed toward Ernst for his achievement in the Anatarctic, ‘but what are they based on?’
‘To create hidden colonies under the ice,’ Ernst began, ‘may not be that easy. The undertaking would have to be immense, and I don’t think – ‘
‘Look around you!’ Himmler interjected with a rare display of excitement, waving his gloved hand to indicate those slaving along the length of the great tunnel. ‘This is but one of two tunnels, eighteen thousand meters long. Leading off these tunnels will be fifty side chambers, a work area of one hundred and twenty-five thousand square meters, and twelve ventilation shafts, which already have been bored down to here from the peak of the mountain. As for these workers,’ he continued, indicating with a careless wave of his hand the hundreds of unfortunates already labouring in the dimly lit gloom under the threat of bullwhip and bullet, ‘they are merely the tip of the iceberg. Where they come from, there are thousands more, and thousands more after them – and we can obtain them whenever we need them and do what we will with them. Our supply of labour is endless.’
INCEPTION (Projekt Saucer, Book 1) Page 18
