‘That, too.’
‘Josef rarely talked about her. I think I assumed, I was so little, that she had simply been taken ill and died. And later, when he told me about my real father, about Staszek, either he led me to believe, or I took it for granted that their fate had been the same. That they had shared shall we call it a disenchantment with communist power.’ He found another crumb, stared at it. ‘I think I am really rather grateful to you for not having come out with the facts about Karolina until now. During the seventies and eighties, it gave me strength to think I was carrying on an honourable tradition of dissidence.’
He met her eyes, saw that tears had gathered in hers.
‘I hoped that might be the case,’ she said softly.
‘I remember neither of them, you know. Though I have a photograph of her. Only of her. She looks very large and very stiff in it. She is standing in front of a building made of large stone slabs. But maybe that is the child in me talking. I haven’t looked at the picture in years.’
‘I shall send you one of him. In uniform. From our London days. You’ll see. He was very handsome.’
‘Pictures instead of memory.’
‘Better, perhaps.’ She took a deep breath and stared at the untouched plate in front of her. With a little shiver, she poked at meat and vegetables. ‘I feel oddly empty now. Maybe that is the true point of confession. Emptiness, a purging of too many memories, so that one can fill up on life again. But I’m not hungry.’
‘No.’ He refilled her glass, gestured for the waiter to take away their plates. Everyone around them had left. Only across the room was there still a single couple. But he didn’t want to leave yet.
Simone read his mind, wondered a little at the closeness she felt for him, despite the passage of years, despite everything, despite what might still be a damning verdict - as if he had really all along inhabited a sunny corner of herself which needed no dusting away of cobwebs, and which was only accidentally linked by a grimy corridor to that older history.
‘We might have some dessert. Something sweet to wash away those bitter tastes.’
He didn’t smile. He was studying the salt cellar intently. Only after they had ordered, did he meet her eyes.
‘Tell me, Simone. Why now? Why not have rushed back here in ‘89? Or have bothered at all? I am no longer a child deeply concerned about parental histories.’
She swallowed hard, found herself coughing, grappled with her shame.
‘Before ‘89…’
‘Yes, I understand. Then it was difficult. But since?’
She didn’t answer that inquisitorial gaze and suddenly it softened.
‘You’re not ill, Simone? Setting the record straight before it’s too…’ He cut himself off.
‘I’m a coward, Jan. Vain. I didn’t want you to hate me. To spoil something that in itself was good. But that’s enough of that for one evening.’
‘Yes.’ He was suddenly all concern. ‘You must be tired. I will ask them to order a taxi for us and I will see you back. And we will talk only about the present. I would like you to meet my daughter. Then you will know all the generations of my family.’
‘I would like that very much.’
In the dark of the taxi, he suddenly covered her fingers tensely with his. ‘Have you confided all this to Stephen. I know how close you are.’
‘No. No, of course not.’
He relaxed his hand.
Simone laughed. ‘You know, I gave Stephen your name. It was his second trip to Czechoslovakia, if I remember rightly. I thought you might like each other, given the shared Cambridge experience, not to mention other things. And then there was your sister… A great sadness that.’
‘Yes. I had no idea you were involved in the network until much later. And then Stephen and I talked about you now and again. But only when we became very good friends.’ His face in the shadows took on a musing expression. ‘Not because we saw each other so much. That was rare enough. But the very passage of time gives things depth.’
‘Like us,’ Simone said softly and, hoping he hadn’t heard the sudden rush of emotion in her voice, hurried on. ‘Stephen is very secretive.’
‘Yes. He doesn’t give very much away.’ He looked out the window at the curve of lights along the river. ‘I am concerned about him, you know. First there is the matter of this possible plundering of his work - work he so generously wants to share with our Institute. Then… ’
‘What plundering?’ Simone veered round towards him so abruptly that her bag fell from her lap.
He retrieved it. ‘He hasn’t told you? As we said, he is very secretive. It could be serious.’
They had arrived at the Europa and Simone gripped his arm. ‘Come in with me for a last drink. Or a coffee. You must tell me about this. I suspected something.’
At the door, he hesitated, stamped cold from his feet like a small boy. ‘You know I never come here. Has it changed very much?’
Her voice was rueful. ‘Not as much as we have.’
The bar was crowded with bodies and a cacophony of voices in an assortment of tongues. Beneath them, above them, a saxophone strained pouring out a melody which was half-way to speech.
A couple rose from a window-side table and they made their way quickly towards it.
Sitting with her back to the room, Simone blotted out all sounds but his voice.
‘Tell me about Stephen.’
‘He is a little like a son to you, isn’t he?’
She avoided the choice of words, yet remembered how her liking for Stephen had intensified into a sudden sense of kinship ever since, all those years ago, he had blurted out his passion for Jan’s half sister. ‘I care for him. What is this theft?’
Jan hesitated. ‘I don’t know that it’s for me to tell you. I…’
She cut him off, sensing their complicity, their brotherhood of secrets. ‘It’s not a moment for tact, Jan, believe me.’
He looked up at the ceiling where the smoke curled against dim light. ‘It’s not certain, but it seems that his computer was broken into. There is the question of a woman. It’s a little complicated.’
‘In Paris? Ariane Mikhailova?’ she prodded him.
He nodded.
‘I see.’ Her face grew grave. ‘It’s potentially valuable, I presume.’
He nodded again. ‘Very. To both of us. Then on top of it all there is perhaps a problem with his wife…’
Simone was no longer listening. ‘Look, Jan, it’s very rude I know, but having invited you in here, I think I will have to leave you. There are some things I have to see to. You’ll forgive me. Forgive me for everything, I hope. Eventually.’
She rose and he rose with her, brought her hand to his lips.
‘Are you going or coming?’ A waiter approached them, surliness in his manner. Right beside him was a woman, fair, with candid eyes and a graceful turn of neck.
‘Jan, how very nice. I insisted that Ted bring me here and now we find you. May we join you?’ She spoke in English and turned a wide smile on Simone. ‘If we’re not interrupting, of course.’
‘I was just leaving,’ Simone murmured. She flung her capacious fur over her shoulders before Jan could rise to help.
‘But I must introduce you.’ Jan held her back. ‘Simone Lalande Debray, Tessa Hughes.
Simone nodded, extricated herself, felt Jan scrutinizing her. ‘Please excuse me. There ‘s something urgent…’ She waved at them, walked briskly round tables towards the side door which led to the hotel, almost collided with Ted Knight.
‘Simone!’ In the smoky half-light, his eyes glinted like a large cat’s. He blocked her way. ‘We need to talk, I think.’
‘Yes.’ She gave him her impassive face. ‘Tomorrow. I’m tired now. Around ten or ten thirty if you like. Here.’ She gestured stiffly towards the bar and before he could stop her, walked off.
‘Simone Lalande Debray, did you say?’ Tessa interrogated Jan with something like disbelief.
He nodded.
/>
‘Order a whisky for me, will you Jan? I think I need it.’
‘Still suffering from the ill effects of our encounter with the police?’ he asked kindly.
‘That too.’ Tessa didn’t meet his eyes. She was staring in the direction Simone had gone. ‘You’re sure that’s her name?’
He laughed whimsically. ‘More certain of that than I am of many other things tonight.’
‘Do you know where Stephen Caldwell is staying, Jan?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Of course.’ He looked his curiosity, but she had averted her face.
‘Tell me later,’ she lowered her voice to a whisper as Ted Knight approached them.
‘Jan, a pleasure to find you here.’ He pulled up a chair from a neighbouring table and squeezed in close to Tessa, gesturing to the waiter at the same time.
Watching the muscle work in his face, Tessa didn’t quite believe in the pleasure. She edged away slightly, felt his arm coil possessively round her shoulder.
‘You’ve been with Simone? Lucky man,’ he winked as Jan nodded.
‘Who is she?’ Tessa asked.
Jan studied her.’ You really haven’t met before!’
‘Tessa’s not much interested in our Congress,’ Ted spoke for her. ‘She’s been keeping her distance, doing a bit of sight-seeing.’
With a sullen clink and clatter, the waiter deposited glasses on their table.
‘He still hasn’t mastered the virtue of good service,’ Ted mumbled. ‘But apart from that, this is a pretty good place. Very belle époque, eh Tess?’ He raised his glass to them. ‘The singer’s not bad either.’
They listened to the throaty strains of a blues, watched a woman in slinky silver lamé make love to a bulbous microphone. Tessa felt Jan’s eyes on her. There was a peculiar expression in them. Had he found her out, she wondered. If only Ted would go to the loo and leave them for a moment, but he had been so assiduous in his attentions that it seemed unlikely. Odd and exhausting to find oneself so jealously desired.
‘You were going to tell me about Simone Lalande Debray,’ she murmured in Jan’s direction when applause at the song had died down. The words stammered through her lips. She realised that though its owner had so obsessively preoccupied her for days, she had never said the name aloud. How different her fantasy Simone had looked from this rather grandly dignified and well-preserved older woman. ‘I’ve heard her name…’ Tessa urged Jan on.
Again Ted intervened. ‘You may have come across her books. I think one of them has been translated into English. Well, into American, in any case.’ He laughed his generous laugh, bent towards Jan. ‘I’ve been trying to convince Tess, here, to come back to California with me. I could use a sharp new assistant. Cool, unruffled and with a plush English voice to woo the contacts with.’
‘Are you tempted?’ Jan gave her his whimsical smile.
Tessa examined the buttons on her jacket, was saved the need to answer by a shout from behind her, closely followed by a man’s bulk careening into her chair.
‘Heh! What’s going on?’ Ted leapt to his feet with all the aplomb of a trained fighter. He picked the man up by the collar, scowled at him, shoved him back towards the bar, so that he fell against a stool and looked at them with dazed eyes. A tussle had broken out. Fists flailed. Bodies tumbled to the floor and bounced up again. Someone rushed through the door. A woman screamed.
Only their waiter was peaceful. He was leaning against the neighbouring table and shaking his head. There was a big smile on his face, the first of the evening. ‘Capitalism,’ he announced and beamed.
****
Simone paced the length and breadth of her room and waited impatiently for the telephone to ring. While she waited, she thought how well Jan had responded to her words. She sighed and sank into a chair. She needn’t have put it all off for so long, needn’t have boarded up this tawdry part of her past with such thick planks. Needn’t have been so fearful. She was a coward, a sentimental coward afraid to despoil a memory which meant far more to her than to him. At least, it was done now. The information had come from her. That was important. And soon she might be able to confront her mirror with a little more ease.
With relief she heard the phone ring. She picked it up quickly, heard the operator, then a deep baritone.
‘Ivan. Good. Hello. Have you found her?’
‘My friends have tracked her to Nice. Found her two days ago. I tried to ring you in Paris. Our pretty friend was taking the sea air and waiting for a visa to the States. She’d given a poste restante number to Sacha, paid him to keep it secret. But there’s money and money…’ He chuckled. ‘Once we knew the town… well, it’s hard for someone like Ariane to be invisible, even with dark glasses.’
‘Excellent. Who’s with her?’
‘Dmitri Burov. You don’t know him.’
Simone noted the name and tapped her pencil impatiently on the cabinet. ‘He’s reliable, I take it?’
‘He hasn’t let her out of his sight. As ordered.’
‘Good. Tell him he can communicate to her that if she doesn’t sit tight, she’ll be marched straight to the police. And I’ll testify. There won’t be any visas.’
‘What’s she done?’
‘She’s a greedy, thieving fool. And Ivan, for good measure, get him to go through all her things. Take away computer disks, cassettes, any papers he can find. Be thorough. Don’t let her get her hands on them. Better still, have him post them to me in Paris.’
‘Done.’
‘And Ivan. Warn him. Don’t let her seduce him.’
‘Simonka,’ Ivan chortled. ‘You haven’t seen Dmitri! Maybe if she had a gun.’
‘She may.’ Simone was grim. ‘Get him to check and get rid of it. The silly girl doesn’t really understand the size of the trouble she’s dealing with.’
He was silent for a moment, then cleared his throat. ‘After this, we’re quits, right?’
‘Altogether quits,’ Simone said. ‘I just hope it isn’t too late.’ She hung the phone up with a sigh and went to draw the curtains, shut out the lights and movement of the Square.
How right she had been to be suspicious of Ariane’s sudden disappearance. How right to bully Ivan into having her tailed. Her instincts were still intact, even if her energy left a great deal to be desired. Slowly she took off her boots, rubbed her ankles. So thin, now. Almost too thin to carry the weight of the years.
With a sudden gesture of exasperation, she flung a boot across the room, watched it land in the centre of the carpet. Odd how that single discordant object made havoc of the room’s arrangement. She went to pick it up, tidied it into the wardrobe.
Yes, there was one more element to be dealt with before she could taste harmony. Nothing obviously painful, nothing that tugged and pulled and twisted at the deepest emotions of her life. It was something minor. Minor, but corrosive, like a single speck of rust that had dug beneath the patina of her days and slowly eaten away at them so that only recently had she realised that the entire structure of her being was at stake.
-18-
_____________
Something woke Tessa, some faint irregular sound that jarred her from the depths of dream and edged her over the surface.
The room was dark and at first seemed strange. A plump coverlet with a satiny stripe, ornate bedposts, a secretaire with spindly legs like a ballerina performing a pas de chat.
The glimmer of light from the corner of elaborately assembled curtains reassured her. A new hotel room. She turned, stretched out a limb, realised in the doing that Ted was not there, realised too that there was a second light at the far end of the room, a dim beam from a torch, focussing on something. Her bag. Someone was rifling through it. Her muscles tensed. Fearfully she lifted her gaze, then with a start fumbled for the light.
‘Ted, what are you doing?’
‘Shh. Go back to sleep.’
‘But…’
‘I’m just looking for an aspirin. Don’t trouble yourself.’ He switch
ed the light off and bent to brush her forehead with his lips.
Tessa stared at the luminous face of the clock. Ten past five. From the bathroom, she heard water running. What was Ted doing going through her bag when he had a cabinetful of pills in there? She heard the soft fall of his bare feet, the rustle of sheets next to her.
‘I ran out,’ he whispered softly and wrapped his arm round her.
The arm was heavy and she slipped away from under it, murmured a conciliatory g’night. She lay there unable to sleep and not daring to move, lest he should take her movement as some kind of overture. When she heard the regular rise and fall of his breath, she allowed herself to find a more comfortable position. Only one more night, she told herself, then Ted would be gone and she would be free to do exactly as she wished.
He had invited her to go to Budapest with him tomorrow, the last lap of his European trip. She had said neither yes nor no. She owed him these last days and would prefer them to pass pleasantly. After all, he had been very good to her. He had also talked about California, said she must come and visit him there. She had listened and smiled. Her thoughts were not on California. He knew that. That was probably why he was so insistent.
Tessa sighed. Feelings were so unpredictable. And hers were all with Amy these days. And Stephen. Yes, suddenly with Stephen.
Seeing Simone Lalande Debray last night at the Europa had given her something of a shock. That subtly draped and expensive burgundy dress, the swathe of fur, the statuesque agelessness of her features, the grand gestures. This was hardly the coy mistress or blank-eyed bimbo of her imaginings, Not Stephen’s mistress at all. She felt that with a certainty.
Tessa turned over restlessly in her bed and tried to recapture the emotions which had first spurred her on her journey. They now seemed lost in a dusty distance. A woman’s seductive voice on the answering machine. A jealous suspicion about a husband for whom she felt only hostility, a need for confrontation, a sense that everything must end between her and Stephen or somehow change radically - Stephen, who had been reduced in her mind to that one dimensional creature who refused to give her a child.
The Things We Do For Love Page 30