The Quiller Memorandum

14: LIBIDO

She prepared Lapsang Suchong and served it with chips of orange-peel in small black bowls, kneeling on the floor to drink; we drank in the manner of a ritual. Sometimes she moved, for no reason other than to let me watch, her, knowing it pleased me.

A winter sun was in the sky and a ray of it struck through the window, gilding her helmet of hair. It was very quiet and when she moved I could hear the fabric of her clothes sliding over her skin. To each his aphrodisiac, and she knew mine. She made no secret of hers.

"Sometimes I can tell a man who has killed others. Iknow that you have."

"Yes."

"I don't mean in war."

"No."

"What does it feel like?"

"Disappointing."

"Not the thrill you expected?"

"I never do it for thrills. It's always a matter of life, his or mine. It's disappointing because all the urgency goes. "

"Like," she said, "when a mouse dies. The cat has nothing left to play with, nothing that moves."

This was why she went to the Neustadthalle: to watch men who had killed others.

We sat in silence drinking tea in the innocent afternoon.

She asked me what I had seen in the death-camps and I didn't tell her. It was no good thinking, if this wingless vampire had ever spent a day in a death-camp she wouldn't be so keen to talk about it now. She was part-masochist and in her pain there'd be pleasure.

We talked about the Fuhrerbunker. She liked that. It was no good thinking, this is no prelude to love. There would be nothing of love. This was the prelude to something that we would each act out for our own reasons: the simple biological urge to impregnate and be impregnated, the needs of dominance, subjection, identification, a lot of things known and unknown, an act of catharsis to let the fiends come out and perhaps to let others in. The beast with two backs would lord the jungle for a time, then it would die, without knowing why it had lived.

The small black bowls were empty, and she was trembling, so imperceptibly that only the gold links of the chain on her wrist gave sign of it. There had been nothing said, but she stood up and the ray of the winter sun threw her shadow across the wall as she went into another room, and when she came back she was naked.

Better than I'd imagined, or worse, as it had been in the amytal dream that we now relived, but with new dimensions that surprised me: most men think they know it all and most do not. It was impossible for me to think that the things she did could have been done by any other woman, though I had known them before. The doer matters more than what is done, and she was Inga, gold of hair, unique and measureless, sometimes whispering to me of things more naked than even her body was, the brittle Berliner accents whittling the air as she opened herself and let the fiends come out, and when the ray of the sun had gone from the wall her tears were drying on me.

And now get out, Quiller, get out, the amytal had said, but I stayed until the lamps came on in the street and the room glowed with their light. In the mirror of the bathroom my face looked much the same, though we sometimes fear the identity has suffered change by its exposure. I heard the bell ring, muted by the door between, and heard her receiving someone. When my tie was straight I went through into the living-room and saw Oktober standing there, and knew that since I had left the Grunewald Bridge my reasoning had been false and that it had led me here. Under the amytal I had done, in a dream, what I had come here this afternoon to do; and I had given Fabian and Oktober a running commentary. She'd rather do this with a short-arse with a small moustache who's dead and a poof to boot… You are a woman before you are a bloody necrophile… And I'd already given them her name. Inga. A thousand Ingas in this fair city, but only one of them in love with a dead Fuhrer. They knew which one, and they knew where I'd heard the name of Phoenix. (Phoenix? Phoenix, yes. How did you hear about Phoenix?)

The inaudible discussion between Fabian and Oktober was now as clear to me as if I had heard every word.

Fabian: "We shan't get anything out of him this way."

Oktober: "Then we shall give him special treatment."

"It shouldn't be necessary, and you stand to lose him. If he talked at all he would be so far gone that you might not get anything intelligible. You might have difficulty in reviving him for further use."

"Advise me, then."

"I saw your reaction when he mentioned the name ‘Inga’. You know her. Who is she?"

"A defector."

"Locatable?"

"Yes."

"Then let him go to her."

"He might not."

"He will. His libido will drive him to her. He'll want to do in reality what we have just heard him dream of doing. His urge to go to her is overwhelming, and we can even increase it to make certain. You notice his fear of death he harped on Kenneth Lindsay Jones and Solomon Rothstein. We shall play on that fear. Let him believe he is about to die, and let it be done convincingly. Then give him back his life and let him experience its shock effect. The life-force will surge back and the libido will become all-powerful. He will go straight to her."

"I'm not convinced."

"You must accept my word. I made a study of these mechanisms during the war. In hospital wards it was noted that night-loss among severely-wounded was always very high, within hours of their being told that operation was successful and that they were going to live. In my own work at the resettlement centres of Dachau and Nazweiler we developed a highly successful technique. We put a man under threat of imminent death for three days, then led him to a gibbet and placed the cord round his neck. An officer arrived to ‘save’ him at the last minute, countermanding the order to execute. We then closeted him with an expert interrogator – a young female of course – who withheld the means of sexual relief until he had talked. We learned more from these subjects than by any other method: and they were men who were quite prepared to go to their death in silence."

"You believe this one would follow the pattern?"

"No. Not this one. But I promise you he'll go to the woman Inga, within hours. In a way he is in love with her. So you will know where to find him, and when you have found him you know what to do."

And my reasoning had been false, because there'd been no tag. A tag hadn't been necessary. They'd known where to find me. But they'd do nothing, now. Nothing to me.

Oktober stood in the middle of the room. There were three men with him. One was backed against the door where they had come in. The second guarded the door to her bedroom. The third now moved behind me and blocked the bathroom. The windows could be left unguarded: the tops of the street lamps were below the level of this room. The three men would be armed but their guns were holstered. Between Oktober and myself it was tacitly accepted that a gun offered no threat, because I knew that my life was to be preserved until I had talked. There was of course no hope of getting out of here. Each guard was my weight and half again.

I watched Inga. She showed her fear in a way precisely in line with her character: there was delight in it. Yet it was fear, for all that. She knew who these people were. They were Phoenix.

I was waiting for her to look at me, and when she did I glanced upwards and down again briefly. It was no go, because even if she could call the wolf-hound it would have to smash the opaque glazing of the door that led into her bedroom from the roof-stairs, and even if it were trained well enough to open the second door from the bedroom into here they'd shoot it dead on sight. But I had reminded her that Jurgen was not far away, to give her courage.

Oktober said to her: "You should not have left us. More important, you should not have consorted with the enemy. How much have you told him?"

I said: "Nothing."

He didn't look at me. He looked all the time at her. He asked: "How much has he told you ?"

"He's not the enemy," she said. The links of her wrist-chain trembled in the glow of the Chinese-moon lamp. "He works with the Red Cross."

He dismissed this without expression and looked at last at me. "You know the situation. We're not going to do anything to you. But you will of course answer my questions when you can no longer stand it. That is inevitable. So it would save time and distress if you accepted the situation immediately."

I felt my left eyelid begin flickering.

"Ask your questions," I told him. "Give me the whole lot, so that I can think about them. We might do a deal."

I was going to interrogate him, in silence, and I knew he knew it. He could give me valuable information: each of his questions would tell me how much he knew of me and how much he didn't. And he and I both knew that he couldn't refuse to do as I asked, because if he refused it would be an admission of his uncertainty that he was master. He must convince me that he was master, and that whatever information he gave me would be useless to me because I could never pass it on to my Control before I died. But it was difficult for him. If he agreed, and put his questions on the table, would I take it as a sign of his complete self-assurance, or as the mere false evidence of a self-assurance that he didn't feel? He could do nothing about my findings.

I watched his eyes and he watched mine. Both he and I had dealt with men of our own kind often enough. This was not new to us. The situation was precisely-defined he couldn't let me out of here alive, and he couldn't kill me before I'd answered all his questions. In the interrogation under narcoanalysis Fabian had asked hardly any questions directly. All his questions had been the result of things I had already spoken about – Las Ramblas, the container, so forth. There had been only one direct question of major concern: Why are you still in Berlin? That was when he saw that I was coming out of the narcosis, and he'd put that question in a kind of desperation, with an edge on his voice for the first time.

Oktober would now put direct questions, and expose the extent of his knowledge of me and the extent of his ignorance.

He said: "You are not in a position to do a deal."

"I'm waiting."

Inga had moved and leaned against the wall, watching me. Did she know what was going to happen? She must know. She was versed in these matters by going to the Neustadthalle.

Oktober was saying suddenly: "What is your present mission? Is it to find more so-called war criminals for the courts? Why have you begun operating without cover? What was the information that Rothstein wanted to give you when he was prevented? What is your precise objective? That is all."

I was disappointed in him. He knew quite well that once the thing began he'd ask more than that. Where was Local Control Berlin? What total sum of information had Kenneth Lindsay Jones passed to Control before he died? What were the names of – oh, there'd be many questions like those.

"Don't fool about," I said.

His flint-grey eyes registered nothing. "Those are the questions."

There was nothing I could do about it. He'd offered a token bargain. If those weren't his only questions I couldn't prove it. I was now obliged to do a deal: but he was right. I was in no position.

I said: "Here are the answers." No reaction. He didn't believe me.

"One. My present mission is to get all possible information about Phoenix and pass it to my Control."

He already knew that.

"Two. If I find more war criminals for the courts it'll be as a means to an end, to expedite the main mission. "Inga had moved, and a man moved, and she was still again.

"Three. I've begun operating without cover because I prefer to. Cover can become dangerous. I told my Control to leave me a clear field and they did that."

Now I had to talk about something I didn't even want to think about, ever again.

"I don't know what information Dr. Solomon Rothstein would have passed to me if you hadn't prevented him. I think you have some idea about it, because you took immediate steps."

And may God rot your soul.

"Lastly, my precise objective is to flush the prime mover of the Phoenix organisation and deal with him as I think fit."

He kept his eyes on me. I gazed at their glass.

"How did you first hear the name Phoenix?"

"It's a big organisation and you can't hope to keep it under cover -"

"Did she tell you?"

"Who?" It was just that I disliked his manners.

"This woman."

"Fraulein Lindt would hardly be so unwise as to talk to strangers and that's all I am to her."

"Who is the ‘prime mover’ of this alleged organisation?"

"I don't know. The only name I know is yours."

"Where is your Control in Berlin?"

"The deal was that I answered those questions you first put to me."

He said to the man nearest Inga: "Take her into the next room and leave the door wide open." So that was it and I knew the deal was lost, as I'd known it must be.

She moved before the man could touch her, and looked into my face as she passed me. I said, "Don't worry. "The door to her bedroom was opened by the guard there.

The sweat began.

I told Oktober: "You'll lose."

He spoke through the doorway. "Unclothe her."

I knew that he wouldn't have started the thing in this way if Fabian hadn't convinced him on the subject of my libido. They didn't have to undress her to do what they were going to do, but I was to be put under a double strain: the pity for a fellow-human who suffered pain, and the outrage of the male animal whose mate is its possession.

She made a sound, something like anger. She had moved into the bedroom before the guard could touch her; therefore she would probably elect to undress without his help. I could hear the fabric against her skin, as I had heard it a few hours ago, now with different feelings.

I said: "The position is this." I waited until he looked at me. "If I can't stand it, and talk, there can't be any half-measures. I'd have to talk totally. That's obvious. If I talk, it'll mean putting my Control right into your hands: the local base, names of operators, communication system, the whole lot. Do you for a moment imagine I'd do that?" The sweat was on my face now and he was watching it gather. The body was giving away the mind, and the mind would have to compensate for its own exposure, and say what it had to say with utter conviction. "There's not much pity in people like us. We're like doctors. We can't do the job if we let pity into it. You know that. So you're going to lose. I'm not talking. Not one word. Not one word. Do what you like to her, kill her off slowly, let me listen to her dying in there, and take your time, make it last and watch me sweat it out. You won't get a word. Not one word. And when that's failed, you can start on me and do the same with me, the fingernails, the thumbs, the urethra, the eyeballs, give me the full treatment, give me the lot. But you won't get a word. Not a word."

He said to the man in there: "Switch on the other lights. All of them."

Faint shadows came against the wall. In here, only the Chinese-moon lamp was burning, a glow. The lights in the bedroom were brighter. I saw the shadow of the man stoop over the bed.

"Begin," Oktober said.

I thought: she's arrived in a death-camp at last. It doesn't have to be second-hand any more. Now she'll know.

The shadow was moving. I folded my arms and stood with my head turned to watch the shadow, so that Oktober could see I was watching it. He knew also that I was listening. He watched my face.

I hadn't convinced him. Even if I had, I knew he'd go on with this thing, for the pleasure of it. He was on the borderline between reason and the lusts of the psyche, the line that is crossed sometimes by the schoolmaster who begins caning a boy to discipline him and ends by drawing blood.

I should say something to her, but there was nothing to be said.

The shadows moved suddenly and the man gave a grunt and his arm came up and she cried out and he stood still again. There would be blood on his face from her nails. In there, in the room with the silk sheets and the pile rug and the decorative lamps, was the jungle.

I watched the shadows because Oktober wanted me to. On the Dutch frontier there had been a selection camp that I remembered too well. Those who waited in line had been made to watch those who went before them; but there had been a rough screen made from a tablecloth (I remember the half-circular stain on it, made by a wine-glass) and rigged up on a broomstick so that those who waited could see only the jerk of the rope above the screen and the jerk of the feet below it. Because the imagination, once let loose, can be more searing than the shape of the thing witnessed; and this was known and exploited.

There is a typicality to this breed of men that stamps them: the way they will stand with their hands behind their backs to speak death into the faces of the weak, the way they will take quick offence, like schoolgirls, and announce a slight as ‘unforgivable’, the way they will show you only half of horror so that your imagination can run riot and bring you to self-made madness. Thus I was to watch only shadows.

"No, don't!" And of course, to listen.

I could feel the blood draining from my face. It was a moment before I could place a new sound. The click of a closing manacle. She was no longer free.

She began wailing softly.

Oktober watched me.

We are not gentlemen. We are trained, though, to respect the rights of the citizen in whatever country. If we need transport urgently we are trained to get it in whatever way we can that doesn't encroach on the rights of the citizen: we don't simply steal a parked car even knowing that we shall return it after use. London is very finicky on this kind of thing. Nor do we intentionally involve members of the public in our affairs.

I had transgressed. I had involved Inga. Not intentionally, but London would decree that it had been intentional by negligence: I had known she was a defector from Phoenix and therefore connected with the subject of my mission, however negatively, and should have kept away from her. I was directly responsible for this. I must therefore do what I could about it.

I must not stand by and let her suffer pain that would send her mad before she died. I must not give my Control and its purpose and its lives into enemy hands.

Normal resources were unavailable to me. There was no hope of getting out of here and running for it, so. That they would leave her alone. There was no hope of reaching her without being restrained by their weight of numbers. I could say nothing to Oktober that would save her, without costing the lives of Control operators and defeating the Bureau's purpose, which was to safeguard human life on a larger scale against the risks of a resurgence of Nazi militarism and its war potential.

Of a dozen possible actions, two alone were worth the consideration, and one of those was denied me. It was the first time I had ever regretted my insistence on travelling light, unencumbered by the bric-a-brac for which some agents have a fondness – guns, code-books, death-pills, so forth. It would be the complete answer to this situation a death-pill. Five seconds, and there'd be proof at Oktober's feet that nothing they could do to her would make me talk. I carried no pill.

The shadows moved and I watched them and heard the sound in her throat and knew it was something like the word please and that it was said to me and not to them because they couldn't help her and she thought that I might.

Oktober watched me. He called through the doorway:

"Increase treatment."

She made another sound and I did the one thing that held out any hope.