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

could starve without a ration card. Instead, he was looking at lines of washing hanging across the narrowness of the street, at women kneading dough in open bakeries, at flocks of starlings swooping busily over a street-corner market stall. Nehmann paused to check his bearings. A conjuring trick, he concluded. Normal life restored by sleight of hand.

He found the Alla Vite Dorata without difficulty. The building had the air of a beggar in the street, unkempt, neglected. The grey stucco was crumbling. The windows were still shuttered. He stepped back and shook his head, bewildered. Movie stars earned good money. If you’d come to Venice to spoil yourself why would you ever stay here?

Nehmann tried the door. It was locked. There was no bell, no knocker, and so he hammered on the peeling paintwork with the side of his fist. At length, he thought he heard movement inside, then the door opened and he was looking at a man in his thirties, white shirt, black trousers, bare feet. His face was heavily tanned beneath several days of stubble.

‘Hedvika…?’ Nehmann gestured inside.

‘Lei parla Italiano?’

‘Nein.’

The man looked at him a moment longer, then came a voice Nehmann recognised from the depths of the building. She was shouting something in Italian.

‘That’s her,’ he said. ‘Hedvika.’

He found her, as promised, in a bare room on the top floor. Naked from the waist up, she was sitting up in bed, stroking a fat tabby cat. Nehmann settled at once on the side of the bed. He knew about cats.

‘She’s got a problem with her eye,’ he said at once. ‘Try a weak vinegar solution. She’ll hate it but it might do the trick.’

‘He,’ she said. ‘He’s a he. He fights all night and comes back for attention. Sometimes it’s an eye. Sometimes other places. There isn’t enough vinegar in this city to make him better. He lives to fight. Sometimes I think he must be German.’

Nehmann wanted to know about this pension of hers. With all those movies behind her, why end up in a dump like this?

The word ‘pension’ amused her. The house, she said, belonged to a friend of hers. He’d bought it before the war as an investment and one day he’d come back and tidy things up, but for now that was difficult.

‘He’s in hospital, your friend?’

‘He is.’ She looked surprised. ‘How did you know?’

Nehmann shook his head. Wouldn’t say. Instead, he asked about the man downstairs.

‘He’s Carlo’s brother, Fabio. Not bad, but Carlo’s twice the man. Fabio’s been here for a while. He thinks the war’s stupid and he’s got no time for dying.’

‘He’s in hiding?’

‘He doesn’t go out much.’ She got rid of the cat and moved to the side of the bed. Then she asked Nehmann to shut the door. ‘A fuck might be nice.’ She smiled. ‘If you’re offering.’

*

Later, she took him to lunch at a trattoria on the Piazza San Marco. The exchange rate between the lira and the Reichsmark was very good just now and she had more money than she could possibly spend.

‘So, fifty Reichsmarks…?’ Nehmann asked.

‘A fortune. Fifty will buy you the evening of your dreams. Tosca at La Fenice. Dinner at the Danieli. Grappa by the bottle. Whoever said war was a bad idea?’

Nehmann grinned, thinking of his little gondolier. Fifty marks, he decided, was cheap. The biggest gestures were always the best. He should have made it a hundred, maybe two. Goebbels, early on in their relationship, had put his finger on it. Whatever the challenge, whatever the difficulties, you go as fast as you can, you be as bold as you can, and you ignore all advice to the contrary. Because the wildest life is the most beautiful.

‘Lida Baarova,’ he murmured. ‘You know her?’

‘Of course. I’m Czech. I’m an actress. As it happens, we even share a couple of schoolfriends, back in Prague. Why do you ask?’

‘Because I’d like to meet her.’

‘But why?’ She beckoned him closer. ‘I’ve given you a taste for Czech movie stars? You like the way we treat our men? Is that it?’

‘It might be. It depends.’

‘On what? On her? Just now, she’s seeing no one. In fact, she hasn’t had a man for a very long time.’

‘Should that be a surprise? Given what happened?’

‘Of course not. The poor woman had a breakdown. Your friend Goebbels set the dogs on her, chased her out of Berlin. First he frightened her, then he put her in an asylum. You couldn’t write a story like that. No one would ever believe it. And you know what makes it even worse? She loved that man, she really did. They were together for two whole years. She believed everything he told her, every promise he made. It wasn’t just the money, the fame, the presents, the attention. He said it was about her. He said he needed her wholeness, her specialness. He said she was the only woman, the only person in the world who could bring him peace.’ She paused. ‘Does any of that sound familiar?’

Nehmann was watching an elderly couple hugging the shadows at the edge of the piazza as they walked their dog. They were arm in arm, discreetly turning their backs as the little spaniel squatted on the warm marble.

‘Maybe he meant it,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe it was true.’

‘And now?’

‘Maybe it’s still true.’

‘And is that why you’re here? An envoy from the dwarf?’

This was uncomfortably close to the truth and Nehmann sensed she knew it. Had someone been sent earlier? Had Goebbels tried to contact Baarova in person? Was this mission his last throw of the ministerial dice?

Hedvika wasn’t giving up. She wanted to know more.

‘You know this man well,’ she said. ‘At least that’s what you always told me. You think he’s lonely? Might that be a clue?’

‘Everyone’s lonely at his level. Goebbels, Ribbentrop, Himmler. The only one who copes is probably Goering and that’s because there’s so much of him.’

‘You mean he’s fat?’ She was laughing.

‘I mean he’s big. Big-hearted. Lots of soul.