The Leipzig Affair

by Fiona Rintoul

  “By the sink.”

  The younger agent fetches a glass. Hencke coughs and launches into what seems to be a formal interrogation. “Comrade Reinsch, information has come into my possession which indicates that you have been engaged in state-hostile activities that contravene the laws of our socialist Republic. What is your comment on this statement?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” you say, and a shiver of fear runs down your spine. How much do they know?

  “Comrade Reinsch,” he says, “I would describe you as a very fortunate person. You have been given a second chance in life, have you not? Are you grateful to our state for this second chance?”

  “I’m grateful for the chance to study.”

  “Ah!” He fixes you with his pin-prick eyes. “But your behaviour does not mirror this.” He launches then into a long, bureaucratic description of your trip to Prague with the westerner, written no doubt by Jana.

  Every muscle in your body relaxes, and it’s all you can do not to laugh. Even the sight of the Stasi men taking down your photographs doesn’t dampen your good cheer. For a moment there you were worried. But they know nothing of importance.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” you say, when he’s finished. You mustn’t admit to the relationship with the westerner too readily. That would look suspicious. “I did go to Prague but I travelled alone.”

  “Intelligence in my possession indicates you travelled with Herr McPherson on – ” He rattles on.

  “There must be some mistake,” you say.

  “I think there is no mistake.”

  After an hour or so of this, you emit a little sob. “All right. I admit it. I did go to Prague with Herr Robert McPherson.”

  Hencke smiles thinly. “But you are not permitted contact with westerners, Comrade Reinsch.”

  You sniff, and he hands you a tissue.

  “McPherson is an enemy of the working class!” he spits. Then his face softens. “Magda,” he says, switching from Sie to du, “I’m trying to help you here. But there’s something you’re not telling me. I need to know the whole story or how can I help you, hmm?”

  He reaches inside his jerkin, pulls out a packet of cigarettes and offers you one. You smile. Hencke doesn’t smoke. “Now, enough of this silliness,” he says, reaching over to light your cigarette. “All is not lost. Far from it. Perhaps you will now be ready to reconsider the proposal I made to you some time back. But first you must tell me the whole story. What did you hope to achieve by associating with McPherson?”

  You smile. What a fool he is! If he only knew that the westerner is your cover.

  “It’s really very simple, Comrade Hencke,” you say. “I fell in love.”

  Hencke’s nose twitches, and his eyes cloud over. What’s wrong with him? He stands up and walks stiffly away. Then you get it. He’s jealous.

  “Conclude your search,” he tells the Stasi men.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  They came for me the night before I was due to leave for Scotland. I was alone in the flat, Kevin having gone to a Friendship Between Peoples music festival in Rostock with Gaby. I was sitting on the sofa with a generous measure of Glenfiddich in my hand, wondering whether to make the trip home or not. I knew I should. My dad was seriously ill. But what about Magda? Things were bound to get sticky for her when the police found out that Marek had fled.

  The doorbell rang. There were two of them: a tall, sunken-cheeked man of about forty in the uniform of the People’s Police and a slim plain clothes guy in his mid-thirties who looked a bit like a bank manager. Here we go, I thought, feeling irritated with Marek for putting us all in danger with his madcap escape plan. Just as well I’m still here.

  “Herr McPherson?” The bank manager said. I nodded, and the policeman barged past me into the living room and began to pull out the sideboard drawers and dump them on the floor.

  “Eh, what is this?” I said to the bank manager.

  “Please.” He pointed the way indoors. I turned to see the policeman go into my bathroom.

  I marched in after him. “Excuse me, what do you think you’re doing?”

  He opened the bathroom cabinet and emptied its contents into the wash-hand basin.

  “What are you doing?” I repeated.

  He swung round, propelled me into the kitchen and shoved me into a chair. The bank manager sat down opposite me.

  “I’m Captain Sander,” he said. “And that was my colleague, Lieutenant Scholze. Herr McPherson, you haven’t done the dishes.”

  I stared at him. “So?”

  “I find that interesting.”

  “Why? Are you the washing up police?”

  He smiled thinly. Scholze appeared at the kitchen door. “Nothing’s ready. He hasn’t packed.”

  “You haven’t packed, Herr McPherson,” Sander said. “Why is that?”

  “Why would I have packed?”

  A muscle twitched in Sander’s cheek. “Show him,” he said to Scholze. The policeman slapped a piece of paper on the table. It was a copy of my exit visa.

  “Ah,” I said, relief flooding through me. So this was about papers. “I’m not sure if I’ll be going. I, eh, well, let’s just say something came up.”

  “But you have an exit visa,” Sander said. “Therefore you must leave.”

  “My understanding is that an exit visa constitutes permission to leave not an obligation so to do,” I said, thinking that was rather neat.

  Sander sighed. “Herr McPherson, let me come to the point. We have reason to suspect you of assisting a GDR citizen to flee the Republic.”

  “What?” My mouth fell open. This was a serious matter. Even I knew that. Did they think I was helping Marek? My irritation with him turned to anger. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  Scholze bent down and whispered: “Passport?”

  “Passport − what?”

  “Sometimes foreign guests are persuaded to sell their passports,” Sander said. “This is quite common and most unfortunate.”

  “Well, I haven’t sold my passport to anyone.”

  “Good,” Sander smiled. “Then there shouldn’t be any problem.”

  “Where is your passport?” Scholze asked, turning away from examining postcards Kevin had taped to the fridge door: topless girls, Rome, Mallorca, places the policeman would never visit.

  “In my room.”

  “Could I ask you to fetch it?” Sander asked.

  “Certainly.” I jumped up and went through to the bedroom, thinking that I’d better go back round to Shakespeare Street once the policemen had gone.

  The passport wasn’t there.

  They bundled me into a green and white Wartburg with the words ‘People’s Police’ written on the side and said they were taking me to the police station. They put a flashing light on the roof and turned on a puny siren. But they didn’t take me to the police station. When we got to the top of 18th October Street, they cut a red light and headed for the large turn-of-the century building on the ring road bristling with aerials that everyone knew to be the Stasi headquarters. They bustled me into a room with a table and two chairs. It was entirely bare apart from a portrait of Honecker on the back wall. After about five minutes, Hencke entered.

  “Ah, Robert,” he said, peering at me through his jam-jar glasses. “We meet again. What have you been up to, dear boy? What is this all about?”

  “I was rather hoping you could tell me.”

  He clasped his hands piously and gave me a chilly smile. “I’m afraid it’s all rather out of my hands now.”

  Sander reappeared and took me downstairs to a windowless room with a bank of tape recorders along one wall. The passport seemed to be forgotten. Instead, he pressed me about Magda. I told him I knew who she was but that we were not personally acquainted.

  Sander smiled. “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  I stuck to my story and felt quite proud of myself. Here I was standing up to the Stasi to save the woman
I loved. Then they asked me about Marek. I was tired by then. Five hours or more had passed. I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink. Sander’s tactic was to wear me down, and the passport was back on the agenda.

  “We know you sold your passport. That could mean several years in prison. But we might be prepared to forget about it if you tell us what Dembowski’s plans are.”

  “I didn’t sell my passport.”

  “Where is it then?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He leant his face into mine and said, “Listen, Herr McPherson, we know you sold your passport and we know you changed money with Dembowski. That’s illegal too, by the way. So answer me this question: is Dembowski planning to flee our Republic?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Sander sighed. “Herr McPherson, we can do this the nice way or the less nice way. Which do you prefer?”

  “I have my rights,” I said.

  He laughed. “You’re not in Great Britain now, Herr McPherson. Here in our GDR we take our national security very seriously. I’m only asking you to do what is right as a guest in our country. Answer my question: is Dembowski planning to flee?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He moved away from me and stood for a moment staring at the wall. Then he came over, put his hands on the arm rests and leant his face in closer than before. His breath smelt of cigarettes and onions. I waited for the next instalment, but it didn’t come. He leant back and punched me hard in the stomach.

  I screamed. It was the worst, most searing pain I had ever felt.

  “That’s just for starters,” he said. I clutched my stomach and stared at him. “By the way,” he added, “I’m authorised to inform you that no harm will come to Frau Reinsch, whom you don’t know, if you share Herr Dembowski’s plans with us.”

  And so I told him about Marek’s plan to leave through the underground tunnel in the Harz Mountains.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “But that might not be it at all,” I fabricated in a desperate attempt to salvage some dignity. “I saw his neighbours earlier, and they said he’d gone to Prague.”

  Sander smiled politely. “Is that so? You’ve been most helpful, Herr McPherson. I really do appreciate it. Now please follow me.”

  They put me in a cell with a plank bed and a toilet bowl in the corner. “I apologise for the conditions,” Sander said. “We’re not used to accommodating guests from the capitalist abroad.” He laughed at his own joke. “Perhaps I can bring you something to make your stay more comfortable?”

  “I’d like a drink,” I said, “and I don’t mean tea.”

  Ten minutes later, a policeman appeared with a crate of cold beer, a bottle opener and two packets of milk-cream waffles. “Please,” he said and bowed like a well-trained waiter.

  I opened a beer and glugged it down. Then another. The crate was half empty by the time Sander came back for me.

  “We’ll collect your things,” he said, straightening his tie. “Then you will be driven to Berlin where you will leave our Republic for Berlin West.”

  It was dark outside, but the air was clammy. “What time is it?” I asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Sander replied.

  “Can’t I take the train?” I asked when I was in the apartment packing, “I’ve got a ticket.”

  “I’m afraid your train has already left.”

  “What am I going to do in West Berlin?”

  “That’s your business.”

  Downstairs another Wartburg was waiting. Sander stowed my luggage in the boot.

  “What about my flatmate?” I said. “I haven’t even left him a note. He might be worried. And … there are other people I should tell.”

  “But you were leaving anyway,” Sander said reasonably. He extended his hand, and like an idiot I shook it.

  “Good bye,” he said.

  We drove east on the ring road, passing the station, and out on to the motorway. I sat slumped in the back seat, wondering when I would see Magda again, as we bumped along behind Russian lorries with no lights. I was really quite drunk and after a while I started to sing Autobahn by Kraftwerk as an ironic commentary on the paved road. The driver and the policeman in the passenger seat exchanged a glance, then the policeman turned round and punched me in the face.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  On Shakespeare Street, a van is waiting. The slogan ‘Fresh Fish’ is painted on the side panel alongside a cartoon picture of a herring. Hencke walks off down Shakespeare Street without a backward glance, and the Stasi men bundle you into one of the four tiny cages inside the van, handcuffing you to the door. The doors bang shut, and you’re engulfed in darkness. It’s hours before the van comes to a halt again and you’re released into the fresh air and can stretch your aching limbs.

  You’re in a high-walled courtyard, and dawn is breaking. (Years later, you learn you were still in Leipzig. They drove around to disorientate you.) A young guard grabs your elbow and propels you up some stairs and along a corridor that stinks of disinfectant. Halfway along, he stops outside a cream-painted door.

  “Wait!” he tells you and knocks on the door

  Behind the door is a small square office. The blinds are drawn and a man of about fifty sits at a desk. He has the lined and puffy face of a bon viveur. His thinning hair is dyed black and plastered with hair oil. He wears a grey uniform with braided epaulettes and claret lapel stripes. A row of medals marches across his chest pocket, and his cuff bears the name of the Stasi guard regiment.

  The guard lets go of your arm and salutes. “Colonel,” he says.

  The colonel looks up, as if he has only just realised you’re there. “Won’t you sit down, Frau Reinsch?” he says, nodding to the young man, who pulls up a chair for you. “Cigarette?” he asks.

  You nod. You’re gasping for a smoke. “Ashtray for the young lady,” he says.

  The guard brings a red glass ashtray etched with the shield of the Ministry for State Security. “Dismissed,” the colonel says, and the guard salutes and withdraws.

  The colonel sits back in his chair and sighs contentedly. “Ah!” He smiles. “Now, why do you think we’ve brought you here today, Comrade Reinsch?”

  “I suppose it’s about Herr McPherson.”

  He nods. “Ah-ha! Yes. Very good. By the way, would you like a coffee?”

  You say you would and – encouraged by his relaxed tone – ask if you might also have a glass of water and something to eat. “It was a long journey,” you say. “I’m dying of thirst.”

  “Is that so?” The colonel’s brow creases in concern. He lifts the telephone receiver and orders two coffees and a carafe of water.

  “We’ll sort out something to eat later,” he says, Then he leans across the desk, hands clasped in front of him, and looks you in the eyes. “I once had the pleasure of meeting your father, you know. I’ll let you into a little secret. I thought he was a wonderful man. A true hero of socialism! He’s been an inspiration to me.”

  You smile. “That’s nice.”

  You see now how it’s going to be. A paternal chat. A little light admonishment. You’ll admit to your mistakes and offer to write a self-criticism. Then the colonel will ask you to write out and sign a commitment to work as an unofficial collaborator for the Ministry for State Security. And this time you’ll do it, because in three days you’re going to be in Budapest. The passport photos are in your trouser pocket. All that matters now is to get out of here quickly and without being searched.

  There’s a knock at the door.

  “Enter,” says the colonel.

  The young guard wheels in a hostess trolley, and you suppress a smile. The colonel pours you a glass of water and arranges the coffee cups on his desk.

  “Milk?” he asks. “Sugar?”

  You gulp the water. “Could you tell me what time it is?”

  “Don’t you have a watch?”

  “They took it off me before I got in the van.”

  “Really?” He soun
ds shocked. “I’ll find out for you in a moment.” He rubs his hands together and sits down. “I suppose we’d better get on with the interview.”

  “Yes.” You take a sip of coffee. “Might as well get it over with.”

  The colonel smiles and presses a button on the reel-to-reel tape recorder on his desk. He states the number of the interview room and your name – Reinsch, Magdalena Maria – smiling apologetically at this bureaucratic inversion. Then he turns towards you, and the expression on his face abruptly sours.

  “You’re quite an arrogant young lady, aren’t you?” he says. “Rather convinced about yourself?”

  He tells you then some of the things he knows about you, and you realise how stupid you’ve been.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I’d been back at my parents’ house in Calderhill just two days when I found out that Marek was dead. One morning, a letter arrived from East Germany. I rushed upstairs with it, but my excitement faded to horror as I read it. It was from Magda’s friend Kerstin, the girl with the black hair and the sultry eyes. She said that Magda was too upset to write personally. Marek had been discovered crossing the border. He didn’t stop when the guards shouted out to him, and so they shot him. He’d been betrayed. She hoped she didn’t have to say any more.

  I sat down on the bed and wept. Not for Marek. I was still angry with him. And a big part of me was thinking: I told you so. I cried for myself. And for Magda. I couldn’t bear the thought of her hating me, as she now must. What would happen to her?

  Until the letter arrived, I’d been trying to find a way to get back to Leipzig. After the East German police dumped me out of the country at the Sonnenallee checkpoint, I’d spent a fruitless week in West Berlin trying to find a way to contact Magda. Basically, I’d been checkmated. I didn’t have a passport and so I couldn’t get a visa to return to East Germany, not even a day visa for West Berlin. The British Consulate would only issue me with an emergency passport to make a single trip back to the UK. In the end, I had no choice but to give up and go home.