by Chris Petit
There was a lot he still couldn’t make sense of. The section before he had lost consciousness remained a kaleidoscope of fractured images.
Morgen finally hurried in, altogether smarter, wearing what looked like a new suit. He sat down, didn’t bother to apologise, and behaved as though they had parted as normal the night before.
The dining room was starting to clear. Morgen looked at his watch. ‘Am I late?’
It required all his tact and charm to win the waitress round.
‘Are you all right?’ was all he asked Schlegel.
Morgen struck him as jittery. Nor could Schlegel understand the point of the meeting. Morgen appeared to have nothing to say and spent all his time looking around and fidgeting.
‘You don’t know what to do with your hands.’
‘What are you talking about?’ asked Morgen, belligerently.
‘You’ve given up smoking.’
‘Giving up. Very observant, Mr Detective.’
‘Short of the hotel messenger announcing it, I would say it’s obvious to everyone.’
Morgen raced through his breakfast, slurped his tea, sat back in expectation then remembered there was no cigarette to be had.
‘I must go,’ he said, half-rising.
‘For God’s sake, man, light up.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Then I’m going.’
‘Look at the state of my hands.’
Morgen sighed, reached into his pocket and put an unopened pack of cigarettes on the table.
‘Emergency supplies. Test of willpower. It works.’
‘If you won’t, I will.’
Schlegel reached for the packet and opened it. Morgen let out a groan.
‘Light?’ asked Schlegel.
‘No. My willpower isn’t that strong.’
Schlegel got matches from the waitress. The cigarette tasted foul.
‘You do this to torture me.’
‘Only to show you what a filthy habit it is.’
Morgen took the cigarette from Schlegel before he could stub it out.
‘One drag.’ The end sparked as he took in a huge lungful. ‘Two drags.’
Equilibrium restored, Morgen held court in the empty dining room.
Gersten was being talked of as though he were dead.
‘No body found but I am sure we haven’t heard the last. I suspect Gersten is a Nosferatu. The Youth have been dispersed for re-education and are being assigned to anti-aircraft batteries. Baumgarten is missing. Reitner must be bratwurst by now. Sepp was picked up in the process of boiling Grigor. The flayings are now written off to a combination of Sepp and Lazarenko. Nebe is pleased.’
‘What about Nöthling?’
‘Haven’t you heard? They arrested him and he hanged himself in his cell.’
That was news. Schlegel supposed nothing had happened because there had been no opportunity to follow up his entrapment using the Kübler woman.
‘He was fingered by former Minister of Food and Agriculture Walter Darré, who is in disgrace and did it to try to get a foot back in the door.’
‘Spanish Ricardo?’
It was what his mother called Darré, who was from Argentina. Schlegel said he had a reputation for being a terrific drunk.
‘Absolutely,’ said Morgen, lighting up. ‘He keeps an elephant’s foot in his study. Told me he didn’t approve of stuffing animals, but it was all he had left of life in Buenos Aires. I said I didn’t know they had elephants in South America, which he seemed to find funny. At any rate, he was a pushover after that in spite of a sticky start. He gave me a signed copy of his book, The Farmer as the Animating Spirit of the Nordic Race.’
‘Read it?’
‘Of course not. The man is so boring Adolf picked up a newspaper during one meeting. Darré showed me a photograph of them all in the first government. Adolf looking almost coy. Goebbels like a ventriloquist’s dummy, cupping his balls. A thinner Goering. Imagine, a thinner Goering. What a bunch.’
‘What of Nöthling? He knew enough to embarrass a lot of people. Assisted suicide?’
‘No. I think his vanity was offended to find he was expendable.’
‘Are we allowed to talk about what went on the other night?’
Morgen looked around to check no one was nearby.
‘Broadly speaking. In the heart of the beast it’s business as usual, but the more perspicacious are starting to hold their fingers up to the wind. The days of grand disobedience are over.’
The term leadership vacuum was starting to be heard.
‘Even as the work of zealous bureaucrats goes on, some at the top are starting to think of laying down the first markers for future negotiations and realignment.’
‘I saw you in the car that night.’
‘Keep that under your hat. Pretty breathtaking, I thought, that Heine should start to consider an alternative to the eastern route.’
It was the beginning of the redirection of the juggernaut, Schlegel supposed, a long process of wheel-turning. Morgen agreed siren voices were starting to be heard. Schlegel asked if he knew of an American named Fann. Morgen didn’t and afterwards said it fitted what he was hearing.
‘My enemy’s enemy is my friend, and all that. It makes more sense to combine against the Bolshevik than fight each other.’
‘And your analysis?’
‘There will be no jumping ahead. The diehards will prevail, while a counter-movement of reverse negotiation goes on in the sidelines. This I hardly need point out is treasonable activity and there will be many watchdogs. At the same time, there comes a point when it is necessary to start thinking about survival strategies, also known as exercises in cynicism.’
It was the start of what would become known as strategic helping, as part of the laying down of future deals.
‘First one must be seen to be aiding those most oppressed. Grotesque perhaps, but that is the way of the world. It seems some idiot has persuaded Heine to establish and preserve a Jewish escape line that in time may well become his own.’
‘Any idea which idiot?’
Morgen smiled and stubbed out his cigarette.
‘Come on, the Esplanade now. It’s almost lunchtime. I have a surprise.’
Sybil sat alone in the lobby. She looked pale and ethereal. Morgen made a show of meeting like they were ordinary people and reintroduced Schlegel. Sybil offered the merest brush of a handshake, with downcast eyes.
Morgen appeared falsely jovial.
‘Table for three,’ he told the maitre d’. ‘I have booked.’
Sybil appeared reserved, as opposed to withdrawn. She wore black. Many women did now. Most families had a death in them.
For the second time that morning, Schlegel puzzled over the purpose of the meeting. Sybil said little and Morgen busied himself with the menu, a pointless exercise as almost nothing was on it.
Schlegel made a futile attempt at conversation, asking Sybil where she was living now. With friends, was all she said. He stared miserably out of the window at the garden, thinking it couldn’t be easy living like a ghost. He supposed Morgen had something in mind. Morgen insisted they bring an expensive bottle of wine from the cellar. Sybil did no more than sip hers and hardly touched her food. She looked terribly thin.
Morgen addressed her formally throughout, though he didn’t say much. Occasionally he turned round, as if expecting someone. Schlegel considered making his excuses. Morgen smoked while eating, his hand circulating between ashtray, glass and plate. Once or twice, when Sybil wasn’t looking, he gave her a look of forlorn pity.
Eventually he said to Schlegel, ‘I thought Fräulein Todermann could come and work for us.’
‘Instead of Frau Pelz? Yes, please.’
‘She doesn’t have secretarial skills, unless I am mistaken.’
Sybil gave a shake of the head.
‘I expect we’ll find something,’ said Morgen airily.
Sybil looked neither grateful nor expectant.
She looked
at Schlegel and said, ‘I feel I am among the living dead.’
Schlegel stared at his plate. Morgen was standing up. Schlegel lifted his eyes and was horrified to see his mother. Worse, she had her friend in tow who had complained of losing her Jewish seamstress. Worst of all, Schlegel suspected Morgen had arranged it.
Sybil had gone rigid. She reached out under the table and gripped his hand.
‘Darling, what a surprise. Don’t get up. We’ll join you for five minutes. I can see you are busy.’
His mother raised her eyebrows in the direction of Sybil. Her companion, staring at Sybil, asked if they knew each other. Sybil nodded imperceptibly, still holding Schlegel’s hand under the table. He suspected his mother had noticed. She let go when they sat down. His mother was next to Morgen and smoothly took over.
She’d heard Morgen had been to see Walter Darré, whom she called Spanish Rick and explained why in an aside to Sybil.
Schlegel had trouble grasping the fact of the two women at the same table. He couldn’t imagine what Sybil made of it.
‘A little bit too cosmopolitan for my taste,’ his mother went on about Darré. ‘Speaks too many languages for a start and drinks far too much. Food and Agriculture, can you imagine anything worse? He was all for us going back to the land. Leave the beastly old cities and live in farming communes.’ She turned to Sybil. ‘I can say this because I am not German. They are hopelessly enamoured of the bucolic, and, like a lot of them who aren’t of the blood, Ricky wants to be more German than German. Very fond of his uniform. I am told he doesn’t look so impressive with his trousers down.’
She went on, unstoppable. ‘He was no friend of Dr Goebbels, who regarded him as a complete flop and told me so in person.’
Schlegel sensed Sybil’s flinch. This time he reached out and grabbed her hand.
Was his mother being indiscreet because she was drunk or did she just not care? Then it occurred to him. She was terribly nervous of Sybil.
She ran on and on, talking. She helped herself to one of Morgen’s cigarettes and puffed on it inexpertly, saying how there were only about 180 people worth knowing in Berlin.
‘Why don’t you just say two hundred?’ said Schlegel in exasperation.
‘Because it’s not that many, and you know it. And I am being generous at that. There are perhaps a further hundred outside Berlin, most landed with estates.’
Schlegel suspected her precision went down well with the elite. Her knowledge of etiquette and manners, combined with her own social compromises in consorting with the leadership, flattered those at the top eager to improve socially.
In the right milieu she was imperious. In the present situation she was grotesque. Even Morgen stared in astonishment at the sight of the woman in full flight. Sybil gripped Schlegel’s hand harder until he felt his knuckles turn white.
His mother issued a succinct bulletin on the political situation, saying there was a reformatory movement to get rid of the old Venetian-style corruption, snapping everyone into line for the new austerity. It was by no means a united front, but Goebbels and Speer were now seen as the new Lutherans.
She finally drew breath. Schlegel failed to get a word in edgeways and she was off again.
‘Which reminds me, Spanish Rick boasts about having been to an English public school as an exchange scholar. He speaks quite good English as a result, but he’s a terrific snob in an arriviste way. He said he attended part of Eton when he was talking about King’s College Wimbledon, which is not the same. One only goes to Wimbledon for tennis.’
‘Enough, Mother,’ Schlegel said, and finally she stopped. They all sat there stunned.
‘I’m sorry. I know,’ she said.
She looked at her companion, indicated Sybil and said, ‘I am sure we can find work for her.’
Schlegel stared at Morgen, who motioned that he should not interrupt.
His mother turned to Sybil. ‘Spanish Rick is not entirely beside the point. I believe your mother is staying there. I am having a reading done tomorrow.’
‘How do you know she’s her mother?’ asked Schlegel, unable to stop himself.
‘Girls share information, darling. We went to Sybil for our couture and the men went to her mother, and now we’re all at it.’ She looked at Sybil. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes,’ said Sybil.
‘I am glad you can still speak. I thought the cat had got your tongue.’
She was the only one who laughed. ‘Well, I can see you’re busy.’
She got up and addressed Schlegel rather than Sybil.
‘She can stay in the summer house. The garden is quite private and she can work from there. What do you think?’
Schlegel looked again at Morgen, who appeared sphinx-like. Had all this been agreed? Five minutes ago he could have murdered the woman. Now he was supposed to treat her like a cross between guardian angel and benefactress.
Her mother gave him a smirk of triumph. ‘We do what we can.’
She leaned down to be kissed. He gave her a single peck. She offered the other cheek.
‘Come on, darling. Continental style.’
She shook Sybil’s hand and said, ‘The beginning of a fruitful acquaintance, I am sure.’
Morgen she addressed only as old rogue.
Schlegel was surprised to discover, whatever he thought of this impossible woman, he actually trusted her.
Morgen paid the bill.
‘Satisfactory arrangement?’ he said to Sybil.
Sybil nodded. Schlegel saw it would be a long time before she dropped her guard.
Nevertheless, outside she took their arms as she walked between them, holding her head higher.
‘And what shall we do now?’ said Morgen, reaching for another cigarette.
Afterword
My fascination with Germany goes back to the late 1950s when I was an army brat posted with my family to the garrison town of Iserlohn, on the edge of the industrial Ruhr, to be part of the British Army of the Rhine. Even at the age of eight this upheaval raised interesting questions about winning and losing. Growing up in dreary post-war England resembled no sort of victory, more a state of shell-shocked exhaustion. Germany by contrast felt strangely arrested, strangely progressive (Mercedes, Telefunken), more technological and complicated, and interestingly scarred by its psychological burden, compared to our pathetic last days of Empire and deferral to the United States, which, nevertheless, in terms of its consumer disposables on offer, and constant promise of renewal, made it a Mecca for post-war generations. England in many ways remained a closed society but Germany was hidden, and therein lay its fascination.
Even at eight years old I already found the idea of losing more interesting (having by then decided I wouldn’t be eligible for the Roman Catholic heaven of my upbringing). Years later I knew exactly what the lapsed Graham Greene had meant when he referred to success as failure deferred. I had no idea I would write, but that ambiguous terrain proved far more beguiling than the facts and dates dinned into us at school. As boys, our informal education was steeped in the idea of war, for at the time it seemed inevitable there would be another, involving us. We grew accomplished (and pompous) on the subject, as one might in becoming an expert in languages (the Falaise salient, Verdun, the flight of Rudolf Hess, kamikaze pilots). We questioned the idea of military occupation no more than we did colonial imperialism. If I wondered why we were in Germany it was not articulated beyond agreeing it must be because we had won the war and, less certainly, to stop the Red Menace. It was the Cold War and a state of alert, a time when films would have such subtitles as, ‘How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.’ Ramped-up consumerism went hand-in-hand with the prospect of nuclear obliteration; no wonder we schoolboys took refuge in the patriotic trash and simplicities of the War Picture Library, celebrating easier heroics and being beastly about the Germans.
In the 1980s I spent long periods in what was then West Berlin and was again intrigued by the sense of recent (and curr
ent) history, far more than when in Britain. Germany made a point of emphasising its clean break from 1945 (which turned out to be not true at all), compared to us Brits limping on, dragging the coattails of the past behind (when in fact the Labour government of 1945 probably offered the cleaner break). On one trip to Berlin I happened to take a book called The Last Jews in Berlin. As Primo Levi later wrote, we all knew about the trains, which featured in every account, and what happened next, but I knew nothing of the before. I was reading some theory too, particularly an essay on politics by Gilles Deleuze, which considered history in terms of lines of migration and pointed out that life always proceeds at several rhythms and speeds. This variable offensive is no more apparent than in times of war. Later, I was equally struck by Don DeLillo’s remark that history comes down to people talking in rooms. The Last Jews in Berlin blurred all the usual boundaries, to reveal a world of often impossible moral complexity and uncomfortable truths: how, for example, part of the twisted genius of the Third Reich was the way it solicited the cooperation of those it wished to destroy, first with the deportations and later in the camps. Both were the work of petty clerks as much as anyone, a bureaucratic nightmare out of Kafka. They were stark times, but the shading was infinitely complex.
The persecution of Berlin’s Jews took place often right in the familiar heart of the city. The Last Jews in Berlin described a vanished world that remained horribly recognisable even as it was being twisted so out of shape: the city map remained the same as it had when Alfred Döblin wrote his street-specific 1929 masterpiece Berlin Alexanderplatz (except many street names had been changed to glorify the new regime). And then there were the Catchers. I’d had no idea that some Jews were turned by the Gestapo into agents to hunt down those that had gone underground. The most notorious of these was the glamorous Stella Kübler. At the time, The Last Jews in Berlin was the only reference to her that I could find. Yet vestiges of her lingered in the streets I found myself in: Kübler’s beat scoured the theatres, cafés and bars of a part of Berlin I knew quite well. Down the years, her turning and betrayal retained a grim fascination when posed as the question: how would you or I have behaved under the circumstances?
