The Berlin Assignment

by Adrian de Hoog

  The Investitures priest sputtered, which made the high priest look severe, so then Heywood nodded. Bilinski smiled and made a gracious gesture to the door. “I’ve got some ideas on how to announce this, Irv,” Robbie said helpfully preceding Heywood out. “I’ll pop down to your place after lunch.”

  The underlings in Investitures noticed a leadenness in Irving Heywood’s pace when he returned. In one hand he held a crumpled sheet of paper. “Broken by the high priest,” an observant young thing whispered. With his head held low, Heywood really did resemble a tired rodeo horse that had been outlasted by a champion rider.

  Suppose we bisect, who’ll do all the work, Heywood had asked Robbie when they left the ante-chamber. “Irv,” she had said, “Irv, come into the modern era. Join us! The empirical evidence is in. Productivity increases are a function of the inverse of the reduction in the size of an organization. Across town that theorem is an absolute truth now. Cut an organization in half and the output quadruples. It’s been proven.” Robbie had smiled at the older man. Heywood had asked, if you cut the organization to a third, does that mean productivity goes up by nine? Robbie had taken it as a serious question. She had said that for the government sector the evidence was not yet in, but the betting of the gurus was that proof would be available next year. “Anyway for the economy as a whole, the answer is likely to be a clear yes. Cutting one job creates two, maybe three, maybe even four.” “Miraculous,” Heywood had said. His mouth was dry and he tried hard to stop his stomach from rebelling.

  In his office Heywood organized his thoughts and made another list, not of ambassadors, but of things to do. The ability to think fast even when someone had him in the wringer once elevated Heywood into the ranks of priests; within five minutes a plan existed. Easy, Irving, he then calmed himself. First things first. Get rid of the undergrowth. Deal with the Hanbury problem, then tackle the bigger job. The Hanbury issue sounded trivial enough. Heywood dialled Manteaux’s number, but Manteaux had just left for Canberra for a conference on post Cold War intelligence challenges. Could it wait two weeks? the secretary asked. “Not really,” growled Heywood.

  He demanded to speak to Manteaux’s executive assistant. No, the EA knew nothing about a reporting problem with Berlin. “You know there’s two types of reporting from diplomatic missions,” the fresh assistant informed the Investitures priest. “There’s substantive reports – like stuff that’s in the papers, only better, you know, the inside dope. Then there’s the contact reports – about brushes with security agents from the other side.” Concerning which of these two kinds of reporting, the EA wanted to know, was there a problem in Berlin? “I’m vaguely aware of the distinction,” Heywood sighed. “Listen. Harry initiated this. He knows, I assume, which reporting is the problem. Which is why I’m asking you. Are you his EA or what? Don’t you know what’s on his mind?”

  “Mr. Manteaux keeps things close to his chest. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  Then stick your finger up your ass, thought Heywood, taking a cue on management style from the high priest.

  He turned to his computer. Contact reporting could not be the problem, Heywood reasoned. The Wall was down, the Warsaw Pact finished. East and West were friends. The spies had left Berlin for Baghdad and Tehran. The complaint must be over-substantive reporting. Had Tony done some lunatic scribbling? Typical of Tony, to try to do the right thing, but miss the target. Heywood remembered only too well the near fiasco in Vienna over the PM’s speech.

  The computer booted, Heywood clicked in the archives code and called up the index to the general files. Search? appeared on a menu. Heywood typed Berlin. A new menu unfolded on the screen. Berlin -Admin, -Consular, -Culture, -Reporting, -Staffing. Heywood clicked Reporting. He scrolled through economic, political, social, commercial, one after the other. Each category was blank. That’s it, crowed Heywood. No wonder Manteaux complained. Tony had filed no reports, not even translations of newspaper articles. Naughty, naughty Tony, spending all his time tomcatting around Berlin. But Heywood was cautious. Easy, Irving, he counselled, easy. Cover all the bases. Lack of substantive reporting from Berlin is probably the answer, but check it out.

  Heywood phoned the European zealots and asked for the woman who good-humouredly bore the nickname Krauthilda. “Mr. Heywood!” she cried. “This is unexpected!” She was friendly. He remembered she had written him a memo asking for re-assignment to Rome.

  “What’s your view of Hanbury in Berlin,” he asked. “How’s the reporting?”

  “Great,” she said enthusiastically.

  “Yeah? Where is it? No trace in the archives.”

  “That’s the point. He doesn’t do any. I told him that. It’s the way we want it. We get all the information we need from the wires. We don’t need reports from Berlin.”

  “You’re in tune with the times, I’ll say that much.”

  “Thanks,” purred Krauthilda. “By the way, Mr. Heywood, I’m taking Italian in my spare time. You should know that.”

  “That will be helpful. I’m boning up on geometry myself.”

  “Oh wow!” Krauthilda cried. She assumed the Investitures priest was angling to become Ambassador to the United Nations – circular arguments, elliptical interventions, global problems that zip out to infinity faster than a parabola. “Enjoy!” she sang.

  That settled it. Substantive reporting was the problem. The zealots wanted none; the spooks, as usual, were hooked like junkies. And an unsuspecting man stood in the middle. Poor Tony. Heywood felt a sudden priestly warmth. The short note last Christmas, Zella showed it to him before she left. Tony wrote some decent things. Tell Heywood I appreciate the burden leadership brings. Heywood’s eyes turned dewy. Helping time for Tony, he thought. He looked up the Berlin number, dialled, but got no answer. Of course not. It would be evening in Berlin. First thing in the morning then. The Investitures priest assumed the consul could hang on that long.

  The niggling reporting problem dealt with, Heywood turned his attention to the bigger challenge. He reviewed his plan once more, then called Spinks in Superannuation, Ashbalm in Continuing Training, Leclerc in Tax Planning, Litbarskow in Financial Inducements, Duhaene in External Placements, as well as Madame Tassé, the busy counsellor for the Service’s despondent souls. A crisis session began one hour later.

  “I’ve received guidance from the high priest,” began Heywood in a stentorian voice. He had regrouped. “Operation Bitrap.” Heywood’s hands were planted wide on the table. Madame Tassé, observing the investitures priest with narrowing eyes, was the only one who noticed something vulnerable clung to him. A moral lapse? A fermenting conscience? A fallen priest?

  Heywood outlined his plan. The experts whistled through their teeth. “My intent, at least for once, is that the bottom ranks won’t bear the brunt,” the Investitures priest sermonized.

  In retrospect, this became a defining moment. When Bilinski’s demand for the trapezoidal bisection was eventually met, Heywood was acclaimed by the survivors as hero. The generous remark concerning the bottom ranks did not go unnoticed. It forced the nimble Madame Tassé to change her view on the spot. Not a fallen priest! Before her sat a man capable of high moral choices, a man prepared to break with tradition, a man willing to rise to defend the little guy. She made a quick notation. The rank and file will not carry the brunt. In the weeks that followed she showed this pad to everyone. The page took on a spiritual quality. It became an icon. The words echoed in the corridors, flashed through the cafeteria, were born outward on the evening busses, penetrating deep into the suburbs. Small children, once the Irving Heywood story had been narrated at the family dinner table, insisted that it be told once more when they snuggled down in bed. With some embellishments it turned into a legend. Heywood had bucked and thrown the high priest, the worst ride the bronco-buster ever had. In fact the high priest got thrown so high that when he finally landed, he was back out West.

  But that was in the future. In the present there was work to do. “Twice dail
y meetings, at eight and one,” Heywood decided. “The task is tough, but I believe together we can do it. This will be the war room.”

  Hanbury had spent time sitting in a kind of war room too, the alcove off the office hallway, a nerve centre for purposeful planning. It consisted of two rickety bridge tables placed together with sagging armchairs jammed around. “Perhaps I should invite some people to celebrate after I move in,” the consul had mused when his new residence was nearly ready.

  “Excellent idea, Tony,” replied Gifford. “The funds are there. Shall I draw up a party concept?”

  “Why not? Yes Earl. Please. If you could.”

  This casual remark sparked things off. Gifford’s zeal, as always, was like the crest of a wave surging forward. Planning the party took three weeks. Gifford, like Heywood, ran daily sessions. The consul sat in once a week. The computer generated a critical path with key dates in bold letters. Progress was rigorously monitored. Gifford was on the lookout for the trivial oversights that turn parties into calamities faster than fingers snap. Tasks were divvied up. Frau Carstens: guest list and tracking acceptances and regrets. Frau von Ruppin: flowers and decorations. Frau Köhler: printing, publicity, interviews. Sturm: parking, police liaison, driver control. Gifford had responsibility for food and drink, plus channelling Herr Neumeister’s creative input. The latter insisted on having a hand in the party’s design, offering the service cost-free because, he said, the event would be living art. The consul contributed too, meeting twice with a renowned string quartet,The Whisperers, to discuss the musical programme.

  “What’s your estimate,” Gifford asked Frau Carstens at the second planning session, “a thirty percent acceptance rate?”

  “Depending on whether the Federal President is in or out of town, it could go slightly higher. Possibly thirty-five,” she answered with authority.

  Gifford wanted the Federal President’s schedule checked. He would be away. “Important information,” Gifford said on day three. “We want about a hundred and fifty, so we’ll need a list of about four to five hundred.” Given the size of the consul’s stable of contacts, Frau Carstens had to prioritize. She asked him for his preferences; he replied he wanted to think it over. That evening, at a gala opening of the Bolshoi Ballet, Hanbury consulted von Helmholtz at intermission. The latter responded with a handwritten list the next day containing two dozen more names, recent, prominent arrivals in the city. Useful to invite. The CEO of German Railways, the Superintendent of Public Television, a banker with a national profile fresh from the top floor of the highest office tower in Frankfurt, architects from London, Paris and Rome setting up offices in Berlin, three new filmmakers attracted by subsidies at the Babelsberg studios in Potsdam, an American Nobel Prize winner in economics now at the Free University and studying post-communist consumer behaviour. Frau Carstens recognized that von Helmholtz’s proposals should take precedence, but over whom? “The dips?” Hanbury asked innocently.

  “Do you think so?” she asked with initial horror. “Do you really think so?” A little girl’s smile spread over her face, so wicked was the idea behind the consul’s question.

  “Why not?” he replied casually.

  With a strange, almost vengeful delight, Frau Carstens activated her computer’s delete command. Erasing so many diplomats at once gave her a queer, nearly sexual delight.

  Day four. The printed invitation cards went out. When no one looked, Hanbury pinched one and addressed it to Gundula. Enclosed was a note urging her to come. To make amends for my poor behaviour after the Press Ball.

  Day ten. The task force confronted a problem. Acceptances were outnumbering regrets five to one. Gifford did a quick extrapolation. The estimate: possibly four hundred guests. Anxiety descended, Sturm being the exception. He looked forward to hosting every chauffeur in town. Gifford scratched his neck. “The residence is big enough, I guess,” he thought aloud. “Neumeister was hoping to contain the party to the dining room and the salon. But if we open the doors to the music room, the tea alcove, the library and the conservatory, we might get by without too much discomfort.” The question was whether these parts of the mansion would be ready. It meant accelerating the purchase of a grand piano, several dozen large oriental vases, a couple of thousand leather-bound books and a small forest of potted palms and fig trees. “We have no choice,” Gifford concluded.

  On the phone that day he puffed, cajoled and threatened. Neumeister helped. He identified a Steinway in London and snapped up a collection of nineteenth-century books from a Russian dealer, payment to go into a Channel Island bank account.

  Day fifteen. The consul was relocated to the Greco-Roman mansion. Hanbury’s few personal belongings – clothing, the stereo and four big boxes of compact discs – were picked up by a moving company. Departing from the little bungalow one last time, Sturm drove solemnly, as if to a higher calling. But an event marred the journey to Dahlem.

  As he drove, Sturm was describing his latest observation of the once divided city. Birds, he claimed, were happier in the East. Pigeons, sparrows, chickadees and the like – they weren’t afraid to get close to people in the East. No bird in the West had ever been seen to do that. Sturm reasoned it was because people in the West snarled. “Everything that lives gets hissed at. Birds too.” The birds, he theorized, developed accordingly. But in the East, evolution created a different, a more trusting bird. He noticed it on the sidewalks. A pigeon once walked through his legs on Lenin Platz. A sparrow nearly did the same. “Something’s causing that,” he speculated. “I doubt it’s behavioural. Maybe it was once, but no longer. Trust. It’s got into their genes.”

  That’s when the trip became blemished. They were at a spacious traffic junction called Roseneck making a left turn to Dahlem. A Jaguar driven by a woman with striking auburn hair and dressed in a jacket that was once the skin of a Himalayan tiger came from the opposite direction, also turning left. A moment of confusion as Sturm and the woman tried to gauge whether they would pass in front or around each other. The result was the Opel and the Jag in a nose to nose confrontation. “Back off, lady,” Sturm muttered, waving patronizingly as in the days when he drove Lord Halcourt’s Bentley. A window lowered. A lovely head came out. “Get that tin can out of the way!”

  In Sturm’s estimation this was slander directed at a sovereign government. He rolled his window down and cried, “Why don’t you prove your bucket’s got a reverse!”

  “I never back away from loudmouths!” she threatened.

  “You’re a monkey in a tiger suit,” roared Sturm, “and that cage you’re in is ready for the zoo!”

  “Halt die Fresse, Schlappschwanz!” she shouted. She called him a limp prick and told him to shut his trap.

  “Pissnelke!” Sturm roared.

  “Sturm,” the consul ventured gently from the rear seat. “Don’t rile her. She looks like a nice lady.”

  “Sure. A loving mother of three kids. Lord Halcourt said all Jag drivers are upstarts. I never knew him to be wrong.”

  As the traffic lights clicked into a new cycle, car horns sounded all over Roseneck. Sturm in the middle, with a patrician’s calm, continued shooing the Jag off, as he might a fly in a kitchen. The woman lost her nerve and reversed a couple of meters. Sturm threw his wheel and eased by. She gave him the finger, saw an opening in the traffic, gunned the engine and produced two smoking strips of rubber. Hanbury turned around to see her lurch into Hagenstrasse where, he supposed, she would probably touch a hundred and fifty. Sturm sat out the cycle like a meditating Buddha, then ambled towards Dahlem without a worry in the world. “It proves my point, Herr Konsul,” he remarked. “About the pigeons. You see why in this part of town they stay away from people.”

  Gifford and Neumeister, hands behind their back, were waiting at the top of the steps. Hanbury ascended to meet them. Neumeister couldn’t have been more excited if the Chancellor’s wife had commissioned him to redesign her boudoir. He gave the consul a frenetic tour, breathlessly detailing the work
still to be done before the party. Hanbury mostly nodded. From time to time he turned around and spoke to a trailing Gifford. “Excellent,” he said. “Good. I think that’s fine.” Gifford looked upon the residence as his life’s work also, and was elated it brought praise. One day, when the consul was away on vacation, he would show the place to Frieda. He imagined her reclining in progressive stages of undress on each of the eight splendid sofas. Afterwards, in the conservatory amongst the fig trees she could act out the role of Eve.

  Gifford and Neumeister left. Towards the end of the afternoon, the consul departed for a reception and was back at nine. The mansion sounded hollow. Hanbury discovered the stereo had been set up in the salon. He rummaged through a packing case of discs, deciding on the New World Symphony by Dvorak. The salon had wonderful acoustics. Hanbury turned the volume up, then up some more, until the music reverberated. He sat down in a deep chair in a corner, but had difficulty concentrating on the sound. Impatiently he jerked himself back on his feet and began wandering from room to room. He ascended the stairs to his private apartment, then up another narrower one to empty rooms underneath the roof where normally servants would be housed. Everywhere he switched on lights.

  A night pedestrian would have taken notice. Scintillating reflections jumped off Neumeister’s multi-coloured walls and loud music reached out the windows. A glittering effect, a royal vessel of merriment on a nocturnal cruise. But had the solitary occupant been seen wandering from room to room staring at lifeless objects, the observer would have changed his mind. He would have thought the lit-up scene, the incongruously cheerful notes sent into the frigid Dahlem night, was not a merry barque at all. The conclusion would have been that the mansion was more like a ship of doom, a Titanic, all lights ablaze and with the pathos of a thousand voices singing hymns as it went down.