Tell Me Who I Am by Julia Navarro
“Do you know him?”
“Major Hurley? No, I don’t know him. It was Victor Dupont who suggested Hurley to me; he met him at a conference of archivists. I think he can help you pick up Albert James’s trail.”
Before going to London I went through Madrid to see my mother. This time she was really cross; I could tell as soon as I walked through the door.
“Have you gone mad? Does this make any sense at all, what you’re doing? I’ve told my sister it was her fault, a great idea she had! Who cares what your great-grandmother did? How’s it going to change our life?”
“Aunt Marta has nothing to do with it anymore,” I answered.
“But she was the one who poisoned you to start with. Look, Guillermo, as far as I’m concerned I don’t want to know anything about my grandmother’s life, I don’t give a damn. But I’ll say more: Either stop all this nonsense or don’t count on me for anything more. I’m not ready to watch you throwing your life away. Instead of looking for a good job you’re wasting your time trying to find out about Amelia Garayoa, who... who... who’s still messing things up with this family even after her death.”
I couldn’t convince my mother that the investigation was worthwhile. She was not for turning, and she showed me how determined she was by saying that I shouldn’t expect any more loans from her until I had given up on what she called “that madness.”
Supper that night didn’t sit well with me, and I left in a bad mood, but firmly decided to carry on with my investigations into Amelia Garayoa. Strangely enough, I didn’t think that she had anything to do with me, that the interest she provoked in me had anything to do with her being my great-grandmother. Her life was just more interesting than those of so many other people whom I had known or written about as a journalist.
Doña Laura was extremely pleased with my progress and made no objection to my traveling to London.
4
I arrived in London on a day that was neither rainy, nor foggy, nor cold. It’s not that the sun was shining, but at least it was more pleasant than on previous occasions. In fact, I had been to London only once before, when I was a teenager, and my mother had made me go on an exchange to improve my English.
Major William Hurley seemed to be a grumpy old man, at least judging by his telephone manner.
“Come tomorrow at eight on the dot and don’t be late; you Spaniards have the strange habit of arriving late to everything.”
I was annoyed by the suggestion that Spaniards are unpunctual and I told myself that I would ask him how many Spaniards he knew, and if they all arrived late for their appointments.
At eight on the dot I rang the bell of a Victorian mansion in Kensington. A perfectly dressed young maid opened the door. She must have been from the Caribbean, because in spite of her rigid posture she smiled at me warmly and said that she would announce me straight away.
William Hurley was waiting for me by the fireplace in a huge library. He seemed to be lost in thought as he watched a log burning, but he stood up and held out a hand to me; it must have been made of steel, because he almost broke my fingers.
“I’m only seeing you because Monsieur Dupont asked a favor of me,” he said.
“And I thank you for it, Major Hurley.”
“Monsieur Dupont tells me that you would like information about the Jameses, is that so?”
“Yes, I am interested in finding out whatever I can about Albert James, who had, as far as I have been able to discover, relatives in the Foreign Office and the Admiralty.”
“Right, if that weren’t the case then you wouldn’t be here.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Young man, I have devoted a good part of my life to the study of military archives, and yes, there was a James who worked in the Admiralty at about that time. Lord Paul James was an officer in the counterespionage division, and one of his grandsons married Lady Victoria, my wife’s niece. Lady Victoria is a redoubtable woman, a great golf player and a historian. She has put all her family’s archives in order, as well as those of her husband’s family. Anyway,” he concluded, “what are you looking for?”
I told him who I was and that it appeared that one of Albert James’s lovers, Amelia Garayoa, was my great-grandmother, and that my only aim was to put her story together for the use of the family.
“A singular woman, your great-grandmother.”
“Ah! So you know something about her?”
“I have no time to waste. Monsieur Dupont rang me and explained about your researches, so I have been looking in the Admiralty archives, the public ones, though there are of course classified ones filled with material that will never be released. There was a free agent, a Spaniard, Amelia Garayoa, who worked with the British Secret Service during the Second World War. Her protector was Albert James, Lord Paul James’s nephew, who was also an agent, one of the best.”
I was in shock. My great-grandmother never stopped throwing up surprises.
“A free agent? What’s that?” I asked, trying to cover my surprise.
“She wasn’t English, she didn’t belong to any agency, but she, like so many other people all over Europe, helped the intelligence services in their attempt to topple Nazism. There were two fronts in the war; intelligence was as important as military activity.”
Major Hurley gave me a master class on the secret services during the Second World War. He seemed to enjoy showing off his extensive knowledge, and I listened to him with great care and attention. As a journalist, one of the things I have learned is that no one can resist being listened to with attention. People need to hear their story told, and if you have the patience and the humility to listen without interrupting, then you will hear the most amazing things.
At ten on the dot, the Caribbean maid knocked gently at the door to tell the major that there was a car waiting for him.
“Ah, I’ve got an appointment with an old friend at my club. Well, young man, I think I’ll ask Lady Victoria if she’ll meet you, as she can give you information about the more... well, the more personal aspects of the relationship between Albert James and Amelia Garayoa. As for me, I will tell you all about her work as an agent. I’ll call you at your hotel.”
I was fired up when I left Major Hurley’s house. Amelia Garayoa’s story was taking on a new and unexpected perspective.
Lady Victoria met with me two days later. She was an attractive woman, although she must have been more or less my mother’s age.
Tall and thin, with copper-colored hair, blue eyes, and white freckled skin, she had the typical elegance of upper-class women for whom nothing has ever been a struggle, even though she had been a good student at Oxford and had taken a history degree.
“What a worthwhile activity, to investigate your grandmother’s past! We are nothing without our roots, they help us keep our feet firm on the ground. It must be terrible not to know who you are, and of course, we can know that only if we know who our ancestors were.”
I had to struggle not to reply to her classist peroration, but I made the effort and said nothing; I needed her help.
“Young man, let me tell you that I have found a great deal of material about your great-grandmother in the archives. Letters, references in Albert James’s mother’s diary... I think I will be able to tell you things that will be useful for you. Of course, it’s Uncle William who could tell you things more clearly. How exciting, to find out that your great-grandmother was a spy, risking her life against the Nazis! In spite of everything, you must be proud to have a woman like her in your family.”
Just as before with Major William, I let the aristocrat take control of the conversation. The best thing was to listen; in any event, Lady Victoria had been brought up not to allow herself to be interrupted. She lit a cigarette and began to speak.
Albert James and your great-grandmother arrived in London in mid-July 1939. Exactly a month previously they had announced the creation of the Women’s Land Army... but let’s not get sidetracked. They moved into Albert’s h
Albert’s parents were in the family home in Ireland, in Howth, near Dublin, where they spent their summers, even though they spent most of the year in the United States. I don’t know if you knew this, but the Jameses were an old landed family. Paul James was the oldest son, and it was he who inherited the big house; Albert’s father, Ernest, decided to go to America to make his fortune, and boy! did he make it! He became a rich businessman, but never lost touch with his roots, and when he fell ill he returned to Ireland to die. Ernest would have liked his son to have been born in Ireland, but he was premature, so he had to put up with his son being a New Yorker. Well, it’s not that bad to be born in New York, don’t you think?
Albert wrote to his mother to tell her that he would go to Ireland with Amelia Garayoa; I found the letter in the papers of Lady Eugenie’s, Albert’s mother. They were not idle while they were in London. You can imagine the political situation of the time: Chamberlain doing everything possible to appease Hitler, convinced that this was the best thing to do, wrongly, of course. Albert’s uncle, Paul James, his father’s brother, was working in the Admiralty.
Paul James invited his nephew and the beautiful Amelia to dine at his house, along with other friends, and everyone spoke about Hitler’s intentions. There were people there who were convinced that Germany would provoke a European war, and others who naively thought that it was possible to stop one. But perhaps the most important event of this evening was that Amelia met an old friend, Max von Schumann, who was with his wife, Baroness Ludovica von Waldheim. Don’t think that I’m relying on guesswork here, I’m related to the Jameses and I know for certain that my grandmother was at that dinner; she used to tell her grandchildren all about the war years.
Albert presented Amelia as his assistant, he didn’t dare say more, given the fact that she was married, but it was clear to all present that the relationship between them was something more than simply professional.
Your great-grandmother was a very beautiful woman, I know this because there are some photos in the family archive, and apparently all the guests were conquered by her beauty and charm. She didn’t seem Spanish; she was beautiful, intelligent, polyglot. Don’t be offended, but women like your great-grandmother, especially Spanish women, were not very common at that time.
The last thing that either Amelia Garayoa or Max von Schumann expected was to meet each other at this discreet and exclusive dinner in Paul James’s house.
“Amelia, what a pleasure! Allow me to present my wife, Ludovica, Baroness von Waldheim. Ludovica, this is Amelia, I have told you about her, we met in Buenos Aires at the Hertzes’ house.”
Ludovica held out a hand to Amelia and no one could fail to notice that the two women were eyeing each other up. Both of them were blonde, and thin, and elegant, with bright eyes; both of them extremely beautiful... They looked like a pair of Valkyries.
If it was a surprise for Albert that Amelia should know the German, it was a much greater one for Paul James.
Max von Schumann was in London on a secret mission: to try to convince the British government to clip Hitler’s wings. Von Schumann was a member of an anti-Nazi group made up of intellectuals, Christian activists, and a few soldiers who had been trying for some time, although without success, to convince the Western powers that appeasement of Hitler was not something that would work, and that he represented a great threat to European peace. There were not many people in the group, but they were very active, and one of their last and most desperate attempts to get Great Britain’s attention had been to send von Schumann to London.
Max von Schumann was a soldier and served in the Wehrmacht’s medical corps, which added a great deal of weight to his presence.
Amelia presented Albert to Max and Ludovica his wife, and the four of them made small talk for a while. It was clear that von Schumann was looking for an opportunity to speak with Amelia alone, but Ludovica was not willing to give her husband such an opportunity.
It was here that Paul James weighed up Amelia’s many qualities, and although he said nothing at the time, he thought that the Spaniard could be of great use in the future, if war were eventually declared, something he was convinced would happen.
“Albert, what are your plans?” Lord Paul James asked his nephew.
“For the moment, to write some articles about Spain, and then to go to Ireland to see my parents. I would like them to meet Amelia.”
“May I ask if you are engaged?”
Albert cleared his throat uneasily, but decided that the best thing would be to tell his uncle the truth.
“Amelia is married, separated from her husband, and I am afraid that for the time being it is impossible for us to formalize our commitment to one another. But I am in love with her. She is a special woman: She is strong, intelligent, decisive... She has lived through such terrible situations, if you had seen what she was able to do in the Soviet Union to save a man’s life... Her father was shot by the Francoists, and she has lost several members of her family in the war... Her life has not been easy.”
“Your mother will be upset, you know she wanted to see you married... and, well, it’s best that I tell you: She has invited Lady Mary and her parents to spend their holiday in Ireland. As far as I know, they are leaving for Ireland tomorrow.”
Paul James could not have given his nephew a worse piece of news, even though at this time he really had more important things to worry about than Albert’s love life. He was sure that war was coming, and he had plans in which he hoped Albert would play a large part.
“Are you intending to go anywhere else after the holidays?” he asked.
“Maybe to Germany, I want to see close up what Hitler is doing.”
“Excellent, I’m happy you’re going to Germany.”
“Why, Uncle?”
“Because, however hard they try in the ministry not to see what’s right under their noses, war is coming, and coming soon. Lord Halifax seems to have blind faith in the reports the ambassador in Berlin, Sir Neville Henderson, sends back, and I won’t hide it from you that these are extremely soft on Herr Hitler. Chamberlain has dedicated too much time to trying to appease Hitler for him to think that war is in fact inevitable.”
“And what does all this have to do with me?” Albert asked uncertainly.
“You were born in the United States, even though you are actually Irish, and it could be very useful to have an American passport these days...”
“I don’t know what plan you’re cooking up, but don’t count on me. I am a journalist, and I’m not going to let myself get caught up in your spying.”
“I have never asked you to get involved, and I wouldn’t ask you now if these weren’t exceptional circumstances. In a brief while we will all have to make a decision, it will not be possible to cross our arms and claim to be neutral. You won’t be able to either, Albert, for all that you might want to. The United States will have to decide as well, it’s only a matter of time.”
“You’re very pessimistic, Uncle Paul.”
“In my job it’s dangerous to try to fool yourself. We’ll leave that to the politicians.”
“In any case, don’t count on me for anything that you might think up. I take my job as seriously as you take yours.”
“I’m sure you do, dear Albert, but I’m afraid we will have to talk about these things again.”
Later that evening, Max von Schumann found his opportunity to talk to Amelia. Paul James’s wife, Lady Anne, had Ludovica caught up in a conversation with another woman, and the baroness found no way of escaping without calling attention to herself and what she was doing.
“You’ve changed, Amelia.”
“Life doesn’t just flow past you.”
“Albert James is your
“My lover? Yes, yes he is.”
“Sorry, I didn’t want to upset you.”
“You don’t upset me, Max. How else should I describe my relation with Albert? I am a married woman, so if I am with another man he must be my lover.”
“Please, forgive me, I only wanted to know how you were. I haven’t stopped thinking about you since our conversations in Buenos Aires. I asked Martin and Gloria Hertz to tell me about you, but they only said that you went to this congress of intellectuals in Moscow and that you didn’t come back. Gloria wrote to tell me that Pierre’s father had gone to Buenos Aires to close the bookshop and deal with his son’s possessions, and that he didn’t want to say anything about you. I don’t know if I should ask you about Pierre...”
“They killed him in Moscow.”
Max didn’t know what to say when he heard of Pierre’s death. The woman who stood in front of him was nothing like the defenseless little girl he thought he had known in Argentina.
“I am sorry.”
“Thank you.”
It was as if they did not know what else to say to each other. Max was uncomfortable because he could feel his wife’s curious glances, and as far as Amelia was concerned, one can imagine that she felt disappointed, perhaps wounded, to find that Max was married. It is not that she had expected him to remain faithful to her memory and to break off his engagement with Ludovica, but it was one thing to know this and another to see it with one’s own eyes.
“Will you be in London long?” he wanted to know.
“I don’t know, we’ve just got here. Albert will decide. As well as being his lover I work for him, I am his assistant, his secretary, I do a bit of everything for him. He saved me, he saved me in Moscow, in Paris, in Madrid; he has always been near when I have needed him and has offered me help without my having to ask anything of him.”