by David Fraser
‘They live at the Schloss?’
‘Naturally only in a small part of it,’ said the pastor reprovingly. ‘The young Frau Langenbach has a high sense of duty. She underwent some medical training – there was first a convalescent home at Langenbach, but that was moved to the Harz mountains, to more suitable accommodation. Now the village school is there.’
Anthony said nothing. The pastor went on, still with a hint of admonition in his voice –
‘There is no question of visitors seeing the Schloss these days.’
Anthony nodded. He felt so feeble that he could make no sensible response.
‘You do not seem well,’ said the pastor softly. ‘Are you sick in any way, my friend? You are not German, I think.’
Anthony spoke haltingly. ‘I was slightly injured. An air raid, yesterday. Only a minor cut, it’s been dressed. It gave me a bit of a shock, I feel weak. I’ll be all right. I’ve got to continue my journey. I’m a Dutchman, an engineer. I’m moving from Silesia to a new job. In the Ruhr. Dortmund.’
‘Sit here as long as you wish, my friend.’
The pastor moved towards the east end of the church where a woman with a broom, bucket and dusters had appeared and seemed to be busy.
Anthony closed his eyes
Anna Langenbach generally visited Herr Proser, the Pastor of Kranenberg, on Fridays. Proser was an excellent man. She had always appreciated his quiet, sceptical discretion. Sometimes he would say, ‘These are difficult times, Frau Anna,’ words in themselves innocuous, banal. He would hold her hand for a moment as they exchanged greetings, his eyes kind as they looked into hers, his mouth drawn with sympathetic feeling above his absurd little goatee beard. They understood each other. He would say,
‘Is all well at the school?’
‘I think so.’
‘The enthusiastic Fraülein Wendel is well, I hope? A woman of strong convictions!’
They would smile at each other. Anna had never known him other than practical, sensible and self-effacing in any human dilemma. She attended divine service at Kranenberg on alternate Sundays, and on intermediate Fridays would generally try to call at the Pastor’s house, to exchange a few words, to leave a package of garden produce in the right season. They would talk briefly, comprehendingly. The contact was comforting. So it was on Friday, 24th November.
‘Is Frau Klarsen all right, cleaning the church as she should, Herr Proser? I know she’s lost her husband in Russia, poor woman, doesn’t know if he’s alive or dead. Is she managing to do her work, in spite of it? You know her sister works at Langenbach – a great talker.’
‘They are both great talkers, Frau Anna! Frau Klarsen is working as hard as ever. A conscientious woman, despite her tongue. She’s in the church now. I was talking to her ten minutes ago.’
‘I’d better have a word.’ Proser nodded.
‘She will appreciate that. It’s hard to find helpful things to say – and one has had to try to do it so often in these years. You have the gift, Frau Anna. You can quieten the heart’s pain with a word. Your presence would help anyone.’
Anna was touched. ‘I wish that were true.’
Proser stood up. ‘The church is open. You may also find a young Dutchman sitting there – he’s resting! The poor fellow was slightly wounded in an air raid yesterday, and arrived here by train feeling rather the worse for wear. He says he’s all right. He’s an engineer – on the way to the Ruhr. I told him I didn’t mind how long he sits – he’s been over an hour already, if he’s still there! I told Frau Klarsen to let him be.’
‘A Dutchman?’
‘Yes, he’s travelling to a new job. And, do you know, he went to Schloss Langenbach once – as a tourist. Before the war. At least I think he visited the Schloss, from the way he seemed to know something about it.’
‘We used to have many tourists asking to see the house, on Sundays in the summer.’ Anna sighed. Those days seemed far away, the coincidence uninteresting.
Anna found Frau Klarsen polishing brass work on the staircase up to the pulpit. She was working with ferocious energy. Anna spoke understanding, consolatory words.
‘Ah, well, Frau Anna, there are plenty like me. As long as it’s doing some good, that’s the important thing.’ Frau Klarsen cried a little, quietly and then took up her cloth again with an angry growl of contempt for her own weakness. Anna patted her shoulder, shook her hand strongly and moved down the dark aisle of the church toward the west door. There was Herr Proser’s Dutchman, very still. She could not see his face in the shadows. She paused as she passed him sitting several places in from the aisle. Was the pastor right that his wound was superficial, nothing to prevent a long journey? She hoped so, poor fellow. She glanced in his direction. He turned his head and spoke. A whisper.
‘Anna.’
It was Anna’s turn to feel the faintness of astonishment and terror. He whispered again, without moving –
‘Anna!’
Anna, hardly knowing what she was doing, turned and sat in a pew behind him and a few feet away. She looked at the altar.
‘God. Beloved and all-comprehending God,’ she said soundlessly. ‘Be with me now. Be with me now.’
Chapter 21
It had been in the spring of 1944 that Frido, on leave at arzfeld, had last seen Marcia. Marcia and Lise had been about to start their grim adventure, to move east, to a hospital in Silesia.
Frido had put his arm round Marcia on a walk during his last afternoon. He started, nervously, to talk as Marcia had never heard him talk before.
‘Marcia – all the time, in Berlin, I can see you if I close my eyes. I watch your face, a little flushed, eyes so bright, that little bit of hair running down your forehead, teasing your right eye –’ He was pretending to laugh, but his voice shook.
‘Darling Frido. Perhaps you’ll be able to visit us.’
How unlike Werner he is, Marcia thought, while feeling enormous affection for him. Frido talked little these days, and never before about his own thoughts or emotions.
In April, the girls moved east.
Berlin
10th December, 1944.
‘Dearest Marcia,
In January, in the New Year, I will have a few days leave. I wish, instead of going to Arzfeld, to pay a short visit to Silesia, to visit you and Lise. I can get a permit to travel. I know the area where you work, I have even been to the village where your hospital is! And I think of January all the time, because one hope I take with me to bed every night, and when I wake in the mornings I shake this pet hope and wake it up and keep it with me all day – bicycling to work, at my office in the Bendlerstrasse, in the evenings. It is the hope that one day, before too long, I will see you again.
This is my favourite small hope – to see you again not with the eyes of imagination, but alive, warm, real. But this hope has a big sister, a grander hope which I also take with me wherever I go, and keep by me day and night.
This grander, more important hope is that one day, Marcia, I may be allowed to love you, and succeed in making you love me. Ever since I first saw you at your own home, at Bargate, do you remember? Ever since I saw you then, so young, so mischievous, so lovely, I have wanted you for myself. Of course, when Werner loved you, became your fiancé, it was impossible for me to think like that. I loved my brother. After he was killed I dared to think like that again, in spite of Rudberg, whom perhaps you thought you loved, in spite of others maybe – I dared to think like that again. I have to tell you this, Marcia, before I see you in January. I have to write it down. I have thought about it and I can do no other.
One day this nightmare we are living through will pass and it will be morning. I may not see that day – there are reasons why I say that. I have lost recently some dear friends. It is a difficult, dangerous time. But the morning will come, and just in case I am here when it comes I am not going to turn my big hope away. I shall find a way of getting word to you when I know for certain about my leave. Tell Lise everything. It gives me joy
that you two are together. And do not be angry with me for what I write.
Now, Marcia, I am going to entrust a secret to you. It is not my secret, but I am allowed to tell you if I think it right. There is a piece of knowledge which should not be lost. If something were to happen to Anna Langenbach and to me as well, it would be lost unless somebody else knows. You are the right person to know.
You are very fond of Anna, rightly so. She is also fond of you. But what you do not know is that her son, little Franzi, is not the son of her late husband, Kurt Langenbach. He is the son of your own brother, Anthony Marvell.
They were lovers, he and Anna, when she was in England before the war. Franzi is his son, born after Kurt Langenbach was killed. Franzi may inherit the property of his so-called grandfather, but he is not a Langenbach. He is your nephew.
Kurt Langenbach was a brave, clever man, but he was a bad husband to Anna. He treated her without feeling. He had no gentleness in his character. I know that she came not to love him. It was the mistake of her life to marry him. She wanted security, she wanted to be able to help her mother, a wonderful woman, now dead. And Langenbach was an interesting man. She was entertained – dazzled, maybe. But I also know that Anna is a woman of very high character. If she were unfaithful to her husband it could only be because she felt that he, himself, had broken their contract by his behaviour: and because she loved another with her whole heart. That other was your brother, Anthony.
Anna told me all this long ago – only me. She wished me to know because, if something happened to her, she wanted another person to know the truth. She paid me a great compliment. She said she knew, whatever the circumstances, I would act rightly in the matter.
She said to me, “If at any time you think it right you can tell Marcia Franzi is her nephew.” And I think now I should do so, because my own future is so uncertain, just at present. I shall, naturally, not entrust this letter to the post – with all that means – but will take advantage of the fact that an officer of this branch, a trusted colleague, Captain Hoffmann, is visiting the exact area of Silesia where your hospital is in the next few days and has undertaken to deliver the letter to the hospital personally!
I kiss my little sister and I must now end by writing the three simple words which this long letter has tried to convey to you – I love you!
Frido.’
‘“Not entrusted to the post – with all that means!” “My own future uncertain! Lost recently some dear friends!” He certainly has – still, there’s not a great deal to help us here, Herr Sturmbannführer.’
Egon Schwede looked at his subordinate grimly.
‘I don’t agree!’
‘“This nightmare we’re living through” – it’s defeatist stuff, certainly, disgusting for an officer of course, but …’
‘That’s only part of it, you idiot. The letter stinks of disaffection. But we already know all about von Arzfeld – he’s only where he is in case he can still give us a few heads. No, look at this so-called secret he tells this girl! And don’t forget she’s English, sister of an English soldier!’
‘But that was gone into, wasn’t it? She was going to marry this one’s brother. She’s nursing now, not far from here.’
Schwede brushed this aside. ‘Times have changed. We’ve been betrayed by too many of these so-called gentlemen, this scum. We’re more vigilant now. But it doesn’t matter whether she’s English or not. Look at the “secret” as he calls it!’
His companion, Sturmführer Molde, looked.
‘He’s been concealing a serious criminal offence. This woman, this cousin of his, Langenbach, has been breaking the law in the most shocking way. She’s been pretending that an illegitimate child – by a foreigner, mind, who may be a Jew or have Jewish blood for all anyone knows – pretending that this child is the son of a dead officer of the Wehrmacht. It’s incredible! And Arzfeld, a German officer has been concealing this. He’s guilty of connivance.’
Molde nodded subserviently. He remained unconvinced. He said, ‘All the same, Herr Sturmbannführer, I wish we had a clearer reference to his relations with some of the others. After all, we reckon Arzfeld’s own guilt can be established already. The argument for not finishing with him was that he might still give something away. There are a lot of gaps to fill in and we’re dealing with a conspiracy against the Reich. This letter is all about their miserable private lives.’
‘It all hangs together,’ said Schwede. ‘It’s evidence of a criminal conspiracy. It shows these people up for what they really are – immoral, devoid of any principle, false to every German idea –’
He choked. Molde was looking again at his own copy of Frido’s letter.
‘Do we allow the letter to reach its destination?’
‘Of course we do, you fool! What would Hoffmann say if it didn’t arrive? Hoffmann’s doing his duty and we want to keep Arzfeld trusting him. It was Hoffmann who tipped us off he was up to something in July, remember? We owe something to Hoffmann.’
‘When will Arzfeld be pulled in?’
‘When the Gestapo judge it right. They have great experience,’ said Schwede sententiously, ‘in the difficult matter of exactly when and how to bring criminals to justice. But I suspect that this so-called secret he has been keeping will help, when they decide to pull him and crack him. He won’t be expecting it. It will give them something to ring the changes with – swing from that to his relations with Stauffenberg and the rest of the swine, and back again. You need variety in interrogation, and surprise. Oh, we’ll have his head all right! And screw a good deal out of him before, I wouldn’t wonder!’
Schwede tried to sound dispassionate, but as he reflected on the contents of Frido’s letter he felt jealous and uncontrollable fury. And to think that he had been offered the chance of returning to his own Gau in Lower Saxony after Christmas, probably in a more senior position! If it would serve the Reich he should accept the offer. He should indeed!
Molde reached for a folder. A thought struck him.
‘Herr Sturmbannführer, you spoke of the woman – the one with the child – as a cousin of his – of Arzfeld’s. The letter doesn’t refer to her as a cousin.’
A nerve twitched in Schwede’s forehead. ‘I thought he wrote of her as a cousin,’ he said gruffly. ‘Why does she confide in him if he’s not a relation? Anyway, it’s not important.’
‘It’s near your own home and former place of duty, of course, isn’t it? I imagine you know of these people.’
Schwede’s mind went back to his one encounter with Major Kurt Langenbach, to the latter’s arrogant smile, his unconcealed contempt for the pretensions of the little Nazi brewery manager, the dismissive tone in which he said, ‘Schwede, isn’t it?’ Schwede adjusted his memory.
‘Major Langenbach,’ he said to Molde softly, ‘was a close friend of mine. A true hero. One should never allow personal feelings to affect duty, but I can tell you my shame on behalf of my dead friend is hard to set aside. Now get on with your work!’
Anthony was lying on a mattress on the floor in an attic at Schloss Langenbach. He had only blurred recollections of how he got there. He remembered moving from a church, every step a painful, uncertain adventure, beside Anna into a wet street beneath a grey sky. Somehow he had then found himself stretched in the back of a small farm cart. Then there had been pain again, clip-clop-clip-clop, that had surely gone on for hours. Anna’s voice was whispering, ‘stand – not for long’. Then her arm had been round him – a steep, winding stair. He thought he’d said, ‘I can’t do it,’ and she had said fiercely, ‘You must, I can’t carry you.’ He remembered saying at one point, ‘I’ll sit down for a little,’ and Anna, he was certain, had hissed ‘NO!’ and made him drag his torment and his fever on and on, up and up. He didn’t know how long ago that was. Nor how much had happened, how much was dream. But today, whenever today was, he felt clear-headed and able to think lucidly.
Anna had saved him and hidden him. She had also nursed him. He reached
down to his thigh. It was efficiently bandaged. He felt weak but he knew he was recovering. He also felt extremely hungry. He didn’t suppose it would be sensible to try to get up but he wished there were less of a draught. He looked at his surroundings.
The attic was huge and dusty. It had obviously long been used as a storeroom for unwanted furniture, boxes, antique luggage and broken harness. There were several skylights, and it seemed a bright day, for pools of sunshine lay at intervals on the wooden floor. The exposed roof beams and rafters were immense. Anthony coughed. He saw the dust swirling in the sunbeams that struck the nearest skylight.
At that moment there was the sound of a door opening. He knew that step already, as it approached where he lay.
‘Anna!’ He found that he could speak, though weakly. ‘Oh Anna! It wasn’t a dream! It’s you!’ He felt too feeble to worry about what terms they met on – enemy, lover, captor, saviour. His eyes moved over her face like fingertips.
She knelt by the mattress. In the forthcoming weeks they always murmured – the size of the place and the solidity of walls and floors meant that to whisper was unnecessary, but it was unwise, too, to raise the voice. He took her hand.
Anna had a handkerchief bound round the head. She looked, as she always did, both supremely efficient and very beautiful. She left her hand in Anthony’s and smiled at him.
‘You are better. You are different today. The fever has gone completely.’
‘Anna, where exactly am I?’
‘You are in one of the attics at Langenbach. The east attic to be precise. It is a storeroom, as you can see, and nobody visits it but me.’ She explained to him in a matter-of-fact way, that every visit to dress his wound, to care for him, to bring water or supplies had had to be made at night – or, at the earliest, in the evening.
‘The village school occupies part of the floor below, the first floor. My mother-in-law never moves from her own room off the hall. She can no longer walk. I have a girl who does most of what’s needed in the kitchen and two women who work here by day, cleaning. They live in the village. They would at once know if you were in a bedroom. I couldn’t conceal it. But they never come up here.’
