Come the Hour Read online

  ‘Weren’t they Germans really?’ Charlie said. ‘They wanted to be taken over, didn’t they?’ There was a silence. ‘I’m only asking.’

  ‘They are doing terrible things to the Jews,’ Amy said. ‘There is no excuse for that.’

  ‘Why do you want to go, Charlie?’ Dan said quietly.

  Charlie met his father’s eyes directly. ‘Can you really believe everything that the papers say? I want to see for myself.’

  Dan saw something in Charlie’s face – a message that the boy, knowingly or unknowingly, was giving him. Perhaps, he thought, some kind of resolve. For the first time, fleetingly, he had the impression that the boy was no longer there, and he was looking at a man.

  Charlie tucked into his chicken. ‘I’d like to go’ he said.

  Amy frowned. ‘We’ll have to think about it.’ She glanced at Dan. ‘Dad and I will think about it.’

  After dinner Charlie joined his father in the garden. Dan lit his pipe and they sat together in the warm, pearly evening, the light soft and the air still.

  ‘Why must you go to Germany?’ Dan said. ‘If you want to travel a bit go somewhere else – France, perhaps. You could get home more easily from France.’

  ‘I just want to see Germany for myself,’ Charlie said. ‘And I’ve never been there. I want to see what’s going on.’

  ‘You can’t ignore what your mother said,’ Dan went on, ‘about Austria and the Jews. Any country that gets rid of men like Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud must have something seriously wrong with it.’

  ‘I don’t ignore it,’ Charlie said, ‘but I want to make up my own mind.’ After a few moments he said, ‘The Duke of Windsor went there.’

  Dan drew on his pipe. ‘That’s hardly a recommendation, and anyway, that was a year ago and things have changed. The sabres are rattling. You know your mother wouldn’t get a wink of sleep until you were home again.’

  ‘A week,’ Charlie said. ‘That’s all. You don’t think anything’s going to happen in the next week or two?’

  Dan shook his head. ‘No. I don’t think so. I very much hope not.’

  They sat in silence for a few moments.

  ‘You never talk about the war,’ Charlie said suddenly. ‘You and Mum. You never say what it was like.’

  Dan looked out across the garden. ‘We were doctors,’ he said. ‘We weren’t in the trenches.’

  ‘But you saw what it was like. I’ve only read the books and seen the pictures. I don’t know how people felt.’

  Dan took his pipe out of his mouth and looked at his son. Charlie drew in his breath. His father’s look of dark, raw pain and distress was unexpected.

  ‘Don’t look like that, Dad,’ he said. ‘It won’t happen to me.’

  Dan looked away. ‘You realize that if it ever did come to war with Germany you and Kurt would be on opposite sides – enemies?’

  ‘I’m not stupid, Dad.’

  ‘I just mean that it might be best not to get too friendly with him – under the circumstances.’

  ‘And that’s what I mean. Surely if more of us ordinary people talk to each other…? We’re not that different, are we?’

  Dan puffed on his pipe. The evening began to fade, the colours blurring and losing their brilliance. Strange, he thought, how colour is only light. He knocked out his pipe on the arm of the bench. ‘I don’t know any more. We’d best go in.’

  Later Amy lay in bed, restless, unable to sleep or read. ‘What shall we do?’ she said. ‘Shall we let him go? The whole thing might blow up at any moment.’

  ‘I don’t think it will,’ Dan said. ‘Not yet anyway. We’re certainly not ready for another war.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘What’s happening, Dan? The Germans have taken Austria, the Spanish are killing each other, the Japanese are bombing China. The world’s gone mad again. And it’s as if some hideous evil force has arranged it, timed it perfectly. It’s just twenty years – just exactly time for the children to grow up. It’s evil. It’s unbearable.’

  He put his arm around her. ‘It probably won’t happen,’ he said. ‘Maybe we should let him go, just for a week. He’s only kicking his heels around here. He says he wants to see for himself.’

  ‘What difference would that make?’ she said. ‘If the balloon goes up he’d have to do what he was told like everybody else.’

  ‘It might make a difference to his personal conviction, and for Charlie I think that would be important.’

  She sighed. ‘You’d have to tell him how careful he must be. You know that an American tourist was badly jostled by a crowd because he wouldn’t give Hitler the Nazi salute?’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ he said. ‘He’s very sensible.’

  ‘He’s just a boy,’ she said, turning over.

  Dan lay back against the pillows. Would it do any good, Charlie going there? Did he need that immediacy, that face-to-face experience, before he decided how to manage his life, the possibilities of the coming world? Things took place in other countries; reports came filtering through: misunderstandings, pride, hate, nationalism and patriotism. Statesmen were just men, after all, as wise and as foolish as anyone else. But Charlie’s life was his own. Perhaps he did need to see for himself.

  Charlie got out of the train at the Anhalter Bahnhof and picked up his suitcase. He didn’t need a porter, he decided; his case wasn’t heavy. At his mother’s insistence he was only staying for a week.

  The platform was crowded. The station smelt of hot oil and burning coal. Clouds of steam rose to the roof and disappeared. There were pigeons up there, he saw, just like at home. He looked about him. He was struck by the number of uniforms. The officers were very smartly dressed, their caps rising at the front in aggressive peaks, badges gleaming. The swastika was everywhere.

  He had been through customs – a very thorough search – when he entered Germany. His passport had been inspected again on the train by a silent, suspicious frontier guard, and handed back to him curtly. He followed the crowd to the exit.

  Kurt was waiting, smiling and waving. ‘I’m glad you are here,’ he said. ‘We’ll get a taxi.’

  They left the station and walked to the taxi rank ‘What is that building?’ Charlie asked. It was close to the station, huge, rectangular, solid, ugly.

  ‘Oh that – it is an air-raid shelter,’ Kurt said. ‘It would take many people.’

  Charlie thought of the air-raid shelters apparently being designed at home – Anderson shelters, he thought they were called – what looked like a couple of pieces of corrugated iron for a roof over a hole dug into the garden – flimsy looking things compared with this. ‘Are you expecting air raids?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Kurt said, ‘but you never know, do you? But I do not know if anyone would attack Germany. It would be foolish, I think.’

  Charlie glanced at him, but Kurt’s face was expressionless.

  They drove through Berlin on the way to the Brauns’ apartment. Charlie stared out of the window. Berlin looked prosperous, he thought. Some of the buildings were obviously new, massive and impressive, with great sculptures at their façades – eagles, soldiers, Teutonic knights, and everywhere the swastika. The whole atmosphere was military, and military on a grand scale. The very buildings seemed aggressive. It was not a bit like London. He wondered how two great European cities could be so different. To him, London had an air of grace, of dignity, wrought by centuries of culture, and by stability, achieved and retained. Here the buildings were new, huge, gleaming blocks. We are stronger than you, they seemed to say, more modern, more powerful. Ignore us at your peril.

  ‘Great buildings,’ he said, and Kurt seemed proud.

  ‘I will show them to you properly,’ he said. ‘They are worth seeing.’

  ‘Do your parents speak English?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘My father does, quite well, my mother hardly at all.’

  Charlie was greeted by Kurt’s parents with the utmost politeness. ‘Welcome to Berlin,’ his fat
her said.

  Kurt took him to his bedroom. ‘I expect you would like a cup of tea,’ Kurt said. Charlie nodded.

  Kurt smiled. ‘Very English,’ he said. ‘I will send it. Dinner will be ready very soon.’

  Charlie unpacked and put his clothes away. The furniture was dark and heavy, very German, he thought, and then smiled at himself. What did he know about Germany? Almost nothing. That was what he was here for. A maid brought him a pot of tea and sugar and milk on a tray and he drank it, looking out of the window. Across the street was a park with trees and flower-beds and straight paths, meeting at neat right angles. He washed his hands and face, put on a clean shirt and tie and a jacket and joined the family for dinner.

  Kurt’s father was quite short and plump, a heavy gold watch chain across his waistcoat. His mother and his little sister were both blond and blue-eyed.

  ‘I hope you will like our German food,’ Herr Braun said. ‘It will make you strong.’

  Charlie smiled at Frau Braun. ‘I’m sure I will.’

  ‘It was kind of you to entertain Kurt in the half-term holidays,’ Herr Braun said, ‘and show him around London. He will show you our Berlin.’

  After dinner the boys went for a walk in the park.

  ‘I’m looking forward to seeing the city,’ Charlie said. ‘The buildings look magnificent.’

  ‘And many of them are new,’ Kurt said. ‘London is very interesting, but you do live in the past, don’t you?’

  ‘We have a lot of past,’ Charlie said. ‘A lot of history.’

  ‘That is where we are encouraged to be different then,’ Kurt said. ‘We are supposed to look to the future now, to the new Germany.’ He paused. ‘Whatever that may be.’

  They walked on. ‘How are your parents?’ Kurt asked.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And how is Tessa?’

  Charlie glanced at him. Kurt’s voice had changed. It had a warmth in it, and a wariness. It hadn’t occurred to him before that Kurt might have been attracted to Tessa. He had never said anything. He wouldn’t, of course. Charlie could see that now. The atmosphere in this country was unmistakable – military and aggressive. Kurt would not, could not, approach an English girl under the circumstances: the hovering of an uncertain and possibly dangerous future.

  ‘Is she still going to be a doctor?’ Kurt said.

  ‘Yes,’ Charlie said. ‘She’s very keen. What are you going to do?’

  ‘Go to university,’ Kurt said. ‘I shall read modern languages. That might be useful in the future.’

  Charlie wondered what kind of future Kurt had in mind, whether he envisaged a situation where the knowledge of languages might go beyond the simple advantages of everyday use. He had certainly been keen to learn English. He didn’t ask. ‘I’m going up to Cambridge,’ he said, ‘to read history.’

  Kurt gave a little laugh. ‘You are a dreamer, Charlie.’

  Charlie felt a sudden rush of feeling. What was it? Pride, patriotism, love of family, of home, some kind of belief? ‘Someone has to be,’ he said.

  Charlie went to bed early, tired from the journey. There was an atmosphere here, he thought, an urgency, a kind of aggression. They were on their way somewhere. Where?

  The next day they did a tour of the city. Troops were marching at the Brandenburg Gate. Charlie watched them, impressed. Their faces, implacable under the heavy helmets, looked as if they were carved from stone. ‘They look very fit,’ he said.

  ‘They are,’ Kurt said. ‘Our Chancellor says that he doesn’t want the army to be intelligent. He wants them brutal.’

  Charlie didn’t reply. Kurt’s voice held a faint touch of deeper meaning. He couldn’t decide whether it was amusement or cynicism.

  They moved on. They looked at one great new building after another, the burnt and damaged Reichstag, now, seemingly, under reconstruction; then the huge, modern complex of the Air Ministry building. Charlie didn’t know where the British Air Ministry was, but he was sure it didn’t look like this. The Germans obviously attached a good deal of importance to their air force. They found and admired the Eagle and Swastika sculpture by Walter Lemke.

  ‘They are magnificent, these buildings,’ Charlie said. ‘They must have cost a fortune.’

  ‘It was probably worth it,’ Kurt said. ‘They send a certain message to the citizens, about our great strength.’ Charlie glanced at him, not sure what he meant, but Kurt’s face again seemed to be carefully expressionless.

  They passed a small group of men, many of them well dressed in suits and overcoats and carrying a small suitcase. They were being moved on by uniformed guards.

  Charlie watched them go by. ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Just some Jews,’ Kurt said, his voice low. ‘Perhaps they have volunteered to do some work for Germany.’ He paused. ‘Or perhaps they are leaving the country.’ He turned away abruptly. ‘Let’s go to the Potsdamer Platz and have coffee. You will like it there.’

  The platz was crammed with cafés and restaurants and plastered with posters advertising reviews and cabarets.

  ‘It is like a Christmas tree at night,’ Kurt said. ‘We will come.’

  They sat at a table outside in the sunshine, watching the crowds, pretty girls, good-looking young men, many uniforms.

  ‘It’s all very impressive,’ Charlie said. ‘Germany is very modern.’

  Karl said nothing, sipping his coffee. ‘What’s all this trouble with the Jews?’ Charlie went on. ‘What are they supposed to have done?’

  Kurt lowered his voice. ‘I don’t think we will talk about the Jews.’

  He didn’t move, didn’t look round, but Charlie could see the tension in his body, the wariness in his face. Kurt got up. ‘I think we will go now.’

  They dined at home again that evening.

  ‘So, what do you think of our Berlin?’ Herr Braun smiled a broad, complacent smile.

  ‘The new buildings are magnificent,’ Charlie said.

  ‘They are the Führer’s doing,’ Herr Braun said. ‘He has saved us from inflation, the communists, the Jews.’ He took a mouthful of wine. ‘We were cheated after the last war,’ he went on, ‘and look at us now – the most powerful country in Europe, if not the world.’

  Charlie didn’t know what to say. He just smiled. Herr Braun did not smile back. He seemed to regard Charlie’s smile as some kind of challenge. ‘We did not cause the last war,’ he said angrily, ‘and we were humiliated afterwards. Our land was given away, to the Czechs and the Poles. Our colonies were given away. Millions of Germans are forced to live outside our borders. What do you think of that?’

  Charlie was deeply embarrassed. He could feel himself flushing. Kurt spoke to his father in rapid German and Herr Braun said no more, stabbing at his food in silence.

  The boys went to the little park again.

  ‘I am sorry about that,’ Kurt said. ‘My father gets very emotional about it. He was in the last war. He was wounded in the leg.’

  Charlie kicked at a little stone. ‘What did you say to him?’

  ‘I said that you were not born then and it was nothing to do with you.’ They walked on. ‘It has left its mark, though.’

  ‘It would,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about it.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Kurt said. ‘We will go to a lake tomorrow, the Wannsee, and take a picnic.’

  Next day they took the subway train to the Lanke station and walked to the lake. They walked past prosperous houses and through a pleasant wood. The shores of the lake were crowded with families, walkers, and children running everywhere. The people looked prosperous, Charlie thought, the women in flowery summer dresses and shady hats.

  ‘We’ll take a boat out on the lake,’ Kurt said. ‘I need some exercise.’

  They hired a rowing boat and Kurt rowed out on to the lake.

  ‘You must forgive my father,’ Kurt said. ‘He is a great admirer of Herr Hitler.’

  ‘I don’t blame him,’ Charlie said. ‘The man has pu
lled the country together. I just don’t understand why he has this hatred of the Jews, and I don’t understand why he’s risking another war.’

  Kurt looked around him. ‘We are on the lake,’ he said quietly, ‘so that no one will hear us. Please, Charlie, do not speak about the Jews or criticize the Führer while you are here. It could make a great deal of trouble for my family.’

  Charlie looked at Kurt’s troubled face and the darkness in his eyes. He felt a sense of sudden and profound shock. I’m a fool, he thought, an idiot. I know nothing. It simply hadn’t occurred to him that he might be in a country where just his words or his expressed opinion could lead to such danger. The moment was a watershed. He felt as if a door had closed behind him, as if he had stepped into another world where he was naked and unprepared. He wondered what Kurt really thought about what was happening in Germany. He, Charlie, lived in a country that he had never questioned, that had never presented him with any real political conflict. He had never had to make such decisions. In fact, he thought, he had never been presented with any kind of conflict. His life had been smooth and untroubled. Perhaps that time was coming. He watched his childhood skitter away across the water.

  He looked at Kurt with new eyes, a new understanding, at a Kurt who seemed so much older, so much more experienced, than himself.

  ‘Remember, Charlie,’ Kurt said. ‘You are not in England now.’

  ‘I – I understand,’ Charlie said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Kurt smiled. ‘We’ll go back now and have our picnic. My mother has packed käsebrotchen and smoked ham and salami and cheese and fruit.’

  ‘A feast,’ Charlie said.

  On Charlie’s last night they went to a nightclub. Most of the clientele were officers in their glamorous uniforms with their pretty, well-dressed girls. On each table was a telephone.

  ‘You can ring up the other tables,’ Kurt said, ‘and ask a girl to dance or have a drink with you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have the nerve,’ Charlie said.

  They drank a few beers before the phone rang.