But how could she have done otherwise? If Leamas had only told her what he had to do–even now it wasn’t clear to her–she would have lied and cheated for him, anything, if he had only told her! Surely he understood that; surely he knew her well enough to realize that in the end she would do whatever he said, that she would take on his form and being, his will, life, his image, his pain, if she could; that she prayed for nothing more than the chance to do so. But how could she have known, if she was not told, how to answer those veiled, insidious questions? There seemed no end to the destruction she had caused. She remembered, in the fevered condition of her mind, how, as a child, she had been horrified to learn that with every step she made, thousands of minute creatures were destroyed beneath her foot; and now, whether she had lied or told the truth–or even, she was sure, had kept silent–she had been forced to destroy a human being; perhaps two, for was there not also the Jew, Fiedler, who had been gentle with her, taken her arm and told her to go back to England? They would shoot Fiedler; that’s what the woman said. Why did it have to be Fiedler–why not the old man who asked the questions, or the fair one in the front row between the soldiers, the one who smiled all the time? Whenever she turned around she had caught sight of his smooth, blond head and his smooth, cruel face smiling as if it were all a great joke. It comforted her that Leamas and Fiedler were on the same side.
She turned to the woman again and asked, “Why are we waiting here?”
The wardress pushed the plate aside and stood up.
“For instructions,” she replied. “They are deciding whether you must stay.”
“Stay?” repeated Liz blankly.
“It is a question of evidence. Fiedler may be tried. I told you: they suspect conspiracy between Fiedler and Leamas.”
“But who against? How could he conspire in England? How did he come here? He’s not in the Party.”
The woman shook her head.
“It is secret,” she replied. “It concerns only the Praesidiunt Perhaps the Jew brought him here.”
“But _you_ know,” Liz insisted, a note of blandishment in her voice, “_you_ are Commissar at the prison. Surely they told _you?_”
“Perhaps,” the woman replied complacently. “It is very secret,” she repeated.
The telephone rang. The woman lifted the receiver and listened. After a moment she glanced at Liz.
“Yes, Comrade. At once,” she said, and put down the receiver. “You are to stay,” she said shortly. “The Praesidium will consider the case of Fiedler. In the meantime you will stay here. That is the wish of Comrade Mundt.”
“Who is Mundt?”
The woman looked cunning.
“It is the wish of the Praesidium,” she said.
“I don’t want to stay,” Liz cried. “I want–”
“The Party knows more about us than we know ourselves,” the woman interrupted. “You must stay here. It is the Party’s wish.”
“Who is Mundt?” Liz asked again, but still she did not reply.
Slowly Liz followed her along endless corridors, through grilles manned by sentries, past iron doors from which no sound came, down endless stairs, across whole courtyards far beneath the ground, until she thought she had descended to the bowels of hell itself, and no one would even tell her when Leamas was dead.
She had no idea what time it was when she heard the footsteps in the corridor outside her cell. It could have been five in the evening–it could have been midnight. She had been awake–staring blankly into the pitch-darkness, longing for a sound. She had never imagined that silence could be so terrible. Once she had cried out, and there had been no echo, nothing. Just the memory of her own voice. She had visualized the sound breaking against the solid darkness like a fist against a rock. She had moved her hands about her as she sat on the bed, and it seemed to her that the darkness made them heavy, as if she were groping in the water. She knew the cell was small; that it contained the bed on which she sat, a handbasin without taps, and a crude table; she had seen them when she first entered. Then the light had gone out, and she had run wildly to where she knew the bed had stood, had struck it with her shins, and had remained there, shivering with fright. Until she heard the footstep, and the door of her cell was opened abruptly.