The Company of Strangers

by Robert Wilson

  ‘It was wrong,’ she said, careful not to say ‘he’. ‘He shouldn’t have placed so much hope in your letter. I didn’t to start with, but he infected me with his…Having him around the house all the time, he worked on me until we became these two candles in the window, waiting.’

  She blew her nose, took a deep, trembling breath.

  ‘Still, Colonel Linge came. They went into his study. They talked for quite some time and then your father showed the colonel to the door. He came in here to see me and he was calm. He told me that Julius had died and all the wonderful things that Colonel Linge had said about him. And then he went back to his study and locked himself in. I was worried but not so worried, although now I see what his calmness was. His mind was made up. After some hours sitting alone here I went to bed, knocking on his door on the way. He told me to go up, he’d join me, which he did, hours later, maybe two or three o’clock in the morning. He slept, or maybe he didn’t, at least he lay on his side and didn’t move. He was up before I was awake. In the kitchen he said he was going to see Dr Schulz. I spoke to Dr Schulz afterwards and he did go to see him. He asked him for something to keep him calm and Dr Schulz, he’s very good, he gave him some herbal teas, took his blood pressure, which was high but to be expected. Dr Schulz even asked him, “You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid, are you, General?” and your father replied “What? Me? No, no, why do you think I’m here?” and he left. He drove to the Havel, into Wannsee and out again, parked the car, walked along the waterfront and shot himself.’

  No tears this time. She just sat back and breathed evenly, looking at nothing beyond the short horizon of her own thoughts which were: he didn’t do it in his study, nor in the car, always a considerate man. He went out on the cold, hard ground and pointed the gun at the offending organ, his heart, not his head, and fired off two bullets into it. He froze out there. He was set solid by the time he was found, no walkers at this time of year, and short, bitter afternoons. She’d gone a little crazy that night he didn’t come home. She woke up in the morning to find all the gardening tools laid out in the kitchen. What had she been thinking? She came to, her son’s pulse thudding into her.

  ‘On his desk are the letters he wrote,’ she said. ‘There’s one there for you. Read it and we’ll talk again. And put some coal on the fire. I know it’s valuable but I’m just too cold today…you know how it gets into the marrow some days.’

  Karl threw some pieces on the fire, put his hands in there for a second until the heat nipped them. He went to his father’s study, his boots loud on the wooden floor of the corridor the way his father’s were, so that Julius and he could hear them from the top of the house. Louder as he got heavier with the years.

  He found the letter and sat in a leather armchair by the window, which still offered dim, late afternoon light.

  Berlin-Schlachtensee

  14th January 1943

  Dear Karl,

  This action I have taken is as a result of my unique perception of a series of events in my life. It has nothing to do with you. I know you did everything possible to get Julius out and it was typical of him to make light of the seriousness of his physical condition so that none of us could have known how close to death he was. Your mother, too, is blameless in this. She has given of her strength constantly and in the last two years I have been an even more difficult man to live with than I was before.

  I have been overwhelmed by despair, not just because of the sudden termination of my career, but also because of my helplessness in the face of what I fear will be the direst consequences for Germany as a result of our aggression and the extent of our aggression over the past three years.

  Don’t misunderstand me. I, as you know, approved of Hitler in those early years. He returned to the nation the belief in ourselves which we had lost in that first terrible war. I encouraged Julius into the Party as well as the army. I, like everybody else, was inspired. But the Commissar Order, which I vehemently opposed, was for a very important reason. Certain things have happened and will continue to happen in Germany and the rest of Europe while the National Socialists are in power. You have heard of these things. They are truly terrible. Too terrible, in so many ways, to believe. My stand against the Commissar Order was an attempt to prevent the army from acquiescing to these other, darker, politically motivated and utterly dishonourable actions. I failed and paid the penalty, a small one compared to the eternal damnation of the German Army for conspiring in these appalling deeds. If we lose this war, and it is possible, given the extent to which we have stretched ourselves over so many fronts, that the defeat of the Sixth Army at Stalingrad is the beginning, then our army officers will face the same retribution as the brutes and thugs in the SS. We have all been tarred by obeying the Commissar Order.

  This was the beginning of my despair and my removal from the battlefield compounded it in helplessness. When this abandonment of principle was combined with the leadership’s utter failure to respond to the predicament of a far-flung army I realized that we were lost, that fundamental military logic no longer applied, that more than honour had been handed over with the acquiescence to the Commissar Order. Our generals have been emasculated, we will be run by the Corporal from now on. That this abysmal state of affairs should have resulted in the death of my first-born son was more than I could bear. I am no longer young. The future looks bleak amidst the wasteland of my shattered beliefs. Everything I stood for, believed in and cherished has fallen.

  Two more things. At my funeral there will be a man called Major Manfred Giesler. He is an officer with the Abwehr. You will either talk to him if you believe in what I have said in the early part of this letter or you will not. That is your decision.

  My body will be cremated and I would like you to scatter my ashes on a grave in the Wannsee church cemetery belonging to Rosemarie Hausser 1888–1905.

  I wish you a happy and successful life and hope that you will once again be able to pursue your aptitude in physics in more peaceful times.

  Your ever loving father

  PS It is absolutely imperative that this letter be destroyed after you have read it. Failure to do so could result in danger for yourself, your mother and Major Giesler. If my predictions as to the course of this war prove to be correct you will see that letters containing such sentiments will carry heavy consequences.

  Voss reread the letter and burnt it in the grate, watching the slow, greenish flames consume and blacken the paper. He sat by the window again in a state of shock at this, his first intimate sight of the workings of his father’s mind. He gathered himself for a few moments; the conflicting emotions needed to be reined in before he went to speak to his mother. Anger and grief didn’t seem to be able to sit in the same room for very long.

  He went back to his mother who still sat in the same position, the light poorer but her scalp visible under her grey hair, which he’d never seen before.

  ‘So,’ she said before he had sat down, ‘he told you about the girl.’

  ‘He told me he wants his ashes cast on her grave.’ His mother nodded, and looked over her shoulder as if she’d heard something outside. The light caught her face, no sadness, only acceptance.

  ‘She was somebody he knew, an army officer’s daughter. He fell in love with her and she died. I think he knew her for all of one week.’

  ‘One week?’ said Voss. ‘He told you this?’ ‘He told me about the girl, he was a totally honourable man, your father, incapable even of omission. His sister filled in the details.’ ‘But you’re his wife and…I can’t do this.’ ‘You can, Karl. You will. If it’s his wish, it’s mine too. Just think of it as your father being in love with the idea, or rather an ideal, that was not complicated or tarnished by the grind of everyday life. That is the purest form of love you can find. Perfection,’ she said, shrugging. ‘I can think of no better thing after what your father went through, than for him to rest with his ideal. To him it was a vision of peace that he failed to attain in life.’


  The funeral took place three days later. There were few people, most of his father’s friends were at one front or another. Frau Voss invited the few back to her house for some tea. Major Giesler was one who accepted. At the house Karl asked for a private word with him and they went into his father’s study.

  Voss began to tell him the contents of his father’s letter. Giesler stopped him, went to the phone, followed the line to the wall and removed the pin from the socket. He sat back down in the leather chair by the window. Voss told him of his willingness to talk. Giesler said nothing. He had his hands clasped and was chewing on a knuckle, one of the few hairless regions of his body. He was very dark and his thick black eyebrows joined over his nose. He had a large, full-lipped, sensual mouth and his cheeks, razored that morning, already needed to be reshaved.

  ‘I would understand,’ said Voss, ‘if you needed to make some inquiries about me before we talk.’

  ‘We’ve already made our inquiries,’ said Giesler.

  Voss thought for a moment.

  ‘In Rastenburg?’

  ‘We know, for instance, how you felt about the…the death of the Reichsminister Todt,’ said Giesler, ‘and your…disappointment with the way in which good soldiers died needlessly at Stalingrad and, of course, you have an impeccable pedigree.’

  Voss frowned, replayed some reels in his mind.

  ‘Weber?’

  Giesler opened his hands, reclasped them.

  ‘Weber disappeared,’ said Voss. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘We didn’t know he was a homosexual. There are some things that even the deepest of inquiries will not unearth.’

  ‘But where is he?’

  ‘He is in very serious trouble, which he brought on himself,’ said Giesler. ‘He behaved recklessly in a climate where scapegoats were eagerly sought.’

  ‘He must have been under pressure…’

  ‘Drinking is one thing.’

  ‘How do you know I’m not homosexual?’

  Giesler looked at him long and hard, that sensual mouth becoming unnerving.

  ‘Weber,’ he said after some time, as if perhaps that source hadn’t been as reliable as he’d have liked.

  ‘Well, he should know, although I’m not sure how. Women were not abundant in Rastenburg and those that were available…’ he drifted off, disheartened by the turn the conversation had taken; this dip into the ignoble was not what he’d had in mind. This was supposed to be a courageous act and here they were parting the dirt.

  Giesler had his answer. He didn’t need to pursue this discussion further. He gave Voss an address of a villa in Gatow with a meeting time for the next day and stood. They shook hands and Giesler hung on, which at first Voss thought was another sexuality test but, no, it was a sincerity hold, a brotherhood clasp.

  ‘Weber won’t talk,’ he said. ‘It’s possible he will survive, although he will never get back into Rastenburg. But it is something for you to think about before you come to Gatow tomorrow. It’s not easy to be an enemy of the State – not, I hasten to add, an enemy of the nation, but this State. It is dangerous and lonely work. You will be lying to your colleagues every day for perhaps years. You will have no friends because friends are dangerous. Your work will require a mental fortitude, not intelligence necessarily, but strength and it is something you may feel you do not have. If you do not come to Gatow tomorrow nobody will think any the less of you. We will go our separate ways, praying for Germany.’

  Voss slept badly that night in a torment over his part in Weber’s arrest. At four in the morning, the death and debt hour, he found his mind crowded with thoughts of his father and mother, Julius and Weber, and it was then that he had a sudden perception of the power of words, of the business of communication. Once words are said nothing is the same. His father didn’t have to tell his mother about Rosemarie Hausser, but he did. It must have established an unrecoverable distance, instilled a lifelong sense of disappointment in his mother with a short line, some words and a name. In his own crucial conversation with Weiss, which he had not been prepared for, he realized that it was not physics that had alerted him but the words ‘physical’ and ‘women’. It had been a confirmation. It made him think that in talking to people you never know what they know, you never know what they think, and innocuous words can take on huge importance. He stopped writhing in his bed – he hadn’t served up Weber, he’d just handed Weiss the spoons.

  He went to Gatow the following afternoon, nervous as if it was a visit to the doctor, who might find a mild symptom the precursor of something deadly. He was met by a housekeeper who took him to a book-lined room at the back of the house. She gave him real coffee and a homemade biscuit. Giesler came in with a large man of military rectitude but who was dressed in a blue double-breasted suit. He was bald with a brown, clipped fringe of hair at the back and sides. He wore gold-rimmed spectacles. Voss was introduced but the man’s name was never given.

  They talked about his work at Heidelberg University and recent developments in physics. The man was knowledgeable, not expert, but he understood. The words ‘fissionable material’, ‘critical mass’, ‘chain reaction’ and ‘atomic pile’ were not mysterious concepts.

  The conversation switched from physics to the Russians. Voss expressed his fear of them:

  ‘They have no reason to be forgiving after what we have done to them. We have broken a pact, invaded their country, and brutalized the population. After the defeat we have suffered at Stalingrad it is possible that they will have the confidence to drive us back. If they succeed I believe they will not stop until they reach Berlin. They will punish us.’

  ‘So you would see it as advantageous that we negotiate a separate peace with the Allies?’

  ‘Imperative, unless we want to see Germany or a part of Germany in the Soviet Union. Perhaps we can even persuade the Allies that we are not the real enemy in this war and that…’

  The man held up his hand.

  ‘One step at a time,’ said the man firmly. ‘First we will work on your transfer away from Rastenburg. You will need some training, too. The Abwehr headquarters along with the Army High Command has moved south to Zossen and we now live for our sins in a concrete citadel out there called Maibach II. You will spend some months with us. The work you will be doing is very different – gathering information, running agents in the field – it’s not the military intelligence that you know. After that we will send you to Paris and from there we will try to position you in Lisbon.’

  ‘Lisbon?’

  ‘It’s the only place in Europe now where we can talk easily with the Allies.’

  Voss lived with his mother while he completed his training in Zossen. She looked after him as if he was at school again and it was a comfort for both of them. It was a wrench when he was transferred to France in June.

  He spent eight months in the Abwehr’s French headquarters at 82 Avenue Foch in Paris and, furnished with his new perception of the power of words, saw the horrific consequences for others who hadn’t yet come to the same understanding.

  French and British men and women were arrested, sent to concentration camps, tortured and executed for what was, more than half the time, a totally imaginary situation. Both the Abwehr and the SD/Gestapo, who operated from next door, were playing what became known as radio games. Voss never worked out whether it was merely Allied stupidity or German infiltration into their intelligence operations at a very high level which enabled these deadly games to be played. Once an Allied radio operator was captured and his codename and signal extracted an Abwehr operator would continue broadcasting to London. Later when there were two security signals required, the Allies would reply simply reminding the operator that he’d forgotten his second signal but to continue. The baffled and angry radio operators soon supplied the second security signal to the Germans. Following these fictitious Abwehr broadcasts more agents and supplies would be flown into some misty French field and a reception from the Occupying force. These new agents’ codena
mes were then used to build fictitious networks operated by the Abwehr and Gestapo, dispersing vast quantities of misinformation to the Allies. Meetings convened by operational Allied agents were frequently attended by Abwehr men using captured agents’ codenames.

  Occasionally Voss would stage arrests in the street to maintain verisimilitude.

  Most intelligence activity was mirage and artifice. Very little was real. Intelligence, he discovered, was built on the foundations of the imagination and, in the case of the radio games, a blind belief in the veracity of technology. It was a terrifying concept, as terrifying as if the basic principles of physics or maths were completely wrong and whole academic disciplines had been built on falsehood and thus all discoveries were intrinsically wrong, all achievements bogus.

  Voss also learned never to fall in love in this world. Lovers betrayed each other easily. Torture, the Gestapo’s preferred method, was unnecessary. Just the insinuation of a lover’s infidelity to a prisoner was as powerful as any of their appalling applications. The emotional betrayal played such devious and teasing tricks on the mind. Jealousy was inevitable in the loneliness of a cell. The darkness, with only the infected mind for company, created powerful images that at first disheartened and later so enraged and ravaged the prisoners that they would grasp at a new strength and in their vindictiveness bring down not just the lover, but all the connections as well.