by Ian Mcewan
Leonard passed unseen through the noiseless excitement round the racks of amplifiers and walked slowly along the tracks, back toward the warehouse. He had the long stretch to himself, and he knew he was delaying leaving the tunnel, leaving the drama and returning to his shame. He had stood outside Maria’s apartment two nights before with his flowers, unable to come away. He persuaded himself that she had gone out shopping. Each time he heard footsteps on the stairs below, he peered over the rail and prepared to meet her. After an hour he posted the flowers, expensive hothouse carnations, through her door, one by one, and ran down the stairs. He went back the next evening, this time with marzipan-filled chocolates in a box whose lid featured puppies in a wicker basket. This and the flowers cost him almost a week’s money. He was on the landing below Maria’s when he met her neighbor, a gaunt, unfriendly woman whose apartment exhaled a carbolic breath through the open door behind her. She shook her head and her hand at Leonard. She knew he was foreign. “Fort! Nicht da! Bei ihren Eltern!” He thanked her. She repeated herself loudly when he continued up the stairs, and she waited for him to come down. The box would not fit through the door, so he posted the chocolates through, one by one. When he passed the neighbor on his way down, he offered her the box. She crossed her arms over her chest and bit her lip. The refusal cost her some effort.
As more time passed, the more unbelievable his attack on Maria seemed, and the less forgivable. There had been some logic, some crazed, step-by-step reasoning that he could no longer recall. It had made good sense, but all he could remember now was his certainty at the time, his conviction that ultimately she would approve. He could not recall the steps along the way. It was as if he were remembering the actions of another man, or of himself transformed in a dream. Now he was back in the real world—he was passing the underground border crossing and beginning to ascend the slope—and applying the standards of the world, his actions appeared not only offensive but profoundly stupid. He had chased Maria away. She was the best thing to have happened to him since … His mind ran over various childhood treats, birthdays, holidays, Christmases, university entrance, his transfer to Dollis Hill. Nothing remotely as good had ever happened to him. Unsummoned images of her, memories of her kindness, of how fond of him she had been, made him jerk his head to one side and cough to cover the sound of his agony. He would never get her back. He had to get her back.
He climbed the ladder out of the shaft and nodded at the guard. He made his way up to the next floor, to the recording room. No one had a drink in his hand, no one was smiling even, but the atmosphere of a celebration was unmistakable. The test row, the first twelve tape recorders to be connected, were already receiving. Leonard joined the group watching them. Four machines were running, then a fifth started, then a sixth; then one of the original four stopped, and immediately after it another. The signal activation units, the ones he had installed himself, were working. They had been tested, but never by a Russian voice, or a Russian code. Leonard sighed, and for the moment Maria receded.
A German who was standing close by put his hand on Leonard’s shoulder and squeezed. Another of Gehlen’s men, another Fritz, turned around and grinned at them both. There was lunchtime beer on their breath. Elsewhere in the room last-minute connections and alterations were being made. A handful of people with clipboards stood in a self-important cluster. Two Dollis Hill men were sitting close in on a third who was on the phone, listening intently, probably to MacNamee.
Then Glass came in, raised his hand to Leonard and strode toward him. He had not looked better in weeks. He had a different suit and a new tie knot. Lately Leonard had been avoiding him, but half-heartedly. The job for MacNamee had made him ashamed to spend time with the only American he could claim a friendship with. At the same time, he knew that Glass was likely to be a good source. Glass was tugging him by the lapel into a relatively deserted part of the room. The beard had resumed its old light-trapping forward thrust.
“This is a dream come true,” Glass said. “The test row is perfect. In four hours the whole thing’ll be rolling.” Leonard started to speak, but Glass said, “Listen. Leonard, you haven’t been completely open with me. You think I wouldn’t know when you go behind my back?” Glass was smiling.
It occurred to Leonard that the tunnel might be bugged along its length. But surely MacNamee would know about it. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on. This is a small town. The two of you have been seen. Russell was in the Resi on Saturday, and he told me. His considered judgment was that you’d been the whole way many times. Is that true?”
Leonard smiled. He could not help his ludicrous pride. Glass was being mock stern. “That same girl, the one who sent the note? The one you said you got nowhere with?”
“Well, I didn’t at first.”
“That’s amazing.” Glass had his hands on Leonard’s shoulders and was holding him at arm’s length. His admiration and delight seemed so forceful that Leonard could almost forget recent events. “You quiet Englishmen—you don’t horse around, you don’t talk about it, you get in there fast.”
Leonard wanted to laugh out loud; it was, it had been, quite a triumph.
Glass released him. “Listen, I phoned you every evening at your apartment last week. You moved in with her or what?”
“Only sort of.”
“I thought we might have a drink, but now you’ve told me, why don’t we make a double date? I have this nice friend, Jean, from the U.S. embassy. She’s from my hometown, Cedar Rapids. You know where that is?”
Leonard looked at his shoes. “Well, the fact is, we’ve had a sort of row. Quite a big one. She’s gone off to stay with her parents.”
“And where are they?”
“Oh, in Pankow somewhere.”
“And when did she leave?”
“The day before yesterday.”
Leonard was halfway through answering this last question when he understood that Glass had been on the job the whole time. Not for the first time in their acquaintanceship, the American had taken him by the elbow and was steering him somewhere else. Apart from Maria and his mother, no one had touched Leonard in his life more than Glass.
They were out in the quiet of the corridor. Glass took a notebook from his pocket. “You tell her anything?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“You better give me her name and address.”
The misplaced stress on the first syllable of this last word released in Leonard a surge of irritation. “Her name is Maria. Her address is none of your business.”
A small display of feeling from the Englishman seemed to refresh Glass. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, as though inhaling a fragrance. Then he said in a reasonable way, “Let me reorder the facts, then you tell me if it’s worth my job to ignore them. A girl you’ve never seen before makes a highly unconventional approach to you at a dance hall. Finally you make it with her. She’s chosen you, not you her. Right? You’re doing classified work. You move in with her. The day before we lay the taps, she disappears into the Russian sector. What are we going to say to our superiors, Leonard? That you liked her a whole lot so we decided not to investigate? Let’s have it.”
Leonard felt physical pain at the thought of Glass with legitimate reason to be alone with Maria in an interrogation room. It started high in his stomach and spread downward to his bowels. He said, “Maria Eckdorf, Adalbertstrasse 84, Kreuzberg. Erstes Hinterhaus, fünfter Stock, rechts.”
“One of those cold-water walkups on the top floor? Not as classy as Platanenallee. Did she say she didn’t want to stay at your place?”
“I didn’t want her there.”
“You see,” Glass spoke as though Leonard had not replied, “she’d want you at her place if it was wired.”
For the duration of a single pulse of sheer hatred, Leonard saw himself seizing Glass’s beard with two hands and ripping it off, bringing face flesh with it, throwing the mess of red and black to the floor and stamping on it. Ins
tead he turned and walked away without thought for his direction. He was back in the recording room. There were more machines running now. Up and down the room they were stopping and starting. All checked and fitted by him, all his own lonely, loyal work. Glass was at his side. Leonard started to head down one of the rows, but two technicians were blocking the way. He turned back.
Glass came up close and said, “I know it’s tough. I’ve seen this before. And it’s probably nothing. We just have to run through the procedure. One more question and I’ll leave you in peace. Does she have a day job?”
No thought preceded the action. Leonard filled his lungs and shouted. “A day job? A day job? You mean, as opposed to her night job? What are you trying to say?”
It was almost a scream. The air in the room hardened. Everyone stopped work and turned in his direction. Only the machines went on.
Glass pushed his palms downward, miming a lowering of volume. When he spoke, it was just louder than a whisper. His lips barely moved. “Everyone’s listening, Leonard, including some of your own big boys over by the phone. Don’t let them think you’re a nut. Don’t let them put you out of a job.” It was true. Two of the Dollis Hill senior staff were watching him coolly. Glass went on with his ventriloquist’s voice. “Do exactly as I say and we can save this. Bang me on the shoulder and we’ll walk out of here together like good friends.”
Everyone was waiting for something to happen. There was no other way out. Glass was his only ally. Leonard threw him a rough punch to the shoulder and immediately the American burst into loud, convincing laughter and put his arm around Leonard’s shoulder, and once more walked him to the door. Between laughs he murmured, “Now it’s your turn, you son of a bitch, save your ass and laugh.”
“Heh-heh,” the Englishman said croakily, and then louder, “Hahaha. Night job, that’s a good one. Night job!”
Glass joined in, and behind them a low murmur of conversation, a friendly wave, swelled and bore them to the door.
They were back in the corridor, but this time they kept walking. Glass had his notebook and pencil out again. “Just give me the place of work, Leonard, then we’ll have a drink in my room.”
Leonard could not give it to him in one. The betrayal was too great. “It’s an Army vehicle workshop. British Army, that is.” They walked on. Glass was waiting. “I think it’s REME. It’s in Spandau.” Then, outside Glass’s room, “The CO is a Major Ashdown.”
“That’ll do fine,” Glass said, and unlocked the door and ushered him into the room. “You wanna beer? Or how about a Scotch?”
Leonard chose Scotch. He had been in here only once before. The desk was covered with papers. He was trying not to look too hard, but he could see that some of the material was technical.
Glass poured and said, “You want me to fetch some ice from the canteen?” Leonard nodded and Glass left. Leonard stepped toward the desk. He had, he estimated, a little under a minute.
Ten
Every evening Leonard stopped off at Kreuzberg on his way home. He only had to set foot on Maria’s landing to know she was not there, but he crossed it all the same and knocked. After the chocolates, he no longer posted gifts. He wrote no more letters after the third. The lady in the carbolic apartment downstairs sometimes opened her door to watch him come down. By the end of the first week her look was more pitying than hostile. He ate supper standing up at the Schnellimbiss on Reichskanzlerplatz and most evenings went to the bar in the narrow street to delay his return to Platanenallee. He had enough German now to know that the locals hunched at their tables were not discussing genocide. It was the usual pub grumble—the late spring, the government, the quality of the coffee.
When he was home he resisted the armchair and the torpid brooding. He was not going to let himself go. He made himself do jobs. He washed his shirts in the bathroom, scrubbing the cuffs and collars with a nailbrush. He did his ironing, polished his shoes, dusted the surfaces and pushed the squeaking carpet sweeper around the rooms. He wrote to his parents. Despite all his changes, he was unable to break with the flat tone, the stifling lack of information or affect. Dear Mum and Dad, Thanks for yours. I hope you are well and over your colds. I’ve been very busy at work which is going very well. The weather … The weather. He never gave the weather a second thought unless he was writing to his parents. He paused, then he remembered. The weather has been very wet, but it’s warmer now.
What was beginning to oppress him, and it was an anxiety that his household chores could never quite silence, was the possibility that Maria would not return to her apartment. He would have to find out the address of Major Ashdown’s unit. He would have to go out to Spandau and catch her coming out of work before she boarded her train for Pankow. Glass would already have spoken to her. She was bound to assume Leonard was trying to get her into trouble. She would be furious. The chances of winning her around on the pavement, in full view of the sentry, or in the homeward crush of the U-Bahn ticket hall, were slight. She would stride past him, or shout some German obscenity that everyone but himself would understand. To confront her he needed privacy and several hours. Then she could be furious, then accusatory, then sorrowful and finally forgiving. He could have drawn an emotional circuit diagram for her. As for his own feelings, they were beginning to be simplified by the righteousness of love. When she knew how much he loved her, she must forgive him. For the rest, the deed and its causes, the guilt, the evasion, he tried hard not to brood. That would solve nothing. He tried to be invisible to himself. He scrubbed out the bath, washed the kitchen floor and fell asleep just past midnight with tolerable ease, faintly comforted by a sense of being misunderstood.
One evening during the second week of Maria’s disappearance Leonard heard voices from the empty apartment downstairs. He put down his iron and went out onto his landing to listen. Up the elevator shaft came the sound of furniture scraping on the floor, footsteps and more voices. Early the next morning he was descending in the elevator when it stopped at the floor below. The man who stepped in nodded and faced away. He was in his early thirties and carried an attaché case. His beard was trimmed neatly in the naval style, and he gave off a scent of cologne. Even Leonard could tell that the dark blue suit was well made. The two men rode down in silence. The stranger allowed Leonard to precede him out of the lift with an economical movement of his open palm.
They met again on the ground floor by the lift shaft two days later. It was not quite dark. Leonard had come in from Altglienicke by way of Kreuzberg and his customary two liters of lager. The lights in the lobby had not been turned on. When Leonard reached the man’s side, the lift had just risen to the fifth floor. In the time it took to come back down, the man offered his hand, and without smiling or, as far as Leonard could tell, altering his expression at all, said, “George Blake. My wife and I live right under your feet.”
Leonard gave his name and said, “Do I make a lot of noise?”
The lift came and they stepped inside. Blake pushed the fourth and fifth buttons, and when they were moving looked from Leonard’s face to his shoes and said in a neutral way, “Carpet slippers would help.”
“Well, sorry,” Leonard said with as much aggression as he dared. “I’ll get some.”
His neighbor nodded and pressed his lips together, as if to say, That’s the spirit The door slid back and he went off without another word.
Leonard reached his apartment resolved to pound the floors harder than ever. But he could not quite bring himself to it. He hated to be in the wrong. He trod heavily along his hall and took his shoes off in the kitchen.
Over the months that followed he occasionally saw Mrs. Blake about the place. She had a beautiful face and a very straight back, and although she smiled at Leonard and said hello, he avoided her. She made him feel shabby and awkward. He overheard her talking in the lobby and thought she sounded intimidating. Her husband became a little friendlier over the summer months. He said he worked for the Foreign Office at the Olympic Stadium, and he was
politely interested when Leonard told him he worked for the Post Office, installing internal lines for the Army. Thereafter, he never failed to say on the few occasions they passed each other in the lobby or shared the lift, “How are the internal lines?” with a smile that made Leonard wonder if he was being mocked.
At the warehouse the tap had been declared a success. One hundred and fifty tape recorders stopped and started day and night, triggered by the amplified Russian signals. The place emptied rapidly. The horizontal diggers, the tunneling sergeants, had long departed. The British vertical men had left just as the excitement was growing, and no one noticed them go. All kinds of other people—experts whose fields, it seemed, were known only to themselves—drifted away, as did the senior Dollis Hill staff. MacNamee called in once or twice a week. All that remained were the men monitoring or distributing the take, and these were the busiest and least communicative. There were also a few technicians and engineers keeping the systems running, and the security people. Leonard sometimes found himself eating in an empty canteen. His instructions were that he should stay on indefinitely. He carried out routine checks on the integrity of the circuits and replaced faulty valves in the tape recorders.
Glass stayed away from the warehouse, and at first Leonard was relieved. Until he was reconciled with Maria, he did not want to hear news of her through Glass. He did not want Glass to have the power of an intermediary over him. Then he began to find excuses to walk past the American’s office several times a day. Leonard was often at the water fountain. He was certain that Maria would be cleared, but he had his doubts about Glass. The interviews would be opportunities for seduction, surely. If Maria was still angry and Glass was sufficiently energetic, the worst might be happening even as Leonard stood outside the locked room. Several times he almost phoned Glass from home. But what was he to ask? How would he bear the confirmation, or believe the denial? Perhaps the very question would seem to Glass a form of incitement.
