Spitfire Girls (4 page)

Valerie turned her back on the handsome Austrian as he walked out into the Norfolk chill.

‘You are a cow,' said Shirley, returning to her partner.

‘People who bring Dad into things revolt me.'

‘One can't blame them. Anyway, you liked him.'

‘You showed him my poetry. Fool. He could be a Nazi spy. They probably torture poets,' said Valerie. ‘Perhaps Dad sent him to spook us. Are you afraid?'

‘He did make me realize how close everything is getting.'

‘That's why I wanted to get rid of him. Here's the news. The Air Ministry is ordering all private flying clubs to reduce the cost of lessons from four pounds to two shillings and sixpence an hour. They're asking kids from all over to start learning.'

‘Does that exclude Friedrich? He wants lessons – I told you last time.'

‘Forget him. The government is subsidizing the cheap lessons – it will let in hundreds of people too poor to afford air proficiency. Shirley, that includes girls, and I'm damned if I'm going to allow the Ministry to keep them on the ground if war comes.'

Shirley became morose, pushing the tea things into a pile at the bottom of the basin.

‘Your father could help us if we quit. I bet the RAF will be bleating for instructors on the ground and in the air – they might even need me and my spanner.'

‘They'll need you, believe me.' She paused. ‘God, that man made me cross.'

‘Do you think we would be given important posts? You know all my dreams about Chief Ground Engineer Bryce.'

‘I don't know all your dreams.'

Thinking only of Kranz but trying to appear as far from passion as she could, Valerie marched off towards the Spartan.

Looking on, bemused, Shirley wondered if any more poetry would ever be written.

In the neighbourhood Edith Allam called home, the Hindenburg Disaster had dominated conversation for weeks. Not since the ‘Titanic' had so many couples lain awake at night speculating about the variables: ‘If we had been on it, if we had taken a holiday, if we were rich, if we had had any money at all …'

On this burning day in a Philadelphia August, Edith had waited five hours for an opportunity to view footage on loan to her employer, Press-Shots Inc., and indeed she was one of only four staff allowed to look at the film, including her constant companion and soulmate, Errol Carnaby – the only coloured projectionist in the industry. Word had got about that at the beginning of Raine Fischtal's movie of the airship tragedy was a sequence showing other forms of death. Raine had not thought of this portion of her work as tragic in the least, and believed scenes of
Krystallnacht
coupled with the arrival of the ‘Hindenburg' in New Jersey were not grotesque.

Press-Shots did, but took care not to say so. They had been offered a special showing and were gracious to the German lady, particularly in view of her horrific burns suffered at Lakehurst. Her hands had been damaged and Edith reflected, as she watched black-and-white books being thrown on to black-and-white bonfires on the screen, that Raine would never make movies again. She thought of how physically alike they were – small, compact women with competitive eyes and appealing bodies – but how appalling
was the German's view of the world. She watched as Raine, oblivious to her pain, sat upright at the scenario of broken Jewish windows and Nazi boots taunting prostrate physicists. It was a scene Edith could not imagine in Philly, where tonight she would be going out with an Italian, a Negro and an Irish American for ice-cream sodas in an enlightened downtown Automat.

When the presentation had ended, Edith's boss Burt Malone took his beefy self over to Raine's chair and made the usual offer to buy the rights American-style. He would rather perish than see that canister leave this room.

‘I refuse.' Raine smiled as she said it.

‘Nobody ever turns us down, honey, do they Edie?'

‘I'm not surprised.' Edith had to be frank.

Raine Fischtal was getting angry:

‘These pictures belong to the Reich. My show was a courtesy. We are not selling anything.'

‘Who's we?'

‘The Reich, Mr Malone.'

‘She means she doesn't work alone – like the Cosa Nostra, Burt.'

‘This Reich, who's really in charge?'

Raine had taken on the look of a weary bird stranded on the deck of a destroyer in a strange sea.

‘No one is in charge, if that is the description you wish to use. The Führer is Reichschancellor, and he controls all areas of government, as well as the arts. My film-making falls into the realm of art.'

‘He runs the shop
and
cooks the books, Burt.'

‘Cooks?' Raine was nonplussed and Edith was loving it.
‘Well, if you'll allow me, I ‘d like to contact your government regarding purchase of exclusive rights in this remarkable piece of cinema. We think it would raise a few eyebrows here.'

By now the projectionist, with a slight smirk on his attractive face, placed the roll of film into its canister and Raine pulled it from his brown hands, gritting her teeth. She walked with precision to the door. Burt had slumped in his seat and seemed helpless, while the other employees in the room reflected their country's isolationist apathy. Errol seemed invisible – even in time of war he would become separate from the rest. Only Edith was not disinterested.

‘Why don't you come out with my friends tonight?' asked Edith. ‘
We
go to Fidler's – the Automat, renowned around the world.'

Raine paused and smiled at the American:

‘I will already be making my way back home. You know, my hands will need proper treatment from doctors without mixed blood.'

Suddenly Burt came alive:

‘Oh, come off it, sister. Don't dish out this racial purity shit over here. Our medics are about fifty years ahead of the rest of the world.'

‘Mr Malone, it is important you should start learning our manifesto. It is important, too, Miss Allam, that you should start learning
hoch Deutsch
or you will give yourself away when we take power here.'

‘In Pennsylvania?' One of the isolationists had spoken. Stan Bialik, a thin, timid film editor who seldom bathed, squirmed in his seat. He looked for enlightenment to Edith.
‘When the Nazis take over, Stan, they'll make you scrub down every day,' said Edith. ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness.'

‘There is no God nonsense in Germany, you know.' Raine leaned against the wall, now holding her canister with some difficulty. ‘Religion has no place, and good riddance.'

‘Oh, like Stalin?' Burt walked over to her and his burly figure made an enormous shadow. Raine glared at him and he knew she no longer thought him an idiot. She departed.

The lights were still dimmed and Edith hit the switch. Stan shuffled out of his chair and Burt stared into space.

‘This is a new breed of folk, Burt,' muttered Stan. ‘I hate kikes but these guys mean business, like starting a war over them.'

‘Ho-ho! What a turnaround!' Burt slapped Stan on the back. ‘I thought you were one of Joe Kennedy's followers – have you fallen in love with a Jewess?'

With that, Edith left. And as she ran down the main corridor, looking for Raine, her face burnt hotter than on the day she had watched the ‘Hindenburg' explode. She hated mention of her race and was horrified at the thought of Stan Bialik wanting her when all she craved was the verbal stimulation of the Negro who awaited her tonight. In the distance Raine marched as Edith walked and when the two were side by side they looked identical in silhouette.

Burt came out for fresh air and chuckled as he registered the two figures.

Was it such a crazy thought that a kid from South Philly might be able to convince a Nazi to turn over the most precious film on American soil on the promise of an icecream soda?

In Britain, Friedrich Kranz was wishing he had never set foot in the village of Hunstanton. Looking at his splendid frame in the full-length mirror of a tiny Norwich bedsit, he wondered if it was the new climate that had made him forget sixteen years of marriage. Crawling naked into the damp-smelling cot, guilt made him remember his children, but no force could stop him from the irrational urgings that had invaded his body since his visit to the little hut. He was the great-grandson of a small-time merchant and was carrying on the family tradition of assimilating: in this case he represented the newest generation of German Jewry successfully engaging in commerce, keeping its ancient rituals as quiet as possible and having a Christmas tree each December.

Kranz took after his mother, a superb musician who saw notation as a mathematical equation. Friedrich was dark and perfectly proportioned like her, but he had transposed his mother's talent into the equations necessary to build aeroplanes. Like his father and grandfather, he progressed in a Christian world and, in their tradition, seemed to antagonize a large proportion of his workers, who resented his facility with numbers, words, historical information, puzzles, music and literature.

Lying now in his English sanctuary, he winced remembering his father's horror at the attitude of one particular worker named Schicklgruber. A young designer fresh out of prison, he had boasted that all progress would be boosted
by his Plan for the Working Man scenario involving factories filled with blond-haired boys and girls. Kranz Senior had roared at the words and had made a remark about Jesus having been thought blond in some ancient accounts. Schicklgruber and the Working Man had returned his hilarity with venomous glares, leaving him to laugh alone.

Though enormously popular with the men, Schicklgruber had left the factory soon afterwards. When Kranz Senior was kicked to death some years later by the same men, his last thought was of the blonde women building aeroplanes for Hitler. Inasmuch as the Uniforms dismembered him before he was actually dead, Kranz Senior had a last bizarre vision of those female blondes shaping bent propellers, because they were all really Jews. They could not be checked for circumcision, after all, but they could send the uncir-cumcized to their deaths in faulty aircraft …

Kranz Senior smiled, before he stopped breathing …

Friedrich was ashamed that he could not stop thinking about Valerie when he should have been worrying that his mother, wife, son and two daughters were also being kicked by Nazi aeroplane factory workers. He had wanted to have Valerie in the hut – to drive his molten essence into her in a hot-walled tunnel from which she could never exit. Now he dreaded having to return and endure the omnipresent Shirley. Kranz wanted the MP's daughter and bristled at the possibility that even the English might regard his ilk as the depraved animal against whom German womanhood was now being warned daily. His first priority was to set up in business in this supposedly friendly country and to find a way of rescuing his family.

Feeling his loins coming awake for the first time since
Austrian politics had frozen them, a wall of dizziness had overtaken his thoughts. He switched off the cold lamp beside the stale mattress and hoped Valerie Cobb's nation had not warned her against his race.

Tomorrow he would make the first step towards including her in his plan. A letter from Tim Haydon MP had arrived at the bedsit that day but he had only glanced at its contents: what was his reason for coming to Britain? He tried to sleep, but could not. Outside, the pub crowd had dispersed and thick Norfolk accents were arguing about the correct route to Marks Tey.

Was it via Sudbury?

No, it's on the road past Blickling … That's nonsense – you have to go by way of Bures …

Their voices made him yearn for Valerie as if she were every English man and woman, and eventually the voices stopped and tomorrow arrived because Friedrich had not slept.

At the Air Ministry in London, argument and confusion reverberated in the office of the Director-General for Civil Aviation, Sir Francis Shelmerdine. 1937 was suffering an uncertain twilight and the foresight of those assembled reflected that of Winston Churchill: they were fierce in their belief that war would thunder in, drowning out Chamberlain's bleatings.

Present were Lady Londonderry, dressed in turn-of-the-century layers, Captain Harold Balfour, looking well-connected, and the handsome Commander Gerard d'Erlanger. Top man at British Airways, d'Erlanger was pursuing his pet crusade:

‘Women – women, all fifty of them, must be part of this operation. From what I gather, Valerie Cobb has ten close associates qualified to be squadron leaders.'

‘Most of them can't drive a car, but have several hundred hours in the air.' Lady L was offering her usual roundabout support for the breathtaking man at her elbow.

Valerie Cobb entered the room noiselessly but all eyes turned. D'Erlanger gasped. He had not seen her for a year and was transfixed. Could none of the others present see it?

‘It's what's known as a magnetic field.' Balfour touched d'Erlanger's arm. He knew. ‘Magnets ruin concentration, Commander.'

Valerie made her way to the committee's enormous table and sat in the empty space meant for Shelmerdine. No-one objected. The men remained standing, and she smiled.

Lady Londonderry spoke:

‘I was talking about the women pilots who can't drive on four wheels,' said her ladyship.

‘Both activities are unladylike,' responded Valerie. A door opened, and she looked up to see Shelmerdine enter. She did not offer him his chair, and she continued:

‘It follows that anything with a motor should be handled with authority. For this reason, it has come to my attention that most of the instructors at flying clubs around Britain are women – handfuls of men have been trained by them. Obviously we are thought to command great authority.'

From anyone else it would have fallen flat. The committee in this instance was spellbound.

‘The top brass cannot accept that females will be competent to fly aircraft.' Shelmerdine was not spellbound. As he watched this woman, whom he saw as manipulative beyond
belief, he thought of the idiocy of her notion that women pilots in active service could fly bombers and huge transport planes. At this moment she seemed to have the other men in the room bewitched, and he decided to manipulate her in return. ‘We must be overrun with good pilots – let the women make the airplanes, for God's sake.'