The Berlin Girl

by Mandy Robotham

  ‘Friends then?’

  ‘Friends – always better than enemies. And let’s face it, we might soon have a few of those.’

  It had been a good evening, Georgie decided. Plenty of handshaking and work politics oiled by alcohol, but a minimal presence of Nazis, meaning a lighter atmosphere than so many of the functions the press were invited to. They shared a taxi back to Frida’s flat, as Rubin had the night off. Max seemed suddenly tired or troubled and fell into a near silence.

  ‘Will you be at the press conference tomorrow morning?’ Georgie prompted. ‘I really wish Herr Bauer wouldn’t call them for such an ungodly hour.’

  ‘Uh, no – giving that one a miss,’ he said, poked out of his reserve.

  She raised her eyebrows. Friends? Remember?

  ‘My father’s in town. I’ve been summoned to meet him. Dinner at the Adlon.’

  ‘Surely it won’t be that bad? And it is dinner at the Adlon.’

  ‘And this is my father we’re talking about.’ He shifted and sat up, sparked by a sudden idea. ‘Come and see for yourself if you don’t believe me. I can promise wonderful food.’

  ‘Would it help?’ She sensed her presence – any presence – might act as a buffer.

  ‘Yes. A good deal. Could you bear it? You can always make your excuses early and leave if it’s really awful.’

  ‘Well, then, how can I refuse?’

  ‘Really? You’ll come?’ He was like a small boy being granted access to a funfair.

  ‘Of course. What are friends for?’

  18

  Reprieve

  23rd October 1938

  Across Berlin and away from the genteel echoes of music and diplomacy, Sara lay awake as Rubin slid into bed beside her at one a.m.; she seemed weary and aching for sleep, though listening intently for the apartment to settle. She shifted awkwardly, her back to him, and he felt the crackle of tension coming off her. Sara turned, mouth twisting into a grimace, lips tight. In the gloom, Rubin watched tears fall onto her cheeks.

  ‘What are we going to do?’ she managed, a tone of utter despair.

  The images from their evening remained all too fresh in Rubin’s mind. Unusually free of work, he had enjoyed a rare family dinner and time with his children, later setting out the chess pieces for his game with Elias.

  They heard the commotion first in the courtyard, then moving to the stairwell: urgent shouts, frenzied barking. Rubin recognised it as Frau Vitten’s noisy dog two floors below – she’d let it out as a warning. He was up in a flash, the ladder pulled from under the bed and set against the attic entrance. Elias was already alarmed, garbled sounds coming from him, his speech confused in a panic. The children, bless them, knew what to do – Leon helped Rubin lift Elias from the chair, and scooped him to the bottom of the ladder, while Ester moved to the landing with her dolls, pretending to play. Her presence outside the door might delay, if only for a few seconds.

  Leon shimmied up the ladder, and with Rubin behind and Sara steadying, they attempted to push and pull Elias into the attic. He tried so hard to help, though with the deadened half of his body like a lead weight, they floundered. One leg up, and then it flopped down, all the while each trying to urge and instruct each other in a whisper, sweat forming, listening for the heavy jackboots getting closer, Frau Vitten’s voice giving way to Ester’s purposely loud greetings.

  ‘Stop, stop,’ Elias said in despair. ‘Please stop.’ Rubin shouldered his weight, lowering him to the floor. They all slumped, heavy with defeat, bracing themselves for the invasion, the cruel grasping of his frail body; Elias’s face already stricken with fear and resignation combined.

  But it never came. Frau Vitten’s hectoring was long and loud enough that a second rumpus in another part of the building diverted the invaders below. Hearing footsteps stomp away, Rubin chanced a look down the stairwell – some plain clothes, but mostly the muddy brown uniform of the Stormtroopers, gone to snatch at some other poor target.

  Their relief was welcome, though with a bitter aftertaste. It took Sara an age to settle the children, and Rubin longer in calming – and convincing – Elias. His heart had nearly broken when his brother-in-law had stared at him and said: ‘Let me go. Please.’ His words were indistinct, but the message clear in his sad eyes: Don’t let me be a danger. The family is safer if I surrender.

  ‘No! No!’ Rubin had cried. And he meant it. ‘You’re family, Elias. We’ll find a way.’

  Looking at his wife now, her distress cloaking them under the eiderdown, sheer exhaustion washing over him, Rubin Amsel did not know how he might achieve it.

  He put his arm around Sara’s body, quelling a slight tremor in her ribs, either from the cold or fear. At least he might be able to keep her warm. The rest was anyone’s guess.

  19

  Father, Dear Father

  23rd October 1938

  Max was propping up the bar as Georgie blew in from the October chill outside to the warm balm of Adlon familiarity. ‘So how was the press conference?’ he asked casually.

  ‘Uh, turgid content, the same old angry hot air from Doctor Joey, puffing on about some new propaganda tool disguised as a feature film.’ She yawned her distaste. ‘I honestly don’t know how they maintain the constant fervour – it’s all so exhausting the way they bark at us. But Rod and Bill were on good form, prodding at Herr Bauer with supreme sarcasm.’

  ‘Those two ought to be careful,’ Max said. ‘People have been kicked out of Germany for far less, had their press cards revoked.’

  ‘They do it with such skill, though,’ Georgie replied. ‘It makes the whole thing just bearable.’

  ‘Martini?’ Max said, looking eagerly towards the bartender.

  ‘Haven’t you indulged already?’ She eyed the empty glass at his elbow.

  ‘This is my father we’re meeting, and this is my way of ensuring it’s bearable,’ was both his answer and his excuse. ‘Two Martinis please,’ he requested. ‘Large ones.’

  Max was perhaps justified. Montague Spender lived up to his grandiose name in every way – tall, imposing, and possessing a confidence that only comes with being born into either money or an old, established family. This assurance was transferred in his handshake, firm, uncompromising and just a little uncomfortable.

  ‘So, Georgie – and would that be Georgina? – what do you think of Berlin?’ Mr Spender began, as they settled in the Adlon restaurant, a place Georgie had not stepped foot in; despite spending so much time in the bar, the restaurant and its luxurious menu were well beyond her purse. The décor, she noted, was even more opulent than the bar and foyer.

  ‘Strictly speaking, it is Georgina, but I prefer George or Georgie.’ She plucked out a diplomatic smile. ‘And I love Berlin. I feel very at home here despite the … well … the shifting sands.’

  Spender senior shot a look at Max, who appeared to brace himself for inevitable embarrassment. ‘Well, Georgie, you’re a lot like my son, here, in sidestepping his full name. It’s a wonder why parents go to all that trouble of naming their offspring. Eh Maximus?’

  Georgie’s eyebrows arched in surprise while Max’s lips levelled to a thin line of resignation.

  ‘Maximus Titus Aurelius if you want my full title,’ Spender junior cut in, pre-empting his father’s reveal and no doubt robbing him of the pleasure, with purpose. ‘Dad’s got something of an obse … he’s very interested in Ancient Rome.’

  ‘Not just interested, Max.’ Spender senior swiped his attention to face Georgie. ‘My son doesn’t like to admit that his father is an author – two books on the subject, so far. Hence his name. I like to think Max will one day progress to real writing – books – once he’s had his fill of journalism.’

  Mr Spender switched neatly to the wine list, clearly ignorant of the hurt he’d so swiftly and expertly decanted upon his son. Max looked strangely unaffected, leaving Georgie to wonder if he’d simply become numb to it. Now, she could see the need for that second Martini. Hold on tight, George.
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br />   Despite the simmering acrimony between father and son, the conversation did flow, not least because the cuisine was stunning, but also down to Montague Spender’s principal profession as a banker, skilled in holding court, well versed in soft-soaping and wheedling high-powered deals in expensive restaurants. That tricky question, though, was inevitable.

  ‘Having been here a little while, Georgie, what do you make of our Herr Hitler?’

  Max froze, mid-forkful, an expression of alarm skittering across his face.

  ‘Well, I think he’s undoubtedly a driven character, Mr Spender,’ she ventured. ‘And not unlike a good many Roman emperors in his visions. Much like in history, though, only time will tell about his methods of attaining them.’

  Montague Spender let fly with a hearty laugh and Max’s shoulders slumped with relief – she’d clearly passed some kind of test.

  ‘I’m with Rothermere on this,’ Max’s father went on. ‘I think the Führer’s doing great things for the German people. We need to work with him to assure the peace in Europe. It’s only a shame you’re not on the Daily Mail staff, Max.’

  Having spent the previous hour with Spender senior, this was no revelation to Georgie. The real shock was in how Max – his flesh and blood – was so unlike Spender senior, even with that initial display of detachment. Thankfully.

  ‘You were brilliant with him,’ Max said, crumpled in the back of a taxi, like a cushion with the stuffing beaten out of him. He looked exhausted with the effort of diplomacy. ‘Usually, he eats my friends alive. He must like you because he didn’t suggest leaving early, though more’s the pity.’

  ‘I quite enjoyed myself,’ Georgie said, mentally crossing her fingers in the white lie.

  Max laughed. ‘I thought we were friends – you know, honest with one another?’

  ‘Well, the food was delicious, and I had too much to drink, so it’s not all bad.’ She dug him playfully in the ribs.

  They were silent for a minute or so in watching the lights of Berlin move by.

  Then Georgie’s curiosity got the better of her. ‘Has he always been like that?’

  ‘Yes, afraid so,’ Max sighed. ‘I was away at boarding school most of the time, and my mother … she was very different. Loving. Vibrant. They were divorced by the time she died.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘I was thirteen.’ He stared out of the taxi window and Georgie couldn’t see his eyes, didn’t want to lean over and pry. Still, she could feel the pain of a sad adolescent pulsing off him.

  ‘It hit me like a brick,’ he went on, face to the glass. ‘I veered off the rails at school for a bit, which Father did not approve of – not the done thing. My saving grace was my English master. He got me to write it all down. And then I couldn’t stop.’ He turned towards her with a wan smile. ‘And here I am.’

  Georgie swallowed back the emotion in her throat, in thinking of Max so angry and alone, and then of her parents back home. They were not larger-than-life characters like Montague Spender – just quiet, hardworking people – but always supportive, despite their natural anxieties about her choice of career. She thought of her schoolteacher father being the type to have helped a boy like Max, pulling him out of an emotional hole, and she felt proud. And very, very lucky.

  ‘He’s not all bad, I suppose,’ Max said, the alcohol suddenly making him ruminative. ‘You may as well know, because it’ll come out eventually, but he got me the post at the Telegraph – his “old boys” influence. I imagine he thought it would help me work it out of my system, and then I could slip nicely into an academic post and write books – something worthwhile in his eyes. Thank God my older brother has gone into banking.’ He turned to look at her. There, his expression displayed, you know the full me now. The fraud I am.

  Georgie thought of his reaction to her origins on the fashion pages, back in Tempelhof all those months ago; she could have been angry at his latest admission. Should have been.

  ‘And you’re still there because of you,’ she said plainly. ‘Your paper does not shoulder useless or even mediocre reporters. It can’t afford to.’ She took a breath. ‘Anyway, while we’re into confessionals …’

  ‘Yes?’ Max’s curiosity was suddenly piqued.

  ‘It’s not really a confession,’ she said, ‘more of an explanation.’

  ‘I’m all ears.’

  ‘I didn’t step on anyone’s toes in bagging that Diana Mosley interview …’

  ‘I never said you did,’ he cut in.

  ‘But you thought it, like a lot of others. I actually met her at a party – a fashion event and we just got talking.’

  ‘Then, that’s the sceptics well and truly silenced, isn’t it?’ He smiled. ‘So we’re square – like friends?’

  ‘Yes, square. Are you coming up for coffee? Simone might be in.’ In reality, Georgie hoped not – for Simone to see them arriving home a little sodden with alcohol, though given Montague Spender’s fairly brusque opinions about the French, she understood exactly why Max had not invited her to dinner.

  He ran both hands up and down his face, drawing on his pale skin. ‘No, thanks, not tonight. I need to go home, sleep, recover from my father and wake up a new person.’

  She leaned to get out of the taxi, Max grasping at her arm. ‘Thanks, Georgie. A lot. I owe you one.’

  ‘Nonsense. What are good friends for?’

  The flat was empty as she let herself in, rifling through the post to find one addressed to her – ornate script, and a Berlin postmark. She opened it tentatively, since anything stamped with the Reich icon prompted caution. It wasn’t unusual for the Gestapo to send out letters, or even postcards, requesting someone’s ‘presence’ at their dreaded No. 8 Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse HQ. She tore open the envelope, and unfolded a single sheet, in German script.

  Dear Fraulein Young,

  My sincere apologies for not contacting you sooner, as I promised, but I have been very busy with work commitments. I so enjoyed our last day out together that I wonder if you might want to repeat it? If you are agreeable I will collect you this Friday, at 10 a.m. Please wear something warm!

  Yours in faith, Kasper Vortsch (lowly officer of the Reich)

  Georgie sighed, principally with relief, but also astonishment. She’d barely thought of Kasper since they parted – it had been almost two months since their day in the Grunewald, and she felt sure of slipping from his mind too. Or that he’d discovered somehow what she did. She sat in bed and reviewed her feelings – he was a potential contact, but also a curiosity for her, in knowing what made men like him tick, the inner workings of a Nazi. Since childhood, she’d been keen to unpick people, feeling relieved now that layers of Max had begun to strip away, like coatings of paint in an old house, revealing the true structure underneath. Her interest in Kasper was awakened. She heard her father whispering in her ear then: ‘You’re such a nosy Nellie.’ He would laugh and pinch the nub of her nose with affection. ‘It’ll get you into trouble if you’re not careful.’

  It was child’s play back then. She just needed to be wary of when curiosity turned perilous in this new, real world.

  20

  The Leaden Cloud

  25th October 1938

  Before Kasper, Georgie had her promised – and distinctly less formidable – meeting with Sam Blundon from the embassy, at Café Kranzler. The tables were full and they squeezed in near the window; in the background, she spied Karl circling the customers, though he didn’t seem to see her among the crowd.

  Away from the confines of diplomacy, Georgie found Sam funny and clever, with a healthy cynicism. Above all, he seemed intently human.

  ‘So, tell me, what do you think of Berlin and where it’s going?’ she pitched as they shared a huge slab of apple cake. ‘You must see both sides of the coin.’

  He blew out his cheeks, and lowered his voice slightly. ‘Well, it’s very changed – I’ve been in post a year, but I did live here as a child for a few years. It was wonderful then, felt so
free – skating in the winter, the lakes in the summer. The Nazis have changed that. Berliners are different now, Jew or not – they’re much more guarded. Oppressed.’ He took a gulp of his coffee, and switched on a light in those very green eyes. ‘But I have faith the city will come through, whatever happens. Berlin has been fought over through the ages, and this is just one more battle.’

  Whatever happens … Working in the embassy, Sam was party to whisperings in the corridors, the machinations of governments. And yet, Georgie was buoyed by his optimism, and the work he felt he could do day by day, away from the parties and receptions – helping Berliners relocate, away from Nazi oppression.

  ‘Doesn’t it get you down sometimes, seeing people forced to leave their entire lives behind?’ she probed, her natural curiosity engaged.

  He considered carefully. ‘It helps when you take it one day, one person or family, at a time. We can’t save a whole country – that’s what diplomacy teaches you – but you can help some.’

  ‘Well, I salute you,’ Georgie said, holding up her cup. ‘I much prefer being the agitator, on the outside looking in. And having you as an ally, of course.’

  Three days later, Georgie braced herself against the chill, and what such a different encounter might bring. This time, Kasper drew up outside Frida’s flat in a relatively staid staff car – mercifully there were no tiny swastikas fluttering on the lamp heads.

  ‘So glad it’s not windy,’ he said, beaming as she opened the door. He issued a compliment on her general dress, most of which came from Frida’s far more appropriate wardrobe: trousers and a slim-fitting sweater, a button-down jacket and her hair ready to be tucked under a cap. Even if it was borrowed, she felt stylish and comfortable. Annoyingly, she couldn’t help liking that he noticed.

  He wasn’t in uniform as such, though dressed head to toe in black, his leather jacket zipped up with a grey scarf around his neck and just covering the small swastika metal pin on his collar.

  ‘Am I allowed to know where we’re going?’ Georgie said as they set off.