Winter Men

by Jesper Bugge Kold

  A number of tents were pitched in the park along Alster Lake’s eastern bank, and it was crowded with people. He walked across the bridge to get a view of the villa. If it had been bombed, he didn’t want to find out as he was heading up the driveway. Relieved to see that it was still standing, he started back over the bridge, covering the last section at a brisk pace.

  When he stood at the front door, he suddenly lost his breath. His chest heaved up and down like a bellows. His finger approached the doorbell but stopped in midair, hovering over its target as though blocked from it by an invisible barrier. It was just his brother, just Karl. But what if they were strangers now? Maybe too much had come between them? Maybe he ought to turn around? He took a deep breath and pressed the button.

  The bell chimed noisily, and he heard running footsteps approaching. The door was thrown open.

  “Hilde!” Karl stood in the doorway, his eyes wide.

  Gerhard saw the surprise in his brother’s face. Like the clock on St. Catharine’s Church, Karl had gone still. His mouth gaped, and for several seconds he didn’t blink. Finally he came to, and his lips formed a smile. The two men shook hands hesitantly.

  After searching in vain behind the bar, Karl found a bottle in a corner cabinet. He poured out some of the sweet Kräuterlikör, and Gerhard accepted the thick-bottomed glass. They hadn’t yet said a word to each other, had just tacitly and—of course happily—confirmed that the other was alive.

  “We’re lucky,” Gerhard said softly, before draining his glass in one gulp.

  Karl grunted.

  “We’re alive.” Gerhard raised his glass as if to toast.

  A sound like a sigh emerged from Karl, who now stood next to the office’s only window. He fingered his eye patch distractedly.

  Gerhard’s mind fixated on his last sentence. A life for an eye was an expensive but acceptable trade. He didn’t know what Karl had experienced, but he was not the same man. Maybe he’d also given up his mind in exchange, because the real Karl was gone, replaced by the taciturn man at the window.

  Gerhard stood. He picked up the bottle and refilled his glass, not because he liked the taste of the sticky liquid but because of its effect on him. At the window Karl was quiet. Gerhard could almost see the thoughts circling above his brother’s head. The uncertainty of Hilde’s fate. Gerhard had seen Hamm with his own eyes. No one could have survived. He tried to think of something to say. Some consoling words that could help Karl, but they didn’t exist. He gave up.

  “Have you spoken to Müller since you returned?” he said following a long pause.

  “No.”

  “Then you haven’t heard about the factory?”

  “No, Müller’s taking care of it.”

  So Gerhard told him about the new camp in Neugraben, which was to open in September, and explained that he would be its commandant.

  Karl seemed indifferent to the news, and said nothing.

  “So we’ll be able to maintain production,” Gerhard concluded.

  “Fine, wonderful.”

  Gerhard heard in Karl’s tone that he wasn’t interested. He changed the subject. “Do you know who reported me to the Gestapo?”

  Karl didn’t respond.

  “Heinz. It was Heinz.”

  “Hilde’s Heinz?”

  “Yes.” Hilde’s goddamned Heinz, Gerhard thought.

  He studied his brother’s back for a long time. Though Karl didn’t say anything, Gerhard noticed the desperation in his demeanor. He heard his heavy breathing and watched him working his jaw. Karl hadn’t moved for several minutes; he stood as if waiting for something. He must’ve accepted that Hilde wasn’t going to turn up, Gerhard thought. Then it occurred to him that perhaps Karl was waiting for him to leave. They hadn’t seen each other in years, and yet Karl didn’t seem happy to see him. Gerhard became angry. How disrespectful. Sure, August and Hilde were no longer alive, but couldn’t Karl at least be glad that his own brother had survived? He got to his feet. He had nothing more to say.

  “I have to go.” He waited for Karl to look his way. But he didn’t.

  Hamburg, Germany, August 3, 1943

  Karl sat at his piano. He placed his fingers on the keys and waited for the familiar, joyful sensation. He hadn’t sat on this stool since before Ingrid left. But today he’d gathered his courage. He pressed down on the keys tentatively, but the feeling eluded him. The notes didn’t come together; they were just fragments of disconnected sound. Impatiently he moved his hands toward the right. The notes formed rows underneath the lid of the piano, but like lemmings they disappeared over the edge and fell. He didn’t have the touch anymore; it was dead, and the notes weren’t there. They no longer existed.

  With the slow melancholy of defeat, he lowered the lid. He felt the hollow space in his chest filling with pressure from within. A wave of exhaustion rolled through his body. He couldn’t do it anymore. Would this damn war never end?

  The doorbell brought him to his feet, and he dashed through the hallway. He practically stumbled into the door as he pulled down on the handle with all his might, calling Hilde’s name.

  But it wasn’t Hilde. It was Gerhard. Karl felt himself come to a standstill. Disappointment: that’s what he felt. The hope that it was Hilde had eclipsed everything else. It hadn’t even occurred to him that it might be Gerhard. Finally a kind of relief flooded him. At least Gerhard was alive.

  He offered Gerhard a glass. He noticed that his brother drained his drink in one gulp. That wasn’t like Gerhard.

  “We’re lucky.”

  Karl responded with a grunt. Maybe Gerhard felt lucky, but his definition of luck appeared to be quite different from his own. If only his brother would stop blabbering. If only they could just be and not talk. He turned his back to Gerhard and gazed across the lake.

  “We’re alive,” Gerhard said.

  Karl sighed. I’m not alive. I’m living but dead. Maybe you’re alive, Gerhard, but I am no longer here. Ingrid is not here, Hilde is not here, August is not here, Maximilian is not here, Sophia is not here. So I am not here, either.

  He heard Gerhard filling his glass behind him. “Have you spoken to Müller since you returned?”

  Was Gerhard a fool? The factory meant nothing anymore.

  “Then you haven’t heard about the factory?”

  “No, Müller’s taking care of it.” Karl hoped that would put an end to the conversation, but Gerhard prattled on about Neugraben instead.

  “So we’ll be able to maintain production,” he concluded.

  “Fine, wonderful.”

  “Do you know who reported me to the Gestapo?”

  Karl didn’t respond.

  “Heinz. It was Heinz.”

  “Hilde’s Heinz?” Karl asked.

  “Yes.”

  It couldn’t possibly be true. Heinz had done some terrible things, sure, but betray his own family? Karl didn’t believe he would do such a thing. But he didn’t have the strength to argue.

  Gerhard had stopped talking. To Karl, the silence was suddenly overwhelming. Although he had thought he wanted silence, he no longer did. Gerhard was his last remaining relative—or that’s how it felt—and Karl wanted him near. He would turn, embrace him, feel his heat, and just be silent. He began to cry soundlessly.

  Gerhard said something.

  “We’re all we’ve got now, Gerhard,” Karl said finally, but at that moment he heard the front door slam.

  Hamburg, Germany, August 4, 1943

  Karl weighed the pistol in his hand, then ran the tip of his finger across the cold steel. It felt good in an odd, disconcerting way. He undid the Luger’s safety with his thumb. With the thumb and index finger of his other hand, he pulled back the bolt, and a Parabellum cartridge dropped into the chamber with a swift, metallic click.

  Forehead, temple, or mouth? He stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray and resolutely picked up the pistol. It was suddenly heavier. In the short second between decision and action, the pistol suddenly weigh
ed ten times as much as before. He used both hands to lift it. They shook. He put it to his temple, but it was as if the Luger’s cold, black steel made his mind race. The pistol’s barrel became a funnel, and his thoughts rushed through it.

  How was he going to do it? How did one do this kind of thing? He could ask no one for advice. Anyone who’d ever had the same objective was, of course, gone. And he didn’t have the time. He wanted to die, and he wanted to die now. But what he faced was a titanic battle. It felt like the classic clash between good and evil. A part of him wanted to die, and another part resisted, but which part was the good and which was the evil?

  The war had taught him that things were never simply black or white. There were good men and evil men in every army, but most often both attributes could be found within the same person. If there was one thing the last few years had taught him, it was that man was neither good nor evil. People were good and evil. Even he was evil. He knew that. But hadn’t he been a good father? Hadn’t he been a good husband? Hadn’t he been a good friend? He didn’t want to know the answers.

  He looked down at himself. He adjusted his uniform jacket. It seemed like an eternity since he’d donned his uniform. But it felt wrong to exit his life wearing a suit. He had to die as the person he was: a soldier. But who was he, actually? Who was Karl Strangl? One thing was certain: he wasn’t the man he’d believed himself to be for a very long time.

  He couldn’t imagine living without August and Hilde. Hilde, an extension of himself, and August, an extension of Ingrid. Now they were gone, reduced to memories. It was pointless to live in the vacuum that had materialized in the middle of his life. And what about his life with Ingrid? What would that be like? Would she ever forgive him? Or would he always feel the coldness he’d felt before she left? Would they ever be Karl and Ingrid again? He had his doubts. No. He knew better. There was no doubt about it: it would never happen. It was irreparable.

  Even the army wanted nothing more to do with him. They’d informed him, via letter, that he’d been sent home due to his age. Forty-five years old and useless. Discarded from the only thing he’d ever been good at. He couldn’t imagine returning to the factory. It was simply impossible.

  He grew dizzy. He’d lost all control of his life. An insurmountable force was bearing down on him, tearing at his arms, and clawing at his legs. The globe whirled on its axis, and he felt pulled down by the force of the rotation. All his life he’d been pulled down. His father and the clothing factory. The SS and the war. Helena had pulled him to her, as had Karin. He’d ruined everything. But no more. It was over now. The king was one move away from checkmate, having lost its queen, its rook, and its beautiful knight.

  His finger curled around the trigger. He ought to be able to manage one final effort. But his entire life swirled before his eyes, alongside the life that might’ve been. Moral questions floated to the surface like air bubbles in a lake. He popped them all.

  A thought took root in his brain: Karl needed to be two people at once, executioner and victim. The victim had to recognize his fate, and his last hope—the only friend who could stay the execution—was his arthritis. The executioner, on the other hand, needed to be hard and cynical and determined. The executioner needed to be active, the victim passive. Somewhere between Karl the victim and Karl the executioner, he would die.

  He tightened his grip on the pistol and pressed it harder against his temple. Suddenly a yawning chasm opened between thought and action. It wasn’t his thoughts that stopped him because his head was empty, and there was no trace of his arthritis pain. But he couldn’t squeeze the trigger. His fingers were simply frozen in place. He put the pistol down on the table.

  He couldn’t even do that.

  Neugraben, Germany, September 19, 1943

  Gerhard dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief. He was tired of the heat—today was a September day disguised as midsummer—and he was tired of the way his uniform absorbed the sunlight.

  He’d been waiting at the main gate for more than half an hour. Where were they? It was unbecoming for a commandant to walk with his column, so he’d left that to Brunner. He studied himself. One had to be presentable on such an important day. He tried approaching it from a practical point of view: guests were coming, and he was the host. That was a crude oversimplification, of course, but that’s how his mind worked best now. The entire world had been simplified. He’d sealed away his grander thoughts until after the war. Then he’d sit down at his typewriter once more. Then he’d once again hear the energetic sound of the swing arms forming letters that became words that became sentences that became paragraphs that became books. His apartment and his university life felt light-years away. But he would return to them.

  Gerhard was still full of energy. He’d arrived at Neugraben the day before and was ready to get to work after a good night’s sleep. A great deal needed to be done before the Jewish women arrived in the camp. Most of them would be working at the clothing factory; the less fortunate would toil at the cement factory or be put to work building houses and roads. But in the camp they would be treated well. Though he knew it would be difficult, he would make sure of that. He’d made many requests—for a doctor, clothing and shoes, blankets, and mattresses—but all of his applications had been rejected so far. So he’d had to settle for old Hartmut’s first-aid kit, a few poorly educated guards, and the loudmouthed Brunner, who was always referring to how things were done at Stutthof or Treblinka.

  Gerhard had spent the previous evening memorizing the guards’ names. He wanted to make a good impression on them, and the least he could do was know their names. Armin Brunner, who was closest to his rank, was twenty-five and had had three of his fingers shot off near Leningrad. Neugraben was his third camp. The thirteen male guards were customs officials transferred from the free port, and all of them were over fifty years old. The female guards were young. It seemed so wrong, women as guards.

  The youngest had instantly caught his attention. Her dark pageboy hair kept falling over her face, even though she continually tucked it behind her ears. She was beautiful in a traditional way, but small and slender. Her name was Anneliese Möhlmann, and she seemed sweet and shy.

  The flies were already out. Gerhard slapped at one, but he was too slow. He bent over once more to wipe a little muck from his boots with his handkerchief. He stood, straightened his uniform, and studied the two watchtowers and the short barbed wire fence that surrounded the camp. The camp consisted of five barracks. Two of the long wooden buildings were to house the five hundred women, while the others contained wash facilities, a kitchen, and latrines. It wasn’t exactly a welcoming sight. He peered down at himself. What was he doing? What kind of a show was he putting on? He was such an idiot! What a foolish idea. Why should he be standing here as though for a parade when the tattered women arrived in their prison garb? He spat on the ground in disgust, turned, and started toward the guards’ residences.

  In the office he found a half-empty bottle. He sat down at his desk and poured some of its contents in a tin cup. A half hour and three brimming glasses later, he spotted the column marching toward him. Armin Brunner was in the lead, his chest puffed out and his German shepherd on its leash. The rest of the guards walked alongside the column in case some of the prisoners considered bolting. Judging by their wretched appearance, it wouldn’t take much to chase them down.

  The courtyard was soon filled. Brunner’s dog barked savagely, and the prisoners shifted around nervously until they stood in perfectly straight rows.

  “Attention!” shouted Brunner, and all the women removed their scarves.

  Gerhard left his office on wobbly legs. His eyes swam a bit before he could focus. He took a deep breath and made his way to the center of the courtyard. His voice quivered, just as it did when he used to begin lectures.

  “Anyone here speak German?”

  No one moved.

  “If anyone here speaks German, step forward.”

  He scanned the women, wh
ose eyes were fixed on the ground. A woman stepped forward hesitantly, and Gerhard walked up to her.

  “You speak German?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please translate the following.” He took a step back and began his speech, speaking loudly. His voice grew calmer. He paused, anticipating that the woman would translate what he’d said. She remained silent.

  He glanced at her. “So translate, woman.”

  “But . . . but I don’t speak Czech. They’re all Czechs,” she said, looking frightened.

  “Then why did you say yes when I asked? Aren’t you Czech?” Gerhard said irritably.

  “No, I’m German. From Hamburg.”

  “Jew?”

  “Yes.” She replied softly and hesitantly.

  “How did you wind up here?’

  “They forced me to divorce my husband. He’s Aryan.” She struggled to say the last few words. “I was sent to . . .”

  Gerhard raised his hand. He didn’t want to hear anymore. Experience had taught him that the less he knew about the prisoners, the easier it was for him to block out the fate that awaited them.

  He stepped away from the woman. “Anyone else speak German?”

  “I speak German,” said another woman with a thick accent.

  “Good. Translate. I will do everything in my power to ensure that you are treated well here.”

  The woman’s lips formed an acerbic smile. He’d expected some form of appreciation in the woman’s eyes, but all he saw was contempt.

  “I mean it.”

  She nodded and translated his remarks into Czech.

  Montauban, France, April 11, 1944

  Karl opened his eyes slowly and peered around the high-ceilinged room. He stretched his long body and yawned. He often imagined that the four-poster bed he slept in had once belonged to a baron or a baroness. Now it belonged to him.

  He’d been seconds away from taking his own life. Now he couldn’t even comprehend how staggeringly close he’d come to bringing on his own demise. He remembered putting the pistol down and thinking for a while about how close he’d been to death. Then a new thought had popped into his head: his war wasn’t over. He could still be put to use, and if the Wehrmacht didn’t want anything to do with him, then he’d find someone who did. He’d thought of August, of Hilde. He didn’t want their deaths to have been in vain; he didn’t want them to have died for a vanquished Germany. He would become active in the SS.