Read Online Flight from Berlin by David John - Free Book Online Page B

were arranging ice buckets and dishes of cured ham and roast venison for a buffet lunch. Halfway along the promenade Friedl’s crew was adjusting a rig holding a telephoto-lens movie camera pointed through an open promenade window. Denham recognised the men from the bar at the Kurgarten. The two Party big shots Eckener had mentioned—for whose enjoyment the sumptuous lunch was provided—were admiring the view with their wives and two young children, a boy and a girl. Both were colourless men in their late thirties, complacent in their light brown tunics, gold-trimmed swastika armbands, and booted legs, set wide apart. In any normal society they’d be town clerks or farm inspectors, Denham supposed, but in Germany the Party could elevate the most humdrum official into a Caesar, free to build an empire from which to draw homage and fealty.
    ‘A pair of golden pheasants,’ Friedl said.
    They walked to the windows at the opposite end of the promenade from the Party men and watched the Rhine wind its way into the horizon through steep, wooded valleys. The castle tower of Meersburg passed below. As it gained height, the ship tilted gently, and a broad patchwork of cabbage fields and hamlets filled the view for as far as the eye could see. Horses pulling a hay cart reared their heads at the sight of the giant ship looming above; a farm dog chased its shadow across a field, barking.
    Corks popped and champagne was poured, and shortly after, lunch was announced. Denham joined Friedl at a table for two.
    ‘That’s our director of photography, Jaworsky,’ Friedl said, pointing at an older man talking to the captain. ‘The best cameramen in Germany today—made his name shooting Alpine movies, our equivalent of the western, you could say. And over there is Gerhard, our gaffer.’ He nodded with a flash of shyness towards a tanned lad in shirtsleeves who was lifting reels. The lad smiled back at them.
    ‘He’s your boyfriend?’ Denham asked, before he could stop himself.
    A change of pitch in the propeller engines and the ship picked up speed.
    Friedl stared at his plate, reddening, as though he’d been slapped across the face. When he looked up, his fine features hardened.
    ‘No, he is not.’ After another pause, he said, ‘As you yourself might have said, is it that obvious?’
    Denham wanted to kick himself.
    ‘Please forgive me. It’s a reporter’s bad habit. I spend too much time with hard-nosed hacks. I hope you’ll excuse it.’
    Friedl was about to speak when his eyes froze on something over Denham’s shoulder. He turned to see a dull-eyed, freckled boy of about ten, the son of one of the Party men, standing near their table, watching them. The type of boy who’d stone birds for fun. He wore the Jungvolk uniform. The belt around his shorts had a dagger hanging from it.
    ‘It’s rude to stare,’ Denham said in German.
    ‘Why are you speaking English?’
    ‘We’re American gangsters planning a bank robbery in Berlin.’
    The boy looked from him to Friedl. ‘He doesn’t look like a gangster,’ he said, then ran off to report this observation to his father.
    ‘You wait,’ Denham said. ‘He’ll be telling them he’s discovered a spy ring on board.’
    Friedl didn’t seem to be listening. For a few moments his eyes were naked, and Denham saw the truth of his existence: a secret life, of courage poisoned by fear. Fear of whisperers and informers. Of midnight knocks on the door.
    ‘You must miss the old republic,’ Denham said, still trying to atone for his gaffe. ‘I mean, no one in Berlin cared who was a warm boy then, did they? What happened to the old El Dorado on Motzstrasse?’
    ‘Closed down,’ Friedl said, his face sullen. After a long silence, he spoke in a distracted voice, as though his mind was riffling through banks of old memories. ‘Berlin was the centre of the world, you know. Jazz to rival Harlem’s, great movies, new things happening in art every week. Nightlife, atmosphere,