News from Berlin

by Otto de Kat

  “Welcome, Verschuur.”

  “Good to see you, Morton.”

  Silence.

  Morton was a man of few words, a man with a strange fire in his belly. A musketeer. Oscar could tell. It was as if Dick were sitting there, in another guise. His brother, with whom he had lived day in day out until he met Kate. Oscar had existed in the lee of their friendship, where everything went without saying. One day they had divided the world between them, laughing uproariously, with Dick claiming the women and he the poets and philosophers. But it had been Dick who had set out on his own to the East Indies with a trunk full of books. His brilliant, illusion-less brother. Their coffee was served. A small party of men were seated in a far corner, conversing in subdued voices. Through the high windows he saw people strolling past, and he could barely take it all in, the insouciance, the unspeakable complacency of his surroundings, the unperturbed demeanour of the passers-by, the delicate hand-gestures of the staff, Morton’s genial greeting. Annoyance welled up in him at London’s arrogant display of liberty, though it subsided the moment they embarked on their conversation larded with digressions, begged questions, snippets of news of mutual friends, of Wapenaar, of the situation in Berlin. Oscar spoke with the handbrake on, trying to ascertain how much Morton might or might not know. He described the evening at Henderson’s, mentioning that Howard Smith had been present. Morton was keen to hear about Berlin, and about Smith in particular. He asked after Kelly in a conspiratorial tone, and was both surprised and pleased to hear of the Turkish envoy’s involvement. Morton liked things to be raised to the level of intrigue.

  The pressure mounted in Oscar’s head. Slowly but surely Morton was fencing him in, inching his way forward to discover the real reason behind this sudden visit to London, reminding him that it was he, Morton, he was talking to, Morton, Churchill’s personal friend and adviser. What was it all about, what was Verschuur up to?

  “So Smith mentioned troop concentrations, did he?”

  Oscar confirmed, adding that Smith seemed to think Russia could be attacked at any moment. This was it: now was the time to tell him. He glanced around. The group of men sitting by the fire were safely out of earshot. A waiter stood in the doorway like a sentry.

  He had gone over every contingency, every coincidence, every sign, suspicion, probability, every ulterior motive, trap, deception. Every single step he might be obliged to take had been plotted, each potential countermove examined. A tangle of possibilities and impossibilities crowded his mind. If he did tell Morton, how could he ever be sure that the information would not be traced back to him? Morton would promise not to name his source, but still, he was bound to inform his agents in Berlin that he had heard, via Switzerland … In his ratiocinations Oscar kept coming back to himself as the only possible source. And from him to Emma, the horse’s mouth. Emma was in danger, she had been seen with him in Geneva, he was under suspicion and therefore so was she, as was Carl – doubly so, because they already suspected Trott, his boss. Their meeting would have been reported back to Berlin, there was no doubt about that. Emma or Barbarossa. It had driven him mad, the despair, the rage, the unutterable sadness. There was no way of reaching Emma and Carl, no question of conferring, suggesting, advising, let alone of warning. Berlin was riddled with listening devices.

  “How are your daughter and your son-in-law?”

  Oscar heard the question, wanted to evade it, but said: “I saw them last week, in Geneva. We had lunch in a restaurant.”

  Morton glanced up. Oscar sat very still, poised to take the plunge.

  “Any news from that front, by any chance?”

  They would arrest Emma at their leisure, just her, not Carl. And would interrogate her at their leisure, let her stew, week after week, they would foist her onto some other interrogation team if it suited them.

  “Trott wants to liaise with you. He’s doing a lot to mobilise opposition to his bosses.”

  “We are aware of that, Verschuur, but we don’t trust him. We have the impression that he’s playing a double game, although we also believe that it won’t be long before they invade the Soviet Union. Did your son-in-law have anything to say on the subject?”

  They might let her go after a few months, but on the other hand they might well keep her locked up indefinitely.

  And then it hit him what Morton had just said: they had doubts about Trott. In other words, anything Oscar told them about Operation Barbarossa and when it was due would not be credited. His information came from Carl, and by extension from Trott, whom they did not trust. Wasn’t that what Morton had said? Trott, Carl, Emma, nothing coming from them would be listened to, everybody in Germany was tainted, good Germans simply did not exist. However high the risks being taken, however brave it was to resist, the English saw nothing but duplicity. At best they were opportunists, Trott and his friends. My daughter is one of them, Morton. The message was clear: total cynicism regarding whatever forms of resistance might be striving to emerge in the land of the enemy. Oh my God, Emma.

  “No, not really. Carl mentioned the west, but not the east. Smith did, explicitly so. Not Carl, though.”

  Morton waited, in vain. Oscar would keep the news to himself, they would not believe him anyway. The operation would go ahead, as the Russians were bound to have discovered by now. How many million troops did they reckon on going over there, how much murder and manslaughter could a nation endure, who would warn the people at the border, tell them to run, flee, make themselves scarce.

  They fell silent, the hour was up. Morton had work to do.

  Mission unaccomplished.

  Their footsteps on the marble floor sounded refined, their shoes creaked, their coats were held out for them, Morton’s umbrella snapped open. Oscar followed him with his eyes as he picked his way between the other umbrellas in the direction of the park. The gait of a man of purpose, a man without a daughter.

  Morton must have noticed that Oscar was being evasive, or even disingenuous – saying nothing can amount to lying, saying nothing can mislead. But Morton had failed to register Oscar’s horror at the casual passing of the death sentence on every German, every man or woman valiantly swimming against the current.

  Emma was on the wrong side, and that was that.

  Chapter 11

  Should she ask Adriaan Wapenaar for help? Her father had repeatedly impressed upon her to appeal to him if necessary. Emma had waved aside his concern, but had not forgotten his advice. She knew where he lived: in Grunewald, a fifteen-minute bike ride at most. There was something of the reservation about Grunewald, with its abundant greenery and here and there a tennis court between the houses. The thwack of a tennis ball among the trees epitomised the total disregard for what was happening elsewhere. Why the place had not been plundered was anyone’s guess. But for some reason they had left it alone, their clubs and claw-hammers being put to use elsewhere.

  She wheeled out her bicycle, nerves jangling. Why she wanted to speak to him she was not sure – just to be with another Dutch person, perhaps, to speak her own language, see a friend of her father’s. She had no need of a coat; it was still early, but the warmth of June was already thick among the trees. Would Wapenaar know who she was, she wondered. They had met only twice before, and briefly at that. She took the lanes of Dahlem, crossed the main road and turned left into Grunewald. Oak trees and chestnuts caught the sun.

  She pedalled along gently rolling avenues in deep shade, with bends that seemed random and illogical. The houses stood some distance apart, secluding ill-gotten gains in tranquillity. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse was only a few kilometres away, while here men and women sat idly in the windows, languid from the onslaught of summer. Gardeners shifted their ladders from one tree to the next. Cycling through the oasis was a journey to another planet.

  Emma knew the way. She and Carl often went there, walking or on their bikes, in an optimistic endeavour to shake off the war. Carl had told her about the history of Grunewald and all the artists, writers and rich folk wh
o used to live there. The current residents, mostly party bosses and industrialists, were an unenviable lot, according to him. Carl Regendorf was a man without grudges of any kind, a greater contrast with the prevailing mood was impossible to imagine. Emma and Carl had fallen in love at great speed, as though intent on staying ahead of the times they were obliged to inhabit, the times of rancour and revenge and unending acts of hatred.

  Birds sang in the trees. Loving him more than she did there, at that moment, was impossible to imagine. The thought played on her mind to the slow rhythm of her feet on the pedals. If only she could leave, take him with her to some other country. Their short stay in Switzerland had been so blissfully peaceful. It was there, during a stroll in Geneva, that she had said, on a sudden impulse, why don’t we stay here, Carl, why go back to doom-laden Berlin? Now was the moment, this was their chance, they could disappear – her father would certainly help them. London, America, anything was better than staying put and having to watch as ruination drew near. But she knew the answer. Carl understood how she felt, naturally, but there were his parents to think of, and the rest of the family. They would be rounded up immediately and sent to a camp, or worse. Emma abandoned the thought. They were hostages, she knew that by now.

  With one hand she held the shoulder strap of her bag, a girl on her way to school, or to her grandmother’s, in the filtered light of morning. She pushed the pedals round, then lifted her feet off them to freewheel almost to a standstill before pedalling onward again. She took her time cycling to Wapenaar’s home in the heart of Grunewald. No hurry, as she didn’t quite know what she would do when she got there. And anyway it was all a bit pointless, because there was no way she could speak her mind. Nonetheless, she pedalled on, steering her bike to the Bismarckbrücke near the Hubertus lake. She knew the address, although she had never visited the house before.

  It was a small villa, not much larger than where Carl and she lived, but with a long garden reaching down to the lake. A wrought-iron gate with climbing roses gave the Wapenaar residence a romantic touch. The front entrance, too, was framed with roses.

  The door was opened by a woman. Emma introduced herself, saying she was Dutch and that her father was a friend of Mr Wapenaar’s, that she happened to be cycling around in the neighbourhood, and had wondered if it was alright for her to drop by to say hello. Emma’s flustered preamble made the woman laugh, and she invited her in. Her husband was not at home, but that was of no consequence, she was expecting him back any minute. Would Emma like something to drink? She suggested going out into the garden to sit on the terrace by the lake with a glass of orange juice. She spoke Dutch with a strong German accent, which had a surprising charm to it. Emma did not have the nerve to decline the hospitable offer, and meekly followed Wapenaar’s wife into the garden. It was eleven o’clock, the lake at their feet was smooth and black. A dog barked in the next garden. It seemed unreal, a scene in a film. What was she doing there, why had she come?

  The dog carried on barking, growling, yelping, running and jumping up against an invisible fence alarmingly close by. Wapenaar’s wife went over and called the animal by its name, softly and commandingly, then put her hand through the hedge to pat it. Order was restored, quiet reigned once more.

  “She’s a nice enough creature, but she’s left alone for far too long.”

  Emma nodded understandingly. Alone for far too long, that was something she was finding increasingly difficult to cope with. Carl going off to work, leaving her sitting at home facing a lonely, empty day ahead of her and having to find things to keep her busy until he came home in the evening. Days during which she banished the war to the back of her mind and worked in her garden, weeding and pruning. The pretence of normality was a way of dealing with a hostile environment, something she saw women everywhere attempting to do, acting as if nothing was wrong, as if they were leading their ordinary lives. Was it not ever thus for wives, whose husbands were always working, as soldiers, bakers, professors, civil servants, ministers?

  Emma eyed the friendly woman over the glasses of orange juice on the table between them. There was an idyllic-seeming quality to the setting, which she was loath to disturb. The woman asked Emma to call her Elka, a nickname, really, dating from her childhood, when her father used to write little notes to her always beginning with a capital L and a capital K, for Liebes Kind. And so she became Elka. Emma listened, thinking that she could not remember her father ever writing little notes to her. Her father, whom she missed so achingly now, and who seemed to be drifting further and further away from her.

  Since her parents moved away from Berlin she had not been back to Fasanenstrasse, where she and Carl had first met, where her unmoored existence had begun. Her courage at the outset, like her nostalgia for what she had to leave behind, had been boundless. She and Carl swam upstream, never tiring or losing hope, never afraid. After her parents’ farewell dinner she had watched him as he walked away, and he had turned round and seen her, and had waved in surprise because she was waving too. That cheerful, hopeful hand still waved at her each day from the garden gate. Carl was the complete opposite of her father, as transparent as glass, a miracle of straightforwardness.

  Through the open windows reverberated the chimes of a clock striking the hour. Emma counted twelve – she had been there for an hour already, she must leave. She apologised for staying so long, saying she would come back another day, if that was alright. A whole hour! She cringed with embarrassment. She had hardly said a word while Elka Wapenaar entertained her, squeezed oranges for her, rocked her to sleep, so it seemed.

  She headed back to Dahlem, cycling on automatic pilot as she thought of her father. And for the umpteenth time of the remark about her mother. The glint in her interrogator’s eyes had been malicious, his tone insinuating. Quite a looker, know what I mean. Do you get what I’m saying. Suddenly it dawned on her. Clamping the brakes hard, she heard the tyres skid over the road. Her father had another woman.

  She stopped, parked her bicycle in the verge and cast around for a bench to sit on. Her inclination was to weep, but the tears did not come. Her face was hot, her hands were cold. Quite a looker. Her thoughtless, faithless father had been seen in the company of a woman, and not just any woman. They had been followed, and even from a distance her appearance had been striking, or rather, her father had obviously found her striking. That had to be it: the mystery of his evasiveness in Geneva explained. He had been half out of his mind when he joined her and Carl, his eyes more than once shifting away from hers. Emma looked about her: it was busier now on Königsallee, with people on foot and on bicycles passing by. To her surprise, it was not plain anger that she felt, rather an old sadness. It had to do with something she had been hiding for years. That she did not really know her father. Her love for him was so naive and unconditional. As love should be. Her father, who belonged with her mother, who would never leave her, never ever, not for anybody, not even for the love of his life, or whatever she was. Suddenly she was seized with rage. Rage over what he was putting in the balance, over his bit on the side, over his secrecy and his deceitfulness and his refusal to meet her gaze.

  She picked up her bike and wheeled it to the side of the road, hardly aware of where she was going, unable to stem the flood of memories.

  She saw him enter the restaurant where he was meeting her and Carl. Her boyish papa. She had gone up to him as quickly as decorum permitted, she had thrown her arms about him, had taken his hand and drawn him to their table, where Carl was waiting. It had been more than a year since she had seen him, a radically altered world ago, countless bombing raids and massacres ago, though nothing of that was mentioned. It was too much, too overwhelming, too huge to grasp. She had watched him and seen the shadows passing across his face, the way he sidetracked her as soon as she asked him a personal question, the way he seemed not to want her to get too close. He probably hadn’t even wanted to be there at all, she could see that now. He had been at pains to avoid every form of intimacy. Had he
taken against her marriage with Carl? No, that was unlikely, as she could tell he regarded Carl as a friend. He had even spent more time talking to him than to her.

  “The last time we were together, you, me and Mama, was up here in the mountains, wasn’t it?” His discomfort had become almost palpable when she said that. He responded by asking her about Berlin, steering the conversation away from himself yet again. Her feelings had been hurt, she had so looked forward to this, longing to see him, hear him, relish the known gestures, be close.

  Another woman, for God’s sake, Papa. Her rage flared up again, at him, and at the Gestapo for exposing him. What were they after, why would they be so interested in him? Her father, with a lock on his mouth and a lid on his soul. What else had he been up to all these years?

  From nearby came the sound of those wretched tennis balls; playing tennis now was a criminal pastime, a cruel joke. She would leave Carl out of it, much as she ached to confide in him. In some ways she resembled her father, she realised. She would keep this to herself.

  “Looking for someone?” A man on a bicycle slowed down, stopped, and looked her up and down. She shook her head and prepared to move on.

  “Your papers, please.” The condescending tone of an informer, or at any rate of a party member sporting a fancy badge. He probably lived somewhere nearby. But this was beyond the pale. Emma struggled to keep her voice under control.