Diary of a Dead Man on Leave

by David Downing

  Monday, August 29

  A long and heartbreaking day.

  The sun was just climbing over the skyline as I walked to Hamm station, and the half-empty streets had that air of promise a fine morning always brings, but my heart felt heavy as I boarded the train and grew no lighter as the journey unfurled. I spent much of my time imagining the meeting to come and wondering how I could soften the blow. Nothing came to mind.

  The view through the window was hardly uplifting—stretches of rain-swept plain interspersed with small stations and towns where almost everyone was in a uniform and every last pole and roof was wearing the same evil flag. The newspapers I’d brought to read were full of aggressive nationalism, most of it aimed at the government in Prague. Anyone reading—and believing—the German press is forced to conclude that Czechs are all sadistic bastards, and that all Sudeten Germans are either unsung heroes or maidens about to be raped.

  The journey time was just over five hours, and as we approached Berlin, I found myself wondering how much the city had changed in the fifteen years since I’d seen it. I went there only once before the war—a trip with my father to wind up an uncle’s estate—and I was still in Russia when the uprising failed in 1919, but I lived there for almost a year in 1922, working for the KPD as a political instructor. Now, staring out of the carriage window, I saw the same vista of grey monolithic blocks interspersed with the occasional spire. Hitler’s grandiose plans for the place are frequently in the papers, but so far the only change I could see was in the number and size of the flags.

  I had more than two hours to wait before the first train arrived at Silesian Station, so I got off mine at Friedrichstrasse for a walk around. After taking a look at the Tiergarten, I strolled down Unter der Linden and crossed the two bridges over the Spree. The old town looked much as I remembered it, the area around Alexanderplatz much less lively. One boarded-up former dancehall brought back a night I’d long since forgotten of dancing to a visiting American jazz band with a comrade from party HQ named Hilde. Where was she now? I wondered. She might still be there, married with children out in the suburbs, praying that her past stays hidden; she might be one of a thousand exiles in Russia, all biding their time until it’s safe to come home. She could of course be dead. Working for the KPD in the 1920s hadn’t come with a high life expectancy.

  I thought of the person I’d been then. So young, so angry, so certain.

  With less than a half hour to spare, I took an S-Bahn train to Silesian Station and, after checking which platform the train was due to arrive at, climbed the appropriate steps. I was slightly worried that Anna and her cousin had arranged the handover for either Friedrichstrasse or Zoo Station, but since they had met at Silesian a month before, there seemed no obvious reason for them not to do so again.

  I needn’t have worried, at least about that. When the train pulled in a few minutes late, Walter was one of the first to get off. Then, clutching his suitcase with one hand, he offered the other to help his aunt Sofie across the gap.

  They were about thirty meters away. Scanning the platform for his mother, Walter failed at first to see me, and I was only ten meters away when his eyes lit up, first with pleasure and then with the sudden realization that something must be wrong.

  “Anna couldn’t come,” I said, fighting to be heard above a new arrival on the adjoining platform. “I’m Josef Hofmann, one of her lodgers,” I informed Sofie, who looked like a plumper, less harassed version of her cousin. I suggested we all go downstairs, away from the noise, and received a nod of assent.

  The cafeteria on the concourse below was not much quieter, but there wasn’t anywhere else. “I’m afraid she’s been arrested,” I told them once we’d sat down.

  Walter looked stunned.

  “Why? What for?” Sofie wanted to know.

  I went through what we knew, that she’d been denounced to the Gestapo for saying things she shouldn’t have. I also said what we suspected, that another lodger named Ruchay had done the denouncing, in revenge for her refusing his offer of marriage.

  “So she’s innocent?” Sofie said hopefully.

  “She may have spoken unwisely, or he may have made something up. But she’s in custody, and no one can see her until the trial, which is probably several weeks away.”

  Walter looked torn between exploding with anger and bursting into tears. “I never liked Herr Ruchay,” he almost stammered, “but I didn’t think he would ever do something so . . .”

  “None of us did,” I said.

  “So will they take me away now?” Walter wanted to know.

  “No, why should they?” Sofie asked.

  Walter said he’d had a friend at school whose mother was dead, and that when his father was arrested, they’d put the friend in an orphanage.

  “You have a grandfather,” I reminded him.

  “And you also have a whole other family at the farm,” Sofie said. “And I think you should come back with me now, until things are sorted out.”

  The look of panic that flashed across Walter’s face would have been comic in less serious circumstances. “I think I ought to be at home,” he said solemnly, looking to me for support.

  I told Sofie her uncle Andreas thought that would be best, and went through his reasons one by one.

  She looked doubtful but didn’t argue further. “Very well,” she said. “But you know you’re always welcome,” she told Walter. “And tell my uncle I want to know what’s happening,” she said, turning to me. “I know he can’t write himself, but he can always ask someone like you.”

  That settled, we agreed to have some lunch, mostly, I suspect, because it gave us something to do before our journeys home. We ate in silence, and only Sofie cleaned her plate. Walter had lost his appetite, and I hadn’t had one to begin with.

  When the time came, we took Sofie up to her train and waved her goodbye as it steamed away. As the last coach cleared the platform, Walter finally burst into tears and, much to his own despair, was unable to stop crying for several minutes. I held him and let him sob into my chest, telling him over and over what my mother had often told me as a boy, that there was no shame in crying when something or someone was worth crying over.

  Our journey back to Hamm seemed endless, especially after darkness fell. Walter was mostly silent, his face against the window, staring blankly out at the country that won’t let his family alone.

  Finally home, I watched him engulfed by Verena’s warm and tearful embrace and found myself thinking that bad as things are, they could be worse.

  Friday, September 2

  It’s almost midnight, and the rest of the house is quiet. The days since I brought Walter back have been overly full, not to mention exhausting, but we seem to have survived them.

  Walter, of course, has been our main concern, but none of us are finding him easy to read. He hasn’t retreated into silence or weeping or anger, but at least around us adults, he does seem more self-contained. He doesn’t come up to my room the way he used to, and Verena says she hasn’t been able to get him to talk. He’s happy playing football with Marco and his other friends, apparently at ease with his nose buried deep in an old Tom Shark, and always his usual polite self, but there’s no denying that he hasn’t yet come to terms with what’s happened. School begins again on Monday, and I’m hoping that will help the process, but it might just as easily have the opposite effect.

  At least the house is functioning smoothly. Verena has worked her socks off, and Jakob and I are doing what we can to help in our off-work hours. As someone who’s lived most of his life in hotels and other people’s houses, I can’t say I’ve much experience of cleaning, and after the last four days, I have a keener understanding of what many of my female comrades have long been saying on the subject of domestic slavery.

  One definite improvement is that we’ve all started eating together—lodgers, children, and Verena
once she’s served the food up. The Nazis might be rampant outside, but socialism thrives at our mealtimes! Even Andreas joined us on one occasion and treated all and sundry to some stomach-churning memories of what passed for food in the trenches.

  The new lodger arrived on Monday, only minutes after a moving company had come for Ruchay’s belongings. His name is Thomas Buchloh, and like Gerritzen, he works for Islacker Wire and Cable, albeit in a more scientific capacity. For someone in his midtwenties, he seems very serious-minded. He has a fiancée named Ella in Dortmund, whom he travels to see every Sunday and plans to marry next summer.

  If I had to sum up Buchloh’s politics, I’d probably say he has none. He neither supports the regime nor opposes it—as far as he’s concerned, it’s just there. Which doesn’t mean he’s stupid. We still gather around the wireless in the evening—now without Ruchay’s running commentary—and some of Jakob’s and my more critical asides have clearly surprised Buchloh. And on more than one occasion, I’ve seen a smile slip out.

  Speaking of Ruchay, he now has a room on the far side of town and a lengthy walk to work. I’ve run into him twice at the office, and on both occasions he has refused to meet my eye. The man looks haggard and several years older, which strengthens my suspicion that he hadn’t intended his revenge to prove so brutal. Jakob and I have agreed to let him stew for another week before we appeal to his conscience.

  Given that I’d already taken some unauthorized time off, it was Jakob who went back to the Gestapo yesterday, seeking more information about Anna’s case and well-being. He came back with nothing where that was concerned but did get confirmation that Erich would be home in early December after serving his six-month sentence. The Gestapo officer was apparently indignant that there should be any doubt, telling Jakob that his organization was “scrupulous to a fault” when it came to such matters.

  All of which might prove moot if the papers are any guide. The ongoing campaign against Czechoslovakia is growing more strident each day, presumably at Hitler’s behest and Goebbels’s direction. It feels like a playground bully taunting his unfortunate victim until the latter, out of sheer desperation, throws the first punch, thereby sanctioning his own destruction. Some sort of war, whether local or general, seems almost inevitable, and if it’s the latter, then everything else—Walter’s heartache, Buchloh’s marriage, my own political scheming—will be swept away in its wake.

  Sunday, September 4

  With the new school year beginning tomorrow, this afternoon I took it upon myself to make sure Walter was ready. He demurred at first, but without much conviction, and together we checked that he had all he needed when it came to stationery supplies (Verena having already dealt with his clothes). We also went through the various tasks he’d been set for the summer, some of which he’d completed before going away. Given his mother’s arrest, it’s more than ever imperative that Walter keeps to the current political script.

  But he knows this as well as I do and seemed slightly vexed that I felt the need to remind him. I’d been putting off raising his promise to join the Jungvolk, thinking that he might dig his heels in—what child wants to laud those who locked up his mother?—but today he brought up the matter himself. He has already persuaded his grandfather to sign the application form—“He wasn’t keen, but I told him he had to”—and asked me if I would take him shopping for the uniform and other regalia once his membership was confirmed.

  Monday, September 5

  Walter’s first day back at school seems to have gone well. Herr Skoumal is no longer one of his teachers, which certainly bodes well, and according to Walter none of the new ones are anything like as “stupid.” Of course we have only Walter’s word on this, and he does seem newly determined to keep any problems he has to himself. Sometimes I think the Nazis will make liars of us all.

  Speaking of which, the latest Nuremberg Rally began today with what I assume is the usual bombast. Having missed the previous fifteen, I must admit to an interest in what sort of show they put on over the next seven days. This year’s extravaganza is dubbed the “Rally of Greater Germany,” in commemoration of Austria’s accession to the Reich. Other states with German populations will no doubt be wondering—and worrying—just how much “greater” Hitler wants it to be.

  Tuesday, September 6

  When I got back to the house tonight, I found Verena bathing Walter’s left eye and Marco already wearing a dressing on his left cheek. The boys’ initial claim that these were football injuries had already fallen apart under Verena’s cross-examination, and the twosome had now conceded that their injures had been sustained in a playground fight. “But it was really nothing,” Walter insisted, and his friend backed him up.

  “It was just one of the boys who likes to throw his weight around,” Marco said. “His brother’s in the SS, and the whole family thinks they’re better than anyone else.”

  I asked why this boy had picked on them and received one of Walter’s “you must be kidding” looks for my pains. When I asked how the fight had ended, he said one of the new teachers had pulled them apart. “And he didn’t just blame me and Marco,” Walter said, as if that was a hopeful sign.

  Verena and I exchanged rueful looks—both of us know that any complaint to the school would probably make things worse—and reached an unspoken agreement not to pursue the matter. “I have some better news,” I told them. With Müller’s permission I had left work half an hour early and gone to see the Gestapo again, in the probably mistaken belief that the more we showed our faces the more attention they’d pay to Anna’s fate. I wasn’t expecting news, but the Kriminalsekretär actually had some—her hearing has been scheduled for October 5. Four weeks is a long time to wait, but any timescale is better than none.

  One last thing I should note down today, because I fear it will prove significant. The German wireless and newspapers have been quoting an editorial in the London Times, a newspaper which often acts as a semiofficial mouthpiece for the British government. “The Czechs,” the editorial argues, “will gain in homogeneity if the Sudetenland is allowed to secede.” Having finally realized what sort of hook they’re on, the men in London are seeking to wriggle themselves off it.

  Thursday, September 8

  The last two school days have been uneventful, at least as far as we adults know. The house arrangements are still working well, but the extra work and longer hours were clearly taking a toll on Verena, so something had to be done. Jakob and I managed to persuade Gerritzen and Buchloh that she deserved some time off, and from now on we lodgers will feed ourselves between Saturday’s breakfast and Sunday’s supper. Jakob’s further suggestion that he and I should cook Sunday breakfast was also accepted, though with more relief than enthusiasm. I can’t remember the last time I cooked a meal.

  The wretched Nuremberg Rally has taken over the wireless: speech after speech full of bile and self-congratulation, breathless descriptions of how amazing everything looks. I can hardly wait for the newsreel.

  No doubt encouraged by the bloodcurdling threats every speaker seems honor bound to issue, the Sudeten Germans have broken off talks with their government in Prague.

  Friday, September 9

  After agreeing tactics with Andreas and Jakob, I caught up with Ruchay this evening. Having followed him half the way back to his lodgings a few days ago, it wasn’t hard to appear at his side as he hurried on home. As I intended, this abrupt reunion came as a shock.

  His first reaction was a quick step backward, his second to splutter: “What do you want?”

  When I said I just wanted to talk, he said he was late for a meeting. I told him I’d walk along with him.

  I’m sure he expected me to accuse him of denouncing Anna, but Andreas, Jakob, and I had decided that the chances of him making an official retraction were negligible—whatever we threatened, the Gestapo would still scare him more, and he wasn’t about to admit he’d made it all up. I t
hought a less aggressive approach might prove equally futile, but if Ruchay was feeling as guilty as I hoped he was, it offered at least some chance of success.

  “I need your help,” I said, much to his obvious surprise. “I know you and Frau Gersdorff had your differences. Political ones and personal ones. But given how much you esteemed her, I can’t believe you want to see her spend years in prison over a few intemperate remarks.”

  “No, of course not,” he agreed, not even attempting to deny his role in reporting her. “But what can I do?” he asked almost pathetically.

  “You could put in a good word,” I told him. “Explain the situation, the emotional stress that both of you were under at the time. Tell them that it wasn’t like her, that if that was who she normally was, you would never have asked her to marry you. You’re a member of the party—they’ll listen to you.”

  He stopped and looked at me, and I thought—fancifully, perhaps—that I could see the inner struggle in his eyes. “I will give it some thought,” he said. “Now leave me alone.”

  I watched him walk away, half of me wanting to push him under a tram, the better half wishing his mother had done something right.

  Back here at the house, Jakob and Andreas were waiting to hear how things had gone. I told them I didn’t know, that Ruchay’s guilt and fear were well-matched opponents, and that predicting the outcome was beyond me.

  After supper Gerritzen and Buchloh both went out, and once the boys were in their room, the rest of us took a kerosene lamp out to the yard and sat there for over an hour, enjoying the warmth of the evening and nursing glasses of beer. There wasn’t much in the way of conversation, but just being there together felt good to me. And as far as I could tell, the other three felt the same.

  Back in my room, as I wrote the above, I couldn’t help noticing how little attention I’m paying to the job I was sent here to do. In my not-so humble opinion, Dieter’s instruction to somehow force Müller out of the group is completely wrongheaded, a classic example of those far removed from events believing they know better than the people they have on the spot. This is far from the first time I’ve run into this problem, and lives are usually lost as a result of it. This time I shall do what I think is right, even though the feeling this decision evokes is that of a small boy defying his father. Or perhaps young Oliver Twist demanding “more.”