The Song Before It Is Sung

by Justin Cartwright

  'What is this recompense, Axel?'

  It is probable that Hamburger has already been told by Elya, and perhaps Lionel, that Axel proposes that Germany should be allowed to bring all its kindred people under its control. He pauses before he speaks.

  'What I believe, sir, is that the German people don't necessarily want Hitler, but Hitler is offering them their pride back. It's a pact with the devil, it's Faustian, but they don't seem to realise it.'

  'Do they know about the Jews?'

  'To be absolutely honest, most of them think it is a good thing that Jewish influence in the law and in business and in academic life has been lessened.'

  'Lessened. What does that mean?'

  Hamburger leans forward now and Axel sees that he must tread very carefully.

  'It means that they believe that the Jews have had too much influence. They say, for instance, that sixty-five per cent of all lawyers in Berlin were Jewish.'

  'And how many Jews do you think are enough?'

  'Sir, I have no inclination to, or indeed see no necessity, to think of Jewish Germans in any way as separate from the rest of us.'

  'But your countrymen do.'

  'I think they do, many of them. But I don't believe they imagined things would go as far as they have.'

  'And what is the reward the Germans should be given to get them back on the path of righteousness?'

  'All the lost territories should be united under the sovereignty of Germany and the Danzig corridor should be opened.'

  Hamburger is sitting in a swivel chair. He turns around and looks out of the window towards the garden for a minute at least, before turning back.

  'Grossdeutschland. That means they should keep the Sude-tenland and be allowed a free hand in Poland or anywhere else that German is spoken. And that means in practice legitimising this regime.'

  'The problem, sir, will come if Hitler moves into the rest of Czechoslovakia and Poland anyway, and France and Holland and even England; then it will be impossible to convince the German people that they don't need him, and that he is a disaster. Then he will be confirmed as the Leader and Superman. I beg you to express clearly to the President that is it only by containing Hitler, by giving him limited gains, which recognise the grievances of the German people, that this disaster can be avoided.'

  'Axel, write a paper, if you haven't already, and I will pass it on if I can. Most of the American people don't want to become involved in what they see as another of Europe's wars. They don't want the government to become involved.'

  'Sir, can we speak in the garden?' Axel whispers.

  Hamburger looks startled. But he stands up.

  'Sure.'

  He takes Axel's arm as they step down into the garden, which is in an impatient transition from winter: the hostas are beginning to produce spears that look like asparagus and timorous bulbs are poking upwards.

  'What is it, Axel?'

  'Sir, do you think you could arrange a meeting with the President for me?'

  'Why, Axel?'

  'I have a message directly from my superiors.'

  'From whom?'

  'From Weizacker and Haeften.'

  'Can I ask you what it contains?'

  'I am afraid I can only speak directly to the President.'

  'That may be a tall order, but I will try. Axel, lots of Germans pass through Washington these days, people who claim to be speaking for this or that party, the Abwehr or the Council of Churches, or, like you, for the Foreign Office. We have had princes and captains of industry and even openly declared Nazis. So the waters are already muddied. But I will try on your behalf. Very good luck with your speech to the Huntingford Institute. I can't be there, unfortunately.'

  As Hamburger turns to go back inside, Axel stands in his way.

  'Sir, unless those in Germany who want to get rid of Hitler have your support, they will never succeed.'

  'I must get ready now, Axel. I am very grateful that you came and only sorry that we have no time to talk about Oxford, a place, as you know, that I love. I'll give you a ride downtown.'

  Axel waits with Frieda while Hamburger dresses; she says that Washington is beastly hot in summer; this, and the fall, are the best seasons. The driver carries the judge's papers to the car. It's a Packard, large, black and covered in chrome, twice as big as Axel's DKW. The passenger section has a cigar lighter and a row of large brown tortoiseshell knobs which open vents to let air in. There is a sunshade over the windscreen like a kind of visor. Hamburger reads his papers as they drive to the Supreme Court. They are sitting on a well-stuffed banquette, almost a sofa, covered in a pale buttoned cream material. The car is trimmed in wood and the door handles are made of what looks like pewter. There is a small cupboard attached to the upholstery just above Hamburger's face.

  'You know, Axel,' he says, looking up, 'Elya has never quite trusted you since you wrote to the Manchester Guardian!

  'It was a foolish letter. What I should have said was that the court system was trying to be fair under terrible duress, despite the laws. But I was temporarily blinded: I saw a lot of smug people in England who were unsympathetic to our struggles.'

  'Where do you wish to be dropped?' asks Hamburger, as they approach the Court.

  'I'll walk from here, sir.'

  'Good to see you again, my boy. I'll do my best.'

  The car glides away. He is standing near the Library of Congress. An Austrian Jew, driven by a Negro, is in the vanishing car. He is one of the most powerful men in America. And Axel sees what Hitler in his madness is doing to Germany: he is drawing down the night. This is the pattern of German history, the periodic retreat into darkness. The courting of the night.

  He knows in his heart - Hamburger has expressly warned him — that he will not be allowed to deliver the message that has been entrusted to him. And he can't write it down for delivery. What Hamburger sees is just another Junker full of self-importance; he sees a person who clearly does not understand that it is already too late, after Kristallnacht, with Sachsenhausen and other places of horror full of Jews and opponents of the Nazis, and worse to come.

  All around him the secular religion of America reproaches him for his naivety: the rule of law, the will of the people, the equality of all men are celebrated in huge monuments. But in our benighted country Jews are being treated worse than dogs, much worse than dogs. As FDR says, it is barely believable that such things can happen in the twentieth century. Axel knows that, unless he can stop it, Germany will drown in blood.

  That night in front of an audience of embassy staff and invited Nazi sympathisers and know-nothing businessmen, he delivers his portentous talk on the threat to Western Europe, and by extension to America, from the East. When an assistant counsellor congratulates him afterwards - very precise, exactly the point - he bows his head and smiles graciously although the man is clearly from the security service of the SS. They have the unmistakable look he has seen in the crowds along the streets, the greedy, vengeful look of the Untermenschen. These people, who have previously inhabited the cesspit of human ignorance and depravity, have now crawled out to inherit their Fatherland. They are the brown plague that must be stopped.

  And nobody is listening. Not in Oxford, not in London, not in Washington DC.

  He remembers what Elizabeth said and he writes her a letter from the club.

  Darling Eliza beth

  Here I am in Washington DC, in the land of the free. I went to see an acquaintance from Oxford days, a visiting professor, and he was warm and gracious, but I had the impression that they are sick of us already. We Europeans are up to our usual old-world tricks and they don't want to be involved. They warned your Neville about the consequences of Munich, saying that our man would take no notice of any agreement. On that we are, at least, agreed.

  Anyway I delivered my speech, and I am now in my club, a sort of Southern plantation house. It all seems so crazy. What you said may well come true that your country and mine will soon be fighting each other. I am
doing what I can, but nobody is listening to me. Shall we make a new life here, darling, before it's too late? Say you want to.

  Love ever,

  A

  That night as he is about to go out to a jazz club with a Rhodes Scholar friend he sees a man sitting downstairs. This man, who is wearing the traditionally boxy suit, gets up as he leaves the club and jumps into a black car and moves into position behind von Gottberg's taxi. He feels shame and despair. They think I am a Nazi.

  Mitgegangen mit gehangen, as the phrase is. Roughly translated it means those who travel together hang together.

  14

  OSRIC HAS GONE back to his wife; he's calmed down and they are going on holiday, the best therapy. If he knows about Emily and Conrad, he says nothing. Emily is sexually avid, although it seems to Conrad that her avidity is a little impersonal. What she likes is a good time, a package deal: wine, a pizza, a joint or two and sex. It's as if she must fill every moment with sensation. She has two young children, and has more or less given up drugs. Not for her own sake, because she can handle it, but because the children have to be taken to school and she has to keep her head straight. They go to an expensive little school in Notting Hill. There's a sort of innocence about Emily, which he finds very appealing. Sometimes a man called Dion rings her and she is downcast for a while. Is he the father? He doesn't ask. Her eyes are a very pale blue, Baltic blue, and her mouth is rather flat, as though overlong use of a dummy as a child had compressed her lips.

  Tony is very excited.

  'You done orright there, son,' he says. 'She's a cracker.'

  'It's not going anywhere.'

  He says this even though he has no need to justify himself to Tony. He wonders if Tony is comparing Emily's sexual potential to Francine's. Emily has stayed the night once, when her mother was looking after the children. He finds himself restored in the morning as though the physical closeness has in some mysterious way supplied him with the chemical or biological material he was missing. It certainly isn't going anywhere, but the intimacies of sex, the little details, the excitable, but at the same time matter-of-fact way she has, all these things have topped up his human supplies. In truth it worries him that the process should be so easy. When he sees himself naked next to her, he realises that he has become very thin over the past few months. He loves - and he has missed - the fragility of the female body. On her back just at the base of her spine where it vanishes, she has tiny golden hairs. When they make love, she has a faraway look as though he is only standing in for someone, an ideal that she will never find. He doesn't mind. He thinks that she is a blessing. Moral luck, as the philosophers say.

  Francine calls to report that the estate agents said the flat smelled of marijuana. He tells her that Osric came round a bit stressed after Baghdad, and lit a few spliffs.

  'Spliffs?' she says with disdain. 'You've gone a bit hippyish.'

  'We young people have our own language. Not that you would know. How's John, the medical God?'

  'Can we talk?'

  'Go ahead. I'm just aimlessly shuffling paper as usual.'

  'You know what I mean. Talk properly.'

  'About?'

  'About us.'

  'About you and John?'

  'Don't. You know what I mean.'

  'Francine, I've got somebody else.'

  'Oh. OK. Sorry.'

  She sounds so beaten that he says, 'It's not going anywhere.

  Just a shag. Let's meet.'

  'No. It's all right. I am upset, and I have no right to be. I'm being ridiculous.'

  'I'll call you. Are you finished with John?'

  'I think so. I've applied for a job at UCH. He thinks it's best.

  He knows everyone there.'

  'He's given you the push, hasn't he?'

  'Yes.'

  'Francine, obviously I haven't just been standing around waiting for you, until you decided '

  'I'm pregnant.'

  'Does he know?'

  'No.'

  'What are you going to do?'

  'Conrad, it could be yours. You remember our last meeting, I hope?'

  'Of course.'

  'Well the dates are more or less exact.'

  'OK.'

  'I can get rid of it. Do you want that?'

  'Let's talk.'

  'When?'

  'I could do tomorrow. When are you off?'

  'I'm off all the time. Until I get the job at UCH.'

  'All right. Not here, though. I'll meet you at Bar Italia. Eleven?'

  He sees a moral dilemma now. If it isn't his baby - and how will they know? — he can't encourage her to have an abortion. Even if it is his baby, conceived under these circumstances, what are his responsibilities? Worse, he feels obliged to encourage her to have the baby, just because it is probably not his. And if he says, 'Look let's not discuss whose baby it is ever again, but you just decide if you want it or not,' he can see that it is opening a whole new field of discussion, a can of worms. She can't have a baby on her own without his help. And where will John stand if he discovers she has a baby? The sensible thing would be to abort the baby, but this, too, is difficult. He and Francine wanted children but her career and his inability to earn enough money meant that they could not go ahead. But why was she leaving herself unprotected; was it that she wanted a child by John? If this was her intention, he has no obligation to her whatsoever. Nor does the fact that John has ditched her mean that Conrad is the natural successor. Also he feels resentment: Just at the point when my life is becoming carefree, a heavy hand has been clapped on my shoulder. It's not fair.

  They are going out together for the first time. Emily has booked the restaurant. She says she likes restaurants that are fun. Fun means loud and busy and in Chelsea. Everyone knows her at this restaurant and he feels a little foolish — the new boyfriend — yet sadly proud to be out with someone so lovely. She and her friends speak in a dialect known only in Chelsea. If they are not speaking to each other they are keeping their friends informed by mobile. This life demands a kind of upbeat casualness, as though thoughtfulness is only for brainboxes and losers. There can be no quiet moments: life is filled with parties and tequila slammers and dope and sex and dinners and spur-of-the-moment flights to see chums. These people are all wildly happy until they go off to rehab. Emily has a kind of sexual openness, which men recognise instantly. They go back to the flat in Camden much later. She thinks Camden is quaint and exotic, as one might a slum in Mombasa. As soon as they get through the door she starts to roll a joint; she has all the gear, a little box and papers. She finishes the joint neatly and seals it with a lick of saliva. Then she draws deeply and blows the smoke and her moist breath into his mouth and kisses him at the same time. He wonders what she thinks about when she's not busy in this way and he can't imagine. As he inhales he wonders if it is skunk, but he thinks it would be uncool to ask. At five in the morning, she leaves.

  When he wakes, he finds a letter from the Bundesarchiv in Berlin. He opens it and reads:

  Dear Mr Senior

  Enclosed you will find a letter sent to the Archive in response to my enquiries which I posted on a film website for you in relation to the Wochenschau film you must try to locate. This gentleman, Mr Ernst Fritsch, has responded with enclosed letter, which I have sended to you. He is unknown to this department, but it can be a possibility for your research. With good wishes. (Miss) G. Eberhardt (Archiv: Film Assistant)

  He reads the enclosed letter, which is typed on an old-fashioned typewriter. He translates as best he can, using his Cassell's dictionary:

  I am responding to the request for information required by an English television researcher, Mr Senior, concerning the Wochenschau films made on the orders of the Reichs Director of Film by the Firm Wochenschau in the year of 1944 at the People's Court and Berlin-Plotzensee Prison. I was an assistant cameraman at Wochenschau in those days, and it is possible I may be able to help with the research you have mentioned, concerning Count von Gottberg.

  I a
m unfortunately unwell, so if Mr Senior wishes to speak with me I would advise some haste. Please ask this gentleman to write to this address explaining the nature of his interest in more detail and I will respond when I am able to do so. With all good wishes,

  Ernst Fritsch.

  Conrad has almost forgotten his enquiry to the archive. Now, six or seven months later, this letter comes from a cameraman. He wants to write to Fritsch immediately but he has to leave for Soho to meet Francine. Events, inexplicably, are gathering force and congesting. (He remembers as a child his disbelief when he was told that thunder and lightning could curdle milk.) How quickly a world can change. He wonders what Ernst Fritsch wants. Probably money. His address is in Prenzlauer Berg, which used to be in the old East Berlin, the territory of the thriller.

  Emily left at some time in the night without warning; there are mysterious demands on her time. But she left behind for a while the lingering scents of her presence; everyone has their own. When his mother died, he used to go to her wardrobe to smell her clothes. He was surprised to read years later that this is quite common amongst the bereaved.

  When he arrives at Bar Italia, he remembers that it was in Frith Street, not twenty metres away, that Elizabeth Partridge and Elya Mendel met, and she told him about her visit to Sachsenhausen. They didn't know then that more than fifty thousand were to be hanged or gassed or that Nazi officials were invited to attend a demonstration of a more efficient killing facility, and watched ninety-six Jews being killed more efficiently to prove it; nor that the camp commander was ordered in 1945 to remove the remaining forty thousand prisoners in barges and sink them in the Baltic. In the event tens of thousands died on a forced march East.