A Kiss for the Enemy

by David Fraser

  But now the Russians were in East Prussia and Silesia. One day, perhaps soon, they would be here.

  The wounded Panzer Grenadier admitted on 20th January, was small and very young. He had a surname but the nurses immediately knew him as Willi. He whispered that he was seventeen years old, but Lise was confident that he had not yet seen his sixteenth birthday. He had a brown, country face, glistening brown eyes, a smile to delight, no legs and only one arm. And there were other injuries.

  Willi caught Lise’s hand with his remaining limb as she shifted his pillow. Despite wounds and weakness he had discovered her name and never failed to produce his smile for her. For him these were treasured moments.

  ‘Fraülein Lise, what day is it?’

  ‘It’s Thursday, Willi, 25th January, 1945, to be exact.’

  ‘Where is this hospital?’ She told him. A Saxon himself, he knew the geography and understood her.

  ‘When are we all to be taken to the west?’

  ‘There are no plans that I know of to do that, Willi. You are safe here. We are a long way behind the front.’

  Willi looked at her from his pillow. He had shed his smile.

  ‘You must get away before they come, Fraülein Lise! They will come. We’ve got nothing to fight them with. They pour over us – tanks, guns, horses, men. Everything!’

  ‘Hush, Willi, it’s going to be all right –’

  ‘No, you can’t imagine! You know, we attacked, my company. It was a little counter-attack, the lieutenant told us we did it well, we surprised them, we took a village. A German village. The Ivans had been in it for twenty-four hours. There wasn’t a soul alive. And my God, what they’d done to them! Children, the lot. And as for the women! My God, Fraülein Lise, whatever they order, you must get away!’

  Lise gently detached her hand. ‘And who would look after you, Willi? I think I’d better stay, to make sure you’re good and get well.’

  ‘Oh, I’m done for,’ he said without emotion, ‘but you – and the other, your friend, you must get away. Go secretly.’ He was always on the edge of delirium.

  ‘Fraülein Lise!’

  ‘Now I must go, Willi. I’ll be back later.’

  ‘Fraülein Lise, your friend – she’s not German, is she?’

  ‘No, she’s not German. Now settle down, Willi. I want you to sleep a little.’

  Lise hastened away. From the doorway, the sharp voice of the matron cut through the ward.

  ‘Fraülein von Arzfeld!’

  Lise hurried to report.

  ‘You are to go to the Superintendent’s office immediately.’

  Lise scuttled along the corridors.

  A stranger, a grey man, stood in the Ward Superintendent’s office. His face was colourless – not exactly white, thought Lise, but devoid of definable colour tones. Fleetingly, she wondered how one would paint it. It was not an old face, but the hair was sparse and grey. Outside, a bitter east wind was accompanied by flurries of snow and the man had not removed a grey raincoat. A grey, felt hat, with the damp of melted snow on the crown, stood on the Superintendent’s table. The Superintendent murmured something and left the office. The grey man looked at Lise.

  ‘You are Fraülein von Arzfeld?’

  Lise nodded. She felt sick. She also felt fear but no surprise.

  ‘My name is Müller. State Police.’

  Lise supposed so, and said nothing. Müller opened a folder. Then he grunted and sat down in the Superintendent’s chair, opening a notebook and taking a pencil from his pocket. His face was completely without expression. Lise remained standing in the middle of the room. Müller started writing.

  ‘When did you last receive a letter from your brother, Frido von Arzfeld?’

  ‘I have heard nothing from my brother since before Christmas. Just over a month ago.’

  ‘A month ago,’ said Müller, nodding and writing. ‘And when did you last see him?’ His inflexion seemed to imply that it was a matter of little importance. Lise was trembling, but fighting a fierce battle to conceal it.

  ‘It was at Christmas, 1943. Over a year ago. Immediately before I came here.’

  ‘We will talk about that again in a minute,’ said Müller, in a bored and even tone, still contemplating his notebook rather than Lise. ‘Now let us have one or two particulars about your friend – the young lady who came here with you and whom I shall be talking to later. It seems a strange story, does it not? A strange story indeed.’

  Early that morning in Berlin, Horst Brauer surveyed himself in the long glass and approved of what he saw. He straightened his white tie a little, moved his white waistcoat fractionally, to ensure the buttons were exactly central. He settled his tailcoat so that it sat properly on his shoulders. Although cut to give plenty of freedom to the arms it could still appear smart and snug to the figure. Horst Brauer nodded at his reflection and took his top hat from a small polished table beside him. They were going to send a car, difficult though it often was for them. In the glass, Brauer could see his wife enter the room behind him. She smiled at him with an expression of humble and affectionate pride.

  ‘You look really impressive, Horst, dear. I wish you always dressed here at home instead of – there. Then I could admire you more often. Oh dear, it’s cold in here.’

  Brauer ignored this and frowned.

  ‘Ilse, it appears impossible to produce properly starched collars. This one is below the standard required of me and by me. Why is that?’

  ‘Horst, my dear, it is very difficult. It’s not easy to get the proper stuff. Everybody, of course, is having to make do with substitutes –’

  ‘I am not everybody. I am an official of the State holding an extraordinary and delicate position. My appearance according to regulations is a symbol of the dignity of the State. Furthermore, it is because I have a right to expect that such things can be properly ordered that I, on a few occasions, bring my – my uniform – home. So that all can be attended to decently.’

  ‘I’ve brushed your suit, Horst dear, and cleaned the trousers. I think they’re spotless now. I know about the collar –’

  He did not listen to her further mumblings. He was sure that with more energy and ingenuity these things could be better managed. He saw his wife’s inadequacy reflected in the starched finen of other men. Even his detested assistant Fichter – a bungling lout with the bearing and manners of the provincial butcher he once had been – was sartorially impeccable. Ilse was bleating on about something else as she set his coffee before him.

  ‘Last night’s raid was really terrible, Frau Steiner told me. Thank Heaven we’re some way out. It’s the centre of Berlin that’s been getting it worst. Oh, dear –’

  Brauer also thought it providential that they lived in the outer southern suburbs but he did not care to imply that his life was of particular importance when measured against the sufferings of the Reich.

  ‘Frau Steiner always exaggerates.’

  ‘Will you be – late, Horst?’

  ‘Certainly not.’ He considered the day’s business. Then he rose and peered out of the apartment window. The official car had not yet arrived. Brauer looked at the clock on the wall and frowned. His temper was always upset by the possibility of unpunctuality. His wife tried to distract him.

  ‘There’s one more awful story on the wireless this morning, Horst, about another man who’s been betraying the Reich – caught preparing messages to be broadcast to our soldiers telling frightful lies about the Führer. The man on the wireless said that everybody, not just the soldiers, should be aware and on their guard. What with that and all these other revelations –’

  ‘There are traitors in every phase of history,’ said Brauer grimly. ‘Rats who gnaw at the supports of the house while the gale batters it from outside.’ As if giving emphasis to his words, the freezing January east wind howled round the corner window of their sitting room.

  ‘Yes, and it’s so hard for one to credit it, this man was an officer – a German officer doing that
! And with a famous old German name, too – I can’t remember it. Then, last summer –’

  Brauer looked at her contemptuously.

  ‘If you saw as much as I do of the actions – and the deserved fates – of some of our “famous old German names”, nothing would surprise you.’ He finished his coffee and looked out of the window again. The official car, four minutes late, drew up at the street door of the apartment block, black and beetle-like against the snow. It would soon be dawn, and there was some grey light in the eastern sky already. Fires burning in the centre of the city illumined the northern horizon.

  A few minutes later Brauer was being driven through the bleak, suburban streets. The driver was talking with resignation about the previous night’s air raid. Brauer reflected that there were too many excuses made these days: failure of duty, inattention to detail – it was always blamed on an air raid. True, the city was devastated. Nothing was left of block after block but charred skeletons of buildings. In other whole quarters there wasn’t a pane of glass. People huddled, shivering, where they still survived. For that one could thank not only enemy bombers with their indiscriminate fury, but those Germans who betrayed their own folk, soldiers, Führer. Brauer thought of Ilse’s ‘famous old German names’ and snorted.

  Nevertheless, life and business were, somehow, kept going. It was unpardonable to throw up one’s hands, abandon standards, give in. It would be a pity, not a disaster, but most unfortunate, if he, Horst Brauer, were prevented by circumstances from the punctual discharge of his particular duties. There were six ‘particular duties’ today, 25th January. He looked at his watch. He had no confidence in the assistant executioner, Fichter. The man was awkward. Besides, there were so many new-fangled ideas thought up these days that a man had to have intelligence as well as strength and resolve. He looked at his watch again. The driver caught his eye in the mirror.

  ‘We’ve got to go a long way round. They’ve blocked off the whole of Charlottenburg, the Heerstrasse’s closed, the …’

  ‘You know the possibilities,’ said Brauer, ‘and you know when I have to be at Plötzensee. Attend to it.’ The driver said no more.

  It was on 27th January that Lise caught Marcia’s arm as they walked away from the hospital in the evening up the icy village street – caught her upper arm and held it, fingers pressing so hard that even through thickness of overcoat Marcia felt pain and looked at her in surprise. Lise was avoiding her face, controlling herself with the utmost difficulty. It had been an even harder day than usual. The broken fragments of men from the ever-nearing Eastern Front, bleeding remnants of so-called Armies outnumbered by more than twenty to one, had been pouring throughout the day into the hospital. The girls had been working well beyond even the extended stints which had now become normal. Eventually Sister Brigitta had said, grimly, ‘Off you go, till five o’clock tomorrow morning. Have something to eat, sleep all you can.’

  ‘There’s so much to do – we –’

  ‘Off you go,’ said their superior, fixing Marcia in particular with a cold eye. ‘It’s an order. You will do no good working in your present state. You will make mistakes.’

  They walked off through the snow. It was possible to hear the sound of gunfire if the wind was in the east, as it had been for most of the past two months: a cruel, incessant wind.

  Lise said tonelessly, ‘I’ve had word. They’ve done it.’

  ‘Frido?’

  ‘They’ve killed him. Executed him. Two days ago in Berlin.’ She was trembling violently.

  ‘The Director told me. He had received notification, to be communicated to me.’

  Marcia put her arms around Lise standing in the snow, the evening air freezing about them.

  ‘It was happening, it must have been happening when we were being interviewed by that pig –’

  ‘Sh, sh!’

  ‘By that pig, who wanted to know when we’d heard from him last and so forth. Who tried to frighten you, Marcia. About Frido.’

  The member of the Gestapo, grey, bored, inscrutable, menacing, who had questioned Marcia two days earlier had, indeed, asked about ‘her relations with Captain Frido von Arzfeld’. Marcia had referred to him as a dear friend, brother of the man she had been engaged to marry.

  The grey man had looked at her. ‘He has not spoken of marrying you himself?’

  ‘No.’ It was not important, Marcia thought, but Frido had taken trouble to send his letter of love privately, by Hoffmann’s hand, and she saw no reason to betray it to a stranger.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Nor talked, written to you about political matters? About the progress of the war, perhaps?’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Family matters, eh? You know that Captain von Arzfeld has been arrested on a very serious charge?’

  ‘I do.’ So the brute must have known, while he put that question, that Frido, trousers sagging, unshaven because deprived of a razor, Frido prison-pallid, followed only by greedy, hate-filled eyes, had been, perhaps at that very moment, pushed towards the executioner’s sword, axe or noose in some bleak slaughter-shed.

  The interrogation had continued.

  ‘What is your reaction to his arrest?’

  ‘His father, Colonel von Arzfeld, told us, told his sister and me. We are, naturally, deeply upset – horrified – that someone we – I include myself, as you know, in that family – loved and admired as a gallant officer should fall under such terrible suspicion. We find it difficult to believe. Incredible.’

  The man was writing without looking up, as if Marcia’s words were so predictable that he hardly needed to listen.

  He murmured, ‘Incredible, yes. You are English, Fraülein Marvell. Yet you have not been interned. What do you think of that?’

  ‘I am grateful. I have been able to train and to work as a nurse. It is work of humanity in which I deeply believe.’

  ‘So in your own way you have been able to serve the Reich.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  The man finished writing. There was, Marcia had thought, nothing to damage Frido. The Gestapo man seemed to be of the same mind, since he changed the subject and in a slightly less disagreeable tone said,

  ‘I believe you know Frau Anna Langenbach? Can you help me a little there, I wonder? You see, I have to investigate serious questions of legality and they have many aspects.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, this is a friendly talk, Fraülein Marvell, so let me explain a little. You have a brother, Anthony Marvell. He is in the English Army?’

  ‘You must understand, Herr –’

  ‘Müller,’

  ‘– Herr Müller, that I haven’t seen my brother since before this war began, that I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. If he’s alive and well, I presume he’s in the Army, yes.’

  ‘Did you know that he once had an intimate relationship, a sexual relationship, with Frau Anna Langenbach?’

  ‘No – I – when do you mean? He never spoke to me of such a thing! Nor she!’

  ‘But you both – you and your brother – knew the von Arzfelds and the Langenbachs before the War began between England and Germany, I think.’

  ‘Certainly. But I don’t know of the – matter you speak of. Frau Langenbach is a respected friend of mine.’ Marcia did her best to sound outraged. A young, delicately-nurtured and defenceless girl to have such suggestions put to her by a strange man! Müller gave something like a grin.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘if that’s all, Fraülein Marvell, we’d better say goodbye for the time being. I hope you’ve not forgotten to tell me anything. And I hope everything you have told me is exactly true.’

  And so, while this gruesome and inconclusive encounter had been played out, while Marcia had felt herself shaking with a fear she fought a brave, private battle to conceal, they had been doing Frido to death, hanging him from a noose like a carcase, or hacking him, head from body. She shuddered, hugging Lise close, heart beating violently, ghastly images before her eyes.
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  Chapter 23

  On Sunday, 28th January, Anna said as she brought Anthony his daily supplies, tm going to church in Kranenberg. i’ll be away two hours, no more.’ Anthony was, they had agreed, to leave at the end of the next week. Every hour was precious.

  ‘I’ll be back by mid-day, my darling.’ She whispered, ‘I want to commit you to God’s keeping in the place where I found you after so long.’

  Anthony held her tight. He muttered,

  ‘Frido?’

  ‘We must think of him as dead.’ She spoke flatly, releasing herself and turning her head away. ‘I’ve no word yet from Kaspar. We must think of Frido as dead.’

  The affairs of Party and State were at a critical stage in the Christmastide of 1944. Despite the angry pain that stabbed periodically at his heart, despite the consequential impatience to pursue the enemies of the Reich in Lower Saxony, it was not until 29th January, 1945 that Egon Schwede assumed his new responsibilities. These included a far-reaching mission to snuff out treachery and defeatism in an area which included his old home. He had been promoted. His rank was high in the home-based SS. He lost no time in enquiring about the situation in Kreis Kranenberg, which now incorporated Langenbach.

  His heart beat a little faster when he called at the local Kranenberg Party Office, that office he had formerly occupied with such distinction, that office wherein he had once dreamed romantic, entrancing dreams, dreams cruelly shattered by that evil, unprincipled woman! He sat down heavily and stared at the man now filling what had once been his chair. The fellow was an outsider, from Hanover. He looked overweight, pudgy. Schwede, wearing the uniform of Obersturmbannführer SS, expected and received deference. He fixed the present incumbent of NSDAP BURO Kranenberg with that eye which had brought sweat to the brow of many an inadequate Party official or backsliding citizen. They talked for a little, exchanging a few devoutly uttered sentiments of loyalty.