‘Special category?’
Anselm’s eyes held his steadily. ‘Someone must find him a worry.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. Apart from teaching German to members of the Civil Service,’ – well, one member for certain – ‘the old man is completely absorbed in his study of Novalis. And he’s the last person to co-operate with the Nazis. He’s been a communist all his life.’
‘People can be moved by motives other than political loyalty. He’ll have his chance to make a case next week. His tribunal appearance has been brought forward. Even now there should be a letter at his home.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Nothing to do with me. They’re trying to clear the decks in case Adolf launches a surprise attack.’
‘I must find the old man decent representation.’
‘No representation. A friend to speak up, otherwise it’s all down to the papers and personal impression. Can’t say any more.’ He nodded affirmatively at a clubman leaving the bar. Peter prepared to take his leave, but Anselm put a hand on his arm. ‘I hear you’ve been putting yourself about a bit with the peace camp. Youthful curiosity, I imagine. Look, you don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about your being a defeatist, not wanting victory. Victory’s the true watchword, not peace.’ He led the way into the hall and paused. ‘Victory, Peter, whatever the cost. Let me know your thoughts on the Rosenberg. We’ll have a word. Give our love to Ella when you’re next in touch.’
****
The bus juddered its way in the direction of King’s Cross, the conductor absent-mindedly whistling Moonlight Serenade, then switching to Run, Rabbit, Run as it neared its terminus.
An intriguing poem to choose for translation. To demonstrate their command of Latin measure and mood, men mostly went for Gray’s Elegy and similar. In the family, Anselm’s reputation was that he did nothing without purpose. Still, the last war was on everybody’s mind, though Rosenberg wasn’t one of the popular war poets. Unjustly. Too humane, perhaps. Too ironic.
****
Dinah opened the door at once. The wireless was playing music through a crackle of interference. ‘Hilversum’, she explained as she went to turn it off.
He took her in his arms and gave her Anselm’s information. ‘Has a letter come about a hearing?’
‘Next door. I get it. Can I bring you a cup of tea or coffee, or a brandy?’
The room must have been just as the professor had left it; the Hölderlin open on a side table, his pencil in the spine.
‘Will you speak for him?’ She handed him the brown envelope “On His Majesty’s Service Home Office Urgent BY MESSENGER”. ‘It must have come this afternoon.’
‘Of course. Won’t you speak too?’
‘I expect I am so suspicious a person as he and will carry no weight or even bad weight. If they ask for me, I will. They will recognise and respect you. You will free him.’
‘I’ll do my best, I promise.’
She put her arms round his neck. ‘I would be lost without you. Without knowing you are there for me. You will always be there, won’t you?’
‘Always.’ He realised she was crying into his shoulder and held her tightly until the tears ceased to flow.
‘May I have your handkerchief? I’m sorry. It is all overwhelming me.’ She composed herself and went out to wash her face.
She returned looking brighter, though her eyes were shadowed. ‘I’m sorry to have left you alone. Do you not have to get back to your aunt?’
He explained that Frances had put off her visit for a day. Something to do with evacuees causing local problems.
‘You must be hungry. I apologise, but there is nothing in the house. Will you go to a little Italian café grandfather and I sometimes eat in? It is not very grand.’
A few minutes walk towards King’s Cross, Il Venezia Di Nico was not grand, but the dish of the day, liver, was fresh and the tea strong. He made a note of it, to surprise his friends. Ella would enjoy it. When she got back. If the owners were free.
He asked Dinah if there was anything more he should know about the professor. No problems or ambiguities over his getting out of Vienna and into England? Nothing that might look odd to suspicious minds? Connections in the wrong places?
Nothing. As she’d told him, former students, some in the right ministries, some in banking and the law, had arranged papers for him to leave Austria. He was very fortunate. If those students had not protected him, Brownshirts might have forced him to scrub the pavements with a toothbrush or parade naked through Vienna like other Jews.
There was something else. How could he put it? There were no two ways. Her grandfather’s calling for agitation and a general strike …
Dinah put down her knife and fork and laughed. ‘Why did you keep it to yourself? To protect me, my love?’ She looked happier than for the whole evening. ‘I should have warned you. He has these little lapses … but they mean nothing. Poor grandfather.’
He took her hand and kissed it, savouring again the richness of the perfume she’d worn at dinner. He had smelled it somewhere else recently, but couldn’t immediately recall where.
****
They walked back, arm in arm. He stepped inside the house to take the Home Office envelope so that he could study the papers and official advice. They would meet at the tribunal. He kissed her. She was not to be concerned. How could they not release her grandfather? He kissed her again. ‘If anything else worries you, come straight to me.’
She hesitated. He was doing so much for her, too much …
‘No such thing as too much where you’re concerned. What can I do?’
It was a letter for her parents. So full of personal matters, details of her life, her feelings – she drew her fingers slowly down his face – she couldn’t bear the thought of a censor reading them, running his eyes over her, over them. Horrible to imagine. Her grandfather was there too. But the censor’s eyes could be avoided: there was a discreet channel used by Jewish businessmen and refugees, a private post system that passed mail to the continent … She’d used it to keep in touch with her family—
He interrupted. ‘Of course I’ll take your letter there, if you would like me to.’
‘It’s just with grandfather’s tribunal—’
‘No, you shouldn’t risk it. Give me the letter and tell me what to do.’
****
He thought he was in luck’s way: a short step down the main road, a taxi was at the kerb.
The driver shook his head. ‘Waiting to pick up.’
If by any chance they did hold the professor, he’d try to find somewhere a bit closer for Dinah. All this stumbling about in the dark, by the dimmest of torch beams, was not much fun, no means of knowing what trap lay just ahead. Or ambush.
****
Aunt Frances had arrived with bags full of home-grown vegetables, as promised. ‘Don’t order a thing. I’m bringing food from the good earth, nature’s own riches.’ Apples and pears from her storehouse appeared on the dining room table. With jolly gusto, she took over the kitchen: artichokes, a fragrant vegetarian casserole, apple tart. She summoned him to table: ‘Come along. It’s country feast night.’
Over the meal she talked about the evacuees, how they rampaged over the countryside. But after they’d eaten and cleared away, she seemed to have run out of conversation and sat, seemingly preoccupied, frowning over a whisky, drawing on a cheroot while Peter smoked a cigarette. In an increasingly heavy silence, unprecedented with Frances, he suggested that they retired. ‘Frances, you must be fatigued after a long day and all your exertions over such a phenomenal meal.’
‘No, no. I’m sorry to be so abstracted. I was thinking over something we must talk about.’
‘Aunt, it’s late. Sunday tomorrow. Lots of time to talk at leisure over breakfast. Honestly.’ He’d be damned if he’d defend his attachment to Dinah at this time of night.
Something in his tone persuaded her. ‘Very well. Breakfast. It can wait that bit longer.’ She smil
ed with great warmth and stood up, jerking the long column of ash from the end of her cheroot. ‘Ella certainly sewed those curtains beautifully. Lovely workmanship. I wish she had done mine.’
‘I think Madame took her needle to them as well. You could invite her to re-sew yours. I’m sure she’d be down like a shot.’
‘I think I’ll settle for my local little woman. Sleep well.’
****
She woke him with a cup of tea and then was there in the dining room, smoking a cheroot and reading the paper. He finished his breakfast and waited, resigned to the unavoidable, resolved to be patient, firm that he would not use Vienna to defend Dinah.
Frances put down the paper and placed her cheroot carefully in an ashtray, the thin smoke coiling up. ‘Tell me, Peter, did Ella explain why she decided to go to Egypt?’
‘The opportunity turning up just when she felt she wanted pastures new. Serendipity.’
‘Pastures new, certainly. Did she tell you why she wanted them?’
‘Fed up with life here. Wanting wider horizons. I must say I was surprised. Things seemed to be going so well, artistically at least. Did she say something else to you?’
‘Yes.’ His aunt folded the paper and pushed it away. ‘Yes, and you should know what it is.’ She refilled her cup and brought it over to sit by him. ‘You know, dear boy, war brings a clearing of the decks. Wills rewritten, accounts settled, apologies made.’ She stubbed out the cheroot. ‘Ella learned something that upset her but she decided to keep it from you. She told me she didn’t want to see you upset too. “Particularly now,” she said. I told her I thought she was wrong. That she had no right. And that inside your gentle, bookish appearance was more steel than she knew.’
‘Prep school prepares you for any trial.’ He’d been right about Ella. But if not Ella herself, then …?
‘In the end, family secrets will out.’
The phrase jarred him.
‘The fact is,’ – she took his hands in hers – ‘the fact is … Ella had learned that your mother and father are not married.’
‘Not married?’ He jerked his hands free. ‘You can’t mean it.’
‘I’m afraid I do. Not actually married.’
‘Not married?’ He stood up. “No question of a divorce.” ‘Not married? So you mean Ella and I are—’
‘Illegitimate? Yes. I suppose so. In the letter of the law.’
‘Bastards.’ He almost spat the word.
She winced. ‘I don’t know why … why your father and mother never married. Your mother had her name changed to your father’s of course. In spite of everything, they’ve remained true to each other. And still in love, I believe.’
‘Not married.’ He couldn’t take it in.
‘Not. Not actually married.’
Illegitimate. ‘Not married. And Ella couldn’t stay, once she knew?’
Frances pulled him down into his chair where she could look straight at him. ‘No. She had to put some distance between herself and London. And I think she saw the chance to have it out with your father. Why … Why not married. Why you hadn’t been told.’
‘Why …’ Rage was choking him. He fought down a surge of violence, the need to smash something. ‘Why didn’t they tell us?’
‘You must ask them. Protect you. I think they meant to. There was never a right time. And once they separated, I suppose no one wanted to add to the burden on you both.’
He didn’t respond, couldn’t, trying to take it in—this dispossession, this unravelling of himself, his place in the world. He was fitting it in, applying it to the past. ‘But other people knew, the family, friends?’
‘It’s difficult to keep such things completely secret.’
‘How many knew? Who exactly?’
‘Peter, I know it’s difficult, but try not to be angry. Your parents love you and Ella. The family admire and respect you. And these days, it really doesn’t matter that much. Really doesn’t matter.’
He was close to tears, but of rage. “There’s no question of a divorce.” How could she? Playing games with him and Ella.
She went for fresh tea. When she returned, he asked, ‘How long have you known, Aunt Frances?’
‘It’s not a question of knowing. I guessed early on, but your parents’ choice wasn’t my business. Your father and I didn’t talk about it till much later. Such a lovely couple. And I’ve always thought there were more important things about relationships. I hope you and Ella will think that too.’
He drank his tea in silence, trying to adjust to a tumble of thoughts. A bastard. Illegitimate. Out of wedlock. Wrong side of the blanket. Love child. Misbegotten. He could weep. Hadn’t he seen the consequence for others? The necessary outsider among all the safely legitimate. Legitimately safe. Legitimately superior. “Not in with them.” Never in with them. If only he’d understood it, understood what Ella had really been saying. If only he could have talked it over with Ella. If only she were there.
‘Thank you for telling me.’ He took her hand. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t easy, but I am grateful, really grateful. You were quite right, of course. I must know.’
****
He took her to Waterloo. Amid the crush of servicemen returning from leave, he put ‘One last question. One last mention, I promise. Who told Ella and why now?’
‘Veronica. She heard you were thinking of marriage, feared it had to come out, and thought it would best come from her. She loves you both. Meant well. I’m sure she thought Ella would tell you. Come and see me soon.’
Marriage? He would have to tell Dinah as soon as possible, the decent thing. Surely it could make no difference to a communist. But her family?
****
In search of her private mail service, he went straight from the hubbub of Waterloo to the tumult of Whitechapel, finding his destination, a newspaper shop, on the corner of a narrow, smoke-blackened brick court. Lattice windows had advertisements for cigarettes and pipe tobacco. On the door were copperplate handwritten notices for fountain pen repairs “any make”, for “letters written”, for “letters taken poste restante”. Inside, his own newsagent was put to shame by stacks of newspapers and magazines in half-a-dozen languages and scripts, trays of postcards, books too, in a lending library. The interior smelled strongly of dark tobacco and sherbert.
Behind the brown-varnished counter, sitting on a high stool and drinking lemon tea from a glass, was a thin man wearing a black skull cap, a black coat and a collarless white shirt. A smile spread across his sallow face as he watched Peter hesitate on the threshold, then approach.
‘May I be of assistance to you, sir? Please feel free to look at our stock.’ He had a rather high, fluting voice. ‘There is the London press. We also carry foreign language papers. There are books to buy or borrow. There is a good selection of London postcards, and we also hold views of the major towns and cities of central and eastern Europe—’
He stopped as a woman came in with a child in a pushchair and another holding her hand, their noses running.
‘Czernowitz, perhaps?’
‘Czernowitz assuredly.’ He waved towards the trays. ‘Also Cernauti. Over there.’
While the woman discussed replacing a crossed nib in an old fountain pen – ‘I shouldn’t never have let the boy touch it; his father wouldn’t never forgive me’ – Peter bent over the tray, thumbing through sepia and black and white views of, how truly said, Little Vienna, embarrassed at the shopman’s joke. Czernowitz and Cernauti were one and the same city, renamed by the Roumanians.
The nib replaced, the mother so relieved, the shop finally empty, Peter returned to the counter with two Czernowitz cards for Dinah. ‘I also have a letter to leave. For Mr Robinson.’ On the envelope Dinah had written, “M. Henri Robinson, The Fashion Fur Company, Paris”. In the corner where a stamp would have gone was “Box 3021”. Inside was the letter addressed to her parents. Mr Robinson’s letter would be passed on out of England; in a country free of censorship, she said, it would be opened an
d the envelope inside posted to her parents. ‘It takes a little time, but it is safe and secure, and no censor searching my words with his grubby eyes.’
He put it on the counter with the ten-shilling note Dinah had insisted he took. ‘I’ll pay for the cards separately.’
The man picked up the envelope and the note, glancing at each one for a moment. He looked at Peter from under his brow, nodded and disappeared into the room behind the counter, shutting the door.
While he waited, a copy of Le Populaire caught Peter’s eye: it seemed the Paris government’s policy of rounding up aliens and other foreign no-goods had been welcomed by the French people, with the resultant drop in crime and low-life as well as the removal of potential assistance to the enemy. Then the shop bell made him jump. A customer loomed up at his elbow, a burly man in a ratcatcher cap and belted mackintosh.
‘Interesting shop.’ The face under the ratcatcher was soft and full, the accent Scottish, the smile empty.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ The shopman had returned.
‘I believe this gentleman is before me.’
‘He has some business to transact, an order to give, so …’ He handed Peter the glass. ‘Please don’t let your tea get cold.’
‘Yes, do go ahead. I’ve plenty of time.’ He took a sip from the glass and stood back, still holding Le Populaire. Ratcatcher’s silent arrival on thick rubber soles had made him uneasy.
‘An English paper for me, please. The Sunday Times?’
‘I beg pardon, sir. We’re sold out. There’s a copy of Reynold’s News.’
‘That’ll do. And a box of matches. Swan Vestas.’
‘The paper is just to your left, sir. If you care to pick one up.’
‘Your letter will be collected tomorrow, sir, for Mr Robinson.’ Ratcatcher had gone, the shopman watching him out of the door before he spoke.
Peter put the glass down. ‘Thank you. How much do I owe you for the postcards and Populaire?’ Dinah might be interested to see how the French government treated aliens.
‘Would you care to look at our books before you go? You might wish to join our lending library? The stock is added to regularly. You can exchange your choice when you next have business here.’
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