The Dower House (34 page)

‘I think it's a genuine Nazi document,' she replied, ‘but it was written – or, rather,
concocted
– sometime in 'forty-four and then backdated . . . and for very good reasons.'

‘What she thinks happened . . .' Hermann said impatiently.

‘I can tell it,' she insisted, turning to Angela. ‘Did anyone at that meeting – apart from you, of course – make any kind of record of what was said?'

She shook her head. ‘Heydrich said Eichmann would circulate a summary but I don't know if he ever did. I
do
know that he collected every bit of paper on which anyone had scribbled any sort of note. And burned them. They were certainly determined
at that time
to make sure there was
nothing
on paper. He even came back that evening to break up all the ashes. Caught me dismantling the equipment! I told him I was
assembling
it for an Interpol conference the next week but he knew I was lying, even though Heydrich backed me up. And when Heydrich was gone . . .
pffft – wiedersehen Angela
!' She turned to Birgit. ‘But what is your theory about this fake protocol?'

‘Not fake. Concocted.' She leaped in ahead of Hermann. ‘
I
think that at some point in 'forty-four, when it became clear even to the blindest Nazi that we were going to lose the war, some of the people at that conference, and dozens more to whom they had reported, suddenly realized that the absence of a proper protocol would look highly suspicious – as if what was said and decided there was just
too
shocking to record, which, of course, it was. So they concocted a protocol that was much milder in tone. They knew they couldn't deny the
Vernichtung
, but even so, no prosecutor could rely on that protocol to prove that
those present
– that's all they were worried about “those present” – knew or were told anything about the actual workings of the
Vernichtung
. The worst they heard, according to that so-called “official” protocol, was that the Jews would be marched around eastern Europe building roads and factories and railways and a lot of them would die under harsh conditions. But the same was true of German soldiers on the Eastern Front . . . so what? It was very clever.'

‘But why did they then fake a covering letter in such poor German?' Hermann asked, as if it were his trump card.

‘Because,' she replied with weary patience, ‘the British and the Yanks are too lazy to learn any foreign language. They wouldn't recognize how poor it is. And that makes it possible for
surviving
Nazis to discredit the made-up protocol itself. Not every Nazi will be hanged or imprisoned. There are thousands of true believers out there who will pounce on that letter and show it is an obvious forgery, which isn't difficult. And, as I say, that will discredit the protocol itself, as well. The Nazis were thorough. They thought of everything from every angle, you see. I'm sure Eichmann was one of those who concocted the fake Wannsee protocol, because the population figures for Jews in various European countries – as you recorded them on the actual day, Angela – are repeated precisely in the
ersatz
protocol. So that's why I say it's the work of a fiendishly clever Nazi, or group of Nazis, who realized the trap was closing around them. It gives the Allies the faintest hint that the
Vernichtung
was planned from 'forty-one onwards and it allows true believers to deny there ever was a
Vernichtung
at all. And by the way – it's not just poor German language that gives it away as a fake. In fact, the biggest giveaway is the typewriter they used for the covering letter. It doesn't use the
Runenschrift
SS
– you know, like two lightning strokes.' She drewon the tablecloth with her finger.

Felix laughed. ‘I think we can just about remember what it looked like!'

‘Of course!' She grinned guiltily. ‘Anyway, the covering letter uses the ordinary, standard double S throughout.'

Angela was shocked. ‘But that's unthinkable in any Nazi document. Every official typewriter was modified to be able to type the
SS
in
Runenschrift
.'

‘So you see why I call it fiendishly clever! To the Allies it says “genuine” because they have no idea how significant the
Runenschrift-
SS
was – and to those in the know it shouts “fake”!'Angela turned to Hermann. ‘And why don't you believe this?'

‘I believe half of it – why the alleged protocol was concocted in 'forty-four or even later. But I think the covering letter was a hasty and badly executed forgery
by the British
, who needed some sort of document to “give it provenance”, as the art dealers say. It's the simplest theory that fits all the known facts. But from your point of view it doesn't really matter whether Birgit is right or I am right. That conference – where you recorded every word, every nuance of speech, right down to that spine-chilling “funny story” Lange tells Heydrich at the end – when they're standing outside the villa and watching everybody go . . .'

‘What's that?' Felix asked. ‘You've never mentioned—'

Angela shook her head violently. ‘You'll have to read it. I couldn't possibly tell it without being sick. Again. If there was one single moment when I became anti-Nazi, that was it – when I heard Lange say that.'

‘Anyway,' Hermann insisted, ‘you are the one person now alive and free with incontrovertible
proof
of what was actually revealed at that conference. If you don't speak out, then a concocted protocol and its fake covering letter are what history will record as what happened there that day. And it may be convenient for the Allies to rely on them today, but they won't stand the scrutiny of time. So I don't think you have any choice.'

‘Aren't you angry with me?' Angela asked Felix when they were alone in their room again.

‘Because of Faith – what you said about her and me? No. You have every right. I should never have let her move in. Or I should have insisted on separate rooms.'

She folded her dress neatly over the back of her chair and stood facing him, uncertain and awkward, reaching behind her for her bra hook but not slipping it loose. ‘How long would that have lasted?' she asked.

‘You have beautiful breasts.' He turned out the light as he crossed the room to her. On the way he shed the last of his underclothes.

A dim orange light seeped out from the bathroom; she stood like a rabbit caught in a distant headlamp, alert but not yet anxious.

When he took her in his arms, pressing her hard against the wall beside their bed, she slipped the catch of her bra. But he stopped her shrugging it off, insinuating his fingers up underneath the material and playing upon her nipples. His erection found its goal but he did not press home just yet. Passionate kiss followed passionate kiss as his hands strayed all over her nakedness, raking the long muscles of her back and the firmness of her buttocks, feeling every curve with a sculptor's relish, which was masterful, and a lover's passion, which was soon impossible to contain. They broke their kiss for breath and her muscles yielded; she would have slid to the floor if he had not forced his broad, strong hands beneath her buttocks and lifted her up and – finally – onto him. She let out a gasp and then clung to him, shivering. Two or three thrusts and he came, not copiously. She bit his shoulder. Tears, reflecting orange light, wet her cheeks.

‘Let's go to bed and do it properly,' he suggested. ‘Oh – and let's get married as soon as possible after we get back home?'

‘Home,' she murmured, kissing his face all over, sharing her tears. ‘Yes.'

Friday, 3 October 1947

As Felix had explained, Tante Uschi lived not in Kiel but in Laboe, a village at the mouth of Kiel Bay. ‘It's the smallest house in Rosenstrasse,' she told Felix on the phone that morning. ‘And it's a very short street, so we're easy to find. You should be with us in time for lunch.'

‘We?' he queried.

‘Me and . . . Max.' There was an awkward pause, broken by her laugh. ‘My dog!'

Felix decided he wanted to walk the last hundred metres, so the taxi dropped them at the end of the street – or, rather, at the beginning, for the end was a cul-de-sac. After no more than ten paces he halted. ‘There's no doubt which is the smallest house,' he said. ‘But . . . well, maybe Max
isn't
a dog.' He pointed out the man standing at the gate.

She clutched at his arm. ‘Oh . . . Felix . . .'

‘What now?'

‘D'you think that could be . . . oh, my God . . .'

Felix looked again at the man and whispered, ‘
Ach, du liebe Zeit!
'

‘I had a feeling when I read . . .' Angela began, and then, looking at Felix, thought better of it.

He dropped their suitcases and broke into a run, not halting until he was a few paces short of the man at the gate, at which he stopped dead.

‘Felix!' The man smiled and stretched out his arms.

‘Why?' Felix asked.

‘Those letters . . . they
were
genuine.'

Felix shook his head, in bewilderment rather than denial.

‘Otherwise . . .'

‘Otherwise what?'

‘I was afraid you wouldn't come.'

‘Oh . . . Vati!'

With tears brimming at her eyelids Angela watched as a suddenly awkward Felix lumbered forward and drowned his father in a tight embrace – a gesture made even more awkward by the gate between them.

She hefted the suitcases and set out to join them, knowing he would welcome the intrusion. A ragged lilac tree obscured all but the roof of the house until she was almost there; she took her eyes off the two men long enough to see . . .

‘Tante Uschi!' she murmured, and waved at the woman who was watching them from an upstairs window.

‘It's not her fault.' Vati broke from his son and turned toward Angela. ‘Blame me. I asked her to write those letters. She was against it.' Then, to Felix: ‘And she's no longer Tante, by the way. She's Mutti – your new stepmother.' Then, with a nod toward Angela: ‘Am I not to be introduced?'

‘May I present my father, Herr Willi Breit. Late of the grave. Also known as Max the dog. Vati, this is Angela Worth, soon to be yet another Mrs Breit.'

‘
Ach so-o-o!
' He shook her hand and then raised it to kiss.

Angela could see no resemblance whatever between father and son. The old man was slightly built, wiry, fair-haired, restless; his son – tall, stocky, powerful, dark, and, at times, infuriatingly taciturn. Neither looked remotely like the Jewish stereotypes Goebbels had propagandized.

Tante – now Mutti – Uschi appeared in the doorway.

Vati offered Angela his arm and they strolled side by side up the path. Felix now hefted the bags and followed them. ‘Were you going to say you suspected something like this?' he asked Angela.

‘“Suspected” is a bit strong. But I did wonder why – in the second letter – she said she hoped you reached Sweden safely but didn't exactly describe how and when you left here. Actually, I suspected that might have been because you really intended going back to Berlin and that Sweden via Denmark was a bluff.'

Vati gave her a swift, penetrating glance and then turned to Felix. ‘Always listen to this lady,' he said. ‘She's no fool. When I wrote that letter I did intend returning to Berlin, but then I thought if the letter ever got intercepted, the Gestapo might see through it. So I did exactly what it said. And yes, I did escape. And I did reach Sweden.'

When the further introductions were over and Felix and Mutti had mopped their eyes, she held out her arms to bar the door. ‘Stay here a moment,' she said. ‘Some of our neighbours are watching and I want two of them in particular to have a good long look at this reunion.'

‘Who?' Felix asked.

‘Sanders down there on the corner, for one. And Bachmann, with the new red tiles on his roof – they have five children, for which she got the Hitler Cross. Two years ago, both those fine families would have gladly denounced the four of us to the Gestapo. We must all go for a walk after lunch and I hope we meet them.' She sniffed deeply on the air and concluded, ‘Just smell the freedom now!'

After lunch, Angela excused herself and left for a walk on the beach; the others protested – she was part of the family now, inside the perimeter of their privacy, and so forth . . . but hers was the wiser head just then. An hour or so later Felix set out to join her. But at the edge of the beach, where the tarmac ended and the sand began, he paused. She stood, statuesque and statue-still, gazing out to sea – the sea where his mother and grandfather, old Billy Breit, had drowned, eleven years ago. For a moment he was overcome by his love for her – a love like no other, at least not in his experience, for it was a mixture of desire, not just to possess but to protect as well, and to know all those unknowable things about her as a separate human being . . . of desire and . . . fear. Beneath that mature and reconciled exterior, who could know what unresolved conflicts and guilts still lay in ambush?

And not just the obvious guilts, either, but the treacheries they had both committed (and tolerated in others) simply to survive in a
KL
. From the theft of a crust to the substitution of an unknown name for that of a friend on a list of prisoners destined not to survive . . . these acts were survival's stock-in-trade. In the imperative of the moment they scored no mark, left no outward scar; but there must be internal bruises – healed or bruises still?

The broken waves rushed at her, hissing over the sand in tongues; she stood, watching, as if daring them to lap her ankles.

‘It's not very tidal here,' he called out as he drew near. ‘All the water has to come in and out through the Kattegat.' He folded her in his arms and luxuriated in that magical presence which seemed always to surround her, and only her.