Innocence To Die For

by Eidinow, John

  ‘The bombing is getting heavier, but they’re losing a lot of planes.’

  ‘So say authorities. Bombing will move inland, it is thought? To RAF bases?’

  ‘The Luftwaffe will have to if they intend invasion. But the RAF will be ready for them. Have you any news of my mother?’

  ‘My understanding that mother very comfortable in Kiev and co-operating well with authorities. And I have understanding that yesterday British consul visit her and will again tomorrow.’ He smiled a “you see” smile. ‘All legalities are observed as is proper. Also Ukrainian comrades take care to be respectful.’

  ‘Why would they not respect an innocent Englishwoman?’

  ‘Ukrainians’ long memory of historic enmity of Poland. Have no fear, Mr Hill. We insist treat your mother as should be good Englishwoman while case dealt with. Authorities know we do good business, you and I. Authorities welcome you as friend and colleague of Nikolai Alekseevich. All to be well.’

  ‘I leave soon, Mr Burenko.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘This must be our final meeting.’

  ‘Until your return. Friends must not lose touch. Let us deal with official business. Then I have information for you. First some food.’

  Over jellied eels, whelks and the local bitter beer, they ran through invasion preparations, order of battle, knowledge of German operations. The questions had been obvious enough – though what the Russian wanted to know was important to the men from Special Branch. But Peter could see how the line of inquiry inveigled him into becoming more deeply involved, more under Burenko’s control. Skilful. This time, Burenko also asked unscheduled questions about politics and politicians. Though his military questions were informed, the political inquiries seemed surprisingly crude as to how British politics worked and who was who. No harm, Peter thought, good rather, in educating the Russian in the facts of political life, of democracy.

  When that was exhausted, Peter asked, ‘You have passed on the warnings of German preparations to march east?’

  ‘I could not do anything so obviously provocative.’

  ‘British intelligence believes that it is an objective historical necessity for Germany.’

  ‘Your analysts seek to please political masters. Now, my friend, you are still ready?’

  ‘With your promise to release my mother, I will go ahead.’

  ‘I give you contact in Zürich Switzerland. He will give you all assistance you need. If problem, will help. Also will communicate with us. Through him, please let us know your progress.’ The agent would arrange whatever else was necessary. Once the required information had been passed, he, Peter, would not have any further responsibilities.

  ‘And my mother?’

  ‘Authorities will release her.’

  Peter allowed some silence while he drank his beer and munched jellied eels. The river was almost standing still, the light lowering to a ruddy glow. He picked up the mugs. ‘A beer to see us on our way.’ Burenko raised no objection.

  When he returned, he gestured to the balloons. ‘How curious that a thing of war should look so enchanted. War brings contradictions. Perhaps you would say it has its own dialectic. Good health.’ He raised his mug. ‘My friend Burenko, we are partners in this enterprise. And we will have an exchange like partners. If I find Dinah, I will inform you. When I hear my mother is on her way home, I will put Dinah in your hands.’

  ‘My dear Mr Hill, for sake of your mother, do not try to impose terms on us. What if you cannot succeed? Are we to remember that you were not fully co-operative? At present, mother has problem only with papers. What if authorities suspect spying for Poland? With such a problem Burenko cannot help.’

  What was it in Burenko’s eyes? ‘And if you have Dinah but, after all, the authorities decide to accuse my mother of spying for Poland? No, no. My mother must be on her way home. And Dinah will be yours. That is my promise.’

  ‘This is not wise, my friend,’ Burenko shrugged. ‘But might be can be managed. Or perhaps no need. I will tell you this.’ He leaned towards Peter and dropped his voice. ‘Do not assume my friends intend only one thing towards your friend. War makes change, big change. Might be now they now wish only to talk, make serious offer to valued colleague.’

  ‘She said she would not let the working-class down.’

  Burenko sat back raising his mug. ‘To your safe travels and success. We will meet again, toast safe return of mother.’

  ****

  Nick stuffed the stubby pipe with more than usual firmness. ‘I wish I could send someone with you. The wind’s blowing up, you’re standing on the high spa, juggling on one leg. You can use our chap in the consular office to get in touch with me, and he’s to give you a helping hand if you need it, just ask. Doesn’t know what any of it’s for, but does know it’s top secret even within the representation. He’s a visa-control officer, which will probably be useful. He thinks Canada is helping us out.’

  ‘Which is right.’

  Nick gave him the details. ‘The consulate is well away from the legation – in the centre of Berne, by the main government buildings. I think that’s everything. How soon are you off?’

  ‘Can’t be soon enough – I’m in a small hotel with a Canadian landlady while I wait for a diplomatic passage. There is one last thing. Can I give Rozalia your number? She’s absolutely discreet.’

  ‘What good would that breach of security do?’ Nick looked amused.

  ‘She’s no idea what this is all about, though she guessed I’m involved with the NKVD—the oprichniki, she calls them. She has a certain mystical understanding – don’t laugh, it’s true. If she feels something is wrong, I want her to be able to call you.’

  ‘Well, there’s nothing known against her.’

  ‘She’s been checked?’

  Nick raised an eyebrow. ‘Yes, by all means give her my number, to be used in exceptional circumstances. Nothing more? Good sailing. Always stay as close to the truth as you can. If anyone might pull this off, I think you’re that one. You make your own luck.’

  ‘That must be another of Jonno’s rules of life.’

  ****

  Michelle was laying out handcuffs and shackles lined with black velvet and a black rubber mask alongside a black leather whip. She jangled the cuffs at him and cracked the whip.

  ‘Not my taste, thank you. A client from the police or Home Office?’

  ‘Total discretion promised on all occasions,’ she said primly. ‘But you could be right.’

  ****

  Next morning, the porter called from the main entrance, catching Peter just back in the flat to put his things together. Two gentlemen to see him. Could he possibly come down?

  ‘It’s not very convenient. Could you send them up?’

  ‘In the circumstances, sir, I think it would be preferable—’

  ‘Circumstances? What?’ But the porter had put down his phone.

  Two figures were waiting in the hall, one standing by the porter’s desk, one sitting on the gilt and velvet couch opposite. At once he recognised the standing figure as a security official of some sort. Scrubbed face, pencil moustache, short hair, blue serge suit, and – Dinah would have said secret policeman’s – heavy black shoes. The sitting figure was Dinah’s grandfather, drawn into himself as if lost in time, a small cardboard suitcase at his feet.

  The official explained. Following a review of his case, the professor had been released. Quite a number were being reviewed in the light of detention centre overcrowding. The internment authorities now had no legal basis on which to continue to hold him. Though – sotto voce – the old gentleman had expressed a wish to stay, enjoying the company of other foreign professor gentlemen, lectures, teaching, and music. However, it had been ascertained that he had nowhere to return to. No return address. (As though he were an unwanted parcel.) As Mr Hill was on file as his next friend, could he possibly take him in? At least on a temporary basis?

  ‘I’m to leave shortly on government ser
vice. It couldn’t be less convenient. Is there no one else who could take him in? A former colleague?’

  ‘There appears not to be, sir. To be frank, the next stop will be a common lodging house. We can’t spend all day driving him round. This is already outside the regulations. We hoped you’d help the old gentleman. He’s no trouble.’

  Well, it would give Madame Duverger something to think about, something else that was.

  The official handed over the file – the release papers, identity card and aliens permit, ration cards, all in order. There would be a small daily allowance, to be looked at again in six months. ‘This is very good of you, sir. I don’t think you’ll find he’s any bother.’ He stepped across and bent over the professor. ‘Professor sir, Mr Hill will look after you. Good-bye, sir, and good luck.’

  The professor rose. The bird-like features were sharper than Peter remembered. ‘Is it roll-call?’

  He followed Peter docilely back to the flat and accepted a cup of tea while Peter checked the papers. The Judicial Review Tribunal had ordered immediate release: on re-examination of the case submitted, the Tribunal determined that there were no reasonable grounds for continued detention, Crown objections notwithstanding. The Tribunal also expressed concern at the effect of continuing detention on the applicant’s mental health.

  ‘Professor Altschuler, do you remember me, Peter Hill? I was a friend of Dinah’s.’

  ‘I remember you well. You are the agitator. You will bring the masses to down tools and march out of their factories, mines and plants into the streets behind the vanguard of the party in the takeover of economic, social and political power. The machines will stop, the furnaces grow cold, the chimneys rise without smoke as the masses grasp their destiny. The objective logic of its historically determined weakness will bring capitalism to its knees, collapsing on itself. You will be there, agitating to the end.’

  From the doorway Madame Duverger coughed, her eyes wide with amazement.

  He put the professor in her charge while he decided finally which of his things he could and would take. The Canadians had supplied a mix, used and worn, of clothes, luggage, a few personal items. They were already in the small hotel and he would take them to the Foreign Office flat where he would have his final briefings. A Canadian military barber had trimmed his hair in a workmanlike way.

  He could hear the professor and Madame Duverger talking in French. Once ready, he joined them and, when she left the room to start her chores, asked the professor if he had heard from Dinah.

  ‘How could I? In such a place. Shut away as I was.’

  ‘No message of any sort?’

  ‘That’s what they asked me, over and over again. My answer was always the same. How could I in that place? Don’t mistake me, I told them. There is nothing I would not do for her. But she has gone and I believe I will never see or hear from her.’

  ‘They? Who asked you?’

  ‘Men from outside. Not secret policemen. That was obvious to me. To one who came, I had taught German. He brought me books and expensive food. He told me Dinah had promised always to stay in touch with him and he had important information she must have, important for her safety. If I had any idea … How could I, I said. All I knew was that he should not be wasting his time with me. He should be preparing to agitate among the German masses for a general strike against the Nazi oligarchs and tyrants.’

  ‘What did he say to that?’

  ‘Only that if Dinah returned, he had friends who could secure my release so that she and I could be together again.’

  ‘You were asked about her friends, Professor?’

  ‘You, you mean. Of course. I said you were an agitator, educating the factory proletariat, rousing their fighting spirit, representing them to the bosses.’

  ‘Professor, what did you say about me?’

  ‘That you were an agitator, ceaselessly, relentlessly fulfilling the correct role of the intellectual which is, in the last analysis, to bring about revolutionary consciousness in the masses.’

  ‘Professor, I have no time to waste. If you do not tell me what you said, I will put you on the street.’

  The professor looked at Peter as if seeing him for the first time, and nodded to himself. ‘You are not the young man who came to dinner. Very well. I told him that my granddaughter loved you and you loved her, that you and she were planning to marry, that in my opinion you and she could not remain apart but would inevitably be drawn back together, would not cease to seek each the other.’

  ‘The one you had taught German? Davidson?’

  ‘Do not expect me to remember names at my age.’

  ‘When was this conversation?’

  ‘In the camp, all time is one – the eternal present, the present eternal. You stop counting minutes when each minute contains the whole of time. I learned that in my first prison, and it has remained so.’

  ‘Your pupil was not the only one who asked about me. You said “they”. What did you tell the others? That Dinah and I would get back together? Find each other?’ The old man stared at the floor.

  ‘Madame Duverger will look after you. I will shortly be going away on duty. When I return, I will try to find you somewhere permanent. Perhaps you can start again on Novalis and do some teaching.’

  After a pause, Peter went to tell Madame he was off. She was content to look after the old man, perhaps a little brighter for it. ‘Leave it to me. Concentrate on getting Madame your mother home.’

  As he crossed the drawing room, the professor looked up. ‘They will help you find my Dinah. I will be with her again.’

  ****

  He stayed on the underground for two extra stops, breaking his journey at a small station and calling Nick. ‘The professor had visitors, did you know?’

  Chapter Eight

  Flights between neutral capitals and hours passed in waiting halls gave him time enough to reflect on his last hectic days in London.

  He lingered on cherished memories of Rozalia. Rozalia wafting round the packed opening, alighting at guests’ elbows just as they might have had a query or were in need of moving on or an introduction or were pondering business. Rozalia, radiant, despatching him with an imperceptible tilt of the head or a flicker of the eye for people, information, papers, a drink, to bring guests together or separate them. Rozalia sending an unmistakable command to his back to turn and understand what she needed from him.

  Lady Lewis had been among the first to arrive, greeting him affectionately, occasionally asking him how he thought it was going, remembering to tell him she had given Rozalia something for him. Later, she spent more than a few minutes alone in the office with Rozalia’s father.

  Ah! Rozalia’s father. Tall and thin, with a narrow, worn face – sunken cheeks, sunken eyes – that might have belonged to a noble Jesuit rather than a member of the pre-revolutionary Moscow-Jewish professional élite. An etymologist by training, an art dealer by passion. The wide mouth opened hungrily. The eyes sadly understood. The hands were long and sensitive. He took Peter into the office to thank him for supporting his daughter – ‘Thanks to your friend Podger, the critics are glad to stay’ – and to inquire anxiously after his mother and commiserate over her problems. ‘I would so much like to offer help, but in Stalin’s Russia the only certainty is that no one is safe.’ He repeated the invitation to see his other Cépins. ‘Then I will tell you the history.’

  ‘Did you know the model?’

  ‘In those days. An extraordinary young woman.’ He looked searchingly at Peter and clasped his arm. ‘So much to be admired, in spite of everything that happened. As you shall hear.’

  ****

  He thought again of Rozalia. Just before he’d left, they’d enjoyed, lingered over a last private drink and he’d given her Nick’s number. ‘If you have any premonitions or worries. Or if you hear from me.’ He’d kissed her hand, keeping his lips against it, unwilling to let it go. She’d taken his head between her cool palms and pressed her brow against his in silen
t communion. An extraordinary feeling of peace had passed through the whole of his being. His eyes still closed, he’d said, ‘Yours is a supernatural sympathy.’

  ‘We are left with something of each other, my dear.’ She recited some lines in Russian:

  ‘“ Da ya tomlius’ nadezhdoi sladkoi

  Chto ty, v chuzhoi strane,

  Chto ty, kogda- nibud’, ukradkoi

  Pomyslish’ obo mne…”

  I hope in a foreign land you will secretly think of me sometimes.’

  ‘I will think of you.’

  ****

  He’d rung Amelia to apologise for not being in touch and to say au revoir, though he couldn’t be sure when he’d be back.

  ‘Is it true you had a passionate affair with a mysterious foreign woman who was a spy and had to flee the country?’ she’d demanded. ‘Jewish.’

  ‘Where on earth did you get that from?’

  ‘And now she’s gone, you’re close to an exotic gallery owner, another foreigner.’

  ‘Your mystery woman would be the Roumanian refugee who actually fled here from Vienna. She left this country because she was afraid of being interned. We did go out but we didn’t have an affair. The gallery owner is Madame Gutmannova, highly respected in the art world and a very dear friend whom I help out when I can. Might I ask what this is all about?’

  ‘Us not going out. I’m sorry. My mother says it would be best. She says you’re not on anyone’s list. No one knows why. You’re just not. She says you’re very able and well connected in society, but perhaps you’ve something too cosmopolitan about you.’ Amelia sounded defiant, almost angry. ‘It’s just that we’re very much a traditional Anglican family.’

  ‘My family are C of E. One of my father’s cousins sits on the Church Preferment Advisory Commission …’