Eleven

Vaguely Lazlow gestured towards a chair and Berg sat down. Lazlow stood at the window for a time, looking out. A lorry went past with several sleeping soldiers huddled together in the back, and then a horse and cart driven by a farmer whose face was muffled in a black scarf.

‘I don’t enjoy keeping you in a state of ignorance,’ Lazlow said.

‘I beg your pardon,’ Berg answered.

‘I’m talking about the Site and the fact that you haven’t been told what goes on there.’

Berg waited in silence: was this the moment? Every nerve in his body had become suddenly tense; he felt like a man about to be initiated into some divine and secret rite.

‘You’re not a fool, Berg. You must have wondered about the Site. No doubt you’ve come to the conclusion that what goes on there is a matter of some security. No doubt, too, you’ve felt it to be an oversight on my part that I haven’t informed you.’

Berg said, ‘I didn’t like to mention the subject.’

Lazlow sat down. The lenses of his spectacles were clouded by a reflection of light, making it difficult for Berg to observe his eyes.

‘I’d like very much to tell you the truth. To put you in the picture completely. Nothing would give me greater pleasure.’ Lazlow laid his hands on the desk. Even the customary cigarette—the temptation—was missing. ‘This morning I received a directive from above. Directives, as you know, are crosses we have to bear. The one that reached me this morning instructs me to tell you that on no account are you to learn of the business at the Site.’

Disappointed, Berg sighed: he felt suddenly weak as the sense of anticipation evaporated. ‘I don’t understand. Why can’t I be told?’

‘I’m not sure. There may be many reasons. My directive didn’t say. But one possibility is that your background is being scrutinised. Such things take time, as you know. Another may be that they’ve discovered something in your past—some trifle—that makes them hesitate in letting you know too much. Naturally, they have to be extremely careful in a matter as delicate as this one.’

‘But don’t you think I have a right to know?’

Lazlow looked grim. ‘Let’s not start talking about rights. There’s no telling where that sort of talk can lead. No, I’ve been given an instruction but I haven’t been given any reasons.’

Berg looked at his hands. A film of sweat had formed between the fingers. His heart was pounding against his ribs in a way that must have been audible to Lazlow in the silent room.

‘You know that I travelled a long way to take up this post,’ he said. ‘I want to make my career here. But how can I expect to advance if I’m kept in the dark?’

‘Believe me, Berg, I sympathise. But instructions are instructions. If they’re not ready to tell you, then that’s that. When they are ready, whenever that might be, then you’ll learn all you want to know.’

‘But that might take weeks, months,’ Berg said.

Lazlow shrugged and looked impatient. ‘We’re dealing with bureaucracy. How can I tell how long it will take? It might be months. Even years. Who knows?’

Berg gazed at the floor. Already he had spent five days, five dreary days, shut in his office with nothing but Miss Selz, a cabinet of files, and a silent telephone, and the one thing that had sustained him was the prospect of learning what was happening at the Site. Five dead days, a strange mixture of boredom and anticipation—and now this.

‘It’s absurd,’ he said. ‘It’s outrageous.’

Lazlow got up. ‘Let me remind you that your post here is a junior one. Your career has hardly begun. Yet you talk as though you had some rights. Let me give you some advice. So long as one learns not to speak out of turn, it is possible to travel far in one’s career.’

Berg wondered if he had gone too far. Had he overstepped the mark? Had he offended Lazlow? If he had it could put his whole position in jeopardy—and then what? Jobs weren’t easy to find, unless you worked in the fields or in a factory.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I spoke out of turn.’

‘Remember in future,’ Lazlow said. ‘And be patient.’

Berg stood up to leave. When he got to the door, Lazlow said, ‘There is, however, one thing that you might like to do. If you feel that you have a real grievance, and only if you feel that you have, you can make an official complaint. You will have to state your case in a hundred words. You will have to demonstrate as succinctly as possible why you feel that the information being withheld from you is essential to your work. If you like, I’ll let you have the official form.’

Berg stopped in the doorway. ‘What happens then?’

‘After you’ve completed the form it goes through the usual channels and eventually it is dealt with. Again, this takes time. By the time your complaint is actually dealt with you may already have been given the information you want.’

Lazlow opened his desk and took out a sheet of paper which he handed to Berg.

‘Is this the official complaints form?’ Berg asked.

Lazlow nodded. ‘Before you decide to take this step, I think I should point out that it’s possible, just possible, your complaint might upset someone in the hierarchy. They can be very, touchy, you know. Put yourself in their position. A junior clerk, someone who has only just joined the organisation, has the sheer gall to put in an official complaint. Now, they might not like that. On the other hand, I might be over-pessimistic. Your case could be dealt with in a perfectly straightforward way, without any of them getting upset. But it’s my duty to point out what might happen.’

Berg looked at the form. Apart from a code number printed along the top, there was no other writing on the paper. It angered him to think that he was being denied access to the truth, that they had directed Lazlow not to tell him because of—because of what? Some minor technicality, no doubt: perhaps his great-grandfather had been a foreigner. Gazing at the complaints form, he resolved to complete it even at the risk of upsetting someone, some faceless creature, high in the hierarchy.

‘Think carefully, Berg,’ Lazlow said.

‘I will,’ Berg answered.

When he returned to his own office he filled his pen and immediately began to write. At the end of the first sentence, he paused. He listened to Miss Selz typing and then said, ‘Have you ever filled in a complaints form?’

Miss Selz stopped typing. ‘Is that what you’re doing?’

‘I’m perfectly within my rights.’

Miss Selz laughed. ‘Oh? You think you have rights?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Of course I have rights.’

The typist swung round in her chair, giving Berg a momentary glimpse of the shadow between her knees that rose, darker and darker, to her thighs. ‘I’ve never heard of anyone filling in such a form. You’ll only get yourself into hot water, if you ask me. And anyway, how do you know that Lazlow will pass the form on to the appropriate authority? He might decide not to, without telling you. You can’t be sure.’

‘That’s nonsense,’ Berg said. ‘It was his idea.’

‘Oh, he’s full of good ideas,’ the typist said. ‘Suppose he does pass it on? How do you know that it won’t get him into trouble as well as you?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Suppose they say that you’re a troublemaker, they’re bound to ask themselves why Lazlow employed you in the first place and why he doesn’t seem able to control you. Don’t you see? You might land him in it, without meaning to.’

Silently Berg continued to write. When he had written about fifty words he stopped and put his pen down. The whole business seemed suddenly futile. If there was a chance that Lazlow might be reprimanded himself—and what the typist had said seemed plausible—then why should he even bother to pass the complaint on to the appropriate authority? It was obvious that rather than run the risk of a reprimand, he would simply destroy the complaint without telling Berg. On the other hand, even if he did put the complaint through the correct channels there was no guarantee that it would ever be dealt with: it might lie for years amongst a million other complaints, totally unattended.

He picked up the paper, read what he had written and then, sighing, screwed the paper into a ball and threw it into the wastepaper basket.

Miss Selz said, ‘That’s the proper place for it. It’s best not to do anything foolish.’

‘Pointless, you mean. Not foolish.’

‘Call it what you like. But I think you’ve done the right thing by throwing it away.’

Berg got up from his desk. He felt intensely depressed. He looked through the window and up at the unyielding patch of grey sky. What was the point of complaining anyway? People didn’t listen. He had complained to Monika about the way she entered his room whenever she felt like it, and it hadn’t made a scrap of difference. She still sat on the bed as if it were her own. He had complained to Mrs Jacobitz about the food and nothing had happened. It was as inedible as ever, pigs’ swill. And these were only simple complaints, not nearly as complex as an official complaint that had to be fed into an enormous and anonymous machine, where it was sifted, digested, passed from hand to hand, ignored, perhaps even lost.

He turned to look at Miss Selz.

‘I’ve been here for five days,’ he said. ‘And I haven’t done a thing. When do I start work proper?’

‘What do you mean?’ Miss Selz continued to type.

‘I mean that I don’t seem to be doing anything. Or should I say that there doesn’t seem very much to do? Whatever way you look at it, this job could hardly be called exacting.’

‘I told you you’d get bored to the teeth, didn’t I?’

He sat down. ‘I’m not bored. I’m just as prepared as I was to work hard. If only there was some work to be done.’

‘Why don’t you read the files again? You never know. Your telephone might ring.’

Berg sighed, removed a batch of files from the cabinet, and started to read them. He was already as familiar with them as he was ever likely to be, but to pass time he did complex arithmetical sums. He divided the total tonnage of metal pipes delivered in the last eighteen months by the number of steel brackets used to hold the pipes in place. He multiplied the number of bricks delivered in the past year by the average size of electric cable. None of it made any sense: the parts of the sums were as meaningless as the answers he obtained. But it killed a little time, it removed sizeable fragments from the blank hours of the day.

Later, when it was time to leave, he put on his coat and went along the corridor to tell Lazlow that he had decided not to submit the formal complaint after all. He paused outside Lazlow’s door and as he was on the point of knocking, he heard voices from within the room. One was Lazlow’s, the other was Miss Selz’s. He was about to turn round and leave when he heard Miss Selz gasp—a long sound that seemed to be part sob, part sigh. At first it occurred to him that the girl was upset about something and that Lazlow, who seemed to be making low noises from the base of his throat, was attempting to console her.

He bent and put his eye to the keyhole impulsively. Through the tiny aperture, he saw that Miss Selz was lying on top of Lazlow’s desk. Her skirt had been pulled up to her waist and her knickers were at her ankles. The tops of her stockings had been rolled down to just above her knees and the knees themselves were raised in the air. She was simply lying there, limp, as if devoid of life. And then Lazlow came between the keyhole and the desk, obscuring Berg’s view.

Astonished, Berg stood up. He walked out of the building and into the street. He was trembling and his heart was racing. What astounded him was not the realisation that Lazlow and Miss Selz were lovers but that he had actually seen—through the keyhole—the girl spread across the desk, almost naked, lying there as if something had only recently descended upon her and had drained her of her life. She had been almost naked and if the keyhole had been any wider he would have been able to see as far up as her breasts. For a second he was tempted to return and look once again, to be absolutely certain that he had not been deluded.

Miss Selz naked. He had never seen a naked woman before. Only once in his mother’s bedroom had he seen, by accident, the nipple on one of her breasts as she had leaned over to pick up a glass of water. It had looked to him like a small piece of brown rubber tubing, nothing more, nothing to get excited about.

On the corner he stopped, catching his breath. Miss Selz and Lazlow: Lazlow and Miss Selz. Her fingers on the keyboard. Her smooth white fingers in the folds and secret places of Lazlow’s skin. The picture of her was burned into his head. He caught his breath, leaning against the wall and panting as if he had been running.

And then, looking round, he saw a man on the other side of the street reading a newspaper. The paper moved a fraction and for a moment the man’s eyes met Berg’s; but only a moment before the face disappeared again behind the paper.

Berg turned and walked quickly away.