Too Close to the Wind

by Richard Attree

  He pointed to the journal, but I needed answers:

  “Alejandro said this would be my ‘final mission’ and it would clear my debts to him. I’m scared that I’ll have to do something extreme—like maybe even kill someone, assassinate someone important … ?”

  There, I’d said it! It had been nagging at me ever since he sent me that text.

  “—” A long pause, pregnant with possibilities. He picked up the journal, handed it to me, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes again.

  I sighed. So many pieces of the jigsaw were still missing. I could only hope that Pablo was being straight with me and that Dr Langer would complete the picture before we got to Dublin. I turned to page thirty-six, and continued reading from where I’d left off …

  Ludwig and Caitlin return to Germany with their newborn son, Martyn, to find a country at war—with the rest of Europe and with the ‘enemies within’: Jews, Socialists, Nonconformists, anyone not prepared to bow, scrape, and salute der Führer and his Swastika.

  The Group have always been outsiders, shunned by conventional society, but now, in the Third Reich, they’re considered dangerous deviants. What’s more, their baby son, born illegitimately outside the Fatherland, has no rights to citizenship. Langer wants them to go into hiding, perhaps even to leave Germany for ever. He begs Caitlin to consider moving back to Ireland, but she has work to do in Berlin:

  May 1940. Caitlin is in Berlin again, acting as translator for Seán Russell, chief of staff of the IRA. They are meeting Hitler’s aids to seek help from them and, I fear, planning a Nazi-sponsored revolution in her homeland.

  But then events intervene. On his way back to Ireland in a U-boat, Russell becomes ill and dies. Caitlin suspects foul play. She no longer trusts the Nazis and, belatedly, she is finally realising there can be no collaborating with these monsters. The terrible reality of what they are doing to the Jews is becoming clearer day by day.

  Now Caitlin has decided they are even more despicable than the British and she must devote all her energies to fighting them. I am trying to restrain her, to counsel caution for the sake of our son. I implored her to escape while we still could, but she has the heart and soul of a revolutionary. There is nothing I can say to change her mind. She will not run away, but perhaps I can persuade her to hide Martyn, at least. I am very afraid for us.

  Ludwig and Caitlin take refuge in the commune, hoping they’ll be left alone. For a while they are. Three years pass and it seems they may survive the conflict that’s raging all around them. But the Nazis are well aware of Langer’s Group. The only way they’ll tolerate these dangerous deviants is by appropriating his research for their own evil ends. They’ve always been fans of Nietzsche’s ideas, or more accurately: his sister’s distorted revisions of the great philosopher’s work, so they are naturally attracted to Langer’s search for the Übermensch, the ‘Superman’ who is beyond Good and Evil. Now they order him to perform experiments on the prisoners in their concentration camps. If he refuses he’ll become an inmate himself. Langer agonises over this moral dilemma ...

  Monday, July 5, 1943. I received an official letter from the RMVP—the letter I have been dreading.

  (Here Alejandro adds a footnote with the full German title: ‘Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda’ and the chilling English translation: the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda).

  It informed me that they are taking control of my research. From now on, all my experiments with psychoactive substances etcetera will be conducted under ‘laboratory conditions’ in the ‘controlled environment’ of the ‘correctional facilities’ at Dachau and Auschwitz. I will be provided with a plentiful supply of ‘suitable subjects’ (chosen from the Jews and dissident political prisoners interned there) and the results of these experiments will be published as official government documents.

  If I do not agree to this, there will be serious consequences for myself and the Group. Instead of conducting these experiments voluntarily, as a member of staff, I (and presumably other Group members) will become a ‘permanent resident’ at one of the camps and forced to conduct my research ‘under strict supervision’. The implications of this are quite clear.

  What should I do? They have me trapped in the straight-jacket of a dilemma. If I agree, they will steal my life’s work. I will be forever labelled a collaborator and a coward. If I refuse, they will imprison me, and then what will happen to Caitlin and our son?

  I realised today that, unlike Caitlin, I am not a hero. I want to survive more than I want to make a grand moral stand. Perhaps this is a betrayal of my ideals, but all I want is to be left alone to continue my work. If that makes me a coward then so be it.

  Reading this, I had a great deal of sympathy for Ludwig. I asked myself the same questions: what is more important, survival or morality? How far would you go to survive? Like him, I would probably choose to be a survivor rather than a hero—so did that make us cowards?

  For me, he’s not a worse person than Caitlin. He’s caught up in a situation he can’t control. He just wants to be left in peace to explore his personal space (no wonder Alejandro called his father a prototype hippie), but he finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time—a familiar location for me! Others might judge him as morally weak, or a coward, but I was in no position to make those kinds of judgements.

  From page fifty the journal becomes increasingly harrowing. Ludwig and Caitlin disagree fundamentally over the solution to Langer’s ‘straight-jacket of a dilemma’ and it destroys their relationship ...

  I can see no way out of this. No chance to escape now. In my despair I contemplated ending it all. For a while, suicide seemed the only solution. But when I suggested it, Caitlin was disgusted with me. For her the only honourable course of action is resistance. I asked her if this justified abandoning our son? She looked me in the eye and told me that yes, for her it does!

  I cannot accept this. However courageous her stance, it cannot justify a mother abandoning her child. Surely survival overrules political correctness?

  I grimaced at Langer’s use of the expression ‘political correctness’, which has become so diluted in modern times. My sympathies were with Ludwig rather than Caitlin. The path he chooses now seemed to me to be the only way out of this moral maze:

  I told her that the least disastrous option (the lesser of two evils) was to agree to the Nazis demands, for the sake of our son, but to do everything in my power to help the inmates in the camps, to ease their pain as best I can. I will undertake these experiments, give psychoactive substances to the prisoners, and monitor the results. But I will offer it to them as an escape from the horror of their lives in Dachau and Auschwitz.

  Perhaps this research might even advance my ultimate goal: that these mind-altering substances may one day be used as powerful medicines, possibly contributing to the eradication of mental disorders, and perhaps even leading to enormous advances in society.

  Unfortunately, Caitlin doesn’t share Ludwig’s optimism. For her, his choice of survival over resistance and his pragmatic strategy are quite simply cowardice:

  Caitlin accused of me of being a coward and we argued violently. Our relationship is being torn apart day by day. She no longer loves or respects me. If it wasn’t for our son I think she would take a gun and shoot me as a Nazi collaborator!

  For the past six months, she has been working with an underground resistance movement, hiding Jews in the commune and helping them reach safety via a network of safe houses. She has been responsible for saving dozens of escapees and she is a hero, but it has put her life, and our son’s safety, at grave risk.

  Eventually, we came to an agreement. I gave her my word that I would try to escape with Martyn to Ireland if she is no longer able to look after him. I must take him to her family, where he will grow up in a safe, loving community, as she did. I made this solemn promise with dread in my heart.

  I’d reached page fifty-six now and Ludwig’s manuscript had me gri
pped. Tension has been building steadily over the previous few pages and now I’d reached the climax. Tragedy seeks out Ludwig and Caitlin with awful inevitability. The date of his next entry is significant:

  Monday, November 1, 1943. A day I will never forget ...

  That decisive, terminal day again: the Day of the Dead—the end of the road for Ludwig and Caitlin ...

  The Gestapo arrived at our commune to arrest Caitlin. The officer in charge handed me a warrant with her name on it. There was no mention of Martyn, but I feared for him when I heard them talking about her “illegal bastard child”. Caitlin distracted them with her courage and defiance—questioning their authority and insisting that the warrant is for her, and her alone.

  Luckily there were several children playing together, and our little Marty blended in with his blue eyes and blond hair. It is ironic how inheriting my Aryan genes, rather than his mother’s Celtic looks, saved him.

  There was nothing I could do to save her, though. As they dragged her away she shouted at me, accusing me of betraying my ideals, collaborating with these monsters to save my own skin. I was filled with despair and guilt. She is the hero. I am a coward.

  The soldiers escorted her to their vehicle and threw her inside, brutally. I dare not think about what they will do to her. I must be strong—for Marty.

  Caitlin looked into my eyes—a look I will carry with me to my grave. There were tears in my eyes, but not in hers—just defiance, courage, and ultimately, resignation.

  “Don’t forget what you promised, Ludwig” she said, calmly but firmly, reminding me of my responsibility for our son’s survival. Then, as she was taken away: “Remember me ...”

  The events Ludwig describes were not unexpected, but I was still shocked and moved as I read his words. There might not have been tears in Caitlin’s eyes, but I confess to a little moisture in my own.

  I looked up from the manuscript and gazed around the plane, blinking in the dimly lit cabin, wrenching my focus back from the horror of Nazi Germany. Pablo was still asleep and there was still nothing to see below us—hardly surprising, as it was now dark. When did that happen? I wondered. No matter. I wiped my eyes, took a deep breath, and read on …

  Caitlin is taken to Dachau and Ludwig begins his experiments for her captors, there and in Auschwitz. Over the next year he’s able to help her a little, smuggling food and medicines, but despite numerous requests, he’s never allowed to see her. As you can imagine, and as her jailers intend, this is torture for him. He’s wracked with guilt and remorse, but he’s the one who survives and he knows what he must do:

  Wednesday, November 1, 1944. The day has come. The day when any remaining hope dies ...

  So, another Day of the Dead, I thought to myself.

  Caitlin has been interned for one year now. Her final words: “Remember me …” are the last I will ever hear from her. I gave her my word that I would escape with Martyn and today we leave my homeland forever. There is nothing here for us any more. I know I will never see her alive again. In any case, she despises me.

  The war is going badly for Germany. The allies are advancing on all fronts and soon the Reich will be history. Some of the Group are interned with Caitlin but a few have already escaped. Today Martyn and I will join them. It has cost us everything—all my money, my reputation, my self-esteem, and the love of my life.

  He signs his name and adds this note:

  Note to my reader: if my journal ends here, then so be it. You will know we failed. I hope you have found some of my ideas of interest, and that my work may, one day, be revisited.

  I turned the page, not daring to breath ... and the journal continued. I exhaled, and read on …

  Page fifty-eight. Langer has managed to escape from Germany, and there are still a dozen pages of his life left. He takes Martyn to Ireland, where he receives a bitter-sweet reception from Caitlin’s family. Her parents are overjoyed to see their grandson safe, but inevitably they blame Ludwig for their daughter’s predicament.

  While he’s there the Russians enter Berlin, Hitler commits suicide in his bunker, and British and American soldiers liberate the camps. Ludwig and Caitlin’s family are initially hopeful that perhaps she’s survived. But then they receive the cruellest of news:

  Tuesday, May 8, 1945—Victory in Europe Day. The war is over, and everybody else is celebrating. But I have just received news of Caitlin’s death. Nine days ago Dachau was liberated. Since then we have kept alive a glimmer of hope. Her family have been praying for her and lighting a candle every day in their church. But today the light of our hope was extinguished.

  It seems that she was one of the last people to be murdered by the Nazis. I can hardly believe the cruelty of her fate. She resisted for so long and came so close to surviving that terrible place.

  Now I must leave this beautiful country. As Martyn’s father I have been tolerated here, but now I am an unwelcome intruder. Caitlin refused to give in and was murdered. I faced the same moral dilemma, took the coward’s way out, and survived.

  Now I am no longer tolerated in her community. It cannot be my home, but from now on it will be little Marty’s. It breaks my heart to leave him, but he will be safe here. His father is labelled a collaborator, perhaps may even be accused of being a war criminal. I am a lead weight dragging him down, a noose around his neck.

  For his sake, Martyn’s grandparents have agreed to keep my existence a secret from him. They will tell him that after our escape I returned to Germany to rescue Caitlin and died in the attempt. He will grow up here, believing that both his parents perished fighting the Nazis. I hope he will inherit his mother’s courage and the struggle to reunite Ireland will become his cause, as it was hers. That would be a fitting legacy for a remarkable woman.

  At this point, the plane’s loudspeakers crackled into life and there was an announcement. The captain informed us that we’d soon be landing in Dubai to refuel. The lights were turned off and I could no longer read. I put Langer’s journal down and nudged Pablo. He woke with a start and a comical where-the-hell-are-we? expression on his face.

  Fifteen minutes later we were sitting in the transit lounge—an air-conditioned, hermetically sealed, futuristic netherworld of a shopping mall. There were no windows and no clues to our time zone or location. We may as well have been in a space station rather than in Dubai.

  I watched, amused, as the smokers amongst us were compelled to indulge their habit in a smoked-filled perspex bubble. Every time the door opened a great cloud of smoke belched out, as if from the bowels of a volcano.

  Pablo asked me how far I’d got with the journal ...

  “I’ve nearly finished it. Caitlin has been killed by the Nazis in Dachau, but Ludwig has escaped to Ireland. He’s leaving Martyn there and he’s running off somewhere else, to avoid being arrested as a collaborator. I assume he travels to your own country, Pablo?”

  Mr Fix-it nodded.

  “When Alejandro first told me about his father, aboard the Abyss, I was worried he might have been a war criminal. I mean: Argentina was their favourite bolt-hole, I believe?”

  Pablo nodded. “I not know about this ‘hole’, but is true, Nick—we have some bad peoples in my country. People who do terrible things in the war and escape from justice. But Ludwig no is a bad man, similar to his son. ¿Entiendes?”

  “Yes, Pablo, I understand. And I sympathise with him—as someone who has been forced to flee from my own homeland.”

  He nodded again. “Dr Langer start a new life, make a new family in Buenos Aires. He is respected there. But he never is happy again.”

  “What did he do there? Continue his work? Start a new group?”

  “You must finish reading his journal, Nick, and then you will understand everything. I promise.”

  I nodded reluctantly, again frustrated by his insistence that all the answers were in this damn journal.

  “And what about Martyn?” I demanded. “What happened to him?”

  “—” Pablo pointed to
the manuscript. I sighed.

  Our flight was called. We left transit lounge limbo, boarded in silence, and took our seats for the final leg of our journey: Dubai to Dublin.

  Once we were in the air again, dinner, or breakfast (or whatever else they were calling it—I was past caring by now) was served. After we finished the meal and sank a couple more beers Pablo reclined his seat and closed his eyes, but I wasn’t going to let him escape this time:

  “Look mate, we’ve got eight hours left—plenty of time to sleep. How about staying awake while I read the last few pages of the journal, eh compañero? I’ll keep my part of the deal and finish it, then perhaps you can explain why we’re going to Dublin. Fair Dinkum eh?”

  I smiled as he stroked his beard. Confusion emerged from beneath it and slowly spread across his features. His expression was complete when it reached his forehead and his brow wrinkled into a frown. He’d never understand the Ozzie vernacular, but it was amusing watching him try.

  “OK Nick. No worries (again the comically exaggerated version of my own accent). I stay awake with you (I nodded my thanks) but I need un café fuerte.”

  I grinned and we ordered double expressos. I picked up the manuscript and resumed reading from page sixty …

  Ludwig arrives in Buenos Aires with hardly any money, but over the past two decades he’s been collecting art and he manages to smuggle some paintings out of Germany. Some are by Group members, including Caitlin, and a few by artists who’ve since become famous: Otto Dix, George Grosz, and Paul Klee. The Nazis condemned them as ‘degenerate’, but after the war they’re recognised as central to the development of twentieth-century art. Their work is sought-after and highly prized. Langer only needs to sell a few paintings and he has enough capital to start a publishing business ...