Last Flight to Stalingrad

by Graham Hurley

  ‘Cherries,’ she said, ‘and blackcurrants, and some early apples at the bottom.’

  She was standing in the middle of the room, the last of the sunshine caught in the thickness of her hair. She’d yet to notice the piano.

  ‘And that’ – Nehmann nodded at it – ‘is for you.’ He helped himself to a cherry. ‘Fair exchange?’

  She glanced round, then looked properly. She wanted to know what it was doing here, where it came from. She was like a child, tiny gasps of surprise and delight.

  ‘Really?’ She’d settled on the stool, already flexing her fingers. ‘For me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘But it does. This is a Steinway. You don’t understand. They cost a fortune. Where did you get it?’

  Nehmann mumbled something about a specialist shop off the Ku’damm. It was a lie, of course, but he didn’t think it would matter.

  ‘Just play something,’ he said. ‘For me.’

  She held his gaze for a moment, visibly troubled, then inched the stool a little closer to the keyboard and played a chord or two.

  ‘They tuned it for you?’

  ‘I didn’t ask. What do you think?’

  ‘Not bad. I have a tuning fork at home. I’ll bring it tomorrow. You have some wine? I’d like that.’

  Nehmann fetched a bottle of claret from the closet, making a mental note to account for the missing cases. By the time he’d drawn the cork and returned to the lounge with a couple of glasses, she was poised to begin.

  ‘Schubert,’ she said. ‘An impromptu. You want to know the number?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  ‘It’s number three. If you don’t like it, I can play something else.’ She accepted the glass and took a tiny sip.

  Nehmann made himself comfortable on the sofa and asked her to start. At the club in Moabit, and now here, she always seemed to defer to the music, barely moving on the stool, using her hands and feet to tease out the composer’s intentions, an almost invisible presence on the margins of the performance. Nehmann, who had become used to a degree of showiness in his women, loved this about her. Listen to the music, she seemed to be telling him, because I’m only here to do its bidding. So modest. So respectful.

  He leaned back, half closing his eyes, enjoying the last warmth of the sun on his face. The impromptu, like the wine and the sunshine, seemed to settle deep within him. After the opening – reflective, plangent – came a ripple of something a little more urgent, and he watched her as she caught the rhythm, rode the wave with the faintest backwards motion of her head, then stilled it again. When she’d finished, he asked her what ‘impromptu’ meant.

  ‘It means improvised. It means the composer’s making it up as he goes along. It means free form. It’s a joke, of course, but in good taste. The piece is perfect. Schubert thought hard about every note. Everything is there for a reason. You liked it?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘And this?’

  She began to play a jazz piece Nehmann had first heard barely weeks ago when he’d gone down to the club on the recommendation of one of the secretaries from the Promi. Very pretty girl, she’d warned him. And she’d been right.

  Nehmann got to his feet and fetched the bottle. When he offered her more, she shook her head. Then, in the middle of a deeply promising riff, she stopped playing.

  ‘Where did it really come from?’ She was looking at the piano.

  ‘I told you. Little place off the Ku’damm.’

  ‘Not true. There are no little places off the Ku’damm. Not with room for something like this.’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Of course it does. It matters that I know where it came from. And it matters even more that you tell me the truth.’

  Nehmann nodded, recharged his own glass, remained silent.

  ‘You’re not going to tell me?’ She was frowning now.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘I think I can guess.’

  ‘Then tell me.’

  ‘Why? Would it make a difference?’

  ‘To what? To me sitting here playing it? Or to us?’

  Us. Nehmann acknowledged the word with a smile. So far he’d told her nothing about the Promi. About the life he led feeding the propaganda machine. About the lengths he’d happily go to, gleefully twisting the truth in the service of God knows what. Instead, he’d told her about growing up in the mountains back home in Georgia, about the father who’d left the family to fend for itself, and about the uncle who’d owned the abattoir in Svengati, and had insisted that his little cast-off nephew become a butcher. His uncle, he told Maria, had paid him well. He’d hated butchery but by the time he was seventeen, he’d saved enough to take the bus out of the mountains. He’d made his way first to Istanbul, and then to Paris, and there he’d discovered a talent for writing that began to shape the rest of his young life. Language, he said, had become his friend, his passion. And on good weeks, when he was lucky, it even paid a bill or two.

  Listening to these stories of his, half true, half not, Maria had shown endless patience and what he liked to believe was a genuine delight, but the more he got to know her, the more he sensed a fellow traveller. She guarded her own secrets with a playful deftness he rather admired. One day, if he was lucky, she might tell him a great deal more but for now she seemed happy to enjoy his versions of what might, or might not, have happened. Which, in the light of her next question, was deeply ironic.

  ‘I met someone last night who knows you,’ she said. ‘She was in the club with her boyfriend. They bought me a drink. We talked.’

  ‘She has a name? This person?’

  ‘Birgit. She works in the Promi and when I mentioned the apartment, she said she knew it.’

  Nehmann was staring up at the ceiling. The gods of coincidence had always treated him gently. Until now.

  ‘And what did she tell you?’

  ‘She told me you work for Goebbels. Is that true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you do for him?’

  ‘I lie.’

  She nodded, unsurprised, and then one hand reached for the keyboard again. A single chord. Dark. Ominous. Slightly out of tune.

  ‘And the piano?’

  ‘It probably came from a Jewish family.’

  ‘At a fair price?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  She turned to look at him. Then she smiled and beckoned him closer.

  ‘There.’ She kissed him on the lips. ‘Not so painful, after all.’

  6

  VENICE, 9 AUGUST 1942

  It took Werner Nehmann nearly three weeks to track down his Coquette. A telephone call to the Cinecittà film studios in Rome confirmed that Hedvika had recently finished a movie under director Emilio Brambilla and was expected back from a well-earned vacation any day now. Nehmann left his name, and a hint that Hedvika might welcome a conversation, and waited for the phone to ring.

  When nothing happened, he tried again. This time he got through to an executive in the publicity department who’d recently read an article of Nehmann’s in Das Reich. The piece, typically playful, had made her laugh. Nehmann had set out to ponder the current appetite in both dictatorships for show and spectacle, for huge parades, for wardrobes of fancy costumes, and for the public’s apparent willingness to go along with this pantomime. As always, Nehmann had trodden the high wire between treason and entertainment with immense panache, though his first draft, submitted to the Minister, had drawn a caustic response. ‘Publish this shit,’ Goebbels had scribbled in green ink, ‘and we’ll both end up in the KZ.’

  Nehmann, of course, had no intention of getting anywhere near a concentration camp and half an hour in the Minister’s office, late at night, had produced a second draft, and then a third. This was the version, carefully salted with dutiful nods to the many glories of the Reich, that had landed on the publicity executive’s lap.


  ‘I was at the dentist,’ she explained on the phone. ‘It made perfect reading.’

  Nehmann mentioned Hedvika.

  ‘You know her well?’ she asked.

  ‘Very.’

  ‘How well?’

  ‘Ask her. That woman never lies and neither do I.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ she laughed. ‘Everyone lies, all the time.’

  ‘OK, so try this. Tell her the trick really works.’

  ‘What trick?’

  ‘Levitation. Just say it. Levitation. That’s all you need.’ He paused. ‘So, where is she?’

  ‘On vacation. I thought you knew.’

  ‘I did. How long a holiday does she need?’

  ‘It’s complicated. You know about Emilio? I’m guessing you probably do. He threw her off the set last week as soon as she’d done her final scene.’

  ‘Am I allowed to ask why?’

  ‘I’m sure you can guess. Who gets to see her in close-up? Who controls her lighting? Who makes her look truly beautiful?’

  ‘The cameraman.’

  ‘You’re right. And his services didn’t end there.’

  ‘He’s with her now?’

  ‘He’s in hospital. Emilio has rough friends. You want me to talk to Hedvika? Give me your number. I’ll do my best.’

  Nehmann didn’t have to wait long. That evening, Guram’s phone rang. Maria was playing in the club at Moabit. Nehmann lifted the receiver and waited for the long-distance crackle to recede. Finally, an Italian operator checked his name and asked him to stand by for a call.

  Nehmann was sitting at the piano, newly tuned. He walked his fingers along the keyboard in a slow arpeggio, a trick that Maria had taught him. Finally came a voice he recognised.

  ‘Hedvika?’ he asked.

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Venice.’

  *

  Next day, Nehmann took the train south. Goebbels had given him five thousand Reichsmarks two weeks ago. He’d already spent nearly four hundred on presents for Maria, but he had plenty left. The southbound express left the Hauptbahnhof at six minutes past nine. He changed trains at Munich and dozed through the Alps in a sleeping compartment he had to himself, woken only by a cheerful Italian customs official at the border.

  Dawn found him crossing the lagoon towards the distant promise of a city he’d never seen before. He stepped into the corridor and hung out of the window, savouring the rankness of this inland sea. Already, Venice smelled of decay and corruption. Perfect.

  Hedvika had given him instructions to her hotel. He was to find a vaporetto and ask for the Palazzo Grassi. Three streets away from the water, look for another tiny canal on the right. Maybe a hundred metres, a once-imposing front door with a brass plate that badly needs a polish. Alla Vite Dorata. Top-floor room with a fine view of a neighbour’s yard. Gute Reise.

  Safe journey. Nehmann didn’t bother with the vaporetto. He had money in his pocket and the city at his feet. In any movie, he thought, this opening scene called for a gondola and a boatman with a half-decent voice. The dock at the railway terminus was emptier than he’d expected. Maybe it was the hour, he thought. Still barely seven in the morning.

  The first gondolier he tried was a hunchback who had trouble meeting Nehmann’s eyes as he gazed down from the dock. The man’s face had acquired a wistful bitterness that Nehmann loved at first sight. Someone had done a startling job on the perfectly ironed whiteness of his shirt and, when Nehmann asked him for a song before embarking, he obliged with a fortissimo version of the ‘Horst Wessel’. Nehmann blinked. The gondolier was stamping one boot, the tiny barque trembling beneath him. For just a moment, Nehmann wondered about hiring one of the other gondoliers but decided his new friend was making a point and was happy to accept a helping hand as he clambered aboard.

  ‘Welcome to Venezia,’ the gondolier said. ‘I am Benito. You will be Adolf. The world is crazy, si?’

  Nehmann, blissfully content in such company, settled on the upholstered banquette in the stern. Benito, braced on the platform behind him, handled the gondola with dismissive aplomb. Sweep after sweep of the long paddle took them away from the railway terminus towards the heart of the city. Wherever he looked, Nehmann thought, history had its feet planted deep in the murk of the Grand Canal. A frieze of houses, as perfect as a theatre set, impossibly old, impossibly crooked, impossibly beautiful. Elegant palazzos, their windows half shuttered against the brightness of the morning light. Only this morning, before leaving Berlin, Maria had warned him that Venice would be the sweetshop of his dreams. A temptress city full of impossible delights. A city that played tricks with you. A city that led you deep into a maze you simply couldn’t comprehend. She’d been there herself in circumstances she might one day share but for now she just wanted him to let the city cast its spell.

  ‘You’ll have no choice.’ She’d reached up to kiss him. ‘Nobody has.’

  She was right. They were approaching the landing stage at Palazzo Grassi. The gondola bumped gently against the rope fender and Benito reached down to help him off. The sight of a fifty Reichsmark note briefly sparked what might have been a smile.

  ‘Take care, my friend.’ Benito carefully folded the note into a pocket. ‘The lady isn’t as sweet as she looks.’

  ‘Lady?’

  ‘Venezia.’

  Nehmann left the landing stage without a backward glance, aware that the city was already drawing him in. Barely metres from the water, the buildings closed around him, towering walls of windowed brick and stone, each subtly different. There was no sign of the war here, no indication that vast armies were fighting to the death, that millions of city dwellers were spending every night underground, that a family could starve without a ration card. Instead, he was looking at lines of washing hanging across the narrowness of the street, at women kneading dough in open bakeries, at flocks of starlings swooping busily over a street-corner market stall. Nehmann paused to check his bearings. A conjuring trick, he concluded. Normal life restored by sleight of hand.

  He found the Alla Vite Dorata without difficulty. The building had the air of a beggar in the street, unkempt, neglected. The grey stucco was crumbling. The windows were still shuttered. He stepped back and shook his head, bewildered. Movie stars earned good money. If you’d come to Venice to spoil yourself why would you ever stay here?

  Nehmann tried the door. It was locked. There was no bell, no knocker, and so he hammered on the peeling paintwork with the side of his fist. At length, he thought he heard movement inside, then the door opened and he was looking at a man in his thirties, white shirt, black trousers, bare feet. His face was heavily tanned beneath several days of stubble.

  ‘Hedvika…?’ Nehmann gestured inside.

  ‘Lei parla Italiano?’

  ‘Nein.’

  The man looked at him a moment longer, then came a voice Nehmann recognised from the depths of the building. She was shouting something in Italian.

  ‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘Hedvika.’

  He found her, as promised, in a bare room on the top floor. Naked from the waist up, she was sitting up in bed, stroking a fat tabby cat. Nehmann settled at once on the side of the bed. He knew about cats.

  ‘She’s got a problem with her eye,’ he said at once. ‘Try a weak vinegar solution. She’ll hate it but it might do the trick.’

  ‘He,’ she said. ‘He’s a he. He fights all night and comes back for attention. Sometimes it’s an eye. Sometimes other places. There isn’t enough vinegar in this city to make him better. He lives to fight. Sometimes I think he must be German.’

  Nehmann wanted to know about this pension of hers. With all those movies behind her, why end up in a dump like this?

  The word ‘pension’ amused her. The house, she said, belonged to a friend of hers. He’d bought it before the war as an investment and one day he’d come back and tidy things up, but for now that was difficult.

  ‘He’s in hospital, your friend?’


  ‘He is.’ She looked surprised. ‘How did you know?’

  Nehmann shook his head. Wouldn’t say. Instead, he asked about the man downstairs.

  ‘He’s Carlo’s brother, Fabio. Not bad, but Carlo’s twice the man. Fabio’s been here for a while. He thinks the war’s stupid and he’s got no time for dying.’

  ‘He’s in hiding?’

  ‘He doesn’t go out much.’ She got rid of the cat and moved to the side of the bed. Then she asked Nehmann to shut the door. ‘A fuck might be nice.’ She smiled. ‘If you’re offering.’

  *

  Later, she took him to lunch at a trattoria on the Piazza San Marco. The exchange rate between the lira and the Reichsmark was very good just now and she had more money than she could possibly spend.

  ‘So, fifty Reichsmarks…?’ Nehmann asked.

  ‘A fortune. Fifty will buy you the evening of your dreams. Tosca at La Fenice. Dinner at the Danieli. Grappa by the bottle. Whoever said war was a bad idea?’

  Nehmann grinned, thinking of his little gondolier. Fifty marks, he decided, was cheap. The biggest gestures were always the best. He should have made it a hundred, maybe two. Goebbels, early on in their relationship, had put his finger on it. Whatever the challenge, whatever the difficulties, you go as fast as you can, you be as bold as you can, and you ignore all advice to the contrary. Because the wildest life is the most beautiful.

  ‘Lida Baarova,’ he murmured. ‘You know her?’

  ‘Of course. I’m Czech. I’m an actress. As it happens, we even share a couple of schoolfriends, back in Prague. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because I’d like to meet her.’

  ‘But why?’ She beckoned him closer. ‘I’ve given you a taste for Czech movie stars? You like the way we treat our men? Is that it?’

  ‘It might be. It depends.’

  ‘On what? On her? Just now, she’s seeing no one. In fact, she hasn’t had a man for a very long time.’

  ‘Should that be a surprise? Given what happened?’

  ‘Of course not. The poor woman had a breakdown. Your friend Goebbels set the dogs on her, chased her out of Berlin. First he frightened her, then he put her in an asylum. You couldn’t write a story like that. No one would ever believe it. And you know what makes it even worse? She loved that man, she really did. They were together for two whole years. She believed everything he told her, every promise he made. It wasn’t just the money, the fame, the presents, the attention. He said it was about her. He said he needed her wholeness, her specialness. He said she was the only woman, the only person in the world who could bring him peace.’ She paused. ‘Does any of that sound familiar?’