with some surprise, the usual registration process with their passports, which did not take long, and soon they were being escorted up one of the sets of stairs, followed by both porter and their bags, to rooms on the fourth floor.
‘No elevator?’
‘They’re hardy mountain folk round here — and it’s a lift.’
‘What do we do next?’
‘Wait to be contacted. That snotty sod downstairs will now, no doubt, tell whoever we need to meet that we are here.’
‘I could sure use a drink.’
‘Lobby, ten minutes,’ Cal replied, ‘so could I.’
Corrie was still complaining about her ‘lousy Martini’, Cal reading a local newspaper, when the woman Cal decided on first sight to call the ‘Ice Maiden’ appeared and came towards them, dressed in dirndl-type clothing as if the rest of her appearance was not enough to mark her out as German.
Her blonde hair was braided tightly from the front of her head to the back and she was stunning-looking, with clear skin and large bright-blue eyes, if a trifle severe of expression and, tellingly, with no sign on her hands of a matrimonial band. Being a gentleman, Cal stood up, but it was the still sitting Corrie she addressed.
‘Fraulein Littleton?’
‘I prefer Miss.’
That response was ignored. ‘And Herr Barrowman, your interpreter, Ja?’
‘You speak good English, Fraulein…’
‘Metzer,’ she replied. ‘I help run our leader’s press office. English is very necessary to counter the fabrications of the foreign journals.’
‘Or,’ Corrie snapped, ‘to understand the complexities.’
She might as well have said ‘lies’. Cal, seeing the eyes narrow, was quick to intervene, his voice genial, at the same time seeking to throw Corrie a warning glance; she needed, he needed these people to think they were sympathetic.
‘Which Miss Littleton has come a long way to unearth. I must say I too will find it fascinating to explore the way you have united the people of Bohemia and Moravia into such a powerful political body. It’s quite an achievement and one we discussed on the way from Prague.’
It was almost comical — indeed it would have been in peaceful times — the way her face changed at the mention of the Czech capital. It was as if someone had just farted and walked away from a bad smell.
‘You must be tired after your journey, Herr Barrowman, and I have to tell you it is too late in the day to meet with Herr Henlein, there would not be enough time before he goes home to dine with his family.’
‘How admirable that a man with so much to do, a man indeed of destiny, has time to keep his family obligations.’
‘That is something he does every evening, Herr Barrowman, unless there is a crisis. The hotel houses his offices but he rarely sleeps here.’
‘Well that suits me, Fraulein, I need to work up some notes.’
Cal noted the tone of Corrie’s voice, which was not friendly, but it perfectly matched the utterly insincere smile with which the Ice Maiden responded; it was cold enough to freeze a volcano.
There was something in the air and Cal knew what it was: the Ice Maiden was smiling at him but not at her, which reminded him of the atmosphere Lizzie created when she saw a rival, something she was inclined to spot often and at a hundred paces. His wife could not bear it that anyone around her should be able to compete for male attention.
The Ice Maiden, even if he did not know her, was doing the same, but why was Corrie Littleton reacting in the way she did?
‘I am sure you know already, Fraulein Littleton, what it is you want to ask our leader. A typewriter and paper will be sent to your room, Fraulein Littleton, along with ample paper so you may write up your article.’
‘I was just going to make notes and do the composition when I get back to Prague.’
‘But our leader would be very interested to see what you write.’
‘And no doubt make some suggestions for alterations.’
‘He must be careful not to be misrepresented.’
‘I am used to my own machine.’
‘If you struggle with what we send you, I am sure we can find someone to type for you.’
‘Your kindness overwhelms me,’ Corrie said, with very sweetly delivered irony.
‘Might I suggest,’ Fraulein Metzer said to Cal, her face going from frosty to smiling, ‘that you dine in the hotel and we will set a time for tomorrow.’
‘Sunday?’
‘With the amount of things happening in our poor land everyone must work, even on a supposed Holy Day.’
‘Time to freshen up,’ Corrie said, finishing her drink and glaring at the German woman. ‘I’m feeling a little soiled.’
‘I take it a promenade after dinner would not be forbidden?’ Cal asked, his tone pleasant to cover for Corrie’s acidity.
The Ice Maiden’s big blue eyes got bigger. ‘What a strange expression, Herr Barrowman; how can such a thing as going for a walk be forbidden in a free country?’
Jimmy Garvin was sitting at the cafe attached to the station, wondering if he could avoid buying another beer and wishing he had the kind of expenses that went to the Vernon Bartletts of this world; the money they all spent in the bar of the Ambassador was staggering.
Not that he had been shocked by their excess, given it was exactly the same in and around Bouverie Street where the paper had its offices, a culture of drinking that often saw stories filed from the floor of a pub rather than a reporter’s desk.
He did not know how lucky he was; the station cafe was Czech-owned and thus silent, while inside the hotel, those he was waiting for were sitting, trying not to look bored at the interminable speech being delivered from Nuremberg by Joseph Goebbels.
His voice was rather nasal and even if Corrie could not understand what he was saying she could recognise the tone of mockery in it, his jokes, which Cal knew to be heavy and unfunny, roared at by his audience as well as laughed at by many sharing the dining room.
No one talked; it was either considered impolite when the Minister of Propaganda was making a speech, or their fellow diners were afraid to look as though they did not believe every lie he was telling. The exception to the sarcasm was any mention of the Fuhrer, which came with great ‘ Heils! ’, and then he went into that standard Nazi trick of the ever rising crescendo of threats, which would be shattered against the iron wall of National Socialism.
The worldwide Jewish conspiracy would not halt the forward march of the German Volk; beware Bolshevism and the Slavic hordes, for the righteous anger of the Aryan master race was moving forward to face and defeat their machinations. During all this Cal had to struggle not to shout at the big radio relaying this, his only compensation the best part of a bottle of very good wine; Corrie only had one glass.
‘Make out you’re not feeling well,’ Cal insisted as he drained the last of that and leant toward her looking concerned.
‘What?’ Corrie whispered.
‘Mop the brow, clutch the stomach, unless you want to listen to all this drivel. He will go on for at least another hour.’
She gave a sterling performance of a woman in some distress, doing as he bid, clutching his hand and, with her auburn near-red hair and pale skin, able to look ill without really trying. Cal stood and helped her to her feet and with a backward glance of deep apology to the fascists still listening to Goebbels they left the room.
The sight of Corrie Littleton and her companion, under the canopy of light outside the hotel, emerging into the cool evening, had him draining the dregs he had been hanging on to, only to realise that when the time came to
