Armageddon_ A Novel of Berlin - Leon Uris [226]
Overhead there was a constant drone of American Gooney Birds pulling up from Tempelhof, and just over the lakes their British counterparts, the Dakotas, were landing on the Gatow airstrip.
There was a thin strand of imported-sand beach behind which rolled a long, lush lawn and this was filled with patio chairs and umbrellas, and there was a pool. The great house had been converted into an American Officers’ Club. Like most of the other mansions on this strip, it once belonged to a top Nazi who had stolen it from a Jew who could not return from the grave to reclaim it.
Ernestine sat alongside Sean, her head on her knees, arms about her legs. She knew the eyes of every American officer looked her over. She had not been looked over this way for a long time and she liked it.
The American women were looking her over also, in grudging admiration. Sean was breaking that unwritten law against bringing a German girl into their midst, socially. Well, she could hear most of them say, she is not as bad as most German girls ... after all she is the niece of Falkenstein ... and a pretty thing ... if you like the type.
The gossips did not matter much to Ernestine. The day mattered. Sean mattered. ... Long ago she was in a tiny boat on the Wannsee and she told Dietrich Rascher she wanted to sail up to the canals, and then into the sea and away ... forever and ever.
Ernestine did not believe she could ever come to this place again and be happy. The other love had ended in blackness. There was a tiny promise that this might be the first real happiness of her life.
She took a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers on Sean’s back. From his drowsing, he reached behind him to brush away an imaginary fly. She persisted.
“Let me sleep, woman.”
“A handsome young colonel asked me to come to the beach with him. Tell me, old man, do you know where he went?”
Sean rolled over on his back and stretched as the sun greeted his face. “Jesus, what a day.”
Ernestine knelt above him so that her warm flesh touched him.
“You are like the other woman who sits on that rock on the Rhine whistling to poor souls and making them crash on the rocks seeking her mystic charms.”
“Sean, it is getting too painful to be funny.”
He sat up so they were side by side looking into the other’s eyes.
“You and I would be like a couple of freight trains hitting each other head on.”
“Does it have to be that way?”
“Yes.”
“Damn you. You sound like Uncle Ulrich.”
“He’s a wise man,” Sean said, and lay back on the sand and stared at the sky. She lay beside him. Their eyes followed a Dakota circling, then falling toward the treetops and out of sight.
Chapter Three
SHENANDOAH BLESSING SAT AT Cal’s bedside until the boy fell asleep. He padded into the living room and turned on the radio to American Forces Network for a delayed broadcast of a baseball game between the Cards and the Brooklyn Dodgers. Lil handed him a bottle of beer and a hank of yarn. He put his big paws through the wool, sneaking a sip now and then as she wound it into a ball.
There was too much truth in the little boy’s fears and no one knew the urgency better than he. For several weeks Bless headed a special detail to train people recruited from the free political parties, the free union, and the Western Sector students in the tricks of in-fighting, riot control, and all of the brawling tactics known to the Communist Action Squads—plus a few of Bless’s own innovations.
These Order Companies were quick to spot Communist agitation cars and troublemakers. It was becoming unprofitable for the Communists to cross into the Western Sectors as the Order Companies toughened.
Blessing had also worked in the build-up of a system of spies and informants, for the facts of life demanded quick, accurate intelligence. Dozens of volunteers had buried themselves in the ranks