A Small Town in Germany

by John le Carré

  ‘Wonderful.’

  ‘A real brain he could have been, if he’d had your advantages.’

  Turner looked at him blankly. ‘Who the hell says I’ve got any advantages?’

  He had opened another drawer; it was filled with the small junk of any private life in any office: a stapler, pencils, elastic bands, foreign coins and used railway tickets.

  ‘How often was choir, Gaunt? Once a week, was it? You’d have a nice sing-song and a prayer and afterwards you’d slip out and have a beer down the road, and he’d tell you all about himself. Then there were outings, I suppose. Coach trips, I expect. That’s what we like, isn’t it, you and I? Something corporate but spiritual. Coaches, institutions, choirs. And Leo came along, did he? Got to know everyone, hear their little confidences, hold their little hands. Quite the entertainer he must have been by the sound of it.’

  All the while they spoke, he continued to record items in his notebook: sewing materials, a packet of needles, pills of different colours and descriptions. Fascinated despite himself, Gaunt drew nearer.

  ‘Well, not only that, see. Only I live on the top floor, there’s a flat up there: it should have been Macmullen’s but he can’t occupy it, him having too many children, they couldn’t have them running wild up there now, could they? We practised in the Assembly Room first, Fridays, see, that’s on the other side of the lobby next to the pay office, and then he’d come on up after, for a cup of tea, like. Well, you know, I had a few cups here too for that matter; quite a joy to pay back it was, after all he done for us; things he bought for us and that. He loved a cup of tea,’ said Gaunt simply. ‘He loved a fire too. I always had that feeling, he loved a family, him not having one.’

  ‘He told you that, did he? He told you he’d no family?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then how do you know?’

  ‘It was too evident to be talked about, really. He’d no education either; dragged up really, you could tell.’

  Turner had found a bottle of long yellow pills and he was shaking them into the palm of his hand, sniffing cautiously at them.

  ‘And that’s been going on for years, has it? Cosy chats after practice?’

  ‘Oh no. He didn’t hardly notice me really, not till a few months ago and I didn’t like to press him at all, him being a dip, see. It’s only recently he took the interest. Same as Exiles.’

  ‘Exiles?’

  ‘Motoring Club.’

  ‘How recent? When did he take you up?’

  ‘New Year,’ Gaunt said, now very puzzled. ‘Yes. Since January I’d say. He seems to have had a change of heart January.’

  ‘This January?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Gaunt said, as if he were seeing it for the first time. ‘Late January. Since he started with Arthur, really. Arthur’s had a great influence on Leo. Made him more contemplative, you know. More the meditating kind. A great improvement, I’d say. And my wife agrees, you know.’

  ‘I’ll bet. How else did he change?’

  ‘That’s it really. More reflective.’

  ‘Since January when he took you up. Bang: in comes the New Year and Leo’s reflective.’

  ‘Well, steadier. Like he was ill. We did wonder, you know. I said to my wife’ – Gaunt lowered his voice in reverence at the notion – ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the doctor hadn’t warned him.’

  Turner was looking at the map again, first directly and then sideways, noting the pin-holes of vanished units. In an old bookcase lay a heap of census reports, press cuttings and magazines. Kneeling, he began working through them.

  ‘What else did you talk about?’

  ‘Nothing serious.’

  ‘Just politics?’

  ‘I like serious conversation myself,’ Gaunt said. ‘But I didn’t somehow fancy it with him, you didn’t quite know where it would end.’

  ‘Lost his temper, did he?’

  The cuttings referred to the Movement. The census reports concerned the rise of public support for Karfeld.

  ‘He was too gentle. Like a woman in that way; you could disappoint him dreadfully; just a word would do it. Vulnerable he was. And quiet. That’s what I never did understand about Cologne, see. I said to my wife, “well, I don’t know I’m sure, but if Leo started that fight, it was the devil got hold of him.” But he had seen a lot, hadn’t he?’

  Turner had come upon a photograph of students rioting in Berlin. Two boys were holding an old man by the arms and a third was slapping him with the back of his hand. His fingers were turned upwards, and the light divided the knuckles like a sculpture. A line had been drawn round the frame in red ball point.

  ‘I mean you never knew when you were being personal, like,’ Gaunt continued, ‘touching him too near. I used to think sometimes, I said to my wife as a matter of fact, she was never quite at home with him herself, I said, “Well, I wouldn’t like to have his dreams.” ’

  Turner stood up. ‘What dreams?’

  ‘Just dreams. Things he’s seen, I suppose. They say he saw a lot, don’t they? All the atrocities.’

  ‘Who does?’

  ‘Talkers. One of the drivers, I think. Marcus. He’s gone now. He had a turn with him up there in Hamburg in forty-six or that. Shocking.’

  Turner had opened an old copy of Stern which lay on the bookcase. Large photographs of the Bremen riots covered both pages. There was a picture of Karfeld speaking from a high wooden platform; young men shouted in ecstasy.

  ‘I think that bothered him, you know,’ Gaunt continued, looking over his shoulder. ‘He spoke a lot about Fascism off and on.’

  ‘Did he though?’ Turner asked softly. ‘Tell us about that, Gaunt. I’m interested in talk like that.’

  ‘Well, just sometimes.’ Gaunt sounded nervous. ‘He could get very worked up about that. It could happen again, he said, and the West would just stand by; and the bankers all put in a bit, and that would be it. He said Socialist and Conservative, it didn’t have no meaning any more, not when all the decisions were made in Zurich or Washington. You could see that, he said, from recent events. Well, it was true really, I had to admit.’

  For a moment, the whole sound-track stopped: the traffic, the machines, the voices, and Turner heard nothing but the beating of his own heart.

  ‘What was the remedy then?’ he asked softly.

  ‘He didn’t have one.’

  ‘Personal action for instance?’

  ‘He didn’t say so.’

  ‘God?’

  ‘No, he wasn’t a believer. Not truly, in his heart.’

  ‘Conscience?’

  ‘I told you. He didn’t say.’

  ‘He never suggested you might put the balance right? You and he together?’

  ‘He wasn’t like that,’ Gaunt said impatiently. ‘He didn’t fancy company. Not when it came to … well, to his own matters, see.’

  ‘Why didn’t your wife fancy him?’

  Gaunt hesitated.

  ‘She liked to keep close to me when he was around, that’s all. Nothing he ever said or did, mind; but she just liked to keep close.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘You know how they are,’ he said. ‘Very natural.’

  ‘Did he stay long? Did he sit and talk for hours at a time? About nothing? Ogling your wife?’

  ‘Don’t say that,’ Gaunt snapped.

  Abandoning the desk, Turner opened the cupboard again and noted the printed number on the soles of the rubber overshoes.

  ‘Besides he didn’t stay long. He liked to go off and work night times, didn’t he? Recently I mean. In Registry and that. He said to me: “John,” he said, “I like to make my contribution.” And he did. He was proud of his work these last months. It was beautiful; wonderful to see, really. Work half the night sometimes, wouldn’t he? All night, even.’

  Turner’s pale, pale eyes rested on Gaunt’s dark face.

  ‘Would he?’

  He dropped the shoes back into the cupboard and they clattered absurdly in the silence.

  ‘We
ll, he’d a lot to do, you know; a great lot. Loaded with responsibilities, Leo is. A fine man, really. Too good for this floor; that’s what I say.’

  ‘And that’s what happened every Friday night since January. After choir. He’d come up and have a nice cup of tea and a chat, hang about till the place was quiet, then slip off and work in Registry?’

  ‘Regular as clockwork. Come in prepared, he would. Choir practice first, then up for a cup of tea till the rest had cleared out like, then down to Registry. “John,” he’d say. “I can’t work when there’s bustle, I can’t stand it, I love peace and quiet, to be truthful. I’m not as young as I was and that’s a fact.” Had a bag with him, all ready. Thermos, maybe a sandwich. Very efficient man, he was; handy.’

  ‘Sign the night book, did he?’

  Gaunt faltered, waking at long last to the full menace in that quiet, destructive monotone. Turner slammed together the wooden doors of the cupboard. ‘Or didn’t you bloody well bother? Well, not right really, is it? You can’t come over all official, not to a guest. A dip too, at that, a dip who graced your parlour. Let him come and go as he pleased in the middle of the bloody night, didn’t you? Wouldn’t have been respectful to check up at all, would it? One of the family really, wasn’t he? Pity to spoil it with formalities. Wouldn’t be Christian, that wouldn’t. No idea what time he left the building, I suppose? Two o’clock, four o’clock?’

  Gaunt had to keep very still to catch the words, they were so softly spoken.

  ‘It’s nothing bad, is it?’ he asked.

  ‘And that bag of his,’ Turner continued in the same terribly low key. ‘It wouldn’t have been proper to look inside, I suppose? Open the thermos, for instance. The Lord wouldn’t fancy that, would he? Don’t you worry, Gaunt, it’s nothing bad. Nothing that a prayer and a cup of tea won’t cure.’ He was at the door and Gaunt had to watch him. ‘You were just playing happy families, weren’t you; letting him stroke your leg to make you feel good.’ His voice picked up the Welsh intonation and lampooned it cruelly. ‘ “Look how virtuous we are … How much in love … Look how grand, having the dips in … Salt of the earth, we are … Always something on the hod … And sorry you can’t have her, but that’s my privilege.” Well, you’ve bought it, Gaunt, the whole book. A guard they called you: he’d have charmed you into bed for half a crown.’ He pushed open the door. ‘He’s on compassionate leave, and don’t you forget it or you’ll be in hotter water than you are already.’

  ‘That may be the world you’ve come from,’ Gaunt said suddenly, staring at him as if in revelation, ‘but it isn’t mine, Mr Turner, so don’t come taking it out of me, see. I did my best by Leo and I would again, and I don’t know what’s all twisted in your mind. Poison, that’s what it is; poison.’

  ‘Go to hell.’ Turner tossed him the keys, and Gaunt let them fall at his feet.

  ‘If there’s something else you know about him, some other gorgeous bit of gossip, you’d better tell me now. Fast. Well?’

  Gaunt shook his head. ‘Go away.’

  ‘What else do the talkers say? A bit of fluff in the choir was there, Gaunt? You can tell me, I won’t eat you.’

  ‘I never heard.’

  ‘What did Bradfield think of him?’

  ‘How should I know? Ask Bradfield.’

  ‘Did he like him?’

  Gaunt’s face had darkened with disapproval.

  ‘I’ve no occasion to say,’ he snapped. ‘I don’t gossip about my superiors.’

  ‘Who’s Praschko? Praschko a name to you?’

  ‘There’s nothing else. I don’t know.’

  Turner pointed at the small pile of Leo’s possessions on the desk. ‘Take those up to the cypher room. I’ll need them later. And the press cuttings. Give them to the clerk and make him sign for them, understand? Whether you fancy him or not. And make a list of everything that’s missing. Everything he’s taken home.’

  He did not go immediately to Meadowes, but went outside and stood on the grass verge beside the car park. A veil of mist hung over the barren field and the traffic stormed like an angry sea. The Red Cross building was dark with scaffolding and capped by an orange crane: an oil rig anchored to the tarmac. The policemen watched him curiously, for he remained quite still and his eyes seemed to be trained upon the horizon, though the horizon was obscure. At last – it might have been in response to a command they did not hear – he turned and walked slowly back to the front steps.

  ‘You ought to get a proper pass,’ the weasel-faced sergeant said, ‘coming in and out all day.’

  Registry smelt of dust and sealing wax and printer’s ink. Meadowes was waiting for him. He looked haggard and deeply tired. He did not move as Turner came towards him, pushing his way between the desks and files, but watched him dully and with contempt.

  ‘Why did they have to send you?’ he asked. ‘Haven’t they got anyone else? Who are you going to wreck this time?’

  6

  The Memory Man

  They stood in a small sanctum, a steel-lined tank which served both as a strong-room and an office. The windows were barred twice over, once with fine mesh and once with steel rods. From the adjoining room came the constant shuffle of feet and paper. Meadowes wore a black suit. The edges of the lapels were studded with pins. Steel lockers like sentinels stood along the walls, each with a stencilled number and a combination lock.

  ‘Of all the people I swore I’d never see again –’

  ‘Turner was at the top of the list. All right. All right, you’re not the only one. Let’s get it over, shall we?’

  They sat down.

  ‘She doesn’t know you’re here,’ said Meadowes. ‘I’m not going to tell her you’re here.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘He met her a few times; there was nothing between them.’

  ‘I’ll keep away from her.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Meadowes. He did not speak to Turner, but past him, at the lockers. ‘Yes, you must.’

  ‘Try and forget it’s me,’ Turner said. ‘Take your time.’ For a moment his expression seemed to yield, as the shadows formed upon his plain complexion, until in its way his face was as old as Meadowes’, and as weary.

  ‘I’ll tell it you once,’ Meadowes said, ‘and that’s all. I’ll tell you all I know, and then you clear out.’

  Turner nodded.

  ‘It began with the Exiles Motoring Club,’ Meadowes said. ‘That’s how I met him really. I like cars, always have done. I’d bought a Rover, Three Litre, for retirement –’

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘A year. Yes, a year now.’

  ‘Straight from Warsaw?’

  ‘We did a spell in London in between. Then they sent me here. I was fifty-eight. I’d two more years to run and after Warsaw I reckoned I’d take things quietly. I wanted to look after her, get her right again –’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I don’t go out much as a rule but I joined this club, UK and Commonwealth it is mainly, but decent. I reckoned that would do us nicely: one evening a week, the rallies in the summer, get-togethers in the winter. I could take Myra, see; get her back into things, keep an eye on her. She wanted that herself, in the beginning. She was lost; she wanted company. I’m all she’s got.’

  ‘All right,’ Turner said.

  ‘They were a good lot when we joined, though it’s like any other club, of course, it goes up and down; depends who runs it. Get a good crowd in and you have a lot of fun; get a bad crowd, there’s jiving and all the rest.’

  ‘And Harting was big there, was he?’

  ‘You let me go at my own speed, right?’ Meadowes’ manner was firm and disapproving: a father corrects his son. ‘No. He was not big there, not at that time. He was a member there, that’s all, just a member. I shouldn’t think he showed up, not once in six meetings. Well, he didn’t belong really. After all he was a diplomat, and the Exiles isn’t meant for dips. Mid-November, we have the Annual General Meeting. Haven’t you go
t your black notebook then?’

  ‘November,’ Turner said, not moving, ‘The AGM. Five months ago.’

  ‘It was a funny sort of do really. Funny atmosphere. Karfeld had been on the go about six weeks and we were all wondering what would happen next, I think. Freddie Luxton was in the chair and he was just off to Nairobi; Bill Aintree was Social Secretary and they’d warned him for Korea, and the rest of us were in a flutter trying to elect new officers, get through the agenda and fix up the winter outing. That’s when Leo pipes up and in a way that was his first step into Registry.’

  Meadowes fell silent. ‘I don’t know what kind of fool I am,’ he said. ‘I just don’t know.’

  Turner waited.

  ‘I tell you: we’d never heard of him, not really, not as somebody keen on the Exiles. And he had this reputation, you see –’

  ‘What reputation?’

  ‘Well, they said he was a bit of a gypsy. Always on the fiddle. There was some story about Cologne. I didn’t fancy what I’d heard, to be frank, and I didn’t want him mixed up with Myra.’

  ‘What story about Cologne?’

  ‘Hearsay, that’s all it is. He was in a fight. A night-club brawl.’

  ‘No details?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Who else was there?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. Where was I?’

  ‘The Exiles, AGM.’

  ‘The winter outing. Yes. “Right,” says Bill Aintree. “Any suggestions from the floor?” And Leo’s on his feet straight away. He was about three chairs down from me. I said to Myra: “Here, what’s he up to?” Well, Leo had a proposal, he said. For the winter outing. He knew an old man in Königswinter who owned a string of barges, very rich and very fond of the English, he said; quite high in the Anglo-German. And this old fellow had agreed to lend us two barges and two crews to run the whole club up to Koblenz and back. As some kind of quid pro quo for a favour the British had done him in the Occupation. Leo always knew people like that,’ said Meadowes; and a brief smile of affection illuminated the sadness of his features. ‘There’d be covered accommodation, rum and coffee on the way and a big lunch when we got to Koblenz. Leo had worked the whole thing out; he reckoned he could lay it on at twenty-one marks eighty a head including drinks and a present for his friend.’ He broke off. ‘I can’t go any quicker, it’s not my way.’