"Water."
Mundt filled a carafe from a basin in the corner, and put it on the table beside him with a gla.s.s.
"Bring him something to eat," he ordered, and one of the guards left the room, returning with a mug of soup and some sliced sausage. He drank and ate, and they watched him in silence.
"Where"s Fiedler?" Leamas asked finally.
"Under arrest," Mundt replied curtly.
"What for?"
"Conspiring to sabotage the security of the people."
Leamas nodded slowly. "So you won," he said. "When did you arrest him?"
"Last night."
Leamas waited a moment, trying to focus again on Mundt.
"What about me?" he asked.
"You"re a material witness. You will of course stand trial yourself later."
"So I"m part of a put-up job by London to frame Mundt, am I?"
Mundt nodded, lit a cigarette and gave it to one of the sentries to pa.s.s to Leamas. "That"s right," he said. The sentry came over, and with a gesture of grudging solicitude, put the cigarette between Leamas" lips.
"A pretty elaborate operation," Leamas observed, and added stupidly, "Clever chaps these Chinese."
Mundt said nothing. Leamas became used to his silences as the interview progressed. Mundt had rather a pleasant voice, that was something Leamas hadn"t expected, but he seldom spoke. It was part of Mundt"s extraordinary self-confidence, perhaps, that he did not speak unless he specifically wished to, that he was prepared to allow long silences to intervene rather than exchange pointless words. In this he differed from professional interrogators who set store by initiative, by the evocation of atmosphere and the exploitation of that psychological dependency of a prisoner upon his inquisitor. Mundt despised technique: he was a man of fact and action. Leamas preferred that.
Mundt"s appearance was fully consistent with his temperament. He looked an athlete. His fair hair was cut short. It lay mat and neat. His young face had a hard, clean line, and a frightening directness; it was barren of humor or fantasy. He looked young but not youthful; older men would take him seriously. He was well built. His clothes fitted him because he was an easy man to fit. Leamas found no difficulty in recalling that Mundt was a killer. There was a coldness about him, a rigorous self-sufficiency which perfectly equipped him for the business of murder. Mundt was a very hard man.
"The other charge on which you will stand trial, if necessary," Mundt added quietly, "is murder."
"So the sentry died, did he?" Leamas replied.
A wave of intense pain pa.s.sed through his head.
Mundt nodded. "That being so," he said, "your trial for espionage is somewhat academic. I propose that the case against Fiedler should be publicly heard. That is also the wish of the Praesidium."
"And you want my confession?"
"Yes."
"In other words you haven"t any proof."
"We shall have proof. We shall have your confession." There was no menace in Mundt"s voice. There was no style, no theatrical twist. "On the other hand, there could be mitigation in your case. You were blackmailed by British Intelligence; they accused you of stealing money and then coerced you into preparing a _revanchist_ trap against myself. The court would have sympathy for such a plea."
Leamas seemed to be taken off his guard.
"How did you know they accused me of stealing money?" But Mundt made no reply.
"Fiedler has been very stupid," Mundt observed. "As soon as I read the report of our friend Peters I knew why you had been sent, and I knew that Fiedler would fall into the trap. Fiedler hates me so much." Mundt nodded, as if to emphasize the truth of his observation. "Your people knew that of course. It was a very clever operation. Who prepared it, tell me. Was it Smiley? Did he do it?" Leamas said nothing.
"I wanted to see Fiedler"s report of his own interrogation of you, you see. I told him to send it to me. He procrastinated and I knew I was right. Then yesterday he circulated it among the Praesidium, and did not send me a copy. Someone in London has been very clever."
Leamas said nothing.
"When did you last see Smiley?" Mundt asked casually. Leamas hesitated, uncertain of himself. His head was aching terribly.
"When did you last see him?" Mundt repeated.
"I don"t remember," Leamas said at last; "he wasn"t really in the outfit any more. He"d drop in from time to time."
"He is a great friend of Peter Guillam, is he not?"
"I think so, yes."
"Guillam, you thought, studied the economic situation in the GDR. Some odd little section in your Service; you weren"t quite sure what it did."
"Yes." Sound and sight were becoming confused in the mad throbbing of his brain. His eyes were hot and painful. He felt sick.
"Well, when did you last see Smiley?"
"I don"t remember . . . I don"t remember."
Mundt shook his head.
"You have a very good memory--for anything that incriminates me. We can all remember when we last saw somebody. Did you, for instance, see him after you returned from Berlin?"
"Yes, I think so. I b.u.mped into him. . . in the Circus once, in London." Leamas had closed his eyes and he was sweating. "I can"t go on, Mundt.. . not much longer, Mundt. . . I"m sick," he said.
"After Ashe had picked you up, after he had walked into the trap that had been set for him, you had lunch together, didn"t you?"
"Yes. Lunch together."
"Lunch ended at about four o"clock. Where did you go then?"
"I went down to the City, I think. I don"t remember for sure . . . For Christ"s sake, Mundt," he said holding his head with his hand, "I can"t go on. My b.l.o.o.d.y head"s. .
"And after that where did you go? Why did you shake off your followers, why were you so keen to shake them off?"
Leamas said nothing: he was breathing in sharp gasps, his head buried in his hands.
"Answer this one question, then you can go. You shall have a bed. You can sleep if you want. Otherwise you must go back to your cell, do you understand? You will be tied up again and fed on the floor like an animal, do you understand? Tell me where you went."
The wild pulsation of his brain sUddenly increased, the room was dancing; he heard voices around him and the sound of footsteps; spectral shapes pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed, detached from sound and gravity; -someone was shouting, but not at him; the door was open, he was sure someone had opened the door. The room was full of people, all shouting now, and then they were going, some of them had gone, he heard them marching away, the stamping of their feet was like the throbbing of his head; the echo died and there was silence. Then like the touch of mercy itself, a cool cloth was laid across his forehead, and kindly hands -carried him away.
He woke on a hospital bed, and standing at the foot of it was Fiedler, smoking a cigarette.
* * 18 * Fiedler
Leamas took stock. A bed with sheets. A single ward with no bars in the windows, just curtains and frosted gla.s.s. Pale green walls, dark green linoleum; and Fiedler watching him, smoking.
A nurse brought him food: an egg, some thin soup and fruit. He felt like death, but he supposed he"d better eat it. So he did and Fiedler watched.
"How do you feel?" he asked.
"b.l.o.o.d.y awful," Leamas replied.
"But better?"
"I suppose so." He hesitated. "Those sods beat me up."
"You killed a sentry, you know that?"
"I guessed I had. . . . What do they expect if they mount such a d.a.m.n stupid operation? Why didn"t they pull us both in at once? Why put all the lights out? If anything was overorganized, that was."
"I am afraid that as a nation we tend to overorganize. Abroad that pa.s.ses for efficiency."
Again there was a pause.
"What happened to you?" Leamas asked.
"Oh, I too was softened for interrogation."
"By Mundt"s men?"
"By Mundt"s men _and_ Mundt. It was a very peculiar sensation!"
"That"s one way of putting it."
"No, no; not physically. Physically it was a nightmare, but you see Mundt had a special interest in beating me up. Apart from the confession."
"Because you dreamed up that story about--"
"Because I am a Jew."
"Oh Christ," said Leamas softly.
"That is why I got special treatment. All the time he whispered to me. It was very strange."
"What did he say?"
Fiedler didn"t reply. At last he muttered, "That"s all over."
"Why? What"s happened?"
"The day we were arrested I had applied to the Praesidium for a civil warrant to arrest Mundt as an enemy of the people."
"But you"re mad--I told you, you"re raving mad, Fiedler! He"ll never--"
"There was other evidence against him apart from yours. Evidence I have been acc.u.mulating over the last three years, piece by piece. Yours provided the proof we need; that"s all. As soon as that was clear I prepared a report and sent it to every member of the Praesidium except Mundt. They received it on the same day that I made my application for a warrant."
"The day we were pulled in."
"Yes. I knew Mundt would fight. I knew he had friends on the Praesidium, or yes-men at least, people who were sufficiently frightened to go running to him as soon as they got my report. And in the end, I knew he would lose. The Praesidium had the weapon it needed to destroy him; they had the report, and for those few days while you and I were being questioned they read it and reread it until they knew it was true and each knew the others knew. In the end they acted. Herded together by their common fear, their common weakness and their common knowledge, they turned against him and ordered a Tribunal."
"Tribunal?"
"A secret one, of course. It meets tomorrow. Mundt is under arrest."
"What is this other evidence? The evidence you"ve collected."
"Wait and see," Fiedler replied with a smile. "Tomorrow you will see."
Fiedler was silent for a time, watching Leamas eat.
"This Tribunal," Leamas asked, "how is it conducted?"
"That is up to the President. It is not a People"s Court--it is important to remember that.- it is more in the nature of an inquiry--a committee of inquiry, that"s it, appointed by the Praesidium to investigate and report upon a certain. . . subject. Its report contains a recommendation. In a case like this the recommendation is tantamount to a verdict, but remains secret, as a part of the proceedings of the Praesidium."
"How does it work? Are there counsel and judges?"
"There are three judges," Fiedler said; "and in effect, there are counsel. Tomorrow I myself shall put the case against Mundt. Karden will defend him."
"Who"s Karden?"
Fiedler hesitated.
"A very tough man," he said. "Looks like a country doctor, small and benevolent. He was at Buchenwald."
"Why can"t Mundt defend himself?"
"It was Mundt"s wish. It is said that Karden wifi call a witness."
Leamas shrugged. "That"s your affair," he said.
Again there was silence. At last Fiedler said reflectively, "I wouldn"t have minded--I don"t think I would have minded, not so much anyway--if he had hurt me for myself, for hate or jealousy. Do you understand that? That long, long pain and all the time you say to yourself, "Either I shall faint or I shall grow to bear the pain, nature will see to that" and the pain just increases like a violinist going up the E string. You think it can"t get any higher and it does--the pain"s like that, it rises and rises, and all that nature does is bring you on from -note to note like a deaf child being taught to hear. And all the time he was whispering Jew.. . Jew. I could understand, I"m sure I could, if he - had done it for the idea, for the Party if you like, or if he had hated _me_. But it wasn"t that; he hated--"
"All right," said Leamas shortly, "you should know. He"s a b.a.s.t.a.r.d."