Woman in the Shadows (28 page)

“Was it Leo Quinn who recruited you?”

“He realized I had useful access.”

“Perhaps that's not all he realized.”

“What do you mean?”

Ralph smiled. “When you first came here, I noticed you looking around. I saw you look at the photograph on the mantelpiece and work out that it was my mother. You're naturally observant.”

“I suppose so.”

“You're secretive, too.”

“I think anyone is who has brothers and sisters. You're always trying to preserve your privacy, not to have your secrets held up for public amusement.”

“So you had secrets?”

“Only the normal things. I kept a diary, hidden in drawers and behind beds and cushions. I tended to hide things.”

Emotions, too. From the age of twelve she had perfected the art of keeping her confidences deep within herself, buried beneath layers of caution and circumspection. It wasn't hard. In her family, emotions had always been rigorously concealed. Falling out of a tree and ripping the skin off her knee meant a severe dabbing with iodine but no tears. Kisses were rare gifts. Any passions, whether grief, joy, or hilarity, were allowed only decorous display, like the collection of antique Chinese porcelain her parents kept inside glass-doored cabinets. When Kenneth left for boarding school at the age of eight, he had shaken hands with their father, who would no more have told his son he loved him than flown to the moon.

Ralph was still gazing at her, scrutinizing her.

“Perhaps it would help if you told me a few of those secrets now.”

Unexpectedly, she began to talk, and as she did she found herself telling him everything that had happened, right from the beginning, as though she was thinking out loud. About Bruno and the trip to Munich and her conviction that someone there had been following her. The burglary. Coming back from the flight with Strauss to find the photograph of Erich on the windshield of the car.

“I realized that whoever is threatening me knew all about me. He knew about Erich. I called the school right away, and the principal told me he was fine, but just knowing that someone has threatened Erich, and knows how much I care about him, makes me…What I mean is, if anything happened to Erich, I couldn't bear it.”

“It won't.”

“Perhaps not. But I'm responsible for him.”

Gently Ralph said, “You're fond of the lad, aren't you? Do you like children? All that combing hair and scrubbing knees and teaching them to keep their grubby nails clean?”

“I never used to. I suppose being with Erich has changed how I feel.”

“Perhaps you should be having children yourself. Don't you want them?”

She tried not to flinch beneath his probing gaze.

“Now's not a good time to be having babies.”

While they were talking he had edged nearer and taken her hand. He was rubbing it with his finger in soothing concentric circles, and when she paused, he suddenly dipped his head towards her and kissed her, his lips soft at first, then insistent. Without realizing how much she wanted to, she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him down to her, responding with a deep, lingering embrace. He moved onto the bed, and she shifted beneath him, her fingers brushing the fine, golden stubble of his face. Heat blossomed through her as his hands moved over her breasts and traveled the length of her body, but after a few moments he drew back.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't be.”

“No. I am.” He moved sharply away, his face set. “This wasn't supposed to happen. It's not what I intended.”

He started to get up, but Clara couldn't bear to let the moment go. She had forgotten everything that had gone before. Desire was coursing through her in waves. She wanted nothing more than for him to make love to her. She was certain it was true for him, too.

“I'm half naked in your bed, Ralph. You brought me here and took my clothes off and then you kissed me. What the hell
were
your intentions?”

“I don't want to give you the wrong idea.”

Quietly, she said, “When I came here before, you said there were all sorts of reasons why you shouldn't get involved with me. What are they?”

“I'm too old for you.”

“You're what, ten years older than I am?”

“I'm in my forties,” he said gruffly. “Set in my ways. Used to my own company. Accustomed to pleasing myself.”

“You asked me about my love life, so what about you? You must have known plenty of women. You joke about them.”

“They come and go. No permanent fixtures. I don't think they see me as a good bet.”

“I'm not a betting girl.”

Still his eyes avoided her. He knitted his hands together and leaned forward, frowning at his feet.

“Do we have to go through this? I've told you, I've always needed to be alone. All my life.”

“That's not the reason.”

“Spare me the inquisition, Clara, would you?” he snapped. “I'm too old for all this. I overstepped the mark and I've apologized. It was irresponsible of me. Particularly in your condition. I'm going to leave you now.” He stood up.

She felt herself flushing. “Leave then, Ralph, but at least be honest with me.”

For a moment he stood, hands rammed in his pockets, face grim and sulky, as though he might refuse to speak. Then, reluctantly, he said, “All right then. If you insist. I won't get involved with you because it's risky.”

“So is everything we do.”

“This is doubly so. We would be a risk to each other. There's enough risk out there without multiplying it. If either of us were ever arrested, we would have to disown the other. You know that, don't you? I would deny all knowledge of you.”

She didn't doubt it.

He leaned down, took her face in his hands, and his eyes burned into hers. “And I would loathe myself for that. Don't you see? I could never forgive myself. And then, if they were certain that I did know you, it could be worse…”

“You could betray me?”

He didn't answer. But she knew that was his deepest fear. To seduce and deceive and betray, these were the tools of espionage, and every spy learned to live with them. To deny a friendship was one thing, but to betray something precious to you, something you treasured, whether it be your country or your lover, that was a deeper fear.

He turned away and occupied himself fixing a cigarette into his ebony holder. “So it's best we stay as we are.”

“Don't you ever get tired of it, Ralph? All the lying? The subterfuge?”

His eyes clouded. She knew this was something he didn't want to discuss.

“Lying is like learning another language. For a long time you have the translation, which is the truth, running continuously through your head. But once you're fluent, it comes naturally, and then you're in a different state. The trick is to make it as much like your real life as possible. I'm used to this life now. I can hardly remember it any other way. I'm used to being watched and observed and one step away from arrest. I have responsibilities to other people, and I appreciate the immense need for self-control. We both do. To put two people like us together…it would be combustible. We'd risk losing control. And that's a risk I can't take.”

He reached down to the brogues stowed under the chair, picked one up, and turning it over, with a sudden twist swiveled its heel to reveal a compartment the size of a penny, containing a fold of newspaper. Inside was a brown, rubber-coated pill as small as a pea. It looked innocuous, as he held it up to her. Boring, even.

“I take it seriously, you see. Part of the uniform.”

She took a quick look, gasped, and looked away. She knew about cyanide capsules, though she had never seen one before and hoped she never would again. The thought of carrying death with you everywhere you went was sobering. Yet she persisted.

“I'm just as controlled as you, Ralph. That experience is the same for me. I understand everything about the need to avoid risks. Dissembling is part of my nature too. But I'm here in your apartment, aren't I? You expressly brought me here.”

“I had to,” he replied, curtly. “It was unavoidable.”

He was speaking as though she were a parcel, delivered to the wrong address. Flinging off the sheets, she swung her feet around and rose from the bed.

“Thanks for your hospitality then.” Her head was light as the blood rushed to her legs, and tears stung her eyes. Frustration and annoyance mingled in her. “Do you know what I think? I think you believe you're the only person who has a sense of independence, and that any woman you meet will try to entrap you. Don't worry, Ralph, that's not going to happen with me. I'm perfectly happy as I am. I haven't the remotest interest in trying to snare you. I'm leaving now.”

She dragged off his shirt and was pulling on her clothes when he reached out behind her and imprisoned her in his arms.

“Wait.”

She struggled out of his arms and continued buttoning her blouse.

“Please, Clara! Let me explain. I shouldn't have kissed you.”

Her fingers were trembling, but she had her back to him, and she persisted with the buttons, furiously.

“I don't see why.”

“It would be a crazy idea.”

“You've already made that quite plain, thank you.”

“I'm a good deal older than you.”

“You're not particularly old. And I'm not some young girl who doesn't know her own mind.”

“Calm down.”

“Stop talking like you're my father or something.”

He reached out a hand. “You're being unreasonable.”

“Leave me alone, Ralph! I understand.”

“You understand nothing!” He looked exasperated. “Just…don't speak.” Taking her by the shoulders, he forced her to face him, then with deft deliberation unbuttoned the blouse she had just buttoned, slipped it off, and took her in his arms and onto the bed.

His body was a revelation. His chest, carved with muscle, was lithe and taut. It was as hard as that of a man half his age. There was a reddish line of hair running down the center of his chest to his belly. Softly he kissed her eyes, nose, shoulders, and breasts, then ducked his head down. His lips grazed her belly. As she arched beneath him, he turned, fumbled in a drawer beside the bed, and she heard the rip of foil before he turned back to her with a hunger that amazed her.

After everything he had said about self-control, it was a joy to abandon herself entirely to sensation, to feel the pleasure flooding her body as he towered above her. She reveled in the sense of his skin against hers, breathing his breath, the intimacy of his face a few inches from hers. After so long on her own, just the touch of a man, his fingers searching her out and his limbs entwining hers, was startling and new. She felt delicate and precious beneath his hands, like the piece of fine art he had once compared her to. Yet his touch was firm, too, turning her over deftly beneath him, controlling himself, spicing his urgency with a deliberation that prolonged her pleasure, gripping her hips hard to steady her beneath him. At the edge of Clara's mind the thought of death, which he carried with him wherever he went, only made her surrender more complete.

When he had finished, he lay with his arm flung beneath her and soon fell asleep, his breathing growing deep and slow. But Clara couldn't sleep. For a long time, she lay thinking, then she propped herself up on one elbow to look at him.

As she watched, she saw his body shudder, the twitch of movement rippling across his tanned skin. At one point he muttered something, and she craned towards him but couldn't make it out. She wondered what was going on in that dark undertow of thought, what private dreams he had that left him quivering in his sleep.

THEY SPENT THE WHOLE
of the next day together, in bed and out of it. Clara lay soaking in his deep porcelain tub, feeling her bruised limbs relax, using his Pears soap, whose translucent amber with its familiar carbolic tang reminded her powerfully of the nursery bathroom of her childhood, with its clanking pipes and towels like stippled cardboard. She stood at the mirror and explored the bump at the back of her head, tried to conceal the gash on her temple with makeup. The smell of onions and mushrooms rose tantalizingly from the narrow kitchen, where Ralph was making lunch with what he had in the cupboard. She craned her neck and saw him cut a square of butter from its waxy wrapping and send it sizzling in the pan.

“So tell me about Babelsberg,” he called to her. “Is it everything you imagined?”

“I never imagined it, because I'd never acted in film before I came to Berlin. It was a whole new art for me. Coming here was a step into the unknown.”

His voice had lost its wariness and was full of unguarded enthusiasm. He had thrown a white cloth over his small dining table and lit a candle, but offset the romantic touch with a small, ironic bow, offering her a glass of Rhine wine.

“German wines are much better than we give them credit for, but no one much drinks them back in Britain.”

The lunch he had prepared was surprisingly good. Though the onion soup was canned, the mushroom omelets were springy and glistening with butter. He had made a salad of cabbage and apple. She ate ravenously, realizing how hungry she was. It was as though all her senses had been starved up to this moment.

His eyes searched her face anxiously as she ate. “I hoped you might have an appetite. I'm not much of a cook, but I can knock up the basics.” There was something endearing about this admission. It was like a chink in his armor. Clara savored every mouthful, realizing that it was years since anyone had cooked specifically for her.

When they were sated, she lay on his cracked leather sofa with her head on his lap as he talked, smoothing her brow with deft, hypnotic strokes.

“My father was vicar of St. Anselm's in Brooklands. It was a standard, red-brick, Victorian place with a standard Victorian congregation to match. I think Dad had ambitions to be a bishop, but he didn't have quite the right connections, and by the time I was aware of it, he seemed always to have a lingering resentment about him. Not that he'd ever express it, of course, he was far too buttoned up for that, but it was clear he intended to fulfill his ambitions through me. He always wanted me to follow him into the Church; unfortunately, he was disappointed.”