What a woman! She’d told him a while ago that sometimes she gazed at her photograph of the Fuehrer and masturbated. It’d startled him, though he was quite unworried to share her with the Fuehrer in that way.
They hadn’t spoken about Fischer. Doubtless she’d return to the subject when she’d settled the other matters on her mind. It was one of the little storms simmering away between them that he’d have to weather. Now! The tasks ahead. The otherwise dark street was white and crisp from the new snow. Limping towards the S-Bahn station, he pondered the identity of the stricken man in the tearoom. He’d carried himself like a soldier. Although that uncut hair? He’d look into the fellow. Possibly he’d prove to be another of the walking dead, which was how he now regarded this group of women.
~ * ~
19
E
UGENE ALIGHTED from the tram a stop before Rankestraat. Cautiously, he approached Anna’s building. His mouth was dry, his breathing tight. Three or four shadowy figures passed him, hurrying, their heads pulled down in their scarves. He scrutinised the dark doorways on both sides of the street. No lurking shapes. He walked past the entrance to her building. It was faintly lit in the foyer, no-one was visible. He stopped, his back to a tree trunk and examined each sector of the intersection. No suspicious parked cars . . . But what about inside the building?
The thin sound of a violin came from somewhere. He recognised Beethoven. Another tram was coming from Mitte. He must decide. What a world it was!
~ * ~
Anna’s heart dived as the doorbell shrilled. Instantly the teacup in her hand was chattering against the saucer. Too much had happened today Steadying the cup and saucer in both hands, she crept to the door.
‘Anna. It’s Eugene.’ His voice barely penetrated the thick oak.
‘Good heavens!’ She put the cup and saucer on the hall table, and flung open the door.
‘Eugene! Why—‘ She couldn’t believe this. She’d left him tucked up in the hospital bed.
He placed his finger to his lips, brushed past her and crossed to the wireless. Concert music blared into the room. She’d closed the door and followed. He faced her and took hold of her arms. He was so weak. ‘Don’t talk. Listen,’ he said into her ear. ‘Martin came to the hospital. An order’s to be sent tomorrow from SS headquarters to the Gestapo to arrest Elisabeth’s group, all of you.’
‘Oh God!’ Anna stepped back from him, her hand on her breast.
He was as white as chalk, still wearing his overcoat and gloves. He continued, ‘I’m almost certain they’re not watching this building. You must pack a bag, there’s no time to talk. Please do it, just the essentials, anything you really value. We must get away from here.’
But where? She turned toward the bedroom door. They didn’t hear the knocking on the door above the torrent of music, but then the doorbell speared into the welling romantic sound of the Philharmonic’s violins.
Eugene’s face muscles rippled with shock. The music was a giveaway. His pistol was back at his flat.
‘Fräulein von Schnelling. It’s Herr Schmidt. I must see you.’ Another urgent voice coming from the landing! Anna started forward and opened the door. The chief auditor stood there, hat in hand, his eye flicking past her to the man who was staring at him with an expression of intense strain. A vaguely familiar face.
The auditor stepped into the flat.
Anna looked at her cousin, breathed, ‘Eugene, this is Herr Schmidt, Chief Auditor of the Reichsbank. Herr Schmidt, this is my cousin, Captain von Beckendorf.’
Obvious relief showed on Eugene’s face. Now he peered with caution and curiosity at this stranger.
Schmidt hesitated. Her cousin. He shot a glance toward the blaring radio. ‘Fräulein, I’ve information from a very reliable source that the Gestapo’s investigating the group formed by Fräulein von Bose, whom I met briefly tonight. All of you are in grave danger.’
Anna flinched as if she’d been slapped. Another warning. Why was this man who hardly knew her — a Party member — interesting himself in her welfare? She turned to her cousin. ‘Herr Schmidt is a friend.’ She was breathing lightly but quickly.
The music had stopped and the announcer was extolling the pleasures in store for next week.
Eugene said, ‘Mein herr, we know this. That is why I am here. Orders for arrest are to be issued tomorrow. He broke off. ‘Anna, please attend to your packing.’ He turned back to the auditor. ‘In a few minutes I’ll take my cousin away from here. Hopefully, to temporary safety.’
It was Schmidt’s turn to show relief. ‘She mustn’t return to the Reichsbank.’
Eugene nodded. ‘She won’t.’ He paused. ‘Of course, I won’t ask for details of your source, but I give our thanks for your warning.’
Schmidt nodded. He’d remembered where he’d seen this man before. He’d been in the tramcar the night he’d returned home from Herr Fischer’s birthday dinner.
Eugene suddenly dropped into an armchair. Schmidt decided he should leave. He’d achieved his objective. The cousin, though obviously ill, seemed a capable individual. Now he had his own safety to think of.
Anna returned dressed for the street, carrying a suitcase. ‘I’m ready.’
Schmidt dropped his head formally. ‘Good luck, fräulein.’ He looked at Eugene. ‘I’ll check the street. If I think there’s a problem, I’ll come back.’
Eugene nodded and offered his hand.
Anna bowed her head to the auditor. She could think of nothing to say.
Schmidt let himself out and descended the stairs. Leaving the building, he warily crossed the street, went up a few steps of the house opposite and stood behind a circular stone pillar. From this vantage point, he examined the vicinity. Satisfied, he watched the door opposite. Now he should go, but with a sense of weary impatience at himself, he realised he couldn’t leave yet.
Anna and Eugene came out. The electric light was left on, the radio still playing - to an abandoned home.
Schmidt watched them leave. She was carrying the suitcase. They were walking. A taxi passed by but was ignored. Schmidt followed them at a good distance. There’d been another light snowfall in the past half-hour, and his shoes squeaked in the new snow. Would the Gestapo connect her to her cousin? Had they already? The captain must be confident that they hadn’t but, eventually, they would. The captain would need to cover that contingency. He clearly had his own sources of inside information.
They walked for ten minutes and then stopped by a telephone box. Anna went into the box. Fifty metres down the street, in a doorway, Schmidt watched her make a call. In a few moments she came out, and nodded to her cousin. They set off again. Five minutes later they entered an apartment block with a tired art nouveau facade. Schmidt noted the address. He was reassured to know her immediate destination; in case of need. Telephones, the post, were useless in the spied-upon entangled world they now existed in. The auditor turned his back on the block where a light had just appeared on the third floor, and headed to a tram-stop in the next street.
~ * ~
Standing in her hall, Elisabeth von Bose knew something disastrous had happened. All Anna had said was, ‘Rogalsky’s, in ten minutes.’ She glanced at her watch. It was nearly eleven-thirty. With a chill in her heart, she understood the brevity of the call. They’d be listening. Possibly, they were outside watching, too. Trying to remain calm, she put on a fur hat, overcoat and boots. Last night she’d spoken individually to the countess and the others. Everyone would lie low. Those who could, would leave Berlin, may already have gone. This morning, the countess and her diplomat husband had departed for Egypt.
She’d swiftly but carefully finalise their projects. She had not decided what she would do then. Before his haemorrhage, Eugene had said more drastic action was needed.
She let herself out and went down the steps. Not looking to either side, she cut across the street. The snow had been swept away; motor traffic was still about, but only a few pedestrians; the houses here had co
lonnaded porticos and the stuccoed white columns shone in the street lights; blinds had been drawn, shutting away the rows of lace curtains. She hurried into a narrow street of smaller houses, and turned right under an archway into another street. The cold burned the delicate skin of her face.
A taxi waited outside the black windows of Rogalsky’s. A blurred white face was peering through the small rear window. The taxi’s rear door swung open. Eugene, from the dark of the back seat, reached out, drew her in, and slammed the door. The taxi moved off immediately Eugene turned to again peer through the window. He grunted to himself, turned to the front and slid the glass partition behind the driver shut.
Elisabeth was breathless. What was this? ‘Eugene? Darling, are you all right?’
He dismissed this with a gesture, and said in an urgent whisper, ’Elisabeth, an order will reach the Gestapo tomorrow to arrest you and the others.’ She couldn’t repress her gasp. He felt for her hand, held it tight. ‘They may not move till the evening, but nothing’s certain. The others must be warned. You’ll have to risk the telephone. But not from your house. They must leave immediately, get out of Berlin. It will give them a start ... I’ll drop you at a phone box near home.’
His face was brushing hers. A pang of sweet remembrance came, but in a pragmatic voice he said, ‘You must leave Berlin. I’ll arrange for a friend to drive you out of town to a station. In the meantime, you must leave your house. Where can you go to wait?’
Elisabeth thought quickly. Then said the name of a mutual friend who’d left town for a month. She had the key to the woman’s flat.
Eugene nodded. ‘Good. Go to someone you trust, near the Swiss border, if possible. Or the Dutch. Phone me from a public phone when you reach shelter. I’ll make further arrangements then. Don’t identify yourself. At the moment, I think my line’s safe. Anna’s already left her flat . . . Have you sufficient cash in hand?’
She nodded. She kept money in a tin box in her wardrobe. The taxi was following a pre-arranged, twisting route through Charlottenburg. At each turn they were thrown together, approaching car headlights flashed on their faces. Eugene rubbed mist from the rear window and peered back. If there’d been a watcher at her house, hopefully he’d been left stranded. Elisabeth realised they were re-entering her suburb, only a few streets away from home. A moment later Eugene rapped on the glass partition and signalled the driver to stop. A phone box sat across the street. He opened the door for her.
‘Hans will be coming. God be with you, dearest Elisabeth.’ He kissed her lips and held her briefly, staring into her eyes.
In the faint light she gave him her lovely smile, then whispered, ‘You’ll always be my poet and my love.’ She broke away and stepped out into the deserted street. She’d felt the hard pressure of the gun in his breast pocket. That was the future. Not poetry or love.
The taxi and Eugene were gone in what seemed an eye-blink. She looked across at the lonely illuminated phone box. Tension had saturated the taxi, but compared to this bleak street it’d seemed a safe haven. Elisabeth abandoned the thought, and crossed the road to make her three calls.
~ * ~
It was near midnight when Schmidt returned to Savigny Platz. As he walked across the cobbled expanse from the tram-stop toward his flat, the display lights in the clock shop switched off. In the preceding moment, he’d seen a figure immobile before the window, a man, in a tramway uniform. On an impulse, Schmidt altered his direction.
Hearing approaching footsteps, the man turned his head. It was the conductor Schmidt had seen before, spoken to at this spot; the man who knew Herr Fischer. He recognised Schmidt. ‘Good evening, mein herr. The midnight concert’s about to begin. It’ll send me off-duty in a happier frame of mind.’
Schmidt smiled in the darkness as the chimes of the clocks began their midnight performance. He stood beside the conductor to hear out the sounds. The last chimes faded away across the platz — like a suitor reluctantly parting from a paramour. So thought Schmidt.
‘You were a friend of Herr Fischer of the Reichsbank?’ the conductor said.
‘Yes. Do you know . . . ?’
The man nodded.
Schmidt said, ‘A sad business. He’s to be buried tomorrow.’ The man gazed out across the platz. Two motor cars crossing it emphasised the dismal emptiness of the snow-streaked expanse. The tramlines gleamed in the overhead lights. Schmidt lingered, sensing the other’s hesitation.
The tram conductor turned his head to the auditor, and the birthmark glowed in the dark. He said in a low voice, ‘Heart attack, I read in the paper. Well, maybe it was, but after the other attack.’
‘Other attack?’ Schmidt murmured, instantly alert.
‘Mein herr, a man stabbed him in the thigh with the point of an umbrella. I saw it all. Brutal. Quite deliberate. Herr Fischer cried out, the fellow rushed off the tram and the gentleman collapsed. I stopped the tram and summoned assistance. An ambulance came.’
Schmidt was silent.
‘I reported what I’d seen to my supervisor and he telephoned the police. At ten o’clock that night two of them knocked on my door. They told me the doctors confirmed a heart attack, that I should forget what I’d seen.’ He shifted his leather bag from one shoulder to the other. ‘What can a man do?’
Schmidt considered what he’d heard. ‘Nothing more,’ he advised quietly. ‘You’ve done all you can do.’
Schmidt hurried away and two minutes later entered his building. A deep chill had crept into his heart. Would the man have spoken up, if Schmidt’s Party badge hadn’t been concealed by his overcoat?
A white envelope lay on the dark-stained floorboards inside the door.
Von Streck. Schmidt bent to retrieve it, extracted the single sheet and held it to the hall light. Tomorrow, 2.00 pm. This time the code identified a very different place, one that had surprised Schmidt when the meeting points had been agreed. He removed his hat, coat and scarf, went into the study and lit the gas fire. His head was reeling with exhaustion. The events of the day were a blur but the new cold that’d crept into his heart as he’d left the tram conductor overrode all else.
Had Schmidt’s doubtful queries about Fischer to von Streck caused the special plenipotentiary to move against the banker? Have him murdered? Von Streck had been ruthless in allowing Wagner to go to his death. Anybody who might endanger his plans, friend or foe, was disposable. Had the outspoken Fischer, following Schmidt’s questions, been seen as such?
Schmidt slumped down in a chair. Yes, von Streck, with his white strangler’s hands, would stop at nothing to protect his mission.
Sick at heart, Schmidt gazed into the glowing fire. The suspicion had become as hard in his mind as a steel ingot.
Wagner’s face was dancing in the heart of the fire, and his own materialised beside his former colleague. Two human beings, caught up like insects awhirl around a lighted summer lamp . . .
~ * ~
20
S
CHMIDT GAZED into the distance. The skin of his face felt drawn tight from lack of sleep. Yesterday’s tension was still thick in his system. However, the day was deceptively bright, the scene not as depressing as he’d expected. The close-packed monuments and tombstones were ridged with crystalline snow, the air bracing, streaks of blue amid snowy clouds - even a few beams of sunlight.
A single sheaf of white flowers lay on the coffin. About thirty persons were present. Their winter-white faces peered out from wrapped-up bodies, little clouds of frozen breath-vapour suspended before them. He recognised several department managers from the bank: Frau Heyer, in strict black; Fischer’s housekeeper, Frau Seibert, also a study in black, stood apart with her watchful Hitler Youth-uniformed son. Minutes ago, Schmidt had formally spoken his condolences to her, and ducked his head as her eyes brimmed with tears. She hadn’t recognised the small, concerned man.
Fräulein Brandt and Herr Rossbach were not here. Schmidt studied the grave, dug with pneumatic drills; the ground was frost-hard like his
mother’s grave had been last November. It was difficult to believe that they were still in the same winter.
He rubbed his gloved hands. Grim-faced, he pictured Anna von Schnelling waiting this out at her cousin’s flat. Present in spirit.
As the elderly pastors words rang out over the cemetery, Schmidt’s thoughts twisted away to the tram conductor’s story replaying in his head. Murder. Was it because of his heedless inquiries, or had it been Fischer’s political past that had caught up with him? Schmidt sucked in air, re-settled his shoulders within the thick overcoat. Too much was blowing in the wind. All night he’d had a headache, but he’d now taken aspirin.
He stared at the coffin waiting to be lowered into the earth. The beams of sunlight darting off the brass hardware drew his eye. Herr Fischer deserved a little sunshine at his farewell.
The Iron Heart - [Franz Schmidt 02] Page 16