Page 26 of The Banned Books of Berlin

Berlin, May 1933

‘You can have my story,’ Freya said, holding out the envelope. ‘Show it to your agent, say you wrote it – I don’t care. Obviously you’ll have to translate it into English first, or have it translated, but that should be easy enough to arrange.’

Rupert took a long pull on his cigarette, squinting at her through the smoke. ‘And in return, you want me to let this gentleman,’ he gestured towards Leon, pale and tense in his Nazi uniform, ‘travel on my passport with my boat and train tickets.’

Freya nodded. ‘Once the ship has sailed, you can report the passport as stolen and apply for another one, and an entry visa for America.’

‘Which will take weeks, if not months,’ Rupert said.

‘I can pull a few strings at the passport office,’ Violet said. ‘And we’ll reimburse you for the tickets, obviously.’

‘I’ll pay you back,’ Leon said quietly, and she shrugged.

‘You’d be doing a good thing,’ Freya told Rupert.

He laughed. ‘Since when has that ever swayed me? I won’t ask what this fellow has done to require such a speedy exit.’ But he stubbed out his cigarette and took the envelope from Freya’s hands, pulled out her typescript and leafed through the first few pages.

‘Obviously you’ll be writing your own novels soon enough,’ Freya told him. ‘You could think of this as a calling card, so to speak, which might open a few doors at first.’

‘Well, it will need work,’ Rupert said. ‘And how do I know you won’t change your mind if by any chance I managed to make this manuscript a success?’

‘I could write a letter, relinquishing all rights to you,’ Freya replied. ‘I’ll do that straight away, if you like.’

‘What are they saying?’ whispered Franz Schwartz’s American boyfriend, Grant somebody or other, in English. He had startlingly white teeth and extremely blue eyes, and looked altogether unreal.

‘I’ll tell you later,’ Franz whispered back.

‘I have, in fact, read your little story already and I might be able to do something with it,’ Rupert said loftily. ‘All right, Freya. Perhaps at last it’s time for me to play the knight in shining armour. Write your letter and we have a deal.’

He pulled out the chair at his desk, took a pen out of the pocket of his blazer and a sheet of paper from the drawer. Freya sat and wrote something she hoped would satisfy him, though it probably wasn’t legally binding and the sentences flew out of her head the moment she laid down the pen. Rupert took the note to Franz and Grant so that they could sign as witnesses, then tucked it into his jacket pocket. Freya’s head swam as she stood and shook his hand, not wanting to meet his cunning, greedy eyes. She should be grateful to him for saving Leon, but she was giving away part of her soul and despised him for accepting it. Instead she glanced at Franz, and they exchanged small, sad smiles.

‘We’ll take good care of your friend.’ Franz clapped Leon on the back. ‘And we’ll keep a chair warm for you, Rupert.’

‘This is all very moving,’ Violet said, looking towards the dining table, ‘but is that food going to waste?’ The platter of pork knuckles lying on a mound of sauerkraut looked hardly touched.

‘Please, come and eat,’ Rupert said, rubbing his hands together. ‘We’d planned a nostalgic farewell meal but my landlady’s Eisbein proved less than tempting in reality. And there are a couple of bottles of wine that need to be drunk before morning.’

They took their places at the table while Rupert fetched more crockery and glasses from the sideboard. Freya’s hand shook as she raised the wine to her mouth.

‘You should eat something,’ Violet said impatiently from across the table. ‘We have a long journey ahead of us and you need to keep up your strength.’

But Freya couldn’t chew or swallow anything solid; her throat was too constricted. The sight of Walther Grube’s mutilated body kept flashing into her mind. What if the trunk hadn’t sunk after all but floated away downriver, to be washed ashore with the tide tomorrow? She glanced up to find Leon staring at her, his expression enigmatic. He wasn’t eating much either. This whole situation was her fault: that’s what he must have been thinking. If she hadn’t gone near the pyre at Opernplatz, security wouldn’t have been increased and Egon might not have been followed and arrested. But we are both alive, she told herself, and soon, please God, we shall be leaving Germany. She was desperate to go, even though Violet clearly resented being lumbered with her, and she had no idea where they were heading or what was waiting for her once they got there. She had become a child again, waiting to be told what to do.

When at last Violet had laid her knife and fork together, she wiped her mouth with a napkin, threw it down and said, ‘I suppose the time has come for us to part ways. Franz, can you lend Leon some clothes for the journey? I think you’re nearest his size. And Rupert, perhaps a spare pair of specs? And some Brylcreem? Once his hair is smoothed back, you won’t look too dissimilar.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Rupert replied, raising his hand in an ironic salute.

Violet got to her feet with the air of someone preparing to shoulder a burden. ‘Come on then, Freya. We’d better say our farewells.’

Freya obediently stood too, holding on to the back of her chair as her legs were suddenly weak.

‘Goodbye then, Leon,’ Violet said, holding out her hand. A tiny muscle twitched in her jaw and her eyes were fixed wide open. She was trying very hard not to cry, Freya realised with a shock, as Leon shook hands with her, then turned away and opened his arms to Freya.

‘Thank you,’ he whispered in her ear as they embraced.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said quietly. ‘For everything.’ But he only shook his head.

Violet kissed Rupert and Franz on both cheeks and shook hands with Grant, who said, bewildered, that it had been a pleasure to meet her, and Freya did the same.

‘Right then,’ Violet said, with evident relief. ‘Off we go. Good luck, everyone.’

And then they were out in the street again. Freya took Violet’s arm, though she could tell Violet didn’t want to be encumbered by her.

‘I suppose you absolutely had to bring this?’ Violet asked, holding up Freya’s typewriter case, which she had offered to carry. ‘I did tell you to only bring necessities.’

‘That is a necessity,’ Freya replied. ‘I’d sooner ditch my suitcase.’ Violet shook her head.

Freya was overwhelmed by the rush of people who swept them along, by the strange orange glow in the night sky, as though dawn were already breaking, and by a distant, pulsing roar.

‘We’ll have to take the tram,’ Violet snapped, as though this were an added irritation. ‘It’s too far to walk all the way.’

‘Where are we going?’ Freya asked.

‘To the British Embassy,’ came the reply. ‘In the same direction as everyone else, so at least we don’t have to swim against the tide.’

The same direction: into the official heart of the city, towards the Brandenburg Gate and Opernplatz, where books were to be burned and Goebbels was to make the speech that his admirer Walther Grube would never hear. It was still drizzling. Freya lifted her face to the sky and felt raindrops, like tears, run down her cheek. She kept a tight hold on Violet’s arm with one hand and held her suitcase in the other as they boarded the tram and stood in a crush of passengers by the rear window, jammed too tightly for there to be any danger of falling. A familiar landmark from her childhood vanished into the dark: the southern perimeter of Tiergarten and the Asian-style gate to the zoo, guarded on each side by the two vast stone elephants which she and Otto had once climbed upon. They had been shouted at by a policeman, she remembered, but Ernst had ruffled their hair and bought them doughnuts from the café. Otto might bring his own children here one day, and tell them that story.

‘We’ll get off here,’ Violet said as the tram approached Potsdamer Platz.

Freya had never seen the square so crowded. Hordes of people lined the pavement outside the imposing Palast Hotel, swastikas flapped in the rain and the swelling sound became deafening: stamping feet, pounding drums and voices raised in song and cheers. Violet nudged Freya’s side and jerked her head backwards, and Freya gasped as she caught sight of the advancing stormtroopers, each carrying a flaming torch which lit his stern, implacable face. The Nazis knew what she had done and they were coming to get her. Instinctively, she broke into a run.

‘Stop!’ Violet hissed, grabbing her elbow. ‘We’re nearly there.’

She kept a tight hold on Freya’s arm as they walked briskly along Leipziger Strasse, turned down a side road and then hurried up the steps of an imposing colonnaded entrance and pulled open one of the double doors. She showed some form of identification to the official who stepped forward to meet them and Freya held out her passport, which seemed to do. The man glanced at both documents and ushered them inside.

Violet let out her breath. ‘Right, now I’m going to talk to a few people while you stay put. Understand?’ And she led the way towards a vast double staircase, soaring up to a panelled dome that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a cathedral. They took the lefthand side of the staircase, hurrying now, and turned left along a corridor at the top. Violet opened a door at the end of the passage and hustled Freya into a smallish, bare room with an enormously high ceiling. A mahogany desk stood at one end, facing two rows of chairs, and two plump horsehair sofas faced each other on opposite walls. Violet sat Freya down on one of them, dropped the typewriter case at its foot and stood back to catch her breath.

‘Give me your passport,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can, and you’re not to worry. I’m going to lock the door but that’s just for your own safety.’

Freya nodded, past caring, although she did wonder why she should need protection inside an embassy. The question was not reassuring. She closed her eyes and then, overcome by a bone-deep weariness, laid down her head, tucked up her legs on the fat, unyielding cushions and fell asleep.

Violet reappeared some hours later with a suitcase of her own and a couple of rugs, one of which she tossed to Freya. ‘We’ll be spending the night here and then in the morning, we’ll leave for England,’ she said, giving Freya back her passport. ‘You’ll have to work as a domestic servant – to start off with, at least. My parents have a house in the country and they’re always looking for staff.’

‘Thank you, Violet,’ Freya said. ‘This is very good of you.’

‘Well, you’ll be earning your keep,’ she replied, unlacing her boots and kicking them off. ‘But it’ll be a roof over your head until you can find your feet. It’ll give you a chance to learn the language, too.’ And with that, she bundled her coat into a pillow and lay down on the sofa, closing her eyes.

Freya was wide awake now, open-eyed in the dark. In one day, her life had changed beyond all recognition; she would be leaving her beloved city in a few hours, never to return. As the square of sky beyond a window set high in the wall began imperceptibly to lighten, she sat up, reached for her coat and shoes, and tiptoed towards the door. The lobby below was quiet, with only a security guard asleep in a chair beside the main entrance. She crept downstairs and headed towards the rear of the building in search of a more discreet exit. Eventually she found a side door through the kitchens and let herself out into the street as dawn was breaking. Evidence of the previous night’s revelry lay in gutters: broken glass, a swastika banner trampled in a muddy puddle, lengths of charred wood, a drunk sprawled by the side of the road. A few other people were about, picking their way through the debris, but no one paid Freya much attention.

She headed north towards the Brandenburg Gate and Unter den Linden, turning right into Opernplatz. This was what she had come to see: the great smoking ruin of everything she held dear. The ground beneath her feet was softened by a damp, sooty sludge that coated her shoes, and the air smelt of cinders. Nobody was guarding the site anymore and she was able to walk right up to it and poke at the blackened spars. Lifting her head, she gazed up at the attic windows of the law faculty, wondering whether haughty Magda were safe, and if Egon were still alive.

Turning to leave, her eye was caught by a flicker of movement and she saw pages fluttering in the half light, like the wings of a large white moth. She dropped to her knees and reached through a lattice of burned wood to retrieve the book that had somehow escaped the blaze, singed but intact, and smiled as she recognised a collection of Heinrich Heine’s poetry. She kissed its blackened cover and slipped the book into her pocket. Ingrid was wishing her God speed and watching over her even now. Perhaps, after all, she would get through.

They left for the train station only a couple of hours later, in three identical black limousines. The outgoing ambassador, referred to by Violet as Sir Horace, travelled in the first with his wife, his private secretary, a valet and a bodyguard. Violet and Freya went in the second car, alongside two female secretaries who were returning to London, and the third was full of security staff, according to Violet. The party boarded a train bound for the Netherlands at Friedrichstrasse station, beside the River Spree, where they divided: Sir Horace’s party heading for first class, the secretaries for second, and Violet and Freya taking seats in third. Freya had reimbursed Violet for her tickets, which had taken most of the money she had. Neither Sir Horace nor his wife had acknowledged her presence in any way, and the secretaries had ignored her, too. Now Freya leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes, terrified that if she were to look out of the window, she might see a trunk bobbing past in the water. Only when the train had pulled out of the station with a shriek and a tremendous blast of steam did her shoulders relax a little.

It took hours to cross the gently undulating countryside of North Germany, stopping at various stations along the way where there was sometimes a chance to buy black bread, sausage and milky coffee from women who held their trays up to the train windows. Around mid-afternoon, they reached the Dutch border, where their papers were checked again. The first time she’d presented her newly stamped passport at Friedrichstrasse station, Freya’s heart had been in her mouth, but the guard had merely glanced at it before clipping her train ticket and passing the documents back to her.

‘Don’t look so frightened,’ Violet muttered this time as two of the border police boarded the train, so she forced herself to smile as she handed her passport to them. It seemed to her that he took a particularly long time to check it, glancing back at her, but at last he closed the booklet and returned it to her with a curt nod. The guards disembarked and the train drew away, and then they were leaving Germany for the flat, marshy Dutch coast, heading towards the Hook of Holland and the night boat which would take them across the North Sea to England.

Violet had been quiet for most of the journey. She looked so different in her tweed suit and raincoat, a silk headscarf tied over her cropped hair. Was she glad to be leaving Germany for home, or wretched at parting from Leon? It was impossible to tell.

The two of them were sharing a cabin on the ship and Violet went to stretch her legs on deck and watch the boat leave harbour while Freya changed into her nightclothes. She had no desire to be out in the open; she wanted to lock the door and hide away in the dark. When the ship’s vast engines roared into life and she sensed movement through the swell of water beneath, she felt nothing but relief.

Violet came down below deck an hour or so later. She sat on the edge of Freya’s bed, stretched out her legs and stared at her sensible shoes.

‘I took the bottom bunk,’ Freya said. ‘Is that all right?’

‘We’ll have this conversation only once,’ Violet replied, ‘but I wanted to tell you a few things before we reach England.’

Freya nodded.

‘Well, the first and most important thing is that I’m trusting you not to mention any of my extra-curricular activities to anyone at home,’ Violet went on. ‘Or outside it, for that matter. A lot of people could get into trouble if you breathe a word. Is that clear?’

Freya nodded again.

‘As far as anyone else is concerned, I’ve simply been sowing my wild oats in Berlin, but now I’m coming back to Blighty because I never stick at anything for longer than five minutes.’ Violet untied her headscarf and shook out her hair, and for a moment, she looked like her old self again. She folded the scarf into a neat triangle and tucked it in her coat pocket.

‘Now as for you, life will seem very strange for the next little while. I suggest you try to learn English as quickly as possible. There are plenty of people who fought in the Great War and won’t look at you kindly. With your skills, the housekeeper will probably want you as a lady’s maid, but you might be better off working in the kitchen. Most women of my mother’s type are insufferable, especially where servants are concerned, and the less you have to do with them the better.’

‘All right,’ Freya said slowly, the realities of life in service beginning to hit her.

‘You may have to swallow your pride but you’ll be safe, and well looked after.’ Violet patted her knee under the blanket. ‘And don’t keep brooding about what happened yesterday. I know it’s shocking but you did the right thing.’

‘I killed him,’ Freya whispered.

‘It was a fight for survival,’ Violet said briskly. ‘You against him, and you won, thank goodness. He was about to turn you in to the police, and Leon too, and that would have been it for both of you.’ She drew a finger across her throat. ‘So don’t think about that anymore. If you get into a complete funk, you can come and talk to me, but don’t for God’s sake tell anyone else.’

‘Can I ask you a question?’ Freya said.

‘Well, you can try,’ Violet replied. ‘Whether I’ll answer is another matter.’

‘What did Leon leave in the bonfire?’

She smiled. ‘Some high explosives, primed to go off when the thing was lit. The Nazis aren’t fools: they’d been watching him, and the others, too, waiting for them to show their hand. Let’s hope he can make it to America. You’ve almost certainly saved his life, if that’s any consolation.’

‘It was all pointless,’ Freya murmured. ‘We had no chance, any of us.’

‘But you tried,’ Violet said sharply. ‘You recognised Hitler for the madman he is, and that’s not nothing. Sir Horace understands, too, but who knows whether the government will listen to him, or whether his replacement will see the danger. I’m very much afraid it’s too late for Germany now. There are interesting times ahead.’