She pressed his hand before letting it go, and whispered, ‘That would be lovely, darling. Now we must think up some more funny stories about our time in Paris to keep Ribb in a good temper. Be careful how you look at me, though, because sometimes he gets jealous.’
Gregory was much too old a bird not to heed her warning; so he did not ask her to dance again, although he danced with Madame Szalasi and twice with Fräulein Weiss. Between-whiles he played the part of a cultured Frenchman who is something of a buffoon, and amused the party with cynical stories illustrating the hypocrisy and stupidity of the English. He found Ribbentrop somewhat conceited and very self-opinionated but, apart from that, congenial company.
It was the Nazi Foreign Minister’s easy affability that had first opened to him the road to fame. On Anneliese’s money they had lived in a comfortable villa in the rich Berlin suburb of Dahlam, and made themselves a popular host and hostess. To their parties had come Von Papen, Himmler and then Hitler. The latter found Ribbentrop useful to him in giving colloquial translations of leading articles in the British and French press and then the villa at Dahlam made an excellent rendezvous for holding secret meetings. In it, during January 1933, had been hatched the conspiracy which led to the aged Hindenburg’s giving his agreement to a Von Papen-Hitler coalition government, and from then on the genial host of the conspirators had never looked back. Many of his fellow party chiefs resented his arrogance and doubted his abilities, but the ex-house-painter, Hitler, was so abysmally ignorant of all foreign affairs that he could never be persuaded that Ribbentrop was not a second Bismarck.
Even conceding that to be an absurd exaggeration, by comparison Gregory found the Hungarian Nazi a dull dog, the A.D.C. only a moderately intelligent yes-man, and the two women of very limited mentality; but that was a good, rather than a bad, thing as it left him free to concentrate on the two principal members of the party.
Soon after two o’clock it broke up. Ribbentrop and Szalasi both had large cars waiting for them, and from the point of the island their ways lay in opposite directions across the two halves of the bridge which joined it to the opposite banks. As the Germans and Sabine were staying in Buda they offered Count Lászlo a lift, and the Szalasis, who lived in Pest, said they would drop Gregory at the Vadászkürt. But before they parted he managed to get a brief word with the Count.
‘It was a near thing,’ he confided, ‘but I’ll only have myself to blame now if she gives me away. I’m spending all tomorrow with her; so please let the others know why I shall not be able to turn up at our meeting. I can’t make any further contribution, anyhow, so I’d be only a listener. But do press them to get something definite from General Lakatos. It is more urgent than ever now that I should get away from Budapest. I want to leave on Saturday.’
Count Lászlo had proved himself the most reasonable and helpful member of the Committee, and he promised to do his best; so Gregory took such comfort from that as he could, but he knew that during the next day or two he would be faced with a most tricky piece of tight-rope walking.
In spite of his light-hearted fooling with Sabine during the first part of their dance together, he had soon realised that the only way to prevent her from turning him over to the police was to invoke her happy memories of their love affaire. That had not proved difficult; but, with her slender body pressed to his and her lovely face so close, his own memories had flooded back to him with most unsettling clarity.
He wondered now just how much that had influenced him in suggesting that they should spend the whole day together—when an hour’s talk over a drink before lunch would probably have been sufficient to satisfy her curiosity and secure her silence—but he decided that, although it had been an added incentive, he would have done the same with any woman in similar circumstances, solely because she was Ribbentrop’s mistress. It was certain that a conceited man like the Reichsminister talked freely with his intimates, so Sabine must be privy to many Nazi secrets. She might prove as close as an oyster but such a chance to pick up red-hot inside information about the enemy was one nothing would have induced him to miss, and to make the utmost of that chance, necessitated his getting her to himself for as long as he could.
The disturbing fact was that when he had proposed this long session he had had in mind no more than a day spent together as old friends, whereas she seemed to have read into it more than that. Recalling the words he had used to win her over, he could not blame her; but just before they left the floor she had called him ‘darling’, and she had said it in a tone which implied her expectation that, if only for a few hours, when next they met they would resume their old relationship.
Such a prospect had no strings to it—provided that it was only for a few hours. But later, in conversation at the table, it had emerged that, while Ribbentrop was returning to Berlin on Saturday afternoon, Sabine was staying on in Budapest to attend the wedding of an old friend the following Tuesday before driving back to Berlin in her own car. That meant that from Saturday evening she would be her own mistress; and Gregory foresaw that if he had not left Budapest by then, a situation was likely to develop which would put him in a fix.
He did not want to be unfaithful to Erika, but he knew his Sabine; and one of her attractions for him had been the frank joy she took in giving rein to her passions. He knew, too, the truth of the old saying that ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’. After a long day spent together, and with Ribbentrop out of the way, it was a certainty that she would expect matters to reach their logical conclusion. And if, after having again aroused her passion for him, he refused to play …?
It was that he had had in mind when he had told Count Lászlo that, if she gave him away, he would have only himself to blame. If he was not out of Budapest by Saturday he would be safe only if he put his scruples behind him. And even that was not the final issue. If he did find that Sabine was inclined to be indiscreet about Nazi affairs, and that with patience he could wheedle really valuable information out of her, to make the utmost of such a marvellous opportunity he would feel it his duty to stay on in Budapest as long as she did. Then there could be no escape from becoming her lover again.
He was honest enough with himself to admit that should that happen one side of him was going thoroughly to enjoy it; but the other side was his private conscience, and as far as that was concerned, Sabine was no longer just an old flame. She had become fire—and he was playing with it.
10
Divided Loyalties
The St. Gellért Baths were, perhaps, the nearest thing of their kind in the modern world to those palatial establishments for health, social intercourse and sensual pleasure that had been such a prominent feature of Roman civilisation. The great building stood facing the Danube on the slope of the Gellért hill at the southern end of Buda.
In its lower floor there were marble halls and corridors leading to scores of rooms in which patients consulted their doctors and every variety of treatment could be given. On the next level there was a true replica of a Roman swimming bath. Towering columns flanked its sides, on its broad paved surround stone seats, where the bathers could rest awhile, were interspersed with larger-than-life-size statues of the gods and goddesses, and the water in it bubbled; for it was known as the ‘champagne bath’, from being aerated by pipes set in its bottom so that swimmers should enjoy additional friction as they passed through these aerial fountains. On the same floor there were long corridors of rooms in which dozens of male and female attendants plied their trade as masseurs.
Above, and set still further back into the slope of the hill, was another swimming pool open to the skies. The tiles with which it was lined gave the effect of the water in it being blue, and at regular intervals a mechanism connected with it created artificial waves, so that bathers could take their choice of going in either when it was rough or smooth. The pool was set in a horse-shoe shaped arena, the base of which was occupied by a restaurant. Outside it there were tables shaded by gaily coloured umbrellas. Round the r
im of the horse-shoe there was every type of well-sprung lie-low, swing-seat and basket chair, and the whole was protected from the wind by a sixty-foot high bank planted with flowering shrubs and flowers.
At a few minutes before eleven Gregory was waiting for Sabine on the broad flight of steps outside the entrance. She arrived shortly afterwards, driving herself, in a pale blue and silver Mercedes. When she had parked the car she greeted him without a smile and a shade hesitantly.
‘I can’t think what got into me last night. I behaved like a sentimental schoolgirl. This morning I was in half a mind not to come; but I couldn’t quite bring myself to have you arrested without first having heard what you have to say’.
‘I’m glad of that,’ Gregory replied with becoming seriousness, ‘because if you had I am quite sure that for ages to come you would have suffered the most terrible remorse from having sent me to my death.’
‘You seem to be more concerned for me than about yourself.’
‘Naturally.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Once dead I wouldn’t have anything to worry about.’
She gave him a reluctant half-smile. ‘Aren’t you even a little bit afraid that I might put my duty before sentiment, and tell the police I know you to be a British secret agent?’
From the higher step on which he stood he smiled down on her, then shook his head. ‘No, not even a little bit. You are far too nice a person to betray an old friend; and, anyhow, you’re quite wrong about me being here as a spy.’
‘I wish I could believe that; but knowing the sort of man you are, how can I?’
‘What’s come over you this morning? I suppose it must be that having me on your conscience gave you a bad night. Come on; let’s go inside and bathe. Then we’ll have our talk and, if you really feel you must, you can put the police on to me afterwards.’
‘I’m not going to bathe with you. And you’re right about my having had a bad night. I’ve been worrying myself silly over this thing, and I want to get it settled right away.’
Gregory saw now that he would have to go all out to win her round again, otherwise she might prove a really serious danger to him; so he said earnestly: ‘Listen, Sabine. I may have been exaggerating a bit when I said that if you denounce me I will be shot. You must know that I’m not the sort of man to allow myself to be arrested while there is fighting chance of keeping my freedom. But I might quite well be caught before I could get across the frontier. If I were, there would be nothing you could do about it afterwards. Like it or not, you would be compelled to give evidence that I am an Englishman and that, coupled with the fact that I am here under a false identity, would certainly lead to my being condemned as a spy; and in wartime spies are shot. So for both of us this is a really serious matter, and you will feel much more capable of taking a right decision about it after you have freshened yourself up with a swim.’
‘I haven’t brought a swim-suit.’
‘That’s no difficulty. I’ll hire one for you.’
‘I … I don’t like wearing things other people have used.’
‘Nonsense! You know perfectly well that in a place like this they are thoroughly sterilised. What you really mean is you would prefer to display that lovely figure of yours to me in a swim-suit chosen by yourself. That is quite unnecessary when I remember so well all the hidden charms beneath anything you wear—including that tiny mole on the left side of your tummy.’
A faint blush coloured her magnolia cheeks for a moment and she stamped a small well-shod foot. ‘Really, Gregory! It’s not fair to rake up the past; and I didn’t mean to let you talk to me about that sort of thing.’
‘Am I to take it, then, that you neglected to say your prayer this morning?’
Her eyes widened. ‘My prayer? What d’you mean? I have no special prayer.’
‘Oh yes, you have. At least, you used to say one in the old days. It went: “Holy Mary, I believe, that without Sin Thou didst conceive. And now I pray, in Thee believing, that I may Sin without conceiving”.’
Too late he realised that, by implying that she might have said that prayer before coming to meet him, he had fully committed himself as aspiring again to become her lover. But the merry little rhyme did the trick. Throwing back her head she suddenly burst out laughing. Then she cried:
‘Of course I remember. And every morning you used to buy flowers to set before my little statue of the Virgin, just to show that we didn’t really mean to take her name in vain. What fun it was.’
Taking her gently by the arm he led her unresisting up the steps into the baths; and she made no further protest while he bought their tickets.
It was the last Friday in August and a day of brilliant sunshine; so there were far fewer people in the Roman bath than up round the Blue Pool on the higher level, yet the horse-shoe terrace there was by no means as crowded as Gregory remembered it in peacetime. To bathe there was as expensive as to swim from the Excelsior on the Lido or the Bar du Soleil at Deauville, and although Budapest’s hotels were full it was not with wealthy holiday-makers from other countries; but the terrace was a favourite haunt of those in the capital’s smart set who remained in it for a part of the summer, so as Sabine came out to the Pool several acquaintances waved greetings to her.
Gregory took note of these salutations with silent satisfaction. She had already compromised herself the night before at the Piccadilly by accepting him as a friend, and she was doing so again. It could now be pointed out to her that, should conscience drive her to the police, she might explain away her failure to act the previous night as being due to reluctance to create a scene in public, but it would not be easy to laugh off having come swimming with him the following morning. That, coupled with a disclosure that he had formerly been her lover, might make things decidedly awkward for her with Ribbentrop. He was in good hopes now that she would not force him to resort to such shifts in defence of his safety; but he knew from the past that she was, like so many Hungarians, fanatically patriotic and, as a woman, distinctly unpredictable; so he got down to the work of setting the clock back by every means he could think of.
It was work that entailed little effort and no hardship. There she was with her golden-brown body made the more striking from having chosen a white elastic swim-suit, and looking more like a million dollars than most things one sees in Vogue. She could swim like a fish and dive like a heron. In the great bath there were rubber seahorses, dolphins and a huge coloured ball to play with. As a background there were a score of other bathers and two score more lounging round the pool, with a lot of pretty women among them; but they served only to throw her up as their superior. Laughing and romping they went in and out until after half-an-hour they had just pleasantly tired themselves. Then Gregory piloted her to a rubber mattress that was out of earshot from other people and, as she stretched herself on it, sat down on a cushion beside her. Signalling a waiter he sent for two champagne cocktails, and as the man went off said to Sabine:
‘Now, tell me about yourself.’
‘It’s for you to tell me about yourself,’ she replied with a sudden return to gravity.
He shook his head. ‘Not just yet. I don’t think we are going to quarrel, but we might; and I’m much too fond of you to run the least risk of that before I’ve learnt what has been happening to you these past few years.’
‘If you were all that interested you could have written to find out.’
‘No. You know as well as I do that we agreed we wouldn’t write because letters would only make our craving for one another greater.’
‘That’s true. And they probably wouldn’t have found me anyway; because after our brief romance I travelled quite a lot—mostly in Italy.’
‘Tell me about your marriage.’
‘That was in the autumn of nineteen thirty-eight. Kelemen Tuzolto was a nice person. He was cultured, intelligent and very distinguished looking. I can’t honestly tell you that I worshipped the ground he walked on, but he was a man a woman could respect, and I had a great fondness for h
im.’
‘It sounds as if he was a good bit older than yourself.’
‘He was.’
‘For that matter, I am. You can’t be much more than twenty-eight, and I’m over forty.’
She gave him a contemplative look from under her long lashes. ‘I think you will still be attractive to women when you are sixty. It’s not your lean face and muscular body so much as your mental vitality. No one would ever be bored while in your company. Anyhow, twelve years or so isn’t much between a man and a woman, and personally I’ve always hated being pawed by empty-headed children who think they are irresistible because they have just put on their first uniform. No, Kelemen wasn’t terribly exciting and he was a little on the wrong side of fifty, but he was one of the nicest people I’ve ever known.’
‘From the way you speak of him I take it that he is dead?’
‘Yes. He died about eighteen months ago from a heart attack. It was an awful shock, and I’ve been terribly restless ever since.’
‘Poor you. But why the restlessness? Did he leave you badly off?’
‘Oh no. I receive quite a big income from our stud-farm down on the Hortabágy, and as Kelemen had no legitimate children I have the life tenancy of the Tuzolto palace on the Szinháy Utcza. It is one of the smaller ones, but a very pleasant house. And I’ve a villa on Lake Balaton.’
‘Your making a wealthy marriage must have been a great relief to your mother after the difficult time she had in making two ends meet while you were a girl. Is she still alive?’
‘Yes, when I married, Kelemen insisted that she should come to live with us, and she has her rooms in my three houses. But for most of the year she lives down on the Hortabágy, and we don’t see much of one another these days.’
‘Why? Don’t you get on together?’
Sabine sat up, shrugged, turned over and lay down again on her tummy. ‘I wasn’t very clever about my early life, as I think I once told you. My morals were no worse than those of other girls of my class, but the trouble was that they were rich and I was not. They could afford to have their affaires and still make good marriages. My only asset was my looks, so I ought to have made them the bargaining price of marriage, but I didn’t; and by the time I met you I had got myself the sort of reputation that doesn’t induce a rich young man of good family to lead a girl to the altar for her looks alone. It was that which caused the breach between mother and myself.
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