Making their way up the elegant staircase to the individual numbered flats, he produced some keys from his pocket and escorted her inside. Leaving her in the front room, he went upstairs to retrieve the documents he’d talked about.
Sophie walked towards the black wrought-iron balcony that looked out across the magnificent gardens and pushed open the patio door. After taking two deep breaths of fresh air, she turned and took in the tasteful furniture. The room had high ceilings and mirrors that reflected the graceful architecture. A beautiful chandelier hung in the centre of the ceiling, its multitude of crystal teardrops glistening and bouncing prisms of rainbow sunlight around the room. She started to stroll towards the walls and noted a couple of pictures mixed in with other modern-art pieces with Alex’s name on the bottom. Everything in the room was highly polished, a mixture of wood and glass. It was exquisite.
Alex arrived back after a short time with a large box that he placed on a table and unlocked with an ornate key. As he flipped open the lid, the musty smell of ancient documents filled Sophie’s nostrils. Alex started to sift through the papers and set apart everything to do with Marcus’s side of his family. He located his great-uncle’s birth certificate, and Sophie looked it over. She thought once again how young he would have been during the war, in his thirties.
Alex riffled through a few more of the files and pulled out a couple of black-and-white photos of Marcus, and Sophie realised Alex had the same fair hair and piercing eyes. Their build was very different. But it was obvious they were related.
‘We look a little alike, you see,’ he stated then, reading her mind. ‘My grandmother, Amy, lost her fiancé during the war, though she was already pregnant with my mother, and my mother never married either, or rather, not until I had already grown up. Which is why I am a Vonstein. She found love with my stepfather, who owned a cheese factory and did very well for himself, and she was glad to finally change her name.’
Sophie was drawn to a photo of Marcus standing in a vineyard with a man of similar build and two young women, one fair, one with dark hair, her head thrown back, caught in the midst of laughter with a young child gathered in her arms. She turned over the photo and on the back were the words ‘Marcus, Amy, Marcel, Essie and Amélie’ scribbled in pencil.
Alex caught what she was looking at. ‘That is Marcus, with his sister Amy, my grandmother, his brother Marcel and sister-in-law Essie. Before they were killed.’
Sophie stared at the picture of the young child in her mother’s arms, about the same age as Emily when she died.
Sophie froze. ‘Killed?’
Alex nodded his head thoughtfully. ‘During the war. Marcus’s sister-in-law was Jewish.’
A sob caught in Sophie’s throat. ‘The baby too?’
Alex’s eyes met hers and it was if he didn’t want to answer, understanding the personal impact for her. But she already knew what he’d say.
Sophie put down the photograph and stared at the young child again, so innocent, so happy, and the wave of grief that was always just under the surface found its way to her throat. She swallowed it down.
Searching through more of the documents, Alex eventually came across Marcus’s death certificate. It stated that he had died on June the tenth, four days after the Normandy landings, and Sophie wondered if Vivienne had still been with him at that time. They’d never recovered a death certificate for her. It was as if she just disappeared.
Sophie stared at the picture of Marcus and his family smiling in the vineyard, and suddenly he seemed very human, a real person, so different from what she had imagined.
25
1944
Vivi didn’t sleep at all after discovering her patient’s real identity. Going over and over in her mind all the things she’d told Vonstein, she wondered: How had she been so foolish? She was trained to be guarded with her words no matter what, and here she was, offering all the facts about the Resistance that he’d wanted. Her only hope was that he would spend the rest of the war as a detainee of His Majesty’s government and never get back to France.
But still she kicked herself and, worst of all – though she was loath to even admit this – she still felt attracted to him. Just the day before he’d leant forward and touched her hand and still she’d felt a thrill race through her body. Now she despised herself for feeling anything for this man who had been undercover as a German spy. One thing she was sure about: he was very good at his job. She hadn’t suspected in the slightest that his cover story wasn’t real or that he was not French Resistance. He must have been well equipped for his mission with the intelligence he’d had.
When Vivi arrived at her duty that morning, she knew that this was the day that they were planning to start monitoring Vonstein. After they prepared the room with listening equipment, they wheeled in the new young patient and they placed him next to Vonstein. He, too, was shackled to the bed. The British officers who brought him in didn’t speak German very well, so Vivi translated for them all.
‘We have someone to keep you company. One of your expatriates came down in the North Sea and will also be a guest of our government for the rest of the war. I believe his name is Herman Schmidt.’
Vonstein nodded and eyed the other man distrustfully, though by the next day, it was as though they were the best of friends. They talked about their life before the war in Germany, the food they were both missing, and the type of schnapps they found they both had an affinity for. On the second day, Vonstein asked more about Schmidt’s mission. He explained what he was doing and that his commander, a Fredrik Eichel, had also been arrested and was in jail.
‘Once I am well enough, I will have to join him there.’ He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘There was one other of my group that escaped. As far as I know, they didn’t find him, and from the things we saw and photographed, he has some very interesting things to tell them about where the real invasion shall be coming from and it will not be where our army thinks it will be.’
Vonstein made some positive noises, then Herman changed the subject, asking about a place in Germany that they both knew.
That evening, Vivi was working the night shift again when there was a call put out, and medical staff raced to the Germans’ room. The new patient had been sleeping when he had awoken to see Vonstein was unconscious, frothing at the mouth, blood gushing down his chin. The doctors were busy saving the life of an incoming patient, and vowed to be there as soon as they could. In the meantime they determined he would need to be isolated in case it was contagious.
The guards assisted Vivi as they moved Vonstein, still unconscious, into a smaller room. So many of the rooms were now occupied with soldiers that there were only a few to choose from, and this was no more than a cupboard they used to use for extra linens, but it was a secure room. As the guards went back to check on the original room and the other nurse on duty left to get the doctors, Vivi tidied up the mess around her. But as she turned her back for a second, she felt an arm around her waist, and Vonstein’s hand came over her mouth.
‘Please don’t move and don’t scream, Vivi,’ Vonstein whispered in French. ‘I don’t have long, and I need to talk to you alone.’