Artillery of Lies

by Derek Robinson

  The gates swung open as the seventh bull came hurtling into the ring like the shaggy wrath of God. Clearly it was in a ferociously bad temper.

  Everyone cheered up. The picadors tried a nervous bit of bloodletting and a horse got smashed sideways. Now everyone was gripped by the spectacle; everyone except a young peanut-vendor in the aisle a few rows below the Brigadier’s party. He was looking upward. He was staring at Laszlo, or so it seemed to Laszlo when he noticed this solitary face amongst all the backs of heads. He looked hard and long at the youth, and the youth turned and walked away. Strolled away. No hurry.

  You don’t fool me so easy, Laszlo thought, you cocky little pipsqueak. The face was unfamiliar but that meant nothing. Blow holes in a couple of Madrid’s gorillas and all their pals were out looking for you. Laszlo stood up and squeezed past the knees of the Brigadier’s party. “Have one for me while you’re at it,” Ferenc said.

  The peanut-vendor was wearing a bright yellow coat which made it easy to track him. He went down a flight of stairs and turned left into a wide, curving corridor ribbed with girders that had been white once, back in the days of El Greco when paint was cheap. Laszlo kept pace with him while bits of paper, chocolate wrappings and trampled pages from old newspapers kept pace with Laszlo, urged along the corridor by one of those quirks of ventilation that inhabit large arenas. Every few seconds the crowd roared, and the roar filtered down to the corridor as an oddly random, pointless noise, like the sound of wild weather outside a castle. The kid was taking off his yellow coat as he walked. He went down more steps, turned to the right into another corridor and stopped at the window of a little office. As Laszlo walked past he was handing in his coat and his peanut tray. Now the sporadic roars were dulled and distant. Laszlo’s footsteps echoed off the white-tiled walls like constant warnings. This is not wise, he told himself. This is not necessary. This is a terrific risk. Which produced the answer: Sure it’s a risk. But it’s terrific, it’s irresistible, and it’s too late to turn back now.

  He stopped at a barred window with a broken pane. It gave a dusty view of a flaking wall. The more he looked at this nothingness the sillier he felt, and it made him angry.

  The kid left the office and came toward him, whistling. Laszlo waited until he was about to pass and then turned, cleverly revolving on his heels, and said, “OK, junior. What’s the message?”

  The kid was a lot younger than he had seemed upstairs. The big yellow coat had hidden his boney shoulders, which were like wire coat-hangers inside a too-small, too-old jersey. He was fourteen, maybe fifteen. But Laszlo didn’t scare him. “Beats me,” he said. “What is the message?”

  Laszlo stared into his eyes. Gray eyes, high cheekbones, big lower lip, pointed chin, needed a haircut. There were ten thousand kids like this in Madrid. Maybe gypsy, maybe a touch of Moor in the Arab nose. And the olive skin. A born liar, this one. Been stealing since he could walk. Since he could run, anyway. “You know what happened to Stefano,” he said.

  “Sure I know. Stefano got caught.”

  “Don’t make jokes with me.”

  Now the kid seemed puzzled. “Which Stefano? You mean Stefano the waiter? He got six months, didn’t he? Why? Did he owe you—”

  “Cut it out. You saw me upstairs.”

  The kid shrugged. “I saw a thousand people upstairs. You, I don’t know from a hole in the ground.” He walked away.

  Laszlo followed, anger burning like acid. “Listen, you little piece of piss,” he said, and shoved the kid’s shoulder. The kid stumbled and bounced off the wall.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” he said. Fear made his voice crack. “I don’t know you. Get away from me, you lousy lunatic” It was a very grown-up word and he stuttered a little over it. This encouraged Laszlo.

  “You tell Stefano’s uncle something from me,” he said, and began poking the kid in the chest to emphasize his words. “You tell—”

  “I wasn’t looking at you, for Christ’s sake!” The kid had worked out where Laszlo came from. “It was the guy who bought my peanuts. He bought the whole damn tray! I never saw anyone do that before.” Upstairs, the roars of the crowd were following each other like heavy surf.

  “You find Stefano’s uncle,” Laszlo said, “and you tell him from me to lay off.” He took out his gun, just for display.

  The kid jumped away and his throat made a high, squeaking sound.

  “Lay off, remember?”

  “Yes. I’ll tell him.”

  Laszlo scratched his head with the muzzle of the big long silencer, the way they did in the movies, and stared the kid in the eyes until he made him blink. “You lying piece of pigshit,” he said. “You’re not going to Stefano’s uncle. You’re going to the cops.”

  The kid instantly ran, pigeon-toed and head back, arms pumping like pistons. Laszlo chased him. There were stairs at the end of the corridor. The kid went down them three and four at a time, much too fast, until his heel skidded off the edge of a step and he finished the rest in a whirling fall, an ugly blur of arms and legs and a shuddering head that only stopped when it whacked against some crates of empty bottles. Even then the kid got up, or nearly: one knee had quit. Laszlo was a fuzzy silhouette at the top of the stairs. Pointing. Aiming. The kid threw a bottle. It smashed halfway up. He threw another. Same result. Laszlo fired. He put three bullets into the kid’s chest, all within a hand’s span, just like that: phut-phut-phut.

  As he sheathed the gun, he turned and saw Otto Krafft standing twenty yards away, watching.

  “It’s done,” Laszlo called out.

  Otto came toward him and looked down the stairs. “Business or pleasure?” he asked.

  “A man like me has many enemies,” Laszlo said.

  “That doesn’t answer the question,” Otto said. High above could be heard the tramp of feet. Some people were not waiting to see the final bull. “It was probably a silly question so I expect it would have got a silly answer. Come on, let’s get out of here. No more gunnery. Keep the artillery out of sight. Understand?”

  “I need it,” Laszlo said. “A man like me—”

  “Yes, I know, I know. Many enemies.” He took Laszlo’s arm.

  “Not as many as before,” Laszlo said contentedly.

  Christian was not stupid, and he was certainly not lazy, but he was not accustomed to doing much tough, original thinking. He could solve a complex problem by boiling it down to its essentials and then applying the standard treatment as taught at Staff College. Christian had done quite well at Staff College. Later, when he was put in charge of Madrid Abwehr he found the work straightforward provided he stuck to Staff College principles, one of which was: Don’t look for the answer until you’ve defined the problem. Sounds obvious, but he had seen many officers so enthusiastic that they rushed into action before they knew exactly what it was they were trying to achieve. Christian had never made that mistake. He had always known exactly what target he was trying to hit, and why.

  That, however, was before he came to Berlin and learned from Oster that this was not one war but several wars all rolled into a sprawling, confusing conflict. For the first time Christian had to think hard about the purpose of this conflict. What target must they hit in order to win? Was it America? Obviously not. The Luftwaffe didn’t have a four-engined bomber, let alone one that could bomb New York or Washington or Boston and fly home again. Yet Hitler had declared war on America. Why? At that point America wasn’t at war with Germany, Pearl Harbor was still burning, and Roosevelt had his hands full, so why did the Fuehrer go looking for more trouble? To help Japan, because Japan was a partner with the Axis? Japan hadn’t helped Germany when Hitler invaded Russia. All right, everyone thought the Russians would collapse and give up after six weeks, but surely the Japs could have attacked Stalin in the Far East when it became obvious that Germany could do with a bit of help … The more Christian brooded over it, the more it puzzled him. The aim and object of war was victory by conquest. Surely nobody in his right mind believed that Germany and I
taly would force the USA to her knees? And you had to be pretty optimistic to expect the conquest of Britain.

  These and many other thoughts wheeled around inside Christian’s mind. Back in the beginning, in 1940, everything had gone so well and so quickly: the capture of almost all of Europe from the Pyrenees to Greece to Norway in just a year was a good start by anybody’s reckoning. Even now Christian found it hard to believe it would not end in total, inevitable triumph for the Third Reich, the Reich of a Thousand Years.

  But if not victory, what was the alternative? A deal with the Allies? Christian tried to imagine Hitler at a great round table, haggling with Stalin and Churchill and Roosevelt. Let me keep Poland and you can have France back. No, I want Greece. Who gets Bulgaria? It was not a convincing picture and it soon faded. Christian was left looking at a war which could never be won, could only be lost. That idea he found intolerable.

  Something else he couldn’t understand was Oster’s unfailing cheeriness. The General was, as usual, brisk and breezy when he took Christian off to lunch in the officers’ dining room at Abwehr HQ. “Beefsteak today,” Oster said. “One of the perks of tyranny.” He chose a table where a tall, red-headed man was sitting. Oster introduced him as Stefan Domenik. “Watch out,” Oster said cheerfully. “He’s a wicked, corrosive influence.”

  “You look very well on it,” Christian said. Domenik had a strong, suntanned face, with untroubled eyes and a wide, generous mouth that slipped easily into a smile.

  “I’m happy in my work,” Domenik said.

  “He tells jokes,” Oster said from the side of his mouth.

  “Is that so terrible?” Christian asked, putting on a look of innocence for Oster’s benefit.

  “Show him,” Oster said.

  “Italian army maneuvers,” Domenik said, and raised his arms in surrender.

  “Heard it. We’ll have the beefsteak,” Oster told the waiter. “Haven’t you any new jokes?” he asked Domenik.

  “Mussolini goes on to a balcony to make a speech,” Domenik said. “Thousands of Italians below. Mussolini says, ‘Perhaps you’re wondering why you lot are down there while I am up here. Well, let me remind you of the old Neapolitan saying: If you want to keep the flies off one end of the table, put a bucket of shit on the other.’”

  Oster laughed so much that he dropped his napkin. “I’m not sure I understand it,” he said, “but it’s very funny.” Christian had not laughed. “Don’t mind him,” Oster said. “He’s in deep mourning.”

  “It’s a very Italian joke,” Christian said safely. “Wouldn’t you say?”

  “Know any good naval jokes?” Domenik asked him.

  Christian shook his head. He was glad of his beard because it helped to hide his astonishment. You just didn’t poke fun at any Fascist leader in Berlin. Even in Abwehr HQ. God alone knew who might be listening. Yet Oster was encouraging the man; asking for more.

  “There’s a new Luftwaffe joke,” Domenik said. “A Luftwaffe mechanic in a fighter squadron goes to the stores and says to the storeman: ‘Can you give me a tailwheel for a new Messerschmitt 109?’ And the storeman thinks for a bit, and then says, ‘Yes, that sounds like a fair swap.’”

  “Ah!” Oster said. “Nice. Bullseye. Where did you hear that one?”

  “Northern France, Abbeville airfield.”

  “Yes. Of course. That’s where our 109s have been coming up against their Typhoons.”

  “Coming up,” Domenik said, “and going down.”

  The wine waiter appeared and Oster began discussing vintages. Christian leaned toward Domenik and said softly, “It’s a clever joke, but surely our Messerschmitts aren’t as bad as that?”

  “No, of course not. Excellent little plane, the 109. The trouble is the enemy’s got a better one, and when you’re a fighter pilot that’s what concerns you.”

  Oster eventually ordered a pre-war claret. “Boring but reliable,” he said, and then noticed Christian’s expression. “Beneath that grizzled beard there lies a grizzled face,” he told Domenik. “What seems to be the trouble?” he asked Christian.

  “Nothing, it’s just that …” Christian fiddled with his cutlery. “Well, sir, it’s just that, to be completely honest, I don’t think it helps the war effort to make disparaging jokes.”

  *

  “All jokes are disparaging,” Domenik murmured.

  “And repeating such jokes is … is …”

  “Try ‘unpatriotic,’” Oster said.

  “Criminal?” Domenik suggested. “Treasonable?”

  Christian shook his head. “I don’t see what good it does, that’s all.”

  “Canaris does,” Oster said. A plate of mushrooms fried in butter with garlic arrived, and he speared one with a toothpick. “The Admiral made Stefan his official joke-collector. Eat, eat.”

  “I get them from all over Europe,” Domenik said. “Even Russia. Where’s the best place to dig a slit-trench when the Russians attack?”

  “Give up,” Oster said.

  “Italy. Not exactly hilarious, I agree, but then the Eastern Front isn’t a very amusing place, is it? I expect you’d like to know why the head of the Abwehr is interested in soldiers’ jokes. It’s because jokes provide a glimpse into the true morale of the armed forces.”

  “They tell us what the men are really thinking,” Oster said. “No point in listening to the generals, they don’t know.”

  The beefsteaks came. Domenik asked for English mustard. “We get it from our man in Switzerland,” he explained.

  “Stefan and I are the only people here who use it,” Oster said. “The others disapprove, on principle.”

  “You can carry patriotism too far,” Domenik said. Christian eyed the mustard a couple of times, but in the end he left it alone.

  Later, with plenty of good meat and wine inside him, Christian felt more relaxed and cheerful. He even made them laugh. The conversation had wandered through many topics and returned to Italy. “It’s an absurd alliance,” Domenik said. “How on earth has it lasted so long?”

  “Goebbels says it’s all a matter of trust and understanding,” Oster said.

  “Exactly,” Christian said. “We don’t trust them and they don’t understand us.”

  “There you are!” Domenik told Oster. “I knew he had a sense of humor.”

  Christian tasted the thrill of risk and immediately wanted more. “As a matter of fact I do know one navy joke,” he said. Domenik took out a small notebook. “Naval officer has been stationed in the north of Norway for a year and a half,” Christian said. “Finally he gets some leave, flies home to his wife in Berlin; the first thing they do is jump into bed. Half an hour later, completely exhausted, they both fall asleep. The dog comes and scratches on the bedroom door. The officer wakes up in a panic and says, ‘Oh my God, it’s your, husband!’ but his wife just turns over and says”—here Christian put a yawn into his voice—“‘Don’t worry, darling, he’s in the north of Norway.’”

  “Splendid.” Domenik was still writing. “Very tasty indeed. There are a lot of infidelity jokes going around, but that’s the best.”

  “Glad to be of help.”

  “Censorship never really does any good,” Oster said. “People always find a way around it. They tell jokes. That’s the loophole in censorship.”

  “A nation breathes through its loopholes,” Domenik said.

  Christian went back to his office feeling enlivened and encouraged, although he wasn’t sure why. He felt purposeful. The walls were covered with different colored cards, each color representing an Eldorado sub-agent, and on the cards Christian had summarized the important elements of their reports. For days now he had been moving the cards about, grouping those with a common theme, tracking a story as it drifted from the red cards which were Wallpaper to the green of Garlic, the brown of Pinetree, the white of Nutmeg, the blue of Seagull. Each wall was a frozen splash of color, and Christian was convinced that somewhere in all that mass of information was hidden the dirty secret that
the late Wolfgang Adler had discovered. Christian prowled around the room, searching for something, he didn’t know what but he knew he would recognize it when he saw it. Not just a mistake, you expected an agent to make mistakes. It had to be much worse. On that day in Madrid, Adler had come to Christian in a state of suppressed delight, convinced he had evidence of serious fraud, perhaps of treachery. But where did it lie?

  “If anybody asks, tell them you work for the BBC,” Freddy Garcia said. “Say you’re an assistant producer, or something.”

  “What about me?” Julie asked.

  “American journalist. You can fake that, can’t you?”

  “Not assistant producer,” Luis said. “Chief producer, me.”

  “Holy shit,” she said wearily. “He’s off again.”

  Freddy parked the car and they got out. All through supper Luis had grumbled and complained about his impossible work and his lousy employers, he didn’t know which was worse, the Abwehr or MIS, they were both like pigs at a trough, gobbled up all you gave them and snorted for more … And the food, he said, was inedible, I mean look at it … And nobody could sleep on his bed which had more lumps than the gravy and why wasn’t there any decent drinkable wine instead of this vinegar? On and on and on.

  Finally, to shut him up, Freddy took them both down to the village pub, the George and Dragon.

  The moonlight was brilliant, and it showed up the hanging inn-sign. Luis pointed. “See that?” he said, sneering. “Bloody saints, they’re all the same. Let the poor little dragon have his fun, I say. It’s only a woman, after all.”

  “Keep practicing,” Julie said. “One day you’ll be a total creep.”

  The pub was full. Freddy bought beer for everybody; it seemed to be all there was to drink. When he got back to them, they were quarreling. “You two have a great talent for disagreement,” he said. “It makes me wonder—”

  “She lost us the table,” Luis said flatly. “Typical.”

  “You were too damn dithery,” she said.