“With your permission then?”
“Yes. But promise me you’ll come back. If you scarper, there’ll be hell to pay. Gustav would hit the roof.”
“I promise. And it’d help if you gave me some form of authorisation. A bit of paper with an imposing heading and a few swastikas.”
“I’ve got a better idea. I’ll get Gustav to issue something. Stuff from his department terrifies people.”
“You don’t think he’d mind? Me going off like that?”
“He should be delighted. Proof that you’re working your socks off for the greater glory of the Reich. As long as I guarantee your safe return.”
CHAPTER 11
I cleared the trip with Siggy, who was enthusiastic. She thought her horse and cart might be better, but I explained this would be too slow. I needed to cover as much ground as possible. Which also excluded Benni. Of course a car would have been ideal, but who had petrol these days? Only the army and the Party.
I set off early next morning, while it was still chilly, but with the promise of rapidly rising temperatures. It was now nearly summer; trees in leaf, grass growing almost visibly before our eyes.
The realisation that any escape attempt would not only have a minimal chance of success, but would also be very risky, had settled me. I was becoming resigned to my fate, which was much better than the alternative: mouldering away in a POW camp.
But my half-free existence was precarious, depending on the fig-leaf of a Norwegian passport. This could be ripped away at any moment, revealing my nakedness. So I kept that military ID tag, proving my service status. Hopefully a guard against summary execution, although, as armageddon approached, the Nazis were becoming increasingly trigger-happy. There was no certainty in the 1944 German Reich.
This vital evidence was now hidden in the heel of my left shoe: to be accurate, Werner’s old shoe. Like almost everything, clothes were rationed, but this was no problem for stray men of standard build. How had Siggy put it...? “We have millions of trousers, waiting in cupboards for someone to wear them.” For trousers read also the complete male wardrobe. I could have been a clone of Siggy’s late husband. Dead men’s shoes. Literally.
It was with a sense of freedom, uncertain though it might be, that I set off up the valley. My plan was to head straight for the farm, then explore other possibilities on the way back. In this initial direction there was a slight but steady up-gradient; as I was using Siggy’s old sit-up-and-beg bike with no gears, it took well over an hour to reach my destination.
There I paused, reliving my introduction to Germany, now nearly a month ago. Nothing much had changed, except that everything was greener and more lush. The same tumbledown single-storey house: the same outhouses where I had milked Daisy and stolen the eggs. I leant the bike up against a wall and banged on the front door. Shouted “Anyone around?” Remembering that the occupant was old and probably deaf, I then repeated the exercise at increased decibels.
After some internal scraping and rumbling, the front door creaked open. The old dear eyed me suspiciously. White-haired, wrinkled, stooped, she could have been anything between fifty and eighty. Her dress was blue and none too clean, probably the latest fashion in the 1920s.
“What do you want?”
“Just a chat,” I said, shoving Wallisch’s authorisation chit in front of her.
“But you’re not one of them.” Now even more suspicious, she tried to close the door on me.
My foot kept the door ajar as I replied, “I come from Gregor. Gregor Weiss.”
“You know Gregor?” Now she was curious.
“Yes. I’m staying at the Gasthof zum Löwen.”
“But you’re not German. You’re...?”
“A foreign worker,” I agreed. “Employed by Gregor. And Siggy.”
These names seemed to tip the balance. Perhaps I was not going to shoot or rape her. Opening the door, she said, “You’d better come in. My name, by the way, is Sperrle, Frau Sperrle.”
I shook her hand. “And I’m Per Jespersen. One of those foreign workers. From Norway.”
The inside was dark, but neater than I had expected. Small windows. Low ceiling. Open fireplace, cleaned for the summer and now packed with fir cones. Everything shipshape. The Gnädige Frau (My Lady) was obviously sharper than she looked.
“You’ve come from the town?” she asked.
I nodded. “On my bike; Siggy’s bike.”
“In that case you could probably do with a drink. Coffee?”
“Coffee?” My jaw dropped. Coffee had long since disappeared from the Reich’s menus. The ersatz stuff, said to be made from acorns, was barely drinkable, but all we had.
She smiled. “Yes, genuine coffee. I don’t get many visitors. Especially a friend of Gregor and Siggy.”
She disappeared for a moment to put on the kettle. Returning, she said, “Now you’ll have to earn your coffee. Tell me what this is all about.”
“Gregor is concerned about the food situation for next winter,” I began. “He’s not very mobile, so he sent me off on a recce.”
“Armed with a nasty bit of paper from Gustav Wallisch? I nearly locked you out when I saw that.”
“Gregor felt I needed something official.”
“Gregor is the Bürgermeister...”
“Yes, but not a Party member.”
“Hmm. You seem well informed.” She considered this for a moment. “And then you just happened to appear on my doorstep?”
“I want to cover the whole valley. So I decided to start here, at the top end, and work my way back to town.”
“Very well. Now that you’re here, what do you want from me?”
“You have plenty of land,” I replied, waving an expansive hand. “It could feed quite a few hungry Germans.”
“And who would work this land? It may have escaped your notice, but I’m no longer young. And none too fit. I have a few hens. Plant some veg. Manage to look after myself. Anything more, forget it.”
“We would of course help you with labour...”
“Aha! I knew there was a catch. Now you’re going to invade me...”
“Gregor wants to keep this as friendly as possible,” I replied. “But there’ll be real hunger next winter unless we do something. He doesn’t want to involve Gustav Wallisch, but...”
“You’re right, of course,” the fight suddenly out of her. “I sit here, in the back of beyond, pretending there’s no world out there. But I can’t ignore it forever.”
“At present this is only an idea, but I assume they’ll detail some foreign workers,” I said, pressing home my advantage. Without a clue as to whether this was possible.
“Very well,” she said, decisive again. “I agree, as long as you are that foreign worker.”
“Me? Why?”
“You seem a sensible young man. Unlike most of them. Who can’t even speak decent German. From what I hear, they’re often bent on sabotage. Or skiving. Heaven knows what they’d do to a lonely old lady like me.”
My immediate reaction was that this was a tempting proposition. Handyman to Frau Sperrle. Almost like real freedom. But would Gregor wear it? And, more importantly, would Gustav Wallisch?
The kettle had now boiled and she returned with the finished article.
“Fantastic,” I said, taking my first sip. “Don’t know how you do it.”
“Kept for visitors. Who are few and far between.”
“Have you been out here long?” I asked.
“Twenty years.”
“All alone?”
“Our generation had little choice. No young men. No money. We survived as best we could.”
I did a quick calculation. “That’d be nineteen twenty-four or thereabouts? After the crash? Hyperinflation?”
“Exactly. An awful shock. More so because things had started off so well. You can’t imagine how wonderful life was before the war. A hundred years of progress; Germany wealthy and respected. Everything seemed possible...”
Frau
Sperrle’s ‘war’ was obviously the Great War, not the current one.
“Difficult to believe, but in those days I was the belle of the ball,” she continued, dreamily. “The world at my feet. Father had pots of money, so all I had to do was choose a nice young man. Went without saying that this should be a young man who also had pots of money.”
“But you went for love without the money?” I suggested, seeing her present condition.
“Dear me, no! I married for love and money. Hugo was gorgeous. Handsome. Kind. And rich. His father, old man Sperrle, more or less ran the town. With the Weisses.”
“So you know Gregor and Willi?”
“Goodness me, yes. Watched them grow up. I was a city girl. From Hannover. They probably thought I was a little stuck-up. But in the end we got on really well. Except for Willi. Never liked him. Still don’t.”
“What happened?” I asked. “There you were: young, pretty, rich. And now...?
“Four horsemen came riding up,” she replied. “Out of the blue. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse. War. Famine. Pestilence. And Death.”
She took a sip of coffee and continued: “War came first. And we welcomed him with open arms. Amazing to think of now, but the boys thought war would be fun. A lark. It didn’t help that we’d had some pretty good wars. Beaten Austria. Whacked Denmark. Walloped France. All in short order and without much loss. The few dead were quickly pronounced heroes. Germany was the new warrior nation.
“So when the Kaiser had another go in nineteen-fourteen, everyone assumed it would be a walkover. Like the others. All done and dusted by Christmas. Hugo didn’t have to go. At first he didn’t. We’d been married at the turn of the century and had a young daughter. But as the casualties began to mount, so did the pressure to volunteer. So off Hugo went to war. To a place called Verdun. To meet another of the horsemen: Death.”
“Gregor said he was at Verdun.”
She nodded. “In the same regiment. Gregor was of course much younger. Only a private. Hugo was older and from a good family. So he was an officer. And officers had to show initiative. What the French call ‘élan’. Being an officer cut your survival chances by half. Hugo didn’t. Survive. He’s still out there somewhere. In bits and pieces. Under the mud. It was the artillery they feared most. The artillery that did for him...”
Frau Sperrle went into a trance, so I prompted, “Another horseman was famine.”
“Famine...? Yes, famine wasn’t quite as efficient as the others. But it was hanging around. The last winter of the war was pretty awful. The British naval blockade was beginning to bite and food was very scarce. Not quite a famine, but close. And it had its effect on the final collapse.”
“Which leaves pestilence,” I said, continuing this macabre recital.
“Ah yes! War may have earned the headlines, but Pestilence was even more efficient. The Spanish Flu. Like war, it seemed to target the young. No one seemed to know why. Both sexes this time; girls and well as boys. Our daughter Lotte was in her last year at the gymnasium (grammar school). We both caught it. I recovered. She didn’t. Seemed terribly unfair.”
“So by the early twenties you were alone. I can understand the lack of young men. But you said you were also skint. No money.”
She nodded. “We should really create another Apocalyptic Horseman. A modern one. Called Penury. Just as ghastly as the others.”
“The crash?”
“Yes. But a strange and lopsided crash. One that crucified some people, while leaving others untouched – even better off. By the early twenties I’d lost all that was dear to me: first my husband, then my only child. Although young men were thin on the ground, I did have one hope. I was a rich widow, with the remains of my youthful looks. I might be able to buy renewed happiness. However, what now mattered was not your wealth, but the shape it came in.”
“Cash or commodities?”
She nodded. “When the Rentenmark finally stabilised things at the end of twenty-three, you didn’t find that Fritz Thyssen had suffered. Or Gustav Krupp. Krupps even issued their own currency, the Kruppmark, so that Essen became a sort of mini-state within the Weimar republic; immune to the chaos outside. And when the Führer appeared demanding guns, all they had to do was take on more workers and fire up the production lines.”
“I take it your family were not into guns?”
“My father had been a banker. In Hannover. Old Fritz Sperrle, my father-in-law, was more into insurance. Here in town. Both were money men. Had met at some financial wing-ding at the end of the century. Become friendly. And then, hey-presto, I marry Hugo, heir to the Sperrle fortune. Like royalty of old. Almost dynastic.”
“I think I can see where this is leading,” I said. “Money becomes worthless, moneymen go the same way. One day you’re up to your ears in cash, next day on the street corner with your begging bowl.”
She nodded. “It was a terrible time. My father felt responsible. Guilty. Even though it wasn’t his fault. Of course his clients lost everything as well. Their life savings. My father couldn’t bear the shame, so one day he put a gun to his head. Blew his brains out.”
“Oh no...!”
“Fritz Sperrle wasn’t so dramatic. He did the decent thing and died quietly. At the end of twenty four. By which time, of course, the Sperrle empire was also worthless.”
“Leaving you out here?”
She nodded. “Thanks to Werner Weiss. That’s Werner senior; Willi and Gregor’s father. Our families had become quite friendly over the years. Ran two of the biggest shows in town; but with no conflict of interest. Weiss was – still is – more into property; farms, that sort of thing...”
“...And gasthofs...”
“That’s right. So the Weisses weathered the storm pretty well. When the dust had settled, they saw my plight and simply gave me my little patch. They could well afford it, of course, a runt hectare or two at the end of the valley; but I’m grateful for all that. They owed me nothing.”
“So you still have a soft spot for the Weisses?”
“Old Werner died about ten years ago; a really nice man. And his son Gregor’s a dear. Less said about Willi the better. Losing young Werner was a tragedy. Yet another bloody war – excuse my language. His widow, Siggy, I hardly know. Don’t meet many people, stuck out here. And I don’t think I’ve ever met the son... what’s his name?”
“Benni. Nearly six years old now; a great little guy. Would you like to see him?”
“That would be lovely.” For the first time Frau Sperrle showed a hint of what must once have been a famous sparkle. “When you next come, bring Benni with you. That’s an order.”
CHAPTER 12
Coffee finished, we went outside to view Frau Sperrle’s ‘estate’, as she ironically called it. She walked with a curious sort of waddle. Slow but effective. Probably painful.
It was all quite familiar from my previous visit, when I’d spent some time viewing the scene before my break-in. Now my inspection was for a different purpose: how the land might contribute to feeding those of us in town. Converting the three meadows to arable would take heavy machinery, and too much time. It would have to remain grazing. To underline the point, my old friend Daisy, the cow, was ruminating happily in a far corner. We made our stately way towards her.
“Poor old thing. She’ll have to go,” said Frau Sperrle, slapping Daisy on the rump. “Getting to the end of her lactation. The rot started about a month ago...”
I had an attack of conscience. Little did she know I was partly to blame.
“...although her yield has steadied a bit, it’ll be all downhill from now on. A milking cow is a luxury; not the best way of using the land. Anyway, to get her into milk again I’d need a bull and heaven knows where I’d find that, every bull within a hundred kilometres has probably been slaughtered for meat. Even if I did find one, she wouldn’t be calving until well into next year. The whole winter eating away, producing nothing. No, I’ll fatten her here for a few weeks; after all, she’s still gi
ving me some milk. Then she’ll be off to Felix the butcher. I’ll be sorry to see her go.”
We trudged back down the hill to the hens. Who lived in a shed, which opened up into a large run. The inhabitants were pecking away, apparently aimlessly, as chickens do.
“I try to keep about half a dozen laying hens,” she explained. “Also a rooster. Cheeky little chap, very full of himself. When the ladies gets past it, I wring their necks and get cocky to do his stuff with the others. Probably not very scientific; must be horrible in-breeding, but it seems to work. Great thing is, hens will eat almost anything: tea leaves, scraps. I even recycle their own egg shells. Main problem is the foxes. Have to lock them up at night.
“That’s it,” she concluded. “The magnificent Sperrle estate. Think it can save the Third Reich?”
“It might help,” I replied, cautiously. “But I’m just the messenger. Clueless about farming. I’ll let Gregor know what I’ve seen. Let him decide.”
“Tell him rabbits,” said Frau Sperrle, cryptically.
“Rabbits?”
“Small furry things, who hop around. Made by God for man to eat.”
“Really?” She’d lost me.
“Do the sums,” she replied. “A cow’s gestation period is nine months. A rabbit one month. A cow only starts breeding at about fifteen months. A rabbit at six months. But the clincher’s this: a cow usually produces only one calf. Rabbit litters may be as large as a dozen. A rabbit family tree looks like an explosion. Millions of offspring in a lifetime.”
“I’m hoping the war won’t last a bunny lifetime. We need food now.”
“All the more reason to get going quickly. Find some fertile couples now and we’ll be feasting on rabbit stew by Christmas. There won’t be much else.”
Frau Sperrle had obviously given rabbits a great deal of thought. A rabbit evangelist. I was more sceptical, but Gregor would be the one to decide.
“May I also tell Gregor we can increase egg and chicken production?” I asked, keen to get away from rabbits.
THE LAST WEISS Page 6