The Song Before It Is Sung (23 page)

'My lord, your guest has arrived.'

He takes off his glasses and stands. He is very tall in an elegant light-grey suit with slanted pockets. For some reason the
aristocracy favour pockets on the diagonal.

'How do you do?' he says. 'I am Erroll Dungannon. Welcome to Dublin. Would you like a drink?'

Conrad is bemused.

'You look just like him,' he says, although he hasn't meant to bring the matter up too suddenly.

'So my mother used to say. I wouldn't know,' he replies cheerfully. 'Two special whiskies, Sean.'

'Right away, milord.'

'Now,' says Dungannon, 'I saw you briefly at the funeral, but you didn't stay.'

'No, I didn't want to intrude.'

'Not at all, jolly good of you to have come.'

'The two girls who read must be your daughters.'

'By my second wife. Lovely girls. They live with their mother.'

His face is long, like von Gottberg's - like his father's - with deep, dark eyes and a strong nose. The little hair that he
has is silvery and brushed backwards so that there is a large open brow. He seems to be running on a lower voltage than his
father, however.

'Why was the funeral in Cornwall?'

'My mother insisted on it. She said that she had been happy there. She loved this hotel, by the way. She and her cousin, the
novelist, were often here.'

His manner is light and amiable, as though the fact that he is von Gottberg's son is merely incidental and that talking to
Conrad is a minor, but unavoidable, chore, whereas for Conrad it is extraordinary to see him here, looking - he finds it unsettling
— like a sixty-year-old version of his thirty-five-year-old father.

'My mother, of course, came to believe that she had always loved Axel von Gottberg, but the truth is that for fifty years
and more I heard nothing about him. She and my father — I mean Dungannon - had a friendly but passionless relationship. He
was, as people say now, gay, although he never wanted to live that life. She married him soon after her first husband died
in an air crash. I was thirty-one when my father - Dungannon - died and she told me about my real father. To be honest, it
was too late. Too much to take in. In fact I was rather angry, thinking that as she became older she was glorifying a one-night
stand. Also, of course, I understood that I had half-sisters in Germany, and it was far, far too late to disrupt their lives.
Anyway my mother said before she died that you were asked by Elya Mendel to write something about Axel von Gottberg?'

'Did you know Elya Mendel?'

The whisky arrives at this moment. The barman pours two large glasses.

'Irish whisky. Forty years old. Older than you, I would imagine. They keep a little reserve for me here.'

They drink and Dungannon says, 'Rather good, don't you think?'

'I do.'

Conrad suspects that he is a drunk.

'You asked me about Elya Mendel. He was my godfather. He and my mother were very close. They wrote letters and telephoned
often right up to his death. Of course he must have known I was Axel von Gottberg's son, but it was never mentioned. I had
the conventional sort of upbringing, Eton, Oxford in the early sixties, and came back here after a spell in the Guards. Didn't
suit me, I am afraid. At Oxford Elya Mendel was always kind and helpful. I probably wouldn't have got in without him anyway.
I think I disappointed him a little. In the beginning we used to go for walks at Magdalen, but I wasn't up to the mark. I
used to go for lunch on Sundays in Headington quite often in the beginning. I loved Oxford but I was not really an Oxford
man. I spent a lot of time out with hounds, the Bullingdon and so on, and left after a year and a term. Balliol. Of course
I didn't know then that it was my real father's college. Anyway, after the Guards I came back here, and here I have remained
on the estate with some business interests in Dublin and London. I used to hunt, but my back is crumbling and my doctor has
warned me off. Probably sounds a dull life to you, but I have been happy. Any more questions?'

He laughs loudly and unexpectedly, and Conrad remembers that friends spoke of von Gottberg's sudden laughter, rising from
geological depths. The laugh has a curious and charming retrospective effect, inviting a certain irony about what has gone
before. Conrad realises, as they go into dinner, that Dungannon has decided to give him just enough information to get rid
of him.

Dungannon doesn't eat much: he has chosen grouse which he inspects and prods and then slices a few bits off. But he drinks
freely and Conrad keeps up. After dinner they move to another bar for port.

'To be honest with you, Conrad, I am not very keen to be dragged into this whole business. I would appreciate it if you kept
me out of the story or whatever you are proposing. Of course I am aware, very well aware, that my mother and Elya Mendel had,
as they say nowadays, an agenda. And of course you will want to be true to Elya's wishes, but can I ask you to leave me out
of it? There is no definite proof that I am Axel's son and in a way it was just an accident, a sideshow. I have no claim to
any involvement. Do you follow me? No interest in digging up the past?'

'I haven't decided finally what to do with what I have, but yes, I promise to leave you out.'

'You're a good chap. How old are you? Thirty-five. You could be my son, just about.'

He laughs again, that astonishing laugh.

'Why do you think your mother never told me about you?'

'She probably thought you would work it out. I don't know. I have the memoir left for you. It's in my room. Remind me to get
it before you leave. When are you off, by the way?'

Back in his hotel, Conrad lies drunkenly on his bed. He has come to see von Gottberg's son, and perhaps to tell him something
of his father, but, for Dungannon, the world he knows is enough. He can't even contemplate the prospect of discussing his
father. Conrad understands that his mother, who loved von Gottberg, wanted Conrad to know, after all those years of secrecy,
that she was still true to his memory and had produced his son. Mendel wanted him to know that, even if it was at a distance,
he had done something for his old friend, and helped Dungannon into his father's college, where he and von Gottberg had first
met all those years ago. The most poignant detail for Conrad is that Elya Mendel took this gangling doppelganger on a few
laps of Addison's Walk, perhaps hoping they could take up where he and the father had left off.

Conrad sees them. He wonders if anyone notices the resemblance, the tall youth with the startling laugh, the deep eyes, the
long Mecklenburg nose, walking briskly with the small, chubby figure of Elya Mendel, who barely draws breath as he explains
how the world is organised.

I walked up to a small park near by and ordered a coffee and a lingonberry tart and watched with deep envy ordinary people
doing the everyday things, looking after their children, walking in the sunshine, reading the newspapers, chatting, without
the sirens warning of V-i rockets, without the rationing and deprivation and without the destruction of my beloved London,
which now lay ruined. Utter, utter waste, the product of hundreds of years of human striving, lying in ruins. And Axel's Berlin,
I knew, was far worse with more to come and the Russians closing relentlessly from the East. A young woman in the national
dress of tight bodice and wide skirt brought me the tart, such a simple, homely pleasure, and this sight made me feel so deeply
for Axel, who had spent the last five years trying to get rid of Hitler, travelling God knows at what risk to himself, to
ask that the German resistance be given some encouragement. But the blood rage of war demanded unconditional surrender, which
meant unlimited destruction.

When Axel arrived at the hotel in the early afternoon, he noticed immediately my shock although I tried quickly to hide it.
He was gaunt and his eyes had retreated deeper into his head; his elegant grey suit hung from him. His hair was thin, too.

'Is it that bad? I have grown old, but you look just the same, my darling.'

'Axel, no, you just look very, very tired and thin. But wonderful as always.'

We embraced and only later did it occur to me how it must have appeared, a German diplomat and an Englishwoman in each other's
arms, the Englishwoman in floods of tears.

He was so worn and tired, but as always full of life. We sat on the terrace.

'Did you have a terrible flight? I worried that our Luftwaffe would shoot you down. And to be honest I wasn't sure you would
come. I am overwhelmed that you are here.'

'I wasn't sure you were going to be here at all. Axel, why did you ask me to come?'

'You don't need to ask. You know the answer to that question. I love you. And I heard, of course, that Roddy had died. Do
you miss him?'

'I do miss him. I feel guilty, too, that I never loved him. How are your children?'

'They are divine. That is the worst thing about this whole business, the thing that worries me most; our chances of success
are not high and the price we will pay, and our children will pay, will be terrible.'

'Axel, for God's sake, you must get away. I have been asked to suggest it to you. Can't you take the family to Switzerland
or come here and hide until it's over?'

Of course I knew that he could never leave Germany. Germany needed him; his fate was bound up with his country's. Whatever
happened in Germany, and we could all see that the end was near, he was a part of it. Over the next few days I realised that
he had become obsessed with the idea of restoring Germany's honour by killing Hitler. He talked quite freely, although Stockholm
was full of Nazis and agents from every power.

'We have to get rid of him and then it will be my job to ask the Allies to deal with us, who got rid of him.'

'Is it soon, Axel?'

'Very soon. I have a surprise for you. Tomorrow we are going to go out into the archipelago, to the island of Grinda to stay
in an inn.'

'Does she speak about me?'

'No. I think she has tried to put you out of her mind.'

'And Elya, does he ever mention me?'

'We always talk about you whenever we meet.'

'How does he feel about me?'

'You know we have all been swept up in this awful determination to crush the Nazis and of course Germany, for ever. I think
he still believes that you should leave the country.'

'I can't. I know that you actually understand. I can't because we have to demonstrate that Germany is not the same thing as
Hitler. Elya knows that.'

'I haven't slept for four years,' he said apologetically when he saw that I was awake. I could see the ribs on his back.

After breakfast we took a ferry out to the islands. They were so beautiful, the light soft and hazy, each small rocky island
with its own jetty and red, deep-red painted cottage, with a boat moored near by; it was a vision of what life could be, what
life was supposed to be. So different from the gloom and fear and despair and deprivation of London and the utter desolation
of Berlin.

'Can't we stay here, Axel, until it's over?'

'I can t.

'But please, get your family out at least, Axel.'

'I have to go through to the end. I have friends and colleagues who are risking their lives every day. We have to do it or
die trying.'

We were standing at the prow of the ferry as it eased its sensible, pragmatic way past countless small islands and skerries.
Here we were free as we hadn't been for years, not since we were young and blithe. Now, of course, I am immensely old, but
then Axel and I already had the feeling that we had lost our youth. The war had taken it. He was obsessed with saving Germany,
but I saw that it was almost suicidal. He looked so terribly worn. But for those two days, we were carefree again. It was
as if we had been given a blessing from heaven. The strange thing was that I could easily imagine that this landscape, these
astonishing islands set in the magical archipelago, were the real world and what we had left behind in Berlin and London was
completely unreal, the stuff of nightmares. I had the feeling that we could just step out of our lives. And also, I knew after
that first night that I was pregnant. I can't explain how I knew, but now I believe that it was fated.

The ferry came into the jetty at Grinda, I think after about an hour, and a pushcart from the inn met us to take our bags,
which were very few. We walked up a track through woods and meadows that were deep in wild flowers. The Grinda Wardshus turned
out to be exactly what we craved, a haven of utter tranquillity, with not a sign of a German or a British agent. In fact there
was only one other guest, and he was a botanist, I think, from Uppsala. Probably nowhere in the world did the awful, cruel,
relentless war seem further away.

Axel and I swam at a lovely sandy beach. I hadn't realised until then that the Baltic is more or less a freshwater lake, although
I had seen eider ducks paddling by in flotillas. The water itself had only a slightly brackish taste. Our room looked out
over a meadow to woods with the gleam of water beyond. We didn't talk that night or the next morning about the war. We seemed
to understand that these were our last blessed moments together. Nor did I mention escape again. To tell the truth, I saw
a certain stark beauty in Axel's attitude to the war: for him it had become a simple matter of principles and courage. Only
by believing in these things could he justify himself and his existence. He did ask me to tell Elya that what his country
had done to the Jews could never be forgiven. I didn't tell Elya.

We walked across the island through the meadows of flowers. Memory, famously, plays tricks, but there in that season I remember
the fields full of marguerites, orchids, primroses and wild gentian. At the edge of the meadows, on fences or scrambling up
trees, were pink and white wild roses, what we would call dog roses. We spent all that day walking, swimming and picnicking,
happy, but also, as the day wore on, oppressed by the knowledge that this was just a reprieve, release on parole, as Axel
put it. Still Axel's talent for wild enjoyment had not diminished, even under immense duress. I loved him so deeply that even
as I write these words I feel this love surging through me.

Late that evening as the sky dimmed in summer twilight, we took the ferry back to Stockholm. We clung together watching this
world separate from us. We could have stayed. In Stockholm at midnight the sky was an inky blue; I mean the colour of my Parker's
Quink at school, a deep royal blue. We glided in past the Royal Dramatic Theatre and round to our berth outside the Grand
Hotel.

In the morning, Axel had to leave early, before breakfast.

He woke me and said, 'Goodbye, my only love.'

I never saw him again and I have missed him every day, although as our son grew I saw his likeness and it has been some consolation
to me.

Although Elya remained a true friend, in my heart I believed that he was in some degree responsible for the fact that Axel
courted death. As Axel said to me in Stockholm, even if we fail to kill Hitler, we will be doing Germany a service by demonstrating
to our friends that there is a more noble Germany. He died a hero.