Spies

Again, the older Stephen states that “everything in the Close is as it was, and everything has changed.” The story is back in the present, and Stephen is revisiting the tunnel and the Lanes. There is a new electric substation where the rusty wire fence used to be. He feels embarrassed to think that he may have come back after all this time to check if the scarf is still there where he had hidden it, but he reminds himself that it could not have survived the decades.

Stephen then describes what happened after that night. Life simply went on; he never played with Keith again. He finds out that Uncle Peter has gone missing and Auntie Dee has fallen out with Keith’s mother. Barbara started ignoring Stephen and hanging out with another boy, causing Stephen great pain at the time. Stephen then reveals that there really was a German spy that summer—but that it was him. He admits that he is now “Stefan Weitzler.”

Stephen explains that he was reborn as “Stephen” when his parents left Germany in 1935. His mother was English, so the whole family became the Wheatleys. He explains that after his parents died, he had felt a longing to leave England, where his life had “never really taken flight” (he had even gotten married and divorced), and to learn more about his father’s life. When Stephen returned to Germany, he had a rough start, learning the language in an unfamiliar environment. He learned that his father’s family had all been killed in the war—his parents and two brothers “taken and murdered” (presumably in the Holocaust) and his sister and her two children killed in an air raid like the ones Uncle Peter had taken part in.

Stephen stayed in Germany, and became a professional translator and translated English maintenance manuals. Then he met a German woman, married her, started a family, and melded with the German culture. Now his children are all grown up and tend their mother’s grave every week.

Stephen reveals that there were actually two spies in the Close: himself and his father. Stephen’s father was a German spy on the British side, offering economic intelligence and helping decode secret German messages. This explains why his father used strange words (like coodle-moodle and schnick-schnack), which were actually German. Stephen also reveals that he and his family were the “Juice” (the name of the “secret society” Keith at Trewinnick), which is why Friday nights were important for his family. Though Stephen himself eventually returned to Germany, he says that his brother remained “Geoff Wheatley” and stayed English, only speaking German on his deathbed.

Stephen continues to give accounts of what happened to the rest of the children at the Close and the effects of the war on the neighborhood: notably, Keith became a barrister (lawyer). Stephen finally reveals that the man at the Barns was Uncle Peter, and Stephen wonders when he himself realized that fact, or if he knew it all along. The silk scarf, he now knows, was a map of Germany given to all British airmen in case they became stranded in enemy territory. Stephen also wonders when Peter realized he had married “the wrong sister.”

Stephen then thinks about Uncle Peter flying over and bombing Germany, and Stephen’s own aunt being killed in those bombings. Stephen announces that all mysteries have now been resolved, or as resolved as they’ll ever be, and again he thanks his audience for listening and participating. The book ends with Stephen catching another whiff of the privet scent, “even here… even now.”