Winter: A Berlin Family, 1899–1945. Len Deighton

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      Fischer looked round the room. This was Veronica’s sanctum: floral wallpaper and bows and canopied bed. Harry’s bedroom – more severely ordered, with mahogany and brass – was next door.

      ‘It’s happened before?’ said Fischer as Winter closed the door on the maid and turned back to him.

      ‘Yes,’ said Winter. He went to the bed and looked at his wife. Why had she done this to him? Winter was too self-centred to see Veronica’s actions as anything but inconveniences.

      Fischer looked at him with sympathy. So this was why Veronica was not much seen lately in Berlin society. Chloroform wasn’t taken to combat insomnia; it was a drug taken for excitement by foolish young people or by people who could no longer face the bleak reality of their world. Veronica was American, of course; all this talk of war must have put a strain on her. ‘How long has this been going on, Harry?’

      There was no point in telling lies. ‘We went to Travemünde in the summer of 1910. Her brother, Glenn, was with us. It started about that time.’ He picked up the empty bottle and the gauze pad, sniffed at it, and grimaced. ‘I’m damned if I know where she gets the stuff.’

      ‘It’s easy enough to get, if you want it badly enough,’ said Fischer who knew about such things. ‘Any pharmacist stocks it and hospitals use it by the bucketful.’ He looked at Harry, who was now sitting on the bed embracing his unconscious wife. ‘Is everything all right between you?’ Fischer was one of the few men who could be so candid with him.

      ‘I love her. I love her very much.’ Winter fingered the things on his wife’s bedside table: a Bible, a German-English dictionary and some opened letters. Winter put the letters into his pocket. He wanted to see who was writing to his wife. Like most womanizers, he was eternally suspicious.

      ‘With respect, Harry, that’s not what I asked.’

      ‘There are no other men. Of that I’m sure.’

      ‘So what now?’ Fischer was embarrassed to find himself suddenly at the centre of this domestic tragedy. But Harald Winter and his wife were old friends.

      ‘I’ll have to send for the Wisliceny woman. She’s become Veronica’s closest friend. She looked after her when this happened before.’ He looked up at Fischer. ‘It’s not life and death, Foxy. She’ll come out of it.’

      ‘Perhaps she will, but it’s damned serious. You must talk to your wife, Harry. You must find out what’s troubling her. Maybe she should see one of these psychologist fellows.’

      ‘Certainly not!’ said Winter. ‘I won’t have some damned witch doctor asking her questions that don’t concern him. She must pull herself together.’ Winter hated to think of some such fellow – Austrian Jews, most of them were – prising from his wife things that were family matters. Or business secrets.

      ‘It’s not so easy, Harry. Veronica is sick.’

      Winter still felt affronted by his wife’s behaviour. How could she make this scene while Fischer was their guest? ‘She has servants, money, children, a husband. What more can she want?’

      Love, thought Fischer, but he didn’t say it. Was Harry still making those frequent trips to Vienna to see his Hungarian mistress? And how much did this distress Veronica? From what he knew of American women, they did not readily adapt to such situations. But Fischer did not say any of this either; he just nodded sympathetically.

      Winter looked at his pocket watch. ‘It’s so late! What times she chooses for these antics. Little Paul has brought a friend home from his military school, and my elder son, Peter, will be arriving soon.’

      But, however much Winter tried to put on a bold face, it was obvious to Fischer that Veronica’s overdosing had shaken him. Winter had even forgotten about his investment programme and Fischer’s contribution to it. You’re a damned hard man, thought Fischer, but he didn’t say it.

      At that time, Peter was at Frau Wisliceny’s house off Kant Strasse. He’d spent two happy hours practising the piano under the critical but encouraging supervision of Frau Wisliceny. But now he was drinking coffee in the drawing room accompanied by the eldest of the three Wisliceny daughters. Her name was Inge. She was tall, with a full mouth that smiled easily, and dark hair that fell in ringlets around her pale oval face.

      ‘You will have to tell them, Peter,’ she said. ‘Your parents will be even more angry if you delay telling them.’

      ‘My father has made up his mind that I go to university this year.’

      ‘To study what?’

      ‘Law and mathematics.’

      ‘Surely he’ll be proud that you’ve joined the navy?’

      ‘It will spoil his plans: that’s what he will be concerned with. I think he’s already decided the exact date on which I will become a junior partner. He has my life all planned. You don’t understand how trapped I feel. Your mother is so understanding.’

      ‘But joining the navy is such a drastic way to escape him.’

      ‘There will be a war,’ said Peter.

      ‘There may not be a war. My father says the General Staff encourage these stories when they want more money.’

      ‘It’s too late now,’ said Peter. He grinned. He captivated her with his wavy hair and his smiles; he was so handsome and in a naval officer’s uniform he would look wonderful. She was very young – only three and a half months younger than Peter – but already she had set her heart upon capturing him. He didn’t know that, of course: she let him think that it was no more than a pleasant and casual friendship. And yet, when he was not with her, she ached for him, and when he was expected, she spent hours in front of the mirror getting ready for him. Her youngest sister, Lisl, was the only one who suspected her secret. Sometimes she teased her about this serious-minded pianist and made Inge blush.

      ‘Are you accepted?’

      ‘Yes. I am accepted for officer training and then for the Imperial Naval Airship Division.’

      ‘That’s dangerous,’ said Inge, not without a note of pride. She was a catlike creature. She shook her head enough to make her lovely hair shine, and when she looked at him, those wonderful deep-green eyes were for him alone.

      ‘It’s what I want to do. I wouldn’t like it on ships. I nearly drowned once and I’ve never really liked the water since.’

      Inge smiled. She never got used to the way in which he confided such secrets to her. What other eighteen-year-old boy would have admitted to being frightened of the sea? ‘I wouldn’t tell the navy that, Peter,’ she said. ‘I don’t think they would relish appointing a naval lieutenant who didn’t like the water.’

      Peter laughed.

      Frau Professor Wisliceny, a large, imposing woman, sailed majestically into the room. ‘Your mama is not well,’ she announced without preamble. She went to the mirror and glanced at her reflection before turning back to Peter. ‘You’d better come with me, Peter.’

      1916

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