The Fellowship (30 page)

Gare du Nord

By chance, the train that Wolf and Lang boarded was the same that they had taken to Paris days earlier. The elderly conductor recognized them right away.

“Boys!” he
exclaimed, noting Lang’s frail disposition and Wolf’s arm sling. “Let me show you to a private car. The least I can do. The very least!”

This time, Wolf helped himself to some schnapps in the bar. Lang tried to stop him. “What if the
Gestapo sees you drinking?”

“I would call it medicine,” Wolf told him, although he was the first to agree that puritanism seemed to be in vogue. The previous year, the
Nazi Party was said to have authorized the sterilization of more than five thousand known alcoholics. Anti-smoking and -drinking campaigns featuring healthy Aryan babies were plastered all over public transportation.

They had spoken little until now, having been under armed chaperone en route to the train.
“Not a word to my mother about this,” Wolf said, gesturing with his arm sling.

“Sebastian,” Lang
began, speaking just loud enough to be heard over the grind of the train. It was the first time in ages that anyone had called Wolf by his first name. “When we were in the staircase at Notre Dame, Himmler had said something about an ossuary.”

Wolf nodded. “I remember.”

“He said the ossuary was important. Do you know what he meant?”

Wolf was not certain of what he was allowed to share with his friend. Himmler had ordered Lang to stand in the hallway outside the priest’s quarters. Surely that had been a random security assignment
, had it not? He and Lang were identical in rank, experience and education.

Even so, was he free to share what he had heard
? Perhaps it was better not to take any chances, he decided. Besides, he knew next to nothing. Himmler had mentioned the ossuary only once, in the treasure room. He had called it a Holy Ossuary, although he had not specified the name of the saint whose bones supposedly resided in Notre Dame.

“
I don’t know,” Wolf said at last.

“Those men in the robes,” Lang pressed. “
Did they look like French resistance to you?”

Wolf shook his head.
The simple robes. The crosses. They had seemed more like monks than the freedom fighters he had imagined.

“I went back
to Notre Dame that night,” Lang continued. “After dropping you at to the hospital.”

Wolf set his glass on the bar.
“Are you crazy? What if they had returned?”

“By
the time I went back, the police had arrived. They were loading the bodies into a truck. I identified Hoffman so they could take his body back to his family. Did you happen to notice what was in his mouth?”

“There was nothing in his mouth except blood,” Wolf said. “He was trying to explain what he saw. I told him to write it instead.”

“Then they put it there after we left.”

“
Put what there?”

“This.”
Lang reached into a tunic pocket. He held a piece of black-and-red striped fabric that had been cut into an octagon shape. “It was sticking out from between his lips.”

On one side, a phrase was
stitched in golden thread:
Ad majorem dei gloriam.
The other side read,
Paratus enim dolor et cruciatus, in Dei nomine
.

Wolf
Residence

Munich

Aside from any changes he had made during occasional visits home, Wolf’s
mother maintained his bedroom as it was when her son had left it before leaving for the Reich School in 1938. An oval-framed faculty photograph of his late father hung on the far wall. Atop the dresser, a chessboard with ivory pieces. A small statue of the Virgin Mary. A bowl containing a rosary.

On the far wall, a
remarkable sketch signed by a young Dutch artist name Escher that his father had purchased for his 11
th
birthday. And hanging over the bed, an oversized silver crucifix. Even here in Munich, the very heart of National Socialism, he could not escape Christ’s accusing glare.

He heard the strains of
Richard Strauss through the wall. For as long as Wolf could remember, playing Strauss had been his mother’s version of civil disobedience. Strauss, whom Goebbels had once appointed president of the
Reichsmusikkammer
,
had been officially censored for a number of political infractions. Only the composer’s popularity had kept him out of prison. Real Nazis, it was said, listened to Wagner, who had gone public with his anti-Semitism long before Hitler had even been born.

As he had done twice each day since arriving home,
Wolf slipped out of bed, turned and knelt, resting his elbows – both of them – on the bed. As far as he was concerned, the pain shooting down his left shoulder during these prayer sessions was entirely deserved.

He had killed
a man, and in a church, no less. He had contributed to the desecration of one of the most holy cathedrals in Europe. He had listened to Himmler speak blasphemously about the Holy Mother and yet had done nothing to stop him. He was both a coward and a murderer.

Making matters worse, he had lied to his mother, telling her that his gunshot had been a training accident.
She already had one son in combat. There was no sense in having her worry about both of them.

His head
ballooned with heretical notions. Curiosities seeded by Himmler, the very man his parents had warned him about. The infallibility of the pope. The authenticity of a Bible that had been edited and translated through the ages. The ethnicity of the Holy Mother. 

Round and round
his thoughts went like some sinister carousel. He prayed that these ideas would be vanquished from his mind. He prayed for his mother, who had still not heard any news about his brother, Hans, from the eastern front. He prayed for Lang, who had seemed like a stranger to him since the firefight in Notre Dame.

Wolf
stopped short of praying for a German victory. How could he? In just four short days, he was to return to Wewelsburg Castle, where Himmler was stockpiling the world’s great Christian artifacts. As he had learned in Paris, Himmler was no closeted Catholic, as Wolf had hoped when he had browsed the treasures in the castle museum. He was intent on co-opting Christianity for political and military gain. If Germany won the war, the Holy Roman Empire would be restored, and Christians worldwide would look not to Rome or Jerusalem, but to Wewelsburg Castle. Their Jesus would be recast with Aryan features and a Germanic bloodline.

The music in the other room stopped. Wolf heard the radio flicker on. The announcer’s voice was muffled, but
there was urgency in his tone.

Wolf rose, exited the bedroom and went to the living room, where his mother was sitting in a chair near the radio.
She covered her face with her hands as she wept. That could only mean one thing – there had been news about his brother’s outfit.

Wolf kissed her on the forehead and turned the volume on the radio back up
and listened to the rest of the news bulletin. Although surrounded, the Sixth Army has vowed to fight to the last man, the announcer said. They would rather die than surrender to the atheist Bolsheviks.

Lang Residence

Suburban Munich

Christmas Day

The Lang
country home sat on several acres of suburban Munich at the edge of the Perlacher Forest.  Mrs. Lang – a tall, gregarious woman in a pretty green party blouse – met Sebastian Wolf and his mother, Gertrude, at the door.

Mrs. Lang
had toted the party line well enough to maneuver her son into a position at the Reich School, and later, into the Ahnenerbe. But on this night, in the privacy of her own home, she wore makeup. She wore pants that had been imported from America. And she was smoking. Not exactly a candidate for the National Cross of Motherhood.

She
showed them into the living room, where a square bench made of birch surrounded a magnificent fireplace. The extravagant size of the home was grounded by its rustic furnishings. In the far corner, someone played carols on a grand piano.

Mrs. Lang offered
the Wolfs some cherry brandy from the bar. In addition to the Lang’s four children, several dinner guests were already on hand. Most were familiar family friends, although with the exception of the Langs, Sebastian had seen none of them since leaving for school. Looking dapper in a simple gray suit and white arm sling, he listened politely as the other guests fawned over how much he had grown in the past four years.

Heinz Lang
was all smiles as he bounced downstairs with his dog at his side. The sight of his black SS uniform immediately quieted the room. The piano faltered, and then trickled to a halt. Although the boys’ recruitment into the Ahnenerbe was known to all, the presence of the uniform was jarring. The guest list consisted entirely of what Mrs. Lang called antisocial Nazis – those who had joined the party only to avoid suspicion.

Seeking to deflect the awkwardness, Mrs. Lang turned her attention to
Wolf. “Sebastian dear. How is your shoulder?”

“
On the mend. Even if Heinz did take me to a drunk French surgeon.”

The guests laughed, the piano resumed, and the
room crackled back to life. When asked about his war wound, Wolf repeated the same story that he and Lang had agreed to on the train back to Munich. They had been conducting research in Paris, he told them. A French policeman had tripped and fired his gun. Merely a random accident. There was nothing for anyone to worry about.

In truth, Wolf
felt less confident about his recuperation than he let on. It was true that he was regaining range of motion and his mother, an experienced nurse, had dressed the wound the night before, proclaiming it free of infection. But the sweats he had experienced in Paris still came and went. At times they left him dizzy. And when he slept, he was haunted by demons. He saw the faces carved in the Portal of the Last Judgment. He saw the symbols that Hoffman had written in his own blood. He had left Notre Dame, but the cathedral had not yet left him.

Mrs. Lang took Gertrude aside and
, with a hand on her shoulder, chatted in a corner of the room. Wolf did not have to read lips to know what they spoke of. Everyone had heard news of Stalingrad. Gertrude had been up all night crying.

The
smell of roasted goose wafted in from the dining room, and the guests did not wait to be invited to the table. Wolf was astonished when he saw not just one bird, but two, on identical silver platters. The sight of so much meat was shocking.

“You must have been saving your food stamps for months,”
Gertrude said. Wolf knew otherwise. Mr. Lang, who was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Education, had acquired the birds through a connection.

Mrs. Lang called out across the room. “Father
Kruger! Come to the table!”

Had she said Kruger? Wolf had known a Father Kruger once.
A Jesuit priest from his old parochial school. A formidable teacher who could recite countless texts on any number of subjects from memory.

The pianist maneuvered from the song’s bridge into several closing chords
.  He pushed the bench out from behind him and made his way to the table. The Father Kruger that Wolf had known had been barrel-chested with thick, powerful forearms that were impressive even under the long sleeves of his black cassock.

This man was disturbingly thin. He wore a
gray civilian sweater with a white oxford shirt and a black tie. He had thinning gray hair that was long and slicked back behind his ears. He avoided eye contact with the other guests.

Yet it
was
him. Remarkably transformed in just three years.

“Father Kruger,” Wolf said. “
It’s Sebastian Wolf. Do you remember me?”

The pri
est sat down and placed his napkin in his lap before looking up. “Yes,” he answered. “You were quite bright, as I remember. And quite ambitious, evidently.”

Mrs. Lang tapped her wine glass. Conversation among the 12 guests stopped. “At the risk of being cruel, I should like to delay our meal for just a moment longer for a Christmas prayer. Father Kruger
, would you give us the honor?”

The priest placed both hands flat on the table
. “Although I trust we are all friends here,” he said, his eyes glancing across Lang’s uniform, “I have signed an oath that I will refrain from engaging in any type of religious ritual. I therefore must, with much regret, pass.”

The table was quiet for several
awkward moments. At last Gertrude raised her glass. “Well then, if we can’t pray, then I will propose a toast.”

At 36, Gertrude’s good looks defied all that she had been through in the past four years: the death of her husband, the job she had taken at
Lebensborn
, and four months without letters from her oldest son. Her chin was still angular, her hips were reasonably trim, and most of her wavy hair was still golden.

“
First,” she said, “A toast to the Langs for bringing a bit of cheer into our lives today.” The guests sounded murmurs of approval. “Second, I’m grateful for the sons that could be with us today, and I pray for those who are yet far afield that the Lord may watch over them and deliver them home safely. Finally, I express my gratitude for returning Father Kruger to us after so many years. This alone should give us all hope.”

Arms
crisscrossed as wine glasses clinked and lively chatter commenced. Plates were passed as Mrs. Lang carved the goose. 

Wolf leaned into his mother’s ear and whispered. “What happened to him?”

Gertrude smiled for show, as if she were about to whisper something amusing. She shielded her lips with her wine glass, and spoke. “The Dachau camp.”

Wolf had a vague notion of the prison camp located in the suburb of Dachau, a 30-minute train ride from central Munich. It was
rumored to be the principal destination for political prisoners, including a large number of Christian and Jewish clergy that refused to toe the party line. Lately he had heard rumors that captured Russian prisoners were taken there to make munitions.  

As curious Wolf was in the crime Father
Kruger had committed, and in the punishment he had received, another agenda was rapidly forming in his mind. He resolved to find out where Father Kruger spent his days now. He had important questions that he wondered if his old schoolmaster could answer.