‘Hello, Joseph,’ he called, standing. He sounded choked.
She watched his friend arrive and had to swallow to banish her rising emotion to see these two men wrap each other in a heartfelt hug; two boys from that sweet photo with its romantic, adventuresome backdrop of the desert were reunited. Stella was sure Joseph was weeping, from the way he took off his small round glasses and whipped out a handkerchief to polish the lenses. She noted he dabbed at his eyes, while Rafe hurried to make introductions.
‘Er, Joseph,’ he cleared his throat, clearly swallowing his emotion too. ‘This is Miss Stella Myles. She is my research assistant. Miss Myles, this is Joseph Altmann, my oldest and dearest friend.’
Joseph returned his glasses and blinked behind them. His eyes were an olive green, she noticed, and were part of a series of spare, handsomely assembled features.
‘Enchanté, Mademoiselle Myles,’ he said and nodded over the hand she extended.
‘It’s a pleasure. What a lovely way you are introduced. That must feel special,’ she replied in French.
‘We are brothers in all but blood,’ Joseph admitted.
Rafe moved them into English, signalling to the waiter for a tea for his guest. He muttered just for their hearing, ‘Honesty doesn’t help in the spy game, Joseph, but given your candour and at risk of being reckless and especially in the presence of both of you who deserve no lies, you should also know that Stella is not only my lover but she is also the love of my life.’ Both Joseph and Stella gaped at him. He shrugged. ‘There are only three people alive in the world that I can put my hand over my heart and claim that I love and would die for. Two are seated right here,’ he said, smiling softly. ‘Why wouldn’t I want you both to know of each other’s meaning to me?’
Stella looked back at Joseph with a perplexed smile; worried now for the danger of this admission, having been so careful before about staying in character. She didn’t think anyone had heard, but even so, why take such a risk? It was as if he wanted someone or something else to take over, to make the decisions for him. She shrugged and fell in with his spirit of honesty. ‘I have never fallen for anyone until I met Rafe,’ she admitted, unsure of what else to say other than the truth. ‘I love him.’
‘As do I, so I’m not just enchanted, Miss Myles, I’m honoured to know you. It seems you and I are amongst the very few who have impressed Rafe enough to even know his preferred name, let alone be worthy of his love.’
The same waiter arrived, setting down a fresh glass of tea for Joseph. It was a convenient moment of distraction.
‘And is Brigitte as beautiful as I recall?’ Rafe enquired.
‘Radiant with her new son in her arms.’
‘Congratulations again. A son! Well done. You’re a better man than I.’
The men laughed conspiratorially. ‘No, a real man makes daughters, they say,’ Joseph offered generously, ‘but he’s such a sweet boy, we do dote on him . . . so do the girls.’ Then he pulled a face of disgust. ‘They dress him up in dolls’ clothes! Brigitte finds it amusing. I am personally disturbed but then as they do that to the dog too I have to accept these are the mysterious ways of females.’ He looked at Stella and winked.
Helplessly charmed, she wondered if both these men were pressed from the same mould. ‘Be assured, it’s very normal. I’m told you came here as youngsters,’ Stella said, sweeping her gaze behind in a casual gesture in case they were being watched. She couldn’t pick up anyone intent on them but it was so fleeting, she desperately wanted to check again but instead returned her attention to Joseph.
‘Indeed we did. I’m sure Rafe has told you about the peacock and Yassine laughing in the background as we coughed and hacked our way through our first smoke.’
‘Mother was livid with us,’ Rafe recalled in a tone of pleasurable wistfulness.
‘And Bel was jealous.’
She watched Rafe swallow. ‘Furious we did it without her,’ he chuckled sadly, glancing at Stella. ‘Bel is my sister.’
‘I gathered,’ she replied gently, realising only now that this was the first time she’d heard his sister’s name uttered. Isabella? Annabelle? There was plenty to still learn about Rafe but as always it felt as though an invisible but enormous clock ticked loudly around them.
‘You can be frank in front of Stella,’ Rafe assured with a deep and meaningless chuckle. ‘Be calm, Joseph. She knows. Hence her disguise. She has perfect vision and beautiful hair that you can’t see and a laugh to light your world.’
Joseph shot a look of sympathy over his glasses at Stella, who wished she could take hers off. ‘My world is filled with darkness, it’s true,’ he said softly over a fresh gust of amusement, designed to fool any watchers. Stella was impressed by both of them, especially Joseph for whom she knew this must be torture. ‘I shall not waste time on preambles. I don’t believe I was followed but I live in a nation of suspicions and cannot take our safety for granted.’ He removed a small book from a leather satchel.
Rafe gasped. ‘I’m being flung back a quarter of a century,’ he gusted merrily, slapping Joseph on the shoulder. ‘I remember this!’ he exclaimed, adding in a lower voice: ‘You’re doing fine. Sip your tea. Just pretend we’re catching up on old times.’ Rafe took the album, seeming to know what to do. He began feigning soft laughter, pointing and showing photos to both of them. Stella took his lead, cast an expression of deep interest while inside she churned, wondering what was about to happen.
‘This is an old photo album that Rafe’s wonderful mother – our mother – sent to me for my seventeenth birthday,’ Joseph explained to Stella. ‘My father had moved us back to Germany and I was so missing my life with the family I loved as my own in Tangier so she filled this little book with memories of childhood. Rafe, I do think my favourite is this one of us in the tent.’ He flipped a few pages and sighed, pointing at it. Stella picked up the signal that passed between them as he tapped the particular photo she recognised from the nursery.
Rafe laughed. ‘Hell, what were we then? Ten?’ He nodded, his expression full of pleasure. ‘Got it,’ he murmured. He sipped at his now cold mint tea. ‘We couldn’t have been any older, could we?’ He made an obvious shift to show it to Stella. ‘Here, look at this,’ he offered in a light voice but his words that followed chilled her. ‘Remember it, Stella,’ he growled in the lowest of whispers.
Joseph glanced at them both. It was as if they’d reached some sort of precipice and they were all peering over the top to dizzying depths below. He grinned with effort but the words didn’t match. ‘And now let’s see if I have indeed made it all the way back to the land I love, the brother I worship, without bringing the devil with me.’ His voice shook and his fingers visibly trembled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘This is why I’m here. You should know that only recently the Chancellor of Germany outlined his new foreign policy that rejects aspects of the Treaty of Versailles.’
The warm day’s temperature felt as though it instantly plunged around their table and Stella put down her cold tea as a chill shuddered through her; they were still smiling, nodding amiably, as Rafe acknowledged what his friend was saying. ‘Equal armaments,’ he said, agreeing that he knew this much.
Joseph shook his head, his smile faltering. ‘So much worse, Rafe. The relationship with the Soviet Union will be non-existent soon, I suspect; our ambassador in Moscow told him as much this month. He is feigning moderation to London but his eye is on the Polish border. He is talking about trebling the army, creating dive bomber units.’
‘Germany’s not permitted to have an aerial capability.’
Joseph shrugged. ‘Tell our Chancellor that. I happen to know that pilots are in training. Our decorated world war ace is in his element. Herr Göring and his cronies only last month established an air ministry. A Luftwaffe! Hitler doesn’t care about the Treaty or its sanctions. He has every intention to defy them.’
Rafe’s expression darkened. ‘I can’t say I’m shocked.’<
br />
‘Well, you will be when you read this.’ Joseph pushed the sheet forward. ‘These are pages from draft notes that I am horrified to admit I have acquired through dishonest means. I am betraying my own people but I have no choice because the Chancellor no longer believes that people of my heritage are Germans. From what I can tell, these notes seem to form part of a manifesto he’s drafting for Germany. He aspires for purity of the race. Aryan, he calls it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Rafe growled, his façade falling away.
Joseph removed his hand from the sheets. ‘Read them,’ he urged, whipping out his handkerchief again to once more attack his lenses before pushing the spectacles back up his nose nervously. ‘His new racial ideology has Jews at the helm of his hate list. I couldn’t believe it, dared not, in fact. I’ve sat on this for weeks but in April a boycott began on Jewish stores, although attacks on our shops began even earlier in March. There are calls to remove Jews from the legal, medical and educational system. I have no doubt now that it’s going to happen.’
‘Hitler had the Enabling Act passed,’ Rafe explained to Stella. ‘It means he now rules simply by his own decree and can determine his own laws; no need to pass them through the Reichstag.’
Her throat felt as dry as the sun-bleached awning they sat beneath.
Joseph continued as though Rafe had not spoken. ‘It’s a steady breakdown in our society. No more kosher slaughtering of animals one month, the next we can’t send our children to school if it overreaches the Jewish “quota”. And this month students across Germany burned what they called un-German books in an action against an un-German spirit. If it wasn’t true, I’d laugh but I wept to hear that in the order of thirty thousand books were burned in a “cleansing by fire”. Jewish intellectualism, whatever that’s supposed to mean, is cited as being un-German. People are being brainwashed and the propaganda is rife.’
Stella watched Rafe nod as though he was aware of this particular atrocity. ‘I’d heard about the book burning, but I had no idea of the scope of all this racial vilification, Joseph.’
‘We’ve lived with persecution down the centuries and no one wants to tip Europe back into war, my brother, so coming to the rescue of a few persecuted Jews is unlikely to be on the agenda . . . except it’s not just Jews, it’s everyone that our dictator suddenly believes might speak up against him and his dark regime. Pacifists, socialists, liberalists, intellectuals, poets! They’re all on his list of hate. Ever since these came into my possession my perspective on the ministry has changed. I realise now that I’ve been working for a dictator who is determined to own the minds of his people so there is no more free thought. What previously looked innocent, such as the training of pilots, has taken on a new and sinister aspect. I’ve heard artists, writers, poets, thinkers – they are all wanting to flee the country. They feel the next step might be the burning of the writers themselves.’ Joseph stopped, shaking with the emotion of his fear.
Stella could see his perspiration was nothing to do with the climate and she was privately appalled that they were both being defiantly open about their discussion. If they were so worried about being observed, why were they being so obvious? It seemed Rafe no longer cared about being watched or being cautious. He’d been careful for her presumably but now felt confident; either that or he was taking a fatalistic view, which she could believe given last night’s odd behaviour and today’s honesty to Joseph. She was feeling as though he was deliberately pushing her away and yet making sure his brother knew that she was the important woman in his life. Why? And what was the charade with the photos? What should she know? Stella sensed with every ounce of perception that the clue she needed was already present even though it was invisible. Pay attention, Stella, it demanded. And so she snapped her focus to all the elements before her: photo album, two sheets of paper yet to be unfolded, Rafe outwardly calm and jovial yet there was nothing casual about his seemingly casual gesture, certainly nothing happy in that smile of his. And Joseph was now freely perspiring: frightened, nervous. She wanted to scoop up the sheets of paper, throw them in her satchel and run. They had what they came for – why weren’t they moving, escaping potential harm? She opened her notebook again in a desperate attempt to appear distracted, uninvolved. She saw the lines of writing but couldn’t read them. It didn’t matter. She was acting out the charade.
‘Read it, Rafe. Tell me this wasn’t worth risking everything for,’ Joseph was saying. ‘It’s in Hitler’s handwriting, for heaven’s sake. The persecution has already begun but maybe I was deliberately blind to it or too protected from it because of my station. Now . . .’
It felt to Stella as though her throat was closing with anxiety for them and a helpless hushing sound escaped as she tried to stem their words as a mother might to her children. ‘Is this wise?’ she asked, although it came out in a squeak just as a shadow fell across them.
‘Not at all wise,’ answered a new voice and its owner’s arm reached between herself and Rafe. He was dressed in a greyish olive linen suit that sat unhappily below receding blond hair and a pale complexion. He was smiling but there was little sincerity in it going by the cold, pale eyes that glared above it. ‘I shall take that,’ he said, clamping a hand down on the papers that Rafe had just grasped. ‘Thank you,’ he said in a sarcastic tone, withdrawing the pages.
Stella closed her eyes momentarily, recognising the unmistakable accent of a German speaking English.
‘Greetings, Herr Altmann. Why don’t you introduce me to your companions?’
Stella was aware of three other men lurking. They’d surely materialised from one of the alleys behind the café. She glanced at Rafe, who appeared unmoved. Had he anticipated this outcome? He seemed suddenly more relaxed for the man’s arrival.
‘Karl. You of all people,’ Joseph said, his tone resigned, as though relieved the terror of discovery was now past.
‘Herr Klipfels to you from hereon, Altmann,’ the man cautioned.
Joseph nodded, as though now fully accepting the inevitable. ‘This is my friend, Douglas Ainsworth.’
‘Mr Ainsworth,’ Klipfels said. ‘English, yes?’
‘If you wish,’ Rafe said. ‘Escaping a cold German spring, Mr Klipfels?’
The German’s smile broadened but remained as wintry as his near colourless eyes whose corners didn’t so much as crinkle with the stretch of his thin mouth.
‘It’s just that your pale skin looks a little burned,’ Rafe offered, his tone full of generous concern.
‘Not yours, though, I notice,’ Klipfels replied.
‘I grew up here. The Moroccan sun is my friend, the streets of Marrakech a boyhood playground.’
‘I was under the impression you grew up in Tangier?’
‘Should I know you or have you been busy doing some homework?’ Rafe exclaimed, betraying no surprise despite his words. When Klipfels didn’t answer, he grinned. ‘I did, yes. So my skin is well accustomed.’
‘And who is this charming companion?’ Klipfels wondered, bored of Rafe’s feigned charm.
‘As you’ve done your background checks, I imagine you know that I am carrying out some special work for Kew Gardens. This is my research assistant, Miss Myles.’
‘Research?’ He laughed. ‘Is that what they call a tryst these days? How would you like to have dinner with me tonight instead, Miss Myles . . . later some German-style conviviality, yes?’ he asked, stroking her cheek.
With Joseph looking as helpless as a trapped rabbit and Rafe seemingly enjoying the tense banter, Stella felt it was left to her to disrupt proceedings and give her companions a chance to think through their escape. She pushed her chair back and stood. ‘How dare you, Sir!’
As she’d guessed he expected her to remain meek because of discovery, her fiery response took him by obvious surprise. He stepped back and Stella filled the space he’d left, taking her chance.
‘What are you suggesting?’ she snapped in breathy horror.
Klipfels glare
d at Joseph, then at Rafe, finally returning his unsure gaze to her. ‘My sincere apologies, Miss Myles. A wrong presumption.’
‘Presumption?’ she thundered, finding fear a helpful boost for her rage. ‘Are all Germans as poor mannered as you, Herr Klipfels?’ She watched him squirm, pushed on, buying more time for the two men still seated. ‘Well, your apology is not good enough. I’m deeply offended that you’d humiliate me in front of my employer and his friend I have only just a few moments ago met.’
‘And what were you all discussing?’ Klipfels asked, trying to wrestle back control of the situation.
‘I have no idea,’ she said, making sure none of her outrage had left her voice. ‘Surely as you arrived you could see I was reading?’ She gestured angrily at the notebook on the table.
He ignored it, reached again past the silently seated men and picked up the photo album. The air seemed to still as he did so; Stella wasn’t sure why. He flipped through the pages, his expression one of perplexed amusement. He looked up at Stella with query. ‘So what is this?’
She shrugged. ‘Why don’t you ask Mr Ainsworth or Herr Altmann? I am an assistant on her way to our next research location. We stopped for a minted tea,’ she pointed, exasperated, ‘because Mr Ainsworth had an old acquaintance to meet. As to that you’re holding, it was simply a walk down memory lane for two old friends. What on earth is this all about?’
He had haplessly paused on the very photo that Rafe had impressed upon her to remember. Her heart was pounding so loudly now she was worried that Klipfels could see it drumming against her ribcage, preparing to explode from her chest.
‘The photos, gentleman?’ He turned away from her mercifully.
‘Look here, what’s it to you, anyway?’ Rafe demanded.
‘Nothing, Mr Ainsworth,’ Klipfels answered, flinging down the album. ‘I realise, of course, it is a useless diversion for your meeting. But this,’ he said, waving the pages that Joseph had so desperately passed on, ‘is none of your business. It’s none of your colleagues’ business and certainly none of the British ministry’s business.’
The Last Dance Page 35