The Twisted Patriot Page 5

  “Listen, Mirabelle, I have a proposition for you which you may well find a tad surprising. I would like you to come up and stay in the North with me and my parents, because at least there you will be well looked after instead of being on your own in this quite frankly horrible and unhealthy environment,” he said.

  Mirabelle was quite stunned at this request from a man whom she hadn’t heard from or seen for seven months.

  “I couldn’t,” she replied shaking her head vigorously. “I wouldn’t imagine your parents think very much of me after I betrayed you with a boy who was unbelievably rude to them, and which I was a silent witness to, despite their hospitality,” she protested.

  “We Jews are true to our word when we say turn the other cheek, and besides my parents, despite their exterior, aren’t a totally sensitive-free zone,” he said.

  Again they went silent, Adam staring at her so intently she had to avert her gaze and stare at the damp-stained wallpaper, thinking how on earth could he bring himself to even suggest such a thing after he had been betrayed so openly.

  “And what about you, Adam? Would you really feel comfortable about it, if I changed my mind and said yes?”

  “Of course I would, Mirabelle, it was my idea after all,” he said with a smile.

  “Your idea, even though I betrayed you with your best friend?” Mirabelle asked incredulously.

  Steiner kept smiling and swallowed deeply as if he was about to go under the water for several minutes.

  “Well, I’ve had a while to think about things and I know that Stuart was at the root of it and that for me you are the girl that I love and still love despite everything. If I was to stop loving you it would mean that Sebastian had won and I would feel very uncomfortable about that,” he said.

  “But Adam, I’m pregnant with his child, which is the fruit of a day we, that is you and I, would like to forget. Nevertheless how could you cope with this child growing up around you as a permanent reminder of betrayal?”

  Steiner, who had somehow downed his drink despite the water tasting more like oil, jumped up and strode to the fireplace and stood with his back to Mirabelle, before turning with that same fiery look in his eyes which Mirabelle had seen for the first time back in June when he burst in on them.

  “Listen to me, Mirabelle, Stuart may have grown up without a father but there’s no reason why that fate should be visited on this child. Do you want your child to turn out like him? Heaven forbid!” said Steiner with a cruel laugh.

  “Yes, I guess on that level you’re right, although I have to add, Mr Steiner junior, beneath that cool, calculating exterior you are a foolish romantic!” and with that she hugged him and kissed his ear tenderly, contrasting his warm scented smell with the alcohol fumes permeating from Sebastian’s pores.

  “So Mirabelle, what’s your answer?” asked Steiner, who true to his father’s code shrugged aside the warmth of the embrace as an adequate response and waited for verbal confirmation.

  “Okay, but it doesn’t mean we are getting married immediately,” she answered, still with her arms around his scrawny neck.

  “I want you to still go to law school because I am damned that you are going to sacrifice your career on account of Sebastian,” she added.

  Steiner could have jumped for joy on hearing this for he had triumphed over Sebastian, regardless of whether he had wanted Mirabelle or not, and that for him was the equivalent of good over evil and proof that love could really conquer all manner of betrayals and obstacles.

  “Of course I’m still going to law school and if you get bored up north then of course you are free to go. It’s not a prison camp,” he replied.

  “And what about money? Your parents can’t be expected to bear all the expense, particularly with a baby on the way,” the ever-practical and sensitive Mirabelle asked.

  “No, of course not, but I have some stored away, apart from the money I’m earning now, and of course as you are well aware I wasn’t exactly flash with the cash when I took you out!” he jested.

  Mirabelle, who felt a sense of being happy for the first time in ages and could feel a huge weight being lifted off her, looked around her sitting room at the peeling wallpaper, the decrepit old sofa and the dilapidated armchairs and thought, I may not be convinced I love Adam but for the baby’s sake anything would be better than this.

  “Okay, Adam, I will take you up on your offer, and Sebastian Stuart be damned!”

  Steiner heaved a sigh of relief as it wouldn’t have looked very good returning to the pile near Bolton empty-handed and given his father another occasion to ridicule him on the subject of chasing girls.

  “Right, I’ll pick you up at ten in the morning and we’ll take the train up together. Goodnight, my sweet Mirabelle,” Steiner said softly.

  Desperate to engage in a passionate locking of tongues, he restrained himself and with his usual formality kissed her on both cheeks and left, although Mirabelle did remark to herself that he could have got the second coming, so to speak off, to a more romantic start by asking her out for dinner. But that was Adam, simplistic and not very imaginative.

  Thus it was that at about the same time that a hungover Stuart left on his long trip to Germany, Mirabelle and Steiner embarked on their rather shorter journey to the less glamorous climes of Bolton.

  Each of them felt that their paths were unlikely to cross ever again but one four letter word beginning with F which had caused their original separation was to be replaced by another that would ensure they would meet again. Fate.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Sebastian took to Berlin with his usual chameleon capacity, basking in the new high society that Hitler and his National Socialists had brought with them in their surge to power. They included those who had belonged to the discredited Weimar Republic but who saw little problem in switching allegiance as long as it meant they stayed in the elite, even if it meant bending the knee to those they had despised as criminals before their ascent to the top.

  Thus he found the von Preetzs a most useful conveyance for gaining a taste of the new Berlin. Despite the Nazi ban on anything that in Germanic terms could be classed as humorous, such as the biting satire of the Cabaret acts, Sebastian still found enough to amuse himself both above board and underground, though the latter had to be handled discreetly.

  Sebastian surmised pretty quickly that while the Weimar Republic had been chaotic, it had at least been rich in art and entertainment, while the Nazis had restored order but taken a lot of the fun out of society.

  That did not stop him from his usual bedroom wanderings even at the expense of his friends, and within weeks he had seduced Victoria von Preetz, Eric’s stepmother.

  Their afternoon trysts took place in the seclusion of the apartment he had rented on Friedrichstrasse near the crossroads at Unter den Linden which led down to the Brandenburg Gate – the heart of the city and the symbol of German unity under Otto von Bismarck, a man who the little Corporal Hitler so lusted to emulate but had more chance of unifying every nation against him.

  Sebastian kept his thoughts on Hitler firmly to himself when in the company of Victoria as she was an ardent Nazi whose often espoused views on Jews and non-Aryan races drove him to distraction; he was more than keen to keep the passion fires burning as she had an insatiable appetite and was a master in professorial teachings in the arts of sexual matters.

  She was just 28 and it was easy to see why she had attracted the attention of her priggish 58-year-old husband with her long black hair, blue eyes, full bosom and shapely if a little muscular legs.

  Victoria had adored London where her husband – who was, at least, a real aristocrat, unlike the ersatz aristo he served, Joachim von Ribbentrop – had been his first secretary at the Court of St James’ before returning to the Foreign Ministry to once again act as his advisor when the former champagne salesman had been appointed Foreign Minister by Hitler, who had no need of a man with personality to fill the post.

  She admitted to preferring
the livelier and more eclectic nightlife in London than the heavily regimented one back in Berlin, but she swallowed her lust for a lively and inventive social life to follow her husband and indulge herself once more in the charms of the Führer’s policies on race and settled for a wayward Englishman as a consolation prize.

  One of the more pleasant surprises for Sebastian, apart from Victoria’s company, was that Eric became a genuine friend and someone for whom his affection grew as he came to realize he was not a totally devout Nazi despite his stolid defence in the tearoom in Eton.

  However, Sebastian was careful to keep his liaisons with Victoria to himself as while Eric had little time for her he adored his father and falling out with a powerful family like the von Preetzs would not be a terribly good idea, given the political climate.

  Eric, however, had not joined the Foreign Office but preferred to sign up to the Wehrmacht, having turned down the invitation to enlist in the Leibstandarte which was Hitler’s elite bodyguard and to whom as a further sign of the devotion of the von Ribbentrop family the Foreign Minister’s son had enrolled.

  “I have little time for such a group,” Eric confided in Sebastian. “They are either sons of arrivistes, perverted offspring of aristocrats or fanatics and I don’t fill any of those categories, although I will serve my country if it should come to war,” he added.

  Sebastian found this attitude embodied by many of Eric’s friends, who, while they had little in common with the Nazis, still resented the humiliation imposed on Germany by the victorious powers on them in the Versailles Treaty following the First World War and were prepared to go to war again, were there to be the opportunity.

  Happily, though, the two of them were able to break away from the almost daily propaganda eschewing forth from the club-footed pygmy-figured Josef Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry and indulge in the normal pursuits of boys in their early twenties.

  “My God, Karl, who is that girl over there,” von Preetz enquired of the headwaiter of the club that they frequented.

  It was an unusually hot June night and while the men were restricted to the usual white tie dress code, the women were given more leeway and it was hardly surprising that Eric’s eyes had been drawn to the stunning blonde, whose breasts were exaggerated somewhat by her thin figure and helped also by the low cut of her dazzling diamond studded dress.

  “Henrietta von Rieckenbach, daughter of Baron von Riekenbach, who is . . .”

  “Yes, Karl, I know who he is, Goering’s favoured aristocrat at the Luftwaffe because he bestows on the Reichsmarschall the respect he believes is due to him from the aristocracy,” von Preetz interjected, cutting off Karl in full flow.

  Karl Kessler raised his olive-green eyes to the splendidly ornate ceiling, not in wonderment at the gold-tipped chandeliers, nor the painting in the cupola of the warrior heroes of the Franco-Prussian war specially commissioned by Goebbels, who was a frequent visitor to the club. Goebbels was an infamous womanizer despite being married to the formidable Magda – who was, like Victoria, a fanatical follower of Hitler’s – and enjoyed entertaining his latest conquest at a place where Karl could always be counted upon to ensure the discreetest of welcomes – any waiter or waitress indiscreet enough to speak a word of Goebbels’s dates could find themselves out of a job and off to a concentration camp as quickly as the word spread.

  Kessler, though, was not so fond of this young pup interrupting his speciality of the genealogical tree of the young lady which had endeared him to so many of his newer clients, as the Nazis were obsessed with such information – it had probably led to him being elevated to the heady heights he now occupied.

  He had risen so high in his profession as his predecessor had failed to pass the Aryan test in that he had some Jewish blood dating back centuries.

  Karl had not wanted to impart such knowledge but he had little choice, as he reasoned to himself, once he had come across it in the central office of records – of course, he felt it was his civic duty to inform the relevant authorities and they had thanked him while assuring him nothing would happen to Julius Brietzen apart from his losing his job.

  Anyway he was far more suited to the job than Brietzen, as changing times needed people who could do the same thing and he felt indelibly tied to the Nazis and their ideals, whereas Brietzen had been far too close to the aristocracy and he had to admit he couldn’t see how he would have been able to tolerate such rudeness as exemplified by von Preetz.

  Kessler, though, swallowed his considerable pride and returned to the subject in hand, knowing that he would not have to attend to him and his equally unappealing English friend for much longer, as Goebbels was due later that evening along with some other Nazi highflyers.

  “Exactly, sir, you are most certainly well-informed,” he preened.

  “I make it my business to be, Karl, just like you, but for different reasons,” sighed von Preetz with a suitably patronising tone, which sparked a roar of laughter from Sebastian and leaving Kessler in even more of a fury at being ridiculed.

  “What do you think, Sebastian? Shall we ask the young lady to come over and indulge in a glass of champagne?” he asked Sebastian.

  Sebastian nodded and with that Kessler got the message, swung smartly on his shiny black shoes and weaved his way through the morass of tables with his shiny bald pate, which he tried to cover over with a few strands of greasy black hair, reflecting the light coming off the chandeliers and making him look an even more ridiculous figure.

  Kessler whispered in the girl’s ear and she stood up to leave her company which consisted of four serious looking men – roughly the same age of von Preetz and Sebastian – and three equally serious looking girls, who to Sebastian’s mind needed a good night’s work in bed to shake them out of their purse-lipped expressions or as the French called it, they looked as if they had a broom up their bottoms.

  Miss von Rieckenbach made her way over, pursued by the ever-obsequious Kessler, whose brow was dripping sweat while his hair took on an even more matted look making a dismal contrast to the elegant comportment of the girl in front of him.

  Both Sebastian and von Preetz stood and shook hands with her and then waited until Kessler had settled her into her chair before resuming their sedentary positions.

  Kessler poured her a glass of Roederer Cristal before heaving a sigh of some relief at being able to leave the table and attend to some other more pliable and respectful clients.

  The trio stared at each other for a minute or so, the men appraising their female companion while she cast her eyes from one to the other and Sebastian had to admit she had one of the most beautiful pairs of eyes he had ever seen, huge and emerald green.

  “Strange we haven’t come across each other before, given our families’ blue-blooded ancestry and even given the changing circumstances,” von Preetz said, making Sebastian grimace at his friend’s lack of social grace with the opposite sex.

  If she found it unsubtle and risqué she didn’t show it.

  “Yes, strange, though given that you are making good use of your father’s boss’s former product I would take it you are more used to those circles.”

  Both Sebastian and Eric laughed at her equally undiplomatic reply as von Preetz admired feistiness in women, unlike his stepmother’s fawning attitude to any Nazis who came to their mansion in the wealthy suburb of Dahlem, where she gave the impression she would willingly undress them and give them oral sex while berating her husband on any occasion he would lose control and criticise the government.

  “Quite so, quite so, Miss von Rieckenbach. I doubt whether you would find the products of your father’s chief Reichsmarschall Goering quite so fulfilling or comforting as this splendid champagne, even if it is French and they could be fighting us in a matter of months,” von Preetz said while refilling their glasses.

  Henrietta smiled and then fixed Sebastian with a steady gaze.

  “And you, Mr Stuart, where do you stand? For if the French are our enemies and we are drinking t
heir finest champagne at least they are not here but you, an Englishman, are in our midst,” and again she smiled, though Sebastian did not detect the same warmth in her eyes as she had when addressing Eric.

  “Oh Sebastian, why, he is here for us to eat like a great slab of English roast beef, while we drink the French!” guffawed von Preetz which provoked the other two into a similar reaction.

  Sebastian was relieved at the timely humour of Eric but still decided that rather than stick around and come under further scrutiny from Henrietta he would leave the two of them to their own devices as he had in any case a rare night-time assignation with Victoria because Eric’s father was away on a trip with von Ribbentrop.

  “So, Mr Stuart, or if you will permit me Sebastian, which sounds more Spanish than English, why aren’t you with a young German lady or are you taking a last break from someone you are betrothed to back in England?” asked Henrietta which although it came with a smile, it was not a particularly winning one for Sebastian as it was not helped by her horse-like teeth.

  He was also irritated by the forwardness of the question from someone he had not even met before this evening, and notions of some guilt towards Mirabelle aside, he still felt compelled to respond before taking his leave.

  “I don’t feel the need to have somebody on my arm like a trophy. In any case, I am seeing somebody here but it requires a certain amount of discretion which is a fine quality to possess,” he intoned with a suitable amount of sarcasm before kissing her on the hand, shaking von Preetz’s and leaving the club.

  “Stuart is a funny fellow, don’t you think?” Eric asked Henrietta after Sebastian’s departure.

  “Yes, he doesn’t give much away, although it is the first time of meeting him so perhaps he is just shy with strangers. How do you know him?” she replied.

  “We were at Oxford together but we didn’t get on very well for a while until he betrayed his best friend who was Jewish and whom I had abused,” he said.