‘Forging papers, making escape suits out of blankets.’
‘Growing vegetables in the thin soil outside the hut.’
‘And football, always football.’
‘Elaborate systems of knocks, folding newspapers, whistling and tapping pipes to warn of approaching guards.’
‘Goons. Not guards, goons.’
‘Goons, right.’
‘Red Cross parcels.’
‘The commandant: basically a good sort.’
‘Studied in Oxford before the war. Hence his good English. Editions of Goethe on his bookshelf. Emphatically not a Nazi. Considers Hitler a vulgar little corporal, a man with no culture.’
‘The Geneva Convention.’
‘Simply a loyal officer of the Wehrmacht. Doing his duty but already resigned to Germany losing the war.’
‘But always, in the background, the shadow of the SS: the snake of threat in this carceral paradise.’
‘Still pretty nice though: a public school with the officers as prefects—’
‘The escape committee.’
‘And the odd Welsh—’
‘Taff!’
‘Or Scot—’
‘Jock!’
‘Or chirpy Cockney—’
‘Blimey!’
‘As fags, running errands. A little microcosm of England where everyone knows their place but all the classes, all ranks, muck in together.’
‘So why bother escaping? They’re home already.’
‘It’s the duty of every officer to escape.’
‘Thereby diverting troops that might otherwise have been used at the front.’
‘Plus the obligation to escape reinforces the pleasantness of being there. Without that there’d be nothing to do. Time would weigh as heavily on your hands as tunnel dirt. The purpose of escape is to make you cherish your time there, like last orders in a pub, to make you realize it’s not going to last for ever, this little public-school Eden.’
‘To escape. It’s an existential need.’
‘Plus it’s not really home. There are no women for a start.’
‘That’s not a problem. All sexuality is sublimated in the act of tunnelling. No women and no gays.’
‘There’s no boozer.’
‘Basically it’s not Civvy Street.’
‘Exactly.’
‘When I was young I used to think Civvy Street was this street in London where everyone worked and then went drinking afterwards.’
‘The border. Switzerland.’
‘Neutral Switzerland.’
‘Heading for the border, for neutral Switzerland, on the train.’
‘Sweating in your escape suit. Double-breasted, pinstripe. Trilby pulled down over your eyes, trying to hide behind your newspaper.’
‘Praying you don’t bump into that old bore Charles Bronson.’
‘Banging on about all the tunnels he’s dug. A real one track mind. Either that or throwing a tantrum about being claustrophobic.’
‘Half the passengers on the train are escaped POWs.’
‘Rush-hour on the Switzerland Express. Standing room only.’
‘The Gestapo getting on the train.’
‘Brown leather overcoats. Buttoned up. A creaking sound as they move up the carriage, checking documents, peering.’
‘Sweating even more in your escape suit, so much so that the makeshift dye is forming a small blue pool at your feet.’
‘Clutching your forged inter-rail pass.’
‘Wishing to God you hadn’t flunked German O level.’
‘And he says to you in his Rommel German: “Guten Morgen, can I see your papers?” Trying to catch you out by throwing in a bit of English.’
‘You’re about to make a run for it —’
‘Then you realize he’s an escaped POW as well, disguised as a member of the Gestapo, winding you up.’
‘Hissing at him as he sits next to you: “You’re a damn fool Hargreaves!”’
‘Ah, I feel better.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Me neither.’
Alex got up and looked out of the window. It was still raining.
‘I can’t make her out,’ he said.
‘More to the point,’ said Luke, ‘you can’t make out with her. Ho ho.’ He had his feet on the coffee table. No lights were on in the room. It was growing dark. The streetlights were on. Neon squirmed in the street.
‘Maybe we should go to a film,’ said Luke, picking up Pariscope again.
‘Maybe we should dig a tunnel.’
‘You’re right. We’re wire happy.’
‘Are you seeing Nicole tonight?’ said Alex.
‘Yes. Do you have plans to see Sahra?’
‘I guess I’ll call her.’
The music started, drowning out the rain.
It was still pouring when Luke set out for Nicole’s. Just outside his building he bumped into Miles.
‘How lovely to see you, Luke!’ he said, unperturbed by the rain. He was taking his Labrador for a walk.
‘Shit, Miles, you look like you’ve been tramping round in the rain ever since we said goodbye.’
‘Not at all. I was tramping round at home until half an hour ago. How was the dancing?’ They stood talking in the rain. Miles asked Luke where he was going, said he’d walk with him part of the way, show him a shortcut.
‘I’ve often wondered where this led,’ said Luke as they came to an alley.
‘That was your mistake,’ admonished Miles. ‘In this world there is one unique path which no one but you may walk. Where does it lead? Don’t ask: take it.’
‘You always sound like you’re quoting, Miles.’
‘Nonsense! Anyway, I must be getting on,’ he said, holding out his hand to say goodbye.
‘You don’t want to come to Nicole’s for a drink?’
‘Must go. Phone me. Turn right at the end of the alley and you’re there.’
‘OK. Bye Miles.’
‘Ha!’
Nicole had washed her hair, was wearing her toothpaste-striped robe, sitting cross-legged on the floor, pulling apart a book of sepia-tinted photographs of the New Mexico desert. She had salvaged the book from a skip full of water-damaged books. One by one she held up the pictures and tried them in a frame with a circular picture window.
‘What about that one?’ The circular mount made all the photos look as if they were of the same brownish planet.
‘It’s OK.’
Luke saw Nicole and himself in the Belgrade mirror. She sipped from a mug of tea, yellow, and tried some more pictures. Eventually she chose a photo of the wind-filled sierra, clouds in the distance. She taped the frame together and held it up. She was in a dreamy state.
‘Lovely isn’t it?’
‘Not really.’
‘It is. You see, I love things that are disappointing.’
‘Is that why you like me?’
‘Probably.’ She kissed him. Luke moved behind her and kissed her neck.
‘I bumped into Miles as I was walking here. He had his dog with him, a lovely Labrador.’
She turned her head and kissed him. ‘And?’
Luke kissed her neck again and pushed the robe up her back, to her shoulders. ‘I stroked its head. I looked in its eyes. And I remember thinking: if I concentrate hard now I will learn the difference between a dog and a human being. Imagine that. All I had to do was concentrate. But of course I didn’t bother, because of the rain. But something came out of it: a kind of residue of ungrasped illumination.’
‘What a stupid story.’ Luke knelt behind her and licked down her back. She lay still, looked at the mirror, waited. He bit her buttocks lightly, licked up her back again, almost as far as her shoulders, and then down again. She lay still, waited. He traced the valley between her buttocks with his tongue, not pressing. She moved, almost imperceptibly. He licked more deeply between her buttocks, almost touching her. She pushed up at him. His tongue brushed her anus. She opened her legs more, pushed herself at his face. He touched her again with his tongue, wetting her. He stiffened his tongue, waiting, until she eased back on to it. His hands were on her buttocks, pulling them apart. He pushed his tongue into her and then, when she was wet, circled her arsehole with his finger, slid it into her.