Flight From Berlin: A Novel

by David John

  ‘The fencer? Are you joking?’ Denham reflected for a moment. It hadn’t occurred to him before that she was Jewish. ‘She’s one of the most famous athletes in the world.’

  ‘Exactly. She’s so famous they couldn’t not include her. But how is this for irony?’ His voice dropped to a whisper. ‘She refused. The one Jew they gave the honour of competing for the Reich told them where to put their invitation . . .’

  ‘Good for her. So she’s not on the team either.’

  For a minute Denham had thought this was leading up to a scoop. He called the waiter over and asked for a whisky.

  ‘She is on the team,’ Friedl said, his expression dark. ‘They’re forcing her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re forcing her to compete on the German team by threatening her family if she doesn’t.’

  ‘Christ.’ Denham put his glass down. ‘Wasn’t she living abroad?’

  Friedl was distracted again. The cameraman, Jaworsky, was calling him from the far end of the promenade.

  ‘She’s been in California since ’33. When she refused their invitation the Gestapo started arresting her family. She boarded the next ship back to Germany.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  Friedl shrugged. ‘Call it pillow talk between me and someone who knows.’

  ‘I’ve got to interview her,’ Denham said.

  ‘Excuse me.’ Friedl got up. ‘I have to work.’

  Denham had a story. A vital, personal story of courage and deception, a political story that even his agent, Harry, would like. It moved him. It went straight to the heart of all that was wrong with these Games. An innocent woman made to act in the charades of a boundlessly criminal regime in its bid to appear decent before a watching world. They were holding her up as proof of their fairness when they had nothing but hatred for her. To cap it all, she was a sporting superstar—with cover-girl looks.

  He drained his glass and got up, noticing as he did so the white cloth on a nearby table twitch, and the scabbard of a Jungvolk dagger poking from underneath. Glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching, he delivered a brisk kick to the bulge where the boy’s backside was. He was out of the dining room before anyone could locate the source of the howling.

  As usual when he was preoccupied Denham wanted to pace. He returned to the deserted lounge on the starboard side and ambled along the promenade window, drumming his fingers on the sill. Beneath him beech forests and fields heavy with crops rolled by, but in his mind’s eye he saw Hannah Liebermann, lithe and silken-haired, pointing her foil, arm straight. She was one of the greatest athletes Germany had ever produced, whose fighting style had an extraordinary grace.

  He’d have to reach her in private somehow. An approach through the official channels would almost certainly be refused. In fact, Willi Greiser would surely expel him for this one. No doubt about that . . . Was it worth it?

  He was sitting at the baby grand piano, looking up at the portrait of the tramp turned dictator, trying to remember the notes for that Bessie Smith number ‘Nobody Knows You When You’re Down and Out,’ when he saw the red jug ears and ginger hair of that steward approaching from the far end of the lounge. The one who’d asked for his camera earlier. The Party pin in his lapel glinted like an evil eye.

  ‘Herr Denham? I’m at your disposal.’ He spoke with a marked Swabian accent. ‘Captain Lehmann suggested you may like a tour of the ship.’

  ‘You read my mind,’ Denham said. ‘Could we start with the smoking room?’ He was dying for a cigarette.

  They descended to B deck. The steward, who introduced himself as Jörg, led him to a small bar, which connected via an airlock to an intimate smoking room, pressurised, he explained, so that no hydrogen could seep in. It had small café tables and a comfortable leather bench running around its walls.

  He lit Denham’s HB. On the far side of the room was a wide window set into the floor. Wisps of white cloud passed beneath the glass, filling the room with a pale light reflected from forests and valleys below. Surely this must be the acme of all smoking experiences, he thought.

  ‘Do you have mail to post?’ the steward asked.

  ‘Mail?’

  ‘We drop a postbag when we reach Berlin. Letters are franked in the mailing room.’

  ‘With Hindenburg stamps?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You may just have saved a father’s reputation with an eight-year-old.’

  Jörg grinned and fetched a blank postcard from behind the bar. Denham scribbled:

  Dearest Tom

  Here are the stamps I promised. Your old dad’s writing this from the smoking room of the ‘Hindenburg.’ To answer your question, my cigarette was lit with a car lighter attached to the wall. How about that? Be nice to Mummy.

  Love, Dad

  He handed the postcard to the steward, stubbed out his HB, and the tour continued. The young man gave him a pair of canvas shoe coverings in case his heel should make a spark on the metal grill floor, and they entered the keel corridor—no more than a narrow catwalk—which led deep into the stern of the ship. Denham took notes in shorthand of the statistics Jörg gave him as they passed storerooms with space for two and a quarter tonnes of fresh meat, poultry, and fish and 250 vintage wines; and the freight room, which was large enough to hold an aeroplane and the huge duralumin tanks filled with diesel fuel.

  As they neared the end of the corridor the steward did an extraordinary thing. Beneath them stretched the silver fabric of the airship’s outer cover. To demonstrate its strength he leapt twelve feet off the catwalk and bounced up and down like a boy on a trampoline. For an instant Denham glimpsed the unremarkable lad beneath the Nazi persona he’d acquired like a greasy sheen on his skin.

  Onwards they went until they reached a vertical shaft, which they climbed for what seemed like half a mile until it joined the main axial corridor, the bone that ran through the centre of the vast ship from fins to nose.

  ‘Amazing,’ Denham said, laughing.

  It was like a film stage built from an Erector set. A gargantuan spider’s web of bracing wires and girders radiated out from the central axis, and looking along the corridor’s length was like seeing infinity reflected between two mirrors. The air was much colder.

  Together they walked along the corridor between towering gas cells, which hummed quietly with the vibration of the engines.

  ‘There are sixteen of them,’ Jörg explained, ‘maintained around the clock by duty riggers.’

  Denham touched one of them with the palm of his hand. That such a delicate membrane separated safety from catastrophe was unimaginable. What risks man takes in order to fly.

  Soon the corridor intersected with another airshaft.

  ‘Wait here,’ said Jörg. ‘I must pass an instruction to the duty rigger.’ With that he disappeared down the shaft.

  Seems a good moment to give him the slip, Denham thought. He continued alone along the axial corridor, eventually reaching a bay in the very tip of the ship’s nose, where huge coils of mooring rope were stacked on the floor.

  Outside the bay window, fields of cumulus billowed, brilliant and numinous in the afternoon sun. The ship had gained considerable height while he was inside its hull and was now beginning its descent through the clouds. A minute later his vision filled with grey, and the rain of a summer squall flicked at the window, fanning across the glass in the headwind.

  Suddenly, there was Berlin, vast and sullen.

  The metropolis spread out in every direction. He hadn’t even realised they were near. The sun broke through for an instant, casting a shaft of gold over the eastern outskirts. He saw the River Spree snaking around the landmarks, opalescent in the metallic light. He saw coal barges, trams, and traffic moving.

  The Hindenburg maintained its downward tilt and was soon gliding over the rain-washed streets and rooftops, casting its shadow. As it slowed, the propeller engines changed gear into a deep, pulsing drone.

  He c
ould see the entire Olympic route: all the way from the Brandenburg Gate, through the Tiergarten, where the road was hedged with flag-waving crowds, along the Kaiserdamm and the Heerstrasse between double rows of sycamores, until in the distance to the west he saw it: the granite colonnade with banners flying, the thousand-year stadium of the new order.

  Within minutes he could make out the brazier on the Marathon Gate and the top-hatted heads of officials. The athletes, in their blazers and white shoes, stood in long rows, preparing to parade onto the track behind their flags.

  Now the airship was passing slowly over the stadium’s stone rim, and Denham’s line of vision dropped into a vast crater seething with life, deeper than the surrounding ground. Half the bowl was plunged into shadow by the ship, and a hundred thousand people raised their heads towards him.

  ‘My God,’ he whispered.

  The ship hovered for a moment, the engines humming so that the propellers seemed to caress the air.

  A fanfare sounded faintly, distorted through loudspeakers, and then the movement of a wind over a field of barley passed through the hundred thousand, which rose as one, right arms raised, and he realised that the man himself was making his entrance, the tiny, striding figure in brown.

  High in his vantage point, Denham heard the crowd’s roars, like waves crashing on a shingle shore.

  Chapter Seven

  The roar of propeller engines set Eleanor’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Ain’t that something?’ shouted Paul Gallico, his mouth full of bratwurst. The crowd applauded in a frenzy. He was sitting next to her in the Associated Press box, rather too close for comfort. They were really crammed in on these benches.

  She didn’t even look up as the Zeppelin droned overhead. She felt slightly sick to her stomach, imagining she still sensed the tilt and sway of the Manhattan beneath her. Of more interest to her was a shouting match going on nearby between some guards and a tough-looking young woman in flared slacks who seemed to be in charge of a camera crew positioned near the rostrum. According to the AP reporters in front of her, the guards had been ordered by Dr Goebbels to remove the cameras. The woman insisted she had permission to film.

  ‘See, these guys put on a great show of order,’ Gallico said, ‘but their whole setup is chaotic. The country is a jungle of personal empires.’

  Eleanor said nothing.

  ‘Aw, cheer up, sweetheart. It’s not like you’ve never won an Olympic gold before.’

  ‘Buddy, I’m okay,’ she said, sharper than she’d meant. She squeezed his hand. ‘You boys have been swell.’

  He offered her the bratwurst, and she took a bite.

  ‘Hey . . . ,’ she said, chewing. ‘I always knew I’d go from bad to wurst.’

  That gave Gallico helpless giggles at the moment of Hitler’s entrance.

  They’d guessed the great man was near. Loudspeakers around the stadium had kept up a hyperactive commentary on the progress of his motorcade across the city, and the crowd simmered with excitement. Contingents from five continents were singing football-terrace songs and a dozen national anthems that boomed around the bowl in a cacophony of competitive cheer. Soldiers in uniform; members of hundreds of sporting and youth organisations in their white shirts; diplomats, the press, socialites, and families of Berliners with children waited in high spirits, enjoying the Olympic truce that lay over the city.

  Eleanor was a stone in a field of waving grass, consigned here to the bleachers to look down on all she had lost. To hell with her newspaper column. She considered slipping away while she had the chance, and before her ex-teammates marched in.

  Too late.

  An earth tremor of applause. The loudspeakers rose to a shriek, and the crowd stood to greet the distant figure entering between the towers of the Marathon Gate. At the same moment sunshine dazzled on the wet granite, as if the elements were in abeyance to some diabolical luck that accompanied him. A fanfare sounded, drowned out by yells of Heil!—the first few shouted with hysteria before finding their measure in a deep chant.

  The American reporters remained in their seats, which shook beneath them with the noise. To the right, beyond the glass partition of the box, a group of Italian air force cadets were whooping and whistling.

  Hitler descended the monumental steps to the track, followed by an entourage of Olympic officials, military brass, and Party satraps. His left hand grasped the belt buckle of his uniform; the right acknowledged the rolling roar with a type of benediction—a limp, upturned palm, held at shoulder height.

  Around her Eleanor saw faces twisted in the type of ecstasy she’d once seen among the Holy Rollers in Tennessee. Only the Italian cadets next to the box were laughing, not taking the moment seriously.

  On the track, the dictator stooped to greet a small girl, who curtsied and held a bouquet towards him. Finally, he climbed the steps to his box and saluted with an outstretched arm. The crowds stamped their feet and began singing the Party anthem. Eleanor lit a cigarette.

  ‘Jesus H Christ,’ Gallico said. ‘Where’s the spirit of international harmony? Is there any song less appropriate?’

  ‘ “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” ’ said Eleanor.

  The singing petered out as a great bell tolled, and sailors standing around the rim of the stadium synchronised the raising of each nation’s flag. It was the moment Eleanor had dreaded.

  The French, in blue berets, were the first large team to emerge, marching from a tunnel beneath the Marathon Gate. As they passed Hitler’s box the tricolour was dipped and they gave the fascist salute, which he returned, to the crowd’s intense delight. The British were next, but gave him nothing but a brisk eyes-right.

  ‘Which hotel are you at?’ Gallico said.

  ‘Every hotel’s full. William Dodd and his wife are putting me up.’

  The Italian team entered, shambolic, like the chorus of a comic opera, but the air force cadets next to the box swept off their caps and yelled, proclaiming them heroes of the patria.

  ‘William Dodd . . . our ambassador?’ Gallico was impressed.

  ‘He’s a college buddy of Dad’s.’

  The Indian team passed by in their turbans. A single Costa Rican, carrying his flag, was given a tremendous cheer. The Australians, in cricket caps, waved at the crowd and ignored the Führer. A large Bulgarian team marched in with a high kick, to much mirth in the stadium.

  Soon, the crowd was reserving its biggest applause for those teams that saluted. Eleanor watched Gallico scribble: ‘. . . like Romans in the Colosseum of yore, condemning or reprieving chariot teams before their emperor . . .’

  At last, the Americans. Seeing their sheer numbers, the largest team, beaming and relaxed, felt like a stab in the heart. She stood and waved, struggling to keep the quiver from her lip, but soon her shoulders sagged.

  Eleanor, you damned fool.

  As they passed Hitler they took off their straw boaters and held them to their hearts, and the crowd seemed to warm to their easy manner.

  ‘I guess we’re not too hot at marching,’ Gallico said, watching the athletes’ loose-gaited walk. ‘Apart from Brundage, that is.’ Even from this distance they could see the determination on the man’s face as his arms swung stiffly behind the Stars and Stripes. ‘Is that a goose step?’

  Eleanor spoke through a loud sob. ‘His big head’s so far up his ass I think that puffed-up chest is his forehead.’

  ‘Hey, hey.’ Gallico put his arms around her. She leaned her head on his shoulder, smelling cigarettes, Brylcreem, and bubble gum, and hugged him, starting to feel foolish.

  ‘I’m such a chump.’ Thick tears rolled down her cheeks, which he dried with his handkerchief.

  ‘You’re one of the nicest people I know,’ he said.

  She linked her arm in his and tried to compose herself.

  ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Me and the boys, we’re going to talk to Brundage. See if we can’t change his mind . . . He may not want to cross a unanimous US press corps.’

  Elean
or’s breath quaked in her chest. ‘Paul, honey . . . I don’t deserve you.’

  The team was still passing by on the track below. She spotted Glenn Morris and Lou Zamperini and waved at them with Gallico’s handkerchief. Towards the back she saw Olive and Marjorie, their faces flushed with pride. She called their names, and to her great surprise they spotted her and waved back.

  Finally, a tumultuous roar greeted the home team. The Germans, dressed in white, marched in immaculate drill and executed a flawless salute.

  All the teams now stood in formations behind their national flags, and a hush fell as an elderly Olympic official stepped up to the rostrum to begin a long speech. The crowd began to fidget, and Eleanor sat back, drained by tears.

  Her eyes came to rest, vacantly, on the straw boater of one of the American reporters, and her mind drifted. She was remembering the long, hot family summers on Long Beach. Her father had worn a straw boater to work each day in the sweltering city. How had she forgotten that? In the afternoons her mother would drive her and her younger brother, George, to swimming lessons to keep them out of mischief—playing alone in the dunes or along the trolley tracks. When she was eleven George died of polio, but she carried on swimming, almost as an act in his memory. He was eight years old, and a really sweet boy.

  She came out of her reverie to a heavy silence. All eyes were upon a tall blond runner, carrying the Olympic torch, who stood in the gap at the stadium’s western side. Gracefully he ran down to the track and cantered around the rows of athletes before sprinting up the steps of the Marathon Gate on the opposite side. The crowd held its breath. The runner paused, holding the torch high, then plunged it into the bronze brazier. Flames leapt into the air, and another huge roar shook the stadium.

  Eleanor felt the noise cast her adrift, decoupling her from the existence she had known, and she was struck by a conviction that a chapter in her life had closed for good.

  Chapter Eight

  The warm weather made the whiff from the Schultheiss Brewery more than usually rank. Denham told the driver to stop on the corner of Kopischstrasse, and saw the man’s nose wrinkle in the mirror. A second smell, of paraffin, followed a dog that tore past with a burning rag tied to its tail. Some children on the corner were laughing.