Nucleus

by Rory Clements

  Her eyes lit up when she saw her brother and Wilde. She cut the man talking to her dead and dismissed him with the lightest flick of the fingers. The disappointment as he slunk away was all too evident.

  She proffered her cheek to her brother and he dutifully kissed it. ‘Darling,’ she said in the musky voice that had thrilled millions of cinema-goers, ‘I thought you’d never arrive.’

  ‘Well, here I am, sis.’

  She wore an exquisite silk silver gown that moulded itself to her slim figure. Around her neck, a string of pearls. In the long, artist’s fingers of her left hand she clutched an ebony and gold cigarette holder. Smoke slowly spiralled into the air and vanished.

  ‘Allow me to introduce Professor Tom Wilde,’ said Lancing. ‘Tom, my sister, Clarissa.’

  Languidly, her right hand snaked forward. He took it and rather got the idea that a handshake wouldn’t do, so he kissed it. When he raised his eyes, he saw that hers were drilling into him and he froze. Her eyes were the eyes of Charlotte, the wife he had loved and lost in childbirth so many years ago. He had seen Clarissa’s eyes on screen, but only in the flesh was the haunting likeness apparent.

  Those eyes, their colour, depth and sparkle. Charlotte made whole again.

  ‘So you’re Tom Wilde. Well, well. Darling Geoffrey’s reports haven’t done you justice.’

  ‘I don’t know what he’s been saying, Miss Lancing, but you must know that he’s a fearful liar.’

  Her soft, dry fingers were still in his hand and he gently released them. As he did so, they tightened on his and he found that they were holding hands.

  She drew on her cigarette, removed the holder from her scarlet lips, pursed them into an O, and blew a smoke ring in his direction. ‘It’s such a lovely evening. Let’s go into the garden. You don’t need him, do you, Geoffrey? Go and talk Spitfires and atoms to one of your friends.’

  With the gentlest of tugs, she began to steer Wilde away.

  Wilde looked at Lancing and shrugged.

  ‘You’d better do what you’re told, Tom. She doesn’t brook disobedience, you know. Not for nothing are the world’s greatest directors and producers terrified of her.’

  ‘Oh, Geoffrey, you tell such fibs.’ She smiled at Wilde. ‘Don’t listen to him. I’m just a little giddy sometimes, that’s all.’

  *

  From the hall, she led him through a large sitting room. The French windows had been thrown wide and guests and servants were drifting in and out.

  Lawns swept down to the river where swans glided by, as though part of the landscaping. A vast and brilliant white marquee covered a swathe of the lawn to the west of the house. Another band with a female singer was outside the tent on a platform. They were performing ‘Summertime’. Men and women were slow-dancing on the grass.

  ‘Shall we?’ Clarissa said.

  ‘My pleasure.’ He took her in his arms and their feet were instantly in time. Unbidden, her silky body pressed itself to his. He caught the scent of her perfume, just distinguishable from the smokiness of her hair.

  Together, they moved as one to the heady music. He was vaguely aware that other dancers had stopped and were watching them. He was aware, too, of thoughts and sensations that were beyond all human control. This woman was intoxicating him and they had barely spoken a dozen words.

  At one point, her fingers went to his temple and traced the grooved scar. The hair had never regrown there properly, but the hair above covered it amply. The delicate touch of her fingers was soothing, but the memories were anything but. He sensed again the hot rush of pain and blood, the stench of cordite in the alleyway at the side of his house as the bullet scoured a furrow in his skull. Clarissa didn’t ask him about it; perhaps Geoffrey had told her what had happened.

  Too soon, the song faded to its conclusion, but their bodies remained bound a little longer. Slowly, she withdrew from him, her eyes alive with sensuous mischief. ‘You are very beautiful, Professor Wilde,’ she said.

  ‘What utter tosh.’ He tried to laugh off the electricity he felt, but she mocked him with the flutter of an eyelash and the kiss-pout of her lips. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘It’s nonsense, but thank you.’

  ‘You’re wasted in your lecture halls and archives.’ She clicked her fingers and a waiter appeared with a bottle of champagne and poured them each a glass.

  He didn’t want to think of Lydia tonight. All he wanted was to get tight and dance and listen to this fine music in the warmth of the summer twilight. ‘There’s a lot more to history than dusty tomes, you know?’

  ‘Really?’ Her delicate fingers touched his face again; her long nails tracing faint lines down his cheek. ‘Then why do I sense that you are avoiding something? Some other path?’

  He wondered what she had heard – but perhaps she was just mocking him. He looked away, trying to disengage himself from uninvited images of transgression. ‘Tell me about this place. It looks very much like my period, late sixteenth century.’

  ‘You’ll have to ask Milt and Peggy about that.’

  ‘I haven’t had the pleasure yet.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll meet them soon enough. Now, Professor Wilde,’ She held his face between her hands and kissed him full on the lips. ‘Be good and look after yourself. I must circulate. Until later, yes? I promise that later you will have my undivided attention. Like a good student, I shall study at your knee.’

  ‘You have to go?’

  ‘Counts and countesses to entertain, prime ministers and movie stars. Needs must.’

  She left him with his champagne. For a few moments he simply stood there like a fool watching her retreating back, her finely carved shoulder blades bare and lightly tanned. A servant passed and he put the champagne glass on the man’s tray.

  ‘Can you get me a whisky? A Scotch whisky? I’ll be down at the river.’

  He stood at the river’s edge on a wooden jetty with a pair of rowing boats tied up, watching the sun set over the distant meadows. Fifty yards to his right a boathouse caught his eye. It was old and faded and romantic, redolent of long-forgotten love affairs and trysts. The servant arrived with his whisky and a decanter. Wilde knocked back a glass and held it out for a refill. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

  So this was Milt Hardiman’s place. Hardiman, the man he was supposed to work with, probing the secrets of the Cavendish. Well, it seemed Hardiman was well ahead of him: half the staff of the lab – including Birbach and Hellquist – were here. Not only that, but he was clearly close to Geoff Lancing through his sister. Wilde wondered whether any paltry efforts he might make would be redundant. Did Colonel Dexter Flood really expect him to provide information on the Cavendish, or was he just covering his bases?

  Nonetheless, he did want to find Paul Birbach and talk to him away from the college and away from the Cavendish. He’d very much like to know why he had decided to leave. Were his loyalties really suspect? Something dubious about him that America should know of before he arrived there to work with Oppenheimer? Perhaps here at this party, with a couple of drinks under his belt, he might be less taciturn.

  As the thought came to him, he saw Birbach’s gaunt little figure emerge from the house on the arm of the woman with whom he had been earlier. They both looked out of place here. Birbach’s dinner jacket was two sizes too big and he blinked with bemusement at the dancers and drinkers. His woman looked worn down and hard. Even from this distance, he could see the hem of her maroon dress was unevenly stitched, and he suspected her necklace was sixpenny paste from Woolworths. Wilde berated himself for being condescending, but he wasn’t judging her, just observing.

  Birbach was a pace or two ahead of the woman. He stopped until she was at his shoulder, then moved on again, his little legs taking odd, short steps that propelled him in front once more.

  Nursing his glass of Scotch, Wilde began to amble towards them hoping to catch a few minutes of Birbach’s time, but something told him they didn’t wish to be disturbed just at the moment. He turned, instead, to listen to
the band and watch the dancers.

  He was feeling decidedly mellow. After a couple more tunes, the band took a break. Wilde looked around him. He didn’t really want to engage in conversation with anyone just at that moment. In the dying embers of the sun, the boathouse caught his eye, a hundred yards or so upstream.

  Glass in hand, he strolled towards the rather gorgeous old structure. He had always liked boathouses. There was something about the light in these places . . . He pushed open the slatted wooden door and heard the soft lapping of water against the hull of a rowing boat. And another noise. A brushing noise. He stood there, eyes acclimatising to the gloom, and was confronted with a sight that made his jaw drop.

  The woman in the maroon dress was on her knees on the decking, the stub of a cigarette in the corner of her mouth as she scraped her hand in circles, making scrubbing motions on the slatted wood. But she had no brush in her hand. As Wilde watched, transfixed, Paul Birbach came into view. His trousers were around his ankles. He knelt behind the woman and lifted her skirt.

  CHAPTER 13

  The glow from the Italian restaurant spilled out on to the pavement in a side street close to Wilhelmstrasse. The good-natured maître d’hôtel spotted Lydia as soon as she entered and asked her, in German, whether she had a reservation. As soon as she said nein, he began to speak English.

  ‘We are quite full, madam. Is it just you? I’m sure we could make space for you.’

  ‘I was hoping to find a Mr McGinn. He’s with a group of reporters.’

  ‘Ah yes, they have a Stammtisch – a table reserved for them every night. A dozen or so members of the foreign press corps. Mr McGinn is here tonight. Let me show you to their table.’

  Lydia had spent the past few hours on the telephone in a tiny room Frank Foley had arranged for her to use in the Tiergartenstrasse building. Foley’s cheery young English secretary, Margaret, provided her with coffee and explained how the telephone system worked. She also provided her with the numbers of English and German contacts, all of whom seemed sympathetic but could do no more than say they would keep an ear to the ground. The secretary had warned Lydia that it was believed the Gestapo listened in to all their calls, so she was circumspect in what she said.

  In the early evening, the secretary appeared again. ‘No joy?’

  She shook her head. She had run out of ideas and names to call.

  ‘Well then, I’m taking you out for a quick bite to eat and a glass of wine. You’ll work better properly fuelled.’

  ‘I’d love a beer, but I need to go to the Taverne, to meet those journalists.’

  ‘Oh, they won’t be there for ages. They’ll be writing up stories and filing copy for the morning editions at this time of day. Come on, you won’t miss them – they’ll all be there until the early hours.’

  After a gentle twenty-minute walk through the grey streets, past the endless building work commissioned by Hitler in his extravagant plans for a Rome of the north, and across the grey waters of the canal, they made their way to the Romanisches Café in a lovely square near the Zoo Station. Its echoing halls, once favoured by the country’s artists and writers, were pitifully sparse. But the steins of beer they immediately ordered from the despondent waiter were as refreshing as ever.

  As they talked of England and their backgrounds, they discovered they had both been to Girton. Margaret was twenty-six, three years younger than Lydia; their time at college had not crossed, but they were able to share stories of tutors’ quirks, famous escapades and scrapes.

  ‘So how did you end up here, Margaret?’

  ‘You’ve heard of Kristallnacht?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Well, I was working for the ministry in London. A few days after that horrible night, I was despatched out here. Poor Frank Foley was simply overwhelmed by the numbers trying to flee – and he needed help. So here I am.’

  Lydia was relaxing after the stresses of the past hours. She enjoyed this brave young woman’s company. They ordered some food and switched from beer to a half litre of house red. ‘Shouldn’t you be getting home?’ Lydia asked. ‘I’m sure I must be keeping you from something or someone.’

  Margaret laughed. ‘Don’t worry about me. We’re in the office until at least ten every night. And even then the queue won’t have diminished.’ Her face fell. ‘It’s simply bloody awful. The stories we hear!’

  The waiter returned and they both ordered potato omelettes with salad.

  ‘Tell me,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Are you sure? It can be pretty harrowing.’

  ‘I need to know what’s happening here.’ She wanted to get an idea of how realistic the chances were of ever finding a little Jewish boy consigned to the hands of pitiless men.

  The young secretary grimaced. ‘Yesterday, we received a letter from a Bavarian farmer who lives in a village near Nuremberg. He was seeking visas for himself, his Jewish wife and their four children. His wife was driven out of the village by the local SA brigade last November.’

  ‘They split up a family?’

  ‘Yes, they really do such things – and there are no courts to stop them. All their belongings were smashed up and the poor Frau was beaten with sticks. Her husband could do nothing. The wife had to go to stay with Jewish relatives in Nuremberg and the husband was left alone to look after the farm and what was left of their little grocery business. They had, he said in the letter, been happily married for twenty-five years. Just an ordinary contented couple who had raised a family together and been good neighbours. He told us he had written to the district council leader begging for assistance, asking for permission to have his wife return in safety. The letter he got back from the council leader, a ghastly sounding party man named Seiler, was jaw-droppingly cruel.

  ‘He told the farmer it was his own fault for marrying a Jewess in the first place and that no, she would not be given permission to return. The reply ended with these heartless words – and I made a point of remembering them word for word – “Your question regarding what should now happen to your wife is of as little interest to me as twenty-five years ago it was to you what would become of the German people if everybody entered a marriage that defiled the race.”’ She took another sip of beer. ‘What sort of people are they, these Nazis? What is to be done about them?’

  Lydia knew how the Quakers would deal with them: prayer and fasting. Perhaps Ecclesiastes was right after all; perhaps there was indeed a time for peace and a time for war. If so, then surely the second of those times was upon them.

  ‘They enact new laws against the Jews every week,’ Margaret continued. ‘Some laws are designed to drive them out of Germany. Others make emigration almost impossible.’

  ‘What will happen to this poor farmer and his wife?’

  ‘All I could do was write back and say they would have to apply for visas in person. Their best hope is obviously to get out of the country, but it’s a matter of finding places for them. Captain Foley bends the rules as far as he can, but there’s only so much he can do. Visas are like gold dust.’

  Now, three hours later, as the maître d’ escorted her through the tables to meet the reporters, she found herself trying and failing to understand how an apparently civilised society could descend to such cruelty. At least this restaurant was free of men in uniform.

  The maître d’ came to a halt in front of a long table, weighed down by plates of food, overflowing ashtrays, bottles empty, full and half-empty, and endless steins and glasses of all denominations. Nine or ten men, all in three-piece suits and ties, sat around talking in loud voices, laughing, smoking and drinking. As she approached, they fell silent and one by one turned their attention towards the new arrival.

  ‘Gentlemen, forgive me for interrupting, but this young English lady wished to talk with Mr McGinn.’

  One of the men leant over and offered her his hand. ‘I’m John Terence McGinn. Call me JT. Any good at poker dice, are you?’ He was a young Englishman with a cut-glass accent. ‘One Reichsmark
ante.’

  Another of the journalists, a tall, balding man of forty or so, stood up and pulled out the vacant chair beside him. ‘Ignore him, sister,’ he said to Lydia. He was an American. ‘Take a seat. What can I get you to drink? Have you eaten?’

  Lydia thanked him and sat down. She had probably had quite enough to drink already, but she’d heard that reporters determined a person’s worth by their ability to hold liquor, so she asked for a schnapps.

  ‘No, no, you’re in a little piece of Italy here. Forget schnapps. Willy Lehman, who owns this joint, gets in the finest grappa. You gotta try it.’

  ‘How can I help you?’ McGinn said. ‘Is it just me you want or can these reprobates listen in?’

  Lydia looked around the table. They were an interesting looking bunch, with neat haircuts, most of them wearing spectacles, all smoking. There was a world-weary, jaundiced air to them, but a certain warmth, too.

  ‘Well, my name is Morris,’ she said. ‘Lydia Morris. I was given your name by a mutual acquaintance, Captain Foley. I’m looking for a little Jewish boy called Albert Haas. He was on one of the train convoys to London, but was taken away on the German side of the Dutch border. There was no explanation and nothing has been seen or heard of him since. All our inquiries to the German regime are met with silence.’

  ‘Our? Miss Morris. You said our. Who do you represent?’ McGinn asked.

  ‘I represent the mother, Frau Dr Haas, and I represent the Quakers who organised the transport. Frau Haas has made her way separately to London and was expecting to be reunited with him there. Captain Foley at the passport office suggested you might have contacts within the regime who might have heard things?’

  JT McGinn turned to his colleagues. ‘Any of you heard of this boy?’

  They all shook their heads.

  Lydia had expected as much. ‘Perhaps I should tell you a bit more about the circumstances,’ she went on. ‘Frau Haas is a scientist, a physicist. She worked at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Munich. She was driven out and moved to Berlin. A few days ago, she made her escape.’ She lowered her voice, in case diners on nearby tables might be listening in. ‘I have a horrible feeling that the boy was snatched to persuade her to return to Germany.’