Untitled Robert Lautner

by Robert Lautner

  ‘What harm? I am staying. She will be gone.’

  ‘You do not understand the law, Ernst.’ His philosophy professor smile that he had given when we first met.

  ‘The law works backwards, not forwards. Let us say that your whore stole and cracked open a walnut. She ate the contents. That is gone. But the shell remains for all to see. Are we to forget that she stole it because the nut is gone? When we can all still look upon the shell?’

  I said it without care. It was done now. I had my cigarette, he had his pistol, was probably recording our one-sided debate so I said it for a court somewhere.

  ‘The only “nut” in this room, Helmut, is you.’ And I knew why men smiled at their photograph for the firing squad.

  He sprang forward, struggled to reach for me, for my cigarette, and I drew back as the cripple flailed.

  ‘I did not give you permission to smoke!’

  ‘Helmut! Colonel!’ Klein came from the window, pulled back the colonel’s shoulder. ‘This was to investigate the KPD. That was my understanding. Ernst knows that now. You only need to know what he knows. I cannot allow this to continue under Topf’s roof. The diamonds were our interest. Not this interrogation. Ask him about those or take him and his wife to Weimar and arrest them there. This is a place of work.’

  Voss glared, threw Klein’s hand from him.

  ‘I do not give a shit about the diamonds. Your share is shit to me. I want a Bolshevik Jewess married to a German!’ He switched between us both, his face red. ‘Do not think that I cannot have her removed from you tonight. Do not think that she will not be dead tomorrow.’

  Klein stepped back.

  ‘That is his wife, Colonel. You never said anything about her being Jewish. I thought this a political investigation, as we have helped before, with the other groups working in the factory. You want the KPD. That is what we agreed.’

  Voss took up his pistol, wiped the sweat from his head with his gun hand. Amputees sweat more, their blood pressure higher. They are not as agitated as they look. The room warm despite the season. The furnace in the basement. The pistol hand hit the desk. The slam of the gun worse than the shot that might come from it.

  ‘She is a Jewess witch! Bolshevik whore! I have heard her speak for months. This is not Topf’s or your concern, Klein.’ He holstered the pistol. ‘I will remove him to Buchenwald. And the whore.’ He took his crutch, raised himself. ‘I will send for my driver and my guard from downstairs.’

  The telephone rang. Klein and I looked at each other. His expression looser than his normal tight constrained confidence. I had seen his face like this only once before. The day of the telephone call from Buchenwald. When he learned of his father’s death. He fumbled at his pockets for cigarettes. Not there. In the orb in his office, his silver case left there. I offered him my rolled pittance. He took it as he answered the telephone. Voss waited for the other end to say its piece.

  ‘It is for you, Colonel.’ Klein passed it over.

  Voss snapped his uniform, smartened the cloth before speaking into the telephone. Klein came to my side, to my chair. I rolled another cigarette for myself. My hands steadier than I had known them for a year. The calmness of the prisoner caught. I could not think on Etta. She was across the street. Within my grasp and theirs. But this afternoon not foreseen. Not even stage two. Just the coincidence of Ernst Beck asking for a travel permit and Voss at the factory with his recording device. Ernst Beck with his diamonds, the diamonds he had given away. All but one. Still that card to play, up my sleeve. War the time for magicians, for sleight of hand. Slight. Everything slight. Time yet.

  They would need to organise something to get us both arrested and to the camp. Something official, something stamped. They loved their stamps. I was in Topf’s factory, Hans Klein beside me. He had thought this was about the diamonds, about the KPD. I could work on that. He had not known my wife was a Jew. His father gone. Etta the colonel’s greatest concern. I was in a seat in Topf’s factory, still felt safe. Even if it was only a seat in an aeroplane with both wings gone. But still a seat. Not against a wall.

  The colonel put his back to us, answered steadily to every question from the telephone, put it down without farewell and swung back to Klein.

  ‘Hans.’ A demand in his voice. ‘I must report back to Weimar. Something has come up. I am ordered to withdraw with the machine to a safer site.’ He picked up the telephone again, dialled as he spoke.

  ‘I will have a detail sent from Weimar to collect Herr Beck and his Jewess.’ He broke off as the call was answered, barked his orders and hung up, spoke too fast for me to comprehend. He put back his cap, never looked at me, passed his pistol to Klein.

  ‘Hold him here until they arrive.’

  Klein took the weapon as if it were venomous, swapped his cigarette to his other hand awkwardly, resumed his position by the window.

  ‘Colonel? Helmut? What is this?’ Bewildered by the steel in his hand.

  ‘Keep him here. I am ordering you as a Party member to observe an instruction. My driver will be up to take the machine.’

  I smoked, blew my tobacco cloud at him. The colonel leaving, fleeing. A call for him to leave us here. The Jew lover, the communist collaborator. So important minutes before. Fuck him and his uniform.

  ‘Is it a raid, Colonel?’ I said. ‘Are you afraid of bombs, Helmut? I thought my wife was the danger?’

  He hobbled around the desk, pressed his empty leg against mine. Spoke low like a lover.

  ‘I am looking at you for the last time, Herr Beck. I have never seen your wife. And no-one – mark me now – will see either of you ever again. I am going because I have use. Worth preserving. This machine worth more than you and your whore. You should be thankful that – when you are no more – your and your whore’s voices will be used to destroy the irrelevancy of your communist colleagues.’

  He limped to the door, looked to Klein, nodded at the pistol. I spoke over his order as his mouth opened.

  ‘Auschwitz has fallen, Helmut. Did you know that?’ I wanted Klein to hear it. ‘The red-jackets know. Know what you have done.’

  ‘Hold him,’ Voss said. ‘I authorise you to shoot him if he attempts to leave. Be faithful to your Party.’

  The door closed. I looked at the clock. Six. The night coming. Etta waiting. Klein leaned against the window, drew the last of my cigarette given.

  ‘Ernst,’ he said, looked at the gun, rested it on his knee. ‘Ernst? How is this happening?’

  Chapter 45

  When I was a boy, in winter, the men would still go out with their rifles to hunt wolves. Into the hills, through the snow, through the pines and the beech. Sometimes they would take us, take their boys. Rites, as they say. And sometimes we would see. See a dead wolf, see young wolves watching.

  Maybe thirty men, maybe more, less. It seemed a lot. And a lot of drinking, and jokes I did not understand. All to kill one wolf. Never any more. Just one. And then they would trudge down from the hills again. The season ended. Arguing over who had made the shot. All buying one man drinks to fill his legs when it was agreed.

  I asked my father the point. The point, what success, in killing just one wolf.

  ‘We are only allowed to hunt one, Ernst. It is the law.’ And he would draw me close to him and his horrible breath that fathers have, the smell of tobacco in the teeth, of old meat in the teeth.

  ‘But think on this. That is one animal that will not breed this summer. He will make no seven litters. Take no wife. And next year we will kill another. And no more litters from him. And that way we keep them back.’

  ‘But why not just kill them all? Then they would be gone for good.’

  He laughed. His friends laughed, slapped my back.

  ‘Then the rabbits would starve us out, Ernst!’

  I still did not understand.

  *

  ‘Hans. This is happening because of what we have done. But I am not chained to this chair.’ I stood. He took the gun from his knee, lev
elled it at me. ‘Hans?’

  The door opened. A man in box-cap and grey uniform looked on me, looked on Klein with the pistol. Said nothing. Walked to the device and its trolley. Pulled it from the room and closed the door on us. We heard the lift at the end of the corridor before we spoke again.

  ‘Who else is here?’ I asked. ‘Could we not tell someone? Hans? This is where we work. This is crazy.’

  ‘There is no-one here. They wanted it this way. I told Helmut you wanted a travel permit and he came here at once. Brought his machine. Played it to me. I thought this was a communist thing, Ernst. I knew they were recording you.’

  ‘You put it in didn’t you? You put the telephone in.’

  ‘Yes.’ The gun back to his knee. ‘I didn’t know such a thing was capable. It’s like magic. If they can do such a thing what else can they do? But I was assured you were innocent. It was to catch that rat Reul. His friends.’

  ‘And my wife? Is she a rat?’

  He came off the window, weighed the pistol, threw down his cigarette.

  ‘I had no idea. Ernst. Believe me. I am sorry. You really did not know she was a Jew?’

  ‘What difference? You set up that device to catch her as well as Paul. Probably hoped to catch me. How disappointed you must have been. When you heard. When I was not like him.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. I was proud. As for your wife … I thought only of protecting my country. Is that wrong? Could you blame me for that?’

  ‘In a few months we will all be blamed.’ I sat down. Pulled out my tobacco pouch. Two papers left. Tobacco dust. Had not picked up my ration. I rolled anyway. Mumbled more than spoke.

  ‘You heard his telephone call. Must be important to take him away. A raid heading this way maybe. Is this how you want it to end? You with a gun on me? An Erfurt gun?’

  He put it to the desk.

  ‘No,’ he said, pointed to my tobacco pouch. ‘Can I have one of those?’

  I rolled it. Lit them together.

  ‘It is my last,’ I said, and we even found a humour to share in my saying it. A shared irony. ‘And now you know my Etta is Jewish. What on that?’

  ‘Do not make me say sorry again, Ernst.’ The old Klein returning with the waft of tobacco. We dragged together. ‘I thought only that she might be a political matter. A lead to bigger fish. I was doing my job.’

  ‘A fish rots from the head down, Hans. Have you heard that phrase before? It is not true. But it fits. Their head is rotting. And your job is head of the Special Ovens Department for Topf. When did we work for the SS?’

  ‘Every company works for the SS, Ernst.’

  ‘But now my wife is a Jew as well. What does that mean, Hans?’

  He deflected, as always, or maybe not. Maybe thinking on something. Maybe on the killing of one wolf so he cannot breed.

  ‘You say Auschwitz has fallen? You know this?’

  ‘Liberated by the Russians. They might only be fifty miles away by now.’

  ‘So Buchenwald might be ended soon?’

  He looked hard at me. I saw the boy Klein again. The boy who had put his father into a camp.

  I thought on Bernie’s words, Bernie KPD, his apologetic words.

  They are not as close as you hope they are.

  ‘Yes. That is what will happen.’

  He smoked fast. Put his hand to my shoulder.

  ‘They want to burn the plans. This week. Hide every contact with them and Topf. But you heard him. Even now all he cares about is that you are a German married to a Jew. That both of you would be in the Gau tonight. How did this happen, Ernst?’

  ‘Because I wanted to be like you. Aspired to be. As you didn’t want to be a farmer’s boy. All against each other. What they relied on.’

  He sat back in the window, looked at the smoke in the distance grey against the black sky. The smoke that never stopped.

  ‘I killed my father,’ he said. Not to me. To the smoke. Dark now, dark outside.

  The diamonds, tear-shaped Voss had said. There is a reason they are shaped so.

  Chapter 46

  Etta was at the gate, waiting for me. I ran towards, and she knew. Knew it had happened, was time, in the hallway with her bag as I came through the door, dropped it, held me.

  ‘I’m going aren’t I?’ Her voice not hers. A new voice.

  ‘Now,’ I said, let go of her, got hold of the motorcycle. ‘Now.’

  I wheeled the bike out, set it on its stand on the pavement as she followed in her coat.

  We did not speak, only my instruction when I told her to place her feet on the frame when I pushed off, only a parcel shelf for her to sit on.

  She tucked her skirt to avoid the wheel, put her suitcase in the back of me. Never said a word. Held me as tight as she could. I started up. Rode the pavement as a black car sped past, out of the factory.

  I took the corner to avoid following it.

  And we were gone.

  *

  ‘We haven’t much time,’ Hans said. He had made a decision, refused protest. ‘Take off your white-coat. Give it to me.’

  ‘Hans?’

  ‘Don’t argue, Ernst. I’m still your chief.’

  He put on the coat, pulled me to the window, pushed the gun into my hand.

  ‘You want to be me?’ he said. Insisted. ‘Then be me.’

  ‘Hans?’

  ‘It will be hours before they know. I have no wife, Ernst. No-one to miss me. Get her out of here.’ He sat in the wooden chair.

  ‘Now hold that gun on me. Speak if spoken to.’ We heard the lift reach the floor. ‘Let me do this.’

  ‘You do not owe me this, Hans. You don’t know what you’re doing.’

  ‘It’s dark, Ernst. Late. It’s just one night. They’ll realise their mistake and blame each other and let me go. Don’t let me think on this any longer than I have to.’ The sound of boots along the corridor. ‘I won’t say anything. Now be the best Hans Klein you can be.’

  ‘I don’t think I could be that.’

  He ignored, sat in the wooden chair. And we said no more.

  The door opened.

  *

  I propped the bike against the station wall and we walked into the concourse, full as always despite the hour, despite the dusty snow falling. The train leaving at 7:18. It would reach Stuttgart after midnight. No uniforms here other than the armbands of old men. I set Etta to the first pillar of the platform. Looked at the clock.

  7:06.

  ‘Wait here,’ I said. ‘Give me the money. I’ll get the ticket.’

  She handed over her purse.

  ‘What about the travel permit?’

  ‘I have it,’ I said. ‘Wait here.’

  *

  ‘Is this the prisoner?’

  Helmets. I did not expect helmets. You see them on posters, in newsreels. Two actual soldiers standing in the doorway. I was used to caps, those square box hats like boy scouts. They had automatic weapons on slings. I had never seen such guns. Imagined they could destroy walls if they chose.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, waved the Luger to Hans as they came.

  ‘Herr Klein?’ The taller of them asked.

  I nodded.

  And that was it.

  They pulled him from the chair, together, slammed him to the wall, a forearm across his throat. No anger, no emotion. Like moving furniture.

  ‘And his Jew?’

  I had the gun. Looked at Klein.

  I had a gun.

  He read my thoughts, shook his head as best he could.

  I walked over. Passed the pistol to them.

  ‘I will get you the address,’ I said. ‘From my office. One minute.’

  Klein said nothing, his throat held against the wall. The look between us not enough. I hoped to convey something. Not enough. But he grinned at me. His grin. That would do.

  And probably for the first time in his life someone slapped it off him. Slapped the grin off the face of the director of operations. The Special Ovens Department. Depar
tment D IV of Topf and Sons.

  I strode from the room, as Klein would, a conviction that one of them might follow. A breath when they did not.

  I went to Klein’s office first, the lock on his desk drawer snapped like a chicken bone when I took his letter-knife to it. I pocketed the knife and peeled a travel permit from the roll of them. I saw his cigarette case and lighter, picked them up. Hated myself for doing so. I wasn’t thinking of the tobacco. Thinking of the months ahead. The little things I could trade for bread. My coat and hat from the cloakroom and then realised I could have taken the whole roll of permits, probably as good as silver for trading. No time. Forget that. I went to the long drawers where we kept our plans and took out my copy of the oven, my duplicate, a photo-carbon of the original. It had the eagles, the runes, the right date. Good enough. And I tucked it down the seat of my trousers, against my back, as foolishly as I had ever imagined doing. I hit the stairs. Ran from the building.

  Left him.

  *

  ‘It is a travel permit!’ I pleaded to the ticket clerk. ‘What difference does it make if it is stamped? How could I get it stamped from Weimar? The whole place is broken!’

  7:10.

  Eight minutes. I heard the steam and the whistle.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ Not the same man I had seen last week. The same expression, the same tolerance. He had heard it all before. A hundred times today. ‘It must be stamped from the Gau.’

  ‘One ticket,’ I said. ‘One ticket to Stuttgart. Just for my wife. Please.’

  ‘You have a permit. Do better. You are halfway there. Get it stamped and come back tomorrow.’ He called over my shoulder. ‘Next!’

  ‘Wait,’ I said, hid the man behind me with my body, filled the window with my Party tie-pin and the roll of money. ‘Let me buy ten tickets,’ I said. ‘For the price of one.’ Began to peel off the notes. ‘How much would that be?’

  Another whistle from the train stopping.

  ‘I cannot do that,’ he said. His voice lower now. The voice of the streets, of the alleys. The new voice of Germany.

  I passed the small stone from my pocket to his brass change drawer.

  ‘What about now?’ I said. ‘One single to Stuttgart.’