Duchess answered the question, ‘Very beautiful. But I could never understand why she married him. Every man who clapped eyes on her wanted her, she has a sort of magic I suppose. Some women are lucky like that.’
‘I never got to know her,’ said Pinky. ‘No one did. She wasn’t a woman’s woman, if you know what I mean.’
‘I think she spent a lot of money on clothes,’ said the Duchess. ‘But in all fairness I have to say that she could wear an old sweater and jeans and make herself look like …’
‘A film star?’ supplied Bower.
‘No,’ said Pinky. ‘Never like a film star. She wasn’t brainless, darling! Men can’t abide the notion that beautiful women can be brainy. But they can.’
‘Yes, but what sort of woman was she really?’ said Bower. ‘Everyone’s talking about her but no one seems to really know her.’
‘An absolute cow!’ answered Pinky.
‘Sometimes an absolute cow can be a good wife,’ said the Duchess.
‘Oh no!’ said Pinky. ‘She made his life a misery. Everyone knew that.’
‘He seems to be managing without her,’ said Bower.
‘He’s something of a play-actor,’ said the Duchess sadly. ‘He always has been.’
‘He can put down a few,’ said Bower.
‘I’ve never seen him drunk,’ said the Duchess.
‘Have you not, darling? My goodness yes but he can hold it. Let’s face it, he was never really one of us, was he?’ said Pinky.
‘He hasn’t got a bean, you know,’ said the Duchess.
‘But there were no papers missing?’ said Bower.
Pinky said, ‘Not as far as anyone can see … But who knows what was copied?’
‘She phoned Frank, you say?’ the Duchess asked.
‘Early this morning, at his home,’ said Pinky, who seemed to know everything. ‘I don’t know how she had that number. It’s changed regularly.’
‘You don’t think that she … and Frank …’ said Bower.
‘Having it off with Frank?’ Pinky’s laugh ended in a giggle. ‘Good old Frank! Not my type, darling, but it’s astounding how the ladies zero in on the poor old thing.’ Then in a more serious voice, ‘No, I don’t think there could be anything like that.’
‘Not in the dim and distant past?’ said Bower.
‘No, not even in the dim and distant past.’ This time the Duchess answered, firmly closing that door.
‘So did Frank tell him?’ said Bower.
‘Tell hubbie?’ Pinky said. ‘About the phone call … No. And no one knows what she said. We just know that Frank cancelled all his appointments and ordered his car brought round the front … driving himself. No one knows where he went. Of course Frank’s sudden departure may have nothing to do with it. You know what Frank is like. He might have just decided to spend the day with his army cronies or play golf or something.’
‘I just hope,’ said the Duchess, ‘that it’s not all going to start all over again.’
‘Drinky for Pinky, darling,’ said Pinky to Bower.
Bower said, ‘All what start all over again?’
‘You’ll soon know,’ said the Duchess. ‘Life becomes hell for everyone once one of these security purges begin. Internal Security arrive and it’s questions, questions, questions.’
‘Drinky for Pinky, darling. Drinky for Pinky.’
‘The same again three times,’ Bower called across the bar to Ingrid. Then five cheerful Australians came in. They were on some government-financed jaunt; buying ten thousand hospital beds or something of that sort. They’d spent all day at a huge residential complex where internationally renowned architects had competed to produce the world’s ugliest apartment blocks. The Aussies needed a drink and, pleased to hear English spoken after a long day, joined the Duchess and her friends for a boozy evening. The conversation turned to lighter matters, such as why the Germans invaded Poland.
I thanked Ingrid for passing on to me the gist of this conversation she’d overheard. Then I quickly downed another stiff drink and went up to bed.
I had my usual room. It was a tiny garret at the top of the house, the sort of place which inspired Puccini to orchestrate Mimi’s demise. It was a long walk to the bathroom. The floral wallpaper’s big flowers and whirling acanthus leaves had gone dark brown with age, so that the pattern was almost invisible, and there in the corner was the little chest of drawers that had once held my stamp collection, my home-made lock picks and the secret hoard of Nazi badges which my father had forbidden me to collect.
The bed was made up ready for me. There was a pair of pyjamas wrapped round a hot water bottle. It was all as if Werner had guessed that it was just a matter of time before I saw sense.
I undressed and got into bed, put my pistol in my shoe so I could reach it easily and went straight off to sleep. I must have been very tired, for I had plenty to stay awake and worry about.
Lisl’s hotel – or perhaps what I should more appropriately call Werner and Ingrid’s hotel – did not run to phones in every room. The next morning at eight o’clock there was a tap at the door. It was Richard, one of Lisl’s employees whom Werner had kept on. ‘Herr Bernd,’ he said. ‘A gentleman phoned, Herr Bernd. Herr Teacher. He comes here. Twelve hours sharply.’ He was a nervous young man who had come to Berlin, as many such German youngsters came, to avoid being drafted into the Bundeswehr. He got a job at Lisl’s and met a girl and now he had no plans to return to his parents in Bremen. Every now and again his father phoned to ask if Richard was ‘keeping out of trouble’. Usually the phone calls came late at night and usually his father sounded drunk.
Sometimes I wished Richard would not persist in using English when speaking to me but he was determined to improve his languages. His ambition was to work on the reception desk of some very big luxury hotel, but he’d asked me not to reveal this to Lisl. So I kept his secret and I answered him in English telling him that I would be having lunch downstairs and that if my visitor Herr Teacher was early he should put him in the bar and invite him to join me for lunch.
Richard said, ‘It is exactly as you say, Herr Bernd.’ He blinked nervously. He had a comprehensive store of phrases that he could deliver in reasonable English. His problem lay in putting these fragments together so that the joins didn’t show.
‘Thank you, Richard.’
‘You are hotly welcome, Herr Bernd. Have a nice day.’
‘You too, Richard,’ I said.
Once awake I was overcome with a desperate need
