The Other Side of Silence

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.