Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  'Bloody bastards,' said the landlord. 'I hope they get them all.' Hoffmann noticed with surprise that he was close to tears. 'Excuse me,' the man added, then turned his back and made his way through a curtained doorway at the rear of the bar. Hoffmann watched him go.

  'Forgive him,' his wife said. She handed him his change. 'We lost our son on the East Front eight weeks ago.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'He was a good boy. Already had a little vineyard over by Neuenburg. Wanted to expand, of course. Hated the interruption. But when his country needed him, he went.'

  She was a slightly-built woman of perhaps fifty. Hoffmann was silent, thinking that the boy scarcely had a choice. He realised that the careworn expression, almost apologetic, was truly one of grief.

  She fished out a framed photograph from among the bottles on the shelves behind the bar. There was a strip of black ribbon across the top left-hand corner. It showed a dark-haired young man in a check shirt and dungarees, leaning on a hoe and smiling at the camera. Behind him, neat rows of vines.

  'I'm sorry,' Hoffmann said again.

  'What did he want to go and die for?' said the woman. She wiped her hands on her apron. 'Well, I mustn't keep you.'

  69

  Hoffmann kept to country roads all that afternoon.

  Where was Kessler now? Had he got Emma away? Had he been arrested? That seemed unlikely; Kessler knew how to take care of himself. But Emma? Poor, dear Emma! Kessler couldn't keep her under his protection for long, he didn't have the power, and Hoffmann knew all about the Gestapo policy of arresting the families of men and women who in their eyes had betrayed the state. It had been in Himmler's mind well before the 20 July debacle had thrown Germany into an even lower circle of hell. Just another insane idea of theirs – that a traitor's blood was bad, and so by extension the blood of his kin must be as well. The concept was Himmler's of course, that terrible, bloodless creature who'd been the means by which Hitler's worst ambitions had been realised. Diels' Department 1A, Göring's Research Department, the Police, all had been sucked into one vast organisation – seven Departments, over 180 Sub-Departments, a hideous bureaucracy which was the ponderous but all-reaching machine which Himmler had built for his idol: The Head Office of Reich Security.

  A world ruled by a handful of madmen who weren't even that bright. How had it come to this?

  And Emma, who could never disguise her feelings, whose dislike of the Party was often dangerously open even when she enjoyed her father's protection, Emma, whose ambition was to be a professional violinist - what could possibly become of her now?

  He remembered her sixth birthday, in 1930, when they had given her her first violin. Ursula was already ill. Though neither of them spoke much about it, they knew the cancer which had invaded her body a year earlier would soon claim her. They were both aware this would be the last of Emma's birthdays that Ursula would see. They hid it from the child, but Emma sensed that her mother was going to leave her. It was as if Ursula were standing on a boat, her suitcase at her feet, while her husband and daughter stood on the shore, waiting for the moment when the vessel cast off.

  After her death, in the Charité hospital, at seven in the morning on 5 October 1930, a cold, clear day when Berlin was bathed in watery sunshine, Hoffmann resolved to do all he could to realise his wife's dreams for her daughter. Emma was intelligent and musically gifted. She was never conventionally beautiful, but the strength of her character made up for that, and more.

  He'd not been a good father; he'd been too absorbed in his work. The way he had to live his life and the nature of his work demanded that Emma be found a more secure environment in which to grow up and she had done so with her aunt, Ursula's older sister, a music teacher at the high school in Nicolassee.

  Margaret also taught piano privately, and among her many friends in the musical community was a young violinist, Harry Thalheimer, who undertook Emma's lessons. He'd left Germany for France in 1936, soon after the end of the Berlin Olympics in mid-August, when the Party no longer found it necessary to present a smiling face to the world, and when the previous year's Nuremberg Laws, which made the Party's view of its Jewish countrymen and women more than clear, began to bite seriously.

  It had taken a few months for Hoffmann and Margaret to find a successor of equal talent. Margaret adored her niece, and threatened to leave with Emma herself. Hoffmann, already gnawed by doubt, begged her to stay. Now he felt punished for his selfishness and vacillation.

  As Emma grew from child to girl to woman, Hoffmann was able to see less of her. He continued to do his work, but it had a double edge now that he had joined the ranks of those who planned to topple the regime, a task made increasingly urgent as official policy led to the leaching away of more and more intellectual and financial talent. He was acutely aware, too, that the precariousness of his life could threaten her safety. But he saw her as often as he could, taking his clarinet with him, and proud of her irritation with him on the occasions that he could not keep up when they played together. Even allowing for the prejudice he knew he had as her father, he was musical enough himself to know that she had more than adequate talent, with luck and a following wind, to launch herself when the time came. He allowed himself foolish daydreams in which he saw her auditioning successfully for one of the great conductors, Furtwängler or Karajan. Hoffmann had even reflected once or twice that he might exert some influence on Karajan, who, like himself, was a Party member.

  He and Emma had remained close until latterly, despite the turn his own private life had taken. And hers, for that matter, though of course it wasn't until much later that her heart became involved with someone else's. He laughed inwardly even now at the recollection. She and Kessler thought they'd been so careful to keep it a secret from him. He'd known almost from the outset. It had worried him at first, he didn't think Kessler was right for her, the man was ten years her senior apart from anything else, he thought she was too young and that she should be thinking of her career. He didn't want her sacrificing that to love, throwing her chances away just for the sake of another human being.

  No-one kept secrets from him. He had the power to set men to watch anyone he chose. His reputation and his record shielded him as surely as his uniform and his low Party membership number. In the early days, Himmler had wanted him to switch to the Gestapo, to train its officers as well as he trained his own. It was a bad moment. He'd talked to Oster about it, since, even though he felt that his soul was as mortgaged as Faust's, there was a limit to what he would do. By good fortune and careful negotiation, he was able to stay on his side of the fence, though Himmler, testing his loyalty perhaps, had made him pay a cruel price. There was blood on his hands which he hoped his family would never discover.

  It was Kara, Kara alive, and Kara dead, who had kept his feelings from freezing over completely. Would he have done what he'd had to do to remain useful in the battle against the Party, if she had lived? He smiled coldly. He'd made no decisions then; Fate had.

  70

  The bike bounced violently, yanking him back into the present. He'd hit a pothole in the road, luckily small, and was just in time to swerve to avoid a larger one. If he'd hit that he'd have wrecked his front tyre, and he'd have had to walk. He pulled over and stopped, killing the engine. He was shaking. He sat on a grassy mound a few feet from the road - it was more of a lane - which he was driving down. He lit a cigarette.

  It was late afternoon now. He'd have to start thinking of somewhere to spend the night. He hadn't passed anywhere since leaving Freyburg.

  He took out one of his remaining twists of snow and rubbed the powder on his gums. He'd have to find water somewhere soon. There was no sign of a stream near here. The drowsy sunshine fell on him. He listened to the crickets carolling to infinity, and watched as a breeze rippled the leaves on the trees. He felt rooted to the spot. He had no desire to go on. He had to go on. It was the living who drove him, as much as the dead.

  It was mid-May when she told him the news.
Night-time. They'd been looking down from the windows of her flat at one of the processions the Brownshirts had begun to stage in Berlin. Hundreds of marching men, carrying flickering torches, singing the Horst-Wessel Lied, which had just been proclaimed Germany's new anthem. The brutal aggression of these would-be soldiers and heroes, wrenched from hopelessness and unemployment and easily turned into unthinking zealots, chilled the atmosphere in the room and for a while killed any conversation between them. Each knew what the other was thinking.

  She'd broken the silence abruptly with her news, but her voice hadn't risen above a whisper. Was she really that scared of his reaction?

  He was pleased and concerned at the same time. His mind was already racing. The consequences of this were still out of range for him. He still had the words of the song the men had been singing in his ears – Raise high the flag! In serried ranks the Brownshirts march boldly, firmly on...

  'How long have you known?'

  'I meant to tell you before, but I wasn't sure –' she broke off. 'God, I sound like someone in a play.'

  'When?' He kept his voice gentle, and smiled, encouraging her, though he could not yet smile with his eyes.

  'I was worried a month ago, but I've just missed my period a second time, and there are... other signs. I'm afraid it's almost certain.' She fell silent again. He did not speak, not wishing to break her concentration. 'Look, we took precautions. I can't help it.'

  Did she think he was blaming her? She was sombre, but not anywhere close to tears. She wasn't appealing to him, either; she was stating facts. She was brave. Did he have the same courage?

  'Don't worry,' he said. He was thinking hard and fast.

  'What shall we do?'

  'Let me get used to the idea first,' he said, and she laughed.

  'It's a hell of time to be starting a family,' she said. 'Especially with my pedigree.' She paused for a moment, and he could see that she was sinking back into her former mood. 'I've had more time than you to think about this.'

  'Yes.'

  'When I said I wasn't sure, I meant – ' She broke off.

  'I know. That doesn't matter. I'm grateful to you.'

  'I'm sorry. I've been on edge. It's a relief to have told you, whatever we do next.'

  71

  He was silent. They knew what the alternatives were. That was simple, and at any other time – at least as far as he was concerned, for he did not yet know her mind – the decision would have been easy to make. In the seven months that had passed since he'd met her, he'd acknowledged to himself - though he hadn't yet told her – that this wasn't just the simple affair he'd hoped it would be.

  He was in love with her. Perhaps because of the times, perhaps because after grieving for Ursula and being alone for two years, he was ready to need someone again. He didn't know what the reason was, if there was one at all, and he couldn't, didn't even want to analyse it. He did not know if his love was returned. He doubted it. She still saw him as a National Socialist, didn't she? But if that were the case, why was he still here? Why were they still lovers?

  His first instinct had been to regret the pregnancy, but it had happened – once or twice he had been too impatient, they had been too impatient, in their lovemaking, but there could have been no breaking that glorious spontaneity, and he could not regret that. Now they both had to accept what had happened.

  He also knew that if she decided that she didn't want the child, he would respect that decision. But he knew just as surely – and it surprised him – that he wanted the child to be born.

  'This isn't a trap,' Kara said.

  'I know.' It was something that hadn't even occurred to him. As a policeman he was losing his grip, he thought fleetingly, to have missed that.

  She looked at the floor. 'As if there weren't problems enough.'

  'This isn't a problem.'

  She looked at him in surprise. 'Really?'

  'I mean, it isn't something we can't solve. It depends on what you'd like to do.'

  'Doesn't it depend on what both of us want to do?' She was angry. 'Do you ever commit yourself, Max? Has all that police training robbed you of any feeling at all?'

  'No.'

  'You don't talk like that when we're in bed. You don't stand back from me then.'

  'I'm not standing back from you now.'

  'Then help me. Give me a clue about what you want to do.'

  He was silent. He knew she was right. He had become so used to containing himself that it was hard, even with her, to lower his guard. Was that a weakness? Or did he need that armour to get through, especially now?

  'Do you just prefer to see everything from the outside? Don't make me feel alone in this.' She was waiting for an answer, and in the silence he could feel her need. Who was he? A successful state employee, thirty-four years old, a widower, with a nine-year-old daughter. His life with Ursula stayed in his memory but it had taken on an ever more dreamlike quality there. When he saw Emma, he saw traces in her face, her mannerisms, her character, of his late wife. Could he not relax again, and trust the water to carry him if he dived in? Hadn't he already done that? He knew he loved this woman and there could be no disloyalty to Ursula in that. And he had as much as agreed to work with Oster and his organisation against the State he'd served for his entire career, but now accepted as dangerous. He was not used to choices like this.

  He hadn't told her about the meetings with Oster. Should he? She was watching him now, waiting. She looked completely alone.

  'I love you,' he said. 'And I would like to have this child.'

  A new expression had appeared on her face. It wasn't relief, it was too soon for that, but it was perhaps that she felt that she could, very tentatively, begin to trust this man. And perhaps there was another element - that she had no choice but to. Even though she was far from weak, she knew how hard it would be for her to survive alone, even without the baby.

  Hoffmann wondered how he could reassure her that her trust would not be misplaced. He had already, on his own behalf, committed one small act of treachery against the state. He had used his influence to gain access to her papers and doctor them sufficiently to remove any trace of her Jewish ancestry. If he'd asked her permission, he knew she would not have given it. It'd been a question of practicality, and he'd had to move fast. He wasn't the only one to have access to files, and anyone with sufficient influence, and with any kind of personal interest in Kara or the von Wildenbruch family, might have looked at them and possibly copied them. He could only hope that he hadn't been too late to prevent that. At least Kara's mother's original papers would still be in some records office or other in the United States - and she had never become a naturalised German. Kara, he knew, had never opted for dual nationality. It would be hard to sort something like that out now.

  He went and sat by her, put his arms round her. 'Please tell me what you want.'

  'Do you really love me?'

  'Yes.'

  'Why have you never told me before?'

  'I don't know.'

  'You're not just saying it now?'

  'No. Maybe I wasn't sure before.'

  'This isn't something sentimental. I don't want you to think I'm leaning on you. I can do this by myself if I have to.'

  'You don't.'

  'Well then, I'd like to have the baby too.' She laughed briefly. 'I'm nearly thirty. I may not get another chance!'

  'When can we expect him?'

  'Him?'

  'Or her, of course.'

  She smiled, but still carefully. 'If he's on schedule, next January.'

  'Should I rush out and get you some oysters and chocolate?'

  'No! At least not for another two months! And then I'll probably prefer herrings and strawberries.'

  'I'm out of practice.' He had told her all about his marriage, Ursula's death, and about Emma. He remembered Ursula and her sister had managed everything to do with that pregnancy and birth. He had been too busy. Fatherhood had been a remote business for him, and it was likely to
remain so. Already he knew he would have to persuade Kara to leave Germany. He would join her later - if he could.

  He wanted to say that perhaps by next January the Party would have foundered, that the country would have escaped the fate it had wished on itself; but he knew now, if not from his instinct and the evidence of his eyes, then from the seriousness of the engagement of a man like Oster, that that possibility had disappeared. 1934 would do nothing but confirm the bleakness which 1933 had ushered in, though in the euphoria of the moment, all but a few were cheering the leader who had apparently enabled Germany to hold its head up once again. 'When the sword is unsheathed, all reason is in the trumpet' - the phrase drifted into Hoffmann's mind as the relic of a memory from his seminary days.

  Another thought unsettled him: the Party was introducing a new kind of ID which covered a person's racial 'purity'. It was already turning hundreds of thousands of Germans into frantic researchers of their families' pasts, for the Party did not deem a citizen to be a true Aryan if even one of his grandparents had Jewish blood.

  Kara nestled against him, but she didn't tell him what he hoped she would. He wanted to kiss her, but unaccountably felt shy of doing so. After a minute, she broke away, tidying her hair, smoothing her dress.

  'So what are we going to do about the dear little bastard? We have seven months, and the baby will begin to make its presence pretty obvious in three or four. I'll have to stop work, I suppose. That, or explain the situation. They're very understanding at the Charité, but I can't trust everyone.'

  'What about Tilli? She'd help. And she loves children.'

  She hesitated. 'I might take Veit into my confidence, you know.'

  'Adamov? Why, for God's sake?'

  'You don't know him. He's always been a very good friend to me.'