The Pathfinder

by Margaret Mayhew

  He looked at her with his most innocent expression – the one he wore when he was most guilty. And he could turn it on so easily. As usual, he was wearing his filthy old raincoat that made him look like a gangster. She wondered what its deep pockets contained this time. There was a tin box that he kept hidden under a floorboard in his room containing a small hoard of jewellery: the ruby ring, a diamond brooch, gold earrings and bracelets, a string of pearls, more rings. She had found it by accident when she had noticed that the board was loose.

  He had spotted the model of the English plane on the table. ‘So . . . I see that the squadron leader came back after all. That’s good. I always thought he would. Did he say anything about Grandfather and Rudi?’

  ‘He doesn’t think the RAF will be able to take them until December.’

  ‘That’s not so long. Only two weeks away.’

  His unconcern angered her. ‘Rudi has been coughing all day, and now Grandfather, too. And this evening I couldn’t even heat the soup for their supper because the wood was finished. We have to find some more tomorrow, Dirk.’

  ‘Calm down, Lili. Don’t worry, we will. I’ll take the cart out first thing and fill it up. I know a very good place to look.’ He put his hand in his raincoat pocket. ‘By the way, I found some more coffee.’

  The weather worsened steadily. The conditions at Gatow, coupled with the decreasing number of daylight hours, were already bad enough to threaten the airlift. Fog was the worst hazard: impenetrable, cold and clammy fogs that blanketed the airfield for days on end. The rain poured down in torrents, flooding the tarmac and causing all kinds of electrical faults to aircraft standing outside. And the snow was yet to come. A treat in store, as Tubby put it. The Sunderlands continued to fly in and out of Lake Havel with their precious cargoes of salt but it seemed only a matter of time before ice formed on the lake and put a stop to them. Out on the windswept wastes of the airfield, the RAF and the German civilian labourers worked on doggedly in sodden clothing and miserable circumstances, guiding the aircraft in and out, unloading and reloading them, repairing them, refuelling them. And their crews went on flying, backwards and forwards. The Ground Control Approach directors sat for hours crouched over their radar screens in their cramped caravans without heating. Nobody complained. Nobody faltered. Nobody came even close to giving up.

  Nico Kocharian phoned Harrison. ‘Hallo there, Michael, old chap. How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  ‘I’ve managed to wangle some tickets for the opera this Friday. The Berlin Opera Company are doing Tannhauser. I wondered if you’d like to come along – as my guest, of course.’

  ‘I’m afraid I won’t be able to.’

  ‘The tickets are like gold dust and it’ll be a marvellous performance. Bit chilly in the house, of course, but people take rugs and blankets. Hot-water bottles, too, if they’ve got them.’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t get away. I’m sure you’ll be able to find somebody else.’

  ‘Quite sure you won’t be able to?’

  ‘Quite sure.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’ There was a pause. ‘Things going all right at Gatow?’

  ‘Pretty well.’

  ‘I hear you’re all doing a terrific job.’

  ‘The best we can.’

  ‘Perhaps we could meet up for a drink sometime?’

  A flight lieutenant was hovering with some papers, waiting to see him. ‘I’m sorry but you’ll have to excuse me. I’m right in the middle of things.’ He said goodbye and put the phone down. He had spoken more curtly than he’d intended but there were more important things to worry about than Kocharian’s feelings. He dismissed him immediately from his mind as he attended to the flight lieutenant.

  His mother’s chatty letters came from home and another world. There’d been a rather boring lecture on the Himalayas with coloured lantern slides at the village hall, a severe overnight frost had almost certainly killed off the Mrs Popple fuchsia, Mrs Lewis’s daughter was expecting at last, and they’d played bridge with Celia’s parents.

  We haven’t seen Celia since you were home, but her mother says she’ll be down one weekend soon. Apparently she’s been working very hard since her promotion. I’m sure the War Office appreciate what a wonderful asset she is. He smiled when he read this. His mother was losing hope but she had by no means abandoned it. Celia herself had written once: a friendly letter containing only the most general news and no hints or digs of any kind. His father, who communicated infrequently, had also written.

  I made some enquiries about that fellow, Nico Kocharian, through an old Intelligence contact of mine. He tells me that he did serve with them during the war until he was demobbed in ’45. He’s an excellent linguist, apparently. In fact, I rather gathered that they thought pretty highly of him all round. I told them you’d run across him in Berlin, but they don’t know anything about what he’s up to there. Not that they’d say if they did. These chaps always clam up on you. Still, it doesn’t sound as though he’s anything to worry about.

  He put the letter away, unconvinced.

  When she had any soup to spare, Lili would take some to Dr Meier. The old man seemed to exist on practically nothing. But though she could see that he was growing physically even frailer, his mind remained clear. She had taken to sitting with him for a while in that dreadful cellar and talking. They talked about all kinds of things. He spoke of his long-dead wife, Frieda, and of his only son, Peter, who had died in the trenches of the First World War. All his photographs of them had been lost in the bombing. This had made him very sad, he told her. ‘I have to rely on my memory alone to give me a picture of what they looked like, and my memory is not as good as it used to be. Music was always my consolation but now I can only hear it in my head.’

  She found herself confiding in him about the Russian soldiers – telling him far more than she had ever been able to tell Dirk or any other living soul. He had listened to her in silence as she had struggled to find the words to describe how they had seized hold of her and dragged her into the ruins; how they’d slapped her and punched her and torn her clothes from her and held her down in the dirt so each could take a turn while the rest had watched and laughed. Seven, eight, nine of them – perhaps more. How afterwards they’d jeered at her and spat on her and urinated on her face and kicked her with their heavy boots before at last they went away.

  When she had finished, he said quietly, ‘You will never forget, Fräulein, so there’s no point in trying. It’s better to tell yourself that it belongs to the past, together with all the other terrible things that have happened to you. Think of it sometimes, if you must, but don’t dwell on it. Look only forwards. Not backwards.’

  ‘But I can never feel clean. It’s a stain on me for ever. One that can never be taken away.’ She touched the scar on her forehead. ‘And this reminds me each time I look in a mirror. This mark is from them.’

  ‘What happens to your body is not so important. It’s your mind and spirit that count. The person you are, the way you live, the things you hold dear and true and keep faith with. That’s what matters.’

  Later she told him about the Americans. She was to be pitied for the Russians but the Americans had been of her own making, her own choice. She expected Dr Meier’s shocked censure. Instead, he merely remarked, ‘You did it for your young brother, Fräulein, and it Can’t have been easy for you. There are many women in Berlin who have had to do the same.’

  They talked about Squadron Leader Harrison and his promise of help.

  ‘He is doing this for you?’

  ‘Not for me. For Rudi and Grandfather.’

  ‘But it’s really for you, I think. He is in love with you. Don’t you realize that?’

  ‘He hardly knows me.’

  ‘He wouldn’t need to. Only to see you. And once would do. The first moment I saw my wife I fell in love with her.’

  She shook her head. ‘You’re wrong. He’s never said anything. Not a word.’

 
‘The English are reticent about these things, I believe. He wouldn’t speak unless he thought you felt something for him, in return. Do you?’

  ‘I hated him at first for what he was and what he had done. But it’s hard to go on hating him when he is so kind to us.’

  ‘It would be easy, perhaps, to love him instead?’

  She answered the doorbell and found him standing there in the rain, soaking wet. He stepped into the hallway, taking off his cap.

  ‘I came to tell you to get things ready for Rudi and your grandfather to leave the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘They will really take them?’

  ‘In one of the Sunderlands. The flying boats. They go from the Havel See. They have some room on the return journey.’ He smiled at her. ‘Rudi will like that.’

  ‘Yes, he will. Very much.’

  ‘Do you have suitcases? Or something to put their things in?’

  ‘There is one suitcase for Grandfather. And we have an old canvas bag I could use for Rudi. There is not much for them to take.’

  ‘I’m arranging for an RAF corporal – a Corporal Haines – to come and meet you with transport at the Brandenburg Gate. He will wait inside the British sector, just beyond the barrier. It’s safer that way, in case the Russian guards cause any trouble. Can you get there all right, do you think?’

  ‘Oh yes, we’ll manage.’

  He said apologetically, ‘I’m on duty or I’d come myself.’

  ‘We would never expect that. What time will the corporal be at the Gate?’

  ‘Early. By seven o’clock.’

  ‘We’ll be there.’

  ‘Do you think you’ll get through the barrier OK?’

  ‘Usually it is all right, so long as one has the correct papers. People go back and forth all the time. Working, visiting, shopping. The Russians make difficulties if they can – search everything for black-market goods, take their time, insult us. Sometimes they arrest people. You never know . . .’

  ‘I’m sorry, but the corporal won’t be able to wait.’

  ‘I understand. Can I go with Rudi and Grandfather – to the flying boat? To say goodbye?’

  ‘Yes, that’s fine, but I’m afraid you’ll have to get back here on your own somehow. I’m awfully sorry about that.’

  ‘I will manage,’ she repeated. ‘Where will the flying boat take them?’

  ‘To their base at Finkenwerder at Hamburg in the British zone. Then it depends what the medicos there think – hospital or a nursing home, or some kind of foster home. They’ll be well looked after, you don’t need to worry.’

  ‘I’m not worried,’ she said. ‘Only grateful. Will you come and tell Rudi yourself?’

  Eleven

  Grandfather refused to be hurried. Lili had packed up their luggage the night before – his old leather suitcase, stuck about with tattered labels from journeys he and Grandmother had made long, long ago before the First World War, containing the few garments he possessed, all as clean and presentable as she could make them. The canvas bag had been filled with Rudi’s motley assortment of clothing, some of his favourite books, his scrapbook, and the little metal Dakota that the squadron leader had given him. The Tiger Moth plane, being too fragile, had to stay behind. She had sworn to take care of it.

  Dirk was on the night shift at Tempelhof and without him it was going to be twice as hard. She had risen in the pitch dark by five and bundled her grandfather out of bed, washed him in cold water and dressed him in his warmest clothes while Rudi got himself ready. Then she gave them both a piece of dry bread and a slice of sausage and some extra to carry in their pockets. She would have liked to heat some of the leftover soup for them to drink but the stove was out and there was no time.

  It all took so long, with Grandfather so confused and querulous, and it was nearly six o’clock by the time they set off – Rudi carrying his bag and herself the suitcase. Grandfather tottered along unsteadily and they went at a snail’s pace down Albrecht Strasse, under the U-Bahn archway, over the bridge across the See. It was still dark and the gas street lamps gave a poor light. Grandfather kept stumbling over things and she had to hold on to both him and the suitcase while Rudi clutched his other arm.

  ‘We must go faster,’ she kept urging. ‘Please try to walk a little quicker, Grandfather. We mustn’t be late. It’s very important.’

  Of course, he didn’t understand why it was so important. He grumbled away and went on stumbling and they went no faster at all. She and Rudi half-dragged the old man down Friedrich Strasse. The ruins stood black and silent as tombs on each side and the only sound was the dragging shuffle of Grandfather’s feet and the wooden click-clack of her and Rudi’s urgent steps as they coaxed him along. At last they reached the point where the street crossed the Unter den Linden and they turned towards the west. Ahead, she could make out the great mass of the Brandenburg Gate – still so far away. Too far. It was already twenty minutes to seven. Grandfather had started to cough and stopped suddenly, sagging between them, and they struggled to support his dead weight. Once he was down, she knew they would never get him to his feet again. In desperation, she shouted at him harshly – something she had never done before – and went on berating him until he began to totter forward again, making small sobbing sounds. She was horrified to realize that he was weeping.

  Their progress was agonizingly slow but, at last, they came to the Gate and passed under one of its mighty arches to approach the barrier. The British sector beyond the barbed wire, where every lump of coal for lighting had to be flown in, lay in complete darkness. Again, Grandfather stumbled, lurched, almost fell. A Soviet guard stepped forward and flashed a torch into their faces.

  ‘What’s going on? Who is this old fool? Is he drunk?’

  Lili said, ‘No my grandfather is not drunk but he is not well. We are taking him to stay with my aunt who lives in the British sector.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘I have to go out to work later on. He must not be left on his own. His mind is not clear.’

  ‘Where are your papers?’

  She fumbled in her bag and handed them over. The guard beamed his torch onto them. On the other side of the boundary she could hear the noise of a vehicle – a car or small truck. She could see its lights approaching from the direction of the Tiergarten. The vehicle stopped and the head-lights dimmed, leaving only the pinpricks of sidelights. The guard was taking his time with the papers, the way they always did. She dared not look at her watch in case it annoyed him into taking even longer, but she knew that it must be seven o’clock by now. I’m sorry, but the corporal won’t be able to wait. At long last the papers were handed back and she urged Grandfather forward.

  ‘Halt. Not yet, Fräulein. Not so fast. What is in that suitcase? Open it, please.’

  She knelt down on the road and undid the case, fumbling feverishly with the rusty old clasps to lift the lid for him. The guard shone his torch and rifled through the contents, turning everything upside down, making a jumble of the neatly packed clothes and spilling some of them out onto the road. He kicked at the case, disappointed. ‘The boy has a bag. He is going too?’

  ‘Yes. He is my brother. He is also going to stay with his aunt.’ She was gathering up the spilled clothes, piling them back in anyhow, fumbling again desperately to close the lid.

  ‘What has he in the bag?’

  ‘Show it to him, Rudi. Quickly.’

  She heard the vehicle’s engine starting up again, saw the headlights flick on and could have wept with despair. The corporal was going to leave without them. The guard had found the little Dakota and seemed amused by it. He held it up, spotlit in the torch beam, the metal shining. ‘American plane. I have seen these. I shall keep it.’

  ‘Yes, please keep it. You’re most welcome. Can we go now? We are very late.’

  ‘Take your old fool away. He’s no use to anyone.’ The guard shoved Grandfather hard in the back so that he staggered helplessly. She and Rudi grabbed his arms to steady him.
The barrier pole went up and they hauled him across the white line and into the British sector.

  The vehicle – a small truck – was backing and turning to leave. Lili let go of Grandfather, dropped the suitcase and ran towards it. She flung herself in front of the headlights, arms outstretched. There was a screech of brakes as it stopped only a foot or two away from her and the driver yelled furiously out of his window. ‘Blimey, you want to get yourself killed?’

  She went up to him. ‘Corporal Haines? I am Lili Leicht. We were to meet you here.’

  His tone changed. ‘Thought you couldn’t make it, miss. I was just about to push off. Couldn’t hang about, see.’

  She could barely understand what he was saying. ‘I am sorry to be late. My grandfather and brother are here too. I will bring them at once.’

  He got out and helped her heave Grandfather up into the back of the truck. Rudi scrambled up after him. ‘You hop in, sweetheart. I’ll see to the bags.’

  The truck gathered speed down the East-West Axis between the desolate wastes of the Tiergarten. Grandfather slumped exhausted in a corner; Rudi’s thrill at the ride was spoiled by the loss of his precious Dakota.

  ‘Do you think the squadron leader could get me another one?’

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps.’

  ‘Will you ask him? You could send it to me.’

  ‘I may not see him again.’

  They headed west across the city, through the borough of Charlottenburg and then to the south out into the suburbs and the dark pine forests towards the Havel See. From time to time the corporal shouted something over his shoulder from the front but she could neither hear nor understand him properly.

  When they reached the shores of the lake, it was beginning to get light. Gatow airfield was close enough to be able to hear the constant roar of aircraft coming in to land and taking off.

  ‘They don’t never stop over there,’ the corporal shouted. ‘Night and day. One every three minutes. It’s a bloomin’ miracle they don’t buy it more often.’ He pointed across the lake to a pale shape floating on the water like a great white whale. ‘Look, love, there’s the Sunderland.’