Authors: Stephen Benatar
She looked about her. “Well, surely you can’t be meaning
here
?”
“Somerset House? Well, why not? Why ever not? You seem surprised. But people do come to Somerset House, don’t they? People who want to trace their family trees or find out who inherited from Uncle Max; and just how much the old man had to leave. Or whether So-and-So was really born in wedlock—and where—and what on earth was the name of that rapacious widow whom he upped and married? Hundreds of good reasons for
everyone
to flock to Somerset House. Don’t tell me you yourself have never been?”
“No, I have never been to Somerset House.”
She declared this emphatically, as though she were speaking to someone of severely limited intelligence.
“Oh dear. Then, after all, you won’t be able to tell me where I ought to go. What a shame! I’m sure they have a special section.”
“A special section for what?” she asked, dully. “What are you after?”
“Nothing fancy. Merely a birth certificate.”
“Why do you want your birth certificate?”
“I don’t. Not mine.”
We had reached the main door. I didn’t push it open immediately. Perhaps I felt some need to prolong this moment of heady victory.
“Whose, then?”
“Well, what makes you think it would be either mine
or
my father’s?”
“Your father’s? Who ever brought your father into this?”
I didn’t answer. Produced an enigmatic smile. Enigmatic—and also, I guessed, immensely irritating.
“And anyway,” she said, “why should you want to have the birth certificate of somebody who’s dead? Even supposing it were going to be here, which I—”
She broke off.
“Oliver, why in God’s name are you behaving like this?”
“Actually, if it helps at all, I don’t believe it’s going to be here, either. We’re wholly at one on that.”
“Oh, what
is
the matter? I really don’t understand. I don’t understand
anything
any longer.”
“Oh, on the contrary,” I said, “I think you do! And, by the way, my name isn’t Oliver. It’s Eric. Or Erich—depending on who happens to be speaking it at the time. Shall we go in?”
Yet if this were truly the prologue to my moment of vindication … well, to be honest again, it didn’t feel like any of it would provide a lot to write home about. I had been so much happier this morning.
So
very
much happier.
There was an official who stood to one side of the vast marble-floored vestibule: a short man, balding, with—I noticed, as we drew nearer—grey hair protruding from his ears and his nostrils, and black hair coating the backs of his hands. I asked him how to obtain copies of birth certificates; explained that neither of the two I sought was actually my own.
“Then the first letter of the party’s name?” he queried.
“M,” I said. I winked at Sybella. “M for Martin.”
“And the first letter of the second party’s name?”
“M,” I smiled. “Also M for Martin. Now you might reckon that’s a bit of a coincidence—but, no, not really. A little like Alexandre Dumas, if you see what I mean: Dumas
père et
Dumas
fils
. Except that
those
two shared a given name and
these
two don’t … unless in this instance you count the family name, which I suspect was a name not actually given until a month or so back—let’s say, the end of March, the start of April? But I can see you think it’s getting complicated.”
Complicated? Plain crazy, more like! What
did
I suppose I was doing? (
You a bit cuckoo or summat? On leave from the loony bin
?) God in heaven. What a time for me to start to wonder.
I mean, to wonder why no one had yet turned up holding out that pair of handcuffs.
I couldn’t have been mistaken, surely? Both the girl
and
the fellow? Innocent bystanders?
No. It wasn’t possible. Just was
not
possible!
I had lost the hairy man’s attention. His stare had transferred itself from me to Sybella. It seemed no less dazed, however.
Sybella was heading for the exit.
The attendant, of course, must have observed her departure with a lot more surprise than me. We heard the brisk tattoo of her heels striking the marble. It resonated throughout the lobby. It reminded me of the frenzied tapping of Blind Pew, on the highway, just seconds before he was mown down and trampled beneath the horse’s hooves.
31
I went after her.
Thankfully I saw her, just across the road, starting to descend the stairs beside the bridge. These led to the Embankment. I didn’t hurry. I kept some half-dozen yards behind and she didn’t look back. She was heading in the direction of Charing Cross but when she reached a small public garden she went in. I stood near the gate and waited until she’d sat down. Then I followed the twisting path towards her bench … which may have taken me some thirty seconds. She didn’t once glance up. Her face was obscured by her handkerchief.
“I truly am sorry,” I said.
She didn’t react.
“Please don’t cry. Please don’t.” I sat beside her. “Unless you want me to join in. Might they commission us—two figures in a fountain?”
“Go away,” she said.
“No.”
“Then
I
shall.”
But I pulled her back. “What’s the point? You know I’d only follow. We haven’t had our tea.”
“Tea!”
“Yes. They tell me it’s the cup that cheers. It seems you need a spot of cheering. I’m not too certain why.”
“
What
did you say?”
“I said I’m not too certain why.”
“Well, in that case … in that case…”
“What?”
“My God! It only shows me how insensitive you are.”
“Why? Because I had to call your bluff?”
She didn’t answer.
“And I bet Mata Hari never spoke like that. ‘Oh, it only shows me how insensitive you are! When all the time I thought you were a gentleman!’”
She showed not the slightest tendency to smile.
I added: “‘But no! Any
true
gentleman would have repulsed his suspicions!’ I bet she never said that—or, at least, not very often.”
“It’s not the fact you had suspicions! It’s the vile and gratuitous way in which you voiced them.”
“Well, I didn’t exactly enjoy that part of it myself. But if I was a bastard—and yes, all right, I was a bastard—perhaps I had good reason.”
No acknowledgment of this.
“And anyway,” I asked, “how
should
I have set about it? Sat down with you and had a nice illuminating chat across the buttered toast and scones? Well, in fact, isn’t that what we’re doing right now? Or could be doing right now? May I pass you the buttered toast?”
“Good reason?” she enquired, coolly—belatedly. “What good reason?”
“Oh, well. You yourself mightn’t think it such a good one. And again I’m not convinced it’s in the best traditions of Miss Hari. But I was hurt. Yes—
hurt
! Because you mightn’t credit it: my biggest worry this morning on seeing you drive away from Waterloo was simply this. How on earth was I going to break it to you that the
Laura
thing was pure prefabrication?”
She didn’t comment for a moment—and when she did, Franz Mannheim might have nodded his approval.
“Just fabrication,” she corrected, wearily. “Someday someone ought to try to teach you English.”
Although she still didn’t smile, and her tone remained lifeless, I obviously saw this as a breakthrough. And took heart.
“It was easier for you,” I said. “You knew from the beginning I was playing a role. But I hadn’t the foggiest idea that you were. I believed every word you told me.”
I remembered our walk back to camp; remembered the feeling of warmth which had so convincingly pervaded it. And remembering this—feeling further encouraged by it—I laid my hand upon her sleeve.
“Well, let’s not exaggerate,” I said. “Every other word you told me. But that turned out to be enough. More than enough, unfortunately.”
She made no attempt to remove her arm. (Another memory surfaced—also, an encouraging one—the memory of when she had touched my wrist in The Tap and Tankard.) She seemed to look at me properly for the first time since we had arrived at Somerset House.
“More than enough for what?”
“Oh dear. Only somebody rather insensitive would have to ask me that.”
She still didn’t smile. She turned her gaze towards the river and waited maybe fifteen seconds before she brought it back.
“Why are you saying all this?”
“Because it’s true. No other reason. And there’s clearly no point in our lying to one another any more. Either about the big things or the little things. Though for the moment, please, don’t ask me which is which.”
A woman passed us with a pram and I smiled gravely at the infant who was sitting up inside it, as though she alone, in her fuzzy pink cardigan and pompommed pink hat, might be sufficiently qualified to pronounce.
“Do you honestly mean that?” Sybella asked.
“Yes, I honestly do mean that.”
But I still didn’t want to take anything for granted. I lacked the confidence. Seemed incapable of merely keeping quiet.
“Yes, I was playing a role—obviously. Yet at the same time, in spirit, I can swear that I never stopped being myself. And by far the greater part of what I told you was absolutely true.”
“A minute ago you used the word
unfortunately
. Why?”
“Well, that’s easy. Is there anything more unfortunate than somebody falling in love all by himself? And, besides, Capulets don’t ever quite set out to fall in love with Montagues. Not if they possess one particle of common sense.”
It struck me that those wretched Montagues got in everywhere. You might have thought Verona at least might be free of them.
“Although, on the other hand, I suppose I ought to qualify that a bit—I mean, if I’m being required to dot
all
the i’s and cross
all
the t’s, as apparently I am. You see, perhaps it’s true that I don’t possess one particle of common sense. Perhaps it’s true that in a way I did set out to fall in love.”
She waited.
“Though please don’t ask me why. From the start there was something about your photograph which … oh, I don’t know…”
I shrugged.
“In any case, your
photograph
was smiling.”
“And you promise me,” she repeated, “that you are now completely on the level?”
“Listen. How can I persuade you? No worthy German spy is ever supposed to leave himself exposed and vulnerable; the rulebook specifically forbids it. Yet this particular example of the species—
me
, in case you still need to have it spelt out—is right now feeling
so
exposed and vulnerable he might just as well be sitting here stark naked. My instructors would be furious. ‘Put back your clothes on!’” I let them speak in English but supplied them with a weighty accent. “‘That is not the manner in which any
true
gentleman ever likes to behave, no matter how repulsive!’”
Perhaps it was this final barb that toppled her defences.
“Well, at
last
!” I exclaimed. “At
last
!”
I shot one arm into the air.
“Oh, praise the Lord, Miss Standish! That is
far
more the way your photograph was looking!”
“How
can
you be a German spy? You must be the least likely German spy in history. Well, German or otherwise.”
“And, if it could talk, far more the way it would have sounded, too! Yes, hallelujah! A hundred times—hallelujah! And incidentally yours is an assessment which those instructors would wholeheartedly agree with. In fact you seem to be so much one of them I fear you may be fighting on the wrong side.”
This could have been quite hopelessly misjudged. I instantly regretted it.
She said: “And what actually made you assume that?”
“I was being crass. I’m sorry. It was nothing but a stupid joke.”
“No, I don’t mean
that
.”
“You don’t? What, then?” I tried to think back.
She gave a slightly crooked smile.
“That you might have fallen in love all by yourself.”
I stared at her.
“You see,” she added, after a pause, “perhaps most of the time my own role was no further from reflecting the truth than yours was.”
“It wasn’t?” I said at last, weakly.
“And do you know something? The ordinary man in the street might have thought we were both supposed to be at least of average intelligence.”
“Then how about this?” I asked. “Just for the time being? The ordinary man in the street can go and take a running jump.”
32
She had taken off her hat and put it in her lap. Her head was resting on my shoulder. She said, eventually:
“I suppose you wouldn’t like to tell me something? The name of the person I’ve just been kissing?”
I did so. It turned out that she hadn’t absorbed the half she had already heard. She didn’t even remember she
had
heard it.
“Are you certain you told me?”
“Positive,” I said.
“Oh, well, I suppose you were making so little sense then—overall—that it’s scarcely surprising if I simply stopped listening. Anyone would have … I mean, anyone with the slightest claim to sanity.”
“You sound like my grandmother.”
“Thank you. She must be a very lovely person.”
“She is.”
“I can hardly wait to meet her.”
Nevertheless, she spoke the name aloud and then repeated it more softly: Eric Anders.
Erich Anders.
“It’s going to seem quite strange,” she said, “getting to think of you as that.”
“Yes, I’m sure. You knew me for so very long as something else.”
“Precisely. But perhaps in time I’ll grow used to it.”
Her tone became bleak.
“Except that … I was forgetting, of course! Time isn’t something we’re going to have a lot of.”
I stroked the top of her head. “You think this war is going to last forever?”
“Maybe not—but what will happen to us while it does? In particular … what will happen to
you
? They’ll probably make you a prisoner of war, won’t they? And when they do that…?”