She said coldly, ‘With Russian soldiers?’
‘Perhaps not. But there is the theatre. Only the other day I went to see the Red Army dancers at the Deutsche Staatsoper. They were quite remarkable. I could get some more tickets, if you would like to go.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Ah, well. It was only a suggestion.’ He drew on his cigarette. ‘Have you seen our mutual friend Michael Harrison lately, I wonder?’
‘Not lately.’
‘He went to England on leave,’ Dirk said. ‘We don’t know if he’s come back. We’ve heard nothing. Have you any news of him?’
‘No, none. Perhaps the RAF have sent him somewhere else. It’s quite possible. Did you hope to sell him another watch, Dirk? Is that why you are so anxious to see him?’
She could see that Dirk was about to disclose the plan for Rudi and Grandfather and reached out with her foot under the table to kick him on the ankle. Her brother frowned at her. ‘No. I have nothing as good as the Hanhart for him.’
‘Perhaps he will come again to see you, dear Lili. I’m sure he must admire you.’
Dirk smirked. ‘He admires her very much.’
‘Who would not?’
‘I keep telling her she ought to marry him and go and live in England.’
‘Would you like to do that, Lili?’
‘Dirk is talking nonsense to tease me. He finds it amusing.’
To her annoyance, Nico stayed an hour or more, smoking his cigarettes and encouraging Dirk to recount his stories about Tempelhof. The American dance music went on playing on the wireless with Grandfather nodding in time to it. Dirk, she well knew, had been dazzled by the Americans: by the abundance of everything and by the glamour. Whereas once he had been contemptuous, he was now full of admiration and envy. These days his speech was peppered with American words: with ‘OK’ and ‘sure’ and ‘yeah’. She listened to him talking to Nico and speaking of one of the ground crew who dealt regularly on the Berlin black market with goods flown in by the airlift. In her eyes, this was contemptible but Dirk seemed impressed. The man’s name was Hank and Hank not only traded his wares through his Berlin contacts but made forays himself in a jeep out into the countryside in search of other profitable deals: German cameras, porcelain, silver, clocks, barometers, paintings. ‘I hope he is caught,’ she said. ‘He deserves to be punished.’
Dirk rolled his eyes. ‘Lili doesn’t approve. She’s behind the times.’
Nico looked at her. ‘Your sister remembers what life was once like – before it became commonplace to cheat and profiteer. Isn’t that so, Lili?’
She bent her head over her sewing without answering him. It was another half-hour before he finally left and she could go to bed on the couch. She lay there, fretting. Supposing that the squadron leader never came back? Supposing that he had not really meant what he said about trying to get Rudi and Grandfather out and had done nothing about it? Every day it was getting colder and colder. Grandfather already had a chill and Rudi’s cough was worse. Some lucky homes in the Russian sector might have heating systems that worked and fuel to run them, but in the apartment the radiators and the broken pipes leading to nowhere were useless. The only warmth came from the old cooking stove in the corner which consumed more wood than they could ever find. Neither Grandfather nor Rudi would survive another winter in Berlin – she was certain of that. The squadron leader had thought the same which was why he had offered to help.
She tried to think calmly and rationally. The English set great store by honour – Father had told them so. An Englishman’s word was his bond. The squadron leader had promised that he would try to get Rudi and Grandfather taken out of the city and he would therefore do his best to keep his promise. But supposing he had been sent away somewhere else and would never come back to Berlin? Nico had said it was quite possible. And the more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that that was what had happened. In which case, there would be no hope for Grandfather or Rudi.
Then she thought of something else. The other RAF squadron leader whom she had met at the Shakespeare play performance had had something to do with the arrangements for flying German civilians out from Gatow. He had been much older and rather fat and she could recall his face quite well – but what was his name? If she could remember it, she could go out to Gatow and ask to see him. If only she could remember.
‘You’re quite a stranger, Michael, dear boy. Haven’t seen you in here for ages.’
‘I’ve been pretty busy since I got back.’
‘Time for a drink now, I trust? It’s on me.’
‘Thanks. I could do with one.’ Harrison sat down in the armchair opposite Tubby.
‘It’s beer, beer or beer. Unless, of course, God forbid, you prefer lemonade. They’ve run out of spirits until the next lot gets flown in and heaven knows when that’ll be. So much bloody Pom they haven’t got room for the real necessities of life, I suppose. I told you it would happen.’ Tubby signalled to a waitress. ‘Have a good leave?’
‘It was OK.’
‘Blighty in one piece?’
‘More or less. Things are pretty grim, though.’
‘Will be for years. I’m sorry for all those demob chaps trying to pick up the pieces in Civvy Street. They must almost wish there was still a war on. I almost wish it myself sometimes. We all knew where we were then. Not sure I do any more.’
He understood what Tubby meant. Fighting the war had been straightforward. Now the enemy was no longer the enemy but had somehow become their ally against a former ally who had somehow become the new enemy. Weird. The beers arrived and the German waitress smiled brightly at him. They smiled a great deal these days. Well, for once they had something to smile about. The airlift was actually working. The improvised shambles at the start had developed into a highly precise and ordered round-the-clock operation. A non-stop procession of laden aircraft was flying into Gatow and Tempelhof and now into a third airport, Tegel in the French sector, which had been built in a matter of four months. The problems were still there, of course, and in plenty. The lack of spares and tools and of the most basic equipment, the nightmare of maintaining so many different aircraft, some of them obsolete and all with different characteristics and needs. Dakotas, Yorks, Skymasters, Tudors, Hastings, Haltons, Lancasters, Vikings, Liberators, Lincolns . . . Strictly practical difficulties, too, such as finding the sacks to carry the coal and converting enough aircraft to fly in the essential liquid fuel supplies to run the whole show.
And always the harassment from the Russian fighters invading the air corridors, buzzing Allied aircraft, performing wild aerobatics in their space, and from Russian searchlights beamed straight into pilots’ eyes and from exploding thunderflashes. Everything short of actually shooting down an Allied aircraft which would constitute an act of war.
In spite of all the problems, there was a feeling now that they could go on with the airlift indefinitely. Keep going, come what may. No wonder the German waitress was smiling.
He raised his mug to Tubby in thanks for the beer. ‘Any news on the evacuee front yet?’
‘You mean about your fräulein’s family? I was rather hoping you’d forgotten about them.’
‘Far from it.’
‘Bad idea to get mixed up with the natives, Michael. I wish you wouldn’t.’
‘My lookout, Tubby. Is there any chance of getting them away soon?’
‘There’s still a wait.’
‘How soon?’
‘December at the earliest.’
‘They’re not going to survive long if it’s a bad winter.’
‘I’m doing my best. Strictly against regs, though. Officially they’re nothing to do with us. Not our responsibility at all. We’ve got enough of our own lot to worry about. Have you seen them since you got back?’
‘I haven’t had a chance to get into the city yet. Too damn much going on here.’
Tubby brightened. ‘Maybe they’ve decamped? Happens all the time with these pe
ople, I gather. Fold their tents and disappear.’
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s their home. And they’ve nowhere else to go.’
The wolves’ heads snarled at him but this time he felt more confident of a welcome. When Lili opened the door, though, his hopes were dashed; instead of smiling she looked stunned.
‘Squadron Leader . . . I did not expect to see you ever again. We were very sure that you were never coming back to Berlin.’
He tried to explain. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t been able to get over sooner. There’s been absolutely no chance. We’ve been awfully busy.’
‘Of course.’ She had stopped looking stunned now but she still hadn’t smiled. ‘I understand.’
‘Are you going out?’
‘No.’
‘I just wondered – because of the coat.’
‘Oh.’ She smiled then – at last. ‘I am wearing this because it is so cold inside. I’m afraid it’s even colder than outside.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘Then come in, please, but you had better keep your overcoat on too. And your gloves. Rudi will be very glad to see you. Dirk is not here. He is working at Tempelhof on the evening shift.’
‘How is Rudi?’
‘Not so good.’ She searched his face anxiously. ‘Is there any hope of the RAF taking them out, do you think?’
‘Probably not until December at the earliest. I’ll do everything I can to make it happen soon.’
‘You’re very kind.’
Harrison followed her into the living room. Seeing it again, after his home leave and an interval of time, he was appalled afresh at how terrible it was. Miserable, cheerless, scarcely fit for human habitation. There were some new holes in the ceiling and he saw that they had tried to stuff them all with newspaper. And Lili had been quite right about the cold. It was bone-chilling.
The old man, asleep in his chair, was huddled up in a ragged shawl, a woollen scarf tied round his head and a rug tucked round his knees. Rudi, who had been sitting at the table with a blanket round his shoulders, leaped to his feet.
‘Squadron Leader! I am very pleased that it is you. Lili thought perhaps you are not coming back.’
He said breezily, ‘She thought quite wrong. I’m back and I’ve brought you something from England.’ He handed over the cardboard box containing the aeroplane kit that he had bought from the shop in Holborn. Rudi took it in his hands, staring at the picture on the lid. He coughed. ‘This is to make? To put together from pieces?’
‘That’s right. The instructions are in English, of course, but they don’t look too difficult.’
‘Will you help me – if I cannot understand?’
‘If you like.’ He smiled at the boy, thinking that he definitely looked worse. ‘You know what the plane is?’
‘No, I do not know this one.’ He coughed again.
‘It’s a Tiger Moth. Made by an English company called de Havilland in 1931.’ Harrison had searched along the dusty shelves in the London model shop to find a peacetime plane. ‘It was mainly for training. Actually, I learned to fly on a Moth myself. It’s a terrific plane. Great fun to fly.’
‘Not very like a bomber.’
‘No. Not at all like a bomber.’
‘How long to learn to fly in this?’
‘About ten hours. It’s not too difficult.’
‘And to fly a big bomber?’
‘Much longer. You do it in stages. First a two-engined plane, then four-engines. The heavies.’
‘One day I should like very much to learn to fly in an air force. If it is possible.’
‘Perhaps it will be.’ But he couldn’t imagine how or when. There was no Luftwaffe any more and it was going to be a long, long time before the Germans were allowed to fly anything more than a kite.
The boy looked at the box again. ‘Can we begin this now? At once?’
Lili intervened. ‘Rudi, the squadron leader does not have time. He is very busy.’
‘No, that’s fine by me,’ he said quickly. ‘I’m off duty.’ He put his cap and gloves on the table, sat down beside the boy and opened the box. ‘I’ll show you how to make a start.’ He felt in his greatcoat pocket and took out a brown paper bag. ‘I’ve brought some glue and sandpaper and a penknife and paints and brushes too. I thought red might be a good colour for the fuselage and white for the wings.’
He took the sheet of instructions from the box and laid it out, hoping he hadn’t lost the knack of model-making. It was fiddly work, sanding down and shaping the rough wood and gluing small parts together, and the dim electric light wouldn’t help. Lili brought some darning to the table and sat with them. All the time he was conscious of her there, sewing away quietly. It looked like a stocking that she was mending – one that already had several other darns. He wondered if the German women had had their own equivalent of Mrs Sew-and-Sew during the war. If they had had their sewing and knitting circles and their make-do-and-mend groups, like the women in England. He went on sanding down the lump of wood for the fuselage with Rudi watching him closely, and after a while he handed it over. ‘You do some now.’
The boy managed pretty well, working away slowly and carefully with the sandpaper. He stopped and held the wood up. ‘It is all right?’
‘It’s fine. Very good.’
He looked pleased and some colour came into his cheeks. ‘I like to do this. It is good fun.’
He couldn’t have had much fun in his short life, Harrison thought. In fact, probably none at all.
Lili looked up from her darning. ‘I am sorry that I cannot offer you coffee but we have finished all our wood so I cannot make it.’
The old stove, he realized, must be the sole source of any heat of any kind. No wonder the room was like an icebox. ‘Can you get more?’
‘Dirk will go tomorrow to find some.’
He remembered the Tiergarten tree stumps, hacked down to the ground. ‘Where?’
‘He will go on the bike out into the country. He has made a cart that he can pull behind and he will fill that. We manage.’
We manage. But for how much longer? The boy kept on coughing, the old man, too, in his sleep. How much longer could they last, living in this sort of cold? And it was only November. The weather was bound to get worse. Much worse.
He stayed for more than an hour, helping to build the Tiger Moth. Eventually, Lili stopped her darning. ‘I think it is time for Rudi to go to bed now.’
Her brother protested but in vain. At the door he turned. ‘You will come back, sir?’
‘It’s a promise.’
The boy smiled and waved. For a second, Harrison saw two other small boys turning to smile and wave good night.
Lili said, ‘It is warmer for him to be in bed. Also, he should not keep you here any longer. It is very cold for you too.’
‘It doesn’t matter to me,’ he said truthfully. ‘I’ve hardly noticed it.’
The grandfather stirred and coughed and muttered peevishly in his armchair. Lili rose to her feet. ‘I must get him to bed, as well.’
He picked up his cap and gloves. ‘I’ll come back as soon as I can.’
She went to the door with him. ‘Thank you for bringing the model, Squadron Leader. Rudi is very happy with it.’
He wished he’d brought something for her too – something English from England – but he hadn’t been sure whether she would have been pleased, or even accepted anything from him. ‘It was nothing,’ he said. ‘I’m really sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. Things have been so hectic.’
‘Dirk says it is also very hectic at Tempelhof. The Americans are bringing in a lot of coal in their planes.’
‘We’re bringing quite a bit in, too, actually,’ he told her. ‘Not as much as the Americans, of course. We haven’t as many planes, but we’re doing our best.’
‘Do you fly yourself?’
He shook his head ruefully. ‘I’m stuck on the ground these days, flying a desk.’
She looked puzzled.
‘What does that mean?’
‘Paperwork. Planning. Generally keeping the show on the road.’
‘Do you believe that the Russians will give up in the end?’
‘If we can keep going. And I can’t see why we shouldn’t. Of course, it rather depends on the weather this winter. And on the Berliners. Whether they can stick it out, you know.’
She understood him. ‘They will. You can be sure of that. They see and hear the planes all day and all night and so they know that the luftbrücke is working.’
He fingered his cap. ‘Well, I’ll do everything I can for Rudi and your grandfather.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled. ‘I see you are still wearing your Hanhart watch. Do you like it so much?’
‘It keeps jolly good time. I tried to get my other one repaired in England but I had to leave it with the watchmakers. It needs a new part.’
‘It will take long?’
‘Everything takes long nowadays in England.’
‘I thought it would all be so much better there because you won the war.’
‘Far from it. Things are still rationed and there are lots of shortages.’
‘But it is not as bad as Berlin?’
‘No,’ he said slowly. ‘It’s not as bad as that.’
She heard Dirk coming in – much later than he should have been if he had come back straight from his shift. He always moved like a cat, scarcely making a sound, but she had been lying awake on the couch and heard the soft click of the front door. She got up, wrapping a blanket round her, and switched on the electric light. He stopped halfway across the room, blinking at her, like a hunted animal caught at night.
‘I thought you would be asleep, Lili.’
‘And I thought you would be home long before this. You must have finished work hours ago.’
‘Don’t nag. I stopped to have a beer, that’s all. There’s a new bar opened up near the airfield. All the Americans go there.’
‘To trade on the black market?’
‘No, for girls. Swarms of German girls, hoping to catch a Yank. Some guy plays the piano and they’ve got a singer. It’s a real hot spot. The beer’s not bad either.’
The Pathfinder Page 17