Out of Such Darkness Read Free Page A

Whenever my head hurt, I regretted not spending a few more marks on better quality red wine. “What is it?”
    “Herr Mortimer!” There was more banging.
    I had to raise my voice for the noise to stop. “Yes! Frau Guttchen, I can hear you.” After two years in Berlin, my German was nigh on perfect and idiomatic. “I’m coming.”
    Wrapping a sheet around my bare torso, I twisted myself up and out of bed. I paused by the door leading to the communal hallway and cocked my head. The knock was civilised this time. “What is it? This had better be good. What time do you call this?”
    “Herr Mortimer, you have a visitor. It is your young friend Mr Koehler. He seems to be very distressed. I have made him wait downstairs because of the hour. Herr Mortimer?”
    “Yes, I’m listening.” I tried to imagine why Wolf should be in Berlin. He was meant to be in Munich with his Hitlerjugend troop. “Did he say what he wanted?”
    “He is in trouble, he says, and desperately needs to see you.”
    I turned the key in the lock and opened the door. Frau Guttchen’s matronly figure was trussed into a tartan dressing gown with a faux sheepskin collar. What remained of her crimson hair was twisted into wraps of tissue paper arranged to reveal criss-crossing lanes of shiny scalp. I stifled a giggle and composed my face. “Would you be so kind as to send him up? Then, perhaps, you can go back to bed. I am so sorry you have been disturbed.”
    Frau Guttchen scurried away.
    My befogged mind tried to unravel what was happening. Wolf was in trouble but what would its nature be? It had become increasingly difficult to be a foreigner living in Berlin and how might the authorities react if Wolf’s problem implicated me? Whatever the danger, Wolf was my friend and I decided I would have to take the consequences.
    I reached this conclusion as Wolf’s booted feet sounded on the stairs. He appeared round the corner, his face flushed. His uniform shirt was dishevelled and its tails untucked. The mud on his shorts made it look as if he had endured a ghastly juvenile accident. His feet were bare inside his boots. “You have to help me, Cammie,” he cried.
    I stepped back and he brushed past me. The stale smell of him assaulted my senses and I had to force myself to cover the yard or so between us, arms outstretched.
    “There, there, Wolf. Come to Cammie.”
    He threw himself into my arms like a wounded four-year-old. “It was horrible!” he cried, his eyes pumping tears and a bubble of snot beneath his nose.
    I looked over his shoulder towards the bed. I hoped he wasn’t going to ask to sleep, not in this state. “What’s happened, lover? Why aren’t you in Munich? Your weekend?”
    He jerked down his arms and stepped back. “I feel as if I have walked the whole way. I couldn’t risk using the train. They’ll be looking for me.”
    “Who?”
    “The Schutzstaffel – the men from the SS. They burst into our dormitory and started shooting. They were killing everybody – anybody.”
    “Hitlerjugend?”
    He looked down at his boots and, as if he noticed his disarray for the first time, tucked in his shirt. “It wasn’t a Hitler Youth weekend. I fibbed. It was with the Sturmabteilung – the Brownshirts.”
    My heart ached at the way he looked so miserable, so lost. I had nothing but compassion for my poor boy. “Come here, Wolf. You must have a bath. I’ll make some coffee. You must tell me all about it but first let’s clean you up.”

Chapter 3
    The train is pulling out of Woodlawn when they make the announcement. ‘There has been an accident in the city. A passenger plane has crash-landed near the World Trade Center and there are a number of fatalities. The authorities are stopping all transport into and out of the city. This service is diverted to New Canaan and passengers are to make their own arrangements from there. This service is now non-stop to New Canaan.’
    The passengers buzz like wasps in a sugar-trap. Some are