Into Darkness

by Anton Gill

  'I've been sacked,' she said.

  88

  Hoffmann said nothing for a moment, but he was not surprised. Women teachers, doctors, lawyers and civil-servants had steadily been losing their jobs to men since the Party had come to power. Kara had often joked when they'd first met that she'd find herself out of work if the birth-rate dropped any lower. The Party had set out to rectify all that. The propaganda machine had even produced a little ditty to encourage women in their new duties:

  Grab your kettle, broom and pan,

  That's the way to get a man;

  Shop and office leave alone -

  Your true life's work begins at home.

  They'd discussed the idea of leaving before - Kara had no wish to 'donate a child to the Führer', as the saying went. But her work had always defined her. She was proud of it. Like so many people, they had thought that, somehow, by some miracle, the Party would never touch them directly.

  'When did they tell you?'

  'Soon after we last saw each other.'

  'Why didn't you let me know immediately?'

  'What was I going to do? Ring you?'

  'You could have told Emma.'

  'I wasn't sure the place wasn't being watched.'

  'It isn't. And no-one knows about your mother.'

  'Then let's be grateful for small mercies,' she said angrily. 'Three thousand women doctors in this country, lots of us specialists, not that it matters. One woman professional for every fourteen men - do you know, that was the same as the proportion of female to male deputies in the fucking Reichstag - until recently. Now look what your Party's doing. They're shitting on the country's administration because they want us women all to go off and produce cannon-fodder for that fuckwit in charge, if he lasts long enough to get his war! Christ Almighty, what's happening to this country?'

  She knew more than she should, though anyone with half a mind, he reflected, could hazard a guess at the way things were going. He wondered if she had spoken to Oster again. It had crossed his mind that she might have considered leaving without him. Maybe she had. But she was still here.

  'And what about all this?' he said, indicating the partially packed-up flat.

  She looked at him. 'You get your way. Actually, it works out rather well. You don't have to try to persuade me to leave now. They've done your job for you. "Children, church and kitchen", Christ, and look at the number of women who voted for them!'

  'We knew what was coming.'

  'Yes.' She calmed down. 'We did. And at least you've seen the error of your ways.' Finally she gave him what passed for a smile. 'I am very angry. And I have been crying, which I don't like, but it's the bloody pregnancy, and – Oh, have some wine, for God's sake.'

  He was silent.

  'It's my fault,' she went on. 'I wanted to believe that this couldn't happen. I was actually pleased when my mother left. Of course she tried to persuade me. Even after they got power I didn't think they could possibly last. But now ... ' She looked at him. 'You were right.' She patted her belly. 'And for the sake of this.'

  'You are sure?'

  'What do you think?'

  What could he say? His own situation was doubly precarious. To move too fast would be to invite disaster. And there was Hagen. But he'd thought about it all. There was a way through all this, if he could get Kara's agreement. It was risky, and it would require patience; but it was the least dangerous path to take. And, despite the speed with which the Party was operating, he could not extinguish the hope that it would still create enough resentment to bring it down.

  89

  Perhaps, Hoffmann thought, as the American lorry carried him down the dusty road to Coburg, he had just wanted to hope, without really hoping at all. But hindsight was always easy.

  They drank their wine.

  'I shouldn't have too much of this,' Kara said. She refilled his glass, glancing at him. He seemed lost in thought, nervous. 'What's on your mind?' she continued.

  'Nothing.'

  He looked around the room again.

  'I was going to put it all into storage,' she said.

  He needed to know what her plans were, and how far they were independent of his own.

  'Then,' she went on, 'I was going to take a suitcase and go to a hotel. Think things over. I hadn't thought beyond that. Panic, I suppose. I was going to tell you. I've got some savings of course, but without a job, the rent on this place ... ' she trailed off, gazing into space.

  'Has Hagen been in touch with you?'

  She shuddered, surprised at the question. 'Don't you think I'd have told you if he had?'

  'He's becoming quite a big wheel.'

  'I don't read the papers much anymore.'

  'Not like that; behind the scenes.'

  'Then maybe he's got better things to do than chase after poor little physicians! He's probably already set himself up with some government-approved blonde.'

  'Perhaps.'

  He was silent again, and she looked at him curiously.

  'You don't think he's following me?'

  'I'd know if he was.' That, at least, Hoffmann was sure of.

  'Then what else is there?'

  It was something he'd been thinking about for months. He'd even discussed it with Emma's aunt. He didn't want Kara to think that, when he asked the question, it was merely out of expediency; yet the longer he left it, the more it would look like that. Now, events had overtaken him, as they so often overtake us. 'You can't go to a hotel,' he started, badly.

  'Well, it isn't the most attractive option, but people do it, and from the point of view of having a kid, I'm not the worst-placed person in the world.'

  'Where will you have it?'

  'I hadn't thought that far.'

  'It's my responsibility too.'

  'I know.'

  'Will you marry me?'

  There. It was done.

  She stared at him. She laughed. He couldn't tell what kind of a laugh it was.

  'I want you to marry me. I'd want that whatever else was happening. I'd want that if you weren't carrying our child. I'd want that if we lived in a more fortunate country, or at a more fortunate time. I'd want that even if things were ten times more difficult than they are.'

  'I'm half-Jewish.'

  'No-one knows that,' he said, wishing he could be certain it was true, and at the same time hating himself for saying it - such a thing shouldn't matter: it was lunacy. 'Think. And things can still change!'

  'You don't mind that I'm half-Jewish?'

  He wondered how she could still think that of him. 'Will you accept?'

  'Your flat's too small. And we'd have to keep quiet about it. You're too well-known. And your work...'

  'We'll go. Leave. Oster can manage without me.'

  'And Emma?'

  'I'll talk to her. See what she wants to do.' But he wondered if he really would, and for the moment he didn't say that he thought his daughter would be safer staying with her aunt. If they were caught trying to leave, the Party would make them disappear. Had Kara also considered that?

  He would make his mind up about Emma later.

  Kara lit cigarettes for them both. 'Where would we go?'

  Hoffmann had good contacts with the police in Sweden and Switzerland. They were close, and neutral, but they were also within the Party's reach; and the first country was supplying Germany with iron ore, while the other's banks were handling the Party's foreign exchange.

  There were further considerations. As long as their own security wasn't affected, he thought, the people across the Atlantic might never even get involved in a European war.

  'Why not America?' he said. 'You're half-American. You have family there.'

  'If you mean my mother – '

  'Think.'

  'What would you do?'

  'We're not there yet. My English isn't bad, and yours is fluent. Perhaps I could become a private eye. Like Sam Spade.' He paused. 'Will you marry me?' He felt light-headed, almost like laughing. 'It doesn't matter i
f our marriage is a secret or not. Oster would probably like a man like me to set an example.'

  She laughed drily. 'And I'm pregnant. We could collect our thousand-Mark payout from the Party and knock off twenty-five per-cent straight away! And think! If it's twins, we'd only have to pay back half!'

  'But will you marry me?'

  Why was she making light of this? Well, he was frightened too, but that was just something they'd have to deal with.

  She smiled, a secret smile, a smile for herself, one that he knew and loved. 'I don't think you leave me with much choice. And in case you think that's a back-handed answer, I agree with you. I'd want the same. All that bullshit about no matter what, no matter where – I'd want the same.'

  90

  There was a hell of a lot to discuss, a hell of a lot to organise. It was Kara who decided that the marriage should be discreet, and by some miracle, coupled with help from Tilli, they managed to keep it out of the press. Kara's furniture, books, and masks were packed and stored, and she moved into Tilli's large apartment off Wilhelmstrasse, quietly and unremarked, one rebelliously fine night, before November was a week old.

  During that time, and for the rest of the month, Hoffmann kept as close a watch over her as he could, and was finally satisfied that no-one except those nearest to them knew anything of what had taken place; and he knew that it would take a while before anyone who wanted to know where she had gone would find out the truth. He had in any case registered a false residency docket in her name with the Hamburg police. If anyone went so far as to check the block given as her address there, and find the trail cold, the assumption would be that she had left the country - not an unreasonable conclusion to draw, since she could no longer practise her profession at home.

  Hoffmann hoped that Kara, at least, would soon be leaving the country in fact - but it wasn't easy for him to arrange passage without drawing attention to himself. And it wasn't easy to arrange a smooth exit from the Police Praesidium. Telling Oster the news would be the least of his problems. As he grappled with them, and they frustrated him, time passed.

  He watched with increasing uneasiness as Kara became impatient, then nervous, then resigned. She couldn't work, and she had always worked. She had little company, and she had always been surrounded by people. But she bore it. He continued to work, and his visits to the Wilhelmstrasse apartment were as infrequent as he could bear to make them. He scaled down his dispatches to Oster.

  The year had been a black one from the start. Soon after the people had swept the Party to power, someone set fire to the Reichstag. Its ashes weren't cold before the Party had claimed that its destruction was the work of the Communists, and within days they'd used that to restrict, in the name of national security, all possible freedom of expression.

  By midsummer, unions and opposition parties were outlawed. The more entrenched the Party became, so only the most optimistic saw any hope of its being ousted any more. Jewish civil servants were forced to leave their jobs. The president, 'Papa' Hindenburg, was spending more and more time at home in Neudeck. He was eighty-six. People said he wouldn't live another year. But Hindenburg had become little more than a sideshow anyway since February, and there were those who said that the only reason he couldn't stand Hitler was because of the Austrian's vulgar accent. The lime trees along Unter den Linden had been cut down. At the cinema, Pabst's Don Quixote and Lang's Dr Mabuse vanished. They were soon replaced by Riefenstahl's Triumph of Faith, and Steinhoff's Hitlerjunge Quex.

  People began to leave.

  But you could still go to a cabaret if you knew where to look, and you could still see a nude revue. And a lot of people were looking forward to Christmas, and a lot of people were feeling more prosperous and confident than they had felt in years. And soon there was even talk that the Party, relenting, was planning to plant new saplings in Unter den Linden. Little trees, though, Hoffmann remembered thinking, which wouldn't get in the way of the processions.

  Kara seldom left Tilli's flat, and the constraint quickly began to irritate her. Late in November Tilli, irritated herself, decided that one of the few things she could do to offer some distraction was to give a dinner party, of necessity a small one, to which she only invited one guest, Kara's friend Veit Adamov. Hoffmann hadn't liked the idea, but Adamov and Kara were close, and the man knew what was going on.

  To compensate for the lack of company, something she herself adored, Tilli had organised the most magnificent meal her resources and contacts could conjure up. The menu was French, the food simple but exquisite, and the meat, against all German reason, barely cooked at all. Kara loved it. Adamov declared that red wine, especially Burgundy, taken in enough quantity, was capable of killing off any microbe known to man. And there was something to celebrate, though this Hoffmann kept back until Adamov had left. Tickets on the Europa, sailing in eleven days. It would mean an untidy exit; and it was late in the day for Kara to be travelling, but it was better than no exit at all.

  A week before they were due to leave for Hamburg, Kara fell ill. The first morning, it seemed to be nothing more than a cold, and by the evening it had passed; but in the small hours of the following day she became feverish, and as the morning progressed it became clear that she would be in no position to travel soon. Hoffmann, furious, made the calls necessary to cancel.

  When he returned to the flat, Tilli met him at the door. She was a tall, slim blonde with sardonic brown eyes which never gave anything away, elegant in an intangibly cold manner which had something to do with her poise: you felt that she was never other than in complete control of herself. But her manner belied her temperament, and now was one of the rare occasions when the mask had slipped.

  He'd arrived later than he'd hoped; it was St Nicolas' Day, and the streets were crowded with people celebrating the beginning of Christmas. Tilli would soon be going to parties, but this year she herself was holding only one soirée, and that only because Hoffmann had begged her to, arguing that not to do so would attract attention. But the soirée had been planned for an evening after their departure.

  'How is she?' he asked immediately. Tilli was trying to look less worried than she was. She was a good actress, but not that good.

  'I don't know - if she wasn't a doctor herself, I'd have sent for one. She wouldn't let me.'

  'What's the matter?'

  'She's lost blood. Not much, she says, but it shouldn't be happening at all.'

  91

  He went to her.

  Kara told him there was nothing wrong, that there was nothing to worry about, that she was more than likely to encounter a few minor problems. Anyway, she said, there was barely a month to go until full term; they should be in the clear. But this time she did not raise the question of the child's name again, and as it was something she loved to discuss, he noticed. He said nothing. He held her, but she did not relax in his arms, and when he had to leave she did not protest, even playfully. They'd talked of this and that. He'd wanted to bring up the subject of their departure again, but something told him not to. She had enough to think about.

  He stayed away, though he couldn't bear to, couldn't think about anything else. And they had to leave. The Party was growing. Soon it would be unstoppable. But the economy rallied, and people smiled in the streets, held their heads up - most of them. They thought they'd been given back their pride.

  He felt as if his feet were mired in mud, as if he were trying to run from a monster in one of those dreams where escape is impossible.

  Three days after his last visit, Tilli rang him. She sounded agitated, said she had rung three times without an answer, scared already that his line might be tapped.

  Kara had called her own doctor. There was no cause for alarm - many children had been born a month early, and Kara was a strong woman. The early contractions she had had were a false alarm. Rest was all that was needed now.

  Tilli's Christmas Party was set for the day after tomorrow: should she go ahead or should she cancel? Hoffmann told her on no accoun
t to do that, he would come over as soon as possible.

  He was there by nine. Kara's bedroom had a bathroom leading from it. It was well away from the main rooms, down a corridor off which two similar guest-rooms led. On the night of the party, no-one else would be staying. Kara held his hand, looked at him, for once vulnerable, lonely, and scared.

  'Don't go far away until we're through this.'

  He only returned to his flat and his office as often as was necessary. He was there on the night of the party. He wore his Iron Cross.

  Among the guests were Veit Adamov and Wolf Hagen. Protectively, Hermann and Emmy would be there, guests of honour, as would Hans Oster and Hans Brandau. Apart from real friends, the rest of the pack would include a smattering of senior Party members. No Jews had been invited.

  The huge tree, which reached the ceiling of the entrance-hall, was already in place, heavily decorated, loaded with the new black tinsel, and red and white glass balls - the golden ones had been consigned to the cellar. The little white candles stuck in their silver holders, clipped onto the boughs, shimmered like tiny ghosts.

  Tilli had covered every detail. Nazi snobbery and Nazi nationalism had been catered for to the last degree. Food and drink were solidly German, though Tilli knew that wouldn't appeal to Göring much.

  The soirée, on Sunday, 17 December 1933, was what the press called a glittering occasion, and was remembered by many, even years later. The apartment overflowed with distinguished guests. The chandeliers gleamed in the candlelight. People gasped at the tree; a mountain of presents in red-and-black parcels, tied with white string, was admired, before they were distributed by elderly, smiling footmen.

  Tilli hated the whole thing for the first time in her life. Emmy had to whisper words of encouragement in her ear.