The Road Between Us Read Online Free PDF Page A

been avoiding since entering the court. The wall behind the bench is dominated by three blood-red swastikas. The two at each side reach from the ceiling to the floor. The one in the middle is slightly lower, fitting into the frame of a double doorway with an ornate frieze on top. Above this is a Nazi eagle. Gilt, or possibly gold. Its wingspan must be ten feet. In front of the central flag is a marble plinth on which is displayed a bronze bust of the Führer. And directly in front of this is a carved black chair that looks like a throne. Chair, bust and flag are all in perfect alignment with the prisoner.
    A door opens to the right. A clerk of the court shouts: ‘All rise.’ Three Reich-judges enter.
    The first and the third are wearing black gowns and white collars, like the clerks to Anselm’s right, but these men are also wearing what look like floppy velvet mortar boards on their heads. The judge in the middle is wearing a sumptuous red robe. On his head is what looks like a fez. On his gown there is a brooch, the eagle insignia again. Before they sit down, they give the Nazi salute and, for a brief moment, Anselm thinks they are saluting him – then he looks over his shoulder and sees a giant portrait of Hitler high on the wall behind him.
    All three judges remove their hats as they sit down. The one in the middle is bald apart from some hair at the sides of his head. This he smooths down with fussy dabs of his hand. With his feathery eyebrows and hooded eyes he looks like an eagle.
    He twirls the deep sleeves of his robe like a wizard about to cast a spell, then he studies the papers in front of him. Finally he looks up and, according to his widened eyes, he seems surprised to see that the defendant is a fine specimen of Aryan manhood. Then his lean features stiffen. His eyes turn cold and dark.
    The prisoner is asked to identify himself and, after he is sworn in, a clerk with a hog-bristle moustache grinds back his chair, stands and reads from a piece of paper: ‘Under Paragraph 175 of the criminal code, as defined by the Reich Central Office forthe Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion, you are hereby charged with being a degenerate. How do you plead?’
    Anselm is confused. What does this word ‘degenerate’ mean? He is guilty of being a homosexual. Indeed he feels that if he were to plead not guilty to that he would be betraying himself, and Charles. But in truth he is not sure of what he is being accused. He does not know how to answer the question. A lock of sand-coloured hair has fallen over his eye. He flicks it away with a backwards tilt of his head.
    The judge in the red robe signals impatiently to the clerk: ‘Enter a plea of guilty.’
    The judge looks down at the piece of paper in his hand. ‘What were you doing in London?’ he asks.
    ‘I was a student,’ Anselm says. ‘At the Slade.’
    ‘And you committed your vile acts with an enemy of the Reich?’
    ‘We weren’t at war then.’
    ‘ Silence! ’ The judge’s voice cracks the air like a whip, before returning to ominous normality. ‘In times of war,’ he continues, ‘baseness cannot find any leniency and must be met with the full force of the law. Your degenerate acts threaten the disciplined masculinity of the German people. You are an antisocial parasite and an enemy of the state …’
    As the judge’s voice begins to rise in pitch again, Anselm looks down at his own handcuffed hands holding up his trousers and recalls how he and Charles dressed in silence that night in London. The hotel manageress sat on the bed fanning her stupid fat face in shock, denying them their last moments of privacy. As a precaution, or so one of the military policemen had said, the two prisoners were handcuffed together. Perhaps out of misplaced respect for Charles’s uniform, the other MP draped a mac over the iron bracelet that bound their wrists together. Anselm didn’t mind. It meant they could entwine their fingers as they descended the stairs.