The Honest Spy

by Andreas Kollender

  Fritz went into the bedroom and slammed the door behind him. How could Marlene do that? Who did she think she was? He glared at his bed where he slept with her night after night. He heard the sound of something being slid along the floor. The strip of light below the door was obscured by something in the middle. Fritz reached down and felt that dry card stock he knew so well. It was the folder he’d pushed off the table. He picked it up and opened the door slowly. Marlene was standing before him, holding a pencil in front of her face.

  “I’m not betraying anyone anymore,” he told her.

  “You didn’t.”

  He flung the folder to the floor and twisted his foot on it like it was a cigarette butt. “No one can stop this slaughter.”

  “So the British and Americans shouldn’t even bother fighting, is that it?”

  “I don’t care.”

  “You’ve always cared, about everything.”

  He grabbed a chair, raised it above his head, and smashed it over the table. Pieces of wood sailed through the air, fell to the floor, and tumbled away. Marlene had thrown up her hands to protect her face. The sight of that shocked him. He had only wanted her to relent, to agree to leave him alone.

  “He was my best friend.”

  “He worked for the Nazis.”

  Her words sat between them like a stone.

  “Walter was no Nazi.”

  “I work for the Nazis too at Charité Hospital. You told me what you’re doing. You told me right after a man came up to us holding his dead daughter. And in that moment the world was saved a little. It was a tiny bit better.”

  “It’s over.”

  She went into the bedroom and locked the door. Fritz stared after her. How could she be so hard on him at a time like this?

  He gathered up the pieces of busted chair and laid them next to the oven. He considered opening the folder. What information did it hold? Details of yet more Jews being annihilated? Names of spies? Evidence of secret weapons?

  In those dramas Fritz’s mother read aloud to his father—and that Fritz himself later enjoyed reading—the writers often jumped back and forth between different characters’ points of view. In such a tale, it would have been possible to read what Allen Dulles was doing now, or what was being said about the spy George Wood in Washington, to see just who was putting what actions into motion as a result of Fritz’s treachery. But in real life, there was no such option. He had only his own limited perspective.

  Whenever Fritz thought about the possibility of one day writing down what he had done—or having someone else write it down for him—he hoped that he would be able to keep it all to one point of view. He would be sure to focus on the events of the war at a human level, something that could only work if the story was told from one person’s perspective. Anything else would be a lie, an amalgamation of events combined for the purpose of giving them meaning—an approach that might be artistic, but was false.

  He had killed Walter and Käthe. If Käthe hadn’t killed herself first, would he have one day told her the truth about what he’d done? Fingers trembling, he lit up a cigarette. And then there was Horst. If Horst somehow made it through the war unscathed, would he be able to tell Horst what he’d done? Look him in the eyes? And what about the girlfriends and wives of the U-boat crew members whose mouths were ripped open and filled with water because of his treachery? How would he face them? Loving people. Human hearts.

  “And me too, Fritz,” said a blood-smeared image of Walter. Walter pointed at Fritz’s chest, kept coming closer. “And my Käthe.” Fritz threw his hands to his face. Do what is right.

  He knocked on the bedroom door.

  “Marlene? I love you. I just can’t do it anymore.”

  “Then come here to me, Fritz. Get in here.”

  He didn’t see her. He only heard the covers rustling, like footsteps across a forest floor covered with leaves. He stood in the darkness and tried to make out her shape in the bed. A wave of her hair shimmered faintly; the light caught a part of her hip. She sat up, one shoulder higher than the other.

  Fritz felt completely lost and harbored no hope of that changing. The Allies were advancing up Italy and the Eastern Front could not be held, yet because of the Nazis’ lunacy and Hitler’s rabid and relentless mobilization, the dying and mutilation would continue for a long time. What people were finally hearing about the extermination camps, where Jews were being abused and killed, was beyond comprehension. Yet here he sat, holding in his arms a naked woman who, just a few days ago, had been as happy as a child when he brought her a pear, a simple piece of greenish-red fruit. The world was completely coming apart at the seams. Fritz didn’t know what he was supposed to do. It seemed absurd to him that he was even living at all, that in this moment he could feel Marlene’s breath rising from beneath her smooth ribs. He slipped out of his own body a moment, hovered above it, and returned only when Marlene sat up straight and kissed him deeply on the mouth.

  When he came home to her at the end of the day, she had the table cleared off and a sharpened pencil set out for him. He responded by picking up the pencil and placing it on the windowsill. Night after night.

  “There are no innocent people anymore, Fritz,” she told him. “What will Mr. Churchill, whom you respect so much, say when the war is over and he sees the bombed-out cities? When he learns how many civilians were killed during the air raids? In this time, it is impossible to live completely right.”

  He fumed at his indecisiveness, at his apathy, and at his agony over every day of the war passing just like the last. He detested himself in the way he had during those first few years in Hitler’s Berlin—though, at least back then, he had begun to feel the first sparks of a fire igniting inside of him. Now, he felt paralyzed by the deaths of the Braunweins and by his fear that von Günther was watching him. He was beaten. He knew, logically, that one should never admit defeat, but his heart felt strongly otherwise.

  He could not sleep, and he often became sick when he ate. His nerves were strained nearly to the breaking point. Von Günther, quite correctly, reprimanded him for making careless mistakes and told him things couldn’t go on like this. “Think of the men at the front,” he told Fritz. “They’re losing friends too. Don’t let yourself go. Pull yourself together!”

  “That young man from the Transmitting and Deciphering Department came to my office recently,” von Günther said one day. “Müller.”

  “A pain in the neck. What did he want from you?”

  Von Günther didn’t answer.

  “Herr Ambassador, I could see how nasty Müller was even before leaving South Africa. He is utterly lacking in any sort of class.”

  “That’s not the impression I got.”

  “With all due respect, Herr Ambassador, Müller and I butted heads a few times in Cape Town. The boy is insolent and thinks he’s entitled to things he’s not.”

  “That’s enough, Kolbe. I’m completely capable of judging for myself. I am not at all pleased at the way the Braunweins’ deaths have knocked you so far off course. I’m telling you for the last time: pull yourself together.” He rapped on Fritz’s desk with his knuckles.

  “Listen to me,” he continued. “You have a thoroughly attractive woman by your side. Indulge yourself. Know what I mean, yes? You must understand me. It’s not as if I don’t know how bad it is to lose a friend. And his wife, killing herself? Well, I’ve heard of that too. Horrible. I’m not one of those National Socialists who dares to make nasty comments about that poor woman. I don’t do such things, Kolbe, and you know that. Walter Braunwein died for the Führer, Volk, and Fatherland. His wife as well. That’s the way I see it.”

  I should shoot you dead, Fritz thought.

  “Yes sir, Herr Ambassador,” he said.

  “Müller says that you did not behave like a committed National Socialist on your journey from Africa back to the Reich.”

  “Complete nonsense, with all due respect. Who painstakingly organized and carried out the consulate’
s move out of Cape Town? Who made sure everything came out in tip-top shape? Müller? No. I was the one. You should send Müller to the front, sir.”

  “Müller is still exempt. He’s too skinny to fight.” Von Günther laughed. “Unlike you. Rumor has it you have something of a knack for boxing.”

  Fritz wished he could respond like a real man, wished he could say, You don’t wanna pick a fight with me, or Go ahead and try it. He kept silent.

  Von Günther waved off the subject and rubbed at his broad chin. “You know that we have to remain tough in the East. That greatness I speak of depends upon it. It’s ultimately about combining the abstract and the concrete, all in the service of . . . Well?” He pointed at Fritz and smiled.

  “Greatness, Herr Ambassador.” Fritz took a deep breath, trying to suppress his urge to retch. Under the table he pressed one foot into the other.

  “And in taking part in greatness.” Von Günther nodded, pursing his lips. “There are reports that on the Eastern Front, some officers are still expressing misgivings about the way we deal with Jews and partisans. Not just in private letters from officers and enlisted men that are intercepted and must be censored—no, there remain those who dare to criticize openly. So. Von Ribben-snob drafted a document that again expresses the Foreign Office’s full approval of measures being taken in Russia. He would like our branch here, as intermediary between the Wehrmacht and the Office as a whole, to add our endorsement. I wrote the piece myself. Now, as you well know, I’m frequently away on official business. So, let’s put you down as signing On behalf of and put it under your name.”

  Von Günther pulled the page from inside his jacket, unfolded it, and placed it on the desk before Fritz.

  “Give me your signature, Kolbe.”

  “But I’m not at all authorized.”

  “Oh, Kolbe, it’s perfectly fine.” Von Günther unscrewed his fountain pen, laid the shiny black cap on the desk, and handed the pen to Fritz. “To counter any pangs of doubt I might have. Sign your name to the document below. You are an insignificant official. Signing won’t cost you anything—no one will look at this signature. Besides, my good man, you have such a sloppy scrawl that no one could actually decipher your name anyway.”

  “Herr Ambassador, I’m not permitted to—”

  “You’re refusing, Kolbe?” von Günther cut in. “You’re refusing an order from the Führer?”

  “No. No, it’s just that—”

  “You do agree with me, though, that our Lebensraum policy in the East means that areas must be seized using all our greatness of force, and that such areas should be cleared out for the German Volk? You do also agree with me that this requires special methods which send the clear message that, yes, drastic measures must be taken. Or do you see things differently?” Von Günther held the fountain pen closer to Fritz’s hand. “Well?”

  Fritz lit a cigarette. He knew that if he hesitated too long, von Günther would bellow and order him to obey—and would eventually enforce the command. He let this, his last shred of freedom, linger a moment. Then he took the pen and signed. He tried to disguise his handwriting but it didn’t work. Von Günther patted him on the shoulder.

  “Now, I must go. I have a visitor arriving any moment. A lady. She’s an acquaintance who is coming to see me about a few, um, concerns. As for what we’ve just discussed, let’s not breathe a word about it, Kolbe.” Von Günther held up the page with Fritz’s signature. “Betray a secret to a woman and it’ll be all over the papers the next morning,” he said.

  At the door to his office, von Günther turned around one more time.

  “We really should talk about private matters now and then, yes? Most people hardly know each other, even when they see each other every day.” Von Günther laughed. “Don’t look so peeved about it, Kolbe. Go to that lady of yours. Take her. And this here . . .” He held the page in the air again, waving it, a glowing white. “This here? Bah. It’s nothing.”

  The Braunweins were dead; music-loving Havermann was dead. Apart from Marlene, Fritz had no one left to talk to. When they were together, Fritz tried to speak about nice things, about books or films or the outdoors. He told Marlene about the long conversations he used to have with Consul Biermann in Madrid.

  “Biermann was why you came back to Berlin, right?” Marlene asked.

  He was, Fritz told her. He could still hear Biermann screaming at him on the telephone.

  Marlene had lots of work friends at Charité Hospital. She was an open sort of person and often tried to steal away from the chaos and misery for a few minutes to rest on a stool with a nurse or lean against a wall out in the courtyard and smoke a cigarette. Every two weeks she’d visit her friend Gisela, who told her plenty about her erotic adventures, which Marlene then passed on to Fritz, uncensored. Fritz wondered if that was all right with Gisela, and Marlene said Gisela didn’t mind one bit. Fritz, on the other hand, was considered a lone wolf at his office—polite as ever, but more insulated than before. That was just fine with him.

  Still, Marlene proposed he get on his old bicycle and pedal over to see the Biermanns. Talk with them, she said, see somebody different. Have a simple chat. It would do him good.

  The Biermanns lived in a four-room apartment in Charlottenburg; they’d rented out one of the rooms to a mother and daughter whose place had been bombed. The apartment smelled like coffee as Fritz looked over the spines of books on shelves that filled one whole wall. A private library—such a thing did still exist! Frau Biermann offered Fritz a seat while he waited. When Consul Biermann entered the room, Fritz greeted him with a heartfelt handshake reaching all the way back to their time together in Madrid and Africa.

  “You look terrible, Herr Kolbe.” The old man lowered himself into an armchair. “So nice of you to come visit us.”

  “It’s grown rather quiet around here,” Frau Biermann said. Fritz took the tray holding the coffee pot and cups from her, and she leaned her cane against the sofa and sat down.

  “Would you be so kind?” Frau Biermann gestured at the tray. Fritz poured the coffee and handed them their cups. No sound could be heard from the street below; the traffic in Berlin was disappearing.

  In this apartment Fritz felt a little like he was in Switzerland—on seemingly neutral ground. It felt good to sit here and drink a cup of coffee and look into these trusty old faces. The bond between the Biermanns was different than the one between Dulles, Priest, and Greta, but it was just as strong, made of love rather than professional duty. Biermann and his wife would stay with each other until the very end, Fritz knew, something he’d heard people say about couples onboard the Titanic.

  “Someone was here,” Biermann said. “A colonel. He was making insinuations, asking about my connections in the Foreign Office. He said something about treason—a putsch—against the great you-know-who, that monster. We’re too old for such things. Besides, I have to think of my wife.”

  “Herr Biermann, please, there’s no need for you to justify yourself.”

  “When should one justify oneself, Herr Kolbe, if not in times like these?” Frau Biermann asked. Her thin hand was grasped around the knob of her cane.

  “Words, Herr Kolbe,” Biermann said. “What use were all our diplomatic efforts? All those words, all our fine talk? Sure, we were over six thousand miles away then. But diplomacy—the great tradition of diplomacy—is the exact opposite of what’s happening here. We have failed all the way down the line. What’s happening is absurd. Why even have a Foreign Office in this Germany? For what purpose? We should’ve quit the service back in 1933.”

  Sure, we should’ve, Fritz thought. This wasn’t what he had come here for. He didn’t want to be polite anymore. He wanted to tell Biermann that he was disappointed in him and point out that the consul hadn’t been able to keep any of the promises he’d made in Africa. But wasn’t there enough goddamn shit piling up all around him already?

  “Nice books you have there,” he said.

  No one spoke for a time.


  The consul pounded feebly on the arm of his chair. “Should have done it back in 1933,” he said.

  “But we didn’t, Herr Consul.”

  Biermann looked out the window.

  “Anyway, what if one did do something,” Fritz said, “and people ended up getting hurt?”

  The wall clock ticked. Frau Biermann stared at her cup, lost in thought. “It’s the same old story, Herr Kolbe,” she said. “One always blames oneself.”

  “Walter and Käthe Braunwein are dead.”

  “Oh. Oh, I’m so very sorry,” the old man said.

  “Käthe was so lovely, wasn’t she?” Frau Biermann asked.

  “She shot herself when she learned of her husband’s death.”

  “If you were to go, I’d follow you,” Biermann said to his wife. The elderly couple gazed at each other. Fritz knew they would never leave this city again.

  “Well,” Biermann said, “I am very sorry I convinced you to return to this country. That was one of the biggest mistakes of my life. Yet I do hope you can forgive me. And I fervently hope you survive all this madness here.”

  “Perhaps there is something good to my being here. Good—and bad.”

  “Good and bad, it’s the—”

  “No more philosophy,” Fritz said. He heard Frau Biermann draw a sharp breath.

  “But there’s still music,” Biermann conceded. “I have a lovely recording of Beethoven.”

  “Music can never hurt,” Frau Biermann added. She cranked up the boxed gramophone, slid a record from its paper sleeve, and put it on the turntable. She lowered the tone arm, knowing just the right groove for the chorus . . .