The Other Side of Love (63 page)

Anger briefly clenched Kathe’s throat. Yes, and I sent on the information to a branch of Allied Intelligence.

“Several times,”

she said.

Fitzpatrick’s face mottled a darker red.

“What?”

he asked excitedly.

“Army orders for the exterminations?”

“Nothing like that. The camps were administered by the SS. I filed letters and memos from Wehrmacht officers expressing disapproval of the brutal mistreatment.”

“Did you tell your superiors about these papers?”

Her superiors? The Blitzmadchen? TMfchief filing clerk with her Nazi party badge?

“No,”

she said. W

“Did you tell General von Hohenau?”

She couldn’t remember seeing the one-eyed general at more than a distance after the journey home from the Bavarian Alps.

“No.”

“You never spoke out to anyone?”

She shook her head.

“I didn’t, no.”

The three faces hardened to intransigent antipathy. Kathe agreed wholeheartedly with their opinion of her.

1 he tribunal, once again following German custom, permitted a far more liberal admission of evidence than an American court. An MP Mown in from Berlin was called. He testified that Kathe had escaped when granted a compassionate parole to visit her ailing grandfather m London.

May it please the tribunal,”

Wyatt said.

“I was Miss Kingsmith’s escort. She didn’t escape. I permitted her to leave.”

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‘According to Berlin Military Police records”

- Fitzpatrick’s ruddiness increased as he consulted the papers placed in evidence -

“your report used the word escape.”

“I was worried about her safety, and needed help finding her. Anyway, I fail to see the connection between this and whether or not she was loyal to the Nazi Party.”

Kathe’s head was throbbing, her legs felt rubbery. They seemed to be haggling over a third person. At a stirring behind her in the ballroom, she turned.

Heinrich Leventhal was coming down the aisle between gilded chairs. Though thin, he wasn’t the skeletal wraith of the previous year. She smiled, and he smiled back - that quirkily caustic expression that she had seen often on Wyatt’s face. Had Erich done his childish mischief with that same familial smile? At Herr Leventhal’s side marched a short young brunette in a lumpy ATS uniform. Kathe couldn’t recall seeing the girl before, much less giving her shelter. Wyatt requested an Old Testament so that his witnesses could be sworn in - a bit of courtroom theatrics that went right past Kathe.

“Herr Leventhal, could you tell me when you first met Miss Kingsmith?”

“In the autumn of 1937.”

“Can you recall the whereabouts of that meeting?”

“The Berlin New Museum’s Tel-el-Amarna hall. We were in front of the head of the Pharaoh Akhnaton’s mother.”

“Was it a chance introduction?”

“Not chance at all. Miss Kingsmith had heard I was in a camp - it was Esterwegen - and had contacted a mutual friend to see if she could be of assistance to me. Believe me, that sort of solicitude was rarer than diamonds. By then I’d been released, so I showed up to thank her.”

“Was your imprisonment common knowledge?”

“No. The story came to her attention in New York. She is a friend of my cousin there, Judge Abraham Leventhal.”

He paused to give weight to Kathe’s friendship with an American Jewish judge.

“He was concerned about me.”

“What was the upshot of your meeting?”

“She offered her help to anyone who needed it. Though the persecutions weren’t so intense in 1937, we were already in the soup. I gave her a paper to take to a friend of mine in the underground; he was what they called an Aryan.”

“What was his name?”

“Christian Schultze.”

The major leaned forward.

“Where can the court contact Herr Schultze?”

“Alas, the next world,”

Leventhal sighed.

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‘Did the Gestapo get him?”

“They visited him five times to my knowledge, but he was clever as well as brave. They never found any evidence. Poor old Schultze, he was killed during an air raid. But you’re right about the Gestapo keeping an eye on anyone who helped us. When Miss Kingsmith took the papers from me at the New Museum, she was well aware that she was risking a three-year sentence.”

“A girl friendly with Hitler imprisoned for running an errand?”

“Running an errand for a Jew, your Honour.”

Wyatt asked:

“Can you tell the tribunal when you last saw the defendant?”

“Almost exactly a year ago. I had been in BergenBelsen, but I’d managed to escape and make my way to Berlin.”

Leventhal’s face had taken on an unnatural pallor, but his voice remained level.

“Fraulein Kingsmith gave me a loaf of bread and some other food. An outfit of her late father’s clothes. It doesn’t sound like much, does it? But by then helping us was a capital offence. And, at the risk of offending the tribunal, I doubt if anyone else in this courtroom, German or American, would put his or her life on the line to help a near-stranger.”

The next witness, Ursula Kohn - the round-faced young corporal in the ATS - was sworn in.

“Corporal Kohn,”

Wyatt asked.

“Can you give an approximate date when you met Miss Kingsmith?”

“I can jolly well give you the exact date,”

retorted the corporal.

“November the ninth, 1938. Kristallnacht.”

Kathe frowned, and then her mind’s eye flicked on a remembrance of the narrow courtyard behind KingsroAh’s, a little girl shrinking back into the red-tinged darkness. The o poral’s neat features had dissolved into misery, and she took out a handkerchief.

“If you’d like to wait,”

Wyatt said sympathetically.

Corporal Kohn blew her nose.

“I’d rather go ahead and tell your court what your Nazi prisoner did for me. It was called Kristallnacht because everywhere in Germany ihat night gangs were breaking our windows. They also burned our houses and our synagogues. The police held back anybody who tried to help. I tell you, that night was worse than the Blitz. There was no place to hide. Big bullies came into our flat and threw my father out of the window - we were on the fourth floor.”

The corporal blew her nose again.

“My mother pushed me out the back door. I ran miles, then hid behind a shop. Miss Kingsmith and Mr Kingsmith - her father, that is came our and saw me. They drove me to their house. On the way we picked up two old ladies - Brandsteiner, they were called.”

Good old Uncle Alfred,”

Wyatt muttered to himself.

Corporal Kohn overheard.

“It wasn’t only Mr Kingsmith and Miss

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Kingsmith. Frau Kingsmith entertained the three of us. I’ll never forget what a lady she was. A real German lady. She served us tea with rum from a tiny crystal jug like we were visiting royalty.”

“How long did you stay?”

“Only that night. But the next morning Miss Kingsmith drove us to another house where we’d be safe. Herr Leventhal found out about my mother - she’d been arrested for

“assaulting an Aryan”. Then he arranged for me to get on one of the children’s boats to England. Off I went, no luggage, no papers, only a placard around my neck with my name and a number. I thought a lot about going into Kingsmith’s in Bond Street, saying thank-you to the family. But it’s not my sort of shop, if you know what I mean. Very, very posh. So I let is slide. When Herr Leventhal contacted Aunt Dorrie that’s Mrs Gibbs, the lady who took me in she called me at the base and said:

“You always wanted to thank Miss Kingsmith, so hop to it.” If the Kingsmiths are your idea of Nazis, you’ve got another think coming.”

During this emotionally delivered recital, Kathe was swamped by memories of her mother. She had indeed served the little girl and the frightened spinsters as if they were royalty, for it had never occurred to Clothilde von Graetz Kingsmith that there was another way to treat a guest. Mother, how I miss your irritating schedules and your annoying certainty, that gracious generosity.

Corporal Kohn paused on her way to the seats to kiss Kathe’s cheek.

Lieutenant LeFar, his eye twitching, rose.

“If it please the tribunal, I will read a letter into evidence.”

Wyatt groaned. Grudges were settled by mailing anonymous letters of denunciation to the US Military Government, but the information also had led to a number of top-ranking Nazis.

“The envelope is postmarked November the twenty-first, two months ago. It was mailed in Frankfurt.”

“Unsigned?”

asked the major.

“Yes.”

“Objection,”

Wyatt said.

“It could have come from anyone.”

“As you are aware, Counsel,”

Fitzpatrick said,

“we follow the German law, giving far more latitude to admission of evidence than our own courts. Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

The prosecutor began to read.

“

“To whom it may concern. Fraulein Kathe Kingsmith, currently in detention at the facility of Ober Tappenburg, was a Nazi sympathizer deeply committed to the Lebensborn programme-”

“

At the word

“Lebensborn’, a peculiar rustle went through the

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ballroom. This winter virtually the entire German population stuffed newspaper under their clothing to keep warm, and the spectators were all leaning forward to peer at Kathe. Swaying, she pressed her hands on the table.

“Lebensborn?”

Major Fitzpatrick was looking at the secretary interpreter.

“It means

“the well or the fountain of life”,”

the white-haired woman responded with prim disapproval.

“May it please the tribunal,”

said LeFar,

“Lebensborn was a Nazi programme, but it wasn’t talked about openly even then. And now it’s completely quashed into the woodwork. To find out what went on I had to dig hard. It seems that Hitler wanted more Germans, so homes were set up for unmarried girls to have babies.”

He paused.

“The SS men serviced them.”

“My God!”

the major expostulated.

“Human stud farms?”

Kathe concentrated on breathing. It was the most appalling sensation to be standing alone in her rumpled Harrods suit with everyone staring at her while a monotone voice displayed the unbeatable scar across her life. She tried not to imagine the shock and revulsion on Wyatt’s face. His baby. But of course he would never, never know that Erich had been his. Dead, dead, dead.

”” … Only girls who could prove their racial purity back to the year 1750 and were dedicated Nazis were accepted in a Lebensborn home. Evidently Fraulein Kathe Kingsmith fulfilled both of these requirements. She bore a son in the Villa Haug house in 1940.”

“

The prosecutor’s flat voice grew chatty.

“These places had their own secret register offices, and the babies were given to top Nazis.”

He returned to his drone.

“

“It is possible thJfrafterwards she recruited other girls to the programme.”

“

Listening, Wyatt had balled his hands into fists until the knuckles stood out like ivory knobs. The manner that Kathe had swayed then grabbed the table had convinced him that the letter was faithful to the truth. He attempted to distance himself. Wouldn’t he have been as jolted if any client withheld such incriminating evidence? But it was a purely intellectual exercise. Emotionally he felt as if he’d been drenched by a bucket of human waste.

He jerked to attention as Major Fitzpatrick said:

“Continue.”

That’s the end of the letter,”

the prosecutor said.

Mark the letter for identification,”

the major said.

“The envelope should be marked, too.”

A courtroom attendant uniformed in the grey green of the local

M06 Step.ped forward to take the evidence.

Major Fitzpatrick stared down at Kathe.

“Have you anything to tell this tribunal?”

She shook her head.

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ii

“You were part of this breeding operation?”

“Yes,”

she whispered.

“The tribunal can’t hear you,”

Fitzpatrick said.

“Yes.”

Kathe’s voice worked like a mechanical device.

“I was at a Lebensborn home.”

For the first time Major Fitzpatrick consulted his fellow-judges, the three of them whispering.

“This is a complicated case,”

he said at last.

“The tribunal will have to take it under consideration.”

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I

“You’re looking better,”

Wyatt said in a strained voice. It was early the following morning, before the exercise period in the yard, and he had been brought to Kathe’s cell. Then he burst out:

“Jesus! Couldn’t you have warned me?”

“I’m sorry,”

she said. 4

“Listen, as far as I’m concerned, who you hop into the sack with is your own damn business! But I’m meant t e your lawyer. So tell me right now if the tribunal’s liable to get word ou were jerking off Adolf.”

She raised her chin. It was the same look of pride covering misery she had worn on the long drive back to Ober Tappenburg.