But in that moment, no one paid them any heed, for Karfeld was all they saw.
‘Der Klaus!’ the crowd was calling. ‘Der Klaus is here!’ Wave to him, children; der Klaus, the magic man, has walked all the way to Bonn on stilts of German pine.
‘He is very English, der Klaus,’ he heard de Lisle murmur. ‘Although he hates our guts.’
He was such a little man up there. They said he was tall; and it would have been easy enough, with so much artifice, to raise him a toot or so, but he seemed to wish to be diminished, as if to emphasise that great truths are found in humble mouths; for Karfeld was a humble man, and English in his diffidence. And Karfeld was a nervous man too, bothered by his spectacles, which he had not had time to clean, apparently, in these busy days, for now he took them off and polished them as if he did not know he was observed: it is the others who make the ceremony, he was telling them, before he had said a word; it is you and I who know why we are here.
Let us pray.
‘The lights are too bright for him,’ someone said. ‘They should reduce the lights.’
He was one of them, this isolated Doctor; a good deal of brain power no doubt, a good deal above the ears, but still one of them at the end of it, ready to step down at any time from that high place if someone better came along. And not at all a politician. Quite without ambition, in fact, for he had only yesterday promised to stand down in favour of Halbach if that was the people’s will. The crowd whispered its concern. Karfeld looks tired, he looks fresh; he looks well; Karfeld looks ill, older, younger, taller, shorter… It is said he is retiring; no, he will give up his factory and work full time on politics. He cannot afford it; he is a millionaire.
Quietly he began speaking.
No one introduced him, he did not say his name. The note of music which announced his coming had no companions, for Klaus Karfeld is alone up there, quite alone, and no music can console him. Karfeld is not a Bonn windbag; he is one of us for all his intellect: Klaus Karfeld, doctor and citizen, a decent man decently concerned about the fate of Germany, is obliged, out of a sense of honour, to address a few friends. It was so softly, so unobtrusively done, that to Turner it seemed that the whole massive gathering actually inclined its ear in order to save Karfeld the pain of raising his voice.
Afterwards, Turner could not say how much he had understood, nor how he had understood so much. He had the impression, at first, that Karfeld’s interest was purely historical. The talk was of the origin of war and Turner caught the old catch-words of the old religion: Versailles, chaos, depression and encirclement; the mistakes that had been made by statesmen on both sides, for Germans cannot shirk their own responsibilities. There followed a small tribute to the casualties of unreason: too many people died, Karfeld said, and too few knew the cause. It must never happen again, Karfeld knew: he had brought back more than wounds from Stalingrad: he had brought back memories, indelible memories, of human misery, mutilation and betrayal…
He has indeed, they whispered, the poor Klaus. He has suffered for us all.
There was no rhetoric still. You and I, Karfeld was saying, have learnt the lessons of history; you and I can look on these things with detachment: it must never happen again. There were those, it was true, who saw the battles of fourteen and thirty-nine as part of a continuing crusade against the enemies of a German heritage, but Karfeld – he wished it to be known to all his friends – Klaus Karfeld was not, altogether, of this school.
‘Alan.’ It was de Lisle’s voice, steady as a captain’s. Turner followed his gaze.
A flutter, a movement of people, the passing of a message? Something was stirring on the balcony. He saw Tilsit, the General, incline his soldier’s head and Halbach the student leader whisper in his ear, saw Meyer-Lothringen leaning forward over the filigree rail, listening to someone below him. A policeman? A plain clothes man? He saw the glint of spectacles and the patient surgeon’s face as Siebkron rose and vanished; and all was still again except for Karfeld, academic and man of reason, who was talking about today.