by Ian Mcewan
He said, “What did Glass want?”
“It was like last time, but worse. A lot of questions about the people I know, where I’ve been during the last two weeks.”
Now he was looking at her. “You didn’t talk about anything else?”
“No,” she said, but she looked away.
Naturally he was not jealous, because he did not feel anything for her. And he could not bear one more emotion. All the same, he went through the motions. It was something to talk about. “He stayed a long time.” He was referring to the ashtray.
“Yes.” She sat down and sighed.
“And he took off his jacket?”
She nodded.
“And all he did was ask questions?”
In a few days he would be leaving Berlin, probably without her, and he was talking like this.
She reached across the table and took his hand from his lap. He did not want her to feel it shaking, so he did not let her hold it for long.
She said, “Leonard, I just think it’s going to be all right.”
It was as if she thought she could soothe him by her very tone of voice. His own was mocking. “Of course it is. It’s days before they unlock the lockers, before they come around here—which they will, you know. Have you got rid of the saw and the knife and the carpet and all the clothes with blood on them and the shoes and the newspaper? Do we know that no one saw you? Or saw me leave here with two big bags, or saw me at the station? Is this place so scrubbed out that there’s nothing a trained sniffer dog wouldn’t find?” He was ranting, he knew, but he could not stop his jaw. “Do we know that the neighbors didn’t hear anything of the fight? Are we going to talk about our stories and make them agree to every last little point, or are we going to tell each other that it’s all going to be all right?”
“I did everything here. You don’t have to worry. The stories are simple. We say it as it happened, but without Otto. We came back here after dinner, we went to bed, you went to work the next morning, I took a day off and went shopping, you came back at lunchtime, and in the evening you went to Platanenallee.”
It was a description of a past that should have been theirs. The happy couple after their engagement. The normality of it was a mockery, and they fell silent. Then Leonard came back to Glass.
“Was this the first time he’s been here?”
She nodded.
“He was in a hurry to leave.”
She said, “Don’t speak to me like this. You need to calm down.” She gave him a cigarette and took one for herself.
Presently he said, “I’m being recalled to England.”
She drew breath and said, “What do you want to do?”
He did not know what he wanted. He kept thinking about Glass. In the end he said, “Perhaps some time apart would be a good thing, give us a chance to get our thoughts straight.”
He did not like the ease with which she was agreeing with him. “I could come to London in a month. That’s the earliest I could leave my job.”
He did not know whether she meant it, or whether it mattered. As long as he was sitting here next to an ashtray full of Glass’s stubs he would not be able to think.
“Look,” he said. “I’m terribly tired. You are too.” He stood up and put his hands in his pockets.
She stood too. There was something she wanted to tell him, but she was holding back. She seemed older; her face was giving warning of how she would look one day.
They made no effort to prolong their kiss. Then he was on his way to the door. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I know my flight.” She saw him to the door, and he did not look back as he started down the stairs.
During the next three days Leonard spent most of his time at the warehouse. The place was being stripped down. All day and night Army trucks arrived to take away furniture, paperwork and equipment. Out in back the incinerator was stoked up, and three soldiers were posted around it to make sure that unburned papers did not blow away. The canteen was taken apart, and a van came at midday to serve sandwiches and coffee. There were a dozen people working in the recording room, rolling up cable and packing up tape recorders six to a wooden crate. All the sensitive documents had been moved within hours of the break-in. Most of the time the work was done in silence. It was as if they were all checking out of an unpleasant hotel; they wanted the experience behind them as quickly as possible. Leonard worked in his own room, alone. The equipment had to be inventoried and packed. Every valve had to be accounted for.
Despite this activity and all his other worries, the tunnel was not on his conscience. If it was right to spy on the Americans for MacNamee’s interests, it was fine to sell the tunnel for his own. But that was not what he really meant. He had been fond of the place, he had loved it, he had been proud of it. But now it was hard to feel anything at all. After Otto, the Café Prag was nothing. He went down to the basement to take one last look. There were armed guards at the top and bottom of the shaft. Also down there, standing with his hands on his hips, was Bill Harvey, the station chief and head of the operation. A U.S. Army officer with a clipboard was listening to him. Harvey seemed to be bursting out of his suit. He was making a point of letting all around him see the holster he wore under his jacket.
As for Glass, during all this time he did not appear at the warehouse once. That was strange, but Leonard had no time to think about it. His preoccupation remained his arrest. When was he going to be taken away? Why were they waiting so long? Did they want to tie up their case? Or could it be that the Soviet authorities had decided that a dismembered body would only complicate their propaganda victory? Perhaps—and this seemed most plausible—the West Berlin police were waiting for him to present his passport at the airport. He lived with two futures. In one he flew home and began to forget. In the other, he stayed here and began to serve his time. He still could not sleep.
He sent Maria a card telling her the details of his flight on Saturday afternoon. She wrote back by return of post and said that she would be at Tempelhof to say goodbye. She signed herself “Love, Maria,” and the love was underlined twice.
On Saturday morning he took a long bath, and when he was dressed he packed his cases. While he was waiting to hand over the apartment to the transport officer, he strode from room to room, the way he had done in the old days. He had made very little impact here, apart from a small stain on the living room carpet. He stood by the telephone a while. It bothered him now that he had not heard from Glass, who must surely know that he was leaving. Something was going on. He could not bring himself to dial his number. He was still standing there where his doorbell rang. It was Lofting, with two soldiers. The lieutenant appeared unnaturally happy.
“My chaps are doing the handover and the inventory,” he explained as they all came in. “So I thought I’d take the chance of coming out to say goodbye. I’ve also found a staff car to take you to the airfield. It’s waiting downstairs.”
The two men sat in the living room while the soldiers counted the cups and saucers in the kitchen.
“You see,” Lofting said, “you yourself have been handed back to us by the Americans. You’re in my care now.”
“That’s nice,” Leonard said.
“Jolly good party last week. Do you know, I’m seeing rather a lot of that girl Charlotte. She’s a marvelous dancer. So I have to thank you both for that. She wants me to meet her parents next Sunday.”
“Congratulations,” Leonard said. “She’s a nice girl.”
The soldiers came through with forms for Leonard to sign. He stood to do it.
Lofting too got to his feet. “And what about Maria?”
“She has to work out her notice, then she’ll be joining me.” It sounded quite plausible as he said it.
The inventory and the handover were completed, and it was time to go. The four men were in the hallway. Lofting pointed to Leonard’s suitcases, which were standing by the front door. “I say, would you like my chaps to carry those down for you?”
“Yes,” Leonard said. “I’d like that very much.”
Twenty-Two
The driver of the staff car, a Humber, who turned out to be driving to Tempelhof to meet someone off a plane, seemed to feel no obligation to help Leonard with his luggage. It felt comparatively light as he bumped his way into the terminal building. But to be encumbered like this again had its effect. By the time he joined the long queue for the London flight, he was feeling demented. Could he risk putting the bags on the scales? Already there were people behind him. Could he leave the queue without arousing suspicion? The people around him were a strange assortment. There was a down-at-heel family in front—grandparents, a young couple and two small children. They had enormous cardboard suitcases and cloth bundles tied with string. They were refugees, obviously. The West Berlin authorities could not risk sending them out by rail. Perhaps it was a fear of flying that silenced the whole family, or an awareness of the tall man behind them, sliding his cases forward with his foot. Behind him was a group of French businessmen talking loudly, and behind them were two British Army officers standing erect and beaming quiet disapproval at the French. What all these passengers had in common was their innocence. He was innocent too, but it would take some explaining. Over by a newspaper stand was a military policeman with his hands behind his back and his chin up. Polizisten were standing by the entrance to passport control. Who was going to pull him out of the queue?
When he felt a hand on his shoulder, he started and turned too quickly. It was Maria. She was wearing clothes he had never seen before. This was her new summer outfit, a floral print skirt with a wide belt and a white blouse with puffy sleeves and a deep V neck. She wore an imitation pearl necklace he had not known she had. She looked like she was sleeping well. She had a new perfume, too. She put her hand in his as they kissed. It was cool and smooth. He sensed something light and simple returning to him, or at least the idea was there. Soon he might be able to feel for her again. Once he was away from her he would begin to miss her, and separate her from a memory of that apron, the patient wrapping and application of glue along the edges.
“You look very well,” he said.
“I’m feeling better. Have you been able to sleep?”
Her question was indiscreet. There were people close behind them. He pushed his cases forward into the gap that had appeared behind the refugees.
He said no and squeezed her hand. They could be an engaged couple, surely. He said, “I like that blouse. Is it new?”
She stepped back for him. There was even a new clip in her hair, blue and yellow this time, more childish than ever. “I wanted to give myself a treat. What do you think of the skirt?” She made a little turn for him. She was pleased and excited. The Frenchmen were watching her. Someone right at the back gave a wolf whistle.
When she stepped in closer he said, “You look beautiful.” He knew it was true. If he kept on saying it, if only to himself, he would really know it.
“All these people,” she was saying. “If Bob Glass were here, he could do something and get you to the front.”
He chose to ignore this. She was wearing the engagement ring. If they could simply hold to the form of things, the rest would follow. It would all come back. As long as no one was coming for them. They held hands as they shuffled toward the check-in counter.
She said, “Have you told your parents yet?”
“About what?”
“Our engagement, of course.”
He had meant to. He had intended to write to them the day after the party.
“I’ll tell them when I’m home.”
Before he did, he would have to believe it again himself. He would have to get back to that moment when they were climbing the stairs to her place after their supper, or to the time when her words reached him like silver drops falling in slow motion, before he had discerned their sense.
He said, “Did you give your notice?”
She laughed, and she seemed to hesitate. “Yes, and the major was not at all pleased. ‘Who’s going to boil my egg now? Who can I trust with cutting the soldiers?’”
They laughed. They were being merry because they were about to part, which was what engaged couples did.
“Do you know,” she said, “he tried to talk me out of it.”
“What did you say?”
She wiggled her ring finger in the air. She said mock naughtily, “I told him I’d think about it.”
It took half an hour to get close to the counter. They were almost there and still holding hands. After a silence he said, “I don’t know why we haven’t heard anything by now.”
She said immediately, “It means we never will.”
Then there was another silence. The refugee family was checking in its cases and bundles. Maria said, “What do you want to do? Where do you want to be?”
“I don’t know,” he said in a movie sort of voice. “It’s your place or mine.”
She laughed loudly. There was something quite wild in her manner. The British European Airlines official looked up. Maria was being so free in her movements, almost wanton. Perhaps it was joy. The Frenchmen had long since stopped talking to each other. Leonard did not know if that was because they were all watching her. He was thinking he really did love her as he lifted the bags onto the scales. Nothing at all—barely thirty-five pounds together. When his tickets had been checked, they went to the cafeteria. There was a queue here too, and it did not seem worth joining it. There were only ten minutes left.
They sat at a Formica table cluttered with dirty teacups and plates smeared with yellow cake that had been used as ashtrays. She pulled her chair nearer to him and linked her arm with his and leaned her head on his shoulder.
“You won’t forget that I love you,” she said. “We did what we had to and we are going to be all right now.”
Whenever she told him that everything was going to be all right he felt uneasy. It was like asking for trouble. Nevertheless, he said, “I love you too.”
They were announcing the flight.
She walked with him to the newsstand, where he bought a Daily Express, flown in that day. They stopped by the barrier.
“I’ll come to London,” she said. “We can talk about everything there. Here there’s too much …”
He knew what she meant. They kissed, though hardly the way they used to. He kissed her lovely forehead. He was going to go. She took his hand and held on with both of hers.
“Oh God, Leonard!” she cried. “If only I could tell you. It’s all right. It really is.”
That again. There were three military policemen on the gate who looked away when he kissed her for the last time.
“I’ll go up on the roof and wave,” she said, and hurried off.
The passengers had fifty yards of pavement to cross. As soon as he was clear of the terminal building he looked around. She was up on the flat roof, leaning on the parapet at the front of the observation deck. When she saw him she made a merry little dance and blew him a kiss. The Frenchmen looked enviously at him as they passed. He waved at her and walked on until he arrived at the foot of the aircraft steps, where he stopped and turned. He had his right hand half raised to wave. There was a man at her side, a man with a beard. It was Glass. He had his hand on Maria’s shoulder. Or was it his arm around her shoulder? They both waved, like parents to a departing child. Maria blew him a kiss, she dared to blow him the same kiss. Glass was saying something to her, and she laughed and they waved again.
Leonard let his hand drop and hurried up the steps into the plane. He had a window seat on the terminal side. He fussed with his seatbelt, trying not to look out. It was irresistible. They seemed to know just which little round window was his. They were looking right at him and continuing to wave their insulting goodbye. He looked away. He took his paper and snapped it open and pretended to read. He felt such shame. He longed for the plane to move. She should have told him just now, she should have confronted him, but she had wanted to avoid a scene. It was a humiliation.
He blushed with it and pretended to read. Then he did read. It was the story of “Buster” Crabbe, a naval frogman who had been spying on a Russian battleship moored in Portsmouth harbor. Crabbe’s headless body had been retrieved by fishermen. Khrushchev had made an angry statement; something was expected that afternoon in the House of Commons. The propellers were spinning to a blur. The ground crew was hurrying away. As the plane edged forward, Leonard took one last look. They were standing close together. Perhaps she could not really see his face, because she raised one hand as if to wave and let it fall.
And then he could see her no longer.
Twenty-Three
In June 1987 Leonard Marnham, the owner of a small company supplying components to the hearing-aid industry, returned to Berlin. It took him no more than the taxi ride from Tegel airport to the hotel to become accustomed to the absence of ruins. There were more people, it was greener, there were no trams. Then these sharp differences faded and it was a European city like any other a businessman might visit. Its dominant feature was traffic.
Even as he was paying the driver, he knew he had made a mistake in choosing to stay on the Kurfürstendamm. He had taken a certain pleasure in being knowing and specific with his secretary. The Hotel am Zoo had been the only place he could name. There was now a transparent structure sloping against the facade. Inside a glass lift slid across the surface of a mural. He unpacked his bag, swallowed his heart pill with a glass of water and went out for a stroll.
In fact it was not quite possible to stroll, the crowd was so dense. He got his bearings from the Gedächtniskirche and the hideous new structure at its side. He passed Burger King, Spielcenter, Videoclips, Das Steak-Restaurant, Unisex Jeans. The store windows were filled with clothes of babyish pastel pinks, blues and yellows. He became caught up in a surge of Scandinavian children wearing McDonald’s cardboard visors, pressing forward to buy giant silver balloons from a street vendor. It was hot and the traffic roar was continuous. Disco music and the smell of burning fat were everywhere.
