The Face of Eve

by Betty Burton

  When they were both light-hearted, Eve felt that she would go anywhere, do anything to stay with him. Although, what she expected true love to be wasn’t there, no one had ever given her such contentment and fun.

  Dragging themselves onto the bed, they lay with their arms about each other. ‘What were you doing in the red-light district of Kharkov? Politicising comrade prostitutes?’

  ‘Good prostitutes are valuable to the community. Young men need to learn how it is done, for the sake of the women they love. In Kharkov I was very young.’

  He drew her to him. ‘I love you, Eve. You know that is true. In all my life I never loved a woman so much. How many times have you said that you will not marry me?’

  ‘About a hundred.’

  ‘Please, not this time. Let us be married.’

  Every time he asked her to marry him, she had thought about it seriously. She really didn’t know what love was. She loved the idea of him – the man who had given up everything for her, the romantic hero of myth – who had swept in at the eleventh hour and seen her and the girls over the border to safety.

  She kept her tone light. ‘Dimitri Vladim, what am I going to do with you? I’m not the sort of woman who marries. You deserve a kinder woman in your life. I am too restless and hungry for… for everything. I have always wanted to know everything, see everything, go everywhere and be involved in life. For ten years I saw my clever mother live and die her awful life; when she wasn’t up to her elbows in soapy water, scrubbing and washing, she was peeling potatoes and making something of us children. She didn’t want us – want me to live like that.’

  ‘You are not your mother, Eve.’

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong. My mother knew that she had made a mistake. She was an educated woman, and ambitious, but just as she started her career she met my father and fell in love.’

  ‘So? Is oldest story in the world.’

  ‘And so is the hero going off to the other side of the world and leaving the girl to get on with having the baby.’

  ‘But your father was sailor, was he not?’

  ‘He was. He went everywhere and saw everything that my mother longed to.’ Her voice strained at the inner stress she was raising in herself. ‘I should have been born a man.’

  His response was to laugh aloud as he caressed every curve and hollow from her soft shoulders to her legs. ‘Oh yes, I see, God made big mistake. Even so, marry me, Eve.’

  ‘Oh, shut up or I will marry you and then you’ll be sorry. Do you think that a wife would put up with this rough beard? Would Mrs Vladim always be ready to take off her knickers?’

  ‘You like the beard.’

  ‘I love it, you know I do, but Mrs Vladim would soon be telling you that it was too bohemian. Bearded men suit mistresses.’

  His deep laugh seemed too baroque for the elegant rooms. ‘This time not so quick.’

  The shiny satin black bed cover embroidered with stylised belladonna lilies of padded cream silk was ostentatious.

  ‘We can’t do it on this. It’s a work of art… and off with those prickly trousers.’

  ‘Name of this is Harris, English gentlemen wear it.’

  ‘Not when making love. An English gentleman would never do it wearing Harris tweed.’ She felt light-hearted. Even if it didn’t last, it was wonderful.

  ‘Russians are passionate. Sex is good for the health, we Russians are healthy people.’

  ‘And for the soul.’

  ‘Come to bed, God rest your soul.’

  She laughed. ‘Help me fold this glorious bed cover. Do you know what belladonna lilies symbolise?’

  ‘Nyet. But I am sure that you do.’

  ‘The symbol of the virgin.’

  With a loud whoop of derision he flicked the silk cover from her hands and tossed it behind a chair and they made love again, gently and affectionately. And again.

  They rested easily, talking in low tones in a desultory fashion about the last few days of almost continuous travelling. Now, for the first time in days, they mentioned the children. It had been hard to leave them, as much for Dimitri as for Eve. Genia had grown to adore him. She still called him el cabron – the bastard. To Genia, all men were bastards – she had good reason to believe that. The war had orphaned her, made her a refugee in her own country and now in exile. She had been sexually assaulted even as she fled from the fascists – by a boy she had gone to school with.

  ‘They’ll be happy with Ozz’s mother, won’t they? Jess is so calm and practical.’

  Fleetingly Eve pictured frail little Posa, seated between the rows of vines, curiously watching the venomous little snake, and the little jump as Jess Lavender had got it bull’s-eye with a rifle. Posa had not cried out; the toddler’s entire life had been lived to the sound of guns. It was going to be hard not to worry about the girls.

  ‘Have you got any cigarettes in your bags?’

  He found those Electra Sanderson had given him, but it would have been better had they gone straight to sleep. Then Dimitri would not have, yet again, talked about marriage, and Eve would not have suddenly felt trapped by their situation. They would not have become tight-lipped with resentment, and Eve would not have gone back to sleep in the other room.

  * * *

  It was dark and cold enough for breath to show on the air in the Art Deco room. Very early, Eve heard Dimitri switch on a bedside lamp, and then strike a match. He knocked gently and pushed open the connecting door. His big body, bare from the waist up, was back-lit, and the tip of the cigarette glowed.

  ‘I’m not asleep.’

  He sat on the edge of the bed, his weight causing her to roll downhill.

  ‘I have come to say that I am very sorry. I am sincerely sorry. If you do not love me, Eve, I have to accept… I cannot make you love me. I cannot help it that I love you, but it was so bad to say such things in my sorrow that I must lose you. I should not have said about the lost baby. It was cruel. But I wanted to make you hurt, because I was hurt. No, please, let me say. I cannot stop loving you. Is not possible. I think I have been in… is what you call fool’s paradise?’ He shivered.

  Eve held open the covers, not as an invitation to intimacy, but so that she wouldn’t have to see him sit there in the icy room.

  ‘We had an affair, Dimitri, an affair that worked. OK, it was lop-sided… uneven. You love me and I care for you. Caring for somebody is probably longer-lasting than romantic love. Caring for someone can be as deep as love. You want everything to be good for a person you care for. I don’t love Genia and Posa, they are not my children, but I care for them deeply. That’s how I was able to leave them – do what was best for them. I doubt if I could have been so objective about children of my own.’

  Dimitri put his arm round her and drew her to him. ‘Please don’t cry.’ His voice was so gentle. She hadn’t realised that she was weeping until she felt Dimitri dabbing her face with the sheet.

  ‘Please don’t be angry with me. I couldn’t bear it if we lost one another because we quarrelled. I am lucky that such a lovely man loves me.’ She felt his erection grow and harden against her hip. ‘I don’t want to lose you. Perhaps they will let us work together. We would make a good team; we understand one another.’ She smiled, wiped her eyes and switched on the Art Decadent lamp. ‘And if they don’t, there’s always the good sex, but only if you accept that I am not ready to marry – you or anyone. My life suddenly became mixed up with yours. Things happened to me. I feel that I’ve lost control of my own self.’

  ‘What…?’

  ‘Just let me finish. I want you to understand without us rowing. Your decision to abandon your career and get away was your own. You must have thought about it. You got your Josep Alier papers, the clothes, food for us – you see what I’m saying? You planned it, did what you wanted. I had no option but to pick up the children and run; you had the option to stay or leave.’ She reached for his cigarette and took a pull on it. ‘I shall be grateful to you till the end of my days that yo
u decided to run, and I know how hard it must have been – and how hard it’s going to be.’ Handing back the cigarette, she breathed a sigh. ‘Right, now I’ve had my say.’

  ‘What it is that I must do?’

  ‘I guess that you will be a lot more valuable to The Bureau than I. Why don’t we wait and see what their plans are? I have no idea how it works, but I imagine we shall get leave the same as people in the forces. We will spend as much time as possible together.’

  He brushed her temple with soft lips and she slid down the bed to give him her own.

  She must have fallen into a heavy sleep, for when she awoke, Dimitri’s place in the bed was empty and Eve could hear coming from the bathroom snatches of his baritone as he hummed something alien to English ears yet which had become familiar to her.

  This was the first time since Cape Town last autumn that they had had any real privacy. As she listened, an intense desire grew to have his hands and fingers create scented lather on her breasts and behind, which had become firm once more, and in the hollows of her armpits and folds of her groins. Even as she thought about bringing him creatively from arousal to their mutual climax she scrambled out of bed and across the corridor.

  A hand-written notice in thick black crayon, ‘No more than 3 minutes PLEASE—’ and the fact that he was as ready as herself, only served to rush the last two stages of the slow seduction she had planned. The water suddenly lost its heat and they both jumped and laughed.

  There was a knock on the door and a female voice said, ‘You goin’ tae be long doin’ that? It’s awfu’ coold oot heer.’

  Dimitri opened the door as he and Eve were donning towelling robes taken from a whole range of sizes hanging on hooks. ‘Come in. We are making quick as possible, so having two showers together.’

  The woman with the Glaswegian accent and light brown skin let them share her look that said ‘a likely story’, but she seemed to be a pushover for an oversized Russian with glowing pink skin, giving him a smile as she went into the cubicle, whisked the canvas curtain and turned the water on. ‘Good think’n. Three together would save – Bloody hell! Water’s coold again.’

  Breakfast was a very basic affair taken in what must once have been the main reception room. There were a lot of unfaded places on the walls where pictures had been taken down. Cornices and a central boss were elaborate, as was the stencil work above and below a dado rail and around the double doors, also elaborately decorated. Even without carpets and furniture the room was impressive.

  A line of people had formed. They were moving quite quickly to be served from a makeshift counter on which were gas hotplates and a steaming urn by two women dressed in wraparound floral aprons and white headscarves. ‘Kedgeree or porridge, and there’s toast up there with the tea.’

  Dimitri flirted large helpings of both choices from the woman with the doling-out ladle. Eve settled down with him at a table with six plain wood chairs. To her great pleasure, the oats had been cooked perfectly; had simmered gently all night in water with just a pinch of salt, the standard of porridge she had been introduced to by her aunt.

  A moment of such painful guilt. She had her own way of dealing with guilt – a kind of box trap in her subconscious which she could snap open and imprison anything disturbing. It worked very well – to a point, but over recent days she had forced so many bits of guilt in there and it was becoming pretty crowded now that Genia and Posa had been consigned to it too.

  She looked up and, meeting Dimitri’s gaze, realised that she had been staring at a spoonful of porridge halfway to her mouth.

  He reached across the table, squeezed her hand and said in a quiet voice, ‘I miss them too. Is better they are with Jess.’

  Nodding and blinking fast against tears, she shoved the porridge into her mouth.

  ‘You folks mind if I join you?’ The woman from the shower-room, now softly speaking with a Canadian accent, put her tray of food on the table.

  Dimitri at once leaped up and held out a chair. ‘We are friends in shower, also at table.’ She offered a delicate, well-manicured hand, nails painted the same pink as her palms. ‘McKenzie – Dr Janet McKenzie.’

  In his best charming manner, he bent slightly from the waist as they shook hands. ‘Dimitri Vladim.’

  Eve shook hands. ‘Eve Anders. I’m sorry we emptied the hot water tank.’

  ‘Not your fault. The boiler wasn’t meant to cope with a sudden early-morning rush. Anyway, maybe I should do in England what the English do… aren’t they in favour of cold showers?’

  ‘Only to cool our lust.’

  ‘Hell, Miss Anders, why cool one of life’s great gifts?’

  ‘Didn’t you have a Glaswegian accent just now?’

  ‘You’re sure it wasn’t Edinburghian?’

  ‘I thought Glaswegian, but I’m hardly the one to ask.’

  ‘It’s a kinda hobby, trying out voices and accents. I have a set of recordings made for actors.’

  Eve had worked at rejecting her Portsmouth vowels in favour of her present neutrality and correctness. She understood what Dr McKenzie was saying.

  Dimitri, still hungry and unsatisfied by the plain food, asked, ‘How you get these nice eggs?’

  ‘Ah-ha, that’d be telling, but I’ll share.’ She loaded half onto toast and passed it to him, and he did not protest as an Englishman might have. ‘I know a nice woman who keeps hens and I have made friends with the cook. Always a good move to have a contact in the kitchen. These are very good eggs. How about you, Miss Anders?’ Eve declined.

  Dimitri, eating fast and demonstrating his enjoyment with a waving fork, said, ‘You think I too could become contact?’

  ‘You might, but you would need to drop that dreadful accent. I guess you speak really decent English.’

  Eve’s spontaneous peal of laughter turned heads at other tables. ‘He thinks it is charming.’

  Dr McKenzie passed him more scrambled egg on toast. ‘And do you agree?’

  For a moment Eve thought about it, then nodded. ‘I suppose I must.’

  ‘If you have finished your breakfasts, I’ll do my bit of business with you here.’ She passed each of them a card. ‘That’s me, the letters mean that my discipline is philosophy, psychology and psychiatry – I am not a Freudian. I happen to think that sex and mothers are in general A Good Thing. Also I no longer practise psychiatry – preferring psychology. The times of your appointments with me are on the back. Miss Anders, as you’re after Major Vladim I should be grateful if you would disappear this morning, and you, Major, must not compare notes with Miss Anders.’ She smiled. ‘If it bothers you not to be entirely open with one another, be easy. I am, as you say, Top Brass, here; not discussing our interviews is in the nature of an order. OK? Nice to have met you. Now I must fly. See you this afternoon, Miss Anders. I recommend Handleys, as a store and for their morning coffee, Miss Anders.’ In a stage whisper: ‘They have a supply of leather boots with sheepskin linings. A good investment by the look of the sky.’

  She gathered her papers and files as Eve and Dimitri sat on over their near-empty cups. ‘How about if we start straightaway, Major?’

  Top Brass with beauty and such white teeth in a broad smile, and the soft Canadian accent – Dimitri was on his feet in a second.

  ‘Do you drive, Miss Anders?’

  ‘Anything and everything.’

  ‘OK, then you needn’t hang about for transport. The Griffon drivers are always busy and I don’t like to ask them to take me on shopping trips, though they are ours to call upon. However,’ she dropped a ring of keys into Eve’s hand, ‘take my little run-about. It hasn’t been out of the garage for days and needs a warm-up. OK?’

  ‘Absolutely! I love cars. What make is it?’

  ‘A quirky little MG with a canvas top; cold as all hell, so wrap up. You’ll find my hat on the seat; if it needs a crank ask Baldock – you’ll find him in the stables.’

  Eve beamed at the woman’s generous offer. ‘Oh, thank you, Doctor
. You’re very kind.’

  The McKenzie hat was like none she had ever seen, but perfect for a car with so many places for cold air to be drawn in: a pointed sheepskin cap with earflaps that tied under the chin and a peak that could be pulled down well over the brows. This she donned over the beret she was wearing. There was also a long hand-knitted scarf which went round her neck three times and left plenty to tuck into her coat. The only unwarmed part were her legs and feet. She intended to go for the boots. Normal shopping. In a department store. She felt joyful. Yes, that was the word, joyful.

  5

  Driving in the ice-ruts was very like negotiating the hard-baked mud on some of Spain’s minor roads, but there Eve had had the weight of a big truck to crush ridges; the neat little MG two-seater was as light as a moth in comparison. But being behind any wheel and revving a well-maintained engine gave her great satisfaction. The rear and side mica windows crackled like a bag of potato crisps.

  She parked outside the main door of the store, and as she approached, it was swung open for her by an elderly doorman. A cloud of warm air was sucked out to envelop her in scents and perfumes, metal polish, linen fabric, warm dust and dampness from snow walked into the carpet. After all she had seen and been through, the scent of civilisation in a department store was as if St Peter had opened the gates to Heaven.

  The doorman pushed against the door to keep out the offensive day. ‘May I help, madam?’

  The years dropped away, and it was only yesterday that she and Katey had dolled themselves up and gone ‘down Town’. The Co-op had been their regular style and price range, but Handleys was beyond their territory, just an occasional Saturday afternoon treat. It was here that they stole fashion and style to take away in their minds and make up in fabric by the yard. The Co-op was good for dress fabric; you could choose it in Handleys and buy it at the CWS or Bon Marché for a quarter the price and make it up at home. She smiled to herself, thinking: Kate and I were never greeted by the doorman. I must have become posh. A woman who shops in Handleys and goes up to the tearooms. She felt happy.