David Healey: Winter Sniper

He didn’t mention Kay. She looked away.

Ty understood then that it wasn’t necessarily General Marshall or President Roosevelt who wanted the general home. It might be Mamie Eisenhower. Ike kept his personal problems to himself, but it was no secret that he and his wife had a strained relationship. There had been many hints in the press about the general and his pretty English staffer and driver, of how they stayed up late playing bridge and were almost inseparable. Photographs showed the two of them together, smiling against what could almost be called a romantic backdrop — wartime London. Kay served as his escort to parties and dinners. Platonic or not, it had all the outward appearances of an affair. Two thousand miles away on the other side of the Atlantic and all alone, Mamie had made it clear in her letters to Ike that she was not happy with the situation. It was almost a certainty that she had badgered Marshall into finally telling Ike to come home for a visit, however brief.

Slowly, headquarters got back to work. Someone started to peck at a typewriter; a telephone rang, then another. Ty was reminded of a symphony warming up. Joe Durham, Eisenhower’s whip-cracking chief of staff, began cruising the room like a grumpy walrus at feeding time, drawn to the scent of inactivity rather than fish. Ty moved to Kay’s side.

“I’m sorry you won’t be coming with us,” he said. “I would have liked to show you around.”

Kay’s smile was forced. “Maybe when the war is over,” she said.

Ty wanted to say more — he and Kay had grown close after months of working together — but they couldn’t talk in the middle of the SHAEF headquarters. What Ty had to say was not something he wanted to be overhead, such as the fact that the general was someone who took his commitments seriously. He might be in love with Kay, but he would never leave Mamie for his pretty English assistant. “Listen, let’s have a drink later on,” he said.

Kay nodded but avoided his eyes. “That would be lovely, Ty. Right now I’m going to find a cup of tea.” She practically fled from the room.

Ty glanced at the general, but he had not been watching Kay. Ike’s good spirits had returned and his famous grin stretched from ear to ear as staffers joked with him about going home. Home . After nearly two years in Europe the word had taken on an almost magical quality. Ty thought of Washington’s streets, how they would be slick with rain on a night like this. Because of the war, the streetlights were dark and the monuments weren’t lit, but there was enough of a glow in the sky to illuminate the long stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue. The sidewalks would be filled with men and women in uniform, or else suits and briefcases, hurrying about the business of government in wartime. Everywhere there was a sense of urgency, of important things about to be done.

And there was Eva. He wondered if they might pick up where they left off. They had kept up a steady stream of letters. He would write her again that night to let her know that he was coming to Washington. He imagined being in bed with her on a winter afternoon, pale sunlight streaming through the tall windows of her house on Connecticut Avenue. He shook his head to clear it. If he kept that up, he was going to need a cold shower. Not that there was any other kind in London.

He went over to Ike. “When do we leave, sir?”

“We need some time to wrap things up here. Let’s say December 31. That gives us ten days. I want to get some things finished here first. It’s kind of like banking a coal fire for the night.” The general paused. “It’s going to be something, isn’t it, Ty, to get home for a while?”

“To tell you the truth, sir, I can’t wait,” said Ty, thinking again of Eva. “I’ll start handling the details right away.”

“I know you will, son.” Ike laughed and flashed his famous grin. “I’ll be damned. We’re going home!”

The letter for Eva Von Stahl arrived in Washington several days later. She read it in the parlor of her grand house on K Street. By the time she finished, her hands were shaking.

Dearest Eva,

How often I’ve thought of you since heading overseas. The memory of the time we spent together has been like a candle on many a dark night. I know I haven’t been in any foxholes, not like a real soldier, but there have been many long hours before dawn wondering if our efforts would be enough to gain a foothold in the Mediterranean. You know we have accomplished far more than that. In London we are starting the process all over again and some nights I hardly sleep more than two or three hours trying to keep up with a man twice my age. It rains here all the time in winter. When the long hours and the weather get me down I only have to think of you to escape for a little while…

Eva smiled, thinking of Ty Walker. It was just like him to write such a sentimental letter. She had met him in the fall of 1942 at a party given by one of the officers on General Marshall’s staff. Ty was all alone in a corner drinking a glass of champagne much too quickly; he was an awkward captain trying to seem at ease while his boss, General Eisenhower, chatted amiably with the most powerful men in Washington. It was Eisenhower that she had gone there to meet, but his wife hovered nearby, a genuine wallflower with jealous eyes, so Eva had done her hunting elsewhere.

“Those bubbles will go right to your head if you are not careful,” she had warned as Ty plucked a fresh glass of champagne from a tray carried by a passing waiter.

“I don’t care much for these parties,” he had said. “But it’s all part of the job.”

“What job is that, Captain?”

“I’m on General Eisenhower’s staff.”

“Really?” Eva touched his arm and let her hand linger. She could have sworn that the young captain jumped as if touched by an electric current. “That must be very interesting. I hear that the general has only the best young officers on his staff.”

They had another glass of champagne as Eva asked Ty all about himself. She found it was the favorite subject of most men. They smoked a cigarette on the patio. Later that night, Eva took him to bed.

That was the beginning of their affair and it lasted all through the fall. Ty must have thought it had the intensity of any wartime romance. Eva felt a little guilty because she had a soft spot for Ty and he fell hard for her. He was an earnest young man like many she had known in Germany. And he had a youthful enthusiasm for sex. They made love at night before they went to sleep and first thing in the morning when they woke up. Sometimes they spent an afternoon under the covers or else she was awakened deep in the night by Ty’s touch between her legs. Half asleep, she would take him into her as if in a dream. They always slept naked, even though winter was coming on. She liked going to sleep feeling his hard belly pressed into the small of her back, one of Ty’s hands cupped around her breast.

Since then, Eva had welcomed many men into her bed. Most did not spend the night. But unlike most of the men she saw, Ty was not cheating on a wife safely at home in Pittsburgh or Boston. Those men seemed to see Eva as nothing more than a wartime diversion. They still talked too much and told her information they shouldn’t have, usually to make themselves seem important. Ty had no secrets. But he would be on Eisenhower’s staff in London, and talk was that the general was the man who would be running the show in Europe.

A few years ago, if anyone had suggested to Eva that she would soon be a spy and a whore, she would have laughed — and, on further reflection, would likely have slapped his face. But war had changed everything, including her own destiny. She was still Eva Von Stahl — skin the color of milk, blue eyes, platinum hair — who had caught the eye of Albert Speer and then of Adolf Hitler himself. The same Eva Von Stahl who had been an actress appearing on the silver screen with Marlene Dietrich. But Eva also wasn’t one to fool herself. She’d never had any leading roles, and the bigger the movie, the smaller her part had been. That was one reason why, when the Abwehr had approached her in the late autumn of 1939, that she had agreed to play the greatest role of her life.