Professor Kramer said nothing. The Sergeant had simply made a statement, requiring no answer. Kramer’s mind was still trying to accept the idea that he was being released, but he had come far enough to believing it for terror to begin all over again, the terror of being told there was some kind of mistake, or of Sergeant Steiger’s pouncing on an incorrect word or gesture and sending him back to his hut for later punishment. It was difficult, Kramer found, to stand perfectly still at attention; there seemed no strength left in his legs; but to relax his stance would be to show flagrant insubordination. . . .

  “Down in the files as deceased, one day,” Sergeant Steiger said softly through his fleshy lips, “and down for release, the next. Quite a busy time for you, Herr Kramer. But then, the Orderly Room files are never really reliable, are they?”

  “No,” Kramer said quickly, knowing he must agree. The Sergeant raised his round pink face, widening his eyes. “No? Did you say No, Herr Kramer?”

  “No, Sergeant." It came out on a breath.

  “You didn’t say no, Herr Kramer?” He put his round head on one side in elaborate puzzlement. “I could have sworn you said no, Herr Kramer.”

  Ernst Kramer closed his eyes as the terror mounted in him. The Sergeant had brought him here to play with him, that was all; he’d told them to fit him out with some old clothes, pretending he was to be released; it was just one of Sergeant Steiger’s little jokes.

  “Didn’t you, in fact, say no, Herr Kramer?”

  The prisoner tried to fathom out what he must say. “Yes, Sergeant, I did say no.”

  The small eyes glittered with amusement. “I thought you did. I thought I wasn’t mistaken.” Suddenly tired of the game he tapped the papers on his desk. “You are being released by order of Standartenführer Brink-mann of the Concentration Camp Inspectorate, with the approval, needless to say, of Kommandant Axen. That is most unusual, Herr Kramer. Most. The Gestapo has been informed, you see. In normal circumstances the Gestapo would decide whether a prisoner should be released or not. The SS are simply the custodians of those persons and sundry pigs whom the Gestapo wish incarcerated. Don’t you find all this rather interesting, Herr Kramer?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.” His legs were so weak now that he felt himself swaying, and wondered if fainting in front of an SS noncommissioned officer would amount to insubordination. His head was beginning to swim. Perhaps none of this mattered; they were going to kill him anyway.

  “I shall make immediate inquiries into this most unusual situation, Herr Kramer. I believe that Gestapo Headquarters in Berlin should be informed that a prisoner’s release has been effected without, presumably, their orders.” He tore off the top sheet of a pro forma and handed it to the prisoner. “Here is your release, Herr Kramer. I hope that in the few days of your liberty you’ll speak well of this model institution we have here at Debno, where you have been treated with both consideration and clemency, as I’m sure you agree. Do you agree, Herr Kramer?”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  “But of course you do.” His fleshy lips moved appreciatively, tasting each word as he uttered it. “I’m quite sure, however, that when the Gestapo in Berlin have been informed of this patent error in the administration, they’ll rectify it speedily, so that we can all look forward to seeing you back with us in a day or two.”

  28

  BERLIN, 25 MARCH 1940

  ‘The name again?”

  “Hedda von Gerlach.”

  “Nurse von Gerlach, do you mean?” The staff matron was frowning at the telephone. Personal calls for staff below matron’s rank were strictly forbidden.

  “Yes. Nurse von Gerlach.”

  “Who wishes to speak with her?’

  “The SS Office of Security, Berlin.”

  “This is official business?”

  “Of course. AncJ our time, madam, is as valuable as yours.”

  “I will get her at once.”

  The Matron found Hedda in the staff room, sitting alone with a cup of half-cold ersatz coffee. She was a woman, the Matron had noted before, who kept herself to herself.

  When Hedda went to the telephone she saw the red lamps winking in the ceiling again, the whole length of the corridor. That would be the fifth accident case for major surgery since she’d come on duty four hours ago. Everyone on the streets seemed to be going crazy, the way they drove. Or perhaps it was a domicile incident.

  “Hello?”

  “Hedda. Do you recognize my voice?”

  She caught her breath. “Yes.”

  “Franz is alive and well. I saw him last night.”

  Her heart was thudding. “Where is—”

  “Hedda, there’s more to tell you.^We must meet, as soon as possible.”

  “But—” She longed to say his name, to hear herself say it; but he’d warned her about that so often. “But I think they’re—I mean, wherever I go, I think there’s—” “Yes. I know. But I can deal with that. Are you off duty this evening?”

  In a moment she said, “No, there’s a staff meeting.” She must always leave her evenings free, in case Vogel telephoned, saying he was coming to see her. “But I’ll be free after ten o’clock.” He was always gone by nine.

  ‘Ten o’clock, then, tonight. In the park between the Halen See and Trabenerstrasse. Opposite the island.” “Yes.” It was a few minutes’ walk from where she lived, which was obviously why he’d chosen it. “Yes. I’ll be there.” Her heart was thudding, thudding. “But be careful. Be very careful. Please.”

  “I will.”

  In the stuffy bar of the Gasthaus at Eberswalde, not far from the Polish frontier, Martin put down the receiver. It had taken him until noon to get Kramer to the airfield: Tempel had called for the rendezvous on the north side of the river, and the two nearest bridges had been clogged with military traffic moving north to the Danish frontier. The team at the rendezvous had started giving Kramer intravenous protein injections the minute they saw him; the man could hardly stand up. He was being flown direct to The Hague in a civilian plane, and should reach England tonight.

  Tempel had been very quiet, shrunk into himself. “Eckstein and Schutz are dead,” Martin had told him.

  “You are certain?”

  “I’ve seen Gestapo files, one at Buchenwald, one at Sachsenhausen.”

  “So.” Otto Tempel’s voice was infinitely weary. “They were the last two. We have been lucky. Only two, out of our reach. With the death rate in the camps—” He shrugged. “And Kramer was the key man. You know that.” His rimless glasses caught the light as he turned his head, watching the stream of amored cars along the road. “And finally, I have no further orders for you, Colonel Brinkmann.”

  They were sitting in Tempel’s Adler coupe, at the edge of the freight yard at Eberswalde Bahnhof, with the March sky dark above the bridge. Tempel, thought Martin, must be older than he looked; or he had known Major Haslam and the others for longer than it seemed. The massacre at the house in Charlottenburg had shaken him, shaken his faith. His Teutonic sense of order hadn’t prepared him for disaster.

  “You’ve done what we asked you to do,” he said in a tone bordering on disbelief. “I have signaled The Hague. I have asked them for your immediate withdrawal from the field, if possible through the lines here, though time looks short.” He watched the military convoy that was approaching the bridge, its field-gray crews sitting high on the vehicles gazing ahead. Last evening the Führer had made a broadcast, speaking of “the coming challenge.”

  “I’ll remain in contact,” Martin told him.

  “At the same number.” His head went down again. ‘Tor as long as I am there. If we can’t get you out through the lines here, we shall get you out through Switzerland.” He looked at Martin with narrowed eyes. “You were a success, Colonel Brinkmann. I told Haslam you would fail. I said you hated these people too much, that you would lose your control. I was wrong.”

  Martin had left him soon afterward, driving through the town to clear the worst of the traffic and head south for Berlin. It was then he’d decided to telephone Hedda in advance. She had to be told that Franz was alive. That he was likely to die within twelve hours from now couldn’t be said over a telephone: he must see her and try to explain the unacceptable—that he’d decided to leave her brother at Debno, for his own sake. When Franz von Gerlach had started to put up anti-Nazi posters all over Berlin, it hadn’t been a student’s prank or a pocket crusader’s cry for recognition; it had been a statement made in the name of justice and made at the risk of his life. In the few months since then, Franz had matured into the kind of man whose suffering had tempered the spirit inside that bruised and emaciated body to the point where rage had taken slow fire. The knowledge had come to this boy-turned-man that if he were ever going to live with himself, if life were granted him, he would have to wipe out the humiliation of all they had done to him in the camps, of all they had done to the men who were now his friends, and to Germany, which was his country and which he loved. What are you doing, Schroeder the physicist had asked Martin, to Germany? They had walked together from the cattle train across the frosted stones last February, beneath the winter stars. You’re tearing down this country’s pretensions to civilization, can’t you people see that? Schroeder, a grown man, had kept his spirit untouched by the horror that had become his daily life, and had been ready to challenge an officer in SS uniform, to accuse him of high treason.

  Franz von Gerlach was such another, already a grown man with his father’s courage burning in him, adding to the fierce heat of the rage that was keeping his flesh and bones alive inside their prisoner’s rags. He wasn’t in a mood to let a savior take him from his friends and lead him by the hand to safety; he was in a mood to seize his own deliverance, in hot blood and in their faithful company, pitting the last of his strength against the brute savages who thought they could subject him. For him there was no other way to live, and no other way to die.

  Would Hedda understand? Perhaps. 1 want you to know something, she had told him as they had stood close together on the S-bahn train. I’m proud of what he did. Very proud.

  There was another reason why Martin had to see her. The news of the mass escape from Debno camp would reach Gestapo Headquarters within the hour, and the ringleaders would be named. Whether Franz lived or died, the man tormenting Hedda von Gerlach would have no mercy on her. Before the escape was launched at Debno tomorrow morning, Martin would have to get her out of Berlin and into hiding.

  Touching her nipples with rouge, she thought of marriage.

  The three photographs were propped up against the bottom edge of the mirror in the bathroom, where she sat now. The one of Franz with the SS guard standing over a prisoner in the background, his club raised. The one of Franz with the prisoner standing next to him, holding his face while the blood trickled from his fingers. And the one—the worst one—of Franz facing the camera and trying to smile. To smile.

  She used more foundation cream, to hide the lines that had started to form in her face, weeks ago, months ago. Her skin was loosening; at twenty-eight she was losing her looks. Frau Hartnagel never left the subject alone. But Hedda, my dear, my darling, you are working too hard! And you are not eating enough! Wringing her plump operatic hands, rounding her heavy-lidded eyes, their lashes caked with mascara. Your gentleman must take you out more often, my dear. He has no problem with the rationing, in the restaurants he goes to! Her rich voice vibrating with roguish intrigue. No other house in the whole of Grünewald, surely, was honored with regular visits from a high-ranking officer of the Gestapo!

  Hedda studied her face in the mirror, deciding to add a hint of silver-blue to her lids. Tonight she must play the whore, the most beautiful, the most practiced whore in all Berlin. She must writhe in ecstasy, she must moan for him, assuring him that he was the greatest lover in the world.

  Then there might be a chance, when -she proposed.

  It was Frau Hartnagel who had put the idea into her mind.

  And will there he wedding bells, my dear, when the gentleman is ready? A peal of operatic laughter, her palate glistening. She would be invited, of course, as little Hedda’s most devoted friend and patroness (the rent for this particular apartment was reduced). A splendid and glittering wedding, with a Gestapo guard of honor and banners flying!

  Hedda varnished her nails, glancing at the little ormolu clock. He was coming at eight, in fifteen minutes. She felt the familiar creeping of her skin as she waited, the increase of saliva prompted by her disgust. He liked the black lace negligee, and no perfume; she would oblige him. Tonight, if she could, she would save her brother.

  It was a week ago when she had caught sight of her face in a mirror at the hospital and realized that her brother’s safety was being gradually compromised. Her looks were going, as the stress and nervous fatigue mounted; and the moment she lost her attraction for Superintendent Vogel, Franz would lose his protector. She was sleeping only a few hours each night, spending the rest of the time walking to and fro in the cage of the apartment, trying to think, trying to think, trying to think how to bring this horror to an end. Whatever she did, however courageous, however desperate, Franz would suffer. If she fled the city and found a refuge somewhere, if she defied the Creature—even if she killed him with the bright-honed scalpel she used on him so often in her mind—Franz would suffer. But if she did nothing, if she simply continued to make her body available to this immature monster, Franz would suffer before long, when the day came for Vogel to look at her critically and note the circles under her eyes, the droop of the mouth, the ravages of stress and fatigue.

  There was still time to do something, if she were ready to face it. She must persuade him to marry her. It would be dangerous to make conditions, to demand her brother’s liberty in return: Vogel must believe she wanted this marriage for its own sake. Then he would order Franz’s release: his pride wouldn’t let it be known that he had a young brother-in-law languishing in the camps. Later, when this war was over, or even sooner, if the war went on, she and Franz could leave Berlin and go into hiding somewhere, and the long nightmare would be over.

  But how did one propose to an impotent sadist?

  We’ve known each other a long time now, Karl. I’m—I’m beginning to miss you, in between your visits. Her skin crawled. I think we’ve come to understand each other by now, don’t you? If you’d care to think about it, Karl, I’d like to—to grace your household, officially. Oh God, how stilted, how arch! To share your life, officially. I realize a young woman isn’t supposed to do the proposing, but . . . Her mouth was turning sour with self-disgust. She must keep the photographs in the forefront of her mind, every minute. Franz, in the photographs, in the one where he was trying to smile. Was he at this moment falling under the blow of a club, while she was making such a fuss about offering her precious body to a man she found unattractive, to a man who, in fact, had never hurt it?

  Five minutes to eight.

  She slipped the gold and amethyst ring on to her finger. He liked her to wear it. The work of Herr Gronowetter of Buchenwald, and quite exquisite. They keep the guard dogs short of food, you see, so that they don't become lazy. It took jour men with whips to keep the dog away.

  For a while she’d hoped that Martin would somehow be able to free her brother, in his role of an SS Colonel. But this afternoon when he’d telephoned, that hope had died. Franz is alive, he had told her. But his voice had been sober, premonitory. The rest he would tell when they met, in only two hours from now. But it wouldn’t be good news.

  So tonight she must save Franz herself.

  She was half naked, the little slut, posing for him under the light. Did she think he needed a whore?

  He closed the door carefully behind him, and dropped his gloves on to the pier table. He didn’t remove his cap.

  “Put something on,” he said curtly. “Cover yourself.”

  Surprised, she reached for the rose patterned dressing gown.

  Did she think she was irresistible? He'd change her mind about that.

  His dark eyes were perfectly expressionless, while the cold fury consumed him. He’d kept it under control, at first; then gradually he had come to realize what she had done to him.

  “It was good of you to receive me, Fräulein, considering how busy you are with other visitors.”

  Hedda stood frozen. So she’d left it too late, and Franz was lost.

  “Visitors?” She was able to say it almost calmly. Martin had been here only once, and for a few minutes.

  “I think I told you, Fräulein, that I preferred you not to have men friends.” His black leather boots creaked as he took a step toward her.

  “Of course you did. And I haven’t any. You are all I—”

  “You have been meeting a man. A Colonel of the SS. You have been seen with him on more than one occasion. And I notice, Fräulein, that your face is losing its color.”

  He was taking a risk, he knew.

  Luftig had told him: Vm therefore asking you, officially, to leave Fräulein von Gerlach alone.

  “You have disobeyed me, Fräulein. You have deceived me and betrayed me.” He took another step closer, gratified by the shock in her eyes. “Before I inform you what will now happen to your brother, do you wish to say anything?”

  He took another step toward her, then his black-uniformed body tilted and the whole room spun, and she was aware of the smell of carpeting. At some time— she did not know when—there was a cold shock against her face, and the light in the room seemed to splinter against her closed eyes. Then slowly she opened them, and looked straight into the dark reptilian eyes of the man in the Italian brocade chair. As the memory of what he had said rushed back into her mind, she almost passed out again. Before I inform you what will now happen to your brother, do you wish to say anything?