The Berlin Assignment

by Adrian de Hoog

  It took place in an Indian restaurant on the second floor of Ottawa’s covered market. Inspiring smells of fresh vegetables and flawless beef sold in the stalls on the ground floor, mingled with exotic oriental fragrances coming from the restaurant’s kitchen higher up. Inside the Taj Mahal, tall-backed chairs stood in formal lines along the tables. The advertising postcards at the cash register, where after-dinner peppermints were available in a teak bowl, said each guest would be pampered like a Maharajah. But despite the postcard, the tall chairs were uncomfortable, as if in the mixing of Indian and Canadian cultures some key ingredients had gone missing.

  All twelve members of the Priory were present. Each one was a master in some policy area, or reigned supreme in some eccentric corner of knowledge. Expertise in the Priory ranged from the illicit trade in surplus eastern European tanks and MiG fighters, through to the secret places in the Middle East where chemical weapon drums are cached. Several were brilliant at procedural manipulations, so they wielded power. Routinely they would get whole groups of nations to accept their personal point of view.

  Heywood, presiding with trademark smugness, sat at one end of the table with the office girls, Diane and Sarah, one on each side. Hanbury was next to Sarah and the rest of the Priory was lined up, monastically, on the two sides. The conversation at first had the texture of a thick pea soup cooking slowly – a periodic breaking of the surface followed by a re-establishment of tension. Luckily Zella, the chief secretary, sitting near Hanbury, was the type who liked parties to be lively.

  Zella came from Yellowknife, starting out there as a waitress in a bar, though she knew she had it in her to aim higher. She saved up for an Edmonton secretarial college and from there found her way into the Service. This background gave Zella mental toughness. She combined it with boundless optimism and an ability to see good everywhere.

  Deciding it was time to get Hanbury’s good-bye party going, Zella made some spirited remarks about the wonderful decor of the Taj Mahal, the incense, the beauty of the carved chairs. It reminded her of a holiday she once had in Thailand. Then she turned to Tony. “I’ve never been to Berlin,” she said, “but I’ve always wanted to go. You know that feeling?” Zella had a singing voice with a hint of western nasal twang. Her smile was quick and wide and cast in solid gold.

  “I do,” Hanbury replied earnestly. From the day Zella joined the Priory, he admired her northern directness, her way of saying things simply and making people feel warm. In a burst of generosity he added, “Why don’t you stop by in Berlin on the way to your next assignment, Zella? Berlin is fabulous. We’ll paint the town red.”

  “Not a good expression to use for Berlin, Tony,” interjected Jerry Adamanski sombrely. He was sitting opposite. “Red is a political colour in Europe. They’re trying to get away from it. Using words like that you’re likely to be misinterpreted and cause yourself a bit of trouble.” Jerry Adamanski liked to challenge. Presented with an opening, he loved nothing better than to nail a colleague to the wall. His role in the Priory was to promote cooperation on ridding the world of the material remnants of wars, such as unexploded land mines. Before that he had a stint in The Crypt, a secret place with controlled access. He wrote a paper there on the political use of colour in recent European upheavals – East Berlin in ’53, Budapest ’56, Prague’s Spring ’68, the shipyard affair in Gdansk. He considered himself an authority. If pressed Jerry could go back further, claiming some familiarity with the role in history of Rosa Luxemburg, though he hesitated to go beyond saying that she had been a Red.

  Even though for years they had offices next door to each other, Adamanski and Hanbury seldom spoke, like monks in a real priory observing vows of silence. Hanbury couldn’t help but look inquiringly across the table, wondering why suddenly he was receiving so much unsolicited advice. “I think Berliners are up to their town being painted red,” he said peaceably. “What they don’t like is someone telling them what their taste is, especially if he’s never been there.”

  Adamanski stiffened. “And you have?” he said aggressively. “You think you know Berlin? You think you’re an instant expert after one session with the Zealots?” He had a big head with a hooked nose, straight hair falling down and a pock-marked face. Sometimes he looked like a snarling dog. After years of scarcely acknowledging one another’s presence, Hanbury and Adamanski were finally exchanging a few words, yet immediately it was threatening to get out of hand. Zella drew on her Yellowknife experience in the bars where she often prevented brawling miners from pulling knives on each other. She reacted quickly. “Back off, Jerry,” she ordered. “This is a family lunch. Keep your poison for the enemy.” The rebuke worked. Jerry turned to Madeleine MacQuaryEllington, an expert on controlling military exports who sat next to him. Madeleine had children the same age as Jerry and they began to compare the challenges of parenting.

  Hanbury had never been a match for aggressive young bulls like Adamanski. Even his delicate appearance – Zella once told him he looked artistic – undermined his role as deputy to Heywood. Whenever Heywood was away and Hanbury was in charge, he usually arrived at work with his stomach in a knot. Jerry Adamanski, but others too – Roger Chung, Deepak Ekbote and even the women like Madeleine MacQuary-Ellington or Louise Tetrault – they wouldn’t cooperate. Hanbury knew that in a sudden crisis, when alarms go off at the highest levels, his colleagues would abandon him. They simply wouldn’t pass him the needed information, hoping maybe to take his place should the high priest want a personal briefing. When an emergency struck the high priest demanded proof that within twenty, maybe thirty minutes it would be in hand. It left Heywood’s deputy at everyone’s mercy. He often looked ignorant, even indecisive. One time the decibel level went way up. Balls, Hanbury! Show the world we’ve got balls! Hanbury blamed Heywood for being shouted at. Upon leaving for an international junket, he never announced to the priory staff that in his absence his deputy would issue the orders.

  Duplicity from Heywood, humiliation dished out by the likes of Adamanski, five years of belittlement. All that remained, Hanbury thought, quietly steeling himself, was to survive this final lunch.

  The drinks were served and the curries ordered. Heywood struck an empty glass with a spoon. Rearranging a few long strands of hair from the back of his head across the front, and sending a meaningful look towards his deputy, he began. “Not often,” he intoned, “does the Service make a staffing decision that is, well…yes…benign. Today we are celebrating a remarkable development, one that’s opportune for everyone. We have a perfect match. Tony, our congratulations on Berlin. You’ve done well, you deserve it and you’ll do well.”

  For several members, trained to unearth the possible meanings of language in international treaties, Heywood’s words became instantly memorable as a brilliant example of Service doublespeak. Should the reference to celebrating be read as a backhanded reference to Hanbury’s imminent departure, something everyone was glad to see? Adamanski, the lines around his mouth tightening, looked about and met the eyes of Deepak Ekbote who promptly signalled he was reading it the same way. Ekbote had a masterful ability to sum up complicated thoughts in a single word. He once confided to Adamanski that he found Hanbury’s deputy stewardship spongy.

  Heywood looked towards the guest of honour for a sign that his words were appreciated, but his deputy sat trance-like, hands on the table, fingertips touching, eyes cast down. Heywood thought he must be reflecting on their wonderful years together and the nightmarish bureaucratic battles they fought. It was enough to turn him mushy. In florid detail he recalled the Priory’s accomplishments. There was the day they learned the Soviets had made adjustments to their Siberian radar systems, thus opening up the possibility of air strikes deep into the Yukon. Tony, he said, did the calculation of the longitudinal and latitudinal extent of the area under threat. The Canadian Ambassador in Moscow, Heywood remembered, drew on this analysis to make an informal protest. In fact, if the Cold War hadn’t ended, Heywood opined, one could safely s
ay the radar issue would have elevated into a documented violation of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty – SALT II.

  As Heywood droned on, his deputy made his own, silent evaluation of the five years in the Priory. Some things, he thought, he had handled well. The Soviet radar episode was a highlight. But more could have been accomplished. The problem had been Heywood, who on occasion had thrown good work out the window. The loftier the Priory’s client, the pettier Heywood became, as if wanting to prove that only he –The Priest – had the right touch for the papers needed by the highest levels. Take the Prime Minister’s trip to a summit in Vienna on a new European security pact. Hanbury developed an initiative, a proposal that Soviet SS 20 missiles be dismantled in return for an American slowdown of the development of the Stealth bomber. The idea was checked out with the ambassador to NATO, the PM’s security advisor, as well as a batch of generals sensitive to such issues. Everyone was eventually on side. But Heywood, fresh back from a conference in Helsinki, hit the roof. He said the proposal would be too ambitious for the Soviets who were keen to have ever more SS 20s, while a Stealth slowdown would hit the aerospace workers in San Diego. Don’t you know who the current senator for California is? he shouted in a rare moment of apoplexy. Do you suppose the American Senate will love this? Nearly beside himself, he ordered Hanbury off the file. Matters became confused. In the end, Hanbury’s idea was reinstated, because domestically there was nothing to lose and everything to gain. Fuck the Californians, was the way one of the PM’s advisors summed it up. And screw the U.S. Senate. Heywood did an about-face. He slaved for a week to reinvent the wheel. He also managed to attract all the accolades. Hanbury was startled when Heywood, back from the Vienna conference, said, “Sorry to have been brutal a couple of weeks back, Tony, but you weren’t explaining the idea clearly. Still, all’s well that ends well. No hard feelings.”

  As Hanbury contemplated this and other priory injustices, Heywood’s valediction took a different turn. “Tony grew up in Indian Head. A hundred years ago that was frontier country, so I wasn’t surprised to learn he can be a fighter. He brings to all his assignments – how many have there been over the twenty-five-odd years, Tony? – that expansiveness of mind and gritty determination that opened up the West. I’ve never been to Indian Head, but I’ve flown over prairie towns like it. That’s a big country you come from, Tony. The roads out there just go on and on, in straight lines to the horizon and beyond. All I can say is that such vastness, if it forms part of a personal outlook, is something to which we should all aspire.”

  The lines around Jerry Adamanski’s mouth became ever tighter. He’d heard Heywood sermonize like this before. A wonderful – a priestly – gift. Rhetoric so pure that truth falls by the wayside. He looked down the table to see how others were taking it, raising his eyebrows twice in quick succession at Louise Tetrault at the far end.

  “Tony stands poised to make a mark,” Heywood continued. “Consul in Berlin, a high appointment, his greatest career challenge.” Once more he addressed his deputy directly. “The grapevine whispers you speak German, one of your many unsung attributes. I’d like to say, Tony, that I am personally delighted that you’re progressing – if I may put it this way – from prairie elevators to the Brandenburg Gate.”

  Heywood, sensing restlessness growing around the table, ended quickly with a wish the assignment would go well. Glasses were raised in a toast. Zella, bridging the awkward moment that follows table speeches, asked Tony rapid-fire questions: about his departure date, would there be a visit to his family out West, did the works of art in the official residence in Berlin have historical importance, what kind of chauffeur-driven limousine would be at his command. Adamanski then injected fresh energy into the discussion. “Tell us about your briefings, Tony,” he sneered. “What did the Zealots tell you? What are you going to be doing out there on your own? Issuing passports and not much else?”

  As usual, Adamanski hit a nerve, but Hanbury scarcely needed to reply since the questions launched a spontaneous, table-wide discussion. Energetically, sometimes heatedly, the priory members debated the preparedness – that is, the lack of it – with which they were sent abroad. They relived the disasters they endured for lack of training on local sensitivities before arriving in strange places. When the lunch broke up, Hanbury was relieved the discussion took this turn, for he would have had no answer had Adamanski persisted with his questions. The new consul didn’t really know what he would be doing in Berlin.

  Hanbury did have a session with the European Zealots, but it shed no light on his new role. He had flipped through some of their files on Berlin, but there was little in them apart from some amusing accounts of the dismantling of the Wall. One of the notes described Berliners hacking away at the communist concrete to stock up on souvenirs. A humorist had slipped the term wallpeckers into one paragraph. This word had prompted a crude, graffiti-like sketch in the margin – a small bird with a long beak rounded at the end resembling a phallus.

  After surveying the files, Hanbury spent a few minutes with Hilda Chambers. She had become a Zealot two years before with responsibilities for Germany, immediately acquiring the nickname Krauthilda which she bore with humour. Krauthilda was small, her lips were painted fiery red, and she had oversized glasses sitting high on a pert little nose. Newspapers were piled up in her office, beside the telephone, on and under a small side table and in slanting columns on the floor. At her desk, surrounded by so much paper, Krauthilda radiated an image of being a no-nonsense woman.

  “There isn’t a great deal to be said, Mr. Hanbury,” she answered in reply to his question about priorities in Berlin. “Central Europe has changed, sure, but I doubt it’ll affect you. Listen, I’ve only got a couple of minutes. Is there anything you think you really ought to know?” Hanbury sat still, carved in stone. The thin Berlin file on his lap was a sorry excuse for troubling the busy Krauthilda. He took a moment to collect his thoughts. Krauthilda looked him over. “I saw somewhere you’re from Indian Head,” she said. “I was born in Moose Jaw.”

  “Moose Jaw? That’s just three hours up the road.”

  “My family left and came East when I was a baby. What did your father do? A farmer?”

  “A scientist.”

  “On the prairies?”

  “Soil scientist, at a research station in Indian Head.”

  “That’s freaky. Well, what do you want to know about Berlin?”

  Hanbury was still thinking. He recalled a magazine survey on Germany he’d read. He’d made some mental notes of the headlines and these came back “With Germany reunified” he said, “there could be a shortage of capital to put the East on its feet. Interest rates could go through the roof. Is that of concern? And what about Berlin and its new role as German capital? What are the long term geopolitical implications of that?”

  “That’s several questions all at once, Mr. Hanbury. I’ll answer them one by one. For interest rate developments, we use the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal. Anything they don’t get around to reporting on we get from the IMF. Don’t try to compete with that. As for Berlin, it may be Germany’s capital, but that’s on paper only. As far as I can see, it sits out there all by itself in the middle of a former Communist rustbelt. Frankly, who cares? Listen. It’s important for you to remember your consular territory is East Germany. That was a whole country until not too long ago and you’re there by yourself. So my advice is, don’t extend yourself. Keep lots of flex in case some Canuck gets into trouble and you need time to get him out of jail. I’m sure the local staff will brief you on what’s left. And don’t forget, if we don’t hear from you, the assumption is everything’s fine. My sense of upstairs is that that’s the way they want it. Our real interests with Germany are pursued elsewhere.” Krauthilda paused to view him through her great spectacles. “Okay? All set? Well, gotta go.” As she got up, Hanbury saw slim hips pushing out against a tight skirt which fell in straight lines to the ankles. Krauthilda grabbed a fierce briefcase –
out of proportion to her slender figure – and lugged it out. At the door she turned. “By the way, where did you acquire German? It was on the piece of paper I saw, but no mention of how you learned it.” Hanbury shrugged. “What’s the best place to learn a language?” he asked, also rising.

  This broke the ice. She laughed with unexpected earthiness. Her red mouth spread wide. “I get the picture, Mr. Hanbury. My taste runs towards Italian. Enjoy!” With trim hips swinging, and the huge case forcing her to walk lopsided, Krauthilda swept away.

  Hanbury watched her go and knew then who had drawn the obscene wallpecker hieroglyph on the Berlin file. Emboldened by the way she drew (and walked), he scribbled a note suggesting she drop by Berlin if ever she was in the neighbourhood. He signed it, playfully adding a replica of her bird, and placed it in the centre of the cluttered desk. Krauthilda’s conclusion about the place where Hanbury learned German was perceptive. Had she probed, she would have found that he lived in Berlin in the late sixties, attending the Goethe Institute for one year and going to lectures the next at the Free University. He would gladly have revealed other experiences: being temporarily arrested as a bystander at a student demonstration, and being shadowed by the Stasi during visits he made to East Berlin. Had someone asked about this when he joined the Service, he would willingly have written a long essay on his stay. But, like Krauthilda, the Service hadn’t inquired, and he hadn’t bothered to volunteer the information. That’s how these two years in his late youth – formative for him, but insignificant for his employer – were accounted for in his personnel file by two vague words: travelling overseas. His Berlin experiences had no paper trail which meant, officially, they did not exist.