Gifford remained immobile, wondering about his first impression. Had yet another master of inaction from overseas been dropped into his lap? He believed the agreed script for the sit-down was that announcements would be made about change and modernization. He tossed the ball right back. “We had hoped,Herr Konsul,” he said, coldly pleasant, “since you have come from headquarters, that you might bring us answers, not questions.” There was a soft rustling as the ladies shifted in their seats and crossed and re-crossed their legs. Sturm rose from his thinker’s slouch.
The words bit. The damp spread from the inside of the consul’s shirt into his jacket. He looked at Gifford who, with a rodent’s ruthlessness, stared back. Hanbury felt transported back to the Priory days when Heywood was travelling, when the high priest called wanting immediate answers to complicated questions. His mind had raced then too, searching for a credible reply, a workable point of departure. In this defining moment he needed one fast. He blamed Krauthilda for not having given him a decent briefing, for not even having hinted at some useful questions. Yet, courtesy of Krauthilda, relief arrived. She was growing on a side track in Hanbury’s mind, developing, transforming – going from nemesis to saviour. With a survivor’s ingenuity he decided to repeat what she had said to him, except he’d turn the tables. Turn her negatives into positives, he thought. Krauthilda, bent through a hundred and eighty degrees, began giving him substance. Looking Gifford in the eye, the consul charged.
“You should know Berlin has a very high priority in headquarters,” he said. “A political redefinition is taking place in Europe at this moment and we – you, I, all of us here – we are expected to make sense of it. Germany is reunified, but at what cost? Spiritual and financial deficits are setting in. What are the social and security ramifications? What is the geo-political significance? I know this office isn’t large, but much depends on our analysis of the issues.” The consul looked around at awed faces. “Geo-politics,” he repeated. “In Berlin, one feels it. It’s in the air. The challenge for us is to think the new Germany through.”
On the outside the consul remained flat, unemotional, but inside his self-doubt was ebbing. He was edging close to believing what he had just said. The dynamics of the family sit-down were changed too. Meat had been put on the table and Sturm sunk his teeth in first.
“That’s different from what we’re used to doing,Herr Konsul,” he said bluntly. “Thinking Germany through? Where do you want us to start?”
“The world is changing,” Hanbury soothed. “We must move with the times. We have to acquire new skills.”
“With all respect, Herr Konsul,” Sturm continued, “that sounds woolly to me. I change the light bulbs, open the mail and stick stamps on letters for the post office. And I know my way around Berlin, even if the street names in the East keep changing. Then take Frau Koehler. She answers the telephone and monitors the papers. Frau von Ruppin does the passports and Frau Carstens is responsible for scheduling appointments. We provide a service. We’ve been doing it for a dozen years and no one’s complained. Why not keep it up? Let others worry about Germany’s future. I don’t think we’re up to it.” The three ladies, thorough women of the kind that once made Prussia great, nodded agreement.
The meeting was not yet clearly on the track Gifford wanted, but with a few more switches thrown he believed it might just get there. “Herr Hanbury is right,” he said. “Berlin isn’t static any longer. We should be moving with the times. The consul and I discussed this earlier. He shared his thoughts with me. Wise thoughts. We can change, and we will, but we need new tools for our work.” Gifford began to explain how offices everywhere were modernizing.
As the administrator was setting out his vision of the future, Hanbury had a sudden déja-vu. It had to do with the phrase new tools. It had been his father’s favourite. As head of soil science at the research station in Indian Head, Dr. Hanbury was always advocating new tools. “I want to measure three things all at once,” Hanbury remembered him saying at the dinner table. There was something intense, almost vengeful in the way the great man held up his fork, like a weapon. Outside, a dry hot wind was blowing; the prairie sky was black with sucked up soil. Tony’s mother, whose frilly white blouse had turned grey that day, quickly disappeared into the kitchen. Je m’excuse, she said to avoid having to listen to science. So Tony was the audience for a man whose sole interest in life was to stop topsoil from drifting. “I want to measure the rate of disappearance of soil moisture as a function of temperature and air movement,” the scientist continued. “At the same time I want to determine the adhesion loss between the drying soil particles as well as the lifting forces exerted by the wind.” The boy didn’t understand a word. He was uncomfortable being alone with his father. He wanted to go to his mother. “If I could measure all that, simultaneously, at a defined point,” the sun-scorched, diagnostically-deprived head of research claimed, “we’d be taking a big step. New tools, that’s what we need.” The son hadn’t liked the father’s use of the word we. He had no desire to be associated with the violence of soil science. He slipped away at the first opportunity and took cover at the piano by playing a Chopin étude.
Odd, Hanbury now thought, how the phrase jumped through the intervening decades. He eyed Gifford warily for a minute, but relaxed. The administrator wasn’t ominous. He wasn’t remotely like his father. When Gifford finished describing changes to the consulate, Hanbury supported what he said. “I’ll be pushing hard to make change a reality. I do want to create a more efficient office. I look forward to advice from all of you on how to achieve it.”
“And what exactly do you mean with more efficiency?” a testy Frau Carstens asked. For her, efficiency was more than a way of life, it was a form of art about which she had little left to learn.
The consul wanted to answer, but the administrator cut him off. “Computers,” he said, “modems, laser printers, the works.” The consul’s predecessor, frightened by technology and horrified at the costs, had kept Gifford bottled up. But Hanbury was different. Gifford smelled a chance to break loose. “Data banks at our fingertips,” he continued, “linked to a computerized phone system. Cyberspace sitting on our desks. That’s what we’ll have. In a modern office, typewriters are out.”
“But my typewriter is not so old.” Frau von Ruppin argued.
Frau Koehler, fidgeting with a handkerchief, agreed. “Computers seem very modern,” she said.
“I’ve heard it’s easy to learn to use them,” said Sturm. “I’d try.” Frau von Ruppin looked at him with bewilderment. “My cousin in Cottbus uses one, and if he can, I can,” he told her.
“It could be exciting,” Frau Carstens speculated.
Gifford’s dream was taking on momentum. With the staff nodding, the consul proclaimed the decision to modernize was unanimous.
As excitement sloshed around the alcove, an emboldened Hanbury rose above the murmur with another question. “Whom should I be meeting in the next few weeks? It’s standard to make some introductory calls.” This question, so practical, so different from the first, ignited fervour.
“Yes!” cried Frau Carstens. She saw her chance, as Gifford had seen his. She quickly recited a dozen names, well-known personalities with important public functions. The other women chimed in. The Chief of Protocol, editors of newspapers, ranking politicians, heads of financial institutions, cultural figures, leaders of think tanks, chairpersons of clubs, presidents of social science institutes, police contacts, senior officials in the departments of justice and the economy. As the list of the local elite grew, so did the staff’s exhilaration. The Priory, Hanbury thought, had never been like this.
Gifford eventually declared the waterfront had been covered. “We’ve never gone at this so thoroughly.”
“Or systematically!” agreed Frau Carstens. It would be her job to stage the consul, feed him his lines, shape his part.
Gifford summed up. Between four and six appointments per week, Frau Carstens to arrange and keep the m
aster list, Sturm to work out the logistics, closely consulting Frau Carstens. Arrivals to be punctual – between three and five minutes prior to the set time. He himself would take the debriefings, write up the notes and ensure a system for follow-up. “Once we have computers, all this will be child’s play,” the administrator added, winking at Hanbury. From deep down on his dark throne, the consul, happy as a school boy, grinned back.
Hours later – the consul having visited the house he would live in and now returned to his hotel – Sturm came back to the office. The ladies had gone. Gifford was waiting in the hallway. “What’s the verdict?” he asked quietly.
“It destroyed him.”
“He didn’t like it?” The chauffeur shook his head. “Didn’t think he would,” said Gifford indifferently. “He’s had third world assignments, Sturm. Third-worlders have inflated housing expectations. Saw that in the British Council. Even so, the house isn’t much, no matter what the standard. We admit it.” The administrator rubbed his neck with frustration and once more heaped scorn on the predecessor. “Why didn’t he ask for innovation? Creative financing for real estate is child’s play for a diplomatic mission.” He shrugged at the years of wasted opportunity. “A free hand and a few weeks, that’s all I needed. I could have arranged a deal for villa in a fine neighbourhood, maybe even in Dahlem. But this one seems capable of enterprise. A curious chap all the same, Sturm. Can’t make up my mind. Is he clever? Is he slow? Several sides to him. Makes you wonder. And his German, how did he come by it? He never said.”
“Maybe here.” Sturm said.
“You think? He said nothing about that to me.”
“He’s been here before. He recognized Siemensstadt.”
“Did he say more?”
“He doesn’t say much at all. Yesterday he slept. This morning he was like a corpse. Just two words came out. That’s all. When I drove him to his house he was an extrovert. Said he wants me to take him to Spandau tomorrow. I asked why. He laughed. A long story, he said. Then he inspected the house. It shattered him. So he was back to playing corpse.”
“Tell me what happened. The details.”
“Nothing happened, not in the car, not at the house. He walks in, looks around, looks into a closet, the bedroom, the kitchen. Stands in the living room, spreads his hands and says, I can’t believe it! He walks out. I drive him back to the hotel. Not a word said. When he got out he said,Tomorrow at eight. That was it.”
“When was he in Berlin? Which year? Did he say that?”
“No.”
“And why does he want to go to Spandau? Did he say that?”
“No.”
“Odd, Sturm. He’s odd.”
“Not too odd, I hope. I wouldn’t mind if he said more. A corpse in the back seat? It gives me the shivers.”
In its day the British Officer’s Club in Berlin, tucked in behind the exhibition grounds, had the same nostalgic atmosphere as similar institutions sprinkled around Africa and Asia. In Berlin, the pool could only have been better had attention been given to the water by finicky Asian servants. And on the red clay tennis courts, alive before the dinner hour with restrained exclamations of a game in heat –Well served old boy – the one ingredient missing was Africans scampering after stray balls. Inside the club, more anomalies: waiters with Teutonic names struggling with the Queen’s English. But some universal props kept appearances up. The pictures on the walls were of horses stumbling in the steeplechase and of the English hunt. The sound was genuine too: a hush, as in any Oxford senior common room.
Randolph McEwen was a club regular. With his upper lip motionless, he would describe his line of work, if asked, as meta-diplomacy. His corner table, appropriately, had a sweeping view of everything going on. The club was McEwen’s anchor. It afforded continuity. It substituted for family. For four decades establishments like it around the world, the vital outposts of his civilization, had been provisioning him. In Berlin he particularly liked the local peculiarity of Teutonic tongues addressing him as Sir. Given the century’s events – Britain being the persistent winner of the wars – it was fitting, McEwen believed, that the Hun address him with reverence.
McEwen and Gifford met at the club routinely. Their interests had overlapped when Gifford worked for the British Council, where he watched and listened, reporting observations to McEwen. After he jumped ship from the Council to the Consulate, Gifford soldiered on, continuing as a McEwen contact and receiving a modest stipend for the effort. So now too, an hour or so after concluding in front of Sturm that the new consul was an oddball, Earl was joining Randy for a pint. Their talk seemed gossipy and random, but was in fact quite purposeful.
“Your new chap arrived safely, has he, Earl?” McEwen asked, his lips scarcely moving. His eyes did all the moving. Every drink served in the club was registered. Outwardly, motionless and grandfatherly, the white-haired meta-diplomat radiated peace, but inwardly, he churned with uncontrollable suspicions.
In McEwen’s presence, Gifford didn’t rest his elbows on the table as in the consul’s office. With McEwen his hands were humbly squeezed between his thighs. He freed one only when he sipped his bitter. Nor did he look into McEwen’s attacking eyes. His attention was fixed on the Union Jack, that is, on a little pin in his host’s lapel. It was always like this when they drank – McEwen restless as a bird of prey, Gifford stationary as a salt pillar.
Gifford dutifully informed McEwen that the new consul had arrived safe and sound, but so far he had seen rather little of him.
“What’s he like? Any early conclusions? Married I suppose.”
“No, not married.”
“I say. A wilting pansy?”
“Don’t think so, Randy. An odd chap in some ways all the same.” When McEwen asked why he thought so, Gifford presented a few thin facts between sips. “He appears to be acquainted with Berlin. And he speaks better than passing German. Might have lived here once, though nothing mentioned on his CV. Begs a question, I think. Don’t you? Not sure why he’s odd. One moment he sort of sleepwalks, hands stretched out, feeling his way, that sort of thing. Soon after he’s seems fairly sharp. Most odd, Randy. Hiding something?”
“Lacks transparency, does he?” asked the veteran observer of other people’s lives.
“Rather. I shall keep an eye on it. Sturm will help.”
The random gossip moved to other subjects. The meta-diplomat asked Gifford about recent news in other diplomatic missions. The spectator listened to McEwen repeating hearsay about the scaling back of foreign military units in the city. The military withdrawal bothered McEwen, Gifford could tell. When he talked about it, McEwen’s eyes turned lifeless and cruel, like a fish. He loathed all signs that his empire was disappearing. As the session ended, McEwen put in a last word. “I’ll inquire into your new consul,” he said. “The world is full of wanderers. If he’s one it’s best we knew.”
SPANDAU
“What’s in Spandau, Herr Konsul? Sturm asked pleasantly as they neared Berlin’s western district. He was trying hard to be amiable, but the whole way the back seat was deeply silent. It made the task formidable. Chauffeuring a sarcophagus around, Sturm thought, would be more convivial.
“A citadel,” answered a voice, unexpectedly, like an echo from the far side of the grave.
“I know that!” Sturm countered with irritation. “I mean, why are you going? There’s nothing there, not for a consul. They’ve torn down that prison where they kept the Nazis.”
Sturm was following instructions. I would like to know why Spandau, Herr Gifford had instructed. Keep him talking. Sooner or later, he’ll drop a hint. Keep him talking? Sturm carried the conversation, the whole way down war alley: Bismarckstrasse, Kaiserdamm, Heerstrasse, past the Commonwealth War Cemetery. He tried topic after topic, but not a peep from the back. Trabis as investment, he tried that first. “Little stinkers, those GDR cars,” he said. “Belched like power stations. When the Wall came down Ossis switched to western cars. That cleaned the air fast. Not ma
ny Trabis around now. Becoming collector’s items. Buy Trabis, Herr Konsul. Store them. Last year you could get one for two hundred marks. This year, they’re up to five. In a few years they’ll be worth a fortune.” But nothing from the back, not a word, not even a grunt. When Sturm saw in the mirror that the consul looked out the window at a bus, he tried public transport. He described how Berlin’s U-bahn lines were being reconnected after decades of multiple dead ends. And what a joy to see the trams again. Trams went out of fashion in West Berlin, but not in the East. The East maintained traditions. “I love those trams,” he said. “I hope they’ll come back everywhere.” A wait by Sturm. Bait taken? No. More silence. He next explained the problems of the city’s electricity supply – why electric clocks in West Berlin had gone berserk when the two grids were connected. “Powerful stuff, that Eastern juice,” Sturm concluded.
As this and other East-West subjects floundered in the shoals of taciturnity, Sturm gave up. It was then that he decided to ask a straightforward question:What’s in Spandau? He considered the answer –a citadel – more than condescending and in a huff he fell silent too. “Take me there. Take me to the citadel” the back seat suddenly commanded. “Then you can stand down.” “No I can’t,” argued Sturm. “I have to take you back to the hotel.” When the voice, resonating as if from the inside of an urn, answered that wasn’t necessary, he could not suppress derision, “And how will you get back? It’s getting dark. And look up. Those are rain clouds, Herr Konsul. A downpour isn’t far off. You visit the citadel, I’ll wait.” “I’m not here to visit the citadel,” the voice informed the chauffeur. “I have other things to do. To the citadel, Sturm. Then let me out.”
After the citadel stop, the Opel lurched back into the traffic with tires squealing. Pedestrians looked up. Had the driver seen a ghost, or was he in the grip of a catatonic fit?
The Berlin Assignment Page 7
