Istanbul (6 page)

A crowd of greenshirts marched into the square, chanting ‘Down with the King!’ and singing their anthem, the
Capitanul
. A few minutes later a lorry drove up and soldiers leaped out, their boots hammering on the cobblestones. A tank, painted sky blue, rumbled into position in front of the palace.

‘We’re going to see some fun now,’ Nick said.

‘Let’s just get home,’ Jennifer said.

A military van with a loudspeaker mounted on the roof drove up to the palace gates. A metallic voice ordered everyone to clear the square. Anyone on the street in half an hour would be arrested. Nick took Jennifer’s hand and led her out of the restaurant. They would skirt behind the Atheneum to avoid the mob.

‘You were going to say something else to me,’ Jennifer said.

‘Saved by the Revolution,’ Nick murmured under his breath and they started to run.

By four o’clock the next morning Carol was on his way to Constanza in a German diplomatic car with his mistress. Carol’s eighteen-year-old son Michael was invested on the throne in his place, but the real power had passed to one of Sima’s puppets, Antonescu, who became Conducator. Green-shirted legionaries marched through the square singing, while the palace guards who had pointed rifles at them the night before cheered them and raised their arms in fascist salute.

When Antonescu named his government a few days later, half his cabinet were prominent fascists and Nazi sympathisers. Horia Sima was made Vice Premier. In the incense-blackened churches patriarchs announced that Iron Guard martyrs would be canonized as saints.

More German soldiers appeared on the streets. There were rumours that two infantry divisions had been sent to guard the oil wells at Ploesti.

And here we are twiddling our thumbs, Nick thought, waiting for Whitehall to give us the green light. Soon it will be too late.

The cafés along the Chaussée took down their awnings and brought the tables and chairs in off the footpaths. The evening promenade had dwindled to nothing. Winter was on its way.

CHAPTER 12

Max opened the door in his dressing gown. He tied the cord at his waist and grinned. ‘Sir Galahad,’ he said.

‘Can I come in?’

‘Treat the place as your own. Everyone else does.’

Nick followed Max into the kitchen. Max put a pot of coffee on the stove and lit a cigarette. Immediately he collapsed into a paroxysm of coughing that lasted almost five minutes. Finally the episode subsided and Max took a deep breath.

‘That’s better,’ he said and took another draw on the cigarette. ‘First one of the day. Clears the lungs out.’

‘How’s Daniela?’

‘Wonderful. Can’t thank you enough. She can’t keep her hands off me. But you mustn’t let her stay here too long, she’s wearing me out.’

‘Very funny.’

The door opened and Daniela came out of the spare bedroom, glowing, perfect.

‘Coffee, darling?’ Max called.

She smiled at Nick. ‘Hello, Nick. Don’t mind Max. He teases all the time.’

‘Tease? Not my place. I’m just the hired help.’ Max poured the coffees. ‘Well, the slave has prepared breakfast. I’ll go and get dressed now, if you don’t mind.’

After he had gone they stared at each other. ‘You look wonderful,’ he said.

‘I don’t know how to thank you.’

‘I’ve been to the Prefecture again. No luck, I’m sorry.’

She stood too close and touched his hand with hers. ‘I can’t stay here forever.’

‘Max loves having you here. Everyone thinks you’re his mistress. His reputation in Bucharest with other women has soared.’

‘What about my reputation?’

‘Still, you’re safe here.’

‘I’m a Jew, Nick. We’re not safe anywhere.’

‘Safer than in the Jewish Quarter.’

She nodded, conceding that point at least. ‘Why are you helping me?’

‘Does everyone have to get something in return?’

She took her hand away from his. ‘Usually. What’s going to happen to Simon?’

‘I don’t know.’ He could make a guess but he didn’t want to tell her what the chances were of her ever seeing her brother again.

‘You are so kind. You’re the kindest man I’ve ever known.’

Nick wondered if Jennifer would agree. He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go to work. Stay here as long as you want. It’s okay.’

She reached out a hand to touch his cheek but he just smiled and moved away. He knew if she touched him again he might not pull away a second time. He couldn’t do that. Least of all in Max’s kitchen.

Later that morning Abrams walked into Nick’s office and sat down. He rarely left his own eyrie to venture this far into the building, so Nick knew this had to be important.

‘I want you to search Clive Allen’s flat.’

‘What am I looking for, sir?’

‘I don’t know.’

Abrams drew invisible patterns on the polished walnut of the desk with an index finger.

‘He betrayed us. He betrayed his country.’ Abrams hesitated, was about to say more, then got up and left as abruptly and unexpectedly as he had arrived.

Nick had never liked Clive Allen, but he had never suspected him as a traitor. The Ploesti plan had been their one chance to affect the course of the war from inside Romania, but now - because of one traitor - the Germans were about to move two regiments of the Brandenburg division into Ploesti.

Because of Clive Allen.

Nick put on his jacket and went down to get a car, and to get Ionescu.

Clive lived in an apartment near the Carlton building on Bratianu. Gaining entry was not difficult. Ionescu found the caretaker and, after some haggling in Romanian, a sum of
lei
changed hands, and a key was produced.

Once inside, Nick made a quick inspection of the flat. Clive was a closet drinker, as Max had intimated; the apartment was full of empty bottles, they littered the floor, even the sink. Hard stuff too, whisky and
tsuica
.

Nick was quick and expert. He found what he was looking for in a false drawer in the dresser in Clive’s bedroom. It was a brown paper envelope, stuffed with pounds sterling. There was a telephone number on the back. Nick used the telephone in the living room to ring the number; a voice answered in German.

He wrote down the number, replaced the envelope in the dresser and went out again, locking the door behind him.

CHAPTER 13

Abrams was at his desk in the Passport Control Office. A dusty portrait of King George V, looking as solemn as God, hung above his head.

His secretary showed Nick into the room. Abrams did not look up from his papers. ‘What did you find, Davis?’

Nick told him about the envelope and the telephone number scrawled on the back.

‘You rang the number?’

‘It’s the German Legation on the Strada Victor Emmanuel.’

‘I see. Have you drawn any conclusions?’

‘There’s only one conclusion to draw.’

‘I agree. Thank you, Davis. That will be all.’

‘There’s one other thing.’

‘Make it quick. I really do have visa applications to process here. It’s getting in the way of my work but the Foreign Office won’t pay for more staff.’

‘I have a plan to stop Romanian oil getting through to Germany.’

‘We’ve been through this. Whitehall won’t sanction it now. The Ploesti fiasco has scared them off.’

‘Why don’t we use the Haganah, the Jewish defence forces? We smuggle them into the country and issue an equal number of visas for Jewish women and children who want to get out. The Haganah men remain behind as guerrilla fighters to sabotage the rail and river links up the Danube.’

Abrams stared at him for a long time. It was a brilliant idea and Nick knew it. This way the Zionists got Jews out of Romania, and his own government could say they were not increasing the intake of immigrants into Palestine.

‘Is this your idea?’

He nodded.

‘Hmm,’ Abrams said, which was high praise indeed if you knew Abrams. ‘What do you want to do?’

‘I want to go to Istanbul to speak to Ben-Arazi, the Zionist representative there.’

‘Very well. I’ll pass on a coded message to London.’

Nick got up to leave. He paused at the door.

‘What about Clive Allen?’

‘That will be all,’ Abrams said and returned his attention to the paperwork in front of him.

It was a bright day in autumn when the Germans came to Bucharest. Antonescu invited the Germans to send a military mission to Romania, though he hardly had a choice in the matter. An ‘alliance’ suited Romania better than invasion, and, besides, who else would save them from the depredations of the Russian army to the north? Every Romanian Nick spoke to told him that Hitler would help them reclaim Bessarabia and Bucovina, apparently forgetting that it was Hitler who supported Stalin’s claims to those territories just six months before.

For the arrival of their new friends, the management of the Athenee Palace hung a swastika from the façade, the massive red and black flag cascading three storeys from the upper floors to the awnings over the main entrance.

It seemed everyone in Bucharest had crowded into the lobby for the
aperitif,
the diplomats and oil men and journalists and, of course, the women in their fox furs. Squadrons of Messerschmitts and Heinkels whined low over the rooftops all morning. The tension was palpable.

Nick joined Max in the lobby to watch the show.

‘How’s Daniela?’ Nick said.

‘Gone,’ Max said.

‘Gone? Gone where?’

‘Don’t know, old boy. Came home yesterday evening and there she was, not there. She left some money on the table for the food she’d eaten and a note saying thank you very much. There was this for you.’

He handed Nick a letter.

‘Going to open it?’

Max raised his glass and murmured ‘
Naroc
’. Nick ripped open the letter and read the few words she had written in French.

Cher Nicholas, you have been so kind. But there are many things you do not know about me, and I cannot rely on your kindness, and the kindnesses of your friends, forever. I am going to stay for a while with some friends of my father. I am sure we will see each other again in the Athenee Palace. All Bucharest meets there, sooner or later. Thank you again, for saving my life, and for trying to help, monsieur blue eyes. Daniela.

The first of the Mercedes saloons pulled up outside. There was a collective gasp as high-ranking Wehrmacht men flooded into the lobby, resplendent in stiff grey uniforms with red lacquered collars and red piping on their trousers, many wearing the Iron Cross first class.

They gave full-blooded Nazi salutes to the German diplomats and Romanian army officers there to greet them. This was not the casual flick of the hand favoured by Gestapo men and even Hitler himself; these men were aristocrats and they clicked their heels together with a sound like a gun blast and shot their arms straight out in front of their eyes.

Max turned to Nick and raised an eyebrow. ‘There goes the neighbourhood,’ he said.

Neither of them laughed. They both knew that Romania was no longer just a rather quirky place on the edge of Europe; from today it was a very, very dangerous place to be.

Daniela hurried through the cobbled streets of the Jewish Quarter, and thought about her Englishman. He would never know how much he meant to her. He was that rarest of treasures, a man who treated her kindly and wanted nothing from her.

He had saved her twice, and found her places to stay when she had nowhere else to go, and had not demanded sexual favours in return. From the moment she had seen him she knew she could trust him. Was that what they called love at first sight?

But she was no good for him. He was married and soon he would be leaving Bucharest. Men like him did not have affairs and she was not about to take him away from his wife. And there was so much he did not know about her, that she had not told him, and it made anything between them quite impossible.

She had lied to him about so much, but those lies would never hurt him, because she would never see him again, despite what she had written in the letter. Perhaps in another lifetime they could find each other again.