Winter of the World

by Ken Follett

  His mother was still raging. "Don't you remember how you used to carry on? 'Where is my daddy? Why doesn't he sleep here? Why can't we go with him to Daisy's house?' And then later, the fights you had at school when the boys called you a bastard. And you were so angry to be refused membership of that goddamn yacht club."

  "Of course I remember."

  She banged a beringed fist on the table, causing crystal glasses to shake. "Then how can you put another little boy through the same torture?"

  "I didn't know he existed until two months ago. Father scared the mother away."

  "Who is she?"

  "Her name is Jacky Jakes. She's a waitress." He took out another photo.

  His mother sighed. "A pretty Negress." She was calming down.

  "She was hoping to be an actress, but I guess she gave that up when Georgy came along."

  Marga nodded. "A baby will ruin your career faster than a dose of the clap."

  Mother assumed that an actress had to sleep with the right people to progress, Greg noted. How the hell would she know? But then, she had been a nightclub singer when his father met her . . .

  He did not want to go down that road.

  She said: "What did you give her for Christmas?"

  "Medical insurance."

  "Good choice. Better than a fluffy bear."

  Greg heard a step in the hall. His father was home. Hastily, he said: "Mother, will you meet Jacky? Will you accept Georgy as your grandson?"

  Her hand went to her mouth. "Oh, my God, I'm a grandmother." She did not know whether to be shocked or pleased.

  Greg leaned forward. "I don't want Father to reject him. Please!"

  Before she could reply, Lev came into the room.

  Marga said: "Hello, darling, how was your evening?"

  He sat at the table looking grumpy. "Well, I've had my shortcomings explained to me in full detail, so I guess I had a great time."

  "You poor thing. Did you get enough to eat? I can make you an omelette in a minute."

  "The food was fine."

  The photographs were on the table, but Lev had not noticed them yet.

  The maid came in and said: "Would you like coffee, Mr. Peshkov?"

  "No, thank you."

  Marga said: "Bring the vodka, in case Mr. Peshkov would like a drink later."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  Greg noticed how solicitous Marga was about Lev's comfort and pleasure. He guessed that was why Lev was here, not at Olga's, for the night.

  The maid brought a bottle and three small glasses on a silver tray. Lev still drank vodka the Russian way, warm and neat.

  Greg said: "Father, you know Jacky Jakes--"

  "Her again?" Lev said irritably.

  "Yes, because there's something you don't know about her."

  That got his attention. He hated to think other people knew things he did not. "What?"

  "She has a child." He pushed the photographs across the polished table.

  "Is it yours?"

  "He's six years old. What do you think?"

  "She kept this pretty damned quiet."

  "She was scared of you."

  "What did she think I might do, cook the baby and eat it?"

  "I don't know, Father--you're the expert at scaring people."

  Lev gave him a hard look. "You're learning, though."

  He was talking about the scene with the razor. Maybe I am learning to scare people, Greg thought.

  Lev said: "Why are you showing me these photos?"

  "I thought you might like to know that you have a grandson."

  "By a goddamn two-bit actress who was hoping to snag herself a rich man!"

  Marga said: "Darling! Please remember that I was a two-bit nightclub singer hoping to snag myself a rich man."

  He looked furious. For a moment he glared at Marga. Then his expression changed. "You know what?" he said. "You're right. Who am I to judge Jacky Jakes?"

  Greg and Marga stared at him, astonished at this sudden humility.

  He said: "I'm just like her. I was a two-kopek hoodlum from the slums of St. Petersburg until I married Olga Vyalov, my boss's daughter."

  Greg caught his mother's eye, and she gave an almost imperceptible shrug that simply said You never can tell.

  Lev looked again at the photo. "Apart from the color, this kid looks like my brother, Grigori. There's a surprise. Until now I thought all these picaninnies looked the same."

  Greg could hardly breathe. "Will you see him, Father? Will you come with me and meet your grandson?"

  "Hell, yes." Lev uncorked the bottle, poured vodka into three glasses, and passed them round. "What's the boy's name, anyway?"

  "Georgy."

  Lev raised his glass. "So here's to Georgy."

  They all drank.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  1943 ( I )

  Lloyd Williams walked along a narrow uphill path at the tail end of a line of desperate fugitives.

  He breathed easily. He was used to this. He had now crossed the Pyrenees several times. He wore rope-soled espadrilles that gave his feet a better grip on the rocky ground. He had a heavy coat on top of his blue overalls. The sun was hot now but later, when the party reached higher altitudes and the sun went down, the temperature would drop below freezing.

  Ahead of him were two sturdy ponies, three local people, and eight weary, bedraggled escapers, all loaded with packs. There were three American airmen, the surviving crew of a B-24 Liberator bomber that had crash-landed in Belgium. Two more were British officers who had escaped from the Oflag 65 prisoner-of-war camp in Strasbourg. The others were a Czech Communist, a Jewish woman with a violin, and a mysterious Englishman called Watermill who was probably some kind of spy.

  They had all come a long way and suffered many hardships. This was the last leg of their journey, and the most dangerous. If captured now, they would all be tortured until they betrayed the brave men and women who had helped them en route.

  Leading the party was Teresa. The climb was hard work for people who were not used to it, but they had to keep up a brisk pace to minimize their exposure, and Lloyd had found that the refugees were less likely to fall behind when they were led by a small, ravishingly pretty woman.

  The path leveled and broadened into a small clearing. Suddenly a loud voice rang out. Speaking French with a German accent, it shouted: "Halt!"

  The column came to an abrupt halt.

  Two German soldiers emerged from behind a rock. They carried standard Mauser bolt-action rifles, each holding five rounds of ammunition.

  Reflexively Lloyd touched the overcoat pocket that contained his loaded 9 mm Luger pistol.

  Escaping from mainland Europe had become harder, and Lloyd's job had grown even more dangerous. At the end of last year the Germans had occupied the southern half of France, contemptuously ignoring the Vichy French government like the flimsy sham it had always been. A forbidden zone ten miles deep was declared all along the frontier with Spain. Lloyd and his party were in that zone now.

  Teresa addressed the soldiers in French. "Good morning, gentlemen. Is everything all right?" Lloyd knew her well, and he could hear the tremor of fear in her voice, but he hoped it was too faint for the sentries to notice.

  Among the French police there were many Fascists and a few Communists, but all of them were lazy, and none wanted to chase refugees across the icy passes of the Pyrenees. However, the Germans did. German troops had moved into border towns and begun to patrol the hill paths and mule trails Lloyd and Teresa used. The occupiers were not crack troops; those were fighting in Russia, where they had recently surrendered Stalingrad after a long and murderous struggle. Many of the Germans in France were old men, boys, and the walking wounded. But that seemed to make them more determined to prove themselves. Unlike the French, they rarely turned a blind eye.

  Now the older of the two soldiers, cadaverously thin with a gray mustache, said to Teresa: "Where are you going?"

  "To the village of Lamont. We have groceries for
you and your comrades."

  This particular German unit had moved into a remote hill village, kicking out the local inhabitants. Then they had realized how difficult it was to supply troops in that location. It had been a stroke of genius on Teresa's part to undertake to carry food to them--at a healthy profit--and thereby get permission to enter the prohibited zone.

  The thin soldier looked suspiciously at the men with their backpacks. "All this is for German soldiers?"

  "I hope so," Teresa said. "There's no one else up here to sell it to." She took a piece of paper from her pocket. "Here's the order, signed by your Sergeant Eisenstein."

  The man read it carefully and handed it back. Then he looked at Lieutenant Colonel Will Donelly, a beefy American pilot. "Is he French?"

  Lloyd put his hand on the gun in his pocket.

  The appearance of the fugitives was a problem. In this part of the world the local people, French and Spanish, were usually small and dark. And everyone was thin. Both Lloyd and Teresa fitted that description, as did the Czech and the violinist. But the British were pale and fair-haired, and the Americans were huge.

  Teresa said: "Guillaume was born in Normandy. All that butter."

  The younger of the two soldiers, a pale boy with glasses, smiled at Teresa. She was easy to smile at. "Do you have wine?" he said.

  "Of course."

  The two sentries brightened visibly.

  Teresa said: "Would you like some right now?"

  The older man said: "It's thirsty in the sun."

  Lloyd opened a pannier on one of the ponies, took out four bottles of Roussillon white wine, and handed them over. The Germans took two each. Suddenly everyone was smiling and shaking hands. The older sentry said: "Carry on, friends."

  The fugitives went on. Lloyd had not really expected trouble, but you could never be sure, and he was relieved to have got past the sentry post.

  It took them two more hours to reach Lamont. A dirt-poor hamlet with a handful of crude houses and some empty sheep pens, it stood on the edge of a small upland plain where the new spring grass was just beginning to show. Lloyd pitied the people who had lived here. They had had so little, and even that had been taken from them.

  The party walked into the center of the village and gratefully unshouldered their burdens. They were surrounded by German soldiers.

  This was the most dangerous moment, Lloyd thought.

  Sergeant Eisenstein was in charge of a platoon of fifteen or twenty men. Everyone helped to unload the supplies: bread, sausage, fresh fish, condensed milk, canned food. The soldiers were pleased to get supplies and glad to see new faces. They merrily attempted to engage their benefactors in conversation.

  The fugitives had to say as little as possible. This was the moment when they could so easily betray themselves by a slip. Some Germans spoke French well enough to detect an English or American accent. Even those who had passable accents, such as Teresa and Lloyd, could give themselves away with a grammatical error. It was so easy to say "sur le table" instead of "sur la table," but it was a mistake no French person would ever make.

  To compensate, the two genuine Frenchmen in the party went out of their way to be voluble. Any time a soldier began to talk to a fugitive, someone would jump into the conversation.

  Teresa presented the sergeant with a bill, and he took a long time to check the numbers, then count out the money.

  At last they were able to take their leave, with empty backpacks and lighter hearts.

  They walked back down the mountain half a mile, then they split up. Teresa went on down with the Frenchmen and the horses. Lloyd and the fugitives turned onto an upward path.

  The German sentries at the clearing would probably be too drunk by now to notice that fewer people were coming down than went up. But if they asked questions, Teresa would say some of the party had started a card game with the soldiers, and would be following later. Then there would be a change of shift and the Germans would lose track.

  Lloyd made his group walk for two hours, then he allowed them a ten-minute break. They had all been given bottles of water and packets of dried figs for energy. They were discouraged from bringing anything else: Lloyd knew from experience that treasured books, silverware, ornaments, and gramophone records would become too heavy and be thrown into a snow-filled ravine long before the footsore travelers crested the pass.

  This was the hard part. From now on it would only get darker and colder and rockier.

  Just before the snow line, he instructed them to refill their water bottles at a clear cold stream.

  When night fell they kept going. It was dangerous to let people sleep: they might freeze to death. They were tired, and they slipped and stumbled on the icy rocks. Inevitably their pace slowed. Lloyd could not let the line spread: stragglers might lose their way, and there were precipitate ravines for the careless to fall into. But he had never lost anyone, yet.

  Many of the fugitives were officers, and this was the point where they would sometimes challenge Lloyd, arguing when he ordered them to keep going. Lloyd had been promoted to major to give him more authority.

  In the middle of the night, when their morale was at rock bottom, Lloyd announced: "You are now in neutral Spain!" and they raised a ragged cheer. In truth he did not know exactly where the border was, and always made the announcement when they seemed most in need of a boost.

  Their spirits lifted again when dawn broke. They still had some way to go, but the route now led downhill, and their cold limbs gradually thawed.

  At sunrise they skirted a small town with a dust-colored church at the top of a hill. Just beyond, they reached a large barn beside the road. Inside was a green Ford flatbed truck with a grimy canvas cover. The lorry was large enough to carry the whole party. At the wheel was Captain Silva, a middle-aged Englishman of Spanish descent who worked with Lloyd.

  Also there, to Lloyd's surprise, was Major Lowther, who had been in charge of the intelligence course at Ty Gwyn, and had been snootily disapproving--or perhaps just envious--of Lloyd's friendship with Daisy.

  Lloyd knew that Lowthie had been posted to the British embassy in Madrid, and guessed he worked for MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, but he would not have expected to see him this far from the capital.

  Lowther wore an expensive white flannel suit that was crumpled and grubby. He stood beside the truck looking proprietorial. "I'll take over from here, Williams," he said. He looked at the fugitives. "Which one of you is Watermill?"

  Watermill could have been a real name or a code.

  The mysterious Englishman stepped forward and shook hands.

  "I'm Major Lowther. I'm taking you straight to Madrid." Turning back to Lloyd he said: "I'm afraid your party will have to make your way to the nearest railway station."

  "Just a minute," said Lloyd. "That truck belongs to my organization." He had purchased it with his budget from MI9, the department that helped escaping prisoners. "And the driver works for me."

  "Can't be helped," Lowther said briskly. "Watermill has priority."

  The Secret Intelligence Service always thought they had priority. "I don't agree," Lloyd said. "I see no reason why we can't all go to Barcelona in the truck, as planned. Then you can take Watermill on to Madrid by train."

  "I didn't ask for your opinion, laddie. Just do as you're told."

  Watermill himself interjected, in a reasonable tone: "I'm perfectly happy to share the truck."

  "Leave this to me, please," Lowther told him.

  Lloyd said: "All these people have just walked across the Pyrenees. They're exhausted."

  "Then they'd better have a rest before going on."

  Lloyd shook his head. "Too dangerous. The town on the hill has a sympathetic mayor--that's why we rendezvous here. But farther down the valley their politics are different. The Gestapo are everywhere, you know that--and most of the Spanish police are on their side, not ours. My group will be in serious danger of arrest for entering the country illegally. And you know how dif
ficult it is to get people out of Franco's jails even when they're innocent."

  "I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you. I outrank you."

  "No, you don't."

  "What?"

  "I'm a major. So don't call me 'laddie' ever again, unless you want a punch on the nose."

  "My mission is urgent!"

  "So why didn't you bring your own vehicle?"

  "Because this one was available!"

  "But it wasn't."

  Will Donelly, the big American, stepped forward. "I'm with Major Williams," he drawled. "He's just saved my life. You, Major Lowther, haven't done shit."

  "That's got nothing to do with it," said Lowther.

  "Well, the situation here seems pretty clear," Donelly said. "The truck is under the authority of Major Williams. Major Lowther wants it, but he can't have it. End of story."

  Lowther said: "You keep out of this."

  "I happen to be a lieutenant colonel, so I guess I outrank you both."

  "But this isn't under your jurisdiction."

  "Nor yours, evidently." Donelly turned to Lloyd. "Should we get going?"

  "I insist!" spluttered Lowther.

  Donelly turned back to him. "Major Lowther," he said. "Shut the fuck up. And that's an order."

  Lloyd said: "All right, everybody--climb aboard."

  Lowther glared furiously at Lloyd. "I'll get you for this, you little Welsh bastard," he said.

  ii

  The daffodils were out in London on the day Daisy and Boy went for their medical.

  The visit to the doctor was Daisy's idea. She was fed up with Boy blaming her for not getting pregnant. He constantly compared her to his brother Andy's wife, May, who now had three children. "There must be something wrong with you," he had said aggressively.

  "I got pregnant once before." She winced at the remembered pain of her miscarriage; then she recalled how Lloyd had taken care of her, and she felt a different kind of pain.

  Boy said: "Something could have happened since then to make you infertile."

  "Or you."

  "What do you mean?"

  "There might just as easily be something wrong with you."

  "Don't be absurd."

  "Tell you what, I'll make a deal." The thought flashed through her mind that she was negotiating rather as her father, Lev, might have done. "I'll go for an examination--if you will."

  That had surprised him, and he had hesitated, then said: "All right. You go first. If they say there's nothing wrong with you, I'll go."