He took a letter out of an inside pocket and handed it across to her. ‘I have an appointment with the director at nine o’clock.’
‘I don’t think he’s in yet, sir, but I’ll just check.’
She picked up a telephone and spoke to a colleague. ‘Someone will come and see you in a few minutes,’ she said once she had put the phone down. ‘Please have a seat.’
A few minutes turned out to be nearly an hour, by which time Keith had read both the papers on the coffee table from cover to cover, but hadn’t been offered any coffee. Der Berliner wasn’t a lot better than Cherwell, the student paper he so scorned at Oxford, and Der Telegraf was even worse. But as the director of PRISC seemed to be mentioned on nearly every page of Der Telegraf, Keith hoped he wouldn’t be asked for his opinion.
Eventually another woman appeared and asked for Mr. Townsend. Keith jumped up and walked over to the desk.
‘My name is Sally Carr,’ said the woman in a breezy cockney accent. ‘I’m the director’s secretary. How can I help you?’
‘I wrote to you from Oxford,’ Keith replied, hoping that he sounded older than his years. ‘I’m a journalist with the Oxford Mail, and I’ve been commissioned to write a series of articles on conditions in Berlin. I have an appointment to see...’ he turned her letter round, ‘...Captain Armstrong.’
‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ Miss Carr said. ‘But I’m afraid Captain Armstrong is visiting the Russian sector this morning, and I’m not expecting him in the office today. If you can come back tomorrow morning, I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you.’ Keith tried not to let his disappointment show, and assured her that he would return at nine the following morning. He might have abandoned his plan to see Armstrong altogether had he not been told that this particular captain knew more about what was really going on in Berlin than all the other staff officers put together.
He spent the rest of the day exploring the British sector, stopping frequently to make notes on anything he considered newsworthy. The way the British behaved toward the defeated Germans; empty shops trying to serve too many customers; queues for food on every street corner; bowed heads whenever you tried to look a German in the eye. As a clock in the distance chimed twelve, he stepped into a noisy bar full of soldiers in uniform and took a seat at the end of the counter. When a waiter finally asked him what he wanted, he ordered a large tankard of beer and a cheese sandwich — at least he thought he ordered cheese, but his German wasn’t fluent enough to be certain. Sitting at the bar, he began to scribble down some more notes. As he watched the waiters going about their work, he became aware that if you were in civilian clothes you were served after anyone in uniform. Anyone.
The different accents around the room reminded him that the class system was perpetuated even when the British were occupying someone else’s city. Some of the soldiers were complaining — in tones that wouldn’t have pleased Miss Steadman — about how long it was taking for their papers to be processed before they could return home. Others seemed resigned to a life in uniform, and only talked of the next war and where it might be. Keith scowled when he heard one of them say, ‘Scratch them, and underneath they’re all bloody Nazis.’ But after lunch, as he continued his exploration of the British sector, he thought that on the surface at least the soldiers were well disciplined, and that most of the occupiers seemed to be treating the occupied with restraint and courtesy.
As the shopkeepers began to put up their blinds and shut their doors, Keith returned to his little MG. He found it surrounded by admirers whose looks of envy quickly turned to anger when they saw he was wearing civilian clothes. He drove slowly back to his hotel. After a plate of potatoes and cabbage eaten in the kitchen, he returned to his room and spent the next two hours writing down all he could remember of the day. Later he climbed into bed, and read Animal Farm until the candle finally flickered out.
That night Keith slept well. After another wash in near-freezing water, he made a half-hearted effort to shave before making his way down to the kitchen. Several slabs of bread already covered in dripping awaited him. After breakfast he gathered up his papers and set off for his rearranged meeting. If he had been concentrating more on his driving and less on the questions he wanted to ask Captain Armstrong, he might not have turned left at the roundabout. The tank heading straight for him was incapable of stopping without far more warning, and although Keith threw on his brakes and only clipped the corner of its heavy mudguard, the MG spun in a complete circle, mounted the pavement and crashed into a concrete lamp post. He sat behind the wheel, trembling.
The traffic around him came to a halt, and a young lieutenant jumped out of the tank and ran across to check that Keith wasn’t injured. Keith climbed gingerly out of the car, a little shaken, but, after he had jumped up and down and swung his arms, he found that he had nothing more than a slight cut on his right hand and a sore ankle.
When they inspected the tank, it had little to show for the encounter other than the removal of a layer of paint from its mudguard. But the MG looked as if it had been involved in a full-scale battle. It was then that Keith remembered he could get only third-party insurance while he was abroad. However, he assured the cavalry officer that he was in no way to blame, and after the lieutenant had told Keith how to find his way to the nearest garage, they parted.
Keith abandoned his MG and began to jog in the direction of the garage. He arrived at the forecourt about twenty minutes later, painfully aware of how unfit he was. He eventually found the one mechanic who spoke English, and was promised that eventually someone would go and retrieve the vehicle.
‘What does “eventually” mean?’ asked Keith.
‘It depends,’ said the mechanic, rubbing his thumb across the top of his fingers. ‘You see, it’s all a matter of... priorities.’
Keith took out his wallet and produced a ten-shilling note.
‘You have dollars, yes?’ asked the mechanic.
‘No,’ said Keith firmly.
After describing where the car was, he continued on his journey to Siemensstrasse. He was already ten minutes late for his appointment in a city that boasted few trains and even fewer taxis. By the time he arrived at PRISC headquarters, it was his turn to have kept someone waiting forty minutes.
The corporal behind the counter recognized him immediately, but she was not the bearer of encouraging news. ‘Captain Armstrong left for an appointment in the American sector a few minutes ago,’ she said. ‘He waited for over an hour.’
‘Damn,’ said Keith. ‘I had an accident on my way, and got here as quickly as I could. Can I see him later today?’
‘I’m afraid not,’ she replied. ‘He has appointments in the American sector all afternoon.’
Keith shrugged his shoulders. ‘Can you tell me how to get to the French sector?’
As he walked around the streets of another sector of Berlin, he added little to his experience of the previous day, except to be reminded that there were at least two languages in this city he couldn’t converse in. This caused him to order a meal he didn’t want and a bottle of wine he couldn’t afford.
After lunch he returned to the garage to check on the progress they were making with his car. By the time he arrived, the gas lights were back on and the one person who spoke English had already gone home. Keith saw his MG standing in the corner of the forecourt in the same broken-down state he had left it in that morning. All the attendant could do was point at the figure eight on his watch.