That summer she travelled to Paris with Theo and Dariusz Spzilman, a film student that he shared digs with. 1930s Paris was a Mecca for Theo, the epitome of art and beauty, for Dariusz, the centre of film.
Theo’s French was rudimentary and Dariusz’s non-existent. They needed a translator and Eva agreed to accompany them. They took a two-bed cold water apartment in La Pigalle, Eva with a room to herself, the men sharing a room with two single beds. Her room was more of a corner garret, cramped and warm, the bed a recovered hospital cot, robust and basic. The wardrobe contained a few new dresses and her prized blue raincoat Henk and Aga had bought for her before her departure. All three would swim in the nearby public pool every day to perform their ablutions. Theo, armed with his notebooks and charcoals, managed to persuade most of the men to allow him to sketch them while drying themselves, some taking the sketch in exchange for a cigarette, but never for cash, at his insistence.
One late summer afternoon, Theo and Dariusz posed theatrically at the top of the Eiffel Tower as they pointed out landmarks over the shimmering roofs of Paris, the wind catching their hats. Eva, snatching Dariusz’s precious camera, squeezed off a shot of the men. It developed perfectly and she pinned it to the cracked and faded mirror on her battered dresser in her room. The other pictures, now creased and faded, were of Henk and Aga, and of her deceased parents, Maria and Pytoir, with Eva as a grim-faced toddler. Below them was a picture of a smiling Jonas. Every morning when applying her make-up, she would touch the photograph tenderly and reminisce.
Eva’s idea of heaven was getting lost in the numerous bookstores around the city, wrapped in her trusty blue raincoat, when the men were off drinking. Theo, walking in the footsteps of his hero Toulouse Lautrec, would frequent the bordellos, restaurants and his drinking haunts that peppered the city.
By night they would gather at the Cafe Procope on Rue Buci with their French counterparts, the hours spent discussing cinema, philosophy and politics over simple food and carafes of wine. Eva had to grasp the language quickly as the debates got heated and found she could, becoming more often than not the referee.
Theo, perhaps caught up in the zeitgeist, announced he was a Communist, content with his bohemian lot and, as a reflection, his art became more de-structured and free-flowing. He stopped using colour, developing a tonal two and three tone style. Refusing to purchase picture frames, he set up a scrap wood stall along the Pont Notre-Dame with the sketches pinned and fluttering in the breeze.
He squandered his allowance from his father in reckless abandon. Purchasing a bicycle, he travelled around the city, his long thin legs pumping the pedals in determination, his free arm clutching his materials. For her birthday he bought Eva a camera, a simple box brownie, and she thrived on travelling around the city alone by foot, bus and metro, capturing it. Dariusz had built a dark room in the apartment and he allowed her time to learn how to develop pictures in between his projects. Theo had paid for all of the wood from his father's allowance, helping Dariusz to haul the lumber up the flights of rickety stairs and hammering the whole thing together. The apartment’s window remained open most of the time after that owing to the smell of the processing chemicals.
Eva's wanderings gave her a new fulfilment, making her aware of not only her own beauty but the beauty of the city and its people. She would buy all her of dresses from the flea markets and slowly she began to eat again, filling out and regaining her superb figure. The summer nights were balmy and the bright lights of the city somehow soothing. She truly loved Paris, loved being anonymous amid its streets. Theo would smile appreciatively, charcoal poised over paper as she undressed when Dariusz was out of the apartment haunting a cinema somewhere.
Theo would sit at the cafes sketching the passing population, waiters, waitresses and patrons. Among his drawings was a quick free-flowing sketch of Samuel Beckett who one evening sat and discussed the films and style of Sergi Eisenstein with the group. Eva’s English helped the Pole expand on his theories with the Irishman despite the time lag between the effusive Dariusz and the measured responses of Beckett. With Theo’s quick execution, Beckett appeared all twisted and bent like a crow dashing across the page. He told them he’d be back, but was departing for Germany to report on the rise and the abuses that the new Reich was perpetrating. Kissing Eva’s hand gallantly, Beckett asked her to visit Ireland sometime. Smiling back warmly, she promised she would.
Eva loved to photograph the twilight, a time of the day when the darkness around her vision seemed the most bearable, where the shadows blended rather than clashed with the available light. Beside Daruisz's reels of film, hung Eva’s first images of the city; the carousels of Sacre Coeur, the city's bridges, and the museums, all captured in a moment in black and white. Sometimes she would photograph an empty street, or a square just after a rain shower. She captured the storefront lights glistening on the ground, reflected back on the puddles. She photographed the mausoleums of Pere Lachaise, wandering amid the graves allowing her thoughts to drift firstly to her parents, then to her happy childhood, and then to Jonas. When alone, she believed Jonas was near, his presence almost within touching distance, a finger-tip away. The feeling would go as quickly as it had appeared, but while it was there she felt his presence as a guardian angel.
Eva began to pin her photographs around the apartment using them to cover damp patches or unsightly stains. Both Dariusz and Theo agreed she had a good eye for a picture. Her favourite image was of a mature Madame who ran a local bordello, Yvette.
Eva had struck up a conversation with her one night in a cafe in Montmartre. She had an iron frailty about her that drew Eva. Yvette was buxom, with lush black hair pinned up as best as the pins could do, and modestly attired in tasteful shades of purple and black. Her eyes were green and knowing. She warmed to Eva immediately and agreed to be photographed. The photograph showed Yvette sitting at a table in a cafe looking out onto the street, a cigarette in an ashtray and a half empty coffee cup before her. Somehow Eva had caught the vibrant light in her green eyes as she smiled.
She introduced Eva to absinthe. Sometimes when alone with the photograph of Jonas, Eva drank it to numb herself when the memories of his death overwhelmed her.
Sometimes Madame Yvette would join the discussion group as they smoked and drank, open about her profession and taking Eva under her wing. She watched Eva and the almost chemical effect she had on men. The raucous debates that took place were mostly about their simply trying to impress her. Yvette wondered why Eva wasn’t harnessing this power and using it to her ends,
‘In this life, Eva, our youth, beauty and intelligence are sometimes all we have. In this world, men may make all the decisions, yet we have to bend them to our will. We only have so long before our bloom begins to fade and their attention starts to wander,’
Eva would learn in time to take this advice on board. Yvette had a rare quality. She genuinely liked and understood men and loved being a woman. She had a lover, a married man, and she was content to exist in the shadows. She was also discreet; her lover was a high ranking official in the government and was inclined to talk about what he did just to impress her. It was a useful power to have, she told Eva,
‘Men! Their flies and their mouths they never keep closed in the presence of beauty. Use it Eva, and if they get too rough. .’ Yvette produced a small wicked mother-of-pearl handle stiletto from her boot, ‘cut them.’
Theo, Eva, Dariusz and the students immersed themselves in the Paris film scene, spending long stretches in the cinemas sipping from hidden flasks of brandy and whiskey. This was followed by meals, wine and debates into the early hours. Eva and Yvette began to appear in Dariusz’s projects. Devising the scene, he would produce a measuring tape and measure out the distance between the camera and subject. He would spend hours adjusting the lights borrowed from a small amateur theatre nearby to create the mood required. Returning each time to his camera perched on its tripod and peering into the viewfinder, he would grunt or laugh depending on his mood. Everything about Dariusz was measured, carefully thought out and purposely executed. In some instances a three-minute short would take three days to film at eight hour stretches.
During these long spells, Yvette would tell Eva about her life and her adventures, occasionally returning to her bordello to ensure everything was running like clockwork. Once Dariusz was satisfied with everything required for the scene, he would shout ‘Action!’ and Eva and Yvette would perform his carefully composed script. Then he would shoot footage of other things — animals, cars, trains, close-ups of a facial feature, random objects — and splice the various reels together, disappearing for days in his darkroom. In the student cinemas around the city, he would run his final pieces and then the whole ensemble would discuss their merits or flaws.
Theo and Dariusz took French lovers, drawing and filming them, moving onto the next one once the initial passion burned out. They told Eva they were living for the moment, without regret, without worry, never thinking of tomorrow; enjoying now. Eva found their hedonism amusing, as even when seducing women they were still competing against each other, trying to get the upper hand.
Theo would show Eva the charcoal drawings of the girls he was involved with, looking for a reaction. She would simply smile or shrug indifferently, remarking whether or not the piece was simply good or bad. This would irk him and he’d put the piece away with a grunt, making Eva smile to herself. Occasionally they would sleep together in a familiar companionable intimacy when the brandy or absinthe took hold.
During the summer, they took the train to Marseilles, the Mediterranean weather turning their skins brown. Theo had acquired a straw panama hat; Dariusz, aware of the bald patch evolving at the back of his head, wore a felt trilby. He would sit at the coffee houses with the North African aromas drifting over him, sweating, reading or writing in a white vest, his trilby tilted against the sun.
They stayed in a run-down but clean hotel managed by an Arab who would bow every time Theo and Eva passed the front desk. As in Paris, Eva had a room to herself, the men sharing the room beside her. Her room had a view of the harbour from the balcony and she woke to the sounds of the fishermen from the wharves and the cries of the gulls.
By day she would wander the narrow streets and photograph the old women, the boys kicking footballs, and the men gathered around hookahs smoking. She would sit and talk with them. As a mark of respect, she wore modest attire, a scarf or hat covering her hair, remembering her grandfather’s travel journals from Iran, Egypt and Palestine.
One afternoon in her room Theo asked her to take a photograph of him; an unusual request,
'I'm thinking about going to Albi for a few days. The cathedral is supposed to have vivid depictions of the damned around its altar.' Theo noted that Eva was still concentrating on her view finder.
'What about your moody friend Sandrine?’ Eva suggested without looking up.
Theo's smiled broadened. Sandrine was a waitress he had met in the Bistro Benoit and had taken as a lover. She was an unpublished poet, voluptuous with lush red hair and chestnut brown eyes. At the very mention of her name, Eva would mimic the hand gestures Sandrine would make when emphasising a point.
''She's finishing a collection of verse, cannot be disturbed.'
It was Eva's turn to smile. 'She's always finishing a collection, Theo. Still she suits you. She's passionate about what she does and very much in love with you.’ The last three words were an imitation of Sandrine's voice.
Theo had hit a nerve. He liked that. 'But she's not you.' Theo had shifted his body slightly in the chair, leaning toward her. 'Noticed me all of a sudden, Kassinski?'
'Always have.' Eva looked up and met his gaze. He was handsome, unpredictable and generous, but couldn’t replace Jonas, never in a lifetime. 'I'm happy with the way things are, Theo. You know the story.'
A shadow flashed across his features. 'You've never told me once how you feel about me.' He was gazing out of the window again. She felt a seismic shift in their relationship. Bringing her gaze back to the viewfinder, she said as gently as possible 'I'm still here, aren't I?'
Without looking toward her Theo said, 'Eva, I'm in love with you.'
This was met with silence, followed by the shutter click.
He wouldn’t make eye contact as he lit another cigarette. A shadow crossed his features as he exhaled.
Then events across the border with Spain became the centre of discussion; the gathering clouds of civil war. Theo had gone to the city of Albi to sit in the cafes of Toulouse Lautrec, armed with his sketchbooks, leaving Dariusz and Eva alone. Dariusz had told her over coffee in the men’s apartment that he was in love with her. She smiled and told him also that there was no possibility it could ever be reciprocated. She told him about Jonas, that Theo was comfortable with the arrangement, and that was the way she wanted things to remain.
Though he smiled, Eva could sense a deeper hurt from him, his large eyes welling up before she looked away. On his return, Theo sensed immediately the uneasy atmosphere between Eva and Dariusz which was now hanging about them. Neither of them said anything to Theo, but he figured it was Eva’s allure and a curt rejection to an advance that was the reason.
Dariusz was perhaps a little more fragile than Theo, always a bit more sensitive to criticism, whereas Theo believed absolutely in his own capabilities. The three began to drift apart over the remaining weeks.
They returned to Paris after a month, with the news that the Spanish Civil War had escalated and now the International Brigades were being formed. Dariusz and some of his French friends had signed up to fight Franco’s forces. Theo and Eva tried to talk him out of it, but nothing could shake him, Eva suspecting that it was in reaction to her rejection.
‘Europe’s being twisted in the hands of Hitler and Mussolini’s Fascism. It has to be fought,’ Dariusz argued. ‘The battle against this rise of evil is going to be on Spanish soil. Something has to stop the Fascists. The Socialists have to unite!’
In his fervour, almost overnight Daruisz turned his back on film. Theo and Eva were shaken by his sudden change. He hardly spoke to them from then on and left that autumn, marching over the Pyrenees and into Spain, armed with his camera, tripod, notebooks, and tilted trilby. There he and his French comrades linked up with the German, British, Irish, Canadian and German Socialists who had arrived to assist their brethren in Spain.
Theo became disillusioned and restless in Paris. Then he received the news that his father had suffered a stroke and his mother was unable to cope with him alone. He decided to return to Poland.
By the late summer of 1936, Eva found herself back in Krakow, Theo almost a distant memory; a chapter closed. He tried a few times to rekindle their relationship but his letters remained unopened. He came to the library where she had resumed her assistant duties, this time without any headscarf or over-sized clothing. She had started to radiate a confidence that attracted men and women to her, to build friendships and to socialise.
When she saw Theo with his hair trimmed, a well-cut suit and clean shaven appearance, she rejected him outright, furious at what he had become. With heated whispers across the desk, she repeated to him that they had no possible future together. It had been fun, a wonderful adventure, and she thanked him sincerely for his help in healing her. but that was it.
He scowled, his face a sneer beneath his flawless grooming, and told her it would be the last time she would ever see him. Her parting image of a man she had spent nearly two years with was of an immaculately clad businessman storming away from the desk.
She returned to her chair in Henk’s library and felt the comfort of home, but couldn’t settle, the fifteen months in France embedded into the marrow of her bones.
The winter turned to spring and the days began to slowly lengthen. For Christmas, Henk bought her a bicycle. She kept busy taking photographs around the country, and cycling to the central train station, travelling by train on the weekends. She would display her photographs in the library and her work came to the attention of the dramatic society. She photographed the stills for the Dramatic Society’s productions and took head shots for the budding actresses who would post them hopefully out to Hollywood.
In Warsaw, one afternoon in Ksiegarnia Polska bookstore, she ran into Dariusz. Between the aisles of antique books and prints he walked straight up to her. It took her a split second to recognise him. He smiled, but without the usual bonhomie. His eyes had a more serious heavy-lidded appearance. His beloved trilby looked reconditioned and, to her shock, where his left arm should have been, the sleeve was pinned to the coat.
He looked down at the empty sleeve with a rueful smile. ‘Lost it in Barcelona — shrapnel,’ he shrugged.
Eva touched her old friend’s cheek tenderly.
‘Please let me buy you lunch, how are you?’
Dariusz Szpilman took a light from Eva and exhaled, his right hand tapping the ash lightly. Since losing his left arm, she noted, his right cheek had developed a tic. Some of the ash missed the ashtray and blew away on the draught from the cafe’s door. He brushed some of it off his coat, his first impulse being to use his left hand. The inability to do this simple act depressed him further.
The lunchtime rush hour had abated and they were alone, apart from a bored looking waitress staring out through the window. His shoulders were a little rounded for a young man and he was more slumped in the chair.
To him, Eva looked even more beautiful than he remembered her being, even at the beach near Nice where he had seen her golden body in a bathing suit. In the trenches of Catalonia at times it was her shimmering image that kept him going. It sustained him through the rain, blistering heat and make-shift hospital where he was rushed after the explosion. The Russian surgeon, exhausted by his day’s workload, had more hacked off his arm than cut it. Dariusz had been conscious throughout, pinned down by the shoulders and legs, brandy poured down his throat to numb him. He hallucinated for days after the amputation, imagining Eva coming to him as an angel to mop his fevered brow. Flying above him with the elegant wings of a swan, she seemed to lift him by the hand, holding his head close to her breasts.
As he was convalescing from his injuries, he was approached to join the Polish secret service. His cameras had been shipped back to Warsaw and some of the images became intelligence documents. Once fully recovered and back in Warsaw, Dariusz set out to assemble a team of operatives. Eva was an ideal choice because of her language skills. He had located her through the Krakow University attendance registers.
Travelling to the university, he had spotted her. His heart began to race as she strode across the campus. There was a maturity about her, and knowing her habits from their days in Paris, he rightly guessed which bookstore in Warsaw she would visit.
He had followed her from a distance, boarding the same train as she had, staying a carriage back, occasionally walking through, ensuring she didn’t get off at any stop. He watched her as she made her way through the station, her hips swaying beneath her recognisable blue raincoat. She was sourcing some titles for the library and he caught his breath at the sound of her voice again as she spoke to the sales clerk.
Pretending to browse for a title, with a weight in his throat, he approached her and eventually gathered his courage to speak to her. He was deflated that she didn’t recognise him straightaway, her eyes trying to recall his face, a smile indifferently fixed in place.
Seated in the cafe, he asked after Theo, but Eva shrugged nonchalantly. After the initial small talk, Dariusz lowered his voice and got to the point. ‘Eva, how would you feel about working for our government? We need someone to go to London on our behalf, someone with fluent English.’ He reached into his coat and placed an envelope onto the table. Eva opened it. Inside was a new Dutch passport requiring a photograph, a Dutch press pass, Dutch travel documents and airline tickets.
‘Our friends the British have helped us with the journalist card.’
Eva was taken aback at his sudden change from friend to something quite remote and distant. Something was cold behind his eyes. It was a pain she could recognise. It was warping him and she idly wondered if his eyes were a mirror to her own soul. She could almost see the same darkness touching the corneas of his eyes.
He glanced around the cafe. The bored waitress had gone back into the kitchen leaving them alone. He stared into her eyes: They were grey yet capable of projecting warmth, her auburn hair long again and fashioned into a ponytail. Her mouth mesmerised him: Hehadheard her voice almost every night in his dreams. He wanted to blurt out that he loved her, had loved her since the day they met in the university bar, introduced by the louche artiste Theo. But the moment passed and he tried to focus.
From the depths of his side coat pocket he produced a photograph. He paused. He felt an awful pang of regret for his next words even before they were uttered.
It had taken time, a lot of digging into the bureaucratic static that existed between Poland and Germany. It wasn't lost on him that he was probably the only one-armed Polish spy in Europe, but he had to see Eva just one more time in the flesh, to hear her voice and catch the faintest whiff of her perfume. Then he would disappear, slip into the shadows and become a section chief, sending the likes of Eva to certain death.
'You might remember this man here,' he said, pushing the photograph toward her, ‘Jurgen Locher.’
She shrugged, no.
'Arrested in Berlin in 1933, was released after six months in prison for assaulting a Herr Jan Gruber, a highly regarded German theatre director and the possible assault of an unknown Polish student at a Berlin University. Locher's father is a high-ranking member of the Nazi party and got him out with a pardon if he served in Spain with the Fascists.'
Eva sucked her breath involuntarily and looked away, blinking sudden scalding tears. Daruisz reached out and touched her hand tenderly. She snapped it away. She remembered the leer of her assailants' faces. She had played over and over in her head various scenarios about what would have happened had she remained with Jonas that night that made her shudder. She wanted revenge. She wanted Locher stone cold dead.
She took the photograph, dabbing tears from her eyes. It was him, the one with the small eyes. Instinctively she touched the part of her head where he had ripped the hair out.
‘Locher is now an Obersturmbanfuhrer serving as a special advisor to Franco in Spain. He has been entrusted with a delivery of gold bullion from Spain's gold reserves to Berlin to pay for German weapons and armaments. We must alert the British that it may affect their position in the Mediterranean.’
‘Why not a diplomat?’ she asked, beginning to regain her composure,
‘We lost a courier a few days ago. We need someone who isn’t on a Gestapo list.’ He studied her expression before leaning in and stating in earnest. ‘We can’t have another Fascist dictator strutting around Europe spreading their poison from the Atlantic to the Baltic Eva.’
‘What about another Stalin, Dariusz?’ she countered.
Dariusz gave a smile. It was as cold as a morgue. ‘If you are successful on this occasion, we may have more work for you.’
Eva thought for a moment. Her lust for revenge was setting her on a course that would alter her life entirely. Maybe she had no choice now as Europe was being set alight and everyone was being gradually sucked into the flames. Seeing Dariusz again brought back many happy memories despite the embittered ending with Theo.
She could see a fervour coming back into Dariusz's deadened eyes when he mentioned Spain. Maybe she could make a difference somehow; maybe her actions would end Locher and his ilk, maybe stop another girl mourning a dead lover before it was too late.
She didn’t trust Dariusz, but made her mind up anyway. ‘Ok, I’ll do it. But I want Locher’s address in Spain.’
‘The man you are to contact is a Henry Chainbridge. The document in question was delivered to your room in the university, folded into today’s London Times.’ As an afterthought he added, 'By the way, Eva, can you use a gun?'
The newspaper, as Dariusz had said, was under her door. She felt a faint sense of violation that Dariusz knew where she was living. Leafing through it, she came across the crossword. The solution had been filled in with numbers and symbols in pen. Beneath the solution was an address in London in the same hand-writing that had filled out the crossword. The bullion shipment would be happening within a month which gave her adequate time to prepare, Dariusz had said as he handed her the money to pay for the trip in the various denominations.
After dinner Eva rooted out maps and atlases from her bookshelves, a habit she had picked up from her father. Every one of her weekend cycling trips was carefully plotted out and she got a sense of sheer enjoyment of completing a journey that she had meticulously planned.
The following day, she went to the university library and took out more maps and travel guides, and through the university switchboard made enquiries with the German National bus service. Also through the university she sent a telegram to Madame Yvette, signing it off as ‘Hannah Du Trop’, a character Dariusz had devised for one of his 8mm shorts in Paris. It would stick in Yvette’s mind as they had performed their lines strapped to high-backed chairs. Eva assumed he’d be tracking her movements and this is a character he too would remember. There was enough money supplied by Dariusz, but as a precaution she withdrew double the amount in case of unforeseen problems.
She spent the evening poring over the books and maps and with both Polish and German bus timetables, devising a circuitous route that would take three days to complete, ending in Paris. She assumed the Gestapo would be watching every railway station and airport; on a bus she could blend into a group or get off at the first sign of danger.With this in mind, she picked the earliest and latest departure times. The nagging thought was that she could either be bait or a diversion for another courier with the real intelligence, however deciding that she was going to do this and do it well, she resigned herself to the task. She took her knapsack down from her wardrobe, rolled her blue raincoat up and fixed it to the straps. Then she folded and packed the maps with the relevant time tables written out on their margins. From her touring days in the theatre she packed clothing for three days' travel — every item black.
After a good breakfast, she put on a heavy jumper and an old coat she was planning to jettison, eschewing her make-up bag. Madame Yvette would have ample amounts of that for her to use when she got there. Finally for the journey, she selected a novel and a flannel cloth for her face so as to be able to freshen up in the station toilets.
She set out on her bicycle for the main bus station and, as she pedalled, felt a sudden surge of excitement. It felt a bit like acting, dressing up for the part. She smoked a quick cigarette before her departure, sensing that it would be a long time before she saw this city again.
Three days later she was at the establishment of Madame Yvette, who welcomed her with a radiant smile. ‘Well…?’
Eva sat on the edge of the immense bath in her private quarters. She marvelled at how delicious a bath was after a long journey. Again she dipped below the surface, relishing its heat. Yvette had disposed of the old coat, had a new wardrobe waiting for her and fresh make-up, and had set up a spare bed in her room away from the working girls where Eva would spend the night.
‘I had one problem on the border with a policeman, though once he saw my journalist card and note books, he believed I was a travel writer.’
‘They’ll believe anything from a pretty mouth,’ exhaled Yvette, her cigarette smoke seeming to linger around her, her lush tresses falling down around her face, framing her classic profile. Eva hadn’t noticed before what a beautiful woman she was without make-up.
Yvette procured at Eva’s request maps and timetables for the train to the Calais ferry and over dinner they reviewed the best options. Yvette handed Eva a sheet with a crudely drawn map of England with place names underlined and relevant ferry, bus and rail departure times jotted in. Eva had joked about using a gun and Yvette, with a twinkle in her eye, went out of the bathroom and returned with her prized stiletto. ‘Please take this. I have another one here. Remember, Eva, always aim at the heart or the balls.’
From the Gare du Nord she took the early morning train and overnight ferry to the south of England, again using early morning and late evening timetables.
She found the London address up a discreet mews off Oxford Street by early afternoon. As she entered through the door, a small bell jingled and a tall thin man in his fifties looked up from the shop counter. It was a book shop with lines of shelves stacked to the brim. She fell in love with place immediately.
‘Can I help you, miss?’
‘Yes, I wonder if you can help me, please. I’m looking for a book entitled ‘Samizdat’.’
‘I’m afraid we don’t have that publication, but I can recommend ‘War and Peace’.’ It was the correct response.
Eva handed him her paperback; inside it was the crossword cut out from the newspaper.
‘We've been expecting you, Miss Molenaar,' and after a pause while the man studied what she had handed him, 'Oh this is excellent. This information is invaluable, priceless.'
Henry Chainbridge introducing himself formally and immediately invited Eva to spend the night in private lodgings above the shop so that she could rest before returning to Poland, throwing in the incentive of freshly laundered bedding and warm water to bathe in. He regretted that he himself would be returning home for the night and would therefore be reprehensibly deficient as a host, but he hoped that she would be comfortable nonetheless. She assured him that she was used to coping on her own. He then made a series of phone calls. He had arranged a plate of sandwiches and fresh tea for her which sat on the modest wooden dresser. Exhausted from the journey, Eva retired to bed and fell into a fitful sleep soon after Chainbridge's departure.
The next morning, Eva rose early and descended the steps to the shop. She looked around at the bees-waxed shelves and musty books which gave the room the same sense of being a sanctuary as her father's library had at home.
She found Mr. Chainbridge poring over the morning paper which was spread across the shop counter. He heard her footfall, looked up and smiled. ‘Let’s get some breakfast, Miss Molenaar.’
She was alone in this vast metropolis, yet felt she could trust him. He wore a wedding band and was as attentive to her as a kindly professor, giving off an erudite air of contentment as he closed up his shop. He led her to an early morning cafe situated amid the bustle of market stalls and taxi drivers. It buzzed with breakfast banter, the rattle of crockery, and shouts and blasts of steam from the kitchens,
Chainbridge explained the situation. ‘The Spanish Prime Minister Negrin has sanctioned gold bullion shipments to the Soviet Union as payment for weapons and advisors. A portion of it has been intercepted by Franco. He’s diverting it to either a German port or a country friendly with the Nazi regime.’
Chainbridge studied the young woman. Eva held his gaze intently. A sixth sense in him detected a secondary agenda within the girl.
‘We think the ship involved is British registered, but can’t be sure. We need to understand what is happening down there, study their operations as a precaution against future eventualities. You could be of great assistance if you would be willing to be so. Would you be interested in remaining here for a day or two and attending a private party?’
Eva thought about this abrupt change of plan, this level of additional involvement for which she had not remotely been prepared. She had confirmed to Spzilman that she had arrived safely and was awaiting further instructions. So far she’d received no response. It would be interesting to see more of this country and whatever she was required to do could hardly be that dangerous. Nevertheless, she wondered.
‘Certainly, if I can be of any help.’ Her English was almost flawless. Chainbridge smiled warmly. She could be just what he needed. They were getting closer to mapping several of the Nazi spy rings in London. There was no threat of war as such, yet there was a faction in the British security community who believed that Hitler was considerably more dangerous long term than he was currently being considered to be by their political masters. Franco was a more impressive character than Hitler but far less dangerous because Spain was a relatively small country currently ravaged by civil war. If Hitler started to throw his weight around on the world stage, Franco would almost certainly be an ally given all the weaponry Germany was providing him with, and all suggestions to date were that the German agents and their Nationalist Spanish counterparts were a bit lackadaisical and therefore an excellent source of information on Berlin's strategic and tactical thinking if they could infiltrate them.
Chainbridge hesitated and his nose quivered pinkly. He coughed embarrassedly and gave indications of being reluctant to start his next sentence. ‘This is a bit indelicate,' he stammered hesitantly, 'but vital for our cause …. ' He paused an awkwardly long time for effect while he searched Eva's face in an unexpectedly shrewd manner. This was no antiquarian biblbiophile. Chainbridge was something else but well disguised. 'I’ve had the presumption to book you provisionally into a small hotel off Grosvenor Square where a certain Lord Alfred Bevansdale likes to trawl for girls.'
Eva stared at him. 'For girls?' She raised an eyebrow.
'You might be his type, for a party he’s throwing.'
'His type?' Eva raised a second eyebrow and lit up a cigarette as she spoke, stirring her tea slowly. Even without make-up, and with her hair in a pony tail, she still attracted glances. ‘What type would that be?’
‘Show girls, chorus line, starlet types. Lord Alfred Bevansdale is a cigarette baron and a Fascist sympathiser, a close friend of Sir Oswald Mosley's, and we suspect that he has offered the Nationalists a ship to transfer the bullion mixed in with one of his own consignments. Naturally, we can do nothing about this, even should we wish to, but it is nonetheless an opportunity for us. However, if you are not comfortable with this, Miss Molenaar …….’
She exhaled slowly from the side of her mouth, her expression hardening. ‘How old is he?’
‘Early fifties, there or thereabouts,’
‘I can’t see any problem, Mr Chainbridge.’
Chainbridge visibly relaxed. 'So long as you are sure,' he added, pressing his luck to ensure that Eva was truly on board.
'I am sure.'
‘Very good. Let’s finish up here. Waiter!’ He scribbled discreetly into the air to indicate he wished to pay the bill. The waiter acknowledged his request with a nod.
Eva was daunted by her task. She had been briefed as to what Chainbridge wanted, to know where the bullion would be loaded, who the main operators would be, who was over-seeing the planning of the transfer from Berlin.
Why would Lord Bevansdale be interested in her? It was an outside chance that he would even notice her, however pretty she was. Did she really look like a show girl?
In the event, ensnaring Lord Bevansdale proved much easier than Eva had expected. The following night she had positioned herself conspicuously at the end of the hotel bar where he could clearly see her should he turn up. Unbeknown to her, from a small room where he was playing poker, Bevansdale spied her immediately in her vivid emerald dress that clung to her figure. Within minutes he was over to her, all smiles and champagne.
With a sigh of relief, Eva expertly charmed him in return. Within the hour, Lord Bevansdale had invited her to his party, which was to be a masked ball to be held at his mansion deep in the heart of the English countryside and, to ensure her attendance, he had offered to escort her there in person and offered to buy her outfit for the event and for the rest of the weekend besides.
Eva was slightly surprised that Lord Bevansdale would not be at the party from the beginning to greet his guests but he explained that the whole thing would be a dreadful bore and if she wasn't there it would hardly be worth attending at all.
Bevansdale’s mansion blazed gloriously through the windshield of his chauffer-driven Rolls Royce as they swept down the driveway which was festooned with ribbons and lights draped along the trees and edges.
‘Here we are, my dear,’ he boomed.
He was short, portly, florid from gout and mashed into a dinner suit. Eva was dressed in fur, a new low-cut black dress and a diamond encrusted cat mask. Bevansdale’s hand had a tremor every time it brushed her. He was also sweating.
Liveried footmen bowed as they alighted from the car and entered the doorway. The chauffeur would see their luggage to their respective rooms. A vast stairway ascended toward a hallway bedecked in a massive crystal chandelier. In rooms off the main reception, the guests mingled in all varieties of expensive dress, the men middle-aged, their companions mostly young women. In the main dining room a string quartet was performing Vivaldi, resplendent in period costume up to their powdered wigs and, like the rest of the guests, all masked. Excusing herself, Eva enquired where the toilets were. A passing footman burdened with a tray laden with champagne nodded roughly in the direction of upstairs. Eva decided to get her bearings and took her time looking through the upper floors. In some of the bedrooms couples in various stages of undress were lolling on huge beds; others were engaged in more vigorous activities. She glanced past the heaving flesh around her, not quite sure what she was looking for but convinced she would know when she found it.
Entering the dining room she found Bevansdale in a corner with a group of men masked in black velvet almost like a uniform. One had a German accent and they all looked intimidating. They exuded power. Eva sidled up to Bevansdale, pressing against his arm. He flushed and almost gagged on his cigar. The others all turned to her, admiring her figure and the warm mouth smiling beneath her mask.
She whispered in his ear. ‘You haven’t shown me the bedrooms yet, Alfie?’ She blew softly into his ear as he leered back. ‘Forgive me for being so remiss. Allow me to escort you.’
She made a point of looking back at the group and smiling seductively beneath her mask before turning her back and guiding Bevansdale upstairs. As they left the room, she could feel the group's eyes following her. Bevansdale guided her to a narrow staircase which led past the upper floors to his private quarters. His private study was dark panelled and spartanly furnished. He led her to an oaken door at the far side of the room. With a wink he produced a key from the watch chain on his waist coat and opened the door. It was a small bedroom near the top floor, smelling faintly of mothballs and dust. A four-poster bed hewn in dark mahogany stood in the middle of the room,
‘Oh Alfie, this is perfect,’ Eva breathed. ‘I can't think of anything nicer.'
Before returning to the shop to meet Mr. Chainbridge, Eva took the cat mask to a jeweller’s. The diamonds encrusting the mask were indeed real, as Lord Beavansdale had promised. Poor Alfie. She exchanged half of them for cash; the other half she kept on her for emergencies, hidden in a locket around her neck.
‘The ship is the Adelaide, a merchant ship outward bound from Southampton and arriving in Marseilles in three weeks' time. The bullion is arriving from Cadiz. It will be loaded in Marseilles and delivered in Hamburg. I have written down the details.'
Chainbridge whistled quietly. The shop was closed for lunch and with him was a tall distinguished gentleman, smartly attired who was introduced to her as Mr. Jackson.
‘May I ask how you got the information?’ he enquired.
Eva smiled at him coyly. ‘A lady must have her secrets. However, I can guarantee that nobody realises that I have learnt anything.'
Chainbridge took the piece of paper she passed to him, scanned it quickly and whistled again. ‘Excellent, Eva, thank you. Now, I have another task for you, should you agree to accept it.'
'What would you have me do now?' she asked somewhat sharply.
'We would like you to go to Spain?'
'Spain?' Now Eva was interested.
'Of course, if you do not feel up for it ….'
'I'm listening. I assume you want me to learn more about the German and Nationalist network down there.'
'Not just a pretty face,' Mr. Chanbridge commented appreciatively. 'Exactly. You are not a known operative. You are not even British. Nobody there will realise that your government is in any way involved in this.'
'So what do I do?'
'A colleague of ours, Mr. De Witte, will be here shortly. He will accompany you to Southampton and brief you. From Southampton you will return to Paris and make contact with a a Soviet advisor named ‘Spassky’ who will escort you to Spain and brief you further from their perspective along the way. The objective is to learn as much about their operations as possible, who are their liaisons in Berlin and how they communicate with them. And I wish you the very best of luck. You are a very plucky girl. I wish you were one of ours.’
Twenty minutes later Eva was collected in a taxi by De Witte who, to her surprise, was blind and, even more to her surprise, proved to be excellent company. The ferry from Sothampton took her to Calais and from there she travelled on to Paris where Yvette supplied her with a gun and Eva arranged to meet 'Spassky' who turned out to be a female Russian agent based in Barcelona. They were to travel together. At the Gare D’Austerlitz they both took the Perpignan train, and from there crossed the Pyrenees into Spain posing as journalists.