The Innocent by Ian McEwan Read Free Book Online Page A

out his hand. “Take it easy, Bob.”
    Glass was smiling. “It’s okay. I’m not going to misbehave.”
    Leonard looked around. Through the gloom he could see the heads of the customers bowed over their drinks. The barman and the waiter, who were standing together at the bar, had turned to face the other way. The two musicians were playing a chirpy marching song. This was his last clear impression. The following day he was to have no memory of leaving the Neva.
    They must have made their way between the tables, ascended in the cramped elevator, walked past the man in the brown uniform. By the car was the dark window of a shopping cooperative, and inside a tower of tinned sardines, and above it a portrait of Stalin framed in red crepe paper with a caption in big white letters which Glass and Russell translated in messy unison:
The unshakable friendship of the Soviet and German peoples is a guarantee of peace and freedom
.
    Then they were at the sector crossing. Glass had switched the engine off, torches were shone into the car while their papers were being examined, there were sounds of steel-tipped boots coming and going in the darkness. Then they were driving past a sign that said in four languages YOU ARE LEAVING THE DEMOCRATIC SECTOR OF BERLIN , toward another that announced in the same languages YOU ARE NOW ENTERING THE BRITISH SECTOR .
    “Now we’re in Wittenbergplatz,” Russell called from the front seat.
    They drifted by a Red Cross nurse seated at the foot of a gigantic model of a candle with a real flame on top.
    Russell was attempting to revive his travelogue. “Collecting for the
Spätheimkehrer
, the late homecomers, the hundreds of thousands of German soldiers still held by the Russians …”
    Glass said, “Ten years! Forget it. They ain’t coming back now.”
    And the next thing was a table set among scores of others in a vast and clamorous space, and a band up on the stage almost drowning the voices with a jazzed-up version of “Over There,” and a pamphlet attached to the menu, this time in only German and English, with clumsy print that swayed and danced.
Welcome to the Ballhouse of technical wonders, the place of allplaces of entertainments. One hundred thousand contacts are guaranteeing
…” The word was an echo Leonard could not place. “…
are guaranteeing you the proper functioning of the Modern Table-Phone-System consisting of two hundred and fifty Tablephone sets. The Pneumatic-Table-Mail-Service is posting every night thousands of letters or little presents from one visitor to the other—it is unique and amusing for everyone. The famous RESI-Water-Shows are magnificent in their beauty. It is amazing to think, that in a minute eight thousand liters of water are pressed through about nine thousand jets. For the play of these changing light effects there are necessary one hundred thousand colored lamps.”
    Glass had his fingers in his beard and was smiling hugely. He said something, and had to repeat it at a shout. “This is better!”
    But it was too noisy to begin a conversation about the advantages of the Western sector. Colored water spouted up in front of the band and rose and fell and lurched from side to side. Leonard avoided looking at it. They were being sensible by drinking beer. As soon as the waiter had gone, a girl appeared with a basket of roses. Russell bought one and presented it to Leonard, who snapped off the stem and lodged the flower behind his ear. At the next table something came rattling down the pneumatic tube, and two Germans in Bavarian jackets leaned forward to examine the contents of a canister. A woman in a sequined mermaid suit was kissing the bandleader. There were wolf whistles and cheers. The band started up; the woman was handed a microphone. She took off her glasses and began to sing “Too Darn Hot” with a heavy accent. The Germans were looking disappointed. They stared in the direction of a table some fifty feet away, where two giggling girls were