Winter of the World (101 page)

Carla was immediately reminded of Ada’s son, Kurt, and Werner’s brother, Axel, and the so-called hospital in Akelberg. She did not know where these patients were going, but she was
quite sure they would be killed there.

Dr Rothmann was saying indignantly: ‘These people are sick! They need treatment!’

The SS officer replied: ‘They’re not sick, they’re lunatics, and we’re taking them where lunatics belong.’

‘To a hospital?’

‘You will be informed in due course.’

‘That’s not good enough.’

Carla knew she should not intervene. If they found out she was not Jewish she would be in deep trouble. She did not look particularly Aryan or otherwise, with dark hair and green eyes. If she
kept quiet, probably they would not bother her. But if she protested about what the SS were doing she would be arrested and questioned, and then it would come out that she was working illegally. So
she clamped her teeth together.

The officer raised his voice. ‘Hurry up – get those cretins in the bus.’

Rothmann persisted. ‘I must be informed where they are going. They are my patients.’

They were not really his patients – he was not a psychiatrist.

The SS man said: ‘If you’re so concerned about them, you can go with them.’

Dr Rothmann paled. He would almost certainly be going to his death.

Carla thought of his wife, Hannelore; his son, Rudi; and his daughter in England, Eva; and she felt sick with fear.

The officer grinned. ‘Suddenly not so concerned?’ he jeered.

Rothmann straightened up. ‘On the contrary,’ he said. ‘I accept your offer. I swore an oath, many years ago, to do all I can to help sick people. I’m not going to break
my oath now. I hope to die at peace with my conscience.’ He limped down the stairs.

An old woman went by wearing nothing but a robe open at the front, showing her nakedness.

Carla could not remain silent. ‘It’s November out there!’ she cried. ‘They have no outdoor clothing!’

The officer gave her a hard look. ‘They’ll be all right on the bus.’

‘I’ll get some warm clothing.’ Carla turned to Werner. ‘Come and help me. Grab blankets from anywhere.’

The two of them ran around the emptying psychiatric ward, pulling blankets off beds and out of the cupboards. Each carrying a pile, they hurried down the stairs.

The garden of the hospital was frozen earth. Outside the main door was a grey bus, its engine idling, its driver smoking at the wheel. Carla saw that he was wearing a heavy coat plus a hat and
gloves, which told her that the bus was not heated.

A small group of Gestapo and SS men stood in a knot, watching the proceedings.

The last few patients were climbing aboard. Carla and Werner boarded the bus and began to distribute the blankets.

Dr Rothmann was standing at the back. ‘Carla,’ he said. ‘You . . . you’ll tell my Hannelore how it was. I have to go with the patients. I have no choice.’

‘Of course.’ Her voice was choked.

‘I may be able to protect these people.’

Carla nodded, though she did not really believe it.

‘In any event, I cannot abandon them.’

‘I’ll tell her.’

‘And say that I love her.’

Carla could no longer stop the tears.

Rothmann said: ‘Tell her that was the last thing I said. I love her.’

Carla nodded.

Werner took her arm. ‘Let’s go.’

They got off the bus.

An SS man said to Werner: ‘You, in the air force uniform, what the hell do you think you’re doing?’

Werner was so angry that Carla was frightened he would start a fight. But he spoke calmly. ‘Giving blankets to old people who are cold,’ he said. ‘Is that against the law
now?’

‘You should be fighting on the Eastern Front.’

‘I’m going there tomorrow. How about you?’

‘Take care what you say.’

‘If you would be kind enough to arrest me before I go, you might save my life.’

The man turned away.

The gears of the bus crashed and its engine note rose. Carla and Werner turned to look. At every window was a face, and they were all different: babbling, drooling, laughing hysterically,
distracted, or distorted with spiritual distress – all insane. Psychiatric patients being taken away by the SS. The mad leading the mad.

The bus pulled away.

(vi)

‘I might have liked Russia, if I’d been allowed to see it,’ Woody said to his father.

‘I feel the same.’

‘I didn’t even get any decent photographs.’

They were sitting in the grand lobby of the Hotel Moskva, near the entrance to the subway station. Their bags were packed and they were on their way home.

Woody said: ‘I have to tell Greg Peshkov that I met a Volodya Peshkov. Though Volodya was not so pleased about it. I guess anyone with connections in the West might fall under
suspicion.’

‘You bet your socks.’

‘Anyway, we got what we came for – that’s the main thing. The allies are committed to the United Nations organization.’

‘Yes,’ said Gus with satisfaction. ‘Stalin took some persuading, but he saw sense in the end. You helped with that, I think, by your straight-talking to Peshkov.’

‘You’ve fought for this all your life, Papa.’

‘I don’t mind admitting that this is a pretty good moment.’

A worrying thought crossed Woody’s mind. ‘You’re not going to retire now, are you?’

Gus laughed. ‘No. We’ve won agreement in principle, but the job has only just begun.’

Cordell Hull had already left Moscow, but some of his aides were still here, and now one of them approached the Dewars. Woody knew him, a young man called Ray Baker. ‘I have a message for
you, Senator,’ he said. He seemed nervous.

‘Well, you just caught me in time – I’m about to leave,’ said Gus. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s about your son Charles – Chuck.’

Gus went pale and said: ‘What is the message, Ray?’

The young man was having trouble speaking. ‘Sir, it’s bad news. He’s been in a battle in the Solomon Islands.’

‘Is he wounded?’

‘No, sir, it’s worse.’

‘Oh, Christ,’ said Gus, and he began to cry.

Woody had never seen his father cry.

‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Ray. ‘The message is that he’s dead.’

1944

Woody stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom at his parents’ Washington apartment. He was wearing the uniform of a second lieutenant in the 510th Parachute
Regiment of the United States Army.

He had had the suit made by a good Washington tailor, but it did not look well on him. Khaki made his complexion sallow, and the badges and flashes on the tunic jacket just seemed untidy.

He could probably have avoided the draft, but he had decided not to. Part of him wanted to continue to work with his father, who was helping President Roosevelt plan a new global order that
would avoid any more world wars. They had won a triumph in Moscow, but Stalin was inconstant, and seemed to relish creating difficulties. At the Tehran conference in December, the Soviet leader had
revived the halfway-house idea of regional councils, and Roosevelt had had to talk him out of it. Clearly the United Nations organization was going to require tireless vigilance.

But Gus could do that without Woody. And Woody was feeling worse and worse about letting other men fight the war for him.

He was looking as good as he ever would in the uniform, so he went into the drawing room to show his mother.

Rosa had a visitor, a young man in navy whites, and after a moment Woody recognized the freckled good looks of Eddie Parry. He was sitting on the couch with Rosa, holding a walking stick. He got
to his feet with difficulty to shake Woody’s hand.

Mama had a sad face. She said: ‘Eddie was telling me about the day Chuck died.’

Eddie sat down again, and Woody sat opposite. ‘I’d like to hear about that,’ Woody said.

‘It doesn’t take long to tell,’ Eddie began. ‘We were on the beach at Bougainville for about five seconds when a machine gun opened up from somewhere in the swamp. We ran
for cover, but I got a couple of bullets in my knee. Chuck should have gone on to the tree line. That’s the drill – you leave the wounded to be picked up by the medics. Of course, Chuck
disobeyed that rule. He stopped and came back for me.’

Eddie paused. There was a cup of coffee on the small table beside him, and he took a gulp.

‘He picked me up in his arms,’ he went on. ‘Darn fool. Made hisself a target. But I guess he wanted to get me back in the landing craft. Those boats have high sides, and
they’re made of steel. We would have been safe, and I could have got medical attention right away on the ship. But he shouldn’t have done it. Soon as he stood upright, he got hit by a
spray of bullets – legs, back and head. I think he must have died before he hit the sand. Anyway, by the time I was able to lift my head and look at him, he just wasn’t there any
more.’

Woody saw that his mother was controlling herself with difficulty. He was afraid that if she cried, he would too.

‘I lay on that beach beside his body for an hour,’ Eddie said. ‘I held his hand all the time. Then they brought a stretcher for me. I didn’t want to go. I knew I’d
never see him again.’ He buried his face in his hands. ‘I loved him so much,’ he said.

Rosa put her arm around his big shoulders and hugged him. He laid his head on her chest and sobbed like a child. She stroked his hair. ‘There, there,’ she said. ‘There,
there.’

Woody realized that his mother knew what Chuck and Eddie were.

After a minute Eddie began to pull himself together. He looked at Woody. ‘You know what this is like,’ he said.

He was talking about the death of Joanne. ‘Yes, I do,’ Woody said. ‘It’s the worst thing in the world – but it hurts a little less every day.’

‘I sure hope so.’

‘Are you still in Hawaii?’

‘Yes. Chuck and I work in the enemy land unit. Used to work.’ He swallowed. ‘Chuck decided we needed to get a better feel for how our maps were used in action. That’s why
we went to Bougainville with the marines.’

‘You must be doing a good job,’ Woody said. ‘We seem to be beating the Japs in the Pacific.’

‘Inch by inch,’ Eddie said. He glanced at Woody’s uniform. ‘Where are you stationed?’

‘I’ve been at Fort Benning, in Georgia, doing parachute training,’ Woody said. ‘Now I’m on my way to London. I leave tomorrow.’

He caught his mother’s eye. Suddenly she looked older. He realized her face was lined. Her fiftieth birthday had passed with no big fuss. However, he guessed that talking about
Chuck’s death while her other son stood there in army uniform had struck her a hard blow.

Eddie did not pick that up. ‘People say we’ll invade France this year,’ he said.

‘I assume that’s why my training was accelerated,’ Woody said.

‘You should see some action.’

Rosa muffled a sob.

Woody said: ‘I hope I’ll be as brave as my brother.’

Eddie said: ‘I hope you never find out.’

(ii)

Greg Peshkov took dark-eyed Margaret Cowdry to an afternoon symphony concert. Margaret had a wide, generous mouth that loved kissing. But Greg had something else on his
mind

He was following Barney McHugh.

So was an FBI agent called Bill Bicks.

Barney McHugh was a brilliant young physicist. He was on leave from the US Army’s secret laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico, and had brought his British wife to Washington to see the
sights.

The FBI had found out in advance that McHugh was coming to the concert, and Special Agent Bicks had managed to get Greg two seats a few rows behind McHugh’s. A concert hall, with hundreds
of strangers crowding together to come in and go out, was the perfect location for a clandestine rendezvous, and Greg wanted to know what McHugh might be up to.

It was a pity they had met before. Greg had talked to McHugh in Chicago on the day the nuclear pile was tested. It had been a year and a half ago, but McHugh might remember. So Greg had to make
sure McHugh did not see him.

When Greg and Margaret arrived, McHugh’s seats were empty. Either side were two ordinary-looking couples, a middle-aged man in a cheap grey chalk-stripe suit and his dowdy wife on the
left, and two elderly ladies on the right. Greg hoped McHugh was going to show up. If the guy was a spy Greg wanted to nail him.

They were going to hear Tchaikovsky’s first symphony. ‘So, you like classical music,’ said Margaret chattily as the orchestra tuned up. She had no idea of the real reason she
had been brought here. She knew that Greg was working in weapons research, which was secret, but like almost all Americans she had no inkling of the nuclear bomb. ‘I thought you only listened
to jazz,’ she said.

‘I love Russian composers – they’re so dramatic,’ Greg told her. ‘I expect it’s in my blood.’

‘I was raised listening to classical. My father likes to have a small orchestra at dinner parties.’ Margaret’s family were rich enough to make Greg feel a pauper by comparison.
But he still had not met her parents, and he suspected they would disapprove of the illegitimate son of a famous Hollywood womanizer. ‘What are you looking at?’ she said.

‘Nothing.’ The McHughs had arrived. ‘What’s your perfume?’

‘Chichi by Renoir.’

‘I love it.’

The McHughs looked happy, a bright and prosperous young couple on holiday. Greg wondered if they were late because they had been making love in their hotel room.

Barney McHugh sat next to the man in the grey chalk stripe. Greg knew it was a cheap suit by the unnatural stiffness of the padded shoulders. The man did not look at the newcomers. The McHughs
started to do a crossword, their heads leaning together intimately as they studied the newspaper Barney was holding. A few minutes later the conductor appeared.

The opening piece was by Saint-Saëns. German and Austrian composers had declined in popularity since war broke out, and concertgoers were discovering alternatives. There was a revival of
Sibelius.

McHugh was probably a Communist. Greg knew this because J. Robert Oppenheimer had told him. Oppenheimer, a leading theoretical physicist from the University of California, was director of the
Los Alamos laboratory and scientific leader of the entire Manhattan Project. He had strong Communist ties, though he insisted he had never joined the party.