“I’ll tell him.” The corporal looked frightened.
“If it stops altogether, keep searching and let me know.”
“Pay attention,” the captain warned as he dismounted. The sergeant was waiting impatiently; behind him, a tall building standing on wasteland.
In the distance, half hidden in the falling snow, lay row after row of small houses. No sound came.
“What do they call this place?” the captain asked.
“A block of flats; workers’ flats. They haven’t named it yet.”
“No, beyond.”
“Nothing. Follow me,” the sergeant said. Pale lights shone in almost every window; six floors. Stone steps thick with leaves led to the cellar. The sergeant went first, shining his flashlight ahead of them on to the shoddy walls. The captain nearly fell. The first room was large and airless, half of brick and half unrendered plaster. At the far end were two steel doors. On the ceiling a single bulb burned behind a wire cage. The sergeant’s flashlight was still on; he shone it needlessly into the corners.
“What are you looking for?” the captain asked.
The steel doors were locked.
“Find the janitor,” the sergeant ordered, “quickly.”
The captain ran up the stairs and returned with an old man, unshaven, gently grumbling; he held a bunch of long keys on a chain. Some were rusty.
“The switches,” said the sergeant. “For the building. Where are they?”
The old man sorted through the keys. He pushed one into the lock and it would not fit, he tried another and a third.
“Quick, you fool!” the captain shouted.
“Don’t fuss him,” said the sergeant.
The door opened. They pushed into the corridor, their flashlights playing over the whitewash. The janitor was holding up a key, grinning. “Always the last one,” he said. The sergeant found what he was looking for, hidden on the wall behind the door; a box with a glass front. The captain put his hand to the main lever, had half pulled it when the other struck him roughly away.
“No! Go to the top of the stairs; tell me when the driver flashes his headlights.”
“Who’s in charge here?” the captain complained.
“Do as I ask.” He had opened the box and was tugging gently at the first fuse, blinking through his gold-rimmed spectacles; a benign man.
With diligent, surgical fingers the sergeant drew out the fuse, cautiously, as if he were expecting an electric shock, then immediately replaced it, his eyes turning toward the figure at the top of the steps; then a second and still the captain said nothing. Outside the motionless soldiers watched the windows of the block, saw how floor by floor the lights went out, then quickly on again. The sergeant tried another and a fourth and this time he heard an excited cry from above him: “The headlights! The headlights have gone out.”
“Quiet! Go and ask the driver which floor. But quietly.”
“They’ll never hear us in this wind,” the captain said irritably, and a moment later: “The driver says third floor. The third floor light went out and the transmission stopped at the same time. It’s starting again now.”
“Put the men around the building,” the sergeant said. “And pick five men to come with us. He’s on the third floor.”
Softly, like animals, the Vopos dismounted from the two trucks, their carbines held loosely in their hands, advancing in a ragged line, plowing the thin snow, turning it to nothing; some to the foot of the building, some standing off, staring at the windows. A few wore helmets, and their square silhouette was redolent of the war. From here and there came a click as the first bullet was sprung gently into the breech; the sound rose to a faint hail and died away.
Leiser unhooked the aerial and wound it back on the reel, screwed the Morse key into the lid, replaced the earphones in the spares box and folded the silk cloth into the handle of the razor.
“Twenty years,” he protested, holding up the razor, “and they still haven’t found a better place.”
“Why do you do it?”
She was sitting contentedly on the bed in her nightdress, wrapped in the mackintosh as if it gave her company.