I watched his eyes and he watched mine. Both he and I had dealt with men of our own kind often enough. This was not new to us. The situation was precisely-defined he couldn't let me out of here alive, and he couldn't kill me before I'd answered all his questions. In the interrogation under narcoanalysis Fabian had asked hardly any questions directly. All his questions had been the result of things I had already spoken about – Las Ramblas, the container, so forth. There had been only one direct question of major concern: Why are you still in Berlin? That was when he saw that I was coming out of the narcosis, and he'd put that question in a kind of desperation, with an edge on his voice for the first time.
Oktober would now put direct questions, and expose the extent of his knowledge of me and the extent of his ignorance.
He said: "You are not in a position to do a deal."
"I'm waiting."
Inga had moved and leaned against the wall, watching me. Did she know what was going to happen? She must know. She was versed in these matters by going to the Neustadthalle.
Oktober was saying suddenly: "What is your present mission? Is it to find more so-called war criminals for the courts? Why have you begun operating without cover? What was the information that Rothstein wanted to give you when he was prevented? What is your precise objective? That is all."
I was disappointed in him. He knew quite well that once the thing began he'd ask more than that. Where was Local Control Berlin? What total sum of information had Kenneth Lindsay Jones passed to Control before he died? What were the names of – oh, there'd be many questions like those.
"Don't fool about," I said.
His flint-grey eyes registered nothing. "Those are the questions."
There was nothing I could do about it. He'd offered a token bargain. If those weren't his only questions I couldn't prove it. I was now obliged to do a deaclass="underline" but he was right. I was in no position.
I said: "Here are the answers." No reaction. He didn't believe me.
"One. My present mission is to get all possible information about Phoenix and pass it to my Control."
He already knew that.
"Two. If I find more war criminals for the courts it'll be as a means to an end, to expedite the main mission. "Inga had moved, and a man moved, and she was still again.
"Three. I've begun operating without cover because I prefer to. Cover can become dangerous. I told my Control to leave me a clear field and they did that."
Now I had to talk about something I didn't even want to think about, ever again.
"I don't know what information Dr. Solomon Rothstein would have passed to me if you hadn't prevented him. I think you have some idea about it, because you took immediate steps."
And may God rot your soul.
"Lastly, my precise objective is to flush the prime mover of the Phoenix organisation and deal with him as I think fit."
He kept his eyes on me. I gazed at their glass.
"How did you first hear the name Phoenix?"
"It's a big organisation and you can't hope to keep it under cover -"
"Did she tell you?"
"Who?" It was just that I disliked his manners.
"This woman."
"Fraulein Lindt would hardly be so unwise as to talk to strangers and that's all I am to her."
"Who is the ‘prime mover’ of this alleged organisation?"
"I don't know. The only name I know is yours."
"Where is your Control in Berlin?"
"The deal was that I answered those questions you first put to me."
He said to the man nearest Inga: "Take her into the next room and leave the door wide open." So that was it and I knew the deal was lost, as I'd known it must be.
She moved before the man could touch her, and looked into my face as she passed me. I said, "Don't worry. "The door to her bedroom was opened by the guard there.
The sweat began.
I told Oktober: "You'll lose."
He spoke through the doorway. "Unclothe her."
I knew that he wouldn't have started the thing in this way if Fabian hadn't convinced him on the subject of my libido. They didn't have to undress her to do what they were going to do, but I was to be put under a double strain: the pity for a fellow-human who suffered pain, and the outrage of the male animal whose mate is its possession.
She made a sound, something like anger. She had moved into the bedroom before the guard could touch her; therefore she would probably elect to undress without his help. I could hear the fabric against her skin, as I had heard it a few hours ago, now with different feelings.
I said: "The position is this." I waited until he looked at me. "If I can't stand it, and talk, there can't be any half-measures. I'd have to talk totally. That's obvious. If I talk, it'll mean putting my Control right into your hands: the local base, names of operators, communication system, the whole lot. Do you for a moment imagine I'd do that?" The sweat was on my face now and he was watching it gather. The body was giving away the mind, and the mind would have to compensate for its own exposure, and say what it had to say with utter conviction. "There's not much pity in people like us. We're like doctors. We can't do the job if we let pity into it. You know that. So you're going to lose. I'm not talking. Not one word. Not one word. Do what you like to her, kill her off slowly, let me listen to her dying in there, and take your time, make it last and watch me sweat it out. You won't get a word. Not one word. And when that's failed, you can start on me and do the same with me, the fingernails, the thumbs, the urethra, the eyeballs, give me the full treatment, give me the lot. But you won't get a word. Not a word."
He said to the man in there: "Switch on the other lights. All of them."
Faint shadows came against the wall. In here, only the Chinese-moon lamp was burning, a glow. The lights in the bedroom were brighter. I saw the shadow of the man stoop over the bed.
"Begin," Oktober said.
I thought: she's arrived in a death-camp at last. It doesn't have to be second-hand any more. Now she'll know.
The shadow was moving. I folded my arms and stood with my head turned to watch the shadow, so that Oktober could see I was watching it. He knew also that I was listening. He watched my face.
I hadn't convinced him. Even if I had, I knew he'd go on with this thing, for the pleasure of it. He was on the borderline between reason and the lusts of the psyche, the line that is crossed sometimes by the schoolmaster who begins caning a boy to discipline him and ends by drawing blood.
I should say something to her, but there was nothing to be said.
The shadows moved suddenly and the man gave a grunt and his arm came up and she cried out and he stood still again. There would be blood on his face from her nails. In there, in the room with the silk sheets and the pile rug and the decorative lamps, was the jungle.
I watched the shadows because Oktober wanted me to. On the Dutch frontier there had been a selection camp that I remembered too well. Those who waited in line had been made to watch those who went before them; but there had been a rough screen made from a tablecloth (I remember the half-circular stain on it, made by a wine-glass) and rigged up on a broomstick so that those who waited could see only the jerk of the rope above the screen and the jerk of the feet below it. Because the imagination, once let loose, can be more searing than the shape of the thing witnessed; and this was known and exploited.