David John - Flight from Berlin

‘Good evening, Denham.’ A man’s voice.

Denham screwed his eyes shut. So he’d been spotted after all.

‘This is a pleasant coincidence,’ the voice continued. ‘I thought I saw your name on the hotel register. What brings you to Friedrichshafen?’

‘The scenery, Greiser,’ Denham said, turning round. ‘How about you? Aren’t the local papers printing all the good news from Berlin?’

A match flared behind Greiser’s cupped hands, illuminating the low-lidded eyes, the heavy hair that fell in blond slices over his forehead, and the ridiculous college duelling scar down one cheek, the badge of a phoney pedigree. His lapel held an edelweiss.

‘Just a few days’ relaxation before the Olympiad,’ he said. ‘It’s going to be a busy time for me. Half a million foreign visitors expected in Berlin.’

‘That’s a lot of people to fool.’

Greiser grinned with genial menace. ‘There’s only one thing that would bring you here, Denham, and I don’t recall receiving your request to visit the Hindenburg, much less endorsing it.’

‘I’m here to see Hugo Eckener, who is an old friend of my father’s.’

Denham touched the engraved watch in his pocket, fearful now of the raw emotion it had released in him.

‘Really? A social visit?’ Greiser chuckled, breathing out a mix of sarcasm and smoke. ‘You’re here to write a feature, and this time you’ll clear it with my office-before that fucking agent of yours sells it all over the world. The chief read your piece on National Socialism in football and was highly annoyed by it.’

‘Goebbels read that?’ Denham punched the air.

‘In German. It was syndicated in one of the Austrian dailies. I had to calm him down, tell him you’re not a bad sort. But this is a warning to you, Denham. I’m serious. Any more damage like that and your press accreditation will be revoked. You’ll be expelled… or worse.’

‘Greiser, what could be worse than that?’

He fixed Denham with a hard stare. ‘Watch your step,’ he whispered and turned back through the terrace doors into the restaurant.

Denham jabbed two fingers up and down at Greiser’s departing head, then turned and slumped onto a stone bench. Somewhere off to the left, in the hotel ballroom, a string orchestra was playing the waltz from The Merry Widow.

He’d clashed before with Greiser over pieces he’d written and had got away with it. But this time it sounded like the Bank of Cheek and Luck was calling in the loan. He cupped his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes. Meeting the combined demands of Greiser and his agent was like finding his way through a fantasy castle riddled with mirrors, mines, and trapdoors.

Someone had left a wineglass on the stone paving of the terrace. On a sudden impulse Denham jumped up and kicked it, sending it high into the air in a great arc that ended in the lake.

He’d known Greiser for years. They were the same age, both reporters, but the similarities ended there. Greiser was an opportunist with a diabolical talent for manipulating the foreign press. His cosmopolitan background was unusual in the Nazi hierarchy-he’d spent a year at Cornell, spoke fluent English, and had something of the college jock about him, which made him popular with the United Press boys. Yet he was the worst type of careerist fostered by the regime. Even the fanatics had the integrity of their faith, however loathsome, but Greiser believed in nothing. He’d begun his career reporting the truth and had switched to suppressing it, as though it were a natural evolution. He was wholly without conscience. Whatever grim fate he was threatening at the end of that exchange, Denham had no doubt that he meant it.

Feeling a sudden urge to speak to someone human he returned to his room and placed a telephone call. The operator called him back after a few minutes with his connection to London.

Tom answered. Their conversation was stilted at first, talking about school and cricket, but that changed when Denham mentioned he’d been inside the Hindenburg. His son had question after question, some of them highly original, in the way that only children can be.

‘You didn’t smoke a cigarette on board, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t. But there is a special fireproof smoking room.’

‘But how do they light the cigarettes?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you get me those stamps?’

‘Of course,’ Denham lied, hitting his forehead. ‘I’ve put them in the post.’

He remembered that none of Tom’s school friends had got their hands on a recent Zeppelin issue. By such small tokens are status and respect conferred among eight-year-olds.

Denham said, ‘How’s Mummy? Is she there?’

‘She’s gone for a walk with Uncle Walter.’

Who’s Uncle Walter? ‘Ah, I see.’

‘When are you coming home?’

‘Soon.’

Their chat concluded after Tom gave him a trumpet recital he’d been practising for school. It was an uncertain performance, full of breathy squeaks and duff notes, but Denham could picture the concentration on his small face.

When he replaced the receiver, a valve in his heart opened and flooded him with sadness. He imagined for the thousandth time how it might have been if he’d made a success of things with Anna. He knew how hard it must have been for her to cope with him: his sudden departures on trips lasting weeks, his silences and secrets. His craving for solitude. He didn’t blame her for leaving him. But he missed Tom. Could they ever have been a happy, carefree family? The three of them living in that house in Hampstead, pottering in the garden on summer days like today or roaming on the heath…

Or had there, in truth, been no real choice for him?

He took out a small framed photograph he kept in his travelling case: of Tom holding up a slow-worm he’d found in a flowerbed, a squeal of horror and delight on his face, and Anna sitting on a deck chair behind him looking cross-a disjunction that never failed to make him smile. He placed it on the bedside table, lay his head on the pillow, and angled the frame so that his face was reflected in the glass. Then he imagined that he, too, was in the picture with them.

But he was slipping into that slough of loneliness.

He looked at his watch. It was still early.

With an effort he got up and wandered downstairs to find the bar, thinking how much he was in the mood to hear a slow trumpet melody, pulled along by the lazy rhythm of a double bass. The orchestra, however, had moved on to a medley from Der Rosenkavalier. It seemed to be working its way through all the Fuhrer’s favourites. Nothing with any Negroid syncopation, which pretty much ruled out anything that might set your feet tapping. Perhaps they saved the Wagner for cocktail hour.

As he passed the reception desk Denham saw that he’d caught the eye of a young man sitting with a group of four others in the corner of the lobby, and was immediately on his guard. He walked into the deserted bar, sat at a tall stool in front of the barman, and glanced in the mirror behind the crystal and bottles. Sure enough, the man followed him in, accompanied by the others, and they all sat at a table nearby.

Were they watching him?

He ordered a large whisky. The young man glanced again at Denham, but the others, deep in some boisterous discussion, didn’t seem to be looking. Nothing unusual if the local police were keeping a tab on him, he supposed. Especially after he’d come so spectacularly to the attention of the area Brownshirt division on his arrival. He lit an HB and watched the reflected smoke coil into the air. Couldn’t a man have a quiet drink without being spied on?

Before he could even sip his whisky, the young man was standing next to him at the bar, waiting to order. He turned to Denham with a broad smile.