The Defeated Aristocrat Read Online Free PDF

forgotten your wife?’ Wolf teased.
    Peter had been a police officer in Konigsberg before the war. Only twenty-five, he’d been promoted to third grade Kriminaloberassistent entirely on merit. Not, as some jealous colleagues had said, due to his father-in-law, Kriminaldirektor Georg Hafen’s, influence. But in 1914 Peter had turned down an offer to ‘protect’ his post, which would have kept him out of the army.
    Wolf had never understood why Peter wanted to enlist. He and his wife Waltrode – Pippi to everyone who knew her – had been besotted with one another after five years of marriage. They’d lived in a fine apartment in her father’s house near the castle lake, one of the most picturesque and exclusive areas of Konigsberg. Two months after they left for the front, Pippi gave birth to Peter’s daughter and moved in with her mother-in-law, Martha, in Lichtenhagen, so Martha could help with the children.
    Pippi had proved a more assiduous correspondent than his wife. It had been over a year since he’d received anything from Gretel. He treasured her last letter because of the postscript from his son.
    Viele liebe fur Papa von Heinrich.
    Much love to Papa from Heinrich . He’d left a baby and was returning to a schoolboy. Had the boy with the toboggan been his son?
    The von Mau family castle, Waldschloss, came into view. Coated with snow as pristine as sugar icing on a cake, it looked beautiful and unchanged, peculiarly so after the destruction in France. Five stories high, surrounded by a moat, it had been built in the sixteenth century by one of his namesakes.
    The boy with the toboggan should have reached it by now. Had Gretel displayed a photograph of him as she’d promised, so their son would recognise him when he returned?
    ‘Heini said soldiers were coming. I didn’t believe him until I looked out of the window. I sent him and the boys to get Martha. She took some soup to old Mrs Schmidt.’ Pippi, a little stouter but still as blonde, blue-eyed, and beautiful as Wolf remembered, hurtled from the Post Office and flung herself into Peter’s arms.
    Peter wrapped himself around her, held her tight, and closed his eyes.
    Feeling like a voyeur, Wolf turned back to the castle expecting Gretel to appear. His younger brother Franz opened the door. His face was paler than skimmed milk, his hands shaking as if he’d received battle orders.
    Wolf crunched towards Franz over the snow but his brother remained frozen. As motionless as the icicles hanging from the stone porch.
    ‘I know I’ve lost weight and there are a few silver hairs among the dark but I didn’t think I’d changed that much.’
    ‘Wolf.’ Franz’s voice was strangulated. ‘We had a telegram last May. They said you were dead.’
    ‘As you see, they made a mistake, but that explains the lack of letters.’
    Gretel stepped into the doorway alongside Franz. Wolf was aware of Peter and Pippi moving supportively behind him. Franz slipped his hand around Gretel’s waist – or where her waist would have been if she hadn’t been in an advanced state of pregnancy. It was the kind of protective gesture a husband makes towards his wife. Wolf knew, because he’d done it himself before Heinrich had been born.
    Sobs tore from Gretel’s throat. She trembled as though a bucket of ice water had been thrown over her.
    Still Wolf felt nothing.
    ‘Wolf, you’re freezing, please, come into my house.’ Martha appeared surrounded by small boys. She took his arm.
    Wolf turned, kissed Martha’s cheek, and went with her.

CHAPTER FOUR
    Lichtenhagen, Friday January 10th 1919
    Wolf followed Martha into the Post Office. There was no living room and the kitchen was too small to hold four adults and three children and allow for privacy.
    ‘Go in the office, Wolf. I keep the stove lit in there and we won’t be disturbed as I’ve closed for the day.’
    He joined Martha behind the counter. She moved piles of forms from a bench and they sat, side by