Silence Read online

  “Now you have a big garden, all to yourself,” he heard his mother saying enthusiastically, and the words “all to yourself” were still resonant. He sighed. Everything was too big, he thought, and he was glad the house had now been sold.

  But it was precisely during that time, as they were moving apart at the speed of light, that there had been those moments of intimacy in the study, when his father had told him about his escape, about his fear. Sometimes his mother had knocked on the door and reminded both son and husband, in a way that almost expressed jealousy, that it was bedtime.

  And now he had exposed those few moments of intimacy to a journalist. A wave of heat flowed through his body, and he did not know whether it was the cognac or the thought of his betrayal.

  He felt a hand on his shoulder. His Dutch colleague and friend, Piet Noyen, praised his presentation that afternoon. They talked about the potential of gene technology in the treatment of tuberous sclerosis and the high hopes they had for it. This distracted him and restored the self-confidence he had lost in the last few hours.

  It was past midnight by the time he showed his key to the man behind the counter and charged the drinks to his room. As he made his way to the elevator, his resolve stood firm. He would drive by Kranenburg again the following day and talk to Rita Albers. She would have to return the copies of the files. She had obtained them from him under false pretenses. She wanted to make money out of the story. So be it. He would buy them back.

  Chapter 11

  April 22, 1998

  Therese Mende had had a restless night. As she tossed and turned in bed, it was as if an unseen hand were flinging more and more tiles from a mosaic at her, random fragments of a picture, and when at last she had fallen asleep, the life she thought she had forgotten still filled her dreams.

  It was still early; Luisa would not come to work for another two hours. She went into the kitchen and made herself some tea. Bearing the teapot, cup, and milk jug precariously on a tray, she made her way to the end of the terrace and put the tray down on the little round table by the balustrade. Here, the cliffs plunged almost vertically downward, and one could be deceived into thinking one was directly over the water, as if on a wide diving board. It was still cool, and she pulled her thick white terry-cloth bathrobe tighter. It was going to be a clear, hot day. The curved outline of the sun was thrusting itself gradually upward on the horizon, rolling out a reddish, glittering, and ever-widening carpet over the sea.

  What had any meaning? What had any meaning before today? The little things a person scarcely paid any attention to? Perhaps because one didn’t pay attention to them, they collected like droplets in a bowl, spilled over the rim years later, and demanded the attention they had not been given before.

  September 1939

  Alwine was already at boarding school, and the war had begun, unreal and distant. Leonard and Jacob received their call-up to the Labor Service only a few days before they had to report for duty. Leonard ran to the Pohls’ house, and Therese had hardly opened the door before he took her in his arms and whirled her around him. “We’re going together!” he cried, overjoyed. “Jacob and I are going to Münster together!”

  The morning of their departure was foggy, and the sky hung low. When Therese arrived at the station, after a ten-minute walk, she was late and soaked to the skin because of the clammy moisture penetrating the wool of her knitted jacket and her thick, braided hair.

  Frau Kalder, Jacob’s mother, was there, as was Herr Kramer, who was saying good-bye to his son, Leonard, and to Wilhelm. The train was ready to depart. She saw the two of them behind dirty panes of glass in one of the compartments and ran over. Jacob was heaving Leonard’s suitcase onto the luggage rack. They were laughing. Jacob pulled the window down. He jokingly complained about the weight of Leonard’s suitcase and promised to write. Leonard blew kisses at her. She held up a bundle containing a carefully packed apple cake she had baked the night before. The train moved off, and the two young men leaned out of the window. Leonard called out, “See you at Christmas.”

  Their heads and their waving arms disappeared into the fog, like a pencil drawing being rubbed out, line by line, by a dissatisfied artist.

  When she came out of the station, Frau Kalder had already left. Herr Kramer was standing next to his car, with Wilhelm. She went over to them and heard Kramer thank Wilhelm. When he saw her, he climbed hastily into the car and drove off. Wilhelm came over to her and smiled. He said, “And then there were three.”

  “Yes, but where’s Hanna?” she asked, surprised.

  “She said good-bye yesterday evening. She has to help with the milking in the morning, she says, but I think she’s a little jealous of Leonard. After all, he’s going to have Jacob by his side every day.” He laughed.

  He had come by bicycle, and he gave her a ride back on the crossbar. She sat between his arms and felt his tobacco breath on her neck.

  “What was Herr Kramer thanking you for?” she asked as the damp fog gathered in fine pearls of water in her hair. Wilhelm’s head was immediately behind hers.

  “I did him a favor.”

  “What favor?”

  Wilhelm said nothing for a moment. Then he said, “But you’re not allowed to say anything about it, promise?”

  She nodded.

  “Leonard was actually supposed to do his labor service in Hannover. Old man Kramer asked if I could arrange for Leo to be with Jacob and not so far away . . . and, well, through Hollmann, I was able to do something.”

  There was both embarrassment and pride in his voice. Therese laid her hand on his arm and cried out happily, “You’re a sweetie, Wilhelm. Someone who can be relied on.”

  He asked her to come to the Jägerkrug pub with him that evening, and she accepted his invitation.

  That day, for the first time, she thought about the many things she now had to keep quiet about.

  A few days before, her mother had asked her to be careful with Tönning, the shoemaker, and his mother, Thea. She was not to tell them that her father was often absent at night. Her parents had been friendly with the Tönnings for as long as she could remember. Her father had treated the shoemaker’s stump for months, without charging him, and Thea Tönning had been in and out every day when Therese’s mother lay ill with diphtheria.

  What if Father, with his firm rejection of the National Socialists, was wrong? She heard it on the radio, saw it in the weekly newsreel, and read it in the newspaper. Its rise was there to be seen and felt, every day. Everyone was joining, and she was standing to one side, although in truth she wanted to belong.

  That afternoon she went over to the fabric and dry-goods store to buy some clothes-pegs for her mother. The owner, Gerda Hoffmann, was active in the National Socialist Women’s League; in the window she had a display of Hitler Youth braids, epaulettes, and cords, as well as a mannequin dressed in a League of German Girls uniform. There was a sign hanging on the door: “Flags Sewn in All Sizes.”

  When Therese entered the store, Frau Hoffmann and Frau Reichert, the baker’s wife, broke off their conversation immediately. Frau Hoffmann asked pleasantly, “Therese, I hear you’re still not a member of the League.” She shook her head uncomprehendingly. “I’d consider it. It doesn’t look good not to be.” Lips pursed, she fixed Therese with a stare, as if scolding a naughty child. Frau Reichert pretended to be absorbed in some edging fabric.

  Therese did not immediately know how to answer; she felt only that the truth, namely that her father was strictly against it, would not be wise.

  “I have so little time,” she said hurriedly. “School. And Mother can’t do as much, so Father needs me in his practice.”

  But Frau Hoffmann would not let go. “That’s all well and good, but if that’s the only reason, you could still come to the events. It would do your whole family good.” She smiled. Her tone hovered between encouragement and threat.

 
“I’m going away to study after my diploma. I thought it would be best if I joined the Students’ League,” she said, proud of this stroke of inspiration.

  Frau Hoffmann looked at her skeptically. “Oh, the little miss wants to go to university. I hardly think they’ll accept you. I’m sure there are enough people who have already proved their loyalty to the fatherland.”

  Therese swallowed hard. In order to bring the conversation to an end, she said, “All right, I’ll come on Monday evening and become a member.”

  When Wilhelm picked her up to go to the Jägerkrug, she was glad her father was not yet home and she had not had to confess her promise to Frau Hoffmann.

  Many of the customers in the Krug were in uniform. Wilhelm offered her his arm and led her straight to SS Captain Hollmann’s table. The captain stood up and greeted her gallantly. Wilhelm was about to introduce her when Hollmann said, “Not necessary. Fräulein Pohl is well-known to me.” Then he ordered loudly, “A chair for Fräulein Pohl!” Therese was unsettled. How did Hollmann know her? She had never had anything to do with him.

  The chair was brought, and she was forced to sit beside him.

  “What will you have, mein Fräulein? It’s on me, with pleasure.” Therese glanced uncertainly at Wilhelm. She did not know how to behave, and she could only think, Be careful! Be careful! Don’t say the wrong thing!

  Wilhelm nodded at her, the way one nods at a child to encourage him to try something new.

  She asked for a glass of white wine. When the drinks were served, Hollmann took up his glass and offered a toast. He said, “I’m impressed, and I know the value of what you’ve done.”

  Therese thought Frau Hoffmann had talked to him, and he was referring to her promise to join the League of German Girls. She was surprised at the little things he evidently took an interest in. For a moment she felt good. From Monday on, she would belong. From Monday on, everything would be easier.

  Hollmann talked some more. She could hear the self-satisfaction in his voice. They clinked glasses. Hollmann’s words blended with the bright, rising note made by the glasses as they touched.

  To the present day, Therese’s recollection was that it was not Hollmann’s words, nor even his voice, that had suddenly made her afraid. It was the soft, rising melody of the glasses. It was the dissonance between the voice and the floating sound. Without any particular reason for it, she knew that Hollmann was talking about something else. She fell silent. Waited. Looked inquiringly at Wilhelm and spun the stem of her glass in her hand. Hollmann laid his hand on her upper arm. Then he said, “You’re doing the right thing. Precisely because he’s your father. Maybe being arrested will bring him to his senses.”

  She remembered a sequence of pictures. Pictures without sound.

  The wine spilling onto the wooden floorboards and dripping unhurriedly into the cracks between the planks. And a small feather. Some winter down from a hen or a duck. It was on the floor. The draft from the falling glass sent it up in the air. Only briefly. Then it dropped back into the spilt wine and drowned, still dancing.

  She heard Luisa crossing the terrace. “Good morning, Frau Mende,” she said in her hesitant way, as though asking whether she was intruding.

  “Would you like to have breakfast outdoors?”

  “Good morning, Luisa.” Therese looked at her watch in irritation. Yes, it was eight o’clock already. She stood up, somewhat embarrassed. She had never received her housekeeper in her bathrobe before. What would she think of her? “Please forgive me, Luisa. I lost track of the time. I’ll get myself ready first and have breakfast later.”

  Chapter 12

  April 22, 1998

  Rita Albers called the municipal archives early the following morning and was given an eleven o’clock appointment with Herr Scholten. A rather young man welcomed her with a short, stiff bow and led her to a room dominated by a large conference table. “I’ve assembled some files, on the basis of the information you provided on the telephone.” His speech was stilted, the words cleanly articulated; he pointed at some papers laid out neatly on the table.

  Rita found Therese Pohl’s certificates of birth and baptism. Margarete Pohl, Therese’s mother, had died in 1944; her father, Siegmund Pohl, in 1946, after the end of the war. At first, the family had lived in the town. Siegmund Pohl had had his practice there. Then, in 1940, they had moved to the Höver cottage. There was nothing in the files to indicate whether he had continued to practice as a doctor.

  “And Wilhelm Peters? Is there anything on Wilhelm Peters?” asked Rita, having noted everything down.

  The man indicated another file with a small gesture. “Perhaps you’d like to have a look at that.” He watched every movement of Rita’s hands, as if worried she might handle the documents improperly.

  Wilhelm Peters, born 1920, son of Gustav Peters, the pharmacist, and his wife, Erna. Parents’ residence transferred to a new address in Schwerte in 1946.

  Rita wrote this information down too.

  “Wilhelm Peters was in the SS. Don’t you have anything on that?”

  The man leaned forward and, frowning critically, sorted the now-jumbled papers. “We do have a problem, in that we have hardly any files from the National Socialist period. Much was consumed by fire when Kranenburg was flattened, but we have to assume that most of it was deliberately destroyed so that it wouldn’t fall into the hands of the occupying forces.” He pursed his lips and shook his head, apparently seeing this act as a personal affront.

  “What we do know is that Peters was investigated in the process of de-Nazification and categorized as a follower. As far as Dr. Siegmund Pohl is concerned, we know he was a local councilor for the Center Party until 1933 and a declared opponent of the National Socialist Party. An exchange of letters between the pastor at the time and his bishop mentions that Pohl was arrested and forced to give up his medical practice. He and his wife seem to have had very close ties to the Catholic Church. He was repeatedly accused of subversion in word and deed.”

  “Oh!” Rita scratched her head with the end of the ballpoint pen. “Well, that’s certainly interesting. And the daughter marries an SS squad leader. Old Pohl must have been delighted.”

  The archivist raised an eyebrow reproachfully but said nothing. He stood up and organized the papers back into their folders and binders. As he was clipping Therese’s birth certificate back into place, he paused. He took it out again.

  “Did you see this here?” he asked Rita, indicating a penciled note on the back.

  Certified copy issued Sept. 18, 1952.

  Rita stared at the piece of paper. “Is there an address? I mean, was it sent somewhere? If so, there must be an address.” Her voice almost cracked with excitement.

  Herr Scholten flipped expertly through the binder again. “No,” he said at last. “No correspondence. So we have to assume the copy was picked up from here.”

  “Shit!” she blurted out. “That would have been too good.”

  Scholten started and cleared his throat. He heaped the binders onto a wheeled cart and pushed another two folders toward Rita. “As far as your request about the missing Wilhelm Peters is concerned, I can show you a few articles from our newspaper archives. However, I haven’t found anything about the disappearance of Therese Peters.” As she began to leaf through them, he reached out with his index finger and tapped some colored paper clips he had used to mark the relevant pages. “You may wish to turn to these.”

  There were three articles. The first, written a week after Peters’s disappearance, was no more than a kind of request for anyone with knowledge of Wilhelm Peters’s whereabouts to report to the local police.

  The second, four weeks later, already implied unambiguously that Wilhelm Peters must be presumed dead. Though there were no direct allegations against Therese, there was nevertheless the following sentence: “The police doubt his wife’s statement.”

&nbs
p; The third and last article had appeared in December, its headline reading, “Still No Trace of Wilhelm Peters.” This article did not reveal anything new to Rita Albers either.

  Scholten expertly returned the folders to the cart, and then escorted Rita to the door. She thanked him and held out her hand to say good-bye. His handshake was unexpectedly firm and dry.

  On her way home, she wondered why the police had closed the file after only two months.

  Once home, she immediately picked up the telephone and called her colleague Köbler in Cologne again. “I haven’t got anywhere yet,” he said as soon as she identified herself.

  “That’s not why I’m calling,” she replied. “I have some additional information.” She told him about the copy of the birth certificate. “She must have used it to get papers. Maybe you could concentrate on the period at the end of 1952.”

  Finally, she tracked down retired police sergeant Gerhard. He lived in Kleve. He remained silent at the other end of the line for a long time after she had explained her request. “Come and see me,” he said at length, in a heavy, scratchy voice, and they arranged to meet the following day.

  She was standing in the kitchen, making herself some coffee, when Köbler called back.

  “Tell me, what’s it really about, this thing with Therese Pohl?” he asked without preamble.

  “Do you have something?” she cried excitedly.

  “Maybe,” he replied cautiously.

  Rita immediately knew he had something, and that, if he was trying to pry information out of her first, it was not trivial. She would have to show she was willing to meet him halfway.

  “I found an old photo here in my house. Pohl lived here after the war, and I wanted to know what had become of her.”