But I couldn’t sleep. It was there again, that vague tugging at the sheet of memory, causing wrinkles to appear, all pointing to what had happened with Ilona. Had I grown a conscience overnight?
That was a disturbing thought. If it were true then I could give up the business of being an officer of the Stasi right now.
Let’s not overreact, Reim, I told myself. It’s just the bloody Shampanskoye.
I was awake the instant the door clicked open—it takes years of practice to be this good. By the time Captain Dupski appeared, I was standing and doing a good impression of looking alert.
Without a word, Dupski strode across the room and opened the window. Traffic noise and fumes seeped through the gap along with the cold air.
“As you were, Comrade Second Lieutenant,” he said.
“Comrade Captain!” I replied. But I couldn’t sit down because he was still standing there.
“You ready for tonight?”
I might be capable of jumping to attention from a state of deep slumber, but my brain was still catching up.
“Bowling.” The captain did something with his thin eyebrows, something very effective at showing disapproval. “You were at training last night? Ready for the match? We need a good showing against … against the HA II team,” he stammered, as if winning the bowling match meant a great deal to him.
I dropped my pencil and must have looked gormless because the captain moved his eyebrows around a bit more. Bowling? Was that what had been bothering me? I pushed the thought aside and concentrated on my superior. “Jawohl, Comrade Captain!”
“Relying on you, Comrade Second Lieutenant,” he said as he left the room, leaving the door ajar.
I didn’t get up to shut it, I sank into my seat. Bowling practice. Holger was at bowling practice last night.
“Where did he go to for practice?” I asked myself, half-aloud. Where had his team trained? Because my department had booked the alley for the whole evening.
19
Berlin Lichtenberg
We were all in civvies, having changed out of uniform before coming to the bowling alley. All that remained to do was to put our bowling shoes on and give each other encouraging slaps on the back. With jaunty words we began to march into the bowling alley. I hung back, and the team captain, First Lieutenant Willems, a fellow who obviously invested a large part of his pay packet in growing an already impressive beer belly, stood in the doorway, gesturing impatiently at me.
I followed the comrades in and watched the team from HA II/2 enter from the opposite door—Holger and Corporal Nagel, one of Bruno’s babysitters, among them. I pulled Willems back into the changing room.
“One of their team members—I have a professional interest …” I whispered.
Willems peered through the door at the other team. There was no need to explain what I meant, we were both from ZAIG/II, investigating disciplinary lapses was our work.
“We could tell them to retire the player?” he suggested.
“I’m not allowed to tell you which one it is.” I shook my head. “Besides, if I don’t take part then you could ask them to stand down one of their team members to keep the numbers even.”
Willems scratched his head and peered around the edge of the door frame, sizing up the competition. I was such a poor player that losing me from the team was no great loss, and if he could persuade the other team to play with just five men then we had better chances of going through to the next round. It wasn’t a hard decision.
“Go on then, but if we lose tonight then you’ll have some explaining to do in the morning—Comrade Captain Dupski is keen for a good result.”
He nodded towards the doorway, and I moved to one side to look into the bowling alley. In the shadows at the back, in full uniform, sat the lean figure of Dupski.
Half an hour later I was in a colourless bar near Boxhagener Platz in Friedrichshain. I had a table to myself and a beer in front of me—I’m a simple man, easily pleased.
I wasn’t interested in a bowling match, felt far more comfortable here in this anonymous bar. But was there more to it than that? I’d only reached my decision to skip the match when I saw Holger. I knew he’d be there, Ilona had told me he was on the Kegel team, and I knew it was his division we were playing, so it wasn’t hard to do the maths. But when he walked into the bowling alley, I’d also known I couldn’t face him.
I had to ask myself whether I was feeling guilty about cuckolding him the previous night but I chuckled about the idea of guilt, then my thoughts took me to Captain Dupski.
Whether or not the ZAIG/II team lost the match, I’d have my superior officer on my case tomorrow morning. He had ordered me to make up the numbers on the team and I hadn’t turned up. But if he kicked off, I could just tell him to ask Major Kühn for the reason why I couldn’t play against one or more members of the HA II/2 team. Cast iron alibi.
Unless Dupski was a very foolish man, the matter would end there. At least until the next match.
I lifted my glass and wished Lieutenant Hötschelt’s wrist a speedy recovery.
20
Berlin Lichtenberg
Dupski collared me in the corridor the next afternoon.
“Finished with those files yet, Comrade Reim?”
I informed him of my progress in laborious detail and smothering a smirk when his eyes began to lose focus.
“Yes, well. There are more files that need sorting in the secretariat, pick them up when you’re done with this lot,” he said over his shoulder as he headed towards the stairwell.
Mission accomplished. And he hadn’t even raised the matter of the bowling match.
Back in my office, I opened one of the files on my desk then went to stand by the window. I didn’t have much of a view—an inner courtyard with little foot-traffic. Somewhere in the building opposite was the big boss’s office. If Comrade General Mielke got bored of his work and went to stand by his window, he would see me staring back at him. The thought was enough to send me back to my desk.
I’d finished with the files, but wasn’t about to go and exchange them for some more. No, I’d sit here, drinking coffee from the Thermos flask and combing the Neues Deutschland for clues about what was actually going on in our half of the world. The front page told me it was Friday. Not just any Friday, but the day before Christmas Eve.
The calendar had been kind to us this year—Christmas Eve on a Saturday, first Christmas Day on Sunday. This time there would be no overt conflict between family and Firm, no choice to be made about whether to spend Christmas Eve feasting on roast goose and unwrapping presents with the children or pretending it was a normal day at Berlin Centre.
Of course, it meant we’d all have to be back at our desks on the second Christmas Day, Monday the 26th of December, but I’m sure even the least enthusiastic colleagues would be glad to escape the family festivities by then.
I had no such conflict to resolve. My wife had left me over a year ago, and despite having come back for a week or two in the autumn, she was out of my life again. For good this time. There was no-one nagging me about being at home during the festival, I had no-one at home, discouraging me from spending the whole weekend at the office, sending notes through the internal mail system to prove how diligently present and active I’d been while everyone else was drinking themselves senseless under the family Christmas tree.
I was still weighing up the idea of spending the festive period under my desk with a bottle of schnapps when Holger came for a visit.
“Should you be here?” I asked as he came through the door. I checked my watch, then got the bottle out of the drawer.
“Thought you’d finished with the case, passed it back to your Captain Kranich or whatever he’s called.”
“Kühn,” I replied absently, reaching for a glass that had slid to the back of the drawer. “But whether or not I’ve finished with the case, you promised to tell me about this lead you were following up?”
Holger didn’t answer immediat
ely, he’d sat down and was showing a lot of interest in the way I was measuring alcohol into the two glasses. We did the usual holding of the glasses in mid-air while fixing the other with our eyes. It was a silent toast this time.
“Dead end.” He finally responded to my question. “Didn’t come to anything.”
“But this whole Bruno thing, it is still bothering you?” I guessed. “Seriously, I don’t think you have anything to worry about—there’s nothing in any of my reports that could be used against you. Whatever the reason for Bruno’s arrest, we won’t find it by going over what happened that day.”
“Doesn’t it bother you? The idea that there may be a mole?” Bruno asked, toying with his glass. He was pretty much back to his old self. A bit slower, shoulders still hunched, but nothing like the depressed wreck he’d been the other week.
I topped up our glasses again, another silent toast.
“What evidence do we have that there’s a mole? Bruno said so, that’s it. Bruno who’s doing something about the RAF—not even remotely involved in anything to do with the GDR.”
“You’re right, I shouldn’t let it bother me, I should let things take their course.” Holger took another sip. “But there is one thing I can’t get my head round. Why did they arrest Bruno as soon he got home? If they had intelligence that he’d defected then it would have made more sense to watch and wait. Use him to channel misinformation in our direction, perhaps even turn him into a double agent. But arresting him immediately? That’s just amateur.”
“Perhaps they didn’t know he’d defected? Maybe he’s been arrested for something completely different—something he did before he even came to visit his relatives last month.”
“Precisely!” Holger tapped his empty glass on my desk. “It’s as good as proof that they don’t suspect Bruno of defecting.”
“Which means you can stop worrying about the idea of a mole,” I murmured, looking at my watch and wondering whether it was home time yet.
“Ah, Heym—I wanted to talk to you,” announced Major Kühn.
I reached the main door to the building just as he was coming in, flanked by lackeys in uniform and some kind of clerk in civvies.
“Not a fence-sitter are you? No room in my section for fence-sitters.” He told me, his entourage bunching up in the doorway, pretending not to listen.
“No, Comrade Major. Not known as a fence-sitter.”
“Well, your reports make you sound like a fence-sitter. Why haven’t you come down on one side or the other?”
The major’s criticism was undeserved, and I began to push back. “With respect, Comrade Major-”
“Never mind.” He was about to sweep on, but something made me intervene. Injured pride, probably.
“Comrade Major, permission to speak?”
Kühn paused, his brow wrinkled. I glared at his escort until they dropped back a pace or two.
“Just something that came to mind, Comrade Major, I couldn’t put it in an operational report. Merely conjecture, but I think it’s worth mentioning.”
The Major manoeuvred his bulky body round until he was facing me. His flunkeys took another step back, most of them were now standing in the sleet that was falling beyond the entry doors.
“Subject Bruno was arrested on his own doorstep. If the West Germans had operational awareness of the offer he made to us, well, they wouldn’t have arrested him on sight. If the situation were the other way round …” The major bristled at the very notion that one of ours could have defected. “We would have watched and waited until we found an advantage to exploit. To me, Source Bruno’s arrest casts doubt on the idea that someone in this building is engaging in political-operational diversionary tactics.”
“Are you suggesting there’s a possibility that the West Germans were tipped off by someone on our side?” Kühn’s brow lowered, making his eyes recede even further.
“Comrade Major, my intention was to disprove the theory-” I wasn’t allowed to finish. With a wave at his lackeys, Kühn continued down the corridor.
“Come and see me tomorrow at 1100 hours, Comrade Second Lieutenant Heym,” he said over his shoulder.
That was Christmas Eve sorted, then.
21
Berlin Lichtenberg
Christmas Eve at 1058 hours found me standing in the corridor, left wrist held up so I could see my watch, right hand poised to knock on Major Kühn’s office door.
1059 hours. I waited for the second hand to sweep down to the bottom of the dial, then knocked.
“Herein.”
I entered, and without looking at the officers around the table, reported my presence to the major.
“Sit down, Comrade Second Lieutenant, you’re early.”
Resisting the urge to take a pointed look at my watch, I slid into an empty chair and did a cautious sweep of the assembled personages. Sitting next to Kühn was another major, his fair hair slick with oil. He kept his body angled slightly away from his neighbour, as if he wasn’t comfortable in Kühn’s presence.
Between the major and myself was a captain. Limp moustache, dandruff on his shoulders, generally running to seed. On my other side was a first lieutenant, and of the three unknown officers, he was the youngest and keenest. His head bobbed along to whatever was being said, his eyes fixed on whoever happened to be speaking.
“I think we should keep the file open—at least pending the gathering of further operational intelligence,” the blond major was saying, taking care never to look directly at Kühn.
The first lieutenant to my right nodded enthusiastically and the captain’s eyes were lowered, as if he were checking the size of the bulge his belly made beneath his uniform tunic.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Comrade Major,” Kühn interrupted. “Comrade Second Lieutenant Heym said something interesting yesterday, I thought you might want to hear it. Comrade Heym?”
I stood up, wondering whether to introduce myself, and if so whether to use my own name or to go along with Kühn’s nominal delusion.
“Oh, sit down, man!” Kühn snapped.
So I sat down and repeated what I’d said to Kühn the evening before, that Bruno’s unexpected arrest, coming as it did immediately after his visit to relatives over here, indicated that it probably had nothing to do with his defection, but had been planned by the West German authorities before he went on leave.
The captain moved his lips a little, but no sound came. The new major was looking at his peer, his brow creased and one corner of his mouth hooked in a sneer. By my side, the first lieutenant hadn’t bothered nodding while I was speaking, he was studying me as if he’d only just noticed my presence. I returned the favour, and we both looked each other up and down, our faces expressionless.
“We’ve already discussed this possibility.” The blond major turned to Kühn, who was steadfastly admiring the dull view through his window. “It’s nothing more than a theory, we can’t shut down an operational process on the basis of a vague idea that’s not backed up by any evidence.”
Great, I thought to myself. Why did I open my big gob last night? Now I’m being used as ammunition in a battle between two majors. It wasn’t an unfamiliar experience, and I remained silent, waiting to see who would win this round.
“I’m not suggesting we close the files. On the contrary, I’m suggesting we maintain operational ability,” Major Kühn made his case, still staring out of the window.
The first lieutenant watched Kühn, but this time he didn’t nod along.
“I intend to send the comrade second lieutenant to interview PKE and customs staff at the border station, see what he can pick up,” Kühn said, his gaze settling on me. The other major and the first lieutenant also directed their attention towards me.
“Well, I’ll trust your judgement, Comrade Major Kühn,” said the blond major. “I believe we’ve finished here, unless there are any queries?”
We three junior officers stood up and simultaneously reassured the majors that we had no q
uestions.
“Comrade Heym, a moment if you will,” Kühn stopped me as I filed out.
I waited by the doorway, back straight, thumbs pressed to seams, ignoring the final exchange between the two majors.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” said the blond major as he left.
Kühn didn’t bother answering but pointedly looked the other way as the door was shut.
“So now you know how the land lies,” Kühn said as he gestured to the table.
I didn’t answer, but took my seat again, opposite Kühn.
“Comrade Major, permission to speak?”
The major nodded slowly, and I asked him who the other three officers were.
“You wanted to meet the interrogators, the ones who questioned Bruno.” He nodded towards the door. “Now you have. And you heard me tell them what I want you to do next: talk to the Pass and Control Unit at the border station. You may not find anything, but we won’t know until we try.”
I nodded politely, wondering whether that was my dismissal, but the major wasn’t quite done.
“When you’ve finished at Marienborn train station, come back to Berlin and talk to Rear Services. They’ll need a day or two to sort out the paperwork but I want you to go to West Germany as soon as your legend is in place.”
22
Berlin Lichtenberg
I didn’t go to Marienborn until after Christmas. Personally, it wouldn’t have been a problem for me to travel on the first or second Christmas Day, but a call to the head of the Pass and Control Unit told me that the shift I needed to speak to were on leave until the 27th of December.
As planned, I spent Christmas Eve and Day in my office. There wasn’t much to do, Berlin Centre was practically empty, so I put my feet up, watched the portable telly that I’d brought in and ignored the festive cheer that had descended on the capital. Whenever some bright idea occurred to me, I wrote a memo about it and sent it to various offices in the department, just so everyone would know I’d been working.
Berlin Centre Page 6
