A Small Town in Germany

by John le Carré

  ‘I don’t get the time,’ said Turner.

  ‘Nominally he heads something called the Ministry of the Interior Liaison Committee; I understand he chose the name himself. I asked him once: liaison with whom, Ludwig? He thought that was a great joke. He’s our age of course. Front generation minus five; slightly cross at having missed the war, I suspect, and can’t wait to grow old. He also flirts with the CIA, but that’s a status symbol here. His principal occupation is knowing Karfeld. When anyone wants to conspire with the Movement, Ludwig Siebkron lays it on. It is a bizarre life,’ he conceded, catching sight of Turner’s expression. ‘But Ludwig revels in it. Invisible Government: that’s what he likes. The fourth estate. Weimar would have suited him down to the ground. And you have to understand about the Government here: all the divisions are very artificial.’

  Compelled, apparently, by a single urge, the foreign correspondents had left their bar and were floating in a long shoal towards the centre table already prepared for them. A very large man, catching sight of de Lisle, pulled a long strand of black hair over his right eye, and extended his arm in a Nazi greeting. De Lisle lifted his glass in reply.

  ‘That’s Sam Allerton,’ he explained in an aside. ‘He really is rather a pig. Where was I? Artificial divisions. Yes. They absolutely bedevil us here. Always the same: in a grey world we reach frantically for absolutes. Anti-French, pro-French, Communist, anti-Communist. Sheer nonsense, but we do it time and again. That’s why we’re so wrong about Karfeld. So dreadfully wrong. We argue about definitions when we should be arguing about facts. Bonn will go to the gallows arguing about the width of the rope that hangs us. I don’t know how you define Karfeld; who does? The German Poujade? The middle-class revolution? If that’s what he is then we are ruined, I agree, because in Germany they’re all middle class. Like America: reluctantly equal. They don’t want to be equal, who does? They just are. Uniblood.’

  The waiter had brought the wine, and de Lisle pressed Turner to taste it. ‘I’m sure your palate is fresher than mine.’ Turner declined, so he sampled it himself, elaborately. ‘How very clever,’ he said appreciatively to the waiter. ‘How good.

  ‘All the smart definitions apply to him, every one, of course they do; they apply to anyone. Just like psychiatry: presume the symptoms and you can always find a name for them. He’s isolationist, chauvinist, pacifist, revanchist. And he wants a trade alliance with Russia. He’s progressive, which appeals to the German old, he’s reactionary, which appeals to the German young. The young are so puritanical here. They want to be cleansed of prosperity; they want bows and arrows and Barbarossa.’ He pointed wearily towards the Seven Hills. ‘They want all that in modern dress. No wonder the old are hedonistic. But the young –’ He broke off. ‘The young,’ he said, with deep distaste, ‘have discovered the cruellest of all truths: that the most effective way of punishing their parents is to imitate them. Karfeld is the students’ adopted grown-up … I’m sorry. This is my hobby-horse. Do tell me to shut up.’

  Turner appeared not to have heard. He was staring at the policemen who stood at intervals along the footpath. One of them had found a dinghy tethered under the bank, and he was playing with the sheet, swinging it round and round like a skipping rope.

  ‘They keep asking us in London: who are his supporters? Where does he get his money from? Define, define. What am I to tell them? “The man in the street,” I wrote once, “traditionally the most elusive social class.” They adore that kind of answer until it reaches Research Department. “The disenchanted,” I said, “the orphans of a dead democracy, the casualties of coalition government.” Socialists who think they’ve been sold out to conservatism, anti-Socialists who think they’ve been sold out to the reds. People who are just too intelligent to vote at all. Karfeld is the one hat that covers all their heads. How do you define a mood? God, they are obtuse. We get no instructions any more: just questions. I told them: “Surely you have the same kind of thing in England? It’s all the rage everywhere else.” And after all, no one suspected a world plot in Paris: why look for it here? Mood … ignorance … boredom.’ He leaned across the table. ‘Have you ever voted? I’m sure you have. What’s it like? Did you feel altered? Was it like Mass? Did you walk away ignoring everybody?’ De Lisle ate another oyster. ‘I think London has been bombed. Is that the answer? And you’re just a blind to cheer us up. Perhaps only Bonn is left. What a frightful thought. A world in exile. That’s what we are though. Inhabited by exiles, too.’

  ‘Why does Karfeld hate the British?’ Turner asked. His mind was far away.

  ‘That, I confess, is one of life’s unsolved mysteries. We’ve all tried our hand at it in Chancery. We’ve talked about it, read about it, argued about it. No one has the answer.’ He shrugged. ‘Who believes in motive these days, least of all in a politician? We did try to define that. Something we once did to him, perhaps. Something he once did to us. It’s the childhood impressions that last the longest they say. Are you married, by the way?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘My,’ said de Lisle admiringly, ‘you are prickly.’

  ‘What does he do for money?’

  ‘He’s an industrial chemist; he runs a big plant outside Essen. There’s a theory the British gave him a rough time during the Occupation, dismantled his factory and ruined his business. I don’t know how true it all is. We’ve attempted a certain amount of research but there’s very little to go on and Rawley, quite rightly, forbids us to enquire outside. God knows,’ he declared with a small shudder, ‘what Siebkron would think of us if we started that game. The press just says he hates us, as if it required no explanations. Perhaps they’re right.’

  ‘What’s his record?’

  ‘Predictable. Graduated before the war, drafted into the Engineers. Russian front as a demolitions expert; wounded at Stalingrad but managed to get out. The disillusionment of peace. The hard struggle and the slow build-up. All very romantic. The death of the spirit, the gradual revival. There are the usual boring rumours that he was Himmler’s aunt or something of the sort. No one pays them much heed; it’s a sign of arriving in Bonn these days, when the East Germans dig up an improbable allegation against you.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to it?’

  ‘There’s always something; there’s never enough. Anyway, it doesn’t impress anyone except us, so why bother? He came by degrees to politics, he says; he speaks of his years of sleep and his years of awakening. He has a rather Messianic turn of phrase, I fear, at least when he talks about himself.’

  ‘You’ve never met him, have you?’

  ‘Good God no. Just read about him. Heard him on the radio. He’s very present in our lives in some ways.’

  Turner’s pale eyes had returned to the Petersberg; the sun, slanting between the hills, glinted directly upon the windows of the grey hotel. There is one hill over there that is broken like a quarry; small engines, white with dust, shuffle at its feet.

  ‘You have to hand it to him. In six months he’s changed the whole galère. The cadre, the organisation, the jargon. They were cranks before Karfeld; gypsies, wandering preachers, Hitler’s risen, all that nonsense. Now they’re a patrician, graduate group. No shirt-sleeved hordes for him, thank you; none of your socialist nonsense, apart from the students, and he’s very clever about tolerating them. He knows what a narrow line there is between the pacifist who attacks the policeman and the policeman who attacks the pacifist. But for most of us Barbarossa wears a clean shirt and has a doctorate in chemical engineering. Herr Doktor Barbarossa, that’s the cry these days. Economists, historians, statisticians … above all, lawyers, of course. Lawyers are the great German gurus, always have been; you know how illogical lawyers are. But not politicians: politicians aren’t a bit respectable. And for Karfeld, of course, they smack far too much of representation; Karfeld doesn’t want anyone representing him, thank you. Power without rule, that’s the cry. The right to know better, the right not to be responsible. It’
s the end, you see, not the beginning,’ he said, with a conviction quite disproportionate to his lethargy. ‘Both we and the Germans have been through democracy and no one’s given us credit for it. Like shaving. No one thanks you for shaving, no one thanks you for democracy. Now we’ve come out the other side. Democracy was only possible under a class system, that’s why: it was an indulgence granted by the privileged. We haven’t time for it any more: a flash of light between feudalism and automation, and now it’s gone. What’s left? The voters are cut off from parliament, parliament is cut off from the Government and the Government is cut off from everyone. Government by silence, that’s the slogan. Government by alienation. I don’t need to tell you about that; it’s a British product.’

  He paused, expecting Turner to make some further interjection but Turner was still lost in thought. At their long table, the journalists were arguing. Someone had threatened to hit someone else; a third was promising to bang their heads together.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m defending. Or what I’m representing; who does? “A gentleman who lies for the good of his country,” they told us with a wink in London. “Willingly,” I say. “But first tell me what truth I must conceal.” They haven’t the least idea. Outside the Office, the poor world dreams we have a book bound in gold with POLICY written on the cover … God, if only they knew.’ He finished his wine. ‘Perhaps you know? I am supposed to obtain the maximum advantage with the minimum of friction. What do they mean by advantage? Perhaps we should go into decline. Perhaps we need a Karfeld? A new Oswald Mosley? I’m afraid we would barely notice him. The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s apathy. Apathy is our daily bread here. Hysterical apathy. Have some more Moselle.’

  ‘Do you think it’s possible,’ Turner said, his gaze still upon the hill, ‘that Siebkron already knows about Harting? Would that make them hostile? Would that account for the extra attention?’

  ‘Later,’ de Lisle said quietly. ‘Not in front of the children if you don’t mind.’

  The sun landed upon the river, lighting it from nowhere like a great gold bird, spreading its wings over the whole valley, frisking the water’s surface into the light-hearted movements of a new spring day. Ordering the boy to bring two of his nicest brandies to the tennis garden, de Lisle picked his way elegantly between the empty tables to the side door. At the centre of the room the journalists had fallen silent; sullen with drink, slumped in their leather chairs, they gracelessly awaited the stimulus of new political catastrophe.

  ‘Poor old thing,’ he observed as they entered the fresh air. ‘What a bore I’ve been. Do you get this wherever you go? I suppose we all unburden our hearts to the stranger, do we? And do we all finish up like little Karfelds? Is that it? Middle-class patriotic anarchists? How awfully dreary for you.’

  ‘I’ve got to see his house,’ Turner said. ‘I’ve got to find out.’

  ‘You’re out of court,’ de Lisle replied evenly. ‘Ludwig Siebkron’s got it picketed.’

  It was three o’clock; a white sun had broken through the clouds. They sat in the garden under beach umbrellas, sipping their brandy and watching the diplomatic daughters volley and laugh in the wet, red clay of the tennis courts.

  ‘Praschko, I suspect, is a baddie,’ de Lisle declared. ‘We used to have him on the books long ago, but he went sour on us.’ He yawned. ‘He was quite dangerous in his day; a political pirate. No conspiracy was complete without him. I’ve met him a few times; the English still bother him. Like all converts, he does hanker for the lost loyalties. He’s a Free Democrat these days; or did Rawley tell you? That’s a home for lost causes if ever there was one; they’ve got some very weird creatures over there.’

  ‘But he was a friend.’

  ‘You are innocent,’ de Lisle said drowsily. ‘Like Leo. We can know people all our lives without becoming friends. We can know people five minutes and they’re our friends for life. Is Praschko so important?’

  ‘He’s all I’ve got,’ said Turner. ‘He’s all I’ve got to go on. He’s the only person I’ve heard of who knew him outside the Embassy. He was going to be best man at his wedding.’

  ‘Wedding? Leo?’ De Lisle sat bolt upright, his composure gone.

  ‘He was engaged long ago to someone called Margaret Aickman. They seem to have known one another in Leo’s pre-Embassy days.’

  De Lisle fell back in apparent relief.

  ‘If you’re thinking of approaching Praschko –’ he said.

  ‘I’m not, don’t worry; that’s one message I have got.’ He drank. ‘But someone tipped Leo off. Someone did. He went mad. He knew he was living on borrowed time and he took whatever he could get his hands on. Anything. Letters, files … and when he finally ran for it, he didn’t even bother to apply for leave.’

  ‘Rawley wouldn’t have granted it; not in this situation.’

  ‘Compassionate leave; he’d have got that all right, it was the first thing Bradfield thought of.’

  ‘Did he pinch the trolley too?’

  Turner did not answer.

  ‘I suppose he helped himself to my nice electric fan. He’ll need that in Moscow for sure.’ De Lisle leaned even further back into his chair. The sky was quite blue, the sun as hot and intense as if it came through glass. ‘If this keeps up, I’ll have to get a new one.’

  ‘Someone tipped him off,’ Turner insisted. ‘It’s the only explanation. He panicked. That’s why I thought of Praschko, you see: he’s got a left-wing past. Fellow-traveller was Rawley’s term. He was old chums with Leo; they’d even spent the war together in England.’ He stared at the sky.

  ‘You’re going to advance a theory,’ de Lisle murmured. ‘I can hear it ticking.’

  ‘They come back to Germany in forty-five; do some army service; then part. They go different ways: Leo stays British and covers that target, Praschko goes native and gets himself mixed up in German politics. They’d be a useful pair, those two, as long-term agents, I must say. Maybe they were both at the same game … recruited by the same person back in England when Russia was the ally. Gradually they run down their relationship. That’s standard, that is. Not safe to associate any more … bad security to have our names linked; but they keep it up; keep it up in secret. Then one day Praschko gets word. Just a few weeks ago. Out of the blue perhaps. He hears it on the Bonn grapevine you’re all so proud of: Siebkron’s on the trail. Some old trace has come up; someone’s talked; we’re betrayed. Or maybe they’re only after Leo. Pack your bags, he says, take what you can and run for it.’

  ‘What a horrid mind you must have,’ de Lisle said luxuriously. ‘What a nasty, inventive mind.’

  ‘The trouble is, it doesn’t work.’

  ‘Not really, does it? Not in human terms. I’m glad you recognise that. Leo wouldn’t panic, that’s not his way. He had himself much under control. And it sounds very silly, but he loved us. Modestly, he loved us. He was our kind of man, Alan. Not theirs. He expected dreadfully little from life. Pit pony. That’s how I used to think of him in those wretched ground-floor stables. Even when he came upstairs, he seemed to bring a bit of the dark with him. People thought of him as jolly. The jolly extrovert …’

  ‘No one I’ve talked to thought he was jolly.’

  De Lisle turned his head and looked at Turner with real interest.

  ‘Didn’t they? What a horrifying thought. Each of us thought the other was laughing. Like clowns at the tragedy. That’s very nasty,’ he said.

  ‘All right,’ Turner conceded. ‘He wasn’t a believer. But he might have been when he was younger, mightn’t he?’

  ‘Might.’

  ‘Then he goes to sleep … his conscience goes to sleep, I mean –’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Until Karfeld wakes him up again – the new Nationalism … the old enemy. … Wakes him with a bang. “Hey, what’s going on?” He saw it all happening again; he told people that: history repeating itself.’

  ‘Was it really Marx who said that: “History repeats itself, bu
t the first time it’s tragedy, and the second time it’s comedy?” It seems far too witty for a German. Though I will admit: Karfeld does make Communism awfully inviting.’

  ‘What was he like?’ Turner insisted. ‘What was he really like?’

  ‘Leo? God, what are any of us like?’

  ‘You knew him. I didn’t.’

  ‘You won’t interrogate me, will you?’ he asked, not altogether as a joke. ‘I’m damned if I’ll buy you lunch for you to unmask me.’

  ‘Did Bradfield like him?’

  ‘Who does Bradfield like?’

  ‘Did he keep a close eye on him?’

  ‘On his work, no doubt, where it was relevant. Rawley’s a professional.’

  ‘He’s Roman Catholic too, isn’t he?’

  ‘My goodness,’ de Lisle declared with quite unexpected vehemence, ‘what an awful thing to say. You really mustn’t compartmentalise people like that, it won’t do. Life just isn’t made up of so many cowboys and so many Red Indians. Least of all diplomatic life. If that’s what you think life is, you’d better defect yourself.’ With this he threw back his head and closed his eyes, letting the sun restore him. ‘After all,’ he added, his equability quite revived, ‘that’s what you object to in Leo, isn’t it? He’s gone and attached himself to some silly faith. God is dead. You can’t have it both ways, that would be too medieval.’ He lapsed once more into a contented silence.

  ‘I have a particular vision of Leo,’ he said at last. ‘Here’s something for your little notebook. What do you make of this? One gorgeous winter afternoon, I’d been to a boring German conference and it was half past four and I’d nothing much to do, so I took myself for a drive up into the hills behind Godesberg. Sun, frost, a bit of snow, a bit of wind … it was how I imagine ascending into Heaven. Suddenly, there was Leo. Indisputably, unquestionably, positively Leo, shrouded to the ears in Balkan black, with one of those dreadful Homburg hats they wear in the Movement. He was standing at the edge of a football field watching some kids kicking a ball and smoking one of those little cigars everyone complained about.’