Rosie Thomas 4-Book Collection

by Rosie Thomas

  It was an assurance of hospitality and a warning together. The contradiction seemed to be the very essence of Berlin.

  They left the cinnamon-scented steamy warmth of the café and began the walk back to Pariser Platz. Brown rain had started to fall in dismal spurts. The wind drove icy darts of it into their faces. Grace walked quickly, looking straight ahead of her, with her hands folded into the sleeves of her fur. Clio matched her steps to Julius’s.

  ‘Are they good friends of yours, Rafael and Grete?’

  ‘Yes, I think they are.’

  ‘What do they do in Berlin?’

  ‘Grete gives music lessons. Piano. I met her because we teach the children of the same family, sons of an industrialist who live in a hideous house out at Grünewald. Rafael is, or was, a lawyer rather like Herr Keller.’

  Clio could suddenly hear her own footsteps clipping on the cobbles. The note of fear seemed as aloud and clear within her. It was strange to feel such terror for the safety of someone she had only just met.

  ‘I think he is also involved in some political propaganda work. We don’t ask each other questions of that sort.’

  She said quickly, for the sake of saying something, ‘I didn’t know you gave lessons?’

  ‘We do what we have to, nowadays. I don’t mind it. Some pupils are interesting, and talented. They are not all like the Bayer boys out at Grünewald.’ Julius laughed. He seemed happy in this cold, monumental, dislocated city. Clio wondered if it was because Grace was here at last.

  ‘They make a wonderfully striking couple,’ Clio said in a low voice, as if it was a valediction.

  Julius stopped walking, turned to stare at her and then took her arm. He swung it with his and began to laugh again, tipping his head back with pure pleasure. The sound of it made Clio think that Nathaniel was here with them.

  Grace glanced back with a touch of irritation, then resumed her brisk march.

  ‘Oh, Clio, my Clio. I never believed in love at first sight until this morning.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Clio said stiffly.

  ‘Yes, you do. Take off that stricken face. Rafael and Grete aren’t a couple, you idiot, any more than you and I are.’

  Even in the hopeful confusion that began to hammer inside her she made the silent response, Any more than you and Grace are.

  ‘They are brother and sister, children of a farm-machinery dealer in Thuringia. So be happy, darling. I saw you look at Rafael and I saw him look at you. If that wasn’t love at first sight I can’t whistle “The Blue Danube”.’

  He was still swinging her arm and now he skipped and began to run, pulling her with him, so that they galloped after Grace.

  ‘Wait,’ Clio gasped.

  ‘What for? Berlin isn’t all Nazis and violence and falling in behind the Führer, you know. There’s another side to it. I’ll show you, we’ll see it together.’

  They came up behind Grace, panting a little, and now they were in Unter den Linden and the arches of the great gate loomed ahead of them, with the Adlon Hotel to one side.

  ‘Come out with me this evening,’ Julius ordered both of them. ‘Surprise party. I’ll come for you at eight.’

  ‘Won’t you let me stand you dinner here first?’ Grace asked, pointing to the canopy and the flunkeys.

  ‘Not a chance.’ Julius grinned at them both. He looked like a boy planning a birthday surprise. ‘Just be ready, that’s all.’

  He left them at the margin of the canopy, turned back once to wave, and disappeared back the way they had come.

  There were two messages waiting at the desk for Grace. She opened the first envelope and Clio glimpsed the paper headed with an ornate eagle crest. She also saw that even Grace could flush with surprised pleasure. The letter was quickly folded again.

  ‘A welcome to Berlin from the Führer’s own office in the Chancellory,’ she said, with an attempt at offhandedness. ‘Isn’t that rather marvellous, just to a humble English MP when there must be so many millions of other things to think of? Unfortunately Hitler himself is in Munich now, but I am going to meet Herr Goebbels and some of his staff.’

  ‘I say.’ But Clio’s irony went unregarded. ‘And the other?’

  ‘Oh, an invitation for us both. Just to drinks at our Embassy.’

  ‘Just? These are elevated circles for me, remember.’

  Grace was not listening. ‘Darling, I’ve got to go out now. I’ll see you later, shall I?’

  There was no more talk of Clio acting as her interpreter. Bright-eyed with anticipation, Grace whirled away to do her own business.

  Clio ate lunch alone at a table in the corner of the hotel dining room, and watched the flood tide of Berlin’s haut monde swirling past her. There were women in the latest Paris fashions, powerful-looking men in business clothes, high-ranking Wehrmacht officers, a prosperous-looking and cosmopolitan parade. The faces here were different from those of the street people. They were rosy with optimism. It was less than a month since Hitler had seized power, but there was solid satisfaction in the air. Clio had the impression that she could almost taste it, and it gave an unwelcome flavour to her dish of calves’ liver in the Berlin style.

  In the afternoon, she walked under the bare trees in the Tiergarten.

  The rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. It was colder still, and silent filaments of frost crept over the dead ground.

  She tried not to think back to London and the dismantling of her life there, and an odd, superstitious streak in her made her reluctant to think of the coming evening. She had no idea what Julius was planning, but she felt that she was on the edge of some new territory where the ground might be steep or icy, or might vanish altogether from beneath her feet.

  She held herself carefully, not wanting to slip, but not wanting either to damage the fragile eggshell of hope that Julius had given her. Her thoughts skidded away from Rafael Wolf himself. To consider him directly would be to put too much weight on the first steps of this adventure into Berlin.

  ‘Surprise!’ a voice called behind them.

  Julius and Clio and Grace were sitting at a restaurant table protected from the door and part of the room by a thick curtain of worn crimson plush. They could see the band on a small platform opposite, and some of the other tables that were already crowded with drinkers and diners. A new kind of Berliner seemed to have emerged with the fall of darkness. These people were determined to enjoy this evening to the full, whatever might happen tomorrow.

  ‘Surprise!’

  There was a second, louder shout as the three of them looked round.

  Pilgrim and Isolde were fighting their way across the floor towards the table.

  Grace’s mouth set in a thin, angry red line. She looked furious. Her head twisted towards Julius, but it was clear from his expression that he had not been expecting this apparition either.

  ‘Don’t look too thrilled, dear ones, will you?’ Pilgrim demanded. ‘After we have come all the way through this vile night to welcome you?’

  Clio had already drunk two glasses of wine. She discovered that she was delighted to see familiar faces in this place. She stood up and flung her arms around Pilgrim.

  ‘I am glad. I’m just so amazed. Why are you here?’

  Pilgrim was wearing a long black cloak that might well have been the same one he had always worn. Isolde was thinner in the face, her eyes were ringed with black paint and the roots of her silvery hair were dark, but she was no less beautiful. Clio had been aware that the two of them were perhaps here, or somewhere not far away, but she had had no idea that they would show up so soon.

  Pilgrim twirled a chair out for himself, leaving Isolde to squeeze past him and settle herself next to Grace.

  ‘Why am I here? Because I telephoned Julius’s landlady, of course. Frau Buss? Bat? Bum?’

  ‘Baum,’ Julius said with dry resignation.

  ‘Exactly. And she told me where to find you. Voilà. Darling Grace. So chic you look. What are we drinking? Sekt
? Waiter, more Sekt. We have some celebrating to do.’

  Evidently Pilgrim had had a small celebration already. Grace unbent just enough to let him kiss her cheek. She found herself unwillingly smiling. There was a force in Pilgrim that was not quite resistible. And there was no real threat in him.

  No threat, now that Anthony was gone. Cressida was in London, a long way away.

  A shadow fell across Grace like a bird swooping across the sun, but she was used to the shadows and a second later it was gone.

  ‘If you say so, Pilgrim,’ she murmured. ‘Hello, Isolde. You are looking very artistic.’

  ‘Bugger art, and all the rest of that shit as well,’ Isolde shouted, altogether missing the delicacy of Grace’s snub. ‘I’m bored to death with it. Give me a huge drink and a plateful of dinner instead and I’ll be as happy as a nigger with a saxophone.’

  Pilgrim raised his eyebrows. ‘Isn’t she a peach? You don’t mind us gatecrashing your party, Julius? Couldn’t resist, you know, once I’d chatted to Frau Bum. Lovely Janus, tell me all the hottest gossip from London.’

  Clio put her glass firmly down on the table. ‘I left Miles, you know. Does that count as gossip?’

  ‘Did you? Can’t see how you put up with him so long, myself. What else?’

  That was all. Clio could have hugged him again.

  The talk began to drift around the table. It was lazy at first and then it gathered momentum. They were happy to see each other, after all. The restaurant grew noisier and more crowded, and the sweating waiters ran to and fro with plates heaped with food. The musicians sawed at their instruments and people began to jump up to dance.

  Clio gazed at everything. She felt hazy with happiness. From the familiar patterns of gossip circulating around her they might all have been in the Fitzroy, but it was the Fitzroy set free from the malign chill of Miles’s influence. In London everything had been constrained, fixed in rigid grooves of hopelessness. Here there was nothing at all, an empty space, still to be defined.

  Clio thought of Miles and his pick-up, reclining in her own bed. She saw the black-rimmed fingernails once again. But for the first time, she felt no repeating shock of nausea.

  Good luck to them, she found herself murmuring.

  Clio realized that she must be very slightly drunk. It was an attractive idea, a very good idea, and someone had kindly, thoughtfully, refilled her glass. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt so ready to enjoy herself.

  She caught Julius’s eye, and lifted the glass to him. ‘I’m glad I came,’ she said.

  ‘Wait a little,’ he answered.

  Pilgrim leant over and asked her to dance. Clio gave him her hand. They edged out on to the floor together. It was wonderful to dance. The rhythm of it swept through her. Pilgrim was grinning like a pirate as he spun her around. Julius had led Grace out too. His face wore the expression of unbelieving gratitude it always had when he was close enough to her to touch. His hand spanned her back, where the white skin was left exposed by the deep V of her dress.

  Across at their table a man in a striped jersey had slid into the chair next to Isolde.

  Over Pilgrim’s shoulder, Clio noticed that more people were arriving. There were lights slowly revolving above the dancers and the beams raked over the heads of the newcomers. A flicker of brightness lit one head, momentarily turning the fair hair butter-yellow.

  She saw that it was Rafael. He was still wearing the same shepherd’s coat, but Grete beside him had changed into a low-necked blouse of some shiny greeny-black stuff with her hair worn loose over her shoulders. They were peering into the dense crowd, looking for someone. Then they came down the steps and vanished into the mass.

  Clio lost the rhythm and stumbled, and Pilgrim trampled on her feet. ‘Let’s have another drink,’ he bawled.

  When they came in sight of their table Rafael and Grete were already there, sitting with Julius and Grace.

  ‘Here she is,’ Clio heard Julius say.

  She knew with complete conviction that he was answering Rafael’s question. For an instant the din in the restaurant became silence. All the noise and confusion surrounding her fell away. She moved along a channel, through the wonderful stillness, with no fear about which direction to take. She felt warm, and light, and although her expression was solemn there was happiness radiating through her bones and lighting her face. She had forgotten how it felt to smile from inside herself, with no forcing of the inarticulate muscles and frozen mouth. She was gliding towards the table, drawn by a thread of certainty that was as simple and as beautiful as pure gold.

  Rafael stood up again and held out his hand. ‘I was asking where you were,’ he said.

  ‘I know.’ It was wonderful to Clio, but she felt no surprise. She had been sure since she had first seen him that he would change everything, but she had been too superstitious to admit it to herself. All day she had been nudging and shaking the idea, as if it was a present wrapped up and not yet to be opened.

  ‘I wanted to see you again.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ Clio said simply.

  He held out a chair for her and she sat down beside him. It was as if she were unfolding the tissue paper wrapping of her present, but the outline of whatever lay inside was not yet discernible.

  At the same time, and slowly, rather jerkily, the restaurant began to come to life once more.

  Clio became aware of Isolde performing some complicated dance-step with the stripy man, of a waiter arriving with another ice-bucket, Grete putting her hand over Julius’s to reassure him of something. Introductions were being performed: Pilgrim to Grete, Pilgrim to Rafael. No one had noticed anything unusual. The extraordinary rhythm of her own heartbeat was inaudible. She sat back in her chair, turning her head, hiding her hands under the folds of the tablecloth because she was suddenly aware that they were shaking.

  Clio was not aware of it, but Grace had seen.

  Grace thought, I never knew what it meant, to say that someone looks radiant. Clio does. She is beautiful. Why have I never, ever noticed that before?

  Grace’s eyes and lips were perfectly made up, and her skin was creamed and powdered to peachy smoothness, but her mouth hardened now and she looked older, no longer Clio’s twin.

  Pilgrim stumbled into the place next to her. ‘Why so gloomy, goddess?’

  She looked at him from beneath her eyelids, rapprochement forgotten, drawing back by the smallest fraction of an inch as if to suggest that he might contaminate her.

  ‘Gloomy? How could you imagine, on such a delightful evening? Maybe slightly fatigued by such a crush and so much noise, that’s all.’

  Pilgrim twirled the Sekt bottle in its bucket and then snatched it out in a spangle of icy water.

  ‘Don’t worry, darling. We’ll finish this and we’ll all move on to a little Stube I know. They have a floorshow there that you will hardly believe.’

  Clio was sitting quite still. She felt no compulsion to try to impose herself on the cross-currents of conversation. Grace was leaning forward, saying something to Grete, with her back elegantly but positively turned on Pilgrim. Julius was talking too, and Rafael’s head was inclined as he listened.

  Clio examined his profile. Now that she was close to him she saw that there was a fine net of wrinkles at the corner of his eye, and the skin beneath the lower lid was soft and darkened, as if he were tired. His Nordic, outdoor looks were deceptive. Clio guessed that he was a few years older than she, perhaps in his late thirties. She liked the way he had casually shrugged off his coat, and the well-worn blue and grey checked shirt that emerged from underneath it. She also liked the way that he gave his whole attention to what Julius was saying. He didn’t twiddle his glass or touch his chin or gesture with a cigarette in the way that everyone else did. The movements that he did make were calm and economical.

  ‘You should play, I think,’ he was saying seriously to Julius. ‘What reasons can you give for not doing so, except their own reasons?’

  ‘Maybe yo
u are right,’ Julius said quietly.

  Isolde had fought her way back to the table with her admirer in pursuit. She wriggled and squirmed to get out of his amorous clutches. ‘Go away, there’s a darling boy. Pilgrim, tell him.’

  Pilgrim yawned. ‘You tell him.’

  There was some pushing and gesturing and a rapid dispute in shouted German. Grace and Clio were startled, but everyone else seemed to take the disturbance completely for granted. By the end of it, Pilgrim had clearly lost interest.

  ‘Oh, let’s shove off, shall we? Otherwise we’ll have Hansi here pestering us all evening. Come on, the Balalaika, what do you say?’

  There was a general movement. Clearly, with Pilgrim in charge of the evening there was no thought of going home yet.

  ‘I quite like the Balalaika,’ Julius was saying.

  ‘So long as it isn’t one of the Russian nights,’ Grete laughed.

  Rafael turned to Clio. His eyes were dark grey, she noticed, not blue. ‘Would you like to go?’

  Clio laughed too. ‘Yes, I think I would, rather.’

  ‘Then we shall.’

  Clio would happily have gone anywhere, the Balalaika or the Russian steppes themselves.

  ‘Only just the other side of the Ku’damm,’ Pilgrim told Grace, who did not look pleased. ‘I feel it’s just the spot for all of us tonight. And “goodnight to you”,’ he crooned to Isolde’s disappointed suitor as they bundled past him.

  The Balalaika was, indeed, only around the corner. It was much smaller and more dimly lit than the restaurant, and what was visible of the décor was not noticeably Russian.

  All of them except Grace and Clio were clearly Balalaika regulars. When they arrived and settled at a table there was a good deal of greeting and waving to people at the neighbouring tables. The clientele was an exotic mix of young and old, with every variety of dress and appearance. Some people were in evening clothes while others looked as if they had just wandered in off the streets. The visitors had a new sense of Berlin as a rambling village populated by animated and interconnected groups, in odd contrast with the oversized baroque formality of its public exterior.