The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

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 glass. 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.

'Bloody 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 damn stupid operation? Why didn't they pull us both in at once? Why put all the lights out? If anything was over organized, that was.'

'I am afraid that as a nation we tend to over organize. Abroad that passes 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 Präsidium 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 accumulating 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 Präsidium 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 Präsidium, 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 Präsidium 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 Präsidium 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 Präsidium.'

'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 will 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 bastard.'

'Yes,' said Fiedler, 'he is a bastard.' He seemed excited; he wants to boast to somebody, thought Leamas.

'I thought a lot about you,' Fiedler added. 'I thought about that talk we had—you remember— about the motor.'

'What motor?'

Fiedler smiled. 'I'm sorry, that is a direct translation. I mean 'Motor,' the engine, spirit, urge; whatever Christians call it.'

'I'm not a Christian.'

Fiedler shrugged. 'You know what I mean.' He smiled again. 'The thing that embarrasses you...I'll put it another way. Suppose Mundt is right? He asked me to confess, you know; I was to confess that I was in league with British spies who were plotting to murder him. You see the argument—that the whole operation was mounted by British Intelligence in order to entice us—me, if you like—into liquidating the best man in the Abteilung. To turn, our own weapon against us.'

'He tried that on me,' said Leamas indifferently. And he added, 'As if I'd cooked up the whole bloody story.'

'But what I mean is this: suppose you had done that, suppose it were true—I am taking an example, you understand, a hypothesis, would you kill a man, an innocent man—'

'Mundt's a killer himself.'