He was talking about the last time he had been in Berlin when suddenly she blurted it out.
‘I just broke up with my boyfriend and I wanted you to know that. I’m really raw, Alex. What we just had was lovely, but I have to be honest with you. I’m not sure I have it in me for anything more at this moment in my life. I’m still really smarting from that last relationship.’
He held her hand and she shook her head in response and he seemed to sense she didn’t want to say anything further. He stroked his thumb across the back of her hand in gentle reassurance.
‘Take all the time with us that you need. And if this is supposed to be anything more, it will happen in its own way, in the right place and time. Until then, I think we should just enjoy what it is right now. But I must tell you, Sophie, you’re the most amazing woman I’ve met in a long time. I feel so free with you, more myself than I’ve felt with anyone. You are so easy to be with.’
She smiled then and covered his hand. ‘I feel the same way.’
If only her heart was free, she thought. If only she still wasn’t in so much pain, wasn’t grieving Emily and now the end of her relationship. Since Emily’s death she hadn’t wanted to open her heart again, though something inside her told her someone like Alex would be the perfect person to explore that experience with at the right time. She just wasn’t ready for anything more right now.
Just then, her phone chimed with an email. She scrolled down. It was from the desk clerk of the archives office they had visited that day. He claimed he had a message for her. She called him straight back, and he spoke in the same hushed tone as before.
‘I have something that might interest you. After you left, I was putting away the files and entering them into our database when something came up. There is a woman who now lives in Berlin who has put a note on these files about those specific war offices, saying that she was there during that time and is open to being contacted. I believe she may still be alive. Would you like her address and phone number?’
Sophie was surprised. ‘Yes, I would!’
‘It seems her father was part of the same office you enquired about, and that she may have met or had some time with either of your relatives. She is very elderly, so I wouldn’t expect much. But I thought you might want to know.’
Sophie wrote down the phone number and told Alex what the clerk had said. She called the number straight away. It was early evening, seven o’clock, and a woman answered the phone. She didn’t seem to be able to speak English, so Sophie handed the phone across to Alex.
He spoke with the woman briefly, then wrote down something on a napkin. When he hung up the phone, he told Sophie what they had said.
‘The woman I spoke to is the granddaughter of the woman in the file, Elsa Strauss, who worked in the offices with Marcus and Sophie when she was a girl. Elsa would visit her father there, who also worked for the Germans. She – Elsa – has agreed to see both of us. We can go over at ten tomorrow morning if we want to speak to her, but we need to know that she is very ill, in the final stages of cancer. So, she’s frail, but, according to her granddaughter, her memory is intact, and she is eager to talk to us, while she still can.’
34
1944
After that one night, they never spoke about Terrier, and slowly Vivi opened up her heart again to Marcus. She couldn’t understand why this had been the only way, and as much as she wanted to take time to process all that was happening, there was also so much pressure at work, and the constant fear of being detected, that they had to trust one another.
In the evenings, when they were together, were the most magical moments of all. Vivi didn’t know if it was the intensity of not knowing if she would live or die, but the feelings she had for Marcus obsessed her. All she ever wanted was to be in his arms, holding him, listening to him tell her how much he loved her. Occasionally, she would recall how she’d heard about spies who were capable of turning agents by pretending to be in love with them, but nevertheless, she couldn’t accept this was Marcus. The way he looked at her couldn’t be contrived, could it? He showed her such tenderness and love.
On the nights when the bombing was relentless, they would often move into the tiny shelter under their apartment, where they would whisper between themselves about things that had transpired during their day. A near call with some intelligence they had falsified or a new account that the Allies were doing badly were both things concerning enough to keep them awake. Then on those evenings, after the all-clear, they would be too restless to sleep and they would move out onto their little terrace balcony, where they would sit with great sadness, observing the night skies of Paris alight with buildings on fire and the sounds of voices calling desperately to one another in the dark.
Other nights the skies were quiet, and when it was hot, they would also go out on the balcony. On those nights, because of the mandatory blackout, the moon and the stars would be tremendous. They would stare into the sky as Marcus would point out the various stars and patterns, and in return she would tell him stories she knew, all manner of tales she could remember from memory. Her favourite was called ‘The Call of the Swallows’ from the book she’d given to John.
Even with all the heartbreak around them, they felt so much joy just being together. Vivi had posted a letter to her family the day she left, that wouldn’t have been delivered until after she had gone. Other than that one letter, and without the capacity to connect with anyone in their families because of the work they were doing, they sometimes felt like they were the only spies in the world.
‘One day, all of this will be over,’ Marcus told her as they were stretched out on a blanket one night, listening to artillery guns in the distance. ‘One day, ordinary life will happen again.’ He took her hand in his and kissed it. ‘And you and I will wander through the streets of Paris as husband and wife, with our three adorable children, and it will be as if all of this was a dream.’
‘Are you proposing to me, again, Marcus?’ she asked, smiling, half-joking herself.
He grinned back, looking directly into her eyes. ‘Would you marry me if I asked you this time?’
‘Not right at the moment,’ she responded coyly. ‘But I appreciate the sentiment, and it is a beautiful dream to have.’ She lay back in his arms to consider it.
‘So maybe I will ask you again soon. You know that I love you, and when all this madness is over, I crave a genuinely simple life.’
‘You wouldn’t carry on working for the British government?’
‘No, I think I’ll become a stockbroker, or an accountant, something simple.’
She studied him with a curious expression. ‘I can’t imagine you as a stockbroker.’
‘And what about you? What will you be?’
‘I don’t know, a pilot, or a lion trainer perhaps? That’d impress my little brothers.’
He gathered her close in his arms. ‘And if anyone could do it, you could. You’re definitely one of a kind, Vivi, my sweet, brave girl. Sometimes I feel terrible that I’ve taken you from your family.’
‘You didn’t take me. I left. I had to come. There are more ghosts to appease than you would know. So, I have to do your work with you. I have many reasons for that, and you were just one of them.’