A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY by John le Carré

The Germans were shy at first; they did not want to rearm, many people had had enough of war. Karfeld himself belonged to that category: the lessons of Stalingrad were like acid in the young man’s memory. But the Allies were deter­mined as well as kind. The Germans should provide the army, and the British and the Americans and the French would command it… And the Dutch… And the Norwegians… And the Portuguese; and any other foreign general who cared to command the vanquished:

‘Why: we might even have had African generals command­ing the Bundeswehr!’

A few – they belonged to the front, to that protective ring of leather-coated men beneath the scaffold – a few started laughing, but he quelled them at once.

‘Listen! ‘ he told them. ‘My friends, you must listen! That is what we deserved! We lost the war! We persecuted the Jews! We were not fit to command! Only to pay!’ Their anger gradually subsided. ‘That,’ he explained, ‘is why we pay for the British Army as well. And that is why they let us into Nato.’

‘Alan!’

‘I have seen them.’

Two grey buses were parked beside the pharmacy. A flood­light touched their dull coachwork, and was moved away. The windows were quite black, sealed from inside.

And we were grateful, Karfeld continued. Grateful to be admitted to such an exclusive club. Of course we were. The club did not exist; its members did not like us; the fees were very high; and as the Germans were still children they must not play with weapons which might damage their enemies; but we were grateful all the same, because we were Germans and had lost the war.

Once more the indignant murmur rose, but he scotched it again with a terse movement of his hand. ‘We want no emotion here,’ he reminded them. ‘We are dealing with facts!’

High up, on a tiny ledge, a mother held her baby. ‘Look down,’ she was whispering. ‘You will not see his like again.’ In the whole square, nothing moved; the heads were still, staring with cavernous eyes.

To emphasise his great impartiality, Karfeld once more drew back in the pulpit and, taking all his time, tilted his spectacles a little and examined the pages before him. This done, he hesitated, peered doubtfully downwards at the faces nearest him and deliberated, unsure how far he could expect his flock to follow what he was about to say.

What then was the function of the Germans in this distin­guished club? He would put it this way. He would state the formula first and afterwards he would give one or two simple examples of the method by which it could be applied. The function of the Germans in Nato was briefly this: to be docile towards the West and hostile towards the East; to recognise that even among the victorious Allies there were good victors and bad victors…

Again the laughter rose and fell. Der Klaus, they whispered, der Klaus knows how to make a joke; what a club that Nato is. Nato, the Market, it’s all a cheat, it’s all the same; they are applying the same principles to the Market which they applied to Nato. Klaus has told us so and that is why the Germans must stay away from Brussels. It is just another trap, it is. encirclement all over again…

‘That’s Lésère,’ de Lisle murmured.

A small, greying man who obscurely reminded Turner of a bus conductor had joined them on the steps and was writing contentedly in his notebook.

‘The French counsellor. Big chum of Karfeld’s.’

About to return his gaze to the scaffold, Turner happened to look into the side street; and thus he saw for the first time the mad, dark, tiny army that waited for the signal.

Directly across the square, assembled in the unlit side street, the silent concourse of men waited. They carried banners that were not quite black in the twilight and there stood before them, Turner was certain there stood before them, the rem­nants of a military band. The oblique arclights glinted on a trumpet, caught the laced panels of the drum. At its head stood a solitary figure; his arm, raised like a conductor’s, held them motionless.

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