The Last Dance (34 page)

Stella tipped out the contents from her satchel, opening a notebook and flipping through the pages. To the casual observer her jottings would make perfect sense but Rafe would recognise passages from his own notes that she’d dutifully copied out in different inks, some in pencil, as though written on a different day, in a different mood. Rafe was right – she was cunning enough to make a half decent spy. In another situation she might have enjoyed that thought but increasingly this situation was beginning to feel intense, more dangerous by the moment. Rafe’s casual pose had not changed. He was not darting his glance around to pick up potential observers, and he was avoiding her, to make her feel less conspicuous.

‘Of course the best place to view butterflies is in the High Atlas.’

She nodded, frowning over the top of her glasses. ‘Shall we be going there, Captain Ainsworth?’

Their tea arrived and was set down quickly. He sighed and sat forward as he gestured for her to enjoy.

‘Yes, I thought I might try for the end of the week. It will be much cooler up there, so you’ll need to wear appropriate layers. Butterflies prefer the cooler climes. We may sight a rosy grizzled, perhaps even the local cardinal.’

‘Oh, that would be grand, wouldn’t it?’ she said, sipping her tea. ‘Um, what time is your appointment, Sir?’

‘Noon. My guest should be here any moment.’

‘Would you like me to move, Captain . . . give you some quiet time together?’

‘Not at all. I would like you to meet him. He’s someone I have known since we were boys together in Africa.’

‘What does your friend do, Sir?’

His mouth twisted into a sort of shrug. ‘It’s hard to be specific with Joseph. He’s an administrator of some kind.’

‘So he followed a very different line of work to your academic pursuits,’ she remarked, hoping this small talk was on the mark. She smiled politely, realising he’d replied and she’d not heard a word. She was aware of her pulse escalating, could hear it, if she concentrated, pounding behind her ear. She must stay calm. She promised him she could do this. Why was she so nervous? Rafe was looking entirely at peace . . . but then he was a practised spy and she was just a trainee store buyer who dreamed of having her own tearooms in a spa town.

‘Oddly, he is the one who looks more the academic,’ he finished and smiled. She sensed he saw pride in her performance and offered encouragement . . . and something else. She blinked, lingered for a heartbeat but couldn’t read it. He looked away into the square and drank his tea in silence. Stella busied herself reading his notes – pages she’d read many times over the past week or two. She rehearsed in her mind what he’d asked her to remember.

The call by the
muezzin
abruptly ended. It was noon. The men of Marrakech were at their mosques praying, some in the square had unrolled small mats and faced Mecca to pray.

A gentleman, small and slim of stature, wearing pale linens, broke cover from one of the many alleys and walked across her eyeline. She shifted her attention to watch his approach. The gaze from his curiously light eyes scanned the surrounding stalls so he appeared nervous, even from this distance. He took an odd skip every few steps as though wanting to hurry but forcing himself not to. It was Joseph, all right, wearing a look of relief he clearly couldn’t help at spotting his friend. Stella watched him smile from beneath a luxuriant, dark moustache and lift an arm in salutation to Rafe. Her lover responded and she knew him well enough now that although he made it look casual enough there was genuine joy in his expression.

‘Hello, Joseph,’ he called, standing. He sounded choked.

She watched his friend arrive and had to swallow to banish her rising emotion to see these two men wrap each other in a heartfelt hug; two boys from that sweet photo with its romantic, adventuresome backdrop of the desert were reunited. Stella was sure Joseph was weeping, from the way he took off his small round glasses and whipped out a handkerchief to polish the lenses. She noted he dabbed at his eyes, while Rafe hurried to make introductions.

‘Er, Joseph,’ he cleared his throat, clearly swallowing his emotion too. ‘This is Miss Stella Myles. She is my research assistant. Miss Myles, this is Joseph Altmann, my oldest and dearest friend.’

Joseph returned his glasses and blinked behind them. His eyes were an olive green, she noticed, and were part of a series of spare, handsomely assembled features.

‘
Enchanté
, Mademoiselle Myles,’ he said and nodded over the hand she extended.

‘It’s a pleasure. What a lovely way you are introduced. That must feel special,’ she replied in French.

‘We are brothers in all but blood,’ Joseph admitted.

Rafe moved them into English, signalling to the waiter for a tea for his guest. He muttered just for their hearing, ‘Honesty doesn’t help in the spy game, Joseph, but given your candour and at risk of being reckless and especially in the presence of both of you who deserve no lies, you should also know that Stella is not only my lover but she is also the love of my life.’ Both Joseph and Stella gaped at him. He shrugged. ‘There are only three people alive in the world that I can put my hand over my heart and claim that I love and would die for. Two are seated right here,’ he said, smiling softly. ‘Why wouldn’t I want you both to know of each other’s meaning to me?’

Stella looked back at Joseph with a perplexed smile; worried now for the danger of this admission, having been so careful before about staying in character. She didn’t think anyone had heard, but even so, why take such a risk? It was as if he wanted someone or something else to take over, to make the decisions for him. She shrugged and fell in with his spirit of honesty. ‘I have never fallen for anyone until I met Rafe,’ she admitted, unsure of what else to say other than the truth. ‘I love him.’

‘As do I, so I’m not just enchanted, Miss Myles, I’m honoured to know you. It seems you and I are amongst the very few who have impressed Rafe enough to even know his preferred name, let alone be worthy of his love.’

The same waiter arrived, setting down a fresh glass of tea for Joseph. It was a convenient moment of distraction.

‘And is Brigitte as beautiful as I recall?’ Rafe enquired.

‘Radiant with her new son in her arms.’

‘Congratulations again. A son! Well done. You’re a better man than I.’

The men laughed conspiratorially. ‘No, a real man makes daughters, they say,’ Joseph offered generously, ‘but he’s such a sweet boy, we do dote on him . . . so do the girls.’ Then he pulled a face of disgust. ‘They dress him up in dolls’ clothes! Brigitte finds it amusing. I am personally disturbed but then as they do that to the dog too I have to accept these are the mysterious ways of females.’ He looked at Stella and winked.

Helplessly charmed, she wondered if both these men were pressed from the same mould. ‘Be assured, it’s very normal. I’m told you came here as youngsters,’ Stella said, sweeping her gaze behind in a casual gesture in case they were being watched. She couldn’t pick up anyone intent on them but it was so fleeting, she desperately wanted to check again but instead returned her attention to Joseph.

‘Indeed we did. I’m sure Rafe has told you about the peacock and Yassine laughing in the background as we coughed and hacked our way through our first smoke.’

‘Mother was livid with us,’ Rafe recalled in a tone of pleasurable wistfulness.

‘And Bel was jealous.’

She watched Rafe swallow. ‘Furious we did it without her,’ he chuckled sadly, glancing at Stella. ‘Bel is my sister.’

‘I gathered,’ she replied gently, realising only now that this was the first time she’d heard his sister’s name uttered.
Isabella? Annabelle?
There was plenty to still learn about Rafe but as always it felt as though an invisible but enormous clock ticked loudly around them.

‘You can be frank in front of Stella,’ Rafe assured with a deep and meaningless chuckle. ‘Be calm, Joseph. She knows. Hence her disguise. She has perfect vision and beautiful hair that you can’t see and a laugh to light your world.’

Joseph shot a look of sympathy over his glasses at Stella, who wished she could take hers off. ‘My world is filled with darkness, it’s true,’ he said softly over a fresh gust of amusement, designed to fool any watchers. Stella was impressed by both of them, especially Joseph for whom she knew this must be torture. ‘I shall not waste time on preambles. I don’t believe I was followed but I live in a nation of suspicions and cannot take our safety for granted.’ He removed a small book from a leather satchel.

Rafe gasped. ‘I’m being flung back a quarter of a century,’ he gusted merrily, slapping Joseph on the shoulder. ‘I remember this!’ he exclaimed, adding in a lower voice: ‘You’re doing fine. Sip your tea. Just pretend we’re catching up on old times.’ Rafe took the album, seeming to know what to do. He began feigning soft laughter, pointing and showing photos to both of them. Stella took his lead, cast an expression of deep interest while inside she churned, wondering what was about to happen.

‘This is an old photo album that Rafe’s wonderful mother – our mother – sent to me for my seventeenth birthday,’ Joseph explained to Stella. ‘My father had moved us back to Germany and I was so missing my life with the family I loved as my own in Tangier so she filled this little book with memories of childhood. Rafe, I do think my favourite is this one of us in the tent.’ He flipped a few pages and sighed, pointing at it. Stella picked up the signal that passed between them as he tapped the particular photo she recognised from the nursery.

Rafe laughed. ‘Hell, what were we then? Ten?’ He nodded, his expression full of pleasure. ‘Got it,’ he murmured. He sipped at his now cold mint tea. ‘We couldn’t have been any older, could we?’ He made an obvious shift to show it to Stella. ‘Here, look at this,’ he offered in a light voice but his words that followed chilled her. ‘Remember it, Stella,’ he growled in the lowest of whispers.

Joseph glanced at them both. It was as if they’d reached some sort of precipice and they were all peering over the top to dizzying depths below. He grinned with effort but the words didn’t match. ‘And now let’s see if I have indeed made it all the way back to the land I love, the brother I worship, without bringing the devil with me.’ His voice shook and his fingers visibly trembled as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘This is why I’m here. You should know that only recently the Chancellor of Germany outlined his new foreign policy that rejects aspects of the Treaty of Versailles.’

The warm day’s temperature felt as though it instantly plunged around their table and Stella put down her cold tea as a chill shuddered through her; they were still smiling, nodding amiably, as Rafe acknowledged what his friend was saying. ‘Equal armaments,’ he said, agreeing that he knew this much.

Joseph shook his head, his smile faltering. ‘So much worse, Rafe. The relationship with the Soviet Union will be non-existent soon, I suspect; our ambassador in Moscow told him as much this month. He is feigning moderation to London but his eye is on the Polish border. He is talking about trebling the army, creating dive bomber units.’

‘Germany’s not permitted to have an aerial capability.’

Joseph shrugged. ‘Tell our Chancellor that. I happen to know that pilots are in training. Our decorated world war ace is in his element. Herr Göring and his cronies only last month established an air ministry. A Luftwaffe! Hitler doesn’t care about the Treaty or its sanctions. He has every intention to defy them.’

Rafe’s expression darkened. ‘I can’t say I’m shocked.’

‘Well, you will be when you read this.’ Joseph pushed the sheet forward. ‘These are pages from draft notes that I am horrified to admit I have acquired through dishonest means. I am betraying my own people but I have no choice because the Chancellor no longer believes that people of my heritage
are
Germans. From what I can tell, these notes seem to form part of a manifesto he’s drafting for Germany. He aspires for purity of the race. Aryan, he calls it.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Rafe growled, his façade falling away.

Joseph removed his hand from the sheets. ‘Read them,’ he urged, whipping out his handkerchief again to once more attack his lenses before pushing the spectacles back up his nose nervously. ‘His new racial ideology has Jews at the helm of his hate list. I couldn’t believe it, dared not, in fact. I’ve sat on this for weeks but in April a boycott began on Jewish stores, although attacks on our shops began even earlier in March. There are calls to remove Jews from the legal, medical and educational system. I have no doubt now that it’s going to happen.’

‘Hitler had the Enabling Act passed,’ Rafe explained to Stella. ‘It means he now rules simply by his own decree and can determine his own laws; no need to pass them through the Reichstag.’

Her throat felt as dry as the sun-bleached awning they sat beneath.

Joseph continued as though Rafe had not spoken. ‘It’s a steady breakdown in our society. No more kosher slaughtering of animals one month, the next we can’t send our children to school if it overreaches the Jewish “quota”. And this month students across Germany burned what they called un-German books in an action against an un-German spirit. If it wasn’t true, I’d laugh but I wept to hear that in the order of thirty thousand books were burned in a “cleansing by fire”. Jewish intellectualism, whatever that’s supposed to mean, is cited as being un-German. People are being brainwashed and the propaganda is rife.’

Stella watched Rafe nod as though he was aware of this particular atrocity. ‘I’d heard about the book burning, but I had no idea of the scope of all this racial vilification, Joseph.’

‘We’ve lived with persecution down the centuries and no one wants to tip Europe back into war, my brother, so coming to the rescue of a few persecuted Jews is unlikely to be on the agenda . . . except it’s not just Jews, it’s everyone that our dictator suddenly believes might speak up against him and his dark regime. Pacifists, socialists, liberalists, intellectuals, poets! They’re all on his list of hate. Ever since these came into my possession my perspective on the ministry has changed. I realise now that I’ve been working for a dictator who is determined to own the minds of his people so there is no more free thought. What previously looked innocent, such as the training of pilots, has taken on a new and sinister aspect. I’ve heard artists, writers, poets, thinkers – they are all wanting to flee the country. They feel the next step might be the burning of the writers themselves.’ Joseph stopped, shaking with the emotion of his fear.