Out of Such Darkness

by Robert Ronsson

  In any event, I reached Zoo Station without any mishaps despite a close interrogation of my motives for returning to Germany from a border guard who called over a plain-clothes Nazi official to double-check my credentials. He waved away my papers proffered by the guard whose hand was shaking visibly. “You are welcome to Germany. Will you stay in Berlin for the Olympic Games?”

  I answered in German. “No. Perhaps this may be my last visit for a while.”

  He continued in English. “It is a pity. Germany will put on the finest Games since they began. The Fuhrer has decreed it shall be so.”

  I nodded. “Then I’m sure they will be,” still speaking in German.

  The party man nodded to the guard, clicked his heels together and saluted. “Heil Hitler!”

  I nodded in response knowing how sheepish and weak I must have looked. Exactly the discomfiture his display intended, I felt. I turned to the guard who was writing the date across the immigration stamp. He raised his eyebrow almost imperceptibly as he gave me back my passport. I often wonder whether he survived it all.

  I jumped on a tram outside the station and before I could pay had demounted at Steinplatz. I went through the porch into the Green Building and raced up the stairs. The door to my room was hanging on its hinges.

  My heart dropped to my shoes. I knew it had to be Wolf. “Frau Guttchen!” I called.

  She appeared, bent over wringing her hands. “I’m so sorry, Herr Mortimer.”

  “What happened? Where is Wolf?”

  “It was the Nazi police – the Geheime Staatspolizei. They have taken him.”

  “Where?”

  She cradled her face in her hands, her nails digging into her forehead. Her voice was muffled. “I don’t know,” she wailed.

  Leo appeared on the staircase by the stoved-in door. “I’m so sorry, Cam.” He took my hand which hung limply and shook it. “This new lot, the Gestapo, have informants everywhere. Somebody in the house must have told them. You can’t trust anybody.”

  Hot tears filled my eyes. “When did it happen?”

  “This morning,” Leo said. “I heard a commotion as they bashed down the door. I rushed down but we could only watch. There were five of them. Brutish looking men in heavy leather coats. They had pistols.”

  I looked round for somewhere to sit down and backed towards a hall chair beside Frau Guttchen’s manically polished sideboard. “How did he look?”

  Leo and Frau Guttchen exchanged glances. “He wasn’t hurt, if that’s what you mean,” Leo said.

  “I have his passport. I’m that close to getting him out. If only I’d been here yesterday.”

  Frau Guttchen rested a hand on my shoulder. “You must be brave, Herr Cameron. Perhaps they will question him and let him go. He has not done anything wrong, after all.”

  I was tired after the journey and confused listening to Frau Guttchen in German and Leo in English, translating my questions so that both could understand. I was sobbing. “Where have they taken him?”

  Frau Guttchen looked at the floor. Leo studied the hat that he was twisting in his hands. “It’s said that, when the Gestapo arrest you, you’re taken to a place in Oranienburg.” His voice cracked. “It’s run by the SS.”

  “I must go and see him.”

  Leo shook his head. “His fate is in their hands now. You can’t take on the SS.”

  It took me nearly a week to ascertain Wolf’s whereabouts. Every morning I would join a queue at the police headquarters in Friedrichstrasse. When I reached the front, an officer behind the counter told me to fill in a new form giving them Wolf’s details and the time and place of his arrest. Each day I was instructed to return for information in 24 hours. Finally, after five days of this I was informed that he was in Oranienburg and that it was not possible to visit him.

  I decided to ignore the instruction to stay away. The journey north took less than an hour and all the time I could only think of what my Wolf must be experiencing. In my imagination the black-suited thugs held him in solitary confinement in a dark, damp cell scarcely big enough for him to stand. He would be starved and frightened. An SS guard would visit to beat him up for his own sadistic satisfaction. I had to get him out.

  It was only a short walk from Oranienburg station to the red-brick buildings which had once been a brewery but now boasted the words ‘Konzentrations Lager’ over a ten-foot high wooden gate. Two SS sentries posted there stood at ease with rifles at their sides while residents of the town hurried by on the other side of the road. It was makeshift and insecure, not what I had expected. Surely, Wolf could have escaped by now?

  I approached the gates. I could hear my blood pulsing in my head. The blades of the rifle bayonets glistened in the sun and I imagined one of the sentries stepping forward to slice open my stomach rather than bother challenging me.

  In German I explained that I hoped to find out if my friend was being detained there and demanded to see the officer in command. To my surprise, they stepped back and one of them turned to the gate and simply pushed it open. It was unlocked. He smiled as he showed me through and pointed out a building next to a loading bay that might at one time have been a weighing office. “It’s the administrative block,” he said.

  I walked across the yard as purposefully as I could on trembling legs. To my left, between two identical brick-built factory buildings, I could see a group of prisoners drawn up in rows. There didn’t seem to be a uniform – they were in their civilian clothes. There was nothing about them to say they had been abused.

  I knocked on the door I had been directed to and stepped inside. The small office contained two desks at which two SS-uniformed women worked at typewriters. Neither looked up. I coughed.

  Finally, one of them sighed and stopped clattering the keys. She looked up and stood. “Heil Hitler!” She shot out her arm.

  “I’m English,” I said in German by way of explanation for not responding. “I have come to see whether you have my friend in this place.”

  “Prisoners here do not have visitors. Don’t you know this?” She looked at me as if I had asked her to dance naked on her desk singing God Save the Queen.

  “I am a visitor to Germany. I came from England and found that my friend has been arrested. I have been to Friedrichstrasse. They told me there that I could visit him.” I was now so used to lying that I didn’t even blush.

  The second woman had stopped typing and was smirking.

  “His name is Wolfgang Koehler. He lives in Charlottenburg.”

  “We do not have anybody of that name here.” The first woman picked up a number of sheets of paper and began sorting them.

  I tried to smile so she would think I was not as anxious as I felt. “How can you know? You can’t know the name of every prisoner here.”

  There was a door to an inner office between the two desks and I heard the sound of boots on the other side of it. The second woman shot to her feet and both stood straight-backed to attention as the door opened. A small man who reminded me of Victor Simons, the provider of Wolf’s illegal passport, walked in, his boots echoing on the floorboards. “What is going on? Why have you stopped working?” he demanded.

  The first woman pointed at me. “This Englishman wants to visit one of the prisoners.”

  The officer looked me up and down and smiled. I tried to respond in kind but only managed a lop-sided grimace. There was a pause while he examined my linen suit, the same one I had worn to the Grill Room in London. He seemed to be suppressing a laugh as he asked me, “Can I help you, Herr …?”

  “Mortimer,” I said. “I know my friend is here.” My mouth was dry and I swallowed to try to stimulate a flow of saliva. “I would like to visit him.”

  “Your friend? What do you mean friend?”

  “An acquaintance I have made since being in Berlin.”

  “A German?”

  “Yes.”

  “How long have you known your friend?”

  “Two years.”

  The women were w
atching him like faithful Labradors waiting for an order and he waved a hand so they could sit. “Carry on with your work!” He held out his arm indicating that I should go into his office. “Let us see whether I can help you, Herr Mortimer.” As I passed him he touched my back gently as if to reassure me. “What is your friend‘s name again?”

  “Koehler, Wolfgang” I said.

  He barked an order over his shoulder, “Check if we have a prisoner, Koehler, Wolfgang, and if we do bring me the file.”

  He closed the door behind him and gestured me to a chair in front of a desk. He went round behind it and sat down. He leaned back with his elbows resting on the arms of the chair and his hands clasped level with the SS lightning-bolt insignia on his collar. “Let us wait and see whether Herr Koehler is indeed one of our guests.”

  I tried to hide my nervousness but found I couldn’t look the officer in the face and, despite knowing that every movement of my head made me look even shiftier, I couldn’t settle my gaze on anything.

  There was a knock at the door. One of the women came in carrying a thin brown file.

  “Ach! So it seems Herr Koehler is here.” He took the file. “We are not to be disturbed.”

  For the first time I saw a gleam of hope. The officer seemed to be implying that he and I would have a rational discussion about whether I could visit Wolf.

  He opened the file and started reading the papers. He shook his head and tutted. He frowned. It was very amateurish play-acting and he seemed happy for me to believe it to be so.

  “Your friend Herr Koehler has been mixing with some unsavoury people. The order for his arrest was issued some weeks ago. He was part of an SA troop that was planning a treasonous coup against the Fuhrer.”

  “He wasn’t in the SA,” I said, still happy to conduct the conversation in German. “He wanted to join them, yes. He even went to a camp with the troop he was going to join but he didn’t actually become a member.”

  “What do you think we are? Do you think our laws are any less straight than in England? Of course he was not a suspect in the case against Roehm and his conspirators. Do you know the charges he faced? The ones he was found guilty of in the Oranienburg Court House only yesterday?”

  “No.”

  “A homosexual act. Namely mutual onanism, which he admitted. His sentence is forty-two months detention and minimum two years military service.”

  I felt myself blush when he mentioned onanism but then the blood seemed to drain out of me at the severity of the sentence. “That’s six years.”

  “Five and a half to be exact.”

  I decided I had to broach the subject. “Is there anything I can do? Perhaps a fine as an alternative to prison? I could pay it here at this office at your convenience.” Now that I had the passport even a day of freedom would be enough. I hoped he would see my meaning.

  He smiled. “Sadly not. Once the court …” He opened his hands as if to say, what can I do?

  “What I mean is, perhaps a fine to commute his detention and then a few days grace before the military service starts? I am sure an officer with your influence …”

  He stood up and walked round until he stood directly in front of me. He perched his rump on the desk and used both hands to tease out the wings of his jodhpur-style trousers.

  “I know you mean well for your friend –” the emphasis was now annoying and he delighted in it “– but you must not think that this country’s judicial system is any less … correct … than yours in England.”

  “Of course, not,” I said. “If I gave that impression–”

  He held up a hand. “However your timing may be propitious. This facility is closing down on Friday. We have already sent prisoners to our new centre not far away. It is called Sachsenhausen. I see from Herr Koehler’s file that he is due to be transferred tomorrow. Now it is a sad fact that when we transfer prisoners we are not always in total control of events. Something can occur that means a prisoner could escape.” He shifted all his weight onto one leg and crossed them at the ankle. His boots shone.

  I chose my words carefully. “As Wolf’s friend I would dearly wish that if a prisoner were to escape because of an occurrence it would be Herr Koehler. If I could make this happen I would.”

  He nodded. “I think we understand each other Herr Mortimer. But we have to make something come up. It is a problem.” When he said, “come up” he brushed his hand across the front of his trousers. This was directly opposite my face no more than twenty inches away. Did he mean …?

  “It is a problem, Herr Mortimer. Don’t you see? Can you think of something? Use your head, now. If you see a problem comes up in front of you, do you not use your head to make it disappear?”

  So there it was. The price of Wolf’s freedom. I leaned forward and tugged at the silver death’s-head belt buckle.

  In the days before Wolf, I would have chewed any man’s foreskin if he was cute but this was betrayal. Also, this ugly little toy-soldier wanted it to be the nearest thing to assault. He held me by my hair and used me. As Hobbes said about life, it was nasty, brutish and short and the last adjective, luckily, is a measure appropriate to both length and time in this case. So the experience was degrading rather than painful.

  As he buttoned his trousers, he asked me whether as an Englishman I enjoyed being fucked in the face by a strong German.

  I still had the taste of his semen in my mouth and I longed for a glass of water and to brush my teeth that were coated in his slime. “It’s a price I’m more than willing to pay. Now how will you let Wolf go? Where and when do I have to be?”

  “Let him go?” He looked at me as if I had reverted to English.

  “While he’s being transferred. Where should I be? When?”

  “You are being very stupid, Herr Mortimer. You have been fucked.” He used the English word. “There will be no escape.”

  “But the transfer …”

  “Yes. We are closing here. We are moving the prisoners to Sachsenhausen. It has already started. In fact your Herr Koehler went there directly from the courthouse. He had the honour of being one of the first batch of prisoners there.” He laughed more raucously. “You have been fucked and you English better get used to it. Germany is on the rise and if there is war, which I think there will be, you and your Wolf will be on opposite sides, Herr Mortimer. And as your friend is serving a sentence he will be in a punishment battalion. I would not hold out much hope that he will survive even the short war we shall win. Now let me show you out.”

  His laughter followed me as I left the office and walked to the gate, a feeble and foolish queer.

  Chapter 31

  Jay looks at his watch. He doesn’t want to tire Willy out but on the other hand he’s anxious to know about as much of his story as possible. If he can connect him to Isherwood in a meaningful way he’ll be able to tell Mark Costidy that he’s discovered they have a contemporary of the Cabaret originator in their midst. ‘Can you go on a little longer?’ he says.

  ‘Pfff! I can talk a blue streak until Christmas you want to listen.’ He strokes his chin. ‘Where to start?’

  ‘I asked about Germany – before the war.’

  Willy looks out of the window, into the distance. ‘Sachsenhausen!’

  Jay remembers the Buzz headline. ‘That was the death camp?’

  ‘Death camp! Pfff! Sachsenhausen was never a death camp – not like in Poland. This was a Concentration Camp. Important difference. Yes, people died under torture but no systematic killing of everyone who arrived.’

  Willy and I understand this distinction, Jay. Most prisoners in the concentration camps in Germany survived. In the death camps in the east – we were all meant to die. Every single one.

  Jay’s replaying the MC’s last intervention. This is not in his memory. Where did it come from?

  You must have read it somewhere.

  He’s only half-listening while Willy explains how he was arrested and charged with treason and being a homosexual.


  ‘Why treason?’

  ‘Because Wolf was involved with Ernst Röhm and the Brownshirts.’

  Try again. Cameron before the war.

  ‘Tell me about Cameron – how you met. Did you ever meet Christopher Isherwood?’

  Too eager!

  Willy shakes his head. ‘Isherwood? No, not then. He could have come to one of Cameron’s parties here in New York. Is it important?’

  ‘I was hoping … no, not really. Tell me about when you were together – in Berlin.’

  But Willy’s eyes are closed and, as he breathes in, the sound he makes is like a cat purring.

  As Jay strides to his car with his hands in his pockets and breath clouding ahead of him he thinks about Willy Keel’s story. He’s frustrated not to learn more about what happened before the war but what he’s heard is far more interesting than many of the lives he’s read about since he delved into Isherwood and the Nazis. He wonders if Willy would let him write up his biography. It’s only something he could contemplate with the Straub, DuCheyne millions behind him.

  Two days later Jay is with Teri in Stamford. She’s slipping on a replacement thong and tosses the torn one into the waste basket. Their weekly meetings are now all about sex that increasingly involves a degree of humiliation for her. They bang away in the dusty cubicle as if they’re actors in a porn movie and she appears to get pleasure from the pain. On the drives home, Jay feels remorse but the MC urges him to channel his disquiet into even more inventive excesses. It’s too late for me. Exploit what you have – your sensual body. Live it! Feel it! No limits!

  Teri thumbs through papers in a file and presents Jay with a counterfoil. ‘Perhaps I should have given you this before – then maybe you wouldn’t have been so rough. It’s the check.’

  Jay thinks she’s presenting him with the bill for her torn lingerie. But it’s a banker’s draft payable to him for $3m and change. He clasps a hand over his eyes and a smile spreads across his lips. ‘Shit!’

  Money Money Money Money Money Money – that clinking, clanking sound. It makes the world go round.