rang the bell while opening the door with his key. Once inside he called to his wife. ‘Clemmie? Clem, are you there?’
Her voice replied from somewhere upstairs, ‘Where the hell have you been? Do you know what time it is?’
‘Clemmie –’
She still didn’t appear. ‘I’ve eaten my lunch. You’ll have to make do with an egg or something.’
Standing awkwardly in the hall he looked at the empty landing and then at me and smiled ruefully. ‘Egg okay? Clemmie will make omelettes.’
‘Wonderful.’
‘I’ve brought a colleague home,’ he called loudly.
His wife came down the stairs, skittish and smiling. She was worth waiting for; young, long-legged and shapely. She touched her carefully arranged hair and flashed her eyes at me. She looked as if her make-up was newly applied. Her smile froze as she noticed some flecks of snow on his coat. ‘My God! When does summer come to this damned town?’ she said, holding him personally responsible.
‘Clemmie,’ said Teacher after she’d offered her cheek to be kissed, ‘this is Bernard Samson, from the office.’
‘The famous Bernard Samson?’ she asked with a throaty chuckle. Her voice was lower now and her genial mockery was not unattractive.
‘I suppose so,’ I said. So much for Teacher’s ingenuous inquiry about whether I was married. Even his wife knew all about me.
‘Take off your coat, Bernard,’ she said in a jokey flirtatious way that seemed to come naturally to her. Perhaps the dour Teacher was attracted to her on that account. She took my old coat, draped it on a wooden hanger marked Disneyland Hotel Anaheim, California and hung it in an antique walnut closet.
She was wearing a lot of perfume and a button-through dress of light green wool, large earrings and a gold necklace. It was not the sort of outfit you’d put on to go to church. She must have been six or eight years younger than her husband and I wondered if she was trying to acquire the pushy determination that young wives need to survive the social demands of a Berlin posting.
‘Bernard Samson: secret agent! I’ve never met a real secret agent before.’
‘That was long ago,’ said Teacher in an attempt to warn her off.
‘Not so long ago,’ she said archly. ‘He’s so young. What is it like to be a secret agent, Bernard? You don’t mind if I call you Bernard, do you?’
‘Of course not,’ I said awkwardly.
‘And you call me Clemmie.’ She took my arm in a gesture of mock confidentiality. ‘Tell me what it’s like. Please.’
‘It’s like being a down-at-heel Private Eye,’ I said. ‘In a land where being a Private Eye will get you thirty years in the slammer. Or worse.’
‘Find something for us to eat, Clemmie,’ said Teacher in a way that suggested that his acute embarrassment was turning to anger. ‘We’re starved.’
‘Darling, it’s Sunday. Let’s celebrate. Let’s open that lovely tin of sevruga that you got from someone I’m not allowed to inquire about,’ she said.
‘Wonderful idea,’ said Teacher and sounded relieved at this suggestion. But he still did not look happy. I suppose he never did.
Clemmie went into the kitchen to find the caviar while Teacher took me into the sitting room and asked me what I wanted to drink.
‘Do you have vodka?’ I asked.
‘Stolichnaya, or Zubrovka or a German one?’ He set up some glasses.
‘Zubrovka.’
‘I’ll get it from the fridge. Make yourself at home.’
Left alone I looked around. It is not what guests are expected to do but I can never resist. It was a small but comfortable apartment with a huge sofa, a big hi-fi and a long shelf of compact discs – mostly outmoded pop groups – that I guessed were Clemmie’s. On the coffee table there was a photo album, the sort of leather-bound tasselled one in which people record an elaborate wedding. It bulged with extra pictures and programmes. I opened it. Every page contained photos of Clemmie: on the athletic field, running the 1,000 metres, hurdling, getting medals, waving silver cups. The pages were lovingly captioned in copperplate writing. Tucked into the back she was to be seen in already yellowing sports pages torn from the sort of local newspaper that carries large adverts for beauty salons and nursing homes. In all the pictures she looked so young: so very very young. She must have been here looking through it when she heard us at the door, and then rushed upstairs to put on fresh make-up. Poor Clemmie.
The apartment block was new and the walls were thin. As Teacher went into the kitchen I heard his wife speak loudly, ‘Jesus Christ, Jeremy! Why did you bring him here?’
‘I didn’t have cash or I would have taken us all to a restaurant.’
‘Restaurant …? If the office hear all this, you’ll be in a row.’
‘Frank said give him lunch. Frank likes him.’
‘Frank likes everyone until the crunch comes.’
‘I’m assigned to him.’
‘You should never have agreed to do it.’
‘There was no one else.’
‘You told me he was a pariah, and that’s what you’ll end up as if you don’t keep the swine at arm’s length.’
‘I wish you’d let me do things my way.’
‘It was letting you do things your way that brought us to this bloody town.’
‘We’ll have a nice long leave in six months.’
‘Another six months here with these bloody krauts and I’ll go round the bend,’ she said.
There was the sound of a refrigerator door closing loudly, and of ice-cubes going into a jug.
‘You don’t have to put up with them,’ she said. Her voice was shrill now. ‘Pushing and elbowing their way in front of you at the check-outs. I hate the bloody Germans. And I hate this terrible winter weather that goes on and on and on. I can’t stand it here!’
‘I know, darling.’ His voice remained soft and affectionate. ‘But please try.’
When he returned he poured two large measures of vodka and we drank them in silence. I suppose he knew how thin the walls were.
It was not an easy lunch. We consumed 250 grams of Russian sevruga virtually in silence. With it we had rye bread and vodka. ‘The spring catch,’ said Teacher knowledgeably as he tasted the caviar. ‘That’s always the best.’
Unsure of an appropriate response to that sort of remark I just said it was delicious.
Clemmie’s mascara was smudged. She responded minimally to her husband’s small-talk. She
