Darkness into Light Box Set

by Michael Dean

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ said Himmelfahrt, softly. He had a thought, then, that he was ashamed of afterwards. He was even hungrier than he had been before the meal started and it flashed into his mind, just for a second, to scrape the tomato off the lapel and eat it.

  But he didn’t.

  21

  The beer tents for the Oktoberfest at Canstatt, greater Stuttgart, in October 1971 were on the exact spot where King Pippin of the Franks and his brother Karlmann invited Swabian leaders to a feast and talks in 746 AD. During the feast, Pippin and Karlmann and their Frankish soldiers slaughtered all the Swabians, a breach of hospitality which became known (for some reason) as Canstatt Day.

  Swabian warriors who the Romans called the Alamanni first broke through Roman defensive lines around 260 AD. The need to fight off other groups forged their identity over the coming centuries. By 450 AD they were in Helvetia as far as the Gotthard Pass, occupied all the country between the Iller and the Lech and had also settled in Alsace, from where Himmelfahrt’s pupil, Dr Manfred Brenner, and his family were ejected after World War I.

  At this point, everything was going swimmingly for the Swabians until they ran up against the other major Germanic folk grouping, none other than those lousy dinner party hosts the Franks, who defeated them at Zulpich in 496.

  After the battle of Zulpich, the Frankish king Chlodwig became a Christian, which made the bolshy Swabians determined not to follow suit. So there was always room, deep in the folk memory, for died-in-the-wool pantheists like Hermann the Gardener, because even though Christianity caught on eventually, as it did everywhere, it was always a bit of a Johnny-come-lately Frankish-influenced foreign job.

  The Swabians lost land, after Zulpich, being shrunk back to territory bordered by Donon in the Vogesen, Hornisgrinde in the Black Forest, Hesselberg in the Frankish Jura and the commanding heights of Asperg, where in October 1971 Lieselotte Quednau was preparing to move out, having found herself a decent flat in Ludwigsburg-Hoheneck to go with her new job.

  The new Swabia after Zulpich had a characteristic which formed its people: these are limestone lands here, Jurassic limestone. When rain falls on limestone it gathers in pools and lakes and caves, leaving the high country dry. So rivers on the high plains are rare; water finds its way quickly to the valleys, and houses and farms cluster round the low-lying village well.

  The outlying fields, however, are high on farms miles from the village well. This made communal farming difficult. It meant individual farms had to find their own sources of water somehow, and that in turn led to self-reliance and a tendency toward individualism in the Swabian character. The hardship of the land, the dry land, das trucken Land in old German, made the people resourceful. These small farmhouses of Swabia, balanced on the limestone above the water, were passed down to successive generations, forming the backbone of a rural economy, preventing the formation of an urban proletariat. So no huge industry here in 1971, but clever little companies making things.

  More about limestone, something wonderful about limestone, it is excellent soil for vines. The first vineyards were planted in 1100 and their distinctive beauty steps every slope, hill and mountain as they rise out of the Neckar valley today. This is wine country; red blooded or liquid gold wine, the drink of civilisation. Tents full of drunks guzzling (whisper it softly) pretty mediocre beer, like Himmelfahrt is heading for at his Canstatt Day at the Oktoberfest, is a Bavarian custom, not Swabian. But never mind.

  Some trees do well on limestone soil and make thick forests which the light penetrates only with difficulty. Some of the first clearings of these forests were undertaken by Benedictine monks in the eighth century. The influence of Christianity grew from then. Protestantism became more deeply embedded than Catholicism. Ludwigsburg was a Protestant city until after World War II, when refugees from Catholic areas flooded into the many internment camps then stayed, making the balance even.

  There were so many internment camps here at the end of World War II partly because Ludwigsburg is relatively central in Europe, but mainly because of the barrack space left by generations of the military. Back to soldiers again. The ones Himmelfahrt is heading toward, in uniform, drinking beer with the locals at the Canstatt Oktoberfest, are American — Amis — the ones lucky or maybe not good enough to be sent to Vietnam.

  *

  The ride to Canstatt along the newly extended B27 was a smooth one for Himmelfahrt, that Saturday in October 1971. Eau-de-nil was this year’s colour, for both clothes and cars, and Hermann Schaffner’s eau-de-nil Mercedes was gleaming new. Himmelfahrt was blissfully wedged in the back between Margarethe Heer and Anna Schweinle. John dangled in the front, next to the silently steering blue-jowled Hermann Schaffner. The car was heady with the perfume of Schaffner’s cologne.

  It did not occur to Himmelfahrt that Margarethe, dressed under her cashmere coat in black hot pants, sheer white tights and a skimpy light blue blouse, had left her husband and children for this trip. This was not a ‘drink with the class after the language lesson’, which she had got Johannes to accept, it was the start of a social life for Margarethe that did not include her husband. Johannes, at that moment, was drinking early whisky hard at the dining-room table with a blank expression on his face.

  Margarethe shifted in her seat to check the other car was still following them. The white Opel was indeed right behind. It was driven by the tall figure of the floppy-haired, permanently smiling Dieter Sinjen. Doris Röder was in the front.

  Margarethe Heer smiled. She and Himmelfahrt touched lips, as they had the first night he met her, as they had done ever since — even at her home, behind Johannes’s back. He was going to dinner there again next week, and he intended to kiss her properly.

  *

  The Oktoberfest in Canstatt was not as big as its more famous begetter in Munich, but it was vast nonetheless. Parked cars covered the hillsides like confetti round six enormous canvas beer tents.

  They found parking spaces, then pushed their way into successive tents, barging through milling crowds, looking in vain for enough space at the rows of long trestle tables to accommodate their large group. Margarethe clung tight to Himmelfahrt’s arm throughout this mayhem. Two or three times he disengaged to put a protective arm round her to steer her. It was understood, within the group, that they were together, just as Anna was with John. And Dieter, up to a point, was with Doris.

  Inside each tent, the makeshift overloaded toilet system sent streams of urine that looked just like the beer along open runnels inside the grey-white canvas before it was carried away by larger pipes.

  Himmelfahrt and Margarethe were becoming fractious, Doris tearful, when Dieter Sinjen and Hermann Schaffner finally found them a table where the group could sit together.

  As Margarethe took her coat off, Himmelfahrt heard a voice from a group of American soldiers, in their fawn dress uniform, say ‘Hey, is she on the game?’

  Foam-headed stone steins of double-strength Oktoberbräu beer, each a litre and a half, were carted aloft on wooden trays the size of shed-doors by hefty-hammed stevedores of waitresses. These waitresses, dressed in traditional red and green dirndls, then made a mark on the drinker’s beer mat for each beer they slammed down.

  A cry of ‘Bezahlen bitte’ would bring a waitress lumbering over to take payment, on presentation of the beer mat. The money was then shovelled into a black leather wallet the size and shape of a baguette, kept tucked into the waitress’s ornamental silver belt. (The belts looked like the Lonsdale Belts awarded for championship boxing, and possibly were.)

  As soon as his stein was slammed down, Hermann Schaffner disappeared in a waft of cologne and a shimmy of eau-de-nil suit, tripping along the trestle tables, his small eyes skinning American soldiers in his own style of inspection parade.

  *

  At the end of World War II, on 21 April 1945, French troops entered Ludwigsburg, marching down Stuttgarterstrasse. Twenty-six years before he reported Himmelfahrt to the police for peeing in a cemetery, th
e soldiers were three-year-old Hans-Peter Fauser’s first memory. He watched them marching, hoisted safely in his mother’s arms.

  Some of the French troops were black, Senegalese. Hans-Peter Fauser’s mother was terrified of them. A Senagalese soldier saw her fear. Laughing, he broke ranks and went over to her. He gave little Hans-Peter a small orange.

  ‘Don’t eat it!’ screamed Frau Fauser, fearing her son would be poisoned. But the laughing soldier broke it in pieces and fed it to the toddler, who came to no harm. Indeed, it gave him a lifelong liking for oranges. He had been eating an orange as he telephoned the police to report Himmelfahrt.

  French soldiers were relieved by American troops of Detachment G-29 under Captain John Lindsay on 3 May 1945. The very next day, one of Lindsay’s men, Private Randy Grainger, went for a swim and had his Colt pistol stolen by the enterprising Julius Reitmann, later known as Julius Plutznick.

  In these first post-war weeks there was ‘total chaos’ as John Lindsay wrote in his first report on 4 May, the day after he took over. It was ‘hour zero’ — the beginning of a complete new beginning, of mind, of spirit and of materiel. The infrastructure — roads, bridges, viaducts — was badly damaged, mainly by last-ditch German troop action. The Americans began to restore it. They also restored supplies of everything from gas and electricity to flour. As late as 1964, photographs show an American army halftrack helping to rebuild Kornwestheim.

  But by October 1971 the Amis, still popular, by and large, had completed their work of restoration, and were relaxing and enjoying a well-deserved beer.

  *

  Himmelfahrt sipped his beer, wiped his mouth and looked at them. The roar of people made talking even to the person next to you difficult. Somehow Doris Röder had managed to get herself a Fanta orange drink. Only she could have summoned up a soft drink in this maelstrom of beer-worship, but she sent out her lovely smile to the world and the world smiled back.

  Himmelfahrt gazed at Doris’s stunning face, framed by the raven, shoulder length hair. He thought what a fine line beauty balanced on. Looked at individually, her nose and mouth were too large, her almond eyes strange. Yet the assembly of imperfection balanced out to a beauty more lovely than perfection — like Sophia Loren.

  Meanwhile Anna Schweinle, darkly lovely in a simple white cotton blouse and well-cut black trousers, was hanging onto John de Launay’s every word. Himmelfahrt was surprised she had stuck with him, but she had.

  Himmelfahrt needed a leak. Just as he was looking round for a bog, Margarethe Heer pulled his sleeve. She yelled into his ear that she was going to the massive counter to get some sugared almonds — just about the only food in the flood of beer.

  ‘Shall I come with you?’ he yelled back.

  ‘No, it’s OK,’ she shouted. ‘I won’t be long. I’ll be OK.’

  Himmelfahrt kissed her lingeringly on her full Jeanne Moreau lips. Behind them a beefy man at another table roared out, in heavy Swabian ‘Hey, girl can I have a go?’

  Margarethe, already a bit drunk, turned round and called back seriously, also in Swabian dialect — she had the strongest Swabian accent of the three beauties — ‘No! That has to be earned, OK?’ Her beefy admirer shook with laughter.

  Unexpectedly, Margarethe turned again to face Himmelfahrt full-on, eyes wide.

  ‘Do you love me, Mark?’

  Himmelfahrt’s reply was a reflex: ‘Yes, of course.’ And then. ‘Come with me to England, if you like.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I have my Heike and little Matthias. And Johannes.’

  Margarethe headed for the counter. Himmelfahrt peered at her short-sightedly across the tent. In seconds she was surrounded by Amis.

  *

  Despite her outward almost ironic total absorption, Anna was really only half-listening to John. She was worried, and as scared as she had ever been. What was disturbing her was something Johanna von Gravensburg had said about the marketing questionnaires. She said they were ‘keyed’, it was called. Each one had a coded number somewhere, so even if they were apparently anonymous, ITT knew which one had gone where. Anna, in Frau von Gravensburg’s office, had gone white. Frau von Gravensburg had asked her what was wrong. Was she unwell, did she need to go home?

  Anna remembered the questionnaire answers she and Fredrika made up for a laugh after that boy, whoever he was, had phoned the office and chatted Fredrika up. What was the respondent’s favourite colour for the TV box, white, brown or purple? Purple. All of them. Purple. Which factors made the respondent decide which television set to buy? The style. Not price or reliability. The style. And so on. But if the questionnaires were keyed to match the data about the respondent … if the questionnaires were keyed, it would be obvious some answers were made up.

  She had excused herself to Frau von Gravensburg and run back to the office she shared with Fredrika. Shaken, she blurted out instructions to get the questionnaires back. But it was too late. All she had done was put herself in the Finnish girl’s power.

  By now Fredrika had battened onto people all over the firm. She had an instinct for what she could get out of people, then clung on till she got it. Anna suspected Fredrika had already dished the dirt about the questionnaires to someone in the Directorate. If she hadn’t, she would do it now, to curry favour. This would land Frau von Gravensburg in trouble, as well as her, Anna. Fredrika herself, of course, was so low down the totem pole — not even a proper employee — she was fireproof.

  Anna was fretting so much she couldn’t sleep, miserable with worry. The von Gravensburgs had been so kind to her. They often invited her for dinner. Michael von Gravensburg didn’t even leer at her, which was unique.

  Last time, over Carinthian-style garlic soup, she had opened out to the couple about her love life and its emptiness — the first time she had ever talked to anybody about such matters. All these emotionally wounded men, she told the kindly von Gravensburgs, it bewildered her. Men fell for her, she never fell for them. The devotion and emotional fragility of men (all of them, apparently) did not give Anna any pleasure. She had a good heart and had no wish to hurt anybody. But she had not been in love, or anything remotely like it, so she could not understand what the fuss was about. If men wanted to make love to her that badly why didn’t they just get on with it, enjoy it (as she did) and then forget about it? (as she did).

  Yet again she longed for someone of her own age to talk to. Not someone like Mark Hill, who listened to his own voice and shut out other people. Could she tell John? Confiding in him would be a much bigger step to her than letting him kiss her and paw her.

  *

  Doris Röder was regaling Himmelfahrt with the knightly virtues of her fiancé, Klaus. His oath of fidelity to her was an oath of trust. He would die, she knew, before he betrayed it. And she was right. Klaus Dürr had mapped a strong, clear path to his holy grail, which was Doris Röder. He fought his way along that path: he worked punishingly hard at Heidelberg University, reading every book, article and statute his lecturers mentioned. When he was not working he made business contacts for the future at the elite clubs, especially the duelling club. So, piquantly, the classically handsome Klaus was, in his way, fighting for Doris, with epée and sabre, exactly like a knight of old.

  And like a knight of old, he respected Doris’s decision to wait until after marriage. All their friends, even the closest from schooldays, assumed he and Doris were sleeping together, so did his brothers, even his parents. But he would wait, because she had asked him to. And he didn’t even try to get it anywhere else. Truly!

  *

  Himmelfahrt was straining to glimpse Margarethe through the crowds at the long counter. He couldn’t see her for Amis; she had enough troops round her to take Hanoi. He wondered if he was falling in love with her. He remembered the Brighton fortune teller. A married woman …

  22

  Himmelfahrt was walking into town to give his evening lesson. He had reached the high wall surrounding 58
Schorndorferstrasse. There was no particular reason for him to notice the handsome building, soot-grimed over its yellow baroque. And indeed he didn’t.

  And there was no reason for Arno Götsch, looking down from the second floor of number 58, out of an elegant sash window, to take any notice of Himmelfahrt. Arno took in only that the bearded passer-by’s hair was unusually long and he was not wearing a coat, despite the raw November weather.

  Arno worked two evenings a week at the ZSL at 58 Schorndorferstrasse, although he was still in his last year at school, at the Schiller Gymnasium. The ZSL needed bright researchers, but it was tricky taking on extra staff according to need, because needs were unpredictable. They might go for weeks without finding new information about a Nazi, then suddenly get a good lead and need more clerks immediately.

  So the ZSL’s director, Dr Adalbert Rückerl, employed the cream of Ludwigsburg’s Grammar School pupils, paid them on an hourly basis and laid them off when they were not needed. And Arno was the cream of the cream. He only ever got ones and twos in his Glass Tests at the grammar school, although he hated his ‘boy genius’ nickname.

  Like most Ludwigsburgers, Arno was proud of the ZSL. The initials stood for Zentralstelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen für die Aufklärung von nationalsozialistischen Verbrechen (Central National Justice Office for the Exposure of National Socialist Crimes). It was established in Ludwigsburg on 1 December 1958, following a High Court case in Ulm. This case was the prosecution of one of the Einsatzgruppen who had committed war crimes: murdering Jews behind Nazi lines on the Russian front.

  Arno was researching T-4, the Nazi euthanasia programme led by Professor Werner Heyde. It was called T-4 because early on in the programme the files were kept at a villa in Berlin-Charlottenberg, at 4 Tiergartenstrasse.

  Arno had gone to stand by the window, where he saw Himmelfahrt, because he had just been badly affected by the experience all the young clerks dreaded. He had seen a name in the files that he knew. A Nazi doctor who had worked at Hartheim on the euthanasia programme was the father of his girlfriend, Katya.