‘You didn’t kill her, sir.’
‘No.’
‘You didn’t order her death?’
‘No.’
‘Then my investigation is over, sir.’
Verhein looked steadily at him. ‘And the rest of it… ?’
‘I have no control over that file, sir. I found a copy of a case against you during my investigation. I won’t be able to make it go away.’
‘No,’ whispered the general.
‘Sir, if I may ask? What actually happened, that night? What did she say to you to make you react so?’
‘She taunted me into admitting… into admitting the truth of my origins.’
‘Can’t you say it, sir? “Jew”?’
Verhein gave a tight, tired smile. ‘When you have hid part of what you are so long, Captain… It was only when she brought my sister into it that I snapped. You see, my parents were Jewish. They were Volga Germans, and they had both known persecution, in Russia. They moved to Neustadt, in West Prussia, and then when those lands were lost after Versailles, to Bremen. My mother died when I was very young. I was raised by my father, and he only told us on his deathbed. My father… he said he did all he could to spare us what they had known. He gave us Christian names. Had us baptised. Never took us near a rabbi or a synagogue. Never circumcised me. And when he told us, well, it was too late. The Nazis were in power, and we were trapped.
‘All I ever wanted,’ he sighed, ‘was to be a soldier. To defend my country and my people. Who I thought were my people…’ He trailed off. ‘God help me, but I love my life. I love soldiering. I have fought two wars for my country, Captain. Bled for it. Been humiliated for it. Been as angry as anyone at the betrayals of 1918. Only now I find I am not one of them. Of us. Of you. Why is that?’
Reinhardt shook his head. ‘I don’t have an answer, sir.’
‘Of course not. My father, though, he knew it would always come down to what others thought I was, not who I thought I was, or what I had done. When the Nazis came, I knew he was right. I found Kunzer, paid him a fortune, and he altered our records back in Neustadt. God knows how he managed. But I knew, those times in Russia, in France, when I acted the way I did, I was attracting attention to myself. But I could not help it. Can you understand?’ he asked, looking at Reinhardt. ‘I was raised to be “normal”. To be Jewish was to be weak. To risk persecution. But when I saw what was happening, when I saw what the army – my army – was willing to overlook, and then to do…’
His eyes were far away. ‘I could not look away. So I did what I could, when I could. I comforted myself that I was resisting, in my own way. But I was scared. And so angry at the way they just seemed to let themselves go. Never lifting a finger to defend themselves. I’ve seen columns of Jews walking to their deaths, and only a rifleman to escort them. What kind of people can do that? And what kind of person am I to turn away from it?’ The agony in his voice was raw. ‘Did the file say how they discovered my orig – that I am a Jew?’
‘Kunzer.’ Verhein nodded his head, slowly. ‘He was arrested and under interrogation mentioned you and so came to the attention of Varnhorst. He did his job well, though. Whatever Kunzer did, they couldn’t disprove it.’
‘I thought that might be it. My sister wrote she had been questioned about the parish records…’ He cocked his head at a new burst of firing, then looked at Reinhardt. ‘My sister is all I have. I will do anything to protect her. The resistance knows that. I told them if they could guarantee her safety I would work with them.’ He paused, then began to buckle on his equipment. ‘But they couldn’t. So I didn’t. And now… they’ll just use this. Put strings on me, make me dance like a puppet. Like Ascher would have. I don’t see a way out, do you?’
‘Sir?’ replied Reinhardt.
‘How do I make it through all this alive and unharmed? The truth will out. Those boys in Berlin won’t give up, and if they get me, they get my sister. The resistance won’t leave me alone. So what options do I have?’
Reinhardt shook his head, slowly. ‘Not many, sir.’
‘Not many,’ repeated Verhein. ‘I have one, though. I go out on my own terms, in my own way. I go out as a soldier,’ he said, the old Verhein beginning suddenly to seep into his words, his posture. ‘And I make such a big bloody show of it they’ll never see past it. They won’t ever dare go after her. What do you think, eh?’
‘I think it could work, sir.’
‘Course it bloody well could. Because as well, I’m sick and bloody tired of hiding. I’m sick of living in the shadows and living a lie. Never knowing who might be watching and waiting. I’m sick at what my army has become, and I’m sick at the thought of this world we’re creating. So I’m going to end it. My way.’
The sound of battle ratcheted up, and there was a different timbre to the gunfire now, a higher-pitched rattle of different ammunition. Verhein picked up his PPSh, checked the action, and – just for a moment – shy;Reinhardt saw in the sideways glance he threw at them, and the way his hands shifted on the submachine gun, the temptation to do away with him and Claussen. What were they but problems to him? What easier way to solve two problems… ? He froze, went cold, even stiffened as if expecting a bullet, but the moment passed and Verhein hung the PPSh from his shoulder. ‘What about you?’
‘I’m in a bit of trouble, sir. I don’t know if I can go back.’
‘Always room for one more where I’m going, Captain.’
‘Thank you, sir, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to take your way.’
‘Please yourself. In any case,’ he said, indicating the sound of fighting outside, ‘if that keeps up, you may not have to worry about making a choice.’ He stood up straight, every inch the general, a boy’s own hero, the Knight’s Cross at his throat and the Blue Max proud on his chest. He looked at both of them. ‘I suppose I ought to thank you, Captain. For bringing me to the point where I can’t hide anymore.’ Reinhardt’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. Verhein held up his hand. ‘No words. None needed. It’s just the way things are.’ He paused at the door. ‘And you, Captain. Did you find what you were looking for?’
The question took Reinhardt by surprise. The day had swept him along, and he had not realised the full weight of what had happened to him. ‘I don’t know, to be honest, sir.’ He glanced at Claussen, looking up at him. He thought of the two boys. ‘I think I found a part of myself I thought I’d lost a long time ago.’
‘I suppose that’s all we can ask, in the end. Good luck to you, Captain.’ He grinned devilishly, winked, and was gone.
Reinhardt limped after him to the door, looking out as Verhein stormed into a crowd of soldiers, pulling them after him like filings after a magnet. They spread out, charging up at the forest, gathering up those who had retreated out of it. A heavy machine gun on a half-track opened up, covering their charge. Fire from somewhere plucked at the line, men falling back and away. An explosion ripped through them, another, and there were few of them racing across the clearing through a haze of smoke and dust, Verhein’s white hair shining at the forefront, and then they were gone into the trees.
Forms flickered and flashed in the tree line, the spark of gun flashes and the flare of explosions. Something hit the house, thudding into the wall and roof. Reinhardt backed into the room, scooping up Mamagedov’s MP 40. ‘We need to go, Sergeant.’
Claussen pushed himself up, shoving the hand of his wounded arm between two of the buttons on his tunic, hanging his MP 40 around his neck and holding it by its pistol grip. ‘Where are we going to go, sir? Before, you sounded like you were looking at the end, but you just turned down a place at the general’s side.’
‘When we left Sarajevo, I didn’t expect this to end anything other than badly. I thought the journey would be its own end. That nothing else after it mattered. I realise now I was wrong. Something’s… changed. I have to go back.’