Wohl snapped his fingers and called for a whisky sour. ‘Sorry I had to invite you to this joint. Fact is, all the decent places are a bit too public. Berlin’s like a club — you can’t move without bumping into somebody you know.’ The switch from French into English had transformed him perfectly: he spoke with one of those American accents that no American has — what Hawn called the ‘IBM accent’. He was the supersalesman, the transatlantic executive: relaxed, confident, full of hidden aggression. None of it showing now — smiling whitely over his whisky sour, toasting them both with his bright brown eyes.
Hawn said, ‘You say Berlin’s a club? Which half — East or West?’
Wohl laughed easily. ‘I guess I should say, “touché”! No, I meant the West sector — what I call the Sin Sector.’ He paused. ‘Monsieur Marziou — can I call you something a little more relaxed? We don’t have to play games here. And I hate formality. What do I call you?’
‘Call me Tom. And this is Anna.’
‘Anna, Tom — I’m delighted.’
Anna had been studying him carefully. He was slightly below medium height, but strongly built, and he looked very fit, very tanned, but with that slight shade of orange tan which suggested the regular use of a sunlamp. His eyes were heavily-lidded, quick and shrewd.
But, most of all, Anna noticed his clothes. The tweed suit was a little too square at the shoulders, too narrow at the hips; the double-breasting an inch too wide, the check a few millimetres too large. His tie was a conservative blue, knotted a little too tightly, above a pin with a large paste pearl, and the points of his shirt collar were too broad, too long. He wore no wedding ring.
He made conversation rapidly, changing his subject as deftly, effortlessly, as a card sharp, never staying on one topic long enough to offend, or to arouse suspicion on controversy. He talked of life in London, Paris, Berlin — how he preferred Berlin because it had more ‘zip, more fizz’. ‘London and Paris are half-dead. Not what they used to be. Now you take Berlin — God, what a city. Crazy but fun!’
‘You’re talking about East Berlin, are you?’ said Anna sternly.
Wohl held up his hand, and smiled. He obviously felt that his smile was his passport to social success. ‘You ask me about East Berlin? OK, I’ll tell you. Very sober. Very, very sober. Discipline and work. What do you feel about the Workers’ State, Anna?’
‘I’ve never been to one. But I don’t like policemen who go around armed. And I like them even less when they’re backed up by tanks — particularly when those tanks come from another country.’
‘Ah c’mon, Anna, c’mon! That’s an old disc from way back in the Cold War. Budapest, Prague — so you get a bit of trouble and the tanks come in to restore order. OK, so a few people get killed. But I can play that same disc to you — the flipside. What about Chile, the Argentine, Iran, South Africa — and your own Ulster?’
‘I’m a Socialist,’ Anna said, reddening. ‘I deplore what goes on in those countries. Anyway, I don’t need an East German to tell me what to think.’ She gulped her Schnapps and put her glass down with a bang.
Wohl leant out and patted her wrist. ‘OK, Anna. I’m glad you’re a Socialist. So am I. But we don’t have to worry about old England going Communist, do we? Nothing revolutionary about England, eh? I think it was Stalin who said that England would never go Communist after he’d heard about the workers and the police playing a football match during your General Strike?
‘Let me tell you both a little story. It demonstrates the English political character so beautifully. I once heard of a very old guy whose father had worked in the British Museum round about the time that Karl Marx used to go there. The son was asked if his father had ever talked about his patrons. He was asked about someone called Marx. The son said, “Oh yes, Mr Marx — the German gentleman with the beard who used to come in every day, year in, year out. A real regular. Then one day he stopped coming, and he was never heard of again.”’
He was looking at them both eagerly: ‘You get it, eh?’ And he repeated the punchline. Hawn gave a polite laugh, and Anna smiled sourly. Wohl shook his head: ‘No, there’s nothing revolutionary about England. More the mentality of head in the sand, and to hell with the rest of the world.’
Hawn said, ‘Have we come here just to discuss the nightlife of Berlin and the degree of English revolutionary fervour?’
‘No, Tom, of course not. Just a way of breaking the ice. Leave politics to the politicians. They get paid for it, after all. Let’s talk about things that are of more immediate interest. Such as a French friend of yours called Pol. I gather he’s a fairly recent friend?’
‘I prefer to call him a business associate,’ said Hawn. ‘So you know him too?’
‘Not personally. But I have friends who do. Pol is an interesting man. But you want to be careful of him — he’s clever and he’s dangerous. And he always plays alone. Anyone who plays with him usually finishes up being used. You’re both being used by him at this very moment. But I suppose you are aware of that?’
‘I’ve got something to get out of this, too, you know,’ Hawn said defensively.
‘Sure, sure. But you still need protection. From what I understand, Pol will protect you just as long as it suits him, but no more.’
‘Let me ask you something. How much do
