Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [312]
Sorry Liam ... sorry Tim ... sorry Father ... hear that other voice ... that is Ernestine ... I must go to her. Ernestine! Where are you! I told them I was coming to you! I told them about your father! No ... I did not tell them.
“Deutschland, Deutschland Ueber Alles.
Ueber Alles in der welt!
Deutschland, Deutschland Ueber Alles ...”
“Forbidden!” Sean cried, coming out of his dream. “That song is forbidden!”
The voices faded down the street ... faded ... faded.
“Deutsche Frauen, Deutsche Treue,
Deutsche Wein und Deutsche sang!”
He staggered to the window, saw the torchlights turn the corner. Ernestine was a shadow on the bed.
“We can’t go on like this,” she said.
He slumped in the chair, waited for his breath to slow, his heart to quit the pounding.
From the hallway in the landing below there was riotous laughter by a woman being embraced by an overzealous drunk.
“What happened last New Year’s Eve, Sean?”
For a moment all that could be heard was the deep unevenness of his breathing. “Your father is a criminal Nazi. I have hidden the files.”
“Oh, my God.”
She appeared standing over him, knowing now the reason for his torment. And she knew the depth of his love. “I am as much to blame as you. I lived with him and closed my eyes and my ears.”
“Erna ... what are we going to do?”
She was numb as he had been numb for months. “Your life,” she whispered, “and the work of my uncle are too good to throw away on a Nazi. You will go to General Hansen and tell him.”
“No ... I can’t ...”
“You will do what you must do.”
“I won’t give you up! We did not make this ...”
“Germans,” she mumbled almost incoherently, “redeem the sins of your fathers.”
“Stop it!”
She laughed with bitter tears. “We make an exception of Colonel O’Sullivan’s German Schatzie. Oh God ... we were insane from the first minute.”
“Hear me, Erna ... we will overcome this.”
“And you will spend a lifetime hearing me cry in my sleep with my father in prison and my mother withering to death. What of my sister, who grieves beyond grief for that flyer who died, or my uncle, who struggles to restore us to our dignity.”
“To hell with them!”
“Oh my Sean, I love you so. I will not let you become an instrument of your own destruction. I will not let you disgrace your uniform ...”
“Deutschland, Deutschland, Ueber Alles ...
Ueber Alles in der Welt ...”
“Ernestine! Ernestine!”
“I am a German woman.”
“Ernestine!”
“Germans are a superstitious people. We are guided by fates we cannot control.”
“Erna! I swear to you we’ll find the strength.”
“Liam! Tim! Those names you cry out in your dreams. Sean! Give me your brothers’ blessings.”
He sunk to his knees and buried his head in her belly.
“Oh God!” she cried in anguish, “we tried so hard!”
Chapter Forty-two
SEAN WALKED SLOWLY TOWARD General Hansen’s desk. He lay the file of Bruno Falkenstein on it. The general glanced at it, set it aside.
“I’m glad you made the decision to bring this in,” he said.
“Sir ... I am guilty ...”
“Sean. These papers took a long time being processed at your desk. That is all there is to it.”
“Sir ...”
That is all there is to it, understand.”
“Not after what I did to another man for the same thing.”
“There are differences. You will refuse to recognize them now because of the punishment you are inflicting on yourself. I should like to know about Fraulein Falkenstein?”
“She sent me away.”
Hansen realized that the girl’s decision had come out of love for him to allow him to try to create some kind of normal life.
“I’m sorry, Sean.”
“Our wounds run too deep. I cannot make peace with the Germans. Erna and I ... tried to fool ourselves. No real peace can ever be made until we pass on and the new generation of Americans and Germans make it.”
“I’m afraid you’re right, Sean.”
“General, please help me get out of Germany.”
A PAUSE FOR REFLECTION
by Nelson Goodfellow Bradbury
West Berlin is delirious with victory. The Western world has won its first and only victory of the cold war.
In a year’s time, a quarter of