by James Remmer
The next day, von Menen took the mid-morning service to Hamburg. As Brandenburg rolled by beneath the clear blue sky, suburban woodlands gave way to long, low hills, pockets of marshland, streams and small, glistening lakes, dissolving beyond Wittenberge into an endless vista of fields burgeoning with potatoes and rye.
It made von Menen realise that he would miss the harvest – swathes of golden brown yielding to horse-drawn reapers, darting rabbits and the rhythmic clatter of threshing machines. It gave him to thinking about other things, too: straw-coloured hair, for one.
A nervous spasm raced through his stomach, the name leaping into his mind like a taunting Jack-in-the-box; a flaxen-haired Jack-in-the-box smoking a fat cigar. Erhardt Jost was just an image in his mind, but he was already beginning to haunt him.
He changed trains at Hamburg, made Flensburg a little after seven o’clock and arrived at his Aunt Ingrid’s mansion a half-hour later, his first ever unannounced visit. He took the flagged footpath around the side of the house, past the stables and beyond the vegetable garden, the spicy fragrance of honeysuckle following his every step.
A maid greeted him at the scullery door and led him to the drawing room. He’d barely unbuttoned his jacket when the sound of footsteps came hurrying along the hall, his mother bursting through the door, a tense, nervous look on her face. ‘I… I thought it was you,’ she said, her voice quivering. ‘Is it…?’
Von Menen shook his head. ‘Father? No, Mother, it isn’t.’
‘Thank God. When I saw you, I—’
‘Yes, yes, I know; I did try phoning you from Berlin last night, and again this morning, but I couldn’t get through. It was the same when I tried from Hamburg this afternoon. Frankly, I was beginning to think…’
He realised instantly that his mother’s thoughts were light-years from Flensburg. That Aunt Ingrid’s phone had been out of order for the past two days was totally irrelevant. Anna von Menen’s husband was safe. It was all the assurance she wanted.
At that, Aunt Ingrid, swathed in chiffon, a white fluffy pooch in her arms, glided through the terrace doors.
‘Goodness, Carl, what a surprise. Is it my birthday?’
Von Menen smiled at the tease, reached into his pocket and pulled out his new diplomatic passport, his mother responding instantly.
‘You’ve been promoted! How wonderful. For one horrible moment I thought you were going to tell us that you’d been conscripted.’ She kissed him on the cheek and stood back apace, admiring him like he had just matriculated. ‘Congratulations, darling, I’m so proud of you. Your father will be terribly pleased.’
‘Champagne?’ suggested Aunt Ingrid, lowering the pooch to the floor and ushering it gently through the doors with her foot.
‘Thank you, Aunt Ingrid, but I haven’t quite finished yet.’
‘There’s something else?’ asked his mother.
‘Yes, they’re posting me abroad, sending me to…’ Von Menen paused, exchanged a knowing look with his aunt. ‘Well, to… Argentina, actually,’ he said gently. ‘I’m leaving in a few days.’
Frau von Menen shot him a piercing look, her shoulders dropping, a muscle pulsing in her cheek. Under the Nazis, such rewards did not come easily, or freely. The going rate was unquestioned allegiance to the Party and undivided loyalty to ‘that maniac, Hitler’. She rocked back on her feet, despairing of the thought buzzing through her mind, the notion that her only son had been coerced into joining the SS – or, worse still, given to grovelling at the feet of ‘that conceited imbecile’, von Ribbentrop.
‘You haven’t been taken in, have you?’
Von Menen’s brow looked like a washboard emblazoned with question marks.
‘Taken in?’
‘Yes, taken in. As a family, we’ve always been at one in our thinking about the Nazis,’ she snapped, as if he were a newly promoted Sturmbannführer of the SS. Then she saw the innocent look in his eyes and bowed her head. ‘I’m so sorry, Carl,’ she said. ‘Forgive me. I don’t know what came over me.’ The muslin curtains billowed in from the open terrace doors and caressed her dress. ‘What with your father in the east, Jürgen a week away from returning to Kiel, and now…’
Von Menen reached for her hands, looked into her eyes, her sandalwood face pained with worry. ‘There’s nothing to forgive, Mother,’ he said. ‘I understand your thinking, but my virtues and aspirations haven’t changed and they’re not likely to.’
They moved to the terrace, Aunt Ingrid’s pooch watching suspiciously from the comfort of a wicker chair. Ingrid herself had withdrawn to the kitchen.
‘When did you say you were leaving?’ asked Frau von Menen.
‘Sunday.’
‘You’ll be going by way of Spain and Portugal, I suppose?’
‘Yes, sailing from Lisbon.’
‘Will you have time to go to Zaragoza? It would be nice if you could visit Great-aunt Louisa. She’ll be eighty-eight next month.’
‘Afraid not, Mother, but I am hoping to stop off in Madrid for a couple of nights. I’d like to see Juan.’
‘That’s nice. Juan’s a good, loyal friend.’ She turned and ran a finger teasingly across the bridge of his nose. ‘He did reshape this for you, though.’
‘It was a boxing tournament, Mother, and Juan lost, remember?’
‘Yes, of course, darling… Anyway, do give him my love. He’s a charming man, so well-mannered and good-looking, too.’ Her voice dropped to a low whisper. ‘I rather think Aunt Ingrid had wished she’d been fifteen years younger when he visited us at Mecklenburg.’ She reached up and patted down the edge of his collar. ‘Don’t forget to write. I’ll expect a letter from you at least once a month.’
‘I’ll do my best.’
‘No need to worry about Father and Katrina. I’ll explain everything. They’ll understand.’
‘And Greta?’
‘Greta, too. She’s in Dresden, due back a couple of days after me. As for Hans, well, wherever your father is, he’s right by his side. Have you spoken to Gustav and Lutzi?’
‘Only Gustav. I’ve asked him to bring my car up, sometime after the 30th, if that’s okay.’
‘Yes, I’ll be back from Flensburg by then. He and Lutzi can stay overnight, if they wish.’
Von Menen returned to Berlin on Thursday evening. On Friday, the transceiver and a spare set of crystals arrived by special courier. At nine o’clock in the evening, after six hours of frenzied packing, his trunk was en route to Tempelhof Airport. All that remained was his valise, the disguised transmitter and a medium-sized suitcase.
A little before ten, the telephone rang. Gustav Helldorf, stylish raconteur of the Foreign Office Press Branch, genius of the high wire and expert on all things French and Russian, notably champagne and caviar, was in a colourful mood. Former Oxford scholar and best friend since childhood, Helldorf was the chief source of von Menen’s eternal supply of non-German newsprint, which, by dent of his questionable dealings within the maze of Berlin’s diplomatic quarter, included a regular supply of Britain’s irreconcilable duo – The Times and the Daily Herald.
‘About tomorrow evening, Carl…’
The thought of it rocked von Menen to the core of his senses. Helldorf had promised him the traditional ‘send-off’, Foreign Office-speak for an almighty hangover.
‘Hell, Gustav, is it that close?’
‘It is. You’re still free, I hope, or do you have an appointment with that gorgeous Clarita Brecht?’
‘That was just a fling. She’s engaged to some dashing infantry captain, remember?’
‘Good. We’ll meet at the Adlon, seven o’clock… Lutzi’s bringing Sigi.’
Von Menen did not respond.
‘Did you get that? Lutzi’s bringing Sigi, you know, legs all the way up to her—’
‘Yes, yes, Gustav,
I know… Fantastically good-looking and with the most divine figure imaginable, but…’
‘But what?’
‘She frightens me to death, that’s what.’
‘But you like her, don’t you?’
‘Of course. I’m very fond of her. The problem is, she’s unnervingly unpredictable and her conversation rarely moves further than champagne, caviar and the ladies’ fitting room at Wertheim’s.’
‘Don’t know about Wertheim’s, but I give her full marks for the other two. Anyway, it’s your last night in Berlin. She’s great fun and she’s not engaged. She adores you, thinks you’re different. Ask Lutzi.’
‘Different?’
‘Yes, that adventurous bearing of yours. She keeps telling Lutzi that you’re just what she wants: tall and strong-featured, with an inviting…’ Helldorf restrained himself.
‘Inviting what?’
‘Rugged broken nose! Come on, Carl, it’ll be great fun.’
‘Gustav, you’re impossible. At seven o’clock on Sunday morning, I’m catching a flight to Stuttgart, and you’ve agreed to take me to Tempelhof Airport. You’ll have a head like a steam hammer.’
‘I’ll get you there. You have my word.’
‘Okay, but as soon as midnight arrives, that’s it. And Gustav…’
‘Yes?’
‘Please, be discreet. The Adlon might be some distance from the American Embassy, but it’s well within hearing range, if you get my meaning.’
‘I know where the American Embassy is, Carl. Where do you think all your foreign newspapers come from? Besides, we’re not eating at the Adlon. I’ve booked a table at the Eden – lobsters and as much champagne as we can pour down our throats.’
Von Menen hung up with a sigh of misgiving. If he missed the Stuttgart flight on Sunday his whole itinerary would be thrown into turmoil, something he could ill afford. Tomorrow evening, Helldorf would have to be kept on a tight rein, and so would Sigi Bredow.
Von Menen homed in on the source of gaiety permeating from the American bar at the Hotel Adlon, where Helldorf, his girlfriend Lutzi and the vivacious, irrepressible Sigi Bredow were laying the tone for the evening, their laughter contagious, Sigi flirting openly with every man who dared steal her a glance, each of them wondering if her sapphire-blue eyes and pouting red lips were real.
Born in Leipzig, educated in Lausanne and groomed in every nightclub west of Wilhelmstrasse, Sigi Bredow had everything her rich industrialist father could give her: a ski lodge in the Bavarian Alps, fast cars and a wardrobe that would make even Greta Garbo bristle with envy. The only thing missing was intellect and her answer to that was fun, a figure like Aphrodite and a daring black dress in which only she could flourish, her self-perpetuated image of a sultry vamp of scant virtue roundly contradicted by knickers of Bredow steel.
Von Menen ambled into the bar wearing the one evening suit he hadn’t sent to Tempelhof. He shook hands with Helldorf, kissed the two girls and sat down. Sigi moved quickly into mischievous mode, rubbed her hand lightly across the top of his thigh and fetched him an impish smile.
‘Still playing with your anagrams, are you, Carl?’ she teased.
Helldorf raced to his defence. ‘Anagrams exercise the mind, Sigi,’ he said. ‘They make you think deeper.’
‘Then perhaps he should try doing them,’ replied Sigi, scornful eyes set firmly on a uniformed SS captain standing by the bar, hand on hip, a pompous look on his face. ‘Bastard SS,’ she whispered. ‘Look at him, drunk on his own importance. I doubt he’d know the meaning of the word “anagram” even if someone quoted him the definition from the New German Dictionary!’
Exchanging a knowing look with Helldorf, von Menen took hold of Sigi’s hand and gave her a gentle tug. ‘Come on, Sigi, time to leave. Let’s get something to eat.’
Dinner at the Hotel Eden drew to an untimely and inauspicious end at ten-thirty. Sigi, having consumed the best part of two bottles of champagne, rolled her eyes, fell forward across the table and buried her face in an elaborate cream dessert.
Von Menen lifted her up, wiped the mess from her face and carried her out into the warm night air. ‘For you, Sigi,’ he said, as if he was speaking to a tailor’s dummy, ‘the night is over. Time to go home.’
At Lutzi’s apartment, just off the Kurfürstendamm, the lifeless Sigi was steered to the guest bedroom like an anaesthetised patient who had just left the operating theatre.
Von Menen retreated to the bathroom, sponged the cream from his jacket and repaired to the drawing room, only to find Helldorf and Lutzi resembling two entwined snakes. He coughed discreetly.
‘Gustav, I’m on my way,’ he said, in a loud whisper.
Helldorf, a lock of unkempt hair lying idly over his tightly-closed right eye, a half-empty bottle of champagne swinging in his hand, followed von Menen into the hall, legs in a knit-one, stitch-one, pearl-one gait. ‘You’re… not leaving… are you… Carl?’ he stuttered.
Placing his hands squarely on Helldorf’s shoulders, von Menen looked him straight in the eye – the one still open – and said calmly, ‘Gustav, if you can hear this, I’d rather stay in Berlin for the rest of my natural life, but I’m under orders to be in Buenos Aires by the end of next month. If I stay here a moment longer, I won’t make it to Argentina by this time next year!’ He glanced along the hallway, a thin smile on his face. ‘Besides, in the same room as you and Lutzi, I feel like a lump of coal on a fishmonger’s slab.’
‘So… what about… tomorrow?’ burbled Helldorf, left eye now closed in blind partnership with the right.
‘I’ll be here at five-thirty. I’ll drive to Tempelhof and you can bring the car back.’
A ball of orange rose lazily in the east, tracking the blue Delahaye as it roared through the Brandenburg Gate, into Charlottenburger Chaussee and on towards the Zoological Gardens. Beyond the Grosser Stern, a flock of chaffinches, white wing bands flashing in the wakening light, streaked out from the Tiergarten, challenging the drop-head to a short race before peeling off into a dense canopy of green.
Buenos Aires cannot be better than this.
Rolled umbrella in hand, Helldorf was waiting by the door, trying vainly to amuse the two girls, his interpretation of Charlie Chaplin failing miserably. He and Lutzi looked uncommonly fresh, but Sigi, sheepish and forlorn in her stockinged feet, seemed as if she’d spent the entire night beneath a bush in the Tiergarten.
Tears welling in her eyes, she shuffled towards von Menen. ‘I know you think I’m, well, not very lady-like, Carl,’ she said, the palms of her hands flat against his lapels, ‘but I didn’t mean to cause you any embarrassment last night. You do forgive me, don’t you?’
Von Menen bent down and kissed her forehead. ‘Dearest Sigi, how could I possibly not forgive a sweet thing like you?’
Tears coursing down her cheeks, she stretched up on her toes and flung her arms around his neck. ‘Love you,’ she said, her voice trembling with emotion. ‘Take care. I shall miss you.’
‘And I shall miss you, Sigi. Promise you’ll keep my seat at the Eden nice and warm?’
‘I will – that is, if they ever allow me in there again.’
Lutzi stepped forward and bundled him into her arms. ‘Love you, miss you, Carl. And don’t worry, I’ll keep in touch with your mother, I promise.’ She beckoned his ear. ‘And just in case he’s too much of a man to say so, Gustav loves you, too. What he’ll do without you, I simply do not know.’
‘The same for me, too, Lutzi.’
The Delahaye rolled to a halt outside the main building at Tempelhof Airport. Von Menen and Helldorf walked through the departure lounge and onto the apron.
Helldorf offered his hand. ‘This is as far as I go, Carl. Time to say goodbye, my friend. When we next meet, let’s hope that this hideous war will be over and that Hitler and the Nazis will be
just a damn awful memory.’
‘I hope so, Gustav, I do hope so.’
Across the tarmac, the angular-looking Junkers 52 was a mere thirty metres away, corrugated fuselage glinting in the sunlight, the first of its three BMW engines spluttering into life.
‘Before you go, Carl,’ shouted Helldorf, voice rising above the noise, ‘there’s something you ought to know… I didn’t mention it last night because I didn’t want to put a dampener on things, but I know everything, Erhardt Jost included. You’re a pretty tough nut, Carl, but so is Jost. Be careful. You might find yourself in the lion’s den over there.’
‘I know,’ shouted von Menen, ‘and I’m not looking forward to it. But Jost is not the only worry I’m wrestling with. It’s more the notion of why they’re sending me there. I mean, Christ, I’ll be spying for those I want rid of!’ He looked yearningly at the “Arrivals” sign twenty metres away, the doubts kicking in. ‘I could easily change my mind, you know, even at this late hour.’
Helldorf shook his head. ‘It’s not worth it, Carl.’
Another engine whirled into life, the purser leaning through the cabin door, hand clasped over his hat, urging von Menen forward. Puffs of black smoke kicked out from the third engine, the purser waving frantically, von Menen wrestling with a crushing desire to make off, voices arguing inside his head. Go! You have to. No! Make a run for it. You’ve all the money in the world. Konstanz tonight, Switzerland tomorrow.