The Innocent Read online

  PRAISE FOR THE INNOCENT

  A New York Times Notable Book of the Year, 1990

  “Ian McEwan proves himself to be an acute psychologist of the ordinary mind. He gets our mundane virtues and vices, our craziness and sanities, exactly right, without the distortions of cynicism or sentimentality.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “A crackerjack novel … make sure the answering machine’s up and running before starting … you’re unlikely to brook interruptions once you’ve opened it up.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  “Pure literary pleasure … it’s McEwan’s fascination with the inner sources of cruelty and conquest that gives The Innocent its frightening vitality.”

  —LA Weekly

  “A delicious mix of eroticism and peril … The ending is poignant and unpredictable. McEwan is a truth teller with a flair for story making.”

  —New Woman

  “McEwan is an excellent storyteller … his forte remains exploring the psyche of his characters and their growth in knowledge and experience at the expense of their innocence.”

  —Boston Sunday Herald

  “The Innocent is a thoughtful, serious novel doing business as a thriller … makes brilliant fictional use of a real-life event.”

  —Milwaukee Journal

  “Grisly, cunning, often mordantly funny … a wonderful exercise in literary strategy.”

  —St. Petersburg Times

  “Unfolds with psychological acuity. It’s the sort of book Hitchcock might have snapped up for production.”

  —USA Today

  “A topical and brutal tour de force that somehow ascends from horror to a promise of goodness and grace.”

  —MICHAEL ONDAATJE

  “A gripping, absolutely unique story of love and suspense that you won’t forget.”

  —JOSEPH WAMBAUGH

  IAN McEWAN

  The Innocent

  Ian McEwan is the bestselling author of more than ten books, including the novels Atonement, The Comfort of Strangers, and Black Dogs, all shortlisted for the Booker Prize, Amsterdam, winner of the Booker Prize, and The Chad in Time, winner of the Whitbread Award, as well as the story collections First Love, Last Rites, winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and In Between the Sheets. He has also written screenplays, plays, television scripts, a children’s book, and the libretto for an oratorio. He lives in London.

  BY IAN McEWAN

  First Love, Last Rites

  In Between the Sheets

  The Cement Garden

  The Comfort of Strangers

  The Child in Time

  The Innocent

  Black Dogs

  The Daydreamer

  Enduring Love

  Amsterdam

  Atonement

  The Imitation Game

  (plays for television)

  Or Shall We Die?

  (libretto for oratorio by Michael Berkeley)

  The Ploughman’s Lunch

  (film script)

  Sour Sweet

  (film script)

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Other Books by this Author

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Copyright

  TO PENNY

  My labours on the Castle Keep were also made harder, and unnecessarily so (unnecessarily in that the burrow derived no real benefit from those labours) by the fact that just at the place where, according to my calculations, the Castle Keep should be, the soil was very loose and sandy and had literally to be hammered and pounded into a firm state to serve as a wall for the beautifully vaulted chamber. But for such tasks, the only tool I possess is my forehead. So I had to run with my forehead thousands and thousands of times, for whole days and nights, against the ground, and I was glad when the blood came, for that was a proof that the walls were beginning to harden; and in that way, as everybody must admit, I richly paid for my Castle Keep.

  —FRANZ KAFKA, The Burrow,

  translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

  After dinner we saw an amusing film: Bob Hope in The Princess and the Pirate. Then we sat in the Great Hall and listened to The Mikado played, much too slowly, on the gramophone. The PM said it brought back “the Victorian era, eighty years which will rank in our island history with the Antonine age.” Now, however, “the shadows of victory” were upon us…. After this war, continued the PM, we should be weak, we should have no money and no strength and we should lie between the two great powers of the USA and the USSR.

  —JOHN COLVILLE, describing dinner with

  Churchill at Chequers ten days after the

  end of the Yalta Conference.

  The Fringes of Power: Ten Downing

  Street Diaries, 1939–1955

  One

  It was Lieutenant Lofting who dominated the meeting. “Look here, Marnham. You’ve only just arrived, so there’s no reason why you should know the situation. It’s not the Germans or the Russians who are the problem here. It isn’t even the French. It’s the Americans. They don’t know a thing. What’s worse, they won’t learn, they won’t be told. It’s just how they are.”

  Leonard Marnham, an employee of the Post Office, had never actually met an American to talk to, but he had studied them in depth at his local Odeon. He smiled without parting his lips and nodded. He reached into his inside coat pocket for his silver case. Lofting held up his palm, Indian greeting style, to forestall the offer. Leonard crossed his legs, took out a cigarette and tapped its end several times against the case.

  Lofting’s arm shot out across the desk and offered his lighter at full stretch. He resumed as the young civilian lowered his head to the flame. “As you can imagine, there are a number of joint projects, pooled resources, know-how, that sort of thing. But do you think the Americans have the first notion of teamwork? They agree on one thing, and then they go their own way. They go behind our backs, they withhold information, they talk down to us like idiots.” Lieutenant Lofting straightened the blotter, which was the only object on his tin desk. “You know, sooner or later HMG will be forced to get tough.” Leonard went to speak, but Lofting waved him down. “Let me give you an example. I’m British liaison for the intersector swimming match next month. Now, no one can argue with the fact that we’ve got the best pool here at the stadium. It’s the obvious place for the venue. The Americans agreed weeks ago. But where do you think it’s going to be held now? Way down in the south, in their sector, in some greasy little puddle. And do you know why?”

  Lofting talked on for another ten minutes.

  When all the treacheries of the swimming match seemed to have been set out, Leonard said, “Major Sheldrake had some equipment for me, and some sealed instructions. Do you know anything about that?”

  “I was coming to that,” the lieutenant said sharply. He paused, and seemed to gather his strength. When he spoke again he could barely suppress a yodel of irritation. “You know, the only reason I was sent up here was to wait for you. When Major Sheldrake’s posting came through, I was meant to get e
verything from him and pass it on. As it happened, and this had nothing to do with me, there was a forty-eight-hour gap between the major’s departure and my arrival.”

  He paused again. It sounded like he had prepared this explanation with care. “Apparently the Yanks kicked up an almighty fuss, even though the rail shipment was locked in a guarded room, and your sealed envelope was in the safe in the CO’s office. They insisted that someone had to be directly responsible for the stuff at all times. There were phone calls to the CO’s office from the brigadier, which originated with General Staff. There was nothing anyone could do. They came over in a lorry and took the lot—envelope, shipment, the lot. Then I arrived. My new instructions were to wait for you, which I’ve been doing for five days, make sure you are who you say you are and explain the situation, and give you this contact address.”

  Lofting took a manila envelope from his pocket and passed it across the table. At the same time Leonard handed over his bona fides. Lofting hesitated. He had one remaining piece of bad news.

  “The thing is this. Now that your stuff, whatever it is, has been signed over to them, you have to be too. You’ve been handed over. For the time being, you’re their responsibility. You take your instructions from them.”

  “That’s all right,” Leonard said.

  “I’d say it was jolly hard luck.”

  His duty done, Lofting stood and shook his hand.

  The Army driver who had brought Leonard from Tempelhof airport earlier that afternoon was waiting in the Olympic Stadium car park. Leonard’s quarters were a few minutes’ drive away. The corporal opened the trunk of the tiny khaki car, but he did not seem to think it was his business to lift the cases out.

  Platanenallee 26 was a modern building with a lift in the lobby. The apartment was on the third floor and had two bedrooms, a large living room, a kitchen-dining room and a bathroom. Leonard still lived at home with his parents in Tottenham, and commuted each day to Dollis Hill. He strode from room to room, turning on all the lights. There were various novelties. There was a big wireless with creamy pushbuttons, and a telephone standing on a nest of coffee tables. By it was a street plan of Berlin. There was Army issue furniture—a three-piece suite of smudgy floral design, a pouf with leather tassels, a standard lamp that was not quite perpendicular, and, against the far wall of the living room, a writing bureau with fat bowlegs. He luxuriated in the choice of bedroom, and unpacked with care. His own place. He had not thought it would give him so much pleasure. He hung his best, second best and everyday gray suits in a wardrobe built into the wall whose door slid at the touch of the hand. On the bureau he placed the teak-lined, silver-plated cigarette box engraved with his initials, a going-away present from his parents. By its side he stood his heavy indoor lighter, shaped like a neoclassical urn. Would he ever have guests?

  Only when everything had been arranged to his satisfaction did he allow himself to sit in the armchair under the standard lamp and open the envelope. He was disappointed. It was a scrap of paper torn from a memo pad. There was no address, only a name—Bob Glass—and a Berlin telephone number. He had wanted to spread out the street plan on the dining table, pinpoint the address, plan his route. Now he would have to take directions from a stranger, an American stranger, and he would have to use the phone, an instrument he was not easy with, despite his work. His parents did not have one, nor did any of his friends, and he rarely had to make calls at work. Balancing the square of paper on his knee, he dialed painstakingly. He knew how he wanted to sound. Relaxed, purposeful. Leonard Marnham here. I think you’ve been expecting me.

  Straightaway a voice rapped out, “Glass!”

  Leonard’s manner collapsed into the English dither he had wanted to avoid in conversation with an American. “Oh yes, look, I’m terribly sorry I …”

  “Is that Marnham?”

  “Actually, yes. Leonard Marnham here. I think you’ve been—”

  “Write down this address. Ten Nollendorfstrasse, off the Nollendorf Platz. Get here tomorrow morning at eight.”

  The line went dead while Leonard was repeating the address in his friendliest voice. He felt foolish. In solitude he blushed. He caught sight of himself in a wall mirror and approached helplessly. His glasses, stained yellowish by evaporated body fat—this, at least, was his theory—perched absurdly above his nose. When he removed them his face appeared insufficient. Along the sides of his nose were red pressure streaks, dents in the very bone structure. He should do without his glasses. The things he really wanted to see were up close. A circuit diagram, a valve filament, another face. A girl’s face.

  His domestic calm had vanished. He paced his new domain again, pursued by unmanageable longings. At last he disciplined himself by settling at the dining table to a letter to his parents. Composition of this kind cost him effort. He held his breath at the beginning of each sentence and let it go with a gasp at the end. Dear Mum and Dad, The journey here was boring but at least nothing went wrong! I arrived today at four o’clock. I have a nice flat with two bedrooms and a telephone. I haven’t met the people I am working with yet but I think Berlin will be all right. It’s raining here and it’s awfully windy. It looks pretty damaged, even in the dark. I haven’t had a chance to try out my German yet …

  Soon hunger and curiosity drove him outdoors. He had memorized a route from the map and set off eastward toward Reichskanzlerplatz. Leonard had been fourteen on V-E Day, old enough to have a head full of the names and capabilities of combat planes, ships, tanks and guns. He had followed the Normandy landings and the advances eastward across Europe and, earlier, northward through Italy. Only now was he beginning to forget the names of every major battle. It was impossible for a young Englishman to be in Germany for the first time and not think of it above all as a defeated nation, or feel pride in the victory. He had spent the war with his granny in a Welsh village over which no enemy aircraft had ever flown. He had never touched a gun, or heard one go off outside a rifle range; despite this, and the fact that it had been the Russians who had liberated the city, he made his way through this pleasant residential district of Berlin that evening—the wind had dropped and it was warmer—with a certain proprietorial swagger, as though his feet beat out the rhythms of a speech by Mr. Churchill.

  As far as he could see, the restoration work had been intense. The pavement had been newly laid, and spindly young plane trees had been planted out. Many of the sites had been cleared. The ground had been leveled off, and there were tidy stacks of old bricks chipped clear of their mortar. The new buildings, like his own, had a nineteenth-century solidity about them. At the end of the street he heard the voices of English children. An RAF officer and his family were arriving home—satisfying evidence of a conquered city.

  He emerged onto Reichskanzlerplatz, which was huge and empty. By the ocher gleam of newly erected concrete lampposts he saw a grand public building that had been demolished down to a single wall of ground-floor windows. In its center, a short flight of steps led to a grand doorway with elaborate stonework and pediments. The door, which must have been massive, had been blasted clean away, allowing a view of the occasional car headlights in the next street. It was hard not to feel boyish pleasure in the thousand-pounders that had lifted roofs of buildings, blown their contents away to leave only facades with gaping windows. Twelve years before, he might have spread his arms, made his engine noise and become a bomber for a celebratory minute or two. He turned down a side street and found an Eckkneipe.

  The place was loud with the sound of old men’s voices. There was no one here under sixty, but he was ignored as he sat down. The yellowing parchment lampshades and a pea souper of cigar smoke guaranteed his privacy. He watched the barman prepare the beer he had ordered with his carefully rehearsed phrase. The glass was filled, the rising froth wiped clear with a spatula, then the glass was filled again and left to stand. Then the process was repeated. Almost ten minutes passed before his drink was considered fit to be served. From a short menu in Gothic scri
pt he recognized and ordered Bratwurst mit Kartoffelsalat. He tripped over the words. The waiter nodded and walked away at once, as though he could not bear to hear his language punished in another attempt.

  Leonard was not yet ready to return to the silence of his apartment. He ordered a second beer after his dinner, and then a third. As he drank he became aware of the conversation of three men at a table behind him. It had been rising in volume. He had no choice but to attend to the boom of voices colliding, not in contradiction but, it seemed, in the effort of making the same point more forcefully. At first he heard only the seamless, enfolded intricacies of vowels and syllables, the compelling broken rhythms, the delayed fruition of German sentences. But by the time he had downed his third beer his German had begun to improve and he was discerning single words whose meanings were apparent after a moment’s thought. On his fourth he started to hear random phrases that yielded to instant interpretation. Anticipating the delay in preparation, he ordered another half-liter. It was during this fifth that his comprehension of German accelerated. There was no doubt about the word Tod, death, and a little later Zug, train, and the verb bringen. He heard, spoken wearily into a lull, manchmal, sometimes. Sometimes these things were necessary.

  The conversation gathered pace again. It was clear that it was driven by competitive boasting. To falter was to be swept aside. Interruptions were brutal; each voice was more violently insistent, swaggering with finer instances, than its predecessor. Their consciences set free by a beer twice as strong as English ale and served in something not much smaller than pint pots, these men were reveling when they should have been cringing in horror. They were shouting their bloody deeds all over the bar. Mit meinen blossen Händen! With my own hands! Each man bludgeoned his way into anecdote, until his companions were ready to cut him down. There were bullying asides, growls of venomous assent. Other drinkers in the Kneipe, hunched over their own conversations were unimpressed. Only the barman glanced from time to time in the direction of the three, no doubt to check the state of their glasses. Eines Tages werden mir alle dafür dankbar sein. One day everyone’ll thank me for it. When Leonard stood and the barman came across to reckon up the pencil marks on his beermat, he could not resist turning to look at the three men. They were older, frailer than he had imagined. One of them saw him, and the other two turned in their seats. The first, with all the stagy twinkle of an old drunk, raised his glass. “Na, junger Mann, bist wohl nicht aus dieser Gegend, wie? Komm her und trink einen mit uns. Ober!” Come and join us. Here, barman! But Leonard was counting deutsche marks into the barman’s hand and pretended not to hear.