by J. R. Lonie
For all her misery, she had not forgotten that He had been right after all. She had the sore spot on the back of her head to remind her that she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Henk was alive and she had seen him again. He hadn’t warned her was that their reunion would be so painful.
HÔTEL DE FRANCE, PAU
Same time, 9pm, Sunday, 14th December 1941
Bauer went to the communications room, where a swathe of cables awaited his return. He kept his composure as he opened the folder and read through them, starting with his wife’s. How she’d managed to send it, he could only put down to her persistence. Even the wife of a police detective couldn’t just blithely send a telegram these days. Everyone sent postcards instead. She would have played on Georg’s survival in Russia for all it was worth, or, since women were doing those post office jobs now, the sympathy of one mother for another.
He who did have access to the system replied to praise her and provide the details, if in précis, to her and to Karl. Yes, Georg was in a military hospital in Smolensk with a bullet wound to his arm and some frostbite. He and his men had been cut off by the surprise Russian advance, presumed captured or dead, but he’d led them back to German lines in a forty-eight-hour struggle, during which they’d survived by audaciously stealing Russian rifles and ammunition. They had even outflanked a Soviet division headquarters and were mistaken for a major German counterattack instead of just the fourteen survivors of the initial rout. Georg had brought the whole fourteen back alive and was a great hero.
‘Wonderful news, Herr Kommissar,’ Kopitcke said quite genuinely. Gone, at least in this instance, was the resentment he usually felt towards those at the front.
‘Yes,’ Bauer agreed.
He was of a mind to trumpet it to the world as a proud father and a proud German.
He had served on the Russian front, the last generation to take on the Slavic hordes, and they’d had a magnificent victory. But that had been destroyed by the reds at home. Now they had to do it all over again, against the same Slavic enemy. Georg had said to him, ‘Don’t worry, Papa, we’ll finish them this time, so my sons won’t have to fight them when they grow up.’ This was a boast, the son showing off to the father. Bauer didn’t mind. In any case, it was true – but he, the father, knew how much harder it was now for his son and all the sons. The enemy was not the same. This war wasn’t clean like the last time, because the Slavs were now infected by the Bolshevik virus. The army was fighting not only the Red Army but the entire civilian population, who were attacking the German boys from behind. At first he couldn’t credit Georg’s stories. Then there were the Jews. Bauer had not approved when the government started persecuting the Jews at home. He’d fought in Russia with Jews who were loyal and patriotic Germans. He still thought exceptions should have been made for Germany’s Jews. Whether he liked it or not, it was too late now, because every Jew had been turned into a bitter enemy. The leading Bolsheviks were all Jews. Yes, they faced a poisonous cocktail of enemies, and if they lost, Christian and Catholic Germany would be completely destroyed. But Georg’s survival and success against all odds now gave him fresh hope that both his boys might survive this war after all.
‘We haven’t got our criminals yet,’ he said to Kopitcke. His quarries were still in hiding. The reports coming in had all turned out to be false alarms. Sooner rather than later, they would have to make a break for it, and then he would catch them. He had the patience of Job.
Then a commotion presented itself at the entrance. A car disgorged the Gestapo, who, in their singular way, barged right in. Leading them was Captain Leske, whom Bauer had held at gunpoint when he’d sprung Lieutenant Wolf from the cell at the Villa St Albert. He was in SS uniform, so Bauer did not at first recognise him.
Leske didn’t bother greeting Bauer by name. He just threw a file on the table. ‘Read it,’ he demanded.
Bauer opened it. The first page was a précis of Lieutenant von Kaspar Wolf’s military record: the Iron Cross; another citation; service in Poland, Denmark, Norway, then Russia; his hand wound; his withdrawal from front-line duty.
‘Now this,’ said Leske, pulling the page away to reveal Lance Corporal Pohl’s military record. Leske’s thick finger was on the relevant paragraph. Service in Poland, Denmark, Norway, Russia, Iron Cross.
‘What’s your point?’ Bauer said irritably. Millions served in the same arenas.
‘You blind?’ Leske replied. ‘Same platoon.’
Bauer quickly flipped back to Wolf’s file. Yes, Wolf had been Pohl’s platoon officer almost the whole time he’d been in the Wehrmacht, until his dismissal as a Mischling. He suddenly had a bad feeling, but Leske offered him neither time nor room to hide.
‘Here,’ said Leske, revealing a Gestapo report with two paragraphs outlined.
Bauer read the first:
The avoidance, then the outright refusal followed by a deliberate cover-up of the Führer’s order to remove all Mischlings from the army is in the case of Lance Corporal Heinrich Pohl due directly to Lieutenant Hugo von Kaspar Wolf, with the connivance of the company commander.
Leske impatiently took back the letter. ‘We’ll be here all night at this rate,’ he said and began to read the next paragraph: ‘The formal complaint by Private Brandler of the same unit about a possible homosexual relationship between Lance Corporal Pohl and Lieutenant Hugo von Kaspar Wolf was investigated by the company commander and dismissed due to the lack of evidence. The complainant was disciplined for spreading false rumours and transferred.’
Leske put the letter down. ‘Same company commander who protected the Jew Pohl,’ he said as he threw a photograph onto the table. ‘We found this in Wolf’s hotel room.’
Bauer looked up sharply.
‘Yes,’ Leske confirmed with a leer, ‘we got inside, despite your French pals.’
The photograph was of Pohl and Wolf, smiling and naked on some summery strand, arms around each other’s shoulders. And yes, their penises were slightly engorged.
‘That proves nothing,’ Bauer countered. ‘Soldiers always go naked at the beach.’
‘They’ve got hard-ons for fuck’s sake!’ said Leske.
‘That merely shows you’ve never been in the army, Leske,’ Bauer retorted, although he knew by now he was in quicksand. ‘I’ve seen sights like that on beaches with the men. Instead of accusing them of perversion, we had a good laugh about it.’
Leske turned the photograph over and read out loud the message written on the back: ‘Remember? Blavand, summer ’39. I ache for you to hold me tight while I fill your arse with my cock and its hot juice. Your Heiner.’
Bauer stared at the writing, only half listening to Leske, who was still going on, something about Wolf having returned to the German consulate after Bauer had liberated him.
‘. . . papers . . . incriminating evidence . . . all the contents of his safe . . . Spanish currency missing . . .’
Bauer began to listen properly only when Leske told him that some passports and two or three pistols also seemed to be missing but that the records couldn’t be checked properly until the next morning.
‘One of the consulate’s cars is gone, a Peugeot, as is Lieutenant Wolf,’ he informed Bauer. ‘No wonder you haven’t caught Pohl.’
Leske paused, crossed his arms. Unfortunately for Bauer, he was not finished.
‘At around half past eleven, quarter to twelve this morning,’ he began his coup de grace, ‘at the French checkpoint on the road up to the Spanish frontier at the Col du Somport, that same car was observed. Why among all the cars and trucks was it observed? Because the driver, wearing a Wehrmacht greatcoat, got out and spoke to one of the gendarmes.’
Bauer could guess what was coming but had to sit through the indignity of hearing it, word for painful word.
‘He spoke perfect French and announced he was from the German consulate and needed to drive across the frontier urgently on diplomatic business. The French informed him the border was temporarily closed and that
they would need in any case to inspect the officer’s car; this was a joint Franco-German operation. They showed him the “wanted” poster as the reason. The German officer declined to allow a search, on the ground of diplomatic immunity, and returned to the car, which the gendarmes could see had someone in the front passenger seat. They turned around and drove back in the direction they had come. Have your French colleagues not reported this to you yet?’
No, they had not. Bauer had nothing to say. He recalled that his instinct about Wolf had been negative at first, but Wolf’s wounded hand and record had completely banished his doubts. He’d also just come from the odious Pichler, whose sneers against Wolf had probably helped inoculate him against trusting instinct. What made this all the harder to cope with was that he had plenty of experience in Frankfurt weeding out perverts, closing down the bars, clearing the riverbank of their places of assignation. The coming of the Nazis had given the police much greater powers, which he had used to the full. Moreover, he knew that plenty of them had gotten themselves into the Wehrmacht because the Gestapo couldn’t touch them there. And he, Bauer, had rescued one of them from the Gestapo, had covered up his nakedness, had got his wounds tended. Wolf had completely betrayed his trust and Bauer felt humiliated as never before – and worse, in front of Kopitcke, who had been right about Wolf all along.
‘This is still an army responsibility,’ he said, putting on as strong a face as he could. ‘You can assure the Reichsmarschall that when we catch them, which we will, on my personal authority, these deceivers will be executed summarily.’
‘That all you’ve got to say?’ Leske said, taken aback by the gall of the man.
‘Yes,’ said Bauer.
‘They don’t deserve a simple bullet in the skull,’ Leske said. The wind had gone out of his sails.
‘What do you suggest?’ Bauer barked angrily.
‘You hand them over to us,’ Leske replied. ‘We need them to talk.’
‘You can have Wolf,’ said Bauer, ‘but Pohl is mine. Understood?’ He would make the evil little creep suffer before he personally dispatched him to hell.
Leske was surprised; he thought Bauer would resist on both counts. He agreed and then left with his gang.
Bauer had to sit down. ‘Jesus Maria,’ he muttered. He wasn’t looking forward to informing the general. There would be no Honour Court the next morning to exonerate Wolf over the duel, which is what they’d planned. Nor, in the circumstances, would he need a field court to deal with Pohl.
‘The consulate car,’ he said to Kopitcke. ‘Get the French to find it. Urgent.’ At least this got Kopitcke and his ‘I told you so’ face out of sight.
Then he looked at the facts presented to him and their confusions, which he thought through carefully, one by one.
Where was the woman? With them?
He couldn’t think to save himself. His hands were shaking as he took out the Pervitin and quickly swallowed another tablet. He ordered a cup of coffee and lit his pipe. The rush was taking longer to come and didn’t seem as strong. The side effects were obvious but there was no time to worry about that right now.
Wolf and Pohl were still this side of the border. They had been intent on crossing legally, each with valid travel documents and a visa for Spain. This option was now gone.
He could assume, therefore, that they had not organised an illegal crossing. Now they had to. What were their choices? They could try to cross into Spain by themselves, but it would be certain death to traverse country of which they had no knowledge or understanding. They needed to find someone to take them across – they, a German officer and a German Jew, whose photograph as a wanted killer was everywhere. Where the American woman was he did not know. He would focus on the two men and worry about her later. Killer though she was, her only interest to him was if she could lead them to Pohl and Wolf. What she made of the truth about Pohl, if she knew, he could only guess.
In Lyon, the people smugglers had been quite happy to hand Pohl over in return for the release of their own from prison. The only reason it hadn’t worked was that Pohl and the woman had got wind of it. He’d try it here with St Jean, whom he rang and dragged from his dinner table. Given that, St Jean was surprisingly agreeable. He would put the word out: a deal was on the table.
‘Don’t forget the reward,’ Bauer added before hanging up.
What would he do in the same situation? Hide or dump the car? Dump. Its loss would be known by now. He would dump it in a way as to send the police in the wrong direction.
Where would I hide? he pondered.
Hotels? No, not now the French were all over them.
Then, he thought, a church or a monastery. Obvious for a Catholic like Wolf. It’s what he himself would do in extremis, after all. Back in Frankfurt, the Church had sheltered Catholic politicians in trouble with the Nazis. It was all smoke and mirrors. If they wanted to hide someone, that someone stayed hidden and not even the Gestapo found them.
But where had the two ended up today? He couldn’t just sit here waiting. He took up the telephone again and called St Jean, who this time was grumpy and short when asked if his men would search the churches and monasteries.
‘Of course not,’ St Jean snapped.
‘What if the Church is protecting someone like Pohl?’
‘We have an agreement,’ St Jean replied. ‘They wouldn’t.’
‘But how would they know Pohl was a killer? Do you regularly inform them?’
St Jean did no such thing and now resented Bauer’s pestering. Naturally, the Church took in refugees and gave them food, but they didn’t harbour them; they fed them and sent them on their way.
Bauer didn’t like the answers he was getting, but at least he knew the lie of the land. He thanked St Jean. He had to do something, so he rang the duty officer in Pau first. A request to deliver the ‘wanted’ poster to each church and monastery as a matter of urgency.
‘Now,’ he said.
Then he rang the duty officers in each of the towns south to the Col du Somport and requested the same of them.
‘Tonight,’ he said. He hoped they would at least do it by early tomorrow morning.
He wasn’t in a sleeping mood. The Pervitin was working at last. He intermittently turned to the cables about Georg to soothe the agitations caused by the Pohl case, with its frustrations and complexities. His professional humiliation at the hands of the Gestapo would last a long time. He set the cables aside. Something nagged him about the relationship between Pohl and Wolf.
He had never witnessed anything like that during the Great War. He hadn’t been naïve, but it had never once intruded into his life as a soldier. Nor since had he heard of anything like that among the comrades of his unit. But if Pohl and Wolf were able to hide in full view, the army was in trouble precisely when the country was facing a terrible threat to its survival. He took a silent oath on the honour of his two heroic sons that their father would be as tough and uncompromising as they were. It was his duty to them both. As a Catholic, he had found the Nazis and their views uncomfortably pagan at times, but he did not believe that God wanted Germany destroyed, so this was his duty also to the Almighty. Tomorrow, he would get Pohl and Wolf.
HOUSE OF RETREAT, CATHÉDRALE SAINTE-MARIE D’OLORON
Towards midnight, Sunday, 14th December 1941
Eleanor was woken by a knock on the door. She thought it was one of the young men come to waken her. Time to leave.
‘One moment,’ she called and slid herself out from the bed, keeping the blanket around her shoulders against the cold. She found her lighter and lit the candle on the wall. Whoever it was pushed the door open.
‘Eleanor?’
Framed in the shadowy light of the little arched doorway was Henk. Behind him, one of the nuns, who had shown him where she was, flittered away.
‘Please,’ he said. ‘May I speak with you?’
Dear God, no, she said to herself. What was the point?
‘Of course,’ she replied, immedi
ately changing her mind and putting on a strong face. Why not? What had she to fear? She was over him, a momentary lapse. She sat on the bed, pulling the blanket tight around her.
He stepped inside but shivered. With the door open, the air from the passageway was drifting into the room, making it even colder. He wasn’t sure if he should shut the door. He hovered.
‘Do shut the door,’ she said.
‘I wish to explain why I had to leave this morning and not tell you,’ he said.
‘No need,’ she replied. ‘You had a better offer.’ Immediately she regretted that, but it was out. Too late. Her and her stupid mouth.
‘It was not like that,’ he said, not rising to her bait as once he would have.
She said nothing. She wanted a cigarette but forced herself to resist.
‘What happened last night,’ he said, ‘you and I – ’
This is just what she didn’t want to talk about. He saw the look on her face. He persisted.
‘I must tell you I need you then more than I ever need anyone. Without you, I think I give cat away and jump off a cliff.’
Coming from such a paragon of self-containment and purpose, this shocked her.
‘You gave me love. You ask nothing from me – how do you say?’
‘Unconditional,’ she said flatly.
‘Unconditional,’ he repeated. ‘Like in your novel.’ He saw her look sharply at him. ‘You think I don’t read it? I read it all yesterday and the day before.’
He paused.
‘I disappear into it. You understand? I live in it. He is me. And she is – ’
Again, he paused.
‘She is his love; she is my love, who is Hugo.’
Praise like this came rarely to authors, she knew, sweet to their ears and to their professional egos. This came with an awful sting. He saw her flinch. Should he stop now? Was he doing any good?