A Small Town in Germany (41 page)

'Bradfield! What about Karfeld? Hasn't Karfeld stepped over the line as well?'

'There are quite different ways of dealing with his case.' The shell had closed again around his voice.

'Leo found one.'

'The wrong one as it happens.'

'Why?'

'Never mind why.'

He began walking slowly back to the car, but Turner was calling to him.

'What made Leo run? Something he read. Something he stole. What was in that Green File? What were those Formal and Informal Conversations with German Politicians? Bradfield! Who was talking to who?'

'Lower your voice, they'll overhear.'

'Tell me! Have you been having conversations with Karfeld? Is that what sent Leo on his night walk? Is that what it was all about?'

Bradfield did not reply.

'Holy God,' Turner whispered. 'We're like the rest of them, after all. Like Siebkron and Praschko; we're trying to make our number with tomorrow's lucky winner!'

'Take care!' Bradfield warned.

'Allerton... what Allerton said -'

'Allerton? He knows nothing!'

'Karfeld came in from Hanover that Friday night. Secretly to Bonn. For a confidence. He even arrived and left on foot, it was so secret. You didn't go to Hanover after all, did you, that Friday night? You changed your plans, cancelled your ticket. Leo found that out from the Travel Clerks -'

'You're talking utter nonsense.'

'You met Karfeld in Bonn. Siebkron laid it on, and Leo followed you because he knew what you were up to!'

'You're out of your mind.'

'No, I'm not. But Leo is, isn't he? Because Leo suspected. All the time, in the back of his mind, he knew that you were secretly reinsuring against the Brussels failure. Until he saw that file, until he actually saw and knew, he thought he might still act within the law. But when he saw the Green File he knew: it really was happening again. He knew. That's why he was in a hurry. He had to stop you, he had to stop Karfeld before it was too late!'

Bradfield said nothing.

'What was in the Green File, Bradfield? What's he taken with him as a keepsake? Why was that the only file he stole? Because it contained the minutes of those meetings, was it? And that's what's drawn your fire! You've got to get the Green File back! Did you sign them, Bradfield? With that willing pen of yours?' His pale eyes were alight with anger. 'When did he steal the despatch box, let's just think: Friday... Friday morning he had his verification, didn't he? He saw it in black and white: that was the other proof he was looking for. He took it to Aickman... "They're up to their old tricks, we've got to stop it before it's too late... we're the chosen ones." That's why he took the Green File! To show them! Children, look, he wants to say, history really is repeating itseif; and it isn't comedy at all!'

'It was a document of the highest secrecy. He could go to prison for years for that alone.'

'But he never will, because you want the file and not the man. That's another part of the three-inch freedom, is it?'

'Would you prefer me to be a fanatic?'

'What he'd suspected for months, picked up in the wind of Bonn gossip and the scraps he got from her; now he had the proof: that the British were hedging their bets. Taking out a with-profits policy on the Bonn-Moscow axis. What's the deal, Bradfield? What's the small print now? Christ, no wonder Siebkron thought you were playing a treble game! First you put all your chips on Brussels and very wise too. "Let nothing disturb the enterprise." Then you hedge the bet with Karfeld and you get Siebkron to hold your stake. "Bring me secretly to Karfeld," you say to him. "The British also are interested in a Moscow axis." Very informally interested, mind. Purely explanatory talks and no witnesses, mind. But an eventual trade alignment with the East is not at all out of the question, Herr Doktor Karfeld, if you should ever happen to become a credible alternative to a crumbling coalition! As a matter of fact we're quite anti-American ourselves these days, it's in the blood, you know, Herr Doktor Karfeld...'

'You missed your vocation.'

'And then what happens? No sooner has Siebkron brought Karfeld to your bed than he learns enough to make his blood run cold: the British Embassy is compiling a dossier on Karfeld's unsavoury past! The Embassy already has the records the only records, Bradfield - and now they're sizing up to blackmail him on the side. And that's not all!'

'No.'

'Siebkron and Karfeld have hardly got used to that little shock before you provide a bigger one. One that really rocks them. Not even Albion, they thought, could be that perfidious: the British are actually trying to assassinate Karfeld. It makes no sense of course. Why kill the man you want to blackmail? They must have been puzzled to death. No wonder Siebkron looked so sick on Tuesday night!'

'Now you know it all. You share the secret: keep it.'

'Bradfield!'

'Well?'

'Who do you want to win? This afternoon, out there, who's your money on this time, Bradfield? On Leo; or the cut-price ally?'

Bradfield switched on the engine.

'Cut-price friends! They're the only kind we can afford! They're the only kind we've got the guts to make! We're a proud nation, Bradfield! You can get Karfeld for twenty-five per cent off now, can't you! Never mind if he hates us. He'll come round! People change! And he thinks about us all the time! That's an encouraging start! A little push now and he'll run for ever.'

'Either you're in or you're out. Either you're involved or you're not.' He hesitated. 'Or would you rather be Swiss?' Without another word or glance, Bradfield drove up the hill, turned right and vanished in the direction of Bonn. Turner waited until he was out of sight before walking back along the river path towards the cab rank. As he went there rose suddenly behind him an unearthly rumble of feet and voices, the saddest, deepest sound he had ever heard in his life. The columns had begun to move; they were shuffling slowly forward, mediocre, ponderous and terrifying, a mindless grey monster that could no longer be held back, while beyond them, almost hidden in the mist, stood the wooded outline of Chamberlain's hill.

Epilogue

Bradfield led the way; de Lisle and Turner followed. It was early evening and the streets were empty of traffic. In all Bonn, nothing stirred but the mute, grey-clad strangers who swarmed the alleys and hastened towards the market square. The black bunting, becalmed, drifted in idle swathes over the ebbing tide.

Bonn had never seen such faces. The old and the young, the lost and the found, the fed and the hungry, the clever, the dull, the governed and the ungoverned, all the children of the Republic, it seemed, had risen in a single legion to march upon her little bastions. Some were hillsmen, darkhaired, straddle-legged and scrubbed for the outing; some were clerks, Bob Cratchits nipped by the quick air; some were Sunday men, the slow infantry of the German promenade, in grey gabardine and grey Homburg hats. Some carried their flags shamefully, as if they had outgrown them, some as banners borne to the battle, others as ravens strung for market. Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane.

Bradfield waited for them to catch up.

'Siebkron reserved space for us. We should enter the square higher up. We shall have to force our way to the right.' Turner nodded, barely hearing. He was looking everywhere, into every face and every window, every shop, corner and alley.

Once he seized de Lisle's arm, but whoever it was had gone, lost again in the changing mass.

Not just the square itself: balconies, windows, shops, every foothold and crevice was filled with grey coats and white faces, and the green uniforms of soldiers and police. And still they came, more of them, cramming the mouths of the darkening alleys, craning their necks for a sight of the speaker's stand, searching for a leader, faceless men searching for one face; while Turner peered desperately among them for a face he had never seen. Overhead, in front of the floodlights, loudspeakers hung like warnings from their wires; beyond them, the sky was failing.

He'll never make it, Turner thought dully; he'll never penetrate a crowd like this. But Hazel Bradfield's voice came back to him: I had a younger brother, he played scrum-half; you could hardly tell them apart.

'To the left,' Bradfield said. 'Make for the hotel.'

'You are English?' a woman's voice enquired, teatime in a friendly house. 'My daughter lives in Yarmouth.' But the tide carried her away. Furled banners barred their path, dropped like lances. The banners formed a ring, and the gypsy students stood inside it, gathered round their own small fire. 'Burn Axel Springer,' one boy shouted, not with much conviction, and another broke a book and threw it on the flames. The book burned badly, choking before it died. I shouldn't have done that to the books, Turner thought; I'll be doing it to people next. A group of girls lounged on mattresses and the fire made poems of their faces.

'If we're separated, meet on the steps of the Stern,' Bradfield ordered. A boy heard him and ran forward, encouraged by the others. Two girls were already shouting in French. 'You are English!' the boy cried, though his face was young and nervous. 'English swine!' Hearing the girls again, he swung his small fist wildly over the lances. Turner hastened forward, but the blow fell on Bradfield's shoulder and he paid it no attention. The crowd gave way, suddenly, its will mysteriously gone, and the Town Hall appeared before them at the far end of the square, and that was the night's first dream. A magic baroque mountain of candy pink and merchant gold. A vision of style and elegance, of silk and filigree and sunlight. A vision of brilliance and Latin glory, palaces where de Lisle's unplayed minuets pleased the plumper burgher's heart. To its left the scaffold, still in darkness, cut off by the screen of arclights trained upon the building, waited like an executioner upon the imperial presence.

'Herr Bradfield?' the pale detective asked. He had not changed his leather coat since that dawn in Königswinter, but there were two teeth missing from his black mouth. The moon faces of his colleagues stirred in recognition of the name.

'I'm Bradfield, yes.'

'We are ordered to free the steps for you.' His English was rehearsed: a small part for a newcomer. The radio in his leather pocket crackled in urgent command. He lifted it to his mouth. The diplomatic gentlemen had arrived, he said, and were safely in position. The gentleman from Research was also present.

Turner looked pointedly at the broken mouth and smiled.

'You sod,' he said with satisfaction. The lip was badly cut as well, though not as badly as Turner's.

'Please?'

'Sod,' Turner explained. 'Sodomite.'

'Shut up,' said Bradfield.

The steps commanded a view of the entire square. Already the afternoon had turned to twilight; the victorious arclights divided the numberless heads into white patches which floated like pale discs upon a black sea. Houses, shops, cinemas had fallen away. Only their gables remained, carved in fairytale silhouette against the dark sky, and that was the second dream; Tales of Hoffman, the woodcut world of German make-believe to prolong the German childhood. High on a roof a Coca-Cola sign, winking on and off, tinged the surrounding tiles with cosmetic pink; once an errant spotlight ran across the façades, peering with a lover's eye into the empty windows of the stores. On the lower step, the detectives waited, backs towards them, hands in pockets, black against the haze.

'Karfeld will come in from the side,' de Lisle said suddenly.

'The alley to the left.'

Following the direction of de Lisle's outstretched arm, Turner noticed for the first time directly beneath the feet of the scaffold a tiny passageway between the pharmacy and the Town Hall, not more than ten foot wide and made very deep by the high walls of the adjacent buildings.

'We remain here, is that clearly understood? On these steps. Whatever happens. We are here as observers; merely observers, nothing more.' Bradfield's strict features were strengthened by dilemma. 'If they find him they will deliver him to us. That is the understanding. We shall take him at once to the Embassy for safe custody.'

Music, Turner remembered. In Hanover he tried when the music was loudest. The music is supposed to drown the shot. He remembered the hair-dryers too and thought: he's not a man to vary the technique; if it worked before, it will work again, and that's the German in him; like Karfeld and the grey buses.

His thoughts were lost to the murmur of the crowd, the pleasurable growl of expectation which mounted like an angry prayer as the floodlights died. Only the Town Hall remained, a pure and radiant altar, tended by the little group which had appeared upon its balcony. The names rose in countless mouths as all around him, the slow liturgical commentary began:

Tilsit, Tilsit was there, Tilsit the old General, the third from the left, and look, he is wearing his medal, the only one they wanted to deny him, his special medal from the war, he wears it round his neck, Tilsit is a man of courage. Meyer Lothringen, the economist! Yes, der Grosse, the tall one, how elegantly he waves, it is well known that he is of the best family; half a Wittelsbach, they say; blood will tell in the end; and a great academic; he understands everything. And priests! The Bishop! Look, the Bishop himself is blessing us! Count the movements of his holy hand! Now he is looking to his right! He has reached out his arm! And Halbach the young hothead: look, he is wearing a pullover! Fantastic, his impertinence: a pullover on such an occasion! In Bonn? Halbach! nu toller Hund! But Halbach is from Berlin, and Berliners are famous for their arrogance; one day he will lead us all, so young and yet already so successful.

The murmur rose to a roar, a visceral, hungry, loving roar, deeper than any single throat, more pious than any single soul, more loving than any single heart; and died again, whispering down, as the first quiet chords of music struck. The Town Hall receded and the scaffolding stood before them. A preacher's pulpit, a captain's bridge, a conductor's rostrum? A child's cradle, a plain coffin of boldly simple wood, grandiose yet virtuous, a wooden grail, housing the German truth. Upon it, alone but valiant, the truth's one champion, a plain man known as Karfeld.