‘Certainly not,’ said Vanag, but without asperity this time. ‘Nor a cigarette. What and where do you think you are’? And isn’t it rather early for a drink? So, anyway. There had been disorders here, runaway inflation, mass unemployment, strikes, strike-breaking, rioting, then much fiercer rioting when a leftist faction seized power. It was our country’s chance to take what she had always wanted most, more than Germany, far more than the Balkans, more even than America. And she took it, after serious difficulty at first, after being on the point of having to withdraw entirely in order to regroup.’
‘What did the Americans do?’
At that, Vanag gave one of his merriest and longest laughs.
It died away finally in affectionate chuckles and little snorts of amusement. Then his demeanour changed again. He stared grimly at Theodore. After another pause he said,
‘All that was new to you. But if you’d really wanted to, you could have found it out. Found out a little about the nation you were supposed to be ready to kill and die for.’
‘You didn’t exactly make it easy for me or anyone else to find it out.’
‘How true, Markov; we didn’t exactly make it easy. In fact I’ll go further: we made and make it difficult in the extreme. But that’s all. Nobody can bury the truth so deep that it can never be found, and I ought to know. The most that can be done is to persuade people there’s no point in looking for it. People who are willing to be persuaded. The versatile Alexander also thought he was interested in the English. And in a way he really was – at least he fucked quite a few of them, which is more than you ever did. He had some acquaintance with that ancient clergyman, Glover, who conducted the pointless and profitless church ceremony in your Festival. You are an extraordinary lot. Well, Glover among others would have been quite a useful source of knowledge about the Pacification and events before and since if you’d ever wanted one. And I’m sure Alexander would have put you on to him if you’d ever told him you wanted one. But you didn’t, so you didn’t. That’s the trouble with ignorance, it defends itself to the death against knowledge. Behind it lies absence of curiosity, and behind that – absence of any reason to know. Intelligence is no help to those in your situation. A man can’t behave intelligently when he doesn’t understand anything.
‘Let me ask you one last question. Did you believe that story about handing the country over to the English when things had settled down’? You needn’t answer. Of course you never bothered your head about how, and which English, and awkward questions like that. But in fact none of it arises, you see. It would only arise if we were talking about a real counter-revolution instead of the greatest Security operation of the last fifty years. I think it’s good that you should know that, on the off-chance that you still have some pride left. Yes, Group 31 was all the brain-child of one of our men in Moscow.
Quite straightforward: induce the disaffected elements to reveal themselves in apparent safety, arrange for them to commit crimes and then arrest them. There was a conspiracy if you like. More selective than a purge, excellent training for the organisation, double deterrent effect – if you join a subversive movement we’ll catch you and punish you, and more than that, if someone tries to persuade you to join one he’s probably a policeman. I’ll be interested to see what effect it has on the rather different operation planned for Poland, starting early next year. I shouldn’t advise you to tell your colleagues about this part, unless you happen to fancy a broken neck. Some of them aren’t as nice as you. That’s another thing that’s no help: niceness.’
Vanag’s hands had not moved from the desk in front of him, but there was a thump at the door and the guard came in. Theodore said quickly,
‘I was against those killings, you know.’
‘I do know, and what of it? There won’t be room for fine shades like that at the kind of trial you’ll have. Niceness is no help. You poor bloody little fool.’
He nodded to the guard, who wrenched upwards at Theodore’s arm even though he was already well on his way to a standing posture. In the corridor, lurching about as he was pulled and pushed at, he wondered dully if this was indeed the same man that had brought him to Vanag; he seemed a little taller, a little less broad. But whether or not he was the same man, he was beyond all doubt the same sort of man, the sort of man that treated all his charges with casual, inattentive brutality, that if ordered to would go much further, as far as an y one might require, not cruel, just wantonly merciless, the sort of man that had always been needed somewhere in the world since the beginning of civilisation. This representative of that sort spat carefully and copiously in Theodore’s face as they stood in the lift, and swung him into his cell with such force that he crashed against the wall and bruised his shoulder painfully.
The cell was no more than six metres square, but with only thirty-eight people in it there was at least room for everyone to sit down. Theodore found a place near one corner, and also inevitably near the slop-pails. He had been expecting to be asked, perhaps even sympathetically asked, what had been happening to him, but nobody so much as looked up. He clasped his wrists round his knees and shifted about on the stone floor; it was hard to find a not uncomfortable position. The place was at least dry and adequately ventilated. Slowly his mind went back to the last part of his conversation with Vanag. When asked whether he had believed that it had been intended to give England back to the English, the reason for his failure to answer had not been the result of unwillingness to betray himself one way or the other; he had simply forgotten what he had believed. Now he made an effort and tried again to remember. It was no good; he had never thought about the matter much and the last time had been too long ago. Had he believed that the revolution would succeed? That was easier; he had pondered about the matter now and then and in the end decided to suspend judgement and let events take their course. Or had he just got bored, left off pondering? He was not sure.
The long morning crept by. Every few minutes someone used one of the slop-pails, always having to step over him to reach it and sometimes kicking or hacking him in the leg. There was no conversation. A guard paced up and down the corridor outside, his footfalls very distinct on the flagstones. The cell was at the end of the row; Theodore could hear his regular tread receding towards the other end, turning, coming back. By estimating the length of his stride while he was in view through the bars and counting his steps, it should have been possible to calculate the length of the corridor, but that piece of information was not worth the trouble of acquiring; it had no point. How long to the midday meal? Nobody could know; all dials and watches, together with all other personal effects, had been removed by the guards before the prisoners had been taken to the cells. They were too far below ground to hear anything of the outside world.
Further questions, thornier questions, began to come lumbering up, presenting themselves to Theodore’s reluctant attention. He conducted a slow-paced dialogue with himself.
Was the revolution a good cause? – or rather, was I right to think it one?
Certainly. The English had been deprived of what was theirs by right and to restore it must be good.
What about Vanag’s point? They’d have to be trained to run the country, wouldn’t they?
Yes. Yes, of course they would.
And they’d have to be given responsibilities a little at a time, as they became more experienced.
I suppose so.
But that would have run directly counter to our declared policy of giving them full political control at a stroke.
What of it?