Charles McCarry - The Miernik Dossier

During summer holidays, and after leaving school, Ilona Bentley travelled extensively in Europe, and in 1956 visited Hungary as a tourist. The Hungarian rebellion took place during her visit. On 30th October, 1966, she arrived at the Austro-Hungarian frontier in the company of a young Kárdos, whom she attempted to smuggle into Austria. Kárdos was arrested and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of subversion and murder arising out of his activities in the Budapest uprising. Ilona Bentley attempted to persuade the British Embassy at Budapest to intervene in behalf of Kárdos, whom she described as her fiancé. No intervention was possible. Ilona Bentley, in an interview with an officer of the embassy, claimed to be pregnant by Kárdos; if this was true, she never bore the child.

Ilona Bentley has a certain reputation for sexual looseness. Throughout her adolescence she created disciplinary problems at a variety of schools, and she was sent home on one occasion for misbehaviour with a boy from a neighbouring town. (According to the records of the psychiatrist who interviewed her after her release from Bergen-Belsen, she claimed to have been sexually abused by adult inmates of the camp.)

On coming of age, Ilona Bentley took up residence in Geneva, Switzerland, where she enrolled as a student at the university. At this time she relieved the solicitors who had been appointed as her guardians under her grandfather’s will of their responsibility for management of her affairs. The Swiss police, who have exercised their ordinary controls over Miss Bentley as a foreign resident, have noted no activity on her part that they construe as harmful to Swiss interests. Our own enquiries have yielded nothing of political interest. Miss Bentley was taught Russian by her grandfather.

Rome, 25 June

Darling Marie-Dominique,

By the time you receive this I shall have taken wing for the Nile! A wonderful two days in Naples, marred only by your failure to join me as you had half promised to do. I waited for you (leaving a darling young man sulking alone) at the station on the night you said you might come, but alas, the train contained nothing but strangers. I did so want to tell you all my news (and I have such a lot of it!) in person. Perhaps you’ll get in touch with me before the thirtieth at the address I gave you.

Everything went perfectly. I astonished my little friend by popping into his room no more than five minutes after he had arrived. He is still annoyed with me-but not that annoyed! We had quite a lovely time together-I mean all of us at dinner that evening and in a long walk round this noisy city. (It’s awfully friendly of the natives to fondle one as they do-if I had magic skin that photographed all that touched it I should be quite covered with fine Italian hand-prints!)

I suppose you will not be surprised to know that M.’s sister has joined the party. They collected her in Vienna. I was not so much surprised to see her as to see what she looks like. She is quite beautiful in a placid way-blond hair, cornflower eyes, nice figure- but a rather mean mouth. She certainly does not resemble her brother. I’m sending you a roll of snaps to keep for me. If you’re curious you can have them developed.

She and all the rest except M. are sailing today. There was some delay with the ship, an awful old tub that smells of machine oil and greasy shish kebab. M. and I fly down this afternoon from Rome. He is positively quaking-afraid of airplanes, I suspect. Afraid of the unknown, too. He is a timid chap. On the way from Naples in the car he held on for dear life, saying, “Here you are a little less frightening, darling-you fit right in with the Italians, who drive as madly as you do!”

He has been awfully sweet to me. In Rome we could not use our day and two nights to relax-we had to see the sights. Most methodical he is. I know a great deal more about the Forum, the Pantheon, the dates on which the city walls were built, the relationship between Berini and the Barberii pope than I ever expected to know. Marvelous food! Awful wine! M. runs around talking Latin to everyone. It’s most amusing, but they seem to understand him. At the Vatican, of course, he was a great hit with the chaps in petticoats.

The plan is this: we will all meet on the thirtieth in Cairo and then continue on by car. I’ve no idea how long the trip will take but it should be thrilling, so I don’t care really about the time element. I do hope you’ll ask your friends there to look me up. It’s so much more fun to see a strange city with one who knows it. And giving my news to someone you love will be almost as good as giving it to you.

Ever with love,

Annelise

You must understand that I was uncomfortable from the beginning. First of all, I had hardly ever seen any foreigners except for German soldiers when I was a child and the occasional Russian later on. Here I was, out of Poland for the first time in my life, and surrounded by a lot of my brother’s friends who spoke languages I had only used in school. I did not always understand exactly what they were saying-the talk went back and forth so quickly, they were all so clever and sardonic. My friends in Warsaw were artists, serious people who suffered all the time and talked only of themselves and their painting and sculpture-which, incidentally, no one would ever be able to see because it was decadent. I am not a melancholy person and I used to long for gaiety.

Now I had more gaiety than I knew what to do with. I found all of them charming. Paul I liked at once. He seemed so kind and so free of envy and sadness-exactly as I had always imagined an American to be. Of course he did a generous thing for me at the very beginning, so I was grateful to him. Nigel was another matter. As things went on I realized that he was nothing like as cold and sarcastic as he seemed at first. As for Prince Kalash, I ask you to imagine the impression he made upon me, this enormously tall, absolutely black man with the manners of a king. He frightened and fascinated me.

I did not like Ilona at all, at the start or afterward. I liked her less when I saw the state Tadeusz was in when we got to Cairo. All his life my brother had been a morose person. He was easy to hurt. Ilona had hurt him badly. He thought she had made him happy, but she is not the sort to make anyone happy for very long. When first I saw her I realized the sort of girl she was. I am no puritan. I have nothing against sex. But there should be, if not actually love, then some feeling between people. Ilona was in-capable of feeling. Her aim in life was only sensation. Nigel was already her lover. Nigel was my brother’s friend. She used them against each other to increase her own pleasure. She would have used Paul as well but he was too strong for her.

Back to Cairo. Ilona and Tadeusz met us when we drove up to the hotel. They had been together for five days. My brother, following along behind her, had been transformed into a lapdog. He cringed with love for her. The change in him was nauseating. From a man with a brilliant mind and the very best instincts he had changed into a character out of a pornographic novel. His eyes never left her. Her eyes never touched him-except in amusement. When Nigel got out of the car, Ilona embraced him, pushing her whole body against his, and kissed him passionately. With her tongue. On the steps of the hotel, surrounded by strangers and servants. Tadeusz actually staggered at the sight. I looked at Tadeusz, looked at Ilona-and knew what the situation was. It was a shock. Perhaps it seems comical, but I had always assumed that my brother was a virgin. He has always been more like a priest than anything else. In fact, that’s what he wanted to be when he was a boy and I don’t think he ever entirely got over the idea. He was super-religious. To get mixed up with someone as carnal as Ilona must have torn him apart. His suffering was pathetic.