Tyger, Tyger, Burning Bright

by Justine Saracen

  One of the soldiers swung his rifle around and pointed it directly into her face. “You get the hell out of here, bitch, or we’ll shoot you too.”

  “Don’t cause trouble!” Unteroffizier Hartmann took her by the arm and dragged her to the back of the crowd. Katja followed, confused. Then from behind, she heard the crack of rifle shots, screams, then another volley.

  The shots started a panic and the Polish onlookers in the square began to flee. But the enraged soldiers were in a frenzy now and pursued them, shooting randomly. Katja saw a man fall and crouch on the ground cringing, both hands clutched in front of him. The soldier—it seemed to be the same one who had threatened Riefenstahl—fired point-blank into his chest.

  Riefenstahl and Katja ran headlong from the carnage, while the gunfire continued behind them. At the far end of the square they stopped, panting. Katja dropped to her knees. “I can’t do this,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

  Leni Riefenstahl leaned against a wall next to her. “Me either. This is not what I came to film. Let’s get out of here.”

  *

  It was, by all definitions, a massacre, perhaps the first of the war. By the time it concluded, Riefenstahl had appealed to the general to release them from the assignment and provide transport back to Berlin.

  General von Reichenau was exasperated, both by the rioting of his men and by the inconvenience of having two witnesses. After making sure they had no photographs of the event, he sent them back to the main headquarters in a supply truck and left them to their own devices. At headquarters, an equally annoyed commander informed them that the only aircraft scheduled to go out was a small Henkel, but it was fully assigned and the only space was on the floor. They accepted.

  The tiny aircraft came under attack immediately upon being airborne, and while it took evasive action, they were thrown about wildly. The air was filled with shouting, the rattatat of flack fire, and the screaming of the engine as the craft dropped nearly vertically.

  Clutching the back of one of the seats, Katja fought nausea until the plane leveled off and climbed again. For the rest of the trip, she was silent. So this was war. No flags or heroes. No ceremonies or Sieg Heils or defense of the Fatherland. Only murder and fleeing from murder.

  *

  At her desk in the propaganda ministry, Frederica Brandt assessed her new position with guarded satisfaction. It had been a long slow advancement, a huge investment of time, with no certainty of there being any point. But finally the order had come down from Goebbels himself, and she received the most important assignment of her life.

  She was nervous, of course. So much was at stake, but it felt good to be trusted with something so important. It made all the lonely years worthwhile. Not that she felt sorry for herself for being alone. She had, after all, chosen to stay in Germany after her father died rather than return to England where her mother had already abandoned her. The abandonment had hurt deeply, but she realized now it was less because of the loss of love, than for not being taken along on the adventure, whatever it was.

  In spite of her “need for stability” excuse, which she used to explain to Goebbels why she wanted the job, Frederica had never feared adventure. When she was orphaned at eighteen years, she had finished raising herself without complaint, living on her father’s inheritance until she passed the Abitur exam. Then she found a job. She had proved herself, though she could not have said to whom she was proving it. Perhaps to the last image of her mother that still shimmered in her memory.

  The bleakness of the first year was also alleviated when Rudi re-entered her life. An old school friend, he arrived at her door one day in full courtship mode and swept her off her feet. But after a few weeks and tentative kisses they both realized that romance between them would simply not flower. Instead, something more wonderful emerged—complete sympathy. They loved the same things: opera, Expressionist art, the poetry of Rilke. They made the rounds of museums and concerts and exhibits like young lovers, but without desire or plans for the future.

  When Peter appeared, it became a comfortable constellation of three. The occasional outings and suppers that Peter created sustained her for years while she sorted just exactly who and what she wanted.

  What she wanted, she decided, was adventure and purpose, and those came with the unexpected telephone call from her aunt.

  Who she wanted was much harder to decide. At some point she had concluded it would have to be a woman, but that realization had merely replaced one puzzle with another. Where did one go to find the woman of one’s dreams? Certainly not to the noisy, smoke-filled bars and cabarets of Berlin, even when they were still open. The feeble overtures she had made to female friends had been rebuffed. And she did not even allow herself to think about her reckless flirtation with Katja Sommer, now the fully domesticated wife of a military man. She shook her head. That could have ruined everything.

  But Germany was at war, something more important than her pathetic emotional life had presented itself, and she was satisfied.

  Drawing her sweater closer around her shoulders, she went back to work transcribing the personal journals of Joseph Goebbels.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Katja could see how happy her father was to have his only child safe at home; he’d even cooked the Bratkartoffeln for their dinner while she unpacked her bags. He asked no embarrassing questions about her sudden return from the front and all through dinner just kept patting her on the hand and talking about music.

  After washing up, she retreated to her room where she composed a letter to her husband, putting as good a face as possible on the whole misadventure. Once again she explained that she planned to stay in Berlin until he returned home. She would do odd clerical jobs for Frau Riefenstahl while, with her new nursing certificate, she would look for a job in one of the Berlin hospitals.

  In fact, she was not at all certain she would find a job so quickly. She was frankly a little up in the air at the moment, since the Riefenstahl project had fallen through and there was little left for her to do. But she was determined not to go back to a little boy’s bedroom in Nuremberg. She had just written his military address on the envelope when her father knocked at her door.

  “There is a gentleman to see you. Peter Arnhelm. Do you know him?”

  “Peter? Yes, of course I know him.” She looked at her watch. “I wonder what he wants at this hour.”

  Peter stood just inside the door tapping his hat against his leg. He shook hands with Katja and glanced nervously at her father. “Well, I just wanted to welcome you back home again from the front. Can I invite you out to a café? There is one just a few streets away.” The lie was transparent, but it was also clear to Katja that he urgently needed to talk to her. It had to be serious for him to come at night all the way from Neukölln.

  “Of course. I’d love to. Vati, Peter is one of my friends from the film project,” she said vaguely. “We’ll be back in a little while.” She reached for the jacket that hung by the door.

  “Nice to meet you, young man,” Karl Sommer said, but Peter merely nodded and was already backing through the doorway.

  Once on the street, Katja clutched his arm. “How did you get out here to Grünewald? I didn’t even think you knew where I lived.”

  “We had your address. I took the Strassenbahn as far as I could and then walked.”

  “For God’s sake, Peter, what’s wrong?”

  “They’ve arrested Rudi.” He choked. “In Vienna. I just got a telephone call from our friends.”

  “Arrested? Why? What did he do?”

  “You know why. Paragraph 175. Homosexuality. He was in Vienna to work on a project with a postcard company. He was staying with friends, you know, people like us. Someone must have denounced them and when the police came to arrest the others, they took Rudi too. Of course the police have his address and they came to his apartment in Berlin. Fortunately, I wasn’t there when they arrived.” He broke into tears. “And now I can’t
go back.”

  “Where did they take him?” Katja linked her arm in his and leaned against him as they strolled like a love-struck couple.

  “I don’t know, exactly. There are camps in Austria now too, but they could just as easily bring him back to Dachau or Sachsenhausen.”

  She embraced him, overwhelmed. The massacre in Poland the day before, and now this. “Oh, Peter. I wish I could do something.”

  Peter disengaged himself and held her by the upper arms. “You can. Rudi worked for Leni Riefenstahl and she always liked him. You know as well as I do, she’s friends with Hitler. She can say she needs him for her next project, or something like that. People do that all the time for their friends.”

  “But we don’t even know where they took him.”

  A car came along the street, its headlights reflecting for a brief moment in Peter’s spectacles.

  “That doesn’t matter. The Nazis have everything systematized and Himmler has a record of where everyone is, at least the ones who stay alive. It’s just a matter of a few telephone calls.”

  “I can try. I don’t know if she’ll do it. Right now she’s pretty rattled about something that happened when we were in Poland. And I have no idea how much influence she has with Hitler.” Curious, for the first time, she felt no urge to use the worshipful title of “Führer.”

  “What will you do now?”

  “I’m on my way to Frederica’s place. She’ll put me up for a few nights, but then I have to move on. It’s too dangerous for her to keep me longer. Her neighbor’s a big Nazi.”

  “Why can’t you go back to Rudi’s place?”

  “Because with his arrest, they will have cancelled his residency permit and the apartment will be listed as empty. The neighbors know I live there, and if the Gestapo shows up again, at least one will denounce me. Even if they don’t, the Gestapo will want to know who I am, and my papers show I’m half Jewish.”

  “It’s not illegal for half-Jews to live in Berlin, is it? You’re only a Mischling.” The Nazi word sounded stupid and hateful when she said it.

  “I don’t know how safe I am. But I promise, I will not creep into a cellar. I want to get Rudi out, and then I’ll find some way to fight them.”

  “Fight them?” They were still on the street with no one near, but she dropped her voice nonetheless. “You mean the government?”

  “Yes. How can you support it? They’ve just invaded Poland for trumped-up reasons. Dachau is full of their political enemies. They butchered their own in the SA purge, and they’ve been smashing Jewish shops and synagogues everywhere. And now they’ve taken Rudi.”

  Katja felt as if the ground were falling out from under her. She didn’t know what she supported, except she knew she supported Rudi.

  “I’ll talk to Frau Riefenstahl tomorrow. How can I reach you?”

  “I’ll come by tomorrow evening around the same time. Do you think your father will be suspicious?”

  “Not the way you mean. He’s not a Nazi. He’ll just want to make sure I’m not doing anything illegal.”

  “Illegal? I don’t even know what that means anymore.” Peter kissed her on both cheeks and hurried away, hunched inside his jacket.

  *

  Leni Riefenstahl shook her head. “I can’t just walk into the Reich Chancellery and demand to see the Führer. Martin Bormann guards him like a Doberman, and what’s more he dislikes me.”

  “Even if it takes a week for you to get near Hitler, we’ve got to try. Rudi was on your film team. He served the party as a photographer. Surely that’s worth something. We can’t just abandon him.”

  Riefenstahl’s hands came up in front of her, as if she were fending off blows. “Look, Katja. I liked Rudi too. He did very good work and was a sweet person, but you know—”

  “Don’t talk about him in the past tense. He’s not dead! He’s a living person, an artist, just like us. We have to help him.”

  “We can’t help him. Rudi is not ‘just like us,’ and you know as well as I do that the Führer has strong ideas about homosexuality. Goebbels even more so and looks for any excuse to slander me. Getting involved in his situation could get both of us in trouble.”

  “Does that mean you wouldn’t lift a finger for Sepp Allgeier or Marti Kraus either?”

  “Don’t use that tone with me. I’m trying to survive too, and to keep my business going. I’m not responsible for everyone who’s ever worked for me. We all find our ways to coexist with a harsh regime. I trust the Führer and his vision, even if some others in his government go to extremes. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to finish this article for Völkischer Beobachter this afternoon.”

  She sat down again and resumed writing but snatched up her fountain pen with such vehemence that a drop of blue-black ink formed at its nib, and as she held it up, the ink flowed backward onto her fingers. “Damn!” she muttered, standing up and striding angrily toward the tiny sink in the corner.

  Riefenstahl looked back over her shoulder. “Why don’t you ask your friend Frederica if she can cajole the Reichsminister to help you out? She’s got much more influence on Goebbels than I have on the Führer, and you know why that is.” Letting the innuendo hang in the air, Riefenstahl busied herself with scrubbing the stain off her hands.

  Katja had not moved. “So this is what it means to be a good German. To sacrifice a friend so as to not fall out of favor with the Führer, no matter how abhorrent his policies are.”

  “Don’t talk to me that way. You have no idea what plans the Führer has for Germany. The future of a nation is more important than one sexual misfit.”

  “That’s what you think of Rudi? Just a ‘sexual misfit’?”

  “He was an employee, not a friend. I can’t put myself at risk for everyone I know who falls afoul of the law.” Riefenstahl returned to her desk and resumed writing.

  Katja made an about-face toward the door.

  “To hell with you, then,” she said, and stormed out of the studio.

  *

  Even in the twilight that blurred all features, Katja recognized the graceful stride of Peter Arnhelm. When he reached the empty doorway where she was waiting, she stepped out and embraced him. “I’m sorry, Peter. She won’t help him,” Katja said, getting to the point. “She doesn’t want to risk her own neck.”

  Peter’s shrug showed he had not really expected otherwise. “That’s too bad,” he said, glumly.

  “Do we know where he is? Can we write him? What are the rules in a case like this?”

  They walked with shoulders pressed together to keep warm. “I don’t know. I think sometimes the prisoners are allowed mail, but of course the SS monitors everything. A letter from Leni Riefenstahl would be safe and would probably reach him. But it would be very dangerous for anyone else, and impossible for me. By now, he may have been forced to give my name. And even if the Gestapo isn’t looking for me, as a Jew, I can’t draw attention to myself.”

  “Yes, I understand. You’re staying with Frederica?”

  “Just one more night. But I have a few good friends, people like me, and if I keep moving, I should be all right. The problem is food coupons. They’re issued to a household, so I can’t get them now.”

  “I’ll help you out. And we should meet every couple of days so I know how you are. But what are we going to do about contacting Rudi? Can’t his parents write him?”

  “I don’t think they will. His father all but disowned Rudi when he found out we were together, so he’s not going to share any information with me.”

  “Do you think you can trust Frederica? I mean, I know she and Rudi were close, but now she’s cozied up to Goebbels.” Katja liked talking about Frederica, even if she all but slandered her.

  “I trust her completely. And it’s precisely because of the Goebbels connection that I can’t endanger her.”

  “I see,” Katja said, though she didn’t see at all. “I should talk to her. Maybe together we could come up with an idea that she hasn’t thought of. W
hy don’t you meet me here again on Thursday evening and I’ll tell you what happened. In the meantime, take this.” She handed him a bundle of Reichsmarks.

  “I can’t take money from you, Katja.”

  “Of course you can. It’s not even that much. The bills are small, but there are some food coupons there. They should be enough for a few days. By Thursday, maybe we’ll know a little more.”

  “Thank you, dear. Who would have thought, when we met at that silly supper in Nuremberg, that it would turn out like this?” He dropped a brotherly kiss on her cold cheek and made an about-face.

  Katja watched him walk away, reassessing her future. She had another mouth to help feed now and had effectively left the film business. What was left for her?

  Obviously, it would have to be the Charité.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The wind whistled around the corners of the Ministry of Propaganda while Katja stood huddled inside her coat, each exhalation an expulsion of steam.

  She had timed it as carefully as she could and, fortunately, she didn’t have long to wait. At six ten exactly, Frederica came down the steps of the ministry. Katja greeted her shyly, pressing their two cold cheeks in a superficial kiss, wondering if Frederica remembered the other one, four years ago. Probably not.

  “Thank you for agreeing to see me. How have you been?”

  They fell into step, marching shoulder to shoulder, as Katja and Peter had done, but not touching. “I’m fine, thank you. You know, with the war, it’s been very busy. But I’ve been promoted.”

  “Oh, really? No longer a simple typist?” Katja feigned interest. She didn’t want to dwell on Frederica’s advancement in Dr. Goebbels’ domain.

  “Oh, I’m still that, but after five years, I guess they trust me and they’ve given me a higher security ranking. I used to do general work, proclamations and so forth. But now I get to transcribe more personal documents.” After a moment’s silence, she added, “But you didn’t come to see me about that, did you?”