Seemingly undecided, Kurtz turned his back to both of them and wandered down the room. Then up again. Then down again, while Litvak watched him like a madman. Finally Kurtz picked up the hot line to Alexis and they heard him say "Paul" in a consultative, do-me-a-favour sort of tone. He spoke quietly for a while, listened, spoke again, and rang off.
"We have about nine seconds before he reaches the station," Litvak said wildly, listening to his headset. "Six."
Kurtz ignored him. "I am advised that Berger and Charlie have just entered a fashionable hairdresser's," he said, coming back down the room again. "Looks like they're going to have themselves prettied up for the great event." He drew to a halt before them.
"Rossino's cab just reached the station concourse," Litvak reported in despair. "He's paying him off now."
Kurtz was looking at Becker. His regard was respectful, even tender. He was an old coach whose favourite athlete had finally found his form.
"Gadi has won the day, Shimon," he said, his gaze still upon Becker. "Call off your kids. Tell them to rest up till evening."
A phone rang and again Kurtz took the call. It was Professor Minkel, having his fourth nervous breakdown of the operation. Kurtz heard him out, then spoke long and soothingly to his wife.
"It's a really nice day," he said, in suppressed exasperation as he rang off. "Everyone's having a great time." Putting on his blue beret, he went off to meet Alexis for their joint inspection of the lecture hall.
It was her most fraught wait ever, and her longest; a first night to end first nights. Worse still, she could do nothing alone, for Helga had appointed Charlie her ward and favoured niece, and would not let her out of her sight. From the hairdresser, where Helga, under the hairdryer, had received her first phone call, they went to a clothes store where Helga bought Charlie a pair of fur-lined boots, and silk gloves against what she called "finger marks." From there to the Cathedral, where Helga imperiously treated Charlie to a history lesson, and from there again, with much giggling and insinuation, to a small square where she was determined to introduce her to one Berthold Schwarz, "the most sexy person ever-Charlie, you are certain to fall completely in love with him!" Berthold Schwarz turned out to be a statue.
"Is he not fantastic, Charlie? Do you not wish we could lift his skirts once? You know what he did, our Berthold? He was a Franciscan, a famous alchemist, and he invented gunpowder. He loved God so much he taught all His creatures to blow each other up. So the good citizens build him a statue. Naturally." Grasping Charlie's arm, she cuddled her excitedly against her. "You know what we do after tonight?" she whispered. "We come back, we bring some flowers for Berthold, we put them at his feet. Yes? Yes, Charlie?"
The Cathedral spire was beginning to get on Charlie's nerves: a fretted, jagged beacon, always black, stalking out ahead of her every time she turned a corner or entered a new street.
For lunch they went to a smart restaurant where Helga treated Charlie to Baden wine, which had been grown, she said, in the volcanic soil of the Kaiserstuhl -a volcano, Charlie, think! -and now everything they ate or drank or saw had to be the subject of wearying and facetious innuendo. Over the Black Forest pie-"We must have everything bourgeois today"- Helga was again summoned to the telephone, and returned saying they must leave for the university or they would never get everything done. So they entered a pedestrian underpass lined with prosperous little shops, and emerged before a portentous building of strawberry sandstone, with pillars and a curved front with gold lettering above it, which Helga was quick to translate.
"So here is a fine message to you, Charlie. Listen. 'The truth will make you free.' They are quoting Karl Marx for you, is that not beautiful and thoughtful?"
"I thought it was Noel Coward," Charlie said and saw a flash of anger pass across Helga's over-excited face.
A stone concourse surrounded the building. An elderly policeman patrolled it, eyeing the girls incuriously as they gawped and pointed, tourists to their fingertips. Four steps led to the front entrance. Inside it, the lights of a large hall glinted through darkened glass doors. The side entrance was guarded by statues of Homer and Aristotle, and it was here that Helga and Charlie lingered longest, admiring the sculptures and the pompous architecture while they secretly measured distances and approaches. A yellow poster announced Minkel's lecture for that evening.
"You are scared, Charlie," Helga whispered, without waiting for an answer. "Listen, after this morning you will triumph totally, you are perfect. You will show what is truth and what is lies, you will show them also what freedom is. For great lies, we need a great action, it is logical. A great action, a great audience, a great cause. Come."
A modern pedestrian bridge led across the dual carriageway. Macabre stone totem-poles presided at either end. From the bridge they passed through the university library to a student cafe slung like a concrete cradle over the carriageway. Through its glass walls, while they drank their coffee, they could watch staff and students leave and enter the lecture hall. Helga was once again waiting for a phone call. It came, and as she returned from it, she saw something in Charlie's expression that angered her.
"What is the matter with you?" she hissed. "You are filled with compassion for Minkel's charming Zionist opinions suddenly? So noble, so fine? Listen, he is worse than Hitler, a complete tyrant in disguise. I buy you a schnapps to give you courage."
The heat of the schnapps was still burning her as they reached the empty park. The pond was frozen over; early darkness was gathering; the evening air prickled with specks of freezing water. Very loudly, an old bell chimed the hour. A second bell, smaller and higher-pitched, tinkled after it. Her green cape pulled tight around her, Helga at once let out a cry of pleasure.
"Oh, Charlie, listen! You hear that little bell? It is silver. You know why? I tell you. A traveller on his horse lost his way one night. There were robbers, it was bad weather, he was so glad to see Freiburg that he gave a silver bell to the Cathedral. Every evening now, it rings. Is that not beautiful?"
Charlie nodded, trying to smile, but without success. Throwing a strong arm round her, Helga gathered her into the folds of her cape. "Charlie-listen-you want I give you another sermon?"
She shook her head.
Still holding Charlie to her breast, Helga glanced at her watch, then down the path into the half darkness.
"You know something else about this park, Charlie?"
I know that it is the second most awful place in the world. And I never award first prizes.
"Then I tell you another story about it. Yes? In the war there was a he-goose here. You say he-goose?"
"Gander."
"This gander was an air-raid siren. When the bombers came, he was the first who heard them, and when he screamed the citizens went at once to their cellars, not waiting for the official warning. The gander died, but after the war the citizens were so grateful they built him a monument. So there is Freiburg for you. One statue to their bomber monk, another to their air raid warning. Are they not crazy, these little Freibourgeois?" Stiffening, Helga glanced at her watch again and then into the misty darkness. "He is here," she said very quietly, and turned to say goodbye.
No, thought Charlie. Helg, I love you, you can have me for breakfast every day, just don't make me go to Khalil.
Laying her hands flat on Charlie's cheeks, Helga kissed her softly on the lips.
"For Michel, yes?" She kissed her again, more fiercely. "For the revolution and peace and for Michel. Walk straight down the path, you come to a gate. A green Ford is waiting there. You sit in the back, directly behind the driver." One more kiss. "Oh, Charlie, listen, you are too fantastic. We shall be friends always."