by Celia Rees
Dori reached up to the rack and took down the case that she’d brought with her.
“Goodbye, then.” Dori hugged Edith, then Adeline. “You two be careful.”
“You, too, Dori.” Edith kissed her cheek.
“Yeah.” Adeline held her tight. “You stay safe.”
The train slowed and stopped. Passengers alighted to change trains or stretch their legs. Dori and Elisabeth disappeared into the Ladies’ Waiting Room. One of the British officers stayed at the open window of the train, watching. The other roamed randomly, as if merely exercising cramped muscles while he kept an eye on Edith and Adeline, who were innocently strolling, taking in the sharp, clean mountain air, enjoying the pale sunshine, looking up at the mountains serrated against the sky. The man on the train was becoming more and more agitated, nervously scanning the platform for a woman in uniform and her companion. From the corner of her eye, Edith saw Dori and Elisabeth, arms linked. Two German women of a certain age and class. Dori on the outside, now in a pale-gray duster coat with the collar turned up, a feathered hat down over one eye. Elisabeth, similarly attired. Dori carried a small suitcase. Everything in it would be appropriate to a good Nazi wife in search of her husband, right down to underwear, handkerchiefs and items of toiletry. The Beretta she carried was a present from her SS husband. French clothes, perfume, makeup, picked up by him in Paris. Dori was undercover. Her British uniform would be lying in the waiting room, discarded like a shed skin.
38
Hotel Aquila Nera–Schwarzer Adler, Vipiteno Sterzing
17th May 1946
Torta ai Carciofi
Angelina’s Recipe
Pâte Brisée (pie pastry)
6 artichokes
3 eggs
5 spoons of Emmenthal cheese
Oil
Salt
Pepper
1 lemon
Clean the artichokes, cut them into slices, and place in a bowl with water and lemon. In a frying pan, heat a little olive oil, add the drained artichokes, season with salt, and let simmer for about 15 minutes. Eventually add a bit of water. In a bowl beat the eggs, add the grated cheese and cold artichokes. Season with salt and pepper. Roll out the dough and fit into a pie tin, prick with a fork and pour the artichokes. Fold the edges of the dough on artichokes and bake at 190 degrees for about 20 minutes. Serve with a cream cheese.
Vipiteno Sterzing was a small place. Too small. Little more than a marketplace and a long, narrow, main street. The borders might have shifted, but the place remained resolutely Austrian. The clock tower still displayed the double-headed eagle, the motif repeated on the decorative ironwork outside the shops and houses. The German language was ubiquitous: in sign and script, spoken in the street by men in Tyrolean hats and lederhosen.
Sitting outside the hotel on the main square, drinking espresso, they were attracting attention. Not all of it friendly. This region was not occupied. The people lacked the servility routinely displayed by the Germans, whatever their true feelings might be. The English, the Americans had no presence here. Its residents were not beholden, not dependent on anybody. There was no one to remind them constantly to feel guilty about the war they’d lost, the damage they had done. They were free to feel anything they liked, and Edith sensed hostility. Seething with Nazis, Dori had said. The last redoubt had not happened, but Nazis were likely to have drained down through the border to settle and be joined by others who were waiting for papers, marking time in their onward journey to who knew where.
“Don’t stare.” Adeline stirred sugar into her coffee. “Relax. Enjoy the sunshine.”
“I keep wondering which ones are Nazis. I feel as though they are all watching us.”
“Most of them, probably,” Adeline answered. “And sure they are. At least it’s only suspicious Nazis watching us. No sign of any British or Americans.” Edith was not sure how comforting she found this observation. “Wonder what this guy wants?”
A little man was approaching from across the square. He addressed them in German although he was very obviously Italian: small, wiry, dark-complexioned with thinning black hair swept back over his scalp. His eyes were a yellowish brown behind his thin-rimmed glasses. His wide smile showed a glint of gold.
“Signora Graham? It is nice to see you here.”
Edith looked up at him in surprise. “How do you know my name?”
“I was asked to keep an eye out for you. We don’t get very many visitors. And who is this lovely lady?”
Adeline didn’t say.
“You are?” Edith asked.
“I don’t introduce myself. I’m so sorry. My name is Signor Rossi. At your service.” He bowed to Edith, “I have a nice place with a view of the lake. Pensione Alto Adige. I extend an invitation for you to come tomorrow. Four of the clock. I prepare Marende. Very nice. Special to the region.” He leaned close. His breath smelled of garlic and cloves. “For you and a German guest, you understand? Take the path north around the lake,” he added more loudly. “First house you see. A nice walk for you.”
He beamed his smile at her, but there was no matching warmth behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, no light in his dull, clay-colored eyes.
A tall figure loomed over him. “This fella bothering you?”
Signor Rossi took one look and scuttled off across the square with a muttered, “I welcome you tomorrow.”
“Sergeant! What in the world are you doing here?”
Edith should have been surprised to see him, but somehow she wasn’t.
“On holiday.”
Jack sat down at the table. He was wearing long khaki shorts, army socks folded over his hiking boots, a pale-blue Aertex shirt, and a short-sleeved cricket pullover. His face and neck were tanned, his arms and legs a convincing brown, as though he really had been on a walking holiday.
“I’m here with Kay. Honeymooning, in fact.” His grin was slightly sheepish now. “Finally tied the knot.”
“Oh?” Edith looked at him. That did surprise her.
“Spur of the moment, like. Kept it small, you know. German padre at the hospital. Just a few of me mates and a couple of her nursing pals.”
“Where’s Kay now?”
“In the church looking for frescoes. Bier, Birra!” He shouted to the approaching waiter. “And make it quick, Alphonso! What did the Eyetie want?”
“He invited me to Pensione Alto Adige for Marende to share with a German friend. Four o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
“Did he? I know it. Below Pensione Sterzberg, where Dori’s staying. I’ve been here a couple of days. Having a recon.”
“She’s here?” Edith was relieved to know that Dori arrived safely, even if the information had come from a most unexpected source. What exactly was Jack doing here?
“Last night,” he went on quietly. “I’ll let her know. Send word with Giorgio our padrone. Ex-partisan. He can be trusted. Thanks, mate.” Jack swept the beer from the waiter’s tray, took a long swallow, and shuddered. “Can’t stand this stuff. I’m gasping for a pint of Holden’s Mild, or even Bank’s in a pinch.” He drained his beer and stood up. “Better get on. Kay’ll be finished in that church soon. It’s only the size of a rabbit hutch.” He looked down at them. “Don’t say nothing to her about any of this business.”
“Of course not.” Adeline and Edith spoke together.
“See ya later. In the bar at seven, say?”
He left with a wave and went into the hotel.
“What’s he doing here?” Adeline asked. “Is he here as your faithful German shepherd? Or is something else going on?”
“Yes, Adie.” Edith shook her head. “I’d like to know, too!”
Jack came down to dinner with Kay on his arm. They looked very much the honeymooning couple. Kay tall and tanned, with just a dash of lipstick, her dark hair caught in at the nape, falling onto the neck of her short-sleeved summer dress. Jack in gray slacks and a blue open-necked shirt, his unruly curls slicked back and tamed. His skin had a close-shaved,
polished look, and was that cologne? Kay’s influence, no doubt. He was quieter in her presence, more subdued.
They drank their aperitifs on the terrace under the wide, low eaves of the hotel. The gray-paved expanse of the square was empty apart from a few women dressed in black scurrying to evening mass in the small, squat church next to the clock.
“Doesn’t look like much, does it?” Kay sipped her Cinzano. “But it hides real riches. The frescoes are marvelous.”
“Not to be missed, eh, Kay?” Jack said, picking up their conversation. He winked at Edith. “Tomorrow morning might be a good time for you to go and have a look.” He waved his empty beer glass and looked around the table. “Anyone want another? Hope dinner’s soon. I could eat a dead dog.” He laughed. “Probably will be.”
Dinner was a fixed menu, a mix of Austrian and Italian dishes cooked by the innkeeper’s wife. The guests sat around a long table in a wood-paneled dining room decorated with trophies: tusked boar, delicate chamois, scimitar-horned ibex, the spreading antlers of red deer. As they were the only guests, they had the table to themselves. Their host, Giorgio, was small and dark with glasses, like the man in the square, but there the resemblance ended. Giorgio’s brown eyes had a brightness, as if he was always close to laughter; his curling smile was genuine, no gold teeth in evidence. He poured the wine, a dark Marzemino. His wife, Angelina, served the food. Quiet, self-contained, and darkly pretty, she smiled at their praise, her high color heightening further as she tucked a curl of black hair back under her white cap.
There was much to praise. First, she brought them a huge plate of antipasti: dry-cured ham tracing-paper thin, circled by smoked sausage and layered with almost transparent slices of rose-colored juniper-scented speck. Giorgio brought out wire baskets of bread, wheaten and rye, speckled with fennel seed and caraway. The antipasti was followed by a savory tart. Edith had to ask what it was. Torta ai Carciofi. Artichoke hearts. Edith had never tasted anything like it before and immediately asked for the recipe.
“How are things at the hospital?” she asked Kay.
“Busy, as always.” She wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Although fewer TB cases now that the weather’s improved. Anna and Seraphina came to see me. Did Jack say?”
“No, he didn’t.” Edith looked over at Jack. He’d finished the wine and was calling for grappa. Kay would have her hands full there.
“I know what he’s like,” Kay said, guessing her thinking. “Can’t change him. Wouldn’t want to. Now, the Jewish girls.” She returned to the previous topic with a bright smile. “Anna is fully recovered, thanks to you. They said they were leaving. Off to Palestine. Didn’t say how, and I didn’t ask. All organized by your friend, Harry, to start a new life there. I hope they find it, I really do. God knows they deserve it, all they’ve been through. We’ve had a couple more in, you know. Jewish girls, from Poland. They were in Ravensbrück. Young, pretty, and such strong spirits despite terrible injuries. Really terrible.” She put down her fork. “What was done to them, it doesn’t bear thinking about. We’re doing what we can, but they’ll never be the same. I don’t know how they could do it. Doctors, nurses deliberately harming, mutilating young flesh. They are going to testify. The girls, I mean. At the trial of those responsible. Brave of them to do it, but they are very determined. I hope the swine swing for what they did.”
“Dolce, signora?”
“No thanks.” Kay dabbed her lips again. “I’ve rather lost my appetite. He’s very fond of you, you know.” Kay nodded toward Jack, who was clinking glasses with Adeline. “Doesn’t normally care for CCG types—his words, not mine. One of the best officers I’ve served under. That’s what he said. That’s great praise coming from him.”
Edith felt herself color. “Don’t know what I might have done to deserve that accolade.”
“You’re straight, that’s what he said. Never afraid to do what’s right, never mind the brass hat and red tape brigade. He hates all that.” She turned to Edith. “I don’t know why we are here, Jack wouldn’t say, but I don’t believe it’s just a honeymoon, despite all his sweet-talk, and I don’t believe meeting you here is ‘just a coincidence.’ He’ll tell me if he wants to. If not? Better I don’t know. He’s been up here before, you know.”
“I knew he’d been in Italy.”
Kay nodded. “He was here or hereabouts at the end of the war. You’ve heard of the last redoubt?” Edith nodded. “He was here to clear it out. He’d always been a bit vague about what he did during the war. You’ve heard his patter: ‘A bit of this, a bit of that, a lot of the other.’ Makes out he was a ducker and diver, a bit of a skiver.” She smiled and shook her head. “Nothing could be further from the truth. He was in Special Forces. Did you know?”
“Well, yes . . .” Special Forces. SAS That’s where the connection lay. Bulldog Drummond. This was his “show.”
“I didn’t. Didn’t know what he did. One night—it was after he came back from Berlin—he got very drunk—so drunk he could hardly stand, and you know Jack, he can hold his liquor. And he was—” she searched for the right word “—emotional. Which was unusual. Doesn’t show his feelings, not ever. A smile and a laugh, that’s Jack. Not this night. I asked, what was the matter? Said he’d had bad news. He’d met someone, an officer, I think.”
That must have been Drummond, Dori had mentioned meeting them together in Berlin.
“He was over in Germany,” Kay went on, “looking for his men, Special Forces, who’d been dropped behind enemy lines. There were hopes that they might turn up as POWs, one or two were still trickling in, but there was no sign of them. They’d tried everything. Even held a séance.”
“What are you two so thick about?” Jack sat down between them, a slightly owlish look on his face. The bottle of grappa in front of him was two-thirds empty.
“Nothing, Jack,” Kay said. “Just talking.”
“Is that right? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were spilling beans.”
Jack gave a lazy smile, but his eyes had a glitter about them. Hard to tell whether he was angry, or more than a little tipsy.
“It’s my fault, Jack,” Edith said. “I encouraged Kay to speak out of turn.”
“Want a tot of this?” He offered the bottle. “Come on, join me.” He poured two glasses. “They were men I knew. Trained with ’em. Fought with ’em. It’s hard to understand, but that kind of friendship, it’s closer than most marriages. I knew Bulldog’d be looking for ’em. If these did not die well, it will be a black matter, that’s what he’d said. Any sign? I asked when I saw him in Berlin. He’s as drunk as I’ve ever seen him. ‘’Sfar as we can tell, Sergeant,’ he says to me, ‘they did not die well.’ He’s found ’em, all right. Buried in some wood. Naked. Hands tied. Shot in the back of the head. Should have been treated as prisoners of war. He recruited me to help find the bastards who done that.” He looked out to the deserted square. “Some of them might be hereabouts. Come on, our wench.” He held a hand out to Kay. “We’re s’posed to be on honeymoon. Time for bed. See you in the morning. Enjoy the frescoes,” he added, looking at Edith. “Around eight. After mass.”
39
Hotel Aquila Nera–Schwarzer Adler, Vipiteno Sterzing
18th May 1946
La Prima Colazione
First meal of the day
Bread rolls or toast, with unsalted butter and jam (or just jam) cornetto (croissant) biscotti. Served with cappuccino (coffee with hot milk). In Alto Adigeo (Südtirol) cheese, ham and eggs form part of breakfast, a clear Austrian influence. Brioche substitute for cornetti.
Edith woke to the thin, oddly cracked sound of the town bell. She looked at her watch. Nearly eight o’clock. She got dressed quickly and went out to the square, hurrying through the stallholders setting up for the market. Women, heads covered, dressed in black, were already out looking along the stalls piled with fruit and vegetables.
The church was dim after the brightness outside. It took a moment to adjust her eyes. B
unches of candles flickered and flared; windows glazed with veined, translucent alabaster let in a dim, golden light. The church was almost round, as wide as it was long, without side aisles. Edith was reminded of Templar churches, Byzantine basilicas. She could see what Kay meant about the frescoes. The wide arched roof was completely covered, so were the walls. It was like stepping into a painted cave.
The church was almost empty. Two black-clad old women, heads covered, sat hunched outside a tall confession box, telling their rosaries in a steady buzzing drone like a fly trapped behind glass. Another woman knelt at a pew about halfway down the church. Dressed in black but obviously much younger than the crones in the side pews, she knelt, straight backed, hands clasped, her head half covered by a dark, filmy scarf. Edith slid into the pew beside her.
“You took your time.” Dori didn’t look up. “Haven’t been on my knees this long for quite a while.”
“Sorry. Bit of a late night.” Edith knelt down. The pew smelled of old wood, incense, and plaster dust. She bent her head to her folded hands in a parody of piety. “Jack’s idea to meet here?”
“A church is good cover. A good place to rendezvous.”
“How are you doing? Do they believe you?”
“On the surface, can’t do enough for us. Mein Host swears he helped my husband on his way back to Germany. We’re staying in Pensione Alto Adige. It’s just a bit higher up the hillside from Pensione Sterzberg where you will be meeting Kurt. They are both owned by Rossi. I’ve been given the best room. Lake view and everything. But it’s wearing a bit thin, to be honest. I’m beginning to get a bit angry. Hail Mary, full of Grace,” Dori intoned, beads clicking between her fingers. “The Lord is with thee. Blessed are thou among women.”
“Do you have to?”
“Don’t want to attract attention. Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus . . . Anyway, I am a Catholic. A little rusty, perhaps, but it soon comes back. Gets me in good with the locals. A positive boon. Catholic Church hand in glove. Helping the escapees, providing all sorts of goodies: papers, passports, safe havens in nunneries and monasteries, all the way from here to Rome. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”