Authors: Ian McEwan
Now that he had been believed, Leonard wanted to go. He had to get warm, and he had to look at the midday papers.
But MacNamee wanted to reflect. He had ordered another coffee and a sticky tart. “I like to think of the pluses. We knew it wouldn’t go on forever, and we had almost a year’s run at it. It will take London and Washington years to process everything they’ve got.”
Leonard took his hand out to reach for his beer, changed his mind and put it away.
“From the point of view of the special relationship and all that, the other good thing is that we’ve worked successfully with the Americans on a major project. They’ve been slow to trust us since Burgess and Maclean. Now that’s all changed for the better.”
Eventually Leonard made an excuse and stood. MacNamee remained seated. He was refilling his pipe as he squinted up at Leonard, into the sun. “You look like you need a rest. I suppose you know you’re being recalled. The MTO will be in touch.”
They shook hands. Leonard disguised his palsy by being vigorous. MacNamee did not seem to notice. His last words to Leonard were “You’ve done well, despite everything. I’ve put in a good word for you at Dollis Hill.”
Leonard said, “Thank you, sir,” and hurried away up the Kurfürstendamm to buy the newspapers.
He scanned them in the U-Bahn to Kottbusser Tor. Two days later, and the East Berlin press was still saturated with the story. Both the
Tagesspiegel
and the
Berliner Zeitung
carried double-page spreads of photographs. One showed the amplifiers and the edge of the desk under which the cases stood. For some reason, the telephone in the tap chamber still worked. Reporters called into the receiver and got no reply. The lights and ventilation were still functioning, too. There were detailed accounts of what it was like to walk the tunnel from the Schönefelder Chaussee end to the sandbagged barrier marking the beginning of the American sector. Beyond the sandbags was “darkness broken only by the glow of two cigarettes. But the observers do not react to our call. Perhaps their consciences
are too bad.” Elsewhere Leonard read that “the whole of Berlin is incensed by the wheeling and dealing of certain American officers. Berlin will only be at peace when these agents cease their provocations.” One headline said
STRANGE DISTURBANCES ON THE LINE.
The story underneath told how Soviet intelligence had became aware of noises interrupting regular cable traffic. The order was given to begin digging up certain stretches of the line. The article gave no reason why Schönefelder Chaussee was chosen. When soldiers broke into the tap chamber, “conditions were such as to indicate that the spies had left in great haste, abandoning their equipment.” The fluorescent light bulbs bore the name of Osram, England, “clearly an attempt to mislead. But screwdrivers and adjustable wrenches give the game away: all are marked ‘Made in USA.’” At the bottom of the page, in bold type: “A spokesman for the American forces in Berlin said in response to inquiries last night, ‘I don’t know anything about it!’”
He skimmed through all the stories. The delay in announcing the discovery of the cases was tiring him. Perhaps the idea was to isolate the story to give it all the more impact later. It could be that investigations were already under way. If it hadn’t been for his foolish remark to Glass, the Russian claim that they had found a dismembered body in two suitcases could be easily dismissed. If the East German authorities quietly handed the matter over to the West Berlin
Kriminalpolizei
, they had only to ask the Americans and the cases would be traced to Leonard.
Even if the Americans refused to cooperate, it would not take the police long to identify Otto. There was probably forensic evidence in every tissue of his body to indicate that he was a drunk. Soon it would be noted that he had failed to turn up at his lodgings, that he had not collected his
Sozialhilfe
, that he was no longer in place at his favorite
Kneipe
, where the off-duty police bought him drinks. Surely the first thing the police did when they found a body was to look at their missing-persons list. There were countless and intricate bureaucratic
links between Otto and Maria and Leonard: the dissolved marriage, the housing claim, the official engagement. But surely that would also have been so if Leonard had managed to leave the cases at the Zoo station. What was it they were thinking of? It was a struggle to think it through. They would have been questioned, but their stories would have been consistent, the apartment would have been meticulously cleaned. There might have been suspicion, but there would have been no proof.
And what was the essence of his crime? To have killed Otto? But that was self-defense. Otto had broken into the bedroom, he had attacked. Not to have reported the death? But that was only sensible, given that no one would have believed them. To have cut up the body? But it was already dead then, so what difference could it make? To have concealed the body? A perfectly logical step. To have deceived Glass, the sentries, the duty officer and MacNamee? But only to protect them from unpleasant facts that did not concern them. To have betrayed the tunnel? A sad necessity, given everything else that had gone before. Besides, Glass, MacNamee and everyone else were saying that it had always been bound to happen. It could not have gone on forever. They had had almost a year’s run at it.
He was innocent, that he knew. Why then should his hands shake? Was it fear of being caught and punished? But he wanted them to come, and quickly. He wanted to stop thinking the same thoughts over, he wanted to speak to someone official and have his words written down, typed up for his signature. He wanted to set out the events, and make known to those whose job it was to have truths officially established how one thing had led to another, and how, despite appearances, he was no monster, he was not a deranged chopper-up of citizens, and that it was not insanity that had caused him to haul his victim around Berlin in two suitcases. Time and again he set out the facts for his imagined witnesses, his prosecutors. If they were men dedicated to the truth, they would come to see it his way, even if laws and conventions constrained them
to punish him. He recounted his version, it was all he ever did. Every conscious minute he was explaining, refining, clarifying, barely aware that nothing was actually taking place, or that he had been through it all ten minutes before.
Yes, gentlemen, I plead guilty to the charge as described, I killed, dismembered, lied and betrayed. But when you understand the real conditions, the circumstances that brought me to this, you will see that I am no different from you, that I am not evil, and that all along I acted only for what I took to be the best
. By the hour the language of his defense was being heightened. Without thinking, he drew on the courtroom dramas of forgotten films. At times he spoke at length in a small bare room in a police station to a half-dozen reflective senior officers. At others he addressed, from the witness box, a hushed court.
Outside Kottbusser Tor station he stuffed the newspapers into a litter bin and headed down Adalbertstrasse. And what of Maria? She was part of his plea. He had brought into being a barrister, an authoritative presence, who would invoke the hopes and love of this young couple who had turned their backs on the violent pasts of their respective countries and were planning a life together. In whom lay our hopes of a future Europe free of strife. This was Glass speaking now. And now MacNamee was before the court to testify, as far as was compatible with security, to the important work Leonard had undertaken in the name of freedom, and how he had set out single-handedly and in his spare time to devise equipment that would further that aim.
Leonard walked faster. There were moments, minutes on end, of lucidity, when the repetitions and convolutions of his fantasies sickened him. There were no truths waiting to be discovered. There was only what could be imperfectly established by officials who had many other things to do and who would be only too pleased to be able to fit a crime to its perpetrator, process the matter and move on. Hardly had he set in train that thought, itself a repetition, than he was drawn to some fresh mitigating memory. For it was true, surely, that
Otto had seized Maria by the windpipe.
I had to fight him even though I hate violence. I knew he had to be stopped
.
He was crossing the courtyard of No. 84. His first visit back. He started up the stairs. His hands were shaking badly again. It was difficult to hold on to the banister. On the fourth landing he stopped. The truth was that he still did not wish to see Maria. He did not know what to tell her. He could not pretend to her that the cases were safely out of the way. He could not tell where he had put them. That would mean telling her about the tunnel. But he had told the Russians, after all. He could tell anyone after that, surely. He thought what he had already thought: he was in no condition to make decisions; therefore he should keep silent. But he had to tell her something, and he would tell her that the cases were at the station. He tried gripping the banister tighter. But neither was he in a state to pretend anything. He went on up.
He had his own key, but he knocked and waited. He could smell cigarettes inside. He was about to knock again when the door was opened by Glass, who stepped out onto the landing and steered Leonard by the elbow to the top of the stairs.
He murmured hurriedly, “Before you come in—we have to establish whether they found us by accident or whether we have a security breach on our hands. Among other things, we’re talking to all non-U.S. wives and girlfriends. Don’t take offense. It’s routine.”
They went in. Maria came toward Leonard and they kissed on the lips, dryly. His right knee was trembling, so he sat down in the nearest chair. At his elbow on the table was a full ashtray.
Glass said, “You looked tired, Leonard.”
He included them both in his answer. “I’ve been working round the clock.” And then to Glass alone, “Doing things for MacNamee.”
Glass took his jacket off the back of a chair and put it on.
Maria said, “I’ll see you to the door.”
Glass gave Leonard a solemn mock salute as he went. Leonard heard him talking to Maria at the front door.
When she came back she said, “Are you ill?”
He held his hands still in his lap. “I feel strange, don’t you?”
She nodded. There were shadows under her eyes, and her skin and hair had a greasy look. He was glad he did not feel attracted to her.
She said, “I think it’s going to be all right.”
This feminine certainty irritated him. “Oh yes,” he said. “The cases are in the lockers at the Bahnhof Zoo.”
She was looking at him closely, and he could not meet her stare. She started to speak and changed her mind.
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.