The Broken Penny

by Julian Symons

  Arbitzer stirred and held out thin hands to the fire. His wife clacked at her loom, eyes downcast to her work. Mr Hards sipped his tea, bit into a home-made scone and allowed his eyes to travel leisurely down Ilona from straw-coloured hair to flat-heeled shoes. The girl herself sat stiffly in her chair.

  ‘You make me ashamed,’ Arbitzer said. ‘I am not the man I was, perhaps I was never the man you thought me. I was Arbitzer, you say, the guerrilla leader, quick-witted, able to make speedy and right decisions. Be Arbitzer again, you tell me. But who was this Arbitzer, who had been a meek, reflective professor of history? Was he not made up of all his friends and supporters, you Charles, and Pantek, Granz and that young Russian Volkhovsky – we thought differently about the Russians in those days – Paltchev, Cetkovitch, Tranin and others? It is the conditions and the supporters that make a guerrilla leader. Take them away and you have – a professor of history again. Without a chair,’ Arbitzer added with a faint smile. ‘Summon up again all those others, those ghosts, who are dead or who have compromised with the regime, and you might have again – a guerrilla leader.’

  The silence that followed this speech was broken by three sharp knocks. In a moment little Hards was on his feet. ‘I’ll get it. Pardon me.’ He brushed by the girl and out of the door. There was the sound of voices, and then the little man reappeared. ‘Surprise, Professor,’ he cried, and stood aside. A man came in, a man so tall that he had to bend a little through the doorway, a man with a face granitic and handsome, thick black eyebrows, angry dark eyes and a hard mouth.

  Arbitzer stood up, his stick forgotten, a slight flush on his thin cheeks. ‘Theodore,’ he said.

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Theodore,’ Arbitzer repeated wonderingly. ‘I thought you were dead.’

  ‘But I am not.’ Theodore Granz spoke in German. His voice was heavy and sounded, as the man looked, dependable if a little slow. He embraced Arbitzer and his wife, clasped Garden’s hand, looked questioningly at the girl Ilona and said to Hards, ‘You are the man from headquarters?’

  ‘What’s he say? Tell him I don’t know the lingo.’

  Granz’s English was halting but intelligible. He repeated in it, ‘The man from headquarters.’

  ‘That’s right. Pleased to meet you.’ Hards looked round with a birdlike gaze. ‘This is where I skedaddle. I told you I was only standing in for Floy. Now Granz here has all the details sewn up, or so I’m informed, and you won’t want me any more.’

  From his great height Granz nodded smilingly down at the little man.

  ‘So long, everybody. Is there a back way out? I’d better use it if there is. Don’t want too many comings and goings at the front.’

  ‘I will show it to you.’ The girl got up and they left the room together. A moment later there was a sound like a crack, and then a muffled cry. Garden, who was nearest to the door, jumped up. From the square hall a passage turned left to the back door. There he found the girl, a hand clasped to her cheek, and Hards with a sneer on his face. The girl turned on Garden angrily.

  ‘Your friend,’ she said. ‘He touched me – here – and when I pushed him away he struck me. An English gentleman,’ she added ironically. She took away her hand and her cheek showed red.

  Hards leaned forward and prodded at her with his umbrella in a manner less comic than menacing. ‘No man or woman pushes Sam Hards around, girlie. Remember that.’

  The girl slammed the door as Hards skipped away down the garden path. ‘Your friend,’ she said again. ‘An idealist, I suppose, like you.’

  ‘Not like me.’ Garden was remembering the three spots and wondering whether he should have let Hards go. But had there been an alternative?

  ‘And what are you doing to Uncle Jacob?’ she said fiercely. ‘Why don’t you let him live out his life decently? To be killed in a stupid argument about whether the Communists or your Social Democrats are going to be bosses, what good will that do him?’

  They stood and talked in the narrow passage where years ago Uncle George’s guests, hooting with laughter, had played sardines and murder. ‘There was a time when he did not think the argument stupid,’ Garden said. The words were perfectly true, but spoken they seemed unpleasantly priggish.

  She mocked him. ‘There was a time – when are you going to realise that the clock has moved on, that you don’t live in that kind of world any more? Shall I tell you something? There was a time–’

  The sitting-room door opened, Granz’s voice called ‘Garden’. They went back into the room, where Garden was aware of a change in the atmosphere. Granz and Arbitzer were leaning over a green baize card table with maps on it. Arbitzer straightened up as Garden came in. There was a new brightness in his look, and a kind of radiance showed under the pallor of his skin. ‘Charles,’ he cried. ‘Theodore has told me of the preparations that are made. I begin to think we can do it.’

  ‘It would be madness not to do it.’ Granz held out a big hand, open. ‘The country will fall into our grasp – like this.’ His hand closed.

  Theodore Granz had been a watchmaker before the war, with no political convictions. During the war he became a pilot,

  and when his country was occupied by the Germans this watchmaker left his home town of Lodno and joined the guerrilla forces. He quickly became a commander, noted particularly for fearlessness. He was one of Arbitzer’s ten group leaders, but took little part in discussions. ‘I am not strong up here,’ he used to say, tapping his head. ‘You decide the policy, I carry it out.’ His chief weakness was a mercurial temperament which made his views of events at times unreliable. Yet his optimism could have a tonic quality, and in fact that appeared to have been its effect on Arbitzer.

  ‘Theodore escaped a year ago,’ Arbitzer said exultantly. ‘He has been in hiding since then.’

  Granz had last been heard of when, with typical over-optimism, he had headed a feeble revolt a few months after Arbitzer had left the country. The revolt was crushed in two days, the leaders captured and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment. Granz had got fifteen years, and Garden had thought him dead long ago. Now this very live Granz wagged an admonitory finger. ‘Not so much in hiding, Jacob. Last week I walked openly in the streets of Lodno and bought fruit in the market. I tell you they have lost control now of the whole south. Our men visit the towns at will. We are only waiting for the right moment.’

  ‘What about the north?’ Garden asked. In the north was the country’s capital, and most of its industry.

  ‘The north too,’ Granz said happily. ‘In the north they think they are strong but our men are in every regiment, every Air Force unit. I am not a planner, you know that, I carry out orders, I have been carrying out orders all my life. And look what bad company it has brought me to,’ he added with a laugh so joyous and free that both Arbitzer and Garden joined in. The sound of Madame Arbitzer’s clicking on the loom had stopped. She was looking out of the window. Ilona joined her.

  The door opened and the apple-red face of Mr Hards appeared round it. His words broke up their laughter. ‘There’s a man outside.’

  ‘What man?’ There was a kind of dignity about Arbitzer as he said, ‘Why should a man be watching my house?’

  ‘One of the agents of the people who want to stop you getting away,’ Hards said. ‘Saw him earlier today, but thought I’d given him the slip. He’s round the side with an eye on both exits. Now listen to me. I’ll stall him as long as I can, but I can’t do it forever. Get out of here inside a couple of hours, understand? And watch your step when you’re going.’

  ‘How are you going to stall him?’ Garden asked.

  ‘That’s my business.’ There was a suppressed excitement about the little man. ‘I’ll manage. But look out when you go.’ His head disappeared like a Jack-in-the-box. They heard a door close.

  ‘A funny little man,’ Granz said tolerantly. ‘Not surely the man Floy I was supposed to meet.’

  ‘Floy is dead.’ With these decisive words spoken, there seemed no re
ason why Garden should not tell them all he knew. He told them of the body picked up by the fishing line, the stab wounds, the spots on Hards’ sleeve. Finally he took from his pocket the wallet and the papers. Arbitzer listened with his fingers tapping the map. Granz’s face was impassive. When Garden had finished he said merely, ‘Let us look at the papers.’

  They looked first at the loose papers. There was an envelope addressed to H Floy, Poste Restante, Brightsand, with a London postmark. There was a letter without address or opening, written in German and signed ‘Rosa’. Water had made the ink run, but a few phrases were decipherable. Garden, who read German better than he spoke it, translated: ‘The weather here is very good…if you are able to get away for a holiday with your friend we…the sooner the better…do not favour our original idea…air on the coast is milder…’ The other words were unreadable.

  ‘I was the friend, the holiday our return, yes?’ There was a note of authority in Arbitzer’s voice. ‘Air on the coast milder. Rosa favoured a landing on the coast, agreed?’

  Granz shook his head. ‘If she did she was wrong. On the coast there is less political feeling, and the coast towns are well guarded.’

  They unfolded a map of Brightsand, and then turned to the wallet. It contained a British passport in the name of Harold Floy, with a photograph similar to that Garden had seen in Colonel Hunt’s office, several pound notes and a tiny diary containing several sheets of what looked like blank tissue paper. ‘Lemon juice,’ Granz said. ‘But whether it will show after being in salt water–’ He held it before the fire, and slowly writing appeared on the top three sheets. The first was a list of half a dozen names and addresses in Granz’s country. He shook his head over them doubtfully. ‘Not our people. At least I do

  not know of them.’ The other two pages were headed CHARACTERS. There followed what were obviously brief pen notes on people, indicated by initials. Garden remembered that Peterson had always liked to make such brisk assessments, which he then filed away neatly in appropriate pigeonholes of his mind. Here the listing was alphabetical, the comments cryptic.

  Ar. Can a mouse make history? Perhaps, if we dress him up as a Ilona.

  Br. Jackal.

  Ha. Cobra with rabbit appetites. Dangerous.

  Hu. Bullfrog undoubtedly.

  La. Always the straw that shows which way the wind blows.

  Garden identified the characters: Arbitzer, Bretherton, Hards, Hunt, Latterley. Clearly, Peterson had held no high opinion of his associates.

  There followed a fable:

  A fox, a tiger and a lion conspired together to overthrow the rule of man. The fox suggested that mantraps should be set, baited with a sweet-smelling piece of woman’s flesh. This was done, and many men fell into them and were devoured by the partners. After a time, however, the Ilona began to claim the lion’s share of the spoils, and was inclined to treat tiger and fox with contempt. The fox, who had thoughtfully obtained some poisoned darts from pygmies destroyed in the traps, shot these at the lion, and killed him. ‘I always knew that lions were rather stupid,’ he said to the tiger, who looked at him thoughtfully and then agreed. After this, fox and tiger lived amicably together, until one day the fox found that the rest of his poisoned darts had disappeared. After this the tiger’s treatment of the fox was markedly less courteous. The fox, however, managed to dispose of his friend by entering into an alliance with some hornets who made a concerted attack upon the tiger, and stung him to death. ‘I am most grateful for your assistance,’ said the fox as he sprayed the hornets afterwards with a newly discovered and deadly insecticide.

  The fox now reigned supreme. But alas, one of the few remaining men was the possessor of a pack of hounds, which he set upon the fox’s trail. These, as the fox said to himself, were very inferior animals; the lion would have disposed of them with a roar, the tiger would have crunched up a dozen of them before breakfast. Nevertheless, the hounds caught the fox and tore him to pieces.

  Moral: Fox must combine, with tiger or lion. History is a record of checks and balances.

  ‘Too much for me,’ Granz said. ‘Is that first page a code?’

  Arbitzer shook his head. ‘I recognise myself as the mouse dressed up as lion. It is a shrewd stroke. Floy never spared me when we talked. He tried to stir me to action, sometimes by insult. Today he would be happy.’

  The girl, Ilona, stared at him. ‘You mean you are going?’

  ‘I am going, yes.’

  Garden slipped back the papers into his pocket.

  ‘Then you are a fool. You are all fools. What do you think you can do? The Communists will kill you, and I wish them luck. Or will you kill the Communists, and then you will preach about liberal principles. Isn’t that it?’ She pointed at Garden a finger that shook slightly with rage. ‘And you are the worst of them, the biggest fool, because you are the blindest. Shall I tell you something? I was married to a man who thought like you. We had a son. After Jacob left – after you left, Mr Garden – my husband stayed. He had some mad idea that there was something to be done, he thought parties did not matter, he talked about a great social experiment. We could have got away. I implored him to leave – for his sake, for my sake, for the sake of our son. He was like a deaf man.’ Her thin shoulders shrugged in the scarlet sweater. ‘And what happened? What anyone in their senses knew would happen to people connected with Jacob. A man came from the secret police one day, a smug man, round-faced and smiling. He pulled the ear of my son, Peter, and the boy cried because it hurt. The man said to me: “Do not worry. We shall see that he grows up in forgetfulness of the fact that his mother and father were traitors.” Paul, that was my husband, made all sorts of fantastic confessions. When they had got what they wanted from him he was shot.’

  ‘You escaped with your son?’

  ‘I got away, yes. My son caught diphtheria and died while I was in prison.’

  ‘Hatred is no good,’ Garden said. ‘You must try not to hate the Communists.’

  ‘The Communists!’ Her blue eyes were like stones. ‘It is not them I hate. I cannot forgive the fool I married.’

  ‘Ilona.’ The voice was Madame Arbitzer’s.

  ‘I hate him, and all fools like him. All fools and all cant. That is why I hate you, Mr Garden, because you are full of cant.’

  ‘Ilona,’ Madame Arbitzer said more sharply. The girl sank into a chair by the window. ‘You will forgive her, she has not been well.’ Madame Arbitzer got up slowly, came over to her husband and put her hands up to his shoulders. ‘You are going, Jacob.’

  ‘Yes, my dear.’

  ‘You will do what you believe to be right. My heart goes with you.’ The words, and the brief embrace that followed them, had a surprising dignity. ‘Now you will have much to arrange. Come, Ilona.’ She left the room with her arm round the girl.

  Arbitzer sighed. Then he said: ‘Now my friends, let me tell you my own position, then you can say what you have to propose. Some weeks ago Mr Latterley came to see me. He tried to persuade me that the moment had arrived for my return to my country. He said that he was a mere agent for other and more important people, that the British Government itself was behind the scheme. I can see that it would be of great advantage to them to replace the Communists by a government more favourable to them. But as I said to this young man I am old, I feel worn out, my day is over. I am content to live out the rest of my days in the country that has generously given me asylum. He would not accept such an answer. He insisted on remaining in touch with me through the man Floy.

  ‘I liked Floy. He too was persuasive, but in a different way from Latterley, who had presented the positive benefits to me of my return. Floy stressed that it was also my duty. Indeed, he seemed hardly to think it possible that I should refuse. He became often angry with me, and at times I was angry with myself. But to him also I felt bound to say that I am an old man and worn out, and that my country’s future does not rest with such as me. He would reply that I was less interested in my country’s future than in ete
rnally debating about it. He had a sharp tongue, that one. I liked him, although I had always a feeling that he was occupied by some inner struggle that had little to do with what he was saying to me. In any case, he did not finally convince me. What is past is past, I told him. The man I once was is dead. There remains only an exile who potters about his garden, has a stiff leg and feels the wind from the sea.’

  Garden said without conviction, ‘Nonsense.’ Granz shifted impatiently.

  ‘Perhaps. I had mentioned your name to Latterley, Charles, as a man who had once been at my side. He told me that he would find you and persuade you to join me – and he has. Now he has sent you to me also, Theodore. You tell me all is ready. You urge me, both of you, to go.’ Arbitzer smiled, and his smile was one of singular sweetness. ‘You are my friends. You are risking your lives. How can I refuse to risk mine?’

  ‘Keep the speeches for when you arrive, Jacob,’ Granz said. He added apologetically, ‘You know I am not much for speeches, always fidgeted through them. Remember that Theo means no harm. Now to business. I have not come alone. I have brought Marinka.’ An immense smile passed over his face at their mystification. ‘She will seat four and she rides comfortably at two hundred and fifty miles an hour.’

  Garden slapped his knee. ‘I’d forgotten you were a pilot. But when did you land here? Is the plane safe?’

  Granz put a finger to his nose. ‘Quite safe, our friends have seen to that. I landed last night less than thirty miles from here. Tonight we go back, the three of us.’

  ‘Tonight!’ There was such a shocked note in Arbitzer’s voice that Granz paused in surprise.

  ‘The sooner the better. Our friends here can’t keep a plane out of sight indefinitely, and at home they are waiting for my return. They do not know positively that I am bringing you back with me. Much rests on that.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Arbitzer’s hand was shaking.