The Haunted Lady (21 page)

‘He told us so. Not in so many words, I grant you, but he slipped up when he mentioned Lumsden. He told us Lumsden had been in the Hungarian secret police. How could he know that? It isn’t the sort of information that you put on your job application or talk about over a few steins in your local bierkeller. Only another agent would be able to discover that.’

‘It can be very frustrating living with you, Adam. It’s impossible to gauge what direction your mind is heading in half the time.’

I put my arms around her and began to caress her. ‘At the moment I’m thinking about ways to ease frustration.’

Eve wriggled closer. ‘Whose frustration, yours or mine?’

‘Both.’

Aware of the difficulties involving a kosher diet, we offered our guest toast and marmalade the following morning, which he happily accepted.

I suggested to Eve that Herr Jäger stay with us until he was recovered fully from the assault.

‘But he isn’t that badly injured,’ she protested.

‘I know that, but this way we could possibly discover far more from him and also keep an eye on him.’

Eve rolled her eyes; she’s good at that too. It was agreed, and shortly after breakfast I drove him to the B & B where he was staying for him to check-out and collect his luggage.

Chloe and Michael arrived later that morning, summoned by Eve’s phone call. She had only told them that we had fresh information regarding Chloe’s identity, revealing nothing about her relationship to the man she had met for the first time the previous day.

I let Eve perform the introduction. She began by telling the young couple, ‘This gentleman’s name is Herr Jäger, or to give his full name, Herr Isaac Jäger.’ She paused, and I could tell she was enjoying the drama, wringing every ounce of pleasure from it as she built up the suspense before making her grand revelation. ‘I ought to explain that the name Jäger is the German equivalent of the English word Hunter, which is what you told us was your mother’s maiden name. In other words, Chloe, Herr Jäger is your mother’s younger brother. Your uncle, to be precise.’

To describe the announcement as a bombshell would be a serious understatement. In the stunned silence that followed her words, Eve added, ‘Your mother was born Devorah Jäger. She lived in East Germany until she met your father, following which they fell in love and eloped. I believe the intention was for the other members of the family to follow her to the West, but they didn’t make it. I feel sure you will want to talk to your uncle at length, and I will be happy to act as interpreter for you.’

Chloe’s eyes widened and I could see she was close to tears. ‘My mother had a brother?’ When she had recovered slightly she asked Eve, ‘What is the German word for uncle?’

I saw Jäger’s expression change on hearing Chloe’s final word, to a semblance of a smile, anticipating Eve’s response. ‘It’s virtually the same,’ Eve told her, ‘The word is
onkel
.’

‘Then would you tell my
Onkel
Isaac that I am extremely happy to meet him and that I would love to hear anything he can tell me about my mother.’

‘Of course I will.’ Eve rattled off a volley of German. It was easy to see that the emotion of the meeting was affecting Jäger as deeply as it was his niece. He reached out and took Chloe’s hands, holding them in his as he told her, via Eve, ‘I was only a boy when Devorah left home with your father, but I remember her as vividly if it happened yesterday. She was a very beautiful young woman, but even if my memory has faded over the years, I would still be able to see her clearly, for you are exactly like her.’

‘I would love to hear all you can tell me about her and the other members of my ... er ... our family.’

‘To tell you everything would take a lifetime, but I will do the best I can, as far as my memory will allow.’

Jäger gave details of the family background, much of which was news to us, before concentrating on Chloe’s grandparents and their histories. ‘He was a cabinetmaker, she was a scientist. That might seem a strange combination, but they were very happy together. They met when she was seeking someone to make some furniture for her apartment. My father used to say that he was more interested in the client than the commission she had given him. He also said he deliberately took his time over making the goods, and returned several times on the pretext of checking that the work was what she wanted. In reality he used those meetings to court her.’

He paused, gathering his memories before continuing, ‘They were well thought of by the regime, I believe. In my mother’s case it was for the research she was carrying out, which to the East German authorities could prove both profitable and prestigious. My father’s work was also deemed important, because much of what he made was exported to the West, earning valuable foreign currency.’

Eve translated, pausing occasionally for clarification of a word or phrase Jäger had used. When she had finished, she waited for a second or two before adding, ‘I ought to tell you, Chloe, that your mother’s family are Jewish by religion.’

It was clear that although the news came as a great shock to Chloe, her fiancé was much less surprised. ‘I thought that might be so, when you mentioned that Chloe’s mother was called Devorah.’

The revelation was clearly upsetting Chloe, and the reason for her distress soon became apparent. She looked at Michael as she asked, ‘What about us? What about our plans?’

‘I don’t see that it alters them one bit, Chloe. Let’s face it, your father and mother obviously knew that and it didn’t prevent them getting married.’

‘I understand that, Michael, but my father wasn’t an Anglican vicar. What would you tell your parishioners?’

‘I’d tell them the same as I’m telling you, that my religion and theirs is based upon the teachings of someone whose mother was Jewish.’

‘Oh! I hadn’t thought of that.’

Eve had been quietly updating Chloe’s uncle on the conversation. When he heard Michael’s final words, Jäger reached across and shook his hand, before telling Chloe, ‘You have picked a fine young man to spend your life with. I wish other people were as understanding and tolerant as he is.’

––––––––

W
e brewed tea, which Jäger seemed to be able to consume in quantities even Johnny Pickersgill would have struggled to match, before he began to tell Chloe about her father’s activities and her parents’ escape from East Germany.

As reassurance, Eve touched Chloe’s arm and told her, ‘We have learned some things of your father’s background that very few people know. Please don’t be alarmed by what your uncle is about to tell you.’

‘They met when my mother brought him home for a meal. He was supposedly a Polish research student who was gaining experience by working at the laboratory my mother headed. It was only much later when we discovered that very little about your father was as it seemed. Don’t misunderstand me, he was doing his duty for his country. The time he spent working at the laboratory was only part of his cover. In order to carry off the pretence he had to do several such jobs, all the time working his way into the establishment in order to gain their secrets. He wasn’t actively spying on what happened at the laboratory. His orders were to become accepted, trusted and then gain whatever information he could. It was a long, slow process, but I believe he carried it off extremely well. The time at the laboratory gave him excellent credibility and enabled him to move onto his next operation. He would have been even more successful, but somewhere along the line as he discovered more and more of the East German and other communist states’ secrets he stumbled across some information that, if leaked would have had terrible repercussions. He revealed this to my parents as he and Devorah began making their escape plans. He also told us that, although he could not be certain, there was a possibility that he might have been betrayed. He would not tell us what those secrets were. He said it was better for us if we didn’t know.’

‘Betrayed by whom?’ I interjected.

‘That’s the problem, I don’t know. I’ve tried to discover the identity of the person he suspected might have betrayed him, but without success.’

‘Is that the reason you joined the Stasi?’

Eve translated as I explained to Michael and Chloe that the Stasi was the East German secret police. I turned to see Jäger staring at me in open-mouthed astonishment.

‘Adam, he wants to know how you found that out. Shall I tell him?’ Eve looked concerned.

I agreed, and after she told Jäger, she smiled at his reply, but didn’t translate it until I pressed her. ‘I’m not saying, you’d get far too conceited.’

‘Risk it.’

‘He says if you’d taken up chess you’d be a Grand Master by now.’

‘Hardly, it’s purely that words are my business. If I hadn’t been trained in interview techniques, I probably wouldn’t have noticed that he knew Lumsden to be a former Hungarian agent.’

Jäger began to speak again and there was little or nothing light-hearted in Eve’s ensuing translation. ‘He joined the Stasi as a way of escaping torture and imprisonment, and to seek retribution against those who had harmed his family. Within a year of Andrew and Devorah’s escape his mother became ill and, following her death, he and his father, along with his uncle, aunt and cousins, had been shipped off to a remote camp in Russia, deported, in fact. There they were almost starved and continuously brainwashed. Within five years Isaac was the only survivor. By then the authorities were convinced that the “cleansing operation” as they called it had worked and that he had adopted their philosophy hook, line, and sinker. In fact, all he was doing was biding his time. Having pretended to embrace their ideology he became acceptable once more, and over the years he has slowly eliminated those who were responsible for the mistreatment of his family. Once that job was done and he considered it safe to do so, he obtained a transfer to Poland, from where he knew that ethnic Germans could be repatriated to West Germany.’

Eve stopped there, and I suggested it was time we all had another cup of tea. Although Jäger spoke next to no English, it was clear from his expression that the word ‘tea’ was part of a universal language.

Once everyone’s mugs were refilled, he continued, via Eve. ‘To ensure he was accepted for the repatriation programme he had to do so in someone else’s name. In order to do this he had to fake his own death and assume another identity. He stole a corpse from a mortuary, safe in the knowledge that the morticians dared not own up to the authorities that they had lost a body. He switched dental records with the dead man and then burnt a house down with the corpse inside. Only then was he allowed to register for the emigration scheme.’

‘This must have taken years and years,’ I commented.

‘It did; he only reached West Berlin eighteen months ago. Since then he has been saving money to be able to afford the fare to England. He wanted to discover what had happened to Devorah and the child.’

We decided to call a halt then as the revelations were proving emotionally draining both for Chloe and her uncle. Later, when he resumed his account, Jäger told her in greater detail how her parents had succeeded in getting past the border guards and into West Berlin. This account was far more graphic than the abridged version we had heard the night before.

‘In the camp, my father lasted longer than all the others. I think the reason was that he clung on until he was certain I was old enough and trustworthy enough to be told the secrets he had concealed from me earlier. I was nineteen when he died – a long, slow and cruel death – but before the end he made me swear never to reveal any of this to outsiders.’

Jäger smiled at his niece. ‘I think that as you are family I can tell you and your friends what I have never spoken of to anyone. I adored Devorah, she was given charge of me when I was little and the bond that we struck then never wavered. My father told me that although the other members of our family had died, Devorah, Andrew and their child would still be in peril if news of what he was to tell me ever got out. He emphasised that word “ever”.’

‘How could that be, if they were living in England by then?’ Michael asked.

I smiled at his naïveté, the humour of which I could see wasn’t lost on Jäger either.

He gave the vicar a long, expressionless stare before responding to Eve’s translation. ‘Believe me, young man, if you were to spend half a day in the Stasi filing rooms you would never have asked that question.’

I decided to ask one question that was intriguing me. ‘Last night you touched on the fact that Andrew and Devorah escaped to West Berlin but you didn’t go into detail. Would you explain to all of us how they managed that? I know it was extremely difficult, even prior to the building of the Wall.’

Before replying, Jäger took Chloe’s hand once more. ‘Your father was an extremely brave and resourceful young man. His courage was only matched by that of your mother. The tragedy is that they didn’t live to earn the rewards of their bravery. He arranged for a false trading account to be set up via the British Secret Service. The business was a shell company in West Berlin that existed solely to place orders for furniture with my father. Several of these smaller transactions had already taken place, and the furniture delivered to this fictitious company before the key one that would effect their escape. The arrangement was in place long before he and Devorah needed to go. It was a necessary back-up plan, he told my father, but I don’t think even he realised exactly how useful it would be.’

Jäger paused again and stared meaningfully at his empty teacup. Conversation was suspended as we made a fresh pot. Once his thirst had been assuaged, he continued, coming soon to the most fascinating and informative part of his narrative. ‘Your father arranged for an order specifying a range of furniture to be placed. It was quite extensive, and my father worked long hours, sometimes all night, to complete the job. There were two wardrobes, a dresser, a set of dining chairs and a table.’ Jäger smiled as he mentioned the tables, which struck me as odd.

‘Once everything was made, my father applied for a permit to export and deliver the order. Naturally the permit was granted easily. The regime was desperate to encourage money to flow into the country, and this was a good example of East German craftsmanship triumphing. The furniture was loaded onto my father’s ancient delivery van. Naturally, as the items were heavy, he had to take his “assistant” along to help with the unloading. That assistant was your father, Chloe, and your mother was inside one of the wardrobes in the back of the van, protected by several blankets. They drove across the border and once they reached West Berlin my father went to the address of the “customer”, where everything was unloaded. He then returned to the East and your parents remained in freedom.’