I watched her face in the crystal. She couldn't move; she could only stare. I knew how many times she must have come here before, to stand silently in communion with those who had peopled her child's world: the ‘grown-ups’ of the doomed Fuhrerbunker, Uncle Hermann, Uncle Guenther, her own mother… and her god. She had known them and loved them, and they had turned, before her child's eyes, into creatures stranger than the fiends of a fable; and she herself had become as suddenly a changeling, first a child, then a freak, a werewolf with a child's face.
This much remained of all that she had known as home cold bones and bitter ash, cradled forever in the chill of glass.
Then her face was suddenly gone and all I could see was her reflected hand, raised and held palm-flattened. From behind me her voice came, a soft screech – "Heil Hitler!"
There were other voices, breaking to a murmur of approval, and I turned to see the group of men who stood watching her, moved by her cry of faith.
The black velvet came together silently.
Unnervingly, a telephone began ringing. It was the Reichsleiter who answered. He listened for a few seconds and then nodded, saying only: "Good. Very good." He lowered the receiver tenderly. To the others he said "Gentlemen, we must wish ourselves good fortune in our endeavours."
They closed around the desk and one of them took his hand. Oktober spoke to him and was answered. He turned towards me and I watched the steel trap of his mouth open and shut on a shouted order to the man who had never left his post at the doors.
"The prisoner will leave. He will not be molested. The order will be passed on."
I looked at Inga before I crossed to the doors. She said nothing. She turned and joined the throng of men at the Reichsleiter's desk.
The guard stood aside for me to pass, and spoke to others outside. The order was passed on as I went down the ten stairs and crossed the mezzanine, went down the fifteen stairs and reached the hall, took the nineteen paces to the entrance-doors and walked through them unchallenged.
The night struck deathly cold against my face. The lamps cast my shadow along the street as I went my way alone. I was free.
I was as free as Kenneth Lindsay Jones had been on the night he had walked out of that house.
20 : BUNKERKINDER
I walked towards the bridge.
KLJ had been found in the water but they said he'd been shot dead before immersion. Somewhere here, among these shadows where I walked, was the precise spot where he had crumpled to the bullet.
I still believed in my certainties that had led me to make this final single throw, but if some of them were wrong, if only one of them, the smallest, were wrong, my place would be here too: not at home nor down the road at the crossing nor far across the face of the earth – but here, and now.
It is a feeling that we sometimes have, when we've taken a calculated risk. We think: this move could kill me, so if I assume that it will, if I assume I'm already dead and finished, I won't have to worry or be afraid.
Fear of death can worsen the risk of meeting with it, because of stomach-think.
Just as I reached the beginning of the bridge a car came from a side-street and got up speed and as it passed me my nape shrank. The mental (brain-think) decision to assume death and so remove fear is a useful exercise, but the stomach thinks for itself.
The bridge was quiet, a chain of lamps and a gleam of water below. When I heard the footsteps I kept on walking and didn't turn round. There was probably no danger; if they decided to shoot me down they wouldn't hurry to catch me up like this.
They were nearing. I kept on. Then I knew. It was a woman in soft shoes.
"Quill… "
I stopped. She looked up into my face, panting. She said: "I had to make a show in front of them."
"Of course."
She gripped my arm. "It must have sounded terrible to you."
"A fraction embarrassing."
Her eyes flickered beyond me, checking shadows. "Please trust me. It's what I came to ask. Trust me."
"I trust you."
If I survived the mission there would have to be a full report sent in to the Bureau. Under the heading Inga Lindt there would be facts summarised. Give or take a few details the report would read:
First encounter: at the Neustadthalle Berlin. It was noticed that Lindt left the courtroom just ahead of me. It was likely that the driver of the crush-car (see elsewhere) was waiting for a signal that I was coming into the open street, so that he would have time to start the engine and get into gear. It was not thought at the time that Lindt made that signal, but later experience indicated it.
(Oktober mentioned that a portrait parle had been made of me subsequent to my having been seen in the courts – though not in the Neustadthalle. I was thus recognised going in, and Lindt was sent in with orders to leave just ahead of me and make a signal to the crush-car. It will be remembered from the earlier sections of this report that the crush-attempt was in fact made by a wild-head group in the Phoenix organisation, so that Lindt's orders would have come from them, not from Oktober. The top directive wanted me alive, for questioning under duress.)
Immediately following the crush-attempt, Lindt claimed that it was meant for her. This was an obvious line for me to follow. There was a conversation in her apartment during which she stated herself to be a defector from Phoenix. It is believed her description of early life and experiences in the Fuhrerbunker were perfectly true. It was now suspected, however, that she was still under the influence of Phoenix and might even be one of their operators.
This was confirmed by her mentioning to me that Rothstein was in Berlin. My immediate reaction was that (1) she knew I had once known him, (2) had been ordered to drop his name casually and (3) expected me to talk about him. I did not do this.
It was decided to visit Rothstein and discover if he knew of Phoenix, so that I could warn him that they knew his name. There were assistants in his laboratory and it was impossible to talk safely. He appeared to have a need to tell me something, but made no appointment to see me again.
The circumstances of Rothstein's death and my blame for it (by negligence) will be found under that heading. It is relevant to say here that in going to see him (as a direct result of Lindt's mention of his name) I exposed him to their increased suspicion. Had no visit been made, they might well have thought that there had never been any connection between us, and dismissed their suspicions. The fact of Lindt's mentioning his name led finally to his shooting. Thus I was now convinced she was a Phoenix agent.
It was decided that I should let her continue to play her part as a defector (anti-Phoenix) and that I should seem to continue to accept this. Certain personal feelings towards her were now intruding but they did not of course interfere in any way with the pursuance of my mission. It was in fact hoped that further contact with her might afford me information on Phoenix.
Concerning the attempt by Oktober to force admissions from me in Lindt's apartment by seeming to submit her to physical torture in my presence, the full details will be found under the relevant heading Interrogation. It should be noted here that I became aware that Lindt underwent – at this precise time – a psychological change. My own theories on this may be untenable to a psychologist but they should be detailed in this report, since the whole of my subsequent course of action stemmed therefrom.
Lindt was obsessed with the concept of total strength. As a child she had been given faith in Adolf Hitler and it was no less feverish than was found in millions of her own country-people. Following the Fuhrer's suicide, and her own psychical trauma caused by the final hours in the besieged Fuhrerbunker, she retained that faith and was ripe for subsequent indoctrination into the Phoenix creed, which derived its very name from the idea that the Fuhrer had risen from his ashes. He was therefore – to Lindt – still a god, and still totally strong. She allied herself with men whom she believed to be unbreakable. (The personality of Oktober – a Reichsfuhrer in the organisation – gave an impression of total unbreakable strength.) It was during Oktober's attempt to interrogate me under pressures induced by my fears for her while she was apparently being tortured in my presence that she met with a psychological confrontation that unbalanced her values. During this interrogation I was aware (1) that she was not in fact suffering distress but lending herself to a new method of inducing me to talk, (2) I must appear to believe that she was being tortured and (3) I must get out of the corner without revealing that I knew her to be an agent, in case I could use her later as a source of information. (Reference Point 2: the moment I realised that Oktober had come to simulate a torture-scene, I made myself believe in it, so that all my subsequent actions should appear consistent. This deliberate self-deception was an aid in throwing the faint.)