Luke McCallin - The Man from Berlin

‘Is it what you wanted?’ Freilinger turned those pale eyes on him, and he flinched as he smelled smoke.

‘Yes, Gregor. That’s what he was looking for.’

Reinhardt froze, because someone else had spoken. Someone sitting quietly in a corner of Freilinger’s office. Reinhardt knew that voice, would know it anywhere. He took a step back from the desk, turning to the corner, at the man who rose to his feet, straightening his jacket and tie. He stepped forward, the light washing across his white hair.

It was Meissner.

Hello, my boy.’ Reinhardt was speechless. ‘Something of a surprise, it would seem.’ Meissner smiled. ‘Don’t blame Freilinger. I asked him to keep me out of it, especially as I didn’t know whether I’d be able to come, or whether I’d be able to see you if I did.’

‘Sir,’ Reinhardt managed, finally. ‘It is good to see you.’ And it was.

‘And you, my boy.’ Smoothly, without thought, he enfolded Reinhardt in a warm embrace. After a moment, Reinhardt brought his free hand around on the old man’s back, his palm open against the smooth material of Meissner’s jacket, and closed his eyes. He smelled of cologne and cigars and clean cloth. God only knew what he himself smelled like, Reinhardt thought. As if sensing his thoughts, Meissner stepped back. He had that paternal sparkle in his eyes, the eyes themselves framed by a web of wrinkles that deepened across his cheeks when he smiled. ‘You look tired, Gregor.’

‘I suppose I am.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ Meissner held on to Reinhardt’s shoulder, his hand firm, and looked deep into his eyes. Almost despite himself, despite the suspicions and the fatigue, he felt better. Calmer than he had felt in a long time. ‘Come. Sit with me.’

There was a second chair in the corner. Reinhardt sat, the file and case in his lap, Freilinger going back behind his desk. The major seemed far away, and what Reinhardt had wanted to say seemed farther still. ‘What are you doing here, sir?’

‘Foreign Office business. I’m doing a sort of grand procession through Croatia, then on to Italy. Evaluating our allies. Renewing contacts. Making new ones. Catching up with old friends. Diplomacy, in short.’ He smiled.

‘And you, sir? Are you well?’ Meissner’s hair was white, but it had been for a long time. He had felt thin to Reinhardt. Fragile, as if old age had finally caught up with him.

Meissner shrugged, raising his eyebrows. ‘Nothing retirement would not solve.’ He smiled, wrinkles suddenly spreading like tributaries across his cheeks, and Reinhardt could not help but smile back.

Meissner leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. The skin of his face, where it stretched across his cheeks and under his jaw, had the fine sheen of parchment. ‘Tell me, really. How are you, my boy?’

‘To anyone else, I’d say fine. But…’ Reinhardt sighed, twisted his mouth. ‘It’s like I can’t see two steps in front of me anymore. I seem to spend much of my time trying to forget. About Carolin. About what I’ve seen. Friedrich’s lost at Stalingrad.’ Meissner only watched, and listened. ‘You know, we had begun talking again. After a fashion. I had a letter from him.’

‘Brauer told me something of it the last time I saw him.’

Reinhardt brightened. ‘Brauer? How is he?’

‘Making life a misery for new recruits at infantry training. You know how he can be!’ They shared a smile. ‘He told me he wrote to you recently, otherwise I’d have brought you a letter from him.’

‘And the others? What news of them?’ The ‘others’ Reinhardt referred to were some of the officers and NCOs Meissner had taken under his wing after the war. A band of brothers, of sorts. The few who had survived the war and then the fighting in Germany at its end. Some were in the police, some in the army. A few in government, others in private practice. Nothing in common but the war, and each other, and Meissner.

‘ Comme ci comme ca , as the saying goes.’ Meissner lifted his hands off his knees, then put them gently back down. ‘But tell me, Gregor, tell me something of what you are doing. Freilinger has been spinning the most fantastical tale of murder and intrigue. Apparently he has you acting as a proper policeman again.’

Reinhardt glanced across the room at the major, sitting calmly behind his desk, hands folded under his chin, watching. ‘You could say that, sir,’ said Reinhardt. Meissner only looked at him, encouragingly. ‘Two murders. One of them an Abwehr officer, who turns out to have been GFP, only he was really SD, investigating an army general called Verhein. This general was romantically involved with the second victim, a Croatian journalist. An Ustasa. They both had evidence Verhein is a Jew who has managed to hide his origins. He killed them both, or had them killed. We’re not sure, yet.’

‘ “We”?’

For almost the first time in his life, Reinhardt ignored a question posed by his old colonel. ‘Sir, what are you really doing here?’

Meissner smiled, gently. ‘It really is diplomacy, Gregor. But…’ He paused for a moment, and although his eyes never left Reinhardt’s, Freilinger rose quietly to his feet, as if hearing an unspoken signal. He went and spoke to his orderly in the outer office, then shut the door and sat back down. Reinhardt felt a chill rise up his spine.

‘Once,’ said Meissner, ‘you asked me why I had joined the Party. Do you remember? And do you remember I told you it was the best way I could think of to be able to do my work? You know, it hurt me terribly – inside – to think you and Carolin would think the Nazis’ work was my work. It is not.’ Reinhardt felt colder and colder, and his breathing came short and high over the bands he felt tightening around him. As if sensing it, Meissner gave that gentle smile of his. ‘There are only a few of you, you know, with whom I can be this honest. My work is something else entirely, which my functions at the Foreign Office enable me to do. I am opposed – implacably – to the Nazis. To what they have done to the Germany I love. I have been opposed to them from the beginning. And there are many who feel the same way I do.’

He paused, as if to let it sink in. Reinhardt swallowed. ‘The resistance,’ he whispered. ‘You are talking about the resistance.’ These words, these thoughts , were forbidden. His mind spun.

Meissner nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said, simply. There was a pause. ‘This does not surprise you?’ Phrased as a question, it was more of a shy;statement.

‘No,’ said Reinhardt, but if he was honest with himself, what he felt was relief as a part of his mind he had sealed away, a part that knew Meissner as a Nazi, was suddenly gone. ‘No, I am not surprised. Why?’

‘Why? We Germans – or should I say, we Germans of a certain class – are not easily led to oppose authority, and none of us was imaginative enough to foresee what has happened. War, yes – but not like this ! Their extremes, their laws, their cults, their hypocrisy, their ridiculous strutting… The course of the war… The catastrophes, one after the other… The treatment of the conquered… For myself, I could not see visited upon another generation the suffering we went through.’

‘How did it begin for you?’

‘In the heart rather than in the mind. As thoughts rather than words. Then as words rather than deeds. Then, finally, action came.’ Meissner nodded. ‘Before the war, it was contacts with friends and counterparts abroad. Meetings. Opinions shared. What ifs… shy;explored. Discussing the Nazis as if discussing a particularly nasty illness someone had. One never mentions it by name. All very civilised. The discourse of erudite, worldly men. What fools we were. How naive ,’ he said, his words all the more powerful for their measured, gentle tone. ‘Then it was words exchanged between old friends. Cautiously. Carefully. One could not be too careful. Even more so now. There are many groups, but none with the potential that ours has. We are numerous. Some in high places. Some in low. Some near, some far. And some,’ he said, his eyes glinting sharply, ‘who do not know they fight for the resistance at all.’