White Lies

by Rudolph Bader

  WHITE LIES

  RUDOLPH BADER

  First published in 2018 by

  AG Books

  www.agbooks.co.uk

  Digital edition converted and distributed by

  Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  © Copyright 2018 Rudolph Bader

  The right of Rudolph Bader to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Part One

  One

  When their mother called them to leave their games in the garden and come back into the house, it was the beginning of something so unbelievably meaningful, so big and yet so problematical, so influential, so determining, so full of traumatic consequences and so absolutely shattering in their lives. At least that was what bothered his mind and sometimes his conscience through the later years of his more mature life.

  “Boys! Where are you? Come back in, I want you here in the kitchen at once!”

  This call wouldn’t have been such an unusual event - their mother often called them in from the garden, usually when lunch was ready - had it not been for the time of the day and for her tone. Manfred understood at once that there had to be some important matter, much more important than an announcement of potato soup and sausages. He did not know about Thomas, who was older but somehow less sensitive, but Manfred thought he could detect not only the importance of the matter at hand, but equally a slight concern or even worry in his mother’s voice. It was her wording as well as her forced tone.

  When the boys arrived in the frame of the kitchen door, their mother was wiping her hands on her apron. She was such a beautiful woman, always pale and sometimes a little frail. But she maintained the authority required of all German mothers of her generation. A role, Manfred sensed, which did not always come easy to her. She seemed nervous. “I want you in the house because I just had a message from your father. He’ll be home earlier tonight because he has some great news. He asked us to prepare for a celebration.”

  “What are we celebrating?” Thomas asked.

  “Shall we get presents?” Manfred wanted to know.

  “I don’t think so. But you will see. I don’t want to spoil your father’s joy in telling you himself. He’ll expect us to be ready for him when he comes home. So, quick, quick! We haven’t got a lot of time. Thomas, you take this brown purse and run to Frau Helmbrecht’s shop round the corner. Here’s a list of things I need.”

  “But Mama, Father can bring all these things from his shop.”

  “Don’t argue, Thomas. He’s not coming from his shop, he’s coming straight back from a meeting in town. And you, Manfred, you get the fine tablecloth from the bottom drawer in the sideboard and the fine silverware and lay the table for dinner in the dining-room. Don’t forget the Bohemian crystal glasses; they’re at the back of the middle shelf. Off you go, boys. I want your father to be proud of you.”

  What could it be that was so important? Manfred was puzzled and a little apprehensive. He knew he couldn’t always rely on his parents’ word. Especially Father liked to announce things in a theatrical manner, usually standing in the middle of their living-room, so that you expected some really great things to follow. But more often than not, things turned out to be some silly news that only concerned the grown-ups. For the boys it was often a disappointment. He remembered the flamboyant announcement only just over a year ago, when it turned out Father had merely decided to refurbish his shop. Why should that have been of any concern to the boys? Sometimes he asked himself why parents did what they were doing. This puzzle, or rather the extended version of this question, was to become one of the repeated enigmas to occupy his adult mind: Why do people do what they do? He puzzled over the logical concept that there had to be reasons, ideas, objectives, motivations behind people’s actions.

  * * *

  Of his early childhood he would remember very little in later life. It was a peaceful period of unspoilt happiness, and he would remember it as a time of permanent summer with clear blue skies and comforting temperatures. He particularly liked to listen to the blackbirds in spring and to the rasping sound of the crickets in July. Despite the blissful nature of those early years, one of the earliest memories concerned his brother’s attempt at superiority. His brother Thomas, who was two years older and whom he admired in every possible way, was convinced that he was responsible for their games, their choice of trees to climb and the formation of all their friendships.

  “Now, look here, Freddy,” he admonished him from time to time when his reign appeared to be questioned, “I’m a lot older than you. So, it’s only natural you should have to obey my orders. It’s the way of the world.”

  Though he hated to be called Freddy, Manfred usually went along with this order of things. After all, this arrangement also had its advantages. Thomas’s spirit of adventure and courage was far greater than his own, which meant that the older boy initiated most of their more daring games and led his younger brother into many an adventure that Manfred wouldn’t have missed for anything in the world once he managed to look back after all had gone well. It certainly was the case with the huge oak that Thomas climbed first and that proved to become their look-out over several neighbours’ gardens. Under his leadership, the boys built what they considered their tree-house, which in time became Manfred’s favourite retreat, even long after his brother had lost interest in watching other people’s private activities in their back gardens. It was hardly a tree-house but rather a higgledy-piggledy accumulation of wooden pieces, boards, planks, rafters and the like which they could get hold of. The largest pieces came from a near-by building-site on the Galgenberg, appropriated on Thomas’s initiative and under his guidance.

  Thomas was tall for his age, with dark brown hair that hung down in wisps over his eyes when he moved his head too quickly. He didn’t seem to mind that, and his younger brother often wondered how anyone could live with his hair in his face most of the time. Their mother, who seemed to be quite relaxed about their appearances as long as they didn’t get into real trouble with any of the neighbours, also tolerated it and only very occasionally remarked that he might need another haircut. He was her first born, clearly her favourite, and she considered him very handsome even from childhood. It was true, he had a winning smile on his broad face with prominent cheekbones, his brown eyes were beautiful, although he would often keep them narrowed to two slits, which, together with his relatively broad nose, gave him a slightly Mongolian look. One of his classmates would later call him Genghis Khan when he wanted to annoy him. Thomas didn’t mind what he looked like, certainly not during his childhood. Puberty and adolescence were still far away.

  Manfred was different. In fact, he looked so different that people were often surprised to learn that they were brothers. He was a small boy, even small for his age, with very fair and curly hair, and with clear blue eyes. Also, he was rather shy and generally preferred to remain silent while all the other children fought over vocal supremacy. He just couldn’t see the point of raising his voice to convince others. He believed that truth and the
right way of things would always win in the end anyway. He knew he wasn’t his parents’ favourite child, and he accepted the fact that whenever there was a treat for only one of them it was always his brother who would get it. However, as he approached kindergarten age, he sometimes thought he would show them all one day. One day they would all see what he could achieve. He sensed that you didn’t need to shout when you wanted people to listen to you. There appeared to be enormous charisma and a capacity to exercise power over others in a quiet and even voice if you put enough energy and conviction into what you were going to say.

  Life in Thuringia in the 1920s was a strange experience, although the boys did not know this, being quite unaware of the social and political upheavals of the time when they attended the overcrowded kindergarten in Untermhaus, an older and more established quarter of their hometown of Gera. Their father explained to them why the area was called Untermhaus. It was because those streets were first developed and built up in the time after the Thirty Years’ War, in the 17th century, just below the castle - hence Unterm Haus - which dominated the valley. The Reussen Schloss obtained its name from the dynasty that had first built or at least first occupied it - in those days one never knew how legitimate such occupations were - and the name of course first means “Russians”. Later in life, Manfred would read that fascinating picaresque novel by the seventeenth-century writer Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen, enjoying those long Baroque names, that early novel set in the Thirty Years’ War, where the Russians were still called “Reussen”. When he discovered that so many years later, he remembered his father’s explanation. But already during his childhood, Manfred had heard many interesting facts and stories about the castle and the Reuss dynasty. Father often told them stories about the development of the town, the various achievements of its inhabitants and particularly of Heinrich Posthumus, the Reussen prince who was born after his own father’s death - a fact that Manfred found hard to believe - and who founded the first high school or “gymnasium” for the boys of the town, back in 1608. When he died in 1635 his sons tried to govern the town together, but they couldn’t prevent the Swedes from burning it down in 1639, which was why the town had to be rebuilt in the following decades. Manfred found himself reminded of that part of local history again and again throughout his life. Somehow, the period of the Thirty Years’ War and the atrocities committed in those days never left his consciousness completely.

  The town’s kindergarten in Untermhaus was a happy institution that allowed children of different ages to mix freely, so boys and girls from three to six played together very happily, and the young teacher managed to keep them in order very easily. After all, most children came from middle-class families that still kept up the old German virtues of strict obedience and military-like discipline. Thomas and Manfred were among the few children from more liberal-minded families. For them, kindergarten was great fun. At the time, it was the only such institution in Gera, and neither Thomas nor Manfred minded the fact that they had to walk the distance from their home on the Galgenberg all the way down and across the Elster to Untermhaus every morning and back again every afternoon. It took them about thirty-five minutes down and about forty-five minutes back up again. This was not only due to the geographical conditions but equally to the demands of their social life. Their house on the Galgenberg had only just been constructed, it was one of the first houses to be built in Ypernstrasse, sometime after the Great War, and it took well into the late 1930s for the remaining plots to be developed and built up. This meant that their home was cut off from most of their friends, up there on the Galgenberg, overlooking the town centre, almost like the Reussen Schloss, only on the other side of the valley. The area was to become a prime site of Gera in the 1930s, with National Socialist Party members having some of the finest villas built for themselves as long as their standing could afford it, and with Russian officers and administrators taking over after the Second World War. But at the time of Manfred’s childhood, the beautiful hill of the Galgenberg still consisted mainly of pastures and orchards, with the town’s cemetery further to the southeast on the slope of the hill.

  When their house was built, their father considered this the peak of his financial success. He was a jolly man with a bald head and a round belly who liked to laugh a lot. His name was Thomas, like his first-born son’s. His delicatessen business in the Sorge, Gera’s main shopping street, was thriving indeed. His shop was the first delicatessen in Thuringia to import spicy Italian sausages, caviar from Persia, graved lax from Norway and real Emmental cheese from Switzerland. He sold a range of first-class cold meats and cheeses from France and Italy, as well as a large selection of sausages from every corner of Germany. His Hungarian paprika sausages, his Polish quail’s eggs and his stuffed vine leaves from Greece created quite a stir among the wealthy merchants’ families in the area. Though he did not see himself as a political man, he found it hard to go along with most of the other citizens of the town, who seemed to have given up all national pride after the Versailles Treaty and displayed a lazy laissez-faire attitude when it came to political opinions. Thomas Weidmann was different. He strongly believed that Germany got such a bad deal after the War that it had become a national duty to hold one’s head up again. So, when the still reasonably respectable NSDAP approached him with their reformist views he was really taken with the visions of a once again proud and self-confident Germany.

  * * *

  When Manfred entered the dining-room dressed up for dinner, he felt uneasy because it was really too early for dinner. Why all this fuss over some news their father had to tell them? His parents often exaggerated things. They liked to make a big deal about things that seemed uninteresting or irrelevant to Manfred. So, their big announcements often fell flat in an awkward anti-climax. It wouldn’t be any different this time, he was quite sure. But then there was that undertone of apprehension and worry that he had detected in his mother’s voice. What was it going to be?

  Thomas joined him in the dining-room. Manfred, though in admiration of his elder brother, knew how much more gullible Thomas was, so he wouldn’t have any misgivings.

  “Here’s your father,” came Mother’s voice from the hall.

  Thomas Weidmann planted his portly figure in the middle of the hall carpet, placed his hat on the hat-rack, took off his raincoat and beamed at the prospect of his home and his family. The boys stepped into the hall and stood in front of their father, who didn’t give them his usual stern look, but produced a hardly perceptible smile. At least that was what it seemed to Manfred. Nevertheless, they did as was expected of them, standing still and upright in a row of two, like soldiers standing to attention in front of their officer. As usual, their father patted their heads, first Thomas’s then Manfred’s.

  “I am so proud of you boys, and today you can be proud of your father,” he announced in a booming voice. Then he placed a quick peck on his wife’s cheek, mumbling, “You look absolutely ravishing today, Elfriede.”

  “Well, let’s go to the dining-room first,” she suggested. “And listen, Manfred, you stop jerking your shoulder. It looks disrespectful.” She was right, of course. Manfred felt embarrassed about his bad habit of jerking his left shoulder whenever he was excited. He didn’t mean to be disrespectful. He just couldn’t help it.

  They marched off, and in the dining-room they took their positions for important announcements made by their stern father, fully confident that behind that stern façade there was a liberal mind with a capacity for irony and a healthy sense of humour. Father placed himself in front of the fireplace, one hand on the mantelpiece, the other hand behind his back, his jacket open, displaying his fine silk waistcoat and the gold chain of his pocket-watch dangling across his round belly; his family facing him in a row of three at a distance of more or less exactly one metre fifty. This theatricality, Manfred had perceived long ago, was meant to lend more weight to whatever their father had to communicate. Whereas hi
s mother and his brother seemed to be happy to go along with such a charade, Manfred couldn’t help feeling a little ridiculous. But he lacked the courage to do anything about it.

  “Well then, my dears. Today you can be proud of your father. And listen, boys, in decades to come you will remember this as a historic moment, a moment which marked the beginning of your family’s participation in the noble rescue and rehabilitation of your Fatherland.”

  He paused for a few seconds to let this sink in. Then he uttered a small puff through his rounded lips and continued.

  “Today your father has joined the Party. It is the party that will save us all from the humiliations of our enemies in the Great War. It is a party that will give us all back our self-respect and our national pride. Yes, boys, I have joined the NSDAP. Now, what do you say to that?”

  Manfred knew that no answer was called for. It was the usual rhetorical question at the conclusion of his father’s announcements in front of the fireplace.

  So, the Weidmanns celebrated their father’s historic decision and accepted it as the right step to be taken in such a volatile political climate. Manfred had no idea how his brother saw it, but he felt that such a step could mean many things he couldn’t explain yet. Mother’s nervous reaction seemed enough to sense some degree of danger, while Father’s attitude opened the door to endless possibilities.

  Over the following few years, everyone accepted the developments as inevitable. There was nothing one could do to influence the situation in the small town. To Manfred, it seemed that the authorities weren’t doing anything about the crowds of people loitering in the streets, the growing unrest over more and more unemployed men hanging around the town centre, smoking, talking in low voices, some of them shouting political slogans, others just staring down at the pavement in sad silence. But Manfred was just too young to understand. And while he could discuss practically everything else with Thomas, the political situation of the day was a topic which was always avoided between them.