‘Yes?’
‘Where am I?’
‘Guy’s Hospital.’
‘Guy’s?’ That meant I was on the south side of the river, by London Bridge. ‘How did I get here?’
She shrugged. ‘You need to rest now, Mr Wolfson.’ She primed the syringe and I saw the tiny bubble of liquid at the needle’s end. ‘Wait! My name isn’t Wolfson, it’s—’
The needle penetrated my skin. A sense of great relief and of peace washed over me, and I sank into the mattress and in seconds I was asleep again.
Wolf’s Diary, 18th November 1939
‘We’re being overrun with the damn Jews,’ a male voice said. I could smell pipe-tobacco in the room. ‘I keep telling them, we need more staff, we can’t cope, they should rein in the bloody Mosley boys until after the elections, at least.’
I opened my eyes. He was about my age, with ample facial hair, round glasses. He left his pipe smoking by the window and approached me. ‘Let’s have a look at you,’ he said. His hand went to the back of my head and I nearly screamed. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said. ‘That’s a nasty wound you’ve got there, Mr …’
‘Wolfson,’ the nurse said. It was a different nurse.
‘A nasty wound. It’s a good thing you came to us,’ the doctor said. At last he released my head. ‘We need to keep you for a few days. Is there anyone you wish to call?’
‘No,’ I said. Then, ‘Yes.’
‘A wife, a friend?’
‘Call Oswald Mosley,’ I said, and he laughed.
‘Call Oswald! Tell him it’s Wolf.’
The doctor sighed. ‘Why do they do this,’ he said. Again it wasn’t clear who the ‘they’ referred to. ‘Keep him sedated for the time being. He needs time to recover.’
‘Wait, listen to me! You don’t understand!’
But the doctor had moved on to the next bed. I looked up at the nurse. My head hurt terribly. ‘Please, call him. Tell him it’s Wolf.’
‘I thought your name was Wolfson,’ she said. She primed the syringe. ‘Don’t do that,’ I said, ‘don’t—’
Again, the cold touch of the needle. Again, that near-immediate relief. I smiled up at her goofily. ‘Call him, tell him I’m—’
‘Sleep well,’ she said.
Wolf’s Diary, 19th November 1939
‘Mr Wolf?’
It was dark. In the beds beside mine men were snoring and crying and farting in their sleep. My visitor perched on a chair beside me, an unremarkable young man in an unremarkable grey suit. His face was pleasant, plump, and shiny with a thin film of sweat. ‘Who the hell are you?’ I said.
‘I’m Alderman, sir? Thomas Alderman? We met at Sir Oswald’s … party? And we spoke on the phone, more recently.’
‘Alderman? Who the hell are you, Alderman? Where is Oswald?’
‘Sir Oswald is on the campaign trail, sir. As the Americans say. He is unavailable but he of course sends his best regards. There seems to have been a mishap, if you don’t mind me saying, sir, but you appear to be registered here as a Jew named Wolfson.’
‘Don’t you worry about that. What was that about the Americans? Did they get to him? Is he cutting a deal? I demand to know!’
‘Sir Oswald is of course speaking to many different factions—’
‘I knew it! The dirty worm has cut a deal! The man has no moral fibre, he has the spine of a snail!’
‘Snails … don’t have spines, sir.’
‘That’s what I said!’
The young man looked pained. ‘I hate to see you like this, Mr Wolf.’
‘Like this? Like how!’
‘All frail, like.’
‘Frail! How dare you! What did you say your name was?’
‘Alderman, sir. Thomas Alderman? We met at Sir Oswald’s party—’
‘I know who you are! Do you think I have no eyes? Do you think I’m crazy? You tell that slimy Englishman this is Wolf, Wolf he’s talking to! Where is Oswald?’
‘He’s … electioneering, sir.’
‘Why is he not here? Who the hell are you?’
‘I think I should call a nurse, sir. You seem agitated.’
‘Agitated? Agitated? I could have ruled the world, you know!’
‘I know, sir. Let me just say, Mr Wolf, I have the utmost admiration for you. I …’
I stared at him, dumbfounded. The young man reached into the breast pocket of his suit and brought out a tattered little book and presented it to me. ‘I know this is hardly the right time, but … would you sign this for me?’
It was my book.
My Struggle.
I took it from him; held it in my hands. It was the British first – and, if I were being honest, only – edition, published by Hurst & Blackett, useless asses that they were. It was in a plain yellow dustjacket, like the books published by that Jew, Victor Gollancz.
‘I’m … touched,’ I said. I blinked; my vision had become blurry. A single drop fell on the open title page. ‘Do you have a pen?’
‘Here,’ he said. I accepted it from him.
‘What was your name again?’
‘Alderman, sir. Thomas Alderman.’
‘A good name. You’re a good man, Alderman. A good man. We need more like you in this world.’
‘Thank you, sir. That means a lot.’
To Thomas Alderman, I wrote. My hand was shaky. Best wishes – and I added my signature with a weak flourish.
‘Here,’ I said, thrusting the book back into his hands. ‘Thank you, young man.’
‘Thank you, sir. Thank you so much.’
‘This is a time of war, Alderman,’ I said, sinking back into the sheets. I felt so weary. ‘And we’re all soldiers, whether we know it yet or not.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Come and see me some time.’
‘I’d like that, sir.’
‘You tell that Oswald Mosley …’ I said. But I was too tired. My eyes closed. I felt almost weepy. Like a woman – like a weak woman! ‘You tell him …’
From a long way away I heard him get up, the scrape of the chair legs on the floor. ‘Sleep now, sir.
‘You tell him …’
Wolf’s Diary, 20th November 1939
On her sickbed in Urfahr my mother lay dying.
I was eighteen. My sister, Paula, was eleven years old. I had been residing in Vienna at that time, attempting to enrol in the Academy of Fine Arts. I had hurried back home when I received the news from her physician. I returned in October. Dr Bloch, her doctor, was a Jew. I remember him sitting us down, Paula and I. ‘Your mother’s condition is hopeless,’ he said. Paula cried. I myself cried. I am not ashamed to admit it. I only cried like this again when I thought I had lost my sight, in the war. I remember most strongly the smell in her room. Death has a special smell, that slow wasting of a human body. It is a sickly, sweet smell, a special odour that comes off the sick body, a rotting from within. That and, mixed with bodily waste, the smell of constant cleaning, of old carpets, of my mother’s perfume which she insisted on wearing to her last day. I slept beside her, in a cot in the corner of the room. The windows were kept closed, as my mother was always cold. The air in the room was stifling. I had to hold her naked body in my arms, washing her, washing her and trying not to cry. The cancer was in her breasts and it had spread: there was no cure. Her hospital stay at the start of the year had cost one hundred Kronen. Leaving her – going to Vienna – was the hardest thing I had ever done. Returning, I could do nothing but watch her die slowly. For two more months she lingered, becoming light as air; time seemed suspended, each particle and mote of dust froze in the everlasting air; in my mother’s eyes I saw past and future meet.
She had become unchained from time. In lucid moments she spoke haltingly in alien tongues. Her eyes were open windows allowing me a glimpse into strange other worlds: in one the very moon was carved with an image of my face, while in another the Earth lay in ruins and corpses filled the seas from shore to shore and the foam bursting on the rocks ran red w
ith blood. My mother’s blood was black ichor. Her tears were purest crystal, like those found only on virgin sands. In the night she cried in broken syllables, but more and more she faded, with every passing day there was less of her.
My mother died that December.
Never will there be another woman like my mother.
Wolf’s Diary, 21st November 1939
‘Damn you all to hell, this food is scheisse!’ I said. ‘Bring me vegetables! Vegetables, I said! No, don’t tell me to be quiet. Get your hands off of me! I said get your dirty hands off of m— no, don’t you dare reach for that syringe! I said don’t you dare—’
Wolf’s Diary, 22nd November 1939
‘Enough!’ I yelled. My headache was gone, I was hungry, I needed to urinate, and I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. ‘I want to be discharged immediately.’
‘You have suffered serious trauma,’ the nurse said. It was a different nurse again. I was getting sick of nurses, and needles, and what passed for hospital food.
‘Then bandage me up and give me some pills,’ I said.
‘It might not be safe for you out there,’ the nurse said. ‘It’s ugly outside, there are mobs, everything is tense – it’s the elections today, isn’t it.’
‘Today? How long have I been in here!’
‘A few days. And I really do think you should—’
‘Don’t you worry about me, bubeleh,’ I said. Was I really using Yiddish? What was happening to me? ‘I have friends,’ I added, darkly. ‘I have friends in high places.’
‘I’m sure that you do. And we could use the bed. But the doctor—’
‘I don’t need a doctor! I healed my own blindness with the power of my mind!’
‘I … see.’
‘Look,’ I said, calmer now. Trying to reason with her was like trying to teach National Socialism to a goat. It was an enterprise doomed to failure and bound to disappoint both parties. ‘I’m leaving. I want my clothes.’
‘This is highly irregular—’
‘I’m leaving! Don’t you know who I am?’
‘I have no idea who you are.’
‘How dare you!’
‘Sir, please!’
But I was already standing, tottering on the hard floor. I regained my balance, smiled at her contemptuously. ‘It was a minor setback,’ I said. ‘It’s only a matter of time until I’m on top of things again.’
‘Sir—’
‘Get out of my way!’
I barged past her to the cheering of the other patients, found my clothes folded tidily and carried them to the bathroom where I changed. When I emerged I felt like a new man. I was myself again. ‘Goodbye!’ I said. I tapped my finger on the brim of my hat and walked away.
She didn’t follow.
Wolf emerged into a cold November day. A pale sun hid behind clouds. It was raining again, a thin, constant drizzle. The railway arches rose ahead of Wolf, obscuring the river. Men in suits flowed down Southwark Street.
It was Wednesday.
His head no longer hurt. He was rested, he was irritable and he was still on the case, whether anyone wanted him to be or not.
It was time to act.
Wolf hailed a black cab. Settled himself into the back seat. ‘Where to, mate?’ the driver said.
‘The Grosvenor Hotel, Victoria. And step on it!’
The driver chuckled as though Wolf had said something funny. On the other side of the window, grey clouds gathered on the horizon.
The city flowed past outside the windows of the cab. The streets deepened and the sky darkened overhead and the clouds seemed like giant ships doing battle, raising the black flags of pirates and privateers. The water of the Thames churned and Wolf imagined vast spirits underwater, entwined in a battle reflecting the heavens above, great amorphous translucent creatures of some primordial ooze, ancient beyond all imagining, things that were beyond good and evil but merely were, from even before the world was formed.
It was possible he was still somewhat under the influence of the hospital drugs.
The Grosvenor Hotel rose before them then like a castle. The driver stopped the cab. Wolf paid the fare.
‘Sooner or later,’ he thought groggily, ‘everyone pays the fare.’
‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing,’ Wolf said. He exited the car. Went up the steps to the hotel entrance where liveried doormen stood like toy soldiers. He went inside and marched up to the reception desk. ‘Leni Riefenstahl,’ he said. ‘Tell her it is Wolf.’
The hotel clerk behind the desk was severe in a beige and cream suit. His face had the faintly disapproving air of a maiden aunt. He said, ‘I’m afraid Miss Riefenstahl is no longer staying with us, sir.’
Wolf took a step back from the desk. He hovered there uncertainly for a moment, looking one way and then the other, helplessly. The hotel clerk said, ‘Are you unwell, sir?’
But Wolf recovered.
Wolf always recovered.
‘Where did Miss Riefenstahl go?’ he said.
‘The film crew left two days ago,’ the clerk said. ‘I believe they went back to America. There were issues with the production of their film that necessitated their decampment.’
His eloquence irritated Wolf. ‘She is not here?’ he said, shortly.
‘No, sir. Are you sure you are all right?’
‘I’m fine. I’m fine!’ Wolf turned from him. How could it be? He had counted on Leni. She stood for everything he had once believed in, she was Aryan womanhood incarnate. She was loving – uncomplicated – sexually compliant – she was his! And yet even she was gone now, had gone back to Hollywood, leaving him with an aching emptiness, a dull pain. He was hollow inside, and the hollowness was spreading, beginning as a tiny seed, undetectable, and growing through him over the years, replacing healthy cells and blood vessels, bone marrow and muscles and nerves, until he was entirely hollow, until he was lighter than air. He felt as though he were floating, untethered. He no longer knew who he was.
Then movement caught his eye. A man, with a face he had seen before, emerging from the lifts. For a moment Wolf stared, disbelieving, though he didn’t quite know why. He had assumed they’d all left with Leni, yet here he was.
It was the Jew, Bitker.
Wolf turned away before Bitker could see him. He observed him through the mirrors fixed above the hotel’s plush entrance. Bitker went right past Wolf, heading outside. Indecisive, Wolf stared after him, then broke into a run. ‘Herr Bitker!’ he said. ‘Herr Bitker!’
The Jew turned. A look of polite bemusement filled his face. ‘Yes …?’ he said.
Wolf stopped, disbelieving again. ‘We’ve met,’ he said.
‘Have we? I’m afraid I do not recollect, Mr …?’
‘Wolfson,’ Wolf said, thinking quickly. ‘We have not been introduced. Unwin’s party? You are working with Leni?’
‘I am part of the film crew,’ Bitker said. ‘How do you know Miss Riefenstahl?’
‘We … I am, was, an artist. I did scenery work on one of her Berlin films,’ Wolf said.
‘I see. Well, she has gone back to California, I’m afraid,’ Bitker said.
‘So I understand.’
‘I am sorry I can’t be of more help,’ Bitker said, politely.
‘Herr Bitker!’ Wolf’s voice was desperate; hungry. He put his hand on Bitker’s arm. ‘Please.’
‘What is it, Mr Wolfson?’
‘I want to help!’
‘Help? Help with the film? The production is halted. I myself only stayed behind for, well, for some other business. I shall be returning to California tonight.’
‘No, Herr Bitker!’ Wolf lowered his voice, leaned in closer to the Jew. ‘I want to help. With the cause.’
‘The cause?’ For the first time Bitker looked alarmed. ‘What cause?’
‘Herr Bitker, please! Do not play games with me!’
‘This is not the time or place—!’
‘I want to help. I am ready to do whatever it
takes. Life is intolerable, here, for us Jews!’
‘I don’t disagree. But I don’t see what you think I can do—’
‘I want to do what has to be done. I want to join. I know things, Herr Bitker.’
‘I can see that. Come with me.’ Bitker grabbed Wolf roughly by the arm, half-dragged him into the empty hotel bar. ‘Who are you and what do you want?’
‘I told you, I’m Wolfson. Moshe Wolfson. Here.’ Wolf fished out his forged passport. ‘Take it!’
Bitker took it from his hands, leafed through it. He stared at Wolf and his expression turned puzzled. ‘Have we met before?’ he said. ‘Not at Unwin’s party.’
Wolf thought of following Bitker to Threadneedle Street, of being discovered, chased and beaten. ‘No,’ he said.
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