Saab's subject, miraculously, was still the British, but he had enriched it with autobiographical matter on the discomforts of bombing: 'You know what they say about Hamburg? Question: what is the difference between an Englishman and a man of Hamburg?
Answer: the man of Hamburg speaks German. You know in those cellars, what we were saying?
Thank God they are British bombs! Bradfield, prosit! Never again.'
'Never again indeed,' Bradfield replied, and wearily toasted him in the German style, looking at him over the brim of his glass, drinking and looking again.
'Bradfield, you are the best piece. Your ancestors fought at Waterloo, and your wife is as beautiful as the Queen. You are the best piece in the British Embassy and you didn't invite the damn Americans and you didn't invite the damn French. You are a good fellow. Frenchmen is bastards,' he concluded to everyone's alarm, and there was a moment's startled silence.
'Karl- Heinz, I'm sure that isn't very loyal,' said Hazel and a little laugh went up at her end of the table, originated by a pointless elderly Gräfin summoned at the last moment to partner Alan Turner. An unwelcome shaft of electric light broke upon the company. The Hungarians marched in from the kitchen like the morning shift and cleared away bottles and china with inconsiderate panache.
Saab leaned still further across the table and pointed a big, not very clean finger at the guest of honour. 'You see this fellow Ludwig Siebkron here is a damn odd fellow. We all admire him in the Press Corps, because we can't never damn well get hold of him, and in journalism we admire only what we cannot have. And do you know why we cannot have Siebkron?'
The question amused Saab very much. He looked happily round the table, his dark face glistening with delight. 'Because he is so damn busy with his good friend and... Kumpan.' He snapped his fingers in frustration. 'Kumpan,' he repeated. 'Kumpan?'
'Drinking companion,' Siebkron suggested. Saab stared at him lamely, bewildered by assistance from such an unexpected quarter. 'Drinking companion,' he muttered; 'Klaus Karfeld,' and fell silent.
'Karl- Heinz, you must rememberKumpan,' his wife said softly, and he nodded and smiled at her valiantly.
'You have come to join us, Mister Turner?' Siebkron enquired, addressing the nutmeg grater. Suddenly the lights were on Turner, and Siebkron, risen from his bed, was conducting the rare surgery of a private practice.
'For a few days,' Turner said. The audience was slow in gathering, so that for a moment the two men faced one another in secret communion while the others continued their separate pursuits. Bradfield had engaged in a desultory cross-talk with Vandelung; Turner caught a reference to Vietnam. Saab, suddenly returning to the field, took up the subject and made it his own.
'The Yanks would fight in Saigon,' he declared, 'but they wouldn't fight in Berlin. Seems a bit of a pity they didn't build the Berlin Wall in Saigon.' His voice was louder and more offensive, but Turner heard it out of the dark that was beyond Siebkron's unflinching gaze. 'All of a sudden the Yanks are going crazy about self-determination. Why don't they try it in East Germany a little bit? Everyone fights for the damn Negroes. Everyone fights for the damn jungle. Maybe it's a pity we don't wear no feathers.' He seemed to be challenging Vandelung, but without effect: the old Dutchman's grey skin was as smooth as a coffin, and nothing would sprout there any more. 'Maybe it's a pity we don't have no palm trees in Berlin.'
They heard him pause to drink. 'Vietnam is shit. But at least this time may be they can't say we started it,' he added with more than a trace of self-pity.
'War is terrible,' the Gräfin whickered, 'we lost everything,' but she was talking after the curtain had gone up. Herr Ludwig Siebkron proposed to speak, and had put down the silver nutmeg grater in order to signify his will.
'And where do you come from, Mister Turner?'
'Yorkshire.' There was silence.
'I spent the war in Bournemouth.'
'Herr Siebkron meant which Department,' Bradfield said crisply.
'Foreign Office,' said Turner. 'Same as everyone else,' and looked at him indifferently across the table. Siebkron's white eyes neither condemned nor admired, but waited for the moment to insert the scalpel.
'And may we ask Mr Turner which section of the Foreign Office is so fortunate as to have his services?'
'Research.' 'He's also a distinguished
mountaineer,' Bradfield put in from far a way, and the little doll cried out with the sharp surprise of sexual delight. 'Die Berge!' Out of the corner of his eye Turner saw one china hand touch the halter of her dress as if she would take it clean off in her enthusiasm. 'Karl- Heinz -'
'Next year,' Saab's brown voice assured her in a whisper. 'Nextyear we go to the mountains,' and Siebkron smiled to Turner as if that were one joke they could surely share.
'But now Mr Turner is in the valley. You are staying in Bonn, Mr Turner?'
'Godesberg.'
'In a hotel, Mr Turner?'
'The Adler. Room Ten.'
'And what kind of research, I wonder, is conducted from the Hotel Adler, Room Ten?'
'Ludwig, my dear chap,' Bradfield interposed - his jocularity was not so very hollow - 'surely you recognise a spy when you see one. Alan's our Mata Hari. He entertains the Cabinet in his bedroom.'
Laughter, Siebkron's expression said, does not last for ever; he waited until it had subsided. 'Alan,' he repeated quietly.'
Alan Turner from Yorkshire, working in Foreign Office Research Department and staying at the Adler Hotel, a distinguished mountaineer. You must forgive my curiosity, Mr Turner. We are all on edge here in Bonn, you know. As, for my sins, I am charged with the physical protection of the British Embassy, I have naturally a certain interest in the people I protect. Your presence here is reported to Personnel Department no doubt? I must have missed the bulletin.'
'We put him down as a technician,' Bradfield said, clearly irritated now to be questioned before his own guests.
'How sensible,' said Siebkron. 'So much simpler than Research. He does research but you put him down as a technician. Your technicians on the other hand are all engaged in research. It's a perfectly simple arrangement. But your research is of a practical nature, Mr Turner? A statistician? Or you are an academic perhaps?'
'Just general.'
'General research. A very catholic responsibility. You will be here long?'
'A week. Maybe more. Depends how long the project lasts.'
'The research project? Ah. Then you have a project. I had imagined at first you were replacing someone. Ewan Waldebere, for instance; he was engaged in commercial research, was he not, Bradfield? Or Peter McCreedy, on scientific development. Or Harting: you are not replacing Leo Harting, for instance? Such a pity he's gone. One of your oldest and most valuable collaborators.'
'Oh Harting!' Mrs Vandelung had taken up the name, and it was already clear she had strong views. 'You know what they are saying now already? That Harting is drunk in Cologne: He goes on fits, you know.' She was much entertained to hold their interest. 'All the week he wears angels' wings and plays the organ and sings like a Christian; but at weekends he goes to Cologne and fights the Germans. He is quite a Jekyll and Hyde I assure you!' She laughed indulgently. 'Oh he is very wicked. Rawley, you remember André de Hoog I am sure. He has heard it all from the police here: Harting made a great fight in Cologne. In a night club. It was all to do with a bad woman. Oh, he is very mysterious I assure you. And now we have no one to play the organ.'