News from Berlin

by Otto de Kat

  Rhododendrons in bud, lilies of the valley, an old mulberry tree, hedges in blossom – Emma was surrounded by spring. These were the fragrances of her grandmother’s garden in Hengelo, with the Great War just over the border. Her own garden in Dahlem smelled just the same – fragrances that telescoped time.

  Their house stood in a web of green lanes. There was no wind, and all was tranquil. From close by came the reassuring sound of a hedge being clipped, while next door’s dog dug a hole in the gravel with audible enthusiasm. Germany was mobilised to its furthest corners, but standing here you would never have thought it.

  She heard a car approaching, faster than normal, then the belligerent slam of car doors half a minute later. Two unremarkable men in long coats – even in fine weather they wore coats, apparently, with the collars turned up. So this was what the Gestapo looked like. It was her first thought when they pushed the gate open and entered the garden without saying a word. Facing them, Emma’s expression was not so much questioning as mildly ironic.

  *

  “They took me to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, Carl. I was there. They let me go after a few hours. They wanted to know – they knew all along of course – whether the man we’d met in Geneva was my father. And what I was whispering about.”

  Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse 8, secret police headquarters, watch-tower of hell, rumoured to be a place where more people went in than came out. However, Emma had not been held for very long, presumably to avoid complications with the Foreign Ministry, although Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse bowed to no-one. A pin-prick against Trott? A little dig at them, to show that they were being watched, wherever they were? The mere fact that she was Dutch cast suspicion on Emma, she was given to understand, and having a father working at the Dutch legation in Switzerland was enough reason to be sent to a camp. Hints, intimations of punishable offences, the staple ingredients of the murder-by-stealth methods favoured by the clerks of Himmler’s elite corps.

  “What was that about you whispering something?”

  Her explanation shook her husband more than she had foreseen.

  “My God, Emma, how could you? I told you in confidence!”

  “I couldn’t help it, all I could think of was what you’d said, Carl. And he was so … it was as if he were worlds away, almost a stranger. I wanted him to know what we know. Only three more weeks. And so I told him, and he was back with his feet on the ground straightaway. I hope he’ll do something with it. He must.”

  Carl said nothing. The warning they had received today was impossible to take lightly. Emma’s arrest, albeit brief, was a threat of the most direct sort. Thank God they had not overheard what she relayed to her father in Switzerland, or he would never have seen her again. This was the opening gambit in a chess game, with the Gestapo making all the moves. Carl Regendorf, we’re hot on your trail, and your trail leads to von Trott, that boss of yours. We don’t like your boss very much, nor his friends and associates. We don’t like anything about you, really, not your wives, your children, or your families. Arrogant intellectuals, the lot of you, with your nice houses and fancy talk and posh names and your manicured notions and unreadable books and your foreign connections. It’s high time for change, you see, and so we’ll get things going by arresting one of your women. Give her a scare, show how much we know about her. Everything, in fact. Just a little bit of fun on our part, as you will appreciate. We all have to start somewhere.

  Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse dungeons, no better place for comedy.

  Carl and Emma sat in the conservatory in the fading light, their bags still unpacked. Emma had telephoned him to ask if he could come home early. She was upset, but not by any means panic-stricken.

  “And as I was leaving, one of them grinned at me and said: ‘By the way, your mother’s quite a looker.’ I wonder what he was getting at. Mama has only been in Switzerland once since the outbreak of war. Do you suppose they have suspicions about her as well?”

  Carl made no reply, his mind being filled with Emma’s arrest and the repercussions that might have for Trott. In hindsight, of course, making contact with her father had been very foolish. But it had seemed such a shame not to take the opportunity of seeing him briefly. Just to be amongst themselves, no treading on eggshells for a change. He often wondered what exactly Emma’s father was doing in Switzerland. A solitary job, apparently, not that he seemed lonely. The lakeside restaurant had not been particularly busy, Carl reflected. Only three or four occupied tables, one of which was next to theirs. A man had been sitting there reading a newspaper with screaming headlines: the Bismarck had been sunk the previous day. The beginning of the end – he clearly remembered the thought entering his mind. The beginning of the end, a pleasing notion – as if you could look in the future. From now on it was the British ruling the waves – that was what the sinking of the Bismarck meant. And they were gaining the upper hand in the sky, too. They flew over Germany every day.

  And then to go and invade Russia – how brainless could you be? The beginning of the end, which would come in six months, he reckoned. At most a year and it would all be over. On the other hand, one couldn’t be sure. Huge armies had been formed – Trott knew the exact numbers – half the country was in uniform. The call of the Fatherland had been heard, and the answer was marching in the streets. Anyone voicing the wrong views was strung up with piano wire. Oh yes, there was music in execution, or imprisonment, or strangulation, or plain clubbing to death. That man with the newspaper, could he have been spying on his father-in-law? Likely enough, come to think of it. How careless of them to talk so freely. Just as well the tables were set fairly wide apart. The more expensive the food the more space there was between one party of diners and the next. Businessmen could not tolerate tables having ears. Nor could politicians. Perhaps that was why his father-in-law had picked that smartish restaurant.

  Emma had mentioned something about her mother, which puzzled him. A looker? Her mother, quite a looker? Not like the Gestapo to pay compliments, why would they. She was blonde, though, which the Nazis favoured, perhaps that was what they were getting at. It was all very strange.

  Blackout time. Carl pulled the curtains across the windows, which were papered over in black, but he stepped outside anyway to make sure not a chink of light was to be seen. Inspection was being tightened all the time, and the consequences of infringement were accordingly dire. Trott had told him a joke someone had made about seeing the light shining in a town-house window: “That lot must have signed a private peace treaty with the Allies.” Peace, a word of fairytale resonance.

  When Emma and Carl first met it was still peacetime, but only just. Spring 1938, in Fasanenstrasse, a tree-lined side street off Kurfürstendamm. The Verschuurs had been recalled to the Netherlands, and were giving a round of farewell dinner parties.

  Carl had already met Oscar Verschuur, having supplied him with intelligence on various occasions in the past. He had accepted the invitation with pleasure. He was the youngest person there, with one exception: Emma, his table companion for the evening. She would be his companion for life, too, although at the time he felt that the circumstances were not in his favour. That night, there had been no past and no future, only her presence beside him. Their exchanges had been mutually pleasing, candour being met with equal candour. Tones of voice, looks, gestures, smiles, and the silences in between, all were in agreement.

  Oscar Verschuur had given a speech, thanking everyone for their friendship and support over the years, and had raised a glass to peace, or rather to what was left of it. Which was not very much, given the shameless stoking of the fires of war. Emma and Carl saw nothing and no-one. At their end of the dinner table, in the company of Dutch, French, German, Swiss, Portuguese, Swedish and British guests, a very different fire was being fanned. War and peace did not come into it. Emma’s German was fluent, better than that of her parents. Coming from her, Carl’s language sounded so much more pleasing than what he was used to hearing in public – the barking of commands, the voice of
propaganda, the hysterical rants of the Idiot.

  Saying goodbye to her, he was seized with doubt whether he had interpreted her behaviour towards him correctly. They stood by the cloakroom in the throng of departing guests, all of whom seemed to be shaking hands as though they were parting forever. Emma held his eyes, her expression intense, her hand resting on his arm.

  “Will we meet again? Because I’m leaving in a few weeks.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  She smiled, thank God, and said: “Yes, fine.”

  “Tomorrow” had turned into every day, and then into day and night. They had married before the year was out, as if the Devil himself were nipping at their heels.

  Carl stepped inside after his blackout inspection to find Emma standing motionless in the hall, next to the unpacked luggage. When he went up to her he saw that she was crying.

  Chapter 5

  “Well, Howard, how are things over there nowadays?”

  David Kelly, head of the British legation, turned to the journalist fresh from Berlin with the eagerness of a sniffer dog. The round table in Björn Henderson’s study was just large enough to seat eight guests, several of whom knew each other quite well from other postings and earlier times. The travelling circus of diplomacy: dinner parties in Ankara, Buenos Aires, Belgrade or Stockholm, in disparate company and disparate settings, yet secure in an unchanging etiquette and a sameness of tone and vocabulary.

  Henderson’s study gave Oscar the illusion of home. Book cases on all sides, a walnut desk, a leather armchair, paintings on every available wall space, a small pantry with bottles of drink and glasses. A dark red carpet on the floor, a domed ceiling painted pale yellow, soft lighting on the books, candles, photographs of Stockholm. All was geared to forgiving and forgetting.

  “Is your house microphone-free, Henderson?” Howard Smith said brightly, but the undertone was serious.

  “You’ll have to ask Horst, it’s up to the Swiss. But no, Howard, we’ve searched the place from top to bottom, no bombs.”

  Smith turned to Kelly: “Your aircraft have been keeping us pretty busy lately, David. I’ve lost count of the times I had to go down to the shelter, and I’ve had just about enough if it. Chronic sleep deprivation is the number-one popular ailment. Still, for the past ten days you’ve been behaving yourselves – a question of fuel rationing? If you could keep away a bit longer, it would be much appreciated. I heard a curious story the other day, about so-called shelter parties, organised by people who have developed a liking for air raids. Nightly air raids foster fellowship. You lot are bringing Berliners closer together, literally and figuratively. An interesting side effect. Just think: masses of people huddled together in the middle of the night with snacks and drinks, candlelight and songs, just longing for the sirens to go off. Suffice it to say I am not one of them.”

  Kelly gave a short laugh. He was keen to hear what Smith had to say for himself in this company. Oscar knew the journalist from his days in Berlin: an American C.B.S. correspondent, and the sharpest analyst of Nazism around. Through Emma and Carl, Oscar was well aware of how the British air attacks struck terror into the people, and how they dug themselves in, hardening their hearts and losing their sense of humour in brutish survival. He had no wish to back Smith’s claims, for fear of being asked whether his daughter and son-in-law might have more information. Since their last meeting he had not stopped agonising over the news of the German invasion. Nobody in the west doubted that it would happen sooner or later, but until now nothing had transpired.

  “When do you think they’ll attack the Soviet Union, Howard?” Kelly did not beat about the bush.

  “It was supposed to have taken place back in May, but they’re still dithering, it seems, or perhaps they’ll call the whole thing off, as they did with their plans to invade your island. Stalin refuses to discuss the subject, apparently. The man is completely paranoid, according to our embassy in Moscow. He doesn’t trust anyone or anything, he’s fixated on his pact with Hitler. We warned him some time ago, but aside from the fact that he doesn’t trust us Americans, he seems to think that you English are out to draw him into the war. And you must admit, two war fronts would be to your advantage.”

  Kelly gave a cautious nod. “They say the Germans are massing those troops in the east to put pressure on the Russians so they’ll stick to their side of the bargain. After all, Howard, half the German economy hinges on Russian resources. You know as well as I do how badly they need their grain and oil. The supplies crossing the border every day are gigantic.”

  “That’s German propaganda for you, David. Don’t you believe it, because the real reason is that they intend to go in and get that oil and grain from where it comes from. If the Russians were to mobilise now, Hitler might yet back off. Or in any case there would be a delay, because until now his trump card has been the surprise attack: he conquered half of Europe as it slept. Which is why it is crucial to know exactly when the Germans are going to invade. But Stalin has had untold numbers of his army officers murdered, and nearly all his generals are either dead or in prison. That man has brought his own army to its knees! They may not even be capable of mobilising, I fear.”

  Oscar listened in silence. He had to summon all his willpower not to intervene: David, Howard, listen to me, I know, I know the date, I have the most reliable information of all, the date is set, June 22, Howard, David, Björn, June 22. Three weeks from now.

  Who could he take into his confidence, here in Berne? Who would believe him, and why would they? Warn the Russians, but how? He had never met any of their embassy staff, who kept very much to themselves. Telling anyone at all was impossible, it would instantly point the finger at Emma and Carl. Their meeting in Geneva had, without a doubt, been filed in a report. The conversation between him and Emma had not been overheard by the man with the cigarette, of that he was confident, but the fact remained that they had lowered their voices. One more blot on their record. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse disapproved of whispering.

  Smith leaned back expansively in his chair.

  “There are more than one hundred and fifty divisions ready and waiting, as I gathered from the Italian military attaché. There is talk of three and a half million, an unimaginable world force. We have seen them leaving en masse from the train stations and pouring from the west through Berlin. I have never seen so many troops as in the past few months. And they weren’t heading for England, Kelly, they were going in the opposite direction. All this has nothing to do with manoeuvres in faraway places beyond the reach of the R.A.F., as suggested by Herr Goebbels at his latest press conference. The Nazis produce a permanent flow of disinformation, they’re very good at that. When a Nazi breathes he lies. And the Russians pretend everything is fine, they just keep harping on about the strength of their pact with the German government. There have been hints about new negotiations. Nonsense. It will happen this month, you mark my words.”

  Oscar listened with intent, painfully conscious of his own duplicity. He glanced around the table, saw how they were all ears for Smith. He became aware of the rumble of traffic on the Schifflaube, a comforting sound, which shifted his thoughts. Berne was the epitome of reassurance, a miracle of civilisation. On a previous occasion Smith had told him how the appalling dinginess of Berlin fell away from him the moment he set foot in Switzerland. The ordinariness of Berne was a marvel to anyone coming from Germany. The shops were well stocked, there were no queues, the cafés were full, there was dining and dancing – unthinkable just a few hundred kilometres away. A mere train journey between them and a dark, sinister, decaying city with sirens screaming at all hours.

  Oscar had been living in Berne for two years, but had yet to adapt himself to that cool city. The kilometres-long arcades hosted a mercantile spirit that he did not share. At moments of disenchantment he remembered his boyhood history lessons, about the Swiss being soldiers for personal gain, best known for fighting other people’s wars. Europe’s cash register. Not a charitable thought. He knew plenty
of “good” Swiss. As odd as it seemed, though, he preferred Berlin. Not the Berlin of today, the Berlin of the days when Kate and he were living there. They had left just in time, of course, the terror was escalating by the day, but to him, at that time, there had been electricity in the air, nothing was lukewarm or grey. Kate and he lived their lives in balance, without many words. Emma had left home, and Kate was working in a hospital as a theatre assistant. They would arrange to meet at the bar of the Adlon after work, or at Horcher’s or at Hotel Kessel. Places favoured by journalists, artists and diplomats.

  At the behest of his embassy, Oscar had set about establishing contact with people who were against the regime. They were easily found, for their number was directly linked to the takings of the Adlon bar. It was there that he was introduced to Adriaan Wapenaar, with whom he struck up a particular friendship, and who had reminded him quite recently that, should there be any trouble, Emma was to go to him for help. Wapenaar, a flamboyant Dutchman, had an extraordinary talent for eluding censure, even from the Gestapo. Since the outbreak of war he operated under the Swedish flag. His wife was German, and he provided assistance to the Dutch in Berlin, of whom there were thousands. Although Emma was a German citizen by law, Oscar was relieved to know Wapenaar could be relied on in an emergency.

  Shortly before their return to Holland, Oscar went in search of Wapenaar at the Adlon, where he more or less held court.