by Alex Cugia
Dieter sighed heavily and looked out of the window, deep in his own thoughts. Thomas and Bettina glanced at each other but said nothing. A clock ticked in the background.
“Now preserving our beliefs and way of life will get even harder. Effectively Gorbachev has sold us to try to buy his way out of economic collapse. In another era he might have sold other smaller states, Kazakhstan to Iran, for instance. Or like Kruschev in February 1954 who simply handed over the Crimea to Ukraine, although that was of course to a sister republic, part of the USSR." He paused and again looked towards and out of the window.
"But those days are over. Nowadays modern states can’t be bought and sold against the will of their people. But, if you can change that then anything becomes possible.” He glanced at the door and spoke more quietly. “These are strange and difficult times. The judgement of our leaders has been flawed and they have lacked that necessary vision and foresight. They have missed the opportunity to show the people the benefits of a more open society but one still governed by important socialist principles of fairness and freedom. Now the people see freedom as purely a Western philosophy and associate that with German unification and so under that banner we are to be sold off. In return Russia will receive considerable economic support.”
“But what happened yesterday was clearly spontaneous.” Thomas said, seeking to provoke Dieter. “I doubt the Russians were directly involved.”
“They didn’t need to be. All they needed to do was to order our politicians not to shoot if someone tried to cross the border. The rest would take care of itself. Revolutions are hardly ever spontaneous, Thomas. There’s always someone hidden in the shadows with a match. There’s always plenty of brushwood ready to burn.”
He reflected for an instant. “This is only the beginning. General Secretary Krenz thinks he has the situation under control but he too will disappear, like Honecker before him. Revolutions, once they really get going, become almost impossible to stop. It takes a lot of dead bodies to halt the wheels of a runaway train.”
Dieter looked through some papers on his desk and again there was silence for some minutes.
“The agreement made between the Soviet Union and West Germany is money in return for unification. Perhaps you will say, Thomas, that I should be glad that the two parts of Germany will become one country again. But to say that is to forget our history, to forget that the German state, at least as many now consider it, did not exist before 1871 and indeed that after 1945 large areas of what earlier would have been part of that German territory were lost. To seek to unite two sovereign countries which have existed apart almost two thirds as long as they were ever together is misplaced romanticism. Worse, it is a betrayal of our socialist ideals. We have made mistakes, perhaps, and our leaders have been wanting, perhaps letting power corrupt them and not trusting the people sufficiently. But this last betrayal will bring misery to our citizens as consumerism takes hold. We’re going to disappear in ignominy. It will be an annexation, not a unification. Nothing of our system will survive. We will vanish like a joke of history.” He sighed heavily.
There were several minutes of silence. Dieter again left his desk and stood staring out of the window, leaning heavily with both sets of knuckles on the sill. Bettina was looking at him, her hands gripping the frame of the chair, her knuckles white. She looked away, caught Thomas’s eye, bent her head and suddenly drew her thumb and fingers together over her eyes, cupped her hand on her mouth and refused to look at him. He noticed that her shoulders were trembling.
“But I didn’t call you here to discuss politics.” Dieter said, turning abruptly towards them and once more sitting down. “Let’s understand what this means. Yesterday, late afternoon, a group tried to storm and occupy our headquarters. They were pushed back, though with some difficulty since the guards were ordered not to shoot. I am certain there will be more such attacks in the future. That incident caused a panic, however, and even some people I’d held in esteem lost control and went running around like frightened sheep. They began to burn and destroy files. I was insistent they stop but even with the support of my superiors it took a couple of hours to calm things down.”
He looked from one to the other. “I can understand that maybe some of the younger people here may try to recycle themselves and blend into whatever new system will emerge. I can even understand leaders who have made mistakes trying to protect themselves. But it is morally wrong for the leaders to wash their hands of their own doings. Even Hitler stayed in a bunker in Berlin and killed himself only at the very end, only when it was obvious that nothing more could be done. He was crazy perhaps but at least he was consistent and at least he took responsibility for what he’d been trying to do, however misguided.”
“I have connived in actions which I now regret.” he went on “Some of these actions had the effect of causing harm to certain citizens without even the proper justification of serving the greater good. Of course the needs of the state must take priority but perhaps we should not necessarily be as rigid about this ... ” He looked at the ceiling for a moment or two. “As I’ve got older I’ve learned that sometimes one may even need to question what one has been taught. Nevertheless I take full responsibility for my actions, even if some of them are ones I now believe to be mistaken. It’s the only honourable thing to do. And I shall remain at my post until I’m removed by official order. What’s more” and here he smiled thinly and looked hard at each in turn “I expect each of you to do exactly the same until I formally release you from your duty and from your obligations to me and to the Firm.”
Bettina looked at Thomas and as she did he felt his heart sink. Dieter had indicated that it was just a matter of time until the Stasi disappeared and yet he wanted everything to remain the same. Surely with the dramatic changes taking place he had no need of what Thomas could bring him? And how could he talk of honour and responsibility when he was forcing Thomas to continue to spy for what was still an enemy state? But with the hold Dieter had over him, and over Bettina too for all he knew, they would be forced to stay in active service until the West German agents entered the building and found their files. They were doomed. They would be tried in the West and jailed as spies. Dieter was crazy.
“Now, I require that you both remain at my disposal until the service is disbanded. This doesn’t mean that I want to ruin your lives.” he said, as if reading Thomas’s mind. “You’re young, and both of you deserve better. All my files are to be moved to this office from the HQ and yesterday, during all that chaos, I erased your files and all references to you from the central computer system. Your written records will stay here, under lock and key in my personal safe or in some other secure location and so available to me alone. They will not be handed over to anyone from the BND, you have my word on that. I will destroy them personally before I leave the Service.”
He walked to the window and stood watching the sun disappear behind grey clouds. He turned to them. “There’s very little time to lose and I now need to rely on you two more heavily than I’ve done in the past. I trust Hanno enough, but no one else within the Firm needs to know of your existence. You’re no longer in the Stasi’s computer files, only in the ones in my safe keeping, and apart from your own safety you can be a lot more useful to me this way. But never forget that you have nowhere to run and if you do not continue to follow my instructions, Thomas, I shall send your file to the BND. However, the game is about to become much rougher. From now on, consider yourself an agent, not an informant.”
He pulled out a small black box from inside the desk and handed it to Thomas. “You’re going to need to learn how to use this. Bettina will show you. She’s one of the best sharpshooters in our section.”
Inside the box was a Walther P38. The serial number had been erased, Thomas noted. His throat suddenly went dry and he shut the box hurriedly as if to forget what he’d just seen.
Dieter looked at Bettina. “I have decided to discontinue Project Cargo. I’ve got bigger things for
you to look after. But you and I will discuss them separately, later. They relate to internal matters. Come to this office tomorrow at noon.”
He again turned to look out of the window and he spoke in a more sombre tone, not looking at either. “A final word. From what I saw yesterday, it’s only a matter of time before everything will start to crumble. Not just the Stasi, but the whole country. Anyone with any authority will either follow what I believe is the only honourable approach or will try to cover his tracks and so evade responsibility. Some, however, will seek to take advantage of the chaos, perhaps to reinvent themselves and rewrite the past in ways more favourable to them, some no doubt to enrich themselves. More and more it will be every man for himself. From now on, you must be very wary of what you say and of whom you confide in, even within the organisation itself …” He lost himself in thought for a long moment, then sighed. “ ... even within the organisation,” he repeated slowly, as if he were now entirely alone “ ... even here.”
Chapter 19
Saturday January 13 1990
JOHN looked up from the desk as a key scraped in the lock. There was a scrabbling outside, the apartment door swung open, and Thomas stumbled into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. He rapidly lowered something bulky and heavy in his arms towards the floor, losing his grip and letting it fall the last few centimetres with a heavy thud.
He stretched his arms, pulling at each wrist as if his joints had seized up, and took several deep breaths, leaning against the door.
John stared at the massive, ancient TEAC 4-track tape recorder on the floor, its two large tape reels like owl’s eyes staring him down. “What in God’s name is that? Why? Are we going into the disco business or something? Do we have to feed it? And just where do you plan to keep it?”
Thomas laughed. “Don’t worry. We don’t have space here. I’m going to use Kai’s apartment for a bit. It can go there.”
“What, in East Berlin? Why there? Are you planning to move?”
“Listen. It makes sense. We need to concentrate on our theses and that’s hard if we’re both always around in this tiny space."
"True enough." John nodded.
"I’ve got Kai’s keys, remember, and when I was over there a bit ago I found this note chasing him for rent. I guess they don't realise he's escaped and that's when it struck it me how useful the flat could be. The rent's not much so I stuck it in an envelope and pushed it under the door of the caretaker’s flat. There’s a man looks after things while the old woman’s in hospital, picks up letters and stuff, does a bit of cleaning. He doesn’t know much about what’s going on though. The flat’s empty, no phone, no distractions, perfect for working in. You work here. I’ll work there.”
“Fine by me, just so long as you don’t expect me to meet all this rent.”
“Don’t worry, John, I’ll pay my share. Just so long as I can sleep here every so often. Could we use your car, maybe shift my stuff over just now?”
By mid-afternoon Thomas was installed in Kai’s apartment and ready to assemble the equipment he’d brought over. The building seemed deserted and he was certain no one had seen him or John carrying stuff upstairs.
He’d wanted to inspect the tunnel, both to get an idea of what Kai had been up to and also to satisfy his curiosity about the phantom station. But time was getting short and so he’d merely run down to the basement to check if there was any evidence of investigation. As far as he could see no one had visited the basement room – everything there looked in a state of chaos, unchanged from how Kai and the others had said they'd left thing when they fled.
Back upstairs Thomas worked out what he needed to do, making notes on a scrap of old paper. As he worked he thought about Bettina and the effects the political changes were having on her. He could see that she was uneasy, unsure about the future and sometimes almost out of her depth, it seemed. At the shooting range the day before she'd told him Dieter wanted to see them both that afternoon at four in his private office.
He soldered a couple of wires to the antenna of a radio receiver he’d recently bought and then ran them carefully outside the main window, first using the sill to shield them from view and then running them neatly up the side of the window to as high as he could reach. He stepped back on the tiny balcony and looked at his work, reassured that his additions didn’t look in the least out of place among the jumble of other wires and pipes which festooned that side of the building. He was confident no one would notice them from the courtyard or from the apartments opposite.
It was now just after three thirty and he thought again of what Bettina had been able to tell him, really very little beyond Dieter's own uneasiness and uncertainty about developments and that he wanted to talk urgently with them both. He'd sensed that she had a premonition of growing danger and this worried him both on account of the uncertainty and because of the effect it was having on her.
Ten minutes later he’d tidied up, hurried downstairs, walked round the corner into Alexanderstrasse and entered the unmarked building housing Dieter’s private office. He felt nervous as he entered and, glancing at his watch, saw that he was gong to be slightly late. Handing his Walther P38 to the guard at the entrance he hurried up the stairs and along the corridors, thinking that there were many fewer people wandering around than usual. The walls were patchy, darker rectangles showing up on the drab paint and showing that pictures of many prominent party members had been removed.
Bettina was already in the office and looked relieved to see him. She was wearing a light brown linen shirt, open at the neck, and a dark green sweater which toned with her simple shoes and trousers. Its colour brought back to him the sight of her that morning in November after the fall of the Wall, still slightly sleepy, her blonde hair tousled, half smiling to herself as she gazed at the breakfast he had made for her.
He’d felt very close to her both then and the evening before but after the phone call things had again changed and barriers had once more gone up. Time and again Bettina and he would move closer to a point where he felt she was within reach and at that precise moment there would be an unexpected coldness, leaving him wondering what had gone wrong. It was frustrating and upsetting but he consoled himself with thinking that perhaps she recognised where her feelings were leading her, how strong they were becoming, but for the moment didn’t dare to act on them.
“Whenever you’re ready to join us, Mr Wundart … ” Dieter’s deep voice, with a hint of mockery, interrupted his daydream. Embarrassed, Thomas sat down quickly in a chair beside Bettina. She looked at him and smiled.
“I’ll get straight to the point. Things are moving much faster than I anticipated. First they changed our name to the Office of National Security. Now, apparently to appease the public, we’ve been officially disbanded as a separate unit as of today. However, much as the politicians might like us to vanish from the face of the earth, it’s not that easy to dismantle an atomic weapon. And that’s what we are. Some pieces are just too hard to break. Our division has been moved to form part of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. They are dismembering the network of informers although I know that for many months now people have already been leaving steadily, rightly confident that they can get away with doing that. However, old habits linger and I’m hearing that a lot of the people being laid off are regrouping on a private basis and setting up their own intelligence networks. That’s highly dangerous to the state for all sorts of reasons. Highly dangerous.”
“So it’s official? We no longer exist as we were?” Bettina asked.
“It was announced half an hour ago. Thirteenth January will go down as the day the biggest mistake in East German history was made. Let’s get rid of the controllers just before the state implodes and a huge wave of crimes begins. But nobody will study our history any more, so it doesn’t matter. Anyway, it’s not my problem and it’s the West who’ll foot the bill.”
“What do you mean by that?” Thomas asked.
“Elections will bring a landslide vi
ctory for Western parties, for the CDU particularly, and annexation will follow. The SED is in a shambles. There is no date set for uunification, but it's likely to happen quickly. What that means for you, Thomas, as I promised, is that you’ll be free to forget us in a short while.”
Thomas was surprised about his mixed feelings. There was relief that soon everything would be forgotten and he could get on with his life. But there was something else as well, something which pushed in the opposite direction. Over the past two months he’d changed. He enjoyed the daily shooting practice with Bettina, basked in her compliments as he’d steadily improved over the week. He felt that he'd moved beyond just being a student. It was as if familiarity with the pistol had changed him further, made him more responsible, more mature. He was even prepared now to put his own life at risk if necessary, even welcomed the idea. He'd seen how others like Kai had risked their lives for something important to them. He’d taken the easy way out. He'd become a collaborator. He needed redemption if he was going to be able to look at himself in a mirror with pride, he thought to himself.
