CHAPTER 35
LONDON
NOVEMBER 1940
In early November, a day after an evening of heavy bombardment, Eva and Precious walked to work, sidestepping the rubble of buildings and roads closed because of unexploded bombs. They paused at a bare spot on Wimpole Street, where a dress shop had stood only the day before. A woman swept the sidewalk of debris, broken pieces of furniture being used to display what wares she’d been able to rescue. A crudely made sign propped against her make-do sales counter read BOMB SALE. Next door, at the damaged greengrocer, another sign read BUSINESS AS USUAL, MR. HITLER.
People were going about their daily lives, taking pride in their ability to thumb their noses at the Nazis to prove their unwillingness to surrender at any cost. But the smell of fire and smoke and unspeakable burning things couldn’t be erased from Eva’s nostrils, no matter how much Vol de Nuit she saturated her skin with. Or how much whisky she drank.
“You don’t look well,” Eva said as they picked their way through broken glass. Dark circles ringed Precious’s eyes, and in the dim light of the overcast day, her skin looked sallow.
“Of course I don’t. I was serving tea in the shelter all night. And listening to people complain that the twopence a cup we were charging was twice as expensive as at ground level. I told one man that if he didn’t stop complaining, I’d spill hot water on him and give him something to complain about.”
Eva smiled. “Oh, Precious—did you really?”
Precious gave her a wan smile. “I did. I’m not proud of it, but I’m just so give out. I can only hope that Mr. Danek can do his magic with his cosmetics.”
“I heard you retching again this morning. Are you sure you’re well? I can always fill your spot. It’s not as if we have many customers right now anyway.”
Precious shook her head. “No. I need to work. To take my mind off of . . . things.”
“Is it Paul?”
Eva knew that Precious’s beau was away now, on a ship somewhere avoiding German U-boats, but when he was able to get leave, he’d come to London. Eva had met him only once. He was large with dark curly hair, affable yet completely forgettable. At least he seemed to make Precious happy. Or if not happy, then at least content.
“No, it’s not Paul.” She walked ahead of Eva, signaling that the conversation was over.
Eva was glad for Precious’s unusual silence, wanting to go over in her mind her own problems. She hadn’t seen or heard from Graham since that strange evening in Chester Terrace, and the entire exchange lingered like an unanswered question. She needed to know why he’d been there and why he’d asked her if she knew the residents. Even if she was afraid of the answer.
They reached Hanover Square and stopped, disoriented. For a moment Eva thought they’d turned down the wrong street. Rubble filled one side of the square, the branches of the trees in the central garden shorn and singed, the ground bleeding with leaves. The three buildings were now piles of stone and brick, smoke rising from the ruins like unleashed demons.
A woman stood on the sidewalk, her mouth open like a baby bird’s. At first Eva didn’t recognize Madame Lushtak, doyenne of the House of Lushtak, the woman whose mere presence instilled fear and admiration in her models. This stranger seemed diminished in size and stature, as if someone had removed her bones and her heart, reducing her to a mere woman.
“Are you all right?” Eva asked. “Did anyone get hurt?”
Madame looked at her with blank eyes. She shook her head slowly before turning to survey the wreckage of her life, her devastation too much to express in tears. Eva held back her own sobs, not just at Madame’s shattering loss, but at the disappearance of the place where Ethel Maltby had been transformed into Eva Harlow. Ethel was truly and permanently gone now, buried in piles of brick and ash, erased and removed as if she’d never existed at all.
A man approached, and Eva saw it was Mr. Danek, carrying his bag of cosmetics, his expression grim. “We are lucky the building was empty,” he said. “And not filled with customers and models.”
Eva turned at the sound of soft sobbing and found Precious crying into her hands. “It’s all gone,” she said. “All of it! What are we going to do? How will we get by?”
Reluctantly, Eva put her arm around Precious, embarrassed at her friend’s outburst. Madame Lushtak had truly lost everything, worst of all the dreams she’d brought from Russia and used to create something wonderful and new. All irrevocably gone.
Mr. Danek gave Precious an unexpected smile. “Stay with Eva, my dear, and she will see you through this. She is a survivor.” His smile dimmed as he faced Eva. “Sadly, sometimes surviving is the easiest part.”
Precious pulled away and made it to the garden before she collapsed onto her knees and began to retch. When she was done, Eva helped her stand, giving her a handkerchief to wipe her mouth. “Come on, Precious. Let’s get you home, where you can rest.” She looked worriedly at Madame Lushtak.
“Don’t worry,” Mr. Danek said. “I will see Madame gets home safely.”
Eva nodded, then put her arm around Precious, leading her back the way they’d come, unwilling to turn around and see their past disappearing from view.
The bombs continued to fall each night, the fiery explosions becoming as predictable as spring rain. When the air raid sirens started their bedtime wailing, Precious and Eva dutifully donned their WVS uniforms and draped the straps of their gas masks over their shoulders before venturing out of their flat.
But as November progressed, Eva found it harder and harder to rouse Precious from her bed. It was almost a blessing that Precious didn’t have to model each day, although she managed to show up for canteen duty most evenings.
Not going to work had freed Eva to consider her choices and to find another way to earn income. Freya had been stepping out with a businessman much older than she; he had a contact who didn’t ask questions when a fur or a piece of jewelry needed to be sold. Eva was discreet, choosing smaller pieces Alex might not notice were missing. She stashed any money not needed for daily living in a box hidden inside her leather valise, all of it buried in the back of her wardrobe.
She had no specific plan; her fear of Alex and his associates was as real as bars on a prison cell, and she couldn’t run away. Not yet. The growing pile of money was simply a thin thread to cling to, a hope of finding her mother and escaping together someplace where Alex could never find them. Mr. Danek had called her a survivor. She only wished he hadn’t told her that surviving was the easiest part.
She’d expected to see Graham again or at least to receive a message from him. An invitation to finish their conversation. But it had been two weeks with no word. Her remaining hope drowned in the bottom of a bottle.
In the evenings, Eva continued going out with Alex. She’d become an accomplished actress. She conversed with his friends and acquaintances, answering with smiles and laughter, as if she were a woman without cares, one whose biggest worry was selecting which fur to wear. It broke her inside. She imagined each word like a step on an ice-covered pond, waiting for the cracks to open up and swallow her. But as long as she kept the cracks from showing on the outside, she would survive.
One cold evening in late November, when the sirens above the Savoy began once again to shrill, Eva made her way to the cloakroom. She walked steadily across the lobby, moving against the sea of people drifting toward the basement of the hotel.
Alex had been deep in discussion with a rotund, bearded man with perpetual sweat beads on his forehead—Vladimir or Leonid, Eva thought. Something Russian. She still hadn’t been able to master the language but had become quite proficient at mimicking the accent. The men were too engrossed to notice her leave, and she felt a moment of freedom as she approached the cloakroom.
On a recommendation from Alex to the hotel’s manager—to help a fellow countryman, he’d told her with grave self-deprecation—Mr. Danek was the new coat check clerk. It was the reason Eva hadn’t dreaded her evenings at the hotel as much as usual. And Alex no longer required her to turn out the pockets of the guests. Maybe he’d sensed that she wasn’t forthcoming with everything she found, that she sometimes pretended her fingers had missed a ticket stub or a receipt.
Now, as the sirens screamed outside and her heels clicked against the marble floor, she looked for her friend, hoping to go down to the shelter together and talk. But when she neared, she saw that the cloakroom shutters had already been closed. She stopped to search the quickly emptying lobby for Mr. Danek. The floor vibrated under her feet, the lights flickering, scattering people like ants as they rushed for the stairs.
Eva stood still in the middle of the now-deserted lobby, unsure what to do. The floor vibrated again, the chandeliers above swaying as plaster drifted from the ceiling.
A strong hand grabbed her by the elbow. She swung around in surprise, the shout dying in her throat when she saw Graham’s grim profile. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he said through gritted teeth as he dragged her toward the stairs. He didn’t have his cane, but his irregular gait didn’t slow him as he pulled her alongside him.
“No, I . . .”
“Are you aware there’s an air raid going on?” He didn’t look at her, just practically dragged her down the stairs toward the sound of voices. But instead of turning toward the sound, he spun her down a subterranean hallway, all brick walls and concrete floors, and then into a windowless room. A single lightbulb lit the space. Shelves filled with food cans and dried meats occupied three walls, with wooden barrels stacked against them.
“Graham . . .”
He took her by the shoulders and looked at her with eyes that seemed backlit by fire. “What were you doing up there?”
“I was looking for Mr. Danek. My friend from Lushtak’s. He works here now. . . .”
“I know who he is. But why were you up there? Don’t you know it’s dangerous?”
“I was on my way to the shelter . . . ,” she began, then stopped, suddenly aware that he wasn’t referring to the air raid.
The sound of voices approached, and Graham put his finger to his lips, pulling her against him. They hid in a shadow until the voices passed. Even then he didn’t let her go, as if he were as reluctant as she to separate. As if he remembered, too, the way they felt in each other’s arms.
He spoke against her hair. “I’m saying that you shouldn’t leave your bag in the coat check. People have reported things missing from pockets.”
“I don’t . . .” Eva stopped, too stunned to think of a response that wasn’t a lie.
He looked down into her face, and it was the same Graham that she’d fallen in love with, the man who’d gifted her with the architecture of John Nash, who’d lived in a foreign land to prove to the world he was more than what it expected of him. The man who’d once told her he would love her forever. “You little fool. You beautiful little fool. You don’t know how dangerous this game you’re playing is, do you?”
“It’s not a game, is it?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s not.”
“Why were you at Chester Terrace that night? Were you following me?”
He hesitated a moment. “Yes.”
“Why?” She held his gaze.
“To keep you safe. That house on Chester Terrace is dangerous.”
“But you know who lives there.”
“Georgina Simmonds. I believe she’s a friend of Alex’s. She’s also dead.”
The distant sound of laughter got louder as a door down the passageway opened, then just as suddenly faded, leaving Eva feeling seasick. “Dead?”
“Her body was pulled from the Thames this morning.”
She swallowed back the sour taste in her mouth, wishing she had a drink. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you need to choose which side you’re on.”
She dropped her gaze and stared at the top button of his dinner jacket. “Alex . . . knows things about me. He’s threatened to hurt people I love. . . .”
Graham put a finger on her lips. “I know. I know everything.”
“You know about my mother?”
“Yes. And I know you’re not from Devon.”
She flushed with shame. “I never meant to deceive you. I only wanted to be better than the girl I was born to be.”
Graham closed his eyes briefly. “I wish you’d known that none of it matters to me. I wish you’d trusted my love enough to tell me yourself.”
He stopped speaking as footsteps approached, then retreated.
Eva’s eyes filled. “Then Alex wouldn’t have found me useful.”
Graham raised an eyebrow. “Not necessarily. Men like him always find a way.”
“He’s dangerous. He’s working with the Germans. Lord Merton . . .”
“We know,” Graham said.
“‘We’?”
More footsteps approached, and before Graham could move himself and Eva back into the shadows, David appeared in the doorway. He gave a short nod of greeting to Eva before turning to Graham. “We’ve got to go.”
David sent Graham a serious look before returning to the hallway, his rapid footsteps echoing against the bricks. Graham turned back to Eva.
“There is so much unsaid between us, Eva. We haven’t got time now, but we will. Later, when this business with Alex is over.” His arms tightened around her. “Alex doesn’t know Georgina is dead, and we need to keep it that way. I need you to continue delivering the envelopes to Chester Terrace. Except they will be collected by one of my people first, before they reach their intended recipient.”
Her head was pounding as she moved aside the endless questions pressing against her skull, trying to get out. “They’re empty, you know. The envelopes. There’s nothing in them—I checked.”
A corner of his mouth lifted. “They’re actually not empty. They contain microdots, barely visible to the human eye, stuck inside the folds. Once they’re transferred to a slide, they can be read under a microscope.”
“What sort of information is it?”
He shook his head. “Just know that the information will be altered before being passed along.” He placed a gentle hand on either side of her face, cupping her jaw. “I will let you know when you can stop, but you can’t tell anyone. Especially not Alex. Can you do this?”
She nodded. “Yes.”
“You are much braver and stronger than you believe you are, Eva. Never forget that you are both. Never forget how far you’ve come.”
“I’m not brave or strong. I’m not.” She clutched his lapels, feeling him begin to pull away from her. “Just tell me you still love me,” she whispered. “That’s all I need.”
He responded with a kiss, a hard, searing kiss that made her want to weep and shout at the same time. When he lifted his head, he simply stared at her as if memorizing her features.
“We’ve both made mistakes, haven’t we?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “We can only hope that when this is all over, we will find our way back to each other and learn how to forgive the unforgivable.”
“Forgive—”
He cut her off. “Be careful, Eva. I once promised to keep you safe, remember? And I intend to keep my promise.” He turned away.
“What side are you on?” she asked through bruised lips.
He stopped, looked over his shoulder. “The good one.” And then he was gone, his uneven footsteps disappearing into the darkness.
Eva waited there until the all clear was sounded, then returned upstairs with the other guests, joining a conversation with two women as they climbed the stairs so that it would appear she’d been with them the entire time. Alex met her in the lobby, holding her mink and her bag; then he escorted her to his waiting car. Eva could barely look at him, still tasting Graham on her lips, hearing his words over and over in her head. They were halfway to Marylebone before she spoke. “Why are you betraying your country?”
Alex laughed, an odd hollow sound. “Are you developing a conscience, my darling?”
She turned away, unable to look at him, her loathing making it difficult to breathe. “Would it matter to you if I were?”
He chuckled. “No.” They were silent for a long moment. Eva stared out her window, seeing the glow of smoldering fires as wardens rushed to put them out, the piles of rubble where people’s lives and histories had been snuffed out simply because they wouldn’t give up and surrender. Because they would willingly suffer to prove a point.
As they pulled up in front of her building, when she thought he wouldn’t answer, Alex said, “I have too much German blood in me to turn my back on the Fatherland. England will fall. All of their inbreeding has made them weak. And I never bet on a losing horse.”
She looked across the darkened backseat, feeling a burning heat rise up from her core, licking at the ice around her heart. “Good night,” she said, then stepped out of the car. Alex didn’t insist on accompanying her, and she was glad she didn’t have to look at him for a moment longer.
It was nearly four in the morning when she let herself into the flat, noticing that the hallway and bathroom lights had been left on, and Precious’s door was ajar. She knocked gently and, when there was no response, pushed the door open, then turned on the overhead light.
Precious lay on her side in the bed, sniffling, her face swollen from crying. The room smelled of unwashed sheets and dirty hair and a sour odor that reminded Eva of her mother. Eva had always likened it to the scent of despair, if there were such a thing.
She rushed to Precious’s side and placed the back of her hand against her forehead and cheeks, as she remembered her mother doing. They were cold and clammy enough to cause Eva concern. “I’m going to call for a doctor.”
She made to move away, but Precious caught her wrist. “Don’t. Please don’t. I’m not sick.”
“Of course you are. Look at you—you’re definitely not all right.”
Precious smiled weakly. “I’m definitely not all right, but I’m not ill.”
Eva sat down on the edge of the bed, pushing the dull, damp hair off of Precious’s forehead. “I don’t understand.”
Precious closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m not ill,” she repeated. “I’m going to have a baby.”