CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After stopping briefly to phone home on the M1, Emily reached her destination, in slightly under twenty-four hours since leaving Heidelberg. She was delighted to find her old nanny, the family’s housekeeper waiting delightedly for her arrival. Mrs. Offlands was a rotund woman with wavy black hair pulled up rather untidily into a makeshift bun. She wore a baker’s apron which she called a “pinny”, and had always reminded Emily of the Peggoty character in Dickens’ David Copperfield. Emily knew nothing about her background or character, other than this woman had helped her learn to walk, had held her hand through every crisis or disappointment and represented all she loved about England. Mrs. Offlands was the salt of the earth. Her husband John was the gardener and groomsman. The couple lived in a little cottage at the end of the property facing the Welsh hills. Their accents were thick as Scouse, referring both to the native Liverpool stew derived from the German “Lobskause” as well as the dialect they spoke. Both born and bred in Liverpool they now seldom “went over the water” as they referred to traveling across the Mersey to the famous seaport. Liverpool was an exciting, dangerous city as Emily had discovered as a teenager. Many were the times Johnny Offlands had driven over to get her before either of her parents realized she was in the Cavern, or the Jacaranda, listening to the rhythm and blues music which still remained one of her biggest weaknesses.
Mrs. Offlands took Emily’s suitcase and attaché case and headed to the three room suite Emily had occupied since childhood. The largest room with its oak beams and Persian carpets was her bedroom. She took it all in once again, feeling both happy and nostalgic. There on the paneled coffer of her large oak four poster bed sat Rupert Bear as he had always done. In front of her was the Jacobean court cupboard she had always used as a dressing table, its full length mirror now reflecting not a happy, smiling child but a very worn looking young woman standing before it. In the corner was the comfortable crimson velvet and mahogany bergere which, while a mismatch to the room’s other furnishings, represented all that was secure in Emily’s life. Looking at her comfort zone, she was a child again and she was home.
She explored the other rooms as Mrs. Offlands unpacked her clothes. The small library had remained the same with its oak paneled bookshelves and the Flemish oak and marquetry desk. It was here on the old leather chair that she had done her schoolwork. It was here that she smoked her first and only joint, throwing it out of the window when she heard her father approaching. Still burning, she remembered with glee, the thing had landed directly on Mr. Offlands, who had been pruning roses underneath. He hadn’t betrayed her. He just looked up and grinned, shaking a mock fist. She opened the door to her private bathroom and found in her cabinet all of her favorites. Jasmine, patchouli and rose oils, sea salt from France and large bottles of Badedas.
Sensing her fatigue and her loneliness, Mrs. Offlands attempted to cheer her up. “My lamb looks tired. Come on luv; come with me to the kitchen.”
Emily needed no further persuasion. A Cheshire tea! Choosing a freshly baked barm cake filled with good Cheshire cheese and chutney, a homemade sausage roll followed by fresh strawberries, clotted cream and steaming hot tea, Emily ate with gusto, knowing that they would not dine formally until 8.30 that evening.
Mrs. Offlands laughed and added “I’ve made me famous Stegosaurus,” which was a large Scottish roast beef that Emily had so named as a child, with horseradish cream, and Roasties, “and there’s carrots and turnips and for me little girl Sherry trifle and Apple Hat for those who don’t care for me darlin’s favorite. I’ve got some good blue Stilton for you as well. Have to keep that ‘babby’ of yours well fed.”
Emily burst into tears at the simplicity of the statement and before long she was being helped into a warm bath and having her hair washed as she had so many times as a child when her world was dark or sad. Her bed was turned down, the pillows plumped and she was in her old tapestry dressing gown safe and warm. “Oh Mrs. Offlands, I’m so glad to be home,” she said, and reaching for her old Rupert Bear, which Mrs. Offlands tucked in besides her she snuggled under the brocade coverlet and drifted off into a deep sleep.
She awakened at 7 p.m., took a fast shower, dressed and went downstairs to her father’s study. “Poppa,” she said, running to his arms, “I’m so glad to see you. I’m up to my eyes in something I don’t fully understand.”
“So it would seem child,” he replied, “I spoke with old Archie Beresford earlier today. Archie was, if you remember, a colonel in the army. Among many other things he was also attached to the Home Office when he retired quite young. He has worked with our anti-terrorist groups recently as a consultant. I have briefed him and he feels very strongly that you should talk with him immediately. I have arranged for him to come over for dinner and I would suggest that you are as honest with him as you were with me when you rang me on your way home. Emily, your mother and I feel you have inadvertently become involved with some students who may possibly be hooked up with some very dangerous people. These students are not just protestors or left wing radicals. There’s intelligence circulating that they are planning attacks on embassies, bombing stores, even taking hostages. This is very dangerous stuff Emily. It involves National Security. Both your mother and I feel you need to be very open with the authorities. Archie can arrange for you to be interviewed, after all you are not involved with any subterfuge, you just know them through friends, that is correct, is it not?”
“Poppa,” Emily began, “I don’t know what you are talking about. I’m not involved with anybody. All I have done is to get married, pregnant and abandoned. This is why I am here! A friend of mine, Osita, you remember him from the wedding fiasco, he’s the doctor from Nigeria, was beaten up by Mustafa Jalil, Ghulam’s friend. He was not badly hurt, but I let him spend the night in my guestroom. While he was there he telephoned a couple of people and I overheard the conversations. It struck me as odd that he telephoned someone and spoke in Ibo when he was allegedly ringing the hospital. Then he made a phone call to someone else named Tony at the British Embassy and his accent completely changed. He didn’t sound like a Nigerian, he sounded more British than Mother. It was more than bloody odd, you know? He told them everything I had said to him in passing conversation about Mustafa, almost as if he was reporting some tip to ‘The News of the World’. I then heard very strange clicking on the line when I picked up the phone after he had left the next day and it scared me so much that I told everyone I was leaving town for a few days and came home to you.”
“My dear child, look at this. You haven’t done anything wrong, but nonetheless you must talk to Archie right away. He’ll know what to do. He’s not attached to MI5 or MI6 or anything. He’s just a consultant. But he is much better equipped to answer your questions than I am. Mother and I think that perhaps you are in danger and we need to take steps to protect you. Do not panic.”
“MI5 or MI6, what the hell is the difference between them anyway?” Emily’s annoyance at her father rising as he calmly responded.
“Emily, MI5 and MI6 are the world’s oldest secret intelligence agencies. They began, I think in the early part of the century. MI5 was the military section and MI6 was Navy. They built a magnificent bank of information called ‘the registry’, a register of generally what the British call political subversives. A brilliant move, my dear, it comes in very handy when the country is in political crisis. Dig up dirt and buy yourself out. They have been the power behind the victories in World War I and II. Their intelligence serves as a vanguard for the world. Although I hear that the Israeli Mossad is catching up. They were formed by David ben Gurion in 1951, and are very effective.”
“So how is it that you know so much about them?”
“Emily, I’m an Egyptian raised Moroccan and I’m wealthy. I have friends in the community. We all play scratching of the backs. It’s how the world gets along.”
“Poppa, I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Arabs and Israelis were at war just three years ago
and you have friends in their intelligence community?”
“Emily, you fail to understand that true Israelis, not the “fallah” that fled Europe before and after World War II, are cousins to the Arabs. We are, ostensibly of the same people.”
“Jesus Christ, I don’t believe you! They are more than just peasants, they’re thieves stealing Arab land, polluting our water supplies, raping our women and murdering our children in the name of their promised land and their God of Israel and you act like they’re distant cousins!”
“And of course, we would never do that, my child, because we have higher standards?” her father responded, his accent now losing its British edge, He remained calm, yet glared at his daughter, “History repeats itself Amina, and it is only ever written by the victors. Our Islamic brothers would no doubt do the same thing in their position. You and I, if we are honest, both know this.”
And with his use of her Muslim name, Emily became aware that she had crossed her father’s line of patience. She backtracked accordingly.
“Perhaps, Abu,” she addressed him formally now, eager to win back his favor and lowering her head in respect, “I should remember that you are always wise and I still have much to learn.”
There was a slight tapping on the door and her mother entered. Elizabeth was a tall slender woman with long dark hair tied in a loose ponytail like an older Natalie Wood. Yet to her daughter, she looked the quintessential Middle-Easternwoman, as there was absolutely nothing European in either her physique or her looks. Elizabeth was the daughter of what was referred to in former times as ‘Landed Gentry’, the land rich and cash poor Davenports of Chester. Maybe, Emily thought as she looked at her mother, the old man has a point, and we are all related.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Their conversation was interrupted by Mrs. Offlands softly knocking on the door to tell them that Colonel Beresford had arrived. Within a few minutes he was ushered into the study. “Ah, Archie my dear friend. Come in, do come in,” Ibrahim began, offering his guest a drink. “Amina,” he turned, surprised that his daughter had not begun to offer refreshments, “please attend to our guest.” Emily stepped behind her father to the tray on the mahogany breakfront which held several decanters. She poured a soda water for her father, a small dry sherry for herself despite her father’s obvious disapproval and observing Beresford’s nod, poured a large Glenfiddich for him.
“Archie, I briefed Emily on your role. Now I would like you to explain to her exactly what you discussed with me earlier today. You may of course speak with confidence that this conversation will go no further than these four walls, but clearly she needs to know what is happening and the possible consequences of her actions.”
“Yes of course, Ibrahim,” he said facing Emily, “It would seem that you have got yourself in rather a pickle, my dear. In the early sixties, a small group of German students, not unlike millions of others worldwide began to take a long hard look at their parents and their government. The political structure went through what we, the older generation call a ‘passive provocation’. Young people began to look at West Berlin, particularly at the wall. As you probably know my dear, it was built in 1961, dividing Germany to prevent those opposed to Communism from leaving the western sector. These young people become increasingly aware that the division was fundamentally wrong, but its existence proved both romantic and idealistic. Around 1965 a small faction of the group formed a commune. Now becoming a little more “organized”, they began to speak what became provocative, extremely leftist, but at this point non-violent rhetoric against the establishment their parents had created after World War II. These radicals met, our intelligence advises, in a manor house on a lake called Kochelsee, to discuss the prospects of forming a revolutionary group or movement in Western Europe. Whether it was just the time for revolutionaries my dear, or whether there was a little fantasy attached to this, I don’t know, but it caught on. All the women wanted to look like Jeanne Moreau and Brigitte Bardot, and patterned themselves after the film “Viva Maria.” Very fetching and highly dangerous all at the same time, you understand. You may have seen the film, where all the bad chaps are extremely wealthy and the poor are extremely stoic and likeable, you know, that sort of thing. They even called themselves ‘The Viva Maria Gruppe.’ One of them was a chap named Fritz Teufel and another gave himself the name ‘Red’ Rudi Dutschke. Both were at the time pacifists. The intent of the commune ideal was free love, social freedom and living off the land. Sounds awfully utopian and brave new world doesn’t it? The archetypal village raising the children, who are all born in love not hate. An unattainable lifestyle in practice but in theory, my dear, it held up quite nicely.”
“In those days Dutschke still had strong connections with the German Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentbund. It wasn’t too long before they had a very active membership. The German SDS was, as you may know, against the Atom Bomb, Germany’s return to military power and the country’s rearmament. These young people wanted to protest the wrongs of the system. It had of course been a difficult time for them. Born during the war or shortly thereafter, their culture was destroyed, and their history demolished. Like many young people all over the world they were in a state of perpetual shame at the awful turn of events. But in the last few years, Emily, people are beginning to take them seriously. Their “happenings” have had a rallying effect on other students. In Heidelberg, where you now live, as an example, when the Strassenbahn fares were increased and it left the elderly without transportation because it was too expensive, the left wing students implemented a ‘Red Dot’ system. For the first time in decades people began to look on students not as the “pedantische” upper-class, but as real ‘menschen’. This ‘thing’, this revolutionary spirit, has caught on. Cars with red dots on their windows wait at trolley stops and pick up passengers for free. Can you my dear, imagine what this does to public transportation when it happens city or state wide? Other young people have joined in. Then someone you know, Ulrike Meinhof, now enters the picture.”
Emily listened carefully as Beresford continued, “A woman vehemently anti-American and ardently opposed to their Vietnam conflict, she sees herself as a bridge between communism and anarchy. Meinhof was raised Roman Catholic and, would you believe it, actually wanted to be a nun. She was orphaned as a child and raised by an idealist named Professor Renate Eimeck. An academic of some note, I might add, and very congenial. Like her mentor, Meinhof is also a brilliant woman or was before she had a brain tumor removed. Some sources say she has a metal plate in her head. This, I dare say, has made a major difference in her personality. But what is important for you to understand at this point is that she has always been in our Russian counterpart’s trouser pocket. She was, until recently, married to a wealthy publisher named Klaus Reiner Roehl. They have a comfortable existence, and have twin daughters. Roehl hired her as a journalist for his magazine ‘Konkret’, which in case you’ve never seen it is a combination of light pornography, always a marketable commodity, with a little poetry thrown in. Here is what is of interest, Emily. No hard party line, definitely non-suspect, you see, but totally backed by the Russkies at the rate of one million marks per annum. It is subscribers…students and young people like you who are the objective, do you understand? The magazine’s entire political load is written by Meinhof, who herself is just one more middle-class woman serving up communist verbiage without ever having lived it. Such is the plight, no doubt, of the middle-class. All total rubbish, and all written to be readily digested by the bucketful. In her terms the people must be at war with the establishment. But unlike her idols Marighella, Fanon, Marx, Lenin and Hegel, she is too damned sophisticated to impress the working class. Those poor buggers don’t understand her at all.”
Beresford sipped his whiskey and went on, “Meinhof and her newly found friend Andreas Baader, along with his girlfriend Gudrun Ensslin are intent on spreading the word any way they can, and their objective is to destroy what they call Evil Western Capitalism through t
errorism. Baader and Ensslin are out on remand after blowing up a department store. Surely, Emily, you knew this when you invited their hangers on to your home. In theory, you have harbored them. Now they’re suspected of robbing banks to support their ideology and their purchase of weapons and we are certain that they’re being funded by Palestinian Terrorist organizations. These, Emily, are your new found associates who visit your home, eat your food, and talk to your guests. Of course you are under surveillance! Did you think the German and British Governments, not to mention our cousins across the pond would miss an opportunity like this to put an end to their particular threat? They’re watching every move you make right now.”
Emily took a deep breath, “But Colonel Beresford, I haven’t done anything. They came to my home as guests of my husband’s friend.”
“Ah yes, Mr. Jalil. We understand he has been smuggling hashish and cannabis into Germany. He is also under surveillance. Just a minor drug dealer, but nonetheless of interest because of his associates.”
“Well, you won’t get anything out of him, he’s a committed communist too,” she said, regretting her outburst almost immediately.”
“Emily, we are not after him, but the office would dearly like to talk privately with you.”
“What! You must be cracked or something. I don’t know anything about Baader or Meinhof and I’ve never met Rudi Dutschke.”
“Emily, we know that. But frankly, you could be useful...short term, you understand. Perhaps just to make some observations when you meet them. What they discuss, where they go, who they see, that sort of thing. Nothing life threatening, of course,” he added with an air of simple, understated congeniality, “Just a simple report or two once in a while.”
“Absolutely not! How could you even ask me this? I’m pregnant. I won’t take risks around my child. And what about the Nigerians? Are they in your employ as well? Little James Bonds are they?” she added sarcastically.
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