‘Is he still alive?’ Conrad asked.
‘Very much so. In fact, he’s coming to dinner tonight. But what really opened my eyes was a secret trial I was involved in a year later. The defendant was the commandant of a concentration camp, an SS officer. It all came out in court, all the vile things his men had done to the prisoners. One of their games I particularly remember. They would strip the prisoners naked and cover them with tar. Then they set the tar alight: the prisoners died a horrible death. The evidence of extreme cruelty was overwhelming and the commandant was convicted. It was a miracle the case came to trial: a combination of a bureaucratic cock-up on the part of the SS and a judge who had not yet been intimidated by the Nazis. Needless to say no similar case has been brought since then.’
‘So why join the secret service?’
‘An officer who used to serve under my father suggested it, Colonel Oster. The Abwehr is actually one of the very few institutions in Germany which can keep out of the gaze of the Nazis. There are some benefits to secrecy.’
‘So this Abwehr organization is opposed to Hitler?’
‘In a word, yes.’
‘You don’t expect me to believe that, do you?’
‘Actually, I do.’
‘Then why were you so offended when I asked you for information?’
‘I thought you were asking me to betray my country, which is something I am not prepared to do. But what I am prepared to do is to work with you to stop Hitler starting a world war.’
‘How can I do that?’
‘You can pass on a message.’
‘I’ve done enough of that sort of thing,’ said Conrad. ‘Unlike you, I don’t feel a duty towards my country. All that talk of “duty” and “patriotism” during the last war was simply a way of inducing young men to voluntarily walk across open ground and be mown down by machine-gun fire. I don’t want to play any part in that.’
‘So you’ll just stand on one side and let it happen then?’ said Theo.
‘I can hardly stop a world war by myself, can I?’ Conrad said.
‘You can try. You have to try.’
Conrad didn’t respond. They walked on in silence until they came to a clearing in the woods. A number of small stones formed a ring in the middle, and nearby lay a mound. On the far side of the mound were two standing stones about eight feet tall.
‘What’s this?’ Conrad asked.
‘No one really knows. Some people think it’s four thousand years old, some think it’s much more recent. I used to come here all the time when I was a boy. It still draws me. Every time I come home I have to walk out here. They call it “Traitor’s Gate”.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘A traitor was hanged there by those two stones in the fifteenth century. Or at least they called him a traitor. I’m not so sure.’
‘Hmm.’ Conrad’s interest in historical puzzles was piqued, as he knew was Theo’s intention. ‘Who was this traitor?’
‘A knight of the Teutonic Order named Otto von Schivelbein. Did you know that this area was passed to the Teutonic Knights by Brandenburg in about 1400?’
‘No,’ said Conrad. ‘My medieval German history is a bit sketchy.’
‘Well, it was. The Teutonic Knights were at the height of their power. Their lands stretched eastwards from here across East Prussia to what’s now Estonia. But the Poles and the Lithuanians had formed an alliance against them. War was coming.’
‘I think I knew that,’ said Conrad.
‘In 1409, Otto was sent to a secret meeting with envoys of King Wenceslaus of Bohemia, offering a bribe to Wenceslaus to persuade the Poles to back off. The local knights believed that part of the deal was to pass on this region to Poland. They didn’t like that idea. So they ambushed Otto, took him along to this place, hanged him by those standing stones, and then disembowelled him. At least, that’s how the story goes. So, to their descendants this place is known as Traitor’s Gate.’
‘But you don’t think Otto was a traitor?’
‘Nine months later the Battle of Tannenberg was fought – the first one, not the one my father took part in. The Teutonic Knights were soundly defeated by the Poles and the Lithuanians, and from that point on the days of the order were numbered.’
‘And this Otto could have stopped that?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. Who knows? But it seems to me it was worth a try.’
They sat on the mound. The sun was dropping in the sky, and the shadows of the two stones stretched towards them up the mound. The brief whispers of breeze had died down now. All was still.
‘Theo?’ Conrad said.
‘Yes?’
‘Was there anything in what Joachim said about a plot to overthrow Hitler?’
Theo waited before replying. ‘Almost.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Johnnie von Herwarth is an old friend of mine. He’s a diplomat in our Moscow embassy. When Johnnie was in Berlin on leave, he and I had talked about how we could get rid of Hitler. It was idle chat, really, nothing more than wishful thinking. There is quite a lot of opposition to Hitler in the Foreign Office as well as in the Abwehr and the army. Nothing came of it, although for a moment earlier this year I thought something would. Mühlendorf was right; the Fritsch scandal did upset a lot of people in the army. But at the right moment, when Fritsch was exonerated, they didn’t move.’
‘Why not?’
‘They couldn’t organize themselves. They had high hopes for General von Brauchitsch, the new commander-in-chief of the army, but he has turned out to be useless. There was no one to give the orders and without orders German officers are lost.’
‘You sound as if you regret that?’ said Conrad.
‘I do,’ said Theo bitterly. ‘There might never be as good an opportunity again.’
Conrad considered Theo’s response. If it was genuine, it meant that Theo was far from being a Nazi.
If it was genuine.
‘I can see why you didn’t tell me what you knew then, but why did you rebuff Joachim when he asked you about it?’
‘He was much too blatant. If Johnnie really had confided in him he would have been more careful. It didn’t feel right. And, as I told you, it wasn’t right.’
‘You mean because he was a Russian spy?’
‘He was on a fishing expedition. It’s quite possible that the Soviet government would try to help a coup against Hitler, but that’s not the kind of help we want.’
Conrad smiled grimly. ‘So you, me and Joachim, we were all spies.’
‘I’m not really a spy,’ said Theo.
‘Aren’t you?’ said Conrad. ‘What is this Abwehr organization then? Is it part of the Gestapo?’
‘Oh, no. Far from it,’ Theo said. ‘Germany doesn’t work like that nowadays. All the different institutions work separately in a kind of rivalry. Sometimes it’s friendly, sometimes it’s deadly, like the Night of the Long Knives. The Gestapo and the Abwehr leave each other well alone; we each stick to our own territory, although we do share information. We’re very different organizations, though.’
‘So you say. What about the “friend in the Gestapo” who told you Joachim and I were arrested?’
‘The Abwehr have friends in every government department in Germany. People who keep us informed.’ Theo looked at Conrad sharply. ‘We’re not Nazis,’ he snapped. ‘We don’t torture people. We don’t persecute Jews. We don’t carry out assassinations. I can assure you that we behave with as much honour as your own secret service, probably more.’
‘Ah, so it’s the Red Cross that you are affiliated with,’ said Conrad. ‘How stupid of me not to realize that.’
Theo fought to control his temper. ‘I’m telling you all this for a reason. Sometime soon, I don’t know exactly when, we may ask you to pass on a message for us. When we do, I want you to remember this conversation.’
‘What kind of message?’
‘I can’t say. Yet.’
‘You’re wasting your tim
e, Theo,’ Conrad said. Above the trees to the east the blue sky was concentrating into a dark grey. ‘Is that a thunderstorm?’
Theo pulled himself to his feet. ‘That’s something you’ll have to answer for yourself.’
17
There was a guest at dinner, ‘Uncle Ewald’, who had ridden over from his own estate some ten miles away. Conrad presumed he was the uncle who had been on the SS list during the Night of the Long Knives. He was a short man with receding hair, hard, uncompromising eyes and a neat moustache. He was seated opposite Conrad, and from the moment he entered the house Conrad was aware of his disconcerting stare.
On Conrad’s right was an ancient lady, stooped, wrinkled but with bright brown eyes. She was Theo’s grandmother, the general’s mother. She insisted on speaking English to Conrad, and he was entranced by her accent, a clipped version of archaic American. She had come to Berlin when she was eighteen, in 1868, to study music. She had met Theo’s grandfather six months later, fallen in love and married him, much to the amazement of her own family. She was careful not to specify exactly who they were, although they had houses in Newport, Rhode Island, and New York, and Conrad suspected that she, rather than the barren local farms, was the source of Theo’s spare cash. She had only been back to her own country twice, once a couple of years after she was married, and again in the 1920s. She had, however, insisted that all her children and grandchildren should be proficient in English and study music.
All the while Conrad was speaking to the old lady, he was aware of Uncle Ewald’s eyes staring at him across the table. Finally he turned to meet the stare and smiled politely.
‘Theo tells me your father used to be a member of the British government,’ the intense man said.
‘That’s right,’ said Conrad. ‘He was a minister for about three years.’
‘And why did he resign?’
‘For a politician, my father has a rather well-developed sense of honour,’ Conrad said. He had become used to such direct questioning in Germany, which he might have found rude over an English dining table. ‘You may remember a few years ago that there were rumoured to be secret negotiations between the British and the French over Abyssinia. It was all highly embarrassing and our government denied all knowledge of it, which was plainly ridiculous. My father felt he couldn’t continue to serve in a government which was lying about what it knew and didn’t know, and so he resigned.’
‘Good for him,’ said Uncle Ewald. ‘But what did his Cabinet colleagues think of that?’
‘The Prime Minister at the time, that was Stanley Baldwin, was frustrated by the whole thing, but I think most of his other Cabinet colleagues secretly admired what he had done.’
‘So he’s still on speaking terms with them?’
‘Yes, yes, I would say so,’ replied Conrad hesitantly. He was beginning to wonder why this man was grilling him so persistently.
‘Good.’ Uncle Ewald attacked the pork knuckles on his plate with quick efficient strokes of his knife and fork. Conrad noticed a motif of a running fox on his cufflinks. ‘What brings you to Germany, Herr de Lancey?’
‘I’m writing a novel. It’s set in Berlin, just before the beginning of the war. I thought it would make sense to write it here.’
‘Hah! Very interesting. And whose fault was it?’
‘Whose fault was what?’ said Conrad. ‘Do you mean the war?’
‘I do,’ said Uncle Ewald.
‘Everyone’s,’ Conrad answered after a moment’s thought. ‘Britain, Germany, France, Austria, Russia, everybody.’
‘Your compatriots didn’t seem to think so at Versailles. They were of the firm opinion that it was Germany ’s fault. And that we should pay for it, pay until our country was starving, and too impoverished to pay any more. How did they put it? They wanted to “squeeze us like a lemon until the pips squeak”.’
‘I agree that was pointless,’ said Conrad. ‘But all the countries of Europe paid the price, a higher price, in the millions of lives lost.’
‘I take it you are not an enthusiast for war, Herr de Lancey?’
‘No, I’m not. I don’t think anyone in his right mind would start a modern war on purpose. But I fear there is a risk that we may all stumble into one, much as we did last time.’
‘Do you think our führer is stumbling in that direction?’
The questions were becoming difficult, very difficult. And there was something in Uncle Ewald’s manner that demanded more than polite platitudes in answer. ‘He might be. But whatever I may think of some of Hitler’s policies, I don’t underestimate his intelligence. He’s no fool. Hitler may want to expand German influence in Europe, but he will do it without war if he possibly can. What do you think?’
‘I think you misunderstand him,’ the Junker answered, still staring at Conrad. ‘He is determined to start another war, unless someone stops him. What is your countrymen’s opinion of him?’
‘It varies,’ Conrad said. ‘There are a few that admire him, but not many: some misguided aristocrats and Oswald Mosley’s Blackshirts. Some people think he’s a joke, some think he’s vulgar, some are afraid of him, some write him off as a mere demagogue.’
‘I see.’ And then Uncle Ewald asked the question that all foreigners in Germany dreaded, but which they rarely had to answer. ‘And you. What do you think of our Führer?’
Conrad hesitated. His first response was to reply with non-committal politeness, but he knew that wouldn’t satisfy the man opposite him. As the seconds passed, there was silence around the table and Conrad was aware of everyone looking at him, so he blurted out the simple truth. ‘He’s evil,’ he said. ‘He must be one of the most evil men the world has ever known.’
For the first time Uncle Ewald smiled. ‘Have you ever read Mein Kampf?’
‘I’ve tried,’ said Conrad. ‘I couldn’t finish it.’
‘You should. Because then you will know you are right.’
‘Uncle Ewald has made us all read it,’ said Kätchen, Theo’s younger sister. ‘And he’s right. It’s the most horrible, terrible stuff.’
‘I even made an appointment with Hitler to discuss it with him just before he came to power,’ Uncle Ewald said. ‘I spoke to him for two hours. I couldn’t quite believe that he meant it. But he did.’
Conrad looked around the table at the deeply Prussian family. He could imagine how it must have seemed suffocating to the younger Theo, and why he had fled to Oxford and its socialism to escape its clutches. But he could see they were all united in sharing Kätchen’s sentiment, all of them including the bluff general and the ancient grandmother.
‘Did you notice the flag on the church in the village?’ Uncle Ewald asked.
‘I didn’t see a flag.’
‘Precisely. It’s one of only four churches in Prussia not to fly the swastika.’
‘The swastika on a church?’ Conrad said. That seemed a bit incongruous, even for the Nazis.
‘The SA tried to make Uncle Ewald fly it,’ Kätchen said. ‘He chased them off with a gun. They arrested him and then he agreed to give the job to the schoolteacher. But he moved the flagpole to the middle of a pile of manure, and for some reason the teacher doesn’t hoist it. Now we don’t fly the swastika in our village either.’
Conrad thought of his own village in Somerset, and tried to imagine a swastika flying from St Peter’s Church. It might happen one day if there was a war and the wrong side won.
After dinner they all moved through to the drawing room. With a little urging from his sister, Theo sat himself behind an impressive grand piano and began to play some folk songs that Conrad vaguely recognized. Kätchen sang along. In England after-dinner music recitals made Conrad cringe. If there was to be music, let it be a gramophone, over which people could happily chat or even dance. But here, on the edges of the Prussian forest, to spend an evening listening to music seemed the most natural thing in the world. Theo gave up his seat to Kätchen, who played a Beethoven sonata beautifully. Then she insisted t
hat her grandmother play the violin.
The old lady refused, but Theo and his sister persisted, citing Conrad’s presence. With a glance full of meaning, although at first Conrad wasn’t sure exactly what meaning, the old lady agreed. Kätchen left the room and returned a couple of minutes later with a violin, which she handed reverentially to the old lady.
‘It’s a Stradivarius,’ Theo whispered.
Somehow, incredibly given her bent, stiff limbs, the old woman began to play. Conrad thought he recognized the piece, a Bruch concerto. It was the saddest, most haunting music he had ever heard.
The listeners knew that the high spirits, the beauty must come to an end. With the frail chords echoing in their heads they climbed the stairs to bed.
The thunderstorm Conrad had seen brewing didn’t burst upon the manor until the middle of the night, leaving the weather fresh and clear the following morning. The wedding was in a neighbouring village and Theo took Conrad in his car, although most of the rest of the family went by horse-drawn carriage. The ceremony took place in an ancient fortified stone church, not nearly large enough for all the guests. The church was dominated by a huge hand-carved wooden cross towering above the simple stone altar, which was bedecked with roses, lilies and larkspur.
The bride and groom arrived, fresh from the potato distillery, for the chief distiller was also the local registrar. Theo whispered to Conrad that after the brief civil service the registrar was obliged to present the couple with their own matrimonial copy of My Struggle by one A. Hitler. The perfect way to start a life together. The bride was dressed in traditional white, complete with veil, and the groom, like Theo a lawyer who had joined the reserves, was wearing his army dress uniform and also, oddly, his coal-scuttle helmet, even though the other guests in uniform wore peaked caps. Regulations, Theo said. At least it made the bridegroom easily identifiable.
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