Pierre Frei - Berlin - A Novel

Four hours later, towns and villages loomed below them. The radio officer had to rely on vague information received from the Reich transmitter in Berlin. Lacking better navigational aids, he took the plane past the dying capital and behind the Russian Front, where luckily they were ignored. They turned and flew back from the east to ruined Tempelhof airport without further incident. The plane came down with a loud crash and bumped over the cracked runway.

It was 20 April 1945. In the bunker beneath the Reich Chancellery, the lord of all this horror was celebrating his final birthday.

'Welcome home!' said the Siemens rep, with a loud laugh.

Stettin rail station was swarming with military men. Military policemen with shiny breastplates were checking the papers of all the soldiers, privates and officers alike. They led a young corporal away weeping. 'Tried to desert, that's what he did,' Detta heard a passer-by say. 'They'll hang him now for sure.'

A passenger train was waiting at a distance, beside the unroofed part of the platform. It was terribly overcrowded. People crammed into the toilets. She found a place to stand in the corridor. The journey lasted for ever, because the train was diverted into sidings several times to allow troop transports past. Jurek was waiting at Wrietzow with the horse and cart. 'Wilcome, Freilein.' The Polish groom helped her up with pleasure and admiration in his eyes.

Her mother was preparing rutabagas in the kitchen with Lina. 'Oh, you should have stayed in Spain,' she said, sounding concerned.

'You know I had to come.' Detta hugged her. 'How are you, Mama?'

'With potatoes, marjoram and bacon this will make a perfectly acceptable one-pot meal for all of us,' said the Baroness, evading the question. 'Your father's in the library.'

The Baron was sitting by the fire. He had grown old. 'I'm finished, they've retired me because of my heart. Detta, child, how good to see you. It will cheer your mother up. She takes refuge in her duties, or what she considers her duties. She doesn't show it, but she misses our two little ones a great deal.' Fritz and Viktoria, now thirteen and fifteen, were studying in Munich.

Detta was hardly listening. 'Where is he?' she asked impatiently.

The door flew open and her brother strode in. He whirled her around, beside himself with delight. 'Sister dear, at last.' He was pale and had lost weight, his breeches and thick pullover were too large for him, but he was as lively and enthusiastic as ever.

This is the time to bring out the last of my Armagnac.' As if by magic, their father produced a bottle from behind the works of Detlev von Liliencron and poured them glasses.

'Cheers, Father, Detta — here's to our future!' cried Hans-Georg confidently.

'To your future,' the master of Aichborn corrected him. 'My time is over. There's nothing left for me now. The old values are all gone.'

'There'll be new values and a new, free Reich, peaceful and respected by the whole world.' Hans-Georg sounded as though he were trying to persuade himself.

'But first we must get you out of the old Reich,' Detta soberly interrupted. She rang the bell by the fireplace. Bensing appeared. In honour of the day he had put on his shiny black jacket, which didn't really go with his gumboots. 'The Maybach, Bensing?'

'With your BMW in the old barn, hidden under straw and old junk. Both cars have full tanks. I check on them regularly.'

'Take the D plate off my roadster and paint a C beside it. Then screw it on the Maybach. CD stands for Corps Diplomatique. And take that little throw over the back of the sofa, the one I embroidered with Mother's family coat of arms in the Spanish colours, and fasten it on the radiator as a pennant. Polish up the car and iron your chauffeur's uniform. We're off on Wednesday morning. My brother's a Spanish diplomat, and our flight to Barcelona leaves from Tempelhof at two in the afternoon.'

'I'll get to work immediately, Fraulein Detta.' Bensing went away with measured tread.

'Barcelona?' asked her brother incredulously.

'Tom Glaser will fly us out.' She explained her plan.

'I hope to God it works,' murmured the Baron, shaking his head.

A hunting horn sounded from somewhere above. 'We have a lookout posted on the tower.' Hans-Georg was suddenly in a hurry. She watched from the tall window as he sprinted across the yard and disappeared down the hatch into the potato cellar. Bensing chugged up with the tractor and dumped a load of muck over the entrance.

Fanselow climbed out of his car in his brown Party uniform and stalked up to the entrance of the schloss. The Baron wrinkled his nose. He often comes to pay what he calls a friendly visit, to see how I am. I think he's trying to hedge his bets.'

'I'll go and see the horses.' Detta had no desire to meet the man.

Tom Glaser's call reached her at lunchtime. The night before, an incendiary bomb had destroyed his JU 290, which had been tanked up for the return flight. 'There isn't a spare plane. The whole of Lufthansa is grounded.'

And that, in an instant, was the end of Detta's bold plan. But she did not let her disappointment show. 'Oh well,' she told her brother. A few more days among the potatoes won't kill you. The BBC is saying the Russians have crossed the Oder at Frankfurt. And that's at most eighty kilometres from here.'

The hunting horn on the tower sounded early in the morning. Hans-Georg disappeared into his hiding place. Bensing pushed the muck over the hatch. Two jeeps drew up outside the schloss and eight Red Army soldiers jumped out, pointing their Kalashnikovs menacingly. A limousine stopped in the entrance. An officer stepped out, followed by Fanselow. The district farmers' leader was wearing a cloth cap and a red band round the arm of his jacket.

The master of Aichborn, standing very straight, appeared in the entrance. 'There's the Fascist general!' cried Fanselow.

'General yes. Fascist no; snapped the Baron. Detta went to his side.

And that's the daughter! A Fascist cow.' Fanselow's voice rose and broke.

Detta calmly approached him. 'No crayfish today, Fanselow, just potato soup. You can slurp it up from the tip of the spoon, I expect that's more your style.' Fanselow went red in the face. Detta turned to the Russian and spoke French to him. 'Je suis Henriette von Aichborn. What will happen to my father? He's old and sick.'

'Major Rubakhov, NKVD, the officer introduced himself in perfect German. 'My orders are to arrest Lieutenant-General Heinrich von Aichborn as a war criminal.'

Aichborn indicated his cardigan. I suppose I can change first.' He did not wait for the answer.

'Make a break for it, would you?' Fanselow grabbed the Baron's sleeve.

'Don't do that,' the Russian officer told him, and turned to look at the family pictures in the hall.

'I am a war criminal too.' The Baroness appeared at the top of the staircase in her hat and coat.

The major shrugged. As you like.' The Baron came and stood beside her. The general's stripes on his breeches shone red, and the blue enamel of the Prussian order Pour le Merite gleamed on his collar. He kissed his wife's hand with old-fashioned courtesy and gave her his arm. With inimitable dignity the two of them walked downstairs. Bensing helped his master into his coat. The major held the door of the car open, Heinrich and Maria von Aichborn got in, and the limousine started.

'We'll be back,' Fanselow spat, jumping into the jeep. Bensing shook his fist at him, tears of rage in his eyes.

'I'm sure they'll be back soon.' Detta put a comforting arm round his shoulders. Suddenly it dawned on her. 'The war's over, Bensing. We're free,' she said in amazement.

'Yes, Fraulein Detta.' Bensing walked away, his steps weary.

'Hans-Georg, we're free!' She ran across the yard and picked up the pitchfork. 'Free! Free! Free!' she shouted, exultant. The muck flew in all directions, and the hatch swung open. Like a phoenix. her brother came up into the light. The morning sunlight coloured his thin face gold. Detta fell on his neck, and danced exuberantly across the yard with him. 'No more Gestapo, no more fear.' She kissed him lovingly. Then her euphoria evaporated. 'The Russians have taken Father away.' she said. 'Fanselow must have denounced him. Mother went with him.'