Arnold ended up not giving me his pocket watch.
I asked him, the psychiatrist idly leaning against the outside wall of Office One: "Oh, I forgot."
Since my return to Plimpton Manor, we have seen less time. He would still drop by me when he came back to report for work, leaning against his desk to chat and express his views on the war, but not so often.
Once I went to do errands and waited for the bus by leaning on the gray telephone poles on the streets of London. I happened to bump into the Merry Doctor driving a military jeep and taking his little girlfriend for a ride. He was a little embarrassed when he saw me waving, so he stopped the car reluctantly and poked his head out.
"hitchhiking?"
"Go to 7 Downing Street."
Arnold was a little worried: "Whitehall? Alan, don't get involved too deeply."
"fine."
I was sitting in the back seat, and his girlfriend with big breasts was in the co-pilot, a girl of eighteen or nineteen years old, a little bird. At least D cup, the smell of perfume on the clothes makes people sneeze.
I gestured to him—the flavors are getting stronger.
Arnold glanced through the mirror, and he looked a little uncomfortable: "Well, Jen and I are on a first date and just happened to run into you."
His little girlfriend looked back at me: "Hi handsome guy. What's your name?"
"Alan." I maintained the image of a gentleman: "Alan Custer. Can I help you, miss?"
The little girlfriend turned around: "Your friend is quite boring. Is he always like this?"
Arnold laughed. "He's a mathematician. Graduated from Cambridge Mathematics."
He asked me, "How are you and Mr. Garcia?"
I shrugged: "It's fine, that's it."
Arnold seemed a little surprised, but didn't ask any further. Crossing Trafalgar Square is the marble corridor of Whitehall, and Jeep turns into the small street on the left, with the sign "Downing street" on the gray wall bricks at the corner. Arnold parked his car outside a white building and asked his girlfriend to wait inside.
I squinted my eyes and looked up to recognize:
Cabinet Operations Office. 7 Downing Street.
"Alan," he stopped me, hesitating for a moment: "If you want to meet C, be careful. Let me know if you need my help."
I am surprised.
"You know C?"
"I don't know, my grandfather knows. He is the real boss of the Intelligence Bureau. Mr. Garcia is in charge of MI6, and Lindemann is in charge of MI5. He controls the entire Intelligence Bureau."
"What does C look like?"
"I don't know, very few people actually met him. You know it when you meet."
He walked toward the jeep, and the setting sun stretched the street and his shadow very long.
I stopped him and pointed to Jip: "Arnold, which woman is that?"
"The third one after we separated." He thought for a while, as if he didn't think it was right: "It seems that we have never been together before?"
"You should find someone to settle down."
The Merry Doctor waved his hand: "I want to play for a few more years."
Like I told Arnold, my relationship with Andymond wasn't really progressing, I didn't even have time to see him. Anne told me that Mr. Garcia was away from Plimpton Manor half the time. Where exactly he is I have no way of knowing.
After receiving the documents, I returned to Office No. 1 on May 13, with a plaster cast on my legs and crutches, and started the official decryption machine design work.
I've been thinking about the approval of C:
This means that C directly contacted me, bypassing Andrew, and nominated me to design the decryption machine for "fan".
Andremon didn't give me any explanation for this. He just signed a document the day after I went back, stating that I would be fully in charge of Office One.
The document was handed to me by the female assistant Annie, and Andymond's signature in floral script is at the end of the last page.
"Alan, Mr. Garcia really trusts you." Annie raised her wavy hair: "Otherwise he wouldn't give you such an important position."
She looked at me. "I heard the news of the surrender of the Netherlands. Alan, we can win, can't we?"
I said, "We will win."
"Heard the Nazis were burning Jews and foreign agents."
"Mr. Garcia will not send you to perform tasks in the occupied area." I tried to comfort her: "You are safe in the country, don't be afraid. Who will help him deal with things when you leave? It will be fine."
I noticed that Annie was trembling slightly.
She nodded: "I'll be fine."
Annie grabbed my arm firmly: "At the end of June, you must make the decryption machine."
I never saw Annie again for a long time after this.
Later, people told me that after the surrender of the Netherlands, our intelligence network was hit hard. Four important espionage colleagues were arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. Anderson proposed a rescue plan, and Anne offered to go to the occupied area to bribe the Nazi officers in the concentration camp.
The last paper she delivered for Andymond the day before she left stopped me in the corridor and said:
"Alan, at the end of June, you must make the decryption machine."
Since then, I have officially become the person in charge of Office No. 1.
On May 31st, the day I finally had the damn cast removed from my leg, I was told to see C himself.
During that time I saw Andremon only a few times.
He changed to a car, a Rolls-Royce Phantom III, still black. A few times I saw Peter pull the car door open, and he got out of the back seat, followed by people he didn't know.
It was lunch time, and I went to the dining room, passing Upper Andermont in the corridor.
He stopped me: "Alan."
Andemon was dressed very formally, a light gray suit with a dark tie, as if he had just returned from an important occasion. This is the first time I've seen him since the Lena incident.
He stands in front of a reproduction of a still-life oil painting in which sunlight falling on a breakfast of honey bread seems to penetrate the canvas and onto his light-blond hair. He was even thinner, his waist straightened out, his lips were pursed, his eye sockets were sunken due to overwork, but his eyes looked piercing. He has always been very strong and never showed his vulnerable side to me, so this time I met the head of MI6 again, the hardline leader Andrémon Garcia.
He motioned for those accompanying him to go first.
"C wants to see you, Alan. At 6 o'clock tomorrow afternoon, 7 Downing Street."
I nodded.
"You shouldn't have allowed Annie to go to the occupation. She might die there."
"She will come back alive. She is one of my best men. Britain needs her."
I stood silently, not knowing what to say.
Anderson suddenly hugged me.
Caught off guard.
We fell behind, the corridor was empty, and he held me like that for a long time.
I could almost hear my heart beating against his chest.
It was a long time before he said, "Alan, luckily you're okay."
I asked him, "If Lena is innocent. Will you marry her as promised?"
Andemont suddenly became stiff, and my arms tightened unnaturally as I hugged me.
I looked up and saw him looking down at me, his slender eyelashes hanging down.
He seemed a little sad: "I will. You know that sooner or later I will marry a famous lady."
"Alan," Andemon's voice was always very soft, as soft as the wind chimes hanging on the window of the bar outside the college: "Tell me not to get married."
"I said no, so you won't marry a woman?"
Sometimes Andemon was as stubborn as a child: "I want to hear from you."
"Okay." I shrugged: "Honey, don't worry about any woman, marry me."
Thinking about it now, that joke sounds like a marriage proposal.
Andemon let go of me, bent his eyes and smiled: "Okay."
He suddenly took my left hand, as if in a ceremony, and kissed the back of it lightly.
Then he left.
The next day I took Arnold's car to No. 7 Downing Street, the Cabinet Operations Office, and was personally summoned by C himself.