by Tessa Lunney
“Is that Mussolini?” Tom asked.
“I can’t see properly.” Black shirts filled my vision.
“I can’t see anything but bedraggled fascisti,” said Bertie.
“This doesn’t feel right,” said Maisie. “Have you seen what you need to see, Katie? If so, I think we should go.”
“Back to the hotel?”
“Back to Paris.”
The figure on the balcony gave a final few words and the Blackshirts erupted, saluting and waving and cheering as the figure retreated. The enormous energy of the crowd was battering, deafening, it overflowed and we heard smashed glass. Blackshirts were looting the shops around the piazza. We heard more smashed glass, the cheer had turned to a bellow, Blackshirts were running toward buildings, hurling café chairs at each other, digging up the cobbles and throwing them at the shop windows.
“Back to Paris it is then,” said Bertie.
We linked arms and almost ran back to the hotel. We saw news vendors bolting and newspapers burning on the ground. Women were running upstairs and down. We were injured and unarmed and each distressed Roman was pursued by a gang of men. I didn’t think about being hurt by the marchers, or the pain in my leg, or that Charlie and Phillip may well be caught up in this riot. All I thought of was obscuring doorways to hide fleeing women as the Blackshirts ran past, of ushering children into foyers and courtyards, of linking arms with old men as we helped them down the block. As we forged our way back, all I thought was, this is what I was fighting against, this violence, this chaos, this hate.
53
“farewell blues”
Blackshirts roamed through the train station, looting cafés for wine and abandoned ticket stalls for cash. We ran to get on the train, without tickets, as it pulled out of the station before its departure time. We threw our bags on and Maisie pulled me, Tom, and finally Bertie onto a rapidly moving train. We had no food with us and no water, no blankets or Italian cash except a few lire. But we were traveling north, back to Paris.
The country was on fire. Only in spots, only here and there, but there were plumes of smoke in the gray autumn sky that had nothing to do with farming. At every village station we could see groups of people, sometimes small and sometimes a crowd, as they surrounded the stationmaster’s office, some in the black shirts of the fascisti, some wearing medals on old uniforms. We could see down the main street of some villages, the local post office surrounded by people, by Blackshirts, with the postmaster in the street bloodied and bruised. The train was slower than it should have been, the tracks were busy and no one was manning the signals. We had our own carriage in first class, we shared with no one else, but we were silent nonetheless, watching the countryside react to the coup. I was under no illusion now; these fascisti meant to change the world and they didn’t care who they hurt in the process. The sun set and all we could see was the occasional farmhouse light, the occasional riotous bonfire.
We’d had no food for hours. The train hadn’t stopped and clearly no snack-seller or tea-lady had boarded with us. I don’t know why but this made me think of the package I had been handed at reception as we left the hotel.
“What’s that?” Tom asked over my shoulder.
“My payment.” I felt Tom tense.
“Payment? Pay day’s not until Wednesday,” said Bertie.
“It’s from Fox.”
The lights in the cabin flickered but still provided enough light to see. The air was stuffy with smoke and the wooden floor was slightly sticky and covered with cigarette burns. No one pretended to give me privacy. Tom, Maisie, and Bertie all knew why the package was important.
I heard Tom gasp at my shoulder. I had only taken out one photograph, but I could see why he was shocked. The photograph was of Tom, in uniform, in a trench with three officers, one of whom was Fox.
“Is that when…”
“Yes,” said Tom. That was when he was given the mission that sent him into no-man’s-land and landed him his charge of treason. I passed him the photo and kept looking through the contents of the package. There were more photos of Tom, in uniform, on leave in Paris.
“When are these?” I asked Tom.
“They look… 1916, maybe? I can’t tell.”
“I’m not in them.” I breathed deeply to push away the wave of nausea.
“Why would you be?” asked Maisie, as Tom passed her the photos.
“Fox sent me a photo, last year,” I said, “of me and Tom in Paris at a café. Just the two of us in a café, but the implication was, of course, that he had had me followed. Awful, but in keeping with what we know about Fox. These photos seem to show that he had Tom followed separately, without me; this suggests that he had a plan for Tom.”
“A plan?” Bertie frowned at the innocuous photos. “I don’t understand.”
Tom explained what had happened to him, how Fox had been there at the start of the mission, how his mission had gone wrong, and why I kept working for Fox. His retelling was biased and I had to interject frequently, but Maisie and Bertie looked at the photos with a new understanding. Nothing was written on the back of any of them. They were simply wartime photos of Tom.
“Who could have taken them?” asked Bertie. “These were clearly taken by a friend.”
“Not necessarily,” said Tom. “There were always lots of men around, anyone could have taken them.”
“Not anyone,” I said. “A Fox agent.”
“Right.” A gloom settled on Tom’s features.
Next was a series of telegrams.
“These are almost exactly five years ago,” I said.
“Passchendaele,” said Maisie. “The battle at Passchendaele was almost exactly five years ago.”
Tom exhaled heavily, like he exhaled ghosts. The telegrams read ominously next to the photos. They were each sent a day or two apart.
MISSION STAGE ONE COMPLETE EVIDENCE GATHERED
MISSION STAGE TWO COMPLETE
MISSION STAGE THREE COMPLETE PAPERWORK TO FOLLOW
Then was a letter, written on official British Army paper, about a complaint against a certain Corporal Thomas Thompson, seconded from the 45th Battalion AIF for intelligence work and reconnaissance. The letter asked the recipient to put Tom on charges of desertion and treason. It cited photos, which sounded like the photos Fox had sent me a few weeks ago, of Tom in the mud with some Germans. I passed the notes to Tom.
“What are these?” Bertie asked. “What mission?”
“Is this the charge that still hangs over you, Tom?” Maisie asked.
“Yes.” Tom’s voice was a croak. “Desertion I can’t argue against, unfortunately, but treason… that’s a lie.”
“But you only deserted because you were going to be shot for treason, right?” Maisie asked. Tom nodded.
“I think the ‘mission’ in the telegrams is…” I looked at Tom, his drowning eyes in the swaying, blinking carriage. “I think Fox created the charge of treason. I think these photos, the telegrams, the letter, are all pointing to the fact that Fox deliberately set out to get rid of Tom.”
“But… why?” Bertie looked at me. “Not the proposal…”
“What proposal?” Tom’s voice was sharp.
“It’s nothing.” I shrugged.
“It’s bloody not!” said Maisie. “Fox proposed to her, at the end of the war.”
“Propose is perhaps the wrong word,” said Bertie. “Wasn’t it more of an order?”
“And Katie answered him by stealing his car and driving back to Sydney.”
Tom was very quiet. “You never said.”
“No,” said Bertie in the tense stillness. “Well… she wouldn’t, would she.”
“Wouldn’t she?” Tom’s voice was strained. In my peripheral vision, I saw Maisie and Bertie exchange a glance, but I wasn’t as interested in Tom’s game of jealousy as perhaps I should have been. The letter in the package had almost all my attention.
“Tom.” I passed the letter to him. He took it without looking at me,
but I wasn’t interested in that either. It was the contents of the letter that interested me, that shook me.
“Is that Fox’s handwriting?” asked Maisie.
“No,” I said. “The letter’s from a man called Bobbs.”
“Bobsy.” Tom’s voice was now a whisper.
“Yes, I think it must be,” I said. I had to concentrate to light my cigarette.
“Who’s Bobsy, or Bobbs, or whoever?” asked Bertie. “Come on, don’t leave us in suspense.”
“Last year, Fox gave us, gave me, a letter from Tom’s commanding officer to a man called Bobsy, boasting that they had got Tom on a charge of treason. It was partial evidence that showed Tom was innocent of treason, all we needed was a bit more proof and we could contact a lawyer and see if we could clear his name. But this letter…” How could I even explain? “This letter…”
“Mission report.” Tom’s voice was rough. “Internal enemy neutralized. Unconscious agent St. John Sinclair instrumental with mission completion, as per instructions. Double agent Thomas Thompson indicted on charges of treason and desertion, for immediate imprisonment and trial upon discovery, as per cable from HQ. All evidence of mission progress enclosed, cf ten photographs, three letters, two cables, handkerchief, uniform patch. Signed by an R Bobbs and his ID number.” Tom let Bertie take the letter from him and lit himself a cigarette. The guttering cabin light made the seats look stained and seedy.
“I don’t understand,” said Maisie, “but I think I need a cigarette too.”
“This letter is proof that Fox created the charge of treason against Tom.” I said, trying to keep the tremor from my voice as I held out the lighter for Maisie. “I had my suspicions, but to have proof…”
“St. John Sinclair was Tom’s commanding officer?” asked Bertie.
“He was,” said Tom, as he opened the window to clear out some of the smoke. “He died, after I deserted.”
“So… Fox deliberately separated you two.”
“It seems so.” I gave up, my voice shook.
“Which means…” said Bertie.
“Which means”—I swallowed hard—“that I was wrong. I thought I could work for Fox and be paid in evidence, evidence that would free Tom.”
“Isn’t this the evidence?” asked Maisie.
“This is the evidence and also the destruction of hope. Because how can I use this? Who would believe that Tom was not a double agent, as the letter claims? Who would believe that Dr. Silvius Fox, senior officer in military intelligence, now senior something-or-other in the civil service, smeared an Australian soldier for… what? Personal gain? To scare off a rival? There’s no motive in the letter. Only I, only we, have any clue as to his motive.” The cabin walls seemed to close in, the door and the windows rattled, the wheels screamed on the tracks. I felt a huge pressure on my chest.
“But more than that,” I said, “by showing me that he created this charge of treason, he shows…” I had to blink hard to stop myself from crying. “It shows that he… that I can’t…”
“That you can’t win against him,” said Bertie.
“Jesus,” said Maisie. “But it’s been five years! More, even. That’s a bloody long game he’s playing.”
“And I’m his only opponent.” My head felt so heavy. “And I can never win.”
Fox’s power over Tom’s life, over my life, the potential he had to threaten the well-being of Maisie and Bertie, hung in the carriage with the cigarette smoke, unmoving, stinking, and choking. I could feel Tom beside me, a tremble ran through his body as though it was too much even to sob. Fox’s face flashed like a knife in my memory, his cold gaze over the operating table, his heavy stare on my back as I walked through the wards. Maisie and Bertie were quiet and I wondered, for a moment, if they would abandon me. The train moved in jerks and hisses. Maisie put her hand on my knee.
“He’s an evil bastard,” she said. “But we’ll get him.”
“It’s not possible.” I couldn’t bring myself to meet her smile.
“I was told that as a so-called ‘half-caste’ girl I couldn’t even leave the mission. Yet I nursed in France in the war, married a diplomat, and now live in Paris.” She raised her eyebrows. “That was impossible and I did it. You beating Fox? Definitely possible.”
“Not at his own game.”
“Oh no,” said Bertie, “but who wants to win that? Make him play your game.”
“And what game is that?”
“A game of love.” Tom said this out the window into the rain-edged night. Maisie nodded and Bertie grinned. A game of love; perhaps Tom was right. That was a game that Fox could only lose. That was a game I had already won.
54
“l’amour, toujours l’amour”
It took a night and a day and a night to reach Paris. By the time we arrived we stank, the cabin stank, the “payment” from Fox was stashed at the bottom of my bag and not spoken of again. I cashed the check he sent with it and, once we had crossed the border to France, treated us all to meals in the dining car with every bottle of wine the waiters could find. I would have upgraded us to a sleeper car but there wasn’t one, so we dozed against one another, living in the cabin like soldiers returning from the front. But I was formulating a plan, the rules of the game that Fox couldn’t win. I wasn’t sure yet how the game would play out, but I was not going to be subdued and made submissive by these revelations. If Fox thought he had won, then he didn’t understand me at all… but I felt that he did understand me, more than was comfortable, and that’s what kept me thinking. Did he expect me to fight back, to try and hurt him? Was this evidence just bait for a trap? He was too unpredictable; I couldn’t second-guess him.
It really felt like we were soldiers on leave when we arrived at Gare l’Est in the fuzzy, drizzly dawn. We had bruises, literal and metaphorical. We had worked for the government but no one knew what we had suffered and how. We had bled, cried, drank, and fallen asleep together. My friends were now friends with each other and I loved, too much, to see Maisie hug Bertie so tightly, to see Tom lift Maisie off the ground and kiss both cheeks.
“Katie King,” she took my face in her hands. “When you’ve had a good sleep and a couple of meals, you’re coming to me for a check-up on that leg.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“And then regularly for some ordinary coffee and gossip.” She kissed me, hugged me, and hailed a taxi.
Tom and I followed Bertie to the Ritz for a shower, after which we left Bertie to his seven messages from our editor Sir Huffandpuff, each increasingly irate, and a handful of work-related letters and telegrams.
Tom followed me back to Montparnasse. We barely said anything, just held hands in the street, on the Metro, up the road to my apartment block. We both needed sleep and I wanted some time just to chat about nothing, the weather, the drink in front of us, to read a detective novel in his company with a pot of tea between us. But that all evaporated before we had even left the apartment block foyer. In my letter box was a note in a scrawled hand I didn’t recognize.
“Who’s it from?” Tom leant against the doorframe and lit a smoke for each of us.
“To be honest, I’m more interested in that cigarette. Besides, it’d have to be pretty important to keep me from my pillow.” I could feel Tom watch me as I read, as my energy ebbed, as I deciphered the scrawl.
“And? Will it keep you from your pillow?”
I handed him the letter. I was too tired; I could only watch our exhaled smoke entwine in the air between us.
“ ‘Dear Mademoiselle Button,’ ” read Tom. “Actually, you know, my French is alright but perhaps not quite good enough for simultaneous translation…”
“Look at the signature.”
“H-ma-ss… illegible.”
“It’s from Henri Matisse. He writes that he wants to talk to me about my mother. He says that I’m to see him as soon as possible.”
“You aren’t going to be able to rest with this ticking away beside you, are you?”<
br />
“Thank goodness we washed. Coffee?”
“Well, I can’t change as I don’t own another suit. So why not?”
* * *
I could hear shouting as soon as the housekeeper opened the door to Matisse’s studio apartment. The housekeeper, her face a mask of resignation, didn’t even flinch at the insults flung about in the other room.
“Should we come back at a better time?” I asked.
“Oh no, he’s in a good mood this morning. In here, mademoiselle, monsieur. I’ll bring the coffee in directly.” She opened the door but didn’t announce us, leaving us to look around the crowded, colorful studio. A trail of brushes and paint, paper and discarded drafts led to a central podium. On the podium sat a curvy woman with masses of dark hair, her face on the brink of either anger or tears: Amelie, whom I had met at Gertrude Stein’s. Standing at a canvas was Matisse. Dressed like a bourgeois accountant at a picnic, he glared at us through his glasses and his beard quivered when he spoke.
“Who the hell are you? Why on earth has Mathilde let you in? Get out, get out!”
“I’m the daughter of Cordelia King,” I said. Amelie gasped and Matisse froze. “You asked to see me urgently.”
“Yes, yes, of course.” Amelie rose, drawing her red robe around her shoulders to embrace me. “How good it is to see you again! Henri, we met her at Miss Stein’s, remember? Oh, doesn’t she look like Cordelia? You must stay. Mademoiselle King…”
“It’s Button, actually. Kiki Button.”
“But of course, how silly of me. Yes, you absolutely have a look of Cordelia about you… sorry, are you a brother?”
Tom stopped staring at the canvases around the room and held out his hand. “No, a friend. I knew Mrs. Button, Cordelia, since I was a child.”
