The Cipher, page 10
“Focus on the positive,” he said. “There are many reasons why you haven’t heard from them, from delayed mail, to censorship, to lack of paper or stamps…”
“I hope you’re right,” Olivia said, though she didn’t think he was. “Anyway,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you all that. Please forget I said anything.”
“Be glad I’m not a honeytrap,” he said, smiling.
They walked along the river’s edge to the paddleboat, and Nardo stopped before they reached the ramp. He turned to her, and she relived the tension between them… November 30, 1942. I stumble on the sidewalk, and he holds my arm to steady me. For a moment, we are transfixed, close, touching. He leans towards me until we’re inches apart, then I abruptly draw back… but this time, she responded, her arms circling his neck, her body pressed against his in a passionate kiss. She had not felt like this with Philip, this urgency that both surprised and thrilled her. She breathed in Nardo’s scent, alive to his lips in her hair, then he slowly released her, and she slipped out of his arms.
“Good night, Viola,” he murmured.
“Olivia,” she whispered.
“Nino.”
Nino, she repeated silently, Nino. She walked self-consciously onto the paddleboat, wondering if he was watching her. When she turned just before going inside, however, she could no longer see him.
In her room, she lay in bed, restless, unable to sleep. Water lapped in rhythmic waves, and distant voices of girls and laughter came from the pier. She counted the number of waves against the boat in an hour, then calculated how many there would be in a day, a week, a month, a year, ten years, a hundred, a thousand. “You protest way too much,” he says, his arm around me… My heart is pounding. I hope he can’t hear it… The hot June air is scented with night jasmine that grows around the arches of the villa. She took a deep breath. Most people were still out, perhaps at Tara, dancing. She replayed Nino’s arms around her, the dance, the kiss, feeling the same thrill each time, examining the scene for things she may have been too giddy to notice. She saw Jay, and over his shoulder the strange man. He was definitely looking at her. Then, Claire and Nino flitted into her vision, dancing, laughing. She felt a small pang of jealousy, but admonished herself. She had no right to feel this way; Nino was not hers. Presently, she heard sound in the adjoining bathroom. She checked the time: 3:12 a.m. Claire. She got up and rapped on the bathroom door, wondering what other crazy things might have happened at Tara.
“Claire?” she said softly.
The door opened. “You’re awake,” Claire said. She looked a little dishevelled, and her eyes were glassy.
“Couldn’t sleep, though I tried.” Olivia sat on the bed.
Claire stood, leaning in the doorway. “What a party!” she said, and combed her hand through her hair.
“Were you there till now?” Olivia said. “What else happened? It seemed rather wild before I left.”
Claire laughed a little too loudly. “The mock bullfight was barely the start of it,” she said. She weaved forward and fell into a chair.
“Are you all right?” Olivia said. “I think you’re drunk.”
Claire waved her hand, as if to dismiss the idea. “Maybe a little tipsy,” she said. “Where’d you go, anyway?”
“I was a little tired,” Olivia said.
“Well, you missed a good party.” Claire leaned back in the chair and closed her eyes. “Nardo’s a great dancer,” she said dreamily. “We’d still be there if someone hadn’t called the authorities because we were making too much noise.”
A tourniquet twisted around Olivia’s heart. So, Nino had returned to the party. Had he walked Claire home? Had he kissed her also? Olivia closed her eyes and fell back. She forced herself not to ask questions.
“I’m off to bed.” Claire stumbled up, and blew her a kiss, before going through the bathroom to her own room.
Late Monday afternoon, as she was leaving work, Jay appeared at her elbow. “Hello, Mnemosyne,” he said brightly. “I hope you don’t mind. You left Tara so early, I didn’t get a chance to talk to you.” He paused. “I’ve planned a little surprise.”
She frowned. “Whatever do you mean?”
“I thought you’d like to see more of Cairo than the island.” He smiled. “We can have dinner first, then walk about and explore.”
She began to shake her head, but he persisted. “Come on. A little harmless fun. Don’t you want to experience night markets and music? You’ll be perfectly safe with me.”
Be careful. Nino’s words swirled in her head, but he hadn’t called or left her any message. His next lesson was on Wednesday. Should he have called her? She didn’t know what to make of it all. Maybe it was nothing. A kiss. Big deal. He probably kissed all the girls. She sighed. “All right.”
Jay gave her his arm, and they wandered off into the busy streets to a hotel, where they ate dinner. Jay was charming and attentive, and Olivia relaxed. He told her versions of his exploits in France, though she was certain these were compilations of different agents’ stories — best of, perhaps. No agent would speak of real missions.
“Close your eyes,” he said slowly, reaching across to stroke her hand on the table. “Trust me.”
“Really?” she murmured, but she closed her eyes.
“Describe me without looking.”
She replayed the last few minutes on the inside of her lids. “You have an oblong face, blue eyes, and hooded lids. Your hair is black, cut short, and curly. You have a small mole under your chin on the right side, and when you’re nervous, you touch it. Or maybe,” she said, laughing, “you touch it when you lie. Should I go on?”
“You didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know,” he said sulkily.
She opened her eyes. “Was I supposed to?”
“I’m mesmerized by the idea of your memory,” he said, and lit a cigarette. “Imagine how useful you’d be if you could infiltrate some German high command post, and recall every single conversation and every single face.” He gave a low whistle.
“That’s not likely to happen,” she said. “Though I’d like nothing better.” She had been told in Cairo that she was needed for coding and cipher, and would not be sent into the field, though she would be going to Italy to set up and continue this work.
After dinner, they strolled down and around narrow streets and pathways, through a labyrinth of alleys, souks and courtyards into an extensive outdoor bazaar, where Olivia felt she was inside a kaleidoscope of glass lanterns in jewel shades, metal ornaments, gold and silver jewellery, baskets, drums, candleholders, elaborate pipes. Merchants called out, children squealed and laughed, men and women bargained, musicians played and sang. She stopped to admire a brass case, and in its sheen, she glimpsed or thought she glimpsed the man she’d seen at Tara.
“There!” she said, her hand on Jay’s arm. “Turn around, quick. That man. Do you know who he is?”
Jay turned, but the man was gone. He shook his head. “Are you seeing things?” he said, teasing her. “Don’t tell me you have visions too.”
She smiled half-heartedly — he was probably right; she was imagining things — yet she couldn’t shake away the worry.
They continued along the bazaar, Olivia glancing around as she went, feeling almost breathless in the overwhelming scents of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, and so many others she couldn’t identify. When they came to a display of cotton and silk, she stopped, fingering the fabrics, the textures. She wanted to buy some and turned to Jay, but found herself inexplicably alone.
She frowned, called his name, scanned up and down the kiosks for him — he was taller than most, in uniform, easy to find — but she didn’t see him anywhere. Her parents’ instructions rose out of her past — when lost, stay where you are, and we’ll find you. They never understood she couldn’t get lost. However, she thought, I’ll wait here for Jay to return. This is where he last saw me. For the next half hour, she remained near the cloth stand.
It was full dark now, despite the blinding colours and lights in the bazaar. Where had Jay gone? Surely something had happened to him; he wouldn’t have left her there. She was right to have been apprehensive. She had to get back to the paddleboat and get help.
She closed her eyes for a moment, to replay the past several hours in fast-forward motion.
“All right?” A merchant in the cloth stall touched her elbow.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, opening her eyes. She quickly retraced her steps past stalls of instruments, mats, toys. The sphinx, camel and pharaoh statues had morphed into sinister creatures. She half-ran through the labyrinth of arches and gates, her heart pounding, and soon was walking towards the river. Up ahead, a crowd was gathered, and a police car and an ambulance were parked on the road. Jay, she thought, mind scrolling rapidly to another day, searching. The man stands alone, watching the building… She tried to reorient the scene, follow the trajectory of the man’s eyes. Third floor, second window from the left… She’d check with her CO when she got back…then the party… why is he looking in her direction? She frowns. Something about him is not right. The man lingers at the perimeter of the room, then slips out…to the bazaar, and in its sheen, she glimpses the man she saw at Tara. What had he done?
She pushed forward, through the crowd. The man was strapped into a stretcher, his shirt wet with blood, his face mirrored in the sheen of a brass case. “What happened?” she asked.
“Stabbing,” someone said, as the man was wheeled into the waiting ambulance. One of the paramedics pulled the sheet over his face.
“What happened?” she said again.
No one responded, as the ambulance began to pull away from the curb.
Dead. Olivia forced herself to walk casually, normally towards the paddleboat, her mind scanning the SOE manual for the section on Individual Security:
The agent, unlike the soldier, who has many friends, is surrounded by enemies, seen and unseen. He cannot even be certain of the people of his own nationality who are apparently friendly. The agent must, therefore, remember that, like primitive men in the jungle, he has only his alertness, initiative and observation to help him. He has to look after himself…
Was this Jay’s doing? She mustn’t draw attention to herself, nor look around. She must be alert. She didn’t know what to think.
“There you are!” Jay’s voice rang out in the darkness.
She turned. “What?” She went to him, and slapped his arm repeatedly. “I thought you were dead!”
He laughed. “That’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?” he said. “No. I lost sight of you in the market.”
She stared at him, but his face was impassive. “You didn’t lose sight of me. You’re the one who moved away,” she said
“Was I?” He started walking towards the paddleboat.
“Who was that man?” she said, stopping him. “You knew him!”
“What man?”
She was certain he was lying. His demeanour, however, was casual, normal. He was the embodiment of the highly trained agent. He stood facing her, but she couldn’t see his eyes in the dark. They continued along the road, Olivia’s brain replaying the moment in the market when she found herself alone. She had only looked down for an instant and he was gone. Try as she might, she could not see him leaving. She would speak to her commanding officer. She would replay the scene and let him decide the outcome.
At the paddleboat ramp, she said a curt “Good night,” and walked away.
Rail Charge
The charge consists of two ¾-lb. units each comprised of three separately wrapped sticks of Plastic Explosives, the centre one being primed at each end with a one-ounce C.E. primer. These charges are attached to a special cordtex lead, and so spaced along it that there is between them one metre of double cordtex, and at each end, a one-metre single cordtex tail. Each of these units is enclosed in a rubberized fabric sleeve, to which is sewn a webbing strap for fixing to the rail. The whole is packed in a rubberized fabric bag along with a tin containing two fog signals and two No. 8 detonators, these latter being enclosed in a wooden block.
Method Of Use
Detonators are inserted into the two fog signal initiators, and are then taped to each of the single cordtext tails, three or four inches from the end. The charge is then strapped to the railway line with one fog signal at each end.
The locomotive, no matter from which side it approaches, crushes one of the fog signals, which in turn initiates the detonator and the charge. The charge normally removes about one metre of rail.
Italy was an enemy country, not an enemy-occupied one, and anti-Fascist Italians who volunteered to return as secret agents faced a traitor’s fate if caught. The courage of those Italians who were prepared to face the firing squads deserves recognition, and stands as an effective counter to enduring images of Italy’s fighting abilities.
— Roderick Bailey
7
Paestum / Salerno / Pistoia, 1943
In early September, Nino sailed out of Palermo on the Royal Navy landing ship, headed to Italy’s southwest shore. Everything was new to him, as if he’d been reborn into someone he preferred to who he’d been. Until now, he’d never ventured south of Rome. Though Sicily had been under Allied control since mid-August, the mainland was enemy territory. He felt disoriented, viewing his country as enemy territory, but that’s what it had become.
He stood on deck, staring at the Sicilian coastline and the promontory Mount Pellegrino, whose pink dolomite Castello Utveggio clung to the top. Built as a luxury hotel, it had been requisitioned by the Fascist government at the beginning of the war to use as an anti-aircraft post. He wondered if it had been bombed by the Allies and was now in ruins, deck chairs upended, windows shattered, turrets crumbling. None of this was visible as he sailed past. He had heard a rumour that the castle had been abandoned by the fascists when the Allies landed in Sicily, and was subsequently looted by the population until only a shell remained, colonized by wild animals.
Along the coast, the citrus orchards and vineyards were in various states of devastation, and among olive groves, remnants of a camouflaged German airstrip were now visible. Nino wondered if the farmers would return once the war was over, and begin anew to cultivate the land as their ancestors had done before them. Would the soil be altered as they had all been? Would it retain the memory of gunpowder and bombs? Would the harvest taste of this terrible era? He felt a nostalgia for his own home, for Bianca, his first love, at a time when love was uncomplicated, when it was enough that two people wanted to be together. He wondered whether Bianca felt the same, or whether she felt abandoned. Had he abandoned her? No, not really. She had given herself to him, and he had believed he loved her. He did love her, or had loved her. However, now, he wasn’t sure. He thought of Olivia. What a mess he’d made in Cairo.
After Tara and the kiss, he had forced himself to stay away from her, uncertain how she felt, and even more uncertain how he felt. Then he’d heard she’d gone out with Jay, and wondered if he’d lost his chances with her, all the while pushing Bianca to the back of his mind. The day after Olivia’s date with Jay, Nino had approached her desk with a piece of paper he’d placed in front of her. “A stanza from a poem by Ugo Foscolo. Do you know who he is?”
She’d shaken her head, and while she read the poem, he said, “A famous Italian poet from the 18th century. You could read this in Italian, but I translated it to make it more difficult to code break.”
You make my thoughts wander in steps
that lead to eternal voids; meanwhile
this guilty time escapes, and with it shapes
of cares with which it me destroys;
while I gaze upon your peace, my warlike spirit
sleeps, though yet within me roars.
“A poem cipher,” she said.
These were commonly used by agents, though the Germans had gathered hundreds of well-known poems for deciphering messages. Often, the agents made up their own poems. “This will be our personal cipher,” Nino said. “So I can send you messages no one will understand.”
She smiled.
“I’ve given you the whole verse for context,” he said, “though we will only use the last two lines: “while I gaze upon your peace, my warlike spirit sleeps, though yet within me roars.” He wondered if she could read within those words his desire; wondered if she felt the same.
Olivia looked down at the words for a moment, then ripped up the paper in front of him.
“Excellent,” he said.
Over the next month, he’d begun to leave her secret messages — at first playful ones — then encouraged by her smiles and looks, he’d composed flirtatious ones, and finally asked her out.
Indicator group: fijoah — Peace spirit sleep roars while warlike
lrni npi aet lwed eeis
oite oui naw dep ntr
yso omne aio oeu dyu
iar wos ubu edo iep
hnne ihen dgi leh rel
glc vay vten myr erl
iek ifu fay hra
Hello Viola. I’m
wondering if you’d
have dinner with me.
If you agree, please
be ready at nineteen
hundred hours. I will pick
you up at your residence.
She’d been reluctant at first, unsure perhaps of his intentions, of which he himself was unsure. Wasn’t it enough that they were attracted to each other? He’d persisted, and soon they spent all their free time together, their dates ending in passionate kisses Olivia would not go beyond. Now and then, a letter from Bianca plunged Nino into guilt. Yet he wanted only to be near Olivia.
One early July night, when everyone had dispersed to their own quarters, Nino had gone to the paddleboat and coaxed Olivia out. They’d walked along the riverbank, under palms, acacias, sycamores. They both knew he’d be leaving soon.
