Out of Mecklenburg

by James Remmer

  Quite possibly, nobody knew anything about the arms shipment. Nobody in Germany knew anything about Vidal because von Menen had never revealed his name, his Nazi masters acknowledging that his secret source had never once failed to provide accurate, high-calibre information.

  But his thoughts soon moved back to Maria and the question of how much he should tell her. Enlightening her with the fact that he had been in Argentina throughout her traumatic experience last May and when her father had been seriously ill would be like throwing petrol on a dying fire. No matter how he looked at it, he was destined for a life of invention: whatever he told Maria now would be a falsehood. The existence of Carlos Menendez was different: that much, he would have to reveal.

  Von Menen’s assessment of his situation was not based on the alignment of the stars or fingers-crossed hope, but on cautious reasoning – so much so that he was determined to proceed with the operation as planned, as if Vidal were still alive, as if, in fact, the coup was still in the making. What mattered now was Maria, his family, the Steigers and the half-tonne of gold. The German Foreign Office would soon be out of the equation forever.

  The next day, von Menen strolled the streets of Buenos Aires looking and feeling like a free man. No one seemed to care who he was or what he was doing. No one followed him. No one watched him.

  He used the opportunity to catch up on current affairs, initiating casual chats in cafés and purchasing a stack of newspapers. It seemed that during his lengthy absence, there had been a slight shift in the political mood in Argentina, with the hard-bitten Farrell-Perón regime showing some sign of softening, albeit only a flicker.

  While some elements of the military still hankered for a regime of extreme National Socialism, Perón had wised up to the stark reality that he had backed a losing double – Italian fascism was dead and German Nazism was heading in the same direction. But Perón was still the undisputed champion of the national labour movement, with an ardent following of several million die-hard Peronists.

  With one eye on the ballot box and the other on international opinion, the guileful Perón, ably assisted by the glamorous Eva Duarte, was hinting at the advancement of a democratic Argentina. At least, that’s what some people thought.

  Languishing on a bench in Plaza San Martin, von Menen checked the date on his copy of La Nación – Thursday 15th February – and calculated that Jürgen would be on his way.

  With that thought, images of his parents, Katrina, Hans and Greta Steiger crept into his mind, followed by that of Sigi Bredow. And with the beseeching memory of Sigi haunting him, his fretting about Maria drifted into a haze, though only briefly. ‘I need some time… I’ll be in touch.’

  How much time? A day? A week? A month?

  Two days later, there was a light knock on von Menen’s door. It was nine o’clock and he was about to go out for dinner.

  ‘There’s a call for you in the lobby, señor,’ said the bellboy. ‘A lady.’

  Von Menen hastened downstairs and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hello!’

  ‘It’s me. I’d like you to come over… that is, if you want to.’

  ‘Of course I do, Maria. But are you…?’

  ‘Sure? I’m as sure as I’ll ever be.’

  Supper was already prepared and the table laid, an air of welcome calmness over the room, Maria noticeably warmer.

  When they sat down, she spoke endlessly about her late father, the general state of the country, Perón and ‘that woman Eva’, but after a while, she realised his thoughts were a million miles away, his face blank and expressionless.

  ‘You’re not listening, are you?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Maria… it’s just that, well, there’s something on my mind, something I need to speak to you about. The reason…’ he hesitated, not knowing where to begin.

  ‘Go on,’ she prompted.

  ‘The reason why I left in such haste last year was to try and salvage something from the worsening diplomatic situation between Germany and Argentina. As it happened, I failed.’

  Lie number one. He stared momentarily at the large juicy steak on his plate.

  ‘As soon as I arrived home, I realised that Germany was facing certain defeat. From that moment, I contrived to get back to Argentina… back to you.’

  Seeing the intense quandary on his face, she reached across the table and took hold of his hand. ‘There’s something else, isn’t there?’ she asked fearfully.

  ‘Maria, Germany is one big mess. If I sat at this table for a whole month I couldn’t explain the true depth of the situation. It’s catastrophic. Germany is finished. The whole country’s in ruins. Everywhere, people are just waiting for the Allies to pick over the bones.’

  ‘Surely, it can’t be that bad,’ said Maria. ‘I’ve read that the Russians are close to Berlin, but—’

  ‘It’s bad, Maria,’ he said, cutting her short, ‘desperately bad. It’s an absolute nightmare.’

  ‘And Berlin itself?’

  ‘Berlin?’ He shook his head despondently. ‘What do you remember about Berlin?’ His voice was quiet and solemn.

  She shrugged. ‘Unter den Linden, Kurfürstendamm, the Tiergarten, I suppose.’

  ‘And what do you remember best about Kurfürstendamm?’ he asked, anticipating her reply.

  ‘Kaufhaus des Westens?’

  He strained across the table, appealing for some real understanding. ‘If you went to KaDeWe right now, Maria, all you’d be able to buy is rubble. It’s gone… the same as thousands of other buildings in Berlin. You cannot believe the level of destruction. Practically the whole of Wilhelmstrasse is in ruins. Unter den Linden is much the same. Remember the Hotel Kaiserhof?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wrecked… The whole city’s a huge pile of rubble. There’s hardly any form of communication. Trains and buses, what’s left of them, operate when they can.’ He looked again at his plate. ‘This kind of meal is unheard of; food is getting scarcer by the day. The country is disintegrating.’

  She sat in silent trepidation, her face stricken by the news. It was not the Germany she remembered.

  ‘That’s not the all of it,’ he cautioned. ‘The worst is yet to come.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The Russians… I read in the newspapers that they’re within a short train ride of Berlin.’ His mind flashed back to Mecklenburg. ‘Hopefully, my family will be leaving for Flensburg soon. And then… they’re hoping to come here, to Argentina.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful! When?’

  ‘As soon as they can; like me, they’ve got false papers.’

  She looked at him, a half-curious, half-puzzled look in her eyes. ‘False papers, like you? Does that mean… you’re no longer Carl von Menen?’

  ‘Yes. I’ve got a passport in the name of Carlos Menendez… but that’s not to say I intend to remain Carlos Menendez. Does it make a difference?’

  ‘Personally, no,’ she replied, her surprised look turning to one of amusement. ‘But what will I tell Mummy?’

  ‘That’s where I have to ask you to be patient, Maria. Frankly, I don’t think we should enlighten your mother, not for a while, anyway. I need to lay low for at least a couple of months, until I’ve sorted things out.’ He reached out for her hand. ‘I need to be very cautious,’ he said. ‘All I’m asking is that you be patient a while longer. Perhaps it would be best if I took an apartment a little further out of town, maybe somewhere the other side of the Congress Building. I’m not asking you to leave this place – not permanently, anyway – but I would like you to come and join me, at some stage.’

  She pursed her lips and thought for a moment. ‘Am I to understand from all this that your return to Argentina is to remain a secret, that you don’t want me to tell anyone, including Mummy?’

  ‘Yes, that’s
precisely what I’m asking you.’

  ‘Well, as far as Mummy’s concerned, it’s not a problem. She and Aunt Isobella left for the United States last week and they’re likely to be away for at least eight, maybe nine, months.’ She noted the look of apprehension on his face. ‘There’s something else?’

  ‘Yes. I need you to appreciate that there are certain things I have to do.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Well, occasionally, I’ll have to go away for a while, disappear for the odd few days. I need your understanding on that.’

  ‘I’ve put up with you being away for the past year, Carl, remember? So I don’t suppose the odd day here and there will be that difficult.’

  The following week, when the evening traffic had subsided, von Menen took a taxi to a street north of the Congress Building, between Rivadavia and Corrientes, and agreed a six-month lease on a two-bedroom furnished apartment. He moved in the very next day. Maria joined him a few days later.

  A deluge of love and affection, aided by warm balmy nights and the soft silk sheets von Menen had often dreamed about, helped turn the clock back. Soon, their relationship was on an even keel. But von Menen was still plagued by the tormenting image of Sigi Bredow at Tempelhof. It wouldn’t go away and he wasn’t sure that he wanted it to.

  Something was lingering in Maria’s mind, too – a shade of doubt, a hint of suspicion. The name had changed, but so had the man. Carlos Menendez was not the man she had met in 1941. But for some strange, peculiar reason, which she couldn’t explain, even to herself, she willingly accepted the bizarre and intriguing existence he had fostered upon her.

  In a perverse kind of way, she even acquired a buzz of excitement from it – watching his sudden moves whenever a letter fell through the mail box, the telephone rang or a car pulled up outside. She especially liked it when he asked her to arrange a post box number and send a tele-type message to Juan Cortes.

  Von Menen had been back in Argentina for over a fortnight and the need to signal Germany was weighing heavily on him, which meant, as warned, he would need to disappear for a few days. Maria took the announcement calmly. Smiling, she kissed him on the cheek and reminded him that when he returned, she would doubtless be on duty at the hospital.

  He took the morning train to Dolores, continued by coach to the coast and made the last twelve miles by taxi.

  Jorge Rosas spotted the taxi as it turned in front of the cottage. He tied up his horse and hurried to meet his friend and mentor.

  ‘Hello, Jorge. Good to see you again.’

  A coy smile rippled across Rosas’ face, a garbled greeting sounding from his lips, hands and eyes doing all the “talking”.

  ‘Are you well?’ asked von Menen.

  Rosas reached into his pocket, pulled out the moth-eaten exercise book which von Menen had given him some six months earlier, and studied it closely.

  ‘Yaahh, dan-ka, Herrrr Men-en-dez.’

  ‘Excellent, Jorge. Well done.’

  Rosas held out his hands, a sad look in his eyes.

  ‘My grandfather?’

  Rosas nodded.

  ‘He died, last December.’ The sombre note in his voice added substance to the lie, the deceit coming naturally, as if, in fact, his grandfather really had died.

  Respectfully, Rosas dipped his head. Then, with a gesture of helpfulness, he looked up and pointed to the shed.

  ‘My car?’ asked von Menen. ‘It’s okay? Every Sunday, you drove it to the end of the track and back, as I asked you to?’

  Rosas nodded.

  ‘You’ve kept the battery charged? And the battery on the boat?’

  More nods.

  ‘Good man, Jorge, thank you.’

  With a fistful of pesos in his hand, Rosas happily set off.

  The evening was warm, still and quiet, with only the hissing sound of the radio and the velvety tap, tap of the silent Morse key for company.

  At eleven-forty, von Menen’s signal was picked up by his old “friend”, Albert Falk. A moment later, off went the short message:

  HELLO. AKROBAT ON STATION.

  Von Menen switched to the “Receive” section. The acknowledgement, brief and joyous, came within seconds:

  THANK YOU. ANDROMEDA ETA 10 MARCH.

  Jürgen was expected in less than two weeks!

  Repeated knocking on the door to Enrique Rivera’s house failed to draw any attention. Eventually, a neighbour came out and explained. Bowing to family pressure, Enrique had moved out just before Christmas and was now living with his eldest daughter at Dolores.

  Von Menen continued along to the quay, the ordinarily brown waters of the River Ajo glistening beneath a clear blue sky.

  Hibernating beneath a swathe of grey tarpaulin, Margarita was as still as the day itself. He removed the coverings, fitted the battery and filled the fuel tank. At the third crank, the engine fired into life.

  After six months of idleness, Margarita was “breathing” again.

  33

  Monday 26th February 1945

  In Mecklenburg, snow had been falling steadily for three days, leaving the burned-out hulk of the Steyr looking like a misshapen igloo.

  Hans and Greta Steiger had already left for Flensburg in the BMW, leaving the General, Anna and Katrina to join them on Wednesday.

  With only four cards standing on the lid of the Steinway, Katrina’s birthday had passed almost unnoticed, but it mattered little to her. The Russians were less than forty miles from Berlin, and the only thought on her mind was that of escape.

  Some 800 kilometres to the west, where the southern reaches of the Lincolnshire Wolds met the vast open landscape that had become the main springboard of the Allies’ bomber offensive, the weather was less gloomy. Spring was just a few weeks away, snowdrops were out and crocuses were beginning to break bud.

  In the cosiness of her farmhouse kitchen, homely Jenny Chatsworth busied herself around a blackened stove, stealing an occasional glimpse through the window, one eye on the weather, the other on the five-bar gate at the end of the yard. Her baking done, a tray of cakes lay cooling on the table, the kettle whistling merrily on the hob. Soon, her husband Wilf would be in from the fields.

  Upstairs, their son John, twenty-five, full-time bomber pilot and would-be farmer, had washed, shaved and slipped into his uniform. The choice had been his: four shires, a Fordson tractor, a pitchfork and the “reserve” occupation of farmer, or something else. He’d chosen the “something else” – the blue serge battle dress of the Royal Air Force, now embroidered with the insignia of a flight lieutenant and the blue-and-white ribbon of the Distinguished Flying Cross. A warrior of the skies.

  Hands the size of the unabridged version of the Oxford dictionary and shoulders to match, John Chatsworth was about to embark on the routine he disliked so much, wondering if his parting words to his parents would be the same as they’d been the last time. ‘Well, Mum, I’ll be off, then. Don’t worry about me… promise?’ His mother would smile, or try to. ‘Cheerio, Dad. See you later.’ – fingers crossed in the knowledge that “later” might easily be ‘never’.

  And the “never” list was growing: his brother George, lost at El Alamein in 1942; cousin Harry, fallen on the beaches at Normandy; Uncle Les, swallowed up by the jungles of Burma; and his old school pal Henry “Harold” Larwood, killed in action during the ill-fated raid on Nuremberg. Chatsworth sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the photograph of George, a lump rising in his throat.

  There was also, however, one particular photograph that brightened his eyes and lifted his spirits. He picked up the letter lying beside it and slipped it in his tunic pocket, the contents still fresh in his mind.

  I’ll be home Monday evening… arriving on the last bus from Lincoln… a candle in my window by the time the church clock chimes ten…

 
Please, take care. See you tomorrow.

  Love you lots, Jean.

  He adored her, loved her deeply, her green eyes, long blonde hair and a girlish face that could turn the heads of a whole squadron. Jean was the real wind beneath his wings. With luck, they’d be married at the end of May.

  By then, God willing, the war would be over; peace, a new future, a home of their own, lush green meadows and sandcastles on the beach at Mablethorpe. It was tantalisingly close. Yet though his tour was almost finished – twenty-nine down, one to go – the haunting fear was still there: a burst of cannon fire, flak, a ball of fire and then… gone.

  Chatsworth sighed, picked up his bag and headed downstairs. His parents, smiling uncomfortably, were waiting by the kitchen table; the same old act of bravado, a mixture of angst and love. He dealt with it in his usual inimitable fashion.

  ‘How’s the weather, Dad?’

  ‘Oh, still unsettled, son, but it’s improving. Sky’s beginning to…’ He halted, aware that clear skies and a full moon were the dread of every night-time bomber pilot.

  Chatsworth rolled off the familiar words, the ritual following its usual pattern. ‘Right, then, I’ll be off. See you both later.’

  His mother stood before him, reached up on her toes, cupped his face in her hands and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Take care, now,’ she whispered.

  ‘I’ll be fine, Mum. Don’t worry. And don’t come out, it’s too cold.’

  From the door, they watched him cross the yard to the open barn and toss the bag of cakes his mother had baked onto the back seat of his car. One last wave, a honk on the horn and he was gone, looking like a cuckoo in a blue tit’s nest behind the wheel of his tiny Austin 7.

  Chatsworth took the long, circuitous route to the aerodrome, the car flat-out by the time he’d reached High Barn, spluttering and wheezing on a mixture of tractor paraffin and one-hundred octane aircraft fuel. Thanks to a deserted road and a moderate tail wind, he made East Kirkby bomber base in a record twelve minutes.