Page 27 of The Banned Books of Berlin

San Francisco, October 2024

‘I’m so sorry, Daniel,’ Maddie texted. ‘My flight’s been delayed and now I won’t arrive till 1.30. Shall I meet you outside the apartment?’ They’d been going to have lunch before meeting Waldo Brookes in his Nob Hill apartment, but now there wouldn’t be time.

‘There’s a deli across the street,’ Daniel replied, and sent her a pin with the details. ‘See you there whenever you can make it. DW if yr late, you can always join us later.’

Maddie leaned back in her seat, closing her eyes. She’d had hardly any sleep the night before and her head was spinning. Deep breaths, she told herself; take it one step at a time. She and Daniel had been texting regularly since her previous visit home and had managed to hit the right tone: businesslike when necessary, friendly but never, ever flirtatious. She couldn’t stop thinking about him, though, and now she would arrive even more flustered and distracted. She would have to empty her mind and concentrate on the job in hand: seeing if there were any connections between Freya Amsel, the mysterious Rupert Harrington and his agent, Frank Schwartz. Daniel had told her that Waldo Brookes managed his late uncle’s estate meticulously, and he had a large collection of manuscripts, photographs and correspondence which they might be able to consult.

‘He seems a bit anal to me,’ Daniel had texted. ‘Like he doesn’t want anyone else touching his uncle’s things. If he hadn’t read my latest review and approved, he prob wouldn’t have agreed to see us.’

Maddie rushed through the arrivals hall and took a cab towards the Golden Gate Bridge, through the city and, at last, up one of San Francisco’s vertiginous hills to the deli where Daniel was waiting. She’d booked an Airbnb nearby for the night and would explore the city tomorrow, maybe take some notes for an article. She wondered whether Daniel had made any plans to stay and whether maybe they might have dinner together – but no, she wasn’t going there. Not when her mind was in enough turmoil already.

‘You made it!’ Daniel said, rising to greet her with a hug as she rushed through the door. ‘I got you a cappuccino to go and some water. And a muffin, but you can save that for later.’

It was lovely to see him, it really was. ‘Thank you,’ she said, taking a bite of the muffin and a mouthful of coffee. ‘You’re a lifesaver.’

‘Now we’d better go.’ Daniel took her arm. ‘I’m guessing Mr Brookes is a stickler for punctuality. Apparently he used to be an interior designer, so his place should be impressive.’

Waldo Brookes himself was certainly stylish. He wore a dark blazer with an open-neck shirt and a paisley-silk cravat, impeccably cut chinos and polished tasselled loafers. He was probably in his seventies, Maddie estimated, but well-preserved. She wanted to ask him about his skin-care regime.

‘Do come in,’ he said, eyeing Maddie’s takeaway cup doubtfully.

‘Shall I leave this in the kitchen?’ she asked, stuffing the muffin and water hurriedly into her purse.

‘Let me take it for you,’ he said. ‘The bathroom is just here’ – he opened a door off the hall – ‘if you’d like to freshen up.’

Maddie looked at herself in the mirror as she washed her hands and groaned inwardly: hair all over the place and poppy seeds caught in her teeth. The bathroom was immaculate. A white orchid in a pot on the black marble countertop was lit by a single spotlight, and every surface gleamed. The handwash smelt of old leather and libraries.

‘You have a spectacular apartment,’ she told Mr Brookes, rejoining him and Daniel in the open-plan living and dining room. ‘My goodness, that view! How do you ever get anything done?’ Beyond the huge windows and wraparound balcony, you could see right down to the bay, where at that moment a ferry was sailing majestically by.

‘It is rather special,’ he replied, adjusting his cravat. ‘But let’s go through to my office and get down to business. I don’t want to take up too much of your valuable time.’ Or give you too much of mine, was the implication.

The office was a spacious room, three walls entirely taken up by bookshelves from floor to ceiling and the third panelled in dark wood. Waldo Brookes sat behind a large desk in the centre, while Maddie and Daniel took the two chairs opposite. Maddie felt as though she was about to be interviewed for a job she had no chance of getting, though Daniel seemed as easy and relaxed as ever. He explained their interest in European émigrés to Hollywood in the thirties and forties, thanks to their family history, and in The Magic Garden in particular, both the book and the movie which followed.

‘As you told me in your email, Mr Lewin,’ Brookes said, reaching for a pile of documents on top of a box file and passing a folder to Daniel. ‘I have the original typescript here, if you’d like a look. The book was published in 1939, just before war broke out in Europe, and it did quite well. Nazis make very good baddies.’ He smiled. ‘Although sales really took off once the movie appeared, in 1943.’

Maddie looked over Daniel’s shoulder. ‘The Magic Garden, by Rupert Harrington,’ she read on the first thin, yellowing page – typed in a font that was nothing like that of her great-grandmother’s typewriter. The ‘e’s were all perfectly aligned and only the letter ‘k’ seemed to stick.

‘Could you tell me a little about your uncle, Frank Schwartz?’ she asked Mr Brookes. ‘Did you know him well?’

Waldo Brookes’ face lit up as he smiled. ‘Oh yes, we were very close,’ he said. ‘He was a lovely man with a wonderful sense of humour. Of course, he could drive a hard bargain, but he was generous and kind-hearted, and all his authors adored him. Here he is.’ He turned around a framed photograph to show her.

Maddie saw a man in his fifties with grey, wavy hair swept back off his forehead and smiling eyes. ‘He looks so nice,’ she said. An anodyne word she’d always been told not to use, but it seemed appropriate here.

‘He certainly was,’ Brookes agreed. ‘I loved Uncle Frank. He was the perfect role model: a single man, without a family, but so warm and leading such an interesting, creative life. I still miss him.’

‘Uncle Frank’: that phrase rang a bell, but before Maddie could ask herself why, another thought occurred to her. ‘I don’t suppose there was ever a German version of the text, was there?’ she asked. ‘I mean, both he and Rupert Harrington came from Berlin, didn’t they?’

‘Now, how did you come to know that?’ Mr Brookes asked, sitting back in the chair. ‘As a matter of fact, there is a German version. I have it here.’ He pulled out the box file and rifled through it. ‘Here we are.’ And he passed her a large envelope.

‘The Magic Garden, by Rupert Harrington,’ proclaimed the title page in the same type as before, and Maddie’s heart sank again. When she looked at the manuscript itself, though, it felt as though an electric current had run through her.

‘It’s strange,’ Brookes went on, ‘because Rupert Harrington wasn’t bilingual by any stretch of the imagination and he never wrote anything else in German. Or that much in English, come to that. Uncle Frank encouraged me to learn the language and I can still speak it, although I’m a little rusty, and read it. I’ll tell you something else that’s odd: the German Magic Garden is much more powerful. It has a poetry that the English translation lacks.’

‘And I know why,’ Maddie said, in a faint voice. ‘It’s because my great-grandmother wrote it.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Brookes asked, and Maddie was aware of Daniel staring at her.

She cleared her throat. ‘I have a typewriter at home that belonged to my great-grandmother, Freya Amsel – the same typewriter she used to type this script. Not the title page, which must have been added later, but the rest. It’s unmistakeable: the “e” jumps and the top of the “m” is faint.’ She showed Mr Brookes a page from the stack in front of her.

‘So we were right!’ Daniel exclaimed. ‘Rupert Harrington must have stolen the story.’

‘That’s a serious allegation,’ Brookes said. ‘You’ll need proof if you want to take it any further.’

‘Mr Brookes—’ Daniel began.

‘Please, do call me Waldo,’ Brookes interrupted. (Such an inappropriate name for him, somehow.)

‘Waldo, is there any correspondence between your uncle and Freya Amsel?’ Daniel went on.

‘I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘It’s not a name that sounds familiar. Let me check, though.’ He swivelled around in his chair to press one of the wood panels behind him, which swung open to reveal vertical racks of filing cabinets. ‘Now let me see. Amsel, Amsel …’ Springing to his feet, he drew a fat folder out of the top drawer and began leafing through it.

And all of a sudden, Maddie heard her grandfather saying, ‘There was a guy I used to call Uncle Frank who would come visit. He was a work friend, I think.’

‘Waldo, may I take a picture of your uncle and send it to my grandfather?’ she asked.

‘Sure,’ he said, without looking up.

‘Random question: do you recognise this man?’ Maddie typed, pinging the photo across to Gramps.

‘Nothing, I’m afraid,’ Brookes said, shaking his head as he reached the end of the folder.

‘Try under her married name,’ Daniel suggested. ‘Freya Cole, wasn’t it, Maddie?’

Brookes replaced the folder and ran his fingers along the next row, muttering, ‘Cole, Cole, Cole.’ Then he took out another folder, had a quick look and slapped it down on the desk. ‘Now this might be more promising.’

Maddie was desperate to tear the papers Brookes was reading out of his hands, but he made her wait. At last he glanced up at her with a smile and said, ‘Yes, it would seem they knew each other well. See for yourself.’ And he passed her the open folder.

Freya Cole sprang immediately to life before Maddie’s eyes. Business letters were typed in that characteristic font but the more personal correspondence was handwritten. Freya had a bold, looping hand and her notes were generously sprinkled with exclamation points and sometimes tiny drawings in the margins. She was warm and witty, thanking Frank for trips to the theatre, dinners and cocktail parties, or inviting him to birthday picnics for Bobby, barbecues on the beach and Thanksgiving dinners – always in English, as were Frank’s replies.

There was only one note handwritten in German, which she passed back to Waldo Brookes. ‘Can you understand this? Daniel speaks the language, if not.’

‘I can,’ Brookes replied. ‘As I said, my uncle insisted I learned.’ He read the page and said, ‘Well, there’s your proof. Freya Amsel is relinquishing all rights in The Magic Garden manuscript and assigning them to Rupert Harrington. So I’m afraid you won’t have any legal redress, but you’re right, she was clearly the original author.’ He looked into the distance, adding, ‘I got the impression from Uncle Frank that Harrington wasn’t a particularly nice man.’

‘And nothing else of hers was published,’ Maddie murmured.

Freya’s typed letters and the carbon copies of Frank’s were less personal in tone. They referred to a collection of short stories, at least one of which Freya was working up into a full-length novel. Frank reassured her that the writing was exceptional but said he was having trouble finding an editor who would commit to publishing them. He listed all those he’d approached before eventually concluding,

I’m afraid word seems to have gotten around that you are a Communist; I believe our mutual friend may have been spreading rumours. We both know how ridiculous that accusation is, but the book trade is wary and libraries are now under pressure to remove ‘dubious’ material from their shelves. Ironic, isn’t it, when you think what we went through. Or perhaps heart-breaking would be a more accurate word. At any rate, we may have to accept that now is not the best time to bring your writing to the world’s attention. Your day will come, though, I’m sure of that. Don’t despair.

‘I understand,’ Freya had replied to this letter. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well – I would have wanted the stories to be published anonymously, anyway. Maybe it would be safer to wait until after my death.’

‘These stories they mention,’ Daniel said to Waldo Brookes. ‘Would your uncle have kept copies?’

‘I’m trying to find them right now,’ he replied, standing on a small stepladder to reach the upper bookshelves. ‘He returned most unpublished typescripts, but this one might have had sentimental value. Let’s see.’

Maddie’s phone pinged just then with a reply from Gramps. ‘That’s Uncle Frank!!! I remember him clearly. Might even have a photograph of him in one of Mom’s albums. Where did you find that picture, and how did you know?!!’

‘Tell you later,’ Maddie texted back, and turned off her phone.

Waldo took down a couple of box files and placed them on the desk. ‘This is the Miscellaneous section,’ he said briskly. ‘If the script is anywhere, it’ll be here.’

Maddie offered to look through one of the boxes and he let her, though she could tell that another person going through Frank’s papers made him nervous. In any event, it was Waldo who drew out a folder, rifled through a few pages and cried, ‘Aha! We’ve struck gold.’

‘Let me see,’ Maddie demanded, coming around to his side of the desk.

‘It’s from the same typewriter, I believe?’ he said, looking up at her – and so it was.

The typescript was inches thick: story after story in Freya’s distinctive, elegant voice, and all written in English. The title page read ‘Underground Whispers’, and the author was listed as ‘Anonymous’. Overleaf, Maddie read an extract from a poem she had never heard of, A Map of Verona , by Henry Reed, written in 1942 about a city at war, the unreliability of memory and the ‘underground whispers of music beneath the years’.

Maddie hugged the folder to her chest. She already knew so much. Could these stories be the final pieces of the jigsaw?

‘Can we take a photocopy of this typescript?’ Daniel asked Waldo.

‘You may have the original,’ he answered. ‘It belongs with Maddie’s family, and my uncle would have wanted me to return it to its rightful home.’ Their time was evidently up, as he stood to usher them out. ‘Well, from an unpromising beginning, this has turned into quite an exciting afternoon. Let’s keep in touch.’

‘Daniel, I can’t thank you enough,’ Maddie said when they were out in the street again. ‘I’d never have found these stories without you. It feels like Freya’s within touching distance. I’ve learned something extraordinary about her that I can’t wait to share with you.’

‘Sounds intriguing.’ He smiled, then put an arm around her shoulder. ‘But first, let’s get some lunch – you must be starving.’

They went back to the deli and sat at a table in the window. ‘I’m just so relieved you agreed to come,’ Daniel said, looking at a chalked menu above the counter. ‘After I jumped on you last time, I mean. I thought you might not want to see me again.’

A warm, happy glow filled Maddie’s entire body. Maybe she hadn’t screwed everything up, after all. She waved her hand. ‘Oh, come on! You didn’t jump on me. It was cute.’

‘But I should have asked your permission,’ Daniel said, still not meeting her eye. ‘You know, boundaries and everything.’

‘But where’s the fun in that?’ Maddie asked him. ‘Can’t anyone be spontaneous anymore?’ And she leaned across the table, took his face in both hands and kissed him back – a little longer than was strictly necessary, because his lips were so soft and lovely, and the kissing melted her from the inside.

‘There,’ she said, letting him go. ‘Now we’re quits. See, it’s just a kiss.’

‘Well, that was fun,’ he said, laughing. ‘You’ll be giving me ideas.’

‘Oh, Daniel, I have so much to tell you,’ Maddie went on. ‘But can I talk to you in confidence? Could you keep a secret from Eva, at least for the time being? I don’t want to put you in a difficult position, but I really need advice from someone I can trust.’

‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘Let’s order some food and then you can go ahead.’

Maddie shrugged. ‘I’ll have what you’re having, whatever. My head is so full, I think it might explode. But first things first.’ She took a large, slim book from her backpack and held it up.

‘Beechwood Grange: A House Through History,’ Daniel read.

‘That’s the book I mentioned – you know, the one I found online?’ She rifled through the pages. ‘And look! The photograph on the right, the one of all the household staff in 1933 – Freya’s in the back row.’ She passed the open book across the table.

‘You think?’ Daniel said, examining the page up close. ‘It’s hard to tell for sure.’

‘No, it isn’t!’ Maddie exclaimed. She scrolled to the picture of Violet and Freya on her phone and gave it to him to compare. ‘See? I was certain it was her – and in point of fact, I know I was right because I’ve been in touch with the Framley-Chambers family at Beechwood Grange.’

‘Seriously?’

She nodded. ‘I wrote to them initially, and we’ve been emailing ever since. Actually they’re called Covington-Chambers now, and they have another name with a title that’s even more confusing, but still … Anyway, I always thought Freya’s friend Violet was the key to the whole mystery, and it turns out she is. I had a Zoom call with Felicity Covington-Chambers yesterday and she told me everything. You’re not going to believe this.’

‘Try me,’ Daniel said, leaning back in his chair.

So Maddie began, right at the beginning. She talked until the waitress had cleared their table and clearly wanted them to leave, so they ordered takeaway coffees and found a bench further down the hill, and she was still talking when Daniel suggested they find a bar for an early-evening drink. Occasionally, he asked her a question but for most of the time he just listened, his eyes fixed on her face.

‘My God,’ he said, when at last Maddie was all talked out, ‘that is some story.’

‘I know.’ Maddie sipped her wine. ‘But how am I going to tell Gramps? What if he gets upset and has a heart attack or something?’

Daniel considered the question. ‘I don’t think that’s very likely. This is too big, Maddie. Now you’ve found out, you can’t keep it to yourself. Your mother’s involved, too.’

She groaned. ‘My mother. She wanted me to leave the past alone.’

‘But I bet she’ll be glad you didn’t. Once she’s got over the shock, that is.’ Daniel put his hand over Maddie’s for a moment. ‘It’s not fair that we know all this and your grandfather doesn’t. You need to tell him right away. Don’t go back to Portland – come to LA with me this evening instead. You can fly home from there tomorrow.’ He took out his phone. ‘Let me see if they have a last-minute ticket, or maybe you could try standby.’

‘That’ll cost a fortune,’ Maddie said, though her heart was beginning to race.

‘I’ll split it with you,’ Daniel said. ‘We’re in this together.’

And somehow, miraculously, it was all arranged. The Airbnb would have to go to waste but Maddie cancelled her flight back to Portland and bought a ticket to LA on the same flight as Daniel that evening instead. She couldn’t let him pay for any part of it; he’d done enough for her already. They were sitting a couple of rows apart on the plane but he bought a tiny bottle of champagne and passed it forward to her, via a kind woman in the middle – whereupon Maddie’s neighbour offered to swap seats with Daniel so they could sit together.

‘Look out,’ he said, chinking his bottle against hers. ‘I might forget myself and kiss you again.’

‘Don’t spoil the surprise,’ she replied, and then of course they were kissing, though who could say who’d started it, and the kiss was wonderful – but too public. Luckily it was a short flight.

‘Does your mom know you’re here?’ Daniel asked as they walked through the arrivals hall at LAX. He had taken her hand, which felt perfectly natural.

‘Not yet,’ Maddie answered. ‘I’ve told her I’ll see her in the morning.’

He smiled. ‘Good. Let’s take a cab to mine.’

They managed to keep apart in the Uber out of consideration for the driver, although it was difficult, and then at last Daniel was punching in a code outside a building somewhere in Glendale, and they were hurrying through the lobby and into an elevator and kissing properly now, hungrily, and Maddie felt she had never been so blissfully happy in her entire life.

‘My apartment’s not as tidy as Waldo’s,’ Daniel said, unlocking the door.

It had a bed, though, and at that moment, nothing else mattered.