Winter of the World (Century Trilogy 2)

(ii)

Lloyd Williams found a boxing club in Berlin where he could do an hour’s training for a few pennies. It was in a working-class district called Wedding, north of the city centre. He exercised with the Indian clubs and the medicine ball, skipped rope, hit the punch bag, and then put on a helmet and did five rounds in the ring. The club coach found him a sparring partner, a German his own age and size – Lloyd was a welterweight. The German boy had a nice fast jab that came from nowhere and hurt Lloyd several times, until Lloyd hit him with a left hook and knocked him down.

Lloyd had been raised in a rough neighbourhood, the East End of London. At the age of twelve he had been bullied at school. ‘Same thing happened to me,’ his stepfather, Bernie Leckwith, had said. ‘Cleverest boy in school, and you get picked on by the class shlammer.’ Dad was Jewish – his mother had spoken only Yiddish. He had taken Lloyd to the Aldgate Boxing Club. Ethel had been against it, but Bernie had overruled her, something that did not happen often.

Lloyd had learned to move fast and punch hard, and the bullying had stopped. He had also got the broken nose that made him look less of a pretty boy. And he had discovered a talent. He had quick reflexes and a combative streak, and he had won prizes in the ring. The coach was disappointed that he wanted to go to Cambridge University instead of turning professional.

He showered and put his suit back on, then went to a workingmen’s bar, bought a glass of draft beer, and sat down to write to his half-sister, Millie, about the incident with the Brownshirts. Millie was envious of him taking this trip with their mother, and he had promised to send her frequent bulletins.

Lloyd had been shaken by this morning’s fracas. Politics was part of everyday life for him: his mother had been a Member of Parliament, his father was a local councillor in London, and he himself was London Chairman of the Labour League of Youth. But it had always been a matter of debating and voting – until today. He had never before seen an office trashed by uniformed thugs while the police looked on smiling. It was politics with the gloves off, and it had shocked him.

‘Could this happen in London, Millie?’ he wrote. His first instinct was to think that it could not. But Hitler had admirers among British industrialists and newspaper proprietors. Only a few months ago the rogue MP Sir Oswald Mosley had started the British Union of Fascists. Like the Nazis, they had to strut up and down in military-style uniforms. What next?

He finished his letter and folded it, then caught the S-train back into the city centre. He and his mother were going to meet Walter and Maud von Ulrich for dinner. Lloyd had been hearing about Maud all his life. She and his mother were unlikely friends: Ethel had started her working life as a maid in a grand house owned by Maud’s family. Later they had been suffragettes together, campaigning for votes for women. During the war they had produced a feminist newspaper, The Soldier’s Wife. Then they had quarrelled over political tactics and become estranged.

Lloyd could remember vividly the von Ulrich family’s trip to London in 1925. He had been ten, old enough to feel embarrassed that he spoke no German while Erik and Carla, aged five and three, were bilingual. That was when Ethel and Maud had patched up their quarrel.

He made his way to the restaurant, Bistro Robert. The interior was art deco, with unforgivingly rectangular chairs and tables, and elaborate iron lampstands with coloured glass shades; but he liked the starched white napkins standing to attention beside the plates.

The other three were already there. The women were striking, he realized as he approached the table: both poised, well dressed, attractive and confident. They were getting admiring glances from other diners. He wondered how much of his mother’s modish dress sense had been picked up from her aristocratic friend.

When they had ordered, Ethel explained her trip. ‘I lost my parliamentary seat in 1931,’ she said. ‘I hope to win it back at the next election, but meanwhile I have to make a living. Fortunately, Maud, you taught me to be a journalist.’

‘I didn’t teach you much,’ Maud said. ‘You had a natural talent.’

‘I’m writing a series of articles about the Nazis for the News Chronicle, and I have a contract to write a book for a publisher called Victor Gollancz. I brought Lloyd as my interpreter – he’s studying French and German.’

Lloyd observed her proud smile and felt he did not deserve it. ‘My translation skills have not been much tested,’ he said. ‘So far, we’ve mostly met people like you, who speak perfect English.’

Lloyd had ordered breaded veal, a dish he had never even seen in England. He found it delicious. While they were eating, Walter said to him: ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’

‘Mam thought I would learn more German this way, and the school agreed.’

‘Why don’t you come and work for me in the Reichstag for a while? Unpaid, I’m afraid, but you’d be speaking German all day.’

Lloyd was thrilled. ‘I’d love to. What a marvellous opportunity!’

‘If Ethel can spare you,’ Walter added.

She smiled. ‘Perhaps I can have him back now and again, when I really need him?’

‘Of course.’

Ethel reached across the table and touched Walter’s hand. It was an intimate gesture, and Lloyd realized that the bond between these three was very close. ‘How kind you are, Walter,’ she said.

‘Not really. I can always use a bright young assistant who understands politics.’

Ethel said: ‘I’m not sure I understand politics any more. What on earth is happening here in Germany?’

Maud said: ‘We were doing all right in the mid-twenties. We had a democratic government and a growing