Robert Wilson - A Small Death in Lisbon

'Our Intelligence in Lisbon inform us that the British exported 3850 tons.'

'You probably haven't seen the Beralt mine, sir,' said Felsen. 'It's a colossal operation…'

'Intelligence goes on to say that 1300 tons of that was "free" wolfram, uncontracted wolfram. As I see it that's 1300 tons that should have come to Germany. My God,' said Lehrer, rifling through the papers on his desk, 'the money we're paying for this…'

'660,000 escudos per ton,' said Felsen.

'That doesn't mean anything to me.'

'Six thousand pounds per ton,' said Wolff.

'Exactly,' said Lehrer. 'Huge money.'

'It's over seven thousand pounds a ton in Spain and product is moving across the border to take advantage of that,' said Felsen. 'In a market like this it's not always easy to persuade people to sell. The British moved out of the market in October and you saw the price fell by a quarter. Now they're back in.'

'That shouldn't stop you from buying.'

'We have to accept that when the British are in the market they will always have their contacts. These are people who cannot be persuaded to sell to us, not with money and not with fear.'

'Fear?'

'We are conducting our own war in the Beira, it's just not as well covered as the Russian campaign.'

'Blankets,' said Hanke, in a knee-jerk reaction to the word Russia.

'Not now, Hanke,' said Lehrer.

'It might make you happier to know that the British are paying more for their wolfram,' said Felsen. 'Salazar introduced a 700 pounds per ton export tax in October. All the British product goes out by sea so they have to declare every kilo in the ports. I've shipped more than 300 tons without paying any tax.'

'Smuggling?' asked Fischer.

'It's a long and difficult border.'

'We understand that Salazar wants to reduce the wolfram production. All this money we're pouring into his country is worrying him… inflation, that sort of thing.'

'That's why he brought in the export tax,' said Felsen. 'Now he's put a special department of the Metals Corporation in position which is designed to buy all wolfram and tin…'

'Yes, yes, yes, we know all this,' said Hanke. 'Our legation in Lisbon will now have to persuade Salazar that Germany deserves the lion's share of the "free" wolfram ahead of the British.'

'I will carry on buying and smuggling,' said Felsen, 'but from now on the big tonnage will be settled in the government offices in Lisbon and not out in the fields of the Beira. It will take time though…'

'Why?'

'Ask Poser. He thinks Salazar's the trickiest bastard since Napoleon.'

'What's Salazar after?' asked Wolff.

'Gold. Raw materials. No trouble.'

'We have gold. We can probably lay our hands on some good steel and if he doesn't like that we can hurt him,' said Lehrer.

'How?' asked Fischer.

'We sank the SS Corte Real back in October, Fischer. Don't you remember anything? There's no reason why we shouldn't torpedo another one.'

'Oh, I see what you mean,' said Fischer, who'd had something more personal in mind.

'Now… blankets, Hanke,' said Lehrer.

The meeting and dinner afterwards went on until 11.00 p.m. Lehrer had accompanied him to his waiting car, jolly, drunk and dangerous.

The Americans are in now, Felsen. How about that?' he'd said and run his finger back and forth over his palm as if he was spreading something. Then he'd clapped his hands. 'Don't forget the liverwurst.'

Felsen didn't react. Lehrer shook with laughter.

The car started its slow mole-crawl back to his apartment in Berlin. Felsen hadn't said anything in the meeting, but those figures had bothered him. He knew his campaign hadn't made the 3000-ton target, but he also knew he was a lot closer than 325 tons adrift. There must have been something wrong with the way the stocks had been calculated in Portugal. He smoked a cigarette in about three drags, thinking about it.

The car dropped him off just before midnight. He waited for it to leave and then he set out for Eva's club on the Kurfürstendamm.

He took a small table on his own in an alcove with a view of Eva's office door. A girl with short jet-black hair, and bare white arms, was singing badly up on the stage, but getting away with it because her legs were long, slim and perfect in nylon. He ordered a brandy and looked at all the women in the house. No Eva. A girl came to his table and asked if he wanted company. She was boyish, with no hips and a starved bottom. He shook his head without speaking. The girl shrugged her bony shoulders.

Felsen took out his cigarettes, the silver case slipped out of his hand. He fished around under the table. There was another hand there. He surfaced. Eva was putting one of his cigarettes in her mouth. She lit it, then Felsen's, and polished the case on her dress.

'I thought it was you,' she said. 'I still don't recognize you in uniform. I mean I can't distinguish men in uniform. Shall I join you for a bit?'

She swung her legs under the table and her knee touched his. There was a spark of recognition, a pulse that travelled, and brought back a time and two people who'd known something of each other.

'What happened to you?' she asked, giving him back his case, touching his hand, the familiar hair, tough hair, strong as pig bristle. 'You've lost your Berlin pallor.'

'You were always the pale one,' he said.

'Recently, I've become translucent,' she said. 'It's the diet and the fear.'

'You don't look scared.'

'The only reason I have a full house tonight is because of the cloud cover. Some nights it's just me and the girls… and our friends from across the water dropping Christmas turkeys.'

'The girls are looking scrawnier,' said Felsen, not seeing Eva's stick-thin arm.

'Me too,' she said, showing him an arm stringy with muscle.

He played with his glass and made a perfect cone of the ember of his cigarette. How to get started? Nine months out of Berlin, and he'd lost the veneer, the hard-dried varnish of cynicism and wit, that got the Berliners through their days.

'I saw you in Bern,' he said, to the ashtray.

She frowned and her cheeks sank as she drew on her cigarette.

'I've never been to Bern,' she said. 'You must have…'

'I saw you in a nightclub in Bern… back in February.'

'But, Klaus… I've never even been to Switzerland.'

'I saw you there with him.'

He was completely still and looking at her with the intensity of a hungry wolf down from the mountain. She returned the look, back-lit, the smoke curling around her head. No backing down from the lie.

'You've changed,' she said, and took a sip from his brandy glass.

'I spend a lot of time outdoors.'

'We've all changed,' she said, and her knee disconnected from his. 'There's been a human hardening.'

'We all end up doing things we don't necessarily want to do,' he said. 'But it's not as if there's no opportunity.'

'Just that there's not always the choice.'

'Yes,' he said, and had a hot stink of memory from a July afternoon in a disused mine when there had been a choice and something had gone wrong.

'What happened to you, Klaus?' she asked, the different emphasis jolting him, as if he'd been wearing something on his face he shouldn't have.

'Some things can't easily be explained.'

'That is very true,' she replied.

The girl who'd come by earlier drew up next to Eva.

'Nobody wants me to sit with them,' she said.

'Sit with Klaus,' said Eva. 'He wants you to sit with him.'

They looked at him. He nodded to the empty space. The girl wriggled in, happy now. Eva leaned over and put her cheek next to his.

'It's been nice,' she said, 'to have a little talk.'

She left no scent, only the feeling of her warm breath.