I tried to be useful. I dug into the one cupboard and found a tin pan, some coffee essence and a can of milk. I boiled water on the one hot plate and made her coffee. She didn’t drink it.
A long while later as the evening drew in, she fell asleep. I lay beside her on the thin rug and tried to join her. I couldn’t. My brain was racing, trying to figure out how to get us out of this mess. Nothing came to mind.
It was dark when she stirred. This time she accepted a hot drink. I found sugar too and she supped it like nectar. We kept the light off for no other reason, I suspect, than we didn’t want to see each other’s faces. I checked her dress.
Though the room was warm it was still damp. By morning it would be creased but wearable – Berlin wasn’t currently the capital of high fashion. I gave her a cigarette. It was time to talk.
“Did you have any plans after…?” I meant after the killing.
She understood and shook her head.
“A suicide mission?”
She shrugged under her blanket. I was getting fed up with this.
“OK, Eve, do you feel happier now you’ve killed a man?”
Even in the gloom I could see her eyes glistening with tears. “If you must know, I didn’t. I was the feint. I just knocked on every door until we found him.
Gideon wouldn’t let me do it.”
Relief – of sorts – washed through me. “So it was Gideon?”
“What does it matter? I went there to do it. I set him up. I might as well have pulled the trigger.”
“Did anyone see you? The boyfriend, did he see you? Did he see who did it to Mulder?”
“I suppose so. He answered the door. I told him I was looking for Herr Mulder. I had a message from him from the office. When we heard Mulder call out from inside, Gideon appeared. He shoved the boy out of the way. Mulder was in bed. He tried to hide under the sheets when he saw Gideon with the gun. Then he saw me.
He knew me, I think. I hope so. I aimed the gun at him but I couldn’t fire. He smiled when he saw that. But he stopped when Gideon blasted him. Then the boy was screaming and throwing fits, so we ran. The rest you know.”
I didn’t know how this would play out. But Eve could still be hanged as an accessory – if anyone missed Mulder enough to care.
“What was the story Gideon wanted you to tell?”
“Don’t tell me you learned Yiddish too? You’re beginning to make Dachau sound like a Jewish finishing school.”
“It nearly finished me.” It almost made her smile, so I went on.
“I only picked up a smattering of words, but I knew what language he was speaking. All I got was ‘tell the story’. What did he mean? Can I help?”
Her eyes were soft in the gloaming. She did smile this time. She shook her head.
“You’ve helped beyond words, Daniel McRae. Beyond words. I don’t know why. I don’t deserve it. I haven’t been very kind to you. But thank you for what you did today.”
“It was… interesting,” I managed.
“This isn’t your fight. It’s time you left it to us.”
“Us?”
“The people who want a bit of land to call their own. Where we won’t get marched off to die in camps. Is that so much to ask?”
“No. It’s not.” I shook my head. “What was the story?”
She pulled her knees up against her chest and pulled at her cigarette. It glowed red in the dusk. I settled down on the carpet. She began.
“Everything I told you was true. Mulder and my parents, and working for the British.”
“But…?” I asked.
“No buts. All true. But there was more to the Jewish contacts. When they found out who I was and what I did – the reporting side – they wanted me to join their group. Irgun. The Irgun Svai Leumi. Part of the Jewish Resistance Movement.”
“How could you join that gang?! They murder our boys! A month ago they blew up all the bridges in Palestine!”
“And what did the British do?! Arrested three thousand Jews and put them in a concentration camp! Where did you learn that trick?!”
“They were terrorists!”
“As much as the SOE in France!”
“Oh come on. We were fighting for our lives against the Nazis.” Even as I said it I realised how stupid that sounded from her perspective.
She gave me a look and went on. “We are reclaiming our land, Danny. Eretz Israel. The land of Israel. My father used to finish the Shabbath by saying Next year in Israel. For a thousand years Jews all over the world have been reminding themselves of the land they left. Next year in Israel. This is the year.”
I had nothing to put on the scales on the other side. The Scots too have had their Diaspora. The Clearances. And I know from letters to my mother from her sister in Canada that the further away they travel, the more Scottish they get.
They talk wistfully of returning to a mystical land they’ve never seen. They do everything in their power to make themselves stand out from their neighbours.
Tartan in Calcutta and Burns Nights in Sydney. Bagpipes in Argentina and highland games on the prairie. Wailing Auld Lang Syne at new year. But despite these provocations, no one tries to massacre us. Not even the English. How could I argue with this woman? “They wanted me to become their information officer. Propaganda if you like. God knows the Jews need some good press. They wanted me to spread the word. To use my contacts and my position to give their side of events. All we hear is the British version.”
“We’re only just over the war. What do you expect?”
“Justice? Isn’t that what you fought for? I thought that was why I was on your side. You seem to have a short memory.”
“We have a job to do in Palestine.”
“The British Protectorate,” she sneered. “But it’s only the Arabs you protect.”
“Not always. Balfour promised you your own place. The war changed everything.”
“Not the war. Oil. You need oil. The Arabs have it.”
She had a point. I changed my angle.
“What exactly were you expected to do?”
“Tell the story. Whenever something happened that involved the Jews, I was to give their side. Hell, even if I just told the truth – like a reporter should – it would make a change. You have no idea how biased it all is.”
“Have you done anything yet?”
“No. But Gideon said… never mind.”
“There’s something coming up?”
“Maybe.”
I sensed it was useless to press her. Instead I asked, “Why would Cassells lie to me about you?”
“About working for the British? Maybe he wasn’t told. Secrets within secrets.
Maybe he felt silly, losing an agent.”
“Then why did he send me after you?”
She thought for a while. “Berlin is a mess. The chances of a complete stranger finding me are nil. You knew me, knew how I’d think.”
“I thought I did.”
She had the grace to look sheepish.
We were silent for a while. I had one more question that I dreaded asking.
“Why pick me, Eve? Why did you get me involved? It wasn’t chance, was it?”
“Leave it, Danny. Just leave it.”
“After all this? I can’t. You owe me this.”
We stared at each other. Something passed over her face. She took a deep breath.
