Smoked Ham McHale
Thinly sliced onions melted with a generous amount of butter in a skillet. Two thick slices of uncooked, smoked ham then cooked quickly – five minutes, or so. Half a bottle of red wine added with a shake or two of pepper. Cooked for another twenty minutes until wine reduced. Served with red cabbage and creamed potatoes.
Edith followed Dori into Adeline’s improvised darkroom. It smelt of developing fluid and perfume.
‘What did it say? In the letter?’
‘There was no letter. Just the envelope but it proves that they’ve been in touch.’
‘This is as good as I can get.’ Adeline pointed to a printed reel, still wet, pegged on a line between the nylons and silk stockings. ‘I need a proper dark room to enlarge them.’
Various groups of men in uniforms, high-ranking SS officers, standing around, hands in pockets, smoking cigarettes, smiling, laughing, their women in evening dress or fur coats and hats. Dori pointed to one photograph with a crimson fingernail, isolating it from its fellows. A group sitting round a table at what looked like a summer evening garden party.
‘The man standing is von Stavenow.’
Edith moved close.
‘And this woman, seated in front of him. Is that Elisabeth?’
Edith peered closer, until the image blurred. Yes, Elisabeth was there, in the fall of her hair, the tilt of her head, the way her eyes challenged the camera, the way she held her cigarette.
‘Yes, I think so. There could be some innocent explanation, though …’
‘Oh, yes? Look who she’s with! See him?’ Dori pointed to a heavy-set man, sitting sideways to the camera, heavily brilliantined hair catching the light. ‘See his collar patches? Oak leaf clusters. That makes him a General. See him?’ She moved her finger to the younger man at his side. ‘High-ranking Gestapo. And this one,’ she pointed to a fourth man sitting on her left, his hand on the arm of her chair. ‘Wehrmacht. The von Stavenows kept big-shot company.’
‘I know him.’ Adeline picked up a hand lens. ‘That’s Ernst Kaltenbrunner. Chief of the RSHA, the Reichssicherheit-shauptamt, Himmler’s outfit, Reich Security Main Office, sister organization to the Gestapo. He’s in the dock at Nuremberg. I’ve been staring at his ugly mug, day in day out.’
‘Do you know the others?’ Dori asked, her dark eyes searching, hopeful that she might.
Adeline shook her head. ‘Should be able to tell more when we’ve got decent-size prints.’ She turned to a distant ringing. ‘’Scuse me, that’s our phone.’
‘We have to identify them,’ Dori continued to stare at the still-wet image as if it might give up its secret. ‘Establish Elisabeth’s connection.’
Edith peered at the miniature woman in the tiny print. ‘What if it’s just a social occasion?’
Part of Edith wanted to be mistaken, didn’t want to think this of her. She could perhaps understand that Elisabeth might have been in touch with Kurt for some reason. Maybe her letter had been full of accusation, maybe she couldn’t resist the temptation to pour out all her bitterness and recrimination, but to see her laughing and smiling, surrounded by a bunch of high-ranking Nazis? That was a suspicion of a different order.
‘You said she was never in Berlin.’ Dori turned on Edith.
‘I didn’t say that,’ she snapped back. ‘She was his wife! She had to be there. It was expected. I just said she wasn’t there all the time!’
Dori sighed her frustration. ‘I can’t believe how far you’re prepared to go to make excuses for her!’
‘I’m not making excuses!’ Edith glared. ‘I think we just need to be sure!’
‘No point in arguing.’ Adeline came back, holding her hands up. ‘Edith, you need to get ready to see McHale. That was him on the phone. He wants to see you and not anyone else.’
‘Why?’ Edith was genuinely mystified and not a little alarmed.
Adeline shrugged. ‘Just get ready. That’s the way he is. If we want von Stavenow out and on his way south, you better get out to Wannsee. I’ll run you over there.’
‘What am I supposed to say to him?’ Edith felt panic mounting.
‘I’ll come to your room with you,’ Dori linked arms, all her annoyance seemingly forgotten. ‘We’ll have a little chat and a stiff gin to steady the nerves, then we’ll pick out the right thing to wear.’
Tom McHale’s apartment was in a modernist building overlooking the Wannsee.
‘Nice spot.’ He looked out of the large window. ‘Right by the lake. Impressive, don’t you think?’ He turned back, inviting her agreement. ‘Bauhaus. Belonged to some high-ranking Nazi. The normal thing for the Nazis. Declare Bauhaus degenerate, ungerman and whatever else, while keeping it for themselves.’ He gestured round the white-painted room with its polished oak floor, glass-topped table, leather, bentwood and metal furniture. ‘Whoever lived here had taste. Some of this was his. The rest I’ve collected.’
He stroked the curve of one of the chairs, his touch covetous. The walls were hung with Braque, Matisse, Picasso, Chagall. Presumably, also collected along the way. Maybe he was looking after them until the owners could be located, although Edith doubted it. He would likely have the whole lot crated up and shipped back to the USA. He wasn’t alone in this. Lorry loads of furniture, china, silverware, carpets had been shipped back to the Home Counties. It was a temptation that many felt unable to resist. As they saw it, they were only looting the looters.
‘But we’re not here to discuss architecture and furniture design, are we?’ He turned away from the window. ‘Too bad Adie couldn’t stay. Had to file copy.’ McHale gave her that disconcerting smile of his, open and wide, while his eyes stayed the same, ice on a sunny day. ‘But that’s Adie. Always on the job.’ He stretched, arms above his head, showing off his lithe, athletic build. ‘Hope you’re hungry, Edith. You’re interested in food, recipes?’
Edith looked at him sharply. ‘That’s right. How do you know?’
‘I have an excellent memory.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Hash with beets. What did you call it? Bubble and Squeak? There’s a great kitchen here. It even has a refrigerator. You want a drink? I’ve got scotch or bourbon.’
‘Bourbon would be fine.’
‘Ice?’
‘Not for me.’
‘I’ll be right back.’ He was already disappearing out of the door.
He returned carrying two glasses, the liquor trickling through the ice. He was wearing loose-fitting gabardine trousers, a striped polo shirt, unlaced tennis shoes with no socks, boy’s clothes that made him look scarcely out of his teens. He threw himself into the chair opposite her, sprawling like an adolescent, his long, loose frame making the steel and leather look almost comfortable.
‘I like to cook. Did Adie say?’
‘Yes, she did.’ Edith sipped her whisky.
‘I do like to cook.’ He smiled and swirled his drink, the ice tinkling against the crystal. ‘We have that in common.’ He boosted himself out of his chair in one fluid movement. ‘Care to give me a hand?’
Edith followed him into the kitchen. ‘What are you cooking?’
‘Ham. This Bavarian ham is so good. Seems a shame not to take advantage. And red cabbage. That’s in the oven. Creamed potatoes. Also in the oven keeping warm, and apple and horseradish sauce.’
He began cutting onions, very fine, with quick, even strokes of the knife.
He tipped the onions into the foaming butter and turned down the heat.
‘Look at that.’ He held up a thick slice of ham. Dark-pink flesh with a layer of opalescent fat and a thin, deep-brown rind. ‘Isn’t that perfect?’
He parted the frying onions carefully and nestled each slice into the pan. He looked at his watch.
‘Five minutes each side. Then I’ll add the wine.’
Tom moved round the kitchen with an exuberant delight, like a child playing with the grown-up things, while his cook, housekeeper, or whatever she was, had the night off. If they bothered at all, men cooked differently from women. Less instinct and more precision. They approached it as they would any hobby, making model aeroplanes, running train sets. Everything was arranged. All the ingredients chopped, measured and weighed. Nothing else in sight.
‘I don’t often have the chance to do this,’ he said as if sensing her thought. ‘Helga doesn’t let me in the kitchen.’
‘Does she not?’ There was always a Helga, or a wife, to do the day-to-day mundane stuff.
‘And the food here is such good quality.’
‘You don’t see a lot of it about.’
‘And whose fault is that? There’s plenty out there. Ham, sausage, butter, cheese, potatoes – all hoarded against the black market.’ He passed a hand over his head. The light picked out reddish glints in his chaff-coloured hair. ‘We need to get a proper currency. You can’t have a country run on cigarettes. Just a splash of wine and we’ll leave it to simmer.’ He dipped a spoon into the sauce and invited Edith to taste. ‘More pepper?’
‘Perfect as it is.’
He laid out the thick slices of ham on fine china plates, pouring the sauce over them.
‘Edith, can you take these in? I need to open the wine. Should have done it earlier. Given it time to breathe.’
He was opening a bottle of Chateau Lafite. Another of the spoils of war.
They sat down at the table and Tom poured the wine. He passed Edith the dish of creamed potato and the red cabbage.
‘What do you think of the Kartoffelpuree?’
‘Very good.’
Edith was saying very little. Dori had told her to let him do the talking.
‘Cream and a grate of nutmeg. How do you like the red cabbage? It’s my Swedish grandma’s recipe.’
Edith took a forkful. ‘Sweeter than the German version. Less pungent. I like it.’
‘And the ham?’
‘Delicious,’ Edith answered with a smile, going along with the deliberately elliptical pattern of the conversation.
He smiled back, satisfied. ‘Cypriot recipe, believe it or not. Greek boy gave it to me. Had his head blown off on a beach near Salerno. We buried him next to the temple of Poseidon. Ancient Greek town, Paestum. It’s nice there. I mean to go back one day.’ He paused for a moment before going on in his falsely bright way. ‘Now we have Peach Cobbler and cream.’
‘Sounds wonderful’
‘What d’you think?’ he asked as they were finishing the pudding. ‘Good?’
‘Excellent.’
‘My ma’s recipe. Hine?’ McHale offered after he’d cleared away the dishes. He picked up a bottle off the sideboard and read the label. ‘Reserve. There were some very fine cellars out here. Amazing what the Russians overlooked. Couldn’t drink it all, I guess.’
‘I won’t, thanks.’
He took out a cigar, cut the end and reached into his pocket for a lighter. ‘We found humidors as well.’ He rolled the Zippo. ‘Senior Nazis didn’t stint themselves.’ He puffed on the cigar once or twice, then examined the glowing tip to see if it was evenly alight. ‘So, Edith, let’s get down to business. What do you want from me?’ He took another draw, exhaling aromatic blue smoke.
‘Who says I want something?’
‘Now, Edith,’ he grinned. ‘Come on!’
‘On the contrary, I’m here to offer you something.’
‘Like what?’
‘I can give you Kurt von Stavenow.’
This was where she delivered what Dori called ‘the pay off’. And it worked. She resisted an impulse to smile as McHale almost choked on his cigar. Those wide-apart, pale-blue eyes were on her now, engaged and expectant. With something else there, she hadn’t seen before. A kind of respect.
‘Really? His wife, too?’
There was an urgency to his tone, as though they wanted her, specifically. Why would that be?
‘Her, too. That’s guaranteed.’
‘What do you want in return?’
‘He’s in the Russian Zone. You have to get him out of there and on his way out of the country. I know that you can do that.’
He looked slightly disconcerted. He had to be careful now. That was not for public consumption. He drew on his cigar while he framed his reply.
‘Let’s say that we do help people.’ He gave a small smile and carefully nudged off a column of accumulating ash. ‘Let’s say he is of interest. There are hundreds like him. Thousands. We can’t put them all on trial. That would be pointless. We have to move on. We’ve got the main culprits. The trials are set. If some of the smaller fish get away,’ he made a swift swimming motion, ‘so be it. Truth is, we don’t want them here. The big guys are already in the States. The rest? Some may have their uses and maybe your Kurt is one of those. Otherwise, they can go to South America, or somewhere, play at being Nazis, dream of the Fourth Reich, whatever it is they want. They’re a spent force. Dreaming is all it will ever be. There’s a new war starting. A new enemy. We have to turn our minds to that now.’
‘Move from the old war to the cold war?’
‘You’ve got it exactly.’
‘So you will help get him out?’
‘Well, he’s no use to anyone except the Russians where he is now. That’s enough of a reason.’ He masked his eagerness in a show of indifference. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He proffered the bottle of Hine. ‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’
‘Quite sure.’
He poured himself another finger or two and swirled the rich burnt-sienna liquid round his glass.
‘What do you want?’ he asked. ‘What’s in it for you? And Dori. What’s in it for her?’
Edith half wished she hadn’t refused that brandy.
‘I don’t want to go into details,’ she answered, deliberately evading his question. ‘I’m not privy to Dori’s thinking.’
‘Best guess then?’
‘I’d say,’ she thought hard, sensing snares all around her, ‘I’d say she thinks he knows something about the fate of the SOE agents she’s seeking. A chance to question him could be part of the deal.’
‘Uhn, hnn,’ Tom nodded, eyes half closed against the smoke from his cigar. ‘And them? The von Stavenows? What do they want, d’you think?’
‘They want to get out of Germany, Europe preferably but …’ She stopped. She had to be careful, very careful now. Keep her face straight, expressionless, show him nothing. ‘Most of all …’ she heard herself say. She was finding it hard to breathe. The message to meet, the letter on his desk, the photographs. It suddenly all clicked together. It was so obvious, why had she not seen it? Elisabeth didn’t want a divorce. They hadn’t parted on ‘bad terms’, as Kurt had put it. ‘Most of all,’ she began again, ‘they want to be together. That’s what they’ve always wanted.’ She tried to gain control. ‘That’s what this is all about and he won’t go without her.’ She took more air. ‘I do know that.’
‘Are you okay?’ Tom was out of his chair.
‘Asthma,’ Edith managed to say. ‘Your cigar.’
‘Oh, God, I’m sorry.’ He mashed the remaining rolled tobacco into the grey ash. ‘I had no idea.’ A bell sounded out in the hallway. ‘Ah, there’s Adeline,’ he said, with something like relief.
‘Hey! Are you okay?’
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly.’
‘Did he fall for it?’ Adeline asked.
Edith didn’t answer. She just stared out into the darkness.
‘Doesn’t matter.’ Adeline started the car. ‘If you said Dori wants to get von Stavenow to Italy to throw rocks at him, Tom wouldn’t care. He’s planning the double-cross already. The point is he wants von Stavenow and Frau and you’re delivering them all tied up with a bow. I managed to get those photos blown up at the Press Agency,’ she went on. ‘Musette bag on the back seat.’
Edith unwound the ribbon that fixed the cardboard file. The now enlarged photograph showed the summer party in detail. Glasses on the table, ashtrays, champagne in an ice bucket. Elisabeth at the centre of the group with Kurt behind her, his hand on her shoulder. No mistaking her and no mistaking the gesture.
‘Max at the Press Agency recognized the mystery men,’ Adeline was saying. ‘The weasely-looking Gestapo guy? Horst Kopkow. Heydrich’s protégé, Senior Counter-espionage Officer. The Wehrmacht guy, balding with the big ears? Reinhart Gehlen. Chief of the FHO, Military Intelligence on the Eastern Front. Classy company. There’s a little date in the corner, see?’
1943. According to her account, Elisabeth had left Berlin by then but, of course she hadn’t, that was just another lie. Edith let the photograph fall back onto her lap and wound down the window, short of breath again. The betrayal was vast, spreading, out and out.
‘Say, are you okay? Do you want me to stop the car?’
Edith shook her head. ‘No, I just needed some air. Have you told Dori?’ she asked, hoping to move her mind on to something else.
‘Just left her now. It’s my guess Elisabeth worked for one of those guys.’
‘Worked for them?’ Edith turned. ‘She’s never worked in her life!’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. I find the women interesting. What were they doing? They couldn’t just be Kinder, Küche, Kirche. To begin with, maybe, but not after they started losing in ’43. With so many men called up, they’d have to join the workforce. To run that kind of bureaucracy, all that minute-taking and typing, women would do that, surely? Behind the scenes work, routine administration.’ She leaned forward, brows furrowed, eyes on the road. ‘The young guys, the junior guys who might have been doing it before would be needed to fight. Who’s going to take their places? Women. I bet Elisabeth stepped right up to the plate. She was in Berlin. As a good Nazi, she’d want to do her bit. She’d be right at the heart of government. And you know what they say? If you want to know anything, don’t ask the boss, ask his P.A.’
Edith’s eyes went back to the image lying on her lap. Love’s veiling glamour can be hard to dispel but here was Elisabeth’s duplicity in enlarged black and white. Of course, parts of Elisabeth’s story had never added up. Not just how she’d spent the war but before. Kurt’s line of work as an SS doctor. How could she not have known? I do not like this life, she’d said on the terrace at Steinhoff. She seemed to be enjoying it in these photographs.
Some things Elisabeth said had never made proper sense. That’s why she’d been so furious with Roz, with Luka. She glanced away from the photograph and back again. Kurt’s hand on her shoulder. The closeness clear to see. Edith’s feelings for Kurt had made her easy to deceive but the affection that she’d developed for Elisabeth made the betrayal much deeper.
‘I was hoping that it might be somehow – innocent,’ she said, almost to herself. She looked over at Adeline. ‘But it doesn’t look that way, does it?’
‘No, it doesn’t.’ Adeline continued to stare out into the fragile cone the headlights cast into the looming blackness. ‘One time, I was with the 82nd, April ’45, pushing deep into Germany. We came to this town. White flags everywhere, white sheets hanging from the windows, but nobody was throwing roses. People just standing in the streets looking puzzled, as if they couldn’t believe this was happening. The surrender was recent. I went with a patrol to secure the town hall. First thing I noticed was how quiet it was, just the rat-tat of gunfire in the distance, like rice falling on a kid’s drum. As we went up the stairs, the silence seemed to grow, thicken. We took a long corridor to the right. Door at the end of the passage. A heavy door in some dark wood. One of our guys pushed it open with his gun and we stepped inside. First thing we saw was a man at the desk; head down in a pool of blood. Then a woman slumped in a chair, a streak of blood dried by the side of her mouth. We turned around to see a girl. Very young and quite beautiful, dressed in some kind of uniform, lying on a leather sofa, head back, mouth slightly open, eyes glassy. A fine layer of dust covered everything: the furniture, the man’s shoulders, the pool of blood in front of him, the eyes of the girl on the sofa. The mayor and his family. All dead by their own hands.’ She paused. ‘What I’m thinking is, what about the ones who didn’t kill themselves? What are they doing now?’
Adeline fell into silence, as if still in that room with the dead girl and her parents. Out of the window, the lake flashed silver between the dark bars of the pines. Elisabeth had told her about just such incidents at that first meeting. Edith remembered her saying: Oh, no, I wouldn’t do that … I had to survive. For my daughter. Then Luka hinting that the child wasn’t hers. Was that another lie? Was it all lies? Spun to work on Edith’s regard? Gain her sympathy? Edith glanced again at the woman smiling out of the photograph. So charming, so plausible. So beautiful. She’d thrown her glamour over Edith, caught her in the web of her story. Edith’s feelings of being duped were receding. She felt the first deep stirrings of anger. No one liked being taken for a fool.
‘I’ll find out what Elisabeth was involved in,’ Adeline was saying as they entered the broken outer rim of the city. ‘You and Dori work on what she’s up to now.’
Harry was in the hotel bar sitting in a booth by himself. He didn’t seem to notice her and Edith had to fight a desire to walk straight past. She had a feeling that this meeting would be goodbye, that he was going back to Palestine, and she didn’t know how much more she could take. The day had been so long, she barely remembered the morning and the encounter with McHale, the revelations about Elisabeth, had left her drained. At that moment, he looked up and she felt some of the burden of the day begin to lift away.
‘Edith! Where have you been? Do you want a drink?’ He was already signalling the waiter. ‘Whisky and soda?’
‘I’ve been around,’ Edith’s shrug was vague. ‘We must have just kept missing each other.’
‘You look tired. What have you been up to?’ He finished his drink as the waiter brought another. ‘Aren’t you going to tell me? What’s kept you so busy, kept you away from me?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ The whisky was cheap, diluted. She put the glass aside.
‘I hope it’s not anything to do with Kurt von Stavenow.’
Edith looked up at him, too tired for dissembling.
‘How do you know?’
‘I met Dori. She said you’d seen him. Here in Berlin. She also told me that he’s in the Russian Zone, which means he’ll want to get out, and that you were having dinner with McHale.’ He leant forward. ‘Keep out of it, Edith.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s dangerous! A murky business, getting murkier by the minute. Ratlines. That’s what the Americans call them. Aptly named. Stretching from here to South America, a conduit for Nazi vermin, organized either by the SS old comrades or the Americans. I can’t think of a more ruthless pairing. And then there’s the Catholic Church lending a helping hand. You’d be mad to get mixed up in it. Leave it to—’
‘The professionals? They are the ones smuggling them out!’
He shrugged. Touché. ‘Why are you so involved, anyway? Why do you want to get him out?’
‘I don’t.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not about that.’
‘What is it about?’
‘I can’t really tell you but it’s not what you think. What he did was heinous,’ she said quietly. ‘He shouldn’t be allowed to get away scot free. You aren’t the only people to think that way.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t—’
‘Think I’d be interested?’ he finished her sentence for her. ‘Not at the top of our dance card? Why not? The Jewish wards were the first to be emptied, you can be certain of that. And what they learnt from the Euthanasia Project allowed them to kill with ever greater efficiency. T4 set up the Extermination Camps at Sobibór, Treblinka. Hundreds of thousands of Jews died there. Millions, probably. We’re interested, all right. What about Dori? What’s she got to do with it?’
‘She’s been working with Vera Atkins. Something to do with their agents being executed at a place called Natzweiler.’
Harry sat forward. ‘Natzweiler-Struthof?’
‘You know this place?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Harry’s thin fingers knotted together. ‘Jews were taken there from Auschwitz. They were gassed, their corpses defleshed to add to the Jewish skeleton collection. What was von Stavenow’s role? Do you know?’
‘Dori thought he might have been present when the agents were killed.’
‘What about Leo? Where’s he in all this?’
‘Nowhere, as far as I know.’
‘But they want him, don’t they? This von Stavenow. You told me so yourself.’
‘Yes, but Leo’s not involved, not directly …’
‘So it’s Dori and Vera on a solo hunting trip?’
‘No, they’re working with War Crimes.’
‘I wouldn’t be too sure about Leo. He’ll be in it somewhere.’ He looked at her, trying to read her face. ‘There’s less and less appetite for bringing these people to justice. Too time consuming and expensive. The new policy seems to be to use them against the Russians or let them slither away. All this War Crimes stuff is being “discouraged”.’
‘That’s more or less what McHale said. No one’s interested in going after them any more, punishing them for what they’ve done.’
‘We are, Edith.’ He took her hands and held them tightly. ‘We are.’ His eyes took on a sudden, dark intensity. ‘We are a patient people. We remember for millennia. They will never be safe from us. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far they run.’
She felt a shiver pass through his thin body, as if he was tensing himself in readiness for this unknown future. His grip slackened and he held her hands more loosely, his eyes distant now, looking into a future that was unlikely to include her. He leaned forward, as though there was something more, something he wanted to tell her. She thought she knew what it was, but didn’t want to hear it. Not yet.
‘Let’s go to your room, shall we?’ She looked around. The bar was filling. The crowd approaching the noisy stage of drunkenness. This was no place for goodbyes.
‘I was expecting you earlier,’ he said as he turned the champagne in its silver bucket of melted ice water. ‘It’ll be warm now.’
They took it into the bedroom and drank it anyway.
His lovemaking was so slow and considerate and achingly tender that all her suspicions were confirmed. There’s a leaving at the end of this, there has to be was her last fleeting thought before all consciousness was lost in fierce oblivion.
Afterwards, they were quiet for a long time, neither of them saying anything, just lying still together, hardly moving, wanting to stay in the exquisite languor of the moment.
Eventually, Harry sighed and leaned up, stretching for his cigarettes.
‘I’m leaving,’ he said as he lay back on the bed.
‘When?’ Soon, she knew, but she had to ask it.
‘A couple of weeks at most.’ He exhaled. ‘My work here is done. I’m being demobbed.’
‘Where will you go? What will you do?’ Although she knew the answers to those questions, too.
‘To Israel.’ He no longer called it Palestine. ‘To join my brother in Haganah, play my part in the struggle. The British have no appetite for it. They’ll be gone in a year. I want to be there when it happens.’ He stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette. ‘I want to be present at the beginning, to help build a new state, a new country which will be my country.’ He stubbed out his cigarette and turned to her. ‘Come with me, Edith. We can start a new life there. Together. I don’t want this to be goodbye.’
‘Neither do I.’
‘Come with me then! The country is beautiful. You’d love it there – and there is so much to do. It will be exciting. We can make a new beginning. My brother lives in Tel Aviv. We can stay with him, to start with, anyway. You can write your cookery book. We’ll go through Italy, Greece. You can collect recipes …’
Edith had not been expecting this. She’d steeled herself to part from him. She knew he was going and soon. His life lay elsewhere, and theirs could only be a brief affair. So she’d denied what she felt. Made up any number of narratives that it was for the best.
‘But I’m not …’ She looked away.
‘Jewish? You can convert. Anyway, I don’t care. I want you. As you are. You are an unusual woman, Edith.’ He sat up in bed. ‘Most of the women I meet show too much, or there’s nothing to discover. You are different. So much of you is hidden but each time we meet, I find out more.’ He leaned over to look again into her face. ‘I could go on doing that for the rest of my life and still not know it all.’
‘This is so sudden—’
She didn’t know how to answer him. She wanted this more than anything else in the world, and yet—
‘Not for me. I’ve thought about it a lot. All the time, in fact.’
‘I can’t.’ She bit her lip. ‘Not now. I have to see this through.’
‘I understand,’ he stared straight ahead, arms folded. ‘I’ll be taking more or less the same route through Italy as the Nazis do,’ he said after a moment. ‘If the plan is to follow this von Stavenow, I can recommend safe places, leave word with comrades. If I can help, I will. Be careful, Edith. Each party involved will be watching, waiting to double-cross the others. It’ll be a case of who jumps first.’
‘I know.’ Edith sighed. Everyone lying, led by the von Stavenows. Subterfuge upon subterfuge. Who knew where the truth lay? If it even existed.
‘Afterwards. When it’s over. You can come to me.’
Afterwards? She couldn’t think that far ahead. She loved him, had done since that freezing night in Lübeck, but there had always been a goodbye at the end of it. His words were like a sudden flare lighting up a landscape that she hadn’t even known was there.
‘You’re right.’ He reached to turn out the light. ‘It probably wouldn’t work.’
‘That’s not what I’m thinking. It’s just so – sudden. It’s what I want – more than anything – but here I am, turning you down!’
She turned so he wouldn’t see her tears spill.
‘Hey,’ he took her chin to turn her face around and gently touched her cheeks with his fingers then his lips. He smiled down at her. Her tears were her answer. All he needed to know. ‘Don’t cry, Edith. The offer’s there. Always. I’ll leave my brother’s address. I’ll wait. However long it takes. I know about things that have to be done. I know you won’t want to let others down.’
‘Dependable type, that’s me.’ Edith smiled through her tears.
He laughed softly. ‘That’s why I love you. When it’s over. You will come to me. Promise?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s enough talking.’ His hands began to move over her body. ‘I can think of better things to do.’