by Mick Hare
Twenty-seven
Working all the hours sent was no bad thing for Robert. The scorched, blackened hole that sat right at the core of his being could be more easily skirted around if he was too busy to think. When he did get time to stop Lily was always on hand to give him the physical love he craved in order to retain some semblance of belief in himself as human. When they fell apart he was saved from the emptiness by the rock-like sleep he plummeted into.
A large part of his work involved picking up the patients’ list left behind by Doctor Troost. Some of this involved going into the avenues and boulevards of Munich to visit housebound patients. Quite often he would set off to see a patient only to find the address no longer existed but had been replaced by a massive bomb crater. Another name to cross off the list; sometimes several.
A substantial number of his patients lived in the poorer districts of the city. In wartime poverty is magnified. Robert, who had developed his detestation of the Nazis during his days in Berlin, had however retained a lot of his admiration for the Germany he had first fallen in love with at the feet of father Peter. One of the aspects he had always admired and compared favourably to the situation in Britain and Ireland was the health and social services that had been developed since the days of Bismarck. They had lifted the German population far above the privations of poverty and illness experienced back home. The German troops had laughed at their British adversaries when first encountering them in battle. Who were these malnourished, growth-stunted, bad-toothed warriors? What chance could they possibly have of victory?
On entering the square-block apartments of some of his patients he could see that almost ten years of Nazism had undone much of that work. He encountered levels of poverty the like of which he had never seen before. Tall apartment blocks, cheaply built to house the asocials. Here was the starkest reminder that there were two Germanys. This was the worst poverty he had witnessed, and coming from Ireland that was some statement to make.
Katerin Tring was a ten year old with tuberculosis. She lived with her mother, grandparents and six siblings. Her father and two older brothers were infantrymen in Russia. Here was an asocial family, not much better than the Jews to the Nazis and here was their reward for fighting in the drang nach osten for the greater glory of the Third Reich. A damp, cold flat in a paper thin apartment block with two bedrooms for nine people and a child with tuberculosis. It was only a matter of time before the girls’ younger siblings contracted the disease.
A framed picture of the late Pope hung above the mantelpiece. They obviously couldn’t afford one of the new Pope yet.
Robert administered what he knew to be useless medicine and dispensed some equally useless advice about the living conditions and the effect they were having on the girl’s chances. What could the Tring family hope to do about the conditions? The only people likely to effect any lasting change were the British airmen who paid nightly visits to drop bombs on people like this. Robert took consolation in the fact that his own mission would not inflict indirect damage on the likes of these. In that sense he could think of his mission as pure.
Grandfather Tring walked with Robert to the end of the aerial walkway and they stood talking at the head of the stairwell. He explained to Robert that he had no money and could not pay for the home visit. From behind his back he pulled the picture of Pope Pius XI, the old, dead Pope.
“For you, Herr Doctor,” the old man said. “It is the only thing of value I have to offer you. I know you are a good Catholic and will value this. It is not a painting. It is a genuine photograph.”
Robert began to protest, but when he saw the silent plea in the old man’s eyes he reached out, took the painting and murmured his thanks.
The old man turned and walked back along the walkway to his apartment door. For a moment Robert watched him and then turned towards the stairs. Out of the darkness towards him came a figure. Only slowly as it emerged towards the light of the opening could Robert begin to make it out. With coat and hat too big for him, this man had experienced a decline in fortunes. He walked with the assurance of an ex-soldier, upright and stiff, but there was a sense of defeat or disappointment in his bearing.
Robert looked down at the papal face in his picture and headed towards the stairs. It was only as he came alongside the approaching figure that he glanced up and met his eyes. As their glance connected Robert felt a rod-like shock shoot through him.
And then he was in the stairwell and descending through the darkness. If he had looked over his shoulder he would have seen ex-Captain Vogts looking down into the darkness after him with a puzzled expression on his face. Ex-Captain Vogts, once staff Captain to General Zeiger, the scourge of the French Resistance, assassinated in Gerona by one Doctor Bauer.
Twenty-eight
As they were finishing their evening meal the air raid sirens started up. Robert and Lily hurried the remainder of their food and then wrapped up warmly to make their way to the nearest public shelter. Robert had told Lily of his encounter with Captain Vogts.
“I don’t think he recognised me. It was a fleeting encounter.”
Lily’s impatience with this comment was evident in her response.
“You recognised him, didn’t you!”
“Yes!”
“Well we must assume that he recognised you. If he did it means our days are numbered. It means our mission must be aborted.”
“Hang on,” protested Robert. “Think it through with me. Suppose he saw someone he thought he recognised. Well, that happens to people all the time. So he will dwell on it for a while and then forget it.”
“Robert,” said Lily. “You’re not thinking straight.”
“No,” pleaded Robert. “Give me a chance, bear with me. If he recognised me as the Dr Bauer who assassinated General Zeiger, he knows I’m an enemy agent and we would already be inside Gestapo headquarters.”
“Well,” joked Lily ironically, “Any minute now.”
“But,” continued Robert, “If he thought he knew me and wanted to find out who I was, he would have to ask the Tring family. Remember, he only saw a stranger walking by. He doesn’t know I’m a doctor or why I was there. To get that information out of the Tring family he would have to make some door to door enquiries and hopefully, from his point of view, alight on the Trings during the course of his investigation. So I need to go to the Trings and find out if Vogts has been there.”
“Robert, you are being ridiculous. Listen to yourself.”
“No, Lily. I will call tomorrow on the pretext of checking up on the young girl and I’ll make some general enquiries of my own.”
Lily was silenced by exasperation. Eventually she spoke.
“All right, Robert. I’ll go along with your plan, but only on one condition.”
“Good woman! Now what’s your condition?”
“I go to the Trings. Not you.”
“Oh no…”
“For pity’s sake Robert, open your eyes. If he saw you there once, he could see you again. Suppose you’re clutching at straws is right and he hasn’t been able to place you, do you want to give him another sighting to help jolt his memory?”
Robert looked downcast. He knew she was right. But he did not want to accept it.
All through their night in the shelter he argued the point. But Lily didn’t need to respond. They both knew she had won. When Robert dozed off Lily stared at his sleeping face. What was it about this man that made him so elusive? There were times when she thought she had grasped his essence in her two passionate hands, only to feel him slip away again far from the reach of her love. She feared that he no longer cared about his own fate. His reaction to the encounter with Vogts suggested to her that there was no danger which could convince him of the need to abort this mission. It was as if the war was incidental to some personal mission of his own. Perhaps this was what drew her on towards him ever more desperately despite her best intentions. Perhaps she too had lost sight of the big picture. Finally, she too dozed off leaning
against him in this damp, smelly place. Above them the sky snapped and boomed like a taut black sheet and Munich wondered if the morning would ever come.
Twenty-nine
The next day was Sunday and Robert went off to the convent chapel to hear mass. He was alone. He explained to those who asked, that last night’s raid had left Lily with a severe headache and she was at home trying to sleep it off. In reality she was on her way to the home of the Tring family ostensibly to administer care to the tuberculosis patient; in reality to find out how much Vogts had discovered.
Lily went straight to the Trings front door and was immediately ushered in when she introduced herself as Dr. Hermann’s wife. Her pretext for calling was to drop off some more medication for their daughter and she carried out an examination of the girl.
“There are blood stains on this pillow,” she said accusingly to Frau Tring. “Why have you not replaced the pillow case with a clean one?”
Mrs Tring looked ashamed.
“That case was clean this morning Frau Brandt. As soon as I give her a new one she coughs up more blood. I cannot keep up with her.”
“There is no excuse for poor hygiene Frau Tring,” Lily replied coldly.
On her way from the child’s bedroom to the front exit she passed by Herr Tring sitting in the living area.
“I believe someone was asking about the Doctor after he left here yesterday.”
It was a stab in the dark but it paid off.
“That is correct,” replied Herr Tring. “It was quite odd actually. He is a man I’ve seen about the area. Apparently he lives at the far end of the next block. But I cannot say I know him. He asked if a man answering to the Doctor’s description had called here. When I told him yes, he asked a few questions and then thanked me and left.”
“What sort of questions did he ask?” Lily interjected.
But Herr Tring paused and looked closely at Lily.
“How did you know someone had called here?” he asked.
Lily almost blushed and for an instant she was stuck for an answer. Then she quickly recovered herself and said, “A woman in the stairwell said a man had asked her about the doctor and she had directed him to you.”
It was an instantaneous lie of some ingenuity and it seemed to satisfy Herr Tring.
“Well,” he said, “he asked who the Doctor was and how long he had been in practice here. He then asked where the Doctor’s surgery was… and things like that.”
“Did the man say who he was?” asked Lily. Then to justify Frau Tring’s curiosity she quickly added, “Perhaps he needs the Doctor to treat him.”
“He said his name was Vogts; and he is an ex Wermacht Captain. Like I said, he lives at the end of the next block, but he didn’t say exactly where.”
“Oh well,” Lily said, deciding she had garnered all the knowledge she was going to from this source, “If he needs the Doctor I’m sure he will know where to find us.”
“Oh yes,” said Frau Tring, “He’ll be able to do that all right. We told him exactly where to find the surgery.”
Lily did not return home immediately. Instead she wandered from the Trings’ block amongst the other apartment blocks towards the one Herr Tring had indicated Captain Vogts was living in. On some notepaper she wrote down the address of the block and was about to leave when an apartment door opened and out stepped what seemed to be an elderly man. When he turned so that she could see his face she saw that he was not elderly but in early middle age. It was the air of defeat about him that suggested old age and Lily knew that it was the effect of her doctor husband’s actions that had broken this man in far off Gerona.
After mass, the holy Mother invited Robert back to her quarters for coffee and biscuits. Headmaster Todt was there along with his wife, Julia. The holy Mother was in sparkling form, taking Robert by the arm and leading him ahead of the others back to her warm rooms, although there was some aspect of pre-occupation in her manner. She talked about one of the children who had been with the school choir at mass.
“Did you see little Angela?”
Robert looked at her quizzically.
“The little tot in the big ribbon,” she added by way of explanation. “The one who tripped over on her way up to communion.”
“Ah yes,” nodded Robert, smiling at the memory.
“And again at the altar!” added Mother. “I suppose we should feel sympathy for the poor unfortunate. She is the clumsiest girl in Germany. She is always stumbling and tumbling, bless her. She often has us in fits of laughter. But it can be so infuriating. I mean this very morning. Did you see the way she fell against the altar rail? Father was most put-out.”
Robert was surprised to hear Mother sound so irritated at such a little thing. He had been vaguely aware of a stumble but had dismissed it until now. Mother was showing a side he had not seen before. He had only experienced her formal side before today. But today she was excited, yet disproportionately annoyed by an insignificant accident. He was interested to observe that her mood had lifted and intrigued to discover why a tiny imperfection during the ceremony of the mass had irritated her so.
“I’ve asked her mother to bring her to my quarters for a moment before setting off for home. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Why, of course not, Mother. I shall be very pleased to see her and her mother.”
“Let’s hurry along before the headmaster and his wife catch us. Herr Todt is a marvellous teacher, but he is a bit humourless. I want to deal with this without his presence.”
She laughed again, nervously, and they hurried along the corridors to her rooms. Angela and her mother were waiting outside when they arrived. Angela looked even smaller beside the giant oak door than she had done in the church; her ribbon giving the illusion that she was a wrapped parcel.
“Frau Rusbech, thank you so much for calling. Come along in.”
As they all entered, the Mother took Angela’s face in her two hands and fondled it. But there was little affection in the gesture. Angela smiled and giggled nervously.
“Your daughter is an angel, Frau Rusbech. You named her well. Come here, Angela,” said the Mother as she beckoned Angela to join her beside a tall cupboard against the far wall.
As Angela moved across the room she lived up to the reputation Mother Superior had boasted for her and tripped. She fell to her knees but jumped up just as quickly. Mother Superior laughed and Frau Rusbech chuckled knowingly. “That’s my daughter,” she seemed to be saying in a form of ironic pride.
Robert was not smiling. In his frown, which he immediately did his best to disguise, lay the recognition of an extremely rare muscle wasting disease. His medical mind executed an instantaneous diagnosis before his consciousness told him not to be so stupidly melodramatic. Still, he was sure there was evidence there worth investigating.
“Here you are Angela,” Mother Superior was saying as she handed a large chocolate biscuit to the beaming Angela.
As Robert watched the scene his thoughts roamed over morbid ground. Part of him longed to be here, not just in the role as doctor but as a real doctor. He cursed his mission and wished he could intervene in this little girl’s fate. But then he asked himself, what would be the point? He should be back in England in a few weeks, two months at the latest. This young girl would probably have been blown to pieces by an allied bomb by then. Her chances of surviving until hostilities ceased were virtually nil. Why should he destroy this passing happiness with some diabolical diagnosis; always supposing, of course, that his depressing assumption had any basis in fact.