The Berlin Girl

by Mandy Robotham

  ‘Do you keep your hand in?’ Rod probed surreptitiously. ‘Storytelling?’

  ‘Maybe, a little.’ Rubin returned Rod’s wry smile. ‘But it’s a dangerous business. I have a family and that means being careful.’

  ‘Of course, but you know, my paper could use a decent copy writer on occasions. No names, no by-lines. And they pay well.’

  ‘Of course,’ Rubin said, and the rest was left unsaid.

  Instead, he regaled them with tales of the Berlin press, life in the early thirties, in the daring cabarets pushing at sexual boundaries, visits to the Adlon by notaries and celebrities – Germany’s last Kaiser – Wilhelm the second – Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin and Marlene Dietrich among them.

  ‘She was beautiful,’ Rubin recalled with nostalgia and a flush to his cheeks. ‘And so witty. She held us all in the palm of her hand.’

  Georgie was enthralled by such talk, had always been spellbound by the colourful recollections of reporters back home, waxing lyrical in the pub close to the Chronicle office, cigarette in one hand, whisky in another. She noted Max’s face was alight, something of his brittle shell softened in the company. It occurred to her: maybe he was sheltering behind some type of veneer too – that his was simply more rigid, perhaps by necessity. Hers was thickened by years of fighting bias against women as journalists. His appeared more personal; he could easily lower his guard and be one of the boys, but the shield was ever ready to be pulled up at a second’s notice.

  ‘Thank you all,’ Rubin said as they agreed to turn in. ‘Thank you for making me feel, at least for an evening, back in the fold.’

  Rod stroked his beard, flushed with confusion. For all his years and experience, his reputation as a seasoned reporter and the ‘father’ at the Adlon, he had a child-like quality at times – entirely without prejudice.

  ‘But you are one of us,’ he said, as if it was the simplest of universal truths, in the same way night follows day. ‘Once a hack, always a hack.’

  ‘Hear, hear – isn’t that what you Brits say?’ Bill chimed, with only mildly slurred speech.

  ‘Hear bloody hear,’ Max echoed.

  They were up and on the road early the next morning, taking the roads to what was officially northern Czechoslovakia, though anyone without a map might have imagined it to be Germany’s heartland. The chalet-style houses, the traditional German dress and signs written in Hitler’s favoured Teutonic script echoed where the Sudeten’s own hearts lay, demonstrated plainly by the stark warnings of ‘Achtung Juden!’: Jews were not welcome here either. Georgie stole a look at Rubin’s face each time they passed a sign, but it remained passive. Either he no longer registered them, or he’d perfected a veiled tolerance from living under anti-Semitism for so long. Georgie didn’t know which was worse.

  The day settled into a pattern, arriving in a town or village, splitting into two groups of reporters while Rubin wandered with his hat cast low, sniffing out any small bars where the few Jews would be likely – or permitted – to drink. The Sudeten attitude lived up to expectations; generally mystified as to why they couldn’t align themselves with Germany at will – Hitler wanted it, so did they. What was the problem? Never mind the binding word of the rest of Europe, forged in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

  At intervals, they reconvened in the local hotel and shared what they’d gathered, each deciding on a varied tack, or news ‘hook’, to present to their papers. Being common knowledge, this was no scoop and it made for better reporting in pooling their material.

  ‘I’ve just had a telegram from my office,’ Bill Porter announced on the evening of their second day. ‘I’m needed back in Berlin; someone’s flying in from the US office. I can get the train back if you need to go on.’

  All agreed they had more than enough to satisfy their papers and settled on driving back the next morning to the relative normality of Berlin. They ate a good meal – Georgie gradually adjusting to the dense nature of German cuisine – and while Rod and Bill put in calls to their offices, Georgie and Max gazed in silence at the debris of the dinner table. It was a familiar, awkward void, hanging like the fog back at the Ritz.

  ‘Getting what you need from the trip?’ Georgie ventured at last, if only to cut through the palpable tension.

  ‘Hmm, it’s a bit lacklustre for my liking,’ he replied.

  ‘Not enough threats and fistfights for you?’ She tempered her venom with a sweet, false smile.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that … I just …’

  But Georgie was up and out of her chair and heading towards the hotel door. ‘I need some air,’ she growled.

  Max, for his part, was not letting her have the last word, hot on her heels towards the village square.

  They were both stopped in their tracks by a sense of dramatic change in the dusky air, noses instantly twitching. Something wasn’t right. From the calm of the afternoon, there was a squall of noise pushing up from one corner, a crowd to accompany. It looked at first as if it might be an impromptu game, the excitement of a bet giving rise to the noise. Yet with every step taken towards the cluster of people, there was a more sinister undercurrent; cat calls edged with a steely threat. Their rancour quickly forgotten, they traded looks, slicing into the throng of bodies, Max’s larger form carving a gap and Georgie sidling behind. Only on reaching the inner ring of the crowd did they see her.

  She was on her knees by then, the hem of her torn dress dusty and her bare feet filthy, her face wet, though with sweat or tears Georgie couldn’t tell. The girl could only have been in her late teens, Georgie guessed, but fear and shame made her look younger, her gaze boring into the ground. She looked terrified. Her vibrant red hair had been roughly shorn, sticking up in uneven tufts from her scalp, crusts of blood showing where it had clearly been yanked hard. The dark red melded with the welts on her neck. Resting on the bruises around her shoulders was a coarse string, attached to a hastily daubed sign hanging limply on her chest. ‘I have offered myself to a Jew’, it read. Despite the German script, Max’s look said he needed no translation.

  The cat calls were directed at her – a vicious and hostile condemnation not of the woman as a person, or her life, but as what she had become: a Jew lover. And she had no choice but to take it, flinching against the verbal onslaught and gobs of spit flying onto the ring, from men principally, but a handful of women too. Those housewives with a shining crown of hair but ugly, spiteful expressions, hurling insults at a woman who was once their neighbour.

  In turn, she looked utterly broken. If her family were somewhere in the crowd, they too were absorbing this denunciation; perhaps they reasoned it was healthier to stay silent and scoop up her body and soul when it was over, tend her bleeding scalp and move their lives elsewhere.

  It was only Max whose face mirrored Georgie’s abhorrence, features flooded with total horror at the sight in front of them. Just as Georgie felt she could watch no longer, the energy drained from the mob and they peeled away, leaving the woman to slump onto her front, utterly silent. Was she playing dead, or expired from the humiliation? Georgie waited for the crowd to disperse and took a step towards the woman. She caught Max’s reaction, reading it as surprise. She glared back: We have to help.

  Approaching, Georgie was halted by a stir from the shadows, like mice scurrying from dark corners. Two older women and one man were soon upon the body, which groaned as they tenderly picked up her limp frame, one of the women looking intently into Georgie’s face.

  ‘I just …’ Georgie began in German.

  The older woman gave an urgent shake of her head, eyes wild with fear, a clear warning: No, don’t get involved. We’ll see to her.

  And they were gone, back into the shadows with her, the square suddenly empty, as if nothing untoward had happened.

  Back in the hotel bar, Max was visibly shaken. ‘Christ, I have never seen anything like that. I never imagined …’ He took another gulp of a much-needed brandy and winced as it went down. ‘I thought I’d seen some c
ruel things at school – beatings and initiations. But that was …’ he searched for the word ‘… inhuman.’

  Equally, George clung to her glass, running the scene over and over in her mind. Did it really happen? Yes, it did. In a nondescript town, in the middle of a largely unseen land, away from the world’s gaze, she’d witnessed an atrocity. In how many more places had it already happened, and would do so again?

  Though their earlier spat had been eclipsed by the events outside, Georgie was unable to restrain her thoughts, certain this time that she wasn’t merely scoring points over Max. ‘What just happened – it’s exactly why we need to tell the human side,’ she said quietly. There was no shade of smugness in her statement, just plain fact. It was what she had always believed and was utterly convinced of now.

  He looked at her, and he looked swayed. ‘Whichever way we do it, it needs telling,’ he murmured.

  13

  The Welfare Come Calling

  Berlin, 27th August 1938

  As Rubin slotted his key in the door he was in a good mood, the brightest he’d felt in an age. His eyes were tired from driving, but for him it had been a good trip; he was excited to tell Sara his news, that perhaps alongside the driving job, he might actually be writing again. Small pieces, yes, and not digging up stories – just rearranging words – but it was something. It wasn’t until Rod Faber had suggested he might do some work for the American paper that Rubin realised how much he missed it, the camaraderie of the newspaper office, the flurry of deadlines and that tump, tump of the typewriter keys hitting the paper, tattooing your thoughts into the fibre of each blank sheet. He missed working alongside Elias especially – then, his thoughts went elsewhere, to a darker place. He painted on his home smile, for Sara, the children and Elias.

  Sara was sitting in the kitchen, one dry, reddened hand propping up her chin, staring at the wall, her eyes unblinking and not even flinching until Rubin put a hand on her shoulder and kissed the top of her head. She started out of her trance, and then pasted on her own smile, for her husband’s benefit.

  When they’d eaten and the children were in bed, Elias too, he finally felt able to ask her, all too aware that she would try to bat it off as nothing. Equally, he wore that look on his face – the we’ve been married fifteen years, I know you expression.

  ‘Sara?’

  ‘We had a visit,’ she said quietly, ‘while you were away.’

  ‘A visit? From who?’

  ‘They said they were from the welfare, offering aid, but we’ve never had a sniff of help before. And I could tell by his shoes, he wasn’t from welfare.’

  Rubin caught her meaning. Even in their shirtsleeves, Gestapo had a distinctive look. A smell even. The stench.

  ‘They asked how many people lived in the house,’ she went on, chewing at the quick of her nail. ‘About Elias, and why was he here. He was in the parlour and I had no chance even to move him into the bedroom, let alone the attic,’ Sara rattled on, as if excusing some kind of guilt. ‘Luckily, the children were here, and I pretended their uncle had come over to see them. He was sitting down at least, so it was less obvious about how he struggles to move.’

  ‘Do you think they were satisfied? Convinced?’ Rubin’s face could not mask his alarm.

  Sara looked up. She had aged over the last year – he would never tell her, but his beautiful, once-vibrant wife wore her anxiety these days in the creases around her face, ploughed deeper and wider with each passing day.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘But if they come back again, it will be to take him. I feel sure of it. There are more rumours in the neighbourhood – anyone who’s not physically fit, they’re taken away, to … well, I don’t know where. Or what.’ She let out a hefty sigh, dense with despair. ‘Oh, Rubin, what are we going to do?’

  He didn’t know. It was as simple as that. They had no family in Germany that Elias could be ghosted away to live with, hidden from prying eyes in the countryside. All their relatives were now, quite sensibly, fanned across Europe, quick to escape the Nazi scourge. If the Amsel family applied for exit visas now it would be noted, and they would be scrutinised. They had no choice but to stay put. And hope.

  To lighten her mood, Rubin told Sara of his trip and the prospect of more paid work, adding to their savings tucked under the floorboard in the larder, which might buy one or two black market passports. Three if they were lucky. Sara, though, seemed cheered more by the association with yet more worthy reporters.

  ‘Now do you think they could help us, Rubin? If they’re offering work, they might help in some other way?’

  ‘No, Sara.’ He was quick to cap off her hope, his voice firm. ‘I’ve said it before – I can’t ask them. I won’t. It would put them at risk. This is our problem, and we will solve it. By ourselves.’ The lines in her mouth crimped with worry then, with the burden of survival. Like every family around them – the old woman downstairs, the couple with a new baby in the next block, and the German with a Jewish lover across the way. All hoping for some tiny chink of light in the clouds.

  In truth, Rubin Amsel went to bed wondering how long his pride might hold out, what scenario would send him scurrying to others, cap in hand. Would it be the sight of Elias being dragged away, or his children’s distress at being spat at in the street, some fellow Berliner barking ‘filthy Jew!’ at them, as if their very conception had been a crime? So many images came immediately to mind, but which one would break him into pieces?

  14

  The Eyes Have It

  29th August 1938

  Rod and Bill had been equally horrified at what Georgie and Max witnessed in the Sudeten, but they’d also warned against holding out too much hope of the story being published; advice gained through years of their own frustration and dealing with fickle news editors under the thumb of newspaper owners.

  ‘My editor won’t touch the story about the woman,’ Georgie moaned over drinks at La Taverne, two days after their return. ‘He says there’s no power or proof without pictures to back it up.’ She’d felt wounded by Henry’s reaction, hoping her editor had more faith in her ability to paint the sheer degradation of that poor woman with words – since their return, that dusty, beaten face had coloured her dreams each and every night. It wasn’t enough that she and Max had witnessed such cruelty – the world needed to know.

  ‘Same here.’ Max shrugged. ‘I’ve been told to take a more political stance, that they don’t need “colour” pieces. I wanted to tell my editor what we saw was anything but vivid, that I’d have a job injecting any colour into such a disgusting display, but he wasn’t in the mood to hear it.’

  They both stared into their drinks, at the disappointment of facing a stark reality and the limitations of their job. A profession that might not change the world after all. The irony that Max had recognised the value of reporting a human side, only to be told it was virtually worthless after all, wasn’t lost on either of them.

  ‘Oh dear, look at these sorry two.’ Rod sidled in beside them. ‘If it’s any consolation, I’ve had scores of similar stories rejected.’

  ‘Don’t they want to show the whole picture?’ Georgie said, knowing in her heart it was a naive suggestion.

  ‘Just be grateful you aren’t working for the Daily Mail,’ chimed in Granville, the London Times reporter, from across the table. ‘Their boss, Rothermere, is more than disinterested. He’s a big fan of Adolf. The Mail staff are forced to spend all their time buttering up Herr Bauer for access to the great man. They’ve got front-row seats at Nuremberg, poor sods.’

  It didn’t placate Georgie. It didn’t help either that she’d returned to find that Paul Adamson had finally quit the office to visit his new baby back in England, leaving only a note. It would be at least two weeks’ leave and possibly more. Thanks to his long absences, she had already adjusted to her office independence. Even so, she felt more at sea than ever before, in need of a strong tether, or a good story. Or both.

  One good thing – she se
emed to have made peace with Max. They were far from friends, but on the Sudeten trip they seemed to have struck up an understanding of sorts, an alliance in their thinking. She witnessed the shock on his face in that hotel bar, knew for sure he possessed the emotion to be disgusted by what they’d seen, in the name of National Socialism and the Reich. They just needed a way of the print getting under the noses – and into the hearts and minds – of those beyond Berlin. Or else that storm everyone kept talking about would swiftly become a flood.

  With the trip to the Sudetenland, Kasper Vortsch had slipped entirely from Georgie’s mind. She was surprised to find a note from him waiting back at Frida’s reminding her of their planned ‘sightseeing’ trip. Somehow, she imagined he’d already discovered she was press and severed all contact. But then, Frida was transparent about her profession and still the military and government attachés flocked to her door. In Kasper’s case, however, Georgie suspected it was more likely his limited English meant he didn’t read the foreign papers.

  The note said he would call for her the next Sunday morning, for a ‘day trip’ to the countryside. It would be a distraction before Nuremberg, and she felt satisfied there would be no potential for intimacy, as with an evening dinner date. She reassured herself – justified it really – that this was likely a one-off; Kasper would enquire about her work as a writer and that would be the end. Meantime, she would escape Berlin for a day and dodge the endless fluttering swastikas that never quite escaped anyone’s eyeline.

  The days in between were routine, with the usual diktats at the ministry on dos and don’ts at Nuremberg, Herr Bauer practising his human smile. ‘I’m certain he must be permanently constipated,’ Rod muttered with an entirely straight face, leaving Georgie struggling to suppress her laughter.