The Little Drummer Girl (48 page)

"She says it was the Zionists," Mesterbein objected to Helga,in English. "Why does she say it was the Zionists when it was an accident? The police have assured us it was an accident. Why does she contradict the police? It is very dangerous to contradict police."

But Helga had either heard it already for herself or didn't care. She had put a coffee pot on the electric stove. Kneeling at Charlie's head, she pensively smoothed her red hair away from her face with her strong hand, waiting for her weeping to stop and her explanations to begin.

The coffee pot suddenly bubbled; Helga rose and tended it. Charlie sat on the sofa cradling her mug in both hands, bowed over it as if inhaling its vapour, while the tears ran steadily down her cheeks. Helga had her arm round Charlie's shoulder and Mesterbein sat opposite, peering out at the two women from the shades of his own dark world.

"It was an explosion accident," he said. "On the autobahn Salzburg-Munich. According to police, his car was full of explosive. Hundreds of pounds. Why? Why should explosive detonate suddenly, on a flat autobahn?"

"Your letters are safe," Helga whispered, drawing back another hank of Charlie's hair and tucking it lovingly behind her ear.

"The car was a Mercedes," Mesterbein said. "It had Munich licences, but the police say they are false. Also the papers. Forgeries. Why should my client drive a car with false papers and full of explosive? He was a student. He was not a bomber. It is a conspiracy, actually. I think so."

"Do you know this car, Charlie?" Helga murmured into her ear, and pressed her more fondly against her in an effort to coax an answer out of her. But all Charlie could see in her mind was her lover blown to pieces by two hundred pounds of Russian plastic explosive hidden in the valance, cross members, roof-lining, and seats: an inferno, tearing apart the body she adored. And all she could hear was the voice of her other nameless mentor saying:Distrust them, lie to them, deny everything; reject, refuse.

"She spoke something," said Mesterbein accusingly.

"She said ‘Michel,' " said Helga,wiping away a fresh onslaught of tears with a sensible handkerchief from her handbag.

"A girl died also," Mesterbein said. "She was with him in the car, they say."

"A Dutch," Helga said softly, so close that Charlie could feel her breath upon her ear. "A real beauty. Blonde."

"They died together, apparently," Mesterbein continued, raising his voice.

"You were not the only one, Charlie," Helga explained confidingly. "You did not have the exclusive use of our little Palestinian, you know."

For the first time since they had broken the news to her, Charlie spoke a coherent sentence.

"I never asked for it," she whispered.

"The police say the Dutch was a terrorist," Mesterbein complained.

"They say also that Michel was a terrorist," said Helga.

"They say that the Dutch planted bombs for Michel several times already," said Mesterbein. "They say Michel and the girl were planning another action, and that in the car they found a city map of Munich with the Israeli Trade Centre marked in Michel's handwriting. On the River Isar," he added. "An upper floor--really a difficult target, actually. Did he speak to you of this action, Miss Charlie?"

Shivering, Charlie sipped a little coffee, which seemed to please Helga quite as well as a reply. "There! She is waking up at last. You want more coffee, Charlie? Shall I heat some? Food? We have cheese up here, eggs, sausage, we have everything."

Shaking her head, Charlie let Helga lead her to the lavatory, where she stayed a long time, throwing water in her face, retching, and between whiles wishing to Heaven that she knew enough German to follow the uneasy, staccato conversation that was reaching her through the paper-thin doors.

She returned to find Mesterbein standing at the front door dressed in his gabardine trench coat.

"Miss Charlie, I remind you that Fräulein Helga is entitled to the full protection of the law," he said, and stalked out of the front door.

Alone at last. Girls together.

"Anton is a genius," Helga announced, with a laugh. "He is our guardian angel, he hates the law, but naturally he falls in love with what he hates. Do you agree?... Charlie, you must always agree with me. I am otherwise too disappointed." She drew nearer. "Violence is not the issue," she said, resuming a conversation they had not yet had. "Never. We make a violent action, we make a peaceful one, it is indifferent. The issue with us is to be logical, not to stand aside while the world runs itself, but to turn opinion into conviction and conviction into action." She paused, examining the effect of her statements upon her pupil. Their heads were very close. "Action is self-realisation, it is also objective. Yes?" Another pause, but still no answer. "You know something else that will surprise you completely? I have an excellent relationship with my parents. You, you are different. One sees it in your letters. Anton also. Naturally, my mother is the more intelligent, but my father--" She broke off again, but this time she was angered by Charlie's silence, and her renewed weeping.

"Charlie, stop now. Stop, okay? We are not old women finally. You loved him, we accept that as logical, but he is dead." Her voice had hardened surprisingly. "He is dead, but we are not individualists for private experience, we are fighters and workers. Stop weeping."

Grasping Charlie's elbow, Helga lifted her bodily to her feet and marched her slowly down the length of the room.

"Listen to me. Immediately. Once I had a very rich boyfriend. Kurt. Very fascistic, completely primitive. I used him for sex, like I use Anton, but also I tried to educate him. One day the German Ambassador in Bolivia, a Graf somebody, was executed by the freedom fighters. You remember this action? Kurt, who did not even know him, was immediately enraged: The swine! These terrorists! It's disgraceful!' I said to him, ‘Kurt'--this was his name--‘who do you mourn for? People starve to death every day in Bolivia. Why should we bother about one dead Graf?' You agree with this evaluation, Charlie? Yes?"

Charlie gave a faint shrug. Turning her round, Helga started the return journey.

"Now I take a harder argument. Michel is a martyr, but the dead cannot fight and there are many other martyrs also. One soldier is dead. The revolution continues. Yes?"

"Yes," Charlie whispered.

They had reached the sofa. Taking up her sensible handbag, Helga pulled out a flat half-bottle of whisky on which Charlie noticed a duty-free label. She unscrewed the cap and handed her the bottle.

"To Michel!" she declared. "We drink to him. To Michel. Say it."

Charlie took a small sip, pulled a face. Helga took back the bottle.

"Sit down, please, Charlie, I wish you to sit down. Immediately."

She sat listlessly on the sofa. Helga once more stood over her.

"You listen to me and you answer, okay? I do not come here for fun, you understand? Nor for discussions. I like to discuss but not now. Say ‘Yes.' ‘

"Yes," said Charlie wearily.

"He was attracted to you. This is a scientific fact. Even infatuated, actually. There was an unfinished letter to you on the desk in his apartment, full of fantastic statements concerning love and sex. All for you. Also politics."

Slowly, as if the sense of this had only gradually got through to her, Charlie's blotched and twisted face became eager. "Where is it?" she said. "Give it to me!"

"It is being processed. In operations, everything must be evaluated, everything must be processed objectively."

Charlie started to her feet. "It's mine! Give it to me!"

"It is the property of the revolution. Possibly you shall have it later. One shall see." Not very gently, Helga pushed her back to the sofa. "This car. The Mercedes which is now an ash box. You drove it over the border into Germany? For Michel? A mission? Answer me.'

"Austria," she muttered.

"Where from?"

"Through Yugoslavia."

"Charlie, I think you are seriously quite bad at accuracy:where from ?"

"Thessalonika."

"And Michel accompanied you on the journey, of course he did. This was normal with him, I think."

"No."

"What no? You drove alone? So far? Ridiculous! He would never entrust you such a responsibility. I do not believe you one word. The whole story is lies."

"Who cares? said Charlie, with a return to apathy.

Helga did. She was already furious. "Of course you don't care! If you are a spy, why should you care? It is already clear to me what happened. I need ask no more questions, they are pure formality. Michel recruited you, he made you his secret love, and as soon as you were able, you took your story to the police in order to protect yourself and make a fortune of money. You are a police spy. I shall report this to certain quite effective people we are in touch with and you will be taken care of, even if it is twenty years from now. Executed."

"Great," said Charlie. "Terrific." She stubbed out her cigarette. "You do that, Helg. That's just exactly what I need. Send them round, will you? Room sixteen, up the hotel."

Helga had gone to the window and torn back the curtain, apparently intending to summon Mesterbein. Looking past her, Charlie saw his little hire car with the interior light on, and Mesterbein's hatted outline seated impassively in the driving seat.

Helga tapped on the window. "Anton? Anton, come here at once, we have a complete spy among us!" But her voice was too low for him, as she intended. "Why did Michel not tell us about you?" she demanded, closing the curtain again and turning round to face her. "Why did he not share you with us? You--his dark horse for so many months. It's too ridiculous!"

"He loved me."

"Quatsch!He was using you. You have his letters still--to you?"

"He ordered me to destroy them."

"But you didn't. Of course you didn't. How could you? You are a sentimental idiot, which may be seen immediately from your own letters to him. You exploited him, he spent money on you, clothes, jewels, hotels, and you sell him to the police. Of course you do!"

Finding herself close to Charlie's handbag, Helga picked it up and on an impulse, tipped its contents over the dining-table. But the clues that were planted in it--the diary, the ballpoint pen from Nottingham, the matches from the Diogenes in Athens--were in her present mood too fine for her, she was looking for evidence of Charlie's treachery, not her devotion.

"This radio."

Her little Japanese job with an alarm clock on it for rehearsals.

"What is it? It is a spy device. Where does it come from? Why does a woman like you carry a radio in her handbag?"

Leaving her to her own preoccupations, Charlie turned away from her and stared sightlessly at the fire. Helga fiddled with the dials of the radio and picked up some music. She switched it off and put it irritably aside.

"In Michel's last letter that he did not post to you, he says you have kissed the gun. What does this mean?"

"It means I kissed the gun." She corrected herself. "His brother's gun."

Helga 's voice rose abruptly. "His brother? What brother?"

"He had an elder brother. His hero. A great fighter. The brother gave him the gun, Michel made me kiss it as a pledge."

Helga was staring at her in disbelief. "Michel told you this?"

"I read it in the papers, didn't I?"

"When did he tell it to you?"

"On a hilltop in Greece."

"What else of this brother--quickly!" She almost screamed.

"Michel worshipped him. I told you."

"Give facts. Only facts. What else did he tell you about his brother?"

But Charlie's secret voice was telling her she had already gone far enough. "He's a military secret," she said, and helped herself to a fresh cigarette.

"Did he tell you where he is? What he is doing? Charlie, I order you to tell me!" She drew nearer. "Police, intelligence, maybe even the Zionists--everybody is looking for you. We have excellent relations with certain elements of the German police. They know already it was not the Dutch girl who drove the car through Yugoslavia. They have descriptions. They have many informations to incriminate you. If we wish, we can help you. But not until you have told everything that Michel has revealed to you about his brother." She leaned forward until her big pale eyes were not a hand's width from Charlie's own. "He had no right to talk to you about him. You have no right to this information. Give it to me."

Charlie considered Helga 's application but after due reflection rejected it.

"No," she said.

She was intending to go on: I promised and that's it--I don't trust you--get off my back--but when she had listened to plain "no" for a time, she decided she liked it best alone.

Your job is to make them need you,Joseph had said. Think of it as courtship. They will treasure most what they cannot have.

Helga had developed an unearthly composure. The histrionics were over. She had entered a period of ice-cold disconnection, which Charlie understood instinctively because it was something she could do herself.

"So. You drove the car to Austria. And then?"

"I dumped it where he told me, we met up and went to Salzburg."

"How?"

"Plane and car."

"And? In Salzburg?"

"We went to a hotel."

"The name of the hotel, please?"

"I don't remember. I didn't notice."

"Then describe it."

"It was old and big and near a river. And beautiful," she added.

"And you had sex. He was very virile, he had many orgasms, as usual."

"We went for a walk."

"And after the walk you had sex. Don't be silly, please."

Once more, Charlie let her wait. "We meant to, but I fell asleep as soon as we'd had dinner. I was exhausted from the drive. He tried to wake me a couple of times, then gave up. In the morning he was dressed by the time I woke."

"And then you went with him to Munich--yes?"

"No."

"So what did you do?"

"Caught an afternoon plane to London."

"What car did he have?"

"A hire car."

"What make?"

She pretended not to remember.