The Violent Century (34 page)

They stop. Schneesturm’s whistle fades away into nothing. What was that? Fogg says.

– What?

– Be quiet.

Fogg stands still. Listens. Waiting.

144.
THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE
the present

– And then I remembered the Farm, Fogg says.

145.
THE FARM, DEVON
1936

Fogg remembers that moment, for he was anxious, shy: they were all lined up before Browning and Turing, for the first time made to – asked to – show themselves.

To really be yourself. There was something terrifying about it, the way it was when the Old Man came to Cambridge, when Fogg tried to escape. To really be yourself, naked, helpless, to be judged by others. He was afraid.

– Oblivion?

Oblivion shrugs, and Fogg envies him his cool, his calmness. Oblivion picks up a stone from the field. Examines it in his hands. Shows it to Browning and Turing. Like a magician, Fogg thinks. Performing. The same way he performed for Fogg. Oblivion gives a half-smile, shrugs, passes one hand over the other and the stone, caught in between, disintegrates. Becomes a nothingness. Browning’s face incredulous. Turing smiles, a delighted child’s smile at a magic trick. Wonderful, he breathes. Do it again!

Oblivion crouches, runs his hand over the grass, the grass, like the stone, dematerialising, obliviated. And Fogg is suddenly jealous of his friend: not of his ability, for that is not something one can control, it is just part of the change, part of the indelible re-shift of quantum probabilities in the human genome: but of his
courage
, his ability to stand there, cool and composed, in control. Like a real hero, Fogg thinks.

– Mr Blur?

Mr Blur grins, in his khaki shorts and his blue shirt he looks like a boy scout. He gives a mock-salute and then streaks across the field, faster than a speeding bullet, crossing it to the gate and around and back, his blurred form moving like a smudge of colour until he reappears in position in the line, still grinning, but breathing heavily.

– Impressive, Browning says.

– Are you hungry? Turing says. Mr Blur says, I could eat. Turing makes a note on his clipboard. High metabolism, most likely, he says, but to himself.

– Mr Fogg? Browning says.

And then it is his turn and he is suddenly terrified, it is like being back at school, back with Roberts and Thornton and the others, the bigger boys surrounding him, and all he wants is to flee, to
hide
, and without even realising he is doing it the environment responds to him, those minuscule undercurrents of observation and collapsed waves of probability, water molecules and air and there’s a wisp of fog, forming, only a wisp at first and then another, and another, beginning low, hovering on the ground, on the grass, but rising, forming, Fogg drawing it over himself, a memory of Roberts, or was it Thornton, saying, Your father’s a drunk! Someone laughing, a cruel childish laugh, before the change, before he could hide, and the fog is rising, it surrounds him, expanding, blocking out the sun, and inside it he feels safe.

– That’s enough, Mr Fogg!

Startled, the fog grows thicker, but the voices penetrate – I said, that’s
enough
, thank you, Fogg!

Old Browning’s voice, and Fogg takes a deep breath, forcing out the fear, letting the fog diffuse, slowly, shafts of sunlight cut through it, he begins to see again, Turing’s kind face, nodding as he scribbles away on his clipboard, briefly looking up – Thank you, Mr Fogg.

Fogg nods. The others look his way. He looks down. Already missing the comforting protection of the fog.

– Ah, yes, Browning says. Frowning. Mrs … Dinkle, is it?

– Tinkle, young man. It’s Mrs
Tinkle
.

– And what is your talent, dear? Turing says.

– I can do this, Mrs Tinkle says.

She raises her hand and makes a motion like scratching a record on a turntable. There is an odd, discomfiting sound, like a scratch or a tear. Fogg feels a strong sense of discontinuity, of things not fitting in.

– Ah, yes, Browning says. Frowning. Mrs Dinkle, is it?

– Tinkle, young man. It’s Mrs
Tinkle
.

– And what is your talent, dear? Turing says.

Mrs Tinkle smiles. A shiver runs through Fogg.

– I … see, Turing says.

146.
BERLIN. THE SOVIET ZONE
1946

Fogg and Schneesturm, under the street light. The butt of a cigarette under Fogg’s foot. A clear, girlish laugh from the shadows. Fogg feels trapped under the pool of light. Schneesturm, alarmed, tries to move, but Fogg stops him with a gesture. There is the sound of approaching light footsteps. And then she’s there, under the light, looking at them like a teacher staring down two errant pupils.

– Henry Fogg, she says. You’ve been a naughty boy.

– Mrs Tinkle, Fogg says.

She smiles. Fogg, with confusion and anger intermingled: What the hell are you
doing
here, Mrs Tinkle?

– Language, Mr Fogg. Language!

– Sorry, Mrs Tinkle …

– Who is this woman? Schneesturm says. A look of bemusement on his face. What is she doing here?

– What are you doing here, Mrs Tinkle? Fogg says, again.

– Watching you, Henry Fogg, she says, still smiling. Who is your friend?

– He’s nobody, Mrs Tinkle, Fogg says. You really shouldn’t be here.

– Nobody? She turns slowly and looks Schneesturm up and down. He doesn’t look like a nobody to me.

– Who is this woman? Is she a changed? An
Überfrau
? The term seems to amuse Schneesturm. We must go, he says.

– You must be Erich Bühler, Mrs Tinkle says. The famous Schneesturm.

Schneesturm loses the grin. Looks at her again as if seeing her properly for the first time. Inclines his head. I was, he says. I am in the process of retiring.

– Retiring? Mrs Tinkle inclines her head as if puzzled, or merely, subconsciously, echoing Schneesturm’s body language. We do not
retire
, she says. We serve, or we die.

Schneesturm shrugs. Smiles. Doesn’t know how to take her. Well, he says, I do not wish to die.

– Too bad, Mrs Tinkle says.

Schneesturm frowns. Mrs Tinkle ignores him, turns to Fogg. He is the one who got Tank, is he not, Henry? she says.

Fogg, put on the spot: Yes, he is. But things have changed!

– Not for Tank, they haven’t, Mrs Tinkle says.

– Tank is alive! Fogg says.

– Not thanks to this man, Mrs Tinkle says. Really, Henry. I am disappointed in you. Consorting with enemy agents? I will have to report this to the Old Man. After I deal with this one.

– How did you find us? Fogg says, stalling for time. Trying to think what to do.

– I was out hunting, Mrs Tinkle says, and smiles: she reminds Fogg of a predatory bird. There are many of us out tonight, she says. Now … she raises her hand, as if to scratch again, somehow she is able to affect temporality, causality, Fogg knows if she uses her power they would be helpless, trapped in her loop, he says, desperately, Mrs Tinkle, please, we can talk about this—

– You crazy old woman, you will not take me alive! Schneesturm says, and he too raises his hand, and the wind howls, a gust of cold Arctic wind and snow comes out of nowhere and hits Mrs Tinkle, she gives a surprised gasp and falls back on her arse, knocked back in the street under the street lamp, and Fogg, horrified, shouts, Stop it!

– Nazi scum, Mrs Tinkle says, her voice muffled by the wind and snow and then there’s a gun in her hand, she aims it with an unsteady hand and a shot goes off with a bang, Fogg cringes, but the shot has gone wide; and then Schneesturm, too, has a gun. Mrs Tinkle squints at him from her kneeling position, and she takes aim, carefully, but Schneesturm raises his hand again and ice forms over Mrs Tinkle, a sheen of it over her skin and over the gun, her finger tightens on the trigger but slowly, so slowly, and Fogg can do nothing but watch and then there is the sound of a gunshot.

– No! Fogg cries, sees Schneesturm drop his gun and curse, clutching his shoulder, blood soaking his coat, his sleeve, but he’s all right, he’s alive, and Fogg turns back to Mrs Tinkle with a sigh of relief that turns to horror when he sees her; and he realises it was not one gunshot but two.

She lies in the street, in the pool of light, on the edge of the darkness. A sheen of ice covers her face, but it is hissing as it melts, for the blood, her blood, is warm, and it is gushing out of her chest where she’s been hit. Mrs Tinkle! Fogg cries, running to her, crouching by her side. She looks up at him, for just a moment. Her lips move, trying to form a word. Then her eyes lose their humanity; her life is gone; and Fogg is left stroking the hair of a dead old woman in the melting ice of a cold Berlin street.

147.
THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE
the present

– You killed
Mrs Tinkle?

For the first time since the interview started the Old Man sounds shocked. This, Fogg realises, is a part the Old Man did not already know. He says, Schneesturm did. And – We didn’t have a choice.

– She was a little old lady!

– She was an assassin, Old Man, Fogg says, remorselessly. She was
your
assassin.

The Old Man sits back in his chair, sinking into it. Looks this way and that, almost blindly; Fogg almost feels sorry for him. At last the Old Man lets out a breath. I knew she disappeared, of course … he says, softly. I always had her down as a defector to the Russians. She had communist sympathies, you know.

Oblivion stirs. I didn’t know that, he says.

– Yes … she came from a mining community. Welsh. There were rumours she was seen in Moscow, after the war … I never trusted the Welsh.

Fogg and Oblivion exchange an uneasy glance. The Old Man smiles wryly, shrugs, and seems to pull himself together again. He drums his fingers on the desk top. Well, well, well, he says.

– Sir?

– Well, you really are confessing everything
now
, aren’t you, Fogg? the Old Man says.

– Do I have a choice?

The Old Man doesn’t reply; leaves the answer hanging, unspoken, in the air. Then: Please, proceed, he says. Schneesturm had killed Mrs Tinkle …

– Then it got worse, Fogg says.

148.
BERLIN. THE SOVIET ZONE
1946

– I can’t believe she
shot
me, Schneesturm says.

– I can’t believe you
killed
her! Fogg says.

– What did you want me to do! Schneesturm says. She was going to spoil everything, Fogg!

Fogg sighs. He helps Schneesturm tie a torniquet around his arm. It’s only a scratch, he says, dismissively.

– Yes, well, it hurts! Schneesturm says.

– You’ll get over it. Let’s go.

Down these dark streets Fogg must go, the snow man by his side, the fog rising to mask them both, but the night has eyes, the night is watching, and behind them a corpse is left, just one amongst many, there have been so many—

A scream cuts through the night like a blade, rises, and abruptly stops.

–
The city was full of screams that night, Fogg says. They were the screams of the dead, and the dying. The old world died and the new one was waiting to be reborn.

– Come, come, Fogg, the Old Man says. Stick to the details, please.

– What was that? Schneesturm says.

– The scream?

– No. What—

The night is full of shadows and their shadow men. Moving, stalking. A shadow coming through the fog, human but immense, as if projected by a titanic being. They can hear it moving through the fog, coming closer, and they draw back:

Then the shadow collapses and out of the fog comes a man in red, short and squat, with powerful muscles stretching the material of his red uniform, showing to good advantage his muscled torso, and the prominent symbol of crossed sickle and fist of the Russian Sverhlyudi on his chest.

The Red Sickle.

Who is swaying on his feet, Fogg realises, and is holding a half-empty bottle of vodka in his right hand, and his eyes are wild and bleary and he raises the hand holding the bottle and points at Schneesturm and he bellows, You!

Fogg looks at Schneesturm in bemusement. The Red Sickle knows you? he says.

– Leningrad, in forty-two, Schneesturm says, softly.

– Many times we met, in the air, snow storm against sickle, rising high above the ancient city, battling for domination! the Red Sickle says; still pointing the bottle like a weapon.

– Yes, well, Schneesturm says.

– While all the while my people were starving under the siege! the Red Sickle roars. Eating the corpses of horses, eating the dirt off the city streets!

– Now just calm down, will you, Schneesturm says; and his hand steals to the butt of his gun.

– German! the Red Sickle says. Pointing the bottle. Tonight we finish what was started!

Fogg decides it is time to intervene. The war is over, he says. Imbues his voice with an authority he doesn’t have. I’m a British officer. This man’s with me.

– British! the Red Sickle says. I spit on the British!

He seems to suddenly discover the bottle in his hand and lifts it up to his mouth, taking a deep slug. His eyes narrow as he looks at Schneesturm. Tonight we finish, he says. He shuffles towards them, his fist raised, a demonic, red-clad middle-aged man who – as Schneesturm shies away – stumbles. He totters and nearly falls on Schneesturm, who instinctively grabs him.

– My friend! the Red Sickle says. He grabs the surprised Schneesturm in a bear hug, nestling his head on Schneesturm’s shoulder, and begins to cry, big, thick tears staining Schneesturm’s shirt. Schneesturm winces in pain as the Russian’s arms squeeze his wounded shoulder. Be careful, you oaf! he says, in English.

– My friend! the Red Sickle says, in the same foreign tongue, paying him no heed. We are the same, what do we care for the ones who live and die, like flies? Hitler or Stalin, we are but soldiers, we are brothers—

– Yes, yes … Schneesturm pats him on the back, awkwardly. Fogg looks on, bemused: these two battered Übermenschen in the fog, holding each other tight; they look like they are clumsily dancing.