She lifted her chin sharply, and pushed aside her coffee cup. They had been poring over the list of names on the computer print-out all through dinner, and this was the first time he’d sounded at all uncertain about what he wanted to do.
‘Of course you have to!’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because — well, it’s all part of your film, isn’t it? Knowing what happened and why and — ’
‘That’s what I’m beginning to wonder about. I’m making a film using two parallel stories, yours and the Rats of Cracow. And maybe some of Cyril Etting too, though I’m not sure — anyway, that’s my story. What has all this — ’ and he flicked his thumb at the sheets of print-out paper — ‘got to do with any of that?’
‘Maybe it’s the way you’ll find out about the boy and the apples,’ she said. ‘How else can you? You told me that Mayer will only finance you if you get all the story complete — and that means what happened to that boy. And for all you know the boy could be Brazel. He could have lied to you, you know. Hadn’t you considered that possibility?’
He stared at her. ‘Brazel? How could …?’ And then his voice drifted away as he sat and thought. ‘The boy could be anyone,’ he said then. ‘Couldn’t he? Anyone in England. Anyone I’ve met and haven’t met — ’
‘I think you have,’ she said and bent her head again to run her finger down the list of names spread before them. ‘I don’t know why, but I think you have.’
‘But why should I have done? I mean, there’s no logical reason, is there? It’d be a coincidence if one of the people I met in London turned out to be, wouldn’t it? And coincidence — ’
‘Happens all the time,’ she said. ‘Read your Koestler again, if you doubt that.’
‘I only heard about the boy by accident,’ Abner said. ‘If it hadn’t been for Cyril taking me to that synagogue supper, if I hadn’t been given Cyril Etting’s name as someone who’d been in the camps at the same time as some of the people in my parents’ Shoah club, if — ’
‘To hell with the “if’s,’ she said and there was a newly robust air about her. ‘And to hell with your dismissal of what you call coincidence. People are linked in all sorts of ways, and sometimes a new person steps into a pattern and then all the other people already in are linked with him. That’s what’s happened to you. You came to Europe to make a film and you’ve got entangled in other people’s tangles. And this is one of the ways out of it, I’m sure of it.’
‘Womanly intuition?’ He couldn’t resist the gibe.
‘No,’ she snapped. ‘Years of working on historical documents with a highly experienced historian. This sort of thing happens all the time, take my word for it. You can’t spend the time I’ve spent listening to an old man expounding theories of history and synchronicity without knowing how common such linkings are. And there’s another one here, so that you simply have to use this list, somehow. Now, what do we do? Ask Brazel why he wanted it?’
‘I hardly think he’ll tell me,’ Abner said dryly. ‘Though it’s a possibility, I suppose.’
‘Well, leave that in abeyance for a bit. Right now we have two more days here, and you say you’ve got all the stuff you want for your advert already done or whatever it is — ’
‘“In the can” is the phrase you’re looking for.’
‘Jargon!’ she said with a fine scorn. ‘But if you insist, in the can. So why not use the time to get ourselves round some of the people on this list? The diamond people are all close together here, aren’t they?’
‘In a sort of stockmarket of diamonds, you mean? I think so — the Diamond Bourse, isn’t it? But there’ll be lots outside, I imagine. And anyway, these addresses are all over the city. We’ve already seen that, from the map.’
‘You’re being altogether too defeatist,’ she said, in a scolding voice and he laughed and after a moment so did she. ‘Yes, I suppose I do sound like a schoolmarm, but all the same, here we are. Tomorrow we’ll take the list and we’ll walk from one damned building to another till we find someone who’s on it. Right now, though, we’ve got to plan it. We’ll do it upstairs. There’s quite a decent table in my room we can spread this on, and one of the big maps and we’ll plot it out so that we can get to as many different people as possible in the shortest time possible. Fair enough?’
‘Fair enough,’ he said and laughed. It was one hell of a reason, he was thinking, to be invited to the bedroom of a girl he fancied as much as he fancied this one. A hell of a reason.
It turned out to be a prosaic task, after all. They sat with copies of the Amsterdam phone directories, and went through them painstakingly looking for name after name, matching the addresses of those they found with addresses given on the computer print-out. Most of the people on the list were not in the directories, of course; as Abner said, it would be little short of miraculous to find any at all after almost fifty years that had started out with a harsh Occupation; but they found some.
‘Oh, wouldn’t it be marvellous if we could go and see them all now!’ Miriam said, crouching over the new list of some twenty names they had made, like a child with a treasured pudding.
He looked at her curiously. ‘Are you excited because you’re a natural researcher — sorry, historian — or because — well, why are you so excited?’
Because indeed she was; her eyes were glittering and she had more colour in her face than he could ever remember seeing there. She had an animation about her that was very new, and for a moment he recalled the image of the sullen girl with the cloud of frizzy hair who had greeted him that first time in Oxford, and marvelled.
She looked at him a little sideways and laughed, embarrassed, and some of the glow faded. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just that — there’s a great challenge to it, you see. You get hold of a tiny piece of information and you tease it into a bigger one and then a bigger one still. Or you find one little hook and you go and find the eye that fills it and that has a hook on it and so it goes on. It — yes, I find it exciting.’
‘I told you you ought to work as a researcher in films. That’s exactly what the job is. That’s just advice — don’t fly into a rage, for God’s sake! I’m not offering you a job, I’m just saying that when you get round to getting yourself one, that’s the road to go.’
‘I’ll remember,’ she said and got to her feet. There was no sign now of excitement. ‘We’ll start early tomorrow, I imagine. So, goodnight.’
‘Oh.’ He got to his feet, a little nonplussed. ‘Yes, I suppose so. Goodnight, then.’ And he bent to pick up the papers spread on the table.
‘No, leave all that. I’ll tidy it. I really do want to get to bed now.’ And she almost hustled him to the door. ‘I’ll be at breakfast by eight,’ she said as she closed it in his face. ‘Sleep well and all that.’
And, of course, he didn’t, tired though he was, not falling asleep until the small hours and then dreaming confusedly of all sorts of things, though never once of her, waking eventually with a sour taste in his mouth and the ghost of a headache. She, on the other hand, was as crisp and alert as a textbook secretary, sitting at the breakfast table in a neat dark suit and obviously comfortable shoes, waiting for him.
‘I’ve been talking to the concierge,’ she said without any preamble. ‘He suggests we start with the group over around the Oosterpark — here, you see? We’ve got five there. Then we should come back towards the Weesperplein, where we’ve got two, and then the Albert Cuypstraat where there’s just one, and end up here in the oldest part of the city where most of the rest are. That way, we clear up a lot in a hurry.’
‘You told him what we were doing?’ He stared at her in amazement. ‘It might have been better to discuss it with me first, wouldn’t you think?’
‘Of course I didn’t tell him!’ She looked up at him in surprise. ‘As if I would! I just said we were looking for a wartime contact of a friend in the RAF — people who helped escapers and so forth. That happens all the time in Europe, doesn’t it? He wasn�
�t at all surprised, or even curious.’
He hid his face in his coffee cup and mumbled something and she said sharply, ‘What did you say?’
‘I said, I’m sorry!’ He almost shouted it. ‘I should have known better. Listen, Miriam, can we stop all this? Dealing with you is like walking in a field full of thistles.’
‘It takes two to argue,’ she said coolly. ‘All I was trying to do was find ways to make it easier for you and — ’
‘Well, great — fine, but stop being so — so masterful! It’s not that I don’t want help, it’s just that I don’t want to feel I’m being railroaded all the time.’
‘Go on your own, if you’d rather,’ she said icily and pushed the sheets of paper, all carefully collated in a clip, over the table to him.
‘That,’ he said equally coldly, ‘is childish.’
There was a silence and then she laughed. ‘I suppose it is. Fair enough. Maybe I was getting over-excited. It’s just that — all this — it’s the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me in all my life. I’ve spent so long just sitting around with Geoff. All this is a bit like something one reads in a book. So I was trying to get to the end in a hurry, the way you do when it’s a specially good story, you know?’
‘I hope it isn’t one that you want to finish quickly just so that you can get on to the next,’ he said and she looked at him briefly and then away.
‘Don’t take the metaphor too far. Listen, are you eating anything? Because really we ought to — ’ And then she stopped short and bit her lip. And again he laughed.
‘Bad habits take a long time to cure,’ he said. ‘It’s obvious you’ve been bossing your father around so long that you can’t stop bossing me. Well, you’re trying to cure it, I’ll give you that. I want nothing to eat, thank you and yes, let’s go.’
Outside in the street, where the light glinted off the canal so brightly it made them squint, she held the small map of Amsterdam they were using in her thickly gloved hands and showed him, with a jerk of her chin, where they were to start, according to the concierge, and he bent closer to lean over and read it, and the smell of clean hair and soap again filled him with pleasure, and it was as though he were back in Oxford again, the first time they’d met. It was a good feeling.
‘You agree then?’ she said. ‘We make for Oosterpark?’
‘I agree,’ he said and stepped back a little, looking down towards the end of the street where the bridge crossed the canal, carrying traffic into the centre of the city, and saw a taxi setting down a fare. ‘Come on,’ he shouted. ‘We’ll get that one.’ And started to run and she followed him, so that they both arrived red-faced and breathless, one each side of the taxi, just as it was about to draw away; by which time the ruffles between them were smoothed over as though they had never been.
They developed a patter quickly, working together as though they had done so for years, and Abner enjoyed that; and looking at Miriam as they made their way round the fourth building on their list, he could see she did, too.
‘You don’t look as cast down as I’d have expected you to,’ he said, as they climbed the steps of the house they wanted. ‘Quite elevated in some ways.’
‘I’ve more sense than to expect the first ones to come up trumps!’ she said. ‘Actually, I think I’d be a bit disappointed if they did. I mean, it’s the looking that’s the fun, it seems to me.’
They were in a small anteroom of the sort they were getting used to. Clearly the Amsterdam diamond trade plied its business in surroundings as shabby as it could find; this room was small and dusty and cluttered, and against one wall was a low table and above it a hatch, tightly closed.
Miriam stepped up to it with all the assurance in the world and tapped on it smartly. After a moment it slid open, and a round face with dewlaps looked out at them.
‘Could I speak to — ah — ’ Miriam looked down at her list. ‘Mr Heine, please?’
‘Mr Heine? You want Mr Heine?’ The face looked suspicious. ‘Who are you that you come here asking for a man dead these last five years? He died before I came.’
‘We’re looking into some events of the last war,’ Miriam said smoothly. ‘Historical research, you understand. My friend here, from America, represents the US forces who were escaping prisoners of war, and I’m here for the British group. We’re looking for people who so bravely aided our boys in those dark days for a book we’re writing, and we were told Mr Heine might be one of the people who was involved.’
The face cleared. ‘I see. I see! Well, well, such a thing, after so long! But as I say he is sadly no longer with us. His son can help perhaps.’
‘Oh! There’s a Mr Heine junior?’ Abner said.
The dewlaps wobbled as their owner shook her head. ‘Nah, nah — I should have said stepson. He’s Mr Kuyper. His mother married Mr Heine, as I understand it. He’s in his office. I’ll tell him. Wait there.’
Almost as soon as the hatch slammed shut the door on the other side of the room opened, and a little fat man popped out, rather, Abner thought, like a weather cock. He had clearly been listening behind the door, Abner decided, as he moved forward, hand outstretched in practised bonhomie, to greet him.
‘You’re looking for people who helped escaping Allied prisoners of war?’ the little man burst out. ‘Yes, yes, I was listening — of course I was! No businessman speaks to strangers till he hears what the strangers want! And I’m here to tell you that you’ve been given some crazy information. My stepfather, may his soul rot for ever in hell, was no helper of Allied escapers. If he had been, what a difference to my life! Oh, I could tell you — ’
He stopped, almost choked with emotion, and Abner stood there, his hand still outstretched, as amazed embarrassment crawled over him. This little man looked so very unlikely, standing there and shaking with feeling, and for such an unlikely reason. And he put his hand in his pocket, trying to look relaxed and said awkwardly. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Kuyper. We meant no harm in asking, believe me.’
The little man took a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his face. He was getting his control back now and even managed a tremulous smile at Miriam.
‘You must forgive me. I couldn’t believe — after all this time. Let me tell you, my — er — well, let me tell you that man Heine was a monster. He married my mother when I was a child of seven and he gave her the hell of a life, you understand me? The hell of a life. He was a bully, a miser — I can’t tell you. But now he’s dead and the business comes to me because he didn’t even make a will, the stupid old fool, and he left no relations but my mother, so it comes to me. And I can make her last few years what they should be. But he was evil, a bad one — he helped no Allied prisoners of war.’
‘I see. Well, thank you, Mr Kuyper,’ Abner said, almost despairingly. How could he ask this distressed little man now about Brazel, and why he might have been interested in his stepfather’s business? He could see no way he could, and then Miriam said, ‘Tell me, Mr Kuyper, was your stepfather a collaborator. Did he have anything to do with the fate of the Jews here in Amsterdam?’
Kuyper looked at her miserably. ‘You know about that, then?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Someone has told you.’ He sounded tragic.
‘Told us what?’ Abner said.
‘About — oh dear!’ And he almost wrung his hands, twisting them together as he talked. ‘Listen, isn’t it enough he’s dead? I had others coming here after him, the Israelis, all sorts, years ago that was. I told you I hated him, but he was my mother’s husband and if it all starts again, it’ll kill her. She’s over eighty, you understand, a frail old lady. Let me give her what sort of life I can in the days she has left. Leave it to rest now, after all these years.’
‘If you’ll explain, Mr Kuyper,’ Miriam said gently. ‘Then we’ll be able to help, won’t we? But until you do …’
He looked up at her, for she was a good deal taller than he was, and almost nestled against her, for she had put an arm acr
oss his shoulders and suddenly Abner could see the skill with which she was handling this distressed man. Geoff, he thought, was a lucky guy to be so cared for till his death.
‘He was a Jew, of course he was a Jew,’ Kuyper whispered. ‘Belonged to a synagogue even, before the war, the same as my parents did. That was how he met my mother. My father, rest his soul in peace, died in 1937, when I was just a baby. That’s how it was he came to ruin our lives. Yes. Sure. He was a Jew, a Gestapo Jew.’
There was a little silence, and then Abner said carefully, ‘A Gestapo Jew?’
‘It happened everywhere the Germans came. They’d find a local Jew, as many as they could in a big community, to work with them. Making lists, shipping them out, tipping them off who to get rid of first. They lived, the Gestapo Jews, and the others died. He was a bad man, my stepfather!’ The voice trembled and rose again. ‘I told you, bad, bad, but let it rest now! Please, please, let it rest.’
‘Of course we will,’ Abner said, but Miriam cut in, quickly.
‘Just tell us, though, Mr Kuyper, did anyone else ever come to you to talk about him? From England? A man called Brazel?’
Kuyper seemed to shrink even smaller. ‘I told you, I want it to stop,’ he said. ‘I told him, I tell you, it’s nothing to do with me. After the war he went on dealing with God knows who, but me, I knew nothing of it. When he died, then I got rid of it all, all the papers, the boxes, the lot. I wanted no part of them, and I got rid of it all — ’
‘Rid of what?’ This was Miriam again, still holding the man with a protective arm across his shoulders, but still as sharp as a needle with her questions. ‘Just explain that and we’ll be on our way.’
‘All the stuff he left in the second safe. The stuff no one was ever allowed near when he was alive. Once he was dead, I was going to throw it all out, the papers, whatever. But there were boxes and bags as well and it made me sick, I didn’t know what to do. And then Coenen came and he’d been the old man’s partner, you see, so I gave it all to him and good riddance. And now I want no more of it, you hear me? Not another word. Jacob Heine never helped any Allied escapers, never helped anyone but himself. I want no more of him, now or ever. I never want to hear another word about — ’
Postscripts Page 34
