My Name is Eva An absolutely gripping and emotional historical novel - Suzanne Goldring Page 0,24
the town was famous. Perhaps the mud was ubiquitous and used for everything here: the spas, the bricks of the buildings, even the rendering of the exterior. She imagined mud puddling around her feet in their sturdy polished shoes, as she sat writing reports at her desk inside the former clinic.
A tiring combination of boat, train and trucks had conveyed her across the war-battered landscape of Europe. She’d passed towns reduced to piles of rubble, where tired ragged women and shaven-headed children piled bricks in the streets, and shattered stations where emaciated refugees held out their hands as the trains trundled by. At last she had arrived at this famous spa town in Lower Saxony, about twenty miles from Hanover, where people had been coming for the acclaimed healing powers of the waters for nearly two centuries. As the final lorry carried her to the clean but sparse guesthouse where she and some of the other clerks were billeted, she glimpsed the extensive landscaped gardens of the spa town’s Kurpark, now unmown and weed-strewn from neglect during the years of war.
The town’s buildings were undamaged though not well maintained, the people were thin but not starving, her landlady was curt but not hostile. I’ve tried to make her smile, but she resents us, Eva realised. We’re the enemy now, here to tell them how to manage their country and looking at every citizen and wondering how much they really knew and whether they too were complicit in that horrific regime.
And now she was reporting for duty, ready to record in shorthand and longhand, in English and in German, the interviews with prisoners for the Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Centre, which had now established its headquarters in the former baths. She paused and took a deep breath as she approached the glazed entrance doors. She’d been determined to obtain this posting. Her discreet questions had told her where she’d find him and now her efforts would bring her face to face with the officer she held responsible for Hugh’s death. But now she was here, she felt nervous. This would be her first encounter with him. Would she know it was him? Would she be able to tell straight away from his steely eyes that he was the ruthless man who had condemned Hugh and the others?
And this was going to be very different to the work she had been hoping to do if the war hadn’t ended. She’d prepared herself to follow in Hugh’s footsteps, training for armed and unarmed combat, crawling through Scottish woods and operating radios. In the stately ’omes of England, as the SOE recruits all joked, they had undergone mock interrogations as well as lessons in coding and silent killing. I thought I might be a heroine and die a vainglorious death just so I could meet you again, my darling.
After her time as an ATS driver and a brief period translating interviews with returning agents and prisoners, she had been ready to sacrifice herself as a special agent like Hugh, if necessary. And then suddenly it was all over and yet not over. There was joy and jubilation, but there was also chaos, and the devastation across Europe required order, restoration and investigation and so she was here, with her secretarial skills, her keen ear and her talent for interpretation, here to listen and report and maybe to put the record straight too.
‘Hello. You’re new here, aren’t you?’
A cheery question, from a red-cheeked sergeant who had walked up behind her, interrupted her thoughts. His razor obviously hadn’t been sharp enough that morning for a smooth shave, but was keen enough to nick his jaw, where a wisp of tissue still clung with a dark stain to his skin.
‘Just arrived. Evelyn Taylor-Clarke. At least I think I am still. For quite a while I thought I was going to be Eva Kuscheck. If the war hadn’t finished when it did, I might have been able to put all that crawling around in Scottish forests to good use.’
‘Well, you can call yourself Eva while you’re here, if you like. Training for SOE, were you?’
Eva didn’t answer, but saw the lift of his eyebrow. ‘Count yourself lucky the show finished early. Hardly any of those chaps ever made it back.’ He offered his hand. ‘James McGregor – Jimmy. Welcome to the Bad Nenndorf Spa.’ He glanced up at the austere building. ‘Doesn’t look like the healthiest of places, does it?’