And this time Charlie distinctly heard the note of nervous pride in Helga 's laughter; she was showing Charlie off to someone--someone she respected a great deal more than she respected the Italian boy. She heard a footstep and saw, at the very bottom of her vision, laid out on the russet carpet for her inspection, the black and highly polished toecap of one very expensive male shoe. She heard breathing, and the suck of a tongue placed against the upper teeth. The foot disappeared and she felt a disturbance of air as the warm-scented body passed very close to her. Instinctively, she leaned away from it but Helga ordered her to be still. She heard a match struck and smelled one of her father's Christmas cigars. Yet again Helga was warning her to keep still--"exactly still, otherwise you will be punished, there will be no hesitation." But Helga 's threats were a mere intrusion into Charlie's thoughts as she tried by every means known to her to define the unseen visitor. She imagined herself as a kind of bat, sending.out signals and listening to how they bounced back to her. She remembered the blindfold games she used to play at children's parties at Hallowe'en. Smell this, feel that, guess who is kissing you on your thirteen-year-old lips.
The darkness was making her dizzy. I'm going to fall over. Lucky I'm sitting down. He was at the glass table, inspecting the contents of her handbag, much as Helga had done in Cornwall. She heard a snatch of music as he fiddled with her little clock radio, and a clunk as he set it aside. This time we play no tricks, Joseph had said. You take your very own model, no substitutes. She heard him flipping through her diary while he puffed. He's going to ask me what "off games" means, she thought. See M... meet M... love M...athens!!... He asked her nothing. She heard a grunt as he sat himself gratefully on the sofa; she heard the crackle of his trouser seat on stiffened chintz. A tubby man wearing expensive body oil and handmade shoes and smoking a Havana cigar sits himself gratefully on a tart's sofa. The darkness was hypnotic. Her hands were still linked on her lap but they were someone else's. She heard the snap of an elastic band. The letters. We shall be very cross with you if you do not bring the letters. Cindy, you have just paid for your music lessons. If only you knew where I was going when I called on you. If only I did.
The darkness was making her a little mad. If they imprison me, I've had it--claustrophobia's my worst thing. She was reciting T. S. Eliot to herself, something she had learnt at school the term they sacked her: about time present and time past all being contained in time future. About all time being eternally present. She hadn't understood it then and she didn't now. Thank God I didn't take in Whisper, she thought. Whisper was a scurrilous black lurcher who lived across the road from her, and his owners were going abroad. She imagined Whisper sitting beside her now, wearing dark glasses too.
"You tell us the truth, we don't kill you," said a man's voice softly.
It was Michel! Almost. Michel is almost alive again! It was Michel's accent, Michel's beauty of cadence, Michel's rich and drowsy tone, produced from the back of the throat.
"You tell us everything you told to them, what you did for them already, how much they pay you, that's okay. We understand. We let you go."
"Keep your head still," Helga snapped from behind her.
"We don't think you betrayed him like betray, okay? You were frightened, you got in too deep, so now you play along with them. Okay, that's natural. We are not inhuman people. We take you out of here, we drop you at the edge of town, you tell them everything that happened to you here. We still don't mind. So long as you come clean."
He sighed, as if life were becoming a burden to him.
"Maybe you develop a dependence on some nice policeman guy, yes? You do him a favour. We understand those things. We're committed people but we are not psychopaths. Yes?"
Helga was annoyed "Do you understand him, Charlie? Answer or you will be punished!"
She made a point of not answering.
"When did you first go to them? Tell me. After Nottingham? York? It doesn't matter. You went to them. We agree. You got frightened, you ran to the police. ‘This crazy Arab boy is trying to recruit me as a terrorist. Save me, I do whatever you tell me.' That how it happened? Listen, when you go back to them, it's still no problem. You tell them what a heroine you are. We'll give you some information you can take to ‘them, make you feel good. We're nice people. Reasonable. Okay, let's get to business. Let's not fool around. You're a nice lady but out of your depth. Let's go."
She was at peace. A profound lassitude had come over her, brought on by isolation and blindness. She was safe, she was in the womb, to begin again or to die peacefully, however nature disposed. She was sleeping the sleep of infancy or old age. Her silence enchanted her. It was the silence of perfect freedom. They were waiting for her--she could feel their impatience but had no sense of sharing it. Several times she went so far as to think of what she might say, but her voice was a long way from her and there seemed no point in going to fetch it. Helga spoke some German, and though Charlie couldn't understand a word of it, she recognised as clearly as if it were her own language the note of bewildered resignation. The fat man answered and he sounded quite as perplexed, but not hostile. Maybe--maybe not, he seemed to be saying. She had an impression of the two of them disclaiming responsibility for her as they passed her back and forth between them: a bureaucratic hassle. The Italian joined in, but Helga told him to shut up. The discussion between the fat man and Helga resumed and she caught the word "logisch." Helga is being logical. Or Charlie isn't. Or the fat man is being told he should be.
Then the fat man said, "Where did you spend the night after you telephoned Helga ?"
"With a lover."
"And last night?"
"With a lover."
"A different one?"
"Yes, but they were both policemen."
She reckoned that if she hadn't had the glasses on, Helga would have hit her. She stormed up to her and her voice rasped with anger as she flung a volley of orders at her--not to be impertinent, not to lie, to answer everything immediately and without sarcasm. The questions began again and she answered wearily, letting them drag the answers out of her, sentence by sentence, because ultimately it was none of their damn business. In Nottingham what room number? In Thessalonika what hotel? Did they swim? What time did they arrive, eat; what drinks did they have sent up to their room? But gradually, as she listened first to herself and then to them, she knew that, this far at least, she had won--even though they made her wear the sunglasses when she left, and keep them on her till they had driven her a decent distance from the house.
twenty-one
It was raining as they landed in Beirut and she knew it was a hot rain, because the heat of it came into the cabin while they were still circling and made her scalp itch again from the dye that Helga had made her put on her hair. They flew in over cloud like rock that burned red hot under the plane's lights. The cloud stopped and they were low over the sea, skimming to destruction in the approaching mountains. She had a recurring nightmare that went the same way, except that her plane was flying down a crowded street with skyscrapers either side. Nothing could stop it, because the pilot was making love to her. Nothing could stop it now. They made a perfect landing, the doors opened, she smelled the Middle East for the first time, greeting her like a homecomer. The hour was seven in the evening, but it could have been three in the morning, for she knew at once that this was not a world that went to bed. The uproar in the reception hall reminded her of Derby Day before the "off"; there were enough armed men in different uniforms to begin their own war. Clutching her shoulder bag to her chest, she shoved her way towards the immigration queue and discovered to her surprise that she was smiling. Her East German passport, her false appearance, which five hours ago at London Airport had been matters of life and death to her, were trivial in this atmosphere of restless, dangerous urgency.
"Take the left queue, and when you show your passport ask to speak to Mr. Mercedes," Helga had commanded as they sat in the Citroen in the car park at Heathrow.
"What happens if he looses off at me in German?"
The question was beneath her. "If you get lost, take a taxi to the Commodore Hotel, sit in the foyer, and wait. That is an order. Mercedes like the car."
"Then what?"
"Charlie, I think actually you are being a bit stubborn and a bit stupid. Please stop this now."
"Or you'll shoot me," Charlie suggested.
"Miss Palme! Passport. Pass. Yes, please!"