ROLF SPENT THE ENSUING SEVEN WEEKS in hospital recovering from injuries he sustained during the Schloss Himmelwald collapse. The building had added to Rolf’s list of injuries five broken ribs, four cracked vertebrae, a punctured lung, internal bleeding, a fractured hip, two broken fingers on his left hand and a compound fracture of his lower left arm.
Once Rolf had regained consciousness and was allowed visitors, Klara came to his bedside and told him that he and the girl found next to him were the only survivors of the Schloss Himmelwald collapse. Himmelwald was dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Weissengel, Hans-Josef, and the other young girl had died in the collapse. For a couple of weeks Rolf rooted for his fellow survivor, whose name was Lisl Bauer, but her kidneys suddenly quit on her one night, making her Dieter Himmelwald’s last victim.
Now that Klara was back, she tried to comfort Rolf. All the papers were ready, she said. The furniture and books and boxes were all packed, except for a few pieces she and Anika were still sitting on or sleeping on. (Anika had put off her departure because of Rolf’s injuries.) Once the hospital released Rolf, Klara would drive them to France.
During several of her visits, Rolf described Himmelwald’s secret palace to Klara. She took detailed notes. “I’m not finding anything unique here,” she said while a nurse changed Rolf’s dressing, “except maybe the scale of his fantasies, but it should add to the literature.”
When Anika visited, she always came with Klara. (Klara was her ride; it was safer that way.) On her third visit she brought a pencil drawing of a kind of cubist Rolf standing over the shattered remains of the SS’s twin sig runes. Rolf said that she gave him too much credit, and this was true. The Völkischer Beobachter put the whole thing down to Jewish underground terrorism. The Gestapo had rounded up fifty Jews and communists. Dieter Himmelwald was even recast as a hero in the story, bravely dying in his attempt to help police stop the thugs who bombed his beloved castle.
When Anika visited one day, she said of the newsprint mythology, “No. You broke them, in ways they’ll pretend didn’t matter, and in other ways they don’t understand. Truth matters. That drawing is the truth.”
“They’re killing your friends as part of the charade,” Rolf said.
“I’ll speak for them. Lenin had to take his exile in Switzerland. I’ll do the same.”
Rolf waved his good hand so that Klara would bring the water glass to him and put the bendable straw in his mouth. As Rolf sipped, Klara asked the question that had actually been on his mind, “Don’t you think that being a communist in some ways hurts you as a spokesperson? People don’t trust communists too much.”
“People don’t trust Jews too much either,” Anika snapped. “Should I give that up for the sake of my credibility? Besides, you know why they push so hard to discredit the communists? Because we’re the best organizers, the most effective unionizers. Once they silenced us...”
Rolf finished his sip. Klara took the straw away, and silence was their companion for a while. Anika had turned bright red, and Rolf thought it best to let her cool. Maybe if Claire were here to join her, she’d be different, looking forward to something else in the future besides trying to make the truth matter. But what could he say to her about any of this? “It’ll be all right. You’ll go to Zurich, meet a nice girl...”
When Klara and Anika left Rolf alone, he devoted much of his thought to the future, along with those other things that occupy a mind when the lights are out and sleep is near. He was certain that he could use some rest, and that whatever mission he might have served in staying here was now over. Hans-Josef was dead. He’d have to write a letter to his family, as soon as he could think of something brilliant to say that wouldn’t also get them in trouble. What had the line been at the end of Lear? “To say what we feel, not what we ought to say.” When could that time come around again?
When the doctors came to check on Rolf, he imagined them supervising tortures and interrogation sessions, just like Himmelwald. Every time one of them smiled at Rolf or showed concern for his welfare, Rolf wanted to believe in hell. Instead of saying so, he smiled back at them and said he was on the mend.
So the future was coming, Rolf thought. He welcomed it. As he rested his head on his pillow, he pictured cabarets again and light days in the sun, good wine, happy company, learned talk from erudite house guests, a time of mind. Maybe they’d get together with some others who’d lived in the fens of the Reich and be able to sort out through discourse what this menagerie of predators signified. What would he contribute to such a dialog? He’d saw himself rising to his feet, and in an imitation of Hess crying out, “The Party is Germany! The Party is Himmelwald, and Germany, Himmelwald is!”
The hospital released Rolf on the day that Jesse Owens won his gold medal in the 100 meters. The news, delivered by nurse’s station’s radio as Anika and Klara wheeled Rolf down a hospital corridor, filled him with mirth. May none but black men win medals.
Soon they were in the car, and soon after that, they’d arrived at Munich Hauptbahnhof. Because no one wanted to go to the effort to getting Rolf out of the car and into a wheelchair, Anika and Rolf said their goodbyes with her in the back seat and Rolf in the front.
Klara then got out of the car and helped Anika with her bags. A strange kind of wariness governed Klara’s movements at this moment, one that Rolf was used to seeing in suspects who were trying to control their body language. Soon all the valises stood in a neat row on the curb, and Klara and Anika faced one another. For a second, they seemed like inhabitants of a picture. Then Anika opened her arms and embraced Klara, and Rolf saw in Klara’s face the look of someone who’d, after a long sojourn abroad, returned home. Her eyes were shut. Her chin nestled at the juncture of Anika’s neck and shoulder. Her fingers dug into the fabric of Anika’s blouse. And suddenly Rolf had answers to all the questions he’d never asked, that sixteen years of marriage had never prompted. At last, Rolf recognized Klara.
Klara and Anika let each other go. Anika turned around and waved Rolf goodbye. Social instinct took over, allowing Rolf to return her wave in spite of his shock. Klara opened the driver’s door and slid back behind the wheel. Together they watched Anika summon a porter to help her with her things. Anika turned around, waved again, and followed the porter as he pushed the luggage cart into the train station.
As Klara started sliding the car key into the ignition, Rolf asked, “How long?”
Klara dropped the key. It clattered on the floor. “What do you mean?”
“You and Anika.” Rolf put his hand on the dashboard and squeezed. “How long?”
Klara looked straight ahead. “Are we talking about now, or earlier?”
“All together.” Rolf suddenly felt as if he hadn’t eaten in a week.
“For the last few weeks, and for three years in Dresden.”
“Three years?”
“Three years.”
“Starting when?”
“Not long after Mom died,” Klara said. “You were busy with the Vampire case and it was our only topic of conversation. I developed other interests. I helped Anika set up a gallery show I’d arranged for her and we...”
“Are you putting this down to grief and boredom?”
“No. I’m putting it down to affection and pleasure and love.”
“I was there,” Rolf said.
Klara looked Rolf in the eye. “No you weren’t. And you couldn’t have been the way Anika was. I loved you... I love you, but I love her too.”
“You were discreet about it,” Rolf said.
“Discretion is easy when you’re invisible.”
That stung, but because Rolf’s physical condition left him unsuited to raving, he found himself forced into an angst-tinged calm. “I see. So when you caught us, you weren’t just angry that I betrayed you, but that Anika did?”
“Yes.”
“And the fact that you betrayed me?”
“It didn’t feel like betrayal. It was different.”
“Then why couldn’t you tell me about it?”
“I didn’t know how you’d react. You’re very... bourgeois, Rolf.”
“Apparently so are you, underneath it all.” Rolf turned from Klara, resting the side of his head against the car window. Someone among the passers-by was laughing. “You’ve put me through a lot of guilt. It wasn’t fair, Klara.”
Klara whispered, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“And it wasn’t necessary.”
Klara leaned over, put her hand on Rolf’s shoulder, and got him to look at her. “Are you saying you’d have understood?”
“I don’t know. You didn’t give me a chance to find out.”
For what felt like a year, neither spoke. The outside world was as motionless as the toys in an absent child’s room. Finally, Klara said, “What do you think we should do?”
Rolf watched a couple of stormtroopers come out of the train station, laughing and chatting and walking as if they owned the world. “At the moment, I think we should thank Epp and go to France.”
Klara leaned over and fumbled for the keys. Tears streamed down her face. She should cry a little, he thought. What else were moments like these for?
Klara finally picked up the key and stuck it in the ignition. Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, she collected herself, turned the key, and roused the engine. For over an hour, she guided the car through the thick traffic of mid-town, past the Braun Haus, through Lehel, past the synagogue, round bends of road and arcs of bridge, until the city gave way to the suburbs, and the suburbs gave way to fields and farms.
A few kilometers outside of Dachau, Klara pulled the car alongside Epp as he slinked along his customary route to drunkenness. She rolled down her window.
Epp stopped, turned and murmured a hello.
Rolf ignored his ribs’ complaint when he turned his body toward Epp. “Kommissar, you took a lot of risks in helping me. We didn’t get the result we wanted, but I’ll always be grateful.”
A wan, crooked grin spread across Epp’s face. “I didn’t expect any results at all, and I don’t really feel I took any risks. They’re going to come after me again anyway, sooner or later. Besides, the bastard’s dead. That’s something.”
“You got your exit visa and passport?” Klara asked.
Epp’s crooked grin evaporated, but he said, “Yes, thank you.”
“When are you going?” Klara asked.
Epp slumped and stepped away from the car, reminding Rolf of Epp’s posture and affect in the interrogation room. It gnawed Rolf’s heart a little. He’d hoped that participating in the Himmelwald case and bringing the doctor close to justice would lighten Epp’s burden. Instead, he hunched there like a whipped dog.
“You could come with us if you have nowhere else to go,” Klara said. “The back door’s unlocked. We can get you clothes, a place to stay...”
Epp turned and started shuffling away, back toward bar and beer, apparently in hopes that he could pour enough alcohol over his liver to kill himself before the Gestapo’s jackboots, clubs, and blades could come to claim him.
Klara drove alongside Epp, saying, “Joachim. Joachim, please.” But Epp just trudged his route. Klara glanced at Rolf, who offered no encouragement because he saw no use in continuing to try. He put his good hand on Klara’s shoulder and let it rest there.
“Let’s go,” Rolf said.
Klara tried twice more, but receiving no answer, or even acknow-ledgment from Epp, she slowly pressed the accelerator. The smell of fresh cut hay came through the open window, and the whistling breeze happily discouraged further conversation. Rolf leaned toward Klara to watch Epp dwindle in the rear view mirror. Why was Epp unable to take the two steps that separated him from the back seat of their car and make his escape from a country that had no place for him other than a burial plot or an urn? Rolf would have asked Klara for her thoughts, but based on the way she’d pressed Epp, Rolf didn’t think she understood him either. It was all right, though. It was probably for the best that they not try to figure it out here and now. Over the next few months at least, the topic of Joachim Epp’s fate could provide Rolf and Klara with a useful distraction from those essential matters that they’d surely have to discuss but would dearly love to forget.
THE END