‘Chambers. We call them chambers.’
‘Ah, yes. Gentlemen in chambers. Workers in offices. Forgive me.’ Laughing, she put the phone down before he could respond. They were together again.
****
He went to Croydon via Lincoln’s Inn where he found her packet, left in his chambers’ doorway before the clerks arrived. An envelope with his name in capitals contained the packet itself. Carefully wrapped and sealed, it was addressed in spidery Germanic script to an antiquarian bookseller. It felt rather thin for a paper. Anyway, he had no problem fitting it in.
He’d been left a note, too, from Miriam, courtesy of Alexander, inviting him back to a meeting above the Tea Rooms, when an important matter was to be discussed. ‘Foxy’ had added a line, ‘Please try to come.’ He tore it up.
Chapter Six
A sweet scent, immediately familiar, was filling his nostrils. Familiar hands, slender with long, be-ringed fingers, were slipping over his shoulders from behind. A familiar voice was speaking to him in French. ‘And how is my little Peter?’
He replied in English, ‘Much the same. Mustn’t grumble.’ Then slipped into French, ‘And how are you, Mother?’ Without looking up, he took the right hand and kissed it, then the left.
‘I’m well.’ She held him for a moment or two longer, then slipped into a chair by his side. ‘What are you drinking?’
‘Apricot liqueur.’
‘Order champagne.’ The wide green eyes were surveying him from head to toe. She was dressed for travelling, as if she had just sprung out of her tourer, camera case in one hand, one of those close-cut fine woollen suits he remembered so well, a long silk scarf trailing, her wiry hair piled up, still dark with reddish hues, blown out by the wind, the skin of the long, oval face fresh and clear, without make-up. ‘How you look grown up. Not in the army yet?’
‘No need. How were your travels – Italy and Albania, Madame says. Good material?’
‘Useful material. Should make a good story. Interesting to see them in what passes for peace. It’s going to be a long war. And unlike anything we’ve seen. Now, bring me up to date.’
Where to begin? The champagne’s arrival provided a useful diversion. He’d waited for her in the hotel’s palm court, decorated in, he supposed, East Indies style, with waiters in some sort of colonial uniform gliding between rattan tables and chairs. The sound of German caught his ear. A mother and daughter were greeting an elderly man with a heavy briefcase. The elderly man shook his head. Tears filled the woman’s eyes; she turned away from her little girl. In the background, an energetic string ensemble played universal light classics.
He began with Ella. By the time he drifted to a conclusion, he was feeling just as on his return from school when, before the holidays could start, he had to stand in front of his parents and report on the term. Father always wanted to hear about the House, his studies and games. Mother would wait with a smile and then ask about life outside classrooms and sports fields.
She stood up. ‘Dinner. Time to change.’
****
In his room, he reflected that he still had no idea why he’d been summoned. To see her again was wonderful and he’d promised Ella he would do his best to persuade her to come back to England. But suppose she had brought him here to tell him certain news of herself and her future?
Apprehensively, he went down to meet her. A jumble of men with briefcases and rolled maps filled the hall, unmistakably military for all their civilian clothes. An international conference – Dutch, Belgian, French and British – seemed just to have broken up; its participants were waiting for their cars.
As his mother came down the stairs, a British officer broke away to greet her, bending over her hand to kiss it. They had a few minutes of conversation before the officer was called to his car. How smart and alive his mother looked, Peter thought, her wide smile as radiant as always, her presence turning heads. She gestured in Peter’s direction and said something; the officer gave him a glance and a friendly nod, putting on his hat and making a semi-salute in farewell.
‘Colonel ffoulkes was one of your father’s students when he was teaching the Officers’ War Course at Cambridge.’
‘He seems to have been at an important conference.’
‘Distinctly unofficial. Holland and Belgium may be neutral, but soldiers want to make contact before the Wehrmacht crosses the border. Colonel ffoulkes speaks good French; his mother came from Tours, so he acts as an interpreter for the British side. Perhaps you could do that when your time comes.’
Meaning she had mentioned it to the colonel. Naturally.
When they’d ordered, she told him about Rome, how crazy for all things English, clothes, cigarettes, novels, horses—especially since Eden was there. No other foreign minister had made such an impression on Roman society. ‘But they all accept that war with England is inevitable, and that Italy will eventually be beaten. It will be Mussolini’s war. He’ll have to depend on the Germans, whom Italians loathe, to do the fighting for them. Ciano himself says the British should be unworried as war will bring down the Duce. The count’s views are common talk in the golf and tennis clubs.’
‘I thought diplomacy and strategy bored you. And that’s why—’ He caught himself. ‘… you must be in Rome for the art.’
‘Oh, I was, a last look before it is too late, a last taste of Roman life.’
‘And now?’
‘Now?’
‘Now, Mother, you’re in The Hague?’
‘Passing through.’
‘Passing through?’
‘I thought it would be a convenient place to meet you, Peter. See you before all hell is let loose.’ She stubbed out her half-smoked cigarette. ‘Earlier, when you were talking about London, why didn’t you tell me about your lady friend?’
‘My lady friend?’
‘Your conversation seems to consist entirely of questions. This veal bores me. Let’s find somewhere quiet and talk seriously.’
She stood and pushed back her chair, drinking her wine down with that characteristic toss of the head. He felt his throat tighten.
He fetched their coats and they walked arm in arm to a bar where they sat on a glassed-in terrace overlooking a lake. Along the opposite bank, lights blazed in a long government building, officials working into the night. Below them, streetlights glimmered, their reflections ruffled by the chill breeze. Solitary men with briefcases hurried along the lakeside. From behind came a gentle hum of conversations and the clicking of dominoes, with sudden bursts of laughter and the chinking of glasses.
She waited until coffee and schnapps had come. ‘Well?’
During the short walk to the bar, he’d debated inconclusively how to put things. So she knew of Dinah. He might have expected that with Madame in the flat daily. But how much did she – in other words, how much would his mother – know?
‘I have been seeing a young woman, a friend, on and off. Of course, we’re not getting engaged or anything like that, so there’s been nothing to tell.’
‘Nothing like that. But you hope there will be something like that?’
‘I admit I like her. She’s fascinating and different.’ Life-enhancing. How could he say that without sounding mawkish. ‘But I’ve no idea how she might feel about me.’
‘And who or what is this fascinating, different young woman?’
‘She’s a senior window-dresser at Selfridge’s, but she would like to be an architect. And as I said there’s nothing more to it.’
‘Am I to know the name of this senior window-dresser and would-be architect who might be my daughter-in-law?’
‘That’s going much too far, Mother.’ Part of him resisted her pressure; part wanted to share. ‘Dinah Altschuler.’
‘Dinah Altschuler?’ She sounded the name in German and waited.
‘She’s from Czernowitz, but came here, to London I mean, with her grandfather. He’s a professor of German, from Vienna. He taught there and she was studying architecture. Her father is a docto
r in Czernowitz.’
‘A major city in the Bukovina.’
‘Do you know it? Dinah says it’s very fine.’
‘A fine city of the old empire. Yes, a jewel of the old empire. Little Vienna. It is indeed a very fine city.’ She paused, staring over the lake and added quietly, ‘And one of the most Jewish.’ She gave him a level look.
‘Dinah is Jewish, yes. You knew that already, didn’t you?’
‘I wanted my son to tell me.’
‘Very well, Dinah is Jewish.’
‘And her family is observant, pious, very pious perhaps?’ Her voice was flat.
It was his turn to stare over the dark waters of the lake. ‘No. The family are secular. Dinah’s grandfather is a committed socialist and so is she.’ He turned back to her. ‘If I wanted to marry Dinah, I can’t believe you’d object because she’s Jewish.’
She put her hands on the table and spread the fingers, studying them. ‘You are correct.’
‘If … It simply isn’t on the cards but I do know it wouldn’t be easy with some of the family and friends. Whatever people proclaim in principle, in practice sitting down to dinner or staying the weekend is another matter, though I’ve plenty of friends who aren’t like that.’
‘I hope so, but you will never know until they meet the test. Don’t misunderstand me.’ She took his hand and looked into his eyes, speaking with great deliberation. ‘It’s Dinah herself I’m concerned for. I want you to comprehend the strength of the world she … she would have to leave if, if she married you, and what that might cost her. Now and later. If not now, then perhaps later. It’s a self-contained world, inward, with its own ways of seeing and acting. You have no idea of its power.’
‘There’s nothing religious about her. She’s thoroughly modern, socialist, secular. I’ve only met her grandfather once, but he’s an expert on Novalis and Schiller, and a raging socialist. She goes to political meetings, not to any synagogue—’
‘And my non-political son has gone with her?’
He nodded.
‘Cultures are not that easily disposed of.’ She looked over the dark lake, then began again. ‘You can prune and shape the young tree, but the roots go deep. To tear them out is painful, perhaps impossible. And the long taproot may stay in the soil without your knowing.’
He waited.
She let go his hand. ‘Just as long as you also understand that the German-Jewish enlightenment didn’t reach into Galicia and Bukovina and eastern Poland.’
She called the waiter, who was reading a newspaper on the bar. Peter realised that the hum of conversation and clicking of the dominoes had long stopped. In the government building, the lights had been turned off, the last officials departed.
They walked back arm in arm.
‘How still it is,’ he said.
Her reply came as though she hadn’t heard. ‘I wish I could meet your Dinah.’
‘I know you’d like her. Why don’t you come back with me? If Hitler invades, you’d be safer at home. We hate to think of you out here. We could move out of the flat.’
‘Your father has offered me the Old House. Any time I want it, it’s waiting.’
He was silenced for a moment. ‘I went down to see the tenant out. Your sunflowers are miraculous. And the house still smells of Congo Impérial and Floramye.’ She laughed and waved her hand under his nose. ‘It’s waiting for you. Please, please take the offer.’
‘I don’t know if I could ever live there again.’
In the closeness of this moment, he asked, ‘Are you divorced?’
‘There’s no question of a divorce. We are … just … better people apart.’
‘Well, come back to your flat.’
‘There’s something I have to do, see done, before I can think of that.’
They arranged to meet for breakfast in her room. She offered him her cheek to kiss and then kissed him goodnight. They embraced. Then more tightly.
****
When he entered his mother’s room next morning, the maid was packing the last of her cases. He felt a visceral pang that took away his appetite.
‘Do you have to leave now?’
‘We have time to breakfast.’ It was already laid out – orange juice, coffee, rolls, croissants, boiled eggs, ham, salami, herring that his mother had ordered for them.
As soon as the maid had gone, he began again to plead with his mother to return to London. No one knew when Hitler would strike, but it could be at any moment and leave her cut off and in German hands.
‘I know I will come. I have promised your father. He says I should also be prepared to go to America. But first I have work to do. I have an idea for a series of pictures, a cultural record. Before it’s too late. They should make a powerful photo-reportage and I must get it done. I’ll be well away from here, you know, and far from any fighting. First Roumania, then into western Ukraine. Ciano has used his foreign ministry connections to arrange introductions and journalist’s passes for me. And I have letters from Life and Paris-Match. Their people are very interested.’
‘Well, at least you’re out of it there and you know where you’re going. But please, please make this the last. You can perfectly well take pictures in Britain and America.’
‘Take pictures?’ She shook her head at him. ‘Somehow English social life doesn’t have the same appeal.’ She smiled impishly. ‘Should I go to Czernowitz en route and introduce myself?’
‘I’ve told you: there’s no special reason for you to meet her parents. So just please make the journey as quickly as you can.’
She took his hands. ‘I will be back and I will sit down to dinner with you and Ella and Dinah. Now, breakfast.’
****
He missed it at first. Looking out for a window displaying ancient volumes, he walked past the entrance, then checked the numbers and retraced his steps to find a narrow doorway and a dull brass plate with the name of the bookseller, almost illegible.
He stepped into a narrow passage running between the houses on either side. It led him into a small paved area at the far end of which was a two-storeyed, flat-fronted building. The windows on the upper floor were shuttered, but he could see lights in the ground floor. As he approached, the door opened and a tall, gaunt man in a long brown smock appeared. On his head was a round, tasselled cap of red velvet; a green eyeshade on a ribbon hung round his neck. He said something in Dutch. Peter responded in English, asking if he had found the bookshop and explaining his errand. The tassel swung to and fro as the man shook his head. His face was quite expressionless, his eyes leaving Peter’s face only once, to look into the passage from the street. Peter tried French. His eyes flicking once more to the passage, the man nodded, stepping back to let him pass.
A heavy scent compounded of aged print, vellum, leather and glue filled his nostrils. He was in a long room, with lights hanging low from a darkly beamed ceiling. The bookseller asked if he would kindly wait while he opened the parcel. Could he offer him coffee? ‘Please explore the books.’ Tassel swinging, the red velvet cap disappeared down a circular staircase into the basement.
Peter edged his way round tables of antique classical Latin, Greek and Hebrew texts; 18th-century French novels and histories printed in Holland; ancient books of mathematics, science, optics, theology; sermons in Latin, German and Dutch; richly printed catalogues of libraries and galleries, of forests, flora and fauna. He paused at a Marburg classification of plants dated 1794, lingered over a magnificently illustrated 17th-century French description of the Russian steppe, then peered into a glassed-in wall bookcase to find himself staring at Les Tableaux Vivants in several editions. Nestling next to it was Priapeia in Latin and English, Anandria ou Confessions de Mademoiselle Sappho, Hic et Hec ou l’Art de varier les Plaisirs de l’Amour, Ecole des Filles, a run of Erotika Biblion in several editions. He was just craning his head to read Utilité de la Flagellation dans les Plaisirs de l’Amour et de Mariage when the owner’s voice made him jump. ‘There is much more
not on display, some quite recent, if it is to your taste.’
‘I think not, thank you. I will bear it in mind for my married friends.’
The bookseller nodded gravely, though his eyes smiled. ‘Rarity can make them a valuable addition to a gentleman’s library.’ He was carrying a brass tray on which were an elaborately decorated Turkish coffee-pot and two small china cups. As he poured the thick coffee, sharply pungent, he asked if Peter had known the professor long.
Peter explained that he had met him once; it was his granddaughter, Dinah, whom he knew, and who, knowing he was coming to meet his mother, had asked him to bring the package.
‘I have not had the pleasure of meeting the young lady, but I understand she is very talented, and had made an impression in Vienna studying art.’
‘Architecture, I think. But yes, she is very gifted.’
‘Have you been to the professor’s house? How did he seem?’
‘I was there only briefly, but he seemed well and fully engaged with his work on Novalis.’ Peter smiled. ‘His room is overwhelmed with books and papers.’
They sat in silence for a moment, sipping the thick, black coffee. Then the bookseller said, ‘The move cannot have been easy. Leaving all your friends and colleagues behind to start again.’ He leaned over to refill Peter’s cup,
‘I’m sure. He’s lucky to have Dinah with him. And I think there are occasional visitors from abroad. Of course, London is full of German and Austrian exiles.’
‘And you, Monsieur Hill, I see you love books. Are you involved in the study of literature?’
‘Much as I should like to be, not at the moment. I am in the law.’ He declined further coffee and, putting his cup on the tray, rose to go.
‘I have a favour to ask. Would you mind taking a book back for the professor?’
‘Not at all.’
‘And after your kindness it would give me pleasure if you would chose a book for yourself from among the stock here.’ To Peter’s protests, the bookseller replied that he expected the Germans in the city within four months and he had no great confidence in the survival of his shop or these books. The tassel swung to and fro as he nodded into the store. ‘I would like to think that a volume a young booklover had liked was in London.’
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