The Truth in Our Lies

by Eliza Graham

  When we arrived at our destination in Estoril, the middle-aged couple were already sitting under a sun umbrella on a hotel terrace. I noted a smartly dressed young man and woman on a table nearby. Tanned. Blue-eyed. Athletic. German. Beattie didn’t seem to notice them. Again I felt uncertain how to respond. Enemies, close enough to touch, and we had to eat and drink as though this were normal? My eyes were blinking in the bright seaside light. Thank goodness I’d thought to pack a pair of dark glasses in my satchel.

  Frau Silberman was thin; pale, despite the sunshine, eyes flickering from one spot to another. Her husband appeared more relaxed, but I noticed how he clutched a small leather case on his lap, probably containing their visas and money. Good, he had his back to the Germans. Good, also, that I could sit with my right side in the shade. I’d have to pull up the veil to talk to the Silbermans but wouldn’t feel as exposed.

  Beattie seated himself so he was facing the young German couple. He removed a small potted plant from the table, placing it on the wall beside us.

  ‘Probably bugged,’ he mouthed at me. He ordered coffees and pastries for the four of us in what sounded like rough but effective Portuguese. Frau Silberman looked at my face and then away to the beach.

  It was a peacetime scene. A vendor wheeled an ice-cream cart down to the sand, where a young female gymnast performed perfect cartwheels and somersaults in the air, ending each set with a graceful handstand.

  ‘I have our Pan Am tickets,’ Herr Silberman said. ‘We fly to America tomorrow.’

  ‘We can’t persuade you to stay here longer and help us?’ Beattie spoke in a low, gentle voice.

  The waiter appeared with a laden tray. ‘Pasteis de nata,’ he said, smiling at me. I hoped my greed hadn’t been too obvious.

  ‘We have to get out.’ Frau Silberman spoke under her breath as the waiter left, eyes on the German couple. ‘I don’t feel safe here. People are watching us. At night I hear footsteps outside our hotel door.’

  ‘Anything you can tell us today will help our efforts.’ Beattie sounded soothing. The young German couple continued to stare at the four of us. Even if we were out of earshot, it might be conceivable that either or both of the pair could lip-read.

  Beattie’s hand swept a linen napkin off the table. ‘So clumsy. Excuse me.’ He bent down. ‘Who were your biggest clients?’ he asked the man quietly while he was out of sight of the German couple. ‘What were the names of ships or submarines that used your rubber seals? What kind of manufacturing error would cause a fault in the processed rubber?’ He sat up again.

  Herr Silberman stiffened. ‘When I was still running the factory our quality was first rate. We never let our seals leave the plant unless they were perfect.’ Beattie took out a cigarette case and offered him a cigarette. Herr Silberman took one and muttered names and details.

  I took notes, writing pad out of sight on my lap, careful to use a form of shorthand. The industrialist’s wife never ceased her restless eye sweeps. ‘Why exactly do you want this information?’ she asked, covering her face with her hand as she spoke.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Beattie said. ‘Rest assured that anything you give us is gold dust.’

  But Frau Silberman was distracted. ‘That girl on the beach is attracting the wrong kind of attention,’ she whispered. ‘She’s Jewish. I’ve seen her before, here and in the city.’

  The girl’s tangle of thick reddish-brown hair certainly made her stand out.

  ‘Sometimes people shout after her, saying she’s stolen their money. Is she mad to be so obvious?’

  Her husband pressed her right hand. I noticed an indentation on Frau Silberman’s ring finger. Had a valuable ring been sold or handed over to a border guard in return for turning a blind eye?

  Beattie glanced at the gymnast. ‘Probably the kid’s best chance of earning enough to buy a ticket to Palestine on some old steamer without a proper visa.’

  Herr Silberman resumed his descriptions of the naval chiefs and junior ministers he had dealt with, those he had taken to lunch, to dinner, to the opera. ‘They didn’t boot me out of my own company immediately,’ he said. ‘Until 1938 I carried on almost as usual. Then they stole everything from me but kept me working as an adviser in one of my own factories, on a pittance until we made a run for it.’

  ‘Nobody knows more about the industry than you, Frank,’ his wife said, suddenly sitting straighter and setting her chin. Beattie motioned with his hand that she should keep her voice down. The sea breeze was blowing my hat brim up and down, exposing more of my scarred skin.

  Herr Silberman squeezed his wife’s hand. ‘I spent years perfecting our rubber seal. I designed it to save lives. I know this sounds strange, but part of me still wants my products to keep German seamen safe.’

  ‘For God’s sake, remember your brother and that camp,’ Frau Silberman said. ‘He was sent there before the war. When they let him go, he’d lost two front teeth and one of his kidneys no longer worked,’ she told us.

  ‘Where’s your brother now?’ Beattie asked.

  ‘We last saw him in Hamburg. He was supposed to be heading to Switzerland – there’s a priest, a naturalised German who helps Jews. But my brother doesn’t reply to letters any more.’

  The young German couple put coins on the table and got up, seemingly losing interest in our group. A tabby cat slunk onto the terrace and curled up on the tiles in the sun. The industrialist’s wife looked at it. There was something in her eyes I understood.

  ‘Can you give me the priest’s name?’ Beattie asked in a voice so quiet Herr Silberman had to lean forward to catch it. He nodded at me to pass over my writing pad and wrote ‘Fr Paul Becker’.

  ‘He’s a good man. I don’t want him compromised,’ Herr Silberman told Beattie, handing me back the writing pad.

  ‘We’ll be discreet,’ Beattie said. ‘We want the war to end, the killing to stop, the gangsters in charge put on trial. We want sailors and submariners to surrender to us because it’s hopeless.’

  A young man entered the terrace and sat down in a wicker chair close by, seemingly absorbed in a book.

  ‘We want German servicemen and civilians to have doubts about the system and what’s going on at home.’

  I was actually working on a radio play with that very goal in mind. I’d brought my notes so I could fill in any quiet time with writing a few more scenes.

  Men in what must have been Portuguese police uniforms were moving the gymnast off the beach. She wasn’t taking it well. I could almost see the sparks flying off her. She’d be a good character in a play. Fully conveying the force of rage emitting from the girl would be challenging, though.

  Herr Silberman stood up, briefly eyeing the young man in the wicker chair. ‘They’re everywhere, listening in. If they think I’m helping the British they’ll take it out on my brother.’

  Beattie had told me about assassinations and kidnappings in Lisbon – Gestapo agents seizing people from the streets. The Portuguese secret police raiding hostels and taking refugees off to internment camps. And as for what might happen to the brother if he was still in Germany, well, Herr Silberman’s fears were understandable.

  ‘When exactly do you fly?’ Beattie asked, although he’d have known the flight time.

  ‘We can’t see you again, Mr Beattie, we have packing to do.’ Frau Silberman picked up the handbag – an expensive pre-war Parisian-looking model. The edging was peeling off the soft tan leather straps, which were starting to fray. Frau Silberman had probably sat in train carriages at border crossings, her fingers worrying away at those straps. ‘Thank you for the coffee and good luck with your endeavours.’ Her eyes met mine. ‘I wish we were braver people. We were once, before I first became ill in France. Before we had to cross the Pyrenees by night.’ She shuddered.

  I held Frau Silberman’s gaze. ‘I hope the future brings you peace of mind after everything you’ve suffered.’ I pictured the couple in an American diner, admiring the architecture of Manhattan, feeling lo
st and free all at the same time.

  Herr Silberman stopped. He turned around to me. I noticed just how stooped his shoulders were. ‘Fräulein, do you think you can begin to understand what we’ve been through?’

  I met his weary gaze. ‘I’ve never experienced what you have,’ I said. ‘But I can try to imagine.’ An ironic smile covered his face. I half-closed my eyes. ‘Going out to buy provisions and feeling nervous because there’s a new face on the street or someone in a shop queue who shows an interest in you. Flinching every time you see anyone in uniform. Packing up – again – and abandoning more of your possessions.’ I looked at Frau Silberman. ‘Even your cat. Saying goodbye to people, not knowing whether you will ever see them again. Telling one another it will all be fine, even when you can hear police cars rumbling over cobblestones towards you.’

  He frowned. I’d gone too far, presumed too much, but what the hell, I went on. ‘Some mornings when you wake up, the sun’s out and you forget. And then you remember again.’ My voice shook. I’d put too much of myself into the last sentence. I woke up happy most mornings now, but moments later memories ambushed me. The other words I wanted to say dried up inside me.

  Frau Silberman touched my right cheek. I froze. Nobody apart from a doctor or nurse touched my skin like that. ‘Liebling, you have lost someone, haven’t you?’

  A girl lying crumpled beside a burning velvet curtain.

  Nobody said anything for a moment.

  ‘Give me that.’ Herr Silberman sat down and put out a hand for my pad.

  He turned his back on the wicker lounger and scribbled down words. ‘Technical details,’ he murmured. ‘Names of the wives of some of the people in the ministry and navy I used to sell to. The months of their birthdays.’ He gave a brief smile at my surprise. ‘Well-judged presents kept us safe for a while. A senior submariner had an elderly Pomeranian he adored. I gave him a leather collar for the dog. He wasn’t such a bad man.’

  ‘We did have an old cat,’ his wife said, addressing me. ‘We brought him with us from Germany. Jews were barred from owning animals.’ Her voice grew harder. ‘Did you know that our pets were confiscated and destroyed? Even young and healthy ones, just to punish us?’

  I noted it mentally for weaving into a future broadcast. Sometimes the truth threw us more useful lines than the lies we created.

  ‘We kept Noodle indoors. Our servants in Germany were loyal. But then we had to leave him in France.’ She put a hand to her throat. ‘We should have taken him to the vet to . . .’

  ‘He’ll be well looked after,’ her husband told Frau Silberman.

  She frowned at me. ‘How did you know?’

  I nodded at the tabby asleep in the sun. ‘The way you looked at him.’

  ‘You’re sharp, young lady.’

  With a nod to us, Herr Silberman led his wife away.

  The gymnast had shaken off the detaining arms of the police and slunk away between the parasols on the beach, not unlike a cat herself. I watched her run up the steps to the hotel terrace in a few easy bounds. Her auburn mop of hair was cut with a fringe falling just above her eyes, which gave her an intense, questioning look. She wore a shabby lower garment that looked like a divided skirt, presumably to preserve her modesty when she was upside down, and a faded blue shirt. An old jacket was tied round her waist. The girl met my gaze boldly as she dodged between the tables, evading the waiter who moved towards her.

  Beattie blinked, checked one pocket, then another, looked under the table. ‘Damn, my wallet.’ He frowned in the direction of the street. ‘That little devil must have taken it as she brushed past.’

  I undid my handbag and drew out my purse, which contained the escudo Beattie had handed to me on the plane.

  Beattie looked at his watch. ‘On to our lunch now, I think. Let’s get away from the damn sea.’

  My heart lifted at the thought of even more unrationed food.

  ‘I booked a place near the city centre. They say the fish is good. Afterwards there are some cafés in Rossio Square where we might find other persons of interest. Though the Silbermans alone have made the trip worthwhile, especially with their mention of a tasty Swiss cheese.’ He rubbed his hands and gave me a searching look. It was either the case that he was pleased with my performance with the Silbermans or felt that I had over-exceeded my brief. He would find a way of making his pleasure or otherwise known to me over the next day or so.

  We had lunch in a restaurant round the corner from the German propaganda centre. I ate fish fresher than anything I’d seen for over two years and relished the scent of the lemon wedge I squeezed over it. Beattie regarded me over the wine carafe with benevolence. ‘You did well, Anna, getting them to open up.’

  I blushed, annoyed with myself for being so pleased.

  ‘It feels so strange,’ I said. ‘Being in such proximity to people we’ve been fighting for years now.’

  ‘Use it as research,’ he said. ‘Some of these people are your audience.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘But . . . ?’

  ‘When I think of our listeners I have to like them. Or at least empathise with them.’

  Beattie nodded. ‘You need to get under their skin. And they need to get under yours.’

  We finished our wine in silence. Beattie threw down his napkin. ‘No need to hang around wasting time. Shift yourself, Hall.’

  He summoned the waiter, giving him the name of someone official sounding who would settle the bill. We walked up into what Beattie told me was one of the older parts of the city, the Bairro Alto. To the left the soaring walls and arches of a ruined church caught my eye, making me stop to stare up at them. ‘A Carmelite church hit by the earthquake in the eighteenth century,’ Beattie told me. Our expedition involved multiple sets of steps. Beattie took them in his stride, though I noticed he insisted on pausing a couple of times to admire the view, taking in ragged breaths of oxygen. Again I admired the São Jorge fortress on the opposite hillside and a huge monastery adjacent to it.

  ‘No time for tourism.’ Beattie led me on, turning off one of the stone stairways into a narrow side street, hardly more than an alleyway. ‘Finckler is a dress designer,’ Beattie told me, pressing the bell. ‘He owned a studio in Paris but used to live in Berlin.’

  Like Beattie himself.

  ‘He does all kinds of things now while he waits for a visa.’ We knocked on the black door. Footsteps pattered down. Finckler was small, neatly dressed even though his suit fabric had faded. Beattie introduced me and Finckler showed us upstairs. Rolls of fabric were laid out on long tables for pinning and cutting. Draped over mannequin dolls were dresses and jackets, their folds falling into elegant lines. I hadn’t seen so much silk and linen for years and felt an urge to bury my face in the new garments and breathe them in.

  ‘We can still find quality fabrics here.’ Finckler was watching me. ‘Cottons, linens, wools. And refugees lug bales of silk across Europe and sell them here. I can offer those with money clothes as good as they ever had in Berlin and Paris.’

  I wanted to run my hands over a roll of soft ivory linen but wouldn’t risk marking the fabric.

  ‘You’re right to admire that, Miss Hall,’ he said. ‘I thought a dress with a pleated skirt, with a few rows of this above the hem?’ He pointed at a reel of narrow midnight-blue satin ribbon.

  ‘How long would the skirt be?’

  He looked at my dress. ‘Just to where your hem is. If we were in Paris I’d say above the knee, more modern. Young women with legs like yours should show them off.’ He said this dispassionately so I didn’t mind the comment. Finckler shrugged. ‘But here? Portugal is a conservative place.’

  ‘And what are you making with this?’ Beattie asked, his attention apparently on a folded piece of satin. I knew he’d been taking in the discussion of my legs.

  ‘An evening gown for the German mistress of a senior diplomat at their embassy.’ Finckler gave a deep laugh. ‘Ironic, no? She’s actually married to one of
the diplomat’s juniors.’

  ‘The German mistress comes up here?’ I felt myself stiffen. How could Finckler bear to measure her, pin the satin round her?

  He nodded. ‘Bizarre, isn’t it? And she doesn’t mind climbing up all the steps to this studio. She pays good money so I’ll ensure her new gown has the diplomat panting.’

  I stared at a little cardboard box full of what looked like small, round bullets. Lead weights for dress hems. ‘It’s breezy down by the seafront,’ I said.

  ‘Could lead to all kinds of exposure,’ Beattie added.

  But I was thinking of something else. Lead bullets. Shortages. Malfunctioning bullets. Could we claim slave labourers in munitions factories had tampered with them? A story formed in my mind. I pulled out my notebook again and scribbled a few ideas for a quick radio news item. The authorities have pounced on a group of slave labourers in a munitions factory wilfully sabotaging ammunition to endanger our soldiers. Any troops picking up the broadcast might waste an hour or so inspecting their bullets. At best, whole cartons might be recalled. ‘Sometimes you’ll be the fisher and sometimes you’ll be the spinner of tales,’ Beattie had told me when I’d started this work. ‘Your listeners may be military or civilians, but the objective is the same: to make them act in Allied, not German, interests.’

  Finckler turned to Beattie. ‘The fancy woman is my main news. There’s always a chance she’s been planted to keep an eye on me, but I don’t think so.’ I couldn’t help looking out of the window to see whether anyone was hovering on the street. He went to one of the mannequins and slit open the long hem of the skirt it wore with his scissors, removing a piece of paper. ‘It’s all in here.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Beattie took the paper.

  Finckler looked again at the roll of ivory linen I was still admiring. ‘Years ago I made a dress from a very similar linen for your mother, Alexander.’ I blinked at the old man’s use of Beattie’s first name. ‘Uta’s dress was longer, of course, as was the fashion then, and the waistline was lower. But the skirt had a navy trim, too.’