He broke a roll in two and dipped one half into the soup. ‘You tell the Queen that Praschko says the English are lousy, lying hypocrites. Your wife okay?’
‘Well, thank you.’
‘It’s a long time since I got to dinner up there. Still live in that ghetto, do you? Nice place. Never mind. Nobody likes me for too long. That’s why I change parties,’ he explained to Turner. ‘I used to think I was a Romantic, always looking for the blue flower. Now I think I just get bored. Same with friends, same with women, same with God. They’re all true. They all cheat you. They’re all bastards. Jesus. Know another thing: I like new friends better than old ones. Hey, I got a new wife: what do you think of her?’ He held up the girl’s chin and adjusted her face a little to show her to the best advantage and the girl smiled and patted his hand. ‘I’m amazing. There was a time,’ he continued before either of them could make an appropriate comment, ‘there was a time when I would have laid down on my fat belly to get the lousy English into Europe. Now you’re crying on the doorstep and I don’t care.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m truly amazing. Still, that’s history I guess. Or maybe that’s just me. Maybe I’m only interested in power: maybe I loved you because you were strong and now I hate you because you’re nothing. They killed a boy last night, you hear? In Hagen. It’s on the radio.’
He drank a Steinhager from the tray. The mat stuck to the stem of the glass. He tore it off. ‘One boy. One old man. One crazy woman librarian. Okay, so it’s a football team; but it isn’t Armageddon.’
Through the window, the long grey columns waited on the esplanade. Praschko waved a hand round the room. ‘Look at this crap. Paper. Paper democracy, paper politicians, paper eagles, paper soldiers, paper deputies. Doll’s house democracy; every time Karfeld sneezes, we wet our pants. Know why? Because he comes so damn near the truth.’
‘Are you in favour of him then? Is that it?’ Turner asked, ignoring Bradfield’s angry glance.
Praschko finished his soup, his eyes on Turner all the time. ‘The world gets younger every day,’ he said. ‘Okay, so Karfeld’s a load of crap. Okay. We’ve got rich, see, boy? We’ve eaten and drunk, built houses, bought cars, paid taxes, gone to church, made babies. Now we want something real. Know what this is, boy?’
His eyes had not left Turner’s damaged face.
‘Illusions. Kings and queens. The Kennedys, de Gaulle, Napoleon. The Wittelsbachs, Potsdam. Not just a damn village any more. Hey, so what’s this about the students rioting in England? What does the Queen think about that? Don’t you give them enough cash? Youth. Want to know something about youth? I’ll tell you.’ Turner was his only audience now. “‘German youth is blaming its parents for starting the war.” That’s what you hear. Every day some crazy clever guy writes it in another newspaper. Want to hear the true story? They’re blaming their parents for losing the damn war, not for starting it! “Hey! Where the hell’s our Empire?” Same as the English I guess. It’s the same horseshit. The same kids. They want God back.’ He leaned across the table until his face was quite close to Turner’s. ‘Here. Maybe we could do a deal: we give you cash, you give us illusions. Trouble is, we tried that. We done that deal and you gave us a load of shit. You didn’t deliver the illusions. That’s what we don’t like about the English any more. They don’t know how to do a deal. The Fatherland wanted to marry the Motherland but you never showed up for the wedding.’ He broke out in another peal of false laughter.
‘Perhaps the time has now come to make the union,’ Bradfield suggested, smiling like a tired statesman.
Out of the corner of his eye, Turner saw two men, blond-faced, in dark suits and suede shoes, quietly take their places at an adjoining table. The waiter went to them quickly, sensing their profession. At the same moment a bevy of young journalists came in from the lobby. Some carried the day’s newspapers; the headlines spoke of Brussels or Hagen. At their head Karl-Heinz Saab, father of them all, stared across at Bradfield in flatulent anxiety. Beyond the window, in a loveless patio, rows of empty plastic chairs were planted like artificial flowers into the breaking concrete.