The Other Side of Love (16 page)

As they bounced on to the runway, the pleasant young Lufthansa stewardess in her nurse’s uniform smiled encouragingly at him. Aubrey turned away. Germans, he thought. He knew Clothilde; he was on friendly terms with Sigi; he had studied Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Mein Kampf; this year he had pored over every German periodical he could lay his hands on as well as having those long conversations with refugees. Even so, Germans remained a conundrum to him. How could this nice open young nurse and the millions of others like her have fallen for a hatemonger whose sole honest emotion appeared to be a virulent anti-Semitism?

The props were still spinning noisily as he descended the aluminum ladder.

“Aubrey!”

Kathe, wearing a belted trenchcoat, was running across the wet tarmac. He splashed through the icy rain towards her. She pressed her cool damp cheek against his, and he inhaled the delicate fragrance, which he suspected was not bottled by a perfumer, like Araminta’s scent, but unique to Kathe. When they reached the barge-like old Steyr, Aubrey glanced around for the neckless officious chauffeur, Gunther.

“I’ve taken driving lessons,”

Kathe said, laughing.

“Get on in. cornpared to flying, it’s relatively safe.”

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The parking-area was being enlarged. Aubrey suffered a relapse of nausea as the car bounced over a stretch of unfinished roadway where raincoated men wielded shovels. Large signs proclaimed DASS WIR HIER ARBEITEN, VERDANKEN WIR UNSEREM FUHRER

“this work is being done thanks to the Fiihrer’. Aubrey had seen similar signs posted throughout the Third Reich. Citizens were kept well informed from whence the blessings of prosperity flowed. They turned on to the smooth roadbed and his nausea abated.

“What about those driving lessons?”

he asked.

“Did you take them when you began helping Schultze?”

“He told you about that?”

she asked in surprise. Schultze had maintained his original close-mouthed truculence.

“Just a stab in the dark. But, Kathe, I know you.”

“A few minor odds and ends - it’s nothing.”

“Nothing? With so many labour sympathizers in Neukolln, don’t you think the Gestapo keeps tabs on every apartment-building?”

“I’ve been to his flat once.”

“What do you do, then?”

“Oh, drop off small things, drive somebody, that’s all.”

“God knows I’m all for Schultze - what he’s doing is tremendous but he’s a man. You’re a girl. And you’ve done enough.”

The windscreen-wipers threw slapping shadows across her profile, and there was a set to her delicate chin.

“Shall I take you to the house first?”

she asked.

“Or are you agog to see the collection?”

His anxieties unresolved, he said:

“The shop, please.”

IV

Alfred, beaming warmly, met his nepheAat the shop door. Despite his pleasure, his innate dignity prevailro and he shook Aubrey’s hand, offering congratulations on the courageous journey by air as if he were an ambassador welcoming a foreign dignitary. In much the same ceremonial tone, he enquired about Euan’s health and the rest of the family as they proceeded through the shop. The showcases were as dark and crowded as those in Bond Street and, as in London, sprigs of holly in silver goblets signalled the season. Here, too, fur-clad matrons sat firmly planted in chairs waiting for the scurrying assistants to place the merchandise they requested on black velvet squares.

Alfred’s office at the rear overlooked a narrow service-courtyard. Even on fine days the clerestory window didn’t give much light, and m bad weather brown shadows washed the tan walls and maroon carpet. Even by this wan illumination the silver, gold and vivid enamelwork glittered.

Aubrey sank to his knees, examining the treasure trove of antique drinking-vessels. There were huge cups shaped like fantastic

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birds and animals; there were huge Jungfrauenbecher, the double cups; there were medieval wedding cups, royal christening mugs, archducal goblets, drinking-horns heavy with sculptured gold stags. The workmanship from various centuries was uniformly magnificent

- many pieces might well have taken a master craftsman over a year to adorn.

“Rather splendid, what?”

Alfred asked.

“I’m completely bowled over.”

“Two generations of connoisseurs had a hand in the collecting.”

“Whose is it?”

Alfred glanced around the empty office before responding.

“Heinrich Leventhal.”

“Of Leventhal’s? He died? We should have seen something in the papers.”

“He’s quite well. It’s not an estate sale, but you know the situation we have here - certain people needing to sell.”

Alfred lowered his voice and gave a little cough at this indiscretion.

“There aren’t many places Herr Leventhal could dispose of this lot. Still, I didn’t wish to take advantage of another’s misfortune, so I let him set the price. Aubrey, it’s unbelievably low. Our three branches can turn a handy profit”

“Three?”

“By a stroke of luck, Wyatt lands tomorrow. It’s his law school’s holiday, and he’d made plans to join us at GarmischPartenkirchen.”

The Alfred Kingsmiths owned a chalet in the Bavarian alpine resort.

“When this proposition came up, I cabled New York as well as London. Naturally I couldn’t mention Herr Leventhal’s name. Wyatt had already sailed, but Humphrey and Rossie cabled back that, if our branches go ahead, they were in, too, and Wyatt could make the decision about what should go to America. You and Kate had a lot to talk about on the way in from the airport, otherwise I’m certain she would have mentioned your cousin would be here, too.”

Aubrey used both slightly shaky hands to heft an intricately worked silver and gilt goblet encircled by a green enamelled dragon.

“Was this on the inventory, Uncle Alfred? It doesn’t look German. More like late Italian Rennaissance.”

Alfred’s eyes beamed behind the thick lenses

“You’re a true Kingsmith, my boy. That particular piece wasn’t offered with the rest, but Herr Leventhal evidently needs a bit more money. That cup’s a gem. It’s attributed to Cellini.”

V

After dropping Aubrey off, Kathe had travelled another long block on Unter den Linden in the direction of Museum Island and the city’s great buildings. The immense Kaiser’s Palace was scaffolded

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for painting. The lime trees that lined the pavements and edged the centre walkway were leafless. She waited as a policeman held up his hand at bustling Friedrichstrasse, then parked in front of Schloss Konditorei. This wasn’t a busy hour for the famous coffee-house. Fortunately a particular table near the window was free. The waitress with the long placid face came over. Ordering coffee and a Turk’s head cake, Kathe pretended to relax, gazing in the direction of the equestrian statue of Frederick the Great. The aroma of Schloss Konditorei was different nowadays. A recent government regulation banned the use of butter, and now the less tempting smell of margarine prevailed.

Paying, Kathe fumbled with her bag,

“dropping”

an envelope that contained a badge of the Nazi Women’s League. The placid-faced waitress slipped it in her leather change-bag. The badge was for a Jewish woman who needed to appear thoroughly Aryan as she travelled to the Belgian border for an illegal exit.

VI

The following afternoon, Sunday, was clear and cold. Aubrey, wearing a Fair Isle pullover under his tweed jacket, sat in his uncle’s diningroom frowning at the inventory spread in front of him as he worked out prices for the collection. Pricing was a task he particularly disliked. The car pulled into the porte-cochere. This morning Wyatt had docked at Hamburg and taken the Flying Hamburger to Berlin. Clothilde and Alfred, who took a weekly sabbath hike in the Griinewald Forest, acceded easily when Kathe volunteered to meet him at the Lehrte station. Feeling a sneak yet unable to help himself, Aubrey stood to watch.

Wyatt was at the wheel. Why didn’t I takmhe driver’s seat at Tempelhof yesterday?

Tanned, strong and invincibly American in his broad-shouldered suit worn without a hat or overcoat despite the chill, Wyatt jogged around the tall old Steyr to help Kathe out. Hands still clasped, they gazed at one another. Though separated by double-paned glass and Mecklenberg lace curtains, Aubrey could see the oddly atypical tenderness of Wyatt’s smile, the radiance illuminating Kathe’s pure oval face.

Before coming inside, they went down the grass and stood by the Olympic oak saplings.

“See what good care I’ve given yours,”

Kathe said.

“It’s taller than mine.”

He linked his little finger in hers.

“Did I ever tell you that you look like a sluttish angel?”

“Sluttish?”

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‘Hey, I’d forgotten how easily you blush.

“Sluttish” is a compliment. Meaning I wish we were married and in bed.”

“It’s wonderful having you here.”

“It’s swell being here. The swastikas, the saluting, the Heil Hitlers, those wonderful signs

“Juden Verboten”. Thank God we’ll soon be back home.”

“When will you talk to Father?”

“The minute I get him alone. Think the Kingsmith oaks will transplant?”

“Absolutely,”

she said.

Sigi came to the Griinewald house for dinner. After Clothilde and Alfred had retired, the four young people gathered around the logs blazing in the cavernous drawingroom. Kathe returned twice to the kitchen for bottles of dark Schultheiss beer: the conversation, growing more candid, turned to the subject of Hitler.

“I don’t like the man any more than you do,”

Sigi said, shrugging in his goodnatured way,

“but you must accept that a vast majority of Germans are solidly behind him. As far as they’re concerned, he’s worked miracles.”

“God,”

Wyatt said.

“It’s easy for you and me to dismiss him.”

Sigi took a drink, depositing a little foam on his upper lip.

“But none of us has ever worried whether the bagful of paper marks we set out with to the bakery would be enough to buy a loaf of bread when we arrived. We haven’t seen our children’s legs bowed with rickets and their teeth come in black and crooked.”

He paused reflectively.

“After the war the entire country was bankrupt, and the Treaty of Versailles was very hard on us. It’s not many years since the country was lining up at the corner soup-kitchens. An unpleasant number of times I saw men I knew waiting. God, the despair in their expressions, the shame when we recognized each other. At first I tried to help out - a loan or a meal. But that made matters worse. Soon I politely looked in the other direction. What a demoralizing way to live your life. At that time there was no hope things would get better.”

“It’s rough,”

Wyatt said.

“We’ve still got a Depression.”

“We call ours the Slump,”

Aubrey added in the same bleak tone.

Kathe said:

“Dr Goebbels and the Ministry of Propaganda pour it on thick that Hitler and only Hitler led us out of the bad times.”

“The Aryan Moses,”

Wyatt said.

Everyone chuckled.

“And now’, Aubrey said quietly,

“he intends to lead Germany into the promised lands of Europe.”

“Aubrey, Aubrey”

- Sigi shook his head genially -

“it’s not like you to exaggerate.”

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‘You honestly believe he’ll stop with the Rhineland?”

Aubrey asked.

“The Rhineland is part of the Reich,” Sigi said.

No hint of acrimony had entered the conversation, yet Kathe, sitting on the ottoman, shifted uneasily. The twin loyalties were tugging at her.

“Yes,”

she said.

“All we did was march into our own country. How would you have felt if we’d won the war, Aubrey, then imposed a treaty that chopped away Cornwall? Wouldn’t you have cheered your prime minister when he got it back?”

“One guess who’s next on the list,”

Wyatt said.

“List?”

Sigi asked.

“There’s no list.”

“What about the demonstrations in Austria?”

Aubrey asked. The fire cast red shadows across his intent face.

“Austrian Nazis,”

Sigi said.

“Austrians in Austria, nothing to do with Germany.”

Aubrey asked:

“So there’s no build-up for a war?”

“War?”

Kathe asked. A log burned through, falling loudly, and she jumped.

“Whatever are you talking about, Aubrey? There’s nobody in the Reich with the least interest in another war, is there, Sigi?”

Sigi was lighting his pipe. Blowing out the match, he smiled at her.

“The Bendlerblock’s absolutely against any kind of combat.”

His uncle’s adjutant, he worked with the general on Bendlerstrasse at the High Command buildings, informally called the Bendlerblock.

“The top brass see war as the worst-possible disaster. Even if Hitler wanted another war, which he doesn’t, he wouldn’t get them to agree.”

“So the General Staff doesn’t necessarily go along with your Chancellor?”

Aubrey asked.

“A few of them admire him. Most of Aem see him as a shoddy opportunist,”

Sigi responded, then gazedWnto the bowl of his pipe.

“Still, he’s confident and decisive, and we Germans have always been good followers.”