Philip Kerr - The Other Side of Silence

“Here’s me thinking this is East Prussia,” I said, “when the true state we’re living in turns out to be Denial.”

Hennig snorted with contempt, put his hand on my shoulder, which I didn’t much like, and walked me over to the fireplace, where a log the size of a wild boar was sizzling quietly, just like my temper. From the mantelpiece he took down an amber box and flipped it open.

“Smoke a cigarette, Bernie,” he said quietly. “Take the edge off your tongue.”

I took one, lit it, and tried to stay inside myself for a few minutes longer.

He smoked one, too. I even lit the match for him. For a while all we did was blow smoke at each other. It was beginning to look as if we could get along really well.

“When the pathologists examine your dead body,” said Hennig, “they’ll probably find you had an enlarged mouth.” He sighed wearily. “Nineteen forty-five, and you still haven’t learned that you should talk only when words are safer than silence.”

“I’m not going to change my mind about my girl,” I said.

“You don’t have a mind. Not to speak of. For a Fritz in intelligence, you’re very fucking dumb. I thought the same back in thirty-eight. You were dumb to get mixed up in that business with von Fritsch. You must have known how it would all play out. Sure you did. An idiot could have seen how that was going to end. Himmler himself gave the orders to frame that fucking general. You were dumb to take that case.”

“I took it because Captain von Frisch was my commanding officer in the Great War. And because I loved him.”

“That’s what I’m talking about. You were dumb. Principles are for people who can afford to have them, not for you and me. You were lucky to walk away from that case with your fingernails.”

“Maybe. But I’m still not going to help you now.”

“Yes, you are,” he said. “And here’s why, dumbhead.”

He collected a file off the desk and handed it to me-a thin blue file on the cover of which was the official stamp of the Saint Elizabeth Hospital on Ziegelstrasse, and the name of Irmela Louise Schaper. I didn’t have to open it. I already knew what was in it.

“One of the benefits of being the governor of East Prussia is that no one has any secrets from you. No, not the smallest thing. Not this small thing, certainly. Even doctors don’t dare plead the usual code of patient confidentiality in Konigsberg. And not when the Gestapo tell them otherwise. So. Your girlfriend is going to have a baby. Congratulations. I presume you’re the father. Although some of those naval girls like to set sail with a big crew on board, if you know what I mean. And I do wonder what your poor wife will say when she finds out.”

“You bastard,” I muttered.

“Not me. But the baby, yes, almost certainly. Anyway, time will tell. Which-let’s be honest here-is short. No, please don’t talk, for once just listen, Gunther. Because this is no longer really about you, is it? Not anymore. To be frank, I only need you in case your girlfriend is sufficiently principled not to understand what’s good for her. And her baby, of course. Let’s not forget that little twinkle from your eye.”

He fished a piece of grayish paper out of his breeches pocket and showed it to me. The paper was headed Identity Pass for the MS Wilhelm Gustloff . Irmela’s name was printed on the bottom of the pass.

“Thanks to the generosity and understanding of the governor, all of the women in the women’s naval auxiliary are to be given one of these. It’s a special pass, printed on the Wilhelm Gustloff ’s own printing press. They’ve got everything on that ship; a swimming pool, movie theater, three restaurants, and, most important of all, the real prospect of seeing Germany again. Even now those auxiliary women are being told that they’re the lucky ones. That they’re to be evacuated from Konigsberg. Today. Already they’re breathing a sigh of relief. The good-looking ones at any rate. I should think many of them have already left the city by now since boarding commences on January twenty-fifth. Which is tomorrow. I say all of the women but as you can see this particular pass has yet to be signed by the governor. Or I. And until it is, it simply isn’t valid.

“As soon as it is signed, both Miss Schaper and her unborn child, of course, can board the ship. But not until then. You see where I’m going with this, Gunther. Either she agrees to send the unencrypted signal-which I will supply, of course-and on an open channel, or she’ll be the last naval auxiliary left in the city when the Russians turn up. After which I don’t give much for her chances or the baby’s. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you of all people what the Russians are doing to our women. It was you who wrote the report on Nemmersdorf, wasn’t it? How many women was it they violated? The Russian soldier seems to regard the rape of German women as a patriotic duty. I mean, they fuck like they’re using a bayonet. So, I wonder how many Ivans she could take on before she lost that baby.”

“You put that very nicely, Hennig. So nicely I wonder how I don’t see how many of your teeth I can make stick to my knuckles.”

“You don’t want to hit me, Gunther. That would spoil everything. For you. For your girl. And her invisible jockey.”

I bit my lip, which was momentarily better than biting a senior officer. I wasn’t sure what the military law on that one was, but I didn’t think it was a ticket home on the MS Wilhelm Gustloff .

“And where will you be? When the ship sets sail.”

“Oh, I’ll be on the ship, too. Someone has to oversee the transport of the Amber Room back to Germany. I’m sure you agree it’s much too valuable to let it travel by itself.”

“I’m impressed. How did you manage that?”

“Let’s just say that when the gauleiter was in the Ukraine-where he was also the governor, of course-he managed to spirit away the contents of four whole museums. And those are just the ones that I know about. I should say he now has an art collection to rival Hermann Goring’s.”

“And you threatened to tell Hitler or Himmler about them. Is that it?”

“It would have been my duty as a German officer.”

“And Koch? What about him?”

“He’s staying on in Konigsberg. Bravely. As you might expect of a man like that. Right up until the very last minute, when I believe he has made plans to facilitate his own escape to a house on the coast and then on an icebreaker, to Flensburg. But you needn’t concern yourself with the governor’s safety. All you have to do is go and see your little lightning maid, show her this identity pass, and then tell her what to do. She won’t even have to endure the scrutiny of her colleagues as she carries out this important duty for the governor. As we speak, she’s probably the last one there. So, it couldn’t be simpler.”

“Suppose she says no.”

“You’d better make damn sure she doesn’t say no, hadn’t you? Not if you want to be a daddy in eight months. As soon as I’ve seen her give the signal-yes, I’m coming with you, Gunther, just to make sure-I’ll sign this pass and you can drive her to Gotenhafen yourself, where you can say your romantic good-byes. I’m afraid there’s no pass for you, my friend. Sorry about that. Not unless you’re part of the submarine training division; we need those boys to crew the U-boats. Or unless you’re badly wounded. Then again, I suppose we could always make that happen. Ordinarily, that might be the only alternative for a swine like you. For me to have those two thugs in the corridor take you outside and blow your brains out. But with you, Gunther, things are different, I think. You’d probably welcome a bullet in the back of the head. But failure to comply with the governor’s orders will only result in you being assigned to the concentration camp at Palmnicken, where your duties will include assisting the SS to dispose of three thousand Jewish female workers. Which I imagine you’ll probably think of as a fate worse than death. That’s what I can promise you. So, as you can no doubt see, you really don’t have a choice.” He looked around the room as if he expected that the fluff and the chairs were going to back him up. “Look, it’s not so bad what I’m asking you to do here. Anyone would think that I want something really difficult. All I’m trying to do is preserve the lives of everyone on that ship.”