A Kiss for the Enemy (46 page)

Kurt Langenbach was a brave, clever man, but he was a bad husband to Anna. He treated her without feeling. He had no gentleness in his character. I know that she came not to love him. It was the mistake of her life to marry him. She wanted security, she wanted to be able to help her mother, a wonderful woman, now dead. And Langenbach was an interesting man. She was entertained – dazzled, maybe. But I also know that Anna is a woman of very high character. If she were unfaithful
to her husband it could only be because she felt that he, himself, had broken their contract by his behaviour: and because she loved another with her whole heart. That other was your brother, Anthony.

Anna told me all this long ago – only me. She wished me to know because, if something happened to her, she wanted another person to know the truth. She paid me a great compliment. She said she knew, whatever the circumstances, I would act rightly in the matter.

She said to me, “If at any time you think it right you can
tell Marcia
Franzi is her nephew.” And I think now I should do so, because my own future is so uncertain, just at present. I shall, naturally, not entrust this letter to the post – with all that means – but will take advantage of the fact that an officer of this branch, a trusted colleague, Captain Hoffmann, is visiting the exact area of Silesia where your hospital is in the next few days and has undertaken to deliver the letter to the hospital personally!

I kiss my little sister and I must now end by writing the three simple words which this long letter has tried to convey to you – I love you!

Frido.'

‘“Not entrusted to the post – with all that means!” “My own future uncertain! Lost recently some dear friends!” He certainly has – still, there's not a great deal to help us here,
Herr Sturmbannführer.
'

Egon Schwede looked at his subordinate grimly.

‘I don't agree!'

‘“This nightmare we're living through” – it's defeatist stuff, certainly, disgusting for an officer of course, but …'

‘That's only part of it, you idiot. The letter stinks of disaffection. But we already know all about von Arzfeld – he's only where he is in case he can still give us a few heads. No, look at this so-called secret he tells this girl! And don't forget she's English, sister of an English soldier!'

‘But that was gone into, wasn't it? She was going to marry this one's brother. She's nursing now, not far from here.'

Schwede brushed this aside. ‘Times have changed. We've been betrayed by too many of these so-called gentlemen, this scum. We're more vigilant now. But it doesn't matter whether she's English or not. Look at the “secret” as he calls it!'

His companion,
Sturmführer
Molde, looked.

‘He's been concealing a serious criminal offence. This woman, this cousin of his, Langenbach, has been breaking the law in the most shocking way. She's been pretending that an illegitimate child – by a foreigner, mind, who may be a Jew or have Jewish blood for all anyone knows – pretending that this child is the son of a dead officer of the Wehrmacht. It's incredible! And Arzfeld,
a German officer
has been concealing this. He's guilty of connivance.'

Molde nodded subserviently. He remained unconvinced. He said, ‘All the same,
Herr Sturmbannführer
, I wish we had a clearer reference to his relations with some of the others. After all, we reckon Arzfeld's own guilt can be established already. The argument for not finishing with him was that he might still give something away. There are a lot of gaps to fill in and we're dealing with a conspiracy against the Reich. This letter is all about their miserable private lives.'

‘It all hangs together,' said Schwede. ‘It's evidence of a criminal conspiracy. It shows these people up for what they really are – immoral, devoid of any principle, false to every German idea –'

He choked. Molde was looking again at his own copy of Frido's letter.

‘Do we allow the letter to reach its destination?'

‘Of course we do, you fool! What would Hoffmann say if it didn't arrive? Hoffmann's doing his duty and we want to keep Arzfeld trusting him. It was Hoffmann who tipped us off he was up to something in July, remember? We owe something to Hoffmann.'

‘When will Arzfeld be pulled in?'

‘When the Gestapo judge it right. They have great experience,' said Schwede sententiously, ‘in the difficult matter of exactly when and how to bring criminals to justice. But I suspect that this so-called secret he has been keeping will help, when they decide to pull him and crack him. He won't be expecting it. It will give them something to ring the changes with – swing from that to his relations with Stauffenberg and the rest of the swine, and back again. You need variety in interrogation, and surprise. Oh, we'll have his head all right! And screw a good deal out of him before, I wouldn't wonder!'

Schwede tried to sound dispassionate, but as he reflected
on the contents of Frido's letter he felt jealous and uncontrollable fury. And to think that he had been offered the chance of returning to his own Gau in Lower Saxony after Christmas, probably in a more senior position! If it would serve the Reich he should accept the offer. He should indeed!

Molde reached for a folder. A thought struck him.

‘
Herr Sturmbannführer
, you spoke of the woman – the one with the child – as a cousin of his – of Arzfeld's. The letter doesn't refer to her as a cousin.'

A nerve twitched in Schwede's forehead. ‘I thought he wrote of her as a cousin,' he said gruffly. ‘Why does she confide in him if he's not a relation? Anyway, it's not important.'

‘It's near your own home and former place of duty, of course, isn't it? I imagine you know of these people.'

Schwede's mind went back to his one encounter with Major Kurt Langenbach, to the latter's arrogant smile, his unconcealed contempt for the pretensions of the little Nazi brewery manager, the dismissive tone in which he said, ‘Schwede, isn't it?' Schwede adjusted his memory.

‘Major Langenbach,' he said to Molde softly, ‘was a close friend of mine. A true hero. One should never allow personal feelings to affect duty, but I can tell you my shame on behalf of my dead friend is hard to set aside. Now get on with your work!'

Anthony was lying on a mattress on the floor in an attic at Schloss Langenbach. He had only blurred recollections of how he got there. He remembered moving from a church, every step a painful, uncertain adventure, beside Anna into a wet street beneath a grey sky. Somehow he had then found himself stretched in the back of a small farm cart. Then there had been pain again, clip-clop-clip-clop, that had surely gone on for hours. Anna's voice was whispering, ‘stand – not for long'. Then her arm had been round him – a steep, winding stair. He thought he'd said, ‘I can't do it,' and she had said fiercely, ‘You must, I can't carry you.' He remembered saying at one point, ‘I'll sit down for a little,' and Anna, he was certain, had hissed ‘NO!' and made him drag his torment and his fever on and on, up and up. He didn't know how long ago that was.
Nor how much had happened, how much was dream. But today, whenever today was, he felt clear-headed and able to think lucidly.

Anna had saved him and hidden him. She had also nursed him. He reached down to his thigh. It was efficiently bandaged. He felt weak but he knew he was recovering. He also felt extremely hungry. He didn't suppose it would be sensible to try to get up but he wished there were less of a draught. He looked at his surroundings.

The attic was huge and dusty. It had obviously long been used as a storeroom for unwanted furniture, boxes, antique luggage and broken harness. There were several skylights, and it seemed a bright day, for pools of sunshine lay at intervals on the wooden floor. The exposed roof beams and rafters were immense. Anthony coughed. He saw the dust swirling in the sunbeams that struck the nearest skylight.

At that moment there was the sound of a door opening. He knew that step already, as it approached where he lay.

‘Anna!' He found that he could speak, though weakly. ‘Oh Anna! It wasn't a dream! It's you!' He felt too feeble to worry about what terms they met on – enemy, lover, captor, saviour. His eyes moved over her face like fingertips.

She knelt by the mattress. In the forthcoming weeks they always murmured – the size of the place and the solidity of walls and floors meant that to whisper was unnecessary, but it was unwise, too, to raise the voice. He took her hand.

Anna had a handkerchief bound round the head. She looked, as she always did, both supremely efficient and very beautiful. She left her hand in Anthony's and smiled at him.

‘You are better. You are different today. The fever has gone completely.'

‘Anna, where exactly am I?'

‘You are in one of the attics at Langenbach. The east attic to be precise. It is a storeroom, as you can see, and nobody visits it but me.' She explained to him in a matter-of-fact way, that every visit to dress his wound, to care for him, to bring water or supplies had had to be made at night – or, at the earliest, in the evening.

‘The village school occupies part of the floor below, the first floor. My mother-in-law never moves from her own room off
the hall. She can no longer walk. I have a girl who does most of what's needed in the kitchen and two women who work here by day, cleaning. They live in the village. They would at once know if you were in a bedroom. I couldn't conceal it. But they never come up here.'

‘How long have I been here?'

‘Exactly nine days. It's 5th December. You had a bad wound in the thigh.'

‘It was a splinter of glass. From a bomb. An air raid. We were at the railway station.'

‘“We”?'

Anthony nodded and then sighed. He supposed in some extraordinary way they were still on different sides and he'd best say the minimum about Robert. Or were they?'

‘My leg doesn't feel too bad now.'

‘The splinter missed every main nerve and artery. It went through muscle and flesh. You were very lucky. But it started to become infected quickly, and you had a high temperature. Now it's just a question of getting your strength back, and the tissue's mending.'

Anthony lifted her hand to his lips and started kissing it gently, lingeringly. She smiled, still a practical smile but, he noted with joy, with the love that he remembered in it and in her eyes. Was it really possible that after years of separation, amidst the chaos of a world war, committed as she was to an opposing side in that war, she could – did – still love him? As he knew, and had never doubted, that he loved her? Or was this a delirious dream?

Anna patted his cheek with her other hand.

‘You're not going to be fit for – very much – for a little time, you know!' She bent and kissed him on the lips.

‘Anna, you must be running a terrible risk having me here. I was going to give myself up, you know. I'm an escaped prisoner of war, the worst that would happen to me would be the punishment cells.'

‘I know you're an escaped prisoner of war.'

He looked at her and he knew with humble and astonished joy that to this woman her human duty had been instantly clear.

‘I knew it at once. That wasn't difficult to guess, although
first seeing you gave me a fearful shock! But now you can't move – as you are. And if you gave yourself up they'd start asking how you had your wound dressed and so forth. No, my love, you must stay for a little, until you are strong enough to walk properly.'

‘Can I really stay here without being found?'

‘Yes, but you must do exactly what I say. You must never leave this attic – I've got a wash basin, I'll bring water every day, empty it for you. I've got an old – what do you call in England, those old-fashioned lavatories one empties by hand?'

‘Commodes.'

‘I've found one, and lifted it up here – very heavy! Later, when you are really better, it should be possible for you sometimes to come down, maybe at night.'

‘If there's nobody but your mother-in-law, bedridden, a girl cook and two cleaning women by day, then there's no human being to set eyes on me after the end of school, is there? Perhaps I can explore a little more quite soon.'

His hand, still without strength, moved, caressing, from wrist to forearm.

‘It is not so that there is no other human being, not at all,' said Anna. ‘There is also Franzi. Your son.'

Several weeks went by and the winter grew harder. As Anthony grew stronger so did his restlessness increase, but so also did all his old passion for Anna well up again. She was strict in the régime which she imposed and he obeyed her absolutely. He could imagine what she was risking. She brought him books from the library at Langenbach. Sometimes she brought a newspaper and he tried to deduce from the manifest lies and distortions what was actually happening in the war.

They talked of Marcia. Anna spoke of her with affection.

‘Frido loves her, you know. There was another, a man called Toni Rudberg. Attractive, promiscuous – I think she lost her heart to him. He disappeared, like so many, somewhere in Russia. But Frido has always loved her.'

‘It's caused us all – my parents – awful pain, her being here. I can't get used to the idea of Marcia, spending the war – well–'

‘On the other side? And courted by German officers? Your little sister? Is that what you mean?'

‘I suppose that it is.' But it was both wonderful and poignant to hear that Marcia was well.

On the subject of Franzi, Anna was adamant.

‘He must not see you. Children cannot understand secrets. It is essential that he knows nothing – is in a position to say nothing. He is five years old, very bright. He would ask questions, say something unintentionally to Hans, the garden man, or to one of the cleaning women. Or to Fraülein Wendel, she is always keen to talk to him.'