María Dueñas - The Time in Between

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The Time in Between: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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The inspiring
bestseller of a seemingly ordinary woman who uses her talent and courage to transform herself first into a prestigious couturier and then into an undercover agent for the Allies during World War II.
Between Youth and Adulthood… Between War and Peace… Between Love and Duty…
At age twelve, Sira Quiroga sweeps the atelier floors where her single mother works as a seamstress. By her early twenties she has learned the ropes of the business and is engaged to a modest government clerk. But then everything changes.
With the Spanish Civil War brewing in Madrid, Sira impetuously follows her handsome new lover to Morocco, but soon finds herself abandoned, penniless, and heartbroken. She reinvents herself by turning to the one skill that can save her: creating beautiful clothes.
As World War II begins, Sira is persuaded to return to Madrid, where she is the preeminent couturiere for an eager clientele of Nazi officers’ wives. She becomes embroiled in a half-lit world of espionage and political conspiracy rife with love, intrigue, and betrayal. A massive bestseller across Europe,
is one of those rare, richly textured novels that enthrall down to the last page. María Dueñas reminds us how it feels to be swept away by a masterful storyteller.
http://youtu.be/-bQ_2G-TGaw

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“I’m grateful for that. Please, do sit down. Cigarette?”

He was relaxed and seemed in no particular hurry to learn the results of my work. The urgency of the previous weeks seemed to have disappeared as if by magic.

“Everything went well and I think I’ve managed to get hold of some very interesting information. Your suspicions were correct: Da Silva has been negotiating with the Germans to supply them with tungsten. The final deal was closed on Thursday night at his house, with the help of Johannes Bernhardt.”

“Good work, Sidi. That information is going to be very useful to us.”

He didn’t seem surprised. Or impressed. Or grateful. Neutral and impassive, as though this didn’t come as news to him.

“It doesn’t seem to come as any surprise to you,” I said. “Did you know about this already?”

He lit a Craven A and gave his reply through the first puff of smoke.

“We were informed about Da Silva’s meeting with Bernhardt this very morning. Since he’s involved, the only thing it could relate to right now would be the supply of tungsten, which confirms what we’d suspected: Da Silva’s disloyalty. We’ve already sent a memo to London informing them.”

Although I gave a slight start at this, I tried to sound natural. My suspicions were being confirmed, but I had to keep going.

“Well, that’s quite a coincidence that someone informed you just this morning. I thought I was the only person handling this mission.”

“This morning we received a surprise visit from an agent based in Portugal. It was entirely unexpected—he came in from Lisbon by car overnight.”

“And did this agent see Bernhardt and meet Da Silva?” I asked with feigned surprise.

“Not him personally, no, but someone he completely trusts did witness the meeting.”

I was about to burst out laughing. So his agent had been informed about Bernhardt by someone he trusted completely. Well, after all, that was a compliment.

“We’re extremely interested in Bernhardt,” Hillgarth went on, oblivious to what was going on in my head. “As I told you in Tangiers, he’s the brain behind SOFINDUS, the corporation through which the Third Reich is conducting its business in Spain. Knowing that he’s having dealings with Da Silva in Portugal is going to be enormously significant for us, because—”

“Excuse me, Captain,” I interrupted him. “Can I ask you another question? This agent who notified you that Bernhardt had done a deal with Da Silva, is this also someone with the SOE, one of your recent recruits like me?”

He stubbed out his cigarette thoroughly before replying. Then he looked up.

“Why do you ask?”

I smiled with all the candor that I was able to fake.

“No particular reason,” I said, shrugging. “It’s just such a coincidence that we’ve both turned up with the same information on exactly the same day—it’s almost amusing.”

“Well, I’m sorry to disillusion you, but no, I’m afraid he isn’t a new SOE agent just recruited for this war. The information has come to us through one of our men in the SIS, our—as it were—‘conventional’ intelligence service. And we haven’t the slightest doubt about its veracity: this is an absolutely reliable agent with years of experience. An ‘old hand,’ as you Spaniards would say.”

Click. A shiver ran down my spine. All the pieces had fallen into place. What I’d heard vindicated perfectly what I’d already suspected, but to have it confirmed absolutely was like a breath of cold air against my soul. This wasn’t the moment to lose myself in sentiment, however, but to keep moving forward. To show Hillgarth that we new recruits were also capable of working ourselves to the bone for the missions we were entrusted with.

“And your SIS man, did he give you any more information?” I asked, looking him straight in the eye.

“Regrettably not, he wasn’t able to give us any precise details, but—”

I didn’t let him go on. “He didn’t tell you how and where the meeting took place and didn’t give you the names and surnames of everyone who attended? He didn’t inform you about the terms that they agreed upon, the quantities of tungsten they expected to extract, the price per ton, the method of payment, and the procedure for evading export taxes? He didn’t tell you that they’re going to stop supplying the English abruptly within two weeks? He didn’t say that Da Silva was not only betraying you, but had also brought the major mine owners in Beira along with him in order to be able to negotiate collectively and secure better terms for the Germans?”

Beneath his bushy eyebrows, the naval attaché’s gaze had turned to steel. His voice was hoarse.

“How have you learned all this, Sidi?”

I held his gaze proudly. They’d forced me onto the very brink of a precipice for more than ten days, and I’d managed to reach the end without toppling over the edge: it was time for him to learn what I’d found there.

“Because when a seamstress does her job well, she pays attention to every little detail.”

During our whole conversation I had kept my notebook of patterns discreetly on my lap. The cover was slightly torn, some of the pages folded over, and a large number of stains and bits of dirt bore witness to the tempestuous vicissitudes it had been through since it had left my hotel closet in Estoril. I put it down on the table and rested my open hands on it.

“All the details are in here: every last syllable of what was agreed that night. Your SIS agent didn’t tell you anything about a notebook either, then?”

The man who had just reentered my life in such an overwhelming way was undoubtedly an experienced spy for His Majesty’s intelligence services, but on this shady matter of tungsten, on this particular round, I had just beaten him.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

__________

Ileft the building where we’d had our secret meeting with something strange clinging to my skin. Something without a name, something new. I walked slowly through the streets, trying to find a label for that feeling, not worrying about whether there was anyone following me and indifferent to the chance of bumping into someone undesirable whenever I went around a corner. There were no external signs to suggest that I wasn’t the same woman who’d walked this pavement in the opposite direction just a few hours earlier, in just the same clothes, her feet in the same shoes. No one who had seen me going then and returning now would have been able to make out any change, except that I was no longer carrying a notebook with me. But I knew what had happened. And Hillgarth knew, too. We were both aware that on that late May afternoon the order of things had altered irreversibly.

Although he was sparing with his words, his manner made it quite clear that the information I’d just supplied him was an enormously valuable contribution that needed to be analyzed in great detail by his people in London, without a moment to lose. This information was going to set alarm bells ringing, it was going to shatter alliances and reconfigure the direction of hundreds of operations. And with it, I got the sense that the naval attaché’s attitude had been radically altered, too. He’d seen a new image of me: his most reckless recruit, the inexperienced seamstress, who showed some promise but who was still untested, had been transformed overnight into someone capable of resolving delicate matters with the boldness and execution of a professional. Perhaps my methods were unorthodox, and I didn’t have much technical expertise; my world, my country, and my language weren’t the same as his. But I’d responded to the challenge with much more skill than he’d expected, and that put me on a new rung in the hierarchy.

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