The Officer and the Spy, page 32
Eleni felt little elation at the victory. As soon as she’d learned of it, she heard, via Mr Skoulas, of the reprisals that had been enacted, with exemplary terror. Despite the saboteurs having gone to lengths to take responsibility for the devastation, leaving plenty of evidence that it had been them, not locals, involved, fifty Cretans had been executed.
‘A warning,’ Mr Skoulas said, ‘to anyone who helped hide our allies, not to do so again. A warning to us, Eleni. And a reminder of why we must keep doing as we do.’
Several of those executed had been Jewish prisoners, taken from Agia prison, where, it had become clear, they’d been interned since the start of the occupation. It tore at Eleni’s heart, thinking of their fear, the brutality of their ending. She kept remembering the couple from her street, with their chubby baby; those teenage boys, all wide eyes and gangly legs.
Had they been shot?
Could an execution squad really have taken aim at them?
She knew the answer.
They all knew the answer to that.
The saboteurs themselves hadn’t all got away either. A number of the French group had been taken prisoner when their hiding place had been betrayed to Nazi authorities by a bad Greek – Eleni had no idea who, she only wished she did.
‘I feel responsible,’ she said to Stephen, her old SOE contact, a couple of days after her conversation with Mr Skoulas, shaky still from the shock of it. She’d come to meet Stephen in another derelict building: a house this time, on the outskirts of Chania. He’d surprised her by being in town. (‘I thought you’d gone East,’ she’d said. ‘Best laid plans,’ he’d replied.) ‘All those planes we logged… ’
‘They legitimised the attacks,’ he said, ‘that was all. Believe me, there were many people who played a far larger part in the planning of this, than you. You are not responsible. Eleni. Stop frowning, and look at me.’
She did. He was a wreck, his dark hair greasy, and his skin coated in days-old dirt.
‘This was not your doing,’ he said.
‘I feel like I must have missed something, though. I should have been able to warn someone… ’
‘You can’t warn everyone. You found out about those patrols last month. Gave Robbie time to get everyone moved… ’
‘That wasn’t me. I was just the messenger.’
‘There’s no such thing as just the messenger.’ The smallest acts. ‘Honestly, I simply won’t have you beating yourself up about this. No one imagined there’d be reprisals. These executions were senseless, no one’s fault but the Nazis’, and nothing to do with you.’
Slowly, she nodded.
He was right, she knew.
And she didn’t want to make him work any harder to convince her of it. Not when he was so obviously on his knees. It wasn’t fair to him.
She’d walked to meet him at the house direct from work, it being a Tuesday. He’d sent a runner, letting her know he was there. The evening was a sunny one, but windy; the Meltemi had arrived, early, and was frisking around the building’s dilapidated walls, making a loose shutter upstairs bang. Every time it did, Stephen glanced in the direction of the noise.
He was uncharacteristically jittery, but then there really was a great deal going on. He’d been in Chania to hold emergency meetings with several influential supporters of the island-wide resistance movement he was part of trying to build. There was always a degree of anti-British feeling in Crete after any reprisal, and he feared it would inevitably be worse with this one, given it had come about as a direct result of British action; Mr Skoulas’s allegiance, he didn’t worry about, but he’d been assuring the others he’d met with of the efforts the sabotage teams had gone to, to avoid bloodshed. He’d wanted to meet them himself, he’d told Eleni, because he had the most established relationships. ‘Keeping their loyalty is too important a job to be delegated. Plus—’ he’d smiled, exhaustedly ‘—I get to see you.’
He’d just been updating her on the deteriorating situation in North Africa, which was the other reason he was so wrung out. The last he’d heard, Tobruk was perilously close to falling, and staff in Cairo had been put on standby to burn all classified documents, lest that city follow.
‘I want to get on the move,’ he said, as the upstairs shutter slammed again. ‘These damned long summer days. I hate being out of radio contact this long.’
‘You get used to it,’ said Eleni.
‘Do you?’ He gave her a dubious look. ‘Cairo could be falling now, and none of us would know.’
‘Don’t jump to a future that hasn’t happened.’
‘One we don’t think has happened.’ He ran his hand through his greasy hair, then laughed. ‘You’re so cool, Eleni. It was almost reassuring, just now, seeing you worked up about those planes. Truly, I’ve wondered whether anything can unsettle you… ’
‘Plenty unsettles me.’
‘Does it?’
‘Yes. And you can talk. This isn’t like you.’
‘No, I know. Very boring, sorry.’
‘You need to take a breath. It’s dangerous, being this edgy.’
He laughed again, then surprised her, taking her by the arms and kissing her on both cheeks.
‘You’re a tonic,’ he said, ‘you really are.’
‘I do my best,’ she said, abashed.
‘I’ve never doubted it.’
She smiled.
So did he.
‘Africa won’t fall, you know,’ she told him.
‘No?’
‘No,’ she said, discovering as she spoke that she believed it. ‘One of these days, this war has got to start going our way. I think that day’s coming soon.’
‘I’ll love it if you’re right.’
‘I am right.’
‘If you are, we’ll most certainly have to celebrate.’
She was right.
The tide did turn in North Africa. Not before plenty of classified documents were burned in Cairo, but the city itself never fell, and, by August, it was the Germans who were on the backfoot.
Stephen didn’t come to celebrate with Eleni though.
He was already in Egypt himself by that point, having been ordered back on leave care of a wireless transmission from Cairo. Eleni was pleased for him, when a runner found her with his message telling her that he was off. I’ll bring you back a present. He really had been at the end of his rope. He needed a rest.
Fortunately, there’d been no chance of him crossing paths with Otto at Sphakia. Otto, to Eleni’s overwhelming relief, returned to Chania within a day of Stephen’s note arriving – thinner, after his weeks on a garrison, darker too, from his days beneath the high summer sun, but uninjured.
‘Thank God,’ she said, throwing herself into his arms, the sultry July night he made her heart explode by appearing at the top of her stairs, losing herself in his kiss, the dizzying joy of his face, his hands, his eyes, his smile. ‘Thank God, thank God, thank God.’
He was the one she raised a glass to the shifting fortunes on the Nile Delta with. Socrates raised one too, in her basement kitchen. Despite his (deep) prevailing concern at herself and Otto’s involvement, he took, at her invitation, to joining them more, over the course of that July and August, sneaking into her flat after dark to share their cobbled together meals: krassi and feta; olives and oranges; bread and rabbit stew.
Socrates was the one who brought the stew.
‘I nicknamed the rabbit Goebbels before I killed it,’ he said, in Greek. It was what they mainly spoke on those evenings, Otto being more proficient in it by now than Socrates was in English.
‘Why did you nickname it Goebbels?’ Otto asked.
‘To help me break its neck. I’d have struggled otherwise. One of my students told me the trick. You should try it with snails, Eleni.’
‘I’ve given up on snails,’ she said.
She loved those nights, the three of them reaching over one another for more wine, talking about books, and music; friends near and far (‘I caught Dimitri humming “Cheek to Cheek” at the weekend,’ Socrates told Eleni. ‘This is excellent news,’ she said); they were such a wonderful world away from the silent ones she’d known too much of. And whilst there would, indisputably, be hell to pay if they were caught, there would be hell to pay for so much of what they did.
‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ said Eleni, switching to English, since the expression didn’t bear translation.
‘What does this mean?’ Socrates asked.
‘That if you’re going to do something, you might as well really do it,’ Eleni said.
‘So basically, the rule you live by,’ said Otto.
‘Basically,’ she said, smiling across at him, catching the reflection of her own enjoyment in his eyes. His hair had grown longer again, over the course of his time away; lighter. It made him look more like he’d used to: that boy who it hadn’t been treachery for her to love. ‘What’s the point, otherwise?’
He laughed. ‘I don’t know. But—’ he reached for a cigarette ‘—I also don’t know that it’s the best approach to breaking Nazi laws.’
‘Perhaps not,’ said Socrates.
‘Maybe,’ she agreed, with a sigh.
But they kept breaking them anyway.
Not flippantly. They joked like that because it was easier to pretend that they weren’t living in permanent, gnawing dread of being caught. But Eleni never forgot the cruelty of the regime they were living under – the innocent thousands whose lives had been stolen in reprisals; her neighbours; those wide-eyed teenage boys; that little girl, silent, in her mama’s arms after the raid – and she knew that neither did they.
They were all of them always, always careful.
‘Do you know what I miss?’ Otto said, once Socrates was gone, and they were alone again, leaving the dishes, backing one another towards her room. ‘Walking down a street with you.’ He picked her up, drawing her legs around his waist. ‘Holding your hand.’
‘Dancing,’ she said. ‘To jazz.’
‘Falling asleep. Waking up… ’
‘Swimming,’ she said, catching her breath at his kiss on her neck. ‘Together.’
That was a risk they never took.
She didn’t go swimming again herself. She fantasised about doing it, all through her long, blistering summer days at the Town Hall, ignoring the blatant, idle stares of the sweating German officers there, and through her even longer nights, sleepless in damp, tangled sheets. Over and over, she relived the night he’d taken her to that tiny bay: the sense of peace that had washed through her as she’d stepped into the water, and felt the clear, cool Aegean lapping at her toes; her elation as she’d swam, kicking the shackles of the island free, losing her breath, forgetting – or almost forgetting – the prison that her home had become, thinking only of him, up on the roadside, keeping watch, keeping her safe.
You have, if possible, just made me love you more than I’ve ever loved you before.
He had done that.
He did it every day.
But she wasn’t going to ask him to chance such a dangerous escapade for her twice.
‘You can,’ he said, because that was who he was.
‘I can’t,’ she insisted.
So he did the next best thing, and brought her sand from their white beach; bottles of seawater, for her to run over her hot, swollen hands, cramped from typing; the urchin shell he’d promised her back in April.
‘For until we get to the other side,’ he said, handing her the shell at her door, grinning, ruefully, tucking his hair behind his ear.
‘God, I hope we get there soon,’ she said, pulling him in, to her. ‘I really hope it’s soon.’
She hoped it with all her being.
And yet, those cooling autumn months that took them on to Christmas, weren’t unhappy. No, they – starting with first her birthday in September (twenty-five!), then his, in October, (twenty-eight!), peppered with dinners with Socrates, her solitary weekend walks to spy on her papou and Tips at the villa – were, contrarily, some of the happiest she’d known. Because every evening, she took her book, wrapped herself in her shawl, and went to sit on her steps, waiting for him.
Occasionally, there were other visitors who came. Those were quiet months for the resistance, but there were still warnings of patrols to be passed on, messages of troop movements, and garrison reinforcements, to be shared. At the start of November, Robbie appeared again, bringing the bizarre gift of Marmite from Stephen, now returned from leave, details of a parachute drop for Eleni to give to Socrates, and a message from Hector that she should continue to sit tight, now the immediate danger in North Africa had passed (indulge me by permitting me to believe you’d have left had I asked). Robbie also had an utterly unexpected verbal communication to recite from her father, who was currently on leave himself in Cairo.
‘What is it?’ she asked eagerly.
‘That you are to be most, most careful,’ he said, in his own, clipped RP.
‘Oh, I can almost hear him,’ she said, hugging her shawl around her. ‘Robbie, I could kiss you for that.’
‘Next time,’ he laughed, leaving. ‘Meanwhile, enjoy the Marmite.’
‘I’m not a fan,’ she admitted.
‘It’s full of vitamin B,’ he said. ‘Eat it.’
She’d still barely touched it, when, later that month, another communication, far more sobering, reached her ears, of two Cretan resistance workers – Andreas Polentas and Apostolos Evangelou – who’d been betrayed to the Germans, and incarcerated. They were tortured, then, eventually, executed.
It was Mr Skoulas who broke the news to her. She stood in his office, staring mutely at his careworn face as he talked, running cold at the thought of what Polentas and Evangelou must have endured; recalling, vividly, the grim detail Mr Haithwaite had gone into, back in Baker Street, of the interrogation methods Nazis used. She’d felt so detached from all he’d said, then; like it was an irrelevance.
Now, it couldn’t have seemed less so.
They will torture you, Otto had warned her, and then they will kill you.
It was a man called Komnas who’d double-crossed the pair. Eleni didn’t ask Mr Skoulas what would happen to him. She knew. That much didn’t shock her: when he was dealt with, like all traitors were dealt with, and executed, silently, in the Chania safehouse he’d been moved to by Nazi authorities.
‘How was it managed?’ Otto asked Eleni. ‘That street is packed with billets. There would have been officers everywhere.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, truthfully. Then, also truthfully, ‘But I’m glad it was.’
‘Does it not terrify you, what happened to Polentas and Evangelou? Please, tell me you have sense enough that it’s terrified you.’
‘I have plenty of sense,’ she said. ‘And yes, it’s terrified me.’ Her voice fractured on the admission. She hated saying it out loud; it made it feel too real. ‘I’m meant to be terrified though. All of us are. They want us subjugated. That’s why we can’t give in.’
‘Christ,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘I wish I could make that not make sense.’
He couldn’t though.
It was one of the many reasons she loved him so: that, in spite of his desperation for her to leave, he understood, absolutely, why she stayed.
There were still some evenings that he couldn’t be with her. On those, she’d wait for him until, leaden with disappointment, shivery with the cold, she’d reluctantly return inside, go to bed, and set her thoughts on the promise of tomorrow.
Mostly though, he didn’t leave her waiting.
Mostly, he came.
To her delight, as the days shortened and the darkness lengthened, he did that a little earlier, every night.
‘Did you have a good day?’ she’d whisper, setting down her book, looking up at him.
‘No,’ he’d reply, helping her to her feet. ‘How about you?’
‘Pretty miserable,’ she’d say, then smile, because they both knew what was coming. ‘Shall we make it better?’
‘Yes,’ he’d say, smiling too.
And they always, always did.
As Christmas approached, an undeniable sense of hope began to lift the chill island air. For Cretans, that was. Morale for the Germans sunk pleasingly low. To add to their woes in North Africa, their renewed assault on Russia, launched earlier that year, had once again faltered with the onset of winter, against a fierce defence in Stalingrad. And it had been a year now since the Americans had entered the war, lending their strength to the Allied side. For the first time, it really did begin to feel possible that the Nazis might, in the end, lose.
There could be no overt celebrations, naturally. Christmas gatherings that year were as illegal as they had been the year before. Still, Eleni knew many of her fellow secretaries were excited at the prospect of forbidden family parties; meals of goats that had been secretly fattened over the autumn. Yorgos, Otto had told her, had one of his own, care of Sofia, which he was planning to share with Maria and Spiros. Eleni was glad of it. Glad that they’d all be together, even if all she could do was imagine herself with them.
She didn’t invite Socrates over for Christmas Day, knowing he was off to spend it up in the mountains with Dimitri, and Dimitri’s uncle.
‘Does his uncle know about you both?’ Eleni asked, before he went.
‘What do you think?’ Socrates said, with a short laugh. ‘Remember the mountains, Eleni? Remember the way people are?’
She did, and was sorry for it. Sorry for them both.
‘We’ll be all right,’ Socrates said, kissing her goodbye, ‘happy. No problem. You concentrate on being the same.’
She didn’t have to concentrate on feeling anything that Christmas.
It all came quite, quite effortlessly.
The day itself was quiet. She ventured out briefly in the morning, heading, in her scarf and shawl, to church, wanting to light a candle for her mama and yiayia, who, lately, she’d been feeling especially close to. She went early; the church was empty, but nonetheless aglow with candles others had already left burning for their lost ones, their sweet waxy scent filling the small space with longing; love.
