David Goldman, a German-Jew with a Canadian passport and a wartime record with the RAF, has invested the fortune inherited from his father in the establishment of an aviation company. His firm is not only flying freight into Berlin as part of the Berlin Airlift, it is also flying patients out in an air ambulance. But while the business is doing well, David's private life is a shambles after the German woman he fell in love with, Charlotte Walmsdorf, rejects him to marry her returned fiancee.
During the war, David was badly burned while flying a Hurricane in combat, and his face was 'reconstructed' by the famous plastic surgeon Dr McIndoe -- just as was the face of the young man in the portrait above, Wing Commander Bob Doe.
This excerpt from the start of "Cold Victory" depicts his state of mind at this low point in his life.
Sammy licked David’s face to wake him. As the dog’s rough tongue brought him back to consciousness, he groaned. His shoulder was killing him from lying on it for too long on the floor. He dragged himself upright and looked around. He was in a small, old-fashioned sitting room with an empty wine bottle beside him and a dirty wineglass on the table. Where was he and what day was it?
Gradually things started to come back to him. After the police had failed to arrest the man living in his uncle’s gracious house on the Havel, he’d been slipped the keys with the hint that no one would object to him re-occupying family property while his restitution claim worked its way through the bureaucracy. He’d collected Sammy from the Priestman’s home in Kladow, taken all his personal belongings out of the apartment over the company office on Kurfuerstendamm, and moved into the house here on the Schwanenwerder. The main house with its high ceilings and large windows, however, was freezing and lonely. So, he’d set himself up in the housekeeper’s old apartment at the back of the house instead. It was small, cosy and could be heated more easily. In addition, the windows were nearly overgrown with vines, making it harder for people to look in. He could also come and go by the back door, avoiding the main entrance that the police had boarded up.
David had made himself quite comfortable, but then the nightmares started. He dreamt of his childhood, fleeing his father’s contempt and the ridicule of the other children. He heard again his parents’ whispers about bankruptcies, dismissals, terminated contracts and suicides. The memories merged with films of concentration camps and photos of mass graves in the forests east of Warsaw. They mutated into his own melted face, the patchwork of skin, the stitches and swelling, the smell of pus and disinfectant.
“Oh, Sammy,” David gasped out and pulled the blond collie mix into his arms. He’d adopted Sammy when his face was at an early stage of reconstruction. The dog had diligently licked his regenerating skin night after night in an obsessive determination to help his new master recover.
Sammy was skinny, he noted with shock, and sat up more completely. How long had he been lying here? Why on the floor rather than the bed? When was the last time he’d fed Sammy? There was a dog door, and Sammy could get out to drink from the lake, but unless he’d managed to catch a bird or a rabbit for himself, David didn’t think he’d been fed in several days.
David dragged himself to his feet. He was wearing four layers of jumpers, corduroy trousers, thick socks and fleece slippers. His head ached, his mouth tasted foul, and his stomach rumbled. He hadn’t fed himself either. He made his way to the lavatory, relieved himself, and then went into the staff kitchen. He opened cupboards randomly until he found some cans of spam and emptied the contents into Sammy’s bowl. While the dog ate ravenously, he returned to the bathroom to strip down and wash himself, brush his teeth and change into clean clothes.
When he was dressed again, he returned to the kitchen, gave Sammy a second can of spam, and cut the contents of a third can into slices that he laid on slabs of stale bread. It was dry and unappetizing but temporarily filling. He washed it down with tap water, left the plate and glass in the sink with a stack of other dirty dishes, and sank onto the chair to stare out of the window.
There was nothing to see but fog and desultory moisture dripping from the eaves. Then he noticed a sparrow clinging to a dead vine. A microcosm of his life perhaps? Sammy leaned against his leg and whimpered, begging for his attention, so he bent to scratch him behind his ears and massage the back of his neck, murmuring apologies. “Sorry, old boy. I didn’t mean to neglect you. I promise to improve. I should not have come here. It was a colossal mistake. I should have left the ghosts alone. I don’t need anything here. It’s a ball and chain around my ankle holding me back, stopping me from flying. We ought to be flying, Sammy. Above the clouds. Soaring again.” The thought of a Spitfire on the wing brought the faintest of smiles to his lips, and Sammy reached out with his tongue to express approval.
“At least that Nazi bastard is gone. I can turn the house over to the city and let them relocate homeless people here. Whatever.” He shrugged as he registered that most of those homeless people would also have shouted “Heil Hitler,” rejected their Jewish neighbours, thought of themselves as ‘supermen’ and gloried in the conquest of half of Europe. But he couldn’t find the energy to be outraged any more. He just wanted to get away. To leave Berlin and Germany behind and start his life over again.
He had a Canadian passport, after all. His mother, one sister and his brother were still there. He could go to the New World and start over again.
But he didn’t move. He just stared out of the window and watched the moisture on the tip of a naked vine fatten until it was heavy enough to fall with a soft ‘platsch’ onto the windowsill. He also heard faint laughter echoing in the rooms overhead. His cousins were giggling as they played some silly game. His uncle called out that he was home, and his aunt urged, “Come girls, your father’s home.”
“It’s so peaceful here,” Charlotte said timidly in his brain. “It’s as if there never was a war. Are those lilacs? They must be glorious when they bloom. And look! Is that a peacock? Do you think it escaped from the Pfaueninsel?” Charlotte was always so timid and hesitant in his presence. “Is that a stable? Oh, David, could we have horses? I would so love to have horses in my life again.”
David put his hands to his face. Desperate to explain why Charlotte had left him, he’d searched his memory a million times for some trace of disdain, contempt, superiority, arrogance, or a hint of antisemitism. Instead, all he heard was Charlotte’s shy, breathy voice as she expressed her thanks for every little thing he did for her. His memories revealed only uncertainty when she talked of business matters and diffidence towards every decision he made. He was haunted by the rare tinkling of her laughter and her smiles like rays of sunshine piercing the fog. How could Charlotte, of all people, reject him?
Christian had said it was because of the rapes, but David’s brain refused to go there. He simply could not cope with the thought of Charlotte being ravaged — much less six times. He did not believe it. Christian had been trying to manipulate him into forgiving her. Or maybe Christian believed it. But David didn’t. Charlotte could not have survived being gang raped. She was too fragile. An experience like that would have destroyed her. She would have gone mad or killed herself. Ergo it could not have happened at all, and that meant she had some other reason for rejecting him. There had to be something about him that she could not accept....
Find out more about the Bridge to Tomorrow series, the awards it has won, and read reviews at: https://helenapschrader.net/bridge-to-tomorrow/
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