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

to the Minister, had drawn a caustic response. ‘Publish this shit,’ Goebbels had scribbled in green ink, ‘and we’ll both end up in the KZ.’

Nehmann, of course, had no intention of getting anywhere near a concentration camp and half an hour in the Minister’s office, late at night, had produced a second draft, and then a third. This was the version, carefully salted with dutiful nods to the many glories of the Reich, that had landed on the publicity executive’s lap.

‘I was at the dentist,’ she explained on the phone. ‘It made perfect reading.’

Nehmann mentioned Hedvika.

‘You know her well?’ she asked.

‘Very.’

‘How well?’

‘Ask her. That woman never lies and neither do I.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ she laughed. ‘Everyone lies, all the time.’

‘OK, so try this. Tell her the trick really works.’

‘What trick?’

‘Levitation. Just say it. Levitation. That’s all you need.’ He paused. ‘So, where is she?’

‘On vacation. I thought you knew.’

‘I did. How long a holiday does she need?’

‘It’s complicated. You know about Emilio? I’m guessing you probably do. He threw her off the set last week as soon as she’d done her final scene.’

‘Am I allowed to ask why?’

‘I’m sure you can guess. Who gets to see her in close-up? Who controls her lighting? Who makes her look truly beautiful?’

‘The cameraman.’

‘You’re right. And his services didn’t end there.’

‘He’s with her now?’

‘He’s in hospital. Emilio has rough friends. You want me to talk to Hedvika? Give me your number. I’ll do my best.’

Nehmann didn’t have to wait long. That evening, Guram’s phone rang. Maria was playing in the club at Moabit. Nehmann lifted the receiver and waited for the long-distance crackle to recede. Finally, an Italian operator checked his name and asked him to stand by for a call.

Nehmann was sitting at the piano, newly tuned. He walked his fingers along the keyboard in a slow arpeggio, a trick that Maria had taught him. Finally came a voice he recognised.

‘Hedvika?’ he asked.

‘Ja.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Venice.’

*

Next day, Nehmann took the train south. Goebbels had given him five thousand Reichsmarks two weeks ago. He’d already spent nearly four hundred on presents for Maria, but he had plenty left. The southbound express left the Hauptbahnhof at six minutes past nine. He changed trains at Munich and dozed through the Alps in a sleeping compartment he had to himself, woken only by a cheerful Italian customs official at the border.

Dawn found him crossing the lagoon towards the distant promise of a city he’d never seen before. He stepped into the corridor and hung out of the window, savouring the rankness of this inland sea. Already, Venice smelled of decay and corruption. Perfect.

Hedvika had given him instructions to her hotel. He was to find a vaporetto and ask for the Palazzo Grassi. Three streets away from the water, look for another tiny canal on the right. Maybe a hundred metres, a once-imposing front door with a brass plate that badly needs a polish. Alla Vite Dorata. Top-floor room with a fine view of a neighbour’s yard. Gute Reise.

Safe journey. Nehmann didn’t bother with the vaporetto. He had money in his pocket and the city at his feet. In any movie, he thought, this opening scene called for a gondola and a boatman with a half-decent voice. The dock at the railway terminus was emptier than he’d expected. Maybe it was the hour, he thought. Still barely seven in the morning.

The first gondolier he tried was a hunchback who had trouble meeting Nehmann’s eyes as he gazed down from the dock. The man’s face had acquired a wistful bitterness that Nehmann loved at first sight. Someone had done a startling job on the perfectly ironed whiteness of his shirt and, when Nehmann asked him for a song before embarking, he obliged with a fortissimo version of the ‘Horst Wessel’. Nehmann blinked. The gondolier was stamping one boot, the tiny barque trembling beneath him. For just a moment, Nehmann wondered about hiring one of the other gondoliers but decided his new friend was making a point and was happy to accept a helping hand as he clambered aboard.

‘Welcome to Venezia,’ the gondolier said. ‘I am Benito. You will be Adolf. The world is crazy, si?’

Nehmann, blissfully content in such company, settled on the upholstered banquette in the stern. Benito, braced on the platform behind him, handled the gondola with dismissive aplomb. Sweep after sweep of the long paddle took them away from the railway terminus towards the heart of the city. Wherever he looked, Nehmann thought, history had its feet planted deep in the murk of the Grand Canal. A frieze of houses, as perfect as a theatre set, impossibly old, impossibly crooked, impossibly beautiful. Elegant palazzos, their windows half shuttered against the brightness of the morning light. Only this morning, before leaving Berlin, Maria had warned him that Venice would be the sweetshop of his dreams. A temptress city full of impossible delights. A city that played tricks with you. A city that led you deep into a maze you simply couldn’t comprehend. She’d been there herself in circumstances she might one day share but for now she just wanted him to let the city cast its spell.

‘You’ll have no choice.’ She’d reached up to kiss him. ‘Nobody has.’

She was right. They were approaching the landing stage at Palazzo Grassi. The gondola bumped gently against the rope fender and Benito reached down to help him off. The sight of a fifty Reichsmark note briefly sparked what might have been a smile.

‘Take care, my friend.’ Benito carefully folded the note into a pocket. ‘The lady isn’t as sweet as she looks.’

‘Lady?’

‘Venezia.’

Nehmann left the landing stage without a backward glance, aware that the city was already drawing him in. Barely metres from the water, the buildings closed around him, towering walls of windowed brick and stone, each subtly different. There was no sign of the war here, no indication that vast armies were fighting to the death, that millions of city dwellers were spending every night underground, that a family