Albert Müller didn’t simply fantasize when on his bicycle. He also had a brutal wish to win, despite most of the competitors being twenty years his junior. He wasn’t the oldest Eagle. Scrappy Rudi Metzger, club doyen, admittedly in good shape for someone past eighty-four, would take the Oldest Rider trophy – from Müller – by eight months. The year before they were both junior to the legendary Ulli Schmieder, eighty-six. But Ulli contracted a cold that spring and passed away. Rudi and Albert joked about their age. “You’re too fast for me,” Rudi would say to Albert. “But that’s fine. What you’re really beating me to is the grave.” This year Müller felt fit, better than last year when he placed twenty-third. His training was peaking; he wanted victory; he had a chance. Who cared about Rudi’s predictions that beyond the finish line a grave lay in wait?
“Come and watch. Take my picture,” Müller said to Hanbury. They had resumed their old habit of tipping a few glasses of Pils in The Tankard once a week. On the Thursday night before the race they sat in the same corner as before, as if there had been no intervening years. “Take my picture when I slip the winner’s jersey on.”
“You don’t have to win,” Hanbury said. “At your age finishing is pretty good. I couldn’t do ten kilometres, let alone a hundred.”
“Not a hundred. A hundred and fifty.” Müller sounded irritated. “Your problem is you’re not ambitious. It makes you likeable, but you’ll never get anywhere. Why set your sights low? Me, I’ve got a few things to do before my ashes get scattered. Prost.”
The starting point for the race was the village of Hohenwutzen near a bridge crossing the Oder to Poland. In the first years after the Wall came down the race was an obstacle course. Brandenburg’s roads were disastrous. Bike frames got bent, wheels twisted, limbs bruised. The competition ended in darkness. But once Western money poured in the roads became smooth as laminated tennis courts. This year’s race would be hours shorter.
On the morning of the race the Eagles and their equipment arrived in Hohenwutzen in the early hours in trucks and minibuses. It was still dark. A soupy fog hung over the river. Poland on the other shore seemed not to exist. Silently, like a commando group, they checked their bikes. Drinking bottles were fixed; watches set. As the hour neared, they took positions on the edge of a nearby ditch. Old men no longer pee fast and this essential ceremony took some time. Standing there, featherless scalps hunched between shoulders, looking less like eagles and more like buzzards, they pumped themselves up as they emptied their bladders.
“That’s morning coffee for you. Drink one cup, piss two.”
“You drank coffee this morning? What an adventurer! My old lady serves me warm milk. Coffee’s bad for the ticker. It goes crazy.”
“So what’s wrong with that? Use it as a metronome. Get your legs going. That way you might win!”
“Win? What’s that? A new drug from America?”
“Hey, Rolli. The last time we stood like this was when we were prisoners of war in Russia!”
“That was different. At that latrine, I remember, we always pissed into the wind.”
“They wanted us to savour the aroma of defeat.”
“Defeat? That’s done with. If it weren’t for the fog, the Slavs would faint seeing what we’ve got on show.”
“Mine, sure. Not yours.”
“I’m talking about my prick. You’re talking about your prostate.”
Up and down the line, Eagle solidarity bounced around in salvos.
Müller, next to the doyen, heard him grunting. “Easy Rudi,” he cautioned. “Push too hard and you’ll eject your bladder.”
“Rudi needs a catheter.”
“Tied to his saddle.”
At eighty-four Rudi was good at ignoring things he no longer wished to hear. When he finished, he croaked out a pep talk. “Go Eagles! Let’s soar!”
Having shaken themselves dry, the racers did a round of knee-bends, some stretching of stiff joints, and a half-hearted warm-up by running on the spot. Track suits came off. Paunches in tight racing pants bulged out above naked legs. Finally, silhouetted against the light strengthening over Poland, they shook hands. They waited for the shot. Punctually, at eight-thirty they were off. The bunched field quickly thinned into a line taking a south-west course towards Bad Freienwalde. From there the route would be the same sweeping half circle around the north of Berlin that had been taken by a fast advancing battalion of Soviet armour during the final assault in ’ffl. Ulf and Rolli had been taken prisoner at the time.
Through marshland and pine forests, past ancient forts, under gates in medieval walls, skirting the concentration camp at Sachsenhausen, around military camps still full of Russians, the Eagles would eventually come to the city’s western approaches. In the late afternoon the fastest riders would be streaking down Heerstrasse, heading towards the stadium. By then Müller, according to his plan, would be in the lead.
The line broke up into packs. A spry sixty-five year old, Horst Baumann, was out front. Müller’s strategy was simple. Stay in the first five, resist the temptation to go into a sprint – until Heerstrasse – then pedal like a demon. But that arrogant Baumann was setting a fast pace. The sky was angry and a head wind gusted from the west.
The rhythm of legs pumping creates an hypnotic state. The mind turns from the competition and starts a conversation with itself. For many riders, speeding through a landscape that was forbidden to them after the war, scenes of its final days came back. Actually, bits and pieces of the war were always coming back – every day. Rushing like the Soviets when they powered their way into Berlin, most of the Eagles couldn’t help thinking about where they were, and how it was, when the war was ending.
Ulf and Rolli were hustled off to Russia. So were Ludwig, Gottfried and some others. Many more Eagles had been on the western front which had a higher prisoner survival rate. Four hadn’t been POWs at all. Their politics had been wrong, so the Soviets threw them into concentration camps recycled from the Nazis.
On straight stretches, the mind turning inward, the Eagles raced against more than each other and the weather. They entered into combat with demons from the past. Müller, doggedly four back from Horst, had his trance too. Born in nineteen-o-nine he had nearly the whole damn twentieth century to remember. Too much for one brain, he often thought. The end of the first war, the abdication of the Kaiser, the socialists seizing power, the conservative backlash, the Weimar Republic launched with fanfare, though it had no staying power. There were the mad days of hyper-inflation during the twenties. The thirties brought the brownshirts and the second war. Then the transition to the Cold War. Four decades of Cold War, the final two providing the best years of the century. In the seventies and eighties, life in West Berlin had been a fairy tale.
A mountain of distracting memories. And, Albert thought, damned unhelpful too. He forced his concentration back on the race. Horst was setting a fast pace and pressing from behind was Gottfried. Who does Gottfried think he is? Does he think he deserves to be near the front because he’s only seventy? Work for it Gottfried. No one said it would be easy. Not this race.
Hanbury did as Müller had asked. On Friday, he rummaged through unpacked boxes and found a camera. On Saturday, he armed it with film. He also bought champagne, which was cooled all night. On Sunday in the afternoon he started out for the Olympic Stadium wearing his technicolour hiking shoes, which were already showing signs of heavy use.
The staff had adopted the habit of looking at the consul’s feet. If he wore the suedes they knew he planned to be away. Reconnaissance, Hanbury sometimes called it. Sturm referred to it as Selbstmord. Suicide. “Herr Konsul, with all respect, in those psychedelic sneakers you’re a marked man. If word gets out it’s a diplomat wearing them, you’ll be crushed to death by the crowds wanting to see for themselves.” Gifford was especially solicitous if the suedes were on. “Going any place in particular, Tony? Can we assist?” And the next day. “Saw anything interesting? Met useful people? Don’t forget the contact
list. Put them on. We’ll soon start the Christmas card effort.” On a high-tech cushion of air, the consul roamed through fascinating places – Prenzlauerberg, the Scheunenviertel, Pankow – all of them moody, all of them stuck between a desire for transition and a deep reluctance to change.
Hanbury didn’t mind Gifford asking about his plans, but seldom replied. They had more important things to talk about. Gifford, that management genius, was fashioning extraordinary change. The office was being redone from one end to the other. And the computers had arrived. Once they were unpacked and wired up, Gifford proposed shutting the consulate for two days. For familiarization and training, he said. The hallway became a classroom and the administrator turned instructor.
“This is how they’re turned on,” he began. The ladies hesitated, worried the machines would bite, but their courage grew. They began stroking certain seductive keys not found on typewriters –page up, page down, typeover, delete. Frau Koehler loved the escape key. Why didn’t a key like that exist in real life, she asked. Gifford took them repeatedly through the basics, regularly adding a new twist. “Like ballroom dancing lessons,” tittered Frau Carstens, thinking of her girlhood. “Every week we had another step.”
More than the others, Sturm grasped the machines’ inner logic. As the ladies felt their way forward, he plunged directly into word processing. He pecked away with two fingers. A laser printer whirred. Gifford took the sheet coming out. “What’s this?” he asked. “Mine,” replied Sturm. The administrator read it.
A leaf falls from a tree,
The wind touches the water,
The lovers sleep.
“Herr Sturm!” cried Frau von Ruppin. “I had no idea!”
“Japanese poetry,” he said awkwardly. “I came across some in the paper last weekend. No wonder nobody understands the Japanese.”
Frau von Ruppin protested. “It’s beautiful. It’s sensitive.”
“Copy for a deodorant ad, if you ask me,” replied Sturm.
By the end of the second day Sturm was experimenting with a spreadsheet for the car log and Frau Carstens was getting the hang of a macro for the preparation of the consul’s schedule. Other software was bestowed on Frau von Ruppin and Frau Koehler. With the simplicity that defines great moments, Gifford then declared the electronic office open. The consul was applauded: it would have been unthinkable, they told him, without his impetus to modernize.
“Well done, Earl,” he said to Gifford later. “Two days well spent.” They were in Hanbury’s office. Gifford was on the floor connecting wires that linked the consul’s computer to the telephone system for access to databanks, stock exchanges and other real-time information. “No problems paying for all this?” the consul asked. “All tidy, Tony. Ample spending authority. Computers don’t cost much nowadays.” Gifford got up, his face red from the exertion. He pressed a few keys. The screen woke up. Graphs, tables, information bulletins – the whole universe it seemed – flashed by. “The world is at your fingertips,” he said. Trying the buttons himself, Hanbury asked about progress with the new residence. “Going well,” Gifford assured him. “A week or two and we’ll do some viewing.”
“No problems with the money aspects?”
“None. Headquarters understands you’re not well-housed. They know it’s a good time to invest. They recognize where the future lies.”
“High time they did that. I appreciate what you’re doing, Earl.”
Gifford left the consul, returned to his desk and initiated a series of tests. No one knew the computers were linked into a network which he controlled. He searched out Frau Carstens’s macro; instantly it appeared. Tests with the other work stations were equally successful. Spectating made easy, grinned Gifford.
At home too, the atmosphere couldn’t be better. Frieda had been ecstatic over a new diamond necklace. All evening, wearing nothing but the diamonds, she ran around the apartment. It was, she said, to concentrate Giffy’s attention on the light the gems threw out. Her nudity was infectious, so he joined in. Frieda hung the necklace over his erect penis. “Now all the family jewels are together,” she cried. They became wild with desire. Afterwards, Frieda admitted she understood now why Gif was having to spend so much time at work.
Frieda had her diamonds and he had a Mercedes. Not an every man’s Mercedes, but a big 600 model. Outside the city on the ring road – that masterpiece of engineering by Germany’s finest autobahn artistes, that space devoid of limits – he’d take the car to 250 KPH. For years he’d wanted to own the autobahn’s left lane, streaking up on cars incapable of doing more than 190, flashing headlights, scaring drivers out of their wits, sending them swerving to the far right. Stay there forever, Gifford’s grin commanded as he accelerated past.
Diamonds for a woman and a fast car for her man. The computers were in. Soon the consul would have a mansion. Life was unfolding as it should. Gifford estimated a few more weeks of working the market would do it, a few more deals, a few hundred thousand more skimmed off the margins. When the proceeds amounted to five million it would be time to quit. Keeping the long string of buy and sell transactions hanging together – the diplomatic seal preventing the precarious edifice from tumbling – required nerves of steel. A couple of times he resorted to tough language. I represent a sovereign state. It’s assets are thirty million taxpayers and a chunk of real estate that’s the second biggest in the world. And you doubt this statement of intent? The pressure was without precedent. No one should want to do this for a living all the time, he had concluded.
Satisfied with the computer tests, he departed for the club. The military guard saluted when the big Mercedes drew up.
“Hello Earl,” Randolph McEwen sang through lips that scarcely moved. “How are you? Trust the family is well?” Gifford said things had never been better. Over their first pint, McEwen gossiped about developments in the Allied Powers Coordinating Committee, now enlarged by an outwardly friendly Russia. “It’s agreed the occupying powers will leave Berlin, but who goes first? We think it should be the losers of the Cold War.” McEwen peered at Gifford over the rims of half-glasses. “Funny, isn’t it, Earl?” he mused. “The Russians knew more about us than we about them. They should have won. But they lost. That’s why we think they should get out of Berlin first. Not co-temporally. Not jointly. But first.”
Gifford nodded.
“There was some soggy mumbling by the Hun,” McEwen said darkly. “Shouldn’t there be just one goodbye party, he said. As if we – us and the Russians – are family. But that won’t be. All the same, it’s creating a spot of work. The Hun has a rather ponderous mentality. He likes things written down.” McEwen shook his head in disgust. “Well, over to you, Earl,” he said, brightening once more. “What’s the latest with Friend Tony?”
Gifford took a long, thoughtful sip. “Some things are going well, very well indeed, Randy. Others, to be frank, continue murky.”
“Who has he been seeing? Anyone of specific interest?”
“I think so.” Gifford pulled a paper from his pocket. “Fascinating pattern. He meets people. The names go on the contacts list. He invites them for lunch. All quite proper. But look who, Randy. It’s of absorbing interest I’d say, for him to have so many friends so suddenly in high places.”
Gifford read through the list, the functions of the people on it, the locations where the consul met them. Top bankers, prominent jurists, illustrious politicians, well-known artists, big name impresarios, influential industrialists. Reviewing it took Earl and Randy into a second pint.
“I’ll take that.” McEwen stretched out a proprietorial hand. “I doubt it contains much of real interest, but we shall check. Anything on the unofficial side, Earl? Visits to cosy out-of-the-way flats? Long walks in the Grunewald with individuals unknown? Anything of that sort?”
“A little short of help on that side, Randy. As I said. It’s murky. Sturm keeps the car log, but there are holes. I have asked the consul about his free time, but he is reserved. How did the w
eekend go, I ask. Listened to music, he says. Farfetched, I think. Don’t you? Listening to music. The whole weekend.”
“Your driver Storm…”
“Sturm.”
“Quite. Sturm. Has he reported anything?”
“I mentioned last time. Sturm won’t play. No change in that. He did say the consul voiced suspicion his mail is being monitored. But overall, not much comes out. Sturm complains about his silence.”
“And is it? Is Friend Tony’s mail monitored?”
“Not really. Not yet. Not unless you want it.”
“We’re not quite ready for that yet. Still, he suspects it’s happening. Proves he has something on his conscience. Most regrettable – the chauffeur not helping.”
McEwen sank into thought. He closed his eyes. His head fell to his chest. It shook slightly, almost a shivering, as he created and rejected the options he knew from a lifetime of weeding out duplicity. McEwen’s instincts told him something was waiting to be discovered, but identifying it required resources and his were disappearing fast. He came to a reluctant conclusion. He would have to approach Pullach, obtain the support of Graf Bornhof. So deep in thought that he looked asleep, McEwen’s face turned hard.
When he stirred, Gifford spoke. “Three areas stand out where we need more information. Speaking frankly, I don’t know how to get it. I’m reluctant to hire an agency to monitor. Some things a diplomatic mission shouldn’t be seen to do.”
“Of course. Of course,” murmured McEwen. “Three things, Earl?”
“First, Thursday evenings stand out. He seldom accepts engagements then. Sturm takes him home and stands down. Fridays he looks the worse for wear, as if he’s been out late, possibly carousing.”
“Every Thursday evening. How remarkable. A secret society?”
The Berlin Assignment Page 17
