The Girl from Berlin: War Criminal's Widow Page 8

  On the way to Ernst’s house we sat close to each other in the back seat, and I suddenly remembered how back in the days, when I was still a little girl, during the thunderstorm I used to press both hands to my ears to make the whole outside world disappear. The storm was still there, but I didn’t hear it and therefore it wasn’t frightening anymore. I had the same feeling here, in deceivingly quiet Linz, I felt like both of us were desperately hoping that everything would somehow end up well, and if we just held each other’s hand, the world would disappear and there would be only two of us left.

  “I’m terrified.” Here, I said it. For the first time, out loud.

  Ernst wrapped his arm around me and pressed me closer.

  “What are you terrified of? You’ve got me.”

  “What if you’re not always going to be around?”

  We never spoke of it before even though both knew perfectly well that when Germany loses the war, and now it was only a question of months, all the members of the government as well as RSHA, SS and SD would be tried by the allied Military Tribunal as war criminals. The American, British and Soviet leaders had by now decided their fate during the Tehran conference, as well as the fate of Germany, which was already divided into occupation zones on the maps of the Allies. I knew it all from Ingrid.

  “Of course I will.”

  Good, lie to me, comfort me, make me believe in impossible, I need to have faith in something again, and if not in you, the big, strong and powerful you, always knowing what to do, always coming up with a plan, than who else can I possibly have faith in?

  “I promise,” he added reassuringly.

  “I believe you.”

  I was trying to stay as invisible as possible that evening during the party, hiding behind the broad back of Otto, who arrived at the last minute. I was greedily watching how Ernst was playing with his children, absolutely ecstatic to get their constantly absent father’s attention. It was very painful to realize that I would probably never see him play with our child like that.

  I slowly, little by little, started to claw him out of my heart, trying to distance myself from his family, because it’s with them he’s going to have to leave when everything would be officially over. He probably had new passports ready for his wife and children, and maybe somewhere in South America, to where all of the top government members and the SS staff were planning to flee, they would start a new life and it would be good, and… And I can’t see anything anymore because of all the tears standing in my eyes.

  I went outside, to the cold night, and lifted my head to the velvet sky. Here even the stars were different, big and bright, not like in Berlin. While I’m looking up the tears are not rolling down my face, so I will just have to stay like this for a while. When was the last time that I was looking at the stars anyway? That’s right, with Heinrich, the very first summer after we just got married. We were going to spend the weekend in the countryside, and our car overheated and broke down. Heinrich took his uniform jacket off and we were lying on it and looking at the night sky, drinking wine we’d brought with us. We didn’t talk, we were just lying next to each other and looking at the sky.

  We always understood each other without any words. And then he came and broke it all, broke my fragile little world, put me down on the shattered glass that was left of it and made love to me. That’s how he was, my Erni, he’d always get what he wanted. And I still loved him after all…

  The Swiss border was very close to here, and I had my passport with me. If I’d taken a car and boarded the first train, I’d be in Zurich by tomorrow. And from there all of us, Mama, Papa, Heinrich, Ursula, Max, Greta and I could all disappear without a trace. There were a lot of American counterintelligence agents in Zurich by now, they’d pull us away in a second. And Ingrid in Berlin would make her connections falsify some papers, as if, let’s say, we all died during one of the bombings… If I just find the strength and go right now, before it gets too late…

  “Where did you go?”

  Ernst’s voice wrapped me up like a blanket and I all of a sudden didn’t feel cold anymore.

  “Just wanted to get some fresh air. Why aren’t you inside?”

  “Because you aren’t there. I go where you go, remember?”

  It was that simple and that complicated between us.

  _______________

  Today was the day when Heinrich was supposed to come back. His driver Hanz picked up his car a day ago, and now we, together with two more SD-Ausland agents, were waiting at the military airport for him and Max, who had been fulfilling the duties of Heinrich’s adjutant in Zurich in the course of these two months.

  Considering the official status of our small group, I initially hoped to keep my composure, but when I saw my husband descending the steps from the plane and smiling at me, I rushed to hug him.

  “Stop it, Annalise, people are watching,” Heinrich murmured embarrassingly, but still quickly kissed me before walking over to the awaiting officers. Following him Max greeted me with a wide smile and a nod. He still couldn’t believe that due to Ernst’s intervention he escaped prosecution and already thanked me and the Chief of the RSHA about a thousand times over the phone.

  Not all of the conspirators, or at least people who knew about the plot and never reported anything, were as lucky as Max though. Day after day I kept bringing Ernst protective custody orders, which he was signing with some unexplainable for me determination.

  “Why are you doing this?” I finally asked him. “Can’t you at least put them in jail? Why execute them all?”

  He sighed and tapped his finger on the stack of papers in front of him – the papers which were basically death sentences to over another twenty officers.

  “It needs to be done.” He paused for a moment and added quietly, “I need the Führer to believe me. He doesn’t trust anyone now, after the assassination he developed an almost paranoid obsession that everyone’s plotting against him. The more people I execute, the more he trusts me, you understand? He’s listening to me already. These several hundred must die so thousands will get to live. I know it sounds horrible, but that’s the only way I can do it.”

  From the airport we had to go straight to the RSHA because Ernst couldn’t wait to get the detailed report, which Heinrich was bringing. The Chief of the RSHA’s calculations turned out to be one hundred percent right, and with Heinrich and Max constantly lingering around the American officials and openly investigating the possible negotiations, Schellenberg didn’t want to risk his position and moreover his life, and the potential deal didn’t move forward.

  Ernst thought everything through indeed, that shrewd lawyer, who outplayed even the best intelligence agent of the whole SD-Ausland – Walther Schellenberg, who never got outplayed by anybody before. But the real game, for which he was preparing all that, began only now. After he thoroughly studied Heinrich’s reports, from time to time marking something down with a mysterious smile, he neatly put everything together with pictures that Otto got for him, and at the door grinned at both of us.

  “I’m off to see Reichsführer.”

  “What is he up to?” Heinrich whispered to me as soon as the Chief of the RSHA closed the door after himself.

  “Trust me, even I don’t know.”

  _______________

  Heinrich and I left the office at five and were driving home. I was dreading this moment when I’d be alone with him; how was I supposed to tell my husband that I was expecting someone else’s baby? My stomach already twisted in ten knots as I was thinking of his possible reaction.

  “Something’s wrong?” He noticed my uneasy state of course.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Heinrich…”

  I had thought about this conversation for many sleepless nights. I already got myself mentally prepared to the despising look he’d throw at me, as he silently packed a suitcase and left forever. I wouldn’t blame him; he was kind enough to stay with a no good cheating wife, but this he would never forgive me. N
o man would.

  “Yes?”

  Just say it. What’s the point in dragging time? I bit my lip painfully and hardly whispered, “I’m pregnant.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. He went quiet for a minute, swallowed hard, sighed, and finally said tiredly, “So we’re having a baby then. Alright.”

  I felt absolutely miserable. Just like that, not even giving it too much thought, he made a decision to raise the other man’s child. What did I do to deserve him? And what did he do so bad to deserve me as a punishment?

  “Heinrich, I’m sorry…”

  “Just… don’t. I don’t ever want to talk about it again.”

  The whole next week I was following him like a shadow trying to be the best wife I could. I kept bringing him coffee with biscuits while he was working in his study, I was cleaning his uniform and boots, handing him fresh newspapers during breakfast and making the radio quiet whenever he was on the phone. At first Heinrich kept ignoring all my attempts for reconciliation with a distant look as if I wasn’t even there. I didn’t push him and gave him his space, and instead would just sit quietly somewhere not too far in case if he’d need something. But one day he suddenly broke his gloomy demeanor and burst out laughing.

  “If men only knew how obliging their wives would become after getting pregnant by someone else, they’d make it into the law,” he replied to my inquisitive look, still laughing. “I think I’m going to write Ernst a ‘thank you’ note.”

  I smiled shyly too, but for a different reason: I was officially forgiven.

  _______________

  When I entered the main hallway leading to Ernst’s office that morning, I almost ran into very discontent looking Reichsführer Himmler and his most intimate trustee, Walther Schellenberg. It seemed like they had just left the Chief of the RSHA’s office, even though I found it surprising that Ernst was at his working place that early. Normally he’d arrive by ten or eleven, still yawning and demanding coffee right away; sometimes he’d even shamelessly take a nap after lunch, then would stretch like a lazy cat for another five minutes and only then would go back to work.

  When one time I had to physically wake him up because the agents were already lining up with their reports in the anteroom, he just rubbed his eyes leisurely and gave me an adorable sleepy look.

  “What? I didn’t want this position in the first place. Can you blame me for sabotaging?”

  That’s the kind of man he was, my Erni.

  “Heil Hitler, Herr Reichsführer!” I raised my hand in the usual salute but he just mumbled something and proceeded to the exit. The Chief of SD-Ausland at least forced a smile.

  Strange, I thought to myself and proceeded to the office. As soon as I entered the anteroom, Georg told me that Ernst was waiting for me inside, and when I saw the mischievously smiling Chief of the RSHA with a bottle of champagne ready to be opened, I realized that it certainly had something to do with Reichsführer’s mood.

  “Close the door and come here.”

  I followed the order and looked at him inquisitively.

  “What are we celebrating?”

  “We, my darling, are celebrating two wonderful events. Number one, as you probably know, I’m going to become a father soon.” I gave him a murderous look in reply to his joke, and he hardly suppressed a chuckle. Incorrigible. “And number two, the extermination program has been officially cancelled today by signing the special directive in this very office.”

  Ernst popped the bottle open and started to fill the two glasses while I was trying to digest the news I could still not believe I had just heard.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely serious, my darling.” He handed me the glass and raised his up. “And here’s to yours truly, the mysterious man behind the whole plan, and your people’s new best friend.”

  I took a little sip, still trying to comprehend what happened in this office just minutes earlier.

  “You made him sign it, didn’t you?”

  Ernst just grinned in response.

  “How did you do it?”

  He still wouldn’t answer, and I finally started to place all the elements of the puzzle together.

  “He was the one seeking the negotiations with the Americans, wasn’t he? Schellenberg was working for him all along,” I whispered my guess as Ernst was smiling wider and wider, confirming my guess. “You didn’t openly blackmail him, did you? Oh my God, you did!”

  “No, openly blackmailed, no. I haven’t lost my mind yet. I just implied that the investigation yielded certain things that might compromise certain people… behind Schellenberg. I never said who those people were, but he understood everything. I also gave him all the photos of his dearest protégé, as a gesture of good will of course. I said that less than anything I’d want something to happen to his loyal little friend, can you imagine the Führer’s reaction if those photos would end up on his desk… Himmler became very pale at that point.”

  Ernst was recalling the details with visible pleasure.

  “I went on and said that I kept the negatives in a remote and very safe location, just in case something happens to me, so he shouldn’t be worried about them. It was our buddy Schellenberg’s turn to become pale after my words. I guess we were right about the Protectorate after all. And then I offered Himmler to support my opinion about the extermination program during the conference at the headquarters. Since we are such good friends now, you understand? I can swear I heard him grinding his teeth while I was telling the Führer that no hostile power would deal with us in the future if we keep carrying out the ‘Final solution’ directive. The Führer had already agreed with me on that question; I told you before, that after I was showing up at his door almost daily and reporting on more conspirators executed in connection with the plot, my influence on him was growing more and more. It was Himmler who kept rejecting all my arguments, insisting on continuing the program.”

  Ernst suddenly smirked and shook his head.

  “We’re losing the war altogether and all he’s concerned about is ‘preserving the pure Aryan blood.’ Isn’t it ridiculous? Doesn’t he understand that none of this will matter anymore in just several months, and that’s if we’re lucky?”

  “I still can’t believe you did it,” I repeated once again. “No more gassings?”

  “No. It’s officially over.”

  “Erni!” I walked over to him, sat on his lap and started to cover his face in kisses. “I’m so proud of you! You don’t even know what you did! Do you even realize how many people you saved?”

  He didn’t answer anything and just smiled mysteriously. Yes, that’s the kind of man he was, my Erni.

  Chapter 6

  November, 1944

  Heinrich and I were celebrating the anniversary of our first date, which happened exactly six years ago. Of course we always celebrated the anniversary of our wedding, but that first date for some unexplainable reasons still had some special meaning for us. So we got dressed up and went to a nice restaurant that thank God was still intact despite the unified efforts of the allied air force.

  Six years… I couldn’t believe that in just a couple of months we’d be married for six years. It seemed like we’d just met each other and like we’d known each other for the whole eternity. How many things happened in the course of those six years, and what they did to us…

  “You look so deep in your thoughts tonight,” Heinrich noticed. “Is something bothering you?”

  He hadn’t changed at all, I thought, just got a few grey hairs near his temples, and the rest is still the same: warm brown eyes, impeccable posture, light smile… only the uniform is grey instead of black, and with two more crosses on it. My husband.

  “Nothing.” I returned the smile and picked up the fork again. My appetite had increased lately because I had to eat for two now. And it seemed like that second tiny person demanded a lot of food despite its still inconsiderable size. “It’s just hard to believe that it’s been so long. Our
marriage, I mean. It seems like it was just yesterday.”

  “I know. I was thinking about it this morning too.”

  “You were?”

  “Yes. On my way to Rudolf and Ingrid’s.”

  “How is he feeling?”

  “He’s fine, already walking around with a cane, and he says his headache is almost gone completely. He just gets dizzy sometimes. He’s very lucky to be alive.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “By the way, I have a surprise for you.”

  “What is it?”

  Heinrich moved his chair closer to mine and started talking quietly into my ear.

  “Rudolf and Ingrid spoke to their superiors, and they offered me a job. When everything is over with this war of course, and they won’t need me here anymore. A position in the OSS. I accepted it. They said they’ll get us new identities and bring us to the US together with other persons of interest they might use in the future: scientists, doctors, spies… They will give us a completely new life. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  For a moment I didn’t know what to say. The news was a little too overwhelming. It was great to know that the American government was going to protect us and even secure our future in their land, but it would mean…

  “It would mean that we’ll have to move to the United States? Permanently?”

  “Yes. New York, to be exact. That’s where their main office is.”

  “New York… it’s so far away. A completely different country. We’ll have to leave Berlin… forever?”

  “Annalise, sweetheart.” Heinrich took my hand in his and slightly squeezed it. “They’re bombing us almost daily now. Both fronts are moving towards us. And when they come, there will be nothing left of Berlin, because the Führer had ordered to fight till the last man and for every street and house in Germany. They’ll destroy it.”

  I nodded, staring at my plate. I loved my city, but it wasn’t the reason I felt my heart growing cold with every beat as if it was sensing the inevitable. It meant that I would have to leave Ernst. And I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.