‘I’m – well, I’m in a mental hospital.’ Frank’s voice was louder now, full of anxiety. ‘David, I’m really, really sorry to trouble you like this out of the blue, but I need someone to help me. I’m in the hospital and there’s a problem with the fees – it’s not the money, I’ve plenty of money, but I can’t get at it.’ Frank stopped suddenly, as though he couldn’t go on.
‘Listen, Frank, I’ll do anything I can to help. Just tell me.’
The voice became tremulous again, speaking rapidly now. ‘I’ve been certified as a lunatic, David. I can’t get out. They need a relative to be my trustee. But Mum’s died and Edgar’s in America and they can’t get hold of him. David, is there any way you could help me get things organized somehow? There’s no-one else. No-one.’
‘Where are you?’
‘Bartley Green Hospital, just outside Birmingham.’
David took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Frank, I could come up tomorrow.’ He spoke quickly, he could hear Sarah’s footsteps on the stairs.
‘Could you? Oh, it’s so much to ask . . .’
Sarah came in, stood in the doorway looking down at him enquiringly. David said carefully into the telephone, ‘I’ll come. It’s easy on the train. What are the visiting hours?’
‘If you could come in the afternoon. There’s a nurse, he’s called Ben. They have male nurses here, attendants—’
David cut in. ‘I’ll come tomorrow, say about – oh – three o’clock?’
‘Yes. Yes, that would be so good. Oh, thank you.’ Frank’s voice trembled again. ‘It’ll be good to see you. But I’m sorry – it’s your weekend, I never asked how you are, and your wife—’
‘Sarah’s fine. Listen, I’ll see you tomorrow, I’ll do anything I can to help—’
‘Thank you. David, I have to go, this is the hospital line and it’s a trunk call.’
‘All right. Goodbye.’
‘Goodbye, David.’ Frank sounded tremendously relieved. ‘Thank you, thank you.’ There was a click. David waited a second, then said into the dead line, ‘All right, Uncle. Don’t worry, I’ll see you tomorrow. Goodbye.’ He put the receiver down slowly, and turned to Sarah. ‘It’s Uncle Ted. He had a fall at home, he’s in hospital.’
GUNTHER LOOKED ROUND THE LOUNGE of the big flat in Russell Square. It was Friday evening. I might be here for weeks, he thought. The flat was in a Victorian building but the interior had been modernized, all clean lines, rectangular furniture, the lights round the walls shaped like inverted shells. In contrast the pictures were German scenes, standard diplomatic issue. His eye was caught by a seascape, a view across windswept marram grass to the Baltic, grey-blue under a wide pale sky. A lone sailing boat was visible near the horizon. It reminded Gunther of visits to the coast during his childhood.
There was a double bedroom, and a study with a large desk, where a notebook and pencil were laid neatly on the blotter. In a corner was a photograph of Reichsfuhrer Himmler, his face in half-profile, the keen eyes behind the spectacles staring at something just off-camera. It was a reminder that Gunther’s loyalties were to the SS now, not Ambassador Rommel.
He went into the kitchen. A tall refrigerator contained rye bread, spiced sausage and cheese as well as several bottles of beer. Good, the English policeman would probably expect a drink when he came. He went into the bedroom, took off his jacket and shoes, and padded back to the lounge in his socks. A little clock on the mantelpiece showed a quarter to seven. The policeman, Syme, was not due until eight thirty. Gunther wondered what he would be like. On his walk to the flat from Senate House he had noticed how shabby and tawdry London looked; dog dirt and litter on the pavements, tired-looking people shuffling home after work, no zest or sense of purpose in their step. A newspaper hoarding spoke of more strikes in Scotland, a Special Conference of the Scottish National Party resolving to assist the authorities all they could in return for a convention to consider Home Rule as a first stage towards possible independence. Gunther’s own vision of the future, the German vision, was clear and logical and bright; a total contrast to this confused, dirty mess of a country. He switched on the television that sat in a corner. A cowboy drama was showing, cheap American nonsense, not allowed on German television. He turned off the set, lit a cigarette and sat staring at the seascape, remembering his childhood.
Gunther had been born in 1908, six years before the Great War. His father was a police sergeant in a small town not far from Konigsberg in East Prussia, Imperial Germany’s easternmost province. He was ten minutes older than his twin brother Hans. They looked identical, the same square faces and light-blond hair, but their personalities were different; Hans was quicker, funnier, with a quicksilver energy Gunther lacked. Gunther was more like his father, solid and steady. He was a clumsy, untidy boy, though, always creasing his clothes, while Hans was as neat as a new pin.
Both did well at school though Gunther was a plodder while Hans was quick and imaginative, too much sometimes for the disciplinarian teachers. Gunther always felt protective of Hans, yet at the same time jealous, envying him for the qualities that made him the more popular twin among the other boys and later, with girls. It was Hans, though, who always wanted Gunther’s company, while often Gunther preferred to be alone.
Their mother was a small, tired, self-effacing woman. Their father was a big man, with a craggy face and a moustache with upturned waxed points like the Kaiser’s. In his uniform with its tall helmet he could look intimidating. He believed in order and authority above all. When the Great War came he spoke proudly of bringing German order to all Europe. But Germany lost the war. The decadence and disorder of the Weimar Republic that followed horrified the ageing policeman. Once at the dinner table, not long after the war, he told them with tears in his eyes, ‘There were students demonstrating in the town today. Anarchists or Communists. We came and stood on the side of the square, to make sure it didn’t get out of hand. And they stood there
At secondary school, Gunther developed an interest in English; he was good at the language and became fascinated by British history and how Britain had built a gigantic worldwide empire. Germany had overtaken Britain in industry, but had been too late to create an empire to provide the raw materials it needed. His teacher, a strong German nationalist, taught how England was in decline now, a great people gone to seed through democratic decadence despite their magnificent past. Gunther wished Germany had an empire, instead of being what the teacher called a cowed nation, provinces hacked away at Versailles, the economy ruined by reparations. Gunther would tell Hans about his thoughts of Empire and his brother, who had much more imagination, conjured up stories for him of great battles on sweltering Indian plains, settlers in Africa and Australia struggling against hostile natives. Gunther was in awe of his brother’s ability to picture another world.
The twins often went out cycling at weekends, along the straight dusty roads between the plantations of tall firs, the forest stretching away into shadowy darkness on each side. One hot summer Sunday when they were thirteen they went further than before. They passed carts lumbering by, little villages, a massive redbrick Junker country house surrounded by wide lawns. At lunchtime they stopped to eat their sandwiches by the side of the road. It was very quiet and still, insects buzzing lazily in the heat. Hans had been thoughtful all morning. He said now, ‘What shall we do when we grow up?’
Gunther nudged a stone with his foot. ‘I want to study languages.’
Hans looked disappointed. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t do that.’
‘What do you want to be?’
‘I want to be a policeman, like father.’ Hans smiled, his blue eyes alight. ‘We could both join. Catch all the bad people.’ He pointed a finger down the empty road. ‘Bang, bang.’
In 1926, when the twins were eighteen, Gunther won a place to study English at Berlin University. Hans, bored with school, had already left and taken a clerk’s job in Konigsberg. He seemed to have forgotten his dream of following their father into the police. Gunther had not; he had thought about it many times but the prospect of going to university was exciting. He had never left East Prussia before and longed to see Berlin. His parents, delighted with his success, encouraged him.
The evening before Gunther left he sat with his father by the fire. The old man was nearing retirement; he was happier these days, life was easier. A degree of prosperity was returning to Germany under Stresemann after the nightmare of the Great Inflation. His father gave Gunther a beer and offered him a cigarette, smiling through the thick moustache, drooping now, that had turned from blond to white, stained yellow-brown with nicotine.
