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The Whistler: The Story of a Murderer

By Ben Stevens

Copyright © Ben Stevens 2013

First published 2013

This edition 2016

The moral right of Ben Stevens to be identified as the author of this work has

been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act

of 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system or transmitted in any forms or by any means, electronic,

mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission

of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book

*

Act 1 – The Whistler

Act 2 – Marie

Act 3 – Revenge?

The Whistler

1

London 1999

He was a killer...

But no one crowding the concert hall foyer knew that. Only once had Kurt Schmidt been recognised; and to solve that problem he'd simply murdered again. His ruined face – the reason why people glanced at him and then looked too quickly away – had otherwise disguised his identity for over fifty years...

'Sir?' said the woman sitting behind the counter. 'May I see your ticket please, sir?'

'Ticket, yes,' said Schmidt curtly, for he spoke little English.

Suddenly the pain lanced inside his stomach, causing him to catch his breath. The half of his face that was not a mass of burnt flesh briefly registered his discomfort, before Schmidt again exercised his iron self-control.

The woman behind the counter, however, had seen enough.

'Sir?' she said with concern. 'Are you all right?'

'Yes,' Schmidt repeated.

He took the ticket stub bearing his seat number and walked away, mingling with the other concertgoers as they moved into the large hall. The raised stage contained a multitude of chairs and instruments. Soon the orchestra would emerge, along with the man whom Schmidt had flown especially from Germany to see.

Pain continued to plague Schmidt, who determinedly sought to ignore it. He'd taken some of the painkillers given to him by his doctor before leaving his London hotel, although these were steadily becoming less effective.

Two more months, at the most three, the doctor had warned, and then...

Schmidt wasn't scared of dying. But before that happened, he needed to attend to a matter of vital importance. He discreetly felt for the weapon hidden inside his inner jacket pocket, reassuring himself it was still there...

Yes, it was.

Tonight, he vowed, following this performance.

2

'Ten minutes, Mr Heinemann,' said a male voice from behind the closed door.

'Yes, thank you,' replied the elderly violinist, sat within his dressing room.

He had on the black dinner jacket he always wore for such performances, although it was his habit to wait until the very last minute before putting on his bow tie.

Just why, he wondered, did he feel so anxious – so on edge? Naturally there was always some degree of tension before a performance, but tonight...

Tonight was somehow different. Something just didn't feel right – but what? It was to be a fairly straightforward recital; the sort of thing Heinemann had done hundreds of times over the years, all over the world...

So why this strange sense of trepidation, as though he was facing some great danger?

Why were those old, murky memories being stirred? Of rifle butts and clubs, of blood stains on a concrete floor, of perpetual cold, pain and hunger...?

Then, even more strangely, Heinemann's memories suddenly went further back. Returning right to the very days of his childhood –

...That battered old violin he'd found in the attic of the ramshackle house belonging to his aunt, just months after she'd taken him in following the death of his parents in an automobile accident... That shady wood where he'd taken this violin, his musical efforts having quickly become too much for his aunt to bear... The hours he'd spent just trying to extract a note that was pleasing to the ear...

Once this had been achieved, Heinemann recalled, his progress had quickly become phenomenal. His aunt listened amazed as he repeated –albeit a little falteringly – the violin parts he heard coming from her gramophone.

'This is quite incredible,' she said softly, only a few months after the boy had found the instrument. 'I don't know where you get this talent from – your parents never had the least gift for music...'

Upon the death of Herr Trutz – the ancient teacher at the small parish school – a stout woman called Frau Dressler took over the children's class. She displayed an uncommon interest in Heinemann's extra-curricular musical activities. He was by now almost fourteen, an age when education finished and a choice was made: to stay in the tiny village of Hegensdorf that lay to the east of Germany and work on the land, or move to a city, if such a thing was possible.

Frau Dressler made this so for Heinemann.

'I have an acquaintance who runs an academy in Berlin,' she informed the teenager – 'an academy for exceptionally gifted young musicians. This, I think, is you.'

Following a discussion with his aunt, Heinemann decided to go to Frau Stielke's Musical Academy. He had already been accepted purely on Frau Dressler's recommendation.

'Yes, you must, Eric,' said his aunt enthusiastically, as they sat eating dinner one evening. 'I think there's more in you than just a farm labourer, and who knows what opportunities you will be given?'

She hid her concerns from her nephew. Hegensdorf may have been a particularly isolated village, dependant almost on a system of barter when times were hard – but still she recognised the anti-Semitism that was seeping like poison through Germany's populace.

Perhaps, she considered bleakly, it was a good thing that her brother and his Jewish wife were dead – for such mixed marriages were beginning to be frowned upon. But this being the case, how could the half-Jewish teenager expect to fare in Berlin?

A month later Heinemann and his aunt were standing at the train station. In one hand Heinemann carried his suitcase, in the other his ancient, beloved violin.

As the train puffed into the station, Heinemann's aunt said, 'Remember, Erich, you must always be polite and attentive. This is a chance in a million, and you must grab it with both hands.'

Her eyes misted with tears as she waved the teenager goodbye, the train pulling away, beginning the long journey to Berlin and possible danger.

3

Works by Stravinsky, Schumann, Mozart and one other composer whose name Kurt Schmidt didn't recognise were being performed tonight. Schmidt particularly enjoyed Schumann's 'Violin Concerto in D Minor' – but really, so long as Heinemann was playing Schmidt would listen to anything.

Schmidt stood up twice, to allow people to get to their seats that were beyond his own. He gave the grimace that passed for his smile when they thanked him. Then he sat down and prepared himself for a feast of classical music, to be given by a genius and an orchestra of international repute.

Strange, but Schmidt (who rarely if ever considered his past – what was the use?) could now not help but remember himself as a young man. For such memories were closely allied with the first time he'd ever seen Erich Heinemann perform.

It had been...

...1939, Schmidt remembered, six or so months before the war had begun. Schmidt had already gone into hiding from the Socialists, who viewed with extreme displeasure the type of vagabond lifestyle he led.

So he shared an abandoned house with three others who also had good reason to conceal themselves from the Nazis. They all did what they had to do in order to survive; Schmidt himself mugged and burgled and periodically murdered, all of which provided him with the money to be able to eat. He'd always lived so, even as a child, for at an early age he'd been abandoned by his mother – a feeble-minded whore – following his father's suicide.

He was in his element during the night, the dark concealing him as he roamed around Berlin, observing the well-to-do as they led a riotous life of theatres, restaurants and night clubs, high on champagne, cocaine and their belief in the invincible might of Germany.

Like a rat Schmidt shied away from noise and bright lights, all the while searching for the inevitable gentleman who'd had too much to drink and was now on his own in a dark and unfamiliar part of the city...

It was during one of his night-time escapades that Schmidt happened to sneak through an open side-door into the Aalto Theatre, a large, white-painted building situated beside the River Spree, close to the Tiergarten. He was searching for something to steal – but as he ventured cautiously along darkened corridors, he was suddenly captivated by what he heard coming from beyond the heavy black curtains directly in front of him.

A number of instruments were playing – but it was one of the violins that really captured Schmidt's attention. Never before had he been exposed to a sweeter, more thrilling sound; it somehow stirred (if still only partially) feelings and emotions within him that had until now been entirely dormant.

He stood as though frozen, scarcely daring to breathe, let alone move. He was determined that nothing would spoil this brief, exquisite time; he could hardly believe the effect the music was having upon him...

And then, when it finally ended in a shattering crescendo that set Schmidt's thoughts whirling, he felt consumed with the desire to know who was capable of playing the violin with such evident genius.

He moved towards the curtains, his hands starting to move them apart...

Fool! There were a mass of people on the other side! Did he wish to be seen, to be discovered, to be captured?

But – !

For just a fraction of a second, wholly unable to help himself, Schmidt stared through the tiniest gap in the curtains and saw the violin player.

It was a boy – nothing but a skinny teenage boy dressed in an ill-fitting black dinner jacket!

But the way Schmidt felt at that moment, the music reverberating inside his skull, he might just as well have seen God. He turned and walked rapidly away from the curtains, returning towards the open side-door, the boy's thin, almost sallow features stored within his mind.

Some day, he vowed...

Someday I'll hear this boy-genius play again...

All the ground-floor windows of the house where Schmidt resided were smashed, only a few boarded up. The warped backdoor was always unlocked and opened with some difficulty into the kitchen. Broken pots, pans and plates littered what had once been the sink, the pattern of the large rug that covered most of the floor almost obliterated with ingrained grime.

A Jewish couple and an artist occupied the two other rooms downstairs, effectively giving Schmidt the entire first floor as his own. Although the room he actually occupied was at the rear of the house, the window that was approximately sixteen feet above the garden serving as a useful exit, should it ever be needed.

The strong possibility of discovery made the artist thin and continually fatigued. The Jewish couple, meanwhile, appeared absolutely terrified unless they were drunk, which indeed most of the time they were.

Schmidt, however, easily existed on the brief napping he allowed himself. He was unable to feel any significant worry, depression or fear regarding his circumstances – even when, one night just a few days before Christmas, the Socialists finally came for him and the three others.

Unfortunately for Schmidt, he had – unusually – elected to remain indoors that evening. He'd ample food, money sufficient for the next few days, and the cold penetrated his very bones. Rain enforced the desire to stay huddled inside his old blankets, and by candlelight Schmidt gnawed on a cold sausage, trying to extract what warmth he could from the meagre heat of the flame.

The sudden splintering of the front door caused him to hurriedly get up, throwing aside the blankets as he heard the door come crashing down, men shouting as they entered the house.

'Everyone remain where you are! You are all under arrest!'

The cries of the Jewish couple and the artist were silenced with blows audible to Schmidt upstairs. He blew out the candle and paused, listening: there was no indication that anybody was coming up the stairs.

No sense of hope filled him, and so nothing was dashed when he then heard a tentative step on the first stair. He heard paranoid whispering – upstairs might be a group of armed Jewish men ready to fight to the bitter end. He heard guns being cocked, and then the men began their cautious ascent.

Despite knowing any attempt at escape to be ultimately futile, Schmidt nevertheless opened his window and climbed out. He hung by his fingers from the ledge before dropping to the ground, his ankle buckling as he landed in the overgrown garden.

A cry came from his room, telling Schmidt what he already knew: there were other members of the Gestapo watching the rear of the house. Ignoring the pain protesting in his ankle, he ran quickly across the garden.

As he entered the alleyway, a man collided into him. Blood sprayed from the man's face as Schmidt instantly knocked his adversary to the ground with a volley of punches.

And then another figure appeared, pointing a pistol directly at Schmidt's forehead.

'Stay absolutely still, or I'll blow your brains out!'

Schmidt nodded once, and without expression raised his hands as men came up behind him, cursing the swine who'd hurt one of their colleagues...

4

'Two minutes, Mr Heinemann.'

For whatever reason, the elderly violinist now felt as nervous as when he'd first arrived in Berlin, all those years before...

Yes, the city had been gigantic – absolutely teeming with life and a world apart from Hegensdorf. Gigantic red and white swastika banners hung from the upper windows of the massive brick-built buildings; members of the Hitler Youth strutted confidently around, distributing leaflets which explained the National Socialist's latest agenda

Frau Stielke – the owner of the Academy – had herself come to meet Heinemann at the train station, brusquely escorting him to a waiting car. The excitement he felt at his first ever ride in such a vehicle was sobered by the woman sat beside him – Stielke was small, fat, and had a slight but still definite moustache. Several unsightly moles were clustered on her right cheek, while a cigarette seemed to be permanently attached to her wet bottom lip.

Her initial greeting to the teenage boy had been curt to the point of rudeness. Now she eyed him with active distaste; Heinemann felt her gaze cutting into him, exposing the fear he felt – the fear at being alone in a city he was beginning to realise was not of a friendly disposition towards him.

Recalling his aunt's advice to be polite, he tried to make conversation with the ugly woman.

'Thank you for meeting me at the station, Frau Stielke. I am looking forward to beginning my studies.'

But his words were met with such a hostile stare that he shut his mouth immediately, and looking at the rear-view mirror he saw the driver smirking.

The majority of the Academy's pupils bordered in dormitories attached to the main building, segregated according to their age and sex. Lights went out at nine o'clock each night, and they were up and washed by seven the following morning, in time for breakfast before their lessons began.

Heinemann's position became uncomfortable within the first week of his being at the Academy. In one class, the children were taught that the population of the world could be divided into race groups – and that the Jews came lowest in this grouping. It was at this point that Heinemann first realised that the eyes of the class, as well as the teacher, were upon him.

To add to this, the musical theory lessons (which were taken by Frau Stielke herself) exposed almost immediately a massive flaw in her friend Frau Dressler's recommendation of the young, half-Jewish violinist – for he could not read music.

The black dots on the five lines meant nothing to Heinemann, as he'd previously relied solely on his ear to learn pieces. The small class sniggered as he stood with his violin, staring hopelessly at the sheet music Stielke had ordered him to play.

'How dare you come here, to waste my own and these pupils' time!' she screamed at him.

Heinemann looked at the floor as the verbal attack continued. But slowly, he felt his initial shame and fear change to become a type of anger he'd never before experienced. His usually quiet, reserved character blanched at this new emotion – and then welcomed it. It felt both protective and extremely strengthening; while this anger raged Heinemann felt as though he could destroy the world.

The anger continued to burn as he looked at the teacher, but outwardly he displayed no trace of it – if anything he appeared penitent.

'Frau Stielke, I apologise to you and the other members of the class for my ignorance. If you will grant me just a little time I will do my best to learn to read music,' he said solemnly.

This appeared to partially pacify Stielke; she announced that she would personally instruct him for an hour each day – while the others pupils had their lunch-break – for a month. If he'd not made reasonable progress by then he would be out of the Academy.

The other students barely repressed their laughter: Erich Heinemann had around thirty hours to reach a level of proficiency in reading music it had taken them most of their conscious lives to achieve.

Heinemann's extra lessons commenced the following day; for an hour the head of the Academy incessantly lectured him. By the end his head ached with the talk of 'sharps,' 'flats,' and the letter given to a particular dot on a particular 'stave'.

There would now be no chance for him to rest during the day. From half past seven until noon he learned history, mathematics and other, academic subjects; from one o'clock until six o'clock the emphasis was purely on music.

Frau Stielke remorselessly corrected her young students on their technique, posture, and anything else with which she could find the slightest fault. No mistake, no matter how minor, escaped her ears and eyes.

Heinemann made valiant attempts to learn the strange language of music, hoping that the dots and lines would suddenly make perfect sense – that they would magically become as clear as the words of a child's book, allowing him to sight-read with all the nonchalance displayed by his peers.

But still his situation seemed untenable; fifteen days remained to the end of the month and he was no closer to learning to read music.

The dormitory lights went out at nine o'clock, and for a while the students would hear Frau Stielke stealthily padding around outside. Occasionally she would hear someone talking and burst in, turning on the dazzling light so as to make her entrance all the more dramatic.

Long after she'd given up and gone away Heinemann lay awake, sleep made impossible both through the worry that he would be thrown out of the Academy and the bright moonlight that spilt unnaturally across his bed, distinguishing him from the other snoring pupils.

He was good – he knew he was good. Given the right circumstances he would be the very best. He felt a strong sense of pride, only now realising the disadvantages he'd overcome while learning the violin in his own manner. There had been no rich parents to provide him with the best instrument and tutor – only his peers had enjoyed such luxuries as these.

With such help nearly anyone could be in their privileged position: it was not a natural gift. Heinemann considered their playing stiff and unnatural: there was no colour to it.

Years later he would understand that this had simply been a musical reflection of the turgid, repressed nature of the time. Nothing was meant to have its own sound or character; it had to be uniform, faultlessly engineered to be part of the Machine.

Yes – he was able to recall the names of the notes as they moved chromatically along the four strings of the violin. But he needed to see the way they were written musically, to mentally photograph the black dots so that they made perfect sense when he played the instrument.

On that eerie moonlit night, the demon that would drive him so remorselessly over the following years entered his mind, so that he slipped silently from out of his bed and left the dormitory.

He stole through darkened rooms and corridors, his dressing-gowned figure occasionally reflected on a wall by the light of this strange moon. It wasn't long before he was inside the actual Academy – having discovered with some surprise that every door in his path was unlocked – and had found what he was looking for.

It was a transcription of a piece for the violin, and momentarily he considered taking it to the cell-like practice rooms where his violin was stored. This, however, would have been insanity: his discovery by the caretaker would mean instant dismissal from the Academy, or at the very least a severe warning that would make his already bleak prospects even worse.

Heinemann quickly walked back and noiselessly entered the dormitory. For a while he stood observing his peers. There were nine of them in all, five on one side and four on the other. Their chubby, irritable expressions suggested a pampered life, and he smiled upon noticing one who looked uncommonly like a little pig.

This brief amusement over he climbed back into bed, just able to read the transcription by the extraordinarily bright light of the moon. He moved along the notes as slowly as he had words when a young boy, only this time his aunt was not there to painstakingly correct his every mistake.

He realised where the notes should go on the violin's neck, his fingers instinctively framing the imaginary positions and moving as he considered the easiest way to facilitate his fingering.

It was two o'clock in the morning by the time he finished and hid the sheet music beneath his mattress. His eyes ached with the strain of reading the printed music, but he had learned a lot – far more than he would have done in the hour spent each day with Frau Stielke ranting incessantly on.

And so when he played the following day Stielke could hardly believe it. He'd advanced incredibly – unbelievably! – in just twenty-four hours, and the hesitant, incredulous thought occurred to her that she just might have a real individual attending the Academy; someone who had their own style.

The other pupils were disappointed; they'd hoped that he would be thrown out of the Academy, that the one whom they called kike amongst themselves would receive his deserved comeuppance.

What they found extremely disconcerting was just how good he was becoming; he was fast catching up with their own standard of musicianship, in spite of his poor instrument and (until now) lack of proper musical instruction.

It was unfortunate for Frau Stielke that her prodigiously talented student was half-Jewish, and therefore precisely what the ruling Socialists didn't want. But the boy had excelled himself in fulfilling what she'd personally considered to be an impossible demand – so she would remain true to her word and allow him to remain at the Academy.

5

Schmidt felt his sense of anticipation rise as the members of the orchestra took their places on the stage. Now it only remained for Heinemann to appear. When was the last time Schmidt had seen the violinist – in the flesh, so to speak?

Ah, of course. It had been in that place. For a moment Schmidt struggled to recall why he'd ever been there himself; and then he remembered –

...It had all begun with a brutal beating at Gestapo headquarters, fists and boots raining down on Schmidt as that dreary, nasal voice he would come to know so well had catalogued his assorted crimes.

'Burglary... assault... cavorting with undesirables and avoiding military service,' Commissioner Sasse intoned, seated in a cold stone room that had on one wall a swastika banner and a large portrait of the Fuhrer.

Opposite Sasse – across a wooden desk – was another chair, which Schmidt had been sat upon for barely a minute before a punch to the face had sent him sprawling onto the floor.

Sasse's voice suddenly increased in pitch:

'We are at war! Men like you should be doing your duty to the Fatherland and fighting at the front, not creeping around like a weasel, robbing good citizens as they relax after a hard day spent helping the war effort.

'Look at you – a strong German man and you associate with Jews. Are you a homosexual?'

This sudden question concerning his sexual orientation momentarily confused Schmidt – for he'd never possessed any desire for either sex. Love, lust or even friendship were things he could never feel.

He did, however, know the correct answer to give.

'No, Herr Commissioner.'

'You are twenty-one years old, sound in wind and limb – do you not want to be with the other boys, busy changing the course of history?'

Schmidt's lips had ballooned in size due to the beating, so that he'd difficulty in mumbling, 'I do, Herr Commissioner.'

As he spoke, Schmidt thought about the three other residents of the house who'd also been captured: the Jewish couple (he didn't know what the Gestapo had done with them) and the artist.

When Schmidt had seen the artist coming out of the interrogation room, blood streaming from his face and scarcely able to walk, he'd fully realised what awaited him.

Commissioner Sasse lit a cigar, stood up, and walked over to the huge six-foot by four-foot double windows. For a while he said nothing, smoking as he observed the cobbled courtyard below – a courtyard where several men had met their deaths upon being thrown outside.

He turned back round to face Schmidt.

'It's too late for apologies,' he said curtly, and the guard who'd been beating Schmidt hungrily licked his lips. It was time – though he'd require some help to lob this big bastard outside.

The guard's deadly intentions were, however, balked by the decision Sasse had actually made.

'I'm sending you to a certain type of prison where you'll be in good company,' the Gestapo Commissioner said. 'There you can shovel sand or something of the sort, and I can guarantee you that after a month of this you'll be begging to go and fight with the boys. All right? Now go to hell.'

With that Schmidt was taken from the room and down to the cells, two men clad in black uniforms and holding sub-machineguns stood by the bricked arch that was the entrance. Schmidt was escorted along a narrow, ill-lit corridor, the guard opening the last door on the right.

As he was pushed inside, Schmidt saw the artist.

The Gestapo had beaten this man with far greater severity than they had him – he'd suffered worse as a teenager in street fights. Split lips, what felt like a cracked rib and a bleeding nose were superficial wounds – they healed quickly.

Schmidt noticed how the artist covered his right hand with the left; his head had swelled in size, and only one eye remained sufficiently open for him to be able to see.

The artist looked at him and spoke with difficulty; Schmidt had to listen carefully to what was being said through the smashed mouth:

'What did they say to you?'

Schmidt shrugged, his beaten face customarily barren of expression, and sat down on the stone bench next to the artist. The cell was freezing but no blankets had been provided, which surprised neither man.

'I've got to wait and see what happens. As for now, I'm going to be put in some prison camp,' he replied.

The artist swallowed repeatedly as his body convulsed with fear.

'I know it. They've said I'm going there too. It's called Sachsenhausen.'

Schmidt shrugged again – then, as the artist put his battered face in his hands, Schmidt saw what had been done to him. All the nails had been torn out of the fingers belonging to his right hand. His fingers were horribly swollen, like bloody sausages.

'They say they're going to shoot me if I don't change my mind,' the artist mumbled.

'Change your mind about what?'

'Fighting.'

'So fight, then.'

The artist shook his head with all the defiance that was left in him.

'I will not. I am a pacifist.'

'Then you will die,' Schmidt said simply, closing his eyes and shutting off his thoughts as the man began to sob...

...Schmidt awoke as the cell door opened: Commissioner Sasse entered, accompanied by a guard with a sub-machinegun. As he moved Schmidt felt his cracked or broken rib; he breathed through his mouth, his nose too blocked with dried blood to be of any respiratory use.

The artist remained asleep.

'Wake this degenerate up,' Sasse instructed the guard, who roughly shook the thin man's shoulder.

Awakening, the artist looked fearfully out of his good eye as Sasse said officiously:

'Kurt Schmidt and Odilo Kriesshaber, you are both guilty of cowardice and degeneracy in avoiding the war effort, and in associating with those of Jewish origin.

'Schmidt – your activities of the last year are well documented, and I personally suspect you of having committed several as-yet unsolved murders. Unfortunately there is no way of proving this.

'The man you hit so cruelly during the course of your arrest is slowly recovering, and for that you should be immensely grateful. Had he died or been left crippled I would have had you executed immediately.'

Schmidt bowed his head in what he hoped appeared to be a penitent gesture, as Sasse continued:

'Kriesshaber, your work is degenerate and against that which is aesthetically acceptable to the Reich. You are by now aware of what we can to do those who oppose the Fuhrer – and so Germany – in their actions.

'But there is no reason for you to carry on with your stupidity, and you will be pleased to hear that once recovered from your injuries you will receive your posting to an infantry unit instead of being sent to prison.'

A battle appeared to rage within the tortured artist. His battered face contorted as he thought, his body shaking; and then came the decisive reply.

'Never. I will never fight for Adolf Hitler. I will not lay down my life for such an evil regime.'

Sasse shook his head.

'You are a stupid, stupid man.'

He nodded to the guard, who produced a pistol from a holster as Kriesshaber summoned all the defiance his pathetic, beaten body could muster.

'Long live Freedom,' he whispered, before a solitary shot from the pistol bucked him backwards and made the stone wall behind wet with blood.

Sasse looked impassively at Schmidt.

'What about you?' he asked.

Schmidt looked steadily at him, saying slowly, 'Herr Commissioner, I have been stupid and misguided. I would like the chance to correct my mistakes by doing whatever you think is appropriate.'

Unbelievably, Sasse grinned.

'That's more like it,' he said jovially, and turning round to face the guard he asked, 'Isn't that more like it?'

The man who wore a black uniform nodded uncertainly, but when he looked back at Schmidt his eyes were hard. He preferred it when such animals were given the treatment they deserved.

Sasse shrugged and the grin disappeared.

'That said, you still have to atone for your actions. So you will be sent to Sachsenhausen while it is decided just what should be done with you.'

Schmidt was handcuffed and escorted from the cell up several stone flights of stairs until he found himself in the Gestapo offices. The beaten, dirty young man was led past female typists who wore copious amounts of red lip-stick and made the air thick with cigarette smoke. None of these – mainly young – women took any notice of him at all.

He was led out to the courtyard and a waiting flatbed truck. He was ordered to climb into the back of this vehicle, where he sat beneath a dark green canvas cover that served as the roof. Several similarly handcuffed men sat on two wooden planks placed either side, two soldiers armed with machineguns sitting slightly apart from them.

The drive took approximately an hour, the truck heading north towards the outskirts of Berlin. Schmidt followed the route taken, his concealed interest contrasting with the despair wholly evident in the other men. Being late December it was freezing; Schmidt was dressed only in trousers, a shirt and jumper, his bruised face reddened by the biting wind.

Arriving at Sachsenhausen, the men were stripped of their clothing and ordered to shower. They were then given their camp uniform and tattooed on their right arm – a form of identification that could never be lost or misplaced.

Sachsenhausen contained Poles, Jews, and convicted criminals. There were also those imprisoned under the 'Night and Fog' directive given by Adolf Hitler, who decreed that those who interfered with the running of the country, in whatever way, should simply vanish from society. In the camp these prisoners had the letters N.N – Nacht und Nebel – next to their names, showing that they were scheduled for execution.

Schmidt was put to work stacking the bricks produced by the camp's brickworks, which he did consistently and with no sign of weakening despite the meagre rations the inmates received.

Surprisingly, Commissioner Sasse proved to be something of an irregular visitor, and he would talk to Schmidt as he worked. The Gestapo man was getting fatter, and always had a thick fur coat wrapped round him.

'Enjoying yourself? Nice healthy exercise for a young man, this. Can't have scum like you polluting Germany again just yet, you know, so I think that you can stay here for a little while longer.'

The Commissioner also approached some of the other criminals – but never the Poles, Jews or political prisoners – imprisoned at Sachsenhausen, his attitude either strangely friendly or chillingly aggressive... Soon Schmidt suspected that Sasse was attempting to select a certain amount of men for some as-yet unknown task.

From the comments he'd heard being made among some other inmates, Schmidt knew that he wasn't alone in this suspicion. So, already tired of this camp, Schmidt decided that whatever this mysterious task might be, he would be ready for it...

He'd inevitably become acquainted with a few of the other inmates. Yet he talked to no one if he could help it, his powerful physique and cold stare ensuring that a quarrel was never picked with him.

There was only one man whom Schmidt really didn't like, though not because of the crimes he'd committed – such things were of no significance to Schmidt whatsoever. It was in fact nothing other than Grobauer's revolting mannerisms and strident voice that caused him to feel moderate annoyance, which was something he'd never previously experienced.

Grobauer – he was known by only the one name – was short, pot-bellied and possessed a distinctly porcine face. It would hardly have surprised the other inmates had they observed a short, twisty tail emerging out of his fat backside one morning.

But their knowledge of the crimes he'd committed stopped the inmates from deriving any great amusement from his appearance. For Grobauer had been sent to Sachsenhausen for the rape and murder of several young women. (Once, having been surprised in the act of murder by his vicim's two children, he'd killed them as well.) It was rumoured Grobauer had friends in high places – no one could understand how else he'd escaped being given the death-penalty.

He possessed a particularly menacing air – it was common knowledge that he had (at night, in the prison barracks) strangled two men since his arrival at the prison camp – and as such he wielded a great deal of influence among the other prisoners. He did, however, leave Kurt Schmidt well alone, instinctively recognising that this strong, expressionless man disliked him.

One morning Schmidt was busy working outside, when a guard informed him that Commissioner Sasse was awaiting his company in a nearby building.

'Sit down, sit down,' came the almost friendly instruction from the fat Gestapo man, as Schmidt entered a small room that basked in the heat from a small fire. There was an oak desk with two ornate chairs placed either side of it, one of which was occupied by Sasse. A painting of Adolf Hitler clad in knight's armour hung on the wall behind him.

Seating himself, Schmidt listened as the Commissioner said, 'I assume you've had enough of Sachsenhausen, so this is how it is: we can't have scum like you mixing with our boys in the field – that would never do. But for all of that, we can't have strong men idling away in places like these either, wasting money feeding them that the war effort requires.'

Opening a black file with an embossed gold eagle in its centre, a swastika held in its talons, Sasse read for a while.

Then transferring his attention back to Schmidt, he said quietly, 'Sachsenhausen isn't the only concentration camp, Schmidt, and I've been instructed to obtain staff for one in Poland. You see what I'm getting at? That's all I'll say at this moment. You have a choice in the matter, which is more than you deserve: you can refuse or accept as you see fit.'

That he'd only the vaguest idea concerning what was on offer didn't concern Schmidt in the slightest. This was a chance to escape captivity – there was nothing worse – and so he said, 'I accept, Herr Commissioner.'

Staring hard at him, Sasse said, 'You understand that you'll have to obey every order without question or hesitation, no matter what you may think of it?'

'Yes, Herr Commissioner.'

'Then you'll hear about this again. As for now, get back to work, so that you look forward to my next visit.'

A guard escorted Schmidt back outside. Upon his return, the guard stood waiting as Sasse spent several minutes rereading whatever was written within the file.

'Go and get me this degenerate Grobauer,' he eventually ordered.

It took the Commissioner the rest of the day to conduct brief interviews with some fifty other inmates. He was a great deal harsher with many of these than he'd been with Schmidt – for he couldn't help but almost like that handsome young man.

It was no easy task Sasse had been assigned: to obtain thirty men from Sachsenhausen to act as barrack chiefs at a concentration camp in Upper Silesia, Poland.

His definite choices so far included Grobauer– the man was an absolute animal but he would follow orders faithfully; he would not be concerned about what he witnessed. There were a few others similar to him in character, and so naturally they would do as well.

But Schmidt...

Sasse puzzled over this particular inmate as he sipped a strong black coffee and scrutinised his file. Schmidt was an oddity; there was nothing remotely obvious about him, as there was with Grobauer and the rest of his ilk.

Sasse was certain that Schmidt had never actually enjoyed committing a crime (such a thing instead being done purely for something like financial gain) – and so he briefly wondered what on Earth gave this expressionless young man pleasure, if indeed there was anything.

Having been given far too important a task for a mistake to be made in the personnel department, the Commissioner vowed to consider Schmidt at length before matters were taken any further.

6

As Heinemann followed a steward from his dressing room towards the stage, he remembered how all his hard work at Stielke's Music Academy had finally – after nearly four years – been rewarded.

He'd long since risen to become the Academy's most promising student. Frau Stielke herself frequently boasted about the seventeen-year-old prodigy whom she'd discovered, dismissing the concerns of those who sought to remind her that for all his undoubted excellence he was still half-Jewish. The Nazis were only against full Jews, she argued: being a half-Jew – a Mischling – wouldn't significantly affect Heinemann's likelihood of becoming one of Germany's finest musicians.

Such praise resulted in Heinemann being accepted to Berlin's elite Humboldt University to continue his music studies a year before he would usually have been eligible. There was absolutely no point in him remaining at the Academy; he'd progressed as far as it was possible for him to go there.

To prepare for this transition Heinemann had already left the Academy's dormitories for lodgings half an hour's tram ride away, Frau Stielke having used her contacts to obtain the Mischling a room in a run-down house.

On the last day of July he finished at the Academy, saying a rather muted farewell to his classmates. Aware that they despised him both for his talent and his mixed-race, he was still largely unconcerned by the whispering and malevolent stares his thin person attracted.

The violin was his saviour, his guard against anything... unfortunate... befalling him. Despite being a Mischling he'd been accepted to Humboldt University – so he felt that he'd no real need to fear the rabid anti-Semitism that was fast developing within Germany.

The battered old instrument he'd found in his aunt's attic had already been replaced by a far superior model, 'leant' (as she termed it) by Frau Stielke so that he could perform at whatever occasions she managed to arrange for him.

Such occasions had two purposes: firstly, to show him off to as many people as was possible; and secondly, to provide him with some money with which to pay his rent and purchase food. The pitiful amount he actually earned was of little importance to Heinemann. Technically he was a semi-professional musician, and as such he felt an undeniable thrill.

Back in his room, he lay on his mattress and read one of his few dog-eared books. From further along the landing there suddenly came hoarse, drunken singing. Heinemann swore, wondering if this would continue into the small hours as it had before, the old sailor who lived in another room on the first floor preventing him from getting to sleep.

But in spite of the racket he found his eyes closing more and more frequently as he attempted to read, until he dropped the book on his chest and slept...

...The grey light of dawn crept into the little room. Heinemann slowly awoke, gazing with half-opened eyes at the brown wallpaper, the large chest of drawers beside his bed...

Utter silence – the sailor never started his racket until late-afternoon at the earliest. Getting up off the bed and rubbing sleep from his eyes, Heinemann left his room and walked along the narrow landing to the communal toilet and bathroom.

Today he was due to perform for some of Berlin's most important women, including – Stielke had already confided – the wife of a Gestapo Commissioner.

This selective clique periodically met in a nearby hall for a morning of coffee, cakes and conversation, so filling the dreary daytime hours until they could properly begin the riotous night-life that was the entitlement of the rich.

After breakfasting off the last of his bread and cold sausage Heinemann left the house carrying his violin, catching a tram and travelling the short distance to an area markedly more prosperous than his own.

His exit from the tram was observed by two members of the Sturmabteilung – the SA, the National Socialist's paramilitary organisation – who muttered to each other but did not ask him for his papers. Heinemann followed Stielke's written instructions to find the hall that was set in a small leafy park.

As he walked through an open wrought-iron gate, he observed the expensive cars parked along a surrounding street. Inside, the waiting chauffeurs were mostly taking the opportunity to snatch a quick nap. Heinemann then opened the large oak door of the hall straight into a huge room thick with the cloying atmosphere of perfume, tobacco, and coffee.

From out of the assembled throng – Heinemann had never imagined that there would be this many women – there suddenly appeared Frau Stielke. The women's appearance was shockingly different from normal; she was dressed like something from a cabaret show in a white suit, which with her short and severely gelled hair would have made her appear almost androgynous, had it not been for her large bosom and a surfeit of glossy purple lipstick.

Clutching his arm with her stumpy little hand, she gabbled, 'Erich, you must play well today, understand? It's so important that you do.'

Despising the way his former tutor talked to him as though he was nothing but a child, Heinemann nodded curtly. The gathered women eyed him curiously as they drank strong coffee and smoke long white cigarettes, a few clearly displaying their dislike of the thin teenager.

These women considered it extremely stupid of Stielke to be associating with someone who was so obviously of Jewish origin. This could quite possibly bring trouble onto her beloved Academy and perhaps even herself – and not only from the authorities. Such types as the beer-swilling brownshirts – the more junior and rowdy members of the SA – could well take it upon themselves to punish her.

For these forty or so women the coffee morning was a regular occurrence, a chance for them to talk politely about topics that were never remotely serious. Some were deeply passionate about the National Socialist Party and proud of their husbands' role in it, while others found the political climate frightening.

They'd seen acquaintances disappear from society because of their race or political beliefs; a few had even witnessed their husbands' tears as the men attempted to explain what they were party to – what they dared not rebel against, in case the next knock that came in the dead of night was on their own door.

After thirty minutes or so had passed Heinemann walked onto a small stage that was to one side of the hall, a manuscript placed on a stand in front of him. He'd dressed as smartly as he'd been able, but still his black trousers were faded with age and his jacket a little threadbare.

The music placed on the stand was Stielke's attempt at creating some kind of appropriate ambience for his recital, though he would as normal be playing from memory. Usually, he had only to hear a piece two or three times and he was able to perform it in its entirety.

Stielke waddled over to stand in front of him and gave the introduction.

'Ladies, I give you possibly the finest young violinist to come out of my Academy for a long, long time. He is from a little village called Hegensdorf, and his name is Erich Heinemann. And that, really, is all that needs to be said.'

Many of the faces at which Heinemann now stared were hard and contemptuous. They spoke volumes about their owners' lifestyles: late nights, cocaine, champagne, sexual degeneracy – all the distractions that helped them ignore the fact that their country had, somewhere along the line, gone bad.

Adjusting the violin on his shoulder, readying himself to play, Heinemann couldn't remember ever feeling so scared in his life. He longed suddenly to return to Hegensdorf – to his aunt and the golden, nostalgic years of his childhood. But he knew that he was dreaming: the Nazi disease would already have spread to that village and poisoned its inhabitants. He would be about as welcome there as he was here in Berlin.

His past was dead and gone, he was on his own, and for his sake he'd better start working.

He fretted about such things for perhaps the first sixteen bars of his recital – and then he was gone, his mind willingly losing itself in the unfathomable depths of classical music.

Every part of him became involved with the momentous struggle of discovering the way in which this particular piece should be performed; and for all that he was aware of his surroundings, Erich Heinemann might just as well have been playing on the moon.

7

Loud applause greeted Heinemann's entry onto the stage. Schmidt leaned slightly forward, his usually cold blue eyes now burning with something that appeared suspiciously like pride as he stared at the violinist.

It's because of me Schmidt told himself. He is able to perform tonight because of me.

Time enough, just before Heinemann and the orchestra began to play, to remember another of the events that had ultimately led to Schmidt again seeing the thin violinist.

It had come at a time when Schmidt really had begun to have enough of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The conditions were atrocious, he had lost considerable weight, and even his formidable constitution was beginning to buckle under the strain.

Despite his ordeal a firm belief had become established in his mind: whatever Commissioner Sasse had to offer him as an alternative to this loathsome imprisonment would soon be revealed.

At last his wait ended: thirty convicted criminals including himself were one day ordered to stop their gruelling fatigues, and were marched across the camp and into the main building.

Entering a large room they saw two men, one of whom was Commissioner Sasse of the Berlin Gestapo. Sasse's fat face was stern and set; it carried the distinct suggestion that a struggle lay ahead. More than a few of the selected inmates found it difficult to look at – for it carried uncomfortable memories of interrogations and beatings.

The other man – attired in a black uniform with Death Head shoulder epaulets and a cap with both the iron eagle and the skull and bones motif – swept the group of emaciated men with an imperious glare.

But when he spoke his words were strangely polite, given the group of vagabonds and worse whom he was addressing.

'Gentlemen. It's been some time since you've been labelled as such, but should you so decide your days of imprisonment are now over.

'I, Rudolf Hoess, offer you the chance to again be free in return for you serving your country. This offer of service entails no personal risk to your life as, for example, does that of being a soldier or an airman. The offer I am about to present you is subject to the highest security classification, and on pain of death is not to be discussed even among yourselves.

'As you are doubtless aware, the majority of the misfortunes which have befallen the Fatherland in the past are the fault of the Jewry, and their eternal and insatiable greed...'

For over an hour Hoess detailed in a detached, scientific manner the nature of what was on offer. Any scruples the selected prisoners may have had concerning it were curtailed by the freedom it afforded them.

This the authorities had already foreseen: their histories had been meticulously checked, so to ascertain that they were indeed 'compatible'. Also, a psychiatric report on each man had been prepared, using information obtained through Sasse's interviews.

But unlike several of the other prisoners, there was not the slightest struggle of conscience taking place within Schmidt's mind as Hoess spoke. Schmidt merely understood that he was going to assist in supervising a camp even more severe than Sachsenhausen, and felt something bordering on relief at finally being able to leave this prison.

Having finished his speech, Hoess paused for effect before saying quietly, 'Anyone who does not feel capable of such a task should say so now.'

But every man was silent, prepared to do whatever they were told in return for this remission of their sentences.

Hoess nodded, and said, 'Well then, that's settled. Your release from this camp is immediate. We will furnish you with your uniforms and casual clothing when you reach Auschwitz. The journey to Poland will be tonight, after you've eaten a decent meal. Heil Hitler!'

The former inmates awkwardly returned the Nazi salute and walked stiffly out of the room. Taking no notice of the accompanying guard or of Hoess's warning not to discuss what had just been said, Grobauer said loudly, 'Well boys, looks like we've landed on our feet – we're free of this stinking crap-hole and we're going to teach the Jewish scum a lesson or two.'

One of the few men who did not laugh at Grobauer's words was Kurt Schmidt, and Grobauer looked hurriedly away upon meeting his eye. In Schmidt's expressionless face there somehow lay the promise to destroy whatever threatened his safety.

8

Heinemann was vaguely aware that there were approximately two and a half thousand people sat in this hall tonight. Tickets had quickly sold out, as he now gave no more than three concerts a year in England.

Once, in Tokyo during the 1960s, he'd performed to an audience of around twenty thousand. That, he believed, had been his largest ever single audience. It had set some sort of record at the time, he seemed to recall.

But how many people had he performed to all those years ago, at the coffee morning held for some of Berlin's wealthiest women? Maybe fifty or sixty? Certainly no more than that.

What he knew for certain was that he had, virtue of his violin playing, succeeded in melting even the hardest of female hearts. Even those women who were aware of the fate that usually befell those who 'disappeared' – who actually welcomed the fledgling plan that would become 'The Final Solution' – had been touched by the melancholic piece performed by the teenager, a few moved to minor tears.

When he'd finally put down his instrument and left the stage it had been to loud applause, and for the remainder of the morning he'd found himself answering the many questions that were fired at him:

How old was he? Where did he come from again? What about family, friends? Frau Stielke shadowed him but didn't interrupt, red with pride as her prodigy spoke with the wife of Commissioner Sasse of the Berlin Gestapo.

When Heinemann had moved on, Sasse's wife said discreetly to Stielke, 'Don't you worry yourself, Olga. I will speak with my husband, and see if we cannot guarantee the little Mischling's safety.'

The patronising tone of Frau Sasse's voice implied her power over those around her, as did her use of Stielke's first name in conversation. This bordered on being impolite, for only close friends used each other's Christian names in conversation.

Stielke, however, took no notice of such things and was almost pathetic in her gratitude, reflecting on just how fortunate it was that this woman had taken such a quick liking to the youth. The whispered joke of the moment concerned Sasse being scared more of his wife than the Fuhrer, and of him endeavouring to do whatever she requested.

As the women began to leave, Heinemann realised that the month ahead now contained various performances he was booked to play. It was Stielke who entered the women's requested dates in her pocket diary.

Heinemann was at last left alone outside, reflecting upon the sudden advice given to him by Frau Sasse just before she and Stielke had got into a waiting car.

'If you happen to have any problems, simply mention my husband's name, Erich. I think you know who he is, don't you?'

Heinemann had politely thanked her without quite knowing what she meant – and then he'd caught the chauffeur looking at him. The hate-filled stare was immediately dropped as he noticed it, but it was enough to make him fully appreciate that these were extremely dangerous times, and that his very life could depend upon the protection afforded him by people like Frau Sasse.

In a murky temper Heinemann caught the tram back, and getting off walked along narrow twisting roads with grey and brown, ramshackle buildings either side. Approaching the large house in which he had a room and producing his keys, he then realised that the front door was already ajar.

Pushing it open he saw the sailor lying just inside the hall, a stinking patch of vomit next to his face.

Gingerly stepping over the man Heinemann walked upstairs to his room, and once inside considered writing a letter to his aunt. But she was far too astute; he could write the most convincing of lies concerning his situation and she would still realise his unease and his possible danger.

No, it was better that she hear any news concerning him via Frau Dressler, the friend of Stielke's who'd originally recommended him for the Academy.

A few hours later and his stomach began rumbling. He realised that he was extremely hungry – he'd eaten the last of his food that morning. Frau Stielke had already provided him with a derisory sum (obtained from his performances, and minus Stielke's 'managerial' fee) to tide him over until he received his first educational grant, and deducting the smallest amount necessary for some bread and cheese he left his room.

Again stepping over the insensible sailor who continued to lie motionless by the front door, he walked back out into the street. After a few hundred yards he reached a small parade of shops. A bell rang as he opened the door of one, and a small, mean-looking man with a bald spot that was as shiny as his cheeses looked in his direction.

The man's face darkened as he shook his head.

'Not in here,' he said brusquely.

'I'm sorry?' replied Heinemann, confused.

'Go on, get out of here.'

'You don't understand; I just want to buy some food. I don't know who you think I am –'

'I do know who you are – you're a Jew. I can't serve you, I'm sorry.'

Heinemann shook his head with disbelief. 'You won't serve me?'

'I can't serve you. Please leave!'

Urgency entered the man's voice, compelling Heinemann to do as instructed. He tried three other shops: one shopkeeper was openly hostile towards him; the other two mumbled shamefaced about the 'proper hours'.

Not once did he think to point out that he was 'only' a Mischling, and by the time he entered the fourth shop his patience was all but gone. He'd had nothing to eat since early that morning, and upon being refused yet again he remembered Frau Sasse's advice.

The shopkeeper stared incredulous as Heinemann mentioned his association with a Commissioner of the Berlin Gestapo; and then he shrugged and gave the teenager the requested bread and cheese.

No one sane, considered the shopkeeper, would have evoked Sasse's name without its owner's express permission: it was the equivalent of signing one's own death warrant.

Back in his room Heinemann quickly devoured the food, and his hunger sated regretted his foolishness. But he'd been forced into playing such a dangerous game; it was entirely obvious to him now that Germany was an extremely bad country in which to be of Jewish extraction.

Lying down on his bed, he stared up at the ceiling as the day darkened to night outside his curtain-less window...

The month that preceded Heinemann's start at Humboldt University proved to be a wholly enlightening time for the young violinist. Performing a recital at least once every three days, he was also frequently invited in the evenings to the Kurfurstendamm, a broad boulevard in the Charlottenburg district more popularly known as the 'Ku'damm.'

Lining each side of this boulevard were high-priced bars, clubs and restaurants. Heinemann observed those who frequented such places with a strange mixture of fascination and disgust. They drank and ate to complete excess, snorted cocaine as a matter of course, and as the evening wore on the provided entertainment grew steadily more risqué. At the end of one particular cabaret show Heinemann stared, open-mouthed, as the women who'd danced stark naked began making love to one another.

He freely drank the alcohol for which he was never obliged to pay, although he refused the cocaine. On the first few occasions his excesses caused him to be sick – and then he enjoyed the way in which drink caused the night to become so vibrantly alive and exciting, and so he was no longer shocked by what he saw.

He embraced life and love with inebriated enthusiasm, losing his virginity to a woman in the cloakroom of a club. As he shared his first and last cigarette with her afterwards she praised his performance:

'That was your first time, wasn't it? But you were good, gentle with your hands and with your cock. You know how to treat a woman, unlike most of the bastards I meet here. Thirty seconds and – pffft, it's over. I might just admit defeat and go back to my girlfriend, you know.'

She laughed but not unkindly as he choked on the smoke in surprise at her words, and kissed him tenderly before leaving. She was several years older than himself, and though he looked out for her for a while afterwards (it had been one hell of an experience) he never saw her again.

That the teenage Mischling could frequently be seen conversing with such powerful people as Frau Sasse ensured that he was never harassed, and was allowed into all the bars and clubs along with the social crowd who'd adopted him.

And aware of the rumours concerning Frau Sasse's alleged sexual degeneracy, especially with anything canine, Heinemann consequently found it hard to look her in the eye when she talked to him in her customarily patronising manner...

The end of the month finally arrived, and Heinemann prepared to spend the last evening before his university course began in his room. His door was locked: the old sailor lately had a habit of trying all the doors along the landing in his search for a place to urinate, apparently unable to remember the location of the communal toilet when intoxicated. Heinemann had already awoken once before to discover this bearded wreck of the sea pissing in one corner of his room.

A yellow-tinged light came from the naked bulb above the bed, upon which Heinemann now threw the few second-hand books he'd acquired from a shop situated close to the Ku'damm. They'd been sold to him in secret by the elderly shopkeeper, including as they did works by such authors as Jack London, who'd fallen from grace since the Buchverbrennung – book-burning – instigated by the Nazi Minister for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels back in 1933.

Heinemann mentally berated his recent, rebellious behaviour: he was being incredibly stupid by drinking to excess and buying banned literature. So starting from tomorrow he vowed that he'd quietly and diligently begin his studies, melt into the background, become just another student...

He lay down on the bed, tired from the performance he'd just returned from giving. Sleep stole upon him as he reflected on just what an utter fool he was to have these books in his possession. As if being a Mischling wasn't dangerous enough, he had to add to the risk by owning such things....

...The knock at the door was insistent, arousing him from his slumber about an hour later.

'Hello?' he called out.

'Erich Heinemann?'

'Yes?'

'This is the Gestapo. Open the door immediately.'

'Shit!' he whispered fiercely.

Jumping out of bed, he quickly gathered the banned books and stuffed them into the top draw of the chest beside his bed.

'I said immediately!' roared the voice from outside.

Opening the door, Heinemann was barged aside by the two men who entered. Without a word they tore the sheets from his bed and upturned the old mattress. Then one of the men noticed an instrument case in a corner of the room, and opened it to reveal the violin lent to Heinemann by Frau Stielke.

'Please – be careful with that,' protested Heinemann.

'Shut your mouth,' said the man, his colleague opening the top draw of the chest and nodding with satisfaction.

Picking up one of the books he walked over to Heinemann, saying, 'This book and the others – you know they're anti-Reich. Where did you get them?'

Heinemann lied furiously.

'I'm sorry, I had no idea. They're old copies – they came with me when I moved from Hegensdorf to Berlin.'

For a moment the man almost smiled – and in that moment Heinemann studied his face. It was long, the skin pitted with pimples and old acne scars. Heinemann had just noticed for the first time that the man's hair was lank and greasy, when he was backhanded across the face.

The force of the blow knocked the thin teenager to the floor. Heinemann put his hand to his lips, feeling the bitter tastes of blood and humiliation mixing inside his mouth.

'Don't lie to me, you kike bastard. I'll ask you just one more time: where did you get these books?' asked the man who was now smiling broadly, obviously enjoying himself.

No – Heinemann vowed that he wouldn't tell this bastard a thing. In his mind's eye he pictured the puckish, white-bearded shopkeeper with the sparkling intelligent eyes, the two of them instantly sharing an understanding, so causing the white-bearded man to show him the books he never put on display. Not pornography or anything sordid, but proper literature that caused the mind to be challenged and set one's life in a different context.

Having told a particularly crude but still extremely funny joke concerning Himmler and a lubricated rubber truncheon, the shopkeeper had accepted Heinemann's money, saying, 'Those blasted socialists will be telling us how to wipe our backsides next.'

Such trust, such camaraderie, Heinemann would never reward with betrayal.

'I swear that these came from Hegensdorf. Look at them – they're old; they were my fathers,' he said.

The man raised his right hand again – and then his colleague said quickly, 'And where is your father?'

'Dead.'

'Your mother?'

'She's dead as well.'

The Gestapo men were well aware of all of this; the better-looking of the two had asked these questions merely to prevent his colleague from again hitting the teenager. Their instructions had not included physical assault – they were just to search this young man's room and then take him to headquarters – but his colleague had a particular fondness for violence...

The man with the pimpled face said, 'You are to come with us to headquarters...' He paused, expecting the teenager to adopt a suitably fearful expression as was usual. So he was disappointed when nothing of the sort appeared.

'...Where you will be questioned and your acceptance to Humboldt University reviewed,' he finished, somewhat lamely.

The other man gripped his arm, escorting him out of his room and down the stairs to the black Volkswagen parked in the street. Pimple-face drove, and after a short while the car pulled into a large château with a courtyard in its centre. Four soulless-looking creatures who were half-heartedly cleaning the cobbles stared at Heinemann as he got out.

Escorted into the building, Heinemann entered a scene of perfect normality. Attractive young women typed furiously, cigarettes dangling from their glossy blood-red lips. They refused to make any eye contact with the thin teenager and the two men. Heinemann was led through long corridors and then into a large room where a fat man was sat at a desk studying a file. The door was shut behind him, the two Gestapo men silently taking their leave.

For a while the fat man failed to acknowledge Heinemann's presence. At last his attention left the file, and the look he gave the youthful violinist was as venomous as his voice.

'I am Commissioner Sasse of the Berlin Gestapo. Certain... factors have required me to have you summoned here today – to devote my valuable time to you – so that you don't go and get yourself into trouble.

'Germany now has strict race rules necessary for the survival of the Aryan race. You are half-Jewish, and so subject to a number of these rules and conditions.'

He paused for a moment. Heinemann licked his slightly swollen bottom lip as he thought – so this was Frau Sasse's husband. He felt a little reassured; it was well known that Frau Sasse possessed great affection for him, and so would not hear a word said against him.

Was this the reason, he wondered, why none other than a Gestapo Commissioner was telling him just how things were? Surely he didn't merit such special treatment otherwise.

'You are however free to engage in your studies, commencing I believe from tomorrow,' continued Sasse. 'But you will refrain from engaging in any social activities unless they are absolutely necessary, for example if your course demands – '

Sasse was interrupted as the black phone on the edge of his desk rang. Picking up the receiver he said, 'Yes?'

Seconds later he hung up without saying another word, and regarded Heinemann even more coldly.

Slowly, his every word spiked with evident dislike, he said, 'You will not read any more banned literature. If it comes to my attention that you have again, you will be in front of a Sondergericht.'

Judging from his perplexed expression, the Mischling evidently didn't understand the word. Sasse didn't bother to repress a sigh of exasperation.

'A Sondergericht is a special court that tries offenders against the state. If found guilty the person is always given a lengthy sentence of imprisonment, or worse,' he said perfunctorily.

Or worse – Heinemann wondered what that meant.

Out loud, he said, 'I apologise, Herr Commissioner – please excuse my ignorance. I will of course destroy those books.'

The fat man shrugged, and turning his attention back to the file said, 'Dismissed.'

As if the single word had activated it the door opened; Heinemann turned his head to see the same two men who'd brought him here. The teenager realised that the Gestapo could fetch him at any time, make him vanish without a trace; they could put a bullet into his head right now if they so wished...

In silence he followed the men back out into the courtyard and the car. At his wife's insistence, Sasse had earlier instructed them to return the half-Jew home once the interview finished; she feared for his safety on the street. The Commissioner shuddered to think what would happen should she ever discover that Heinemann had been hit...

Having been dropped off right outside his house, Heinemann closed the front door behind him with a sigh of relief. Safely ensconced in his room he played the violin with lightening speed, trying but failing to find an outlet for the frustration, anger and fear he felt for his predicament.

That the Gestapo trusted him to destroy the illegal literature caused him a wolfish grin of amusement. He knew he was being exceptionally foolish, but he'd no intention of ridding himself of those books – it was his token act of resistance, of defiance, against the Socialists.

But for all of this, in a way he appreciated Sasse's straight talking. At least he now knew how the ground lay.

What Heinemann failed to appreciate was that the dictates of the Gestapo were ever changing, and that straight talking was a concept entirely unknown to them.

9

Rapture was not a word that could ever have been used to describe one of Kurt Schmidt's emotional states; but for all of that he felt something approximate as Heinemann began to play.

Yes, yes – he was still brilliant! Old age had quite failed to slow those lightening hands, and his phrasing remained sublime...

But just before he sank fully under the waves of his pleasure, Schmidt reminded himself of what he had to do, following the end of this performance.

But would Heinemann recognise him – recognise him before the final... end, so to speak? After all, it was not just old age that had changed Schmidt's appearance – there was also the matter of his severely burnt face.

No, Schmidt would no doubt have to introduce himself, although once...

Once a man had recognised him without any introduction at all.

It had been during the mid-1950s, a time when Schmidt had been hard at work running the construction company he'd started shortly after the Battle of Berlin's bloody finale.

One dark autumnal evening he'd uncharacteristically gone into an inn for a drink – although just a warming coffee or something similar, as he no longer touched alcohol. The regulars had observed the man with the ruined face with some concern. He did not belong here – a coldness seemed to emanate from him, spoiling the warm snug atmosphere of boozy camaraderie.

One other man did not belong – a man left alone at his usual table in the corner by the locals who knew it to be a complete waste of time trying to talk to him. As always he would stumble out at closing-time completely drunk, growling to anyone who would listen that they did not understand – that the war was not over, not for some...

Occasionally he was discussed in his absence, the locals pondering as to whether he was a die-hard Nazi. This point of view was not considered for too long, however, for it was a dangerous area – the drinkers rarely talked about their own part in the war, let alone anyone else's. Better not to know who'd undergone the Allied 'Denazification' program, and so instead discuss women and work, the two invariable constants in life along with death and taxes.

And so none of the regulars knew that the man was in fact a former trade unionist who'd been particularly anti-Nazi, and had consequently survived being incarcerated at the Auschwitz concentration camp upon being found guilty of 'Undermining the War Machine'.

And so on this evening, upon observing Schmidt's entrance, the man's drink-smeared eyes became clear with horror. It was Schmidt's sheer bad luck that the undamaged half of his face was exposed to the man upon his entrance, recognition cutting like a knife through the man's beer haze and making his toothless mouth drop open with terror.

Schmidt sensed this recognition immediately – he was always alert for it – and so turning round he pushed two men aside as he quickly left the inn.

Seconds later, one of the same two men had his drink spilt by the toothless drunk who usually sat in the corner.

'Look out, would you?' he demanded although not aggressively; for he rather pitied this pathetic alcoholic creature.

The former trade unionist grabbed his arm, his horror-filled eyes staring intently at the man as he pleaded:

'Please, it's him. You have to help me... It's him....'

The enormity of what had just penetrated his alcohol-soaked consciousness choked his voice, his plea falling on unenlightened and consequently deaf ears. The two men worked in a sawmill – the pay was good but it was brutally hard work, and they'd both been looking forward to the beer since lunch-time.

Being by no means happy about this interruption to their evening, they nevertheless restrained their tempers on account of the man's apparent terror.

'Go on, mate, get out of it,' one said gently, as the toothless man looked frantically around the room, his eyes seeming to search far beyond what he could see physically. It was as though he was looking for a force powerful enough to combat the evil that had just walked back out into the night.

'Will no one help?' he shouted: a universal plea. The regulars looked in mutual surprise at one another – even when absolutely intoxicated the man was never nearly as vocal as this. And with a last, despairing cry he ran from the inn out into the cold, mean streets of a city that was still rebuilding itself.

Ahead he saw the hunched-over, strangely crablike figure of Schmidt, and he halted. Then the madness – caused both by his chronic alcoholism and the horrific memories he could never forget – overrode the bone-numbing fear he felt. He shouted incoherently as he ran to catch up with Schmidt, but the man with the ruined face did not turn around.

Instead, Schmidt surreptitiously withdrew a switchblade knife from his inside jacket pocket and opened it. Moonlight reflected off the keen blade; rain flecked the steel. Only when the man was right behind him did Schmidt suddenly turn, bringing the knife hard up to where he guessed the heart to be.

Schmidt guessed correctly and the man fell to the ground, a sucking sound coming from the wound. Blood mingled with the rain on the cobbled road, the derelict houses on either side windowless witnesses of the foul tragedy that had just been enacted.

As Schmidt prepared to run he realised that the man was whispering something, and he strained to hear just what this was.

'The Whistler... It's... The Whistler...'

As the man breathed his final ragged breath and the moon ducked behind a cloud, Schmidt considered that to flee immediately would actually be extremely stupid. Better to first dispose of the body somewhere it wouldn't be found.

So Schmidt easily hoisted the dead man onto his shoulder and began walking. It was fortunate for him that his construction team had recently begun renovating a derelict house not two hundred yards away. The well-to-do family who owned it were one of the lucky ones who had somehow recovered their pre-war fortune, and so were fully able to pay for the work.

This renovation work had commenced just four days previously, but already Schmidt and his men had cleared the virtual jungle from the front and back gardens and begun to dig trenches for an extension.

Negotiating his way in near pitch-black darkness around the side of the house to the back garden, Schmidt felt for a trench with his foot and then threw the man into it.

The trench was approximately four feet deep – he would get here at five o'clock tomorrow morning, three hours before his men were due to start work, and make it six before filling as much of it as he could with concrete. By the time his men arrived, the corpse would be covered.

None of Schmidt's men would be the slightest bit surprised that their employer was on-site and working before them. For he was well-known as being a workaholic who had the stamina of a horse.

Satisfied, Schmidt walked back out into the road and then began to run – there was blood on his clothes and so it was essential he get back to his lodgings without being seen. But it was late: there was hardly anyone about.

Schmidt treated what had just happened as a salient lesson: his damaged face was no guarantee that those who'd suffered under him would be unable to recognise him, and so he must forever exercise extreme caution...

Marie

1

Berlin 1938

Humboldt University's largest annexe was constructed in a rough 'U' shape, wide steps sweeping up to the ornately-carved stone pillars in front of the building's main entrance. The surrounding grounds were beautifully maintained, so that it was a pleasure for the students to sit within them during their lunch hour and after lessons.

Giving his name to the seat of learning he'd founded in 1810, Wilhelm von Humboldt had declared his intention of pioneering the 'mother of all modern universities.'

His aim – to provide a unity of teaching and research that would allow students an all-round humanist education – would become a concept adopted by many fledgling universities during the eighteenth century.

But now red flags with a black swastika in their centre adorned the roof of the building, the Nazis having transformed this university into a centre for their own ideology to be taught. Five years before, in 1933, many of its students and lecturers had taken part in the burning of literature banned by Goebbels.

Erich Heinemann walked towards the main entrance, along with the many other students about to begin their first term at the university. In contrast to the general atmosphere of optimism and excitement his feeling was one of wariness, almost fear. From his encounter with the Gestapo just the previous evening, he knew what to expect should he take just one step out of line...

He'd no doubt that this once acclaimed school of learning, Humboldt University, was now as repressed as everything else within Germany. But to what extent was such repression applicable to the course he was about to commence?

Through quiet discussion with Frau Stielke he'd been made aware that the Socialists had already tampered with classical music, 'advising' orchestras that they should have a preference for works by Richard Wagner and banning all of Mendelssohn's compositions outright. Even the Fatherland's leading composer, Paul Hindemith, had recently been compelled to emigrate to Switzerland due to the 'impropriety' of his compositions.

Walking through the open doors Heinemann entered a large reception hall, students stood clustered together in many small groups around its perimeter. Several young men were wearing the light brown uniform of the Hitler Youth, displaying their loyalty to the Fuhrer along with the fact that they were not yet nineteen years of age.

In the centre of the hall stretched orderly queues before several desks, where severe-looking women sat signing the new students in and instructing them on where to go.

The floor was marble; the walls, ceiling and the wide staircase in one corner constructed from oak. In his mind's eye Heinemann momentarily visualised a likely scene from years before: elderly and bearded scholars walking slowly along, the large oil paintings of their predecessors looking perhaps a little scornfully down upon them, forever contesting the advancement of knowledge.

Such scenes were long gone, ruthlessly swept aside by the Nazis. The paintings on the walls now were of a style approved by the Party, laughable in their inferiority to those imagined by Heinemann. The many banners had the eagle of the Third Reich stencilled upon them, its talons grasping the swastika.

Amidst this Teutonic order something assailed the Mischling's nostrils; or perhaps not Heinemann's olfactory system but rather some sixth-sense keen to his surroundings. There was the almost undetectable smell – sense – of fear; the suggestion of the countless indignities and atrocities perpetrated by the National Socialist Party...

He joined a queue, his violin in its case held by his side. He was soon confronted by one of the women sat at the desks.

'Yes?'

'I am here to study music under the direction of Herr Rath.'

'Your name?' came the bullet-like question.

'Erich Heinemann.'

The woman nodded curtly, her thin lips pursing as she scanned a list on the desk.

'Fourth floor, room eighty.'

'Thank you.'

While walking up the stairs past other floors and rooms Heinemenn heard loud, impassioned voices talking of the 'Fatherland' and 'Mother Earth.' He assumed that these voices belonged to the teachers, and so braced himself for the Nazi-loving tutor who was to reputably develop his talent for music.

Reaching the last floor of the building he then walked along a long corridor, for the first time hearing the gently-bowed notes of a cello coming from a room close to its end.

Drawn to the music he paid no attention to the numbers of the rooms on either side of him – it was obvious where room eighty was. The sound of the instrument was beautiful, hypnotic; he was consumed with the desire to discover who was capable of producing it.

Entering the room, he saw a woman of approximately the same age as himself sat alone at one of the desks which were arranged as three sides of a square. In between her legs was the cello, her slender hand weaving the bow back and forth across the strings.

Heinemann was able to observe her for a short while before she noticed him, and he realised that he found her beautiful. There was a certain coldness in her features but this only made her all the more alluring: it gave the impression that she needed nobody.

Looking up from her instrument the woman saw the thin, black-haired youth. There was little warmth in her faint smile – it contained a definite guard and was clearly given only out of courtesy.

'Hello,' he said hesitantly. 'My name's Erich Heinemann.'

'Heinemann? You must be the one who's recently been playing for the Berlin elite.'

Her voice contained neither sarcasm nor admiration; it was as though the young woman was merely stating a simple fact.

Heinemann felt slightly lost, and in the midst of his confusion he looked about the room. The posters on the wall were like those in any other music class – advertising performances, makes of instruments – the marble busts of Beethoven, Mozart and various other famous (and non-Jewish) composers placed on the desk and the shelves.

Heinemann wondered whether the young woman was anti-Semitic; this would of course provide an explanation for her distant behaviour. But then – with an undeniable feeling of relief – he somehow understood that her aloof manner was just her way of dealing with the strange, dark days of 1938.

'My name,' she said with an indifferent tone, 'is Marie von Hahn.'

'Pleased to meet you – we must be early.'

Marie nodded.

'Obviously.'

Her hair was a light auburn shade, her eyes a luxurious blue. Her nose was ever so slightly upturned, and on the occasion she'd smiled the corners of her mouth had turned down rather than up. It was this that Heinemann found most attractive.

A third person entered the room: a slightly plump, red-haired man of approximately twenty. Nodding to Marie and Heinemann in a surly manner the man sat down at a desk and produced several large books on music, one of which he began to read.

Six more people entered the classroom during the next five minutes, each one quietly seating themselves and avoiding eye contact. There were no introductions between the new students.

Something kept niggling Heinemann, but only when the ninth and last person had entered did he realise just what this was: only Marie and himself had brought their instruments.

He glanced at Marie, who sat four chairs away from him. She had put her cello in its case and propped the instrument against the wall; she appeared the most at ease out of all the nine students. The red-haired man carried on reading his book, while the others stared at their desks.

The awkward atmosphere was broken by the arrival of a person Heinemann assumed was Herr Rath, a tall man with a straight back and a direct gaze with which he studied his class before speaking.

'Everyone here? Good. There being only one female student in this class I can take an astute guess at the identity of Frau Hahn, but my memory for faces being a little poor will Herr Heinemann kindly identify himself?'

Heinemann obligingly raised his hand.

'Thank you. Frau Hahn and Herr Heinemann – I assume that you failed to receive the posted message requesting an interview with myself, as you didn't attend and it was then that I informed the other students that they will not be needing their instruments for a good while yet. Still, never mind.'

Rath began to pace around the edge of the room, walking behind the students sat at the desks. 'As you are all doubtless aware my name is Enrich Rath – I will be your sole tutor during this four-year course.

'The syllabus we will be following has been developed by the Reich Music Chamber, and as a class we will be visiting places such as the Berlin Philharmonie Concert Hall and the Deutsche Staatsoper, where you will be able to study some of Germany's finest musicians while they are performing. This is not intended as recreation, more as...'

Rath's voice droned on unheard by Heinemann, as the Mischling no longer cared to hear it. Something in the man's voice had quickly led him to suspect that his tutor believed none of what he was saying.

To study some of Germany's finest musicians – he doubted that he'd imagined the almost undetectable sneer with which the man had said these words.

Rath looked to be in his mid-thirties, Heinemann already aware that he was both a virtuoso pianist and violinist. What no one knew – least of all Heinemann, or any of the other eight music students – was that although Enrich Rath followed the Nazis' dictates, he despised the ruling Party with every ounce of feeling left inside of him. He'd seen Jewish friends of his, many talented musicians, simply disappear, while others had decided to emigrate before such a fate befell themselves.

The only thing Rath hated more than the Nazis was himself – for his lack of courage in not making a proper stand against this heinous treatment of the Jews. He'd once begun to do so, several years before, but had been warned to desist so firmly that he'd stopped almost immediately.

Due to this acquiescence he was now the only music lecturer at Humboldt University, responsible for the advancement of some of Germany's finest young musicians. Such a senior position meant little to Enrich Rath, however – he hated himself too much to appreciate anything...

Now Heinemann forced himself to listen to what his tutor was saying, for this introduction to the course had quickly became extremely technical with different timings, scale patterns and modes noted and explained in context to the relevant historical period.

Rath spoke of the church's influence on music, of their dislike for the diabolus in musica – the 'devil in music' or the tritone – and of how a few medieval composers who'd dared to use it had been rewarded with the stake for their troubles.

This brought a snort of derision from the red-haired student, which made Heinemann suddenly realise that the portly young man was an ardent supporter of the National Socialist Party. For Nazi ideology branded all religion archaic, and so what else could have been expected from such a ridiculous organisation as the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages? This question had been all but voiced through the red-haired man's derisive snort.

The nine students were compelled to make voluminous notes in the lined books distributed by Rath as he talked, and they marvelled at their tutor's memory and knowledge.

And as Rath lost himself in his detailed introduction he became slightly more animated, his interest in his favourite subject aroused and so his self-perceived shortcomings temporarily forgotten.

At one o'clock the class was dismissed for lunch. They made their way downstairs to a large hall with a kitchen at its end, long tables and chairs occupying most of the space. The hall was full of people and the general hubbub of conversation. The music students queued to receive their meal, which was free.

Few women either studied or taught at Humboldt University, and as Heinemann and the other music students occupied the end of one table they noticed the admiring glances Marie was receiving from several males seated at other tables.

The red-haired man spoke, breaking the silence that had until now been prevalent amongst the music students.

'Well, this course seems excellent. We have a superb tutor whose loyalty to the Fuhrer cannot be doubted, and so we will be taught in a way that makes us most beneficial to the Socialists and the Fatherland as a whole.'

There were a few polite murmurs of agreement, though no one else spoke. Heinemann felt the first, strong stab of dislike towards this man.

'With the kikes removed from the German musical establishment, we are reclaiming our rightful role and destiny. German music will be the very best, performed only by true Germans,' the man finished, apparently unable to say the word 'German' enough times.

The hand holding the fork stopped near Heinemann's mouth, and his flinty grey eyes met those of the person who'd just spoken. He in turn stared menacingly back, which gave the thin violinist an idea of what to expect in the future.

The other students looked quietly alarmed at this opening of hostilities. It was not right for the red-haired man to speak so: the Jewish-looking teenager's acceptance on this course was not to be questioned or remarked upon by any of them.

Only Marie seemed not to notice the tension that was fast mounting, though she quickly ate her lunch and left without saying a word.

Heinemann attracted curious glances from some of the other students seated around the hall. Those who cared about such things considered that by some misfortune the thin youth happened to look slightly Jewish; or perhaps he was one of those confusing grades of half- or quarter-Jew with whom the Nazis had yet to decide how to deal.

Those other students who recognised Heinemann as being the Mischling violinist had, for the most part, spent their summer involved with the Hitler Youth. Their duties had consisted of waiting upon some of Berlin's leading citizens as they socialised away from work. They'd served drinks and food, opened car doors and generally looked smart and efficient. And at many of these occasions, the Mischling had provided the musical entertainment.

It was well known that Frau Sasse was fond of the violinist, and so then, as now, none of these teenagers had vocalised their thoughts concerning him: he was protected for the moment.

But they were reassured by the thought that the National Socialists were steadily removing everything – and everyone – that either intentionally or unintentionally stood in the Party's path.

So they were certain that Humboldt University would soon be rid of its unwelcome guest.

2

As a particularly cold and damp autumn moved quickly towards winter the students of Enrich Rath's music class developed a certain, reserved familiarity with one another. Although not actually ostracised as he'd been at Stielke's Academy, Heinemann nevertheless realised that his presence was uncomfortable for six of them and actively despised by one.

Only Marie remained as isolated from the class as he, her haughty demeanour and habit of rarely speaking discouraging any attempt at gaining her friendship.

On November 7, a seventeen year old refugee named Herschel Grynszpan shot and mortally wounded the Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris. This was in revenge for his father's deportation and the Nazis repression of the Jews, although Grynszpan had not meant to murder the man. He had in fact intended to kill the First Secretary.

Goebbels issued immediate instructions for a 'spontaneous demonstration' against this murder, though in truth there was nothing in the least spontaneous concerning what followed. It was organised by Reinhard Heydrich, a thirty four year old man who ran the security service and the Gestapo.

He wired police headquarters with instructions detailing how to conduct these 'demonstrations' – Jewish businesses and apartments were to be destroyed, wealthier Jews to be arrested and imprisoned until such time as they could be transported to a concentration camp. Only if the destruction of Jewish-owned property threatened that of a German's was it to be avoided. The police were instructed not to hinder these protests.

And so on November 10 a nightlong orgy of destruction and violence began...

Erich Heinemann had just fallen asleep when a cry for help shattered his slumber and caused him to sit upright in bed. For several moments all was quiet and then the night exploded – there was smashing glass and another cry, drunken shouting and snatches of a 'song' concerning the sexual preferences of Jewish women.

In an agony of worry Heinemann moved to sit on the edge of his bed. He'd no doubt that property owned by Jews was being destroyed, and for what reason. The newspapers, with headlines dictated by Goebbels, had not ignored the Grynszpan story; in fact they'd practically begged for revenge to be exacted for the murder of the Third Secretary of the German Embassy.
Suddenly Heinemann heard the sound of someone running along the narrow road his room overlooked, followed by the hoarse, excited shouting of several men. He looked out of his window, a flickering streetlight illuminating the bloody scene below: three men in dark shirts with swastika armbands caught up with another man who fell beneath their jackboots.

Heinemann could only watch, sickened, as the men hacked at the victim with their feet until he stopped moving. Satisfied, the attackers then moved quickly away, obviously intending to find another victim.

For several moments Heinemann felt numb with shock, unable to move or think. He was then stirred into action as he saw the injured man start to move. Cursing his hesitation, he grabbed the blanket from his bed and left the room, walking quickly along the landing to the stairs. None of the other tenants in the house appeared to have been disturbed.

He left the house and stopped dead in the street. It was deserted – the man had gone. Only a patch of blood marred the cobbled road, and looking to his right he was just in time to see a figure lurch around the bend approximately thirty yards away.

A fear of being out overwhelmed him: he again heard shouting – no, screaming – but this time it sounded much further away. He re-entered the house and returned to his room. He sat on his bed, his head in his hands. This was a nightmare, an utter nightmare. The darkness of the room intensified his feelings of utter isolation, of absolute despair. He lay back, gazing at a ceiling he could not see.

After what felt like an age the comforting blanket of sleep fell upon him, although just before this occurred the question he dared not usually consider troubled him.

Just what was going to happen to him?

The following morning the national newspapers dutifully reported the events of the previous night. Goebbels himself had dictated how the articles were to be worded: justice had been done, brutality had been met with brutality, and the Jews had only themselves to blame.

Throughout Berlin there pervaded a deathly calm, the same disbelieving stillness that usually follows a natural disaster. Heinemann took the tram to Humboldt University as normal, and during the journey observed Jews clearing out their shattered shops and businesses, sweeping the streets clean of broken glass while nearby policemen stood watching and laughing.

Reaching the university, Heinemann walked quickly up the wide steps to the main entrance while dreading the day ahead. By the end of it his head always ached with the information he was compelled to remember.

A significant part of the course concerned the Nazi perspective on music, and this was accompanied by frequent testing. In such tests the students were expected to achieve a mark of seventy percent or more, though Heinemann had barely scraped by with sixty on more than one occasion.

The red-haired man – Fritz Muehlebach – obtained an average mark of around ninety five percent, soaking up all he was told as effectively as a sponge absorbs water. The rest of the class always passed comfortably.

As he entered the building Heinemann noticed that many of the students whom he saw had an air of exhilaration about them, as though they'd recently been involved in something momentous. A few stared hungrily back at him, quietly talking among themselves as he passed.

Affecting not to notice, Heinemann nevertheless fretted inwardly about his situation. Last night's widespread violence must have emboldened people like these, so could he now expect a move to be made against himself – possibly sometime in the near future?

He was the last of the students to enter the classroom, hurriedly taking a seat as Enrich Rath walked in. The tutor's face looked strained and tired; his unusually bleary eyes suggested a sleepless night.

'If you would like to open your books we shall begin,' he said, and without further preamble he went straight into the topic of that day's lesson.

Heinemann was soon kept busy scribbling the notes he would use for the work that was certain to be set later on. During lunch he again noticed the stares he was receiving; he wondered just how protective the shield afforded by Frau Sasse's favouritism actually was. How would he have fared that time at Gestapo headquarters, had it not been for such a thing?

When will it be me, he thought, who falls underneath the jackboots?

3

Erich Heinemann found the weeks preceding Christmas to be less than pleasurable. The university work was hard and his room was freezing cold. He washed his few clothes in the communal bathroom along the landing and attempted to dry them on the small radiator in his room.

Fritz Muehlebach had by now made his acquaintance with the university's other Nazis, but the other music students did not make any friendships outside those of their class. Heinemann knew that people seen in his company risked being shunned by others or possibly worse, so he accepted the loneliness he bore with affected nonchalance.

Only Marie von Hahn appeared as isolated as he; others attempted to converse with her only to achieve the same lamentable degree of success as Heinemann had himself. She was aloof, cold.

Had there been more female students at the university, Marie might have received less attention. The Nazis however discouraged the education of females above an elementary level: their main role in society, decreed the National Socialists, was to bear children and keep a tidy house. So it was only Marie von Hahn's exceptional talent for the cello that allowed her to attend Humboldt University.

Heinemann was by now secretly besotted with Marie, and from overheard conversations he'd gleaned precious scraps of information concerning her. She was nineteen years old – his senior by a year – and lived in a house with her sick grandmother, whom she cared for in the evenings. The grand surname came from her grandfather, who'd been an officer in a Prussian cavalry regiment.

Both of Marie's parents were dead, and so (considered Heinemann) Marie and he had something in common – a misfortune they shared.

Humboldt University was due to finish for Christmas. It was to be a lengthy holiday, from the 14 December to the 4 January, allowing those students who'd travelled from distant parts of Germany the opportunity of returning home to their families. The Socialists placed a strong emphasis on family values; they considered it important for Germany's younger citizens to be able to spend quality time with their parents and close relatives.

Heinemann viewed the impending holiday with a feeling of mild despair – attending the warm university at least allowed him to spend some time spent away from his cold, damp lodgings. And there was no way he could afford the train fare to go back and visit his aunt in Hegensdorf.

On the last day of term the music class finished at two o'clock in the afternoon, and upon being dismissed by Rath the students left the classroom. With a few exceptions – including Heinemann and Marie – it appeared that the entire university was going to celebrate the end of term in the bars of the Ku'damm, the broad boulevard that spread westwards from the Gedachtniskirche.

Heinemann was the last to leave, and as he walked out of the door he heard his tutor say softly, 'Could I have a word please, Herr Heinemann?'

Even at little more than a whisper Rath's voice remained coldly authoritative, and so Heinemann obediently re-entered the classroom. Rath stood looking out of the large window at the dull December sky. The trees below were bare of leaves, lending the area a particularly naked look in comparison to their ample foliage in the summer.

The scene was morose, suggesting to Heinemann a particular loneliness borne by the tall man; not the simple lack of friends endured by himself because of his Jewish blood, but a real, gut-wrenching isolation. A loneliness even from one's self.

'Yes, Herr Rath?' he prompted.

His teacher appeared to be distracted from some train of thought, and he turned round to face the thin student.

'Yes, sorry, Herr Heinemann. I received earlier today a phone-call from someone speaking on behalf of Commissioner Sasse, whom I believe you've already met.'

Heinemann paled slightly, and Rath quickly continued:

'You seem to have attracted the Commissioner's personal interest – the person calling said he wanted to know how you were getting along and how your grades were. I told the truth, which is that they are acceptable but with room for improvement. There is always room for improvement, you never stop learning – that is life...'

His eyes became abstract for a moment and his composed expression faltered; then he again dragged himself back to the matter at hand:

'The other reason for the call was to mention that there are to be a few social occasions over the festive period, held primarily for certain... Party members, and that something like a quartet is needed to provide a little musical entertainment for these.

'It was, apparently, even hoped that a few members of the Berlin Philharmonie Orchestra might oblige. This is, however, an impossibility, as they have many prior engagements to perform. So I have been asked to find an alternative.

'The answer to me is obvious: the music class of Humboldt University should perform. However, six of my students are leaving Berlin and returning home for their Christmas break. But the problem that this creates is not insurmountable, and I assured the person calling that between yourself, Frau Hahn, Fritz Muehlebach and I we should be able to come up with something.'

Fritz Muehlebach – the name was said with a very faint tone of contempt; had the atmosphere in the room not been so intimate Heinemann would never have caught it.

'We will need to rehearse, of course,' observed Rath. 'I suggest my apartment for this, or I have the keys for the practice rooms here. Fortunately we four can form a quartet – you and I playing the violins, and of course Herr Muehlebach playing the viola and Frau Hahn the cello. I will find the appropriate music for us to perform.'

Again there came that almost unnoticeable sarcasm, that bitterness – at what? Heinemann began to feel uncomfortable, and strangely now longed for his room where he could at least be on his own, away from this straight-backed man whose tormented thoughts writhed behind his impassive expression.

'I should add that any dealings between yourself and the authorities are not my concern. Your education is, and your position at Humboldt University is safe as far as I am concerned. Is there anything you would like to say?'

Rath stared hard at his student as he said this, and Heinemann realised with a shock that his eyes were imploring. This man certainly had some secret he wished to confide.

Heinemann's heart turned as hard as stone, and he met the stare with absolutely no expression. He wished for none of Rath's confidences: everyone had to fight their own battles.

'No, Herr Rath. I am very happy here, and with continued application from myself I hope that my grades will improve,' he said mechanically.

For a moment his tutor's eyes continued to bore into his own, and just before they looked away despair seemed to fill them. The tutor's coldly authoritative facade had cracked; Heinemann had glimpsed the real Enrich Rath.

The teacher said, 'I know that you are not contactable by telephone, and so I will come to your lodgings to give you further details if that is convenient. Where is it that you live exactly?'

Heinemann told him.

'Very well, Herr Heinemann. In the interim, enjoy your break.'

'And you, Herr Rath,' he replied, by now desperate to leave.

He left the University, and walked along the Unter den Linden and through the Gendarmenmarkt Square, failing to appreciate its period architecture and the ornately-carved water fountain. Everything had been tainted by the Nazis; it seemed as though there was scarcely a statue or a building that they did not hang their flag upon.

The need to walk was acute; to get as far away from other people and the Socialist Party as was possible in Berlin. He buttoned his thick black coat up as far as it would go and stuck his numb hands in its pockets. He headed for the Tiergarten, the park in the middle of the city that covered several hundred acres.

It appeared all but deserted on this cold winter's afternoon, and he walked some distance along a path until he grew tired. He found a bench to rest on before he began the journey home. The sky was overcast; darkness and possibly snow would soon be falling. He pulled his coat tight around him, feeling the wind cut through the thin fabric of his trousers.

As far as he could see there was no one else around. Some way to his right stood the Brandenburger Tor and far away, marking the centre of the park, the Siegessaule, the victory column by which he had often performed during the summer.

A figure came suddenly into view to his left. A couple of minutes later he realised that 'it' was a woman. His eyesight was excellent, and soon, with a surge of feeling that set his heart racing, he recognised her.

It was Marie von Hahn.

She walked up to him, wrapped in a coat and scarf. Her semi-exposed cheeks burned fiercely in the winter air, and her breath misted in front of her face.

'Oh, hello – do you mind if I sit down?' she asked.

'Not at all.'

'Something of a surprise seeing you here,' she said casually. Heinemann stared about him for a few moments, surveying the park's expanse, trying to make sense of its strange wintry beauty.

'It's nice... I didn't think it could be in winter, but it is. I haven't been here before.'

Marie nodded. 'I prefer it when it's like this; when there's no one else about. This cold weather puts them off – in the summer it's packed.'

She caught the look of dislike in Heinemann's face, at this talk of the crowds he so evidently hated, and she laughed.

'You're not very sociable, are you Erich? Even in class you sit and say nothing.'

Anger flared up within him. Marie's comments were crass, thoughtless in their stupidity, and he spoke tightly despite his infatuation for her:

'Have you noticed anything about me, perhaps? A suggestion of my mother's race? A race persecuted within Germany – you know what took place on November the tenth, right? No one wants to know me, and so I don't want to know them. Besides which, you don't say that much in class yourself, you know.'

His anger had completely dissipated by the time he'd finished his rant, leaving him feeling merely a little scared. He should never have spoken so – such comments could well get him into serious trouble.

But Marie just nodded, and turning to face him said, 'I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking.'

'It doesn't matter; it's not your problem. I shouldn't say such things.'

Heinemann heard her intake of air just before she spoke, and resigned himself to the farewell.

So he was surprised when she asked, 'Where do you live, Erich?'

It was twice now she'd used his Christian name, which among young people at least implied a certain intimacy – a friendliness.

Heinemann gave her the address of the house where he lived, finishing, 'I have a room there.'

'Is it nice?'

Heinemann shrugged.

'It'll do, although I should really get some curtains for the windows,' he replied, giving a slight smile.

'If you like you're welcome to come to my grandmother's house sometime, you know. I can make us something to eat.'

Forcing the attraction of this surprising offer away, he said, 'I don't think so. To be seen with me wouldn't do you any favours, believe me. And that's... that's the last thing I would want.'

She appeared confused.

'But I don't understand: you're allowed to study at the university. Surely this wouldn't be allowed if they were – against – you?'

It was then that Heinemann, for the first time in his life, trusted another person enough to allow them to become his confidant. The decision to talk was made in an instant, entirely on instinct.

Marie would never betray him: such a thing was unthinkable.

But still he gave a succinct explanation. He explained how Frau Sasse had advised him to use her husband's name in case of trouble, and how he'd consequently had to. And though he said nothing about the physical abuse he'd recently received, Marie understood perfectly that he was walking a tightrope.

Shaking her head, she said sadly, 'I know... I know what it's like now. Rotten. I had a friend from school, Jewish. She's gone, along with her family; I don't know where...'

Her previously aloof character vanished as she fought back tears. Heinemann sat very still, resisting his desire to hold her. It was getting dark.

'We'd better go,' he said, understanding that just talking of such things was extremely dangerous. Even the cold, deserted expanse of the Tiergarten was no protection against the threat of discovery.

'I've got to go to the station by the Tor,' said Marie.

'I take the tram, but I'll walk with you as far as the station,' he replied.

They walked mainly in silence, and when they did speak it was of neutral matters. Both knew that their conversation of before had been dangerous, but neither regretted their words. For there was now a trust between them, a bond that ran deeper than any ordinary friendship.

4

During the latter part of 1938, the security and intelligence section of the National Socialist Party began enlisting new members. The Sicherheitsdienst – SD – was ultimately to become as feared as the Gestapo or the SS.

The SD's main purpose was to discover whether any Germans harboured opinions that conflicted with those of the Nazi Party. So along with bugging offices, libraries and even private residences – anywhere, in fact, that a conversation could be held – they also recruited some three thousand informers.

One such informant was a highly-gifted musician and an enthusiastic supporter of the Party. His enthusiasm was quickly noticed by the authorities, who consequently decided that Fritz Muehlebach was perfect.

Muehlebach was therefore instructed to make a secret report every month, specifically detailing his course's progression and reporting on anything he suspected was anti-Reich.

The music class was an oddity in a university that was otherwise so obviously pro-Socialist. Its tutor was Enrich Rath, already known to the authorities for his Jewish sympathies. And it also contained the exceptionally talented Mischling violinist Erich Heinemann.

Along with using Muehlebach as a spy, the SD also decided to place a powerful microphone behind a practically immovable book case in the classroom during the winter break.

Safe from discovery, it would record everything.

5

A fortnight had passed since Heinemann had met Marie in the Tiergarten. Again feeling a maddening anger that Commissioner Sasse should have forbidden him from having any sort of relationship with anybody and especially her, the Mischling brutally scraped his bow across the four strings of his violin.

A knock on his door froze him; he felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck. Surely this wasn't the Gestapo again – and those books! Hell, he still had those bloody books stored in the same place!

His mouth dry with fear, he said, 'Yes?'

'Herr Heinemann, this is Enrich Rath.'

With an acute feeling of relief, Heinemann opened the door and admitted the lecturer into his room. Rath was casually dressed in dark-brown slacks and a shirt.

'I trust you are well,' he said quietly. 'I apologise for disturbing you – I couldn't find any sort of bell outside but the front door was ajar. From the... sound... of the violin I took an educated guess that this was your room.'

He handed Heinemann an envelope.

'Inside are the details of the two engagements that we are due to play: a Christmas party on the twenty-third of this month and a New Year's Eve party. They will both be held at the Aalto Theatre.'

The name was obviously supposed to mean something to Heinemann, though his blank face demanded further explanation.

'It's a large building beside the Spree, close to the southern edge of the Tiergarten,' Rath said perfunctorily.

'Where will we be practising?'

'My apartment, which is not far from here. The university cannot be used over the Christmas holiday, as there is some kind of construction work apparently taking place.

'Herr Muehlebach and Frau Hahn will be arriving at about half past six tomorrow, and once I've let them in should I pick you up, say at about seven? I trust you can make the rehearsal; I apologise for the short notice.'

'That's fine.'

'It is the fifteenth today, so we have to move quickly. I will select some pieces, which will include I think a few from Vivaldi; he always go down well at such occasions. Many of his pieces also have the benefit of being eminently suitable for a string quartet such as ours.'

They exchanged goodbyes and Rath left. For a while Heinemann sat on his bed, reflecting on the surprise visit he'd just received. The name Muehlebach had been mentioned by Rath without any change in the tone of his voice, but Heinemann knew that he'd not been mistaken before – the music lecturer despised the red-haired student.

During the last conversation they'd had Rath had attempted to develop an affinity with Heinemann; he'd let a suggestion of how he truly felt into his words. Maybe it was Heinemann's Jewish blood that made Rath feel he could trust him, but Heinemann truly did not want his tutor's confidences: any secrets added danger to an existence that was already precarious.

6

Punctually, a horn blared outside Heinemann's window at seven o'clock the following evening. The Mischling looked out into the street to see Enrich Rath sat in a black Daimler that was rendered almost invisible by the dark. In turn, Rath saw Heinemann's head in the window and waved at him.

Picking up his violin-case the teenager left his room and walked downstairs. He exchanged a greeting with Rath as he got into the car, although the short journey took place mainly in silence.

The car stopped outside an apartment block, and Heinemann followed his lecturer into a hall with mosaic-tiled walls and a thick white carpet. At the end of the hall was a small lift.

Rath's apartment was on the third floor, spacious and largely open-plan. The living room led off from the hallway, plants and books placed on the shelves which lined the walls, lighting coming from the lamps placed on three small, highly-varnished wooden tables.

Fritz Muehlebach was sat in the centre of the room, a viola by his side. He observed Heinemann with a malevolent glare before nodding tightly at him.

Failing to return the greeting, Heinemann was almost amused to see the fury spark in the red-haired man's eyes. There was another person whom Heinemann wished to look at far more, one who was sat in the corner of the room tuning her cello.

'Hello,' said Marie simply. Heinemann admired her coolness after their meeting in the park and the intimate conversation that had taken place.

Rath was slightly more relaxed and less formal than usual.

'Can I other anyone a drink?'

Marie and Heinemann both murmured a polite refusal, while Muehlebach seemed almost to bring his feet together and salute.

'No thank you, Herr Rath!'

Heinemann's eyes darted across the room to observe Rath's reaction –annoyance, humour – but the lecturer's face was impassive.

'Very well, in that case we shall begin. The music I have chosen is suitable for a string quartet, and so it only remains for us to practise it.'

Rath left the room and came back with his violin and some music stands, which he placed in front of each musician along with some printed music. As Heinemann tuned his instrument he noticed that it was a piece by Vivaldi, and he quickly began memorising his part.

Then, as the four musicians began to play, Heinemann's mind left this comfortable living room and forgot even about Marie. It forgot what century its owner lived in. It sought only to send a million messages to his long, slender fingers. His eyes were shut and his nose almost quivered as he played, like a bloodhound picking up a scent...

As the piece finished he was wrenched back into reality, his expression as befuddled as someone just awoken from a deep sleep.

Rath stared at him, his normally expressionless face now struggling with something that appeared suspiciously like admiration.

For he could not believe what he'd just heard: Heinemann took control – he demanded control – he'd played off the other violin, instantly relegating it to a supporting instrument.

Heinemann found Muehlebach's expression almost amusing. It contained confusion but more than that fear – fear that a Jewish teenager could play so powerfully, so that he even challenged Enrich Rath's virtuoso ability. An almost primeval power exuded from the teenager, a force that compelled people to marvel at his musicianship.

Marie observed Heinemann with an almost imperceptible smile.

'Excellent. I think we're fine with Vivaldi – there's no need for us to do that piece again. Here's something by Johann Strauss,' Rath said quietly, giving his three students some more printed music.

The quartet continued rehearsing for a further two hours, building their repertoire for the impending performance at the Aalto Theatre. While playing Rath surreptitiously observed the half-Jewish teenager, continuing to be amazed by his superb musicianship. Muehlebach wore a face like thunder, but his performance could not be faulted. Marie also played flawlessly.

The lecturer stopped the rehearsal at half-past-nine, saying, 'Well, we've done some good work over the last few hours, and I think that deserves a little celebration. I have a bottle of wine.'

He left the living room and returned with the bottle and four glasses.

'Let's have a glass of this each, shall we?'

Muehlebach stood up, holding the viola at his side.

'Sorry, Herr Rath, but may I be excused? I should really be getting back.'

Rath nodded. 'By all means. I will see you on the twenty-third at six o'clock. This will allow us a little time to warm-up before the occasion begins.'

Muehlebach quickly put the viola into its case and nodded to Marie.

'Thank you, Herr Rath.'

Rath accompanied the viola player to the front door, leaving Heinemann and Marie alone in the room. Their eyes met once and then they both looked quickly away as Rath re-entered.

'Here we are,' said Rath a few moments later, pouring the wine into three glasses.

The alcohol hit Heinemann heavily; it was with considerable embarrassment that he realised he'd drained his large glass in only a few minutes. He looked sheepishly about him, only to discover that both Rath and Marie had done the same.

Rath replenished the cellist's glass and then Heinemann's before his own.

'Excellent, is it not? It comes from a very select region in the South of France. I have a few bottles for special occasions,' he said.

Heinemann was unaware of exactly why this should be a special occasion, but the alcohol felt wonderful nonetheless. He murmured his thanks.

'I think it will be a good performance,' remarked the lecturer.

'Yes, I'm looking forward to it, even though I'll have to play with Muehlebach,' blurted Heinemann.

Marie's face froze in shock at this faux pas, and he realised that he'd overstepped the mark. Sobriety dispersed the temporary security which alcohol had afforded him, as Rath said levelly, 'I think we'll pretend that that comment was never said, Herr Heinemann.'

Heinemann nodded. 'Thank you for having allowed us to practise here, Herr Rath. With your permission I'd better be going.'

'I'll drive you home, of course.'

'Thank you, but I don't want to put you to any inconvenience. I'll take the tram.'

'As you wish.'

'I'd better leave as well,' said Marie.

Rath was reminded. 'Of course, of course. How is your grandmother, Frau Hahn?'

'I'm afraid it's cancer, Herr Rath. She weakens by the day.'

'I'm very sorry to hear that.'

Marie shrugged. 'It comes to us all.'

Rath appeared a little perturbed by the cellist's fatalistic attitude, but Heinemann only found her more appealing. She was strong; her feet were on the ground. She was in the minority.

Heinemann and Marie left the flat together, with a rather flat farewell from Rath. In the street Marie looked at the thin violinist, and perhaps for a second something shone in her eyes.

'Why don't you come to my house tomorrow? A neighbour looks after my grandmother in the afternoon – come around then.'

Heinemann first looked awkwardly at the ground, and then directly back at her – bugger the order given by Commissioner Sasse to 'refrain from unnecessary social activities'.

'Okay – thanks.'

'Is two o'clock all right?'

'Yes.'

Marie told him where she lived in the Charlottenburg district; and with Heinemann now in a distinctly happier frame of mind than he'd been in for a long while, they parted.

7

The Aalto Theatre was a large, white building with many windows, constructed in the mid-1800s by a wealthy member of the Prussian aristocracy. Drinks could be enjoyed on its large lawn bordering the River Spree during the summer, with the large hall inside perfect for gatherings when the weather was not so clement.

Feeling awkward in a slightly old black dinner jacket and bow-tie lent to him by Rath especially for this occasion, Erich Heinemann looked out of the french windows at the dark, flowing river. He was stood on a raised platform that served as a stage at the front of the hall.

Staff scurried about, ensuring in the last few minutes before the guests were due to arrive that everything was perfect. Tables laden with food and drink were placed against one wall. Heinemann's stomach groaned enviously as he looked at them. His own dinner had consisted of a few sausages and some bread, which largely formed his staple diet.

Here within this haven of civility it was hard to believe that society had turned so rotten. Outside lay unimaginable terrors: the persecuted, the beaten. Within this hall there was only the starched efficiency of the waitresses, young women whose blond hair and fine Germanic looks marked them out as being members of the Bund Deutscher Madchen, the female equivalent of the Hitler Youth.

The raised area provided ample room for the quartet, the four chairs placed on it forming a crescent, sheet music placed on a stand in front of each. Fritz Muehlebach was busy tuning his viola, concentration momentarily erasing the scowl that otherwise perpetually darkened his face.

Marie von Hahn looked stunning in a blue dress that shimmered under the lights, her hair cut especially for this occasion. She sat and played scales on her cello to prepare herself.

Enrich Rath had already tuned his violin and was quietly talking with one of the waitresses. In all the atmosphere was quiet and relaxed, and Heinemann would have felt surprisingly at ease had it not been for the swastika banner that hung conspicuously over the entrance to the hall, a stark reminder of the force that now controlled everyone within Germany.

Various minor officials of the Party were expected tonight; the year had been a long one and they had worked hard. Tonight was a chance for them to relax, to have a drink and to try and talk of something other than work.

For their entertainment some of Germany's finest young classical musicians would be performing, an illustration of just how well the arts were thriving under Nazi rule. Commissioner Sasse and his wife would not now be attending, as they had been invited instead to a winter break in Austria where the Fuhrer himself would be in attendance.

Heinemann's eyes hungrily sought Marie. She was still practising, the dark tones of her cello clear in the largely empty hall.

He'd met her as arranged the day after the rehearsal at Rath's, rebuking himself upon awakening in the morning for the half-drunken comment he'd made concerning Muehlebach.

He'd seen the inside of the Gestapo's headquarters – indeed, he'd experienced the violence they could dish-out whenever they so wished – but after a glass of wine he still couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Marie had made herself and Heinemann a large meal, and while eating they'd talked about music and their favourite composers.

From this she'd realised that his musical knowledge was relatively minor; he'd a mild preference for Frederic Chopin, but remained ignorant of many famous composers both contemporary and in history.

Only when it came to Beethoven – a favourite of Marie's – did he give a definite view. He detested the composer, and to further widen the gap despised the Ninth Symphony – The Choral, which was Marie von Hahn's favourite piece.

She was not altogether certain about how she felt for the thin student. His obvious loneliness did not appear to affect him; he nearly always appeared preoccupied with some thought that largely negated the outside world. His face was what might have been weakly labelled 'interesting', neither handsome nor ugly but most definitely not plain, with a nose that occupied a large part of it and narrow grey eyes.

He seemed to invite her friendship but at the same time almost repel it, as though scared by what might develop. The attraction Marie had been certain he felt for her was now not so certain, and she was surprised to realise that this thought distressed her.

Like anyone else who'd heard Heinemann perform she recognised his awesome ability; he refused to play in any conventional manner and so drew attention to himself every time he picked up the violin.

This in itself caused her a certain amount of fear: the National Socialists opposed anything that went against the grain, anything that denoted individualism. And Heinemann denoted this and a great deal more every time he so much as bowed a note.

Heinemann had left the house as the afternoon darkened and Marie's grandmother began weakly coughing, this along with the muted tones of the neighbour's voice filtering through the floorboards into the living room below.

The guests began arriving, the men mostly middle-aged to elderly, their faces red with the sudden heat of the room. The women were mainly thin and tottered on heels that were too long. They looked eagerly for someone of greater importance than their husbands, so that they could truly feel part of the elite.

This, however, was no great occasion. The little cogs of the colossal machine were being greased with food and drink; but in the grand scheme of things they were nothing. Many owned businesses that gave dutifully to the Reich's greedy coffers, and had not protested when it was requested that their Jewish employees be made redundant.

The hall soon filled with the vacuous hubbub of polite conversation, and the quartet began to play a gentle piece by Strauss. Heinemann felt Rath's beady eye upon him, and understood that this was not the time to start drifting into a world of his own. He waded through the piece with displeasure, his attention captured rather by the ornately decorated ceiling than the music.

After nearly an hour the quartet stopped for a break. Rath left the stage to mingle with feigned politeness among the gathered guests. This was a torture for him; he despised the type of people gathered here tonight and to talk to them in such a stilted fashion destroyed him a little bit more.

He was known to some as being a 'Jew-lover'; a man who'd nearly ruined his career through stupidly trying to defend his Yid associates. But he'd been shown! The Party was all powerful; it would not allow anyone to ignore its dictates.

Those others who'd worked and been friends with Jews consoled themselves with this – the Party was too powerful: it was not their fault.

Heinemann, Muehlebach and Marie had no choice but to remain seated and await the next performance, the pretentiousness of this occasion forbidding people of their youth to mingle with the guests.

Finally, Enrich Rath returned to the stage and the quartet began a piece by Vivaldi, playing with more feeling now that the atmosphere had lost some of its iciness.

Heinemann attempted to again fix his attention on the ornate ceiling, so as to continue playing without feeling or flair... But soon he pictured the composer writing this piece, felt his struggle to come up with something innovative – and the responsibility to develop this in the here-and-now irrevocably became the violinist's own...

Rath looked uneasily at the guests as his young student's playing became ever more noticeable, but there were no discernible signs of irritation among the crowd. Some of them didn't even notice this increasingly enthusiastic playing, while others appreciated it as the evening became livelier.

Many now realised exactly whom this violinist was – Erich Heinemann, the young man who'd given performances in the Tiergarten during the summer, and the young man for whom it was rumoured Frau Sasse possessed such affection...

Heinemann's enthusiasm reflected onto the others, Muehlebach failing to notice any irony in the fact that the Mischling was bringing out the very best in his playing. Both the red-haired student's and Rath's playing was technically perfect; it sought no status, no individuality. But even during the lighter pieces Marie's cello sounded dark and ominous, a lurking menace behind the minnow-like darting of Heinemann's playing.

When they finally finished it was this time to enthusiastic applause. The cloud that hung over Heinemann concerning his mixed-race was temporarily forgotten: the guests eagerly sought him out, keen to register their delight for his talent. The other two students received polite compliments, but only the half-Jewish teenager was given any real attention.

Fritz Muehlebach felt bitter that everyone in this hall appeared to have forgotten that a new era had dawned. That they should be fawning over a dirty Mischling! Surely, thought Muehlebach indignantly, there had to be another young violinist somewhere whose blood was purely German, who was Heinemann's equal?

Marie merely longed to return home. Her grandmother's condition was worsening and the faithful neighbour continued to look after her in between the doctor's visits. But Marie's position at Humboldt University was a little less certain than most, and so it had been a request not an invitation to play tonight.

As Rath talked to the others who'd let an evil grow in Germany with little or no protest from themselves, he felt nothing beyond a mind-numbing sense of despair. At times such as these he placed little value on his own life, and it was only the slight rays of light – Erich Heinemann now being one – that renewed any desire to continue living.

The teenage violinist was himself enduring a tedious conversation concerning Chopin with a half-drunk fat man. Heinemann's interest in the lives of composers had never been great, despite the emphasis placed on the subject in Rath's lessons. The lecturer often tonelessly described how those composer's favoured by the Nazis had battled against odds invariably Jewish in nature before achieving success.

The majority of the class took notes neither believing nor disbelieving what they were being told: they knew individual thought to be a dangerous thing. Only Muehlebach appeared impassioned by what he heard, feverishly scribbling down every word while shooting Heinemann malevolent glances.

The conversation between Heinemann and the fat man was dragging when Heinemann saw Frau Stielke. Her moustache was hairier than ever and the excessive jewellery around her neck attempted to hide the fat that had correspondingly grown with her status.

She waddled over, a glass of wine clasped in her hand.

'Erich!' she slurred enthusiastically.

Heinemann curled his lips in a canine grimace intended to be a smile.

'Frau Stielke – a pleasure to see you.'

'Frau Stielke,' greeted the man, Heinemann surprised that these two people evidently knew each other. The Academy head affectionately pawed Heinemann's arm, sloshing a little of her wine onto the floor.

'So you've met my former pupil, then?' she asked the man, her pupils dilated and her cheeks flushed.

'Yes, I have. Yet another fine example of your Academy, Frau Stielke,' he replied politely, the woman's obvious inebriation appearing to have somehow lessened his own state of intoxication.

'So how are you, Erich? How is Humboldt?'

Heinemann flashed another uncertain smile.

'I'm learning fast, as I've an excellent tutor –'

Stielke earnestly nodded.

'The best,' she said.

'If anything I just find that money is a little tight,' he finished.

Stielke now placed her free hand on the man's arm.

'Claus, dear, surely you must have something at the factory for Erich?' she asked him.

Both Heinemann and 'Claus' looked at her with surprise, for she'd just broken two major rules of etiquette. Those aspiring to be part of the bourgeoisie addressed each other as Herr or Frau unless they were intimate friends, the only exception being for those with military or social titles. To do otherwise was to give the impression of being a member of the Halberstarken: a blue-collar worker.

And as Germany was governed by a party that had by now effectively made being Jewish a crime, asking an employer to give even a partly-Jewish person a job was hardly fair.

The man who was in fact a factory manager called Claus Hartz looked at Heinemann, who did his best to make himself appear eager for such a chance – after all, he needed to get some extra money somehow.

Two immediate factors gave Heinemann's employment prospects an advantage in Hartz's alcohol-befuddled mind. Firstly, Heinemann was performing at a Christmas party arranged by the Party; so he was evidently not in disfavour with the Socialists. And secondly, in giving this Jewish-looking teenager a job Hartz would alleviate his troubled conscience at having replaced a Jew as manager a year earlier – and it still amazed him that Steinberg had held onto his position for as long as he had.

Claus Hartz consequently decided to give this young man a chance: he would have him put on one of the machines that required only an unskilled operator. The violinist looked too weak for any labouring duties outside in the yard, and perhaps that was just as well – Hartz could not guarantee how the rough, beer-drinking men who carried out such backbreaking work would have treated this thin teenager.

'Why not?' he said convivially, clasping Heinemann's thin shoulder with one of his large hands. 'Mette Construction is on the Stettin Plant, near –'

Stielke squealed with delight.

'I know it – it's only five minutes from the lodgings I found you. Oh, this is perfect!'

Heinemann smiled in a manner he hoped appeared grateful.

'I know it too. I'm very grateful to you, Herr Hartz.'

Claus Hartz seemed almost to swell slightly with pride. He was an important man; he provided men with employment.

The fat beneath his chin wobbled pompously as he said, 'No problem at all, young man. Come and see me after Christmas – we reopen on the twenty-seventh – and we'll work out when you can work while allowing for your university studies. The last thing we want is for your music to suffer, eh?'

He looked at Stielke as he finished speaking, and she choked on a freshly-lit cigarette. All of a sudden she appeared rather ill, hurriedly putting down her glass on one of the long tables.

'Excuse me,' she requested, and she veered away through a room full of people who talked too loudly and with pseudo-importance.

Hartz took a glass of champagne from a passing waiter's tray and excused himself from Heinemann's company, already hoping that his offer of employment would not draw trouble from above. He was fundamentally a quiet man when sober, and so one who liked a quiet life.

Seconds later Marie drew-up beside Heinemann. The perfume she wore entranced him: the lipstick, the shoes. Every part of her was a sensual thrill.

'Enjoying yourself, Erich?' she asked, sipping from a glass of wine as she observed the people in the room.

Heinemann shrugged and did his best to appear entirely nonchalant.

'I guess so. Anyway... how is your grandmother?'

'She... does not have long.'

'I'm sorry.'

For a second Marie looked at him, her eyes shining, her lips slightly apart: his stomach back-flipped. Then the look disappeared so suddenly that he was left wondering as to whether it had ever been there in the first place.

'Thank you. I think I'd better wait outside – my neighbour is coming to collect me.'

With that she walked away from him; and taking more notice of his surroundings, Heinemann felt slightly shocked to observe the arm-banded men whom he presumed had only just entered the hall. The explanation of their presence was obvious: the party was over, the brief respite had ended and it was time to go back home to the truth.

Fritz Muehlebach slid over, trying to ingratiate himself with those members of the SA with whom he could claim an acquaintance. But his fawning was greeted with flint-like stares, and he soon received the message that they did not have any time for him.

One of the men met Heinemann's eyes, the thin student preparing himself for the inevitable look of hatred. He was surprised when nothing of the kind was given: the man's gaze merely moved on around the hall, checking to see the progress being made on its emptying.

Heinemann quickly looked outside for Marie but she was nowhere to be seen. She must have already been picked up. Heinemann returned inside. Most of the guests had left by now; an SA man nodded and laughed whenever necessary as he escorted a drunk and consequently talkative relic from a different era out of the hall.

The elderly man would feel awful tomorrow, with the fear regarding his alcoholic lapse of judgement coupled with the inevitable hangover. His ever-so-polite escort would certainly be noting everything that was being said, especially anything that could be considered disrespectful to the Fuhrer or the National Socialist Party.

Enrich Rath walked over to Heinemann, carrying their violins.

'It appears as though the occasion has finished, so we may as well be on our way. It went well tonight, and I think you've made some new admirers, Herr Heinemann. By the way, don't forget that we're due to perform here again on New Year's Eve.'

Heinemann nodded as he looked at the few guests still obstinately remaining: drunk, miserable specimens doing their best to hide from what was happening to their country...

Surely even Germany under the Weimar Republic – broken, economically ruined – was better than this...

Rath realised Heinemann's thoughts and empathy again flared within him. He longed to confide in someone and so relieve his burden, not knowing how much longer he could continue his coldly polite charade. Inside of him burned the fires of humiliation and anger; a dangerous combination that continually threatened to rage out of control.

The teacher and his student left with the last of the guests, a few of the SA men stood outside the Aalto respectfully greeting Rath. These men were fully aware of just how close the senior lecturer had come to falling from grace; they'd not mocked his change of mind concerning his defence of his Jewish colleagues.

The thin, sallow youth who walked at his side merited hardly any attention at all. He'd been invited here to perform this evening and that was enough – on this occasion, at least, the SA members had no cause to trouble him.

8

On Christmas day Heinemann made himself sausage and sauerkraut, and was then obliged to listen as the old sailor who also lived on the first floor sang slurred snatches of verse that grew steadily louder and more lewd as the day progressed.

The sailor was the only other tenant of the large house of whom Heinemann was all too aware. He knew there were others; he could hear them at night as one might hear mice, scuttling past his door. Doubtless they had valid reasons for staying quiet and unnoticed – race, beliefs, political associations... God only knew what mismatch of people reviled by the Nazis lived under the same roof.

On the morning of 29 December Heinemann decided to visit Claus Hartz at Mette Construction, as money was becoming an increasingly major concern and any form of employment was better than just sitting around in his room.

So he left the house and walked along cobbled streets slippery with frost. Those few people who passed him refused any eye contact, clearly eager to return to the dubious sanctuary of their homes.

The Stettin Industrial Plant occupied a few acres of land, wire fencing marking its perimeters. The entrance was guarded by a battered Stop sign placed on a pole that had rusted in the raised position.

Occupying the site were squat buildings made from wood and brick, tin roofs overhanging the walls. From within came the noise of machinery, wooden pallets stacked outside.

At the entrance a faded map illustrated each company's location within the plant, the industrial site being divided into sectors. Mette Construction was in sector 'G' and so Heinemann began walking towards the rear of the estate, in the process passing several grim-looking men whose unshaven faces were nothing so much as canvases depicting a lifetime of toil and precious little happiness.

A large sign on the building ahead informed him that he'd reached his destination, and entering he was greeted by the roar of the machinery. He'd scarcely had time to observe the operators working in rhythm alongside their machines before a man was inquiring as to just what the bloody hell he wanted?

Shouting to be heard above the noise he stated his purpose: he was here to see Claus Hartz, who'd offered him employment just a few days ago. The man scrutinised this sallow-faced youth who'd entered his world, as Heinemann in turn realised that this blond-haired specimen dressed in blue overalls was not like the others he'd seen so far within the Stettin Industrial Plant. For his face was clean-shaven and showed not a trace of drudgery or despair. Smelling strongly of soap, his appearance was that of a man perfectly content to dwell within the confines of factory life.

Pointing to an iron staircase that led to a door above the factory-floor, he put his mouth an inch from Heinemann's ear and said, 'Hartz's office is up there.'

Heinemann perfunctorily thanked the man, who shrugged and walked away. Heinemann then made his way past fast-moving machinery, the operators sparing him a cursory glance before returning their attention to their work. Orders were coming in thick and fast, and Mette Construction was running at its maximum output.

The men were at least guaranteed their jobs, but there was little extra pay for their increased efforts and overtime. Posters in support of the National Socialist Party had been stuck up on the wall, as was expected, but they still managed to reflect the worker's cynicism. They were not clean and crease-less as they were at Humboldt University; they were peeled at the edges, with one stained as though tea or coffee had been thrown at it.

Depicted on another was the staple illustration of workers toiling in a field, beneath this the slogan: The Common Interest before One's Self! And below this some comedian had written – in large letters which conveyed perfectly the intended sarcasm – the word Comrade.

For safety's sake this sign of rebellion should have been immediately erased upon its discovery, but no one working here had the slightest inclination of doing such a thing.

Heinemann walked up the ancient-looking iron staircase, the steps of which bent slightly but still worryingly beneath his weight. At the top he pushed open the door and entered a small reception area reeking of stale tobacco.

A dumpy woman sat at a small desk typed rapidly – clack, clack, clack, clack – a dirty window behind her and a dead potted plant next to the typewriter.

As the opened door let in the industrial din from the machines she looked up, her dull face displaying no expression as she observed the thin teenager who entered. She'd attempted to look smart and bohemian, her hair worn in the style made fashionable by any number of famous actresses of the moment. This quite failed, however, to displace her striking plainness.

She momentarily stopped chewing gum as she asked, 'How can I help?'

'I am here to see Herr Hartz; he should be expecting me.'

She looked at a list beside the typewriter, her jaw again working fiercely on the gum.

'Your name?'

'Erich Heinemann.'

She shook her head – he was obviously not on the list – and Heinemann decided to take the initiative.

'We met a few nights ago, at the Aalto Theatre. He was kind enough to offer me employment.'

She shrugged. 'One moment, please.' On the edge of the desk there was a large metallic box with a speaker grill, and she pressed one of its switches.

'Yes?' Although the speaker made the word harsh and distorted, it had still been voiced by a clearly irritated man.

'There is a young man here to see you, Herr Hartz – Erich Heinemann.'

There was long pause before the voice crackled again:

'Send him in, Helga.'

Motioning with her eyes to a short corridor with a door at its end, the secretary then resumed her typing. Heinemann walked to the door, thought about knocking, and then opened it anyway.

The room had once been painted white... but the walls and ceiling were now dirty with age. There were many filing cabinets, pieces of paper stuck to their draws stating: Production Figures '33 - '38; Revised Estimates; Annual Targets...

Claus Hartz sat in the middle of the room, paperwork banked-up on either side of his desk. His eyes had heavy bags beneath them, and they glared at Heinemann with no trace of the drink-fuelled joviality of before.

'Want to work, do you? Well, that suits me. And you might as well start now if you can. Your hours you can work out with the factory's foreman,' he said curtly, before he lowered his head and resumed writing in an evident gesture of dismissal.

Confused by the man's abrupt manner, Heinemann stayed where he was.

'Was there anything else?' enquired the factory owner irritably.

'How much... I mean, what will I get paid?' asked Heinemann uncertainly.

He scarcely believed Hartz's reply; it was an appallingly low rate.

'Was that all?' asked Hartz quickly.

'Who... who is the foreman, please?'

'He always dresses in blue overalls, has blond hair – his name's Wermer. Now you really must excuse me – I have work to be doing.'

Heinemann left the office, trying to ignore the depression that had taken a sudden grip of his thoughts. He'd had no previous idea that even an unskilled factory job would pay so little; but there was no way that he could continue to exist solely on his grant, and being half-Jewish the chances of him finding employment elsewhere were considerably less than slim.

Hartz, so to speak, had him by the balls.

At that moment the factory owner held his head in his hands, thinking of the boy he'd just sent onto the factory floor. For how long would he last; when would the authorities outlaw him? Still, the Party had demanded a ridiculous production quota from Mette Construction, and so he needed the sufficient amount of workers to be able to fulfil it. If questioned about employing a half-Jew he could always claim ignorance.

Some life this was – hurrah for Germany and Adolf-bloody-Hitler. With this despairing thought Hartz again steeled himself to continue the never-ending paperwork.

The work was extremely noisy and tedious. Wermer had quickly shown Heinemann how to use a machine that stamped a hole in a metal part, and had left him to get on with it with one simple piece of advice –

'I don't like bloody slackers, so make sure that you're not one.'

No further conversation was forthcoming regarding his hours or anything else. So Heinemann took his place next to the conveyer-belt, his arm soon aching as with a lever he lifted and brought down the machine onto the never-ending metal sections.

A clock was mounted on a wall in front of him, and he frequently wondered just how the minute hand managed the slow, uphill crawl past the half-hour to finally register another blessed hour passed. The despair and boredom of such a place as this seemed almost to affect the mechanical objects as much as it did the workers.

At one o'clock production stopped for lunch and the workers trooped outside the building, seating themselves on the stacked pallets and producing sandwiches and sacks of tobacco.

Heinemann sat apart from the main body, none of the men sparing him a second glance. They were hardly more sociable with one another, speaking only occasionally and then in a grunting, monosyllabic fashion. Noticing their sandwiches and pieces of pie Heinemann consequently realised his own hunger. But he'd nothing to eat.

At half past one the workers trooped back in to take their places at the machines. The next three and a half hours crept by until at last the conveyer-belt stopped and Heinemann felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked round to see a man slide his finger across his throat before walking off.

Work had at last finished.

The men clocked-out at the entrance and nodded solemnly to Wermer as they left. Heinemann approached the factory foreman.

'I need to ask you about my hours –'

'Half past seven till five o'clock, Monday to Friday; Saturday till noon,' replied Wermer immediately.

'I'm only here part-time, though – I study music at Humboldt University.'

Recognising the man's immediate disdain, Heinemann was unsurprised by what followed:

'Part-time? We don't need bloody part-timers here, especially not bloody students –'

Wermer's vitriol choked on observing the anger that suddenly flashed in Heinemann's narrow grey eyes; he no longer looked anything like so vacant and fragile.

'Well – it's cleared with the boss, yes?' asked Wermer in a slightly less strident voice.

'Yes,' said Heinemann tightly, still staring hard at the foreman.

'Take this card, then, and clock in and out like everyone else when you're working. Your wages will be given to you at the end of each week, minus stoppages.'

Heinemann nodded and left the building, feeling his anger beginning to abate. At least he was earning some more money, he considered. He would do as many days as he could over the Christmas break, but once university had restarted he would only be able to work Saturdays.

Or so he thought.

9

The quartet's performance at the Aalto Theatre on 31 December was received perfectly as background music. Due to his new-found employment consisting of long hours, which consequently left him feeling exhausted (he was currently working full-time, until university began again) Erich Heinemann played below his usual standard and made several sloppy mistakes.

Marie's grandmother was living her final few days, and so the tearful cellist left as soon as she was able. Muehlebach also disappeared, to spend the rest of New Year's Eve doing whatever it was that a Muehlebach did.

This left Heinemann and Rath, who each took a glass of champagne from a waiter's silver tray as the last hour of 1938 ticked itself into extinction. It was Heinemann's first drink since the rehearsal at his tutor's apartment, and determined not to embarrass himself again he sipped it slowly.

A whinnying laugh sounded clear in the hall despite the loud babble of many conversations, and Heinemann looked round to see Frau Sasse.

She was elegantly dressed and dripped jewellery, surrounded by dinner-jacketed males whose wives didn't dare shoot evil glances in her direction as they would have liked. Their husbands were talking to the wife of a Commissioner of the Gestapo, and she knew it.

Suddenly noticing the Mischling and his tutor, she immediately broke away from the sycophantic males, people moving quickly out of her path as she walked towards the two violinists.

Looking at Rath, Heinemann was startled to see hatred and fear momentarily mix in his expression. This, however, instantly disappeared as the man greeted the woman:

'Frau Sasse, what a pleasant surprise. How was your trip to Austria?'

'Lovely, thank you Enrich – it was so relaxing. It's such a shame my husband couldn't be here, but then business for him never stops – you know how it is.'

She flashed a quick, triumphant smile, and for a second Rath's impassive mask faltered again.

She then looked at Heinemann with obvious affection.

'Ah, Erich – my dear young Erich! My girlfriends still talk about your performance at our coffee morning that time, you know.'

Yes thought Heinemann. I've heard about your girlfriends.

'Really, Frau Sasse?' he said.

She turned back to Rath.

'You know, Enrich, you should arrange some concerts for Erich, to really show-off Berlin's – perhaps Germany's! – finest young violinist. See to it, would you? The rest of your students can accompany him – it would make a good project for them.'

'Of course, Frau Sasse,' Rath said mechanically, thus disguising the hatred he felt for her patronising words.

She smiled ingratiatingly and walked away, immediately surrounded by men and women whose very safety depended on not upsetting her. She was a powerful woman, notorious for taking offence at the smallest of slights.

For a while Rath stood in silence, his face shaking slightly; then he said coldly, 'Well, there's a turn up for you, Herr Heinemann.'

'It's the New Year, Her Rath; Frau Sasse will have forgotten all about it tomorrow,' replied Heinemann diplomatically.

His tutor smiled, a sight that was horrible to behold: it somehow carried all the contempt and shame that he felt for himself.

'Oh, she won't. Still, it leaves us with plenty to do in the New Year.'

Not for the first time Heinemann wished that he was a million miles away from Berlin, and as the clock struck twelve and the guests cheered he made his New Year's resolution: no matter what the bastards did to him he would never be beaten. Rath represented the bitter ruin of a fundamentally decent man who'd had his guts torn out, and Heinemann swore that such a man would never be himself.

He'd rather be dead.

10

The new term began with Enrich Rath focusing his lessons on musical theory, setting the class a pace that as usual left Heinemann reeling. He managed to fit in a few hours at the Mette Construction site during the evenings (overtime was freely available) as well as on Saturdays, and he was surprised to discover that the monotonous work actually soothed his strained mind.

Here, unlike at university, he did not have to endure any hostile glances as the workers ignored the teenager and to a large extent each other. He did not enquire as to the factory's purpose, but it was obvious that the parts being made were for a machine of some description and he wondered just how many of these machines Germany actually needed. This question was, however, no concern of his: he was grateful enough just to receive his pitifully sparse pay-packet.

The news he'd been expecting to hear was given to the class by Rath as January neared its end:

'As you are all doubtless aware, Frau Hahn, Herr Muehlebach, Herr Heinemann and myself performed on two occasions, as a quartet, at the Aalto Theatre during the Christmas vacation.

'It is my pleasure to inform you that we've been asked, as a class, to perform there again on the third of March. I've decided that I myself will not play but instead conduct.'

Rath then reeled off the names of the class and their main or only instrument: Heinemann the violin, Muehlebach the viola, and Marie von Hahn the cello. The others played the pianoforte, the piccolo, the flute, the French horn and another violin and cello.

Rath looked at the pianist, a small, shy teenager, and smiled.

'Herr Molle, your instrument is already catered for, as it stands in the corner of this classroom. The rest of you will please start bringing your instruments into lessons; they can be left in this room overnight if you so wish.

'From now on you will be learning and arranging the pieces I've already selected, with only cursory involvement from myself – this will be a group project serving as an introduction to the performance module.

'Today is Friday, so please ensure that you bring your instruments in on Monday. Class dismissed.'

As the students rose to leave Fritz Muehlebach glared at Heinemann, who in turn noticed only the grief clear in Marie von Hahn's face – for her grandmother had died two days after New Year's Day.

...That evening Muehlebach phoned his contact at the Sicherheitsdienst to give his monthly report. He'd noticed nothing suspicious, and was unaware that the SD – with the full knowledge of Commissioner Sasse – had installed a microphone in his classroom.

The tapes were listened to the next day, as was usual, and confirmed the mole's report of nothing untoward having occurred.

11

March 3 and the Aalto Theatre was packed. Once it was discovered that Frau Sasse had played a major part in organising this concert, tickets had suddenly become very much in demand.

As was to be expected Enrich Rath's class was extremely well rehearsed, with the students having decided the arrangements of the pieces selected by Rath. Only Heinemann had contributed nothing to these class discussions, in turn feeling bored and then greatly irritated by Muehlebach's interminable suggestions.

Now, seated on stage and leafing through the music in front of him, Heinemann felt curiously flushed with power. He noticed Claus Hartz stood beside his hatchet-faced wife, disdaining the wine on offer for copious quantities of whisky. His fat face lost its harassed appearance as the alcohol impacted, instead becoming flushed and jolly as his voice grew ever louder.

For the first time Heinemann had the power of an orchestra, albeit a very small one, supporting him – for he was the lead instrument, the first violinist.

He looked at Molle, who was flexing his podgy fingers over the keyboard of a grand piano brought in especially for the occasion.

Sat next to the other cellist, Marie von Hahn looked through her music. She still felt a little numb: her grandmother's death had left her with no relatives, removing the person who'd looked after her from a very young age. The house was now hers, everything was in order, but she was on her own.

Rath tapped his baton on the stand and the students made ready to play. The first piece was gentle and soothing, the student's playing exemplary. The guests were captivated by what they heard. The applause that followed was enthusiastic and noticeably led by Frau Sasse.

Rath immediately began the next, far more impassioned piece; and Heinemann realised as he played the first few bars that his tutor was staring at him. This stare was attempting to communicate – something. Gone was his impassive expression; his face was now strained with the message he was trying to impart, his eyes on fire.

Heinemann quickly and instinctively realised just what this message was – he was to play as he'd never played before, so to amaze the assembled throng.

Because, for Rath, this would in some small way serve as revenge for his humiliation under the Nazis, for those Jewish friends of his whom they'd either had imprisoned or made destitute. And this revenge was to come from a teenage Mischling – the ultimate spit in the eye to any fool who believed in the 'superiority' of the Aryan race.

A feeling of complete confidence, almost of invincibility, grew within Heinemann as he willingly obliged Rath's request. For he played with the innate skill and ferocity of a born genius; for a time he touched the stars and became immortal.

The combined attentions of perhaps five hundred people were focused on him alone – on his slender fingers that danced with lightening speed across the instrument's neck; he controlled their thoughts, their emotions – he controlled their very minds.

And why only five hundred people? Why not five thousand, five million? Why should he not stop until every single person on Earth knew of his ability?

...The wild applause that followed the tumultuous conclusion of this piece broke his hypnotic state, and it was with some confusion that he observed the ecstatic faces of the audience before him.

Then he glanced at the other students – Molle the pianist wiped his perspiring face with a handkerchief, clearly exhausted by the performance he'd just been party to; Heinemann caught Muehlebach's look of utter amazement, the youth's face as red as his hair.

Marie von Hahn's face had lost its recent mask-like appearance, and she smiled warmly as he looked at her. To Heinemann this was worth more than any amount of applause.

Turning towards the audience and giving a slight bow, Rath felt a cold, delicious sense of satisfaction. The hour-long performance now over conversation grew within the hall, the music students talking amongst themselves as they packed away their instruments.

Looking at the heavy black curtains surrounding two-thirds of the small stage, Heinemann suddenly thought that he'd seen them twitch, as though they'd been fractionally opened for someone to see through...

Curious, he moved forward to take a closer look –

'Marvellous, Erich – truly marvellous!'

Frau Sasse was suddenly stood beside him, a fluted glass of champagne in her hand. Behind her stood a small group of similarly-aged and attired women, intently watching the young Mischling as the Commissioner's wife congratulated him.

'Thank you, Frau Sasse.'

'I only wish that my husband had been here to listen to you; he's extremely fond of classical music.'

Heinemann nodded and smiled while feeling sickened, wishing that this loathsome woman would leave him alone. But – as he consequently realised – her obvious fondness for him was quite possibly vital to his continued safety.

Rath had walked over to join the group, savouring his private moment of triumph, and Frau Sasse turned to him and said, 'Really, Enrich, it seems that your class goes from strength to strength. I wouldn't be surprised if the Fuhrer himself requests a performance, as your students appear to rival the Berlin Philharmonie Orchestra in terms of excellence!'

He nodded politely at the extravagant praise, and felt only just able to summon a smile. Frau Sasse's attendant clique knew that she was baiting the music tutor, verbally pressing on his mental sores: the Berlin Philharmonie Orchestra, from which so many of his Jewish friends had been removed; and the mention of playing for Adolf Hitler, as though this was meant to be the ultimate accolade. She'd perfected this type of cruel psychology, verbally toying with people, confident in her power.

Her beady eyes narrowed as she stared at Rath, enjoying his discomfort. An uncomfortable silence contrasted with the general noise within the hall, until she at last turned back to Heinemann.

'More power to your elbow, young Erich.' She walked away, her attendant clique following her like the courtiers of a monarch. Rath left Heinemann without a word, his sense of victory destroyed.

Heinemann soon found himself embroiled in another tedious conversation with Claus Hartz, whose brief whisky euphoria had dissolved back into the desperate tiredness and depression that never seemed to fully disappear.

He would have seen a doctor, but he knew that no medicine would be of benefit and he did not want to be seen as being weak. He knew exactly why he felt so bad: too much work and a mental sickness caused by what the Nazis were doing to Germany.

'And how are you liking the job?' he asked Heinemann, who was surreptitiously trying to watch Marie as she spoke with two elderly women. He also noticed Muehlebach following Frau Sasse like a lost sheep, completely oblivious to the barely-disguised dismissals he was continually receiving.

'Fine thank you, Herr Hartz.'

'The pay's not good but I can't help that,' the factory owner said sharply, as though Heinemann had complained.

The violinist shrugged, and noticing that Marie was now walking towards the entrance lobby said hurriedly, 'Together with my grant it means that I'm okay. Now, if you'll excuse me...'

He walked over to where Rath was stood talking with two officious-looking men.

Noticing him, his tutor said, 'One moment, please gentlemen... Yes, Herr Heinemann?'

'Herr Rath, may I leave if I'm not needed any more?'

'Certainly. You can leave your instrument here if you wish – most of the others are going to do so. I'll bring them into class tomorrow.'

'Okay, thanks.'

'Goodnight then – and congratulations on your performance.'

'Thank you, Herr Rath.'

Saying this Heinemann moved quickly towards the large, open double-doors that led out to the lobby. Marie was stood by them, putting on her coat and preparing to leave.

He looked up to see a huge swastika banner above her, and a chill gripped his heart.

Please, don't let it claim her – the plea came suddenly into his mind, though he immediately forgot about it as he noticed the cellist smiling at him.

'Can I walk you to the station?' he asked quietly, his gaze alternating between the floor and an area just above her eyes.

'Of course – thank you,' she replied, smiling at his nervousness. She felt extremely pleased that he'd asked. As they left the hall Heinemann caught the jealous look Muehlebach flashed at him, and he realised that he was not the only one who found this young woman attractive.

The two students stepped out into the rain-swept night, and his heart beat a little faster as Marie's arm threaded through his own.

'I wish I'd worn some more practical shoes, because I think that we'd better walk fast. Otherwise we'll get soaked,' she said.

...Awakening several hours later, Heinemann for a moment did not know where he was. The room was in total darkness, the fire was out – she was not sitting on the sofa beside him. He lay staring up into the blackness, thinking, the blanket Marie had given him bunched about his knees.

He'd gone back to her house that was in a pleasant part of Charlottenburg, close to a number of quaint bookshops and cafés. It had felt entirely natural to the both of them that he should do so. Inside the small house they were safe, and after a time the conversation had changed from small talk to more serious matters.

On this occasion, Marie found that he said little about his own troubles, but was prepared to listen and even offer occasional advice for hers. Her grief over her grandmother's death was soothed by his comforting words; and easily, with no sense of surprise, she realised that she loved him.

The fire in the living room had almost died by the time their conversation finished, its dying flames throwing light shadows on the dark walls and ceiling which danced with unpredictable fluidity.

The two students realised how close they were to one another, and in the safety of the room this realisation was appealing. Without a word they simultaneously turned and held each other, their lips meeting at first gently and then with increasing passion. Shades of darkness and light crossed their bodies and the terrors outside, the nightmare of Germany in 1939, seemed faraway and inconsequential.

It was Heinemann who broke the spell.

'We can't,' he said softly, looking rapturously at the darkened face so close to his own.

'I thought it was the girl who was supposed to say that,' Marie replied, sounding like a heroine in one of the cheap American movies that were no longer broadcast within Germany. But she adjusted her clothing all the same.

'Please understand, it's not that I don't want to, it's just –'

'It's all right, Erich, I understand. Believe me I do.'

Her words reinforced the honesty he searched for and found in her face, and he sighed, almost in relief.

She stood up. 'I'll get you a blanket – the sofa's very comfortable.'

Returning within a minute, she handed him the folded blanket.

'I'm going to bed, so I'll see you in the morning.'

'You're not upset – I didn't upset...'

Regarding him with an arched eyebrow, she said, 'Erich Heinemann, you assume a lot.'

This might have been a rebuke, had she not been smiling as she said it, and without another word she left the room.

12

Over the following three months Heinemann experienced increasing hostility within the university; on several occasions he was roughly pushed in crowded corridors and once punched in the back of the head.

It did not take the brains of a scientist for him to determine that the students who attended the agricultural and economic classes – who talked loudly about 'Mother Earth', 'Soil' and 'Freedom' in the dinner-hall – might just have something to do with his harassment.

There was no chance of Marie and him developing their relationship: a month after he'd stayed the night at her house they had their second meeting at a secluded spot by the River Spree, close to the Aalto Theatre.

There Heinemann curtly explained that their fledgling romance was an illegality under the Socialists. Were it to be discovered there would be severe punishments for the both of them, and the last thing he wished to do was to place her in any danger.

No, it had to end now. They should not exchange anything but the most cursory of greetings in the classroom, lest suspicions should be aroused and possibly reported.

His heart broke as she tearfully agreed. Life without her would be grim indeed. Even his beloved violin paled in her shadow: it did not smile in that curiously upside-down fashion; it did not give him that look.

But he had to forget about her; he had no other choice.

Lessons finished for the day, Heinemann left the university building in order to catch the tram to Mette Construction. The weather was warm, the sky completely blue. Students sat on the lawn or on the benches, relaxing.

Those who were not pro-Nazi pitied the young Mischling as he walked past, a feeling dismissed with varying degrees of ease as they looked about themselves – at the glorious weather, at those other students whom they found attractive. Life was to be enjoyed; they were being educated at one of Germany's most prestigious universities.

The half-Jewish teenager's problems were not their own.

A black car waiting by the entrance became the focus of Heinemann's attention; he saw a figure climb out of the driver's side to stand, waiting.

Realising who this car belonged to caused his testicles to tighten and his bowels to weaken; but still he continued to walk towards the entrance. There was nothing else he could do.

And why, he wondered, did they always choose black? What was the purpose? Surely to God a visit from them was bad enough to make even the bravest person threaten to foul themselves...

It was pure psychology, he realised – people could sit safely in the sun talking about trivialities, but the black cars reminded them never to become too confident, too secure, lest it became they that –

'Erich Heinemann?'

There was a protective humming in his ears that made him almost deaf to the man's question; in his mind's eye he saw the sun-drenched fields of Hegensdorf, the farm labourers slaving to get the hay in...

This was nice, it was secure: he felt entirely safe amongst childhood memories. He tried to recall the smell of his aunt's baking but couldn't...

Ah, that was why – funny how seeking one memory always brought another! It was the ancient teacher at the tiny parish school, Herr Trutz, who'd informed Heinemann and the other children in the class as to why this should be, one of the many fascinating but factually dubious titbits he'd liked to give their developing minds:

'The only smell a human can remember is that of an orange, children. Why is this, I hear you ask? I'll tell you: no one knows.'

But the response he had to give to the question concerning his name... This invalidated this safety, brought him back to the present and the man who was stood waiting beside the black car.

'Yes.'

The word carried that awful dead acceptance of whatever had been planned for him. Could he have said no? Could he have denied his name?

Hardly – they'd only asked him as a formality. They knew exactly who he was.

'Get in the car.'

Observed by the students within the grounds he got into the back of the Volkswagen, sitting beside a man who smelt strongly of tobacco and after-shave. Heinemann recognised neither him nor the car's driver; they were not the same men as before.

As the car drove off he saw Marie walking along the path, and he prayed that the Gestapo wouldn't somehow link her to him. He'd the same safety guarantee as dynamite, and when he was destroyed – which seemed certain to occur sooner or later – there was a good chance he'd take out anyone close to him...

After a short journey the car pulled into the château's courtyard. This time no one was washing the cobbles.

The man sat next to Heinemann said, 'Get out.'

The two Gestapo men walked ahead, not bothering to see if he followed. They knew that he would. They opened a different door to the one used before. Inside there were no typing secretaries wearing blood-red lipstick and smoking cigarettes, only stone-walled, dimly-lit passages. At regular intervals there were wooden doors, with nothing other than an iron keyhole adorning them. They appeared solid, strong... and soundproof.

At the end of a passage, beside a dark stone staircase that led further down to God only knew what, one of the men produced a bunch of keys.

Without hesitation he selected one and opened a door.

'Get in there.'

Heinemann did as told, walking into a small, windowless room with a solitary bulb hanging from the ceiling. A damp sheen sparkled on the stone walls. As the door closed he sat on a stone slab set into the wall, staring down at his clenched hands, his mind racing. This was his second visit to headquarters. Most people only ever had one. Though he racked his brain to think of a reason why he should have been brought back here he couldn't think of one. Perhaps it was just because he was a Mischling – that this was harassment designed purely to make life as intolerable as was possible for him...

A few minutes later the door opened.

'Come with me,' said a figure half in shadow. Heinemann followed him along two long passages and up a stone flight of stairs. He found himself in a short corridor, light splashing onto the floor from the open door of the solitary room at the end.

Motioning for Heinemann to enter this room, his escort then followed him in. It was adorned only with a swastika banner and a portrait of the Fuhrer hung on one wall. Otherwise there was a desk with two chairs either side close to the door.

A large double window to Heinemann's left was shut – a fat man stood staring out of it, and Heinemann was fleetingly reminded of Enrich Rath. But there was no tragic sensation of gut-wrenching isolation to Commissioner Sasse, as he now turned briskly round to face the teenager.

'Erich Heinemann, I feel that we ought to have words,' he said, walking over to seat himself at the desk but apparently content to leave Heinemann standing. The Mischling almost abstractly considered that this room was markedly different to the last one in which he'd seen this fat Commissioner – that had been some kind of office.

This, however, was plainly a torture chamber, with patches of what appeared to be dried blood on its stone floor. Away from the surface veneer of the typing secretaries this was what the Gestapo was really about –whatever torture and depravities a human being could imagine they could facilitate, and quite possibly a few more besides.

'Erich Heinemann, it has been brought to my attention that you've been consorting with a certain Marie von Hahn, whom I believe is a student in your music class,' Sasse said after a lengthy pause, leaning back in his chair and staring hard at the violinist.

Swallowing, Heinemann wondered just how the Commissioner had got his information. He must have had him followed, seen him enter Marie's house. All he could do now was to attempt a damage limitation exercise, in order to protect Marie.

'We had a slight friendship, Herr Commissioner, nothing more,' he said quietly.

His fist smashing down onto the table, Sasse's voice rose to a trembling nasal crescendo.

'You're not to have these "slight friendships"! I specifically told you to attend only your lectures, and otherwise to consort with no one! You've disobeyed everything I told you to do, and I gave you fair warning last time.'

Certain that a hammer-blow was about to knock him clean out of society and quite possibly even existence, Heinemann stood absolutely still. Only his mouth trembled slightly.

Sasse thought of his wife and gave an inward sigh – for she would demand a full report from him, should he punish this strangely-famous teenager.

Consigning Heinemann to a concentration camp would have to be fully justified and at the moment this just wasn't possible – Sasse had only the dubious word of one of Heinemann's classmates that the Mischling had slept with a German woman.

'Heinemann – have you had sexual relations with Marie von Hahn?'

The sneering question carried all the contempt that Sasse felt for the violinist.

'No, Herr Commissioner.'

Producing a cigar from the inside pocket of his tunic, Sasse lit it, and standing up walked over to the window. The smoke that hung above his head whirled and eddied, illuminated by the sunlight that came in shards through the dirty glass. Heinemann was reminded of a waddling duck in the way in which Sasse blew out his chest; it seemed that at any moment the buttons of his tight tunic might burst. The silence in the room was strangely peaceful; but for his surroundings Heinemann could almost have believed that he was at a job interview, the manager of some office or bank taking his time in considering this sallow-faced applicant.

'I choose to believe you this time, Heinemann, but if I ever discover that you've been guilty of racial pollution then, believe me, it will be the worst for you.'

Racial pollution? White-hot coals of hatred and humiliation burned suddenly in Heinemann's chest as he looked at the Commissioner, who stood smoking with a smug look. So this short and fat man was racially pure – he was the ideal?

The hatred and the humiliation suddenly metamorphosed into an insane desire to burst out laughing. Heinemann waited until this entirely inappropriate urge had passed before he apologised, as he assumed he was supposed to do. He'd never felt less inclined to say sorry in his life, but if in doing so he'd get another chance...

'I'm sorry, Herr Commissioner.'

Sasse ground his barely-smoked cigar out underfoot, the heel of his black boot shredding it, and sat back down.

'I understand that since Christmas you've been working at Mette Construction, within the Stettin Industrial Plant.'

'Yes, Herr Commissioner.'

'The factory is having to increase its productivity, which consequently entails longer hours for its workers. I don't see why this shouldn't include you. As from tomorrow you will work from five p.m. until midnight, Monday to Friday, and on Saturday from half-seven until five instead of noon. You will also now get exactly half of what you were being paid per hour before. Consider yourself fortunate that you're being paid at all.'

The implications of all of this were exceedingly grim – Heinemann was used to working odd evenings, but not every evening and certainly never until midnight. He had, after all, to have some time in which to complete the lengthy assignments Rath was continually setting the music class.

Now it appeared that to be able to do all of this he'd be lucky to get to bed before four in the morning, only to be up a few short hours later to go to university. He understood that the Commissioner was trying to break him, and wondered why he had to choose such an underhand method to do so.

'Secondly,' continued Sasse, 'I am a very busy man, and cannot waste my time seeing the likes of you. Therefore, every fortnight you will report to the Mischling Headquarters, which is not far from that theatre you've performed in. This is the address.'

As Sasse handed him a slip of paper from on top of his desk, Heinemann said, 'Yes, Herr Commissioner.'

Sasse gave a curt nod and the man who was stood by the door walked

over.

He waited in silence for the Commissioner to speak.

'Show him out. He can find his own way back to his hovel.'

Within minutes Heinemann was stood in the street, the door of the large château banging shut behind him. Without a moment's hesitation he began to walk quickly away, fearful that Sasse might yet change his mind and send someone to bring him back.

13

The following months passed for Heinemann in a grey haze of exhaustion, with only the outbreak of war in September briefly distracting him from his own troubles.

Strangely, the rough treatment he'd experienced on several occasions within the university had by now ceased entirely. For the rumour concerning him having been picked-up and then released by the Gestapo quickly circulated amongst the students, consequently affording him an odd, almost semi-heroic status.

Shortly after Commissioner Sasse had informed Heinemann of the longer hours he would be working at Mette Construction, Claus Hartz had called his factory foreman into his office for a private meeting. He'd revealed the instructions he'd been given by the Gestapo man: the half-Jew was to be worked incessantly and not given any peace at all; he was in effect to be broken.

Hartz and Wermer had instantly realised each other's thoughts concerning this matter, though it would have been dangerous to discuss Sasse's order out loud – one was never quite certain whether or not there was a concealed microphone in the vicinity – and so they'd refrained from doing so.

Privately, both men despised this repression of groups of people solely because of their race or political beliefs. They feared and hated the Nazi Party for the way they'd gagged freedom of speech, a word out of place almost guaranteeing a visit to Gestapo headquarters for an 'interview'. The economic recovery and the military might which the Socialists had facilitated within Germany – these had been paid for at a price that made a man scared to fart lest it should get him into trouble.
Via only the shared look in their eyes an agreement had passed between Hartz and Wermer – Erich Heinemann would be left alone. Lip-service would be paid to the fat Commissioner's instructions and nothing more.

The young violinist himself discovered that only within the factory did he feel safe, cloistered within its reassuring monotony and boredom. Its banging machinery, its silent workers, its foreman who smelt of soap and said 'bloody' near incessantly – these were things he came to appreciate almost with delight.

After his seven-hour shift had finished he would walk the short distance back to the house and begin the homework set by Rath. During these early hours he existed as though in a dream, writing on a pad of paper and referring to the few textbooks in his possession. His pencil was splintered at the top from his continual gnawing, a grey smudge from the wet lead staining the area between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand.

During this dream he did not think about Marie von Hahn or the double-headed nightmare that went under the name of Sasse. The work required his complete concentration – Rath marked aggressively and any mistakes, no matter how minor, had to be rectified in the student's own time. And Heinemann did not have any time.

The tutor himself noticed the glass-like sheen covering the teenager's eyes in the classroom, noticed his head frequently drooping with fatigue – but he could not afford to give Heinemann any special dispensation. That was what they – the shadowy, indefinable they of which Sasse was only a minute part – were waiting for.

The awful depression was felt by Rath anew, the feeling of utter helplessness in the face of the Nazi nightmare, and alone in his flat in the evenings he again considered suicide as being his only means of escape.

14

As winter at last turned to spring, Heinemann came to view the fortnightly reports he was obliged to make at the Mischling Headquarters almost with pleasure. True to Commissioner Sasse's words, this attractive timbered building was situated close to the Aalto Theatre.

A thin, waspish man who appeared to be in his late fifties attended to him. Outside of his small office were two secretaries – but there were no cigarettes placed between blood-red lips here. They were instead motherly-looking women who methodically worked their way through the paperwork piled high on their desks.

Having been treated with rude silence by them the first time he'd visited the Headquarters, Heinemann had not attempted to talk to them again. He knew that he'd only to knock on the office door for a reedy voice to wail, 'Come in, I say!'

Under a different regime Puttkamer would most likely have been nothing other than a wholly anonymous civil servant; but his bumbling and preoccupied character had been given a far more sinister role by the Nazis.

For it was his duty to make reports on those who were of half-Jewish extraction, ensuring that their employment was beneficial to the Socialists and that they were not breaking any of the anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws. Until recently Mischlings had been allowed into the army, but a directive coming directly from Hitler had put paid to that.

Puttkamer's notes were typed-up by probably the only two women in Germany who could read his appalling handwriting, while they in turn did their best not to notice either what they were typing or the people who came to visit.

One fine morning Heinemann stood inside the office, feeling remarkably peaceful as he stared out of the large window behind the desk at the River Spree.

'Erich Heinemann, hey?' said Puttkamer, playing for time as he searched for his notes in a battered filing cabinet. 'Well, what have you got to say for yourself?'

Seating himself at the desk, he made an occasional and illegible scribble on a tattered piece of paper as Heinemann replied:

'I'm still attending Humboldt University, and I have the job in the evenings and on Saturday at Mette Construction, close to where I live.'

'And what does Mette Construction construct, I say?'

Now that the war had started there was no longer a shred of mystery concerning the factory's purpose.

'Tank parts, Herr Puttkamer.'

'So you're working hard and being productive, hey?'

'Yes, Herr Puttkamer.'

'And what are you studying at Humboldt University?'

The questions were exactly the same on every visit, and so as before Heinemann answered:

'Music.'

'Music? What do you play, I say?'

'The violin.'

'Used to myself. Long time ago.'

For a long moment this strange man's eyes burned with his memories... then with a brusque shake of his thin head he returned to business. It was an unfailing routine.

'Well, just be sure that you keep out of trouble, young Heinemann. I've nothing to say about you this time.'

'Thank you, Herr Puttkamer.'

'Yes. Dismissed.'

From there Heinemann would take the tram to Humboldt University, to attend a class that barely acknowledged his late presence. Aside from Muehlebach, who hated him, and Marie, who loved him, an unspoken admiration now existed among the music class for the violinist – for his obvious and exceptional talent; for his resilience against the attentions of the Gestapo and the other, more militant students of this corrupted seat of learning.

And when not entirely consumed by his own torment, Enrich Rath wondered just when the violinist would be snatched clean out of society, as he was certain would happen sooner rather than later...

15

The good-humoured spring had lately turned to summer. Erich Heinemann lay on his bed on a Sunday morning, taking advantage of this chance to rest and recover his energy before he left for work in a few hours' time.

Puttkamer had informed him a month before that he had to attend Mette Construction from two p.m. until five on the Sabbath, which had not really come as a surprise – it had in fact been a huge oversight on Sasse's behalf to allow him a work-free Sunday.

With his arms folded behind his head, Heinemann stared at a damp patch on the ceiling. Given time it had become slightly similar to how North America appeared on an atlas – and so the damp patch in the shabby room allowed his mind to drift, his thoughts leaving Berlin in the year 1940.

For a while he indulged himself with wild dreams of spectacular musical success and a love so intense, so incredible, that it coloured even the darkest of days. Somehow, he thought, he had to escape the grinding present – and more than this he had to escape it with Marie von Hahn.

They needed to get to America, he decided – that country far removed from the wartime madness afflicting both Germany and Europe as a whole.

Something hit his window with a soft tap and he immediately sat up. It came again – a small stone or something similar. Standing up, he walked over to the dirty window and looked out.

There, in the cobbled street below, stood Marie von Hahn.

His surprise turned quickly to anger – an anger fuelled by him having been forbidden by Sasse to see this young woman. Just what did she want? She did not seem to understand the possibly disastrous implications of her visit.

Moving quickly away from the window without her seeing him – she'd been looking up and down the street as though scared that she'd been followed – Heinemann put on trousers and shirt and left the room. It was important that he get her inside as quickly as was possible; the Party's eyes and ears were everywhere, and this little visit could well earn him another (this time one-way) trip to Gestapo headquarters if it was discovered...

Despite the serious nature of her visit, Marie could not help but feel amused by his appearance as he opened the front door. The shock of straight black hair had not been carefully brushed back as was usual; it instead lay flat on his head, covering his ears and nearly his eyes.

Hurriedly tucking his creased white shirt into his faded brown trousers, he asked, 'Marie, what are you doing here?'

'I took a guess at which window was yours; the others have curtains, you see – you told me once that yours didn't,' she declared.

Heinemann nodded; he too remembered nearly every word they'd spoken that afternoon in the Tiergarten.

'Anyway,' said Marie, 'can I come in? There's something you should see.'

Only now did Heinemann take notice of the rolled-up newspaper in her hand, and as she followed him inside Marie raised her eyebrows at the dirty floorboards and peeling wallpaper of the large hallway.

They walked upstairs and then past the other rooms along the landing. They entered Heinemann's room, and due to there being no other furniture they both sat on the bed.

'So what's the matter?' he asked curtly.

In response Marie handed him the newspaper. Opening it, his heart sank as he saw that it was a copy of Der Stuermer, the virulently anti-Semitic and pro-Nazi paper published by one of Adolf Hitler's favourites, Julius Streicher.

Due to his relationship with Germany's dictator, Streicher was able to attack anyone who upset him, though many of his victims had no previous idea that they had.

'What page?'

The day of reckoning had finally arrived: Heinemann had to ask no more than this.

'Five.'

The article was a storming tirade against him: for how long would the Mischling be allowed to remain at one of Germany's finest universities? Had it not already been otherwise purged of the Jewry, and quite rightly so? Just what was it that gave Erich Heinemann special dispensation?

Also incorporated within this rant was the heavy implication that Heinemann and his tutor – the noted Jew-lover Enrich Rath – had a secret friendship, the two of them all but certain to share anti-Reich views.

And finally, nightmarishly, there was Marie's name, with the heavy insinuation that she and Heinemann had had a sexual relationship approximately a year ago, in clear defiance of the German race laws. Maybe, the report snidely concluded, their clandestine affair was still continuing...

'Shit,' said Heinemann softly, folding the paper in half and handing it back to Marie, who recoiled as though it carried a disease transmutable by touch.

'I don't want it,' she said.

'That makes two of us.'

Looking keenly at Marie, whose eyes had filmed over with shock and worry, Heinemann wondered just how Streicher had got his information. Had it been Sasse who'd provided the editor with a few choice titbits?

Whatever – there was nothing he could do about it now, and yet again he considered that escape was his and Marie's only option, before he brought destruction onto the both of them.

She was sat close to him, their arms touching; he remembered the taste of her lips during that magical night in her living room. She was wearing the same scent that she had then – he could not believe that it had been well over a year since they'd first kissed...

Forcing such thoughts away, he asked, 'Did you buy this paper?'

'No!' replied Marie vehemently. 'It was put through my letter box; I think early this morning. There was nothing else with it. I don't have any idea who might have posted it. I looked through it and...'

She let her voice fade away as she removed her flat brown shoes; noticing this, Heinemann also grew more aware of how her light-blue summer dress emphasised her voluptuous figure. He wondered if she felt the same as him; were all thoughts concerning Streicher's poisonous article being steadily banished by an overpowering physical desire?

In answer to his mental question came her arm around his waist; she drew him towards her, first their lips and then their tongues meeting with increasing ferocity.

For a moment he resisted this warm descent into numbing bliss, realising that what was about to happen would be severely punished were it ever to be discovered. A third visit to headquarters would be his last – no more chances – and what punishment would be given to the woman?

'Erich...' whispered Marie.

Desire overwhelmed him; he could resist no longer...

Contented, the cellist had fallen asleep – yet Heinemann remained wide-awake as he lay beside her, the two of them naked beneath the blanket. Now that his lust had been sated he expected his cold reasoning to admonish what had just taken place, but it did not. After all, as a perfectly fit and healthy nineteen year old man he was subject to the same desires as everyone else, no matter what the Nazis did to try and prevent him from fulfilling them.

And what a world he'd discovered here in this room – a world he'd never previously known had existed! Certainly he'd never experienced it with that woman in the cloakroom of a nightclub nearly two years before.

Now he was certain that the pair of them had to escape. Switzerland first; and from there, somehow, onto America.

Frustration gripped him: this was a grand scheme all right, yet he'd not the slightest idea concerning how to make it a reality. All it actually appeared he could do was to sit tight and wait for his last bit of luck to run out...

Taking hold of Marie's wrist, gently so as not to awaken her, he looked at her small watch – another hour and he was due at the factory.

Then Marie opened her eyes, and looked at him for a few moments.

'I love you,' she said.

Heinemann nodded.

'Me too,' he replied.

'But what shall we do?' she said suddenly, for the first time appearing a little fearful.

Heinemann shook his head.

'I don't know, but listen: if anybody asks you about that crap in the paper, you're to say that you know nothing about it, that it's untrue.'

'I realise that, Erich,' she said with exasperation.

'Good,' he said. 'Look – I have to go to work soon, but I'm going to try to think of something.'

'What?'

'Something to get us out of Germany.'

He'd been deliberately blunt, so to ascertain her reaction – yet she seemed hardly surprised, let alone taken aback.

'Good,' she said simply. 'Let's leave as soon as we can.'

16

Two months after he'd slept with Marie, life took a turn towards the hell that would engulf Heinemann for the remainder of the war. For the child that grew inside the young woman's womb was the proof that they'd committed an illegal act.

In sheer terror Marie tried to deny what her body was telling her, knowing only too well what the consequences of her being pregnant would be: the Nazis would find her as guilty as Heinemann in breaking their laws and punish the both of them severely.

But even in the midst of this terror, she never once thought to admonish what she and Heinemann had done. It seemed as right now as it had then, whatever the upshot of it all might be.

*

The bright summer's day had finally turned to night. Marie von Hahn sat on the sofa in the living room, remembering the thin youth who'd slept on it over a year before, after their lips had met for the first time. She'd hardly spoken to him since they'd slept together; he'd not the slightest idea that she was pregnant.

The room seemed smaller than usual, the dark wallpaper with its flowery design and the heavy, blood-red curtains inducing a certain feeling of claustrophobia. This feeling was not, however, unpleasant – in fact it almost seemed protective.

Time for her was running out; another month or two and it would become apparent to everyone that she was pregnant. Her head fell into her hands and she softly wept: for herself, for Heinemann, and for their unborn child.

The familiar double-knock came at the front door, the calling card of her next-door neighbour Mara Friedeburg. Friedeburg had acted as both a friend and confidante for Marie, ever since her parents had died in a rail crash when she'd been aged three.

A member of the Prussian aristocracy whom the Nazis despised, Marie's grandmother had always been a little cold and aloof. So it had been Friedeburg who'd compensated for the surfeit of affection the noble woman had given her granddaughter.

Tat-tat – the knock came again, and suddenly Marie felt as though she was a small child who could be protected from everything that was wrong by her caring neighbour. So standing up she left the living room, walking out into the hall and opening the front door.

Even though she could not see Marie's forlorn expression in the darkness of the hallway, Mara Friedeburg's gentle smile instantly changed to a look of concern. She was a sensitive person who possessed an innate sympathy for the feelings of those around her; thus she knew that all was not well with the young woman.

During the last year or so she'd detected several emotions obvious within Marie – grief, of course, given her grandmother's disease and consequent death – but also one that she'd considered to be love...

'Marie – are you all right?' she asked softly, extending her hand in a gesture of confidence and support. She was homely-looking, possessing the air of someone who was happiest cooking or sewing – basic pleasures which imparted a feeling of modest pride upon their completion.

In a rush this came to Marie and the simplicity of it all, against the terror that she felt now, caused tears to flow anew.

'You have to help me,' she gulped, and nodding determinedly Friedeburg entered the house, shutting the door behind her.

'I think, young lady, that you'd better tell me just what is happening,' she said with firm kindness.

As they entered the living room Marie managed to compose herself; and although she longed to divulge the serious nature of her problem, she was suddenly seized with an awful suspicion.

Did she know this woman quite as well as she thought? Could she trust her with such shocking news? In such a time as this close friendships were no guarantee against a secret informant of the SD or Gestapo running to tell their paymasters everything they knew.

Then she felt ashamed – never, never, would Friedeburg do such a thing. The woman formed part of some of Marie's earliest memories, and her hatred of the Nazis had been shared by Marie's grandmother – they'd shared a lot of beliefs, which was one reason why they'd been best friends for so many years.

And so Marie talked – she revealed everything, and finished she fell into an exhausted sleep, her head on Friedeburg's shoulder as they sat on the sofa.

The soft light of the only lamp shining in the room eased the older woman's worried expression, as she stroked Marie's hair and wondered how on Earth this problem could be solved.

She knew of one way, of course, but if (as she suspected) the young woman possessed her late grandmother's extreme stubbornness she would never consent to it, no matter that it would ultimately be for the best.

'Oh dear Lord,' Friedeburg whispered, thinking of the illegal baby that was growing in the young woman's womb.

17

The autumn term began at Humboldt University, the music class finding that their number was depleted by one. No reason was initially given for this and so Erich Heinemann was consumed with worry – had Marie become one of those who simply 'vanished'?

Such people were snatched clean out of society, their 'disappearance' forbidden comment, all traces of their life before erased. It was made as though they'd never even existed in the first place.

And Heinemann could not even go to her house to see if she was safe – if he was observed then that really would be it. Maybe, he attempted to think reassuringly, she'd nothing other than a bout of flu. But this being the case, why had nothing been said concerning her absence?

Heinemann was not the only one to miss Marie – many of those who stared so evilly at himself also searched hungrily for the cellist, as the article in Der Stuermer had not lessened her attractiveness in the minds of any but the most virulent of Nazi students.

Whilst fully agreeing with everything that Streicher had written concerning the Mischling, such students decided to take the allegations concerning Marie with a pinch of salt. They were not so charitable when it came to Enrich Rath, as it was well known that he was a Jew lover; and so the lecturer himself received some hard stares as he walked within the university.

A fortnight after term had begun Rath concluded the day's lesson with an announcement:

'I'm afraid that I have some rather distressing news regarding Frau von Hahn. I've been informed that she has an illness that has confined her to bed. She is being cared for by a neighbour, and has been visited by a doctor. It appears that she has exhaustion of a kind, and I'm sure that everyone here wishes her a speedy recovery.'

As Rath finished speaking Heinemann caught Muehlebach staring at him, suspicion and anger gleaming in the red-haired student's eyes.

What did he...?

And then, in a split-second, everything suddenly became clear to Heinemann: it was of course Muehlebach who'd posted the copy of Der Stuermer through Marie's letterbox – just as he'd most likely given Streicher the salient information for the article in the first place!

'Exhaustion'? Heinemann didn't need Muehlebach's look to tell him that this was complete crap. Somehow this red-haired viola player knew the real reason behind Marie's absence as well – she was pregnant; it was just so obvious. Heinemann had sworn to pull out, but in the heat of the agonisingly sweet moment...

As Rath droned on about the following day's lesson, Heinemann sat staring back at Muehlebach, who now wore a faint but definite smile of utter triumph...

A little more work from himself, thought Muehlebach, and soon the violinist would be no more. And Marie? Yes – Muehlebach would see that she was dealt with as well. There was apparently a special type of camp for women like her who committed race crimes.

If only she hadn't chosen to ignore his longing looks, to stare only occasionally at him and with that haughty expression that had driven him near crazy with lust...

If only she hadn't so obviously chosen to go with a half-Jew.

He would have his revenge for this slight, and it would be sweet.

18

The doctor who came to visit Marie von Hahn was a septuagenarian. In continuing to see his other, often Jewish patients, so he covertly fought the ruling Party, though he had to take considerable care not to be discovered as the rules against the Jews became ever stricter.

Upon realising that all he could do was next to useless, the doctor had cried hopeless tears: his caring rebellion was the smallest of dams against the flood of fear and anti-Semitism raging within Germany.

He'd discovered a slight way of avenging this, however. Those patients whom he knew paid more than lip service to the Party – a surprising number of whom required treatment for sexually-transmitted diseases – discovered to their chagrin that the remedies the good doctor prescribed were often extremely painful, and on top of this rather liable to failure.

A feeling of utter despondency had lately all but consumed him: he was old; he possessed neither the energy nor the certainty in his work that he'd had as a younger man. His tongue had become an acidic, bitter weapon; his caustic comments could well be reported if said to the wrong person.

But he hardly cared: the battle – his battle – was already lost, so roll on death.

The real nature of Marie's problem was immediately obvious to him as he entered her room, the young woman lying in bed and doing her best to appear feverish and ill. Such a charade could not hope to fool someone who'd been a practitioner of medicine for nearly fifty years – for women had a certain look about them even in the earliest stages of pregnancy.

The doctor instinctively realised, however, that such a diagnosis was not what the woman or Mara Friedeburg – whom he'd met whilst treating Marie's grandmother at home for cancer – wanted to hear.

Fear was obvious in both their faces though they did their best to disguise it, and noticing this the doctor began a routine examination – looking at Marie's tongue and gently probing her neck with two fingers as though to check for any glandular swelling.

A desire to inform them that their charade was useless burnt within him: questions would soon be asked – a person could not 'drop-out' from this society. Frau Friedeburg might be capable of delivering the baby – but what then? And what if the pregnancy proved to be a difficult one, possibly requiring a doctor, a hospital?

The doctor quickly felt certain that the father of the baby Marie carried was in trouble with the Socialist Party, though for what reason he knew not. Therefore, whatever his crime might be, she in turn would be guilty by association. Such was Nazi logic.

There was one definite way of dealing with this problem, though he dared not suggest it. For then he would be party to something that was illegal, whereas for the moment he wavered precariously on the outer edges of duplicity.

Deciding to go along with the act, he considered that if questioned later he could always impersonate a doddering, slightly senile practitioner who should have retired some years earlier. But that was if he still cared enough by then to pretend anything.

'Delayed shock, some type of nervous exhaustion. The death of your grandmother has affected you more than you perhaps realise, Frau von Hahn, given the close relationship that existed between you both,' he said at last, putting his stethoscope back inside his tattered black bag.

He continued, 'You've been engrossed in your musical studies and sleeping little. This type of mental strain is commonest amongst young women, and requires a few weeks of complete relaxation. Bed-rest and a course of mild sedatives are all that you need. I shall of course forward my diagnosis onto the university that you attend in explanation for your absence.'

Walking over to the window as though in thought, the doctor looked down at the quiet street. For a moment he pictured men leaping out of trucks and cars, rifles at the ready, hammering on doors. And his imagination was the bitter reality; the scene below him was a lulling illusion.

Turning back to the two women and ignoring Friedeburg's sudden pleading look, he said quietly, 'I shall do as I've said.'

With that he nodded his farewell and left the room, leaving Friedeburg to try and talk some sense into Marie von Hahn. For the doctor was not the only one to have realised the obvious solution to the young woman's dilemma.

19

Autumn was approaching – there had lately been a chill in the air, the students of Humboldt University no longer spending so much time outside during their lunch hour.

Incredibly, a problem had occurred to Erich Heinemann that seemed to be almost of the same magnitude as Marie von Hahn's certain pregnancy.

For it now appeared that Enrich Rath had been giving his class nothing so much as colossal jigsaw pieces ever since the start of the course – and these pieces had finally started to fit together in Heinemann's mind.

And the overall picture – the overall conclusion – was so vast and complex that it almost hurt him when he attempted to quantify it.

For the first time he considered that as a musician he was utterly inconsequential in comparison to those great composers and performers throughout history; his performances at the Aalto were laughable by comparison. His being lauded by Frau Sasse was the ultimate indignity; it proved that he was in no way the unique violinist he'd so smugly assumed.

What Heinemann had finally realised was that a lifetime spent playing did not make a musician great; the best thing he or she could do (this a thought that had driven many a past musician to lunacy) was to aspire to achieving a certain immortality – and this immortality came with their compositions being performed centuries after their death.

In the face of such a realisation Heinemann craved the mindless routine of Mette Construction, his mind tortured by something that the Gestapo could never have dreamed up: the individuality he sought in his playing had and never would exist.

The sheer terror of this was nearly equivalent to that which he felt for Marie and himself – the terror that their continued existence was quickly coming to an end.

*

Absorbed in his problems, Heinemann at first failed to see the three male students sat on a bench as he walked through the grounds towards the university's entrance following the end of lessons.

When he did he felt a thrill of fear – two of the men were stocky and had their hair cut in a military fashion; they were well-known within Humboldt for being enthusiastic Nazis. And the third caused Heinemann to feel less afraid and more angry.

Fritz Muehlebach – the very name filled him with a sense of utter loathing.

The accusation Muehlebach had made concerning Marie von Hahn's involvement with the thin violinist was extremely slanderous if untrue – and so the Nazis had decided to confront Heinemann directly, to finally obtain the truth from him by means of threats and even blows if this proved necessary. Aware of Frau Sasse's liking for him as they were, this no longer seemed sufficient reason for them to leave him alone.

Eyes like flint observed Heinemann's approach, the two students stepping onto the path to block his passage, Muehlebach behind them. The sky started to cloud and a wind suddenly blew up.

'Well, it is true?' asked one of the Nazis, his fists clenched at his sides.

'Is what true?' returned Heinemann, ensuring that a few prudent feet remained between himself and this aggressor.

''Is what true?'' the man mimicked.

'You talk like a sly Jew, do you know that?' said the other student. 'You know what we mean, so don't go playing the fool with us or we'll kick your head to pieces right now. Did... you... fuck... Marie... von... Hahn?'

'No.'

The single word came from somewhere deep within him, brutal and so honest – the man's coarse description of the act of love did not describe what he'd felt on that dreamy Sunday morning with Marie. And so in a way he was not lying.

Despite their wish for violence the two men were certain that he was telling the truth; they looked round with stony expressions at Muehlebach, wondering if this obsequious musician had made fools of them.

As one of the two men had admired Marie – though always from afar, due to him being surprisingly bashful in his dealings with the fairer sex – it had been a matter of honour for him to discover whether the half-Jew had impregnated her.

Now that it appeared he hadn't, his perpetual vehemence sought another outlet.

With almost scientific detachment Heinemann read the situation perfectly: he hoped that Muehlebach would receive the severest of beatings while knowing that his own demise was only being temporarily postponed. For Muehlebach had only to report his suspicions to the Gestapo for Heinemann and Marie to be ruined.

'Get on your way,' one of the men said to him, Heinemann's face impassive as he nodded although relief caused his legs to suddenly tremble.

As these two thugs had certainly beaten many innocents over the last few years, using such events as Kristallnacht – the 'night of broken glass' – to smash and punch to their hearts' content, he considered that he'd had an extremely close escape.

But it was coming, it was coming – he heard the clock ticking clear in his mind. The dark forces were massing against him and nothing, not even Frau Sasse, could save him from whatever fate they had in mind.

20

Sat in a chair beside Marie von Hahn's bed, determined that this young woman should not awaken to find herself alone even for a moment, Mara Friedeburg shifted uneasily as she slept.

In her dream she was yet again begging Marie to have an abortion. She would take care of it; she knew how it was done. But in the dream as in reality Marie was adamantly opposed to such an idea. Friedeburg cursed her stubbornness at the same time as she recognised the fighting spirit of her late grandmother.

No longer did Marie feel weak and scared; she was determined that life would not be snuffed out within her purely because an evil regime had outlawed her choice of partner. She'd assured Friedeburg that the consequences of her being pregnant could not be that catastrophic: she would hardly be killed, after all.

Her greatest fear was for Heinemann, who would certainly be severely punished when it was discovered that he was the father. But the Nazi regime would not last forever, she'd brusquely informed Friedeburg a day or so before; they had to trust in a better future, and furthermore to be brave in the troubled present.

A faint noise, coming from downstairs, caused the middle-aged neighbour to abruptly awaken, instantly alert. Rising quietly up from the chair, she stealthily left the room and padded along the landing towards the stairs.

Something had been posted, and in the light of current circumstances this signalled an approaching menace in her mind. Bright moonlight cut through the glass of the front door, and walking slowly downstairs Friedeburg saw a folded piece of paper lying on the carpet.

Reluctantly picking it up, somehow certain that it boded no good, she went into the living room.

Sitting in the overstuffed armchair favoured by Marie's grandmother when she'd been alive and turning on the tableside lamp, Friedeburg unfolded the piece of paper with shaking hands.

And then she bit her lip to stop herself from crying out as she read what was written in a sprawling, almost illegible hand:

You filthy, Jew loving bitch! I know that you are pregnant, and I know whose child it is. Soon everyone shall know!

Scrunching the foul message into a ball, she then placed it in the ashes of the fire that had burnt out earlier that evening. With matches she set it alight and watched with frightened eyes as it was devoured by yellow flames.

In her mind she pictured and heard the Gestapo beating down the front door, dragging away Marie and quite possibly herself to who knew what fate.

The hopeless deception was almost at an end: the message had proclaimed that Marie von Hahn's pregnancy was a secret no longer.

*

At eight o'clock the following morning, a serious allegation concerning two members of Humboldt University's music class was formally made by Fritz Muehlebach to his contact at the SD – in a flagrant breach of the Nuremberg Laws, a German woman had been made pregnant by a Mischling.

Wheels moved quickly, the report by the doctor who'd visited Marie von Hahn being obtained within the hour and examined. Nothing was found to support Muehlebach's claim, and so a querulous Puttkamer was contacted at Mischling Headquarters. No, he too could find nothing to support such an allegation.

The article concerning Erich Heinemann in Der Stuermer some three months before had of course been noted, but with so much of what Julius Streicher printed being nothing other than utter rubbish not much notice had been taken.

Liaising with the Berlin Gestapo, the SD agreed that a female doctor in their employ should go to Marie von Hahn's house with two members of the Gestapo. To be initially treated with the utmost courtesy, she was still to be forced to undergo an examination to confirm whether or not she was in fact pregnant.

In the event of this being confirmed, she would be taken to a former nunnery one hundred miles east of Berlin, where women suspected of having been made pregnant by a man of Jewish descent were initially held. And upon it being verified that they definitely had been, the pregnancy was aborted and they were transferred to a concentration camp.

As for Heinemann, it was agreed that his time had come regardless of whether or not the allegations were true. It was quite incredible that he'd managed to attend Humboldt University and avoid the claws of the Gestapo for so long – and so it was decided that on this occasion he should be snatched out of society for good.

21

As he made ready for university that morning, having made his report to the SD upon awakening, Muehlebach recalled with delight the note he'd posted to Marie von Hahn's house late the previous night.

In the depths of his lust he'd often secretly followed her home, frequently wondering late at night with his eyes tight shut whether she was taking a bath at that precise moment, or whether she slept naked in bed.

Having anonymously posted Streicher the type of rumour he'd known would get the editor excited, he'd hoped that the consequent article would scare Marie away from having anything more to do with Heinemann.

But as she'd been such a bloody fool to do exactly the opposite – to actually go and sleep with the bastard (Muehlebach felt certain that she had) – he considered that she deserved everything that was coming to her.

With his report given Muehlebach washed his hands of the matter, and reflected that the two pro-Nazi students would soon be feeling pretty stupid for having believed a Mischling instead of himself.

22

Ten o'clock and Heinemann was extremely late for university. But what was the point in even going in? Every face seemed unfriendly; every tongue seemed to wag gossip concerning Marie and himself. All attending his lessons achieved was to give the Gestapo a definite location should they wish to pick him up again.

And he was tired – no, he was absolutely exhausted. The work he had to do for both the university and Mette Construction, coupled now with the threat of Marie's pregnancy being discovered, had left him feeling as though he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Forces way outside of his control controlled his very existence, waiting for the right moment when they could have him destroyed.

As he put on his shirt he heard footsteps on the landing, and a moment later his door was kicked open and the two Gestapo men who'd first taken him to headquarters entered the room.

The man whose face was pitted with acne-scars and pimples walked over to where he was stood and punched him in the mouth, the blow knocking Heinemann onto the bed where he lay, stunned.

Smiling with all the geniality of a white shark, Pimple-face said, 'Erich Heinemann – you are under arrest on suspicion of having committed racial pollution.'

'Get up and come with us,' said the other man.

Shaking violently Heinemann stood up, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of one hand. For a moment he feared he was going to be knocked back down, but taking a firm grip of his arm Pimple-face's colleague escorted him out of the room.

The obligatory black Volkswagen was parked immediately outside the house, Heinemann shoved inside as Pimple-face said, 'Didn't think we'd forget about you, did you?'

His mind having become as numb as his lips Heinemann said nothing, looking out of the window as the car pulled away. It was over: it was done. He was being taken to Gestapo headquarters to be tortured, to have as much information extracted from him as was possible before he was shot or hanged.

So he vowed now to concentrate all his energy, all his strength, towards protecting Marie. To think of nothing now but saving her. Short of claiming that he'd actually raped her he would bring as much of the blame as was possible onto himself – she'd been drunk; he'd taken advantage. She was a little simple and he'd whispered sweet nothings in her ear in order to have his wicked way – whatever he had to say in order to safeguard her life, he would...

An inordinate amount of time later, he realised that he was not in fact being taken to headquarters – the car was leaving central Berlin, heading towards a far more rural area. A pine forest surrounded by fields of long grass came into view, the sky above white and low.

The road split this forest in two as it cut into it, the tall trees with many branches grouped close together on either side, blocking out much of the morning light. Taking a sudden turning off, the car bumped along a rough, earthy track for several hundred yards, passing two open gates.

And now Heinemann realised what was hidden within this pine forest – a small camp consisting of two long and low buildings made out of concrete and wood, with flat roofs.

Guarding the entrance was a small hut with a barrier to its side, Heinemann noticing that at this point a thick wire fence topped with barbed-wire ran away either side into the forest.

From out of this wooden hut emerged a man dressed in a shabby grey uniform, a rifle slung on his shoulder. Flicking away his cigarette, he raised his thick eyebrows in greeting to the two Gestapo men in the car, the driver winding down his window as the vehicle stopped.

'Okay,' said the guard, once he'd glanced at the man's identification. He walked over to the barrier and opened it, the driver parking his car in one corner of the camp, next to an ancient lorry Heinemann suspected hadn't been used since the last war.

'Let's go,' said Pimple-face, pushing him on the shoulder.

The two Gestapo men and their prisoner walked across to one of the two buildings, Pimple-face opening the wooden door into a corridor that had five rooms on either side: there were small, barred apertures in the centres of all but two of the doors.

Grabbing hold of Heinemann's arm, Pimple-face opened the door of the nearest room that had no aperture and pushed him inside. It was large, cold. There was a swastika flag nailed to one wall – that was all. The concrete floor was covered with something gritty that crunched underfoot. There was no furniture.

'Remain standing and do not so much as blink,' said Pimple-face as he and his colleague left the room, closing the door behind them.

Dressed only in trousers and a shirt Heinemann was freezing: the desire to wrap his arms around himself and to walk quickly about the room, so to restore just a little bodily warmth, was overwhelming – but he considered it best to follow the Gestapo man's order to the letter.

However, he dared to gingerly feel his split lips, his chin caked with dried blood. It had been a hard punch – the man wore a ring on one finger – and so he checked his teeth. One seemed a little chipped but otherwise they were fine.

Just why was he so concerned about his bloody teeth? he asked himself angrily. At any moment the party was certain to begin: two, three, four or more men would come in and give him the beating of his life.

And what then? Another audience with Commissioner Sasse, Heinemann bruised and battered and trying to remember through his pain just what he'd sworn to himself to say about Marie von Hahn?

He started as the door opened: he turned round to see a cadaverous man attired in the usual grey uniform. With his mouth wide open the man gave a ragged cough, spraying Heinemann with spittle. Behind him stood another, smaller and much fatter man.

'Turn back round,' said the cadaverous man, and though his voice was quiet it resonated in the large, cold and empty room.

As Heinemann obeyed the order he moved to stand right behind the Mischling, saying softly, 'You've been placed in this labour camp because of some criminal activity – I don't give a shit what it is. You will remain here until it's been decided what further action is going to be taken. The slightest bit of trouble from you and you'll be shot out of hand.'

With another extremely unhealthy-sounding cough, he said, 'Eckhart, put this Yid in with Kasek; he hasn't had a cellmate since the last bastard died. And get that Polish bastard off to work – he's not that sick.'

Heinemann was escorted out of the building and into the other. Inside, the corridor again had five doors on either side, although this time they all had the small barred apertures. Unlocking one, Eckhart shoved Heinemann inside, the door banging shut behind him.

For a long moment Heinemann closed his eyes and did not notice the overpowering stench of excrement. He felt almost sick with relief, having been certain that he was about to be violently interrogated. But quite possibly this was only being temporarily delayed – the cadaverous man had said that further action was going to be taken. What were they waiting for – was Marie being questioned at this very moment, contradicting everything he'd planned to say himself? Please God they were treating her more gently than they were him.

Opening his eyes he saw that the small cell contained a bunk bed placed against one wall, a barred window set into another. On the thin mattress of the bottom bunk sprawled a grinning man who looked to be in his mid-thirties, his cracked and discoloured teeth working on a match. His eyes sparkled with amusement as Heinemann looked in disgust at the metal bucket in one corner.

The man stood up: he was short, stocky and broad-shouldered. Extending a hairy hand, he said, 'Hello.'

Heinemann winced at his powerful grip as they shook. After a few moments spent studying him, the man said, 'You have top bunk. What name?'

'Heinemann. Erich Heinemann.'

'Mine Kasek, just Kasek,' the man said, his grin widening as he sprawled back on the mattress. 'So why you here?'

Through his swollen lips Heinemann mumbled, 'I'm half-Jewish, and there're a lot of things you shouldn't do when you're half-Jewish. I did one of those things.'

Kasek's grin abruptly disappeared; his eyes lost their good-humoured sparkle.

'Jew?' he whispered, seeming not to have heard the 'half'. 'You lucky – should be in Lager.'

This inappropriate description of Heinemann's fortunes caused the young violinist's grey eyes to suddenly smoulder with anger. And what was all this talk about a Lager? Surely to Christ there couldn't be a worse place than this camp, with its tuberculosis-infected guards and cells that stank of shit.

'Lucky?' he hissed.

Spreading his hands in a conciliatory gesture, Kasek said quickly, 'Okay, okay. Maybe you not lucky.'

It became suddenly apparent to Heinemann that he would not be the only prisoner in this small camp with a hard-luck story; in spite of Kasek's puckish demeanour he still noticed a certain hardness in the man's hazel-brown eyes that signified past tragedy.

So dismissing the Polish man's vague apology with a wave of his hand, he said quietly, 'No, no – perhaps you're right. But tell me: what are these Lagers?'

Looking incredulously at him, Kasek stopped chewing the match and said, 'You not heard? Camp, bad camp. Jews, they go – die. Not only Jews. Other people.'

Wondering if this was what he had to look forward to, Heinemann grimaced and asked, 'The toilet, is it...'

Nodding at the bucket in the corner, Kasek grinned again.

'Follow nose, Erich. Follow nose.'

Standing above the bucket and unbuttoning his trousers, Heinemann tried not to look down as he urinated.

With a lazy chuckle, Kasek said, 'Food here not good, give you shits. I not work morning for.'

Relieved, Heinemann hoisted himself onto the top bunk, wishing for a little silence so that he could think. It was going to take a little practice to interpret what his cellmate said, but he was sure that there were worst men with whom he could have been placed.

After a few moments the gibing voice below said, 'Hey, Erich, not sleep! You me work soon.'

'What about your guts?'

'As I say – morning, yes. But day? No.'

'What work is it?'

'Dig in bloody big field. Trenches for building I think. Listen: when guard walk past you shut mouth look busy. You work with me perhaps. Guards not so bad but can be. Better than SS.'

The last three words were said more softly than the others, and seemed to lead Heinemann naturally to his next question:

'Why are you here?'

There was a pause: in the stillness of the cell he could just hear Kasek's teeth working on the match.

Slowly, the man who lay on the bottom bunk answered, 'I Polish Officer, fight Hun when in Poland. Me and men caught in village – my men and those who in village put in barn. Barn set on fire.'

'The whole village?' whispered Heinemann.

'Lot – old to babe. When some try escape, SS shoot them.'

This couldn't be true, thought Heinemann dazedly. This man was mad to be saying such things. And yet there was an awful dead sincerity to his voice that informed the Mischling that none of this had been made up.

Well, he was getting an excellent education concerning the crimes of his country all right – first the talk of these apparent death-camps called Lagers; and now this reference to the SS being mass-murderers.

'What about you?' he asked.

The Pole's voice was entirely denuded of emotion, Heinemann absolutely certain that the man was no longer grinning. The explanation for the tragedy he'd noticed lurking in the stocky prisoner's otherwise cheerful eyes was obvious.

'They make me watch. When I turn away, I hit. Laughing, say ask me questions then I dead. But ask question and then here – in 1939. That's when I start speak German. Man in this cell then, teach me I ask. He do.'

'What happened to him?'

'Get sick die. Maybe five month go. Was learning good but maybe now you here...'

There was the crunch of a key being placed in a lock and the guard called Eckhart entered the cell. Bareheaded, he carried a rifle on his shoulder.

Wincing at the stench, he said, 'Kasek, you're an animal. Get that bucket emptied before you and the Jew go to work.'

Dropping quickly down from his bunk, Heinemann recoiled as the Pole handed him the bucket, saying, 'We do in turn. Your turn now. Normally do at night but...'

Reluctantly gripping the thin handle, Heinemann followed Eckhart and Kasek outside to an area of the camp furthest away from the buildings, next to the forest. A thick concrete structure spherical in shape rose three foot out of the ground, an iron hatch at its top.

'Kasek, show him what to do,' ordered the guard.

With a sigh of irritation the Pole took the bucket from Heinemann, saying, 'Watch me.'

Opening the hatch, he quickly emptied the waste down it before closing it again. Then placing the bucket to one side, he said, 'You leave there. With hose someone clean later. Does good; hardly no dysentery since I here.'

'Too much chat,' said Eckhart. 'Let's get going.'

Walking out of the camp, the three men followed the track towards the main road, Heinemann wondering if any prisoner had ever dared to make a break into the dark safety of the forest on either side. He noticed that now they were alone Eckhart had unshouldered his rifle, his finger on the trigger as he walked a little apart from the two prisoners.

Still dressed only in shirt and trousers and shaking with cold, Heinemann wondered if and when he was going to be given the prison uniform worn by Kasek. Brown, itchy-looking and covered in dried mud as it was, he was nevertheless certain that the jacket, shirt and trousers – along with the sturdy black boots – were far warmer and more suited to the labouring fatigues than his own attire.

Having reached the road they walked along it for approximately one hundred yards, Heinemann understanding that apart from the sight of themselves there was nothing to suggest to anyone driving past that the pine forest contained a small prison camp.

Following another track that led away from the road, Heinemann saw that further along the trees had been completely cleared from an area that was approximately five times the size of the camp.

Trenches criss-crossed this area like scars, prisoners busy with shovels and picks as they widened and lengthened them. Placed around the perimeter were several narrow, metal towers with a ladder leading to the top where a light was placed.

Saying, 'Right, get to work,' Eckhart then walked over to where another guard stood smoking a cigarette.

Following the Pole to a lop-sided, tiny wooden hut, Heinemann was asked, 'What tool? Pick or shovel?'

Having never used either implement before, the violinist could only shrug in answer to Kasek's question. Cupping his hands over his mouth he blew into them, his cracked tooth aching fiercely in the cold air.

Handing him a shovel from an assortment contained inside the hut, Kasek said, 'Take this. You thin and weak so pick no good.'

'Thanks,' said Heinemann shortly. The tool felt unfamiliar in his hands, entirely different from the violin.

Recognising that the teenager had never done so much as a spot of digging in his life, Kasek nodded and said, 'I show you to use. Easy after bit. Don't show guard you no good.'

With this he walked over to an unmanned stretch of trench at the furthest corner of the clearing, next to the forest. Instructing Heinemann to get into the trench and shovel loose soil over its edge, he then began hacking with the pick at the cold hard earth, his breathing regular and steady as he worked.

After five minutes Heinemann's muscles screamed with pain; letting go of the shovel he'd trouble opening his fingers. But sweat was coursing down his face and he no longer felt cold.

Noticing his trouble and so laughing quietly, Kasek said, 'After bit become easy. Skin of hands make hard. Keep going: you stop and guard see trouble.'

'Anyone ever escaped?' asked Heinemann as he returned to work.

As Kasek answered, he noticed how the Pole's thick lips seemed barely to move: to anyone looking from more than a short distance away it would appear as though he was not talking at all.

'Couple: pretty easy to do. But they both caught and shot.'

Yes, thought Heinemann – it would be pretty easy to break out of this camp. To drop his shovel right now and run into the forest. Although – according to the Pole – it was pretty certain he'd be caught and so shot in punishment, what was the alternative? To merely await his transferral to one of these Lagers that Kasek had mentioned?

He continued working without another word, consumed by his thoughts.

Work finally finished at seven o'clock that evening, and after the tools had been put back in the hut the prisoners were marched back to camp. Barely able to keep up with the pace demanded by the guards, Heinemann struggled to keep his eyes open: every conceivable part of him ached, and he longed for the filthy mattress of the top bunk.

Back in the cell he and Kasek received a bowl of soup and some bread from another prisoner who went from cell to cell, Eckhart accompanying him. They ate seated on Kasek's bunk.

'Same food always. But enough. Sometimes even soup bad but and you get shits,' said the Pole cheerfully, as he mopped up what was left in his metal bowl with a crust of bread.

'The others here – what have they done?' asked Heinemann, as he wearily hoisted himself up to the top bunk and lay with his eyes closed.

'Don't know, never talk. And – but for other man who in this cell before you – no one ever here much long but me.'

So his stay here would only be temporary, thought Heinemann. Where would he be taken next, if indeed his punishment for having made Marie pregnant wasn't death?

An acute feeling of desolation shot through him as he saw the cellist behind closed eyes, and he cried silent tears. It had been a long day. Having awoken that morning as usual in his room in Berlin here he was falling asleep in a labour camp outside of the vast city.

But he was alive, and that was something. Apart from the blow to his mouth he'd not been that badly mistreated, though it was sod's law he'd probably catch TB from that cadaverous man who'd coughed in his face.

And if he was going to be ultimately killed anyway – shot or hanged for the crime of racial pollution – surely it would be better to meet death whilst fighting to regain his freedom. All he knew was that he wouldn't get far by himself – if he could somehow get hold of a car from somewhere then maybe...

But he couldn't even drive. Still dressed in his mud-stained clothes and holding the thin blanket close to his body, he fell asleep, sheer exhaustion overriding even his frantic thoughts.

23

No explanation was given for the disappearance of two of Enrich Rath's students, the music class now numbering only seven members excluding the tutor.

The reason initially given by Rath for Marie von Hahn's absence – exhaustion – was soon disregarded as the rumour spread throughout the university that she'd had a clandestine affair with the Mischling violinist.

This explained matters perfectly, and also made the students understand that they were not to discuss this matter even with their closest friends. The names Marie von Hahn and Erich Heinemann were never to be uttered again: having chosen to rebel against the dictates of the National Socialists, they'd been removed clean out of existence.

At night, alone in his luxurious flat, Enrich Rath cursed his cowardice aloud: he should set an example, stand up and demand to know what had happened to his two students. He knew, however, what would happen in this instance – having been warned once before about his outspoken support for his Jewish friends, he'd simply disappear himself.

Thoughts of suicide occurred yet again and so he aggressively threw himself into marking his remaining students' work, trying through this to forget the black ideas.

One question, however, kept repeating at the back of his mind – If Erich Heinemann wasn't actually dead, then just where the hell was he?

24

The weeks moved slowly towards Christmas. It rained frequently, Heinemann slipping about and cursing the mud as Kasek laughed quietly. The Pole had become a great source of strength for the young Mischling, for his spirits never seemed to flag nor his strength weaken.

This was in stark contrast to the other soulless-looking wrecks who toiled in the clearing, and Heinemann soon realised that it had been a piece of extreme good fortune that he'd been placed in the same cell as this affable and resilient man.

Having become more accustomed to the labouring, he no longer awoke with every muscle feeling as though it had been torn in half. Kasek had taught him the correct way of using a shovel, so to make the tool do a great deal of the work itself. And when the mud coated the shovel, as it did frequently, he would use the cuff of his prison-issue jacket or the tip of Kasek's pick to clean it.

In the evening, back in their cell and fed, Kasek would often examine the calluses on the young man's hands and chuckle softly, saying, 'A workman, a real workman. Man's hands now, not woman's.'

On Sundays the twenty or so prisoners of the camp worked only until two o'clock in the afternoon, free then to spend the rest of the day trying to get themselves and their clothes clean by using the single water pump outside, or to rest in their cells. Somehow Kasek had managed to obtain a deck of cards, and so he and Heinemann consequently spent much of this free time playing poker.

On Christmas morning one of the prisoners suddenly dropped his pick and began running towards the edge of the forest. It took the guards a few moments to realise what was happening: as one shouted at the fleeing man, the others fumbled for the rifles they wore slung over their shoulders.

It took three shots to bring the prisoner down, the first two having no visible effect on him. He was almost within the sheltering pine trees when he flung up his arms and fell to the ground, where he writhed for a few seconds before lying quite still. Accompanied by a guard, two prisoners were instructed to carry the corpse back to the camp.

Kasek was breathless with excitement.

'It can be done good!' he declared. 'We right by forest – other man have to run too far.'

'But in the forest, then what?' countered Heinemann, frustration gnawing at him as he checked the Pole's enthusiasm. 'There's bound to be a fence somewhere in there, perhaps close by; and anyway, the forest's not that big. We'll have nothing to eat, and we won't be able to hide for long. They'll hunt us down like a couple of rats.'

The several lights placed around the cleared area were switched on when it grew dark, which in these winter months was around four o'clock in the afternoon. But these lights were not particularly effective – situated at the outer edge of the clearing and quite a distance from the nearest light, Heinemann and Kasek discovered that they still worked mostly in darkness. Also, the bulbs were prone to blowing if it rained too fiercely.

No – Heinemann had already realised that the security of the camp relied primarily on nothing more than the absolute apathy of its prisoners. Every day they walked to the clearing with their heads bowed, the light of life all but extinguished from their eyes.

On the few occasions he'd heard the men speak, Heinemann had realised that some of them were German and the others foreign. He'd no idea what 'crimes' had caused them to be put in this place, far less the ultimate purpose of their work...

Having hacked away in silence at the earth with his pick for a few more hours, Kasek said, 'Do you think? Can we? I never thought much before but now...'

There was no need for Heinemann to ask him what he meant. It was hardly a cryptic question.

Having already adopted the same closed-mouth style of speaking as the Pole, he replied, 'As I've said already – we'll be caught. Now it's dark, we could go now. How often does that guard come round – once an hour? And he's just been, so we'd have perhaps sixty minutes before it's noticed that we've escaped – though that's by no means certain. That's sixty minutes before we get caught and shot.'

'All right, all right,' Kasek said irritably. 'I know anyway. We fucked. We die here.'

With that he continued to work in silence, saying not another word. Feeling ashamed for the way in which he'd destroyed his cellmate's flash of hope, Heinemann still reflected that what he'd said had been right.

Escape, yes – if a chance came he'd take it. But suicide? That was all Kasek's plan amounted to.

There had to be another way.

25

The view from the balcony window of Enrich Rath's living room was beautiful, millions of lights twinkling in the night. Sipping a glass of wine and relaxing after four hours spent marking his students' work, the tutor felt momentarily at peace as he stood looking out at Berlin. At such a moment as this, it was impossible to believe that things had turned so rotten in Germany's capital city along with the country as a whole.

Another reason for Rath's more relaxed frame of mind was that – thanks to the fact that he'd overheard two members of the SA talking outside the Aalto Theatre – he was now aware that Erich Heinemann was still alive, and imprisoned within a small labour camp that was no great distance away.

His class having again recently performed at the theatre, Rath had slipped outside during the interval, ostensibly to obtain some fresh air but really to escape the venomous attentions of Frau Sasse. The SA men had been stood beside the Spree, unaware that Rath had crept close enough to be able to hear every word they'd said.

Rath was familiar with both the general area he'd heard mentioned as well as the pine forest, though he'd never guessed that situated within this was a small prison camp.

To his knowledge there were a few of these camps situated locally, groups of men convicted of various offences being forced to participate in some sort of construction work. So he wondered why the camp in which Heinemann was being held should be so secretive: the nature of the work? The crimes of the prisoners it contained?

A thrill again coursed through him as he imagined escaping with his former student, the two of them somehow finding their way to Switzerland and freedom. He frequently dreamed about it, and even caught himself pondering the likelihood of their succeeding while teaching his class.

'Impossible,' he murmured.

But why? came the response from his heart, which still beat with passion and fury, belying his outwardly calm and controlled character. It was not impossible: others had done it, so why not he and the Mischling?

There were several areas along the border between Switzerland and Germany where it might be possible to sneak past the patrols, given a dark night and plenty of luck...

Once within the neutral country he would finally be free of the depression and the thoughts of suicide that plagued him; he would have fought the Socialists and won. It would be the ultimate poke in the eye to that spiteful bitch Frau Sasse, who was so fond of belittling and patronising him in public.

And in freeing Erich Heinemann, he would atone for having not made more of a stand when his Jewish friends had been arrested and deported...

'I will do it,' he suddenly vowed to the million flickering lights.

This coming Saturday he'd drive out to the pine forest, park his car, and search on foot for evidence of this camp. Quite what he'd do when and if he found it he'd no idea, but it was a start and even so loose a plan made him feel almost elated for the first time in years.

As his hand shook violently and dropped his glass of wine onto the carpet, Rath laughed. For a moment the noise frightened him: it sounded strange, alien – other people had cause to laugh, not he. Then he realised that it felt good, and so he continued until tears coursed down his face and he could hardly stand.

'Switzerland, Switzerland,' he said in between gasps, 'I'm going to Switzerland. So Hitler – shit to you!'

*

Enrich Rath did not feel anything like so ecstatic two days later, as he prepared to drive out of Berlin to the area he'd heard the SA men describe. It had been gross stupidity to talk out loud even in his own home; one could hardly be unaware of the hidden microphones that were used to betray traitors to the Reich. Of course, such nefarious methods were never openly admitted – but one knew they existed all the same.

Given his close encounters with the authorities before, he cursed himself for behaving like such a fool. It had not been so much like gross stupidity as raving madness.

In such a frame of mind Rath continually checked his rear-view mirror as he drove, searching for the tell-tale signs that he'd a tail – the car behind that never got too close nor too far back.

Once, soon after he'd crossed swords with the Gestapo and so almost earned himself a spell in a concentration camp, Rath had considered that he'd had a tail for a week or so. But he might just have been paranoid.

While wishing for a cigarette though he'd not smoked in almost two years he drove out of Berlin, exchanging its houses, roads and industrial complexes for wide open spaces and greenery. Ahead the road took a sharp bend, a deep drop on either side.

His thin upper lip curling, Rath read the sign that was by the side of the road:

DANGER! SHARP TURN AHEAD. THIRTY-FOOT DROP. REDUCE SPEED NOW! JEWS! DO NOT DRIVE UNDER SIXTY KILOMETRES PER HOUR!

Negotiating the curve, he saw an old house with boarded windows on one side of the road ahead, accessed by a track. Slightly beyond this began the pine forest. Turning onto the track, Rath parked his car right outside the deserted house, where it was concealed from the road by a large bush.

Back on the road, he began walking the few hundred yards towards the forest. Only once did he hear a car approaching, but before he could be observed he squatted down beside the road and waited until it had passed.

He couldn't be certain that there wouldn't be someone whom he knew in the passing car – someone who would ask him later and in company what he'd been doing in that particular area. Should the SA or the Gestapo ever hear about his little day-trip, it wouldn't take them long to put two and two together and realise the purpose behind it.

Rath had almost reached the forest when he decided to leave the road and cut across a field full of some type of long grass. Almost at the trees, he was startled when a flock of wood-pigeons – as equally alarmed by his presence as he was at theirs – flew suddenly up from the ground, their wings clattering.

As they disappeared into the white hazy sky Rath looked despairingly around. But nothing followed: he was quite alone.

Entering the forest it became suddenly darker, the branches many feet above cutting out a great deal of light. Carpeting the hard surface were millions of green and brown needles, and kicking at a pile as though he was again a carefree child Rath suddenly turned white with terror.

If he was actually quite close to the prison camp even now, should he assume that there were wires placed an inch or so above the ground, hidden so to snag unwary feet and sound an alarm somewhere close by? If caught he could claim that he was merely taking a walk, although just by giving his name he would quickly betray the real reason why he was in this forest...

So exercising far more caution he continued walking, letting out a quiet whistle of surprise five minutes later when his progress was stopped by a fence a few feet higher than himself and topped by barbed-wire.

Peering more intently past the trees beyond, he was able to make out two long and low buildings in a clearing that was approximately twenty yards away. Closer than these buildings was a thick concrete pipe that rose approximately three feet out of the ground. It appeared as though it just might have something to do with the small camp's rudimentary sewage system. A few buckets were scattered on the ground close by, Rath guessing their purpose.

Now he saw what he assumed was the entrance, the track which led away from this certain to join the road that split the forest into two. Although he saw two guards walking slowly along together, he did not see any sign of the camp's prisoners. This did not surprise him; from what he'd overheard from the SA men he'd understood that, during the day, the inmates dug trenches at a clearing close by. It was up to him to find that clearing, for then it was quite possible he'd see Erich Heinemann...

Leaving the forest he walked back to his car, deciding to drive along the road that led into the forest. That there would be one track leading off was certain: this would be the one that gave access to the small prison camp. Therefore it stood to reason that another would be the one which led to this apparent clearing.

As he drove his heart beat almost painfully – he'd come this far: there could be no turning back now. This was the biggest challenge of his life, and he was determined to succeed.

One track on his left... that was the one which led to the camp... And yes! Another approximately one hundred yards past the first! A little further and Rath discovered a natural lay-by. It was a risk to leave his car so near to the camp but the risk had to be taken: he had to see this clearing for himself and he had to see it now. Re-entering the forest, he walked only a little distance before he was again stopped by the fence.

Again, the clearing was some twenty yards away, and much bigger than the camp. Grinning triumphantly, Rath observed the men toiling in the trenches which covered the area. His eyesight excellent, he searched for Erich Heinemann, the grin disappearing as he failed to find him – had he been moved on?

Had he died?

Suddenly, Rath caught his breath as he noticed two figures working in the far corner of the clearing. From this distance one certainly looked like the thin violinist, but there was only one way of making absolutely sure...

It took the music tutor almost half an hour to skirt round the fence, walking slightly away when the border of trees between him, the barbed-wire, and the clearing became a little too thin for comfort. A couple of guards were walking slowly around the perimeter, their heads bowed, their apathy obvious even at this distance.

Finally, Rath was close enough to the two prisoners labouring in the corner to see that one of them was indeed Heinemann; he shovelled earth out of a trench while above him stood a short, powerful-looking man who wielded a pickaxe.

With several days' growth of beard, the Mischling looked grim and tired. However, when the stocky man appeared to say something Rath was surprised to see the teenager manage a slight smile.

Here in the corner of this clearing the two men were removed from the main body of the slave labourers and the attentions of the patrolling guards; Rath could barely have hoped for such good luck. The fence could be cut with no fear of the hole being discovered for a good long time, and sneaking through the trees Rath could get to within a few feet of where Heinemann worked.

But that other man – did he never go away?

No, he did not, realised Rath after he'd waited, crouching, for almost an hour. Although the two prisoners spoke without hardly moving their mouths, Rath noticed that they frequently conversed with one another. Furthermore they seemed friendly, often exchanging a quick grin as they worked.

This complicated matters – Rath had not envisioned breaking two men out of the camp. He needed to return, and to somehow contact Erich Heinemann. But this problem was not insurmountable; security hardly appeared to be the strongpoint of this camp.

He vowed to return the following Saturday, to use the week in between now and then to try and realise just how he could get a message to Heinemann. He'd also use this time to study his maps at home – to discover just where the best place along the border was to attempt a crossing into Switzerland.

26

With a noisy sniff, Kasek opened the heavy iron plate of the thick concrete pipe that was at the furthest edge of the camp. Carefully taking a bucket from Heinemann, he then gingerly emptied its contents into the pipe. There was a faint splash from some twenty feet below.

'Away it go, away it go, where shit go, no one know,' chanted the Pole quietly, his wide grin visible even in the dark.

Throwing the empty bucket to one side, he accepted another from Heinemann. Neither of the cellmates knew why they'd been selected to slop-out the prisoners' waste in the evening – it was usually a punishment given for slacking while working – and so they'd naturally cursed their bad luck at first. It had to be done after they'd eaten, and always between half past eight and nine o'clock.

Collecting the bucketed waste from each cell, escorted by Eckhart, Heinemann and Kasek would take it to the disposal point that was situated right beside the surrounding forest. Having emptied all the buckets they then sprayed them with a hose; any water that splashed back on them was both shocking with its coldness, and unpleasant with the idea of what it was tainted with.

After a few days, however, the two prisoners had found themselves actually looking forward to the revolting duty, though Heinemann still wondered why it had to be done in the evening instead of the morning.

They were left alone for up to half an hour, and being so close to the dark forest they could hear the sounds that were so evocative of freedom: the wind sighing through the branches, and from further away a dog barking and occasionally the swish of a car on the road, as it hurried along towards lights, buildings and people.

At times like these Kasek would become almost melancholic, talking of home and the beloved sister whom he'd not seen in two years. He'd no idea if she was alive or dead. Heinemann found himself telling the Pole of Marie, and in his own manner Kasek comforted him.

When Eckhart returned at nine o'clock the two men carried the emptied and cleaned buckets in relays back to the cells, the guard unlocking the doors long enough for them to throw one in.

Having been allowed to thoroughly wash their hands, Kasek and Heinemann were then returned to their own cell.

*

The following Saturday Enrich Rath walked with cautious speed through the forest to where he could observe Heinemann and the other man working. A light but steady drizzle was falling, his long, fair fringe slicked down on his forehead. Irritably, he pushed it away from his eyes. Sticking out of his back trouser pocket was a pair of steel croppers, the best tool for the job ahead...

Hidden behind the fence and the ten yards of forest before the clearing, Rath watched the teenager and the stocky man for a while. Then, having produced the croppers, he hesitated as the blades gripped the first wire strand, reluctant to apply the necessary pressure. The urge to get up and walk away consumed him...

Biting his lip he used both hands to close the cropper's blades. The wire parted instantly. With characteristic neatness the lecturer cut-out three sides of a square three feet across and three feet down to the ground, using the uncut side as a 'hinge' to push open this entrance.

He took several deep breaths, and produced a small piece of paper from his pocket. This he scrunched into a tight ball, and then he crawled through the improvised entrance towards the edge of the clearing.

Reaching the stunted bushes and long yellow grass that grew five yards away from where Heinemann and Kasek were working, Rath lay motionless for almost quarter of an hour, expecting at any moment to feel the hard impression of a rifle tip in between his shoulder blades. He considered giving a quiet whistle but he was so very afraid that the two patrolling guards would hear, though they were in fact some distance away.

His dilemma was solved by Heinemann's need to urinate. Putting down his shovel, the Mischling hauled himself out of the trench and walked over towards where the music lecturer lay. It seemed incredible to Rath that his former student did not see him, as he unbuttoned his trousers and pissed inches away from his right ear.

'Erich!' he rasped.

Heinemann stood as though frozen, his hands paused in the act of buttoning himself back up. Only his eyes moved as he looked down at the figure lying close to his feet, who then placed a scrunched ball of paper beside one of his boots – for Rath had considered that he'd have to throw this towards Heinemann. It was certainly a piece of good luck that he was actually able to speak to the young violinist.

'Read this. I'll be here next Saturday, same time,' said Rath in a low, harsh voice. 'Write me an answer, on the back if you have to. I know where you are, I can almost get into the camp where you're kept – it's incredibly badly guarded. I'll get you out: out of here and out of Germany. That goes for your friend too, if you want.'

Having said this Rath crawled rapidly away. A cry came from behind Heinemann, and he looked round to see a guard shouting at him from some distance away. Assuming that this guard wished to know what he was doing – he could not hear his words – he turned round and made a show of doing up his trousers.

Having started to walk quickly towards him, the guard then evidently changed his mind: he resumed his patrol in the opposite direction.

In an action that appeared only as though he was tightening his boot laces, Heinemann picked up the scrunched piece of paper. With his heart beating so fast he thought it might burst he placed the tight ball inside his pocket, and then got back into the trench. The temptation to see what was written was overwhelming, but he would not do so until later, when he was in his cell.

Noticing his absorbed expression, the Pole looked at him quizzically.

Seeing this, Heinemann said, 'Kasek, listen very carefully...'

Emptying the buckets that night, the two prisoners still felt the disbelief that someone who existed in the distant world of freedom had come so far into their own, offering them a chance to escape from this captivity with its mud, hunger, shit and cold.

After Heinemann's explanation of what had happened when he'd innocently strolled over to take a leak Kasek had fallen silent, the brown eyes darkening under the heavy brow as he thought.

Finally he'd said, 'Why? Why have you told me this? Why do you want to help me?'

Shrugging, the violinist had replied, 'Two heads are better than one, Kasek. Rath will be back next Saturday, and we'd better have half an idea about how we can get out of here. He's got a car – we can get quickly away.'

Heinemann wanted to tell the Pole that his puckish demeanour and straightforward friendliness had saved him from the total despair he'd felt upon entering the camp; that he considered Kasek to be his best friend. But, of course, he could not: such a thing would have been anathema in a place like this.

Rath's note – which basically reiterated what he'd told Heinemann himself – had been quietly read out by the Mischling as he and Kasek had eaten their evening soup and bread:

I have come to get you out, but I need your help to do so. I will be here same time next Saturday. Give me a way to get you out, and so to Switzerland.

Now, some hours later as they emptied the buckets, they could still not decide how to escape from the prison camp. Everything suggested was too dangerous, too open to immediate discovery. Their cell's window was too small to get through, even if its metal bars could have been removed...

It was a dog barking from some distance away that gave the solution to both men: Heinemann paused, a bucket balanced on the edge of the concrete pipe. He sensed rather than saw Kasek staring at him through the dark with the same realisation – the area by the pipe was secluded: until they were collected they were left alone to clean the buckets, no guard wishing to be near such an unpleasant duty...

'You do see – do see?' hissed the Pole, and with that he suddenly slipped into the dark forest.

'Kasek, what are you doing?' demanded Heinemann, but there was no reply. One nerve-racking minute later the Pole returned, breathless from his exertions and extremely excited.

'Fence a bit in, but that your friend can cut as he must have one round big field. He can be waiting for us on road not far away and we gone!'

Grabbing each other's arms, they shared the thrill of a decent plan. Then Heinemann recovered himself.

'Enough. Let's get these buckets empty before Eckhart comes back.'

'You right – but you have paper still?'

'Of course.'

'Well, write to friend, tell him.'

The violinist suddenly realised just what had been overlooked; he said bitterly, 'We haven't got anything to write with, Kasek.'

Determinedly shaking his head, the Pole said, 'We have week. Time still to get pencil.'

27

On the Tuesday of the following week Heinemann was forced to clean out the buckets by himself. Just after he and Kasek had finished their evening meal, Eckhart opened the cell-door and said, 'You'll be slopping the shit out by yourself tonight, Jew-boy. Kasek, you're wanted elsewhere.'

Accompanied by another guard who said not one word, Heinemann collected, emptied and cleaned the buckets in a haze of worry. Perhaps he'd seen the last of the Pole – two prisoners had simply vanished during the last month, to be replaced by two others.

But Kasek was there when Heinemann was returned to the cell – lying on the bottom bunk, his face covered with blood. The door clanged shut, and the Mischling knelt by his friend.

'Kasek, what happened? What have they done to you?'

As the Pole coughed weakly, blood ran from his mouth.

'They do from time to time, for fun. Like I say – guards not bad as SS, but sometime...'

For a moment Heinemann thought that he saw an infinite sadness flare in the older prisoner's eyes; then Kasek said, 'Tomorrow I clean buckets with you again, and look...'

Opening his fist, Heinemann saw that the Pole had the one thing that had been preventing them from writing a message to Rath.

'While they hit I find this on floor, manage to grab without them see...'

'This' was the stubby end of a pencil.

*

Early Saturday morning they were both pacing about the cell, their arms wrapped around their chests, trying to install a semblance of warmth into their frozen bodies. The moon splashed a little cold light through the barred window.

Heinemann realised that for all their ownership of a pencil they still hadn't written a reply to Rath – it was difficult to know what to write: just to put their plan into words seemed an inordinately difficult task.

'We've got to write that note to Rath, Kasek, before we're taken to work.'

The Pole nodded with a marked lack of enthusiasm that Heinemann attributed to the cold and a lack of sleep. He'd never imagined seeing Kasek looking this despondent and worn out. The harsh life of the camp was beginning to get to him, cracking the puckish but sturdy defences.

It took them five minutes to agree on what to write, and then Heinemann produced the note and the precious pencil stub from under his mattress and – just able to see by the light of the moon – scrawled on the reverse side of the crumpled piece of paper:

Around camp find fence and cut as close to a circular concrete structure as you can. Be waiting by this at 8.30 exactly the day after tomorrow (Monday). Don't worry too much: security here is poor. Bring change of clothing for two men, and have car parked close but not too close by. From 8.30 we have at most half an hour before alarm will be raised. Raise your thumb if you understand and agree.

Below this he drew a rough diagram with labelled 'X's marking the relevant spots. This along with the written instructions would have to suffice: if Enrich Rath could follow them then they were already halfway to freedom.

A thought checked Heinemann's mounting excitement – it was certain that the other prisoners would be punished should he and Kasek succeed in escaping, through either reduced rations or extra work.

After the man had been shot dead trying to escape on Christmas morning, the inmates had been made to work Sunday as a full day for a month. Their liberty could conceivably cause another man's death – in such a hard environment it would not take that much extra work, or that little less food, for such a thing to occur.

Did his own life and freedom justify that?

This was a question he dared not consider.

28

Later that same morning Enrich Rath stole through the pine trees, skirting the fence to reach the area where he assumed Heinemann and the other man would still be working.

For a moment he paused, captivated, as a small bird dragged a worm from the ground and flew away. He briefly imagined the German public as a nest of chicks, their beaks open, waiting for the lies and propaganda to be fed to them by a great neurotic bird called Goebbels.

Then, reaching the hole he'd cut in the fence the previous Saturday, Rath crawled through. Heinemann and the other man were working in approximately the same place as before, the trench having advanced only slightly in the previous week. Rath could clearly see the suspense etched in both men's faces; he noticed how regularly they looked in his direction.

Then his heart seemed to stop beating as he saw a guard approaching – in his excitement he'd not noticed him before.

To retreat would possibly be to attract attention, for despite his best efforts he made some noise when crawling across the ground. So he lay absolutely still, his hands cupping his mouth to try and prevent his breath from steaming. He could only hope that he was hidden by the yellow grass and stunted bushes that framed the clearing.

Hours seemed to pass before he looked up to see that the guard was well away. Then his eyes met those of his former student. Both men dropped the gaze and Heinemann continued working for the next five minutes. Mud was slicked across one side of his face and his forehead, making his grey eyes seem darker, his sallow features more brooding. Once Rath saw him speaking almost without moving his mouth to the stocky man, who consequently looked over to where Rath was concealed.

Then, in the space of a second, Heinemann threw something in the direction of the lecturer. The missile flew past Rath, who feared that it was lost as he crawled despairingly around. Then something white caught his attention amidst the darkness of the earth and the green and brown pine needles.

As he opened the scrunched and filthy piece of paper, he remembered tearing it from the pad in his living room; the pad normally reserved for his compositional ideas.

Quickly reading the reply, he raised his thumb as instructed to signify that he understood – he knew exactly where this concrete pipe was, having seen it when he'd first walked into the pine forest. And the day after tomorrow: that was good. The imminent date of the escape refused him much time to consider the great danger of what he was doing.

With a quick wave he crawled away, unwilling to linger.

29

Outside the barred window of the cell the sky was dark velvet and the moon as sharp as glass. As he stared at this celestial body Heinemann thought over the preceding years, wondering how his aunt was faring and what life was like in Hegensdorf now.

Did the village's station master still have his allotment; were his vegetables still his main concern in life? Did the farm labourers now wear uniforms with the death-head flashes of the SS, and raise flagons to the bleeding sky and toast the health of the Fuhrer while Germany lay screaming?

The moon seemed almost to taunt Heinemann: it was so aloof, so removed from mundane human emotion. It had shone its cold light during the millions of years before his birth, and would presumably do so for the millions of years following his death – whenever this was. His concerns were negligible in comparison to such an immortal force: his was one life amongst billions of others.

Kasek moaned in his sleep; a few words in Polish. Heinemann wondered what this man's dreams were: women, beer – the freedom to lead the best life to which a man of simple means could aspire? And to die knowing that they lived on in their children, who would in turn continue the life pattern of work and recreation long after they themselves had turned to dust.

His own life, Heinemann realised, would have a definite purpose and further more a purpose of which many, many people would be aware. This, he realised, was what kept him going.

The hours passed with remorseless exactitude, the time the two men had left in the camp steadily decreasing.

30

During the past fortnight Enrich Rath had slept badly, having spent a great deal of each night studying the maps spread out over a table in his living room, working out possible routes to the border which avoided main roads while sacrificing as little driving time as was possible.

Only now, on the night before the planned escape, did he finally decide to attempt to cross at a place called Basle, due to its hilly and thus concealing terrain. He, Heinemann and the other man would leave the car five kilometres from the border and slip into Switzerland in the dark and on foot.

Rath had no dependants, and no family other than a brother whom he'd not seen for years but knew to be a pilot in the Luftwaffe. Being relatively young and perfectly healthy, he would certainly weather the total destitution that would be the result of him fleeing Germany. The Nazis would of course impound his property and his savings, but his liberty was worth more than anything.

Yawning, Rath folded the maps and prepared for bed. It was very late. In a few hours he would be getting up and going into Humboldt University to give his last ever lesson.

Once this was done, he would be off to the prison camp within the pine forest to cut the fence and wait for Heinemann and his friend.

31

'Guard!' whispered Kasek to Heinemann on Monday afternoon, neither man having previously exchanged a word that day as they prepared themselves for the escape in the evening.

Although they'd hardly been slacking before, with the Pole's warning they immediately began to work harder, both men panting as they wielded their tools.

Reaching them, the guard said, 'Kasek, stop working and come with me.'

Sticking the pickaxe hard into the ground, the Pole glanced at Heinemann before nodding.

'Okay.'

As the two men walked away, Heinemann swore. Was Kasek going to be beaten up again – would he even be returned this time? Would he have to leave without Kasek? Could he leave without Kasek? Their shared imprisonment had made them as close as brothers; they were required to go to the toilet in front of each other, and on the colder nights they even shared the same bunk in order to try and stay warm.

But he could not afford to wait: it seemed a miracle that he'd been left in this camp for as long as he had – he'd considered that his stay would be just for a few days or weeks until his trial for the crime of racial pollution.

And what then – for he'd certainly be found guilty: transferral to one of these Lagers the Pole had spoken about, or a punishment of a more capital nature?

Kasek was in fact returned within the hour, the Mischling relieved to see that he'd not been mistreated in anyway that was obvious. The Pole resumed his work without a word, and after several minutes Heinemann could contain his curiosity no longer.

'Well? What happened – what did they want with you?'

As the older prisoner looked at him, Heinemann was alarmed to see the incredible sadness in his eyes – a tear trickled out as Kasek whispered,

'They break me... They know I...'

Having no idea what he was talking about, Heinemann sought only to comfort his friend, moved by the man's obvious heartache.

'Kasek, it's all right. We've just a few more hours to go, that's all. Soon we'll be in Switzerland and everything will be all right.'

Wiping his sleeve across his snotty nose, the Pole nodded but said nothing. He continued working, knocking clods of earth down into the trench with blows from his pick.

The rest of the day passed in silence, until finally work finished and the prisoners were marched back to camp. Soup and bread were doled out to them as they sat in their cells, and Heinemann's fists knotted with anticipation as a short while later the door to his and Kasek's cell was opened by Eckhart.

The fat little guard was carrying a pistol in one hand, and smelt strongly of drink.

'It's shit-time!' he roared. 'Come on, let's get a move on. Perhaps tonight you'll fall down the drain.'

It took several trips to carry all the buckets from the cells to the concrete pipe, Eckhart stumbling along beside them, clearly the worst for wear. Snatching a glance at the guard's watch, Heinemann saw that it was a whisker before half past eight. Everything was running exactly to plan.

'I'll leave you two girls in peace,' cackled Eckhart as the two prisoners began to empty the waste, and he lurched away in the direction of the two buildings in the centre of the camp.

Realising that it was time, Heinemann put down the bucket he'd been holding and looked at Kasek, who continued emptying the waste into the pipe.

'Kasek!' he said, the Pole turning to look at him, his broad face obscured by the dark. 'Come on, let's go! Every second is vital.'

But the older prisoner continued only to stare at him, and with an exasperated hiss Heinemann moved towards the pine trees, hoping that Kasek would follow his example.

As he entered the forest he was pleased to see that this was so, and in a marginally more relaxed frame of mind he considered that tonight he had to be the leader – the stronger man. As Kasek had helped him on the first day he'd come to this camp and for many days after, now he had to repay the favour.

Inside the forest it was pitch-black. Heinemann was compelled to rely on instinct in an attempt to travel in a straight line – it would be so very easy to veer off, to approach the fence perhaps a hundred yards away from where Rath had hopefully cut a hole. There was simply not the time for such a mistake – he could not even assume that they'd the full half hour before Eckhart returned.

Branches snagged his jacket and scratched his face, as if imploring him to give himself up. The deadwood on which he trod snapped with a noise like a gunshot, as though trying to reveal the fact that he was escaping to his captors.

Was even nature against him? he thought desperately.

Suddenly his foot twisted, caught in a hole or a burrow. Pain scorched up his leg as he fell down. He felt like screaming with frustration: everything was going wrong. There was not the time for this – he could not afford an injury... It was too dark, he didn't know where he was, his sense of direction had gone...

A sudden, ethereal sense of peace choked his turmoil. The forest breathed in the dark, all within its kingdom safe from harm. He felt the good earth with his hands and he was somehow reassured.

He stood up, tentatively trying his weight on the injured angle. It hurt but he was still able to walk. Within a minute he was at the fence, searching for a gap and refusing to succumb to his panic at not being able to find one.

'Erich, Erich,' whispered Enrich Rath, his voice coming some way to Heinemann's left.

Using this as a guide, feeling the fence as he walked slowly along, Heinemann could have wept when a hand suddenly grabbed his wrist, pulling him down. The snipped ends of the wire gouged strips from his cheek as he scrambled through the gap.

Allowing Rath to guide him through the trees, his ankle burning with pain as he hobbled along, Heinemann breathed a sigh of relief as they emerged out into the road. Although dark it was nowhere near as black as it had been in the forest.

'Where is he? Where's the other one?' asked the music tutor fiercely.

Both men strained to hear some evidence of Kasek's approach, but there was nothing: the night was absolutely still.

'I'll have to go back in, find him and get him out,' said Heinemann.

'We haven't got time, Erich, we'll have to leave him – '

A snapping of branches broke the inky tranquillity as Kasek stumbled out from among the trees, falling over to lie panting in the road.

Rath was instantly upon him, dragging him to his feet.

'Come on, come on,' he pleaded, only just keeping his voice under control.

'You should leave me – could find gap not for ages. Loss you time,' Kasek babbled, Heinemann realising that he was weeping.

'Never mind that now: let's go,' he said, pulling at the Pole's rough jacket to get him moving.

As the three men began jogging along the road, he asked Rath, 'Where did you park the car?'

'Just past the track that leads to that clearing you've been working in, in a spot beside the road that almost hides it from anyone passing. I've been here an hour – I didn't dare risk parking it anywhere else.'

With Heinemann compelled almost to drag Kasek along it took the men five precious minutes to reach the powerful black Daimler, and the two fleeing prisoners bundled into the back as Rath started the engine.

Pulling out of the lay-by, he initially kept his headlights switched off for safety's sake. Then, after a minute or so had passed, he turned them on.

They illuminated perfectly what lay ahead.

The road was blocked by a barrier made from large tyres. And behind this barrier were a number of shadowy figures, who now shouldered their weapons.

With a wild yell, Rath tugged at the steering wheel and the car skidded in a one hundred and eighty degree turn and stalled. Rath began to sob as he repeatedly attempted to get the flooded engine to restart.

They knew: the words were a statement of fact in Heinemann's mind. This was an improvised barrier, not a permanent fixture of the road – that much was obvious.

Heinemann stared at the man sat beside him: the man whom he'd regarded as his closest friend, the man with whom he'd even shared a bed for the purpose of obtaining warmth. The man who had, when he'd first entered the prison camp, saved him from the depths of suicidal despair.

Heinemann suddenly realised what had taken place during the two times the Pole had been taken away, returning on one occasion having so fortuitously found a pencil.

As he reluctantly met Heinemann's eyes, tears streamed from Kasek's own. It was obvious what the young Mischling suspected and his tears confirmed this – for he'd been made the camp's resident stool pigeon a long time ago, in return for extra rations and even tobacco on the occasions when the other prisoners wouldn't notice. Of the two men who'd escaped from the camp before, it had been his treachery that had caused one of them to be captured and killed.

After the decision to escape had been made between him, Heinemann and Rath, Kasek had slipped a guard the agreed sign. During the first of the two interviews the cadaverous commandant and two guards had laughed whilst hitting and kicking the imprisoned Polish officer, explaining that this was because the Jew was the most distrustful creature on Earth and so they had to distract Heinemann's attention.

But it had been for their own amusement, really, and they'd mocked Kasek's treachery whilst giving him the pencil, calling him 'Judas'. The Pole spoke better German then he'd let on to Heinemann.

As the engine succeeded in starting Rath laughed hysterically, but almost in slow motion Heinemann saw the men who were walking towards them stop and raise their guns.

'We're buggered,' he said simply, and then everything was drowned out by the noise of machinegun fire. The back window blew inwards, spraying Heinemann and Kasek with glass. The car slumped as the tyres exploded.

The firing ceased and someone shouted in a voice as harsh as the machineguns' deadly chuckle:

'Step out of the vehicle with your hands held up! You have ten seconds before we use grenades!'

'What do I do, what do I do?' cried Rath pitifully, rocking backwards and forwards in shock.

'I should have thought that was obvious,' said Heinemann tonelessly, as he opened the door and stepped out.

On the other side Kasek did the same, hoping against hope that the camp's commandant would make good his promises. As he saw the troops he groaned aloud: he was a dead man. They were a division of the Schutzstaffel – the SS – like those who'd had his men burnt alive upon capturing them.

He looked across the ruined car at Heinemann and the Mischling stared coldly back, his arms raised in surrender.

'Why, Kasek?' he asked.

The Pole swallowed and shook his head, unable to give an immediate answer. In his desperation to be finally freed from the camp, to be allowed to return to Poland, he'd believed the promise that he'd be released after the fugitives were apprehended: for reasons that had not been revealed to him the escape was to be allowed to go ahead.

But the men who now approached the car made him realise that he would share the same fate as the other two: a bullet, perhaps, or imprisonment in a Lager. He realised just how foolish he'd been: the escape attempt might well have been successful, had he only kept his mouth shut.

'I sorry, Erich, but I...'

His explanation faltered as he saw the young man's sallow face contort with utter hatred.

'You bastard,' said Heinemann as he turned to face the approaching troops, who knocked him and the Pole to the floor and dragged the gibbering wretch that had once been Enrich Rath from out of the car.

Having been searched, the three men were told to lay side-by-side and face down in the road.

Hearing footsteps, Heinemann raised his eyes in an attempt to see who it was approaching. A pair of boots with a fur trim stopped by his head, and then a familiarly nasal voice said:

'Stupid, stupid Jew. Do you know the amount of effort and time that you've cost me, the men I've had to use in order to check your hare-brained scheme? You even trusted a Pole! You stupid, stupid Jew.'

So here was Commissioner Sasse, come along for the kill. Heinemann screwed his eyes shut, waiting for the end.

'Okay,' said Sasse.

There was the violent crack! of a pistol, and Heinemann waited before realising that this was taking far too long; this was an inordinate amount of time for a bullet to take to reach his head.

And then when a warm stickiness touched his cheek he realised what had actually happened: Kasek had been shot dead as he lay beside him.

'Never let a Pole live, I say,' said the Commissioner cheerfully, before repeating: 'Okay.'

Hearing the sudden, sickening crunch of wood on bone, Heinemann struggled to think what this noise signified: only Rath and he remained alive, so they must be clubbing Rath with rifle butts and –

His head exploded: there was a moment of blinding pain and then Sasse's fur-trimmed boots were no more. Everything became black.

'Congratulations, Lieutenant. An excellent show,' said Sasse. 'Get this road block down, remove the corpse and put these two men with the others for transportation to the east tomorrow. Make sure they're not on the same shipment together. In the morning make a report on the security of the camp prior to immediate improvements.'

'Yes, Herr Commissioner.'

The Lieutenant then shouted orders to his men, which they carried out at the double and with the efficiency that was their deadly hallmark. This SS unit had just finished clearing a nearby area of its Jewish population, when they'd been instructed to seal off this road to stop an escape attempt.

Due to such things being irritatingly his department, Sasse had originally been informed of the planned escape an hour after Kasek had blabbed. And for the purpose of highlighting security lapses in this type of small camp, which he'd complained about in the past, he'd decided to let the escape go ahead.

Thus he'd been prepared for the urgent communiqué he'd received earlier that afternoon, after Kasek had revealed what time the escape would be taking place, and had consequently instructed this unit of the Schutzstaffel to do what he'd already so meticulously planned.

Now Sasse slowly walked towards his car and a waiting chauffeur, pausing to light a cigar and to look at the starry sky. Beautiful, it really was beautiful. It was a brief distraction from the never-ending paperwork which as usual lay ahead of him tonight: a report that would place both him and this particular unit of the SS in a particularly glowing light. The informant called Kasek had been killed for security reasons and the other two...

Well, they were as good as dead.

As Commissioner Sasse of the Berlin Gestapo got into the car he shuddered. It had been Heinrich Himmler himself who'd first informed him of the camps existing in the occupied eastern countries and even within Germany itself.

The horribly descriptive term the Reichsfuehrer of the SS had used was one which Sasse had immediately tried to forget, even though he'd assisted in getting thirty prisoners from Sachsenhausen to act as barrack chiefs at a camp in southern Poland.

The term was Endlosung.

The Final Solution.

Revenge?

1

Tumultuous applause greeted the end of Heinemann's performance. Along with most of the audience, Schmidt rose to reward the violinist with a standing ovation, the eyes in the ruined face burning with pleasure.

Heinemann himself gave a bow, and with his right hand indicated the orchestra. Then, handing his violin to a member of staff, he left the stage.

A loud hubbub of conversation came from the audience as they exited the hall. Schmidt, however, remained in one of the aisles that were between the rows of seats, looking for one of the venue's stewards.

Seeing such a person, he walked quickly towards him, mentally rehearsing what he needed to say in English. Many years before, he'd learned a little of this language from the American soldiers who'd been part of the Allied force occupying Berlin.

'Can I help you, sir?' asked the steward – for Schmidt was the only audience member to be walking towards the stage whilst everyone else was leaving.

'I want to... see... Erich Heinemann,' replied Schmidt slowly.

The steward gave a slight, cautious smile and shook his head.

'I'm sorry, sir, but that's not possible,' he declared.

'I am... friend,' said Schmidt, the last word feeling as strange on his lips in English as it would have done in German. For Schmidt had never experienced any kind of friendship – emotionally he was quite incapable of feeling such a thing – but still he recognised that this lie was important for the purpose of achieving his aim.

'See him, give him... this,' said Schmidt awkwardly, proffering the steward a small white envelope.

Hesitating a moment, the steward then said tightly, 'Wait here, please.'

Schmidt stared after the man as he walked off.

2

Heinemann sat alone in his dressing room. Meditatively sipping a glass of red wine, relaxing after his performance. All through it he'd felt curiously on edge, unable to fully immerse himself in the music as was usual. He considered that his playing had consequently been a little below par – not that anyone in the audience appeared to have noticed.

Again, he wondered just why he'd experienced such a state of unease – but there remained no obvious reason or answer. All he really knew was that he was greatly looking forward to returning to America – he'd lived in Michigan for many years now – tomorrow.

Maybe, he reflected, he was just getting a little too old to keep on performing. A few more months and he'd be eighty. Time enough, perhaps, to obey his wife and daughter's shared wish that – for the sake of his health – he cease the twenty or so concerts he continued to give each year, mainly in Europe.

But performing was in his blood; he couldn't imagine a time when he would stop playing in front of an audience entirely. And yet tonight's recital had somehow stirred distinctly unpleasant memories and emotions... For the very first time in his life, he'd almost not enjoyed playing.

This realisation scared Heinemann but also intrigued him: Why had this been so?

Again, no answer.

There then came a knock at the door.

'Mr Heinemann?' said the male voice outside.

'Yes, come in,' returned Heinemann.

The steward entered, in his hand a small white envelope.

'There is a gentleman outside in the hall, who claims to know you – to be a friend of yours.'

Heinemann raised his eyebrows, as unaccountably he again began to experience that strange sense of unease.

'Oh?' he said cautiously.

'The gentleman asked that I give you this,' said the steward. 'Do you wish to accept it, or should I...'

The remainder of the question went unvoiced as Heinemann held out a hand.

Opening the envelope and reading the brief message written in German on the piece of paper inside, Heinemann visibly paled. For a few moments, it looked as though he was experiencing difficulty in breathing.

'Mr Heinemann?' said the steward with concern.

With a colossal effort Heinemann succeeded in controlling his breathing, and slowly his face regained its natural colour.

'This man,' he said, forcing his words to come out evenly, 'would you mind bringing him here...?'

Ich kannte Sie als wir in Auschwitz waren (read the note.)

'I knew you at Auschwitz.'

Just as he sometimes was in his darkest dreams, Heinemann was again transported back to that accursed time and place.

He was twenty years old, imprisoned along with who knew how many others in one of the cattle-trucks that were almost completely devoid of light and air. There was a general stench of excrement mixed with fear, and all the while a low moaning came from the woman in one corner whose baby had died a few hours earlier. She'd only just stopped screaming.

There was nothing to eat, nothing to drink, and it was freezing cold. Heinemann knew that, along with the baby, several other passengers within this truck had also died; it was just that they had no one to mourn them.

Heinemann himself thought that he might die soon; he hoped that he would. Certainly there was nothing to live for now; and anyway – who could possibly hope to escape from this hell?

But suddenly the panels slid open and a mass of grey-uniformed guards were ordering the scared, starved, stinking scarecrows within the trucks to get out. Those who did not move fast enough were rewarded with kicks and punches, Heinemann observing that several guards grinned at one another as they beat an elderly man's head bloody.

Heinemann's own skull ached from the blow it had received – when? A day, a week, a month or so earlier? Heinemann had lost all track of time. And what did it matter, anyway? Of what use was time in a place like this?

And then, unbelievably, Heinemann realised that a brass band was playing. Yes – it was performing a jolly tune as the women, children and elderly from the cattle trucks were separated from the men, prompting yet more tears from the scarecrows and more snarls and blows from the guards.

During the journey here – and Heinemann had absolutely no idea how long it had taken – a variety of rumours had spread amongst those within the cattle trucks, concerning the place where they were heading. One such rumour had maintained that they'd all be killed the moment they arrived, whilst another suggested that the younger and fitter amongst them had at least some – if only temporary – hope of survival.

And now Heinemann found himself being thrust into a body of young to middle-aged males, a guard then ordering them to march beneath a sign that read Arbeit macht frei – 'Work makes one free'. A number of men tried to look back at their wives, children or parents, receiving for their pains several blows from the guards' truncheons.

I'm not going to be killed yet realised Heinemann.

Not yet...

.

There came another knock at the dressing-room door.

'Come,' said Heinemann curtly, steeling himself for whatever – or rather, whoever – was about to reveal him- or herself.

The steward opened the door and there, stood behind the young man, burnt the eyes that Heinemann still saw in his worst nightmares. It failed to matter that half of that once handsome face was hellishly disfigured, or that the other side had naturally aged just like Heinemann's.

For those lizard-like eyes hadn't changed in the slightest...

The steward seemed about to say something when Heinemann said brusquely, 'Thank you.'

It was evidently a dismissal, and so showing the visitor in the steward then shut the door behind him.

For a while Heinemann sat staring at his guest, who gazed back with an expression that seemed almost triumphant.

There was a deathly silence in the room, broken only when Heinemann said simply:

'Du.' –

You.

3

It was strange – but now that Schmidt was at last alone with Heinemann, he found himself feeling curiously tongue-tied.

And as he struggled to think of something to say, he remembered when – so many years before – he'd first seen that pale young man at the camp...

Instantly Schmidt had realised that this was the same person whom he'd witnessed performing with such evident genius several years before, that evening when he'd sneaked into the Aalto Theatre searching for something to steal...

And it was this realisation that had (for the very first time) succeeded in sending Schmidt's thoughts into something like turmoil. For people came to this camp to die – be it within a matter of days, weeks or months – and quite simply Schmidt did not want this man whom (he soon discovered) was called Erich Heinemann to perish.

And so – through a number of illicit means and entirely unbeknown to Heinemann himself – he began to ensure that the young violinist would stay alive...

Ever since his departure from Sachsenhausen, Schmidt had enjoyed a paid job along with his own room at the camp. So he was now able to indulge his discovered love of classical music, having purchased a gramophone for which he regularly obtained records via mail order.

One of the compositions Schmidt enjoyed most of all was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony – The Choral. Almost unconsciously he began frequently to whistle parts from it, something that led inevitably to the inmates giving him the nickname: The Whistler.

But still – listening to records was no compensation for what Schmidt had heard that night at the Aalto Theatre, and soon enough he found himself greatly desiring to listen to Erich Heinemann play again.

He had to wait some time – but then, almost unbelievably, the chance for The Whistler to do just that presented itself one evening.

*

The bespectacled figure of Heinrich Himmler observed Dutch Jews being herded from out of the cattle-trucks on the morning of 17 July 1942, his visit to Auschwitz concluding his tour of the various concentration camps situated within Poland. Following a leisurely luncheon he requested to see some Polish prisoners being beaten, stating that he wished to 'determine the effects' of such punishment.

In his honour a drinks occasion was held in the evening, which became steadily more raucous as increasing amounts of alcohol were consumed. Being notoriously prudish when it came to revelry, Himmler soon left, accompanied by Rudolf Hoess, the camp commandant.

This left those staff who were present free to fully enjoy themselves; and one of these men was The Whistler. He, however, stood alone and aloof, expressionlessly observing the red sweating faces of his colleagues who frequently tugged at the tight collars of their dark-grey tunics.

He knew most of these jovial men from the Sachsenhausen concentration camp; they were nearly all former thieves and criminals like himself. Now, however, they were something else entirely.

As ever he desired no one's company; his stomach did not ache from over-eating, and his face was not red. He was completely sober, and his uniform was in its customarily immaculate condition.

That he'd assisted in murdering approximately five hundred men that day was of absolutely no concern to him whatsoever. It had been the same yesterday, and it would be the same tomorrow. The wagons rolled in full of people and the chimneys of the crematorium belched thick black smoke.

A call for entertainment was given and a man left the room. Schmidt's eyes burned with anticipation as the man returned with a battered old violin he'd obtained from somewhere. The gramophone was turned off as the man began to play; but he was drunk, and evidently possessed not the slightest trace of a musical ear even when sober.

As the assembled men moaned in a comic manner and berated their hapless colleague, the fat Chief Guard called Grobauer said, 'What about that Jew? Is he still here?'

'What Jew, Chief?' laughed one of the men under his command. 'There's a few of 'em, you know!'

Grobauer had a reputation for being prickly and uptight, but on this occasion he nodded and grinned in recognition of his error. He, like most of the others, had already drunk a great deal.

'I can't remember his name,' he said carelessly, 'but if what I hear is true, he often used to play his violin for the bigwigs in Berlin.'

Schmidt looked searchingly at the Chief Guard whom the inmates had – on account of his girth and generally porcine appearance – nicknamed 'The Pig'.

From who, pondered The Whistler, had Grobauer heard such information? Not that it really mattered, however – for here was Schmidt's chance to listen to Heinemann perform again.

But (Schmidt then cautioned himself) what might happen to that young man whom he'd sworn to protect, were he to be brought to this room in order to provide entertainment?

Schmidt decided to take a chance and say what he knew. For he desperately wanted to hear Heinemann play again, and – after all – he'd be here to ensure that no harm befell him.

So Schmidt said curtly, 'I know of him. I could go and get him.'

The Pig stared suspiciously at Schmidt, wondering why this usually silent (except for those damned occasions when he whistled) man was volunteering this information.

Technically Grobauer was in charge of all the men currently in this room, though when it came to Schmidt he did not care to exert his authority too greatly. For it was apparent to every one of the men who'd been recruited from Sachsenhausen that Schmidt continued to dislike Grobauer – and, as such, The Whistler often barely even acknowledged any orders given by his supposed superior, let alone carried them out.

'Okay,' said Grobauer, looking sullenly at Schmidt from beneath his fleshy eyelids. 'Let's have him here.'

With a nod The Whistler left the large room, walking quickly towards the barrack where the violinist who was already – comparatively speaking – a long-term survivor of the camp was housed. Moonlight made the barbed-wire fences shine silver, and from somewhere close a guard-dog barked mournfully into the dark.

Reaching his destination Schmidt unlocked the door, shouting, 'Everyone out – move, move, move!' To enforce the urgency of his command he banged his stubby truncheon against the doorframe.

The inmates hastened to obey, clambering out of their crowded bunks. They assembled in three lines outside, and impassively scanning the gaunt and fearful faces The Whistler's gaze then alighted on Erich Heinemann's.

'You – fall out and follow me,' he ordered. 'The rest of you remain at attention until my return. No talking.'

It was a short walk to the brick-built building, the fogged windows of which blazed with light. From inside Heinemann heard drunken laughter and loud, guttural conversation.

The Whistler opened the door, gesturing for Heinemann to follow him inside. Entering the room, Heinemann blinked back at the guards who stood leering at him like cats observing a mouse. A long table still laden with food was placed against one wall, the sight causing his stomach to groan audibly.

The guard whom he and the other inmates knew as 'The Pig' approached him, the fat man clearly enjoying this moment. Quickly – for he'd once witnessed The Pig kick an inmate to death for 'visual insubordination' – Heinemann dropped his gaze to the floor.

'Look at me,' purred The Pig dangerously, to general guffaws from the other guards.

Hesitantly, Heinemann met the fat man's drink-smeared eyes.

'You're a lucky fellow,' continued The Pig, 'because if you do as you're told, you just might go back to sleep on a full stomach. I believe that you're a violinist, and so you will play for us. You will also ensure that what you do play is lively, and not one of your miserable Jewish dirges.'

The violin was held out for Heinemann to take, its body chipped and its strings badly worn. The Mischling began to shake, his narrow grey eyes observing the faces which leered at him.

But he was no longer afraid. Why not? He didn't know, but he wasn't. He was angry – more than angry. He was shaking with rage, not fear. Thousands of people already gone forever, killed – murdered – by scum such as these.

So let them kill him too, if that was how it was all going to end anyway. 'No.'

There were a few moments of absolute silence, none of the guards quite believing that they'd heard him correctly. And then he was on his knees, The Whistler having clubbed him in his right kidney.

The Pig nodded again: The Whistler clubbed his left.

The pain was quite something else; Heinemann gasped, cradling his wounded sides with opposite hands. He sought the merciful oblivion of unconsciousness but was instead hauled back to his feet.

Putting his face close to Heinemann's, The Pig said softly, 'Why don't you just do as you're told, before I have the guard break both of your hands?'

Although The Whistler stood watching with his usual impassive expression, inwardly his thoughts were squirming. He'd pulled the two truncheon blows as much as possible; had he have hit with his usual force Heinemann would have been a screaming, vomiting mess.

But still, Schmidt had not wanted to hit him at all – he'd only done so before one of the other guards had taken their chance, thereby saving Heinemann from possibly fatal injuries.

With a shaking hand Heinemann took the violin, as much to be free of The Pig's noxious breath as to avoid further punishment.

Tuning the instrument with almost nonchalant speed, he then played a lightening-fast flurry of notes in preparation for his performance. A piece came immediately from memory – never mind the name: this was of no importance. He was playing again after so many months and he was still brilliant. That was enough.

He was no longer aware of the evil men stood around him or the camp or indeed the war. He was as removed and as remote as heaven, entirely lost in the music.

And as The Whistler stood there listening he was transported by the music, taken back to that time when Berlin had been his night-time kingdom.

Never, never, must this young genius be allowed to perish at Auschwitz – this Kurt Schmidt swore to himself yet again.

At last Heinemann's thin delicate fingers ceased in their blurred ascent and descent of the violin's neck; his eyes opened as reality shattered the fathomless void which music had temporarily afforded him. He was again an inmate of the Auschwitz concentration camp, and his beaten kidneys ached.

There was an almost respectful silence: no one could argue that this young man was not a master. As though in admiration The Pig himself put some food onto a plate, handing this to Heinemann as the violin was taken away.

As he wordlessly accepted the plate and stared disbelieving at a thick piece of sausage, Heinemann's mind screamed caution.

This was a trap – he'd pick up the meat and be hit; struck in the face or kicked in the balls. Of course – this was the type of entertainment that was required, not a bloody violin recital.

'Eat, then!' barked The Pig.

Left with no choice but to do as told, Heinemann was in fact not molested as he ate, savouring every mouthful after the watery soup that had been his staple and highly-insufficient diet for far too long. There stood the bizarre spectacle of the emaciated, shaven-headed young man dressed in the ragged striped garments of an inmate, around him gathered some twenty camp guards.

All too soon The Pig snatched the plate petulantly from his hand, and again put his face close to the Mischling's.

'You play well, but such an art as music is not for the Jews. You have no right to it,' said The Pig as he scrutinised Heinemann's face, searching for the reaction he sought – terror.

But there was nothing of the sort: the inmate stood absolutely still, his expression carefully impassive.

Sighing, The Pig briefly wondered whether he ought to have this inmate shot. He had, after all, initially refused a direct order. Or perhaps Josef Mengele – better known to the camp inmates as 'The Angel of Death' – would like to have him entrusted into his care; for he always required males for his assorted experiments.

But such actions seemed to require far too much effort to arrange at this particular moment in time: The Pig was beginning to suffer from a migraine, the penalty he always paid whenever he chanced drinking alcohol; and having been constipated for almost a week he was now experiencing crippling stomach pains. So he motioned with exasperation at The Whistler to return the inmate to his barrack.

The inmates who remained stood to attention observed Heinemann's approach almost with hostility. There was no evidence suggesting that he'd been beaten or otherwise abused; and so the question concerning just why he'd been taken from the barrack occurred to them all.

But this question was temporarily forgotten as The Whistler's dead blue eyes swept past their own, his handsome, typically Germanic face holding the terror of the blackest nightmare.

Another guard might have ordered the inmates to remain standing to attention until morning, or amused himself by giving random blows with his truncheon. The Whistler, however, had no interest in such cruelty unless it formed part of a direct order, and so he shouted, 'Dismissed! Get back inside!'

Having crawled into one of the long bunks, Heinemann sighed as a scratchy voice whispered from nearby, 'What did they want with you?'

It was obvious that his answer was eagerly awaited by many of the inmates, and Heinemann was suddenly angered by the equally obvious suspicion that he was some sort of spy. He was by now well aware of what happened to those who were – they served their purpose (whatever this might be) before being promptly gassed, having been fooled into thinking that their treachery would safeguard their life.

So how dare these men think that he could be one of those bastards, after he'd been humiliated and clubbed?

'They made me play the violin. Now shut up before you get us all killed,' he whispered fiercely in reply. Should conversation be overheard by a patrolling guard, the inmates would be lined-up and men shot at random as a punishment.

Silence fell, disturbed only by the familiar death-rattle coming from an elderly inmate.

4

Looking down at the violinist sat in the chair, Schmidt said finally in German, 'You played very well, tonight.'

Dazedly Heinemann shook his head, struggling to make sense of what was occurring.

'What are you doing here?' he demanded at last.

Schmidt cocked his head curiously to one side.

'Because I wanted to see you perform,' he replied, as though it was self-evident.

'Why?'

With something that appeared suspiciously like a reminiscent smile, Schmidt said, 'I have every record you made, but I always wanted to see you play live – again.'

Heinemann's brow creased as he considered this last word; then with a grim nod he said flatly, 'Of course – the first time you saw me play was at the camp.'

'No,' countered Schmidt. 'It was in a large building by the Spree – the Aalto Theatre.'

'You were at the Aalto?' murmured Heinemann disbelievingly.

Schmidt nodded, and then – with that same, oddly reminiscent expression playing on the undamaged side of his face – said, 'Once, sometime in the late fifties, you performed in Berlin, you know. I tried to get a ticket for that, but I was too late. You never played in Germany again.'

'I've not been back there since I played that concert,' declared Heinemann, cautiously moving his right hand towards the phone that was on a table next to his chair.

'Are you going to call the police?' asked Schmidt.

'Yes – yes, I am,' said Heinemann fiercely, revulsion suddenly erupting like a volcano within him. 'You bastard – do you think I forget what you did, even after all these years? Do you think you can just come in here, to talk to me like you're some kind of old school friend?'

From inside his blue jacket Schmidt now produced a small but sharp-looking knife, and instantly Heinemann felt his blood chill.

'I see,' said the violinist, trying to keep his voice steady. 'So you've come to murder me, then – to do what you should have done at the camp.'

Schmidt appeared genuinely shocked.

'No!' he said forcefully. 'This is the only way to prove to you that I will not allow myself to be taken alive; you call the police, and I will be dead before they get here. You understand? So, do you still wish to call them?'

Reluctantly, Heinemann's hand moved away from the phone. And he grimaced as Schmidt managed another of his ghastly half-smiles.

'Good,' said Schmidt. 'You see that you have just saved my life, just as I saved yours – many times over, in fact.'

'What are you talking...' began Heinemann; and then he remembered. For certainly, on one occasion, The Whistler – that man who had the blood of thousands on his hands – had saved him from a horrific death.

Schmidt nodded as his eyes bored into Heinemann's own. It seemed almost as though he was able to read the violinist's thoughts.

'Yes,' he rasped, his voice like a winter wind blowing through dead leaves. 'Yes – you remember now, don't you...?

'Yes,' murmured Heinemann, now hardly even aware that he was speaking as his mind returned to that awful time. 'Yes, I do...'

*

It was August 1944, and within Auschwitz the rumour was spreading that the Germans were losing the war. Somehow, thought Heinemann, if he could just keep fighting the perpetual hunger and cold – to say nothing of staying out of the gas chamber – he might live long enough to see his release at the hands of the Americans, the Russians or the English...

The cattle-trucks, however, kept on arriving daily, bringing with them a fresh batch of inmates who generally survived no longer than a month. And yet occasionally a few lived long enough for Erich Heinemann – who along with a handful of others was certainly by now a veteran of Auschwitz – to become aware of them. And one such man was Father Passarge.

Fat and almost defiantly good-humoured, Passarge was placed in Heinemann's barracks and assigned to work – like Heinemann had been himself – in the Monowitz factory, which manufactured synthetic oil and rubber for the German war machine.

(Generally, those who worked within this factory tended to last significantly longer than those inmates who laboured elsewhere, as they required a certain amount of training to be able to operate the heavy and often dangerous machinery. Thus, they were not easily replaced.)

Father Passarge freely informed everyone around him that he'd been sent to Auschwitz after a serious of warnings from the Gestapo concerning his anti-Nazi views, the final straw being the discovery of seven Jews hiding in his cellar. Only when the priest spoke of this family did his eyes grow wet; every member had been hanged as an example to others, both those that sheltered and those who hid.

At night he exhorted the other inmates to pray. It did not matter, he said, if their religion differed from his: there was but one God, all seeing and all forgiving, who would help them at this time of crisis.

And so the fat priest quickly became a source of strength and comfort to many – but not Erich Heinemann.

That any inmate of Auschwitz could believe in a god staggered him; they'd only to look about themselves to realise that there could not possibly be such a thing.

For some reason Heinemann could never quite fathom, Passarge seemed almost determined to befriend him. This irritated Heinemann, who like most long-term survivors of Auschwitz had become stubbornly solitary. Any attachment to another human being in a place such as this served only to negatively affect one's own chances of survival; it was infinitely better to remain alone, jealously guarding whatever possessions one had managed to accrue, sharing nothing.

But after a few weeks of mainly one-sided conversation, the priest finally got a reaction from Heinemann, making the mistake of talking about his religious beliefs while the young Mischling was attempting to fix a niggling fault on a machine within the Monowitz plant.

It all became too much for Heinemann, and he angrily turned on the man. He did, however, retain enough respect to address him by his title:

'Father, your views are not my own, and I do not wish to hear them. Your prayers keep me awake when I'm trying to sleep, and you give the poor bastards in this place hope when there is none to be had.'

Passarge merely shrugged, replying, 'As you say, they are not your views – not your views. However, many men do not have your strength – no, please let me finish – do not have your strength; they need what I give to them. Such is my role in this terrible place. How long have you been here?'

Feeling somehow chastened by the priest's words, Heinemann said quietly, 'Over... three years' – and as he spoke it suddenly seemed quite incredible to him that he'd managed to survive this long.

'I do not expect, in fact somehow I know, that I will not last even another three months,' declared Passarge. 'But in whatever time I have left, I will try to give whatever comfort I can – whether or not you deem it to be appropriate. For many here such comfort is all that they have. How old are you, Erich?'

For a moment Heinemann had to think; sometimes it felt as though he was sixty, aged and impossibly world-weary before his time.

'Twenty-three.'

'Then you are very young. It is important that you survive, and furthermore that your life is useful. Something positive must come from this.'

Heinemann shook his head. Despite his wish not to be he felt himself drawn into the conversation. 'If I survive then it will be only me.'

'Your mother, father?'

'They were gone long before this. I had a woman, someone I loved. She was carrying our child. I don't know where she is now – I don't even know if she's still...'

His voice faltered as the pain started again. He didn't want to talk – let alone think – so much, but Passarge seemed somehow to compel it.

The priest nodded slowly, and then he and Heinemann returned to work as The Whistler walked past. When the guard had gone a safe distance Passarge said quietly, 'For their sake you must live your life when this is over.'

Doubt entered Heinemann's mind; it threatened to overwhelm him and he silently cursed the priest for introducing it whilst at the same time turning to him for support.

'But what if it never will be over?'

The grip on his arm was strong, comforting; Passarge's voice carried a conviction that could not be faked.

'Trust me,' said the priest with a quiet, gentle smile. 'Out there in the world the tide is turning against Hitler; the Allied powers are winning. Joseph Goebbels feeds the German public with desperate lies but the truth is plain – the Nazis are losing, my friend. You have to keep whatever it is that's made you survive this long strong within you. This will not be for too much longer.'

Heinemann angrily blinked back tears as Passarge smiled soothingly.

'As for now, young man, I suggest we keep ourselves occupied by trying to fix this damn machine.'

A few months earlier, unbeknown to either the staff or the inmates at Auschwitz, a South African Air Force reconnaissance plane had, at twenty-six thousand feet, flown over the camp's industrial factory. The Monowitz plant was a known factor in the German war effort, and consequently was being gauged as a potential bombing target.

The resulting photographs of Monowitz were studied at Medmenham, West London. Monowitz was now one of the few producers of rubber and oil for the German war machine, the Russian advance having destroyed most of their other factories.

A month later, in May, another plane was sent to photograph the factory. The technology for such aerial photography was still in its infancy: when the person handling the camera assumed the time to be right, he simply set it to photograph automatically until the film ran out.

The reconnaissance missions revealed the general layout of the Monowitz factory, and on the 20 August – the day after Heinemann discovered that it was possible to form a friendship in the worst of situations – the Allies bombed Monowitz.

The explosions immediately awoke everyone in the barracks, Heinemann shaking off sleep as men shouted in the distance. From within his barrack someone started laughing; it was a high-pitched, almost hysterical sound, and it further frayed the inmates' nerves. It ceased as Father Passarge comforted the mentally sick man.

The explosions were almost continuous – a seamless wall of noise. Periodically the deep throb of the bombers' engines could be heard – pour-vous, pour-vous – a curiously hypnotic sound. Thoughts of liberation occurred to every inmate, although such thoughts were subsequently dashed as it was realised where the explosions were coming from.

'The factory, they're bombing the bloody factory,' noted a despondent voice. The men remembered Monowitz's close proximity to Birkenau, where the women prisoners were held. Each hoped and some prayed that a bomb had not gone astray.

The following day the inmates discovered that the Allies had not succeeded with their objective, as Monowitz had not been put completely out of action. The news that eighty SS men had been killed by a bomb landing on their quarters spread quickly, the inmates unaware that this had not been intentional but just good luck, the bomb having missed its intended target.

An immediate source of revenge for the raid was extracted from sixteen British and French Special Operations Executives, who had been captured in France and who were now held captive in special quarters at Auschwitz.

They were hanged the following day, surprising those inmates used to receiving far worse treatment than these prisoners almost privileged in comparison. They didn't know that the revenge hadn't finished with these executions, nor that the barrack containing Heinemann and the others would be targeted shortly afterwards for this purpose.

Heinemann and Passarge agreed that the raid was a good sign; it meant that at least the outside world knew of Auschwitz. Surely once the Allies became aware of the full horror of this camp they would spare no effort to end the inmates' nightmare...

The bombing of Monowitz, however, was undertaken purely to damage the German war machine. Four Jews who'd escaped Auschwitz in June and fled to Switzerland had asked the Allies to bomb the railway lines leading to the camp. They'd provided harrowing details of Auschwitz's main purpose, and explained that the destruction of the railway lines would at least stop the daily influx of new victims, the majority of whom went straight to the gas chamber.

But their request was denied by the British Air Ministry, reluctant to risk airmen's lives for 'no purpose.' The American Assistant Secretary of War, John J McClay, quietly instructed his deputy to 'kill this.'

The day after the bombing a reconnaissance plane again flew over Auschwitz, this time to ascertain the damage caused. The developed camera film clearly showed the Auschwitz main camp, railway sidings, gas chambers and crematorium. In a few consecutive shots inmates were pictured walking into the main gas chamber and crematorium.

The inmates of Heinemann's barrack stood rigidly to attention four days after the raid. The Whistler was on duty that morning, and he watched as The Pig strutted in a circular pattern in front of the assembled men, declaring:

'Four days ago Monowitz was bombed! We have hanged the British and French prisoners as part of our revenge for this, but that is not enough! Such a heinous crime demands the utmost punishment, and I want ten of you to leave the group and line-up in front of me.'

Unsurprisingly, none of the inmates moved, forcing The Pig after a few moments to move forward and grab one man by his arm.

'You – stand over there,' he ordered, the inmate walking to where the Chief Guard pointed. The Pig then roughly pushed the arms of nine other men, one of whom was Heinemann.

So this was it – his time was up. For over three years he'd fought against colossal odds; and this was the end of it. His bowels turned to ice as he walked to stand with the other chosen men, Passarge looking at him in shock.

Heinemann set his face and avoided looking at the still fat-faced priest, everything within him willing that he meet death bravely and that it would at least be quick.

'Please, free one of these men. I will take their place,' said Father Passarge suddenly.

The Pig looked balefully at him, but before he could say or do anything The Whistler motioned towards Heinemann and said, 'We'll swap him for this one.'

Opening his wet mouth to disagree, The Pig then met the other guard's cold blue eyes and immediately reconsidered. Something told him that to go against The Whistler on this occasion – even though he was technically superior in rank to this man – would not be wise.

So instead he nodded and Heinemann was replaced by Passarge, the priest and the other men then marched away.

Erich Heinemann never saw his friend or any of the other nine men again. And a month later he discovered what terrible fate had so very nearly befallen himself, a man who'd recently been forced to drag ten decayed corpses to the crematorium revealing all.

Father Passarge and the others had been walled-up inside a small room and left to starve to death, in revenge for a bombing in which they'd taken no part in organising or carrying out.

When Heinemann was told this he said nothing, as with the priest's death there was no longer anyone to say anything to.

But that night, in his bunk, he did something that he'd never had the least inclination to do before.

He prayed. He didn't know the right words, but somehow this didn't seem important. He knew that the priest's act of selfless courage hadn't been intended for his exclusive benefit; The Whistler had made his sacrifice save a Mischling's life.

But whatever: Heinemann hoped that Passarge – wherever the man was now, hopefully in that glorious kingdom he'd devoted his life to serving – was aware that he'd never forget him, and that with each day that unfolded far ahead into the future he'd do his very best to honour that priest's name in thought, word and deed.

For Heinemann had never felt more determined to survive – somehow, he'd ensure that he lasted far longer than Auschwitz, Hitler and the Third Reich itself...

5

'...It was me,' said Schmidt, Heinemann well aware that they were both recalling the same occasion. 'I saved your life that day.'

'No,' returned Heinemann desperately, shaking his head. 'No, it was the priest who...'

'There were other occasions, too,' continued Schmidt remorselessly. 'Many of them. Sometimes your name was on the list for the gas chamber, and I removed it. It was I who managed to get you into the Monowitz factory; to get you a job of some importance. And now and then, perhaps, did you not find a cob of bread in your bunk?'

Yes, Heinemann had. On a number of occasions, in fact. Curiously, he'd never sought to question such good fortune – possibly one of the other, ever-changing inmates had got confused about which bunk was theirs when they'd secreted the bread for later – but had merely eaten the food quickly and secretly at night.

'No...' said Heinemann, in what was almost a low moan. For it was now all too obvious that – had it not been for this disfigured mass-murderer – he would never have survived Auschwitz.

But why? Why had The Whistler protected him?

As though in reply to Heinemann's despairing mental question, Kurt Schmidt tonelessly declared, 'You are one of the greatest classical musicians of the twentieth century. I knew that, were you to survive Auschwitz, you would go on to become famous worldwide. So it became my responsibility to see that you lived. I am content that I did this well, and that my prediction proved correct.'

Suddenly Heinemann stood up; moving to stand close by The Whistler he hissed, 'And what about all those that died?'

There was absolutely no reaction. So still and composed was the former concentration camp guard now that he might almost have been a mannequin. And with an immediate and almost calming sense of resignation, Heinemann realised that he was simply wasting his breath.

The Whistler had helped murder thousands of people but had ensured that Heinemann survived purely because of the young Mischling's talent for the violin. As bizarre as this seemed, it still remained the simple fact of the matter. And no amount of raging by Heinemann now would change anything that had occurred over half a century before.

Sitting back down on his chair, Heinemann placed his chin on his trembling fist and stared down at the floor, remembering...

*

October 7 1944 witnessed the largest revolt staged by the inmates of the Auschwitz in its comparatively brief history. Working within Monowitz, Heinemann suddenly heard shouting and explosions coming from outside; yet he refused to recognise anything that might have given him false hope or finally – and fatally – destroyed his grim resolve to stay alive.

As was usual, a group of Jews had been forced to take the bodies from out of a gas chamber. Inside there was a scene from hell, inmates clinging together even in death or piled over each other on the floor.

It was not unusual (in fact it was quite common) for the forced attendants to recognise friends and relatives among the corpses – and on October 7 such a sight caused approximately four hundred and fifty inmates to revolt.

They were not alone: several women imprisoned at Birkenau managed to smuggle them home-made bombs, which were used to blow-up four gas chambers. A fifth was set on fire as the men attempted to break out of the camp. Two hundred and fifty succeeded; but being both starving and hopelessly ill-dressed for the brutal cold, they were soon hunted down and shot.

Five women were arrested, and subjected to torture in an attempt to make them talk. One of them, Roza Robota, smuggled out a message assuring those who'd taken part in the rebellion but not managed to escape:

You have nothing to fear, we shall not talk.

True to her word, she and the other women were hanged three months later with nothing having been got from them.

Time had long ago ceased to have any meaning for Heinemann. The hours, days and months contained nothing other than hunger, cold and pain. His severely emaciated body festooned with sores and covered with lice, it was nothing short of a miracle that he succeeded in awakening each morning.

But constantly within his mind there beat the grim instruction: Stay alive, Stay alive; and often in his sleep he heard Father Passarge exhorting him not to make his sacrifice be in vain – he'd no right to die in such a place as Auschwitz...

The Allied bombing campaign on the Monowitz factory resumed on December 26. It was the late Christmas present the surviving inmates had been praying for. No more people were transported to the camp, and the black smoke that had once belched almost continually from the chimneys of the crematorium – accompanied by the nauseating smell that carried for miles – finally ceased.

There were no more gassings.

A new rumour was quickly spread: the war was over – Germany had lost! The Soviet army was on its way. Those in charge of Auschwitz began destroying the camp's records, the Totenbuch – death book – that meticulously kept track of the camp's daily, monthly and yearly mortality rate.

The order to evacuate Auschwitz was given on January 18, those inmates deemed fit enough taken to nearby railway junctions to be transported to a hundred different camps within Western Germany. Many of these journeys also included a walk of hundreds of miles.

The Death Marches had begun. Anyone who fell was shot, and the slightest protest was met with savage brutality by the armed guards.

Along with eight hundred and fifty other slave labourers, Heinemann was left behind with only a skeleton guard remaining at the camp. He had dysentery, and lay for days with little food or water. The stench of excrement, of death, hung about him; a foul cloak that did its utmost to finally snuff out the last flickering light of life.

His eyes rarely opened, and when they did they were lifeless, unseeing: they showed just how close to death he was. His mind wondered; he talked to his aunt, to Frau Stielke, sometimes even to Commissioner Sasse of the Berlin Gestapo. His skeletal hands would frame arpeggios on an imagined violin; he would be playing pieces to the rich by the Siegessaule, the victory column in the Tiergarten.

On the 19 January the Allies bombed Monowitz again. This left the remaining inmates with even less food and water, and two hundred died during the following week. On the 25 the SS shot three hundred and fifty Jews in the sick bay, Heinemann ignored as his survival was considered an impossibility – it was simply not worth wasting the ammunition.

It was then the SS left, the Russians arriving the very next day.

Along with the surviving slave labourers at Monowitz, the Soviets found another seven thousand survivors scattered around the camp. The Nazis had succeeded in destroying the gas chambers, but not the vast storehouses containing the imprisoned and murdered people's belongings.

In these were the only reminders of the countless thousands who'd passed through the camp gates to die: nearly a million women's dresses, three hundred thousand men's suits, and thirty eight thousand pairs of men's shoes.

6

Finally, Erich Heinemann raised his eyes to again meet Schmidt's lizard-like gaze.

'And you,' said the elderly violinist quietly. 'What became of you... after?'

The unscarred section of Schmidt's brow creased with mild surprise.

'Why do you wish to know?' he asked.

Heinemann rubbed his face with his hands. He gave a deep sigh before replying, 'I'm not sure... I... I suppose I just want to know how you escaped being imprisoned or hanged – which is what you still deserve – and so are able to stand here in front of me tonight, a free man.'

Schmidt patted the pocket of his jacket where he'd put back the knife.

'You can still call the police...' he said, and his tone of voice was not taunting but merely matter of fact.

'Shut up,' said Heinemann wearily. 'Just... just tell me what became of you after the war.'

For almost a minute Schmidt thought, as it slowly occurred to him that he really did want to tell Erich Heinemann his story. Never would he have revealed it to anyone else; but this violinist had had such a profound affect on his life that Schmidt considered they shared some kind of bond – something that merited Heinemann being told everything.

'Very well, then...' said Schmidt, and he prepared himself to begin.

*

Several months before the Russians liberated Auschwitz, recognising that Germany's defeat was imminent, Kurt Schmidt left the concentration camp. One day he declared that he was going to inspect the perimeter of the camp for hiding partisans, and simply did not return.

In any case, all the while he'd been at the camp Schmidt had continually felt the urge to return to the vaulted buildings of the Mitte district; the winding alleyways, little shops and quaint cafes within Charlottenburg; the liberating expanse of the Tiergarten...

In short, The Whistler missed Berlin.

And so when he left Auschwitz, he did not question his insane logic in returning to a city that was the obvious goal for the fast-encroaching Allied powers, nor did he consider the risks that the four hundred kilometre trek to Berlin would entail.

Having travelled at night and with the utmost caution – often spending days in hiding when I thought that it was not as-yet safe to continue my journey – I at last entered Berlin.

There, hidden within the doorways of partially destroyed buildings, I watched as the few remaining Nazis consigned themselves and others to their deaths; those fools who fought Russian tanks armed with nothing more than paving slabs and wooden clubs.

But I had returned – returned to the city that was my home. It had been heavily bombed and lay in ruins, but it was still Berlin.

I found a cellar hidden amongst a huge pile of rubble, inside of which were perhaps twenty people hiding from the Nazis, who would have made them fight to the death. But they didn't seem any less afraid of the Russians, who, it seemed, freely raped and murdered.

The Russians – the forward infantry and tank divisions of whom were already in Berlin – arrived en masse a few days later, some possessing the lined face of the Mongolian and the characteristic oriental-looking beard.

Others were from Turkestan and Siberia; short and sturdy men who marched quickly to wherever it was they were ordered to go. The red banner flew from the roof of the Reichstag and rumours began spreading that Adolf Hitler was dead, killed by his own hand.

What strange men those Russians were! I would sneak out of the cellar to look for food, and see them trying to ride bicycles in the streets, falling off and getting on again until such time as they grew bored. They were like small children. For days on end I heard the same record being played over-and-over – it was a Christmas carol, would you believe!

Soon enough a group of soldiers discovered the cellar, and myself and the other men were held at gunpoint while they raped every woman in turn – even one who was in her eighties. A husband of one of the younger ones – some hot-headed fool – was shot dead when he tried to attack a soldier.

When this was all done the others ran away, but three of the soldiers took me to where they were staying – a large flat owned by two doctors. One soldier spoke a little German, and he told the doctors that I would be staying here as well. Then he dropped his trousers, and waited for them to diagnose whatever his problem was.

After this there followed a drinking session that lasted well into the next morning, rum and schnapps having been provided by the soldiers. When drunk they would at first dance and sing, and then they would cry – one man even put a pistol to his head and played Russian Roulette. I hoped he would blow his brains out, but that night he was lucky...

Schmidt was mildly bemused by the Russians apparent inability to use a water closet. Tables, beds and carpets were common places for faecal visiting cards to be discovered by weary Berliners, after a jolly group of liberators had popped by armed with several bottles of rum.

For the first and only time in his life, Schmidt needed something to help him get through this strange period. For he was entirely bewildered by the absurdity of what was taking place. Auschwitz had contained death... that was normal, an inevitable part of human existence. This now was lunacy.

So finding his saviour in schnapps he soon left his lodgings (having first strangled one of the Russian soldiers as he slept, Schmidt considering that the man had – in his own strange language – mocked him one day) and took to wandering about the city, losing himself in his memories from before the war. He keenly felt Berlin's destruction – almost like a parent whose child has been badly hurt.

One day he entered a desolate area that had seen some of the harshest fighting between the remaining German forces and the Russians. And then, through his alcoholic haze, he suddenly realised where he was...

This was Schoneberg – the place where he'd lived with his parents for the first few years of his life.

I was walking through wrecked streets, just trying to remember where it was that my parents had had their lodgings, when something exploded almost under my feet. For a while there was just blackness and I thought I was dead. Then the pain began... My face felt as though it had been torn apart, and the blackness wasn't death: I was blind.

I heard men's voices which grew ever-louder as they approached me; some were German and the others I discovered later were American – for they had recently taken over from the Russians here. They talked for a while, and then I felt myself being lifted up before I passed out.

For several weeks Schmidt drifted in and out of consciousness, as American doctors did the best they could to repair his ruined face. They managed to save his sight, although it would be almost a year before his right eye ceased to throb with excruciating pain.

When he'd sufficiently recovered from his injuries he took notice of his surroundings. He was laid-out inside a huge white tent, along with hundreds of other men, women and children.

Schmidt realised that he'd been lucky with the amount of treatment he'd received; for usually the harassed and overworked doctors could make only the most cursory of examinations. The nurses had deep lines of exhaustion etched into their faces; they tried to give what comfort they could to the dying, the amputees, and the blind.

A doctor told me that he and his colleagues had done the best they could, but that my face and my upper body were still severely scarred and burned. They simply didn't have the resources to offer me any further surgery. The doctor gave me a mirror and looked afraid of my reaction, as though I might scream and cry about my injuries like some foolish woman and throw myself into the Spree.

I was alive! That was all I cared about, and the doctor looked most relieved when I thanked him for all he had done.

Through the American soldiers, who visited the wounded out of some pleasant sense of humanitarianism, Schmidt heard how members of the Nazi Party were being hunted throughout Germany. If it was suspected that they'd been involved in any atrocities then they would be dealt with at special 'War Crimes' trials.

Consequently, Schmidt realised that the destruction of his face was in fact the best thing that could have happened to him. He'd had no identification on him when found, and now his handsome, distinctive features had been forever defiled.

Soon enough I was asked about my identity; I replied that I had complete amnesia; all I could remember was waking up in the hospital tent. The tattoo I had been given on my arm at Sachsenhausen – for I'd spent some time there before being employed at Auschwitz – had been noticed, but I replied that I had no idea as to when or why I had been imprisoned. And of course, this tattoo just made it appear as though I had been a victim of the Nazis...

Then, after a few days, I pretended to remember my name – for it would make it all the more convincing if I could recall just a little about myself. Ernest Kramer, a fine choice – common but not too common.

Those chattering, idiotic American soldiers seemed to form a liking towards me, as they frequently came and visited my bedside. I refused their filthy tobacco but accepted their food, as the hospital rations were appalling and I needed to recover my strength. I pumped them for information regarding the state of Berlin, in the process picking up a smattering of English but also able to talk to them through a German nurse who could speak that language fluently.

Now that he'd all but recovered, Schmidt felt impatient to leave the improvised hospital. He felt a strong sense of purpose, wanting to assist in restoring the devastated city back to its former glory.

Informing the visiting soldiers of this, they were so impressed by his evident determination that they promised to give him all the assistance they were capable of upon his release.

I left the hospital and travelled around Berlin, carefully observing all that was taking place. Under the Americans the rich could enjoy themselves: the Deutsches Theatre in Schumannstrasse had been reopened; the State Opera put on concerts. If you had the money you could eat and drink almost anything you wanted. Every day someone new was discovered as having been a Nazi – people screamed the accusation at each other if they had the most trivial of arguments, and there were many false arrests.

Those not so well-off were in desperate circumstances; winter was fast approaching, and many people lived in houses without a roof or even four walls.

So I assembled a group of men – men who until now had been sleeping rough, with nothing to do – and began to repair the damage. It would have been impossible to obtain bricks and wood had it not been for those American soldiers, who forced those who dealt in the black market to give me what I needed at a bargain price.

During the day Schmidt worked tirelessly, and at night he read everything he could obtain concerning the techniques of construction. Every brick laid was progress, a step towards rebuilding his beloved city.

As other men grew inspired by his efforts and sought to work under his direction, so his team grew. His energy soon became legend: by day he worked, by night he studied. Work continued even during the freezing winter of 1946, Schmidt (or rather Ernest Kramer, as he was now known) somehow finding building supplies as desperate people used their furniture, banisters and even floorboards as firewood.

As Berlin limped into 1947, the bureaucrats installed to try and restore a semblance of order to the struggling city gave Ernest Kramer their full support. Juggling materials and men around, Kramer ensured that construction ran twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Kramer was given a large flat to live in, and at last became able to pay his men a decent wage.

In 1957, his by now large and fully established building company was given the contract to renovate the Aalto Theatre.

That, I think, was my proudest moment. I stood by the Spree and watched my men re-roofing the Aalto, remembering that time I was there as a young man, hidden behind the curtains, just listening as you played so well.

I had achieved so much in little more than ten years, and there was next to no chance of me ever being brought to trial. There were precautions I had to take, of course, and on one occasion I was forced to kill to keep my real identity secret. But that was fine.

That same year Kurt Schmidt purchased a record – Erich Heinemann's first release on a major label – which he played repeatedly.

Naturally it was excellent, and it proved how right I had been in my prediction of your future. There was another record of yours released soon after that, I remember, which was even better...

Meanwhile, of course, the communists were taking over Eastern Europe, and so I made sure that I and my business stayed in the Western sector of Berlin – even though the Wall itself was not actually built until 1961, I realised what was coming. And I never wanted to be enslaved to another party or another system again; my life was satisfactory and I wished for it to remain so.

Up until recently I was happy to see out my remaining years in Berlin – I felt no need to travel; no need to go and see anywhere else. On one occasion, just as a hobby, I even tried to learn the violin...Of course, I was useless – it is an instrument best left to the experts, like you. So I passed my free time reading, and sometimes practising a little English in a café with a small group of men and women.

However, not so long ago, I received some... unfortunate... news. And it was then I realised that, before I died, I wanted to see you perform again. In fact, I wanted to meet you, to introduce myself and to tell you everything that concerned you and I – information that you could not possibly ever know otherwise.

But of course, you had not been to Germany since nineteen-fifty-nine, and though you'd said nothing publicly about it, any fool could tell that you'd no intention of ever visiting your home country again. After all, you've not been back there in forty years!

Very well, I must travel to see you. For the first time in my life I visited what is called an 'Internet café', and there had one of the staff find out where and when your next concert would be – for I knew that you still performed a few each year.

And it was here – London, England, barely three weeks away. At first there were no tickets left, but thankfully someone cancelled soon after and so I was able to get one.

And that, really, is all there is to say – except that before coming to see you I'd never been on a plane. But it's been worth it – I have now fulfilled my last wish, and I am...

Satisfied.

7

For a few moments after The Whistler had finished speaking, Heinemann stared sullenly at him.

'What is this 'unfortunate news', exactly?' Heinemann quietly asked.

'I am dying,' returned the former camp guard. There was absolutely no expression in either his ruined face or his voice; he might just as well have been commenting on the weather. 'I have a cancer that has gone too far to be treated.'

And it was at this exact moment that his stomach – which had for the last couple of hours given him virtually no discomfort at all – suddenly twisted in agony. Grimly Schmidt caught his breath, the side of his face that wasn't ruined only momentarily registering his pain.

'You should be in a hospital,' observed Heinemann flatly.

'No,' returned Schmidt. 'I cannot stand them. And anyway, tonight... tonight it ends. For I have now done everything that I wished to do.'

It took Heinemann a moment to understand Schmidt's meaning. Then he said coldly, 'Suicide? A coward's way out.'

'Not when the only other option remains death – and a far more painful one at that,' returned Schmidt. 'It will take place in my hotel room, which is only five minutes' walk from here.'

'With that knife?' asked Heinemann.

'Possibly,' shrugged Schmidt. 'What does it matter?'

Suddenly Heinemann leant forwards, his eyes fixed on Schmidt's own.

'Go,' he said, his voice low and harsh. 'Just go. You've fulfilled your last wish, and... now it is time for you to go.'

Schmidt stared expressionlessly back at him; and after a few moments, without saying another word, nodded and left the dressing room.

For a while Heinemann stared back down at the floor. He still had on his bow tie – usually he removed it immediately after a performance – the glass of wine forgotten on the table.

He found his dazed thoughts turning now to Marie. He'd met her one last time when he'd returned to Berlin in 1959, to give what would be his final performance within Germany.

It was Marie who had, through his record company, contacted Heinemann. They'd arranged to meet in a little café in the Charlottenburg distract that was scarcely a stone's throw from the house where Marie had lived with her grandmother, a few hours before Heinemann was due to perform.

She was smartly-dressed, had her hair fashionably cut, and wore make-up. She looked every inch the wife of a well-to-do banker who was currently working nearby.

For a while they made small-talk... But Heinemann was desirous to know what had happened to her after he'd been arrested by the Gestapo, and so she told him:

'I was taken to Ravensbruck, after they'd aborted the pregnancy. It was hard, but somehow I survived.'

Her voice was cold – entirely free of emotion – and she did not elaborate any further on what had happened during that time. Clearly, she was – like Heinemann himself – one of the concentration camp survivors who chose not to dwell in the past.

'I returned here to find an ex-member of the Nazi Party living in my home,' she continued. 'I reported him to the Americans, and they arrested him. So I was able to reclaim my house, at least, and I lived there on my own for three or four years until I met Paul.'

Heinemann nodded, and sipping his coffee searched for something to say. He'd felt a bolt of pain when Marie had declared what had happened to their baby, but not a trace of this had shown in his expression. As Marie had evidently dealt with what had happened, so must he.

'And you?' she said, looking searchingly at him across the table.

'What about me?' returned Heinemann.

'You're famous now, Erich,' she replied with that slight, enigmatic smile. 'We often read about you, you know, here in Germany.'

'I'd prefer to remain anonymous,' he said honestly, pulling a slight face. 'Some of the things that are written... They have nothing to do with my career as a musician.'

'Such as your past?' she asked softly.

Heinemann nodded.

'Yes – that and my private life,' he admitted with a rueful expression.

She gave a gentle laugh.

'What?' he said with an enquiring smile.

'Forgive me,' she said, 'but that's reminded me – congratulations.'

'Oh yes – well, thank you.'

'When's the wedding planned?'

He shrugged.

'There's no date confirmed as-yet – next year, sometime in the summer.'

'In America?'

'Yes – I'll be moving there, shortly. I've lived long enough in Switzerland, I think. I only meant to stay there for a while, after...'

He let the sentence remain unfinished. Marie was well aware, after all, of the period of time to which he was referring.

'I'm pleased for you, Erich,' she said earnestly, as she briefly took his hand across the table. 'Pleased for the both of us, in fact.'

'Yes,' nodded Heinemann, knowing that they shared the same thought: We survived, at least. Whatever else could have been, doesn't matter now...

When they'd finished their coffees, Heinemann paid the bill and helped Marie put on her coat. It was early autumn, red leaves beginning to cover the cobbled streets outside.

'There's something I meant to tell you already – I just didn't know how,' said Marie as they exited the café.

'It's to do with Enrich Rath, isn't it?' said Heinemann. Somehow, he knew already that any news concerning his former lecturer wouldn't be good.

'Yes,' she replied, her expression grave. 'I'm afraid he died, before the war ended.'

'Where?'

'Treblinka,' she said. 'I'm sorry, Erich' – for Marie, just like many others, knew of what had happened to Heinemann shortly before his imprisonment at Auschwitz. There was even some talk – which Heinemann personally considered preposterous – of turning the now-famous violinist's early life into a movie.

'There's a plaque dedicated to him in Humboldt's main hall,' she continued. 'I thought maybe you would like to see it while you're here.'

'Maybe,' said Heinemann, though he knew he never would. In fact, he knew then that this would be his final visit to Berlin or Germany itself.

Coming back here after some fourteen years spend away (mostly in Switzerland, though in the last few years – as his fame had begun to spread – Heinemann had travelled extensively) had been a mistake. No matter how much Germany had changed since the Socialists had been in power, there were still some things Heinemann could never forget. And only time and distance made such things bearable.

Others – survivors of the Nazi terror like himself, like Marie – might even have called him cowardly; they were determined to continue living in Germany, to see this country recover from what it had once been.

But not Heinemann. He wanted no more part of it, regardless of whether that was right or wrong. He considered that he'd suffered enough to be entitled to make that choice.

'Goodbye, Erich,' said Marie, briefly kissing him on one cheek.

'Goodbye, Marie,' he replied, before they both walked away in opposite directions.

*

What have I done? Heinemann thought now, his mind returning abruptly to the present. What the hell have I just gone and done?

In his mind's eye he saw the thousands of shaven-headed, striped-uniformed scarecrows The Whistler had been responsible for murdering. They all of them mouthed a single word, which sounded harshly in Heinemann's head in his native tongue –

Rache –

Revenge.

He stabbed the button that was on the table. It seemed an eternity before there was a knock on the door and a voice from outside said, 'Mr Heinemann?'

'Come in,' said Heinemann brusquely. The door opened and a young steward entered.

'Yes, sir?' he said.

Only five minutes' walk from here...

'I need your help, quickly,' said Heinemann. 'Listen carefully...'

8

Schmidt's diseased stomach caused him not the slightest twinge of pain as he made the short return walk to his hotel apartment. It was as calm and settled as his mind. A stiff drink – finally, he'd take a little alcohol again – a deep, hot bath, and then the caress of the knife's blade across his wrists as he lay in the water. A long, and on the whole satisfying life coming to an end. The choice to terminate it as Schmidt wished, as a free man – this the most important thing in the world. Having been a captive once before, he could not bear such a thing again. It would be a living hell.

The weapon he'd stolen earlier, from a restaurant where he'd eaten a very good steak. It had been extremely busy, and a little short-staffed. So no one had noticed Schmidt discreetly pocket the knife, just before he'd paid and left.

Entering the small but exclusive hotel (as he aged, Schmidt had found that he liked comfort more-and-more – even his flight to England had been business class), he nodded in return to the clerk's greeting and took the elevator to his room on the fifth floor. In his room, he turned on the taps in the bathroom and then selected a miniature bottle of whiskey from the selection of alcohol and soft drinks that was in his room.

He turned on the radio – previously tuned by himself to a classical music station – and very nearly gave an ironic smile at the composition being played...

It was Beethoven's Ninth Symphony – The Choral.

He sipped his drink as the bath slowly filled. Appreciating his last hour or so of life. He did not consider heaven or hell or the possibility of any kind of afterlife. There would be nothing and this he knew. It did not matter in the slightest.

Then there came suddenly a knock at the door. Schmidt spun round to face it, his blue eyes suddenly burning with suspicion.

He approached the door. He said cautiously: 'Yes?'

'Mr Kramer?' said a male voice outside. 'We have a delivery for you, sir.'

Schmidt's stomach was at once alive with pain as his mind screamed danger.

'What is... delivery?' he said, slowly producing the knife from his inner jacket pocket.

'A large parcel, sir. You need to sign for it,' replied the man.

The undamaged half of Schmidt's face creased with surprise.

'Who... from?' he demanded.

'I'm sorry sir, but I've really no idea,' returned the man. There was a pause, then he said again: 'If now's inconvenient, I can always return later...'

'No,' said Schmidt, carefully tucking the knife into the top of his trousers by the small of his back. 'No – I open door now.'

And he began to do so...

Epilogue

Berlin, 1999

Frau Klein was preparing dinner for herself and her husband when she happened to glance at the open newspaper that was on top of the marble kitchen worktop. What she saw then made her catch her breath, and very nearly drop the glass bowl of salad she was carrying.

A report on page four, with an accompanying photograph of a man she'd once known and loved a very long time before – in a different life. There was also another photo, but this elderly man she didn't know. He had only half a face.

His name (read Frau Klein) was Kurt Schmidt, although for years he'd lived under the alias of 'Ernest Kramer'. He'd been arrested at a London hotel two days previously, after a tussle with a number of police officers and detectives that had resulted in one policeman receiving two stab wounds that were, however, not life-threatening.

Schmidt had just returned from a classical concert given by the famous violinist Erich Heinemann, who had identified the alleged former war criminal and alerted the venue's staff. They in turn informed the police, who were able to track Schmidt's whereabouts to a nearby hotel. Already alerted by Heinemann to the fact that Schmidt was armed and dangerous, the policemen had obtained entrance to Schmidt's hotel room by pretending that they had a delivery for him. But upon realising that he'd been tricked, Schmidt had fiercely resisted arrest...

The article then stated that Schmidt was currently under armed guard in a London hospital, accused of being the Auschwitz concentration camp guard known as 'The Whistler'. Erich Heinemann – who was already widely-known as being an Auschwitz survivor – had stated his willingness to fly from his home in the United States to anywhere in the world in order to give evidence against Schmidt, although that man apparently had advanced cancer and so was not expected to survive beyond the next few weeks...

Frau Klein – who prior to her marriage to a successful banker had had the slightly grand surname 'von Hahn' – briefly touched with her fingertips the small photo of a slightly sullen, intense-looking man, with flinty grey eyes and large nose, his hairline now much receded but with what hair he had left still swept back in that familiar fashion...

'Erich,' she said in what was almost a whisper. 'Erich...'

For a moment she wondered what the violinist was doing now – right at this moment on the other side of the world. With his family, perhaps. With his wife. Just making the best use of whatever time he had left in this world, as he always had.

And then Frau Klein closed the newspaper, and with a slight, reminiscent smile continued with her preparations for that evening's meal.
