Flight from Berlin

by David John

  My dear Eleanor:

  Life at Tiergartenstr has been most dull without you. Martha, Mattie, and I have missed your company. I can only apologise for taking so long in responding to your letter about the Liebermanns. You’ll forgive me, I hope, when I tell you that we have been waiting on responses to petitions made by the State Department to the Reich government.

  Hitler’s reply to our request that Hannah and her family be permitted to emigrate to the States was, I regret to say, a flat refusal. When I tried to get a private interview with him to plead the case in person I was brushed off.

  There is little more I can do. I am deeply sorry that this news will disappoint. Let us hope that Hannah’s fame affords her some protection for the time being.

  We wish you well, my dear. Martha says she’ll write soon. She has been much in the company of a young Russian here in our diplomatic community, which she’ll want to tell you all about I’m sure. Knowing well how disapproval only emboldens her, I’m keeping my views on this latest suitor to myself!

  Please send my fond regards to your father.

  Yours affectionately,

  W E Dodd

  Denham stood up, put his hat on, and went out without saying a word, but Eleanor read over it again, lit a cigarette, and sat watching the trees thrashing in the wind through the kitchen window. The cat was curled on a chair, with one eye open. A log in the stove shifted, sending a heap of ash through the grate.

  Despite their efforts, it seemed the book was closing on Hannah, Jakob, and Ilse.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Eleanor never seemed to tire of Tom’s company, even when his persistence and curiosity exasperated Denham. On weekends he would stay over and go swimming with her while Denham rested. The boy had none of his father’s taciturn nature and would chat happily for hours, so she soon had knowledge of everything from model gliders to soccer’s offside rule. More than once she’d called him George without thinking. The eight-year-old kid brother she still missed.

  She watched Denham recover his health and grow stronger by the week. At half term he was well enough to take Tom to see the new television mast at Alexandra Palace, driving the Morris Oxford she had bought from the automobile dealer on Regent’s Park Road. By November he was working again, writing features for Harry Garobedian. The money he’d earned from the Hannah interview had barely been enough to tide them over, so she was thankful for having funds of her own.

  Two matters had preoccupied Eleanor since Denham had proposed that evening on the Hill. The first, her determination to be busy and useful, had been solved with relative ease. With the help of a string pulled by her dad she’d got a job at the United States embassy in Grosvenor Gardens; nothing high level, just filing the voluminous documents pledging plight, peril, or ancestry attached to applications for visas. Most were from European Jews in transit through London to the States.

  The second matter was a real headache. Herb had consented to a divorce, but there was still the problem of Reno. In a letter almost as disappointing as Dodd’s, her dad’s lawyer explained that obtaining a divorce in the state of New York was difficult. Most marriages were dissolved out of state. So she or Herb would have to take up residency in Reno, Nevada, for six weeks, after which the state’s more relaxed laws would grant her a divorce. Of course, Herb refused to go, so she would have to, and as she couldn’t leave Richard just yet, Reno, and her freedom, would have to wait, whatever her mother said about living in sin.

  On a grey afternoon in mid-March, cold enough for snow, but not to deter the crocuses from blossoming on Primrose Hill, Eleanor was returning home from work when she saw Mr Blount putting a sign in the window of his grocery store that exhorted her to STEP INSIDE AND SEE WHY SPAIN IS FIGHTING FOR YOU!

  A smaller sign announced that the shop was offering Spanish goods for sale and a service to send aid parcels to the Republican cause.

  An hour later Eleanor returned with an armful of dresses, slacks, blouses, and suits to donate for Spain to the delight of Mr Blount, the grocer, whose eldest son, she learned, was with a brigade outside Barcelona.

  ‘Are you sure, miss?’ he asked, now joined at the counter by his wife, who was eyeing the bolero jacket and clutch coat. ‘They’re very smart.’

  ‘I’m positive,’ said Eleanor. ‘And do sell them if you think the cash will be more useful.’

  She was turning the corner into Chamberlain Street when the grocer came panting after her, smiling and tipping his cap.

  ‘You left this, miss, in one of your pockets.’

  In his hand was a yellowing sealed envelope.

  ‘I don’t think so—’

  ‘It’s definitely yours, miss.’

  She opened the envelope, and a silver key fell into her hand.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Blount?’ The grocer, already halfway down the road, turned. ‘Which item did you find this in?’

  ‘Your cream jacket, miss.’

  Her bolero jacket. When had she last worn that? Certainly not since Berlin.

  Not since . . .

  And then it came to her.

  The old man awkwardly embracing her. At the time she had thought it strange, even in that mêlée of reporters surrounding them, shouting questions. Now she remembered, and she understood.

  Please . . . keep it safe.

  ‘Jakob Liebermann gave you this?’

  Denham turned the key over in his hand and examined it under the lamp in the drawing room.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You think so? Eleanor, do you realise—’

  ‘I told you. I didn’t realise. He said, “Please, keep it safe.” I didn’t know what he meant, and then he gave me this funny hug, and I thought how weird, but I had no idea he was dropping something into my pocket.’

  ‘And it didn’t occur to you that what he’d said might be significant?’

  ‘For your information, mister, he had a pack of reporters on him like bloodhounds with only me to protect him, and it was on a day when one damn thing had been happening after the other . . .’

  ‘Fine, darling, but how is it that seven months on you’ve never found this?’

  Eleanor collapsed onto an armchair and pressed her fingers to her temples. ‘I have a lot of clothes,’ she said in a level voice. ‘I didn’t try not to find it. I’m sorry, okay? I guess it’s what happens when you shack up with a spoilt little rich girl . . .’

  Her eyes began welling with tears.

  Denham gave her his handkerchief. ‘I’m sorry. Here, I’ll pour us both a whisky . . .’

  He put the key down on the coffee table. It was about three inches long, heavy, plated with nickel, and had a subtly ornamented handle, as if it might open a reliquary or a jewel box.

  ‘It’s a beautiful thing,’ he said, handing her a drink. ‘Let me see that envelope it was in again.’

  She fetched the crumpled blank envelope from her handbag. The flap had been sealed with a licked adhesive, and she’d torn it open along the top.

  He held it up to the lamp, then carefully pulled the triangle flap away from the back.

  ‘Got it,’ he said.

  ‘Got what?’

  ‘Look.’

  Written inside in pencil, in a small, faint hand, were the numbers 1451.

  ‘What does it mean?’ she asked.

  ‘My guess is that this key opens a safe-deposit box. The question is, a safe-deposit box where?’ He was still holding the envelope flap up to the light. ‘Hand me that key again.’

  Eleanor passed it to him, and he held it under the lamp, tilting the silver object to the sharp light. Engraved along the ridge of its rounded handle he saw the words ADALBERT & SONS LOCKSMITHS, ENGLAND.

  The next morning they were at the Public Records Office on Chancery Lane in time for its opening, and asked to see the register of all banking houses licenced to tr
ade in England. Together they sat on a green banquette in the reading room and opened it. There was no institution by the name of ‘Liebermann,’ so they began to study the others, the long alphabetical list of banks maritime, merchant, public, and private.

  ‘There are so many,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘You’re in the banking capital of the world.’

  When no name of any meaning leapt out they turned to the lists of stock brokerages, investment houses, and moneylenders. It did not help that what they were searching for was not at all clear.

  By late morning they had almost finished the register. Feeling cast down they joined the lunchtime crowd of print workers and secretaries on Fleet Street, collars turned up and hats pulled down against the bitter wind. For a halfpenny Denham bought a bag of hot chestnuts, which they shared as they walked. Tiny flakes of snow had begun to fall, stinging their faces. The smoke from a brazier, the unseasonal cold, and the drab people trudging the sidewalk like a beaten army all seemed to add to a sense of defeat.

  ‘What now?’ she asked.

  After lunch Eleanor returned alone to the Records Office to run her eye over the remaining pages of the register.

  A dead loss, she thought. By the time she had reached the Z entries in the final columns, she had her coat on ready to leave. She closed the register with a thump, returned it to the librarian on the issue desk, and was through the lobby door to the street when something made her slow and stop in her tracks.

  Without thinking, she turned around and began to walk back.

  She couldn’t have said where this feeling came from. Some sense was making her react to whatever she’d seen a moment ago. Years of swimming had taught her to trust her instincts.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said to the librarian. ‘May I see that register again?’

  Eleanor turned immediately to the final page, and her eye went straight to it. Goose bumps rose on her arms.

  The very last entry, on the very last line, was for the Zavi-Landau Bank, a private concern whose registered business address was 20 Idol Lane, London EC3. An asterisk next to the name referred her to a note at the end of the entry in tiny print: ‘*subsidiary of Liebermann-Landau Bank GmbH, Berlin.’

  Chapter Thirty-two

  If the Zavi-Landau Bank had chosen its registered City premises with the intention of discouraging visitors and deterring business, it could not have done much better than Idol Lane. But for the brass plaque over the bell, no passers-by would have known it was there, even if they had walked down the ancient passageway every day of their lives. The tall Georgian building, darkened by centuries of smog, shared the bend with a draper’s shop and a sliver of a timber-framed drinking establishment, from which came low laughter and the smell of stale beer.

  The bell produced no sound they could hear, so Denham struck the wrought iron knocker, so heavy he could barely lift it. The blow reverberated.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Eleanor said.

  Denham wondered with a sudden embarrassment how they were going to handle this. They had nothing but a number and a key, and no document to prove that they’d come at the behest of an associate of the bank. And so he found himself smiling inanely at the bearded young man who opened the door.

  ‘You have an appointment?’ he asked, giving them each a wary look. He wore a black silk embroidered waistcoat, a white shirt, and a black frock coat.

  ‘We’ve come on behalf of a German client,’ Denham began, ‘perhaps even a director of the bank’s . . .’

  The man glared at them, his jaw tensing very slightly.

  ‘ . . . whose name is Jakob Liebermann . . .’

  The listener hesitated, resolving some internal dilemma, then said, ‘Please come in.’

  They followed the man into a dim vestibule that led to a small old-fashioned banking hall with a polished wooden counter. Beyond that was an office area of desks, each lit by a green banker lamp. The four or five clerks working there were dressed the same—wearing black silk waistcoats, white shirts, and yarmulkes. One was making heavy work of a mechanical adding machine, whose noisy tap and clunk filled the room.

  The young man showed them into a wood-panelled, windowless salon furnished with high-backed leather armchairs. He turned on the lights, asked them to wait, and left. They sat down, looking around. On the wall was a lithograph of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. A small brass bell lay on the coffee table in front of them.

  Eleanor said, ‘I’ve got the creeps already—’

  ‘I am Abner Landau,’ said a papery voice. A stooped man stood in the door. Watch and chain, white beard, and pince-nez gave him the air of a senior judge. He did not offer his hand. Behind the low white bristles of his eyebrows, his eyes were anything but welcoming. ‘Please understand that we avoid using names here for our clients’ own protection. Our services are conducted with discretion and, whenever possible, anonymity. But since Mr Liebermann’s name has been aired, and because Mr Liebermann is not exactly a client, what is your business on his behalf?’

  Denham felt himself back at school. ‘Mr Liebermann is under house arrest in Berlin,’ he said. ‘I . . . believe he’s given us custody of his assets at this bank.’

  ‘I see. And naturally you’ve brought a notarised power of attorney voluntarily signed by him . . . ?’

  Denham blushed.

  ‘ . . . Or a deed of transfer putting his accounts into another name?’

  ‘Nothing like that.’

  The old man eyed him coldly and stepped slightly to one side, as if to show them out.

  ‘Then perhaps you have no business here after all.’

  ‘Sir, he gave us a key,’ Eleanor said. ‘On the last occasion we saw him. It was all very desperate. We’ve been trying to get his family out of Germany.’

  ‘We have nothing in writing,’ Denham added.

  Mr Landau’s eyes narrowed very slightly. ‘A key?’ Again he studied Denham’s face, but the scars couldn’t have given much assurance.

  Eleanor opened her purse and handed it to him, together with the envelope with the number. The old man wiped his pince-nez with his handkerchief and sat down.

  He examined the number and seemed to hesitate, weighing the key in his other hand, as though some fear was being confirmed.

  ‘So I take it you’re here to open the box,’ he said.

  Denham and Eleanor looked at each other. Denham said, ‘Yes. But, forgive me, I don’t understand—’

  ‘Mr Liebermann’s private box at this bank is held under terms that are very specific. Right of access is reserved not solely to him, but also to the key holder.’ Mr Landau glanced at them with a curious expression, caught between suspicion and trust. ‘And as it would seem that the circumstances he had in mind when he made this arrangement have come to pass, that privilege of access . . . falls to you.’ Mr Landau had a question forming, but something held him back. They sat in silence for a moment; then he leaned forwards and rang the small brass bell. The bearded young man who had admitted them appeared in the door.

  ‘Mr Rosen here will take you down to the vault,’ Mr Landau said, getting up.

  ‘Shouldn’t we give you our names?’ Denham said.

  The old man shook his head. ‘The key holder’s other privilege is anonymity. Good afternoon.’

  Without offering his hand he moved to leave, but then stopped and turned slowly. In a softer voice he said, ‘If you do hear from Mr Liebermann again, please wish him well from me . . .’

  Mr Rosen led them through another door. ‘Mind the steps on your way down,’ he said as they descended a spiral iron staircase. At its base, set into a brick cellar wall, was a massive door of polished steel, which he unlocked with two keys and pulled, using all his weight. Lights flicked on inside, and the gleaming vault appeared before them. They stepped over the wide rim of the door. Two walls were made up almost entirely of large steel safe b
oxes, about a hundred of them, each with a square lock of the same silver nickel as their key. Some type of ventilation machine resonated through the floor out of sight.

  The man wheeled a low trolley from a corner and followed the box numbers along the opposite wall. ‘Here we are,’ he said, crouching to one knee. ‘Box one-four-five-one.’ He slid it out, deeper than Denham expected, from the bottom tier—‘Not too heavy this one; some of them weigh a ton, literally’—heaved it onto the trolley and pushed it through to a small, brick side room with a low vaulted ceiling. It was furnished with a table, a desk lamp, and two chairs.

  ‘Ring this bell when you’re finished,’ he said, pointing to a button on the wall.

  After he’d gone, Eleanor put the key into the lock and turned it, glancing up nervously at Denham. ‘Well. Here goes.’

  Air colder than the surrounding room seemed to breathe from the box.

  She reached inside and removed a large, dark blue oilskin folder, grimacing as she touched it. It was filthy, stained with grime, and charred black in one corner, as if someone had once tried to destroy it in haste. She placed the folder on the table, beneath the yellow light of the lamp, and opened it.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  A young man stared up at them, cold, clear-eyed, and fair, wearing a military tunic undone at the collar. It was a charcoal line drawing, made with some care, with the details shaded and filled and the rest a loose impression. He looked about twenty, with unkempt hair, a wispy moustache, and an impudent smile at the edges of his lips. Freckles dotted the bridge of his nose and under his eyes. In the eyes, the artist had captured sadness and vulnerability.

  When Eleanor turned it over to reveal the next picture beneath, Denham gasped. The drawing was made on the back of some official headed letter paper, yellowed and spotted with age. Along the top, in a heavy Gothic font, were the words List Regiment Hauptquartier.

  Eleanor turned the sheets of paper, the same headed letter paper. All were drawings of young men, German soldiers of the Great War from the look of their tunics and caps, perhaps sketched in barracks or the wooden billets behind the line, or in the trenches themselves.