As summer ran into autumn, Eve Anders was not alone in realizing that, as iniquitous as the invasion of a democratic country might be, it was possible that the invaders might be victorious. It was a disquieting prospect. In the north the Basque country and Santander were falling to the Nationalists. Having failed to take Madrid, Franco’s generals turned their attention first to Vizcaya where, in two raids by the Nazi Condor legion on the small town of Durango, hundreds were killed. It was soon seen that terrorizing the civilian population was an element in the strategy of war because it demoralized those fighting at the front.
In the weeks that followed the Marco episode, Eve was very busy. Although she still thought she would be better employed driving an ambulance or a mobile hospital, she did as she was ordered to do. No sooner was she back at the depot than she would be given the ubiquitous slip of paper containing destinations, routes and times. She did a good many journeys to and from airfields, carrying, as other couriers did, X-ray plates, cans of film and Aid to Spain organizers from many countries. Because she was a woman, she was often detailed to collect some important personage – at least, she supposed that was why she drove such a high proportion of male chiefs, heads and leaders.
Back at Albacete, heavy rains had started with the onset of autumn, but not heavy enough to wash away the accumulated dirt and rubbish in the streets. The town looked drear and dirty, and Eve had no desire to spend time there. She was glad to be busy.
At the depot she found a note from Ozz, written in pencil on sheets of Izal.
Do be careful, Eve sweetheart, there is some real rough stuff going on out there – but then you know that by now. I told Alex that you should be doing other things than the Vipp stuff. She has an old Bedford with a new engine (in Compound ION) ready to be fitted out as a mobile hosp. Make her give it to you. Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but it’s time you had a spot of leave. I’ll be back in a week, maybe then we can do something just for fun. I hope we shan’t keep just missing one another like this.
Her spirits rose. A few days of Ozz Lavender’s company would be a tonic.
By the time she greeted the other drivers and mechanics, and had checked in, refuelled, topped-up and checked the engine, she had a request for leave ready, but Alexander forestalled her.
‘Oh, good, Eve, I was hoping you’d be back in time. No problems with the Senator? Good. Sit down, have some tea. Ozz scrounged me a packet of Earl Grey from somewhere. I didn’t ask, just thanked whoever put it his way.’ Eve nodded her acceptance of the tea. Alex’s use of her first name was new. Earl Grey meant nothing special to her, but as part of her continuing education in a wider culture, she was always open to a new experience in the ways of people like Alexander.
‘Look, I’ve even got limes.’ Alex poured a stream of clear, golden tea, appreciatively inhaling the rising steam. ‘If there were cucumber sandwiches,’ she handed Eve the cup and saucer and offered a dish of lime slices, ‘I could almost believe myself back in my Aunt Phyllida’s little sitting-room.’ Eve, not knowing how to use the limes, ignored them. ‘I adored Aunt Phyllida, she’d been on the stage as a young woman – the family were pretty put out so I believe – but she redeemed herself by bowing out on the crest of the critics’ approval and marrying an estate even larger than her brother’s (that’s my father). So that was all right then. I set out to model myself on her, to be a bit of a rebel, but I had no talent for acting or singing, so I did the most rebellious thing I could think of at the time, I went off to travel America, in a car, on my own. The tea all right?’ She took a lime slice and floated it on the tea.
Eve had never known Alexander in such an expansive mood. ‘Delicious,’ she said. She waited for Alexander to continue.
‘They’ve gone – the horse and the mule.’
‘Oh, I am sorry. They were such a marvellous pair.’
‘I know. The one so well-bred and beautiful and useless, and the moke a cross-bred, ill-favoured hard-working old creature. I used to think, well, if those two can get along, then humans ought to be able to. Ridiculous tosh, of course.’
‘It only worked for them because the “them and us” element was gone. Before that the horse contributed nothing but got the best deal.’ Alexander might think that Eve included her well-bred family in that generalization. Perhaps she did.
Alexander smiled. ‘Have some more tea, there’s plenty.’
‘Thanks. I think I’ll have some lime in this one.’
Rinsing the cups and pouring afresh appeared to draw a line under that conversation. Alexander smiled. ‘I think the ritual of tea is half the pleasure, don’t you?’
‘Absolutely. It can make an event a special occasion.’ Eve thought of May’s long kitchen table on a Sunday afternoon, a white, crochet-edged cloth at its centre and a round fruit-cake on a glass stand centred upon that, beside May’s best bone china and little bowls of flowers. Did May and Ted know about scented tea with limes? Did Ray? Ray thought the ultimate treat in drinks was freshly made Co-op tea sweetened with condensed milk.
‘Are you a committed red, Eve? I say, it’s OK if I call you by your first name?’
‘Of course.’
‘Well, are you? I mean,’ she smiled wryly, ‘this is one of the few countries in the world where being red is totally acceptable.’
‘I don’t think that I’m anything.’
‘Oh, I had you for one of the idealist types, but then I’m not really a judge of all the different shades of red. Before I met my husband, who put me right, I used to think that anyone who was against the status quo was bound to be red. Carl is deeply, deeply red, a card-carrier, his entire family are.’
‘Communists?’
‘I’m gabbing on. Tell the truth, I was a bit down, had a couple of gins before you came in. No good during the day. I’m sorry, you don’t want to hear my problems. It’s none of my damn business if you are all the colours of the rainbow.’
Eve had already been led into saying things she had planned not to, first by Adeline Moffat and then by Ozz. She would not do the same again, so she laughed lightly and said, ‘Perhaps that is what I am. I do know that I’m against fascism.’
‘I’m sorry. I don’t normally get myself into a state, and it’s not the thing to dump my mood on to someone who probably won’t dump back. I don’t believe fifty per cent of what I say and don’t agree with the other fifty. Take no notice, I’m in a crabby mood.’
‘You don’t sound too crabby.’
‘Want one?’ She offered the pack of cheroots.
‘It’s all right, I’ll have one of my own cigarettes.’
‘No, don’t. Keep them. Have these.’ She took a full pack of twenty cigarettes from her desk drawer. ‘I was going to give them to one of the doctors, but you have them.’
Eve took them, half-wondering whether she was being sweetened up, but not caring too much because she longed for a decent cigarette. She enjoyed the ritual of removing the cellophane and pulling back the silver and tissue papers and revealing the two rows of pristine cork tips. ‘Almost a shame to remove one,’ she said, but she did.
‘Here,’ Alex handed her a cut end of lime, ‘do your fingers. They look as though you’ve been smoking down to the last half-inch. Ah well, let’s press on. Look, I know you aren’t happy driving the Vipps, but somebody has to do it, and you’re perfect.’
‘Don’t you mean that I’m prettier than Ozz Lavender or Stavros or Frink?’ She named drivers who were almost permanently on supplies or ambulance duties.
‘There is that, but there’s also that you are less likely to see the one and only car we have as a speedster.’
Eve could tell that Alex wasn’t going to give her a truck to drive. ‘I don’t want to push it too much, but however you might see it, to me it looks like class distinction at work.’
‘How can you possibly say that?’
‘There are people who warrant being carried about in a posh car, while here we are supposedly fighting against that old kind of privilege.’
‘It’s just a car, damn it! A bit of machinery that moves people and fragile items efficiently.’
‘It’s a symbol. To be quite honest, it wouldn’t surprise me if one day I’ll get rolled off the road. Anarchists destroyed churches in Barcelona, a car would be child’s play.’
‘OK. I’ll talk to people about it. I haven’t heard any other complaints.’
Refusing to descend to petty arguments, Eve said, ‘There’s an ambulance with a new engine ready for fitting out. Put me on it, please, Alex. I have a brother fighting out there. I’d be surprised if people who contribute to the aid funds would think their money is put to good use running VIPs around so that they can be photographed with something significant as a back-drop.’
‘For a young woman, you have become very cynical.’
‘Ozz as good as told me that.’
‘Do this run for me.’
‘What run?’
‘I need to do a run to Barcelona. After that we’ll talk about truck-driving. Two Russian officers will be travelling with me,’ she smiled. ‘Quite handsome types. Your time’s your own while we are there. You can still have a bit of leave when we get back.’
‘Alex, you haven’t understood anything about how I feel about that damned car. I don’t want a bit of leave.’
‘Damn it, girl, don’t be such a Calvinist. There’s a war here, but that doesn’t mean we have to give up civilization. Give yourself a treat once in a while. You do yourself no favours by working yourself into the ground.’
Eve was shocked that anyone should see her in that light. She was an idealist but not the self-denying type at all. Alex couldn’t know her or she would see that.
‘If you think back a few weeks, Alex, you’ll remember sending me careering round with Ozz teaching me to drive the blessed Vipp-wagon.’
‘Nobody in Spain wants you to wear a hair-shirt for the Republic. If there’s one thing Spaniards know, it is how to grab a moment and enjoy it.’
‘You think I don’t know how to enjoy life?’
‘You don’t have to always wear driver’s clobber. Nobody’s going to think less of you if you wear something pretty sometimes.’
Since Ozz’s comment when her skirt had ridden up over her knees, she had almost always dressed in knee-length cotton shorts or loose cotton dungarees like women of the Spanish militia. ‘You’re a fine one to talk, Alex. In those dungarees you might have tree trunks instead of legs.’
Alexander looked down at her filthy, greasy overalls. ‘Touché. Even points. Tomorrow I shall be dressed like a lady.’
Earlier in the year, there had been a great deal of animosity between various Republican factions in Barcelona. Each held some power it saw as its own and, even though it would be rational to sink their differences, no one would let go first. So an atmosphere of tension, aggravation and suspicion developed. The defence of the Republic was in danger of becoming fragmented.
If the Republic was to survive, then it was necessary to crush the antagonism.
To this end, a counter-espionage and political police organization, Servicio de Investigation Militar, known as SIM, had been created by the Republican government. Running on the same lines was an informal international group whose aim was quietly to investigate rumours of infiltration and suspicion of spying for the other side. The Spaniards may well have come up with a better name, but LOLO, Las orejas los ojos (meaning Ears and Eyes), had been created by an American.
Cero, the man who knew everybody and everything, played an unspecified role in the autonomous organization. Helan Alexander had become involved when she had tried every course open to her to get a prisoner-exchange made with her husband. Carl Alexander had been a colleague of Cero long before he and Helan Povey met. Because Carl was trusted, Helan was persuaded to be one of the Ears and Eyes. Now it had gone further; she had been asked to join in an investigation.
Infiltration was often through the volunteers. Lovely young women had always been used, and although Alexander did not seriously doubt Eve Anders’ credibility, she wondered about her beautifully correct lispy pronunciation of certain Spanish words, in spite of her claim not to speak the language. Her records were scanty, yet her sponsorship appeared to be pukka. She had checked and it had been confirmed from London.
Helan Alexander slammed her papers into a pile. Why in hell was she looking for problems where none existed? Anders was a perfectly nice young woman whose only foible was that she did not offer any information about herself, nor give anyone much chance to enquire into her private life. In that respect she was very much like Ozz Lavender; he too was a lot more intelligent than he liked anyone to know.
Ozz and Anders left jokey little notes to one another. Alexander always read them. Yet, she wondered, was their wariness any different from her own need to keep people at arm’s length? Slamming all her desk drawers shut, Alexander quickly locked them and ran out of the office.
I need a break. I really need a break.
On the morning of their departure, Eve received a letter from Sid Anderson. He was very enthusiastic about her description of the town which had kept changing hands between the Republicans and the rebels. He was sure that she wouldn’t mind, but he had given it to some friends who wanted to publish it. Could she send more pieces?
Louise, my dear, [he still called her that]
Driving about Spain gives you a chance to see how working people are managing, which is what people here want to know. There are a few women reporting on the war, but mostly they are sent out with a specific brief – usually to write for a women’s column or to plough their own political or charitable furrow. Also they are mostly society or college women.
I hope that you will take this on. Certainly (I have already asked) papers and magazines of the Left will welcome such personal accounts. I suggest you keep to that same style, like a focused camera thinking about what it sees.
You should realize that editors will go to work on what you write, but not to alter, only to tidy – so I’m told. You would, of course, be paid a fee.
If you decide to go ahead, then I suggest that, at first, you send any pieces to me and I will get them to the editors best suited. That way you won’t become ‘theirs’, you can keep your independence, and anonymity too if you like. Not knowing what to do about the first piece, it was published under the name of E. V. Anders. Please say if you want to keep to this form.
The idea of being in print filled Eve with enthusiasm and ambition. Here was something that she knew she could do. She had been writing reports in a journal since she was a girl, when old Mr Strawbridge, who had been the first to prise open her dull little mind and allow the dormant seed of curiosity to germinate, had given her a book in which to record what impressed her. She loved writing. It had never occurred to her that there were women reporting on the war, for she had driven many newsmen, but never a woman. The only women she carried, besides the rare woman politician, were administrators such as Alexander, or nursing and Red Cross people from all parts of the world.
The idea of being a focused camera with a mind pleased her no end and gave her the idea of taking pictures to send with her writing. Film was a problem, but in every depot there was always somebody who dealt in goods in short supply. When she was offered a box of six rolls of film for the trip to Barcelona, there was no guarantee that they were not heat-damaged. The man offering the film took Republican currency and made no attempt to barter, which showed that she was taking a chance. It was worth it.
Eve drove to Valencia and then took the road that hugs the coast. The Russian officers, Captain Mintov and Major Vladim, sat in the back seat and spoke good English in attractive, deep voices and rolling accents. On meeting Eve, each bowed from the waist with a formality she had seen only in the cinema. She found them both charming and courteous, and Vladim impressive and attractive.
The Hostal Paradiso in Barcelona, while still functioning as a hotel, retained nothing of its former glory. Much of its famous mirror-glass had been shattered by bomb and shell-blast. Drapes and hangings were either missing or unkempt but although it was grubby, the carpet was of such quality that a good cleaning would restore it to its original pale plush. Amazingly, some small crystal chandeliers still hung, mostly without light-bulbs, but where large chandeliers must once have lighted the restaurant, there was now only metal hooks.
They arrived at the Paradiso in time for an evening meal. Eve had brought along her one piece of finery, the exotic gown from Lascelles’. Not that she expected to wear it here, yet as always when she packed, she had found space for it. It was so beautiful that even if she never wore it again, she liked to have it with her.
She had worn the gown only once, the time she and David Hatton had danced and danced, conscious of their attraction for one another. It was intended to be worn without undergarments to spoil its fluid drop from the shoulders. The silk was so fine that it had felt as if his warm hands were directly in contact with her skin.
Having shaken out the gown and draped it artistically over a painted screen, she put on a black cotton boat-necked frock that she had borrowed from one of the many admin clerks with whom she shared digs. They had a common pool of bits and pieces of clothing.
The evening meal was not greatly different from the daily fare they got in Albacete: tomatoes, pulses and hot spices. There was very little meat but this was compensated for by fresh herbs, and a great deal of flair in the cooking. The wine was very good, and there was an ice concoction, rather like a sweet vanilla custard, which the four of them praised as the treat that it was.
In her new role of freelance correspondent, Eve was more than usually aware of her own thoughts. She imagined this place as it must have been, and probably would be again. One of the most important hotels in Barcelona, it had once been the watering-hole of English upper-class families as they toured the high spots of the Continent.
Only three times in her life had she been inside a hotel. Once when Ray had taken her along to a union conference; then a brief stay in a hotel in Paris where, chaperoned by her old head-teacher, Eve had been taken by her employer to model a lacy corselette for the owner of Lascelles’ who was likely to give the factory a large order. The third hotel was The Queen’s, which she had seen from afar in her childhood as a luxurious palace, and where she had agreed to meet David on the evening he had taken her to a buffet dance in the Royal Navy officers’ mess. Because of his obvious money and breeding, she was much too proud and insecure to let him know where she lived.
Had her family and friends known that she was secretly seeing a man she had met by chance in a seaside dance-hall and didn’t know from Adam, somebody well above their own station, a man with a fast racing car, taking her to places like The Queen’s and drinking and dancing in the naval officers’ mess, they would have had something to say. A girl who had no mother since she was twelve, and no father ever, needed taking in hand, needed good hard reining in before she got above herself. What would a gentleman like that want with a factory hand? One thing, and then he’d be off. But the truth was that, on the occasion, when her youthful desire was threatening to get out of hand, it had been David who had called a halt.
Nobody except her Aunt May, who had been a surrogate mother, knew how complex Eve’s life had become: ambition way beyond her station in life; head-on conflict with her employer; discomfiture when Bar Barney and Ray, who had always loved her, had begun to love one another more; restlessness when her role at home became ambiguous and excluded when Bar became pregnant. Ray and Bar and baby were a family complete without her.
Had her ‘own kind’ known of the extent of the high life she had tasted, then they might have understood better her sudden decision to leave. And had David Hatton known that the person she presented to him had no more substance than a character in a film, then he might have understood better the mystery she had created around herself. The night she had gone to meet David was when she had started to create a new identity, so to him she had seemed enigmatic.
‘A penny for them, Eve.’ Her first name, the sweet smile, and the inconsequential social tone sounded strange in Alex’s mouth, as strange as the cigarette in a holder and the clean fingernails.
‘Sorry, Alex, I was miles away. I was wondering about the days when this was a place for tourists.’
The talk was the kind of polite conversation of strangers treading on eggshells. Captain Mintov showed them pictures ofhis wife and children of whom he was obviously proud.
‘You must miss them,’ Eve said, determined to keep polite enquiry away from herself.
‘I have seen the little one two times only since when she was born, and she is aged now two years. It is true, I do miss them.’
Eve remembered Ozz having said that the Russians were everywhere. ‘They wear military uniforms, but their job is to keep an eye on their investment in the Republic. They only want to win those battles that will be of use to them.’
‘That’s a cynical thing to say,’ she had accused him.
‘Not cynical, just true. Stalin’s aim is the same as Hitler’s, to gain a foothold here. They ship in armaments and ship out gold.’
Eve did not know what the link was between these two and Alexander. For an English volunteer transport officer to have dealings with two Soviet officers seemed rather curious.
There was an amateur floor-show, of flamenco dancing and guitar-playing. Alex said she thought she recognized the dancer as the girl who had been at the reception desk earlier. A three-piece band of elderly men played dance music. Major Vladim asked Eve if she would dance with him. She accepted eagerly, for it was months since she had been on a dance-floor. He was not used to the kind of ballroom steps she was good at, but there was music and he was a good-looking, attractive young man who held her strongly and was light on his feet and, she guessed, a man who liked to enjoy himself when he was not representing the Soviet army. ‘You do this very well,’ he said. ‘I have not learnt so much western style, but I like very much. You will teach me, Miss Anders?’
She smiled, ‘Perhaps, if there is another chance like this, Major.’
‘Chance?’
‘Opportunity. If we are somewhere where there is music and a dance-floor. Another time.’
‘We have three days here.’
‘Three days? I thought just one.’
He shrugged. ‘Maybe how long it takes. I teach you some Slav dances too, eh? It is good to be with a beautiful woman, very beautiful. My name is Dimitri, and you Eve? Is OK if I say Eve?’
‘Of course it’s OK.’
‘Mrs Alexander and Captain Mintov have arrangements to make. They do not need us. Perhaps we should walk. I should like to see a little of Barcelona. I have to confess, I did not know at all of Spain until the fascist invasion.’
When the major made their excuses, Alexander’s sharp eyes looked directly into Eve’s. A warning? A query? Eve could not interpret it. ‘Is it all right with you, Alex?’
‘Of course. I did say that you weren’t on duty while you were here.’
As they walked past derelict bomb-sites, Eve caught an occasional whiff of putrefaction. There were corpses, maybe only of cats and dogs but the foetid odour still clung, lying beneath the piles of rubble created in the rioting between communists and anarchists earlier in the year.
As they walked slowly through some neglected public gardens, she commented on how well certain shrubs and plants were thriving without the ministrations of gardeners. She thought of the open commons and contrived displays in the municipal gardens of her home town. Shrubs and flowers that were growing almost wild here could only survive in the municipal hot-houses there. Here there were no great open stretches of grass, no park benches or little kiosks that served tea and ice-cream. Here, although the shrubs and bushes of late autumn were still flowering, it was a wild and romantic place, beginning to return to nature. Some shrubs that had once been chosen for variegation had been almost wholly taken over by their strong green forebears. Pelargoniums that had flourished scarlet had burst from terracotta urns, becoming wayward and enormous.
‘You like sitting… to sit?’ The major indicated the stone surround of an empty formal pool with a stone figurine fountain, and spread an immaculate white handkerchief for her. Who had provided that? She couldn’t imagine the splendid and handsome major with a flat iron, but surely a soldier in the Soviet army would not – as a British army officer would – have a body servant. She would have liked to ask him, but thought better of it.
‘Thank you, it’s a treat to be in a public garden. Do you have places like this in your country?’
‘Of course.’
‘I know hardly anything about Russia.’
‘Cities in Soviet Republic also ver’ beautiful. Not all.’
‘Russia is a huge country.’
‘I am born in Ukrainskaya. Pavlovka.’
‘The Russian language does seem a very difficult one to learn.’
‘Not difficult,’ he laughed. ‘Small children speak Russian ver’ well.’ She laughed too. ‘What region of UK is your home?’
‘Hampshire, in the south.’
‘You are Party member? Communist?’
Ah. Was that what she was now? Her papers said that she was. ‘I joined the Party to get here. The British Communist Party have been sending volunteers to Spain for months.’
‘You have been here long time?’
‘No. This year.’
‘You drive well.’
‘Thank you, but I did not come here to drive a limousine.’
‘Limousine? I think is Mercedes automobile, no? Yes?’
‘Limousine means a very luxurious automobile. Kings and queens have limousines, people have cars. A car like that we call a limousine.’
‘Not all people.’
‘Oh no! Not many people do.’
‘People in Ham-shire.’
‘Right.’
‘Why come to España?’
‘Why?
‘You are ver’ beautiful woman. Why you come here?’
‘Why not? Weren’t there pretty girls in the Russian Revolution?’
He laughed and, in a seemingly natural way, took her hand. ‘Russian women beautiful, yes… I am curious to know beautiful English woman, why she come to the war.’
She did not remove her hand from his. The pleasure of his attention and warm touch were at that moment too seductive. She knew herself well enough to know how strong and impatient her libido might be in such a situation, yet still she did not move when he lightly kissed her fingers. She did not move because it was getting on for a year since she and Duke Barney had made love, and she wanted it again, not in erotic dreams but for real.
He removed his cap, loosened the knot of his tie a fraction and undid the buttons of his uniform jacket before turning towards her and taking her into his arms. With her own arms about his neck, she opened her mouth to receive his kiss passionately. When his hand ruffled up her skirt to caress her bare thigh, she tensed. A few inches higher and she would find it hard to stop him. ‘No.’
‘Please.’ Renewing his kissing he kneaded her flesh urgently. ‘Just to hold, please, to feel soft skin.’
Her mind said, No, but her body said, Yes, yes and yes. She held on tightly to his fingers. ‘Not here. This is a public place.’
He released his hold on her thigh. ‘Please. I think you are wonderful woman.’
Even though he released her, fastened his jacket and replaced his cap, even though they walked quite properly out of the overgrown gardens and into the thronging wartime night-life of Barcelona, the air around them crackled with their aroused sexuality. If they walked in silence it was because their senses spoke clearly to one another in the only language that mattered.
Without discussion he led her into the hotel through a discreet side entrance used by the staff, and up the back stairs. The only question was brief and unspoken. Eve chose her room because of the Dutch cap. Once lucky with Duke, she would never risk her future like that again.
For a minute or two, they smiled nervously at one another. She lit a lamp and he looked for somewhere to put his hat. He decided on the screen where she had hung the evening gown. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and without explanation she grabbed her sponge-bag and went along the corridor to the bathroom. There she filled the springy rubber device with cream and, with one foot on the bathroom stool, slipped it into place. It seemed such a quick and simple thing for a woman to do to protect herself. The wheel wasn’t the best invention – this was.
Dimitri had made himself quite at home in her room. He had put out the main light, removed his jacket, tie and shoes, and was standing by the window looking out at the dark night sky. ‘Is beautiful… many stars.’ She agreed that it was. ‘This is beautiful also. Why you not wear?’ He indicated the gown.
‘It is too splendid. Do you understand “splendid”?’
‘Understand, yes. Wear it, please.’
‘It is too grand for a time like this. The war…’
‘Wear it here, please. For Dimitri you wear this.’ He laughed as he picked it up and allowed it to hang from one finger. ‘For international friendship, OK?’ He made a kissing motion. ‘For Soviet and English peoples.’
Of course, why else were they in her room? Why else had she protected herself with rubber and cream? Taking the gown from him, she went behind the screen. He came to watch, silently admiring. She had never undressed in front of a man before, but in this situation of her own making, she felt powerful. She shivered as the gown slithered into place. It had not lost its magic to make her feel wonderful, exotic and beautiful. David Hatton had been the last man to see her dressed like this.
David Hatton was in the past.
Duke Barney was far away, making his fortune.
Dimitri Vladim was here, a Soviet officer, a lover of her choice. She was aware that inviting this almost complete stranger to make love to her was of more significance than her experience with Duke Barney. When he had suddenly appeared after years of absence, he had been confident that she would still be a virgin – and she had been.
This time, she would make the rules. She handed Dimitri her hairbrush. As he stood behind her, making strong strokes down the length of her hair, they gazed at each other reflected in the mirror. Sparks crackled and her curls and waves bounced back into the only position they knew. She expected that he would kiss her neck, and he did. The sensation travelled like lightning down a conductor, except that the energy was not earthed.
She did not know what Dimitri’s explosive exclamation was in his own language, but its meaning was universal. He knelt down and buried his face in the silk, and the dark green, minute pleating rippled against her warm skin with every move of his caressing hands.
He was not a gentleman like David, nor a pagan like Duke. Dimitri Vladim was like herself, a stranger in a strange land, hungry for sex, but wanting something more than immediate gratification. She sensed from the way he did not rush her that their encounter was going to be a more luscious experience than her first time with Duke. It excited her that he had the same ideals, that he was a communist. To be a red was to want to break with the old ways, with conventions. She would find it impossible to allow a Falangist or a fascist to bury his face in her soft flesh as Dimitri now did.
She unbuttoned his shirt and trousers.
He probably thought that she had done this many times. It didn’t matter, she felt strong.
She slipped the khaki webbing braces from his shoulders.
While she was removing his clothes with one hand, she let the fingers of her other move over his face and ears and into his mouth. She was still wearing her treasured gown, but Dimitri was naked.
She had disarmed an officer of the Soviet army.
She had been born and brought up in a naval and garrison town, where uniforms signified male authority and strength. She had never expected to find that a man without his armour of stiff serge cloth, tabs, buttons and braid would look this vulnerable, and to have power over a man in uniform was exciting. Dimitri Vladim was a man with enough strength to take what he wanted, yet she knew that she could have made him beg had she had a mind to.
Now, she thrust her fingers into his thick, straight brown hair and, holding on tightly, pushed his head back so that she could take the initiative. He was kneeling, she was standing. Bending over him she kissed him for an unrelenting minute. Then, as he stood up and kissed her she saw, for the first time, a fully aroused man. She had once, momentarily, seen Duke Barney naked when they were young, but on that night when she and Duke had made love, they had done so under a dark November sky, so that she had never even glimpsed the erection that had taken her virginity and produced such immoderate passion in her.
When Dimitri tried to remove the gown, she said, ‘No.’ In Russian and English they said the same phrases to one another: Come to bed with me. Lay close upon me. Make love to me. Give me. Feel me. Have me. Take me. Enter me. Satisfy me. Stay with me. It was she who lay on him, it was she who made the sensuous, voluptuous pace, it was she who stiffened first and exclaimed at the first pulse of their first climax. Their second and third were not so hectic, but exhaustingly satisfying.
Dressed, he was once again an officer of the Soviet army. He left her room not long before dawn, whispering with a wry smile as he kissed her, ‘¡Salud! Comrade Anders. Soviet relations good with English – is very good surprise.’ Wondering vaguely whether his English was good enough for him to have been using the word ‘relations’ wittily, Eve Anders turned over and slept like a log until the sun was up.
When, later, they met briefly in the foyer, they were correct and formal. In answer to Captain Mintov, they said that they had enjoyed the walk, but were sad to have seen so much damage to Barcelona’s fine old buildings. Only briefly did their eyes lock then slide away, an exchange that neither of them had the words for. It had been good relations.
She had decided to try to find Sophie Wineapple, but when she telephoned the hospital, she was told in French-accented English that Sister Wineapple’s name was not on the duty roster. Sorry, she was not available just now. Yes, she was still at the hospital. No, she was not on duty at this moment.
‘She was ill the last time I saw her. Is she back on duty?’
‘Not on duty at this moment. Perhaps you could call again?’
‘When? I’m not here for long, and I should like to see her.’
‘A minute please.’ Eve could hear a series of exchanges muffled by the telephonist’s hand, then, ‘Who’s calling, please?’
Eve told her and she was asked to hold again.
‘Hello? I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t say when Sister Wineapple will be back on duty. You could try again tomorrow.’
‘If she’s not on duty, do you know where I could find her?’
There was dead silence. ‘Sorry, I can’t tell you anything about that.’ From her tone of voice it was clear that she knew all right, so why wouldn’t she say? Nursing staff were always on call in case of emergencies.
Crossing the foyer to return to her room and collect a map, Eve again bumped into Alex and the Russians.
Alex said, ‘Problem?’
Eve shook her head. ‘No, no, it’s just I’d hoped to meet somebody but I can’t get through to her.’
‘I see. Take care. We’ll be back here to eat this evening if you want to join us. Oh, by the way, it seems that we won’t be finished here for at least a couple of days, maybe three. So, you know, feel free.’
Eve nodded. ‘Yes, Alex, I already know. I’ll try to fill in my time usefully until you’re ready for me to drive you back to the depot.’ The hard edge to her tone was intentional. If Dimitri had known that they would be in Barcelona for three or four days, then Alexander must have known too. For all Alex’s attempts to be one of the proletariat, she couldn’t stop her background surfacing. Noblesse oblige, and all that, but the Alexander types often assumed without question that Anders was there to serve without question, and Eve Anders had never found such an assumption by anyone at all congenial.
When she reached the gallery at the top of the staircase, she glanced out of a window and saw the three of them preparing to get into a car whose driver wore the uniform of the Soviet army. Her curiosity was a little aroused, but only a little. She had gathered from their exchanges in the car that they were here to interview some people, but their conversation was so guarded that even had she been curious, she couldn’t have discovered what it was all about.
With three or four days to spare in this war-torn city, she might make her debut as a serious correspondent. She really did want to write about the kind of pressure under which nurses worked. She decided to go to the hospital.
On hearing that Eve had asked to see Sister Wineapple, the clerk asked her to wait on a bench while he made some enquiries. Soon another man came and asked her name and was she a friend of Sister Wineapple. Perhaps it was because he spoke broken English with a German accent, or perhaps it was the way he seemed to be watching her reactions, but Eve gained the impression that there was something going on which she didn’t understand.
She felt guilty, like a child being questioned by a teacher, and the words tumbled out: ‘I’m English. My name’s Eve Anders. I’m a Spanish aid driver based in Albacete. I’m not really a friend of Sister Wineapple, but when I first arrived in Spain, several weeks ago, I was given instructions to drive her to a villa out of the city and stay with her until she was well enough to return to this hospital. Which I did.’
‘I see.’
His attitude really did appear grave in the circumstances. ‘How long were the two of you together?’
‘About a week. Why do you want to know that?’
He looked at her without answering the question. ‘I am a political commissar, you know?’
Eve nodded, ‘Oh, yes, we call you red chaplains. You give lessons in politics, and I think you also help people with problems, people in the militia, and the volunteers. Is that right?’
He nodded. ‘A commissar does those things.’
‘I just wanted to say hello to Sister Wineapple. Is that a problem?’
‘Perhaps you would come with me for a few minutes. You might be able to help.’ She followed him along corridors. ‘If you will please wait, I shall not keep you long.’
Eve heard voices from the other side of a door; questions, then answers by the commissar. Chairs scraped and the door was flung open by a tall man in khaki.
‘Captain Mintov!’
‘Please, Miss Anders,’ he said in his thick accent, ‘a little information and we may leave you to enjoy your free time in Barcelona.’
The room was furnished only with a table littered with files and papers, and some chairs. Alex was there. So was Dimitri Vladim, a woman in nurse’s uniform with high-ranking belt and insignias, and two other men besides the commissar. Eve was greatly taken aback.
Alexander spoke. ‘Well, Eve, small world.’
‘Very small. I just came to ask about someone I knew – the woman I was phoning about this morning – and I find myself here.’
‘Then we are in luck if you can help us. Just take a seat for a few minutes. How well did you know Sophie Wineapple?’
‘If you remember, when I first arrived in Spain, I was supposed to be reporting to the depot but I was sent here instead to collect Sophie and take her out to the rest home. I stayed there the week and then came on down to Albacete.’
‘Did you see a change in her while she was there?’ The questioner was obviously a Spaniard.
‘She seemed quite better by the end of the week. A little tense still, but really tons better than when I picked her up. I can’t say that she was like her old self because I didn’t know her, but I imagine that’s what she must have been. Look, Alex, do you mind telling me what all this is about?’
‘Just bear with us, Eve.’
Dimitri spoke. ‘Miss Anders, did you spend time with Miss Wineapple?’ She looked at Dimitri who looked back with an entirely neutral stare. His blank look unnerved her. How could a man who only hours ago had used his tongue to surprise and please her, now look right through her? But then she noticed that he was gazing somewhere beyond her left ear.
‘No, not a great deal, Major Vladim. On the journey down she was terribly withdrawn, tired was what I thought. She slept a great deal of those first days. There were a couple of horses for people to use. She said she liked to ride and was pleased to find out that I did too, so we went out together. I wouldn’t have let her go alone anyway because at that time she still seemed to me to be not right.’
‘Not right in what way?’ The matron wanted to know.
‘She looked pale and I think that she was having… a woman’s problem.’
‘Was she haemorrhaging?’ Eve looked at the desk. ‘No need to feel embarrassed, Miss Anders, everyone here is a professional person.’
‘I am not embarrassed, but I am a bit angry, because I think that you might have all been a bit more sensitive about hauling me in here and asking me intimate questions about a friend.’
‘So she was a friend?’ the commissar asked sharply. ‘Did she confide in you at all?’
‘There was nothing to confide. She was an ill woman. She was fatigued or perhaps she was taking something.’
‘What something?’ This questioner was American.
‘How should I know? Perhaps something to make her sleep, I suppose. I have no idea. All that I know is she slept and slept and then she got up one morning and wanted to go out on the horses, then she slept some more, and then I brought her back here.’
There was a short silence, broken only by the click of Alex’s cigarette lighter. Dimitri said, ‘Miss Anders, the American nurse is dead.’
Eve stared at him, at first not taking in the full meaning of what he had said. ‘Sophie Wineapple? If she’s dead, then why are you asking me all these questions? Did she collapse again? I don’t understand what it has to do with me.’
Captain Mintov started to say something but thought better of it.
Eve caught Alexander’s eye and when she too did not speak, Eve stared her down. Then she looked at Dimitri who had lost his earlier stony gaze. He said to the matron, ‘It would be good if Miss Anders had drink. Coffee, maybe?’ Then to the rest, ‘Is pretty good time to break right now. Return thirteen-hundred hours. Señora Alexander, remain if you please? Captain Mintov, we shall speak later?’ Mintov left. ‘Miss Anders, please.’ Dimitri smiled, adjusted the knot of his tie a fraction and undid the buttons of his uniform jacket.
Damn you, she thought, you’re trying to bring last night into it. Cups of coffee arrived and she accepted one from Dimitri who said, ‘You are quite right, as you say we treat you not good, Miss Anders. Is not our intention. Right, Señora?’ He turned to Alexander.
‘Of course it was not intended, Major Vladim. I am perfectly sure that Miss Anders knows that, and I’m sorry if she felt that she was pounced upon, and that’s the truth of it, Eve. OK?’
‘It might be OK if I knew what was going on.’
Alexander said nothing. It seemed to Eve that it was Dimitri and not Alex who was the senior member of the panel or committee or whatever it was that the people who had just left the room constituted. ‘I will explain to Miss Anders if maybe you like to eat. Cantina has snoek from USSR, good pie, much el ajo.’
Alexander rose. ‘I’ll try to find some corned-beef sandwiches; everybody’s breath smells like coal-gas without any more el garlico. I’ll see you before you leave, if you don’t mind, Eve.’
With Alex gone, Eve felt at a bit of a disadvantage. If she had been the one to lay down the rules for last night’s encounter, the rules here were very different. However, Dimitri Vladim made no attempt to change his earlier formal address. ‘Mrs Alexander is embarrassed. You come to door, she does not know Miss Anders is connected with enquiry.’
‘Please, Major, no more flannel. Why is everyone so touchy? What did Sophie Wineapple die of? Plague? Typhoid?’
‘No, no, no. She drink… take? I forget what is the word,’ he moved papers about, searching, but did not find what he wanted. ‘Químico? No…’
‘She took poison?’
He nodded. ‘No. I cannot think of correct word. It is work of commissar to understand. She is good nurse, good. Why?’
‘Why should she kill herself? I have no idea.’
‘Is my job to discover truth if possible. Understand questions?’ He indicated the empty chairs.
‘Yes.’
‘Thank you. I make… atonement for your anger. Is right word, atonement?’
‘Make amends? Put things right? Atonement is too strong, but I still think that you could have handled me a little more gently instead of pouncing on me.’
He frowned a little and then smiled. ‘You did not handle Dimitri so gently, Miss Anders.’
She eyed him, a hint of a provocative smile at the comers of her mouth. ‘You want me to make… atonement?’
‘That would be most satisfactory, Miss Anders.’
‘Damn it, Dimitri, what are we doing playing love-games in a room where you’ve been holding an enquiry about a woman who took poison? There are times when I can’t believe the way I behave. What I shall be like when I have been here another year, I hate to think.’
‘Another…?’
The half-asked question hung in the air. Another year? Since she had been moving about the country daily, close to the war zones, seeing the growing dearth of even the most basic necessities, doubts had been growing in her unconscious mind. Now, when she came to think of a year hence, she could see the muddle of it all. How could the Republic keep going unless some of the democratic nations came to its aid?
Another year?
All the pieces suddenly fell into place. The Republic would not last another year. It was Dimitri who had made her realize this.
She could hardly get out of the hospital grounds fast enough. The tram she rode back into the city was slow, giving her time to look and think, mostly to think about what had happened at the hospital. What right had they to question her like that? It had been almost an interrogation. Who were they anyway? Why was Alex taking part? The whole episode was distressing.
Suddenly she felt hot. Her pulse began to race and her hands to tremble. Her heart thumped and raced as though going out of control. Perspiration was cold on her forehead. It was as though oxygen had gone from the air. If she did not get out quickly, then she would lose control. Pushing her way to the exit, she jumped off as soon as the tram slowed down, and held on to some railings.
This was not the first time that she had found herself panicking over nothing. In an air-raid, or under gunfire, or when negotiating a narrow pass with a drop on one side, she was calm and cool-headed. Alarm seized her when she least expected it; a terrible, frightening dread would surge through her body until she would have to fight against the urge to run.
A man of about fifty, wearing a beret, thick fisherman’s jumper and workman’s trousers and boots, peered at her through round-rimmed glasses. ‘¡Cuidado! ¿Mai? ¿Enfermo?’
Her mind was sluggish. ‘No. Just a bit unwell… ah…’
‘Will you listen to that? English, the only language I understand. Are you not well?’
‘I just came over a bit faint. It was probably the coffee I had earlier, it tasted stewed to death.’
‘That’ll do it every time. Full of caffeine, y’know. D’you think you should sit for a bit? You could come along with me… it’s just here on the comer, the canteen… cantina. Y’see I’ll get the hang of the Spanish given time.’ He held out a hand. ‘Michael O’Dowd. Pleased to meet a body who isn’t speaking in tongues.’
‘Eve Anders.’ His kindly concern and warm Dublin accent were calming.
‘So are you coming wid me? I have t’be there, t’lift the sacks around for the girls. You need a reviver.’
‘I’ll be all right.’
‘You’ll not, you’re as pale as a ghost and I’ll be for ever wond’ring if you didn’t fall under a bus if I don’t see the roses back in your cheeks. Ah, you’re smiling already. That’s better. Look, we’re nearly there.’ By now he was gently holding her elbow and guiding her along the pavement.
Outside the closed doors of a municipal building was a queue of mostly women and children who closed ranks and followed the man with their eyes as he nodded and raised a hand. ‘¡Hola! ¡Hola! Buenos tardes. Am I right, or am I saying something shocking? One morning I wished them all a Merry Christmas.’
‘Michael, oh good, you’re here. There’s been rats in again…’
‘Madge, Madge, will you just hold your horses a minute. This is Eve, she’s from England, and she’s in need of a cup of camomile.’
The woman was tall and thin, with short hair like a man. ‘Dear man, why didn’t you say. Sit you down, my dear, and we’ll have you on your feet in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.’
Eve was suddenly crying. ‘I’m sorry. I feel such a fool.’
‘Ah, go on, have a good cry while you’re at it,’ Michael O’Dowd said. ‘Tears is good remedies, I use them all the time. Now you just sit there and drink Madge’s brew, then if you’ve not’n better to do, you can give us a hand.’
At once, so it seemed, everything that had gone awry when she was on the tram, slid back into place. She was back in a world that she could make sense of.
So it was of this chance meeting that Eve wrote for the first short article that would start her brief career as a freelance correspondent for a London newspaper, and very soon for several others in English-speaking countries.
‘We were so hungry…’
It is Wednesday and the food situation in this city is as bad today as it was Tuesday, Monday and all the days that have preceded it for months and months. Two hours in a queue for a single onion, ‘not big enough to make tears’. That is what food-shortage can mean. But a single onion can brighten a thin stew.
Wednesday is the day I came to know something of the lives of the people of Barcelona.
A single onion and a turnip can be the basis of a stew, a little salt, a chilli and plenty of water. The Republic can survive on stew warmed with a determined spirit. None shall pass! And they mean it. ¡No pasarán!
Wednesday is the day I saw hunger at close quarters. I spent this Wednesday helping distribute milk rations and bread. The cantina is run by members of the Society of Friends. On duty today were Madge Pickawa from Exeter, Mike O’Dowd from Dublin, Helene du Bois from Tours, and Rachel Rozen from I never found out where.
Celeste, two Isabellas and Maria are housewives in Barcelona who come here every day to cook whatever is available, to clean, to knit socks for babies and darn elbows for orphaned children.
The cantina is housed in the courtyard of a municipal building. There is a huge canvas suspended beneath the courtyard’s glass roof. It was originally intended to keep out the sun, but now serves as protection from splintering glass when the city is being shelled.
A child of eight, a thin boy, faints while waiting in line for his milk ration. Yesterday he had only turnip for lunch, then a little rice and some lettuce for supper. The cup of milk in the courtyard is the little boy’s breakfast. Women fuss over him. He says: ‘We have no bread because we have eaten the ration. We were all so hungry.’
A girl. Older, maybe thirteen, but self-possessed as a woman. Madge Pickawa says that she comes every day to collect her family’s allocation of milk. She wears severe black like a widow, and she stands serenely, waiting, her long, fair hair, scraped back from her high golden-brown forehead, is tied with a black bow and falls to her waist. In a year or two, she is going to be a beautiful woman. I wonder why the women push her to the front of the queue. Is she the daughter of someone important?
‘Marita? Marita is in a hurry and must get back to her children.’
‘She looks young enough to be at school.’
‘Marita is a schoolgirl, she is fourteen. Since her mother died last month, Marita is the mother of her brothers and sisters. She is worried to leave them alone in the house, because of the air-raids. She has so much to do, we see that she goes first.’
E. V. Anders – Barcelona, 1937
It was late afternoon when she got back to the Paradiso. She found Alex, wrapped in an old sheepskin jacket, sitting hugging her knees. ‘It’s bloody cold. Want to share it? I sent the little botones for something to drink. I asked for tea, but he brought wine. Gave him a good tip too.’
‘What did you give him?’
‘I don’t know. Money. He’s the bellboy, you give him money, he’s supposed to bring you tea.’ She sounded crotchety and imperious and was smoking furiously. Eve had seen her in this sort of mood on other occasions.
‘Alex, there are times when I could cheerfully strangle you.’ Alexander looked quite shocked at the tone of her normally polite driver. Eve didn’t give her a chance to reply but hurried off through an archway that she knew led to the kitchens and through which she and Dimitri had come in quietly last night. Dimitri had given the botones three cigarettes. Eve now gave him another two and, holding up two fingers, bargained with him.
When the tea with little dishes of milk and sugar arrived, Alexander said, ‘Why wouldn’t he do that for me?’
‘Because you treated him like you’re inclined to treat the rest of us at times. Hell, Alex, you don’t know very much about the people with whom you are supposed to have thrown in your lot, do you? A bellboy isn’t here just to please you.’
‘I know that.’
‘You need to stop being lady of the manor.’
‘Who says I was lady of the manor?’
‘Your entire style says it. When I held open the door for you, you got into the Mercedes but you didn’t see me, you didn’t say, “Thanks, Eve.” You took it for granted that I would shut the door behind you.’
‘Did I do that?’
Eve nodded, handed her a cup of tea and offered her milk and sugar. ‘It’s the way you are. You stick your head in the engine of a truck, talk with a roll-up pinched between your fingers, but that doesn’t make you one of Us, one of the Popular Front, one of the common people.’ Eve smiled. ‘And you just took that tea as though you’ve had a maid all your life.’
‘I have. When Carl, my husband, wanted to rile me, he would call me Baroness von Alexander.’
‘Your husband?’
Alexander nodded. ‘He’s in a concentration camp somewhere over there.’ She pointed in the general direction of the west, to where the front line now sliced the country almost from top to bottom – the greater portion being behind the fascist line.
‘I’m sorry. That must be very tough for you.’
‘Not as tough as it must be for him.’ She plucked at the woolly coat collar. ‘Carl’s mulatto, a half-caste. The Generals do love the mixed-races don’t they?’ she said bitterly. ‘Not true mulatto – American Negro and Swiss. Carl’s mother is Swiss. Odd things happen when people fall in love. If they execute him, I wouldn’t have any reason to live.’
You can be so wrong about people.
It seemed suddenly not to matter a damn that Alex’s manner was irritatingly imperious. Her husband was a black man and he was in the hands of people whose dream for the world was of a pure, white race.
‘I’m so sorry, Alex, I never knew. My little nigglings about driving the Vipps must have been a pain in the neck, with that…’
‘I’ve always conceded that you have a point. OK, it may not have appeared like that, but you really don’t see the whole picture. There are some visitors, MPs like Pollitt, who probably wouldn’t mind at all being bumped around in the back of a pick-up truck, or being delivered to Madrid with a load of onions, but if we were to offer an onion-ride to an American Senator – no matter how Democratic – he’s not likely to come back and then aid stops coming this way.’
‘But if he’s driven around in style, he might think that we don’t want the aid.’
‘Human nature being what it is, things don’t usually work like that, Eve.’ She smiled and took out her paraphernalia for making cigarettes on a little roll-up machine. ‘Thank you for the tea. And thanks for the lesson on etiquette, or is that not the word one should use now.’
‘The word is, good manners, Alex. Which is what etiquette is supposed to be. I believe the silly rules came about when people who wanted to be important started to put tall things on their heads.’ Alexander looked sideways at Eve, offered her one of the two cigarettes she had produced, and put a flame to them both. ‘Explain, please.’
‘Once a human being sticks something on his head – makes himself taller, more important, etcetera – he makes sure that everyone realizes that this makes him something special. But that’s not enough; give a man a high hat and he’ll add a rosette and then a plume and then a whole bunch of plumes. Then it’s high boots, spurs, long tail-coats, swords and bucklers, breast ribbons and medals. It is impossible to approach such a man with mere good manners; one needs to know the rules. I’ve forgotten what we were talking about.’
‘Etiquette.’
‘Oh yes, good manners.’
Alexander suddenly burst out laughing, spilling a little of her tea over the coat. ‘Leave it. If Carl ever claims it back, I shall remember to tell him that story.’ Her cigarette had gone out, so she applied the long flame of her lighter again and sat quietly until, apparently apropos of nothing, she said, ‘Who is Anders? What is she?’
Eve was more prepared than she had been a few weeks back to fend off questions about herself. ‘She’s a truck-driver, a good one, given half a chance.’
‘Ozz thinks that you should have the overhauled Bedford.’
‘He’s right, I should.’
‘Who will drive the Vipp?’
‘You could. You don’t have to be a mechanic to prove yourself one of Us.’
‘Us?’
‘Ordinary people.’
‘So, Anders is one of the people?’
‘Anders is a truck-driver.’
‘OK, you win. You can have the Bedford and go on supplies, but not based at Albacete.’
Eve’s heart leapt. ‘You mean it, Alex? Wow! Thanks a million. Have some more tea.’
They sat side by side with Alexander’s, or rather, Carl’s, sheepskin motoring jacket round their knees, talking inconsequentially about the condition of the hotel and whether it ever was Paradiso, until Alexander in her sudden, point-blank way asked, ‘Was it with you the major slept last night?’
‘You have some cheek! What sort of a question is that?’
‘A concerned one, for goodness’ sake. Vladim did not return to his room until morning, or should I say, slunk to his room. I may not be much of a senior aid-worker, but it’s what I am. You are assigned to me, and I don’t want anything unpleasant to happen to you.’
‘Nothing unpleasant did. Nothing will. I can take care of myself very well.’
Alexander went silent, frowning and fiddling with shreds of tobacco, nipping them off, balling them and flicking them into a flowerpot. ‘Something unpleasant did happen to the American nurse.’
‘Major Vladim hinted that she committed suicide.’
‘He shouldn’t have.’
‘He didn’t know the word. He said químico which I thought meant chemist or chemical. I suppose it must have been Aspirin?’
Alex shook her head. ‘Wineapple was pregnant, many weeks so… She tried to abort it with a drug.’
‘That’s awful! And it killed her? It wasn’t suicide, it was accidental?’
‘She’s still dead.’
Eve remembered grim stories of knitting needles, penny royal, concoctions brewed in back-streets, young girls and women dying of septicaemia, bleeding to death, incomplete abortions.
‘Is that why that matron asked me about Sophie haemorrhaging?’
‘Probably.’
Eve remembered now how concerned she had been when Sophie had got straight up from her sickbed and insisted upon riding strenuously over some rough terrain. Was that what she had been trying to do that day? ‘She was a good horsewoman. She said that she was practically born in the saddle. What a terrible waste. What about the man? Wouldn’t he marry her?’
Alexander began rolling again, but Eve forestalled her and offered her one of the few Spanish cigarettes she had left. ‘What about the man? Oh, yes, what about him? That is what we should all like to know.’ Eve waited, knowing that Alex had more to say. Alex was angry, she drew deeply on the strong cigarette, pulling in her cheeks and sending out a plume of smoke like a small volcano erupting. ‘She reported that she was raped. All that she would say was that her attacker smelled of antiseptic.’
‘Someone who worked at the hospital?’
‘Possibly. Probably. Who knows now?’
‘She must have told someone then?’
‘Another nursing sister with whom she shared a room. She thinks it was a man Wineapple knew, maybe even worked with. Possibly a doctor, possibly Russian or Slav. That is the extent of our information.’
‘Why must it have been someone she knew?’
‘Because her friend says that she wanted Wineapple to report him, but she said, who would believe her word against his. No one would believe a respected man would be capable of it. Which may well be true. I mean, who would believe that somebody one worked with every day would heave himself on to you like some wild beast? So, when you turned up today, I think we hoped that you knew something, hoped that she might have said something to you.’
Eve shook her head. ‘Why would she have? She was quite a bit older than I am. I had only just arrived in Spain, I could have been anybody, a gossip. We were complete strangers.’
‘It appears that when you came into the picture, she actually had taken an overdose of Aspirin, but vomited it up before any harm was done, then she collapsed during an operation. You know the rest. I really shouldn’t be telling you all this, but I trust you. And Vladim has already said enough to make you curious. So now you know why we came here, and why you were jumped on when you mentioned being a friend of Sister Wineapple.’ She felt in her briefcase and brought out a small phial with a red rubber stopper containing a red powder. ‘I was given this today. Powdered chilli, the little fierce ones – diablos. They say go for his eyes or his willy. I guess I’d go for the willy.’
A medic? Could a rapist be a man like that, a doctor or an orderly? That seemed difficult to believe. She had always supposed that rapists were drunks or mental cases, not educated men. She had only ever known one girl who had been raped – it had been by her brother and his friends. At the time, it had been an open secret whispered and shuddered at. Everyone agreed that the whole family were disgusting, and lived like animals.
It was that incident which had fixed the image of a rapist for Eve. A vicious boy of low intelligence, he grew up to be a depraved man. At the time she had wondered briefly about her own brothers, not in relation to rape but rather as men with sexual needs. The blame had settled on the girl who had been sent away for years.
‘Why you and the Russians? That seems an unlikely combination.’
Eve could tell even before Alex started to speak that she was not going to get a straight answer. And she was right. All that Alex would say was, ‘There’s a possibility that a Russian was involved and Wineapple worked in a British hospital.’
It was one thing to talk about the Wineapple affair which, if left unresolved, could quickly lead to nervousness among the women and a lowering of morale, but it was quite another to mention Vladim and the SIM, and herself and LOLO and the importance of secret intelligence. Alexander, mostly guided by her instinct and observations, had already suggested that Anders might prove to be a good LOLO candidate, and to that end had requested information about her. That was weeks ago, and so far London had reported nothing. Anders was certainly no gossip and, except for Ozz Lavender, she seemed to be a loner. Highly intelligent, friendly, personable, but still a loner. Alex had mentioned it to Vladim. Perhaps that was why he had got himself into her bed last night. If Carl Alexander had been able to persuade Helan Povey to left-wing politics in bed, then anything was possible when two heads shared one pillow. Sex was the most powerful weapon of all, but one must know how and when to employ it. Vladim would be good at that. He was the most virile and attractive man she had seen since Carl.
Still puzzled by Alex’s part in this affair, Eve asked, ‘Are you a political commissar?’
‘No.’ Alex smiled, making light of it. ‘Nor Scotland Yard. Well, I think I’ll go to my room and have ten minutes’ rest. Shall I leave you the jacket?’
‘If you don’t mind.’
Eve sat on, hugging the jacket and smoking, adding water to the dregs in the teapot until it poured almost clear. She tried to think back to that week at the villa, but so much had happened in the meantime. Had she been aware of what had brought Sophie to that state, then she would have been more attentive. Fatigue from overwork. Sophie Wineapple had fallen into her bed, buried her head in the pillows and slept.
Had she been sleeping or only turning her face to the wall, trying to ignore the mess she was in?
What would I do? I’d want to tell somebody, make a fuss.
That evening, after the four of them had eaten together, Dimitri asked if she would like to go for a walk again. The evening was cold. During the weeks and weeks of sunshine, she had never really believed that Spain would have a winter. There had been rain and mists; she had driven through roads that had turned to mush in minutes, but always the sun had come out.
Alexander insisted that Eve wear the motoring jacket. It was bulky and heavy but she was grateful for its protection. Dimitri was perceptive enough to recognize that the coat was more than protection from the cold.
‘You have not necessary be protected from me. This Wineapple is bad business, for men too. Men must keep woman from harm, is the work of men to do. I make castrati of such men.’ He turned to face her and drew her hand into his long military coat. ‘This must be for pleasure, not for violate. For nice, good pleasures.’ ‘This’ was an erection. She flinched, but he held on to her hand. ‘Do not let the bad thing that happened to Wineapple make a bad thing for us. I never would hurt you. I never would hurt any women. I like you very much. We like good sex together last night, yes? You like to do it some more? I like you very much to do sex with, very much.’
Darkness had fallen, but they had kept to the streets, away from the overgrown public garden, away from alleyways and bomb-sites. She was confused. As soon as she had felt the warm, hard prospect of good sex, she had wanted it, yet all that had happened today made her hold back. She hardly knew him, but that had been half the thrill of taking him into her room. Love with a stranger. Last night she had found the idea stimulating.
Their steps led them back to the Paradiso, which they entered through the front doors. The place was almost empty. The botones appeared, smiled broadly and asked Eve if she wanted tea.
‘Tea, Major Vladim?’
He smiled broadly. ‘This is only thing you offer. Please, tea. Sit here?’ He pointed to the courtyard with its badly tended pots of climbing plants and groups of English-style wicker chairs.
Settled in one of the courtyard’s pretty alcoves, she poured tea as he unbuttoned his great winter coat and skimmed his hat on to an empty chair. ‘I think,’ she said, wanting to get things settled between them without hurting his feelings, ‘I think perhaps last night was a mistake, Dimitri. We really have no business getting involved – a commissar and an aid-worker.’
‘I am not fool, Eve. Last night you were not involve with commissar, you involve with Dimitri. Is fear because of Wineapple?’
‘No! Yes. It is not because I don’t trust, well, I don’t know you. You don’t know me. I expect you think that I have been with… had, what you called games with fun, with a lot of men. It’s not true. Last night was special, was new. I have never done such a thing before. You think I am… you understand “easy woman”?’
‘Unmoral? Go with all the men?’
She nodded.
He shrugged as though he hadn’t thought about it, or if he had then it was not important. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I know words. Not so good to put words together. I am good student of language when child. Speak French fine and German good, Spanish perfect good. Now I get better speak English. I like to speak words for bed for you to understand. I do not think that you are easy woman. No. Not go with all men.’
Suddenly it seemed important that he should understand that last night had been unusual. ‘Only one.’ She held up an emphatic forefinger. ‘One man.’
‘One man. I have four women, maybe five, six… Not one now. They marry… not marry Dimitri.’
‘I want you to understand, I have only been with one man. One time, with one man. Only one.’ To her ears it sounded as though her voice echoed in the deserted courtyard. How stupid! Why should it matter that he understand?
‘One, two, four, is not problem. You beautiful, desirable. Men want much to sleep with beautiful women. I stay away tonight. I understand. We drink tea. You return Albacete two days. I not come to your room?’ Narrowing his eyes and frowning, leaning close and lowering his voice, he asked, ‘Is right this what I understand you say? Only one time you have man for love? You are virgin then you have one man, and then Dimitri? Is correct?’
She found his directness embarrassing. ‘Yes.’
They sat silently together. She did feel at ease with the big Russian. What was the good of having instinct if you ignored it? Because of what happened to Sophie Wineapple, did Eve Anders have to suspect every man she met? Did she have to keep a phial of burning pepper powder to hand when she was alone with a man?
He was still in her bed when the sun came up.
She looked down at him and thought of the way he made love and how easy it would be to fall for a man with that kind of understanding.