The Fellowship

by William Tyree

“Never mind that,” Lang said. “Can you travel?”

  “He’s still running a fever,” the farm girl protested.

  Lang didn’t look at her. “We are to report at Wewelsburg Castle in eight days. Eight days! If we leave now, we can go home for Christmas.”

  Gare du Nord

  By chance, the train that Wolf and Lang boarded was the same that they had taken to Paris days earlier. The elderly conductor recognized them right away.

  “Boys!” he exclaimed, noting Lang’s frail disposition and Wolf’s arm sling. “Let me show you to a private car. The least I can do. The very least!”

  This time, Wolf helped himself to some schnapps in the bar. Lang tried to stop him. “What if the Gestapo sees you drinking?”

  “I would call it medicine,” Wolf told him, although he was the first to agree that puritanism seemed to be in vogue. The previous year, the Nazi Party was said to have authorized the sterilization of more than five thousand known alcoholics. Anti-smoking and -drinking campaigns featuring healthy Aryan babies were plastered all over public transportation.

  They had spoken little until now, having been under armed chaperone en route to the train. “Not a word to my mother about this,” Wolf said, gesturing with his arm sling.

  “Sebastian,” Lang began, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the grind of the train. It was the first time in ages that anyone had called Wolf by his first name. “When we were in the staircase at Notre Dame, Himmler had said something about an ossuary.”

  Wolf nodded. “I remember.”

  “He said the ossuary was important. Do you know what he meant?”

  Wolf was not certain of what he was allowed to share with his friend. Himmler had ordered Lang to stand in the hallway outside the priest’s quarters. Surely that had been a random security assignment, had it not? He and Lang were identical in rank, experience and education.

  Even so, was he free to share what he had heard? Perhaps it was better not to take any chances, he decided. Besides, he knew next to nothing. Himmler had mentioned the ossuary only once, in the treasure room. He had called it a Holy Ossuary, although he had not specified the name of the saint whose bones supposedly resided in Notre Dame.

  “I don’t know,” Wolf said at last.

  “Those men in the robes,” Lang pressed. “Did they look like French resistance to you?”

  Wolf shook his head. The simple robes. The crosses. They had seemed more like monks than the freedom fighters he had imagined.

  “I went back to Notre Dame that night,” Lang continued. “After dropping you at to the hospital.”

  Wolf set his glass on the bar. “Are you crazy? What if they had returned?”

  “By the time I went back, the police had arrived. They were loading the bodies into a truck. I identified Hoffman so they could take his body back to his family. Did you happen to notice what was in his mouth?”

  “There was nothing in his mouth except blood,” Wolf said. “He was trying to explain what he saw. I told him to write it instead.”

  “Then they put it there after we left.”

  “Put what there?”

  “This.” Lang reached into a tunic pocket. He held a piece of black-and-red striped fabric that had been cut into an octagon shape. “It was sticking out from between his lips.”

  On one side, a phrase was stitched in golden thread: Ad majorem dei gloriam. The other side read, Paratus enim dolor et cruciatus, in Dei nomine.

  Wolf Residence

  Munich

  Aside from any changes he had made during occasional visits home, Wolf’s mother maintained his bedroom as it was when her son had left it before leaving for the Reich School in 1938. An oval-framed faculty photograph of his late father hung on the far wall. Atop the dresser, a chessboard with ivory pieces. A small statue of the Virgin Mary. A bowl containing a rosary.

  On the far wall, a remarkable sketch signed by a young Dutch artist name Escher that his father had purchased for his 11 birthday. And hanging over the bed, an oversized silver crucifix. Even here in Munich, the very heart of National Socialism, he could not escape Christ’s accusing glare.

  He heard the strains of Richard Strauss through the wall. For as long as Wolf could remember, playing Strauss had been his mother’s version of civil disobedience. Strauss, whom Goebbels had once appointed president of the Reichsmusikkammer, had been officially censored for a number of political infractions. Only the composer’s popularity had kept him out of prison. Real Nazis, it was said, listened to Wagner, who had gone public with his anti-Semitism long before Hitler had even been born.

  As he had done twice each day since arriving home, Wolf slipped out of bed, turned and knelt, resting his elbows – both of them – on the bed. As far as he was concerned, the pain shooting down his left shoulder during these prayer sessions was entirely deserved.

  He had killed a man, and in a church, no less. He had contributed to the desecration of one of the most holy cathedrals in Europe. He had listened to Himmler speak blasphemously about the Holy Mother and yet had done nothing to stop him. He was both a coward and a murderer.

  Making matters worse, he had lied to his mother, telling her that his gunshot had been a training accident. She already had one son in combat. There was no sense in having her worry about both of them.

  His head ballooned with heretical notions. Curiosities seeded by Himmler, the very man his parents had warned him about. The infallibility of the pope. The authenticity of a Bible that had been edited and translated through the ages. The ethnicity of the Holy Mother.

  Round and round his thoughts went like some sinister carousel. He prayed that these ideas would be vanquished from his mind. He prayed for his mother, who had still not heard any news about his brother, Hans, from the eastern front. He prayed for Lang, who had seemed like a stranger to him since the firefight in Notre Dame.

  Wolf stopped short of praying for a German victory. How could he? In just four short days, he was to return to Wewelsburg Castle, where Himmler was stockpiling the world’s great Christian artifacts. As he had learned in Paris, Himmler was no closeted Catholic, as Wolf had hoped when he had browsed the treasures in the castle museum. He was intent on co-opting Christianity for political and military gain. If Germany won the war, the Holy Roman Empire would be restored, and Christians worldwide would look not to Rome or Jerusalem, but to Wewelsburg Castle. Their Jesus would be recast with Aryan features and a Germanic bloodline.

  The music in the other room stopped. Wolf heard the radio flicker on. The announcer’s voice was muffled, but there was urgency in his tone.

  Wolf rose, exited the bedroom and went to the living room, where his mother was sitting in a chair near the radio. She covered her face with her hands as she wept. That could only mean one thing – there had been news about his brother’s outfit.

  Wolf kissed her on the forehead and turned the volume on the radio back up and listened to the rest of the news bulletin. Although surrounded, the Sixth Army has vowed to fight to the last man, the announcer said. They would rather die than surrender to the atheist Bolsheviks.

  Lang Residence

  Suburban Munich

  Christmas Day

  The Lang country home sat on several acres of suburban Munich at the edge of the Perlacher Forest. Mrs. Lang – a tall, gregarious woman in a pretty green party blouse – met Sebastian Wolf and his mother, Gertrude, at the door.

  Mrs. Lang had toted the party line well enough to maneuver her son into a position at the Reich School, and later, into the Ahnenerbe. But on this night, in the privacy of her own home, she wore makeup. She wore pants that had been imported from America. And she was smoking. Not exactly a candidate for the National Cross of Motherhood.

  She showed them into the living room, where a square bench made of birch surrounded a magnificent fireplace. The extravagant size of the home was grounded by its rustic furnishings. In the far corner, someone played carols on a grand piano.

  Mrs. Lang offered the Wol
fs some cherry brandy from the bar. In addition to the Lang’s four children, several dinner guests were already on hand. Most were familiar family friends, although with the exception of the Langs, Sebastian had seen none of them since leaving for school. Looking dapper in a simple gray suit and white arm sling, he listened politely as the other guests fawned over how much he had grown in the past four years.

  Heinz Lang was all smiles as he bounced downstairs with his dog at his side. The sight of his black SS uniform immediately quieted the room. The piano faltered, and then trickled to a halt. Although the boys’ recruitment into the Ahnenerbe was known to all, the presence of the uniform was jarring. The guest list consisted entirely of what Mrs. Lang called antisocial Nazis – those who had joined the party only to avoid suspicion.

  Seeking to deflect the awkwardness, Mrs. Lang turned her attention to Wolf. “Sebastian dear. How is your shoulder?”

  “On the mend. Even if Heinz did take me to a drunk French surgeon.”

  The guests laughed, the piano resumed, and the room crackled back to life. When asked about his war wound, Wolf repeated the same story that he and Lang had agreed to on the train back to Munich. They had been conducting research in Paris, he told them. A French policeman had tripped and fired his gun. Merely a random accident. There was nothing for anyone to worry about.

  In truth, Wolf felt less confident about his recuperation than he let on. It was true that he was regaining range of motion and his mother, an experienced nurse, had dressed the wound the night before, proclaiming it free of infection. But the sweats he had experienced in Paris still came and went. At times they left him dizzy. And when he slept, he was haunted by demons. He saw the faces carved in the Portal of the Last Judgment. He saw the symbols that Hoffman had written in his own blood. He had left Notre Dame, but the cathedral had not yet left him.

  Mrs. Lang took Gertrude aside and, with a hand on her shoulder, chatted in a corner of the room. Wolf did not have to read lips to know what they spoke of. Everyone had heard news of Stalingrad. Gertrude had been up all night crying.

  The smell of roasted goose wafted in from the dining room, and the guests did not wait to be invited to the table. Wolf was astonished when he saw not just one bird, but two, on identical silver platters. The sight of so much meat was shocking.

  “You must have been saving your food stamps for months,” Gertrude said. Wolf knew otherwise. Mr. Lang, who was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Education, had acquired the birds through a connection.

  Mrs. Lang called out across the room. “Father Kruger! Come to the table!”

  Had she said Kruger? Wolf had known a Father Kruger once. A Jesuit priest from his old parochial school. A formidable teacher who could recite countless texts on any number of subjects from memory.

  The pianist maneuvered from the song’s bridge into several closing chords. He pushed the bench out from behind him and made his way to the table. The Father Kruger that Wolf had known had been barrel-chested with thick, powerful forearms that were impressive even under the long sleeves of his black cassock.

  This man was disturbingly thin. He wore a gray civilian sweater with a white oxford shirt and a black tie. He had thinning gray hair that was long and slicked back behind his ears. He avoided eye contact with the other guests.

  Yet it was him. Remarkably transformed in just three years.

  “Father Kruger,” Wolf said. “It’s Sebastian Wolf. Do you remember me?”

  The priest sat down and placed his napkin in his lap before looking up. “Yes,” he answered. “You were quite bright, as I remember. And quite ambitious, evidently.”

  Mrs. Lang tapped her wine glass. Conversation among the 12 guests stopped. “At the risk of being cruel, I should like to delay our meal for just a moment longer for a Christmas prayer. Father Kruger, would you give us the honor?”

  The priest placed both hands flat on the table. “Although I trust we are all friends here,” he said, his eyes glancing across Lang’s uniform, “I have signed an oath that I will refrain from engaging in any type of religious ritual. I therefore must, with much regret, pass.”

  The table was quiet for several awkward moments. At last Gertrude raised her glass. “Well then, if we can’t pray, then I will propose a toast.”

  At 36, Gertrude’s good looks defied all that she had been through in the past four years: the death of her husband, the job she had taken at Lebensborn, and four months without letters from her oldest son. Her chin was still angular, her hips were reasonably trim, and most of her wavy hair was still golden.

  “First,” she said, “A toast to the Langs for bringing a bit of cheer into our lives today.” The guests sounded murmurs of approval. “Second, I’m grateful for the sons that could be with us today, and I pray for those who are yet far afield that the Lord may watch over them and deliver them home safely. Finally, I express my gratitude for returning Father Kruger to us after so many years. This alone should give us all hope.”

  Arms crisscrossed as wine glasses clinked and lively chatter commenced. Plates were passed as Mrs. Lang carved the goose.

  Wolf leaned into his mother’s ear and whispered. “What happened to him?”

  Gertrude smiled for show, as if she were about to whisper something amusing. She shielded her lips with her wine glass, and spoke. “The Dachau camp.”

  Wolf had a vague notion of the prison camp located in the suburb of Dachau, a 30-minute train ride from central Munich. It was rumored to be the principal destination for political prisoners, including a large number of Christian and Jewish clergy that refused to toe the party line. Lately he had heard rumors that captured Russian prisoners were taken there to make munitions.

  As curious Wolf was in the crime Father Kruger had committed, and in the punishment he had received, another agenda was rapidly forming in his mind. He resolved to find out where Father Kruger spent his days now. He had important questions that he wondered if his old schoolmaster could answer.

  BMW Factory

  Munich

  Wolf stepped off the bus in front of the BMW factory. He heard a distant droning and peered skyward, scanning the skies for aircraft. Although Cologne had so far gotten the worst of the British air raids, Munich had not been entirely spared. It too had suffered a raid in September. The city’s first taste of British bombardment had been relatively mild, but Wolf figured that sooner or later, the BMW factory – which had shifted most of its production toward aircraft engines and military motorcycles – would be on the Allied hit list.

  “It’s just the machines,” a gravelly voice said.

  Wolf turned. The voice belonged to a man in a brown jumpsuit with a circular BMW logo patch on the front. His hair was gray and wild atop his head, like a fox that had rubbed itself in the dirt.

  “That sound,” the man clarified. “It’s not the RAF. It’s just the machines inside the factory.”

  “You work here?”

  “Yes. I have papers if you need to see them.”

  “Relax,” Wolf said. He pointed at the insignia on the lapels of his black SS uniform. “I’m not Gestapo. I’m looking for a man named Leo Kruger.”

  “East wing, third floor. Kruger works on pistons.”

  Wolf tipped his hat and went on his way, striding through the front doors without pausing at reception. Although not yet an officer, nobody seemed to question the legitimacy of a black SS uniform. Besides, he did not want his visit documented. This was personal business.

  He walked past rows of identically dressed workers assembling propellers. Each worker had a nameplate, a number and various tools and parts before him. The workers were, without exception, gray or silver-haired.

  Wolf broke out into a sweat as he took the stairs to the third floor and surveyed another hundred or so workers. He easily spotted the supervisor, who was, judging by the amount of fat around his midsection, enjoying extra food rations.

  “I’m looking for Kruger,” Wolf whispered. The supervisor walked into the middl
e of the floor and plucked Kruger out of one of the rows of workers.

  The former priest wore a greasy blue shirt and a black wool cap. Eyes cast downward, back bent. Sleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms streaked with scar tissue.

  When Kruger had spoken of his employment at BMW, Wolf had imagined that the great Jesuit teacher was some sort of supervisor, perhaps leading a team of researchers. He imagined Kruger smartly dressed, drawing up development plans on a drafting board. Although the priest had said nothing to lead him to this conclusion, Wolf felt somehow beguiled by the man standing before him now.

  The two exchanged perfunctory greetings. Virtually every single worker on the floor was watching them.

  “Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

  Kruger leaned close, speaking into Wolf’s ear. “Sebastian,” he said, “you’ve managed to build something for yourself. You can’t afford to be seen with someone like me.”

  “Nonsense,” Wolf insisted. “I need to talk to you. Is there somewhere we can go?”

  Kruger motioned to the wider room. “Obviously not.”

  “Then meet me after work. Please.”

  Kruger hesitated, feeling the eyes of his fellow workers on him. “Where?”

  “Haufbrauhaus,” Wolf whispered. It was one of the oldest and most popular beer halls in Munich. Although there was far less drunkenness on display in recent years, it was still lively.

  “No. Too public.”

  “Then the Ratskellar,” Wolf suggested, referring to the basement restaurant beneath the medieval town hall building with the famous Glockenspiel clock tower. It was cavernous, a bit darker than the other beer halls, and certainly less popular.

  Kruger stepped back and spat on the cement floor. “Five thirty,” he said. “Be punctual.”

  Marienplatz

  Munich

  At 5 pm, Wolf set out for the Ratskellar, leaving his arm sling behind for the first time since leaving the hospital in Paris. The shoulder still throbbed, but he thought it wise to toughen himself up before reporting for duty again. Nagel had questioned his suitability for service repeatedly during training, mocking his dream of a life in academia. By his third week at Wewelsburg Castle, Wolf decided that he would never again reveal any weakness, no matter how difficult those shortcomings were to mask. From then on, he resolved to live the motto that was inscribed on his dagger: Be more than you seem.