Miss Graham's Cold War Cookbook

by Celia Rees

  “That’s more or less what McHale said. No one’s interested in going after them anymore, punishing them for what they’ve done.”

  “We are, Edith.” He took her hands and held them tightly. “We are.” His eyes took on a sudden, dark intensity. “We are a patient people. We remember for millennia. They will never be safe from us. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far they run.”

  She felt a shiver pass through his thin body, as if he was tensing himself in readiness for this unknown future. His grip slackened and he held her hands more loosely, his eyes distant now, looking into a future that was unlikely to include her. He leaned forward, as though there was something more, something he wanted to tell her. She thought she knew what it was, but didn’t want to hear it. Not yet.

  “Let’s go to your room, shall we?” She looked around. The bar was filling. The crowd approaching the noisy stage of drunkenness. This was no place for goodbyes.

  “I was expecting you earlier,” he said as he turned the champagne in its silver bucket of melted ice water. “It’ll be warm now.”

  They took it into the bedroom and drank it anyway.

  His lovemaking was so slow and considerate and achingly tender that all her suspicions were confirmed. There’s a leaving at the end of this, there has to be was her last fleeting thought before all consciousness was lost in fierce oblivion.

  Afterward, they were quiet for a long time, neither of them saying anything, just lying still together, hardly moving, wanting to stay in the exquisite languor of the moment.

  Eventually, Harry sighed and leaned up, stretching for his cigarettes.

  “I’m leaving,” he said as he lay back on the bed.

  “When?” Soon, she knew, but she had to ask it.

  “A couple of weeks at most.” He exhaled. “My work here is done. I’m being demobbed.”

  “Where will you go? What will you do?” Although she knew the answers to those questions too.

  “To Israel.” He no longer called it Palestine. “To join my brother in Haganah, play my part in the struggle. The British have no appetite for it. They’ll be gone in a year. I want to be there when it happens.” He stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette. “I want to be present at the beginning, to help build a new state, a new country which will be my country.” He stubbed out his cigarette and turned to her. “Come with me, Edith. We can start a new life there. Together. I don’t want this to be goodbye.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Come with me, then! The country is beautiful. You’d love it there—and there is so much to do. It will be exciting. We can make a new beginning. My brother lives in Tel Aviv. We can stay with him, to start with, anyway. You can write your cookery book. We’ll go through Italy, Greece. You can collect recipes . . .”

  Edith had not been expecting this. She’d steeled herself to part from him. She knew he was going and soon. His life lay elsewhere, and theirs could only be a brief affair. So she’d denied what she felt. Made up any number of narratives that it was for the best.

  “But I’m not . . .” She looked away.

  “Jewish? You can convert. Anyway, I don’t care. I want you. As you are. You are an unusual woman, Edith.” He sat up in bed. “Most of the women I meet show too much, or there’s nothing to discover. You are different. So much of you is hidden, but each time we meet, I find out more.” He leaned over to look again into her face. “I could go on doing that for the rest of my life and still not know it all.”

  “This is so sudden—”

  She didn’t know how to answer him. She wanted this more than anything else in the world, and yet—

  “Not for me. I’ve thought about it a lot. All the time, in fact.”

  “I can’t.” She bit her lip. “Not now. I have to see this through.”

  “I understand.” He stared straight ahead, arms folded. “I’ll be taking more or less the same route through Italy as the Nazis do,” he said after a moment. “If the plan is to follow this von Stavenow, I can recommend safe places, leave word with comrades. If I can help, I will. Be careful, Edith. Each party involved will be watching, waiting to double-cross the others. It’ll be a case of who jumps first.”

  “I know.” Edith sighed. Everyone lying, led by the von Stavenows. Subterfuge upon subterfuge. Who knew where the truth lay? If it even existed.

  “Afterward. When it’s over. You can come to me.”

  Afterward? She couldn’t think that far ahead. She loved him, had since that freezing night in Lübeck, but there had always been a goodbye at the end of it. His words were like a sudden flare lighting up a landscape that she hadn’t even known was there.

  “You’re right.” He reached to turn out the light. “It probably wouldn’t work.”

  “That’s not what I’m thinking. It’s just so—sudden. It’s what I want—more than anything—but here I am, turning you down!”

  She turned so he wouldn’t see her tears spill.

  “Hey.” He took her chin to turn her face around and gently touched her cheeks with his fingers then his lips. He smiled down at her. Her tears were her answer. All he needed to know. “Don’t cry, Edith. The offer’s there. Always. I’ll leave my brother’s address. I’ll wait. However long it takes. I know about things that have to be done. I know you wouldn’t want to let others down.”

  “Dependable type, that’s me.” Edith smiled through her tears.

  He laughed softly. “That’s why I love you. When it’s over. You will come to me. Promise?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s enough talking.” His hands began to move over her body. “I can think of better things to do.”

  35

  Alte Küche, Berlin

  28th April 1946

  Breakfast Hoppel Poppel

  A kind of omelette. Potatoes fried with ham and onions until crisp and browning. Eggs mixed with a little cream and seasoned with salt and pepper poured over the mixture with a sprinkling of parsley and grated cheese. Allowed to set over a lowish heat. Finished under the grill until cheese is melted.

  When Edith woke, Harry had gone. She dressed and left his room quietly. Back in her own room, she ran a bath, glad that there was more to their affair than the excitement of clandestine arrangements, the fierce intensity when they were finally together. That could feel tawdry—and horribly temporary. Being here, surrounded by all this devastation, it was like being in a place where the war had never ended; the febrile whirl of sudden passions, furtive sex, casual affairs, and endless drinking still went spinning on. He’d given her a way out; a chance to live a normal life in a place where one could look forward, instead of backward into death and destruction. A sudden shiver ran through her, and she gripped the sides of the bath, shaken by the powerful conviction that she should have gone with him. Someone walked over her grave . . . The bath was cold, that was all. She shouldn’t have stayed so long in the water. She stood up and reached for a towel, rubbing at her goose-pimpled flesh.

  There was a knock on the door.

  “Just a minute.”

  She wouldn’t say no a second time. She snatched her robe from the back of the door, her heart beating disconcertingly fast.

  Edith stepped aside as Dori strode in, stripping off her gloves.

  “No need to look quite so disappointed. Who did you think it was? Harry?”

  Edith didn’t, couldn’t answer.

  “I saw him leaving looking very hangdog and sorry for himself, and you’re not exactly overjoyed to see me are you, darling? Did you think he’d come back to sweep you off to the Promised Land?” Dori didn’t wait for a reply. She lit a cigarette and exhaled slowly. “Adeline went off to Nuremberg early this morning. She says your dinner with McHale went well.”

  “Well, he’s offered to help . . .”

  “Thought he might. He’ll get von Stavenow out of the Russian Zone and on his way to Italy. Then he’ll try to double-cross us.”

  “That’s what Harry said.”

  Dori
looked up sharply. “You didn’t tell Hirsch?”

  “He guessed. Some of it anyway.”

  “Well, he won’t say anything. He’s not exactly a stranger to this kind of thing, is he? We thought you’d do well.”

  “We?”

  “I met Bulldog Drummond last night. Jack was with him. Old comrades, apparently. Both in the SAS.”

  Edith nodded. That didn’t surprise her. There was something about both of them: a casual, complete physical assurance that disguised a compressed strength, a power they kept hidden. She remembered Drummond’s hands. The flat strength of his wrists, square palms with the blunt fingers and those nicely kept nails. Hands that could kill, could squeeze the life from a man like wringing out a dishcloth, probably had done many times.

  “When Jack went off to telephone his girl, we had a quiet word. We’ll wait until the Americans have got von Stavenow as far as the South Tyrol. That’s where we’ll nab them.”

  “I really don’t understand.” Edith spread her hands. “Why don’t the Americans just take him once he’s in their zone?”

  Dori regarded her with a mix of affection and pity. “Because we’ll have Elisabeth. You can bet she’ll be part of the deal.” Dori stubbed out her cigarette and fished in her bag for her makeup. “Bulldog’s arranged your transfer.”

  “What?”

  “To Bad Oeynhausen. He can arrange pretty much anything. You won’t be going there, of course. That’s just for show.” She looked at Edith in her compact mirror. “I say, you do want to come, don’t you? Didn’t think to ask. Sort of assumed . . .”

  “I wouldn’t miss it. I want to see justice done,” Edith said with sudden conviction. “The von Stavenows get their comeuppance.”

  She saw Kurt’s hand on Elisabeth’s shoulder. The closeness that had always been there. She’d been duped, used by them. Her affection for Elisabeth exploited. That cut deepest. How many more lies had Elisabeth told? About the boy? The child, Wolfgang? Edith suddenly felt very cold.

  “Not a word when you get back to Lübeck.” Dori put down her mirror and took Edith by the shoulders, looking into her face. “Not a hint. Elisabeth must suspect nothing. The whole enterprise depends on it. You understand?”

  Edith nodded.

  “Good.” She returned to her makeup, dabbing powder. “I hope you’re packed, darling. Jack’s bringing the car round. He stayed last night. Couldn’t let the poor lamb go back to some ghastly barracks.” She was back to her usual arch, teasing banter with a flash of the outrageous. The dark, serious mood gone with a click of her compact. “I’m cadging a lift to Hamburg, I hope you don’t mind. I don’t know about you but I’m starving. Sex always makes me hungry. Thought we might go somewhere for a spot of breakfast before we’re off.”

  The Alte Küche was off Kurfürstendamm, not far from the ruins of Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche. They found a table and ordered coffee and three plates of hoppel poppel, a mix of ham, potatoes, cheese, eggs, and cream. Edith was surprised at how hungry she was. Jack pronounced it as good as a fryup.

  “Not so keen on the stringy cheese.” He wiped his plate with a hunk of dark bread. “But I’ll miss this grub when I get home.”

  “Think I’ll pop to the Damen.” Dori finished her coffee. “Hope it’s not too gruesome. Edith, do you want to go? It’s a long trip.”

  “I’ll wait outside.” Jack stood up. “Want to check on the motor. Don’t trust these blighters. Have the hubcaps off and the petrol siphoned in no time.”

  “I’ve seen worse, but I’ve seen better,” Dori commented when they found the facilities. Her nostrils flared at the stench of ancient urine and drains. The only ventilation came via a tiny rusted window in the far wall.

  “This transfer,” Edith said through the thin partition. “When will it start?”

  “It has to be soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “Soon. You have to be ready to go. Holiday in the Tyrol. Very scenic.”

  “Why the Tyrol?”

  “Because that’s where they all go. The whole area used to be Austrian until a blink ago. Absolutely swarming with old Nazis waiting to be moved on to Rome or Genoa and take ship for South America. Good hunting country. That’s what Bulldog’s calling it. Operation Hunting Trip. Ha!” she gave a humorless laugh. “We’ll bag him from right under McHale’s nose.”

  “But you won’t have jurisdiction there.”

  “Exactly. Neither does anybody. We just have to get them to Austria, where we do.”

  There was a rustle of underclothes, the clank of a chain and flushing. Edith emerged to find Dori leaning on one of the cracked basins, smoking a cigarette. There was no soap. Edith swilled her hands under a dribble of rust-tinged cold water, took one look at the hand towel and dried her hands on her handkerchief.

  “Where does Drummond come into this?”

  “He’s looking into the fate of his chaps—they should have been treated as prisoners of war. Instead, they were shot.” She balanced her cigarette on the side of the basin and began to apply lipstick. “Some of their chaps, ours too, were betrayed, picked up and immediately they were dropped. Eighteen agents by our count. Nazis waiting when they shouldn’t have had a whiff of them. We want to know how they knew. Could be that there was a traitor at the heart of SOE. Either that, or they were deliberately sacrificed.”

  “To what purpose?”

  “Like chaff dropped from a plane to deceive and confuse.” Dori worked her lips together to an even carmine. “To hide the fact that a circuit was blown, to save their own hides, or something more sinister.” Dori leaned forward, hands on the crazed lip of the basin, studying her reflection in the cracked mirror. “We just don’t know. It’s like a cobweb in the darkness. We want the spider at the center.”

  “How’s nabbing Kurt going to help you find out who that could be?”

  “Not him. Her. Consider the company she kept. Kaltenbrunner, Gehlen, Kopkow.” Dori counted their roles off on her fingers. “Security, Military Intelligence, Counterespionage. Adeline’s gone back to Nuremberg to ferret through the files. Of course, we want von Stavenow, but it’s looking as though she could be an added bonus.”

  “Tom McHale doesn’t seem to think what happened during the war matters very much anymore,” Edith stared at their reflection in the cracked and clouded mirror. “He says the world has moved on.”

  “He would say that, wouldn’t he? And he’s wrong. He should be more careful. Once a traitor, always a traitor, in my experience.” Dori caught her arm. “A word before we go. Careful what you say in the car.”

  “You mean in front of Jack? You can’t suspect Jack? He’s straight as a die.”

  “This is strictly need to know, and he doesn’t.”

  It had begun to rain. Jack stepped out from the narrow alleyway where he was sheltering. He looked up at the sky.

  “What do they say? Something about Hundes?”

  “Es regnet junge Hunde,” Edith supplied. High up on the wall behind him, a rusty window, half open. Had he heard any part of their conversation?

  “Well, anyway.” He looked up at the sky. “It seems to be slackening off now. All set?” He flicked his cigarette away. An old man picked it up in a quick, furtive, fluid movement, nipping the end and dropping it into his pocket. “Dori following on, is she?”

  “She’s just paying.”

  He smiled. “She’s quite a girl.”

  “Yes.” Edith looked at him. “You two seemed to get on very well.”

  “You could say that.” Jack’s smile became distant, as if reviewing some private satisfaction.

  “What about Kay?”

  “She wouldn’t mind. Well—” he shrugged “—not all that much. I’ve been talking on the blower, keeping her sweet. Besides, she knows me. Me and Kay, we got an understanding. What happens in Berlin, stays here, if you take my meaning.”

  Edith stepped toward the car. “I won’t breathe a word.”

  The car stopped at the checkpoint. They
were about to leave the British Sector of Berlin and enter the Soviet Zone of Occupation. Russian soldiers waited in their green caps with the red star, weapons held in readiness. A gloved hand came through the open window with a gruff demand: “бумага, паспорт. Papers. Passport.” A graphic reminder that the game was changing into McHale’s Us and Them.

  Dori turned up her astrakhan collar and closed her eyes. Jack was silent, absorbed in his driving. Edith stared out of the window. The passing landscape was pine forest and heathland. Armies had passed through here. A burned-out tank stood stranded on high ground; the rusted remains of an armored car nose down in a ditch. Here and there lay reminders of civilian flight: the skeletal remains of a pram, a sodden bundle, colorless, shapeless, abandoned to rot by the side of the road. She was reminded of Elisabeth’s hasty departure from Prussia.

  “Elisabeth told me the most amazing story . . .” She began to tell it, adding in all the little details she remembered so vividly. Dori appeared not to be listening, Jack was concentrating on his driving, but it was a way of passing the time.

  “Another checkpoint up ahead.”

  The car slowed, jolting over potholes. Dori opened her eyes.

  They watched as their papers were given the same frowning scrutiny, the slow turning of the passports. They stared ahead, doing their best to look indifferent when the barrier creaked jerkily upward.

  “Don’t like being in Ivan’s territory,” Jack said as he accelerated away.

  The land was the same either side. Undulating country, fields dotted with cattle, greening with new crops, stretched off toward dark forests, unknown and enigmatic. The Green Border began on the Baltic. Lübeck was only a couple of miles away from it. An arbitrary line marked with sagging strands of barbed wire strung between rough-hewn poles from the forest. It followed the contours of the land, an inexorable progress up hill and down dale, through farmyards, railway stations, even houses, all the way to Czechoslovakia. The Great Divide had begun. The line had been drawn. A visible border for an invisible war.