The Berlin Conspiracy - Tom Gabbay
Epigraph
The following is an account of events that took place in June 1963. I’ve kept these facts to myself all these years for obvious reasons, but I’m too old now to worry about any of that.
Besides, the bastards will never find me.
PROLOGUE
I left Berlin on the morning after my mother was buried. A few hours before she died, my brother and I were roused from our beds and told we should say our final good-byes. The memory of that night is still vivid, even through the fog of all those years.
A band of warm light spilled into the room as we entered, illuminating her face. She didn’t look real, already more an angel than our mother. After a moment, she spoke, softly, on shallow breath. “Kommt,” she whispered. “Come. … Don’t be afraid.” She was young, far too young to die, but even I could see that precious little life was left in the slender frame that faded into the shadows.
Outwardly, nothing had changed. The dressing table was neatly arranged with lipsticks, rouge, and powders; the music box still sat on the mantel, its waltzing couple frozen in silent midstep. Next to the bed stood a formal wedding photo in a silver frame and, on the wall, a fuzzy picture of a smiling man in uniform—black ribbon and medal of honor draped over the image of a husband and father who, like many others, never returned from “The War to End All Wars.” Everything was in its place, yet the room had changed in some way. The smell of medicine was gone; now there was death in the air.
I took Josef’s hand and led him to our mother’s side. He was only eight, five years younger than me, and probably didn’t fully understand what was happening. Nobody had explained it to us, not in so many words.
She lay there, very still, for what seemed like an eternity and the thought crossed my mind that she might’ve died in the time it took us to cross the room. Finally her eyes lifted and turned toward us. She studied our faces for a long time, as if trying to memorize them. Or maybe she was gathering strength, determined to use those last few breaths to carry the words that she wanted to leave behind.
“Give me your hands,” she whispered. I felt her weakness as she attempted to close her fingers around ours. “You see…” She tried to smile. “A family… Do you understand?”
I nodded, though I wasn’t sure that I did.
“Say it,” she demanded.
“A family,” I responded obediently.
She slipped her hand away, leaving Josef’s palm in mine. “And now—” she breathed. “Still a family … Always a family.”
I felt that she wanted to say more but was unable to summon the strength. I wanted to say something, too, but words wouldn’t come. Not because I was too emotional. In fact, I can remember wondering why I wasn’t more upset. I loved my mother dearly and I knew she loved us more than anything, but for some reason I felt removed from it all, watching the scene from someplace far away, like I am now.
Not many came to her funeral. Three, maybe four faceless men in dark suits and polished shoes standing a few steps behind us, heads bowed, hats in hand. I didn’t know any of them. Josef and I stood in front of the open grave with Auntie between us. The lady who came once a week to clean the house—I don’t remember her name—was the only one who sobbed quietly as the priest said his prayers and remarked that although it was sad our mother had left her sons orphans, God knew best and must have needed her in heaven more than we did on earth. I hadn’t thought of myself as an orphan before that.
I think Josef and I each placed a flower on top of her coffin as it was lowered into the ground, but I’m not sure. I remember that we stayed long after everyone else had gone, wanting to see that the headstone was properly placed. It read simply:
Gertrud Teller
1895–1927
On the first night she lay in her grave, I lay on my bed thinking about a cold December day, shortly before my brother was born, when she and I went to a toy shop in central Berlin. I was completely mesmerized by a display of wooden soldiers in the window, two opposing armies—complete with cavalry and artillery batteries—lined up against each other in neat rows of red and blue. She tried to interest me in all sorts of other toys and games—spinning tops, puppets, a bright red fire truck—anything other than those soldiers. But I could see nothing else. Two weeks later, on Christmas Eve of 1918, I found a small box under the tree with my name on it. Inside were two soldiers, one red and one blue.
Two full battalions now faced each other across the floor of the attic room I shared with Josef. I studied the carefully arranged formations into the early hours of that morning, until I finally drifted into a restless dream, where I joined the painted soldiers in combat and felt the gut-wrenching fear of a position being overwhelmed by opposing forces. When I woke, something had changed. The soldiers no longer came to life.
A boy’s battles are fought on the field of his imagination. There’s no cause, no doctrine, nothing to gain, it’s just Blue vs. Red. Not so different from life, I guess, except that in life the colors can get muddied, making it hard to tell which side is which. I must have sensed that there were other battles waiting for me, bigger battles to be fought on a larger field. Or maybe it’s a smaller field. Anyway, I knew it was time to put my toys away. I found an old tin box and began to dismantle my childhood fantasies.
Josef woke and watched respectfully from his bed as I carefully placed each soldier in the box. Not until I had closed the tin did he feel he could speak.
“Where will we live now?” he wondered.
“You’ll stay with Auntie,” I said without looking up.
“Where will you be?” he asked with growing concern.
“America,” I said. “I’m leaving today.” As far as I can remember, it was the first time the idea had entered my head, but it seemed as good a plan as any, so I stuck with it.
“I’ll go with you,” Josef quickly decided.
“No,” I said flatly. “You’re too young.”
“So are you,” he frowned.
“I’ll come back for you when you’re older,” I said, thinking that I might, in fact, return for him once I’d established myself.
“Did Auntie say you could?” he asked, knowing full well that the idea could not have been authorized.
“You can’t tell anyone, Josef. It’s a secret.”
“Mama says not to keep secrets.”
“It depends on the secret,” I explained. “Some secrets are like promises. If you tell the secret you break the promise. Then you become a traitor and a traitor is nothing more than a coward.” But I understood my brother well enough to know that this lesson in ethics wouldn’t keep his mouth shut. I held the box of soldiers out to him.
“Would you like to have these?” I asked enticingly.
“Until you come back?” he ventured, looking very skeptical.
“For as long as you keep our secret,” I said. He let that sink in for a moment, then smiled conspiratorially and took the tin into his possession. I suppose there’s a moment in everyone’s life when they learn the value of a secret. That was Josef’s moment.
So it was that on a sunny morning in late September of 1927, at the auspicious age of thirteen, I packed a bag and set out to begin my adventure with the world. Maybe I actually believed that one day I’d return for my younger brother, fulfilling our mother’s last wish that we remain a family. But life didn’t work out that way.