“Did you need to empty the whole magazine? You fairly shot him to pieces...” Bob seemed affected by what his agents had told him of the scene in the abandoned house.
“I started to shoot him and... I wanted to be sure that he was dead.”
“He is dead, you can be sure of that, and now I have a body to get rid of.”
“Enough, Bob! This can’t be undone, and we’ll sort it out,” Albert James interrupted.
“And Winkler’s father?”
“He’s well, very well. We made an unexpected visit to the Schneiders’ house. There were several armed men protecting him, but we managed to get him out of there without a shot being fired,” Albert said.
“How did you manage that?” Amelia asked.
“They didn’t feel the need to be suspicious of a well-dressed Egyptian who said that he was the secretary of an important politician who has been on the payroll of the Schneider group for some time. He came to pay his respects to Herr Fischer, and said that he was at his disposition to provide him with whatever it was he might need. They went to Schneider’s office to talk more peacefully. A man who works for us has been on the Schneiders’ household staff for years, he works as a gardener, so false Herr Fischer’s bodyguards didn’t mistrust him. He went into the office, pointed his pistol at Herr Fischer to get him to be quiet, and then, with the help of the supposed secretary, chloroformed him and got him out through the basement in a large rubbish bin, one of the ones they use for garden waste. The false secretary left the house unmolested. Everything went smoothly apart from the small detail of your killing Colonel Winkler. But we can’t change that now,” Albert concluded.
“It was him or me,” Amelia repeated.
“You know what?” Bob said. “You’ve put me in a tight spot. Now, if you don’t mind, let’s sort out your alibi. If you don’t mind, I’ll hit you on the head, and in a bit you should go to a pharmacy, and say that you were out with Frau Schneider shopping in Khan el-Khalili, and you went to a jeweler’s, you can’t remember where, and that a little while before you got there you were hit on the head and left unconscious on the ground by a robber. You are very worried about Frau Schneider, you don’t know what happened to her. This is the version that you’ll stick to in front of everyone, even Frau Schneider herself. Then you can carry on preparing for your journey and you can leave as planned.” Bob explained the plan in a tone that left no room for debate.
“And what shall I do till then?” Amelia asked.
“You’ll have to carry on pretending to be innocent German expatriates. They won’t tell you anything about the Winklers’ disappearance, and you will ask about the Fischers, but without showing too much curiosity,” Bob said.
When Albert and Bob had left, Amelia had to face Max’s shock and fear.
“How could you kill Winkler?”
“I told you, it was him or me,” Amelia said, upset.
“You left the house with a pistol, which I did not know, and your intention was to kill him if you came across him.”
“Yes, that’s true, I’m not going to lie to you. I wanted to kill him.”
“Sometimes... sometimes... I don’t recognize you.”
“I am sorry, Max, I am sorry that this upsets you. But believe me that if I hadn’t killed Winkler then I would now be dead. I was lucky and was able to shoot first, which is why I’m here now.”
Frau Schneider couldn’t meet Amelia to say goodbye because she was feeling indisposed. Herr Schneider did meet Max to see him off, as well as some of the other members of the group. Wulff seemed to be extremely angry, but said nothing.
Schneider kept up the front that his guests had needed to go off on an unexpected journey, but that they would be back soon.
They wished him luck in his return to Germany, and Max saw that Herr Schneider was rather confused, as if he couldn’t believe that Fritz Winkler had disappeared and that the corpse of his son, the colonel, had turned up floating in the Nile, and that Max and Amelia had had absolutely nothing to do with these two occurrences.
When he looked at Max, all he saw was an invalid, a war hero. Winkler must have made a mistake, it wasn’t possible that the baron was a cripple as a result of Amelia’s actions. No one would pardon anyone who had left him blind in one eye and without any legs. No, it was impossible, but even so, Herr Schneider thought it was better not to trust in Max any longer.
Amelia sighed in relief when she saw, through the plane window, the figure of the Sphinx below her.
“I don’t want to go to Berlin,” Friedrich whispered in her ear. “I want to stay here.”
She squeezed his hand and looked at Max. She could see his worry in spite of the joy he felt to be going home. Albert James sat two rows in front of them, without giving any signs of knowing them at all, just as he had arranged with them beforehand.
When they landed in Berlin, it was snowing heavily. Friedrich complained about how cold he was, and said again that he wanted to go back to Cairo. Amelia told him to shut up.
“Well, that’s it,” Lady Victoria and Major Hurley said, almost simultaneously.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? What happened when they got back to Berlin?” I asked them.
“As for me, I can’t tell you anything else. This is everything that my superiors have allowed me to tell you. The operation in Egypt was not run by us, although we were kept up to speed about everything that happened. But there’s no record in our archives of who was involved in the operation. As you can see, without Albert James’s notebooks, the ones Lady Victoria possesses, it would have been impossible to be sure that your great-grandmother had anything to do with this operation.”
“Right, but what did they do next? Did they carry on working for American intelligence, or for British intelligence? There must be something written down somewhere, right?”
“I’m sorry, Guillermo, I’ve told you that I can’t help you anymore. Everything that has anything to do with operations that took place after the war is classified.”
“But why?” I insisted, trying to overcome Major William Hurley’s resistance.
“You have to understand,” Lady Victoria interrupted. “The major can’t tell you if your great-grandmother carried on working as an agent. If she did, then it’s a secret, and if she didn’t then he simply doesn’t know.”
“But we’re talking about what happened after the war,” I protested.
“Exactly, we’re talking about what happened in the Cold War.”
“But the Cold War’s over.”
“Ah, is it?” Lady Victoria’s voice was filled with irony. “I don’t want our dear friends the Russians to find out the details of operations that took place behind the Iron Curtain. I suppose that some of the agents involved are still alive. No, Guillermo, there is information that we will never know, that won’t be put into the hands of historians for a century, or perhaps even more. And by then we won’t be here.”
“What happened to Albert James?” I insisted.
“Oh, well, I can’t tell you much more about him, either, he carried on living in Europe... here and there.”
“Did he get married?”
“Yes, he got married.”
“Can you tell me who to?”
“Yes, Lady Mary Brian. That’s why he stayed in Europe, although sadly Lady Mary died in a car accident.”
“Did they have children?”
“No.”
“So they can’t give me any more information.”
“You’ll have to carry on investigating on your own account,” Major Hurley said.
“If you could give me a clue...”
“You might be able to find something in Germany, don’t you think?” Lady Victoria interrupted. “After all, it’s where your great-grandmother ended up.”
“And do you have any suggestions?” I said, slightly annoyed.
“If I were you, I’d try to find out what happened to Friedrich. He might still be alive.”
This time, La
dy Victoria had spoken without irony.
“I’d thought of that,” I lied, because in fact I hadn’t had time to think about what I might do next.
“Well, in that case you know what to do now,” Lady Victoria smiled in a way that was open and charming.
I went back to my hotel on foot because I needed to think. It was clear that if Major Hurley didn’t want to give me any more information, then it was because Amelia must have carried on being involved in espionage work. As for Albert James’s notebooks, surely Major Hurley would have suggested that Lady Victoria didn’t tell me anything that could still have been classified information. And if there is one thing that unites the British, whatever their ideology might be, it is that they are extremely patriotic.
It was a good idea to go to Berlin. Perhaps I would be lucky and meet Friedrich von Schumann, or someone who had known his aristocratic family in the past.
I called Doña Laura to tell her I was going to Berlin, and I sent flowers to my mother again, with a card saying how much I loved her, so that she wouldn’t give me another telling-off when I called her from Berlin.
I also called Professor Soler to see if he had any contacts in the German capital. He seemed to know people everywhere.
“So, you’re going to Berlin, my dear Guillermo, well, well, well... You’re a right little globetrotter,” Professor Soler said, with a certain degree of irony.
“So it seems, but I don’t have any other options.”
“I may be able to help you. I struck up a friendship at a conference with a professor from the University of Berlin, but he must be pretty old, because he was just about to retire, and this was six or seven years ago. But I’ll look for his card and if I find it I’ll call you, is that alright?”
Professor Soler called me an hour later. He had found the card and had spoken to his friend.
“He’s named Manfred Benz, and he lives out by Potsdam. He said that he would be pleased to see you. I hope it’s a useful trip.”
“So do I, and thank you very much, Professor.”
FRIEDRICH
1
Berlin surprised me. It seemed one of the most interesting cities I had ever visited. Full of life, avant-garde, transgressive, beautiful. I fell in love with it almost immediately, in the three hours after my plane landed, after getting a taxi driver to give me a tour of the sights.
I don’t know why, but I decided to try to find a member of the von Schumann family by myself, if indeed any one of them was left. I said to myself that if I failed in the attempt, then I would give Professor Manfred Benz a call.
The hotel receptionist gave me a phone book, and I found, to my surprise, various people named von Schumann. I called the first one on the list.
I crossed my fingers, hoping that they would speak English. A voice that sounded like a teenager’s answered the phone, and I asked for Herr Friedrich von Schumann.
“Ah, you want to speak to my grandfather! You have made a mistake, he does not live here. Would you like to talk to my mother?”
The kid spoke English, but with a very strong German accent. Of course, I spoke English with a Spanish accent: We understood each other perfectly. I was tempted to say yes, that I would talk with his mother, but my instinct told me not to.
“Don’t worry, I suppose I must have picked the wrong number from the phone book.”
“If you are looking in the phone book, he’s under F. von Schumann. That’s granddad’s phone number.”
I found the number and dialed it. My pulse started to beat faster as I realized that Friedrich von Schumann might be alive; of course, it was another matter whether he might want to talk to me.
A deep voice reached me over the line.
“Good afternoon, I would like to speak to Friedrich von Schumann.”
“Who is it?” the voice asked.
“He doesn’t know me, but I think he knew a relative of mine, my great-grandmother.”
There was a silence over the line, as if the deep-voiced man were weighing what I had just told him.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Guillermo Albi, and I am the great-grandson of Amelia Garayoa.”
“Amelia...” The voice sunk into a whisper.
“Yes, Amelia Garayoa, she... Well, it was she who knew Friedrich von Schumann.”
“What do you want?” It really was an impressive voice.
“If Herr von Schumann could spare me a few minutes, I could explain it to him face to face.”
“I am Friedrich von Schumann; come to my house this afternoon at three o’clock, if that is convenient. I’ll give you the address.”
When I hung up the phone, I couldn’t believe my luck. I celebrated by taking a walk around Berlin with the map that the receptionist had given me. I did what any tourist would do: I took a photo with the Brandenburg Gate in the background, I looked for Checkpoint Charlie, I tried to see where the Wall had been...
The address was in what had been East Berlin. The house was in a clean and well-kept district, with some art galleries on the same street. It could have been a bourgeois suburb in any European city.
When I rang the doorbell of the second-floor apartment, I realized that my heart was starting to beat more quickly once more. A man opened the door; his hair was completely white and he had intense blue eyes. He was wearing black trousers and a black polo-neck sweater. I thought that he was probably about seventy years old.
He looked at me with curiosity for a moment before holding out his hand.
“I am Friedrich von Schumann.”
“I am Guillermo Albi, and I am extremely grateful that you agreed to see me.”
“I was curious. Come in.”
He led me to an office whose walls were covered in books. A set of open sliding doors led onto a library.
“Sit down,” he said, pointing to a chair on the other side of the desk. “So you are Amelia’s great-grandson. Your grandfather would have been Javier, then?”
“Yes, my maternal grandfather was Javier.”
“Well, tell me what you want.”
I explained to him that I had spent a long time engaged in investigating Amelia Garayoa’s life, and told him who had helped me, the countries I had needed to visit, and the final clue that led me to Berlin.
“And you must be the son of Max von Schumann, my great-grandmother’s lover.”
“Yes, but please, don’t speak about the relationship between Max and Amelia as that of lovers: They were much more than that. Also, Amelia was the only mother I ever really knew. And now you appear and tell me that her cousins Laura and Melita have asked you to write the story of her life... She loved them a great deal, especially Laura. I never met them, but Amelia showed me photographs of them and of her sister Antonietta.”
I asked him to help me, because I would find it difficult to continue without his help. Before he gave me an answer, he got up and asked me what I would like to drink. Then he left, and when he came back, he was followed by a woman about his age.
“Ilse, this is Amelia’s great-grandson.”
The woman held out her hand to me and smiled. She looked friendly, just as one hopes grandmothers will look. She was tall, and in spite of her age, stood upright. Her hair was as white as Friedrich’s.
“My wife couldn’t resist taking this opportunity to meet you. She knew Amelia and she feels very close to her.”
“Oh, she was such a brave woman! I learned so much from her.”
“Yes, she must have been brave,” I said, anxious to know more.
Ilse left the room and came back with a tray, a bottle of whisky, and an ice-bucket.
“Call me if you need me, and... well, maybe you’d like to have dinner with us...”
“I don’t want to be any trouble...”
“You are Amelia’s great-grandson, it’s as if you were a part of the family, and... I owe Amelia my life,” Ilse replied.
I felt euphoric. Not only had I found Friedrich, but he seemed happy to cooperat
e, and his friendly wife had told me that Amelia had saved her life. So I waited for them to dazzle me.
Friedrich listened carefully as I told him all I had found out about their travels in Egypt.
“I think that was the happiest part of my childhood, and maybe even the happiest part of my life. If it had been down to me, I would have stayed in Cairo and we wouldn’t have returned to Germany,” he said, as an introduction.
“How old were you?”
“When we came back, I think I was about six.”
“So you remember well what happened during that time.”
“More or less, although my later memories are much more concrete. My wife Ilse can also tell you about her. She loved her very much. I met Ilse via Amelia, even though we both studied at the university. I was a medical student, I’d always wanted to be a doctor like my father, and Ilse studied physics. But before I tell you anything, I want to have your word that you will use this information carefully. You have told me that you’re a journalist and... well, I don’t trust journalists all that much, I don’t have much confidence in them.”
“I’m not surprised, I don’t trust them either.”
Friedrich von Schumann looked at me in astonishment for a moment and then burst out laughing.
“Right, well at least we have something in common apart from Amelia. Well,” and here he turned serious, “although the Wall fell twenty years ago, those of us who grew up with it still feel it here, in our heads. What I’m going to tell you has to do not just with Amelia, but also others, who wouldn’t like people to know what they did in the past. And they have the right to their privacy. So I won’t tell you their real names, and I don’t want any of this to travel outside the family. Don’t give in to the temptation of publishing a book about your great-grandmother’s life. If you don’t promise that in writing, then I won’t tell you anything.”