And then it hit him what Morton had just said: they had doubts about Trott. In other words, anything Oscar told them about Operation Barbarossa and when it was due would not be credited. His information came from Carl, and by extension from Trott, whom they did not trust. Wasn’t that what Morton had said? Trott, Carl, Emma, nothing coming from them would be listened to, everybody in Germany was tainted, good Germans simply did not exist. However high the risks being taken, however brave it was to resist, the English saw nothing but duplicity. At best they were opportunists, Trott and his friends. My daughter is one of them, Morton. The message was clear: total cynicism regarding whatever forms of resistance might be striving to emerge in the land of the enemy. Oh my God, Emma.
“No, not really. Carl mentioned the west, but not the east. Smith did, explicitly so. Not Carl, though.”
Morton waited, in vain. Oscar would keep the news to himself, they would not believe him anyway. The operation would go ahead, as the Russians were bound to have discovered by now. How many million troops did they reckon on going over there, how much murder and manslaughter could a nation endure, who would warn the people at the border, tell them to run, flee, make themselves scarce.
They fell silent, the hour was up. Morton had work to do.
Mission unaccomplished.
Their footsteps on the marble floor sounded refined, their shoes creaked, their coats were held out for them, Morton’s umbrella snapped open. Oscar followed him with his eyes as he picked his way between the other umbrellas in the direction of the park. The gait of a man of purpose, a man without a daughter.
Morton must have noticed that Oscar was being evasive, or even disingenuous – saying nothing can amount to lying, saying nothing can mislead. But Morton had failed to register Oscar’s horror at the casual passing of the death sentence on every German, every man or woman valiantly swimming against the current.
Emma was on the wrong side, and that was that.
Should she ask Adriaan Wapenaar for help? Her father had repeatedly impressed upon her to appeal to him if necessary. Emma had waved aside his concern, but had not forgotten his advice. She knew where he lived: in Grunewald, a fifteen-minute bike ride at most. There was something of the reservation about Grunewald, with its abundant greenery and here and there a tennis court between the houses. The thwack of a tennis ball among the trees epitomised the total disregard for what was happening elsewhere. Why the place had not been plundered was anyone’s guess. But for some reason they had left it alone, their clubs and claw-hammers being put to use elsewhere.
She wheeled out her bicycle, nerves jangling. Why she wanted to speak to him she was not sure – just to be with another Dutch person, perhaps, to speak her own language, see a friend of her father’s. She had no need of a coat; it was still early, but the warmth of June was already thick among the trees. Would Wapenaar know who she was, she wondered. They had met only twice before, and briefly at that. She took the lanes of Dahlem, crossed the main road and turned left into Grunewald. Oak trees and chestnuts caught the sun.
She pedalled along gently rolling avenues in deep shade, with bends that seemed random and illogical. The houses stood some distance apart, secluding ill-gotten gains in tranquillity. Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse was only a few kilometres away, while here men and women sat idly in the windows, languid from the onslaught of summer. Gardeners shifted their ladders from one tree to the next. Cycling through the oasis was a journey to another planet.
Emma knew the way. She and Carl often went there, walking or on their bikes, in an optimistic endeavour to shake off the war. Carl had told her about the history of Grunewald and all the artists, writers and rich folk who used to live there. The current residents, mostly party bosses and industrialists, were an unenviable lot, according to him. Carl Regendorf was a man without grudges of any kind, a greater contrast with the prevailing mood was impossible to imagine. Emma and Carl had fallen in love at great speed, as though intent on staying ahead of the times they were obliged to inhabit, the times of rancour and revenge and unending acts of hatred.
