1503954692

by Steve Robinson

  ‘Hello,’ Johann said to the baby. He placed his hand over the baby’s chest and felt his heartbeat. It was strong. He held the baby’s hand, and those tiny fingers curled around his. ‘I’m Johann. I’m your father.’ The baby was smiling, but Johann could not. ‘He’s very quiet,’ he said to Adelina.

  ‘He’s had to be,’ she said. ‘He would not have survived otherwise.’

  Johann looked at Adelina again and thought how gravely ill she appeared. Only now did he think to ask, ‘Have you eaten?’

  The man Johann had confronted when he first came into the room was still standing by the cabinet he had been rummaging through, looking for candles. He answered for her. ‘She’s had soup. It’s all she could manage.’

  ‘And the baby?’

  ‘Yes, my wife saw to it.’

  Johann nodded. Turning back to Adelina, he asked, ‘So where have you been? Dachau?’ It was clear from her appearance that she had been held in a concentration camp. ‘Is Volker Strobel responsible for this?’ Johann didn’t want to believe it, but why else had his friend lied to him about having visited Ava’s uncle in Gilching, and why had Volker seemingly ignored him when he telephoned the camp earlier that day?

  ‘The Gestapo came for us early one morning,’ Adelina said. ‘They took us to a cell and refused to answer any of our questions. We had no idea why we’d been taken. The following day we were told it was because we had been harbouring a Jew.’

  ‘A lie?’

  Adelina nodded. ‘They brought a girl in and she pointed at us and told them we’d hidden her and fed her for several weeks. She was able to tell them things that could only have been known by someone who had been inside this house and knew it well. It was all the Gestapo needed to prove the allegation.’

  ‘Volker?’

  Adelina nodded. ‘Although we didn’t know it at the time.’

  Johann felt his strength return to him in a heartbeat. It coursed through his veins as a rage unlike any he had felt before, even in battle, raced through him. The man he had called his friend had not only betrayed him, but the family that had welcomed him in with open arms.

  ‘A short while later,’ Adelina continued, ‘we were sent north to the concentration camp at Flossenbürg, where we were allocated to sub-camps. I never saw Gerhard again after that. I heard that he’d been shot for protesting his innocence, and I almost lost the will to live, but Ava kept me going. She was already pregnant, of course, and when the guards found out they made her sign a form to say that the baby would be taken away from her as soon as it was born. She didn’t want to sign it, but the guards were very persuasive. It was a euthanasia consent form.’ Adelina paused and smiled at the child. ‘As you can see, Johann, your son was not taken away. Ava died during the birth. She was so weak and malnourished, as everyone at the camp was. So it fell to me to look after her baby—my grandson.’

  Adelina reached out a frail hand and began to stroke the baby’s forehead. ‘Several women in my hut helped to look after him, and if he had been any trouble, I’m sure he would have been taken away. I don’t think anyone expected him to live long under such conditions, but he’s strong, Johann. He’s a survivor, like his father.’

  Johann couldn’t help but blame himself for Ava’s death. Had she not been pregnant, she would likely have survived the ordeal along with her mother. But how could he have known? He looked at the child, and he certainly could not blame him. He reminded himself then that Ava’s death was no fault of anyone’s but the man he had once called his friend.

  ‘Do you know why Volker had you arrested—why he set you all up with this story about harbouring the Jewish girl?’

  Adelina nodded. ‘He came to the camp twice. The first time was just a few weeks after we arrived. He spoke in private to Ava and Ava passed on what he said to me. He told her he loved her, and that he wanted her for himself. He told her she was to leave you, and that while it pained him to punish her as he was, he thought she needed to see just how much power he commanded. He told her he would keep us all at the camp until she changed her mind.’

  Johann began to grind his teeth. Now he saw through Volker’s visits to the Bauer house, bearing provisions to help ease the family through the hardships of war. It was all for himself, working his way into their trust, their friendship, with no other goal in mind than to have Ava for himself. ‘And the second time?’

  ‘On Volker’s second visit he begged Ava to agree to his terms, saying that it tortured him to know she was suffering. But Ava resisted him, even then. She loved you so much, Johann.’

  The thought of something so pure between them having been so cruelly destroyed, and by his best friend of all people, forced Johann to bite his lip to hold back his tears.

  ‘A few months passed,’ Adelina continued. ‘I think Volker must have heard about Ava’s death, and I think perhaps he was responsible for letting me look after her baby. I know he signed my release order. That was just a week ago. The Americans were close to Flossenbürg and we were being prepared to march out of the camp, but they let me go—just like that—with a simple piece of paper.’

  Adelina reached a bony hand beneath her blankets, which seemed to take a great effort. Several seconds later, she showed Johann the slip of paper. ‘These are my release papers, in case anyone stopped me.’ She unfolded the document very slowly, as though every movement required all her strength and concentration. And there on the form Johann recognised Volker’s signature.

  ‘So his guilty conscience finally got the better of him,’ he said. ‘But it won’t save him.’

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll take care of you and my son, and then we’ll see.’

  Johann turned to the man he had confronted when he first came into the room. ‘Who are you?’ he asked. His tone was short.

  ‘I—I live across the street.’

  ‘They can’t stay here. It’s cold and they need help. Will you care for them until I return?’

  The man shook his head. ‘My wife won’t—’ He paused. ‘Look, we don’t want any trouble.’

  Johann sighed. ‘Well, do you have a motorcar?’

  ‘No, I—.’

  ‘Can you borrow one?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘I need you to take us to Gilching. Will you do that much?’

  The man seemed to think about it. Then he nodded. ‘Yes, all right.’

  ‘Good. We must go at once.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Present day.

  At Johann Langner’s home in Grünwald, Jefferson Tayte had been listening to the continuation of his host’s wartime story with great interest. During the course of Langner’s monologue, Tayte had also become knotted with anger over what had happened to Ava and her parents. Volker Strobel had done a terrible thing indeed, and while Tayte would have felt anger at hearing such a story about anyone’s family, more and more he was coming to regard the Bauers as his own family, especially as he’d just heard that Johann Langner and Ava Bauer did indeed have a child together.

  Ingrid Keller had finished cutting Langner’s hair, and Tayte and Langner were now alone in the sunlit drawing room. Tayte appreciated his time together with the man he was now coming to think of as his grandfather, although he supposed Keller wouldn’t be gone long. He sat back on the sofa he’d been perched on since his arrival at Langner’s home and took a deep breath to calm himself.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Langner,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what it means to me to hear that you and Ava had a child. And you’ve cleared a few more things up, too,’ he added, thinking about the Bauer family and the records he’d previously seen, and those he had not been able to see.

  ‘How do you mean?’ Langner asked.

  ‘Well, there were no death records for Ava or her father on file at the Munich record office. They could have been recorded elsewhere, but I now know that’s not the case. If they died at Flossenbürg concentration camp, maybe their deaths weren’t recorded at all.’

&nb
sp; ‘I see,’ Langner said. He nodded. ‘Yes, I’d say it was highly unlikely, particularly as they died close to the end of the war.’

  Tayte thought about Ava’s mother then and he recalled that she’d died in 1945. Now Tayte understood why. ‘I saw a copy of Adelina Bauer’s death certificate,’ he said. ‘I don’t know if you’re aware, but it appears that Flossenbürg killed her, too. She died soon after she was released, and it seems likely to me now that her death was as a result of her ordeal at the camp.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ Langner said. ‘I’m sorry to hear it.’

  It was a sorry affair altogether as far as Tayte was concerned. No, not altogether. Something good had come out of it—the child. It seemed likely to Tayte now that he had become Karl Schröder, and if Karl really was Tayte’s father then he had been born in a concentration camp at Flossenbürg, not in Gilching as was recorded on Karl’s birth certificate, supporting Tayte’s belief that he’d been looking at Karl’s amended record, and that Karl had indeed been adopted. Tayte knew such seemingly miraculous births existed, although they were few. He’d read about them in newspapers and online, and with great fascination over how such fragile life can emerge and survive under such atrocious conditions. Yet here was another example of life finding a way.

  Tayte was distracted from his thoughts when the door to the drawing room opened behind him and Ingrid Keller returned. She still hadn’t spoken a word since Tayte arrived. He didn’t know what he’d done to upset her, but it was clear that she’d taken a dislike to him. He thought perhaps she just had a sour disposition, and that she was the same with everyone. Rudi Langner had certainly backed up that notion, but Tayte couldn’t see what he could do to win her over, so he dismissed it. He turned back to Langner to see Keller produce a nail file with which she began to manicure his fingernails.

  ‘Someone’s being pampered,’ Tayte said in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere he felt Keller’s presence imbued. ‘Are you just glad to be out of hospital, or do you have a party to go to?’

  Langner looked up from his hands, showing a hint of a smile. ‘I’m being fussed over because I have an anniversary party to attend this evening.’

  ‘For the gallery?’ Tayte said, knowing it couldn’t be a wedding anniversary. ‘That’s great. I’ll bet you’re thrilled to have made it out of that hospital in time.’

  Langner chuckled to himself. ‘I’m thrilled to have made it out of there at all,’ he said. ‘Now shall I continue my story before I forget where I was?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Tayte said. He wanted to hear what became of the child, sure now that he’d been adopted by Ava’s uncle, Heinz Schröder. He figured there had to be a story to explain how and why that came about, too, but for now he couldn’t get past Langner’s account of the terrible thing Volker Strobel had done. ‘So what did you do about Strobel?’ he asked, supposing that a fighting man in the ranks of Germany’s elite Leibstandarte could not have let such a thing go without retribution.

  Tayte knew at once that his question had stirred further dark memories within Langner. His fleshy cheeks sagged as he began to shake his head. A moment later he sighed heavily and said, ‘I was so full of hatred. And one terrible deed can so easily lead to another, can’t it?’ He nodded slowly to himself, as though answering his own question. ‘What did I do?’ he repeated. ‘I’m afraid an equally terrible repercussion followed Ava’s death.’

  Chapter Forty

  Dachau. 26 April 1945.

  It was late in the grey afternoon as Johann Langner continued to watch the main gatehouse at Dachau concentration camp from the cover of a ditch a hundred or so yards back. He was observing the vehicles coming and going, and he had noted that far more attention was being paid to those vehicles leaving the complex than to those entering, which was as he had expected. Vehicles leaving were searched so thoroughly he doubted anyone trying to escape could avoid detection. Vehicles entering, however, were given no more than cursory glances by the guards. After all, who in their right mind would choose to break into a concentration camp?

  Johann was not in his right mind.

  Upon his return to Martha’s house in Gilching, the kindly woman had taken Adelina and his son in without question, and Johann knew she would care for them as best she could until his return. Just the same, he feared for Adelina. He had noted her decline even on the short drive out of the city. It was as if she were at last giving up her will to live now that she knew her charge, Johann’s son, was delivered to him and was in safe hands. It made Johann all the more resolved to do what he knew he must now do.

  As soon as Adelina and his son were made comfortable, Johann had changed back into his uniform, thinking that in the fading light of the afternoon, should he be seen at the concentration camp, he would blend in better than if he were wearing civilian clothing. Closer inspection of his now clean but battle-weary uniform, however, would single him out as a member of the Leibstandarte in an instant, potentially raising questions he knew he could not satisfactorily answer. He would have to be careful.

  A supply truck approached the camp and Johann ducked back into the ditch so as not to be caught in its headlights. He listened, and when the truck drew level he climbed out from the ditch and ran along behind it, using it as a screen. The truck was ten feet high and covered with a tarpaulin that was lashed with ropes, which Johann thought he could use. As the vehicle approached the gate, it slowed. He had to act fast. As soon as the truck stopped, he grabbed the ropes and pulled himself up onto the roof, where he lay still and silent, listening to the words being exchanged between the guards and the driver as the driver was ordered to show his papers.

  A moment later the truck’s engine started up again and the gates were opened. Then the truck passed through, beneath the ever watchful gaze of the giant black eagle Johann had seen on his previous visit. He remained low as the truck moved through the outer layer of the complex, keeping still so as not to draw attention to himself should anyone glimpse the truck from above. But it was almost dark now, and he imagined the guards’ eyes would naturally be focused towards the concentration camp. At least, Johann hoped they were.

  A few minutes passed, and with every second Johann felt his pulse quicken. The supply truck turned one corner and another, and he tried to glimpse where it was taking him, but although he had been to the camp before, he was not well acquainted with its layout, especially in the fading light. When at last the truck came to a stop, he waited, breathing slowly to calm himself. He was outside an open-fronted, single-storey building, and seeing an assortment of military vehicles parked inside, he realised the truck had pulled up outside a garage block. He kept his head down as he heard the truck’s doors open. Then the loading ramp at the back was dropped with a slam that jarred his nerves.

  He heard talking, and within a minute the footfalls of several men could be heard as they began to unload the vehicle. Johann realised then that he had to climb down before they finished or he would find himself heading out of the camp again, and if that happened, there was no doubt in his mind that he would be caught. He crawled closer to the front of the truck’s roof, away from the activity, and peered out over the bonnet, wondering where to head for once he’d climbed down. He thought his best cover was among the parked vehicles inside the garage block, but then he heard a clanking sound ahead and to his left—metal tinkling on concrete, as if someone had just dropped a wrench. He thought a mechanic must be working on one of the vehicles further along, and he reminded himself to be cautious.

  A moment later, the conversation at the back of the truck became suddenly lively, and it seemed to Johann that someone was telling a joke because the men were soon laughing riotously. Johann used the din to mask any sound he made as he swung his legs out over the edge of the roof and lowered himself onto the bonnet. He looked around to make sure the way was still clear, and then he walked ahead at a regular pace, using the truck for cover as he had before, staying in the blind spot of the men unloading it. When he had tak
en ten paces unchallenged, he ducked into the garages, dropped to the floor and rolled beneath the nearest vehicle, where he planned to wait until the supply truck had gone and the fading sky had turned to black.

  Close to an hour passed before Johann ventured out from the vehicle he was hiding beneath. With no moon or stars visible in the overcast sky, only the dim camp lights lit his way as he headed back out from the garage block in the direction the supply truck had brought him in. He kept to the shadows as best he could, which were thankfully plentiful. The complex was busier than he had hoped it would be, but everyone he saw or heard seemed so heavily wrapped up in their duties that he managed to make good progress. He sensed the heightened activity was in no small part related to the news that must surely have reached the camp commandant that the Allies were at Munich’s doorstep.

  The darkness that now helped to conceal Johann, however, also hindered his ability to recognise the buildings he had seen on his last visit. Because of this it took him a while to get his bearings. Having left the garage block, which was a small complex of buildings in itself, he crossed the road he had come in by to the trees opposite. Looking back he could see the buildings at the end of the SS troop barracks Volker had previously shown him. Volker’s accommodation then was back towards the administration buildings, across the courtyard by the main gate and past the bakery. The thought of crossing such an open space, which was well lit, did not encourage Johann, but there were few options left open to him.

  He kept to the shadows for as long as he could, and when he came to the courtyard, he watched and waited for what he considered to be his best opportunity. Guards came and went, as did several vehicles and SS officers, and seeing those officers come and go with such ease made Johann think he would have to appear as one of them. After all, he was an SS officer himself, and he was in uniform. He just had to hope no one came close enough to see its condition, or to notice the regiment he served with. When the way was clear, he stuck his shoulders back and set out, telling himself to act as if he was supposed to be there. He reached halfway without challenge, but his resolve began to crumble when two guards turned the corner beside the bakery. They were heading straight for him.