The Lines We Leave Behind Read online

  ‘The cake?’ Dr Rosenstein doesn’t often exhibit surprise. Her patients must unburden themselves of the most remarkable and appalling things. But now puzzlement is spread all over her face. I really must sound completely paranoid, detecting persecution in the appearance of baked goods. I feel myself smile.

  ‘The cake was the reason why we—’ I grow sombre again. ‘We were talking about knives; blades, really.’ The words stick in my gullet. ‘He had to cut the cake and . . . then he showed me how to do it . . . that . . . you know.’

  She nods. Of course she knows what I’m referring to.

  It’s overcast today. Outside Dr Rosenstein’s window the light is the colour of ashes. It’s cool enough for me to have pulled on a cardigan over my frock. But I can feel the warmth of Cairo. It probably wasn’t even that hot. February, when we flew out there: daytime temperatures similar to those of an English summer. But the room in which we were briefed was stuffy and Robert usually turned on the ceiling fan.

  Cairo, February 1944

  Kassim, the manservant at Rustum Buildings, SOE Headquarters in Egypt, pushed in a trolley on which sat a cake platter, cake slice and plates, along with a white cardboard cake box bearing the famous Groppi name on it. Kassim’s face was expressionless – this wouldn’t have been the strangest thing he’d seen in these offices. Amber and Naomi looked at one another, puzzlement almost chipping away at the ice existing between them.

  Robert was training Amber on one particular matter and Naomi on something rather different. He had been vague at first, merely introducing the two women to one another at a preliminary meeting when they’d first arrived in Cairo, saying they’d be on the same parachute drop. He’d already warned Amber to keep to her new name in Egypt, as any interested party could probably uncover Maud Knight’s Yugoslavian background, hinting at the operation in which she was involved. Naomi probably wasn’t really called Naomi, either.

  Robert opened the lid of the Groppi box. ‘Not bad.’

  Amber felt her mouth give an anticipatory water. Presumptuous. Robert might decide to eat the entire cake himself in front of them, as some kind of psychological test. During training in England and Scotland she’d already been subjected to strange ordeals like that. We will build up your expectation that event A will happen, and then present you with event B to see how you react and to train you to be flexible. She sat up straighter, pulling her navel towards her spine to prevent any embarrassing rumbles. Her stomach muscles were firm, the result of all the PT sessions and cross-country runs she’d undergone before coming to Cairo. She’d maintained her fitness here, too, playing tennis at the Gezira Club most nights. Physical training sessions in a local gymnasium would also be arranged for them, Robert had announced.

  Robert carefully extracted the cake from the box. It was a most remarkable shape, not at all like the usual architecturally precise produce of Cairo’s most famous café.

  ‘The trouble I had to persuade them to do this.’ Robert carefully slid the cake onto the platter and tilted it up so they could see. A trapezium, decorated with random lines and dots of coloured icing, with a wavy, irregular band of blue on the left. Of course. Amber smiled. She had it now.

  ‘If Signor Groppi only knew what I was going to do to his confection.’

  Naomi let out a brief noise that could have indicated either mirth or exasperation.

  Robert picked up the knife with his left hand and cut a sliver of cake from the blue side. ‘This was— is, Dalmatia. The coastal part of Croatia bordered by the Adriatic, just east of Italy. The Italians, particularly the Venetians, have long had an interest in the area and they annexed the coast in 1941 when they invaded alongside the Germans. As you know, Italy surrendered last year.’ He made a complex series of cuts further into the middle of the cake. ‘This is the main puppet Croat state, including most of Bosnia and western Serbia. It does pretty well as its German masters tell it.’ He pointed to a jagged shape in the middle of the cake. ‘The remnants of Serbia and Bosnia.’

  He placed each sliver of cake back on the platter very carefully in the right order. ‘Bulgaria took this part of Macedonian Yugoslavia.’ A small piece of cake flopped onto its side. Robert eyed it with annoyance. ‘Oh dear, it’s starting to fall apart now. I wanted to show you what’s happening in the north, on the Slovenian–Austrian border. The Austrians took back some of the territory into the Reich, of course. And the Hungarians claimed these territories up in the northeast.’ He pointed at the cake. ‘Top right. They’d held them before the Great War.’ A flicker of interest shone in Naomi’s eyes as Robert mentioned Hungary.

  He stood back, examining the ruined cake. ‘I wanted to show you what had happened around Trieste, near the Italian border, but I don’t think even a Harley Street surgeon could make those incisions without this poor cake collapsing entirely.’

  Naomi let out a sigh, in appreciation of the cake as an extended metaphor for a fractured Yugoslavia, Amber wondered. Or in impatience?

  ‘Waste not.’ Robert offered Naomi the cake platter. After a moment’s hesitation she took a bit of Adriatic, complete with a Dalmatian island or two. Amber remembered a day spent in a canoe along that very part of the coast, a picnic on a deserted island.

  The men eagerly lined up for slices. They were always hungry. They’d come from Palestine looking well enough nourished as a result of their time on kibbutzim, but they still liked to eat and eat whenever they could. Egypt and its plenty suited them well.

  ‘Amber is looking bored with my little display.’ Robert ate a bit of Serbia, including the Kosovo Province, where the mine was. He wiped his hands delicately on a handkerchief.

  She knew not to admit that she was remembering the roses her father had once grown in the garden of that Kosovan mine cottage. You have to lose the past. You are no longer Maud Knight, with all Maud’s past. You are Amber.

  ‘You need a longer knife, sir,’ she told him. When you see me during the day or at other times while we’re training, ladies and gentlemen, normal rank applies.

  ‘A longer knife, eh?’ He examined her carefully, pulling a tobacco tin from his pocket. God knows why he still insisted on rolling his own when it was so much easier just to buy cigarettes here in Cairo. There were so many things about Robert that she didn’t understand. Perhaps she wasn’t meant to. She could have watched him all day long, trying to learn more about him.

  He dropped the tin, which was empty and stooped in an instant to pull off the lid, folding it and stamping on it, and swooping up the triangular result. In a single leap he stood in front of Amber and the stamped-on lid had become a dagger pointed at her jugular. She felt her heart lurch. ‘At any moment,’ he whispered. ‘While you’re sleeping, while you’re eating.’ He stepped closer and she could smell his pressed cotton shirt and the slightest aroma of clean sweat. ‘While you’re fucking some handsome young Partisan.’

  Amber concentrated on the cool whiteness of the porcelain cake tray.

  He laughed and sounded more like a normal man again. ‘Dear me, how rude of me. Amber wouldn’t do anything like that, would you, my dear?’

  ‘Is it part of the operation, sir?’

  There was a brief spark in his eyes, of something that was possibly closer to approval than she had seen for a while.

  ‘In any case, the Partisans are apparently rather prudish about sex,’ he said.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Naomi, who was probably prudish, too, Amber conjectured. ‘Is there more we need to know about Yugoslavian geopolitics, sir?’

  She was intense, this Jewish-Hungarian girl who’d come to Cairo with her male associates from Palestine. But intensity was an attribute that would be demanded of them. Since she’d arrived in Cairo, Amber had felt her own purposefulness ebb somewhat. The warmth after the British winter, the food and drink. And him. Robert. The way he was with her, almost teasing her in a brotherly way at times, then growing cold and critical. She’d try harder: answer more questions. He’d approve for a while, joking with her,
placing a hand on her shoulder. Then suddenly he’d switch his attention, sometimes slanting his body away from her.

  ‘You need to know more about Hungary, Naomi. Of course.’ He always sounded so reasonable when he spoke to Naomi. It was just Amber who seemed to annoy him. She couldn’t work out why she found Robert’s shifting mood towards her bothersome. Perhaps if she pretended to herself that she wasn’t picking up on it, it would help.

  Robert returned the knife to the cake platter. ‘I’m afraid the baked goods aren’t quite clear enough for our purposes here, so I have a map.’ He swept it out from under the desk and attached it to the blackboard in a few easy movements.

  ‘You will land where the cross is.’ It was drawn on a wide-bottomed valley in northern Croatia. ‘Naomi and the rest of her team will then head to point Y.’ Robert pointed at the map. ‘Naomi, you’ll signal to let us know you’ve met up with the couriers who will take you over to Hungary.’

  For the mission that had not been described to Amber.

  ‘When do we fly out?’ Amber asked. He looked at her expectantly. ‘Sir,’ she added. ‘Sorry.’

  The apology seemed to soften him. ‘Probably next week. To Bari, in Italy.’

  Bari: now the centre of Allied military activity in the Adriatic following the invasion of Italy. Amber’s heart thumped. It was so close, this operation of theirs, this thing she hadn’t even been sure she really wanted to do, certainly not at the stage of the long cross-country runs and endless press-ups and sit-ups. Or during the long, wet, dark nights at Arisaig in the Highlands, carrying out exercises in surveillance and making herself invisible. How had she got from sitting at that table in the nightclub in Mayfair with Peter to being here in Cairo? Peter had vanished from her life so quickly once Robert had made contact with her.

  One of these days Maud, now Amber, might find a way to ask Robert some of these questions that flickered through her mind in the rare moments when training and partying allowed them time.

  ‘Amber is daydreaming. Again.’ Robert folded his arms.

  Damn, damn, damn. Just when she’d thought things were going better.

  ‘Perhaps she already knows the agreed signals the Partisans will leave on the landing site if they cannot greet you because of enemy presence in the area? Or she’s happy to risk that bayonet in the small of her back. The ride in the back of the van to the interrogation centre?’ His voice was icy.

  ‘Sorry, sir,’ she mumbled. ‘Two branches crossed over, placed on the eastern side of the landing strip.’ It was the first thing that came to mind, but she knew it would be correct. She always remembered details like that. She made herself meet Robert’s eyes. Impossible to tell what he was thinking.

  ‘You may find it hard to see in the dark. What else?’

  ‘Password, if anyone approaches.’

  ‘The presence of uniformed women would also be a positive sign,’ Naomi said. ‘There are very few women on the Chetnik side.’

  ‘Good.’ He swallowed another mouthful of cake. ‘Not all Chetniks are a problem. You may come across some who offer help. Some of them have rescued downed Allied airmen, but for most Chetniks the interests of Serbia come first, second and last. If that means fighting the Germans, they’ll do that. If they think that fighting the Partisans is best for them, that’s what they’ll do. If it means placating the Ustaše fascists, well, they’ll do that.’

  Naomi drew herself even more upright at the mention of the Ustaše. Robert propelled himself off the desk and drew down the shutters. Amber nibbled a bit of her cake, wishing her stomach wasn’t lurching.

  ‘And some of the Chetniks are furious that we have dropped our support for their monarchist cause. That makes them dangerous. Let’s look again at those slides of uniforms.’ He nodded at Kassim, who plugged in the electric projector and pulled a white screen into position.

  Amber knew the uniforms – it hadn’t taken her long to learn their differences. Her mind turned to the mission. So complex, as it had been explained to them since they’d arrived in Cairo, with all its different components: Naomi going on to Hungary with some of her men. She staying with the Partisans along with the others.

  Robert had stopped talking and was examining Amber coolly. ‘Ustaše cap batches too dull for you?’

  ‘Just thinking about the components of the mission, sir,’ she said. Lying got you nowhere with Robert: he always saw through you. ‘So many different parts to hold together.’ In the light of the projector thousands of dust motes spun around. The room was growing hot despite the electric fan. Amber could smell the photographic slides and the baby powder she’d dusted under each arm. ‘My role. Naomi’s role.’

  ‘My mission in Hungary is discrete,’ Naomi said quickly. ‘You do not need to bother yourself with it.’

  ‘Amber will assist your team by encouraging Partisans and other helpful civilians to rescue Jews and pass them on down the line,’ Robert reminded her.

  ‘True.’ Naomi’s eyes seemed to lose a little of their flint as she looked at Amber. Perhaps Amber should move out of the large villa on Gezira Island on the Nile, where Robert had suggested she rent a room. Take a bed in the bedbug-ridden hostel in central Cairo in an attempt to show the Jewish group that she was no softer than them.

  ‘I haven’t yet told you about what Naomi and her team will do alongside assisting you, Amber . . .’ Robert looked at the other girl. ‘Now’s the time.’

  Naomi looked at him steadily. Amber had to give her credit for being this collected.

  ‘She and Samuel will be going to Budapest to set up resistance groups in advance of a German invasion.’

  Amber blinked. The possibility of a German invasion of Hungary wasn’t such a surprise – it had been likely for months now, ever since the Hungarians had started discussing an amnesty with the Allies. But organising resistance? That was more than dangerous.

  ‘With particular emphasis on warning Jewish communities that they need to be prepared,’ Naomi said.

  ‘We will discuss the weight that should be attached to each component of your mission,’ Robert said.

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss.’ Naomi spoke softly. ‘When you recruited us, you told us we’d be helping Jews in occupied or soon-to-be occupied Europe.’ The men behind Naomi murmured in assent. ‘You trained us in parachuting, signals and sabotage and told us we could save Jewish lives.’

  ‘We will continue this conversation later.’ Robert’s cheeks were white.

  Was he rattled by Naomi’s firmness? Amber couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t have been platitudinous. She hoped her face expressed the admiration she felt.

  ‘Uniforms,’ Robert said. ‘To return to the subject in hand.’

  The door opened and a bald man with a thin moustache, wearing a white linen suit that looked as though it was a size too small, stuck his head around. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Thought the room was empty.’

  ‘I believe Kassim told you it was occupied,’ Robert said.

  The man wiped his brow and squinted at the slide image on the screen. ‘Ah, uniforms. So hard to tell who’s who, even when they’re wearing them, isn’t it?’

  ‘My agents don’t think so,’ Robert told him.

  ‘I wonder if we can really be entirely certain,’ the perspiring man said, stroking his moustache, one side after another. His eyes lit up at the sight of the ruined cake. ‘Don’t suppose any of that’s going spare?’

  ‘Help yourself,’ Robert said coldly. ‘Macedonia’s probably your best bet.’ The man took a plate and cut himself a large piece of southern Yugoslavia. Cake crumbs settled in the moustache as he ate and he wiped them out carefully. Something about the way he did this made Amber feel faintly nauseous.

  ‘Don’t mind him, he’s unimportant.’ Robert was already flicking onto the next slide.

  ‘You’re so unkind to me, Havers.’

  ‘You’re wasting valuable teaching time. Finish your cake, not that you need it, and get on your way.’

>   The interloper licked his fingers, placed his empty cake plate on the tray and left.

  ‘Now then,’ Robert said, ‘Slovenian militia groups. Some of them just as likely to cut off your limbs as their cousins in the Croatian Ustaše.’

  ‘So there was an element of violence and danger in your relationship with Robert even at that stage?’ Dr Rosenstein asks when I’ve finished. ‘The way he placed the knife at your throat, for instance?’

  ‘It was as though he was pushing me.’

  ‘Yet he tolerated questioning, sometimes even challenging, from Naomi?’

  ‘He seemed to.’

  ‘Tell me more about her? There weren’t many other women in the service, were there?’

  ‘Not going where we were going.’ I choose my words cautiously, having been careful about how I told the story of the Yugoslavian cake. It’s fairly well known that British female agents were sent into France; Yugoslavia was a far less common destination. I haven’t mentioned where that X on the map was placed. Dr Rosenstein may guess, though.

  ‘Did being the only women bring you closer to Naomi?’

  I consider a patch of wall above Dr Rosenstein’s right shoulder. ‘No. In fact, I think we really disliked each other at first.’ I can almost smile at the memory. ‘They sent us for an intensive period of PT to boost our fitness. Things between us deteriorated quickly.’

  It had admittedly been a mistake to come out here to train while nursing the worst hangover ever. Robert’s group of trainees was in the gymnasium of a requisitioned boys’ school on the east bank of the Nile. Amber rubbed her bare arms; Cairo was still chilly this time of the morning. The instructor started them off gently enough, telling them to run at a moderate rate around the walls. Amber could manage this if she kept her gait smooth and didn’t change direction too suddenly when she came to the corners. Or so she thought. Her stomach lurched. The lavatories were the other side of the school and the single ladies’ cubicle always seemed to be locked. She’d noted some empty terracotta plant pots outside the gymnasium. If things became worse she could perhaps dash out there and . . .