Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  I’ll bet you are, I think sourly.

  “Johanna looked at me with love, always. Very different from the way you look at me.”

  I feel a lurch at hearing her name. Johanna. Suddenly she becomes more real to me, this Jewish girl who was in love with a German officer and hiding a deadly secret. I remember the picture of Reinhardt in his military uniform standing in front of the swastika flag, his youthful, open face alight with some strong emotion. I’d thought it was political fervor but perhaps it was love. Despite myself, I wonder what he was like back then, before death and grief and imprisonment hardened him into the man he is today. But perhaps he was born to mock and hunt and take what isn’t his.

  My voice is husky and uncertain as I say, “So talk.”

  “About Johanna?”

  I flick a piece of lint off the arm of the sofa, pretending I’m not burning with curiosity. “If you want to.”

  He’s silent for a long time, watching me, amused, as if he can see right through my nonchalance. He reaches for his cigarettes and lights one, gathering his thoughts. “I met her…it would have been in May of 1938. I was seventeen, she nearly so. We’d moved from Dresden to Berlin by then and I saw her one day as I was cycling home from a Hitler Youth parade.”

  He sees my expression of disgust and explains, “Membership was mandatory for Aryans by then, but my father had signed me up before that. The day after my fourteenth birthday, in fact. We were a military family and I was destined to be an officer like he was before me, and my grandfather was before that.”

  “No matter who you were fighting for?”

  He takes a pull on his cigarette and exhales slowly. “I wasn’t raised to question those in power. Not like you.”

  “You haven’t changed much, then.”

  His eyes grow a shade chillier, but he goes on. “My father never accepted Germany’s defeat at the end of the Great War. Not a single enemy soldier sets foot on German soil but we roll over and take it? It wasn’t going to happen a second time. Germany was going to show the world what it was made of.”

  Bitterness has crept into his voice and he’s silent for several moments, watching the smoke from his cigarette twist in the air. When he continues his voice is lighter. “So. I was cycling home, and I saw a girl on the other side of the street. A very beautiful girl. Dark hair. Dark eyes. And as I was wondering how to get a girl like that to talk to me, my front wheel hit a pothole and I was thrown over the handlebars. Broke my nose. Blood all down my uniform.” He rubs the side of his nose and for the first time I see there’s the slightest imperfection in its strong line. “She cleaned me up and talked to me, between laughing at me.”

  I try and picture a Jewish girl going to the aid of a member of the Hitler Youth, the red and black swastika armband bright against his tan uniform. It seems impossible. “Wasn’t she afraid of you?”

  He shakes his head. “Johanna didn’t know she was Jewish. She was adopted and her parents had raised her Catholic, like them. In a few weeks’ time I was eighteen and in the Wehrmacht and they could barely disguise their distaste at seeing their beautiful, Jewish daughter on the arm of a German army ensign. I just thought they didn’t think I was good enough for her. It was easy to believe, because I wasn’t.”

  His eyes drop, and I can sense his good mood has evaporated. He talks on in a low voice, almost as if I’m not there. “I saw her every time I was home on leave in Berlin and I fell in love with her. Her parents finally told her she was Jewish when she told them we were engaged. They were worried about her adoption records surfacing if we requested a marriage certificate and urged her to break things off with me and flee. She refused.”

  “How do you know this if she was…” I trail off. If she never told you she was Jewish and she was dead by the time you returned from the war.

  “I tracked down Johanna’s mother after I’d been to Auschwitz. She was in a terrible way. She’d lost her husband in the bombing and her daughter in the camps. She spat at me, hit me. She blamed me for Johanna being killed.” His eyes are unfocused and fixed on a spot above my head. “When I think back I remember one of the last times Johanna and I were together, and I’m sure that she almost told me then but something stopped her. Maybe she was afraid for me. Or maybe it was my Nazi uniform. I don’t know. There was something worrying her but she said it was the war. The bombing. That I was fighting. The last time I saw her we were supposed to be married but she said she couldn’t find her birth certificate and there wasn’t time to request a copy. I was sent to North Africa to fight, and a few months later I got the letter saying that—” His lips press together. “Saying that she loved me and she couldn’t wait to be my wife. Then I was captured, and I never heard from her again.”

  He’s silent a long time, and then he notices that his cigarette has burned down to his fingers and grinds it angrily into the ashtray. “Why do I tell you these things? I haven’t spoken this aloud in twenty years.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to say something wounding. She didn’t trust you, that’s why she didn’t tell you she was Jewish. She can’t have really loved you. But it’s rare to see him so raw and open and despite everything, I feel for him. Or, I feel for the man he once was, the focused but blinkered young man who wore the uniform of those who killed the woman he loved. I see the same hatred of the Nazis in his eyes that I saw in my father’s for the Russians, their hearts both hardened with hate because they lost the women they loved. How quickly the political becomes personal when those you love are taken from you.

  Reinhardt reaches for his uniform jacket which is slung over the back of the sofa and digs in one of the pockets. “Here.” He tosses a small cardboard box over to me and I catch it.

  “What’s this?”

  “Birth control.”

  I’m still lost in his past and it takes me a moment to switch back to my present. I stare down at the box, feeling like a chair has been pulled out from beneath me. “Did you have to do it like that? Make me feel sorry for the things that happened to you and then throw this in my face?”

  “I thought you’d be pleased. There are women in countries all over the world who are denied access to these pills.”

  “Oh, yes, the women of East Germany are so lucky,” I fume. When did he get them, today? Or did he acquire them during these last weeks and has been keeping them aside for the cruelest possible moment?

  But he just reaches for his reports and begins packing them back into their files. “Don’t feel sorry for me, Liebling. I landed on my feet after the war. I always will.”

  “Yes, I have no doubt you’ll be fine. You get to do whatever you want, take whatever you like. Everything will always work out for you, while I—”

  Faster than I can follow he’s crossed the space between us and is leaning over me, hands braced on the sofa either side of my body and his face close to mine. Eyes blazing, he speaks in a low, threatening voice.

  “You think I’ve had a say in all the things that have happened to me? You think I would choose them? Yes, I took you, but it was the Fates who put you in my path twice in the same week and I knew then it would be this way between us. I have been patient, waiting for you to feel it too. And you do. You may hit me, swear at me, declare ten times a day that you hate me, but all it takes is one look, one kiss, and you will give me everything.”

  His words burn through me like fire. I remember what I thought the very morning after I encountered Reinhardt in the street. The man I’ll fall in love with will be unlike any of the men I’ve known in my life. He’ll be remarkable.

  “You were meant to be mine. And I will have everything.”

  I don’t believe in fate, but he’s right about one thing. I do feel it, and it’s not just his physicality, his intensity. Chemistry, the Western magazines call it, that indefinable connection that two people have to each other on a frequency only they can hear.

  But it doesn’t matter what I call it. We want each other. And we are going to tear each other apart.
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  He stays where he is a moment longer, just watching me, just breathing, content to wait. He’s thinks he’s got all the time in the world.

  When he finally straightens I ease myself off the sofa, my face averted, letting him think that it’s shame or submission making me look at the ground, but really it’s because I don’t want him to see the anger burning in my eyes. I will bring this man down if it’s the last thing I do.

  Later, as I’m hanging my skirt up in the closet something inside on the ceiling catches my eye. I’ve seen it dozens of times before without realizing what I’m looking at. I step inside to get a closer look, and reach my fingers up to touch it.

  What a curious place to put such a thing, but I suppose it has to go somewhere. I stand in the semi-darkness of the little space for some time, just thinking, remembering something Frau Fischer told me.

  Yes, it could work. It could work beautifully.

  Brimming with excitement, I step back into my room and spy the box of birth control pills sitting on my dressing table. The smile is wiped from my face in an instant. My plan could work, but it will take time. Possibly weeks, and in the meantime I’ll be living under the same roof as Reinhardt.

  My heart beating in my throat, I reach for the box and read the instructions. One every day at the same time… Inside the box the pills are arranged in a case that resembles a telephone dial and labelled one to twenty-four. Each one a tiny decision.

  I can still feel his mouth whispering against mine. I remember how he looked in the semi-darkness, naked and implacable; the slide of his tongue against mine, against my sex. The memory makes me whimper because I’m no longer the indifferent, sexless creature I once was. He’s awoken a hunger in me that burns hotter than wildfire and I pray that it won’t consume me before I manage to get away from him.

  I count back the days, reach for the eleventh pill and swallow it down with some water.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Evony

  “Did you take your pill?”

  Reinhardt asks this as soon as I enter the kitchen. Frau Fischer has her back turned toward us and is stirring something on the stove, but I notice her ears prick up.

  “Good morning, Evony, did you sleep well, Evony,” I mutter while helping myself to coffee from the pot.

  He waits, watching me narrowly. I feel safe with the housekeeper in the room and merely take an ostentatious sip from my cup. If he’s so interested in me not getting pregnant then I feel safe from him in that way, too, for at least a week. Maybe longer if I can pretend I’m not taking the pills.

  He slaps his paper down and rounds on me, his face a snarl. “Listen to me. I gave you those pills for a reason and I’m not in the mood to play silly games. Now, did you take your pill?”

  I’m startled by how quickly he’s erupted into a burning temper. I give him a look that I hope conveys how detestable I find the idea of both him and the possibility of his children, and say, “Yes. Of course I did.”

  Somewhat mollified, his shoulders unclench and he speaks in a softer tone of voice. “And will you take them as per the instructions and inform me when you need more?”

  “Yes,” I mutter.

  “What was that?”

  I match his volume from a moment ago and shout, “Yes, Herr Oberstleutnant!”

  Reinhardt straightens the belt on his already perfectly straight uniform jacket, his expression seething. Why couldn’t he have just asked when we were alone? Why does he have to make such a drama out of it? I stare him down, thinking with pleasure about the plan I’ve concocted to spy on him, right under his very nose. Let him see the defiance in my face. I know I should try harder to pretend I’m going along with this man’s wishes but I can’t.

  Reaching for his cap he pulls it down onto his head. “I’ll be downstairs by the car and will expect you there at zero eight hundred and five hours. Don’t keep me waiting.” He storms out, his polished boots flashing in the morning light.

  I sit down and notice Frau Fischer watching me, her eyebrows raised. I give a half shrug, as if I don’t know what has got into the Oberstleutnant this morning either.

  At exactly five past eight—or as he puts it in his punctilious military manner, zero eight hundred and five hours—I close the front door and sweep past Reinhardt with a sunny smile, relishing how good it feels to provoke him. He narrows his eyes at me as Hans opens my door but doesn’t say anything. When he’s in a temper with me he doesn’t try to kiss me or give me little presents so I only wish it would last longer.

  After lunch I type up an important letter incorrectly three times and Lenore banishes me to the filing room. I didn’t even mess it up on purpose. Lately I’ve given up deliberately trying to be a poor secretary as it hasn’t helped me avoid Reinhardt, and I feel badly for Lenore if I don’t pull my weight. Unfortunately, though, I’m a poor secretary even when I’m trying. I can type at a reasonable speed but my mind wanders, and then I make mistakes and the page gets covered in Tipp-ex. Lenore spotted me stamping over a b that should have been a p and tore the sheet out of my typewriter.

  “Evony, for heaven’s sake, we can’t send a letter to the Chairman’s office looking like this. I’ll do it. You go and file everything in that tray.”

  I’m partway through the stack and thinking that the Chairman himself won’t even see the damn letter, when I hear someone come into the room. I turn, hoping it’s Peter, but it’s Reinhardt. He’s got a file in his hand and ignores me as he opens a cabinet and thrusts it back in its place. His face is closed and set and I’m wondering why he didn’t give the file to Lenore or I to put away when he turns suddenly, slips his arms around my waist and pulls me back against him.

  “You are very provoking,” he murmurs into the side of my neck before kissing me there. I angle my head to one side, instinct taking over like it did that first day, my eyes closing as I enjoy the touch of his lips. My hands reach for his arms and I feel the wool of his uniform jacket beneath my fingers, and I hold onto his wrists.

  “And you are quite a beast.”

  I feel him smile against my throat, and then growl softly. The vibrations travel throughout my entire body like thunder rumbling in a summer sky. Then he releases me and is gone, and I don’t see him again for the rest of the working day. Not in person at least. The memory of his large hands are imprinted on my body, his lips on my throat.

  Later that evening when we’re siting in front of the fire he gets up and twitches the curtains aside, peering up at the sky. It’s poured with rain the last few nights but tonight the sky is clear. My heart begins to beat a little faster. Could he be thinking of going hunting? I run through my plan again, searching for problems. I could encounter dozens but I won’t know until I put it into action.

  I make a show of yawning and heading sleepily for my bed. Once the bedroom door is closed I listen for moment, trying to discern what my captor is doing. Going to bed? Having a last cigarette before going out? I can’t tell, but I spring into action. It’s imperative that I’m down in that Trabant before he leaves the house or the plan won’t work.

  My coat has to stay on its peg in the hall but I pull a woolen sweater over my blouse, a beret onto my head and wind a scarf around my neck. Taking the stool from beside the dresser into the closet I push my clothes aside and look up at the trapdoor. It was the conversation I had with Frau Fischer the night Reinhardt got so angry about Thom that gave me the idea. She mentioned hearing rats in the roof. “I can hear them scurrying around in the rafters when I’m lying in bed. All these attics are connected and they run up and down all night long.”

  If I can get into the attic and make my way along the length of the building to the empty apartment I’ll be able to let myself out onto the street. I’ll have to be careful not to be spotted by Reinhardt’s guards, but if I’m lucky they won’t be paying much attention to comings and goings at other buildings on this street.

  If I’m lucky. So much of this plan hinges on luck, but it’s the best idea I’ve go
t. Surely I’ve got to get lucky sometime.

  Of course, just because rats can get through doesn’t mean there’ll be room for a person. I might trip and put my foot through a plaster ceiling. Someone might hear me and call the police. One thing on my side, ironically, is the Stasi. If anyone does hear footsteps they might believe it’s a Stasi agent going about their secretive business and decide it’s safer to pretend they haven’t heard anything.

  Standing up on the stool I carefully maneuver the cover aside and straighten so that my head and shoulders are in the attic. The air up here smells flat and musty and it’s very dark. Grilles high up in the brickwork let in some street light but it’s not much after the brightness of my bedroom. I stay where I am for a few minutes, praying my eyes will adjust. Soon I can make out the dark rafters running along the attic and the lighter ceiling plaster between them.

  Hauling myself up I perch on the rim of the access hole, take a steadying breath, and then stand up. The ceiling is low and slanted and I have to bend at the waist, but I’m able to brace my hands against the roof for balance and begin edging my way along the narrow beams. It’s slow going as I have to be as silent as possible, and I can’t risk falling and putting a foot through the plaster. After just a few minutes my back prickles with sweat and I’m panting, more from nerves than effort. But I remember the tunnel with Ana and the constant danger we faced of being buried alive. This is nerve-wracking, but it’s not the most dangerous thing I’ve done.

  There are rat droppings everywhere and I try not to think about fat brown rats with their worm-like tails nipping at my ankles. Reinhardt has called me a sneaking rat on occasion, and look at me now, creeping around like a rat, a spy, when I swore I would never become like the Stasi. But it’s either stay in East Berlin and be what Ulrich said I was, a Stasi Schlampe, or this.

  I choose this.