The Diplomat's Wife(54)
“Not much,” Johnson replies. “Except that he is a civil servant and loosely affiliated to the opposition leadership. Andek is known to have gone to Berlin to see Marcelitis a few months ago. Problem is, we don’t have anyone who knows him.”
“I do,” I blurt out. All heads snap in my direction.
“Excuse me?” Johnson asks, his voice a mixture of annoyance and disbelief. “Did you say something?”
I take a deep breath. “Y-yes, I said that I know Marek Andek.”
CHAPTER 14
The room is completely silent. I look down, desperately wishing that the floor would open and swallow me whole. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Simon’s stunned expression. Secretaries do not ever speak in meetings. To do so in here, where the D.M. is present, is unthinkable.
“You know Andek?” the D.M. repeats incredulously.
I hesitate, wondering if I should recant, say that my outburst was a mistake. But it is too late to stop. “Y-yes,” I reply, my voice trembling. A murmur ripples through the room.
“Marta,” Simon warns in a low voice, then stands up to face the D.M. “Sir, I am terribly sorry for this interruption. My assistant seems to have forgotten herself.” His assistant, not his wife. “There is no way she knows this man. I’m sure there’s some mistake.” I open my mouth to say that there is no mistake. Then, seeing Simon’s furious expression, I close it again.
The D.M. looks from Simon to me, then back. “Very well.” He turns to the table. “Keep looking for contacts in Prague who…” I sit motionless, unable to hear him over the ringing in my ears. Marek’s fat face and squinty eyes appear in my mind. I never liked Marek. He was boorish, with none of Alek’s charm or Jacob’s wit. I last saw Marek at a cabin outside Kraków that had served as one of our hideaways, the day after the resistance had bombed the Warszawa Café. He was going over the border to Slovakia, he said, to try to make contact with other resistance groups. Watching him as he stood in the door of the cabin clutching his rucksack, I was flooded with disbelief. He was the only one capable of leading our group now—how could he possibly be leaving? Alek never would have abandoned us if he had lived. But Marek fled, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves. Within days, the remainder of the resistance had disintegrated.
It is the same Marek Andek, I am certain. He must have survived the border crossing and the war, then somehow linked up with Marcelitis. Had he seen or heard from Emma and Jacob? Digging my nails into my palms, I force myself to concentrate on the meeting once more. The D.M. is making some concluding remarks, ending much sooner than I had anticipated. Does the abrupt conclusion have to do with the message from the minister’s office? Or with my outburst?
When the meeting ends, I slip quickly from the room, not wanting to face Simon. He is usually so calm and even-tempered, I reflect as I make my way down the corridor. But decorum and appearances, his place in the department, mean everything to him. No wonder he was furious. I stop at the ladies’ toilet. As I wash my hands at the sink, I berate myself inwardly. I should not have spoken out like that. I have never told Simon about my work with the resistance. I had to tell him the truth about my coming to England on Rose’s visa so that he could straighten out the paperwork when applying for my residency and our marriage license. Beyond that all he knows is that I was liberated from the camps. Why hadn’t I said anything? In the beginning, I feared that the truth would be too much, that Simon would not want me working for him for fear that my past would come to light and taint him. And later, when we were married and it seemed that I should have told him already, the not telling became a bigger problem than the secret itself. More recently, it had simply become a part of my distant past that I seldom considered, something that no longer mattered. Until today.
When I return to the office, Simon is standing in front of my desk, arms crossed. “What were you thinking?” he says. Alarmed, I take two steps back, trying to get as far away from him as I can in the tiny, windowless reception area. “Are you trying to ruin my career?”
Fear rises in me. I have never seen him this angry. “Simon, I’m so sorry,” I begin. “I didn’t mean…”
“You cannot go forgetting your place, embarrassing me, just because you’re my wife.” His nostrils flare. “Especially because you’re my wife. And what makes you think you know this person? I am sure that there is more than one Marek Andek in all of Eastern Europe!”
“But…” I hesitate. I am sure it is the same man, but I cannot tell Simon this without explaining my entire past.
“Why do you think you know Marek Andek?” he demands.
“That is something I would like to know myself,” a voice from behind Simon says. We spin around to find the D.M. standing in the doorway.
“Sir,” Simon says, surprise replacing anger in his voice. I, too, am taken aback. It is the first time I have ever known the D.M. to come to Simon’s office.
The D.M. looks over his shoulder into the hallway, then back into the room. “Perhaps we should go into your office to talk.”
He is looking at both of us, I realize. I pick up a notepad and follow the two men into Simon’s office. It is about three-by-four meters, more than twice the size of the reception area, with a wide window looking down on a grassy area. Simon’s desk is dark, institutional wood, and completely bare except for a picture of Rachel in the upper left-hand corner. Aside from a large map of Europe, only his Cambridge diploma and a few certificates of recognition from various government officials hang on the walls.