The Looking Glass War Part 24

"I'm looking for a friend," Leiser said. "A man called Fritsche. He used to work here."

The guard frowned.

"Fritsche?"

"Yes."

"What was his first name?"

"I don't know."

"How old then; how old about?"

He guessed: "Forty."

"Fritsche, here, at this station?"

"Yes. He had a small house down by the river; a single man."

"A whole house? And worked at this station?"

"Yes."

The guard shook his head. "Never heard of him." He peered at Leiser. "Are you sure?" he said.

"That's what he told me." Something seemed to come back to him. "He wrote to me in November ... he complained that Vopos had closed the station."

"You're mad," the guard said. "Good night."

"Good night," Leiser replied; as he walked away he was conscious all the time of the man's gaze upon his back.

There was an inn in the main street called the Old Bell. He waited at the desk in the hall and n.o.body came. He opened a door and found himself in a big room, dark at the further end. A girl sat at a table in front of an old phonograph. She was slumped forward, her head buried in her arms, listening to the music. A single light burned above her. When the record stopped she played it again, moving the arm of the record player without lifting her head.

"I'm looking for a room," Leiser said. "I've just arrived from Langdorn."

There were stuffed birds around the room: herons, pheasants and a kingfisher. "I'm looking for a room," he repeated. It was dance music, very old.

"Ask at the desk."

"There's no one there."

"They have nothing, anyway. They're not allowed to take you. There's a hostel near the church. You have to stay there."

"Where's the church?"

With an exaggerated sigh she stopped the record, and Leiser knew she was glad to have someone to talk to.

"It was bombed," she declared. "We just talk about it still. There's only the tower left."

Finally he said, "Surely they've got a bed here. It's a big place." He put his rucksack in a corner and sat at the table next to her. He ran a hand through his thick dry hair.

"You look all in," the girl said.

His blue trousers were still caked with mud from the border. "I've been on the road all day. Takes a lot out of you."

She stood up self-consciously and went to the end of the room where a wooden staircase led upward toward a glimmer of light. She called out but no one came.

"Steinhager?" she asked him from the dark.

"Yes."

She returned with a bottle and a gla.s.s. She was wearing a mackintosh, an old brown one of military cut with epaulettes and square shoulders.

"Where are you from?" she asked.

"Magdeburg. I'm making north. Got a job in Rostock." How many more times would he say it? "This hostel; do I get a room to myself?"

"If you want one."

The light was so poor that at first he could scarcely make her out. Gradually she came alive. She was about eighteen and heavily built; quite a pretty face but bad skin. The same age as the boy; older perhaps.

"Who are you?" he asked. She said nothing. "What do you do?"

She took his gla.s.s and drank from it, looking at him precociously over the brim as if she were a great beauty. She put it down slowly, still watching him, touched the side of her hair. She seemed to think her gestures mattered. Leiser began again: "Been here long?"

"Two years."

"What do you do?"

"Whatever you want." Her voice was quite earnest.

"Much going on here?"

"It's dead. Nothing."

"No boys?"

"Sometimes."

"Troops?" A pause.

"Now and then. Don't you know it's forbidden to ask that?"

Leiser helped himself to more Steinhager from the bottle.

She took his gla.s.s, fumbling with his fingers.

"What's wrong with this town?" he asked. "I tried to come here six weeks ago. They wouldn't let me in. Kalkstadt, Langdorn, Wolken, all closed they said. What was going on?"

Her fingertips played over his hand.

"What was up?" he repeated.

"Nothing was closed."

"Come off it," Leiser laughed, "they wouldn't let me near the place, I tell you. Roadblocks here and on the Wolken road." He thought, "It's eight twenty; only two hours till the first schedule."

"Nothing was closed." Suddenly she added, "So you came from the west: you came by road. They're looking for someone like you."

He stood up to go. "I'd better find the hostel." He put some money on the table. The girl whispered, "I've got my own room. In a new flat behind the Friedensplatz. A workers' block. They don't mind. I'll do whatever you want."

Leiser shook his head. He picked up his luggage and went to the door. She was still looking at him and he knew she suspected him.

"Goodbye," he said.

"I won't say anything. Take me with you."

"I had a Steinhager," Leiser muttered. "We didn't even talk. You played your record all the time." They were both frightened.

The girl said, "Yes. Records all the time."

"It was never closed, you are sure of that? Langdorn, Wolken, Kalkstadt, six weeks ago?"

"What would anyone close this place for?"

"Not even the station?"

She said quickly, "I don't know about the station. The area was closed for three days in November. No one knows why. Russian troops stayed, about fifty. They were billeted in the town. Mid-November."

"Fifty? Any equipment?"

"Lorries. There were manoeuvres further north, that's the rumour Stay with me tonight. Stay with me! Let me come with you. I'll go anywhere."

"What colour shoulder-boards?"

"I don't remember."

"They were new. Some came from Leningrad, two brothers."

"Which way did they go?"

"North. Listen, no one will ever know. I don't talk, I'm not that kind. I'll give it to you, anything you want."

"Toward Rostock?"

"They said they were going to Rostock. They said not to tell. The Party came around to all the houses."

Leiser nodded. He was sweating. "Goodbye," he said.

"What about tomorrow, tomorrow night? I'll do whatever you want."

"Perhaps. Don't tell anyone, do you understand?"

She shook her head. "I won't tell them," she said, "because I don't care. Ask for the Hochhaus behind the Friedensplatz. Apartment nineteen. Come any time. I'll open the door. You give two rings and they know it's for me. You needn't pay.

Take care," she said. "There are people everywhere. They've killed a boy in Wilmsdorf. . . ."

He walked to the market square, correct again because everything was closing in, looking for the church tower and the hostel. Huddled figures pa.s.sed him in the darkness; some wore pieces of uniform; forage caps and the long coats they had in the war. Now and then he would glimpse their faces, catching them in the pale glow of a streetlight, and he would seek in their locked, unseeing features the qualities he hated. He would say to himself, "Hate him-he is old enough," but it did not stir him. They were nothing. Perhaps in some other town, some other place, he would find them and hate them; but not here. These were old and nothing; poor, like him, and alone. The tower was black and empty. It reminded him suddenly of the turret on the border, and the garage after eleven, of the moment when he killed the sentry; just a kid, like himself in the war; even younger than Avery.

"He should be there by now," Avery said.

"That's right, John. He should be there, shouldn't he? One hour to go. One more river to cross." He began singing. No one took him up.

They looked at each other in silence.

"Know the Alias Club at all?" Johnson asked suddenly. "Off Villiers Street? A lot of the old gang meet up there. You ought to come along one evening, when we get home."

"Thanks," Avery replied. "I'd like to."

"It gets nice at Christmastime," he said. "That's when I go. A good crowd. There's even one or two come in uniform."

"It sounds fine."

"They have a mixed do at New Year's. You could take your wife."

"Grand."

Johnson winked. "Or your fancy-girl."

"Sarah's the only girl for me," Avery said.

The telephone was ringing. LeClerc rose to answer it.

Twenty.

Homecoming He put down the rucksack and the suitcase and looked around the walls. There was an electric outlet beside the window. The door had no lock so he pushed the armchair against it. He took off his shoes and lay on the bed. He thought of the girl's fingers on his hands and the nervous movement of her lips; he remembered her deceitful eyes watching him from the shadows and he wondered how long it would be before she betrayed him.

He remembered Avery: the warmth and English decency of their early companionship; he remembered his young face glistening in the rain, and his shy, dazzled glance as he dried his spectacles, and he thought: He must have said thirty-two all the time. I misheard.

He looked at the ceiling. In an hour he would put up the aerial.

The room was large and bare with a round marble basin in one corner. A single pipe ran from it to the floor and he hoped to G.o.d it would do for the earth. He ran some water and to his relief it was cold, because Jack had said a hot pipe was dicey. He drew his knife and carefully sc.r.a.ped the pipe clean on one side. The earth was important; Jack had said so. If you can't do anything else, he'd said, lay your earth wire zigzag fashion under the carpet, the same length as the aerial. But there was no carpet; the pipe would have to do. No carpet, no curtains.