A Parachute in the Lime Tree (2 page)

Then another:

Further in, the attic was as orderly as before. There were boxes labelled in his mother’s neat hand: linens, underclothing, neck ties. One was full of piano music, in a house where nobody played. He began tearing them open, rifling through clothing for something of Elsa’s. The paintings stacked against the wall were Professor Frankel’s. He recognised the black contours, the bold colours now deemed degenerate. He came across a canvas that was much cruder than the others, daubed unevenly with bright red paint as if to cover up some image underneath. It puzzled him, and he took it over to the window to look at it in the light. He could see there was something there: a figure, perhaps. He traced the outline with his finger but the red paint was so thick he couldn’t make it out.

He had almost given up hope of finding anything of Elsa when he spotted her handwriting in a stack of papers piled on top of one of the boxes. He raced to read it, then made himself slow down and read it again, measuring each sentence before moving on to the next one.

Mutti must have intercepted the letter, written almost two years ago. He struggled to keep control of his anger as he held the flimsy sheet of paper to his cheek. He tried to imagine Elsa in Ireland but he had no mental picture of the place, knew little about it except for black beer and cattle. A teacher at school claimed once that Irish monks had civilised Germany and everybody laughed. He must have reread the letter a dozen times, hoping to find something more in it, before it hit him that Elsa had given no address and was as far away as ever.

He looked around him at the piles of neatly labelled boxes, at the jumble of things on the floor. He remembered the night, soon after the Frankels had left, that he and Vati went next door to tie back a broken shutter that had banged and clanked for hours the night before. Perhaps that had been the start of it.

The brass number on the Frankels’ door was so tarnished it was barely legible but the key was still where they’d always kept it. It shouldn’t have taken long to deal with the shutter but Vati was upstairs for ages, opening cupboards, sliding out drawers. Meanwhile, Oskar stood at Elsa’s piano. He touched it lightly with his fingertips, not daring to press down the keys. As he waited at the bottom of the stairs, he noticed a photograph lying flat on the hall table. It looked like a family portrait; he wondered why it had been left behind. In the centre of a group of young men sat a small, elderly couple. The woman was compact and pigeon-chested. She wore an elaborate hat covered in flowers and feathers. The little man stared straight at
him, with eyes that were too much like Elsa’s. The resemblance disconcerted him, so he turned the image face down.

The thought of Vati rifling through Elsa’s things made him feel sick. He refolded her letter and stuffed it into the pocket of his shirt, reclaiming her. He went to the little window in the roof and opened it to get some air. As he looked out on a city that didn’t feel his any more, the idea hit him. He could hardly get down the stairs quick enough, almost tripping over himself in his haste to reach the front door.

The tramcar was full, mainly women and girls. It rattled around street corners and when it reached the Tiergarten, Oskar got out. Diplomatic missions were housed in every other building, and he walked up and down Tiergartenstrasse, peering at the nameplates until he found the one he wanted.

The woman who answered the door of the Irish Legation looked about the same age as his mother. She was German, not Irish, though he couldn’t place the accent. She looked him up and down before letting him in, but he was sure the uniform would do the trick, and it did. Once inside, he came straight to the point ‘I’m hoping to trace a friend. Someone granted permission to enter Ireland. A refugee, if that’s the word.’

The woman’s nose twitched. ‘What kind of refugee?’

‘A family from Berlin. Frankel is the name.’ He watched her absorb this information blankly.

‘And your interest in them?’

‘I’d like to correspond.’

She started to snigger. ‘Jewish penpals? You’re pulling my leg.’

He tried to laugh along with her but found he couldn’t.

‘Don’t go taking offence, Officer.’ She was scrutinising him now, her eyes flickering over his uniform, scanning his face. ‘Maybe they’ve not gone at all. Is that what you’re thinking? Maybe they’re lying low in some cellar, with their diamonds and their fox furs.’ She leaned towards him, ‘The last man we
had here used to give their people back in Dublin all kinds of grief about the Jews. “How am I supposed to cope? It’s a tidal wave. I’m inundated.” To hear him, you’d think half the Jews in Europe were heading for Ireland. He put the wind up them, all right. He’s gone now, more’s the pity.’ She whispered conspiratorially, ‘The Foreign Ministry loved him but he wasn’t neutral enough for the Irish. Neutral? With thousands of them fighting for Britain? Don’t make me laugh. Anyhow, we’ve a young gentleman now. Came from Ireland last summer.’ She lowered her voice and mouthed the words, ‘Out of his depth … But sit yourself down and I’ll see if he’ll talk to you.’

She led Oskar into a waiting room, then disappeared through a set of double doors. She came back a moment later and beckoned him in.

The official stood up when Oskar entered the room, which seemed odd until Oskar realised that he was standing for the uniform and not for him.

‘All our records are confidential,’ he started, ‘There is no possibility of my being able to help you. None at all.’ The man rubbed his eyes, then felt for his chair and sat down. He took a crumpled handkerchief from his drawer and caught a sneeze in it.

The uniform was no longer an asset, Oskar could tell. Though not invited to, he sat down as well, slid the jacket off and placed it over his lap. The man was watching him from over the top of the handkerchief, his eyes pale and shrewd as he swiped it back and forward on his nose, then rolled it into a ball and shoved it back in his desk.

‘Let me show you something,’ Oskar said, and handed over Elsa’s letter. The man made no comment at first, even though it couldn’t have taken long to read.

‘You see? I’m not here looking for trouble. I’m not here to cause problems for anyone, least of all the Frankels. I am simply trying to contact an old friend.’

‘I’m sorry,’ the man said, his voice softer now. ‘But if your friend is in Ireland at all, she’s in the six counties.’ The man reached into the drawer again for the handkerchief to stifle another sneeze. ‘Just before war broke out, the British let in some children and young people. A few ended up in Belfast. Needless to say, we sat on our hands until it was too late.’

‘But if there was a visa application, surely you’d have some record?’

‘My predecessor wasn’t keen on records.’

The woman reappeared on the landing. She waited until he’d reached her level and then she came so close he could smell violets on her breath.

‘Those Jews you’re looking for. They won’t have been short of a bob or two. Some of them bury it in the garden, you know. My husband told me. Often you will find a Jewish garden is full of loot. I hate to ask, but these people pay next to nothing.’

It took Oskar a moment to realise that she was asking him for money. He found something in one of his pockets and hoped that would be enough.

She smoothed the crumpled note front and back before pocketing it. ‘I’ll see what I can find,’ she said.

The woman was gone half an hour at least. He was beginning to think she might not return at all when she beckoned him into a small side room packed with files. She pointed to a ledger entry, made the year before in looping blue ink, and gave him a scrap of paper on which to write. In the margin, a note had been made in large black letters. ‘TAKE NO ACTION.’ As far as he could see, the same message was repeated right down the length of the page.

After leaving the Legation, Oskar could easily have got home in time for dinner but he couldn’t face it. He walked the length of Unter den Linden looking for somewhere quiet to have a beer, then passed through Franz Josef Platz, where, years before, he’d witnessed the first of the Nazi book burnings. Eventually, he found a place in a side street, took a corner table, and ordered two beers in quick succession as he read and reread the details he’d managed to scribble down.

Next morning, he slept late again. When he came downstairs, Frau Auger was already there. She sat slightly in front of Mutti and greeted him over the rim of a coffee cup. Vati, it seemed, had taken yet another walk.

‘Almost time to leave us?’ she asked.

He ignored her, and turned to his mother. ‘I went up to the attic yesterday. There are letters, books, so many things.’ His voice tailed off.

Mutti took the coffee pot into the kitchen. He followed her and closed the door behind him. Neither of them said anything right away. Then, she took a small package from her apron pocket. He was in no mood to take anything from her but when he started to tell her that, she put her finger to her lips. ‘Take it, Oskar.’

On his way out the gate, Oskar almost collided with one of the next door’s new occupants. She was thin, a little shabby,
with a wispy plait wound round on the back of her head. She smiled up at him, her hand outstretched in greeting. He looked at the hand, then straight into the watery blue eyes that brightened as she prepared to introduce herself. And then he turned away. Walking off, he realised his protest would have no effect whatsoever; the woman would simply think him rude, deranged even. So, he turned back towards the house. The woman was about to unlock the door. She dropped her key when she spotted him coming up the path. She was still scrabbling around for it when he told her this was Elsa Frankel’s house, that it would never really be hers.

At first, she seemed unsure how to react, but once she got the measure of him she gathered herself and squared up to him. ‘And who the hell are you?’ she said. ‘It’s our place now. All legal, fair and square. We’ve got the papers to prove it, contracts, everything. So why don’t you go and take a hike.’

Afraid of losing control altogether, he left without another word. As he made off, his own words reverberated in his ears. Each time he heard them they sounded weaker, more pathetic. He strode off in the direction of the station, his heart banging against the wall of his chest. As he reached the Tiergarten, the Charlottenburger Chaussee lay dappled before him, the weak sun dripping through the lines of green and brown burlap threaded through the camouflage netting overhead. A voice in his head jeered him. Once again, he’d achieved nothing. His protest had been pointless. ‘You didn’t want to know once they made her wear the star,’ the voice said. ‘Oh, you sneaked around, sure. You met her in places no one would see you. Took her to the woods, to the shady side of the lake. But you were a coward, really. You hadn’t the balls to hold her hand in public, so what’s the use in crying now?’

When he got to the station it was full of men in uniform. On the train, he sat for a long time looking at nothing at all. They had moved well beyond the city before he could bring himself
to open Mutti’s package. He waited until the other men had fallen asleep or started another game of
skat
. He turned it over and over in his hands, then tore off the brown paper. It was a beautiful thing, covered in the finest buffed pigskin. Tucked inside, there must have been half a dozen letters in Elsa’s ringlety script, tied together with a neat ribbon. He swept his palm over the smooth surface of the page, then wrote the first thing that came into his head.

He hadn’t used a pen in such a long time, it felt awkward. He flexed his hand and scratched at the paper with the nib.

He never was much of a poet. Elsa would laugh her head off at him. But his heart was in it and he didn’t care if it was doggerel. Suddenly, his predicament seemed to have one, simple solution. He considered the dangers. He might not even manage to get out; he might hesitate, or catch someone’s eye at the crucial moment. He could be drowned or dashed on rocks, captured or shot on sight. And even if he avoided all those things, he still might not find her.

The final leg of the long journey back to Vannes was by plane. He looked from one man to the next, and thought to himself how impossible it would be to jump from a transport. On a Heinkel, though, with each man intent on his own job, it might just work. They flew over recent combat fields, miles and miles of ruined buildings, then across the stonewalled fields of Normandy, before setting down on the high plateau at Meucon. Once the planes were rolled into the paddocks and camouflaged, they drove into Vannes.