The Other Side of Love (33 page)

Sighing, he opened the top drawer of his desk and rummaged at the back for a photograph he had snapped of her in Hyde Park. The black and white didn’t do her fair colouring justice, and a shadow fell across her left cheek, marring the perfect oval, yet her face blazed with happiness. Her arms were raised, as if she were reaching out to embrace him. Far away in the deserted offices a telephone rang, and he hastily shoved back the snapshot. If he were forced to dissect his predominant emotion towards Kathe, he would have admitted to a hot and ugly sensation akin to hatred.

He read through the four pages rapidly, slashing out two clauses, scribbling several paragraphs, then put the letter in the open box for his secretary to retype.

He shrugged on his jacket, but didn’t reknot his tie. Carrying his briefcase, he went down the hall. The light was on in Harper Uzbend’s office, and as he passed the senior partner called out:

“Kingsmith, step inside a minute, will you?”

A single light threw its beam down on Harper Uzbend. He had the sparse white hair and gaunt face that seemed bred on a rocky Maine farm, but in fact he came from a cultivated Virginia family and spoke with the softness of that state.

“We think highly of the way you’re handling the Broadmore account.”

“Thank you, sir,”

“This might be a bit premature, but we have been considering making you a partner.”

“I’m honoured.”

If this were true, why did he feel so heavy and joyless? He thought of Aubrey whom he would see in a few minutes, and of the embattled British Kingsmiths. And yes, he thought of Kathe in Germany.

“But I won’t be with the firm much longer.”

“What?”

“I’m enlisting.”

He hadn’t brooded about the decision, for it seemed preordained.

Uzbend laced his fingers and rested his hands on the desk.

“Believe me, there is nothing more rash that you can do.”

“Sir, sooner or later we’ll be in it with the British.”

210

‘The Germans have a great deal to be said for them.”

“My father’s English.”

“Balderdash. Nobody would be more shocked than he at the way you’re throwing away your chances. I’ve shopped at Kingsmith’s downstairs. He’s an American.”

“Naturalized. And frankly, sir, I can’t think of one damn thing to say for the Germans.”

Wyatt stepped out of the pool of light and left the office.

When he arrived at the flat, they were finishing the richly sweet pecan pie and ice-cream. They stayed at the table while he mechanically downed the food that had been kept hot for him. Twice he got up to freshen his drink. Rossie raised her eyebrows, as if she had already commented on his alcohol consumption and was too sensible o waste her time broaching the subject again.

The drinking was something new, Aubrey reflected.

After dinner he said:

“Wyatt, this is my one free night. Care to show me a bit of New York’s nightlife?”

“The Great Dictator’?, still running,”

Humphrey said eagerly.

“I wouldn’t mind taking it in again, would you, Rossie?”

“Let the boys enjoy themselves,”

Rossie said, patting her husband’s hand tenderly.

IV

“Uncle Humphrey tells me that none of you write to Berlin.”

“I sure as hell don’t. Is this why you wanted to be alone? To pump me about her? Wyatt’s brief spurt of anAr faded, and he slouched back in the booth. They were at Stella’s Pllce, a long, dimly lit, narrow drinking-establishment on Lexington Avenue.

“Sorry,”

he said after a few seconds.

“But it gives me an acute colitis to think about my correspondence with Germany.”

‘So you do write?”

“Did. Past tense. Did. My timing stinks is all. When I left London last year, our big romance was finished. She knew it was over, but she kept on sending me letters. And you know me, never one to leave dry washing on the line. I wrote to reiterate that we were kaput. The letter must have arrived around when poor old Uncle Alfred bought it.”

“It was rotten timing. Are you sure she knew it was over?”

‘Christ, Aubrey, she made the choice. She went back to Germany instead of coming to New York. And, in case you’re wondering, I get around a lot. And my guess is she’s dating the cream of the Wehrmacht. If you’re still interested in the enemy when the war’s over, the coast is clear.”

211

Aubrey took a handful of the peanuts, eating them slowly, then licking the salt from his fingers. Neither of them spoke until the waitress had set down Wyatt’s shot-glass and a tumbler clinking with ice.

“The folks have no idea of this yet, but tonight I gave old man Uzbend my notice.”

Wyatt threw his head back, belting down the liquor.

“Sooner or later we’ll be in this mess. I’m jumping the gun and enlisting.”

“Because of Kathe?”

“Sure. Hitler’s such a sweet, thoroughly decent person. Why else?”

“She never was a Nazi.”

“Quit staring at her through rose-coloured glasses. Our madchen’s in the land of swastikas and racial laws by choice.”

Wyatt’s voice grew louder, then cracked. He pressed his thumb and forefinger over his forehead, gouging into the bone. His breathing grew strident, his shoulders shook.

Aubrey was astonished at the extent of his cousin’s misery. After all, it had been a full year since the break-up. He longed to say something comforting, but of course the last thing he could do was give reassurances that Kathe, rather than being a Nazi, was risking her skin for her father’s country. A petty voice inside him crowed: I know her better; she’s more mine.

V

By the time Major Downes and Aubrey returned to England, all hell had broken loose over London. On 7 September, 625 Luftwaffe bombers protected by 648 fighters had roared up the Thames Estuary. High-explosive bombs, incendiary bombs, delayed-action bombs rained down on the civilian population. Thoroughly frightened for his family, especially for Araminta whose job was to drive her station officer through the worst of the London Blitz to burning buildings, Aubrey requested and received a thirty-six-hour pass.

“Aren’t I smashing?”

Araminta asked.

“Rather.”

Aubrey had never before seen her in the Auxiliary Fire Service uniform. Her navy-blue peaked cap tilted on her vivid hair, her tight-cinched belt denying the masculinity of her navy-blue trousers, even the Wellington boots somehow adding to the overall effect, she might have been posing for a recruiting poster as she leaned against the sandbags that protected the brick and limestone Knightsbridge station.

“But this job of yours has me worried,”

“The way Gerry’s pounding, it’s safer than being stuck in some Anderson shelter, so stop singing Daddy’s tune.”

“He’s right.”

She fingered the large diamond on her left hand.

“In a small way this helps me understand what Peter’s going through day after day,

212

poor darling.”

Her tired eyes gave him a quick look.

“But you know exactly what I mean.”

“Me? I’m planted behind a desk, thank God.”

“Use that cowardly line on somebody else; it doesn’t convince me. You’re no quartermaster in Scotland. I might be the more reckless, but you’ve never funked out of a fight.”

“In this case my sight did it for me.”

With a snort of disbelief Araminta looked in the direction of the London docks, the East End, the poorest section of London, where a lurid reddish haze darkened the morning sky.

“Talk about bravery. It’s a marvel the way the East Enders stand firm while those Luftwaffe bastards keep dropping bombs on them.”

Then suddenly from that direction came the sharp clatter of anti-aircraft guns. While puffs exploded between the massive silver barrage-balloons, the air-raid sirens sounded. There was a clangour ;nside the station.

“The bells go down Araminta cried.

“Duty calls.”

She darted to the white-tiled interior where men were already sliding down the polished steel pole. Moments later two big fire engines raced out, the men at the back ringing the bells. Araminta in a steel helmet whizzed by at the wheel of a commandeered London taxi, the steel-helmeted station officer in the rear seat.

VI

Euan was off in Wales, and Porteous was working at a young man’s pace in Bond Street Kingsmith’s windows had been broken and boarded over. Aubrey shared his grandfather’s luncheon Thermos flask of meatless oatmeal soup in the o ces, whose fishbowl windows were also hors de combat, then we*t to a borrowed flat. His convoy had been battered, and he was tired enough to sleep through the night’s air raid.

The door-bell woke him around nine in the morning. He stumbled over his shoe, cursing the blackout curtains on his way to answer.

An ATS sergeant swathed in a mackintosh saluted crisply.

“Lieutenant Kingsmith?”

she asked.

He nodded, puzzled. Only Downes, who had arranged for the flat, knew he was here, and Downes would have telephoned.

The sergeant handed him a note written in blue ink.

“I’m meant to wait, sir,”

she said.

Still at the door, Aubrey slit the envelope.

Pray join me at 9.15 this morning.

wsc

213

Beaming with undiluted pride, Aubrey carefully stowed the folded note from Winston Churchill in his wallet next to his favourite snapshot of Kathe, then hurried to shave and dress.

The sergeant marched duckfootedly and in silence through the light rain to Great George Street, turning at the sandbagged pillbox. At the classically pillared New Public Offices, where steel shutters hid the ground-floor windows, she showed passes to a Royal Marine orderly. Inside more passes were shown. She led Aubrey along a hall to where another Royal Marine stood at attention on a rubber and coconut mat outside a steel door. After the display of yet another pass, the door was opened. Aubrey followed the ATS sergeant down a flight of stone steps to the bustling underworld about which he’d heard. Uniformed men and women hurried beneath signs warning Watch Your Head. Crude timber, steel and cement buttressed the ceilings. Lights dangled from wires. Typists clicked outside closed doors, ventilators whirred. Hurrying along the corridor, Aubrey glimpsed faces familiar from photographs: Lord Beaverbrook, Clement Attlee, Neville Chamberlain. This makeshift warren was the Cabinet War Rooms.

The sergeant came to attention outside a door marked 65A.

“Wait here, sir,”

she said, marching off.

After several minutes a slightly built male secretary in a morning suit opened the door. The familiar smell of cigars emerged from the small underground room. This, the innermost heart of the British Empire, was furnished with a narrow bed, a large desk and a small desk. Curtains had been drawn behind a pair of crossed beams.

The Prime Minister, nodding to dismiss the secretary, remained hunched over the big desk, his plump hands braced on an immense map. Standing there with his head drawn down, wearing his one-piece zippered siren-suit, he was a Humpty Dumpty figure, yet far from ridiculous. Aubrey, who hadn’t seen Churchill since that August afternoon when he’d brought Kathe to tea at the Houses of Parliament, felt his original awe swell.

“Kingsmith.”

His host took off his half-spectacles.

“Here, take a look at this.”

Aubrey moved the few steps and saw that the map was of Russia.

“Where d’you suppose the Nazis are going to attack?”

Churchill asked.

“Attack?”

Aubrey coughed to relax his throat muscles.

“Sir, that is the Soviets, isn’t it? Stalin and Hitler are allies.”

“

“The dragon’s nature is that it must devour all other animals, then make a supper of its own tail.” Wasn’t that how you put it in your book?”

214

Aubrey’s astonishment at the news about Russia faded briefly at the accuracy of the quote from Tarnhelm. The stories of the Prime Minister’s photographic memory evidently were true.

“Word for word, sir.”

“I have no brief for Stalin, mark you - he’s the same wicked breed as Hitler, a bear gobbling up half of Poland, Finland, the Balkans but at this moment in our history I’d sign a mutualassistance treaty with Beelzebub himself. A Russian front would take the Luftwaffe off our necks and give our war production a chance to gear up.”

“But, sir, the OKW wouldn’t be that insane.”

“Their General Staff certainly wouldn’t. But Herr Hitler is Supreme Commander.”

Churchill tapped the unlit cigar against his forehead.

“A bit mad, that gentleman - clever, mind you, but mad. Barbarossa.”

“Barbarossa, sir?”

“We have reason to believe it’s the code-name for plans of the sneak attack. You will bring Barbarossa to us.”

“Me, sir?”

Aubrey couldn’t control his incredulity.

“Of course not you,”

Churchill responded.

“What British agent could penetrate their General Staff headquarters? It’s that delightful young cousin of yours we’re counting on.”

“Kathe?”

“Yes, Miss Kingsmith.”

Aubrey forgot self-control.

“She’s already risking far too much with those letters to Sweden!”

he cried.

“I don’t need to remind you that our cities are being destroyed and that our convoys are fighting losing battles, that the RAF is on the ropes.”