The Other Side of Love (65 page)

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spoke to her.

“The court has given much careful consideration to your case,”

he said.

“According to your own testimony you supported certain of the Nazi Party’s most odious principles. However, the evidence given by Herr Leventhal and Corporal Kohn has swayed the tribunal to be lenient. The sentence we must pass is mandatory under Public Law Number Eight. You may not hold any position higher than ordinary labour.”

Kathe returned to Wyatt.

“What did he mean?”

she whispered.

“You can’t get a good job,”

he said.

“But you didn’t draw a gaol term.”

“I’m free?”

“You’ve been sprung.”

He was laughing.

“Get your coat, and I’ll walk you out of here.”

Great wads of threatening clouds scudded below the blanket-like overcast. Across the street in Zeppelinalle, the ancient beeches that grew in a hallowed circle were waving their branches menacingly. The only people about were the driver of a staff-car and two old women shuffling after twigs to use for kindling. As Wyatt and Kathe paused at the entry, he asked:

“Now that you’re a free woman, what’s on your agenda?”

“I haven’t had time to think.”

“Aubrey’ll take you to England.”

“Not in the near future, not with my record.”

Her soft voice wavered.

“Oh, how I’d love to see Grandpa! And the family. And your little boy.”

“He’ll get you there, believe me, at least on a visit.”

“I need a job,”

she said.

“What I’d really prefer is working with small children, but probably that would be considered higher than ordinary labour.”

“Nobody familiar with little kids would agree.”

She made a smile.

“First things first. I better register right away at the town hall. Get identification papers, a ration-card. Wyatt, you’ve been marvellous, and it wasn’t easy. I’m sorry about … well, the letter.”

“Water under the bridge,”

he lied.

“You’re quite a lawyer.”

“I played a little dirty pool is all.”

This time her smile was impish and natural, then she said gravely:

“There’s no words to thank you, but it’s in my heart.”

Raising her hand in lieu of a goodbye, she pushed open the glass-and-ironwork outer door.

Squaring her slight shoulders, holding on to her English beret then pulling it off, she ran across the street to Zeppelinale, walking

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rapidly around puddles, slowing to trudge through the desolate circle of trees. Wyatt watched the wind flap at her tweed coat and tear pale strands from the smoothly combed hair while descriptions tolled through his mind: lonely, fragile, doomed, lost…

“Kathe!”

he shouted, jogging after her.

“Hey, Kathe, hold on there!”

She waited beneath the bare whipping branches. Reaching her, he said:

“A celebration’s the next order of business.”

“Don’t you need to get back to Berlin?”

“Not yet. And no arguments. A victory brawl is an integral part of American jurisprudence. I saw Rumplmayer’s on the way here.”

Across the broken stucco of the renowned cafe’s fagade a sign had been painted: Battliri B Country Club. One of the infantry regiments of the 70th Division had requisitioned Rumplmayer’s: the floor-shows, the jazz band, the excellent liquor had proved such a hit that the GIs had opened their doors to all ranks of Allied troops. In the afternoon, when business was slow, a pianist performed. The chords of

“I’ll Be Seeing You”

rippled as a German waiter popped open the Piper Heidsieck.

Kathe watched.

“Those look like long thoughts,”

Wyatt said.

“Trying to remember my last champagne.”

“The past is behind you.”

He raised his glass.

“To the future.”

Kathe gulped, sneezing.

“I’d forgotten how the bubbles go up your nose.”

The pianist switched to a haunting rendition of

“In the Still of the Night’, a song that had been among the records Wyatt had brought to Germany that long-ago Christmas. Tfey glanced at each other, then looked away.

“

Wyatt refilled their wide-bowled glasses to the brim.

“To the pride of the Columbia Law School,”

Kathe toasted too vivaciously.

“When are you being discharged?”

“I have more than enough points, and the folks are panting to see Geoff.”

“Yes, your little boy.”

She smiled, then tears began to ooze.

He poured more champagne. So what if they got blotto? He knew he needed to escape his red-haired phantasm, and she had so many more ghosts to lay to rest than he did.

Kathe,”

he was saying,

“they kidnapped the babies.”

Her querying eyes fixed on him, eyes the blue green of the huge drowning sea

“They?”

The SS. They took the blondest little kids in the occupied countries. It was part of the Lebensborn programme.”

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‘I know,”

she whispered.

“The real parents have come searching. They never track down a living child.”

“You mean the SS killed the babies?”

“Not at all. They get people to phoney up the records. They fake death certificates.”

Jesus, how crocked was he? If he weren’t loaded, why would he be gazing into these beautiful wet aquamarine eyes and uttering words of hope about a child whose brief existence on this earth sickened him?

“They go to any lengths to keep their adopted kids.”

“My Erich … He’s dead.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“She told us, the woman who adopted him.”

“So how did you find this Nazi bitch?”

“Through Groener.”

“Groener? Who’s Groener?”

“He thinks he’s”

she said, and stopped abruptly. She had been about to tell Wyatt the truth - she had the perfect opening. She had drunk more than enough champagne to say anything. Yet a sober part of her mind told her that Wyatt would question her - and she knew she would break down completely under his cross-examination. She knew also that, even though he might appear convinced, he would always retain his doubts. What difference does it make who fathered Erich? My baby’s dead. He’s dead. The unaccustomed alcohol, rather than dulling her grief, compartmentalized it, making the anguish sharper. Resting her elbows on the table, she propped her face in her hands.

“Is Groener the SS boyfriend?”

he asked.

“Wyatt, I’m all woozy.”

Wyatt drove her to the Excelsior, where he took two single rooms.

IV

In London late that same Monday afternoon, Aubrey sat at his typing-table. The telephone, stretched to the cord’s limit, stood on the rug five feet away. His fingers tapped out a sentence, then he glared reproachfully at the silent instrument. He had come home to his bed-sitting-room early to await word from Wyatt, using the pretext of transcribing his notes about the scattered, sadly depleted German network information too sensitive, or so he said, to be entrusted even to Miss Cockle, the secretary assigned him by CI4. Thus far he had typed only two pages.

The telephone sounded. Jumping to get it, he tripped on the cord and fell to his knees.

“Aubrey?”

asked Porteous.

“Is that you?”

“Grandfather,”

Aubrey groaned.

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‘Will you be going down to Quarles this coming Sunday?”

“Sorry. Can’t talk now. Ring you later.”

Getting up, he returned to his typewriter chair and sat staring at the telephone, symbol of his chafing impotence. What was bloody wrong? Didn’t Wyatt realize he’d be on pins and needles to hear? Had the ruling gone against her? Was his brother-in-law trying to spare him? Aubrey’s orders were to remain in London. Yet he gathered his notes and the typed pages, opening a drawer and pressing a catch to reveal a secret compartment. The papers safely stowed, he packed his small valise.

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I

1946

In the vast incoherence following the Second World War, life was cheap. It was not unheard of for war criminals to escape retribution by murdering those who might give them away.

From

“Maelstrom’, a 1987 PBS

am, a 1V8V ftSS IT documentary

The rooms in the Excelsior adjoined. Kathe didn’t bother shutting the connecting door. She pulled off her overcoat and kicked away her brogans, which were lined with cardboard because of the holes worn in both soles, stretching on the bedspread. She fell into a heavy slumber.

Wyatt stood at his window gazing at the monumental curve of the nineteenth-century railway terminus agwist the curdled sky. The way Kathe had slid from questions abouimer SS lover had revitalized his original scepticism about the beating. Had Aubrey invented it to ensure a more spirited defence? A few drops of rain splattered on the glass. With slow footsteps Wyatt moved to the door. As if sensing his presence, Kathe turned on her side, facing away from him. Waiting a few breaths, he went to the bed. Carefully he drew the pale blue sweater away from her neck.

The scar tissue on the luminous flesh between her shoulderblades resembled embroidery.

His eyes squeezed shut, and he winced as if forcing back tears. Gently covering her with her coat, he went back to his own room, sinking into the easy chair.

He slept as if the impulses of his brain had been short-circuited, awaking to darkness. His mouth tasted foul. Closing the door between the rooms, he went to the built-in washbowl, brushing his

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teeth and slashing cold water on his face. I’d better find out if the kid’s really dead. Lifting his head, he stared at his dripping reflection. The idea was preposterous. He had never wanted food less, but from experience he knew that after drinking he must eat in order to think straight. He pressed the room-service buzzer. Finishing the regulation hotel cuisine, American canned goods abetted by fish from the Main, he lit a cigarette. His decision to discover what he could about the child held.

Pouring coffee from the nickel-silver pot, he carried the cup into the other room.

“Kathe?”

Opening her eyes to see him, she jerked up.

“My head,”

she groaned.

“Too much celebration.”

Wyatt held out the cup.

“Java’ll help.”

Sniffing, she said:

“It’s real.”

She took the cup reverently in both hands as if holding a chalice.

He waited until she had finished.

“Up to talking?”

“What about?”

she asked warily.

“Remember anything I said at Rumplmayer’s?”

Her eyes widened, and she clasped her hands together.

“The SS alter the death records,”

she said softly.

“Sometimes. But don’t get your hopes too far up. The odds that he’s alive are”

Holding his forefinger and thumb almost together, he left a miniscule space.

“I know.”

But the eagerness that shone in the big, slightly bloodshot eyes proved otherwise.

“First, you need to tell me a little about this Groener, or whatever his name is.”

Wyatt couldn’t control a hint of sarcasm.

“Think he might be your poison-pen pal?”

“Nobody else could have written the letter. He was Haupsturmbannfiihrer Groener. Now he’s Herr Schwagermann. A Grosschieber, a big operator in the black market. He told us he had high-up friends at headquarters.”

“What did he do under the swastika?”

Her eyelids lowered.

“First the Gestapo. When the war started he transferred to the SS in Poland. Later he worked on the rocket bombs, controlling the slave labour.”

The food Wyatt had just eaten rose sour in his throat, and he spoke thickly.

“A sweetheart, your fella.”

“He raped me,”

she mumbled.

“If you say so.”

“He did,”

she said near-inaudibly.

Wyatt shrugged.

“How’d you know he was in Frankfurt?”

“I didn’t.”

She explained she and Aubrey had been searching the records of nearby towns and she had spotted Groener at the

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restaurant in Offenbach.

“We followed him to a warehouse in Hochst. At first he refused to tell us the name of the adopted parents, where they lived or anything.”

“But eventually he did.”

“We blackmailed him.”

Excitedly Kathe held out her arms with her hands curved and moving as if jiggling a huge ball. Til bet anything he has Erich! Of course he does! Both his little boys were killed in an air raid, and he even told us he’d been thinking of getting Erich. That awful creature who said Erich had just died Groener must have put her up to it. She wasn’t the mother. I saw the people who adopted him. The mother was far younger.”

“And that brings us to one final salient detail. How old is the kid?”

“Five,”

she murmured.

Five. She had saved lives, she had possibly risked her life working with Aubrey, she had those scars. Wyatt had every intention to be forbearing. But he was inundated with memories of that last summer of peace when he had begged her to marry him, and she