Paving the New Road

by Sulari Gentill

  The Brownshirts ran among the cars, barking at passers-by. A rotund couple about to climb into their car pointed at Rowland, when questioned.

  “What the devil—?” Clyde began.

  “They’re looking for someone,” Rowland said as the Stormtroopers headed their way. He turned briefly. Beimler was gone.

  “Name?” A young Brownshirt stood before Rowland with his chest thrust out.

  “Robert Negus,” Rowland said calmly.

  “Have you come across a man in the uniform of the SA this afternoon, Herr Negus?”

  “Yes,” Rowland replied, knowing full well that he had been reported as having done so. “Are you in his regiment? He said he had lost them.”

  “That man is not a member of the SA!” the young officer roared, spittle flying in his fury. “He is a filthy Communist dog! A prisoner! An escapee!”

  “I see. I’m afraid in the uniform I assumed he was a member of the SA.”

  “Where is he?” The Brownshirt took the truncheon from his belt.

  “I regret to say, I don’t know.” Rowland spoke pleasantly but he held his ground. “He accepted a lift in another car after I told him we were going back to Munich…apparently he did not wish to go that way.”

  “Where did he want to go?”

  Rowland shrugged. “I recall he said something about meeting up with his regiment in Nuremberg.”

  The Brownshirt’s eyes moved to Clyde. “Du! Is this so?”

  “My friend is Australian. He does not speak German….He saw your Communist, but he did not speak with him.”

  “The car! Describe it!”

  “Black…a Mercedes…but an older model. Pre-1925 would be my guess.”

  “So you did not help him?” The truncheon was poised under Rowland’s chin.

  “If he had wanted to go to Munich, I might have…I thought he was one of you, after all. But he did seem rather desperate to get to Nuremberg.”

  The officer shouted to his fellow Stormtroopers and, amidst a great deal of cursing and bellowing, the SA departed.

  “Where are they going?” Clyde asked quietly.

  “Nuremberg, I hope. Where do you think Beimler went? I daresay he couldn’t have got far.”

  Clyde glanced around the parking area. The Brownshirts were gone. A few curious onlookers lingered in the car park. Milton and Edna had driven out just before the Stormtroopers had arrived. “He’s under the car, Rowly. If you open the back door, he can probably slip in without anyone seeing him.”

  Rowland nodded and walked round to open the rear door on the far side.

  “We’re helping this chap escape, then?” Clyde asked.

  “So it seems.”

  “Good show.”

  Clyde opened the hood as if he was checking the engine and under that cover, Rowland was able to bend and instruct the escaped Communist to climb into the motor car and stay down. When he had done so, they wasted no further time leaving Oberschleissheim for Munich.

  For a time, nobody said anything. And then from the floor in the rear, “Dankeschön.”

  Clyde glanced back. “No problem, mate.”

  “Where exactly did you escape from, Herr Beimler?” Rowland asked.

  “Dachau.”

  “The re-education camp?”

  “A place where the domestic enemies of Germany are to be concentrated, according to Herr Himmler.”

  Rowland translated quickly for Clyde, and then asked, “Where would you like us to take you, Herr Beimler?”

  “Just leave me anywhere in Munich. I will find my way.”

  “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Rowland said. “Do you have somewhere safe we could take you?”

  “Anywhere in Munich,” Beimler insisted.

  “What’s the matter?” Clyde asked.

  “I think he’s still a bit worried about trusting us,” Rowland murmured. “If they’re rounding up Communists, it’s no wonder he doesn’t want to tell perfect strangers where his friends live.”

  Clyde shook his head. “Fair enough, I suppose.”

  Again there was silence and then Clyde began to hum “The Red Flag”.

  After a few bars, Beimler joined him…and then they sang, Clyde in English and Beimler in German. It finished rather raucously.

  “Why does your friend sing the Communist anthem?” Beimler asked Rowland.

  “He’s a member back home,” Rowland replied, “and he doesn’t speak German. I think he’s trying to tell you that you can trust us.”

  “I see.” Beimler peered over the seat, still staying well down. “And you, Herr Negus, are you a Communist?”

  “No.” Rowland replied. “But I am not a Nazi, either.”

  “There are many people who are not Nazis who are denouncing their neighbours.”

  “If I was going to do that, I would have done so when the Stormtrooper questioned me, Herr Beimler.” Rowland glanced at the escapee in the rear-vision mirror.

  Beimler nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Do you have friends in Munich, Herr Beimler?”

  “Yes.”

  “It would be less dangerous for you if we could take you directly there. The authorities in Munich will have been alerted by now.”

  “You understand, Herr Negus, I do not wish to risk the safety of my comrades for my own sake.”

  “If we take you there we will not return or speak of it again,” Rowland promised. “If you wish, my friend here will swear on the Red Flag, or Das Kapital or whatever it is you Communists do.”

  Beimler laughed softly. “Generally, we shake hands.”

  It was getting dark when they turned into the narrow street. The area was semi-industrial—warehouses and dilapidated town houses, with peeling paint and grimy stone. There were few other cars. Even so, the window boxes overflowed with geraniums of all colours.

  Clyde removed his jacket and handed it to Beimler, who nodded his thanks and pulled it over the brown shirt in which he had escaped Dachau.

  They drove into an alley between two buildings as Beimler directed, then brought the Mercedes to a stop. Half a dozen men in flat caps emerged from the buildings on both sides.

  “Dankeschön, meine freunde,” Beimler said, as he opened the rear door to alight. The men in the alley seemed to recognise him, clasping his shoulder and greeting him with silent warmth.

  Rowland started the engine again as Beimler and his comrades spoke, happy that the stray escapee was among friends. Then one man bent in through the door that Beimler had left open.

  Wondering what he wanted, Rowland turned. The muzzle of the gun was just inches from his face.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  HITLER’S

  OAK TREE

  Planted by the German Chancellor—Herr Hitler—on the Tempelhof Field, Berlin, on May 1, the oak tree was cut down, and on suspicion that the perpetrator was a Communist, it was ordered that 18,000 Communist prisoners in Prussia should go dinnerless for three days.

  —The West Australian, 1933

  The front doors of the vehicle were pulled open and Rowland and Clyde dragged out.

  Rowland was slammed against the brick wall of the alley and held there. For a moment he was dazed, vaguely aware of the crushing weight of the forearm against his throat.

  Beimler intervened. “Eisen, stop! Are you mad? These men helped me.”

  “They could be spies, allowing you to lead them to the Underground…to us,” he hissed, though he loosened the stranglehold.

  Rowland focussed. The man called Eisen was simply enormous, a hulking, furious figure with a gun.

  “Don’t be a fool!” Beimler snapped. “They’re not even German.”

  A scuffle as Clyde wrested free for a moment. Almost instantly he was punched to the ground, where he lay gasping
. Rowland tried to go to his friend’s aid, but Eisen would have none of it, throwing him back against the wall with the pistol’s barrel pressed to his temple.

  “I tell you, they’re with us!” Beimler grabbed Eisen’s arm.

  “We can’t risk it!”

  “You…I know you!” Rowland blanched as a torch was shone directly into his face. “You’re the man who scrubbed the platz with Herr Göring.”

  Rowland squinted at the bearer of the torch. The man was small, his hair cropped close to his head. He wore wire-rimmed spectacles, the left lens of which was cracked—the Dachau inmate whose brush he’d borrowed in Königsplatz.

  The torch beam was lowered. “Put the gun down, Comrade.This man is no Nazi.”

  The gun was eased away.

  “Are you all right?” Rowland asked, glancing at Clyde, who was still doubled over.

  Clyde nodded, straightening, though he was clearly still winded.

  Beimler stepped up to the door and knocked three times. It opened, a crack at first and then wide. Still holding the gun, Eisen barked, “Inside!”

  With no other option apparent, they followed Beimler in. Their eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness within. The torch beam finished in a yellow circle on the wooden floor, the walls and around the interior, as it was shone in a wide, searching sweep. The space was huge, a disused factory of some kind. Old looms and defunct machinery were still bolted to the floor. A narrow staircase led to a mezzanine and from there a ladder took them into a large attic space. There were several rudimentary beds in the eaves, and chairs surrounding a small table on which lay the remains of a hastily abandoned card game. A small, stocky man with a luxuriant moustache sat in a tattered armchair, scribbling in a notebook. He glanced up when they entered and then carried on with his writing.

  The bespectacled man who had recognised Rowland from Königsplatz stuck out his hand. “Grüss Gott. I am Heinrich, Frank Heinrich.”

  “Robert Negus,” Rowland replied, taking the handshake.

  “Well, Herr Negus,” Heinrich said, “it seems you have befriended our Comrade Beimler.”

  Beimler sat on a creaking bentwood chair. “I have not brought foxes into our hole, comrades. These men saved my life. I would be in the hands of the Stormtroopers if they had not helped me.”

  Rowland translated quietly for Clyde.

  “What did you just say?” Eisen demanded, rearing suspiciously.

  “My friend does not speak German,” Rowland replied evenly.

  The man in the dilapidated armchair looked up from his notebook and nodded. “That is the truth…he did nothing but repeat Comrade Beimler’s claims in English.” He sighed, closing his notebook reluctantly, and came over to join them. “Egon Kisch,” he said. “Welcome to Purgatory.”

  Eisen pushed past Kisch to poke Rowland in the chest. “One stray word, and Kisch will know. He speaks many languages.”

  Rowland was now more than a little irritated. “Look, we brought Herr Beimler back…”

  “He should not have allowed you to bring him here!” Eisen snapped. “He has put us all at risk of discovery.”

  “You are not at risk…yet, anyway. But if you don’t allow us to leave now, there are people who will start looking for us. I assume you’d rather that didn’t happen.”

  Eisen turned to Beimler. “Who else knows they brought you here?”

  Beimler shook his head. “No one. I directed as Herr Negus drove. We didn’t stop.”

  “So if they were to disappear, there is nothing to bring anyone here.”

  Rowland glared at him, angry now. He interpreted for Clyde without taking his eyes from Eisen. “The fat chap seems to think it’s too risky to allow us to walk away. He doesn’t seem too bright…appears rather eager to shoot us, I’m afraid.”

  Egon Kisch started. “No,” he said in heavy English, glancing from Rowland to Clyde. “Eisen is overzealous. We are all…”—he hesitated looking for the correct word—“…worried.”

  “I’m not sure, Mr. Kisch, what we could do to allay your concerns,” Rowland said.

  “Perhaps you could tell us who you are, Mr. Negus. What you are doing in Munich.” He nodded at an empty chair, indicating that Rowland should sit.

  Rowland maintained the cover story that they had used since they left Sydney, but he added a little truth about their pasts, though he ascribed that truth to Robert Negus and Joseph Ryan: Clyde’s membership in both the Communist Party and the trade unions, his own clashes with Australian fascists. “We have no intention of betraying you to the SA or anyone else, Herr Kisch.”

  For a while their captors formed a huddle and argued and muttered about what to do next. Rowland spoke quietly to Clyde, telling him what had been exchanged in German.

  Finally Beimler turned back to them.

  “You and Herr Ryan may go. Comrade Eisen’s brother has an automobile. We will follow you.”

  “Why?”

  “So we know where to find you,” Eisen replied coldly. “If anybody comes for us, then we will come for you, Herr Negus. Do not be deceived by the fact that we hide like rats. We have many friends and we will find you.”

  Rowland was unperturbed. “You will not need to.”

  Eisen left then, presumably to borrow his brother’s car. While he was gone, Beimler and Heinrich spoke of Dachau, initially to each other and their comrades, but when Rowland asked questions, they responded openly. It appeared the distrust was mostly the fat man’s.

  Beimler had, of course, escaped the camp, but Heinrich had been released, ransomed somehow by moneyed friends. Egon Kisch, too, had been imprisoned, though at a place called Spandau, in Berlin, and then deported to his native Czechoslovakia. A journalist by profession, he had returned to Germany illicitly to report on what he called the daily atrocities of the Nazi regime. Beimler and Heinrich spoke of the work details, the brutality, and the daily humiliations of the Dachau camp…and the men who were still incarcerated there.

  “Is it just the Communists they’ve imprisoned?” Rowland asked. He had forgotten now that they were themselves prisoners.

  Kisch shook his head. “Most are Communists, Social Democrats, or trade unionists, but there are also Jehovah’s Witnesses. Their religious beliefs preclude them from swearing allegiance to the Fatherland, you see. There are some gypsies—gypsies are classed as asocial— a few indiscreet Freemasons, and anyone who speaks against the Nazis.”

  “Surely the law does not allow them to hold people on such grounds?”

  “We are ‘taken into protective custody in the interest of public security and order,’” Beimler said bitterly. “We are suspected of ‘activities inimical to the State.’” He laughed, leaning over to Rowland. “That, my friend, is true. My activities oppose the Reich, my heart opposes the Reich. We begin with Hitler a steady march towards our own destruction.”

  “Sadly,” Kisch added, “many Germans are too distracted by parades and uniforms to realise that our country is being wrested from us. We are cheering the man who enslaves us while the world watches on admiringly.”

  Nearly an hour passed before Eisen returned and told them to go.

  “Good luck, gentlemen,” Rowland said, as he and Clyde climbed back into the Mercedes.

  “And you,” Kisch said gravely. “I fear that our fight will become more than a German one. The fascists are not just here.”

  Eisen followed them back to Richter’s house in Schellingstrasse in what appeared to be an old baker’s van. He waited just beyond the driveway. They heard the van start again only when porch lights came on and the door was opened.

  The relief was apparent on the faces of Milton and Edna as they entered.

  Even Richter rose enthusiastically. “Danke Gott, you have returned.”

  “Yes…sorry…” Rowland hesitated, unsure of how much they’d told their host.

 
“I was about to telephone Himmler,” Richter declared. “How dare those SA thugs use you and Herr Ryan as a taxi service! And to detain you so long! It is unacceptable…unacceptable.”

  “Actually, the poor fellow didn’t detain us,” Rowland said, glancing quickly at Clyde. “I’m afraid we took a wrong turn on the way back and found ourselves lost.”

  Richter frowned. “Miss Greenway was very concerned.” He wagged his finger. “You have worried her.”

  “Don’t scold them, Alois,” Edna said, rubbing Richter’s arm. “They couldn’t help getting lost.”

  Richter looked at her and smiled. “Of course, mein Kind.” He patted her hand. “I am sorry, gentlemen. I am a foolish old man who can’t bear to see Miss Greenway distressed.”

  “You’re exaggerating,” Edna said laughing. “I barely cared at all!”

  “We’re sorry, Millie,” Clyde said. “I told Robbie to turn left, but he just won’t take directions.”

  Rowland opened his eyes, unsure if he had actually heard or just imagined the soft click of the door handle. He rolled over towards the sound, though he could see almost nothing in the darkness.

  A whisper. “Rowly?”

  He sat up. His eyes adjusted quickly and he could make out the familiar silhouette. “Ed.”

  Edna closed the door behind her.

  Rowland waited until she’d made her way over to his bed. He was a little surprised, but not unduly alarmed. Edna lived with him. The four of them had some time ago, fallen into a familial informality with respect to each other. Back in Sydney, Edna often wandered into their rooms in the middle of the night to talk about some matter that couldn’t wait till morning. They were not scandalised by the sight of each other in pyjamas. But still, Edna usually conducted herself properly when they were guests elsewhere.

  “What are you doing here?” He pulled at the curtain which cloaked the window above his bed, allowing the moon to cast Edna in colourless light.