It was early afternoon when he arrived at his house in Langfuhr. He planned to change his clothing, then go to Sopot for the weekend. Large dark clouds, reflecting his mood, covered the lackluster August sky. He climbed the stairs to the master bedroom, exhausted. The door to the bedroom was slightly ajar and he heard movement inside.
Fräulein Marlow, partially clothed, was pulling the sheets over the bed. She turned, and there was a look of surprise on her fresh and beautiful face when she saw Brand enter the room. Her long blond hair was loose, partially covering her magnificent breasts. She straightened up, stood defiantly in front of him, and then removed the rest of her clothing. Not a word was exchanged. She sensed his outrage, intermingled with his heightening passion. He brutally pushed her back on the bed, attacking her with his hands, slapping her face, all of which aroused her. She clutched her attacker, pressing him to her, into her, almost through her.
Her ecstasy poured from the very depths of her being. Over and over again he thrust into her like a frenzied gladiator. She pushed up to meet each thrust, tearing the skin on his back. It was very brief. Spent, angry, weary, he had to strike her face smartly to free himself from her grasp.
“I know everything,” he told her. “What you did with my son. It is all in his diary, you pitiful monster. Damn your soul!”
Brand had had no intentions of reading Jonas’ diary, the one Uncle Herman gave him several years back. But there it was, peeking out from the pocket of Jonas’ old rain jacket, probably forgotten. Just days before, Brand had gone into the storage closet where they stowed their bad-weather gear and had found it. It was not locked. At first, he had read the confused descriptions of sex play – a boy’s fumblings and worshipful desire to please, like a sacrament – with amusement, thinking it merely Jonas’ fancy and imagination, a written daydream. That is, until he suddenly remembered the way the governess caressed his son’s hand during the concert that summer. Then Brand realized it was not fiction.
He left her on the bed, in shock, crying from the pain and from being so humiliated and shamed. In his rage, Brand had nearly strangled the woman. She now almost wished he had. Through the open door, she listened to his movements, waiting, waiting for him to return. She had never seen such hate and anger in a man’s eyes.
After he showered and dressed, he went to the library. This door, too, had been left ajar. He whistled “Lilli Marlene.” He opened the safe, removed 1,000 guldens, wrote the combination of the safe on a piece of paper and stuck it in the pocket of his newest tuxedo shirt, in the armoire, along with a note: “Dearest Lucia, this is the combination, just in case. I am ever yours, Brand.”
Dressed in his white duck trousers and a white shirt, he placed his boatsman cap smartly on his head and climbed into the Duesenberg, as the governess, still naked, watched him from behind the curtains of her bedroom, tears streaking down her swollen cheeks.
The sky now looked almost black and smelled of rain. It suddenly grew even darker and the wind picked up. Brand pulled the convertible roof closed just as the rain came down in sheets, like a waterfall rushing down a mountain. The torrent was mixed with hail and the winds now blowing in from the North Sea were of gale force. On and on he drove, the visibility very poor as he continued to make his way slowly along the periphery of Danzig Harbor. The waves grew huge and white, the winds now dangerous. He observed the mighty sycamore trees bending like saplings. He suddenly panicked – Jonas might be on the boat, perhaps even at sea!
He eventually stopped at a small service station and phoned the house. There was no answer. “All the lines are out,” the garage attendant told him, “and the roads may already be flooded. You must drive with great caution. Perhaps you had best wait it out here.”
Brand pictured Jonas being swept out to sea. The gods are angry with me, he thought, and they are right. Lucia was so right. He thought of the years the boy had been in Fräulein’s care, alone. It grieved him to think of the poisons that woman drew into little Jonas’ mind and body. The devil resided in her. Why hadn’t he seen it? He had stopped just short of choking the life out of her. Had he done so, he would have descended into the same hell that was all around them. He would have been no better than they. Still, he thought himself a coward. He hadn’t run when he could, and he hadn’t struck back with the relevance this madness deserved. His guilt, about not seeing what was happening all around him, about not leading his family to safety, overwhelmed him. This Brand, this man who had risen from nothing to something, was no great man after all.
Sweating in the car as he inched along the flooded road, he continued to confront the nakedness of this truth. Was it now too late, he wondered? Would Lucia and Jonas forgive him? Could he ever forgive himself ? Then he saw in the distance a man standing in the middle of the road, waving his arms over his head. A checkpoint. The road was deserted, and the man was wearing a black SS uniform. Brand decided to ignore him and to drive on, but he could not accelerate the car through the foot of water. The SS soldier did not move, and Brand slammed down on the brakes, skidding to the side of the road. He reached into the glove compartment for the loaded Luger and placed it in his belt, behind his back.
The man approached the Duesenberg. His blond hair looked like wet straw over his sunken drunken eyes. It was such a young face, Brand observed, thinking that he once might have been a university student, perhaps even in Danzig. A zigzag scar ran from the man’s eyelid to the angle of his small angry mouth.
“Get out of the car! I order you in the name of the Third Reich. Show me your papers!”
Brand sat firm, looking directly into the soldier’s eyes, his hand behind his back, fingers on the trigger. The soldier’s trousers and body, soaked by the rain, must have felt as if they were drenched in blood. Was it not the same feeling he experienced on the battlefield so very long ago when the Bolsheviks swept down on him with their bloodied sabers? The SS soldier had that same bloodied look. Perhaps all men look that way when they are out to murder. Brand sat in silence, waiting, and then the door of the car was flung open and Brand was pulled out, the soldier pounding his head, screaming, “Filthy Jew!” and kicking him in the ribs, kicking and kicking, Brand thought from a place deep inside himself, in a ritual of punishment and redemption. Kicking him to his senses. Then, standing above him, the soldier drew the sidearm he was carrying and pointed the gun at Brand’s head. Brand quickly drew the Luger from his belt, and shot at the blond face. With one bullet he silenced them both, this boy, and the woman who had scratched his dear boy’s innocence. This bullet silenced them – their hate, and possibly also some of the crushing guilt he carried for this desperate mess.
The soldier’s eyes were staring, disbelieving. He fell on Brand. His blood mixed with water, a widening circle of red grew around the dead soldier, and a thin red stream now flowed swiftly down a crack in the road. Brand pushed the corpse off his body. He was wet and sticky, smeared with sweat and blood.
There was no one else in view. The road was deserted. He rinsed his hands in the water at his feet, splashed his face, and struggled to climb back into the car, holding his ribs with one red hand. Each time he took a breath he felt the stabbing pain of broken ribs. The leather seat was soon covered with his own blood, dripping from his torn face. It was dark, but surely the people living in all these peaceful-looking houses would have seen everything. No one these days would dare venture out into the street themselves, but they were surely witness to what happened – a drunken soldier out to kill an innocent man who did what had to be done to defend himself. What reasonable man or woman, after all – if indeed any were left – could dispute that? There was no other narrative for him because if Brand now ran away, the guilt would shift to him, especially as the murdered man was SS The uniform told the story. They would hunt him down and kill him – and Lucia and Jonas, too. Now they would have a perfect excuse to do what they no doubt intended to soon do anyway, when neither the Prince nor Hess nor Kruger’s own fortune could help him.
Li
mping, holding his side, Brand came to a small provincial house where an aged widow lived. He rang the bell, knocked on the door, the rain splashing over his anguished face. As he was about to leave to find another house, the door opened just a crack, and a small furry brown cat eyed him suspiciously.
“I am hurt,” he said softly through the narrow opening. “May I please use your telephone?”
A tiny old woman wrapped in a black shawl slowly opened the door.
“Someone tried to kill me,” he told her. “I have to use your phone to call the police.”
“Come in,” she said. “Let me bring you a towel and some hot soup. I am sorry to have made you wait. These days, you know, there are Jews escaping, looking for hiding places. You look like a gentleman.”
He left a puddle of water beneath his feet and apologized.
“If you allow me, I would like to compensate you for your troubles.” He did not wait for her answer, but slipped 100 guldens from his wallet and left it on a small round table covered with an embroidered tablecloth.
In the mirror of the bathroom, he saw how his face was bruised and swollen where the SS man had kicked him. His cut lip was oozing blood, and his side was aching. The woman must have seen everything from her window, and if she would be honest she could help to save his life. The phone worked now, and he called the police station, asking for the chief, Paul Richter, his tennis partner. “He is not here. Who is calling?” asked the desk clerk.
“Brand Kruger. I want to report an accident. A man ran in front of my car and tried to kill me when I came out to help him. He is dead. I shot him.” He told them the location of the house and the site of the accident.
The old woman sat in the living room, her hands folded in her lap, her back straight, a steaming cup of hot soup on the table opposite her. Brand came out of the bedroom, composed but weak, in scorching pain and utterly exhausted.
“I must make one or two more calls. Please take this extra 500 guldens, Madam, for being so patient and kind, and I would like to reward you some more. These must be hard times for you.”
The Prince answered the phone. He was about to leave for the weekend, too, for the charming Baltic village of Kronenbourg where he had taken a cottage. The Prince listened with horror and motioned to the valet to give him a change of clothes.
“Don’t run, Brand! Stay put, and leave the rest to me.”
“No, listen,” Brand said. “Lucia has been wanting to go on a little vacation. Please take her and Jonas – tonight! I promised them. Tell them I will see them on Sunday.”
“You mean to Switzerland, now?” the Prince whispered.
“Yes, now is a good time.” Weakened and now perspiring profusely, Brand sat on the couch waiting, trying not to faint. Even if he decided to suddenly break and run, he lacked the strength to do so. At least this diversion would give Lucia and Jonas time to cross the border to Poland. He waited, trying to gather his wits and his strength.
The storm was raging, and the phone lines were evidently down in Sopot. He could not warn her, but he knew the Prince could be relied on to do what was necessary. He would take them by chauffeured limousine to Warsaw, then by train to Geneva, to safety. Brand tried to light a wet cigarette, and groaned quietly to himself. This was not the way it was supposed to go.
Lucia stared at her watch, the gold Piaget that Brand gave her for her thirtieth birthday. She was in the bedroom, examining her jewelry, touching it playfully, wistfully, a naughty child surrounded by the soft duvets lying on the bed. It becomes quite cool in August in Sopot, but it was still too early to start up the coal stove. Jonas was in a deep sleep in his bed. The storm was subsiding, but the swells of the water had reached the house, covering the beach and flooding the street. Tiring of playing with her jewelry, she sat by candlelight, the electricity having failed earlier. The private guard had left when the hurricane started, and there was just Astor lying on the floor at her feet. Brand had left her a small revolver, fully loaded, in the night table.
“I don’t want to learn how to shoot a gun,” she remembered saying when Brand first gave it to her. They were aboard their schooner when Brand taught her how to fire it.
“Squeeze the trigger like a nipple, slowly, lovingly.” She laughed to herself, now, at Brand, so clever, so charming. Her mind cleared of memory, and she listened to the splatter of the water against the eaves. It was too dark to see what was happening outside. There was no car to take her and Jonas to dry ground, and even if there were, she did not know how to drive.
“In America,” Brand had said, “everyone drives a car, and along with our English lessons you should also take driving lessons.”
“In America,” Lucia said, “I will learn to drive a car.”
Then she cried to herself when she thought of the English lessons and that boy she would never see again. She cried because she had almost betrayed her husband and was suddenly grateful that she would not ever have to see the teacher. She thought about poor dead Bill, too, for the first time in a long while, and thought about the strange things loneliness does to people. Leaning back on the sofa, she closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of the storm.
None of them had really come back after Bill died. She and the Prince had personally packed up Bill’s belongings to return to his family. They had composed a dignified letter to his parents that followed the cable they had immediately sent. The letter described how the young architecture student had blossomed under the European sky, how well-mannered and brave he was, and what a privilege it was for them to befriend and look after him. The beauty and power of that truth was a consolation of sorts. No mention was made of the young female art student Bill had concocted for his parents’ satisfaction. When they were done, the Prince, wearing the ring he had given Bill in the first blush of their friendship, had cried as Lucia held him, his trembling body surprisingly supple and boy-like.
Now the old house was trembling too, making cracking sounds, like a ship straining against a heavy sea.
Lucia thought back to the day they had bought the house so many years ago. Jonas was still a baby and there was no Fräulein yet. They returned from the closing, the boarded-up place was now theirs. It was an ugly, raw winter day. They had built a fire and vowed to love each other forever as Brand had slowly removed her clothes and made love to her on the floor next to the glowing hearth. Afterwards, they smoked cigarettes, drank wine, ate cheese and pâte, and planned how they would paint and decorate the house. During the summer, a nursemaid tending to Jonas, they swam naked at night in the ocean, and then ate supper on their veranda. Brand always ordered a formal four-course meal from the casino dining room, and the best champagne – all of this served by a waiter dressed in a tuxedo. Brand liked dining in formal wear. Ah, those were such spectacular days.
Why did it all have to change? Lucia cried quietly, and fell asleep on the couch.
The wind finally subsided, the storm ended. She was awakened by the sound of a car. Thank God, Brand was back. He must have been stuck on the road and could not telephone. What time was it?
Astor was up at the door, growling. “Shame on you. It is Papa,” she said, happiness animating her voice. She was transformed, glowing with relief. She ran outside in her bare feet, through the puddles, to the long circular driveway. But there was no Duesenberg; instead, there was a long black Mercedes driven by three men in SS uniforms. Her hand went to her breast as she gasped with fear. Astor barked furiously as the men drew their guns.
“Stop, Astor, sit!” she screamed in panic, terrified that they were going to shoot the dog.
“Frau Kruger, you are under arrest. Please go into the house and dress swiftly, and bring your son.”
“Arrested? For what reason?”
“Please, no questions now; everything in time.”
“Where is my husband? What happened?”
The spokesman of the three men was a small, fierce-looking man who wore a lecherous expression on his face as if it were a badge of honor. He eyed L
ucia in her transparent black silk nightgown. She had worn it for Brand. Now it was to be her shroud.
Her body trembled with fright as she rushed into Jonas’ bedroom. He sat up in bed, rubbing his eyes.
“Is Father home?” he asked with a sleepy voice.
“Quick, Jonas darling, get dressed. We have to go with these men.” The three men were standing by the door as Astor began to growl again.
“Stop, Astor, please.” Jonas placed his arms around the dog’s head and held him against his face. “I will dress quickly,” he said. “Please don’t hurt my dog. Where are we going?”
“Just get dressed, and don’t ask questions, before I put my boot into your Jewish head.”
“Easy, Rolf,” the other one said. “They are all friends of Berlin.”
Lucia went into the bedroom and started to remove her nightgown. “Please close the door,” she implored.
The men did not move; they waited like three hungry dogs. She moved into the closet and pulled her nightgown over her head when the ugly man called Rolf flung the door open, gaping at the unclothed woman.
“Rolf,” the other said, “We have to bring her back.”
Astor rushed into the bedroom jumping on Rolf, who drew his revolver. Lucia pulled the dog away, her naked body shaking. She cried, “Please stop, Astor. They will kill you!”
The SS man hesitated and placed his revolver back in the holster. Lucia slipped on a simple dress and reached for her underclothes. “You won’t need those, Frau Kruger, where you are going. Now hurry up.”
Twilight in Danzig Page 19