The City of Fading Light

by Jon Cleary

  He was acutely aware of Mady and Olga. He turned Cathleen round, pushed her out the door. “Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock.”

  III

  General Kurt von Albern stared at the note in the case. “What does that mean? In the appropriate place?”

  “I think we should leave at once,” said Helmut. “Someone has given the game away.”

  He and his father had come here to the flat at midnight, parking the Opel three blocks away and walking the rest of the distance. There had still been traffic on the streets, even strollers on the Unter den Linden; lights were on in all the government offices in the Wilhelmstrasse and the main doors to the Chancellery were still wide open, as if for last-minute messengers of peace. Fortunately, no one in Burberry’s apartment building seemed interested in either peace or war: they were all asleep. Helmut and his father had let themselves into the building, crept up the stairs and quietly let themselves into the flat. And discovered the broken locks on the suitcase and the note.

  “No,” said the General. He left the living room, went along the hall to the bathroom and returned with the assembled Mannlicher. “It was in the window, the appropriate place. I think I shall stay, go ahead as planned.”

  “Why, for God’s sake? Father, they know—”

  “Who knows? The note is in English. Why should the Gestapo or the Abwehr or the SS, anyone German, write a note in English? It is someone who is sympathetic to us, who has guessed what we have planned. Perhaps someone from the British embassy.”

  “Too much supposition. As a soldier, I thought you were always against that.”

  “One has to take chances. We’d have won the last war if we had been more imaginative.” He had not been a general in that war, but he knew in his heart that even if he had been, he would have been no more imaginative than the others. They had not been trained to be that way. This, however, was different: assassination itself was an imaginative act. Or it was for a hidebound general. “You do not have to stay.”

  Helmut shrugged resignedly. “We are in this together, Father. You’ll need company tonight. I can’t leave you alone.”

  The General put out his hand. “You’re an Albern, a true soldier.”

  “Not really, Father. Just your son.”

  That was enough for the General, more than enough. He turned quickly and went out of the room before his tears could embarrass him. Helmut himself felt the tears rise in his eyes, certain that some time tomorrow morning they would both be dead. He did not care for himself, but he hated the thought of his father dying an ignominious death at the hand of some Gestapo or SS thug. The General deserved more than that.

  IV

  The broken-nosed soldier in the Polish uniform looked up as a second soldier approached him. He had been half-dozing in the gathering darkness, his mind drifting in erotic memories of his last leave in Berlin; there had been a different girl every night, some of them paid for, some of them free. It surprised him that one girl’s face had kept surfacing in his half-dreams, a girl who had spurned him so humiliatingly in front of a mere caretaker. He should have gone ahead and forced her to have him, not taken no for an answer. American women asked to be raped.

  “The canned goods have arrived.”

  The broken-nosed man got to his feet, glad that at last action was about to happen. Canned goods was the code-name for tonight’s exercise, but it also described the dozen drugged prisoners from a nearby concentration camp who had been brought here to Gleiwitz on the German-Polish border. They were dressed in Polish uniforms and, whether they knew it or not, they were to die for the Fuehrer.

  “All right, lay them out where we’d planned. Put them in different positions, just like men who’d been shot while running towards the radio station. Smear them with blood from those bottles you have. Then when the shooting starts, put some bullets into them.”

  “Why are we doing this?” said the young SS corporal; with his question he marked the end of his chances of promotion. “Isn’t it all a bit elaborate?”

  Damned intelligent corporals! thought the broken-nosed man, whose name was Naujocks; though he prided himself on his own intelligence and had once aspired to being an intellectual. “Yours but to do or die, not ask questions.”

  “Thank you,” said the corporal, who had read the English poet Tennyson and would from now on watch his back when Naujocks was around. “I’ll spread out the canned goods.”

  Naujocks waited till he had gone, then he roused the rest of his detail. He knew what he had to do, but he could only guess at the higher reason behind it. He had been here two weeks waiting for the order to go ahead and then, late yesterday, it had arrived. He walked across to the fence surrounding the radio station, was challenged by the guard on duty and gave the password.

  “Call out your sergeant.”

  The sergeant, a lean veteran from the Great War, appeared out of the darkness as if he had been waiting to be called. “It’s time?”

  “Yes. Five minutes. When I fire the first shot from over there—” he pointed east into the darkness, into Poland—“start shooting. But shoot high—I don’t want any of my men killed. This is a mock attack.”

  “It doesn’t look like a mock attack, not with you in that uniform.”

  Another intelligent one. “All you have to do is obey orders and see your men do the same.”

  “Will you be shooting high, too?”

  “Of course.” But everyone in this exercise except himself would have to be disposed of later; but that would be someone else’s task. “It’ll be over in five minutes. We don’t want the Poles to think war has broken out and come charging across.”

  “We don’t want to start the fucking war here,” said the sergeant.

  “No,” said Naujocks; but that was the whole idea. “Tell your men to return fire for two minutes, then retire back down the road half a mile. Take the radio staff with you. I’ll take over here and send a message when you can come back.”

  “I still think it’s risky, so much shooting this close to the border. The Poles are as nervy as hell.”

  “You sound nervy yourself, sergeant.”

  “Wouldn’t you be?” said the sergeant and went off into the night.

  Naujocks went back to his own detail of ten men. The corporal was with them, having laid out the canned goods. “All set to go.”

  “Good. Put a couple of bullets into each of the bodies you’ve laid out, then keep your heads down. The radio station detail has orders to shoot high.” He looked at his watch. “Time to go.”

  “I’d still like to know what it’s all for,” said the corporal and Naujocks almost shot him on the spot.

  Instead he raised his pistol in the air and fired it. For the next two minutes there was a fusillade of shots from both sides of the road that ran past the radio station; then abruptly it stopped. Naujocks ran forward across the road, jumping three of the bodies slumped at the entrance to the radio station. He raced into the low building and, already having had days to learn its lay-out, went straight into the transmitting room. He switched on a microphone and took a typewritten speech out of his pocket.

  Then he began to read in Polish, faking an hysterical excitement: “We soldiers of the Polish Army, our patience exhausted by the arrogant demands of Hitler and his fascist government . . .”

  The excuse for the beginning of the next Great War had taken place, its only casualties a dozen nameless criminals who had made the mistake of being sent to a prison camp close to the Polish border.

  V

  Extracts from the diaries of Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels:

  1 September 1939: 6 a.m.

  War began this morning. At daybreak our troops crossed the Polish border . . .

  An incident occurred at Gleiwitz, when our soldiers were fired on by Polish troops. It was, I understand, well staged and will be used by the Fuehrer, when he addresses the Reichstag later this morning, as the reason for our declaration of war. His patience with the Poles (and he has been so patient
) has finally run out. They have only themselves to blame for what will happen to them. My only worry, which I have kept to myself in all the belligerence of those surrounding the Fuehrer now, is that England and France will commit themselves to war in support of Poland. What business is it of theirs? But what can one expect of colonial powers? They are forever telling other people what to do . . .

  I had the Fuehrer’s proclamation to the forces broadcast over the radio at 5.40, just twenty minutes ago; those who heard it will be waking others to tell them. The newspapers will have extra editions on the streets within the hour; any laggard editors will be reported to me.

  I have sent suggestions to the Fuehrer for his speech to the Reichstag this morning and he is pleased with them. I have seen a copy of the speech and he has incorporated them . . .

  One upsetting item is his nomination of Goering as his successor should anything (God forbid!) happen to him. Hess is next in line. God protect the Fuehrer, if only for the sake of Germany! What must I do to be in line for succession? Should I have been fat or tall?

  . . . The O’Dea woman has been given her marching orders. I thought I handled the situation Wednesday morning with Canaris admirably. I am troubled by the thought that Himmler knows she is Jewish; war, perhaps, has come at the right moment. She will be gone from here today and, if Himmler does raise the matter, I can call Canaris as a witness that I suspected all along that she was Jewish. He will side with me against Himmler . . . Too, the Fuehrer is going to need me more than ever from now on. I have to sell the war to the German people. I know I can do it . . .

  But the memory of the O’Dea woman will linger. The unattained still has a sweet taste . . .

  12

  I

  CARMODY WAS woken at six o’clock by the ringing of the phone on his desk. He struggled up from the couch where he had had an uncomfortable night’s sleep, ready to curse London or New York for calling him at this hour. But when he picked up the phone it was Meg Arrowsmith.

  “Sean? I rang you at your flat . . . Have you heard the news?”

  “What news?” But he knew.

  “The army went into Poland this morning—it’s just come over the wireless. Oh darling!” She sounded as if she were weeping. “Come over and comfort me, please!”

  “Meg, I can’t—where are you, anyway?” She couldn’t be ringing from a Gestapo station.

  “In the bar at the Adlon. Come and have breakfast with me—please. I have to talk to someone—”

  There was desperation (and despair, he guessed) in her voice; but he had other things to do first. “Stay there, I’ll get there as soon as I can. But I have to get some work off first . . .”

  He hung up and tried to call London. “I am sorry sir, but all lines to London are closed till further notice.”

  “New York? Paris?”

  “The same, sir.”

  He rang the Foreign Press Office and a jerky-voiced clerk told him, yes, German troops had crossed the Polish border and hostilities had begun. More information would be forthcoming later.

  He had a quick wash in the office basin, put on his jacket and hat and went over to the cable office. He wrote out a 10-line piece and handed it to the cable clerk, an elderly man with a squint, who shook his head but said nothing.

  “You think it’s bad news?” said Carmody.

  The man shrugged, looked around to see if anyone was observing him, nodded his head and went away. Carmody left him and went over to the Wilhelmstrasse. He paused for a moment as he came out of the cable office and looked up at the morning sky. The marvellous light that he always admired wasn’t there this morning; clouds hung low and the air was thick, almost tropical. He heard the sound of planes, but he couldn’t see them for the clouds; early workers on their way to work stopped and looked up, poised to run if they heard the air-raid sirens go. But these were German bombers heading east and in a moment their sound had disappeared. Everyone went on their way again, but Carmody noticed they were now walking appreciably faster.

  In the ministry offices on the Wilhelmstrasse nobody knew anything other than that hostilities had begun. “It won’t mean real war, of course,” said the man in the Foreign Ministry hopefully. “It will all be over by Monday.”

  “You don’t think the Poles will fight?”

  “Of course not. Over Danzig? No, no.”

  “What about England and France? They’ve promised to come to Poland’s aid.”

  “No, I told you—by Monday it will all be over. England and France will not have mobilized by then. Don’t write anything sensational, Herr Carmody.”

  “Has Warsaw been bombed?”

  “Of course not. I told you—hostilities will be limited.”

  Frustrated, not believing anything he had been told, Carmody looked at his watch and decided there was time to have a quick breakfast with Meg before he had to meet Cathleen and her mother at the American embassy.

  The bar was crowded with foreign correspondents, all of them looking as frustrated as he felt. Joe Begley greeted him, asking him if he knew any more than they did; this was no time for competition. He told Begley he knew nothing and went on to Meg, who was sitting alone at a table in a far corner. She looked as if she had just come from the centre of hostilities.

  “You look like hell,” he said as he sat down. “What happened to you? I saw those bastards pick you up outside my place—”

  “You didn’t come looking for me?”

  “Meg, I can’t afford to shove my neck out, not right now. They’re ready to kick me out any moment . . . I’ve been worried about you, if that’s any consolation.”

  “It is, darling.” She put her claw of a hand on his. “You’re my only friend, the only one I have left.”

  Jesus, he thought; and was saved from an answer by the arrival of a waiter. “Hello, Hans. I’ll have sausages, eggs and bacon.”

  The waiter, grey-haired and stooped, a relic of the Kaiser’s day, produced a small pair of silver scissors on a cord. “May I have your ration tickets, Herr Carmody?”

  Carmody looked at the scissors. “When did you get those?”

  “Just this morning, sir. From now on we have to clip your ration tickets.”

  Carmody felt in his pockets. “I don’t have them. I think my secretary got some for me—they’re probably back at the office—”

  “Here, Hans. Take mine.” Meg handed her ration tickets to the waiter. “I’m not eating.” She lifted her gin-and-tonic to show she was taking other sustenance. “Herr Carmody is my guest.”

  The waiter went away and Carmody said, “You’d better lay off the grog. Things are going to get nasty from now on.”

  “The more reason to stay on the grog, as you call it. Darling, I don’t care any more. The world has fallen in on me. You may use that phrase if you wish.”

  “The world has fallen in on itself,” he said, going one better; or trying to. “When did the bullies let you go?”

  “Our friends, the Gestapo? Last night, at midnight. I’ve been here all night, looking for a friend to drop in. Nobody has, not till you came.”

  “Did they knock you around?” She was dishevelled, all her English smartness gone, but he could see no bruises or blood.

  “Physically? No. No rack, no torture, nothing like that. Just questioning, questioning. And abuse. That swine Decker is very good at that. He called me everything—” She shook her head, tears glistening in her eyes. “What he called me may have been true, but one doesn’t like to hear it. Not from the likes of him.”

  Carmody didn’t ask what she had been called; he didn’t want her humiliated any further. “What sort of questions did they ask you?”

  “About you, for one thing. They have some bizarre idea that you and I are in some sort of plot.”

  His nerve-ends suddenly felt as if they had enlarged. “Plot? What sort of plot?”

  “Something against the Fuehrer—they weren’t specific. I don’t think they really know—they were just guessing. They are such a sus
picious lot of swine.”

  Hans, the waiter, came back with Carmody’s breakfast; but Carmody had lost his appetite. He toyed with his food in the same way as Meg had here in this bar a week ago. “Meg, I think you should go home. Today.”

  “That’s what Inspector Lutze told me. Go home to England, he said, Germany doesn’t want your sort any more. That’s what he said.” The tears came to her eyes again. “Oh God, it was all so different a year ago! I was wanted—the Fuehrer, Goebbels, I was a friend of Emmy Goering’s, it was all so gay and—and promising!”

  “It’s not that way any more, Meg.” He began to eat, suddenly wanting sustenance.

  “What happened, darling? What went wrong?”

  “Stone the crows, Meg—do I have to spell it out for you? Hitler went wrong!” He had unconsciously raised his voice. Four men at the next table turned to look at him; fortunately, they were all men from foreign newspapers. They nodded approvingly, then went back to their own conversation. “Meg, go home—please. Get in that car of yours and drive like hell for home.”

  “I can’t, darling.” She shook her head. She sat silent for a while, then looked up at him. “Would you like my car? I shan’t want it any more.”

  “Why not? What are you going to do?” All at once he was afraid for her. Was she contemplating suicide? She looked in the right mood for it.

  “It’s too conspicuous—it’s an English car. They’d stone me.”

  He grinned, trying to lighten her mood. “So you’d let them throw stones at me?”

  “No, no!” She was genuinely concerned for him. Ah Meg, he thought, don’t you have anyone else to love, to call a friend? He felt burdened again. “No, I’d hate anything to happen to you . . . Oh Sean, what are we going to do?”

  He looked at his watch. “I have something to do right now. I’m sorry, I’d like to sit here and keep you company, but I can’t—” He put his hand on hers, felt the trembling in the thin claw. He looked into her dark eyes, something he had tried to avoid till now. There was nothing there but utter hopelessness and it frightened him. “Get out of here, go home to your flat, have a bath and get some sleep. If I can, I’ll come round and see you this evening—I’ll bring you to dinner here—”