The Other Side of Silence

I tapped a fingernail against the cocktail gong. It sounded just like my heart. Or so I wanted to believe. How else was I going to finish my story? I swallowed hard and kept on going.

“Konigsberg was surrendered to the Russians on April ninth, nineteen forty-five, after which I and ninety thousand other German soldiers were marched off into captivity. Me, I was one of the lucky ones. Someone helped me to escape, in nineteen forty-seven. Most of us died, however. I believe General Lasch was only repatriated about nine months ago. Meanwhile, the city was renamed Kaliningrad in July nineteen forty-six, in honor of some murderous Bolshevik, and cleansed of its entire German population. Many of those people unfortunate enough not to have fled the city were just forced into the countryside, where they starved or died of the cold. Today the only Germans left there are probably the statues of Immanuel Kant and Schiller.”

“But what happened to Irmela? What happened when she reached Germany? You can’t end the story there. Surely you haven’t finished.”

“I have if you want a happy ending.”

“I don’t like happy endings. I like an ending to be ambiguous because that’s the way life is. But wait a moment. Where’s the happy ending in you being sent off to a Soviet labor camp? That doesn’t make sense.”

“I’m still here, aren’t I? That’s about as happy as this story gets, I’m afraid.”

Maugham nodded. “Beginnings are much more enjoyable, it’s true. I sometimes think that novelists should never be allowed to write their own endings. Because this is where fiction p-parts company with reality. In real life we never actually recognize when something has truly ended. Which makes wrapping up a book in just one or two chapters almost impossible.”

I nodded and lit a cigarette. I’d smoked too much and my throat felt dry-too dry to continue speaking, but I knew he wasn’t going to let me stop there. I poured another gimlet from the pitcher and swallowed it-for medicinal purposes, of course.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “we both know there’s another ending to your story that you haven’t yet shared with me. After all these years there has to be.”

I nodded again. “Yes, there is.”

“I think you’d better tell me, don’t you?”

I took a breath and dived in.

“All right, sir. After Hennig and I met with Irmela and persuaded her to send the unencrypted signal-which was more difficult than might have been thought-he lent me a car and I drove her from Konigsberg to Gotenhafen, a distance of about two hundred kilometers, along a road that was sometimes jammed with civilians trying to escape from the Red Army. Some even chose to take a shortcut across the frozen sea, often with disastrous results. Meanwhile, the weather grew steadily worse with strong winds, snow, and below-freezing temperatures. Conditions on the road were so bad we almost didn’t reach the ship before it set sail, so there was little time for a proper good-bye. I wish I’d said more to her. You always do. I suppose given the speed with which we coupled, it makes just as much sense that we should have uncoupled so quickly. Everything we did back then was done in a hurry. A last-minute thing. She kissed me quickly and then bounded up the gangway of the Wilhelm Gustloff while I stood there like a useless capstan feeling a horrible mixture of relief that she was on board and real fear that I might never see her again.