by Julie Thomas
‘Oh my G-d, it’s so good to see you, my dear friend,’ Levi said and hugged him again.
‘It’s good to see you, too,’ Erik’s voice was hoarse as if he’d had some pressure on his vocal chords and the loss of teeth made his speech a little slurry.
‘But why the barn?’ Levi asked, again looking at Karl.
‘There are still those who would have him shot or sent back if they knew he was home, so for now, it is safer for him to sleep here. He does a little work when he can —’
‘But I spend most of my days reading and sleeping and regaining my strength,’ Erik finished, ‘and I can speak for myself, well almost.’
Karl smiled. ‘You have much to catch up on. I will bring some beer and cheese and bread out to you at lunchtime.’
With that he left them. Erik led Levi to two hay bales by the barn wall and sat on one. Levi reached out and touched the stick-thin arm. He couldn’t quite believe the sight in front of him, and yearned to gather the other man into his arms and comfort him. Erik smiled and grasped the hand in his.
‘Sit. Tell me everything — what have you been doing, where have you been? How is Berlin? How is the war going?’
Levi drew a deep breath. ‘Well now, where do I start?’ Levi told Erik as much as he could without risking blowing his cover. When he came to the part where he took a bullet for the Führer he expected Erik to be excited, but instead his friend lowered his gaze and said nothing.
‘Erik?’ Levi asked.
Erik kept his face blank and fiddled with a piece of hay. His eye twitched with a newly acquired tick.
‘You hesitate to congratulate me.’ It wasn’t a question.
Finally, Erik looked up. ‘I want to be happy. I want to tell you that you did a brave and noble thing, but . . .’ His exhausted voice trailed off.
‘Tell me about Dachau,’ Levi said.
Erik was arrested in the quarters of a fellow Hauptmann. They were not, as Levi had heard, in bed, but the bed was unmade and they admitted to having engaged in kissing and mutual masturbation, nothing more. The law was unclear in its definition. He was imprisoned in Potsdam Prison, and the Gestapo gave his father a chance to prove his son’s ‘manliness’, but Himmler felt personally betrayed by his aide and decided that his crime was sufficient not only for prosecution, but for him to be sent to Dachau.
‘It’s a living hell,’ Erik said quietly, his eyes not meeting Levi’s as he spoke. ‘Homosexuals are considered the lowest of the low in the camp hierarchy, and believe me, there is a hierarchy. I lived in constant fear of what the guards would do to me. I saw men have their testicles boiled off them by water, I saw others have pieces of wood shoved up their arses, and many were beaten daily. It was not even the beatings from the guards that were the hardest to take, it was the beatings from other inmates. Many were so frustrated and furious, and they chose to take their feelings out on the most vulnerable.’
‘Were you beaten?’ Levi asked.
Erik nodded, but didn’t look at him. ‘Many times, and I had teeth ripped out. But I was spared some of the worst treatment, and I can only assume that that was because I had been an officer and I come from a military family.’
‘The amount of weight you’ve lost tells me that food was scarce.’
Again he nodded. ‘We were fed potato soup, and men fought over scraps of potato skin and pieces of buttered bread. We slept in bunks, but crowded together so that there were men sleeping on either side of you. Many objected to sleeping near us, so we were often pushed out into the freezing cold. But it was the attention to detail, Werner. There were times when you were punished if your feet hit the floor and you had shoes on, only barefoot or socks were allowed, or if your bunk wasn’t made exactly right, if you looked the wrong way, said the wrong thing.’
He paused, and the knowledge that he was omitting the worst details of his ordeal hung between them like a curtain of misery. ‘But the building over the bridge . . .’ Again his husky voice gave out.
‘What about the building over the bridge?’ Levi asked.
Eventually Erik looked up. His eyes were shimmering with unshed tears. ‘It was a place from which you never returned. It was a crematoria, Werner. They took dead bodies and they burned them. They gassed prisoners and burned them. There was a wall there where they shot military prisoners of war, many of them from the East, and burned their bodies. When the wind blew towards the camp you could smell it, burning human flesh.’
Levi was stunned. He’d heard Reichsführer Himmler talking about the final solution, but it had always been abstract, something that was happening to people a thousand miles away. This camp was about 18 miles down the road from where they sat.
‘And the men who wielded the batons and handed out such vicious cruelty were SS officers, no different from me.’
‘How did they get you out?’ Levi asked.
Erik gave a mainly toothless grin. ‘There was a concert, and it was the turn of all the guards in my area of the camp. Father paid for two of the remaining ones to look the other way while I climbed into an old laundry basket, then they loaded it into a van and drove me out. It wasn’t checked at the gate because the guard there was busy complaining about his wife to the driver. When I was missing at roll call the next morning they were going to say I’d tried to escape and someone shot me. That happened all the time. You could get shot for looking at a guard or eating your soup too fast.’
‘I understand why you can’t congratulate me on saving the Führer’s life,’ Levi said.
Erik gave a half sob. ‘I was a Hitler Youth, I couldn’t wait to enter the SS. I was not raised to be evil, but I came under the influence of older men, malevolent monsters who made me do terrible things because we were at war. They persuaded me to do criminal acts and call it patriotism. I believed their lies.’
Levi didn’t know what to say. ‘You know you were following orders.’
Erik shook his head violently. ‘No! That is no excuse. I am a sentient being with powers of deduction. That’s what my father says. He thought everything we did was for the glory of the Third Reich, but now he knows how they treat their own and he is struggling with his loyalty.’
‘And Elsa?’ Levi asked.
‘She has never been a Nazi stalwart, that’s one of the reasons Father brought her to live here. He was worried what would happen if they stayed in Berlin and she voiced her opinions. I think my treatment has been enough to tip her. I think she’d join the resistance if she knew how and if she thought Father would let her.’
Levi smiled. ‘I knew I liked her.’
He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, and now Erik was staring at him.
‘What do you mean by that?’ Erik asked.
Levi shrugged. ‘Between you and me, I struggle to support the glorious Third Reich and the Führer, too,’ he admitted.
Karl brought them soup, beer, cheese and bread, and they talked through the afternoon and into the night. Levi wondered if Erik would ask him to stay, to sleep with him in the barn. But he’d obviously had any fragment of desire knocked out of his system, for the moment at least, and eventually he told Levi that he must return inside. Reluctantly, Levi hugged him. Erik turned his face away when Levi went to kiss him, so he left.
Dinner was filling and generous, and Levi watched Elsa slip out to take food to Erik. They lived very simply compared to Karl’s brother, and he couldn’t help but wonder why there were no servants or housekeepers. He offered to help her with the dishes, and her grateful smile told him she would enjoy his company.
‘It is so good to see Erik alive. He has suffered immensely,’ Levi commented. ‘If you hadn’t managed to get him out he would have died.’
She nodded and scrubbed the tureen in the sink. ‘Yes, Werner, he would have. And I can never forgive that. He’s a good, kind man, and he’s always served his country with pride. I didn’t approve of what he did, but he never shirked his duty.’
‘What do you think he’ll do, when his strength re
turns?’ Levi asked. ‘Will he work here?’
For a moment she didn’t answer, then she glanced at the closed door, laid down her brush and looked him in the eyes.
‘Promise you won’t say a word?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘Of course.’
‘I think he dreams of joining the resistance. He made friends with some Italian-born Jews in Dachau, and they taught him basic Italian. I found him a book among the chaos of Karl’s library, from a trip he took between the wars, of Italian vocab and grammar. I think Erik wants to join the Italians and fight. The resistance there sabotages the fascists from hideouts in the mountains, and, no matter what our official radio says, the so-called enemy, the British and Americans, are making strategic gains in Italy. You know that.’
Levi nodded thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I do. Thank you for sharing with me, I shall say nothing.’
That night Levi lay in his cosy bed and thought about his friend sleeping in the hay. He knew that what Erik had shared was a fraction of what he’d seen and gone through. It seemed to have changed him; his eyes had been opened. He knew what it was to be on the receiving end of brutality. What did that mean to Levi? His own joy at seeing Erik again, the strength of his reaction, had been a revelation. He wanted to hold him, comfort him, reassure him that the pain and fear were over. More than that, he wanted to wash away the shame he saw in Erik’s eyes. All of society branded Erik depraved, and Levi felt an intense desire to sweep away the condemnation. To show Erik that he was still beautiful, at least to him. And Erik’s change of thinking just made him more appealing. Levi felt an almost overwhelming need to protect him, be near him as he healed. Could Erik be trusted? Elsa had said he’d made friends with some Italian-born Jews. Did that mean his attitude to Jews had changed? How would he react to the truth about Levi? And what of this hair-brained scheme to join the Italian resistance? How would he get there, and how would he find a group that wouldn’t shoot him on the spot for being a German? Perhaps if they contributed to the fighting together it might go some way to assuage Levi’s continuing guilt over having taken that bullet for the Führer. The questions continued to crowd in until he finally fell asleep.
‘Erik, what will you do? You can’t go back to the SS, and I am thinking you wouldn’t want to,’ Levi asked. They were playing chess, the board between them on hay bales.
Erik looked up. ‘I have a plan, but you’ll think it wildly unrealistic.’
Levi scratched his head and moved his queen.
‘Will I?’ he asked, keeping his voice casual.
‘You know I disapprove of the methods employed in the camps. There is far too much delight taken in the act of killing innocent people. If I told you I wanted to join the resistance, would you feel you had to report me to the Gestapo?’ Erik asked.
‘No,’ still Levi didn’t look up, ‘but I would suggest I came with you.’
Erik was clearly stunned. His hand froze with the rook hovering above the board. He gazed across at Levi. ‘But, but you’re some kind of national hero! You took a bullet for the Führer.’
Levi smiled at him. ‘And it was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. I have had nightmares about that moment. All the agony this country has been through, and perhaps all it would have taken for it to end was for me to do nothing.’
Erik also smiled. ‘Are you saying the Führer is mad?’ he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
‘Stark raving insane. No question. And some of the others are very frustrated by that. I suspect that if they could’ve had things their way, it would be so much worse for the Allies. Germany may well have won the war in the East. Some of his decisions, made from Berlin without full knowledge of the front lines, resulted in the most despairing messages back from his generals. His fury was terrifying.’
Erik’s exhausted face was more animated than Levi had seen since they’d met again.
‘Do you think the English and the Americans will come?’ he asked. ‘Some of the Jews talked about surviving until the camps were liberated. That the Allies were coming. It gave them hope.’
‘Yes,’ Levi said with a firm voice, ‘I do think that they will come and Germany will lose the war. Remember I get to read the English papers. But it is not going to happen next week, next month or maybe even next year.’
Erik was still watching him, the chess piece spinning between his fingers. ‘Do you want that to happen, Werner?’ he asked.
Levi nodded. ‘It pains me as a German, but yes, I do. You’ll like the British, they’re good people. I don’t think they will be cruel in victory.’
He watched Erik’s eyes as the young man took in his words and processed them, then clarity came.
‘How do you know that?’ Erik asked.
Levi dropped his gaze to the chess board and said nothing.
‘Werner?’
Eventually he looked up. It was the biggest gamble he’d taken since he landed in Berlin, but he trusted Erik and he felt the sudden need for a friend who truly understood him. Karl, Elsa and Erik were the closest thing he had to family, and it felt as if he and Erik were alone in a hostile world, with menace breathing in the shadows and risk attached to every word. He didn’t know what his feelings for Erik were, he’d never been in love — but if this was love, so be it. Erik could be a comrade in arms. Besides, he was so tired of the pretence.
‘Because my name isn’t Werner Schneider and I am not really a Hauptmann.’
Erik blew out his breath and waited.
‘I’m a spy for the British,’ Levi added quietly.
‘So what is your real name?’ Erik asked.
‘Levi, Levi Horowitz. I’m a German Jew, and I fled Berlin in 1938 for London. I was interred on the Isle of Man and the British Secret Service recruited me, because I speak English, French and Italian and I play the piano. They wanted me to get close to Hitler and report back what I heard and I did get close, very close.’
For a second longer Erik stared, then he threw back his head and roared with laughter. Levi felt the humour rumbling up from inside himself and couldn’t help but let it spill out. Their combined mirth continued until they were both wiping tears from their eyes.
‘And did your spy masters tell you to intervene and save his life?’ Erik asked, still barely controlling his amusement.
Levi shook his head. ‘No, but I suspect they are pleased I did. I have tried to tell them what Goering and Himmler and Bormann are like.’
‘How do you cope with the Wagner?’ Erik asked.
‘I’m trained. I’d never played it before, but they knew that if I got to play for the Führer, there would be Wagner, lots of Wagner.’
Erik gazed at him, with a sense of wonder in his exhausted eyes. ‘You’re a Jew?’ he asked softly.
Levi nodded. ‘I am.’
‘All those conversations we had, that time when we found those Jews on the street and you cut his ear lock and then punched —’
‘Don’t remind me. It was one of hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But I had a cover to maintain, and that was the behaviour you expected of me.’
Tears sprang into Erik’s eyes. ‘Forgive me. I’m so sorry. You must have hated me!’
‘No, I didn’t. At times I didn’t understand why, but, in spite of your words and your beliefs, I loved you. So you don’t think of us, of Jews, as sub-human vermin anymore?’
Erik shook his head fiercely. ‘No! God, no. I saw them, Levi. I saw them praying as they marched into the gas chambers with their heads high and courage all over their faces. I saw men who took their sons’ places and gave up their own lives. I saw them singing and praying and keeping each other’s spirits up. And I saw kindness. I saw a Jew tending the wounds of a man like me, a man my fellow Aryans called depraved. He was nailed to a plank and had wood shoved up his arse, and a Jewish doctor got him down and bathed his blood away.’
He dropped his head into his hands and began to sob. Levi hesitated for a second, then moved beside him and gathered Erik into his ar
ms.
‘Shhh. It’s over now, you’re safe,’ Levi whispered as he stroked Erik’s back with his hand. He felt a sudden pulse of warmth, an old and familiar sensation. Slowly the tears subsided and Erik pulled away. He rubbed his face with his hands and sat up.
‘So what will you do now? Go back into the lair of the devil and wait for the war to end?’ he asked. ‘And when the liberating forces arrive you can put your hands in the air and say, “Don’t shoot, I’m one of you!”’
Levi smiled. ‘Do you have a better suggestion?’ he countered.
‘Yes, I do.’
Erik stretched out his hand, and Levi noticed that it was criss-crossed with narrow white lines of scarring, perhaps from healed cuts. The thin fingers closed around his. ‘Run away with me. Burn your uniform behind the barn and let’s go to Italy and fight the fascists, fight for freedom. For justice for your kind and ours and for humanity.’
It was a huge decision. His handlers would be furious, Goebbels would be incensed, and the Führer would be manic with rage.
‘You said you loved me. Do you still?’ Erik asked. Even before he nodded, Levi knew it was the right choice.
‘Yes, I do. And how do you feel, knowing I’m a Jew?’ he responded.
Erik smiled. ‘You’re the bravest Jew I know. How could I not love you?’
It was the next step in this crazy adventure, to swap the lie that was his life in Berlin for the chance to fight for liberty and against tyranny and to be himself. But more importantly, he’d found a reason to go forward, face a new challenge, in the broken man beside him. Maybe it was love, maybe it wasn’t, but it was the core of Levi’s being, and he knew he couldn’t leave Erik again.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The National Archives
Kew, London
September 2017
‘I can’t get over how nearly his path crossed with Rachel’s,’ Simon said as he shook his head. He looked up at Major Stratton.