'That's what I was wondering myself,' Turner said.
He thought she might hit him, and he knew that if she did, he would hit her back. She was beautiful, but the arch corners of her mouth were drawn down in the frustrated fury of a rich child, and there were things about her voice and manner which were dreadfully familiar.
'Get out. Leave me alone.'
'I don't care who you are. If you want to know official secrets you can bloody well get them at source,' Turner said, and waited for her to rise to him again.
Instead, she swept past him in to the hall and ran upstairs. For a moment he remained where he was, staring confusedly at the muddle of children's and adult toys, the fishing rods, the croquet set and all the casual, wasteful equipment of a world he had never known. Still lost in thought, he made his way slowly back to the drawing-room. As he entered, Bradfield and Siebkron, side by side at the french window, turned as one man to stare at him, the object of their shared contempt.
It was midnight. The Gräfin, drunk and quite speechless, had been loaded in to a taxi. Siebkron had gone; his farewell had been confined to the Bradfields. His wife must have gone with him, though Turner had not noticed her departure; the cushion where she had sat was barely depressed. The Vandelungs had also gone. Now the five of them sat round the fire in a state of post-festive depression, the Saabs on the sofa holding hands and staring at the dying coals, Bradfield quite silent sipping his thin whisky; while Hazel herself, in her long skirt of green tweed, curled like a mermaid in to an armchair, played with the Blue Russian cat in self-conscious imitation of an eighteenth-century dream. Though she rarely looked at Turner, she did not trouble to ignore him; occasionally she even addressed a remark to him. A tradesman had been impertinent, but Hazel Bradfield would not do him the compliment of taking a way her custom.
'Hanover was fantastic,' Saab muttered.
'Oh not again, Karl- Heinz,' Hazel pleaded, 'I think I've. heard enough of that to last for ever.'
'Why did they run?' he asked himself. 'Siebkron was also there. They ran. From the front. They ran like crazy for that library. Why did they do that?
All at once: alles auf einmal.'
'Siebkron keeps asking me the same question,' Bradfield said, in an exhausted moment of frankness. 'Why did they run? He should know if anyone does: he was at Eich's bedside; I wasn't. He heard what she had to say, I suppose; I didn't. What the hell's got in to him? On and on: "What happened at Hanover mustn't happen in Bonn." Of course it mustn't, but he seems to think it's my fault it happened in the first place. I've never known him like that.'
'You?' Hazel Bradfield said with undisguised contempt. 'Why on earth should he ask you? You weren't even there.'
'He asks me all the same,' said Bradfield, standing up, in a moment so utterly passive and tender that Turner was moved suddenly to speculate on their relationship. 'He asks me all the same.' He put his empty glass on the sideboard. 'Whether you like it or not. He asks me repeatedly: "Why did they run?" Just as Karl- Heinz was asking now. "What made them run? What was it about the library that attracted them?" All I could say was that it was British, and we all know what Karfeld thinks about the British. Come on, Karl- Heinz: we must put you young people to bed.'
'And the grey buses,' Saab muttered. 'You read what they found about the buses for the bodyguard? They were grey, Bradfield, grey!'
'Is that significant?'
'It was, Bradfield. About a thousand years ago, it was damn significant, my dear.'
'I'm afraid I'm missing the point,' Bradfield observed with a weary smile.
'As usual,' his wife said; no one took it as a joke.
They stood in the hall. Of the two Hungarians, only the girl remained.
'You have been damn good to me, Bradfield,' Saab said sadly as they took their leave. 'Maybe I talk too much. Nicht wahr, Marlene: I talk too much. But I don't trust that fellow Siebkron. I am an old pig, see? But Siebkron is a young pig: Pay attention!'
'Why shouldn't I trust him, Karl- Heinz?'
'Because he don't never ask a question unless he knows the answer.' With this enigmatic reply, Karl- Heinz Saab fervently kissed the hand of his hostess and stepped in to the dark, steadied by the young arm of his adoring wife.
Turner sat in the back while Saab drove very slowly on the left hand side of the road. His wife was asleep on his shoulder, one little hand still scratching fondly at the black fur which decorated the nape of her husband's neck.
'Why did they run at Hanover?' Saab repeated, weaving happily between the oncoming cars. 'Whythose damn fools run?'
At the Adler, Turner asked for morning coffee at half past four, and the porter noted it with an understanding smile, as if that were the sort of time he expected an Englishman to rise. As he went to bed, his mind detached itself from the distasteful and mystifying interrogations of Herr Ludwig Siebkron in order to dwell on the more agreeable person of Hazel Bradfield. It was just as mysterious, he decided as he fell asleep, that a woman so beautiful, desirable and evidently intelligent could tolerate the measureless tedium of diplomatic life in Bonn. If darling upper-class Anthony Willoughby ever took a shine to her, he thought, what on earth would Bradfield do then? And why -the chorus that sang him to sleep was the same chorus which had kept him awake throughout the long, tense, meaningless evening -why the hell was he invited in the first place?
And who had asked him? 'I am to invite you to dinner on Tuesday,' Bradfield had said: don't blame me for what happens.
And Bradfield, I heard! I heard you submit to pressure; I felt the softness of you for the first time; I took a step in your direction, I saw the knife in your back and I heard you speak with my own voice. Hazel, you bitch; Siebkron, you swine; Harting, you thief: if that's what you think about life, queer de Lisle simpered in his ear, why don't you defect yourself. God is dead. You can't have it both ways, that would be too medieval...
He had set his alarm for four o'clock, and it seemed to be ringing already.
CHAPTER ELEVEN Königswinter
It was still dark when de Lisle collected him and Turner had to ask the night porter to unlock the hotel door. The street was cold, friendless and deserted; the mist came at them in sudden patches.
'We'll have to go the long way over the bridge. The ferry's not running at this hour.' His manner was short to the point of abruptness.
They had entered the carriageway. To either side of them, new blocks, built of tile and armoured glass, sprang like night weeds out of the untilled fields, crested by the lamps of small cranes. They passed the Embassy. The dark hung upon the wet concrete like the smoke of a spent battle. The Union Jack swung limply from its standard, a single flower on a soldier's grave. Under the weary light of the front porch, the lion and the unicorn, their profiles blurred with repeated coats of red and gold, fought bravely on. In the waste land, the two rickety goalposts leaned drunkenly in the twilight.
'Things are warming up in Brussels,' de Lisle remarked in a tone which promised little elaboration. A dozen cars were parked in the forecourt, Bradfield's white Jaguar stood in its private bay.
'For us or against us?'
'What do you think?' He continued: 'We have asked for private talks with the Germans; the French have done the same.
Not that they want them; it's the tug-of-war they enjoy.'
'Who wins?'
De Lisle did not reply.
The deserted town hung in the pink unearthly glow which cradles every city in the hour before dawn. The streets were wet and empty, the houses soiled like old uniforms. At the University arch, three policemen had made a lane of barricades and they flagged them down as they approached. Sullenly they walked round the small car, recording the licence number, testing the suspension by standing on the rear bumper, peering through the misted windscreen at the huddled occupants within.
'What was that they shouted?' Turner asked as they drove on.
'Look out for the one-way signs.' He turned left, following the blue arrow. 'Where the hell are they taking us?'
An electric van was scrubbing the gutter; two more policemen in greatcoats of green leather, their peak caps bent, suspiciously surveyed its progress. In a shop window a young girl was fitting beach clothes to a model, holding one plastic arm and feeding the sleeve a long it. She wore boots of heavy felt and shuffled like a prisoner. They were in the station square. Black banners stretched across the road and a long the awning of the station. 'Welcome to Klaus Karfeld!' 'A hunter's greeting, Klaus!' 'Karfeld! You stand for our self-respect!' A photograph, larger than any which Turner had so far seen, was raised on a massive new hoarding. 'Freitag!' said the legend. Friday. The floodlights shone upon the world and left the face in darkness.