One Last Summer (2007) (23 page)

Sascha was listening for me. He waited only as long as it took me to fasten the bolts and whistle our signal before dropping down through the hatch. He had that special smile, the one he reserves for when we are alone.

Before him, I knew about happiness because of Wilhelm and Irena, but I never dreamed that one day it would be mine, or how it would make me feel.

I now know why Wilhelm and Irena touch one another all the time. There is no pain, no shame, no humiliation in what Sascha and I do. Only love. A deep and abiding love that grows more profound, passionate and perfect every day whether we are together or apart. I cannot imagine how I lived through my days and nights before he came into my life. I adore him, I exist only for him. For the first time I feel as though there really is a higher purpose. That this life cannot possibly be all that is.

I also understand why Maria drowned herself after Paul died. True love cannot end on this earth, and I fervently believe that somewhere, despite committing what her church believes to be a mortal sin, Maria is reunited with Paul. Like Maria, I have lost my fear of death because I have experienced this one perfect relationship, this great unselfish love. Sascha is, and always will be, my true husband. My husband of the heart.

I drift through days, doing what has to be done, living only for the evenings when we can be alone. It is enough to catch a glimpse of Sascha during the hours we are apart. We don’t have to look one another in the eye. I see his tall, blond figure stripped to the waist working in the fields, hoeing or planting, or walking across the yard with the others, and I remember how it feels to hold his naked body against mine, to hear his voice whispering in my ear, his heart beating above my own.

I can tell Sascha anything – every secret desire, every burning ambition, every petty, shameful, spiteful thing I have ever done – knowing that he will accept me for who and what I am. But there is one thing we never dare speak of: the future.

When the war is over, it is anyone’s guess what will happen to the prisoners after the peace treaties have been signed. I try to concentrate on now; the warm days and love-filled nights and the beauties of summer. Sascha is calling it ‘our summer’. I hope and pray that it will not be our only one.

I am so greedy. I want more for us than just one summer. I want us to have a lifetime together. I want to know that he will always be with me. I cannot bear the thought of living a single day without him. I love him totally; his mind, his thoughts, his heart, his body. Even as I write this I am warm from his touch. I have only to close my eyes to feel his fingers brush across my breasts. My lips burn from his kisses. I can smell his clean scent on my skin.

But now it is time to return this book to its hiding place in the hole in the wall beneath the windowsill. I have to tell someone about my love for Sascha or I will burst, and better that I write my thoughts and consign them to secrecy than risk Sascha’s death as well as my own.

German women have been shot for less than I have done, and I know just how little value the Reich places on Russian lives. But I will do everything in my power to keep him at Grunwaldsee, where I can protect him and help him and his men survive the war.

SATURDAY, 1 JULY 1944

The Allies invaded France on 6 June. Now we are fighting in Italy, Russia and France. It seems that Germany is surrounded by enemies and struggling for survival on all fronts. Claus is in France again; he sent me a postcard from Paris. If it was meant to reassure me, it didn’t, because Allenstein is rife with rumour, and more and more wounded pour into Bergensee every day.

Wilhelm, thank God, is not at any of the Fronts. We know because his Colonel has to visit East Prussia quite often. Wilhelm says very little about their work, but there are rumours that Hitler’s headquarters are somewhere near the von Lehndorff estate in Steinort, and I think that is why Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg has to make so many trips from Berlin into East Prussia. Every time he comes he allows Wilhelm to snatch a few hours with Irena. The last time was only four days ago.

The only good thing at the moment is the weather. It is so hot the guards allow the Russians to bathe in the lake at midday, while they sit in the shade and eat the picnic lunch Martha prepares for them. Afterwards, the guards laze around for an hour, and Sascha slips away to the summerhouse. I wait for him there. It is dangerous, although his fellow prisoners are always ready to cover for him and I am careful to leave a few carpenter’s tools in the living room, so if the guards do walk in and catch us together, I can say that I asked him to help me hang a picture.

We pretend we are married and the summerhouse is ours. We discuss the improvements we will make when we have time, like where we will put my piano and his art materials, and where he will build a bookcase and a cupboard to hold our music. His favourite piece is the Shostakovich he wrote out for me but he also likes Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ and Schumann’s ‘Dreaming’.

I have opened up the small drawing room again, and early in the evening, just after supper, I throw the windows wide and play as loud as I can, so Sascha and his men can hear me in the stable loft. The guards frequently come to the window to listen. They have complimented me on my playing. One asked me who composed the Shostakovich piece. I was so afraid that they would find out it had been given to me by Sascha and written by a Russian, I told them I had, and now they think I am a genius.

Sascha and I never dare steal more than half an hour in the summerhouse during the day, but we both know how to make every second count. Most of the time we just sit side by side on the old sofa, holding hands and staring at the clock on the mantelpiece, willing time to stop.

I have been happier during my few snatched moments with Sascha than I have been during all the days and nights that I have spent with Claus.

But I must be careful. I have caught Irena, Brunon and Wilhelm looking at me rather oddly of late.

I know I am different – quieter, calmer, more content. My happiness shows. But if anyone should ever suspect the truth about me and Sascha it would mean death for both of us. I don’t care about myself but I cannot bear the idea of Sascha being shot.

FRIDAY, 20 JULY 1944

Martha came running out into the fields this afternoon to tell us that an announcement had been made on the radio. Hitler has survived an assassination attempt. Brunon and I immediately rode back to the house in the hope of hearing more, but we only heard the same announcement repeated several times. In between they played very solemn funereal music that suggested the Führer was dead, which we thought peculiar given the initial declaration that he had survived.

I was uneasy about Irena. She was in the kitchen when Brunon and I ran into the house, and I thought she was going to faint. She looked very white and was shaking like a dog just lifted from a cold bath. Wilhelm has been very outspoken when Irena and I have been alone with him lately, criticizing Hitler’s leadership, citing the unnecessary losses in Stalingrad because the Führer would not countenance a German retreat or surrender. I wondered if Irena knew something about the attempt on the Führer’s life. It was then that the horrible thought occurred to me that Wilhelm could be involved.

Despite her advanced pregnancy and exhaustion, which has worsened in the hot weather, Irena insisted on sitting up to hear Hitler make his promised broadcast to the people.

At nine o’clock I made some excuse about checking the horses and went to the tack room. I only stayed long enough to speak to Sascha through the hatch and tell him what had happened. I promised to bring him more news as soon as I could, then I returned to the house and sat with Irena. We had a long wait. The broadcast wasn’t made until one o’clock in the morning, by which time Irena looked so pale and ill I thought she was going to collapse.

When I heard Hitler speak I froze and felt as though my heart had stopped beating. I remember every word he said:

‘A small clique of ambitious, irresponsible, senseless and criminally stupid officers have formed a plot to eliminate me and the German Wehrmacht command. The bomb was placed by Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg …’

When Hitler uttered the name, I knew for certain that Wilhelm was involved. I looked at Irena but I was too shocked to say anything for a few minutes. She lowered her head. All I could think of was Wilhelm. What will they do to him and his brave, charming and courteous colonel? How many others are implicated?

When I could speak, I asked Irena about Claus and his father, but Wilhelm had been careful not to tell her any details that could incriminate her. She said all he had asked for was her permission to risk his neck and their happiness. He said no sacrifice would be too great if the end result was to rid Germany of Hitler. That the man we call Führer is leading us along a path of death and destruction.

Irena told me that far from forgetting the horrors he saw on the Russian Front, Wilhelm told his colonel and everyone else who would listen about the atrocities he witnessed. Like Sascha, Wilhelm said that Hitler is not only waging war, but inflicting mass murder on the defenceless populations of the countries in the East that we have added to our empire. Not just soldiers, but women and children.

Like Irena and me, he had seen Jews and other civilians being herded, but not in small groups. He had seen hundreds and thousands force-marched into the countryside, where our soldiers massacred them. Sometimes it took the execution squads days to finish their task. And Wilhelm told Irena that afterwards he had seen blood gushing from the earth and heard cries coming from the ground, even when the graves had been filled in.

Irena only confirmed what Sascha had told me and what I had secretly feared ever since I saw Georg point a gun at Ruth and Emilia. I fetched the remains of the bottle of brandy. Neither Irena nor I went to bed. I don’t know why. There was nothing we could do except sit, hold one another, and pray. And, after what Sascha had told me about what was happening in the East, and Papa, Paul, Peter and Manfred’s deaths and Mama’s illness, I’m not sure I believe in a God any more. There, I’ve finally written it. Has Sascha turned me into an atheist, too?

SATURDAY, 21 JULY 1944

Wilhelm arrived at dawn. He looked at me with the eyes of an old, old man. Neither of us spoke. I knew that if I tried I would break down and cry. I hugged him and sent him to Irena, because I knew he had come to see his wife, not me. After he had kissed his daughters, he and Irena went down to the summerhouse. I went to the tack room. I could only risk staying for a moment because the guards were already moving around the lodge and would soon roust the prisoners from the loft.

I climbed the ladder, knocked at the hatch in such a way that it could have been accidental and whistled our signal. When Sascha came I told him what had happened. He offered to write a letter to the Russians telling them what Wilhelm had done. The letter might protect Wilhelm, but I doubt that he will get through the German lines and even if, by some miracle, he did reach the Russian Front unharmed, there is no guarantee that the Russians wouldn’t shoot him first and read Sascha’s letter afterwards. But I saddled Elise and left her standing in the yard, in case Wilhelm was prepared to chance an escape.

I had just finished giving the children their breakfast when eight armed SS officers arrived in two Mercedes staff cars. I went out to meet them. Trying to look braver than I felt, I told them that I objected to anyone bringing guns into the house because they frightened the children.

Ignoring my request, they asked for Wilhelm. I replied quite truthfully that he wasn’t in the house. They didn’t believe me and began to search. Before they went upstairs I saw Wilhelm cross the courtyard with Irena at his side. Either he or Irena had brushed and cleaned his uniform, and they were holding hands as though they had been out for a morning stroll.

I ran outside and begged Wilhelm to take Elise and hide in the woods. I insisted that a battalion of troops could search for a year and not find all the places we played in as children. He listened to me, smiled gravely and shook his head, as though I were a silly child again.

Then he looked up and saw the major in charge of the SS detachment standing outside the kitchen door watching us. He asked if he was looking for him. When the major replied that he was, Wilhelm offered up his gun.

I have never been angrier or more proud of my brother. Only the set of his jaw betrayed his nervousness. He and Paul always used to clench their teeth whenever Papa reprimanded them for their pranks. The major ordered one of his men to pin Wilhelm’s arms behind his back. Wilhelm assured them that there was no need for restraint. He told them that he was prepared to go with them wherever they wanted, so long as they spared his wife, daughters, mother and sister.

I think he shamed the major, because he ordered Wilhelm released, and gave him permission to go upstairs and say goodbye to Mama.

I went with him. It was awful. Mama didn’t recognize him. He embraced and kissed me before we left the room, and reminded me of my promise to look after Irena and the girls. As if I needed reminding.

Irena, Marianna and little Karoline stood waiting for him in the hall. The SS watched while Wilhelm hugged and kissed them. He told Irena that he loved her and was sorry that he had loved his country more, but he was sure that he had done the right thing. He smiled and looked at the soldiers as he said, ‘As God told Abraham that He would spare Sodom if he could show him ten just men in the city, so I hope that God will be merciful now and not destroy Germany because we stood firm for our country. None of us can complain that we have to die.’

Then he looked at me over Irena’s shoulder. I knew what he wanted me to do. I took Irena from him. Wilhelm turned on his heel and walked out of the house for the last time.

Irena was in the most dreadful state. She broke free from my grasp and, shouting Wilhelm’s name, ran outside after the cars. I thought she would never stop screaming. Minna took the children into the kitchen, Martha brought the brandy, and between us we tried to get Irena to bed, but she didn’t calm down until I promised to telephone Papa von Letteberg and ask him to help Wilhelm.