It was the fifth office, but the response was still the same. It seemed as though Riedman’s parents simply disappeared off the face of the earth. The fact that everyone thoroughly pretended that they didn’t know the family at all didn’t help matters. Only an elderly neighbor who took pity on her former neighbors’ son, finally shed some light on their fate. Behind closed doors and whispering, of course. That’s how everything was done now, in this new Germany.
“Frau Riedman was summoned to the Gestapo office. When she didn’t come back, Herr Riedman went to ask after her and returned very shaken. He gave me his money for saving and his wife’s jewelry, in case something happened, he said. He wanted to write to Reichsmarschall Göring, he told me. He did send the letter from what I understand, but he disappeared before anything could have been done to help him… If Herr Reichsmarschall received his letter at all, that is.” The elderly woman shuffled towards the bureau and extracted an envelope from between the stack of letters. Johann glimpsed a picture of a young uniformed man next to the older one. Both bore a striking similarity. “Here, Herr Riedman. Your father asked me to give this to you when you come back… if he wasn’t here to receive you.”
Walt took the letter out of her hands, staring at it oddly. Johann noticed the woman’s nervous glance that she stole at the clock in the corner and thanked her profusely before leading Riedman outside. The latter moved as though in a trance, following his leader blindly like many times before in flight.
“I don’t know if I want to open it,” he admitted at last when they sat on a bench in a small square outside, after clearing it from a thin film of snow. He suddenly shoved the letter into Johann’s hands. “You read it. And tell me later… Or don’t tell me at all. You will know what to say.”
Steadying his breath, like before a dogfight, Johann tore into the yellowish paper, read it carefully, folded it again and patted his pocket looking for a smoke.
“They moved to the village,” he said finally, slowly and deliberately. “Like you thought. Your mother was summoned to the Gestapo because one of the neighbors reported her as a communist. She was so afraid that they would arrest her that she bought a ticket on the first train that was going to the country. Your father wanted to write to Göring because he thought she was detained. She wrote to him from the country with her new address and asked him to come and join her there. So he did. It’s better there, less risk of air raids. He doesn’t give their address here because he’s afraid that it will fall into the wrong hands. You shouldn’t write them, either. After the war they’ll find you, he says.” He held out the letter to Walter without looking at him. “Do you want to read it yourself?”
Riedman stared ahead of him, his forehead creased with intense thought. At last, he took the lighter out of Johann’s hands, lit his cigarette and the letter right after. “No. I like your version better.”
He cupped his hands and blew on them as his father’s last words burned in front of his eyes.
He did receive his Knight’s Cross a week later; from Göring’s hands though, not the Führer’s◦– for the obvious reasons. Göring received them in his Carinhall and stared at Johann long and hard after the latter inquired if he had received the letter that he had sent him.
“I did. And so? What do you want me to do?” He rested his cheek on his fist as they sat at the lavishly served table, suddenly uncharacteristically grim and stern. “I’m no better off than you, as of now. Do you know the hysterics that I have to listen to every time the Yanks make another raid on the city? Do you know that it’s all my fault now? The whole damned war is my fault now. What else can I do besides issuing such orders? Shoot myself?”
On their way home, Walter toyed pensively with the Cross on his neck. “So, even Göring, the almighty Göring is now in disgrace. He won’t help us…”
Johann had just held Mina in his arms for the last time and was too preoccupied with his grief to think of Walter’s. The latter wandered around the base the next few days like a soul lost and then, during the very first dogfight, rammed the soviet Sturmovik, after a short, “live for us all, Johann. Thank you for everything.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Berlin, Germany. Spring 1944
The man was mad; Harald was certain of it. Harald stared at him, mute and motionless, as the man went from weeping to shouting and back to weeping again. When Harald first saw him, in his blue Luftwaffe uniform, with his blond hair and the Cross at his neck, he mistook him for his brother for a moment.
No. Of course, it wasn’t him. Johann was calm and collected and knew better than throw tantrums in the middle of the street and swipe at the SS after they’d warned him against such hysterics.
Harald thoroughly pretended not to remember how his brother and his friend Willi got into a fight with the said SS back in flying school. Johann was a war hero and a good German; not like this one. Johann would never tear the Cross off his neck, throw it on the ground and stomp on it in helpless ire, shouting, “here’s what I think of your Führer’s awards!” in the astounded SS men’s faces.
And the day started out so well, so warm and dewy. The thunderstorm washed away the stench of the burning which had seemed to be forever imprinted into the city walls and now the street smelled clean, fresh, electric, and green. The corpse carriers had already taken away all the bodies from the side of the road and now there were only the digging brigades left◦– the prisoners of war this time◦– and Napola students who were already used to supervising their work.
Harald was sitting on the single padded chair out of the dining set, which had somehow miraculously escaped the bombardment unscathed and munching on his lunch while squinting against the bright sun. It was a simple sandwich and the coffee was ersatz, but his dark uniform was already warm in the sun and even the POWs moved energetically today, without any commands from his side. Harald decided to allow them their quiet chatter and didn’t reprimand them for it like he usually did with others. If the jawing didn’t interfere with their work, he didn’t mind it.
He appeared out of the blue, the Luftwaffe officer, in his disheveled uniform and with a wild look in his eyes. He threw himself on top of the rubble and started digging wildly at the concrete and stone under the stunned prisoners’ glances. The two of the SS officers from Harald’s school were already trotting in his direction; he must have slipped right past them into the restricted zone. Harald jumped to his feet at once, shaking the crumbs off his trousers and almost dropping the cup with coffee to the ground. By the time the SS officers caught up with the Luftwaffe fellow, Harald had dutifully snapped to attention.
“Herr Leutnant, we told you already that you can’t be here—”
That’s when the shouting started. My entire family! My wife! My three children! My mother! My father, the hero of the war…
Then came the weeping. Then digging. Then fighting, when Harald’s superiors attempted to pull him out of the rubble. And then◦– the treason.
“…all buried here because of your Führer! Will this replace them all, I ask you?” He tugged and pulled on the ribbon of his Cross until he tore it off his neck completely. “Will this greet me when I get home from the war? Will this damned thing call me Vati? Will this thing hold me at night? Will this thing love me and hold my hand in my dying hour? Well, will it?!”
The prisoners watched him with sudden compassion on their gaunt, unshaven faces. They understood him without understanding his language, for grief and desperation didn’t require an interpreter and they were too well-versed in it by now◦– the ones, who’d lost it all as well.