Good People (48 page)

‘It was strange to be there,' she answered. ‘It's so close to the Germans, and it's run like a small village. Lots of women and children. At nights young couples stroll on the bridges, hide in the corridors or in one of the cellars and cuddle there.'

‘It sounds very romantic,' he laughed.

‘Not really. I've also heard stories about officers who have sent their wives and children to the east. They say that in case of a German attack the fortress will be like a mousetrap: their artillery will wipe them all out in the first minute.'

Nikita Mikhailovich had shown exactly the degree of fury that she expected: ‘Anyone who transfers his family to the east and dares to talk about war will pay dearly! Those are the instructions we received from Moscow. Perhaps you remember the names of the officers?'

‘It's my job to remember.'

‘Very well. The time has come to shoot some of these panic-spreaders and put a stop to that noise once and for all. In our district there's no pity for subversives.'

‘Nikita Mikhailovich, I'm not taking pity on anyone. This kind of talk revolts me, too. It could spoil the parade. Mainly I was ashamed to see officers concentrated on their personal concerns. I agree: there's no avoiding a couple of shootings.'

‘Tomorrow I'll issue an order to take care of warmongers!'

‘A necessary order,' she encouraged him. ‘The talk about war has to stop.'

Warm relief thawed her body: all of Maxim's pestering about removing her from Brest would come to nothing. If there had been a slim chance that Nikita Mikhailovich might approve her transfer from Brest, it had vanished after this exchange.

She reminded Nikita Mikhailovich that she had not yet received the intelligence report from Moscow on the German representative to the parade committee.

‘Well, it's not the highest priority,' he said. ‘There are more pressing matters.'

‘I understand, but the material that I got is embarrassing, and in my estimation some of it is wrong: the American company where he worked for years is mentioned in only one sentence. More than that, at the end of the meeting, the German told me that his father had worked in the factory for military aircraft that Junkers established near Moscow in the early 1920s. The fact that his father built warplanes isn't mentioned in the report!'

‘Alexandra Andreyevna,' laughed Nikita Mikhailovich, ‘wouldn't it be nice if we could sit together and chat like two intelligent people? With you in the end there's always some practical sting, some request!'

She said nothing. He was so correct that a denial on her part would insult him, and rightly. ‘I apologise,' she answered sincerely. ‘I'm preoccupied by my work, and everything else seems like a waste of time.'

‘Educated people must waste their time occasionally. That's how successful ideas arrive.'

‘So you no longer believe in diminishing units of time?' she teased.

‘For other people, Alexandra Andreyevna, not for us,' he answered, and he began to talk about the teachers who were enthusiastic about his program, and how in the Ukraine they were even adopting it. When he got tired of that, he started up on his latest favourite: complaints about the laxity of the Red Army and its drunken officers. Once Nikita Mikhailovich embarked on one of his speeches, it was impossible to stop him; you just nodded and thought about other things. His remarks reminded her of Maxim's criticisms on his last visit to Brest. Maxim saw a lot of army people and kept up to date with intelligence estimates. He was disturbed about the weakness of the first strategic level and was furious that the new line of fortifications was too close to the border with the Germans—there was no space to halt any advance, and they had put up concrete boxes with no camouflage. The Germans across the river could study our weaknesses, and an attack would be a death sentence for everyone.

The silence that had fallen upon them was proof that they were both imagining the district going up in flames. She saw ashes in the sky and a wall of fire racing towards the city.

Then Maxim said: ‘Enough, dear, let's not talk about depressing subjects. Your skinny brother will bury us both. They've been talking about war for a long time, and nothing has happened.'

He wanted to reassure her. But the result of any German attack was so horrifying that she preferred to give herself over to the protection of his voice. ‘Give me proof that there won't be a disaster,' she pleaded. ‘Give me proof that nothing will happen to Kolya.'

He hugged her, and from the flutter of his eyelids she understood his surprise at her childish response to such a weighty matter. Maybe he wanted to remember whether he had seen her coddle herself that way in the past. Well, not since their marriage.

Cast the hook of memory further, Maxim.

LUBLIN

MARCH 1941

The square was filled with people, wagons and suitcases. The pigeons had disappeared. It was late, and Thomas was hurrying to the railway station. The last snow had melted, and rain annoyed the city day and night. From alleys, courtyards and small streets emerged men and women loaded down with belongings, teenage boys dragging wagons with ropes, mules bearing burdens, girls lugging suitcases, boys pushing cloth sacks containing silverware that rang on the street like masses of cymbals. A wagon carried a Louis Quinze chair with a high back, paintings, a rococo cupboard, a dusty chandelier, a desk decorated with silvered ornaments.

The Jews had been ordered to leave Lublin. Posters with the order of the district governor had been pasted all over the city: by 15 April the ghetto would be established inside the Jewish quarter, and no more than twenty thousand Jews would be allowed to live there. The others had to find a new place to live within the boundaries of the district—there were enough towns and villages. The Jews' abandoned houses
would be given to Poles, ‘who might not love us,' Frenzel had laughed the day before, ‘but they know how to appreciate us for getting the Jews out of their faces. They've been dreaming about that for hundreds of years.'

Frenzel was as happy as a little kid: his project was working out in perfect order, and it had already earned ‘words of esteem and respect' from the commander of the SS and the police, Globocnik. Yesterday evening he had invited Thomas to the Deutsches Haus and shared with him ‘a bottle of the most excellent wine in the Lublin district… as you expected. The Judenrat has given us vital assistance, especially the vice-chairman, Dr Alten. Your advice to strengthen cooperation with them and to give them a feeling of partnership proved brilliant. “Unity of aim” was a slightly exaggerated formulation, which I found hard to sell them.'

‘Because you didn't leave the salesmanship to me,' Thomas reproached him.

Frenzel, choosing to be magnanimous, nodded. ‘The joint work definitely oiled the wheels. The members of the Judenrat were efficient and obedient, and didn't annoy us with all their Eastern European moodiness. What's more, the Judenrat is paying the travel expenses of those leaving and making sure the Jews who remain in the city report for work…You know when I understood that it was a flash of brilliance? The day that the Jewish women raised a commotion when their husbands didn't come back from Belzec. The Judenrat and the Jewish police restored order immediately. We didn't have to lift a finger. That's when I understood their potential. Even the campaign that they announced to clean up their quarter was a success. Evidently the Judenrat kept the people of means in Lublin, those who can pay taxes and finance the Jews here, and that's their business. As for the Jews who voluntarily leave the city, we treat them with respect—I emphasised this order everywhere, as you recommended—and allow them to clear out with property, without a weight limit, and even to travel by train. Within the framework of the Voluntary Transfer we got rid of thousands of Jews in the first two days. I estimate that we'll get to
twelve thousand, and without trouble. In a year, at most two, Lublin will be cleansed of Judenrein.'

Thomas crossed the street, making calculations. The previous evening Frenzel was so preoccupied with the matter of the Jews that Thomas didn't have a chance to tell him that a bottle of wine in the Deutsches Haus was an insufficient expression of gratitude. To demonstrate this to his secret adviser, Frenzel would have to throw himself behind the parade.

In the last few weeks the mass of ideas and tasks piling up on the subject of the parade had kept Thomas thinking until the small hours. Countless unresolved matters suggested themselves, sending him into a frenzy. He sometimes compared his thinking to a racing car (he liked the Mercedes-Benz models) that had lost its brakes and was careering through the institutions of the Reich, looking desperately for allies.

This afternoon he was supposed to meet with Rudolf Schumacher in Cracow for a ‘drink shared by two old friends'. He would confide in him, boast about his new connections and his distinguished mission, and tell the fat man that he'd decided to make him a trustee of the Germano-Soviet parade in the Ministry of Economics, to help him enlist supporters among the industrialists who influenced the Führer. Regrettably, though, the fate of the parade didn't depend on Schumacher, but on the Foreign Office: didn't that amateur Ribbentrop regard the treaty with the Soviet Union as his greatest achievement? So let him defend it!

He wrote letters to Karl Schnurre and Martin Luther, boasted about the progress achieved at the first parade committee meeting and predicted that the initiative to preserve the peace would be regarded in history as the greatest achievement of the ministry in the twentieth century.

Frenzel claimed that they didn't believe in the parade at the Foreign Office either—but a week later Thomas showed him a personal letter signed by Martin Luther, in which he expressed enthusiasm about the ideas of his friend Thomas Heiselberg, ‘in acting tirelessly to promote the parade, which has gained favour among people around the Führer'.

Frenzel was impressed and suspected nothing.

But how was it possible to make progress without strong allies in the army? Thomas had to address high-ranking officers in the Wehrmacht who had learned from history and adamantly opposed a war on two fronts. And the SS? After reading Martin Luther's letter, Frenzel offered his help there. Nevertheless it was possible that he was bothering the young officer in vain. Perhaps he had no access at all to those ranks. He also took steps regarding Göring, and wrote to Kresling about ‘a secret matter of great value', stating that he had learned his lesson and that his punishment had been just. As yet he hadn't received an answer.

Sometimes, if he relaxed even briefly, Thomas admitted that with each passing day the chances of holding the parade became slimmer. It was frustrating: an exalted historical event had been entrusted to him, he had been seduced by a project in which he could fulfil his vision undisturbed (except for little Weissberg), without the sacks of lead that people like Weller and Mailer always loaded on his shoulders, and now the bastards had abandoned him. No one in the Reich would respond to his appeals, and the second meeting had been postponed to April. But instead of giving in to despair, Thomas swore he would shake up the system, make a commotion, scatter bait everywhere, spread false rumours; maybe the time had come to take even more extreme measures.

A grey-haired Jewish woman puffed up with tattered sweaters spoke to him in Polish. ‘Where does one get a receipt for items deposited in the warehouses?' He wagged his finger to show that he didn't understand. She had caused his whole tower of ideas to collapse. He took a deep breath and looked at the sky. The roofs mingled with the clouds, birds crossed the black chimney smoke, people stood on wooden balconies and held on to rusty iron railings. Two policemen with a drowsy German shepherd lying between them called out to a girl who was supporting the old Jewish woman who had just accosted him.

The girl was tall and broad-shouldered. The policemen ordered her to turn around and come over to them, and her mother pushed
her towards them, but she stopped, seated the old woman on the pavement and tightened the scarf around her neck. Everything was done lazily, as if she had all the time in the world. The policemen shouted again, and the dog got up and stretched its rear legs. Even Thomas was on edge: move already!

He passed her. She was well dressed, and wore a bright blue shawl. She walked with her back straight, and didn't even deign to look at them.

One of the policemen shouted to her in Polish: ‘Take off your hat. Don't you see a German?'

The young woman answered that, according to recent announcements, it was forbidden to remove one's hat. Her voice had a touch of insolence. Thomas hoped the policemen hadn't noticed.

A baby-faced Polish policeman took a puff on his cigarette and coughed while his two friends laughed, then he straightened up and shouted, ‘Rosa Heiler, you're not in the library anymore. Get the hat off your head!' He whispered something to his friends.

‘Librarian Rosa Heiler,' shouted another policeman.

Thomas froze.

The young woman looked perplexed, blushed and mumbled in Polish, ‘What hat? There is no hat.' She undid the knot in her kerchief. The wind dishevelled her black hair, which hid her face. Grey strands showed in it—she wasn't young.

She raked her hair with her fingers. ‘Is this all right?' she called out to the policemen, turning towards her mother and beginning to walk away.

‘Are you leaving already?' they laughed. ‘We told you to report here, now!'

Unwilling, she turned around and walked towards them.

‘The Jewish filth always acts as if she's something special,' shouted the young policeman. ‘Rosa Heiler, I want you to recommend a book!'

Thomas approached the old woman who was sitting on the kerb. Her face was wrinkled, ashen. As soon as she understood he wasn't dangerous, she lost interest in him. There was a broken scream behind
him. The old woman's eyes widened and her face twisted in dread. With a great effort she pushed her body upwards but couldn't rise. Thomas turned around. Rosa Heiler was lying in the street. The policemen's batons rose and fell. The young one put his boot on her stomach. His hand groped behind him and gripped the iron bars of a window, and then he raised his foot and kicked her in the head. It happened in seconds.