Death in Focus Read online

  “The very precariousness of it heightens everything?” Elena said, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation, as if it had been only a moment ago. “Yes, I do think so.” She smiled at him.

  There was a sudden shadow of memory across his face. Was he thinking of the same things that she was? Young people dancing too close, too fast, intricate steps in perfect time with the music, wishing the song would never end, and knowing it had to?

  In her mind, the picture faded and was replaced by Mike on his last leave, tasting every minute, making desperate jokes, laughing too quickly, one minute catching her eyes, the next avoiding them. He could not have known he would never come home again, but like all young men going to war, he must have understood the possibility. He had seen too many of his friends die to avoid it.

  “Elena…?” Ian’s voice cut into her reverie.

  She looked up. “Sorry…” She blinked hard, aware of the tears in her eyes. “I was…” She did not want to tell him. He would have his own griefs; everyone did.

  “It isn’t only Vesuvius, is it?” he said quietly. “It’s everything…”

  She looked at him and saw the amazing gentleness in his face. “You would have liked my brother.” She had not meant to say that, but it was too late to take it back. “And I wish I’d been a bit nicer to Margot before I left. She lost her husband the same day Mike died. They’d been married only a week. I think that’s why she…drinks too much and plays too hard…sometimes. If that had happened to me, I might, too.”

  “Does she do it often?” he asked. There was tenderness in his voice, not criticism.

  Her voice should not have been so sharp or defensive. “Yes, but you can’t blame her for it. The pain doesn’t go away just because time is passing and you’re getting older, and it seems as if all life is bright and pretty…and meaningless. You don’t—”

  “Elena!” He cut her off firmly. “If she does it often, and you’ve forgiven her before, then she knows you’ll forgive her this time. You understand, and she knows that.”

  Suddenly she saw his meaning. “Oh. Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “Stop it!” he said quickly.

  “What?”

  “Stop being sorry. Those who are gone loved us. The last thing they would want is for us to spend our time grieving for them instead of living!”

  She knew that was true, but it too easily sounded like an excuse.

  “What was he like, your brother?” he went on.

  Memory flooded back with overwhelming pain. “Mike was good at sharing things—he told the best jokes—and I think he got that from Grandfather. He would start off with, ‘Have I told you the one about…?’ and then go on into some long, crazy story. He could do all the accents, from wherever you could think of. He loved music. He played pretty well, classical and lighter stuff. He used to invent it as he went along. He was only a year older than Margot, but five years older than me. He was nineteen when he was killed.”

  “That’s terrible…”

  “You must have lost people, too. Everyone did.”

  “My father, but not until quite a long time afterward. He was pretty badly wounded, but more than that, he was shell-shocked. He was never like himself again, and I can’t really remember much of how he was before that. There was an acute sorrow in his eyes, as if he felt guilty for having come home and left so many of his comrades behind.”

  She reached out and put her hand over his, where it lay on his knee. He turned his palm upward and clasped hers. They sat together for several minutes as the countryside slipped past them, and the rattle of the train was oddly soothing.

  “You don’t have any brothers?” she asked eventually, withdrawing her hand and sitting up a little straighter.

  “Only sisters. Three of them, and they are all older than I am. They spoiled me totally, but they did teach me considerable respect for girls. They are all clever, and none of them would take any cheek from little boys.” He gave a rueful smile. “I know about older sisters.”

  “Tell me about them…if you don’t mind?”

  He did, for about an hour. The stories were funny and intimate, and, above all, kind. Elena felt as if she had known them by the time he finally stopped.

  They went along to the dining car for dinner and found a table near the back.

  “The Italians know how to make food such a pleasure,” Ian said, taking a piece of sweet melon on his fork and wrapping the wafer-thin Parma ham around it.

  Elena agreed, but added, “So do the French. It is an art we would be so much happier if we learned.”

  “Do you know French food well?” he asked.

  “Yes, to eat. I couldn’t cook it to save myself. But my father was British ambassador in Paris for a while. It was wonderful, even though it was after the war and everything was pretty grim. Nothing like Germany, of course. Whatever your losses, there is all the difference on earth between winning and losing.”

  He was silent for several moments, and she was afraid she had offended him in some way. She had no idea why it would bother him.

  His voice was different when he spoke again, and she saw what looked like a profound sadness in his eyes.

  “You say that as if it were observed personally, and not an overall political comment. Do you mean it?” he asked.

  She frowned. “Yes, of course I do. If you win you have the confidence of victory to sustain you, whatever the cost—and the cost was terrible. We lost people we loved, and we’ll never know for certain what happened to some of them, or how, where they’re buried, or even if they are. Some are still alive, but so different from what they would have been had they never seen such horrors, never faced every physical fear and pain and loss, never seen half their friends killed. They can’t tell us, and they can’t ever let it go. It would seem like a betrayal of the dead.” She shook her head. Perhaps she was talking too much, but she wanted him to understand that she grasped something of the reality. “I don’t know, not with my heart and my skin and my bones, only with my imagination…”

  He reached across the narrow table and touched her hand, very gently, and only for a moment. “And the losers?” he asked. “They have all of that, too…”

  “Yes. But they also have guilt and confusion…”

  “Do they accept they started it?” He looked surprised, and perhaps doubtful.

  “I’ve no idea. I wasn’t thinking of that. But they have to accept that they lost! Even if some of them think they were betrayed by their politicians rather than their army being beaten.”

  “You know a lot about it. Most Brits that I know don’t.”

  “I lived in Germany in the twenties, when my father was with the embassy there. I had friends. It wasn’t so long ago.” She had forced out all the memories she could, but a few, deeply personal, refused to be banished. People were hungry and frightened, proud of what they remembered, and confused and ashamed by what they had become: shabby and always poor. She shook her head. “Losing is terrible,” she said, finding the words difficult. “I’m glad they’re getting up on their feet again, even if Adolf Hitler is something of a joke with his waving arms and his absurd little mustache. At least they’ve got their spirit back, and some sense of self-respect.”

  Ian seemed lost for an answer. There was patience in his eyes, as if he were looking at a child. “Hope,” he said after a moment, “and a direction to turn their anger? That’s not quite the same thing.” He smiled, but it struck her as a matter of intent, lacking real pleasure. “It’s pretty destructive to blame yourself for everything, but it’s no better to blame other people, especially a particular group of other people.”

  “You have to know the cause, in order to stop it happening again,” she pointed out. “History repeats itself, if you let it.”

  “I know it does,” he agreed. “But not exactly the same way. There are always diffe
rences. The war wasn’t the Gypsies’ fault; in fact, they had nothing to do with it.”

  She was stunned. “Who’s blaming the Gypsies?” she said incredulously.

  “Or the trade unionists, or the homosexuals…or the Jews,” he went on, his face totally serious. “It’s what people do that’s good or bad, not who they are.”

  She realized that they had left talking about themselves, and their memories. They were now speaking of their most intense beliefs, the issues they were prepared to fight for.

  “How big a difference is there?” she asked. It was not a challenge, she wanted to know. It was surprising to her—frightening—how much it mattered to her what he thought.

  He weighed his words before he spoke. “Well, for some, very little. We can only answer for what we know…or would know if we cared enough. There’s a terrible temptation to look at only what you want to, and carefully avoid seeing anything else. ‘I didn’t know!’ is the oldest excuse in the world.”

  “Is it?” she challenged. “Really an excuse?”

  He smiled again. “Am I my brother’s keeper? Didn’t Cain ask that about Abel? Well, the answer is, Yes, you are! You are responsible for what you could have done, had you not chosen to look the other way.” There was anger in his voice, and distress.

  Elena sat silent for several moments.

  People passed by them, walking carefully along the narrow way between the tables, swaying a little to adjust their bodies to the movement of the carriage.

  He spoke apologetically. “With due deference to Milton, ‘They also sin who only stand and watch.’ ” Then he sat back. “Would you like a liqueur with your coffee? Something terribly Italian?”

  “We should be on the night train from Rome to Milan later this evening. Let’s have a liqueur then.”

  He agreed, pleased she was looking forward to it, and they made their way as gracefully as possible back to their carriage.

  * * *

  —

  They arrived in Rome and changed trains with just enough time to catch the night train to Milan. Normally, Elena would have found it tedious, but with Ian there it was entirely different: so much to talk about—funny things, memories from long ago, sadness, surprising discoveries. They had much to share, even more to discover about each other, often stories that explained something they could never have understood otherwise. She was surprised at how much she told him about herself involved her grandfather. Perhaps it was because he had taught her the things she cared about most. Their minds seemed to have followed the same paths, and they did not have to explain themselves. Who did not love the songs of Gilbert and Sullivan? Or know exactly how far Earth was from the moon, or admire the French painters from before the war?

  Ian told her more about his sisters and made her laugh. He clearly cared for them very much and was slightly self-conscious about how deeply they cared for him. She was catching glimpses into the life of his heart, small pictures like the illuminated letters of a manuscript.

  * * *

  —

  From Milan, they needed to catch the next train to Paris. They had to wait about two hours and took the opportunity to walk a little and take a good meal in one of the railway restaurants. Elena was surprised to notice at a table, about ten feet away, a face she recognized from Amalfi. It took her a moment to remember his name, and then it came to her: Walter Mann.

  He looked at her briefly, then away again as he tried to attract the attention of a waiter. He must have recognized her because he smiled. It was remarkable how that lit his rather grave face. She smiled back, then a waiter crossed between them and she returned her attention to Ian. They were sharing adventures and misadventures, laughing at memories that formed the high points of childhood.

  “I remember once, when Mike and I were in the front window watching the thunder and lightning,” she continued. “We had two dogs then, and they started howling. We joined in.” She began to laugh as she thought of it. They had kneeled on the window seat, shoulder to shoulder, the dogs beside them, all matching each other in making a wonderful noise. “Mother came in to see what on earth was the matter,” she told him. “We must have sounded terrible, but we couldn’t explain, we were laughing so hard. Even the dogs were too happy to be alarmed. Mother wanted to be furious, said we’d wakened the entire neighborhood, but then she started to laugh, too. Silly things you remember, isn’t it?”

  “It’s the good things,” he replied. “The things that matter most are sometimes very small, but they’re like portmanteau words: They carry all kind of meaning you can’t explain.”

  They walked toward their Paris-bound train and found their seats. Maybe they could each take a short nap, but why waste such precious time when there was so much to talk about? One could sleep later.

  “Have you ever been to America?” Ian asked as the train raced across the west of Italy toward the mountains and the border of France.

  “Not yet,” Elena replied. “But I certainly mean to. I have grandparents I’ve only met when they came to see us. The second visit was lovely because they stayed for nearly a month, and took us all sorts of places we probably wouldn’t have seen without them. You know how it is—you could go to Kew Gardens anytime, so you put it off. The Tower of London has stood there since William the Conqueror built it. What’s the hurry? But I was so proud to show them around.”

  “Were you?” He wanted to hear, and as she remembered it, the emotions came back. She found herself flattered that he wanted to share her feelings at that time, because it was part of who she was now.

  They talked until long after midnight—there was no one else in the carriage to keep awake. Then they dozed off for a couple of hours.

  Elena woke up with a start to see Ian standing. She smiled at him, comfortable to find him there.

  “Like a cup of tea, if I can get one?” he asked.

  She realized suddenly that there was nothing she would like more. “I’d love one. Do you want me to come with you and see what there is?”

  “No, it’s fine,” he replied, looking down at where she was curled up, with her shoes off, her feet up on the seat.

  “Thank you,” she accepted. She was still half asleep.

  She must have drifted off again, as she woke up with a start to see that he was not back yet. But the carriage door was open and Walter Mann was standing there, looking troubled. His dark hair had fallen forward over his brow, and what she could see of his shirt was rumpled under his jacket.

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Miss Standish,” he said.

  “That’s all right,” she said, shaking her head a little and pushing her hair back off her brow. So he was destined for Paris, too. “What is it? You look upset. Is there something wrong?”

  He came in and closed the compartment door. “I was looking for Newton.” He remained standing, awkwardly. “I saw him a few moments ago, and now I can’t find him. I thought he was coming back this way. I…I expected to find him here. He had tea, or something…”

  Elena stood up, putting her shoes on. He held out his hand to steady her. His grip was surprisingly strong. “Perhaps he’s in the corridor?” she suggested, pulling the door open and looking out. She turned both ways, but saw only an elderly woman going a little unsteadily in the opposite direction from the dining car.

  “I’m sure he came this way,” Walter said again.

  “Then he must be…” She figured he would not go to the cloakroom after he had procured the tea; one would go before. “He can’t be far.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Walter said. “But what if—”

  “I’ll go and look for him,” she said a little impatiently. “He might have stopped to talk to someone.” She smiled briefly at him, then pulled the door closed and started down the corridor, looking in through the glass windows to see if Ian was inside any of the compartments, perhaps in conversation. A
ll she saw were people reading, or more often asleep, with newspapers or books on their laps.

  She stopped at the last compartment before the door closing off the gangway to the next carriage. She glanced through the window and saw someone lying crumpled on the seat. He must have fallen asleep very heavily.

  It was several seconds before she recognized Ian’s jacket, and then saw him move awkwardly.

  She flung the door open, jerking at it, stepped swiftly in, and slammed it shut behind her, instantly going to him. He was lying on the seat, doubled over, and there was blood on the floor.

  “Ian!” She choked on his name, panic rising inside her.

  He moved stiffly, only a few inches, but enough for her to see that there was blood covering the whole of his chest, and running all down his trousers to his thighs. It was still pumping. What could she do to stop it? Anything. The horror inside her was fogging her mind. She put her hand to his chest instinctively to try to stop the flow, but it was futile.

  “Elena…” he said in little more than a whisper. “Don’t! There’s nothing you can do…except listen to me…”

  “I have to stop the bleeding!” she said desperately.

  “No! Listen…” His face was white, covered in sweat, and he was hanging on to consciousness only with effort. “Elena…”

  “I’m listening.” She refused to believe she could not help, and yet already she knew. It was as if a darkness was closing in on her as well.

  “You were right. I knew the man killed in the hotel. I’m Military Intelligence. He was my contact in Amalfi. The telegram I got was to tell me to go immediately to Berlin. I couldn’t check its authenticity with him…all I could do was go,” he said hoarsely. She had to lean closer to hear him. “To get a message to the British…” He struggled for breath. The blood seemed to be everywhere. “…Embassy. To Roger Cordell. He’s MI6…like me.” He tried to smile, but the strength was gushing out of him. “To stop the assassination of Friedrich Scharnhorst…at a rally at Tuesday noon, where he’s speaking. He’s Hitler’s man, and he’s vile. But if he’s killed, we’ll be blamed for it.”