The Sixth Key

by Adriana Koulias

  Before he sat down, he gave the signal for the meal to begin.

  It was a solemn affair. Rahn could barely touch his venison. He watched Hitler, askance. The man ate a plate of steamed vegetables and drank nothing but water and seemed to take no pleasure in it. Rahn sat half listening to the occasional footfall of the servants, the clinking of cutlery, the muted music, feeling the slow-burning terror of intuition rising up to his temples.

  How was he going to get out of this?

  He looked furtively around him. He didn’t belong to this circle of SS officers and, more to the point, he didn’t want to belong to it. Once again, he told himself to calm down. Soon he would be far from Himmler’s reach and a free man. He would be his own master. All he had to do was to get through this night, give Himmler his damned genealogy and get out.

  When all were finished, Hitler looked about his table for a long time, staring at each man in turn.

  ‘A moment ago,’ he said, ‘you were speaking of Jesus, but I say you must forget Jesus – for the final saviour of the world has come; the one who will replace Jesus and lead you to the Apocalypse and the renewal of the world! Satan, the creative, fertilising spirit principle of the world, will reign through me in the same way Christ reigned through Jesus. And those who wish to follow me into the glorious light of a new Reich must be willing to sacrifice everything: brother, sister, mother, father – the very death of God and even Jesus Christ himself! They must be willing to supplant Christ with Satan. For a man cannot follow two masters!’

  He tamed his ecstasy by replacing some strands of hair that had fallen over his eyes. When he stood, all followed again by reflex, but he was finished with them.

  ‘We are awake, gentlemen. Let others sleep!’

  Rahn remembered this line. Philip le Bel, that demonic king who had tortured and sent so many Templars to the stake, had been in the habit of saying these very same words.

  With a gesture of disgust Hitler walked out of the hall as if to say, I have tasted your souls and found you bitter!

  Himmler woke them from their reverie. It was time, he said. Rahn had no idea what he meant.

  Only later would he learn that what had gone before was the customary ritual before a man could be initiated into the circle of Ritters, or knights. They called it The Last Supper, because the ordeal that followed was death, and it marked the beginning of a new life.

  5

  The Crypt

  ‘There are moments when, even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity may assume the semblance of a Hell . . .’ Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Premature Burial’

  Rahn moved with the others out of the castle entrance and into the darkness, not knowing what would come next. He descended a long staircase to a lower courtyard and followed the group over a path lit by torches to a door. Beyond it another set of narrow steps took them to what looked like an underground chamber or crypt of sorts. Years of orienting himself in caves led him to the calculation that they were in the north tower and directly beneath the circular hall where they had just eaten. The space was fashioned into a round crypt of about the same size as the hall above, lit only by torches placed beneath arched windows set high and recessed deeply into the thick stone walls. In this strange otherworldly penumbral light, Rahn shivered from cold and fear. He could sense something sinister afoot, but he didn’t know what it could possibly be.

  Ahead of him the officers took their places around a large circular depression cut into the crypt’s floor. Rahn was filled with dismay when he realised, as he approached it, that in this central depression there lay a man, battered, bruised and bleeding.

  ‘What do you think of this, Rahn?’ Himmler said cheerily at his side.

  Rahn didn’t know if he meant the poor wretch in the centre of the room, or the room itself. He decided on the latter; if he could keep things scholarly he might not lose his nerve.

  ‘It looks like an initiation chamber,’ he said, ‘a cross between a Mycenaean tomb of ancient Greece and a Mithraeum used by the Romans. It has the same vaulted, domed ceiling.’ He followed its arc with a trembling hand. ‘It is also rounded with a central depression for—’ He paused then, unable to say the word. He felt the undigested venison and the good Bavarian wine do a somersault in his stomach.

  Himmler looked at him with paternal concern. ‘You did not finish your eloquent conclusion? Is something the matter?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘Well, as the Führer said, this castle has an interesting history of human sacrifice. Perhaps it is a little like Montsegur, where so many good souls were burnt to death by the agents of the Catholic Church.’

  Indignation replaced revulsion. Rahn bristled at this comparison.

  ‘Not far from here in the Teutoberg forest there is a mystery centre, a temple eighty feet above the ground. Weisthor says this makes Wewelsburg a most propitious geographical location for the centre of our new Reich. He says that it is at the head of a long ley line that connects Germany to France – a line of powerful energies called serpent currents, which channel the forces of death. For this reason I will soon have twelve basalt pedestals located around the perimter of this vault. Onto these pedestals I will place urns containing the ashes of those esteemed dead knights who have sworn an oath that binds them to our order for eternity.’ He stared pointedly at Rahn. ‘But before one gives this oath one must sacrifice even one’s goodness. Do you understand, Rahn?’

  A little patch of meaning floated out to Rahn and caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand on end and a bead of sweat to form on his brow. That same moment the man in the central depression began moaning.

  Rahn’s heart burned with alarm. He stared at Himmler. ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘It is not what I am going to do, Herr Rahn, but rather what you are going to do. This is a test of your loyalty. This man you see here is a malcontent. He has been inciting the people of the township against us and we were forced to arrest him and his family. I give you my word that I will spare this man’s children if . . .’

  Rahn frowned. ‘If?’

  Himmler sighed, like an impatient parent who must instruct a slow child. ‘If you will show your willingness to sacrifice your goodness, Rahn! The time has come for you to stain your hands with blood!’

  Rahn turned the request over in his mind. He had obviously misunderstood it. ‘Stain my hands with blood?’

  ‘Of course!’ Himmler replied, happily. ‘I know you are an intellectual, for whom the word is mightier than the sword, but you may find consolation in saving the lives of three children who, beyond the error of their father, are of good German stock. It would be a shame to waste them, wouldn’t you agree? One life in exchange for three – a fair price by any estimation.’

  Rahn, confronted by this monstrous proposal, fell into a panic. He looked about. He was surrounded and there were guards at the door. Even if he could get past them there was nowhere to go.

  ‘This man is an enemy,’ Himmler continued, ‘his children will be adopted by one or two of our own members. Soon you will hear of a program I am creating for such children. I’ve named it Lebensborn.’

  The moans of the man in the pit turned to howls and tears made tracks through the blood on his face. Rahn could make out the words ‘Spare my babies!’

  Himmler rocked backwards and forwards on polished heels. He looked to Rahn as if at any moment he might do a little dance. He was enjoying the macabre ritual, and Rahn despised him.

  ‘You see?’ his superior continued. ‘Even this man understands what you have to do! Sacrifice must come before illumination can begin.’

  Rahn felt a distortion of his focus. Perhaps he had been drugged? The wine? The food? Was this a hallucination? Some strange mock initiation, using suggestion and lighting, smoke and mirrors. He summoned his defiance. This was surely a test of his moral fibre.

  ‘I will not do what goes against my conscience!’ he said.

  ‘Conscience? Well, I have underestimate
d the strength of your conditioning, Herr Rahn. I think you need a little encouragement. Once you see the children’s cherubic faces you might change your mind. I had wished to spare them the sight of their father’s execution, but you leave me no choice.’ He made a signal and one of his ritters came forwards, a man with a scar on his cheek. The man caught Rahn’s eye as he handed him a large dagger adorned with the Death’s Head.

  The dagger felt impossibly heavy in Rahn’s hands. The skull’s grin mocked him.

  ‘Why don’t you kill me, you coward!’ the man in the pit cried.

  A tremulous indecision overtook Rahn now. The man staring at him in the pit; Himmler with his fatherly grin; the dagger in his hand; the circle of ritters: all of it seemed to drop away like a rock thrown into a chasm in the caves of Lombrives and he felt himself rising. He would surely have fainted, he realised, had he not been startled to awareness by the appearance of three children ranging in age from twelve to two. They were brought down the stairs and into the chamber. The youngest was screaming, wrestling with her captor, while the older ones wore vacant faces until they saw their father. There was a struggle and they were reined in. The father cried and the children responded. The father turned away in shame and the children called out to him.

  Rahn was gripped by a species of terror and indecision.

  Himmler glanced at his pocket watch. ‘You have thirty seconds to spare their lives.’

  Rahn decided to try reason. ‘Listen to me – I don’t know anything about killing a man! Let the children go – they are good German stock, as you said.’

  Himmler regarded him, and in that passage from eye to eye Rahn saw a man who was beyond history, beyond civilisation, beyond humanity; he was nothing but a shadow without substance. In a matter of seconds Rahn understood that he alone in that chamber had the freedom to choose, even though he would not escape guilt, no matter what his choice. That was Himmler’s little joke, the illumination he had promised.

  Himmler said, ‘You are an expert on mythology, and mythology is steeped in violence. Just pretend you are Achilles and this man is Hector – kill him. You have twenty seconds.’

  A strange calm descended over Rahn.

  ‘Fifteen seconds . . .’

  He glanced at those terrified little faces; three lives about to be shattered or finished, one way or the other. He went down into the pit. He looked into the man’s encouraging eyes. Perhaps he had worked all day and had gone to a tavern and voiced his opinions about the Nazis over a beer? Now he was facing the unthinkable – not only his death, but also the death of his children.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ The man pushed out his chest like a cock in a fight. ‘Do it!’

  ‘Ten seconds . . .’

  Rahn brought the dagger to the man’s unguarded abdomen, but his arm was paralysed.

  ‘Do it, Nazi bag of horse-shit!’ the man growled, slapping his stomach, working up a hateful panic.

  ‘Five seconds . . .’ Himmler said, consulting his watch.

  What would the Cathars have done? To kill even to save a life was to commit moral suicide. He could not do it! Moreover, he would not do it! He brought his arm down and dropped the knife.

  The man shouted and made a grab for the blade but the guard was in the pit before Rahn could think and in a moment the captive was lying on the ground sobbing.

  ‘For pity’s sake! My children!’

  The moment had passed and Rahn closed his eyes, certain he would be executed along with the man. He held his breath and when the shots came they were deafening. Images now danced before Rahn’s eyelids: he saw himself as a child, running after lightning in the forests near his home; he saw his father reading the paper and heard his mother in the kitchen, humming to the faint sound of Wagner coming from the gramophone. He saw the snow on the pines outside and inside, on the Christmas tree, flickering candles throwing their light on the fresh pfeffernusse cookies and marzipan covered in schokolade that were hanging from the branches. He saw himself inside the village church, a boy of five, urinating into his shoes because churches were spaces with no end, where there was no light, and where he could hear the creaking of evil stepping over the stones with the patience of a pendulum.

  He waited for the reproving, interminable darkness to digest him then but it did not and when he opened his eyes he found he was standing as before and the captive was dead at his feet, lying in a pool of his own blood. Beyond the circle he glimpsed those three small bodies slumped on the ground, one over the other, lifeless, still.

  ‘So how does it feel?’ Himmler asked in his high-pitched voice.

  Rahn couldn’t speak for a moment and then gall rose up with suddenness and he leant over and discharged the venison and good Bavarian wine all over the dead man. There was the fire of bile in his nostrils and in his throat. He looked up at Himmler.

  ‘Why?’ he managed to say.

  ‘So that you could come face to face with the beast, the power of pure egotism inside you.’

  The meaning now came and with it a piercing shame: faced with making a choice between moral annihilation and the lives of those children, he had decided to let the children die.

  ‘You chose what was right for you, you see? That is pure egotism, don’t you think?’

  Anger welled up in Rahn. ‘No!’ he spat. ‘You were wrong to give me that choice! Wrong in the eyes of God!’

  ‘I don’t believe you were thinking of God for one moment! When you made that decision you were thinking of yourself, of the picture of yourself that you hold so dear. At that moment, you were your own god and so God, as you have imagined Him, is now dead for you!’

  Rahn swallowed acid and wiped his mouth. ‘I am a free man!’

  ‘When you believe you possess freedom, that is when you understand it the least. Freedom comes from knowing the evil within and embracing it. I told you it would be illuminating! Only now do you truly know yourself, and your life will never be the same. You see, now that you know your egotism, you are free to act as you will – unlike most people, who go about thinking they are so good and proper and god-like. The truth is, Herr Rahn, given the choice, a man will always choose himself – this is natural. Those who wish to join our circle must be willing to sacrifice the false image of this God that is inside them for an ideal that is higher, no matter what the cost to their soul. This is the first step to a new life. Until now, to the outside world, you have been SS-Unterscharführer Rahn, unofficially a member of the Allgemeine-SS. Now, you are made SS-Oberscharführer. To those of this circle, you are a member of the Blood of the Schutzstaffel-SS. One day your name will grace a plaque fixed to the back of one of those chairs in the hall above.’ He gave Rahn something. ‘What you hold in your hand is the Totenkopf, the Death’s Head ring. It is only given to those few whom I feel deserve it.’

  Rahn wanted to throw it into that pompous little face but that would not have been wise. His hand was shaking. He looked at the ring. It was a silver band with several runes and oak leaves cast into the exterior, topped off with a skull.

  ‘Look inside it, go on!’ Himmler said, excited.

  Rahn wiped his eyes. ‘I can’t see.’

  ‘Inside is your last name, today’s date, and my own signature. You see how I have faith in you, Rahn – even before you bring me your genealogy? Keep the ring safe. It is the visible sign of your devotion to our community’s inner code and your loyalty to the Führer and his ideals. However, you must not wear it until you have made the final oath to replace the Christian cross with the Swastika – only then will you be wedded to this order. But remember, Herr Rahn, even now you are united with us in such a way that you can never resign. Do you understand?’

  The group returned to the castle and Rahn was shown to a room where he spent what was left of the awful night unable to sleep, sitting on a bed vacantly waiting for the dawn. When it came, he was taken by car back to the station where he caught the next train out of Paderborn for Berlin.

  As the train left the sta
tion Rahn opened the window and threw the Death’s Head ring as far as he could into a field. He recalled a fairytale about a man who was so good he allowed one mosquito to bite him. He thought, ‘Poor little mosquito, let him suck until he is full,’ and the mosquito was so happy with the man it then told all the mosquitoes in the city. Soon the sky grew black with mosquitoes wanting to taste the good man’s blood and they bit and bit and sucked and sucked but they couldn’t get full because there were so many of them, and in the meantime the man had died.

  Rahn had given his blood to the Nazis and he could throw that ring all the way to the moon but it would make no difference now. He was forever tainted with their madness.

  Somehow he knew he wouldn’t get out of this alive.

  6

  Serinus

  ‘This is a very unexpected turn of affairs.’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’

  On the train, Rahn dozed and had a dream in which he was floating in blood. It woke him with a start and to his surprise he found that someone was sitting beside him reading the Völkischer Beobachter. The man closed the paper and folded it neatly. He was wearing a blue suit, a hat to match and a party pin in his spotless necktie. He looked like a respectable middle-class gentleman who lived a middle-class life in a modest house in Berlin with his plain Bavarian wife and his fine Aryan children. What would he say if he knew the madness of the man he called his Führer?

  The man looked at Rahn now as if to say, Who are you?