The Berlin Girl

by Mandy Robotham

  ‘A glass of fizz, please.’

  Max and Simone arrived soon after, and Frida minutes later. The entire pack was present, and the next hour saw them growing in numbers and volume. Georgie sat at the bar and sipped her champagne, feeling the effects on an empty stomach, listening to stories from the veterans. One day, she thought, it might be me waxing lyrical about my adventures and near scrapes. Is that possible? Will I survive long enough in this world?

  Adrift with daydreams and the bubbles in her glass, Georgie’s swell of good cheer was soon dampened. Bill, who’d dipped out of the bar briefly and into the Chicago Tribune office, housed in the hotel, emerged holding a wireless print-out aloft.

  ‘Listen up, guys,’ he called out, silencing the crowd. ‘Something’s afoot. A German diplomat’s been shot in Paris.’

  Rod looked almost affronted by the news, and the rest simply confused.

  ‘But the Paris bureaus will deal with that, surely?’ someone piped up.

  ‘Maybe.’ Bill puffed out his cheeks. ‘Except that he was shot by a Jew.’

  His words hovered above the goodwill of the bar, the sparkle swiftly dulled; a pin had been taken to Rod’s birthday bubble. The press were well known for taking a drink and holding it, but equally skilled at sobering up quickly when a good story presented itself. Bodies began to peel away, back to their own office telephones and wire sources.

  ‘Sorry, Rod,’ Georgie said, giving him a hug as he downed the last of his glass.

  ‘All part of the job,’ he said, still with his big, bearded smile, if slightly resigned. ‘If you can’t stand the heat, you get out of the Berlin kitchen.’ And he slid heavily off his stool, heading for the door and clutching his box of strudel.

  Simone had left quickly, to make contact with her French colleagues; Frida too, almost certainly to seek out one of her SS admirers and tap into the Reich response. Georgie knew she should go too, but was rooted to her bar stool by a sudden wave of exhaustion.

  ‘Do you think this could this turn ugly?’ she asked Max as he went to leave.

  ‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged wearily, his blue eyes also pale and glazed. “A touch of Berlin fatigue” she’d heard others call it.

  They each knew the Nazi information machine would already be in full swing; at best, the shooting was fuel for its anti-Semitic zeal, and Georgie could predict the next explosive headline from Der Stürmer, alongside a grotesque caricature of the devil in Jewish clothing. At worst … well, she didn’t like to guess. Increasingly, nothing was beyond the Nazis when it came to showing their hatred. She thought of Rubin and Sara, and their faces when the news became public, more distress piled onto their mountain of angst.

  Back at the office, the champagne bubbles had all but fizzled to nothing. There was a fresh telegram waiting for her:

  Diplomat injured, not dead. Gauge feeling in Berlin tomorrow. HP.

  Georgie sighed true relief. The press deadline for the foreign pages of the next morning’s Chronicle had already passed, meaning she would have time to gather opinions, rather than launching into a breathless ringing of embassies and consulates. More than ever, she wanted to slink into the flat and under her eiderdown, try to sort through the elements of her work and life, and the conundrum that Berlin had become of late. She needed to carve out space in her own head to think.

  26

  The Pot Simmers

  8th November 1938

  Georgie slept surprisingly well and woke to the early reports from Paris that seemed to put a cap on any immediate drama. The diplomat had survived the night and although the Propaganda Ministry spouted its usual scorn, outwardly blaming the Jewish population for all the world’s ills, it didn’t seem especially alarming. Georgie gained comment from the British ambassador, who chose his words very carefully, and then spoke to a contact within the embassy, a secretary to one of the attachés.

  ‘It’s unusually quiet,’ the woman said, ‘almost eerily so. Everyone came in this morning prepared to weather a political storm, but it hasn’t happened.’

  The press crowd gathered at the Adlon at lunchtime and reported the same. The shooter had given himself up without a fight, and it appeared then to be a case of a lone Jewish man making a stand about the way his family had been driven out of their homes, his personal fury at being treated as subhuman.

  ‘I don’t trust this reaction,’ Bill said, stroking at his moustache in the way he did when something bothered him. ‘The Nazis are being far too reasonable about this. I almost prefer when they are truly vile. At least we know where we are.’ He spoke with a good-humoured candour, though kept his voice low, mindful of Gestapo ears.

  Georgie and Max peeled away from the group, intent on planning the appointment at the Haas Institute in two days’ time. So far, she’d managed to push the event to the back of her mind – the reality of walking through the doors and telling outright lies – but it was time to construct a plausible story. Mindful her accent would likely give her away as not German-born, she would pose as a visiting niece, concerned about her ageing aunt, who had always been a little ‘different’. Though cared for by a wealthy family, they were all elderly themselves and the aunt needed permanent care.

  ‘You are Hanna Seidel,’ Max coached her, his face serious and close. ‘You live in London and work in publishing, you are twenty-six and unmarried, but unable to have your aunt live with you because of your work.’

  Georgie scanned his features as he reeled off her pseudo life. ‘Have you done this before?’ she said.

  His brow flattened, undeterred. ‘Consequence of a public-school life,’ he muttered. ‘You get good at taking your mind elsewhere, into other people’s lives.’

  Georgie felt a tweak inside her – recognised it as a pull on a heartstring. Her happy, loving childhood versus his lonesome upbringing.

  ‘So, we all set for that?’ Max said, pulling up his shoulders. ‘I’ll be at a café nearby. If you don’t come back within forty-five minutes, I’ll come in and enquire after you, pretend I’m a friend.’

  Georgie’s eyes widened. Was it a possibility that she might not emerge?’

  ‘Hey, it’s not likely,’ he countered quickly. ‘They have no reason whatsoever to suspect anything, as long as you don’t probe too deeply.’

  Max was right – common sense was the key. Despite his crisp exterior, she was beginning to trust him. She just needed not to overplay it at the institute. Nevertheless, it was a world away from reporting on long hems and which lace to wear.

  The rest of the day dragged, and Georgie found herself not wanting to be idle or alone. There was little work as the Paris-based reporters were claiming every column inch on the foreign pages. Instead, she dropped by the theatre that Margot was rehearsing in, and they spent several hours touring bars and cafés in some of Berlin’s less salubrious areas, showing a picture of Paul and asking if he’d been seen. While Margot talked, Georgie observed the faces around, the reactions, trying to sense if there was truth, lies or fear in the responses. But she could detect nothing. Paul had seemingly disappeared into the ether.

  27

  Boiling Point

  9th November 1938

  Winter was worming its way into Berlin and the day started with a chill. The single event in the office diary was covered and Georgie dispatched it quickly, along with a second article. Opinion had switched in the previous twenty-four hours to warn of a backlash brewing against Germany’s Jews, whether the diplomat survived or not, her words reflecting the palpable tension across a city and country holding its breath. There was little else to do but wait, and it put her in mind of her grandmother’s favourite saying: ‘A watched pot never boils’. It meant her brief planned respite with Sam Blundon was both timely and welcome.

  She treated herself to a late lunch over a book, settled in the window of a café in the Southern Schöneberg district, watching the world go by until the film with Sam in a nearby cinema.

  ‘Mind if I join you?’

  Georgie looked u
p from her book to see Max towering over her, bearing what had lately become his familiar smile.

  ‘Are you checking up on me already?’

  ‘No, just passing and I saw you in the window. May I?’ He sat opposite and picked up a menu. ‘I did think twice about coming in – you were so engrossed in your book. But I am quite hungry.’

  ‘Well, I’m so glad to be a convenient lunch date.’

  Max forced a laugh at his own audacity. ‘What are you up to this afternoon?’ he said on ordering a spread of soup, bread and cheese.

  ‘I’m meeting Sam later – from the embassy – and we’re off to see The Lady Vanishes. It’s on at the Metropol. Subtitled, but in English.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve heard it’s good – I love a Hitchcock.’ He said nothing more, but his face bore a shadow of envy.

  ‘Join us,’ Georgie said. ‘More the merrier.’

  His eyes flicked upwards, eager. ‘Really? I’m not being a gooseberry?’

  She pursed her lips. ‘No, Max, you will not be a gooseberry. Come on, let’s go lose ourselves for an hour or so. Lord knows even Hitchcock might be a bit of light relief.’

  They emerged from the gloom of the auditorium into the dim light of a winter evening, blinking to adjust to a varying shade of darkness. All three sensed a shift the minute they stood on the cinema steps.

  At first it sounded like Christmas, a cascade of jewels tinkling as they bounced off a cold, cut surface. It was chilled on the street, though the atmosphere felt anything but festive. Expectant, Georgie watched the others hold their breath too, in tasting was what was about them. No, this was not Christmas.

  Preparations for the holiday season meant there had been a suspended glow above the city centre for a week or so, with its collective lights and the lifted mood of Berliners. True enough, there was an orange hue sitting across the rooftops to their left, but its intense colour was clouded by smoke from multiple fires in view. Little puffs of white mingled with a vast tornado of black pushing its way towards what stars were still visible.

  Sam turned to Georgie, perplexed. ‘Has it started? Is this the war?’

  To any European, it was a realistic assumption, though his eyes held alarm. Fear, even. Georgie was dumbstruck, every human sense trying to place things in order. They all knew the events of previous days had created a pressure cooker of the city. But this couldn’t be the fallout, surely? The lid on the pot propelled clean off?

  Max scanned back and forward, peering across the vast Nollendorfplatz, his nostrils flaring. ‘I’m not sure. It’s possibly a raid. But that’s very sudden. There was no warning.’ They’d heard nothing – no bombs pushing through the cushion of the cinema walls.

  ‘Isn’t that the point of war, though?’ Sam pointed out. ‘To catch people unawares?’

  Georgie couldn’t be sure, having never lived through a skirmish or a battle, but it wasn’t how she imagined it. And yet there was an undercurrent of chaos beyond their sights.

  They moved as a threesome, joining onto the larger Motzstrasse. It was then they saw it, through a sinking fug of grey mist. A draper’s store was opposite, its large picture windows smashed, great shards left pointing like upturned icicles, glinting in the new, orange light. In the solitary pane left intact, a huge word in red paint – JUDE – surrounded by an indiscriminate daubing, spattered in anger.

  As their eyes adjusted again to the fog, they saw a man in the shop doorway, on his knees, shoulders shaking – either with sorrow or coughing the dense air. A woman came at him from behind and, with great effort, hauled him up and back through the door that was just hanging on its hinges, hacked at and splintered in sheer rage. War witness or no, Georgie felt certain this was no bomb attack. This insult had been born of a hatred closer to home.

  To her right and hovering at the corner, she saw two Stormtroopers in their black and brown uniforms. Unmistakable and unabashed, stock still and arms folded, looking on. She couldn’t see the satisfaction on their faces, but she knew it was there. The couple having disappeared, the troopers walked calmly away.

  Max, Georgie and Sam moved down the wide street and towards the billowing black sky – to where there were people, and possibly the seat of the chaos. As they neared the end of street, it was clear where the Christmas jangle had been coming from; a sickening crunch underfoot as they stepped on a shallow but vast sea of broken glass lining the pavements, shards glinting in the firelight as open sores of shopfronts pushed out flames and orange sparks.

  Georgie gasped as they came upon a group of distressed onlookers, forced to watch their livelihoods burn, with no sign of the fire services or anyone else to help. She looked upwards and glimpsed shadowy heads peering from apartment windows, looking but not daring to venture out into a world suddenly turned dark and sinister; one face recoiled swiftly, perhaps sensing an eye on their cowardice, a curtain coming down on the shame.

  Quickly, it became apparent the first incident they’d witnessed was not isolated. Further up the street, a fresh group of vandals in brown were at work, their fervour for destruction unabated as they aimed heavy coshes at the windowpanes, a paint pot set by for the final insult. Georgie tensed, started as if towards the small group. She felt Max’s arm pull sharply on hers. ‘No! Stay back.’ His eyes were bright beads in the fog. ‘You can’t stop this. We can do more elsewhere.’

  Sam caught up and faced them, his boyish face stricken. ‘I have to get back to the embassy,’ he said. ‘They’ll need me there.’ Then, seeing their troubled expressions: ‘We all have our jobs to do. Don’t worry, I’ll go via the backstreets, be there in no time.’

  ‘Just be careful,’ Georgie said. ‘I’ll call you there as soon as I can.’

  Sam nodded and gripped her arm tightly. ‘You too. I know you need to do your work, but no story is worth risking everything.’

  ‘Promise,’ she pledged, and watched him turn tail and back up into the semi-darkness.

  Max had been staring up at the sky’s firestorm, perhaps trying to work out its source – he wanted to be there, Georgie knew, in the thick of it. Part of her did too.

  ‘Let’s just head towards it,’ he said, glancing for her assent. ‘And I think it’s best if we stick together, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, definitely.’

  They half ran, half walked, dodging the piles of debris and the spitting embers from shopfront fires, emerging onto the Fasanenstrasse. The scene ahead robbed them of breath and belief; the monolithic synagogue opposite belched out huge flames from its domed roof, lapping at a night sky fogged with filthy, flying debris. It spiralled towards the fullest moon the city had seen in a long time, nature’s searchlight on the montage below.

  Almost mesmerised, the two hurried towards the crowds gathered before the synagogue’s entrance. A man in robes – a rabbi – was running in and out of the imposing door to the burning building, bringing out statues, Torah scrolls and prayer books, anything he could carry. The heat from the flames burned their cheeks, and as they got closer, Georgie noted the rabbi’s face was wet, not with sweat but strewn with tears. He sobbed as he worked. And all around him, Stormtroopers looked on, motionless, as a small army of Jews tried desperately to save as much of their sacred home as they could.

  She watched Max blink repeatedly at the scene – in horror, she imagined, but almost as a shutter to his mind, committing to memory the sight that he would write up later; neither of them insensitive enough to pull out the notebooks they always carried. Besides, it was pointless taking names and details. This was an attack on a city, a people – there was no single victim – and this image would stay with them longer than any written detail.

  Georgie’s gaze switched to a cluster of firemen standing by, slightly apart from the Stormtroopers, yet equally inactive. Why weren’t they tackling the blaze, preventing as much damage as they could? She refused to hold back then, breaking free from Max and running towards the one in charge, a soot-stained fireman already being hounded by one of his own crew.


  ‘We need to go in, chief,’ she heard the junior man shout above the roar of the fire. ‘There could be people trapped inside. Why can’t we go in?’ His tone was just short of pleading.

  ‘Orders, Billen, orders,’ the chief snapped, his tone more of despair than irritation. His mouth set in a resigned frown. ‘I’ve been told nobody goes in without their say-so.’ He gestured towards the clutch of troopers standing alongside, arms folded, admiring their handiwork. ‘I’m sorry, son, but my hands are tied.’

  Max arrived at her side then, breathless amid the heat and horror.

  ‘We can’t just stand by and watch,’ Georgie said. ‘We have to see if we can help.’

  He gave her that look she half recognised from the Sudetenland, in front of that shaved, bloodied woman: We’re observers, we report, we don’t get involved. But this time she wouldn’t accept it, answered his look with defiance. ‘People could be injured, Max. Dying,’ she pressed. A curt nod meant he didn’t need much convincing.

  He led the way towards the synagogue door, using his tall physique to weave through the crowd and guiding Georgie by the hand as the rabbi emerged again onto the pavement, blackened with smoke.

  ‘There’s someone inside,’ the old man shouted above the din. ‘I can hear a voice. Please help, someone please help.’

  This time the fire captain leapt forward, facing up to the Stormtroopers – his gestures suggested pleading – with the crowd’s intent scrutiny on the small group. After what felt like an age, the trooper nodded slowly, and the fireman instantly turned and beckoned several of his crew into the building, its bottom half billowing thick black smoke while the huge rafters above were spitting flames upwards into the air. Desperate pleas were only just audible through the tumult of destruction.

  Georgie recognised several photographers from the pool they all used, buzzing like bees and snapping the devastation, the glare of their flashbulbs swallowed by dense clouds. For a second, she was sickened by their activity as voyeurs, but soon realised it’s what they all were in some sense, she and Max included. And it was vital that someone should record this abuse against humanity – pictures, in this case, might be more valuable than words. So far, reports alone had not been enough to provoke any reaction from outside Germany to what Hitler was creating. Maybe the world needed to see it in stark black and white, staring at this debacle over their breakfast?