When everyone was thoroughly soaked, the rain stopped between one moment and the next, as if someone had turned a giant tap to ‘off’. At last he could hear what he had been waiting for, the distant blare of brass instruments, and chants that echoed through the night. Deutschland erwache, Juda verrecke. Germany awake, Jew die.
He joined the crowd as it streamed towards Unter den Linden, approaching via the central promenade, escorted by mounted police. The mass of students reached back to the Brandenburger Tor, a swaying sea of torches and flags. The trucks with the forbidden books came rolling across the central promenade, normally reserved for pedestrians. Uniformed students stood on the load platforms.
Above flags and torches emerged a long pole, onto which a head appeared to have been skewered, a bust of Magnus Hirschfeld, the sex researcher, who advocated that homosexuality go unpunished. Few here would have anything against seeing the head of the Jew faggot impaled for real but, like so many of the cowards whose books were being burned, Hirschfeld hadn’t set foot in Germany for years. His filthy institute had been ransacked the previous week.
As the procession approached, firemen poured canisters of petrol on the soaking pyre.
When they reached the square – corps students in full regalia, others in the uniforms of the SA and SS – they marched in formation to the SA brass band. This was what he loved about this German revolution: so well organised, so disciplined. No other among history’s revolutions could match theirs.
He made his way over to Hippler and Gutjahr, the two student leaders at Goebbels’ dinner, and was reaching to shake hands when Fritz Hippler raised his arm in a wordless Hitler salute. Herbert Gutjahr promptly followed. Glossing over his faux-pas Roddeck returned the greeting. The student leaders took him between them and positioned themselves beside the lectern, where they could watch like generals in battle. Dressed in their SA uniforms they hardly resembled students, although they were no older than twenty. Some of the torchbearers were even younger. Marching past, they threw their torches on the pyre and, with a mighty woof, the petrol erupted in blue flames.
Sandwiched between his hosts, Roddeck no longer dared look at his watch, but knew it must be close to eleven. Time was running away.
As the fire and the heat grew, the crowd retreated and soon even the trucks had to reverse away. Students formed human chains to transport the books to the flames. So young and enthusiastic, the dynamism of the new Germany was vibrantly present. This was a youth movement and the thought made him feel young again.
His novel had appeared at exactly the right time. But for Grimberg’s encouragement he would have taken years to finish, but he had been spurred on by the prospect of unearthing the Alberich gold. The book was meant to serve as bait but, if it continued to sell in such numbers, he would have no need of the spoils. He was one of the heroes of the new Germany.
If he could just do something about the fear, but since Wosniak’s death he had been scared stiff. The letter only made things worse.
The flames reflected back from the windows of the Opera House and the Kommode, the former royal library which was now the university assembly hall. Shadows danced across the faces in the crowd: an unreal, ghostly effect. He let his gaze wander over them. People were here from all sections of society. All could be future readers of his novel. He hesitated. It couldn’t be, could it? but… A face he hadn’t seen in sixteen years. A captain’s uniform from the war. Was it really the man they had been trying to draw out for weeks? Whose initial letter had so terrified them. Whom they hadn’t heard from in almost a year and the arrival of a second letter.
He scoured the crowd. There were any number of uniforms. Mostly SA and SS, but some Stahlhelmers too. A few veterans wore their uniforms from the war, but where he thought he had seen the captain a woman now stood. Behind her the crowd would be lost in darkness but for the flames in the trench mirrors.
Feverish now, he had to be sure he wasn’t imagining things. Gutjahr whispered, ‘When the band has finished, I will approach the lectern and introduce you’, but all at once Roddeck knew for sure. A better look focused on the unmistakable profile, the captain’s hat, Benjamin Engel in the fiery light looking at him through his spectacle lenses. Benjamin Engel pinning all three speakers with his gaze.
Roddeck’s eyes closed for a fraction of a second, a single blink, and when he opened them his view was blocked by the human chain. He had lost him again, but there was no doubt. Engel was waiting. He must have read about his appearance at the book burning in a paper somewhere. Achim von Roddeck was a public figure, and it was no secret that he would be here. Was this the moment of revenge Engel had been waiting for? Had the letter been a means of allaying Roddeck’s doubts?
He turned to the two students and said hoarsely, ‘Gutjahr, Hippler, I’m afraid I must disappoint you. My throat has not improved as I’d hoped. If anything, it’s gotten worse.’ He pressed his script on Gutjahr. ‘Read my words for me, and pass my regards to the Students’ Association. Best wishes for your action, only…’ He pointed again to his throat. ‘Only… I won’t be delivering any speeches tonight.’
Gutjahr was about to say something but a look from Hippler told him to keep quiet.
‘I’m very sorry, gentlemen. I was too optimistic. I should never have come here against the express advice of my doctor.’ Unable to face another moment in the beam of the spotlights, he plunged into darkness.
104
The new hero of German literature stood between two SA striplings, no doubt planning a big entrance. The popinjay couldn’t have wished for better publicity.
Friedrich Grimberg wondered if the whole thing might be coincidence: the letter arriving a few days after the inspector’s telephone call, and a few days after the photos. Someone must have pushed it through the letterbox. The coincidence being what he thought he had seen the night before, but written off as imagination, Captain Engel on board the suspension monorail as it passed outside his window, his face strangely clean-shaven, almost picture-perfect.
Opening the envelope, he recognised the signature and knew the sighting had been real. The same handwriting as the previous year’s letter, written in the same style. Only, this letter wasn’t threatening or abusive. On the contrary.
Grimberg began reading, even though by now he could practically recite its lines by heart.
I turn to you as the only living comrade whose address it has been possible for me to find. You have nothing to fear from me, I assure you, just as I did not murder our former comrades. Why should I do a thing like that? It is Lieutenant Roddeck who insists on dragging my name through the mire, no one else.
You, dear Grimberg, were absent at the time of the incident Roddeck so falsely represents in his novel, but believe me: I did not shoot the innocent children, nor did I shoot the soldier Wegener. I do not know who has the children on their conscience, since by the time I arrived they were already dead, but it was Roddeck, the lieutenant himself, who killed Wegener. I saw it with my own eyes.
He did it out of fear, and it is the same fear that drives him now. Fear of discovery. Is it not possible that he killed our comrades, in order to eliminate the last witnesses capable of exposing his mendacity?