David John - Flight from Berlin

The anthem finished and the crowd sat.

‘I’m going down there before they do God-knows-what to her,’ said Eleanor. But just as she said this Hannah jumped from the podium before anyone could reach her and darted to an exit near the foot of the western gate.

Eleanor stared after her for a second. And then she realised. ‘The radio car,’ she said, grabbing her handbag and running from the box.

She sprinted into the gallery surrounding the upper tier, round the curve of the stadium towards the western gate, and flew down the steps. Just outside, near a solitary oak on the Olympic plaza, she spotted Hannah surrounded by a large crowd accompanying her in the direction of the Deutscher Rundfunk mobile radio car. Her crown of oak leaves and her all-white fencing garb added to the strangeness of the scene, making her seem like a sacrificial virgin, or a divine being walking among believers. How many in the crowd knew of her astonishing defiance a moment ago wasn’t clear, but they seemed excited by the famous face moving among them.

Just then, running out of the western gate, face shining with sweat, came Greiser, frantic, looking left and right, but in his haste he did not at first notice Hannah surrounded by the crowd. It was a few seconds later, as she was climbing the short ladder into the radio car, that he spotted her and pelted towards her, shouting and waving his hand.

He reached the edge of the throng and shouldered his way in, just as Hannah entered the car and the door closed behind her.

‘Offnen Sie die Tur! ’ he yelled over people’s heads. ‘ Offnen Sie die Tur! ’

Eleanor went after him, knowing she had to think of something drastic, and fast. She pushed into the crowd and managed to get almost right behind Greiser, so close she could see the golden hairs on the back of his neck, smell his cologne. Then she filled her lungs with air.

And screamed.

The most toe-curling scream she could muster.

The crowd became still in an instant. All eyes turned towards her, Greiser’s included. She pointed, quivering and trembling, at the startled Greiser. ‘That man,’ she shrieked, ‘just stuck his hand up my

…’ She mimed the action in a manner so graphic that it obviated any need for translation.

A mixture of shock and disgust spread over the faces of the men and women surrounding her and Greiser, turning to hostility as they took a good look at him. And then he recognised her.

‘You,’ he said just as several men’s hands grabbed his jacket and someone yelled, ‘Polizei.’ She couldn’t understand what was shouted in the rumpus that followed but concentrated on projecting a look of outraged modesty and defiled maidenhood. She’d created complete pandemonium. Everyone was shouting, including Greiser, but just when it seemed as though his purple-faced protestations were being heard by the men holding his arms, the door of the radio car swung open and a technician appeared at the top of the steps, his eyes round with embarrassment and dread.

They’ve cut the transmission, Eleanor thought. Wonder whether she got a full minute.

As she later learned, Hannah got fourteen seconds of live airtime before the cable was pulled. But fourteen seconds is a long time on the radio.

Greiser was screaming at the technician, jabbing a finger at him, and Eleanor guessed he was ordering Hannah’s confinement in the radio car until the police arrived.

Herr Liebermann was sitting exactly where she had left him, his cheeks ashen. As she explained what had happened at the radio car he sat rigid, a rolling tear the only motion on his face.

‘She’s done an amazing thing, sir. She has your courage. They’ve arrested her now.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I imagine they have.’ He picked up his hat and rose.

Out of the corner of her eye Eleanor saw a group of UP boys talking across each other. ‘Hold on a second. She said what?’ One of them was gesticulating with wild movements.

‘I’ll walk with you to your car.’

‘No need,’ Herr Liebermann said.

Two of the UP reporters who understood German had heard Hannah’s live broadcast on the pressroom radio and were telling their colleagues and a dozen or so other correspondents. Within seconds the news was threatening to spill over the rail into the stadium crowd.

Gallico appeared next to her, his straw boater askew, just as Eleanor was walking Herr Liebermann to the door. ‘Did you hear what’s happened?’ he said, a squeak of astonishment in his voice. ‘Jesus knows how many listeners just heard that. Ten million? Thirty million?’ With a loud whoop he seized Eleanor’s hands and danced her around in a little jig in full view of the stadium until he caught the stricken look on the old man’s face. ‘Gee, sir, I’m sorry.’

Eleanor asked, ‘What did she say?’

But before Gallico answered she was distracted by Herr Liebermann tapping her arm. ‘We may not meet again, Fraulein Eleanor…’

The reporters in the box had become aware of the old man’s presence- ‘Does he speak English?’- because one of them was now at his side, opening a notebook.

‘Mr Liebermann, sir? Norman Ebbutt of the London Times. Have you heard what’s just occurred? Your daughter used her live broadcast to

…’

The old man gaped at him without comprehension, then turned again to Eleanor, flustered now. ‘I was intending that you and Herr Denham-’

Several reporters had now gathered around them and were speaking at once, eyes and mouths animated and manic.

She was aware of Herr Liebermann’s face close to hers, and suddenly he put his arm around her and clutched her in a brief, awkward embrace, his beard grazing her neck. For a second she did not know whom she was fending off.

She held out her hands in a ‘stop’ sign to make the reporters back away.

‘Please…,’ Herr Liebermann said, ‘keep it safe.’

‘What?’

The back of his Panama hat was retreating towards the door, and two reporters were following him. In three long strides she was among them and slammed the door shut after Jakob Liebermann had gone through. Leaning her back against it she barred the way to the reporters.

‘Ma’am-’

‘Leave him the hell alone.’

D enham drifted into and out of consciousness, despite the noise. The radio playing down the corridor in the guards’ room was kept loud enough to ensure that no one got any rest.

Something the patch-up doctor gave him had made him drowsy.

‘Hannah Liebermann… winner of the gold medal for Germany in today’s women’s fencing… just arrived in the radio car…’

Someone was talking about Hannah Liebermann. Too loudly. He tried to chase the dream away, but then she herself was talking, also too loudly.

‘… began when I was expelled from my home fencing club three years ago and fled to California…’

He swam away from it, and broke through the surface for a moment.

‘-Fraulein Liebermann, your gold medal…’

‘… as if forcing me to compete wasn’t enough, the Gestapo murdered my brother last night in our own home…’

Denham sat bolt upright, as though a wire had just pulled him up by his spine.

‘… so that the Fuhrer could deceive the world by allowing a single Jew to compete…’

In the background of the radio car a man’s voice was yelling something inaudible.

‘… robbing my father as the price for letting my family escape torment…’

More commotion, and then Hannah’s voice rose to a strained shout as though someone was pulling her away.

‘… the Fuhrer is evil. He will bring sorrow to every hearth in Germ-’

The click was followed by a loud buzz as the transmission was cut. A few seconds later the station was back on air playing military band music.