Artillery of Lies

by Derek Robinson

Not that Domenik ever seemed depressed by anything. To him the war was one long black comedy, the source of endless jokes. He even managed to make Christian laugh at a story about von Ribbentrop, the Foreign Minister of the Third Reich. “Old friend goes to see Ribbentrop at the Ministry,” Domenik said, “but the building is empty! He goes from room to room, knocking on doors, until finally he knocks on the last door and Ribbentrop opens it, stark naked except for a hat. The old friend says, ‘Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?’ and Ribbentrop says, ‘Why should I? Hitler never wants to see me anymore.’ And the old friend says, ‘Then why are you wearing a hat?’ And Ribbentrop says, ‘Well, you never know; he might.’ ”

  It perfectly encapsulated Ribbentrop’s vanity, stupidity and irrelevance, and Christian enjoyed it. “How on earth do you find them?” he asked.

  “Oh, you know,” Domenik said. “It goes with the job.”

  “I can’t believe that this is your whole job, collecting jokes.”

  “Actually my real job is as a sort of freebooting liaison officer.” Domenik could see that Christian was not entirely satisfied, so he added, “Some people need to have their imaginations stimulated; don’t you find that? Well, I’m free to go around thinking the unthinkable.” He paused a moment to see how this went down. “And sometimes also to speak to the unspeakable.”

  “But who do you report to?”

  “Posterity. Like all of us.”

  Christian realized he wasn’t going to discover anything more, and he changed the subject. But he thought about what Domenik had said, and the next time they met he asked for advice. “We’ve been having some problems with one of our agents abroad. Not so much with that agent as with one of his sub-agents, so to speak.”

  “Eldorado and Garlic”

  “Ah.” Christian stroked his beard. “I should have known that you would have known.”

  “I also know how to shut up about what I know.”

  “Glad to hear it. Anyway, you understand the problem. We’ve taken action to eliminate Garlic, which ought to be the end of the matter. But I can’t help thinking …” Christian picked up a pencil and held it at arm’s length to read the lettering on it. “I mean, it makes you think.”

  “Think aloud,” Domenik said.

  “Well … the trouble with Garlic is he was just too bad to be true. If we could see all the contradictions and anomalies in his reports, then Eldorado should have spotted them too. In fact, Eldorado should have noticed them at the time. So why didn’t he?”

  “Busy man. Lots of other sub-agents to handle.”

  Christian made skeptical sounds in the back of his throat. “You don’t know how meticulous this man is. He’s painstakingly correct. If he makes a mistake he reports it. I remember he once identified a new shoulder-flash with the letters CLB as Canadian Low-flying Bombardiers. Later he corrected it to Church Lads’ Brigade. He doesn’t care if he looks foolish as long as we get the truth.”

  “With one exception,” Domenik said.

  “That’s what worries me. Either Eldorado was unbelievably careless, or …”

  “Or what?”

  “Well, there are various possibilities, aren’t there?”

  “Are there?” Domenik was enjoying this. “Tell me some.”

  Christian hunched his shoulders defensively. “Maybe Eldorado spotted the contradictions and actually told us he wasn’t altogether happy about Garlic but his report went astray.”

  “I see. And when he got no response, he said to himself, ‘Oh well, they don’t care what rubbish they get from Garlic, so I’ll send them some more.’ Right?”

  Christian sighed and let his shoulders slump. “Have you any thoughts, Stefan?”

  “A few. I’m told that Garlic is a Venezuelan medical student, which makes him a bit wild, like all medical students, and a bit reckless, like all Venezuelans. What’s more, this isn’t his war, he doesn’t care who wins, he’s going back to Venezuela soon, and he’s only doing this spying because he needs the money, like every other medical student who gets drunk seven nights a week.”

  “So he’s the joker in the pack.”

  “Bullseye.”

  “Still doesn’t explain Eldorado.”

  “Maybe Eldorado gets a kick out of playing the joker.”

  Christian puzzled over that. “Explain, please.”

  “Try this on for size. I know two things about your Mr. Eldorado. He works like hell, and safety bores him.”

  “Absolute safety, yes. But that’s true of all agents, surely.”

  “The difference is that Eldorado has a sense of humor. Perhaps he’s been using Garlic as his safety valve. When he gets tired of working a sixteen-hour day, running his network, he rewards himself by having a little fun. Half of everything Garlic sends him is nonsense, he knows that, but occasionally, just for a treat, he passes a little bit of nonsense on to the Abwehr, to see if he can get away with it. I used to know an actor like that. In the middle of a long run in Goethe’s Faust, he’d be thundering out some great gloomy speech and he’d slip in a couple of lines from Schiller’s Maria Stuart, simply to see if anybody noticed.”

  “And did anybody?”

  “If they did, they never said so.”

  “Hmm.” Christian scratched his head: occasionally the scar still itched. “If Eldorado has been slipping wrong stuff into Garlic’s reports, just for fun, that would really be something to worry about.” To Domenik’s surprise he moved to an open part of the room, dropped to the floor and began doing press-ups, smoothly and easily. After twenty-three he paused, arms extended, and stared at the pattern of the carpet.

  “I can hear you worrying in double-time,” Domenik said.

  Christian sat on his haunches and dusted his hands. “Even if Garlic was being used by the SD,” he said, “and we’re still assuming he was … even so, Eldorado must have known that Garlic was cheating, and cheating badly, so he must have known that we would find out, sooner or later. Which means that either he didn’t care, or …”

  “Or he wanted you to find out,” Domenik said. “I told you I was here to think the unthinkable.”

  “But that’s preposterous.”

  “The unthinkable usually is, otherwise you could have thought of it yourself. That’ll be five marks. Pay the cashier, please.”

  Harry Conroy had told Julie—back in the days when they were married in fact as well as by law—that Liverpool was like Hoboken with warm beer. She didn’t know much about Hoboken beyond its position on the New Jersey waterfront, facing Manhattan, but what little she knew was discouraging. On the other hand Harry had gone to Liverpool to cover a story that promptly died, so he was prejudiced. Harry judged a place by the size of the story he got out of it. “Cincinnati!” he once said. “I love that town!” Meaning he got five thousand words describing some squalid political bribery. Julie had visited Cincinnati, and lovely it was not. So she tried to keep an open mind about Liverpool, and when she went for a walk after breakfast she found that, far from being Hoboken with warm beer, it was more like Manhattan with bomb damage. There was the same jostling urgency, the same sense that tomorrow was too late, the same crackling humor. The streets were thick with uniforms, and the docks were packed with merchant ships and their escort vessels. This was the headquarters of Western Approaches, the British naval command area that was fighting the Battle of the Atlantic, and there was a constant turnaround of convoys.

  Before ten o’clock Julie had been propositioned by a very young seaman in the US Navy. She smiled back when he caught her eye. “You’re American,” he said. She asked how he knew. “Terrific teeth,” he said. “No Britisher could have teeth like that. Also the hair and the eyes and the legs.” He was twenty, from Sioux City, Iowa, and he had never seen the sea until he joined the navy. Now he was part of a gun crew on a destroyer. They strolled together, he asked for a date and she dumped him as gently as possible. It was nice to be asked.

  She did some shopping and walked back to the hotel. Luis was in
the lounge, reading The Times. All the other daily papers lay scattered around him. “You’re late,” he said, not looking up.

  “I didn’t say when I’d be back,” she said, “so go jump in the lake.”

  “Freddy’s been looking for you.” He turned a page. “You were wrong about the weather.” Rain pecked the windows.

  “Look: as long as we’re on this thrilling trip together, how about making a supreme effort and being slightly civil?”

  Luis grunted.

  “There’s a spot on your nose, your flies are unbuttoned and your socks are inside-out. Otherwise you’re perfect.” She picked up her parcels. “I hope you and your ego are very, very happy together.”

  When she came down from her room, Freddy was waiting. “I thought we might take a tram,” he said. “Great Liverpool institution, the trams. Besides, we’ll never get a taxi in this weather. Ready?”

  “We’ve got a car,” Luis said. They had driven up from Hertfordshire.

  “Being serviced.”

  Freddy had two umbrellas. He and Julie shared one; Luis took the other. As they walked toward the nearest tramstop they passed a dumpy, middle-aged woman selling bunches of violets from a wicker basket. “You dropped your ‘anky, sir,” she said to Luis, and pointed behind him. He turned. There was nothing lying behind him. “Never mind, ‘ave a nice bunch of violets, dear,” she said, more softly; and he was about to hurry forward to catch up with the others when she added: “Eldorado.” And looked him straight in the eye.

  “What are you talking about?” he said, and knew at once that he had made a mistake: he should have pretended he hadn’t heard her and moved on, fast. “I’m late.” That too was a bloody silly thing to say. She had a gun in her basket, she was going to kill him. He tightened his grip on the umbrella, ready to smash it across her face.

  “You’re Eldorado, I’ve seen your picture,” she said, smiling like a proud granny. “Tomcat showed me.”

  For a long moment Luis was haunted by the memory of an ugly dream, a dream that always left him naked and wading in leaden slow-motion away from an onrushing, undefined catastrophe. Tomcat was his codename for Madrid Abwehr. Rain flicked into his face and he came awake. “Go on, wave a few swastikas,” he said weakly. “Let’s hear it for Adolf.”

  “Don’t you worry, dear. We’re here to help you, if you ever need help. My codename is Blossom.” She gave him a bunch of violets. “You won’t forget that, will you? Those are on the house. Off you go.”

  Luis scuttled after the others and reached them as they joined a tram queue.

  “Flowers. How charming,” Julie said. “They can’t possibly be for me, so they must be for you, Freddy. Give Freddy the nice flowers, Luis.” The rest of the queue watched with interest. “It’s an old Spanish custom,” she told them. “The men give each other flowers every wet Tuesday. Pansies, usually.” The queue found that highly amusing.

  When the tram came, Freddy and Julie went on the top deck. Luis followed them and found a seat as far away as possible. What still shocked him was the confident, even casual, way that the woman had contacted him. And such a disgusting old hag, she must be every day of fifty, with dyed hair—you could see the gray roots—and that foul pink lipstick, as if she had just finished swigging some foul pink medicine. The whole memory was repellant. Blossom. Whoever chose that codename had a grim sense of humor. And the total implication of the meeting flooded upon Luis’s mind. We’re here to help you. Not I’m here to help you. The tram swayed and screeched as it took a bend, and a big man thumped into the seat beside him. “Ah, that’s better,” the man said. “This wreck is going to Lime Street, isn’t it?”

  “Lime Street?” Luis remembered: the name of the station. “Yes, I hope so.”

  “Lovely place. Lovely people. Liverpool’s full of lovely people and the great thing about them is they’re so helpful. Take me, for instance.”

  Luis looked and saw a face that was all chin, nose and eyebrows. The haircut was short and the shoulders were broad. He seemed about thirty. “What about you?” Luis asked. He had a great desire to get off this tram and run. Run anywhere. Run back to Rackham Towers.

  “Well, me, I’m very helpful and I don’t even come from Liverpool! I knew that would surprise you.” He had a genial grin. Luis returned a smile that felt as natural as an operation scar. “I’m so helpful, d’you know what people call me?” Luis shook his head. “They call me Gardener.” When Luis failed to respond, the big man said, “Well, you know what gardeners do, don’t you? They carry out underground work amongst the plants.” He sat back, looking well pleased with himself.

  Oh Christ, not another one, Luis thought. Please Christ make this a normal everyday lunatic. “I have no garden,” he said.

  “But you like flowers.” A large hand reached across and plucked the violets from Luis’s fist. “They make perfume from these. Eau de Tomcat, very exclusive. I’m sole agent in these parts, you know.”

  “I didn’t,” Luis said, “but I do now.” He was beginning to feel a little rebellious. “How is business?”

  “Business is very good. If you—”

  “Mainly export, I suppose.”

  “Oh, yes, because—”

  “What about the competition? Is there much competition?”

  “Nothing to worry about. There’s a very good firm called Eldorado that I’d like to form a partnership with.”

  “Oh, him.” Luis wiped the misted window and looked at a row of gutted houses sailing by. “Nobody likes him.”

  “Think it over. This is my stop.” The big man got up. “We’re all in this together.” Then he was gone.

  Luis slowly unclenched his fists. He looked at his palms and saw the marks left by his fingernails, and watched them fade. He licked his upper lip and tasted the salt of sweat. Then he noticed that his right thigh muscle was still jumping. No matter what his mind said, his body knew best and his body was telling him that he had just been thoroughly frightened.

  Go and tell Freddy. That was his first thought, and he glanced back. They were talking and smiling. They were getting along very well. Just like old pals. Fuck you, Freddy, he thought and turned away. Besides … it felt good to have a secret again, a big secret. All those wonderful months in Lisbon had been one long intoxication of secrecy—double secrecy, triple secrecy, layer upon layer of the delightful stuff, when only he knew that Eldorado was a sham who created ghosts which invented dreams. That was heaven. Now he had a secret again, and when he tasted the pleasure he realized how much he had missed it. Bugger Freddy. Bugger MI5. Let them wait. Besides, there might be more. Who could tell? Quite obviously the British security services didn’t know everything. They thought they had every German agent in the bag! Bloody fools. The tram swayed and ground to a halt. Luis looked down. The man codenamed Gardener gave him a wave that was almost a salute, and strode off.

  The tram emptied at Lime Street. Luis stood in the rain and inspected the soot-blackened portico of the station. “Here we are at the municipal abattoir,” he said.

  Julie agreed, but silently. German bombing and British weather did nothing to lighten the building. It looked strong enough to last a thousand years. A gloomy thought.

  “It’s more interesting inside,” Freddy said.

  “They sell tickets inside,” Luis explained. “Buy a ticket and you can kill a pig.”

  “That’s way beyond your mental range,” she warned. “Don’t even attempt it.”

  “Her mental range is the one where the deer and the antelope play,” Luis told Freddy. “It’s knee-deep in antelope turds.”

  “Do stop it, both of you.” Freddy urged them up the steps. “Who was that large chap you were talking to on the tram, Luis?”

  “Crown Prince Rupert of Albania.” Freddy gave a startled glance, so Luis said, “Well, that’s who he said he was. Wanted to borrow a fiver. D’you think he was genuine?”

  The interior of the station was much grimier than the outside, despite the rain that fell t
hrough great gaps in the glass roof. The place was huge and filled with noise: the tramp of boots; the shriek of whistles; distant shouts; the squeal and rumble of platform trolleys; and above everything the dominant hiss and thunder of steam locomotives. Filling all corners was the echo and re-echo of the Tannoy, eternally announcing the incomprehensible. “You told us this was an architectural gem,” Julie accused Freddy.

  “That’s what the guide-book said. There’s one thing that’s definitely worth seeing. Follow me.” They zigzagged between clumps of servicemen and piles of luggage, and reached platform one. Freddy stopped under the clock, a huge affair that hung from the girders as if waiting to have a church tower built around it. “Classic, isn’t it?” he said. “Wait here while I get our tickets.”

  “Where are we going?” Luis demanded; but Freddy had gone.

  They found a relatively dry spot on a bench and watched the steady surge in and out of the station buffet. “I’m not going anywhere without something to eat,” Luis said. It was five minutes to twelve. He thought he could smell bacon but that must be an illusion. Putting his arm around her would be easy and she might respond, which would be delightful. So why, he wondered, didn’t he do it? Life without Julie was unimaginable, she made it all worthwhile, gave it meaning and purpose.

  “Why d’you always have to be such a shit, Luis?” she asked. His arm was immediately paralyzed. “There is no Prince Anything of Albania. I mean to say, it was a reasonable question. Why can’t you just tell the truth for once in your lousy life?”

  “All right. If you want to know, he was a German spy, sent by the Abwehr to make contact.”

  She licked a finger and touched her stockinged leg. “You can be kind of pathetic sometimes,” she said. And that killed all conversation stone dead.

  Docherty came into Lime Street station at a brisk run, his suitcase clutched to his chest and his legs stabbing outward because his arms weren’t free to balance him, and stuttered to a halt as he searched for platform one, saw it on the other side, as far away as it could be, groaned, changed direction and ran again but only for a few yards. He turned and stared at the entrance to the station. No sign of Stephanie or Laszlo. He cursed, and his head swiveled indecisively between the entrance and platform one, and finally he cursed some more and walked back.