Maxim went to her, put his arm around her shoulders.
After a moment, she said to him, ‘You were always right. The Berlin Wall is going to come down, as you predicted it would.’
‘I never thought I’d live to see this day!’ Teddy exclaimed.
‘Neither did I, Teddy,’ Irina murmured, patting her eyes again, pulling herself together.
Maxim truly had been surprised. He said to Irina, ‘Teddy and I have been tied up for several hours, with an old friend of… of Teddy’s, then Teddy and I had things to discuss, and suddenly Anastasia arrived. I missed the evening news on television. Naturally, we were in the dark when we arrived here. But what wonderful news this is.’
‘I’ve cancelled the table at the restaurant,’ Irina said. ‘We are going to have dinner here, and later, around eleven, we must go out into the streets. We must be there when the crossing points are opened along the Berlin Wall.’
‘That’s right!’ Maxim exclaimed. ‘We can’t miss this… this historical event. Why, history is shifting under our feet at this very moment. We are seeing history in the making, in fact. Nothing is ever going to be the same again…’
‘What do you mean?’ Anastasia asked.
Gifted as he was with exceptional vision, Maxim had instantly understood the implications, seen into the future, and he said, in a voice as excited as Irina’s had been, ‘I believe we are about to witness the fall of some of the communist regimes in Europe. You’re going to see… one by one they’ll all come tumbling down. Freedom and democracy are on the march.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Teddy asked. He was rarely wrong. At least, about business or politics.
‘Yes, I do,’ Maxim replied. ‘It is Mikhail Gorbachev. He has opened the way to this, with his perestroika, and by preaching reform. Believe me, it couldn’t have happened without him.’
‘The wheel of history,’ Irina said softly. ‘How it turns, sometimes slowly, sometimes so fast. I am seventy-eight, and all of my life I’ve lived under the menacing shadow of Communism. The Bolsheviks slaughtered my family—my father, my Romanov uncle, Tsar Nicholas, his wife Tsarina Alexandra, my cousins. When I was only a small child I fled Russia with my mother.’ She sighed. ‘Over seventy years I’ve waited, praying that Communism would fail… that somehow the people would rise up, and that in their desire for freedom and justice they would ultimately prevail.’
‘They are prevailing,’ Maxim told her. ‘For months now there have been demonstrations—in Leipzig and all over East Germany. And East Germans have been pouring out, through Hungary and Czechoslovakia, into West Germany, at an amazing rate. It was only a matter of time before the Berlin Wall came down. But look, what about a drink, Aunt Irina? We must make a toast on this historical occasion.’
‘How stupid I am! Hilde put champagne on ice before you came. It’s over there, Maxim, on the chest with the glasses. Would you open it, please?’
He strode across the room, opened the bottle, poured the champagne. Anastasia joined him, picked up two glasses when they were filled, carried them over to Teddy and Irina.
‘To Freedom!’ Irina exclaimed, lifting her glass high.
‘Freedom!’ Teddy, Maxim, and Anastasia said in unison, raising their glasses.
‘It’s November the ninth today!’ Teddy said, a look of sudden comprehension crossing her face. ‘November the ninth, 1989. Fifty-one years ago tonight it was Henrietta Mandelbaum’s twenty-first birthday… and the night the Nazis torched the Central Synagogue. November the ninth, 1938, was Kristallnacht. I’ll never forget it… racing through the streets on the back of Willy Herzog’s motorbike, fleeing from the raging mob of stormtroopers. Tonight is the 51st anniversary of Kristallnacht!’
‘How extraordinary that the Wall is coming down tonight,’ Maxim said. ‘History truly has come full circle.’
Irina nodded in agreement. ‘If Hitler had not come to power, there would have never been a war. Berlin would never have been divided into East-West Zones. Nor would the country have been divided; there would have been no communist regime running East Germany. Everything harks back to the Nazis, doesn’t it? Only now, as the Berlin Wall crumbles, are we truly seeing the end of the legacy of the Third Reich.’
***
‘Tor Auf! Tor Auf! Tor Auf!’ the crowds bellowed at eleven forty-five. ‘Open the gate!’ they repeated over and over again. And they continued to taunt the East German border guards for another fifteen minutes, as they waited for midnight at Checkpoint Charlie in West Berlin’s American Sector.
Maxim stood with his arm around Teddy; Anastasia had hers linked through Irina’s. The four of them were amongst the thousands thronging the streets, impatiently waiting for the stroke of midnight.
At exactly twelve the crowds went wild, cheering, shouting, and screaming as East Berliners began to stream through the gate at Checkpoint Charlie, many of them coming over into the West Zone for the first time in their lives. The whistling, the shouting, the cheering continued unabated; West and East Berliners hugged and kissed each other, and wept, overcome by joy. They danced in the streets, shared the champagne and beer the West Berliners had brought with them. It was a grand and glorious night as they celebrated freedom.
All manner of mixed emotions crowded in on Maxim as he stood watching the Berliners go crazy around him. Many of them were now clambering up onto the Wall, where so many had died trying to escape to freedom; others had begun to chip away at it with hammers and picks, intent on breaking it down, this hideous wall of shame.
Berlin. The city of his birth and childhood. It had forever pulled him back, and he had always believed it held a secret for him. It had. The secret had been revealed today. He thought of Ursula and Sigmund Westheim, who would always be his Mutti and Papa, and the sadness swelled in him when he thought of their persecution, the way they had died in the death camps. Rage swamped him, but he pushed it aside. It served no purpose now. Instead, he clung to the image of them in his mind’s eye, saw Ursula’s lovely blonde beauty, Sigmund’s dark head bent over the piano, heard her laughter, heard his glorious music that had filled the house in the Tiergartenstrasse. They would live on in his heart forever, their memory clear, profoundly pure, intact, unchanged by anything he had heard today. His mind swung to Sister Constanza. He did not believe he would see her again. He was quite certain she had no need or desire to meet him for a second time. She had only come today because Teddy had asked her. The nun had her God and was at peace with herself. He had understood this about her the instant he had met her. Absolute peace dwelt in that innocent, sweet face.
He had told Teddy many things today. He had spoken the truth. She was his mother. He was her son. He was a Jew.
It suddenly struck him how curious it was that Teddy had insisted they come to Berlin this week to see Irina; that today, as the Berlin Wall tumbled, the walls in his mind had tumbled.
‘It’s like New Year’s Eve!’ Teddy shouted above the noise, clinging to his arm.
‘Or Bastille Day!’ Anastasia suggested.
‘Celebration… revolution… no matter what we call it, this is a night to remember!’ Irina cried. ‘The last time we were in a huge crowd like this was in 1963, when we heard President Kennedy speak in front of the Schoneberg Town Hall.’
‘Ich bin ein Berliner,’ Anastasia said, quoting John Kennedy, looking at Maxim as she did.
‘If only he were still alive to see this,’ Maxim murmured, and then he hugged Teddy to him, brought Irina and Anastasia into the circle of his arms. He thought of the night he had been shot; he thanked God he had survived, that he was alive.
It was almost two o’clock in the morning by the time Maxim, Teddy and Anastasia came back to the Kempinski Hotel, after they had taken Irina home.
At the door of her suite, he kissed Teddy goodnight, and so did Anastasia.
‘It’s been quite a day,’ Teddy said, turning around on the threshold of her room. ‘A memorable day. A memorable night.’
‘Yes, T
eddy, it has, indeed,’ he agreed.
Teddy went in and closed the door without another word.
Maxim and Anastasia stood alone in the corridor, staring at each other. ‘Where’s your suite?’ he asked.
‘Just along here, not far from yours,’ she replied.
They walked down the corridor together in silence. When they came to her suite, she inserted the key, opened the door, swung to him. ‘Would you like a nightcap, Maxim?’
‘Why not?’ he answered, following her inside.
After they had shed their coats, Anastasia went to the small bar. ‘What would you like?’
‘No more champagne,’ Maxim said. ‘It’s coming out of my ears.’
‘How about a brandy then?’
‘Good idea. Are you having one?’
‘Yes.’
She poured two glasses, carried them over, handed him one, sat down in the chair opposite his.
They raised their glasses to each other, but said nothing.
After a moment, Anastasia remarked, ‘Michael told me how generous you’ve been with him, Maxim. Giving him so much power and responsibility, and the New York office to run. He’s elated. Thank you.’
‘I suppose occasionally I do do something right.’
‘I’m not sure I’m following you.’
‘Don’t pay any attention to me, forget it,’ he mumbled, rose and walked across the room, glanced out of the window into the street. Below, the Ku’damm was still full of milling crowds celebrating. He felt her eyes on him, and slowly swung around to look at her.
She sat holding the brandy balloon, a quizzical expression on her face.
He felt bound to explain his last remark, said, ‘I seem to make a mess of things most of the time these days. I’ve certainly got a mess going for me in New York… in my private life.’
Anastasia made no comment.
He said slowly, ‘How on earth did I get myself trapped between those two women?’
‘I think it was my fault,’ she answered without hesitation.
‘Now I’m not following you.’
‘I should never have divorced you, Maxim.’
‘I agree with you there, Anastasia.’
‘It was the biggest mistake of my life.’
‘True.’ His eyes did not leave her face. ‘I’ve never been in love with any other woman but you.’
‘And I’ve never been in love with any other man.’
‘There is only you, Anastasia.’
‘There’s only you… for me, Maxim.’
‘I’ve just had a wonderful idea, Peachy,’ Maxim said.
‘What is it?’
He began to walk towards her. ‘Come with me…’
‘Where to?’ she asked.
‘Venice.’
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. My plane is at Tempelhof Airport. Waiting.’
Anastasia stood up. ‘Yes,’ she said as she walked into his outstretched arms. ‘Yes, yes, yes.’
She looked up into his face and smiled her incandescent smile.
It filled the empty places of his heart. The sadness inside him slipped away. He knew it would not come back ever again.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bielenberg, Christabel, The Past is Myself (Corgi)
Bolton, Cecil (Editor), I’ll Be Seeing You: Songs of World War II (EMI Music Publishing Co.)
Burrough, Bryan and John Helyar, Barbarians at the Gate (Harper & Row)
Cannadine, David (Editor), Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Speeches of Winston Churchill (Houghton Mifflin)
Clare, George, Berlin Days 1946–1947 (Macmillan, London)
Collins, Larry and Dominique Lapierre, Is Paris Burning (Simon & Schuster)
Everett, Susan, Lost Berlin (Gallery Books)
Fallon, Ivan and James Strodes, Takeovers (Hamish Hamilton, London)
Gilbert, Martin, Winston S. Churchill, Vol. VI, Finest Hour 1939–1941 (Heinemann, London)
Winston S. Churchill, Vol. VII, Road to Victory 1941–1945 (Heinemann, London)
Irving, David, Goring (Macmillan, London)
Johnston, Moira, Takeover: The New Wall Street Warriors (Arbor House)
Kaplan, Philip and Richard Collier, Their Finest Hour: The Battle of Britain Remembered (Abbeville Press, New York)
Manchester, William, The Death of a President (Harper & Row)
Mettemich, Tatiana, Tatiana: Five Passports in a Shifting Europe (Century, London)
Morrow, Edward R., This is London (Schocken Books, New York)
Rosten, Leo, The Joys of Yiddish (Pocket Books)
Ryan, Cornelius, The Last Battle (Simon & Schuster)
Schlesinger Jnr, Arthur M., A Thousand Days (Houghton Mifflin)
Scott, David L., Wall Street Words (Houghton Mifflin)
Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
(Ballantine Books) Simmons, Michael, Berlin: The Dispossessed City
(Hamish Hamilton, London)
Solmssen, Arthur R. G., A Princess in Berlin (Ballantine Books)
Taylor, James and Warren Shaw, Dictionary of the Third Reich (Grafton Books, London)
Toland, John, Adolf Hitler (Doubleday)
Vassiltchikov, Marie, Berlin Diaries 1940–1945 (Random House)
Wasserstein, Bernard, Britain and the Jews of Europe 1939–1945 (Oxford University Press)
Whelan, Richard, Robert Capa: A Biography (Ballantine Books)
Wyndham, Joan, Love Lessons: A Wartime Diary (Heinemann, London)
Love is Blue: A Wartime Diary (Heinemann, London)
GLOSSARY
Ashkenazi The name applied to the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe; a term used since the sixteenth century.
Ashkenazim As above (plural).
Bar Mitzvah A ceremony in a synagogue in which a thirteen-year-old boy reaches the status of a ‘man’.
Bissel A little bit, a little piece.
Bubeleh Term of endearment, like darling, honey, or sweetheart; deriving from buba, the Russian—Yiddish word for ‘doll’.
Chanukah The feast of lights, a less solemn Jewish festival, which usually falls just before Christmas.
Chollah A braided soft loaf, glazed with egg white.
Chuppah The wedding canopy under which the bride and groom stand for the wedding ceremony.
Chutzpah Audacity, nerve; incredible ‘guts’.
Gelt Money.
Gonif Thief, crook.
Goy A Gentile, anyone who is not a Jew.
Goyim As above (plural).
Haimisher Cosy, warm, a person without ‘side’, unpretentious.
Kaddish A prayer glorifying Cod’s name, usually at funerals.
Kiddush The prayer and ceremony that sanctifies the Sabbath and Jewish holy days. Not to be confused with Kaddish.
Kike An offensive way of referring to a Jew.
Kinder Children.
Kop Head.
Kosher Clean and fit to eat; food prepared according to Jewish dietary laws. Now has wider meaning in slang, i.e., used to denote something truly authentic. For example ‘Is this a Kosher deal?’ means ‘Is it a proper deal?’ and ‘Is he Kosher?’ means ‘Is he trustworthy?’
Landsleit As below (plural).
Landsman A person from the same town in Europe, a countryman.
Macher A big wheel, a big man.
Mama-loshen Mama’s language; ‘Let’s talk Mama-loshen’ means ‘Let’s get to the heart of it’ or ‘Let’s talk straight.’
Megillah A rigmarole; a far too long story.
Mensh Someone of consequence, to admire and even to emulate.
Meshuggeneh Crazy, absurd; can be applied to a person or an idea.
Mishpocheh Family or ‘clan’.
Oy vey is mir Oh woe is me; truly a cry of distress.
Shabbat Sabbath.
Shabbes Sabbath.
Shadchen A professional matchmaker (as in matrimony).
Shammus Sexton or caretaker of the synagogue.
Shaygets A Gent
ile boy.
Sheeny A very offensive and disparaging name for a Jew.
Shikker To be drunk.
Shiksa A non-Jewish woman, a Gentile.
Shivah The seven days of mourning for the dead, beginning immediately after the funeral.
Shul Synagogue.
Torah The scroll containing the five books of Moses: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy.
Trayf Any food which is not Kosher.
Tsuris Troubles, worries, woes.
Translation of Hebrew prayer: Blessing over Sabbath candles:
Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast sanctified us by Thy commandments and commanded us to kindle the Sabbath-light.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank a few people who were involved in this book with me in different ways. Firstly, Joan Blutter of Chicago, a friend of many years, who is always there for me, and who grew to love my characters as much as I love them. Jane Ogden of Naples, Florida, another friend of long standing, who also grew up in wartime Britain, and confirmed that my memories had not been eroded by time passing.
Enthusiasm is not for sale; it is only ever freely given. Susan Schuhart Zito, my assistant, has always had unflagging enthusiasm for my novels. I am grateful to her for helping to prepare the manuscript meticulously and for assisting with some aspects of the research.
Two other friends took the time and trouble to assist me with certain details and I am indebted to them. Bernard H. Leser, President of Conde Nast Publications Inc.; Shirley Burnstein of London.
I would like to express my grateful thanks and appreciation to Trudi Gold of the Spiro Institute in London, who helped me to understand the situation regarding European Jewish immigrants to England in the 1930s and Britain’s attitude towards these immigrants.
An Excerpt from A Woman of Substance
By Barbara Taylor Bradford
CHAPTER ONE
Emma Harte leaned forward and looked out of the window. The private Lear jet, property of the Sitex Oil Corporation of America, had been climbing steadily up through a vaporous haze of cumulus clouds and was now streaking through a sky so penetratingly blue its shimmering clarity hurt the eyes. Momentarily dazzled by this early-morning brightness, Emma turned away from the window, rested her head against the seat, and closed her eyes. For a brief instant the vivid blueness was trapped beneath her lids and, in that instant, such a strong and unexpected feeling of nostalgia was evoked within her that she caught her breath in surprise. It’s the sky from the Turner painting above the upstairs parlour fireplace at Pennistone Royal, she thought, a Yorkshire sky on a spring day when the wind has driven the fog from the moors.