The Violent Century (36 page)

Franz stands outside, pacing. Smoking a cigarette with nervous, hungry pulls. The doors of the club open and a long shadow falls on Franz. He turns as the doors close. There is no one around, it is late, so late; the deep darkness that comes before dawn. He turns, smiling; but the smile drops when he sees it is Oblivion standing there; Oblivion, not Fogg.

– You, Franz says. Gathers himself together, smiles a cocky smile. What do you want, he says.

– Me? Oblivion says.

– Yes, you. Did Herr Schleier send you? You can go back to him, lapdog. Tell him Franz does not deal with lapdogs. Franz wants what he deserves.

– And what does Franz deserve? Oblivion says.

– Life, Franz says, suddenly angry. A way out. You think you’re all heroes, don’t you, so mighty and superior.
Übermenschen
. Franz spits on the frozen ground. You’re not different to the rest of us, he says. Grubby, dirty little men. No, you’re worse than we are. You’re nothing but shadows. You’re the shadows of men.

Oblivion doesn’t answer. His face is as pale and immobile as stone. Well? Franz says. Stabs the cigarette in the air. Did you bring me my money? What are you doing? What are you—

But Oblivion’s long hands are reaching for Franz; and his long, thin, graceful fingers close on Franz’s throat with an ease born, perhaps, we think uneasily, of experience. And he is choking Franz, choking the life out of him, giving him the only way out Franz will ever find. Franz tries to struggle, his hands flail in the air, to ward off Oblivion, to fight him, clutching, for one brief moment, at his military uniform, but Oblivion is unrelenting, his thumbs dig into Franz’s soft skin, into his neck, blocking the passage of air, and the burning cigarette drops from Franz’s fingers to the ground. In moments it is over. And Oblivion lets the body collapse to the ground and stands there, looking down at it. A fleeting expression – of shame, of triumph, it is impossible for us to say – passes over his face and is gone. He picks up Franz’s limp body by the arms and begins to drag it away.

156.
DER ZIRKUS NIGHTCLUB, BERLIN
1946

– Why should I help you? Machentraum says.

And Fogg says, I don’t know.

157.
THE OLD MAN’S OFFICE
the present

– I never knew why she did help us, in the end, Fogg says. Love. Perhaps she was a romantic. I think we all were, at the end. Failed cynics. We wanted to believe in love.

– You could have threatened her, the Old Man says.

– She already belonged to the Americans, Fogg says. She had her ticket out. I saw her once, after the war. Not in person. In a movie, it was on late-night cable television, when I was in the States, for … He blinks, sleepily. The long night catching up with him as it is coming to an end.

– Machentraum?

– She had a new name, a new face. She went to Hollywood, but somehow she never made it. Fogg shrugs. She had no reason to help me. Looks at Oblivion and looks away quickly. No one had.

– You had friends, Oblivion says, quietly. People who cared for you.

– Maybe. I shouldn’t have … shouldn’t have got them involved.

– Maybe it wasn’t your choice to make, Oblivion says.

The Old Man looks at both of them. Scribbles a few lines in the folder open before him.

– What did you do then? he says.

Fogg rubs his eyes. Feels drained. Not much else left to confess. The night is almost over. Deep inside him he can feel the encroaching of dawn.

– We went at daybreak, he says. Took Klara from the safe house and drove her to the airport. Schneesturm was already waiting. He’d made his own way out of the Soviet zone. None of us ever had much problem with borders. It was a package deal. Schneesturm and Klara. Who else could I trust?

– No one, the Old Man says. Least of all him.

– Sometimes, Fogg says, you have no choice. Sometimes you have to trust
someone
.

The Old Man nods, conceding the point.

– I put her on the plane myself, Fogg says. Somewhere safe, Old Man. Somewhere far from the world powers who would reach out to grab her, if only they could. I said my goodbye. Or perhaps I said nothing at all. I no longer remember.

158.
TEMPELHOF CENTRAL AIRPORT, WEST BERLIN
1946

The Douglas C-47 Dakota stands on the runway, starkly illuminated against the dark skies. They had driven in, it had been easy with Machentraum along; as far as the Americans now knew the flight was a part of Operation Paperclip and classified
Verboten
. Only the pilot knew the destination and the pilot, though he looked all-American in his military uniform and his Bob-or-Bill-or-Tom good looks, was Schneesturm.

Schneesturm in the cockpit, waiting, his features recast by the magic of dreams, by Machentraum. Who stands with Oblivion a short distance away. Machentraum’s face pinched, her illusion weaving over the scene, reshaping Klara’s face, and Fogg’s. Oblivion alert, but relaxed, his hands gloveless, waiting in case anything goes wrong. Sometimes he steals looks at Fogg and Klara. Fogg can feel them, warm against his skin.

He stands there like a fool, holding Klara’s hands, only it isn’t Klara, it is some stranger conjured out of Machentraum’s mind. She has the face of a stranger but her voice is still Klara’s. Do they speak? We cannot tell. The plane’s propellers start, the engine thrumming alive, all that coiled power. Do they kiss? All we see are shadows.

Then the shadows part, one goes to the plane, the other stands there, watching as she climbs the folding steps, as the door closes, as the plane executes a half-turn, ungainly on the ground, then accelerates along the runway, faster and faster, until, at last, in some miraculous act that seems to contravene the laws of nature, it rises into the skies; no longer ungainly, the metal bird flies; and it takes Klara with it, taking her away, and Fogg, down below, watches, his head raised, watches as the plane grows distant in the sky until it finally disappears.

FOURTEEN:

SHADOWS AND LIGHT

LONDON
the present

159.
THE BUREAU
the present

– And this is it? the Old Man says.

– This is it.

– This is everything?

– Yes.

Fogg rubs his face. Feels drained, depleted. All those secrets, spilling out … but he always knew the day would come. So many years of keeping secrets, polishing them like precious stones until they shone, and now they were out, and they were tawdry, vulgar almost in the light. Had it been worth it?

But – Yes, he answers himself, it was, it had to be. Because it meant keeping Klara safe, all those years. Klara who was like a flame in the dark, the only thing ever to illuminate the shadows. Klara who was Fogg’s faith, his belief, something good and unsullied in everything that happened – whatever the others said, he knew. The loneliness, the shadows, the Hole in the Wall – it had all been worth it, to keep her safe.

Until now.

– Come with me, the Old Man says, and Fogg rises, with a sense of doom, of an inevitability he has felt ever since Oblivion came for him at the Hole in the Wall.

Oblivion, too, stands up. Looks to Fogg, expressionless. The Old Man gets up slowly, supports himself on the desk as he rises.

The Old Man walks to the door. Opens it. Fogg feels aches in his joints. Sitting for too long. Follows Oblivion after the Old Man. Closes the door behind them.

The long corridor of the Bureau. It’s very quiet. Bars of neon lights on the ceiling. The Old Man moves slowly, tiredly. He says, We caught Erich Bühler two nights ago.

Fogg says, Oh.

Tries to take it in. But a part of him already knew, he realises. Has known all along.

– He never did go away, you know, Fogg, the Old Man says. Not entirely. He surfaced during the Cold War. Running guns in Chechnya. Running drugs in Afghanistan. Bad Boy Snow Storm. We kept an eye on him. Tried to catch him in the early Eighties, as a matter of fact, but he got away …

The Old Man stops, abruptly. Fogg almost runs into him. The Old Man puts a hand on Fogg’s shoulder to steady himself. Until now, he says, his eyes searching Fogg’s face.

– Yes? Fogg manages to say.

– He tried to raid one of our North Sea installations, the Old Man says. The ones that don’t, officially, exist. Only, this time, we caught him.

– Yes, Fogg says. Can’t think of anything else to say. Can’t even – won’t – work out the ramifications in his head.

– Since then he’s been singing like a bleeding canary, the Old Man says.

He releases Fogg. Singing for his supper, he says, with sudden savagery. Come.

They walk down the corridor, take a turn, and then another, heading even deeper underground. There is no escape, Fogg thinks, dazed. At last they reach the lowest level of the Bureau. A secure door, reinforced steel. A small utilitarian plaque that says,
Interrogation Room
.

– We never did make another Vomacht box, the Old Man says; and pushes open the door.

160.
THE BUREAU
the present

She sits slumped behind the glass wall. She is in a chair, behind a table, held in restraints, facing the glass; facing Fogg and the Old Man and Oblivion. Her head lolls on her chest. Her eyes are half open, puffy. She looks drugged. Fogg goes to the glass wall. Presses against it. Klara! he says. She hasn’t changed, he thinks. She is still …

– Why? he says. Turns back, turns on the Old Man. What has she ever done to you?

With sudden anger: No one even remembers the war any more. Why couldn’t you let her
be
?

Fogg turns back to her. Can’t pull away. His palms against the cool glass. Klara shifts in the chair. Tries to open her eyes fully. As if she can sense him there.

The Old Man ignores Fogg’s outburst. Says: Tell me about Klara, Fogg. Tell me about Dr Vomacht’s farmhouse, on a perfect summer’s day.

Fogg leans against the glass. Closes his eyes. The memory so vivid still, it burns like a flame in his mind. A perfect moment, where it is always summer …

Do you want to see it? Klara says. Grinning. Like a kid sharing a wonderful secret. See what? Henry says. Klara jumps up and down in excitement and grabs Henry’s hand. Come on! she says. She takes him by the hand and leads him away, into the kitchen. It is a spacious, airy room, flooded with sunlight. On the long wood table sits a small machine, about the size of a briefcase. It is impossible to say what it is, what it does. Klara stops and Henry stops with her. He stares at the room, at the silent machine. What? he says, at last.

– This is it, Klara says. This is the device.

– But …

– I remember it like it was today, Klara says.

She laughs. She spreads her arms wide and dances on the spot. It
is
today! she says. It is always today. Oh, Henry. She throws her arms around him, nuzzles his neck. It is always today, she whispers, against his skin. One perfect summer’s day.

Fogg opens his eyes. The device? he says, wonder in his voice. Is that what all this is about?

It’s still there, the Old Man says. That quantum bomb. That
whatever
it is. It, or a copy of it. The only working model in the world.

Fogg shakes his head, realisation dawning. No, he says. Old Man, no …

– Vomacht himself said that he didn’t know. That he would never have done it if he knew. There is naked anger in the Old Man’s voice. Terrifying after the hours of patient interrogation. The technology is non-replicable, the Old Man says. We can’t create a new change. Or undo the old one. The change is still happening, Fogg. A floating referrent. There’s no way to
make it stop
. Not unless …

– No, Fogg says. No.

– I have to, the Old Man says.

– You mustn’t!

– We don’t
age!
the Old Man says. Fogg turns to him. The Old Man rounds on Fogg. His face is no longer patient, understanding; no longer a confessor’s face, it is now that of an old, bitter warrior. And Fogg thinks: How could I not see it before?

– We don’t
die
, the Old Man says.

His voice softer now; it breaks Fogg’s heart.

– We stand still as the world moves on, the Old Man says. I don’t know this world any more. I don’t know the language people speak. I walk the streets of London and it’s as if I am walking through a city on an alien world.

– What are you planning to do? Fogg says; but the Old Man ignores him.

– We won the war, Henry, he says. We won the war, but we lost ourselves.

– I can’t let you do this, Fogg says.

– You don’t, the Old Man says, get to decide.

Motion catches Fogg’s eye. He turns back to the glass. A nurse enters the interrogation chamber. She is holding a syringe in one hand. No, Fogg says. Please. The nurse approaches Klara. Rolls up her sleeve. Cleans the skin with a pad of cotton wool. Primes the syringe. You’re attuned to her, the Old Man says. He stands close behind Fogg. Says, softly, This will only last a moment.

The nurse pushes the syringe into Klara’s arm, emptying it. Klara’s body thrashes against the restraints. Fogg cries out as

161.
DR VOMACHT’S FARMHOUSE

he finds himself standing in the kitchen. Bulbs of garlic hanging from the wall. Heavy blackened pots. Sunlight streams in through the open window, disorientating Fogg. He blinks and sees Klara.

– Henry!

The sight of her fills him with fear. Klara, he says. They go to each other. He holds her tight, burying his head in the crook of her neck, inhaling her scent. She is trembling in his arms. She pulls away. Her hand rises, strokes his cheek. I’m scared, Henry, she says. What is happening to me?

His hands on her arms, the warmth of her, he says, I’ll get you out of this, I pro—

162.
THE BUREAU
the present