‘So what are our chances?’ Raquel wanted to know.
‘That’s not for me to decide, Miss Gibbons.’
‘Yes - but you must have some idea of what our chances are,’ Raquel persisted, ignoring a warning look from Daniel.
Harriman smiled. He did not object to being pressured. ‘Let us just say that you two have taken the first step on the path towards being granted Swiss residential permits.’
*
‘What you still haven’t told me,’ said Raquel, sinking her teeth into a doughnut while looking quizzically at Daniel across the coffee bar table, ‘is why Switzerland? It’s a boring dump. The flat bits are all cows and the bumpy bits are all Geralds and Cordelias with broken legs.’
Daniel sipped a cup of hot Italian froth that was supposed to be coffee. It was thirty minutes since their interview at the Swiss Embassy. ‘Because I like the place. Anyway - you’ve never been there.’
Raquel wondered for the hundredth time if she would ever muster the courage to tell Daniel about her following of him to Switzerland. Her worries about her deception did not stop her from pointing out to Daniel that he had been there only once.
‘So you keep reminding me,’ he said. ‘Drink up. We’ll wander along to the Swissair offices and get a couple of tickets to Zurich.’
‘Swissair? Why not El Al so you can get a staff discount?’
Daniel looked at Raquel in mock horror. ‘El Al? You forget I know too much about flying and that airline to actually risk using them.’
Raquel finished her doughnut. She was still complaining as they walked along Regent Street.
‘But isn’t Zurich supposed to be the boredom capital of the world?’
‘It’s not far from where we’re going.’
‘Which is?’ She had a sinking feeling she knew what Daniel’s answer was going to be.
He put his arm around her waist. ‘A little town called Winterthur. I think you’ll love it, Rac.’
17
WINTERTHUR May 1968
‘I’m serious, Daniel,’ said Raquel firmly.
Daniel applied the handbrake of their hired Fiat. They were parked near the Krone Hotel - the last place that Raquel wanted to stay at.
‘But I can afford it. And it’s not that expensive,’ he protested. ‘No, we can’t afford it. Listen, Daniel - we agreed - this is to be a partnership - right? That money isn’t going to last unless we watch every penny. We’re going to start the way we mean to go on.’ Daniel sighed and started the engine. He was going to need to win a few battles with Raquel in the near future, therefore it was better to let her have her way on this matter. ‘A cheap hotel it is,’ he agreed. ‘Bedbugs here we come.’
‘Bedbugs in Switzerland? They’d never get residential permits.’ Daniel’s irritation evaporated with his laughter.
Like just about everyone else in Switzerland, or so it seemed to Daniel and Raquel, the deputy accountant of the Winterthur Union Bank spoke perfect English. ‘There’s a great deal of nonsense written about Swiss banks, Mr Kalen,’ he declared emphatically. ‘When your cheque is cleared, we shall be pleased to grant you all the normal facilities of the bank. We shall send you monthly statements to up to ten addresses anywhere in the world. The difference is that the only name and address on the statements will be ours. For an additional charge we send the statements out in plain, handwritten envelopes. We can even arrange for them to be posted to you from outside Switzerland.’ He smiled broadly. He was a large, expansive, Technicolor man who had spent enough hours under a sunlamp to look at home on a Marlboro hoarding. He did not fit Raquel’s image of a Swiss banker; she had always imagined them as gnome-like little men with hunchbacks.
‘How long will the cheque take to clear?’ Daniel wanted to know. ‘The funds should be available in four days at the outside.’ The banker looked slightly apologetic. ‘If you wish to draw it all out in cash, we shall require twenty-four hours’ notice for such a sum. We are not a large bank, you understand.’
‘We’ll be leaving it in,’ Daniel replied. ‘Can you recommend a local real estate agent? If we get our residential permits, we will be starting a local business.’
The deputy accountant disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a list. ‘These are all the local agents we use for property valuations and so forth. Mrs Sandra Gasseman runs an agency from an office in the Kirch Platz. She’s English.’
Daniel and Raquel walked through the courtyards and narrow streets of the medieval town to the church square. There were more police than usual on the streets, edgily eyeing groups of students drinking at tables outside the bars in case they suddenly caught the left-wing revolutionary fever that was gripping students at the Sorbonne. The only real trouble the town had experienced was the previous month when some students had protested about the shooting of Rudi Dutschke in West Germany.
They located Sandy Gasseman’s office at the top of a narrow flight of stairs in a castle-like building that could have been created by a Disney artist. The front entrance name plate suggested that the place was crammed to the gargoyles with architects, notaries and dentists.
Sandy Gasseman was a cheerful, middle-aged matronly woman whose hearty nature effectively disguised her shrewd business brain. She had married Simon Gasseman thirty years before when they were both students at the London School of Economics; she had been running the business alone since his death five years earlier. Her other interests were her discreet affairs with various officials from the nearby town hall. She shook Daniel and Raquel warmly by the hand and listened attentively to Daniel explaining their requirements while she made cups of instant coffee with a lethal- looking electric kettle.
‘A bar?’ she said doubtfully when Daniel had finished. ‘A bar will be difficult unless you’re taking over an existing one. The mayor is a loony teetotaller. He thinks that Winterthur has more than enough bars. All the town burghers are terrified of the students running amok. They think that drink is the root cause of the Paris troubles. You can’t even begin to believe just how parochial the Swiss can be.’ ‘We would like to start a new bar, Mrs Gasseman.’
‘Sandy - please. Everyone calls me Sandy. A new bar, eh?’ She chuckled. ‘Well, we can but try. I can usually get round the mayor. A typical Austrian type. Likes his woman cuddly like me.’ She passed out the cups of coffee while she chatted. ‘Now then. Assuming you get your permits and all the rest of the palaver through, how much do you want to spend on a lease?’
‘We’ve no idea what rental costs are,’ said Raquel. ‘Unbelievable. A single-fronted shop in Marktgasse will cost you about three thousand dollars a month with property taxes. Once you get north of Museum Strasse, prices start really tumbling. A shop in St Georgen Strasse would be around a thousand dollars a month.’ ‘How about the other side of the railway, Sandy?’ Daniel asked, uncomfortable at using the woman’s first name so soon.
Sandy frowned. ‘There’s nothing there. Just factories and offices. Where we are now is the throbbing epicentre of Winterthur.’ She pulled herself out of her chair and crossed the tiny office to an ancient wooden filing cabinet and started extracting stencilled typewritten sheets from individual files, muttering to herself as she worked. ‘No ... no ... you don’t want that one - it’s in German ... French - no. There we are. About ten commercial properties all up for rent or shortly becoming available.’ She beamed as she handed the sheaf of documents to Daniel.
‘Are these all of them, Sandy?’ he asked.
‘All the places around the town centre - yes.’
‘Could we have details on all properties in and around the town please?’
Sandy looked doubtful. ‘I’ve given you all the most suitable ones. I don’t want you to waste your time.’
‘If we could have them all please.’
Sandy shrugged and went back to rummaging in the filing cabinet. ‘Five more, Daniel. Old bakers’ shops and that sort of thing around the outskirts. Good luck. If you see anything you fancy, come back and we’ll go o
ut with keys.’
It was a pleasantly warm day. The gardens and flowerbeds of Winterthur were alive with the colours of spring, therefore Raquel enjoyed the long trek around the town on foot looking at properties. The bars and restaurants they visited ranged from brash, noisy beer gardens to modest little side street snackbars. Raquel was particularly attracted to a pretty little courtyard bar that was decked out in a riot of colourful window boxes and gaily-painted shutters. They had been walking for three hours so they were glad of a chance to sit at one of the bar’s pavement tables. Daniel ordered drinks from the waiter while Raquel disappeared inside to use the lavatory. She emerged a few minutes later looking impressed.
‘It’s a fabulous little place,’ she declared, sitting down and toeing off her shoes. ‘Just the right size for the two of us to manage.’
‘Too kitsch,’ Daniel commented cynically when the waiter had served their iced Cokes.
‘But it’s cute!’ Raquel protested.
‘That’s the trouble. Anyway, there’s still one more to look at.’
‘Where?’
Daniel made a show of consulting Sandy’s papers and a street map. He knew exactly where the property was because he had been saving it until last. ‘Tossfeldstrasse.’
‘And where is this Tossfeldstrasse?’ Raquel stumbled over the unfamiliar German pronunciation.
‘The other side of the railway. About fifteen minutes’ walk.’
Raquel groaned. ‘Thirty minutes the way my feet feel.’
Daniel grinned. ‘We’ll take the car.’
The property on Tossfeldstrasse turned out to be the disused bicycle shop whose forecourt had been used by the mobile delicatessen that Daniel had seen the previous year. Raquel wound down her window and stared askance at the depressing double-fronted shop with its faded advertisements for Dunlop tyres in the windows. It was a plain, two-storey building wedged between a small patch of wasteland and the entrance to a builder’s yard.
‘That!’
‘It has potential,’ said Daniel, trying to keep his voice casual.
‘Potential to make us go bust,’ Raquel retorted caustically. ‘Are you serious?’
Daniel made no reply as he studied the area. Inside he was in a turmoil of excitement. The abandoned shop was ideal. It was virtually opposite Luftech’s office block. They were parked in the spot which had been occupied by the low-loader bearing the Mirage fuselage beneath its canvas shrouds. ‘It’s perfect, Rac,’ he breathed. ‘Just perfect.’
Raquel could not credit what she was hearing. ‘In this area? Smack in the middle of an industrial zone? Now I know you’ve flipped.’
‘It’s just what I’ve been looking for,’ he answered.
Raquel wondered if Daniel was deliberately trying to annoy her. ‘I thought it was we! Listen, Daniel, because I do know what I’m talking about. If we were planning a high-quality specialist restaurant - Greek, Indian, or something like that - fine. People would come to us and the parking round here is lot easier than in the town ...’
The end of her sentence was drowned by the roar of an approaching articulated truck. She waited until it had passed before continuing. ‘But we’re not planning that sort of place. We couldn’t afford the chef for one thing. What we’re planning is short order snacks and sandwiches. The sort of thing that’s dependent on casual passing trade like that drink we had in the town. What passing trade will we find out here, for Chrissake?’
‘There’d be the lunchtime trade from all those factories,’ Daniel pointed out.
‘Sure. Two hours of being rushed off our feet on Mondays to Fridays and losing half that trade because we wouldn’t be able to serve everyone. If we want to make money, then we’re going to have to find somewhere that’s going to do a steady trade from opening time until closing time.’
‘It’ll be cheap out here, Rac.’
Raquel began to get angry. ‘Not in the long run, it won’t. Fitting it out will cost the same as sensible premises in a sensible location. Jeez, Daniel, I thought coming to Switzerland was pretty crazy. But coming here .... If you’re serious, then you’ve obviously flipped.’ She turned and looked at Daniel during her outburst and could see that he was wrestling with an inner conflict. He was always too honest to successfully hide his feelings from her. She smiled softly and pushed a strand of his blond hair away from his eyes. ‘You haven’t really flipped on me, have you, Daniel?’
He caught hold of her hand and held it tightly while staring straight ahead through the windscreen; his lips moved as though he was inwardly rehearsing what to say.
‘If making money was the only reason for us coming here,’ he said at length, ‘then you’d be right, Rac. Just like you’re always right about everything.’
At first Raquel thought he was being cynical but his anguished expression confirmed that he was not. She decided that it would be best to let him say what he was trying to say in his own time. His question took her by surprise.
‘Do you really support my country, Rac?’
‘You mean in this stupid war with the Arabs?’
Daniel nodded and looked away as if he could not meet her eyes. ‘You know my feelings, Daniel. God knows we’ve argued about it often enough. I don’t support any war. I think Israel has been incredibly bloody-minded and arrogant in its dealings with the Palestinians. But I can see that pre-emptive strikes are just about the only option they have defending such a small country. At least Israel keeps its wars short, and at least it is defending its country. Not like us; there’s never been any danger of the Viet Cong marching on Capitol Hill.’
He tightened his grip on her hand. ‘Do you love me, Rac?’
Her answer was to kneel on her seat and kiss Daniel full on the mouth. He responded quickly, pulling her to him and kissing her with a force that was almost painful. They clung to each other for several minutes. Her awkward position caused a cramp in her calf muscles but she made no attempt to pull away.
‘I love you, Rac,’ Daniel whispered. ‘I love you more than I can ever say. I need you ...’
‘And I need you, Daniel.... You know that.’
‘No. More than that, Rac - I need you now to help me.’
She eased herself away and kissed him on his closed eyes. ‘Help you with what?’
‘I’m frightened you’ll accuse me of using you ... .’He hesitated. There was uncertainty in his voice when he resumed talking. ‘I should’ve told you everything in London ... before I dragged you out here .... But somehow I didn’t think it would work .... But seeing that place .... Seeing .... Oh, God, Raquel please forgive me ... . Please say you’ll forgive me.’
She had never known Daniel so miserable and unsure of himself. She kissed him on the mouth again to still his voice. Her lips moved to his cheeks and gently to each eye in turn. ‘Of course I’ll forgive you, Daniel ... even if I don’t know what for .... And you know I love you .... I know I’m not the most demonstrative person in the world but you know how much I love you. So tell me how you think you’ll be using me and I promise not to get mad.’
It was some moments before Daniel could speak. After a hesitant false start, he realized that he wasn’t making sense so he went back to the beginning and told Raquel everything. He talked for five minutes without interruption from her. Only when he had finished did Raquel release him and slip back into a sitting position on her seat. She closed her eyes - her thoughts a whirl as she tried unsuccessfully to slot everything into place.
‘That’s why I need you, Rac,’ Daniel continued, making the mistake of interpreting her silence as disapproval. ‘I can’t run a bar by myself.’
‘But how, Daniel? I mean ...’ She searched for the right words. ‘How can setting up a bar here help in any way?’
‘I thought it would give us a chance to get to know the senior personnel at Sulzers and Luftech. Maybe we could find someone in their drawing offices sympathetic to Israel .... I haven’t fully thought it through, Rac. You can’t plan ahead in much detail with the
se things. You have to ...’ he searched for the right words, ‘create a climate for the opportunities to arise and grab them when they do.’ ‘Playing it by ear,’ said Raquel dolefully.
‘Everything we’ve done so far is legal, Rac. Look - even if a chance crops up, we don’t have to grab it. We can talk it over and maybe carry on just as we are.’ He touched her uncertainly on the arm. ‘Will you help me, Rac? Please.’
She pulled down the sun visor and used its mirror to redo her lipstick, thinking that the move would give her time to organize her confused thoughts. It was useless - she hated turning issues over in her mind. She knew that the more she thought about this issue, the more frightened she would become. All the major decisions she had taken in her life had been taken on an impulse. Some she had regretted but most she had not.
‘Rac?’
She opened her door without looking at Daniel. ‘Come on,’ she heard herself saying, ‘let’s take a look at our bar.’
Sandy Gasseman’s motherly face mirrored her astonishment when Daniel and Raquel reported back to her.
‘The old bike shop on Tossfeldstrasse? But, my dears, there’s nothing there but Sulzers and Luftech! It’s literally the wrong side of the tracks.’
‘Oh, it’s not as bad as that, Sandy,’ said Raquel. ‘There’re some houses.’
‘A few,’ Sandy admitted. She sighed. ‘All right. I suppose I’m a lousy businesswoman for saying this - I ought to be saying what a wonderful location it is and how you’re bound to make a fortune. But I do like to be honest first and foremost.’
‘We thought we’d have a good lunchtime trade from Sulzers—’ ‘You’re bound to, but what about the rest of the day?’
‘Well,’ said Raquel, ‘I think there are possibilities of a good “to go” trade if we get it organized.’
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