Winter of the World (3 page)

What would she have liked to have talked to him about? She did not know.

Herr Franck said to Mother: ‘I read your column in
The Democrat.
’

‘I hope you enjoyed it.’

‘I was sorry to see you writing disrespectfully about our chancellor.’

‘Do you think journalists should write respectfully about politicians?’ Mother replied cheerfully. ‘That’s radical. The Nazi press would have to be polite about my
husband! They wouldn’t like that.’

‘Not all politicians, obviously,’ Franck said irritably.

They crossed the teeming junction of Potsdamer Platz. Cars and trams vied with horse-drawn carts and pedestrians in a chaotic melee.

Mother said: ‘Isn’t it better for the press to be able to criticize everyone equally?’

‘A wonderful idea,’ he said. ‘But you socialists live in a dream world. We practical men know that Germany cannot live on ideas. People must have bread and shoes and
coal.’

‘I quite agree,’ Mother said. ‘I could use more coal myself. But I want Carla and Erik to grow up as citizens of a free country.’

‘You overrate freedom. It doesn’t make people happy. They prefer leadership. I want Werner and Frieda and poor Axel to grow up in a country that is proud, and disciplined, and
united.’

‘And in order to be united, we need young thugs in brown shirts to beat up elderly Jewish shopkeepers?’

‘Politics is rough. Nothing we can do about it.’

‘On the contrary, you and I are leaders, Ludwig, in our different ways. It’s our responsibility to make politics less rough – more honest, more rational, less violent. If we do
not do that, we fail in our patriotic duty.’

Herr Franck bristled.

Carla did not know much about men, but she realized that they did not like to be lectured on their duty by women. Mother must have forgotten to press her charm switch this morning. But everyone
was tense. The coming election had them all on edge.

The car reached Leipziger Platz. ‘Where may I drop you?” Herr Franck said coldly.

‘Just here will be fine,’ said Mother.

Franck tapped on the glass partition. Ritter stopped the car and hurried to open the door.

Mother said: ‘I do hope Frieda gets better soon.’

‘Thank you.’

They got out and Ritter closed the door.

The office was several minutes’ walk away, but Mother clearly had not wanted to stay any longer in the car. Carla hoped Mother was not going to quarrel permanently with Herr Franck. That
might make it difficult for her to see Frieda and Werner. She would hate that.

They set off at a brisk pace. ‘Try not to make a nuisance of yourself at the office,’ Mother said. The note of genuine pleading in her voice touched Carla, making her feel ashamed of
causing her mother worry. She resolved to behave perfectly.

Mother greeted several people on the way: she had been writing her column for as long as Carla could remember, and was well known in the press corps. They all called her ‘Lady Maud’
in English.

Near the building in which
The Democrat
had its office, they saw someone they knew: Sergeant Schwab. He had fought with Father in the Great War, and still wore his hair brutally short in
the military style. After the war he had worked as a gardener, first for Carla’s grandfather and later for her father; but he had stolen money from Mother’s purse and Father had sacked
him. Now he was wearing the ugly military uniform of the Storm troopers, the Brownshirts, who were not soldiers but Nazis who had been given the authority of auxiliary policemen.

Schwab said loudly: ‘Good morning, Frau von Ulrich!’ as if he felt no shame at all about being a thief. He did not even touch his cap.

Mother nodded coldly and walked past him. ‘I wonder what he’s doing here,’ she muttered uneasily as they went inside.

The magazine had the first floor of a modern office building. Carla knew a child would not be welcome, and she hoped they could reach Mother’s office without being seen. But they met Herr
Jochmann on the stairs. He was a heavy man with thick spectacles. ‘What’s this?’ he said brusquely, speaking around the cigarette in his mouth. ‘Are we running a
kindergarten now?’

Mother did not react to his rudeness. ‘I was thinking over your comment the other day,’ she said. ‘About how young people imagine journalism is a glamorous profession, and
don’t understand how much hard work is necessary.’

He frowned. ‘Did I say that? Well, it’s certainly true.’

‘So I brought my daughter here to see the reality. I think it will be good for her education, especially if she becomes a writer. She will make a report on the visit to her class. I felt
sure you would approve.’

Mother was making this up as she went along, but it sounded convincing, Carla thought. She almost believed it herself. The charm switch had been turned to the On position at last.

Jochmann said: ‘Don’t you have an important visitor from London coming today?’

‘Yes, Ethel Leckwith, but she’s an old friend – she knew Carla as a baby.’

Jochmann was somewhat mollified. ‘Hmm. Well, we have an editorial meeting in five minutes, as soon as I’ve bought some cigarettes.’

‘Carla will get them for you.’ Mother turned to her. ‘There is a tobacconist three doors down. Herr Jochmann likes the Roth-Händle brand.’

‘Oh, that will save me a trip.’ Jochmann gave Carla a one-mark coin.

Mother said to her: ‘When you come back, you’ll find me at the top of the stairs, next to the fire alarm.’ She turned away and took Jochmann’s arm confidentially.
‘I thought last week’s issue was possibly our best ever,’ she said as they went up.

Carla ran out into the street. Mother had got away with it, using her characteristic mixture of boldness and flirting. She sometimes said: ‘We women have to deploy every weapon we
have.’ Thinking about it, Carla realized that she had used Mother’s tactics to get a lift from Herr Franck. Perhaps she was like her mother after all. That might be why Mother had given
her that curious little smile: she was seeing herself thirty years ago.

There was a queue in the shop. Half the journalists in Berlin seemed to be buying their supplies for the day. At last Carla got a pack of Roth-Händle and returned to the
Democrat
building. She found the fire alarm easily – it was a big lever fixed to the wall – but Mother was not in her office. No doubt she had gone to that editorial meeting.

Carla walked along the corridor. All the doors were open, and most of the rooms were empty but for a few women who might have been typists and secretaries. At the back of the building, around a
corner, was a closed door marked ‘Conference Room’. Carla could hear male voices raised in argument. She tapped on the door, but there was no response. She hesitated, then turned the
handle and went in.

The room was full of tobacco smoke. Eight or ten people sat around a long table. Mother was the only woman. They fell silent, apparently surprised, when Carla went up to the head of the table
and handed Jochmann the cigarettes and change. Their silence made her think she had done wrong to come in.

But Jochmann just said: ‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome, sir,’ she said, and for some reason she gave a little bow.

The men laughed. One said: ‘New assistant, Jochmann?’ Then she knew it was all right.

She left the room quickly and returned to Mother’s office. She did not take off her coat – the place was cold. She looked around. On the desk were a phone, a typewriter, and stacks
of paper and carbon paper.

Next to the phone was a photograph in a frame, showing Carla and Erik with Father. It had been taken a couple of years ago on a sunny day at the beach by the Wannsee lake, fifteen miles from the
centre of Berlin. Father was wearing shorts. They were all laughing. That was before Erik had started to pretend to be a tough, serious man.

The only other picture, hanging on the wall, showed Mother with the social-democratic hero Friedrich Ebert, who had been the first President of Germany after the war. It had been taken about ten
years ago. Carla smiled at Mother’s shapeless, low-waisted dress and boyish haircut: they must have been fashionable at the time.

The bookshelf held social directories, phone books, dictionaries in several languages, and atlases, but nothing to read. In the desk drawer were pencils, several new pairs of formal gloves still
wrapped in tissue paper, a packet of sanitary towels, and a notebook with names and phone numbers.

Carla reset the desk calendar to today’s date, Monday 27 February 1933. Then she put a sheet of paper into the typewriter. She typed her full name, Heike Carla von Ulrich. At the age of
five she had announced that she did not like the name Heike and she wanted everyone to use her second name, and somewhat to her surprise her family had complied.

Each key of the typewriter caused a metal rod to rise up and strike the paper through an inky ribbon, printing a letter. When by accident she pressed two keys, the rods got stuck. She tried to
prise them apart but she could not. Pressing another key did not help: now there were three jammed rods. She groaned: she was in trouble already.

A noise from the street distracted her. She went to the window. A dozen Brownshirts were marching along the middle of the road, shouting slogans: ‘Death to all Jews! Jews go to
hell!’ Carla could not understand why they got so angry about Jews, who seemed the same as everyone else apart from their religion. She was startled to see Sergeant Schwab at the head of the
troop. She had felt sorry for him when he was sacked, for she knew he would find it hard to get another job. There were millions of men looking for jobs in Germany: Father said it was a depression.
But Mother had said: ‘How can we have a man in our house who steals?’

Their chant changed. ‘Smash Jew papers!’ they said in unison. One of them threw something, and a rotten vegetable splashed on the door of a national newspaper. Then, to Carla’s
horror, they turned towards the building she was in.

She drew back and peeped around the edge of the window frame, hoping that they could not see her. They stopped outside, still chanting. One threw a stone. It hit Carla’s window without
breaking it, but all the same she gave a little scream of fear. A moment later, one of the typists came in, a young woman in a red beret. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said, then she
looked out of the window. ‘Oh, hell.’

The Brownshirts entered the building, and Carla heard boots on the stairs. She was scared: what were they going to do?

Sergeant Schwab came into Mother’s office. He hesitated, seeing the two females; then seemed to screw up his nerve. He picked up the typewriter and threw it through the window, shattering
the glass. Carla and the typist both screamed.

More Brownshirts passed the doorway, shouting their slogans.

Schwab grabbed the typist by the arm and said: ‘Now, darling, where’s the office safe?’

‘In the file room!’ she said in a terrified voice.

‘Show me.’

‘Yes, anything!’

He marched her out of the room.

Carla started to cry, then stopped herself.

She thought of hiding under the desk, but hesitated. She did not want to show them how scared she was. Something inside her wanted to defy them.

But what should she do? She decided to warn Mother.

She stepped to the doorway and looked along the corridor. The Brownshirts were going in and out of the offices but had not reached the far end. Carla did not know whether the people in the
conference room could hear the commotion. She ran along the corridor as fast as she could, but a scream stopped her. She looked into a room and saw Schwab shaking the typist with the red beret,
yelling: ‘Where’s the key?’

‘I don’t know, I swear I’m telling the truth!’ the typist cried.

Carla was outraged. Schwab had no right to treat a woman that way. She shouted: ‘Leave her alone, Schwab, you thief!’

Schwab looked at her with hatred in his eyes, and suddenly she was ten times more frightened. Then his gaze shifted to someone behind her, and he said: ‘Get the kid out of the damn
way.’

She was picked up from behind. ‘Are you a little Jew?’ said a man’s voice. ‘You look it, with all that dark hair.’

That terrified her. ‘I’m not Jewish!’ she screamed.

The Brownshirt carried her back along the corridor and put her down in Mother’s office. She stumbled and fell to the floor. ‘Stay in here,’ he said, and he went away.

Carla got to her feet. She was not hurt. The corridor was full of Brownshirts now, and she could not get to her mother. But she had to summon help.

She looked out of the smashed window. A small crowd was gathering on the street. Two policemen stood among the onlookers, chatting. Carla shouted at them: ‘Help! Help, police!’

They saw her and laughed.

That infuriated her, and anger made her less frightened. She looked outside the office again. Her gaze lit on the fire alarm on the wall. She reached up and grasped the handle.

She hesitated. You were not supposed to sound the alarm unless there was a fire, and a notice on the wall warned of dire penalties.

She pulled the handle anyway.

For a moment nothing happened. Perhaps the mechanism was not working.

Then there came a loud, harsh klaxon sound, rising and falling, which filled the building.

Almost immediately the people from the conference room appeared at the far end of the corridor. Jochmann was first. ‘What the devil is going on?’ he said angrily, shouting over the
noise of the alarm.

One of the Brownshirts said: ‘This Jew Communist rag has insulted our leader, and we’re closing it down.’

‘Get out of my office!’

The Brownshirt ignored him and went into a side room. A moment later there was a female scream and a crash that sounded like a steel desk being overturned.

Jochmann turned to one of his staff. ‘Schneider – call the police immediately!’

Carla knew that would be no good. The police were here already, doing nothing.

Mother pushed through the knot of people and came running along the corridor. ‘Are you all right?’ she cried. She threw her arms around Carla.