Free In The Name of The Father by A. J. Quinnell Page A

ever said that before in all history.’
    He pushed his bulk to his feet, moved out from behind his desk and slowly walked around her. Ania Krol stood very still, a troubled look on her face.
    A middle-aged nun stood in a corner with a smile on her lips. She said, ‘Sister Anna looks wonderful!’
    Van Burgh rounded on her. ‘Ania,’ he said sternly. ‘From this moment she is Ania! Her name will change at times but you and she must remember. Sister Anna is temporarily a non-person.’
    ‘Yes, Father,’ the nun said dutifully, but in no way abashed. ‘But why is she too beautiful?’
    He sighed. ‘Because great beauty attracts attention. That’s the last thing we want.’
    He stood in front of Ania and studied her. She was dressed in a plain white blouse and dark blue pleated skirt and black polished high-heeled shoes. He shook his head.
    ‘I sent to the East for authentic clothes and cosmetics designed by good party designers and made by the proletariat for the proletariat and you look like you stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine. Imagine what couturiers in Rome or Paris would do to you?’
    ‘But what can I do, Father?’ she asked.
    He ignored the question and did one more circuit around her.
    ‘It’s the hair,’ he said finally. ‘It really is your crowning glory.’
    Her hair was thick and long and so black it seemed to glow with ebony blue streaks. It swung like a dark bell to her shoulders.
    ‘We shall have to dye it,’ he stated emphatically.
    ‘Oh no!’ cried the nun in the corner. ‘It would be a crime.’
    ‘Silence,’ he admonished. ‘But first we shall cut it. I think a sort of page-boy style. We must not make you too plain. The man whose wife you are supposed to be is handsome . . . and I dare say appealing enough to women to have an attractive wife. But you cannot be as beautiful as you are.’
    He was looking at her legs. They were neither slim nor sturdy, but they curved gracefully to slim ankles. The high heels accentuated the curve of her calves.
    ‘The high heels have to go,’ he announced. ‘Flat, sensible shoes and a lower hemline.’
    Ania hardly heard him. She was in mourning for her hair. Mentally it was her only feminine vanity. As a child the nuns had trimmed it, combed it, admired it and taught her to take care of it. At night before she slept and in the mornings before prayers she would always stroke her brush through it a hundred times, taking pleasure from its caress on her neck and shoulders; moving her head from side to side, letting it swing like a dark flower in a breeze. Then in the mornings she would tuck it up into her starched, austere headpiece, like a glittering piece of onyx wrapped and hidden in a pristine handkerchief.
    ‘We shall make you a little garish,’ Van Burgh said. ‘It’s the fashion now in the East.’ He pointed to her fingers. ‘Not colourless nail varnish but a slightly loud red and more rouge on your cheeks . . . and a darker lipstick more thickly applied. Also some bright metal bangles for your wrists and a cheap silver-plated chain round your neck, holding the letter “A”.’
    Yet again he circled her, obviously now seeing, in his inner eye, a different woman. He stopped again in front of her. ‘And a few patent leather belts with shiny buckles just too big to be in good taste.’ He looked again at her hair. ‘We shall need two or three wigs of different style and colour . . . obviously with your skin colouring not blonde. Auburn, dark mousy, and so on. Ania, take your shoes off and walk across the room.’
    She slipped off the shoes and walked back and forth in front of him. He sighed again.
    ‘You walk like a nun.’
    ‘I am a . . . How does a nun walk?’
    ‘Like this.’
    He held his head up, pulled back his shoulders, put his hands by his sides and, with short steps, walked across the room with an expression of great piety on his face. The two women laughed in surprise. In their eyes his brown cassock was suddenly a