A Spy in Exile

ENGLAND, APRIL 1948

The letter sent to Raphael’s studio arrived in a thick, fine-quality envelope that was embellished with a crest incorporating a dragon, a unicorn, and a rose. “Dear Mr. Raphael,” read the letter in a green shade of ink from a fountain pen, “Our mutual friend, Henry Moore, has spoken to me at length about you. He admires you greatly, and informed me that your work and ideas may be of interest to me. I’d like to put his words to the test. I’d be pleased to have you as a guest at my home over the last weekend of the month. If you can make your way to Morning Meadow on Friday on the 11:43 train from Oxford, I will send a car to get you. We’ll have the entire weekend at our disposal. You can return to your blessed work on Monday. Looking forward to your arrival, Alfred Strong, Viscount.”

The day was surprisingly springlike. The smell of blossoms hung in the air, and the budding young leaves shone as green as green could be. Raphael marveled once again at the incredible power of nature, bursting forth with new life. He was collected at the small village’s train station by a courteous driver of few words. And it wasn’t long before they had said good-bye to the confines of the community, leaving behind its small yellow-stone houses. Towering over the low structures stood the church steeple, gleaming far into the distance, as if an invisible hand were polishing it with gold.

They drove along a country road, lined on both sides by hedges, restricting their fields of vision. Raphael felt as if the perfumed air, thick with the fragrance of blooming flowers, was clinging to him. An avenue of ancient trees showed the way to their destination. When the avenue came to an end, the wide-open landscape was revealed suddenly in all its splendor, and before them stood a small palace, made of red brick, its façade adorned with tall columns. The car sped through a large iron gate and came to a stop in front of the residence. Standing at the top of the stairs leading to the sizable palace doors was an elderly man, his gray hair unkempt, his nose hooked and determined, his eyes twinkling with an inquisitive smile.

“Hello. I’m Alfred Strong. Welcome to Lion’s Slope.”

The name of the residence did indeed do justice to the place: There truly was a slope, a gleaming green stretch of lawn, dotted with thousands of tiny flowers, that trailed gently downward toward the small lake. Raphael wondered if there were lions on the estate, too, and thought he wouldn’t be too surprised to catch sight of one of the majestic predators wandering lazily around the grounds.

“Hello, Sir Alfred. Thank you for the invitation. I’m pleased to be here.”

“Alfred, Alfred. No need for Sir. What should I call you? Joseph?”

“No, Raphael. Just Raphael. That’s best.”

• • •

Dinner was served in the vast semilit dining room. Flickering candles glowed on the antique table, their flames reflected in the large wineglasses. A fire burned in the fireplace at the far end of the room, casting strange patterns of light and shade on the stone floor. Alfred Strong’s young wife joined them.

“This is Lady Sarah, my beautiful wife,” Strong said with obvious pride. Sarah’s dark eyes surveyed Raphael with curiosity. She offered him a fair-skinned, delicate hand, and he couldn’t decide whether to shake or kiss it. During their dinner, Strong told Raphael about his intense interest in the ancient cultures of the Near East. He had studied at Oxford and had even graduated with distinction. He was offered a position at the college he attended, but was forced, so he said, to leave the paradise of academe to take charge of the family’s business affairs. He was a little vague about the exact nature of those business affairs, but spoke more than once about an ammunitions plant, and on another occasion he also mentioned something about financial activity in the City, in London.

Be that as it may, his passion focused on his travels to archaeological sites in Mesopotamia, where he had worked with youthful enthusiasm as a volunteer and self-appointed helper to learned delegation heads. When he spoke of his participation in the expedition to the archaeological dig at the Sumerian Royal Cemetery in the ancient city of Ur, his eyes shone with unconcealed pride. He joined MI5 immediately after the outbreak of the war, and served as a member of the secret team that handled the Nazi spies who were captured on British soil and subsequently used as double agents.

“It’s a very closely guarded secret,” he whispered to Raphael. “It was wonderful, like playing chess on a few dozen boards at the same time.” Raphael was surprised to hear Strong tell him of such things with an air of nonchalance, as if he were discussing a sport or hobby. But he had already learned that the rules of the game by which members of the En-

glish upper classes played were quite different from those that applied to the rest of humanity.

On the way to dinner, they managed to pop into the magnificent library room for a few minutes. Laid out on display among the thousands of books were glass boxes containing small archaeological items. Despite his lack of knowledge on the subject, Raphael felt drawn to the items. He could sense they were unique treasures, memories of lost cultures frozen in time.

“There’s a story behind each and every one of them,” Strong muttered, and Raphael wondered whether his host was actually familiar with the stories, or whether the ancient artifacts, as far as Strong was concerned, were simply additional assets in the framework of all the wealth the family had accumulated over the generations. “Come, have a look at something over here,” his host said, pointing Raphael toward one of the large windows of the library’s west-facing wall. The sun was casting a warm, rich light over the hills and sloping stretch of lawn, coloring the edges of the white clouds with a golden glitter. Visible from the window was a large stone sculpture, an abstract piece. It must have weighed a ton, yet appeared at the same time to convey a strong sense of lightness, elegance, as if it were an expression of an ideal of beauty.

“He knows what he’s doing, our Henry, right?” Strong said in a low voice. Raphael wasn’t able to think of the great Henry Moore as “our Henry,” and besides, he was so moved by the beauty of the sculpture that all he could do was nod in agreement. Yes, he undoubtedly knew what he was doing.

“We have several more wonderful sculptures at this residence, in the garden,” Strong said, waving his hand in a way that was characteristic of nobility, as if to suggest that all of this—this estate, these archaeological treasures, the books, the sculptures, the game meat roast that would soon be served to their table—was no big deal.

“Do you know David Herbert Samuel?” Strong asked, his jaws chewing on the venison as he heaped another teaspoon of red currant sauce into his mouth.

“Do you mean Herbert Louis?”

“No, no, Herbert Louis Samuel was your first high commissioner,” Strong said, and by “your” he was probably referring to the residents of the Land of Israel-Palestine.

“I’m talking about his grandson, David Herbert Samuel. He was born in Palestine and lived there until he moved to England to study. I met him at Oxford. He’s younger than me, of course, but he studied chemistry with Sarah, and when I was courting this beautiful maiden”—he looked at Sarah with deep affection and a smile—“I was also forced to be dragged off to their stupid parties, and that’s how I met him, too.”

“We may have been young,” Sarah said, “but the war made us grow up very fast. David, you know”—Raphael didn’t know if she was addressing her husband or him—“abandoned his studies and joined the army. He saw action in the Far East. He returned to Oxford to complete his studies only after the war. He left England a short while ago. He said he was needed there with you, that there was a war going on.”

Raphael was impressed by the image of David Herbert Samuel that his hosts’ conversation had portrayed thus far.

“He truly is a wonderful young man. He’s also very handsome and striking. You can’t deny that, my darling,” Sarah continued, smiling at Strong warmly. “Did you know he served as military governor in Sumatra?”

Raphael, who until then had never heard of the man, was unfamiliar with that detail, too. But he listened.

“That’s one of the things he got to do during the war. Alfred played his part, too,” she added, gazing at her husband and caressing his hand. “He did some great things, but I’m not allowed to know about them, and certainly can’t breathe a word.”

“Sarah, Sarah, there’s no need to exaggerate.”

“You aren’t awarded the Order of the British Empire for nothing,” she responded vehemently. “The war of minds you waged contributed greatly to the victory.”

Strong absentmindedly caressed her hand.

• • •

“You know I’m a Jewess, right?” Lady Sarah casually said when they met in the large kitchen the following morning.

“No, I didn’t know,” Raphael responded, a large mug of coffee in his hand. “But it makes me happy.”

“And why so?” she asked suspiciously.

“I think it pleases me to know that we share some kind of affinity. A bit like distant family, right?”

“It’s a little pretentious to think that all Jews are one big family. It seems to me sometimes that we are bound by very little, actually. I’m an Englishwoman, that’s my culture, that’s my heritage. But,” she added dolefully, “Adolf Hitler thought differently. Had he managed to get his hands on us, on you and me, all the differences, all the divides, would have counted for nothing. We would have met the same terrible end in no time. We would have been turned into smoke. A large family of incinerated people.”

Raphael could see the sadness in her eyes. He wanted to console her, although he wasn’t quite sure for what, but instead he remained rooted to the spot. Something in her proud posture stopped him from approaching her.

This woman was a collection of contrasts, but the look with which she was fixing him now, defiant and almost wild, brought them closer. He didn’t feel at that precise moment that he himself needed sympathy and a comforting caress, even though most of his family—uncles and cousins, relatives, loved ones—had been murdered by the Nazis. He and his parents had immigrated to the Land of Israel when he was a little boy. Two sisters and a brother were born there. Despite the loving and longing letters his mother would send to relatives who remained behind, letters that turned increasingly desperate, urging them to join the family in Israel, Salonika, which had always been their home, maintained its grip. The brothers, the sisters, their children, down to the very last one, were arrested by the SS and murdered in Auschwitz. Raphael knew the names of all his family members who had perished, their dates of birth and the dates of their deaths. His mother had made him memorize them all. And still, at that moment, all Raphael could feel was a deep sense of compassion toward Sarah, the young, sad woman in whose home he was a guest.

“Did you lose family members in the war?” he asked her, maintaining the physical distance between them.

“No, no. We are very deeply rooted here on English soil. The first members of my family came to this island more than three hundred years ago. At the end of the seventeenth century. Portuguese Jews who arrived here via Amsterdam, with the authorization of Cromwell. We’ve been safe ever since. But the horrific pictures from the camps, the testimonies of our soldiers, the eyes of the people whose bodies had turned to skeletons. . . .” Her eyes welled with tears. She couldn’t complete her sentence.

“And you?” she asked. “Did you lose family in the war?”

He felt the blood drain from his face. “My parents got out of Greece in time,” he said. “Shortly after the Great War. The Land of Israel became our home. But those in my family who remained behind all perished.” He stopped there, and his body, which had stiffened, clearly conveyed his unwillingness to elaborate.

“We won’t talk about it anymore. Not now.” Sarah smiled through her tears. “We’ll have our tea outside, in the garden. Alfred went out early for a ride. He should be back soon. You can go on doing whatever it is you’re doing . . .”

She doesn’t bother completing her sentences either, Raphael thought. As if things are clear and there’s no need to make the effort. Whatever it is you’re doing. Who does she mean by you? Alfred and me? You, the men?

“So you studied chemistry at Oxford,” he said to her as they sat down at the white marble table in the garden. “Are you involved in the field?”

“First there was the war, and afterward I needed time to myself,” she responded, her eyes blurring again. “Although I studied chemistry, as one of just two women who were doing so at Oxford at the time, I’ve always been interested in the history of art. Lately I’ve been toying with the idea of combining the two fields, of studying restoration. Taking care of Alfred’s collection. Helping perhaps at the churches in the district. There are quite a few important pieces of art around here that are crying out for repair and preservation. You know, things are sometimes more fragile than they appear to be.”

• • •

The time passed quickly, and as he stood at the door of Lion’s Slope on Monday morning, tightening the scarf around his neck, the driver was already patiently waiting for him alongside the open door of the black Bentley. He put his bag down so he could shake his host’s hand.

“Thank you for a wonderful weekend,” Raphael said.

“The pleasure was mine, ours,” Strong replied, smiling at Sarah, seeking her confirmation.

“Certainly, it was my pleasure, too,” Sarah said in her deep voice, her dark eyes staring straight into Raphael’s.

“I hope from now you’re going to feel like one of the family,” Strong said to him. “As we agreed, you can work in the hunters’ cabin, turn it into your country studio. Every great artist needs the right conditions in which to work and create. But we’ve already discussed it all. We don’t want to hold you up. You need to make your train. It’s good to be here”—he smiled—“but you also have to maintain your escape routes.”

Strong’s handshake was warm and firm. The hand Sarah offered was limp, as if she had suddenly gone weak. “We’d love you to come back,” she said. “You promised.”

As the car pulled away, Strong and his wife were still standing at the front door of their home, he waving his hand, she with her arms folded and a piercing gaze fixed on Raphael.