The Looking Glass War (28 page)

A light burnt in the kitchen window. Leiser knocked at the door. His hand was trembling from the motorbike. No one came; he knocked again, and the sound of his knocking frightened him. He thought he saw a face, it might have been the shadow of the boy sinking across the window as he fell, or the reflection of a swaying branch.

He returned quickly to his motorbike, realizing with terror that his hunger was not hunger at all but loneliness. He must lie up somewhere and rest. He thought: I’ve forgotten how it takes you. He drove on until he came to the wood, where he lay down. His face was hot against the bracken.

It was evening; the fields were still light but the wood in which he lay gave itself swiftly to the darkness, so that in a moment the red pines had turned to columns of black.

He picked the leaves from his jacket and laced up his shoes. They pinched badly at the instep. He never had a chance to wear them in. He caught himself thinking, it’s all right for them, and he remembered that nothing ever bridged the gulf between the man who went and the man who stayed behind, between the living and the dying.

He struggled into the harness of his rucksack and once again felt gratefully the hot, raw pain in his shoulders as the straps found the old bruises. Picking up the suitcase he walked across the field to the road where the motorbike was waiting; five kilometres to Langdorn. He guessed it lay beyond the hill: the first of the three towns. Soon he would meet the road block; soon he would have to eat.

He drove slowly, the case across his knees, peering ahead all the time along the wet road, straining his eyes for a line of red lights or a cluster of men and vehicles. He rounded a bend and saw to his left a house with a beer sign propped in the window. He entered the forecourt; the noise of the engine brought an old man to the door. Leiser lifted the bike on to its stand.

‘I want a beer,’ he said, ‘and some sausage. Have you got that here?’

The old man showed him inside, sat him at a table in the front room from which Leiser could see his motorbike parked in the yard. He brought him a bottle of beer, some sliced sausage and a piece of black bread; then stood at the table watching him eat.

‘Where are you making for?’ His thin face was shaded with beard.

‘North.’ Leiser knew this game.

‘Where are you from?’

‘What’s the next town?’

‘Langdorn.’

‘Far?’

‘Five kilometres.’

‘Somewhere to stay?’

The old man shrugged. It was a gesture not of indifference nor of refusal, but of negation, as if he rejected everything and everything rejected him.

‘What’s the road like?’ Leiser asked.

‘It’s all right.’

‘I heard there was a diversion.’

‘No diversion,’ the old man said, as if a diversion were hope, or comfort, or companionship; anything that might warm the damp air or lighten the corners of the room.

‘You’re from the east,’ the man declared. ‘One hears it in the voice.’

‘My parents,’ he said. ‘Any coffee?’

The old man brought him coffee, very black and sour, tasting of nothing.

‘You’re from Wilmsdorf,’ the old man said. ‘You’ve got a Wilmsdorf registration.’

‘Much custom?’ Leiser asked, glancing at the door.

The old man shook his head.

‘Not a busy road, eh?’ Still the old man said nothing. ‘I’ve got a friend near Kalkstadt. Is that far?’

‘Not far. Forty kilometres. They killed a boy near Wilmsdorf.’

‘He runs a café. On the northern side. The Tom Cat. Know it at all?’

‘No.’

Leiser lowered his voice. ‘They had trouble there. A fight. Some soldiers from the town. Russians.’

‘Go away,’ the old man said.

He tried to pay him but he only had a fifty-mark note.

‘Go away,’ the old man repeated.

Leiser picked up the suitcase and rucksack. ‘You old fool,’ he said roughly. ‘What do you think I am?’

‘You are either good or bad, and both are dangerous. Go away.’

There was no road block. Without warning he was in the centre of Langdorn; it was already dark; the only lights in the main street stole from the shuttered windows, barely reaching the wet cobbles. There was no traffic. He was alarmed by the din of his motorbike; it sounded like a trumpet blast across the market square. In the war, Leiser thought, they went to bed early to keep warm; perhaps they still did.

It was time to get rid of the motorbike. He drove through the town, found a disused church and left it by the vestry door. Walking back into the town he made for the railway station. The official wore uniform.

‘Kalkstadt. Single.’

The official held out his hand. Leiser took a banknote from his wallet and gave it to him. The official shook it impatiently. For a moment Leiser’s mind went blank while he looked stupidly at the flicking fingers in front of him and the suspicious, angry face behind the grille.

Suddenly the official shouted: ‘Identity card!’

Leiser smiled apologetically. ‘One forgets,’ he said, and opened his wallet to show the card in the Cellophane window.

‘Take it out of the wallet,’ the official said. Leiser watched him examine it under the light on his desk.

‘Travel authority?’

‘Yes, of course.’ Leiser handed him the paper.

‘Why do you want to go to Kalkstadt if you are travelling to Rostock?’

‘Our co-operative in Magdeburg sent some machinery by rail to Kalkstadt. Heavy turbines and some tooling equipment. It has to be installed.’

‘How did you come this far?’

‘I got a lift.’

‘The granting of lifts is forbidden.’

‘One must do what one can these days.’

‘These days?’

The man pressed his face against the glass, looking down at Leiser’s hands.

‘What’s that you’re fiddling with down there?’ he demanded roughly.

‘A chain; a key chain.’

‘So the equipment has to be installed. Well? Go on!’

‘I can do the job on the way. The people in Kalkstadt have been waiting six weeks already. The consignment was delayed.’

‘So?’

‘We made inquiries … of the railway people.’

‘And?’

‘They didn’t reply.’

‘You’ve got an hour’s wait. It leaves at six thirty.’ A pause. ‘You heard the news? They’ve killed a boy at Wilmsdorf,’ he said. ‘Swine.’ He handed him his change.

He had nowhere to go; he dared not deposit his luggage. There was nothing else to do. He walked for half an hour, then returned to the station. The train was late.

‘You both deserve great credit,’ Leclerc said, nodding gratefully at Haldane and Avery. ‘You too, Johnson. From now on there’s nothing any of us can do: it’s up to Mayfly.’ A special smile for Avery: ‘How about you, John; you’ve been keeping very quiet? Do you think you’ve profited from the experience?’ He added with a laugh, appealing to the other two, ‘I do hope we shan’t have a divorce on our hands; we must get you home to your wife.’

He was sitting at the edge of the table, his small hands folded tidily on his knee. When Avery said nothing he declared brightly, ‘I had a ticking-off from Carol, you know, Adrian; breaking up the young home.’

Haldane smiled as if it were an amusing notion. ‘I’m sure there’s no danger of that,’ he said.

‘He made a great hit with Smiley, too; we must see they don’t poach him away!’

When the train reached Kalkstadt, Leiser waited until the other passengers had left the platform. An elderly guard collected the tickets. He looked a kindly man.

‘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. ‘Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight,’ 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 nobody came. He opened a door and found himself in a big room, dark at the farther end. A girl sat at a table in front of an old gramophone. She was slumped forward, her head buried in her arms, listening to the music. A single light burnt 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 round 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 upwards towards a glimmer of light. She called out but no one came.

‘Steinhäger?’ she asked him from the dark.

‘Yes.’

She returned with a bottle and a glass. 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 glass 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 Steinhäger from the bottle.

She took his glass, 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. Road blocks 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 Steinhäger,’ 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 farther 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.’

‘Where did they come from?’

‘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 the kind. I’ll give it to you, anything you want.’

‘Towards Rostock?’

‘They said they were going to Rostock. They said not to tell. The Party came round 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 passed 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 street light 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.