by Ian Mcewan
“… he’s been so long on Lonely Street …” The doorbell rang, and Leonard went. It was Russell from AFN. Leonard did not know why he should feel foolish that his wireless was tuned to that station. Russell did not seem to notice. He had taken Maria’s hand and was holding on to it far too long. But her friends from work, Jenny and Charlotte, were suddenly there too, giggling and holding out presents. Russell stood back as the German girls swept the bride-to-be away in embraces and slangy Berlin exclamations and camped down with her on the sofa. Leonard made a gin and tonic for Russell, and Pimms and lemonade for the girls.
Russell said, “She’s the one who sent the message down the tube?”
“That’s right.”
“She really knows her mind. You want to introduce me to her friends?”
Glass arrived, followed immediately by Lofting, whose attention was drawn by a burst of feminine laughter from the sofa. So Leonard fixed the drinks and took the radio announcer and the lieutenant across. When the introductions had been made, Russell began a breezy flirtation with Jenny, telling her he just knew he had seen her someplace before and that she had the sweetest face. Lofting, more in Leonard’s style, engaged Charlotte in tortured small talk. When he said, “That’s fascinating. And just how long does it take you to get out to Spandau in the morning?” she and her friends had a fit of the giggles.
Glass had agreed to give a speech. Leonard was touched that his friend had taken the trouble to type it out on cards. He tinkled a bottle opener against the gin for silence. Glass started with an amusing account of Leonard with a rose behind his ear and the message coming down the pneumatic tube. He hoped that one day he too would be delivered from bachelorhood with a similarly dramatic approach, and by a girl as gorgeous and as wonderful in every way as Maria. Russell called out “Hear, hear.” Maria shushed him.
Then Glass paused to indicate a change in tone. He was drawing breath to begin again when the doorbell rang. It was the Blakes. While everyone waited, Leonard poured their drinks. Mrs. Blake took an armchair. Her husband remained standing by the door, staring expressionlessly at Glass, who tilted his beard in acknowledgment that the interruption was over.
He spoke quietly. “We all of us in this room, German, British, American, in our different kinds of work, have committed ourselves to building a new Berlin. A new Germany. A new Europe. I know that’s the grand way politicians talk, even if it is true. I know that at seven o’clock on a winter’s morning, when I’m getting dressed for work, I don’t think too hard about building a new Europe.” There was a murmur of laughter. “We all know the kinds of freedom we want and like, and we all know what threatens them. We all know that the place, the only place, to start making a Europe free and safe from war is right here, with ourselves, in our hearts. Leonard and Maria belong to countries that ten years ago were at war. By engaging to be married, they are bringing their own peace, in their own way, to their nations. Their marriage, and all others like it, bind countries tighter than any treaty can. Marriages across borders increase understanding between nations and make it slightly harder each time for them to go to war ever again.”
Glass looked up from his postcards and grinned, suddenly disowning his seriousness. “That’s why I’m always watching out for a nice Russian girl to take back home to Cedar Rapids. To Leonard and Maria!”
They raised their glasses, and Russell, who had his arm around Jenny’s waist, called out, “Come on, Leonard. Speech!”
The only time Leonard had spoken in public was at school, where as a sixth-form monitor in his final year he was obliged once every two weeks to take his turn at reading out the announcements at morning assembly. As he started now, he found that his breathing was too rapid and shallow. He had to speak in clusters of three or four words.
“Thank you, Bob. Speaking for myself, I can’t guarantee to rebuild Europe. It’s as much as I can do to put up a shelf in the bathroom.” His joke went down well. Even Blake smiled. Across the room Maria was beaming at him, or was she half crying too? Leonard blushed. His success made him light. He wished he had another ten jokes to tell. He said, “Speaking for us both, all we can promise, to you and to each other, is to be happy. Thank you very much for coming.”
There was applause, and again encouraged by Russell, Leonard crossed the room and kissed Maria. Russell kissed Jenny, then they all settled down to drink.
Blake came across to shake Leonard’s hand and offer his congratulations. He said, “The American with the beard. How is it you know him?”
Leonard hesitated. “He’s at my work.”
“I didn’t know you were working for the Americans.”
“Ah yes. It’s an intersector thing. Telephone lines.”
Blake gave Leonard a long stare. He walked with him into a quiet corner of the room. “I want to give you some advice. That fellow there—Glass, isn’t it?—works for Bill Harvey. If you’re telling me you work with Glass, you’re telling me what it is you do. Altglienicke. Operation Gold. I don’t need to know that. You’re making a security error there.”
Leonard would have liked to say that Blake too had breached security by indicating that he too was part of the intelligence community.
Blake said, “I don’t know who these other people here are. I do know that in these matters this is a very small town. It’s a village. You shouldn’t be seen in public with Glass. It’s a giveaway. My advice is that you keep your professional and social lives well separated. Now, I’m going to give my best wishes to your intended, then we’ll take our leave.”
The Blakes left. Leonard stayed apart for a while with his drink. A part of him—a nasty part, he thought—wanted to see if anything passed between Maria and Glass. They were ignoring each other completely. Glass was the next to leave. Lofting had had several drinks and was making better progress with Charlotte. Jenny was sitting on Russell’s lap. The four of them had decided to go to a restaurant, and then to a dance hall. They tried hard to persuade Leonard and Maria to go with them. When they were convinced that they could not succeed, they left with kisses, embraces and goodbyes shouted up the stairwell.
There were abandoned glasses on every surface, and cigarette smoke hung in the air. The apartment was peaceful.
Maria put her bare arms around Leonard’s neck. “You made a beautiful speech. You didn’t tell me you were good at that.” They kissed.
Leonard said, “It’s going to take you a long time to find out all the things I’m good at.” He had addressed a crowd of eight. He felt different, capable of anything.
They put their coats on and went out. The plan was to eat in Kreuzberg and spend the night at Adalbertstrasse, thereby including both homes in the celebrations. The bedroom there had been prepared by Maria with fresh sheets, new candles in bottles and a potpourri emptied into two soup bowls.
They dined on Rippchen mit Erbsenpüree, spare ribs and pease pudding, in a pub on Oranienstrasse that had become their local. The owner knew about the engagement and brought them glasses of sekt on the house. It was like a bedroom where they were, almost like a bed. They were deep in the recesses of the place, at a table of dark stained wood two inches thick, boxed in by high-backed pews worn smooth by backsides. A tablecloth of thick brocade hung heavily on their laps. Over this a waiter spread a cloth of starched white linen. There was dim light from a red glass lantern that hung from the low ceiling by a heavy chain. A warm, moist air enclosed them further in a fug of Brazilian cigars, strong coffee and roasted meat. Half a dozen old men sat around the Stammtisch, the regulars’ table, drinking beer and Korn, and nearer there was a game of skat.
One of the old fellows paused in his stagger past Leonard’s and Maria’s table. He looked theatrically at his watch and said, “Auf zur Ollen!”
When he had gone, Maria explained. It was a Berlin phrase: “Back to the old woman. Is this you in fifty years?”
He raised his glass. “To my Olle.”
There was another celebration coming up, one he could not talk to
her about. In three weeks the tunnel would be one year old, calculating, as had been agreed, from the date of the first interception. It had also been agreed that something must happen to mark the event, something that would not violate security, but flamboyant all the same, and symbolic. An ad hoc committee was formed. Glass made himself chairman. There were also a U.S. Army sergeant, a German liaison officer and Leonard. To emphasize the collaboration of three nations, the contributions would reflect something of each national culture. It had seemed to Leonard a little unfair the way Glass had divided the responsibilities, but he said nothing. The Americans would take care of the food, the Germans would provide the drink, and the British would offer a surprise entertainment, a party turn.
With a budget of thirty pounds, Leonard had visited the noticeboards in the YMCA and the Naafi and Toc H clubs, searching for the act that would do his country honor. There was the wife of a corporal in the RAOC who read tea leaves. There was a singing dog, for sale rather than rent, property of an AKC manager, and there was an incomplete morris-dancing team, an offshoot of the RAF rugby club. There was a Universal Aunt who met children and senile relatives off airplanes and trains, and there was a “top-notch” conjuror, for under-fives only.
It was the very morning of his engagement party that Leonard had followed up a lead and made contact with a sergeant in the Scots Greys who promised to supply, in return for a thirty-pound contribution to the sergeant’s mess fund, a piper in full regimental dress—tartan, feathers, sporran, the lot. This, and his short speech and its successful joke, and the sekt, and the gin that had preceded it, and the new language he was beginning to master, and the Gaststätte where he felt so at home, and above all his beautiful fiancée, who was clinking her glass against his—all this made Leonard reflect that he had never really known himself at all, he was far more interesting and, well, civilized than he had ever dared suspect.
Maria had curled her hair for the event. Artfully disordered wisps lay across the high Shakespearean forehead, and just below the crown was a new white clip; the childish touch she was reluctant to abandon. She was looking at him now with patient amusement, that same regard, both proprietorial and abandoned, that had forced him in their early days to divert himself with circuitry and mental arithmetic. She was wearing the silver ring they had bought from an Arab on the Ku’damm. Its very cheapness was a celebration of their freedom. Outside the big jewelry stores, young couples were eyeing engagement rings that cost more than three months’ wages. After Maria’s hard bargaining, with Leonard, too embarrassed to listen, standing several paces off, they got theirs for less than five marks.
The meal was all that stood between them and Maria’s flat, the prepared bedroom and the consummation of their engagement. They wanted to talk about sex, so they were talking about Russell. Leonard was trying out a tone of responsible caution. It did not quite suit his mood now, but the force of habit was strong. He had a warning for Maria to pass on to her friend Jenny. Russell was a fast mover—an operator, as Glass would say—who had once claimed that in his four years in Berlin he had chalked up more than 150 girls. Leonard said in German, “Apart from the fact that he’s bound to have the clap”—den Tripper; he had recently learned the word from a poster in a public lavatory—“he is not going to take Jenny seriously at all. She ought to know that.”
Maria had put her hand over her mouth and laughed at Tripper. “Sei nicht doof! You’re … schüchtern. How do you say it in English?”
“A prude, I think,” Leonard was forced to say.
“Jenny looks after herself. Do you know what she was saying when the Russell came in the room? She said, ‘That’s the one I want. I don’t get paid till the end of next week and I want to go to a restaurant. Then I want to go dancing. And,’ she said, ‘he has a beautiful jaw, like Superman.’ So, she goes to work, and the Russell thinks he did it all by himself.”
Leonard put down his knife and fork and wrung his hands in mock anguish. “My God! Why am I so ignorant?”
“Not ignorant. Innocent. And now you marry the first and only woman you ever knew. Perfect! It’s women who should marry the virgins, not men. We want you fresh—”
Leonard pushed his plate aside. It was not possible to eat while you were being seduced.
“—we want you fresh so we can show you how to please us.”
“Us?” said Leonard. “You mean there’s more than one of you?
“There’s just me. That’s all you have to think about.”
“I need you,” Leonard said. He waved at the waiter. It was not the conventional exaggeration. If he did not lie down with her soon he thought he might be sick, for there was a cold upward pressure on his stomach and on the pease pudding in there.
Maria raised her glass. He had never seen her so beautiful. “To innocence.”
“To innocence. And Anglo-German cooperation.”
“It was a terrible speech,” Maria said, although from her look he thought she did not really mean it. “Does he think I’m the Third Reich? Is that what he thinks you are marrying? Does he really think that people represent countries? Even the major makes a better speech at the Christmas dinner.”
But when they had paid and put on their coats and were walking toward Adalbertstrasse, she resumed more seriously. “I don’t trust this one. I didn’t like him when he was asking me questions. His mind is too simple and too busy. These are the dangerous ones. He thinks you must love America or you must be a spy for the Russians. These are the ones who want to start another war.”
Leonard was pleased to hear her say she did not like Glass, and he was reluctant to start an argument now. All the same he said, “He takes himself very seriously, but he’s not so bad, really. He’s been a good friend to me in Berlin.”
Maria pulled him closer to her. “Innocence again. You like anyone who’s kind to you. If Hitler buys you a drink, you say he’s a decent fellow!”
“And you’d fall in love with him if he told you he was a virgin.”
Their laughter sounded loud in the empty street. As they came up the stairs at No. 84, their hilarity echoed on the bare wood. On the fourth floor someone opened a front door a few inches, then slammed it shut. They made almost as much noise the rest of the way up, shushing each other and giggling.
To make a welcome, Maria had left all the lights on in her flat. The electric heater was on in the bedroom. While she was in the bathroom, Leonard opened the wine that had been left ready. There was a smell in the air he could not quite place. It was of onions, perhaps, and something else. There was an association there he could not make. He filled their glasses and turned on the wireless. He was ready now for another dose of “Heartbreak Hotel,” but all he could find was classical music of some sort, and jazz, both of which he loathed.
He forgot to mention the smell when Maria came out of the bathroom. They took their glasses through to the bedroom and lit cigarettes and talked quietly about the success of their party. The smell, which had been in this room too, and the fragrance of the potpourri, were lost to the smoke. They were returning to the urgency they had felt at dinner, and as they talked they began to undress, and touch and kiss. Accumulated excitement and unrestrained familiarity made everything so easy. By the time they were naked, their voices had dropped to whispers. Beyond the room came the subsiding rumble of a city beginning to take itself to bed. They got under the covers, which were lighter again now that spring was here. For five minutes or so they luxuriated in the postponement of their pleasure with a long embrace. “Engaged,” Maria whispered, verlobt, verlobt. The very word was a form of invitation, incitement. They began lazily. She was lying beneath him. His right cheek was pressed against hers. His view was of the pillow and of her ear, and hers was over his shoulder, of the ripple and pull of small muscles in his back, and then, the darkened room beyond the candlelight. He closed his eyes and saw an expanse of smooth water. It might have been the Wannsee in summer. With each stroke he was drawn down the shallow curve of his descent, fu
rther and deeper, until the surface was liquid silver far above his head. When she stirred and whispered something, the words poured like mercury droplets, but fell like feathers. He grunted. When she said it again, into his ear, he opened his eyes, though he still had not heard. He lifted himself onto his elbow.
Was it ignorance or innocence that made him think that the accelerating thud of her heart against his arm was excitement, or that the wide stare of her eyes, the seed pearls of moisture on her upper lip, the difficulty she was having moving her tongue to repeat her words, were all for him? He dropped his head closer. What she was saying was framed in the quietest whisper imaginable. Her lips were brushing his ear, the syllables were furred. He shook his head. He heard her tongue unglue itself and try again. What at last he heard her say was “There’s someone in the wardrobe.”
Then his heart was racing hers. Their ribcages were touching, and they could feel, but not hear, the arrhythmic clatter, like horses’ hooves. Against this distraction he was trying to listen. There was a car drawing away, there was something in the plumbing, and behind that nothing, nothing but silence and inseparable darkness, and scratchy silence too hastily scanned. He went back over it, searching the frequencies and watching her face for a cue. But every muscle there was already tight; her fingers were pinching his arm. She was still hearing it, she was willing his attention toward it, forcing him to attend to the band of silence, the narrow sector where it lay. He had shrunk to nothing inside her. They were separate people now. Where their bellies touched was wet. Was she drunk, or mad? Either would have been preferable. He cocked his head, straining, and then he heard it, and knew he had been hearing it all along. He had been searching for something else, for sounds, for pitch, for the friction of solid objects. But this was only air, air pulled and pushed; this was muted breathing in an enclosed space. He rose on all fours, and turned. The wardrobe was by the door, by the light switch. He found his glasses on the floor. They did nothing to clarify the large dark mass. His instinct was that he could do nothing, confront nothing, submit to nothing, unless he was covered. He found his underpants and put them on. Maria was sitting up. She had her hands cupped over her nose and mouth.
