A Kiss for the Enemy (20 page)

‘You know, I am acquainted with the lady to whom your brother was betrothed. I believe that she is now living at your home, is that not so?'

Frido knew that he knew it was so.

‘I would very much like to see her again. And, of course, to meet your family.'

‘There is only my father, Colonel von Arzfeld. And my young sister.'

‘Yes, of course. Well, it looks –
if
we don't “jump the ditch” we were talking about – it looks as if I shall get a week's leave at the beginning of October. I had it in mind to ask your father if I could travel to Germany and visit Arzfeld. I would have written in July, after the armistice, but everything has looked so uncertain. Still as you've probably heard, there's likely to be demobilization of some classes. If you ask me, things quite soon are going to be nearly normal again.'

Frido said, ‘My father, naturally, would be happy to hear from you. If you call at Arzfeld I am sure he will make you welcome.' He managed to make this sound as cold as possible.

‘My lovely little Marcia,

Well, imagine! I have met your little Frido von Arzfeld, the one you're always rather tender about and describe like a small brother that needs protecting. He
is
rather like a small brother that needs protecting! He's incredibly immature, very stiff and pompous, very proper in all his reactions. He made me feel old
and wicked and cynical. I didn't find it particularly easy to talk to him.

Now listen! I told Frido v A that I “might be on leave” in early October: that I would like the chance to meet his family and “see you again”. I had to say that, of course; even Frido isn't so dim-witted as to think I'd spend leave in Germany except to try to see you! I said I “might write” to your host, Colonel v A. He was very stiff about it. I thought, if I
didn't
mention it, that when he'd heard I'd been to Arzfeld (as I shall!) he'd reckon me a deceitful rogue for not indicating my intentions to him. I expect he reckons that anyway! I also wanted to see how he would react to mention of you (don't worry, my darling, my mention of you was very correct). I expect he's in love with you himself and hasn't dared say so. Or has he?

Anyway, if I get this leave in October (and it might even be by the end of September) I shall find a “
Gasthof
” to stay in, fairly near. I'll bring a friend with me who's got a sister working in Hameln: that's our ostensible reason for a visit “to take a few days off and explore a different and beautiful part of the Reich”. Then I shall come and bow to your Colonel. And
you and I
, my sweetest girl, will make opportunities to meet. I wish you could come to Paris! But until things get a little easier I'm afraid it's out of the question for you …'

Marcia sighed. The letter had taken a fortnight to arrive. It was already the last week in September!

After Werner's death she had been sure that never, ever, would she love as she had loved him. She was oblivious of all but his loss. The appalling events which were engulfing Europe seemed remote, impersonal. War with the Poles had been quickly over: its sole significance was that it had taken Werner from her. War with Britain and France appeared totally unreal. So vivid had her life and experiences in Vienna been that they had largely blotted out her recollection of how people in England felt about the Germans and Austrians among whom the most passionate year of her life had been spent.

There was, of course, a large measure of self-deception in this. At heart Marcia recognized her situation as both false and miserable. She, an English girl, had refused to go home when war appeared almost inevitable. She had, without compulsion, remained in the enemy camp. At the crucial moment, desperately in love with Werner, she had evaded contact with her
cousins in the British Consulate General, she had told herself that the war scare would ‘blow over', she had adopted a formula about it all being a misunderstanding, an episode which would soon be straightened out by history. The Polish business would be finished; Werner said so. Britain and France would find some framework in which new agreements could be made and peace return.

But Marcia knew very well in her heart that this was nonsense. Hard as she tried she could not shut out from memory the image of her father's grave face, and to her ears would come the sound of his voice, hating war, inexpressibly sad, saying, ‘This man
wants
war. He is on the march,' with the quiet, unspoken conviction behind it that, at whatever cost, Britain should oppose such ambitions. To the death. This was no misunderstanding to be cleared by diplomacy, by compromise. This would, in all probability, be a fight to a finish. She sensed it without hope. It was an impossible sense with which to live at ease. It could only be made tolerable by the nurturing of illusions. An essential part of these was the pretence – and she sometimes managed to persuade herself, for a little – that the war was a charade which both sides had to present for domestic consumption until they could find some face-saving way of ending it. Meanwhile – and in consequence – they would try to do as little damage to each other as possible. Behind the bluster of Governments, the apparent inactivity on the Western front gave some colour to this view.

But then came the incredible, the overwhelming events of May and June, 1940. It was no longer possible to imagine that the war would soon draw to a negotiated end. Astonishingly, the Germans among whom she worked seemed to regard this as now much more likely.

‘The thing's finished. The French have been taught a lesson, that's all. They never wanted to fight us, the ordinary Frenchman. The Jews, yes, perhaps – so now the French have seen sense there can be no possible reason for the British to want to fight us. What about?'

Marcia avoided all argument but she heard it swirling about her. Sometimes there had to be agonizing equivocation. The Party line would be voiced, even with courtesy, by some.

‘Of course, Fraülein Marvell, we know ordinary English
people don't want this war. The Jews are very numerous there, that's the trouble isn't it? And the sort of circles who profit from war! We had them here last time, I can tell you!' Many people had been kind. Others had made savage remarks in a way which she was compelled to hear. Secretly, she wept often.

But it was not in Marcia's nature to brood. Ebullient and by temperament optimistic, her fits of natural depression, even despair and self-accusation, alternated with times of happiness. Mainly instrumental in producing those times were two people. One was Toni Rudberg.

Toni had first appeared at his cousins' home in Vienna at Christmas 1939. His name had been mentioned before that. Countess Rudberg had sighed and nodded in a knowing sort of way –

‘Ah! Toni!'

He was her husband's nephew. She said to him,

‘Your nephew Toni is a captain in this Panzer Division here, but he's not been to see us! He's not fighting in Poland any more. I expect he's busy.'

Count Rudberg nodded. ‘Toni will come to see us if he's back here at Christmas time.'

His wife sighed again. She seemed to anticipate trouble. Marcia lived with them a life closely akin to widowhood. Many months must elapse in Rudberg eyes before it would be decent to bring her existence before a wider circle of acquaintances or family. And Countess Amalie sometimes looked at Marcia speculatively. There was no doubt, she was very, very pretty this little
Engländerin.

But at Christmas Toni had appeared. Then he had reappeared. Then he had contrived, Marcia was not sure how, to take her out to dinner without raising Countess Rudberg's eyebrows. He was by now again stationed in Vienna.

Then he had taken her out to dinner again: and started to show her aspects of Vienna which her previous study for an art diploma had entirely omitted.

And then she had found herself in love with him.

Marcia would not at first admit to herself that her feelings for Toni Rudberg were in the least serious. She had no confidante in Vienna and it is always hard to establish the truth of
an emotional condition purely by self-communing. She said to herself that Toni was good company. It was a relief after the kindly isolation of life in the Rudbergs' flat, endless discussions about her status, her ‘difficulties', the attitudes of the authorities, the protracted interchange of correspondence with Arzfeld – it was profound relief after this wearisome, genteel imprisonment to find herself again escorted, entertained, finally wooed by an attractive man.

She did not in the least trust him. ‘He is utterly unlike Werner,' she said to herself. Werner had had the same easy charm, the same dominant, assured masculinity. But Werner had, too, an inner seriousness,
three dimensions
, she told herself. He was a deep man. Toni, on the other hand, changed his moods, his opinions like quicksilver. She never knew if he meant a word of what he said. But when he told her he adored her she hoped that he did. She was not wholly unaware that she deceived herself. Even Marcia, on the whole innocent, English in upbringing, did not think that Toni was faithful to her while in Vienna. When away from her she simply could not imagine him except in pursuit of a woman, and probably of several simultaneously. Toni never spoke of such things as marriage. She could not connect him with any idea of a permanent or profound relationship. ‘But oh!' she thought, ‘how much I want him!'

And so, Marcia had fallen in love with Toni. They had become lovers. Her days were entirely spent in joyous anticipation of their next assignation. Toni had a flat in Vienna, and Marcia's acquaintance with the city and ostensible pursuit of art studies during the first months of 1940 made meetings comparatively easy. Sometimes he would call on his uncle and aunt and deliberately pretend he scarcely knew her.

‘Ah! Fraülein Marcia! How good to see you again!'

His easy smile, his laughing brown eyes in a bronzed face disguised the fact that only twenty-four hours before they had been ecstatically in bed together on the other side of the Ringstrasse. It made it even more fun, and it provided huge emotional relief from the sombre reflections about her situation which otherwise crowded in on Marcia's mind.

Then Toni had told her he was leaving Vienna. It was March, 1940.

‘Oh, beloved! Oh, darling! When?'

‘Very soon. But listen. I mustn't tell you where I'm going –'

‘To Germany, it must be.'

‘To Germany, it must be, as you say. Now Cousin Amalie has said the Arzfelds want you to go and stay. Why not? You don't belong to dear old Werner now – and I was fond of him, believe me, but that's past – you belong to me. But it would be proper to visit your ex-fiancé's family. And you know them.'

‘Would I be near you?'

‘Well, if I got a short leave it might be easier than visiting Vienna. I could stay at some hotel nearby, make some excuse, call on the Arzfelds, and we'd make plans, spend some time together. Just at the moment it seems as if you wouldn't be stopped travelling.'

The other person who brought relief to Marcia's unhappy and anxious heart was Anna Langenbach.

She had not been many weeks at Arzfeld when Lise said one day,

‘Of course you remember our cousin Anna Langenbach? She received us when we broke down in Anthony's car near the Langenbach house.'

‘Of course. She was charming! She drove you here afterwards and I met her.'

‘She's had a sad life. She had a baby, you know, a little boy, last winter. And months before that her husband was killed in a flying accident in Spain. Poor Anna!'

Marcia said nothing of Anthony's passion for Anna. It was their business, it might have been transient, unimportant, despite Anthony's seriousness about it. Probably Anna would only be embarrassed by his name. Poor, darling old Ant! Marcia's eyes filled with tears Lise did not comprehend. As naturally as she could she said,

‘Does she still live with her parents-in-law? They were nice, I remember you saying, quiet, nice people.'

‘Yes, it's her home of course. And there was no other son but Kurt – Anna's husband. So the little grandson is precious to them. Franzi. She looks after him wonderfully, she's a
pertect mother. But sad and lonely. She's very capable. She's going to come and stay here, with Franzi, for a few days in September. Perhaps even for two weeks.'

And Anna had arrived, complete with charming, serious Franzi. On the second day of her visit, a Sunday, the girls were at home. Sunday was no rest day at the hospital but on this occasion both had been given a holiday, as occurred every few weeks. Marcia felt Anna take her arm.

‘Lise wants to have Franzi to herself, believe it or not! Let's go for a walk.'

They walked in woods which brought Werner vividly to Marcia's mind. The trees had been opening to the spring then, when she and Werner had ridden through the beechwoods. Now autumn was in the air. Marcia felt gripped by a great desolation. Yet she had work to do: somewhat to her surprise she found work at the hospital a profound relief. Its very squalor helped heal her mind, assuage her guilt. Lise was sweet, her father remote, a little embarrassed, always courteous and kind. But oh! The loneliness!

They sat down on a fallen log.

‘It's a lovely place, isn't it?'

Suddenly Marcia found herself shaking with sobs. Anna put her arm around her.

‘Poor little love! I know how you must feel. You lost a fine man.'

‘It's not that. At least, it's not just that.'

‘I can imagine the other things.'

And Marcia found herself pouring out her heart. She talked of her predicament, of her home, of the terrible sense that by some light, spontaneous, love-directed decisions a year ago she had burned her boats, had placed herself in a terrible no-man's land in this war, fair game for the hatred, the weapons of both sides, had become an interloper, a suspect in Germany and a traitress to England.