“Hungry already?” Cook said. “But you ate only two hours ago. And your mother’s butter she was saving for Sunday—”
He looked up from slicing bread. “She’ll understand,” he answered gently. “It may be the last for a while.”
“The last?” The woman was puzzled.
“Yes, Frau Brandt. I’m going away for a time.”
Back upstairs he washed up quickly and stood by the window. He removed his glasses and examined the frames. The right earpiece was slightly bent and the edge of the lens chipped where he’d dropped them in the bathtub a few months earlier. He cleaned them carefully and put them back on. Soon after, the black saloon car came slowly along the Marienburger Allee and pulled into the drive. Two men got out and came to the door. Just before ringing the bell, the man in front looked up at the window where Dietrich stood. Their eyes met. Then SS Judge Advocate Alois Bauer knocked on the door.
Et incarnatus est
was born and became man
Tegel Wehrmacht Interrogation Prison
DAY 0. The prisoner is placed in a holding cell where he will spend the night while his arrest papers are processed. SS Judge Advocate Alois Bauer has explained this to him already, in the rear seat of the black Mercedes on the way to Tegel. A hand resting gently on the prisoner’s arm as he spoke. Not very comfortable, I’m afraid. But it’s only overnight until they can move you to a permanent cell.
The prisoner repeats overnight overnight tries not to hear permanent permanent.
In the holding cell a slop bucket overflowing with clumps of feces stands in the corner. There is a cot and a single blanket so stiff and vile-smelling he cannot bear to touch it. He nudges it onto the floor with the toe of his shoe. The cot has no mattress, only a frame of metal mesh. Just as well if one could imagine the state of a mattress.
He stretches out on his back with his jacket folded into a neat square for a pillow. He works a long time to make the corners of the jacket just so. Determined to be neat. The cell is chilly but the blanket doesn’t tempt him. He folds his arms across his chest for warmth. The grid of the metal mattress frame bites the flesh of his back.
A single light bulb hangs suspended from the ceiling above his head. He turns his head to one side so the light won’t hurt his eyes and looks toward the door. No switch to turn off the light.
A slot in the wooden door. After a time—he has no idea how much—the slot opens with a crack and he sees part of a man’s face. The nose first. Eyes meet his. The slot slams shut.
Suicide watch.
He closes his eyes.
The slot opens. A hunk of stale bread is shoved through and falls to the floor.
The effects of the large meal Cook made him have passed, and his stomach growls. But the bread lying on the grimy concrete floor tempts him even less than the blanket. He looks away. He is not desperately hungry. Yet.
The slot opens and closes at regular intervals. The light stays on. He cannot sleep even though he feels he will die of weariness. The light bulb burns his skull.
The room buzzes. The light bulb throbs. He squeezes his eyes tight but he can still hear the buzzing. Voices shoot around the cell, disconnected disjointed voices. Karl-Friedrich. Think of the family Think of Mother and Father What will happen to them if you? Karl-Friedrich is a physicist, he knows about light and air. How much they can bear. Karl-Friedrich investigates the mechanism of rhythmic reactions. He knows how little the mind can apprehend. Of lights and their buzzing. The family. Mother. Elisabeth. No. Elisabeth is gone. Maria. Yes.
Sabine. Chanting eternity eternity eternity eternity eternity eternity eternity
He listens carefully, intensely, repeats the words after her. As long as he hears the voices he will survive the night.
Eyes watch him through the slot.
In the hall outside the cell the guard shakes his head and walks away. Back in the tiny room which holds four chairs and table with hot plate and coffeepot, he interrupts a card game.
“One cigarette says he’s screaming before the night’s done.”
The card players take him on without looking up. He loses the bet and his next-to-last smoke.
DAY 1. Late in the day the prisoner is moved to a regular cell, Number 92 on the third floor. Here his cot holds a thin mattress and thinner, but relatively clean, blanket. He has a wooden bench and a stool. The slop bucket stinks but is empty. Soon enough, he supposes, the odor will be his own and he will be able to stomach it, perhaps even be comforted by it, like a dog which has marked its territory.
The new room is smaller than the holding cell, perhaps because it is only meant for one. One large step takes him across it, and he stands for a long time with his chest pressed against the plaster wall. He turns. Two and a half strides take him the length of the cell. There is a small barred window above his head. If he stands on his cot he will be able to see out, but he resists the temptation. He will save the window for last. Something to look forward to.
He turns back toward the door. A slot like the one in the holding cell is set in the wood. Only this one is larger, to accommodate a tray of food. He remembers how hungry he is, and sinks slowly onto the edge of the cot. It tips slightly and he sits farther back to steady himself, then stretches full-length on his back, testing the feel of the mattress. It is lumpy, but adequate. When he turns his head he can smell the musty canvas cover. Then he notices the words on the wall opposite, scratched carefully in a small, patient script.
In 100 years it will all be over
He closes his eyes. Tears escape at the corners and he brushes them away with his knuckle, like a child. He does not know how long he cries, and when he has worn himself out, he sleeps.
DAY 2. When he wakes the cell is filled with morning light.
He decides to allow himself the treat of the window. Then he hesitates, frozen by fear. Suppose there is nothing to see, only a view of the rest of the prison, a guard tower perhaps, or worst of all, a wall?
But he is high up, near the roof. Above the wall surely. And the prison itself stands on a rise of ground north of the city. There must be something to see. He holds his breath and steps up onto the stool with his eyes shut.
He waits. The window is open and he feels a breeze on his face. He opens his eyes.
Berlin sprawls before him, a great beast, its back humped and gabled like a tyrannosaurus. The locomotive works of Borsig are closest, a warren of foundries and roundhouses, brick and stone, beveled windows laced with grimy pig iron, tracks running between the leviathan buildings like black spiderwebs. Beyond Borsig, domes, blocks, and the spikes of churches above the tunnel of greening fog that stretches the length of the Spree, roofs flaunting their red tile in the spring sun, the spires their filigree. The streets are mysterious twisting caverns. As the sky lightens the buildings seem to stand up and walk around. He grips the bars with both of his large hands and leans forward as far as he can. Nearly lost among the smokestacks of Borsig he notices a nearby tower topped by a green copper dome in the Bavarian style. A Roman Catholic church. He imagines the singing of its choir, airy and weightless, a Gregorian chant. He hears the words sursam corda.
The city grows even larger and enters his cell.
At midday, his first meal. A crust of bread with a thin edge of mold. A bowl of brown soup. When he moves his spoon through the bowl a few bits of carrot and a fatty piece of meat swirl to the top. He has also been given a small, rather dry roasted potato.
He eats hungrily. The soup is possible if he doesn’t stop to smell it.
But before he eats he goes to the slot in the door, which has opened to allow the tray of food to be shoved through, then closed at once. He longs to see the guard—a human being—and he has discovered he can open the slot from the inside. He puts his eyes to the rectangular hole. All that is visible is the wall across the way. He can hear slots opening and closing to his left, and the squeaking wheels of a trolley. He starts to call out, but a feeling of foolishness keeps his mouth shut. What, a
fter all, would he say to the man?
He goes back to the cot where the tray of food waits. He scrapes carefully at the mold with a dirty fingernail.
DAY 6. He has glimpsed the guard twice. A man with the peaked and fanned ears of a bat.
Otherwise he has seen no one. Spoken to no one. He hears distant screams. Wails. Nothing close by.
He considers suicide. No great step, for he has begun to think himself already dead. And he fears torture, knows he will not be able to stand up under the pain and will tell everything he knows. Which is a world too much.
He is best dead. But how to do it? They have taken his shoelaces and there is no sheet on the cot. There is the spoon which arrives with his soup, but if he tries to keep it, it will be missed. Besides, what can he do with a spoon? He has nothing with which to file it to sharpness. He lacks the nerve to stab or cut himself.
He lies on his back on the cot and stares at the ceiling. Now and then he holds his breath but gasps and gives up after a few seconds. He thinks he might lie on the floor and jam the cot leg into his head but knows he will only injure himself.
He cannot think of a way to die.
DAY 10. No one talks. There is no music. No sound. Now and then a footstep, a door opens. The air is heavy. The air thrums.
The accumulation of despair makes the cell’s air intolerably heavy. He has read, perhaps Karl-Friedrich has told him, that when events of great intensity occur, the air becomes freighted with electricity so that a person who comes empty to that space will be touched or even burned.
In 100 years it will all be over
He recalls the countless memorials to the dead of countless wars he has seen in Germany and England.
their memory shall remain forever green
But nothing is green. Those who knew the war dead are themselves dead or will be. He himself will die, and so will all who know him. No matter what happens next. One hundred years is oblivion.
He feels the weight of the air pressing against his chest, threatening to smother him. How would Karl-Friedrich explain this? The air holds time? Something to do with Einstein? The capacity—
He cannot think, cannot hold a thought, not at all. He shakes his head to clear it. He speaks out loud.
Hello, he says to the wall.
That helps.
Hello
It is Dietrich talking. He recognizes the voice and remembers his name.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, he says aloud.
He says Father forgive them for they know not what they do.
Anything that comes into his mind, he says, or sings. Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war Lloyd George knew my father Father knew Lloyd George
If it is in his mind he must release it, relieve the air of its burden, decorate the cell with words.
There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio than are dreamt of in your philosophy
He sings loudly In München ist ein Hofbrauhaus, ein zwei—
The bat-eared guard bangs on his door and yells, “Shut up, you bastard!”
Dietrich is on his feet at once. “Talk to me!” he cries.
There is no answer except retreating footsteps.
DAY 14/GOOD FRIDAY. He has come to expect forty days and forty nights.
He hears footsteps outside his cell and stands in anticipation. It is the bat-eared guard, whose tread he knows now as surely as a dog knows its master’s. (He has detected a slight dragging of the foot in the guard’s gait. A former soldier most likely, furloughed to the prison after a leg wound.) But followed by another, slower and measured step. The panel in the door slides open and the eyes study him, then a key in the lock, a rasping turn, and the door swings open.
The guard looms in the open door as though ready to pounce, hand on truncheon. Behind him a voice says, “At ease, Linke. This one isn’t dangerous.”
Linke stands aside, hand still on truncheon, to reveal a small balding man, grayskinned in a rumpled gray uniform.
The man says, “Bonhoeffer.”
To hear his name spoken aloud after fourteen days is like a sharp blow. Dietrich sways, puts a hand to the wall to steady himself.
“I am Maetz, the commandant here at Tegel. You are informed that your term of solitary confinement is hereby ended. You will now be allowed to join the other prisoners in the exercise yard once a day. You may write a letter to your family every ten days and you may receive letters from them as well as packages, once they have been inspected, of course.”
Dietrich blinks. Maetz is holding out a parcel wrapped in brown paper.
“Your father brought this after your arrest. You may receive it now.”
Dietrich takes the parcel, presses it to his chest. He cannot speak. Maetz studies him for a moment, then says, “You may thank your uncle for this. General Rüdiger Graf von der Goltz is one of the most powerful and respected men in Berlin. And married to your mother’s sister, I believe?”
“Uncle Rudi.”
“Yes.” Maetz nods. “He’ll not plead special favors for you, of course, but he has persuaded Judge Advocate Bauer to stop making a special case of you. It’s not as though you’re considered a great danger to the Reich.”
He turns to leave, but Dietrich says, “And Judge Advocate Bauer? When shall I be able to speak with him?”
“In his own time, I’m sure. The judge advocate is known to be a most thorough and careful investigator.”
“Please, can you ask him if I might have books and writing paper? It would be a great comfort to me.”
The commandant looks irritated for a moment, then seems to recall Uncle Rudi, who is in fact his superior officer and a man whose good regard is not to be cast away. “I shall pass on your request,” Maetz agrees, “but I can’t promise results,” and takes his leave.
The guard Linke glances back at Dietrich as he pulls the cell door to. Dietrich nods in what he hopes is a friendly manner, and Linke hesitates, then nods in return, his eyes narrowed thoughtfully and his bat’s ears at attention.
Linke has provided his first favor—a pencil stolen from the guardroom in return for a packet of malt extract included by Dr. Karl Bonhoeffer in the parcel sent from the Marienburger Allee. (An item of no conceivable use to Dietrich except as a bribe. He marvels at his father’s shrewdness.)
He arranges the rest of his bounty, item by item, on the cot. A small loaf of pumpernickel and a tin of pork fat. Four cigarettes carefully wrapped in a handkerchief (there were six, but he has smoked one and given the other to Linke in return for some matches). A wool sweater and a blanket. A volume of Fontane. And best of all, the pencil and the wrapping paper, large and blank.
Dietrich sprawls on the cot chewing a heel of the bread torn from the loaf and dipped in pork fat—he has no knife for spreading—and considers what to write. A letter to his parents, and perhaps a short note to Maria, even though he will not be allowed to post it. Perhaps he shall keep a journal. Perhaps write poetry, or a novel, something he has always wanted to do but never had time for. (He will not be able to work on his volume of Ethics in prison—part of the manuscript has been confiscated by Bauer and part is buried in a strongbox in the garden of the Marienburger Allee. He doesn’t want to work on his Ethics in prison anyway, because he has lately been bargaining with God. The Ethics will be the crowning achievement of his life’s work and must be completed. Therefore, Dietrich must be released from Tegel.)
At last he picks up the book—the pattern is set, this putting off of that most longed for until last, a way of redeeming time—and opens it to the flyleaf, where his name has been written and underlined: Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It is the signal they have agreed upon ahead of time when a secret message is included. He flips to the back of the book. Every ten pages from the end, a letter is faintly underlined in pencil. He turns pages slowly and silently mouths the words:
UNCLE RUDI WELL. KEEP AWAY FROM HIM AS PLANNED. HANS IN PLÖTZENSEE. CHRISTEL ALSO ARRESTED. LOVE.
DAY 27. He now has
his Bible and hymnal and writing paper. He has slippers, matches, shaving cream and razor, needle and thread. Plus a pipe and a small store of tobacco and cigarettes. He has received the good news that the authorities have found no reason to hold Christel and have released her to her family.
And there is a letter from Hans von Dohnanyi, written on Easter Sunday, lamenting that he has somehow been the cause of Dietrich’s imprisonment. A noble and probably useless attempt to put distance between them, Dietrich thinks. He would rather be linked; it is less lonely. For he gathers from the letter that Dohnanyi is already being interrogated by Judge Advocate Bauer. They will consider Dietrich less important and will save him for later, hoping he will help them catch Dohnanyi out in some lie. Dietrich spends hours lying on his back, going over and over the story he and Hans agreed on months earlier.
He is also allowed newspapers. Linke the guard even brings him back issues. On Good Friday the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung carried a reproduction of Dürer’s Apocalypse, which Dietrich sees a few days later.
The lines are fuzzy because of wartime newsprint and ink, but the contorted visages of the horsemen are no less ghastly. Dietrich studies the print for signs—the mounted rampage of Famine, Pestilence, War, and skeletal Death upon a rib-caved horse surrounded by bug-eyed monsters and howling sufferers. A grotesque face grows from the blouse of a harried man, and, hovering above all, an angel of the Lord. Seeming to approve? Dietrich shudders and hopes, Surely not.
He tears the newsprint and carefully folds back the edges to make a neat square. A dab of breakfast porridge at each corner provides a remarkable glue. He stands on the cot and covers In 100 years it all will be over with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
Linke comes for the slop bucket. On the way out he looks up. He stops and studies the print.
“Is that supposed to be better?” He looks at Dietrich.
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