The Contract

by Gerald Seymour

  'My father has not been told, he does not know?'

  'No.'

  'And the authorities in the DDR have not given permission for him to leave?'

  'No.'

  Willi threw the hoe down onto the ground, slapped his hands together to shake off the earth. He spoke very quietly.

  'You take a great risk.'

  'We have worked very hard at the plan, Willi.'

  'The risk that you take is not with yourselves, it is with my father and my sister. You endanger them.'

  Carter gazed into the small and now frightened face of the boy. 'We think that we have minimised the risk to them. Everything has been thought of, most carefully.'

  'Johnny is the man who is going to see my father in Magdeburg?'

  'Johnny will talk to him.'

  'What will he say to him? How will he persuade him to make the journey?'

  Carter sighed and his composure was diminished. It was not the path the conversation should have followed. There should not have been the gun rattle of questions, only gratitude and wonderment was wanted from the boy.

  ' I don't know the details, Willi,' Carter said. Evasive and with his confidence derailed. 'That's Johnny's side and Mawby's. But without you, Willi, the chance slackens. I'm very serious . . .'

  'Without me the attempt will fail, or without me my father will not be persuaded to make the journey. Which, Mr Carter?'

  Little bugger, clever question. Carter could have slapped him. He held himself, dragged at the reins of self-restraint. 'If you ever want to see your father again you do exactly what we tell you during the next week.

  Everything, to the word, to the letter, without question. Understand this, Willi, we'll try to bring him out anyway, we'll make that attempt. If you obstruct us then we may fail, if you help us then we have a better chance.

  It's very simple, Willi.'

  'Why do you want my father? He is an old man. Why do you ask him to do this?' Like a cat with a field mouse, the boy would not release the meat from his mouth. 'You threaten him, why? You endanger him, why?'

  'You're his son, I should have thought you'd be grateful for what we're doing.'

  'I'm not a fool, Mr Carter,' the boy's voice was rising. Behind him George had eased up from the bench, folded a newspaper and placed a stone over it to save the pages from the wind, and was coming across the lawn. 'I'm not an idiot. You do not do this for charity, you do not do it for me. Perhaps even for him you do not do it. Why can you not leave him to live in peace for his last years ?'

  'Then you'll never see him again.'

  'You make a bait of me, you make me as a tethered goat. I am the bribe that you offer him . ..'

  'You said that he loved you.'

  'I said that he loved me. I answered your question, I did not know why you asked . . .'

  Carter gripped at Willi's arm, trying to turn him, trying to succour him.

  Earnest and encouraging. 'We've been thorough, Willi, as thorough as possible. There's no danger to your father. He's going to be safe, and he's going to be with you.'

  The boy shrugged the hand away, was at his full height and the colour glowed in his cheeks.

  'Who gives you this right to tempt and taunt an old man with the love of his son? What authority do you have to chance the wrecking of my father's life?'

  'Without your help we may fail. . .'

  'You're evil, all of you. You and Johnny and . . . the man who comes and you all crawl to.'

  'With your help we may succeed.',

  The tears ran fast now on the face of the boy. 'You play a game with the love of an old man.'

  'It won't be like that, lad.' Carter hated tears, was always terrified when his wife wept and he was useless and clumsy and unable to comfort. He tried to put his arm on Willi's shoulder and was pushed away. 'It won't be like that, I promise you, Willi.'

  Deftly Carter waved George back. He bent down and lifted the handle of the hoe and passed it again to the boy. Then with his fork he started to dig at the earth that he had trampled flat and beside him he heard the scraping of the hoe and the thud of clotted weeds hitting the walls of the wheelbarrow.

  It was a gloomy pilgrimage for the Prime Minister.

  The West of Scotland was traditional misery for the politician in office. More of a disaster than a development area. The crowds that had come to see him heckled, the press that had questioned him carped at his answers, the managements that he had met dropped their heads and spoke of bleak forecasts for the future. And damn near a whole week to be spent there. He had walked through shipyards, through shopping centres, through engineering works and with each day he had believed less and less in the buoyant words of his speechwriters.

  There were three cars and two police motorcycle outriders in the convoy that drove at speed for the new housing development at Cumbernauld.

  His speech in reply to the Mayor's welcome rested typed in his jacket pocket. The red boxes of government papers were in the car behind him that carried the Downing Street team of civil servants. He could sit back in his seat, spaced from his PPS by the arm rest and talk without constraint, confident that at least here he was saved from badgering dispute.

  'It's the shame of being away for so many days, the diary is clogged solid when we're back in London,' the Prime Minister murmured. 'Is the weekend clear?'

  'Not so as you'd notice, sir. We're hoping to get you off to Chequers after lunch on Friday . . .'

  'Thank God for that. It's the closest thing to heaven in this job, going down there, the only thing about it that Dorothy likes.'

  'It won't be all fun time. You've a constituency garden party speech on Saturday afternoon, and you've the East German Trade Minister as your dinner guest in the evening.'

  'Riveting entertainment that will be.'

  'Sunday's clear .. .'

  'Small mercy after Saturday night.'

  The PPS scrutinised the large desk diary that he regarded as perhaps his most important possession of work. 'Small mercy as you say, and it's heavy too before you can run to the country, sir. There's Cabinet, Overseas Policy and Defence, Questions in the House, and the Censure debate, that's Thursday . . . And one more cross I haven't fitted in yet.

  The Member for Guildford, Spottiswoode, he wants to see you.'

  'What about?' the Prime Minister drawled, he was close to sleep.

  'Wouldn't tell a lowly minion. But I'm to have my back- side kicked if it's not attended to, that's a promise.'

  'He's a poisonous old bastard, like every other passed over politician.

  A buffoon who has to be tolerated because he gets a damned great cheer at Party Conference each autumn. Fit him in at the House on Thursday evening, I'll

  see him in my room while the debate's on.' 'Good of you to have come in, Charles, you must be up to your neck.'

  'A touch frantic, sir. The lad goes over tomorrow night. . .'

  ' I remember the feeling. A long time back, but I don't suppose things have changed much.' Late evening, and Charles Mawby had been called to the Deputy-Under-Secre- tary's office high in Century House, and had been sat down with a glass of amontillado sherry. 'Always a little fraught in the last few hours.'

  'We've worked pretty hard at it, it's been a good team effort, and I'm very happy with the freelancer

  'From what you tell me you chose well, doesn't sound the sort of chappie who'll let you down.'

  'He's level headed enough, I've a deal of confidence in him.'

  Mawby talked of the specifics of DIPPER and this was an armchair session, a conversation without pen and paper. There were few questions to interrupt him. It was perhaps the highest enjoyment known to the Deputy-Under-Secre- tary, to bask in the commitment of his subordinates, to hear of their skills and preparation. He heard again of Johnny and the progress of the last days at Holmbury. He listened to the resume of the plan for the autobahn pick-up. He was told of the documentation that had been printed to bring Otto Guttmann and his daughter through the Marienborn check. He
nodded in approval as the need for the forger in the car was explained. His face tickled in amusement at Mawby's scathing word portrait of Hermann Lentzer.

  'It's first class, Charles.'

  'We're all of us pretty happy with it.'

  'And you've every right to be. You seem to have been up all the cul-de-sacs, given them the once over, and fenced them off. We don't deserve to have this go wrong on us.'

  Mawby hesitated. Easy here in the safety and cosiness of the Deputy-Under-Secretary's office, simple to be confident and assured.

  And he hadn't stressed the vagaries of 'local conditions'. He had not highlighted the shadow areas of uncertainty.

  'It can't be watertight, sir. There has to be an area of the imponderable..

  .'

  'Of course, Charles ... I understand, I've done it myself. I stood once at Helmstedt waiting for a car to come through. Hideous experience, in '49

  or '50, damned cold and middle of winter. Three days I was there, and the car never came. Seemed important at the time.'

  ' I think we're fine with this one.'

  ' I'm sure you are, and when you've a few more under your belt you'll wonder why you ever worried.'

  'The concept is straightforward. That's been the planning strategy from the start. No frills and no histrionics. I'm relying a lot on that.'

  ' I don't think you do yourself justice, Charles. You'll ring me when you have the old man over . . .'

  'You'll know immediately.'

  The pleasant smile slipped from the Deputy-Under- Secretary's face, exchanged for a keenness that beckoned attention from Mawby. 'There can't be a slip, not with this one. Downing Street have a senior East German minister in tow when you're tripping down the autobahn. I don't want any embarrassments, no messes on the floor. You're with me . . .

  ? '

  'At Downing Street, do we have approval or ignorance?' Mawby asked, the junior man intruding into the uplands of policy, the nervous question.

  'Just ring me when you're all wrapped up, Charles, I'll be waiting for the call.'

  From his room in the Prime Minister's Glasgow hotel, the PPS

  telephoned the House of Commons office of Sir Charles Spottiswoode.

  'Good evening, Sir Charles, I've spoken to the Prime Minister about your request for a meeting. He's a very heavy schedule when he gets back to London, but he'll see you on

  Thursday in his room at the House. He wants to hear the start of the debate, and then he'll have to make the revisions for his own speech, so I've written you in for 6.30 ... It's been nothing, Sir Charles, the PM is always anxious to be available to the back benches . . . It's kind of you to say that . .. Good night. . .'

  Pompous old beggar. Sweetness and light when he'd won his petty victory. He dived for the shower, and his dress suit was laid out on the bed and he was late for dinner and the Prime Minister hated tardiness.

  It was close to midnight when the transport dropped Ulf Becker at Company in Weferlingen.

  His last duty of service with the unit on the frontier and they had seemed none too happy to let him go from Walbeck. The epidemic of measles was spreading and the two sections were staying on in their reinforcement role. At least he was spared Heini Schalke's company on the road back, just himself and a morose Feldwebel who drove the Trabant jeep in silence. It had to be a senior NCO to justify the paperwork required to set aside the strictures of the ten o'clock curfew inside the Restricted Zone. There had been a few goodbyes at Walbeck, some of the seconded Weferlingen boys had wished him well and spoken without enthusiasm of a reunion; Schalke hadn't joined them, had stayed with his book.

  They had taken their last pint of blood from soldier Ulf Becker, had him out all day from dawn with sandwiches for lunch and soup from a flask in the early evening. Not that he cared. Not that hunger and tiredness would worry the boy, and the damp from the rain that had caught them without their capes. Ulf Becker had tramped and driven for more than ten hours behind the Hinterland fence, he had patrolled both sides of the Schwanefeld to Eschenrode road, with his eyes wide and his hopes soaring. A good briefing they had given him . . . trip wires on this track, acoustic alarms on that path, dogs running on fixed wires on this sector, the road block round that curve and hidden by that bank ... a good, sweet, kind and conscientious officer had been with them and had been at pains to make certain that the new boys from Weferlingen knew the scene at Walbeck in the most minute detail.

  The Feldwebel set him down at the gates of the barracks, didn't acknowledge his thanks and sped away into the night. He'd have a woman or a beer waiting for him, otherwise there would have been no lift. Becker went in search of an officer to report his return and then roved through the kitchens that were darkened and cold; nothing to eat.

  He went into the communal room. There was another boy there, a lonely one that he barely knew beyond that he was short of friends and likely to pester anyone within his range for company and gossip. Becker slumped into a chair. Too excited for bed, too exhilarated for sleep. His mind was alive with the memories of woodland tracks, alert with the width of the cleared ground straddling the Hinterland fence, brimming with the fall and rise of the land, the density of the woodland.

  'Hello.'

  'Hello,' said Becker. He must have smiled, his face must have thrown some warmth.

  'I'm on leave tomorrow.'

  'Wonderful.'

  'I'm going home, the first time that I've been home since I've been here.'

  'Good.'

  'Back to Berlin, that's where my home is.'

  'That's good.'

  'Don't misunderstand me . . . it's not that I'm not enjoying the work here. I mean, it's a privilege to be posted to the Border Guard . . . it's an elite force, it's an honour to be entrusted with such work ... I don't complain about it, we're in the force to work, but I think that I've earned my leave.'

  That's right lad, trust nobody, not in this pit of snakes.

  Perhaps you hate it, perhaps you cry yourself to sleep each night, perhaps the homesickness chokes you. But don't tell. Trust no bastard . .

  . Make out it's a holiday camp.

  'You are going to Berlin tomorrow?'

  'My home is in Berlin. My father is a building worker. He is an old Berliner, from the Tiergarten district. I will have a fine welcome when I get home, they will all want to know of the work that I am doing . . .'

  'How long are you going for?'

  ' I have three days there. There will be a party at home. It is only a 72

  hour pass and then I am back here. I am looking forward to being here for the summer.'

  'Would you take a letter for me?' There was a hoarseness in Becker's voice.

  The boy recognised the change, was cautioned by it. 'A letter?'

  Becker raced his explanation. 'It's Monday, right? I'm going to Berlin on Friday. I have a girl in Berlin. I want her to know that I am coming back for the weekend. You know how it is, you know,- don't you?'

  'You want me to deliver a letter tomorrow to your girl?'

  'She lives on Karl-Marx Allee. Near to the cinema and the Moskva Restaurant. If you are taking the train from Schone- weide you must go through Alexander Platz, it's 5 minutes' walk from there.'

  ' I suppose that I could

  'I'd really be most grateful.' As if Ulf Becker's gratitude mattered. Gone in the morning for Seggerde and demobilisation. On the way out of Weferlingen and uniform. The gratitude would never be recompensed, and the idiot hadn't the brain to see it.

  ' I will do that for you.'

  ' Give me 5 minutes to write something.'

  He loped down the corridor to the Operations Room, was given two sheets of scrap paper and an envelope, came back to the communal room and settled at a table.

  'Just give me a few minutes, right?'

  'Fine,' the boy said. He would tell his father that he had many friends in the company.

  Ulf Becker wrote fast in his spider crawl. 'Darling Jutte,

  I have found someone who mil
l deliver this. I am coming to Berlin on Friday night or early on Saturday morning.

  You must make some excuse to be away on Saturday night, perhaps an FDJ camp. You must bring waterproof clothing and something warm. Buy two rail tickets - returns - for Suplingen which is a camping place west of Haldensleben.

  We should meet on Saturday morning at 10. 30 in front of the Stadt Berlin, Alexander Platz.

  I have found that place.

  I love you, Ulf.

  Weferlingen Monday June 9th.' He folded the two sheets of paper, put them into the envelope, licked that and stuck it tight, and wrote on it the address to which it should be delivered. 'I'm really very grateful to you.' 'It's nothing.'

  Of course it was nothing .. . because if this bastard were at Walbeck next week and Ulf Becker and his girl were in the rifle sights then he would shoot. He would shoot, and there would be no crying over it, not from him and not from any of them in the company.

  Would he have written that letter in the morning? After he had slept, when the light had come again, when he'd queued for breakfast, when he had made his bed, when the barracks throbbed in activity, would he have written it then? But it was written and it was in the boy's blouse pocket, and Jutte would have it when she came home in the afternoon of the next day.

  'Good night,' said Ulf and walked from the room to his bed.

  Over the years it had become the habit for Carter to buy a gift for presentation to Mrs Ferguson on the last morning of the occupancy of the house. Sometimes some flowers, sometimes a piece of imitation jewellery, sometimes a box of dark chocolates.

  That would be his final duty before leaving for Heathrow and his flight to Hannover, and George and Willi would go from neighbouring Northolt by regular Air Force transport to West Berlin. He had checked the house to ensure that the traces of DIPPER had been stripped, and the maps were down from the walls, the photographs removed, the bags packed, the mood sombre. They would leave a barren, sterile house.

  In the kitchen Carter gave Mrs Ferguson a packet of embroidered handkerchiefs, and she thanked him reservedly as if mistrusting her ability to hide her feelings.