A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY by John le Carré

‘What a horrid mind you must have,’ de Lisle said luxuri­ously. ‘What a nasty, inventive mind.’

‘The trouble is, it doesn’t work.’

‘Not really, does it? Not in human terms. I’m glad you recog­nise that. Leo wouldn’t panic, that’s not his way. He had him­self much under control. And it sounds very silly, but he loved us. Modestly, he loved us. He was our kind of man, Alan. Not theirs. He expected dreadfully little from life. Pit pony. That’s how I used to think of him in those wretched ground-floor stables. Even when he came upstairs, he seemed to bring a bit of the dark with him. People thought of him as jolly. The jolly extrovert…’

‘No one I’ve talked to thought he was jolly.’

De Lisle turned his head and looked at Turner with real interest.

‘Didn’t they? What a horrifying thought. Each of us thought the other was laughing. Like clowns at the tragedy. That’s very nasty,’ he said.

‘All right,’ Turner conceded. ‘He wasn’t a believer. But he might have been when he was younger, mightn’t he?’

‘Might.’

‘Then he goes to sleep… his conscience goes to sleep, I mean -‘

‘Ah.’

‘Until Karfeld wakes him up again – the new Nationalism… the old enemy…. Wakes him with a bang. “Hey, what’s going on?” He saw it all happening again; he told people that: history repeating itself.’

‘Was it really Marx who said that: “History repeats itself, but the first time it’s tragedy, and the second time it’s comedy?” It seems far too witty for a German. Though I will admit: Karfeld does make Communism awfully inviting.’

‘What was he like?’ Turner insisted. ‘What was he really like?’

‘Leo? God, what are any of us like?’

‘You knew him. I didn’t.’

‘You won’t interrogate me, will you?’ he asked, not altogether as a joke. ‘I’m damned if I’ll buy you lunch for you to unmask me.’

‘Did Bradfield like him?’

‘Who does Bradfield like?’

‘Did he keep a close eye on him?’

‘On his work, no doubt, where it was relevant. Rawley’s a professional.’

‘He’s Roman Catholic too, isn’t he?’

‘My goodness,’ de Lisle declared with quite unexpected vehemence, ‘what an awful thing to say. You really mustn’t compartment people like that, it won’t do. Life just isn’t made up of so many cowboys and so many Red Indians. Least of all diplomatic life. If that’s what you think life is, you’d better defect yourself.’ With this he threw back his head and closed his eyes, letting the sun restore him. ‘After all,’ he added, his equability quite revived, ‘that’s what you object to in Leo, isn’t it? He’s gone and attached himself to some silly faith. God is dead. You can’t have it both ways, that would be too medieval.’ He lapsed once more into a contented silence.

‘I have a particular vision of Leo,’ he said at last. ‘Here’s something for your little notebook. What do you make of this? One gorgeous winter afternoon, I’d been to a boring German conference and it was half past four and I’d nothing much to do, so I took myself for a drive up into the hills behind Godes­berg. Sun, frost, a bit of snow, a bit of wind… it was how I imagine ascending into Heaven. Suddenly, there was Leo. Indisputably, unquestionably, positively Leo, shrouded to the ears in Balkan black, with one of those dreadful Homburg hats they wear in the Movement. He was standing at the edge of a football field watching some kids kicking a ball and smok­ing one of those little cigars everyone complained about.’

‘Alone?’

‘All alone. I thought of stopping but I didn’t. He hadn’t any car that I could see and he was miles from anywhere. And suddenly I thought, no; don’t stop; he’s at Church. He’s looking at the childhood he never had.’

‘You were fond of him, weren’t you?’

De Lisle might have replied, for the question did not seem to disconcert him, but he was interrupted by an unexpected intruder.

‘Hullo. A new flunkey?’ The voice was slurred and gritty. As its owner was standing directly in the sun, Turner had to screw up his eyes in order to make him out at all; at length he discerned the gently swaying outline and the black unkempt hair of the English journalist who had saluted them at lunch. He was pointing at Turner, but his question, to judge by the cast of his head, was addressed to de Lisle.

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