Len Deighton - Spy Sinker

The interval came. Still engrossed with the music, she couldn't endure the scrum around the bar and there were a lot of West Berliners here tonight, easily distinguished by their jewellery and flamboyant clothes. She turned away to wander through the lobby and look at the exhibition – 'Electricity for tomorrow' – atmospheric photos of power-generating stations in the German Democratic Republic. She was looking at the colour print of a large concrete building reflected in a lake when someone behind her said, 'There you go, sweetheart! How about a glass of white wine?'

She turned and was astounded to see Harry Kennedy standing there with two glasses of wine in his hands and a satisfied smile on his face. The show really starts in the intermission, doesn't it?'

Her first reaction was not pleasure. She had been dreading an encounter with some old friend, colleague or acquaintance on the street, who would recognize her. Now it had happened and she felt as if she was going to faint. Rooted to the spot, her heart beat furiously. She felt the blood rush to her face and looked down so that he wouldn't see the flush of her cheeks.

He saw the effect he'd had. 'Are you all right? I'm sorry… I should have…'

'It's all right,' she said. She was quite likely to be under surveillance. If so, her reaction to this meeting would be noted and recorded.

Harry spoke hurriedly to save her from speaking. 'I knew you wouldn't miss Der Freischütz , I just knew. Oh boy, what a production, the pits, isn't it? And what about those trees! But what a great voice he has.'

'What are you doing here, Harry?' she said carefully and calmly.

'Looking for you, honey-child.' He handed the wine to her and she took it. I'm sorry to leap on you this way.'

'I don't understand you…'

'I live here,' he said.

'In the East?' She drank some wine without tasting it. She hardly knew what she was doing. She didn't know whether to keep talking or cut him dead and walk away.

'I'm here for a year now. A professor from the Charité Hospital was in London and came to see the work we were doing at the clink. They invited me to spend a year working here. They are not paying me but I finagled a little grant… Enough to keep me going for the year. I was glad to escape from those jerks in London and I suspect the clinic was glad to get rid of me.'

'Here in East Berlin?' She drank more wine. She needed a drink and it gave her a chance to study him. He looked even younger than she remembered him: his wavy hair more wavy, and the battered face looking even more battered as he worried how she would react.

'Yeah. At the Charité. And I knew you wouldn't miss Der Freischütz . I have been here for every performance… I love you, Fiona sweetheart. I had to find you.' Again he stopped.

'You came for every performance?'

'You once said it was your favourite opera.'

'I suppose it is,' she said. She was no longer sure; she was no longer sure about anything.

'Are you mad at me?' he asked. He looked like a West Berliner in his black suit and bow tie. Here was a different Harry Kennedy to the one she'd last seen in London: cautious and diffident. But superimposed upon this diffidence, and almost prevailing over it, there was the pride and pleasure of finding her again,

'No, of course not,' she said.

Her distant manner made him suddenly anxious. 'Is there someone else?'

'Only my husband in London.'

It was as if a load was lifted from his shoulders. 'When I realized that you'd left him, I knew I had to find you. You're the only one I've ever loved, Fiona. You know that.' It wasn't a communication; it was a declaration.

'It's not like London,' she said awkwardly, trying to adjust to the idea of him being here.

'Say you love me.' He'd taken so much trouble; he was expecting more of her.

'Don't. It's not as easy as that, Harry. I work for the government here.'

'Who cares who you work for?'

Why wouldn't he understand? 'I defected, Harry.'

'I don't care what you did. We are together again; that's all that matters to me.'

'Please try and understand what is involved.'

Now, for the first time, he calmed down enough to look at her and say, 'What are you trying to tell me, baby?'

'If you see me on a regular basis, your career will be ruined. You won't be able to go back to London and take up your life at the place you left it.'

'I don't care, as long as I have you.'

'Harry. You haven't got me.'

'I love you… I'll do anything, I'll live anywhere; I'll wait forever. I'm a desperate man.'

She looked at him and smiled but she knew it was an unconvincing smile. She felt one of her bad headaches coming on and she wanted to scream. 'I can't be responsible, Harry. Everything has changed, and I have changed too.'

'You said you loved me,' he said in that reproachful way that only lovers do.

If only he would go away. 'Perhaps I did. Perhaps I still do. I don't know.' She spoke slowly. 'All I'm sure about is that right now I can't take on all the complications of a relationship.'

'Then promise nothing. I ask nothing. I'll wait. But don't ask me to stop telling you that I love you. That would be an unbearable restriction.'

The opera bell started to ring. With German orderliness the crowd immediately began to move back towards the auditorium. 'I can't go back to the performance,' she said. 'My head is whirling. I need to think.'

'So let's go to the Palast and eat dinner.'

'You'll miss the opera.'

'I've seen it nine times,' he said grimly.

She smiled and looked at her watch. 'Will they serve dinner as late as this?' she said. 'Things finish so early on this side of the city.'

'The ever-practical Fiona. Yes, they will serve as late as this. I was there two nights ago. Give me the ticket, and I'll collect your coat.'

It is not far from the State Opera on Unter den Linden to the Palast Hotel, and despite Berlin's everpresent smell of brown coal the walk was good for her. By the time they were seated in the hotel dining room she was restored to something approaching her normal calm. It wasn't like her to be so shattered, even by surprises. But meeting Harry at the opera house had not simply been a surprise: it had shown her what a fragile hold she had upon herself. She had been physically affected by the encounter. Her heart was still beating fast.

She watched him as he read the menu. Was she in love with him? Was that the explanation of the shock? Or was it more fundamental, was she becoming unbalanced?

Any feeling she had for Harry was not like the stable and enduring love she had for her home, her children and her husband. Harry's absence from her life had not caused her the heart-rending agony that separation from her family had brought, an agony from which she never escaped. That old love for Harry was something quite different, separate and not in conflict with it. But she could not help recalling that the love she'd once had for Harry was electrifying. It had been illicit and more physical than anything she'd known with Bernard. Sitting here across the table from Harry made her remember vividly the way that not so long ago even a glance from him could be arousing. 'I beg your pardon?' she said absently as she realized he was expecting an answer from her.

'I had it the other night,' he said. 'It was rather good.'

'I'm sorry. My mind was wandering.'

'The Kabinett is always the driest, at least I've learned that in the time I've been here.'

'Wonderful,' she said vaguely and was relieved when he waved to the waiter and ordered a bottle of some wine he'd discovered and liked. His German was adequate and even his accent was not too grating upon her ear. She looked around the restaurant to be sure there was no one there she recognized. It was crowded with foreigners: the only ones who had access to the sort of foreign money with which the bill had to be paid.