William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

Monk allowed the silence to remain, and Geissner did not interrupt it. The certainty settled with Monk, heavy as stone.
    “Did Elissa believe that he did?” Monk asked finally.
    “Mr. Monk, you are asking questions I cannot answer.”
    Why? Because he did not know, or because the confessional bound him? He had very carefully refrained from saying that he did not know. Or was that his way with English? Monk studied his face and saw pain in it, pity, and silence. What could he ask that Geissner could answer?
    “You were there yourself?” he said. “With them at the barricades, and in the times before . . . and after?”
    Geissner smiled, a wry twitch of the lips. “Yes, Mr. Monk, I was. Being a priest does not prevent me from believing in the greater freedom of my people. I did not hold a gun, but I carried messages, tried to argue and persuade, and I tended the troubled and the injured, and heard confession from those who had done physical harm to others in the cause they believed in.”
    “And those who from their own passions had done things, or omitted them, which gravely harmed others?” Monk urged, this time directly looking into Geissner’s eyes.
    “I know what you are asking me, Herr Monk,” Geissner said very quietly. “And you know that my oath as a priest prevents me from answering you. I would give a great deal to be able to help you learn the truth as to what happened to Elissa von Leibnitz. I grieve for her, for the bright flame that has been quenched. I grieve still more for Kristian. As I knew him, he was a man of remarkable inner courage, an honesty to look at himself and measure his failings against his dreams. He did not run away from truth, even when it hurt him profoundly.”
    “You are speaking of Hanna’s death?” Monk said quickly.
    Geissner blinked and drew in his breath slowly. “Do not misunderstand me, I am speaking of the regret he felt afterwards, the self-doubt he suffered because they had chosen Hanna for the errand. He came to believe that they had done so because she was Jewish, and therefore, in some way deeper than conscious thought, not entirely one of them. I don’t know if that was true, but he feared it was, and he was horrified with himself for it.”
    “And the others? Elissa? Max?”
    He shook his head. Fractionally. “No. That was the beginning of a subtle difference between them, a divergence of inner paths, but not outer. Kristian married Elissa. Max Niemann remained his friend. I think Kristian only ever spoke of it to me. I tell you because it reflects on the kind of man he was, and I believe will always be. It was that core of strength in him that Elissa saw, and loved.”
    “And Hanna?” Monk asked. He was not certain how far he could push Geissner, but he could not leave it as it was. He was almost certain that Elissa had betrayed Hanna, but almost was not enough. “Was that what she loved in him, too, and trusted?”
    Something shivered inside Geissner. “She was not my parishioner, Herr Monk. She did not confide such things in me.”
    Monk chose his words very carefully. “Father, if someone had betrayed Hanna Jakob to the authorities, would they have expected that she would be tortured to death and yet keep silent? That seems a very terrible thing. Is there any alternative, other than that the people whose whereabouts she kept secret would have been killed?”
    Geissner was silent for so long Monk thought he was not going to reply, then at last he spoke. “I think it would be possible that they had made provision that the people concerned were warned, and were safe, so that if Hanna should break, to save herself, she would not, in fact, have betrayed anyone, except in her own mind.” He bit his lip, as if the cruelty of it only just came fully to him as he spoke the words aloud and heard them. “It was a time of great passions, Herr Monk. Perhaps we should not judge people for acts committed then by the calmer and colder light of today, when we sit here comfortably talking together of things we know only partially.”
    “And you cannot tell me if this thing even happened. Does anyone else know of it? Max Niemann, for example? Or Kristian himself?”
    “No. There is no one you can ask, because no one else knows of it, and I cannot speak of it any further. I am sorry.” He lifted his chin a little. “But if you imagine it has to do with Elissa’s death, I believe you are wrong. I alone know what happened, and I have told no one.” A