A Night of Long Knives (Hannah Vogel)

by Cantrell, Rebecca

  “I am not linked to him.” At least not once I gave Frau Röhm his remains. I hoped to never see another Röhm besides Anton after that.

  Leaves rustled underfoot. Even here the drought changed the trees.

  We stopped and faced each other on the dirt path. A squirrel scurried up a trunk behind Lang’s left shoulder. It looked pastoral and soothing, but was not. “Yet you are claiming his remains, why is that?”

  “As a courtesy to his mother.”

  “How are you acquainted with Frau Röhm?” He tilted his head, as if ready to take notes.

  I had no good answer to this question, so I answered a different one. “She asked me to claim the body when I last saw her.”

  “You must realize that if you were to make allegations about yourself and Captain Röhm, it would be exceedingly dangerous for you?” He stepped close. His voice did not change, but a chill ran down my back in spite of the heat of the day.

  “I am not a fool.” I looked straight into his dark eyes, forcing myself not to step away. “And there are no allegations to be made.”

  He stepped back a pace. We walked deeper into the shade. The roar of automobiles faded. No one would hear me scream, if it came to that. I shivered.

  “Yet I heard that you were betrothed.”

  I had to tell him part of the truth to get out of this. The only question was how much. How much did he already know? “Röhm’s men found me a day before his arrest.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. I did not think I convinced him. “He intended to force me to marry him.” I had to admit that a wedding had been planned, since he already knew that much, but best that he knew it was against my will and I had no love for Röhm. This was no time to be seen as a Röhm loyalist. “But circumstances conspired against him, and he was arrested before he could.”

  “And why did he wish to marry you?”

  “Why not?” I had no wish to discuss Röhm’s sexuality. I studied the well-tended path.

  “Where is the boy?” He leaned his upper body forward, like a crow.

  “Switzerland,” I lied quickly. “Under an assumed name.”

  “Röhm did not kidnap him too? That seems most careless.”

  “Röhm did not find him,” I lied again. He could not know that Anton was in Germany. For a fleeting second I was grateful that I did not know his location. “That was part of the incentive to make me marry him. Anton’s freedom.”

  “You would have married a man such as Röhm to keep a boy safe with whom you have only an accidental relationship?” He sounded skeptical.

  “Many relationships are accidental,” I said, thinking of Boris.

  “You are a curious woman, Hannah Vogel.”

  “Like the proverbial cat.”

  He looked as if he was about to say something personal. I did not want to hear his confidences. I said, “Why did you wish to know who claimed Röhm?”

  “I am tasked with tying up loose ends from the Night of the Long Knives.”

  So, they had already named the purge, started the mythology before they even buried the bodies. Did Hitler take the name from a Nazi song, or was he harking back to the slaying of Vortigern’s men during the time of King Arthur? Wherever it came from, that was how history would record it. “And?”

  “Anyone with links to Röhm might be considered such a loose end. Such as yourself. And Anton Röhm.”

  “Oh.”

  “Keeping the boy in Germany is tantamount to suicide.” He leaned close. “You must know that.”

  “He is not here.” Did the telegram prove me a liar?

  “I hope, for both your sakes, that is true. His claim to be Röhm’s son would be of great interest to the party. They would deal most harshly with him, or anyone associated with him who tried to use him as a propaganda tool.”

  “He makes no claims that he is Röhm’s son. Nor do I make them for him.”

  “I can’t quite believe all that you have told me, Fräulein Vogel. But I do believe that you think you have valid reasons for lying.”

  “Have I?” I did not know what to say.

  “That brings me to something else.”

  Always something else. “Oh?”

  “Why were you interviewing the women in line at Lichterfelde yesterday?”

  I stopped, shocked into silence. If he knew that, he had to arrest me. “I—I—”

  What if I had also led him to Sefton? Anton, at least, was safer where he was than with me. Assuming that he still lived.

  “You look quite faint.” He patted a nearby iron bench. I sat before I fell, metal hard against the back of my legs.

  “You must realize,” he said, “that for such actions I must bring you in to the interrogation room.”

  15

  I nodded, still speechless, and grabbed the front of the bench with both hands, trying to anchor myself. To pull myself together, I took a painful deep breath. I winced and looked at Lang. He had interrogated me once before, when he had less power, and it had not been a pleasant experience. I waited.

  “I have no appetite for beating women.” He lowered his eyes as if he knew to be ashamed of this admission. “It’s rather old-fashioned of me, but there you have it.”

  Once a reporter went into an interrogation room, few returned. They were tortured, then either killed or sent to the camps for more torture and a slower death. What would he do?

  He patted my knee with a sweaty hand. “You are caught up in something much larger than yourself, Fräulein Vogel, and I have sympathy for that.”

  What did he want? A bribe, or something worse? “Sympathy?” I croaked. SS Hauptsturmführers had sympathy only when it suited them. And whatever suited him did not suit me.

  He moved his hand, leaving a damp spot on my knee. “This time, I’ll close my eyes and not report you.”

  I stared at him, unable to believe it. What was his price?

  “If it happens again, I will have no choice but to turn you over. And there are many men without my scruples. Men who enjoy beating information out of women.” His dark eyes bored into mine. “Do you understand?”

  I nodded.

  He stood. “It has been an instructive morning, Fräulein Vogel.”

  “Thank you,” I said, and I meant it. Whatever the price, he gave me my life back. I had to find Anton and leave Germany before the price came due. I did not think Lang believed in second chances.

  He bowed, clicked his heels together, then turned and walked out of the park, erect bearing making it easy to follow his dark figure until it vanished from sight amid the brown trunks and green leaves. I glanced up and down the empty path. Was I alone? Had he assigned someone to watch me?

  I sat so still that a gray squirrel stopped by my foot, sensing that I was a threat to no one. When I trusted my legs enough to stand up, I put a hand on the warm wrought iron armrest and pushed myself to my feet, dizzy. The startled squirrel darted up a tree and chattered.

  My shoes stumbled along the hard-packed dirt pathway toward the sounds of automobiles and, eventually, voices. Death had stared me in the face and, inexplicably, it had passed me by.

  But why? Why had he let me go? Did he expect me to lead him to someone else? All I had to offer was Anton, and I would die before I helped the Nazis take him.

  I climbed onto the streetcar and sat in the corner, away from the other passengers. Few passengers rode in the car. Two workmen argued on a bench. One had an oversize moustache, the other peculiarly long fingers. I noted each face, each posture, in case one of my fellow passengers followed me. The car started with a familiar jerk, and I settled into my seat, glad that the streetcar’s clacking kept me from hearing their conversation.

  I examined the yellow envelope, careful to keep it low in my lap so no one would see. On the front was my name and the Lichterfelde SS address, typed by a machine with a new ribbon, each letter crisp and clear. I turned the envelope over, but the back held no clues. The flap looked sealed, but Doppelgänger or Lang might have steamed i
t open. I ran my fingertips along the edges. Dry.

  I studied the envelope, tilting it back and forth. No signs of water-staining from steam. So either no one had opened it, or they had been careful.

  I slid my fingernail under the flap. It came open easily.

  1934 JUL 3, AM 07 00

  S65 CABLE = MUNICH 118 15

  LICHTERFELDE SCHUTZSTAFFEL HEADQUARTERS

  HANNAH VOGEL, 0915 APPOINTMENT

  M TOOK A STOP CALL IMMEDIATELY STOP

  ER

  My eyes teared, and I crumpled the paper in my left palm. The car jerked to a stop. A tall man entered. He sat at the bench across from mine, exuding the scent of cheap tobacco and sulfur. The smell carried me back to my meeting with Eicke. I studied this man out of the corner of my eye. Clean-shaven and nondescript. The kind of man I passed a hundred times without noticing. Until today.

  I longed to move to another seat, but dared not risk calling attention to myself. Was he SS or was I going crazy, jumping at shadows? Whether he was SS or not, I needed to concentrate on the telegram. The sender was ER, and I knew it must be Emilie Röhm. Not wanting to hold it anymore, I dropped the balled-up telegram in my satchel. M I assumed to be Mouse. A was Anton. Mouse had taken Anton. That implied Anton had been with Frau Röhm, or she had known his location and it had not been with Mouse. Would Mouse bring Anton to me, now that I had filled out the paperwork for Röhm’s body? Or had Mouse kidnapped Anton away from Frau Röhm, or perhaps double-crossed her? I remembered the easy way that Mouse had hit him. He might even now be beating Anton somewhere. I clenched my hands and told myself not to create monsters in my imagination. Germany had enough real monsters already.

  What would Lang have made of the telegram, if he had read it? He would surmise that A was Anton and ER was Frau Röhm. But I did not see how he could know M’s identity, and the telegram did not mention Anton’s location, so it did not contradict my assertion that he was out of the country. Frau Röhm had been discreet enough. I hoped.

  I left at the next station and paused at a kiosk selling newspapers. Pretending to read the headlines, I kept an eye on the three men with whom I had shared the car. The conductor announced the closing of the doors as I purchased a bar of chocolate. All three men stayed seated. While unwrapping the chocolate I watched the car pull away.

  Relieved that they were not SS, I glanced around the street for a telephone booth. One crisis at a time. I ate the chocolate, found a booth, and called Frau Röhm’s house in Munich.

  The maid answered on the first ring. “Röhm.” Her voice sounded clipped, afraid.

  “Hannah here,” I said, unwilling to give out my last name, wondering who might be listening to Frau Röhm’s telephone line. Lang, tying up loose ends?

  “Give me your number. She will call soon.”

  I read the number off the telephone, relieved that Frau Röhm behaved as if she suspected that her telephone was no longer secure. The less the Nazis knew about our movements, the better.

  I hung up the receiver. People scurried past to a nearby café for lunch. Mouse had Anton. Was my boy eating lunch? I fingered my cracked rib. Was Anton hurt?

  A man walked by carrying a wire cage containing a yellow canary. His tiny beak opened and closed, but inside the wooden-and-glass telephone booth I could not hear his song. The telephone rang. I picked it up before the end of the first ring, eyes on the canary.

  “Hannah?” I recognized Frau Röhm’s quavery voice.

  “Speaking.” The man with the canary crossed the street and disappeared into the crowd.

  “I have no time for formalities. Mouse refuses to bring Anton back to me. The bastard says that we must buy him.”

  I bit back a cry. Frau Röhm did not control Mouse. Anything might happen to Anton. Anything at all. But surely Mouse would keep him safe if he thought him worth money?

  “You are to meet him at nine tonight at Britz Mill. Do you know where that is?”

  “I do.” Years ago I read a newspaper article on it. A windmill in southern Berlin, far from public transit, and deserted at night. The perfect place to arrange a ransom. No one would see us, and he could shoot us both without attracting attention. I had to stop thinking that way.

  “I cannot come.” Frau Röhm sighed angrily. “I haven’t the strength, even with the pills. Getting old is a curse.”

  Better than dying young. I held my tongue. “I understand.” I did not want her there. One enemy was dangerous enough.

  “If you do not pay the ransom—” A cough interrupted her. I waited for her to finish.

  A middle-aged man tapped on the glass and pointed to his wristwatch. Apparently he felt I had spent enough time using the telephone. I turned my back to him. “What happens?”

  She cleared her throat. “Mouse will turn Anton over to the party. He has sources there who will pay for Anton’s elimination.”

  I thought of Lang’s assertion that the party would be happy to do away with Anton and anyone who held him and knew that Mouse could be telling the truth. The telephone booth spun, and I gripped the receiver hard.

  “How much money?” I had little money with me. I would never get to Switzerland in time. But I trusted Boris to help us, argument or no.

  “I’ve seen to that. One of the last men whom I trust has left a package for you at Hotel Adlon’s front desk.”

  Hotel Adlon? Where Sefton was staying? A coincidence? Or did Frau Röhm know only one hotel in all of Berlin? The Adlon was famous even in Munich. Just the place where Ernst Röhm would have put up his mother.

  “Hannah,” she said sharply. “You can find that?”

  I nodded, then realized that she could not see my nod over the telephone. “Yes.”

  “Do not fail.” She broke the connection.

  I hung the receiver on the cradle and dropped my head into my hands. I did not believe in ransoms. Only two years ago the Lindberghs paid double ransoms on a child who was probably dead before they received either ransom note. My best chance lay in my finding Anton before he arrived at the ransom location. Anton had not been safe with Frau Röhm, but with Mouse he was in worse danger. I checked my pocket watch. It was an old-fashioned gold timepiece my father had bequeathed to my brother. He rejected it as too masculine and passed it to me, claiming it was lucky. It had better bring me luck, as I had less than nine hours to find Anton.

  The man rapped on the glass again. I opened the door. He looked frantic rather than angry. Who knew what crisis was happening in his life?

  I stepped out and held the door for him.

  “Thank you much,” he said with a Russian accent.

  I nodded and stepped into the street. Just in case, I must retrieve the ransom money. I shoved my way back through the crowds to the streetcar stop.

  I rode to the Schöneberg station. First, I had to make certain that I was not being followed. Even though I saw no one when I left the streetcar to call, I had to be careful and not lead them to Anton. After my meeting with Lang, I dared take no more risks.

  I paced as I waited for a train. No one seemed familiar or suspicious, and I worried that I wasted time. Perhaps I should hail a taxi instead of trying the dangerous trick I was thinking of doing in the tunnels. Before I changed my mind, the train clattered into the station.

  I hopped on, noticing who climbed aboard with me. When the train stopped at the next station, a train going the opposite direction pulled beside us and disgorged passengers on the other platform.

  The trains stood side by side. I stepped to the doors closest to the other train. Yanking open the door, I leaned out across the rails. It was hard to keep my balance, and if I fell between the trains, I would be crushed.

  I pulled open the door to the other train. Before either train started moving, I jumped onto the other train. Behind me, passengers exclaimed in surprise. If anyone had followed me, they were stuck on my old train, or they had to try the same maneuver I had. And I could catch them at it.

  I kept my head stuck out the open door. T
he doors of my old train slammed shut and it roared away. No one had followed me. And no one would have had time to climb the stairs and run to the platform. If I had pursuers, I had lost them.

  I settled into the new seat, heart racing. It had been dangerous, and if I had been followed, they were aware that I knew it, but for the moment I had peace.

  I picked up a battered leather valise at the front desk of the Hotel Adlon. It had been left for a Hannah Vogel. The concierge did not remember who had left it, nor did anyone else.

  Hidden in a bathroom stall, I opened the valise and counted the money, then wrapped the bills in my peacock-green scarf and tucked the package into my satchel. I brought the empty valise back to the front desk. Perhaps the owner would return to claim it.

  I did not allow the friendly doorman to hail a taxi, afraid of being traced from here. It was probably paranoid, but the harder I made it to follow my tracks, the safer I felt.

  I walked several blocks, checking behind me for anyone following, before I hailed a taxi. Frau Röhm could have me followed from here.

  Where to go? I thought of Anton, held captive by Mouse, perhaps locked in a closet somewhere. Years ago I had promised him that no one would lock him away again as his mother had done. I clenched and unclenched my fists. I could not keep that promise if I could not find him.

  16

  Today was finally Tuesday. I pulled out my pocket watch. After three. She would be there. I smiled, already looking forward to the encounter. If anyone could put a name to a Berlin pimp named Mouse who broke ribs, Agnes could.

  A short taxi ride later I stood in front of an office building on the Kufürstendamm.

  Stability and respectability radiated from its bulky Wilhelminian-style curves. I let myself into the lobby and checked the notice board to see if the business I wanted had a listing. It did not, but it never had before, so that did not worry me.

  I hurried to a set of Art Nouveau–style bronze elevator doors and my best chance to trap Mouse. As an excuse to study the street behind me, I smoothed my hair in the mirror hanging next to the elevator. No one seemed out of place in the street. Better I worry less about what I ran from and more about what I ran to.