She put the letter in her pocket and pulled out the other, turning it over in her hand, looking at the handwriting, the unfamiliar address. It had been sent to her work, and they had forwarded it to her.
Dear Bette. He used her German name. This is by way of an olive branch, an apology, an excuse. She breathed out, unsure of herself. I was a small man caught up in large events. And I was as surprised as I am sure you must have been at the decision not to investigate your father’s death. I thought of you then.
I am now head of a modern language department in a grammar school in mid-Wales, and have bought a run-down cottage where I live with a border collie called Bess, a rooster and five laying hens, Eins, Zwei, Drei, Vier and Fünf.
She tried not to smile, but the chickens’ names were too absurd. If you have read this far, I consider myself a lucky man. I plan to modernise the cottage over the summer (by which I mean plumb in the water and put in a proper, indoor lavatory and bathroom). The countryside round here is beautiful. It would be presumptuous to offer you an invitation, but you know you would be welcome. More immediately, a post has come up for a secretary at the school and I wondered whether you would be interested? It is a step up from the typing pool. Also, there is a vacancy for an English teacher. A step up from secretary.
Will you ever forgive me?
Yours ever, John.
Perhaps she had been too harsh on him. Would she have been strong in the storm of history? She could see him in the countryside, with an old tweed jacket and wellington boots, the dog at his heel. She was a city girl, needed pavements to feel secure, but she could see the attraction of the countryside. It had been a terrible year, a roller coaster of unimaginable highs and lows. She’d sunk into her bed each night exhausted.
‘You need a damn good holiday,’ Dee said to her. ‘When all this is over. Check yourself into a nice hotel in Bournemouth. You’ve got the money. Or go to Cornwall. Walk in the moors, along the coast. Swim. Work off those Cornish teas.’
She had to give a week’s notice at work. She could take a few days off before she started with the Daily Herald. Go to Wales. Put up with an outside privy and no running water. She’d survived Berlin, after all. Could new love ever glow from the embers of the old?
She folded the letter, returned it to its envelope, and placed it on the mantelpiece behind the Kienzle clock.
SOURCES
The following sources were used when researching for the novel:
Books:
Anonymous (Hillers, M.). A Woman in Berlin (Virago, 2005)
Baruma, I. Year Zero: A History of 1945 (Atlantic Books, 2013)
Beevor, A. Berlin: The Downfall: 1945 (Viking, 2002)
Berlin, M. The Partisan Coffee House 1958–1963 (Catalogue to the Four Corners Gallery exhibition on the Partisan Coffee House, 2017)
Caplan, J. Nazi Germany: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2019)
Duff, P. Left, Left, Left: A Personal Account of Six Protest Campaigns, 1945–65 (Allison and Busby, 1971)
Huber, F. Promise Me You’ll Shoot Yourself: The Downfall of Ordinary Germans in 1945 (Allen Lane, 2019)
Gatrell, P. The Unsettling of Europe: The Great Migration, 1945 to the Present (Allen Lane, 2019)
Judt, T. Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (Vintage Books, 2010)
Longden, S. T-Force: The Forgotten Heroes of 1945 (Constable, 2009)
Mazower, M. Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century (Penguin Books, 1999)
West, R. A Train of Powder (Virago, 1984)
Peace News (selected editions, February 1958 – May 1959)
Films:
March to Aldermaston (dir. Lindsay Anderson, 1959)
The Downfall of Berlin: Anonyma (dir. Max Färberböck, 2008)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
As always, many thanks are due to my agent, Juliet Mushens, and to my editor, Jenny Parrott, for her wise suggestions, and to the team at Oneworld who have done so much to produce this novel: Molly Scull, Margot Weale, Ben Summers, Lucy Cooper, Laura McFarlane and Paul Nash.
My husband, Stein Ringen, planted the seed of this story when he suggested exploring the ‘evacuation’ of German scientists and science after World War II, and I am hugely grateful to him.
My dear friend, the late Raphael Samuel, an inspirational historian and intellectual entrepreneur, founded the Partisan Coffee House as ‘the first socialist coffee house in the country’ and ‘an anti-espresso bar’ in 1958. It closed in 1963, but in its short life it was the epicentre of radical and progressive thought and debate in politics, art, music, film, literature and design. The menu was eclectic, the coffee undrinkable, its influence on postwar cultural and socialist politics and thought immense.
Many friends, acquaintances and strangers shared their memories of the Partisan Coffee House and the early days of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, or gave me insights into the world of spooks, spies and Special Branch. This is a work of fiction, and some may find their insights or memories transposed in time and place. I hope, however, I have kept to the spirit of their words if not the letter, but any errors are entirely mine. Huge thanks therefore to: Anna Davin, Brigid Davin, Nick Henson, Tricia Leman, Jo Stanley, Mike Warburton, Andrew Whitehead, Nigel Young and from the shadows, as befits their craft, ‘X’ and ‘Z’. And for the introductions, Anna Davin, Guy de Jonquières and Richard Ralph.
A special thank you to Peter Huhne for his memories of postwar Berlin. I also owe posthumous thanks to my father, Arthur Chamberlain, for his stories of North Germany and Berlin in 1945 – and for the Kienzle clock acquired at that time.
Cecilia Ekbäck, Viv Graveson, Rosie Laurence, Laura McClelland, Sara Sarre, Saskia Sarginson, Gill Marshall-Andrews and Bob Marshall-Andrews read parts, or entire drafts, of this novel and gave me invaluable feedback, so many grateful thanks to them.
Throughout the writing of this book (during lockdown) I met (via Zoom) with my dear friends Sally Alexander and Ursula Owen, whose conversations on the war and postwar were invaluable in shaping my thinking, so a special thanks to them. And Bill Schwarz deserves a particular mention, too. He’ll know what for. (A small in-joke. Sorry.)
Sylvia and Hans-Joachim Kieling helped with my German, so continuing thanks to them.
Finally, of course, my wonderful family for all their love and support and for delivering, with impeccable timing, a new grandchild as I delivered the manuscript of The Forgotten to Oneworld.
A Oneworld Book
First published in Great Britain and Australia
by Oneworld Publications, 2021
This ebook published 2021
Copyright ©MsArk Ltd, 2021
The moral right of Mary Chamberlain to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved
Copyright under Berne Convention
A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78607-907-7 (hardback)
ISBN 978-1-78607-908-4 (ebook)
Typeset by Geethik Technologies
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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