She had seen the sun slanting into her garden, she had wished her neighbour good morning when he put his hand up over the hedge, she had refreshed the date on Carl’s desk calendar: June 19. Another three days to go. Then she had shaken herself awake, wheeled out her bicycle. Carl had left for work long since. She would tell Wapenaar, the secret had become too heavy to bear. It seemed less and less likely that her father had done anything, because if he had he would have found some way of letting her know. No, something must have happened to make him decide against passing on the information. Could it be something to do with that girlfriend of his? Emma’s revulsion at her father’s infidelity had barely abated. And it had reopened an old issue. The unforeseen separation from her father and mother, the way she had been left behind at her grandparents’ home. Her father had promised that they would take her with them wherever they went, but it was a lie, he had broken his promise, and the hurt had not healed well. She was the offspring of diplomats, which made her homeless. That was how she was feeling these past days.
But Wapenaar would sound the alarm, she was certain. Telegrams would be sent all over the place via Sweden, the Russians would receive warning. It would be just in the nick of time, it had to be. The race against the clock loomed over her like an unbeatable monster of velocity. She pedalled with suppressed rage and fear, her legs and feet in constant, forceful motion. Emma covered the distance in half the time it had taken her before. The lanes she had lingered over then, fraught with indecision, now flew past. She was blind to them as she cycled past one landmark after another, turning left and right unerringly, and not reducing speed until she swerved into Wapenaar’s driveway, with pounding heart but scarcely out of breath.
He placed the coffee cup in front of her, and looked at her calmly.
“Emma Verschuur, no, I should say Mrs Regendorf, how are you? And your husband? Still at the Foreign Office?”
She nodded, came straight to the point, told him about the operation, the date, the reliability of her source: Carl.
She listened for sounds in the house that were not there. No footfalls, no creaking floorboards, no doors being opened or closed. Midges danced behind the windowpanes. Outside, the neighbours’ dog started barking.
Wapenaar sat facing her. Defendant and judge, in abeyance of the verdict. Surrounding her were Carl, Watse, Trott, her father and mother, all waiting with her. Then came his questions, the most amicable cross-examination you could imagine. At last someone who would do something, take action. But there was no verdict. Wapenaar thanked her, showed her out, raised his hand as she cycled away, followed her with his eyes.
The return journey through Grunewald to Dahlem was the worst. Emma shivered as though she had a fever. The verdict, if any, was hers to reach. The alert would course through the circuit of diplomats and politicians, coded messages would be placed on the desks of ambassadors: Operation Barbarossa, June 22. Who else knew about this in Moscow, or in Berlin, or in Berne, London, Washington and Ankara? Was it true, was it all about to begin, or was it an unexploded bomb, an airman’s signal high in the sky, was it Zero Hour, or perhaps not after all? The Swedes would have picked up the news somewhere, no, the Swiss, it came from a trustworthy source in Berlin. Who said that, let them come forward, we know nothing, is it a trap, a stab in the back, an act of despair?
How long before it reaches Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, how long before her name crops up, and Carl’s name – one week, two, a month perhaps?
A car was speeding along the lanes of Dahlem, with the all too familiar squeal of tyres taking sharp corners. Elbows jutting nonchalantly from the windows, shiny long coats with wide belts. The siren would not be switched off when they blocked the entrance with their squad car. There would be pounding on the door as the violence burst in on their lives, never to leave.
Emma cycled home in a cloud of fantasy and conjecture, and of bitter visions.
Would you switch the wireless on, Matteous?
