Her Hungry Heart (11 page)

The way she moved, her gazelle-like walk … every gesture, when she did use her hands, slow and elegant, like those of a Balinese dancer. And her stillness: the girls would later decide that the lady’s stillness was an illustration of why they would never fidget again.

One look, one luncheon in her presence, and the impressionable Mimi had found her role-model, consciously or not. She was quick to understand there was another world out there, embodied in this lovely visitor. She wanted to embrace the world that a woman like that lived in. Mimi could understand why the children were so fascinated by her. This was another kind of woman, one maybe Juliet, Pierre and Max had never seen, but Mimi had. Her own mother had been a glamorous femme fatale, and Mimi had seen no other woman to match her, until now. She was dazzled.

She was the last of the children to curtsy and be presented. ‘And this is our friend, Mimi. Mimi, this is the lady who has been kind enough to allow us to live in her house. I would like you to meet Miss Dunmellyn, Miss Barbara Dunmellyn.’

The child was an enchantress with a magnetic quality about her. She was special, and Barbara understood at once how difficult it would be to abandon her as the family must.

And she was no stranger to Barbara. She had recognized Mimi as Karel Stefanik’s child the moment she entered the room. The cleft in the chin, the shape of the face; she had his seductive violet eyes. When Mimi had stopped staring at Barbara and her lips curled in a smile of delight, she
recognized that smile. And she heard Karel in Mimi’s voice when the child spoke. The accent, the touch of honey in the voice, it was all there in the beautiful child standing in front of her.

Good sense, control, surprise, prevented a
faux pas.
How dreadful had she blurted out that she knew the child’s father. That she thought he might be the great love of her own life. That she had spent the best three days ever with a lover-
extraordinaire,
a very special man, maybe the best man she would ever know. That, though they had not met or spoken since she had watched his plane soar through gusts of sleet into a New Jersey night sky, he loved her. Such things were beyond a child.

How and arranged by whom she would never know – but periodically three dozen white, long-stemmed roses had appeared during the six months since that night she had picked him up at the Stork Club on New Year’s Eve. Along with them always the same blank white card with a raised crest engraved in gold; and written in a strong distinctive hand, the same message:

The heart is a lonely hunter

Never a signature. She knew instinctively that Karel Stefanik was saying in the most romantic of ways, I love you. You are not forgotten.

She grazed his child’s cheek with the back of her hand. How disturbing for the child if she learned her father had been in America yet had not made contact with her. What a hardening of his heart to have done that. She remembered what he had told her about abandoning his daughter to ensure her survival, and bearing ever after the guilt of having done so.

Mimi placed her hand over Barbara’s. Just for a second, a child’s impulse to touch. In that brief moment they became friends.

Chapter 9

‘When do they leave?’

‘The day after tomorrow. I had no idea you would be here to lunch. It seems an age since I’ve seen you, my dear.’ He hesitated as if he were trying to remember just how long it had been.

Barbara helped him. ‘Don’t rack your brain, Uncle. It was …’

He stopped her. ‘No, don’t tell me. I’ve got it. Not since New Year’s Eve at the Stork Club.’ He gave her a knowing smile. They were walking arm in arm towards the pond.

What Barbara had thought was going to be a rather sad, dull lunch turned out to be nothing of the sort. Once the other guests had arrived and were seated around the table, and the food, exceptional even by her very particular standards, was served, the party seemed to take off. She had been unkind in her thoughts about lunch. Having met Cook, she half expected stodge and dumplings, a Central European cuisine, palatable and filling, but prepared by a heavy hand. How could she have known that Sophia had been trained by the Queen’s French chef? Every resident at Beechtrees must have skimped for months for such a meal to be presented that afternoon. What quantities of ration stamps hoarded! But then, they did have friends in high places.

They had begun with a lobster mousse. That was followed by a salade nicoise, spring lamb, roasted in masses of fresh rosemary and Pernod until it had a dark, rich crust and was pink inside. A gravy like nectar. Paper-thin slices
of potato, layered one on top of the other, baked to a crispy top in cream and Emmenthal cheese, and baby carrots cooked in honey and sesame seeds. That dish was followed by an apple and pear sorbet, to clear the palate. Cheese, a splendid selection, was served with thin home-made oatmeal biscuits. Then, having accompanied the meal with a brilliant Montrachet, and a Château Margaux that elicited rave reviews from the men at the table, Yquem was served with individual hot raspberry souffles, so light as to melt on the tongue.

Replete with food, all the luncheon guests went on a stroll to the pond in the windless and warm spring day. The sound of childish laughter, the hum of chatter, the birdsong, the feel of the sun upon their faces, charged sore and frightened hearts. So much so Barbara had almost forgotten about the nasty shock Mimi was about to receive. This wonderful world of Beechtrees – how would she feel about it once she had lost her benefactors and friends yet again? She wondered about that for a moment as she watched the child happily chatting to Juliet not fifty yards from her. Her uncle stroked her hand affectionately. She smiled at him, somewhat relieved that he had forgotten New Year’s Eve and her sweeping Karel Stefanik into her life for a sexual idyll.

‘Are you working well?’ he asked.

‘Very well.’

‘And who is the lucky man currently in my favourite niece’s life?’

‘Why do you always assume that there is a man in my life, Uncle Harry?’

‘Because I know you so well, my dear. You are that kind of woman.’

‘And what sort of woman is “that kind of woman”?’ she asked.

‘You’re fencing with me, Barbara, and looking for compliments.’

She laughed and kissed him charmingly on his cheek. ‘You see, a perfect example: a peck on the cheek, and men want to dance to your tune. “That kind of a woman” is one who can seduce the hardest of hearts. Even an uncle to adore you. Fortunately, I am an uncle and so I have my prize, you, forever. The tie of blood protects me from being dumped when you’re bored with this old codger. You know very well the kind of woman you are: one who is like a siren, who calls men to her. One kiss, and the poor unfortunates can never let you go. Barbara, you’re a femme fatale like your mother was, and she was my favourite sister. You, of course, are my favourite niece. Now ’fess up to Uncle Harry: who are you seeing these days?’

She laughed. ‘A concert pianist with a dull Russian wife, a painter, and the most handsome and brilliant bachelor, a visiting conductor of the Boston Symphony orchestra, are all in the running.’

‘You see what I mean – “running”. I think that has to be the operative word here.’ He smiled admiringly at his niece. ‘Well, at least the amours you do allow to enter the race for your heart are rarely less than interesting.’

The children kept looking back at the adults and waving. Juliet and Mimi were gathering wild flowers. Her uncle held her firmly by the elbow while they descended the steep slope that ran down to the pond. ‘Clever of you to bring practical shoes to change into. But then you are clever in most things, always looking forward. I am inordinately fond of you.’

While the others took the long way to the pond, the children, with Barbara and the brigadier behind, negotiated the slope cautiously. Once at the bottom and walking alongside the pond, she called, ‘Max, why don’t you and the children run on ahead and take the cushions out from the boat-house? Get the canvas off the boat and we’ll all go out.’

Max puffed up with pride not to have been included as a
mere child. Taking control of the situation, he rallied his crew to ready the barge for his Cleopatra. At least it felt that way.

‘You know, Barbara, you have been truly wonderful about lending Beechtrees to the government to accommodate the Queen and her entourage. The President is grateful to you. I know he will not forget your generosity. Their exile here had posed us a few problems. But it has all come off rather well.’ Then, because she thought he had forgotten about Karel Stefanik, the brigadier quite took her by surprise. After they had walked in silence for some minutes just listening to the sounds of spring, he said, apropos of nothing, ‘I wonder what happened to that remarkable man you went off with the last time I saw you? What a charming fellow. What a heroic guy. I hope he makes this war. A handsome, dashing kind of chap with brains and courage. And, dammit, what passion to see his country free.’ The brigadier snapped his fingers several times trying to conjure up Karel’s name. ‘Stefanik, that was it – Count Karel Stefanik. I really liked that man. Real guts. A fighter for what he believes in. A freedom-fighter in the true sense of the word. You’ve never heard from him again, have you, Barbara?’

‘No.’

‘Neither have I. But then I never really expected to. It haunts me, what he said to Franklin. That’s what he was doing here, seeing the President. We flew him over from London to get vital information of what was going on in occupied Czechoslovakia. His and other opinions from men like him working in their government in exile in London. He was leary about the Russians.’

‘Why do you keep speaking about him in the past tense?’ Barbara asked bravely, without a flinch of the nervous emotion another woman might have shown for a man she had loved so well, albeit for only a few days.

‘Yes, now why do I keep saying “was”? He
is
one of the
loyal supporters of Dr Benes, once the President of his country, now the man heading the government in exile. Now there is some guy! You won’t find many statesmen like Dr Benes around. Czechs like Benes and Stefanik are what this war is all about in the end.

‘The Czechs, you know, were taken off guard by the speed and surprise, even the mildness of the occupation of their country. Hitler made it a Protectorate and shrewdly allowed the people to retain their own President, Prime Minister and government. Giving the illusion to the people that they were free. While expelling, of course, those peoples he didn’t want in the country. He was anxious to exploit Czech resources, some of which our friend Stefanik was determined the Germans would never have. The incentives Hitler offered the Czech people resulted in an industrial boom in ’thirty-nine and ’forty. His clever manipulation of those early years of the Protectorate is what held up the small resistance movement that began the moment the German troops entered the country.’ He broke off here and asked her, ‘Does this interest you?’

‘Yes, dear, do go on. I find it all fascinating.’

‘Right then. So where did I leave off? Oh, yes.’ He patted her hand and continued, ‘That made the work of Dr Benes, who was already out of the country, very difficult. He needed the support of a resistance and the Czech people at home to be the heart and soul of his government abroad. It’s really strange but for as long as I can remember Dr Benes has always done better as a statesman abroad than he has in his own country. I may be wrong on that. It’s just a personal opinion.’

They walked on in silence. The brigadier picked up a small stone and skimmed it across the pond. They watched it skip over the water. He turned, smiled at his niece, and slipped his arm through hers. They resumed their walk. He continued telling Barbara about Dr Benes. She found it interesting to hear about a country of whose war she knew
almost nothing. Her lover’s country. It was difficult to associate it with Karel. Theirs had been such a closed and self-centred erotic world, created exclusively for themselves. She found it odd to think of him in other terms.

She watched Mimi in the distance unlacing the canvas covering the mahogany and brass-fitted motor boat, her hair shining golden-blonde in the sun. Uncle Harry would have to be interrupted, no matter how fascinating he was about Dr Benes, if the child joined them. For the moment the last thing Mimi needed to hear more about was her lost homeland. Barbara listened as the brigadier continued, ‘They were on French soil as early as 1939, most of the Czech army intelligence, a few of their generals, and Benes and his people. They were establishing an army of sorts, trying for a government in exile. But the fall of France was imminent. So by Christmas of that year, they were regrouping on British soil. Benes was relentless in his will that his country should be a democracy and free.

‘We’re talking here, Barbara, of a remarkably civilized man. When asked in Hitler’s early days of power what his opinion of Hitler was as a human being, he said that he considered him a completely vulgar man. Scarcely better than an illiterate. A man with no reason, no ability to reason. He refused to meet Hitler. How could he ever discuss anything with a man so animalesque? I don’t think the word exists, but he did use it. Perhaps a new language needs to be invented for that bastard. Benes said he would never meet Hitler because it would be impossible to have a useful meeting. That made Hitler furious. On three occasions he sent men to return to Berchtesgarten with Dr Benes. The last emissary was so insistent,’ here the brigadier laughed, ‘and concerned for his own life if he didn’t return with Benes, that he put tremendous pressure on the Czech. The good doctor finally agreed to go, but told the men pressing him that they had to understand that in his jacket pocket he would have a revolver. In his other
pocket he would have a grenade. If Hitler shouted at him as he had shouted down other statesmen, he would take the hand grenade from his pocket and simply throw it at him, and cause a European scandal. He saw no use in meeting such a man. He liked meeting people who were capable of discussion. He found intolerable the way Hitler treated even British statesmen who went to see him. Benes was mortified to think that such men exposed themselves to the ravings of a maniac. He felt that it was undignified. They should not have placed themselves in such a position. He had no intention of doing so.

‘Benes’ plans for his country ruled out any discussion with Hitler. He preferred to remain what he had always been, a human symbol of democracy. Hitler loathed democracy, and so there could be no rapport between them.

‘Now how’s that for a politician? A real statesman, a lover of democracy. Now a man like that, with an army and a legation in England, a country whose resistance in the first few years of their occupation hardly got off the ground, inspired men like our friend Stefanik to fight as his famous ancestors had for the right to be free.’

The brigadier fell silent and bent down to gather half a dozen stones from the ground. He handed several to Barbara and said, ‘How’s your arm? You used to be good at this.’ He skimmed a stone across the water, challenging her.

‘Not bad,’ he told her.

‘But not good enough, it seems.’

They sat down on a stone bench on the edge of the pond. ‘You got side-tracked with Dr Benes. You left me curious as to what Karel Stefanik said to President Roosevelt.’

‘So I did.’ He sat silent and thoughtful for a few moments then asked her, ‘I don’t suppose he spoke much about himself when you were together?’

‘That’s true.’

‘Well, that doesn’t surprise me. He has to be a very cautious man. He’s linked very closely with the
Czechoslovakian Legation in London, and flies as an auxiliary pilot for the RAF. He’s made four drops into his occupied homeland, funding the resistance. The Germans have put a price on his head. They want him badly, and alive. He comes to Washington – I’m actually the one who arranges it and brings him in – to see Franklin, and to liaise with me. There’s vital information he gets through the resistance that could be, when the time comes, of great help to us or the Russians – whoever gets there first to liberate the country. He knows it like the back of his hand and can mark our maps. Where the arms factories are, military installations, railways, and so on.

‘Anyway, I bring him to Washington. A quick job, in and out, here only to see the President for a talk at Dr Benes’ request. He spends a few hours with me and some of my army and air force colleagues and then we go to have supper with Franklin. It’s the usual martinis before dinner. Nobody mixes a martini like F.D.R. A smattering of his close advisers, Eleanor, and two rather pretty older women. Stefanik is no stranger to Franklin: they met before the war when Stefanik came here to the States with Benes. Like the doctor, he is a passionate believer in freedom and democracy. But he was always with though apart from Benes’ government – if you know what I mean, Barbara. He was too much of a playboy in politics before the war for anyone to take him seriously. Handsome, a terrific ladies’ man, a Count, a big landowner – the whole lot.’

Suddenly the brigadier stopped and turned to look at his niece. She could see in his face that he had detected her real interest in Count Karel Stefanik. She placed her hand on his and told him, ‘It was nothing more than a New Year’s Eve thing, a little romantic interlude.’ Her uncle smiled and looked relieved. ‘Go on, please, Uncle Harry. It’s fascinating.’