Istanbul (35 page)

You know what happened to the Jews here when the war came. My mother died just before it started, and I thank God for that, for she did not have to suffer through it. My father was arrested by the fascists and our bank was taken over by a German financier; we lost the apartment and the servants, everything.

Simon and I hid in the apartment in the Strada Lipscani. You know what I did to help keep us alive.

This is where we were going that afternoon Simon was arrested by the police. Why did I not tell you then that he was my husband? Because I knew I might need your help and I thought you would not give it as readily if you knew the truth. Men always want something in exchange.

Although now I know I was wrong about you.

Simon was one of the few in the Prefecture still alive when Antonescu put down the revolt. Soon after he fell into the hands of the SD. I asked Siggi to help me get him out. Instead he used Simon to make me one of his agents.

The first thing the SD did was send me one of Simon’s fingers, with the wedding ring still attached so there could be no doubt. The SD did this, not Siggi. He is not one for brutal methods, though he was never reluctant to use those who are. He told me Simon would come to no further harm if I did as he asked. He made it sound as if he was my protector, not my tormentor. What could I do? The Germans ruled the world and the British were leaving. So you see, I didn’t do it for the money. I didn’t want his money and I didn’t want yours.

Simon was allowed to write to me on the first day of each calendar month. I lived on my nerves until that letter arrived. But Siggi promised me Simon would be all right as long as I complied.

I did love you in Bucharest, Nick, even though I knew it was wrong. I did not have to force myself to like you. That part was not staged.

It was Siggi’s idea for me to approach you on the train, it was planned days in advance. The farce with the Bulgarian border police was to persuade you to trust me.

All the while I was pretending to spy for you, Siggi was pulling the strings. Did it matter in the end? Did you lose the war because I tried to keep my husband alive?

I did many things that I am not proud of. But I did not know about the kidnapping. I swear to you I knew nothing about that. Yes, one of the SD found me, wanted me to lead you into a trap so they could capture you, told me that if I refused, Simon would be killed. But I wouldn’t do it, I couldn’t do that. But they used me anyway. I suppose they really didn’t need my co-operation. They did it without my knowledge. You have to believe that. When I found out what they did to you, I just wanted to die.

Do you think Siggi would have let the SD capture you? You knew he was about to defect, you told me yourself. What if you had told them what you knew about him? It would have been his death warrant. He made up lies about me later, when he was safe, and he did it out of spite.

I know you won’t believe me but I did fall in love with you. I loved you then and I still love you now. If we had been free, I would have stayed by your side forever.

But you had a family, Nick, and a wife. What could I do? And I still have a husband. He has first claim on my duty now, if not my heart.

I meant every word I said to you. I love you, Nick, I love you more than words can ever say.

I wish there had been another ending for us; I wish there had been another time. I will always hold my memories of you safe with me. I hope you will not renounce yours.

Once, you told me:’ if it is not madness, it is not love.’ Well then, you have been mad for me. For my own part, I did what was right in trying to save my husband’s life. I gave you my love and I thought that would be enough for you.

It’s getting late now and soon it will be too dark to write. Go home, my darling Nick, and forget me and forget everything that happened here.

Goodbye. I love you. D

Nick stood on the balcony of his hotel room and watched the Russian tanks roll through the boulevards of Bucharest, as the German tanks had before them. He should have cheered, of course. They were their allies. But he did not feel like cheering.

Abrams turned to him. ‘If you invite a wolf into your house, don’t be surprised if he eats everything and doesn’t want to leave.’

‘Is that a proverb?’

‘I don’t know. It sounds like it should be.’

‘My mother used to say that no matter how bad things get, the sun will still come up again in the morning.’

‘Will it? Only if Stalin says it can. Shall we go downstairs and greet our new friends?’

Simon sat on the windowsill looking down into the street. The day was grey and oppressive. He had not smiled since Nick had brought him here. It was like he was still in prison.

‘Won’t you talk to me about what happened?’ she said.

‘I don’t want to.’

‘We have to talk.’

‘Not about that. I want to pretend it never happened.’

She took a breath. ‘Well, I have things to tell you.’

‘It’s best left in the past, where it can’t hurt us.’ She saw his reflection in the glass, his face pale.

She remembered how she had once imagined their reunion, thought she would feel again what she had felt before. She remembered the lunches at Capsa’s, the dinner parties at the apartment on the Boulevard Bratianu, the walks together through Cismigiu Park.

But that was a different woman and a different man.

That night he pulled her towards him and made love to her in the narrow bed but as she closed her eyes it was not Simon above her, it was Nick. Her heart betrayed her when she wanted so much to be her husband’s wife again.

CHAPTER 85

Our new friends.

Molotov, the Russian Foreign Minister, demanded that the Soviet High Command alone supervise the armistice with the Romanians. Only considerable pressure from Churchill and Roosevelt made him agree to an Allied Control Commission that included American and British representatives. But Stalin insisted the Soviet High Command reserve all the important decisions for itself. Further, the Allies were not allowed to deal directly with the Romanian Government, but had to use the Soviet authorities as intermediaries.

An army of Soviet bureaucrats and cadres took over the Interior Ministry. He and Abrams had been told to co-operate fully with their new allies, but the Russians did not want to co-operate fully with them.

Abrams fumed in his hotel room, pacing the floor. ‘I told them this would happen! I warned them, but they would not listen. Now let’s see how far we can trust our working-class comrades!’

Nick and Abrams cooled their heels in the Athenee Palace for three days before the new masters of Romania agreed to meet with them. At five o’clock one evening, they presented themselves on the third floor of the Interior Ministry. They were met by a man in an olive uniform with red shoulder tabs who introduced himself in halting English as General Demischenko. He was balding and had a goatee beard that reminded Nick of photographs he had seen of Leon Trotsky. He wore cheap spectacles.

They were treated more like prisoners of war than allies. Two Russian soldiers escorted them into Demischenko’s office and their credentials were examined in some detail before he offered them both a seat. A thick-set man with cropped blond hair and a face like a bullet stood behind his chair.

The meeting had been arranged so that they might share intelligence on agents and allies in Bucharest. But as the meeting progressed it seemed to Nick that they were sharing much more with Demischenko than he was sharing with them. Abrams sat ashen-faced, scarcely able to contain his fury.

But just as they were about to leave, Demischenko pushed a file across the desk and asked them if they might care to examine it.

‘What is this?’ Abrams asked.

‘This file is about a female subject ...’ Demischenko read from his notes and then peered up at them over the top of his spectacles. ‘... Daniela Simonici. Do you know of this woman? She was the mistress of an Abwehr colonel in Istanbul.’

‘We know of her,’ Abrams said.

‘She was used to lure one of our agents into a trap. He allowed himself to be seduced by her.’

‘Yes. His name was Grigoriev.’

‘He was captured by the German Sicherheitdienst. She lured him to a house in Galata and he was kidnapped and smuggled out of Turkey into Bulgaria. He was one of our best agents and knew a great deal. They made him talk. Because of her, we lost one of our most dedicated cadres here in Romania, a committed Bolshevik and comrade, by the name of Jan Dumitrache.’

So that explained Dobruja. She didn’t betray me and neither did Donbaldson. It was not my fault that Jordon and the others died.

‘Did you know she was having an affair with someone inside your consulate and that she was passing along false information? She was a double agent.’

‘We know about this,’ Abrams said, not even trying to conceal his impatience.

‘She is living here in Bucharest once more,’ Demischenko said. ‘She has been having an affair with an artillery captain.’

‘What will happen to her?’ Nick said.

‘She is an enemy of the people. She will be arrested and brought to justice.’ He stopped and removed his glasses. ‘Perhaps.’

‘Perhaps?’

‘Grigoriev had a brother. His name is Alexei and he works for the NKVD here in Romania. In fact he is standing right behind me. He may wish to take matters into his hands.’

When they left the Ministry, Abrams brushed imaginary lint from his jacket. ‘I have a feeling our new allies will throw us out of Bucharest quicker than the Germans.’ The grass in the park was withered and the leaves on the remaining lime trees had curled to brown and rattled like dried paper in the furnace breath of the wind. Abrams loosened his tie, then picked up a soda bottle lying in the grass and tossed it into the lake. Nick had never seen him lose his temper before. ‘Communist bastards.’

The shallows were crusted with a detritus of rubbish: bottles, orange peel, paper bags. The hawkers who sold sesame cake and
lokum
wandered aimlessly, without customers. The nearby café was empty, its broken chairs and grey weathered timbers reflecting the sad demise of a city too exhausted to care for itself.

‘They are not as clever as they seem to think. They got it all wrong about Grigoriev.’

‘Sir?’

‘Maier told me Grigoriev didn’t tell them anything about Dumitrache and his group.’

‘So who did betray us to the Germans?’

‘I did, Davis. Me.’

Nick stared at him, astonished.

‘I was right about the Russians, wasn’t I? You’ve seen for yourself what these bastards are like. We’ve got rid of one Hitler and replaced him with a million of them. And they all speak fucking Russian.’

Nick felt a thick droplet of sweat trickle down the back of his shirt. ‘It wasn’t just Dumitrache you betrayed. You betrayed Jordon. You betrayed me.’

‘Sorry. Bigger picture and all that. Shame about Jordon, probably a fine chap. But sacrifices have to be made for the greater cause. Even Dumitrache would have agreed with me there. Shame of it was I was playing a lone hand.’

‘Jesus Christ.’

‘Come on, Davis, it’s what we do. Spilt milk and all that.’ He put his hands in his pockets and looked out over the lake. ‘I don’t act alone, you know. There is a group of us, we went to Oxford together, we believe in the same things. Called the Aylesbury Club. Rather fanciful name, I suppose, because we never meet, not like a real club. But we’re all committed to the same ideals.’

‘Like betraying your friends?’

‘I’ll forget you said that for now. Jordon wasn’t a friend of mine and neither are you. We’re colleagues. There’s a difference.’

‘Betraying your country, then?’

‘It’s those fools in Whitehall who have betrayed us. They’ve delayed the end of this war and cost hundreds of thousands of Allied lives because they don’t want to upset Stalin. Helping Canaris would have been better than turning Europe red.’

‘Was that what you said to Maier that night outside the Sancta Sofia?’

‘He had a very high placed contact called Feoderev. He had your friend Daniela take him a specially designed briefcase, had a bomb in it. I helped him with some other arrangements.’

‘What other arrangements?’

‘The attempt to assassinate Stalin was an Abwehr operation. But there was no point to it unless it looked like it originated with us. I helped him a little with that.’

‘Helped him?’

‘The alliance between the Allies and the Soviet Union would have been destroyed if there was any suspicion of British involvement in Stalin’s assassination. I ensured that the connection would seem authentic.’