A SMALL TOWN IN GERMANY by John le Carré

‘Never again indeed,’ Bradfield replied, and wearily toasted him in the German style, looking at him over the brim of his glass, drinking and looking again.

‘Bradfield, you are the best piece. Your ancestors fought at Waterloo, and your wife is as beautiful as the Queen. You are the best piece in the British Embassy and you didn’t invite the damn Americans and you didn’t invite the damn French. You are a good fellow. Frenchmen is bastards,’ he concluded to everyone’s alarm, and there was a moment’s startled silence.

‘Karl-Heinz, I’m sure that isn’t very loyal,’ said Hazel and a little laugh went up at her end of the table, originated by a pointless elderly Gräfin summoned at the last moment to part­ner Alan Turner. An unwelcome shaft of electric light broke upon the company. The Hungarians marched in from the kitchen like the morning shift and cleared away bottles and china with inconsiderate panache.

Saab leaned still further across the table and pointed a big, not very clean finger at the guest of honour. ‘You see this fellow Ludwig Siebkron here is a damn odd fellow. We all admire him in the Press Corps, because we can’t never damn well get hold of him, and in journalism we admire only what we cannot have. And do you know why we cannot have Siebkron?’

The question amused Saab very much. He looked happily round the table, his dark face glistening with delight. ‘Because he is so damn busy with his good friend and… Kumpan.’ He snapped his fingers in frustration. ‘Kumpan,’ he repeated. ‘Kumpan?’

‘Drinking companion,’ Siebkron suggested. Saab stared at him lamely, bewildered by assistance from such an unexpected quarter. ‘Drinking companion,’ he muttered; ‘Klaus Karfeld,’ and fell silent.

‘Karl-Heinz, you must remember Kumpan,’ his wife said softly, and he nodded and smiled at her valiantly.

‘You have come to join us, Mister Turner?’ Siebkron enquired, addressing the nutmeg grater. Suddenly the lights were on Turner, and Siebkron, risen from his bed, was con­ducting the rare surgery of a private practice.

‘For a few days,’ Turner said. The audience was slow in gather­ing, so that for a moment the two men faced one another in secret communion while the others continued their separate pursuits. Bradfield had engaged in a desultory cross-talk with Vandelung; Turner caught a reference to Vietnam. Saab, sud­denly returning to the field, took up the subject and made it his own.

‘The Yanks would fight in Saigon,’ he declared, ‘but they wouldn’t fight in Berlin. Seems a bit of a pity they didn’t build the Berlin Wall in Saigon.’ His voice was louder and more offensive, but Turner heard it out of the dark that was beyond Siebkron’s unflinching gaze. ‘ All of a sudden the Yanks are going crazy about self-determination. Why don’t they try it in East Germany a little bit? Everyone fights for the damn Negroes. Everyone fights for the damn jungle. Maybe it’s a pity we don’t wear no feathers.’ He seemed to be challenging Vandelung, but without effect: the old Dutchman’s grey skin was as smooth as a coffin, and nothing would sprout there any more. ‘Maybe it’s a pity we don’t have no palm trees in Berlin.’ They heard him pause to drink. ‘Vietnam is shit. But at least this time maybe they can’t say we started it,’ he added with more than a trace of self-pity.

‘War is terrible,’ the Gräfin whickered, ‘we lost everything,’ but she was talking after the curtain had gone up. Herr Ludwig Siebkron proposed to speak, and had put down the silver nutmeg grater in order to signify his will.

‘And where do you come from, Mister Turner?’

‘Yorkshire.’ There was silence. ‘I spent the war in Bournemouth.’

‘Herr Siebkron meant which Department,’ Bradfield said crisply.

‘Foreign Office,’ said Turner. ‘Same as everyone else,’ and looked at him indifferently across the table. Siebkron’s white eyes neither condemned nor admired, but waited for the moment to insert the scalpel.

‘And may we ask Mr Turner which section of the Foreign Office is so fortunate as to have his services?’

‘Research.’

‘He’s also a distinguished mountaineer,’ Bradfield put in from far away, and the little doll cried out with the sharp surprise of sexual delight. ‘Die Berge!’ Out of the corner of his eye Turner saw one china hand touch the halter ofher dress as if she would take it clean off in her enthusiasm. ‘Karl-Heinz -‘

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