Oscar was unperturbed. Being followed was a frequent occurrence, he was used to it. At first he had found it intimidating and irksome, but in due course he was able to tell quite quickly whether or not someone was watching him. In Geneva, though, he was taken by surprise, engrossed as he was in the anticipation of seeing Emma and Carl again. He had promised himself he would provide Kate with a detailed description of how they looked, what they said, and how they were managing in Berlin. But as things stood, a letter was probably not an option. Oscar glanced at the shadow-man and considered actually beckoning him. Often an effective way of making the person back off in confusion. Could the word “Barbarossa” have been overheard? There had not been many people in the restaurant, and the sneak had been sitting at the next table. But no, Emma had spoken softly and rapidly, or rather, she had whispered. Whispering was suspicious, obviously, even if the man had been out of earshot. It would merit a brief report:
Oscar vacillated. Should he go or should he stay? Stay, there was no hurry. Take a long look at the menu, call the waiter, give him your order, ask for more wine, turn the pages of your newspaper at leisure. All of which he proceeded to do. The man sitting some metres away was as nothing to him, a mere smudge at the corner of his gaze. The marina facing the hotel was crowded with sailing craft and rowing boats. Children ran up and down the long wooden jetties. It was eight o’clock, evening fell as the darkness rose up in layers from the lake. The mountains on the far side melted slowly but surely from view.
The newspaper lay untouched on his lap as Barbarossa receded from his consciousness. His thoughts turned to her, and where she might be.
She caught the hum of aircraft. English? Emma waited for the air-raid sirens to go off. They did not. Presumably Luftwaffe. Everyone was tense after the heavy bombing of the city a fortnight ago. Dahlem had not been hit, a pity in a way, as Himmler and Ribbentrop lived virtually around the corner. But the English obviously did not know that. Berlin-Dahlem, little more than a village until quite recently, had been quietly amalgamated into the city. The streets still smelled of earth and meadows, there was a church, a farmers’ market, there were gardens and old country houses. The U-Bahn had a terminal there, where Carl took the train to the Foreign Ministry every morning at seven.
Foreign affairs were becoming less foreign by the day, what with all the new German conquests, Emma remarked drily. They would be making themselves redundant next.
Carl had to smile at her laconic, un-German sense of humour, her plain speaking. Quick, fearless, and unwaveringly good-tempered she was. Like him. They were two of a kind, high-level poker players, leading intense lives on the edge of danger. Carl worked for Adam von Trott, the all-knowing, unflappable Trott, who knew everybody who mattered, who swept his associates along with him in his convictions. And his convictions were diametrically opposed to those of his superiors and the almighty superior in whose name all was directed and done.
