London Dawn (23 page)

Charles hugged his knees to his chest and closed his eyes.

Two hours later Harrison was handing the phone to Charles.

“Go ahead,” Harrison said to Charles’s white face and dark eyes. “He wants to speak with you.”

“Who does?”

“Lord Kipp. I rang him about the trip to the airfield.”

“Hello,” said Charles.

“Good afternoon, Charles. How are you?”

“I’m all right.”

“Harrison tells me you’d like to come out to Suffolk.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That you might even like to go up like you did with Udet and von Zeltner during the Olympics?”

“Is it possible?”

“I’ll speak with my commanding officer. It’s unlikely he’ll let you go up, but I might catch him in an ebullient mood. He has one of those now and then.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Cheerful. He might relent and let us both squeeze into the cockpit.
Might.
As a favor to me—and if he thinks you’re a potential RAF recruit from the Danforth family.”

“It’s more important that Eva fly with you.”

“Eva? I can’t imagine being given the nod to take her up.”

“She has to go in the plane.”

“Why?”

“She has been trapped.”

“I’m not sure I’ll be able to get permission, Charles.”

“Please try, sir.”

“I’ll do what I can if you think a flight in an airplane will make that much of a difference to her.”

Later that evening, Caroline found Harrison in the library, where he was sipping a coffee and flipping through the pages of a newspaper.

“I’ve been with Eva,” she said, taking a seat. “She even let me pray with her a bit.”

Harrison put down the paper. “I’m glad to hear it.”

“I rang up Kipp at his flat by the base. His commanding officer isn’t keen on the idea of Charles or Eva coming down.”

“No, I didn’t think he would be.”

“It’s all rather silly, isn’t it? A plane ride. For that matter we could find a flight instructor to take her and Charles up for a couple of pounds. One of the chaps from the airline Kipp and Ben sold off might do it for free.”

“So they might. But apparently that’s not the point.”

“Why does it have to be Kipp?”

“I don’t know. Eva doesn’t even know him, and Charles hasn’t had much use for him for the past couple of years, has he?”

Caroline looked at his cup. “Shall I fetch the pot?”

“Not at all. That’s enough for me for the night.”

“I wish you’d speak with her.”

“Me?”

Caroline lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “You were her liberator.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“That she’ll live.”

“Is that what’s bothering her? I thought she missed the fatherland. I thought they both did.”

“But you’ve spoken with Charles. You know it’s more than that.”

“The whole thing puzzles me, Lady Caroline. I really don’t know what to make of their mix of Nazism and German pride and pain and desperation.”

“I don’t either. Still, she asked for you.”

“Right. Nothing much in the paper in any case. A lot of nonsense about the Germans demanding a piece of Czechoslovakia for their empire.”

He went down the hall with the cup of warm coffee in his hand and knocked at Eva’s door. She responded in German. He entered her room.

“Hullo,” he greeted her.

She was in a pale blue dress and sitting on the edge of her bed. Her arms and legs were still thin and her face sunken. Her eyes were like black holes.

“My father locked me away so I wouldn’t tell anyone about the Jews he was hiding.”

Harrison sat in a chair facing her.

“I hate the Jews. I hate him.”

Harrison said nothing.

“You brought me out of all that. You unlocked my prisons.”

“Not just me.”

“I know. Mr. Danforth as well. He organized the entire affair.”

“So did your father.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“How do you think we got the SS uniforms? Why do you think the camp commandant released you so easily? Who made it possible for Charles to be with us? Your father arranged all of that.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll never see him again.” She clenched her hands together. “I’m frightened to death of flying. Did Charles tell you that?”

“No.”

“But I believe it would be another key in another lock. Opening it. Do you see that?”

“The likelihood of your going up with Lord Kipp is slim, Miss von Isenburg.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“I don’t think it can be done.”

“They shot some of the children in the back of the head. Others were so young they wouldn’t waste the bullet. So they crushed their little skulls with rifle stocks or the heels of their boots.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I never heard such shrieking and pleading in my life. The mothers. It didn’t matter. The SS shot them too.”

“You don’t have to go back.”

“I want to go back. But not while my father’s alive. Not while there are SS. A Germany five or ten years from now.”

“What sort of Germany will that be, do you think?”

“If the SS is gone, something stronger will have removed them. But not without a fight. So perhaps Germany will be like me. Broken to pieces yet still wanting a second life.”

“I wish you would eat more.”

Eva stared at him with her dark eyes. “All in good time.”

Harrison lifted his cup. “I can get you some coffee.”

“Will we keep talking?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll try some then.”

Three days later

Ashton Park

“Come along, Eva. The plane’s ready for you.”

“I like the ash trees. There are so many of them.” Eva looked at Holly. “Would you mind if I stayed here a few days?”

Holly smiled. “Stay as long as you like. It’s a great empty old estate with so many of the family off in London. I’d love to have you.”

Eva’s eyes remained dark and empty. “I’d like to live in a forest.”

“We can furnish you with a tent. But come along. Kipp only has loan of the plane for a few hours.”

The two women began to walk out of the trees toward the airstrip by the Ashton Park manor.

“I still don’t understand why the commanding officer wouldn’t let us into the air base in Suffolk.”

“I suppose things are more tense all around and he didn’t want Germans or Nazis on the grounds. It’s nothing about you, Eva. It’s about Europe and its politics.”

“I don’t like to hear about it but you should tell me just the same.”

“Herr Hitler wants the Sudetenland—regions of Czechoslovakia that have a large number of Germans residing in them. He feels Sudetenland should be part of the German nation. There’s a lot of fuss and bother and Britain’s heavily involved.”

Kipp was standing with Harrison and Charles by a biplane. A huge green meadow stretched all around them.

“There you are.” Kipp extended a hand toward the front cockpit. “You’re in the front. I’ll be flying the aircraft from right behind you in the rear cockpit.”

“It looks like something from the war.” Eva held back.

“Well, we use it to train young pilots. It’s called a Tiger Moth. Steady as a rock.” He grinned. “RAF gave me the loan. To make up for barring us from their base.”

“Go on, Eva,” Charles urged.

“I’d rather you went first,” she responded.

“We’ve been through all that.”

“Here.” Harrison linked his arm through hers, and she let him walk her to the plane. “You said you wanted to open more doors.”

Kipp handed her a leather jacket, a flying helmet, and a white silk scarf. “There were many great German fliers in nineteen eighteen. That’s only twenty years ago. It will be just like you’re one of them.”

Harrison helped her on with the jacket and helmet and goggles. “There you are.” He wound the scarf about her neck. “Now fly. Fly like a falcon.”

In a matter of minutes the Tiger Moth lifted from the ground and was hurtling over the grass. Eva stared to her left and her right. Three swallows burst over the top wing and swung down through the air. The sky had turned from gray to blue with long trails of white clouds the plane swept through. They went higher and higher. Ashton Park seemed like a dollhouse, and the people watching the Tiger Moth were as toy figures. Then the plane wheeled right, and there was no longer any earth, only vast stretches of the blue and the white touched by lances of light as bright as fire.

Eva bit her knuckles. “
Oh, mein Gott, was haben Sie gemacht
?—Oh, my God, what have You made?”

As Kipp banked the Tiger Moth into the sun and a flock of blackbirds broke apart in response to the roar of the engine, gold filled Eva’s eyes, and she could feel tears begin. She couldn’t stop them. Her whole body heaved and her shoulders shook. She pulled off the goggles and put a hand to her face, struggling to control herself and fighting for the breaths she took, her chest cut with the pain and the beauty of everything she was feeling.

Kipp tapped her back from behind.

She turned her head and glanced back, the tears moving quickly down her face.

Kipp didn’t appear to notice. “Take—the—stick!” He spoke the words loudly and slowly, forming each word with his lips. “Take—the—stick!”

She shook her head. “I can’t.”

He nodded his head in slow, strong movements. “Take as much time as you need. I need you to fly the plane.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“I—need—you—to—fly—the—plane.”

“No, no, I can’t.”

“I’m not able to fly the plane the way you need it to be flown. Only you can do that.”

“Lord Kipp—”

He lifted his hands in the air, palms toward her.

The Tiger Moth dipped, and Eva seized the stick. As the plane began to dive, she pulled up on it with both hands. It began a steep climb, swaying from side to side. She closed her eyes and took one hand off the stick.

“
Als ob ich Sie fühlen Kann
—If I can feel You.”

She banked the plane to the left. Eyes still shut, she leveled the aircraft out.

Harrison’s face was clear in her mind. So was the face of Charles.

“
Fliegen. Fliegen wie ein Falke
—Fly like a falcon.”

She opened her eyes and gazed at the blue and gold she was streaking through.

She took in deep breaths.

She pulled her goggles down again and could see the vast forest of ash trees ahead and below and white birds rising from them as she nudged the plane toward the sea. Suddenly they were over the waves. The spread of blue and emerald and sky and water seemed unlimited to her. She pushed the Tiger Moth farther and farther, light flashing off its wings. Gently she curved the plane north over the curve of the earth and the curve of the ocean.

“
Ich habe getraumt, so viele Traume
—I dreamed so many dreams.”

Later Eva stood in the forest, and it was raining. She had eluded everyone and was completely on her own by one of the Ashton Park ponds. Her face was dark in the water of the pond. The rainfall kept disturbing the surface and distorting her image.

Eventually she made her way along a narrow track and emerged from the ash grove. She stood on a cliff looking at the sea that she had flown over two hours before. A wind had come up, the whitecaps were larger, and there were thousands more of them. On the cliff edge the raindrops stung like small stones. She wanted that. She spread her arms and let the wind and rain lash her body and scour her skin.

Into her mind came the image of a small boat and a sail, and she could hear the cry of gulls even though there were no gulls flying above the cliff.

“Is there a sailing boat?”

“Yes, but not here, Eva. My brother, Lord Preston, keeps it moored in Dover.”

“May I go there, Lady Holly? May I sail on it?”

“Why, of course. Parliament will have its summer recess soon enough, and my brother and his wife intend to spend the summer months at the family estate at Dover Sky. We can go down with you for a few days.”

“I would like to stay there a very long time…if it is possible.”

“If that’s what you would like, you certainly may do so, my dear. But I warn you, Lord Preston will try to turn you into a sailor. He is always keen to take on new members to crew his ship.”

“And what is the name of his ship?”

“
Pluck
.”

“
Pluck
? What does that mean, Lady Holly?”

“Courage, Eva. It means great courage and spirit.”

July, 1938

The English Channel, near the Port of Dover