Winter Men

by Jesper Bugge Kold

  “Sit down,” Kögl said through pursed lips.

  “Do you know who I am?” The tall man’s voice was deep and authoritative.

  Gerhard shook his head.

  “I’m Captain Lorenz, Erich Lorenz.”

  The name meant nothing to Gerhard, but the fact that he was from the SS didn’t bode well, especially when he took into account the mood of the two men. The skin on Lorenz’s face was tight like a mask, and Gerhard felt certain he’d never develop any wrinkles from smiling. He noticed a ring on one of Lorenz’s long, slender fingers and wondered whether the man had smiled on his wedding day.

  “Do you know why I’m here?”

  Gerhard shook his head again.

  “It’s my job to make sure that you’re in Dachau the day after tomorrow.”

  “But . . .” A bolt of pain spread from his neck and throat to his entire body, buzzing through his limbs like an electrical current. He put his hands to his temples and squeezed, as if that would make the pain go away and—with it—the news itself. He tried to protest, but suddenly found himself in a silent film, or, more accurately, watching one. The scene blurred before his eyes, the colors vanishing. The plot was already written, and no matter what he did, nothing could change the outcome—they were sending him to Dachau.

  “But I work for you,” he screamed shrilly.

  “Do you, Mr. Strangl?” Kögl took the lead now. He clearly seemed to think that things were moving too slowly. “You are a foolish, foolish man.” Through his round glasses he stared intensely at Gerhard, who collapsed back into his chair.

  “Don’t you realize that we check up on our informants? And although you had ample time to do so, you did not share this information with us. It has been nearly two months!” He slammed his fist on the tabletop so hard that a coffee cup next to him sprang up, almost toppling over before settling back on its saucer. “It was a test, Strangl, a test.” As he spoke, spittle flew from his mouth. “And now we have no choice but to send you away. It’s a shame because we could’ve used you.” He made an irritated face, like an actor training before a mirror. “What do you do with your students when they fail a test?”

  “I give them another chance,” Gerhard said almost inaudibly as he removed his glasses.

  “Louder, I can’t hear you,” sputtered Kögl. A red blotch began to spread across the detective superintendent’s throat, as if he’d been seized by a sudden flare-up of eczema.

  “I give them one more chance,” Gerhard repeated.

  “You would like that. The Gestapo wants nothing to do with you. What about you, Erich? Can you make use of such an untrustworthy and disloyal shit?” The detective superintendent looked up at the tall SS officer, who continued to stare at Gerhard.

  “No,” Lorenz said.

  “Maybe he wants to request a short period for reflection,” Kögl said to Lorenz as he scratched vigorously at his throat.

  “Maybe.” The tall SS officer articulated the word very slowly.

  A long pause followed, during which none of the men moved. They’d evidently agreed on the course of the conversation beforehand, Gerhard thought, but now they seemed to have both forgotten what was on the next page of the script. They had him right where they wanted him, so this show was superfluous. The detective superintendent seemed to start when he realized that it was his character’s turn to walk onstage. He pressed the intercom and told the secretary to send Gerhard away.

  Gerhard was taken to the prison cells in the basement. Two policemen he’d never seen before clutched his arms—which had grown numb from the rough treatment. He was so wiped out that he flowed down the stairs as if he’d been reduced to liquid. His vision was blurry, and the guards’ faces vanished. Where were Grabel and Schauer? Not that he was particularly fond of those two, but in some bizarre way they felt like acquaintances. These new men seemed brutal and indifferent and lacked Grabel’s and Schauer’s manners.

  They went down a long white hallway that could just as easily have belonged in a hospital. He noticed the ceiling, where pipes crisscrossed like an underground intestinal tract. They’d taken the trouble to handcuff him as if they feared he would run. If only they knew how feeble he was.

  A guard ushered them through a heavy cell door, which then slammed shut with a deafening crash that startled Gerhard, causing the policemen to further tighten their grip on him. He feared he was being guided to an ice-cold cell with bars, where the wind would whistle all night as he lay on the rock-hard bed, where a bucket in the corner would serve as his toilet and rats would dart across the floor and fight to have the first go at the fresh meat.

  They stopped at a counter fitted into a rectangular hole in a wall, behind which was a room.

  “Deposit your things there,” said a stout officer on the other side of the counter, pointing at a metal box. “Watch?”

  Gerhard slowly removed his watch, a gift from Emma.

  “Wallet, belt, lighter?”

  He reluctantly put them all into the box.

  “Anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Shoes.”

  “What?”

  “Give me your shoes,” the officer said, holding his hand out impatiently.

  Gerhard bent down and unlaced his shoes, then put them on the counter. He walked down the hall in his stocking feet, still flanked by the two policemen. They halted before a massive metal door. His hands shook uncontrollably, and he could barely hold his arms up as they removed the handcuffs. One of the policemen, a ruddy-faced man in his twenties, grinned at his colleague before shoving Gerhard so forcefully into his cell that he fell on the ground. His cheek scraped against the hard floor, and he lay there motionless as pain spread like heat across the right side of his head.

  What the hell was this? Had the entire world gone mad? He squeezed his eyes shut, expecting to wake up from this nightmare soon. In a moment he would wake up, open the curtains, and look over at St. Michael’s Church; he would go into the kitchen, make a cup of coffee, and quietly enjoy his morning.

  When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself gazing at the leg of a chair. He lifted his head a little and saw that the rickety chair was pushed under a narrow table against the wall. He got up on all fours and glanced around the cell. Along the wall opposite the table stood a cot with a tattered mattress, at the foot of which was a folded blanket. High up on the wall was a small rectangular window that allowed only a narrow sliver of light into the cramped room, which was illuminated by a dim bulb on the ceiling. In the corner nearest to the door was a toilet bowl; next to that was a sink that had turned brown.

  He sat down heavily on the bed and watched as the sliver of light floated impossibly slowly over the room, as if the room were a sundial, until it disappeared. The click of a metal bowl of soup being inserted into his cell through a hatch in the door built expressly for that purpose brought him out of his catatonic state. He figured it was now evening. As he slowly ate the transparent soup, he grew overwhelmed by how unreal everything seemed.

  He pushed the chair under the window and stood on its leather seat. He could just barely see out the window, but the view was nothing more than a brick wall a couple of feet from the thick glass. There was an iron grate on the window, and he could tell despite its sturdy mesh that the sky had begun to darken.

  He lay down on the bed and examined the bare walls and the knots on the wooden ceiling. Over and over again he wondered who had reported him to the Gestapo, and little by little the answer came to him. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? It had to be Theodore Weinhardt. The old man had won his trust, but it had all been a trap. He’d seemed so harmless, but now Gerhard understood that he was truly wicked. How could Theodore do this to him? He had thought they were friends. And what was he guilty of? Everyone makes mistakes—some larger than others—but could they really throw people in prison for simply voicing their opinion? Hammering his fists against the heavy metal door, he heard himself shouting, “I demand justice! I demand justice!”


  He shouted again and again, his chant echoing in the cramped space until he collapsed in exhaustion onto the bed. He was afraid of himself. He’d never heard himself shout before, and he didn’t realize that his voice contained such power—even when he felt so weak. He awoke to the narrow sliver of light striking his face. He followed the sliver of light’s slow march across the floor five times, and he supposed that five days had passed.

  Berlin, Germany, April 19, 1939

  The luxurious express train the Flying Hamburger had conveyed Karl and Ingrid from Hamburg to Berlin in just a few hours the day before. They’d enjoyed a meal in the dining car of the lavishly furnished train, whose ticket prices frightened off the rabble. Karl had been summoned to the new Reich Chancellery, where he was to meet the führer. They’d checked into the Kaiserhof Hotel, where Herman Göring had celebrated a wedding worthy of a king when he married Emmy Sonnemann, an actress from Hamburg, in 1935.

  Lying on the bed’s soft silk sheets, Karl savored the moment. He gazed up at the opulently decorated stucco ceiling and the chandelier that converted the sun’s rays into dancing speckles of light on all four walls. The room was the size of their dining room, and he needed to remember to tell Hilde that even the bars of soap had been imprinted with the words “Kaiserhof, Berlin.” It would make her laugh.

  Ingrid came out of the bathroom wearing a robe, her hair swaddled in one of the hotel’s towels. They’d been to the opera house to see a production of Georges Bizet’s Carmen the night before, and now she hummed a few bars from the opera as she waltzed across the woven carpet. She lay down on the bed, her arm behind her head, and looked at him. He knew what was coming—Ingrid was obsessed with Hilde and Heinz’s upcoming wedding—but Karl was doing his best not to think about it.

  “Come on, Karl. He’s not so bad,” she said, as if reading his thoughts.

  Karl mumbled something incoherent, and Ingrid laughed and gave him a little tap on the shoulder. He tried sneaking a hand beneath her bathrobe but got another tap.

  “Hilde’s so fond of him,” Ingrid said as she fought to still Karl’s hands. “You can only envy them for being so in love. You remember how we were?”

  Binz, Germany, July 16, 1915

  Karl’s parents had spent their summers in Rügen when they were young and in love. This had continued year after year, and though Karl was very fond of the island—with its white sandy beaches, steep chalk cliffs to the north, and numerous bays—he dreamed of visiting the French Riviera, Switzerland, or Italy. He knew, however, that the timing wasn’t right due to the war.

  Although the Great War had erupted the year before, Reinhardt and Anna Strangl insisted on going ahead with their annual summer vacation on Rügen as planned, and since the western front was relatively calm, the war didn’t get in the way of this family tradition. As always, they stayed in Kurhaus Binz, an architectural gem whose inhabitants could live a fairy tale life. Indeed, the stairwell leading to the lavish main entrance resembled the very one on which Cinderella lost her shoe late one night.

  The Strangls had been there only four days when Karl began to feel restless.

  As he let sand run through his fingers, he wrinkled his nose at the odor the onshore wind carried with it. He watched Gerhard. He envied his brother, who was never bored; his suitcase was always packed with books. His mother called them back from the hotel terrace, and they ate lunch in silence. His mother smiled at him every time he looked at her, while Reinhardt never lifted his eyes from his plate until it was empty. Karl set down his silverware on his plate, as he’d been taught, at three o’clock. During yet another fit of boredom, he began to count the green and yellow parasols on the beach. When he’d confirmed that they were equal in number, he started counting the ships out at sea. That’s when he saw her. She was alone. She wore a white summer dress that clung to her body, and she was very pale, practically translucent. She sat on the edge of the pier, dangling her legs over the edge like a schoolgirl.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off the pale girl. Her gaze was fixed on something in the water, and she hadn’t shifted her eyes away from whatever it was for some time. Even from a distance, he sensed her sadness. He racked his brain to recall the last time he’d seen so enthralling a vision as this sad, translucent girl.

  She mustn’t leave. She mustn’t stand up and walk away, he thought to himself, just as the girl got to her feet. She strolled to the edge of the pier, which jutted far out into the water. He hurriedly wiped his mouth with his napkin and asked for permission to leave the table. When his parents and Gerhard could no longer see him, he began to run. Only when he had come to a halt in front of her did he realize that he hadn’t considered what he’d say to her. For the first time in his life, he was utterly speechless.

  She turned toward him, studying him. Now he saw how beautiful she was. Her green eyes seemed to have complete power over him. He felt her eyes upon him, and in that moment all he wanted was to meet her gaze. He looked down. She appeared self-confident, and he blushed as he searched for something to say. The moment stretched on interminably.

  “Do you know how to ride a bicycle?”

  “Yes,” he replied hesitantly, surprised at her question. “But I don’t have one.”

  “You can borrow my brother’s. I want to show you something.”

  They bicycled out of Binz along withered rapeseed fields and were soon engulfed by a large forest. She rode ahead, and he couldn’t help but notice the slender body beneath her dress. The fabric fluttered in the wind, hugging her angular shoulder blades, which moved every time she pushed down on the pedal.

  They hadn’t exchanged a single word since getting onto their bikes. Once they exited the forest, he guessed they’d gone about two and a half miles. They continued along the coastline, below which lay the bay at the bottom of a cliff formed by chalk deposits. A road sign indicated that they’d reached a town.

  The girl stopped, and he followed her lead. Before them stood the strangest building he’d ever seen. It looked like a cross between a wooden castle, a spider perched on the water, and a train station standing on legs and dipping its toes into the water’s edge. The beach surrounding it was thick with people in recliners, none of whom were paying any attention to the odd building.

  “What is it?”

  “Sellin Pier. Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “Yes.”

  “At low tide it stands on the beach, but at high tide it stands in the water.”

  As they returned through the forest, he pedaled up alongside her and smiled at her. She smiled, too, then took his hand. An unfamiliar sensation rushed through him, and all the hairs on his arms rose at once. He felt as though his bicycle was pedaling itself, and if he let go of the handlebars, he would continue to follow the pale, green-eyed girl. He was like the blind man who could suddenly see. Colors, scents, sounds—everything was intensified. His senses were overwhelmed by so many impressions, and he felt he might faint, but he didn’t care. He was filled with melancholy when they got back to Binz.

  “May I see you tomorrow?” he asked as they put their bikes away.

  “Yes.” Without a word of farewell, she left him standing, bewildered, on the sidewalk.

  As Karl trudged back toward the hotel, his heart thumping, he couldn’t tell whether he was sad or exalted.

  The next day, he combed the city, full of anticipation, hoping to find her. After a few hours, he was close to giving up when she appeared before him wearing a sunflower-yellow dress with a matching bow in her dark hair.

  “My name’s Ingrid.”

  They walked around the town. The tree-lined Main Street was rimmed with restaurants and pubs housed in squat, whitewashed houses, most of which had small turrets with rounded cupolas. Looming above the rest of the buildings was the Hotel Loev, whose needle-sharp towers stood in stark contrast to the rest of the city’s architectural softness. The huge hotel’s columns and balconies reminded Karl of paddle steamers, and he recalled a trip he’d taken on
the Elbe with his family when they’d traveled in just such a vessel, which had once plied the Mississippi. He recalled the splashing and grating noise the paddle wheel made as it slowly urged the riverboat forward while people on the bank waved at them.

  Ingrid and Karl walked around all day, as though neither dared to stop. When evening arrived, they headed down to the sea and sat on the edge of the pier.

  “Do you see the clouds dancing on the vanishing point?”

  “What’s the vanishing point?” Karl felt silly having to ask such a question.

  “Do you see over there where the sky and the sea come together? It looks like a black line. That’s the vanishing point.”

  “Oh, yeah. I see that,” he lied.

  “When there’s no wind, powerful ground swells cause the ships and the clouds to appear as though they’re dancing. If the sun didn’t set in the west, it would appear that way, too.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “Doesn’t it look like you can almost touch it?”

  “Yeah.” He wasn’t quite sure he understood what she meant.

  They sat in silence for some time. Then she nestled her head against his shoulder. He stiffened, not daring to move, not wanting to lose this moment. He tried coming up with excuses to stay there for the rest of the day. His arms, which he’d been leaning back on, began to quiver, but he didn’t want to move them—even when they started going numb. He wanted to put his arm around her bare shoulder but couldn’t bring himself to do it. He tried to summon his courage and touch her soft skin with his palm, but his arm didn’t budge. He tried again and couldn’t do it. She got up, and he stumbled to his feet, too. They stood before each other uncertainly, and Karl cursed his own awkwardness when he offered her a formal handshake in parting. She gave a short laugh and kissed him on the cheek—he knew he wouldn’t wash his face that night—and then she was gone.

  They saw each other the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, and so it went until they took their leave at the station, when the Strangls boarded the train back to Hamburg.