Letters for a Spy

by Stephen Benatar

  “Look, Heinrich, Mrs Hilling told me this was urgent.”

  “Yes, you’re right. I stand corrected. We shall proceed.”

  I thought that, if he had been dressed for it, he might have clicked his heels, sprung smartly to attention, and solemnly saluted.

  But his slippers were far too soft and—besides that—he was now back on the bed.

  “The thing is, Erich, you say you’re taking back to Germany some information substantially at odds with what is generally expected? To Germany and also, of course, to Willy Canaris?”

  “Of course to Admiral Canaris.”

  He began to gnaw at a patch of dried skin beside one thumbnail.

  “Do you remember that on Friday you spoke of a newspaper article aiming to give us the lowdown on our valiant employer? A highly irritating article suggesting that possibly his days in power are well and truly numbered.”

  “Heinrich. Why are you even wasting your time—or indeed my time—by referring to that?”

  Buchholz tore away the piece of dead skin, removed it fastidiously from between his teeth, then investigated his thumb and seemed satisfied. From below we heard a sudden chortle, almost a cackle, but even the son was unable to identify it as belonging—or not belonging—to his own mother.

  “Often down there,” he said, “there’s this neighbourly foregathering of the local crones and witches. Voices indistinguishable! I’m still so enormously impressed by the way she can blend in!” The shred of dry skin was relegated from fingertip to bedspread.

  I wanted to say: Oh, for God’s sake! Can’t you get to the point? Wanted to shout it, more like.

  “How well do you know him?” he asked.

  “Know the admiral? Well, how well do you think I know him? He’s the chief; I’m a nobody. Why don’t you ask me how well I know the Führer? Or will that be your next question?”

  Buchholz disregarded my outburst, and studied his thumb again.

  “You see, I felt it was absolutely crucial I should speak to you before you went back,” he said. “I’ve received disquieting news about him—and from sources far more reliable than those of the Sunday Express.”

  “What sources?”

  “That really doesn’t matter. But as I say—practically unimpeachable.”

  “Okay, then. So of what do all these sources that are practically unimpeachable now take great pleasure in informing us?”

  Buchholz also disregarded my heavy-handedness. He disregarded the actual question, too.

  “Erich, what makes you so protective of him? Especially when you tell me that you don’t even know him? It seems quite evident you like him.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake! How could I be qualified to say I know him? For such presumption you’d be the first to shoot me down.”

  “Would I, indeed? How extraordinarily harsh of me!” He even looked repentant. “But, you see, I myself have met him on only two occasions. Both times briefly. Eight years ago? No, nearer ten. So talk to me about him, if you would.”

  Abstractedly, I glanced out of the window again. Then wearily returned my eyes to the bed.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Just humour me,” he said. “I’d appreciate it.”

  “Well, what do you want me to tell you? First conjure up the popular image of your typical storm-trooper.” And it actually made me smile: the expression on his face. “Now picture the exact opposite. Small … frail … nervy. Even almost timid. In short, just about the least military-looking man you could ever hope to find in Germany today. I mean, amongst the top brass.”

  “Hope to find?” queried Buchholz, amiably.

  “Oh, all right, Heinrich. Expect to find. What’s in a word?”

  “Precisely.”

  “He’s witty, urbane, astute. Well-read: often quotes from the Greek philosophers. Observant, too: I get the feeling there’s nothing that he ever misses. I also think—”

  “Does he quote from Nietzsche and Hegel, Schopenhauer and Spengler? Those a little closer to home?”

  “Oh, yes, more than likely. As I say, he’s well-read.”

  “Like you yourself are; no wonder you admire him!” He smiled. “You seem to know him rather intimately—despite your strange reluctance to admit it.”

  “Nonsense. I’ve learned all this at second-hand. Studied his writings and heard what people say about him. And naturally I see him around from time to time; can form my own opinions. On occasion, he even drops me a friendly word.”

  “Really? How interesting. But I am sorry; I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “What?”

  “You were talking about his powers of observation: how there’s nothing he appears to miss. And then you said, ‘I also think…’”

  “I also think he has a stealthy love of adventure.”

  “Adventure?”

  “Yes, that’s pretty much my impression. Even if I don’t have a lot to back it up.”

  “What do you have to back it up?”

  “At interview, I remember, he spoke about the importance of the calculated gamble; of being prepared to risk everything for what you consider right; of never closing your eyes to the possibility of change … or, at least, the possibility of improvement…”

  In view of my despondency, it was odd how swiftly I was warming to my subject. Like Gwatkin on Friday; like Sybella, both yesterday and this morning. There was one big difference, though. I believed what I was saying.

  “He strikes me as being sympathetic,” I ended hurriedly. I recognized the bathos. “I feel comfortable in his presence.”

  “Not withstanding his nervousness? His timidity?”

  I had to reflect on this. I would have agreed that the question pointed to a contradiction in the admiral’s character. (Or, at least, in his character so far as I was capable of understanding it.) But possibly such a contradiction made him yet more sympathetic to somebody like myself … somebody increasingly aware of the divided nature of his own feelings.

  A sudden thought occurred to me. In spite of his numerous idiosyncrasies … had I gradually come to see him as a father figure?

  Canaris was older than my actual father. But he seemed younger … more open to life … more curious about it. Warmer. Whether I would have felt this way prior to Kristallnacht I wasn’t quite sure—yet at the same time I couldn’t forget how one big difference of opinion had done nothing whatever to alter the love I felt for my grandparents. And, something I sensed unreservedly about Canaris, he would never have excused anyone at all for their pleasurable participation upon that grim November night. If only off the record, he would have declared—unequivocally—that such barbarity was not, was absolutely not, excusable. Whereas my father had repeatedly condoned it.

  “My friend, that question wasn’t rhetorical, you know. All nervousness and timidity notwithstanding?”

  “I’m sorry. My mind wandered.” I quickly had to rein it in. “Yes, I agree that it’s surprising. But, Heinrich, who knows? It’s common knowledge he’s religious. And maybe that’s what comes across so strongly and what makes people feel comfortable in his presence.”

  “Makes you feel comfortable in his presence.”

  “I realize that being a Christian doesn’t altogether square with his being timid. But I was probably wrong to say timid. At heart, perhaps, he’s confident and fearless.”

  But for the moment, obviously, it was neither the admiral’s timidity, nor lack of it, which interested my host.

  “A Christian?” he repeated, slowly. He looked thoughtful.

  “Again, like myself.”

  “Evidently. But as you’re naturally aware—for, even as we speak, I can see that you’re regarding me with something of the martyr’s glare—a religious outlook isn’t called for any more in Germany. The Führer is our God. We don’t need deputies.”

  He said this straight-faced … it was difficult to gauge his true opinion. For a while, we stayed silent. Buchholz drew himself up on the bed. He rearranged his cushions.


  “So then,” he said at last. “All very fascinating. But who can tell what bearing it will have? For the minute let’s just go back to that article in the Express. As we agreed—an arrant example of the British press plumbing new depths, yes? Complete rubbish from start to finish. Yes?”

  Again, like on Friday, Buchholz appeared to be waiting for an answer. Obediently I supplied it.

  “Yes!”

  “Well, no,” he said. “In fact, not.”

  “Not?” For a foolish second or two, I thought he was merely retaliating for my joke about the storm-troopers.

  “Oh, don’t misunderstand me. That article … I wouldn’t present it as being worthy of the Pulitzer. But at least it may have contained one single, lonely grain of truth. And I suppose we should have realized, yes? Seldom any smoke…”

  Once more I felt assailed by apathy.

  “What single grain of truth?”

  “Well, now—would you credit it?—of late, we hear, there’s been a rash of key German spies defecting to the Allies? Most particularly, it seems, in Turkey. And, rightly or wrongly, Adolf was blaming our own dear boss for this. The consequence, you’re all agog to know? Summary dismissal, no less!”

  Buchholz laughed but I couldn’t see why; the sound conveyed no element of humour.

  “Though you’ll now be pleased to discover,” he went on, “that in the end it was nothing but a storm in a teacup. Full of sound and fury, signifying naught. Our Führer is a little subject to these sudden whims. Your friend was reinstated.”

  “Thank God for that,” I answered. Albeit listlessly.

  “But just don’t thank him in public, that’s all—not if you know what’s good for you—not around Berchtesgaden, at any rate.”

  27

  “Now then,” he continued. “That interesting little titbit about his dismissal and reinstatement was fact … solid fact. Not rumour. Yet I have to acknowledge that there are rumours … which, in certain quarters, are as rife as rats’ fleas—let’s not attempt to minimize!”

  “Oh … rumours! Well, I for one don’t want to hear them.”

  “And I for one consider that you should.”

  At which point I myself nearly became subject to those same sudden whims of the Führer. Felt strongly tempted just to push back my chair and flounce out. Gwatkin had aroused a similar response when speaking about Krauts. I was damned if a Kraut should do the same when speaking of the admiral.

  But, as before, my temper luckily cooled and then I contented myself merely with adopting a bored tone and enquiring why such rumours should be circulating now of all times.

  I said: “It couldn’t have anything to do with simple jealousy and malice, could it? With kicking a man while he’s down? And the better the man the harder the kicks?”

  “Yes, of course it could, my dear! Of course it could! It could have everything to do with that.”

  I felt marginally appeased. Even if in such a context I couldn’t exactly warm to the manner of address.

  “Especially so,” he said, “in view of the kind of thing they’re now raking up. Some of it tends to hark back, you know.”

  “Hark back?”

  “It’s said, for instance, that halfway through the thirties he even advised Franco not to side with Hitler. I think one could fairly term that as harking back.”

  I made no reply. I looked across the narrow road at the supposed schoolgirl still trying perhaps for the Baltic.

  “And the reason he gave?” went on Buchholz. “I’m sure you would wish to know this. That when the war came we were definitely going to lose.”

  Surprisingly, I didn’t feel incensed by what I heard. Not even indignant. Was this because there was probably nothing for the time being that appeared sufficiently important? Or was it more because I could actually accept the feasibility of it? Certainly Canaris—who spoke Spanish fluently—had always liked General Franco and the two of them had always enjoyed a good working relationship. So the thought of casual advice given by one friend to another (“If I were you, old boy, I shouldn’t side with us!”) was hardly very shocking. The admiral’s lack of faith in the victory of the Fatherland ought perhaps to have been more worrying; but the fact that I myself didn’t feel particularly upset by it…? Well again, I wondered, had this solely to do with the timing. I turned back from the window.

  “Is that it?”

  “Oh, by no means. It’s also claimed that Canaris was heavily implicated in the coup attempts of 1938 and 1939…”

  “So once more, as you say, not precisely of the here and now! And I fondly imagined that if you coughed in Paradise Street at three, Hitler would know about it by five-past.”

  He affably conceded the point. “So I think,” he said, “we can now skip across to the present.”

  “You sound as though you’re granting me a boon.”

  “To the time when—as recently as just two months ago—Canaris flew to Smolensk to meet conspirators on the staff of the Army Group Centre. Allegedly,” he added, rather fast.

  “Allegedly!” I repeated. “Huh!”Sadly, this seemed the best riposte I could come up with.

  “But evidently,” went on Buchholz, “our Führer has the luck of the devil! As a result of that meeting, a miniature bomb was concealed inside a bottle of Cointreau and travelled beside him the very next time that he flew. For better for worse, however, it failed to detonate.”

  He smiled.

  “Though, naturally, I mean for better. But while we happen to be speaking of liqueurs and suchlike…” He spread his hands toward the Johnny Walker.

  I nodded my acceptance and he moved off the bed again with some agility. Became bartender beside the chest of drawers.

  And whilst raising my glass I actually managed to laugh—a laugh that sounded far more genuine than his own last pitiful attempt. “Down with the scandalmongers, then! Seedy, small-minded, pathetic!”

  I suspected that Buchholz—one side of him, anyway—had wanted to see me rendered furious by his tale about Smolensk. Yet he appeared to take my toast in good part. He sipped at his whisky and seemed quite as relaxed and appreciative as ever.

  “Though on the other hand,” he observed, cordially, “didn’t we just say—seldom any smoke without fire?”

  “No, Heinrich. You did.”

  “Touché!” He smiled and shrugged and gave a fair-minded nod.

  I said: “But what I still don’t follow—one of the things I still don’t follow—is why you’re so keen that I should listen to all this.”

  “Ah, well,” he said. “I’m simply trying to sketch in a dab or two of background.”

  “Background to what?”

  At first I couldn’t be sure whether Buchholz was answering this question. I soon realized he wasn’t.

  “You know, there are even those,” he remarked, “who assert that the admiral sees our leader as being—what?—as being very mildly (only very mildly, of course) unhinged; who assert that although at the start Canaris simply hoped to steer him away from some of his … well, again, what shall we call them? … slightly more ambitious excesses, or desires, he fairly soon gave up on that endeavour and instead…” Buchholz became deflected by his drink.

  “Instead?”

  “Decided to oppose a little more drastically what he has allegedly spoken of”—he hesitated again—“as being nothing less than criminal folly, ‘the criminal folly of our Führer…’”

  ‘Allegedly’ might rapidly be growing into a favourite word around here but I certainly didn’t mean to let him hide behind it forever.

  “No, Heinrich!” I exclaimed. “Now you’ve really gone too far! Admit it! He would never have said that! Never!”

  “Perhaps not on the parade ground, nor over the wireless. But, as I say, there are those who would attest to it—who maintain that in private—”

  “Those, no doubt, who would have numbered themselves among his very dearest friends!”

  “Ah,” smiled Buchholz. “Withering, withering!
Though I think—oh, Lord!—you’re going to like even less the thing I’m now about to mention. Apparently Smolensk wasn’t just an isolated incident.”

  “No?” I enquired, icily.

  “For it’s said, you see, that he continually uses his position at the Abwehr to aid and abet the army conspirators. To abet them…”

  There came another burst of laughter from downstairs. Our whole conversation had been punctuated by such sounds but this one was yet more full-throated than the first of them I’d heard.

  “Precisely!” I approved. “The single really suitable response! I only hope I would have thought of it myself!”

  “…to abet them in their numerous overthrow attempts. Or else assassination bids. And furthermore…”

  But Buchholz must at last have taken heed of my expression and decided that ‘furthermore’ could wait.

  “My dear boy. I’m purely trying to show you that—just possibly—your beloved Admiral Canaris doesn’t always see our interests, our official interests, as being his absolutely top priority.”

  He went on quickly and without giving me the chance to comment.

  “Though here’s one rumour which I’m sure you won’t have so much trouble in believing. To wit … that recently he’s prevented the killing of dozens of captured French officers in Tunisia.”

  “Well, at last! There you are, then! That sounds a bit more like it!”

  Buchholz regarded me with amusement.

  “So—finally—something which you find you’re able to accomodate?”

  Did he suppose he was being funny? My stony demeanour didn’t change. Nor did the harshness of my tone.

  “Like I’ve told you,” I said. “Canaris is a Christian. Christians don’t plan assassinations. They do step in—if it’s at all within their powers to do so—to put an end to senseless slaughter.”

  “I don’t think that, in the main, anyone could contradict that.”

  “Besides,” I added, “why would you even speak of this as rumour? There must be literally hundreds who can either confirm it or deny it. Right?”