Little Grey Mice

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Well, that’s it then!’ said Reimann, briskly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In future I’ll lock my car.’

  ‘Yes.’

  It was working very well, he judged. Prolong her helplessness for a moment. ‘Sorry we met under such upsetting circumstances.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad it’s finally been resolved.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Elke coughed, because something caught in her throat. She was anxious to sound casual, as he was casual, but couldn’t find the words: she rarely could.

  It hadn’t been necessary to be face to face. Or, he thought, widening the reflection, to be as cautious as he had been to the Russians in East Berlin, about his chances of success. Still wise, though, to have behaved as he had. ‘Goodnight,’ he said.

  Where were the words? The proper, sensible adult words that should be so easy for her! She said: ‘Thank you, for everything. You’ve been … you’ve made it extremely easy for me. I’m grateful. Really I am.’ A tongue-tied schoolgirl, Elke thought, bitterly: just like a tongue-tied schoolgirl. Ida wouldn’t have been like that: Ida would have been talking easily Joking even, making friends. Upsetting circumstances but now we’ve met. Why don’t we get together again? All’s well that ends better. You call me, I’ll call you. Whatever. Ida was never tongue-tied: never like a schoolgirl. Even if some of the phrases were gauche, too obviously borrowed from some imported, American-originated soap opera. Did she want to copy or borrow from American soap opera? No. Just to be able to find words, to feel comfortable, the way the calm, rarely flustered people in soap operas always appeared, smooth-talking and unharassed and in command of everything, themselves most of all.

  ‘So goodbye again. Take care.’ And Reimann abruptly put the telephone down, not allowing her a farewell reply. Elke Meyer had to be alone now, think alone, grow further uncertain. Marinate was the word that most readily came into Reimann’s mind: meat became more tender if it was allowed a period to marinate.

  Jutta’s response, after the preliminary telephone code, was as prompt as Elke’s had been but without the breathlessness. But then she’d had the forewarning to be by the receiver, waiting.

  ‘I tried telephoning several times,’ she accused at once. ‘There was no reply.’

  ‘I was out.’

  ‘I called around midnight. And then early: before seven.’

  There were a lot of easy explanations for his absence in East Berlin: the most obvious was travelling beyond Bonn ostensibly to research his articles, absolutely to maintain his cover. He’d even gone through the motions, in Frankfurt. Why should he have to bother? It was good not having to explain to anybody but his ultimate Soviet masters. Maybe not even to them. ‘I said I was out.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jutta.

  Hard then soft, remembered Reimann. The exact phrase that one of the more frequent Balashikha instructors had used: the vague-mannered, dyed-haired one who’d invoked the cliche in describing an interrogation technique and who had appeared butter-soft until you’d looked at his eyes and realized they were empty and utterly devoid of any feeling, any pity. Reimann said: ‘Why don’t we meet tomorrow?’

  ‘What’s wrong with tonight?’

  ‘I have things to do.’ He didn’t: he wanted an evening alone at Rochusplatz, to think and to review things. One misplaced brick in a foundation can reduce a skyscraper to dust: another dictum, on the importance of every detail, from a lecturer he could not recall as vividly as the fey man.

  Jutta didn’t offer any argument. ‘What time will you be here tomorrow then?’ Her voice was dull.

  Reimann did not want to spend every moment of his time with Jutta mentally assessing every word before he uttered it in front of the microphones he was convinced existed in the Nord-Stadt apartment. There was no reason why Jutta should be constantly exposed, either. He said: ‘Why don’t we get out for the day? It’s nearly summer, after all!’ The telephone would be tapped, of course. So what? Why shouldn’t the two of them spend a day out together?

  ‘Where?’ There was a lift to her voice.

  Reimann hadn’t decided. ‘The river!’ he said, on impulse. ‘Why don’t we take a Rhine cruise? There’s an embarkation point just south of the Kennedy Bridge.’

  ‘I know it,’ said Jutta, more eager still. ‘What time?’

  ‘Early,’ Reimann insisted: there was as much danger going every day to the press building as there was not going at all. ‘Let’s take whatever ferry is leaving around ten thirty?’

  ‘I’ll be waiting,’ promised Jutta. Which she was, by the ticket kiosk. She wore light jeans and a striped cotton shirt, with a sweater bundled over one arm. Reimann thought she was the sort of woman able to look good – beautiful even – in either formal or casual clothes. She hurried forward when she saw him and he reached out invitingly, happy to see her. They kissed and he said: ‘Today and tomorrow and the day after! How’s that?’

  ‘Good.’ Her attitude was light and frothy, for which he was glad: he didn’t want the introverted seriousness Jutta had shown since they’d left Moscow. Nor, either, the demanding demeanour that had been so common earlier, in West Berlin.

  There was an explanatory map in a kiosk display case. Jutta studied it for several moments and then, without looking at him, said: ‘How about Linz?’

  ‘Linz is fine.’ Reimann bought the tickets and cupped Jutta’s arm to lead her to the jetty. It was going to be hot later, but at this moment, still comparatively early, it was merely pleasantly warm. Out on the river the incredibly long container barges ploughed nose-down in either direction, like cubed alligators made from children’s building blocks. Beside him Jutta covered with hers the hand he had against her arm. It was not a particularly attentive action, more something she did automatically, the unthinking movement of the person who had known the other for a long time. A married couple’s: I-know-you’re-there-and-I-know-you’re-mine. Reimann smiled down at her, wishing there were more such gestures, truly attentive or not.

  Was she withholding or manipulating things from Moscow to maintain the tiny imagined supremacy that was so important to her? It didn’t matter, with the dual system of control that had been devised now: he wished so much that it hadn’t always been so important for her to dominate, in everything.

  The ferry was a fast-moving hydrofoil, which meant they were entirely enclosed on rows of seats close together, making it impossible to talk of anything they did not wish to be overheard by other passengers. So without discussing it they decided not to talk at all. They sat arm in arm, her hand still covering his, staring out at the landmarks as they sped up beneath a hovering rainbow of coloured spray. They encountered a lot of cubed alligators and some others hump-backed with what looked like coal. With an irony Reimann was not to know for some time, he pointed out the Drachenfels Castle towering over Königswinter, with its wine slopes in between.

  At Linz, still arm in arm, they used the pedestrian underpass to negotiate the shore road into the old town, entering through the medieval gate. As they began climbing the cobbled hill, Jutta said: ‘There’s no reason why we can’t have days like this all the time, is there? Even when you’re with her, I mean?’

  So Jutta had accepted that he was going to succeed in seducing Elke Meyer. ‘None at all. She’ll be working during the day. I won’t be with her every night, either.’

  Both spoke quite dispassionately, as if Elke Meyer were a thing, an object, not a person.

  ‘I’d like that.’ Jutta halted, so he had to stop too, and looked directly up at him. ‘I’m bored,’ she announced. ‘In Berlin there was something to do, every day: we really worked, quite properly, at the agency. Here there’s nothing for me to do, except go to Vienna once a fortnight. The rest of the time all I do is read books I don’t enjoy, watch bloody awful television, bloody awful films, drive around the countryside or wander around Bonn. You know how long it takes, to walk completely around Bonn? Two hours! I timed it!’

  So
she was finally realizing her inferior position, Reimann thought. At last! He started climbing again, bringing her with him. It was lucky he’d insisted on the day out instead of going to the Nord-Stadt apartment: he would not have wanted Moscow to overhear the outburst. They would have been furious at the revelation of two contact meetings a month, all apparently in Vienna. If their Control was prepared to cross into the West to meet Jutta, why were his own meetings with the man in East Berlin? Maybe no reason at all: everything did not require a purpose or meaning. He said: ‘I don’t think it’s as bad as you’re making out. There were lots of boring times in Berlin. Let’s give this operation a chance.’

  ‘I’ve even thought of approaching the refugee agency in Munich, as they asked me to when I left Berlin,’ Jutta disclosed. ‘Nothing full-time, of course. I could still make the Vienna meetings if I worked part-time. There could still be useful things to learn.’

  She was trying to retreat into the past to recapture her old command, Reimann guessed at once. ‘That’s nonsense. And I don’t want you to do that.’

  ‘You don’t want me to do that!’ she snapped, bridling.

  The square, with its red-shuttered, flower-bedecked town hall, ballooned out in front of them. Reimann continued walking, looping to the left along the still-cobbled street towards a tiny oasis in the middle of the road, one tree and a tight round of seats, none of them occupied. He urged her to sit and did the same himself, at a corner where he could see anyone approaching to make their conversation impossible. ‘Not me,’ he said. ‘Moscow wouldn’t want it. You’re here for a specific purpose. If you’re bored, you’ve got to put up with it, like the trained officer you are supposed to be. There can be no contact, no association, with anyone we knew in the past. You know that.’ It was good to feel – to be – the person in authority at last.

  Jutta’s face set hard and Reimann wondered if he had been too obvious. But she didn’t fight back. Instead, inadequately for her, Jutta said: ‘It was only an idea.’

  ‘Have you said anything like this in Vienna?’ he demanded, concerned. It would explain, beyond any recording devices at Nord-Stadt, the East Berlin conversation about how he and Jutta were working together.

  She shook her head. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Not yet!’

  ‘I was wondering whether to,’ she admitted. ‘Not like I’ve talked about it to you. Maybe just suggest I should get something part-time, to give me a better cover.’

  ‘Don’t! It would be a mistake: a very bad mistake,’ insisted Reimann, careless of antagonizing her again. What about him! Jutta was showing a weakness that she shouldn’t, a weakness he would not have expected from her, and he was surprised. As a professional and dedicated intelligence officer shouldn’t he use the newly evoked contact system with the Russians to warn of a possible problem? They would recall her, he guessed. It would be more difficult for him to operate alone, having personally to maintain a regular, twice-monthly liaison, but another cut-out could be introduced easily enough. So what would her withdrawal actually mean? It would ensure the protection and safety of the Bonn operation, the first priority. Free him from her demanding and mostly imagined control. He paused, confronting a further realization. Free him in another way, too. Because it would mean the virtual end of their marriage. He’d been trained to think and act completely without emotion, in those long psychological sessions at Balashikha. And this was a simple, professional choice. Not even a choice. There was only one decision there could be. Jutta had to be discarded, abandoned, for the sake of the assignment.

  But he wouldn’t, Reimann decided.

  He wouldn’t abandon her or disclose the unexpectedly emerging weakness. He’d try to do the opposite – do what a husband was supposed to do – and protect her. He’d protect her from making this mistake and he’d protect her as best he could from making other blurted errors in her dangerous apartment.

  Would Jutta do the same for him, if the situation were reversed? Reimann surprised himself with the question. And the doubt. Forcing the honesty, he concluded that she probably wouldn’t. He’d always recognized that her professional commitment – her career – matched her commitment to their marriage. It was a further explanation, he supposed, for this utterly unexpected conversation between them, her awareness, despite the Soviet attempts to make it appear otherwise, that professionally she had been diminished.

  What Jutta would or would not do didn’t matter. He’d made his decision. And was satisfied with it.

  ‘I know you’re right,’ Jutta accepted.

  She was deferring to him, Reimann realized, detecting a further change. The beginning-of-the-day lightness between them had gone now, but it had not been replaced by her frequent combativeness, for which he was glad. As insistently as he could, Reimann said: ‘Moscow mustn’t suspect anything is wrong: that there is any uncertainty at all.’

  Two ancient men, stooped and whiskered, emerged bowed from a fronting tobacconist: one already had a pipe lighted, trailing smoke like a cartoon steam engine. Reimann moved before their arrival at the oasis, taking Jutta’s arm once more to bring her up from her seat to retrace their way along the cobbles.

  ‘I’ve spoiled the day,’ Jutta apologized. ‘I shouldn’t have talked as I have.’

  ‘Let’s always talk things through: get difficulties out of the way.’ But not at Nord-Stadt, he thought, in private warning. Despite his earlier decision, he hoped that Jutta’s depression was not going to become an intrusive complication.

  She looked up at him again, smiling gratefully. ‘I promise,’ she said. ‘I really do.’

  Reimann had noted several attractive restaurants during their ascent from the river valley. He chose one on the steepest part of the hill, angled to seem practically lopsided, an inn of foot-scuffed wooden floors and worn, ponderous carved furniture. They drank wine – Jutta with seemingly urgency, so a second bottle was necessary before their meal arrived – and Reimann restored the professionalism by explaining the increase in the car repair estimate, to justify the expenses he was submitting to Australia.

  ‘What now?’ she asked.

  ‘I carefully make the next move,’ said Reimann.

  ‘I see,’ said Jutta, repeating the earlier acceptance.

  Reimann was caught by the flatness in her voice. He wouldn’t question it.

  As if aware of his thoughts Jutta said, with abrupt forcefulness: I’m sorry. You mustn’t worry about me.’ She seemed embarrassed.

  Strangely, Reimann felt embarrassed, too.

  Reimann was sure of the schedule, to within five minutes or so, but he was still in position early at the alleyway junction with the Münsterplatz, only just able to see through the intervening throng into the flower market square for Elke’s arrival. She was ahead of her usual time, by about three minutes. He allowed her to get settled at the Bonner, completely relaxed, before even moving: when he entered the cafe Elke was already at her table, her coffee poured, the apple cake without cream or custard set out before her.

  Reimann stood blinking in the doorway, someone having difficulty adjusting from the outer brightness, his face opening in surprise when she finally looked up to see him. He smiled and approached hesitantly, as if uncertain of intruding.

  ‘Hello!’ he said.

  ‘Hello.’ Elke felt an absurd delight at his totally unexpected presence, a numbed, tingling sensation as if she’d knocked into an obstruction and jarred a nerve: maybe several nerves.

  Poppi darted from his concealment beneath the second chair, tail fluttering in recognition, yapping up against Reimann’s leg. Reimann leaned down, to fondle its ears. He said: ‘What a coincidence!’ I come here quite often,’ Elke conceded.

  ‘How’s the car?’

  ‘Wond …’ began Elke but stopped the too familiar word. ‘As good as new, like you said it would be.’

  She saw him look searchingly around the interior of the cafe, then fleetingly at the spare chair at her table. He said: ‘Well, I’d better …’
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br />   ‘Why don’t you join me?’ Elke invited. She was sure the darkness of the cafe would conceal any blush that might have come to her face.

  ‘I wouldn’t like to impose …’ said Reimann, in weak protest.

  ‘Please! I’m not expecting anyone.’ Please! she thought.

  Reimann pulled out the chair, shifting the dog out of his way, and sat down. ‘I’d like to,’ he accepted. Clara, the dutiful waitress, was at his side immediately. Reimann chose only coffee.

  ‘What brings you to the flower market?’ said Elke. Clumsy maybe, but good enough in the circumstances.

  ‘Not flowers,’ smiled Reimann. He made a vague gesture away from the outside stalls, towards the commanding cathedral. ‘I’ve been browsing in the bookshop. I particularly wanted a Graham Greene compendium: The Heart of the Matter, A Burnt-out Case and The Power and the Glory. They didn’t have it: I know it exists but they weren’t very helpful. It’s a nuisance. I suppose I’ll have to look elsewhere.’

  Elke sat with her cup suspended before her. ‘This really is a coincidence!’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said Reimann, who did, because he was pointing out the pathway to her.

  ‘I have it!’ announced Elke.

  I know, thought Reimann: that’s where I saw it, in your bookshelf. He sat back, in faked astonishment. ‘I don’t believe it!’

  Elke laughed, unsurely. ‘Isn’t that strange?’

  ‘You must tell me where you bought it,’ said Reimann, who knew from the KGB’s briefing where Elke Meyer maintained her account.

  Now she gestured, in the same direction as he had minutes earlier. ‘The bookshop near the Münster,’ she said.