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Authors: Margaret Mayhew

The Pathfinder (10 page)

BOOK: The Pathfinder
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‘Yes, it would be best.'
She shut the door after him and went to sit in Grandfather's armchair to wait for Dirk to come home safely. She was still shaking. The rest of the English chocolate lay on the table. Rudi and Dirk could have her share. She didn't want any of it. Not a crumb.
Five
May turned to June. The new runway at Gatow was progressing but not expected to be ready until the end of July at the earliest. Meanwhile the Russians stepped up their harassment of all road and rail traffic. The autobahn bridge over the River Elbe into Berlin was closed by them on the pretext of necessary repairs. The only alternative way to cross the river was on an ancient ferry pulled by cable which could hold only two buses or six cars at a time. The situation was becoming critical.
At a dance at the Officers' Mess, Harrison found Tubby Hill slumped morosely in an anteroom armchair, glass in hand. He raised his head. ‘Do you feel what I feel, Michael?'
‘It depends what that is.'
‘That we're fiddling while Rome burns. Heads stuck in the sand.'
‘Mixing your metaphors a bit, aren't you, Tubby?'
He nodded towards the dance music. ‘There they are all cutting a rug as though we've got nothing whatever to worry about when any day now the Ruskies are going to pull it from under us.'
‘You've got a very short memory. We never let the war stop our station dances, did we? No reason to now.'
Tubby wagged his head slowly from side to side. ‘I told you I was getting old. Things bother me now and I don't like being bothered. Have you heard all these rumours about the new western currency we're going to spring on them?'
‘Well, the Reichsmark is more or less worthless. We have to do something or the economy will never recover.'
‘The Russians are going to be hopping mad about it, mark my words. They'll never accept western currency in their zone. They'll put up the shutters, lock the doors and throw away the keys and that'll be that.'
‘It's a risk we have to take. We can't go tiptoeing around doing nothing because we're afraid of what the Russians might think. Of course they'll cause trouble – bound to – we've just got to stand up to them.'
‘You make it sound so simple but it isn't, you know. As, no doubt, we shall soon discover. By the way, what is that very fancy watch you're wearing? Not RAF issue, I'll be bound.'
‘It's German. My old Omega conked out. A
Fliegerchronograph
.'
‘Speak English, dear boy.'
‘A pilot's watch. I bought it from some German kid who does a bit of black market trading.'
‘Tut, tut.
Et tu
, Michael. I'm surprised at you. I thought you were above such things. Does it keep good time?'
‘So far.'
‘You had better luck than me, then. I was flogged a gold Cartier cigarette lighter once in the Potsdamer Platz. Turned out it was neither gold nor Cartier and it didn't even work properly. I chucked the damn thing out in the end.' Tubby waved a hand. ‘Go away and leave me to drown my sorrows. Do your duty and dance with some of those charming, hard-working WAAFs and be nice to them – they deserve it.'
He smiled and went and found one of the cipher girls he'd noticed around the station. She was rather pretty and from her ready smile and the alacrity with which she accepted his invitation, he thought she had probably noticed him too. He danced several dances with her and toyed with the idea of asking her out but, in the end, decided against it. After all, he was more or less committed to Celia and it would only complicate matters.
‘Good evening, Lili.'
‘Dirk isn't here, Nico.'
‘Actually, it wasn't Dirk I came to see. It was you.' His German was very fluent, almost unaccented.
‘Me? What about?'
‘I have brought you a present.'
‘I had much rather you hadn't.'
He smiled at her. He had a smile like a toad, she thought; or how one imagined a toad would smile – wide and thin-lipped, the lower lip always moist and smooth and shiny – slightly open, as though his tongue might dart out suddenly to catch some insect. ‘My dear Lili, it's my pleasure. A lovely girl like you should have nice things. May I come in?'
He followed her into the big room. Both Grandfather and Rudi had gone to bed which meant that she was alone with him, and Dirk might not be home for hours. He produced the present out of a pocket of his flashy suit. ‘From Paris, Lili. The French make the best.'
It was scent. A small bottle of Chanel No 5 contained in an elegant white cardboard box with black lettering. Her mother had worn the same kind. She could go on refusing but he would go on insisting. ‘Thank you, Nico. However did you get it?'
‘Ways and means. I know how to get almost anything in Berlin.' He often boasted of that and it was probably true. He was that kind of person. He offered a cigarette from his gold case – the Turkish brand that he always smoked.
‘No, thank you.' She could, at least, refuse a cigarette; he could hardly insist on her smoking it. She watched him fit the cigarette into his ebony holder and flick the wheel on his gold lighter with his thumb. It was always gold with him. Gold case, gold watch, gold pin to his tie, gold nib to his pen, gold fillings in his teeth, the flashy gold ring on his finger. The very first time that she had met him she had disliked and distrusted him. He was too smooth, too glib, too Mr Know-All. Dirk had brought him home late one evening in the summer of the year after the war had ended. ‘This is Herr Kocharian,' Dirk had said. ‘He is British.' She had taken one look at Nico and known that if he was of British nationality then it was only by adoption. If things had been different she would have forbidden Dirk to bring him home again, but at that time they had been desperate for any extra food they could get and Nico had given them things – tins of American Spam and corned beef and powdered milk and eggs. And Dirk had gone from doing a little bartering here and there to becoming a fully fledged black marketeer.
The smoke from the Turkish cigarette was almost nauseating. She sat down by the table, at a distance, and Nico took Grandfather's chair. His dark eyes, black as olives, gave away nothing of his thoughts. ‘I also came to warn you, Lili.'
‘About what?'
‘The Russians are going to blockade the western Allies at any moment. They will close all roads, all canals, every access in and out of Berlin. It will be impossible for the British, Americans or French to bring supplies into their sectors and there will be a big crisis.'
‘How do you know this?'
‘You don't need to know that – just to know that it will certainly happen. The Russians are very angry about the new western Deutschmark. They want only their own currency to be used for the whole of Berlin but the other Allies will not agree. At all costs, Lili, you must stay here. There will still be food for everyone in the Soviet sector but not in the western sectors.'
‘What will happen to those people?'
‘If the Allies do not get out the civilians will starve. And they will be starved of raw materials, as well as of food, and what products they can still manage to manufacture for export will be unable to leave the city. Everything will be affected. Everything will collapse. But so long as you stay here in the Russian sector you will survive.'
Survival.
Überleben.
She knew too well exactly what that meant. To survive was to stay alive somehow. Somehow to find enough food and water and warmth to sustain life, to struggle through each day until the next. ‘Squadron Leader Harrison says the British will never leave.'
‘They may have no choice. You have seen Michael again, then?'
‘He came back to buy the Hanhart pilot's watch from Dirk.'
Nico smiled. ‘I rather thought that he might. What do you think of him?'
‘He's a Royal Air Force bomber pilot. What should I think?'
‘You mustn't hold that against him. He's a jolly decent chap.'
‘He has killed hundreds of innocent people. Perhaps thousands.'
‘Dear Lili, that applies to countless men, on both sides. He was only doing his job. In war, one obeys orders. He was extremely brave, that's how he earned his medals. Haven't you noticed them? The ribbons on his uniform?'
‘They don't mean anything to me.'
‘He won the DFC twice as well as the DSO. That's quite impressive, I can tell you. And that gilt eagle badge he wears under them is a Pathfinder's badge. That's even more impressive. Amazing bravery and outstanding devotion to duty – I believe that's the description generally used where they're concerned.'
‘A Pathfinder? What is that?'
‘What it says. Literally. He found a path for the bombers. Went ahead of them and dropped coloured flares on the target to show them precisely where to release their bombs.'
‘My God! He did
that?
Made very sure they didn't miss?'
‘Well, they were usually trying to hit vital targets – factories, railways, docks.'
‘And often they did not care what they hit, so long as they destroyed a city and killed as many Germans as they could. They were barbaric.'
‘The Nazis were not exactly civilized.'
‘I know that,' she said bitterly. ‘You don't have to tell me.'
‘Poor Lili.' He spread his hands, the smoke from his cigarette curling up from the ebony holder slotted between his fingers. ‘It was a terrible war. Everyone suffered. The Germans, the British, the Americans, the Russians. Everyone.'
Except you, Nico, she thought. Somehow I think you have escaped it all. You have learned how to turn everything to your advantage; how to tiptoe a path through the middle of all the misery. She stood up. ‘If you don't mind, I'm rather tired . . .'
He stubbed out his cigarette in the tin lid ashtray and got to his feet. ‘Of course, Lili. Of course. But you will remember what I said? Don't leave this sector, whatever you do.'
She went with him to the front door. He stopped there for a moment and she kept her safe distance. She could smell the smell of him – Turkish cigarettes mingled with musky cologne and whatever oil he used on his slick black hair. He had never touched her, or even tried to, but because of the gifts there was always the dread that he might expect – even demand – her to allow it.
‘If there is ever anything you need, you have only to ask me.'
She said, ‘I wish you would stop Dirk from what he is doing – that's what I ask. It's so dangerous. The Russians arrest black marketeers. They are dragged away and never seen again. I live in fear of this happening to him.'
‘It would be very hard to stop him. Dirk will do as he wants, you know that.'
‘But you have encouraged him.'
‘I have not discouraged him, that's all. This is a cruel city and only those who help themselves will survive. But I will urge him to be more careful, if you like.'
‘Please do.'
‘If Dirk gets into any trouble, let me know at once.'
She couldn't keep the scorn from her voice. ‘What could you do?'
‘Something.' He smiled his toad's smile at her. ‘I can always do something. Goodnight, Lili.'
She went and sat in Grandfather's chair and closed her eyes, feeling very tired and very afraid. She had no doubt that what Nico had warned was true; he always knew everything that was going on. The Russians would blockade the city and the British, Americans and French would eventually have to leave and when that happened Berlin would be lost. It would be even worse, if possible, than living under the Nazis. The whole city would be put under Communist rule with brutal commissars and a Secret Police force, without freedom or justice or mercy. They would be allowed only the barest necessities for existence and they would live in constant fear. The Russians hated them and had a mountain of scores to settle. She had not forgotten – how could she ever – the terrible days when the Red Army had reached Berlin at the end of the war. She covered her face with her hands at the memory of it.
It had been the day after her sixteenth birthday when their tanks had come rumbling like thunder through the streets. What little there was left of the city had been burned and pillaged. Men had been rounded up and transported to labour camps in the Soviet Union. Women of all ages had been raped and tortured, mutilated with bayonets, savagely murdered. The few treasures remaining to families had been looted by Russian soldiers and what they could not carry away, they had destroyed. She and Grandfather, Dirk and Rudi had hidden deep in a U-Bahn tunnel, living off bread and water for days on end, and when they had finally crept out they had witnessed a scene of hell. People were shambling about dressed in rags, scavenging like dogs for scraps of food in the still-burning ruins and queuing for water with buckets in long lines, numb despair on their faces. The most terrible thing of all had been the stench of the rotting corpses – a stench so sickening it made you retch and retch and retch. They had returned to the apartment in Albrecht Strasse and found it stripped almost bare of anything that had previously survived the bombing. Pictures, silver, ornaments, jewellery, clothes had all gone. The piano had been chopped to pieces, china smashed, books kicked about and hurled out into the courtyard, upholstery slashed and fouled, furniture wrecked beyond repair, even the taps in the kitchen and bathroom had been wrenched off and taken away by Russian peasant soldiers who had believed they would still provide running water. By some strange miracle, Mother's hats, kept in the old trunk in a corner, had not been touched. She had lifted the lid to see them all still there, as beautiful as ever with their rich colours, their swathes of gossamer silk veiling and their glossy feathers. The sight of them had made her break down and weep.
BOOK: The Pathfinder
3.11Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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