A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY by John le Carré

‘What’s that got to do with it?’

‘My,’ said de Lisle admiringly, ‘you are prickly.’

‘What does he do for money?’

‘He’s an industrial chemist; he runs a big plant outside Essen. There’s a theory the British gave him a rough time during the Occupation, dismantled his factory and ruined his business. I don’t know how true it all is. We’ve attempted a certain amount of research but there’s very little to go on and Rawley, quite rightly, forbids us to enquire outside. God knows,’ he declared with a small shudder, ‘what Siebkron would think of us if we started that game. The press just says he hates us, as if it required no explanations. Perhaps they’re right.’

‘What’s his record?’

‘Predictable. Graduated before the war, drafted into the Engineers. Russian front as a demolitions expert; wounded at Stalingrad but managed to get out. The disillusionment of peace. The hard struggle and the slow build-up. All very romantic. The death of the spirit, the gradual revival. There are the usual boring rum ours that he was Himmler’s aunt or something of the sort. No one pays them much heed; it’s a sign of arriving in Bonn these days, when the East Germans dig up an improbable allegation against you.’

‘But there’s nothing to it?’

‘There’s always something; there’s never enough. Anyway, it doesn’t impress anyone except us, so why bother? He came by degrees to politics, he says; he speaks of his years of sleep and his years of awakening. He has a rather Messianic turn of phrase, I fear, at least when he talks about himself.’

‘You’ve never met him, have you?’

‘Good God no. Just read about him. Heard him on the radio. He’s very present in our lives in some ways.’

Turner’s pale eyes had returned to the Petersberg; the sun, slanting between the hills, glinted directly upon the windows of the grey hotel. There is one hill over there that is broken like a quarry; small engines, white with dust, shuffle at its feet.

‘You have to hand it to him. In six months he’s changed the whole galère. The cadre, the organisation, the jargon. They were cranks before Karfeld; gypsies, wandering preachers, Hitler’s risen, all that nonsense. Now they’re a patrician, graduate group. No shirt-sleeved hordes for him, thank you; none of your socialist nonsense, apart from the students, and he’s very clever about tolerating them. He knows what a narrow line there is between the pacifist who attacks the police­man and the policeman who attacks the pacifist. But for most of us Barbarossa wears a clean shirt and has a doctorate in chemical engineering. Herr Doktor Barbarossa, that’s the cry these days. Economists, historians, statisticians… above all, lawyers, of course. Lawyers are the great German gurus, always have been; you know how illogical lawyers are. But not politicians: politicians aren’t a bit respectable. And for Karfeld, of course, they smack far too much of representation; Karfeld doesn’t want anyone representing him, thank you. Power with­out rule, that’s the cry. The right to know better, the right not to be responsible. It’s the end, you see, not the beginning,’ he said, with a conviction quite disproportionate to his leth­argy. ‘Both we and the Germans have been through democ­racy and no one’s given us credit for it. Like shaving. No one thanks you for shaving, no one thanks you for democracy. Now we’ve come out the other side. Democracy was only possible under a class system, that’s why: it was an indulgence granted by the privileged. We haven’t time for it any more: a flash of light between feudalism and automation, and now it’s gone. What’s left? The voters are cut off from parliament, parliament is cut off from the Government and the Government is cut off from everyone. Government by silence, that’s the slogan. Government by alienation. I don’t need to tell you about that; it’s a British product.’

He paused, expecting Turner to make some further inter­jection but Turner was still lost in thought. At their long table, the journalists were arguing. Someone had threatened to hit someone else; a third was promising to bang their heads together.

‘I don’t know what I’m defending. Or what I’m rep­resenting; who does? “A gentleman who lies for the good of his country,” they told us with a wink in London. “Willingly,” I say. “But first tell me what truth I must conceal.” They haven’t the least idea. Outside the Office, the poor world dreams we have a book bound in gold with POLICY written on the cover… God, if only they knew.’ He finished his wine. ‘Perhaps you know? I am supposed to obtain the maximum advantage with the minimum of friction. What do they mean by advantage? Perhaps we should go into decline. Perhaps we need a Karfeld? A new Oswald Mosley? I’m afraid we would barely notice him. The opposite of love isn’t hate; it’s apathy. Apathy is our daily bread here. Hysterical apathy. Have some more Moselle.’

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