The City of Fading Light

by Jon Cleary

  “What is their plan?”

  Lutze shrugged; he wasn’t supposed to know everything. “Kill the Fuehrer? I’m afraid I have to take the women to headquarters. Herr Carmody—”

  Carmody’s mind had been slipping out of gear; suddenly it was working again. “Lutze, there is a plot! I don’t know who’s involved, but I know where it’s going to happen.”

  Lutze, who had for a moment looked regretful at the way things had turned out, abruptly looked sharp. “Where? Why didn’t you tell—”

  “I’m not going to tell you now, not unless we make a deal. Let the women go on that train, and I’ll take you where I think there’s someone about to kill the Fuehrer.”

  “I don’t have to make bargains, Herr Carmody—”

  “You do if you want to save the Fuehrer in time. Come on, Lutze, for Christ’s sake!” The clock was ticking away above his head. “It’s true—I swear it! Let them go and I’ll make you a hero!”

  His voice had risen; Cathleen, Mady and Decker were staring at him. Decker, puzzled, stepped forward. “What’s he up to? What’s he saying?”

  Carmody ignored him; he stared at Lutze, figuratively grabbing him by the lapels. “Lutze, there’s no time to waste! Come on—please! Let them catch that train!”

  Lutze looked at Decker, but he didn’t seem to see him. He was an intelligent man, but so far all his decisions had been simple ones, based on the authority of the Gestapo. To take people into custody for questioning had never really needed decision; neither was it his decision what happened to those questioned after he had finished with them. But now he had been put out on a limb: he had no desire to be a hero, but he did not want to be a stupid villain, one who might have saved the Fuehrer but let him die for want of some courage. Decker would be no help: his thoughts never extended beyond the length of his arm.

  He blinked, glanced up at the clock, then looked back at Carmody. “They can go. They will have to hurry.”

  Carmody grabbed Cathleen and Mady, pushed them ahead of him out the door, yelling at the two policemen to clear a way for them through the crowd. The Schupos looked at Lutze, who nodded, then they started pushing their way through the throng, shouting and waving their batons; the crowd fell back in alarm, and Carmody and the two gasping women ran headlong down the platform as they heard the conductor blow his whistle. Carmody flung open the carriage door, pushed Mady in, then almost hurled Cathleen in after her. There was no time for kisses or embraces; the train was moving. He stepped back, watched it go, all at once feeling empty and alone.

  He saw Cathleen leaning out of the carriage window, waving and shouting something. It sounded like, I love you!, but it was lost in the hubbub of the crowd and the shriek of the train’s whistle as it went round the curve out of the station into the sunlight struggling to come through the lifting clouds.

  4Now,” said Lutze behind him, “for your part of the bargain, Herr Carmody.”

  II

  “Don’t worry,” said Romy. “They will both be with us this evening.”

  “Aren’t you going back to your husband?” said Melissa.

  “No. Oh, I shall have to go back to clear up all the messy legal bits, the divorce won’t be easy. But go back to live with him? No. He’ll be angry and hurt, but it will be his pride that’s hurt, nothing else. Oh, and his reputation. So will mine, for that matter. But it will all soon be forgotten, now that war has come. I remember what it was like in the last war. I was younger than you then, just eighteen when it broke out. Mistresses went to live with their lovers—they grabbed what happiness they could. Kurt and I will do the same. The priests won’t give me absolution for breaking my marriage vows, but that’s a sin I’ll have to carry. I love Kurt too much to turn my back on what time we have left.”

  They were in the Horch half way along the autobahn to Hamburg. They had said their goodbyes to the General and Helmut last night when the two men had left for the Englishman’s flat on the Unter den Linden. There had been no last-minute love-making, no memories of a last night to take with them. Helmut had been working on Lola und Ludwig till late; he had not arrived at the Hotel London till almost 11 o’clock. He and Melissa had gone for a walk, leaving his father and Romy some privacy for their farewell. Melissa, still not privy to what would keep the General and Helmut in Berlin till the next morning, had asked no questions; she was content now, satisfied that Helmut did indeed love her, that their marriage would be a success. She was still a little afraid of the General and if he wanted Helmut with him to do some business, she would not dare to ask what it was. Romy, for her part, had sent the General on his way with a silent prayer. He had assured her that he and Helmut would safely carry out their intention and escape without any danger, and she had done her best to take him at his word. What doubts she had she hid from him, from Helmut and from this innocent young English girl beside her in the car. Innocent in politics, if not in other ways.

  “The Albern estate is beautiful, you will like it. It will be a good place to spend the war.”

  “How long will it last, the war, I mean? A month, two months?”

  The Horch overtook a long convoy travelling west; young men, girded for war, waved and whistled at the two women as they swept by. “It depends what happens this morning,” Romy said without thinking.

  “This morning? What’s going to happen this morning?”

  Romy recovered: “In Poland, I mean.” Though the news had been inevitable, it had still been a shock when she had heard it at breakfast. “If the Poles see that Hitler is in earnest, they may sue for peace.”

  “If they don’t?” She was desperately trying to educate herself in international politics; Film Weekly and Photoplay had prepared her for none of this. Her baby, after all, would be an Albern: a von Albern. One ear listened to her own future name, Melissa von Albern; it beat anything the repertory stage manager had been able to dream up when he had taken Alice Hayfield’s virginity. The other ear listened to herself saying, “Will Helmut and the General have to go into the army?”

  “Of course,” said Romy, who had a sense of military, if not marital, duty.

  “Oh God,” said Melissa, and looked out at the flat farmlands under the patchy sunlight, trying to imagine what a battlefield would look like. She had always avoided war films.

  III

  Extracts from the memoirs of General Kurt von Albern:

  . . . This may be the last entry in my journal. I am writing it in the apartment of Heir Oliver Burberry on the Unter den Linden; writing it on The Times’ notepaper. Perhaps there is some irony there; one rarely appreciates the hands Fate deals us. I have always admired the English (though not their attitude at Munich last year); The Times has always been one of my favourite newspapers, though its editor, Dawson, contributed to the appeasement of Hitler. I understand, however, that Herr Burberry had only contempt for the ex-corporal. When our deed is done this morning I hope Herr Burberry will appreciate whence the shot came . . .

  Helmut is here with me; pride and pleasure threatened to weaken me last night. I hope that he, if not I, survives this. He deserves happiness with Melissa: there again is irony, that he should be marrying an English girl. I am not sure that she is worthy of the Albern name, but times and customs and people are changing and one can’t live forever in the past. Though, like most ageing men, I should like to . . .

  I said goodbye to Romy last night, but not in so many words. She must remain convinced that we will meet again back at The Pines. I long so much to spend the rest or my life with her. Yet if we do not succeed in our objective this morning, if war spreads and the English and French come in, I shall have to go back to duty. I cannot remain on the inactive list, not while the Fatherland is being threatened . . .

  When we heard the newsboys shouting in the street early this morning, we turned on Herr Burberry’s wireless, keeping it as low as possible, and heard the dreaded news. I was stirred by a mixture of anger and despair. Our history is studded with rulers who were unstable or eccent
ric; this Austrian is plain mad and his madness seems to have spread to those around him. The buffoon Goering, the obsequious Keitel: I speak only of the military ones. One can’t stoop to mention the others, the paramilitary thugs and the would-be diplomats . . .

  I looked out of the window of this living room a moment ago. The crowds are gathering in the street below waiting for the ride past of Hitler. The crowds are not as large as one would have supposed; that will disappoint the ex-corporal. Nor is there any air of excitement; we have the window open and there is no shouting, no buzz, as one would expect. How different from that first day of war in 1914! The atmosphere on that Saturday, 1 August, was electric. The streets were packed; bands played; people sang. I remember I was in a car with fellow officers; we raced up and down that very street outside, waving our caps and shouting as if we had all just graduated and been released from long years in some dull academy. Perhaps those people down there now have forgotten, under Hitler the Austrian, what it was like to be a true German . . .

  Helmut is getting impatient; he is walking about the apartment, unable to sit down for longer than two or three minutes. It is now 11 o’clock and Hitler should be coming soon. He was supposed to address the Reichstag in the Opera House at 10 o’clock; how long will he rant? Why are dictators always so long-winded? Are they trying to convince themselves as well as their captive audience? . . .

  IV

  Lutze and Decker had a car, a small Opel, but they and Carmody did not get far in it. They stayed on the north side of the Spree, then tried to drive south down Friedrichstrasse but were halted by police barriers. They left the car and, with Carmody leading the way, ran west along Dorotheenstrasse, then turned south on Kanonierstrasse. They ran down it, hearing the shouting beginning to rise, though it was not as tumultuous as Carmody had heard at other parades up the Unter den Linden. As he ran, his breath beginning to tear itself out of him, for he was more out of condition than he had suspected, his conscience, the bane of a newspaperman, also began to tear at him. He was sacrificing someone, a stranger, perhaps even someone he knew, for the sake of getting Cathleen and Mady away; in his heart there had been no other choice, but the mind, and not the heart, suffers from conscience. He prayed as he ran that the assassin, whoever he was, would not have turned up at the Burberry flat; or, if he had, he had panicked on finding the unlocked suitcase and the note and had fled. But had left the Mannlicher behind: that was important. It would be Carmody’s only piece of evidence that an assassination had been planned. If the assassin, or the gun, were not there, then he would be hauled off to Gestapo headquarters by Lutze and Decker and, worse, word would be sent to the frontier for Cathleen and Mady to be taken off the Copenhagen express. He suddenly developed a stitch in his side, but it was more like a knife of foreboding.

  “Please—!” Lutze had pulled up, was leaning against the wall; Decker leaned beside him, elbows holding his sides. “We must go slower—I can’t run any more—”

  Carmody tried to drag a breath deep into his lungs. “We may be too late—” He hoped so: time for Hitler to be shot, time for the assassin to get away.

  Lutze pushed himself off the wall. “Yes—yes. But let us walk—quickly—”

  They went on, drawing closer to the Unter den Linden, hearing the shouting. But it was still subdued; it seemed to come in isolated bursts, as if it were being orchestrated but the audience wasn’t responding. As they approached the broad Allee he saw some flags being waved above the heads of the crowd, but even they appeared to be waving listlessly, like washing in an apathetic breeze. He, Lutze and Decker came into the Unter den Linden, turned towards the block where Burberry’s flat was; they hurried along behind the crowd. The shouting had increased a little; there were groups of SS men who were orchestrating it. Carmody stopped for a moment, jumped up on a bench and saw the procession of cars coming up the wide street. There were two lead cars carrying the bodyguard, then Hitler’s big Mercedes and three other cars behind it carrying Goering and other officials he couldn’t see, and finally three cars with more bodyguard. Hitler was standing up in the Mercedes 770K, the armoured cap low down on his head, his arm going up and down in his limp salute; he looked grey and strained, sick even, his uniform, as always, seeming to hang on him. But he managed the occasional smile and each time he did, the SS groups would shout Sieg Heil!

  “Come on!” Lutze gasped. “Where is this place?” The front door of Burberry’s apartment building was open; the caretaker and his wife were on the steps, waving their small swastika flag. As Carmody and the two Gestapo men reached them, there was a sudden commotion in the crowd on this side of the street. There was a shout, a great concerted gasp, then a shot.

  V

  Helmut, standing at the living room window but hidden from the street by the lace curtains, saw the procession coming up the Unter den Linden, Hitler standing up in his big car and making a splendid target. Suddenly he knew the assassination was going to be successful; another fifty yards and Hitler would be dead and Germany saved! He felt himself tremble with excitement, hoped that his father, the man with the gun, would be more in control than he himself was.

  Along the hall in the bathroom General von Albern stood on the toilet seat, the Mannlicher aimed down at the narrow angle of street to be seen from the bathroom window. It was not the most dignified position from which to save one’s country; no one, least of all a general, looks comfortable standing on a toilet. But it gave the necessary elevation for the shot and, as Helmut, the Albern with a sense of humour, had said, it was perhaps symbolic.

  The General heard the shouting beginning to rise. He steadied the gun, sighted down the telescope; the 4-power Zeiss brought the street up till he felt he could reach out and touch it. He waited for the procession to come into the circle of magnification, for Hitler to appear in the crossed hairlines.

  “Two cars leading,” Helmut called from the living room. “Ten metres apart. Then him—standing up!”

  The General willed himself to relax, to take the sudden tension out of his trigger finger. He eased off the first trigger, poised his finger round the hair-trigger.

  Then he heard the shots down in the street, first the single shot and then the fusillade. His fingers involuntarily tightened on the hair-trigger and the Mannlicher kicked against his shoulder.

  VI

  Carmody, standing on the step beside the caretaker and his wife, about to go into the building, turned as he heard the commotion. Over the heads of the crowd lined along the pavement he saw the woman run into the middle of the road, behind the two lead cars and immediately in front of the car carrying Hitler. He saw her draw the gun and hold it up, then put it to her own head. There was a shot and she started to fall; before she hit the ground there was a fusillade of shots from the bodyguards in the second car in the procession. Her body convulsed, seemed to sidestep, then hit the ground and lay still. Carmody, horror-stricken, took a moment to recognize the woman: it was as if his mind wanted to deny what his eyes told him, that it was Meg Arrowsmith.

  The procession suddenly speeded up. The big Mercedes accelerated as Hitler, without a backward glance at the body in the roadway, abruptly sat down. The other cars roared away up the Unter den Linden behind it and police began running towards the sprawled still figure of Lady Margaret Arrowsmith.

  Lutze and Decker were pushing their way through the crowd, forgetting Carmody. He hesitated, wanting to run; but reason prevailed, there was nowhere to run to. He turned, looking back over his shoulder into the empty hallway.

  “You were too late, Herr Smith,” said the caretaker.

  “Too late?”

  “Weren’t you coming to Herr Burberry’s flat to get a good view of the Fuehrer as he went past?” The caretaker’s wife had pushed into the crowd to get a good view of the woman who had tried to shoot the Fuehrer, but he had to stay and guard his doorway.

  “Yes,” said Carmody. “I’ll go up there now. Those gentlemen who were with me—tell them where I am.”

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p; Lutze and Decker were out of sight beyond the humming, straining crowd. He went into the hallway and up the stairs as the caretaker’s wife came back to report to her husband what she had managed to see. Carmody was halfway up the stairs when he heard the door open on the top floor. He looked up and saw the two men come out of Burberry’s flat; both tall me, but unrecognizable against the bright square of the skylight in the roof on the stairwell. Then he looked down as he heard Lutze and Decker come into the lobby.

  “Herr Carmody!” Lutze’s shout boomed up the funnel of the stairwell.

  Carmody looked up. The two men on the top landing had disappeared; he had no idea where they had gone, but they were no longer there. “Here, Inspector! Come on up!”

  Lutze and Decker came running up the stairs, caught up with him as he reached the top floor. He glanced quickly around; there were three other doors besides Burberry’s opening off the landing; the two must have disappeared into one of them. He put the key into Burberry’s door, but it wouldn’t go in; there was a key already in it, on the inside. He looked at Lutze, who hadn’t missed the fact; then he turned the knob and opened the unlocked door and stepped aside, afraid that the two men might even have stepped back into the flat and were waiting for him and the Gestapo men with guns ready to blaze. But the flat was empty.

  The gun-case was open on the table in the living room, an opened box of cartridges beside it. Decker found the Mannlicher in the bathroom and brought it out. “One shot has been fired.”

  “We’ll probably find it in the woman,” said Lutze.

  I doubt it, thought Carmody. Whoever had been here in the flat would not have shot at Meg, not even out of anger or frustration at having had his assassination attempt foiled; he would have been making his escape as soon as possible. Carmody looked around the living room. Some sheets of The Times notepaper lay on the table beside the open case and the box of cartridges, but there seemed nothing else to suggest who had been here in the flat.