Funeral in Berlin (6 page)

Zugzwang: to move a chess piece under duress.

London, Thursday, October 10th

I moved into top as I passed Parliament Square. The night was young and it had nothing much to do. Tiny moons moved across St James’s Park playing tiddly-winks with the shiny leaves, and the speedometer moved up to nudge sixty. The radiotelephone called me back to earth. It was the Charlotte Street Control Room: ‘Message for you oboe ten from Northern Car Hire.
¹
Do you read me? Over.’

‘Loud and clear. Let’s have it.’

‘Message from Mr D. You are to contact Mr Hallam at Betty’s Club. Is that roger? Oboe ten. Over.’

‘Only too roger.’

‘Observe your r/t procedure, oboe ten. Your customer will ask you for change of ten shillings. You will have four half-crowns ready for him. Is that roger? Over.’

‘What are you talking about? What’s Hallam want ten bob for?’

‘Oboe ten. Observe procedure please. I am giving you your introduction formality for this customer. Is that roger? Over.’

‘I don’t know what you are talking about,’ I said. ‘Phone me at home later on. On the landline. OK?’

The Scots operator’s nerve broke before I got to Hyde Park Corner.

‘For Christ’s sake. Oboe ten. You know what the Home Office people are like. He wants you to give him four half-dollars so that he knows who you are.’

‘What do you mean “so that he knows who I am”? I saw Hallam only the other day. Who the hell is he going to think I am if I don’t give him four half-crowns—James Bond?’

‘
Please
just give him the half-crowns, oboe ten.’

‘I don’t know how many make ten bob,’ I said, but the operator didn’t come back on the air again. Inside the car the radio shone with a faint green spot of light. I turned the volume and filled the car with big band sound as a volley of raindrops spattered across the windscreen.

Betty’s was one of the small set of London clubs
that have been going over twenty years on a mixed membership, face up to the financial crisis of imminent closure once a year but never get around to pasting the corners of the wallpaper back into place. Next to the magazine rack, a brown-haired man was slugging shillings into a one-armed bandit without letting go of his Tuborg lager. The crash of the machine punctuated some gentle Sinatra. Without looking at me he sensed my approach, but he continued to watch the spinning oranges and pineapples.

‘Got change of ten bob?’ he said. Before I could reply, the fruit machine gave three neat clicks and then a shudder as shillings showered into the metal tray.

‘Looks like you won’t be needing change now,’ I said.

He turned suddenly and grasped my cuff. His watery brown eyes stared into mine for a long time before he said, ‘Don’t you believe it, dear. I still do.’ It was Hallam, the man from Bina Gardens, but his hair was now a rich brown colour. He scooped up the shillings and showered them into his already sagging pockets.

‘First-rate for the gas meter,’ he said. I held four half-crowns extended towards him while he spent five minutes trying to pry apart two ten-shilling notes that were only one. Reluctantly he gave it to me. Then he took his time fitting the base of a Player’s No 3 into a four-inch holder. I flicked a Swan Vesta alight with my thumbnail and he nosed
his fag down into the fire and flame. He was well alight before he spoke.

‘Stok and the Gehlen boys are both being helpful?’

‘Both being very helpful,’ I said. ‘Did you ever find Confucius?’

‘Yes,’ said Hallam. ‘The fickle creature came back to me Tuesday morning, very early. So dirty; heaven knows where he had been. So independent the Siamese. I really should buy a collar for him but it seems so cruel.’ Somehow he got four syllables into ‘cruel’.

‘Yes,’ I said.

I had a street map of Berlin in my pocket. I moved a couple of ashtrays and a vase of plastic tulips and spread it across the table.

‘Stok will bring Semitsa into East Berlin somewhere within this rectangle.’ I drew a very light pencil mark just north of Alexanderplatz.

‘He will tell me where later. If I don’t like it, I can fix somewhere else in the same district.’ Hallam had his Tuborg wrapped around his face but I knew he was taking in every word.

‘Why don’t you make the Russkies bring him down to Marienborn and hand him over the West German frontier?’ he asked.

‘Not possible,’ I said.

He nodded.

‘Outside Stok’s district. How foolish of me. Very well then. You have Semitsa—or you think you have him—here.’ He stabbed the street map.

‘Now,’ I said, ‘from there the Gehlen boys will post him special delivery to West Berlin.’

‘Then what?’ asked Hallam.

‘If I know anything about the Gehlen boys they will delay the transfer at least twenty-four hours so that they can pump Semitsa for anything that might be useful to them. Then using the documents that your Home Office people are going to provide we bring him to London as a naturalized British subject returning home.’

‘How will the Gehlen people move him across the wall?’ said Hallam.

‘You know better than to ask that and so do I,’ I said. ‘If I ask, they’ll just tell me a lot of reasonably creative lies.’

‘Did you give me my change?’ he said.

‘Yes I did,’ I said, ‘four half-crowns.’

Hallam opened his wallet and counted his paper money.

‘The Home Office won’t release the documents until one of our own people actually sees Semitsa in the flesh in West Berlin.’ I could see the slack red lining of his watery eyes. He swung his chin from side to side to emphasize the negative and the jaw opened to repeat the decision.

‘You see why…’ he began.

I reached out and with my finger-tips gently closed Hallam’s mouth. ‘You wouldn’t want to see Semitsa’s flesh,’ I said. ‘You don’t like
flesh,
do you, Hallam? It isn’t nice.’

His face flushed like dipped litmus. I went across
to the bar, bought two XO brandies and set one in front of Hallam. His face was still red.

‘Just have the papers ready, love,’ I said. ‘I’ll manage.’

Hallam poured the brandy down his throat and his eyes watered more than ever as he nodded agreement.

Every piece has its mode of attack but only a
pawn will attack en passant. Similarly only a
pawn can be captured in this manner.

Thursday, October 10th

When I left Hallam I drifted north. The Saddle Room was rocking until the spurs jingled and a girl with a back-combed bouffon of red hair was twisting with obsessive grace on a table top which put her ten inches above floor level, not allowing for the back-combing. Her feet knocked the glasses to the floor with rhythmic abandon. No one seemed to mind. I walked as far as the stairs and peered into the smoke and noise. Two girls with large but tight sweaters narcissistically twisted back to back. I poured two or three double whiskies into the back of my throat, watched the floor and tried to forget what a crummy trick I had pulled on Hallam.

It was still raining outside. The doorman and I
looked around for a taxi. I found one, gave the doorman a florin and climbed in.

‘I saw it first.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘I saw it first,’ said the girl with the back-combed bouffon. She said it slowly and patiently. She was about five foot ten, light in complexion, nervous of movement, dressed with skilful simplicity. She had a rather wide, full mouth and eyes like a trapped doe. Now she kneaded her face around while querulously telling me yet again that she’d seen the cab before I had.

‘I’m going towards Chelsea,’ she said, opening the door.

I looked around. The bad weather had driven cabs into hiding. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘hop in. We’ll do your journey first.’

The cab pulled into a tight lock and my new friend eased her back-combing on to the leatherwork with a sigh.

‘Cigarette?’ she said and flicked the corner of a pack of Camels with a skill that I can never master. I took one and brought a loose Swan Vesta match from my pocket. I dug my thumbnail into the head and ignited it. She was impressed and stared into my eyes as I lit the cigarette. I took it pretty calmly, just like I didn’t have a couple of milligrammes of flaming phosphorus under the nail and coming through the pain threshold like a rusty scalpel.

‘Are you in Advertising?’ she said. She had a soft American accent.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m an account executive with J. Walter Thompson.’

‘You don’t look like any of the Thompson people I know.’

‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘I’m the vanguard of the button-down shirt mob.’ She gave a polite little laugh. ‘Where in Chelsea?’ the driver called. She told him. ‘It’s a party,’ she said to me.

‘Is that why you have that bottle of Guinness in your pocket?’ I asked.

She tapped it to make sure it was still there. ‘Ghoul,’ she said smiling. ‘That’s to wash my hair in.’

‘In Guinness?’ I said.

‘If you want body,’ she said patting her hair.

‘I want body,’ I said. ‘Believe me, I do.’

‘My name is Samantha Steel,’ she said politely. ‘People call me Sam.’

Roman Decoy: a piece offered as bait to save a
hazardous situation.

London, Friday, October 11th

Charlotte Street runs north from Oxford Street and there are few who will blame it. By midmorning they are writing out the menus, straining yesterday’s fat, dusting the plastic flowers and the waiters are putting their moustaches on with eyebrow pencils.

I waved to Wally who runs the delicatessen across the road before turning into the doorway marked, among other things, ‘Ex-Officers’ Employment Bureau’, by a smooth polished brass plate. In the hall the same floral wallpaper had moved ever nearer autumn. The first-floor landing smelled of acetone and from behind a doorway marked ‘Acme Films Cutting Rooms’, I could hear the gentle purr of a movie projector. The next floor pretended to be a theatrical tailor so that we could
buy, alter or make any kind of uniform we needed. This is where Alice sat. Alice was the cross between librarian and concierge. Anyone who thought they could do anything in that building without having Alice’s approval should just try doing it.

‘You are late, sir,’ Alice said. She was thumping the lid into a caterer’s-size Nescafé tin.

‘Right as always, Alice,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what we’d do without you.’ I climbed towards my office. From the dispatch department came the mournful trombone solo of ‘Angels Guard Thee’ as the CWS Brass Band played their part in the dispatch department’s ceaseless record recital. Jean was waiting on the stairs. ‘Coming in late,’ she said.

‘It’s one of the B-flat cornets,’ I explained, ‘clipping the notes.’

‘I mean
you
are coming in late.’ She put my old raincoat on a wooden hanger that had the words ‘stolen from typing pool’ burned into the surface.

‘How do you like it?’ Jean said, ‘the office.’

I looked around at the balding carpet, Jean’s teak desk and the gleaming new IBM typewriter, and then I saw it. There was a large spiky indoor plant on the window sill.

‘It’s lovely,’ I said. The leaves were long and prickly, the bright green giving way to a dull yellow at the thorny edge. All it did as far as I could see was block just a little more of the already inadequate grey London daylight. ‘Lovely,’ I said again.

‘Mother-in-law’s Tongue,’ said Jean, ‘that’s what it’s called.’

‘Don’t stretch my credulity too far,’ I said.

‘That’s what Dawlish said when he saw your expense sheet for last month.’

I unlocked my ‘In’ tray. Jean had already sifted most of it. The worst was the political reading matter. Long foolscap translations of excerpts from
L’Unità, Party Information
¹
and two other information sheets had been waiting there for nearly a week. It was a job no one else could do for you.

‘It was that bill at The Ivy,’ said Jean. I signed the two information sheets as read and put them into the ‘Out’ tray. It was the only way to fight it down.

‘I told you he would notice that it was my birthday,’ Jean said.

‘Stop gnawing your knuckles,’ I said. ‘I can handle Grannie.’

‘Ha ha,’ said Jean. ‘Well, don’t fire him.’

‘I’ll make the jokes,’ I said. ‘What have you done about this Paul Louis Broum business?’

‘I’ve passed the request for documents to Home Office. I then sent Interpol a blue
²
with instructions for a Bertillon if they find anything. No reply so far. Grannie wants you to go down to Acme Films at ten fifteen when they will screen
all the film we have of Red Army people who work for the Karlshorst Security Control Area. Dawlish himself would like you to see him after that at eleven o’clock. You have no lunch appointments. I will order some sandwiches from Wally’s if you wish. Hallam at the Home Office phoned and wanted to see you. I said you would call to see him between ten and ten thirty tomorrow morning. You are confirmed on tomorrow evening’s flight to Berlin and I have checked with your hotel there. All OK.’

I said, ‘You wonderful creature.’

Jean put a dozen letters on my desk, her arm brushed my shoulder and I caught the faint drifting perfume of Arpège.

‘I can’t make it tonight,’ I said.

‘The top three should be ready for the eleven o’clock collection. The requisitions don’t matter.’

‘I was looking forward to it,’ I said, ‘but there’s this damn business with the Steel girl.’ Jean walked towards the door. She stood there for a moment looking at me. I detected the faint angry flush in her cheek only because I knew her so well. The severity of her straight-style dress emphasized her feminine stance.

‘I am Circe,’ she said. ‘All who drink of my cup turn into swine.’ She turned to go. ‘You are no exception.’ She threw the word over her shoulder like spilled salt.

‘Be reasonable, Jean,’ I said, but she had gone.

Dawlish had the only office with two windows in the building. You didn’t need dark glasses there but on the other hand you didn’t need a flashlight either. Dawlish was always buying pieces of antique furniture. Every now and again he would say he had business to attend to and everyone would know that he was coming back with a writing-desk or an aspidistra-stand from Portobello Road.

So Dawlish’s office was like a junkshop. There was an antique umbrella stand and an antique desk under a green-shaded Victorian lamp. Across one wall stood a bookcase with glass doors; inside was a shiny leather set of Dickens with only
Martin Chuzzlewit
missing. Dawlish got the set for twentyfive shillings.
Martin Chuzzlewit
wasn’t one of Dickens’s best as Dawlish was always saying. On the other wall, where the big IBM machine stood, there were two cases of butterflies—one had a cracked glass—and photographs of various Civil Service cricket teams in which the granular wrinkled face of Dawlish could be recognized.

On October 1st the coal fires were lighted. A freezing September or a scorching October made no difference. A small cardboard box marked ‘OMO’, bulging with coal eggs, stood in coal dust in the hearth. I pulled the leather armchair nearer to the flickering fire. This tiny fireplace had been built when Britain’s fleet steamed the world on coal and when diplomacy largely consisted of sending them somewhere.

Dawlish read my report. He pinched the bridge of his nose and without looking up said, ‘I notice everyone’s getting at you again.’

Alice brought coffee, set it down on Dawlish’s desk and left without a word.

‘Yes,’ I said.

Dawlish passed me a cracked cup with pink flowers around the rim. ‘Tell me about Stok,’ he said. ‘Ginger biscuit?’

I shook my head. ‘I’m getting too fat,’ I said. ‘Stok is just doing a job.’

Dawlish was holding his cup and saucer at eye level.

‘Not bad for one-and-six each,’ he said. ‘They are German porcelain: quite old.’

I watched the little islands of Nescafé powder spin ever smaller in the swirl of hot water.

‘Don’t you think they are beautiful?’ Dawlish said.

‘They aren’t exactly the Portland vase but they’re OK for Nescafé.’

‘Is Stok good at his job?’

‘I think he is,’ I replied. ‘Much too good to think that I’d go for that clumsy cover story about his wife being dead. Either he wanted me to discover the lie so that I’d be more likely to believe his subsequent story—’ Dawlish brought his coffee across to the chair near the fire and sat down. ‘Or?’ he said. He took his pipe to pieces and blew loudly through each component.

‘Or he thought I wasn’t bright enough to…’
Dawlish was looking at me with a particularly stupid expression.

‘Very funny,’ I said.

Dawlish assembled his pipe.

‘And this description that the Gehlen people want on the document.’ He looked at the flimsy green teleprinter message. ‘What’s wrong with Broum as a cover name for Semitsa?’

‘Nothing except that I don’t like being pushed around. I don’t mind them mentioning one or two things they want—I understand that they are preparing other documents—but this sheet they’ve given us is almost a biography.’

‘You are just piqued personally.’ Dawlish produced a two-pound bag of sugar.

‘Perhaps you’re right,’ I said. ‘I don’t like the Gehlen mob treating me like an employee.’

‘But what would be their purpose in wanting such documents? Not to sell them, they have plenty of money.’

I shrugged and put three spoonfuls of sugar into my coffee.

‘That’s how you put on weight,’ said Dawlish.

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘And the girl?’ said Dawlish. ‘What have you found out about the girl, Samantha Steel?’

‘It’s probably a phoney name anyway but there are no green or white cards at the Yard.
³
Nor
anything at Central Register.
⁴
She’s American; I’ve put a teleprinter request through to Washington.’

‘What a performance,’ said Dawlish. ‘You never think of the expense. It’ll all end up like that other girl. In the end you found she had a press agent just dying to send biography and pictures to anyone who asked for them.’

‘This girl followed me,’ I said. ‘It was clumsy and it was obvious; we can’t just ignore it.’

‘You are quite sure?’

‘Quite sure,’ I said.

‘Umm,’ said Dawlish grudgingly. ‘Well, you may be right; we can’t be too careful. Check on her.’

‘I already am,’ I said patiently.

‘And see her again,’ said Dawlish.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ I said. ‘I may as well get something out of this job, if it’s only entertainment.’

‘Did you check on Mr Vulkan’s playmate?’ asked Dawlish.

‘Yes,’ I grinned. ‘There is no Major Bailis. US Army Records said the description fitted a civilian layabout named Wilson. He was there just to impress me, I suppose. He’s a character, that Vulkan.’

‘He’s a rogue,’ said Dawlish. He grabbed his bag of sugar and got up. ‘Well, this won’t do. Everything else OK?’

‘My electric fire doesn’t work,’ I said. ‘I’m freezing downstairs and Jean said you were unhappy about my expenses. Was I too extravagant?’

‘Being extravagant is just a state of mind, my boy,’ he said, ‘and so is being cold. Just see what you can do about both.’

I was a bit relieved. ‘What I’d like is an interestfree loan of eight hundred quid to buy a new car,’ I said.

Dawlish gently packed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe with a match. He put the pipe into his mouth before looking up at me.

‘Yes,’ he finally said. He lit the pipe with great care.

‘Yes I want it or yes I can have it?’ I said.

‘Yes, everything they say about you is true,’ said Dawlish. ‘Go away and let me work.’

‘What about the decision on Stok’s forty thousand pounds?’ I said.

‘Ah,’ said Dawlish. ‘That’s what has been giving you ideas above your station.’ He let go with a great puff of smoke.

‘We might lose him,’ I said. Dawlish prodded the match into the pipe bowl.

I added, ‘The Egyptian Intelligence people will buy Semitsa like a shot if they get wind of it.’

‘That’s what worrying me,’ said Dawlish, showing no trace of worry whatsoever. ‘The Egyptians collect German scientists, don’t they?’

‘Yes.’

‘Our Zürich people had better watch
MECO
⁵
—that’s who will be handling the deal if there is one.’

‘Yes,’ I said again.

‘Very well,’ said Dawlish. ‘Keep an ear to the ground. If you send Jean up with a War Office Armoury chit I’ll give you a signature for a pistol.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. It was unprecedented. If Dawlish thought I needed a gun, I was living on borrowed time.

‘For God’s sake be circumspect with it. It’s a hell of a responsibility for me.’

‘I’ll bear you in mind if anyone starts shooting at me,’ I said. ‘I’ll take it over to HQ and bump off Hallam tomorrow morning for a start.’

‘Hallam.’ Dawlish looked up suddenly. ‘Leave Hallam alone,’ he said. ‘You haven’t been threatening him, have you?’

‘I leaned on him a tiny bit,’ I admitted. ‘We nearly had HQ running this whole project.’

‘Don’t do anything like that,’ said Dawlish. He took out a large white handkerchief and polished his spectacles. ‘I don’t care what else you do; but treat Hallam with kid gloves.’

‘I think he’d go more for green velvet with sequins,’ I said, but Dawlish just puffed smoke.
I went downstairs and tried to get the Ministry of Works fire going. Chico came in.

‘I’ve got a file from AEASD.’

‘What?’ I said.

‘Atomic Energy Authority, Security Department.’ Chico said.

‘That’s better,’ I said. ‘You’ve been watching those spy films on TV again. So what?’

‘What do I do with it?’

‘Pass it on somewhere,’ I said.

‘It’s marked immediate.’

‘Then pass it on immediately.’ Chico smiled sheepishly, tucked the file under his arm and walked across to the window. He really only wanted to kill time till lunch. Chico was a delicate bloom from an old family tree. He had too much forehead and not enough chin to be handsome and he carried himself in that sort of crouch that Englishmen adopt to avoid humiliating their more stunted brethren. He looked round my office furtively.

‘Is it true about the old man’s garden?’

‘Is what true?’ I grunted without looking up, although I guessed what was coming.

‘One of the chaps across at the War House said that Grannie grows weeds.’ Jean came in to get something from the filing cabinet; she waited for my reply.

I said, ‘Mr Dawlish has achieved considerable status as an amateur botanist. He’s written a number of books including
Forest Marsh and Moor
Plants
and
The Dehiscent Capsule of the Pennycress in the Seeding Cycle.
Has become something of a specialist on meadow and hedgerow flowers. What do you expect him to grow in his garden? Tomatoes?’

‘No sir,’ said Chico. ‘Golly, I didn’t know he was an expert on weeds.’

‘Hedgerow flowers we usually say. And don’t call Mr Dawlish “Grannie”.’

‘Yes, hedgerow flowers. Those friends of mine didn’t know that.’

‘One of these days, Chico,’ I said, ‘you are going to face up to the fact that those friends of yours in what you persist in calling the War House know nothing about everything. They are as ignorant as you are. You should do something about it. Go down to the library and read a book.’