Brandenburg

by Henry Porter

  ‘What are you going to do afterwards?’ asked Rosenharte.

  ‘Celebrate,’ she said, as though he was being stupid.

  He bent down to her. ‘But if they’ve removed our friend, life is going to become very difficult for you.’

  ‘I don’t see why. If they’ve done it well, no one will know where he’s gone.’

  ‘The man’s sick. They’ll know that he hasn’t just left town on a whim. You have to hide.’

  ‘We’ll see.’ Her expression was so exultant that he wondered whether she was absorbing anything he said. For his part, he knew that he wasn’t going to remain in the city. He would ask her if he could borrow the car until Thursday, by which time he would be making his way to Berlin to meet up with Vladimir and Harland again. He touched her on the shoulder. ‘Ulrike, you have to pay attention. I saw one of the Stasi men come from your house. The same man was in the Nikolaikirche. Maybe he was bugging the place. Maybe he’s tailing you.’

  ‘Not everything is as it seems,’ she said.

  This irritated him. ‘Look, I know this man! I saw him with a colonel in the foreign intelligence service - Biermeier. I told you about him. I saw him last Monday with Zank, here in Leipzig! This is no coincidence.’

  She took his hand and looked at it then let her eyes travel up to his face, where she held his gaze with a strange expression. ‘When you arrived at the Nikolaikirche I told you that everything was over. If the foreigners managed to take our friend, which I imagine they did, then it is over. My life of deceit is over. And with this demonstration,’ she gestured at the crowd with her free hand, ‘everything changes. Where are the police and the Stasi now? Nowhere. Things have changed for good tonight.’

  ‘Don’t talk too soon. We have a long way to go and they may arrest people as they make their way home. Violence is still a possibility.’

  ‘No,’ she said firmly. ‘That’s not going to happen now. The people up in front have had assurances there will be no violence. They have talked to the Vopos and the Party leadership. That’s what they’ve been telling me. The professor was right. Krenz - or someone - overruled the Minister for State Security. Don’t you see? We’ve won.’

  ‘But that doesn’t mean you’re safe. When they find the Arab missing, they’ll know you had something to do with it. That’s why Zank has been in Leipzig. He’s on to something, I’m sure of it. And this other man - Biermeier’s associate - he’s here for a reason too.’

  ‘In which case you’re also in danger.’

  ‘Exactly. And I need to remain free to get Konrad out.’

  ‘So your solution is?’

  ‘We hide. I know a place.’

  The progress of the march had been slowing and now it came to an abrupt halt alongside a piece of hideous futuristic architecture known as the Tin Box, which had been built a few years before as a symbol of progress. The crowd had shunted into them from behind and she was pressed close. Her fine hair shimmered in the breeze and he smelled her scent. She looked up into his eyes, gently shook her head and mouthed, ‘I’m staying here.’

  ‘Then I will go without you.’

  ‘If that’s what you want to do. But you must stay tonight and drink to our victory and remember every minute for when you return to Dresden. Your city will have its own moment. We have set the pattern.’

  ‘I won’t be returning. My schedule doesn’t allow it. Anyway, they fired me from the gallery on Friday.’

  ‘You told me you had some kind of protection.’

  ‘What protection was that?’ he asked.

  ‘You said someone squared the director of the gallery so you could be absent for long periods.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you that.’

  ‘You did.’

  He shook his head. ‘How did you know?’

  She ignored him and pointed to a couple in front of them. ‘I’m seeing so many people I know tonight. Over there is Max Klein, who is an evolutionary biologist. He was prevented from researching inheritance because the Party does not permit studies that suggest traits such as intelligence are passed from generation to generation. So he does simple research into mice at his home. His wife Sarah is a research psychologist, but because her husband’s work was banned she failed to get the university post she wanted. At the front there’s a woman whose son refused to do military service. He was locked up for eighteen months and came out of Bautzen with a nervous breakdown. My friend Kurt is a brilliant lyricist but he may not have his songs performed in public. And you see the guy he’s talking to?’ Rosenharte craned his neck and saw a small man in leather with a shaved head and two thin sideburns. ‘That’s Ebbe - he’s a graphic artist who works as a plasterer because he once drew a rude cartoon of Chernenko. Those little old monsters - Honecker and Mielke - have been sitting on our heads for too long. Tonight is the beginning of the end for them.’

  ‘Ulrike,’ he said firmly, ‘I didn’t tell you that I had any kind of protection at the gallery.’

  ‘I’m sure you did. But if you didn’t, I must have imagined it,’ she said nonchalantly.

  They were on the move again, and were now passing under some trees on the approach to the Runde Ecke, or round corner - the regional headquarters of the Stasi. To their left was the extension built in 1985 to help accommodate the 8,000 MfS officers who worked in Leipzig, a number he now realized was probably larger than the entire domestic and foreign intelligence services of the United Kingdom. The Stasi’s doors were closed, but lights blazed from nearly every window in all five storeys, and units of soldiers and uniformed Stasi lined both sides of the wedge-shaped fortress. When Rosenharte and Ulrike passed the entrance and read the silver-on-black nameplate - Bezirksverwaltung für Staatssicherheit: Leipzig - they glanced up four storeys to a penthouse office that had a rounded balustrade. A man in uniform gazed down at the dark tide of marchers. People whispered that it was Lieutenant-General Manfred Hummitzsch, the local Stasi chief, but of course it was impossible to tell.

  The rest of the march passed in a pleasant blur for Rosenharte. He relished the sudden affection that had sprung up between strangers all around them. The people had taken control of their city for a few blissful hours and had proved that this could be done without a single window being broken.

  Near the end of the route Rosenharte began to observe the general mood in the faces of the conscripts who had been drafted in to protect public buildings and on the younger members of the Volkspolizei, some of whom looked longingly at the marchers. Almost no force was used that evening, though late at night as people were beginning to disperse, Rosenharte did see a half-hearted baton charge, which netted a man in a wheelchair and a woman who had been pushing him.

  Some time after midnight they said good night to Kurt. Rosenharte told him he would collect his things and the car in the morning. They each hugged him and then set off for Ulrike’s place. She put her hand through his arm and placed her other hand on top. She looked up at him occasionally and smiled but they did not speak of the Arab, of Konrad or of Else’s escape over the border; nor of the British spies, or of Zank, Biermeier and his sidekick. Rosenharte was too exhausted and, anyway, the extraordinary events - the miracle - of that night in Leipzig when the regime rolled over and let the people have their way practically occluded everything else.

  They reached the wisteria gateway and walked through the dark to her door. As she placed the key in the lock she said to him, ‘I haven’t ever seen you smile. Not properly.’

  ‘That’s nonsense. I do smile.’

  ‘You don’t; you grin. You have a very attractive grin, and you use it well when you’re talking to people or giving one of your highbrow lectures. But you don’t smile, Rudi. You’re always holding something in reserve.’

  ‘You could say that about everyone.’

  She wrinkled her nose. ‘Not the way you do.’

  She pushed the door and listened to the empty apartment, then put her face to the draught of stale air that came to them.

  He cough
ed. ‘I’m beginning to think you had the same training as me.’

  ‘You’re right. I did.’

  He said nothing. Her admissions always came at the most unexpected moments.

  ‘But like you, I didn’t fit.’

  ‘You’re telling me you were in the Stasi?’

  She turned to him with a look of amusement. ‘Who do you think gave me all this training in languages? My father was in the diplomatic service, for goodness’ sake. I thought you had put all that together. It wasn’t so difficult.’

  Rosenharte shrugged and said he hadn’t.

  ‘Maybe you’re not the sharpest knife in the drawer after all.’

  They went inside. She switched on a table lamp and went to her little kitchen to find a drink and some glasses and returned clanking a bottle of red wine and two large bottles of beer. Rosenharte stood where he was in the centre of the room, suddenly aware of the fatigue in his back and legs. She opened the wine and came to rest her head on his chest, handing him a glass in the same movement. He took a mouthful. ‘I do smile,’ he said plaintively.

  ‘You don’t. In all the time I’ve known you, I haven’t seen you smile naturally - I mean with your eyes.’

  ‘You’ve only known me a few weeks.’

  ‘Known you, yes,’ she murmured into the material of his coat.

  He moved back - regretfully, for he loved the feeling of her hair on his face. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said and rolled her head across his chest.

  ‘You must have meant something.’

  ‘Tomorrow, Rudi, we’ll talk tomorrow.’ She kissed him on the chin and moved to his mouth to stroke his lips with hers. He felt her smile.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me you’re still working for them?’

  ‘No, I don’t work for them, though I may have been guilty of letting them think that I was.’ She paused, put the glass to her lips. ‘When I said we knew who the informer was, that was true, Rudi. You see, it was me. I was the Stasi informer for this group. That’s how we were able to plan so much without them knowing.’

  ‘Jesus, your life’s so complicated.’

  ‘I offered to help them and they leapt at the chance. Naturally, I didn’t go to the Runde Ecke one morning and say, “I am Ulrike Klaar and I want to spy on my friends.” I let people know indirectly that I was concerned by the developments I was seeing in the research for the institute, and soon enough they asked me to become an IM, even gave me money for it. The arrangement allowed me the freedom to follow my faith and sometimes to gain a sense of their plans. It has all worked very well because I was able to protect my friends.’

  ‘And the Arab?’

  ‘I was already on their trusted list because of him. But of course he couldn’t provide me with the pretext to go to church, to mix with the people I wanted to see and talk to.’

  ‘But you just said you didn’t fit into the Stasi.’

  ‘I didn’t. I lasted just three years before I was thrown out. That was a long time ago.’

  ‘Why?’ He felt her stiffen in his arms.

  ‘I had a baby . . . a baby who died. But I wasn’t married and, well, I wasn’t in love with the father and anyway he wanted nothing to do with it. They told me to get rid of it, but I refused and they got rid of me. Those old bastards disapprove of anyone having a sexual relationship that has not first been designated as a means to the state’s ends. And a fatherless child, well, forget it.’ Her head remained on his chest and she spoke without looking at him in the deliberate voice of the confessional.

  ‘Did you sleep with the Arab?’

  She inhaled deeply. ‘Yes, twice in two years but . . . you know . . . he wasn’t up to it. There was no actual consummation. The reason he was in Leipzig was that Misha Lomieko had got him treatment at the hospital, and by the time he started coming here and I became his regular companion, he was so debilitated from the years of drinking and cocaine and chewing ghat, a habit he picked up in Yemen, that he didn’t function as a man. He liked my company: I speak his language and understand Arab men. I even like ghat. He helped me in many ways, getting extra food and alcohol for my friends and special stuff from abroad. There were a thousand small benefits to me, and a kind of protection.’ She stopped and looked at him. He noticed the flecks of light brown in her eyes. ‘But that’s all over now.’

  ‘It may not be,’ he said. ‘If he’s been taken tonight, they’ll come after you. You’re an obvious suspect. How else would the West know where and when to find him?’

  ‘You said all that before. If they’ve done it intelligently, no one will know where he’s gone. Momo - that’s my name for him - is a free agent. He comes and goes as he pleases. Only Misha knew his movements. So we may have more time than you think.’

  He slipped his hands under her shirt and tried to engage her eyes while feeling the suppleness of her back. ‘Ulrike, you’re in danger. They know who you are and where you live. Why was Biermeier’s man here? That means something to you, surely?’

  She put her finger to his lips. ‘Nothing’s going to happen tonight. They won’t check on him until morning. Look, it’s simple. I will telephone the number he uses to see if I get an answer. Then we’ll know.’

  ‘And you’ll come with me then?’

  She dug him in the ribs playfully. ‘Surely it’s you who will be coming with me, unless you’ve bought another car?’

  She dragged him to his feet and began to kiss his neck. ‘Take me to bed,’ she whispered. ‘Take me to bed before I pass out.’

  He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes. ‘What happened to the woman who stood in the park and accused me of wanting the double victory of your body and your love? Where’s she gone? That was quite a talking-to you gave me.’ She pulled away reproachfully. ‘You see,’ he continued, ‘I find it very hard to know which person I’m dealing with - the hard, calculating former agent, or the woman who laughs so endearingly at the idea of the Stasi arresting a bunch of respectable members of an orchestra instead of unlicensed street musicians.’

  ‘Well, it was funny,’ she said.

  ‘That’s not the point. You change so often that I wonder if you have multiple personalities. Seeing you this morning at the villa and then later at the church was like meeting two completely different people.’

  ‘Perhaps you’re confusing personality with behaviour,’ she said sharply. ‘Anyway, let me assure you that you’re with the real me now. This is me.’ She stepped away from him and held out her arms as though she was showing him a new dress.

  ‘How can I tell? I feel there’s so much that you’re keeping from me. You’re impenetrable.’

  ‘Try me,’ she said lasciviously.

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Ah! You nearly smiled, Rudi.’ She poured more wine for herself, Rosenharte having drunk only a little.

  ‘Why Kafka? Why did you choose the name Kafka?’ he asked.

  She nodded as though to say she understood that he needed to take his time. ‘Because he predicted the world we live in today: the secrecy, the men who ruin a person’s life with rumours and lies, the mysterious persecutions and executions, the senselessness of it all. He got it exactly right.’ She paused. ‘Drink with me, Rudi, to the end of the lying old crows and the beginning of us.’

  He retrieved his glass from the table and raised it. ‘To the most puzzling person that I’ve ever met.’

  She shook her hair vigorously. ‘I just know what I think about things. And this - you and me - is right.’ She looked up to the ceiling. ‘“Life’s splendour forever lies in wait about each one of us in all its fullness, but veiled from view, deep down, invisible, far off. It is there, though, not hostile, not reluctant, not deaf. If you summon it by the right word, by its right name, it will come.” That’s Mister K at his best. I am summoning life’s splendour now, Rudi. And you are part of it.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’ He held his pack of cigarettes out to her. She shook her head, but
presented her mouth for a puff after he’d lit one for himself. He was struggling to get his bearings with her, to find the right language. In the end he didn’t manage to rise above banality. ‘I could love you. Maybe I already do. But I want to love you - us to love each other - properly. No secrets. You were right about me when you said those things in the park. I’m going to be fifty soon. It’s time for me to stop making mistakes.’

  She put down her glass and came to him. Soon she was pulling off his clothes as well as her own. She led them half-dressed to her bedroom. The bed was pushed into the far corner and was covered in a rough white cloth. She turned and pulled her shirt off in one motion, which made her hair shimmer with static. Without seeming to notice she undid her bra and removed it. ‘Hey, look, you’re smiling!’ she exclaimed. ‘Is my body really that funny?’

  He moved to her and held her lightly above her waist. ‘No, it’s beautiful. I’m smiling at your static. I’ve never seen anyone with their own electricity supply before.’

  ‘Yes, but you smiled, Rudi, and you look a different person when you smile. I love that.’ She clasped her hands together and looked up. ‘Wasn’t tonight wonderful? Can you believe what we witnessed? It was a miracle, wasn’t it?’

  He nodded.

  He undressed, sat down on the bed and watched her draw the curtains and switch on a lamp that was covered with a piece of red cloth. She slipped off her jeans and pants and stood before him to let his eyes run over her body, then approached and guided his head to her breasts. It was a natural movement, barely sexual, and Rosenharte was aware of something he hadn’t felt for a very long time. He was pleased to find how present he was and how very much he needed her. He held her away from him, thinking that a beautiful woman in the flesh never tallied with any mental image he had or the paintings he knew so well in the Gemäldegalerie. Her body was astonishingly white and slender, though not as fragile as he had believed when she had joined him in bed the week before. She gazed down at him, pleased with the effect she was having. He began to kiss her, his hands not exploring, but rather gauging the warmth and shape of her ordinary mortal form. It moved him like no other experience with a woman, made him love humanity and its vulnerability. He said something of this and she mocked him for being the aesthete, told him that he didn’t have to articulate every absurd thought that came into his head; nevertheless it seemed to please her and she touched his face and dragged the backs of her fingers under his eyes and along his hairline.