Last Flight to Stalingrad by Graham Hurley (simple ebook reader .TXT) 📗

‘Of course.’ Nehmann patted him on the shoulder. ‘Why else would a man part with so much champagne?’

In truth, Nehmann was a stranger to the keyboard. The piano was a gift for Maria. Nehmann went across to the window. The Ukrainians had levered open one of the wooden boxes there on the street and were helping themselves to a couple of bottles each. He shook his head and then glanced back at the piano. Week by week, Berlin was emptying of Jews but if you looked the other way and asked no questions you’d hardly notice. Just another vacated apartment, stuffed to the brim with a lifetime’s possessions. Just another dusty space where a grand piano had once been.

Goebbels had another term for these looted treasures. He regarded them as rightful tribute for the master race, payback for centuries of usury. A Jew, he’d once told Nehmann, had the soul of a banker and the conscience of a thief. Only National Socialists knew how to deal with such vermin.

Conscience? Nehmann settled at the piano, deep in thought. Since the last days of peace had brought him to Berlin, he’d been aware of the special place he’d won for himself in Goebbels’ boiling wake. Articles he’d published in the handful of independent publications to survive the Party’s chokehold had caught the attention of the Minister for Propaganda. He’d liked Nehmann’s tone of voice, the way he let his imagination off the leash, even his adopted name. Mikhail Magalashvili would have carried a troubling gust of Slavdom in certain quarters of the Reich. Werner Nehmann – bold, simple, declamatory – was near-perfect.

So far, so good. Goebbels had always been the prisoner of his own schedule, forever criss-crossing the country to roar at his millions of followers, but somehow he’d managed to find the time and the private space to build a relationship with the little Georgian. There was more than a decade between them, but the age difference had never seemed to matter. They both took liberties with the truth. They both loved the company of women. And they were both happy to push their own luck to breaking point. Most important of all, at a level of government where trust and friendship carried serious risks, Nehmann’s company became not only welcome but invaluable.

Sounding board? Drinking companion? Raconteur? Nehmann was never quite sure of his precise role in this relationship but as the war began in earnest, and the men in field greyhelped themselves to country after country across Western Europe, the dizzying series of victories felt like a party without end. Nehmann had loved this interlude, wild, full of opportunities, ungoverned by anything but a crushing workload and a raging thirst, but as that first proper winter came and went, and the attention of the Greater Reich turned towards the east, the mood had become a little more sombre.

Sevastopol had certainly fallen, and there seemed no reason why the oil wells beyond the Caucasus wouldn’t soon be in German hands, but Moscow and Leningrad were still offering stubborn resistance and the sheer size of the Soviet Union defied the gods of resupply. Hitler’s appetite for yet more conquest, yet more territory, was insatiable. Yet the tanks and the aircraft were running out of fuel and ten thousand horses needed more fodder than anyone had ever suspected. And now, remember, it was still summer.

Was this why Goebbels had launched this afternoon’s conversation? With that acute intelligence of his, could he sense events running out of control?

Nehmann thought it more than possible. The Goebbels he knew better than most men was extremely thin-skinned. He lived on his nerves. He wanted, needed, the approbation of others. He lived for praise, for the constant assurance that he was the mastermind behind everything true and necessary and worthwhile that drove the resurgent Germany forward. A handful of men, all of them visionaries, had shaken the recumbent nation awake, but the Minister of Propaganda – in his own eyes – was the only one with the truly magical touch. Deutschland erwache! – Germany awake! – was the chant that launched a thousand newsreels. And all of them, one way or another, were the work of Joseph Goebbels.

And yet the man was lonely. And forlorn. And just occasionally lost. And on these occasions, like this afternoon, he had only one name on his lips.

Lida Baarova.

*

Maria arrived within the hour. It was early evening by now, but she didn’t have to be at work until nine o’clock and Moabit was only half an hour away on the tram. One of her fellow musicians at the club owned part shares in an allotment in Charlottenburg, and she had a basket half full of fruit.

‘Cherries,’ she said, ‘and blackcurrants, and some early apples at the bottom.’

She was standing in the middle of the room, the last of the sunshine caught in the thickness of her hair. She’d yet to notice the piano.

‘And that’ – Nehmann nodded at it – ‘is for you.’ He helped himself to a cherry. ‘Fair exchange?’

She glanced round, then looked properly. She wanted to know what it was doing here, where it came from. She was like a child, tiny gasps of surprise and delight.

‘Really?’ She’d settled on the stool, already flexing her fingers. ‘For me?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘But it does. This is a Steinway. You don’t understand. They cost a fortune. Where did you get it?’

Nehmann mumbled something about a specialist shop off the Ku’damm. It was a lie, of course, but he didn’t think it would matter.

‘Just play something,’ he said. ‘For me.’

She held his gaze for a moment, visibly troubled, then inched the stool a little closer to the keyboard and played a chord or two.

‘They tuned it for you?’

‘I didn’t ask. What do you think?’

‘Not bad. I have a tuning fork at home. I’ll bring it tomorrow. You have some wine? I’d like that.’

Nehmann fetched a bottle of claret from the closet, making a mental note to account for the missing cases. By the