Saints and Villains

by Denise Giardina

  Dietrich nodded. “I don’t doubt it.”

  The judge advocate allowed himself a brief smile, sat down and opened the briefcase, rifled through some papers. Without waiting for permission, Dietrich sat in the chair opposite.

  Bauer looked up, disconcerted, but quickly regained his composure. “Ah, yes,” he said. “Some men are undone by impending doom, and some are emboldened by it. I see you are one of the latter type, Pastor Bonhoeffer. At least for the moment.” He held up a folder. “Two days ago we found your brother-in-law’s secret cache of documents stashed in a safe at Zossen. There is even a canister of film which purports to show atrocities being committed against Jews in Poland. Did you know where this material was being kept?”

  “No,” Dietrich admitted. He remembered the last time he had seen the documents, Christel hunched over a typewriter while Hans dictated the X Report. Dohnanyi had removed the papers from the house soon afterward for fear of implicating his family. “But I knew it existed and that you would find it sooner or later.”

  Bauer took out his monocle and scrunched it into the socket of his right eye. He studied the papers in his hand. “The great dilemma one faces when trying to bring down a regime,” he mused. “You want to document everything you condemn, so you can justify yourself once you carry out an overthrow. But alas, there is no way to document without leaving a trail of paper somewhere.” He looked up. “Is there?”

  “No,” Dietrich said.

  “And I am sad to say, Pastor Bonhoeffer, that your name appears throughout these papers.” He sifted the sheets one by one. “Repeated trips to Switzerland, where you shared sensitive information with church representatives from enemy or occupied nations. Trips also to the Vatican, where again sensitive information harmful to the war effort was passed on. The removal of Jews to Switzerland for purposes shown here to have nothing to do with espionage on behalf of the Reich. Contact in a neutral country between yourself and an English bishop, at which time you passed on to the enemy knowledge of a coup attempt. Detailed prior knowledge of a variety of attempts to assassinate the Führer.”

  Bauer looked up. The monocle dropped and dangled on the end of its string, flinging a wedge of dancing light across the tabletop.

  “You’ll hang,” he said.

  Dietrich had thought himself prepared to face what might come, but found he could not answer. He gripped the edge of his chair to steady himself.

  Bauer reached into his pocket, tossed a cigarette across the table. Dietrich stared at it in surprise. “What do you want?” he asked. “You have me, and you have come here personally to tell me so? There must be more. Is it names you want? I’ll not give them to you unless you break me under torture.”

  Bauer waved his hand and offered a lighted match, which Dietrich leaned forward to accept. The judge advocate settled back in his chair and blew smoke at the ceiling.

  “We have plenty of names. Or at least, I doubt you were privy to any more information than those we have already interrogated. By the way, do you know what’s happened to the others? Stauffenberg was shot on the very first evening. A quick end as befits a German military hero, even one who places a bomb at the feet of his Führer. Our most distinguished but guilty generals have been allowed to shoot themselves. Easier on the families, for it saves face, and on the nation, which is spared a great blow to its morale. But let me tell you about the civilian traitors. They’re the reason I’m back in Berlin, actually. I’ve been overseeing the interrogations before their executions. A bother, since I’ve come to enjoy living in Thuringia. But I’ll be going back there tomorrow. I’ve learned as much as Himmler needs to know, and the executions have been carried out. The Führer requested the same treatment the Harnacks received. Hanging with cord, slow cutting strangulation. Only this time he wanted it filmed. My superiors tell me he’s watched this movie twice now. It seems to give him ease.”

  Dietrich twisted in his chair.

  “Does that surprise you?” Bauer asked.

  “Nothing surprises me. I was only thinking how pleased I am to be counted this man’s enemy.”

  Bauer looked as though he would like to reply, but he turned away suddenly and stubbed out his cigarette. “You’ll be happy to know,” he said, “that your brother-in-law Hans von Dohnanyi was not among those executed.”

  And when Dietrich was able to meet Bauer’s eyes, he was shocked to see in them what he took for compassion. Or was it only interest?

  “And why not?” he asked. “And why not me?”

  “Dohnanyi has been very ill, a severe case of diphtheria. He’s too weak to withstand interrogation, so we’re waiting. As for you? Well. When it comes down to it, Pastor Bonhoeffer, your involvement in these matters was quite enough to earn you a likely death sentence, but not nearly enough, perhaps, to assuage your pride. You may be Hitler’s enemy, but not a very important one.” Though Bauer was lighting another cigarette, he did not miss Dietrich’s wince. “Besides,” he added, “my boss Himmler has not yet recommended a final disposition of your case. He thinks you might still be useful.”

  “I told you I won’t divulge—”

  “And I have told you names won’t be necessary,” Bauer interrupted. “There are other uses.”

  “Such as?”

  The judge advocate hesitated, then said, “These foreign contacts of yours. Are any of them connected to American or British intelligence?” He glanced at the folder. “George Bell? Willem Visser’t Hooft? This assortment of priests in the Vatican?”

  “No,” Dietrich said wonderingly. “Not that I’m aware of. Though I wouldn’t tell you if it were otherwise.”

  “Ah. A pity.” Bauer moved the glowing tip of his cigarette farther away from his thumb. “Still.”

  “Why?” Dietrich asked, suddenly afraid he had given something away, though he couldn’t imagine what it might be.

  Bauer shook his head. “It’s nothing to do with you or your situation, so you mustn’t expect to get out of this mess you’re in. Unless, of course, your God swoops down to the rescue and delivers you from your enemies. Hitler believes God intervened to save him from the assassin’s bomb. And the church—your church, Pastor Bonhoeffer—has declared that to be the case. Tell me, do you pray for such deliverance?”

  “No,” Dietrich said. “That would be not only self-serving, but useless.”

  “Self-serving?”

  “When so many have died, what right have I to ask?”

  “And useless? Has prison weakened your faith?”

  “No. Though I will say it has altered it. But my faith does not depend upon God’s delivering me. In fact, I don’t believe that God is in the delivery business.”

  Bauer’s eyes narrowed. “A useless God, eh? Perhaps I agree with you. I used to pray for things that never came to pass. When I was a child, I prayed for my dog to be saved. You may think that frivolous, but the dog meant more to me than anything in the world, more even than my mother and father. Anyway, it didn’t work. So I came to realize that God was a fraud.”

  Dietrich shrugged. “You are, of course, the final arbiter of that question,” he said.

  Bauer said in an agitated voice, “Of course it’s true. Look at the Jews. They are foolish enough to believe God delivered them out of Egypt. Fat lot of good it’s done them now!” He sat back in his chair.

  “Not a lot of good,” Dietrich agreed. “How many has God failed to deliver? How many have we killed so far, Alois?”

  Bauer froze. “I have not given you permission to address me by my Christian name.”

  “How many, Alois? And what do you think the British and Americans will have to say about it when they get here?”

  He waited for Bauer to call the guards, to consign him to the torture cell and the rope. Just to shut him up, to punish his insolence. But to his surprise his interrogator did not move. Then Dietrich realized with a shock what he had been seeing in the face of Judge Advocate Alois Bauer. Not compassion or a spectator’s sadistic interest, but fear. Pur
e fear.

  For a time they were still together while the room filled with an orange midday sun. Then Bauer gave a small sigh. He said, “Sometimes I feel like a boy who has been kidnapped by pirates.”

  Dietrich asked softly, “Did you kill Jews in Poland, Alois?”

  “Of course. Everyone did. They had to be got out of the way, we were told. They would have strangled the Reich.”

  “That was before you were made judge advocate? Before you were given the Harnack case?”

  “I begged for the Harnack case. I had to get out of Poland. For my own sake.”

  “Your own sake?”

  Bauer seemed to shrink in his chair.

  “I was drinking way too much. Everyone was. That’s how we handled such work. Day after day, watching them dig the trenches, watching them strip. Ordering the shootings. All those women and children. That was hard. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy. It’s not disloyal to admit as much. Everyone said it. That’s why they made sure we had plenty of booze. And that’s why I had to get out.” Bauer ran a hand through his hair, which was suddenly damp with sweat. “My God, if I’d stayed in Poland I’d be a confirmed drunkard by now.”

  Dietrich fought back the impulse to reach across the table and strike the other man. “The worst possible thing that could happen,” he said savagely.

  “Yes,” said an oblivious Bauer. “My father was a drunkard. I’ve always been determined not to be like him.”

  “Better a drunkard than a murderer,” Dietrich persisted, determined not to let Bauer off.

  “We were doing what we had to do.”

  “Oh, yes!” Dietrich scoffed.

  Yet there was something disarming about Bauer, something irresistible, the way he reeked of evil and still was possessed of such yearning. He was leaning forward, elbows on the table and chin resting on the heel of his hand, asking, “If it was so wrong, why did God let it happen?”

  “How was God supposed to stop it? You’re a free man, Alois. There are no invisible strings connecting you to God, directing your every move.”

  “But if God is all-powerful, God could intervene. God could find a way.”

  “And because God didn’t intervene, it was all right.”

  “Yes.”

  “Too bad you don’t believe in God, then. You’ve lost your excuse.”

  Bauer blinked. He looked away. “Perhaps I do believe in God,” he said.

  “Oh yes,” Dietrich said. “God makes a convenient scapegoat. Or people always think God is absent when things are going bad for them. Things go better and God is back. Well, I want to live in the world as if there were no God. That is the only way God can truly be with any of us. You, on the other hand, want a God you can blame for everything you’ve done. Oh yes, you will believe anything you must to exonerate yourself.”

  “You’re not one to talk,” Bauer lashed back. “If you’re so holy, how many Jews did you save, eh? Not so many that I can see, an old girlfriend and a handful of others. And what about me? My squad used to come upon groups of Jews hiding in the Katyn forest trying to pass for Poles. Usually we lined them up and shot them. Those were our orders. But twice I pretended to believe the Jews. I let them go. People I didn’t even know, yet I even gave them safe-conduct passes in case another squad should find them out.”

  “Why?”

  Bauer shrugged. “In those two cases I liked the looks of them. Something about the eyes, and the way they carried themselves. In those two cases.” He stood and began to pace. “Let me think how many.” And counted silently on his fingers. “At least fifteen in the first group, and the second was a bit larger. Thirty-five or forty perhaps.” He stopped and faced Dietrich. “So you see, Pastor Bonhoeffer, I’ve saved more Jews than you have. Tell me, whom does God love more? You or me?”

  He waited with arms folded.

  Dietrich shut his eyes. “No doubt,” he said at last, “God pities us both.”

  “That is no answer.”

  “No.”

  “I suppose God is not in the answering business either.”

  “No. Only now and then in a still small voice.”

  Bauer threw up his hands. “You’re an odd sort of pastor. How could you comfort anyone? With you, there is nothing final, nothing certain.” He snapped his briefcase shut and turned to go.

  “Wait,” Dietrich said. “I have somewhat of an answer for you. I do not know which of us God loves best. But I hope it is you. However, I warn you, the love of God burns like fire. You will not be able to stand in the face of it.”

  Bauer’s face tightened. “I have tolerated your impudence throughout this interrogation,” he said, “because it amuses me. Intrigues me even. But let me tell you, Pastor Bonhoeffer, I will not be mocked.”

  “I am not mocking you, Alois. I am telling you, you cannot escape the love of God. That is a warning.”

  Bauer stepped closer. “And this also is a warning. Whatever happens to you from now on for good or ill depends upon me. Your fate, your destiny—” he came so close Dietrich could feel Bauer’s breath on his cheek—“in my hands.”

  “Then you must fight God for possession of me,” Dietrich said.

  The two men stared at each other as though a gauntlet had been thrown down between them. Then Bauer turned and went out without looking back.

  White Tunnel

  THE TEGEL WEHRMACHT INTERROGATION PRISON stood on its height like a medieval citadel presiding over a warren of stone hovels. The battered redbrick cellblocks were nearly empty, for army discipline had become a luxury. Anyone willing to fight, be he thirteen or threescore, was handed a makeshift weapon; prisoners were sent back to their units; anyone who flouted orders or deserted was either shot or vanished without facing charges.

  But somewhere, someone maintained a list of names. Names crossed off as the executions continued. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was on the list. But he remained in Tegel and was not sent to the gallows.

  He assumed Bauer was his angel, guardian and avenging. Or perhaps it was Hitler. The Führer was obsessed with those traitors who yet remained alive; harbored dreams of interrogating them personally so that he might dissect their hatred of the Fatherland beneath a microscope. But there was no time just now. The Reich was beset by enemies on all sides.

  Dietrich learned something of the outside world from Linke, who had become a regular visitor at the Bonhoeffer home in the Marienburger Allee. The old people were often at Sacrow to escape the bombs and to tend to Christel, who had taken to her bed. Maria was with them as well, having come up from Franconia to take care of them. But since the discovery of the Zossen documents Dietrich’s visiting privileges had been revoked and he had not seen her.

  Karl and Paula Bonhoeffer insisted on spending Mondays and Fridays in their own house, which had so far escaped the bombardments with minor damage, and that was where Linke often saw them.

  “They should stay in Sacrow,” Dietrich said. “Not just because of the bombs. The Marienburger Allee is just off the Heerstraße, and that is a major east-west boulevard. Any army which conquers the city will come right through there.”

  “They go there in part because they hope you may turn up,” Linke said once. And Dietrich shook his head. A vain hope.

  But he listened not long after the visit of Judge Advocate Bauer when Linke came to his cell late at night and sat cross-legged on the floor like a Red Indian.

  “You know I have Knobloch’s uniform,” Linke said.

  Knobloch was dead. His wife had left their shelter during an air raid to call in the family dog. Seconds later a bomb struck the shelter, killing everyone inside, including Knobloch and his five children. The wife now talked to the dog as though he were Knobloch, and had surrendered the uniform without question.

  “You know I have Knobloch’s uniform,” Linke repeated. “You know Maetz is always absent or drunk. You know the guards here are only marking time and praying the British reach Tegel before the Russians do.”

  Dietrich lay on his cot wra
pped in a musty tweed jacket long past the help of cleaning. A cold early-autumn wind whistled between the bars of a window without glass.

  “I can get you out of here. Very easy. Put you in Knobloch’s uniform. Anyone who recognizes you will say nothing. Everyone who sees will be blind.”

  Dietrich said, “Bauer will see.”

  “He’s not even in the city.”

  No matter, Dietrich thought. He imagined the judge advocate in a cave high in the mountains of the Thüringer Wald, hovering over a crystal ball.

  “He’ll notice too late,” Linke said. “I’ll take you from here to the Grunewald and dress you in the clothes of a tramp. I’ll give you Knobloch’s papers, which his widow was kind enough to surrender also. You can go on foot. Everyone is on foot now. Look at all the languages you speak. You can go to France, to Switzerland. Or find the Americans and tell them you lived in New York.”

  “What of you?” Dietrich asked.

  “Nothing will happen. It’s all broken down here. Your parents give me food and I use it. Everyone is beholden to me.”

  Dietrich closed his eyes and saw it all. He said, “And he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.”

  “What?” Linke said.

  “Nothing. Let me think about it.”

  And he asked himself, Who do you think you are, Jesus Christ?

  He sleeps and dreams.

  He is in Manhattan. Stares out the window down a street filled with fog. Wakes and remembers Hans von Dohnanyi. Who, according to the letters Linke smuggles in, has purposely infected himself with diphtheria bacilli sent him by his wife, Christel, so that he might not be forced to reveal any sensitive information. Who as a result suffers from paralysis of his limbs and weakness of the heart and is only semiconscious.

  And who will surely be killed if Dietrich Bonhoeffer turns up missing.

  Linke comes at night with a raw turnip, the only food available, since the kitchen is no longer in operation. Dietrich eats, the turnip chafing his teeth and gums.