“What will happen to Fiedler?” Liz asked suddenly and this time Leamas answered.
“He’ll be shot.”
“Then why didn’t they shoot you?” Liz continued quickly. “You conspired with Fiedler against Mundt, that’s what they said. You killed a guard. Why has Mundt let you go?”
“All right!” Leamas shouted suddenly. “I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what you were never, never to know, neither you nor I. Listen: Mundt is London’s man, their agent; they bought him when he was in England. We are witnessing the lousy end to a filthy, lousy operation to save Mundt’s skin. To save him from a clever little Jew in his own Department who had begun to suspect the truth. They made us kill him, do you see, kill the Jew. Now you know, and God help us both.”
* * 25 * The Wall
“If that is so, Alec,” she said at last, “what was my part in all this?” Her voice was quite calm, almost matter-of-fact.
“I can only guess, Liz, from what I know and what Mundt told me before we left. Fiedler suspected Mundt; had suspected him ever since Mundt came back from England; he thought Mundt was playing a double game. He hated him, of course–why shouldn’t he–but he was right, too: Mundt was London’s man. Fiedler was too powerful for Mundt to eliminate alone, so London decided to do it for him. I can see them working it out, they’re so damned academic; I can see them sitting around a fire in one of their smart bloody clubs. They knew it was no good just elimbutting Fiedler–he might have told friends, published accusations: they had to eliminate suspicion. Public rehabilitation, that’s what they organized for Mundt.”
He swung into the left-hand lane to overtake a lorry and trailer. As he did so the lorry unexpectedly pulled out in front of him, so that he had to brake violently on the pitted road to avoid being forced into the crashfence on his left.
“They told me to frame Mundt,” he said simply, “they said he had to be killed, and I was game. It was going to be my last job. So I went to seed, and punched the grocer– You know all that.”
“And made love?” she asked quietly.
Leamas shook his head. “But this is the point, you see,” he continued. “Mundt knew it all, he knew the plan, he had me picked up, he and Fiedler. Then he let Fiedler take over, because he knew in the end Fiedler would hang himself. My job was to let them think what in fact was the truth: that Mundt was a British spy.” He hesitated. “Your job was to discredit me. Fiedler was shot and Mundt was saved, mercifully delivered from a fascist plot. It’s the old principle of love on the rebound.”
“But how could they know about me; how could they know we would come together?” Liz cried. “Heavens above, Alec, can they even tell when people will fall in love?”
“It didn’t matter–it didn’t depend on that. They chose you because you were young and pretty and in the Party, because they knew you would come to Germany if they rigged an invitation. That man in the Labour Exchange, Pitt, he sent me up there, they knew Fd work at the library. Pitt was in the Service during the war and they squared him, I suppose. They only had to put you and me in contact, even for a day, it didn’t matter, then afterwards they could call on you, send you the money, make it look like an affair even if it wasn’t, don’t you see? Make it look like an infatuation, perhaps. The only material point was that after bringing us together they should send you money as if it came at my request. As it was, we made it very easy for them. . . .”
“Yes, we did.” And then she added, “I feel dirty, Alec, as if I’d been put out to stud.”
Leamas said nothing.
“Did it ease your Department’s conscience at all? Exploiting . . . somebody in the Party, rather than just anybody?” Liz continued.
Leamas said, “Perhaps. They don’t really think in those terms. It was an operational convenience.”