Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  Glaser’s head cleared. He felt suddenly more alert. ‘What do you mean, “a new type of person”? Are you saying the Nazis intend to redesign people? Like Hitler redesigns buildings? Like converting the Barlow Palace to the Brown House?’

  ‘Exactly. People more adapted to what the Racial Community requires of them.’

  Glaser suddenly understood: The Nazi programme was nothing less than the forced excision of the human soul. ‘You won’t get away with it,’ he said.

  Elsperger spread his fleshy lips. ‘Yes, we will. Glaser, we have been indulgent with you so far, not least because you know Rudi here. But this is your final warning. Take it. Or you’re finished.’ SS-Captain Elsperger stood. ‘Come on, Rüdiger. Let’s get you tucked up in bed.’

  Rudi didn’t move. His eyes were shut. There were small blue – white bubbles at the corners of his mouth. Elsperger made an impatient noise. Then he stalked out of the room.

  As soon as he had gone, Rudi opened one eye, then the other. ‘Have a little faith, old man,’ he said. ‘Have a little trust, why don’t you? Oh, my bloody head!’

  Glaser kicked the Leica further under the armchair with his right heel. ‘Why don’t you go back to the party, Rudi,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you there.’

  But he didn’t. Once Rudi had staggered off to find his friend, Glaser retrieved the camera. He used the telephone room’s telephone to call a taxi to take him home.

  Chapter Four

  SS-Captain Anton Elsperger was reporting to Heydrich and Forster, in Heydrich’s office.

  ‘With von Hessert’s help,’ Elsperger was saying. ‘I have now made contact with Glaser and spoken to him. I have no doubt that he is an enemy of the Third Reich, involved in treasonable activity. This may be the dissemination of subversive material, printed abroad.’

  ‘Does von Hessert suspect you?’ Heydrich asked.

  ‘No, Herr Oberführer.’ Elsperger said. ‘He values our ... contacts.’

  Forster leered. Elsperger licked his thick lips and ignored him.

  ‘Your views on how we should proceed: You first, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘Pull Glaser in,’ Forster said. ‘Take him to the cells downstairs. Beat out of him what he knows. I’ll do it myself, if you like. Pompous, smug bastard.’

  ‘Glaser was at Frau von Hessert’s birthday celebration,’ Heydrich said. ‘Along with the Führer. We must proceed with caution where the von Hesserts are concerned. Your view, Elsperger?’

  ‘I have two recommendations, Herr Oberführer: The first is to have Glaser followed at all times. Put men outside his residence. Plain clothes, but make the surveillance obvious.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Forster.

  ‘In my view,’ Elsperger said, ‘both Glaser and von Hessert are close to cracking. The more pressure we put them under, the better.’

  Heydrich nodded. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s what we’ll do, then.’

  He started to rise, signalling the meeting was over. Forster sneered. ‘You said you had two recommendations,’ he said to Elsperger. ‘What’s the second one?’

  Heydrich sat again.

  ‘My second recommendation,’ Elsperger said, ‘is that we find out where Fräulein von Hessert is getting Rüdiger’s morphine from. We then arrest the source. It’s obviously coming from the university chemistry laboratories, so this should not be difficult. Rüdiger has started to accept his morphine from me. I wish to be his only source of supply. Then, gentlemen, I am confident of telling you anything you wish to know about these traitors.’

  *

  Just as the meeting finished, in Heydrich’s office, Sepp Kunde and Ello joined Glaser and Kaspar round the table at the Glaser flat. Lotte and Magda were away at Lotte’s sister, Katya Bachhuber’s, house. They were spending more and more of the summer there, including frequent overnight stays.

  Kaspar fetched the photographs of the plans for the House of German Art. He had enlarged them. They had come out gratifyingly well.

  ‘And Hitler reckons this will ready by October?’ Kunde asked Ello, looking at the photographs.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He keeps telling Troost how quickly Speer built the Propaganda Ministry in Berlin. He’s really saying, if Troost can’t finish it, he’ll bring Speer in. He told me the renderings, ground plans, cross-sections and a first model are ready now.’

  Kunde whistled, reluctantly impressed.

  Ello looked at him. ‘Sepp, are you sure you don’t want me to try and get hold of the model?’

  Kunde and Ello had obviously been discussing all this before they arrived.

  ‘No,’ Kunde said. ‘I’ve got all I need. I know where to put the dynamite. You did well.’

  They looked at each other. They hardly took their eyes off each other.

  ‘So what’s your next move?’ Glaser asked Kunde gruffly, puffing at his pipe.

  ‘Get a job in a quarry. Back in Swabia. The one near Königsbronn. Know it?’

  Glaser nodded. ‘Heard of it, at any rate.’

  ‘I can steal all the dynamite I need. I’ll stay there over the summer and on until the art gallery is ready.’

  Glaser nodded, puffing smoke.

  ‘Gerhard,’ Ello said, ‘Sepp feels it will be dangerous to try and bring the dynamite back by train.’

  ‘They’ll be watching for anybody with a suitcase of any sort,’ Kunde said. ‘Checking for leaflets.’ His tone made it clear how lowly he regarded leaflets, as a form of protest.

  ‘So, when we’re ready,’ Ello continued. ‘Rudi will drive up to Königsbronn, pick up the dynamite, and take it back in the Horch.’ She smiled. ‘My daddy’s favourite car.’

  Glaser puffed a plume of smoke. ‘Is it wise to involve Rudi?’

  ‘Why not?’ Ello said.

  ‘This friendship with the SS-Officer. The one at your mother’s reception. Elsperger.’

  ‘Anton? We’ve both known him for years. He’s a pussycat.’ She smiled. ‘You worry too much, Gerhard. Rudi strings all his Nazi friends along. It could be useful. He picks up a lot of information.’

  Glaser shrugged. ‘Sounds as if you’ve got it all worked out,’ he said.

  ‘Good luck, with everything, Herr Kunde,’ Kaspar shouted.

  Kunde ignored him, as usual. ‘There is just one problem,’ he said.

  ‘And that is?’ said Glaser.

  ‘I need a new identity card, in another name. But the people I know who can do that are all in Dachau.’

  ‘Leave it to me,’ Glaser said.

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

  ‘Gerhard, are you sure?’ Ello said, remembering Glaser’s reservations from their previous conversation. ‘Lotte doesn’t seem to want you involved. What will she ...?’

  Glaser took his pipe from his mouth to interrupt, unwilling to have his wife discussed behind her back. ‘I shall speak to Edgar Hanfstaengl.’

  ‘Hanfstaengl! Are you mad?’ Kunde was thinking of Ernst Hanfstaengl, known as Putzi, Hitler’s Foreign Press Chief.

  Glaser laughed. ‘Edgar’s Putzi’s older brother,’ he said. ‘He’s a good friend. He runs the family art reproduction business, where I get all my paintings. Edgar knows a lot of artists who could do this sort of thing. He would help us, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘You’ll need a photograph, for the identity card, Herr Kunde,’ Kaspar said. ‘Perhaps I can help there.’

  Kunde finally acknowledged Kaspar’s existence. ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Kaspar took two photographs of Kunde, head and shoulders, suitable for an identity card. He grinned all the way through it, remembering his father calling photography the lying art. The grin antagonised Kunde all over again.

  *

  Half an hour after Kunde and Ello left, Kaspar looked out the window and noticed a watcher opposite the Glaser block of flats, sitting on the low wall round the Hof Garten. Kaspar gave him, and all the subsequent watchers, nicknames. This first one, a nondescript middle-aged man, he called Joppe after the brown jerkin-style jacket h
e was wearing.

  ‘Let me go to Herr Hanfstaengl for you, Papa,’ Kaspar said, looking out the window at Joppe. ‘I’ll go on my bicycle. They won’t follow a schoolboy. When the identity card is ready, I’ll give it to Ello at the university. She can pass it on to Herr Kunde.’

  Glaser nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Thank you, son.’

  It was the first time he had ever called Kaspar that.

  *

  It was the summer holidays, but Kaspar had managed to sneak back into his school, to get the photographs of Kunde developed in the darkroom. The photographs were now in a leather pouch, which he tied to the handlebars of his bicycle, in the vestibule of the block of the flats.

  Outside, he glanced back at the watchers as he stood on the pedals, pulling away from the building. As he had forecast to his father, he was not followed. He cycled to the Hanfstaengl Art Company, in Widenmayerstrasse.

  The tall, stooped figure of Edgar Hanfstaengl, formal in frock coat and pince-nez, received Glaser’s son cordially. He readily agreed to provide a forged identity card, using a photograph of Kunde. The artist he had in mind for the job, Max Rauh, had just been dismissed from the Munich Academy. His paintings had been declared Racially Deviant; some had been destroyed. Hanfstaengl asked for fifty Reichsmarks payment for Rauh, taking nothing for himself.

  Kaspar asked his father if he would get the money from the wealthy von Hesserts, possibly Rudi. Glaser told him he would pay it himself, preferring to keep Rudi out of it. He had not seen the probationer for a while. They both went into the Ministry as infrequently as possible.

  Rudi’s visits to the Glaser flat had stopped. Glaser would not have had it any other way, now the flat was being watched. In fact, no visitors braved the ostentatious observation, word of which had quickly spread. The Glasers also stopped visiting anybody else, to avoid putting them at risk. Their social life was at an end.

  *

  When the forged document was ready, five days later, Kaspar cycled to the former artist’s atelier, not far from the university. As soon as the youth came in the door, Herr Rauh handed over the card and took the fifty Reichsmarks, saying nothing.

  Kaspar looked at the forgery. The identity card was in the name of Kurt Engel. The name was written in heavy Gothic script, and a signature had been forged. Obviously, it was a signature Kunde would be unable to replicate. One of the photographs Kaspar had taken of Kunde stared up at him. It now had a purple eagle and swastika half over the face, and half on the grey card.

  Kaspar whistled. ‘That’s very good.’

  Max Rauh glanced over his shoulder, as if afraid of some hidden eavesdropper in the atelier. ‘Tell your friend not to take it out in the rain. Also, I haven’t got the correct tool to close the eyelets. You see, there, at the corners of the photograph? I had to use pliers. I hope it holds.’

  Kaspar nodded. ‘How are you, sir?’ he blurted out. He laughed at his own clumsy gaucheness.

  ‘I’m not allowed to paint,’ Rauh said, like a child who had been forbidden a treat. His voice sounded cracked, as if he hadn’t spoken to anyone in a long time. ‘I’m forbidden to buy paint. The Gestapo come and search the atelier. They make sure there’s no paint here. Do you want something to drink? Or eat?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘Just as well. I haven’t got much. You’d better go now.’

  Kaspar wondered whether to give him more money. He decided to. He searched through his pockets and handed over every pfennig he had on him. Rauh took it without a word.

  *

  The youth cycled to the university with the forged identity card, and waited in Ello’s room until her lecture was finished. Ello greeted him warmly, giving him a long hug and a peck on the cheek. She told him she would meet Sepp in the Englischer Garten, to hand the document over. As he left the university, cycling home, Kaspar was followed. A black Opel with two men in it, in trilby hats and leather coats, kept just behind his bicycle all the way to Galeriestrasse.

  Back at the flat, when Kaspar looked out of the window, the Opel had disappeared, but the regular watchers, Joppe and another, younger, man were still there.

  ‘Do you think the ones who followed me are watching Ello?’ Kaspar asked his father.

  His usually beaming, ruddy face was drawn.

  Glaser shrugged. ‘I hope not. But to try to warn her would only make matters worse.’

  Father and son were silent, both thinking of what would happen if Ello were picked up with the forged card on her. Even the von Hessert name would not be enough to save her. At that moment Magda and Lotte came in. They had been sunbathing in the Hof Garten.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Lotte said, looking at the tense faces of her husband and her son.

  But she realised, even as she spoke, that she could not be told what was going on, because Magda was there. Glaser and Kaspar looked at each other. Neither replied.

  ‘Oh, that’s the last straw,’ Lotte murmured.

  Forster, on his own initiative, had had the surveillance extended to Lotte. A man had just followed them into the Hof Garten and watched her and her daughter sunbathe. The surveillance stopped only when they stayed at the Bachhuber place, with Lotte’s sister.

  Lotte knew nothing of the forged identity card. The knowledge would have endangered her. But as she saw her husband and son standing there, in conspiratorial silence, it was clear to her that Kaspar, too, had become involved in some sort of dangerous activity. That is what she had meant by ‘the last straw’.

  ‘Ello is behind this, isn’t she?’

  ‘Behind what?’ Kaspar said, with a touch of his old facetiousness.

  Magda shot him a look of hatred. Despite pleas from both parents, and an apology, given under duress by Kaspar, she had refused to address a word to her brother since Forster’s search of the apartment.

  ‘I don’t know you any more, Gerhard,’ Lotte said. ‘And I’m not sure this convoluted, secretive person you have become is someone I care for.’

  ‘Lotte, I don’t think that’s entirely fair,’ Glaser said, but his heart wasn’t in it. He sounded feeble, even to himself. He knew what was coming next. And it came.

  ‘It’s time to go and stay with Katya,’ she said. ‘Just ... for a while.’

  Glaser nodded. He had nearly suggested it himself. She would be safer there. And she would be happy enough, back at the family home she had grown up in, with Katya, the unmarried older sister she had always been close to. He tried to speak lightly, despite a heavy heart. ‘Yes. All right. Stay with Katya, for a while ...’

  ‘Good,’ said Magda. ‘It’ll be good to get out of here. I’ll go and pack.’

  She stalked off to her room.

  ‘Kaspar, put some things in a bag, darling,’ Lotte said. ‘You don’t have to take everything.’

  Kaspar shook his head. ‘I’m staying here,’ he said, ‘with Papa.’

  Part VIII - Autumn 1933

  Chapter One

  Sepp Kunde, now known as Kurt Engel, had found a room in Königsbronn, a pretty Swabian small-town, the nearest to the quarry. He lodged with a retired miner, Arnold Weitig, and his wife.

  The Weitig home was a modest two-family house. Herr and Frau Weitig lived in the upper half. The red-tile roof was steep-pitched. Kunde’s tiny room was under the eaves, which sloped so much he could not sit up in bed without hitting his head on the plasterboard. The Weitigs had put a hotplate and an old kettle in the room, as well as an absolute minimum of battered, second-hand furniture.

  Arnold Weitig was in his sixties and an invalid. He spent most of his time neatly dressed in collar and tie, lying on the sofa in semi-darkness, covered by a blanket. His wife, Erna, was a handsome, buxom woman in her late forties.

  The chalk mine was reachable by bicycle. Once there, Kurt Engel proved adept at drilling blast holes for the dynamite, loading the charge at the base of the chalk benches, and, after the shoot, helping to fill the shuttle cars with the blasted rock. He kept himself to himself, but he was a good
worker, and a Swabian, so the other miners accepted him in days.

  The dynamite was kept in a padlocked shed behind the administration building, on the edge of the mine. Since the Nazi takeover, dynamite stores were carefully monitored. Party headquarters in Ulm sent out two officials, in SA uniform, every Wednesday. Arriving during the afternoon, they watched carefully while the Mine Director, Herr Schröder, unlocked the shed. Then they all went in together, and the sticks of dynamite were counted and the total recorded. If more dynamite had been used than usual, Herr Schröder would have to justify the increase.

  Kunde realised that stealing even one stick of dynamite was not possible. It would be noticed – no doubt of that. But there was another way. He waited for the next moonless night, then tiptoed down the stairs and out of the Weitig house at midnight. Cycling in complete darkness, surrounded by heavy silence, was a sensual delight to him – motion without thought, almost without consciousness. When he reached the administration building at the mine, he took an S-hook from his light rucksack, and made short work of the lock on the door.

  As he padded lightly through the outer office, the stillness and solitude were exhilarating. He had never been truly happy in the presence of another human being. But, as if to challenge all his certainties, a picture of Ello, naked, formed in his mind. He wanted to make love to her. He smiled at her and told her that he had work to do. For now.

  Walking on the balls of his feet, silently through to Herr Schröder’s office, he wondered if the keys to the shed would be in the safe. He might be able to crack the safe, without it showing – or he might not. He could not risk attracting attention. Attention was the last thing he wanted, as a criminal with an identity card which would not stand up to careful scrutiny.

  The safe was in the corner. It was a massive, keyless British Chubb. There was one more possibility: Kunde tried the drawers of Herr Schröder’s desk. They were locked, but a couple of flicks of the S-hook opened them. In the top left-hand drawer, were two copies of the all-purpose skeleton-key known as a Dietrich. They would open anything – locks or padlocks – in the entire mine area. He pocketed one of them. Schröder wouldn’t miss it; if he did he’d think he’d lost it. Like most people these days, all Schröder wanted was a quiet life.