The Traitor's Emblem (25 page)

Paul looked at her, utterly bewildered. The icy tone of her voice made him feel as though his heart had been torn out and buried in the snow.

“Alys . . .”

“Go straightaway. Leave now.”

“Alys, please!”

“Leave, I’m telling you.”

Paul seemed on the verge of tears, and she prayed that he would cry, that he’d change his mind and tell her he loved her and that his love for her was more important than a search that had brought him nothing but pain and death. Perhaps Paul was waiting for something similar, or perhaps he was just trying to record Alys’s face in his memory. For long, bitter years she would curse herself for the haughtiness that overcame her, just as Paul would blame himself for not having taken the trolley back to the boardinghouse before his mother was stabbed . . .

. . . and for having turned around and walked away.

“You know what? I’m glad. This way you won’t burst into my dreams and trample all over them,” said Alys, throwing to her feet the broken bits of the camera she had been clinging to until that moment. “Since I met you, only bad things have happened to me. I want you out of my life, Paul.”

Paul hesitated for a moment, and then, without looking back, said, “So be it.”

Alys remained in the church doorway for several minutes, fighting a silent battle against her tears. Suddenly a figure emerged from the darkness, from the same direction in which Paul had disappeared. Alys tried to collect herself and put a smile on her face.

He’s coming back. He’s understood, and he’s coming back, she thought, taking a step toward the figure.

But the streetlights revealed that the person approaching was a man in a gray raincoat and hat. Too late, Alys realized it was one of the men who had followed her that afternoon.

She turned to run, but as she did she saw his companion, who had come around the corner and was less than three meters away. She tried to escape, but the two men lunged at her and caught her by the waist.

“Your father’s looking for you, Fräulein Tannenbaum.”

Alys struggled in vain. There was nothing she could do.

A car emerged from a nearby street and one of her father’s gorillas opened the door. The other pushed her toward it and tried to force her head down.

“You’d best be careful with me, imbeciles,” said Alys with a look of scorn. “I’m pregnant.”

43

Elizabeth Bay, 28 August 1933

Dear Alys,

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve written to you. At a rate of once a month it must be more than a hundred letters, all of them unanswered.

I don’t know if they’re reaching you and you’ve decided to forget me. Or perhaps you’ve moved house and not left a forwarding address. This one will go to your father’s house. I write to you there every once in a while, even though I know that it is useless. I remain hopeful that one of these will somehow get past your father. In any case, I shall keep writing to you. These letters have become my only contact with my former life.

I want to begin, as always, by asking you to forgive me for the way I left. I’ve recalled that night ten years ago so many times, and I know I shouldn’t have behaved in the way I did. I’m sorry I shattered your dreams. Each day I’ve prayed for you to be able to realize your dream of being a photographer, and I hope that over these years you’ve succeeded.

Life in the colonies isn’t simple. Ever since Germany lost these lands, South Africa has controlled the mandate over the former German territory. We aren’t welcome here, though they tolerate us.

There aren’t many jobs going. I work in farms and in the diamond mines for a few weeks at a time. When I’ve saved a bit of money, I travel the country in search of Clovis Nagel. It’s not an easy task. I’ve found traces of him in the villages of the Orange River basin. One time I visited a mine site that he’d just left. I missed him by only a few minutes.

I also followed a tip-off that led me north, to the Waterberg Plateau. There I met a strange, proud tribe, the Herero. I spent some months with them, and they taught me how to hunt and gather in the desert. I fell sick with a fever, and for a long time I was very weak, but they took care of me. I’ve learned a lot from these people besides physical skills. They are exceptional. They live in the shadow of death, every day a constant struggle to find water and adapt their lives to the pressures from the white men.

I’m out of paper; this is the last piece of a batch I bought from a peddler on the road to Swakopmund. Tomorrow I’m heading back there in search of new leads. I’ll go on foot, as I’ve run out of money, so my search will have to be a brief one. The hardest thing about being here, apart from the lack of news about you, is the time it takes me to earn my living. I’ve often been at the point of giving it all up. However, I don’t mean to give up. Sooner or later I’ll find him.

I think about you, about what has happened over these past ten years. I hope you are well and happy. If you decide to write to me, write to the Windhoek post office. The address is on the envelope.

Once again, forgive me.

I love you,

Paul          

T
HE
F
ELLOW
C
RAFT

1934

In which the initiate learns that the path cannot be taken alone

The secret handshake of the Fellow Craft degree involves pressing hard on the knuckle of the middle finger, and ends when the brother Mason returns an identical greeting. The secret name of this handshake is JACHIN, from the column representing the sun in Solomon’s Temple. Again there is a trick to the spelling-out, which must be given thus: A—J—C—H—I—N.

44

Jürgen was admiring himself in the mirror.

He tugged lightly at his lapels, decorated with a skull and the insignia of the SS. He never tired of looking at himself in his new uniform. Walter Heck’s design and the excellent workmanship of clothier Hugo Boss, highly celebrated in the society press, inspired reverence in everyone who saw it. When Jürgen walked down the street, children would stand to attention and raise their arm in salute. The previous week a couple of old ladies had stopped him and told him how lovely it was to see strong, healthy young men getting Germany back on track. They asked if he’d lost his eye fighting the Communists. Pleased by this, Jürgen had helped them carry their shopping bags to a nearby doorway.

At that moment there was a knock at the door.

“Come in.”

“You look good,” said his mother, coming into the large bedroom.

“I know.”

“Are you eating with us today?”

“I don’t think so, Mama. I’ve been called to a meeting at the Security Service.”

“No doubt they want to recommend you for a promotion. You’ve been an Untersturmführer for too long now.”

Jürgen nodded cheerfully and picked up his cap.

“The car’s waiting for you at the door. I’ll tell the cook to prepare something for you in case you’re back early.”

“Thanks, Mama,” said Jürgen, kissing Brunhilda on the forehead. He went out into the corridor, his black boots echoing loudly on the marble steps. A maid was waiting with his overcoat in the entrance hall.

Ever since Otto and his cards had disappeared from their lives eleven years earlier, their economic situation had gradually been improving. An army of servants was once again attending to the day-to-day running of the mansion, though Jürgen was now head of the household.

“Will you be coming back for dinner, sir?”

Jürgen inhaled sharply when he heard her use that mode of address. It always happened whenever he was nervous and unsettled, as he was that morning. The most trivial of details disturbed his icy exterior and exposed the storm of conflicts that raged inside him.

“The baroness will give you instructions.”

Soon they’ll start addressing me by my proper title, he thought as he stepped out onto the street. His hands were shaking slightly. Fortunately he had folded his overcoat over his arm, so the driver did not notice when he opened the door for him.

In the past, Jürgen had been able to channel his impulses through violence; but since the Nazi Party’s election victories the previous year, the undesirable factions had become more cautious. Every day Jürgen found it harder to control himself. On the journey he tried to breathe slowly. He didn’t want to arrive agitated and nervous.

Especially if I’m going to be promoted, as Mama says.

“Frankly, my dear Schroeder, you give me grave doubts.”

“Doubts, sir?”

“Doubts concerning your loyalty.”

Jürgen noticed his hand had started to shake again and he had to squeeze his knuckles hard to get it under control.

The meeting room was completely empty apart from Reinhard Heydrich and himself. The head of the Reich Main Security Office, the intelligence organ of the Nazi Party, was a tall man with a clear brow, just a couple of months older than Jürgen. In spite of his youth, he’d become one of the most powerful men in Germany. His organization was tasked with discovering threats—real or imaginary—to the party. Jürgen had heard that on the day they interviewed him for the job,

Heinrich Himmler had asked Heydrich how he would organize a Nazi intelligence agency, and Heydrich had replied with a rehash of all the spy novels he’d ever read. The Reich Main Security Office was already feared throughout Germany, though whether this owed more to cheap fiction or innate talent was unclear.

“Why do you say that, sir?”

Heydrich put his hand on a folder in front of him, which bore Jürgen’s name.

“You started out in the SA during the early days of the movement. That’s fine, it’s interesting. Surprising, though, that someone of your . . . lineage should ask specifically for a place in an SA battalion. And then there are the recurring episodes of violence reported by your superiors. I’ve consulted a psychologist about you . . . and he suggests that you might have a serious personality disorder. Still, that’s not a crime in itself, though it might”—he emphasized the “might” with a half smile and the lifting of his eyebrows—“be a handicap. But now we come to the thing that most concerns me. You were called—like the rest of your Stosstrupp—to attend the special event at the Bürgerbräukeller on the eighth of November, 1923. However, you never turned up.”

Heydrich paused, allowing his last words to float in the air. Jürgen began to sweat. After the election victories, the Nazis had begun, slowly and systematically, to take vengeance on anyone who’d obstructed the 1923 uprising, thus delaying Hitler’s rise to power by a year. For years Jürgen had lived in fear that someone would point the finger at him, and it was finally happening.

Heydrich continued, his tone now menacing.

“According to your superior, you did not report to the location of the meeting as you were required to do. However, it would seem that—and I quote—‘Storm Trooper Jürgen von Schroeder was with a squadron of 10th Company on the night of November twenty-third. His shirt was soaked in blood and he claimed to have been attacked by a number of Communists, and that the blood was from one of them, a man he had stabbed. He requested to join the squadron, which was controlled by a police commissioner from the Schwabing district, until the coup was over.’ Is this correct?”

“Down to the last comma, sir.”

“Right. That must be what the investigating commission thought, since they awarded you the party’s gold insignia and the medal of the Blood Order,” said Heydrich, pointing to Jürgen’s chest.

The party’s gold insignia was one of the most sought-after decorations in Germany. It was made up of a Nazi flag shaped into a circle surrounded by a laurel wreath in gold. It distinguished those members of the party who had signed up before Hitler’s victory in 1933. Until that day, the Nazis had had to recruit people to join their ranks. From that day on, endless queues formed at the party’s headquarters. Not everybody was granted the privilege.

As for the Blood Order, it was the most valuable medal in the Reich. The only people to wear it were those who had taken part in the 1923 coup d’état, which had come to a tragic end with the death of sixteen Nazis at the hands of the police. It was a decoration even Heydrich didn’t wear.

“I do wonder,” continued the head of the Reich Main Security Office, tapping his lips with the edge of the file, “whether we oughtn’t open a commission of inquiry into you, my friend.”

“That wouldn’t be necessary, sir,” said Jürgen in a whisper, knowing just how brief and decisive commissions of inquiry tended to be these days.

“No? The most recent reports, started when the SA was absorbed by the SS, say you have been somewhat ‘cool in the carrying out of your duty,’ that there’s ‘a lack of involvement’ . . . Shall I go on?”

“That’s because I’ve been kept off the streets, sir!”

“It’s possible, then, that other people are concerned about you?”