Some men came out of the German Embassy and one of them looked at her curiously. They didn’t seem to notice. Suddenly, one of the men came up to where the young women were standing.
“Amelia!”
She looked at him surprised, she seemed not to recognize this man in his suit and gray overcoat and with his hair covered by an equally gray hat. He came up to her quickly, accompanied by two of the other men.
“How happy I am to see you! But what are you doing here? I thought you were in Athens.”
She seemed confused, as if she were trying to remember who this man was who was talking to her with such familiarity, and he, taking off his hat, began to laugh.
“Don’t you recognize me?”
“Kleist! I’m sorry, Captain, I didn’t recognize you,” she said shyly.
“Of course, in civilian clothes... I suppose it must be difficult to recognize me. But what are you doing here?”
“I’m with my family, allow me to introduce my cousin Laura and my sister Antonietta.”
“I didn’t know you were coming to Spain.”
“Well, I come when I can.”
They stood in silence for a few seconds without knowing what to do. Then he took the initiative.
“May I invite you to come out for a walk and to have tea with me some afternoon when you are free?”
She seemed to think about this, then she smiled.
“It’s better if you come to visit us; I’ll introduce you to the rest of the family.”
“Wonderful, when can I come?”
“Tomorrow? If you are free, we’ll expect you at six.”
“I’ll be there.”
They said goodbye, and when they were walking away he could hear Amelia’s cousin begin talking.
“It wasn’t a good idea to invite him, you know that Papa can’t stand the Nazis.”
At six o’clock in the evening on the next day, Edurne, the family servant, opened the door and found herself face to face with a tall and very attractive young man who asked for Señorita Amelia Garayoa.
“Come in, they’re waiting for you.”
“No, I’d prefer to wait here, tell the señorita.”
Amelia came out with her aunt, Doña Elena, her cousin Laura, and her sister Antonietta.
“Karl, please come in, we’re waiting for you. Allow me to introduce my aunt.”
The man kissed her hand gallantly and gave her a package wrapped in the recognizable paper of a famous pastry shop.
“Oh, you shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble!” Doña Elena said.
“It’s no trouble, it’s an honor to make your acquaintance. But I don’t want to bother you, I would like, with your permission, to take Amelia for a walk. I won’t be too long. Shall we say eight o’clock?”
Doña Elena insisted politely that he take a cup of tea with them, but he declined.
When they were out in the street, Amelia asked him why he had rejected her aunt’s hospitality.
“I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help overhearing your cousin’s comment. You don’t like Germans in your house.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that you had heard Laura.”
“I think she said what she said with the intention of being heard,” Kleist replied with apparent anger.
“My father was shot by the Fascists. My Uncle Armando was in prison and was only saved by a miracle.”
“There’s no need to explain, I understand. I don’t know what I would think if they had shot my father.”
“My family was never Fascist, we are Republicans. That is how I was brought up.”
“It’s difficult to understand your relationship with Max, then... He’s a German officer.”
“Why is it difficult? We met in Buenos Aires, then we met again in London, and then in Berlin... and... I... I trust Max, I know who he is and how he thinks.”
“But even so, he’s an officer and his loyalty is to Germany.”
“As is yours.”
“That’s right.”
“I have never lied to Max about what I think, he knows my family, he knows what we have been through.”
“I’m not judging you, Amelia, I’m not judging you. There are many people in Germany who don’t share the ideals of Nazism.”
“Many? In that case why have they let...” She fell silent, scared of upsetting him. Max had told her that Kleist was not a supporter of Nazism, and that he obeyed simply as an officer, but was that true?
“Don’t be scared, I have no intention of hurting you. I helped you in the past without knowing you. You did something very risky helping those Poles get into the ghetto.”
“My best friend when I was younger was a Jew, her father was a partner of my father’s. They disappeared.”
“You won’t shock me by telling me you have Jewish friends. I have nothing against the Jews.”
“In that case, why have you allowed them to have everything they own be taken from them, to be sent to labor camps, to have to walk around with stars sewn to their clothes? Why have they suddenly stopped being Germans and why do they have no rights?”
Karl Kleist was impressed that Amelia was brave enough to speak to him, a German officer, in this way. Either she was naïve, or else Max had managed to convince her that she should trust him. In either case, her attitude seemed imprudent.
“You shouldn’t speak to strangers like that; you don’t know who could be listening, or the consequences of your words.”
She looked at him in fear and he was moved by her helpless gaze and turned the conversation to other, less controversial topics.
He invited her to have a cup of hot chocolate with him, and it was at this point that Amelia noticed the presence of two men, who were the same two men who had been with Kleist when he had left the embassy.
“These men... ,” she said, pointing to them.
“They’re good friends.”
“Don’t be scared of the Spanish! Franco is proud of the fact that with him in charge, the country is safe. In fact no one dares do anything for fear of the consequences. I don’t think that anyone will try to rob you, even if you are a foreigner.”
“Better safe than sorry.”
She didn’t insist in order not to upset him. Kleist left her in front of the door to her house just before eight o’clock.
“It was very nice to see you.”
“Yes, it was.”
Karl Kleist thought for a moment. Then with a smile, he asked her to have lunch with him in two days’ time.
11
They started to see each other fairly regularly. Amelia had decided not to follow Señora Rodríguez’s recommendation that she flirt with him. She was sure that if she did it would drive him away. Kleist had a code of honor that would have led him to reject the advances of a friend’s lover. This did not mean that he was not attracted to her, and with every day that passed he longed more to be with her. He liked Amelia, and this tormented him; but if she had hinted as to her availability then he would have found excuses to distance himself from her.
A few days after their first meeting, Kleist announced that he had to go to Bilbao and suggested that she accompany him.
“No, thank you, I don’t think it would be correct,” Amelia said.
“Don’t misunderstand me, it would be a short journey, and as you are half Basque I thought you would like to see your father’s homeland.”
“Yes, I would, but that doesn’t mean that I should go with you. I am sorry.”
Kleist was disappointed, but at the same time his interest in Amelia grew more intense. He was debating between his loyalty to Max von Schumann and his attraction to Amelia. If she allowed herself to be seduced, then he would be able to disdain her, but her sincere refusals awoke his interest.
When he returned from Bilbao he went to see her.
“Tell me about the city.”
Kleist explained at length what he had seen. Amelia listened to him with so much attention that it was as if nothing could have b
een more important than what he was saying.
That day she dared to complain about the presence of the two men who were always following him, although they did it so well that most of the time they were invisible, she didn’t even know they were there.
“Don’t you trust me?” she said suddenly when she caught sight of one of the men.
“Why do you say that?” he asked in surprise.
“We’re always being followed by these two men, as if I were going to do something to you.”
“Do they annoy you?”
Amelia shrugged, and he understood that she felt inhibited by the presence of these two men, that if they weren’t there then maybe...
“I’ll tell them to go.”
“No, don’t do it, it was silly of me to say anything.”
They carried on talking about banalities, and she enthused about the arrival of spring, and remembered her childhood.
“When the weather was good, my father and my Uncle Armando organized a trip for the whole family; we went to the mountains at El Pardo, a wonderful place, where you see deer and rabbits running about. We took baskets full of food and spent the whole day there. We could run, and jump and shout... Well, I was the one who ran and jumped and shouted, my sister Antonietta stayed with my mother and I played with Laura and Melita, my cousins. Jesús was still little and my aunt wouldn’t let him leave her.”
“How long has it been since you’ve been there?”
“Since before the war, our war. I’d like to go, but I don’t have a car. My father and my uncle had a car, but now...”
“I will take you.”
“I wish we could go! But I’m going back to Athens next Monday, Max is waiting for me, I’ve only got a few more days left in Madrid.”
“We can go this Sunday. Make one of those baskets, or better still, I’ll make it. We’ll go alone, without my guardian angels.’” That’s what Amelia called his bodyguards.
“No, no, don’t do that,” she protested. “I’m used to them, I don’t mind.”
“Even so, we’ll go alone.”
That night Amelia asked Edurne to take a note to Señora Rodríguez’s house.
“I’m going back to Athens soon and I would like to say goodbye.”
That night Albatross, which was Karl Kleist’s codename, also received a note, but longer than that which Amelia had sent Señora Rodríguez. It was an extensive report on Amelia and her family. One of his “guardian angels” gave it to him and told him to take care.
“She left her husband and her infant son to run away with another man. Then she had a relationship with an American journalist, the nephew of Paul James, one of the chiefs of the Admiralty. Now she is sharing her life with Baron Max von Schumann. She is a woman who...”
The bodyguard was not allowed to continue the phrase. Kleist cut the man off and gave an order to leave him alone so that he could read the report in peace.
He knew part of the information contained in the report via Max, and Amelia herself had spoken about her former life, saying how much she suffered from not being able to see her son.
His “guardian angel” had been right, though; the report showed that there were gaps in Amelia Garayoa’s career, like the Rome incident, in which she had been connected to the murder of an SS officer, but he rejected all possible doubts, he prided himself on knowing people well, and she had been sincere with him and had said that she was not a Fascist and that she hated Nazism. She had said that she was a Republican and a liberal, and even that she thought that if the Allies won the war it would mean the end of Franco, as he would lose his main ally, Hitler, given that Mussolini was no longer a powerful force.
On Sunday Kleist came to pick her up at eleven on the dot. He had a basket with enough food in it for a couple of days, as well as wine and cakes. Amelia seemed radiant.
As he had promised, they were not followed by the “guardian angels.”
She took him to the place that her family used to visit and ran up and down the mountainside, with him following her, enjoying her enthusiasm.
After eating they lay down on the grass a prudent distance from each other. Amelia subtly marked out how large this distance should be and he, in thrall to her, accepted. Not much time had passed before Amelia said that she was feeling unwell.
“I don’t know, something is making me feel queasy, perhaps I’m not used to drinking wine.”
“But you only took a sip. Maybe it was the pâté.”
“I don’t know, but my stomach hurts a lot.”
They had intended to return to Madrid late in the afternoon, but like a gentleman Kleist immediately offered to take her back home.
When they got there, he parked the car and offered to walk her up to her apartment, but she would only allow him to take her as far as the elevator. She said goodbye to him there in the presence of the doorman, who had come out to say hello.
“Your aunt and uncle are at home, but I think that Laura and Antonietta have gone out and are not home yet,” the doorman told her.
She got into the elevator and warmly squeezed his hand before closing the door.
“Have a safe journey, and give my regards to Max.”
“Take care of yourself,” she said.
Amelia went up to her aunt and uncle’s apartment and went straight to her room, barely pausing to greet Doña Elena and Don Armando, who were listening to the radio in the salon. She ran to the window and saw Karl Kleist’s car pulling away from the side of the road. Someone had gotten into it and was stretched out in the back seat, waiting for the German to return. When he was about to start the car he saw a man’s face appear in the rear-view mirror, and felt the cold barrel of a pistol at his neck. Another man opened the car door and sat at his side. He also had a weapon. He only said one word.
“Drive.”
Albatross was now in the power of agents of the British Secret Service. The British government accepted Franco’s fiction about neutrality, but they had agents in Spain, who spent most of their time gathering information. At sea, the British Secret Service had no compunction: No ship headed for Spain was allowed to proceed without stopping at Trinidad to have her cargo and passenger list checked. But until this moment, no action this risky had taken place on Spanish soil.
Amelia went to Athens next day to be with Max. A few days later he told her about Karl Kleist’s disappearance.
“Amelia, something terrible has happened. Karl has disappeared.”
“Karl?” she said, surprised, as if she didn’t understand what he was talking about.
“Yes, our embassy in Madrid hasn’t heard anything from him for several days. They’ve looked for him everywhere but there is no sign of him. They are investigating. The last person he was seen with was you.” Max could not stop a flash of pain from showing itself in his face.
“But Karl often goes to South America, maybe he’s headed there.”
“Yes, there’s a chance of that, but he would have left a message. But you were the last person who was with Karl,” Max insisted.
“I don’t know... I told you that I was with him on the Sunday before heading back to Athens. We went to the country. Has no one really heard about him since then?”
“He did not go back to the embassy that day. His men thought that he... well, that he was with you. He had insisted on going on the trip to the country alone. They didn’t start to worry until late Monday morning. They went to your uncle and aunt’s house...”
“Good Lord, that must have given them a real shock!”
“The doorman said that Karl went with you to the elevator and that you said goodbye there, and he saw him going back to his car. He also said that he didn’t see you again until the next morning, when you left with your uncle, carrying a suitcase.”
“I can’t understand what happened,” she said, apparently stupefied. “He was very discreet and didn’t say anything about his work, so he didn’t tell me if he was thinking of going anywhere. Do you think something might have
happened to him?” Amelia tried to seem innocent.
“I don’t know, but no one just disappears. The police are looking for him. I’ve told you that they’ve interrogated your family, and the doorman.”
“But my family has nothing to do with Karl!” she cried out in anguish.
“Amelia, the Gestapo want to interrogate you here. Colonel Winkler wants the investigation into Jürgens’s murder to be reopened. He doesn’t think it’s a coincidence.”
“Coincidence? What do you mean, coincidence?” she asked, without hiding her fear.
“Colonel Winkler insists that his friend, Colonel Jürgens, had arranged to meet you the evening of his murder, and Kleist disappeared just after spending a day with you in the country. This, for him, is irrefutable evidence that you are behind both events. He thinks that you’re a spy.”
“He’s mad! I’m not a spy! Max, please, stop this man!”
“I’m trying to, Amelia.”
She was really scared. She cursed Major Murray in her mind. Operation Albatross had been a success for the British Secret Service, but she asked herself if Major Murray had perhaps thought that she would be a suitable price to pay to get hold of Captain Kleist. She felt like an insignificant piece in the secret game of the war.
She started to cry. She had been holding her tears back for days and had barely been able to sleep. She had handed Kleist over to the British, and he would now be in London, being interrogated by Major Murray, and even though she had no doubt about where her political loyalties lay, her conscience tormented her.
Karl Kleist had helped her when she was in a Warsaw prison, he had helped Max to get her out of that prison, he had been a gentleman, quite charming, over the last few days in Madrid, but she had betrayed him and handed him over to the British, and he was now in London where, in the best of cases, he would be in prison until the war was over. She had been able to do this to a man who had been nothing but kind to her, and she felt miserable, thinking about the ease with which she hurt the people who were good to her. Santiago came first, whom she abandoned for Pierre; then she had betrayed Max in order to spy for the British, and now she had handed Kleist over to them as well.
Tell Me Who I Am Page 82
