Oh bugger it, Mark thought, I’m going to go out with whomever I wish, and marry the woman I love, when I find her and when the time comes, whether she’s Jewish, Catholic, Protestant or Hindustani. I must please myself as well as the old man. After all, it’s my life not his, and I can’t be him, just as I can’t become what David was. I shall do as I want. Unto thine own self be true.
The thought of his father galvanised Mark into verbal action, and leaning forward he took a deep breath and plunged in. ‘I want to get to know you better, Teddy,’ he said, ‘and I want you to know me, too, but that will never happen if we just sit here listening to the music and smiling at each other. However, I must admit, I do hesitate to ask you about yourself, because you sort of rebuked me the other evening, and I—’
‘Rebuked you! But I didn’t mean it to sound that way!’ Teddy exclaimed, cutting in peremptorily, looking at him askance. ‘I hope I didn’t offend you?’
He smiled at her, and shook his head. ‘No, you didn’t. Anyway, now it’s your turn… you must ask me anything you wish and I’ll answer you truthfully, I promise.’
‘No, Mark, it’s you who must ask me… I owe you that for making you feel so badly on Wednesday.’
‘All right, if you say so.’ There was a little pause and he levelled his eyes on her as he asked slowly, ‘Is there anyone that you’re going out with, Teddy, a sweetheart who’s perhaps away in the forces?’
‘No,’ she answered at once, giving him a very direct, straightforward look. ‘There was a boy… once. But I haven’t seen him for almost six years. He lives abroad. He’s become… just a friend.’
‘And you haven’t dated anyone in all this time?’
‘No.’
‘But a beautiful girl like you! Why, Teddy, you must have had a few admirers, surely?’
‘Yes, I have,’ she replied somewhat shyly. ‘But I didn’t go out with any of them… I wasn’t interested in them.’
He stared hard at her, reached out and put his hand on hers. He felt it trembling under his, and this pleased him. He leaned closer and whispered, ‘Are you interested in me, Theodora?’
She was so overcome by her feelings for him she could not speak, and she swallowed several times, merely gazed back at him, her lips slightly parted. Then finally she nodded her head.
A glow spread through him and he tightened his grip on her hand, and said in the same low voice, ‘You simply can’t imagine how very happy that makes me. And, Teddy, I’m terribly interested in you, but then you know that.’
She continued to gaze at him, and her eyes were shining with joy, and there was a faint blush on her cheeks.
Eventually Mark said, ‘It’s your turn to ask me a question.’
‘What about you?’ she said in a faintly quavering voice after a short pause. ‘I mean, is there someone you’ve been seeing?’
‘Absolutely not! Look, there have been women, I’m not going to deny that, of course. But there’s no one special, and there hasn’t been for the longest time.’ Not ever, if the truth be known, he thought. Not in comparison to you, my darling.
At this moment the waiter arrived with the dessert course, which he began to serve. Their conversation was momentarily curtailed as they watched him spoon out the piping hot bread-and-butter pudding, which they had both ordered and were now no longer interested in eating.
Once the waiter had departed, Mark said, ‘I thought I might meet your parents when I came to collect you tonight. Were they out?’
‘My parents are dead, Mark,’ Teddy replied very quietly.
‘God, how stupid I am! And so very clumsy. Do forgive me. I’m so sorry—’
‘Please, it’s all right, you weren’t to know. In any case, they’ve both been dead for a very long time.’
‘And that’s why you live with your aunt?’
‘Yes. What about your parents? Are they alive?’
‘They are. Do you have any brothers and sisters?’
She shook her head. ‘I was an only child. Do you?’
‘A younger brother, Lionel. He’s away at school. At Harrow.’
‘Harrow! That’s a marvellous school! Winston Churchill went to Harrow.’
‘So did I,’ Mark said.
‘Did you really! Have you ever met Winston Churchill?’ she now asked in an eager voice.
‘Once.’
‘How lucky you are. I wish I had. He’s the greatest man in England. In the world, actually, at least in my opinion. He’s my hero.’
Mark smiled at her, and he wanted to say he wished he were her hero, but restrained himself. Instead he asked, ‘And where did you go to school, Theodora?’
‘I went to a school you couldn’t possibly know… in Berlin.’
Mark was taken aback by her answer and he stared at her, frowning slightly. ‘What on earth were you doing in Berlin? Were your parents living there for some reason at the time?’
‘They were Berliners. I am a Berliner. I was born there.’
‘You are a German?’ Mark’s voice reverberated with incredulity.
‘l am.’
‘But you don’t sound it. What I mean is that you don’t have a German accent. You speak perfect English, and beautifully, I might add.’
Teddy explained, ‘My mother taught me English when I was small. She spoke it well herself, and we came frequently to England to see Aunt Ketti before the war, when I was growing up. You see, she’s lived here for forty years. Her late husband, Uncle Harry, was an Englishman. Anyway, I’ve spoken English since I was five years old. Perhaps that’s the reason I have no accent. When children learn a second language at a very young age they generally do speak it without any kind of accent.’
Mark continued to stare at Teddy and suddenly something clicked in his mind. ‘How long have you lived here?’
‘Five years. I came here in the spring of 1939, via Paris.’
He nodded, wondering if what he now suspected could possibly be true.
Teddy saw a look cross Mark’s face, and it was an expression she could not quite fathom. She was not certain if it was one of perplexity or confusion or worry, or a combination of all three.
‘I’m Jewish,’ she blurted out, and then she sat back in the chair and returned his stare, wondering if this was going to make any difference to him. She fervently hoped it wouldn’t, that he was not one of those hateful people who were prejudiced.
Mark did not at first respond. He just sat looking at her in amazement. And then he smiled an odd little smile before he stretched his hand across the table and took hold of hers. ‘So am I, Teddy,’ he said. ‘As my father would say, our family is also of the Mosaic persuasion.’
TWENTY-EIGHT
They sat staring at each other across the dinner table, both of them equally engrossed in everything the other had to say.
Mark spoke about his family, and then talked at length about the family businesses. He told her that he was expected to go to work in the organisation with his father when the war ended, and that he would take over when his father retired. He went on to explain that music had only ever been his hobby, that he had never intended to make a career on the concert platform; swiftly he pointed out to her that he was therefore not one bit disappointed about his future, that the world of business excited him, which was the absolute truth.
In turn, Teddy filled him in with details of her early life in Berlin and her sojourn with the Westheims at the mansion on the Tiergartenstrasse. Then she carefully recounted the experiences she had had just before she had left Berlin, along with a blow-by-blow description of Kristallnacht on November the ninth, a date she would never ever forget. She even told him about her relationship with Willy Herzog, leaving nothing out. After touching on her stay in Paris with Ursula Westheim, she ended up speaking about her subsequent journey to England with Maxim, the life she had made for them in London, and finally she confided her concerns about Maxim and the future.
Mark listened most attentively to everything she had to say, and
when at last she finished he reached out, took her hand in his, and his face was on the sober side when he asked, ‘And Frau Westheim and her husband are still in Germany?’
‘Oh yes, I’m sure they are,’ Teddy responded. ‘I would have definitely heard from them if they had managed to leave. And there would have been some sort of message from Princess von Wittingen, if anything… if anything awful had happened to them. But there’s been nothing but silence.’ Teddy’s smile was confident as she concluded, ‘They’re in hiding somewhere and they’re quite safe, of that I’m convinced. And Aunt Ketti agrees with me.’
Mark nodded. It was on the tip of his tongue to bring up the heavy Allied bombing raids on Germany, also mention the concentration camps, both dire threats to the safety of the Westheims, but he bit back his words. He had no desire to alarm her, or spoil their wonderful evening together, by raising unpleasant facts which neither of them could do anything to alter. Instead, he raised his glass of champagne to her, and said, ‘I toast you, Teddy! I’m full of admiration for you. It strikes me you’re a wonderfully loyal girl, and a very courageous one, quite aside from being the most beautiful I’ve ever known.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, smiling with happiness, flattered by his compliments. ‘I don’t know about courage, though, I just do what I have to do. As for my looks, well, I’m not all that beautiful, Mark.’
‘To me you are…’ He paused, eyed her carefully, added in a lower tone, ‘You’re also very dangerous.’
‘Dangerous!’ She gave him an odd look through narrowed green eyes and frowned at him. ‘I can’t imagine what you mean!’
‘I say dangerous because I could so easily become serious about you, Teddy.’
Speechlessly, she gaped at him, at a loss to know how to respond to this declaration. And then quite suddenly she admitted to herself that she felt exactly the same way about him. When she had first met him she had been afraid of him—because she had sensed his danger to her, had understood her own vulnerability to him.
Mark had been studying her and now he leaned across the table, put his hand over hers again. ‘I’ve never said that to anyone else, Theodora, you do believe me, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Do you think… could you become serious about me, Teddy?’
‘I could, Mark,’ she answered in a voice that was clear and firm and strong, and she gave him the benefit of a loving smile.
He squeezed her hand, thrilled at her response and by her reaction to him. ‘Come on, darling,’ he said, using this term of endearment for the first time. ‘I want to hold you in my arms and dance with you,’ and so saying he led her away from the table, her hand gripped in his.
The lights were very dim in the room, and on the dance floor they were virtually non-existent, and so the atmosphere was highly conducive to romance, and perfect for young lovers caught up in the fears and dangers and tensions of war.
Mark took Teddy in his arms when the Carroll Gibbons orchestra began to play one of the most sentimental love songs of the times. As they moved slowly around the room to the music, holding each other tightly, Teddy sang the chorus softly, in a low voice which only Mark could hear: ‘I’ll be seeing you in all the old familiar places that my mind and heart embraces all day through. In that small cafe, the park across the way, the children’s carousel, the chestnut trees, the wishing well. I’ll be seeing you in every lovely summer’s day, in everything that’s light and gay, I’ll always think of you that way, I’ll find you in the morning sun, and when the night is new, I’ll be looking at the moon, but I’ll be seeing you.’
She did not know the verse, and so she hummed the rest of the number, now pressed so close to him she could feel the brass buttons of his uniform hard and sharp against her body. And she thought: I’m falling in love with him, I knew I was going to at the Pells’. And she had no regrets; she was filled with the most total kind of happiness she had ever known.
Mark glanced down at Teddy.
Her face was upturned to his and he saw the radiant joy reflected on it, and he drew even closer still, brought her head against his shoulder and kissed her hair tenderly. He would never forget this moment or this song for as long as he lived… he had just realised he had found the woman of his life.
He brushed his lips against her cheek without breaking the rhythm of their steps, and they danced around the floor once again.
And they went on dancing for the rest of the evening as if in a dream.
***
They walked along the Embankment in silence, holding hands.
It was a cold, clear night without a cloud and there was a full moon, and even though the wind blowing up from the Thames was sharp with frost neither of them noticed.
Teddy was bundled up in her aunt’s sheared beaver coat, borrowed for the occasion, with a pink, lacy-mohair scarf covering her hair, and Mark wore his heavy RAF overcoat, peaked officer’s cap and white silk flyer’s scarf wrapped around his neck.
But quite aside from their warm clothing, they were both too preoccupied with themselves to be aware of such a mundane thing as the weather, were oblivious to all else except their entrancement with each other and their emotions.
The stretch of the Embankment behind the Savoy Hotel, which they had just left, was as dark as pitch because of the blackout regulations; not a crack of light was visible from the hotel windows, and all of the street lamps were doused for the same reason. But the bright moon lighted their way, and at one moment Mark lifted his eyes to the sky and said, ‘It’s perfect weather for flying, Teddy. I’d love to be up there with you in my plane, taking you for a spin right now. It’s so breathtaking on a night like this, awe-inspiring, really.’ As he spoke he turned his head and looked down at her and caught his breath.
Teddy was gazing up at him as raptly as she had been on the dance floor. In the moonlight her face was clearly illuminated, and once again he saw her adoring expression, instantly recognised her enchantment with him shining forth from her eyes, and his heart missed a beat. Without so much as a second thought he pulled her to him almost roughly, wrapped his arms around her, brought his face down to hers and kissed her fully on the mouth.
She returned his kiss ardently, wanting this as much as he did, and she clung to him, and when they managed to let go of each other at last, and drew apart, they were breathless, thrown off balance by the impact of their first real physical contact. They stared at each other wonderingly, both discovering that they were slightly dazed.
‘Oh Teddy, my darling…’ he began, and then fell silent. It was his turn to be inexplicably tongue-tied, and he simply stood staring at her in the moonlight, marvelling at her beauty and the feelings she aroused in him.
But within seconds Mark drew her to him again and whispered against her hair, ‘You know, I’ve been wanting to kiss you all evening. In fact, ever since the first night I met you at the Pells’, if you want the truth.’
‘And I’ve wanted you to kiss me,’ she answered without the slightest bit of guile, in her honest fashion.
This admission thrilled him, and, unable to resist her, Mark began to kiss her even more passionately than before, his mouth warm, loving, seeking. And she responded with equal passion, wrapping her arms around his neck and parting her lips at last to let in his insistent tongue. He allowed it to rest there for a moment of quiet and profound intimacy, and then he began to caress her tongue with his own, slowly, languorously.
With a sudden, swift movement he brought both of his hands up to her face and cupped it between them, and began to devour her mouth with a hunger that was surprising to him as well as to her.
She grew more excited and inflamed, and an extraordinary heat suffused her entire body, settled in the pit of her stomach, and she swayed slightly in his arms, overcome by strange new feelings and urgent desires and longings hitherto unknown to her.
For his part, Mark was slightly dizzy himself, and their passionate kissing was arousing him to such a degree his legs w
ere shaking, and he thought for a moment that they were going to buckle under him. He could hardly contain himself, and so he withdrew his mouth from hers, albeit reluctantly, and took a deep breath of the frosty air, endeavouring to calm his racing heart, his flaring sexual desire for her. In a short while he slackened his grip on her, released her from his embrace, and said gently, ‘It’s cold out here, and late, Theodora darling. I’d better get you home. Your aunt will be wondering where you are. Worrying.’
‘It’s all right,’ she responded, touching his arm. ‘I am twenty-five, you know, and quite grown up. I don’t have to answer to my aunt.’
‘I know that,’ he said with a quirky smile, looking suddenly amused. He continued, ‘But I wouldn’t want to find myself in her bad books. That wouldn’t bode well for the future, now would it?’
‘No,’ she agreed, pleased by his words.
Mark now took charge, purposefully tucked her arm through his, and falling into step they set off at a brisk pace, soon left the Embankment behind them and made their way up the Strand, all the while looking for a cab. They had reached Nelson’s Column in Trafalgar Square before they found one, the only one in the vicinity, in fact.
‘Belsize Park Gardens, number forty-three,’ Mark told the driver, helped Teddy to get in, jumped inside after her, and slammed the door. They sat close to each other on the seat, holding hands tightly as the taxi rumbled on its way, making for north London.
Mark wanted to take her in his arms, to start kissing her again, but he resisted the temptation, knowing that under the circumstances this would not lead anywhere, and that he would only end up feeling more frustrated than he already did. There was even a brief moment when he thought of telling the cabbie to turn around and drive to Farm Street in Mayfair, where his mews house was located, but he did not. With any other woman he would hardly have hesitated, and once there he would have had little or no compunction about seducing her. But he would not do that to Teddy. She was different. She was special. She was going to be his wife.