Jutta fingers the delicate handle of her coffee cup and stares out among the garden terraces banking upwards, swathes of pink and purple bougainvillea dripping over the white stone balconies. She’s in a fairy tale, or a film – something unreal either way. Having already pinched herself several times, she finds she’s miraculously still here, in the middle of the eternal city, looking up at a sky that also seems unendingly blue. Cocooned by the large, ornate garden, she could well be in the courtyard of an ancient Roman villa, being tended to as the lady of the house. Faintly though, she can hear sounds of modern Rome seeping through the dense shrubbery; a soundtrack of hoots and toots, the buzz of Vespas whizzing and weaving between taxis on the ancient, cobbled streets.
She’s thinking of how blessed she is, of her surprise when the taxi drew up the night before at the Hotel de Russie’s grand but understated entrance. Danny had insisted on making the arrangements, though checking she was happy to share a double room. After their first night together in Berlin, why wouldn’t she be? They’d already breached the precipice of their own wall. Jutta would have been happy to snuggle up with Danny in a small pensione in some back street, eat arancini from street vendors and great slabs of pizza as they marvelled at Rome’s grandeur. So the luxury of the Russie, just off the Piazza del Popolo, caused her to gawp as she walked into the lobby, stock-still at the glamour. What was she doing in a hotel frequented by the likes of Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso in their day?
She’d thought of Karin in that moment, not least because she was thankful to be wearing one of her sister’s designer creations, helping her to play the part, a pair of outrageously oversized white-rimmed sunglasses perched on her head.
‘You look like a film star,’ Danny had said a few hours after they’d arrived, standing at the top of the Spanish Steps. ‘Now I really do think I’m in a movie.’
As they’d descended hand in hand down the ancient steps and drank wine in a small café at the bottom, people-watching the meandering tourists, it was absolutely true. How Karin would love this, Jutta thought then, with a warmth and a pang of guilt in unison. Was it fate or sheer luck that had marked her out as the chosen twin?
‘Another coffee, Signora?’ The waiter’s beautiful, lilted English floats in. Confused, Jutta suddenly remembers that she is ‘Signora’; for the purposes of the hotel register, Danny had signed them both in as ‘Mr and Mrs Strachan’ on his military passport. How odd it looked in ink. Could she ever imagine it in reality, let alone get used to it?
‘No, grazie,’ she returns. Danny is absent for a few hours on his ‘mission’, and much as she could spend an entire morning basking in the beauty of the hotel courtyard, Rome is waiting.
Jutta steps out under a fierce, glowing sun pushing high into the sky, feeling its intense heat on her bare shoulders. Wearing her most comfortable pumps, she heads for the ancient artery cutting through the city, the Via del Corso. She marvels at its firm direction – straight as an arrow – and Jutta wonders for a minute: if the Ancient Romans could engineer such things, why does the Wall need to twist and snake across Berlin in such an unruly direction, slicing through buildings as it does? Although, in another sense, she is inherently grateful for its wayward nature and her portal squatting in the Wall space. Inevitably, it reminds her of the tasks awaiting her back home and her bubble deflates just a little.
Don’t think about it now. For three days, you’re allowed to forget that damn Wall.
She’s happy, though, for Karin to stay in her thoughts, each time she spies a woman in chic clothing, or a shop window that she’s certain her sister would stare at in envy.
Three hours is swallowed in no time. She gazes at the intricate faces carved into the stonework, noting the Italian women who trip effortlessly out of boutiques laden with designer bags, wandering, stopping for the best coffee – Jutta is staunchly loyal to the robust German variety, but oh! The making of it is such an art – along with the theatre of street life as she sits under an umbrella sipping and watching the world go by. As much as she mocks Danny for his endless movie comparisons, she does feel a little bit like Audrey Hepburn.
They meet back at the hotel at lunchtime.
‘Mission complete?’ she teases.
‘I’m the consummate spy,’ he jokes. ‘I even managed to shake off my tail. Let me just change out of this uniform and then we’ll find somewhere for lunch.’
The weekend flies by in a dream – they walk miles in sightseeing, Jutta hungry to absorb everything of the history, with Danny’s fascination and knowledge an equal match. Under the stunning concrete dome of the Pantheon, they hold hands and marvel until Jutta’s neck aches, at its beauty and engineering entwined; surely the Berlin Wall would never be such an eyesore if the Romans had had a hand in its creation? Together, they devour pasta and pizza to satiate their hunger from so much walking, and the best gelato only a stone’s throw from the rush of the Trevi Fountain. Danny takes up Jutta’s cone and pushes a lira coin in her hand.
‘Go on, make a wish,’ he says.
She closes her eyes as it plops to the watery bottom, a future that includes Karin and Danny amid the family, all in one frantic image.
‘And?’ he quizzes, kissing her creamy lips.
‘I can’t tell you,’ she laughs. ‘Or it won’t come true.’
‘Well, just a hint – does it include me?’
‘That,’ she says, feeling flighty and flirty, ‘you may never, ever know, Signor Strachan.’
‘That sounds like a challenge – I may have to entice it out of you, Signora. I am a super spy, after all.’
They fall into bed each night with sore feet and craving sleep, but knowing that their rest will be delayed. Making love enveloped by the four-poster bed is like something out of the romance novels Jutta consumed in her early teens, teased by Karin for their illusory storylines and settings. How false and fantastic is this now?
‘You didn’t have to spend so much on this beautiful room,’ she says, lying in the crook of his arm, the pulse of his heart merging with the thrum of Rome outside. ‘I would have been just as happy in a small pensione.’
He draws in a breath. ‘I know you would, but equally I knew you would love this too. And I want to spoil you, to show you the world. I see in you a hunger for so much more, Jutta. For everything.’
She’s flooded with satisfaction, recognising his generosity for what it is. ‘Sadly, though, Danny, you can’t rescue everyone from behind the wire.’
‘It’s not like that,’ he says quietly. ‘I do this for you because I want to. Because the US army pays me enough money that I can spoil us both, sometimes. Because it’s nice.’ He lifts his chest and her with it, takes her chin between his fingers. ‘Jutta Voigt – please accept that Rome and this hotel room is all the more beautiful with you in it. And I don’t believe for one minute that you need saving.’
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ she says, kissing the hard edge of his jaw. ‘And I do love this hotel.’
‘And the man in your bed?’
She strokes his naked chest. ‘Hmm, he’s okay too.’