The Unquiet heart

SIXTEEN

She walked fast, in that purposeful way I knew so well, going somewhere, doing something. There were one or two others around and I kept to the opposite side of the street. She turned down an alley and we were again on cobbles. It made her heels click louder and I grew more conscious of my own footsteps. I daren’t lose her, but I couldn’t get too close. Once she glanced round but kept going. A patrol stopped her under a gas lamp. They joked with her until she showed her papers, then let her go and picked on me a hundred paces behind her. They seemed to take forever reading my documents, warned me about the curfew and finally let me go.

I looked down the narrow street. It was deserted. Frantically I trotted after her. There was a crossroad ahead. She must have turned off. I had to get there before she disappeared completely. A much narrower alleyway ran at right angles to this one. I peered down the dark shaft to my left and listened for a footstep. She could have gone into any of a dozen tenements along here; the entries were black and forbidding. I darted over to the other side and stared and listened. All I could hear was the blood in my ears. Then faintly, I heard some steps, far down the alley. I plunged into the gloom. The walls crowded round me. I could almost touch both sides at once.

I was deep into the wynd. My eyes began to adjust and I made out dustbins and a great pile of rubble. I skirted it as best I could, stumbling and clutching the wall for support. I clambered down on to the cobbles and straightened up. That’s when the world landed on my head. I fell forward, with a great weight crushing my skull and sending fireworks off inside my eyeballs. I thought part of the crumbling building had collapsed on me. I was dazed and on my hands and knees when the blow came again. This was no act of god, and this time it was final.

“Bring me some water.”

It was her voice from a distance, so I knew I was dreaming. But I stirred my head anyway and felt pain blasting through me. I heard a gasp and realised it came from me. I lay panting, moving my hands and legs trying to feel the rest of my body. I seemed to be on a bed, lying on my side.

“Take it slow.” She was speaking again. This time she was closer.

Another groan. I opened my eyes. Pain washed through my skull again. “Oh shit.”

I managed.

“Danny, if I lift your head can you take a drink?”

Impossible. It would hurt too much. “Yes.”

I felt her hand go under my neck and ease my head up a fraction. The pain clutched at my eyes. “Sick,” I got out. She eased me back down and rolled me further over so that my face was at the edge of the bed. She stood up fast, and came back with a bowl, just in time to catch my vomit. It brought great gasps from me and I felt myself sliding back into unconsciousness.

Time passed and I heard voices: hers and a man’s, or two men. I couldn’t make out what they were saying. They saw me stirring again, for she came over. I felt a cold damp cloth on my head and its soothing effect seeped into my brain. I thought I might live. It was like coming round from one of my worst migraines. I inched myself up on to my elbow and my head didn’t drop off. I opened my eyes again and she was there, facing me, leaning forward on a wooden chair. Her eyes were full of worry. That made it a little better.

“Nice haircut,” I said.

She grimaced and ran her hand through the stubble of her once glorious mane. The worried look left her to be replaced with irritation. Which hardly seemed fair.

“It’ll grow. What the hell are you doing here, Danny? How did you find me? Don’t you know you can get killed around here just for your shoes?”

“It’s nice to see you too, Eve. Or is it Ava?”

She sat back in her chair and eyed me closely. “Who sent you?”

I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure how to. I sat up by swinging my legs on to the floor and letting the weight pull my body up. For a moment I thought I’d pass out. I held my head in my hands till it passed. Gingerly I touched my scalp, checking the plate first. It seemed intact and may even have absorbed some of the blow. Alongside it were two lumps as though goose eggs had been pushed under the skin. One was bloody. Both hurt like hell. I raised my eyes. A small room with a sloping ceiling; an attic? A table. A sink. A heavy wardrobe. Curtains drawn across the window. Two beds and two mattresses on the floor. I was on one of the beds. Three men sat smoking and watching me. One was a bearded giant, one looked about fifteen with big sad eyes, the third bald and with glasses held together with tape. All three were scruffy with mistrustful eyes.

“Was it you or these beauties who socked me?”

Eve nodded behind her.

“Did they know it was me?”

“How could they?”

“Just wondered. Some girls get huffy if a bloke can’t take a hint.”

“Danny! Will you cut it out! Why are you here? How did you find me?”

I dabbed at my head with the damp cloth. It was still coming away bloody.

“Give me that.” She grabbed it and took it to the sink. She rinsed it and wrung it out. She handed it back to me, and raised an eyebrow.

“I was looking for you. Why else would I come to this hell hole? And I found you by chance. Sheer bloody chance. What were you doing at the black market?”

“Buying food. You don’t see any Co-ops around here, do you?”

“Why are you so angry with me? I’m the one with the headache.”

Her face softened. “Sorry. Look, we didn’t know it was you. I knew someone was following me. I walked in a circle. The boys here keep a lookout. I gave them the signal.” She shrugged.

“Where did you pick them up?” I turned to them. “Do – you – speak – English?”

They just gave me baleful looks.

“Stop it, Danny. You still haven’t explained how you got here. How did you know I was here, for one thing? And where did you get the papers? Who are you working for, Danny?”

“I need a fag.” She went to the table and retrieved my own packet and lighter.

Only half the packet had survived. I looked over at the three smokers. “Cheers, fellas!” I saw my papers and the gun on the table.

I lit up. Dizziness ran through me, and I thought I’d be sick again. I steadied, then I felt better.

“OK, Eve or Ava or whatever your name is. Here’s my story…”

I told her about my run-in with Gambatti and watched her face to see if I could elicit – what? sympathy? doubt? repentance? She gave nothing away. I told her of being waylaid by Wilson and the meeting in her flat next day with Cassells. Of seeing the transmitter and the revelation that she was a minor spy. That she’d fled England for Berlin to meet up with her old spymaster, else who had she been communicating with in Berlin in code? I explained how it was then the most natural thing in the world to agree to come looking for her, here at the end of the world. Maybe I shouldn’t have said I came because I loved her and didn’t care what she was; it was about what she and I could become. But I did. This time there was a reaction. Her lips pursed and she shook her head.

“You idiot. You damned fool,” she said it softly. And idiot that I am, I read something into it that probably wasn’t there and smiled at her.

“Maybe. But I’m on your side. Whose side are you on?”

“Does anyone know you’re here? I mean, in the Soviet zone. Will anyone be looking out for you?”

“There’s a guy called Vic. An army corporal. He’s my guide-dog. He may be waiting up for me. But the main problem is Colonel Toby. I’m supposed to report in to him each day. If they don’t hear from me by tomorrow morning they might get curious. I don’t know if I’m important enough for a search party, but there might be some heat.”

“Can you make it to the table?”

“Sink first.”

I got up, holding on to the bed, and waited till the room had steadied before lurching over to the basin to be sick again. That made the head worse for a while. I ran cold water and splashed it over my head until the coolness numbed the aches. As I straightened up Eve threw a towel at me; I grabbed it, dabbed myself part dry and joined her at the table. She laid out mugs and plates and knives, and brought a pan over with steam rising from it.

“Coffee?” she asked.

“Acorns?”

She smiled and shook her head. “Last drops of Camp. All the way from London.”

She poured the coffee and the three men joined us. I studied them. The giant looked to be older than the others; his black beard was flecked with grey. The other two were in their mid- twenties, dark-eyed and dark-skinned. From somewhere in middle or southern Europe. They still hadn’t said a word.

Eve placed a paper bag in the middle of the table. She opened it and revealed a sweating half-sausage. She placed a heavy black loaf by its side and cut off chunks. The men attacked the meat and the bread as though they expected it to be taken away from them at any minute. I cut off a slice and chewed some bread and waited. She looked paler and younger. The short hair did that. Made her big features more pronounced. Made her boyish and vulnerable. I could see her mulling over what to say to me, what to do with me. She kept my gun at her side, handy for her right hand. And I’d seen her use one. If she was who they said, then she’d be familiar with this weapon. Both made in Germany.

Finally, she had eaten enough and sat supping her coffee. “OK, Danny. Here’s my story. You can believe it or not. I can’t prove any of it.” So she began…

“They were right on one thing: my name is Ava Kaplan. I was born here and grew up here. My father was a doctor and a local official. My mother was a teacher.

They could have lived in one of the smart areas of Berlin. But they chose to live here, in Hallesches Tor, because they were needed. They were good Germans, Danny. Germans. But they were also Jewish.”

She let the word hang in the air and echo in my own memory. I wondered which camp they’d ended their days in, and whether they’d died together. Sometimes at the end, it’s the only important thing.

Eve continued, “Father used to visit London before the war. He loved England and all it stood for. Especially the bookshops. He taught me to read English and to love its literature.” She smiled at me. “He sent me to school in London for two years when I was sixteen to perfect my English. Despite the rise of the Nazis Father saw no reason to worry about his position; he was an important member of the community. A valued doctor. My mother taught in a German school, not a Jewish one. Even the Brown Shirts would not be so stupid. After Kristallnacht he began to fear for me and my mother. He sent me back to London in 1938 for my safety. My mother wouldn’t leave him. She couldn’t believe it would come to… this.”

“So you weren’t a spy,” I said with relief.

She gave me a wry smile. “Oh yes. Yes, I was. At the start. They tracked me down. I mean the SS. In London. Heinrich Mulder, one of their top agents. He told me that my parents’ lives were at stake unless I helped them with some research, he called it. He offered to protect them if I did this small thing.”

“Was it small?”

“To start with. I didn’t know what to do. I had been getting letters every week or two from my parents, but when war broke out they stopped. I don’t know if they were prevented from writing to me or whether MI5 intercepted them.”

“Bastards.”

“Yes. Bastards. By then my English teacher had helped me to get a job as a journalist. Mulder was back in Berlin now. We communicated by transmitter and the occasional dead letter drop. There were other agents in London. Mulder told me to use my job as a reporter to meet people and send back information. Mainly he wanted to know about morale. And defences in the city. Whether London could hold out much longer. Where the factories were.”

“So you played along.” I guess there was a hint of reproof in my voice, though god knows I would have done the same thing for my folks.

She placed her mug carefully down on the table and looked me in the eye. “Danny, I played along for all of five minutes. I contacted the British Secret Service and told them what was happening.” Her voice was low and steady. A vein jumped in her forehead.

“You what? Cassells said you worked for the Nazis. You mean…”

“I worked for both sides. That is, I worked for MI5 while pretending to work for Mulder. We were called the Double Cross team. A unit codenamed B1A within MI5.

Most of the others were spies sent over by the Nazis. MI5 caught them before they’d had their first sip of English beer. We had their codes. Have you heard of Enigma? Bletchley Park?”

I shook my head. She waved her hand as though it didn’t matter, or she couldn’t say any more. She went on. “We knew every time they sent an agent over and were waiting for them. Lots were happy to turn and work for Britain.” She paused.

“The alternative was a firing squad. I was unusual. I came in under my own steam. We made up stories to send back to Germany. Disinformation. I was good at my job. The English gave me more money. The Germans promoted me to Major. Our biggest success was Normandy.”

I sat back in my chair. My head pounded as I struggled to make sense of it. Who they hell was I to believe? Her of course.

“Why would Cassells lie to me? Did he know all the details? Did he know you were working for us?”

She shrugged and took a cigarette from my packet. Her sidekicks helped themselves too.

“I don’t know. We were an autonomous unit. My English handler kept things pretty close. But I would have thought when I went missing…”

I tried a different tack. “Why did you come back to Berlin? Who were you in contact with up to a couple of weeks ago?”

She flicked her ash on the floor. “I came back for my parents. I had one or two letters from them through my German drops in London. That was part of the deal.

My father didn’t say much; he wasn’t allowed to. But it was clear they were under pressure all the time. Threatened with… well, it was pretty vague… loss of privileges, he said. But I knew he meant the camps. But the letters stopped completely in January ’44. Maybe Mulder found out I was playing both sides. I came to find them.”

“And…?”

She shook her head. “I knew it was a waste of time. When the war ended I wrote to them. Every week. Nothing. Then I got a response.” Her eyes flicked to the men beside her. “My letters were being opened.”

“The Nazis?”

“No. Let me introduce my friends.” She pointed to the big bearded man. “This is Gideon. And these are Joseph and Ariel.”

Gideon held out his huge paw to me and smiled. “Shalom, Danny.” Joseph the kid and Ariel the bald followed suit. Ariel tugged at his wire glasses. He said, “Sorry about the head, Danny,” in good English.

“It’s OK. You’re Jewish?” I said unnecessarily.

Gideon broke in. “Jewish Brigade. We got out of Berlin in ’39. Got to Lisbon and then London. Joined up in 1940. We fought with the British Army in Italy. We came back after the war to see if we could find our friends and relatives who stayed behind. There was no one.”

Young Joseph cut in, suddenly animated, as though he’d been released from a spell.

“Every one, gone! Wiped out! These murderers, these sadists destroyed us!”

Ariel reached out and touched Joseph’s arm; he clearly kept the boy under his wing. He spoke tenderly to him. It sounded close to German. I recognised the throaty sounds of Yiddish from my camp days. The words formed in my mind. Joseph sat back and took a deep breath.

“So we decided to do what we could,” went on Gideon. “Some Jews had survived.

They’d lived secret lives here. Not all Germans were rotten. And others came back. This was the only home they knew. They were born here. We are helping them find each other. We have contacts who have lists… of the camps. We also help people to get to Israel.”

“Past the British blockades,” Joseph added contemptuously.

Eve cut in. “A second cousin of mine survived and knew Gideon. They went looking for others of the family. They found Germans living in my parents’ flat. But one of the neighbours had kindly intercepted my letters. All of them. Gideon wrote to me.”

“And your parents?” I asked quietly.

“They were taken away two years ago.”

“But I thought you were getting letters…?”

Eve suddenly looked weary. Her shoulders slumped. “They tricked me. Mulder tricked me. He forced my parents to write several letters at once and didn’t date them. It doesn’t take much to add a date later.”

“I’m sorry. Have you been to their flat?” Then I realised.

She looked at me funnily. “You’re sitting in it. This floor and the one below.

Though we’ve only taken this floor.”

“What happened to the Germans who…?”

Joseph grinned at me and drew his finger across his throat. I looked round at them. They stared back at me defiantly.

Eve glared at him. “We threw them out, Danny. A few bruises.”

“We should have…” Joseph again sliced his throat. “It’s what they did to us! I am sick of Jews being slaughtered! Now we fight back, Danny.”

“I understand all that you’re saying, Eve. And I believe everything you tell me.

But why did you disappear? Britain must have been grateful to you. The risks you took. They would have helped. Surely? Why all the pretence?” I ran my hand over my hair and winced. The bumps seemed bigger.

She got to her feet and began pacing. “It’s complicated. It was about six months ago I found out that my parents had vanished. I’ve been in radio touch with Gideon and my cousin several times since. There’s no doubt I’ll never see my parents again. I had only one thought: I wanted Mulder’s head. The British wouldn’t let me have it.”

“You went to them?”

“It seemed the natural thing. I wanted to know if Mulder was still alive and how to find him. At first my case officer in London was helpful. But then he closed down on me when he realised my intention. He indicated that Mulder might have survived, but wouldn’t tell me if he was in prison or on trial or taken by the Russians.”

“But we know!” cut in Ariel. His glasses flashed at me.

Eve stopped walking. “He’s here. Alive and prospering. He is one of the district controllers set up by the Russians. I demanded that London let me come here and settle things with this swine. They told me to drop it. It had got political, they said. What the hell is political about murder?”

“Were they the watchers?”

She shrugged. “That was my guess.”

“So you faked your disappearance. Made it look like you’d been kidnapped or murdered, and came here? You’re here to get even?”

“An eye for an eye…” said Ariel rubbing the tape between his lenses.

“Hasn’t there been enough killing?” I asked.

She rounded on me, her eyes blazing. “Not nearly enough! Not nearly! Do you think this swine should get away with it? That he should get a nice job and everything is forgiven and forgotten? Is that your morality, Danny?”

Ariel leaned across the table to me, his eyes gleaming through his specs. “Ava – Eve – said you were in Dachau. How can you not want to kill these scum?”

“Because that’s how scum think! That’s what scum do. When does it stop, Ariel?

When the last man’s left standing?”

Eve sat down again. “Do you believe in evil, Danny?”

“As an entity? As some amorphous opposite force to good? No. Do I think some men are evil and are incapable of remorse or contrition? Yes. I’ve seen it.

Experienced it.” I bent my head and parted my hair. They could all see the livid scar that ran through my scalp.

“But you’d let them go on living? Hoping they’ll change, see the light?” she asked.

This was what I still wrestled with. I’d seen humanity at its worst and its best in the camp. Afterwards I’d watched in sickening incomprehension the Pathй News showing the other camps being liberated. My gut reaction was to find every one of the guards and follow up every link in the chain of command and string them up, personally. But in more rational moments, I found myself arguing that enough blood’s been spilt, and revenge leaves an emptiness in the heart. The rational moments were still pretty rare.

I raised my hand to ward off her attack. “No, I don’t think the SS will turn into choir boys. But would shooting him let you sleep easier? I’ve lost my god.

My country has gone to the dogs. And the woman I fell for turns out to be a double agent.” I tried a smile to soften the rhetoric. It came out a grimace.

“The only thing I’m certain about is that there are no certainties. Look where it got Hitler. Eve, I don’t know what’s right and wrong any more. Did I tell you Gambatti offered me a job? I actually gave it serious thought. That’s how far I’ve slid.”

She examined my face for a long time, as though she’d never seen it before, or would never see it again. “You said you were on my side,” she said.

I nodded.

“This is my side.” She put her hands out and touched the nearest shoulders of Joseph and Ariel.

I walked over to the sink and rinsed the cloth. I pressed it on my head. It was beginning to feel easier. I still had questions. Why did Cassells lie to me about Eve? Who’d been following her in London? If it was MI5, were they concerned for Eve or Mulder? Who killed the man I went to meet in the bar? But my poor bashed brain had taken all the news it could absorb for one night. I returned to the table and sat down.

“You know where Mulder is?” I asked. She nodded. “OK, what’s your plan?”