The arrangements for meeting the code makers were based on the message that Elgar had sent and that the Doctor had tampered with. We were to meet them in a restaurant on Chemnitzstra.s.se. You can see from Turing"s narrative that he had warned Elgar about the Doctor"s interference but neither Elgar nor Turing had told me, so I had no reason to believe that anything would go wrong. Nonetheless, I feared that they would see through Elgar"s disguise at once and kill us both, but Elgar was sanguine. "They"re more careful than that," he said. "If they believe there"s a possibility of rescue they"ll be there, and they"ll talk to me."
The "restaurant" was even worse than English restaurants were at the time. The window had been broken by bomb blast, and was boarded up. A burly man guarded the door and checked our papers. He tried to refuse me entry. Elgar bullied and shouted, and the man decided to allow me in, but only on the condition that I didn"t eat anything restaurant food was for Aryans only, it seemed, and it was more than the man"s life was worth to disobey this edict.
It was smoky and crowded inside, with the smell of sour food. The meal consisted mainly of cabbage, with a few tiny chunks of potato: Elgar allowed me to eat most of his. "You"ll need it," he said. "I can manage without for a while."
We waited for two hours, but no one came. The message had specified a time and a place, but not a date we hadn"t known for sure when we would arrive in Dresden.
At last, over a cup of almost tasteless ersatz coffee, I said, "Perhaps they weren"t able to send anyone today."
"More likely someone else got to them first." Elgar was gloomy, his chin in his hands; it made him seem more human.
We left the restaurant. Outside, we were surrounded by a bustle of people, most of them dressed in old and shabby clothes. A few wore the star of David st.i.tched to their clothing, the compulsory mark of the Jew in n.a.z.i Germany. As we walked along I found myself avoiding them from a sort of unconscious embarra.s.sment, which slowly germinated into shame.
"We"ll have to stay somewhere," I pointed out, after we had wandered for some time at random in the growing darkness.
Elgar was in favour of bullying our way into military accommodation, but accepted my suggestion that it would be easier in the circ.u.mstances to bully civilians. We returned to Chemnitzstra.s.se and billeted ourselves on a hairdresser three doors away from the restaurant. The owner, Mrs Cohn, was unsure, but Elgar had both cash and ration vouchers to offer as "compensation", and her resistance crumbled.
Mrs Cohn was an old woman, almost seventy, and had recently lost her husband to intestinal cancer. The "flat above", where we had the spare room, was full of dark wood and dim remembrances of the departed Mr Cohn: black-andsilver photographs, umbrellas, boots, long shadows. Mrs Cohn"s pale face hovered in the dusty silences, offering us ersatz coffee and potato soup. We refused the soup but I accepted the coffee, which was even more awful than that in the restaurant. I sensed that beneath her thin hospitality, she was very afraid, but there was nothing I could do to rea.s.sure her.
I slept on the bed in the spare room, which may have been the late Mr Cohn"s the room looked lived in, with a faint smell of tobacco and elderly flesh: Mr Cohn hadn"t slept with his wife. I wondered about the how and why of this domestic detail whilst Elgar, who certainly hadn"t noticed it, took a pillow and lay down on the floor. I don"t think he slept. I don"t think he ever slept; if he did, I didn"t see him doing it. I did, though uneasily. Cuckoos in the shape of slugs moved in my dreams, impossible beings laying trails of slime that burned like a fever.
At about three in the morning, I was woken by a violent knocking on the street door. Elgar was already on his feet, and when I emerged on to the landing, my shoes in my hand, I saw Mrs Cohn at her room door, wearing a long white gown. Her body was shaking with fear.
"Don"t be afraid," I said in my weak German, but she didn"t respond. Her eyes looked through me to a more distant place, and I heard a muttering sound that may have been prayer. Downstairs, Elgar and another man were shouting in German. I hurried down the stairs, still holding my shoes. A uniformed man was standing in the narrow hallway below, his thin, angled form a shadow against a strong light outside. I was reminded of the golem that Elgar had warned me to fear. The stories did not seem so unlikely now.
"You must come with us," said the golem. "Or we will have to kill you."
I knew that this was not an SS man, despite his uniform. He had the wrong tone of voice. His words suggested a not-quitehuman motive. I sat on the stairs and pulled on my shoes, more as a way of holding up the action than anything else.
"We"ll have to go," said Elgar.
Upstairs, there was a thud, like a sack falling. I turned to go and look. Elgar and the SS man started to shout at each other again.
"Halt!"
To my shame, I halted. I turned and went back down the stairs, and I allowed the false SS officer to accompany me into the electric light. Behind me, Mrs Cohn may well have been dying. I have never found out what happened to her. The address was destroyed with the rest of Dresden in the firebombing.
We were led to a waiting car. Our captors there were three of them were polite, once they had got their way. There was no policeman-like attempt at intimidation or interrogation. The leader a plump-faced man with a cunning expression sat in the back seat between us, and watched us with care, as if making an a.s.sessment. Now fully awake, I had shaken off my fearful dreams, and again doubted Elgar"s story of cuckoos intent on ousting my mind from my body. The man sitting between us was too real to be a golem he was solid, fleshy, with Aryan blue eyes. He was uncertain, angry, anxious no more than a jumpy boy, perhaps twenty-seven years of age. I started to doubt my a.s.sumption that these men were the ones who had sent the radio message. It seemed far more likely that they were real SS. I reminded myself that this might be worse than their being golems, and checked my pocket for the cyanide capsule. It was still there.
I was wondering if I would have the courage to use it when I realised that the car had stopped, and not in a place where I would have expected the SS to make their headquarters. It was a dark, steep street with a distinct odour of sewage, even on this cold night. We were ushered out and into a darkened building which had a creaking wooden door, and the damp stone ambience of a church. After a few moments and some echoing, whispered conversation ahead of us, a match was struck, revealing the face of the Doctor.
"h.e.l.lo, Mr Greene, Colonel! I"m glad you could make it."
The lines were those of a B movie villain and they worked. I became convinced that the Doctor was on the side of evil.
Chapter Seventeen.
They put us in the crypt. They tied Elgar to a chair, roped his hands together, and put a hood over his head, but they were satisfied to handcuff me to an upturned table. Perhaps, since I was human, they didn"t think of me as a threat. I decided that it must be a Lutheran church: there was no smell of incense here, no rich colours or holy reliquaries, only bare boards and the most basic stores a few candles, empty bottles of holy wine, and a spare set of vestments, dark and tattered like an eccentric old schoolmaster"s gown. The place smelled of dampness and mouse droppings.
The Doctor sent Turing down to talk to us, which was a good move, and would have worked, perhaps, if Turing hadn"t been so determined to prove his own personal version of the truth.
"You see!" he began, as ebullient as a child, "They"re not concentration-camp guards!"
"That"s not the point," I said. With everything else that had happened, I had difficulty remembering the conversation we"d had about the camps in Paris. I recalled that Turing had been concerned about "the truth" then, too, and not at all interested in the fate of thousands, perhaps millions, of European Jews and here he was, still on the same tack, when the wind had changed and the land had risen in spiked mountains all around us.
"They"re like the Doctor!" This prospect, too, seemed to fill Turing with a childlike glee. His face was illuminated with that selfish flush, that suffusion of blood that you see in children when the lollipop of their choice has been provided. I wondered what lollipops the Doctor was providing for Turing.
"The Doctor and his friends," I told him, "have just locked us up in a damp cellar and are probably going to kill us. Perhaps they"ll torture us a bit first "
"No! No! No! You"ve got it all wrong!" Such was Turing"s vehemence that I knew that he, at least, believed in the Doctor"s goodness. "The Doctor is sending them home," he explained. There"s a device we"re working on they know the design, but the Doctor knows more about electronics here and h.e.l.ler and I are helping him to a.s.semble it. It"s fascinating "
"So why is Colonel Elgar tied to a chair?" I wondered who h.e.l.ler was, but refrained from asking. Another golem, perhaps.
Turing looked at me with a sly expression. "Do you know who Elgar really is?"
"Do you?" I was reminded of my conversation with the Doctor in Africa.
"I know he"s dangerous. I know "
"He says that the Doctor and his friends are dangerous, Alan. How do we know who to believe? We should get out of here. Leave them to it."
"How would we get back?"
I shrugged. "We"ll survive. Germany"s finished anyway it can"t be more than a few weeks now before they give in. How did you get here?"
"Well h.e.l.ler flew us over in the end. We had to crash the plane."
"Who"s h.e.l.ler?"
"A pilot. We didn"t want to use him, but the other plan didn"t work." He leaned forward, whispered the secret. "The Doctor tried to smuggle us in with some Germans who wanted to go home before the war ended" The naivete of this statement took my breath away, but then he was looking at the ground, fiddling with his hands in an embarra.s.sed manner. "Elgar found out and we were nearly caught. One of them got killed. It was horrible."
"Death is is horrible," I said. "But I can"t think that the world will miss a n.a.z.i collaborator." horrible," I said. "But I can"t think that the world will miss a n.a.z.i collaborator."
"He was a human being! There was blood on the snow you don"t understand "
I had to concede him this one. I remembered the woman whom we may have killed in Stuttgart. "Yes, Alan. I do understand. I"m sorry, it must have been very unpleasant."
I noticed that Turing was wearing a brown worsted travelling suit. It was neater and newer than his usual apparel. I wondered if the Doctor had bought it for him and, if so, where.
"The Doctor doesn"t mind letting you go, you know," Turing said. He was still looking at his shoelaces. I noticed that one was undone. "But you must give your word not to run away. He knows you won"t hurt anyone."
I thought about this. Despite my brave words about surviving in the collapsing ruin of the n.a.z.i German state, I knew that I didn"t have anywhere to run. Without papers, ration cards or even German money, and with a clear English accent, I wouldn"t last an hour.
"Very well," I said. "I give my word."
I glanced at Elgar, tied to his chair in the corner, but he gave no sign of being involved in the conversation, though he must have heard us.
"No one will hurt him," said Turing.
"They killed his friend," I pointed out.
"It was an accident!"
"No it wasn"t, Alan," I said. I had a stark tactile memory, the cold arched metal of the "surveillance device" in my hands, the velvet bed drapes against my wrist. I became aware of the burned skin on my back, the slight soreness still there, and of course that brought back Daria: her scent, slightly unwomanly, her eyes, the delicate cool arches of her body. "Pa.s.sion makes fools of us all," I commented.
He was still staring at his laces. "No," he said. "Pa.s.sion only makes fools of some of us, Graham."
I didn"t know whether or not he was including himself amongst the fools. "And who are the better men?" was the best retort I could come up with.
He didn"t reply, just reached down and uncuffed me from the table.
Elgar spoke up then, his voice m.u.f.fled by the hood. "Remember they"re the dangerous ones, whatever this man thinks."
I knew he was right, but said nothing. Telling Elgar the truth about my state of mind was the least of my problems. I had established the degree of duplicity needed to work in this situation. Despite the strangeness, it was not very different from ordinary espionage. The straightforwardness of the strangers, their willingness to talk and act in cliche, was an advantage. n.o.body here was making a very good job of any pretence, except possibly the Doctor, who was pretending to be good something I was all too familiar with. I knew that the best solution would be to expel all of them burn them back to whatever heaven or h.e.l.l they came from, and remove any danger they might offer to us that way. But I could see no chance of doing that, given the immediate human evil that surrounded us. For the time being I would have to play their games, and I hoped I could play them well enough to survive.
Turing led me up into the body of the church. A single candle was illuminated, showing the Doctor"s face and the dim wooden shape of a plain choir stall. He was holding a silver object that I at first took to be a pen. I tried to look around, but could see only darkness. I scuffed my foot on the floor and heard dim stony echoes. The Doctor looked at me, but didn"t speak.
Air-raid sirens started up outside. The sound was different from the English sort: more a screech than a wail, it varied in intensity as if the machines were walking the landscape. I was reminded of H.G. Wells"s Martians and their tripedal war machines. I reflected that even things of human making could be alien.
The Doctor stood up, placing his face in shadow. "I had to get you away from the colonel," he said. "He"s dangerous, you know."
"Probably. But don"t expect any more help."
"Oh, you can"t help me anyway." The Doctor"s tone was offhand. He moved the silver thing in his hand, and I saw that it wasn"t a pen it had a slight curve which was familiar. Too familiar.
"You killed Daria." I didn"t see any point in wasting time.
"No. The device killed her. And now it"s lost, because the users were stupid and innocent and so was I."
The Doctor"s tone was so profound in its regret that I almost believed him. But a moment"s thought was like rubbing the surface of a fake reliquary: the patina of innocence wore away at once, revealing a new and unpleasant metal. "Why are they collaborating with n.a.z.is then?"
"Not collaborating disguised! Have you become stupid all of a sudden?"
"Disguised, then."
"Graham, they don"t even know where they are."
"I know where I am held prisoner in a damp Protestant church in a foreign city."
"You"re not a prisoner. You can go if you want..."
I finished the cliche for him. "...but I won"t get far."
We looked at each other. The Doctor"s cla.s.sical face, with an eyebrow raised, looked like that of an eighteenth-century n.o.bleman-dilettante. "That"s hardly my fault, is it?" he said. "Come on, Graham, don"t be silly. I"m as upset about Daria"s death as you are "
"No you aren"t."
"Yes I am am. But it isn"t as simple as you think "
"No, it never is when you want to kill people." I was angry more angry than I would have thought possible. This man had tricked me into killing Daria, and now he was pretending he regretted it. Well, he probably did, and perhaps G.o.d would forgive him, but at that moment I couldn"t.
"I think I should go back to the crypt," I said.
The Doctor shook his head, and I heard a tremulous low sound, a deep vibration. Such was the strangeness of my mood that for a moment I took it for the susurration of giant wings, and was looking around for fallen angels in the shadows around us. Then it was repeated, and the windows rattled, and I recognised the distant thud of high explosives.
"The raid"s started," said the Doctor. His tone was dark, as dark as those imagined wings.
"We should go." The voice came from the shadows, and it had echoes of the music I had heard in Africa. I was confused hadn"t those musical ones been Elgar"s people? Who were the pursued, and who were the pursuers? Then I remembered it didn"t matter. They were all alien to my conception.
There was a whistle in the air, and light flickered outside.
"Are we taking this new one?"
"Yes, yes, of course. We can"t let him die."
There was a slight stress on the word "him". To show that I hadn"t missed it, I asked, "So who are you planning to allow to die? Or is that a stupid question?"
There was a silence. The Doctor blew the candle out, and at the same time a bright flare sent trails of coloured light across the floor. I saw the tall, human yet un-human shape which had always been there in the darkness near the altar. I think I stood up moved back. The Doctor shouted, "Look out!"
I fell backwards, and my head hit the cold stone. Whilst I was recovering, feeling a pain in my ankle, and deciding that I had not been attacked but had simply fallen over the corner of a choir stall, the light from outside faded.
A hand grabbed my arm, painfully tight. "Come on!" It was Turing"s voice, husky with the excitement of a Boy"s Own Boy"s Own adventure. Perhaps he"d never had any adventures before. I let him lead me out, because getting out of that building seemed a good idea. adventure. Perhaps he"d never had any adventures before. I let him lead me out, because getting out of that building seemed a good idea.
We pa.s.sed through the heavy wooden door. Outside, the air smelled of cordite and cinders the familiar air-raid smell. I could hear the hum of aircraft, too low and too many. The thud of explosives was everywhere, and the white flames of incendiaries were beginning to rise. This was like the worst nights of the blitz. I could hear distant screams, weak under the roar of engines. There was more than one person crying out: several deaths merging together, mice caught by cats. Except that the cats were on "my" side. It wasn"t an easy thought to live with, when I could see the flames and hear the screams of the dying.
The Doctor and the SS men were out of the church building now. I saw that the tall stranger was one of the SS, but he no longer seemed so human. However, in the face of the terrible inhumanity of the air raid, the nature of my captors was irrelevant.
"We should let Elgar go," I told Turing.
"We can"t can"t," said the Doctor. The church door thumped closed behind him, and I heard the scratching of a key.
"Don"t take any notice of him," I told Turing. "He isn"t human."
"Does it matter what he is?" asked Turing. His voice was that of a puzzled schoolboy. "Surely it"s what he does that matters."
I knew I would have to give up on Turing then: he was no use. I walked back to the church.
"Give me the key," I said. "We"re not leaving Elgar behind, tied up in the middle of an air raid. It"s " I nearly said "inhuman".