Natasha's Dream (22 page)

‘I’m sternly opposed to either of those jobs,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Truly, I don’t mind that work is found for me, because it will be bliss to be in England, my mother’s country. The lady who wrote the letter is a very good friend of yours?’

‘I’m entertaining hopes,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘but she’s a bewitching woman and the competition is fierce.’

‘Mr Gibson,’ said Natasha, pulses racing, ‘you are entertaining hopes?’

‘In my modest way,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Modest?’ Natasha felt giddy.

‘I’ve been standing aside from the arena,’
said Mr Gibson. ‘I feel it’s a disadvantage to be merely one of a crowd.’

Natasha sat down, for her knees were failing her. ‘But I thought – Mr Gibson, your family, your wife and children—?’

‘Pardon?’ said Mr Gibson, opening his notebook and uncapping his fountain pen.

‘You said—’ But no, he had never said. She had assumed. She had assumed because she had been unable to imagine otherwise. She had been wrong? He was not married? He was only entertaining hopes? He was not even promised to anyone? What was she like, the woman who allowed him to stand aside while ordinary men surrounded her? Natasha drew a breath and said, ‘I would like to visit a hairdresser.’

‘A hairdresser?’

‘For my hair to be styled before we go to Switzerland. I can use some of the money I still have.’

Mr Gibson regarded her tolerantly. Her hair, rich and thick, was full of soft, natural waves.

‘You’re not going to have it cut and bobbed, I hope,’ he said. Bobbed hair had a boyish look, but was very fashionable. So was the shingle, with its crimped look.

‘I’m not going to have it cut, no,’ said Natasha.

‘Well, a hairdresser is necessary to the happiness of every young lady, I suppose,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘I have never been to one,’ said Natasha.

‘That must be put right at once, then. But you can’t go by yourself. You can’t go anywhere by yourself. You’ve a habit of disappearing or nearly disappearing. If you don’t mind waiting ten minutes or so, I’ll take you.’

‘Thank you,’ said Natasha, who had decided all was fair in love and war.

The doorbell rang. She stiffened, and Mr Gibson looked thoughtful. ‘Who can that be?’ he said.

‘Don’t answer it,’ begged Natasha.

‘I wonder,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘could it be the gentleman who owns the car? If it is, I’d like to meet him. We’ll see.’

‘Please don’t,’ said Natasha. ‘If it is him, I’m sure he won’t be alone.’

‘We’ll see,’ said “Mr Gibson again. He went to the door and opened it a little, using his left foot as a firm stop. Outside stood two uniformed policemen, one of them a sergeant.

‘Herr Gibson?’ enquired the sergeant.

‘Good morning,’ said Mr Gibson pleasantly.

‘We should like a few words with you, mein Herr.’

‘Come in,’ said Mr Gibson, sighing. They came in, and Natasha stared at them in apprehension. She felt the sweetnesses of life were never allowed to linger. There was always something unpleasant or uncomfortable lurking in the background, waiting to intrude and interrupt.

‘I am Sergeant Hertz. Herr Gibson, there’s a car parked outside, an English car. May I ask if you are the owner?’

‘I am not,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Do you know how it got there?’

‘I drove it there.’

‘But you are not the owner?’

‘No.’

‘Herr Gibson, the car is registered in the name of a gentleman who we believe to be the legal owner. He has informed us that the car was stolen.’

‘Confiscated,’ said Mr Gibson in English.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I confiscated it in order to prevent an abduction,’ said Mr Gibson, again in English.

‘Mein Herr?’ said the uncomprehending police sergeant.

Natasha repeated Mr Gibson’s statement in German.

‘Our information,’ said the sergeant, ‘is that it was removed without the owner’s permission. Do you understand that, Herr Gibson?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘I speak in English sometimes when German words escape me.’

‘You are a citizen of Great Britain?’

‘Yes.’

‘A visitor to Germany?’

‘Yes.’

‘May I ask who this young lady is?’

‘A friend,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘So? May I see her papers, please, and your passport?’

Natasha quivered. She was always reluctant to see her papers in the hands of other people, including the police. Without her papers, she was a nobody. Mr Gibson gave her a reassuring nod. She produced the identity document, and Mr Gibson produced his passport. Police Sergeant Hertz examined them.

‘You are Russian?’ he said to Natasha.

‘An émigré,’ said Natasha, and because Mr Gibson seemed as calm as ever, she squared
her shoulders and said, ‘Herr Gibson saved me from—’

The sergeant interrupted. ‘You are both requested to accompany us to Police Headquarters,’ he said, but he handed back the documents.

‘Now?’ said Mr Gibson.

‘If you please, mein Herr. Inspector Moeller wishes to see you.’

‘Very well.’

At the main Berlin police station, Mr Gibson and Natasha were escorted into the presence of Inspector Moeller. Sergeant Hertz remained, presenting details of his examination of them. Inspector Moeller, a thin and shrewd-eyed man, nodded.

‘Herr Gibson,’ he said, ‘is it true you have admitted taking possession of a car not belonging to you?’

‘Would you repeat that, please?’ asked Mr Gibson, his apparently unruffled calmness commending itself poignantly to Natasha, who knew he might be in desperate trouble now, unless he could convince the police they were interrogating the wrong man.

Speaking deliberately, Inspector Moeller
repeated his question, and Mr Gibson said, ‘I’ve admitted removing it. I had good reason. It saved my friend, Fräulein Chevensky, from being removed herself, against her will.’ His German came through well enough.

‘Who is Fräulein Chevensky?’

‘This young lady.’

‘I think not,’ said the inspector. ‘Your papers, Fräulein, if you please.’

Again Natasha handed over her identity document. ‘I—’

‘You are Natasha Petrovna Alexeiev?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Natasha, ‘but sometimes I say my name is Chevensky because of the Bolsheviks, who are always looking for émigrés whose names they know. When one meets strangers in Berlin and they ask what is your name, how is one to know they are not the agents of Moscow?’

‘Is Herr Gibson an agent from Moscow?’ asked the inspector.

‘No, no! Of course not! He is a fine man. It is just that when I first met him, I did not know who he was, so I said my name was Chevensky.’

‘There are émigrés here with twenty names,’ said the inspector. ‘Herr Gibson, please explain what you meant when you said you saved
Fräulein Alexeiev, alias Chevensky, from being removed against her will.’

Mr Gibson explained. Natasha helped him. Together they told the story of what had happened at the clinic. Sergeant Hertz listened blank of face, and the inspector lightly nodded from time to time.

‘You are speaking of attempted abduction?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Then why did you not report such a serious matter to us?’

Mr Gibson, whose terms of reference included an injunction to avoid any kind of unsavoury publicity, indulged in a shrug.

‘I wished to confront the gentleman first,’ he said. ‘In removing his car and keeping it locked, I hoped he would show himself to me in a demand for the keys.’

‘We are expected to believe that?’ said Inspector Moeller.

‘I am a truthful man, Herr Inspector, and do expect you to, naturally.’

‘You say this attempted abduction took place two days ago?’

‘That is correct,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘For what purpose, mein Herr?’

‘Yes, for what purpose – that’s a question I wanted an answer to myself. In taking the car over, I prevented the owner from driving Fräulein Alexeiev away in it, and offered myself the chance of putting the question to him when he came to reclaim the vehicle.’ Mr Gibson had reverted to English again, and Natasha translated.

‘He could not have reclaimed it yesterday,’ said Inspector Moeller. ‘It was not there. Not, at least, from midday onwards.’

‘True, I had occasion to use it yesterday.’

‘You made use of a vehicle illegally acquired?’

‘Justifiably confiscated,’ said Mr Gibson, and Natasha had to translate that too.

‘There is no such thing in German criminal law as justifiable confiscation,’ said the inspector. ‘Fräulein Alexeiev, why did you not dissuade Herr Gibson from taking a car that did not belong to him?’

‘No, no, it was my idea to take it, not his,’ said Natasha, trying to do what she could for a man who had miraculously delivered her from the hands of Commissar Bukov.

‘Not true, of course,’ said Mr Gibson. ‘Fräulein Alexeiev was hardly aware of what was going on
at that stage. She was only just recovering from the chloroform.’

‘She was aware subsequently that you had suddenly acquired a car?’

‘Of course,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘and begged me to return it. I insisted, however, that I should look after it until its owner came to ask for the keys, when I should then have demanded answers to certain questions. I alone am responsible for being the temporary custodian of the car, Herr Inspector.’ His use of German for this statement was a little laborious and untidy, but it got through to the inspector.

‘Temporary custodian?’ he said, and for a moment Natasha thought he showed appreciation of Mr Gibson’s interpretation of his role. ‘German courts of justice don’t look kindly on people who take the law into their own hands, Herr Gibson. It is, in any case, quite unsatisfactory to claim an abduction was attempted and not to have reported this to us. I am satisfied Fräulein Alexeiev was a party to the illegal acquisition of the car.’ The inspector studied a document on his desk. ‘I must now tell you it has been decided to deport you as an undesirable alien.’

Natasha winced. Mr Gibson looked pained.

‘Deported?’ he said, and thought about how and why the decision had come to be made, and the advisability of whether or not to accept it. Sir Douglas, he knew, would insist he went quietly. ‘Without the privilege of being heard by a magistrate?’

‘Such a hearing is not necessary,’ said the inspector. ‘A statement will be taken from you, confirming your admission that you took the car in company with Fräulein Alexeiev. You will be required to sign it. Tomorrow morning you will be put aboard the train to Paris and escorted as far as the border. Fräulein Alexeiev is also to be deported. She will be given a ticket to Moscow, and travel by train tomorrow, with an escort as far as the Polish border. Until further notice, neither of you will be allowed to re-enter Germany.’

Natasha looked white-faced and stricken.

‘You are serious?’ asked Mr Gibson.

‘In such cases, the Ministry is always serious, Herr Gibson. If you will make your statement and surrender your passport, you’ll be free to go. But you are required to be ready to leave at ten in the morning, when officials will present themselves at your address. They will escort you and return your passport at the French border.
Fräulein Alexeiev will remain in our custody overnight.’

‘No,’ gasped Natasha. ‘No! You have my papers and need not give them back to me until tomorrow if you will allow me, please, to go with Herr Gibson now.’

‘You are to be detained,’ said Inspector Moeller quietly.

‘That is a little harsh, surely,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Not at all. It’s quite usual. In your own case, a concession is being made. If you’ll go with Sergeant Hertz now and make your statement – ah, your passport first, if you please.’

Mr Gibson handed it over. Natasha sat numbed and despairing. Mr Gibson saw the heartbreak on her face.

‘I have a call to make on the British Embassy, Herr Inspector,’ he said.

‘That is understood,’ said the inspector.

‘Don’t worry now.’ Mr Gibson lightly pressed Natasha’s shoulder. Her head was bent, her eyes full of tears. ‘We shall leave Berlin together, I promise.’

She lifted her face. The tears were running. ‘I am in need,’ she whispered, ‘I am in need of another miracle.’

Thirty minutes later, Mr Gibson entered a telephone booth in the Hotel Bristol. There was, he knew, no help to be expected from the British Embassy, and indeed he had strict instructions not to make himself known to the embassy in any way. But he had had to give Natasha some hope and the inspector some food for thought. In asking the telephone operator to connect him with Princess Malininsky’s number, he was giving himself hope. Encouragingly, she was in and came on the line. She was, she said, enchanted to hear from him again. Did this indicate an intention to interest himself in her or to ask more questions?

‘It indicates that because you’re such an agreeable woman, I’m going to ask a favour of you.’

‘You have telephoned me to tell me I’m agreeable, and that you want something?’

‘You are also delightful,’ said Mr Gibson, ‘and it’s help I want, a certain kind of help.’

‘How can I resist such frankness?’

‘The fact is, I’m having a little trouble with the police.’

‘And you think, perhaps, that the Chief of Police is my lover? Shame on you.’

‘I thought you might have some influence with the Minister of Justice. Allow me to explain.’ Mr Gibson did so, concisely and clearly.

‘So,’ said Princess Malininsky, ‘you and the young lady have made terrible nuisances of yourselves, and not, of course, in respect of the car. But the car is the big stick with which they are beating you. What is it you think I can do?’

Mr Gibson asked her if she knew the Minister of Justice, and if she did, was there a possibility she could get him to change Natasha’s deportation order in one particular way? Could Natasha be put aboard the Paris train instead of being headed in the direction of Moscow?

Princess Malininsky laughed softly. ‘It is the minister you think is my lover? He is the man, of course, who has produced the big stick for the police to use on you. But yes, I know the Minister.’

‘May I ask you, then, to try to intercede for Natasha?’