Good People (37 page)

‘Shattering social classes isn't a universally good idea,' cautioned Weller.

This time Thomas agreed: von Thadden's socialist prattle sounded childish to him.

‘Georg always leans towards conservative positions,' von Thadden declared. ‘I am interested in Herr Heiselberg's opinion.' He turned to Thomas. ‘I read the model with some interest, but didn't manage to infer its author's world view.'

‘The model is me,' answered Thomas, ‘and what isn't lucid in it isn't lucid in me.'

A faint chortle came out of von Thadden's mouth. Thomas concluded the man had that kind of tiresome arrogance that comes across as sincerity. A vague memory connected with Eberhard von Thadden disturbed him.

‘When in fact did you join the Party, sir?' von Thadden asked him.

‘Father joined in the mid-twenties,' Thomas answered, trying to recall the von Thadden cousin. ‘He was very active in the Berlin branch. In those years I was immersed in my studies and later in work. From 1929 on I voted for the Nazi Party out of respect for my father, and I got my membership card in 1936.'

A smile crawled across Weller's face, and his cheeks puffed out again. They had composed that speech together while writing the model, and even though he had never asked, he didn't believe that Thomas had voted for the Party. But as for his father, there were solid facts, Party veterans full of respect, letters of recognition.

The activity around them increased, the buzz of the lights, the sizzle of the roasting meat. He had given them more than enough time. ‘Now, gentlemen, I must attend to some arrangements.'

Weller's eyes penetrated Thomas from behind his spectacles, as if
he had found a previously invisible weakness in him. Thomas met his gaze with a cavalier defiance, but Weller remained calm and unblinking.

Thomas suddenly understood. Weller had heard about the meeting with Kresling.

‘Your friend Kresling is here, too,' said Weller coldly. He took von Thadden's sleeve and they were swallowed up in the crowd. Had he already reported to the Foreign Office that Thomas wanted to transfer the model, of which they were so proud, to another agency? Thomas was appalled, but then he calmed down: if Weller had done that, he could always deny everything. Kresling wouldn't take Weller's side, and even if he did he hadn't told Kresling explicitly that he wanted to transfer the model to the
Haupttreuhandstelle Ost
.

His body prickled with anxiety: his letter was already in Kresling's hands. His manoeuvre had been dangerous and unnecessary. After all, his situation wasn't bad; why had he taken such a risk? Apparently intrigue was something that dwelled independently in his body and directed his actions. He was heading for the abyss. Perhaps he was already there.

The wooden stage in the centre of the courtyard was surrounded by a crowd. A black grand piano stood on it. Wolfgang leaped onto the stage and tapped the square microphone. ‘Gentlemen, I'd like some quiet,' he called out merrily. He named a few notables who were present, read out a message from the district governor and praised the achievements of the Wehrmacht in Western Europe as if describing a charming prank.

Meanwhile Thomas was trying to push through the crowd to the stairway, on which masses of people were standing and sitting—not even a pin could slip through.

‘The National Socialist League of Jurists has been so kind as to lend us their best singer of Lieder,' Wolfgang shouted. ‘It is my honour to invite Raul von Thadden to the stage. Likewise I wish to thank Dr Georg Weller from the Foreign Office for his musical advice. At the piano is our comrade Lang from the SD.'

He heard cries of joy. Von Thadden took to the stage with graceful
steps, removed his grey jacket and placed it on a chair. Thomas watched Wolfgang as he stepped down and stood next to Weller. The two exchanged smiling whispers, and Wolfgang put his arm around Weller. He had never seen them together, and while they were vying to organise the Paris party he had the impression they despised each other. Now he recognised the catastrophe he had brought down upon himself.

To his surprise, even though he understood that he was caught in the trap they had set for him, he felt relieved: what he had feared so strangely had come to pass. At least he had proof that he wasn't delusional; now he could emerge from the whispering forest where he had been wandering. He was back in the world of action. He could plan how to outflank Weller and his friends. He was already going over his strategies. Weller couldn't defeat him.

But was he seeing the situation correctly? Weller had laid the trap, predicted his actions precisely, brilliantly orchestrated events. He remembered their first meeting and his impression—it had faded as Weller's weaknesses were revealed—that the man could be a dangerous rival. Was it still possible to conciliate him? Weller had already tightened the noose; nothing would shake it loose. Not clever explanations, requests for a second chance, reminiscences about their collective endeavours.

Von Thadden had begun with Schubert and was already at the end of the first song.

He bowed and glared at the audience, as if to ask: Did you understand that brilliant, subtle performance?

Wolfgang returned to the stage, thanked Dr von Thadden and
took a sheet of paper out of his pocket. ‘In order to appreciate the present day,' he read, ‘we must remember our past, the cradle of our greatness. There were times when the French conquered our land, and we knew distress, shame and weakness. But even then voices arose out of the German spirit claiming a glorious future. Germany shall forever treasure the words of Fichte, the clearest voice from those days. While the people moaned, Johann Fichte taught our fathers to believe in their greatness, and I would like to read from his Addresses to the German People.'

Thomas tried in vain to steady his trembling hand. He gaped at Weller. With peacock pride he had straightened his shoulders when his name was mentioned. Weller always believed that Germany owed him a great debt, and only malice stood between the nation and the truth. Wolfgang was still prattling away on stage. There was a kind of crazed avarice in his eyes. He and his chatter seemed filthy to Thomas—that naked desire for greatness, exposed to everyone. How could he have ever been fond of Wolfgang?

The crowd headed for the bar and for the tables, laid with trays of cheese, vegetables, fish and bread. A slight drizzle began to drip on the tent. Thomas yearned for high winds, a downpour that would scatter the tent and its notables in every direction. He tried again to move towards the stairs but had no idea how he would get through.

Two of the three Polish girls passed by. They were as pretty as ever, but he had imagined their appearance at the party as a more splendid spectacle: silk dresses, fox-fur coats, tiaras and diamond necklaces. In fact, aside from their fluffy hairdos, which reminded him of Pola Negri in
Hotel Imperial
, almost nothing in them had changed. Up close their black dresses proved to be made of simple cotton, little runs could be seen in their sheer stockings, and the pointy tips of their shoes were scuffed. From the cut of the necklines and the line of the hips, he concluded that a seamstress had copied patterns from French magazines. The white glare of the lights had dried the rouge on their cheeks as if grains of sand had stuck to them.

‘Young ladies, where is your sister? Without her you can't be
Gorgons!' called out a short, solid officer, to the laughter of his friends.

They turned to him in a single motion. ‘Be careful,' one said in good German, with a heavy accent, ‘if you look at us too much, you'll turn into a Nazi officer.'

Silence fell, and Thomas looked with admiration at her grey eyes. The officers were surprised by her boldness. If they dared to punish the sisters, he would intervene. If he was going to fall, better heroically.

The officers looked at one another. ‘Wonderful idea!' one called. ‘The Gorgon will make us into good Nazis.'

They all laughed and pounded the wooden banister.

‘Tomorrow they're deporting her. Today she's getting married,' said the sister.

‘And they aren't deporting you?' asked the friendly officer.

‘Tomorrow they're deporting her,' she repeated.

‘Young lady, we won't allow that to happen,' called out the officer.

‘Will you help our sister?' the first one intervened. ‘Tomorrow they're deporting her, they're treating her like a miserable Jew, she didn't do anything.'

‘Drop in on my office tomorrow morning,' said the officer. ‘Meanwhile have a good time. Soon there will be dancing. I'm already asking for a dance.'

‘But tomorrow they're deporting our sister,' said the second sister, and an expression of childish amazement overwhelmed her. She was twenty at most.

‘So the day after tomorrow,' laughed the officer, and his friends laughed again.

The two women gave the officer another look, as though to discover whether he had really withdrawn his offer to help. Then they moved away.

A young couple sat on a bench beside the damp steps leading down to the cellar doors. The man was tickling the woman, and she was laughing. The steps had been whitewashed for the party, and the barricade had been removed. Was he standing on their ceiling now? There was no way of knowing. He had never been down there.
‘Everything that I haven't personally seen,' Weller once said, ‘is just a rumour, and only the ignorant masses believe rumours.'

Wolfgang now announced a song contest to celebrate the conquest of Paris. ‘Friends, we have the approval of the Minister of Propaganda, Dr Goebbels, that the best song will be presented at the great exhibition of German art.' After the applause, Wolfgang listed the judges—himself, of course, Albert Kresling, Stefan Kruger, who had a doctorate in poetry, Georg Weller, as a representative of the district governor, and another representative of the Ministry of Propaganda.

‘Say it.' Thomas could now see the whole picture.

‘Hermann Kreizinger from the SS delegation to the Generalgouvernement.'

I won't stay here any longer to put up with their displays and surprises.
His entire body felt split open, as if the stitches had come out in the middle of the courtyard and people everywhere were staring at him. Hermann and Kresling, von Thadden, Weller and Wolfgang—they had all disappeared now, but he knew they could see him. The noise of the crowd disintegrated into particles: shouts, calls, whispers, throats being cleared, plots, the SD report from Stuttgart, a pregnant woman, the economic worries of the individual, perfidious Albion! I would strip her naked right here, neutralise their ability to do damage, we showed them in Bydgoszcz, we showed them about Bromberg, how many children? And as for the English?
Si vis pacem, para bellum
.
*
We have a satanic task, the Führer ordered, she excelled at university, soon I'll be a grandfather, in March he told me in secret, I wrote to your honour and asked for a transfer, go to the grave with that, just yesterday we shouted, ‘Fucks for the ugly, too!' in the Vienna Opera and it's already 1940?

In his imagination Thomas was ripping Weller to pieces. Frightened by its savagery, he struggled to get rid of the picture, but he only managed to replace Weller with Wolfgang, Kresling, the damn singer,
but not with Hermann. Even in his imagination he didn't dare fight Hermann.

Perhaps he was falling victim to visions of persecution, believing again—as Erika Gelber used to tease him—that the world was plotting against him. Maybe he needed a touch of humour: there was no reason for a little intrigue among colleagues to become a duel to the death.

He reached the staircase. ‘Gentlemen, excuse me,' he called out, putting on a friendly smile as he climbed the steps amid cries of indignation. Some of the partygoers leaned to the side, others rose and dusted off their uniforms, he pushed at the bodies, hot breath mingled with the smell of brilliantine, alcohol vapours, lemon perfume, radishes from Weller's garden.

‘Gentlemen, when is the dancing?' he called out with a clownish look at his watch. He had no idea where that gesture had popped up from. ‘Gentlemen, please let me pass, some items from my apartment are needed for the last performance.'

‘Gentlemen, thank you very much, thank you,' he said again.

He was stricken with dizziness, took a deep breath. If he fell, he would never get up. In one rapid movement he gained the head of the stairs. An officer whose uniform buttons gleamed thrust his elbow into Thomas's ribs. ‘Oh, I apologise, thank you, thank you very much,' the officer said and his friends cheered.

‘Thanks a lot,' Thomas whispered in response, pushed the blue wooden door open, entered and closed it. He took a breath and raced up the empty staircase like a child skipping home, believing he had left all the horrors of school behind. Had they searched his apartment? He pushed open the apartment door, stormed into the parlour and his gaze whirled: a thick strip of light crossed the floor, trailed over his body and kept advancing until it flowed onto the statue next to the wall. His nervousness increased: the parlour looked like a dusky replica of the illuminated courtyard. His desire to return home seemed contemptible. What home? There wasn't a single thing in his life that linked him to this Polish apartment—he had not even taken down the picture of Polish soldiers mourning the failure of the revolt of 1830.

He began to check the apartment. Everything was still in place, both in his room and in his drawers. He took off his clothes and lay on the bed, covered himself with a blanket and pressed his cheek against the soft wool. From below came the vague cheerful playing of a piano, and von Thadden's baritone trilled: