18. Silberhutte
The house in Silberhutte, where the League of Nations High Commissioner and his family lived, looked like a French chateau, though in pursuing that ideal the architect had concentrated on size at the expense of charm. A year after moving in Elsie Lester still hadn’t been into every room; she had eventually decided there must be more interesting things to do. The house was surrounded by its own small park, which was like a green moat keeping the city at bay. It was the only building in sight not swathed in swastikas. The police who stood at the gates were there because a lot of people in Danzig didn’t like that. In the drawing room Sean Lester was pouring four whiskeys. Hannah Rosen and Stefan Gillespie, still grubby and dishevelled, sat by the fire with Elsie. The butler who had brought in the bottle and the glasses hovered and fussed behind the High Commissioner.
‘That really is all. If it’s a two-bottle session, I’ll wake you up.’
The butler smiled patiently. He had heard the joke before. But he left.
‘He wants to know who you are.’ Lester handed round the drinks.
‘I suppose we don’t look like your usual run of visitors,’ said Stefan.
‘Oh no, it’s not that, he wants to know who everyone is. He’s a spy.’
Hannah and Stefan laughed.
‘I’m entirely serious. He reports everything that happens to the SS.’
‘Can’t you get rid of him?’
‘I could, but then I wouldn’t have any control over what I let them know and what I keep to myself. I decided it was better to have a spy I could trust, if you see what I mean. If I was forever changing the staff I’d have no idea who was spying on me and who wasn’t. This suits everyone.’
‘He’s quite a good butler as well.’ Elsie held up her glass for a refill.
‘He won’t be listening at the door, but I think the less you tell me the better. I don’t know what you’re doing or whose nose you’ve got up, but the less compromised I am the easier it is to lend a hand. Ignorance is better than insight at times. You see we really are through the looking-glass here.’
‘Now you’ve ruined a good story, Sean!’
‘But at least they’re safe, Elsie.’
Hannah started to cry, very softly. It was as much the release of tension as anything. She could have no doubt that if they’d been caught in the forest they would be dead. Elsie moved over and put her arm round her.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t mean to — the men who were killed — ’
‘I don’t even know who they were,’ said Stefan quietly. It had been his decision not to try to help Leon and Johannes. It was the right one, even though Hannah had a gun. That didn’t make it easier. He drained his glass.
The High Commissioner got up. He took the bottle of whiskey and filled all the glasses again, a lot fuller than he had filled them the first time.
‘Two men who were trying to help me,’ said Hannah, ‘the Nazis killed them. I think they’d have killed us too.’ Her tears had stopped now, but her face was grey and drawn. It was hard for her not to feel that she was responsible for what had happened to Leon and Johannes at the lodge. Stefan was less sure. He hadn’t been in Danzig long, yet he already had a sense of the risks people took, fighting the Nazis. Tonight hadn’t been about Hannah or him. He couldn’t sense any connection. They’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. They would certainly have died in the forests above Danzig if the SA men had caught up with them, but Stefan still felt as if they were just part of someone else’s mess that had to be cleaned up and tidied away.
‘We were lucky,’ Stefan said. There was nothing more to add.
The High Commissioner simply nodded. He knew how lucky.
‘You’ll both stay here tonight.’ Elsie Lester got up. ‘Right, now for that bath! And bring your drink, my dear. A whiskey and a hot tub won’t solve everything, but by God it helps.’ Hannah smiled, getting up too. She headed out, following Mrs Lester. The High Commissioner, still holding the bottle, reached out and topped up Stefan’s glass. ‘I think it might be a two-bottle job after all, Mr Gillespie.’ Then he walked across the room to a desk. He picked up the telephone and dialled.
‘I’m calling the police.’
Stefan was surprised and momentarily alarmed.
‘You’re not the first people to see a bunch of our finest Nazi thugs murdering the opposition, but it hasn’t quite been accepted as government policy yet. You need to call their bluff sometimes. The police can’t be after you for anything officially, which doesn’t mean the police aren’t involved in doing a lot of dirty work for the Nazis, because they damned well are.’
He spoke into the phone in halting German.
‘I need to speak to Oberleutnant Lange. It’s the High Commissioner.’
He turned back to Stefan. ‘But there’s enough daylight left to keep the dark at bay. At least till after the election. God only knows what will happen then. It could be that Elsie and I will be joining you on the next train out. And you really do need to get out. I’m sure you understand that. The fact that Miss Rosen is a Jew changes the way they think here now, even about foreigners. Quite apart from all the things I don’t want you to tell me about.’
He spoke into the phone again, this time in English.
‘Reinhold, how are you? I’m sorry it’s so late, but I’ve got a pair of rather dim Irish citizens, friends of friends of Elsie’s, you know the kind of thing. They’ve had some run-in with the police, a misunderstanding that’s all. Elsie seems to think they’re utterly beyond sorting it out themselves and they’ve got into a bit of a state about it all. If I can reassure them the Gestapo aren’t out scouring the city for them, it would be splendid. Yes, I’m sure they’ve much better things to scour the city for. Hang on, I’ve got the details.’ Lester pointed at the whiskey bottle. Stefan picked it up and walked across to fill his glass. The High Commissioner winked. ‘They are Stefan Gillespie and Hannah Rosen. Staying at the Danziger Hof.’ He laughed, sharing a joke. ‘There may well be something improper going on. I’ve never heard that was any great obstacle to staying at the Danziger Hof before!’
The next morning Stefan and Hannah were late down to breakfast. The bedrooms they had been given were next to each other, but they had used only one. They had said very little; holding each other was enough. It wasn’t an easy sleep for either of them, but it was rest. And they were safe.
When the High Commissioner had spoken to Oberleutnant Lange of the Free State Police the night before, the policeman could find no problem on the books relating to either Hannah Rosen or Stefan Gillespie. There had been some query about Fraulein Rosen’s passport, but it all seemed to be in order, even if it wasn’t the passport she arrived in the Free City with. None of which meant it wasn’t time for Hannah and Stefan to leave Danzig.
They had seen no one except a maid and the butler. The noise of the city was faint through the windows looking out on to the garden, but it was insistent. The butler hovered as he had hovered the night before, reappearing with more eggs and bacon and coffee when no more was needed, and talking about the election. He carefully avoided any political opinions but he exuded a sense of excitement and self-satisfaction that was a political opinion in itself. It was the big election; today everything wrong would be put right.
The door opened and Sean Lester came in, followed by a tall man in a dark suit and clerical collar. The butler stiffened to attention. Stefan stood up. Hannah did the same, not quite sure why she did. Lester scowled, irritated to see the butler hovering in the room, as ever, watching them.
‘You can leave all that.’
The butler picked up a plate of fried eggs and left, with a resentful scowl. The High Commissioner waited until the door had shut firmly behind him before he spoke. He was concerned and agitated this morning.
‘This is Count Edward O’Rourke, our bishop.’
The bishop nodded, not agitated, but as grim-faced as Lester. Stefan regarded the two men, remembering what he knew about Danzig now. They seemed an unlikely bulwark against Adolf Hitler. Sean Lester looked like a bank manager in a small Irish town; Edward O’Rourke looked like the town’s parish priest, round faced, with a housekeeper who fed him too well.
‘It’s a mess, a very unpleasant one.’ Lester shook his head. ‘From the sound of it I don’t suppose it’s really your mess, Gillespie, but it seems to come on your coat-tails. The priest Miss Rosen was here to talk to, Father —
