The English Air

by D. E. Stevenson

  “You are too thin!” he exclaimed involuntarily.

  “I am not very well, Franz,” she told him in a whisper that sounded like the rustling of dry leaves. “I am not well … the food is good, Franz, but it does not agree with me. It is because I am ill that I cannot eat the good food.”

  He knew what was the matter with her now; she needed milk and butter and eggs, she needed soups and nourishing jellies and all she could get was the ersatz food of the Nazi régime—but it was a crime to criticise the food.

  “The food is good,” she repeated. “You must remember that, Franz.”

  “I shall remember,” said Franz, and he gave her a little squeeze to show that he understood.

  They sat there for a little without speaking and the red light faded in the sky. Darkness gathered in the big cold room and it was very still. At this hour, at this very moment they would be having tea at Fernacres (thought Franz, making a hasty calculation of the difference in time). They would be sitting round a glowing fire. The tea-table would be spread with its load of bread and butter and cakes—more than anyone could eat. Perhaps Cousin Sophie would be measuring out the fragrant smelling tea—Indian tea into this pot and China into that—she would look up and smile and ask who took sugar and cream, and the cream would come out of the silver jug in a luscious stream. The sunlight would be shining in at the windows glancing on Wynne’s gold hair and twinkling amongst the polished silver on the tray. Dane would be there—standing by the mantelpiece as his habit was—and perhaps Migs and Nina. Migs would be looking at Wynne. They would be talking casually and happily as these happy people talked, they would be laughing at jokes that were not really very funny but only seemed funny to them because they were happy and careless. Cousin Sophie would forget again—as she always forgot—that Migs took no milk in his tea … Cousin Sophie would be prattling about all that she had done, and about all she meant to do, and Dane’s eyebrow would lift a little as he listened and his mouth would quiver at the corners. Franz could see it all so clearly, he was homesick for it. Strangely enough it was Cousin Sophie he saw most clearly of all that little group. (He saw her more clearly than Wynne, for Wynne’s face and figure were partially hidden from the eye of his mind by a sort of rosy cloud.) Cousin Sophie in her soft pretty dresses with her soft pretty hair and the sweet trusting expression of her blue eyes. He saw her cherished by her family and her friends and waited upon by her servants with eager care …

  “Why did you come home, Franz?” asked Tant’ Anna at last.

  Franz could not answer that. He was afraid to begin to answer it, even to Tant’ Anna, for he knew that once he began to speak he might say more than was wise.

  “Where is Gretchen?” he inquired.

  “She has gone, Franz. She has gone home to her own people. It was better, for now we need not buy food for her.”

  Franz was silent for a moment, considering the situation carefully … “You must leave here,” he said at last.

  “Leave here!” she echoed in alarm. “Oh, Franz, then it is true. They are coming for me!”

  “No,” he told her, shaking her very gently. “No, why should they come for you?”

  “They follow me,” she said, gazing round the darkening room with staring eyes. “They watch me. I have told Otto about it but he says it is imagination …”

  “So it is … just imagination. They have nothing against you, have they?”

  “That is what Otto says … they have nothing against me; I have done nothing wrong. He says I am afraid of shadows.”

  “Listen to me, Tant’ Anna. It is your nerves, that’s all. You are ill and there is nobody here to look after you. I shall get you out of here.”

  He had formed the plan hastily but it was a good plan all the same. She could go to some old friends in Holland, and from there he could get her to England. He would take a little flat in London and they would live there together … he would get another post. He explained this to her and urged her to consent, but Tant’ Anna refused. She made all sorts of objections and excuses … they could take no money with them; she had no suitable clothes; Otto would want her to keep house for him when he returned from Prague. Franz listened with a sinking heart. He had wanted to do this for her, because she had done so much for him. He had wanted to take her away from here, to work for her, to give her proper food and nurse her back to health. For a moment it had seemed to him that this would make life worth living, it would give him something definite to live for now that all his hopes were in ruins. He listened to what she said and added a number of things which she very carefully did not mention, and he came to the conclusion that Tant’ Anna felt too ill to move from the house which she had lived in for so long. She was very ill—he was sure of that—perhaps she really was too ill and worn out to undertake the journey.

  They talked for a long time and gradually they began to understand each other’s minds and to trust each other completely.

  “It is worse since you left, it is much worse,” Tant’ Anna whispered, her mouth close to his ear, for even here in this empty apartment she was afraid of being overheard. “There is no safety anywhere … in the shops, one dare not complain that the meat is not good or the butter rancid.”

  Franz, listening to this and much more in the same strain, saw that he could open his heart to Tant’ Anna without fear, and soon he found himself telling her of his love for Wynne, of his hopes—now blasted—and of his fears for the future of their country.

  “You have changed,” she whispered. “Oh Franz, how you have changed! You would never have spoken like this before.”

  “I have changed because I have seen the truth with my own eyes,” Franz declared, and he went on to tell her of his life in England, trying to convey to her the atmosphere of peace and security and happiness which prevailed in Cousin Sophie’s house.

  “I read your letters to Otto,” she said. “He was angry about them, Franz. It was not right for him to be angry and I told him so. You were telling the truth—he should not have sent you to England if he did not want the truth.”

  Once he had started to speak Franz could not stop, he poured out all his feelings, all his bitterness. He told her many things about German Policy which she could scarcely believe.

  “But Franz, that is not what we were told …” she would begin in accents of bewilderment.

  “You were told lies,” declared Franz. “You were deceived. The march into Prague is the beginning of the end. You were told that Britain hated us; it is not true. She hates nobody for she is too great, too secure, too busy with her own affairs; but this betrayal of the Czechs has roused her. She was ready to sign a trade agreement with us but now she is angry.”

  “She would never fight,” Tant’ Anna said confidently.

  “You have been told that, but it is not true. Britain is re-arming now. I tell you Britain will fight … she has strength and power and racial pride, she has money, she has her Dominions and Colonies … we are finished.”

  “Gott im Himmel, do not speak like this to anyone—”

  “I would speak if it could do any good,” said Franz in a sombre voice. “I would like to speak—to warn my father.”

  “No!” she cried. “No, Franz, they would kill you. It would be madness.”

  “The whole world is mad, I think. Why can we not live in peace with each other in our own lands and eat the fruits of the earth? The way was open to peace and prosperity and Hitler shut the door. It will not open again. He has destroyed us and will destroy us further unless …”

  “Unless what?” she asked.

  Franz did not reply.

  Chapter Two

  It was quite dark now and the stars were shining above the housetops of the city in a clear, dark-blue sky. Franz had no idea what the time was—they had been talking for hours—but he was very hungry.

  He rose and stretched himself. “It is long past supper time,” he said.

  “I had forgotten,” Tant’ Anna declared. “I am never hungr
y now. I will see what there is … perhaps there will be an egg or two and I will make coffee for you, Franz.”

  “I have brought you some good things,” he replied. “Wait and I will show you.”

  He opened his suitcase and took out a roll of butter and a loaf of bread and a large packet of coffee.

  “Oh Franz!” she cried. “Real coffee! I have almost forgotten what it tastes like! I have some milk in the larder!”

  She fetched the milk and the coffee-pot and began to prepare the feast. “It is a good thing Otto is not here,” she declared. “He would not allow us to eat this food. He would say it was disloyal to the Fuehrer … and you must not speak of it to anyone or there might be trouble.”

  “Surely not!” exclaimed Franz. “Surely nobody would mind my bringing you this food from England.”

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “It is so difficult to know what is right and what wrong. You remember the Von Oetzens? Why, of course you do. They were always good to you when you were little. They have had very bad trouble, Franz.”

  “Trouble!” he echoed in surprise. “Trouble—but he was a good Nazi—”

  She nodded. “I will tell you about it,” she said. “They had an English Professor staying with them during the Christmas holidays. He was studying music here—a kind man with a long thin face and vague blue eyes. When he went back to England he sent a parcel of good things to the Von Oetzens—there was coffee and tinned butter and a warm coat for Frau von Oetzen who feels the cold so much—the parcel was opened and confiscated but that was not all … Herr von Oetzen was arrested.”

  “Arrested!” cried Franz in amazement.

  “They said he must have complained to a foreigner that our food was bad and that we had not sufficient clothing. He was taken away one morning just as he was starting for his office. He had no idea what it was that he had done. He did not know about the parcel—did not even know that it had been sent—it was only afterwards he heard. He was away for three weeks and the poor wife—she was nearly insane with anxiety. It was Otto who procured his release.”

  “Thank heaven for that!” exclaimed Franz.

  Tant’ Anna nodded. “I was glad too,” she declared. “I was glad that Otto had that much kindness left … enough kindness to risk a little danger to help an old friend in trouble. There is too little kindness amongst us today.…”

  “I must see him,” declared Franz. “I must see Herr Oetzen at once.”

  “No, Franz, it will be better not. You are too excited, too apt to let your feelings run away with you.”

  “I must see him,” repeated Franz. “I want to know what happened to him. You will arrange it for me, won’t you?”

  It was against her better judgment that Tant’ Anna at last consented to his persuasions. She was certain that no good could come of it, but she was too weak to withstand Franz. Very reluctantly and with a strange sense of foreboding in her heart she climbed the stair to the Von Oetzens’ apartment and arranged that Franz would go up and see him the following afternoon.

  Franz had always liked Herr von Oetzen—or Herr Oetzen as he now preferred to be called—but, quite apart from his affection for the kind old man, Franz had a definite object in his desire to speak to him. There were all sorts of vague and horrifying tales about the concentration camps but so far Franz had not obtained any first-hand information about them. He was anxious to know the truth.

  When the hour came for his interview Franz went up the stairs rather slowly, he was full of good advice and good intentions; he would be careful; he would say little; he would talk of old times and remind Herr Oetzen about the toffee and the sugar almonds with which his pockets were always filled. Perhaps he would tell Herr Oetzen how he used to wait for him on the stairs so that he might be asked to share the contents of those capacious pockets … it would amuse the old man to hear what a greedy little boy he had been. But these good and wise resolutions did not last long, they vanished when Franz was shown into the comfortable living-room and saw his old friend sitting in a chair near the stove.

  “Herr Oetzen!” cried Franz, going forward and taking his hand. “I did not know you were ill!”

  “I am not ill, Franz,” replied the old man with a faint smile, “and I shall be all the better for seeing you, my dear boy. How well you look!”

  Franz could not say the same, for Herr Oetzen’s face was grey and drawn and his eyes were red-rimmed and had a strange glazed appearance.

  “You are ill,” said Franz again.

  “Do not worry yourself. I was not very well when I was at Buchenwald, but it is nothing. Tell me about yourself, Franz, and about your stay in England.”

  “Tell me about Buchenwald,” urged Franz.

  “It is not a pleasant subject. We shall do better to speak of other things,” replied Herr Oetzen firmly.

  For some minutes they fenced with each other cautiously, but at last Franz could bear it no longer, his feelings got the better of him—as they had done before—and he began to speak his mind. Herr Oetzen lay back in his chair and listened to all that Franz had to say, and when Franz had finished and had paused, almost frightened by his own words, he leant forward and beckoned to Franz to come near.

  “Do not be afraid,” he said, in a whisper. “I believe what you are telling me—every word. I was a good Nazi before they arrested me but now I am a good German, which is a different thing. It was neither the injustice nor the ill-treatment that changed me, it was a deeper and more important factor, Franz. There were young guards at the camp, boys even younger than yourself, who had been taken from school and trained to be cruel to the prisoners in their charge. That is the most dreadful thing.”

  He was silent for a few moments and then he continued. “You and I have come to the same place by different roads. You have seen another happier land which lies outside the shadow of the swastika, and I have been walking in the deepest of the shadows. Our nation is being kept in a state of fear. It is drilled into uniformity. If this goes on much longer it will destroy Germany’s soul. A man needs a little piece of personal life … some happiness and security … without this he becomes an animal, a beast of burden, driven here and there at his masters’ whim … and the masters, Franz!” added Herr Oetzen, “The masters, what are they? Small men scrambling for power and preferment and caring little who is trampled underfoot.”

  Franz had not realised this before. He had seen that the foreign policy of his country was suicidal and had deplored its breach of faith, but it had seemed to him that, if the men who were responsible for this could be brought to book, all would be well. He began to realise that it was not Hitler but Hitlerism which must be rooted out before Germany could become whole and sane and able to take her rightful place amongst the great nations of the world.

  “It seems hopeless,” said Franz at last in a sombre tone.

  “Not altogether, Franz. There are still people in the Fatherland who care for truth and goodness, who believe in kindness and gentleness—the Christian virtues. There are hundreds of thousands of them, but the difficulty is to get together … and to awaken others to the truth before it is too late.”

  “Somebody ought to try and work for that. Herr Oetzen, that would be a noble work.”

  Herr Oetzen lowered his voice even further. “There are men who are doing this work for the Fatherland.”

  “There are?” inquired Franz in surprise.

  “Yes, I know one of them. He was at Buchenwald when I was there. He was released before I was, but before he left he contrived to speak to me about an organisation to which he belonged.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “It is a league,” replied Herr Oetzen slowly, “perhaps you will think it a strange sort of league for it has no name, no badge, no headquarters of any description. You see, Franz, these are the things which lead to detection.”

  “Yes, but how can it work?”

  “It works in small unrelated groups,” replied Herr Oetzen, “or rather in groups wh
ich are unrelated except for one man. For instance in Group A there is one man who is in touch with one man in Group B and so on. Even if one group should fall into the hands of the Gestapo the other groups are safe.”

  “Your friend had been betrayed?” asked Franz with interest.

  The old man nodded. “Yes, but his release was procured. There are influential people in this league—people in high places who are outwardly good Nazis—indeed you would scarcely believe me if I were to name them to you. My friend was told that he had been arrested by mistake. He was released and went away. He did not know where he was going but he was sure he would be sent out of Germany to a safe place. The league would not employ him any more—so he said—because he had come under suspicion. It was for his own sake and theirs also. They have to be careful, he said.”

  “It sounds well organised,” said Franz thoughtfully.

  “I thought so too. Well and wisely organised. There must be a good brain at the head.”

  “I should like to join them,” said Franz quietly.

  Herr Oetzen looked at him in amazement. “You!” he cried. “Oh no, Franz, not you. Think of your father!”

  “He would not know. He thinks I am still in England—I told you that, Herr Oetzen.”

  “It is dangerous,” declared the old man. “It is dangerous beyond words. No, you must not think of it, my dear boy. I was wrong to mention it to you but my mind was full of it all and my tongue ran away. Forget what I have told you.”

  “I have nothing to live for,” replied Franz. “Don’t you understand what I feel? My life is over. I do not know what to do or where to turn.”