Funeral in Berlin - Len Deighton

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side of the wall.

      Vulkan ordered two more drinks. A girl with too much make-up and a gold lamé dress tried to catch Vulkan’s eye, but when she saw me looking took a tiny mirror from a chainmail bag and gave her eyebrows a working over.

      As Vulkan turned to me he spilled his bourbon over the back of his hand.

      ‘We Germans didn’t understand our role,’ he said. He licked the whisky from his hand. ‘As a defeated nation we were to be forever relegated to being customers – supplied by the Anglo-American factories – but we didn’t understand that. We began to build factories of our own, and we did it well because we are professionals, we Germans, we like to do everything well – even losing wars. We became prosperous and you English and Americans don’t like it. There has to be a reason that lets you keep your nice cosy feeling of superiority. It’s because we Germans are toadies, weaklings, automatons, masochists, collaborators or——lickers that we are doing so well.’

      ‘You are breaking my heart,’ I said.

      ‘Drink,’ said Vulkan and downed his most recent one with lightning speed. ‘You aren’t the one I should be shouting at. You understand better than most, even though you hardly understand at all.’

      ‘You are too kind,’ I said.

      At about 10 P.M. a bright-eyed boy that I had seen at the Gehlen Bureau flashed his cuffs at the bartender and ordered a Beefeater martini. He sipped at it and turned slowly to survey the room. He caught a sight of us and gulped at his drink.

      ‘King,’ he said quietly. ‘Here’s a surprise.’

      It was like finding a cherry in a sweet martini; a big surprise but you raise hell if it’s not there.

      ‘I’m Helmut,’ said the bright-eyed boy.

      ‘I’m Edmond Dorf,’ I said; two can play at that game.

      ‘Do you want to speak in private?’ Vulkan said.

      ‘No,’ said Helmut politely and offered his English cigarettes. ‘Our latest employee is, alas, in a traffic accident.’

      Vulkan produced a gold lighter.

      ‘Fatal?’ asked Vulkan.

      Helmut nodded.

      ‘When?’ said Vulkan.

      Helmut noticed it too, he smiled. To me he said, ‘The Russians are bringing your boy into the city in two weeks from next Saturday.’

      ‘My boy?’ I said.

      ‘The scientist from the Academy of Sciences Biology Division; he will probably stay at the Adlon. Isn’t that the man you want us to move?’

      ‘No comment,’ I said. It was very annoying and this boy was making the most of it. He flashed me a big smile before giving his teeth a rebore with the Beefeater martini.

      ‘We are arranging the pipeline now,’ he added. ‘It would help us if you supply these documents from your own sources. You will find all the data there.’ He handed me a folded slip of paper, shot his cuffs a couple of times to show me his cuff-links, then finished his martini and vanished.

      Vulkan and I looked across the rubber-plants.

      ‘Gehlens Wunderkinder,’ said Vulkan. ‘They’re all like him.’

       9

      In certain circumstances pawns can be converted into the most powerful unit on the board.

       Tuesday, October 8th

      I put the Gehlen request for documents on the teleprinter to London and marked it urgent.

      The paper said:

      Name: Louis Paul BROUM

      National Status: British

      Nationality of Father: French

      Profession: Agricultural Biologist

      Date of birth: August 3rd, 1920

      Place of birth: Prague, Czechoslovakia

      Residence: England

      Height: 5 ft 9 ins Weight: 11 st 12 lb

      Colour of eyes: brown Colour of hair: black

      Scars: 4-inch scar inside of right ankle

      Documents required.

      1. British Passport issued not before beginning of current year.

      2. British Driving Licence.

      3. International Driving Permit.

      4. Current Insurance Policy on a motor vehicle in British Isles.

      5. Motor Vehicle Registration Book (for same vehicle).

      6. Diners’ Club credit card (current).

       10

      JOHN AUGUST VULKAN

       Wednesday, October 9th

      ‘Oh boy,’ thought Johnnie Vulkan Edelfresswelle – a great calorific abundance of everything but faith – and quite frankly it was great. There were times when he saw himself as an untidy recluse in some village in the Bavarian woods, with ash down his waistcoat and his head full of genius, but tonight he was glad he had become what he had become. Johnnie Vulkan, wealthy, attractive and a personification of Knallhärte – the tough, almost violent quality that post-war Germany rewarded with admiring glances. The health cures at Worishofen had tempered him to a supple resilience and that’s what you needed to stay on top in this town – this was no place for an intellectual today, whatever it may have been in the ’thirties.

      He was glad the Englishman had gone. One could have too much of the English. They ate fish for breakfast and always wanted to know where they gave the best rate of exchange. The whole place was reflected in the coloured mirror. The women were dressed in sleek shiny gowns and the men were wearing 1,000-mark

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