The Innocent (19 page)

In the late afternoon before the party
(Drinks 6-8
P.M
.), Leonard was half humming, half singing “Heartbreak Hotel” as he carried a sackful of kitchen rubbish down to the dustbins out the back. The lift was out of order that day. On his way up, Leonard bumped into Mr. Blake. They had not spoken since the scene on Leonard’s landing the previous year. Enough time had passed to neutralize that, for when Leonard nodded, Mr. Blake smiled and said hello. Again without reflection, and because he was feeling expansive, Leonard said, “Would you and your wife like to drop ih for a drink this evening? Anytime after six.”

Blake was searching in his overcoat pocket for his key. He took it out and stared at it. Then he said, “That would be pleasant. Thank you.”

“Heartbreak Hotel” was playing on the wireless while Leonard and Maria waited for the first guest. There were peanuts in saucers and, on a table pushed against a wall, bottles of beer and wine, lemonade, Pimms, tonic and a liter of gin, all duty free. There were ashtrays for everyone. Leonard had wanted pineapple chunks and cheddar cheese on toothpicks, but Maria
had laughed so hard at this mad concoction that the matter was dropped. They held hands while they surveyed their preparations, conscious that their love was about to begin its public existence. Maria wore a layered white dress that rustled when she moved, and pale blue dancing pumps. Leonard had his best suit on, and—the daring touch—a white tie.

“… 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?