“I might have stayed in that prison, mightn’t I? That’s what Mundt wanted, wasn’t it? He saw no point in taking the risk–I might have heard too much, guessed too much. After all, Fiedler was innocent, wasn’t he? But then he’s a Jew,” she added excitedly, “so that doesn’t matter so much, does it?”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Leamas exclaimed.
“It seems odd that Mundt let me go, all the same–even as part of the bargain with you,” she mused. “I’m a risk now, aren’t I? When we get back to England, I mean: a Party member knowing all this. .. . It doesn’t seem logical that he should let me go.”
“I expect,” Leamas replied, “he is going to use our escape to demonstrate to the Praesidium that there are other Fiedlers in his Department who must be hunted down.”
“And other Jews?”
“It gives him a chance to secure his position,” Leamas replied curtly.
“By killing more innocent people? It doesn’t seem to worry you much.”
“Of course it worries me. It makes me sick with shame and anger and. . . But I’ve been brought up differently, Liz; I can’t see it in black and white. People who play this game take risks. Fielder lost and Mundt won. London won–that’s the point. It was a foul, foul operation. But it’s paid off, and that’s the only rule.” As he spoke his voice rose, until finally he was nearly shouting.
“You’re trying to convince yourself,” Liz cried. “They’ve done a wicked thing. How can you kill Fiedler? He was good, Alec; I know he was. And Mundt–”
“What the hell are you complaining about?” Leamas demanded roughly. “Your Party’s always at war, isn’t it? Sacrificing the individual to the mass. That’s what it says. Socialist reality: fighting night and day–the relentless battle-that’s what they say, isn’t it? At least you’ve survived. I never heard that Communists preached the sanctity of human life–perhaps I’ve got it wrong,” he added sarcastically. “I agree, yes I agree, you might have been destroyed. That was in the cards. Mundt’s a vicious swine; he saw no point in letting you survive. His promise-I suppose he gave a promise to do his best by you–isn’t worth a great deal. So you might have died–today, next year or twenty years from now–in a prison in the worker’s paradise. And so might I. But I seem to remember the Party is aiming at the destruction of a whole class. Or have I got it wrong?” Extracting a packet of cigarettes from his jacket he handed her two, together with a box of matches. Her fingers trembled as she lit them and passed one back to Leamas.
“You’ve thought it all out, haven’t you?” she asked.
“We happened to fit the mold,” Leamas persisted, “and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for the others too–the others who fit the mold. But don’t complain about the terms, Liz; they’re Party terms. A small price for a big return. One sacrificed for many. It’s not pretty, I know, choosing who it’ll be–turning the plan into people.”
She listened in the darkness, for a moment scarcely conscious of anything except the vanishing road before them, and the numb horror in her mind.
“But they let me love you,” she said at last. “And you let me believe in you and love you.”
“They used us,” Leamas replied pitilessly. “They cheated us both because it was necessary. It was the only way. Fiedler was bloody nearly home already, don’t you see? Mundt would have been caught; can’t you understand that?”
“How can you turn the world upside down?” Liz shouted suddenly. “Fiedler was kind and decent, he was only doing his job, and now you’ve killed him. Mundt is a spy and a traitor and you protect him. Mundt is a Nazi, do you know that? He hates Jews. What side are you on? How can you. . . .”
“There’s only one law in this game,” Leamas retorted. “Mundt is their man; he gives them what they need. That’s easy enough to understand, isn’t it? Leninism–the expediency of temporary alliances. What do you think spies are: priests, saints and martyrs? They’re a squalid procession of vain fools, traitors too, yes; pansies, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives. Do you think they sit like monks in London, balancing the rights and wrongs? I’d have killed Mundt if I could, I hate his guts; but not now. It so happens that they need him. They need him so that the great moronic mass you admire can sleep soundly in their beds at night. They need him for the safety of ordinary, crummy people like you and me.”