THE FOOTSTEPS came as no surprise to Brandt. Monika had an instinct for when he couldn’t sleep.
‘I’m here,’ he called out – although he was sure she already knew. Her bare feet sounded soft on the wooden floorboards.
She put a hand on the back of the armchair that faced him, leaning her weight on it and looking across the valley. She was barely visible in the dark.
‘Have you been awake for long?’ she asked.
‘Not too long.’
He opened the pack of cigarettes on his lap, extracted one and leant forward to place it into her fingers, then took another and placed it in his mouth. The match was like a tiny explosion in the dark. She leant down to it – the flame washing her face with orange and yellow and turning her blue eyes black.
‘Worried about something?’
He shrugged.
‘Perhaps.’
‘The hut?’
Brandt was pleased. She had raised the very topic he had wanted to discuss but hadn’t known how to.
‘Yes.’
Silence fell between them. He knew she was waiting for him to explain but he was in no rush. He had time. When their cigarettes were nearly finished, he took out two more. He weighed his options.
‘The women,’ he said, his voice sounding higher than usual. He paused and began again. ‘The prisoners, I mean. I told you about them before but I didn’t tell you that I knew one of them – a long time ago. Before she ended up in the hut. In Vienna. We were arrested at the same time.’
Another silence fell between them. Monika would be analysing the new information, if he knew her.
‘This woman you knew before – were you in love with her?’
A good question. You could rely on Monika to be direct.
He thought back to that summer when they’d lived from breath to breath. Their relationship, in retrospect, seemed dreamlike – a wisp of a thing.
‘I didn’t get the chance to find out for certain, but I think so.’
‘What happened?’
‘As I said, we were arrested. I had to join the army – or be sent to a camp. I chose the army. I had no idea what had happened to her and there was no way of finding out. I couldn’t send a letter. There was no one I could trust to ask. I hoped she’d been treated leniently. As I was. Then I saw her here – at the hut.’
‘By chance?’
‘Completely.’ He could see Monika’s head shaking from side to side in the darkness. Disbelief? Amusement? Terror, even? ‘At first I wasn’t certain, but it is her. She doesn’t remember me. Or recognize me, anyway. I’ve changed, of course.’
The tip of Monika’s cigarette glowed red.
‘Do you love her now?’
A good question. How could he be sure?
‘Does it matter? Even if I’d never known her at all, it’s clear what I should do.’
‘But you did love her – and still do.’
‘Yes. I think so. Listen, Monika, when the Russians attack it’s likely there will be little resistance. It will be chaos. If I can keep them alive until then, five prisoners will be the last thing on anyone’s mind. If I get them out – I don’t think anyone will look for them.’
‘You can get them out, then.’
Brandt noticed it was a statement rather than a question. He picked up the key that sat on the table in front of them and handed it to her.
‘The key to the bunker where they are kept.’
She held it up, examining it in the faint light from her cigarette.
‘I also know how to turn off the electric fence, if that’s necessary – but it might not be. And I know how to kill someone, if that’s required. I have food for them. I have a place to hide them.’
The tip of her cigarette glowed red once again.
‘Maybe they will be safer where they are. When the Russians arrive, they’ll be well looked after. Escaping might be more dangerous that staying.’
‘If they stay, they will most likely die. The SS want the camp forgotten. They’ve already erased other camps, further east – nothing left but empty fields. They plan to do the same with the camps here – it’s already started. The camp is being decommissioned, the sub-camps wound down.’
Monika considered this.
‘How long before you have to act?’
‘Not long.’
She stood, walking behind him, leaning down on the back of his chair. He felt her shift her weight and then her hand was on his shoulder. The touch was gentle and it made him blink back tears. He was so tired and the warmth of her hand made him remember it.
‘Unless I have to move sooner, I want to wait until the Russians attack.’
‘What if the army can hold the Russians – push them back, even?’
‘They won’t. They’re building defences near Breslau. We’re two hundred kilometres closer to the Front here. The army knows the Russians are unstoppable – we’ve known for the last two years. It’s why the Volkssturm was formed. It’s why the Gauleiter has sent the mayor plans for a civilian evacuation. It’s why the SS are covering their tracks.’
‘Why are you telling me all this?’
‘I saw Hubert.’ There was no physical reaction. Her hand still rested on his shoulder and there was no alteration to its gentle pressure. She must already know. Which must mean she had a way of contacting him, surely?
‘I need civilian papers. For the guards. If I can provide the guards with papers, then they might just help me with the women. Do you think Hubert might be able to assist with something like that?’
Monika tousled what there was of his hair and then walked to the window. She yawned, stretching her arms wide behind her back. The gesture was almost as intimate as her touch.
‘You seem certain I know how to get in contact with him.’
‘I need his help.’
He heard her quiet laugh.
‘You have it all planned out. If you saw him, you must know he shouldn’t be here, that if he were caught he would be shot. That most likely he is with the partisans in the hills. And then there’s you – working for the SS and training the Volkssturm. Surely he would think it was a trap. Wouldn’t you?’
‘I know it’s a lot to ask.’
Monika let her breath out in a sigh.
‘Remember when we were children, how easy it was between us? Who could have thought that it would come to this?’
Monika’s voice sounded hollow, as if she were drained. He found he had no words that came to mind. It seemed as strange to him as it must to her. And yet, here they were.
‘I’m going back to my bed,’ she said, bending down to stub the cigarette out in the ashtray placed on the low table between his mother’s chair and his father’s. He could smell her – a mixture of the cigarette and a warmer, sleepy odour that must be her own.
‘If you did see Hubert, I’m grateful you told no one except me, and I’m sure he is too. In the meantime, what you’re doing at the hut is brave, if insane. I wish you success. More than that, I can’t say yet. But, who knows. I may be able to tell you something soon.’
He listened to her make her way to the back of the house, the floorboards creaking as she moved. Then the soft sound of her bedroom door closing. Outside, the clouds in the night sky had grown darker. The dawn that must eventually come now seemed uncertain.