Fatherland

The landlord’s records showed that the apartment had been rented between 1928 and 1942 to one Weiss, Jakob. But there was no police file on any Jakob Weiss. He was not registered as having moved, or fallen sick, or died. Calls to the records bureaux of the Army, Navy and Luftwaffe confirmed he had not been conscripted to fight. The photographer’s studio had become a television rental shop, its records lost. None of the young people in the landlord’s office remembered the Weisses. They had vanished. Weiss. White. A blank. By now, in his heart, March knew the truth — perhaps had always known it — but he went round one evening with the photograph even so, like a policeman, seeking witnesses, and the other tenants in the house had looked at him as if he were crazy even for asking. Except one.

“They were Jews.” the crone in the attic had said as she closed the door in his face.

Of course. The Jews had all been evacuated to the east during the war. Everyone knew that. What had happened to them since was not a question anyone asked in public -or in private either, if they had any sense, not even an SS-Sturmbannfuhrer.

And that, he could see now, was when his relationship with Pili had started to go bad; the time when he had started to wake up before it was light, and to volunteer for every case that came along.

MARCH stood for a few minutes without switching on the lights, looking down at the traffic heading south to Wittenberg Platz. Then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a large whisky. Monday’s Berliner Tageblatt was lying by the sink. He carried it back with him into the sitting room.

March had a routine for reading the paper. He started at the back, with the truth. If Leipzig was said to have beaten Cologne four-nil at football, the chances were it was true: even the Party had yet to devise a means of rewriting the sports results. The sports news was a different matter.

COUNTDOWN TO TOKYO OLYMPICS. US MAY COMPETE FOR FIRST TIME IN 28 YEARS. GERMAN ATHLETES STILL LEAD WORLD. Then the advertisements. GERMAN FAMILIES! PLEASURE BECKONS IN GOTENLAND, RIVIERA OF THE REICH! French perfume, Italian silks, Scandinavian furs, Dutch cigars, Belgian coffee, Russian caviar, British televisions -the cornucopia of Empire spilled across the pages. Births, marriages and deaths: TEBBE, Ernst and Ingrid; a son for the Fuhrer. WENZEL, Hans, aged 71; a true National Socialist, sadly missed.

And the lonely hearts:

FIFTY years old. Pure Aryan doctor, veteran of the Battle of Moscow, who intends to settle on the land, desires male progeny through marriage with healthy, Aryan, virginal, young, unassuming, thrifty woman, adapted to hard work; broad-hipped, flat-heeled and earring-less essential. WIDOWER aged sixty once again wishes to have Nordic to mate prepared to present him with children so that old family should not die out in male line.

Arts pages: Zarah Leander, still going strong, in Woman of Odessa, now showing at the Gloria-Palast: the epic story of the resettlement of the South Tyrolese. A piece by the music critic attacking the “pernicious, Negroid wailings” of a group of young Englishmen from Liverpool, playing to packed audiences of German youth in Hamburg. Herbert von Karajan to conduct a special performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — the European anthem — at the Royal Albert Hall in London on the Fuhrer’s birthday.

Editorial on the student anti-war demonstrations in Heidelberg: TRAITORS MUST BE SMASHED BY FORCE! The Tageblatt always took a firm line.

Obituary: some old Bonze from the Ministry of the Interior. “A lifetime’s service to the Reich …"

Reich news: SPRING THAW BRINGS FRESH FIGHTING ON SIBERIAN FRONT! GERMAN TROOPS SMASH IVAN TERROR GROUPS! In Rovno, capital of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine, five terrorist leaders had been executed for organising the massacre of a family of German settlers. There was a photograph of the Reich’s latest nuclear submarine, the Grossadmiral Donitz, at its new base in Trondheim.

World news: In London it had been announced that King Edward and Queen Wallis were to pay a state visit to the Reich in July “further to strengthen the deep bonds of respect and affection between the peoples of Great Britain and the German Reich”. In Washington, it was believed that President Kennedy’s latest victory in the US primaries had strengthened his chances of winning a second term…

The paper slipped from March’s fingers and on to the floor.

Half an hour later, the telephone rang.

“So sorry to wake you.” Koth was sarcastic. “I had the impression this was supposed to be priority. Shall I call back tomorrow?”

“No, no.” March was wide awake.

This you will love. This is beautiful.” For the first time in his life, March heard Koth chuckle. “Now, you are not playing a joke on me? This is not some little trick you and Jaeger have worked out between you?”

“Who is it?”