Dateline Haifa

by D A Kent

  Nonetheless, by comparison with Marguerite and her husband, who lived in Paris and had to endure the same measures on a daily basis, with open anti-Semitism all over the newspapers, in the streets and on posters, and a constant fear of the ‘round-ups,’ they considered themselves fortunate. They hoped, by ‘keeping their heads down,’ that they might be able to see these dark days out. It became more and more apparent that this would not be the case. They heard that an official by the name of Mueller had moved into the area and had been making enquiries. This was, they figured, a relatively common German surname but as a precaution Jonathan put Marta’s papers under what he described as ‘secure lock and key.’

  The only way to deal with the situation was to carry on as normally as possible. The knock on the door came in July 1942. Jonathan had been for a drink with his friend, seeing no particular reason to deviate from his routine. Louise was taken first to the local gendarmerie, and it was there that Jonathan lost track of her. Nobody could or would tell him anything, although they were unfailingly polite. In vain, he ran back and forth, all day, with their marriage certificate (theirs was a Christian marriage) and other pieces of identification that showed she had been educated in France, had worked there and was totally assimilated; all to no avail. He wrote to Louise every day, but his letters remained unanswered.

  One evening, not long after Louise had been taken away, Jonathan received a visit from Dr Mueller, who introduced himself as an official with responsibility for ensuring the security of local residents. Jonathan did not believe it for one moment, but did his best to be civil, inviting Mueller inside. Mueller spoke of some papers that had gone missing while his French secretary was working for him. It was all very inconvenient. Looking searchingly at Jonathan, he requested that should the papers by any chance arrive at Chartrettes, Mr Jones was to hand them in immediately. He hoped this was understood and wished him a pleasant evening.

  Jonathan received several more such visits. Mueller became less polite and more exasperated as Jonathan responded in a calm, measured and English fashion, to the effect that he knew nothing about any papers and perhaps Mueller could tell him what had happened to his wife, as nobody else seemed to be able to. Mueller’s face went bright red and the veins stood out on his neck. On the last occasion, he brought along some ‘ruffians’ as Jonathan described them, who more or less tore the place apart and helped themselves to some valuable antiques which had belonged to the Vogels and the Dorset Westons for generations. They found nothing. Mueller promised Jonathan darkly that their next conversation would be at a different venue.

  Just after the war, Jonathan began the process of uncovering the painful truth of Louise’s fate. She had, along with thousands of others, been ‘processed’ through Drancy and then Auschwitz, where she had been killed in the gas chambers. She had never been strong. Jonathan had put his head in his hands and wept at this point. Marguerite and her husband had also ended up in Auschwitz, but they did not overlap with Louise. They had survived, although only just, and were in a Displaced Persons’ Camp. A Red Cross official told him they were lucky to survive this long. The prognosis was not good. In a way, Jonathan thought, it was fortunate that the Vogel girls’ parents had died relatively young, in the early thirties, when they were incredibly proud of their ‘golden girl’ in Berlin, blissfully unaware that she was Mueller’s mistress and content to think of Marguerite and Louise being so happy and settled. He had always enjoyed entertaining them at the demeure.

  Mueller had of course disappeared after Liberation. Assuming he was dead, Jonathan rather hoped that there was a special place in Hell reserved for him. He had stopped attending church years ago, having concluded bleakly that there was nobody up there. No rational and kindly deity would have allowed such wickedness and destruction to be unleashed upon the world. It was worse, and this was saying something, than anything he had seen in the trenches in 14-18. He was thinking of Clarence a lot now that he was to all intents and purposes alone in the world. Sometimes he found himself asking him aloud for advice. He could see his brother’s face clearly, something he had been unable to do for years.

  Soon, he began to receive strange silent telephone calls. The local gendarme would call round on his bicycle. Jonathan could see he thought this poor, affable old Englishman was going barmy. Nothing was done. Perhaps nothing could be done.

  In 1947, he visited Cumberlands for the first time since the war. They had been the family firm for years, going back to Edwardian times (they were called something else then - the name escaped him now). He had tolerated, but never really liked Cumberland senior, with his clearly affected Englishness. He was rather pleased that Young Mr Cumberland had qualified and finished his articles after his war service, and made a special point of making the appointment with him.

  Edward Cumberland was, Jonathan thought, a genuine and decent young man. Edward had urged him, tactfully, to make a new will (everything had of course been left to Louise but she was gone). There was a considerable amount of money involved. The demeure itself only formed a small part of it. Jonathan promised to think about it. He wasn’t sure who to leave his estate to, if Marguerite and her husband didn’t make it out of the Displaced Persons’ Camp. He barely knew his distant cousin in Dorset. He and Edward were chatting about Jewish charities (Edward had seen an article about one in the Law Society Gazette, which might be worth looking at, as a residuary legatee), when Cumberland senior, who had been hovering at the door, came storming in. Calling his son an idiot, (why in God’s name did he imagine that a fine, upstanding Englishman would want anything to do with a charity for vermin, he had said, under his breath), he had thrown Edward out of the room (even delivering a kick to his backside, Jonathan recalled) and then conducted a most bizarre conversation with Jonathan, almost fawning over him. Cumberland senior had raised the question of some significant documents which had been mislaid in Chartrettes and which ‘the authorities’ were anxious to retrieve.

  This was when he put two and two together. His German was fairly non-existent, but he had seen something in Marta’s documents, years ago, before they went into their hiding place, about a boyhood friend of Muller’s in London. That had to be Cumberland Senior, surely. He had denied all knowledge of any documents, in his usual calm and courteous manner, and then taken his leave. While he was downstairs, retrieving his hat and coat and chatting to Joan, he had heard Cathy say something about a call having come in for a ‘Herr Mannfred Brand’ and how she always put them through to Mr Cumberland Senior.

  On an impulse, he had given Joan, who had always been a decent sort (Louise had loved her cups of English tea) his spare key, with instructions not to mention it to anyone. ‘But just in case,’ he had said to her. Thinking it through later, he wasn’t sure what assistance Joan could have lent, but it had occurred to him that nobody had a spare set of keys.

  Now, in the summer of 1948, he had made arrangements to visit Cumberlands again. He was booked in at Claridges, which always ‘perked him up,’ and was due to meet his bankers at Simpsons; a celebration of the Olympics. He and Louise had watched Eric Liddell run at the Stade de Colombes. He confessed to bafflement over the rapid passage of years. News had come from Marguerite and her husband; they were planning to start a new life in Haifa with Marguerite’s cousin, Aaron Vogel. Jonathan’s own health was deteriorating; he had recently suffered a small stroke. Clarence was putting in more and more appearances. The mysterious telephone calls were continuing. He was in fear for his life. He had made a new will and had it witnessed locally. The diary ended at that point.

  ‘How long do you think it was between when he hid this diary in the wall and when whoever it was came to get him?’ asked Sylvia. She was looking upset again.

  ‘Well, I guess the French police are making enquiries to that effect right now’ Gunn replied. ‘Best leave them to it. Sweetheart, that was an excellent day’s work. Only you could take a pile of ancient papers and coax a story like that out of them. My instinct is to carry on
tidying up the diagram and the report when we are at sea again. For now, we should enjoy Naples. Let’s go and see what there is to eat and have a snifter in the bar. Well, a snifter for me at any rate. Water for you.’

  Chapter 10

  That evening, as Gunn and Sylvia strolled around the deck, a car, a new model Packard Vignale Convertible, driven by a heavy set man in his thirties, left Rome and headed to Naples via the coast road through Aprilia and Formia. The driver did not exceed the speed limit, not that the Italian motorcycle cops could have caught him, but instructions were instructions, and he had an appointment in Naples and an asset to dispose of.

  The driver, Guenter Voss, hummed an air from Bach as he drove in the warm evening sun. Life was good. Once this business was taken care of, he would return to Rome and his expensive and demanding mistress, to keep him amused and occupied until his next assignment. Voss was a specialist. He took out the trash and left everything looking nice and tidy. He was discreet and reassuringly loyal.

  The Sidonia had to lay over in Naples for forty-eight hours. Some cargo needed to be overloaded and a few tractors taken on for delivery to Haifa. It would be a break for the passengers too, allowing them to stretch their legs for a last couple of days in Europe, before the final part of the journey to Israel. Wanting to take full advantage of this unexpected treat, Sylvia was rummaging through the holdall for some suitable shoes for sightseeing.

  ‘Sylv, come out here,’ came Gunn’s voice from the balcony. ‘We’re in Naples.’

  Naples was cradled in the arms of the bay, Vesuvius above the city, wisps of smoke from the eruption still twisting like minarets in the desert sun. Gunn laughed out loud. ‘Not sure I would stick around here, considering the temper on that great lump.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Sylvia hugged herself. ‘It’s rather beautiful.’

  ‘Yes, but potentially a fatal beauty.’

  ‘Isn’t all beauty?’

  ‘Touché.’

  ‘Gunn,’ she asked. ‘Can I have a break from this pregnancy malarkey?’

  ‘Oh, you don’t ever get a break from motherhood,’ Gunn replied. ‘Yes, but wait until we are well away from the ship. We’ll lose this crowd and do some exploring of our own.’

  There were some organised excursions planned, but Gunn and Sylvia disembarked happily, on their own, hand in hand. They wandered the narrow streets, enjoying some warm sunshine, watching the children playing and the sinuous cats darting in and out of the shadows. There was considerable bomb damage. Reconstruction was clearly going to be a challenge.

  ‘Can you rig me something like that up for the cabin?’

  Sylvia was looking in fascination at the washing suspended above the streets, between the houses.

  ‘I’ll give it a go,’ said Gunn, steering her into a bar. They sat outside in the little piazza, with a cappuccino each. They had already decided to save Pompeii for the next day, to do it justice. Gunn’s attention was drawn to a Packard Vignale, inching its way across the square. It looked large and somehow incongruous. The driver seemed to be a little lost. The car disappeared from view, into another labyrinth of streets.

  ‘Nice car,’ remarked Gunn. ‘That’s the new model. A joint Italian and American venture.’

  Before he could launch into one of his lectures, Sylvia took his arm. ‘You and your cars. Come on, let’s go and look inside this little church.’ Wandering happily around, as the fancy took them, they agreed this would be a day they would never forget. Clements kept them very busy and there had been little time for holidays.

  Guenter Voss cursed roundly. There had not been so much a vestige of them so far. His mistress had said something about Naples, the car, madness and tiny, narrow streets but he never paid much attention to what she said. Now he wished he had. He was going to have to park the blasted thing somewhere and make street to street enquiries. There were hordes of tourists and the description he had from Mueller was pretty useless. If the stupid, patronising man had given him a photograph to work from, this could have been wrapped up in a fraction of the time. He sighed, and made his way towards the hotel where he was staying; it was one of the larger ones. That might be a good place to start; presumably they would need lunch at some point. He could leave the car there too.

  He arrived at the hotel. Damn them; there was still no sign. He would, at least, have a decent long lunch, perhaps a siesta, and then continue his searching later. He wasn’t entirely sure how long they would be staying in Naples; Mueller had been vague about that too. Rubbish intelligence; how was he meant to find two needles in a haystack? Mueller was normally a great deal more efficient, but perhaps this was second or third hand.

  Gunn and Sylvia came round the corner into the Piazza Cavour. They were hungry but had decided to find somewhere less touristy to eat. The midday sun was becoming fierce.

  ‘You know what they say about mad dogs,’ Gunn observed. ‘We’ll hop on a bus in a moment, go up the coast a bit, find somewhere special. After what they’ve been serving us on board, we deserve to treat ourselves. There’s the bus stop, shall we just check the times? They probably don’t stick to them though.’

  Before Sylvia could answer, Gunn came to an abrupt halt. There was that Packard again; the driver was just parking it outside the modern hotel on the corner. That car was not something he would have expected to see in an ant heap like Naples and he would wager a fortune that somebody would want to lay a finger on it. Maybe the old sixth sense was working overtime, but there was no harm in paying a little attention to it. He came to a decision, noting that they were opposite an English bookshop, more of an alcove really. He leaned into Sylvia.

  ‘Have a browse in here for a quarter of an hour. I’m going to take a look at that car.’

  ‘That car?’

  ‘Yes, I know, I like cars but I suspect something is not right. I want to clock the cove driving the damn thing.’

  Gunn wandered over to the hotel, pretending to look at the menu on the window. He managed to take a look at the driver. Quite heavily built, and he looked a bit of a thug, although one shouldn’t necessarily judge on appearances. He obviously had money and it seemed he was planning to eat in the restaurant at the side.

  ‘Buongiorno, Signor,’ said the waiter. Gunn noticed that the response came in English, with a heavy German accent.

  Lunch in there would keep him out of harm’s way for a bit, Gunn reasoned. Thinking it best to keep a safe distance, he took Sylvia’s hand and led her straight onto a bus which happened to be bound for Posillippo. He’d never heard of the place, but that was where the bus was going. He told her it was ‘serendipity;’ rather like the games he used to play on the metro as a youngster.

  The tall, handsome Englishman had not escaped Voss’s notice. He could always discern them, from his time with Rommel. This one had a military bearing. You couldn’t mistake that. Voss wondered idly what theatre of war he had been in. Of course, his specific instructions were to look for two people, not one. What had Mueller said - a bullet for the male asset and the female to be delivered to London? He was looking forward to that leg of the assignment tremendously. His view was partially obscured by a large vine growing over a trellis (this really was a lovely restaurant) but he thought he could see the Englishman getting on a bus. Probably lives in Naples, he thought, dismissively. The waiter was coming over with a Campari and soda. Fritta del mare, Voss decided, would go down a treat. Then, after a siesta, he might just check out those buses and perhaps take a drive up the coast.

  Posillippo turned out to be a beautiful neighbourhood. Gunn and Sylvia enjoyed exploring and choosing a restaurant. A few contenders were vying for their trade so they took their time before settling down for a long, leisurely lunch. They were in the best place in the world for pizza, Gunn commented. It was also safe for Sylvia to have some wine and a cigarette now, he announced magnanimously, away from the prying eyes of the Jewish grandmas. They had a bottle of Chianti in a ‘fiasco’ (Sylvia loved that word), chatting about
Pompeii tomorrow, somewhere Sylvia had always wanted to go, and what the next leg of the journey to Haifa was going to be like.

  ‘Extremely emotional, I should think,’ Gunn remarked. He resolved to carry on with his networking when they were back at sea, to try and discern the authorities in Israel who would be best placed to help with the documents. For now, he was bloody well on holiday.

  ‘Want to push the boat out and have some pudding?’ he asked. ‘Shall we try some cassata?’

  When it arrived, both agreed it was the most divine thing they had ever tasted. Back home, rationing was still in place. To be eating a concoction made of candied peel and nuts, steeped in liqueur, was the height of decadence, but they decided they could swiftly get used to this lifestyle.

  ‘I think we should set up Clements International,’ ventured Gunn, only half-joking.

  ‘Better not run before we can walk,’ said the ever-cautious Sylvia.

  After two small espressos, she pushed back her chair.

  ‘I am stuffed,’ she declared. ‘I am going to have to walk that off.’

  ‘Thought you were eating for two’ quipped Gunn, signalling to the waiter. ‘Il conto, prego.’

  It was an unaccustomed feeling for both of them to have ‘all the time in the world.’ They wandered up to Virgil’s tomb, and stood amongst the laurel and the bay, overlooking Vesuvius.

  ‘Mantua gave me birth, Calabria took me away, and now Parthenope holds me.

  I sang of pastures, farms and leaders,’ quoted Gunn.

  Sylvia looked at him. He had never spoken about his schooling, just the fact that he had hated it. Obviously a classical education had stuck. She crushed a bay leaf between her fingers.