‘I like to think he was up to no good,’ said Heinz, trying to convince himself all over again. But his certainty about both Karl Juncker’s guilt and his own virtue had abandoned him, and so he said, for the fifteenth time, ‘They wouldn’t have hauled him off if he hadn’t done something bad.’
‘Did they even admit they hauled him off?’ said Frau Schimmel.
‘Not exactly,’ said Heinz.
‘You said he was a policeman, didn’t you?’ said Frau Schimmel.
‘That’s what they told me when they showed me the photos, Frau Schimmel. Frankly, right now I don’t know what to believe.’
‘That’s understandable, Herr Schleiffer.’ She thought for a moment. ‘You know, your SA commandant Mecklinger’s office could help you there, Herr Schleiffer. Why don’t you ask them?’
‘Ortsgruppenleiter Mecklinger won’t give me the time of day …’
‘Which is why you befriended his Frau Kinski, isn’t it, Herr Schleiffer?’
This was true. Thanks to Frau Schimmel’s reading of the situation, Heinz had found a way around Ortsgruppenleiter Gerhard Mecklinger and a reliable source of information. Frau Kinski knew everything that went on even better than Mecklinger himself, and was, it turned out, friendlier than she had at first appeared. Heinz had learned from her all about Mecklinger’s dalliance with the voluptuous Lorelei, who was now happily ensconced in police headquarters, and his very tenuous connection through his wife to Heinrich Himmler, which apparently had both its advantages and dangers. He learned a few other things too about meetings and planned actions and such. And Frau Schimmel always generously helped Heinz make sense of everything.
The German army, supposedly limited to 100,000 men by the Versailles Treaty, had now swollen to over three million men. You didn’t need Frau Kinski to know that. It was no secret; it was in all the papers as cause for celebration. Soldiers in uniform were everywhere. The British and the French had let it happen, but short of going to war, there wasn’t much they could have done about it.
Tomas stopped by one day to tell Heinz that he had been drafted. Tomas and his father were friends again. Tomas had shown up a month after their falling out to patch things up. Tomas said art and politics weren’t worth fighting over, and Heinz agreed. And now Heinz’s only son, whom he had only recently gotten to know, was probably going to war.
‘Mama told me I should desert, should leave the country,’ said Tomas. ‘Go to America or Canada or Australia.’
‘That’s just like her!’ said Heinz.
‘I just couldn’t do it,’ said Tomas.
Heinz didn’t know what to say. Tomas stood before him, handsome in his gray uniform, a faint mustache on his lip, but now seeming still very much a boy, at least to Heinz. Heinz felt proud one minute and frightened the next.
Tomas had orders to join a tank division near Dresden, hard by the Czech border. He would almost certainly be part of the invasion of Czechoslovakia, when it came. The thought of Tomas being wounded or, God forbid, dying, filled Heinz with fear, but the thought of him deserting filled him with shame.
‘Let’s go up and see Frau Schimmel,’ said Heinz. ‘I know she’d like to see you. She’s very sick, you know.’
Heinz told Frau Schimmel what his ex-wife had said. ‘Well, that’s how mothers are,’ said Frau Schimmel, and from the sound of her voice, Heinz wondered whether she might be speaking from experience. She had never said anything about having children, or, for that matter, about being married. But with her you never knew. The anguish in her voice sounded real.
The Sudetenland
The Gestapo had followed Edvin Lindstrom almost every day since he had been back in Germany. They did so in plain sight. If he went to a cafe to meet someone, they chose a table nearby and drank coffee or pretended to read the paper. Edvin had diplomatic immunity and couldn’t be arrested. But the Gestapo’s purpose was only to harass him and scare those he met, so it was better that he saw them and knew they were there.
Most of the people Edvin met and spoke with had no immunity. And these days if they met with a foreign spy – and like every foreigner, Edvin was presumed to be a spy – they could expect to be arrested, or at least pulled in for questioning: How do you know him? Why did you meet? What did he want to know? What did you tell him? What did he tell you? When do you expect to meet again?
It wasn’t that hard for Edvin to give the Gestapo the slip as long as he didn’t make a habit of it. He did so during off hours or on weekends. Then he met Benno Horvath to share some of what he had learned about political developments within the German government that might be news. And through Benno, Edvin connected with Willi.
Edvin and Willi had met in the Westfriedhof not far from the Olympic stadium. Willi was carrying a bouquet of flowers. ‘Why else visit a cemetery?’ he said. They shook hands. ‘Everything you predicted has come to pass,’ said Willi.
‘I’m sorry to say it has,’ said Edvin. ‘Nonetheless, I’m happy to see you after all these years.’
‘Me too,’ said Willi. ‘I hoped it would be different. What can I help you with?’ Willi always got straight to the point.
‘It’s getting harder and harder for Jews to leave,’ said Edvin. ‘Where possible, my government wants to help them get out. We’re able to arrange for transportation and visas. But certain documents – passports, identity cards – are another matter.’ By now the Swedes and everyone else trying to help refugees were using illegal means. It was a matter of saving lives.
Willi connected Edvin with Gerd Fegelein. The print shop in the basement of Lerchenau Bicycles was up and
