Winter of the World

by Ken Follett

  "You fucking idiot," Macke said to Werner.

  He turned and ran back up the stairs. Werner ran after him. They traversed the hallway and went up to the next floor.

  There were rows of workbenches under a glass roof. At one time the place must have been full of women working at sewing machines. Now there was nobody.

  A glass door led to a fire escape, but the door was locked. Macke looked out and saw nobody.

  He put his gun away. Breathing hard, he leaned on a workbench.

  On the floor he noticed a couple of cigarette ends, one with lipstick on it. They did not look very old. "They were here," he said to Werner, pointing at the floor. "Two of them. Your shout warned them, and they escaped."

  "I was a fool," Werner said. "I'm sorry, but I'm not used to this kind of thing."

  Macke went to the corner window. Along the street he saw a young man and woman walking briskly away. The man was carrying a tan leather suitcase. As he watched, they disappeared into the railway station. "Shit," he said.

  "I don't think they were spies," Werner said. He pointed to something on the floor, and Macke saw a crumpled condom. "Used, but empty," Werner said. "I think we caught them in the act."

  "I hope you're right," said Macke.

  vi

  The day Joachim Koch promised to bring the battle plan, Carla did not go to work.

  She probably could have done her usual morning shift and been home in time--but "probably" was not enough. There was always a risk that there might be a major fire or a road accident obliging her to work after the end of her shift to deal with an inrush of injured people. So she stayed home all day.

  In the end Maud had not had to ask Joachim to bring the plan. He had said he needed to cancel his lesson; then, unable to resist the temptation to boast, he had explained that he had to carry a copy of the plan across town. "Come for your lesson on the way," Maud had said, and he had agreed.

  Lunch was strained. Carla and Maud ate a thin soup made with a ham bone and dried peas. Carla did not ask what Maud had done, or promised to do, to persuade Koch. Perhaps she had told him he was making marvelous progress on the piano but could not afford to miss a lesson. She might have asked whether he was so junior that he was monitored every minute: such a remark would sting him, for he pretended constantly to be more important than he was, and it might easily provoke him into showing up just to prove her wrong. However, the ploy most likely to have succeeded was the one Carla did not want to think about: sex. Her mother flirted outrageously with Koch, and he responded with slavish devotion. Carla suspected that this was the irresistible temptation that had made Joachim ignore the voice in his head saying: "Don't be so damn stupid."

  Or perhaps not. He might see sense. He could show up this afternoon, not with a carbon copy in his bag, but with a Gestapo squad and a set of handcuffs.

  Carla loaded a film cassette into the Minox camera, then put the camera and the two remaining cassettes in the top drawer of a low kitchen cupboard, under some towels. The cupboard stood next to the window, where the light was bright. She would photograph the document on the cupboard top.

  She did not know how the exposed film would reach Moscow, but Frieda had assured her it would, and Carla imagined a traveling salesman--in pharmaceuticals, perhaps, or German-language Bibles--who had permission to sell his wares in Switzerland and could discreetly pass the film to someone from the Soviet embassy in Bern.

  The afternoon was long. Maud went to her room to rest. Ada did laundry. Carla sat in the dining room, which they rarely used nowadays, and tried to read, but she could not concentrate. The newspaper was all lies. She needed to cram for her next nursing exam, but the medical terms in her textbook swam before her eyes. She was reading an old copy of All Quiet on the Western Front, a German bestseller about the First World War, now banned because it was too honest about the hardships of soldiers, but she found herself holding the book in her hand and gazing out of the window at the June sunlight beating down on the dusty city.

  At last he came. Carla heard a footstep on the path and jumped up to look out. There was no Gestapo squad, just Joachim Koch in his pressed uniform and shiny boots, his movie-star face as full of eager anticipation as that of a child arriving for a birthday party. He had his canvas bag over his shoulder as usual. Had he kept his promise? Did that bag hold a copy of the battle plan for Case Blue?

  He rang the bell.

  Carla and Maud had premeditated every move from now on. In accordance with their plan, Carla did not answer the door. A few moments later she saw her mother walk across the hall wearing a purple silk dressing gown and high-heeled slippers--almost like a prostitute, Carla thought with shame and embarrassment. She heard the front door open, then close again. From the hall there was a whisper of silk and a murmured endearment that suggested an embrace. Then the purple robe and the field gray uniform passed the dining room door and disappeared upstairs.

  Maud's first priority was to make sure he had the document. She was to look at it, say something admiring, then put it down. She would lead Joachim to the piano. Then she would find some pretext--Carla tried not to think what--for taking the young man through the double doors that led from the drawing room into the neighboring study, a smaller, more intimate room with red velvet curtains and a big, sagging old couch. As soon as they were there, Maud would give the signal.

  Because it was hard to know in advance the exact choreography of their movements, there were several possible signals, all of which meant the same thing. The simplest was that she would slam the door loud enough to be heard throughout the house. Alternatively, she would use the bell-push beside the fireplace that sounded a ring in the kitchen, part of the obsolete system for summoning servants. But any other noise would do, they had decided: in desperation she would knock the marble bust of Goethe to the floor or "accidentally" smash a vase.

  Carla stepped out of the dining room and stood in the hall, looking up the stairs. There was no sound.

  She looked into the kitchen. Ada was washing the iron pot in which she had made the soup, scrubbing with an energy that was undoubtedly fueled by tension. Carla gave her what she hoped was an encouraging smile. Carla and Maud would have liked to keep this whole affair secret from Ada, not because they did not trust her--quite the contrary; her hostility to the Nazis was fanatical--but because the knowledge made her complicit in treachery, and liable to the most extreme punishment. However, they lived too much together for secrecy to be possible, and Ada knew everything.

  Carla faintly heard Maud give a tinkling laugh. She knew that sound. It struck an artificial note, and indicated that she was straining her powers of fascination to the limit.

  Did Joachim have the document, or not?

  A minute or two later Carla heard the piano. It was undoubtedly Joachim playing. The tune was a simple children's song about a cat in the snow: "ABC, die Katze lief im Schnee." Carla's father had sung it to her a hundred times. She felt a lump in her throat now when she thought of that. How dare the Nazis play such songs when they had made orphans of so many children?

  The song stopped abruptly in the middle. Something had happened. Carla strained to hear--voices, footsteps, anything--but there was nothing.

  A minute went by, then another.

  Something had gone wrong--but what?

  She looked through the kitchen doorway at Ada, who stopped scrubbing to spread her hands in a gesture that signified I have no idea.

  Carla had to find out.

  She went quietly up the stairs, treading noiselessly on the threadbare carpet.

  She stood outside the drawing room. Still she could hear nothing: no piano music, no movement, no voices.

  She opened the door as quietly as possible.

  She peeped in. She could see no one. She stepped inside and looked all around. The room was empty.

  There was no sign of Joachim's canvas bag.

  She looked at the double door that led to the study. One of the two doors stood half open.
/>   Carla tiptoed across the room. There was no carpet here, just polished wood blocks, and her footsteps were not completely silent, but she had to take the risk.

  As she got nearer, she heard whispers.

  She reached the doorway. She flattened herself against the wall, then risked a look inside.

  They were standing up, embracing, kissing. Joachim had his back to the door and to Carla: no doubt Maud had taken care to move him into that position. As Carla watched, Maud broke the kiss, looked over his shoulder, and caught Carla's eye. She took her hand away from Joachim's neck and made an urgent pointing gesture.

  Carla saw the canvas bag on a chair.

  She understood immediately what had gone wrong. When Maud had inveigled Joachim into the study, he had not obliged them by leaving his bag in the drawing room, but had nervously taken it with him.

  Now Carla had to retrieve it.

  Heart thudding, she stepped into the room.

  Maud murmured: "Oh, yes, keep doing that, my sweet boy."

  Joachim groaned: "I love you, my darling."

  Carla took two paces forward, picked up the canvas bag, turned around, and stepped silently out of the room.

  The bag was light.

  She walked quickly across the drawing room and ran down the stairs, breathing hard.

  In the kitchen she put the bag on the table and unbuckled its straps. Inside were today's edition of the Berlin newspaper Der Angriff, a fresh pack of Kamel cigarettes, and a plain buff-colored cardboard folder. With trembling hands she took out the folder and opened it. It contained a carbon copy of a document.

  The first page was headed:

  DIRECTIVE NO. 41

  On the last page was a dotted line for a signature. Nothing was penned there, no doubt because this was a copy, but the name typed beside the line was Adolf Hitler.

  In between was the plan for Case Blue.

  Exultation rose in her heart, mingled with the tension she already felt and the terrible dread of discovery.

  She put the document on the low cupboard next to the kitchen window. She jerked open the drawer and took out the Minox camera and the two spare films. She positioned the document carefully, then began to photograph it page by page.

  It did not take long. There were just ten pages. She did not even have to reload film. She was done. She had stolen the battle plan.

  That was for you, Father.

  She put the camera back in the drawer, closed the drawer, slipped the document into the cardboard folder, put the folder back in the canvas bag, and closed the bag, fastening the straps.

  Moving as quietly as she could, she carried the bag back upstairs.

  As she crept into the drawing room she heard her mother's voice. Maud was speaking clearly and emphatically, as if she wanted to be overheard, and Carla immediately sensed a warning. "Please don't worry," she was saying. "It's because you were so excited. We were both excited."

  Joachim's voice came in reply, low and embarrassed. "I feel a fool," he said. "You only touched me, and it was all over."

  Carla could guess what had happened. She had no experience of it, but girls talked, and nurses' conversations were brutally detailed. Joachim must have ejaculated prematurely. Frieda had told her that Heinrich had done the same, several times, when they were first together, and had been mortified with embarrassment, though he had soon got over it. It was a sign of nervousness, she said.

  The fact that Maud and Joachim's embraces were over so early created a difficulty for Carla. Joachim would be more alert now, no longer blind and deaf to everything going on around him.

  All the same, Maud must be doing her best to keep his back to the doorway. If Carla could just slip in for a second and replace the bag on the chair without being seen by Joachim, they could still get away with it.

  Heart pounding, Carla crossed the drawing room and paused at the open door.

  Maud said reassuringly: "It happens often--the body becomes impatient. It's nothing."

  Carla put her head around the door.

  The two of them were still standing in the same place, still close together. Maud looked past Joachim and saw Carla. She put her hand on Joachim's cheek, keeping his gaze away from Carla, and said: "Kiss me again, and tell me you don't hate me for this little accident."

  Carla stepped inside.

  Joachim said: "I need a cigarette."

  As he turned around, Carla stepped back outside.

  She waited by the door. Did he have cigarettes in his pocket, or would he look for the new pack in his bag?

  The answer came a second later. "Where's my bag?" he said.

  Carla's heart stopped.

  Maud's voice came clearly. "You left it in the drawing room."

  "No, I didn't."

  Carla crossed the room, dropped the bag on a chair, and stepped outside. Then she paused on the landing, listening.

  She heard them move from the study to the drawing room.

  Maud said: "There it is, I told you so."

  "I did not leave it there," he said stubbornly. "I vowed I would not let it out of my sight. But I did--when I was kissing you."

  "My darling, you're upset about what happened between us. Try to relax."

  "Someone must have come into the room, while I was distracted . . ."

  "How absurd."

  "I don't think so."

  "Let's sit at the piano, side by side, the way you like to," she said, but she was beginning to sound desperate.

  "Who else is in this house?"

  Guessing what would happen next, Carla ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. Ada stared at her in alarm, but there was no time to explain.

  She heard Joachim's boots on the stairs.

  A moment later he was in the kitchen. He had the canvas bag in his hand. His face was angry. He looked at Carla and Ada. "One of you has been looking inside this bag!" he said.

  Carla spoke as calmly as she could. "I don't know why you should think that, Joachim," she said.

  Maud appeared behind Joachim and came past him into the kitchen. "Let's have coffee, please, Ada," she said brightly. "Joachim, do sit down, please."

  He ignored her and scrutinized the kitchen. His eye lit upon the top of the low cupboard by the window. Carla saw, to her horror, that although she had put the camera away, she had left the two spare film cassettes out.

  "Those are eight-millimeter film cassettes, aren't they?" Joachim said. "Have you got a miniature camera?"

  Suddenly he did not seem such a little boy.

  "Is that what those things are?" said Maud. "I've been wondering. They were left behind by another pupil, a Gestapo officer in fact."

  It was a clever improvisation, but Joachim was not buying it. "And did he also leave behind his camera, I wonder?" he said. He pulled open the drawer.

  The neat little stainless-steel camera lay there on a white towel, guilty as a bloodstain.

  Joachim looked shocked. Perhaps he had not really believed he was the victim of treachery, but had been blustering to compensate for his sexual failure, and now he was facing the truth for the first time. Whatever the reason, he was momentarily stunned. Still holding the knob of the drawer, he stared at the camera as if hypnotized. In that short moment Carla saw that a young man's dream of love had been defiled, and his rage was going to be terrible.

  At last he raised his eyes. He looked at the three women around him, and his gaze rested on Maud. "You have done this," he said. "You tricked me. But you will be punished." He picked up the camera and films and put them in his pocket. "You are under arrest, Frau von Ulrich." He took a step forward and grabbed her arm. "I am taking you to Gestapo headquarters."

  Maud jerked her arm free of his grasp and took a step back.

  Joachim drew back his arm and punched her with all his might. He was tall, strong, and young. The blow landed on her face and knocked her down.

  Joachim stood over her. "You made a fool of me!" he screeched. "You lied, and I believed you!" He was hysterical now
. "We will both be tortured by the Gestapo, and we both deserve it!" He began to kick her where she lay. She tried to roll away, but came up against the cooker. His right boot thudded into her ribs, her thigh, her belly.

  Ada rushed at him and scratched his face with her nails. He batted her away with a swipe. Then he kicked Maud in the head.

  Carla moved.

  She knew that people recovered from all kinds of trauma to the body, but a head injury often did irreparable damage. However, the reasoning was barely conscious. She acted without forethought. She picked up from the kitchen table the iron soup pot that Ada had so energetically scrubbed clean. Holding it by its long handle, she raised it high, then brought it down with all her might on top of Joachim's head.

  He staggered, stunned.

  She hit him again, even harder.

  He slumped to the floor, unconscious. Maud moved out of the way of his falling body, and sat upright against the wall, holding her chest.

  Carla raised the pot again.

  Maud screamed: "No! Stop!"

  Carla put the pot down on the kitchen table.

  Joachim moved, trying to rise.

  Ada seized the pot and hit him again, furiously. Carla tried to grab her arm but she was in a mad rage. She battered the unconscious man's head again and again until she was exhausted, and then she dropped the pot to the floor with a clang.

  Maud struggled to her knees and stared at Joachim. His eyes were wide and staring. His nose was twisted sideways. His skull seemed to be out of shape. Blood came from his ear. He did not appear to be breathing.

  Carla knelt beside him, put her fingertips to his neck, and felt for a pulse. There was none. "He's dead," she said. "We've killed him. Oh, my God."

  Maud said: "You poor, stupid boy." She was crying.

  Ada, panting with effort, said: "What do we do now?"

  Carla realized they had to get rid of the body.

  Maud struggled to her feet with difficulty. The left side of her face was swelling. "Dear God, it hurts," she said, holding her side. Carla guessed she had a cracked rib.

  Looking down at Joachim, Ada said: "We could hide him in the attic."

  Carla said: "Yes, until the neighbors start to complain about the smell."

  "Then we'll bury him in the back garden."

  "And what will people think when they see three women digging a hole six feet long in the yard of a Berlin town house? That we are prospecting for gold?"