The Other Side of Silence

At that stage in the war, it was better to be the lowliest kind of officer there was. Being a general seemed like a responsibility that no one would have wished for. But I shrugged with an indifference that I felt could reasonably have been interpreted as modesty. Koch wasn’t concerned with my feelings in the matter, however, and had already assumed that, like him, I was keen to advance in life and to profit wherever and whenever possible, and probably however, too.

“And you will be,” he said. “I need only call your commanding officer, General Lasch, to make that happen.”

“It’s kind of you. But I wouldn’t trouble yourself on my behalf. I’ve long ceased to believe that my future lies in the army.”

“Oh, it’s no trouble. I’m always glad to help someone who’s fallen foul of Joey the Crip. Isn’t that so, Harold?”

“Yes, sir,” said Captain Hennig. “We don’t like the doctor very much.”

“Harold tells me that you were a policeman in Berlin before the war. A commissar, no less.”

I finished the schnapps and let him pour me another, the way I like it, right to the brim, before putting that one down the tube, too.

“That’s right.” I was pleased to change the subject. Or so I thought. “But my maternal grandparents were from Konigsberg. I used to visit here a lot when I was a boy. I always liked coming to the old Prussian capital. You might almost say that for me this is a home from home.”

“I feel much the same. I’m from Elberfeld, near Wuppertal. But this is where my heart now lies. In East Prussia. I love it out here.”

I glanced around the library. All those books were making it easy for me to understand why he had such a foolish, sentimental attachment to the place. Books are precious. They can almost make you feel at home. In any other home but that one they’d have been used as fuel.

“When you came here as a boy, I bet you visited the old Amber Museum.”

“Oh, yes sir. Prussian gold, they used to call it.”

“Indeed. The world’s major source of amber is the Samland. And Palmnicken, in particular. We’ve had Jews-mostly women-surface mining the stuff for the last few years. Tell me, do you like amber?”

I didn’t, as it happened. To me, amber had always looked like nature’s plastic, not in the least bit precious and no more than a curiosity at best. I couldn’t ever understand why some people seemed to prize the stuff so highly. But since I felt we were now, perhaps, finally coming to the point of my being there, I nodded politely and said, “Yes, I suppose so. I never really thought much about the stuff.”

“What else do you know about it?”

“Only that it’s expensive. Which is where I stop knowing about anything very much. There’s usually a tight hand brake on my thinking when there’s a lot of money involved.”

“As there is for everyone these days. We’re all of us having to make sacrifices in this terrible war that was forced upon us by our ideological enemies. But Harold tells me that you are not without diversions in Konigsberg. That there is a lovely girl in the naval auxiliary you’ve been seeing. What’s her name?”

“Irmela. Irmela Schaper.”

“Good. I’m glad about that. A soldier should always have a sweetheart. Don’t you agree, Harold?”

“I do indeed, sir. Especially now that I’ve seen the girl. She’s as sweet as a sweetheart gets.”

“Before she stops being a sweetheart and becomes a wife, eh?”

Koch laughed at his own joke. But it was too near to being true for me to join him in a smile.

He went over to a desk as big as a Tiger tank and pulled open an enormous drawer. “Come over here, Captain,” he said. “Come and see.”

The drawer was full of amber objects-necklaces, brooches, earrings, cigarette holders, animal carvings; it looked like one of the many market stalls near the museum I’d seen when I was a boy.

“Please, pick something out for your sweetheart.”

“I couldn’t, sir. Really, it’s very kind of you, but-”

“Nonsense,” said Koch. “Whatever you think she’d like. A nice necklace, or perhaps a brooch. Or for yourself, if that’s what you’d really prefer. Harold has a very handsome antique cigarette case. Not to mention a beautiful pair of cuff links that were originally made for Arthur Schopenhauer.”

I’d have much preferred to have taken nothing; the idea of being in Koch’s debt was horrible to me, especially now that I’d learned how some of the stuff was mined. And I couldn’t help but think that much of what I was looking at had been stolen from someone else-from Jews, probably. But finally I could see I had no choice in the matter. I picked up a gold necklace that contained a large teardrop piece of amber and, holding it up in front of my eyes, let the firelight illuminate the perfectly preserved insect it contained.

“Oh yes,” said Koch. “Good choice. That’s a Wilhelmine piece from before the Great War. Fascinating, isn’t it? The way an insect from thousands of years ago should have become trapped by some sticky tree resin which then fossilized.”

“Perhaps it will remind her of me,” I said.