Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 00:04:35 +0100
From: jason argo <jacklloyd22@hotmail.com>
Subject: War:A Love Story - part 2   M/M historical

Frauline Dietz was inconsolable for days about the fire that had gutted the
library, but no look of suspicion settled on Willy Froehlich. The cause was
clear, she said. The electrical wiring in the building had not been renewed
since it was installed at the turn of the century, and it was just one more
reason why it was so important to have everything at Ravenskopf renovated.

With no more of Professor Dietz's notes to write up, Willy was assigned as
Celina's personal assistant and secretary and stuffed into a small, bare
closet room behind a table littered with papers, files and the Fraulein's
unwashed coffee cups. He was given the household accounts to manage and he
fretted a good deal about that for a while, because he couldn't make them
balance properly. But after some careful investigation the reason became
apparent. Fraulein Dietz had been clumsily manipulating the figures for
months to try and make her deficits look smaller.

When he eventually presented them to her with honest totals, she scowled
and grunted, but said nothing.

Impatiently Willy waited for Eduard Dietz to return to Ravenskopf, but
events in the outside world seemed to conspire against that. The war in
Poland had been brought to a satisfactory conclusion within a few weeks,
but it did not bring an end to hostilities. New dangers reared up when
France and Britain declared war on Germany, and the newspapers said that
the latest enemy was already massing on the frontier.

His only companionship during that uncertain time came by way of Rosalyn
and Loti. They were pretty and flirtatious and they made a lively pair who,
despite Fraulein Dietz callous treatment, were always full of playful
fun. But Willy had always felt different to them, set apart by his
thoughtful ways and his passion for learning. Literature and art meant
everything to him and in a perfect world he would happily have spent his
life studying such things, or perhaps even teaching others about them.

Nevertheless, when he felt restless he often visited the room they shared
for some company, and sometimes when the others found him mooning around
like a lovelorn schoolgirl they took him there.

The two transvestites were so beautiful and glamorous that Willy always
felt like a mouse in their company, and he hated the way their hair always
looked so good. He didn't resent them in any way; he just wished he could
look more like they did. Their figures were far more voluptuous than his
own, and next to them he felt he always looked like a little girl. And they
seemed far wiser in the ways of men too. They talked to them far more often
than he did and they relished teasing them and driving them insane.

Willy was more modest both in looks and in character than either of them,
and he made comparisons redundant. He always entered a room with a helpless
suppliant air, as if seeking a pair of broad shoulders with strong arms to
which he could entrust his evident womanliness. This attribute was
unpractised and imprecise, but quite devastating to certain types of men,
and it always amazed those around him that he didn't make more use of
it. It certainly infuriated Fraulein Dietz who could make profit from such
charm, but she was held in check by Willy's association with her brother.

As he so often did when Willy had joined them, Loti turned on the wireless
and carefully tuned it until it produced some American dance
music. Noticing Rosalyn was fixing the hem of one of Fraulein Dietz's
skirts he glanced sideways. "Can you dance, Willy?"

"A little. I'm not very good." he said, bashfully.

"Make up a couple with me. I'll coach you how to dance backwards, like a
girl is expected to do."

They began awkwardly, Willy watching Loti's feet as well as watching his
own. Loti wore only his underwear, lacy French pants and a bra, but
everyone understood Willy never became amorous with other `girls', and that
was doubly the case since he had become so badly smitten with Eduard Dietz.

Before too long they were gliding around the room in a graceful two-step,
and Willy rolled his eyes wistfully and began to put words to the music.

"...Must you dance - every dance - with the same fortunate man..."

His voice was unselfconscious, slightly squeaky, slightly off-key, but
quite sincere and charming. It made Loti smile.

"You sing in English, Willy." he said, "Do you speak English?"

"A little bit. Enough to sing along with some American tunes anyway. And he
continued,

"...you've been dancing with him since the music began. Won't you change
partners, and dance with me...?"

Suddenly he stopped. "Oh, Loti, I'm so sad. Do you really think Eduard
loves me?"

"Of course he does. He writes you letters all the time."

"Yes, but when I first met him he practically ignored me."

Loti laughed. "Oh, Willy, you're so innocent and you know nothing about
men. Eduard thinks you're gorgeous and he's totally in love with you. When
men act like you mean nothing to them, it means they are madly in love. And
when they make a big fuss and say they love you wildly, they're usually
lying."

Willy laughed himself at such worldly wise observation, but took it to
heart and hoped it was true. It could be true. He knew Loti was far more
sophisticated than he was, and he had good instincts about such things. He
was fearlessly flirtatious and painfully adept in understanding the ways of
men.

Rosalyn looked at him strangely. "You get on so easily with Eduard, but
I've always been a little afraid of him."

Willy considered that in amazement. "Afraid of Eduard? He is not the sort
of person one should fear. Admiration and respect I understand, but not
fear. That's impossible. Never that." Finding nowhere to turn he gazed
unhappily at his hands. "He will be flying in the sky somewhere. He will be
in his aeroplane trying to shoot people down, and they will be trying to
shoot him down. And if he dies it will be unbearable."

Loti placed a consoling arm about his shoulders. "Everything will be fine,
you'll see. Fraulein Dietz says he may be home soon on a furlough."

"Oh, I do hope that's true. I really do."



Eduard did come home on furlough eventually, and there was an agonising
delay in meeting him for Willy, because although Fraulein Dietz was aware
of his relationship with her brother, she still regarded Willy Froehlich as
house staff, and he knew she would be violently indignant if her rushed
forward to greet him.

Standing several yards away, he was transfixed when he came through the
door. And every kind of hormone in his body became focused on him with
eager interest. He had an unexpected and dangerous urge to ignore
everything and have him acknowledge his presence, talk to him, ask him that
he was experiencing the same heart-wrenching, familiar needs that he was
feeling.

His heart gave a painful jerk. The sight of him released all the anguish he
had fought to ignore. For an awful heart-stopping few moments he thought
Eduard was ignoring him purposely, but his patience was eventually
rewarded. The agony did end when Eduard winked and smiled.

But he had to contain his impatience and watch from a distance while Celina
met him in the hall, and took him in for tea.



"Eduard!" Willy's heart leapt when at last they were permitted to greet
each other alone in a downstairs room. Eduard looked almost unbearably
handsome in his uniform, and he knew there was real muscle beneath the
tailoring too, eager, dangerous and aroused.

At the exclamation of his name Eduard's head snapped up, almost like a
meddlesome charger. Tall, winsome and Aryan went nowhere to describing his
full male magnificence. He was more than that, much, much more! Willy could
feel his body responding to the sexiest man he had ever seen or was ever
likely to see.

 "I'm so pleased to be home again, Willy." he said has he settled into an
armchair and offered an exasperated look. "It often seems to me you and I
are the only gentle people in the world. Celina can be so abrasive at
times. Hurting people if you know what I mean, keeping them apart. But
then, my own nature has always verged on meek."

"Meek?" Willy laughed; it was a sweet and engaging sound. He was aware of
the shiny new medal on the man's chest, and how quick Eduard had once been
to deliver him from the clutches of Herr Hahn.

He gave him a lovely, spontaneous smile. Even though he knew him well he
was always dazzled by how manly he was, and how kind. "Are you sure you are
meek?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"I disagree. You are just excessively polite to your sister, that's all."

"Then I must apologise to you for being excessively polite."

Willy grinned. "And naturally I will enjoy your apology."

"And you're going to get it!" Eduard replied, reaching up with an
expression that verged on lust and hauling Willy down onto his lap.

His movements were so swift and supple, so masterful and so intent, Willy
had the sensation of loosing his balance as he went down. But he was glad
to be so close because he was starving for the taste and feel of him.

"What have you been getting up to whilst I've been away?" Eduard demanded.

"I've been a good girl. I've been saving myself for you."

Eduard clutched at him while his hand circled his chin. "Many pretty girls
have crossed my path in my travels, but there have been none to match
you.Your mouth is the colour of vermillion." he murmured hypnotically, his
thumb moving up to slide over it.

Willy's heart shook with desperate passion. "You once loved it."

"Yes, I did! And I still do."

Time seemed to stop. He drew Willy's head down and took possession of his
mouth in a kiss so brief, brief yet so deep and urgent that Willy's body
flowed towards it.

Then he kissed him again, longer this time. Kissing Willy was like tasting
a freshly picked peach and each taste made him yearn for another and
another, so he could forever remember his unique sweet juiciness.

Willy completely forgot about propriety. His heart, his mind his body -- all
filled with pure unmitigated pleasure as the man's tongue slowly caressed
his cheek. He could feel a dangerous ache inside, in his breasts and
everywhere.

For a moment Eduard paused. Perhaps the unrequested celibacy of his life
over the past few months will have had some effect on his behaviour to
Willy Froehlich!

Like hell it did! The sudden tension in his groin told a different story.

The slick, warm wetness on feminine-like skin on his tongue caused images
of shocking sensuality to burst in his head. He smoothed his hand over
Willy's hip to remind himself of the she-boys shape, then a hand tracked
down to his knee and slipped beneath the skirt before ranging high again,
beyond the woollen stockings to savour bare skin and pluck at the lacy trim
of panties that encased a delectable she-boy bottom.

"We must remember where we are." Willy admonished him, his warm breath
mingling with his. "People can just walk in and see us here."

"You started it." Eduard whispered. "And I intend to finish it. Upstairs,
my girl. Right now."

He reached out and took hold of Willy's arm, his grip firm and
compelling. Willy felt his blood beating up around his encircling fingers
as his body reacted to his hand, and he giggled wildly and felt jubilant as
Eduard chased him up the stairs and shepherded him to the master bedroom,
where facilities were grander than those in the servants' quarters.

They undressed quickly, breathlessly tugging at each others clothes, and
Eduard felt Willy's body move against his own, heard the soft, hot sound of
excitement he made against his own aroused body. He raised his hands to
cover Willy's naked breasts and he enjoyed the taut nubs pushing eagerly
against his palms.

Closing his eyes Willy leaned into the male body, waiting hungrily for
Eduard to return the pressure of his lips and part them with a swift, hard
thrust of his tongue.

This was it! This was him! His dragon-slayer and protector, the magical
lover he had dreamed of in all his most vulnerable moments. The hero he had
so long yearned for.

The man continued to excite him until he had a sensation of falling. Their
bodies became crushed together, impaling them both on a rack of tormented
feverish longing and need as they each sought to make themselves one.

Blind and deaf to everything else around him, Willy made a soft sound of
pleasure deep in his throat; an aching whisper of female-like surrender.

.

As the flame of love in his heart rose high, he pulled away from Eduard's
kiss to press his own lips to the man's throat, and then his chest,
stroking his fingertips through the soft warmth of his body hair to claim
his rights of territorial possession. His tongue-tip rimmed his navel and
he felt the fierce clench of his muscles. His lips became poised to inflict
a tender kiss against it, but Eduard's objection savaged the movement. He
was already magnificently rampant and impatient for other things.

Although the bed was large and made up neat, Eduard ignored it and Willy
found himself lifted up and carried bodily to be mounted on the top of a
chest of drawers, his back pressed to the wall, his feet hooked up on
Eduard's shoulders. The man's testicles looked so big and full, and he
began feeling so vulnerable he didn't quite know where he was.

His nostrils started to quiver as he breathed in a discreet hint of
cologne, underwritten by something very male and subtle that sent his
self-control crashing into chaos.

Eduard drew back his foreskin and advanced the press of urgent, engorged
flesh.

Ooooh! Oh, God, Willy thought. I love you...love you...love you. I'll never
stop loving you.

Like someone lost in a trance he looked up at him. An instinct deeper than
any thought or action seemed to have taken control of his body, and he was
powerless to do anything other than give in.

Held fast around him, Eduard's hands controlling Willy's ability to move
and there was nothing that could be done other than submit.

Submit! This was submission? wondered Willy. The hungry meeting of his own
flesh with Eduard's? That feeling of hardness spiking into him and stabbing
his bowels whilst his own hands gripped the man's shoulders to urge him on?
No, none of that could be submission, he was certain. He was responding to
him! Allowing Eduard to possess him. And he was possessing Eduard
equally. That's the way lovers did things. That was the way they worked.

But he didn't want to think about what anything meant right then, he didn't
wish to think deeply, in fact he didn't want to think at all. He simply
wanted to know - to experience - to feel the heady, heated thrusts of high
passion. He wanted to be there in that place with that man, and to keep
whatever they were sharing forever.

In a haze of dizzying desire Willy felt his senses slide like melting
ice-cream from the heat of his eyes to the curve of his mouth. His whole
body was galvanised by a series of tiny tremors and he exhaled on a small,
soft female sigh of wanton pleasure.

Eagerly he opened his legs and urged Eduard forward, welcoming him into his
soft warmth. Passion ran through him like liquid heat, but more than that,
as his hips lifted and writhed he realised that it wasn't just his body
that desired him. His heart and his mind wanted him as well!



Eduard remained at Ravenskopf for a week, and they made love three times
each day. Willy counted them and treasured every moment.

On their last night together as they lay in a damp and relaxed tumble of
arms and legs, Eduard marvelled at the intencity of pleasure an imitation
woman could provide. The solution to every problem in the word seemed clear
and evident when Willy put his head on his chest and had his arms wrapped
hard around him.

He gently kissed the top of his lovers head. "I wish I didn't have to go
back to the war." he said sadly. "I hate the idea of going back. It's not
at all the glorious event I imagined it to be. There is far too much blood
and carnage and so much despair in war. Now I think of it as just a ghastly
job that I wish to end quickly.

"But I think it will be over soon. Once the French have been beaten to
their senses everyone can go home."

He smiled reassurance down at him, and Willy nodded, thinking that normal
life was still too far away, and unable to bear how desperate he would feel
if something happened to Eduard before then.

"I wish I could agree. But I think that once someone puts guns into men's
hands, they don't let go of them easily. I have a terrible fear it could go
on for years.

"I'm sick with it already. Sick with you. Sick of the long, lonely nights
without you. I'm sick of the whole murdering business of war."

Eduard looked concerned. "When I leave -- you'll be alright?"

"Oh, yes," Willy said lightly, "I'm always alright."

"You are, aren't you? You think like a woman and cope alone. Men don't need
to do that on the whole, they usually have constant companionship."

His serious expression lifted. "How do you do it?"

"There is no other choice." Willy said. He slid down the bed, took Eduard's
penis in his hand and contemplated feasting on its bulbous tip.

"Why did this happen?"

"Why did what happen?"

"Us."

The man shrugged. "I don't know. I only know it did happen and I'm glad of
it."

He drew Willy's head back up and nibbled his ear and looked at him for a
long moment, lost in his blue eyes, which were even darker than his own. He
looked like a painting there, lying elegantly against him in his satin
underwear, he was looking like a very glamorous young woman.

Without giving him any warning, he slipped his hand down below his waist
and held him between the legs.

"Wouldn't it be nice if troubles between nations could be sorted out by
people such as us? We could just make love, talk things over and agree a
solution, instead of the way things are, with young men dying on
battlefields."

***

Throughout the winter of 1939-40 the huge army that France had mobilised
and blended in union with the small element that Britain furnished, had
postured defensively along the German frontier seemingly uncertain of how
to proceed. In April the Wehrmacht made its own move; it invaded Denmark
and Norway.

A month later, in May the German army took Holland and the Lowlands,
preparatory to taking on its main opponents. A divisionary attack through
Belgium in the style of 1914 drew the strength of the enemy towards it,
while the main thrust was delivered through the Ardennes, a thickly wooded
and weakly guarded region beyond which it was believed no modern army could
penetrate. The Wehrmacht penetrated it anyway. Outmanoeuvred and slow to
react the French and British reeled and then broke, and it seemed that yet
another war would soon be over.

After some weeks the British retreated to their island, and in June, France
sued for peace. Hitler appeared to be taking over all of Europe.

It was towards the end of this time that Willy received another letter from
Eduard, reassuring him he was still madly in love with him. He said he was
in good spirits and had managed to view all the historic sites of Paris,
but most of the time his Gruppe were flying out from Boulogne-sur-Mer to do
sweeps over the channel, harassing British coastal shipping and seeing off
cheeky reconnaissance aircraft.

On the same day Fraulein Dietz received a telegram, and being aware of her
brother's relationship with Willy she dourly revealed its message to him
after her lunch in the dining room.

"It says that Eduard as been killed in action," she said simply. "Eduard
was a brave man, and we thank the Almighty that he served the Reich well."

Having relayed the news she coolly returned to the business of the day,
leaving Willy to break down in an inconsolable flood of tears.

Over the following weeks the hurt from losing of Eduard didn't seem to
recede. The pain was everywhere. Inside his head, inside his heart, inside
his body.

He thought for the thousandth time of returning home, but rejected it for
the thousandth time. He had always been a quiet individual, studious and
impetuous but quite serious, and much more interested in his studies than
finding a girlfriend. His father, when he was alive, had sometimes joked
that he would have made a perfect daughter.

He was a girl now and he had no wish to alter that, because he felt more
comfortable being a girl than he'd ever felt in his life before. But his
mother would demand he should revert to being a man and join the army. And
the one thing his mother expected of him, the one thing everyone she was
associated with would expect of him, was that he would obey her.

One day during the summer Fraulein Dietz sent a message for him to attend
her in the dining room where she had been entertaining Otto Hahn to
lunch. She told him to bring the household accounts with him because she
wished her solicitor to examine them.

Willy, who had been hungry and contemplating his own lunch, even though it
was more than likely to be wurst again, sighed and took the account ledger
in to her.

There was no critical inspection, he stood quietly at the table whilst Herr
Hahn merely glanced at the totals and looked grave.

"You are the sole owner of Ravenskopf now, but that is hardly a blessing,"
he told Fraulein Dietz, "Your financial situation is dire, and despite
everything I do for you, a dose of good fortune will be needed for you to
avoid bankruptcy."

Celina Dietz stared straight into his face and waved a dismissive hand at
the accounts. "That stuff is already out of date. My good friend Herr
Strasser has arranged on my behalf a substantial grant from the Reich
Military Orphan's Fund. It will pay off my debts and still stand me in
stead for my plan."

"Your plan? Do you mean your idea that Ravenskopf can be converted into a
hotel?"

"I prefer to call it a Recuperation Centre, a place of recreation for weary
senior military officers." She flashed a glance at Willy. "You will have an
avalanche of invoices to deal with soon. Teams of workmen will be arriving
any day now to begin the necessary renovation and conversion."

She then continued to Herr Hahn, "War can be an exhausting experience and I
have no doubt that many officers will spend at least some of their furlough
here before returning to their wives and girlfriends. Ravenskopf will have
first-class accommodation and be staffed on a par with the best hotels. I
already own a good cellar, laid down by my grandfather and hardly
touched. There is a good park for gentlemen to take the air, and fine
hunting in the woods around. The Great Hall I shall have refurbished as a
restaurant and each evening it will feature a spectacular floorshow with
lots of pretty girls and boys."

Her glance swung once more to Willy. "I shall be engaging other people here
shortly. Not just pussy-boys as I have at the moment, but real girls
too. When we open our doors for business there will be a need to cater for
every taste."

She threw another look of distaste at the accounts. "The paperwork I give
you will eventually not be sufficient to fill all your time, so when
everything is up and running I will expect you to take part in entertaining
my clients."

That revelation was received in horror by Willy Froehlich. "Fraulein Dietz,
I'm not a prostitute. I'm not even a show business person like Loti and
Rosalyn."

Fraulein Dietz's eyes glowered with temper and she banged her fist on the
table. "I will not tolerate you speaking to me in that way. What would you
have me do? Allow you to live here as an ornament? You need the company of
men just as much as the others do. Eduard is gone and it's no use you
sitting around waiting for some other prince charming to find you and carry
you away.  Fascinated by books and art as you are, perhaps you would settle
for a university professor, but you are so picky I expect you would soon
find fault with him too.

"Don't be so prim and pompous. Whilst you remain at Ravenskopf you will do
whatever I wish. It is exactly the air of unspoilt innocence about you that
will make you popular, and I'm unwilling to ignore it. If you are
inexperienced, well, like everything else in life, one can learn. Either
that or you can be an artist. You can leave and die of consumption in a
stinking garret somewhere."

Otto Hahn leaned back easily in his chair and smiled. He had once been
warned off in no uncertain terms by Eduard in his fancy for Willy, but with
the brother of Celina Dietz now safely tucked away in another world he
foresaw a clear field ahead for himself.

Afterwards, as he was leaving, he threw Willy a leery grin and openly ogled
him from the doorway.

"Patience really does have its reward, doesn't it Willy?" he gloated. "When
Fraulein Dietz puts you on her stall I shall be first in line to taste what
a succulent little cherub like you has to offer. Don't worry about not
knowing too much. I shall take keen pleasure in teaching you how to be a
first-class slut."

He leaned down with the intention of plastering a fat wet kiss on Willy's
cheek, but Willy instinctively ducked and had to endure the feel of teeth
colliding with the top of his head.

Progress on converting Ravenskopf into a residential hotel went faster then
anyone expected. By late summer, there was an army of carpenters, painters,
glaziers and builders hard at work, and Willy was kept busy with paperwork
while all the time feeling deep discontent. Time slid by, October became
November and the bright weather showed no sign of giving way to the sleet
and gales of early winter.

The prospect of being pressed into being a bed companion to anyone who
fancied him depressed Willy, and as the work on the house neared completion
he made a decision to risk abandoning the security of its walls and make a
return to the outside world.

Having no money of his own when he decided to leave it was to Loti and
Rosalyn he turned. He knew that the men they went with frequently gave them
gratuities; sometimes only trinkets or items of underwear, but sometimes
small gifts of money too.

The following evening he made his decision known to his two friends. He
found Loti practising a tap-dance routine and clearly hoping to have a
prominent role in the up and coming floorshows, while Rosalyn was seated at
a dressing table, trying on junk jewellery and peering forward at the
mirror to smooth his eyebrows, stretching his mouth to apply a swathe of
lipstick.

"But where will you go?" Rosalyn asked in consternation.

"I'll go back to Heidelberg," he told them; "I have friends at the
university, and amongst them is sure to be someone who will take me in. All
I need is the price of a ticket to get me there."

Quite apart from stumping up the price for his train journey Loti and
Rosalyn went through their own closets to find something for him to wear,
and they came up with a long blue skirt, a black blouse that could be worn
a couple of times without any need to be washed, a sweater and a pair of
woollen gloves. They made available also a pair of stout shoes and some new
peach satin underwear trimmed in lace that had been given to them.

When Fraulein Dietz left the house one day to go and purchase new
furnishings for the Great Hall he departed soon after her, walking the four
miles into the town to take the train to Breslau, where he could catch a
connecting service to Heidelberg.

He wore a cloche style hat and a rather shabby loden coat over the items
that had been given to him, and he had only the barest essentials with him
carried in a small, battered suitcase

At the ticket window at the station he fumbled for money while the ticket
seller stared at him through the metal grating. She had a round face that
looked bored, squatting on a thick neck. "Where do you wish to go?"

Willy heard the rumble of a train coming from the east, and he thrust his
hand forward. "A ticket for Heidelberg."

The woman looked impatient. "Any five stations five deuchtmarks second
class, three for third class."

"How much is first class?"

"There is only second and third."

"Third then."

She shook her head and ripped out a ticket, and Willy raced along the
platform.

He was quiet as he got on the train, calmed by the prospect of his journey,
but later, as the landscape passed by and other steam trains thundered in
the opposite direction he dwelt on what he was leaving behind. Tears rolled
down his cheeks on account of some good memories he retained; his
friendship with Loti and Rosalyn for instance, and the love he had known
from Eduard. Now he imagined himself being a lonely old lady one day --
feminine terms of reference were not uncommon to him by then -- in a room
somewhere, with no friends and no visitors. In the children's books he had
once read, all the endings were happy endings, and only the wicked people
received their just desserts. He knew that this was not a fate reserved for
the wicked, he knew too that he was not a wicked person, but only one whose
instincts made him want to escape and exchange isolation for an intolerable
situation.

Then he slept, and an old woman in the same compartment had to wake him
up. She knew he had to change trains at Bahnhof Breslau. Willy thanked her
politely and caught the connecting service.

As the railway bore him further westward he found himself growing
increasingly doubtful. He may have sounded confident about his plans when
talking with Loti and Rosalyn, but, truth be told, he wasn't at all sure
what he would find when he reached his destination.

He arrived in the university town late in the evening and having nowhere to
go directly had to settle for spending the night in the station waiting
room, and when he glanced out of the window after midnight he saw the first
snowflakes of winter falling.

The next morning he totted up the remains of his money and reckoned he just
had enough to buy breakfast, but decided to hang onto it until he was more
certain of his circumstances. He walked to the university and asked the
porter on one of the gates about some people he had once known well.  Most
of them had joined the army he was told, and the rest the man didn't know
about, but he was sure they were no longer students there.

Willy felt petulant at still seeing young men entering the campus.

"So many people are still allowed to come here." he murmured aloud.

"Not much room left for the arty-farty crowd anymore though," the porter
told him, "Germany still needs scientists and engineers, and it needs
educated men to fill places in the military academies. But there is no
place for slackers now; everyone that comes here must agree to do military
training at weekends, and to go into the countryside to help with the
harvest in the summer."

Willy sighed. But for the war he could have been studying art in Paris or
Rome by now. His mother was quite well off and would probably have indulged
him if he'd remained in favour with her.

Discouraged and apprehensive he went back into the town, crossed the river
via the Alte Bridge and began wandering the less affluent area of Neuenheim
where students who didn't live on the campus had a habit of finding
lodgings. He had no idea how long he walked, his feet became numb with
cold, his back ached and his head buzzed, but he walked. Snow was coming
down in good earnest now and the wind had risen, howling eerily round the
corners of the buildings.

He knocked on a number of doors but was given no information about anyone
he had previously known. He began to feel very hungry, but he had so little
money he knew he would have to go without for food for a while if he
intended to have a bed that night.

A ravenous appetite sent his plans crashing when he surrendered to spending
half his money on a hot potato from a street vendor.

Time passed quickly and the failing light of late afternoon startled him
with the prospect of having to spend a night sleeping out in the open, and
by then the snow was beginning to settle. The eastern sky was bright orange
and people were walking past him gritting their teeth as they hurried
through the cold to reach their homes.

His mind flitted to the ache of hunger still in his belly, then back to the
snow on the pavement, now three inches deep.

He reached a small parade of shops and swung in towards them. Wiping his
face on his sleeve he looked at his reflection in a window. It was
increasingly cold -- the worlds cold skin stretching to breaking point, and
he knew his nose must have looked as red as a tomato.

There was a grocer and a second hand clothes shop, and a bookshop. Some
used books lay on a table beneath an awning outside the bookshop and Willy
paused as he always did when confronted by the printed word. His breath
came in thick plumes, his nostrils tingling with the chill, and he could
hardly bring himself to examine the titles on offer.

"Why not have a book. It will cost you no more than a few pfennigs." said a
voice.

The remark was made by a man who was standing at the open door of the
shop. He was obviously the owner, soberly dressed in a dreary three-piece
suit and a brown bow-tie. His ruddy features, despite carrying a neatly
trimmed white beard and the hair of an old man, were curiously unlined, as
if neither smiles nor frowns ever visited their indifference.

"A few pfennigs is all that I have to keep me from starving." he replied
somewhat mournfully, and then he added with a tinge of hope, "Do you need
any help in the shop? I'll sweep the floor for you if you'll let me sleep
on it afterwards."

The man uttered a noise, something between a grunt and a moan. "Homeless
and desperate are you? I can sympathise with that. Come inside for a
moment."

Willy followed behind as he went inside. The walls of the little shop were
lined with shelves of books and as a rule books gave him a feeling of
comfort, but at that moment he remained apprehensive and stayed close to
the door, his cheeks flushed, and his eyes wide and staring like those of a
frightened child.

"Who are you, and why are you tramping the streets?" the man asked
pointedly.

Willy looked away from his face. He was pleasant enough, he liked the gold
chain on his waistcoat and he liked his tone of concern too. "I'm Willy
Froehlich. I-er- I've been thrown out of the place I lived before and the
people I hoped would take me in aren't living around here any longer."

The man surveyed the girl he had invited into his shop with a keen
eye. Despite her being muffled up to the chin he could tell from the abrupt
slope of her shoulders that there wasn't an ounce of excess fat on her
anywhere. She had a broad, determined forehead, high cheekbones and a small
mouth, down-curved, ready for anger or disappointment. Thick blond hair
swept across her forehead and was pinned up at the back. She was of small
stature, almost like a child, and that curried the paternal instinct in
him.

"Are you a National Socialist?" he asked.

"No, I don't belong to any political party."

"That can sometimes be a disadvantage." he said, "However, if you're not in
a hurry to go elsewhere I have a spare room and I can give you a bed and
food in return for some help in the shop. There are other things I wish to
do quite apart from selling books."

When he saw Willy pouting thoughtfully he added. "Don't worry about me
having lecherous intentions. I'm old and quite incapable of taking
advantage of you. Be sensible. You have no spare meat on your bones, and
without a good layer of lard you could easily freeze to death out in the
street tonight"

Willy hesitated for a moment, and then pushed the hair back from his
forehead. "You haven't even told me who you are."

"I apologise. Sometimes I get out of step with social niceties. I am Felix
Haushofer, and I know all about displacement. For many years I was a
Professor of History at the University of Sonnenburg, but I wasn't the
right flavour for the regime that emerged there. Four years ago I was
summarily discharged from the faculty. Dumped to make way for a Nazi."

He shrugged dismally. "It was nothing unusual. Such things are happening
everywhere these days."

He led the way through the shop and they entered a small sitting room, home
to a cheerful coal fire. It wasn't large, but its heterogeneous mixture of
unassuming antiques and comfortable shabby armchairs, handmade rugs and
books -- there were lots and lots of books -- rendered it pleasant enough. In
an extension there was a gas-ring for cooking and a brick-built boiler,
coal-fired, for washing clothes. Everything needed redecorating.

The man called Felix watched as the girl he had invited in took a series of
tentative steps which reminded him of a kitten sniffing out unfamiliar
territory. Eventually she paused and smiled, satisfied with what she saw.

Later they shared an evening meal of noodles with tinned herrings at a
small table in the same room, and while they ate Felix Haushofer sensed
that the girl was beginning to relax. He noticed how the unshaded single
light bulb in the ceiling caught deep red glints in her hair, and he became
quite serious. "You really are a remarkable young lady, Willy Froehlich."

"I am?" Willy asked, hoping not to hear that his host had already
penetrated his disguise as a female. "I think you are the remarkable one,
to take me in off the street as you have. After all, you don't really know
who I am, do you?"

The man chuckled. "I'm quite good at identifying people I can trust. Would
you like anything to finish your meal?" he asked, "I have no real coffee
I'm afraid. The British naval blockade deprives most people of real coffee
and I can only afford ersatz, the substitute stuff."

Willy said he'd prefer tea, if he had any. "I don't understand anything
anymore. The British were beaten along with the French last year and they
are now alone and without allies. Why do they insist on pursuing a war they
cannot win?"

Felix Haushofer chewed his lip as if it were an instinctive habit. "My
guess is they just don't trust Hitler, and they're frightened he will
inflict fascism upon them if they make peace. After all, a fascist
government was at the heart of the terms he demanded for not occupying the
area of Vichy France." He rattled his cup with a spoon. "The English have
only a small army, but they are strong on the oceans. Strong enough to deny
Germans their coffee."

He looked at Willy again, and this time gave a little shrug. "I don't know
too much about this war. I don't have any interest in it. I expect the
British have their own excuses for continuing."

"Excuses don't count. War is bad." Willy proclaimed stoutly.

He caught a quick gleam in the old man's eyes at that moment, as if he
wanted to elaborate on that simple statement, but was guarding himself
against doing so.

"I agree, Willy Froehlich. War is bad." was all he said.

Willy found his bed that night to be in a small closet room that was itself
yet another bookstore. All kinds of books, piled to the ceiling, surrounded
him on every side. But that didn't prevent him from sleeping like a dead
person that night.

The following morning he set to work with a vengeance in order to earn his
keep, dusting things and straightening them, sorting the books into neater
arrangements on the shelves and organising a centre piece of choice items
to catch the eye of people peeping in through the door.

The weather had turned quite bitter even when off the open street, and Herr
Haushofen provided a portable paraffin heater to give the shop a little
welcoming comfort. The stove brought a number of people through the door
just to reap the benefit of it, but just as the crafty shop-owner had
suspected many of them ended up buying something.

A pale faced young soldier bearing the rank of Captain on the shoulders of
his greatcoat was one that came through the door. He didn't smile at Willy
as men usually did, in fact he didn't seem to see him at all. He warmed his
hands by the stove then went along the shelves, selected a book, glanced at
the contents and then put it back. Then he took another, opened it and
studied it briefly.

After a few minutes he closed the book and brought it across to where Willy
stood.

"Can I help you, Herr Hauptman?" Willy asked.

The soldier still made no effort to smile, although he was vividly Aryan
and would have looked quite handsome if he'd made the attempt. But his face
remained grey and gaunt. "This book is about the American Civil War." he
said.

Willy glanced at the dustcover and nodded. "Yes. It is in excellent
condition and for sale at a fair price."

The man placed the book on the countertop and slapped some money down on
it.

"I buy it for you." he said.

Leaving the book in place and saying nothing more he then swiftly strode
out from the shop.

Willy put the money into the cash register, then curiosity had the better
of him and he opened the book that had been left laying there. On the first
page there was nothing but a caption written by a young soldier of long ago
to introduce the rest of the contents, and it was clear that the grey-faced
Captain had just ringed it with his own red pencil. It read:

"War is not play. It is not pleasure. It is not sport under the greenwood
trees. It is a savage encounter with desperate adversaries who deal death
and grievous wounds."

Willy was under no illusion as to what that red pencil mark was intended to
mean. It was that mysterious army officer's way of expressing his personal
feelings; feelings that would have been derided and may even have proved
dangerous to him if he'd expressed them in any other way.

Herr Haushofer smiled with satisfaction when he was cashing-up at the end
of the week. "It appears that I made a sound business judgement when I
involved you here, Willy. The sale of books as increased considerably since
you took a place behind the shop counter. Clearly people enjoy being served
by someone with a pretty face rather than the grim old one that I own."

He encountered the man's gaze again and fidgeted under it, although his
voice was kind enough. "I do my best for you Herr Haushofer."

"You do more than is required. Your enthusiasm for books spills over and
becomes infectious, and you never seem stuck for a comment on any
subject. Customers like that kind of chatter when they are spending money."

Later he explained he wished Willy to become used to running the shop alone
occasionally, to allow him to devote more time to the meetings of the local
Teutonic History Society, which he had agreed could assemble in his sitting
room.

***

Felix Haushofer made tea with a flourish, raising and lowering the kettle
as the stream of water splashed onto the mint leaves packed into the bottom
of a glass.

"My tea ritual," he said with a smile, and then ..."Merde!" he cursed when
he scalded his hand.

"Ah! You are polite enough to loose your temper in a foreign language."
observed Willy as he forced the man's hand beneath the cold water tap.

"I can shout oaths in a dozen languages." fumed Felix.

"Many coarse seamen can do the same, but can you speak sense in any?"

"Yes, I speak French and English fluently and I can manage some
conversation in Italian too. Have you ever wished to speak another
language?"

"My father, when he was alive, insisted that I should learn another
language. I chose English because I found it the easiest. But when he died
my mother stopped the lessons. She said it was an unnecessary
extravagance."

Felix nodded thoughtfully. "When we have cleared away our meal tonight, I
think we should continue your lessons. When Hitler makes his peace with
England there will be increasing work for English-German interpreters, and
you could find yourself with better work than you have here."

And thereafter Willy had something else to occupy his time in the evenings.

Over the weeks he soon became used to the number of people belonging to The
Historical Society who walked through the shop and went straight into see
Herr Haushofer in the sitting room. He came to know some of them by
name. There was Frau Ritter, Herr Ohlendorf, Herr Vockbruck and a skinny,
middle-aged spinster called Fraulein Hottl. There were others too. The men
drank beer, but never became drunk, while the women took their knitting as
if they were going on a picnic.

In late 1940, Hitler postponed his proposed invasion of the British Isles
and instead he impatiently turned to the east and the vast expanses of
territory he had always coveted there. In June 1941, having conquered
Greece and Yugoslavia, and with the armies of Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria
as obedient chattels, he unleashed Operation Barbarossa; the invasion of
Soviet Russia.

On a line from the Baltic to the Black Sea the Wehrmacht relentlessly
stormed forward.

During the early part of that year Willy lived unobtrusively in Heidelberg
in the guise of a woman, but he was no female slave. He kept the place
where he lived and worked clean, but Felix Haushofer always cooked their
meals and helped with washing the dishes afterwards, and he also helped
with the laundry when it needed to be done. He was sweet-natured,
undemanding man, and seemed genuinely interested in helping him through an
awkward phase of life. Willy was grateful to him for his kindness, which he
had not expected from someone so generally at ease, but he felt no desire
to know him more intimately. All physical feelings belonged to his
knowledge of Eduard, to memories of his glorious naked figure striding
unselfconsciously round the bedroom at Ravenskopf.

A number of men who came into the shop flirted with him and he often
flirted back, but he maintained a life of celibacy. Homosexuality was
considered an unnatural sexual deviance everywhere, and would warrant
imprisonment, and there were disturbing stories being whispered around that
in some parts of Hitler's Germany sexual deviants and feeble-minded people
were being given lethal injections as part of a racial cleansing programme.

He concentrated on work and from it drew the bonus of learning. The range
of books in the shop covered every imaginable subject and gave him the
chance to keep abreast with the studies he had started at university, and
he also took very seriously the language lessons with Herr Haushofer each
evening.

On Sundays the shop never opened, and Herr Haushofer allowed Willy to spend
the whole day to do as he wished. Willy always took him at his word and one
day in June after they had taken lunch, he went down to the Neckar and
walked along the path by the river that he's so often walked in the
past. The bell in the spire of the church of the Holy Spirit tolled crystal
clear over the water. The summer sunshine was cool that day so he thrown a
shawl over the top of the blue dress he was wearing and he had put on a
broad brimmed hat.

The river bank was a familiar place to him and conjured up many memories of
his early days as a student. Things had been much freer in those heady,
sunny days. None of those in his social group had cared about what was
legal or illegal. They pleased themselves like buccaneers and took their
pleasure where they found it.

Willy too had been quite shameless. Drawn by his good looks and his
effeminate ways a good many handsome youths had courted him. It had been a
time of experimentation, and he had discovered that he enjoyed the taste of
men. He enjoyed their attention and he enjoyed having sex with them. He had
allowed a great many of them to use him in their beds, and some of his
tutors had taken advantage of his generosity too.

Being effeminate at heart he had always been a bottom; always a receiver
rather than a giver, but as time went on he had become increasingly choosey
about who he went with. Exasperated by the frailty of casual sex he had
sought out relationships that provided elements of true affection and
commitment.

That had been an exercise that had culminated in his affair with Eduard,
and after a year, only now was he beginning to overcome the loss of that
man.

Head down and lost in his thoughts he was humming to himself as he strolled
along. Most other people were lounging on the grass away from the river and
he had the path to himself. A sound behind him made him glance up, and he
was startled when a tall young man came striding briskly past, going in the
same direction he was. He went by with such a rush that Willy took a step
sideways, stumbled, and for a moment felt he was about to go hurtling into
the water.

The man's hand reached out and caught him before he toppled. "I'm so
sorry. I didn't intend to knock you over."

He looked instantly apologetic and concerned, and Willy noticed he was
astonishingly good looking. Tall, fair, with eyes the colour of his own and
he had long powerful arms and athletic shoulders. He kept a firm hold on
him as he spoke, and Willy asked him to let go so he could straighten his
hat. While he did that he gave the stranger a surreptitious glance from
under his eyelashes. He looked older than he was himself, and he was
wearing a dark blue suit and a red necktie, and on his head he wore a brown
trilby pulled over at a rakish angle.

"It was silly of me. I didn't see you soon enough to get out of your way."
he said.

The man smiled. He looked sympathetic and kind. "It was entirely my
fault. I shouldn't have been in such a tearing hurry. Are you all right?
Would you like to sit down for a moment?" He pointed to a bench near them
that offered a good view of the river.

The stranger was treating him with the same kind of polite attention he
would offer to a girl, and Willy was susceptible to that sort of thing. The
prospect of sitting next to him was appealing, and he saw no harm in
sitting and chatting for a while before they went their separate ways. Just
for a little while anyway. Although he realised that the young gentleman,
who was clearly very well off, would probably throw up his hands and scream
if he realised he was associating with a cross-dresser.

He let the man lead him to the bench and sit beside him with a respectful
distance between.

"I'm Viktor Schacht," he said, "My father owns an iron foundry in Mannheim
but he keeps his family here -- you know, away from the smoke."

"You are very lucky. Heidelberg is a delightful place to live. My name is
Wilhelmina Froehlich, but everyone calls me Willy. I moved here recently
from Silesia, but I'm nothing special. Just a shop assistant."

The man grinned and purred. "Hmm, I think Willy Froehlich is probably a
very special shop assistant."

Willy couldn't help but laugh. The man's way with a girl was wonderfully
undergraduate, and though he was obviously middle-class there were no airs
or pretensions about him. He seemed completely at ease talking with a shop
girl.

With his mind in slight disarray Willy gazed at the river; deep and wide. A
white paddleboat with a tall black funnel was wending its way upstream, and
on the opposite bank, in the oldest parts of the town, great spreading
poinciana were breaking out in sumptuous orange-red blossom, the radiant
colour enhanced by bright green fronds and the intense blue of the
sky. Everything, the water, the trees, the paddleboat and the old
buildings, shimmered in the soft luminosity of the afternoon. It was a
lovely scene with the great bulk of an old castle set on the hillside as a
backdrop.

He gave the stranger a long hard look, and received a long hard look in
return.

"Are you married, Herr Schacht?" he asked.

"You must call me Viktor," he said. "No, I'm not married. My family would
like me to marry, of course. They expect me to take over my fathers
business eventually and do things in the time honoured style. I've thought
about it a few times, but I've never felt it was the right thing to do. I
don't want to make the mistake of settling with the wrong woman. That would
only lead to a life of misery for everyone."

"Are you not likely to be taken for the army?"

Viktor shook his head. "No, I oversee the iron-ore imports from Sweden on
behalf of my fathers firm. The production of iron is of vital importance to
the Third Reich at this time.

"Look, I would enjoy making amends for the rough way I treated you
earlier. Would you like to have tea?" he suggested.

Willy's eyes lit up at the idea. "That would be nice, thank you."

He led him onto the terrace of a nearby hotel where they were serving tea,
and where elegant women were sitting together and chatting and
prosperous-looking couples were eating little sandwiches and speaking in
hushed tones.

They shared a proper high tea and finally, unable to drag things out any
longer, Viktor walked Willy into the lobby, and stood looking down at the
girl he had encountered on the river bank. She seemed tiny and appeared
fragile to him, but in fact after talking to her, he knew she was spirited
and more than capable of defending her own ideas. She had strong opinions
about some things, and so far he agreed with most of them. He found her
incredibly exciting and breathtakingly beautiful. He didn't wish to leave
her and he would have lingered if he had not made previous arrangements to
meet his family for dinner. But he knew he had to see her again.

"I love talking to you." he said.

Willy smiled shyly at him." I like talking to you."

They stood in silence for a moment longer, and then Viktor said. "Would you
have lunch with me sometime?" he looked hopeful, because he longed to touch
her hand but didn't dare. Even more he would have loved to touch her
face. She had exquisite skin.

"I'm working most of the time, except of course for Sundays. I could meet
you here, by the river."

"No, no. I shall collect you. Where is the shop that uses you so hard?"

"If you insist in collecting me, you should call at the bookshop on
Dresdener Allee."

They were suddenly allies in an unspoken conspiracy, the continuation of a
friendship, or whatever it was. Willy knew that Viktor had been flirting
with him and he realised that he had been flirting back, but he just hoped
they could be friends too. He didn't dare imagine more, but he wanted to
know more about him. He wanted to know where he lived and what his home was
like, what food he enjoyed and if his parents were still alive.

When he wandered the streets on his way back to the bookshop, Willy
realised he felt happier than he had done for a long time. Since Eduard had
died, he thought. His mind lingered on the man he had recently met, and he
imagined that the world was not such a dismal place after all.

***

Willy was not prepared for the reaction of Herr Haushofer when he mentioned
his meeting with Viktor, and how they had spoken for a short while and had
planned lunch for the following Sunday. It came as a surprise. In the time
they had been together the old man had begun to look upon him as a
daughter, and now he began showing the concern of a fussing mother hen.

"Lunch with a total stranger?" he looked horrified and highly suspicious at
the idea.

He was not as innocent as Willy, and he knew a man loitering on the river
bank could be nothing more than a lecher, trying to prey on young girls. He
was incensed that the man had made advances to her, and even worse that
Willy seemed to find him appealing. It only proved that the youthful person
lodging with him was desperately naïve and still a child. And he assumed
only the worst of the man called Viktor.

"What were you doing that he invited you for lunch?" he asked.

"I tripped and was in danger of falling into the river. Viktor was very
gallant and saved me. He gave me tea at the hotel and we talked, about
nothing in particular. He was very polite."

"How old is he? What is he doing here instead of in the war?"

"He's not an old man, and he lives here; he works for his father in the
iron industry." Willy said primly.

The old man's suspicions took on a new slant as he absorbed that
information. "Iron industry! This man, is his name Schacht?"

"Yes, how could you guess that?"

The eyes of Felix met Willy's and held them for a moment. He wondered if
the silly girl had met him before and not told him, but no, there was
nothing duplicitous about her. She was simply young and foolish.

"The Schacht family are wealthy and well known in Heidelberg. They are high
profile Nazi's." he said reproachfully.

"I didn't know that," Willy said a little tartly, "But it's not a crime in
Germany to be a Nazi. And anyway, we didn't discuss politics. Viktor was
just a perfectly nice man, and I would still like to have lunch with him."

Of course Willy Froehlich would have his way, and eventually, in spite of
his misgivings, the old man relented and removed his objections.

As the week progressed the importance of the following Sunday began to grow
in Willy's mind. Frequently, when there were no customers in the shop, he
would step outside to gaze into the window of Frau Gruber's second-hand
clothes shop next door, where a pretty red dress was on display. Everything
else in his life seemed so dreary and colourless when he looked at it, and
he wanted to own that dress and to try it on. He wanted to wear it for his
date with Viktor.

After his language lesson in the evening he tried out his powers of
persuasion.

"Herr Haushofer, you have been very generous and shown me nothing but
consideration since I've been here. You feed me and give me shelter, but
sometimes -- just sometimes, I would like to buy things, and I have no
money."

The old man frowned, perhaps prodded by a touch of conscience. "You are
quite right in reminding me how parsimonious I have been in not allowing
you any kind of wage. I shall put that right in the future. Is there some
special item you wish to purchase right away?"

Willy rose up and hugged him, and he grinned, because he knew he knew he
was going to have his dress.

On taking receipt of it he saw at once that the hem needed to be taken up,
so he went to work. He was not a gifted seamstress, but he had learnt
sewing as a child. A girl had taught him how to do it when she had found
him admiring illustrations of Paris gowns in a magazine, so he wasn't a
complete novice. He became so confident in what he was doing that he even
sewed tiny pleats over the bust and tacked them down. In the end the pretty
red dress fitted to perfection on his narrow waist and the skirt was a
gentle bell that clung to his slender legs in clean, simple lines.

It was while he was trying to gain a little space and organisation in his
bedroom among the mountains of literature stacked there that he came upon a
neatly tied pile of newssheets. They were recent reprints of an old liberal
magazine called, Die Weltbuhne -- `World Stage' - published by the notorious
pacifist Carl von Ossietzky.

Willy's pulse lurched. He knew enough history to know Hitler hated that
man. He had imprisoned him until tuberculosis caused his death.

"You shouldn't keep such things here." he told Felix when he next saw
him. "They are illegal and if the wrong person discovered them it would
mean trouble for you."

"They are just magazines." protested the old man.

Willy was not convinced of his complete innocence. "I've noticed when
`Deutschland uber alles' plays on the wireless you always switch it
off. Those people you invite here -- The Historical Society -- They are not
history students at all, are they? You've formed a subversive organisation
opposed to Hitler.

Felix sighed. The girl was looking surprisingly determined. At times she
seemed almost childlike to him, and at other times, as she spoke to him, he
could tell she had very definite ideas, like about art, and education, and
war.

"Please understand that none of us who assemble here are subversives." he
said, "We are pacifists, and we know we are powerless in this day and
age. We meet only to give each other strength and comfort and to carry in
some small way the brightness of peace into the future."

He placed an arm on Willy's shoulder. "Let me try and explain to you the
way I see things. When people are born blind, they do not see blackness,
they see, literally nothing. No colour, no texture, they are not even aware
of a shade. There is a danger such a thing could happen with those born to
war. They will not know any other way of life if they have never
experienced it; therefore we must preserve the idea of peace and ensure it
is not lost to them. That is important, isn't it?

"There is nothing else we can do I'm afraid. We've seen it all happen. The
silencing of the unions, the brutality -- the knives and iron pipes -- the
politics of the streets. Now we can only put our faith in kindness, and
compassion as no political party."

Willy allowed a grudging nod. He had a sudden vision of the man as perhaps
he saw himself, as a sort of crusader, striding through the world try to
save civilisation from its own evil. "At least get rid of the magazines."
he said. "They are a danger to you."

"No, I can't do that." Felix insisted, "They are our sustenance and we will
not do without them. Despite Hitler's persecution the man who published
them was no skittle to be knocked over easily. He has become an
international figure of great influence and an inspiration to peace
movements everywhere. He is our source of hope. He is our guiding star."

As midday on Sunday approached, Willy appeared in the sitting room looking
very regal in his red dress, with a handsome string of pearls around his
neck, and small diamonds in his ears; borrowed, curtsey of Herr Haushofer's
late wife. He had also managed to borrow a little black bolero jacket with
chic square-cut shoulders, and to top the whole thing off, a perky little
black hat with a feather in it.

And velvet gloves. No self-respecting girl ever went on a date without
gloves if she could help it.

Herr Haushofer smiled his approval. "Take a key with you. I shall be out
myself for the rest of the day, and I won't be home till late."

Willy waited for half an hour after the old man had gone, then there was
the honk of a car horn outside, and when he looked he saw that Viktor had
called to collect him in a taxi.

"My, my! How vivacious and elegant you look today." the man enthused, "Just
the right image for making an appearance at the Bergdorf. Come along, we
must hurry, we are already late."

"The Bergdorf?" queried Willy as he clambered in beside him.

"Yes, we are going to the Pension Bergdorf for lunch. My mother and my
sister Rita are there, and I wish to introduce you to them."

Willy's hands flew to his face.

"Don't be alarmed. I've told them that I'm bringing a young lady to
lunch. They are expecting you and wish to meet you. I'm certain they will
at once fall in love with you."

Willy groaned inwardly. He knew he was not in for a cosy meal but an
interrogation by Viktor's female relatives, and women in general were very
adept at identifying fraudulent impersonation of their own gender. Despite
his smooth features and the mild piquancy of his voice he knew he would
have a tough job to remain undiscovered, and even if he escaped exposure,
as highborn citizens of Heidelberg they were going to want to know
everything about him. They would poke and pry until he made a slip that
would identify him as not being the right quality of person to be in their
company, and that must mean he would lose Viktor as a friend.

It took only ten minutes to reach the hotel in a taxi. Once inside Viktor
led the way across a richly carpeted foyer and into the dining room.

The Bergdorf, a hotel that was one of the swankiest places in the district
was much too splendid for Willy's comfort. It was a place of white marble
columns, potted palms and red banquettes, lavishly moustached elderly
waiters and tables jammed with men in Prussian field-grey displaying the
black and white tunic ribbons of the Iron Cross. The soldiers were all
shouting and flirting and calling for more wine. There were other men there
in morning suits, and women, eyelashes fluttering like fans, with short
hair and knee-length skirts, wearing lipstick and smoking cigarettes.

Viktor's mother and sister were already seated at a table and Willy
assessed the older woman first. Her face looked serious and startlingly
pale, but she was beautifully dressed in purple. She was wearing black
suede shoes. Her suede gloves were obviously hand-made and she was wearing
an impressive emerald necklace.

The younger woman, Rita, was very pretty and seemed very fashion conscious
and chic. Unabashedly Willy took inventory of her short black hair, her
smooth triangular face, and the thick dark eyebrows that shadowed her very
brown eyes. She was slightly older then himself, he thought, and was
clearly so accustomed to being noticed that she herself was no longer aware
of it.

They were just finishing their soup course when they arrived and the older
woman looked up with an expression of displeasure, but Viktor cleverly
managed to get in first words.

"I apologise for being late, mother. I was delayed in collecting Wilhelmina
from her home. Please forgive me."

He clicked his heels as young men of the higher classes sometimes still
did, and he bowed politely and kissed her hand. Quite correctly, he did not
make the same gesture to his sister, as she was unmarried, and hand kissing
was a courtesy only offered to married women.

"Louis XVIII once said that punctuality is the politeness of kings." the
older of the two women said, scowling. She was bent over the table sucking
aggressively at her soup, holding her spoon with short, thick fingers to
scoop up the pieces of eel, which she was consuming without any pretence of
genteel grace.

Viktor gave Rita a small bow and a smile, and then turned his attention
back to his mother. "Those Frenchmen! Always so quick to corner we Germans
with their quotations, but always finding it tough to stand up to us in a
fight."

He was humorous, so polite, so solicitous, so ingenuous and so warm and
kind the woman didn't have the heart to rebuff him when he formally
introduced Willy.

Rita glanced at her watch. "The meal will be here in a moment," she said,
"We took the liberty of ordering -- I hope you don't mind, it's better if
they are given time."

Willy spent the whole meal looking dazed and feeling tortured. He went
through the motions of eating as if in a dream. But he managed to tell
funny stories about his family and his last summer holiday with them in
Baden-Baden, sedate family walks along the Lichtenthalerallee, and how they
took coffee in the Casino gardens where the orchestra played. All that was
true. And he described his family's property as that of Ravenskopf in Upper
Silesia with estates that stretched to the Oder, which was untrue but
sounded impressive, and he hoped it would be too far away and be too
obscure to be known by anyone there. He told them that at present he was
taking a holiday with his uncle. He didn't make any slips, and he made no
romantic overtures to Viktor, and there was nothing sneaky or sleazy about
him.

Viktor's mother listened but said little. As far as she was concerned he
was just a very nice girl on a vacation, and her son was drawn to very nice
girls. She was more interested in consuming her food than anything
else. His sister Rita didn't question his story in any great detail either,
she gave off an unmistakable aura of privilege and she was plainly wrapped
up with the importance of her own life.

"Holidays are such wonderful events, but the war as ruined them for us."
she complained, "We usually go to Switzerland; the Alps are beautiful at
this time of year, and father as many friends in Zurich and Geneva. But
this year we shall have to settle for Vienna."

"That's good," the older woman interjected, wiping her lips with a napkin,
"The Viennese make delicious pastries."

A piano somewhere began playing what sounded like the Parisian boites,
bouncy, almost march-like music, and a crowd of SS officers came in
dripping with insignia -- skulls and axes -- chins held high, girlfriends
hanging on their arms. Only on their left arms, their right arms they kept
free for heilhitlering each other. Suddenly the Bergdorf was a Nazi heaven.

Directly after the meal, much to Willy's relief, Viktor ordered a taxi. But
he didn't take Willy directly home. He had the taxi drop them at the river
bank where they had first met so they could walk the rest of the way.

"Thank you for coming to lunch, you were so nice to my mother and sister."
he said.

Still flummoxed by the strain of the event Willy gave him a mild
reprimand. "You could have warned me that you intended for us to meet
them. I was quite taken by surprise. And I don't think we should see each
other again. I don't belong to the same class of people as you."

He snorted. He had a devils smile and the eyes to go with it. "To hell with
class! I take company with whom I wish. My mother as become quite used to
that. I'm sorry if I embarrassed you by insisting that you meet them, but
appearances are only of secondary importance to my family. Being a Nazi is
the vital element." he glanced sideways. "Are you National Socialist,
Willy?"

The question seemed a very serious one for Viktor, and Willy, caught off
guard, fumbled for a positive reply. "Um, well, I think I am, but I've yet
to become a Party Member. So many things need to be sorted in my mind. Do
you believe it make good sense to make war with Russia?"

"Naturally," said Viktor. He was gazing out over the river but there was no
trace of doubt in his voice. His reply was very positive. "If the Fuehrer
has decided it to be proper, then it makes sense. A great leader always
possesses vision, and the people demand visions."

"It will cause so much devastation, so many deaths and so much grief."

Viktor's gaze returned to Willy, probing for the cause of his
concern. "Yes, of course it will," he conceded, "But whether we like it or
not such things will always be with us. Politicians who claim they can
eradicate them are doomed to duplicity; they cannot help but fail."

He produced a dazzling smile. "Politics is dead, Willy. Can you remember an
election that actually meant something? Before Herr Hitler revealed himself
every year saw clever new pretenders swept into power with a mandate to
revive democracy and make urgent reforms. But what followed? Nothing but
the same tired debates, pointless opposition and old compromises."

"The Fuehrer is all powerful, but didn't someone once say that power
corrupts." Willy replied levelly.

"No," Viktor said gently, "'Absolute power corrupts absolutely'. The Roman
Emperor Tacitus said that centuries ago, but he was wrong. It is democracy
that corrupts, because the very act of begging for votes is a corrupt
practise. Who can respect someone who spends his life toadying to strangers
and asking them to elect him? Napoleon would never have done that."

Willy had never really taken a deep interest in politics. He had always
thought it a subject too devious to understand properly, but he had always
believed he supported the idea of democracy more than anything else. Now,
as Viktor spoke, he found it increasingly difficult to trust his own
judgement. The man was so...what? He was so persuasive.

"I expect I shall join the Party soon." he mumbled. Then in an effort to
hide his uncertainties he changed the subject. "Your mother and sister were
very nice to me. Rita is very beautiful and will no doubt break many men's
hearts."

Viktor agreed. "She will be married before too long, and that will settle
her down. She's more or less in love with someone at the moment and I'm
sure she'll be engaged by the end of the year."

"But no marriage for you, Viktor?"

He reflected. "I enjoy myself too much," he said finally. "I have a young
man's urges that I shall carry into middle age, and I hate the thought of
denying myself."

When they had strolled along Dresdener Allee and had come up level with the
bookshop he smiled wanly. "There are too many important things to do before
I choose marriage." he glanced at Willy thoughtfully. "I was hoping you
would ask me in for coffee."

Willy hesitated, for the first time feeling slight shame at where he
lived. "It's not very plush inside, not what you will be used to."

Totally undaunted Viktor scrutinised the shop front with the carefree gaze
of an adventurer. "Oh, I suppose everything could do with a fresh coat of
paint, but it looks inviting enough. And I expect it's rather cosy inside."

Willy stood beside him offering lavish glances, while the man gazed down at
him with hungry eyes. Something unseen and dangerous sizzled in the air
between them. Willy couldn't see it, but he could feel it. Inside he was
trembling, teetering on a tightrope of sexual excitement.

"We have no real coffee, but we have tea." he said.

He unlocked the door and led him through the shop, and then into the tiny
sitting room. There he paused.

"I can't get involved with you, Viktor. I mean, not intimately. It's not
just the class thing. There are other reasons why I can't get involved."

"Then, you must tell me why." the man demanded. "You're not a Jewess I'm
certain, so stop avoiding it. I don't wish to hurt you, I want to
understand. What is it you can't tell me?"

Willy turned his head away. "It's too complex."

Viktor nodded as if he understood. "I think you are a lost child who cannot
find her way. You have loved before and now love means too much pain. It's
true, isn't it? You did love a man once, didn't you? It's impossible to
hide that; it shines in your eyes." His voice resonated with the emotions
that burned in him. "How can so much love be lost forever? Tell me. I can't
bear not to know."

Willy looked up at him directly. "Yes, I once loved a man desperately. Far
more than anyone can ever understand."

Frantically Viktor shook his head. "And so it didn't work out the way you
wished. Even so, it is important not to dwell on disappointment. You must
overcome it."

Goaded beyond endurance he gave in to the overwhelming impulse to shake
him.

Willy slumped against him and he stopped.

"Oh, Viktor, don't. It's not just the past, there is something else."

Viktor's answer was stark and immediate. He lifted Willy's head, his
fingers hard along his jawbone; his tongue touched his lips and then
pierced his mouth, crushing his mouth beneath his own just as he crushed
the resistance.

"I know all your other secrets. I'm not stupid." he muttered, his mouth
covering every inch of his face and throat. "I know you are not completely
a woman. I've known it since we first met"

The revelation made Willy catch his breath. "And you don't mind?"

Viktor smiled. "Why do you think I'm so reluctant to marry? I'll tell you
why. It's because I prefer people like you."

A gasp of amazement shook Willy. "You know what I am, and you still took me
to see your mother and sister!"

The man chuckled gleefully. "Yes, I'm quite outrageous, aren't I? But there
was no risk of you being discovered. They live in a different world to the
one we inhabit, and it's inconceivable to them that a man could dress up
and live as woman."

Willy turned away. Something in the timbre of his voice touched a nerve
that he didn't want touched and caused a reaction he didn't want
aroused. He surveyed him discreetly, the man who had tricked him and
tricked his own family too. Beautiful, yes, but somehow spoilt by such
childish games. But he was masculine; the word handsome seemed too tepid,
too indefinite. So it was possible; a man could look like a hero, but not
necessarily behave like one. Greek gods are quite misleading, he thought;
statues in museums could easily represent a lie.

When he turned around, Willy's face was close to his and his eyes were
almost shut. His mouth tantalised. Moist, warm and extravagant, and very
soft. They barely touched before he drew away, and for a time they stood
apart, arms by their sides. Then Viktor settled his hands on Willy's hips
and moved towards him.

Without giving any warning his hands smoothed Willy's body, touching his
breasts, enticing his flesh, just as Eduard had touched him in the
past. Willy's recollection of Eduard was vivid, timeless in its power. It
had stayed with him constantly, the angry ecstasy, his sensation of utter
defencelessness. No man had touched him like that since, until
now. Suddenly his body once more craved such wicked caresses.

Behind him he had the hardness of a heavy wooden door, and in front he
suddenly had the hardness that was Viktor. A deep shudder tormented him as
the man started to explore the delicate whorls of his ears, his thumb on
the pulse at the base of his throat.

"Relax with me." Viktor gave voice to a restraint that had tested him. "Be
a woman for me now."

"Up the stairs," Willy urged heatedly, "Herr Haushofer won't return until
the evening."

Halfway up the stairs he asked himself bitterly why, after what he had done
and the tricks he had played he should be ready to comply with him, but the
reaction of his body to the knowledge that he was close behind was of
longing and not rejection.

They went into Herr Haushofer's bedroom because it was more spacious, and
Willy felt a great wave of desire descending on him, deep and towering. He
let Viktor slip the buttons of his dress and cup his breast against a
chemise so thin it might have been a second skin.

"Viktor!" he was seduced into a long trembling sigh. The touch of his hand,
the caressing of his tightly furled nipple, was exquisitely strong and
arousing. He felt the pull of it to his body's core, and he gave a sharp,
electrified moan as his body stiffened.

The man stared down at his upflung face, his full, sensitive mouth faintly
swollen by the violence of his kisses. "Don't stop me." he gritted, his
handsome face full of a terrible frustration. "I may just strangle you. You
deserve it. If you were more desirable you wouldn't be human."

If Willy's mind wasn't yet sure about having a sexual experience at that
moment, his body knew different. It knew, for instance that if he reached
out and touched Viktor the way he was now doing, just the merest brush of
his fingertips, slowly, oh so slowly against the tight bulge he could feel
in his trousers, that instead of leaping away he would draw closer to him.

In his own way Viktor was fighting his own devil. He shouldn't be doing
this. Oh, he shouldn't be doing this, he warned himself. Not with a boy in
a skirt. His mother would be horrified, and his sister would have
hysterics, and his father would disown him. But the mere prospect excited
him, and the provocative touch Willy was subjecting him to, just the slight
brush of delicate fingers against his erection, was more than he could
stand. And it was true that being with a beautiful boy was the kind of
thing he enjoyed most.

Nor did he just wish to touch and taste, he wanted to take that naughty
little cross-dresser primitively as though every layer of civilisation had
been stripped from them both. Hot, urgent, immediate sex -- that was what he
wanted with him. He wanted to fill him and spill a great reservoir of his
seed inside him.

Automatically Willy stepped back. His mind and body were tearing him apart
with the ferocity of the conflicting messages they were sending. He wanted
to go somewhere quiet and dark and stay there until he felt able to cope.

Instead, taking hold of Willy's hands, Viktor pushed him against the wall
and pinned them above his head while his body leaned against him. Willy
could see his expression clearly and a fast, furious surge of shocked
excitement raced through him. He had lost control now. He could see it in
the man's eyes and he could feel it in the way he was grinding his body
against him -- and he loved it.

Willy let his red dress slither to the floor, and as Viktor felt his hips
lift and rise tormentingly against him he knew there was no going
back. Fingers were touching him again, and this time they were tracing his
erection, gauging it -- measuring it?

Suddenly Willy was kneeling on the bed, presenting himself for a man's
pleasure. His chest tightened as an uncertain touch revealed to him just
how much a man Viktor was! When he felt his pants being removed shocked
pleasure surged through him on a riptide.

He weighed next to nothing, and Viktor acknowledged that as he lifted him
into position and plumped up the round contours of his bare bottom. Willy's
face was turned back to him and he could see the bright, aroused glitter of
his eyes and hear the exhalation of his breath.

"Relax and open up for me." he commanded.

Willy knelt forward against the bedpost, his face pressed against the wall.

"I can't believe this." he whispered after the first fit of passion.

"Accept it, darling." Viktor said, upright on his knees behind him.

In the dim light of the room there rose up a moan his uninhibited
delight. Willy could feel his breasts swelling in Viktor's hands while his
stomach tightened with expectation. The man's arms became wrapped around
him, his fingers sliding through the softness of his hair. Blindly Willy
turned his head to accept a fevered kiss. Viktor's mouth tasted of man, and
he wanted to feed until his senses were sated with the pleasure of it.

Viktor touched the back of his neck with his tongue and a tiny pulse jumped
and skittered. He felt his body shudder as the man's hunger for him ripped
through his defences and entered him. Now he was beyond reason, groaning
with rapture with each wicked plunge, going beyond sanity, beyond any wish
but wanting him.

And he was the one who had done this to him, who had made him insane with
need.



Afterwards Viktor glanced at his watch, put an arm around Willy's shoulders
briefly, and then swung his legs over the side of the bed.

Willy gazed up at him. "Shall we have that tea now?" he said, "You don't
have to rush off, do you?"

Viktor got up and stood in the middle of the floor. "Tea," he said. "What a
good idea. Get dressed first. Unless...?"

"Yes, I'd better get dressed," Willy agreed. "Do you want to go first? In
the bathroom, I mean."

"You go first. But put the kettle on before you do."

After performing some minor ablutions Willy returned with a pot of tea and
two cups, but only to find Viktor looking red faced and furious. He was
purveying a copy of `World Stage' that he had found lying around somewhere
in the room and he was openly disapproving of its contents. Willy felt a
jolt in his chest. He wasn't merely disapproving, he was angry.

"This vile comic is an insult to the Fatherland. It makes a mockery of
everything we are doing to make our country great in the world."

Warily Willy glanced in his direction. "I -- I don't believe it mocks
Germany, Viktor. It just expresses the opinions of those people who don't
agree with war."

The man was adamant. "If it just encourages that, it is seditious. It mocks
the Fuehrer since it is his policy to promote war to save our nation. How
can you bear to live in the same house with such trash?" He clenched his
fist in anger. "Did you know this Ossietzky fellow, the man who produced
these vile magazines, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936? Hitler was
so enraged he banned Germans from accepting international awards ever
again."

He threw the paper onto the floor and kicked it across the room. "The man
was a traitor of the first-order and anyone who revels in reading his
literature is a traitor also."

He glanced sharply at Willy. "It belongs to the man who took you in,
doesn't it? What is his name? Haushofer, isn't it?"

There was a look in his eyes that confused Willy and made him deeply
troubled. It was a mixture of biting contempt laced with pain, as though
somehow the discovery had a personal meaning for him.

"I know you are a National Socialist, Viktor, but not everyone is made the
same. Surely people should be allowed some freedom in the way they think."

Viktor's eyelids drooped over his eyes so that Willy couldn't be sure
whether he was watching him or not.

"Herr Hitler's brand of fascism is exactly what people want." he
said. "Their wants are very basic. They can be divided into animal and
spiritual categories. People want food in their bellies and money in their
pockets, and maybe a fuck once in a while. They are animal needs. But they
alone don't give people a purpose in life, and so they look for spiritual
needs also. To have a purpose, people need someone to fear and something
greater than themselves to believe in. That is religion, isn't it?"

"I suppose it is to some." replied Willy, softly.

Viktor dismissed that with a wave of his hand. "The Fuehrer has invented
his own religion. He gives people a belief that is both grand and
terrifying. He is giving them exactly what they want. Those that defy the
Fuehrer also betray him, and they deserve not to live among us."

"No -- no!" The man's tone was threatening and Willy covered his mouth with
his pearly fingernails. "Please, Viktor. Don't do anything that will
endanger Herr Haushofer. He is just an old man, and he is harmless."

For a moment it seemed Viktor too had became prey to conflicting
emotions. He had absolutely no doubt that his suspicions about the man who
owned the bookshop were correct, he was a scurrilous advocate of disloyal
propaganda and deserved to be shown the error of his ways. But his
bitterness towards him was tempered by the feelings he had for Willy. They
were not objective feelings in any way, shape or form. They were personal
feelings. Even so, they were strong enough to weaken his resolve.

"Yes, I think what you say is true. He is a harmless old man. But if I
agree not to denounce him it will only be because of your kind pleading on
his behalf. Tell the fool to get rid of that stuff and anything else like
it."

***

That night the university auditorium was full to capacity. Three hundred
chairs had been set out and all of them were occupied, the front rows taken
by a variety of regional dignitaries and the faculty of the
university. Behind them sat senior representatives of the local National
Socialist Party and Youth Leaders of the Jungmadel, and behind them
students and assorted individuals from the town.

In the centre of a stage a sombre podium had been set, flanked with huge
red banners bearing swastika emblems together with flags of the SS -- two
white runic figures on a solid black background.

As the seconds ticked towards the full hour the central lights dimmed until
only the stage was bathed in white light, and the Principal of the
University then stood up briefly to introduce the guest speaker.

A slightly built, unassuming figure appeared in the wings and walked slowly
towards the podium. It was Paul Joseph Goebbels, Minister for Nazi
Propaganda.

He gripped the lectern in front of him with both hands and offered a faint
smile. "Damen und Herren - Students of the University - Burgers of this
beautiful historic town. Thank you for inviting me here. Those of you who
know something about me will know I passed through these hallowed halls
twenty years ago as a young man, so I am not an anonymous stranger. I am a
traveller coming home."

He continued speaking in a courteous and unruffled manner. The audience
listened, hushed in awe. His enunciation was crisp and clear. They were
mesmerised. This man was a trusted friend of Hitler. They knew that every
word he said was a reflection of the thoughts of the great Leader and it
was like listening to the Fuehrer speaking himself.

"My friends. Good Germans. I am here to tell you about the future. The bad
times, the unemployment, the despair and poverty are behind us now and we
are victorious everywhere. We must now think what we wish our descendents
to inherit from us in a thousand years from now, and of course we wish them
to inherit a virile nation, a healthy nation free of racial ambiguities and
a nation that is the foremost power in the world. We will not tolerate
carrying forward the petty rivalries and divisions and the failures to
unite that have plagued us in the past, and we don't have to, because we
are blessed with a wise and faultless leadership.

"There may be those among you who are puzzled as to why, having conquered
most of Europe so easily, we have not stamped on the stubborn English in
their island before taking on a new crusade with Stalin's Russia. Well, I
can tell you they will not escape our attention, but first we must seek to
impose our priorities. We can crush the British at our leisure, but we must
not allow them to deflect us at this moment from our urgent desire for
expansion in the east and the eradication of the vile disease of
bolshevism.

 "You will know from the news bulletins that our armies in Russia are
rapidly destroying the savage Slavic hordes opposed to them and ultimate
victory is assured. This success is only made possible because we have a
resolute leader who has correctly grasped the political and military
situation and acted in accordance with his own understanding.

Not since the Roman Empire as the world known such greatness. Charlemagne
and Napoleon almost achieved it, and great opportunities were missed by
those men. Instead Europe was cursed with discord and waste as kings and
princes continued to fight each other for supremacy. Now we have a chance
to arrive at a final peace through war. We are blessed with a man with the
intellect, the nerve and the will to bring all of Europe together under the
leadership of a single beneficent master.

"Adolph Hitler will outshine all who have gone before him. He is an agency
of history destined to resurrect Germany's national greatness. Believe in
him and it will be attained. Our Fuehrer does not make mistakes.

"Some individuals with rotten minds will not admit that of course. They
remain blind to the crisis of unemployment that was previously our despair,
and they resent the money spent on armaments that are the key to our future
prosperity. That is not good enough. The future can not be entrusted to
foolish wishes, anger and lies; it can only be attained through hard work,
honesty and obligation to the Fuehrer.

Show yourself worthy of his trust and a new golden age of Germanic-Aryan
culture can commence.

"This cannot be achieved without effort, of course. The scale of things are
awesome, the battles now and in the future will be intensely fierce, and
our courageous soldiers must have the support of every man, woman and child
in the Reich in order to achieve their aims. We must have Wehrwille -- the
will -- the desire -- the courage to make war, and total war must be waged if
we are to ensure success against the animal Slavs. We must ignore the
restraints of morality, customs and international law. We must do what is
best for ourselves, for we are fighting in a righteous cause, and we are
fighting for an ideology."

His voice rose in a final dramatic crescendo, showing his skill for
charismatic oratory as his hands began to bang on the lectern.

"The Fuehrer promises certain victory. He only requires his followers share
the faith he as in himself as he guides them along the path of national
unity and racial purity.

What counts is will, and if our will is strong and ruthless enough, we can
do anything."

Rising in one spontaneous mass, the audience clapped until the room was
awash with applause. An arm swung up in the midst of them, followed by a
dozen others, followed by everyone's arm

"Seig Heil!" a voice bellowed.

"Seig Heil!" responded Viktor Schacht.

"Seig Heil, Seig Heil!" chorused three hundred other voices.

***

There was a knock on the door. It was a demanding thump. It banged, and
then banged again and again until the door shook.

It was still only early morning but the banging became so urgent that Felix
Haushofer hurriedly pulled on his trousers and went down the stairs. Willy,
still half asleep and rubbing his eyes and thinking there must be a fire,
went with him with only the fabric of an ankle-long shift clinging to his
body.

"What on earth can be so urgent on a Sunday morning?" rumbled the old man.

The noise continued. A relentless din. This time a voice accompanied
it. "Open up! Open the door!"

"Who is it? What do you want?" Felix called hoarsely.

"Police! Open the door or we'll break it down."

"Okay, okay! There's no need for that. Just give me a moment." Felix
unbolted the door and swung it wide to be confronted by a policeman in
uniform. Behind him were several other men, some of them in civilian
clothes.

"Step outside." the uniformed man told him, "And the girl. Bring out the
girl too."

"Can we put on some proper clothes first?" the old man asked.

"You heard what was said. Out!" one of the other men growled
threateningly. He grabbed Felix by an arm and yanked him into the
street. Dismayed, Willy followed him.

A number of anonymous looking black cars were lined up along the curb. A
uniformed policeman was ushering pedestrians to the other side of the
street, while others took up post as sentinels at their side.

Some men went into the shop and there was the noise of callous searching;
things falling over, books showering onto the floor. Another man went in
with a crowbar.

A short distance away a small knot of men in plain civilian clothes hung
together in a group. Viktor Schacht was standing with a dumpy man who wore
a long coat and a Tyrolean hat who was being consulted by someone who had
just come out from the shop with a pile of magazines.

Fearful and confused, and astonished at seeing Viktor there, Willy looked
up at Felix. "What is this all about? Why are they treating us like this?"

The man tried to smile reassurance, but couldn't manage it. He had
forgotten how dramatic Willy could look, her cheeks pale and delicate,
emphasising the gentleness of her lips and brows, the sparkling blue of her
eyes. He could only hope that such sweetness would warrant a little mercy.

"Willy, I fear I have dragged you into something very bad. Some of the
people here are not regular police. Some of them are Geheime Staatspolizei
-- they are Gestapo."

"Stop talking!" a voice demanded. It was the man in the long coat. He had
the face of a frog suffering from dyspepsia. With a curt swing of his hand
he signalled to his henchmen.

"Take them away and keep them separate. I don't want them cooking up
stories between them as they go."

"Do you have a coat for the girl? She should have a coat." put in Viktor
Schacht with an ionic touch of thoughtfulness.

A blanket was found and wrapped around Willy's shoulders, but through the
rough wool his frame looked no less frail.

"I found it impossible to keep my promise, and I regret that you are
involved in this." Viktor remarked stonily as Willy was led past him.

Willy, stunned by the man's apparent betrayal, merely gazed at the ground
and didn't answer even whilst disappointment raked him with burning
claws. His words hurt more than if he had turned and walked away -- more
than if he had physically attacked him. Every breath he took drew in the
rank bitterness of his poison.

The man in the long coat and alpine hat rubbed his hands together as the
mornings catch were loaded into two of the cars. Nobody important, just a
couple of minnows, but they were a rescue from a day that had promised
boredom.

"Do not allow your personal feelings to cloud your judgement in this
matter, Herr Schacht. You did the right thing by reporting this
mealy-mouthed scum."

Viktor bridled. "With due respect, sir, my personal feelings do not enter
into the matter. I did only what any good German should do."

"Naturally." the frog-faced man said genially, "Good Germans know the
difference between right and wrong, and they have faith in their
decisions. The greatest weakness of power is self-doubt. We must expect
people to obey."

"And if they do not obey?"

The man's tone became iron-hard. "If they do not, we must be absolutely
merciless. The second weakness of power is pity; we can have none of that."

***

SS-Standartenfuhrer Albert Naujocks gazed out from his second storey office
window along the Unter den Linden, allowing his gaze to follow the line of
trees along the wide boulevard to the palace and university. To his left,
beyond the Pariser Platz, the Brandenburg Gate, martially equipped with
horses and chariots, stood on guard.

He was thinking about what had recently happened to Rudolph Hess.

For many years Hess had been one of Hitler's most intimate and slavish
devotees and had been given the status of Deputy Fuehrer, but some time ago
he had begun to feel himself being sidelined by other people in the
Fuehrer's inner circle.

In order to make his star shine bright again he had recently flown to
Scotland -- his own idea - with the notion of instigating a treaty of peace
with the British by way of a relative of King George. Foolishly, naively,
he believed that the differences between two warring nations could be
sorted-out over a cup of tea with a well-heeled aristocrat.

Of course he was unsuccessful and he would now be incarcerated by the enemy
for the duration of hostilities. But Hess's silly escapade had aroused in
Naujocks an idea that there were more ways to skin a cat other than with a
blunt knife.

Earlier he had glanced at the latest pile of dispatches lying on his
desk. Lists and more lists. Most were grainy and of poor quality, third
copies `for information only', and usually he didn't bother even reading
them. But on that particular day, a name on the topmost sheet of paper
caught his eye and had started him on a train of thought.

Mechanically he walked across the room. On the far wall was pinned a large
map of Europe and western Asia depicting the current extent of Hitler's
conquests. Almost the entire European land mass lay under his dominance,
and the parts that clung to independence were either servile allies or
nervous neutrals. Since the surprise assault on Russia in June German arms
had swept relentlessly eastwards and overrun the most populous areas of the
USSR, and it seemed certain that before winter set in Moscow and the prize
of the Caucus oilfields would be in the fuehrer's grasp.

The Leader of Germany had engineered a masterly concept that outshone the
best of his generals, and to Naujocks only one element of it rankled with
untidiness.

To the side of the map hung a framed copy of the Hymn of Hate that his
father had retained from the First Great War.

`French and Russians they matter not

A blow for blow and a shot for shot

We love them not, we hate them not

We hold the Vistula and the Vosges-gate

We have but one and only hate

We love as one, we hate as one

We have one foe and one alone,

ENGLAND!'

Yes, he thought, the continuing hostility of the British was an untidy
element in what was otherwise a faultless plan.

He knew his history and he recalled his father's great disappointment and
the hatred that had obsessed him at that time. During that war the British
sea blockade had pushed the population of Germany to the verge of
starvation, and although huge French armies had blocked German success on
land for years, it was mainly the British who had broken the Alberich
offensive in 1918. That had been Germany's final frantic gamble to bring
the war to a satisfactory conclusion before the Americans arrived in any
great strength to assist the allies, and it had failed. Thereafter his
father had blamed the English more than anyone else for Germany's eventual
defeat.

He remembered the last few months of that war, when every letter from him
had been postmarked `God Punish England'.

He thought things over for perhaps half an hour, then feeling suddenly
inspired he strode out of the door into the outer office where an aide
immediately leapt to his feet.

"Is SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Strasser in town, Kleist?" he asked.

"Yes, sir." said the aide, "He'll be sauntering along the Kurfurstendamm at
this moment I expect." a small smile flitted across the young officers
mouth. "Major Strasser particularly enjoys the cabarets when he's in
Berlin."

Naujocks glanced at his watch. "It's still only early evening. Have someone
go and find him. Tell him I want to see him here right away."

***

Princess Ingrid had a lean face with a strong, wide mouth. Except for her
fair skin and large expressive eyes her beauty was almost masculine. That
was not alarming, since the princess was a man. His real name was Walther
Holldobler, and Princess Ingrid was only his stage name, but everyone
called him Ingrid. He was till wearing theatrical base and eyeliner from
the cabaret, but that was all he was wearing. Beneath the bedcovers he was
completely naked.

He was expecting a guest, but when he heard a key turn in the lock of his
bedroom door, he nonetheless clutched the heavy Federdecke to his chin.

Hermann Strasser leaned his head through the doorway and presented a lurid
grin.

"Ingrid, meine Schatze, meine kleine Edelweiss. I've missed you."

Ingrid moved his legs slowly back and forth beneath the bedcovers. "I've
missed you too, Hermann. Have you brought me a nice present?"

The man's gorilla frame almost filled the door. He was carrying a bottle,
and he surveyed the room carefully before entering.

"A fat little purse and a bottle of real champagne."

"How sweet of you."

"How sweet indeed." he rejoined, letting his eyes linger on the princess's
pretty white throat. He sat on the edge of the bed, bent forward, and
gently kissed him.

"How was Düsseldorf?" Ingrid asked.

Hermann lifted his nose as if he'd just detected a bad smell. "I never go
to Düsseldorf. I work in Breslau."

"Oh, yes, of course." Ingrid sat up, realising he was confusing his guest
with someone else. "Come and warm me up." he invited.

Hermann found it easy to adapt to the mood when he knew there was a naked
body involved. He slipped off his jacket and trousers and rolled onto him,
his erection already protruding through the gap in his underpants. He was a
jaded man in many respects, and Ingrid was so youthful and ripe, and so
effeminate. And he fully understood the need for distraction with a war
raging. It was his duty to service those in need.

He leaned forward and gave her an enormous wet kiss. Ingrid received it
with vengeance, pulling at his tongue with his own.

"Wait!" Hermann said. "I do believe...why yes, I swear I saw a public
notice. Let me check." he threw the covers over his head and began nibbling
down the transvestite's body as Ingrid laughed. He loved that laugh -- the
ring of fine crystal. He began kissing his belly just below the navel,
ultimately seeking his thighs.

Licking lightly just once, he raised his head. "I knew it." he said. "It
says `verboten,' here."

He rolled him over and gripped his buttocks which were of a tender hue the
French would call `rose de dessous'. "Just as I suspected. Here too."

Ingrid giggled. "And what about my titties?"

Hermann rolled Ingrid back over and buried his face in his chest. "Same
story. Both of them." he licked each of them, then sucked each nipple in
turn while Ingrid stroked his head.

"What fine boobs you have," he said, gathering them into a firm grasp. "The
trouble is, I'm Bavarian, and whenever I see `verboten' I read it as
`opportunity.'

"And what will become of this opportunity?" Ingrid murmured.

Hermann clucked joyfully. "Why, quite definitely it will lead to the
fucking of your lovely round arse, my poppet."

There was an abrupt knock on the bedroom door that interrupted
negotiations, and Ingrid barked, "Fuck off! Go away and come back in the
morning."

Hermann approved enthusiastically. "What an excellent idea! My sweetheart,
your grasp of language is a godsend!"

Far from departing, the person outside lingered and spoken words came
through the woodwork. "I have an urgent message for Sturmbannfuhrer
Strasser." it called.

"What's the message?" rumbled Hermann, making no attempt to go near the
door.

"Major Strasser is immediately required to attend Colonel Naujocks at SS
Headquarters, sir." the voice answered.

Hermann's expression drooped, and his ardour immediately began to droop
too. "Damn this bloody war!"

***

"I hope I didn't interrupt anything of vital importance by insisting you
come here, Hermann." Albert Naujocks said when Herr Strasser joined him.

"No, no, sir. I was merely about to have dinner with a lady. It was nothing
that cannot be done another time."

"That's good, because I'm going to need your assistance for the next few
days. I've been thinking rather deeply about some things, and one of them
is the British. The Fuehrer as become fixated with the war on Russia
without first completing the subjugation of the English pest."

Hermann threw up his hands. "The English are on the defensive everywhere,
surely there is no urgency to finish them off."

The senior officer's jaw set firm. "Of course there is urgency. The Fuehrer
would have had them tucked on the shelve last year had he not been served
by incompetent fools. Goering's airforce failed to obliterate their army
when it was cornered on the beaches at Dunkirk, and afterwards it failed to
clear the way for a seaborne invasion of the British island.

"They are a thorn in our backside, Hermann. Their continuing defiance
compels us to maintain a separate army just to hold them in check, and it
is an army that could be thrown into the struggle with the Russians if
England could be coaxed into making peace. At the moment the Fuehrer is
torn between making a dash to seize the oilfields of Baku and taking Moscow
before Christmas. Given the help of those formations sitting on their
backsides along the North Sea coast he could do both."

Naujocks reached for a sheet of paper. "Does the name Wilhelm Froehlich
mean anything to you?"

Hermann scratched his slab of a chin and considered for a moment. "Well,
yes. I recall that was the name of an effeminate queen that once lodged
with Fraulein Dietz at Ravenskopf."

"Correct. He was memorable little thing, even I am willing to admit
that. What do you know about his passions?"

Strasser put on a show of being affronted. "Practically nothing,
sir. Gracious, I would never get involved with a queer. You know that."

The other man cocked an eyebrow and smiled faintly. He knew everything
about Strasser, right down to the amount of toothpaste he put on his
brush. He tapped the paper in his hand with a fingertip and passed it over.

"The creature is in trouble with the Gestapo. For subversion, of all
things."

Strasser looked at the name. "It doesn't surprise me. He lost his
homosexual lover in the war some time ago. He is a soft, emotional thing
and a bit of a pacifist. He could easily be led astray."

"Having control of a pacifist can be useful to me at this time." said his
chief. "I have come up with a rather cute idea that could cause some
mischief for the British and may even help bring about their downfall. My
idea involves this -- um - person. It is quite inexpensive and simple to
action, and I foresee no objection being raised by the Abwehr to trying it.

"I'd appreciate your help in arranging things, Hermann. If I can persuade
Himmler's overeager hotheads to release him it will mean a little trip
abroad for our young pansy friend."

"Abroad, sir?"

Herr Naujocks nodded. "Dead men and exiles, Hermann. Excellent company to
be in. They don't argue or complain, and they find it hard to tell tales."

***

The room was small and austere, all four of its walls being lime-washed
with their lower portions scarred by countless black scuff marks. There
were no windows and there was no furniture either except for a chair and a
narrow wooden trestle-table that served as a desk. On the table sat a
notebook and a telephone.

There was a smell of disinfectant about the place, an antiseptic, fishy
smell that made Willy Froehlich reluctant to breathe. It was like a
hospital, but without promoting the good intensions of a hospital.

The floor was surfaced with old and stained tiles, and the tiles were cold
to his bare feet. Two heavyset young men stood behind him by the door. He
was completely naked, and utterly terrified.

"Your name is Wilhelm Froehlich and you are a girly-queer. Is that
correct?" a spiteful voice demanded.

Willy blinked painfully. His chest and arms hurt as if they had been
punched. He tried to focus on his words, but although his tongue attempted
to move it seemed to stay glued to the roof of his mouth. Nodding dumbly,
he gazed at his feet.

"Answer!" the voice yelled viciously. "When I ask a question, I require an
answer."

"Yes, yes I am." muttered Willy, shocked into speech.

"Look at me." the voice then rasped. Willy lifted his head and peered
through unkempt straggles of hair to view the wiry little man standing
before him. His sinister eyes were hidden behind steel-rimmed glasses and
he wasn't smiling.

"First, let me explain a couple of things, girly." the man said. "I'm going
to demand co-operation from you, and my two colleagues are here to ensure I
get it." he gestured towards the door where his assistants stood. "Karl
enjoys knifework. He could make more of a woman of you in a few seconds
than you've ever been in your life before, while Heinz prefers to use his
fists. He hates queers, and you would end up a shapeless lump of snot and
blood on the floor if I let him have his way with you. You would be
unrecognisable as a member of the human race -- which you probably don't
belong to anyway."

Willy's blond hair was loose and matted and he had been crying; his eyes
were red from it, and one of them was badly bruised. A cold feeling of
sickness was crawling through him. Shock, anguish, despair -- he could feel
them all.

"Please... I don't know why you've brought me here. I don't know what I've
done wrong."

The man's eyes flicked over Willy's unguarded face in scornful dismissal,
the hard line of lips below his pug nose looking like a gash in his
face. "You are a disgusting homosexual monstrosity, and you were found
masquerading as a woman and co-habiting with a subversive."

"Herr Haushofer was a pacifist. He was my landlord. He gave me a room when
I asked about work in his bookshop."

"He was distributing seditious pamphlets, subverting others with his lies
and distorted ideas. He was preaching revolution and hate for the Fuehrer,
and you were helping him."

"H-he wasn't a violent man, he just didn't agree with the war."

"The Fuehrer makes decisions about war and peace, no one else. Anyway,
whatever your friend agreed or disagreed with doesn't matter any more. That
man argued too much, and one of my associates lost patience with him in
this room an hour ago and shot him in the head.

Willy's shoulders slumped. He was shocked at the cold blooded murder of the
old man, but he couldn't help an overriding feeling of concern for himself
too. He didn't wish to admit it, but he nevertheless suspected that he
would share a similar fate once the men there had no more use for him.

"You were a fool to leave Ravenskopf." his interrogator continued. "Many
senior officers favour taking their furlough in that place these days and
degenerate pantywaist freaks such as you are protected there."

"I couldn't stay." Willy said, his words clipped and unwilling, "Not
after..."

His explanation petered out, but with a cynical twist to his mouth the
interrogator finished for him. "Not after the death of you boyfriend, is
that what you were about to say?"

He was about to say that. He and Eduard had only snatched brief interludes
together since the beginning of the war, but they had been joyous and happy
times, the kind of times only young lovers can know about. Then one morning
Fraulein Dietz had told him of his death. Killed in action. The news seemed
to affect him more than it did her. She went about her daily routine as
sharp and efficiently as usual, while he had wept for days on end.

"Eduard was brave and kind."

The man's lips curled up in a sneer. "Probably had a big dick too, eh?"

The two men at the door sniggered.

Willy's lips worked silently for a moment, then he said: "He had a noble
and generous mind, and I loved him."

The man slapped his hand down on the table. "Enough of the sentimental
crap. He was just an officer like many others who have died in the service
of the Reich. Now, I want names from you. I want to know the names of
everyone you and that traitorous turd Hausofer spoke regularly with in the
past three months."

Willy shuddered unsteadily, momentarily stunned by the ferocity of the
man's words. "We didn't always talk about the war. Germany is winning. The
Wehrmacht is victorious everywhere. Most people we spoke with support what
is happening."

The interrogator seated himself at the table and drew a pen from the inner
lining of his jacket. In his drab civilian clothes he would have seemed
insignificant and innocuous in the street, ignored by good looking women
and scorned by more intelligent men, but in that squalid claustrophobic
room he could take on the role of a tyrant king, and he relished playing
the part.

"I will decide what is important, and I'll decide who is guilty or innocent
of crime. Give me some names. Begin with someone who didn't support the
war."

Willy couldn't stop shivering. He was cold and very frightened, and he was
ashamed because he wasn't brave and knew he was going to tell the man
whatever he wanted to know.

Before he could say a word the telephone on the table jangled softly, and
with a curse of irritation the man lifted the handset. "Yes, what is it?
I'm busy ...What ...But I protest. I'm in the middle of something...That's
impossible..." He continued listening for a moment and his face flared with
anger. "Yes damn it, yes. Very well."

He slammed the phone back onto its cradle, a look of fury predominant on
his face. "Out, out!" he yelled at the men near the door. He rose up
himself and as he passed Willy he glared malevolence. "We have been told to
vacate the room for a few minutes to allow someone else to interview
you. Don't move from this spot while we are away. If you move a millimetre
I'll have Heinz to give you a reprimand when we return."

Soon after his three tormentors had departed two officers wearing the
uniform of the SS entered the chamber where he stood, and like a dream from
the past come back to haunt him he recognised the Rottwieller features of
Herr Strasser and the more inscrutable face of the more senior officer who
accompanied him. A man who had become known to him as Herr Naujocks.

"It stinks in here. Smells like a mortuary." remarked the senior man.

"This is a subterranean cellar." replied Hermann Strasser, "We're twenty
metres underground and I guess the ventilation is not too good."

The senior officer glanced at Willy with disapproval. "Put some clothes on
for goodness sake."

Willy flinched. "The man who was here before said he'd punish me if I
moved."

"As long as you are agreeable to what I say, he won't be coming back. Cover
yourself up."

Willy scampered swiftly across to the wall and retrieved the coarse grey
smock that had been pull off him and thrown on the floor on his
arrival. Naujock swung the chair round from behind the table and told him
to sit on it. The man himself perched a single buttock on the edge of the
table and stared down at him.

"Willy, that's your name, isn't it? We worked together a couple of years
ago - a little escapade in a radio station. Do you remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

Naujocks eased into a more comfortable position. "It's a shame we have to
meet again in such depressing circumstances. The Gestapo are not the most
pleasant company, and the accommodation they provide is always
appalling. And I think that in your heart you are a loyal German, aren't
you, Willy?"

"Yes, yes. I would never do anything to hurt Germany. I would never wish to
do anything to hurt ANYONE."

"Quite so! And I am here to make you a proposition. It's an offer that can
get you out of the trouble you find yourself in."

Gradually some of the panic drained from Willy's face, but the adrenaline
was still pumping and making him shake, and he remained sceptical, not
daring to believe a reprieve could so easily be given. "I can go free?"

"Certainly. If you prove agreeable to what I say, Herr Strasser and I will
immediately escort you to safety. But of course there are some conditions
attached to the deal."

Conditions! That sounded cryptic, almost ominous. Willy Froehlich was
sickened by the prospect of returning to the bordello-like existence that
would have permeated Ravenskopf since its refurbishment, or to life as a
personal whore to some high-rank official.

Naujocks shuffled his broad thigh against the tabletop and his next comment
referred to neither of those things.

"You've no doubt heard of Rudolph Hess."

Willy nodded. "Herr Hess was the Fuehrer's deputy. He recently flew himself
to England to negotiate peace with the British. It was his own idea. Hitler
insists he was demented."

Naujock nodded. "You understand the gist of it. And although his idea was
fantastic, it was not without some merit, and I have the permission of the
High Command to attempt something similar. I need your assistance to do it,
Willy. You are known to be a person who hates war, and I wish you to take
your passion to England."

Willy's pulse lurched wildly and he gaped. "England! But I've never been
there in my life before."

Hermann Strasser shuffled his feet. "We know you can speak their
language. It will take a little time to complete our arrangements, and
while we wait I'll ensure you attend a course of tuition with an excellent
coach to sharpen you up."

"And you should study the way of English politics too. That will be
important." continued Naujocks.

"The Fuehrer as recently taken on the Bolsheviks, and he wants an end to
the war in the West. The British have stood alone for the past year and
cannot win. Our U-boat campaign in the Atlantic is slowly starving their
population, but Herr Hitler is becoming impatient.

"The Fuehrer as no argument with them, nor as he ever wished them harm. He
no longer considers how to win a war against them, but only how rapidly he
can end a war that is already won. They are already defeated, but their
administration as fallen into the hands of a gang of warmongers who refuse
to acknowledge reality.

The Fuehrer is a kind man in victory and admires British pluck. He dislikes
the relentless bombing of their cities and grieves at killing so many
children and their mothers. You are a sensitive individual. You can
sympathise with what I'm saying, can't you, Willy?"

Another nod from Willy Froehlich, but less perceptible than the first. "But
I am not important. How can you expect me to succeed in something in which
the Deputy Fuehrer has failed?"

The senior officer pursed his mouth. "Herr Hess went at this thing like a
bull at a gate, but we won't make that mistake. Forget about approaches to
their king and such nonsense, there is a significant anti-war faction in
England that only needs encouragement to make itself known. A great many of
the English upper-classes approved of Hitler's policies before the outbreak
of war, and I have selected one of them for you to ingratiate yourself
with. He is a Member of Parliament who regularly socialises with
influential people, and you must convince him that there is a chance for
honourable peace. It's as simple as that."

"It would be dangerous for me to go there." Willy exclaimed tremulously,
"The British would consider me a spy, and spies are executed in times of
war."

"Only if they're caught. You'll need to take that chance." he was told
brusquely. "The war rages on more than one front, but this is your chance
to alleviate the suffering of a great many people, and it is a chance to
serve your country."

Naujocks looked around at the bare walls. "Look at it this way. Our beloved
Geheime Staatspolizei are above the law and can do as they wish. The
outlook for you in this place is bleak if you don't wish to agree."



Once outside in the street Willy was put into the back of a waiting car,
and Hermann instructed the driver where to take him.

As the car pulled away from the curb he looked at his companion. "Well, the
tart agrees to comply with our wishes. Do you think anything will come of
it?"

Naujocks signalled his own car forward with a wave of his hand. "Probably
not. But if he -- she can make the British a little discomforted, it will be
enough. If the pervert actually succeeds in bringing about a peace
settlement, he'll be a hero and the Fuehrer will pin a medal on his tits.

"And if he fails -- well, who cares? The bitch is expendable."