One Last Summer (2007) (24 page)

I couldn’t get through to Papa’s office, or the one Claus works out of. I only succeeded in speaking to a series of officious clerks, who kept repeating that a state of martial law had been declared in the wake of the assassination attempt. I telephoned Irena’s parents, and they came at once with the doctor, who sedated Irena despite her pregnancy. He warned that if he didn’t she’d undoubtedly miscarry.

At four o’clock, another two cars arrived with another six SS officers, three in each car. I knew who they had come for when I saw that two of the officers were women. They asked for Irena, Marianna and Karoline. I told them Irena was ill and pregnant, and we feared for her life as well as the child’s. But they pushed me aside and quoted the doctrine of Sippenhaft, ‘blood guilt’, as though the two babies or Irena could be tainted because of something Wilhelm had done.

They went upstairs, thrust Irena’s mother out of the room and dragged Irena out of bed. Frau Adolf was hysterical. I insisted on seeing Irena, and one of the SS women officers allowed me to help Irena dress, but she removed her gun from its holster, pointed it at us and stayed with us the whole time. I asked her just where she thought a heavily pregnant woman could run to with SS officers all over the house, but she didn’t answer me.

When we went downstairs, the woman handed Irena to the captain in charge, then she and another officer went to the kitchen and took the children. They knew exactly who they were looking for. They didn’t even glance at Erich, just took Marianna by the hand, picked up Karoline and dragged them into the hall.

I tried to take the girls from them, pleading that I was their aunt. That it was my duty, not theirs, to care for my brother’s wife and children, but they ignored me. I used my father-in-law’s and Claus’s name, all to no avail.

In the end, one of the officers hit me across the face, sending me spinning back into the staircase, warning that if I didn’t stop making such a fuss they would take me and Erich, too, but only after shooting everyone else in the house.

It was then that Irena behaved as bravely as Wilhelm. She kissed her father, mother and me, thanked me for being a good sister, and asked me to take care of her parents as well as Mama and Erich, and, if there was a future for Germany, and they lived, her daughters.

Her father and Brunon stood tight-lipped, while Irena’s mother, Erich, Martha and Minna began to cry. Mama came out of her room to see what all the commotion was about. I asked Minna to take her back. The SS women took charge of Marianna and Karoline. They placed the two little girls side by side in front of Irena and ordered them to say goodbye. I could tell from the confused expression on their faces that neither Marianna nor Karoline understood a single word that was being said to them.

One of the women then said, ‘You will have to change your names so no one from your family will ever be able to find you again. Hitler will educate you and you will never see your mother, father or one another from this moment on.’

We all knew the warning was directed at us not the children. Less than five minutes later they were gone. Nothing I could do or say would change the minds or melt the hearts of the officers. I begged that Marianna and Karoline be allowed to take their favourite dolls, but they didn’t permit them to take anything except the clothes they stood up in. Irena told her parents she was sorry that she had brought them grief, but she could not and would not condemn what Wilhelm had done. Then she said to me, ‘Do what you can for the girls.’

She walked out of the house upright, dry-eyed, staring straight ahead, just like Wilhelm. I thought her pregnancy would evoke some sympathy, but the children were wrenched from her and bundled into one car, she into another. Her last words to her daughters were: ‘Remember who you are and who your father was.’

The doctor tried to give me a sedative after the cars had gone, but I wouldn’t take it. He drove Herr and Frau Adolf back to town. Irena’s baby will be born in two months. Surely they won’t kill a pregnant woman? What will they do to her? Will they really separate the children? Will they kill them?

I sat in the kitchen nursing Erich on my lap for what seemed like a long time, not knowing what to do or think, wishing I could stop crying, wishing it were dusk so I could go to Sascha and ask his advice. All I can think of is my broken promise to Wilhelm. How could I stand by and allow the SS to take his family away?

Chapter Thirteen

WEDNESDAY, 25 JULY 1944

I have been so wretched and miserable I haven’t spared a thought for Grunwaldsee, and I have left Brunon to do all the work by himself. On Sunday I couldn’t bear to face anyone, so I stayed in my bedroom most of the day, reading stories to Erich. He keeps asking for his Auntie Irena and Marianna and Karoline. He cannot understand why the nasty soldiers came and took them away and repeats endlessly that they hadn’t been naughty.

I can’t find the words to reassure him or the strength to visit Mama. I am sure that the guards are watching me, so I stayed away from Papa’s study and the tack room.

In the early hours of this morning Sascha took a terrible risk. He left the loft, went into the tack room, crossed the courtyard and climbed the wall on to my balcony. I heard him whispering my name outside the French doors. It was crazy of him. If one of the guards had caught sight of him, he would have been shot.

He stayed with me, just holding me and letting me cry, not saying a word, until an hour before dawn when I led him back through the house to the study and unlocked the door to the tack room. Even then I went in first to check that no one was there. It was dangerous to walk through the house, but it was a safer route than across the courtyard.

I left him there and went foraging in the kitchen. I brought back some milk and bread, which would have been breakfast for Irena and the girls. He passed most of it up to his men but stayed with me while he ate and drank his share. He told me that the guards have been talking about nothing else but Wilhelm, Irena and the children. Even they are ashamed of the treatment meted out to a pregnant girl and two babies.

Mama von Letteberg arrived unannounced as I was in the tack room with Sascha. Brunon somehow knew where I was and banged on the door. Sascha returned to his loft before I opened it. My face was swollen and red-eyed, so I hoped that Brunon and Mama von Letteberg had assumed that I’d locked myself in there to have a good cry away from Mama, Erich and the servants.

I didn’t have to tell Mama von Letteberg anything; she knew it all. She sat with me while I continued to cry. Then she closed the door and said that no matter how hard it was, I had to pull myself together and be brave. That if I made a fuss, Erich, Mama and I would be taken away, just like Irena and the children. She told me that Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg had already been executed, and that the evidence against Wilhelm was overwhelming.

She said that Papa von Letteberg was doing what he could to help Wilhelm but it was very little, as every officer connected to von Stauffenberg and his department, and thousands more, have been rounded up, and it can only be a matter of time before Claus and his father are questioned because of their relationship to von Stauffenberg through Wilhelm and me.

When I looked at her, I realized that she is as upset as I am; only she is far more adept at concealing her feelings. I wanted to ask her if Papa von Letteberg knew of the plot to kill Hitler beforehand, and if he and Claus were party to the conspiracy. But I didn’t have the courage to question her. I can see that the less anyone knows about who exactly was involved the better.

Mama von Letteberg doesn’t think Hitler will dare kill a pregnant woman and children, especially ones who bear the old and respected name of von Datski. I do so hope that she is right and not just saying it to give me hope where there is none. Papa von Letteberg has discovered that Irena is being held in a women’s prison not far from Berlin, but it is forbidden to send anything to her or to write any letters. He hasn’t, as yet, found out where the children have been taken, but he doubts that we’ll be able to see them or send them anything.

Mama von Letteberg knew some of the details. Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg and three other officers were executed by firing squad shortly after midnight on 31 July in an inner courtyard of the War Office. I knew Wilhelm would be executed the moment Mama von Letteberg said that the colonel was fortunate to have such a quick and merciful soldier’s death.

Wilhelm, along with many others, will stand trial. The Führer has ordered the arrest of all the men involved and also their families, so Irena, Marianna and Karoline aren’t the only women and children to be imprisoned. Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg, or someone close to him, had contacted England in an attempt to try to end the war. After the failure of the plot to kill Hitler was announced by the Reich, the BBC broadcast a list of the conspirators, so the Führer knew exactly who had plotted against him. Didn’t the British understand that although all the officers were Germans they were Hitler’s enemies, too?

After a while Mama von Letteberg persuaded me to leave the tack room and return to the house. The doctor was waiting to see us. Herr and Frau Adolf are dead. They wrote a note saying that they could not bear to live with the knowledge of what had happened, and then took poison. The doctor suggested that they found it impossible to live with the disgrace of having a son-in-law who tried to overthrow and kill our beloved Führer, but I think it was the loss of Manfred and the cruelty meted out to Irena and their grandchildren that drove Herr and Frau Adolf to take their lives.

Claus telephoned at midnight to tell me that he is returning to the Russian Front and will call in Grunwaldsee on his way through. That was all he said. I was too afraid to ask him any questions because I suspected that someone was listening in. Mama von Letteberg knew about his posting. I asked her if it was Hitler’s way of punishing Claus because he is related to a member of the conspiracy. She insisted that it wasn’t. That things are so uncertain and dangerous in Berlin, Papa von Letteberg had arranged for Claus to be sent back to the Front because it is safer than the War Office right now.

For the first time I am glad that Claus is coming to see me. In all this mess of death and cruelty there is one secret that I am glad about. I have been carrying Sascha’s baby for over a month. No one knows except me, not even Sascha, but I will tell him before Claus arrives.

If I can make Claus believe that he is the father, I may be allowed to keep the child – at least for a little while.

Charlotte closed her eyes and, once again, Sascha’s blue eyes gazed into hers, glittering in the flickering light from the lamp she had hung on the tack room ceiling. From the moment they had first made love she had never kept anything from him. But she had found it so hard to tell him what should have been such happy news.

‘I have something to tell you,’ she had finally whispered.

‘I know what it is,’ he had replied soberly.

His sudden change of mood made her afraid. ‘How do you know?’

The warmth and intimacy engendered by their lovemaking had shattered. He drew away from her, sat up and reached for the shirt she had torn from his back; an old linen one of Paul’s that she had darned many times. ‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’ Refusing to allow him to move from her side, she rose to her knees and wrapped her hands around his chest.

‘I overheard Brunon tell Marius to make sure the grey stallion’s tack was clean because your husband is expected tomorrow.’

She had felt his pain as if it were her own. ‘You have no reason to be jealous of Claus.’

He had hung his head, and she knew he was ashamed of his anger. ‘I cannot bear the thought of you lying in his arms, of him kissing you, caressing you, loving you …’

‘I don’t lie in Claus’s arms!’ She tightened her hold on him. ‘I don’t love him, can never love him the way I love you. But –’

‘While I remain here, I am a prisoner, a slave, a nothing and no one,’ he interrupted harshly. ‘Claus von Letteberg is an aristocrat, and you are his wife –’

‘I am having your child.’ She had intended to choose a better time to break the news to him. And had planned to do it gently. She had even rehearsed what she would say.

He turned and stared at her. She saw shock, fear and something else reflected in his eyes.

‘I’m having a baby, your baby,’ she repeated quietly, aware of his men in the loft above them, separated only by a layer of wooden planks.

‘When … when will it be born?’

She hadn’t needed to calculate, she had done nothing else for the past month, ever since her suspicions had hardened into certainty. ‘The spring. Late March or early April.’

He had dropped the shirt, sank back on the hay and looked up at her. ‘You will tell Claus it is his?’

‘Not now, but in a month or two, yes. What choice do I have?’ she begged, willing Sascha to offer her hope that it could be otherwise. That they could escape, make a new life for themselves somewhere, far from Germany and Russia, but even as the thoughts formed in her mind, she knew they were futile.

‘There is no choice for either of us while the war still rages. But if it ends …’

She knew why he had left the rest of the sentence unspoken. It was the reason neither of them had ever broached the subject before.

‘The war will end. If only because there will soon be no soldiers left alive to fight it,’ she said sadly.

‘If Russia wins, I will go home, and take you and Erich with me,’ he promised rashly.

‘To your wife?’ She forced a smile to take the sting from her words, although she wanted to remind him that he wasn’t free, either.

‘And if Germany wins?’ he had asked.

‘The men will return.’

‘There won’t be enough survivors to do all the work. If I’m lucky I will remain here, a prisoner and a slave, and you and my child will live with Claus von Letteberg. And if I’m not lucky …’

‘Sascha, don’t!’ She buried her head in his chest, unable to bear the thought of separation. ‘I love you.’

‘And our child?’

‘The child will be born of our love. I will cherish, adore and protect it with all my strength. Please, Sascha, can’t you be glad? This war has brought so much death – Papa, Paul and, it seems certain, Wilhelm. So many people I loved, and so many friends, gone for ever. And, in some ways, not knowing what has happened to Irena and the girls is even worse. Every night I imagine them being tortured, crying, screaming for me to help them …’

He pulled her down on top of him. She laid her head on his chest and he stroked her hair. ‘This child won’t take their place, Charlotte.’

‘I know.’ It was as though an iron fist had closed over her heart. ‘No one can.’

He turned, faced her and smiled; the slow smile she had come to love so much. ‘The child won’t take their place. But it will bring hope for the future – our future.’

She was almost too afraid to ask the question. ‘And in the meantime?’

‘We will make every second of every minute count. We will love one another as no man and woman have ever loved before, and,’ he trailed his fingers over her naked body, ‘I will be grateful for every day that I am able to watch our little one grow within you. And hope that fate will allow us to be together when it is born.’

Charlotte laid the diary on the bedside table, left the bed and opened the balcony doors. The sun had risen above the lake, shining through the morning mist that clouded the waters and hazed the woods, just as it had done on so many other summer mornings.

She returned to the bedroom, picked up her wrap and diary, and sat at the table outside, cherishing a beauty she had never quite forgotten. The trees, the grass, the flowers, even the swans gliding across the waters at the head of trains of ripples – all looked just as they had done when she had lived at Grunwaldsee. If Paul and Wilhelm were standing beside her now, she knew that they would recognize their beloved country.

Had she ever ceased mourning her brothers? Poor Paul and Wilhelm … The passage of years couldn’t stop her from shuddering. She hadn’t known the full story until after the war.

She had wanted to go to Berlin to support Wilhelm at his trial, but Papa von Letteberg had persuaded her that the ordeal would be humiliating and difficult enough for Wilhelm without her there to witness it. She gave him a letter in the hope that he would be able to smuggle it to Wilhelm, who had been stripped of his rank and expelled from the army before undergoing what the Gestapo called ‘heightened interrogation’, which had turned out to be another term for torture.

Along with the other conspirators, he suffered for three weeks without divulging any names, other than those of the men he knew had been already executed. Then he had been tried in the People’s Court. The judge had handed down the inevitable death sentence. Wilhelm wasn’t granted the military death accorded to his superior. He had been hung, naked, from piano wire suspended from a meat hook in a cell in the Ploetzensee prison.

An eyewitness recorded that it had taken Wilhelm a full twenty-five minutes to die because, like his colonel’s brother, he had been taken down and revived twice before being replaced on the hook.

On the morning of his execution, Wilhelm had been shown papers Greta had signed; papers that renounced all ties between them and denounced him as a traitor who had defiled the name of von Datski. But, Charlotte reflected, Wilhelm would not have expected anything else of Greta. She had her father-in-law’s word that her last message had been given to him. It had been short and simple: ‘
I love you, and I am and always will be proud of you, my beloved brother
.’

She opened her diary and turned to the back cover. Wilhelm’s last letter to her was tucked inside. She unfolded it, tears starting in her eyes as they always did whenever she saw his familiar handwriting: ‘
My only regret is that we did not succeed, and that Irena, the children, and you and Mama will suffer. I hope that one day you will forgive me and understand why I had to sacrifice even my family in the cause of Germany.

Your loving brother, Wilhelm.’

She wished that she could have told him that seven months later she had understood, and had longed with all her heart and soul that Colonel Graf von Stauffenberg and his conspiracy had succeeded.

Charlotte flicked through the next few pages of her diary.  The entries were sparse, gradually growing fewer and fewer with weeks rather days between them. She had been busy running Grunwaldsee but she had busy before and that hadn’t stopped her from consigning her thoughts to paper. But fear had. An all-consuming, blood-chilling, paralysing fear that had dogged her waking moments and turned her dreams into nightmares; a fear not for herself, but, after what had happened to Wilhelm, Irena and their children for her son, her mother, Sascha – and Sascha’s baby. Where she had been open and friendly she became suspicious of everyone who called at Grunwaldsee; old friend or stranger, it made no difference. Spies were everywhere, and her brother’s actions had marked the entire family as traitors.