Our Friends in Berlin Page 10

  ‘So it’s all looking hopeful,’ Amy said encouragingly.

  At this Georgina widened her eyes and laughed in a half-embarrassed way. ‘I should say so …’ When Amy cocked her head, inviting her to go on, she added, ‘He wants to marry me.’

  ‘You mean … ?’

  ‘He’s asked me. And I’ve said yes.’

  ‘What?!’ Amy said, louder than she’d intended. A few heads turned towards them. ‘Georgie – you’re not serious. How many times have you actually met?’

  ‘Half a dozen, I suppose. You think it’s too soon?’

  Amy stared at her, disbelieving. ‘To be honest, yes. I mean, what’s the rush?’

  For the first time that evening her gaze dropped. ‘I’m older than you, Amy. As you know, I’d like to have a child, if I can. I’ve talked to Christopher about it, and he’s as keen as I am.’ She looked up again and said, in appeal, ‘I thought you’d be pleased. You introduced us, after all.’

  Amy felt herself caught in a bind. She didn’t want to dampen the mood, given Georgina’s luckless past. And wasn’t this exactly the point of the bureau anyway, to make introductions between people who longed for companionship? This might be the most inspired bit of matchmaking she’d ever done. And yet … and yet she couldn’t overlook the fact that this was Georgina’s first suitor. First ever suitor. A voice within urged caution. How could they be sure of one another from so brief a courtship? How could anyone?

  ‘I am pleased …’ she began.

  ‘You don’t sound like it,’ said Georgie with a sad little laugh.

  ‘It just seems rather sudden. I was hoping that you’d try a few, before you made up your mind. It never occurred to me that you’d settle for the very first man.’

  ‘I’m not “settling” for anything. I want to be with him.’

  ‘But is he really so wonderful as that? You’re going from no man at all – forgive me, dear – to marrying the first one who asks you. I’m glad, truly I am, that you like one another and get on so well. But I can’t help feeling you should give yourself more time. To think about it.’

  Georgina narrowed her eyes slightly. ‘Are you telling me this in your capacity as a professional matchmaker, or because you have no confidence in me as a marriage prospect?’

  Amy gave a sigh of exasperation. ‘I’d say this to any friend of mine who was about to rush into something. Marriage is a huge commitment, and you should be absolutely certain before you agree to it. I’m just thinking of you.’

  ‘Are you?’ she asked quietly. ‘Only I wonder – is there something in you that doesn’t quite trust marriage?’

  The question took her so much by surprise that for a moment she was lost for words. How had this become about her? She had not anticipated Georgina trying to turn the argument around, but now that she had, a calm answer was required.

  ‘I don’t think I could do my job if I held marriage in such low esteem. Maybe I’ve been too cautious in my own life –’

  ‘Maybe you have. Has a man ever proposed to you?’

  Amy heard a warning sharpness in her tone. ‘No. Never. But that doesn’t disqualify me from having an opinion about marriage, or from judging whether it’s timely or not. I – I sense that whatever I say now is going to upset you …’

  ‘Then perhaps we shouldn’t continue this conversation,’ Georgina replied, folding her hands in her lap.

  ‘Perhaps you’re right,’ Amy conceded. ‘I’m sorry, Georgie. I suppose I must have assumed I could talk to you as a friend rather than as a client. If I’ve offended you …’

  She left the sentence hanging in the hope that Georgina would accept the apology and laugh the thing off. But the silence between them extended a few moments longer, confirming the suspicion that she had indeed offended her. When they got on to another topic she could hear a stiffness in Georgina’s voice, and behind it an implication that what Amy had said about her sudden engagement would not be forgotten. Or even forgiven. There was a lesson to be learned here, she supposed, the old one about not mixing the personal and the professional. In most cases where two clients instantly fell for one another she would have been congratulating herself on a quick success and looking forward to a cheque for ten pounds. As Jo always reminded her, they couldn’t afford to be sentimental about business.

  Amy strove to keep the conversation going for a while longer, but it was uphill work, and when the dinner hour came round neither of them suggested going on somewhere. They parted outside Green Park Tube, and Amy carried home the cold politeness of Georgina’s goodnight in her bones.

  One morning a couple of weeks later Amy answered a telephone call at the office. It was Marita. She hadn’t heard from her in a while, though ever since her reappearance in London she had remained an object of curiosity. For one thing, she still didn’t know how Marita managed to support herself; she had no job, it seemed, and there was obviously no money coming from Bernard, still interned on the Isle of Man. Nor did she have a clue as to where she was living; she had been very careful not to let that slip.

  ‘I have a treat for you,’ Marita said with a laugh in her voice, though she insisted it had to be handed over in the privacy of Amy’s flat. It was arranged that she would drop by early in the evening and perhaps stay for a drink.

  She arrived at the appointed hour, and, on entering the flat, as usual, sidled over to the window. She stood at a slight angle, surveying the street below, making sure she hadn’t been followed.

  ‘Is it likely that you have been?’ asked Amy.

  ‘Not very,’ she replied, her face still turned to the window, ‘but I live on the principle that doubt is a useful ally. When you are not doubting, you are not thinking.’

  Satisfied by her surveillance, Marita left the window and crossed the room to pick up her shoulder bag, from which she took out a small package wrapped in brown butcher’s paper. Under her expectant gaze Amy unfolded its layered sheets to reveal a couple of prime cuts of purplish steak, marbled with fat.

  ‘Sirloin,’ Marita announced. ‘My dear, the expression on your face is a very picture.’

  Amy giggled. ‘I haven’t seen a cut of meat like this in ages. You must have some very good suppliers.’

  ‘The black market, though not directly. I got this in lieu of payment from a man who was in my debt. There are still a few of them around.’

  Marita’s piercing dark-eyed look seemed to warn off Amy pursuing the story any further. It was quite typical of her to create a little mystery and then drop it within a moment.

  Having invited her guest to stay for dinner they moved to the kitchen, Amy carrying the steaks like a votive offering. A small cube of butter she had been saving now went into the frying pan, and she peeled a couple of potatoes to make chips. She was wondering what they might drink with it when Marita pulled from her bag a bottle of claret.

  ‘Same man?’ asked Amy, which received a brief affirmative nod.

  While she prepared dinner they talked about the raids and their abrupt falling-off, about the crippled state of London, and the likely direction of the war. Marita believed that as long as America kept out of it Germany would eventually triumph, though the invasion of Russia was a gamble. She spoke with an authority that secretly amazed Amy; it was as though she had been privy to the strategy rooms of Hitler’s ministers and generals – her information hot from the dragon’s mouth. Her confident projections brought to mind a more recent acquaintance.

  ‘Did you ever track down the tax inspector – Hoste?’ she asked, with all the nonchalance she could feign.

  Marita hardly blinked. ‘Yes, I paid him a call. He’d got those tax arrears quite wrong – there was no money owed to us. Unfortunately.’ She waited a beat before continuing. ‘And you? I thought I detected just the merest tendresse when we last spoke of him …’

  Amy gave a resigned laugh. ‘I think it was only curiosity. There was something about him – well, it doesn’t matter now.’

  She felt that she must not share
with Marita anything she knew about Hoste, least of all her theory of his double life. It was an instinct she couldn’t explain, but she trusted it. She attended to the stove and began telling her about another client. There had been no further contact with Georgina since their awkward set-to at Fleming’s.

  ‘Of course I oughtn’t to have interfered. My job was to find her a suitable marriage partner, not to put my oar in about waiting for the right man.’

  Marita cocked her head slightly. ‘It sounds to me like you gave her good advice. She must be half crazed to fling herself into marriage. A man is allowed to play the field – why not a woman?’

  Amy nodded. ‘All the same, I feel as though I’ve ruined something. I didn’t know her that well but we really got along.’

  When she looked up Marita was staring at her. ‘Sometimes we behave in ways that are not quite fathomable to us. The mind plays tricks with our intentions.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Only this – that our unconscious may have the whip hand without our even knowing it. Maybe you believed you were trying to help – Georgina? – but were obeying an impulse to hurt her. To punish her.’

  ‘But why would I want to do that?’

  ‘I have no idea. This woman is unknown to me. But I do recall another instance, not so many years ago, of your withdrawing from a friend. It may not have been a conscious choice, but the effect was the same.’

  The implication could not be ignored, and Amy felt herself blush. It was something – no more than an exchange of words – that had happened just before Marita had got married five years ago, and now seemed so lost in time that Amy wondered if it had happened at all. Marita, prolonging the moment with her silence, directed a glance at the sizzling pan on the stove.

  ‘Don’t burn the steaks,’ she said quietly.

  Amy rose and took the pan off the flame; she went to the cupboard to fetch pepper and mustard, and rummaged around in a drawer for napkins – all useful activities to divert them from the minefield just glimpsed. Marita poured them more wine while keeping a stealthy eye on her hostess, and slowly the danger receded, and the conversation took a different tack.

  They had eaten the steak and were finishing with a cigarette when a knock sounded at the door. Amy got up to answer it, wondering who could be calling at such an hour. She was greeted on the threshold by Paul Pruckner, her neighbour from downstairs. A faint smile lit his gaunt, stubbled face.

  ‘Miss Strallen, good evening,’ he said with a little bow. ‘I apologise for the lateness of the hour, but I have something for you.’

  ‘Hullo, Mr Pruckner. Come in,’ said Amy. ‘I haven’t seen you in ages.’

  As he removed his thin scarf in the hallway he explained that he had spent the last few weeks working on a farm in Essex – ‘from where these beauties come’. He was holding a carton, inside which lay six white eggs.

  ‘My goodness!’ she cried. ‘I really have hit the jackpot this evening. My friend brought round a steak for our supper.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t mean to disturb –’ he began, sensing his intrusion, but Amy was already ushering him into the kitchen. She insisted that he stayed for a drink. Introductions were effected, and Pruckner, with old-world courtesy, made another low bow as he greeted ‘Mrs Pardoe’.

  ‘Marita, look what Mr Pruckner has brought.’ She laid the open carton on the table, where the eggs’ whiteness seemed to glow.

  He explained that they were a token of thanks to Amy, who was ‘always’ doing little favours for him. Whenever he was away, Amy would fetch his wife’s medicine – she was an invalid – and sometimes did her shopping. ‘Everyone should have such a neighbour,’ he concluded with a fond glance.

  Pruckner’s heavily accented English prompted Marita to ask which part of Germany he was from.

  ‘Augsburg. Perhaps you know it? I think of it still. We have lived in this country for more than fifteen years, but a part of us of course will always be German. The present government will certainly not let us forget it.’

  ‘Mr and Mrs Pruckner were interned, and their son,’ Amy said. ‘But Marita knows all about that – her husband is still being held on the Isle of Man.’

  ‘My dear lady, I’m very sorry to hear it. Is he too an “enemy alien”?’

  ‘Not exactly. But he was branded a danger to the people.’ Marita glanced at Amy, who hoped she would leave it at that.

  ‘Is there any prospect of his release?’ Pruckner asked.

  ‘None – at least while we are still at war.’

  ‘Ach, to think that these great countries of ours once came close to destroying each other. Now they are determined to try again.’

  ‘You fought in the First War, didn’t you?’ said Amy.

  Pruckner nodded. ‘I was an infantryman. So were my wife’s brothers. One of them was killed at Ypres, the other survived and won the Iron Cross.’ He gave way to a bitter laugh. ‘For all the good it has done. We have not heard from him since the last round-ups.’

  A stunned pause halted them. Amy watched Marita’s expression begin to dawn.

  ‘Round-ups? You mean – you’re Jewish?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘But my wife is. She fears the worst, of course …’ If Pruckner had chanced to scrutinise Marita at this moment instead of continuing the narrative of his unfortunate brother-in-law he would have beheld a subtle but unmistakable change in her demeanour – a stiffening of her posture, and, what was more pronounced, the disappearance of any friendliness from her eyes. At one point she cut a glance to Amy, who realised she had been slow to head off this potentially disagreeable encounter. But it had only just dawned on her that Gertrud Pruckner was Jewish; she had believed the couple were outcasts on account of being German. She hadn’t suspected that they were at an even graver disadvantage.

  Reaching the end of his story, Pruckner had looked in appeal to both of his listeners, yet with only one of them still holding his gaze he found himself addressing Amy alone. She tried to compensate by showing a greater attentiveness, though inside she was wishing him gone. Marita, to judge from her glowering silence, was wishing him at the bottom of the ocean. When at last he rose to leave she remained seated, her gaze averted; Pruckner looked not so much affronted as confused.

  ‘Madam, good evening,’ he said, half extending his hand. This too was ignored, and Amy interposed herself brightly.

  ‘Thank you so much for the eggs, Mr Pruckner,’ she said, and walked him out to the hall. The relief she felt almost smothered her mortification. As she opened the door he turned to her, and said in a low voice, ‘I hope I did not offend Mrs, um, in some …’ Amy might have blushed at the pity of this broken apology: he seemed not to realise that the offence had been against him. She hurriedly confided that no blame was attached to him; her friend was merely preoccupied by her husband’s long absence.

  ‘Yes, yes, I see. I should not have –’ he muttered. ‘Forgive me.’ He inclined his head briefly, and was gone.

  When she returned to the living room Marita was standing, provokingly, by the window she had just opened. The expression on her face was one of narrow-eyed distaste. Amy began to clear the glasses, then stopped.

  ‘Is there something the matter?’ she said.

  ‘I’m surprised you find it necessary to ask,’ replied Marita coolly. ‘Do you suppose it is a pleasure for me to see you associating with a – degenerate?’

  ‘If you mean Mr Pruckner, he’s a very decent man who happens to be my neighbour –’

  ‘Which is why I decided to hold my tongue. You have to live in the same building, after all. But, Amy, to make a friend of such a creature!’

  ‘I don’t see any shame in it. He’s not even a Jew.’

  ‘He’s as good as. His children are. He has the Jew’s habit of insinuating himself, of wheedling favours out of people. Clearly he takes advantage of you on his wife’s behalf, but you are too kind-hearted to see it. Or too stupid.’

  The daggered afterthought made Amy flinch
. It reminded her of the old days when her friend’s uncertain mood would suddenly flame into a black rage. She remembered how it would frighten her. It still did. The best way to defuse the danger was to say nothing, and she continued clearing up.

  But Marita was not finished. Her voice took on a more acerbic tone. ‘That you offer no argument is equivalent to admitting it. Amy – look at me – are you honestly so blind to the enemy in your midst? Even during the raids the Jews made the most of the opportunities, always first in the queue at the shelters, always the first to claim full rent for bomb damage. But have you ever seen one of them volunteer as a warden or a fireman? Of course not – they’re too busy showing off their wealth or getting the best of a deal. As for that lot downstairs, I’d advise you in future to keep your distance. They will have the coat off your back before you know it.’

  Amy considered mounting a defence, but one look at Marita was enough to give her pause. She feared this vitriol being turned on her. Trying to keep her voice from quavering she said, ‘They’re my neighbours. I can’t help that.’

  Marita gave way to a snort of disgust. She turned again to the window and said, almost to herself, ‘Yes … in my experience I have come to learn there is quite a lot that you can’t help.’

  She let this remark hang in the air before pocketing her cigarettes and fetching her coat.

  10

  The music was still playing in her head as she emerged from the National Gallery. Amy hadn’t been to a lunchtime concert there in a while – she wasn’t sure why. Descending the steps she caught sight of him waiting, scanning the faces in the crowd as they filed past, and realised at once he was looking for her. She lowered her head, and her step quickened slightly; there was a sufficient bustle of people around to shield her from notice.

  The sun was out, and a ragged formation of airship-like clouds nosed across the sky. She was walking on, her heartbeat back to normal, when a shadow dropped alongside her and made her jump.