The Linden Tree

by Hester Rowan

  ‘What will you be doing while I’m out on my job?’ I asked in English as he joined me after paying for the boat and we walked towards one of the café gardens.

  He shrugged noncommittally. ‘Oh, a little business of my own.’

  We sat under the shade of a blue and orange umbrella and I watched him as he ordered coffee and two slices of strawberry torte piled with fresh cream.

  He caught my eye. ‘I made a point of shaving before coming out, so I imagine that it’s my suit that you’re looking at with such disapproval?’

  ‘I did wonder about it,’ I agreed.

  ‘Then don’t,’ he said sharply. ‘Don’t wonder about things, Alison. Don’t ask questions, don’t search for reasons, don’t concern yourself about anything except what you’re actually doing. In this job, it isn’t healthy.’

  A momentary chill of fear made me catch my breath, but I tried to laugh.

  ‘You and the Department of Overseas Trade!’ I scoffed.

  But I had no appetite at all for strawberry torte.

  Chapter Eight

  After we’d drunk our coffee, Nicolas took me on a sight-seeing tour of West Berlin. He drove back through the woods, through a village with its old church and inn, and along a main road between small week-end bungalows set in well-tended gardens. And then we reached a busy suburb and turned east along a wide straight artery that led to the heart of the city.

  As he drove, between buildings that were rarely more than a quarter of a century old, Nicolas pointed out the sights: the Olympic stadium, the steep grassy hills that were actually mounds of wartime rubble, and the flowery acres of the Tiergarten park. At the far end of the road, straddling it, rose the massive arch of the Brandenburg Gate, topped by a glittering newly-gilded statue of a chariot drawn by four stallions.

  ‘The road on the other side of the Gate is the Unter den Linden,’ Nicolas told me. ‘Apparently it used to be the great main street of pre-war Berlin, leading straight up to the royal palace.’

  ‘A lovely name to give to the main street of a capital city,’ I mused. ‘“Under the linden trees” … linden’s a much nicer name for them than our lime, isn’t it? Are the linden trees still there?’

  ‘New ones, since the war – though the street’s now rather dull and lined with government buildings instead of big stores and theatres and hotels. The Gate and the Unter den Linden are both in East Berlin now, of course.’

  As he spoke he followed the stream of traffic, turning sharply right instead of driving straight up to the Brandenburg Gate. I looked back, in the direction we had been heading, and saw why. The splendid avenue, leading through the Tiergarten and on through the Gate to become the Unter den Linden, was permanently blocked by a great grey concrete barrier topped by barbed wire. We had reached the frontier and had been turned aside by the Wall dividing West from East Berlin.

  ‘The Wall’s quite a tourist attraction, I believe,’ Nicolas was saying casually as he drove into the busy centre of West Berlin. ‘There are viewing platforms on this side so that people can climb up and look over at the East, if they’ve nothing better to do. We have, I’m glad to say – we’re out to enjoy ourselves for the evening.’

  It was tactful of him, I thought. I’d seen newspaper photographs and television documentaries, and I knew that East Berlin was unlikely to be a comforting sight. I didn’t want to look at the armed guards who patrolled on the other side of the Wall, the death strip that had been cleared of houses to give the guards a clear field of fire against any would-be escaper, the wreaths and crosses that the West Berliners had hung on their side of the Wall as pathetic memorials to those East Germans who had tried to defy the guards and hadn’t made it.

  We parked and then strolled along the glittering main street, the Kurfürstendamm. Nicolas was indulgent, encouraging me to window-shop for elegantly-designed porcelain, silverware and clothes; but finally he complained of thirst, steered me to a pavement table outside one of the restaurants, and ordered a bottle of white wine.

  ‘This is Mosel,’ he announced as he poured me a glass. ‘It’s German wine pressed from grapes grown in the German valley of the river, and I do object to the English practice of calling it Moselle, as though it were a French wine. Well …’ he lifted his glass and touched it lightly against mine, ‘… to you, Alison – with many thanks and a great deal of admiration.’

  I was too uncertain of myself to want to meet his eyes. The attraction between us was undeniable; we had mutually, mutely acknowledged our admiration. But what he was talking about now was something different, and I knew that he had it all wrong. I wasn’t in the least courageous, it was nothing but folly that kept me there beside him, because if I had any real courage I would get up and walk straight out of his dangerous life.

  There were, after all, other men. I’d known physical attraction before. ‘Surely to goodness, Alison Maxwell,’ I scolded myself silently, ‘you’re not so desperate for a man that you have to get involved with one who probably – almost certainly – works for British Intelligence? He’s simply using you. Get up and go, girl, before you’re in any deeper!’

  But foolishly, wretchedly, I stayed. My smile in answer to his toast must have been wan, but he didn’t appear to notice it. He had become quiet, preoccupied, frowning as he absently fingered the dark green baroque stem of his wine glass.

  Suddenly he said: ‘Do you know what I sometimes long to do, Alison? I’d love to tell the Department to find someone else to do their dirty work! I’m sick of being given lofty orders that I have to carry out whether I agree with them or not. I’m sick of being pushed about, and having to push other people about in my turn. I’ve got to the stage where I’ve a good mind to tell them to keep their job!’

  His outburst came as a complete surprise. I’d begun to think of him as a dedicated agent of the government, ruthlessly – as they do in television spy series – making use of any girl who happened to be at hand. This put him in an agreeably new light. I drank some wine and looked at him with renewed interest.

  ‘I’d assumed that you were a career man – that you were devoted to the Department of Overseas Trade.’

  He gave me a sombre smile of acknowledgement. ‘That’s what I thought, until recently. I joined because it sounded really interesting: a chance to use my languages, plenty of travel, a certain amount of excitement. Actually a lot of it is tedious, and some of it downright sordid, but it offers a good career as long as you remember to keep a low profile in situations where you’re likely to be used for target practice. But spending this last week at home on the farm has made me realize that I want more out of life than I can ever get from this job. I’m seriously thinking of chucking in the Civil Service and going into partnership with my father on the farm.’

  ‘Putting down roots?’ I asked, carefully keeping my voice light and the question casual as I drained my glass of wine. The Mosel was delicious: cool, delicate, flowery, but with a hint of slate that kept its fragrance dry.

  ‘Yes, that’s it – putting down roots, in every sense. I want stability for myself and the chance to produce something useful for the community. I’m tired of rushing about. I want to belong somewhere.’

  Our eyes met across the table and we smiled understandingly at each other. I felt buoyant, as though I were suddenly floating six feet above the crowded Ku’damm. Nicolas refilled my glass and then said: ‘Look, shall we eat here? It’s a pleasant evening and a shame to go indoors. I hope you’re hungry because I am, and the food they’ve brought to the next table smells delicious.’

  ‘Have you discussed the farming idea with your father?’ I asked when he had ordered, taking another heady gulp of wine.

  ‘Only indirectly, so far. He’d always hoped that my brother would join him – Simon was the practical one, I was always labelled as academic. But now Simon’s all set for a full-scale RAF career, and he’s turned down my father’s offer – which, incidentally, included an empty farmhouse. Dad dropped a few heavy hints when he told
me that Simon wasn’t interested, and I’m sure he’d renew the offer if I ask. The problem is, though, that it’s no life for a single man. I’m too used to independence to go back to living at home, but on the other hand I really can’t face the prospect of rattling about on my own in a five-bedroomed farmhouse.’

  I concentrated on my glass, smoothing away with my fingers the last misty traces of condensation left on the bowl by the coolness of the wine. ‘That’s understandable,’ I heard myself saying, and I admired myself for the detachment that my voice achieved.

  ‘It’s a beautiful house, though,’ Nicolas said eagerly, propping his elbows on the table as he leaned across to communicate his enthusiasm to me. ‘I had a good look at it one day during the week, while you were working at the hotel. Mind you, it’s been empty for a couple of years and it needs to be renovated and modernized, but it’ll make a magnificent home. It’s late Georgian and I particularly admire that period – do you?’

  I nodded. I do like Georgian architecture, but if he’d said Ming Dynasty I’d probably have nodded just the same; I was light-headed with vintage Mosel and anticipatory happiness.

  ‘The façade’s something like this,’ he went on, taking a pen from his pocket and making a rapid sketch on the back of the menu of an elegantly-proportioned house, with two windows on either side of the pedimented front door, balanced by five windows on the second storey. ‘There are some rather squalid Victorian outbuildings tacked on to the back at the moment, but I’d knock them down and build a new kitchen wing.’

  I murmured gravely that a new kitchen wing sounded admirable.

  ‘There’s a walled garden, though it’s more like a walled nettle bed at the moment,’ he explained. ‘Oh, and an avenue of lime trees leading up from the road. They could do with a bit of surgery, and there ought to be some selective felling and re-planting, but it’s a magnificent feature.’

  ‘Linden trees,’ I reproved him gently, ‘not lime.’

  He laughed and sat back. ‘You’re right, linden. Ah, this looks like our meal. And mind you eat it, Alison, you’ve hardly had any food today.’

  The agreeable nip of appetite reminded me that this was true. Nicolas seemed to have an unfortunate penchant for making me either angry or frightened just as we were about to eat, and putting me off. But now, as I eyed the crisp roast goose, the green salad, the golden-brown puff-balls of potato, I felt that I could do them justice – if only to please him.

  It was happening too quickly, of course. Common sense told me sternly that no real or permanent attachment could come about at this speed. But then, whoever suggested that emotion owes anything to common sense? I knew that what I felt for Nicolas was more than merely physical, that for the first time in my life – excepting, that is, my adolescent admiration of his brother – I was in danger of falling seriously in love.

  Nicolas waited solicitously for me to pick up my knife and fork and take my first bite. ‘All right?’ he asked.

  ‘Wonderful.’ But I wasn’t thinking about the food.

  He topped up my glass. ‘Of course,’ he said judiciously, ‘it’d cost the earth to get everything done at once. I think it would be a matter of doing things gradually, making the restoration of the house and grounds a lifetime’s work.’

  I nodded. My mouth was temporarily too much occupied with goose to allow me to give him my assurance that it was work that I would be only too happy to devote the rest of my life to, and this was just as well because his next words made the assurance superfluous.

  ‘The thing is, though,’ he said, taking up his own knife and fork with a wry smile, ‘that Eve simply loathes the country.’

  I stopped eating. ‘Eve?’

  ‘The girl I take out when I’m in London. She’s city born and bred and loves theatres and parties. She works in advertising, but I think she’d dearly love to be an actress – I’m sure she’d envy you. Mmm, you’re right, this goose is good.’

  I put down my fork very slowly, and somehow managed to swallow the dust and ashes in my mouth. What a romantic idiot I’d been – of course Nicolas wasn’t seriously interested in me. The attention he had been paying me was simply part of his job, something he could write off as expenses, a way of keeping my mind off the frightening task he had arranged for me tomorrow.

  All my lightness had gone. I felt leaden, my head ached. The next-to-last thing I wanted to do was to eat the meal, but if I abandoned it now he would surely guess the reason. The very last thing I wanted was to talk about his girlfriend, but if I changed the subject abruptly, he might well begin to wonder why.

  I sat up straight, took a sip of tasteless wine and picked up my fork again. ‘Do tell me,’ I begged, with a bright, sincere enthusiasm that my Drama School tutors would have been proud of, ‘about Eve.’

  Nicolas smiled and shrugged and reverted to his plans for the farm, but I soon abandoned all pretence of interest, as well as the remains of the goose. He tried to tempt me with strawberries and cream, but I managed to convince him that I wanted only black coffee. As soon as I had drunk it, I said I would like to go back to the hotel.

  Nicolas protested. The evening had barely begun, he had wanted to take me to a night club, or perhaps to one of the open-air dance floors by the Havel. But I pleaded my headache, and he collected the car and drove me back towards Gatow.

  I was silent on the journey. It had been pride that kept me bright at dinner, but by now I was too weary to bother about maintaining a façade. My interest in Nicolas had turned sour; this was no pleasure trip but business, and business of a frightening kind.

  He glanced at me several times as we drove through the brightly-lit streets and out into the suburbs, and when we reached the quiet of a lakeside road he pulled up. It was not yet completely dark and the lake gleamed, catching the last light from the sky.

  ‘Are you all right, Alison?’ he asked gently.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I said, keeping my eyes on the tree-shadowed road ahead. ‘I think it was the wine that gave me the headache – I was stupid to drink so much.’

  He was contrite. ‘I think it was much more likely my fault for insisting on staying at the pavement table. We must have been breathing petrol fumes all evening. You’d better get some fresh air before I take you back to the hotel.’

  He held the door open and I stepped out on to the lakeside grass, reluctant to prolong the journey but glad of the opportunity to clear my head. The air was cool and fresh, smelling of waterweed and damp earth, but with an underlying fragrance that drifted towards us from a wild azalea whose flowers glimmered palely under the trees. From across the lake we could hear, faintly, the music of a restaurant band; the lights that hung about its landing stage were reflected in the water like a double string of pearls.

  Nicolas took my arm and led me across the strip of grass towards the lake. There was a watery plop as a small creature took fright and dived in at our approach, and then we could hear only the distant music and the soft ripple and splash of the waves against the shingle bank.

  He released my arm, bent to pick up a pebble and tossed it into the water. ‘Don’t think I don’t understand,’ he said quietly. ‘You must be worried sick about tomorrow, you’d have no imagination at all if you weren’t.’ Then he turned to me quickly: ‘But it’ll be all right, Alison, truly – you’ll probably find it simply rather boring.’

  There was enough light for him to see whether I smiled, so I did my best. ‘Pity I didn’t bring my knitting, then.’

  His reply was swift and sharp. ‘For God’s sake, Alison, don’t take anything of your own!’ And then he relaxed again. ‘But we’ve discussed all that. Sorry I missed your joke …’

  He wandered a few feet away from me and bent to pick up another pebble. For a few moments he tossed it moodily in his hand, and then he leaned back and with a vicious gesture spun it far out into the lake. When he spoke it was half to himself, through partly-clenched teeth: ‘I wish to heaven I’d never involved you in this! It seemed such a magni
ficent scheme at the time, when I saw how much you looked like Elisabeth. Oh, I was proud of my plan! But now … now I’d give anything to call it off. Not that it’s difficult for you, but why should you be involved at all?’

  I felt a moment of hope. ‘Could you call it off?’

  ‘Not a chance,’ he said bitterly. ‘I told you, I’m just an errand boy in this outfit. Anyway, there’s too much at stake. By now Elisabeth is committed, and so are we.’

  I shivered involuntarily, and he must have heard the catch in my breath. He came back to me, smiling with false heartiness, and put his hands on my shoulders. ‘But look – what you’re doing is really worthwhile, Alison, I promise you that. You’re going to help Elisabeth spend more time with her grandmother, and that’s a good humanitarian cause – right? And you’re going to give a splendid performance, because you’re a good actress. I know you’ll have no problems – I’d never have brought you here if I hadn’t been absolutely certain that you had the ability and the courage to go through with it.’

  His hands were warm and strong. He smiled at me through the dusk, searching my features, moving his gaze from my eyes to my hair to my mouth and back again. And I knew that it was all part of the game, part of the plan he was proud of. Errand boy he might be, but an errand boy with ideas. ‘That’s all right, sir,’ I could imagine him saying confidently to the man who gave out the orders, ‘if the girl seems panicky I can always make love to her. They never fail to fall for that.’

  I stiffened, standing mute and unwilling when he tried to draw me into his arms.

  ‘What’s wrong, Alison?’ he said. ‘I thought you liked me. I thought we’d established a rapport, out there on the lake this afternoon?’

  I shrugged, trying to loosen the grip of his hands. ‘Yes, I like you,’ I said lightly, annoyed to hear that my voice was unsteady. ‘That doesn’t necessarily mean that I want to kiss you, though.’

  For a moment I could hear only his breathing. ‘No,’ he said slowly, as though, with masculine arrogance, this possibility had never before occurred to him. ‘No, I suppose it doesn’t. But look, you’re not holding back on account of Eve, are you? I mean, I’m not engaged to her, any more than you are to what’s-his-name, the hairy fellow. All I was trying to tell you is that Eve doesn’t fit into the kind of future that I want – I’m free to kiss whoever I like.’