Armageddon - Leon Uris

German woman! I am making love to a German woman! Me! Me and that Nazi! In the dark blurs and whirls he could hear the roar of engines over the rooftop ... the static of the radio, its station off the air ... In an instant of realization he was being devoured with a desire to snap her neck ... and it was like no love he had ever known. The fury to love and to kill at the same instant transcended all things.

And then he lay in disgust at his weakness in a strength-ebbed silent oratory of self-condemnation.

Ernestine was tight beside him.

It is done, she thought. You are my man now, Sean.... You are my man.

Ernestine sat in the deep window frame as the daylight came. There was little to be seen outside; the fog swirled angrily close to the ground.

Overhead there was the unabated thunder of the engines on the first leg of the approach to Tempelhof. Ernestine walked back to the bed and brushed his hair with her fingers. There was sadness in his eyes.

“I did not know I could ever listen to the sound of engines again without terror. Now, they are like a lullaby, like the sound of waves coming in to the shore.”

She lay beside him and he folded his arms about her without words.

There were a few remarks while they dressed, as he made an effort to spare her pain.

“Hello, Uncle Ulrich ... I am sorry I did not phone ... I was with a girl friend and it became late.... Yes ... I am going straight to work.”

Sean kept thinking that it would be best if they got out before his housekeeper arrived. She was the niece of Ulrich Falkenstein and had to be spared an indignity, but he could say nothing.

They drove away, silently.

“If you will leave me off at the Tempelhof Station, I can take a train to work.”

He agreed, it would not look right to pull up in front of her building.

The usual morning crowd of Berliners was clustered near the station watching the planes take off and land, take off and land, take off and land.

This morning the birds groped through a heavy fog under ground-controlled approach. The Berliners gasped with each

new landing as they caught sight of the craft at the last instant, bursting through the white shroud.

He stopped the car. There was an awkward moment of not knowing how to say good-by. Ernestine knew enough to go with dignity. She swung the car door open.

Sean grabbed her wrist. “I don’t know what to say.”

“Will it make you happier to know that I knew you wanted to murder me last night. If that is what you would have chosen to do, I would not have uttered a protest. If I cannot bring you life, I am yours to kill.”

“I’ve got to see you again,” he said, not believing his own words. “Tonight.”

“Aufwiedersehen.” She ran quickly out of the car and he watched her disappear up the steps of the elevated. The crowd on the platform screamed at the same instant. A Skymaster dropped almost on top of them!

The ground quaked as the plane smashed into the side of a building several blocks away, and after an ear-splitting blast, glass, brick, and pieces of the craft spewed ... a belch of flame. There was a terrible second of silence ... then the explosion!

Sean was swept into the midst of a mass of running humanity. The plane and the building were demolished. All that was left was a section of the tail, the American Star, and MATS, ALASKA.

There was a sorrowful wail of the horns of ambulances and police cars over the screams of horror. Sean O’Sullivan was transfixed by the leaping flames of the pyre.

“Tim! Tim! Tim!”

“Herr Oberst!” a German policeman begged, “Herr Oberst, do not go closer! They are all dead!”

“My brother is in that plane! Let go of me you goddamned fool!”

“Herr Oberst! Someone ... please help me with him ... he will be killed.”

Sean was dragged away from the scene and held until he calmed. He was brought back to reality by the voice of the Lorelei ... the voice of Ernestine!

“Sean! Come to your senses!”

He looked up at her. She was framed by the flames and the wreckage. His eyes were black with a hatred she had never seen.

Chapter Twenty-one

“GENERAL HANSEN,” ULRICH FALKENSTEIN said, “I must tell you how deeply my own grief runs.”

“It was bound to happen,” Hansen replied.

The two had always had misgivings. At this moment the German feared the city’s freedom was being talked away in a four-power conference in Moscow. Hansen retained his universal doubts about the Germans. Yet, the death of the three American flyers had a shocking and sobering reaction. The Berliners thought that perhaps the alliance with the Americans was not so weak after all. And for the Americans it was a time of awakening to an understanding of the depth of their commitment.

Hansen’s aide said that the official party was formed in the outer office. Soon a line of cars bore the mourners to the place of the wreckage.

The scene was that of a stilled battlefield. The debris had been taken away, the blood washed from sight, the agony of the inferno stilled, and what remained was a new shrine ... a tail section of a Skymaster welded into a mangled wall, a torch marking the spot of impact.

Long orderly lines of thousands of Berliners passed by slowly and other hundreds knelt in the streets and prayed. Thousands of flowers were brought and a great sense of tragedy swept the city.

Sean O’Sullivan remembered another line of Germans a few years back whom he had ordered to tour a concentration camp. They, too, wept openly, but for reasons strangely removed.

Hanna Kirchner, weary from the burden of office under feuding masters, lay a wreath in the name of the city and said what was expected. “We will never forget this. It will give us the courage to survive.”

As the photographers recorded the scene, the sound of the engines over them continued in three-minute intervals.

Andrew Jackson Hansen returned to his car, feeling that he had passed a Rubicon. A strange kinship had been born and for the first time he realized that the people of Berlin would hold.

Sean returned from the ceremonies pale. He closed the door of his flat behind him and unbuttoned his blouse slowly, then saw Ernestine standing before the fireplace.

“Your maid let me in,” she said.

Sean nodded, hung up his blouse. The iron man who had played at God was still puzzled by his own mortal weakness.

“Do you know what happens to a man who worships hate as you do?” she asked.

“I love you, Ernestine,” Sean whispered, “and I hate myself for loving you.”

“Our only chance, Sean, is finding a great love that can overcome all else.”

“We’re just people, not gods,” he said. “We’re asking too much.”

“Look at me, Sean. I am a German woman. Nothing can change that. You are my man. Nothing can change that, either. Whatever will happen now will happen. I can never leave you.”

He held her and was overcome with a longing for peace, for the voices to be stilled. And for a moment, he was happy.

Chapter Twenty-two

MY DEAREST SISTER ERNESTINE:

So, you are in love! Knowing you, it must be serious. I wish I were there to hold your hands and dry your eyes when things go badly.

For me, the news is so sad. Colonel Smith has gotten his orders to transfer to Japan. The Americans seem to be sent everywhere in the world. I have grown to love their children as my own and I don’t know how I’ll be able to get along without them. Oh, Erna if I could only have my own children without the trouble of a man.

I cannot go back to the Brueckner home. They are barely making ends meet so I will try to find another American family to work in. Colonel and Mrs. Smith promise a high recommendation.