The Night of the Generals by Hans Hellmut Kirst

Author:Hans Hellmut Kirst [Kirst, Hans Hellmut]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical, war, Mystery, Thriller
ISBN: 9780708907122
Publisher: Cassell
Published: 1962-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

With an arduous and sleepless night behind her, Frau Wilhelmine von Seydlitz-Gabler prepared to face what promised to be an equally arduous day. Too much was at stake for her to have abandoned herself to sleep.

The stations of her nocturnal Calvary had been as follows:

11.42 p.m. Frau Wilhelmine completes the daily entry in her journal flushed with hope for the future. She sees her husband Herbert going from strength to strength in his professional career, her daughter Ulrike married to General Tanz, and herself firmly established as the wife of a military leader and the mother-in-law of a national hero. Fired with enthusiasm at this burgeoning prospect, she feels prompted by maternal solicitude to pay her daughter a visit with a view to probing and reinforcing her moral fibre.

11.47 p.m. Frau Wilhelmine enters her daughter's room on the second floor. It is empty, but Frau Wilhelmine ascertains that her daughter's absence can only be temporary. All Ulrike's clothes seem to be there, including the sensible underclothes which she has personally selected for her. The only missing items: a pink nightie, a blue dressing-gown and Ulrike herself.

Logical inference: Ulrike cannot be far away.

Likeliest explanation: a call of nature.

11.51 p.m.--12.07 a.m. Frau Wilhelmine makes her way to the second-floor ladies' lavatory. This too is empty. What now? Frau >Wilhelmine concludes that it must have been occupied by someone else at the critical moment. If so, two other alternatives present themselves: the ladies' lavatory on the first floor and its counterpart on the third floor. These are also vacant. Frau Wilhelmine is filled with foreboding.

12.07--4.12 a.m. Frau Wilhelmine waits for Ulrike in her room, at first sitting in a chair, then perched on the bed and eventually--for comfort's sake and because she feels in urgent need of sleep--lying at full length. Hours of feverish anxiety ensue. Distressing pictures conjured up by a usually inhibited imagination show Ulrike wandering through the night, trustful as a child, falling victim to some brutal assault or overpowered by some shadowy, lust-maddened figure. The only common denominator of all these pictures: Ulrike with a man. Beside him, beneath him, on top of him, entwined around him like a rope. Oh, fearful thought!

4.13 a.m. Frau Wilhelmine emerges from an uneasy doze with a start and sits bolt upright. Ulrike has returned. As expected, she is wearing a pink nightie and a blue dressing-gown. Both garments are crumpled and her hair is in disarray. Frau Wilhelmine's opening question: "Where have you been?" elicits the reply: "That's my business."

4.14--4.28 a.m. Frau Wilhelmine bombards her daughter with questions. Ulrike remains silent. Frau Wilhelmine appeals to her family loyalty, her sense of responsibility, her sense of decency, her better nature, understanding, goodwill--even her common sense. In vain. Frau Wilhelmine switches to massive threats of parental intervention, paternal power and influence. Ulrike yawns wearily and says: "If you only knew how tired I am, Mother. I've hardly had a wink of sleep." Frau Wilhelmine snaps: "Neither have I!" To which Ulrike: "For entirely different reasons, I trust.

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