The Black Baroness (3 page)

When lunch was over Erika went off to have a permanent wave, and Gregory spent the afternoon in a state of gloomy depression. It was bad enough that he would so shortly have to leave her, without this awful feeling that a gang of woolly old men were letting Britain drift into the gravest danger.

That night they dined alone and went to Oslo’s best musical show, where in spite of the fact that they did not understand Norwegian, they were able to forget for a few hours the separation which so soon was to render them even more miserable.

On the Thursday they did not get up until lunch-time; their last lunch together until neither knew when. In the afternoon, in a desperate effort to forget themselves again, they hired a car and a guide and drove round the principal sights of the Norwegian capital, but by cocktail-time they were gazing forlornly at each other over their glasses, with hardly a word to say.

For dinner Kuporovitch joined them. They had seen little of
him during the past two days. Perhaps he would really have done them better service if he had remained with them as much as possible to cheer them up, but realising how little time they had together he had tactfully left them to themselves and amused himself with a glamorous blonde whom he had met in a dance-club on his first night in Oslo. But it was necessary that their final arrangements should be made, as Gregory’s plane left early on Friday morning.

To Gregorys’ relief he found that the Russian was a much more capable companion than the stout-hearted but unimaginative young airman, Freddie Charlton, who had accompanied him on his travels through Germany, Finland and Russia. Kuporovitch had spent such time as had not been occupied in playful dalliance with the glamorous blonde in thinking out the details of the plan that Gregory had outlined two nights before.

He proposed to accompany Erika as her deaf-and-dumb uncle and had already booked accommodation for them at a hotel in Flisen, a small town about seventy miles north-east of Oslo and only about fifteen miles from the Swedish border. After Gregory’s departure they would leave Oslo by the eleven-fifty train, sleep at Flisen and hire a car for a week. During the next few days they would make several motoring expeditions as though seeing the sights of the country, in order to carry out a careful reconnaissance of the frontier, which, as Norway and Sweden were on the most friendly terms, must be very lightly guarded; then it should not prove difficult to drive to an unfrequented spot one night, abandon the car and slip over the border. Having arrived in Sweden he suggested that they should make their way to the university town of Uppsala, where they were not likely to run into any foreign diplomats who might know Erika by sight, but which, owing to the nature of the town, included in its inhabitants many foreign teachers and students whose presence would render them inconspicuous while living there quietly. As soon as they were settled in they would send Gregory their address by air mail and await his further instructions. He then handed Gregory a slip of paper with the names under which he proposed they should travel, and three copies of a passport photograph of himself that he had had taken.

‘Bless you,’ smiled Gregory. ‘It’s great that you should have thought all this out already. Erika had a passport photograph taken yesterday, so all that remains is the question of money.
You had most of mine off me in Kandalaksha and Erika hasn’t got any, so by the time I’ve settled the bill here we shall be pretty well stony.’

Kuporovitch shrugged. ‘I have plenty; all my savings in foreign currency that I brought out of Russia as well as the six thousand marks which I changed for you. I’ll see to that side of it.’

‘Thanks. Whatever you pay out on Erika’s behalf I’ll refund when you get to France. If they won’t let me send cash from England, I’ve got quite enough pull to fix a trip to Paris and meet you with it there.’

Erika sighed. ‘Oh, Stefan, how lucky you are. If only I could go to Paris, too. As it is, I suppose when you two meet I’ll be on my way to America.’

Gregory looked across at her with sudden intentness. ‘There’s time to reconsider your decision yet, darling. Why the hell can’t you be sensible and let me get you a permit to enter England as a refugee from Nazi persecution?’

She swallowed hard but shook her head. ‘No, dearest, it’s no good. Because my country has fallen into the hands of a set of unscrupulous blackguards that doesn’t make me any the less a German. I can’t accept the hospitality of England or France while your friends and mine are killing one another.’

For a long time they were silent. The fine wine remained almost untasted in the glasses and they ate perfunctorily, hardly noticing the rich dishes which were placed before them. Kuporovitch did his best, but after one or two false starts even the jovial Russian gave up any attempt to make it a jolly party.

Gregory could have coped with most situations but this was beyond him. He and Erika were perfectly free; nothing compelled her to remain in Norway or him to leave it; they could both change their minds at the last moment, but he felt certain now that she would not change hers and he knew quite well that he would not change his. The very fact that their coming separation was self-imposed seemed to make it ten times harder, but a force that was stronger than either of them had them firmly in its grip and was tearing them apart just as surely as diverging currents would carry two pieces of driftwood in different directions.

This was their last night together, perhaps for years, perhaps, in the uncertainties of war, for ever; yet instead of savouring every moment of it they were sitting there tongue-tied and
speechless. He felt that he was letting Erika down appallingly badly—after all, it was always up to the man to make the running—yet for the life of him he could not bring himself to be even normally cheerful—let alone entertaining.

Erika knew just what he was feeling and her heart went out to him. Like him, she would have done anything to be able to recall their mood of the night on which they had first abandoned themselves to their wild passion for each other; but she was wise enough to know why that was impossible.
Then
they had just been a very beautiful woman and a damnably attractive man, both of whom were highly experienced in the art of love; two born pagans, who openly boasted that they had always taken with greedy hands all the joys that the gods had given them; but they had hardly known each other. Two brief meetings, with an interval of a few weeks between, had lit the flame of desire in both of them; each knew that the other was courageous, unscrupulous and clever, but no more, and after that night, but for a far deeper attraction, their interest in each other might soon have exhausted itself.
That
had been passion;
this
was love. And where Passion is given to those whom the gods love as a glorious plaything, Love is a harsh taskmaster. They could have parted after that night with no regrets and a lovely memory; they could only part now, after they had come to know each other so well, with an actual physical pain that seemed to grip them in the pit of the stomach and rend each separate heart-string. To have pretended anything else would only have been a hideous attempt at play-acting which Erika could not have borne. She was terribly glad that Gregory did not attempt it.

From a glance at the clock she saw that it was already half-past nine. In less than twelve hours Gregory would have left her. She was not greedy for the caresses he had lavished on her in the previous nights, because her passion was temporarily numbed by her acute despair, but she wanted desperately to lie in his arms while he comforted her, to cling close to him in every moment that was left to her and gather all the strength she could for their separation. So she thrust back her chair and said:

‘You’ve got to make an early start tomorrow, darling. I’m sure Stefan will forgive us if we desert him.’

Kuporovitch smiled sympathetically. ‘Please. I can take care of myself, and I’ll settle the bill. I shall see you both in the morning.’

Gregory nodded his thanks and followed her out into the lounge. At one table a little group of people were sitting drinking coffee and liqueurs. There was a very handsome dark girl of about twenty-three among them. She had a well-modelled, full-lipped mouth, fine, regular features, a strong, determined chin and large, lustrous brown eyes. On seeing Erika her eyes widened and she stood up.

Erika smothered an exclamation of annoyance as the dark girl hurriedly left the table and came towards them. This was the last moment she would have chosen to exchange meaningless gossip with her best friend—let alone a woman who was only a casual acquaintance—but there was no escape. The girl seized both her hands impulsively and exclaimed:

‘My dear! How absolutely marvellous to see you! I thought—I thought …’ Her voice tailed off as she glanced uncertainly towards Gregory.

Erika introduced them, ‘
Oberst-Baron
von Lutz—
Fräulein
Paula von Steinmetz,’ and asked: ‘What did you think Paula? You can speak quite freely in front of the Colonel-Baron.’

Paula extended her hand to Gregory with a gracious smile, upon which he clicked his heels, bowed from the waist and kissed it in the approved manner of the Prussian officer; then she turned back to Erika.

‘I thought that after the Army revolt last November the Nazis had passed a sentence of execution on you.’

‘They did,’ smiled Erika; ‘but, as you see, they haven’t carried it out yet.’

‘The swine gave me ten years because I hid my brother Oscar, the one who is a Captain of Uhlans; and they’re holding him as a hostage for my good behaviour’, Paula said quickly. ‘They’ve done the same sort of thing with any number of girls I know. There are at least forty of us here in Oslo; but as they passed the death penalty on you I was afraid that you had been pig-headed and refused to play.’

‘How are you finding life here?’ asked Gregory amiably.

She shrugged. ‘Naturally, I hated the idea at first, but it’s much more fun being here than in Germany now there’s a war on, and they give me plenty of money, I’m rather sorry for the poor Norwegians, but, after all, in the long run it’s going to be much better for them that they should succumb to Hitler’s secret weapon instead of having a long war in which lots of the poor dears would get killed—isn’t it?’

‘Of course it is,’ smiled Gregory. ‘That’s a very sensible way to regard matters. You and Erika could do more damage between you and the armoured division, any day.’

‘What a charming way of putting things.’ Paula’s lovely dark eyes swept over Gregory’s lean face with approval. ‘Will you both lunch with me tomorrow? You
must
—I insist. I’ve got the sweetest apartment—No. 97 Universitätsgarten.’

Erika hesitated for a second, then she said quickly: ‘May I telephone you in the morning?’

‘Of course.’ Paula squeezed her arm, flashed another dazzling smile at Gregory and added: ‘I must fly now; I’ve got a little Major man in tow who is in command of one of the forts outside the harbour. But I shall expect you both at one o’clock so don’t dare to telephone and say that you’re not coming.’

Having smiled ‘Goodnight’ Gregory and Erika walked in silence towards the lift, and it was only as they were going down their corridor upstairs that she said bitterly: ‘I never knew Paula intimately, but she comes of a decent family, and it makes me almost physically sick to think that a girl who is really one of us should have sold out to the Nazis.’

Gregory shrugged. ‘Don’t be too hard on her, darling. It isn’t everyone who has your strength of character; and remember, those devils have got her brother. From what she said, it’s clear that they gave her the choice of death for him and ten years—the best ten years of her life—in some God-awful concentration-camp, or to come here as one of their agents. One can hardly blame her, and from that “come hither” eye of hers I shouldn’t think she finds the job they’ve put her on by any means distasteful. Naturally, on seeing you she jumped to the conclusion that you had bought your liberty on the same terms.’

At their respective doors they parted, but a quarter of an hour later Gregory entered Erika’s room through the bathroom they were sharing. He was wearing a brightly-hued silk dressing-gown which he had bought two days before; in one hand he was carrying a fat Turkish cigarette and in the other a magnum of champagne.

She looked across at him from her bed as he set the magnum down and walked over to a side-table to collect some glasses that were standing with a half-empty bottle of Madeira which they had opened that morning.

‘Darling,’ she murmured a little hesitantly, ‘would you mind very much if we didn’t make a night of it?—I mean—not a
magnum-of-champagne sort of night—because all I want now is to hold you very close to me for every moment that’s left to us, and we’ve got so little time—so desperately little time.’

‘Have we?’ he said, turning suddenly, and she saw that his whole face had altered. ‘Don’t you believe it, sweetheart!’

‘Oh, Gregory! You mean …’ Her face suddenly lit up but the rest of her sentence was never uttered. With one great, pantherlike spring he landed right on her bed and seizing her face between his hands he forced it back on the pillow, pressing his mouth to hers.

When he released her he was laughing like a genial devil as he cried: ‘I mean, my angel, why should I go home now there’s work to be done here in Norway? Tomorrow we are lunching with Hitler’s secret weapon.’

Before they had been in Paula von Steinmetz’s flat for ten minutes, Gregory knew that his decision to stay in Norway had been thoroughly justified. Either she already had a luncheon party arranged for that day or else she had quickly got a number of people together after Erika had telephoned to her that morning. Her guests and their attitude were both a shock and a revelation.

The men consisted of a high Balkan diplomat and four Norwegians, one of whom was a member of the
Storting
and one the editor of a leading paper; the two others were the Major with whom Paula had been the night before and another Army officer. All the women were German born, although one of them was the diplomat’s wife and so nominally of his nationality, and another had married the Norwegian M.P. only a fortnight before. The women accepted Erika as one of themselves, and paid a special deference to Gregory in his role of a Prussian aristocrat who had served with distinction upon their own General Staff.