The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

figure in a cloth cap appeared in the doorway and gave him a curious look, as though he wanted to join Frank. He recognised the man at once as the target of interest behind him who had aroused the attention of the Gestapo. But the familiarity went deeper, when he realised this was the man who had followed him and Patricia after their meeting at the museum. Frank’s heart sank. But the man passed. He did not appear the type who would travel in comfort.

The luxury of travelling first class was more than matched by the sense of being able to draw breath again after the last few weeks of harassment. He smiled at the irony that the city of light – his refuge from darkness and oppression – had become such a troubling place to live that he should find comfort on a train ride through the very heart of that darkness he had been seeking to escape. And he began to ponder the nature of this journey.

His funk hole in Switzerland had become a snake pit, which he had only chosen to leave with a view to getting back as quickly as possible. And he was already forging plans, imagining life within the four walls of Patricia’s flat as he awaited her return. He was looking forward to introducing her to Achim when she got back. Although his old friend had turned away from his vocation as an artist, Frank was certain he would approve of her and appreciate her impressive knowledge of art.

But why was he even taking this journey. Was it to help Achim? Or was it to salve his own conscience? For he knew that deep down Achim was right, that sweet dreams belong to the luxury of a peaceful night’s sleep. That when that luxury is not on offer, there comes a time when you have to take sides.

Then there was the question of his mother, the ostensible motive for his journey. But she was surely not the true reason for his going to Cologne? He disliked the woman almost as much as she resented him. She had never completely forgiven him for being a boy. She rarely missed an opportunity to remind him of her regret that he was not a girl, someone who would be a real companion for her during his father’s frequent absences. As an engineer of some renown, his father would often spend months at a time in India, Persia or some other distant part of the world.

Bitter were the memories of his early childhood, when he was not yet independent enough to resist the pressures of his mother, who would invariably dress him up as a girl. She would even take him out for walks in the neighbourhood and pretend to all the world that he was her little niece come to stay. He still remembered those occasions with vivid embarrassment. Fortunately, she was sufficiently in awe of his father to allow him a respite from her fantasies whenever he was home. As Frank grew older, it gradually dawned on him that his mother had a serious psychological problem, and he became more tolerant of her on the surface. But by then the damage had been done, and his antipathy was indelibly etched into their relationship.

So the trip to Cologne did not promise to be a pleasant occasion. And it was hard to imagine that his mother might be an important motivation behind this journey. Yet, when all was said and done, it was still a mother/child relationship, so a sense of guilt inevitably stalked his thoughts. And perhaps hers too, he told himself, if she was not already too senile for moral reflection.

Whichever way he turned, it seemed that bad conscience was the crucial agency driving him on this journey, that Patricia was nothing more than the spice to camouflage its flavour. The atmosphere in the carriage was beginning to oppress him.

When the train rolled into Freiburg, he opened a window. He was pleased to see that more people were leaving the train here than were getting on, so he felt confident that his first-class isolation would remain secure at least until Karlsruhe. But when he turned his attention up the platform in the other direction, he could not fail to notice – leaning from the carriage just a few windows removed from him – the pockmarked face of the man in the cloth cap. Frank had the uncomfortable impression that the man was watching him.

This feeling lingered with him all the way to Karlsruhe and beyond. He began to wish he had brought more than the daily newspaper to distract him from his unsettling thoughts. Then it occurred to him that he had a suitcase full of literature with him, however dull, so he opened up his baggage. He opted for a refresher course in chess rather than a fairy tale, and leaned back in his seat with one of Achim’s booklets. As he leafed through it, he was instantly put in mind of what Patricia had told him, when she said he was not inquisitive about the things that really matter. Those words had stung him far more than she had intended, because they were even closer to the truth than she suspected. Certainly, if he had been more inquisitive, he would have given these booklets more than a cursory glance and seen them at once for what they really were – not the primers on chess that they professed to be. No kings, queens or bishops here. Only pawns. From the very first page they preached unashamed, hard-selling, communist propaganda. Slogans of Bolshevist extremism for the working man.

He took a copy of Grimm’s fairy tales from the suitcase. And found the story was the same. The same message, the same words. The cruelty of childhood fantasies replaced by the tyranny of collectivist adult dreams.

Was this what Achim meant when he said he had been moving in mixed company? That he had joined the red