The End of War - A Novel of the Race for Berlin - [World War II 02] (36 page)

“Yes, sir.”

“Very good. I shall require its return.”

Lottie is strangled, the spiderweb circles her throat. She wants to protest but there is no air. She hears herself make grunting sounds, the starts of words that die the moment they peak on her lips. In their place, her heart heaves up tears.

“Charlotta.”

She closes her eyes. She waves a long-fingered hand, begging from the manager a moment of peace to accept her dismissal from the BPO. The first moment she is able, she will beg, “Why?”

“Charlotta. I only want the tuxedo. You are still in the orchestra.”

Lottie sniffs instantly. Her tears seem impossibly to reverse flow up her cheek.

“Oh, oh, Herr von Westermann, I…sir…”

“My apologies. I did not anticipate you might react that way. It was awkward of me.”

Lottie swallows. She has no kerchief. Von Westermann has nothing to give her to dry her cheeks. Her elbow lifts from the chair arm and hesitates; the manager nods and gestures that it is fine for her to wipe her face with her sleeve.

She composes herself, smoothing back her hair, believing her moment of panic has disheveled her. When she is done, with a graceful movement she layers her hands in her lap, placated and calmer.

“There,” says the BPO manager.

Lottie clears her throat.

“May I ask, please, sir, why you need the tuxedo?”

Lottie is aware of von Westermann’s discomfiture with people. He is known in the orchestra as a man of paper, of notes and scores and charts. He is the BPO’s scheduler and organizer. He is one of the larger deities of the Philharmonic, the one who operates invisibly but indelibly. She has never heard any report that he is kind or otherwise. He is revered simply for being competent and silent.

“You see, Charlotta. It’s really Lottie, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“May I?”

“Yes, please.”

“Lottie, then. You know that Gauleiter Goebbels considers himself to be the governments greatest patron of the Berlin Philharmonic.”

“Yes. He makes quite a show of it.”

Von Westermann chuckles to himself over some irony.

“Yes. He does. The good minister believes it is he who has raised our orchestra to its current professional level. But in the past few months he has been ... let me say, less than generous in his views of the Philharmonic. He has mentioned several times that the orchestra may well wind up on the barricades defending the city. That would be a shame and a waste.”

“Very much so.”

“You have seen Minister Speer in the theaters?”

“Yes. He always sits in the middle of the front row.”

“Correct. He rarely misses a performance. To be frank with you, Minister Speer is the real force in the government behind the BPO.”

Lottie knows nothing about this arena of the music world; who takes credit and who makes decisions. She doesn’t even care about the orchestra itself as much more than a vehicle for her own talent. Her love is her instrument, the beauty of her part. The mechanics and glory of the whole are not her concern.

“You know,” says von Westermann, “the Russians are eighty kilometers from Berlin. They’re on the Oder River. In the millions.”

These statements all seem out of sequence. What do Speer and the Russians have to do with his need for her tuxedo?

Lottie says, “Yes.”

“You have heard . . . well. You understand what this forebodes. The Russians, I mean.”

“I have heard stories, Herr von Westermann.”

“As have we all, child. If they reach Berlin before the Western Allies”— his hands rise and fall, hopeless and empty—”imagination fails.”

Lottie’s does not. But von Westermann is not a woman.

“This is a dangerous question. But we are colleagues here. We trust each other, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Fine. Good. So.”

“Yes, sir?”

The manager hesitates.

“Does your family have a car?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you have papers? Any way to leave Berlin?”

“No.”

“Hmm. No, of course not.”

These are things only the wealthy and the Nazis have. Lottie sees them every day loading their autos with boxes and luggage and children, all the while exhorting Berliners to stand and fight to the last man. We are very close already, she thinks, to the last man.

The manager sinks again into his chins and rotund hush. His fingertips tap without noise on the desk. He doesn’t want to say what comes next. He senses the spider.

“Lottie, I have something to tell you. It must be held in the utmost secrecy. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir. Of course.”

“Nothing of course about it, girl. Many people will die senseless deaths if you cannot be trusted with what I am going to say.”

“I understand, Herr von Westermann. I do.”

“All right.”

The manager lays his hands flat on his desk. He looks over both his shoulders, the
Berliner Blick,
even in his own office. He lowers his voice.

“Minister Speer has a plan to save the orchestra.”

Lottie gasps. The manager hoists a thick finger to shush her, make her conscious of her reaction, remind her of the web.

“I tell you this because you are indeed a gifted musician. Even though you are only a provisional member of the orchestra. But more important, you are a woman. I do not need to explain.”

The Russians.

“No, sir.”

“Only a selected number in the orchestra have been made aware that anything is under way. The others we will tell in due time. You will not discuss this with anyone. Your family, the other musicians, your boyfriend, no one. Absolutely.”

Lottie wants to run down the Unter den Linden and announce, “I am to be saved! I am to be saved!”They will look at her, all of them, and approve, that Lottie is the one to be protected.

“I understand.”

“I will rely on that with my life, Lottie.”

“Yes, sir.”

“After tomorrow’s performance, you will leave your tuxedo with the stage manager. We will announce to the orchestra that they are to be stored for the duration of the war. In addition, you will notice in the coming weeks that several of our finer instruments will be missing. Some pianos, the better tubas and harps. We will also be relocating as much of our library of scores as possible. Everything is to be loaded onto vans and shipped west, directly into the path of the
Amis’
advance, where they will be surrendered.”

The coming weeks?

“Herr von Westermann, sir. Why not just go now? Tonight, tomorrow. Why stall, the Russians could come any time.” Lottie has trouble staying in her seat, she wants to rise and float away from Berlin on this wonderful news.

“We are the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. We will finish as much of our season as we can. Then we will go.”

Lottie bites her tongue. If she lets it wag any looser, she will lecture this aloof man. Only days ago she’d made up her mind to take cyanide. Now, with this marvelous plot, Lottie desires more than ever to survive, and she wants to take no risks, especially not for things as illusory as principle or patriotism.

The manager watches the flashes on her face, her struggle with disappointment. It’s hypocritical, Lottie thinks, for the BPO to abandon the city, to use its high connections to flee the fate that will surely fall on others just as deserving of deliverance, and to imagine that this can be done with honor. Lottie has no problem with the hypocrisy, just the wait.

She licks her lips. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

“Minister Speer has arranged for transportation for all one hundred and five musicians. There will be vans and buses to take you and your instruments plus selected staff members west to the American lines. Herr Speer will send along his personal adjutant to negotiate the surrender. We will not allow the Philharmonic to fall to the Red Army. It is a great orchestra. An internationally renowned institution. It must be preserved.”

The manager speaks as though he has to convince Lottie that scheming, treason, and desertion are warranted. He does not.

She asks, “Will we be allowed to bring anyone along with us?”

The manager shakes his head, a deliberate and elegiac gesture.

“No. This pains me but the danger is too great. Only a few can know. And only a few can escape. It is one of many unpleasant realities of the war.”

Mutti and her Jew. They will have to be brave all the way to the end now. Just as well; it is their intention.

“Yes, sir.”

“I must remind you again that this is all strictly confidential.”

Lottie assents with a grave nod.

“Good. We must wait until the
Amis
are close enough in the west. We will not make it through our own lines if we have to drive too far, we’ll be sent back. That would have its own unpleasant repercussions.”

This is the Berliner’s dilemma. Whose petard to be hoisted on, the Nazis’ or the Reds’?

Von Westermann continues. “There will be a signal. It will not come until the entire orchestra is assembled on stage.”

What kind of signal could be given to the whole orchestra while it is sitting in the public eye?

Von Westermann flinches in one more
Berliner Blick.
He leans forward, his manner has succumbed completely to the conspiratorial.

“When the time is right, you will all find on your music stands a selection that will not have been announced for that performance. It will be familiar to the orchestra, you will need no rehearsal. You will play it as part of the program, without surprise or comment. You will draw no attention to it other than playing it well. When you are finished for the afternoon, stand and accept your applause. Then file quietly to the rear stage entrance. In the alley out back will be the transportation. Take your instrument only, no luggage, and get on one of the vehicles.”

Lottie doesn’t savor all this intrigue. To her the need is simple: get out. The answer is equally direct: go. Now.

“May I ask what the signal will be?”

“You will play the finale from
Die Götterdämmerung.”

Lottie thinks: Fitting.

Wagner’s depiction of the destruction of Valhalla. The death of the gods. The end of the world.

* * * *

SIX

March 16,
1945,
2:15
a.m.

Stalin’s residence, Kirov Street

Moscow