Flight from Berlin Page 2

  ‘Likewise.’ Eleanor smiled, embracing them both in turn, and suddenly realised that she recognised them from the trials. ‘Jesus, you can rely on old Hacker to put swimming rivals in the same cabin.’

  ‘I’m a diver,’ Marjorie said, a little crestfallen. She looked about fourteen.

  Eleanor didn’t want to be a bad sport. She’d been green, too, before her Olympic debut at age nineteen. Her gold medal at Los Angeles had made her the belle of the press corps, celebrated on the covers of magazines as an all-American beauty. ‘Your body’s a head turner,’ Sam Goldwyn had told her, ‘and you’ve got a lot of class.’

  She wanted to say something friendly, but Olive spoke first.

  ‘I heard your husband’s band at the Harlem Opera House.’

  ‘You’re from New York?’

  ‘Queens,’ said Olive.

  ‘Los Angeles,’ said Marjorie, chewing.

  ‘Town girls, thank God,’ Eleanor said, sitting on the bed and testing the springs. ‘I was worried I’d be with some of our sisters from Ass-End, Nowhere.’

  Olive’s laugh sounded like an old windscreen wiper. ‘So what’s it like singing?’ the girl asked. ‘With a dance orchestra, I mean.’

  ‘As a career I wouldn’t recommend it,’ Eleanor said, taking a Chesterfield from a tortoiseshell case and lighting it. ‘Late nights, loose ladies giving your husband the eye, and the perpetual disappointment of your father . . . But I guess it’s taught me to hold my liquor.’

  Marjorie tittered behind her hand.

  ‘Your father opened my school,’ said Olive. ‘He doesn’t like the band?’

  ‘Senators tend not to get along with bandleaders. Especially when a daughter marries one and gets talked into playing nightclubs wearing a one-piece bathing suit and a pair of high heels.’ She exhaled a long plume of smoke, remembering the dismay on her dad’s face when she’d sung him her version of ‘Whoopee Ti-Yi-Yo.’

  Whatever the excesses of her second career, she’d never let it interfere with her training. She recalled a night at the Century Club in Chicago, the place smoke filled and reeking of scotch. A hoodlum crowd if ever she’d seen one. After the show she’d stood drinks for the boys, but Herb went to bed, licked. And at two in the morning she was at the Lakeshore Pool, lap swimming, ploughing up the lanes as a mist billowed over the water. Her nose and throat were raw from the cold air, her every muscle honed to its purpose—not just to win, but to win spectacularly, with all the speed in her power.

  A knock at the door, and a uniformed cabin boy entered with a bouquet almost as large as he was.

  ‘One o’ you ladies Eleanor Emerson?’

  Eleanor took the flowers and opened the card. Good luck, Kid. No hard feelings? Herb.

  A scent of lilies settled heavily in the confined space. But before she had time to dwell on Herb’s gesture, Olive was holding up a small sheet of paper.

  ‘Hey, who put this here? It was underneath my pillow.’

  Eleanor and Marjorie lifted their pillows and found the same anonymous printed message. Eleanor read it out loud, her voice hardening as she realised what it was.

  MEN AND WOMEN OF THE USA TEAM! GERMANY WILL SHOW YOU A SMILING FACE THAT HIDES ITS EVIL HEART. EVERY DAY CITIZENS WHO DO NOT THINK LIKE THE NAZIS ARE TORTURED AND MURDERED. PROTEST AGAINST THIS CRIMINAL REGIME BY REMAINING ON YOUR STARTING BLOCKS AT EACH RACE! DO NOT ALLOW YOURSELVES TO BECOME PAWNS OF NAZI PROPAGANDA!

  ‘Gee, those boycotters don’t let up,’ said Marjorie, who had picked up a copy of Vogue and began flicking through it. She held up a page with an airbrushed portrait of Hannah Liebermann posing with her foil. ‘Doesn’t she look like Myrna Loy?’

  ‘My mom got a letter from her union telling her I shouldn’t be going,’ said Olive. ‘That the Nazis have banned the trade unions . . . or something like that. Didn’t sound like such a bad idea to her. If the AOC says it’s okay for us to go, that was fine by her.’

  Eleanor crumpled up her copy of the note and tossed it straight through the open porthole. A thought crossed her mind—that her father had arranged for these notes to be placed here, that he was aiming one final guilt-tipped arrow at her before she sailed. But equally, she supposed, they might have been left there by any hothead from the boycott movement. There were enough of them.

  ‘What I cannot understand,’ she said, opening a compact mirror and inspecting her lipstick, ‘is what the hell’s it to do with Olympic sport?’ She snapped the mirror shut. ‘Why would anyone think there’s something wrong with wanting to win gold medals for the USA?’

  Two trombone blasts from the ship’s funnels reverberated through the floor, and they heard feet running along the corridor outside. ‘Come on,’ she said to the girls, ‘I think it’s time for bon voyage.’

  The American Olympic team members, all 384 of them, were pressed against the rails, waving to the thousands come to see them off, along with the ship’s other passengers—the reporters, diplomats, and socialites—on their way to the Games as supporters and spectators. Eleanor spotted Mary Astor and Helen Hayes standing on the first-class promenade.

  On the pier, a high school athletic team unfurled a banner reading GIVE ’EM HELL, GLENN. Tugs, yachts, and liners tied up at the neighbouring piers began sounding their horns in a raucous medley, with each blast echoed by vessels farther up the Hudson. Overhead, a biplane circled. It seemed as though the whole of New York City was there to wish them luck. Every window in the towers of Midtown was filled with faces.

  On the ship’s top deck five girls from the women’s high jump team hoisted a vast white flag emblazoned with the Olympic rings. The crowd roared and stamped their feet, breaking into a chant.

  ‘U-S-A! U-S-A! A-M-E-R-I-C-A!’

  Eleanor basked in the happiness and goodwill of the thousands of faces, and felt their energy. Not a single protester as far as she could see. Not one angry face.

  The funnels sounded their bass notes again, the companionways were cast off, and three tugboats pulled the Manhattan out into the harbour. The athletes waved and whistled in a frenzy. Some held paper streamers linked to the hands of parents and sweethearts on the pier, wept when the streamers broke, and hugged each other. Gradually the pier slipped away in a tumult of spray, foam, and engine noise. The band struck up ‘America the Beautiful’ and tears welled in Eleanor’s eyes. Who needs a damned husband anyway, she thought.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Achtung . . .’

  The ferry’s loudspeaker announced each stop along the shore as a U-boat might alert its torpedo room to targets.

  ‘Unsere nächste Halt ist Friedrichshafen! Friedrichshafen!’

  Richard Denham was the only passenger to disembark onto the narrow quay. As the weather was mild and his luggage light he decided to walk the half mile up the high street towards the hotel. He carried a flaking leather case that contained his portable Underwood and a change of clothes. In his breast pocket was the letter of invitation, in case he should be obliged to produce it at the reception desk. He could imagine doubts about his liquidity at the region’s smartest spa resort when they saw his unshaven face and the slept-in flannel suit he’d worn on the long train journey from Berlin.

  A breeze swept across the lake from the Alps, rimpling the glassy surface and dispelling the oppressive heat of high summer. Clouds and sky reflected.

  The high street of Friedrichshafen, narrow in places, was a pretty, cobblestone affair, with baker, coffee shop, and butcher,
all with window boxes in bloom and high-gabled roofs of red tiles. This could be any small town in southern Germany on a peaceful Saturday in summer. Even the sound of approaching drums, from some distance away, was depressingly normal.

  The day after he’d received a call from his press agent in London, demanding more ‘human interest’ stories and less politics, Denham had cabled an old colleague of his father’s. To his surprise he received a response by return:

  My dear Richard,

  I am indeed very happy and pleased to receive a message from you. With the greatest pleasure I remember the visits of your father to us here in Friedrichshafen, and we Germans live in remembrances. It would be my pleasure to welcome you Saturday. I insist please that you stay at the Hotel Kurgarten as the guest of the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin. You shall of course have whatever access you require to our work and I promise to do my utmost to answer your questions.

  I remain sincerely yours,

  Hugo Eckener

  The dismal boom of the drums was getting nearer, so Denham slipped into a shop out of sight. This was the second time in as many weeks that he’d taken refuge somewhere to avoid saluting some passing banner. He’d seen them beat up people who didn’t salute. As his eyes adjusted after the glare of the street, he saw that he’d entered a post office and remembered the stamps his son, Tom, had asked him to find.

  The walls of the narrow street amplified the advancing sound, the drumbeat now underscored by the crunch of marching feet.

  He watched from the post office window as the brigade leader passed, holding high a banner with the words DEUTSCHLAND ERWACHE—‘Germany, awake.’ Shoppers along the pavement raised their right arms, holding groceries in the other. Row after row of Brownshirts followed the banner, caps strapped under their chins, boots smacking the cobblestones. Each man carried a tall swastika flag of scarlet, white, and black and sang what sounded like a hymn, except that it was about sharpening daggers on kerbstones.

  Denham folded his arms and swore under his breath. Warm weather in Germany brought out a tide of shit these days.

  Just out of sight, a car horn blared once, and then persistently, causing the marchers to break step. Something must have blocked their way, because as the rows in front came to a sudden halt the ones following collided into their backs, throwing the parade into disarray. Caps were knocked off, flagstaffs whacked into faces, and fronts shoved against rears. The men swore and yelped, shouting, ‘Halt!’ to those in the rear.

  ‘Haaaalt!’

  Denham snorted with laughter. What was going on? He pulled his Leica out of the case and tried to get a couple of shots of the farce unfolding.

  ‘Mister Denham.’

  He usually got a better fee for an article with photos.

  ‘Mis-ter Den-ham.’

  Denham froze.

  A man’s voice was yelling his name over the commotion outside. It was coming from the direction of the car horn, which sounded again.

  ‘Mis-ter Rich-ard Den-ham?’

  The voice was addressing him in English. So, chances were it didn’t belong to a Brownshirt. In fact, it sounded familiar. He stepped outside into the crowd of uniforms and saw, about twenty yards down the street, a black, open-topped Maybach parked half up on the pavement. The old street was so narrow, however, that it left barely six feet for the marchers to pass. Standing in the car was the tall, plumpish figure of Hugo Eckener, waving with his hand high in the air.

  ‘My dear Richard,’ he yelled, ‘I saw you go in. Have you just arrived?’

  ‘Dr Eckener,’ Denham said, unsure how to return such bonhomie with a brigade of aggrieved Brownshirts looking on. He sensed trouble.

  ‘Come on, get in. I’m giving you a ride to the hangar. You can check into the hotel later.’

  Reluctantly the marchers began manoeuvring around the vehicle, casting malign looks at Eckener and Denham.

  Self-conscious, he walked to the car, put his case on the backseat, and was about to hop in when an iron hand gripped his shoulder and yanked him around. A thickset, sunburned man glowered into his face. He wore the cap and insignia of a Scharführer. The brown collar strained around a neck that was like a rump of cured ham.

  ‘You took photographs of this?’ he said.

  Denham felt the Leica become hot in his hand.

  ‘You thought it was amusing?’ The man’s breath came in short snorts. Violence hung in the air like static.

  ‘Comrade,’ Denham said, attempting a smile. ‘Hasn’t this week before the Games been decreed a Week of Jollity and Cheerfulness?’ He heard the Anglican vowels in his German as if his voice were a recording on a gramophone.

  A brown bank of uniforms was moving in around him, penning him with no gap for escape.

  ‘Your name, sir.’

  ‘My name’s Denham. I’m a British reporter resident in Berl—’

  ‘British?’ the man said, parodying Denham’s voice. ‘And what is your business here?’

  His mouth began to dry. ‘Your esteemed Dr Eckener has asked me here. I’m writing a piece on the new Zeppelin.’

  The Scharführer looked over the heads of the men and stared at the doctor.

  ‘Our esteemed Dr Eckener closes his heart to our national awakening, yet feels free to do whatever he pleases.’ For some reason the men chuckled, as if this were some local running joke. He turned back to Denham. ‘But you, sir, are coming to the barracks.’

  Denham opened his mouth to protest, but it was Eckener’s voice that sounded, filling the length of the street on the warm air.

  ‘This man is here at my invitation.’

  Standing in the open-topped car he towered over the Brownshirts, the chin beneath his goatee wobbling with rage. Elijah addressing the followers of Baal.

  ‘You’re harassing a foreign guest of the Reich’s, and believe me, that will not go well for you in the week before the Olympic Games.’

  The Scharführer seemed to waver. The men glanced at each other.

  Denham saw his moment, shoved his way through the uniforms, and jumped into the passenger seat. The Maybach’s engine roared. He took a ten-reichsmark note from his wallet and held it towards the Scharführer.

  ‘Here. No harm done,’ he shouted. ‘Buy your men some beers.’

  The man snatched the note just as the car jerked forwards and accelerated up the street, forcing the men bunched at the back of the brigade to step quickly out of the way.

  ‘Do you often ruin their parades?’ Denham said over the noise of the engine.

  ‘Criminals and gangsters,’ Eckener shouted. He was furious.

  Denham leaned back in his seat and laughed, pulling the brim of his hat over his eyes. ‘Always keep your head down and stay out of fights. I should have learned that lesson from the war.’

  He had to admire the old man’s effrontery, but then Hugo Eckener enjoyed an immunity afforded to few other opponents of the regime. In 1929 he’d become the most famous German in the world when he circumnavigated the globe as commander of the Graf Zeppelin—the first voyage of its kind in an aircraft. Immense crowds turned out to greet the silver machine when it landed in Tokyo, San Francisco, and New York, fulfilling his dream that the Zeppelin should forge links of friendship among nations. He was an ebullient, courageous, driven man, an enormous personality who counted kings and presidents among his acquaintances. So high was his standing at home and abroad that the N
azis dared not touch him, and he knew it.

  ‘It’s wonderful to see you again,’ Eckener yelled. ‘How long has it been?’

  Denham saw familiar houses, gables, and barns speeding by. ‘I haven’t been here in six years. Not since we flew with you on the Graf to Brazil.’

  ‘Ha! Yes. Your dear father saved our skins on that one . . .’

  But Eckener’s mind, Denham sensed, was still seething with Brownshirts.

  ‘You told those devils that you’re living in Berlin. Is that true?’

  ‘It’s true.’

  The old man shook his head. ‘Unglaublich.’ Incredible. ‘You mean you choose to live in this lunatic asylum? What about your family?’

  Denham shrugged. ‘My wife said I was more intimate with the typewriter than with her, and left me. Besides, Berlin is where the news is. I sell a lot of stories from there.’

  ‘You have a son, though, yes?’

  ‘That’s right. Tom. He’s eight years old.’

  ‘Surely you miss him?’

  ‘Of course. But . . .’

  ‘The British,’ Eckener said with admiration, ‘are intrepid.’

  Denham’s other reason for living in Germany was harder to explain, but he knew it had something to do with the hysteria gripping the country. The shrieking, stamping monstrousness of it had the odd effect of making him feel sane and normal. There’d been times in the quiet civility of Hampstead, in the difficult years after he’d returned from war, when he’d felt he was losing his mind.

  They motored out of the town and along lanes where the air was sweet with mown hay. In the far distance across the lake he saw Säntis, the nearest of the Swiss Alps, still blue with snow, its peak hidden in a thundercloud.

  ‘Hindenburg is a good name for the airship,’ Denham said.

  ‘It was a compromise. The first name they gave me was Adolf Hitler.’