by Len Deighton
As if on cue, Sir Giles then told three rambling anecdotes about his time in Whitehall. Coming near enough to indiscretion to keep our attention, he made sure no beans were spilled.
It was towards the end of this port and cigar sessions that Dicky got Sir Giles and George into a discussion about interest rates – no fashionable London dinner party being complete without an examination of the Treasury’s fiscal policy – and turning aside from it Posh Harry said to me, ‘Did you hear about your old buddy Kleindorf?’
‘No, what?’
‘Dead!’ He stopped. He must have seen how much the news affected me.
‘What happened?’
‘He overdosed. You saw him recently somebody told me.’
‘By mistake?’
‘Mistake? And followed it with a whole bottle of brandy just to make sure?’
‘Brandy?’
‘French vintage brandy, the best from his cellar. I suppose he figured he couldn’t take it with him.’
‘Poor old Rudi.’
‘He was old enough to have loyal friends both sides of the Wall. Not many people like that left. “Der grosse Kleiner” was the last of the Berlin old-timers,’ said Posh Harry.
‘Damn nearly,’ I said.
‘Who else is there? Lange you mean? He’s American. That old swine Rudi Kleindorf knew where the bodies are buried. And he’s taken his secrets to the grave, Bernard.’ He chewed a piece of water biscuit: Harry didn’t like cheese very much. ‘He never got over losing his son. And he went the same way: O.D. Holy cow! Where will all those dead-beats go, now that the Babylon is no more?’
‘Poor Rudi,’ I said again. ‘Why would he do that?’
‘I heard he was in trouble with the authorities.’
‘He was always in trouble with the authorities,’ I said.
‘His father was some kind of war hero. Name of Rudolf Freiherr von Kleindorf. Career officer. Made his name in the winter fighting on the Eastern Front. The first Panzer Army was chopping its way out of Tarnopol. One after another he carried three of his wounded joes to safety. Under fire the whole time: the Russkies should have dropped him but a blizzard made visibility tough for them. Recommended for the Knight’s Cross with diamonds or some damn trinket but he didn’t get one. Maybe that’s why the story went around and made him into a legend amongst the other ranks. An aristocratic Prussian officer who risks his life saving enlisted men has got everything going for him.’ He grinned. ‘Get saddled with a reputation like that and you’ve got to keep it up, right? I guess he was one of those brass-gutted guys who figure they’ll never get killed. We’ve known a few like that, eh Bernard?’
‘And?’
‘He was right. They often are, aren’t they? Kleindorf senior survived the war, and went to bat for his corps commander who was accused of war crimes. And darn it, he noticed that some desk-bound zombie in the war crimes commission had written “Australian Division” in the indictment instead of “Airborne Division” and Kleindorf senior got the charges thrown out of court on that technicality. A sharp cookie! They say that when Kleindorf attended any of those postwar veterans’ gatherings he was cheered to the echo for fifteen minutes. Rudi grew up in his father’s shadow: I guess the old man was a tough act to follow. That’s why he never mentioned anything about him.’
‘You know the devil of a lot about the Kleindorfs,’ I said.
‘I had to run a check on him a few years back. I went through all the files, including his dad’s. It was kind of fascinating.’
‘I see why Rudi wanted his son to go into the army.’
‘To keep up the family tradition, you mean? Yeah, I guess we are all a little inclined to have other people make up for the things we didn’t do for our folks, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ I said.
He didn’t press me, but when he next spoke he leaned forward slightly as if to emphasize the importance of what he said. ‘These krauts stick together, Bernard. You can’t be in Europe ten minutes without noticing that. We could learn from them. Right?’
I didn’t know what the hell he was getting at but I said, ‘You’re right, Harry.’ My brother-in-law George was watching Posh Harry with great interest. George was the only complete outsider there, but he knew that Harry had some sort of connection with the CIA. Harry had virtually told him so the first time they met. That was a time when Harry was very pushy; now he’d quietened a lot.
It was then that Dicky took his cigar from his mouth, blew a little smoke, looked at me and said, ‘Harry would like you to go for lunch with his people next week, Bernard.’
‘Is that so?’ I said and wondered why Posh Harry hadn’t proposed this culinary rendezvous himself. I looked at Harry. He was looking at Dicky.
Dicky said, ‘I said okay.’
‘Does that mean you’re going to lunch?’ I said.
Dicky smiled, ‘No, Bernard. They don’t want a rubber-stamp wallah like me: they want an ex-field man to sort out their worries.’ He ran the tip of a finger along his lips, wondering, I suppose, if I was going to respond in kind.
Perhaps I would have done except that Posh Harry hurriedly said, ‘We’d appreciate, Bernie, we really would.’
Streeply-Cox looked at me and sanctimoniously boomed, ‘We’ve got to cooperate as much as possible. It’s the only way; the only way.’ He brushed crumbs from his flowing white sideburns.
‘You took the words right out of my mouth, Sir Giles,’ I said.
‘Splendid, splendid,’ he replied.
Dicky jumped to his feet and said, ‘Methinks ’tis time we joined the ladies.’
When I entered the drawing room Daphne seemed to be demonstrating some dance step, but she stopped awkwardly as Dicky ushered the men in. Gloria was sitting next to Tessa and she looked up and winked as she met my eye. I went across to her as I knew I was expected to do. ‘Oh, Bernard,’ Gloria whispered. ‘Tessa wants us to go on with them to a lovely party. Can we go? Do say we can.’
‘When?’
‘Now. After this.’
I looked at my watch. ‘It will make a very late night by the time we get home.’
‘But we’re all dressed up aren’t we? Do let’s go.’
‘If you’d like to,’ I said.
‘They’re wonderful,’ said Gloria. ‘I love George and Tessa is so funny.’
‘That depends upon where you’re sitting,’ I said. ‘Do you know where this party is?’
‘George says we should go in his Rolls. There’s plenty of room.’
‘And leave the car here?’
‘I’ll come back and get it.’
‘And how would I get home? Walk?’
‘Don’t be so mean, Bernard. We can both come back and get it. Or we could get a cab home and come and get it in the morning.’
‘The meters start at eight-thirty.’
‘Can we go, Bernard, or can’t we?’
I looked at her. ‘I’d sooner go home right now with the most beautiful woman in the room.’
‘Do let’s go,’ said Gloria, who obviously was not in the mood to be flattered into doing what I wanted.
‘It sounds wonderful.’
‘I do love you, Bernard.’
‘You’re a horrible wheedling female,’ I said.
‘A Bavarian prince and princess!’
Oh my God, I thought, what have I let myself in for? But on the other hand it would provide another chance to talk to Tessa about that damned fur coat.
12
The prince and princess had their house in Pimlico, a corner of central London around which the Thames bends before getting to Westminster. When, long ago, Thomas Cubitt had finished selling large stucco-fronted houses with balconies to the rich of Belgravia, he built the same designs on the cheaper land of neighbouring Pimlico. Pimlico was said to be coming up: it still is. For it never became another Belgravia despite the similarity of its gardens, squares and grand-looking houses. It was, and to this day remains, an area of mixed fortunes: a
plight not assisted by the local government’s seemingly random arrangement of one-way streets and barriers which makes the district a notorious maze for motorists.
Cubitt’s large houses are now divided into cramped apartments, or as the adverts put it ‘studio flats’ and ‘roof terraces’. Seedy hotels and boarding houses with crudely lettered signs offer accommodation in convenient proximity to London’s only cross-country bus station and the busy Victoria railway terminal.
It was in one of the quieter streets of this region that our host had purchased a large house and refurbished it at considerable expense. It was, George explained to me while driving there, a shrewd investment. The sort of investment that he admired so many other German businessmen for making now that the Deutschmark was so highly valued. The prince would use the place for his visits to London, entertain his business associates there and save money on what it would cost him to do those same things in hotels and restaurants. Property prices in that area were certain to keep rising and the chances were that in twenty years he would end up with an excellent profit on his investment. This made me ask George why he himself had bought an apartment in Mayfair – London’s most expensive residential area – rather than do the same sort of thing.
‘Ah,’ replied George, ‘because I am the son of poor parents. I want to enjoy the pleasures that money can bring. I want to go home each night and sleep amongst the richest men in England. I need that reassurance.’ He chuckled.
‘It’s not true,’ said Tessa. ‘It’s my fault. We live in Mayfair because I wouldn’t go and live in Pimlico.’ We laughed. There was an obvious element of fact in what both of them said. But the truth behind the rationale was that childless Tessa and George had no one to make a good investment for. In the silence that followed, I wished I hadn’t asked him about house values.
All the nearby parking places were full, but we stayed with George while he parked his Rolls a block or so away. It was a cold night and the street lights tinted the empty streets with a grim blue that made it seem even colder. Entering the house brought a sudden change. The heated exertions of the guests, the bright lights, the crowded rooms, the warmth of the bodies and the noise and excitement were electrifying. And so was the idea of a drink.
It was a big party: perhaps a hundred people were drifting through the house laughing, chatting in loud confident voices and tipping back their drinks. In the largest room there were a dozen or so people dancing to the music of a small band and there was a buffet table with shellfish, smoked salmon and sliced beef being constantly replenished by waiters in white jackets. ‘This is how the other half live,’ said Gloria as we made our way to where our young and glamorous hostess was standing by the fireplace talking to a well-dressed bearded man who proved to be the caterer.
Gloria was right. Prince Joppi’s world was quite different to our more secret world, where, for various reasons, men drank and conversed with studied caution. Neither was this the ordinary world of supply and demand; it was a world of abundance. All around me there were the over-people: over-anxious, over-weight, over-bearing, over-educated, over-rated, over-weening, over-achievers, over-selling, overspending and over-producing. They ate and drank and noisily celebrated their good fortune. Never mind tomorrow, there would always be people like me and Fiona and Bartholomew H. Johnson to look after that.
The princess gave a welcoming smile as she caught sight of George and Tessa. She was petite and very slim with dark hair that was in that state of rat-tailed disorder that takes very expensive hairdressers many hours to arrange. Her makeup, specifically the way in which her eyes were elaborately painted with green, blue and black shadow, was stagy. Most striking of all was her dark suntan. Germany is a notably sunless land and there is a type of German for whom a sun-darkened skin is an essential status symbol no matter that health warnings advise against it.
The music stopped. The dancers waited to resume but the musicians put down their instruments and departed for refreshments. ‘Tessa, darling!’ said the princess as we got to her. They embraced in that perfunctory way that women do when they are wearing make-up and jewellery and have their hair done. ‘Promise me that you’ll never let George take my husband away again.’
‘Whatever did they do?’ said Tessa, a laugh in her voice as if the answer might be both shocking and entertaining.
‘That beastly scuba diving school. Joppi can’t talk about anything else, ever since they went there.’
‘But that was ages ago,’ said Tessa. ‘That was in Cannes.’
‘I know. I thought it would go the way of the oil painting and the computers: forgotten after a week or two, but Joppi has been absolutely demented…He’s bought all the equipment: air bottles and…I don’t know…Even books about it. He wants me to do it too but I can’t swim.’
‘Poor darling Ita,’ said Tessa with no hint of sincerity.
Further indicating her distress, the princess fanned herself, a mannerism more that of a schoolgirl than of a grown woman. ‘George,’ she said. ‘Do something to get Joppi out of the billiards room.’ To Tessa she petulantly added, ‘It’s always the same at parties; Joppi hides away in there and doesn’t help at all.’
Tessa said, ‘How lucky you are, Ita. George helps me and it’s absolute hell.’ George smiled and then said, ‘Let me introduce Gloria and Bernard my brother-in-law.’
‘Are you really Tessa’s brother?’
‘No, I’m married to her sister.’
‘And you are Gloria,’ said the princess somewhat condescendingly and smiled to show the sort of satisfaction women get from uncovering what might be illicit relationships.
After a few more pleasantries Tessa took Gloria under her wing and they disappeared together upstairs while George took me to meet our host in the billiards room. From George’s description I was expecting someone old and fat, a rotund wurst-gobbler likely to be found in a beerhall swaying to the melody of In München steht ein Hofbräuhaus – eins, zwei, gsuffa! But the prince turned out to be a tall thin sleek man of about thirty-five. A cosmopolitan tough guy who spoke English with no trace of an accent. Suntanned like his wife, he had unnaturally black hair that was shiny and brushed close to the skull. His dinner suit was conservatively cut by some expensive tailor. Like George and many of the other guests he wore it in the casual manner of men who spend a great deal of time in such costume.
He was standing by the marker drinking wine and studying the position of the cue ball. He looked up as we entered. ‘George!’ he said with what appeared to be genuine pleasure.
‘All alone?’ said George, ‘perhaps you’d prefer…’
‘No, George. I was hoping you would come.’ He snapped his cue into the rack with an excess of force, as a well drilled soldier might place his rifle somewhere close at hand.
George said, ‘This is Bernard, a very good friend despite being my brother-in-law.’
‘Brother-in-law and friend too!’ he said, grimacing in mock surprise. ‘That’s surely a tribute to the grace and generosity in both of you.’
As I went through the formalities the vague feeling of recognition snapped into focus. I’d seen the activities of this ‘playboy prince’ in some of the less serious German newspapers and magazines.
George said, ‘Quite a dressy crowd here tonight, Joppi.’
‘Not many real friends. They’re people my wife feels we owe favours or hospitality to,’ said Joppi, as if his wife was suffering a strange and troubling delusion; an affliction from which he hoped she’d eventually be released.
‘Ita tells me you’ve become an expert diver, Joppi,’ said George.
‘Yes, next time you’ll find I’m even better than you,’ said Joppi. ‘It is a matter of fitness, George. And practice.’ To ask any German to undersell such hard-earned achievements is to ask a great deal. ‘We spent Christmas in my brother’s beach home near Rio and the water was perfect. Now I’m good, damned good.’
‘Lucky man,’ said George.
‘You’re guests, and
not drinking,’ the prince said. ‘We must rectify that immediately.’ He smoothed his perfectly smooth jacket and began to move towards the door as if guessing that his wife had asked George to prise him out of the billiards room.
He snapped his fingers, German style, at the nearest waiter and conjured up drinks for us. But before I could get my hands on one Tessa – bright-eyed and smiling – had grabbed my arm. ‘First, you dance, Bernard. I insist.’
I hadn’t danced for so long that it required all my concentration not to tread on her toes, but soon I was managing well enough to try talking too. ‘When can I pop over for that fur coat?’
‘Joppi’s a lovely dancer isn’t he?’ Tessa said as if she’d not heard me.
I turned my head to see our host with Gloria gripped tightly in his arms. ‘Yes,’ I said.
‘I knew he would be interested in Gloria. She is just his type.’
‘But will Gloria find him interesting?’ I asked.
‘That doesn’t matter half so much,’ said Tessa. ‘He will find her interesting, and that’s what attracts any woman.’
I didn’t argue with her: probably she was right. I’d never understood women and had given up hope that I might ever do so. Anyway it would do no good to argue with Tessa. She handled her life in her own way and made no concessions to anyone, not even to her husband.
‘He’s like that,’ said Tessa. There was the hint of a joke in her tone. She was being provocative and made no secret of it. ‘He has quite a reputation with the ladies. He’ll prop osition her; you see if he doesn’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘You silly man!’
I steered her sharply round to avoid bumping into another couple and said, ‘When was that?’
‘Me and Joppi? He wanted me to leave George but that was just his machismo. He would have left me high and dry after a few months. I knew that.’
‘Does George know?’
‘There is nothing to know, darling.’ We danced without speaking for a little while and then Tessa said, ‘Gloria is awfully worried about you, darling.’
