Nehmann spent that night with a woman called Maria. He’d met her a couple of weeks ago in a Moabit nightclub where she played the piano. She said she was Austrian, from a village near Villach. Her orphan looks were, to be frank, Jewish – sallow complexion, a fall of jet-black curls, perfect mouth, enormous eyes – but Nehmann had met a lot of Italian girls and when she said that her grandparents had lived in Bolzano before heading north to Austria he was very happy to believe her.
To date, unusually for Nehmann, they’d yet to make love. She’d asked him to be patient, to wait until circumstances were right for both of them. She’d made the suggestion the first time she’d stayed with him in Guram’s apartment and to his own slight surprise, Nehmann had agreed. He was transfixed by her face, most of all by her eyes. They had a depth and a candour that he found close to hypnotic and, in no time at all, she’d become an important presence in his life.
They talked a great deal late into the small hours after her return from Moabit. They were both outsiders in this teeming city. They compared notes, and drank Guram’s wine, and agreed that much of Nazi Germany was an essay in swagger and bad taste. Complicity in this small conversational act of treason was drawing them ever closer, and Nehmann liked that. In truth, though he’d never admit it to Goebbels, his Czech coquette had begun to bore him and, now that she’d taken her favours elsewhere, he felt nothing but relief. Hedvika was too loud, too easy, too coarse, too suggestible. On the keyboard, and in real life, Maria had an altogether lighter touch.
Daylight came early at this time of year. Maria was still asleep and Nehmann got up and dressed without a sound. The rain had cleared at last and when he descended to the street to meet the car despatched from the Promi, the city was bathed in sunshine. At this hour in the morning there was still the faintest chill in the air but, among the secretaries spilling off the trolley buses, Nehmann saw a couple of older folk carrying rolled-up towels. They’re off to the Lido to make friends with summer again, he thought with a pang of jealousy. He swam there himself whenever he got the chance.
The journey out to Schönwalde took no time at all. At the sandbagged airfield checkpoint, Nehmann wound down the window and offered his Promi pass. The officer in charge consulted a list of names on a typed list.
‘You’re here to meet Oberstleutnant Messner?’
‘I am.’
‘Met him before?’
‘Never.’
‘You’re in for a treat. He’s due in about half an hour. He’s blaming headwinds over Poland so I expect God will be paying the bill.’ He stepped back to wave him through. ‘Good luck, Herr Nehmann.’
Nehmann exchanged looks with the driver as the car began to move.
‘God?’ he queried.
‘Messner has a reputation for never being wrong. If there’s no one else available, he gives God a mouthful.’
Nehmann nodded, none the wiser. The airfield lay before them, littered with heavy plant. Between the bulldozers and the trucks was a wilderness of puddles.
‘I thought this belonged to the Luftwaffe?’
‘It does. They’re laying a hard runway for the day the Regierung move in.’
‘So where’s Messner supposed to land?’
‘God only knows. Which is why the bloody man needs to watch his tongue.’
‘You know him?’
‘I’ve met him.’
‘And?’
‘Wait and see.’
They parked beside a barely finished single-storey building that seemed to serve as a rallying point for the army of labourers assigned to the new runway. The driver thought there was a chance of decent coffee inside and left the car to find out. After a while, bored, Nehmann got out to stretch his legs. A frieze of pine trees edged the flatness of the airfield on three sides and he was watching a distant gaggle of tiny stick figures pouring concrete when he heard the faintest mutter of aero engines, throttled back in anticipation of a landing.
Away to the east, below a scatter of fluffy white clouds, he could see the Me-110 dropping a wing and then settling gently on the final descent. From where he was standing it was difficult to be sure but Nehmann had the impression that some of the workmen out there would be wise to get out of the way. Seconds later came the blast of a whistle and the men began to scatter in all directions.
By now, the Me-110 was barely feet from touchdown. Messner lifted the nose, gunned the engines one final time to avoid three men running into his path, and then let the aircraft settle among the puddles. Spray from the main undercarriage sparkled briefly in the brightness of the sunshine, confirming Nehmann’s conviction that he’d just witnessed something remarkable. A big aquatic bird, he thought, totally at home in this sodden stretch of Brandenburg turf.
The Me-110 had come to a halt. Another burst of throttle brought the nose round before the plane began to taxi towards him, weaving its way without hesitation through the thicket of heavy construction vehicles. Cautiously, the workmen were returning to their tasks. One was shaking his fist in Messner’s direction.
‘Here—’
It was the driver. Nehmann took the proffered mug. Coffee with sugar. Better still.
The Me-110 was only metres away, the roar of the engines drowning any longer conversation. Up in the cockpit, Nehmann could see a white disc of face behind a large pair of aviator glasses. Two ground crew in overalls had appeared from nowhere, each pulling a big wooden chock for the main wheels. The taller of the two men glanced up and drew a finger across his throat and the propellers began to windmill before coming to a halt.
In the sudden silence, Nehmann was aware of the aircraft rocking slightly as the pilot released the canopy and clambered onto the wing. From the rear cockpit, he extracted two canvas mail sacks and handed them down to the ground crew.
He was tall, much taller than Nehmann. He climbed down onto the wet grass, and one hand swept the glasses from his face as if to get a proper look at this modest welcoming committee.
‘Oberstleutnant Messner,’ he introduced himself. ‘And you are…?’
‘Nehmann. From the Ministry.’
‘Guten Tag, Nehmann.’ He extended a gloved hand. ‘Do you mind?’
He wanted Nehmann’s coffee. A man could die of thirst flying out of the zoo that was Russia. Once, under different circumstances, he said he could rely on flasks of the stuff, the real thing, Turkish or Arabian, and perhaps a cake or two to keep his spirits up. But those days had gone.
Nehmann gave him the coffee. He’d never seen a face like this before. Once he must have been good-looking, even handsome, but someone – certainly not a friend – seemed to have rearranged all the constituent parts without keeping the original in mind. The sunken eyes sat oddly in the tightness of the flesh. A scar looped down from one corner of his mouth, while more scar tissue, raised welts of the stuff, latticed his forehead.
Messner, who must have been all too familiar with the curiosity of strangers, paid no attention. He bent for the bigger of the two sacks and gave it to Nehmann.
‘Compliments of Generaloberst Richthofen,’ he said. ‘Fuck it up and he’ll have your arse.’
‘These are the film cans?’
‘Ja.’
‘And the other sack?’
‘A Russian chicken for my lovely ex-wife. And a Ukrainian rabbit with the compliments of Kyiv. You know Kyiv? Been there ever? No? I thought not. Fine rabbits, my friend. You have a car here by any chance?’
‘Of course.’
‘Excellent. In which case, the rabbit might well be yours.’
Nehmann passed the sack containing the cans of undeveloped film to the driver. The other one appeared to be moving.
‘The rabbit’s still alive?’
‘Ja.’ Messner nodded at the aircraft. ‘Alas, I have no refrigeration.’
‘And the chicken?’
‘Dead, I’m afraid. But yet to be plucked.’ Messner checked his watch and then gestured at the Promi car. ‘I need to get to Wannsee. Do we have a deal?’
*
They did. The driver returned to the Promi, where Nehmann handed over the cans of film from the Crimea. On the Minister’s personal instructions, the undeveloped footage was rushed to a processing plant elsewhere in the city. 16mm prints, he was assured, would be ready for the editing suite by early afternoon. Nehmann was expected to attend the edit, where Minister Goebbels – familiar with the footage already cut – would supervise the final version.
The Promi car was still parked outside in the Wilhelmstrasse. Messner, in the front passenger seat, appeared to be asleep. Nehmann opened the rear door to check on the rabbit and then slipped behind the wheel.
‘Still alive?’ Messner had been watching him in the rear-view mirror.
‘Very. Where are we going?’
‘Wannsee. I thought I told you. Get me to the waterfront and we’ll take it from there.’
They set off. Nehmann’s driving skills were rudimentary. He didn’t possess a licence and strictly speaking he should have returned the car to the underground garage, but Birgit said that everything would be fine as long as he was back in time for the edit.
‘We’ve got three hours,’ he told Messner. ‘You want me to drop you off at Wannsee or take you back to the airfield afterwards?’
‘The airfield. Beata was a wife to be proud of, but a man runs out of credit if he doesn’t watch his step.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I didn’t watch my step.’
Nehmann glanced across at him, surprised by this small moment of intimacy. Then, from nowhere, a truck appeared, Wehrmacht-grey, two lines of soldiers squatting on benches in the back. Heads turned to look down as Nehmann braked hard and swerved to the right. One of the soldiers was laughing.
‘Pull in, for fuck’s sake.’ Messner’s muttered oath had the force of an order.
Nehmann came to a halt beside the pavement. Messner waited for a cyclist to pass and then opened the passenger door and stepped out into the road. For a moment, Nehmann thought he’d baled out for good but then the tall figure in the leather flying jacket was pulling his own door open.
‘Move over, Nehmann. You drive like a Russian, my friend, and that’s not a compliment.’
Chastened, Nehmann did as he was told. Messner adjusted the rear-view mirror and rejoined the traffic. From the back of the car came a series of snuffles and then a brief mew. The rabbit, Nehmann thought, didn’t like his driving either.
They drove in silence for a while, following the trolley bus wires out towards Charlottenburg. For no apparent reason Messner slowed at a major intersection. Beyond, on the right, was a branch of the Dresdner Bank.
‘Just here…’ he said ‘…if I’m to believe all the stories.’
‘Just here what?’ Nehmann hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.
‘The accident. Me and the windscreen.’ One gloved hand touched his face. ‘This.’
He’d been driving his wife’s car, he explained. He’d had the devil of a toothache for three whole days and she’d managed to find a dentist. It was a winter evening, blackout, and a raid was expected. There was a deadline for the dentist, and he must have taken a chance or two.
‘You don’t remember any of this?’
‘I remember nothing. I’d been flying Goering and a couple of his people that day. Next thing, I’m in the Charité hospital. You know anything about hospitals, Nehmann?’
‘No.’
‘Just as well, especially these days. Put a woman in a uniform and she thinks she owns the world.’
‘You’re supposed to feel grateful. They probably saved your life.’
‘I know. And that only makes it worse. I was months in that place. Pilots and confinement don’t mix. As soon as I was mobile again, I tried to escape. After that they locked me up and threatened me with Himmler.’
‘You flew him, too?’
‘I did. On the Führer Squadron. Next you’re going to ask me what he was like, so I’ll spare you the effort. The man’s a creep. Take it from me.’ He glanced across at Nehmann. ‘Ja?’
The rest of the journey passed in silence until they reached the outskirts of Wannsee.
‘Are you married, Nehmann?’
‘No.’
‘Very wise. My wife was a scientist. She worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. That made her very intelligent indeed. She had a huge brain and that was probably vital to our war effort, but she was no fun. No fun around the house. No fun in public. No fun anywhere. You understand what I’m saying, Nehmann?’
Nehmann nodded. No fun in bed, he thought. Behind the mask that used to be a face, this man is strange. So remote. So stiff. And then so abruptly confessional.
‘You’re divorced now?’ Nehmann asked.
‘Yes. Beata lives with a very good friend of mine, a Kamerad from the old days. Merz. Dieter Merz. He and I flew in those air pageants before the war. He was like a film star. On the squadron in Spain we always called him der Kleine, the Little One. He flew like an angel, no fear, and Beata always loved him. They may even be married by now. Remind me to ask her when we get there. You’ll do that for me?’
The marital home turned out to be a modest wooden house with rows of tiny pot plants on the windowsills and glimpse of a garden that stretched down to the lake. From the road, Nehmann could see a rusting child’s swing marooned in knee-high grass and a line of washing drying in the breeze. An air of faint neglect extended to the front door, though someone had recently been at work with a blowtorch on the blistered old paint.
Messner rapped twice, peremptory, unbidden, announcing his presence. Nehmann was wondering whether this visit was supposed to be some kind of surprise when he heard footsteps inside. Moments later the door opened and he was looking at a middle-aged woman, plain, barefoot, with a baby in her arms. She was wearing a pair of paint-stained dungarees and a savage haircut did nothing for the faintness of her smile. The last thing Nehmann had expected was this forbidding figure. Beata, he thought. The ex-wife.
‘This one belongs to Merz?’ Messner was looking at the baby. No greeting. Not a hint of warmth. Just a curt check on the child’s paternity.
‘Her name’s Annaliese.’ Beata kissed the top of the baby’s head and held her a little closer. ‘And the answer’s yes.’
‘I see…die kleine Kleine.’ The little Little One.
For Messner, Nehmann thought, this had the makings of a joke, though it didn’t seem to amuse his ex-wife.
‘And my Lottie?’ Messner asked.
‘Upstairs.’
‘You gave her the doll I sent from Kyiv?’
‘Doll?’
‘It never arrived? A Russian doll? Green eyes and a little painted skirt?’
Beata stared at him for a moment, and then shook her head. It was obvious she was lying but the really hurtful thing was the fact that she didn’t care. In any marriage, Nehmann thought, indifference must be the real killer.
Messner had opened the canvas mail bag. His hand disappeared inside as he cornered the rabbit, then he hauled it out by the scruff of the neck. The softness of its belly and the sight of the long legs kicking and kicking seemed to fascinate the baby. She wriggled in her mother’s arms, wanting to reach out and touch this strange creature.
‘This is for me?’ Beata was staring at the animal. ‘For us?’
‘It is. I can kill it and skin it now, if you want. There’s something else, too, with the compliments of our Russian friends. Nehmann? You want to show Beata our little surprise?’
Our little surprise? Nehmann, who wanted no part of this conversation, reached deep into the canvas bag. The chicken was cold to his touch, the head and neck floppy beneath his fingertips. Beata stared at it.
‘It’s dead?’
‘Very.’ Messner nodded. ‘Scalding water’s best for getting rid of the feathers, as you probably remember.’
Beata nodded. Then she said she had no use for a dead rabbit. Better to keep it as a pet. Nehmann swore he saw the baby nodding. Messner was astonished.
‘You don’t want it for the pot?’ he asked. ‘In times like these?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘But you’re serious? About keeping it?’
‘I am. Wait. I have a box inside.’
‘Don’t worry. Here—’
Messner dropped the rabbit back into the canvas bag and handed it over. Then he said he needed a favour.
‘You remember those little model aeroplanes I had as a kid? Biplanes? Triplanes?’
‘Upstairs,’ she said again. ‘I know exactly where they are.’
Messner stepped towards the door but Beata shook her head.
‘Stay here,’ she said.
‘You won’t let me in?’
‘No. Any plane in particular? Or the whole lot?’
‘The whole lot.’
Still nursing the baby, Beata disappeared inside with the bagged rabbit, closing the door with one foot. Minutes passed. Nehmann wanted to know more about the property, whether they’d swum in the lake, how cold it got in winter, but Messner didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he was staring at a corner of the front garden where clumps of daffodils softened a little area of raised earth. On top, Nehmann thought he could make out a makeshift wooden cross.
When Beata finally opened the door again, she was carrying a bulging pillow slip. Of the baby and the rabbit there was no sign.
‘Seven.’ She gave Messner the pillow slip. ‘I counted them.’
‘And the red triplane?’
‘That’s there, too.’ For the first time, a genuine smile. ‘We’ll call the rabbit Schnurrhaar. What do you think?’
Schnurrhaar meant ‘whiskers’. Messner stared at her for a long moment and for the first time it occurred to Nehmann that he might want a little privacy. He handed the dead chicken over and stepped back towards the gate. At the airfield he’d got the impression that the rabbit had been offered in exchange for the lift out to Wannsee but having met Beata he decided that it deserved a good home. A little walk, he thought. A chance to size up the rest of the neighbourhood.
Out on the pavement he turned to wave goodbye, but the front door was already closed again, Beata gone, and Messner’s tall figure was striding down the path towards him.
At the kerbside, Messner carefully stowed the pillow slip on the back seat of the car and told Nehmann to get in the front. Nehmann didn’t move. He wanted to know what was so special about the stands of white daffodils in the corner of the front garden, and the little mound of earth surmounted with a cross.
‘Where?’ The question appeared to take Messner by surprise.
‘There.’ Nehmann took him by the arm and pointed out the daffodils. Messner stared at them again. Then he frowned.
‘We kept a rabbit in the early days,’ he grunted. ‘And that’s where we buried her when she died.’
Nehmann nodded. He thought he understood.
‘This rabbit had a name?’
‘Of course.’
‘Schnurrhaar?’
‘Ja.’
*
With Messner at the wheel they drove back to the airfield. Nehmann was good with difficult people. One of the reasons he’d won Goebbels’ favour was his talent for getting inside other people’s heads, having a good look round and then stealing away with whatever took his fancy. This talent for breaking and entering had served him well in assignment after assignment, as well as with a small army of women, but in the shape of this mutilated air ace he knew he’d met a special challenge. The man was so unpredictable, silent one minute, terse the next, then offering sudden unexpected moments of near-intimacy.
Take the nest of toy aeroplanes on the back seat. They’d skirted Berlin and were barely ten minutes away from the airfield where Messner’s Me-110 had been refuelled for the return flight to the Crimea, but a queue of traffic had lengthened behind a farm cart and everyone was travelling at the speed of the horse.
Nehmann, aware of Messner’s impatience at the wheel, asked about the model aircraft. Was he young when he’d put these things together?
‘I was seven. Just.’
‘And you knew how to do it?’
‘Of course. Every child wants to be a bird. Wood. Glue. Time. That’s all it took.’
His face contorted at the memory and it took Nehmann a moment or two before he realised he was looking at a smile.
‘Your father was a flier?’
‘My father was a drunk. We lived in Hamburg, an old house, freezing cold. The place had been in the family forever but my father was hopeless with money, and with everything else as far as I remember. Evenings and weekends, it paid to lock yourself away because he could be violent, too, so you had to have something to do.’
‘Planes.’
‘Indeed. My mother used to cut photos out of magazines. Those little Fokker monoplanes. Big Gotha trainers. A Junkers float plane, way ahead of its time. Once my father bought a medal from a man he met in a Bierkeller. He gave it to me for Christmas. He said it was really valuable but it turned out to be a cheap copy. Not that it mattered. I wore it day and night for the rest of the winter. My own campaign medal. Pour le Mérite.’ He barked with laughter. ‘Bravery in the face of impossible domestic odds.’
The queue of traffic had come to a halt. Nehmann twisted in his seat and reached for the pillow slip.
‘Do you mind if I take a look?’
‘Go ahead. Should I be flattered?’
Nehmann didn’t answer. One by one he fetched the toy aircraft out. Each one was a work of art, neatly put together, beautifully painted. No wonder he’d asked for them back.
‘You were really seven?’
‘Ja, to begin with. They came in pieces. All you had to do was glue them together. After a while I had a flight, then a squadron, then a whole wing. As a kid you can invent any fantasy you like.’ He nodded down at Nehmann’s lap. ‘They were mine.’
‘But you turned it into real life? Later?’
‘Yes.’
‘And now?’
‘It’s still a fantasy. Except in real life there’s usually someone trying to kill you.’
‘I meant the models. They’re beautiful. You’ll take them back to the east?’
‘Yes, they’ll keep me company. All except one.’
One? Nehmann looked down at the spread on aircraft on his lap, then asked for a clue.
‘A clue?’ Messner looked briefly amused. ‘The best things in life always come in threes. Think about it, ja?’
Nehmann nodded. Then he remembered Messner’s query on the doorstep back at Wannsee. His fingers crabbed towards a tiny Fokker triplane, painted a fierce red.
‘This one?’
‘Ja. And you know why? Because that one belonged to the Red Baron. Manfred von Richthofen? You’ve heard of him? I work now for his cousin, Wolfram. Another legend.’
‘You’re giving it to him? This is some kind of present?’
‘No. Better than that.’
The traffic was on the move again, faster this time, and Nehmann glimpsed the back of the farmer’s cart disappearing into a field of potatoes. He still had the Fokker, the fuselage gripped lightly between his thumb and forefinger, and when Messner suggested he tried a loop or two, he held it at arm’s length, the tiny fighter silhouetted against the brightness of the sun through the windscreen.
Ahead lay the airfield at Schönwalde. Messner wanted to finish his story. Very recently he’d flown a Wehrmacht Oberst on a recce over the Caucasus. The Oberst had a regiment of mountain troops under his command and he wanted to take a look at some of the bigger peaks.
‘The highest is Mount Elbrus: 5,633 metres. It’s cold at that height, very thin air, but he was pleased with what he saw. When the sun’s out, the glaciers glow green as well as white. He was looking for a route to the summit and he found one.’
‘He’s going to climb it?’
‘Ja.’
‘When?’
‘In the summer. After we’ve dealt with Sevastopol. Imagine a single flag up there on the very top. Can you picture that? Das Hakenkreuz? Up there among the ice fields?’
Das Hakenkreuz. The swastika flag. Scarlet and white and black against the surrounding peaks. Irresistible, Nehmann thought. A perfect coda after all that spilled Soviet blood.
‘And this?’ He was looking at the tiny triplane.
‘I’ll give it to the Oberst. He’s agreed to find a place for it on top of the mountain.’
‘Why?’
‘Because this was the Red Baron’s plane.’ That strange rictus smile again. ‘And his cousin is winning the war in the south.’