Midnight in Europe (11 page)

Two uniformed border guards, stern and hard-eyed, appeared at the end of the corridor as, passports in hand, the passengers waited to have their documents examined. The officer attending to Ferrar’s papers took his time with them, looking up and down to match face and photograph, then again, and once more. His stamp remained unused. “Herr Ferrar,” he said, “you are a Spanish citizen, resident in France?”
Thus on the side of the Republic
.

“I am,” Ferrar said. “I was taken to Paris as a child, in 1909.”
So not on anyone’s side
.

“Ah, I see. You gentlemen are traveling together?” he said with a nod at de Lyon. It had, Ferrar realized, been a mistake not to have separated for the border control.

“We are,” de Lyon said.

The officer peered at de Lyon’s passport, then looked up and said, “And you, Herr de Lyon, are of Swiss nationality?”

“I am, sir.”

The officer, holding both passports, flapped them against his palm, did that a few times—which meant he was turning things over in his mind. Then he made his decision and said, “Please wait here. Do either of you have luggage in the baggage car?”

Ferrar said they didn’t, they each carried a small valise and a briefcase. When the officer left the car, Ferrar and de Lyon exchanged a look. As for the other passengers, they had to wait. In some other place at some other time, there might have been complaints, indignation, but not here, here one stood in silence.

Eventually the officer reappeared and, firm but polite, said, “Will you gentlemen accompany me, please? And bring your baggage.” They did as they were told. Following the officer, Ferrar was relieved that, at de Lyon’s direction, he had left the Walther in Paris. As a Spanish émigré, traveling with a Swiss, he had already provoked suspicion, and the discovery of a weapon would have made it worse. “And,” de Lyon had added, “pack your bag to be searched.”

Ferrar and de Lyon were led through the busy waiting room—inspiring the occasional furtive glance—to an office with a sign on the door that said
GEHEIME STAATSPOLIZEI
, abbreviated in common usage to “Gestapo.” Inside, a bulky man in a suit was sitting behind a desk as the first suspects of the day were brought before him. His colorless hair was shorn on the sides, his thick neck bulged over his collar, he wore steel-framed eyeglasses, and had a gold swastika pin on his lapel. Both passports lay on the desk in front of him, next to a pen, a tearaway pad of official forms, and a cup of coffee. He indicated that they should seat themselves, took a handkerchief from his pocket, blew his nose, then shook his head and said, “Ach, what weather.” He stared at them for a moment, and then began to work.

Carefully, he tore a form from the pad, looked at his watch, filled in time and date, and slowly copied Ferrar’s name. Then, a new form for de Lyon. That done, he said, “Good morning, I am Major Schwalbe. So then, I will ask what business brings you to Germany? Or are you, perhaps, tourists?”

Following the script de Lyon had laid out for this eventuality, Ferrar said, “We are magazine publishers, sir.”

Schwalbe wrote this down on the designated line. “In Paris?”

“Yes, sir,” de Lyon said. “But our magazines are sold all across Europe.”

“And the name of your company?”

“Editions Renard, sir.”

“And what sort of magazines do you publish?”

“Naturist magazines, sir,” de Lyon said.

“Magazines about nature? Animals and … what to say, fish?”

“Forgive me, perhaps I do not have the proper name in German. The word in French means nudism.”

Schwalbe had heavy eyebrows, which flicked upward at the word. “What then will you do in Germany?”

“We are here to take photographs for a special issue, to be called
Nudism in the Reich
. It is quite popular in Germany, we are told.” It was. In an effort to stimulate the national libido, and thus breed more Germans, public nudity had been officially endorsed. Hitler himself, known to be a great prude in all things, had attended a nude ballet in Munich.

“Yes, it is.” Schwalbe knew the official line and tried to quote what he’d read somewhere but got only as far as “The human form …” before his memory failed him.

“Herr Major?” de Lyon said. “Would you care to have a look? I’ve brought along some recent issues.”

“Very well.”

De Lyon unbuckled his briefcase and brought out three copies of a French magazine called
Chez les Nudistes
, which meant nudist colony, and was also the name of a popular nightclub up in Place Pigalle. He handed the magazines to the major, who began to study them, taking his time with each page.

To Ferrar, the pages were upside down, but he could see well enough: grainy black and white photographs of statuesque women with big breasts and big smiles; group scenes of volleyball games—
which was how nudists spent most of their time if you believed the magazines; a picnic in the woods, repose in beach chairs. Wearing lace-up shoes and thin socks, the nudists were enjoying themselves. They were all ages, all shapes, some with tired, saggy backsides, others well formed.

With keen interest, his goaty side ascendant, Major Schwalbe peered at one page after another, while the passengers on the Paris/Berlin express looked at their watches and fretted.

De Lyon said, “Would you care to keep those, Herr Major? I have more with me.”

As Ferrar and de Lyon—now officially confirmed visitors to the Reich—settled back in their compartment, the train moved out of the station. “Well, a taste of what’s to come,” de Lyon said, lighting one of his brown cigarettes.

“I was here three years ago,” Ferrar said. “It wasn’t so bad then.”

“It will get worse. A country run by a political party and its security service … the newspapers don’t really tell the story.”

Ferrar looked out the window as the train rattled across a railroad bridge over a frozen river. The spires of Cologne’s cathedral, lit by moonlight, could be seen in the distance.

“We can count on being closely watched in Berlin, followed everywhere,” de Lyon said. “You go out of your hotel room, they come in. Every foreigner gets the same treatment, the police keep records of who you see, what you do. Of course they could make it difficult to enter the country but they want people to come here, to see what they’ve accomplished, to admire German progress, the Nazi miracle. Anyhow, for the moment, we’re the right kind of foreigners.”

“Thanks to you and your magazines.”

De Lyon shrugged. “One takes precautions, it becomes a habit.” He stubbed out his cigarette and said, “And we’ll have to
play the part in Berlin, those wicked Parisians and their naughty photographs—it’s theatre for the police.”

“It seems to have worked with Major Schwalbe.”

“It did. But they’re not all like that, believe me.”

After a stop at Cologne, where they waited while a German locomotive was coupled to the passenger cars, the train crossed the Rhine and entered a new landscape. They were south of Essen now, in what the newspapers called
the industrial heartland of Germany
. All the way to the horizon, in the light of floodlamps, tall chimneys poured smoke into the night sky, huge smelting and refining plants bordered the track—sometimes on both sides, brilliant fires flared in the open hearths of factories, served by workers seen as silhouettes against the firelight, slag heaps climbed far above the roof of the railcar, and the smell of burning coal hung in the compartment. No green thing lived here, only gray concrete, rusted iron, and brown brick blackened by soot.

De Lyon said, “Did you see the workers? How they hurry?”

“Not running, exactly,” Ferrar said. “More like a fast trot.”

For a time, de Lyon stared at the spectacle, then shook his head. “You know,” he said, his expression somewhere between regret and disgust, “the words ‘German rearmament’ don’t really mean much until you’ve seen all this.”

“The Krupp works.”

“Yes. Cannon, mortars, anti-aircraft guns, and the ammunition they need—millions of shells. And that’s what’s coming for us, sooner or later.”

“In France? You believe that, Max?”

“As of now, if nothing changes, the fascists will have Spain. Czechoslovakia is next, because Hitler knows that France and England are afraid to fight him. Then he’ll want more. And more.”

“For instance, Russia.”

The Russian in de Lyon grinned at that idea. “Hitler is evil, but he isn’t stupid.”

The train slowed, then was shunted onto a siding so that a
freight train, having precedence in the German rail system, could pass them by. Two locomotives pulled a long line of flatcars that carried bulky shapes beneath canvas tarpaulins. Ferrar started to count the cars, then gave up. Seventy? Eighty?

De Lyon took off his tweed jacket and hung it on a hook by the window, then unbuttoned his collar and loosened his tie. “We’ll ring for the porter later,” de Lyon said. “I’m not ready to go to sleep.” He reached into his briefcase, took out a newspaper, and, leaning back in the plush seat, began to read, then dozed off. Ferrar stayed awake, fascinated by the dark countryside slipping past as the train got under way.

16 February, Berlin. At 10:30
A.M.
, in the Friedrichstrasse Station, the pace of the crowd was fast and furious, uniforms everywhere, civilians looking prosperous and well fed as they hurried to make their trains. Passing through the station buffet, Ferrar saw a newspaper kiosk where a headline in thick German lettering announced that Teruel had been retaken by Franco’s forces. There were two photographs for this story, important because it told of a victory for a cherished ally: one a stock reproduction of General Franco, index finger raised, making a point during a speech. The other showed a Moorish soldier, holding his rifle above his head in celebration as he stood in front of the Teruel branch of the Bank of Spain. “This is very bad news,” de Lyon said, his voice low and confidential.

“Teruel was supposed to be the turning point,” Ferrar said.

“Not to be,” de Lyon said.

From a German naval officer, a brusque “Excuse me” as he pushed past Ferrar, bought a copy of the newspaper, then looked back at Ferrar and de Lyon as he walked away.

On the way to the Kaiserhof, the taxi driver wouldn’t shut up, a one-man propaganda machine; the Reich this, the Reich that, things were better every day, everybody had money, the labor unions
had been dissolved, so no more trouble from
those
people, they knew who he meant, jah? Next, a sudden stop, as a traffic policeman held up a red paddle. The driver was philosophical, “They love their parades, so we must wait.” Ranked twelve across, wearing tan uniforms and soft cotton caps with bills, goose-stepping as best they could—throwing the leg high in the air, like the Wehrmacht, was an acquired talent—the zookeepers of Germany were on the march. Up at the head of the column, the zookeepers gave the Nazi salute, raised arm stiff, palm flattened, to a high personage on a reviewing stand.

“They love our Fuehrer,” said the driver, his tone tender and sentimental. At this, Ferrar and de Lyon would have at least exchanged a glance, or worse, but the driver could see them in his rearview mirror so they stared straight ahead, admiring the strutting zookeepers.

At the Kaiserhof, said to be not quite the equal of the Adlon but luxurious indeed, the performance continued. De Lyon was jovial with the desk clerk, a bit of a lout, on the verge of telling a dirty joke. Several guests—likely some of them were in fact guests—seated on elaborate chairs and divans in the lobby, looked over the tops of their lowered newspapers: now who was
this
, with his loud, jocular voice? As the desk clerk tapped the little bell used to summon a bellhop, de Lyon said, “We are so happy to be back in Berlin.”

“You are always welcome here, sir,” the clerk said mechanically. But he would remember the exchange when a police agent approached the desk after Ferrar and de Lyon had been taken to their rooms.

They didn’t stay long. Leaving their valises to be searched—Ferrar had packed a book by a prominent French fascist—they went downstairs, took a taxi to a department store, then used the underground train system to reach the Lübecker Strasse. They would officially be guests at the Kaiserhof, de Lyon had explained, but would operate from a pension—a boardinghouse—kept by one
of his old and dear friends, Frau Vaksmann, where the walls didn’t have ears.

Lübecker Strasse was in the Tiergarten section of Berlin, a quiet street of five-story residences built with elaborate stonework, that led to the vast Tiergarten park. The Tiergarten quarter was a genteel place to live, though much fancier neighborhoods lay to the west. The Pension Vaksmann—there was no sign outside, those who needed to know about it knew about it—was much like its neighbors, old and solidly respectable. De Lyon rang the bell and a maid wearing a pink apron, squinting through the smoke of a cigarette held in her lips, feather duster in one hand, dustpan in the other, opened the door and said, “Good evening, gents, she’s in the kitchen.”

Down a dark hallway that smelled of musty carpets, the kitchen, where, from a chair at the kitchen table, Frau Vaksmann was directing the preparation of a stew by two young girls with their sleeves rolled up. Frau Vaksmann was a great mound of a woman in a floral housedress decorated with stains and cigarette ash, her hair thin and fluffy from a lifetime of drugstore dyes and home beauty parlors. When she saw de Lyon she gave a cry of delight, struggled to her feet, and embraced him, as they both laughed with the pleasure of old friends reunited. “Dearest Max,” she said, “where have you been?”

“All over, my love, lately in Paris. And, to tell you the truth, this Berlin you have these days is not my favorite place.”

“Oh, it’s Hitler’s city now. The other day I bought a mama doll for my grandchild but when you pressed the doll’s stomach it didn’t say ‘Mama,’ it said ‘Heil Hitler.’ ”

De Lyon shook his head in despair, then said, “Cristián Ferrar, my old friend Sarah Vaksmann.”

“It’s Helga now,” Frau Vaksmann said. “Has been for a couple of years—no point in letting the world in on your secrets. And,
every few weeks when I can stand it, my neighbors see me in church. Being a Jew is not a good idea around here, so …”