An English Family Christmas
Kent, December 1973
The years immediately following Wolf's release from military prison in Colchester, where he had served his sentence after being tried by the War Crimes Tribunal, were hard for him. Settling into civilian life in England proved unexpectedly challenging. Denied his first choice of career, ie joining the Metropolitan Police, by virtue of his record, he ended up returning to university as a mature student, to study the sciences with a view to taking up forensics. Trying to find another way to sooth his frustrated inner investigator, as he put it.
We kept in touch, and I tried to help him out where I could, and when he would let me. However, it had to be delicately handled. Explaining my interest in his wellbeing to anyone who didn't know us was something I tried to avoid. Still, things became easier, at least from outside perceptions, when Susanne and Michel Gerber, widow and daughter of his friend Michael, came over to join him from Berlin. Their arrival probably saved his life, as it gave him a focus and a reason for being that I'm not sure he would have achieved without them.
Initially, their relationship stayed as it had been before - friends who helped each other out - but as the months passed it became something more, and eventually he proposed to her. She accepted, and they married in December 1971. I was honoured when he asked me to be his best man.
As the years passed, the sparks of friendship we had felt in the immediate aftermath of his arrival in England deepened into something more permanent. It was strange for me, though, knowing what I did of my blood relationship to him but feeling unable to let him know. As he became part of the Lyminge Group (he was initiated at Summer Solstice 1972), as I had hoped he would, he began to feel more comfortable, and realised that he wasn't alone in England. However, he always shied away from trying to figure out how it was that our souls were linked, and while my curiosity remained acute, I didn't want to upset the status quo by pushing matters against his will.
He graduated with a Doctorate in Forensic Science in July 1973, and was finally allowed to take a job in his new chosen field: ironically, with the Home Office, but I suppose the government knew everything there was to know about his past. His military records disappeared into a metaphorical deep hole within weeks of his appointment. In the meantime he became accustomed to family life with Susanne and Michel, and once they got past the shock of having actually got together, they seemed very happy.
As the year drew to a close, I was feeling much more certain that he was becoming settled with his new lot. I hadn't wanted to pressure them before - not wanting to appear the meddling uncle figure - but that year I invited them to join me at Wittersham House for Christmas. They agreed readily, and I found myself looking forward to spending a traditional English Christmas with them. My family has never been particularly large, even when I was growing up. My grandparents, my mother and aunt Melissa were about it, so there weren't a lot of other children around. While, later on, Lissa did have children, it was over in the US, where she had moved to as a result of one of those family disagreements which break things up, but those not involved in them never know quite why. So it had been almost forty years since I'd really celebrated the season with family.
They arrived in Kent on the afternoon of the 23rd and settled in quickly. I even arranged for a friend to lend us a pony, so that Michel could enjoy her first riding lesson. Sharing my home with a ten-year old was a strange experience for me, though, and it took a bit of adjusting to.
Wolf had taken comfort in religion in prison, and while he was part of the Group, he maintained his Christian faith in tandem with that, which I admired him for. As both he and Susanne were practising Catholics, I went with them to the Midnight service at the local Catholic church in Tenterden on Christmas Eve. While I do not follow their faith, I respect their beliefs, and found the service - and especially the music - very uplifting. But perhaps more special was the fact that I could share it with my son.
Snow was falling as we came out and got into the car to drive back home, and I caught him looking out of the car window into the darkness.
"What's wrong?" I asked, concerned.
"Nothing...it reminds me of home," he said, quietly, "Sus, is this Michel's first white Christmas?"
"There were a couple when she was tiny," his wife answered, "but we were in Berlin, which rather spoiled them, and even then she wasn't really old enough to appreciate them."
"Then we'll have to make sure she enjoys this one. Make it something special for her."
* * * * * *
By the following morning, about six inches had come down. Nothing, really, to a Bavarian Christmas, but not bad for England. Certainly enough for snowball fights and snowmen. When I woke up, at around seven, I could already hear the small whirlwind that was my step-granddaughter running up and down the corridors, shrieking with excitement. I quickly showered and shaved, and then went downstairs to find the three of them in the library. By the time I got there, Michel seemed to be sulking.
"What's wrong?"
"Papa said I couldn't have any presents until you came down," she answered, crossly, but then her frown changed to a smile, "but you're here now..."
"They aren't all for you, little one," Wolf said, with infinite patience, "but why don't you help me sort them out."
She thought for a moment, then nodded and they set to work. Well, mainly she set to work, looking at the labels and delivering them to each of us with the seriousness that only a ten-year old can manage. And in the meantime, I felt ridiculously proud that she considered Wolf to be her papa.
"Now can I open them?" she asked, looking up at her parents once she was done, and Susanne smiled.
"Go ahead," she said, and Michel set on the pile of brightly wrapped packages like a plague of locusts.
Half an hour later, there was paper everywhere, and she was trying on a matching set of woolly hat, gloves and scarf, which her mother had fortuitously bought for her.
"Can I play in the snow now?"
"We should eat first," Susanne answered, at which point Michel realised she was hungry and graciously agreed.
We adjourned to the dining room for a late breakfast at about nine. Christmas dinner would be served at five, so a good breakfast was required to keep going until then. About an hour later, properly fortified and well bundled up, we trooped outside, and Wolf and Susanne introduced her to the joys of building a snowman. Inevitably, the whole business devolved into a snowball fight somewhere between completing the body and building the head. Soon Wolf and Michel were running around the garden like a pair of mad things, but something about him seemed somehow different. I stood on the rear terrace, taking the occasional sniper shot at them with snow from the balustrade. After about ten minutes, Susanne surrendered, and came and joined me on the side lines, leaning on the now bare stone. And as I watched, it dawned on me what was different.
He was running.
I'd never seen him run.
"When did he beat the limp?" I asked, kicking myself that I hadn't realised before.
"Two or three months, I suppose," she answered, "once he felt safe enough here in England, he began swimming again -he was a nationally ranked swimmer in his university days, although he gave up after he was assigned to the Kripo. But since he took it up again, his ankle's been getting steadily better. I'm surprised it's taken you this long to notice."
"I supposed I'd got so used to him favouring that side, that I'd stopped noticing," I answered, and we lapsed into silence for a few moments, watching the mayhem in front of us.
"They looks so happy," I said, finally, "I've never really seen him with Michel before."
"He loves her like he was her real father. Always did, even when she was a tiny baby," she replied, "but you were the one that made this happen..."
Having drawn a truce in the great snowball war, I saw him lift her off the ground with ease - I don't think I'd realised just how physically strong he was before that - and spin her around to peals of laughter from both of them.
"I'm glad I did. It's done all three of you good, I think."
"It has. Thank you."
She kissed me on the cheek, then carried on speaking, her tone slightly distant, as if she was thinking back into the past.
"I knew them both when they were growing up. Wolf and Michael. We lived in the same area, and our parents were friends, so we saw a lot of each other. They were always thick as thieves, those two. Wolf's brother, Alfred, used to be jealous of them. He was never as sociable, and he resented their friendship. I'm sure that he told on them to his father on more than one occasion...and how that man has a temper. But they stuck together. Even at university. The day Michael joined the Wehrmacht and Wolf became a policeman, was the first time they'd ever really gone their separate ways. Maybe if they hadn't, things would have turned out differently."
She sighed, sadness on her face as she thought of what might have been.
"After Michael died, my world caved in on me and I wanted to die with him. Wolf helped me through it...always the gentleman, never assuming, never trying to take advantage of me, but always there when I needed him. And all that despite the fact that he was probably hurting just as much as I was. When I heard that he'd been charged with treason and murder, I couldn't believe it. Not Wolf? Not one of the most honourable men I had ever met? I was devastated, especially when he was sentenced in absentia. But after it sank home, all I could think of was how on earth was I going to survive without him? Berlin can be a cruel place if you don't have someone to fight your corner."
"I know that well enough."
"I don't know how we can ever thank you for what you did for us...for him. And what's strange is I don't even know why. Maybe one day, one of you will tell me how you became friends, and why you were there when he needed you."
"Maybe one day," I replied, wondering how I could ever explain it to her.
We lapsed into silence, enjoying the moment, and it was as I watched him playing with Michel, that I realised how much I had come to care for him: the unexpected son who had come into my life in late-middle age. And I was suddenly incredibly sad that I hadn't known him when he was growing up. I wondered if the Freiherr von bloody Ansbach had bothered with the simple pleasure of playing with his children in the snow.
Then he looked up at us, a big grin on his face, and that was when I knew the time had come to tell him - as Laurence had said it would.
* * * * * *
After we had enjoyed a monumental Christmas dinner, created by Mrs Carmichael with her usual dedication, and had watched the Morecombe and Wise Christmas Show, Susanne said she would take Michel to bed. I took my cue from that, and asked Wolf if he wanted to adjourn to the library for a nightcap.
"Let me just run upstairs and get something first," he said, "I'll meet you in the library."
I went to make myself comfortable, hoping he wouldn't get too diverted. Young Carmichael bought in the port bottle and two glasses and placed them on the sideboard, then left me to my own devices. I poured one for myself and then paced the room, waiting for Wolf to come down, realising that all of a sudden, I was feeling very nervous. What if he didn't believe me? Or worse still, didn't want to know.
"What's wrong, Mihai," he said as he came in, a wrapped gift in his left hand.
I poured him a glass and handed it to him, then indicated for him to sit. Then I took a deep breath, and answered.
"I want to tell you something."
"Something which has obviously got you worried, by the look of it," he replied, looking across at me, "let me put your mind at rest. I think I may already know what it is."
That threw me.
"Policeman, remember," he said, with a flash of a smile, but then it was quickly gone, "or at least I used to be. Let me ask the question."
I gestured for him to continue, fascinated as to whether he really knew what I'd been thinking.
"How long have you known that you're my biological father?"
I paused before answering, taking a good mouthful from my own glass, then placed it down beside me.
"Remember when I visited you in the hospital that first time...when you told me about Eglizi."
"Hard to forget."
"Laurence called round that evening and shared his suspicions with me. His argument was convincing, even for him."
"Five years? All that time?" he asked, then shrugged, "I suppose it explains a lot...How did he figure it out?"
"Intelligence officer," I answered, with a smile, and he grinned.
"Touché."
"In fairness, it was him and Matthew Gifford between them. They pieced it together. I didn't have a clue."
"Why didn't you ever tell me?"
"I was never sure the time was right," I answered, "initially, during your debrief, you had quite enough to worry about without my throwing that into the pot. Then there was the trial and what followed."
"I've been a free man, debt to society served, for three years now."
"During which time you've still had a lot to deal with. I know it hasn't been easy for you...leaving everything and establishing a new life here."
I paused for a moment, thinking of the time when I'd called around to check on him one evening, while he was still back at university, and found he had drunk himself into a stupor as everything had got too much for him. And it hadn't been the only time. He had been prone to bouts of depression, indulging in far too much drink, drugs or occasionally both, over the years: a self-destructive streak that really only his growing relationship with Susanne and his acceptance by the Group, which both gave him a support network in England besides myself, had been able to ease. Even now, Susanne occasionally called me when she was worried that he was heading the same way again.
"I always knew that you were there in the background, waiting to catch me when I fell, even though I couldn't work out why. It wasn't sexual attraction - I have Susanne, and I know that while Ian Cushing doesn't exactly comb the clubs for women, Mikael Cuijper certainly enjoys a warm bed..."
I looked at him, quizzically.
"Policeman," he said, flashing a wicked smile.
I raised my hands in a gesture of defeat, and he became more serious again.
"But there was whatever this soul link Kramer talked about was. So about a year ago, once I decided that I was ready to know, I started digging. I got so far and was pretty sure I had an answer, but it seemed so improbable that I had no idea how to prove it. I would probably have still been thinking about it, if not for a fortunate accident."
I waited for him to continue as I finished my first glass of port, poured myself another and topped his up.
"I'm not sure if you remember, but among the things Alfred sent over, after...well, after...there was a picture of me with my mother. You may have seen it in the apartment?"
I'd been surprised and bothered to receive a packing crate from Berlin, addressed to Herr Wolfgang Ulrich, at Wittersham House during the period that Wolf had been undergoing his debrief. Surprised, because I wasn't expecting anything from Berlin; and bothered, because the fact that it was addressed to him clearly implied that his former employers knew exactly where he was and who had helped him defect. The only person who could have been responsible, was Ritter. By then, Wolf's interrogation was in the less than tender hands Major Max Leonard, a man on a crusade, who had shoe-horned himself into Wolf's case, pushing Matthew Gifford aside.
I'd only managed to let Wolf see it a couple of weeks later, when he was allowed down to Kent for the weekend on my recognisance. It had contained a few personal items, such as pictures, certificates and ornaments, plus some odd bits of clothing and his SS dress uniform, stripped of any form of rank insignia. So he could wear it at his trial, the accompanying note had said. It had also included the notification from Führer Heydrich's office that he had been sentenced to death in absentia for treason, murder and desertion, and had been stripped of any rank and privileges due to him either from his family, or his regiment. His dishonourable discharge papers from said regiment were in the same envelope.
There had been a private note included as well, from his brother Alfred, who had apparently collected everything together and sent it on to him. Wolf had crumpled that up and thrown it on the fire, rather than let me see it, but whatever it had said had haunted him for weeks.
I could visualise the picture he was referring to in my mind's eye. It had pride of place on the mantelpiece over the fireplace in the lounge of his place in Victoria, and was the only picture he still displayed of any of his German family. He must have been eight or nine when it was taken. He was sitting on one of those cushioned bench garden swings, Greta leaning on the back of it beside him, smiling at the camera, her arms protectively around his neck.
"I know the one."
"One evening, Michel got a bit boisterous, and managed to knock it off the mantelpiece. The glass smashed on the hearth, and the frame was broken. I was furious...probably more than I should have been...but it was the only thing I had of her...the only thing Alfred had packed that she had given me."
He paused for a moment, before continuing.
"As I picked it up, the picture came out of the frame. I flipped it over, looking to see if there was a date on it, as I couldn't remember exactly when it was taken. Instead, I found five words. Danke, Jan, mein beträchtlich Ritter. I don't know how I knew, but the moment I saw it, I realised she was talking about you. I wonder if somehow she knew that we'd eventually find each other."
"Fate works in mysterious ways."
"It does at that." He paused, then asked "Is that what she called you? Jan?"
"Sometimes. Sometimes it was Ian...it depended on how she felt."
"Where did you meet?"
"Of all those unromantic places, in a bar. I was young, she was beautiful, and I had no idea that she was married until it was way too late."
"How long were you together?"
"Just a couple of weeks. Then Dietrich von Ansbach came and dragged her home."
"Did you love her?"
"I certainly cared for her...but we weren't together long enough to see if it would go beyond that."
"Like Jenny Milton," he said, without judgement.
"I suppose so...although the circumstances were different. Jenny was fun...Greta was special."
"But not as special as Audrey?"
"That's like comparing apples and oranges."
He lapsed into silence, sipping his port for a moment or two, before continuing.
"You know, I was always much closer to her than to my father, who always gave me the impression of barely tolerating me. Alfred, of course, could hardly put a foot wrong. I suppose, with hindsight, now I understand why. He knew...or at least suspected...that I wasn't his son."
"He did bust you out of Ritter's clutches," I pointed out.
"Only so his family wouldn't be embarrassed, I think. Bloodlines are very important to him - logical, I suppose, given his branch of the Service. And you notice that he didn't stop me being posted to Russia. I think he hoped I'd die there, and be buried in an unmarked grave. I must confess to have taken a great deal of pleasure from the fact that he was metaphorically kicked in the balls when I was officially disgraced. I almost wish I'd been there to see his face."
The vehemence with which he said it, and the hate and contempt in which he held von Ansbach was troubling. We'd talked about his life in Germany before, but he'd never showed his feelings about his supposed father quite so clearly.
"When I was a child," he continued, "she would occasionally tell me stories. Fairy stories, you understand, about the handsome young knight who found the lonely maiden and swept her off her feet. Made her happy and treated her like a princess. Sometimes they lived happily ever after...and sometimes they didn't. But it wasn't until I was older...after she was gone...that I realised she had only ever told me those stories when we were alone."
I leaned back in my chair, watching him while I sipped my glass of port. The expression on his face was wistful, and a trifle sad.
"What happened to her?" I asked, quietly.
"A couple of years before he retired from active service, my...father bought a boat. Still has it, in fact. He kept it on the Bodensee, and he would sometimes take the family down there at weekends. After my paternal grandfather died - he was a wonderful old man...I think you would have liked him - and father retired, he and mama used to go down there during the week sometimes. Spending time together to catch up on the time they had lost to his military career was his story. Hers was so that he knew where she was, and wouldn't let her spent time with her friends.
And then one day, he came back alone. There had been a terrible accident, he said. They had been entertaining on the boat...champagne had been flowing... She went up on deck, to get some fresh air to clear her head, and it was a while before he realised that she hadn't come back. He went to look for her, and found blood on the stern rail. They searched for her, but to no avail. They scanned the water, but they couldn't see her there, either. So they tried to raise the water police on the radio. But apparently it wasn't working, so in the end they dropped a buoy and went back into the marina to report her disappearance. The police searched, of course, but they never found her body."
"Did you believe him?"
"At first, but less so as he told the story. Mama rarely drank, and certainly never to excess, so the chances of her getting drunk and falling off the boat, which was the crux of his argument, were next to zero. I watched him carefully for the rest of the conversation, and while his face perfectly matched the expression of a man who had just suffered a tragic loss, his eyes were cold."
"You think he murdered her?"
"I know he murdered her...but I was fourteen years old. What could I do about it?"
"Wolf, I'm so sorry."
"You probably won't be surprised when I say it was the main reason why I became a policeman, rather than following his orders and going into the SS. I hoped that one day I could prove what really happened to her. And I think it was partly his fear that I would succeed that led to the major falling about between us at that time."
"Did you ever manage to prove what he'd done?"
"Not to the degree which would be required in a court of law. But I've figured out how he did it. The friends they were 'entertaining', were Mannfred von Knobelsdorf and his wife."
"The former Wewelsburg Kommandant?"
"Indeed," he said, bitterly, "he owed my father a favour...something related to what was going on at the castle when my father was posted there. My guess, they gave his wife sleeping tablets or something of the kin to get her out of the way: when the lake police talked to her, she said she'd been feeling unwell and had gone to sleep it off in the main cabin. I think they killed mama, weighted the body, and threw her over the side. Then, acting all concerned, they took the police out to the place they had 'marked'. But it was only their word that it where she had gone in the water, and the Bodensee is a big lake. Who knows, they may have even killed her on the Swiss side. Anyway, the local police chief accepted their story - after all, who was he to argue with a pair of Ahnenerbe generals - and father came home the grieving widower."
"Why do you think they weighted the body?"
"As I said. It was never found. Chances are, it's still out there somewhere...and in the meantime I never had the chance to say goodbye."
He fell quiet, for a while, sipping his port and obviously thinking. It was a couple of minutes before he broke his silence.
"You know, one day. Possibly in the not too distant future. I will kill him."
"It's not worth throwing your life away on revenge."
"Are you saying that as my father? or as my friend?"
"As your friend. I'm not sure I've earned the right to ask you anything as your father."
"Oh Mihai...you earned that right the day you came to Russia for me."
I looked up at him, meeting his eyes and seeing genuine warmth there.
"You know as well as I do that he wouldn't have done that."
"I believe you. However, discussing the possible murder of Dietrich von Ansbach may have strayed a ways from the spirit of Christmas," I said, quietly, and he accepted the rebuke.
"Perhaps you're right," he said, amusement replacing some of the anger in his tone.
"What's so funny?"
"You, the witch of the family, reminding me of the spirit of Christmas. Consider me chastened."
"It wasn't meant like that..."
"Mihai, I'm teasing you...mostly."
He finished his glass of port and then handed me the package he'd brought down.
"I didn't want to give this to you in front of Susanne and Michel this morning, as it would have raised questions, but please...if you are willing to accept it, I would be honoured ."
I took it from him and unwrapped it, somewhat curious, and was met by two smiling faces, mother and son, under glass and framed with a lacquered wood frame.
"When I took the photo to be reframed, I had a copy done. I hope you don't think I was taking a liberty."
"Wolf, I'm not sure what to say."
"You were her handsome knight, Mihai. And while you couldn't save her, you're well on the way to saving me."
"Thank you," I said, quietly, trying not to hear my voice catch in my throat.