The Defeated Aristocrat (10 page)

‘Nothing, Dr Feiner.’

‘Good, because I’m going home to rest. An early start to the day plays havoc with my constitution.’ The doctor climbed into his carriage and knocked the roof with his cane. The driver snapped his whip and the horses moved off.

Georg entered the hotel. Room Two was on the ground floor next to the main entrance. Otto was photographing the scene, Klein standing guard at the door.

‘Don’t save on photographic plates, Otto,’ Georg ordered.

‘I never do, sir. If you’re not satisfied with my work …’

‘I wasn’t criticising, Otto. Klein,’ Georg turned to his subordinate. ‘If you’ve any thoughts, now is the time to voice them.’

‘It’s not my place, sir.’

‘Afraid I’ll sack you?’

‘It’s just that …’

‘Come on, man, you can’t stop now.’

‘This one doesn’t look quite like the other two.’

Georg stepped closer to the bed and studied the corpse. ‘You’re right, Klein. That was my first thought when I saw him. He doesn’t.’

CHAPTER NINE

Konigsberg, Saturday January 11th 1919

Wolf and Peter disembarked at the South Station in Konigsberg. Two more pieces of human flotsam washing into the city on a tide of workers. Paths had been hacked through the snow which made walking easier than the village. They headed for the Bromberg Strasse tram stop in front of the station. Too cold to snow, the sky was grey, etched with black skeletal tree branches that stretched overhead. Smoke drifted from chimneys and the mouth-watering smell of baking bread hung in the air. It seemed a long time since they’d eaten Martha’s breakfast of fresh milk rolls and home-made cheese.

A tram swung around the corner and they fought for standing room. At that time in the morning the entire population of the city appeared to be on the move. Wolf hung on to a wrist strap staring into houses as they passed. After the destruction of the Western Front, domestic order seemed oddly exotic. He’d forgotten how much he loved the medieval city and found it difficult to comprehend that while he’d watched his men being blown into mincemeat in France, life had continued much as it had always done in Konigsberg.

Uniformed maids, laden with dusters, brooms, and coal buckets, opened drapes and scuttled behind the windows of substantial villas. Milkmen drove dog carts, crying their wares in between ladling milk into housewives’ jugs from their churns. Coal men stopped their waggons at cellar doors and heaved sacks down chutes. An open laundry cart moved slowly, the driver reining in his horse every few yards to allow housemaids to dump bundles of dirty washing on the back.

Wolf saw signs that losing the war had brought financial hardship. Men were leaving their front doors in balding fur and moth-eaten wool coats that would have been consigned to rag bags before the war. Mufflers wrapped around their throats, they headed for tram stops that were more crowded than he remembered. Then he realised, the tram had passed many carts but not a single private carriage. Had the army requisitioned all the horses? Or had people been forced to economise and forgo their private stables?

When they drew closer to the city centre they passed crowds of men on street corners. Some carrying placards.

DEMOBBED SOLDIER PREPARED TO DO ANY WORK FOR FOOD

8 HOURS LABOUR FROM A VETERAN FOR ONE MARK

A FULL DAY’S WORK FOR FIFTY PFENNIGS

HARD WORKER PREPARED TO DO ANYTHING FOR BED AND FOOD

Every group had at least one man who’d elevated himself by standing on a wooden stool. The cries of “Down! Down! Down!” from the Spartacists, who wanted an end to all formal government, mingled uneasily with the “Traitors!” “Betrayal!” “Sold out!” that emanated from the Freikorps.

Most of the men huddled around the banners of the Freikorps were ex-servicemen, still dressed in the ragged remains of their uniforms. Wolf pitied and identified with them, if not their politics. An entire generation of young men wasted – and for what? The Kaiser’s dream of German domination of Europe!

Peter pointed to the hammer and sickle flag of the communists being brandished next to a banner flaunting the encircled A of the anarchists. ‘All we need to complete the political rainbow are a few Bolsheviks.’

‘Given the number of men wearing Trotsky caps, they’re already there,’ Wolf ducked to get a better view from the tram window.

‘Seems we’ve left one war and walked into another.’

‘Not me. I’ve turned pacifist.’

‘Looks like that’s going to be a difficult philosophy to adopt in modern Germany,’ Peter observed.

A crowd surged down the street forcing their tram to a halt. Screams and cries boiled in a melee of curses and threats. The man waving the hammer and sickle flag was pulled to the ground by a mob of Freikorps who proceeded to kick him. Wolf pushed through to the platform but a pastor held him back.

‘You must be new to Konigsberg, sir. There are too many. You’ll only get hurt, or God forbid, like half a dozen poor souls every day, killed.’

When more men crowded in on the hapless victim Wolf saw sense in the warning and remained where he was. ‘God help Germany.’

‘We pray but he’s stopped listening.’

Peter turned to the pastor who wore the collar of the Lutheran church. ‘What chance do we have when even our pastors believe God has forsaken us?’

Commuters and protesters were in force outside the stop in front of the Psychiatric Clinic on Alte Pillauer. Wolf and Peter pushed their way to the pavement to find themselves in the centre of a brawl between Freikorps and communists. A young man in tattered field grey was wielding a baton, hammering down blows on the head and shoulders of a man dressed in the black woollen jacket and cap of a worker. Wolf glanced at them, stopped, stared, and dived between them.

‘Have you gone mad?’ Peter grabbed the collar of Wolf’s leather jacket.

‘Look at the idiots!’

The man in the worker’s jacket and cap fell to his knees. It was only when his attacker closed in that Peter saw that they were Wolf’s younger brothers.

‘Wilhelm? Paul?’

‘The donkeys haven’t even the sense to fight on the same side!’ Wolf wrenched the baton from Wilhelm’s hand, threw it aside and slammed him against a wall, leaving Peter to tend to Paul.

CHAPTER TEN

Konigsberg, Saturday January 11th 1919

The Alte Pillauer suburb had been the province of the wealthy middle and upper classes before the war. Even allowing for the camouflaging blanket of snow, little had changed since Wolf and Peter had last been there. The four men made their way down the wide, quiet streets of luxurious villas and small mansions to Gebaur Strasse. Wolf supporting Paul who was bleeding from a head wound, Peter dragging a reluctant Wilhelm. The twins couldn’t stop staring at Wolf.

‘I can’t believe you’re alive, Wolf,’ Wilhelm repeated for the tenth time in as many minutes.

‘Alive and fit enough to give you the hiding you deserve for beating your brother.’

‘The idiot’s joined the communists,’ Wilhelm protested.

‘The Freikorps are better?’ Wolf demanded.

‘We fought the war for freedom from tyranny …’

‘From what Martha told me, the only thing you and Paul freed on the Russian front was schnapps and vodka.’ Wolf shouldered Paul’s weight and stood back so Peter could open the gate. Gebaur Strasse was narrower than most in the area, but heavily wooded with trees on both sides of the street. The von Mau house was impressive, built in 1837 to a medieval pattern with a sloping covered walkway that led past the basement and ground floor servants’ quarters to the family rooms on the first and second floors.

Wolf didn’t realise he was lost in another time until Peter prompted him.

‘You going to keep Paul there all day?’

‘Sorry.’ Wolf helped Paul forward.

‘We’ll go to our own apartment over the coach house,’ Wilhelm declared.

‘Not until Martin’s doctored Paul, and you and I have had a chat about brotherly love, Wilhelm.’

There was a tone in Wolf’s voice that precluded further argument. They walked along the path that had been cut through the snow to the front door.

‘We had fun here when we were children.’ Peter pulled the bell.

‘We did, and we will again if these two morons learn to argue with their tongues instead of fists, boots, and batons,’ Wolf snapped.

Wilhelm fell silent and Paul was in too much pain to contribute to the conversation. They heard Martin calling, ‘I’ll get it.’

Footsteps resounded on the stone staircase, a minute later the door opened. Martin froze, mesmerized.

‘Werlfi.’ He used their father’s pet name for his twin.

‘It’s all right, Martin. I’m not a ghost.’

Martin pushed Paul aside and hugged Wolf. ‘Thank God! I prayed – how I prayed – you’d return.’

‘You’ll crack my ribs, and Paul won’t stay upright for long without help.’

‘Here.’ Wilhelm took Paul’s weight from Wolf and helped his twin into the house.

Their sister Lotte appeared behind Martin and promptly burst into tears. Wolf disentangled himself from Martin and went to her. She fell into his arms. A woman Wolf and Peter had never seen joined them and took charge.

‘Hello, Wolfgang, I recognise you from your photographs. You must be Peter. I’m Ludwiga, Martin’s wife. Wilhelm, please take Paul into Martin’s consulting room. Martin, see if he needs stitches. Wolfgang, Peter, we’re breakfasting in the dining room. Four more plates, cups, coffee and rolls, Minna,’ she ordered the maid as she herded them up the stairs where Lotte’s daughters Karin and Christa were hovering in the hall.

Wolf smiled at the girls. ‘When I left you were babies. Now you’re young ladies.’

Christa eyed him shyly from beneath her lowered lashes. Karin murmured, ‘Thank you.’

‘Take that chair, Wolf. Peter, sit next to him. Wilhelm,’ Ludwiga glared at him. ‘You and Paul are supposed to be studying in university, not brawling in the streets. Why can’t you boys stay out of trouble for five minutes? If you won’t think of yourselves, think of the problems you’re causing your brothers.’

‘To hell with Franz …’

‘I was referring to Wolfgang and Martin, not Franz. Now go and wash your hands and face in the kitchen. You’re filthy.’

To Wolf and Peter’s amazement, Wilhelm did as Ludwiga ordered.

Ludwiga took the coffee pot from Minna and filled Wolf’s and Peter’s cups. ‘Did you hit Paul?’ she asked Wilhelm when he returned.

‘He swung the first punch,’ Wilhelm retorted defensively.

‘That’s not the point …’

‘That’s the whole point …’

‘The point is you two are more than brothers, you’re twins,’ Wolf said sternly. ‘Family comes before politics or outside considerations.’

‘Family! Like Franz, commandeering the von Mau estate and leaving the rest of us to starve. Do you know that he tried to put our university funds in the estate bank account?’

‘You can leave Franz and the estate to me,’ Wolf said. ‘I promised Papa to look after you and I will.’

‘A lot of good your promise to Papa’s been this last year,’ Wilhelm snapped.

‘I wasn’t here to stop Franz. I am now. How’s Liesl?’ Wolf took a bread roll from the basket Ludwiga offered him

‘Very well, when we saw her at Christmas. Enjoying life in Allenstein and her work at the hospital. She’s going to be thrilled when she hears you’re alive, Wolf.’ Ludwiga passed him a plate of cold meats and cheese.

‘I can’t remember the last time I saw so much food,’ Wolf complimented.

‘Some of Martin’s patients, like Becker the baker and Fleishmann the butcher find it easier to pay their bills in kind,’ Ludwiga explained. ‘It suits us as it saves shopping time.’

‘One Paul, almost but not quite as good as new. Stop fighting in the streets. That goes for both of you, Wilhelm.’ Martin led a bandaged Paul into the dining room. ‘So, Werlfi, Peter, what happened to you? Where have you been? I know you were taken prisoner, Peter, but Gretel showed me a telegram that said you were dead, Wolf. How did you survive? Where have you been until now? The war ended months ago …’

‘You’ve just fired more questions at us in seconds than the British who debriefed us did in months, Martin.’ Peter poured milk into his coffee.

Wolf allowed Peter to furnish the explanations, sat back and studied the others. Lotte’s face was grey, her eyes lifeless. She reminded him of the soldiers who’d been too exhausted to continue even the pretence of fighting. Karin and Christa looked lost as they picked at the rolls on their plates. Martin couldn’t stop staring at him in between glancing at Ludwiga as she poured coffee, handed out warm rolls, pats of cold butter and liver sausage, ensuring everyone had everything they needed. Paul and Wilhelm remained subdued, Wilhelm more than Paul, probably because he’d inflicted Paul’s injuries.

Wolf recalled Martha telling him that Martin’s wife was a nurse and older than his brother. He guessed by at least ten years. There was an inherent kindness and calm about her that reminded him of the women who’d worked in the front line hospitals.

When they’d all finished eating, except Lotte who hadn’t attempted to eat or drink, Ludwiga stacked the plates.

‘You and Martin must have things to discuss, Wolf. Go into the parlour while I get your rooms ready. You’re both moving in here? With Pippi, Martha, and the children of course,’ she said to Peter.

Wolf noticed Ludwiga had tactfully made an assumption, not issued an invitation, which would have put Martin in the position of host.

‘Thank you, Ludwiga, but Pippi, me, and the children will be returning to our apartment in her father’s house,’ Peter replied.

‘You’ll stay here, won’t you, Wolf?’

‘Please, and Martha and Heinrich if you have room.’

‘There are plenty of rooms. I’ll tell the maids to get them ready. You’ll be moving in tonight?’

‘I will, but I’ll have to telephone Martha and ask her when she’s leaving Lichtenhagen. It will depend on how soon she can pack.’

‘Use the phone in the study,’ Martin offered. ‘I’ll join you there in a moment.’

Wolf turned to the twins, ‘I want a solemn promise from both of you that you’ll attend lectures, study hard, and stop fighting.’ When his request was met by silence, Wolf waited.