Nicholas Searle - The Good Liar

accelerates and brakes erratically. It is all the fault of reunification and Europe, he says, these people flooding here from the East. Roy

feels fragile and hears his heart beating. He can almost imagine

himself in another age.

He gets his nap, but there is no time for a leisurely dinner as Betty has fluttered her eyelashes at the concierge and obtained tickets for the Berlin Philharmonic that evening. Roy sits with ill- disguised bad temper in the opulent new- fangled hall and, just, bears the flum-mery and the cacophony of the event: the pomposity of the

orchestra and its strutting conductor, and the fat complacent patrons in Hugo Boss with their jewel- bestrewn elegant, thin accessory

wives. The exaggerated finesse of the quiet passages and the fierce attack of the crescendos all meld into one discordant mess in his

ears.

At the door of the hotel he says, ‘I think I’ll take a turn before

retiring, Betty. I’ve had that nap and unless I get a bit of fresh air I rather think I won’t be able to sleep tonight.’

Betty says, ‘All right. I know all about lost sleep. Shall I come

with you?’

‘Oh no,’ he replies, perhaps a tad too quickly. ‘That won’t be

necessary. I’ll only be a minute or so. You get off to bed.’

And so they say their goodnights and she goes to her room.

*

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Four hours later, he subsides with relief under the feather duvet in his room. He should know better at his age, he says to himself,

partly with a chuckle and partly with an edge of self- pity. But there’s no fool like an old fool. He is €500 lighter, for no benefit. He knows where the bad parts of this city are and to enliven his trip he had gone back to the streets near the Ku’damm. Old businesses had died

here and new ones sprouted. Plus ça change. After a floor show that in his youth would have been described as exotic he found himself

at two in the morning in a soulless, smelly hotel room with a woman he had picked up, unable to perform. Earlier she had been hesitant

but had said, when he was insistent, ‘OK, Grandpa,’ led him to this room and tied him up as he had specified. It was not surprising that he was not up to the task, since it must have been some ten years

since he had last been able to bring himself to the point, but he had anticipated some buzz, some illusion of excitement. It was, however, simply fatiguing, in an unpleasant way.

It came as a mild shock, which in earlier times might have been

an amusing diversion, that the woman was in fact a man. This

became apparent only after his failure. ‘I thought you realized,

Grandpa,’ he said, but at that point Roy dropped off, to find on waking, aching, dry- mouthed and nauseous, that his wallet was empty.

Fortunately his binds were untied.

This would not have happened to him even ten years ago. At least

he had thought to leave most of his cash and all of his cards and

other valuables in his room safe and secrete his hotel keycard under the orthotic insole in his shoe, but he had to admit he had lost much of his street- sharpness. He gathered up his trousers, pulled them on and made as quick an exit as his arthritic bones would allow.

Fortunately, he was able to hail a cab outside the KaDeWe depart-

ment store, and the driver clearly regarded him as respectable

enough. The car sped through sleek night streets and, despite his

experience, Roy still felt a shimmer of excitement. He was living, or approximating living, again. There was the potential for a minor

incident back at the hotel, but he was able to prevail upon the night porter to pay the fare temporarily, claiming, with reasonable credibility, absent- minded dotage.

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3

It has been an unseasonably hot day in Berlin for April. Betty and

Roy are sitting on the terrace of a restaurant in Hackescher Markt, at one time a bustling market near Alexanderplatz and now a bustling hub of eateries. They have strolled through the Hackescher

Höfe, once a labyrinthine arrangement of grey tenement blocks

lowering over small courtyards with squalid little shops but now a

trendy, multicoloured retail haven, with funky shops and green

communal areas. Here, Betty has bought gifts to take back with her.

Roy has had no such need.

She sips her sharp green tinder- dry Riesling while he eagerly

quaffs Pilsner beer from a large glass that is almost a jug. He examines the remains of his pork knuckle for potential remnants of fatty flesh that he may yet be able to harvest. Pink and garish, with startling white bone, it resembles the aftermath of an autopsy. He picks but has to content himself with a few elastic strands of pork fat and the odd tangy ribbon of sauerkraut, such has been the efficacy of

his attack. He is somewhat revived, and buoyed by the alcohol.

‘All this history,’ she says, and he realizes he is expected to

respond.

‘Oh yes,’ he says. He is surprised she remains so bright- eyed, so chirpy. For his own part, he feels oppressed by it all, crushed as if under these monuments.

‘Indeed,’ he adds.

‘So much suffering, of course,’ she says, as if reading his thoughts.

‘Indeed,’ he repeats. He does not require a long exegesis on the

Weimar Republic, the Third Reich or the Cold War from the read-

ing she has done this afternoon.

‘ Dort wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Men-

schen ,’ she says. ‘That’s what Heinrich Heine wrote in 1821.’

‘Oh yes,’ he says.

‘I thought you didn’t speak German.’

Caught, he decides to confess to inattention with an insolently

sheepish grin.

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‘ “Where they burn books, in the end they also burn people”,’ she

says without a quiver in her voice.

‘Indeed. And when did he write that?’

‘In 1821.’

‘Very interesting.’ To his mind this is not exactly the stuff of holidays. But just as quickly, her brightness is back.

‘Do you like the Germans?’ she asks him keenly.

‘Oh yes,’ he says quickly.

‘Why?’

This is rather more taxing a question. He had thought he was

simply keeping up polite conversation, not participating in a forensic debate.

‘Oh, I don’t know. They’re very efficient, you know. The hotel is

spotlessly clean. And the service is top class. We could use a bit of their efficiency back home.’

They are silent for a moment. Betty consults her menu before

summoning the waiter and ordering a coffee in her surprisingly

good German. Roy will pass, he says; as she knows, coffee after

lunchtime will lose him a night’s sleep. Not that there is much danger tonight of him losing sleep, after the previous night’s rigours.

‘Have you enjoyed it here?’ she asks.

‘Oh yes,’ he says instantly. ‘Oh yes.’

‘Because you’ve seemed rather bored at times.’

‘Oh no,’ he says. ‘Simply a bit tired. I can’t keep up with you, I’m afraid. I just need some time every so often to recharge my

batteries.’

He pauses, and ventures, ‘On the other hand, you’ve simply spar-

kled, my dear. You’ve been radiant.’

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘I find this city so vibrant. It’s slightly

absurd given all the dark things that have occurred here, but it seems so alive. Some vital force seems to be at work here. It reminds one of when one was young.’

‘Hmm,’ he says. ‘But, as you say, there are so many secrets locked