The Officer and the Spy, page 35
‘I’m sorry, Papou,’ she told him, realizing now how very wrong she’d been, resisting this farewell. ‘I am so sorry.’
‘You are forgiven,’ he said, holding her tighter. ‘Of course, you are forgiven.’
‘And Otto?’ she said, as they broke apart. ‘Can you please forgive him too?’
Yorgos shot him a forbidding look. ‘I’ll find that easier once he’s married you.’
‘I’d have done that yesterday if I could,’ said Otto.
‘Seems to me you should have done it several months ago,’ Yorgos riposted.
‘It’s not his fault, Papou,’ said Eleni.
‘It’s at least half his fault,’ said Yorgos.
‘For which I apologise,’ said Otto, in a way that let Eleni know it was most definitely not the first time he’d said it. ‘I am deeply sorry for everything I have not told you, and for the way things have happened, but not for anything—’ he moved his gaze to her ‘—anything, that’s happened.’
She held his stare. Smiled.
And Yorgos sighed, shook his head.
‘This is a world run mad,’ he said, setting his hat on the kitchen table, his doctor’s bag beside it. ‘That much at least is neither of your faults.’ He pushed his fingers to his temples, rubbing them, and, with another sigh, told Eleni he’d brought her food.
‘Naturally,’ said Eleni.
‘I want to take your blood pressure too.’
Which he did, pronouncing it fine, ‘Miraculously,’ then they all sat, and he held Eleni’s hands in both of his, telling her, when she asked, more about his conversation with Nikos, who’d apparently called at the villa at daybreak.
‘He didn’t stay long,’ Yorgos said. ‘He apologised for not speaking to me about you sooner.’ He paused, as though replaying Nikos’s words. ‘He apologised for a great deal.’
‘And what did you say?’ Eleni asked.
‘I thanked him.’
‘You didn’t argue?’
‘No,’ Yorgos said, so plainly she knew he was speaking the truth. ‘He should have come to me before, but what matters is that he’s done it now.’ He squeezed her hands. ‘He spoke to me for the first time in decades, to give me you. How could I have argued with that?’
She smiled, leant over to kiss his cheek.
He talked on, saying how sorry he was that he wouldn’t be able to stay for long. Petrol was a luxury he hadn’t had in months, and he would need to catch the bus home before it got too late. Spiros and Maria were waiting for him, eager for his report. ‘They wanted to come, but there’d have been too many of us. We couldn’t put you in that danger.’
‘Or yourselves,’ said Eleni.
‘We’ve lived our lives. It’s you, and you—’ he gave a grudging nod to Otto ‘—we care about.’
He quizzed her on her upcoming journey. Otto had already run him through the details, but he needed to hear from her how safe she trusted she’d be, so she told him, assuring him of the friends she’d be with on the way.
‘And you’ll make contact with your papa, as soon as you can?’ he said.
‘As soon as I can,’ she promised.
He nodded.
Like her, he didn’t doubt that Timothy would help her.
He had other things to say about him, besides – quashing the idea that Timothy could ever have resented her, once and for all.
Nikos, it seemed, had done her one last favour, letting her papou know that he should.
‘He’s never felt anything but grateful to have you,’ he said, weary eyes full of regret that she could have thought it any other way. ‘He struggled when he was left with you. There’s no shame in that. I struggled with your mama. But he never wanted rid of you… ’
‘No?’
‘No. He simply wanted you to be here, in this place your mama loved.’
Eleni looked across at Otto. He’d said something similar to her once, that first afternoon they’d kissed. Maybe he thought you’d be happier here, in your mama’s home.
He smiled, remembering too.
And Yorgos talked more, giving her long-coveted details of how her parents had met, down at Souda, where Timothy’s ship had been docked. ‘Your mama had been to the market, and punctured her bicycle on the way home. Your father saw her, offered to carry it for her.’
‘He did?’ Eleni pictured it: Timothy in his crisp white uniform, her mama beside him, chatting in the English Yorgos had taught her.
‘He did.’
‘I’m assuming they didn’t tell you they’d met?’ She hadn’t forgotten that either: what Yorgos had said to her of her mama, back in that warehouse hospital. She didn’t tell me about a lot of things. It had been just before she’d sat with Weber, letting her compassion in. ‘Mama kept it secret?’
‘Yes,’ said Yorgos, ‘you are not the first young woman to have worried about a chaperone.’ He went on, saying how Timothy had returned to the villa, to fix Petra’s bicycle. Then again to make sure it was still working. Then again, and again. ‘She told me none of it until she admitted she was carrying you. She was scared, because your papa hadn’t replied to her letters. She believed her life was over. Then Nikos said what he said to her, and… ’ He sighed. ‘I wasn’t innocent either. I said things I shouldn’t have. And I was ready to kill your papa. But then, a few weeks later, there he was, on the doorstep. He’d been disciplined by his commander—’
‘He wouldn’t have liked that,’ said Eleni.
‘Maybe not,’ said Yorgos. ‘But he still came back. You should have seen your mama, when she saw him.’ He smiled in recollection. ‘So happy. They were both so happy. She brought something out in your papa, I think. Helped him become who he might have, had he not been incarcerated in one of your damned British boarding schools. He never wanted to send you to one.’
‘I know… ’
‘I wish you could have seen him, back then. It broke my heart, that summer he brought you here, and tried so hard to remember how to be like that for you.’ He squeezed her hand. ‘It was very important to him that this felt like home to you. He couldn’t give you your mama, Eleni, so he gave you her home.’
She nodded, struggling to talk, for the tears she suddenly felt building. Understanding, really understanding, for the first time, just how shattered her father had been, losing her mama…
‘Your English grandparents were angry that you were born so quickly after the wedding,’ said Yorgos. ‘I don’t think they approved of your papa marrying a Greek girl.’ He expelled a sound, much less than a laugh. ‘Petra said your yiayia called her a… what was the word… I can’t think… ’
‘Strumpet?’ Eleni choked.
‘Yes. Yes. How did you know?’
‘A guess,’ said Eleni, thinking of Paris.
‘They had such a short time together,’ said Yorgos. ‘Such a short, short time.’ He raised Eleni’s hand, kissed it, then reached over, patting Otto’s shoulder; an olive branch. ‘I hope you both have longer. I hope with all my heart for that.’
It was utterly awful, saying goodbye to him that night.
‘I have never felt prouder,’ he said, hugging her in the darkness at her back door. ‘When I see you next, I will tell you off for these secrets. But for now—’ he pressed his lips to her head ‘—know how proud I am of you, Eleni-mou. Know how proud we all are.’
Tightening her arms, she told him she was proud of him too, and entreated him to take care of himself. ‘Don’t work too hard.’
‘You said this when you were meant to leave before.’ He pushed her sternly to arms’ length. ‘I hope you are going this time?’
‘I am.’
‘She is,’ said Otto.
And, as Yorgos held her again, she recalled that farewell at the hospital; how she’d had to make herself run from him, Maria and Spiros, wrenching herself away before it became too impossible to go.
He pulled back from her with the same jerky resolution.
‘Be sure to eat plenty on the journey,’ he said, putting his hat on, ‘and rest as much as you can.’
Then, with a final touch of his hand to her face, he opened the door and disappeared through it.
Gone.
‘I almost wish he hadn’t come,’ she said, into Otto’s chest, as he enfolded her in his own strong embrace. ‘This is too hard.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I wish there was something I could do.’
But there wasn’t.
There was nothing either of them could do.
And really, what was one more goodbye, in this war of millions?
She still wept though, not only in sadness at this parting from her papou, but for her mama, who’d had so little time, and her dad, who’d loved her as he had, and who still couldn’t bear to so much as look at a photograph of her, but had tried that once to return to this island, for Eleni’s sake; she wept for how much she wanted to thank him for doing that, and for sending her back here, year after year. A young man, I think, trying to do his best for his daughter. Then, tears unleashed, she wept for the war, and everyone who had died and was dying, and even for those New Zealanders who’d boarded with Maria and Spiros, and Ben Latimer, who’d boarded with herself and Yorgos, because she had no idea what had happened to any of them. Otto held her closer, she felt his heart beneath her cheek, the surety of his love, and she wept for every one of those millions of goodbyes, but most of all for the one that was coming for the two of them; a goodbye that, now she’d said this one to her papou, felt far too real, and much too close.
‘Don’t think about it,’ he told her, as she’d once told him, back in 1936, when it had been him about to depart Crete. ‘Don’t.’
‘I don’t want to,’ she said, pushing the heels of her hands to her eyes in a doomed attempt to stop her tears, then her face back against his chest, ‘I’m sorry. I hate doing this… ’
‘You don’t do it much,’ he said, kissing her. ‘You know it’s all right.’
But it wasn’t all right.
And nor was their goodbye, which was too real, and came, before either of them were ready for it, the very next night.
She was waiting for him on her stairs when he arrived that Thursday evening, for the last time.
Her bag was packed, filled with a change of clothes, her soap and toothbrush, the urchin shell he’d brought her, and his house designs. She wouldn’t return to the Town Hall again. She’d let Mr Skoulas know as she’d left that that would now be it. (Good luck, Eleni Adams, he’d said.) Socrates had arranged to start his weekend early, and they’d be leaving Chania the next afternoon, whilst it was still light.
It didn’t feel real to her.
She heard the click of her gate, tried to tell herself that she’d never hear that sound, or his footsteps crossing her yard, again, and that didn’t feel real either.
‘I don’t like this,’ she said, looking up, seeing how he’d paused at the top of her stairs, looking down at her, as though painting her image in his memory. ‘I don’t like it at all.’
‘No,’ he said, coming down, helping her to her feet, one last time. ‘Nor do I.’
‘Shall we make it better?’
‘I think we should try.’
They couldn’t though.
Nothing could make it better anymore.
The baby did its best to help, moving that night, for the first time. They were in bed when it happened, holding one another in the lamplight, not talking, just being. The kick that startled Eleni was a proper one, none of the flutterings she’d felt before, but an unmistakable pelt to her tummy; a little elbow, or fist, or foot, pushing its way against her.
‘Feel it,’ she said to Otto, taking his hand, pressing his palm to the place the kick had come. Almost immediately, another followed, as though the baby had sensed its papa’s touch. ‘Yes?’
‘Yes,’ he said, raising himself up on his elbow, staring at the spot, his face, that she loved, entranced; his bright, slanted eyes, in awe. ‘Yes.’
It kicked again.
He laughed.
She laughed too, and the baby kicked more.
‘For you,’ she said.
‘For me,’ he said, and lay back down, leaving his hand on their wriggling child, resting his head beside hers.
The baby was still again when later, much later, as midnight approached, she sat on the rumpled bed, fighting her tears as she watched him dress, and he came and crouched before her, offering her the ring he’d sworn he’d bring her.
His mother’s ring.
His father had sent it to him from Berlin.
‘I couldn’t risk telling him exactly why I needed it in my letter,’ Otto said, slipping the delicate gold band onto her finger, the grief that had been straining his face softening, momentarily, when it fitted, perfectly. ‘He’s pieced it together though. He said that he feels filled with hope. And that I’m to ask a certain proficient linguist to take good care of herself.’
She smiled, eyes swimming.
‘He wants me to write to him of her assuredly delightful and clever child, as soon as I can.’
‘Does he?’
‘He does.’
She nodded, drawing a ragged breath, determined not to let her tears go again – not while he was still with her – staring at the gold on her finger.
‘I love that I have this,’ she said. ‘I love that it was your mother’s.’
‘I feel like you’ll be safe now,’ he said. ‘Is that madness?’ He looked at it, brow creasing. ‘Maybe it’s madness.’
‘No,’ she said, thinking of the candles she’d lit, ‘not madness. I wish I had something to give you. Something to keep you safe. And happy.’ She couldn’t forget how he’d been when they’d found one another again; the loneliness she was leaving him to return to. ‘I don’t want you to drown.’
‘I won’t.’
‘You mustn’t. You must come home to me. To us.’ She dropped down onto the floor so that they were facing one another. ‘As soon as the baby’s born, I’ll get a message to Socrates… ’
‘I know.’ They’d gone over this before. ‘God—’ he closed his eyes, tipping his head against hers, running his hands around her waist ‘—I wish I could be with you. I wish I could meet our baby… ’
‘You will, Otto.’
‘Promise me that whatever happens, you’ll take him or her to see Papa and Krista.’
‘You will take the baby to them… ’
‘Promise me, Eleni. Please. I need to hear it. I need to know they’ll know my child.’
‘Otto… ’
‘Please.’
‘I promise, then,’ she said, kissing him, feeling his warmth, his life. ‘I promise.’
A tear did break free from her then.
More came, as she walked with him to her door, and clung to him there.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, and kissed her liked he’d kissed her in Knossos, that ruined house, and so many unforgettable times since. ‘This is not the end. It’s not.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ he said, and did then, in that, their last moment, finally give her the vow she’d craved. ‘I will see you again, Eleni. I swear it, I will see you again.’
Did he truly believe it?
Or did he say it to her as a kindness, because he wanted her to believe that he did?
She didn’t ask.
She didn’t want to know.
‘You will,’ she told him, ‘you will.’
He smiled, holding her face in his hands.
She smiled too.
I love you, in fact.
Then, with one last kiss, she did what she must – what they’d already taken it in turns to do for each other too often – and pushed him softly from her, letting him go.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Her journey out of Chania did at least go smoothly.
She felt no fear, as she and Socrates left the town behind the next afternoon, presenting their papers at the gates, then clopping on in their cart, up into the mountains. She was too numb with sadness to have room in her heart for very much else at all.
It was a long and cold ride to Dimitri’s uncle’s village. As darkness descended, and the stars appeared, the steep mountain roads grew icy. Wrapped in a sheepskin Socrates gave her, Eleni huddled against him, staring down at the black ravines, the babbling streams twinkling in the waning moonlight, and, as Socrates talked, trying to distract her with stories from his classroom, she thought of Otto, what he would be doing, baffled by the reality that, whatever it was, he wouldn’t be catching a ride from Souda to see her.
But since that was the reality, however brutal, and since she couldn’t be with him, she was glad that it was Socrates, and Dimitri, who she was with. They were both of them wonderful, as was Dimitri’s uncle – an older, swarthier version of his nephew, who’d roasted a goat for dinner in her honour. He didn’t know she was pregnant; Dimitri did – Socrates had told him (‘This will be a beautiful baby, I think,’ he said, when they at last reached his village, and he lifted her down from the cart) – but his uncle was a traditional man. One whom, if Socrates’s hunch was to be believed, had high hopes that she, Doctor Florakis’s granddaughter, would one day make babies for Dimitri. No problem.
‘Erm,’ Eleni said.
‘Yes,’ said Dimitri, thick eyebrows raised. ‘Erm.’
It was, against the odds, a good night. Not happy – Eleni couldn’t manage that – but, in spite of the plummeting February temperature, warm. Packed together in Dimitri’s uncle’s small, smoky home, they ate, they talked – of Dimitri’s parents, all of their families, and the many soldiers they’d each sheltered and helped – then, before Eleni and Socrates retired to the cheese hut, Dimitri wound up his gramophone, letting Fred Astaire play.
‘And you wanted to throw it away,’ said Socrates, as the notes filled the room, making the stone walls hum.
‘I never would have,’ said Dimitri, smiling at him (how did his uncle not see how they loved one another? ‘People see what they want to see,’ said Socrates, later). Then, to Eleni, ‘Come.’ He reached for her hand, pulling her to standing. ‘Let’s be in heaven. For old times’ sake.’
