The Unquiet Heart (25 page)

We kept to the back alleys as best we could, heading west. We didn’t speak much. What was there to say? We eased into the crowd on the Potsdammer Strasse and picked up a crowded bus
heading south. If you squinted, it could be Oxford Street: people walking and shopping and chatting in the sun. But the occasional gap or gutted shell jarred. We trundled down Rhein Strasse and
into Berliner Strasse. After twenty minutes the buildings began to thin out, and not just because of our bombing. We were coming into a residential area, the suburbs, with individual homes set back
from the road among clumps of pine trees.

“This is where the rich live. Used to,” she corrected herself. The damage was less, but an occasional swathe of large houses and pines had been obliterated as though by a giant
scythe. We got off the bus in what seemed to be a forest glade, and proceeded on foot down one of the pine-dark avenues. It was much cooler here. The trees were dripping and dank after the rain.
The area should have felt luxurious, exclusive; individual villas set in a cool forest, their owners living some Aryan dream. Instead, the homes were crammed side by side in the shade of the heavy
trees.

“Why are they all jammed together?”

“Cost of land. Everyone wanted to be here even if they had no elbow room. As long as the next elbow belonged to someone rich.”

“No wonder they liked Hitler’s plans for
Lebensraum.
”

Studded among the pines the villas were a jumble of styles. Tall rambling wood-clad chateaux next to cubist steel and glass. It was a mess. Many of the houses had boards over the windows and
doors. Some had obviously been looted, their entrails hanging out of wrecked windows. We saw no one, though I fancy the odd curtain twitched.

We stopped outside a tall wooden house with a tiny front garden and wood fence. It must have been a fine home in its heyday. Four storeys, wood-clad with big shutters and a wide porch. I
imagined a rocking chair and a glass of beer on a summer evening. We pushed through the gate and walked up the path, and we’d barely begun to climb the steps to the porch when the door
crashed open. A skinny, wild-eyed man came out. He wore glasses and a shirt buttoned up to the neck but no tie.

“Ava! Is it you? This is a black day. Who is this? Come in. Quick, now!” His quick-fire German hit us like bullets. He kept casting his eyes about, as if worried what the neighbours
might think.

We walked into the hall and he slammed the door behind us. We stood in a slab of light from the glass panel above the door. The house smelled of cabbages and death.

“So, it’s true, Willi?” she asked.

“Who is this, Ava?” He pointed at me.

“A friend. A good friend. He saved us. Gideon and me. Though…”

“I know, I know. Gideon is dead.”

“Are you sure? He was hit. But he might have…”

Willi was shaking his head. “Ach, you mustn’t hope, Ava. They say he hit the Gate and ended up on the bonnet still shouting at them and firing at them. They shot him to
pieces.” Her face melted. “It was quick.”

Willi suddenly slid past us like a ferret and headed up the stairs. “We have other things now. Come. Begin’s been waiting for you.”

We followed him up to the top floor and into a room where the ceiling angled down and the window was boarded up. There was a desk and two chairs. On the desk glowed a radio transmitter and
receiver with headphones and a microphone. Willi made straight for it and began to tune it. He turned the volume up and the set hummed and warbled. At last there was a steady pitch.

“Come in, Menachem, come in. Menachem, this is Willi calling.” He spoke now in a heavily accented English.

There was a static burst, then, from the loudspeaker, a distant voice. “Willi, this is Menachem. Is she there?” The voice was strong, speaking in English with a guttural mid-European
accent: Polish? Russian?

“Hold on, Menachem.”

Willi handed over the headphones and seat to Eve. She hooked on the phones and picked up the mike with professional ease.

“Shalom, Menachem, it’s Ava. What happened? Is it true?”

“I made the calls myself. One to the British in the King David. One to the French embassy next door. And one to the press. The British had twenty-five minutes to clear the hotel. They did
nothing.”

“Did the French listen?”

“They closed all their shutters.”

“I don’t understand. The British are not stupid.”

“ But they are arrogant. A British officer said
we don’t take orders from Jews
! The whole corner of the hotel, above the kitchens, it’s gone. Those idiots!” His
voice rose higher and higher with every utterance. Then he broke off.

“Any of our people?” she asked.

“No one in the squad was hurt. It went like clockwork. Such a waste…” He suddenly sounded bone weary.

“Listen, Menachem. We have to act. More than ever we need to get the truth out. We must tell the world what happened.”

There was silence for a while except for the background hum down the line. “Ava, do you think there is anything we can say that will be believed? Already they are talking of a Jewish
massacre. Already they are saying there will be vengeance.”

“It’s all the more important! We must get our story out, Menachem. Tell them we issued a warning.”

His angry voice dripped down the line. “Do you think it matters? So many dead. Young girls, our own people in the kitchens… Is this the way we build our promised land? There has
been so much blood. All we wanted was a scrap of desert. A place we could be safe.”

Eve’s jaw was clenched. She shook her head.

“Menachem, Menachem, we have to try. I’m going to contact our Reuters man. We’ll get the message out. I’ll contact the British press. They’ll listen to me. We have
to try.” Her fists were clenched on the table.

“Try, my dear. Try. What is there to lose? Listen, are you safe? Can you get out of there?”

She turned and looked at me. “Don’t worry about me. Shalom, Menachem.”

“Shalom, Ava.”

Eve sat back and took her phones off. She wiped her face and turned to me.

“Willi, do we have a phone? Does it work?”

“Yes, yes. They repaired the lines last week. But I haven’t dared…”

“We must dare, now!” She turned to me. “I’m going to make some calls, Danny. Can you amuse yourself for an hour?”

Eve placed calls with the operator and after a long wait, wonder of wonders, got patched through to New York. She spoke to her man in Reuters, but he seemed to be having a convenient bout of
amnesia. He denied all knowledge, denied he knew her, denied the truth as she saw it.

She turned to her radio transmitter. From the world’s radio stations it was clear that the real message wasn’t being picked up. The constant refrain was that the casualty number had
risen to eighty and was expected to climb. There was widespread condemnation for this
act of evil
by these
unspeakable terrorists
. Eve scrubbed at her hair, her face getting pinker by
the minute. At last she flung off her earphones and sat back. We shared our last cigarette.

“I’ve got to get back. I need to see Jim Hutcheson. He’ll listen to me. He’ll print the story.”

I didn’t say anything. Even if she could get through to Hutcheson he wouldn’t believe it. Wouldn’t want to.

TWENTY TWO

We left Willi wringing his hands and asking what would become of him. The authorities would tap the phone calls and come looking for him. We had no advice. We walked back in
silence through the steaming pine woods, back to the city stewing in the sulphurous heat of late afternoon. The buses seemed to have stopped. Tainted petrol or a hold-up by one of the marauding
gangs. It took us four hours to reach the safe house, sweaty and footsore, and out of cigarettes. Maybe it was time to give them up anyway. I made some tea and we sat glumly at the table and stared
into our cups. I should have paid more attention to the sounds outside. I was vaguely aware of truck noises and a motorbike. But nothing prepares you for the sound of your own name being bellowed
from the street via a megaphone.

“Daniel McRae! You are surrounded. You and Ava Kaplan cannot escape. Surrender now!”

We shot to our feet, teacups thrown across the table, staring at each other in the hope that we’d both misheard. My breath clenched in my chest. The cry came again. Even with the
distortion of amplification I recognised Colonel Toby Anstruther’s voice.

“Shit. We must have been followed.” I realised I was talking in whispers, which was silly given the ruckus outside. I heard shouted orders and the pounding of army boots on the
cobbles.

“Is there any way out? Is there a skylight? Where would it lead?” I had hold of her arms and was shaking her.

“Danny, Danny! There’s no place to go. Even if we got on to the roof, we can’t get off the building. We’re trapped.” Her eyes were pleading, telling me the game was
up, that it was time to let go. I dropped my hands from her shoulders and let my arms slump by my side. It was over.

The shouts came again, this time with a warning of an attack if we weren’t out in ten seconds. I went to the window and stood by the side, not wanting to make myself a target for any
trigger-happy squaddie. I eased the window catch and flung it open. A gust of warm air came in and flapped the curtain round my face.

I cupped my hands and shouted, “All right. We’re coming out. But on one condition.” I waited, wondering if he’d heard me.

“What is it, McRae?”

“We’re out of fags.”

There was silence. No sense of humour. Then, “Come and get them. Slowly. With your hands in the air.”

I walked over to her and without asking, took her in my arms and gave her a squeeze. We clung like shipwrecked sailors for a moment then let go.

“Say nothing about Jerusalem. Got me? They know nothing about any connection to the bomb.”

“But I have to get back to London, Danny. I have to tell the story!”

“The best way is to say nothing. Not yet. They’re bound to throw us on the first train out of here.”

She nodded, reluctantly. We grabbed our meagre possessions and left the flat. In the hall I pulled open the door and led the way, hands in the air. We were ringed by troopers pointing their
rifles at our hearts. The Colonel stood directly in front of me. Alongside him was Vic looking sheepish. A small crowd congealed at one end of the street, in which our downstairs neighbour was
prominent. He folded his arms and made some sneering remark to one of the others. This city had got into the habit of snitching on its neighbours.

We were marched to the truck and shoved up over the tailgate. Half a dozen red-faced soldiers climbed in after us and squeezed on to the parallel benches. The familiar smell of wool uniforms and
sweaty males filled the tarpaulin-covered truck. They kept their guns on us. As we settled down a packet of fags sailed through the air from outside and landed at my feet.

I looked at the boys in uniform. “All right, lads. I think these are for me. Steady with those guns.” I slowly reached down and picked up the packet. Woodbine. Cheapskates.
They’d do. I passed round the packet as we set off and we filled the back with smoke before we got to the British sector.

“I know, Colonel. Sometimes there’s no choice.”

He harrumphed. We were sitting – Eve and me – in his office. There were two guards outside but none in the room. It was the first time we’d been together in two days. She
looked puffy and ragged, much as I felt. We’d been grilled separately by Military Special Branch. I imagine Eve got the same round of questions as me.
Did you kill Mulder? Why him?
On
the second day there was a sudden shift in direction and tone:
what do you know about the bomb in Jerusalem?

We glanced at each other as we were brought into Toby’s office, trying to read the other’s mind. I hoped she’d kept as shtum as me.

Toby had been on the blower to London twice since we’d been sat there. We were in big trouble. As well as the Mulder assassination and the diplomatic furore that had caused, London –
or Berlin, maybe – had intercepted Eve’s fevered phone calls to her Reuters man.

They’d also spotted signals from a radio transmitter in the same area. Whether they’d decoded them or not hardly mattered. They knew someone had been in contact with Palestine from
the same area as the phone calls. No one mentioned Willi. I assumed he’d done the sensible thing and legged it. Whatever was known or guessed, London, and now Toby, wanted to know what we
knew about the bombing of the King David Hotel.

“It’s on the wireless,” I was saying. “That’s all I know.”

“We believe that you – or at least the woman here – were in touch with known terrorists in Palestine. You, Miss, were sending them instructions. We want to know what these
were, and how you are involved in this… this outrage!” Toby thumped his desk for emphasis. It didn’t work; he was too round to do a convincing hard man. His act made me think
that they didn’t have the evidence to tie us to either Mulder or the bomb. All we needed to do was say nothing. Clearly not easy for Eve.

“The outrage is the British blockading a ship of refugees from finding a safe haven in the land of their birth!”

Eve’s accusations were growing ever more melodramatic. Toby looked weary. We’d been going round this topic for an hour, getting nowhere. Suddenly Toby stood up. “I’ve had
enough. It’s time I handed you to the professionals. Corporal!”

The door burst open. Vic leapt in and stood quivering at attention. A faithful dog. I wondered if he’d mentioned my sudden language skills when the explosion was announced on the radio
café?

“Sir!”

“Get on to London. Tell them we’re sending this pair back. Fix a flight for the morning. Should be room on the post run. Take them away and lock them up overnight. Separate
cells.”

He turned to me. “Goodbye, McRae. I won’t pretend it’s been a pleasure.”

He stood with his hands behind his back. No last handshake for me. We left under heavy escort and
were deposited in the cells used for military prisoners. Vic had the decency to stop at the Tiergarten mess and pick up my suitcase and spare clothes. A WAAF was sent out to get some army-issue
underwear and a skirt and blouse for Eve. At the cells – the largely unscathed civilian nick in the centre – we were given a chance to wash, and I had a shave. Funny how hot water and a
smooth chin can perk up your day. I suppose it was reaction to the last few days, but I crashed on to the bare board of my cell, drew the rough blanket round me, and was asleep before lights
out.