by Thynne, Jane
Below them the city was dwindling to a quilt of red roofs and chimneys. Just outside Tempelhof, she could see a patchwork of allotments, little grids of cabbage and leeks, like a bar chart in a child’s schoolbook. Around the green spaces the crossword puzzle of streets and blocks extended and on the outskirts of the city braids of smoke from factory towers twisted into the sky.
Thinking of herself and Strauss suspended so perilously high above them, Clara’s heart caught in her mouth. Why had she agreed to his invitation, she asked herself, yet she knew the answer already. Some instinct within her, ingrained too deeply to eradicate, meant she was never able to refuse a challenge. Their father had instilled it in childhood, setting sister against brother, making every game of chess a competition, every outing an opportunity to test their own resources. On holiday in the Scottish Highlands, where the children would follow his austere, forbidding figure as they laboured with knapsacks through the drizzle, he would set each child a task. They would be left in a distant location equipped with only a ball of string, a compass and a shilling. That was all they required, he would say, to hike their way home. Somehow, Clara had always managed it. From an early age she had learned never to show fear and never to reveal reluctance.
As the plane climbed higher the map turned into a tapestry, with dark green forests, thick as fur, wedged between the patchwork of fields. A flash of river, like mercury. They flew through a fleece of clouds, moisture beading the outside of the glass, and out again into the empty sky. As Clara breathed in the air, sharp and cold as a knife, she felt a rush of exhilaration. Suddenly she understood the addiction of flight. How wonderful it must be to have this heart-stopping excitement in your life, to feel that in an instant you could soar above the city and leave your landlocked life behind you.
‘That’s the rate-of-climb indicator.’ Strauss jabbed a finger at the instrument panel. ‘The boost pressure indicator, the speed indicator, the altimeter. The maximum speed of this plane is three hundred and sixty-five kilometres an hour.’
None of the dials meant anything to her. Crouched behind Strauss, Clara felt like Sinbad on the back of the eagle, though her every sensation was governed by the penetrating cold. Her attempt at dressing warmly had been hopelessly inadequate. The cold burned her face and even with Strauss’s jacket she felt as if she might freeze to the steel seat. She wondered how Strauss was managing without it, though she could see he was wearing fur-lined boots and a thick sweater swaddled over several layers.
They were much higher now, unimaginable thousands of feet, and below them Brandenburg spread out to the faint line of the horizon, purple with the wrinkle of the hills.
‘Hold on!’ shouted Strauss.
From its great height, the plane flipped in a graceful somersault, tumbling through the cloud cover before swooping downwards. Banking and turning, it rolled over and over so she could no longer tell whether they were up or down. To her horror, it seemed that the propeller had cut out and the engine was dead. As they hurtled towards the earth, trees and grass and buildings came into view. Clara could scarcely breathe from terror. A searing pain drilled in her ears and the air was knocked from her lungs as she gripped the sides of the seat, wanting to scream but unable to make a sound. The propeller was still not functioning. She squeezed her eyes shut. For several seconds they continued downwards until at the last moment, when they had dipped so low they almost touched the grass with one wing, the plane swung violently to one side, Strauss opened the throttle and the ground leapt away from them as they ascended steeply into the air.
‘That’s called a Dead Stick landing,’ he shouted, pulling the plane into a rapid climb. ‘Our friend Ernst has the copyright on that.’
For a moment she did not grasp what he was saying, until she comprehended that the terrifying plunge was intentional, and that Strauss had performed a dangerous stunt without warning her. When she understood, fury and fear mingled in her as the plane thrust its way upwards, every inch shuddering as the propeller blades, working again, sliced through the cold, white air. She was going to be sick, she knew it.
Above the cloud bank the plane dropped speed a little, levelled out and they drifted high through the sparkling morning. The ground beneath was obscured by vapour so they were entirely alone, suspended between earth and heaven. Spokes of sunlight streamed through gaps in the clouds.
Strauss brought the plane around in a vast, lazy loop as though it was performing its own graceful ballet in the air. Then he seized the throttle and brought it down forcibly so that the sky reared up towards them and the plane was almost at ninety degrees. Clara wanted to beg him not to perform another stunt but the breath was knocked out of her, as though she had been winded, and the rushing air pressed against her lips. She formed the word ‘Please!’ but it did not emerge from her mouth. When she felt the plane level and then tilt nose down, she knew it was already too late.
The scream of the engine was too high for her to speak, and she was consumed by a panicky vertigo. The ground was rushing towards them crazily fast. Nine thousand feet, eight thousand, seven thousand. The air speed indicators on the dashboard wheeled excitedly round in their glass cases. Wind whipped through the fuselage and red lights glowed on the dashboard. What was he thinking of, trying a stunt like this? Strauss’s face revealed nothing, but his jaw was clenched as he grappled with the controls. The fuselage was juddering so violently she was certain the plane was about to come apart. They were hurtling towards earth in a steel coffin, about to sink like a stone into the hard ground. Strauss seemed to be wrenching the throttle while they continued to accelerate steeply down. She felt the nausea rising in her, and looked for something to vomit in. How awful to be plunging to your death and looking for a sick bag.
Just as they seemed certain to die, Strauss made a sharp movement with his foot, jerked the throttle lever towards him and the plane tilted ninety degrees, throwing them both bodily to the left as they rose again. Through her jangled brain the comment of Goebbels came to her.
‘I think you have a taste for danger, Fräulein.’
Goebbels was wrong. She had no taste for danger. But danger had a way of seeking her out.
It took a few minutes for the plane to bank and turn again and make a slow descent towards the Tempelhof runway. Strauss taxied to a halt and the engine grunted and stuttered before it died and the propeller blades flapped to a halt. Taking off his hat he sat still for a moment, his lips compressed into a mirthless grin. Beads of sweat stood out on his brow. His eyes were dark and unfathomable, like a pool of oil.
‘Were you frightened?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘OK, I was terrified.’
He laughed. A short, joyless bark. ‘So was I. I lost control there, you realize? I thought we were for it. The throttle locked at high altitude. I almost gave up. Luckily I managed to kick the stick with my foot in the nick of time.’
He helped her climb out of the plane and they walked back across the tarmac. They had spent no more than fifteen minutes in the air, yet she felt like a lifetime had passed. Her legs were shaking as though she had just got off a ship and her thoughts were a maelstrom of confusion. Had Strauss deliberately risked her life, as well as his own? Was he telling the truth when he said he lost control?
‘How do you feel?’
Instinctively, as ever, she suppressed the anger and confusion churning inside her.
‘I feel like a cocktail that’s just been shaken,’ she said lightly.
He looked at her in astonishment, but even as she said it, her mood changed. It was true. She was euphoric that she had not died. She had cheated death and was about to continue an ordinary Berlin morning, going about her ordinary, earthbound life. Did every pilot have this intense, searing sensation of being alive, every time he returned to land? If so, it was almost worth the fear you went through to achieve it.
‘Well, I need a smoke.’
Strauss stopped, reached over to the po
cket of the jacket she was wearing, freed a packet of cigarettes, and lit one for her and one for himself. His fingers, she noticed, were trembling.
‘Sorry to frighten you.’
‘I thought you said the conditions were perfect.’
‘The conditions were fine. It was the throttle that misbehaved.’
‘I hope you mention that throttle in your report.’
‘I certainly will.’
‘There is one thing I wanted to ask. When we were up there. You said you almost gave up. So why did you not?’
His face glazed over again with the absent, thin-lipped expression that she had seen before.
‘It was too early for me to die. Especially with you on board.’
She laughed, as though he was joking, though he gave no appearance of it.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘there’s a poem I like. It’s Irish. You might know it.’
‘Try me.’
‘I know that I shall meet my death
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love.’
‘That’s Yeats. An Irish Airman Foresees His Death.’
There was a spark of interest in his eyes. ‘You do know it?’
‘I love it.’
‘Me too. That idea has roots in our German mythology too. The old Teutonic heroes would go on a journey from which they would never return. It was called the Totenritt, the death ride.’
‘Well thank God we avoided one of those.’
‘We studied Yeats at school. That same teacher, the one who taught us our mythology, he loved poetry. Most German schoolchildren concentrate on Schiller, Heine, Goethe and so on. Or at least they used to. But our teacher focused on other poets too. Foreigners. Though he did point out that the Irish were Germany’s allies, of course.’
As they neared the terminal they talked a little about the forthcoming film. Strauss never bothered watching Ernst’s movies. Those film people always got the technical details wrong, and besides, he preferred Ernst when he wasn’t pretending to be some po-faced Nazi hero humming the Horst Wessel Song. Ernst didn’t need to pretend to be anything other than what he was. He already had a chestful of decorations and you could make a whole aeroplane out of the medals he’d won in real life. As they talked, the vibration resounding in Clara’s bones gradually left her and she felt entirely calm.
When they reached the main hall Strauss said, ‘I shall be meeting some compatriots of yours soon, as it happens. I’ve had an invitation to meet your former king. The Reich Minister’s holding a reception for him at Carinhall.’
‘That will be fascinating,’ said Clara neutrally.
‘Do you think so? For an actress perhaps. As a pilot I can’t think of anything worse. I’m not suited to standing around making polite conversation with duchesses.’ He looked at her thoughtfully then gave a stiff, ironic bow.
‘Now, Fräulein, I must go and fill out my test report.’
She felt a surge of regret that he was leaving so soon, but shrugged off his jacket and held it out to him.
‘I hope you got what you needed. For your film, that is.’
‘More than enough.’
‘Then I’m glad to have helped.’
Strauss tipped his cap and strode away into the airport building.
Chapter Eleven
When Mary Harker first arrived back in Berlin she had looked forward to revisiting all her old haunts. The Verona Lounge, on Kleiststrasse near Nollendorfplatz, which after hours turned from a chic evening club to an outrageously bohemian bar. Le Garconne on Kalckreuth Strasse, owned by Susi Wanowski, the former wife of a Berlin police chief who in a drastic life change had become the lover of the erotic dancer Anita Berber. Mali and Ingel’s in Lutherstrasse, where if you ignored the sign reading ‘Closed for Private Party’ you would find all types of artists, intellectuals, singers and actresses. Even in the first days of the Reich, there had been lingering traces of Weimar decadence. Every night you could pass a cellar door and look down to see a dancer adjusting her bustier or a man with a saxophone in a sweaty bar. Now all these places were gone. The sly, smoky rhythms of jazz that leaked out of nightclub cellars had been replaced with light operetta, marching music and brass bands. Instructions had gone out from the Reich Chamber of Culture that saxophones should be replaced where possible with the viola, improvization was banned and any song’s lyrics must be light-hearted rather than the ‘gloomy, Jewish’ kind. In particular, the Reich liked drums, to keep German hearts banging in rhythm. Strident music in a major key.
The nightlife wasn’t the only thing that had changed. All the journalists in the world had converged on Berlin. It was competitive as hell. The crisis in Europe attracted foreign correspondents like bees to a honeypot, except there was nothing sweet about the content of the twice-daily press briefings handed out at the Ministry of Propaganda. The Nazis kept things as controlled as they could. Every morning and afternoon the journalists sat and imbibed whatever lies the Government chose, delivered either by the press chief Otto Dietrich or by Goebbels himself. At the moment it was all to do with the perfidious Bolsheviks and the need for Germany to arm itself to protect the world from Communism.
The only good thing Goebbels had done was to build a fancy new press centre on Leipzigerplatz where many of the foreign correspondents had moved en masse from the Adlon bar. It had newspapers and plush leather armchairs and mahogany desks, as well as telegraph facilities for sending copy, if anyone was mad enough to trust their copy to the in-house censors. It was, of course, staffed by Nazi informers, and there was a rumour that the seats were wired for sound, but the correspondents had evolved a complex method of semaphore if they had anything important to convey. That was where Mary sat in the dining room on the first floor, thinking about Clara.
Clara had revealed, in their long talk the other night, that she missed the presence of a man in her life. There had been a couple of men, yet sometimes she feared she had lost the chance of a serious relationship altogether. As ever she was full of lively gossip but now there was a sombre tone beneath it, and a suspicion of private heartache. She was estranged from her family and had ended the relationship which seemed most likely to lead to marriage.
But then, Mary had written the book on heartache. The man she had wanted didn’t want her and the only person who had ever proposed to her was a lawyer back in New Jersey called Dirk Phillips, who had put his case in such desiccated tones, he might as well have been cribbing from the marriage service itself. That dreary bit about marriage being ordained for the procreation of children and as a remedy against sin. As Mary didn’t want any children and she didn’t mind sin, she had no problem in turning Dirk’s proposal down.
The arrival of a waiter bearing two Martinis and a bowl of olives returned Mary’s thoughts to Clara. The truth was, whatever the state of her love life, Clara’s life seemed enviable. She had that adorable apartment in Winterfeldstrasse – thanks to Mary – a car, even if it was on loan from a friend at the studio, and a wardrobe full of stylish clothes. Her career was blossoming. She looked, if anything, prettier than she had four years ago, her cheekbones more sharply defined and her beauty modulated by the grave shadows behind her eyes. Mary had always admired Clara’s deep brown hair, with its hints of chestnut and honey. Mary’s hair, by contrast, seemed defined by what it was not, neither brunette nor blonde, but a washed-out shade that only seemed to take on colour in the sun. She had nice eyes, but if she wanted a man to see them properly she had to take off her glasses, which meant conversely, that she could not see him. And whereas Mary had a constant battle with the bulge, the food shortages in Germany had left Clara lean and willowy, but not so slender that men did not look at her, just like they were doing now, as she made her way through the club to the table. Mary sprang up and kissed her.
‘Thanks for putting me on to the Bride School. What a story! Let’s hope no one at home gets any ideas. There are men in New
Jersey who want nothing more than a woman who knows how to stuff a herring.’
Clara gave a wry smile.
‘Frank Nussbaum loves the whole concept. When I told him they have lessons on how to obey a husband he was practically ready to move here.’
Clara guessed, though she had never asked, that Mary had given up the idea of marriage some years ago. Presumably she thought it was incompatible with her work. But then, she told herself, Mary probably assumed the same thing of her, and how accurate was that?
‘How can those girls stand it?’
‘You mean the prospect of marriage, or the pig-trotter stew they serve? God! Even I couldn’t face the lunch.’
‘So did you find out what happened?’
‘A little. There was a girl called Ilse Henning who filled me in. To start with they were blaming it on the gardener. According to Ilse he was soft in the head. But when I called up the department of Criminal Police they said he had been released without charge. Rock-solid alibi, apparently. So they’re combing through all the violent criminals on their books . . .’
‘Which is a pretty long list in Berlin right now . . .’
‘Exactly. And they still haven’t found their man.’
‘And Anna Hansen?’
‘Looks like you were right. She was a dancer. Originally from Munich. Engaged to an SS Obersturmführer Johann Peters.’
‘It must be the same Anna Hansen then. The girl Bruno knew came from Munich and had been a dancer. But she was the last person I’d have expected to find at a Bride School.’
Clara remembered what she could about the day she had come to Bruno’s studio and found Anna Hansen there, a girl with a ready smile and a calculating look. When Clara arrived Anna had sat up, taken a paint-spattered sheet like it was an evening dress, and pulled it lazily over her neat, tightly muscled body. Clara had been cool towards her, thinking Anna was a romantic replacement for Helga, assuming that Bruno had forgotten Helga already, despite everything he said about being heartbroken. As a result the two women had exchanged barely a few words. And now she was dead.
