I was surfacing but everything was mixed as if three or four negatives were superimposed: her face floated in the frame of the console table, the man in front of me had a mane of silver hair and a small dark moustache; the images of the real and unreal were jumbled. She had scratched me. My upper arm was stinging.
Then the doubts came. What was real? Was anything? The faces floated: Pol's, Hengel's, Brand's – they were faces I had seen only once. Or had I seen them, ever? Who was Pol, Hengel, Brand? I must have imagined them; they had come and gone without meaning to me. I began being afraid of being mad.
The gold winked on the watch-face. My arm stung. She had – no! The needle… not her nails. They'd used the hypodermic again while I was under. Stung. The stuff was flowing in my blood now, creeping towards my brain. A tightness on my other arm. Gasping noise. Not Fabian. Pumping up the constrictor. A hand on my pulse – throw it off! No strength.
The chandelier swam in the sky, a million stars.
Panic, then controclass="underline" anger. Angry because I'd panicked. Time-check time! No go. His arms were by his sides, not folded. Dirty trick. A thought came: think out what the sting means. Steady up or they'll have you, Quiller. Think.
Pattern was: Past – one injection, effective period twenty minutes, soporific, probably pentothal. No memory of interrogation except asking for my name. (Problem: why no interrogation? Immediate amnesia?) Present-surfacing from unconsciousness, memory of dream-copulation with Inga, probable verbal running-commentary, no memory of questions. Future – the effects of the second injection and my reaction to them. Terribly important to work out what technique they were using, and so combat its effects. Or try.
"That was a good sleep you had."
Sound helped vision. I was surfacing very fast now, coming up like a rocket from the depths. This wasn't the normal effect of pentothal. Everything was coming in loud and clear: the light steadied and his face was etched against the mouldings of the ceiling; his eyes were luminous. Heart-beat quickening-chest rising and falling – onset of anxiety -
Dear Christ I
"You feel more yourself now, Quiller. Tell me how you feel."
"I feel fine." I'd answered before I could stop myself.
So it wasn't pentothal. It was the sleep-kick trick gradual narcosis with sodium-amytal then a shock dose of benzedrine or pervitine to kick the sleeper awake. My brain was so clear that I could remember the exact words the lecturer had used in 1948: the brutal awakening makes the verbal objectivisation of psychic contents most urgent, so that they come into the speech phase with an explosive force hitherto unknown.
My body was shaking and the nerves were tingling as if a network of galvanised wires covered my skin. The light was diamond-bright and the sound of his voice had the clarity of a bell. The strength flowed through my limbs and I wanted to shout with it, with the ecstasy of it, of being so strong. I raised my hand to smash down the chandelier at a blow, and knew that my face had gone slack and stupid because my hand hadn't moved. They'd put straps at the wrists and ankles, knowing how strong I'd be, strong enough to fell ten men. Then the schism came: I was mighty, but powerless to move. I longed to talk but I mustn't. Result of the schism: anxiety. The tongue tumescent and aching for the orgasm of speech that must be held back. Hold back. All
Battle stations.
"Now you can tell me all you want to, Quiller."
"There's nothing to tell."
"I'm listening -"
"I'm not talking, Fabian. There's nothing to tell you."
"But I'm interested and there's a sympathy between us -"
"Listen you can keep me here till I'm black in the face but it's no go, it's no bloody go!" I'd switched into English but he was with me, switching too.
"We don't want to keep you here long because your Control will be worried about you. You haven't reported for a long time -"
"I don't report, don't have to report, they -" Hold back!
"But you can't lose touch with them -"
"There's Post and -"
"Yes?"
"Postman always rings twice." Sweat pouring from under the arms, breathing like a pair of bellows.
"We've told your Control you'll be out of touch with them for a few -"
"You don't have to stamp – stamp your foot, Fabian, I say bloody well stamp your foot, man!" Madness, a kind of madness, you murder and then blurt it out. Switch back into German and try muddling thought-processes. "Listen, there's nothing to tell you – you think you can sit me in a chair and pump me full of dope and expect me to squeal on people like Kenneth Lindsay – Solly Joe, poor Solly Joe it was my fault, my fault, just as I told him but he didn't hear because he was dead – you think he'll ever forgive me, you think he will, ever ?"
Shaking all over. Stink of sweat. The schism again but a different kind: perfectly aware, acutely aware of what they were trying to do – make me give them names and ciphers and details of missions – yet acutely aware too of the necessity of holding back, of safeguarding lives and the entire existence of the Bureau. And all the time the overwhelming urge to spill it all out and be done with it. It was the schism of the alcoholic: the hand reaching for the bottle and the mind trying to stop it, and failing.
"You don't have to stamp the letters in the post? We know that." A gentle voice, almost hypnotic. "We don't know how you receive the signals. That must be very clever for people not to know -"
"How the hell can people be allowed to know what we're doing when the whole object is strict hush? You think our kind of organisation could go on running against people like Phoenix if half the administration weren't geared to finding out ways of sending and receiving hush-signals without putting Pol in the box and Win – winter – winter windsay Jones keeping up with her bloody stinking necrophilia when she leans across like that if you won't tell you I won't tell you Naumann the snowman -"
"Winter wind?"
"Stuff it!"
"Oh, I know the box you mean -"
"You don't you never went there -"
"Poll? Polling-booth? Box?"
"She's dead bones I tell you -"
"Jack in the box? A toy-shop? Spielleugladen?"
"Think again -"
"You've got me guessing -"
"Guess again then Arabian guess again Fabian forgive me Solly my fault!"
Acute awareness of danger, acute awareness of drift. No immediate amnesia, knew what they were doing, picked me up on winter straight away and dear God help me I let Pol come out. Hold back. Or better, let it rip. Main psychic contents, three things: Inga (sex), Kenneth Lindsay Jones (shock of his death) and Solly Rothstein (guilt). Could play on these because they were clamouring for attention and confession. Safe, because two were dead and she was death itself.