The Ambassador

by Yehuda Avner

  Laughter defused the tension. The “Horst Wessel” oinking started up once more. Everyone was eager to seize on their common dislike of the regime. The differences between them were minor compared to their shared horror at the brutality on the streets.

  The Luftwaffe officer came over to Dan, clicked his heels, and extended his hand. His hair was blond, cut in a boyish mop, and his cheeks were flushed with wine. “Oberleutnant Ansgar Schulze, of the Luftwaffe Staff Command.”

  Dan took the man’s hand and Schulze drew him close, giving him a meaningful look. “You may be yourself tonight, Herr Ambassador. You are among friends.”

  Schulze turned to Anna, bowed, and kissed her hand. “Frau Lavi, the Countess tells me you risked the streets on Kristallnacht to treat the child of your Gestapo guard?”

  “The little girl had a viral meningitis. She’ll be fine.”

  “Well, if you ever need to work as a veterinarian, you’ll have some experience behind you. The child could not have been human, considering who her father is.”

  Anna wasn’t drawn by the Luftwaffe man’s evident contempt for the Gestapo.

  Gottfried was eager to play, but the Countess insisted he wait for her last guests. When they arrived, Dan immediately recognized the former political advisor to the British High-Commissioner in Palestine. Beside him stood a man in an old-fashioned collar whose features displayed considerable nervousness.

  The Countess called Dan over. “I believe you are acquainted with Herr Boustead,” she said. “And this is Herr Kritzinger, the deputy chief of the Chancellery.”

  Peter Boustead seemed thinner in his dark suit than he had been when last Dan saw him. His face displayed a resolve that hadn’t been evident in Jerusalem. Perhaps in Palestine the man had been conflicted about his role and here, in Berlin, he no longer was.

  “Your Excellency.” Boustead shook Dan’s hand. The Countess winked at them, then walked away with Kritzinger.

  “I didn’t know you were in Berlin.”

  “This isn’t my first time in Germany. My father served on the Military Inter-Allied Commission of Control after the Great War, and he was based in Berlin. My mother and I lived here with him for a couple of years. He administered the place. Then he handed it over to the Germans.”

  “Perhaps you should’ve kept it.”

  “We couldn’t have done worse than the swine who rule here of late, eh?” He lowered his voice. “I’ve been in touch with your friend Shmulik Shoham.”

  So Boustead was now in British intelligence. The lineup at the Countess’s soiree was now clear to Dan. No wonder Kritzinger, the Chancellery official, looked nervous. If Hitler found out where he had been this evening it wouldn’t reflect well upon him. A gathering of opponents. German officers critical of the Nazi leadership. A Countess making disrespectful remarks about Göring’s weight. A British intelligence official.

  And the Israeli ambassador.

  He wondered if it was risky for him to be here. The Nazis certainly wanted to unload the German Jews onto Israel, but there were probably some Germans who’d like nothing more than to discredit the Israeli ambassador and send him packing, back to the Middle East. The soiree might be most dangerous for Gottfried, as a lowerranked diplomat than Dan. An ambassador should be at least somewhat untouchable.

  “Of course, your Mister Shoham is much more clandestine than I am,” Boustead continued. Like all British officials, he acted the harmless dimwit very well. “Political officer at His Majesty’s Embassy here, that’s me. Not even departmental chief. A bit of a demotion, really. Like all other things about Palestine, my government sought to sweep me under the carpet.”

  Dan had great regard for Boustead’s intellect. It was clear that Berlin would be the center of European events in the coming years. If Boustead had been swept away, he had ended up not beneath the carpet, but at the head of the table. “I can’t imagine your chiefs in Whitehall have anything but the greatest faith in you.”

  Boustead shrugged. “Far from it, old man. You, on the other hand, have gone up in the world.”

  “Only because the world is on the way down.”

  Gottfried tuned his violin and the room hushed. The virtuoso performed the same pieces Dan remembered from the concert at Mount Scopus. This time the music was still more soulful, as though the longing Dan heard in the first performance had been sated. Happiness had taken its place. Anna squeezed his hand. She felt it too. Dan watched Gottfried play, eyes closed, fleshy cheek spilling onto the violin’s tail piece, sweat in his hair and brows.

  When the music was over, Gottfried collapsed into an old Louis Quatorze sofa. Dan brought him some champagne and sat beside him.

  The violinist downed the champagne quickly. His jaw shivered and his eyes were red.

  “Are you sick?” Dan asked.

  Gottfried caught his heavy upper lip in his teeth and shook his head. “Thank you, Dan. For bringing me back here.”

  Dan almost replied that Gottfried and his music were a great asset to the embassy, but he held back. He wasn’t talking to his cultural attaché now. This man had been hounded from the work he loved with the Berlin Philharmonic, chased from the heart of the culture that had nurtured his talent. And now he had returned.

  Gottfried’s eyes were misty, his voice choked. “This is all because of you, Dan.”

  “Not because of me. It’s because of Israel. Because we have a state.”

  Gottfried gazed at the Countess with love. She was by the window, speaking quietly with Anna. The women’s faces were hidden, but the stillness of their bodies suggested a serious conversation.

  “I will never see Israel again,” Gottfried said.

  Perhaps he was ill. Dan grabbed his hand. “Of course you will. We’ve dreamed of that land for two thousand years, Wili. Now it’s ours. We must all glory in that.”

  “My dreams have been different than yours.” Gottfried watched the Germans drink their champagne. “My Countess and her friends believe everything will be fine again here, in the end. They detest the Nazis. Some in this room are communists, some are just snobs who think Hitler lacks breeding. I know all of them from way back.” He drew himself up. “None of them will survive, Dan. Unless you help them.”

  “Gottfried, my mission is to get Jews out, not Prussian aristocrats.”

  “Our country needs people like these.”

  “Our country? Are you talking about Israel? Or Germany?”

  “Israel, of course. These people would bring it culture and refinement.”

  “Our country needs Jews. That’s all. Refined or doltish, it doesn’t matter. Germany has smart Germans and dumb Germans and hateful Germans and loving Germans. We need Jews in each of those categories too.” Dan swept his hand around the room. “If the people in this room decide to play along with the regime, they can maintain their privileged positions. That’s not an option for Germany’s Jews.”

  “Their privilege doesn’t matter to these people. Their country is going to hell. Sooner or later they will try to do something about that, and we should help them. That’s how to save Jews, Dan.” Gottfried stood abruptly. “Not by shipping them off to the desert with all those ignorant Russian peasants and Arabs.”

  He marched over the Turkish silk rug to the Countess in the window. He laid his hand on her back. She slipped her arm around his waist. Together, they looked onto the dark street. Dan wondered if they were watching the Gestapo detail in the Mercedes outside the embassy.

  Anna sat down beside him. Her eyes fell on Gottfried and the Countess.

  “Would you do that for me?” she said. “Come back to a place where you might be in danger? Just to be alongside me?”

  “I brought you to Berlin. Into danger.”

  She smiled. “Does that mean you love me more, or less?”

  He tried to think of a funny remark to divert her. But a witticism would have deflected his emotions, rather than hers. Her face was lit by the flickering gas light. “I’ll die before I let anything happe
n to you,” he said.

  Chapter 13

  When they returned to the embassy, they found Richter on guard duty, a Schmeisser submachine gun on the desk beside him. The Gestapo was supposed to keep intruders away, but Shmulik refused to leave embassy security in the hands of the very people who might one day want him dead. He and his Mossad underlings alternated keeping watch until all the staff was accounted for and locked down. Dan heard the light pop of pistol fire filter through the soundproofing and into the lobby. He sent Anna up to bed and said goodnight to Gottfried. He went down into the basement. He waited for a pause in the firing and opened the door of the shooting range.

  Shmulik pushed a round into the magazine of a Luger P08 and slotted it into the pistol’s wooden grip. Dan shut the door. As it clicked behind him, Shmulik turned to the gallery. He lifted the German pistol in both hands and fired. Inside the room the shots boomed loudly. The last cartridge ejected, tinkling onto the concrete floor. Shmulik put the pistol down, marched to the target, and ripped it away.

  Dan touched the pistol on the table. “Why aren’t you using your Colt?”

  “The Luger’s more common here.”

  “Meaning you can dispose of it more easily after you do something you don’t want traced?”

  “Nothing I do should be traced.” Shmulik slapped his target onto the table beside the pistol. It was a newspaper photo of the British prime minister waving a piece of paper. In September, Chamberlain had let Hitler occupy the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia in return for what he called “peace in our time.” With astonishing accuracy, Shmulik had put all seven of his bullets into the document in Chamberlain’s hand.

  “Did you run out of photos of Hitler?” Dan asked.

  “When I shoot at Hitler, it’ll be the real thing.” Shmulik stripped the Luger. He smelled of cigarette smoke and beer.

  “Devorah told me you were out meeting sources.”

  “You sound suspicious. Why else would I be out? Do you think I have a girlfriend?”

  “Only if she’s a communist.”

  “I have my job to do. It’s best that you don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “I don’t want to know the details, but I do want to be sure that your actions accord with policy. With the wishes of the Old Man.”

  Shmulik snorted an angry breath. Dan wondered how much he had drunk. “If the Old Man was here, he’d change the policy. Are you going to just sit around, handing out visas and working with the Nazis, until they come to take you away?”

  “My job is to help people emigrate. We need new settlers in Israel, and German Jews are outcasts.”

  “So the Jews go to their land of milk and honey, while the Nazis get a Jew-free Reich, and everyone’s happy? But where will it stop, Dan? Do you ever wonder that? We sit here in our lovely embassy, representing our country, believing that gives us some protection. What good is diplomatic protocol when Hitler recognizes no power other than his own?” Shmulik brandished the photo of Chamberlain before Dan. “Diplomacy didn’t help the Czechs at the Munich Conference. It won’t help them in a few months, when Hitler goes back to claim the rest of Czechoslovakia—”

  Dan started to speak, but Shmulik held out his hand to silence him. “Don’t argue with me. You know that Hitler will do it. Diplomacy won’t help Poland, either, when the bastard decides it’s time to seize the Lebensraum he’s always wanted in the east. So what makes you think he’ll respect the office of His Excellency Dan Lavi?”

  “I have no expectations of Hitler.” Dan hammered his hand down on the table. The pistol jumped. “I do expect you to understand that any action you take against the regime could destroy our mission. The Nazis could shut down Jewish emigration.”

  Shmulik didn’t back down. “Get it into your over-educated head, Harvard boy. The Germans don’t want the Jews. They want the Jews to leave. The only way they’ll shut down emigration is if they decide to kill us all.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “It’s not ridiculous, it’s inhuman. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but inhumanity is a characteristic highly prized by the Nazis.”

  “They’re not going to kill two hundred thousand people. That is ridiculous.”

  “On Kristallnacht they killed one hundred Jews. Wouldn’t it have been better if I killed one German Führer to save even that many lives?”

  “Is that your plan?”

  Shmulik waved his hand dismissively. “I’m in touch with a few members of the piffling German resistance movement. I can hardly call it a movement, it barely even exists these days. Let’s say it’s comprised of the handful of leftists who haven’t yet been executed at Buchenwald and Dachau.”

  “If you aren’t careful, that’s where you’ll end up.”

  “One of my contacts escaped from there. He tells me that it says “Jedem das Seine” above the gate. How would you translate that?”

  “Everyone gets what he deserves.”

  “Right. Well, if I ever go through that gate, I’ll be in full agreement with the motto.”

  Dan touched his hand to his brow. “Shmulik, let’s stop fighting each other. I’m begging you not to do anything too risky. That’s all.”

  “Like putting my trust in the Nazi regime?”

  Dan grabbed Shmulik’s shoulders to shake him, then realized the man was close to tears. His anger drained away. He pulled the Mossad man close, and embraced him.

  When they separated, Shmulik grimaced. “I’m sorry, Dan. When you move in my circles, you start to believe that all morality is gone from Germany. Then you wonder if it ever existed anywhere. If we are even moral.”

  “It’s too late at night for philosophy. You’ll have nightmares.”

  “Sleep is my only escape from this nightmare.”

  Wearily, Dan left the gallery and went upstairs. From the door of his suite, he heard Shmulik shooting again.

  Chapter 14

  Anna combed out her hair as Dan undressed. The lamp on her vanity was the only light in the bedroom. It shimmered on her silk negligee. She watched him in the mirror. “You’ve had a fight with Shmulik.”

  He dropped his shirt onto a chair and sat on the bed in his underwear. “It’s only natural that there’s a debate between us. The same thing happens back in Israel when the Old Man’s attacked by the rightists from Herut and Hatzohar. We’re all on the same side in the end.”

  “My mother seems to think we’d be safer leaving it all behind. Not just Berlin, but Israel too. She wrote me again, asking me to persuade you to go to Boston. She never understood why I wanted to go to Palestine. Berlin is completely beyond her capacity to grasp.”

  “She always was a sensible woman. You’d have to be a lunatic to take in what’s happening here and stay sane.” His body felt slack, his muscles deteriorating with the long hours at his desk. He wished he could go out and walk, could keep walking until he was in the desert around Jerusalem. Under a full moon, the landscape there was barren and pale, like the surface of the moon. Here, there were reminders on every corner of the horrors facing his people. An ugly remark from a Brownshirt. A row of Swastika banners on the avenue. A burned-out shop painted with a Star of David and a caricature of a big-nosed Jew. There was nowhere to go for respite.

  Except to this room, and this woman.

  “I was too hard on him,” he said.

  She crawled across the bed and hugged herself to his back. He tried to relax into her, but his mind wouldn’t stop racing. From Shmulik, to Hitler, to Gottfried and the Countess, to the refugees who came to him every day, each one convinced that their story was more dreadful than anything he could have heard anywhere else––and they were right, at least until the next one arrived to weep at his desk.

  His head nodded and he dropped briefly into sleep, into other people’s nightmares, making them his own. He was marching through the Chancellery to present his credentials to Hitler, the dead bodies of Shmulik’s family walking beside him, joining him from the pogrom that had killed them in Kie
v twenty years before. And this time, Hitler grinned and shook Dan’s hand, brushed his face with his mustache in a delicate kiss, and whispered Gottfried’s name in his ear. Shmulik was there, covered in his mother’s blood, raising a pistol to kill the Führer, but Dan leapt at him and took the bullet in his own chest. He shuddered.

  “Sweetheart,” Anna said.

  The concern in her voice made Dan realize that he was crying. “I’m sorry. I’ve been working too hard.”

  She rubbed his neck and shoulders. He lay back on the bed. As soon as she kissed him, he was asleep.

  Chapter 15

  Berlin, August 1939

  Dan waved as the train pulled out of the Anhalter Station. The engine’s smoke shrouded the children who leaned from the windows, calling to their parents on the platform. A consignment of Jewish youngsters, sent to the new Israeli state ahead of their parents, who had to wait until they could find more money or plead for the official Gestapo documents that would allow them to follow. The couples huddled in the steam and the flow of passing commuters, watching their little ones disappear.

  Who’s really disappearing, though? Dan wondered. There was a whole life ahead for those children in Israel while everything closed in on their parents. The mothers and fathers huddled around him. He had been in this exact spot so many times in the year since he became ambassador to Berlin. He knew the rush of emotion, the excuses for letting the children go without them, the pleas for help in their own emigration. Always, he let them talk it out and promised to do what he could.

  But now he heard a new strain of desperation in the voices around him. The year had been worse than ever for the Jews of Hitler’s Reich. They were leaving as fast as they could. Many cultured German Jews couldn’t picture themselves in the heat and dust of Israel. But the US had imposed a strict quota on Jewish immigration, as had thirtyone other countries at a conference in the French town of Evian. These countries claimed to want farmers and workers, not doctors and middleclass businessmen—by which they meant German Jews. Even those who did find a country to welcome them faced difficulties getting out of Germany. The Reich Flight Tax had been increased to ludicrous proportions, so that any Jew leaving for anywhere but Israel would have to abandon two-thirds or more of their capital. Anything they did manage to take with them could be stripped at random by Gestapo officers before they were allowed to leave Germany. There could be no complaints, or the Gestapo would withdraw the “ certificate of harmlessness” which Jews had to present at the border.