Having induced genuine syncope by artificial stimuli, I recovered to find Oktober gone, and Lindt sobbing.
It is my theory that when she heard me tell Oktober to go ahead and kill her slowly, but that he would fail to make me talk, she imagined she had found someone as unbreakable as he. (She would have heard of his failure with the narcoanalysis, an additional sign of my reluctance to yield.) The important point here is that although she had always allied herself with men whom she thought were totally strong (unbreakable) she had never seen this characteristic evidenced in the enemy. This experience came at a time when our personal relationship had recently developed to a degree where other psychological influences carried their weight. Thus she suddenly found herself allied to me and – since I was hitherto an enemy – opposed to Phoenix, and I believed her fit of sobbing to be rooted in bewilderment (because of severe change in psychic attitudes) and fear (of the retribution to which she was now self-exposed, and which an organisation as ruthless as Phoenix would be quick to mete out).
Untenable though this theory might be in the case of a stable personality, it was the most applicable among many others in the case of a woman long unbalanced by grave trauma in childhood (in the Fuhrerbunker).
For reasons of caution I kept my beliefs to myself and proceeded as she would have expected, telephoning her doctor and asking him to come at once. (He would be a member of Phoenix and she would simply explain to him that his services were not in fact required, as nothing more than simulated torture had been undergone.) Note: the presence of blood on her legs (as evidence to me that the torture had been genuine) had been produced by the slight cutting of the flesh behind one ear-lobe. At our next meeting I looked for the scar left by the incision and remarked it; healing was not by that time complete.
Before leaving the apartment I put my theory about her violent change of loyalties to the test, by writing a number on one of her Kleenex tissues and telling her that she could reach me there by phone if she wished. This number – that of a bar named the Brunnen – had been picked at random from the directory while I waited for the doctor to answer. The same night I checked the Brunnen Bar for observers or start-point tags and found none. It was to be expected that one or more would have been posted there if Lindt had given the number to her people. I felt it safe to assume that she had not given it, and her omission confirmed my theory: she was now allied with me.
It was concluded, at about the same time, that Oktober had decided to change his tactics after my exhibition of syncope. The narcoanalyst (Fabian: see under Interrogation) had described to Oktober a technique used at Dachau, whereby information was successfully extracted from people believing themselves to be threatened with certain death. They would be ‘reprieved’ and offered the promise of sexual congress at the height of stimulation (return of life and positive forces granted by ‘reprieve’). These particular circumstances were in fact my own, not long before I had been expected to go to Lindt soon after believing that I had been ‘reprieved’ (Grunewald Bridge episode, q.v.). Oktober, in my view, had been so impressed with Fabian's technique that when I passed out in the Lindt apartment he went in to her and told her to interrogate me herself on an implied promise of sexual congress. The prospect was the more hopeful since I was thought to be in a state of compassion for her, following the simulated torture session. (It was to increase my compassion that blood-drops were then taken from the ear-lobe and applied to the inside thighs, indicating to me that an attack had been made on the urethra, in line with classical method).
She was too distressed mentally by her bewilderment and fear (see foregoing) to tell me that she had now, in truth, defected from Phoenix. It would not have been easy for her to explain her position, since she believed that at that time I assumed her to have defected a long time ago. She would have simply told Oktober that she would try out the new tactics, and let him leave the apartment. Her actual breakdown came at that precise moment, leading to the fit of sobbing once we were alone.
From the time when I left her apartment that night there was a noticeable reduction in tagging and observation. Example: my meeting with Pol was unobserved and there had been no tag on my journey to the park. It was assumed the adverse party was giving me rope so that I should – being off-guard – try to visit Lindt again. She would then be expected to try their new tactics as ordered by Oktober. I did not go to see her. Their patience became exhausted and she was next ordered to contact me and ask me to see her at the apartment. I then went there and found the agent Helmut Braun. (Note: she had put on clothes of a vivid red. I had seen her only in black, before. I believed this to be an expression – not so much to me as to herself – of her radically-altered attitudes (red=life, black=death), and I accepted this as further confirmation of my theory that she was now allied with me and opposed to Phoenix. There follows the section on Helmut Braun.
I could hear the water lapping at the legs of the bridge.
Helmut Braun? It was difficult to think about him when I stood so close to her.
"There's no time, Quill, to talk. As long as you trust me."
I said: "I do."
She took my hand. Her eyes shone in the lamplight. She said: "Then I can come with you." "Are you walking out on them?"
"Running. I don't know when you found out I was working for them, but you know when I stopped."
"It hasn't been long."
"But it will be. They suspect me now – that's why I had to give that exhibition in there. I'll be safe if I go with you. Take me."
"I'm going to my Control. There might be time to stop Sprungbrett if there's a last-minute hitch. And I've seen their faces, and I know their names. So I've got to send a signal."
"Take me with you. Wherever you go I'll be safe. You're my life, Quill."
I said: "It's no go. There's still a risk. They told me it's too late but they know I'll try to put a signal in to Control, in case there's a last hope. And there's a risk they'll try to stop me."
Her face had gone bleak. "You won't take me?"
"I can't. Not safe."
"It's that you don't trust me." She took her hand from mine.
I looked past her along the span of girders and then looked again at her face. "Listen to me. This is how much I trust you. There's a risk of their shooting me down if I try to send that signal. If they do, it won't ever reach my Control. Unless you'll help me."