'To your future,' the master of Aichborn corrected him. 'My time is over. There's nothing left for me now. The old values are all gone.'
'There'll be new values and a new, free Reich, peaceful and respected by the whole world.' Hans-Georg sounded as though he were trying to persuade himself.
'But first we must get you out of the old Reich,' Detta soberly interrupted. She rang the bell by the fireplace. Bensing appeared. In honour of the day he had put on his shiny black jacket, which didn't really go with his gumboots. 'The Maybach, Bensing?'
'With your BMW in the old barn, hidden under straw and old junk. Both cars have full tanks. I check on them regularly.'
'Take the D plate off my roadster and paint a C beside it. Then screw it on the Maybach. CD stands for Corps Diplomatique. And take that little throw over the back of the sofa, the one I embroidered with Mother's family coat of arms in the Spanish colours, and fasten it on the radiator as a pennant. Polish up the car and iron your chauffeur's uniform. We're off on Wednesday morning. My brother's a Spanish diplomat, and our flight to Barcelona leaves from Tempelhof at two in the afternoon.'
'I'll get to work immediately, Fraulein Detta.' Bensing went away with measured tread.
'Barcelona?' asked her brother incredulously.
'Tom Glaser will fly us out.' She explained her plan.
'I hope to God it works,' murmured the Baron, shaking his head.
A hunting horn sounded from somewhere above. 'We have a lookout posted on the tower.' Hans-Georg was suddenly in a hurry. She watched from the tall window as he sprinted across the yard and disappeared down the hatch into the potato cellar. Bensing chugged up with the tractor and dumped a load of muck over the entrance.
Fanselow climbed out of his car in his brown Party uniform and stalked up to the entrance of the schloss. The Baron wrinkled his nose. He often comes to pay what he calls a friendly visit, to see how I am. I think he's trying to hedge his bets.'
'I'll go and see the horses.' Detta had no desire to meet the man.
Tom Glaser's call reached her at lunchtime. The night before, an incendiary bomb had destroyed his JU 290, which had been tanked up for the return flight. 'There isn't a spare plane. The whole of Lufthansa is grounded.'
And that, in an instant, was the end of Detta's bold plan. But she did not let her disappointment show. 'Oh well,' she told her brother. A few more days among the potatoes won't kill you. The BBC is saying the Russians have crossed the Oder at Frankfurt. And that's at most eighty kilometres from here.'
The hunting horn on the tower sounded early in the morning. Hans-Georg disappeared into his hiding place. Bensing pushed the muck over the hatch. Two jeeps drew up outside the schloss and eight Red Army soldiers jumped out, pointing their Kalashnikovs menacingly. A limousine stopped in the entrance. An officer stepped out, followed by Fanselow. The district farmers' leader was wearing a cloth cap and a red band round the arm of his jacket.
The master of Aichborn, standing very straight, appeared in the entrance. 'There's the Fascist general!' cried Fanselow.
'General yes. Fascist no; snapped the Baron. Detta went to his side.
And that's the daughter! A Fascist cow.' Fanselow's voice rose and broke.
Detta calmly approached him. 'No crayfish today, Fanselow, just potato soup. You can slurp it up from the tip of the spoon, I expect that's more your style.' Fanselow went red in the face. Detta turned to the Russian and spoke French to him. 'Je suis Henriette von Aichborn. What will happen to my father? He's old and sick.'
'Major Rubakhov, NKVD, the officer introduced himself in perfect German. 'My orders are to arrest Lieutenant-General Heinrich von Aichborn as a war criminal.'
Aichborn indicated his cardigan. I suppose I can change first.' He did not wait for the answer.
'Make a break for it, would you?' Fanselow grabbed the Baron's sleeve.
'Don't do that,' the Russian officer told him, and turned to look at the family pictures in the hall.
'I am a war criminal too.' The Baroness appeared at the top of the staircase in her hat and coat.
The major shrugged. As you like.' The Baron came and stood beside her. The general's stripes on his breeches shone red, and the blue enamel of the Prussian order Pour le Merite gleamed on his collar. He kissed his wife's hand with old-fashioned courtesy and gave her his arm. With inimitable dignity the two of them walked downstairs. Bensing helped his master into his coat. The major held the door of the car open, Heinrich and Maria von Aichborn got in, and the limousine started.
'We'll be back,' Fanselow spat, jumping into the jeep. Bensing shook his fist at him, tears of rage in his eyes.
'I'm sure they'll be back soon.' Detta put a comforting arm round his shoulders. Suddenly it dawned on her. 'The war's over, Bensing. We're free,' she said in amazement.
'Yes, Fraulein Detta.' Bensing walked away, his steps weary.
'Hans-Georg, we're free!' She ran across the yard and picked up the pitchfork. 'Free! Free! Free!' she shouted, exultant. The muck flew in all directions, and the hatch swung open. Like a phoenix. her brother came up into the light. The morning sunlight coloured his thin face gold. Detta fell on his neck, and danced exuberantly across the yard with him. 'No more Gestapo, no more fear.' She kissed him lovingly. Then her euphoria evaporated. 'The Russians have taken Father away.' she said. 'Fanselow must have denounced him. Mother went with him.'
'Father's done nothing wrong. They'll soon set him free,' Hans-Georg soothed her.
A military vehicle roared into the yard, followed by two motorbikes with sidecars. Six SS men in long rubber coats pointed their sub-machine guns at everyone present.
An SS lieutenant got out of the vehicle. 'Sturmfiihrer Keil, Special Commando Unit. 'He gave Hans-Georg a cold look. 'Who are you? Your papers!' he barked.
'Five minutes ago I was Cavalry Captain Baron von Aichborn. Now I'm just a farmer. The Russians have been here. The war's over — for you too. Herr Keil.'
We decide when the war is over. Hang the traitor,' ordered the Sturmfuhrer.
Two men seized Hans-Georg. A third took a piece of cord out of his coat pocket and tied his hands behind his back. The driver brought a milking stool and calf's halter out of the cowshed. They dragged Hans-Georg, who was resisting in vain, under the light fitting outside the coach house. It all seemed horribly routine.
'Please wait,' Detta heard her voice as if from very far away. 'I'II get his papers.'
'I'll give you one minute,' the SS executioner called after her. She crossed the yard like a sleepwalker.
At the gun-room window she came to herself again. She saw them lift Hans-Georg on the stool and put the noose around his neck. One of the SS men was raising his leg to kick the stool away. She felt the smooth shaft of the rifle against her cheek, she had her brother's forehead in the cross-hairs of the telescopic sight. 'Breathe out, pull the trigger slowly, rather as if you were squeezing a sponge, or you'll swerve to one side,' she heard him say.
I love you, she thought. The sound of the shot drowned out her stifled cry.
A Russian airman, flying low, had put the SS unit to flight. Silence lay over Aichborn. The spring sun warmed the silent people. The Polish workers took off their caps and crossed themselves. Women wept as they looked at the body.
They carried him into the house and laid him on the big ash table where game was skinned and cut up in the hunting season. Detta washed his naked body with slow, caressing movements. Lina helped her to dress the dead man in his uniform. They had to cut his riding boots open at the back to get them on. Then they laid him on a bed of ivy in the Aichborn chapel. Bensing would have made the coffin by evening.
Torchlight illuminated the graves behind the chapel where the Aichborns had been laid to rest for the last four hundred years, except for those who had fallen in battle far away. The night was cold and starlit. Pastor Wunsig spoke of the peace in the land that Detta's brother would not see now, and the eternal peace that he had found. Detta stood heavily veiled by the graveside, as tradition demanded. In the kitchen she took her veil off. She offered the pastor grog to warm him up, and told an amusing story about herself and Hans-Georg as children. Aichborn women never showed their feelings, and Detta had no feelings any more. Everything inside her was empty.