The Other Side of Love (34 page)

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Oh God, now he’s going to say that the fatewf the free world hangs in the balance, Aubrey thought. During the ensuing pause he recalled the afternoon queues waiting with blankets and pillows outside the Tube stations that were used as air-raid shelters; he saw the ugly clouds of smoke above the East End, saw Araminta’s tired but determined face as she spoke of Peter’s danger.

Churchill sat wearily at his desk, indicating that Aubrey should take the tubular metal chair opposite.

“Now, about your cousin.”

“Sir, with all due respect, let’s assume that there is a plan. Kathe’s managing my late uncle’s shop on Unter den Linden; she doesn’t have access to secret war-plans.”

Arrangements are being made to drop you into Germany.”

Aubrey breathed shallowly. Again? The force of his fear during ms two missions inside enemy territory still astounded him, as did his moments of command.

Churchill’s glower added to his often mentioned resemblance to a ulldog.

“There, you will convince Miss Kingsmith to help us learn

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about Barbarossa. With that step-brother an adjutant to General von Hohenau of the OKW, she should have no difficulty landing a position in the Bendlerblock.”

“I refuse to”

“You’re in uniform, Kingsmith! You will refuse nothing, do you hear?”

The desk shook as Churchill’s small plump fist slammed down.

“If Kathe’s caught, they’ll torture her until she gives way. Then they’ll kill her.”

The Prime Minister continued to glare, but Aubrey didn’t wilt.

Churchill’s chin slumped on his round chest, then he smiled.

“You’d be surprised at how rarely I get arguments from that particular chair. You’re a spunky lad, Kingsmith.”

“Sir, I’m quaking,”

Aubrey retorted honestly.

“Stop worrying about your cousin. The girl’s half-English; she’ll muddle through like the rest of us.”

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i

At one o’clock on an overcast Saturday afternoon in late November of

1940, Kathe stood at the doorway of the barred shop saying goodbye to her elderly employees. Herr Knaupf, the last to leave, gave her his mummified smile which managed to be both subservient and superior. He remained the shop manager. When she had returned from Villa Haug last April she had not possessed the mental equilibrium to run Kingsmith’s. She didn’t Jfcive the heart to displace him, although she felt better now. P

Kathe had recovered by the old trick of burying herself in activity. She worked long days, spending evenings with young officer friends of Sigi’s, gathering conversations of every sort like a child picking great armfuls of wild flowers - news that she later distilled to code for Ulla-Britt Onslager. This August she had scrounged up food for two silent adolescent Jewish boys whom Schultze had asked her to hide until the pair could be spirited out of the country to Spain. She tried to leave herself no time to think. But the brain moves far too swiftly to be harnessed, and she could never completely banish the feel of the light weight in her arms, the milky smell, the tiny mouth that replicated Wyatt’s. Her vow still held. If ever the day came when Erich’s Mischling status could be safely known, she would rush to Frankfurt and move heaven and earth to get him back.

Going into the office, she moved back the telephone and the silver-framed photograph of her father to spread invoices across the desk. Laying out the bills to be paid with the Reich’s foreign

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currency, she sighed. When it came to dealing with the Protectorates

- the Government’s euphemism for conquered countries - no matter how often the brokers assured her they were delighted to deal with Kingsmith’s, she felt a plunderer. Herr van Roophuis from Holland had actually said:

“Better to sell our fine antiques than be robbed.”

The topmost Nazis in the Protectorates commandeered whatever they wanted.

Kathe was jotting down the sums she owed when a tap sounded on the glass. Jumping, she looked up.

A soldier who had to be at least six foot to be visible in the mud-streaked, tape-crossed clerestory window was smiling at her. His field-grey cap was slanted at the prescribed military angle above ] a bony sensitive face.

A wave of dizziness overcame Kathe. For several moments her mind refused to accept the evidence of her eyes.

The soldier was Aubrey. j

i

She fumbled with the rear door-bolt; he slipped inside. Word-t lessly, they clutched each other. He pulled back to gaze at her as if memorizing her face.

“I’ve been watching the shop. You’re alone, aren’t you?”

“They left ages ago. Oh, Aubrey, Aubrey! Am I dreaming?”

“You’re awake. Now, pull down the blackout blinds.”

She obeyed, then lit a candle, explaining that the electricity wouldn’t come on until dusk.

“It’s impossible. You in Berlin!”

“Corporal Adolf Bader at your service.”

Clicking his heels, standing at attention, he flung his arm up in the Nazi salute.

“Serving my Fiihrer in Corbiel, a small town just south of Paris. Poor Vati, may God rest his soul, just passed on. I have a compassionate leave.”

It had taken Kathe this long to realize that Aubrey’s German was flawless. Though his syntax had always been above reproach, his intonations had been pure Oxford English. Now he spoke in a Berlinuche accent; he might have been born and bred in a Berlin working-class district.

Aubrey, for his part, could not take his eyes from her. Tall and slender as a ballerina, her hip tilted in that well-remembered artless sensuality, her hair drawn back into a nugget of pale gold, she was the same yet somehow altered. It’s the expression, he decided. When her joyous smiles faded there was a sadness about her lips that hinted of mortal wisdom, of mysterious unexplored continents within her, and he was yet more entranced.

“I’m a dud at compliments,”

he said.

“But you do look smashing.”

“Candlelight works wonders,”

she said, then laughed excitedly.

“But you’re here, you’re here. Tell me, how are Grandpa and Araminta?

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Uncle Euan and Aunt Elizabeth? Is London destroyed the way the Propaganda Ministry says?”

Her voice faded. She longed to ask about the American branch, about Wyatt, but was terrified she might discover that he was married.

“Has the Propaganda Ministry been doctoring the films of the Blitz? Is London destroyed?”

“I can’t tell you anything you wouldn’t hear through normal channels.”

“You call this normal?”

After a momentary hesitation, he said:

“London’s not in the best of shape, but the morale’s tremendous. Kingsmith’s has been bombed out. Until they lease another shop they’re using the Bayswater Road house. And Grandpa’s the eighth wonder of the world. Working all hours, leading all of us around during the blackout”

“He knows the darkness.”

“He takes the reins when Father goes on buying trips to scrounge up merchandise. And Araminta’s with the Auxiliary Fire Service; she drives the station officer through terrible fires in the worst of the Blitz. She jokes about it, but she’s quite the heroine. She’s engaged to Peter.”

“Tell me another! So the earl finally gave way?”

“His parents are still dead set against it, but he produced a diamond anyway. And that’s your ration of gossip. How’s your side? Where’s Sigi?”

“Here in Germany.”

Her turn to hold back information. For a fleeting moment she wondered what mechanism in her eternally divided loyalties acted as a sluice-gate, permitting her to write those spy letters to Ulla-Britt yet refusing to let her divulge that Sigi, as his uncle’s aide, was stationed twenty mfos from Berlin, at Zossen, in the camouflaged buildings and underground chambers that made up the OKW’s ultra-secret headquarters.

“He’s a captain now.”

“Good old Sigi. What about Aunt Clothilde?”

“Managing with one rather dimwitted maid Mother never changes. I admire her, but she’s so irritating. Those eternal schedules! She now sets aside hours to cook and queue for food. Aubrey”

Try getting used to Corporal Bader,”

he interrupted.

“I can’t tell you how much it means, Corporal Bader, seeing you even for a few minutes.”

Aubrey held his long narrow hands near the candle, examining his palms like a fortune-teller trying to predict his own future.

“You are my mission, Kathe.”

Me?”

Her voice rose in astonishment.

“Aren’t my letters to Sweden getting through?”

Yes, and they’re wonderful, but we need more information.”

He paused.

“The Prime Minister’s convinced there are plans afoot for Germany to invade Russia.”

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‘Russia? You can’t be serious! Why would we attack Russia? They’re our allies. I never heard anything so potty! Surely Mr Churchill knows that they’re supplying us with oil and grain - it was in one of my letters even.”

“At first I thought Russia was ludicrous, too.”

“Ludicrous? My God, every schoolchild knows what happened to Napoleon. General von Hohenau would laugh his head off! And so would the rest of the OKW. Russia’s sheer wishful thinking on Mr Churchill’s part. All this Luftwaffe pounding - could the High Command’s intentions be clearer? They’re planning to invade England.”

“The OKW doesn’t run your armed forces, Kathe. Hitler does. Have you read Mein Kampf? He says that Germany must look to Russia for additional territory. Before his pact with Stalin he couldn’t rant enough against communism. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made.”

“I’ve been going to quite a few parties and receptions. I’ve heard staff officers after a few drinks. Surely one of them would have blurted out a hint.”

“The plans are code-named Barbarossa. The Prime Minister himself briefed me on this. My orders are to ask you to try to find out if Barbarossa is operational.”

“But I already told you. I haven’t heard a peep.”

“The Prime Minister mentioned that you could get inside the Bendlerblock with Sigi’s connections.”

“Sigi? My God, use Sigi?”

“If you want my advice, you’ll refuse.”

“What choice do I have? If I were caught sneaking through desks, Sigi would be swept up like a pin. Maybe the general maybe Mother, too.”

Would they track down Erich?

“No arguments from me. The last thing I want is to put you at further risk.”

In the chiaroscuro shadows Aubrey’s face was white.

“Kathe, that brings me to Schultze. Are you still involved?”

“You’ve no idea how much worse it is than when you were here. The Jews are all being resettled in Poland. According to newspapers to work in war plants. You can imagine conditions in those factories. People who are quite decent otherwise are terrified to help them. I’d a thousand times sooner throw in with Schultze than be a spy”

The phone rang. Kathe’s hand flew to her throat as if the person at the other end could see her with her English cousin. At the second ring, Aubrey picked up the old-fashioned instrument, holding the speaker to her mouth.

“Kingsmith’s,”

she said.

“Is that you, Kathe? Armin here.”

First Lieutenant Armin Lamm, her escort for this evening.

“I’m checking that you expect me to pick you up at Kingsmith’s at six.”

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‘Perfect,”

she said automatically.

“This reception’s turning out to be quite the event. Field Marshals Brauchitsch and Keitel are definite, and there’s a rumour that Goering will put in an appearance.”

“Goering himself? I’ll be ready at six on the dot.”

Aubrey had overheard everything. A beat after she hung up, he said:

“Sounds like an interesting evening.”

“Poor Armin, he got terribly burned in France. He’s studious and shy, and the scars embarrass him. Oh God, if only one could line up the good people and separate them from the awful ones.”

“Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

Staring at the silver-framed photo of Alfred, she said slowly:

“Tell the Prime Minister I’m declining.”

“I’m glad.”

She turned away, unable to hold back.

“What do you hear from \merica?”

“I was over there this September.”

“Is Wyatt … is he still single?”

Aubrey understood her quaking tone. He had been fearing that she would ask this very question.

“Very much so. He’s in their army officers”

training programme.”

“So he’s enlisted. Did he tell you that it’s over between us?”

“He told me.”

“God, Aubrey, what’s the matter with me? Why didn’t I marry him in thirty-nine?”

“You promised Uncle Alfred and Aunt Clothilde that you wouldn’t,”

Aubrey said.

“Why blame yourself?”

“You’re blaming himl”

she snapped, anAbegan to cry.

Aubrey reached his arms around her. Wer fragile body shuddered against his field-grey uniform, and he held her tight, resting his cheek on that marvellous silky hair. He treasured every second of the couple of minutes that he held Kathe - but why did the embrace have to be like this? Consolation for the loss of Wyatt? When she pulled away, his expression was rigid.