“What is that, my friend?”
“We’re not bluffing.”
The reopening of the State Opera was a great event in Berlin. The partly reconstructed Opera House was located on the Unter Den Linden in the Russian Sector. The Soviet high command hosted the evening.
General and Agnes Hansen sat as guests of Marshal Popov in a box shared with British General Fitz-Roy and French General de Lys and their wives. In the opposite box Neal and Claire Hazzard and the other commandants were guests of General and Mrs. Trepovitch.
Representatives of the State Department and of the foreign ministries were there. The diplomatic corps of seventeen Allies were there. Leading German Communists were there.... It was a glittering affair.
The opera chosen for the event was Verdi’s Nabucco, appropriate for this night because it had been banned during the Hitler years because of its Jewish theme.
A splendid party followed the opera, during which not a single word was exchanged regarding what was taking place at the Railroad Administration Building. During the night, Igor Karlovy and his company looked into floodlights from American batteries and began to wonder if there had not been a gross miscalculation.
At seven o’clock the next morning, Neal Hazzard’s orderly woke him to inform him that General Trepovitch was on the phone.
Hazzard smiled when he saw the time. It was an ungodly hour for the Russians. He knew they had been sitting up all night pondering.
“Morning, General Trepovitch. Beautiful event last night.”
“Yes ... indeed ... beautiful. Candidly, Colonel Hazzard, I wish to discuss the situation at the Railroad Administration Building.”
“Shoot.”
“If you will agree to withdraw your forces I will agree to an emergency session of the Kommandatura today to discuss the matter.”
“If you’re looking for bargains, try Sears, Roebuck.”
“What?”
“Nyet.”
Trepovitch’s voice lowered to that familiar pitch that was about to unleash a threat. “If you do not remove your forces, we will take appropriate measures.”
“We’ll be there.”
Trepovitch set the phone down. Marshal Popov, V. V. Azov, and Captain Brusilov from Moscow were in the room. They waited until the translations were made and read them. Captain Brusilov had been sent to create an incident before the Foreign Ministers’ Conference to establish de facto Russian control of the city. He crumpled the translation in his fist. Azov felt a slight comfort for the moment. What would the great courier do now? Call Moscow for instructions?
“Withdraw our forces from the building,” he said.
Chapter Thirty
“LIEUTENANT COLONEL O’SUILIVAN SPEAKING.”
“This is the sergeant at the main gate, sir. There’s a Fraulein Ernestine Falkenstein to see you.”
“She has an appointment. Have her checked through and brought up to my office.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ernestine stepped into the security shack, signed in, and deposited her identification papers and ration book at the desk. A spit and polish corporal from the Constabulary led her briskly into the compound.
Ernestine shrank back. She had been here before when it was the Luft Gau Headquarters for Central Germany. Her law office had sent her to witness a court-martial as a “friend of the family.” In those days a swastika flew from the mast and the entrance had a large, stone German eagle. There were black uniforms and jackboots.
The corporal led her down the long, somber corridor and she shuddered a little. At last they stopped before Lieutenant Colonel O’Sullivan’s office. The corporal knocked, opened the door, saluted, and gawked at the woman as she went in.
“I’ll call you if I need your help, Corporal.”
The soldier was embarrassed and beat a hasty retreat.
“Won’t you have a seat?”
“Thank you. And thank you for seeing me.”
“What can I do for you?”
“As you might have suspected, it regards my Uncle Ulrich. This information on Berthold Hollweg has come to him as a great shock.”
“It would be strange if it didn’t upset him.”
“They have been comrades for decades. The thought of having to bring him up on charges and thrown out of the Democratic Party is more than he can bear.”
“Your uncle has a great capacity for absorbing punishment. He understands his duty as clear-cut.”
Ernestine fumbled with her handbag. “Can’t someone else bring the charges? They are the same no matter who makes them.”
“We’ve been through all that, fraulein.”
“There is something else. I know you’re going to want him to become Oberburgermeister of Berlin.”
“That’s right. He should have been elected instead of Hollweg in the first place. We were trying to accommodate the Russians. We’re not so anxious to do that, any more.”
“Perhaps I am not making myself clear, Colonel. He is not a young man nor is he in good health. I fear that this burden might be too much for him.”
The girl was clever and well trained and more, she had perception.
“We are being drawn into a situation where we must become more and more involved with your politicians. It is a condition your uncle has argued for from the beginning. If we are to start giving up on backing then we cannot settle for less than the best man. No one has the stature of Ulrich Falkenstein.”
“But, Colonel,” Ernestine persisted, “he may not have it left in him to give. He has done enough and deserves a few years of peace.”
“Some men are never born for peace.”
“My uncle is very, very tired. I hear him thrash during the night and cry out reliving the horror of Schwabenwald. I see the exhaustion and the deterioration that others don’t want to see. This will kill him.” At the moment, Sean felt a touch of compassion for the girl.
“Let him continue as the spiritual head of the party but find a younger and more vigorous man and begin to groom him,” she pleaded.
Sean shook his head. “History chooses people. It is never the other way around, fraulein. He is the man who can rally Berlin. Each day here the battle becomes broader and clearer. Your uncle is a general who must assume his command. Like all soldiers, we are expendable if God wills it.”
“I’ll fight you,” she said.
Sean’s eyes narrowed. He was damned angry. He leaned forward almost hissing his words at her. “Did you fight to keep your brother out of uniform? Did you fight to keep your Nazi boy friend from butchering innocent, defenseless people? Not one of you fine German women seemed to fight too much to keep your men from marching off to die for the fatherland. Now you listen to me. There are things in this world more worthy of dying for than Deutschland Uber Alles.”
Ernestine came to her feet, watery-eyed. “I am sorry that your beautiful democracy has no mercy for its weary fighters.”
“Not if we are going to win.”
“I have seen men like you before, Colonel O’Sullivan. I have seen them in this very building, in these very offices. Blind obedience to duty. They were in Nazi uniform.”
Chapter Thirty-one
SEAN WRESTLED ON THE floor with Shenandoah Blessing’s two roly-poly boys, held them fast, tickled them, then allowed himself to be pinned and mauled. Lil Blessing finally pulled the boys off Uncle Sean and hustled them to bed.
After dinner, Shenandoah buckled on his duty belt, kissed Lil, told Sean he’d see him later and went off.
Sean settled with a cognac while Lil checked the boys and warned them of dire consequences if they weren’t asleep immediately. The German maid was dismissed. Lil picked up her knitting.
“That was a hell of a dinner,” Sean said. “I haven’t had hush puppies since I was a kid. I had an aunt and uncle in North Carolina. My brothers and I visited them one whole summer. Hush puppies, grits, hawgs’ knuckles. No wonder your old man is so fat.”