first war and later reinvented himself as an Italian monk-turned-prestidigitator. He had gotten his stage name, Fra Carnevale, from an obscure Renaissance painter whose depiction of the Annunciation had brought him to tears as a young man in a museum in Munich. The vivid blue of the Virgin’s robe had recalled the only memory he had of his mother, who had died in childbirth when he was four years old, and when he gave his first magic show that night they introduced him as Fra Carnevale. He never did tell me what his real name was—the name his parents had given him, I mean—but I suppose you could say Neverino was his real name.
He pulled roses out of my ears and pfennigs fell from his lips every time he laughed, and he even sawed me in half a few times when his assistant was too sauced to come on. Neverino was the closest thing to a father I ever had, and he was the only person in Berlin who knew me for what I was. He was also the one who introduced me to the members of the Centaur network, with whom I collaborated for a good few years.
Neverino and I spent many happy midnight hours in the backyard of his little half-timbered house in Werder admiring each other’s tricks, me turning toad to raven to Doberman in the span of seconds, and though he wasn’t able to best me there, he did show me how to play dead even more convincingly than a two-day-old corpse. He had spectacles, though he didn’t need them, wore a tonsure and a rough brown robe both on and off the circus stage, and affected an Italian accent whenever it might give him an advantage.
As I say, the art of glamoury is best used to make oneself as inconspicuous as the light fixtures. I could, on purpose, drain the luster from my hair, my eyes, my complexion, and once I’d put on a drab serge suit and sensible shoes no one would ever suspect a thing of me.
In many respects it was better than being invisible, and I made terrific use of it on tours of various German munitions factories in ’33 and ’34. Neverino posed as a Canadian industrialist all too eager to praise the Germans’ superior technologies. (Just imagine it: a native German speaking his own language with a pitch-perfect North American accent! My, but he was brilliant.)
It is a universal truth that flattery will get you anywhere, even into the belly of a Panzer. Back then the Germans had no intention of starting a war with the British—a powerful race, Aryan as theirs—and they were anxious to show off their new feats of engineering. The Germans hardly noticed the bland young woman holding a small typist’s notebook, nor could they have known that the notes wrote themselves under the red cardboard cover.
For a time I was afraid our partnership would be short-lived. Hitler had seized control of the Reichstag in early 1933, and the following year Sarrasani took his circus on a tour of South America to evade the Nazi arsonists. They’d been lucky enough to stay in business after the first time the tent was torched. Neverino went too, but he promised he’d be back.
To my delight, he returned to Berlin within the month. Over a spaghetti dinner he told me that he hadn’t been to South America at all, but to London. He had managed introductions with some of the people who would later head the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, and had passed along the notes we’d made on the factory tours. They’d given him instructions to set up one of the early Nazi surveillance and resistance networks, the Centaur circuit, and he wanted me to keep working for him. He paused only to laugh at the red wine rising in his glass.
And once the war started, Neverino proved himself one of the most ingenious hoax-masters for the Allies. It was his idea to plant phony intelligence memos on corpses in uniform and his idea to build ersatz military complexes out of wood and rubber to fool the German bombers. Yes indeed, Neverino was a mastermind, an inspiration. His friendship meant a lot to me, and it meant even
He pulled roses out of my ears and pfennigs fell from his lips every time he laughed, and he even sawed me in half a few times when his assistant was too sauced to come on. Neverino was the closest thing to a father I ever had, and he was the only person in Berlin who knew me for what I was. He was also the one who introduced me to the members of the Centaur network, with whom I collaborated for a good few years.
Neverino and I spent many happy midnight hours in the backyard of his little half-timbered house in Werder admiring each other’s tricks, me turning toad to raven to Doberman in the span of seconds, and though he wasn’t able to best me there, he did show me how to play dead even more convincingly than a two-day-old corpse. He had spectacles, though he didn’t need them, wore a tonsure and a rough brown robe both on and off the circus stage, and affected an Italian accent whenever it might give him an advantage.
As I say, the art of glamoury is best used to make oneself as inconspicuous as the light fixtures. I could, on purpose, drain the luster from my hair, my eyes, my complexion, and once I’d put on a drab serge suit and sensible shoes no one would ever suspect a thing of me.
In many respects it was better than being invisible, and I made terrific use of it on tours of various German munitions factories in ’33 and ’34. Neverino posed as a Canadian industrialist all too eager to praise the Germans’ superior technologies. (Just imagine it: a native German speaking his own language with a pitch-perfect North American accent! My, but he was brilliant.)
It is a universal truth that flattery will get you anywhere, even into the belly of a Panzer. Back then the Germans had no intention of starting a war with the British—a powerful race, Aryan as theirs—and they were anxious to show off their new feats of engineering. The Germans hardly noticed the bland young woman holding a small typist’s notebook, nor could they have known that the notes wrote themselves under the red cardboard cover.
For a time I was afraid our partnership would be short-lived. Hitler had seized control of the Reichstag in early 1933, and the following year Sarrasani took his circus on a tour of South America to evade the Nazi arsonists. They’d been lucky enough to stay in business after the first time the tent was torched. Neverino went too, but he promised he’d be back.
To my delight, he returned to Berlin within the month. Over a spaghetti dinner he told me that he hadn’t been to South America at all, but to London. He had managed introductions with some of the people who would later head the Special Operations Executive, or SOE, and had passed along the notes we’d made on the factory tours. They’d given him instructions to set up one of the early Nazi surveillance and resistance networks, the Centaur circuit, and he wanted me to keep working for him. He paused only to laugh at the red wine rising in his glass.
And once the war started, Neverino proved himself one of the most ingenious hoax-masters for the Allies. It was his idea to plant phony intelligence memos on corpses in uniform and his idea to build ersatz military complexes out of wood and rubber to fool the German bombers. Yes indeed, Neverino was a mastermind, an inspiration. His friendship meant a lot to me, and it meant even
Similar Books
