My Name is Eva(26)

Germany



15 November 1945



Darling,



I rather feel that if you were still here you would tell me I’d been foolish and naive to ever think I could cope with that posting. What a fool I was, not to see what was coming. The very title of the division should have alerted me in advance – Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre.

I know that it is important to find the most guilty people after all the terrible things that have been discovered and I know too that useful information about military and scientific developments can be gained from questioning, but what I can’t stomach is man’s inhumanity to man. I thought our country was on the side of the angels and now I feel that all men are capable of being equally ruthless and cruel.

To sit there, in those interrogations, day after day, translating as I wrote, seeing those poor wretches being brutally abused, starved and frozen, well, I just couldn’t stomach it any more. I want to do my bit, you know I do, but I can’t do it this way. I tried to make my views known, but I was told in no uncertain terms that the information gained this way was of national interest and their methods were permitted. I was even threatened with a court martial if I didn’t keep quiet.

I wish I could have stuck it out for your sake, darling. I so wanted to catch Robinson out if I could, but I simply couldn’t stay there any longer. Please forgive me, darling, for not getting even with him for you. I will try to think of some way in which I can seek revenge one day, you see if I don’t. Not only will I be making amends for your demise, but I shall do it for the sake of those other poor wretches too. That odious man shall not get away with it.

And I hope you will also be able to forgive me for pretending to be ‘in the club’ just to get out of that awful place. I felt a little guilty, because I’d only ever wanted children with you, darling, but as it was the most effective and quickest way to get myself out of that hellhole, I had to do it. I rather think you might have found it a little amusing. You would certainly have enjoyed my play-acting!

So now I’m moving on again. Please don’t think I’m being inconstant and capricious, I’m really not. I’m desperate to do some good but I can’t do it here, so I’m transferring to an organisation that is helping to resettle the thousands of displaced people lost in this country. It’s called the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration – UNRRA for short – and I’m going to a place near Frankfurt in a few days’ time.

I had an interview with a very nice ex-colonel in the organisation at the Kaiserhof Hotel in Bad Pyrmont, not far away from here. It nearly went very badly as Robinson was also there for some reason and caught me as I was leaving. He tried to intimidate me but I managed to get away from him and shall be going to Frankfurt shortly. I shall be so relieved to leave Bad Nenndorf – the locals call it Das Verbotene Dorf, the Forbidden Village, and I think that just about sums it up.



Your loving Evie XXX

Ps I love you





Part IV





Grand tea cooked in mall.

Different size portions (5,3,5)





26





Evelyn, 22 July 1970





London





Evelyn settled herself on the park bench in the sun. West Square wasn’t as pleasant a spot for lunch as St James’s Park, which she could walk to in just minutes when the office was based in Broadway, but London had many pockets of green, which gave her the air and space she craved during a working day. Dear Broadway, right at the heart of government yet so near to that lovely park with its water birds and magnificent displays of bedding plants throughout the summer. And the elegant St Ermin’s Hotel, so conveniently near for special meetings and the occasional afternoon tea for celebratory occasions. What fun she’d had years before, learning to dodge her trail around the back streets and taking photos surreptitiously in the park. That was such a lovely time, although she’d failed to take any snaps of the lake, the pelicans and ducks as she’d forgotten to remove the lens cap.

Century House, where the service was now located, wasn’t nearly as attractive a location, but it was nearer Waterloo station and although she did rather miss her end-of-day stroll across Westminster Bridge (such a beautiful view of the Thames at all times of year), she appreciated the chance to catch an earlier train home, especially in summer, when there was so much to enjoy in the gardens at Kingsley. If she left her desk on the dot of five, why, with luck she could be home a little after six.

No, life was not so bad, she told herself as she unwrapped the egg and cress sandwich she had bought, just as she did every morning, from the little café run by such friendly Italians, Arturo and Maria, near the office. They knew her order off by heart now and she could nip in on her way to work and out again, in less than five minutes, with a lovely hot frothy coffee in a plastic cup too. Such a pleasant start to her day before the first of many dreary meetings.

Evelyn relished these quiet lunch hours when she could read and think in peace while other members of staff disappeared to smoke and drink pints with cheese and pickle sandwiches in local pubs or stroll along the river with their lunches packed in cloudy Tupperware or, the more senior ones, headed for clubs where they could claim to be discussing policy. She opened The Times, then folded the pages to fit her lap – she could read while she ate. She didn’t enjoy its crossword nearly as much as the Telegraph, which she read on the way to work, but The Times was one of a selection of daily newspapers delivered to the office and, anyway, she preferred doing her puzzle when she caught the train at the end of the day. Concentrating on the cryptic clues always took her mind off the crush of commuters with their winter coughs and sniffles and their summer hay fever sneezes.