The Violent Century Read online

  – Sir?

  – Stay put, Samuel, the Old Man says. Walks towards the college entrance, a grand stone building rising like an ancient castle. The Old Man smiles again, to himself, and sees a fellow come hurrying towards him.

  Youngish man. Good-looking in a Jewish sort of way. Tweed jacket. Glasses. A head of dark hair. Hurries towards the Old Man. Stops. Reaches out to shake hands – the Old Man ignores the offer.

  – Deutsch, the man says. Arnold Deutsch. Not proudly. Just giving out information. I’ve been expecting you.

  Holds his hand out a moment longer. Then lets it drop. We study him, covertly. Deutsch. We know the name. A brilliant man. An Austrian. A Jew. A communist, too, but we don’t find that out, not then. Not for a long time.

  13. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE 1936

  The Old Man says, Where is the boy?

  – He’s waiting, Deutsch says.

  – Then let’s pick up the pace, shall we? We don’t want to keep the young master waiting.

  Deutsch nods. Calm, but can sense the hostility from the Old Man and, perhaps, not sure how to take it. Says, Of course not. Left unsaid: sir.

  The Old Man blows out a cloud of smoke. Drops the cigar to the ground and grinds it with his foot. Come on, then, he says.

  He starts walking. Long steps. Deutsch has no choice but to hurry after him.

  14. TRINITY COLLEGE 1936

  In a classroom abandoned by its occupants, a young man sits alone. There are no photos of this moment. Had there been, one might be amused by the formal suit, the bad haircut. That sense of fidgety motion even in a frozen image. But there are no photos. They have been destroyed. Windows blink in the light. The smell of cut grass. The sound of laughter. Sunlight coming in through the glass. One window is half open. Warm air wafts through. The boy – the man – fidgets.

  The door opens.

  The boy raises his head. Recognises the one man, but not the other.

  – This is the boy, Deutsch says. Henry Fogg.

  The name – his name – hangs in the air. Exposed.

  Father had a stroke two years before. Mother took over the fruit and vegetables stand. Did better than her man, truth be told. Henry helped, but she said no. Her aunt died, or not an aunt, not exactly. A distant relative, with blood, and money. Left some of it to Henry’s old mum, for the boy, she said. You married beneath you, don’t let the boy suffer the same fate. Not much, Henry’s mother says. Not much but enough. Blood and money will get you into Cambridge – blood more than money, for this is England.

  You did well at school, Henry. You should go, she says, urgently, one night. Father in his armchair, staring. Lips moving. No sound. Drools from one corner of his mouth. His left. Henry’s right. Father looks at him funny. Like he knows.

  It’s all arranged, Mother says. Shoves a piece of folded paper into his hands. He opens it, smooths it. It’s a train ticket. Fierce pride, worry in her voice. Henry’s sister’s out, at a dance. He thinks. His memory of that period is hazy. It rains outside, banishing the fog.

  They’d fenced the train tracks. On the Thames, swans mating, he watches the rowers going past, mud on the riverbank, blackberries ripe and black like eyes to be plucked. Just go, Mother says. So he went. Hushed enormous library rooms, books like an army of spirits raised from the dead. A shelter, he thought. An escape.

  Until now.

  Deutsch: Stand up, Henry!

  He stands up. Reluctantly. Outside the windows, the weather begins to change. The sun fades, slowly. The man beside Deutsch glances at the windows, as if confirming something. Looks back. Deutsch gestures at him. Deutsch’s Adam’s apple moving up and down.

  – This is— he begins to say.

  – That’s enough, Deutsch, thank you, the man says. You can leave us now.

  – From London, Deutsch says. With a faint sardonic air. Defiant, somehow. Makes Fogg strangely grateful.

  – I said that’s enough!

  Deutsch nods, once. Of course, he says. That same mocking smile, it reaches his eyes, too. Like he knows things even the Old Man doesn’t know. As you wish, he says. Glances back at Fogg. Glances at the man beside him. The man from London. Good luck, Henry, he says. Opens the classroom door. Disappears outside and shuts the door behind him.

  The two of them alone in the classroom now. Fogg and this old man. Like somebody’s grandfather. Look at each other.

  – Sit down, damn it, the man says.

  Fogg watches him. Doesn’t move. Anger, coming from somewhere deep inside. Been buried long. Says, Who the hell are you?

  The Old Man smiles. Like Fogg’s passed some sort of bloody test. Says, You heard Deutsch. I’m the man from London.

  – There are a lot of people from London, Fogg says. Some of them are even men.

  – I was told you had a rebellious spirit, the Old Man says. Already, even if he doesn’t know it yet, Fogg is beginning to think of him that way. The Old Man. The Old Man. I like that. Now sit down, boy!

  Fogg, if truth be told, is a little shocked at this show of temper. Sits down. The Old Man nods. Good, he says. Walks over to Fogg’s desk. Places a folder on it. Opens it. Fogg’s photo stares up at him. The Old Man runs his finger down the page. Marks. Family history. Makes Fogg tense. The Old Man says, It takes a lot for one of your lot to get into Cambridge.

  – Excuse me?

  – You will speak when I say you can speak.

  Just like that. Conversationally. In control. Like he owns Fogg. Like this conversation is his, now. Fogg doesn’t say a blasted word. Outside, darkness is settling. No more sun. A thick fog rises. Presses against the glass. It begins to slip into the room through the open window. If the Old Man notices, he doesn’t give a sign.

  – Your father is a greengrocer? the Old Man says. We have a file on him, you know, he says. He had run-ins with the law before, didn’t he, he says. Still, a veteran. Got to respect that. Wounded in a gas attack in nineteen seventeen. Problems with his nerves after that, I understand.

  Fogg doesn’t speak. The only tactic to ever take against the Old Man, then and now.

  What about your mother? the Old Man says.

  – Leave my mother out of this!

  Fog pressing in, sliding along the ceiling, under the desks. Fog like a living thing. The Old Man says, I couldn’t care less about your mother. Goading him, though Fogg doesn’t understand it, not then.

  – As of today, the Old Man says, you are no longer a student of Trinity College.

  Fogg says, What? Jumps up from his seat. It’s dark in the room now. And cold. The Old Man resumes as though Fogg has not spoken.

  – You have been … removed. Let us not use the word expelled. You are not Flashman. The Old Man chuckles to himself. Fogg looks at him in angry bewilderment. Your name will be removed from the official records, the Old Man says. For all intents and purposes it will be as if you were never here.

  Fogg sits down again. Looks winded. What would we do under the same circumstances? Is this the visit he’s been dreading, all this time? Spring doesn’t last forever – the first, and harshest, lesson we all learn.

  – Why? Fogg says. Whispers. Who are you? What do you want?

  The Old Man smiles.

  – I want to offer you a job, he says.

  15. TRINITY COLLEGE 1936

  Grey fog rushes into the room. Clings to the furniture. Slinks about. Thickens like a cloud of ash. There’s fog everywhere. It chokes out the light. It obscures the blackboard, the empty desks. It hides both Fogg and the Old Man. A smokescreen. The sound of a chair scraping. Then nothing.

  The Old Man stands perfectly still. But smiling. Not pleasantly. We can’t see it, but we know it’s there. On his face. That motion of his head again, this way and that. Like he’s scenting something. Like he’s hunting.

  And liking it.

  Stealthy footsteps. Through the fog. The Old Man moves. With purpose. Like he can see perfectly clearly. The fog moves like a billowing screen, through openings we see snatches
of images, the Old Man’s movement, his hand reaching out.

  See the half-open window. Fogg’s face. His hands on the windowsill. About to climb out.

  The Old Man’s hand. Landing on Fogg’s shoulder. A light touch, but Fogg doesn’t move. As though he’d just been frozen.

  – Call it back, the Old Man says. Softly. The words leave his mouth with a white cloud of condensation. The fog hangs in the air. I said, Call it back!

  Snatches in the fog reveal them in this frozen tableau. Fogg’s face white, bloodless. His eyes moving, restlessly. Trapped. The Old Man’s eyes unfathomable. His grip on Fogg’s shoulder. His fingers dark with blood, applying pressure.

  The fog begins to lighten. To withdraw. Sudden, blinding sunlight pours in from outside. Shafts of light like prison searchlights moving through the room, eradicating fog. The air clears. Noise returns from the outside. The sound of humming bees. Students laughing. The smell of cut grass, again. The fog fades gradually, reveals the empty desks, the chairs where no one sits. The blackboard. A piece of chalk broken in half.

  – I am going to release you now, the Old Man says. When I do, you will return to your seat. You will sit down. And you will pay attention.

  But Fogg is frozen still. Doesn’t speak. Maybe can’t. Maybe the Old Man knows it. Says, Yes? and seems satisfied. Removes his hand.

  Fogg, in motion. Like a trout released from a hook. Whirls around. Angry red patches on his white skin. Then stops, the Old Man watching him. Fogg walks back to the chair. Same chair, though he could pick any in the room. Sits down. Waits.

  – Very good, the Old Man says.

  He walks back to stand behind the reader’s desk. The blackboard behind him. As though he’s about to deliver a lecture.

  – You think I can’t see you, boy? he says. I can see each and every one of you, like bright pinpricks of light. Maybe not so bright, in your case …

  Laughs at his own joke. Fogg frowning. Caught. He must know, he thinks. But how?

  – You light up the map like beacons. I can see you, boy. I can see what you are, the Old Man says.

  – Please, Fogg says. Please.

  The Old Man tilts his head. Regards Fogg like a question.

  – What are you going to do to me?

  – I’m here to take you to a special school. For special people. People like you. Where you will be happy, the Old Man says.

  Fogg, wanting to believe. Hope in his eyes. How easily it’s taken away. But wants it to be true, so badly it hurts. Says, Really?

  – Of course not, boy, the Old Man says. Don’t be bloody stupid. I’m here to give you a job.

  What is Fogg thinking right then? Is he feeling relief? Confusion? Anger? It’s a lot to take in, this sudden shift in his life, in a way it is as great a divide as the moment the Vomacht wave hit him.

  – This isn’t an offer, the Old Man says. Maybe taking Fogg’s silence for obstinacy. It’s a given, he says. You’ll work for me. Ultimately, you’ll be working for the King.

  – What? Fogg says. Where?

  Doesn’t understand.

  The Old Man smiles. The Civil Service, he says. Then, into Fogg’s bemusement, Now come along. We need to hurry if we want to make it back to London for tea.

  16. BERLIN 1946

  Old certainties ripped away, never to be replaced. What makes a man? It was Franz who asked him that. The memory jolts Fogg. Things he had not thought about, had successfully managed to forget, for decades. Good old Franz. Fogg’s one-time informer, in post-war Berlin. What makes a … Franz hesitating, looking for the right word, in English. They are seated in a cafe in the Breitscheidplatz, near the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. What was left of it, after the bombing. Rat-people outside. That’s how he came to think of the Berliners, after the war. Rat-people in the gutter, scavenging for food, love, identity papers, hope. The bombings and the loss. Robbed them of that perfect semblance of Germanic humanity. What makes a … Franz says again, thinking. Beyond-Man, he says, a little hesitant. Thinning hair, pinched face. Lost two toes on the Eastern Front. Round glasses with pale watery brown eyes behind them. No one’s idea of an Aryan.

  – Übermensch, Fogg says. Yes, yes, Franz says, a little impatiently. Hugging the cup of hot chocolate, unimaginable luxury. Fogg is paying. From what they call the Rat Fund.

  Fogg isn’t sure what Franz is asking.

  – The Übermensch acts within the moral vacuum of nihilism to create new values, Franz says. Fogg realises he is quoting – or perhaps paraphrasing – Nietzsche. Shakes his head. Says, How the hell should I know what makes a man? What makes an Over-Man?

  Pale sunlight coming in from outside. The remnants of ruined houses, craters in the street. Rats. Berlin. On the Eastern Front, Franz says, hesitates. Hugs the hot chocolate. Words come out haltingly. Like he’s forgotten speech. On the Eastern Front the snow was broken by bomb craters. And yet it seemed to spread out to eternity. You know, Herr Schleier? It shimmered a pale blue, the ice did. And the sky, so black, a darkness undisturbed, so very strange, inhuman. Takes a deep shuddering breath, says, And amongst it, stars. So many stars, Franz says. Gulps down hot chocolate, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. So many stars. And each and every one is a sun, hiding multiple planets, worlds. War on each one, perhaps. He laughs. He rolls a cigarette between his fingers. Paid for by Fogg, from the Rat Fund. Franz lights it up. Takes a deep drag. We were all meant to be Beyond-Men, he says. A little sadly. We didn’t know, Herr Schleier. That’s what he calls him. Schleier for mist, or fog. We didn’t know.

  17. THE ROAD TO LONDON 1936

  He is unused to this vehicle, the luxury is unimaginable. A machine from the future, this black shark moving smoothly across the road. Cambridge in the distance. Fields on either side of the road. Lone bird in a startling blue sky. The driver doesn’t speak. But hums to himself. Looks back in the rear-view mirror, every now and then. Checking on Fogg.

  The Old Man beside him on the back seat. The window open. The Old Man smoking a cigar. The smoke coalesces in the interior of the automobile. Warm air enters through the open window. Fogg with his hands in his lap. Silence from the Old Man. A waiting silence, wanting to be filled.

  – What will happen to me? Fogg blurts out. The Old Man turns his gaze on him. Like he’s been waiting. Says, Are you scared? But gently.

  – How did you find me? Fogg says. Almost in despair. How did you know?

  The Old Man, those deep-set, deceptively sleepy eyes. One can get lost in them. We know this. Says, Deutsch is a spotter. We pay his salary. Well, his second salary. When a possible candidate comes up, we’re notified.

  – We? Fogg says. The Old Man’s teeth around the cigar. Uneven. Canines a little pronounced. Gives him the aura of an elderly wolf.

  – As I said. The Old Man blows out a cloud of blue-grey smoke. It responds to Fogg. It whispers to him. That thing inside him that changed, that means fog and smoke are no longer natural phenomena but something almost alive, something he can, as ridiculous as it may sound, somehow manipulate. His Majesty’s Royal Service, the Old Man says. More specifically, the Bureau for Superannuated Affairs.

  Smokes and waits. A twinkle in his eyes. His grin a wolf’s grin.

  – I don’t understand, Fogg says. Runs it through his head. Comes up with: The Retirement Service?

  The driver smiles in the rear-view mirror. Samuel, though Fogg doesn’t learn his name until much later. The Old Man says, Consider us a … pension scheme. For the Empire. Fogg shakes his head. The silence again. That waiting silence. Baiting him.

  They drive along the road, automobiles pass them going the other way, in the field a horse pulls a cart heaped with hay. The farmer driving it turns to look at them as they pass, the Old Man turns his head sharply, stares, his intensity frightening. As the car drives on the farmer and his cart disappear in the distance, grown small like ants. The road continues ahead. The Old Man sighs, rubs his head as if it hurts, says, I thought I felt something.

  Fogg is left wonde
ring if one day, soon, that anonymous farmer, too, would receive an unexpected visit, would see the same Rolls-Royce glide into his path, making him stop, and stare, surprised and apprehensive.

  – You said Deutsch is a spotter, Fogg says. Of … you mean there are others?

  – What do you think? The Old Man says.

  – I hoped so. But I never knew.

  Relief in saying the words. Breathing in, deeply. The smell of hay from the fields. Passing a row of beehives, short squat boxes with a buzzing dark cloud around them. The Old Man, with unexpected gentleness: And you were afraid.

  – Wouldn’t you be? Fogg says.

  – Fear is healthy, the Old Man says. Then catches the driver’s eye in the mirror. Sighs. Says, Yes, I would be too. Says: I was.

  A connection between them. Things unsaid. A world of meaning in those two words. Not alone, Fogg thinks. For some reason, thinks of his father. When he, Henry, was young. When his father seemed to him like a tree, so big and strong, and he loved him, unconditionally, even when love hurt. And he says, with wonder in his voice, So you’re …

  – In a small way, the Old Man says. Yes.

  – What will happen to me? Fogg says, into the waiting silence. And the Old Man says, simply, You will serve.

  NAZI FORCES INVADE POLAND

  September 1, 1939

  * * *

  WARSAW Nazi forces have invaded Poland in a move drawing wide condemnation across Europe. Reports suggest the attack began with the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opening fire on the Polish garrison of the Westerplatte Fort, in Danzig. At the same time, German infantry divisions supported by squadrons of Luftwaffe airplanes began the invasion, and heavy bombings are currently rocking Warsaw.