‘The bastards,’ Max muttered when she had finished. ‘The stupid fascist bastards. How is Klaus taking it?’ he turned a worried face to her. For years they had talked about Klaus as if he were an innocent who needed their special care.
‘As well as can be expected,’ Bettina murmured. ‘We’ll have to pull in our belts a little more, if it comes to it.
‘He has to fight them. He has to. We’ll help. Write articles, get a petition going,’ Max was adamant.
‘Go and talk to him. It’ll give him courage.’
‘Okay,’ he squared his shoulders, grinned at her.
She watched him walk swiftly away, thrilled as always that this young man with the furrowed brow and deep set grey eyes, this young man who now towered over her, with whom she could discuss anything and always expect an intelligent, considered reply, was her son. She had that to be grateful for, that at least, Bettina thought, the tears suddenly clutching at her eyes. And that after all, was a great deal.
With sure fingers, Klaus Eberhardt, sketched the anatomy of a bee for the children’s nature books: the striped fuzzy body, itself almost the shape of a hive, the many faceted eyes, the spindly legs with their curved hair baskets for carrying pollen, the long nectar-sipping tongues, the fragile wings.
As he sketched, he half listened to his son’s impassioned voice, his strategies for fighting the faculty, the university, the Nazi ideologues. It was his tone that he heard more clearly than anything else, that heated, fervent tone which reminded him, which demanded things of him he no longer had the strength for, had never really had the strength for.
He had cut himself off from the jangle of politics after the Munich uprising. He had had to cut himself off. Like a convalescent, his steps were sure within the periphery of the rest home, but teetered as soon as the boundary was transgressed. It wasn’t that he didn’t see. He could see over the fence clearly enough. But the very seeing struck him with terror and the leap across the perimeter would blind him permanently. He would be forced to crawl dumbly on all fours, aware of nothing but the difficulty of traversing the ground.
Bettina understood. Understood his fear of the fires, the bounding passions. They had never been so close, their extended nightly conversations where the world was sifted and analysed and ordered, as important to her, he sensed, as they were to him. And she had taken an interest in his work in these last years.
But now the perimeter fence was drawing closer and closer, its barbs thrusting into the cool sheltered space of his laboratory. Soon they would prick into his home. It had already started. His son was asking him to enter the fray, to do battle for what he believed in, the integrity of his work.
Klaus focussed in on Max’s urgent tones, waited for him to pause, then turned to his son a little sadly, ‘I’ll do my best, Max. I’ve never been a hero. I’ll never be one, you know.’
Max looked at him solemnly for a moment, ‘All I wanted you to understand is that you’re not alone. Lots of us are with you.’
Klaus examined that young earnest face, ‘Thank you, Max,’ he put his hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘That helps. Thank you very much.’
If Bettina had reason to be grateful for Max’s sensitivity over the next weeks, she had equal reason to be grateful to Thomas Sachs. He came that Sunday afternoon as he had come regularly over the years for a chat and coffee. Even though they no longer slept together. Even though he now had a wife and child of his own.
She told him the news as soon as they had retired to her study.
For a moment, he didn’t say anything, merely lit a cigarette and paced. ‘And you’re worried that he’ll crack, aren’t you Bettina?’ he turned to her at last.
‘That too,’ she murmured.
He sat back in the armchair, crossed his legs. ‘You know, I was rummaging in a second hand bookshop last week and I came across that botanical book Klaus put together. It’s very good. And beautiful. I wonder if Klaus would consider coming to do some work with me, just to distract him a little. On a popular science list?’
She looked at him speculatively.
He hurried on. ‘There hasn’t been anything interesting since Bölsche. And we need something a little better than this accursed nonsense about the survival of the fittest. Every treatise I pick up at the moment seems bent on proving that only the ruthless, the tough, the brutal can find a chosen place in the sun. Now we have Nazi plants. Nazi animals too,’ he laughed a little grimly.
‘Are you serious, Thomas? About Klaus, I mean?’
‘Am I ever less than serious, Bettina?’
‘Never, of course,’ she smiled. ‘Will you speak to him?’
He nodded, paused to look out the window. ‘I see the redoubtable Leo has decided to camp out in the garden. That’s quite a tent he’s putting up there.’
Bettina followed the line of his gaze. ‘He doesn’t like sharing his room. So he’s planning to brave the elements in protest,’ she grimaced.
‘It won’t do him any harm.’
‘No, I guess not. Less than that waffle they feed him at school, in any case.’
Thomas chuckled, ‘He’s still a romantic, is he? Chivalric codes and great Teutonic quests.’
‘You mean I still don’t understand him,’ she recognized his teasing, ‘whereas in fact I don’t approve.’
‘He’s just a boy, Bettina. Adolescents need their great meanings. It makes them feel less awkward.’
‘And you remember this, while I don’t?’
‘Perhaps,’ he laughed.
‘I don’t know,’ she didn’t meet him on it. ‘He makes me nervous. Max was never like that.’
‘Max is decidedly your son. And wonderful for it. But don’t underestimate Leo. He’s talented. And he’ll grow out of what you call this waffle,’ Thomas grinned.
Bettina looked out the window reflectively, saw Leo pick up some earth, show it to the little boy he had chosen to call Walter, let it trickle through his fingers onto the ground. She started suddenly, remembering Johannes in Seehafen all those years back. ‘I hope you’re right, Thomas,’ she murmured, turning to meet his eyes. ‘You know, I’m turning into a fretful old woman.’
‘A wonderful, fretful old woman,’ he teased her again. ‘And one of my more successful authors.’
‘Only because I spent twenty minutes as a member of our ever fluid Reichstag.
‘Time always did move quickly with you Bettina,’ he laughed, ‘But never mind, they were twenty minutes of glory.’
‘Will you talk to Klaus, now.’
He nodded.
‘Thank-you, Thomas.’
He bowed and smiled. ‘The pleasure is always mine.’
Bettina watched him for a moment, thinking how lucky she was in their friendship, thinking that perhaps he was right not to be as troubled as she was. After all, he was younger, more in tune with the times. It was a time for youth. She turned back to look out the window. Max was tumbling with a few little ones in the distance. The two Leos had vanished inside the tent.
She sighed. She must write to Anna, catch her up on things. They were good friends again, she and her sister. It came upon them, from time to time, this closeness. She never quite knew all the reasons why. And this was one of those times.
Bettina picked up her pen. ‘Thomas says I’m a fretful old woman,’ she began, ‘and it’s true. I’m fretting about the state of the nation, about Klaus, about Leo…’
By the time Anna had returned to Munich to find her sister’s letter, Bettina was no longer fretting about Leo. He was away at his Easter camp, nestled comfortably beneath a firmament of stars.
He had been here for four days already with boys not only from his own group but three others, all of them between fourteen and sixteen. And Gerhardt was the second in command of them all.
Gerhardt had remembered him - Leo had trembled to think that he might not - had greeted him with the group’s customary salute and click of the heels, had added, ‘Good to have you back with us, Adler.’ And Leo
had flushed with pleasure, had dug latrines and pounded stakes with a bright energy for the length of that first day.
Apart from the treks and the hikes, the woodlore, craft, and history periods and singing, this time his own small group and a group of older boys, ten of them in all, were seconded to a local farmer. They helped him till the land, prepare the soil. They learned basic farming skills, felt the magic of embedding seeds in moist earth.
Thrilled to be away from the growing chaos of the family home, Leo revelled in the austere discipline of the group, the company of his peers, and the sense of single purpose which accompanied each of their activities. Gerhardt came with them to the farm. In his presence, Leo felt doubly alert, his daydreams giving way to the joy of the moment. Here, he felt, was his true home, amongst boys and men, meeting the challenge of the elements.
Yesterday, there had been a torrential downpour, and after their chores they had altered their plans and retired to the ramshackle barn for a free craft period. In the woods, Leo had found a thick oak branch which he had brought back with him for just such a moment. He had begun to carve, his hands moving as they always did, of their own volition, until the wood yielded a shape which his eye could refine. When he worked, he was totally immersed in the process, all but oblivious of what went on round him. So he had no idea how much time had passed before he became aware that someone was looking at him. He glanced up to see Gerhardt. He flushed.
‘No, no. Don’t let me disturb you. Carry on,’ he murmured. ‘It’s good. Very good. I can even begin to see the resemblance.’
Leo looked down at his carving and back at Gerhardt, his flush deepening. He hadn’t realized it was Gerhardt’s face the wood had yielded. But it had - the high cheekbones, the line of the jaw, even the small zigzag of the fencing scar, were all unmistakeable. The knife fell from Leo’s hand with a clatter.
‘Carry on, Adler,’ Gerhardt had said more severely then and walked away.
Leo had thought he was angry. But this very morning, after breakfast, Gerhardt had asked him whether he would like to be his second tomorrow, accompany him to the market town nearby for fresh supplies. They would take the jeep, of course.
Leo had been so excited he could only nod his agreement. And he had been able to think of nothing else since, not even concentrate on the story the old soldier was telling them now round the glowing campfire.
Usually he loved this hour, when they huddled in small groups round three adjacent fires, gazed up at twinkling stars while a voice evoked distant feats of heroism. But Oberleutenant Steinecker was almost as ancient as Klaus, and Leo’s thoughts had wandered as soon as he had begun his complicated narrative of the exploits of his Freikorps group in the Baltic at the time of the Bolshevik uprising.
Leo preferred the Landsknecht stories, or tales of the Walsung and Siegfried. But he forced himself to listen now. Something about the taking of the grand Kreuzberg Castle from the Reds. It was easier to concentrate if he imagined Gerhardt at the head of the Freikorps band, himself in the ranks. And Steinecker’s voice had moved now from rumbling drone to agitated gusto.
‘We surrounded the Castle by night. Stealthily. The Reds didn’t see us. They were busy whoring with their rifle-women, pretending to the high life. We spied them through the lighted windows, kissing, dancing, the remains of their manhood dissipated in debauchery.’
Steinecker spat loudly, his voice raised in distaste.
‘So that when we began our assault at the crack of dawn, it was as easy as child’s play. A few well-aimed grenades, a barrage through doors front and back. We caught them with their pants down. Thrust, stabbed, throttled, with disciplined savagery. The women went wild. They grabbed the guns from their men and shot at us.’ He laughed. ‘But red sluts are no match for the Freikorps. By noon, it was so quiet, we could hear the birds singing.
‘The desecration those communist swine had inflicted on one of our noblest castles was unspeakable. Everything had been plundered. Venetian mirrors were covered in excrement, baronial libraries used to feed fires. The chapel altar was defaced with obscene inscriptions. The ancient crucifix was riddled with bullet holes. And worse, in the grand bedchamber, we found the countess’s body, raped, bloody.’ He spat again. ‘Pigs.’
‘We paid them back in kind, never fear. Not a bed in that house did we leave without a red whore caught in death’s tenderest embrace.’
Leo suddenly felt as if he were going to be sick. He took a deep breath, looked up at the stars, blocked out the man’s voice, heard it again urging them to remain undefiled, pure, strong, to shun the Communist swine, to mould themselves into the iron flower of Aryan greatness. He touched the stone he always carried in his pocket. Smooth. Hard. Soothing.
The next morning, after a hurried breakfast, he presented himself in front of Gerhardt’s tent. His shirt and shorts and sweater were clean. He had tied his bandanna carefully.
‘Ready, Adler?’ Gerhardt addressed him curtly.
Leo nodded, followed behind him.
They set off in the muddy jeep down the track road between the towering trees. The woods behind them, the sky emerged high, clear but for a fluttering of frothy white clouds. Leo sat stiffly in his seat, keeping his eyes front, daring only to glance occasionally at Gerhardt’s pale elegant hands tensed round the darker steering wheel. But as they picked up speed and left the camp behind them, Gerhardt began to chat, to ask him questions about himself, first in that curt formal voice he knew so well, and then more casually, almost as if they might be friends.
He told Leo about his engineering studies at the university, about his real love, philosophy. They exchanged musical tastes, noted books they liked. At one point, Gerhardt said, ‘I noticed you didn’t look too happy last night when Oberleutenant Steinecker was talking.’
‘I… I…’ Leo stumbled.
‘These old timer’s language leaves something to be desired,’ Gerhardt finished for him. ‘They’re a little crude for our generation. But they know how to fight. That’s important. Crucial. If we’re to build Germany up to her former glory.’
‘Yes,’ Leo murmured.
‘Perhaps tomorrow, you’d like to take part in the rifle practice. It’s usually reserved for the sixteen-year-olds, but we could make a special exception in your case. You look tall enough, strong enough.’
Leo felt Gerhardt’s eyes flicker over him, assess. The unseemly flush rose to his face. He turned towards the open countryside. ‘I’d like that very much,’ he said in as even a voice as he could muster, his pulse fluttering wildly in pride.
Ancient beamed houses and a spired church clustered round the busy market square in the little town giving its inhabitants the air of characters in some medieval painting. In the centre of the square stood a fountain overseen by some painted saint, two buckets hoisted on a bar over his shoulders. A water deity, Leo thought, examining the carving.
‘Do you think you could do that?’ Gerhardt followed the line of his gaze.
‘Perhaps,’ Leo was shy.
‘But you’ll finish my head first, won’t you? You can give it to me as a birthday present.’
‘May I?’ Leo met his eyes.
‘Of course,’ Gerhardt was suddenly gruff. ‘Come on. To work.’
Leo followed him mutely as they went from stall to stall, their sacks growing heavy with provisions, only to be replaced by another set from the jeep which they had left at the edge of the town. At one stall a buxom young woman with curling hair laughed up at them. ‘You’re not from here, are you? But you’ll come to our dance tonight,’ she wriggled her hips provocatively, ‘It’s in the Great Hall.’
Gerhardt walked quickly away. ‘Women,’ he said disdainfully under his breath. ‘All they think of is dancing and…, he scowled, looked away. ‘Let’s get some lunch and head back.’
But by the time they emerged again from the Stuberl’s dark interior, the square had been transformed. All signs of the market had vanished and in its place in front of the squat town hall, th
ere stood only a platform.
Then, from the four streets leading into the square as the town clock struck two, they heard the roll of drums. Within minutes the place was a sea of red banners, bold with swastikas and the bright heraldry of the Nazi Party. The men, their chins thrust forward, their uniforms impeccable, marched six abreast, meeting their opposite numbers in the centre of the square with choreographed exactitude, as if they were taking part in some well-rehearsed medieval pageant.
Leo looked on awestruck. He joined in the roar of the crowd as the speaker mounted the platform, saw Gerhardt lift his arm in salute, raised his as well, listened to the pounding of words, honour, fatherland, strength, purity, shame, communists, Jews, corruption.
Just as the second speaker was about to mount the platform, Gerhardt tapped him on the shoulder. ‘If we don’t leave now, we’ll never get back. Don’t forget to salute everyone on the way, or someone may decide to persuade us.’
In the jeep, Gerhardt said to him, ‘So, you’ve joined the Party?’
Leo shook his head. It had never occurred to him. Parties, politics, were what Aunt Bettina and Max talked about non-stop. He was interested in deeper things.
‘I’m going to join. Soon. They’re the best we’ve got. The party of the young, the future. A bit crude, but if the likes of us join them, we’ll sort things out. And they’re on the right track. They understand the old Germany, the special spiritual needs of our people, our willingness to sacrifice ourselves for the German ideal. Our heroic destiny.’
‘Yes,’ Leo murmured. He looked at Gerhardt’s profile. It was suddenly as if he were hearing his own vague thoughts put into words.
‘And they’re not afraid to use force. They understand authority, the power of leadership,’ Gerhardt made the jeep leap forward. ‘None of this sentimental nonsense about saving the weak. In a dense forest only the strongest saplings survive to reach the light, eh Leo, what do you say? That’s the only way to build a great nation. That’s what our Bund is all about, too, loyalty, obedience, strength.’
Dreams of Innocence Page 40