Flight From Berlin: A Novel

by David John

  ‘Do what?’ Denham said.

  ‘Give Rex the bogus dossier. The real one’s here. I saw. And even now in the dark I recognise . . . its smell.’

  ‘Yes,’ Denham said.

  ‘Why?’

  A long pause. And when he spoke he felt they were the saddest words he’d ever spoken.

  ‘Because Rex betrayed us.’

  Chapter Fifty-five

  In his mind’s eye Denham imagined the scene, early tomorrow morning in the summer palace of the Hohenzollerns on the Wilhelmstrasse. Rex enters the building unseen, perhaps through one of the tunnels that crisscross the government quarter. He is fresh and alert, nervous before his meeting with Reinhard Heydrich, the thirty-three-year-old dauphin, the Führer’s rumoured successor. Satisfied, too, because through his initiative alone the mission had succeeded. He is ushered into the presence. A globe tilted to the window perhaps; equestrian trophies; even an épée, wire mask, and kit thrown in one corner. Heydrich rises to meet him. He is gangling and fair, towering in black, squinting at Rex over his long nose. An Olympian coldness. Rex presents the dossier. A word of congratulation perhaps, and then he takes it over to the tall windows and opens it, curious, but without emotion. His back is towards Rex. Inside, nine or ten loose sheets, some of the great man’s drawings. He had expected those. Behind the drawings, a thick, sealed envelope. He opens this and pulls out a wad of papers tied with string. All typewritten, with corrections in handwriting. This he is not expecting. Not expecting at all.

  ‘My dear Herr Palmer-Ward,’ he says, turning round on the heels of his boots. ‘What have you given me?’

  He is holding it up. Rex blinks. It means nothing to him.

  In Heydrich’s hand is the draft manuscript for No Parts for Stella, an unfinished experimental novel by Friedl Christian.

  ‘There were hints,’ Denham explained. He took off his jacket, folded it into a cushion, and made himself as comfortable as he could in the dark. ‘I just didn’t want to see them . . . or draw the conclusions. Lurking in the back of my mind was the question I never asked: who was the British journalist that you, Friedl, were supposed to meet at the stadium, on the day of the opening ceremony, the man who was to identify himself to you with the password? With your man, Captain Rogel, arrested, and because you feared an SD trap, you didn’t show up. But waiting there in the drizzle, on his own beneath the bell tower, was Rex. I’m sure of it.’

  ‘So it was one of my brighter decisions,’ Friedl said.

  ‘Captain Rogel, or someone in the resistance group, had contacted him and offered the dossier. Not surprising they picked Rex. He is chief correspondent of the Times. Maybe they also knew he’s a British intelligence officer, which would have made him the perfect choice.

  ‘That same afternoon, I got back to Berlin from my week in the south and met him for a beer at the Adlon. His disappointment at not getting the List Dossier must have been very much on his mind. But just as he was brooding over his loss: serendipity. From something I said he realised that it was I who had been approached that day, and he thought I had the dossier.

  ‘With me sitting there in front of him, he couldn’t believe his luck. But he wasn’t completely sure. Maybe I’d hidden it—and hours later my apartment was searched and ransacked—or maybe I’d been told its hiding place. So he decided to draw me in and recruit me to British Intelligence. He introduced me to the very organisation whose operations he was secretly betraying to the SD. It was a good plan. Why not let me deliver it, out of patriotic duty, to the British SIS, of which he was the chief intelligence officer in Berlin? Hence the sudden invitation to meet Sir Eric Phipps. If that didn’t work, the SD could arrest me and beat it out of me. Either way, Rex and his SD master, Heydrich, would get the dossier.

  ‘Doubts must have set in, though, after Rausch learned nothing from me in the interrogation. When Rex visited me at my sickbed in London, it may have been partly to find out for himself. And in the meantime, when the trail went cold, he ran a covert campaign to discredit Phipps, and then to move Evans from active duty, replacing them with appeasers who would not hinder Nazi ambitions.

  ‘Then the dossier was found. The irony was, if that nasty ambush at the Dutch border had worked, Rex would have been thwarted. We would’ve had nothing on us but the bogus dossier. But when he learned we were fugitives inside Germany, he was just waiting for our call for help, and it came from you, my darling . . .’

  ‘From a pay phone on the highway . . . ,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘You told him to meet us at the sanatorium, and he primed the trap. Against all the odds, it failed, but he saw one last chance and made it just in time.’

  ‘But honey . . . ,’ Eleanor began. ‘Couldn’t all this be pure . . . suspicion? A misunderstanding?’ She shifted position on the wooden floor without finding comfort. ‘You have no proof . . . have you?’

  Denham sighed. He knew she liked Rex. Everyone did, including Tom, who was his godson for Christ’s sake. But the proof was in his inside pocket. It was inscribed in ink on the title page of the small rust red book, The Poems of Stefan George. The very book Rausch had in his possession during the interrogation. In a younger hand were written the words: Rex Palmer-Ward—Balliol College, Oxford—Lent term 1919.

  ‘But why?’ Eleanor said, when he’d explained. ‘Why?’

  Denham shook his head in the dark. ‘We have to warn the SIS,’ he said.

  ‘And the dossier?’

  Denham shrugged. ‘We’ll find a way to get it to them . . .’

  ‘With the appeasers in charge?’ Eleanor said. ‘Oh, forget that. I say we give it to the Hearst newspaper corporation—as soon as we land.’

  ‘Dr. Eckener has given you these cabins,’ Lehmann said, opening the door to a narrow corridor on B deck. ‘They were added during the winter refit and are the only ones with windows. You will see no other passengers on this deck.’

  Captain Ernst Lehmann had been waiting for them in the cargo hold when the containers were opened. He had ushered them here, explaining that he was an old colleague of Eckener’s, had been since the war, and was on board this voyage as an observer. A shortish, handsome man, he wore the peaked cap and brass buttons of a Zeppelin officer. There was a sad sobriety about him, Denham thought.

  Denham’s cabin was furnished with an aluminium bunk bed, a reading lamp, and a fold-down washbasin. The bed’s crisp sheets had been turned down. It was no larger or more comfortable than a sleeper in a good Pullman train, Denham supposed, save for the incomparable view of the world. From the window of tilted Plexiglas, he saw Amsterdam passing below, its streets glowing arteries of Saturday night traffic, its suburbs great webs of fairy lights.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You can open it if you wish,’ said Lehmann. ‘There is no draught, even at an airspeed of a hundred kilometres per hour.’

  The window opened with a push, and Denham leaned out as far as he dared. A moonless night, but the sky glittered with stars. To his left, two of the propeller engine cars could be seen sticking out from the gargantuan hull. The noise was tremendous, but beneath the flow of aerodynamism, the ship’s skin was insulated in stillness. Ahead of the ship to his right, drifts of white vapour parted like wraiths. He closed his eyes and breathed in the smell of the ocean, and a cold, crystalline air he imagined came from the stars themselves.

  ‘You’ll excuse me,’ Lehmann said, putting on his cap. Denham had almost forgotten he was there. ‘Ralf will bring you something cold to eat. In the morning I will take you up to breakfast, and then inform Captain Pruss of my shock and bewilderment in discovering six additional passengers stowed on board . . .’

  He gave Denham a resigned smile, then left, his face set to that distasteful task.

  A minute later, there was a tap at the door. Jakob and Ilse were standing in the corridor, smiling expectantly. Ilse held on to the doorframe, still stiff from the two hours sitting in the cargo container. Denham invited them in, and they sat on the bed. A
moment later Friedl appeared with a bottle of brandy and some glasses. ‘Imagine leaving the bar on this deck unattended.’

  ‘With so much drama,’ Jakob said in his deep, felt voice, ‘we have not yet thanked you for what you’ve done.’ The ruts of strain that lined his face seemed less pronounced, as though he was making an unexpected recovery from a long illness. ‘There is a saying in Hebrew, “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.” We owe everything to you and to Dr Eckener,’ he said, shaking his head in wonder, ‘a man we had never met until tonight.’

  ‘Does it seem so odd that a stranger is kind?’ Denham said, accepting a glass. ‘I suppose it does, to an émigré from Hitler’s Germany. But when you reach America you will think the opposite: how strange that anyone might be so hateful.’

  ‘I expect he is in serious trouble for helping us,’ Jakob said.

  ‘Eckener’s fame and contacts have protected him . . . ,’ Richard said, hiding his worry.

  ‘After Roland died,’ Ilse said, pushing a strand back into the silver puff of her hair, ‘I did not wish to live any longer. It was only the thought that I could not be so selfish as to leave my husband and daughter to their fates that made me face each day. And now, we’re flying away from the nightmare,’ she said, ‘in this marvellous ship.’

  Jakob put his arm around her shoulder, and they were silent for a time.

  Denham asked, ‘What happened to the art?’

  ‘We lost the paintings,’ Jakob said with a wave of his hand, ‘but we were not robbed of everything in Basel, thanks to Eleanor.’

  Denham poured them each a glass.

  ‘Mazel tov,’ said Jakob.

  ‘Mazel tov,’ they said in unison.

  ‘As a token of our thanks,’ Jakob said, ‘Ilse and I wish to fund your honeymoon.’ Denham held up his palm and began to protest until he saw that it would make them much happier if he accepted.

  ‘That’s settled, then,’ said Jakob, businesslike. ‘Anywhere in the world you and Eleanor want to go.’

  When they’d gone, Denham was washing his face in the basin when Hannah appeared in the door.

  ‘This is the party cabin tonight,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

  She glided in, wearing a brushed-cotton bathrobe with a frilly nightdress hanging underneath. It must have been in the case Ilse had brought for her. Her silky chestnut hair was down, coiling and slipping around her shoulders.

  ‘There’s been a mix-up over the cabins,’ she said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Yours is next door. I’m to have this one.’

  Amused, he went and knocked on Eleanor’s door.

  ‘Come in,’ she said in a low voice.

  His fiancée lay on the bed and arched her back in a long feline stretch when she saw him.

  ‘This is the only way to travel.’ She sighed and switched off the reading lamp. He sat next to her on the bed, his eyes taking a moment to adjust to the pale starlight reflected off the sea. She had on a silk camisole and stockings that were lacy at the top where they attached to the garter straps. Leaning down and kissing the smooth skin of her thigh, he undid one of them.

  ‘A generous friend of ours wants to send us on a honeymoon,’ he said. ‘Where would you like to go?’

  ‘Mm,’ she moaned as he kissed her again, ‘the South Pacific.’

  ‘A desert island?’ He undid the other strap and ran his hand up her thigh.

  ‘Yes. Where we can . . . Oh, come here.’

  She pulled his head towards her and kissed him, and he lay down next to her on the narrow bed, holding tight the perfect curve of her spine.

  They caressed and made love, kissing without stopping. Eventually, exhausted, they lay side by side with their feet towards the head of the bed so that they faced the window.

  ‘The stars seem so close I could almost reach up and swish them around,’ she said.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  They were lulled to sleep by the hum of the propeller engines.

  Chapter Fifty-six

  The airship had entered a cold front over the mid-Atlantic, disappointing the passengers, who’d wanted to enjoy the view from the promenade windows. Outside was a world of white, an empty dimension with no sensation of forwards movement. The ship seemed frozen in time over an invisible ocean.

  With nothing to see, most of the passengers returned to their cabins, and only the little party of stowaways was breakfasting in the dining room at nine o’clock. Refreshed and rested, Friedl and Hannah chattered eagerly of their coming life in America. Jakob was telling them how Pola Negri had once fainted in his arms in the elevator at the Park Avenue Hotel, when Ilse tugged his sleeve. Marching towards them among the dining room chairs was a man of about fifty wearing brass buttons and three sleeve stripes. The white peaked cap, hostile stare, and wide, grimly set mouth gave the impression of a police commissioner. He was followed by two junior officers.

  ‘Oh,’ Jakob said, dapping his mouth with a napkin. ‘This must be Captain Pruss.’

  ‘Well now.’ The man stopped at the table and leaned towards them, his hands on the back of a chair. Looking at each of them in turn he said, ‘Whoever you are, be in no doubt of the seriousness of the offence you have committed.’ Hannah blushed scarlet and kept her eyes on her plate. ‘Whoever aided you will be discovered and dealt with. The company’s rules on stowaways require that the quartermaster confines you in a restricted area until we land.’ Ilse glanced warily at Jakob. ‘However . . .’ Pruss straightened up and exhaled, his displeasure giving way to an odd expression, a type of pained graciousness. ‘The response I’ve received from Dr Eckener orders me to treat you as paying passengers until the matter can be fully investigated . . . your names will go on the passenger list . . .’

  Having left them in no doubt of what he thought of the order, and after Jakob had assured him he would pay the fares in full, he withdrew.

  ‘Oh boy,’ Friedl said, starting to laugh. ‘He was not happy.’

  ‘By now Heydrich will know where we are . . . ,’ Denham said thoughtfully, looking at the white sky.

  ‘Oh, so what.’ Eleanor poured herself more coffee. ‘It’s too late to turn around. We’ll be in New York this time tomorrow morning.’

  In the reading room after breakfast Eleanor befriended a lady who introduced herself as Miss Mather, an elegant New Yorker in her late fifties who’d booked the passage because she abhorred ocean liners and had no sea legs. She had a delicate, Old World manner.

  ‘I’m a dedicated fan of air travel,’ Miss Mather said. ‘But . . . I simply can’t explain it. I felt a reluctance to board the Hindenburg. It was really quite overwhelming . . .’

  ‘You’ll be fine when you find your air legs,’ Eleanor assured her, but she noticed how the woman kept crossing and uncrossing her thin ankles. She seemed even less at ease when Lehmann passed and told them that the ship was battling strong headwinds. They would be twelve hours late arriving in Lakehurst.

  Towards late afternoon the fog and low clouds began to lift, and cresting grey waves could be seen below, marbling the surface of the ocean.

  As they were changing for dinner in their cabins the sun finally broke through, and by the time the six of them climbed the stairs to A deck and entered the hundred-foot-long promenade in time to join the other passengers for cocktails, the setting sun shone horizontally through the windows, burnishing the lounge with a reddish golden light.

  The single gown Eleanor had packed was of green satin organza with a low, square neckline, set off by her pearl necklace. Hannah had borrowed earrings from Ilse and wore her fine hair swirled and piled up. The men wore the dinner jackets Eckener had placed in their cabins.

  Once they’d been served martinis they gathered along the window. The ocean had calmed, and its dark surface sparkled with gold. A cargo ship whose wake they’d followed for miles sounded its horn and its crew waved from the deck as the leviathan droned overhead.

  Jakob was in good spirits. Probabl
y never in his life had he been beholden to the mercies of strangers, Eleanor thought, as he raised his glass.

  They raised theirs in return.

  The old man was about to speak. But then his smile wavered and began to fade, first in his eyes, and then around his jowls and lips.

  He was staring into the gathering of passengers.

  ‘What’s the matter Jaku, dear?’ said Ilse.

  They turned to look at what Jakob was seeing. Several knots of people chatting with drinks. But among them were two men together, in black tie, glaring at them. One with a white moustache twisted into two pins, a pince-nez, and hair swept back like a professor’s; the other tall and potbellied, with fleshy lips and a mane of thick, grey hair. He wore a Party pin in his lapel. His eyes landed on Eleanor: they were the grey-beige colour of dishwater. And that’s when she recognised him.

  ‘Father,’ Hannah said, ‘aren’t those the men . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jakob.

  ‘The men who were leaving the morning we visited your home . . . ,’ said Eleanor. ‘The ones who took your art collection.’

  The tall man turned away from them, a look of repugnance on his face, as though he’d dressed for a society wedding only to find that the street drinkers had been invited. He leaned down to whisper to his colleague. Then they both turned and walked quickly out of the promenade deck.

  ‘They’re probably going to complain to Pruss,’ said Jakob. ‘Ah well. I take comfort from knowing that I’ve spoilt their dinner as much as they’ve spoilt mine.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘If our collection turns up for sale in New York they know I can kick up a stink . . . which raises an intriguing possibility . . .’

  Jakob met his wife’s eyes, and they seemed to be reading each other’s minds.

  The hors d’oeuvre was an Indian swallow nest soup served with a superb Piesporter ’34. When the sun fell behind the horizon trailing ragged scraps of glory, the dining room’s lights came on.

  Lehmann approached their table and leaned over to whisper into Jakob’s ear. He left without greeting the others.