Clara (27 page)

ANNA SENT HER
straight to bed and there she remained for several days. The bleeding stopped and gradually her hope and confidence returned. Three weeks after that Albert came home to rotate out the garrison crew. He arrived with only forty-five men. The rest of the battalion remained in France, marshalled and rearmed, and still attached to Rommel’s panzer units.

Within the hour he had commissioned a military ambulance, a medic, and a driver. They headed west at speed, then south into the mountains and along the snowbound valleys on chained wheels toward St. Töllden. They drove all night, and when the sun rose the mountains stood deep orange along their edges against the cloudless sky.

Dr. Mannheim made a thorough examination, internal and external. He took smears and blood and examined them under a microscope for hostile bacteria. He consulted
a colleague in Innsbruck, a specialist, by telephone. Albert sat in the doctor’s office, and he could hear one side of the conversation murmured through the door to the examination room. The telephone was put down and he could hear the doctor speaking to Clara.

The doctor came into the room. He put his stethoscope on the desk and sat down in the chair. “Clara is getting dressed,” he said to Albert. “Let’s wait until she can join us. You’re just back from France?”

“I am.”

“It’s all completely unnecessary, isn’t it?”

“Unnecessary?”

The doctor sat and studied Albert’s uniform in the combined light from the desk lamp and the blue window light of morning: the rank insignia of silver stars and oak leaves, the tank badge and the Iron Crosses, the wound badge; the face above the collar, unshaven, gaunt, the skin drawn tight and windburnt.

“Yes,” said the doctor. “Unnecessary. Even mad. Mad. I was a young surgeon in the first war. I know.”

Albert moved his head in acknowledgement of that, but he said nothing.

They sat in silence and when the door opened they stood up as Clara sat down. She glanced at Albert. “Dr. Mannheim says I’m fine.”

“Not quite,” said the doctor, and he went on to explain that while Clara was organically strong and the bacterial counts were normal, her nervous system was nevertheless
attacking her. He said the situation was similar to last time, a weakening of certain functions by anxiety. More research was necessary, but his recommendation was for her to rest as much as possible. Rest, he said; no excitement, good nutrition, and perhaps no sexual intercourse. Just to be on the safe side.

WHEN THEY ARRIVED
back at the base, SS Obersturmführer Bönninghaus had already made a report to his superiors. He was recommending a court-martial for Albert. The charge was going absent without leave and abusing his rank to requisition military transportation for personal use.

At first it seemed a petty thing, no more. A complaint by a political officer of subordinate rank against a senior military officer. But the problem grew, perhaps because someone in Berlin saw it as an opportunity to damage Rommel. A complaint was launched, and Field Marshal Paul von Kleist told Rommel to fix the problem. Rommel ordered Albert to France by the next-available transportation.

Eight hours later Albert stood before Rommel’s desk, and the general asked what this complaint was all about.

Albert explained and Rommel listened without interruption. They were standing in the salon of the small castle that served as Rommel’s headquarters at Toulon. A harpsichord with its legs removed lay in one corner, and on the wall above it hung oil paintings of men in lace and powdered wigs.

Rommel said that at the very least Albert should have checked with his office. “To protect yourself and me,” he said. “In Berlin the knives are out for all of us, so don’t give openings to the SS.”

Albert said there had been no time to check with anyone. He said this had been a personal emergency regarding her, and he had made a decision. He gave no apology but he said he regretted having caused problems for the general. He accepted full responsibility.

Rommel stared at him for a long time. For so long, Albert told her, he grew uneasy.

“So be it,” Rommel said finally. “Go back to your base now and wait at your office there. You’ll hear from me.”

Halfway to the door Rommel stopped him. “Colonel,” he said. “Off the record, you did the right thing. Assess, decide, and act. Never hesitate. Now go and accept the consequences.”

Next day Albert was back at the base in Burgenland. He called her, and she was fine. He called his mother, and Cecilia told him that Sissy had given birth to a girl. He had a tiny niece now, she said. Caroline Gottschalk, seven pounds and a pair of strong lungs.

In the morning Rommel’s chief of staff called to say the general had been able to convert the court-martial to seven days of brig, beginning immediately. Albert was to hand over pro-forma command to his major, and the major was to submit the proper documentation and to see that Albert was kept behind bars in the jail on the premises.

It was clear that Rommel must have called in some favours to convert a court-martial to only this. Albert sat behind the bars of the lockup in his own base, and Anna’s home-cooking was brought to him, and blankets and a proper jug, towels, soap, and a washbasin. Out the window from up high he could see all the way to Hungary across the plain covered in snow that swirled and rose and fell and rose and danced in the constant wind.

She came to visit him every day, driven by Corporal Fuchs. She brought Willa, who played with her duck and with a puzzle of wooden blocks made also by the Polish prisoners. The cell door was open, and they played together, the three of them, on the wooden pallet with the blanket folded away.

Once, SS Obersturmführer Bönninghaus saw the car on the road and he flagged it, and he looked into the backseat through the window. He shook his head at her and walked around to the driver’s side. He motioned Fuchs to lower the window, and when it was down he said, “Do you have authorized orders to do this, Corporal? Are you a taxi service for civilians now?”

Fuchs did not know what to say, and Bönninghaus leaned close and stared at him. “I’ll be reporting this,” he said. He straightened and stood back. He waved them on. She saw him from the rear window, his black outline on the white road with his fists on his hips, until the car turned a corner.

When the sentence was up, Albert returned home
feeling rested and relaxed. They had four more fine days together, then he had to return to France. The small complement of men left at the base included Corporal Fuchs, whose job it would be to look after the remaining vehicles.

She and Willa saw them off at the station, all these soldiers climbing aboard the train, Albert waving from the lowered window, blowing them kisses, leaning out so they could see him for as long as possible.

In France, General Rommel assigned him additional tanks, among them the new Type
IV/G
with improved armour and cannon. All ammunition was by then filled with the new type of propellant that drove the heavy 88mm projectiles at unprecedented speeds. As fast as rifle bullets, Albert had told her.

By January 27, 1941, the main body of the Afrika Korps was ready to go. It was a relatively small force consisting of the 5th Light Panzer Regiment and of various special units, including Albert’s Landshut Black. They entrained, men and equipment, in long transports for the ride south, and at 2300 hours on February 12, on ships under full blackout, they left Sicily for North Africa.

ROMMEL JOINED THE
Afrika Korps two days later in his Fieseler Stork airplane, and that night he addressed his men. He stood on the closed turret hatch of one of the wide-tracked desert tanks and told them their job was to stop the British 8th Army from gaining any more ground in North Africa. He told them it would be hard work because the British were tough soldiers under good leadership, but that was the job.

As Rommel spoke there was no moon at all, but there was enough starlight, Albert said, so you could see him clearly up there in his baggy old leather coat, talking with his hands in his pockets. The desert sky was more sprayed with stars than any of the men had ever seen. A carpet of light, Albert said, some of the stars bright as searchlights. Albert’s second-in-command, Major von Rhenold, had studied celestial navigation, and he told
the men that some of the brightest stars did not even exist any more. That they had died years ago and now it was just their light like a memory that was still travelling for this generation and perhaps many more.

THE NEXT TIME
the obersturmführer came to her house it was two o’clock in the morning. He pounded on the door and when she opened it sleepily, just a crack, he smiled at her with wide thin lips.

He said, “There is a serious charge against you.” He shoved the door against her body and stepped inside. “Your husband, Colonel Leonhardt, is presently in North Africa, yes?”

“What?”

“I know he is.” He studied her breasts and seven-month belly under the night gown. “Nice,” he said. “To think it’s all his.”

She stood hugging her elbows, then she turned abruptly, went to the bedroom, and put on her robe.

“I’ll report you,” she said from there. “I don’t think you’re allowed to just walk in here.”

“I’m allowed to do whatever I consider to be my duty,” he said and followed her. “This is national security. The powers we have, you have no idea. I haven’t called the SD, but when I do they’ll just take you away and no one will ever find out what happened to you. Or the child,” he said from the bedroom door. “I can guarantee that.”

“Don’t come in here!” She stared at him in his blacks
and silvers. At the silly little death’s head on his cap. She hoped Willa would sleep through this in her own room down the hall.

“What sort of charge is there against me?”

“Are you fraternizing with the prisoners?”

“No, I’m not.”

“The guards say you are. Are you giving them extra food? Treating injuries for them?”

“Is that fraternizing?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“I’ve given them fruit, yes. Is that bad? A plaster once in a while.”

“Remember the first day, I told you not to.”

“And some time after that, when two of them were sick, I was told to give them extra water and broth if I had any. I did, and I gave them fruit and they got better.”

He stood in her bedroom door, solidly in his black boots, his thumbs in his gun belt, his eyes narrowed. She knew precisely what he was thinking, how close she was to disaster.

“You should go,” she said softly. “I won’t give them anything any more. I won’t fraternize.”

For a long moment her fate and the fate of all of them just hung there; it swayed and trembled; it was completely out of her hands and it might have tipped, but for some reason it did not.

“Show me the basement door,” he said.

She held her robe closed as she squeezed past him. He
raised a finger and she felt the hard broad tip of it on her belly, then she was clear of him. She walked ahead into the kitchen and turned on the light.

“There,” she said and pointed. The door was closed, the long black key stuck in the lock.

“It has to be locked at all times.” He strode up to it, yanked down the handle, and pulled.

Behind him the door to the lean-to opened and Anna came out barefoot in a nightshirt nearly to the floor. She blinked in the light, looked at the man in black and from him at Clara.

He pointed at the open door. “Go back where you came from,” he said. “Go and close that door.”

When Anna did not move he took two quick steps and slapped her casually, left and right. “I said leave!”

Anna backed away and stood again. He lunged and pushed her away hard into her open doorway. “I said go, old woman.” He slammed the door. To Clara he said, “I have made out a report, but I haven’t sent it yet. It is up to you.” He stepped closer. “Have you heard of the Cheka?”

“Lenin’s secret police,” she said.

“Yes. They’re abolished now but they live on in Stalin’s men. Much more ruthless than any of us. Some weeks ago a few of us went on a course in Russia, and they taught us things. About interrogation. Tricks with sharp knives. It was fascinating. They taught us how to stand at just the right distance with the nagaika and to snap the wrist near the end of the swing. Two lashes and bone is laid
bare, Mrs. Leonhardt. Four lashes and flesh and skin will never heal. Never.”

He reached out one hand to touch her face and she stepped back. They stood like this for a tense moment, then he lowered his hand. He turned and she heard his heels on the hallway floor. The door opened and remained open until she’d heard the car engine and found the courage to go there and close it.

She fought for inner calm for the sake of the baby. She washed her stomach where his finger had touched her, even if it had only been through layers of cloth. In the kitchen she pulled open the door to Anna’s lean-to. Anna sat on the bed and she sat down next to Anna and neither of them spoke.

On the wall behind the headboard hung a small cross fashioned from sticks of birch, and a framed communion picture of Christ with a long blond beard, an aura of golden rays, and a red heart on fire in his open hands.