‘Well, up until now, I’ve never had anyone else to look out for,’ Tayte countered. ‘I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, that’s all.’
Jean sighed, as if she understood where he was coming from, and was even a little touched by it, but Tayte could see she was frustrated.
‘I signed up for this, didn’t I?’ Jean said. ‘I told you it had to be all or nothing if we’re going to make a go of things together, and you’ve told me several times that your mother said she gave you up for your own protection. I knew it could be dangerous. And besides, you’re not about to pack up and go home, are you?’
‘I can’t.’
‘Exactly, and I wouldn’t ask you to.’
‘We’re on to something here,’ Tayte said. ‘I know we are. Maybe for the first time in my life I have the chance to find out who I am.’
‘I know how much this means to you, JT, but I can’t just go home and leave you to it.’ She reached across the table and squeezed Tayte’s hand. ‘I don’t want to, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, either.’
Tayte swallowed the ice cube he’d been sucking. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’ll go on together, but we both need to be extra careful. These people aren’t playing games.’
Jean nodded. ‘So what’s our next line of research?’
‘Don’t you want to get an early night?’ Tayte blushed. There was no way he could have said that without it sounding suggestive.
Jean smirked at him, but she quickly got all serious again. ‘It isn’t even dark outside. Where’s your laptop?’
‘Right here in my briefcase.’
‘Of course it is. So let’s get another drink and go over what we’ve learned so far.’
She laughed as Tayte pulled his briefcase up onto his lap. ‘Will you be bringing your “special friend” to dinner with you every night?’
Tayte’s travel-worn briefcase went everywhere with him. They had shared many adventures and discoveries on one assignment and another, and he was having a hard time leaving it out of their relationship.
‘It saved me a trip to the room, didn’t it?’
Jean shook her head. ‘You really are incorrigible. So where should we start?’
‘Well, that’s the thing,’ Tayte said as he opened his laptop. ‘While I’ve traced the roots of many of my American clients to Germany, their immigrant ancestors have usually been as far back as I was required to go, and for those assignments where I’ve been asked to look further back, the records I’ve needed to see have typically been prior to the time when German civil registration began. Records were held in church archives prior to that, and because the records are so old, no time-based restrictions are imposed. Germany’s civil registration records, on the other hand, aren’t all that easy to get at. In fact, if you’re not a direct family member, or if sufficient time hasn’t passed since the event you’re looking for, you’re flat out of luck. Germany’s privacy laws around civil registration records were relaxed a little towards the end of the last decade, but for non-direct family members to access these records, 110 years have to have passed for births, eighty years for marriages and thirty years for deaths, which would be okay for the period we’re interested in if you didn’t first have to show that the person you’re interested in was deceased.’
‘I see,’ Jean said. ‘So what can we do?’
‘I think most of the information we can hope to gather will come from talking to people who knew Strobel and Langner, or those people who already have an interest in them, such as the man we’re going to see in the morning, Tobias Kaufmann. I’m hoping he’ll be able to tell us a thing or two. All we really have for now is what we’ve already heard from Johann Langner, and that only took us as far as 1938.’
‘We know they fell out over a girl called Ava Bauer,’ Jean said. ‘Can we find out more about her?’
‘We could try some general searches, but I don’t know that it would be worthwhile at this stage. I prefer to know what I’m looking for and why.’
‘We also know that Ava somehow came between Langner and Strobel, and that Langner regretted the day he introduced his friend to her.’
‘Jealousy?’ Tayte offered. ‘Fighting over the girl?’
‘That’s the impression I got from Langner earlier, although he didn’t directly say it.’
Tayte closed his laptop again. ‘Jealousy seems most likely,’ he said. ‘Although we know from the research we conducted into Strobel prior to coming to Germany that he didn’t get the girl—not Ava anyway. According to Wikipedia Strobel married someone called Trudi Scheffler.’
‘That doesn’t mean he didn’t want Ava.’
‘No, it doesn’t. And if that’s the case, what terrible thing did Strobel do in connection with it? Langner was very clear that Strobel had done something.’
‘Jealousy can certainly bring out the worst in people,’ Jean said. ‘And by all accounts, Strobel was already on his way to becoming the very worst kind of person by the time the war broke out. When I found out that my ex-husband was cheating on me, I was jealous of the other woman for a very long time. What did she have to offer that I didn’t? It can eat away at you unless you get a hold of it. I wanted to do some terrible things to her, I can tell you. Sometimes I scared myself.’
‘But you didn’t, did you?’
‘No, of course not, but I thought about it.’
‘Thinking and doing are two very different beasts,’ Tayte said.
‘Yes, and Volker Strobel was clearly something else entirely. Who knows what a man like that was capable of.’
Tayte agreed. He took a slow and thoughtful sip of his drink, considering that whatever had happened back then, the two friends and the girl, Ava, were clearly on some kind of collision course by the time the war began.
Chapter Nine
Munich. April 1940.
More than a year had passed since Johann Langner first met Ava Bauer, and the thought of seeing her again that evening made for a restless journey as the train he’d been travelling on for close to an hour carried him north to Munich. During that time they had seen one another far less frequently than Johann would have liked, not least because 1939 saw a new chapter in his life.
At the beginning of that year, he and his friend, Volker Strobel, had left the Hitler Youth to join the enlisted ranks of the Waffen-SS, where they spent six months prior to their enrolment in the SS officers’ training school in the Bavarian town of Bad Tölz, which was thirty miles south of Munich. It was a paramilitary career path they had both been cultivated for over the years because of their exemplary service and leadership potential in the Hitler Youth, but the relocation had made any kind of contact with Ava very difficult.
She had agreed to write to both Johann and Volker, all having become good friends during their brief time together, but so far, Ava had committed herself to neither man. Because of this, Johann and Volker often found themselves vying for her attention whenever the opportunity arose, and they would often compare the number of letters each had received from Ava, as though it were a benchmark for Ava’s affection. To date, Johann was ahead by five letters, which he took to be a good sign.
SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz was Germany’s equivalent of Britain’s Sandhurst Royal Military Academy and the United States Military Academy at West Point, and it had impressed Johann from the moment he had entered the complex between the two conical towers that framed its arched main gate. It was there that they had quickly refined their leadership skills, but with the advent of war that September, their time at the training school lasted only seven months.
Johann stopped trying to read his newspaper and neatly folded it and placed it beside his peaked cap on the empty seat beside him. He had thought it might help to distract him during the journey, but every time he picked it up he found himself unable to concentrate. He gazed out of the carriage window instead and noticed that dusk had begun its inevitable descent, obscuring the buildings on the outskirts of Munich into featureless shape
s, darkening the glass to a pale mirror in which he saw the reflection of a young man who seemed to have grown up so fast in recent years that he barely recognised himself. Perhaps it was his officer’s uniform, or the responsibility that came with it.
Soon to join the ranks of the elite Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, which was originally established as Hitler’s personal bodyguard, he wore the field-grey duty uniform of an SS-Untersturmführer, having welcomed the honour of serving with the regiment as a Junior Storm Leader attached to the Reconnaissance Battalion—not least because he knew there were appointments for SS officers that he had no taste for, such as within the ranks of the Security Police—the Sicherheitsdienst, commonly referred to as the SD.
He considered that the only thing about him that remained unchanged was the hairstyle he had first been introduced to in the Hitlerjugend. His hair was just as blonde now as then, and it was tapered down to the skin an inch above his ears and neckline, while the longer crown was slicked back with a pomade hair dressing and combed with a high side parting. He smoothed it back with the palm of his hand and looked down at his newspaper again, catching the headline that informed of Adolf Hitler’s meeting with Benito Mussolini at the Brenner Pass, high in the Alps, where they had talked of an alliance between their nations against Britain and France. He wondered what his father would make of this war, and how different it might be from the last, in which his father had fought. As hard to please as Johann’s father was, it was Johann’s wish to make him proud.
He felt his upper body roll forward as the train slowed down. He checked his watch and noted that it was almost seven thirty. Not long to go now. He had a few days to himself before he had to join his unit and he hoped to spend as much of that time as possible with Ava. They had arranged to meet at eight thirty at the Osteria Bavaria on the corner of Schellingstrasse—a restaurant that Volker, in his usual bullish manner, had insisted they dine at because it was reportedly frequented by Adolf Hitler. In Volker’s last letter to Johann, he had informed him that his young cousin, Trudi Scheffler, was visiting Munich with her aunt that weekend, and so he had invited her along to make up a fourth for dinner.
Johann had seen through his friend’s plan immediately. It was common knowledge to him that Volker’s cousin would marry him if he would have her, but since Volker had made it clear to Johann that he intended to make a play for Ava, Johann could think of no reason why his friend would invite the reputedly beautiful Fräulein Scheffler along for any reason other to distract Johann’s attention from the girl whose affections they were both vying for. As the train followed a bend in the railway track, Johann glimpsed the covered train terminal ahead. When the train pulled alongside the concourse, he neatly set his cap into place and considered that it didn’t matter to him how beautiful Volker’s cousin was. To Johann, no woman could outshine Ava Bauer.
The Osteria Bavaria was a small, family-run restaurant on Schellingstrasse, close to the centre of Munich to the north. Johann had arrived in good time, and had decided to take a moment to collect his thoughts before going in. He stood at the cross-junction where the main road intersects Schraudolphstrasse and took in the restaurant sign above the arched doorway that told him he was in the right place. He wondered why he had never been to the Osteria before. Volker clearly thought it somewhere special, no doubt because of its connection with the Führer, and yet Volker had only ever taken him to fancy establishments before now. If he had been showing off his family wealth, then it appeared particularly odd to Johann that Volker would choose to dine at the Osteria when Ava, whom he surely wished to impress, would be there. Unless Volker had tuned in to Ava’s sensibilities enough to know that such lavishness did not impress her.
Unable to keep himself from seeing Ava a moment longer, Johann crossed the street, stepping over the glowing white lines that had been painted alongside the kerb soon after the war began, in an attempt to make the city streets safer in the absence of street lighting. He wondered whether she had arrived yet. Perhaps he was the first. He entered the restaurant and was at once greeted by the smell of wholesome, home-cooked food, which caused his empty stomach to groan.
It was a warm and dimly lit restaurant, already bustling and loud with conversation, the air hazy with cigarette smoke. The general décor appeared to Johann as the epitome of Bavarian charm, with its wood-panelled walls painted with classical scenes, and tightly packed, thin-legged tables adorned with white lace tablecloths. He removed his cap and placed it beneath his arm as he moved further in, trying to catch the attention of the head waiter, but it was Volker’s attention he caught first.
‘Johann!’
His friend was on his feet, a thin cigarette glowing in his hand as he waved him to their table, which was already set with wine.
Johann couldn’t help but smile at the sight of his friend. They greeted one another with a strong embrace and a firm slap on each other’s back.
‘Volker! It’s so good to see you again.’
Over Volker’s shoulder, Johann saw that Ava, too, had already arrived, and there was another young woman, a brunette, whom he supposed was Volker’s cousin, Trudi.
‘Look at you in that uniform,’ Volker said as he led Johann to their table. He still had his arm tightly around Johann’s shoulders.
‘I could say the same thing about you,’ Johann said. ‘I hardly recognised you.’
Volker laughed. ‘So we’re grown men at last, and it’s no longer make-believe. We’re not toy soldiers any more, Johann.’
‘No indeed,’ Johann said, with a degree of sobriety that clearly surprised his friend.
‘Then why the long face? This is what we’ve been training for, Johann. Surely you must embrace the chance to fight for the Fatherland—for our Führer.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Johann said. He noticed the rank insignia on Volker’s tunic then, and he turned the conversation back to it. ‘But what’s this? You’re a captain?’
‘I told you my father could pull strings,’ Volker said. ‘He had me promoted to Hauptsturmführer, which means, my good friend, that for the first time since we met, I have advanced ahead of you—and by two ranks!’ He laughed at the notion. ‘I’m sure you will have the opportunity to climb as high as Brigadeführer by the time the war is over.’
As they arrived at the table, Volker finally let go of Johann. Both men were still smiling, only now Johann was smiling at Ava.
‘Good evening,’ he said, with a slight bow of his head.
‘Hello, Johann,’ Ava said. ‘You look well.’
Before Johann could continue the conversation, Volker interrupted, and it seemed that he couldn’t get his cigarette out of his mouth quick enough to do so.
‘Johann, this is the cousin I’ve been telling you so much about. Trudi, this is my best friend, Johann Langner.’ Volker slapped Johann’s back again. ‘And I’ve told Trudi all about you, too.’ He added with another laugh.
Johann smiled and bowed his head again.
‘Well?’ Volker added, ‘Isn’t Trudi the beauty I said she was?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Johann said, not wishing to offend.
Trudi offered him the back of her hand and Johann bent low and kissed it. As he rose again, he smiled more fully. ‘Now that I’ve met you, I see that your cousin’s description does you no justice.’
Such flattery might have embarrassed any young woman, but his words merely caused Trudi’s smile to flourish further.
‘Well, sit down, sit down,’ Volker said, taking the seat next to Ava, placing Johann beside Trudi, opposite Ava, which Johann didn’t mind at all. It was not, after all, a very large table, and it meant he could look at Ava as much as he liked without making it obvious.
‘I hope you don’t mind my choice of restaurant,’ Volker said. ‘It’s a little artists’ restaurant my father introduced me to. Do you know that he has sat at this very table with Adolf Hitler himself? Our Führer is also a keen artist. Perhaps that’s why he likes the place so much.’
Johann was only half listening. His eyes were on Ava, taking her in. He liked what she had done with her hair. He was sure he’d only ever seen her wearing it up before. Now it fell to her shoulders, with a clip or pin of some kind holding it off her face to one side. For a moment he was able to block all else out, to the extent that he felt as though they were the only two people there.
‘It’s very good to see you again, Ava,’ he said, quickly adding, ‘I’ve missed Munich,’ when what he really wanted to say was that he had missed her.
Ava’s lips parted to answer, but it was Volker who spoke again, shattering Johann’s illusion.
‘You won’t find the city much changed from the last time you were here, my friend. Although I’m pleased to see there are now fewer Jews.’ He took up his wine glass and laughed. ‘And the air is fresher for it, I can tell you.’
Volker had left the officer training school in Bad Tölz a full month ahead of Johann, and he had so far told Johann nothing of his posting.
‘You have a position in Munich?’ Johann asked, feeling a wave of jealousy wash over him at the idea that his friend should be stationed so close to Ava, while he was off fighting, heaven knows where.
‘I wanted to surprise you,’ Volker said. ‘I’m to help manage the concentration camp at Dachau as Schutzhaftlagerführer under the camp commandant, Sturmbannführer Alexander Piorkowski.’ He laughed to himself. ‘And I’m glad to see that our labour camps are being used for the good of the Reich. I’ll be overseeing the workers who are not only increasing our munitions, but also making our uniforms!’
Johann knew enough about his friend’s new role to understand that to be Schutzhaftlagerführer was to be part of the SS-Totenkopfverbände—the Death’s Head Units who took their orders direct from Berlin.
He did not envy his friend the position, so far from the fight. It was certainly no duty for a soldier to his mind. He wanted to change the subject, or risk spoiling the evening before it had begun.
‘I see you’ve had your hair cut very short, Volker,’ he said, for want of something better to say.
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