When We Fall Read online

  Then, in the hold, there is a clunk of metal on metal that makes them both look round. Sonia smiles and arches her dark eyebrows above her sunglasses. Vee is glad that the engine noise does not allow for much conversation. She glances again over her shoulder at the cargo bay crammed with crates and bales stacked around an iron lung. Stefan is kneeling beside it, tightening the straps that run over the top of the raised metal cylinder with glass portholes along each side and securing it to the hold. He glances up and his hair falls forward over one eye. Electricity needles through Vee’s insides. That moustache suits him.

  Sonia winks as she turns back to the map and Vee shakes her head but cannot help smiling. Sonia really has gone out of her way to be helpful. She did not seem to think it at all outlandish that Stefan wanted to hitch a free lift to Berlin but merely asked what the chances were of him getting away with it. Stefan had said, as if he knew the place well, that he would simply blend in with other uniforms at RAF Gatow. And anyway, he insisted, everyone would be too busy to ask him any questions because they would be staring at the beautiful lady pilots getting off an Anson. Sonia had laughed and called him a smooth-talker and had asked no more.

  Vee swore to Sonia that she will take the full rap if they get into any hot water over it. But what, in fact, is the worst that ATA can do? Sack her? That is coming anyway. And a job reference for a pilot who also happens to be a woman is not worth the sheet of headed notepaper.

  Sonia clearly assumes that Stefan and Vee are a couple now. But Vee has no sense of this herself. And it is possible that as soon as they land, he will say cheerio and she will never see him again. But Vee cannot imagine that really happening. Surely, so soon after returning, he would not disappear again.

  Soon, open water flashes between forests and Sonia glances up from the map. She jabs a finger downward by the side window.

  ‘Gatow,’ she shouts.

  There is a movement of air behind her and a whiff of shaving soap and bacon as Stefan leans forward between the seats, pointing.

  ‘There, see.’ A fat dirty cloud hangs near the horizon. ‘Berlin.’

  Sonia leans over to shout. ‘Shall I take control, for landing?’

  Vee’s hands twitch on the yoke. She has the sense that once they leave it, she will never fly an aeroplane again. ‘Would you mind if I… this may be my last chance.’

  Sonia shrugs politely. ‘All right.’

  But Vee suddenly feels a little sick. On the ground, two parallel stripes of white concrete wedge into the dark trees. She turns the steering yoke and banks the Anson into a wide downward arc around a square control tower blasted with shell scars. The hangar roofs have caved in and most of the windows in the aerodrome’s long, low barrack block are smashed, but the runways look smooth.

  Staring at the engine speed indicator, Vee pulls back on the throttle and watches the needle drop below 100mph. Then there is a hand on her shoulder and Stefan’s mouth beside her ear.

  ‘All right, Vee? You look white.’

  ‘I’m fine. Really. Get strapped in.’

  She throws a glance over her shoulder as he goes to the metal bench beneath the fuselage window. As she turns back to the instrument panel, dials and gauges swim below the blinding windscreen.

  Then, Sonia is tapping the indicator lights. ‘Undercarriage!’

  Vee’s stomach lurches and she reaches down to grab the handle at the base of her seat. With a whir of wheels lowering, the indicator lights turn green. But the Anson seems to have lost its line of approach.

  ‘Vee! Speed!’

  Sonia is tapping another dial. 85. Yes. Still too fast. Concrete rushes up.

  ‘Vee! Pull back! Pitch up!’

  Red fingernails stretch out. Another hand is on the steering yoke. The drum of engines dips and slows. With a crack, the Anson hits the runway, then lists and bounces back into the air. The cockpit jerks and tips.

  Now Sonia is pushing the yoke forward and pulling the throttle back as far as it will go. Another thump, a squeal of rubber on concrete, twin puffs of smoke. But the wheels are on the ground and seem to stay there.

  Sonia lets go but Vee’s hands are welded to the yoke as she steers the Anson gingerly across the concrete. She heads towards a bank of assorted aircraft, British and American, all wearing black and white invasion stripes on their wings and tails. She cannot bear to meet Sonia’s eye. With a squeal, the plane comes to a sharp stop. The engines idle and then sink into silence.

  Sonia leaps up, her head bent against the Perspex roof, her skin white and bathed in sweat.

  ‘Good God, Vee! What happened there?’

  ‘I… I must be a bit rusty.’

  Sonia’s dark eyes flash. ‘A bit?’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  Sonia puts a hand through her hair. ‘No damage done, I suppose. Stefan, are you all right?’

  ‘Fine!’ He stands up, slapping at his trousers. ‘How are you, Vee?’

  She coughs, but says nothing.

  Sonia is peering out of the side window towards the control tower. ‘They’ll all be watching.’

  Stooping, Stefan comes forward and looks out of the window but takes care not to be seen. He whistles.

  ‘Busy! Traffic coming in for the Peace Conference, I think.’ He takes hold of a cargo strap hanging from the roof. ‘So ladies, what is it to be in Berlin? A little sightseeing, a restaurant, maybe a show?’

  ‘Very droll.’ Sonia hardly smiles. ‘There’s nothing to see I believe but bombsites. And actually, I’m meeting an old friend of Tony’s here.’

  Stefan turns. ‘Vee?’

  She has no idea what he is talking about but knows that she cannot face an evening sitting between Sonia and one of her chaps.

  ‘I don’t suppose that the Anson will be needed for anything else today.’

  He nods. ‘I will wait at the front gate.’

  In the Ops room, plywood is nailed over the broken window and fat flies circle the dangling bulb. Vee lets Sonia do the talking, and marvels at the effectiveness of her manner which is flirtatious but grandly remote. The awestruck flight sergeant cannot take his eyes off her. Vee hears him ask about the heavy landing but Sonia makes some plausible excuse about the almost empty fuel tanks and gives a radiant smile. Again, Vee owes her.

  Stefan is right, of course, about his blending in. The aerodrome’s reception area is crammed with uniformed men dozing or staring blankly at the once-white walls. In a fug of cigarette smoke and stale khaki, Vee picks her way between legs and kitbags. Outside, the humid air has undertones of pine trees and stagnant water.

  Stefan is leaning against the wall. As he sees Vee, he smiles so broadly that her heart seems to somersault. He comes forward and puts an arm around her shoulder. Perhaps they are a couple now.

  ‘Shall we?’

  He nods at a dull green truck with canvas flaps tied back over the tailgate. They sit on crates in the back as it bumps over rickety bridges around a lake. Trees and scrubland give way to houses and then to dilapidated blocks of flats where empty windows leave black holes in the walls like dead faces.

  Vee holds on to the tailgate as the truck swerves to avoid a slimy heap of grit. At the top of the heap, an old woman in a feather hat pokes the green shoot of a potato plant with a stick. The city’s wreckage begins to unfold through the lorry’s canvas arch like a newsreel.

  Vee looks at Stefan. ‘Is it far?’

  ‘No. We will get off at Anhalter, the railway station.’

  A railway station. Her stomach ripples. Why would he be going there except to leave?

  A reek of bin-wagon threads through the heat. On the piles of rubble that have become embankments alongside the road, women in shorts or wrap-over aprons pass buckets of stone to each other up and down the mounds. Stefan stands up but looks only at Vee.

  ‘Ready?’

  Gears crunch
and the lorry jerks forward before it comes to a stop by a ribcage of black girders looming across the hazy sky. In front of the station’s shell-scarred arches is a sea of ragged figures – men and women, children and babies. Some sit on the ground, others move in slow lines. Despite the clammy heat, all are wearing winter coats.

  Stefan puts out his hand to help Vee down from the truck. His grasp is firm. He bangs the tailgate shut and the truck crunches off.

  Vee does not let go of his hand. ‘Why are we here Stefan? Are you leaving?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘Then why are we at a station?’

  ‘To find information…’ he lets his fingers loosen from Vee’s, ‘… about the person who knows where to find the thing I am looking for.’

  Despite the heat, Vee shivers. ‘A person?’

  He nods. ‘I will ask the Tracing Service.’

  He puts on his side-cap and straightens his tie. Vee has suddenly no doubt that this someone is female.

  A stench of second-hand clothes sours the air as Stefan leads the way through the people camped on the ground. Vee meets the stares of these Displaced Persons they are called now – a woman with red-blotched skin, a wizened old man in a flat cap, a blond boy chewing the end of an unlit cigarette. She is used to sidelong glances from strangers. Her dark-belted uniform with its embroidered gold wings often attracts envious looks or even gasps – Goodness, a woman pilot! But she is not used to looks like this.

  Beneath the remains of the station roof, Stefan ignores the snaking queue of DPs and goes straight to a desk with a UNRRA banner. Vee stands awkwardly at his side. Once Stefan’s back is turned, a gaunt woman in a shapeless raincoat hisses, Zicke! and Vee is glad she cannot understand. Despite the gloom, she takes her sunglasses from her jacket pocket and puts them on.

  Stefan is talking quietly but very fast to a middle-aged woman in spectacles behind the desk. Vee tries to make out the words but Stefan is speaking German fluently and fast, like a native in fact. The sound of it makes Vee’s pulse quicken. Then, the woman asks a question and Stefan stops. Does he look at Vee before he answers? His voice is quieter but Vee hears.

  ‘Meine Frau.’

  Her heart misses a beat. Surely that is German for my wife? What can he be saying? But Frau means woman as well as wife. Vee wishes she had paid more attention in Miss Twait’s German lessons instead of staring out of the window every Friday afternoon hoping to see a passing aeroplane. Stefan must simply have said that he is looking for a woman, but his words leave a nasty taste in Vee’s mouth.

  The woman in spectacles is now showing Stefan a clipboard. His finger travels down a list and then stops. He nods, signs a slip of paper and takes Vee’s arm as he turns away. His face is white.

  ‘Stefan. What’s wrong?’

  ‘Come. Let’s go.’

  ‘Did you find out what you wanted?’

  ‘Let’s get away from these people.’

  They leave the station by a different exit and head towards a mud-baked plain strewn with debris that shimmers into the distance. At the roadside, Stefan stoops to a figure hunched on the ground. The young man’s face is gaunt and dirty but surprisingly shiny top-boots poke from his tattered overcoat. Stefan offers a cigarette then gives him the whole packet. He fires fast questions before listening intently to the young man’s slow replies. German again but Vee cannot understand a single word.

  Colour has come back into Stefan’s face and he smiles at Vee as they link arms and move off. She feels the squeeze of his elbow through her jacket. He squeezes tighter, pulling her back from the roadway as a convoy of trucks clatters by. Vee does not like the way he seems to be controlling her movements and she tries to pull her arm free but Stefan stands frozen, his eyes trained on the passing trucks. Each one has a dusty red star on the door and a flatbed crammed with scrap metal – bicycles, railings, car bumpers. Engines rev and screech. A soldier with ammunition belts slung crosswise over his high-collared tunic rides alongside on a pony, a machine-gun balanced on the sheepskin saddle. He kicks with stirrups that stretch almost to the ground and the pony breaks into a canter on the cobbles.

  Vee wonders suddenly what she is doing here, and feels a twitch of anger with Stefan. Why has he brought her to this ghastly place when he seems interested only in finding someone else?

  ‘Actually, I think I should go back now, to Gatow.’

  Stefan turns to her. ‘Not yet, Vee.’

  Her voice tightens. ‘It’s not very nice here, is it?’

  ‘I must talk to you first. Come. Let us go to Tiergarten.’

  ‘I don’t…’

  ‘Please, Vee.’ He takes her hand. ‘Just for a few minutes, so that I can explain.’

  A ditch runs along the far side of road. The only bridge over it is a plank that bounces as Vee crosses the black water lumpy with half-hidden detritus. Not far off, a carved general in a cocked hat points his marble finger at the wasteland of blasted tree stumps and stagnant canals.

  Stefan unbuttons his jacket and sits on a shattered stone column. He takes out a cigarette and lights it, blowing a long trail of smoke into the fetid air. Nearby, naked boys yell as they take turns to jump into an oily pond.

  Vee sits beneath a cloud of green midges and feels a drip of sweat run into the seam of her brassiere. The fur-lined flying boots that seemed such a good idea on the chilly airfield this morning are coated in white dust. Her anger has dissolved into exhaustion. She feels that the moment is coming when he will say goodbye, and she wants more than anything to get it over with.

  ‘I know you’re leaving, Stefan. Just say whatever it is you want to say and then go.’

  ‘Vee. Believe me. I did not think this would happen so quick.’

  ‘What would?’

  ‘I thought I would need to look much harder for Ewa.’

  She bats away something buzzing by her ear. ‘Forever? What do you mean?’

  ‘No, no. You don’t understand. That is her name, the person I am looking for. Ewa.’

  Vee feels a stab. Ewa. That is her. His woman. The Frau he declared to the Tracing Service; the girl he could not get out of his mind in the alleyway behind The 400 Club. Vee can imagine her clearly now: Ewa in a thin summer frock, tall and suntanned, as she stands in a cornfield laughing and tossing her golden hair.

  Vee’s stomach knots. She snaps a blade of yellow grass and crumbles the dry seeds into her fist.

  ‘And you are going to her now.’

  It does not need to be a question.

  Stefan sighs. ‘It will not be easy. That Luftwaffe chap told me that everything is coming west. No one goes east. No one wants to.’

  Vee presses two fingers to her brow. ‘What do you mean? Luftwaffe?’

  ‘I gave him cigarettes.’ Stefan half smiles. ‘Everyone now pretends to be someone they are not.’

  Vee frowns. ‘I don’t.’

  Suddenly, the air is split by a strangled, bellowing scream.

  ‘What in hell was that?’

  Vee gives a start and her gaze whips around the cratered wasteland. The remains of a triumphal arch poke at the colourless sky.

  Stefan shrugs. ‘Sounds like an elephant.’

  ‘An elephant?’

  ‘The zoo is near. An elephant must have survived the bombings.’

  He stubs his cigarette into a bullet-hole on the stone.

  Vee takes a long breath in and then out. Her nose fills with the stench of blocked drains.

  ‘This Ewa… who is she?’

  For a second Stefan’s hand is still. Then he flings the cigarette stub away. A button on his shirt comes open to show a circle of white skin.

  ‘I told you, Vee. What I am really looking for is evidence vital to the future of my country. Ewa is the only one who can tell me where it is.’

  ‘All right, Stefan. You don’t have to tell
me.’

  He reaches out to take both of Vee’s hands in his and rubs his thumbs over her fingers. ‘Listen, Vee, I must do this thing now. No one else can. After it is done, everything will be different.’

  In the hazy white light, his eyes are black dots inside irises of arctic blue. Vee has not the faintest idea what he is trying to tell her, nor the slightest doubt that he is hiding the truth. But she realises that she does not care. All that matters is putting off the moment when they will say goodbye.

  ‘Where is she then, this Ewa?’

  Stefan blinks for a moment too long. ‘Poznań.’

  Berlin/Lusowo, Poland

  Saturday 14 July

  Vee and Sonia stand on the concrete, overnight bags at their feet and hands shading their eyes as they follow the slow circuit of a Dakota above the trees.

  Sonia raises her voice above the blare of engines. ‘There’s all sorts of transports coming in today.’

  ‘For the Peace Conference?’

  Sonia nods. ‘Everyone is saying that the PM is going to be on one of them.’ She glances at Vee and smirks. ‘Don’t tell anyone that I didn’t vote for him!’

  The Dakota descends, wheels down, towards the concrete.

  Vee picks up her bag. ‘We had better get our flights out of their way.’

  ‘Do you mind awfully, Vee? About my having the Spit?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Vee hopes she sounds convincing. ‘My fault for not being here when they sorted out the chits.’

  ‘They were rather odd about it actually. The Ops officer asked me if you were Russian.’

  ‘Good God. What did you say?’

  ‘I said no, Turkish.’

  ‘Christ, Sonia! I’m English. You know that.’

  ‘I know, but your name… everyone wonders about it.’

  ‘But after all of the flying I’ve done for ATA, all of the hours and types in my logbook… do they not trust me?’

  ‘He said he didn’t want to be giving the photo-reconnaissance Spitfire to a Russki. It’s sort of a spy-plane, and they seem very twitchy about the Soviets here. But he put you down for the Anson without any bother.’