Stretched out on the office couch, Brandt balanced a cup and saucer on his sternum and seemed more inclined to inhale tea than drink it.
“I meant to tell you …”
Nell said nothing. Wondered how long he’d pause.
“Bonn,” he said at last.
“Yes. That place in the west. Think of all the interesting cities on the Rhine and then pick the one that isn’t. Bound to be Bonn.”
“Have you finished?”
“Never. But I am listening.”
“The new coalition of the Bundesrepublik …”
In the pause Nell heard bad news begin to whisper. He’d said nothing in the last few days about this latest development, the end of Ehrhard’s government. All the same she knew he wanted a government post—Minister of Research. A title she found hard to credit with meaning. Was he now going to tell her he’d got it? Or perhaps, he hadn’t and they’d be returning full-time to Berlin?
“I’m not going to be the minister of research.”
Nell said nothing. The whisper was still there. Berlin? Bonn?
“They—that is, the party—are rather insistent I become foreign minister.”
“They? The party?”
“Yes.”
“And the new chancellor?”
“I thought you’d have something to say about that.”
“Do we work with Nazis?”
“Kiesinger was a Mitläufer. A fellow-traveller. Never … committed to the party.”
“A Nazi all the same.”
“I can’t remember who said this—indeed I wish I had—Kiesinger is a man ‘always on the lookout for a four-leaf clover.’ ”
“An opportunist.”
“If you want to put it as cruelly as you can—yes. Now, Nell, you won’t work with a Nazi—goes without saying. But can you work with an opportunist?”
Nell said nothing.
The cleaning lady came back to check on her patient.
“Sit up straight, Mr. Willy, an’ drink yer tea.”
And Nell wished she could speak to Brandt as plainly as that.