News From Berlin Read Online Free PDF Page B

usual. He tried once more to recall exactly how clear Emma’s voice had sounded. Barbarossa. Although they had been speaking Dutch, that word could have been picked up by a German, any German. Especially a German. Barbarossa, what did that name remind him of? A medieval ruler, a tyrant of old, something Germanic, something from a revered past, something Hitlerian. Oscar’s brain, well-versed in history, took no time in coming up with the answer: the German emperor leading the crusades, twelfth century or thereabouts. That was the underlying idea, of course, it was all about a crusading ruler with endorsement from on high.
    Oscar vacillated. Should he go or should he stay? Stay, there was no hurry. Take a long look at the menu, call the waiter, give him your order, ask for more wine, turn the pages of your newspaper at leisure. All of which he proceeded to do. The man sitting some metres away was as nothing to him, a mere smudge at the corner of his gaze. The marina facing the hotel was crowded with sailing craft and rowing boats. Children ran up and down the long wooden jetties. It waseight o’clock, evening fell as the darkness rose up in layers from the lake. The mountains on the far side melted slowly but surely from view.
    The newspaper lay untouched on his lap as Barbarossa receded from his consciousness. His thoughts turned to her, and where she might be.

Chapter 4
     
    She caught the hum of aircraft. English? Emma waited for the air-raid sirens to go off. They did not. Presumably Luftwaffe. Everyone was tense after the heavy bombing of the city a fortnight ago. Dahlem had not been hit, a pity in a way, as Himmler and Ribbentrop lived virtually around the corner. But the English obviously did not know that. Berlin-Dahlem, little more than a village until quite recently, had been quietly amalgamated into the city. The streets still smelled of earth and meadows, there was a church, a farmers’ market, there were gardens and old country houses. The U-Bahn had a terminal there, where Carl took the train to the Foreign Ministry every morning at seven.
    Foreign affairs were becoming less foreign by the day, what with all the new German conquests, Emma remarked drily. They would be making themselves redundant next.
    Carl had to smile at her laconic, un-German sense of humour, her plain speaking. Quick, fearless, and unwaveringly good-tempered she was. Like him. They were two of a kind, high-level poker players, leading intense lives on the edge ofdanger. Carl worked for Adam von Trott, the all-knowing, unflappable Trott, who knew everybody who mattered, who swept his associates along with him in his convictions. And his convictions were diametrically opposed to those of his superiors and the almighty superior in whose name all was directed and done.
    They had just returned from Switzerland, their travel bags were still in the hall. It was Monday morning, June 2. They had taken the overnight train, and Carl had gone straight from the station to his office. Emma was exhausted; travelling by sleeper did not agree with her. She wondered what had been the matter with her father. She had never seen him so distracted, so utterly wrapped up in his own thoughts, like a mathematician brooding over a problem, and it had taken some effort to get his attention at all. But the news about Barbarossa had shaken him awake. On reflection, she couldn’t see how she could have been so reckless as to burden him with that secret. It had been going round and round in her head for days, she hadn’t known which way to turn. Her father might be able to do something – who else? The effect had been galvanising. Her distracted father, sitting opposite her in a world of his own, had come crashing back to earth on the instant. He darted a glance around him and asked in a low,urgent voice: “Are you quite sure about this?” She only had time to say yes when Carl reappeared, and quickly changed the subject: “What about Mama, when will you be