I Can't Begin to Tell You (40 page)

Odin hefted up the card index and slotted it under his arm. ‘Don’t bother with trying to protect the fat cats in here. It will come out in the end.’

To punch him or not? Felix was sorely tempted. ‘We’re not going through this war just to return to how things were. You won’t be giving the orders.’

‘Someone always gives the orders,’ said Odin, pulling his hat down over his eyes. ‘But maybe you’re right and it’s over for people like me. Rest in peace, the ruling class.’ He peered through the gloom. ‘For some reason we Danes see ourselves as one big, happy, democratic family, and maybe that will happen.’

At the door, he turned round. ‘By the way, where is Freya?’

‘Shut up.’

‘I’ve seen the way you look at her. You should be careful.’

‘Shut up.’

‘Or is it the daughter that’s taken your fancy? I’m told she’s disappeared.’

Felix actually laughed. He adjusted the torch beam so it blazed onto Odin’s face. ‘Get out of here.’

‘Aren’t you forgetting that we are on the same side?’ Odin patted the card index. ‘My informant tells me that this little sweetie is kept bang up to date. Which is good for us, don’t you think?’ He raised a hand and waved. ‘So sorry I can’t give you a lift.’

It was after nine o’clock. Time was catching up with him.

Felix hurried through the streets, always conscious that there
might be something gaining on his back. His steps quickened. Hurry.
Hurry
. But don’t look too hurried.

Making his way through the back gardens to avoid the curfew, Felix got himself to the safe flat near the Vesterbrogade.

Had he been followed?
Check
.

Escape route out of the house?
Check
.

The routines had been laid down in his brain like neural pathways.

He slid in through the door. At his entrance, a figure reared up at him in the darkness. His hand flew to his pistol.

‘Easy!’ Freya said. ‘Easy.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I wanted to see you.’

He put the pistol away and placed his hands on her shoulders, ‘Idiot.’ Odin’s words came back to him: ‘I’ve seen the way you look at her.’

He moved away.

‘Have you got a cigarette?’ she was asking.

He chucked her a packet.

She smoked it in quick, nervous bursts. Watching her, Felix thought how lonely she looked. He understood perfectly. This life turned you into a solitary person and a solitary spirit. Spending nights alone in a room, a gun to hand, hardly remembering which name it was you had today, twitching at every sound, yet prepared to go out with weapons blazing – it changed you.

Looking at this room, who wouldn’t feel depressed? In one corner a dispirited plant struggled for survival and the overstuffed furniture was upholstered in a dingy brown.

‘Freya, what do you want?’

‘Is there any news of my daughter and husband?’

‘You know I can’t tell you.’

‘
Please
.’

Felix crossed to the window to check the street outside. Vulnerability was not permitted in an agent’s arsenal. Yet who was
he to deny Freya what she needed to know? ‘All I can tell you is that she got to Sweden safely.’ He turned round to face Freya. ‘That’s it.’

‘I’m sorry to harass you.’ She stubbed out the cigarette. ‘One day, you might understand. When you have children. Loving them is the most powerful thing.’

Once she had been glossy and perfumed. Now she was thin, crop-haired and her clothes smelled, but the pair of them understood danger, exhaustion and lowness of spirit. Intimately. They had shared it. What existed between them now went beyond mere description and beyond measuring.

‘Felix …’ Freya laid a hand on his chest. ‘If anything should happen to me, will you look after my daughter, who I think – I’m sure, whatever you say or don’t say – is out there somewhere? Or will be, knowing her. For the war, I mean. Bror can’t.’

He squinted down at her. ‘You know I can’t make a promise like that. No one can.’

She pretended she hadn’t heard. ‘I know she would be safe with you.’

‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘I do.’ She lit up a second cigarette. ‘Don’t ask me how. I know you’re the sort of person who always prefers to work on his own. Yes?’ She chuckled – and at the sound a lump climbed shamefully into Felix’s throat. ‘I imagine you as an only child, playing on the beach, haring about on a bicycle, being taken to a pantomime at Christmas and sitting uncomfortably between your parents. Am I right?’

‘Maybe.’

‘I may not know your name but I understand the important things. That’s why I’m asking you.’

Felix was sharp: ‘Don’t invite death by entertaining it.’

Her eyes narrowed in triumph. ‘My point, Felix. That’s exactly what someone who doesn’t have children says. But for those who do, they
have
to think about it.’

Outside
in the street, a car slowed down. Felix pulled the curtains shut, dowsed the light then snatched the cigarette from her and stamped on it.

‘There’s a way out of the window and over the wall into someone’s back garden,’ he said.

‘So will you?’ Her whisper seemed to echo in the dark.

‘I can’t make promises.’

A faint sigh emitted from Freya.

He knew he had disappointed her.

They pressed back against the wall by the window. He edged close to her. Closer. Their shoulders collided and he said, ‘Your daughter is pretty extraordinary.’

Again, the chuckle that tore at his heart. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’

‘I have something for you.’ He reached down to his sock, pulled out the certificate and pressed it into her hand.

‘What is it?’

He told her.

Cradling it between her hands as if it was one of the jewels that she had once worn, she said: ‘You got it for me?’

Their faces were almost touching. ‘Do what you will with it.’

He barely heard the whisper. ‘I cannot thank you enough.’

Felix slid his arm round her shoulders. ‘I’m not going to ask questions. Nor am I ever going to talk about what it contains.’

A sliver of light from the car’s headlights poked through the slit in the curtain and he saw that tears were running down her cheeks.

‘I’m frightened,’ she said.

He took his time … the images running hither and thither in his head.

‘So am I.’

‘Not of this …’ She gestured into the darkened room. ‘But of not coming up to the mark … failing when it matters.’

Felix leaned over and kissed Freya on the cheek. ‘Shush.’

He
was tender. He was loving. Those were the things he had been anxious that he would lose.

Twenty minutes or so later they agreed to turn the lights back on. Freya slid the paper into the lining of her jacket and tied on a headscarf. ‘I’ll go.’

‘It’s after curfew. You’ll have to stay here.’

‘I was forgetting.’ She pulled off the headscarf. ‘How I long for a deep, hot bath,’ she remarked. ‘A scented one. Sometimes I dream of being back in the bathroom in Rosenlund.’

So saying, she almost broke Felix’s heart.

Jacob sent a message from Køge: ‘Lie low. SS Schalburg Corps in area for next two weeks playing war games. Currently north of Rosenlund.’

‘Whoa,’ said Felix. ‘We keep away.’

There was no question of retrieving the wireless set. Instead, Felix sent Kay with a message to the group leader in Roskilde. Having delivered it, Kay criss-crossed the town, doubling back more than once on her path, and finally she boarded the København train.

The carriages were crowded and she was pressed up against the window.

The landscape was familiar, plunging Kay into nostalgia for her former Danish life. Then she reached further back into memory, to the little English girl she had once been who had waved a Union Jack at the British King and Queen as they drove through her town.

Her mother would think of her often. Of that, Kay was sure. As for her sisters? They would be too busy with their families to spare her more than a passing recollection.

Bror would be thinking of her, too, inevitably with anger. Perhaps he was astonished at how twenty-five years of a good marriage could turn on a sixpence into … bitterness and absence.

She missed him with a painful, scratchy emotion and yearned to see him, knowing perfectly well that the best thing to hope for was that, as with all desires, it would fade with time.

Kay’s instructions were to avoid Køge and the areas of København where she was known. She did her best to follow
them and to observe the things Felix had taught her about the undercover life before he had fled to Sweden. Tips on where to sleep, how to walk, what to say. The art of deception. The art of subterfuge.

Living undercover was an intense and overwhelming experience, and she was working on how to handle it.

Items to be carried in a bag, or to be worn on top of one another: one vest, two pairs of underwear, two pairs of socks.

She wore a long-sleeved blouse, pleated skirt and a beige mackintosh which she tried to keep immaculate. More than once, she had been forced to wear wet clothes because it hadn’t been possible to dry them overnight.

Obedient to Felix’s diktats, she never stayed more than two nights in the same place. Her sleep was fitful. Plus, her stomach responded badly to being on the move and frequently played up. After a life of plenty, infrequent meals had taken some getting used to. Felix allocated her what he could but obtaining money was difficult, and she was forced to eke out every kroner. Unsure where the next meal would come from, she dreamed unsettling dreams of roast pork, cherry flans and the best bread and butter.

A mile or so outside Hedehusene, the train ground to a halt. Kay’s hand tightened on her basket. They were at a standstill in a steep-sided cutting, which meant it would be impossible to escape.

The sturdy woman opposite, who looked like a farmer’s wife, peered at Kay. She willed herself not to shift in her seat.

Who could you trust? Who couldn’t you trust?

A dog barked. Kay tensed.
Gestapomen
searching the trains with dogs were a regular occurrence.

Remain on it or not? Instinct told her to run but, before she could decide, the train moved off. The barking faded into the distance. Even so, she decided to get off.

At
Hedehusene station, Kay dropped lightly down onto the platform.

Walk as if everything is perfectly normal
.
Look neither right nor left
.
Do not hurry out of the exit
.

At the taxi rank, she asked to be driven back to Roskilde’s main square. There she paid the taxi driver, further reducing her ever-diminishing stash of kroner, walked to the library and enquired if Pernille was available.

A woman emerged from an interior office. She was short, anxious and underweight. ‘Yes?’ She wasn’t welcoming.

‘Would it be possible to take a parcel of cabbages?’ Kay asked.

Behind the spectacles, Pernille’s eyes widened. ‘I’ll organize someone to deal with them.’

Half an hour later Kay was being driven towards København in a taxi which had appeared at the back entrance of the library. Approaching the suburbs, she felt a relief. City streets and crowds provided cover and in them she could be safer. Anonymous.

The taxi driver deposited her behind the main station in the Colbjørnsensgade. He refused to take any money but said that she should come back to Roskilde after the war and pay him then. ‘You trust me?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ he said and drove off without looking back.

A good Dane.

Walking towards the town square, she noted the uneasy atmosphere. Unusually, huddles of people were gathered at the street corners. ‘Is anything happening?’ she asked a woman at the bus stop. The woman was carrying a tiny boy with a green woollen hat and refused to look at Kay. ‘I don’t want to say anything.’

‘Whisper it,’ said Kay. ‘Please.’

Reluctantly, she muttered, ‘Extra German SS have arrived in the city.
And Nazi police.’

‘Do
you know why?’

The woman shook her head.

Locating a public phone, she dialled Anton’s office. His secretary answered but was unwilling to put Kay through until Kay gave her name.

‘All right,’ Kay conceded. ‘Tell him that Princess Sophia-Maria wishes to see him.’

Back came the message to meet at the Café Tivoli in an hour’s time.

The Café Tivoli was to be found down one of the smaller streets in the Frederiksstaden district and five minutes or so from the military headquarters. Kay knew it. Expensive and discreet about the meetings and liaisons which took place in it, and with a reputation for the best hot chocolate in København, it was the sort of place Anton would favour.

He was already seated at a table at the back of the café, nursing a brandy. The lighting was dim and the table was set apart from the others. At her appearance he looked up. She sensed him recoil. ‘You look terrible,’ he said.

‘Hello, Anton.’

‘What on earth possessed you to contact me?’

She took in the uniform and the handsome face. ‘Aren’t you glad to see me?’

‘Of course.’ He looked her up and down and it was clear he wasn’t.

In a flash, Kay understood she was no longer useful to Anton.

‘You’ve caused a lot of trouble. General Gottfried was beside himself. It’s taken me a lot of sweet-talking to keep in his good books. I suspect that he’s worried he let you into his confidence. Did he?’

‘Nothing you don’t know already.’

‘You’ve made an enemy of the enemy. A personal one, darling. Always a bad move. Fouled the nest. The bore is that the
general isn’t so keen to take my advice any more. You’ve tainted me and I’m having to work at it.’ The corners of his mouth turned down. ‘Paddling hard like a swan.’

The waiter placed coffee in front of Kay.

‘And Bror?’ She had difficulty saying Bror’s name.

‘If I didn’t know him better, I would say Farmer Bror was grieving. But the old boy was always gloomy at the best of times. Not that I see much of him.’ He added, ‘I’m told he’s been up and down to København since you vanished. He sees Nils. How they must enjoy each other’s company.’

‘Nils! How do you know?’

Since she last saw him, Anton’s laugh had turned chesty. He was smoking too much but Kay couldn’t blame him. ‘Don’t be naive, darling.’

So Bror was being followed.

‘I would suspect –’ Anton did not disguise his amusement ‘– that Farmer Bror thinks you and Tanne have made a fool of him and Nils is the only one left with any sense.’

The coffee was wonderful. It tasted of times long ago, of money and of luxury. Ravenous for it, she drank it down. ‘Order me another one, please.’

Anton obeyed.

‘Why the extra Gestapo and the Nazi police drafted in, Anton?’

He positioned his cigarette case carefully on the table. ‘Politics. In-fighting. It’s an open secret. Hitler makes sure that he keeps his top brass on tenterhooks over their positions.’ His smile was not reassuring. ‘As you once said, darling, they fight like rats in a sack. It’s always a winning tactic.’ He seized Kay’s hand, turned it over and ran a finger along the blue vein at the wrist. She felt a familiar tug of sexual attraction, but it was a discordant, disturbing feeling.

‘Something must be happening. You must know what.’

He released her arm and spoke in a low voice. ‘In the past few days, two German ships have docked here,’ he admitted.
‘Despite denials, our contacts tells us that Werner Best and General von Hanneken have been ordered to obey the directive from Berlin to round up all Danish Jews onto the ships and take them to Theresienstadt concentration camp.’

Kay forced herself to make the second cup of coffee last. Bitter. Black. Hot. And badly needed.

The brandy glass was empty.

‘What are you going to do, Anton?’

‘There’s nothing I can do.’

She met his eye. ‘Yes, there is. You
must
do something.’

‘Don’t look at me like that.’

She gathered her wits. ‘What we do now determines our future. This is the moment when Danes can show who they are.’

‘Spare me.’

He wasn’t interested.

‘You do have a choice,’ she persisted. ‘You can warn the Jews and make arrangements to hide them.’

Anton transferred his attention to the waiter.

‘Anton,
Anton
. Think.’

‘Shut up, darling.’

‘How many Jews are there in Denmark?’

‘Six or seven thousand. I don’t know the precise number.’

‘It must be possible to get a good few out to Sweden. Some could hide in the more remote areas.’

The waiter was approaching. Anton raised a finger. ‘Another brandy.’

She recalled their relationship over the years – the teasing, the oblique flirting and the efforts to keep him and Bror on good terms whenever they met. ‘Has the general, with his highly efficient signals units, corrupted you?’

‘If you must joke, make it more subtle.’

She nursed her coffee. ‘It’s early to be drinking brandy.’

He shrugged. ‘It isn’t easy keeping afloat. In fact, it’s quite a strain. Do you know how many of my brother officers have
been interned?’ Anton contemplated the refilled glass. ‘War isn’t black and white, tempting though it is to think it is.’ He pinged a fingernail against the glass and it gave off a haunted, watery echo. ‘For instance, sometimes you have to surrender information in order to keep credible. How black or white is that?’

Kay cut off the echo with a finger. ‘Losing faith?’

He shrugged again – it was becoming a familiar gesture. ‘In the long run, it’s probably irrelevant who wins or loses. The imperative is survival. I took the view the Reich wasn’t going to survive. Empires are tricky to achieve. And America is too powerful. Plus, in my way, I’m a patriot.’

Something pushed its way to the surface of her mind. Doubt? She peered at Anton and realized she had been reading him wrong all these months. ‘Anton, you’re on the right side, but for the wrong reasons.’

‘Survival is the best reason. Think about it.’

Kay ran her fingers through her hair, stiff and dry from the cheap dye. ‘Perhaps we never understood each other.’

Anton’s jaw tightened. ‘Melodrama doesn’t suit you.’ He pointed to her hair. ‘I long to have back the pretty, witty woman I used to know. You look terrible.’ When she sighed impatiently, he added: ‘You realize you can’t go back to Rosenlund? Or to Bror.’

‘That’s between him and me.’

‘You’re on the wanted list.’ Anton smiled grimly. ‘Mind you, Bror will be, too, at the end of the war.’

‘So be it.’ She got to her feet. ‘I never knew what went wrong between you.’

Anton swallowed down the brandy. ‘Went wrong between us? We don’t like each other, that’s all.’ But something slipped from him … an envy, a longing, regret. ‘And it’s true my brooding country cousin had everything I wanted. Rosenlund. A wife like you.’

‘You
could have married.’

He caught up her hand in the old way – and, once again, she was the perfumed Kay Eberstern wearing Parisian couture. ‘Tell me honestly, darling. Were you happy with Farmer Bror?’

‘Yes. I was. Very.’

‘But you like me, too?’

She braced herself. ‘Yes, I liked you, too.’

Anton digested the past tense. ‘What a pity it’s all in the past and we can’t go back. Are you frightened?’

She thought of the stories about bodies being taken apart piecemeal, the shootings, the incarcerations, the tortured man in Jacob’s cottage. She thought of what the Jews must be experiencing. She thought of the fragmentation which had taken place within herself. ‘Yes.’

‘Keep away from Rosenlund.’

She breathed in sharply.
Home
.

‘Kay …’ Anton picked up his cigarette case and got to his feet.

‘Ssh, that’s not my name.’

‘Get out of here.
Please
. Go to Sweden. Sit it out until the war’s over.’ Then, as once before, he pulled her to him and kissed her.

His kiss was a reminder. Of what? Of being desired? Or of the time when she knew who she was and her days had been sweetly prescribed and bounded by innocent sleep. He murmured into her ear. ‘Go to Sweden. Bror will never have you back.’ His hand tightened on her shoulder.

No one could be trusted. Nothing remained the same. Nothing was normal. Her affection and fascination for Anton was turning into dislike. War had done that. She now saw that Anton was a profoundly cynical man – and cynicism was a fatal weakness.

The lie left her lips. ‘Perhaps you’re right. We’ll meet after the war. Make sure you survive till then, Anton.’

‘I
have every intention of doing so.’

She detached herself. ‘Goodbye, Anton.’

‘Where are you going?’

Kay raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t expect me to tell you, do you?’

Dates no longer meant much to Kay but everyone else knew the first days in October were important.

Anton had predicted correctly. On 1 October the long-suspected edict went out to round up the Jews.

In her shabby skirt and coat, Kay slipped here and there through the streets of København with Felix’s messages, moving through the crowds of grey-looking people – heads down, shuffling, depressed – her appearance as nondescript as theirs. No doubt, if she’d looked, she would also have found the usual quota of flourishing black marketeers,
stikker
and criminals.