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

side of the political spectrum? Had life in Berlin driven him so far as to abandon his dignity? Frank asked himself. The thought appalled him, but far worse was the realisation that he had been so deceived and used by his old friend. A dummy run, he had said. Well, the only dummy was me, Frank told himself. Like Patricia, Achim knew that he was not inquisitive about the things that really matter. And he had exploited that to the full. He even sowed the seed in Frank’s mind that he should visit his mother. Presumably, this whole absurd trip he was making had been planned by him and his cronies back in Berlin before he had even left.

The disappointment and anger that seethed in his head blinded him to the full implications of the situation he was in. But one thing was clear: he was not going to be used by Bolshevists fighting to replace one kind of oppression with another. If these were the only sides on offer, he would prefer to stay on the fence.

What was less clear to him was the immediate danger he was in, put there by his own naivety. It was not until the train began slowing down on its approach into Mannheim that it dawned on him how urgently he needed to act. He could be stopped and searched at any time on this journey, and almost had been before even getting on the train. Of course, he realised this when he agreed to accept the suitcase. What he had not realised was the true nature of the luggage he would be carrying – and that it might be exchanged anywhere along the line for a ticket to Dachau, if he was lucky.

He returned the books to the suitcase and lowered the window of his compartment. Already the station of Mannheim was looming down the line like a huge mouth slowly opening to swallow a tasty morsel. He saw two options: either move to another part of the train and leave the suitcase here or break his journey at Mannheim and leave the suitcase to travel on alone. He was certainly in no doubt that Achim’s betrayal of their friendship deserved no more than this. And since the latter alternative seemed the less risky, he decided to get out.

Relief. Disappointment. Anger. Fear. All these emotions carried him along the platform. And when he looked back anxiously at the train before merging with the throng, he saw at the window of the compartment he had just vacated a familiar face.

It was the cloth-capped man who had been watching his every move. As ever. Only now he was watching from an intimate recess of his own most recent history – with a direct line to his conscience.

Frank did not let his gaze linger too long in this direction, but he had the impression that the man was reaching for the suitcase as if about to open it. And at that moment he could not escape the feeling that he had made a fatal error.

The thought that this man might be an informer in the pay of the Gestapo pursued him relentlessly into the passageway that led under the railway lines. His mind began feverishly to look for a way out of this trap he seemed to have laid for himself. It was no use leaving the station, since he had a ticket all the way to Cologne and would only draw attention to himself if he was checked at the gate.

He found an inconspicuous vantage point from which he could observe activities on the platform and look out for signs that anyone might have been alerted about the abandoned suitcase. The minutes dragged endlessly by as people passed through the gateway out of the station to the arms of their friends or family – or simply to the welcoming embrace of freedom from the kind of anxiety he was compelled to endure. How he envied every one of those travellers. What he would have given to leave his secret behind on this station and pass through that barrier as easily as they, without let or hindrance.

His own train had already long since continued on its journey north, and he had seen no signs of menacing suspicion apart from those to which the last few years in the Third Reich had inured him. Slowly the possibility crept up on him that the man in the train may be a fellow traveller in the truest sense of the word – and that, when he found the suitcase, probably took it with him to distribute among his own people. The cloth-capped stranger would doubtless be grateful for the find.

As this more comfortable scenario began to take root, he started to breathe more easily. Could he perhaps pass unhindered after all? Frank asked himself.

The next train to Cologne did not leave for a good two hours. Since it was time for lunch, he therefore found a table in a dark, sequestered corner of the station buffet. The palpitations of his earlier panic still lingered as he took his seat. He eyed every diner with suspicion. He was still far from comfortable, but fear was in abeyance. And it gave way gradually to the anger and disappointment he still felt towards Achim. These feelings kept Frank company for the rest of that day, feeding his thoughts throughout the onward journey.

When eventually he arrived in Cologne, he booked into a hotel close to the station. He needed a night’s rest before he could summon anything approaching enthusiasm to see his mother. And once he had done so, it was a strange melancholy that he carried with him along the avenue to his mother’s house.

The smart row of early Wilhelminian residences that lined the street mocked his coming with their grand, standoffish elegance. The scene was punctuated here and there by the garish patterns of the swastika fluttering from some of the grander houses. He shivered at the sight, which only