A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY by John le Carré

Epilogue

Bradfield led the way; de Lisle and Turner followed. It was early evening and the streets were empty of traffic. In all Bonn, nothing stirred but the mute, grey-clad strangers who swarmed the alleys and hastened towards the market square. The black bunting, becalmed, drifted in idle swathes over the ebbing tide.

Bonn had never seen such faces. The old and the young, the lost and the found, the fed and the hungry, the clever, the dull, the governed and the ungoverned, all the children of the Republic, it seemed, had risen in a single legion to march upon her little bastions. Some were hillsmen, dark­haired, straddle-legged and scrubbed for the outing; some were clerks, Bob Cratchits nipped by the quick air; some were Sunday men, the slow infantry of the German promenade, in grey gabardine and grey Homburg hats. Some carried their flags shamefully, as if they had outgrown them, some as banners borne to the battle, others as ravens strung for market. Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane.

Bradfield waited for them to catch up.

‘Siebkron reserved space for us. We should enter the square higher up. We shall have to force our way to the right.’ Turner nodded, barely hearing. He was looking everywhere, into every face and every window, every shop, corner and alley.

Once he seized de Lisle’s arm, but whoever it was had gone, lost again in the changing mass.

Not just the square itself: balconies, windows, shops, every foothold and crevice was filled with grey coats and white faces, and the green uniforms of soldiers and police. And still they came, more of them, cramming the mouths of the darkening alleys, craning their necks for a sight of the speaker’s stand, searching for a leader, faceless men searching for one face; while Turner peered desperately among them for a face he had never seen. Overhead, in front of the floodlights, loud­speakers hung like warnings from their wires; beyond them, the sky was failing.

He’ll never make it, Turner thought dully; he’ll never pene­trate a crowd like this. But Hazel Bradfield’s voice came back to him: I had a younger brother, he played scrum-half; you could hardly tell them apart.

‘To the left,’ Bradfield said. ‘Make for the hotel.’

‘You are English?’ a woman’s voice enquired, teatime in a friendly house. ‘My daughter lives in Yarmouth.’ But the tide carried her away. Furled banners barred their path, dropped like lances. The banners formed a ring, and the gypsy students stood inside it, gathered round their own small fire. ‘Burn Axel Springer,’ one boy shouted, not with much conviction, and another broke a book and threw it on the flames. The book burned badly, choking before it died. I shouldn’t have done that to the books, Turner thought; I’ll be doing it to people next. A group of girls lounged on mattresses and the fire made poems of their faces.

‘If we’re separated, meet on the steps of the Stern,’ Bradfield ordered. A boy heard him and ran forward, encouraged by the others. Two girls were already shouting in French. ‘You are English!’ the boy cried, though his face was young and nervous. ‘English swine!’ Hearing the girls again, he swung his small fist wildly over the lances. Turner hastened forward, but the blow fell on Bradfield’s shoulder and he paid it no attention. The crowd gave way, suddenly, its will mysteriously gone, and the Town Hall appeared before them at the far end of the square, and that was the night’s first dream. A magic baroque mountain of candy pink and merchant gold. A vision of style and elegance, of silk and filigree and sunlight. A vision of brilliance and Latin glory, palaces where de Lisle’s unplayed minuets pleased the plumper burgher’s heart. To its left the scaffold, still in darkness, cut off by the screen of arclights trained upon the building, waited like an executioner upon the imperial presence.

‘Herr Bradfield?’ the pale detective asked. He had not changed his leather coat since that dawn in Königswinter, but there were two teeth missing from his black mouth. The moon faces of his colleagues stirred in recognition of the name.

‘I’m Bradfield, yes.’

‘We are ordered to free the steps for you.’ His English was rehearsed: a small part for a newcomer. The radio in his leather pocket crackled in urgent command. He lifted it to his mouth. The diplomatic gentlemen had arrived, he said, and were safely in position. The gentleman from Research was also present.

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