Restitution (9 page)

‘She trusted him all right.’ Gregor downed his vodka. ‘She’d known him for years, since Vienna.’

That mysterious, excitement-filled time in Vienna that Mami hardly mentioned any more.

‘You never heard another word from her after you left Brest?’

He shook his head.

Alix closed her eyes. All around them rolled this dark mist, all-consuming, all-concealing, inescapable.

Gregor was holding her hand again.

‘You haven’t finished your story.’ Her voice sounded harsh.

‘No.’ He made no attempt to continue. She didn’t press him. Perhaps she was being selfish, shielding herself from knowing any more. She looked at him, at his restless eyes and
full, set mouth. This was
Gregor.
She’d known him since they were both infants. He shouldn’t be making her feel like . . . this. Whatever
this
was. He was an enemy. If she
forgot that she’d be lost. But then she remembered that kiss in the cellar and felt her cheeks flush.

He stroked her fingers. ‘If Vavilov hadn’t come this way, you and I might never have seen each other again.’

‘Vavilov?’ Her voice sounded high-pitched. She wished he’d stop touching her. No she didn’t. ‘Who’s he? What do you do for him?’

He made a sweeping movement with his free hand, reminding her of the old Gregor, who’d dismiss anything or anyone he found uninteresting with a single wave. It had annoyed her once; now it
made her feel relieved. Gregor was still Gregor. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. ‘Do you mind?’ His voice sounded thick.

‘No.’ Warmth was spreading through her body, from the base of her spine to her heart. She laughed, disconcerted.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

‘It’s nothing. Just strange how things turned out. Tell me more about this Vavilov.’ She needed to distract herself away from this madness.

‘He’s a major in the Polish unit. At least, officially. He’s actually intelligence rather than combat. I suspect he sometimes works with SMERSH or the NKVD as well.’

She’d heard of both Soviet intelligence units and repressed a shudder. ‘He sounds dangerous.’

Gregor didn’t deny it.

‘Why do
you
work for him?’

‘I was in Kolyma.’ He looked at her as he said the name, which meant nothing to her. ‘That’s a camp in eastern Siberia where the Russians eventually sent me. He got me
out.’ A part of his story he hadn’t yet described. ‘The deal was I’d help him.’

‘What sort of “work”?’ A note of coldness in her voice now, she observed.

‘It’s our brief to visit the big houses in captured territory and make notes on their status. I came on ahead today.’ He spoke as though reading from a sheet.

‘Why?’ Some of the doubts she’d brushed aside were returning. She’d perhaps been foolish to dismiss her earlier fears. Whatever had happened between them in the past,
Gregor and she were on opposite sides.

‘Vavilov was overstretched – there are quite a few big houses in these parts. A combat unit was supposed to come with me but they found alcohol in an abandoned van in the
town.’

‘What exactly do you mean by the “status”?’

He put his free hand to the lobe of an ear and rubbed it. ‘What we know about the owners, who they are, what they did.’

‘What do you do with the information?’ she asked.

‘Keep as much of it as possible to myself.’

‘Really?’

The itch he’d felt on his ear seemed to have spread to his cheek.

‘What
do
you know about us?’

‘That they arrested your father after the July Plot. And that high-ranking Gestapo officers came here regularly.’

‘One of them did, all right.’

August 1944

Alix squinted through the sun at the gleaming black Mercedes as it cruised up the drive, throwing up clouds of dust. Anyone who still had petrol was almost certainly someone
she didn’t want to meet. But her feet seemed incapable of moving her off the terrace and out of sight. By the time she’d identified the car’s passenger as Preizler it was too late
to run away. He waved at her like a jolly old uncle visiting a favourite niece. Alix concentrated on setting her features into a neutral pose.

‘My dear Alexandra.’ He sprang out of the car, his figure as slim as ever. Apparently he’d taken up rock-climbing again, when he could spare the time to head south to the Alps.
Surely such jaunts were frowned on, with the Allies now in mainland Europe? Perhaps it was different for the likes of Preizler.

‘What are you doing nowadays?’ he asked.

‘Working on the farm.’ As if she could be doing anything else, dressed in breeches and old shirt and carrying a pitchfork. He probably didn’t approve, no doubt believing that
she should be working in some signals job or manning an ambulance. But farming was essential work, thank goodness.

‘And how the fresh air suits you. You’d make a perfect photograph for
Die Woche.’

She grimaced at the thought. ‘You’re here to see Mami?’ Papi
obviously
being in no position to offer hospitality, incarcerated as he was by this man’s
colleagues.

He put a hand on her shoulder as they walked up the steps. One of his shoes creaked as he moved. ‘A Patek Philippe, I see?’ He was looking at the watch Papi’d given her for her
birthday.

‘Yes, I’m very lucky.’ She tried not to let her shoulder stiffen where he touched it. She wouldn’t let him see her uneasiness; keeping her poise was a matter of pride to
her.

‘Indeed.’ A pause. ‘My own childhood wasn’t notable for expensive presents.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘My father lost his job as a janitor soon after we South Tyroleans were handed over to the Italians. Kicked in the teeth when he’d already lost a son.’

Mami had mentioned Preizler’s brother, blown up fighting the Italians in one of the battles of 1917.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. She took him into the salon. They’d covered the furniture in the drawing room with dust-sheets now but still used this room on the rare
occasions visitors arrived. He looked at the Tompion table clock and checked it against his watch.

‘You’re three minutes fast.’

Alix excused herself and went to find Mami, who was helping Lena remove the stalks from blackcurrants in the kitchen. Mami looked up as Alix walked in. ‘I heard the Mercedes.’ She
stood and rinsed her hands under the tap. ‘Just let me do my hair.’ She put her hands to the chignon on the nape of her neck and checked for stray hairs. Each movement was sure and
graceful. All those years of being trained in movement, Mami would never lose that. She reached for her handbag and pulled out lipstick to touch up her lips. ‘Makes me feel more
confident,’ she explained. She barely needed cosmetics; Mami was thirty-nine now and still retained the smooth, plumped-up skin of a woman a decade younger.

Alix thought of her own face, still that of a girl, tanned by being out of doors all year round. She hadn’t experimented much with cosmetics. There was something shameful in being
seventeen and not knowing how to put on lipstick, tidy your eyebrows or do anything more with a mane of thick hair than simply plait it.

When they entered the salon Alix and Mami found the visitor adjusting the minute hand on the Tompion. ‘That’s better.’

Mami’s cerise lips formed a smile. Preizler gave her an approving nod. ‘You look well, Maria.’ His wife Clara favoured the scrubbed look, Mami said, rosy cheeks from working in
her garden and kitchen. That’s how the Party liked their homegrown women. When they were away from home in Warsaw or Prague or Paris it was a different matter. They enjoyed
mademoiselles
with painted fingernails, red lips and waved hairdos.

Alix watched Preizler’s fingers close the clock’s glass and imagined them flicking through the pages of police files, pausing now and then so he could linger over details and make
notes. She shivered in the warm air. He pulled a handkerchief out of a pocket and wiped the glass before taking Mami’s hand and kissing it. ‘Maria, I need to ask you
something.’

Mami sat on the chaise longue, her face suddenly pale beneath its rouge.

‘I’m sorry, I’ve startled you. So indelicately phrased.’

‘Yes,’ Alix said.

Mami frowned up at her.

‘Clara begged me to ask for the recipe for those delicious preserved plums you served us once.’

‘A little early in the season for plums, isn’t it? Mami raised an eyebrow. ‘Ours are a month away from ripening.’

‘She likes to be well prepared.’

‘Alix, pop into the kitchen and ask Lena to write it out.’

Alix shot her mother a look heavy with gratitude.

‘No, please.’ Preizler raised a hand. ‘The poor girl’s been working out in the heat. Clara can wait until next time.’ It didn’t sound as though he
particularly minded the inconvenience to his wife.

‘It’s no trouble.’ Alix decided she’d get the wretched recipe anyway, even if he preferred her to stay in the salon. If he wanted to play little games with them, so be
it. He’d have to
order
her to stay here.

‘You might want to hear this.’ He turned to her mother. ‘I’ve news of Peter.’

Peter.
Alix had only ever heard her mother and close friends call her father by his Christian name. Before the arrest, Preizler had always used Papi’s title: baron.

‘They’ve moved him.’ He reached over and took one of Mami’s hands. ‘Now it’s not necessarily bad news, Maria. I’m sure it’s simply because of the
bombs.’

She was so white now her lips looked like a clown’s against her skin. ‘Where?’

‘I’m not sure. Probably somewhere to the south.’

She closed her eyes for a second or two. ‘Is there nothing we can do, Anton?’ On her lap her hands wove in and out of each other.

‘I rang a . . . someone I know in Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse and asked them to go through the file one more time. There may be something they’ve missed, something that shows Peter had
nothing to do with the . . . treachery.’

Alix looked away. Preizler surely knew her father was up to his neck in it. Someone must have talked, or written Papi’s name down on a list. He was playing a game with Mami, pretending he
could find evidence to the contrary.

‘You’re so kind,’ Mami said in a tight voice. ‘I’m grateful.’

What for?
As though reading Alix’s thoughts, Mami shot her a look. Alix recomposed her features. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

He dropped Mami’s hand.

‘I’ll find Lena and get you that recipe now.’ Mami stood.

‘Oh yes, the plums.’

‘I’ll go, Mami.’ Alix made for the door. On the way her eyes met those of Aunt Friederika in the portrait on the wall. Friederika’s thin, disdainful lips seemed to curl.
Alix wondered what she made of this play-acting. If she were alive today she’d probably tell Mami and Alix to throw Preizler out and to the devil with the consequences. But they
couldn’t. Not while there was still a chance he could help Papi.

Lena stared at Alix when she asked for the recipe. She reached for an old envelope and wrote it out on the back in the precise handwriting taught her by the Tyrolean nuns. ‘Here you
are.’

Mami was sitting again when Alix returned to the salon, her eyes on Papi’s carriage clock, one manicured hand pressed against her mouth. Preizler was standing in front of her. ‘I
tell you this only so you have all the facts, Maria.’

‘I wish I didn’t know.’

‘We might be wrong—’ he broke off, seeing Alix.

Had Papi been tortured? Perhaps he was dead after all.

‘Thank you, Alexandra.’ Preizler took the recipe.

‘We don’t have much paper,’ she said, explaining why it was written on the envelope.

Mami started to get up. ‘I’ll show you out.’

‘No need, Maria.’ He took her hand and kissed it before leaving the room, his shoe still creaking. Surely the Gestapo must have people who could sort out footwear problems.
Mami’s face was now composed, almost cheerful. She could have been one of those witty women in the Noël Coward comedies she admired so much.

‘He won’t come back, will he?’ Alix said, when the Mercedes finally pulled away. But her mother looked at her and sighed.

‘I don’t know.’ She picked up the box of cigarettes. ‘There was once a time when Anton Preizler was the one person I could turn to for anything. But now . . .’ She
flicked the lighter. ‘Now I’m not sure.’ Her pupils dilated as she drew on the tobacco.

‘How can you be friends with someone like that?’ Alix caught sight of her mother’s face. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .’

‘No, you’re right.’ Mami let out a puff of smoke. ‘As a boy he was so strong and reliable. We all grow up, that’s the tragedy. We all grow up and have to deal with
the mess we make.’ She drew on the cigarette. ‘And Anton may be the only person who can still get anything done these days.’

‘What did he tell you, Mami? When I was out of the room?’

Her mother examined the cigarette box as though the answer might be engraved on it along with her initials. ‘It was nothing.’

Alix waited.

‘Nothing for you to worry about darling. Just some minor detail. Be an angel and ask Lena to boil more water. I might make a
tisane
with some of those chamomile flowers we picked
last week.’

‘A bad headache?’

Her mother looked at her. ‘Like a hammer pounding my temples. I think I need more sleeping tablets, I’ll ring the doctor when I’ve drunk my
tisane.’

1945

Alix’s account of Preizler’s visit seemed to have brought them to a silence they couldn’t seem to cross. Gregor sat staring at the tiles above the stove.
‘And you don’t know what, if anything, Preizler did to help your father?’

Alix shook her head. ‘I only wish Mami hadn’t felt she had to involve him.’

‘He came here before the war, didn’t he?’

So Gregor had remembered that dinner party, years and years ago. He narrowed his eyes and seemed to want to say something further. But instead he bent down to his pack and pulled out a packet.
It couldn’t be. Alix sat up to take a closer look. ‘Real coffee?’ It certainly smelled like it. The scent brought back pictures of prewar breakfasts: Mami pouring Papi’s
coffee, Papi reading the newspapers and grumbling, she begging her parents to come out and watch her put her pony over the jumps.