A Gypsy in Berlin Read online

  A Gypsy in Berlin

  by

  DS Holmes

  Copyright © 2017 by DS Holmes

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  December 21, 1941 | Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  December 22 | Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  December 23 | Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  December 21, 1941

  Chapter 1

  SOUTHWEST OF BERLIN, the road to Potsdam ran along the eastern border of the Grunewald, skirting the southern part of the Grosser Wannsee. Briefly, Thomas Rost looked at the Volkswagen’s owner, Eva Braun, and asked himself for the twentieth time that day what he was doing, driving Adolf Hitler’s longtime consort from her private quarters in the Chancellery—heart of the Nazi regime—to a meeting with a Gypsy fortuneteller. But he had no reasonable answer other than his own need to find Ingrid, a young Gypsy who had stolen his affection.

  Then they were into open country. Frozen fields and low stone walls marked orderly plots of farmland. Here and there scraggly clumps of trees served as windbreaks, the bare branches bearing thin fingers of snow. Farmhouses and barns dotted the landscape, a reminder of the days before the capital became overcrowded with citizens seeking work in the war industries.

  The rural scene had changed little, Thomas thought, as his mind turned, once again, to grapple with his sudden change in direction—-from a 34-year-old book critic, not a Party member, to one who was now reluctantly engaged on a special mission for Reich security chief, General Reinhard Heydrich. If he’d had a choice, he would have declined, he reminded himself. Unfortunately, he did not have a choice...not if he wanted to see his father freed from Sachsenhausen concentration camp.

  There was certainly the complication of his contact with Ingrid Reinhardt, however limited it might have been. That connection had brought the unwanted attention of Martin Bormann, the Fuehrer’s personal secretary and, arguably, the second most powerful man in Germany. Bormann worked tirelessly behind the scenes of government, avoiding the spotlight at Nazi Party rallies, unlike his main rivals for Hitler’s attention.

  In 1941, the cadre of elite Nazis included Hermann Goering, head of the Luftwaffe and veteran of the now-legendary Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, 1923. There was also the feared leader of the SS, Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler, a nondescript man intent on carrying through Adolf Hitler’s dream of a racially-pure German people. A third man in a top leadership role was Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, a gifted orator eclipsed in public speaking only by the Fuehrer himself, an educated man absolutely devoted to the one he considered the savior of Germany.

  Bormann had outmaneuvered them all, including the Deputy Fuehrer, Rudolph Hess, by controlling access to Hitler, in the process serving also as the Fuehrer’s most confidential advisor. This was not a good man to become associated with; and yet, it was Bormann who claimed a kind of ownership of the currently missing Gypsy woman, and expected Thomas to find her.

  As a result, Thomas found himself hanging onto reality by a thin thread, compelled by circumstances to walk a high wire without a safety net while under an unwanted obligation to two of the Reich’s most powerful and ruthless Nazis. His inner musings were interrupted by the appearance of the medieval town of Potsdam.

  The former residence of Germany’s royal family was located at the lower part of the Heiligen See and Thomas steered the Volkswagen onto a route that led to Sanssouci Park. Spread over 700 acres, the park contained the summer home of the 18th-century monarch, Frederick the Great—the Schloss Sanssouci built to the exacting standards of the king’s own design sketches. At the far end of the palace’s terraced vineyards, the Friedenskirche occupied the southeast corner of the park, the sandstone church styled after Rome’s Basilica of San Clemente.

  “Wait here,” Thomas told Eva, and switched off the ignition.

  As he entered the colonnaded cloister he spotted a short, dark-complexioned man sweeping leaves and debris off the octagonal stones of the walkway. The skin of his face was wrinkled and pockmarked, the clothing patched in places. His large, gnarled hands kept a tight grip on the handle of the push broom.

  Thomas took out a crumpled pack of cigarettes, shook one free and offered it. “You’re the caretaker?”

  “Thanks to the pastor.” The workman accepted the cigarette. “It’s my winter job.”

  “Where can I find the minister?”

  “You can’t,” the worker said, and lit a match off one of the stones. “He’s gone.”

  “Sunday morning services are over. He should be available now.”

  The caretaker puffed on his cigarette thoughtfully. “Another pastor filled in for him.”

  “When will he be back?”

  “I’m not in the clergy. He doesn’t confide in me.” The workman tugged on a cloth cap, pulling it down farther over his forehead.

  “You’re part of the clan, aren’t you? The Gypsies, I mean.”

  “I can’t talk anymore.” The workman started sweeping again.

  Thomas leaned against a fluted pillar, jingling a handful of Reichsmarks in his coat pocket. “A friend of mine wants her fortune told.”

  “Gypsies have gone to jail for—’’

  “I can pay.”

  “Not enough, I think.”

  The man had a point. In 1939, Heydrich had issued a decree which forbade Gypsy women from practicing their centuries-old trade of fortunetelling. The SD chief had determined that they were making harmful predictions concerning the duration of the war, implying that the days of the blitzkrieg were over. Many had been arrested, and those convicted were held indefinitely in concentration camps under the legal guise of protective custody.

  However, not all Gypsy fortunetellers had been rounded up. It turned out that Heydrich’s boss, Heinrich Himmler, maintained a more flexible approach to the Gypsy problem in the Third Reich. Those whom the Reichsfuehrer deemed racially acceptable were treated with greater leniency than darker-skinned foreigners, such as the Rom, who came from southeastern Europe. The Sinti, longstanding German Gypsies, as well as the Lalleri tribe from Bohemia-Moravia, benefited from this fractured policy.

  Eva appeared under a stone arch between slender columns. “It is too cold to wait in the car.”

  The caretaker examined the lady in the fur coat with rheumy eyes. “Who is she?” he asked.

  “One with friends in high places.”

  The workman set aside the broom, took the cigarette from his mouth and flicked ash off the tip. “How high is this place you are talking about?”

  “She shares a bed with the Fuehrer.”

  The man’s jaw dropped and the cigarette fell to the ground. Nervously he swept the cap from his head. “Are you with the police?” he asked Thomas.

  “I know it’s hard to believe, but if I was...she wouldn’t be here.”

  Eva broke in, “No one is going to get in any trouble, okay?”

  The caretaker stared at her. “Well, I am a good German. Anything for the Fuehrer.”

  Chapter 2

  BEFORE LEAVING THE capital, Thomas had placed a telephone call to Rutger Beck’s home in Wilmersdorf. While in Eva Braun’s apartment, he had memorized the name of a chu
rch and its pastor, Philipp Witte. After contacting a colleague at Kriminalpolizei—Kripo—headquarters in Werderscher-Markt, Beck had called back with information. Seems that Witte had petitioned Potsdam’s Kripo office on behalf of an extended family of Gypsies and had managed to obtain a permit, allowing the clan to use open ground between the Friedenskirche and a summer pavilion, a feature of the park that resembled a Chinese teahouse.

  Drawn up side-by-side, five wooden caravans were parked on the lawn. The once immaculate stretch of parkland was littered with discarded junk and trash. Taking the steps beside a spoked wooden wheel, the caretaker called out to someone inside the wagon.

  “What did he say?” Eva asked.

  Thomas shrugged. “Few non-Gypsies understand their language. They have a saying, ‘The truth is expressed in Romany.’”

  The caretaker stepped down onto the frost-covered ground and a pudgy, middle-aged woman in a loose black dress and beige sweater filled the narrow doorway. A buxom lady, she had thick arms folded atop her ample bosom. Her hair was a remarkable blue-black, with no trace of gray visible. Her dark, mascaraed eyes settled on Eva.

  “Why have you come here?” the Gypsy asked in German.

  Eva mounted the steps until she stood at eye level with the older woman. “What does the future hold for me?”

  “Come inside and find out,” the Gypsy said and turned away.

  By the time Thomas had given the caretaker all the coins in his pocket, the fortuneteller had hung red velvet curtains from copper wires around a small, round table, leaving an opening in the curtains wide enough to pass through. After the Gypsy closed the caravan’s only door, she sat at the table, lit an oil lamp and set the lamp on an embroidered tablecloth. Silently, she gestured to Eva to sit opposite her.

  Thomas sat on a bare wooden stool, facing the Gypsy woman. From across the table he noticed the small sleeping quarters. A framed painting of a dark-skinned lady was set on the shelf of a cupboard near the bed. “The woman in the oil painting...who is she?”

  The Gypsy glanced at him, then reached inside her sweater and drew out a long gold necklace of shining coins. Gold bracelets on her wrists jangled as she removed a deck of Tarot cards from a polished mahogany box and, as her hands shuffled the cards, the swift movement of her fingers appeared as shadows, cast by the muted light, onto the velvet curtain. In the lamplight, the mascara on her eyelashes seemed even more prominent, as did her hooked nose.

  Finally she replied in a husky alto, speaking softly. “Her name is Sarah, patron saint of the Gypsies.”

  “Tell me about this Sarah.” Eva requested earnestly, and leaned forward to catch the woman’s words.

  “As a girl I travelled with my family to Provence for the annual vigil at the crypt of St. Mary Jacobe—sister to the Blessed Virgin—and St. Mary Salome, mother of the Apostles James and John. You must believe that, after the Ascension of Jesus to Heaven, the women sailed across the Mediterranean with their faithful Egyptian handmaiden, Sarah, fleeing persecution in the Holy Land.”

  She set aside the cards, caressed her gold chain. “After an all-night vigil, we dressed Sarah’s carved image in new clothes and carried her into the sea. It was on this pilgrimage that my own dear mother received healing, a miracle, freeing her from the pain of an ulcer.”

  “I, too, am in need of a miracle,” Eva said.

  “Then you have come to the right place, my child.” The Gypsy took hold of Eva’s left hand and spread open her palm, studying the lines, nodding to herself and muttering words in Romany. Suddenly she looked up. “You are sad and troubled. The one you have given your heart to has delayed the truest confirmation of your love. You want to get married, I can tell.”

  Eva gasped, “She understands perfectly!”

  The Gypsy sat back. “Before we can seek for what is to come, there is a little business which must be attended to.”

  “Thomas, did you bring any money. I will, of course, pay you back.”

  He opened his wallet. “Is fifty marks enough?”

  The fortuneteller sighed, put the Tarot cards back in the box and closed it. “In these perilous times, my services are offered at great personal risk. I’m sure you understand.”

  Eva unfastened her diamond necklace and laid it on the cloth. “It is worth over a thousand Reichsmarks.”

  Taking the jewelry in cupped hands, as if weighing it, the fortuneteller said, “You wish to be taken seriously. I see that now.”

  “I want to know everything.” Eva unclipped her matched earrings. “Take these, too.”

  With a swipe of her right hand, the Gypsy scooped up the diamond earrings and, with the necklace, dropped them into her lap. From under the table, she brought forth a glass ball. Specks of gold shimmered inside the globe as she set it by the lamp. Staring into the glass sphere, she uttered many words and phrases in her own language until, after several minutes had passed, she brought her thin lips together and closed her eyes, a look of exhaustion on her face.

  “What is it?” Eva cried. “What did you see?”

  The fortuneteller opened her eyes slowly. “A man in uniform, a ceremony in a dark and noisy place,” she whispered. “And I heard a sound like thunder in the background.” She arched her neck back and gazed directly at Eva. “In the end, your heart’s desire will come to pass. Beyond that, my sight is blocked.”

  Altogether a good show, Thomas said to himself, even though half the men in Germany were in uniform. The Gypsy certainly possessed a feel for the dramatic. “If you both will excuse me,” he stood up, “I need a smoke.”

  Eva nodded. “You go on without me. I must know more.” Her blue eyes caught the flame from the lamp; the yellow light danced in her widened pupils. “By the way, if you see any of my escort, tell them not to disturb me.”

  Chapter 3

  THE STORM WHICH HAD left the streets of Berlin coated in heavy wet snow had spared Potsdam. But the wind blowing through the park was bone-chillingly cold and Thomas hunched inside his overcoat, taking his hands out of the lined pockets only to cup them around a cigarette. Once the tobacco caught fire, he plunged his hands back into the pockets and looked toward the road.

  Behind the hood ornament’s three pointed star, big radiator grille and freestanding headlights, he spotted Eva Braun’s bodyguards, staring through the flat windshield. Looking away, he studied the cropped, bare branches of the vineyard and a heavily-wooded expanse below the Orangerie, an Italian Renaissance-inspired palace built in the mid-19th century as a guesthouse for visiting royalty. A sudden movement on a footbridge caught his attention. He recognized the face and black hair of a young woman in front of a tangle of branches.

  “Ingrid!” he called out.

  The girl turned her toward him, then ran up a path through the trees near the Orangerie. He pulled off his winter coat and dropped it on the hard ground, tossed aside the burning cigarette and went after her. Leaving the field of caravans, he crossed the bridge and sprinted up the pathway, slowing only at a frozen pond that was covered with grayish ice. He spotted her again, not far ahead, mounting a broad stone staircase. Off to his right, a leather-jacketed man had joined the chase, a blond hunter with air bursting from his mouth in puffs of white smoke.

  As the unknown man bounded up the first flight of steps, Ingrid shouted from the top landing, “Don’t come any closer!”

  “No,” the man agreed and stood still, “that won’t be necessary.”

  “I haven’t told anyone. Why won’t you believe me?”

  “Oh, but I do believe you.” The hunter raised a short-barrelled pistol. “And now you will never tell a soul.”

  Looking beyond the man with the gun, Ingrid said, “I won’t beg.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got my orders,” the man said, and squeezed the trigger.

  The lead projectile pushed through the air like a thunderclap and a flock of black birds lifted off the palace’s roof. Ingrid clutched her right thigh as the hunter lowered the barrel slightly for the killing
shot. And that’s when Thomas lunged from behind, fastening his hands around the man’s left ankle, altering the shot enough to send the second round whistling above Ingrid’s head. Forcefully, Thomas drove into the shooter’s hip and the gunman went headfirst into the stone balustrade and then went limp.

  He placed the tips of two fingers to the man’s twisted neck. “He’s dead. Who was he?”

  “I don’t know,” she said weakly and, leaning on the balustrade, limped down the steps.

  “You’re bleeding, Ingrid. Sit down and press my handkerchief against the wound. I have to check him for papers before someone comes along.”

  She sat near the body and watched as Thomas went through the dead man’s pockets. “He was going to kill me.”

  “I have to know why.” Thomas held up two slim leather wallets. “Oswald Flick, his NSDAP membership card,” he read from the first one. “Your man’s a Nazi.”

  “Big surprise. We’re in Germany.”

  “I’m not one of them. You’re not either.” He opened the second ID case and let out a low whistle. “Gestapo. I just killed a Gestapo detective. Damnit, this makes two in the last three days.”

  Ingrid wiped blood from her hands onto her dress. “You knew they were looking for me.”

  “Keep applying pressure.” Thomas threw the wallets over the balustrade into some leafless shrubs. “Why was Flick following you?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  “Ingrid, what do you know that makes you a target for the secret police?”

  “Please stop asking me about it.”

  “You were there by the Spree, weren’t you? You were a witness to murder.”

  “Stop it!

  “I saw the bodies in the river. I looked into the dead eyes of that minister, and, since then, my life has gone to hell.”

  “Thomas, don’t make me—’’

  “The pastor in the river,” he stuffed the Walther PP .32 caliber pistol in his waistband, “what was his name?”