Flight From Berlin: A Novel Read online

  He, too, kissed her hand, and something about his courtly manner charmed her.

  ‘Eleanor won the hundred-metre backstroke at the last Olympics, Sir Eric,’ Martha said.

  ‘The backstroke? How very interesting.’

  ‘And you, sir,’ Martha continued, turning to the third man, ‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

  ‘Richard Denham, madam. I’m a journalist.’

  ‘At last, a colleague,’ Eleanor said.

  He offered his hand, and their eyes met.

  She’d held the gaze of umpteen people this evening, so why this one was different she wasn’t sure, but she felt an instant quickening of her heart, a tightening in her chest. Her hand lingered in his before he released it. He had cool, greenish eyes that seemed a little sad. His tailcoat was an obsolete cut, but it revealed a pleasing figure, even if he was a tad shorter than she was. He was in his late thirties, she guessed. He wore no ring.

  ‘Mr Denham here has been very sporting in not jotting down my indiscretions,’ said the ambassador, ‘and Mr Brundage has been delighting us with a thoroughly comprehensive account of the American Olympic training regimen.’

  Denham caught Eleanor’s eye, and she turned to hide a smile.

  Brundage seemed to bristle at the women’s intrusion. He gave a curt nod to each of them. ‘Ladies. Your Excellency. Sir.’ And stomped away.

  ‘You’re a Brit?’ Eleanor said to Denham.

  ‘I am, but I live in Berlin.’

  ‘Been in the wars, huh?’ she said, looking at the bruise on his cheek. ‘Say, didn’t I see you leaving the Adlon yesterday?’

  There was a reticence about this man. She wondered what his story was. Martha was already making eyes at him and had begun to pout her lips out in a way she seemed to think attractive.

  Sir Eric was smiling at them and was about to speak, when a young woman appeared at his side and slipped her arm in his.

  ‘Dear, I think Sir Robert and Sarita need rescuing from the Ribbentrops.’

  ‘Ah. Please do excuse me.’ He bowed and left.

  ‘So, Mr Denham,’ Martha simpered as she accepted yet another glass from a passing tray, ‘are you for the Games, or are you one of these Olympic spoilsports, too?’

  ‘I’m afraid,’ Denham said, looking at Eleanor, ‘that I’m one of those spoilsports. Simply by coming here you’re helping them.’

  ‘Helping who?’ said Eleanor, grinning, thinking there was a punchline coming.

  ‘You’re helping the Nazis muscle into the fold of decent nations. They’re using you.’

  Eleanor laughed with dismay. ‘I am not—we are not—anyone’s pawns.’

  Martha had already drained most of her glass and seemed to have lost the thread of the conversation. ‘Exactly, everyone should just get along . . .’

  Eleanor held his gaze. The last thing she wanted was an argument at a party. All the same, she couldn’t let this pass.

  ‘Can’t some things in life be above sordid politics?’ she said, conscious that she was sounding just like Brundage. ‘I think the Olympic ideal is one of the few things that is.’

  Denham’s brow furrowed with understanding. It was the same mannerism her father had when arguing with her, and it drove her nuts.

  ‘The Olympic ideal is being twisted by some very unscrupulous people. The racial discrimination on the German team, for instance—’

  ‘Race?’ said Eleanor with a little shake of her head. ‘We’ve got the fastest man on the planet competing in these Games, and he’s a Negro. Doesn’t that give the lie to race theories? Who cares about race?’

  He chose not to take the baton and seemed to wait for her to cool down. Martha had given up on the lip pouting and was trying to lock eyes with him.

  In a conciliatory tone he said, ‘Look, for the Germans these Games have little to do with sport. This fortnight is a huge show of power, a propaganda display. The whole country is in training, but not for sport . . .’

  Eleanor had had enough.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said coolly, ‘but it sounds like total garbage.’

  ‘Madam, I am sorry, but you are naive.’

  ‘You want to know something?’ she said, pointing her finger at him. ‘You’re one of the most annoying people I’ve met.’ And with that she turned on her heels.

  As she walked away she heard Martha slurring, ‘Say, now she’s gone how about a dance?’

  Eleanor slipped among clusters of people, trying to find a way out of the crowd. Voices were talking freely now, lubricated by champagne.

  She made it to the edge of the lawn without anyone buttonholing her and went in search of a place where she could be alone. A garden path circled the lawn and led back towards the grove they’d entered earlier. The chattering groups of guests petered out; just a few couples were strolling. She followed the path along a garden wall.

  Damn that guy, she thought, wishing she was home in New York.

  Turning a corner she suddenly spotted Brundage striding away down the path some distance ahead of her. Last chance, she thought. Feeling that she had nothing to lose, she was hurrying to catch up with him when he turned sharply right and entered a low pergola set into a dense beech hedge. Where on earth was he going? She followed him into a darkened tunnel of vines that emerged into a circular arbour. Roses burgeoned over trellises, and small, intimate benches were set into secluded nooks.

  She’d lost him. His black tailcoat had vanished in the shadows beneath the trellises. Treading with caution she moved along the arbour path. Crickets chirped, and a keening cry from one of the island’s peacocks made her jump. A scent of roses was heavy in the air; the noise of the party a background murmur.

  Then she heard men’s voices only a few feet away, and quickly stepped into a nook where she couldn’t be seen.

  ‘ . . . I’m grateful for an opportunity to speak with you,’ came a voice with a mild German accent. ‘May I call you Avery? Please, let’s sit. There’s no one here.’

  The men sat in a recessed bench about twenty feet away, separated from her only by vines and rosebushes. The voice continued in impeccable English.

  ‘Your friendly attitude towards German sport has been noted in the highest circles here. As such I am emboldened to broach with you a matter of some considerable delicacy . . .’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  Chapter Twelve

  There was a pause as the speaker seemed to gather his thoughts. In the stillness beneath the trellis, Eleanor could hear her heart beating.

  ‘The United States is a new power in the world, Avery,’ the voice began, ‘a power that, happily, does not feel threatened by enemies. Perhaps because it feels so assured, so safe, it has not seen the need to strengthen its national fibre through policy . . .’

  ‘I’m not sure that I follow.’

  ‘You are a loose body of amateur sports organisations, are you not? What you need is training through a national organisation on the German model . . .’

  ‘I wholeheartedly agree, sir. That is exactly what I’ve been advocating—’

  ‘ . . . and that means a more scientific approach to athletics, and to the—how shall I put it?—the biology of your athletes.’

  Brundage fell silent. She heard a match being struck and the German inhale.

  ‘Success in the Olympic Games reflects the moral and racial quality of the competing nations, Avery—nations whose help Germany may one day need in fighting the threat of Judeo-Bolshevism. Communism.’

  Eleanor leaned her head farther into the roses.

  Brundage seemed to hesitate. ‘It’s true that I believe the United States must take steps to stamp out communism, but—’

  ‘I knew we would see, how do you say, “eye to eye.”’ The voice sounded pleased. ‘So perhaps as a small token of your solidarity with me on this matter . . . you might reconsider the selection of certain athletes—on your relay team, for example.’

  The man’s voice had dropped so
low that Eleanor strained to hear.

  There was a baffled silence from Brundage before he spoke. ‘On our relay team?’

  ‘Yes. Let’s say it may not be helpful to our cause if your two Jewish athletes should win.’

  Brundage was silent, at an apparent loss. ‘Marty Glickman and Sam Stoller?’

  ‘We Germans have had to allow one Jew on the German team, of course, to show the world we’re being fair, but with the pressure she’s under I doubt she’ll win. Your two Jews on the relay team, however, seem certain to win. We’ve been watching them train at the Olympic village.’

  Eleanor winced. Was he being serious?

  ‘Mr von Halt—Karl—I don’t understand. We have Negroes running on our team. Why object to the Jewish athletes?’

  ‘Oh-ho, the niggers, yes. I watched your Jesse Owens win today. Quite a spectacle, and he had the crowd with him. But there you are cheating.’

  ‘Cheating?’

  ‘Of course! The blacks have an enlarged heel bone, like jungle animals. They have an unfair advantage. You may as well enter racehorses.’

  ‘Sir—’

  ‘But the Führer does not care about the blacks, Avery.’ Again the voice lowered to a hush, like a supplicant in a confessional box. ‘It is the Jews that concern him.’

  Eleanor felt the nape of her neck crawl. Another long pause, and she pictured this man, this von Halt, looking straight into Brundage’s eyes.

  ‘To him the threat of the Jews to our lifeblood, to all that is vital in our folk community, has a . . . spiritual significance. You understand that the prospect of Jews winning races, breaking records, receiving medals on the podium in front of the German people, has a most unfortunate symbolism . . .’

  ‘Karl, I want to help but I don’t see how I can simply—’

  ‘He has spoken lately of his vision for the Olympiad. We will send our athletes in Zeppelins to Tokyo for the 1940 Games, but thereafter it is his desire that the Games should take place in Germany for all time to come. Germany is the only nation willing to give the resources the Games are due . . . the only nation with the strength to lead the world’s struggle against Judeo-Bolshevism. It is a vision of the future, Avery. Think about it. The British Empire grows old and weakens. It is America’s help that Germany will need to stop the Jews from Bolshevising the earth, and the fight starts here’—there was a smack as a fist hit a palm—‘with the selection and training of our finest men and women. In this fight I foresee that you, my friend, will have an important role to play . . . To begin with, I can tell you in confidence that you are our preferred candidate for the presidency of the IOC.’

  About a minute seemed to pass without either man speaking. Jesus Christ, Avery Brundage, don’t do it, Eleanor thought.

  ‘The two Jews,’ Brundage said at length. She heard him inhale as he made his decision.

  ‘Thank you, Avery. I assure you that I will mention this gesture of friendship to the Führer in person. Now let’s drink to it. This is a party after all . . .’

  Eleanor caught a glimpse of the man slapping Brundage on the shoulder as they departed across the arbour.

  She lifted her heels onto the nook’s stone bench, drew her knees up to her chin, and began to rock backwards and forwards. She did not look up from her knees because of a sickening feeling that the arbour had begun to spin.

  She did not snap out of it even when the first explosion split the sky. A bloom of fuchsia-red light lit the arbour like a ship’s flare, casting fast-moving shadows through the trees. Rockets whistled upwards, with one burst overlapping the next into bouquets of coloured sparks. The crowd on the lawn applauded as the display became louder and more lavish. She felt each detonation reverberate like a mortar in the hollow of her chest.

  The carriage juddered over the points, shaking Denham’s bones on the wooden seat. His head lolled against the window. He’d undone his tie and taken off the rented woollen tailcoat, which in the warmth seemed to give off the accrued odour of a thousand dinner-dances. An elderly couple watched him with sour faces, sniffing the alcohol on him. Berliners were not afraid to stare. He put a foot up on the seat opposite. The couple exchanged glances. An infraction of the S-Bahn rules. He put the other foot up and tapped his shoes together.

  He’d had to wait a long time for a chance to meet Sir Eric. The ambassador was beset with introductions, talking to guest after guest in French, German, or Italian, nodding away, poker-faced. A monocled curiosity from the days of the Great Game. Now and then he’d laugh judiciously, allowing some Nazi boor to feel he possessed the wit of Voltaire. In the end, Denham caught him as he towelled his hands in the gents’ washroom. His face registered no surprise, as if he’d been expecting this approach at precisely this moment.

  ‘ “The Rhineland—Backyard Belligerence,” ’ Sir Eric said, taking time to adjust his sash and buttonhole rose in the mirror. ‘I’ve sent transcripts of that piece you wrote to every appeaser in the cabinet. Surprised you got away with that one.’

  ‘My luck may have run out.’

  They walked back to the party, the ambassador a foot shorter than Denham. His shoulder was hunched on one side, like an aged cat’s.

  ‘We’re running a team of fielders at the moment, Denham. Players who can only watch patiently in the hope of catching our opponents out and limiting their innings. Regrettably, we’re not supported much by our home crowd . . . Plenty of them, you know, are very “pro.” Quite a few here this evening. Lord Londonderry, for instance, thinks he can placate a monster by cooing . . .’

  Beneath the tact and avuncular manner Denham detected a steely directness.

  ‘So, my question is,’ Phipps said, patting Denham’s shoulder, ‘are you willing to field for us . . . ?’

  ‘Well sir, I—’

  ‘Good man.’

  They could say no more. Someone was presenting the tombstone figure of Avery Brundage.

  And then that girl, that beautiful American from the magazine.

  If she had talked of anything else—whatever girls her age talk about—he would have stayed as quiet as a mouse in stockings. Instead she and her friend had blundered with panache into the most loaded of subjects. Why hadn’t he just let her be?

  But he’d had to put her right, enlighten her.

  The train careened into a tunnel with a metal scream. A loud crack, and he saw that he’d rammed his heel into the wooden slat of the bench.

  When she arrived home at the Dodds’ house on Tiergartenstrasse Eleanor placed a telephone call to Gallico’s hotel.

  ‘Eleanor? Too late for a drink. I’m in my pyjamas.’

  ‘Paul, honey, I know you and the boys are planning to petition the AOC about getting me back on the team . . .’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve got a meet with Brundage tomorrow. I think there’s a pretty fair chance that—’

  ‘Well, look. Thanks for thinking of me, but I don’t want you to do it.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’

  ‘Stone-cold sober. I’ve changed my mind. I’m through. I don’t want to be on the goddamned team, or have anything to do with these Games.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Denham rose early and headed for the Café Kranzler on Friedrichstrasse. A full breakfast, he decided, was the best cure for his hangover.

  He bought a paper at the station kiosk and climbed the steps from the U-Bahn. The air was cool and fresh, the sky marbled with cirrus clouds. It was going to be a fine day. Traffic was still sparse; a yellow tram clangoured along the tracks on Unter den Linden, bell ringing.

  He took a table in the sun, ordered coffee, eggs, smoked ham, and pastries, and began to scan the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. The report of Jesse Owens’s victory in the hundred-metre sprint yesterday was tucked away inside. This time there was no mention of Owens’s colour, despite weeks of unembarrassed references to der Neger. On a separate page Denham spotted a curious notice, evidently lifted from a Chancellery press release. ‘The Führer cannot be present at all the final competi
tions and is therefore unable to receive the winners of different nations. Receptions for the winners in the Führer’s box will no longer take place.’ All that to avoid shaking a black man’s hand.

  Coffee at the Kranzler was the best in Berlin. He’d just ordered another cup when he saw her. She was crossing the street towards the café, hatless, and wearing a white suit and round white-rimmed sunglasses, like an advertisement for Lux toilet soap. He raised the newspaper to hide himself and was waiting for her to walk past when a sugar cube flew over the top of the page and hit him on the chin.

  ‘Too late, mister, I already saw you.’

  Denham lowered the paper and put his hand up to shield his eyes. She stood hand on her hip, with the sun behind her. Light blazed through her golden hair.

  ‘Relax, I’m not going to bite your head off,’ Eleanor said, removing her sunglasses.

  ‘Won’t you join me?’

  ‘Thanks. By a strange coincidence I was thinking of you. It’s Richard, right?’

  ‘Sorry that I upset you last night.’

  She took a Chesterfield from a tortoiseshell case in her handbag. He lit it for her, and she inhaled.

  ‘It’s me who should apologise,’ she said, the smoke coming out with the words. She waved at the waitress. ‘Coffee, uh, bitte?

  ‘Richard, I come from a long line of stubborn idiots, and my father is the most stubborn of them all. When he’s convinced of the truth of something he runs with it like a dog with a bone, even if it’s a lost cause . . .’ She held her cigarette up at an angle, staring at nothing in particular.

  ‘Surely lost causes are the ones worth fighting for,’ Denham said.

  She smiled. ‘That’s what Dad says. He tried talking me out of going to Germany, but being his stubborn idiot daughter, here I am. What I’m trying to say is . . . my old dad’s cause may have been lost but that’s not to say it wasn’t right. We shouldn’t have come here. None of us.’

  Denham’s breakfast arrived.