‘They entangle themselves with the enemy, and blow themselves up,’ Jane went on. ‘Or to put it another way, there’s nothing unnatural about kamikaze behaviour. Here’ – she changed slides once more – ‘we have campanotus ants. I took this picture in Malaysia. Liquid explosive in their mandibles, and again they blow themselves up, usually taking out multiple enemy ants from other colonies. Everyone here knows that war is terrible, but compared to these chaps, human beings are amateurs.’
Then she sidetracked, perhaps to give temporary relief from pictures of insectile gore.
‘One of the interesting theoretical questions,’ she continued, ‘is whether the behaviour of an individual ant or termite can be viewed as altruism, in the same sense in which a mother bird will die to defend her chicks, or a chimpanzee will fight to defend youngsters in the same group who are not her offspring. Does self-sacrifice in war spring from the same Darwinian imperative that gives rise to family love?’
Everyone in the audience grew still, because no one had been untouched by the war that ended a decade before. For a few, it had been the making of them as determined and courageous adults; for all, the experience had involved tragedy.
And Gavriela knew better than most how war results in scientific and medical advances, because nothing concentrates the mind better than an enemy determined to kill you; although without the subsequent peace, there would be no way to capitalise on new understanding.
Jane finished with some cheerful thoughts and slides.
‘Here we see various weaver ants, genus oecophylla, who are nearly all female. Sorry chaps, but they only need a few males for the purpose of impregnating the queens. And when it’s time to go to war, they turn mature workers, not youths, into soldiers. In other words,’ she added, ‘it’s their old women they send to fight, so you young gentlemen, consider yourselves warned.’
Then she grinned at the audience, who laughed and gave louder applause than most lectures received. The subsequent questions were good-natured, and the answers informative, and Rupert paid attention until the end. Finally Gavriela and Rupert donned coats and left the building, because they could talk while walking.
Yesterday she had still been in Berlin, and Rupert needed her considered opinion on what had happened during the meeting at the café on Alt-Moabit.
‘Colonel Dmitri bloody Shtemenko,’ she told him, ‘had no intention of coming over to us, in my considered opinion. He was trying to find out where Ursula is, so to that extent she’s a leverage point. But it’s as if . . .’ She considered her words. ‘As if we’ve stolen one of his possessions, not a person who’s precious to him. Campanotus might blow themselves up out of love for their fellow termites, but Shtemenko is a bit further down the evolutionary ladder.’
Rupert gave a twist of the mouth at the comparison, and tapped the pavement with the tip of his brolly as they continued to walk, heading towards Hyde Park. A Vespa scooter burbled past, producing a farting noise from its exhaust, and Rupert surprised Gavriela with a passable Goons imitation: ‘Damn those curried eggs!’
Then he added, ‘What about the factor we can’t write in the reports?’
Gavriela knew what Rupert meant. ‘The darkness seems weaker in him, I think. But he’s as devious as ever. We should keep Ursula away from him.’
‘Do you want to look after her, your niece?’
That surprised Gavriela enough for her to stop walking.
‘I would,’ she said after a moment, ‘except that would make it easier for Shtemenko to find her. An evil stepfather isn’t funny, not when he’s a KGB colonel, and never mind the darkness.’
‘You’re right,’ said Rupert. ‘But I’ll keep you informed of her situation, perhaps minus the specifics.’
‘That might be best.’
They walked on, and Rupert asked, ‘Do you think Carl would like to be a spy when he grows up?’
‘I bloody well hope not,’ said Gavriela.
They smiled together, old frictions seeming irrelevant.
‘Fancy a spot of tea?’ asked Rupert.
‘Yes, I think I do.’
Paddington Station was a cavern of steam, the engines black and powerful-looking; and once the journey was under way, Gavriela was content to let the rattle of the carriage lull her into a doze all the way to Oxford, where the chill evening air brought her awake as she waited for a taxi that would take her to Abingdon. It took her along the old streets, among sandstone buildings she knew well, and finally out to Rose and Jack’s house, where the new gas fire was hissing, warm and orange and friendly. Rose poured tea from a pot encased in a knitted cosy, and the three adults caught up on gossip while waiting for Carl to appear.
Before the war’s end, Rosie Hammond, who had been such a good friend to Gavriela at Bletchley Park, had finally married her ‘Jaunty Jack’, who had survived the torpedoing of HMS Royal Oak unlike so many of his friends and comrades, helped take revenge in the strike against Narvik harbour that took out German destroyers and cargo vessels, not to mention Rear Admiral Bonte himself, and escaped the German reinforcements that sailed out of neighbouring fjords like long-boats of old, but after a millennium of progress, with so many better ways to kill.
And as Mrs Rosie Gould, a little heavier but happy-looking, she was proud of her daughter Anna, and happy when Carl came to visit, and the two went off to somewhere like the theatre, as they had tonight.
‘Bloomin’ Macbeth,’ Jack said. ‘Poncey thing you’d know about, Gabs.’
‘It’s got sword fights.’ Gavriela grinned at him. ‘Plus the king of Scotland gets murdered. I thought you’d approve.’
‘And do they install a fair and classless society afterwards? Do they buggery.’
‘Jack . . .’ said Rosie. ‘So, Gabby, how was your conference?’
Everyone else but Rupert called her Gabrielle these days.
‘As boring as I thought it would be.’
It was easy to sound cynical. The reality was as unsuccessful as the imaginary conference, with Dmitri back in East Berlin and nothing different, except that Gavriela’s newfound niece was the right side of the Iron Curtain, and maybe some day they would get to know each other.
‘Anna’s school report was all As,’ said Rosie. ‘Trying to keep up with Carl.’
‘Except for a C-minus in R.E.’ Jack looked proud. ‘For proving God doesn’t exist, on the basis of Russell’s bleeding Teapot.’
‘Good for her,’ said Gavriela. ‘Did she mention Occam’s bloody Razor, and dispose of Pascal’s blooming Wager?’
‘I wouldn’t be bloomin’ surprised.’ Then, as if conversational momentum had allowed him to jump an obstacle, he added, ‘I’ve left the CP, you know. Bloody Hungary.’
Gavriela put down her teacup.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, meaning it. ‘The Reds could never live up to your ideals.’
Forty thousand dead Hungarians had caused a flood of exits from the British Communist Party.
‘He’ll join Labour,’ said Rosie, ‘and everything will be fine. You’ll stay the night, of course.’
‘’Course she will,’ said Jack.
Gavriela relaxed into her chair. ‘Can’t bloomin’ argue with that.’
Next morning, after Jack had left for the factory but before Anna or Carl had risen, Gavriela told Rosie she needed to go for a walk.
‘Not a headache, is it?’
‘The start of one,’ said Gavriela. ‘But a brisk walk and it’ll disappear. Anything I can get you from the newsagent’s?’
‘Not for me. Maybe some Spangles for the kids.’
‘They’re getting too old for sweets.’
‘Probably,’ said Rosie.
Outside, Gavriela walked the quiet streets until she came to a corner telephone box, and went inside. She extracted pennies and a brass-coloured thrupenny bit from her purse, thought about what she needed to say, then lifted the receiver, shoved the coins in, and dialled. Wrapping the braided brown cord around her forefinger – a nervous tic – she listened to the ring, and stood straighter when a voice answered: ‘Goodridge Haberdashery, Peterson speaking.’