The Dark Frontier by A. Decker (best books to read non fiction .txt) 📕

maybe Frank was on his way to see her. It was beginning to look increasingly plausible.

How else was she to interpret his being in Cologne? He did not know anyone else within a hundred miles of the place. But why would he want to see her? They hardly knew each other really. And all they had in common was Ellen. It was this thought that had her wonder whether Beth could have been right after all, whether Ellen really was the cause of Frank’s disappearance in some way.

They had married in some haste, after all. And Frank was a fence-sitter. Not the type to rush into any decision, let alone a marriage. Perhaps he had already started to regret it, she wondered.

‘But was I really so difficult to live with?’ Ellen asked herself.

Then she remembered the phone call Beth said she had had with Frank. And the secrets they shared. And a darker thought edged its way into her mind: since Beth had chosen to take sides and clearly opted against her own sister, was it possible that Frank had already been here and discussed everything with her? Or even that they were having an affair?

Ellen recalled the embarrassment on her face when she realised she had said too much. The very idea sent a dull pain to the pit of Ellen’s stomach. It drilled through to every nerve in her body as the suggestion took hold and refused to be dislodged.

Although she was forced to run the gauntlet of her sister’s wounding remarks and not-so-covert hostility for the entire time she spent in Beth’s house, Ellen decided to stay on. Perhaps Frank would appear at the door, she thought. Or maybe her sister would reveal some even darker secret that she shared with him. Suddenly anything seemed possible. So, despite her hurtful attitude, Ellen felt a compelling need to stay with her a little longer. Until the phone call.

“It’s for you,” Beth said, handing her the receiver. “Sounds like your friend from Switzerland. So women are allowed to make phone calls abroad as well now that they have the vote, are they?”

Ellen ignored the facetious remark as she took the receiver.

“Hello Ellen. I have some good news.”

She recognised the voice at once as Marthe’s. After the torment of her sister’s company, it was such a comfort to hear her Swiss accent again. So pleased was Ellen to hear her voice that the words themselves did not immediately register, and Marthe had to repeat herself.

“I have good news for you,” she said, with characteristic patience for what she took to be Ellen’s excitement. “We’ve found your husband.”

Chapter 16

Hansruedi was a large, barrel-chested man with a beard that reached almost to his chest. His ship was his castle. Unannounced visitors were not welcome. Especially German visitors. While the Alemannic German that Frank spoke helped soften the bargee’s resistance, the air remained clouded with suspicion. And it would take more than the tenuous bond of a vaguely shared dialect to dispel the suspicion any further.

It was the heavy thud as he was dragged out of the lifeboat that did it. Frank had forgotten about his father’s book on Indian fauna and flora. He had buried it deep in the inside pocket of his coat on top of the hipflask Achim had presented him with for the journey. He was reminded of it by that heavy thud against the oarlock. When he eventually pulled the flask out from under the book and shared his friend’s golden elixir with the bargeman, the affinity between them was sealed.

Frank was granted the privilege of travelling in a guest cabin on condition that he could provide Hansruedi with a supply of Achim’s Mirabelle nectar once they reached Basel. The deal was struck. For the rest of the journey, Hansruedi proved a moody, but accommodating companion. A card-carrying member of his local socialist party who was glad of any opportunity to make his own personal mark in the struggle against fascism.

“Take care when you get to Basel,” he warned, as he took a final sip of the Mirabelle brandy. “It’s a great city. I was at the Peace Congress there before the war, you know. Can you imagine the ‘Internationale’ and the ‘Marseillaise’ echoing around the cathedral square against a background of red flags? And the cathedral echoing with the sound of socialist speeches? But you need to be on your guard there today. The place is teeming with fascists and Nazi spies. Take care who you speak to.”

Hansruedi was not to know that such warnings were unnecessary. In the telling of his story, Frank had focused on Achim. He saw no need to feature Breitner in the narrative.

The journey up the Rhine took the best part of four days. It was an uneventful voyage. And Frank remained in his cabin most of the time until they reached their destination. The sense of relief he felt when he finally stepped back onto Swiss soil was liberating. He was surprised by the exhilaration he felt at that moment.

The number 8 tram from the harbour area was well frequented with the grey, sullen faces of workers heading home at the end of their shift. But the face that boarded a few stops down the line and planted itself at the far end of the carriage shone through the cloud of early-evening travellers with uncomfortable familiarity. It was not a pleasant light. An awkward and slightly overweight figure, which seemed to have been put together by the clumsy hand of an architect with no eye for the elegance of symmetry or proportion. It also clashed shamelessly with the ingratiating smile that the owner of the face wore with such insistence among the other features of his unctuous manner: the vulgar twinkle in his eyes and the greased black hair. Although Frank could not recall where or when their paths had crossed before, his memory was still sufficiently loyal to him to suggest that it had not been an agreeable experience.

Unfortunately for