do this for them. What was the price of her reputation in comparison to the risks other people had taken to keep her alive?
With her false papers now in order, and with Marcus’s recommendation, it had been easier to slide into a job with the Reich than she’d foreseen. At his office, and with her excellent linguistic skills, it had been easy for Vivi to move into the position of his assistant. Her cover story was that she had been working for the Third Reich from the beginning of the war, even pretending to be a wireless operator for a time to get intelligence on the Parisian underground. Marcus would brandish about her story to other officers and brag about her earlier ‘betrayal’ of SOE groups in France as if it were a tremendous gain for the Third Reich, explaining away the reason she wasn’t still there pretending to work for the British as due to the fact she’d come under suspicion. The higher in command seemed to accept the story, even showing admiration about the fact such a beautiful woman shared Marcus’s office, obviously a perk for a man who had such a distinguished standing in the Nazi Party.
There was only one officer who seemed distrustful of her; he was one of Marcus’s peers, Captain Von Klaus, a squirrel of a man with beady eyes that pierced her with his gaze. They had been at a party when she’d been introduced to him, and he’d taken an automatic dislike to her.
‘You’re German?’ he spat out with a great deal of disbelief in his tone.
Vivi nodded. The cover story she and Marcus had come up with was that she’d been born in Berlin, a place she had stayed many times with her mother during her European trips before the war.
‘How did you meet her, Major Vonstein?’ he demanded, glaring at her sceptically as Marcus sidled up to Vivi’s side. With great irritation, Von Klaus swung around and addressed Marcus. ‘We have to be vigilant, Major Vonstein. Do you know everything about this woman?’ he said in an accusatory way.
‘I can assure you,’ Vivi spat back before Marcus could even answer him, ‘I am most trustworthy. I am here for the Third Reich, and the Führer. I even worked as one of our mighty leader’s secretaries in an office in Berlin, and if the Führer trusts me, I hope you would see fit to do the same.’
The officer was taken aback. Hitler’s name carried a tremendous deal of weight, and no one wished to do anything that would make him look foolish.
He grunted and finished his drink. ‘Well, I hope that you turn out to be all that you appear to be,’ he declared, strutting away briskly.
Marcus gave her a sideward glance. They didn’t speak about it until later that evening when they got home. After he had taken off his uniform, she drew close to him as he stared out the window across the Parisian night sky, awash with a million stars.
‘Do you think he’ll be a problem?’ she enquired.
‘I’m not sure.’
She noted the anguish in his eyes. ‘What is it, Marcus?’
He searched her face. ‘Vivi, when we left Cornwall, all I could think about was getting back here so I could continue the work of SOE. And now I wonder, with my British contact being dead and being so deep undercover, is what I do worth it? And then I look at you and realise I’ve brought you into this, and I feel terrible. I am just not sure how this will turn out, and I am responsible.’
She turned him to look at her. ‘Listen to me, Marcus. This was my choice. I, too, have ideals I’m serving – my conscience, the higher good – and I owe many people in my life. I recognise the danger, and honestly…’ She paused, weighing her words before she admitted, ‘I never expected to return home to Cornwall. And if I did, imagine how I would be perceived. I’m not here officially undercover, I’m not even here with SOE, but I know what we’re doing is right. We have a higher purpose. People may never know what we’ve done or why we’re doing it. That doesn’t mean that we aren’t supposed to do it.’
He smiled. ‘How did you become so wise?’
She laughed, slipping her arms around his waist. ‘I don’t feel very wise. I feel small – an insignificant piece of something so much bigger. But I want to do my best.