Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night

by James Runcie

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Amanda replied. She could not look her friend in the eye. ‘I’m embarrassed and I’m not at my best. I should drive on.’

  ‘Did you want anything in particular?’

  ‘No, I just wanted to say sorry. That was all. My mother said I should, and I knew it too. I’ve been very stubborn.’

  ‘Well, I’m very sorry too. Are you sure you won’t have a nightcap?’

  ‘No. I can’t.’ Amanda hesitated. She did not appear to want to leave. ‘I was just wondering, though . . .’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘No. It’s nothing. I can’t say it.’

  ‘We are friends. There is nothing we cannot say to each other.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think there is. The things unspoken.’

  ‘Ah,’ Sidney replied. ‘Those things.’

  Amanda looked up and spoke quickly, hoping the words would disappear as soon as she said them; or perhaps hoping that if the outcome was not to her liking she had never said the words she was going to say at all. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she began, ‘and I know this is mad, and you probably think I am crazy, but would it be a disaster if you married me? Not in the religious sense, you understand, but in the romantic sense. As husband and wife . . .’

  If she had suggested this ten years ago it would have been the most thrilling moment in Sidney’s life. But now, after so much had happened, it was too late.

  ‘Amanda, this isn’t really the time,’ he answered, as kindly as he could. ‘You’ve had a terrible shock.’

  ‘Perhaps I needed it. It’s made me come to my senses. You are the only person who understands me.’

  ‘I’m not so sure about that.’

  ‘I’ve been so hopeless at choosing. I always knew you were a good man, but I foolishly thought that you weren’t enough for me. It was all about silly things like money and status and I’ve been undone by both of them. Now I’ve missed my chance. You’re in love with Hildegard, aren’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Sidney replied. ‘I am.’

  It was the first time he had admitted it, either to himself or to anyone else. Now he had said it aloud, there was no going back.

  Amanda looked straight back at him. ‘But you will always love me too, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course I will.’

  ‘Until death us do part?’

  ‘Yes, of course, Amanda, always, until death us do part.’

  She gave him a little nervous wave. She was still wearing her driving gloves and her hand was a black silhouette against the night sky. ‘Goodbye then, Sidney.’ She opened the car door.

  ‘Goodbye, Amanda. God bless you.’

  The door slammed. Sidney waited, and then watched the car drive away into the darkness. He looked up at the moon. It took him a long time to realise that he was crying.

  Appointment in Berlin

  Sidney had not been back to Berlin for three years and the restoration of the buildings in the British sector, particularly on the Ku’damm and around the Bahnhof Berlin Zoologischer Garten, had proceeded with such speed that parts of the city had taken on a futuristic air. He remembered talking to Hildegard’s brother Matthias, a journalist who had gathered the testimonies of Berliners in the aftermath of war, walking barefoot as they cleared rubble, gathered wood and searched basements for food, stealing buttons from the clothing of the dead. It had been a different, defeated world, but now the city was razing recent history and concrete, glass and steel rose from the wreckage.

  He was staying with Humphrey Turnbull, the vicar of St George’s in the British sector of West Berlin, and he was very much looking forward to two weeks in Hildegard’s company. The vicarage was located in Warnen Weg, in Charlottenburg, ten minutes’ walk from the British Officers’ Club and the NAAFI shop. Sidney knew that Humphrey would use his friend’s visit to take a few days off and delegate services in exchange for the free accommodation. There would also be the usual mix of tea parties, cocktails and social dinners. Rohan Delacombe, Commandant of the British Sector, and Tristram Havers, his aide-de-camp, would whizz him round the city in their Mercedes-Benz. As a result, Sidney was worried that he was not going to be able to spend as much time with Hildegard as he wanted.

  The plan was that, after unpacking and settling in on his first night, Sidney would pick up Hildegard from her apartment block the following morning. They would have a look at the shops on the Ku’damm, have lunch at the KaDeWe and take a walk in the Tiergarten. Hildegard would then cook him one of her simple suppers with Erbsensuppe or Brathering mit Bratkartoffeln.

  Sidney was therefore somewhat perplexed when he rang her doorbell and discovered that there was no one at home. He wondered if he had got the day wrong, but he was sure that they had agreed on 29 July. He remembered it easily because it was his mother’s birthday. He knocked on the door in case the bell was not working. An elderly lady passed on her way to the shops and an Alsatian ambled across his path. A young girl was playing tennis against the side of the building. Sidney interrupted her backhand practice to ask in rudimentary German if he knew either Hildegard or the Baumanns, her sister and brother-in law; she did not.

  It was eleven in the morning and he had little choice but to wait. He crossed the street and found a table in a nearby café. It was, perhaps, the place Hildegard had intended to take him. He hoped for a moment that he had made a mistake and the arrangement was that they should meet there instead of at her flat. He could see her apartment from the café and kept watch as he stretched out the amount of time it took to drink a cup of coffee.

  He allowed himself a brief moment of irritation. He felt foolish, coming all this way only to find himself facing a locked building and no one at home. What could Hildegard be doing that was more important than seeing him? Perhaps he was not the priority that he thought he was.

  It was, however, out of character for her to have forgotten their meeting or to attend to more urgent business. He began to worry. Perhaps she had been taken ill? Sidney had never asked about her health and considered that a woman in her thirties should be perfectly fit but now he was anxious. Perhaps she had a heart condition that she had never told him about? Perhaps she had been hit by a car or been attacked? The streets of Berlin were so well policed that they seemed safe enough but that did not mean that either accident or murder was unknown.

  As he sat in the café he began to worry what a life without her would be like. He couldn’t imagine it. He wanted to spend more time with her, not less, and for her to disappear like this only brought home how much he needed her. Perhaps there was a man she had not told him about? Perhaps she was already married to someone else, and was, like Anthony Cartwright, leading a double life?

  How well did Sidney really know Hildegard? It was important, he knew, that a woman retained an air of mystery, and that a couple, if that is what they were, should still have things to discover about each other. He recognised that relationships needed time to change and deepen, but he continued to doubt. Perhaps what they had was still only friendship, and although that could be strong in its own way, they did not have the passion for love. Perhaps, Sidney thought to himself, he should have declared himself sooner and more openly.

  He watched people through the café windows: businessmen in tight suits with thin lapels carrying American-style attaché cases; women with headscarves holding on to recalcitrant children on the way to the Tiergarten; a gang of road-workers dressed in identical boiler suits stopping for a cigarette and a morning break. A passing tank wiped out his view. He missed Hildegard and worried whether he had done anything wrong. He remembered the last time he had come to this very café. Her sister had sat with a sketchbook, drawing customers at the bar and in the distance. She wanted to be like Heinrich Zille, she told Sidney, the German Dickens, the artist who had tried to represent the soul of the city and its citizens, Herz und Schnauze, heart and gob.

  He paid up, left the café, and returned to the apartment. The girl had finished her tennis, the Alsatian was asleep in th
e shadows, and the doorbell remained unanswered. It was noon. Sidney realised that he would have to take a tram back to the vicarage and ask if Humphrey Turnbull needed anything doing. He needed to decide whether to confess to what had happened. He hoped that the vicar would not laugh at him.

  He was just about to arrive at the tram stop when he heard a voice calling his name. He turned to see the sweaty figure of Matthias Baumann running towards him. He wore a dishevelled suit, his tie was loosened, and he carried a beaten-up trilby and a crumpled copy of Der Tagesspiegel under his arm.

  ‘You have been to the apartment?’ he asked. ‘I am sorry. Hildegard was worried and now I am late to tell you. Please excuse me.’

  ‘Has something happened?’ Sidney replied. ‘Is Hildegard all right?’

  ‘She is well. But her mother is not.’

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘In Leipzig. Frau Leber fell in the street. Too hot. She was wearing a coat in the heat. She always wears coat. Then she collapse. I am not sure of the word you have – Schlaganfall. Is it stroke? Both sisters go to see her. I stay. Give message.’

  ‘Shall I follow them?’

  ‘Hildegard asks if you can. Is difficult. But not impossible. You need permits, visas. She told me to help arrange. We must go to Reisebüro Office.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘This afternoon. You have papers?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You must bring everything. They like papers. And stamps.’

  ‘I haven’t brought any stamps.’

  ‘No, they have stamps. For passport. You understand?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘You have been in DDR before?’

  ‘I don’t think I have had the pleasure.’

  ‘It is no pleasure. East Berlin is good. It has theatres, very good, and beer and is full of rebels. Hildegard will take you. But the rest of the country is like Russia.’

  ‘How long will Hildegard and Trudi be there?’

  ‘It depends on mother.’

  ‘How bad is she?’

  ‘You know what they say? In DDR you have to be very healthy to go to hospital.’ Hildegard’s brother-in-law put his hat back on his head. ‘If you are not strong, you die.’

  The Reisebüro Office was situated near the Brandenburg Gate, and Matthias introduced Sidney to his friend Karlheinz Renke who was in charge of issuing permits. Renke warned that it would be a time-consuming process and that he couldn’t guarantee success. Money would have to change hands. It would be ten Deutschmarks just for the visa and there was an enforced currency exchange of twenty-five Deutschmarks per day. Sidney worried that he did not have enough.

  First he had to get an entry visa from the Soviet Military Administration in Germany. There were four kinds, Renke told him, and Sidney had to nominate how long he was going to stay and the exact dates and times of his travel. Once he had acquired both a standard entry and exit visa (Visum zur Ein- und Ausreise), he needed a transit visa (Transitvisum), which restricted him to a predefined travel route within the shortest possible time. He would also need to register with the Volkspolizei. An Aufenthaltsberechtigung (residence entitlement) stamp would be placed in his passport. The names of each city or region where he registered, as well as the expiration date of that registration, would be entered in appropriate spaces.

  Sidney wondered how the bureaucracy had become so tortuous and who could have invented it. The authorities would have to know exactly where he was each day, and there could be no deviation in his plans, and no allowance for any unpredictable event.

  As Renke processed the paperwork Sidney looked out of the doorway to see the Volkspolizei carrying out technical checks on Berlin-bound vehicles. These were the people fleeing the republic for the West. This was Republikfluchten, Matthias told him, and anyone coming into the city was regarded with distrust. Men were taken off to be questioned, parcels were confiscated, cars were sent back. Sidney found it ironic that in the eighteenth century, under the Elector of Saxony, the appeal of Berlin lay in its tolerance to outsiders. It was a home for freedom. Now the border guards did everything possible to discourage any love for the place. The East Germans were clearly so desperate to leave their country that Sidney wondered why on earth he was going in.

  Three days later he found himself at the Bahnhof Berlin Zoologischer Garten. He was to take the stopping train to Leipzig Hauptbahnhof. It was late afternoon. There were only four platforms at the station and they were already crowded, so that Sidney had to push and jostle with the best of them to try and make his way on to the train.There was a party of East German soldiers who were already drunk; young families with tired mothers in floral tops, sullen fathers and bored children. A group of female athletes in tracksuits were on their way to a competition in Munich; a party of young pioneers in their white shirts and blue neckties were singing in unison, while thin, hungry-looking businessmen in cheap, functional suits pushed past in search of their seats.

  Sidney boarded the train and passed along the corridors. He hoped he would not have to share a noisy carriage. He had brought a book to calm his nerves before seeing Hildegard. It was the latest Kinglsey Amis.

  As he made his way past families and groups of men who were standing at the junctions between carriages, Sidney worried what he might say or do if someone had already occupied his seat. His German was already at its limit. A beggar asked him for money and he felt guilty refusing, hauling his suitcase in one hand and his briefcase in the other. He stopped to check the number of one of the carriages. Inside sat a man whom he recognised as a Cambridge student: Rory Montague. He was with some kind of business associate. Sidney tapped on the window but the two men responded with bemusement as he slid the carriage door open.

  ‘Mr Montague,’ he began. ‘What an extraordinary thing! To see you here.’

  The man looked up and said in German, ‘I’m sorry I do not speak English. I do not know what you are saying.’

  Sidney was convinced. He even had the same mole on his left cheek. ‘But I know that you do speak English. You are Rory Montague.’

  ‘I am Dieter Hirsch,’ the man replied in German. ‘And this is my colleague Hans Färber.’

  Sidney now spoke in halting German. ‘But I know you from Cambridge. You were a pupil of Valentine Lyall, the man who fell from the roof of King’s College.’

  The man told Sidney he was mistaken. ‘Is this your carriage?’ he asked.

  ‘No, it is not my carriage,’ Sidney replied.

  ‘Then you must excuse us. I suggest you find your seat. The train is very crowded today.’

  Sidney was thrown. Perhaps his suspicions a few years ago had been right all along. Montague must be a spy, but on which side?

  He found his carriage crowded with a family of five. A young girl with blonde pigtails was sitting in Sidney’s seat by the window and he politely allowed her to keep it, taking the one next to her in the middle of a row of three, squeezing in beside a large woman who was holding a brown paper bag full of apples. The woman shifted minimally to her left and the young girl responded to Sidney’s kindness by saying that she did not want to sit next to a stranger.

  ‘Don’t argue,’ her mother snapped, before apologising to Sidney.

  ‘That’s quite all right.’

  ‘You are American?’

  ‘No,’ Sidney replied. ‘I am English.’

  The ample woman offered Sidney one of her apples. ‘As long as you are not Russian,’ she whispered. A student sitting opposite looked up from his book.

  ‘Be careful, Grandma,’ he said.

  The train was heading out of the city of Berlin and the sun was still high in the sky. The two boys in the family were playing with Sandman toys, pretending they were in a spaceship exploring a world where there was no money.

  From the window Sidney could see a party of soldiers marching past the propaganda posters of Soviet workers holding up their tools, expressing their solidarity with their East German comrades.

  Auf D
ICH kommt es an!

  The posters hung from bombstruck buildings above watchful crowds who seemed frightened of drawing attention to themselves.

  Marsch der deutschen Jugend für den Frieden!

  The train eased its way south past Wilmersdorf and Zehlendorf and out towards Potsdam. Wrecked rolling stock lay abandoned by the sidings, rusted and with bullet holes. Farmers tended the fields and, in the distance, Sidney was reassured to see a few church towers standing in compact villages. As they approached Wittenberg, Sidney thought of Luther, apocryphally nailing his ninety-five theses on to the door of All Saints’ Church in an act of rebellion. Now they had undergone a different, enforced revolution, one that promised a proletarian heaven on earth. Looking out over the scarred landscape it didn’t look much like paradise.

  They were approaching the industrial heartland of the D/D/R and Sidney could smell the pollution from distant factories. The air had turned grey in the cool of the evening. The train ground through a series of points and chuntered on past the industrial complex of Bitterfeld before dividing at Holzweissig. The woman with the apples was sleeping with her mouth open. Sidney could not understand why she wore a coat. He couldn’t imagine Hildegard’s mother being similar. The girl with pigtails told her mother she was going to be sick.

  The train stopped. Outside a party of soldiers were banging on the windows and waving to their friends. The train guard walked quickly past Sidney’s carriage. He looked agitated. Outside Sidney could see a sign: Alle Fahrzeuge Halt!

  The sun was hard and low. Parched leaves hung from the branches of the trees. An open truck took labourers home from the fields. The driver sounded his horn, and the soldiers jeered. The compartment was unbearably hot, even with the window open.

  Sidney tried to read but could not concentrate. The little girl told her mother she needed the toilet. As he stood up to help her the carriage door slid open. It was Montague. He handed Sidney a sealed document. ‘Take this,’ he said, in English. ‘If anything happens, give it to the Master.’