Another broad smile reflected enjoyment of the secrecy. ‘I would tell you, but then I might have to kill you.’ Her body stiffened, eyes surely betraying a genuine shock, however casually he said it. He let out a swift laugh at his own mischief. ‘Just joking. Trust me, it’s best as a surprise. If you’ll allow me the indulgence.’
They headed out of the city, in the direction of neither the Grunewald nor the famous lakes at Wannsee. Soon, the countryside replaced the suburbs and Kasper kept up the conversation, asking how she’d been, if her research was going well. She gave a veiled ‘yes’, but didn’t go into specifics, and he didn’t delve any further.
‘And your training, was it worthwhile?’ Georgie continued their loose dance of enquiry.
‘Hmm, yes and no. I can now recite the SS handbook in my sleep, but as for the application I’m not sure. Theory is always a little warped in a vacuum. Don’t you think?’
Georgie wondered then if SS rules detailed methods of persecuting those whose politics they didn’t agree with. Namely Jews. Or whether it was a skill picked up along the way, in purely practical sessions.
‘I’m lucky enough never to have been through any formal training,’ she said lightly. It wasn’t a lie – her journalism had been learned mostly on the job – and it held aloft Kasper’s vision of her as a dabbling writer.
‘Then you are lucky indeed,’ he said. ‘I’m sure most of the lectures were designed as an effective sleeping draught.’
There it was again – the subtle ridicule of an organisation he must owe some allegiance to. She felt sure no one half-heartedly joined the SS, and Georgie realised they had been driving almost half an hour without Kasper letting go of a single fact about himself or his work. Well trained indeed.
They were in open country but had been travelling for some minutes along a towering wall of evergreens, planted in a straight line and forming a dense screen. Kasper steered the car into a well-hidden gap in the greenery and onto a gravel road. Only then did it become clear what they had come to see. Georgie gasped aloud, and Kasper couldn’t mask his satisfied grin – clearly, it was the reaction he’d hoped for.
The sight was beyond huge. Aside from an ocean liner, it was probably the biggest thing Georgie had ever seen with her own eyes – and yet it looked almost comical too; a bulbous grey rugby ball squatting low to the short grass, the people milling under it minuscule in comparison. Kasper pulled up alongside a monumental hangar rising out of the flat landscape.
‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ He dipped his head to look through the windscreen at the sleek lines of the enormous airship, pulling gently on its rope tethers.
‘She’s certainly impressive,’ Georgie said. Gorgeous was maybe a step too far – beauty certainly in the eye of this beholder. But what were they were doing in its midst? It wasn’t her idea of a date.
Kasper held the car door open for her. ‘So, do you fancy a spin?’ he said, his face alive with amusement.
What does he mean, a spin? Her thoughts whirled for several seconds. Until the reality hit. The corrugated metal tube posing as an aircraft had been bad enough, the take-off and the bumpy landing, but did he seriously expect her to float up in an oversized barrage balloon, full of hot air? Highly flammable hot air at that.
The Hindenburg disaster only the year previously had left its mark worldwide – that fateful day when Germany’s largest and most famous airship came in to land in the US after a trans-Atlantic flight, the resulting fireball and a horrific loss of life caused by a spark to the combustible hydrogen gas keeping it aloft. It was reduced to a burnt-out shell in a matter of minutes, every agonising second captured on film. Almost overnight, the Hindenburg put paid to commercial airship travel in Germany and beyond. So what was this one doing here, and why on earth would Kasper expect her to step into it, let alone drift through Germany’s airspace. Did he really imagine she would enjoy herself?
‘I don’t know, Kasper,’ she began. ‘I’m not terribly good at air travel. What about last year, the Hin—’
‘Oh, but it’s much safer now,’ he cut in, tugging at her arm. ‘They’ve sorted the problem. Some of the engineers are good friends of mine. They assure me it’s totally safe. I’ve been up several times, and look at me.’ He splayed out his hands. ‘I’m still here. And I so want to show you more of Germany’s beauty. This is by far the best way.’
His enthusiasm was hard to push against, and she could see Kasper might easily be offended. But that, against her life? The terror of the journey?
There were no other potential passengers lurking, and only flight engineers and ground crew hovering; no one, it seemed, travelled by airship anymore, at least not for pleasure.
‘So, you can just request a trip in this?’ she asked.
Kasper laughed heartily. ‘Me? No, I’m not important enough for that. But they use it for weather research, some reconnaissance. I’m friendly with some of the crew – they let me hitch a ride occasionally.’
‘How long will we be … in there?’ She stumbled for any excuse. ‘I have an appointment later.’
‘Half an hour perhaps,’ he said. ‘Just a short test flight.’ His features were lit up but his tone darkly persuasive; it was clear to Georgie she would be heading into the clouds, whatever her reservations.
Still, she shot him a look. It was unequivocal. Test flight?
‘A trial for some of the radio equipment,’ he reassured her. ‘The aircraft is – what is it you English say – as safe as houses?’
Having run out of reasons beyond genuine terror, Georgie found herself being led up a small set of steps, a groundswell of nausea brewing in her throat. The sheer enormity of the grey shell lurked above as they boarded, like a bloated, ashen cloud. As if the sky really might fall upon their heads.
Once in the cabin below the balloon, Georgie was encouraged to relax a little. Inside felt more stable, the same air as a solid train carriage. It was sparsely decorated – unlike the opulence of the Hindenburg, which had apparently afforded every luxury to its passengers – but there was a small sitting area with a table and chairs. Beyond were closed doors, presumably the control rooms and equipment. Even with her limited knowledge, Georgie had little doubt this craft was used for more than just weather research; ‘surveillance’ quickly came to mind.
‘Here,’ Kasper said, still beaming. ‘I’ve arranged some tea.’ True to his promise, a tray arrived, and Georgie accepted a hot cup with both need and pleasure. The tea calmed her and gave her something to occupy her mind beyond the prospect of crashing amid a fireball as the doors were closed. Kasper was hopping in and out of his chair like an excited child, checking progress out of the window.
‘Here we go,’ he said after only a few minutes, and Georgie flinched, though she noted the craft did not. She felt the rope tethers drop away to shouts of ‘all clear’ from the crew below, but the rise was gentle and seamless, only the view from the window marking their movement, alongside the hum of the rotors behind them. The treeline sank below the window, replaced by blue sky, and Georgie had a brief flashback to being at the funfair as a child, on the Ferris wheel – that giddy sensation of your stomach having to catch up with what’s in front of your eyes.
‘Come and watch.’ Kasper pulled her gently by the hand towards the window, and she relented, as if her feet rested on air.
Her head did a single spin at the altitude they’d reached, but levelled at the sight below – the vast greenery nudging up against the city’s suburbs, pockets of village life with ant-like people and animals below, lakes that were mere puddles with matchstick boats bobbing on the water. It was stunning in its entirety. They drifted over Berlin itself, Kasper pointing out the Brandenburg Gate and the Adlon beside it, sinking low enough to spot small clusters of people standing and looking at the moving cloud in the sky, children pointing.
‘I told you I would show you more of our great country,’ he murmured, his nose virtually to the glass. Unlike his politics, Kasper’s pride in his own na
tion was unquestionable. Possibly admirable? Georgie glanced at his profile and his satisfaction. Was there a measure of innocence in there too? She felt uneasy in being wooed, though whether by Kasper or the occasion she couldn’t say. What she had seen so far in Germany made her wary of the political elite, its beliefs and some of their methods. But should she tar everyone and everything with the same brush, Kasper among them? In that moment, it felt almost impossible to view the uniform, the party and the man as one embodiment.
‘It is a beautiful sight’ was her only conclusion.
It was over before Georgie’s fear had a chance to brew into a knotty terror. The descent was gradual and nothing like the jarring decline of the aircraft into Tempelhof; they seemed to drift slowly downwards, and before she realised, the ground was coming up and a slight bounce marked their landing as the ground crew pulled in the ropes. The jolt was in her stomach as she listened out for evidence of disaster – explosions, shouts or warnings. But nothing. Finally, she, her heart and her being came back down to earth.
‘See?’ Kasper couldn’t help pointing out. ‘It’s very safe now.’
They descended the steps, Kasper first and Georgie behind. Her foot caught accidentally on a loose tether and she stumbled, almost into Kasper’s arms, righting herself in time.
‘Are you all right?’ he said with concern, before rounding on one of the crew members standing nearby, his fury instant and fleeting but ferocious, letting fly with a torrent of abuse towards the poor, blameless man. ‘Are you blind? Incompetent? How could let his happen – idiot!’
‘I’m fine, Kasper, fine,’ Georgie protested, watching the man and his fellow crew shrink under the tirade. ‘It was nothing. My fault.’
He stopped suddenly, grunted and stood tall, like a viper retracting its tongue. ‘As long as you’re not hurt.’ Awkwardly, he nodded his thanks to the rest of the ground crew and marched to the car.
Georgie followed, looking back at the enormity of the craft, its dominance over people. I went up in that, she mused, feeling satisfied inside. Where was Max to see her now, conquering her fears?
On the drive away, Kasper’s outburst sat heavily with Georgie, though he chose to ignore it, switching instantly to his charming self. When he suggested lunch, she realised how hungry the tension and adrenalin had made her. They stopped in a small village en route to the city, chancing upon a hotel bistro. Over the table, the look on his face heralded complete satisfaction.
‘Why didn’t you join the air force?’ she asked. ‘You look so at home in the air. I would imagine it to be your first choice.’
‘It would be – if not for being colour blind,’ he said plainly. ‘Fairly crucial to be able to distinguish the ground from the sky.’ He tried to hide it with a light laugh, but his disappointment was evident. ‘They wouldn’t even consider me.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ And she did feel for him, though perhaps it was nature’s cruel payback for such enticing eyes?
‘Never mind, I’m charged with the Reich’s business at ground level. And begging a lift into the sky whenever I can.’
‘I have to come clean and tell you I’m fairly terrified of flying,’ Georgie said.
‘You do surprise me.’ But the curl of his lips said not.
‘However, you might have won me over just a little,’ she went on. ‘And I can always tell my grandchildren I went up in an airship.’
‘It might creep into that book of yours,’ he said. And then stopped short of mentioning her ‘work’ any further. Or his, for that matter. And yet somehow the conversation was never wanting, perhaps down to the mounting skills of an attaché.
They drew up outside Frida’s flat late afternoon. ‘Thank you,’ Georgie said. ‘I had a lovely day.’ Oddly, she did mean it.
He came back again with a peck to her cheek, though no awkward pause in expecting an invitation inside. Georgie had to wonder at his motives: what did he want out of their liaison? She found it hard to believe it was merely her company, when – in his uniform especially – he would have had the pick of so many German women vying for his attention.
‘Again, I can’t promise when, but may I have the pleasure again sometime?’ he said.
Was there any real reason to say no? That flash of his temper, perhaps. But she could hear Frida’s voice in her ear: he was still worth cultivating.
‘I’d be delighted,’ Georgie said.
Back inside the flat, Frida was clearly impressed. ‘A little trip in an airship,’ she said. ‘I’m going to have to get to know your officer Vortsch. Maybe he has a friend?’
Max was in the living room, presumably waiting for Simone to emerge from her bedroom, where she preened and pampered herself for hours.
‘How’s your Nazi man?’ He seemed unable to prevent a caustic edge invading his tone. Georgie prickled: why was he so damned changeable? Charming one minute, judgemental the next.
‘He’s fine if you really want to know,’ she shot back. ‘Though I doubt you do.’
‘A good contact to nurture?’ he prodded.
‘He’s a friend,’ she snapped back, tone sharp enough for Max to put up both hands in mock surrender. She turned and walked out of the room, his comments chafing but more surprised at her own revelation. She considered Rubin to be a friend. Did it mean Kasper could be one too? Two very different sides of a coin. And was it even the same coin?
21
Asking for a Friend
29th October 1938
Before Rubin had even closed their front door, Sara appeared in the hallway, her tired eyes expectant, hands wringing the dishcloth. ‘Did you see her? Fraulein Young? Did you ask?’
‘Yes, my love.’ He was relieved to be able to give his wife something positive to hang on to at last, though whether it would bear any fruit …
He’d gone to the Chronicle office early that morning, his courage fuelled by desperation, pride relegated to somewhere deep in his boots as he faced Georgie.
‘I need to talk to you, if I may,’ he’d said quickly, and she reacted instantly to his already lined face, racked with fresh anxiety.
‘Of course,’ she’d said, ushering him to sit down.
He clutched at the hot tea she placed in front of him. Even before he’d uttered a word, he was oozing regret. ‘I’m so sorry to come to you, Fraulein Young,’ he began, head bowed.
‘Georgie, please.’
‘Sara wanted me to come and you’re the only person we can think of. If there was anyone else, I wouldn’t be troubling you.’
‘Rubin, you don’t need to apologise. Just tell me.’
So he had. About Elias, the debacle of the previous evening, and the others who – like Elias – had been labelled ‘undesirables’, unable to give back to the Reich. Taken away, forcibly, to Lord knows where. He couldn’t stop the worry bleeding from him – the supposedly solid, dependable Rubin – almost in tears, thick fingernails scoring into his teacup.
‘There was another raid in the neighbourhood last night,’ he told Georgie. ‘It was just lucky I was in, and between Leon and I we did actually manage to get Elias up into the attic this time, seconds before they came knocking. I thought my heart would give out, though.’
Filthy black boots had invaded Rubin’s home, his family’s refuge, forcing him to fend off gruff questions about the household while praying Elias was able to keep still and silent on the bare boards above their heads, explaining away his own breathlessness as a heart problem, when it was simply pure fear.
‘I think we said enough to put them off the scent, but not forever,’ Rubin went on. ‘So far we’ve been lucky, but I feel it’s bound to run out. And soon. I hate to put you in this position, but …’
‘Of course, I’ll help in any way I can,’ Georgie cut in. ‘Do you need money?’
He shook his head. ‘Thank you, but no – we have some saved. What we need is help, influence,’ he said. His eyes were those of a man desperate not to plead – and yet he would. Pride had no place anymore. ‘If
there’s any way you can ask someone for a visa for Elias, and the children perhaps?’
Sara took in a large breath, the scaffold of her collarbone ever more obvious across her thinning chest. ‘So can Georgie help us?’
‘She’ll try,’ Rubin sighed. ‘I know she’ll do her best, but like everyone else, she can’t promise anything. She has a contact to call, but we will have to keep trying other avenues. Our friends in the …’ his voice naturally lowered ‘… well, you know. People we know.’
Sara pushed her head back, closed her eyes with a sliver of relief. It might, for a time, quieten Elias’s distress, his increased agitation at being the fox to the Nazi hunt. In the meantime, they had no other choice but to carry on hoping.
22
An Actress Calls
29th October 1938
After Rubin had left, Georgie’s first thought had been Sam Blundon. She knew several others at the embassy, but they were only passing acquaintances. Her friendship with Sam was new and yes, maybe it wasn’t the done thing to ask so soon, but Rubin’s fear was acute, a man terrified for his family. There was no room for etiquette when lives were at stake. And from what Georgie had witnessed so far of the Reich’s anti-Semitic zeal, the threat to Elias was real.
Georgie put in a call to Sam’s office – it was a weekend, and he was away, so all she could do was leave a request to call her urgently. At the Adlon, she asked Rod and Bill, too, though didn’t advertise it amongst the entire press crowd. They each had a couple of contacts and would nudge all the more for Rubin.
‘Nothing happens quickly anymore,’ Rod warned. ‘The embassies have queues of would-be refugees outside their doors every day. As much as we think it’s urgent, Rubin’s family are part of a large and needy crowd.’
‘I know,’ Georgie conceded. ‘But at least if we all push out a plea we’re not relying on a single hope.’
The wait was interrupted by yet another caller to Georgie’s office two days later. She was processing press releases and sifting through the diary mid-morning when an urgent rap on the door caused her heart to lurch; Rubin’s knock was distinctly different and always consistent. The blinds were half drawn, despite a brooding winter sky outside, but that feeling of being under a microscope rose sharply. Approaching the door, Georgie breathed instant relief that its misted glass did not frame the silhouette of several broad bodies – a tell-tale spectre of the Gestapo – but a single, small form. The woman’s face staring back at her was unfamiliar, though streaked with concern.
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