“Well spotted,” Johann said to the boy, who nodded in response. Johann ruffled Lukas’s hair before checking that the street was safe and stepping back onto the remains of a stretch of pavement. Even though the city was close to being cut off, there were people—groomed and presentable, some of them clutching newspapers—heading to work. Most appeared to be ready for labor at the munitions factories, but there were also office workers maneuvering through the debris. Johann found it hard to believe that one man in navy overalls appeared to be wearing recently polished boots.
“How far?” the boy asked.
“Probably a mile and a half,” Johann said. “As long as we can pass through all the streets we need to.”
They continued beneath the gray, unforgiving sky, Johann barely registering the desolation around him for fear it would diminish his resolve.
At first Johann wasn’t sure what the object in the distance was. Although the sun was now midway through its ascent, the day remained hazy, with occasional clouds of black smoke drifting across the blighted cityscape, shrouding the wreckage momentarily. Sometimes, when the stain lifted, it was as if it were revealing the carnage for the first time.
As Johann and the boy moved cautiously down the street, which appeared to have recently been cleared of debris, it became obvious that whatever they could see was hanging from a wrought-iron lamppost. Johann’s eyes began to make out the object more clearly, and the horrible truth of what he was looking at became apparent. His first impulse was to stop; he wanted to avoid putting the boy through the dreadfulness of seeing a human being strung up in a suburban street. But the sight was now, it seemed, as customary in a residential area as postboxes and children’s bicycles.
“A deserter,” Lukas said, his voice hushed. He halted. “There must be an SS unit close,” he added, pulling his body nearer to a wall.
“Come on,” Johann said gently. There was a sickness in his stomach. A cloud of thick, acrid smoke had blown over them moments before, but he knew that it was his mind, not his body, that was the cause of his nausea. What if this was Otto? Had his friend been betrayed in some way? And if so, what might have happened to Anja and Nadine? The Führer’s orders were straightforward: The family of a so-called traitor was to suffer the same fate as the transgressor himself. There was no mercy shown to civilians, no matter how distant they were from events.
Johann and Lukas crept down the street, moving from the road to a position where they could duck into shelter should they need to. There appeared to be no one around. Johann noticed a baby carriage, twisted and abandoned, in a front yard, its frame a ghostly white from dust. He felt a lump appear in his throat and swallowed it hard.
The two of them approached the body. It gradually dawned on each of them, silently and terribly, that they were looking at the corpse of a boy. The cadaver twisted slowly in the wind; Johann had to wait for it to revolve 360 degrees until he was able to read the crude sign that was hung from the victim’s neck. He wore no shoes, his face was twisted grotesquely, his tongue hanging out. His trousers were soiled.
A pair of crows pierced the silence.
“This is what they are doing,” the boy said eventually. “If they think you are a traitor or a deserter the end is quick. They say the SS executed a soldier on Mohrenstraße only two days ago. No questions asked.” He formed the shape of a pistol with his thumb, index, and middle finger. “Boom. Just left his body there.”
Johann recognized Otto’s apartment building from a brief visit the previous Christmas when on leave. The construction was unfussy on the exterior, but inside most of the apartments were spacious, some extending to two levels. There was wood paneling on the walls in the lobby, tin ceilings with patterns stamped into them, and a large, ornate wooden staircase that creaked terribly.
If he had read Anja’s chalked message correctly, this is where he would find them. He walked up the steps and reached for the buzzer.
“Come on,” he said to Lukas. “We can rest a little before we leave. They might even have some food.”
Lukas looked up at Johann from the pavement and shook his head. The feet of the corpse dangled above his head.
“I don’t like it,” the boy said. His eyes were dark and untrusting. Johann nodded his head, gesturing that the boy should join him on the stairs. He watched as Lukas did the opposite, positioning himself on the other side of the street near a ruined building that offered a quick and uncomplicated escape.
As desperate as he was to see Anja and Nadine, Johann was willing to wait another minute if it meant that Lukas didn’t disappear. He walked across the road toward the boy.
“Come on,” Johann said. “I’m sure that they’d love to see you again.”
“Are you sure that they’re in there?”
Johann wasn’t sure—who knew anything in Berlin these days?—but he didn’t want to offer Lukas an opening for doubt.
“They left a message,” he said. “My friend Otto returned to the city days ago with a letter.”
“Your friend Otto…,” Lukas started. The boy was perspiring a little. He had walked a long way with his backpack. Johann couldn’t help but worry that maybe he had a fever. “Are you sure he…?”
“I have known him for years,” Johann replied. “We worked together. He’s a good man, even if he is a little fond of his pipe.”
The boy shook his head. “People change,” he said.
Johann suddenly felt impatient—he wanted to see his wife and niece.
“Okay,” he said. “How about this: I’ll go into the apartment and get Anja, and she will come out and let you know that everything is okay?”
The boy said nothing. Had he been so damaged by the previous months that he had no belief in those he had once known and trusted?
“Anja will be pleased to see you,” Johann said. He could see the outline of the pistol in the boy’s coat. Lukas nodded.
“I’ll ask her to come out and fetch you, all right?” Johann said, flicking the boy’s chin playfully. He was still unable to get a smile from Lukas. “Just promise me that you’ll stay right there.”
The boy nodded, his face inert.
Johann couldn’t wait any longer; he was bursting to be reunited with Anja and Nadine. He trotted across the street, his boots causing dust to rise up around him, his pulse quickening. Part of him regretted the quest that he had undertaken the past few days. Life would have been so much simpler if he had returned to the city immediately. He told himself to stop feeling self-pity—he was still alive, and so was his family. At that moment, nothing more could be hoped for.
Johann rang the bell and waited.
He imagined the pair of them wondering who it might be at the door. They would, of course, fear the authorities—everyone had learned to fear the unexpected stranger at his door—but he ached with the thought that they still had enough optimism to believe that it might be him, returned from the front, standing on the steps.
There was still no answer. He tried the bell again, this time pressing the buzzer longer and harder.
He felt a mixture of apprehension and fear. What if they were in there but decided not to answer the door for fear of the authorities? Worse: What if he had missed them?
Then he heard an internal door open and footsteps shuffle through the hallway. Someone was coming. He glanced back at Lukas, who was now waiting in the shadow of a building, and he stood tall, bursting with anticipation.
The door creaked open, and Johann’s excitement quickly dissipated, his eagerness turning to edginess.
“Hello?” a middle-aged man said, squinting in the light that flooded through the door.
“I’m looking for Otto Deitch,” Johann said. He tried to sound official. He was, after all, still wearing the uniform of a Sturmbannführer.
The man opened the door wide.
“Come in, come in,” he said.
Johann waited on the stoop, his body aching to enter the lobby.
“And you are…?” Johann asked.
“I see,” Johann said. He crossed the threshold of the house. “I am looking for a pair of women, or I should say a woman and a girl, who are staying with Otto. They’ve been bombed out, you see.”
“I know, I know…,” the man replied, wiping his nose with a filthy handkerchief. “You’re the surgeon come from the front, aren’t you?”
Johann paused. It wasn’t like Anja to share sensitive information. He stared at the stranger and wondered if maybe Anja and Nadine had perhaps befriended him. Maybe, in extreme circumstances, he had become a confidante. War and desperation caused all kinds of strange alliances to be formed.
“Come in, come in,” the man said, waving him forward. “What’s wrong with you?”
Johann saw that one of his hands was so twisted with arthritis that he could barely open it. “They are excited to see you, but they don’t want to show themselves on the street. They believe that they are in danger.”
Johann walked into the lobby.
“We’re all in danger,” he said flatly.
“I know, I know,” the man said, ushering him forward. “If it’s not the British, it’s the Americans, and they say the Soviet offensive will start within the week. Apparently there have been Bolshevik planes seen over the city.”
Johann heard the sound of his boots on the wooden floor. It felt good to be inside a home again. He looked at the cheap art on the lobby walls. It felt like greeting old friends. He was glad that Anja and Nadine had come here—this place was safe. While there was no protection from aerial attack, he was glad that his wife and niece had not been reduced to the wretched fate of the millions who were living lives of daily desperation.
“Go through,” said the man, gesturing in the gloom. Johann walked into the darkness of Otto’s apartment. He was immediately struck by a bad smell, something that reminded him of the terrible nights and days he had spent at the field hospital forlornly trying to save the lives of men who were unlikely to see the following day. Dying on Johann’s table rather than in a ditch was the extent of their good fortune.
“Where are they?” he asked, turning to the man.
Total darkness descended: From nowhere a bag was placed over Johann’s head. His wrists were grabbed and roughly tied behind his back.
It was over.
They had found him and—if they were at Otto’s apartment—they must have Anja and Nadine too. He hoped only that the end would be swift for all of them.
The briefcase was stripped from his grasp, and he was bundled outside in a flurry of shoving and growled orders and lifted abruptly onto the back of a truck, which raced off toward Mitte in a cloud of diesel fumes.
The bald man closed the door of the apartment building and glanced about him. It had been a busy day. After informing the SS about the traitorous boy, he had been asked to help with the capture of a deserter. He had been a Blockwart for eight years and never before had he felt quite such a sense of accomplishment.
The wind kicked up a sheet of dust as he crossed the road. He sensed someone was watching him, and cast his eyes around.
Lukas shrank behind a mass of bricks that had been piled in an abandoned lot where a house once stood. His distrust was absolute. He had watched Johann being led from the house by the guards, one of whom had stopped momentarily to examine the boy hanging from the lamppost.
Then the bald man who had opened the door to Johann shuffled across the street carrying some bread.
Lukas knew that he must reach Lehrter Banhof.
If he was to be the last Berliner standing, then he would be the one to escape.
25
Anja and Nadine stood in the relic of a building on Zimmerstraße, their lungs aching from coughing. The older woman put her hands on the girl’s shoulders and examined her niece. There were black smudges under the girl’s nose from inhaling smoke. The girl gasped for air.
“Take your time,” Anja said, “take your time.”
She looked out into the street. Buildings were ablaze on almost every side of them; structures that had been burned out months ago were on fire again. Molten phosphorous dripped through the structures, causing the buildings to burn for a second time. There was the ringing of bells in the distance. The fire crews—composed of fatigued middle-aged men—would be there soon.
“You should rest for a minute,” Anja said, leading Nadine to a pile of disused sandbags that had been placed in the burnt-out shell of what had been a grand building. Anja wanted to keep moving. She was aware that Dieter and other soldiers might come after them, but she couldn’t risk going out into the open unless her niece was strong.
The fire trucks arrived, and the men jumped from their battered, filthy vehicles and began running out lengths of hose and locating a water supply. Some wore the dark green uniform of the professional firefighter, while others wore the blue of volunteers. All of them wore the signature fire service helmet, with its brass piece running from front to back.
Anja wondered if she and Nadine could go much farther. They were physically and emotionally shattered. There was now surely no chance of finding Johann. Nadine was spitting onto the ground—olive-colored chunks mottled her phlegm. God only knew what she had breathed in.
“We should go,” Nadine said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. Anja had to stop herself from scolding the girl. That kind of maternal reaction was for another world.
“You need to rest,” Anja replied.
“I’m all right,” the girl said. “I just breathed in something horrible after the blast. My hearing isn’t right either.”
Anja realized that her ears were still ringing too. It had become such a common part of living in Berlin under siege that she barely even noticed it any longer.
“We need to get to the train station,” Nadine said.
Anja nodded. That was the plan. But she knew that it might now be too late to get out of the city. There had been talk even a few days ago that officials were preventing people—or “defeatists,” in Party terms—from going west. To get on a train, in the unlikely event that they were still running, would involve procuring a so-called red card, the travel passes that allowed freedom of movement from Berlin.
Nadine stood up. Anja knew then that she had to steel herself. She had to keep going; she had to keep believing that they could escape from the city. And she had to have faith that she would see Johann again.
“We’ll get into the U-Bahn at Friedrichstraße,” Anja said, taking control. “It will be safer there. Once the raid is over we’ll head to Lehrter.”
She grasped Nadine’s hands, and the two of them climbed over chunks of masonry and timber and stepped back onto the street. Hoses snaked in every direction over the road; the firemen worked in pairs to control the force of the water that was being directed upon the buildings. It seemed like a futile pursuit; the water, a tiny stream of liquid, was entering a voracious mass of flame. Both women put handkerchiefs over their mouths and ran east.
Anja had her head bent so low to avoid the floating embers and chunks of soot that she could barely see where she was going. She knew that they both needed to get belowground as soon as possible. She could hear the antiaircraft fire from the Zoo flak tower, which meant that another wave of aircraft would soon pass over them. The bombers could be on a mission to hit the nearby Reich Chancellery from which, Goebbels had announced, the Führer was directing operations for a famous victory over the Bolsheviks. Dodging through the ruins of the government district, Anja considered the absurdity of the notion.
Without warning, she felt herself crash into something. She wasn’t hurt—the impact had been relatively gentle. She looked up to find herself staring into the weary face of a fireman, his eyes a seemingly impossible olive color. He grasped her arms and fixed h
is gaze upon her.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “You shouldn’t be here. This building might collapse.”
“Yes, yes, I’m fine…,” Anja said.
“Get to the end of the street and get underground,” the fireman said. “Go now. Quickly.”
“We’re trying to get to Friedrichstraße U-Bahn station,” Anja said. “Is it still open?”
“I believe so,” the fireman answered. “But go quickly.”
It had been the first time in years that she had spoken to a man in uniform other than the postman and not felt a level of anxiety. She returned the handkerchief to her mouth and continued along the street, more quickly this time, until she caught up with Nadine. The two of them continued until they were forced to move into the middle of the street by the heat and flames emanating from the Air Ministry, its façade turned a hellish black by soot. They passed onto Leipziger Straße and headed east, looking for a hole in the ground into which they might plunge to escape the fire above.
Dieter pulled the collar of his coat across his mouth and walked onto Prinz-Albrecht-Straße and into what resembled an inferno more than a city. Still angry at missing his shot, he was determined to make sure that Johann’s family was dead. He wanted bodies.
His eyes cast both ways along the street. Heading west, the road appeared to be blocked by a collapsed building, which was still ablaze, a sheet of flame reaching into the sky. He doubted they would have attempted escape in that direction. As he walked the other way, he checked in possible hiding places to make sure he wasn’t passing his quarry. He would not be returning them to Prinz-Albrecht-Straße; elimination was the only possible course of action following Anja’s murder of Kuefer. He knew, of course, that was what he had wanted to do all along.
There appeared to be no sign of the women, but he remained convinced that they would have come this way. A fireman ran past. Dieter grabbed his arm.
The Nero Decree Page 27