Day of Judgment

‘No.’ She leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. ‘There is no one.’

It was towards evening and she was wide awake when he came in, her head turned to one side, trying to look over the sill out of the window.

He put a hand to her forehead. ‘Better,’ he said. ‘The fever has gone down. A miracle when one thinks how long you were out there in the water.’

His face was full of strength, firm, ascetic and touched with a tranquillity that she found completely reassuring.

‘The Society of Jesus and Mary?’ she said, and remembered her first meeting with Conlin. ‘You’re Lutherans, isn’t that so?’

‘That’s right,’ he told her. ‘Our movement started in England in the closing years of the last century. There was a great interest at that time in the work of St Francis and a desire, by some people, to continue his mission within the framework of the Church of England.’

‘And how did you end up in Neustadt?’

‘A lady called Marchant married the Graf von Falkenberg, the greatest landowner in these parts. On the death of her husband, she offered Schloss Neustadt to the order. They came here in nineteen hundred and five, led by Brother Andrew, a Scot. There were twelve friars then, just like the disciples, and eight nuns.’

‘Nuns,’ she said blankly. ‘There are nuns here?’

‘Not any more.’

‘But this is not Schloss Neustadt,’ she said. ‘It can’t be.’

He smiled. ‘We were moved out of the castle in nineteen-thirty-eight. The Army used it as a local area headquarters for a time. Towards the end of the war it served to house prominent prisoners.’

‘And since then?’

‘The State has failed to find any particular use for it, but on the other hand has never shown any great desire to return it. This house, in which we have lived for some years now, is called Home Farm. If I raise you against the pillows you can see the river and the Schloss on the hill above.’

He sat beside her, an arm about her shoulders, and now she could see a pleasant garden surrounded by a high wall. On the other side there was a cemetery. To the right, the River Elbe raced between trees, a brown, swollen flood. Beyond, on the hill above the village, stood Schloss Neustadt behind its massive walls, pointed towers floating up there in the light mist, the approach road zig-zagging up the face of the hill towards the great gate of the entrance tunnel.

The door opened and another middle-aged man entered carrying a tray. ‘And this,’ Konrad said, ‘is Brother Florian who fished you out of the river.’

Florian placed the tray across her knees. There was soup in a wooden bowl, black bread, milk. She put a hand on his sleeve. ‘What can I say?’

He smiled again and went out without a word. ‘He cannot speak,’ Konrad told her. ‘He is under vow of silence for a month.’

She tried a little of the soup and found it excellent. ‘The nuns,’ she said. ‘What happened to them?’

His face was grave now, something close to pain in his eyes. ‘They left,’ he said. ‘The last of them about two years ago. There are only six of us here now, including myself. A year from now I should imagine we’ll all be gone if the State has its way.’

‘But I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘It states quite clearly in the constitution that no individual shall be prevented from practising whatever religion he chooses.’

‘True. The youngest among us, Franz, joined our order only six months ago in spite of every obstacle that officialdom tried to put in his way. Are you a Christian, Fräulein Campbell?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘When it comes right down to it, I don’t suppose I’m anything.’

‘The State is rather more equivocal. The rights to religious free expression, as you have said, are enshrined in the constitution. At the same time Walter Ulbricht himself has told the country in more than one speech that church membership is not compatible with being a good Party member.’

‘But the constitution remains. What can they do?’

‘Provide State services as substitutes for Christian ones. Marriage, baptism, funeral – all taken care of. To go to church is to deny the State, which explains why there hasn’t been a Catholic priest here for five years and why, in what has always been a mainly Catholic area, the church door remains barred.’

Her mind was full of disturbing emotions. Religion had never interested her. There had been no place for it in her home background, for her father had been an atheist for most of his adult life. Her education had followed the path set for the children of all important officials in the Socialist Democratic Republic. Privileged schooling and an open door to university. A private, enclosed world in which all was perfection. What Brother Konrad was saying was new to her and difficult to take in.

‘Why did the nuns go?’ she said.

‘There was an article in Neues Deutschland implying that orders such as ours were immoral. Old wives’ tales, common for centuries. That in pools near convents, the bodies of newborn infants had been discovered. That sort of nonsense. Then the State medical authorities started monthly inspections for venereal disease.’ He smiled sadly. ‘It takes great strength of will to stand up to such ceaseless pressure. The nuns of our order, one by one, gave in and returned to life outside, as did most of our brothers.’

‘But you hang on,’ she said. ‘A small handful, in spite of everything. Why?’

He sighed. ‘So difficult to explain.’ And then he smiled. ‘But perhaps I could show you.’

He brought an old wheelchair, a robe to put about her shoulders, and took her out and along the stone-flagged corridor into the courtyard, pausing only to push open the gnarled oaken door on the far side.

It was like plunging into cool water, a tiny, simple chapel with no seating at all. Whitewashed walls, a wooden statue of St Francis, the plainest of altars with an iron crucifix, a small rose-coloured window through which the evening light sprayed colour into the room.

‘For me,’ Konrad said, ‘there is joy in simply being here, for in this place I am aware of all my faults and weaknesses with utmost clarity. Here it is that I see myself as I truly am and here also that I am most aware of God’s infinite compassion and love. And that, Fräulein, gives me joy in life.’

She sat, staring up at that rosy window and made her decision. ‘Have you ever heard of the League of the Resurrection?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘Have you and your friends ever assisted with its work?’

‘We are an enclosed order,’ he said gravely. ‘The contemplative life is what we seek.’

‘But you know of the work of Father Sean Conlin?’

‘I do.’

‘And approve?’

‘Yes.’

She swung to face him. ‘He’s up there now in Schloss Neustadt. Dachau all over again and it’s all my fault.’

It was cold with the bedroom window open, but her face was hot, burning as from a fever again, and the evening breeze eased it a little. She stirred restlessly in the chair and the door opened and Konrad entered with a glass.

‘Cognac,’ he said. ‘Drink it down. It will make you feel better.’ He pulled a chair forward. ‘Now tell me more about this American professor, Van Buren.’

‘I first met him in Dresden about eighteen months ago. I was just finishing my medical studies and he was lecturing on para-psychology, a fringe interest of his. He made a point of visiting my father. Said he’d always admired his work. They became good friends.

He even obtained a medical appointment for me in his own department at the Institute of Psychological Research. A wonderful opportunity – or so I thought at the time.’

‘You didn’t like working there?’

‘Not really. Harry Van Buren is a remarkable man – certainly the most brilliant intellect I’ve ever been exposed to. But it seems to me he has one fatal flaw. He’s obsessed with his subject to such a degree that human beings become of secondary importance. At the Institute I saw him turn people around, change them completely. Oh yes, there were the psychotics where it was a good thing – a miracle, if you like. But the others …’

Konrad said gently, ‘So – he betrayed you?’