Dancing with Eva by Alan Judd

Author:Alan Judd [Judd, Alan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781849832731
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHT

Hans poured more wine, taking ceremoniously slow strides down one side of the table and back up the other. When he sat he smiled.

‘No, perhaps an affair should not be described as a fact. In one sense, of course, it is a fact that it happened or did not happen, but in other senses you are right: to treat it as a mere fact would be to oversimplify a complex relation. Let me ask another question: what did you most like about her?’

‘Her generosity and her bravery.’

‘And what did you least like about her?’

‘Her selfishness and her lack of moral imagination.’

‘One may be generous and selfish?’

‘Of course. The one may be a manifestation of the other.’

He pulled at the lobe of his left ear. ‘Edith, what has happened to your other earring?’

‘I lost it,’ she said carefully. ‘In that tunnel.’

‘I tore them off, both of them,’ she might have added, ‘and held them out to the two Russian soldiers. “Take these, take these,” I kept saying. “They are valuable.” But we had no common language, no words at all. They knocked my hand aside. That’s how I lost the other earring.’

But she said none of this. Her reference to the tunnel was a cue, had he cared to pick it up, but evidently he was not ready for that. His expression was impassive.

‘Were they the earrings Eva gave you?’ he asked.

‘Yes, she gave them to me the day she died. She put most of her jewellery in a box and sent it to her parents in one of the last planes out of Berlin. “Something for them to live on,” she said. I don’t know whether it ever got there. Later, we were in the corridor in the bunker and she called me to her bedroom, which opened off the sitting room the Führer used. His own bedroom was on the other side. Traudl Junge was there already and Eva gave her her beautiful silver-fox fur coat. Traudl was on the verge of tears, although she and Eva were never very close, and kept saying, “But you will want it, you must keep it.” But Eva insisted. “I always like to have well-dressed ladies around me,” she said.

‘And then she turned to me, took off her earrings, grabbed my hand and forced them into it, saying, “And these are for you, my dear. Keep them for me, think of me when you wear them. Or if not, use them to buy your freedom. They are very valuable. I was given them in Italy.”

‘I tried to refuse, to give them back to her, I pushed my hand against her but she forced my fingers closed. We were both crying. I couldn’t speak. She said, “I have others that I shall wear for – when it is time. But you must wear these, for me, Edith, wear them for me.” I can’t remember how it ended. Someone else came into the room, I think.’

‘She got them in Italy?’

Edith smiled. ‘Why does that matter to you, Hans? Are you secretly a customs officer or tax inspector?’

He smiled.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.