Do you remember when we went skating on the Alster and you pretended not to hear when I said I love you? I went after you, but you kept avoiding me with your figures of eight, and then it was that you fell and broke your arm. It wasn’t the best start … You were sixteen, I nineteen. And do you remember what you said when we said goodbye at the station? Time to grow up, Heinrich.
I think I can say that during the past eleven months I have done just that. Grown up. Which is why I …
I dig out the relevant forms, the ones I ordered a month ago. The Ariernachweis, pedigree back to great-grandparents. Statement of financial affairs. Marriage authorisation from the Gesundheitsamt.
Pure of blood, Aryans, financially sound, approved, stamped in blue.
I finish the letter. A handwritten postscript, underneath Your loving Heinrich:
PS. Will you marry me?
‘Frezl!’
_ _ _
Young Frezl stops with the letter to Eline in his hand. He turns round:
‘Oh, a message came for the Oberleutnant earlier on.’
‘A message?’
‘Yes. Or rather, a little letter. I forgot.’
He darts out, returns and puts it down on the desk in front of me. The lilac envelope is blank. I pick up my letter opener and send him a glance. He withdraws.
Has Eline stolen a march on me? A little game, perhaps? The girlish colour, the thickness of the writing paper. Has she had someone bring it with them from Hamburg? Ingo, for instance, from the infirmary? The envelope is unscented, not a hint of lavender. Perhaps there is a pressed flower inside.
I pull out the letter, the paper is folded down the middle. I unfold it.
A scream goes off inside my head.
_ _ _
‘Who delivered it?’
‘I don’t know!’
The blood has rushed to Frezl’s head, his transparent skin.
‘It was …’
‘WHO?’
‘No, I didn’t see him … he …’
‘SS … Wehrmacht … SD … Who was it?’
Frezl sighs. I leap down the stairs, my pulse racing.
The street is empty.
Frezl is blowing his nose when I come back. He is about to say something, only I dismiss him with a wave of my hand.
_ _ _
I stare at the telephone. Is it some sick joke? Manfred’s shock therapy. Confuse the victim. Lilac envelope, a little message … a token of fondness, a slap in the face.
Manfredism. You’re not to know if I’m coming to kill you or not.
The letter is in front of me:
WHO IS STREHLING?
I lunge for the receiver.
‘Hauptsturmführer Manfred Schlosser,’ I bark at the operator.
‘One moment …’
I hear the connection being made; his adjutant comes on at the other end.
‘This is Oberleutnant Hoffmann. Manfred, is he there?’
‘No, I’m afraid he isn’t.’
‘When will he be back?’
‘It could be a few days yet.’
‘Days? What do you mean?’
‘The Hauptsturmführer has gone to Hamburg.’
‘Hamburg? When?’
‘Yesterday. Immediately after the entertainment. By plane.’
‘What? Where can I get in touch with him?’
‘You can’t …’
_ _ _
‘Is the Oberleutnant unwell?’
Frezl puts a hand on my shoulder. I am on my knees.
I must have been gone for a minute, my breathing.
It fills the room.
‘What?’
‘I heard a noise and—’
I get to my feet, brush something from my jacket.
‘No. I’m fine.’
He looks at me, his bright eyes.
‘Go,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t know what happened.’
_ _ _
Once Frezl has closed the door I go over to the window, pull down the blinds, flip the wooden slats and look out. A heavily laden truck rumbles along Falkowska Street, a motorbike with a sidecar turns the corner on the right where a car with darkened windows is waiting in the shadow of the station building. I stare at it. There is someone inside.
I go back to the telephone, there is a definite click before I get the operator.
Someone is listening in.
Back to the window with my binoculars.
The car is still there.
Someone has obliterated the number plate. Mercedes, no insignia, it could be anyone. Now I see how it strains, as if the driver has the clutch on the biting point, ready to pull away into the street.
Someone is waiting for me.
If it isn’t Manfred, then who is it?
Everyone knows I was in charge of the investigation. But who knows what Goga told me?
The SS-Sturmmann who hauled me off the fence?
The Schwabenland brothers, Hans or Michael, who loitered outside my house last night?
Who?
It could be anyone at all who wants in on the spoils.
Another rush of anxiety as I realise that I am alone, without protection, without Manfred.
_ _ _
I splash my face at the bathroom sink and stand for a moment in the dim light, hands against the porcelain. I try to steady my heartbeat as I stare at myself in the mirror, but it races away, tears through my nerves, my head screeching, an electric current that jars in my teeth, squeals in my ears, my pupils dilating, eyes wider and wider, chest thumping.
‘It’s easy …’
‘What?’
I bang my head against the mirror. Zarah Leander again.
‘Killing,’ she says. ‘Killing is easy – but hard to forget …’
‘Killing is easy?’
‘No, loving is, you fool …’
She is gone.
There is only my round face in the mirror, my rectangular spectacles.
_ _ _
When I find myself again my legs are shaking.
After a minute I can stand.
I am calm then, only my hands tremble.
My head is clear.
Manfred.
I have to get to him.
He has to save me. He got me into this.
That time he pointed his pistol at me in Koreletjy, someone trying to pull one over on us. Generalkommissar Kube, who put his people on me in Minsk. Why? Dirlewanger, who wouldn’t speak to Manfred when he brought him the stuffed head of Goga’s brother prior to Operation Hermann. Goga, who knew Strehling. A treasure without an owner? What’s going on? Have I been drawn into yet another grotesque scheme?
Manfred must have found something out. But what?
I must go to Hamburg and find him, but first I need to get past whoever is outside.
I have one chance. It
