‘Checking to see if you have any Jewish features,’ Rod replied. ‘And I think your blonde hair did you a great favour there.’
She was genuinely shocked. Georgie knew of the Nazi decree since 1934 banning German Jews from working in newspapers and publishing, amongst a whole host of other professions, including practising as doctors, lawyers and teachers. ‘Surely, that hasn’t extended to the foreign press?’
‘Not officially,’ Rod said, ‘but since when have the Nazis worried about officialdom when it suits them? If he didn’t like the look of you, he could simply refuse your press pass. He doesn’t need a valid reason. He has the Reich on his side.’
Georgie looked aghast, though Rod only nudged playfully at her shoulder. ‘Welcome to Hitler’s paradise.’
The wait between successive doors seemed an age, though ample time for her guide to provide a running commentary of each department and its occupants.
‘Watch out, the mini-Führer approaches,’ Rod whispered, standing as a man in a dark double-breasted suit approached, not quite clicking his heels to signal his arrival, but almost. He was wider and smaller, but his attempts to mimic his obvious hero in Adolf Hitler made him look faintly comical, like some sort of tragic lookalike in a sideshow act. His brush of a moustache stood almost to attention as he tried – and failed – to smile with conviction.
‘Herr Faber,’ he said briskly to Rod. ‘How nice to see you here.’ His expression, however, told another story.
‘You too, Herr Bauer.’ Also a falsehood. ‘May I introduce a new addition to the press corps, Miss Georgie Young? She’s part of the London News Chronicle staff.’
‘Ah,’ said Herr Bauer, ‘welcome to Berlin, Fraulein Young. I expect you are finding the city engaging?’
‘Very much so,’ Georgie said. ‘It’s very … pristine. And enticing.’
He took it as a compliment, no doubt to the wonders of Nazism, briefly flashing his tiny, crooked teeth before quickly regaining a serious composure, as if his humour – all humour – was necessarily on ration. ‘Not too enticing, I hope,’ he went on. ‘Not so it will keep you from us. I trust we’ll see more of you at our press calls than your colleague, Herr Adamson. He’s been rather absent of late.’ His eyes were the black, shiny beads of a crow.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll keep her on the straight and narrow,’ Rod cut in to soften the discourse. ‘Make sure she’s in all the right places.’
Herr Bauer smiled once more, his teeth on ration this time, nodded curtly, turned and marched away.
Rod sighed. ‘That,’ he said, ‘was Bruno Bauer. A toady little man but he does manage the foreign press corps, which means he has a certain power over us. It’s as well to keep on his right side, or you’ll find yourself frozen out. Don’t worry, though, I think he liked you.’
‘And are they all like that …’ It wasn’t often that Georgie was lost for words, particularly of the descriptive type. ‘I mean, creepy?’ By ‘they’ she wasn’t alluding to Germans or even German men, but devoted, dyed-in-the-wool Nazis.
Rod laughed under his breath. ‘Oh, he’s not the worst by far,’ he said. ‘Though he is an obsequious chump. And yes, they are a fairly horrible bunch. But it is good fun trying to get one over on them from time to time.’
Three hours, several offices and one grilling later, they emerged onto the ministry steps. Georgie was emotionally battered, though relieved: she clutched the all-important press card, signed and stamped with the eagle icon. It was a strange feeling to be accredited by the Third Reich, and yet she was now part of the pack. Officially.
‘Time for lunch?’ Rod pitched. Georgie’s stomach reminded her it was midday, but she hesitated, aware of the Chronicle’s diary entry for one p.m. in the Tiergarten – some middling Nazi official reviewing troops of the League of German Girls showing off their gymnastic skills. Paul had marked it clearly for her attendance.
‘That?’ Rod scoffed. ‘I can tell you now your paper won’t touch a few girls leapfrogging as a news item – too trivial. Much better I show you the best café sights of Berlin, places where you might pick up some real contacts.’
The gripe of hunger and the promise of coffee, plus Rod’s easy company, persuaded her. She was unlikely to see Paul to have to make any excuses.
They walked up the Wilhelmstrasse and back onto Unter den Linden, where the crimson banners were in full flight. Rod piloted her to Café Kranzler, a grand corner restaurant with small, potted trees marking the sitting area outside, its lantern lights on stalks and neatly aligned with the Reich columns stretching into the distance. They sat at one of the street-side tables, Georgie instantly seduced by the vibrant café culture. Berliners, she thought, knew how to socialise both day and night. The chink of teacups and hum of easy conversation between well-dressed women might lead anyone to believe that everything in the city – in the world, in fact – was fine. Unoppressed. Free.
‘I won’t say a thing if you choose to have cake for lunch,’ Rod said, lighting a cigarette and blowing the smoke plume up into the awning. ‘The strudel is famously good here.’ He patted the middle-aged paunch under his shirt. ‘My daughter is constantly warning me against it.’
‘And how old is she, your daughter? Is she here in Berlin?’
‘No, no, she’s back home in New York, with my son and both my ex-wives.’ His face expressed not sadness, only something like resignation at the personal life of a veteran reporter. ‘She’s nineteen. In fact, she wants to become a journalist herself. She’s at college right now.’ His face couldn’t muster any enthusiasm.
‘And you’re not happy about that?’ Perhaps Rod sees me like so many others, Georgie mused, a woman abroad who’s not up to the job, and never will be.
‘Oh, it’s not that she’s female,’ he added swiftly. ‘More that she’s my daughter. I dare say your father might think the same?’
He was more than likely right. Georgie thought back to where she grew up – a small, provincial town in the Cotswolds, with her schoolteacher father and her housewife mother. Moving to London had seemed bad enough in their eyes but she wouldn’t easily forget the drained look on their faces after announcing her posting to Berlin, the worry she’d caused them. It was as much for them that she felt driven to prove herself now – to survive and succeed in unison.
‘I suppose,’ she said, swallowing back guilt with a spoonful of the strudel. He was right – it was divine, the pastry light and airy. Unlike the mood of Berlin.
They lingered for some time, and Georgie held fast to Rod’s conversation – he’d been in Berlin for ten years, on and off, and he was a fountain of knowledge on survival; time much better spent than watching Hitler’s young maidens practise their hula-hooping in the park.
Finally, one of the waiters approached them – tall, his dark hair slicked and with intense brown eyes. ‘Anything else, sir?’ he asked.
Rod barely looked up or acknowledged the man. ‘Ah, Karl, no thank you,’ he said in a low voice while looking aimlessly at the menu. ‘But my new friend here – Fraulein Young – might want something else.’