Journey to Munich (22 page)

“Really?” said Maisie. “Perhaps she's finding her feet.”

“Perhaps she is—and though I cannot say I hold with this sort of thing, I think it will be better all around when her divorce is made final and she receives her decree absolute. She's used some money she earned to rent a flat in London, but she's told me she'll be going to Canada just as soon as she's free to do so, and can take the boy with her. Lovely little man, he is—such a smile. I would rather they stayed, to tell you the truth. I miss Dina so very much, and it's nice to think . . .” He seemed to look into the distance as Maisie served the fish and vegetables. “I wish Edwina had known motherhood—such a shame.”

“Her fiancé perished in the war, didn't he?”

“And she was never the same after that. She didn't lock herself away, but for her there was only the one true love.”

Maisie nodded and waited for the right moment to speak of Munich once more.

“Mr. Donat, do you mind if I ask you something? I know you were taking money to Elaine in Munich, but I think some details are missing. Just to put it to rest in my mind, perhaps you can tell me more.”

He lifted his hand from the table with some difficulty and placed it on her own. “Yes, I think I owe you an explanation or two, don't I?”

“It would help me. I like to sew up things in my mind—in my work, I used to call it my ‘final accounting.' It was something I was taught a long time ago, that it's a way of picking up all the pieces we can when something important has happened. It's rather like making sure we know where every penny has gone after we've been shopping. It's not always possible, but I do my best.” She took a sip of water. “Why did you agree to bring the money to Elaine? I mean, I can see how she might have met Ulli Bader and Anton Schmidt—there was the connection of knowing England, and people overseas like connections—but you are not thought to be best friends with John Otterburn.”

“Oh, I'm all right with him—he's just a fiercely competitive man, and of course we moved in the same circles. When I won a contract that he thought he had in the bag, people said it was like the hare and the tortoise—and I know I look like an old tortoise now!”

“But there's something else, isn't there?”

Donat nodded. “Yes, there is. And perhaps you are only the third person who knows this.” His eyes filled with tears. “Lorraine Otterburn and I . . . well . . . we had an affair, for a time. Not a long time, but it was a heady moment for us both. I loved my wife dearly, but—who can
say? Summer madness twenty-six years ago, and of course, Lorraine is a very dear woman.”

“And—”

“Elaine does not know, but as you saw, she is drawn to me—like a homing pigeon, now that she has found me. She's a lot like John, no doubt about it, but I think she's discovering what it's like to be another kind of person. And now we are joined by what happened in Munich—I agreed to do something without a shred of doubt that it was the right thing to do, and she brought me home when you asked it of her.” He laughed. “My goodness, but she is a fearless woman—you should have been in the aircraft with her. I was so very ill, but I knew I was in safe hands.” He took a bite of fish and a few sips of water. “As I understand it, she made a dreadful error where you are concerned, my dear.”

“In the past, Mr. Donat. It's in the past.” Maisie wanted to move the conversation onto another aspect of the journey to Munich. “You were involved in the
Voice of Freedom
, weren't you? And I think it might have been more than that.”

“Very observant of you, Maisie. Yes, I was.”

“Forging papers for people who wanted to leave Germany.”

He pressed his lips together and then spoke again. “I don't know that I helped, but I funded what Ulli and Anton were trying to do. They had the press, they had the connections, so I made it possible to get the special quality papers and other materials they needed, and of course to buy favors from people in the right places. It wasn't only Lorraine's money that came in to help them, but mine. I hope they are still doing it, and I hope they are successful. They are both brave young men. Braver than I might have been in their shoes.”

They continued to eat in silence for a while, and Maisie realized
that Donat might become overtired. As he finished lunch, placing his knife and fork together to signal he'd had enough, the housekeeper knocked on the door and stepped into the room.

“You asked to be reminded about the broadcast, Mr. Donat.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Would you turn on the wireless? I want to listen to the news.” He turned to Maisie. “Do you mind very much, my dear? They're broadcasting Chamberlain's speech. He arrived home from Munich with an important announcement, and I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Not at all. I think we all want to know what's happened.” Maisie leaned forward to listen.

“Sit down, Mrs. Randall—you too,” said Donat.

Maisie kept watch on Leon Donat, and as the housekeeper took a seat, the radio broadcast began, the speaker crackling as Neville Chamberlain's voice echoed into the dining room.

We, the German Führer and Chancellor, and the British Prime Minister, have had a further meeting today and are agreed in recognizing that the question of Anglo-German relations is of the first importance for our two countries and for Europe. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again.

As the broadcast continued, Maisie watched Donat close his eyes and become still. Maisie reached out to touch his hand, and he grasped hers in return.

The housekeeper stood up and turned off the wireless as the announcer moved on to other news. “They say it's peace for our time, now that man Hitler over there has signed this agreement. After 1918,
I can't imagine that any of them has the gall to go to war again. We paid a high enough price the last time.”

Donat looked up. “Quite right, Mrs. Randall. I think Maisie and I will take our coffee in the conservatory.”

Maisie helped Donat into the conservatory, making sure he was seated in comfort on a wicker chair and had enough cushions to support his back. She took a seat next to him as they waited for Mrs. Randall to bring coffee.

“What do you think, Mr. Donat?”

Donat shook his head. “What do I think? I think you know exactly what I think—we were both in Munich. We saw the Brownshirts. We saw the Gestapo, and we both know what goes on in Dachau—and Dachau is only one prison of its kind; there are others, and more being built. So what do I think? I think our prime minister is either a fool or a liar. And it might be better for him if he were a fool—though the outcome will be the same.”

Maisie watched as Donat's eyes seemed to become heavy again. She stood up, placed her hand on his shoulder, and in a low voice, told her host that she should be on her way.

At a slow pace, with Maisie supporting him, Donat accompanied Maisie to the door. She insisted he remain at the threshold. It was as she reached the Alvis that Leon Donat mustered his strength to call out to her.

“Maisie—we have our freedom, both of us. We are lucky, very lucky. Make sure you use it well.” He waved. “Come again, won't you?”

Maisie returned the wave as she stepped into the motor car. As she began to drive toward the road, she saw a young man come to Donat's side to help him indoors. She had no doubt that, following a brief nap, he would be back at his drawing board. A valuable boffin at work for his country.

S
oon after Maisie's return from Munich, she had received an invitation to lunch from John Otterburn, and two subsequent requests to meet. She had declined, each reply courteous, but lacking the warmth she would have extended to a friend. Two days after Neville Chamberlain's broadcast, she received another letter from Otterburn.

Dear Maisie,

I cannot say I was surprised by your refusal to meet. Perhaps that was too much to ask of you, in the circumstances. I appreciate your note of thanks, but I must confess my reason for assistance in procuring the aircraft in Munich was purely selfish. I wanted my daughter home, and you gave me the perfect opportunity. The gratitude should be all mine, because you kept your word.

This letter is by way of a confession, and the contents reflect what I would have spoken to you about, had we met in person. I would therefore appreciate it if you would be so kind as to destroy this letter after reading.

I fear I contributed to the arrest of Leon Donat in Munich. I allowed it to be known that he was in the city and, more to the point, that he was vulnerable. My wife and I enjoy a happy marriage, but I am not an easy man, nor was I attentive to her for many years. Indeed, our grandson has helped bring us together again. Leon bettered me in business on several occasions, and for a while in the past he bettered me in my wife's affections. I discovered she was providing him with funds to pass on to Elaine, and though I never confronted her, I realized that Leon and my wife had something I could not have—contact with Elaine. Lorraine had turned to another man before me, and had kept details of my daughter's communications from me. My pride took the upper hand—I had the ear of men in Germany who wanted to see Leon Donat fall, so I sowed a seed of information, and allowed it to flourish.

That is my confession. Any apologies I make will never absolve me of
my actions. My punishment is that Leon Donat is and always will be the better man—he would never, I know, have stooped so low.

   Yours, with regret,

   John

Maisie read the letter once, then took it to the fireplace, where she placed it in the grate and held a lighted match to the paper, taking a brass poker to ensure every scrap of John Otterburn's handwriting burned.

M
aisie looked at those gathered around the table in the dining room at the Dower House, her home on the Chelstone estate. It was mid-October, and the monthly Sunday lunch had become a firm entry on the calendar of all present. From the first invitation, she had instructed each and every person invited, “There will be no standing on ceremony, children will be present and we're there to enjoy ourselves. There might well be games.” To their credit, Lord Julian and Lady Rowan walked up from the manor house for that first luncheon, and proved to be good sports when it came to sitting down in a dining room where two tables had to be pushed together to accommodate everyone who came. All told, seventeen people sat down to lunch, twenty if Leon Donat was well enough to make the journey with his housekeeper and Andrew.

At first Maisie had worried that her idea might fail, but she went on—it was time to go about her days in a different way. So much had conspired to change her in recent years, but losing James, and then her work in Spain and Munich, had altered her perspective, and not only of the world. Time had brought her back to herself. Yet she had
felt as if her way of seeing life had taken on a growth of its own, and it had begun in a hospital close to the Tajo River, when she held a small newborn babe named Esperanza—Hope—in her arms. And then there was the vision that would come back to her time and again, of two little girls playing together in Munich—how they held hands in friendship, and let go when they feared they might be seen. Those things told Maisie it was time to hold on to those she loved, to bring them together, closer to her, no matter the outcome—and to take her chances as to whether they, in turn, would accept her efforts, for she was asking each to step out of his or her own world and into that of another.

With Leon Donat she had listened to the prime minister's promise of “peace for our time” and now she remembered the cautionary words from the man she had journeyed to Munich to bring home, as he raised his glass to her. She could hear others in their company chatting and laughing around the table, and saw her father deep in conversation with Douglas Partridge. Little Margaret Rose Beale clambered onto Lady Rowan's lap and patted a dog—Maisie wasn't sure whose dog it was—who begged for food from a plate. There had been toasts to celebrate the reopening of Maisie's business, discussions about motor cars and schools, about the rambunctiousness of boys, whose heart Margaret Rose would break in a few years, and the merits of a new horse in the pasture. Maisie could hear Priscilla's voice ricocheting back and forth between Doreen and Sandra, Billy and Lord Julian, so that soon everyone was leaning forward to join in the joke. Maisie lifted her glass toward Leon Donat, not least to let him know she had heeded his message.

Maisie, we have our freedom, both of us. We are lucky, very lucky. Make sure you use it well.

J
OURNEY
TO
M
UNICH
was inspired by a story told by my mother of a man she worked for in 1944, when she was seventeen years old. He had taken her into his confidence—perhaps because she reminded him of a daughter who had died—and told her that before the war he had been set free from a German concentration camp into the hands of the British government after they had paid for his release. The German authorities did not know that he was an inventor who had come to the notice of the British intelligence services when they were informed that he had ideas of “some interest” to them—certain circles of government were preparing for war, and therefore had the need for development of specialist transportation. As soon as the plans were drawn up and handed over to the authorities, this man was given funding for a completely new business, one that would take him into a peaceful retirement.
Journey to Munich
is not his story, but it only takes one small nugget of an idea to create a whole novel. My mother's story was the nugget.

JACQUELINE WINSPEAR
is the author of the
New York Times
bestsellers
A Dangerous Place, Leaving Everything Most Loved
,
Elegy for Eddie
,
A Lesson in Secrets
,
The Mapping of Love and Death
, and
Among the Mad
, as well as five other national bestselling Maisie Dobbs novels. Her standalone novel
The Care and Management of Lies
was also a
New York Times
and national bestseller, and a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. She has won numerous awards, including the Agatha, Alex, and Macavity awards for the first book in the Maisie Dobbs series, which received seven award nominations, including a nomination for the Edgar Award for Best Novel.
Maisie Dobbs
was also named a
New York Times
Notable Book. Originally from the United Kingdom, Jacqueline now lives in California.

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