The rasp of a match being struck on the wheelhouse door spun her head round. It was Paul.
“Sorry,” he said, lighting the cigarette. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
She turned her face back to the sea. “It’s just weariness,” she said. There was no hostility in his face, which somehow made it worse. Go away, the voice in her head screamed.
“Amy,” he said quietly, almost gently, “I’ve something to tell you. It doesn’t make any difference now, but I want to tell you anyway.”
“Yes?” she said in a small voice, but her eyes still would not meet his.
“I never got your letters. I would have answered them, the way I felt then.”
“Then how—”
“They came to my family’s farm. My mother read them and destroyed them. She was afraid I’d leave, go back to America. I would have. But… my father had just died, and I don’t think she’d yet come out of shock. Anyway, I never saw them. She told me about your letters years later, in 1939. Thought she was dying, wanted to confess her sins. She didn’t die, of course. She’s still alive now as far as I know.” He stopped, and she could feel his gaze on her face. “I just wanted you to know,” he said.
“As you said, it doesn’t make any difference now.” Her voice felt like it belonged to someone else. “But thank you for telling me.”
“Well, life is full of might-have-beens.” His cheerfulness sounded forced. She turned to face him and saw, for the first time, the strain behind his eyes, the toll the last eleven years had taken. She wondered if he saw the same in her.
“You’ve hardly changed at all,” he replied to the unspoken question.
“Perhaps not on the outside.” She wanted this conversation to end, to have never been. “Smith’s better,” she said desperately.
“Wonderful,” he said with all the old irony. “He’ll be up and executing people before we know it.”
“It was necessary,” she said fiercely, “you know it was.”
“It always is,” he replied coldly.
“Anyway, you’ll have his company for only another thirty-six hours.”
“Why?”
“There’s no need for you and Gerd to go home, back to the war. Especially after the way Berlin’s treated you. And they’re expecting only two passengers on the freighter.”
He digested this information for a minute or more, lighting another cigarette. “Are you and Smith… more than partners?” he asked.
“No.” The question hurt. She wondered if it was meant to.
“And what are we supposed to do in Cuba — beg?”
She felt like screaming. “There’s more than fifteen hundred dollars left from the expenses,” she said with a calmness that seemed to tax every nerve in her body. “The war will be over in six months.”
Silence.
“Amy…”
“What?” she asked sharply.
He sighed, ground out the cigarette. “Nothing. I’ll talk it over with Gerd. Give me a turn at the wheel.” He almost pushed her aside, took the wheel, and stared straight ahead.
“South southeast,” she said, moving away toward the stern.
“Yes, Paul,” he muttered to himself after she’d gone, “it pays to know which way you’re going.”
She leaned against the stern rail for several minutes, the two snoring Warrens behind her, then ducked inside the cabin. Kuznetsky was awake, half out of the bunk. She pushed him back and sat down beside him. “Everything’s under control,” she told him in a whisper. “The Germans still think we’re all on the same side, and we’re leaving them in Cuba.”
“Well done,” he murmured. “Now tell me how.”
She explained what had happened, what she’d told them, then got him something to drink. “They’re good soldiers,” he said, apparently to himself. But before she could ask him what he meant, he’d drifted back into sleep.
The rest of the day dragged by, each of them taking turns at the wheel as the Lafayette carved its passage through the blue-green sea. By noon the heat was becoming unbearable, and with Warren’s help Paul and Gerd rigged up a makeshift awning on the foredeck. Amy spent the hours either sitting with the sleeping Kuznetsky or talking with Warren in the wheelhouse; even his inexhaustible stream of tall stories was preferable to another conversation with Paul.
He and Gerd had found a pack of cards and were playing under the awning, though neither of them looked as if he had his heart in the game. She studied Paul’s profile, remembering the very first time she’d seen him, playing chess in the lounge on the Bremen. She loved him — there was no harm in admitting it to herself. It didn’t make any difference now. There were more important things than love.
The sun went down in a golden burst, the twilight seemed over as soon as it came, the stars grew sharp in the sky. Amy went back to see Kuznetsky, found him sitting in the stern, the Walther beside him, staring into space. He smiled at her, a distant smile, said nothing. She had the fleeting impression that he was absorbing energy from the sea, like some mythical monster, somehow both benign and terrible, and in that moment felt almost resentful at how easy it seemed for him, how hard it was for mere mortals like herself.
The next day seemed to pass more quickly. The Lafayette, growing lighter as its engines consumed the drums of fuel, seemed to pick up speed, almost to skim across the water. Amy seemed more relaxed after their announcement, and Paul wondered if their reunion had caused as much turmoil in her heart as it had in his. He would soon know.
By noon the Cuban shore was visible on the horizon, and two hours later they were passing beneath the sullen remains of Morro Castle and threading their way into Havana harbour. The MV Balboa, flying the Swedish flag, was anchored in the reach, a squat freighter with three masts and an incongruously small funnel. Gerd hailed the lookout, who disappeared to find the captain. They tied up against the ship’s side.
“Well, this is good-bye,” Amy said to Gerd.
He looked over his shoulder at Paul, who was standing with his hands in his pockets in the stern, and received a nod. Kuznetsky was sitting on the wheelhouse steps staring into space.
“We’re coming with you,” Gerd said, loud enough for everyone to hear.
He saw what looked like panic flash across her face. “Why?” she asked, a hint of supplication in her voice. He looked at her, failed to catch her eyes. Was she that desperate to leave Paul behind? It seemed ridiculous.
“We’re going home,” he said gruffly, watching Kuznetsky, who was now fully alert, glancing first at him and then at Paul. “There’s plenty of room,” he continued, nodding at the bulk of the freighter towering above them.
Kuznetsky relaxed, leaned back on his elbows. “It’s up to you,” he said offhandedly. Life or death, he thought to himself. He felt sorry for Amy.
“Ahoy there,” a voice shouted from above. “I’ll throw down a ladder.”
“I’ll go,” Kuznetsky said as the rope ladder snaked down out of the sky. “Get the crates untied,” he said over his shoulder as he began to climb.
Amy watched the sling descend, watched Gerd maneuver the first crate into it and wave it back up. Why, why, why? The word kept echoing in her brain.
“You might as well give Warren the fifteen hundred dollars,” Paul said, suddenly appearing at her side.
“Yes, I might as well,” she said, and went to do so, feeling utterly numb.