The Traitor Blitz Read online

  His outburst was followed by silence, then Karel asked, "Are the Americans and the Russians the strongest countries on earth?"

  "Yes," said his father. "And we belong with the small and the weak."

  Karel thought for a moment, then he said, "We should be glad about that."

  "Glad? Why?"

  "Because if we were as strong as they are, we would have to lie now, like the Americans, and be afraid, like the Russians. I mean, you said a while ago that they were unhappy, and that they had to give their orders because they were afraid." Suddenly the boy looked confused. "Or am I wrong?"

  "No, you're right," said his father, "and now finish your soup."

  "You're a wise boy," said his grandmother.

  "No, I'm not. But I'd like to be." He was sitting up straight, his left hand on his left knee, eating his soup with his right hand. A well-mannered boy.

  "How am I going to know that you got across safely?" asked the old woman. "How am I to know nothing's happened to you?"

  "Nothing's going to happen to us," said her son.

  "I know. But still—I'd like to be sure. You are my last son, and Karel is my only grandchild. I have no one in the world but you two."

  "We're taking the trumpet with us," said her son. "When we get to the other side, I'll play a tune you know. The border is near. You'll hear it."

  "I can play the trumpet, too, Grandmother."

  "Really, dear heart?"

  "Yes!" Karel nodded proudly. "I can play 'Skoda lasky' and 'Kde domov muf and Tluji lodi do Triany' and 'Strangers in the Night,' and other pieces, but those are the ones I know best."

  "Play 'Strangers in the Night,'" the old woman told her son. "That's such an old song. I didn't know it was popular again. It was my Audrey's favorite—God rest his soul—and I love it, too. Will you play it, my son?"

  "Yes, Mother."

  Suddenly the old woman put down her spoon and covered her wrinkled old face with her red, calloused hands. Karel looked at her, startled, his father bowed his head.

  "Is she so sad because we're going away?" Karel asked softly.

  His father nodded.

  "But we can't stay here," Karel whispered.

  "And that is why she is sad," said his father.

  They left at 11:15. The old woman had calmed down. She kissed Karel and her son and made the sign of the cross on their foreheads. Her son kissed his mother's hand. "Farewell, Mother." Then he picked up the two suitcases, a large and a smaller one, 18

  and Karel took the case with the trumpet in it.

  They left the house by the back door that led to the small vegetable garden with its few fruit trees, walking side by side in the moonlight, which lit up the landscape in ghostly fashion. They walked slowly through the garden, past the beds, under the fruit trees, and finally climbed over the low fence that separated the grandmother's small plot from a field path.

  When they had left the village behind them, Karel and his father walked Indian file across the fields, listening for any sound. The corn hadn't been cut yet, and it hid Karel almost completely. It reached to his father's waist. As they crossed a path, Karel could see lights in the distance. "Are they on the other side?" he whispered.

  "Yes," answered his father. "We're almost at the canal." He whispered, "If they discover us, throw yourself on the ground and don't move. If they yell at you to get up, hands up, you do it. You do everything they say, understand?"

  "Yes."

  "But if I say 'run,' then you run! No matter what happens or what they yell. Always in the direction of the lights over there. You run, no matter what I may be doing. When I say 'run,' you run!

  "Yes, Father."

  They had come to the end of the cornfield, which bordered on a narrow strip of woodland. Here tall pine trees stood side by side, and the earth was carpeted with pine needles that muffled the sound of their steps. They walked slowly over the soft carpet, looking cautiously from side to side, as Karel's father led the way from tree to tree. Once a branch snapped under his feet. For a few seconds they stood motionless, then slowly moved on.

  Beyond the trees they could see the silhouette of a primitively constructed watchtower. The high scaffolding, with its rectangular platform at the top, looked ugly. It was about half a kilometer away from where they were standing, at the edge of the wood.

  Karel's father lay dowri on the pine needles, Karel stretched out beside him. The earth was warm and smelled of pine. Karel whispered, "Are there guards on the tower?"

  "No," whispered his father. "They told me in the village— there's nobody on the tower. The guards are with their tanks, scattered all over the place, and their tanks are camouflaged." He looked at his wristwatch. "Eleven minutes to midnight," he said. "We must wait."

  Karel nodded. He lay flat on his stomach, breathing in the wonderful aroma of the pine needles. How simple it all was. They had the wood behind them and there, in front of them, lay the canal.

  It was five meters wide, and its black water flowed sluggishly in a straight line from north to south. The first fugitives had swum it; now somebody had laid the trunk of a pine tree across it where the moonlight couldn't penetrate. About one meter above the log there was a thin wire which one could hang onto if one wanted to cross on the log. They must have cut down one of the pines in the wood and dragged it to the water across the ten meters of flatland that lay in between, where the earth sloped slightly down the canal.

  "You cross first," Karel's father whispered. "The log will only hold one person at a time, and 111 see that it doesn't roll."

  "But what if I fall into the water? I can't swim."

  "You won't fall into the water. Do you see the wire?" It was glistening in the moonlight. "Hang onto it. Leave the trumpet here if you feel safer without it. I can manage it, too."

  "With two suitcases? No, I'll take the trumpet." Karel's hand tightened around the leather handle of the case. After that they were silent. Karel's father never took his eyes off his wristwatch. At last they heard the sound of the motor, soft at first, then louder, then it stopped. At the same moment the church bell in the village chimed the midnight hour. "They're on time," Karel's father whispered.

  "They're changing the guards now?"

  "Yes." Karel's father looked once more from side to side, then he slapped Karel gently on the shoulder. "And now— run! 9 '

  Karel ran, stooped low, across the damp, grassy earth to the water and the pine log. Two heartbeats later, Karel's father was running behind him with the suitcases. As Karel scrambled onto the log, his father put down the suitcases and sat on the end of the log, which was above the water. Karel held the case in his left hand; with his right he clutched the cold smooth wire. Slowly he balanced his way across the water. "That's the way to do it," whispered his father.

  The log rolled a little. Karel slipped and for a moment it looked as if he were going to slide off, but he caught himself. The sweat was running down his face and his teeth were chattering with excitement. He had reached the middle of the log. One more step. Another... Karel was panting. The log grew thinner. 20

  Karel looked straight ahead. Don't look down!

  Only a meter and a half separated him from the other side, one meter... don't look down! The log began to roll again; Karel slipped, caught himself. Two more steps. He jumped and landed on the ground. Clutching the handle of the case he ran, stooped low as he had run before, across the grass which was just as broad and wet here, to the trees that were here, too, and crouched behind one of them. A pine-needle carpet and pines all around him. Just like on the other side, but fewer trees.

  He could see his father step onto the log, the large suitcase in his left hand, the small one under his left arm. With his right hand he was holding onto the wire, just as Karel had done, only he moved much faster than Karel. A few steps only, and his father had reached the middle of the log. One step past the middle and two searchlights flared up on the watchtower, their light passing swiftly along the length of the canal until Karel's
father was trapped in their rays. He stopped as if frozen to the spot. Karel stifled a scream.

  The searchlight blinded his father. He teetered back and forth on the log, trying to shift his head into the dark so that he could see. Horrified, Karel thought: So there are guards on the tower! So the people in the village lied I No, he thought, they couldn't have done that. They were good compatriots. They simply hadn't known. ... Or was it a trap? The information was all wrong.

  A hoarse voice was shouting through a bullhorn, "Come back or well shoot 1"

  Karel was lying flat on his stomach, staring at his father. The hoarse voice boomed again, "Come b % ack or well shoot!"

  In his efforts to stay on top of the log, Karel's father went through the most grotesque contortions. His body bent forward and back, he let go of the suitcases and they fell into the water with a splash. And then the automatics began firing at the man

  struggling in the light. "Run!" yelled Karel's father. "Run, Karel,

  I»»

  The shots that hit him pitched him into the water. The automatics went on firing, their bullets hitting the water now, spitting up little fountains as in a heavy rain, and they hit Karel's father again and again. His body, face down, began to float downstream.

  One searchlight followed his course, the other covered the bank on the other side, to the edge of the wood where Karel was

  lying. Suddenly he came to life, jumped to his feet, and began to run as fast as he could across the carpet of pine neddles, faster than he had ever run in his life. He stumbled over a root, got up, ran on, his heart pounding. He slipped on the pine needles but still he kept running, zigzagging between the trees. He came to a field. Twice he fell on the hard earth. Then he reached a path with fruit trees growing on either side. Behind him, far away, in the direction of the canal, he could hear men's voices. They brought him to his senses. He sank down on the earth, panting, and looked up at the moon. The case with the trumpet lay behind him. He thought of his father, whom he had forgotten completely while he had been running. Now he screamed as loud as he could, "Father!" And over and over again, "Father!"

  There was no answer.

  Violent sobs racked his body. He began to crawl around on all fours like an animal, and screamed again, "Father! Father!" He stood up, swaying, and pressed his hands against his eyes. They hurt because he was screaming so loudly. Everything was spinning around him. All he could think of was: Father is dead. They shot him. My father is dead. They shot him. Still he screamed, "Father! I'm here! Father I Father! Come to me!"

  His father didn't answer. On the other side of the canal dogs were barking, soldiers were cursing. Karel screamed again. Then he could feel his stomach heave and vomited.

  "Father... Father... Father " He was whimpering now, then

  he was silent.

  Perhaps his father wasn't dead. Perhaps he had managed to reach land and was looking for Karel in the silvery light. Perhaps he couldn't hear him

  The boy sprang to his feet. If his voice couldn't carry far enough, the trumpet certainly could. His father had said so. He had promised to play a song for his mother. If Karel played the trumpet, surely his father would hear it. He felt so dizzy, he kept falling as he ran back to the case that was lying behind him on the path. His hands were trembling as he opened it. Now his father would be able to find him—if he could just play long enough! Karel cried and laughed as he lifted the shining instrument to his mouth with both hands. He lost his balance, fell, and got up again. "Father," he whispered, "wait just a minute."

  He leaned against an apple tree whose branches hung down, laden with fruit. He dug his feet into the earth to steady himself, then lifted the trumpet to his lips and began to play. Karel didn't 22

  get every note right, but the song was clearly recognizable— "Strangers in the Night," loud and filled with longing. Karel thought: Father will hear me and find me. It was a trick he was playing on them. He's smart. He pretended that they'd hit him and let himself fall into the water and swam to the other side. Yes, that's what happened. That's really what happened.

  "Listen!" said Sergeant Heinz Subireit, who was patroling the Bundesrepublik border in a jeep about two kilometers away from Karel. With him was his friend, Squad Leader Heinrich Felden.

  "'Love Out of Nowhere,'" said Felden, who was driving.

  "Somebody's gone crazy," said Subireit. "Blowing a trumpet out here!"

  "... Where have I seen those eyes. .." Felden sang softly.

  "... that warm smile that lights up the dark corners of my lonely soul?" Karel was playing. Come to me, Father! Please come! I'm so afraid!

  "... Is this our first encounter ..." sang Squad Leader Felden.

  "Oh, shut up!" said Sergeant Subireit. "Get going. It's got to be somewhere over there. Let's see what's going on."

  "or were we lovers in some distant former life?" played Karel, the tears running down his cheeks. Father's alive! He's coming! Now he hears me. Yes, yes, he hears me—

  The song of the trumpet rose up from the indifferent earth into the indifferent sky, with its moon and its cold, endlessly faraway stars. It blew across the land. The soldiers who were pulling Karel's dead father out of the water heard it; so did Karel's grandmother in her little kitchen. She knelt down in front of the stove—it wasn't easy for her to kneel—and folded her hands and prayed, "Thank you, Almighty God, for saving my son and grandson."

  She could still hear the trumpet playing, and she knelt on the kitchen floor and cried with happiness.

  "So he went on playing, the poor boy," said FrSulein Gottschalk, "until the border guards found him."

  It was about 3:30 p.m. on November 12, 1968. A bright autumnal sun was shining in a brilliantly blue sky. It was unusually warm for the middle of November. Exactly eleven weeks and approximately a thousand kilometers lay between the flight of the boy, Karel, and his father across the Czech-Bavarian border in the early morning hours of August 28, and this day and place in North Germany, a desolate area between Hamburg and Bremen, where my friend Bert Engelhardt and I met FrSulein Louise for the first time.

  Engelhardt was a big, heavyset man, fifty-six years old, with very light eyes and hair and the rosy face of a young man. His life had been so adventurous and filled with so much danger that nothing, absolutely nothing, could shake him anymore. What do I mean, 'shake him? I should have said 'touch him.' He had a big heart, a blithe spirit, and nerves of steel. They were what kept him young. Nobody could have guessed his age. He smiled a lot, sincerely, ingratiatingly, but he also smiled when he was annoyed. His forehead was bandaged. The bandage had been changed the night before. He needed it to protect the wound he had received seventy-two hours ago in Chicago.

  Bertie had been a news photographer since 1938. His first job had been with the Berliner lUustrierte. He had lost count long ago of how many times he had flown around the world since then, to political conferences, murder trials, interviews with film stars, millionaires, and Nobel Prize winners; to leper camps; to the smuggler's island of Macao and the stinking slums of Calcutta. He had traveled deep into the interior of Tibet, China, Brazil, Mexico; he had filmed documentaries of the gold mines in South America, the green hills of Borneo, the icy wastes of Antarctica; he had crossed the length and breadth of Canada and been involved in every war. And there hadn't exactly been a dearth of 24

  wars during Bertie's career. He had won many international honors, and an exhibition of his best photos was right now traveling all over the world, like Bertie. He had been wounded several times in the many big and little wars and minor skirmishes he had covered, once severely, in the Second World War we started, wounded in his right leg. He still walked with a slight limp.

  I, Walter Roland, was thirty-six years old when we got ourselves involved in the strange, sweet, and gruesome series of events I am about to describe—a time when Bertie looked so much younger than he was, and I so much older. Oh, yes, I was tall, but gaunt. I didn't have Bertie's remarkably healthy color. I was sallow. There were
dark circles around my brown eyes, which always looked tired. My brown hair had turned white aver the temples and was streaked with gray. I had no appetite, whatever that may have been worth. I chain-smoked, so I was told. It was probably true, judging by the way I felt. And lived. Too much work, too many women, too many cigarettes, and too much booze. The latter above everything else. For years now I "hadn't been able to function in any capacity without whiskey. If I didn't have a bottle in reserve, I got claustrophobia. I always carried a silver flask with me. Sometimes I'd turn white as a sheet and feel as if I was passing out. Horrible. But a few swallows and I was back to normal. If you can call being totally dependent on alcohol normal.

  I was a journalist. Top reporter on the staff of the illustrated weekly, Blitz. Fourteen years now. Bertie had been part of the show for eighteen years. Two aces, both of us. I don't want to indulge in self-praise—there isn't anything to be proud of, anyway—but we were ace reporters in that cesspool. Exclusive contracts. Bertie was the highest-paid reporter in Germany, I was the highest-paid writer. You know Blitz —one of the three biggest illustrated weeklies in the Bundesrepublik.

  At the beginning things weren't all that bad. I didn't drink or whore around so much, but then everything at Blitz changed, and I changed right along with it. Not Bertie. He remained the same normal, reliable, good-natured, and courageous colleague he'd always been. I was the one who fell apart.

  Because I had so much money, I became a snob who had to have his suits, shirts, even his shoes made to measure; who drove the craziest cars, lived in a luxurious penthouse, and drank only

  Chivas Regal, the most expensive whiskey in the world. Nothing else would do. And the broads had to be top-drawer, too, and cost a fortune.

  Lately I'd been practically anesthetizing myself with women, whiskey, and roulette. This was because what I had to write for Blitz during the last years had been enough to make one puke. There were times—fortunately, not too many—when I simply couldn't work at all but stayed in bed, took Valium and stronger stuff to sleep through a whole day and night, sometimes two days and two nights, because suddenly I'd had it. I was finished, unable to cope with the horrible feeling of weakness, panic, and helplessness. At times like that I couldn't breathe, my heart acted up, I felt dizzy and couldn't think straight. And I was afraid. No idea of what. Of death? That among other things, but not mainly. I have no idea what to name this form of fear. Maybe you've felt it, too.