The Pathfinder

by Margaret Mayhew

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘What is your work?’

  ‘I’m a cook.’

  Her heart leaped but she kept her voice casual. ‘That’s very interesting. Do you like the work?’

  ‘Yeah. Matter of fact, I get a real kick out of it. ’Course lately we’ve had to tighten our belts since the Soviets stopped our supplies comin’ overland, but we’re gettin’ stuff in by air all the time, so we ain’t starvin’ yet – no sir.’ He glanced at her. ‘I guess you folks are findin’ the same. Our boys are gettin’ the food to you all right. That so?’

  ‘Actually, I live in the Russian sector. We are given Soviet rations.’

  ‘Gee . . . what’re they like?’

  ‘Bad. We get only dried or very old things. And my little brother is not at all well.’

  ‘Sure am sorry to hear that.’

  ‘If only he could have some good fresh food I think he would get better.’ The break in her voice was genuine; she had no need to pretend. ‘But I do not know how this can be found in Berlin.’

  He looked at her, longer this time. ‘Mebbe I could help some . . .’

  ‘Oh, do you really think you could?’

  ‘Like I said, it ain’t so easy now.’

  She stopped on the muddy path and gazed up at him through the hat veil. ‘I’d be so grateful, Bud.’

  He nodded. ‘Yeah, I guess you would. Say, this park ain’t much of a place. You live near here?’

  ‘Quite near. We could easily walk there.’

  ‘OK by me.’

  ‘It is not much of a place either.’

  She took him back to the apartment and saw how it shocked him. He stood staring round the room as though he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  ‘Jeez, you folks really have to live like this?’

  She unpinned her hat and took it off. ‘There are many much worse.’

  Grandfather was fast asleep in his chair. ‘He will not wake up,’ she said. ‘Excuse me, I will just see if my little brother is all right.’ Rudi was asleep too. She drew the blanket closer round him and shut the bedroom door. When she went back the American was lighting a cigarette. He had taken off his cap and his hair was cut very short, the same length all over like the bristles of a brush. He held out the Camels to her. ‘Smoke?’

  ‘Later, perhaps.’

  ‘Here, have the pack.’

  They were always very generous. ‘Thank you.’

  He looked round the room and she knew he had noticed the couch bed in the corner. ‘So, who lives here – apart from Grandpa and your kid brother?’

  ‘Just another brother. He is older. He is out at the moment.’

  ‘No Mom and Dad?’

  ‘They are both dead.’

  ‘And no husband?’

  ‘No. I am not married.’

  ‘Didn’t think so. I guess there ain’t too many German guys left around for you fräuleins.’ He was looking her over as he spoke. ‘You sure are a pretty girl, Lili. Real cute with that hat on and just as pretty without it.’

  She managed to smile at him. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You met many Americans?’

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘You are the first one.’

  ‘No kiddin’?’

  It was rather hard to understand him; his accent was strange. Very nasal. She said, ‘We have a little ersatz coffee left – if you would like some.’

  ‘No, thanks. I’ve tried that stuff. Mebbe I could get you some of the real thing. How about that?’

  She shook her head vehemently. ‘Not coffee, no. That is not necessary. Only food for my brother. That is what we need so much. Food that is good for children to help them grow. I told you. Some meat, if it is at all possible. Fresh eggs and milk . . .’ She had gone too far. He was frowning, not so pleased. She said quietly, ‘I am sorry. Anything would be wonderful for us. Anything at all. I will be very grateful, you know.’

  He came close and stood looking down at her. He was not very tall but built heavily, with powerful shoulders, and he had large and ugly hands. A shiver of revulsion ran through her but she made herself look up at him – forced herself to smile invitingly. The frown vanished and he smiled too. ‘Well, I guess we both know what we’re talkin’ about. You’ve got yourself a deal, Lili.’ He nodded towards the armchair. ‘How about Grandpa?’

  ‘He won’t wake up if we are quiet. And there is a screen.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Your cigarette . . .’

  ‘Sure.’ He ground it out on the floorboards under his shoe.

  He was clumsy, seizing hold of her, tugging at her clothes. The big hands were rough and his breath smelled of the Camel cigarette. She shut her eyes and turned her head away, clenching her teeth. With the Russians there had been the terror of mutilation or murder; with the other Americans she had not been afraid, only resigned. This time it was sheer disgust. She braced herself to endure it, willed herself to pretend to enjoy it, prayed it would be over quickly. He was panting like an animal now, thrusting himself against her; he would be inconsiderate, brutal even. Then suddenly there was a lot of shouting: Dirk’s voice yelling in German, the American being dragged off her and shouting too, in English, demanding to know what the hell was going on. What the hell sort of a game were they playing? Dirk went on yelling crazily – in English now, fists flailing, and the screen crashed over. The American punched him away and was dragging on his clothes, buttoning his trousers, grabbing his cap, shouting back obscenities as he left. The front door banged.

  Grandfather had woken up and was mumbling away in his chair and Rudi had come from his bed and stood anxiously in the doorway. She got up shakily from the couch, straightening the silk dress. ‘Go back to bed, Rudi. Everything is all right. Go on, please.’ She put her arm round Grandfather’s shoulders, soothing him. To Dirk, she said, ‘It wasn’t the American’s fault. It was mine. I asked him here. You should not have interfered.’

  He stared at her, white-faced, blood trickling from his nose. ‘For Christ’s sake, Lili, there is no need any more.’

  She said wearily, ‘He was a cook. He would have been able to get things for Rudi.’

  ‘I can get things.’

  ‘Not fresh eggs and milk. Not fresh fruit and vegetables and meat. How often do you find those?’ She righted the screen. ‘He would have got them for me. He said he would.’

  He wiped the blood away from his nose. ‘Listen. I tell you what I will do. I have heard that the Americans are taking on extra German labour at Tempelhof. They need more men to load and unload the aircraft. Shift work and with extra rations. Tomorrow I will go there on the bike and get work. I will bring back the extra rations and whatever else I can find.’

  ‘Steal, you mean?’

  ‘What’s the difference? That Yank would have stolen stuff for you. You didn’t care about that, did you? Besides, the Americans have never suffered like us. If things get too bad for them, they can always pack up and leave and go back to their land of plenty. To their steaks and their eggs and their fresh milk. They are lucky. Lucky, lucky people. So that’s what I’ll do – if you swear you won’t do this again.’

  ‘Supposing the Russians stop you?’

  ‘How can they stop me? Thousands of Berliners go to work in the western sectors every day. Besides, I’m not exactly going to tell them I’m off to help the Americans with their airlift, am I?’ Dirk smeared away another trickle of blood with the back of his hand. ‘He tore your dress, the bastard.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I can mend it.’

  ‘Poor Lily. It was your best dress.’

  ‘He left some cigarettes,’ she said. ‘Over there on the table.’

  ‘Well, we may as well make use of them. I could do with one.’ Dirk went to the table. He turned, grinning now. ‘He also left his camera.’

  Eight

  The two Ground Control Approach cabins at Gatow were parked at the side of the runway. When the weather was bad, GCA took over from the tower controller to talk the pilots d
own. Harrison went to check on things. The crew of six were squashed together in a tiny space and hunched over four radar screens – two directors, two trackers and a controller in charge. Between them, they could locate an aircraft in the foulest weather, manoeuvre it onto its approach and guide the pilot to land precisely on the runway. Now it had to be done at night as well. There was no sign of the Russians being willing to negotiate a lifting of the blockade, and flying in supplies during daylight hours alone was no longer enough. As Harrison had envisaged, the airlift had become a round-the-clock operation.

  The problem of controlling different types of aircraft flying at different speeds had been solved by keeping the types in a pack together – usually in tens. Even so, with other aircraft ahead or astern, above and below, there was no room for anything but meticulous flying. In a twelve-hour working day, pilots were flying as many as three trips. Some were flying a seven-day week on little sleep and poor food gobbled between flights and the strain was beginning to show. The aircraft were landing faster and more bumpily and taxiing was careless. Pilots were fumbling at the controls, forgetting to put down flaps, getting irritable – showing all the signs of exhaustion. There had been accidents and injuries. Harrison had tried to equate it with his own wartime ops experience but there were big differences and one in particular. Nobody – not even the Russians, as yet – was trying to shoot these aircraft down; it was more a question of asking too much of too few, of the need to improve conditions of food and sleep, for realistic rotas to be drawn up and leave given, before the airlift flew itself into the ground.

  He left the GCA cabin and walked back to the tower. The Dakotas were coming in from Lübeck with their coal load. They were also carrying newspapers, cigarettes, tinned meat and powdered milk. And sacks of mail from home.

  There were two letters for him: one from his mother and one from Celia. His mother’s was characteristically chatty and cheerful – just as her letters had been throughout the war. All about the garden and the dogs, the cats and the village happenings. There had been a cricket match and a flower show and the vicar had said special prayers at Matins for the people of Berlin. Your father didn’t approve, I’m afraid. He says his prayers are reserved for all the Allied aircrews risking their necks for them. We’re both so thankful that you’re not flying this time. At least we don’t have to worry about that.

  In many ways, he wished very much that he was. Whenever he saw the crews climbing down out of their planes and walking together across the tarmac to the canteen for their coffee and cigarettes, he felt a sense of loss. That uniquely close comradeship had gone from his life and he knew that nothing could ever replace it or compare with it. Celia was home last weekend and came to have Sunday lunch with us. She’s looking prettier than ever and is delightful company. We’re so fond of her. He smiled. Sledgehammer hints. We talked about you a lot, of course. When you are next home on leave we must have a special celebration dinner all together. He read on about the roses and the greenfly and about Muffy, the old labrador, and his visit to the vet, and about Mrs Millis the doctor’s wife who had been in hospital with gallstones but was much better now, and about Mrs Lewis, the daily, whose corns were not.

  It was worlds apart from the grim struggle that was going on in Berlin. Lili Leicht had called England a safe little island and the inference, as he’d seen it, that it was due to geography still rankled. England was only safe because she had fought long and hard to stay that way, and he’d done his share of the fighting, come to that. He finished the letter and turned to the one that Celia had written. Unlike his mother, she was careful not to assume anything. Its tone was light: she wrote about a new play that had opened in London, about her brother’s promotion in the Navy. The Sunday lunch with his parents was mentioned only briefly. He could see her face and hear her voice, as though she were speaking the words to him, but she, too, seemed to belong to another world.

  He put both letters away in a drawer until he could find the time and energy to answer them, and lay down on his bed to try and get some sleep. He was tired after being on duty all night but, even so, he lay awake for a while, listening to the sound of the planes landing and taking off in the distance, identifying them by the sounds of their engines. They never disturbed him. Like everybody else on the station, he was well used to it and the past nine years of his life had been lived against a background of aircraft noise. He found himself thinking of Lili Leicht.

  He had thought of her quite frequently over the past weeks. She had made him extremely angry with her remarks, but he acknowledged now that they had been talking from two quite different points of view and that she was perfectly entitled to hers. Nico Kocharian had implied that he was narrow-minded and prejudiced, when he’d always considered himself the reverse. It was a grim idea and one that nagged at him. Not that he cared a row of beans for the chap’s opinion – he was a fairly odd customer. He wondered just what he was doing skulking about Berlin. The publishing venture could be perfectly genuine, and then again, it could be a cooked-up story. Black-marketeering was more likely, or some kind of skulduggery. He’d said he’d worked for the Army Intelligence Corps during the war. Maybe that was true. Maybe not. He wouldn’t trust him at any price.

  Nico’s business card must still be in his wallet, since he’d forgotten to throw it out. He got up and fished it out. Phönix Verlag, Phoenix Publishers, Édition Phénix. He toyed with it for a moment, tapping it against his hand. An address was printed below and a telephone number. It would be rather interesting to see if the place even existed. Tomorrow he had a day off. He’d go into the city and take a look. Kocharian had said it was in the Russian sector so perhaps he’d call on the Leichts afterwards. Take something for the boy, Rudi, to make amends for having lost his temper. And he ought to apologize again properly to the sister.

  The Volkswagen taxi driver had difficulty in locating the street; there were few names and fewer numbers. It was a simple matter, though, as it happened, to find number fifteen because it was the only building in the street still more or less standing and apparently occupied. A card, the same as the one he held in his hand, had been tacked up by the door. The bell beside it produced no sound or response and so, after a moment or two, Harrison tried the handle and opened the door. He stepped into a dark hallway with another door, slightly ajar, leading off it. Someone was talking fast in German in the room beyond, and he recognized Nico Kocharian’s voice. He waited for a moment until there was silence and pushed the door open further.

  The Armenian, seated at a shabby desk, was replacing a telephone receiver on its cradle. He looked up and Harrison caught his startled expression before it was replaced at once by a beaming smile. ‘Michael, my dear chap, how nice to see you. I am surprised to find you here. Do come and sit down.’ He was round the desk, bringing forward a chair and dusting it with his handkerchief. ‘Not exactly luxurious premises, I’m afraid, but that’s Berlin for you. We all have to make do with what we can get. Coffee? I have some of the real stuff, believe it or not.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ He sat down on the dusted chair and looked about him. Apart from the desk there was a table with an ancient typewriter and shelves containing rows of books – school textbooks, so far as he could make out, and all in German.

  Kocharian had returned to his chair behind the desk. The gold case of Turkish cigarettes was held out politely and, as before, declined. ‘So, Michael, what brings you here?’

  He lit one of his Player’s. ‘Curiosity, you could say.’

  ‘About what, exactly?’ A cigarette was fitted into the ebony holder and lit with the gold lighter.

  ‘I wondered how your publishing business was getting along.’

  ‘I’m flattered you should be so interested. Slowly, slowly is the answer. I’ve collared a rather distinguished university professor who is very busy editing out great chunks of Nazi propaganda from a history textbook. You wouldn’t believe the sort of tripe they put in. There was a Nazi department of education, you know,
as early as ’34. I have a copy of their teachers’ manual somewhere.’ He reached behind him and pulled out a book from the shelves. ‘Here we are. Listen to this. I’ll give you a rough translation. Curricula for children should be planned to make them youthful members of the Nazi community. History, geography and biology offer the best opportunities to mould children in the Nazi pattern . . . the lessons in history must be planned to create a foundation of race consciousness. History must be presented to make German children hate Jews, Catholics, Freemasons, Communism, pacificism and the Versailles Treaty. They must be taught that Nazism corrects all evils, et cetera, et cetera.’ He turned the page. ‘Here’s a particularly choice passage. Nazi youth must be told about Jewish usurers. Contrast must be presented between the fate of the German worker under the Jews and that under Nazism . . . German foreign policy from 1890 to 1914 must be taught to disprove the lie that Germany was responsible for the World War . . . German youth must be told that all culture is dependent on race . . . Hitler must be presented as the saviour of Germany. And so on.’

  ‘It doesn’t surprise me,’ Harrison said. ‘Catch them young, isn’t that the usual method of indoctrination?’

  ‘Of course. Tried and true. Whatever else they were, the Nazis weren’t fools in that respect.’ The Armenian replaced the book and took out another. ‘This is their history textbook. Do listen to the preface: Dear German Youth, your eyes should gleam with pride and your heart should flame with enthusiasm when you read how the paths of history always have led through sacrifice to victory . . . the Fatherland must be able to rely on its sons and daughters. And here’s another interesting bit in the first chapter. There is only one will, the will of the Führer who led the Germans from dishonour and bondage to honour and freedom. All that sort of tosh. It ends with Sieg Heil! by the way. Hail Victory!’

  ‘I imagine it was all pretty effective.’

  ‘On the mind of a ten-year-old – yes, certainly. The biology textbooks are instructive too. The teachers’ manual ordered classes to be planned to aid youth to realize its obligation to keep the inheritance of their fathers pure and to remain true to the eternal laws of blood and race.’