by Bill James
‘Is that to do with your work?’ Inge said.
‘What?’
‘Not answering questions,’ Inge said.
‘Naughton,’ Mount replied. ‘Stanley Charles Naughton. It’s no secret, not at all. Why should it be?’
‘I don’t know why it should be,’ Olga said.
‘Germany today does not like people with secrets,’ Inge said. ‘Sometimes, the government will send officers to find out people’s secrets. It’s best not to have any.’
‘I agree,’ Mount said. ‘Whether it’s in Germany or elsewhere.’
‘Elsewhere, secrets might be all right,’ Olga said. ‘Not here.’
‘I’ll remember that,’ Mount said.
Not long after they had gone, someone knocked at the apartment door. A man’s voice called: ‘Naughton? Delivery.’
Mount checked through the judas hole. A couple of elderly, manageable-looking men in dungarees stood there alongside a birch and metal armchair. He opened the door. They brought the furniture in, carrying it in an unidolatrous, waist-level way, very different from Inge and Olga, and as if a chair were only a chair. They put it down near the one the girls had placed there yesterday evening. In London, Section must have passed on Mount’s note about the disintegration of the original to Overseas Accommodation and Equipment. Perhaps they had complained to the manufacturer or the seller. Now came a replacement. ‘You are very fond of this kind of armchair?’ one of the men said, looking around the living room and counting.
‘I do a lot of entertaining,’ Mount said. ‘In the way of business.’
‘It’s good to be comfortable. Our instructions were to ask the caretaker to open the apartment if it was unoccupied. But fortunately you are here.’
‘Yes. Here I am. It is fortunate.’ And it was: Overseas Accommodation and Equipment wouldn’t have known he’d be in residence. It was an on-the-quiet visit, after all. He tipped the men and they left.
On previous stays in Berlin, he’d noticed a high-quality furniture shop near the Steglitz town hall, and he walked there during the afternoon to ask if they’d come and take the newest chair away. They could have it free. It seemed the simplest, least bothersome way of dealing with the glut. When he reached the shop, though, he found it closed down. A yellow star had been stuck on the window alongside a notice saying the business had temporarily ceased trading but would reopen shortly under new ownership. He went to a hardware store and bought a good sized screwdriver, a shifting spanner and a saw. He wanted to make the job easier this time. In the evening, he dismantled the fifth and newest chair and, as previously, disposed of the pieces in others’ refuse bins. He felt it would have been cruel to treat Toulmin’s and the girls’ chair like that. ‘Unromantic’, to use Toulmin’s word.
THREE
‘I saw your lights from the street, Stanley, so I thought you might be here.’
‘Well, yes,’ Mount said. He’d been reading the Völkischer Beobachter newspaper – the People’s Observer – when she rang the doorbell. It reported the likely invitation to the Führer from Britain’s king Edward VIII and Wallis, his consort, to make a London state visit early in 1939. The half column piece said the Führer would be inclined to regard the invitation favourably. The paper ought to know. His party ran it. Mount felt totally sure that, if the abdication had gone through, as had seemed more or less certain for a while at the end of ’36, there would have been no possibility of such an offer to dear Adolf from Eddie’s successor. Actually, Mount had heard that Edward liked to be called by one of his other first names – David. Certainly not Eddie. As SB had said, the king and Wallis were very fond of Europe, and Adolf was a notable part of Europe.
‘I wondered if you had seen him,’ she said. ‘Or even if he might be here.’
‘Toulmin? Well, no, he hasn’t returned. Not since you three brought the chair, and so on.’
‘I worry about him.’
‘But it’s only been a week.’ Mount was worried about him, too, though. He might have started those Russian inquiries and, as they’d agreed, these could be ‘delicate’.
‘Usually, he comes to see me or Inge every few days, never more than three. It’s necessary for him – his health. He gets congested.’
‘That can be very nasty.’
‘The way he’s built. Not tall. Stuff can build up. It has been made worse by the incident with the chair. Not immediate, obvious injuries, but his ribs. I feel some guilt. He was underneath. It had seemed quite a natural celebration at the time.’
‘Undoubtedly. So he hasn’t appeared lately?’
‘Not since that same night you spoke of. But perhaps, as you say, it’s not important.’
‘I think he might be busy,’ Mount said. They talked in German.
‘Yes, perhaps.’ But it was clear Olga didn’t think much of his reply. Not quite a frown and not quite a grimace took over her face for half a second. ‘I would like to explain,’ she said and put patience into her voice, like a teacher to a dullish pupil. ‘You speak German very well, yes, almost like a German, but this does not mean you know everything about our country.’
He thought he probably knew more about her country than she realized, and more about some aspects of it than herself, but he said: ‘No, indeed. I am only a temporary visitor, and my interests are narrow – are concentrated in a particular commercial area. This is why it is so helpful to meet German friends such as you and Inge. From you I can learn things about Germany that I might not otherwise discover. You widen my view, and I’m grateful.’
‘In our country at present, Stanley, if someone stops doing what he usually does, such as a regular meeting, and a necessary meeting for his well-being, you have to begin to wonder about him – about what has happened to him. This is a man who often seemed very nervous. I don’t know if you noticed that.’
‘Nervous? No.’
She waved a hand, as if to knock this objection and denial into a corner somewhere to be eaten by the cat. ‘In our country at present, if people seem nervous, there is usually a reason for this. Events make people nervous. People fear that such events may happen to them. This causes nervousness.’
‘It would.’
‘Events occur quite often now.’
‘I see.’
‘Events of a particular kind,’ she said. ‘Obviously, there have always been events. But events now are different.’
‘This is the kind of thing where I would need your guidance.’
‘You won’t see anything about such events in the newspaper you were reading, but these events take place all the same. We have to ask whether through carelessness or over-boldness he has put himself into circumstances where he might suffer such bad events.’
‘Toulmin?’
‘We like him, both of us. It’s not just the payments.’
‘I like him, also.’
‘He is your business colleague.’
‘Yes, business, but also a friend,’ Mount said.
‘He is a man who has enough money to see us in an active manner quite often, but who also worried about your chair. This is not always the case with men. Some would regard the chair’s collapse as of no concern to them, or even amusing, or a proof of their manly force, despite inner, chronic congestion. It is the type of thing they might talk about to their friends with a guffaw. No tact.’
‘Yes, he is kindly. I don’t regard him as of the guffawing sort. He definitely has never guffawed to me.’
‘He is generous. But, I would say again, it is not just the fees and gifts at festivals and other holidays, especially Easter.’
‘No.’
‘We feel a bond.’
‘I can see how that would come about,’ Mount said.
‘We thought that, because he is a business colleague, you might know where his workplace is, and you could, perhaps, telephone to see if he is in his office – merely to find if he is well. We think his job would be in an office because of the fine clothes he wears, and his hands are soft. Or you m
ight know where he lives. You could inquire there. It would be quite natural for you to telephone his office or his home and say, “This is Stanley Charles Naughton, and I would like to speak to Mr Samuel Toulmin, please, if he is there. I am a colleague.” We don’t know where he works, or his home. This is quite usual about the men we see. It’s how they prefer things to be. They do not want us to get in touch with them. It has to be the other way. That is, they get in touch with us, usually through the Toledo. To approach his place of work or his home would not be right for Inge or me, even if we knew where they were. Parts of people’s lives have to be kept separate in some cases. This is what is known as tact and proper procedure. We are from a certain side of life. For instance, he might be married, or living with his aged mother, and it would be wrong to inconvenience her. Are you married?’
‘No. And my mother spends most of the year in Cannes.’ The second part was untrue. His mother spent most of the year in Italy. He wanted to seem friendly and conversational and informative, though not tense about Toulmin. But never overdo truth. That advice did not come from a training manual; Mount had worked it out for himself. Perhaps he’d write a training manual himself when he retired and, if so, he’d include the warning about excessive truth. In this trade you soon learned that truth could come back and bite you, even what seemed inconsequential truth. Don’t believe that Keats windbaggery about truth being beauty and vice versa. Truth could be ugly and murderous. A careful mix of some truth and lies usually served well to keep you out of reach, as long as you could remember which was the truth and which the lies. Mount thought he usually could. Some said that human and animal intelligence could be measured according to the ability to tell differences between things. Pretty often Mount could tell the difference between truth and lies; his own, that is. It was a kind of flair.
They drank tea. Olga had called on him at the apartment in the early evening, probably before she went to work. The demolition of the laminated birch and metal chair might become one of those trivial incidents that could by ludicrous misfortune threaten the security of an operation, and his own. Although SB would probably not object to Mount and Toulmin bringing girls back once to the apartment, he would be very perturbed to know they’d turned up for a second night, and that one of them had now come back again, and with a difficult request.
Well, SB wouldn’t know – or not from Mount, at least.
‘Which business is your business, and your colleague’s?’ Olga said. ‘Or is this another of those questions you do not answer?’ She had on a long, navy blue, admiral-style greatcoat over a scarlet low-cut blouse and tight black skirt.
‘Yes, I could certainly do some asking round and about concerning Toulmin,’ Mount replied.
‘It might be nothing at all, or that he is ill. Or requires someone new. There’s a French phrase for this: “Avoir besoin d’un changement.”’ She said it in squeaky French, then resumed in German. ‘To need a change. Men can be like that. Excuse me – I speak in general. Men in general, as a species, not necessarily you.’
‘Yes, I suppose so,’ Mount said. She’d be about twenty-two and seemed young for such big insights and sexual finesse. He thought she must have briefed herself very thoroughly, preparing her material well into the afternoon.
‘We would not regard it as disloyal if he went somewhere else. He might have decided he wants unusual, spicy activities from a girl. Or what he would regard as unusual and spicy. We could offer that, yes, but if things have always gone in a certain fashion with us he perhaps thinks this is all we wish to do, and he would look somewhere else now and then for novelty and bodily adventure. Although he and I broke the chair together, despite its metal legs, he might like something even more unusual than that. I believe your country has a saying: “A change is as good as a rest.”’ For that, she switched to English momentarily. ‘This may be very true. The same sort of view as the French.’ She gazed at Mount, her squarish, broad nosed face alight with reasonableness. He saw worry there as well, though. She seemed to feel a responsibility for Toulmin – in the conditions of ‘our country at present’. She was emotionally advanced and various. Maybe jubilant annihilation of the chair showed only one strand of her character. Inge might be equally serious.
‘It’s good of you both to feel so . . . well . . . tolerant about where he chooses to go,’ Mount said.
‘If you should find him, please say we can do anything he chooses. Anything. Pain infliction is by no means excluded if wanted – and only if wanted – and imprisonment by rope or chain. Location on the body for pain entirely the client’s choice, as in an à la carte menu. Because you are friends, he will not object that such a personal matter comes from you. We could make suggestions to him in a creative sense. He should not regard Inge and me as limited or merely traditional. And Inge has certain extra amusing accessories, humane, not ugly, hygienic and laboratory tested.’
‘I’ll mention that.’
‘Do these interest you?’
‘What?’
‘Accessories.’
‘Thanks, but I’m going to be very taken up with business.’
She rose to go. They had been sitting in the birch and metal armchairs. She looked around. ‘A beautiful room,’ she said. ‘The four chairs – this number is exactly suitable.’
‘I think so.’
‘Three was not right. The room lacked . . . lacked spirit. But now, a delightful wholeness.’
‘Yes.’ What about five?
‘Great care should be taken when it is a matter of chairs in a room.’
‘Great care.’ He walked with her to the apartment door. ‘I think it would be best if you and Inge let me do all the searching for him.’
‘Oh, why is that?’
Because if something bad had happened to Toulmin they shouldn’t risk showing they’d known him well and often. There might be a search out for his acquaintances. Something bad could happen to them, too. Some of those ‘events’ could happen. That’s how the system worked in her country at present. Did she understand that dangerous concept, ‘guilt by association’? ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it would be best if I looked for him solo.’
‘Is there something unusual about your kind of business, and his?’ she said.
‘Unusual in which way?’
‘Yes, unusual.’
‘Businesses do have some unusual aspects, certainly,’ Mount said. ‘All kinds of businesses.’
‘Which kind of business is yours?’
‘Every business is ultimately about buying and selling.’
‘I’m a business,’ she said. ‘Men come to buy, and if the price they offer is a fair one, I sell. I sell some of my time, and so on.’
‘That isn’t how Sam Toulmin and I think of you. Or Inge.’
‘You have some of that quality I mentioned – tact. And your business? What is it you buy or sell?’
‘Some travel is often involved in commerce,’ Mount replied.
‘Is it strange to have lights on so early? Is this meant to say you are here, or will soon be here, as it said that to me? Also for him? Perhaps it is not so easy for you to be in touch, after all.’
‘And I know where to find you – the Toledo bar,’ Mount said. ‘I’ll come and report anything I discover. But, of course, he might have returned to see you or Inge himself before then, on account of his congestion, and, because, more than that, I’m sure he enjoys seeing you very much.’
‘You don’t like me visiting here, for fear of your neighbours forming an opinion? Yet, this call might be only to do with simple business details. I am a business, as we’ve just found out. Nothing has been bought or sold today, it’s true, but I always have with me what can be sold, always, so this could have been a simple business matter.’ She pulled the big coat around her, concealing the other clothes, as if to indicate that a business woman should be ready for all conditions, all weathers. A coat like this would be good for concealing some of Inge’s accessories when visiting as a pair to cope with special
tastes.
Olga left. Mount heard the lift come up and then descend. Almost as soon as the noise of it stopped, he found he wanted to go after her and repeat that neither she nor Inge should try to find Toulmin. Olga had seemed casual about his advice. ‘Oh, why is that?’ she’d said in reply, as if he’d need to prove it would be dangerous, and hadn’t proved it so far. Mount felt a duty to emphasize this warning. If he ran after her now in the street she would realize how anxious he must be. Although she knew something of what her country was like at present, she might not know thoroughly enough what her country was like at present. On the other hand, he, the professional, was paid to know what her country was like at present, and he had been expertly trained to discover what this and other countries were like at present and to record fully how they were.
The girls should not make themselves noticeable by seeking information on Toulmin, in case his absence did result from . . . from something dark. As her country was at present, it had become easy to make one’s self noticeable in it. He felt protective, just as Olga seemed protective of Toulmin. People were drawn together for reciprocal help when a country was like her country was at present. And he believed his attitude to be simple, genuine worry about her and Inge’s safety. It was, wasn’t it? Was it? Of course, if they started getting attention themselves from the authorities because, connected with Toulmin, they might also supply a link to this apartment and to Mount, as Stanley Charles Naughton . . .
Despite Olga’s queries just now on the lights as signals, and the nature of the business, she and Inge would have no real cause to think the apartment secret, nor Stanley Charles Naughton secret. Hadn’t he told them his name was not confidential? Even without pressure they might talk about it and him, though; if they were pulled in as suspicious, there probably would be pressure.
But this concern for the apartment and himself came only second to his concern for the girls personally, didn’t it? Didn’t it? Did it? He hoped so. His thinking would be dismally selfish – dismally and ruthlessly job-based – otherwise. And damn cowardly.
