The Beaufort Sisters. Jon Cleary

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СКАЧАТЬ it has its compensations. You, for instance. Would I have met you if I’d been back in some office in London trying to make my fortune?’

      ‘What did you do before the war? Had you any ambition then?’

      ‘I had just come down from Cambridge when my country called me. I started out to be an archaeologist, studied Arabic, was going to dig up all Tutankhamen’s relatives. But I grew tired of that and I read History instead. One of the things I learned from that was that ambitious men usually finished up dead ahead of their appointed time.’

      ‘You should have met my grandfather. He was ambitious at ten and he lived till he was eighty.’

      ‘Ah, but did he succeed in his ambitions?’

      ‘Up to a point,’ she said and he smiled, mistaking her caution.

      Then a man came to their table, bowed to Nina, clicked his heels and shook hands with Davoren. He was small, blond, tanned, athletic: ten years ago Nina could see him springing off vaulting-horses into posters extolling the Youth Movement. Or spurting out of starting-blocks in pursuit of Jesse Owens and the other black Americans at the Berlin Olympic Games. Davoren named him as Oberleutnant Schnatz, late of the Luftwaffe.

      ‘A good German, aren’t you, Rudi? Well, not a Nazi. But his morals aren’t the best.’

      Schnatz smiled, unoffended. ‘Morality is only a matter of degree, Tim, you know that. After what we have been doing to each other for the past six years, what is a little black market?’

      ‘Rudi went to Oxford,’ Davoren explained. ‘They always had less concern for morality there than we at Cambridge. We played tennis against each other, each of us got a Blue. Baron von Cramm once tried to seduce him at Wimbledon, but I never got that far. What can I do for you, Rudi, though the answer is no, in advance.’

      Not even Vassar, let alone Kansas City and the Barstow School, had prepared Nina for the decadence she was witnessing. Two girls went dancing by, arms wrapped round each other, oblivious of the sneers of the men watching them. Three whores came in, sat down and were in business at once; three pink-cheeked British subalterns fell on them like choirboy rapists. Four men sat at a corner table, heads close together, greed giving them a family resemblance. Evil, or anyway sin, hung in the air as thick as the cigar and cigarette smoke and Nina shivered with the thrill of it. She knew that back in the Thirties Kansas City had been known as America’s Sin City, but it could never have been like this. Without knowing it she was suffering from the tourist’s astigmatism, seeing foreign evil as worse and much more interesting than the home-grown variety.

      ‘I understand your lady friend is an American. I’m looking for contacts in the American zone.’

      Nina saw Tim Davoren sit up a little straighter in his chair, felt his legs brush against hers under the table as they tensed. A thin blonde girl with a clown’s face had come out on to the small stage at the end of the cellar and was singing Little Sir Echo in German; or so Nina thought, till she caught some of the words and realized it was an obscene parody that had the audience who understood it holding their sides. But she was listening with only half an ear, more intent on Tim Davoren and Rudi Schnatz.

      ‘Rudi old chap, you’re asking for a poke in the nose. British heavyweights have never been much good, but I think I could flatten you.’

      ‘You are twice my size, old chap. I’m not Max Schmeling.’

      ‘I shouldn’t have threatened you if you were.’

      ‘You may not be brave,’ said Nina, ‘but I’ll poke anyone in the nose who says you’re not gallant.’

      Schnatz smiled, taking her remark as encouragement for himself. ‘Miss Beaufort, I would not wish to get you in trouble either with Major Davoren or your American authorities. But there is a lot of unrest in the American zone, I’m told. A lot of GI’s wish to go home. Some of them may like to make some money to take home with them. If you should hear – ’

      ‘Go away, Rudi,’ said Davoren, ‘and don’t trouble the lady. I mean it.’

      Schnatz looked at him, then at Nina: neither of them was smiling. The rest of the room laughed its head off at the clown singer; the lesbians rose behind Schnatz, hand in hand, heading for their bed. He bowed to Nina, nodded to Davoren and went away, disappearing behind the lesbians into the smoke and laughter.

      Davoren took Nina’s hand, pressed it. ‘I know Rudi wasn’t a Nazi and I don’t think he’s a criminal, not at heart. But if he should try to get in touch with you again, give him – I think you call it the bum’s rush. Those chaps are going to get into an awful lot of trouble one day.’

      Sunday night he took her to bed, in his room in the big house where he was billeted with seven other officers. He was surprised when she told him she was a virgin and he lay back on the pillow and scratched his head as if puzzled and worried.

      ‘You mean you’ve never had a lover?’

      ‘Depends what you mean by lover. I don’t think I’ve actually been in love. I had crushes on several boys I met at college and I had what I suppose you call affairs. But all I did was some heavy petting. I never went all the way.’

      ‘All the way. It sounds like jumping off a cliff.’

      ‘To a girl, losing her virginity is like jumping off a cliff. You only do it once. Lose your virginity, I mean. After that I suppose it becomes, um, a habit.’

      ‘Don’t ever think of love-making as a habit. The postures of it are ludicrous, but it’s still a beautiful experience. And beautiful experiences are not the result of habit.’

      ‘How many girls have you made love to? You sound like Casanova. Where are you going?’

      ‘To get the international defence weapon – a French letter. You obviously haven’t come prepared.’

      ‘I think my father would die if I got pregnant.’

      ‘I don’t see the connection, unless American fathers have some sort of umbilical union with their daughters.’

      ‘Would you marry me if you got me pregnant?’

      ‘Are you proposing to me?’

      ‘I don’t know – am I? Good God, how things sneak up on you! I think I am in love with you.’

      He kissed her gently. ‘You’re far too honest, darling heart. And too forward. You should have let me speak first.’

      ‘Shut up and get back into bed.’

      But as he entered her she knew she had indeed spoken too soon, that he was not in love with her.

      She went back to Frankfurt next morning with Colonel Shasta who asked her no questions but looked as if he had the answers anyway. All he said when they got back to Frankfurt was, ‘Take care, Nina. Germany right now is no place to make commitments. You’re very young.’

      ‘You sound like my father, Colonel.’

      ‘I’m trying to. I have a daughter your age back home.’ Then he asked his only question: ‘Does Major Davoren СКАЧАТЬ