Traitor's Gate (21 page)

Anneliese shook her head.

‘Did you tell him about Joachim?’ Conrad asked.

Anneliese frowned. ‘No! Of course not.’

‘It’s a bit of a coincidence that it was Klaus Schalke who inter­rogated him, isn’t it? A couple of days after you had overheard him telling Theo about a plot to get rid of Hitler. You told me you didn’t understand what Joachim was saying, but I know you speak English.’

‘You’re right, I did understand Joachim, but I didn’t know Theo that well, and I didn’t know Joachim at all, so it seemed safer to claim ignorance. That’s just the kind of talk you don’t want to overhear in Germany. But I absolutely did not speak to Klaus about it. At that stage I hadn’t spoken to Klaus for months.’

‘So it wasn’t just another dodge to get your father out?’

A tear fell down Anneliese’s cheek. ‘I know what you think of me, and the awful thing is mostly you are right. I think I’m contemptible too. I know you don’t want to see me again, of course you don’t. At the time I thought it was worth doing any­thing,
anything
to get my father out of the concentration camp. I did a lot of things I bitterly regret now and I hate myself for them. Believe me, I hate myself so much more than you hate me.’

‘That doesn’t make sense,’ said Conrad.

Anneliese took a deep breath. ‘One of the things I most regret – no,
the
thing I most regret, is losing you. You saw what was happening to my father and did your best to help him. You risked your life for a man you didn’t know because the way he was treated was unjust. When I was with you the world seemed normal; I felt like a normal human being. And now you’ve gone... Now I’ve treated you so badly...’ She stumbled, and bit her lip.

Conrad was about to say something cutting, but the words never left his lips. He looked straight into her eyes. He saw pain and misery but also defiance. His cynicism suddenly seemed ugly when faced with Anneliese’s honesty.

She got to her feet. ‘There it is then. I’ve said it. What I came here to say. Goodbye, Conrad.’

And she was gone.

Conrad spent the whole morning in the Stabi staring at a blank sheet of paper. He just couldn’t get Anneliese out of his mind. He felt an almost overwhelming urge to rush around to her room, take her in his arms and tell her that he forgave her. But it was an urge that he fought against, fought against and conquered. The bitterness and resentment that he felt about the way she had treated him still burned, and he had no intention of casting off that protective shell in a moment of weakness. These days you could trust nobody. He had relented with Theo, and he would probably suffer the consequences. He wasn’t going to give in to Anneliese. There was bound to be something she wanted from him, maybe a visa for herself. Yes, that was it: she wanted to go to England to join her father. Well, he wasn’t going to be made a fool of again. He wasn’t going to be hurt again.

Later on, back at his flat, he was listening to Bruch’s violin concerto on his gramophone – the piece that Theo’s grand­mother had played – when he had a visitor. It was Sophie. He was struck by how pretty she was, with her short blonde hair, delicate mouth and big baby-blue eyes.

‘What a surprise!’ Conrad said. ‘Come in. Can I get you a drink?’

She asked for a sherry, and he mixed himself a whisky and soda.

‘Nice music,’ she said, taking the drink.

‘Theo’s grandmother played it over the weekend. Have you met her?’

‘I haven’t met any of Theo’s family,’ Sophie said, a touch of bitterness in her voice.

‘Really?’ said Conrad, realizing he had put his foot in it.

‘He knows they would think I wasn’t good enough for him. A nurse and the daughter of a fishmonger from Friedrichshain.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Conrad.

‘Oh, come on, you know it’s not nonsense. You have a class system in your country, don’t you? You are the son of a lord, it’s easy enough for you to ignore it. Not so easy for me.’ She sighed. ‘And not so easy for Theo either.’

Conrad couldn’t argue with that. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘It shouldn’t be like that. Theo shouldn’t be like that.’

Sophie smiled at him. ‘You wouldn’t care, would you?’

Conrad smiled. ‘I’d like to think not. Actually my parents thought my wife was totally unsuitable and I married her any­way. Sadly they were right.’

‘So you’d marry Anneliese even though she’s half-Jewish?’ Sophie asked.

Conrad laughed. ‘There are very many reasons why I
would
­
n’t
marry Anneliese, but the fact that she is half-Jewish is not one of them. What about you and Theo?’

It was strange to be asking his friend’s girlfriend about mar­riage, but there was a pleasingly intimate honesty about Sophie that encouraged him.

‘That will never happen,’ Sophie said.

‘Yet you stay with him?’

‘I love him,’ she said. ‘I know that the best I can hope for is to be his girlfriend. Or, more accurately, his mistress. But I can’t imagine life without him.’

‘He’s very lucky,’ Conrad said.

They sipped their drinks, listening to the Bruch.

‘I’ve come to speak to you about Anneliese,’ Sophie said.

‘I guessed as much.’

‘She has been miserable since you saw her with Klaus.’

‘And so have I.’

‘I’m sure you have,’ said Sophie. ‘A few days ago I thought she was going to kill herself. I caught her taking a batch of tranquil­lizers from the hospital. Stealing them. She said she couldn’t sleep, but I could see she was lying. Anneliese wouldn’t steal for something like that. It was something more... final. And she did try once before, several years ago.’

‘Are you trying to make me feel guilty?’ Conrad said defens­ively. ‘Unless I talk to her, she’ll kill herself? Is that it?’

‘No, no. You’re not responsible. She is and she knows it and that is precisely the problem. But she did what she did for love of her father. Most girls don’t love their father that much, I know I don’t, but for Anneliese he is the most important person in the world. She worships him – you can tell that whenever she talks about him. I’m not defending what she did, but I do understand it.’

‘Did she ask you to come?’

‘Absolutely not,’ Sophie said. ‘She would be mortified. As far as she is concerned there is no chance that you will ever have anything to do with her again.’

‘Well, on that we are in agreement.’

‘She has told Klaus that she won’t see him any more.’

‘Lucky man,’ said Conrad. ‘But look, why
are
you here?’

‘You see, the thing is...’ said Sophie, glancing down into her empty glass, before looking at Conrad with those large frank blue eyes. ‘The thing is, she loves you.’

Conrad snorted. ‘She hardly knows me.’

‘And I suspect... well, I suspect that you love her. Am I right?’

Conrad wanted to protest, but suddenly he couldn’t find the words.

‘I’m sorry. I must be going. I apologize for intruding on you like this. You must think me an interfering busybody. But Anne­liese is one of the people I am fondest of on this earth and she has had a very difficult time these last few years. So, I think, have you. Goodbye, Conrad.’

Four hours later, Conrad found himself on the corner of the quiet cobbled street where Anneliese lived. Everywhere was silence; no one dared venture out in this area late at night these days, apart from the Nazi thugs, of course. A drawing of a man hanging from a gallows was scrawled across the window of the little cobbler’s opposite Anneliese’s tenement building.

Conrad could feel the indecision creeping up on him. He had walked rapidly the whole way from his own flat, urging himself on, but now he was almost at his destination, uncertainty tugged at his sleeve, and whispered a name in his ear. His heart was beating fast. The urge to go ahead and do what his heart told him to do and damn the consequences was almost overwhelming. It was an exhilarating feeling, but he had felt it once before, when he had proposed to Veronica. ‘Veronica,’ the voice whispered. ‘Remember Veronica.’

But Anneliese was different. She had to be different. If it turned out she really was just like Veronica, life would be unbearable. The world would be unbearable.

Shaking off his doubts, he strode along the street to the door of the building and knocked. Two minutes later, amongst loud muttering and grumbling, the door was opened by the landlady, in dressing gown, slippers and curlers.

‘Good evening, Frau Goldstein, I’m very sorry to trouble you so late at night—’ Conrad began.

Frau Goldstein’s frown turned into a smile. ‘Herr de Lancey! A pleasure to see you again. Fräulein Rosen is upstairs. And she is alone.’ Conrad smiled quickly at the landlady and climbed the stairs. On the landing, outside Anneliese’s door, he hesitated. He remembered the last time he had been there, Klaus Schalke’s heavy tread, his big body appearing in the doorway in front of him.

What the hell was he doing?

He knocked.

He heard movement inside the room, and knocked again.

‘Who is it?’ The voice sounded tired.

‘Conrad.’

The door opened slowly, and there was Anneliese, in a dressing gown. She looked pale and nervous, almost frightened as she saw Conrad’s frown.

He smiled.

Her eyes studied his and the apprehension melted away. A smile spread across her own lips. ‘Conrad,’ she said and fell into his chest. He held her, tight, so very tight.

After that night Conrad and Anneliese spent every spare moment together. It was easy for Conrad; his visits to the Stabi became less frequent, but the time he spent there was much more productive. Suddenly his novel began to flow.

For her it was more difficult; she had her shifts to do at the hospital, but Conrad was happy to adjust his life to fit around hers. They just didn’t get much sleep. Any distance between them was banished. They made love all the time, that first night with a manic desperation, afterwards with humour, with languor, with tenderness, with whatever mood took them. It was like nothing Conrad had experienced before. It was wonderful.

Most of the time they stayed in Anneliese’s little room in the Scheunenviertel; it was more efficient since Anneliese didn’t waste precious time travelling to and from the hospital. Frau Goldstein was pleased with this turn of events, and was always effusive in her welcome to Conrad. But whenever Anneliese had a day off they would switch to Conrad’s flat.

Sometimes they would venture out for forays into the Tier­garten. They would always head for the Rosengarten, where the roses were in full bloom and the benches filled with lovers like them, and then go on to one of the
Zelte
, the semi-permanent restaurant tents on the banks of the Spree, and dance on the terrace to Strauss waltzes.

When they weren’t making love, they talked. It was one long conversation, which they picked up where they had left off whenever they were interrupted by the need to sleep or for Anneliese to work. It was the uncontrolled ramblings of two minds, darting from subject to subject in a manner that made sense only to them. They talked about everything: music, sex, books, dreams, their childhood, politics, food, God. Anneliese recovered her sense of humour, luxuriated in it. She even told Conrad funny stories about Paul and her time in the concentra­tion camp. She talked about her father, about her brother Franz, who was in Bavaria learning to fly in the newly formed Luftwaffe, and her mother, who, thanks to Foley, had just left for London to join her father. The only part of her life she didn’t discuss was Klaus Schalke.

Conrad spoke of his own family and friends, but he barely mentioned Veronica, only when she was an unavoidable walk-on character in a story. This was for two reasons: he was still mar­ried to her and that made him guilty, and shoved to the very back of his mind remained the fear that in abandoning himself to Anneliese he had laid himself open to the same kind of pain that Veronica had caused him.

They were in Conrad’s bedroom. It was nearly midnight, but it was still warm. They were lying naked on top of the sheets, and Conrad was tracing with his finger the shape of the bars made by the moonlight through the blinds on Anneliese’s stomach. He felt very happy. She saw and she smiled.

Then he remembered an item he had seen in the newspaper that morning. A new ordinance had been announced that would force all Jews to adopt the first names ‘Israel’ or ‘Sarah’. It fol­lowed hard on the heels of other ordinances that had decreed that all Jewish passports would have to be stamped with a ‘J’ and that Jewish cars would have to carry special number plates. Jews were no longer allowed to visit a theatre, to go to the swimming pool or certain parks, to own a radio or even a pet. This ratcheting up of anti-Semitism in legislation reflected what was happening on the streets, where random round-ups and beatings of Jews were becoming ever more common. Before the invasion of Austria in March it had been inconvenient to live as a Jew in Germany. It was swiftly becoming impossible.

‘What is it?’ asked Anneliese, sensing the thought.

‘Are you going to leave the country?’ he asked her. ‘Join your parents in London?’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘I think I’m old enough to live by myself, don’t you?’

‘This Jew-baiting is getting worse.’

‘But no one thinks I’m Jewish. I don’t look Jewish.’

‘Oh, come on, Anneliese. With all these new regulations, they’ll have you walking the streets with a J tattooed on your forehead before too long.’

‘I’d much rather be here with you.’ Anneliese stretched out her hand and stroked his thigh. Her breast moved into the bars of moonlight and shadow. Conrad touched it. She smiled again.

‘I’m worried about you.’

‘You shouldn’t be,’ said Anneliese. ‘I’m the great survivor.’

‘Seriously,’ Conrad said. ‘I couldn’t bear it if some Nazi thug beat you up, or they threw you into another camp.’

Anneliese rolled on to her back and laughed.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that. A week ago I thought that no one would care. Apart from my parents and my brother, of course. But I thought I should stay in Germany and take whatever punishment God wanted to give me – I deserved it.’