The Other Side of Love (30 page)

She was gasping and sobbing when he got to his feet.

“Blood,”

he said repentantly, wiping the leather couch.

“You pig,”

she said thickly.

“No wonder you were fighting me off,”

he said.

“Don’t cry, little princess, it had to happen. Don’t cry. The instant anything turns up on Herr Kingsmith, I promise you I’ll be in touch.”

Her left thigh twinging with every step, she limped down the broad, arched marble hallway. The busts of party deities and the waiting petitioners gazed at her with equally dead eyes. He’s going to look for Father and what else matters?

She went directly home. Crawling back in bed, she told Clothilde that her cold was worse and Alfred wasn’t at the shop.

“But Sigi’s old friend, Otto Groener, has promised to track him down. We should hear any minute.”

They had heard nothing about Alfred by nightfall.

The following morning, Sunday, 3 September, Kathe used her cold to beg off church. At lunch, whenever the kitchen door opened they were assaulted by excited radio reports of England’s declaration of war. Clothilde’s eyes were rimmed with shadows, and a strand of grey-blonde hair had escaped the neat knot to dangle on the collar of her Sunday silk blouse. Kathe patted her mother’s large trembling hand.

At five, soon after the announcement that France had declared war on the Reich, Clothilde opened the grand piano for her Sunday Bach. A car pulled into the driveway, and Otto Groener emerged. The stately chords faltered as Kathe rushed to open the front door.

“I better see your mother,”

Groener said.

His unctuous gravity told everything.

The police had not yet been permitted to release news of blackout accidents. Alfred, caught in the pitch darkness, had been killed by a car or truck.

The warm rain had stopped an hour earlier, but wetness still darkened the old headstones and turned the sides of the open grave to slick mud. Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live … Sigi, on compassionate leave from Poland, was one of the pallbearers. His boot slipped as they lowered the coffin. From inside came a muffled yet shifting sound, evocative of Alfred’s imposing size.

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Kathe shuddered, her nausea returning. We therefore commit his body to the ground … The coffin settled in the grave. Sigi stepped back between Kathe and his mother.

Clothilde’s immense black hat, resurrected from her widow’s weeds of thirty years earlier, had a dense chiffon veil that hid her face, so it was impossible to see whether or not she were weeping. Kathe kept drying her eyes. Sigi let the tears slide down his goodnatured face.

It was a sparse group gathered at the muddy grave. The household servants, Kingsmith’s staff and three old friends. Everyone else had stayed away on the probably accurate assumption that the Gestapo would have neighbourhood snoops to report on anyone paying last respects to an Englishman. As far as Kathe was concerned, though, the absentees were all named Kingsmith. How awful for her father to be laid to rest without his family. Communications with England were out of the question, but Kathe had gone to the main telegraph office in Oranienburgerstrasse to send a cable to New York. Thus far there had been no response. In sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life … She willed herself not to think of Wyatt’s letter. Sigi’s comforting arm was removed from her waist. Chief male mourner, he spaded mud on to the coffin. As the first clod fell, she recalled that her period had been even more irregular than usual. She was several weeks late.

An incandescent brilliance lit her mind.

I’m pregnant.

VI

Dear Wyatt,

I do not know how to tell you this Jk.

Kathe crumpled the sheet with the other balls of paper in the wastebasket. It was after nine, and she had been at her desk since late afternoon. Each time she got to the first sentence, she would recall his letter and could write no further.

The rain had started again, and through the light hush she heard a car turn in the driveway. Writing Dear Wyatt, she stared at the two words. By now they seemed without shape, form or connection to another human being.

Could I get to New York? It would be far easier to tell him in person.

There was a tap on the door.

“Kathe?”

Sigi called.

“You in bed?”

“Not yet.”

Sigi came in.

“Otto’s here. He’d like to give you his sympathy.”

A visible shudder passed through her.

“It’s nearly ten,”

she said.

“Look, I don’t like what he’s become, either,”

Sigi said in a low rumble.

“But he went out on a limb to find Father. He went right to the top, to Himmler himself; and, with the war, I can promise you

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that getting through to Himmler is no mean feat.”

Sigi took his pipe from his mouth, coaxing:

“He’s in a hurry. It’ll only take a minute.”

After letting Groener briefly clasp her icy hand, Kathe moved to the fireplace.

“I wanted to be at the funeral,”

he said.

“But you know how it is - briefings every hour on the hour. This is the first I could break away. And tomorrow morning I’m taking a special detachment to Poland.”

Sigi, tamping tobacco into his pipe, looked up.

“The front, h’m? You’re one up on me.”

“We’ll be just behind the lines, a clean-up police action. And now we’ve taken Cracow”

“We have?”

Sigi asked.

“An hour ago. There’ll be a special announcement on the RRG any minute. Cracow’s one enormous ghetto. Think of trying to restore water and electricity while those Untermenschen are shooting at us. Enough to make you see red, isn’t it? German boys losing their lives helping the Yids?”

“We haven’t heard about sniping,”

Sigi said. 4

“The General Staffs job is to conquer; ours is to rule the occupied territory. But enough war-talk.”

He looked at Kathe. There was warmth, solicitude and a hint of pleading in the small eyes.

“You do forgive me for … for missing the funeral?”

“Nobody could’ve been more helpful,”

she said tonelessly.

“I met Herr Kingsmith so many years ago, but I’ve never forgotten the way he showed me, a nobody, how to identify our fine German silversmiths by their stamps. I would have paid tribute to him, but I just couldn’t make it. Aside from my new assignment, I’ve been working like a dog with the committee on travel policy.”

“What, tours of Poland?”

Sigi asked.

Groener didn’t smile.

“Poland will soon be part of the Reich, and the committee’s concerned with Germans visiting neutral countries. We can’t have civilians taking off to wherever they want. Anybody travelling to a neutral country will need to give us a damn good reason. We’re setting up guidelines. But there I go, talking shop again.”

“We do appreciate the visit when you’re so swamped.”

Sigi lumbered to his feet.

“It’s been a hard day for Kathe; she looks all in.”

Groener bade her good-night, adding:

“If Frau Kingsmith or you ever need anything, you know the way to my office. The secretary will contact me.”

Kathe stood absolutely still until the front door closed, then she ran upstairs. Darting into the lavatory, she kneeled to vomit. There was no food in her stomach, and only clear sour bile came.

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Anybody travelling to a neutral country will need to give us a damn good reason.

She wouldn’t be able to go to America. But how could she have the baby here? Wyatt’s background was in the Gestapo files as well as the recent trip to England that coincided with her holiday. They’d know the baby’s his. Into her mind came the Nazi term Mischling. Mischling meant a person with mixed Jewish blood. A Mischling was a non-Aryan. In 1935, punitive laws had been enacted against non-Aryans.

Oh, God, God, what shall I do?

She remained in front of the lavatory in a position of prayer, but no answer came.

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i

“Is this Fraulein Kingsmith?”

asked a shrill woman’s voice.

“Yes, speaking.”

“This is Captain Groener’s secretary. The captain is in Poland, but has asked me to tell you that he will be in Berlin the day after tomorrow. He requests the honour of lunching with you.”

“Tell him I’ll be delighted.”

“The captain has suggested you meet at one at Restaurant Kranzler on the Kurfurstendamm.”

The invitation did not come as a shock. After three weeks of alternating between tears, aimless thoughts, and naked terror for her unborn child, Kathe’s mind had abruptly hardened to a cold mechanism rather like the steel springs of a watch. With none of the hesitations that had beset her during her attempts to write to Wyatt, she had sat down and composed a note to Groener. First thanking him for his assistance and many kindnesses (he had sent her two sympathetic letters and a black lace scarf from Cracow), she had requested to see him as soon as possible. She had printed Rohrpost in the upper left-hand corner of the envelope, leaving herself no chance to change her mind. In less than two hours the pneumatic post had delivered her message to PrinzAlbrechtstrasse 8.

II

In the weeks since her father’s death, she had managed Kingsmith’s with the assistance of the elderly employees. Fortunately

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or unfortunately, whichever way you chose to look at it - there was no new merchandise suitable for gift-giving in the Third Reich, which made Kingsmith’s antiques a popular item. The morning of her lunch date with Groener, she helped an overbearing if extravagant banker’s wife who kept her until almost one. Kathe ran for her tram, jumping off at the many-spired Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church on the Kurfurstendamm. It was a pleasantly warm autumn day, but her hands were clammy and she was shivering. Groener was waiting for her at Kranzler’s. As they climbed the elegant staircase, a peculiar nerved-up fatalism enfolded her. Was this how a gambler felt placing his last mark on the roulette-table?

The restaurant was crowded with high-ranking officers and welldressed women. Swooping waiters, all of them well beyond military age, balanced massive portions of beef, ham and veal on their arms. A double-tiered trolley held rich-looking tortes and cream cakes. With legitimate use of the recently issued rationing-cards, a German could buy under a pound of meat per week, a quarter of a pound of sugar.

Kathe, sipping a few mouthfuls of the buttery pea-soup, reminded herself to nod at intervals to Groener’s conversation. She waited until they were served their fish. The plangent notes of a waltz playing in the background, she took a long shaky breath.

“I’m pregnant.”

“Isn’t this too soon to be sure?”

“It comes regularly as clockwork.”

For once she hoped that her blush showed.

“Why so forlorn? Myself, I’m delighted.”

His immediate acceptance took her ireath away. Having been positive he would grill her about London and Wyatt, she had spent hours rehearsing her arguments. Could a few drops of blood on the brown leather sofa have totally convinced this hard-nosed Gestapo officer that he had deflowered her? Or was masculine vanity also involved?

“Delighted?”

she blurted.

“But you’re married.”

“What has one to do with the other? All that matters is that we’re both of pure blood.”

“All that matters to you,”

she said, allowing a quaver of bitterness into her voice.

“Kathe, I explained,”

he muttered.

“I never meant to harm you. I was carried away. Certain things are out of a man’s control.”

“Can’t you imagine how a girl like me, from my family, might feel? A bastard? There must be a way …

“

She let her voice fade.

1 Groener’s nurturing expression disappeared. Thrusting his head towards her, he snapped:

“If you’re talking about what I think, the Fiihrer’s declared it a capital crime.”

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‘An illegal operation?”

She stared at him aghast.

“I never considered getting rid of the baby.”

“Then, what’s on your mind?”

Tm so confused I don’t know. But the shame. My mother, Sigi everybody will know. The shame, Otto, the shame.”

“There is none, but unfortunately not everybody has caught up yet with the social changes in the New Order.”

As if embarrassed to meet her eye while he spouted this bit of party philosophy, he looked away. Then he lowered his voice.

“Have you heard of Lebensborn?”

Lebensborn, which meant fountain or well of life, was kept well hidden in the shadows of the Third Reich and whispered about with titillation or righteous condemnation. Lebensborn was SS Reichsfiihrer Himmler’s project to produce a blond super-race by selectively breeding his SS officers with qualified Aryan girls. Lebensborn was precisely where Kathe had been leading the conversation. She summoned the innocent expression that she had practised in front of her bedroom mirror.

“Lebensborn? Isn’t that a home for unwed mothers?”

“Why should a girl like you feel shame for giving birth to a racially sound child? The Fiihrer asks it of you. Lebensborn maternity centres are secluded, private each has its own register office to record the births.”