“Why did you stop?” she asked.
“We have all night.”
The general did indeed have a pact with the devil. His apartment had escaped the incessant bombing of Berlin and everyone marvelled at his good fortune.
Gabi returned to her father’s sanctuary the following morning, exhausted from her night of passion. She let herself in and quietly made her way up the staircase.
“So you finally decided to come home?” the general called out on hearing her stealthy steps. Gabi cursed and turned back down, smoothing her hair and dress before strolling into the dining room where she gave her father a hurried peck on the cheek.
“Good morning, Papa. I didn’t want to wake you,” she said.
“I’m hardly still going to be asleep now, am I? It’s 10 o’clock.”
Gabi sat down and poured herself a cup of coffee. “It was a lovely evening, don’t you think?” she said, eyeing her father cautiously from behind her cup.
“You know I don’t approve of Major Dorfmann. I know his type; it’s all about self-gratification with him. That peacock will be nothing but trouble.”
His mood was as she expected, yet it still left her perplexed. Why did he hate Kurt so? “That peacock has always looked out for me, Papa. He really cares about me.”
“Cares about you? Ha! He cares only about himself. Any feelings he has for you are as deep as a puddle.”
Gabi left the debate unchallenged and sought a truce to temper her father’s foul mood. “What have you planned today, Papa?”
He raised his bloodshot eyes and his voice was flat and menacing. “Matters of the Reich.”
She knew by his tone that he did not wish to speak of it and so she sipped her coffee in silence before wishing him a good day and retiring to her suite for a bath and some sleep.
It was a lazy afternoon and Gabi, unable to settle, meandered restlessly about the apartment. It was ideal for entertaining, with a large sitting area and bar and views of the Spree River from the balcony to captivate its guests, although, in truth, the view of Berlin was no longer so inspiring. She pictured her father and the other generals smoking cigars and sipping cognac from over-sized crystal balloons as they discussed war strategies. She had no doubt that her father also enjoyed female company in the apartment; Gabi had found lace dressing gowns and other feminine items in various drawers and closets.
An eclectic collection of art adorned its walls; some from the old masters, others from more contemporary artists. Gabi wondered where her father had acquired them. He’d never shown any interest in fine art before.
After studying the pieces, Gabi’s boredom drew her into her father’s library, an imposing collection of books serving only one legitimate purpose: to impress her father’s guests. She pulled a book from the shelf, recognising it immediately. It was ‘Mein Kampf’ and Hans had the same special edition. She flicked through the crisp pages looking for a signature. Unlike Hans’s copy, which was well worn and signed by Hitler, this book was pristine, a virgin never opened, let alone read. It was no surprise to Gabi that her father had not bothered to read the manuscript, for he had never been an avid reader and would have found such a rambling piece of boring nonsense a waste of his precious time.
She returned the book to its place and wandered to the desk where she flipped through some files, neatly stacked as if waiting to be marked by a teacher. They contained military photos and diagrams of tanks, requisition request forms and other administrative documents—nothing of any interest. She fanned through the pile, stopping at a large envelope labelled ‘Operation Reinhard (Treblinka)’ and emptied its contents onto the desk. Photos poured across the slick surface, some spilling onto the floor. She quickly put her hand down to halt their slide and selected a random image. It was a photo of a group of people, young and old, standing behind the barb-wired fence of a labour camp, their eyes dark with despair.
More photographs, all wretched scenes of misery—was this what went on in the labour camps? She had always presumed that they housed prisoners of war and criminals, not crying children clutching their mothers and old sobbing women. Her chest heaved for air as if she suffocated and her thoughts whirled with questions that her conscience could not grasp. An image, so grotesque, so horrific, ended everything. Corpses, piled high in front of a furnace, skeletal and sickening, children, babies… nausea.
With trembling hands, she shuffled the photos into a pile and scooped them back into the envelope. Her eyes dropped to the floor where a document had fallen, face-up, a familiar signature catching her eye. This was the source of her father’s anguish—he had authorised these atrocities. At that moment, the general walked into the room.
“You shouldn’t be in here. And who said you could look at that? It’s confidential.” His red eyes seethed, hot embers smouldering in a draught.
Gabi met his stare, fiercely defiant. “Since when do generals authorize the killing of innocent women and children?”
“They are Jews and gypsies and a plague on the earth. They are nothing but miserly criminals… vermin that tarnish the purity and supremacy of the German Volk.”
She gasped, appalled by her father’s assertion. He had always been politically conservative and had never spoken with such fascist hostility. Had he lost his senses? “Papa, they’re people, like you and I. They are not pests to be exterminated like flies. Where is your humanity?”
“Humanity! The gypsies are responsible for your mother’s death. And Yuri was a Jew,” the general bellowed. “Have you forgotten what he did to you?”
“And so these children must pay for Yuri’s crime? Papa, Yuri was a sick, evil man.” She pointed to the damning evidence in the envelope. “These are innocent mothers and their babies.”
“Child, you don’t understand.” He ran his hands through his hair and then snatched the envelope, throwing it across the room.
She watched it smash against the wall and fall to the floor. “Oh, I understand and I’m no longer a child. You’re the same as Yuri—no, you’re worse. You have no conscience. Yuri killed himself because he couldn’t face what he had done. But YOU! You dine out, drink and laugh with the other generals. How do you sleep at night?” She ran for the door.
“Stop. Stop, I said.”
She slammed the door behind her.
Gabi arrived at the base a quivering mess. She made her way to her quarters to hide from the world and a reality she could not face. Feelings of confusions had given into hatred for what her world had become. She hated the war, she hated the Nazis, she hated her father.
Kurt watched Gabi emerge from a taxi and scurry across the yard. He yelled after her, but she ignored him so he ran to her door and knocked. No answer. He turned the knob. It was locked.
“Gabi, I know you’re in there. Let me in.”
“I need to be alone, Kurt. Please go away.”
“I’ll wait here then.” He leaned against the door, banging his head on the wood to a monotonous tempo, knowing that this was bound to annoy Gabi sooner or later. Sooner prevailed and after only a minute, his ploy had worked; she unlocked the door. Kurt entered the dimly lit room, moving silently behind the silhouette by the window and wrapping his arms around the frozen figure.
“What’s wrong?” he whispered into her hair. She turned to face him, her eyes swollen and red.
“You’ve been crying. Why?”
“Oh, Kurt,” she sobbed. “Papa’s a murderer. He ordered the killing of innocent people… children.”
“Whoa, slow down. What’s this about murder?”
Gabi explained. Kurt listened. He knew of the mass executions but like so many others, he turned a blind eye. What could he do? The situation was out of his control.