Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

24

1948

Volodya was in Prague as part of a Red Army delegation holding talks with the Czech military. They were staying in art deco splendour at the Imperial Hotel.

It was snowing.

He missed Zoya and little Kotya. His son was two years old and learning new words at bewildering speed. The child was changing so fast that he seemed different every day. And Zoya was pregnant again. Volodya resented having to spend two weeks apart from his family. Most of the men in the group saw the trip as a chance to get away from their wives, drink too much vodka, and maybe fool around with loose women. Volodya just wanted to go home.

The military talks were genuine, but Volodya’s part in them was a cover for his real assignment, which was to report on the activities in Prague of the ham-fisted Soviet secret police, perennial rivals of Red Army Intelligence.

Volodya had little enthusiasm for his work nowadays. Everything he had once believed in had been undermined. He no longer had faith in Stalin, Communism, or the essential goodness of the Russian people. Even his father was not his father. He would have defected to the West if he could have found a way of getting Zoya and Kotya out with him.

However, he did have his heart in his mission here in Prague. It was a rare chance to do something he believed in.

Two weeks ago the Czech Communist party had taken full control of the government, ousting their coalition partners. Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, a war hero and democratic anti-Communist, had become a prisoner on the top floor of his official residence, the Czernin Palace. The Soviet secret police had undoubtedly been behind the coup. In fact Volodya’s brother-in-law, Colonel Ilya Dvorkin, was also in Prague, staying at the same hotel, and had almost certainly been involved.

Volodya’s boss, General Lemitov, saw the coup as a public relations catastrophe for the USSR. Masaryk had constituted proof, to the world, that East European countries could be free and independent in the shadow of the USSR. He had enabled Czechoslovakia to have a Communist government friendly to the Soviet Union and at the same time wear the costume of bourgeois democracy. This had been the perfect arrangement, for it gave the USSR everything it wanted while reassuring the Americans. But that equilibrium had been upset.

However, Ilya was crowing. ‘The bourgeois parties have been smashed!’ he said to Volodya in the hotel bar one night.

‘Did you see what happened in the American Senate?’ Volodya said mildly. ‘Vandenberg, the old isolationist, made an eighty-minute speech in favour of the Marshall Plan, and he was cheered to the rafters.’

George Marshall’s vague ideas had become a plan. This was mainly thanks to the rat-like cunning of British Foreign Secretary Ernie Bevin. In Volodya’s opinion, Bevin was the most dangerous kind of anti-Communist: a working-class social democrat. Despite his bulk he moved fast. With lightning speed he had organized a conference in Paris that had given a resounding collective European welcome to George Marshall’s Harvard speech.

Volodya knew, from spies in the British Foreign Office, that Bevin was determined to bring Germany into the Marshall Plan and keep the USSR out. And Stalin had fallen straight into Bevin’s trap, by commanding the East European countries to repudiate Marshall Aid.

Now the Soviet secret police seemed to be doing all they could to assist the passage of the bill through Congress. ‘The Senate was all set to reject Marshall,’ Volodya said to Ilya. ‘American taxpayers don’t want to foot the bill. But the coup here in Prague has persuaded them that they have to, because European capitalism is in danger of collapse.’

Ilya said indignantly: ‘The bourgeois Czech parties wanted to take the American bribe.’

‘We should have let them,’ said Volodya. ‘It might have been the quickest way to sabotage the whole scheme. Congress would then have rejected the Marshall Plan – they don’t want to give money to Communists.’

‘The Marshall Plan is an imperialist trick!’

‘Yes, it is,’ said Volodya. ‘And I’m afraid it’s working. Our wartime allies are forming an anti-Soviet bloc.’

‘People who obstruct the forward march of Communism must be dealt with appropriately.’

‘Indeed they must.’ It was amazing how consistently people such as Ilya made the wrong political judgements.

‘And I must go to bed.’

It was only ten, but Volodya went too. He lay awake thinking about Zoya and Kotya and wishing he could kiss them both goodnight.

His thoughts drifted to his mission. He had met Jan Masaryk, the symbol of Czech independence, two days earlier, at a ceremony at the grave of his father, Thomas Masaryk, the founder and first President of Czechoslovakia. Dressed in a coat with a fur collar, head bared to the falling snow, the second Masaryk had seemed beaten and depressed.

If he could be persuaded to stay on as Foreign Minister, some compromise might be possible, Volodya mused. Czechoslovakia could have a thoroughly Communist domestic government, but in its international relations it might be neutral, or at least minimally anti-American. Masaryk had both the diplomatic skills and the international credibility to walk that tightrope.

Volodya decided he would suggest it to Lemitov tomorrow.

He slept fitfully and woke before six o’clock with a mental alarm ringing in his imagination. It was something about last night’s conversation with Ilya. Volodya ran over it again in his mind. When Ilya had said People who obstruct the forward march of Communism he had been talking about Masaryk; and when a secret policeman said someone had to be dealt with appropriately he always meant killed.

Then Ilya had gone to bed early, which suggested an early start this morning.

I’m a fool, Volodya thought. The signs were there and it took me all night to read them.

He leaped out of bed. Perhaps he was not too late.

He dressed quickly and put on a heavy overcoat, scarf and hat. There were no taxis outside the hotel – it was too early. He could have called a Red Army car, but by the time a driver was awakened and the car brought it would take the best part of an hour.

He set out to walk. The Czernin Palace was only a mile or two away. He headed west out of Prague’s gracious city centre, crossed the St Charles Bridge, and hurried uphill towards the castle.

Masaryk was not expecting him, nor was the Foreign Minister obliged to give audience to a Red Army colonel. But Volodya felt sure Masaryk would be curious enough to see him.

He walked fast through the snow and reached the Czernin Palace at six-forty-five. It was a huge baroque building with a grandiose row of Corinthian half-columns on the three upper storeys. The place was lightly guarded, he found to his surprise. A sentry pointed to the front door. Volodya walked unchallenged through an ornate hall.

He had expected to find the usual secret police moron behind a reception desk, but there was no one. This was a bad sign, and he was filled with foreboding.

The hall led to an inner courtyard. Glancing through a window, he saw what looked like a man sleeping in the snow. Perhaps he had fallen there drunk: if so, he was in danger of freezing to death.

Volodya tried the door and found it open.

He ran across the quadrangle. A man in blue silk pyjamas lay face down on the ground. There was no snow covering him, so he could not have been there many minutes. Volodya knelt beside him. The man was quite still and did not appear to be breathing.

Volodya looked up. Rows of identical windows like soldiers on parade looked into this courtyard. All were closed tightly against the freezing weather – except one, high above the man in pyjamas, that stood wide open.

As if someone had been thrown out of it.

Volodya turned the lifeless head and looked at the man’s face.

It was Jan Masaryk.

(ii)

Three days later in Washington, the Joint Chiefs of Staff presented to President Truman an emergency war plan to meet a Soviet invasion of Western Europe.

The danger of a third world war was a hot topic in the press. ‘We just won the war,’ Jacky Jakes said to Greg Peshkov. ‘How come we’re about to have another?’

‘That’s what I keep asking myself,’ said Greg.

They were sitting on a park bench while Greg took a breather from throwing a football with Georgy.

‘I’m glad he’s too young to fight,’ Jacky said.

‘Me, too.’

They both looked at their son, standing talking to a blonde girl about his age. The laces of his Keds were undone and his shirt was untucked. He was twelve years old and growing up. He had a few soft black hairs on his upper lip, and he seemed three inches taller than last week.

‘We’ve been bringing our troops home as fast as we can,’ Greg said. ‘So have the British and the French. But the Red Army stayed put. Result: they now have three times as many soldiers in Germany as we do.’

‘Americans don’t want another war.’

‘You can say that again. And Truman hopes to win the Presidential election in November, so he’s going to do everything he can to avoid war. But it may happen anyway.’

‘You’re getting out of the army soon. What are you going to do?’

There was a quaver in her voice that made him suspect the question was not as casual as she pretended. He looked at her face, but her expression was unreadable. He answered: ‘Assuming America is not at war, I’m going to run for Congress in 1950. My father has agreed to finance my campaign. I’ll start as soon as the Presidential election is over.’

She looked away. ‘Which party?’ She asked the question mechanically.

He wondered if he had said something to upset her. ‘Republican, of course.’

‘What about marriage?’

Greg was taken aback. ‘Why do you ask that?’

She was looking hard at him now. ‘Are you getting married?’ she persisted.

‘As it happens, I am. Her name is Nelly Fordham.’

‘I thought so. How old is she?’

‘Twenty-two. What do you mean, you thought so?’

‘A politician needs a wife.’

‘I love her!’

‘Sure you do. Is her family in politics?’

‘Her father is a Washington lawyer.’

‘Good choice.’

Greg felt annoyed. ‘You’re being very cynical.’

‘I know you, Greg. Good Lord, I fucked you when you weren’t much older than Georgy is now. You can fool everyone except your mother and me.’

She was perceptive, as always. His mother had also been critical of his engagement. They were right: it was a career move. But Nelly was pretty and charming and she adored Greg, so what was so wrong? ‘I’m meeting her for lunch near here in a few minutes,’ he said.

Jacky said: ‘Does Nelly know about Georgy?’

‘No. And we must keep it that way.’

‘You’re right. Having an illegitimate child is bad enough; a black one could ruin your career.’

‘I know.’

‘Almost as bad as a black wife.’

Greg was so surprised that he came right out with it. ‘Did you think I was going to marry you?’

She looked sour. ‘Hell, no, Greg. If I was given a choice between you and the Acid Bath Murderer, I’d ask for time to think about it.’

She was lying, he knew. For a moment he contemplated the idea of marrying Jacky. Interracial marriages were unusual, and attracted a good deal of hostility from blacks as well as whites, but some people did it and put up with the consequences. He had never met a girl he liked as much as Jacky; not even Margaret Cowdry, whom he had dated for a couple of years, until she got fed up of waiting for him to propose. Jacky was sharp-tongued, but he liked that, maybe because his mother was the same. There was something deeply attractive about the idea of the three of them being together all the time. Georgy would learn to call him Dad. They could buy a house in a neighbourhood where people were broad-minded, some place that had a lot of students and young professors, maybe Georgetown.

Then he saw Georgy’s blonde friend being called away by her parents, a cross white mother wagging a finger in admonition, and he realized that marrying Jacky was the worst idea in the world.

Georgy returned to where Greg and Jacky sat. ‘How’s school?’ Greg asked him.

‘I like it better than I used to,’ the boy said. ‘Math is getting more interesting.’

‘I was good at math,’ Greg said.

Jacky said: ‘Now there’s a coincidence.’

Greg stood up. ‘I have to go.’ He squeezed Georgy’s shoulder. ‘Keep working on the math, buddy.’

‘Sure,’ said Georgy.

Greg waved at Jacky and left.

She had been thinking about marriage at the same time as he, no doubt. She knew that coming out of the army was a decision moment for him. It forced him to think about his future. She could not really have thought he would marry her, but all the same she must have harboured a secret fantasy. Now he had shattered it. Well, that was too bad. Even if she had been white he would not have married her. He was fond of her, and he loved the kid, but he had his whole life ahead of him, and he wanted a wife who would bring him connections and support. Nelly’s father was a powerful man in Republican politics.

He walked to the Napoli, an Italian restaurant a few blocks from the park. Nelly was already there, her copper-red curls escaping from under a little green hat. ‘You look great!’ he said. ‘I hope I’m not late.’ He sat down.

Nelly’s face was stony. ‘I saw you in the park,’ she said.

Greg thought: Oh, shit.

‘I was a little early, so I sat for a while,’ she said. ‘You didn’t notice me. Then I started to feel like a snoop, so I left.’

‘So you saw my godson?’ he said with forced cheerfulness.

‘Is that who he is? You’re a surprising choice for a godfather. You never even go to church.’

‘I’m good to the kid!’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Georgy Jakes.’

‘You’ve never mentioned him before.’

‘Haven’t I?’

‘How old is he?’

‘Twelve.’

‘So you were sixteen when he was born. That’s young to be a godfather.’

‘I guess it is.’

‘What does his mother do for a living?’

‘She’s a waitress. Years ago she was an actress. Her stage name was Jacky Jakes. I met her when she was under contract to my father’s studio.’ That was more or less true, Greg thought uncomfortably.

‘And his father?’

Greg shook his head. ‘Jacky is single.’ A waiter approached. Greg said: ‘How about a cocktail?’ Perhaps it might ease the tension. ‘Two martinis,’ he said to the waiter.

‘Right away, sir.’

As soon as the waiter had left, Nelly said: ‘You’re the boy’s father, aren’t you?’

‘Godfather.’

Her voice became contemptuous. ‘Oh, stop it.’

‘What makes you so sure?’

‘He may be black, but he looks like you. He can’t keep his shoelaces tied or his shirt tucked in, and nor can you. And he was charming the pants off that little blonde girl he was talking to. Of course he’s yours.’

Greg gave in. He sighed and said: ‘I was going to tell you.’

‘When?’

‘I was waiting for the right moment.’

‘Before you proposed would have been a good time.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He was embarrassed, but not really contrite: he thought she was making an unnecessary fuss.

The waiter brought menus and they both looked at them. ‘The spaghetti bolognese is great,’ said Greg.

‘I’m going to get a salad.’

Their martinis arrived. Greg raised his glass and said: ‘To forgiveness in marriage.’

Nelly did not pick up her drink. ‘I can’t marry you,’ she said.

‘Honey, come on, don’t overreact. I’ve apologized.’

She shook her head. ‘You don’t get it, do you?’

‘What don’t I get?’

‘That woman sitting on the park bench with you – she loves you.’

‘Does she?’ Greg would have denied it yesterday, but after today’s conversation he was not sure.

‘Of course she does. Why hasn’t she married? She’s pretty enough. By now she could have found a man willing to take on a stepson, if she’d really been trying. But she’s in love with you, you rotter.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘And the boy adores you, too.’

‘I’m his favourite uncle.’

‘Except that you’re not.’ She pushed her glass across the table. ‘You have my drink.’

‘Honey, please relax.’

‘I’m leaving.’ She stood up.

Greg was not used to girls walking out on him. He found it unnerving. Was he losing his allure?

‘I want to marry you!’ he said. He sounded desperate even to himself.

‘You can’t marry me, Greg,’ she said. She slipped the diamond ring off her finger and put it down on the red checked tablecloth. ‘You already have a family.’

She walked out of the restaurant.

(iii)

The world crisis came to a head in June, and Carla and her family were at the centre of it.

The Marshall Plan had been signed into law by President Truman, and the first shipments of aid were arriving in Europe, to the fury of the Kremlin.

On Friday 18 June the Western Allies alerted Germans that they would make an important announcement at eight o’clock that evening. Carla’s family gathered around the radio in the kitchen, tuned to Radio Frankfurt, and waited anxiously. The war had been over for three years, yet still they did not know what the future held: capitalism or Communism, unity or fragmentation, freedom or subjugation, prosperity or destitution.

Werner sat beside Carla with Walli, now two and a half, on his knee. They had married quietly a year ago. Carla was working as a nurse again. She was also a Berlin city councillor for the Social Democrats. So was Frieda’s husband, Heinrich.

In East Germany the Russians had banned the Social Democratic Party, but Berlin was an oasis in the Soviet sector, ruled by a council of the four main Allies called the Kommandatura, which had vetoed the ban. As a result, the Social Democrats had won, and the Communists had come a poor third after the conservative Christian Democrats. The Russians were incensed and did everything they could to obstruct the elected council. Carla found it frustrating, but she could not give up the hope of independence from the Soviets.

Werner had managed to start a small business. He had searched through the ruins of his father’s factory and scavenged a small horde of electrical supplies and radio parts. Germans could not afford to buy new radios, but everyone wanted their old ones repaired. Werner had found some engineers formerly employed at the factory and set them to work fixing broken wireless sets. He was the manager and salesman, going to houses and apartment buildings, knocking on doors, drumming up business.

Maud, also at the kitchen table this evening, worked as an interpreter for the Americans. She was one of the best, and often translated at meetings of the Kommandatura.

Carla’s brother Erik was wearing the uniform of a policeman. Having joined the Communist Party – to the dismay of his family – he had got a job as a police officer in the new East German force organized by the Russian occupiers. Erik said the Western Allies were trying to split Germany in two. ‘You Social Democrats are secessionists,’ he said, quoting the Communist line in the same way he had parroted Nazi propaganda.

‘The Western Allies haven’t divided anything,’ Carla retorted. ‘They’ve opened the borders between their zones. Why don’t the Soviets do the same? Then we would be one country again.’ He seemed not to hear her.

Rebecca was almost seventeen. Carla and Werner had legally adopted her. She was doing well at school, and good at languages.

Carla was pregnant again, though she had not told Werner. She was thrilled. He had an adopted daughter and a stepson, but now he would have a child of his own as well. She knew he would be delighted when she told him. She was waiting a little longer to be sure.

But she yearned to know in what kind of country her three children were going to live.

An American officer called Robert Lochner came on the air. He had been raised in Germany and spoke the language effortlessly. Beginning at seven o’clock on Monday morning, he explained, West Germany would have a new currency, the Deutsche Mark.

Carla was not surprised. The Reichsmark was worth less every day. Most people were paid in Reichsmarks, if they had a job at all, and the currency could be used for basics such as food rations and bus fares, but everyone preferred to get groceries or cigarettes. Werner in his business charged people in Reichsmarks but offered overnight service for five cigarettes and delivery anywhere in the city for three eggs.

Carla knew from Maud that the new currency had been discussed at the Kommandatura. The Russians had demanded plates so that they could print it. But they had debased the old currency by printing too much, and there was no point in a new currency if the same thing was going to happen. Consequently the West refused and the Soviets sulked.

Now the West had decided to go ahead without the co-operation of the Soviets. Carla was pleased, for the new currency would be good for Germany, but she felt apprehensive about the Soviet reaction.

People in West Germany could exchange sixty inflated old Reichsmarks for three Deutsche Marks and ninety new pennies, said Lochner.

Then he said that none of this would apply in Berlin, at least at first, whereupon there was a collective groan in the kitchen.

Carla went to bed wondering what the Soviets would do. She lay beside Werner, part of her brain listening in case Walli in the next room should cry. The Soviet occupiers had been getting angrier for the last few months. A journalist called Dieter Friede had been kidnapped in the American zone by the Soviet secret police, then held captive: the Soviets at first denied all knowledge, then said they had arrested him as a spy. Three students had been expelled from university for criticizing the Russians in a magazine. Worst of all, a Soviet fighter aircraft buzzed a British European Airways passenger plane landing at Gatow airport and clipped its wing, causing both planes to crash, killing four BEA crew, ten passengers and the Soviet pilot. When the Russians got angry, someone else always suffered.

Next morning the Soviets announced it would be a crime to import Deutsche Marks into East Germany. This included Berlin, the statement said, ‘which is part of the Soviet zone’. The Americans immediately denounced this phrase and affirmed that Berlin was an international city, but the temperature was rising, and Carla remained anxious.

On Monday, West Germany got the new currency.

On Tuesday, a Red Army courier came to Carla’s house and summoned her to city hall.

She had been summoned this way before, but all the same she was fearful as she left home. There was nothing to stop the Soviets imprisoning her. The Communists had all the same arbitrary powers the Nazis had assumed. They were even using the old concentration camps.

The famous Red City Hall had been damaged by bombing, and the city government was based in the New City Hall in Parochial Strasse. Both buildings were in the Mitte district where Carla lived, which was in the Soviet zone.

When she got there she found that Acting Mayor Louise Schroeder and others had also been called for a meeting with the Soviet liaison officer, Major Otshkin. He informed them that the East German currency was to be reformed, and in future only the new Ostmark would be legal in the Soviet zone.

Acting Mayor Schroeder immediately saw the crucial point. ‘Are you telling us that this will apply in all sectors of Berlin?’

‘Yes.’

Frau Schroeder was not easily intimidated. ‘Under the city constitution, the Soviet occupying power cannot make such a rule for the other sectors,’ she said firmly. ‘The other Allies must be consulted.’

‘They will not object.’ He handed over a sheet of paper. ‘This is Marshal Sokolovsky’s decree. You will bring it before the city council tomorrow.’

Later that evening, as Carla got into bed with Werner, she said: ‘You can see what the Soviet tactic is. If the city council were to pass the decree, it would be difficult for the democratically minded Western Allies to overturn it.’

‘But the council won’t pass it. The Communists are a minority, and no one else will want the Ostmark.’

‘No. Which is why I’m wondering what Marshal Sokolovsky has up his sleeve.’

The next morning’s newspapers announced that from Friday there would be two competing currencies in Berlin, the Ostmark and the Deutsche Mark. It turned out that the Americans had secretly flown in 250 million in the new currency in wooden boxes marked ‘Clay’ and ‘Bird Dog’ which were now stashed all over Berlin.

During the day Carla began to hear rumours from West Germany. The new money had brought about a miracle there. Overnight, more goods had appeared in shop windows: baskets of cherries and neatly tied bundles of carrots from the surrounding countryside, butter and eggs and pastries, and long-hoarded luxuries such as new shoes, handbags, and even stockings at four Deutsche Marks the pair. People had been waiting until they could sell things for real money.

That afternoon Carla set off for City Hall to attend the council meeting scheduled for four o’clock. As she drew near she saw dozens of Red Army trucks parked in the streets around the building, their drivers lounging around, smoking. They were mostly American vehicles that must have been given to the USSR as Lend-Lease aid during the war. She got an inkling of their purpose when she began to hear the sound of an unruly mob. What the Soviet governor had up his sleeve, she suspected, was a truncheon.

In front of City Hall, red flags fluttered above a crowd of several thousand, most of them wearing Communist Party badges. Loudspeaker trucks blared angry speeches, and the crowd chanted: ‘Down with the secessionists.’

Carla did not see how she was going to reach the building. A handful of policemen looked on uninterestedly, making no attempt to help councillors get through. It reminded Carla painfully of the attitude of police on the day the Brownshirts had trashed her mother’s office, fifteen years ago. She was quite sure the Communist councillors were already inside, and that if Social Democrats did not get into the building the minority would pass the decree and claim it to be valid.

She took a deep breath and began to push through the crowd.

For a few steps she made progress unnoticed. Then someone recognized her. ‘American whore!’ he yelled, pointing at her. She pressed on determinedly. Someone else spat at her, and a gob of saliva smeared her dress. She kept going, but she felt panicky. She was surrounded by people who hated her, something she had never experienced, and it made her want to run away. She was shoved, but managed to keep her feet. A hand grasped her dress, and she pulled free with a tearing sound. She wanted to scream. What would they do, rip all her clothes off?

Someone else was fighting his way through the crowd behind her, she realized, and she looked back and saw Heinrich von Kessel, Frieda’s husband. He drew level with her and they barrelled on together. Heinrich was more aggressive, stamping on toes and vigorously elbowing everyone within range, and together they moved faster, and at last reached the door and went in.

But their ordeal was not over. There were Communist demonstrators inside too, hundreds of them. They had to fight through the corridors. In the meeting hall the demonstrators were everywhere – not just in the visitors’ gallery but on the floor of the chamber. Their behaviour here was just as aggressive as outside.

Some Social Democrats were here, and others arrived after Carla. Somehow most of the sixty-three had been able to fight their way through the mob. She was relieved. The enemy had not managed to scare them off.

When the speaker of the assembly called for order, a Communist assemblyman standing on a bench urged the demonstrators to stay. When he saw Carla he yelled: ‘Traitors stay outside!’

It was all grimly reminiscent of 1933: bullying, intimidation, and democracy being undermined by rowdyism. Carla was in despair.

Glancing up to the gallery, she was appalled to see her brother, Erik, among the yelling mob. ‘You’re German!’ she screamed at him. ‘You lived under the Nazis. Have you learned nothing?’

He seemed not to hear her.

Frau Schroeder stood on the platform, calling for calm. She was jeered and booed by the demonstrators. Raising her voice to a shout, she said: ‘If the city council cannot hold an orderly debate in this building, I will move the meeting to the American sector.’

There was renewed abuse, but the twenty-six Communist councillors saw that this move would not suit their purpose. If the council met outside the Soviet zone once, it might do so again, and even move permanently out of the range of Communist intimidation. After a short discussion, one of them stood up and told the demonstrators to leave. They filed out, singing the ‘Internationale’.

‘It’s obvious whose command they’re under,’ Heinrich said.

At last there was quiet. Frau Schroeder explained the Soviet demand, and said that it could not apply outside the Soviet sector of Berlin unless it was ratified by the other Allies.

A Communist deputy made a speech accusing her of taking orders directly from New York.

Accusations and abuse raged to and fro. Eventually they voted. The Communists unanimously backed the Soviet decree – after accusing others of being controlled from outside. Everyone else voted against, and the motion was defeated. Berlin had refused to be bullied. Carla felt wearily triumphant.

However, it was not yet over.

By the time they left it was seven o’clock in the evening. Most of the mob had disappeared, but there was a thuggish hardcore still hanging around the entrance. An elderly woman councillor was kicked and punched as she left. The police looked on with indifference.

Carla and Heinrich left by a side door with a few friends, hoping to depart unobserved, but a Communist on a bicycle was monitoring the exit. He rode off quickly.

As the councillors hurried away, he returned at the head of a small gang. Someone tripped Carla, and she fell to the ground. She was kicked painfully once, twice, three times. Terrified, she covered her belly with her hands. She was almost three months pregnant – the stage at which most miscarriages occurred, she knew. Will Werner’s baby die, she thought desperately, kicked to death on a Berlin street by Communist thugs?

Then they disappeared.

The councillors picked themselves up. No one was badly injured. They moved off together, fearful of a recurrence, but it seemed the Communists had roughed up enough people for one day.

Carla got home at eight o’clock. There was no sign of Erik.

Werner was shocked to see her bruises and torn dress. ‘What happened?’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

She burst into tears.

‘You’re hurt,’ Werner said. ‘Should we go to the hospital?’

She shook her head vigorously. ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘I’m just bruised. I’ve had worse.’ She slumped in a chair. ‘Christ, I’m tired.’

‘Who did this?’ he asked angrily.

‘The usual people,’ she said. ‘They call themselves Communists instead of Nazis, but they’re the same type. It’s 1933 all over again.’

Werner put his arms around her.

She could not be consoled. ‘The bullies and the thugs have been in power for so long!’ she sobbed. ‘Will it ever end?’

(iv)

That night the Soviet news agency put out an announcement. From six o’clock in the morning, all passenger and freight transport in and out of West Berlin – trains, cars and canal barges – would be stopped. No supplies of any kind would get through: no food, no milk, no medicines, no coal. Because the electricity generating stations would therefore be shut down, they were switching off the supply of electricity – to Western sectors only.

The city was under siege.

Lloyd Williams was at British military headquarters. There was a short Parliamentary recess, and Ernie Bevin had gone on holiday to Sandbanks, on the south coast of England, but he was worried enough to send Lloyd to Berlin to observe the introduction of the new currency and keep him informed.

Daisy had not accompanied Lloyd. Their new baby, Davey, was only six months old, and anyway Daisy and Eva Murray were organizing a birth control clinic for women in Hoxton that was about to open its doors.

Lloyd was desperately afraid that this crisis would lead to war. He had fought in two wars, and he never wanted to see a third. He had two small children who he hoped would grow up in a peaceful world. He was married to the prettiest, sexiest, most lovable woman on the planet and he wanted to spend many long decades with her.

General Clay, the workaholic American military governor, ordered his staff to plan an armoured convoy that would barrel down the autobahn from Helmstedt, in the west, straight through Soviet territory to Berlin, sweeping all before it.

Lloyd heard about this plan at the same time as the British governor, Sir Brian Robertson, and heard him say in his clipped soldierly tones: ‘If Clay does that, it will be war.’

But nothing else made any sense. The Americans came up with other suggestions, Lloyd heard, talking to Clay’s younger aides. The Secretary of the Army, Kenneth Royall, wanted to halt the currency reform. Clay told him it had gone too far to be reversed. Next, Royall proposed evacuating all Americans. Clay told him that was exactly what the Soviets wanted.

Sir Brian wanted to supply the city by air. Most people thought that was impossible. Someone calculated that Berlin required 4,000 tons of fuel and food per day. Were there enough airplanes in the world to move that much stuff? No one knew. Nevertheless, Sir Brian ordered the Royal Air Force to make a start.

On Friday afternoon Sir Brian went to see Clay, and Lloyd was invited to be part of the entourage. Sir Brian said to Clay: ‘The Russians might block the autobahn ahead of your convoy, and wait and see if you have the nerve to attack them; but I don’t think they’ll shoot planes down.’

‘I don’t see how we can deliver enough supplies by air,’ Clay said again.

‘Nor do I,’ said Sir Brian. ‘But we’re going to do it until we think of something better.’

Clay picked up the phone. ‘Get me General LeMay in Wiesbaden,’ he said. After a minute he said: ‘Curtis, have you got any planes there that can carry coal?’

There was a pause.

‘Coal,’ said Clay more loudly.

Another pause.

‘Yes, that is what I said – coal.’

A moment later, Clay looked up at Sir Brian. ‘He says the US Air Force can deliver anything.’

The British returned to their headquarters.

On Saturday Lloyd got an army driver and went into the Soviet zone on a personal mission. He drove to the address at which he had visited the von Ulrich family fifteen years ago.

He knew that Maud was still living there. His mother and Maud had resumed correspondence at the end of the war. Maud’s letters put a brave face on what was undoubtedly severe hardship. She did not ask for help, and anyway there was nothing Ethel could do for her – rationing was still in force in Britain.

The place looked very different. In 1933 it had been a fine town house, a little run down but still gracious. Now it looked like a dump. Most of the windows had boards or paper instead of glass. There were bullet holes in the stonework, and the garden wall had collapsed. The woodwork had not been painted for many years.

Lloyd sat in the car for a few moments, looking at the house. Last time he came here he had been eighteen, and Hitler had only just become Chancellor of Germany. The young Lloyd had not dreamed of the horrors the world was going to see. Neither he nor anyone else had suspected how close Fascism would come to triumphing over all Europe, and how much they would have to sacrifice to defeat it. He felt a bit like the von Ulrich house looked, battered and bombed and shot at but still standing.

He walked up the path and knocked.

He recognized the maid who opened the door. ‘Hello, Ada, do you remember me?’ he said in German. ‘I’m Lloyd Williams.’

The house was better inside than out. Ada showed him up to the drawing room, where there were flowers in a glass tumbler on the piano. A brightly patterned blanket had been thrown over the sofa, no doubt to hide holes in the upholstery. The newspapers in the windows let in a surprising amount of light.

A two-year-old boy walked into the room and inspected him with frank curiosity. He was dressed in clothes that were evidently homemade, and he had an Oriental look. ‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘My name is Lloyd. Who are you?’

‘Walli,’ he said. He ran out again, and Lloyd heard him say to someone outside: ‘That man talks funny!’

So much for my German accent, Lloyd thought.

Then he heard the voice of a middle-aged woman. ‘Don’t make such remarks! It’s impolite.’

‘Sorry, Grandma.’

Next moment Maud walked in.

Her appearance shocked Lloyd. She was in her mid-fifties, but looked seventy. Her hair was grey, her face was gaunt, and her blue silk dress was threadbare. She kissed his cheek with shrunken lips. ‘Lloyd Williams, what a joy to see you!’

She’s my aunt, Lloyd thought with a rather queer feeling. But she did not know that: Ethel had kept the secret.

Maud was followed by Carla, who was unrecognizable, and her husband. Lloyd had met Carla as a precocious eleven-year-old: now, he calculated, she was twenty-six. Although she looked half-starved – most Germans did – she was pretty, and had a confident air that surprised Lloyd. Something about the way she stood made him think she might be pregnant. He knew from Maud’s letters that Carla had married Werner, who had been a handsome charmer back in 1933 and was still the same.

They spent an hour catching up. The family had been through unimaginable horror, and said so frankly, yet Lloyd still had a sense that they were editing out the worst details. He told them about Daisy, Evie and Dave. During the conversation a teenage girl came in and asked Carla if she could go to her friend’s house.

‘This is our daughter, Rebecca,’ Carla said to Lloyd.

She was about sixteen, so Lloyd supposed she must be adopted.

‘Have you done your homework?’ Carla asked the girl.

‘I’ll do it tomorrow morning.’

‘Do it now, please,’ Carla said firmly.

‘Oh, Mother!’

‘No argument,’ said Carla. She turned back to Lloyd, and Rebecca stomped out.

They talked about the crisis. Carla was deeply involved, as a city councillor. She was pessimistic about the future of Berlin. She thought the Russians would simply starve the population until the West gave in and handed the city over to total Soviet control.

‘Let me show you something that may make you feel differently,’ Lloyd said. ‘Will you come with me in the car?’

Maud stayed behind with Walli, but Carla and Werner went with Lloyd. He told the driver to take them to Tempelhof, the airport in the American zone. When they arrived he led them to a high window from which they could look down on the runway.

There on the tarmac were a dozen C-47 Skytrain aircraft lined up nose to tail, some with the American star, some with the RAF roundel. Their cargo doors were open, and a truck stood at each one. German porters and American airmen were unloading the aircraft. There were sacks of flour, big drums of kerosene, cartons of medical supplies, and wooden crates containing thousands of bottles of milk.

While they watched, empty aircraft were taking off and more were coming in to land.

‘This is amazing,’ said Carla, her eyes glistening. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’

‘There has never been anything like it,’ Lloyd replied.

She said: ‘But can the British and Americans keep it up?’

‘I think we have to.’

‘But for how long?’

‘As long as it takes,’ said Lloyd firmly.

And they did.