The American Ambassador

by Ward Just

  2

  “AND IT didn’t work out,” Wolf said, “any of it.”

  Gert was playing extended solitaire, all the cards on the table. He was speaking to her, but she did not look up. She had a choice of kings to fill the empty first file. Her hands fluttered above the cards.

  “You never know what will happen there,” Wolf went on. “Nothing is predictable.” He turned back to the middle-aged man, who sat stolidly watching him.

  The middle-aged man said, “It was an action I never understood. Why it was necessary, what it could accomplish, and what the consequences would be.”

  “A souvenir,” Wolf said.

  “Of what?” the middle-aged man said.

  Wolf smiled. He was watching Gert, whose hands still hovered above the cards like a magician’s. “It was not necessary that you understand.”

  The middle-aged man took out a notebook, wet his thumb, and turned pages. “I have had expenses.”

  Wolf continued to look at Gert. “Did you see the account in the newspaper, then?”

  “No. Someone told me.”

  “What was in the newspaper was true.” Wolf shook his head. “For once.”

  The middle-aged man consulted the notebook. “There was the train fare.”

  “At five in the morning, a man was sleeping on the bench.”

  “And the museum admission.”

  “Blown to pieces, they can’t identify him.”

  “I think my meals should be included, also.”

  “A homosexual affair. That is the thinking of the American police.”

  “I am not interested,” the middle-aged man said.

  “It’s important, for your understanding.”

  “I have no interest in the Americans. I know all I need to know.”

  “That is apparently how the homosexuals in America settle their differences.”

  “Meals, fifty Deutschmarks.”

  “So they have made it into an affair that interests no one, although according to the paper, the neighborhood was alarmed.” He rose and stood behind Gert. “Take the king from the second file, darling. There is only one card under it, and if that plays, then you can use the other king. More than likely it will play.”

  “The park. It was public?”

  “Of course.”

  “Dangerous,” the middle-aged man said.

  “Homosexuals. Who would have thought of homosexuals?”

  “You must always know your territory.”

  “I have known this territory for twenty-five years. But I have not been back in a few years, so it changed. I was depending on my memory of things.”

  “Unwise to depend on memory.”

  “Yes,” Wolf said.

  “And the taxi here, that was fifteen Deutschmarks.”

  Wolf looked at him, and at the notebook, expensive, well-worn leather. The middle-aged man’s expenses would be meticulously accounted for, not surprisingly. He was a professional with a clerk’s mentality.

  “How did they seem?”

  “Who?”

  “The man and the woman. Were they frightened, or nervous?”

  “The woman has atrocious taste in art.”

  Wolf nodded, smiling.

  “The man is cultivated. His German was fluent, and of course that is not usual. Americans never speak German.”

  “How did you know they were American?”

  “It is obvious.”

  Wolf wondered how it was obvious, but decided not to pursue it.

  “I would say the man’s German is even more fluent than yours.”

  So it was the accent, of course, though he was wrong about the relative fluency. The ambassador’s German was formal. He had no command of the vernacular.

  “As to their behavior, it was normal.”

  Wolf nodded.

  “They were not followed,” the middle-aged man said.

  “I told you they wouldn’t be.”

  “I decide that for myself.” He smiled and ripped the page from his notebook, and handed it across the table. “And the fee, of course. The stipend. That is at the bottom.”

  “You have the retainer.”

  “Yes, that has been subtracted.”

  “Naturally,” Wolf said.

  “The accounts must be maintained, otherwise—” He shrugged.

  “There would be no order,” Wolf said. It was like talking to a bank officer.

  The middle-aged man consulted his watch and stood. Gert continued to study her cards. Wolf reached into his pocket, brought out a roll of bills, peeled off five, and handed them to the middle-aged man. “Something extra,” he said, “for your fine work.”

  The middle-aged man counted the bills, and put them in the leather notebook, closing it firmly. “They took the five o’clock train to Berlin.” He walked quickly to the door, opening it and looking out. “I will go now.”

  “Auf Wiedersehen,” Wolf said.

  “Good-bye,” the middle-aged man said in English, and was gone.

  Wolf sat quietly a moment, thinking. Where do they come from? he wondered. And when they finished an assignment, where did they go? How did they live, and in what circumstances? They were mercenaries in the service of rebellion, had been doing it all their lives; they were underground men. Max had been one. This middle-aged professional was another. It was not a despicable life; they used the skills they had. And they were reliable because they were anonymous, fitting into any of a dozen cities in Europe, leading inconspicuous lives, wanting only to escape notice by the authorities. This one had modest habits, he did not gamble and drank only mineral water. He had done several assignments in the past month, and done them well, never any complaint; and he was never inquisitive, quite the reverse. Wolf found himself drawn to the middle-aged man, and told him more than he needed to. He was certain that the information would be filed and forgotten. He already had a memory stuffed to overflowing; he was not a man who needed more. He already had what he needed.

  Gert had chosen the king in the second file, and it played. She was flying through the end game, slapping the cards left and right.

  Wolf said, “It’s time.”

  She looked up, smiling brilliantly.

  “We’re on our way now.”

  “Yes?”

  “Berlin,” he said. He watched her collect the cards and put them in her purse. She rose and did a model’s turn, her skirt flaring. She stood by the door while he collected their luggage, two Brooks Brothers suitcases. Wolf was dressed in a gray herringbone suit with a striped tie. He wore polished wing-tip shoes and horn-rimmed spectacles. He looked at himself in the mirror, smiling broadly. An American businessman, an advertising specialist, traveling with his wife, who had a cold so fierce she could hardly speak. Yet they were a handsome couple, obviously fond of each other; she was so pretty, and he was unmistakably successful. Wolf carried a shoulder bag with maps and Michelin guides, a German phrasebook, a Walkman, and Time magazine. They looked at each other and laughed and laughed.

  “Yuppies,” Gert said, repeating the word she had learned from him. She executed another pirouette, admiring herself in the mirror. Her outfit was very expensive, and suited her. She knew this, and was pleased.

  Crossing the border from the BRD to the DDR, the train slows, then abruptly accelerates. Guard towers flank the roadbed and there are always soldiers on foot with leashed German shepherds. Concertina wire lies thick and tangled between the boundaries, no man’s land. There are mines also, and sensing devices. The country is flat and uninspiring, except perhaps to the eye of a tank commander, identifying contours: here a rise, there a dip, defilade, enfilade. Of course the border is cleared of trees and underbrush. Flags snap proudly in the breeze, evidence of patriotism. A Western civilian promptly identifies a cheerless Third World country, where time decelerates, seems almost to stand still. At night there are few lights. The roads are narrow and at every crossing long lines of bicycles, a few ancient private cars, and brand-new military vehicles. The gates go
down well in advance of the approach of the train.

  Fifty miles beyond the border, customs officials in bottle-green uniforms enter the first-class coaches. These happen to be DDR coaches so the no smoking signs are in German, French, Italian, Arabic, and Russian. (The BRD coaches have signs in German, French, Italian, Arabic, and English—thus do the salesmen of the superpowers demand that attention must be paid.) DDR customs officials—more properly passport control officers, since the train will not stop in East Germany they are interested in identities rather than contraband—appear without warning, wordlessly extending their open hands for the traveler’s papers. DDR officials carry sidearms in stubby leather holsters. Metal attaché cases hang on leather straps from their necks. The attaché cases open to become writing platforms. The officials are careful to check faces against photographs before carefully affixing the stamp in the blackest, coarsest ink. Diplomatic U.S. passports receive special attention, pages laboriously turned, inspected with raised eyebrows. The officials are brusque but efficient, often quite young. They work four to a coach, two at each end moving toward the center; no one may leave the coach during passport check. In the bad old days of the Cold War the windows were sealed and covered at the border, as if the East German terrain were too dangerous or alarming to be viewed by a foreigner. But all that is past, and now a traveler is free to gaze out the window as northern Europe rolls by, opaque and monotonous, dark as a German fairy tale.

  Approaching East Berlin, the train halts briefly to discharge the DDR officials. Spandau Station, then Zoo. The lights of the Kudamm are brilliant, lurid after the dour hills, forests, and villages of East Germany. Glittering showcase of the West, it is an overweight bird in a gilded cage, the only city in the world to which a visit is an overt political act, a conscious decision to distress oneself, to do business with ghosts; every monument, every gallery, every street, hotel, museum, and cabaret carries political significance, though to an American diplomat the significance is deeper than politics. An American diplomat goes to Berlin as a lover goes to Venice. Berlin is not where the Cold War began—except in the sense, perhaps, that the Reformation, for example, “began” in Wittenberg—but it is where it is seen in its sharpest relief. Dry, gray East, moist, mauve West. Like Venice, the city is no longer dynamic. It is worn out, a down-at-heel philosopher who no longer thinks but gabs, the bore at the dinner table, growing more selfabsorbed and orotund and cynical with each glass of wine. The guests cease to listen, but become fascinated with him, his appearance and persona—his burned-out face and flabby body, his corruption, his bad teeth and trembling hands and malicious mouth, and somewhere behind that the pentimento of what he once was, muscular, magisterial, gay, potent. An American diplomat, conscious of his own middle age, his disappointments and flagging energies and lost illusions, marvels at the endurance of the city. Illusions are better lost. Energies must be conserved. Disappointment is inevitable. Middle age is the consequence of youth. The glittering showcase of the West is now an old rummy, but not dead, nor moribund, nor Communist. An American diplomat returns to Berlin as to his home room at grade school, to sit at the desk that’s too small, and remember the spinster drilling arithmetic, multiplication tables; before arithmetic became mathematics, and mathematics calculus.

  The Zoo Station in Berlin is always crowded, day and night. This night the Norths arrive it is less crowded. The tourist season is well past, yet there are groups of young people with backpacks and parkas, carrying radios. They are Dutch, Swedes, Canadians, and English, all young, mostly genderless, identified by the little flags sewn into their backpacks. There are no Americans, but American music is everywhere. Elvis, Willie Nelson, Prince, Madonna. To the traveler’s eye, the Swedes look alert and healthy, the Canadians and English dull and wasted. The group of Dutch youngsters gather near a steel pylon, waiting for the train that will take them to Cologne or Munich or to Paris or Geneva. No one is traveling east. It is cold when the train eases into the station, and halts; a cold northern wind, bitter as steel, blows dust and bits of paper.

  Alighting from the train, Bill and Elinor look around them; they pay special attention to the young Europeans, but there is no one familiar. No one seems interested in them, two well-married, well-traveled Americans. They are traveling light, each carrying a blue canvas bag, so there is no need for a porter even if there were one available, which there isn’t. They stand a moment together in the chill, savoring the diesel smell of the Zoo Station; this is their sixth trip to Berlin, and they are always filled with astonishment at the sight of it, its size and its gloom, the resigned look of the women on the platform, and the heaviness of the men. She wishes, as always, that she had her sketch pad handy. Kirchner and Beckmann were always sketching on trains and buses and street corners. But of course it is too cold, and they have other business. She looks around, smiling in spite of herself; in fact, she feels the most profound sadness. All European train stations are romantic, but Berlin’s Zoo Station is expecially so, if by romance one means a goad to the imagination, fire to the fuel; the mnemonics are fierce.

  “To the hotel?”

  “I guess so,” she said.

  “Shall we walk?”

  She said, “It’s awfully cold. The wind—”

  “We walked the first time, remember? It was about this time of year, the first time we came. There wasn’t a cab in sight so we walked. Remember, the train was sealed all the way from the border. Some commisar was put into the compartment with us. He had a bad leg. He smelled. Remember that?” They walked down the steps into the concourse. He said, “Come on, it’s not that far.” They had been staying at the same hotel for twenty years, a small hotel off the Ku-damm, only six blocks from the station. The rooms were large and there was a small bar off the reception. The bartender always recognized them, clicking his heels when they entered. He said, “We can check in, have a drink, and then go to Rockenwall’s. Have a good dinner.”

  “Well,” she said, puzzled. “I don’t know. What do you mean? After the zoo?”

  “We’re not going to the zoo tonight,” he said firmly. They were standing in the middle of the concourse, not moving. He was talking to her in German, and watching the people navigate around them. “We’ll go in the morning.”

  “Oh, Bill,” she said wearily.

  “It’s time enough.”

  “I don’t know if I can wait. And Rockenwall’s is so far away. And what’ll we do at dinner, toast our good luck?”

  He took her hand and they began to walk down the concourse, and into the muddle of the lobby. In the lobby there were more young people and American music. “In the daylight,” he said. “It’s time enough.” Two middle-aged policemen were watching the young people, who were sitting on the stone floor, giggling. Bill smiled, touching her arm. “It doesn’t matter anyway, the zoo is closed. Zoo closes at night, everyone knows that. All zoos close at night.”

  “All right,” she said. “Rockenwall’s.”

  He nodded at the youngsters and the police. “Do you think it’s a bust?”

  “No,” she said. “They’re just looking at the girls.”

  They swung out of the lobby and onto the street, Berlin’s bright lights, advertisements, restaurants, shops. Pedestrians walked quickly, their chins buried in coat collars. The wind was sharp. Somewhere out of sight, near the zoo’s dark zone, they heard a siren’s bleat. They walked for a block, then hailed a cab. The hotel was as they remembered it, but the bartender was gone. Visiting his son in South America, the young woman at the desk said; he would be back in a month, after Christmas. The bar was empty, and dark.

  They left their bags at the reception desk and took a cab to Rockenwall’s. They rode for miles, circling Berlin’s featureless perimeter. It is a very large city, one of the largest in Europe. Elinor had been silent since the Zoo Station. He ordered a bottle of Champagne to cheer her up. But she would not cheer. He was tired of making decisions and fell into a kind of dull fatalism. Events are in the saddle, he thought
; best to give yourself up, and cease to pretend that you were in control in any serious way. You were in Berlin. That was the decision, the act; everything else was reaction. Not acts, gestures.

  He did not look at the menu, but simply told the waiter to bring him the specialty; Elinor said that was fine with her, too. So they ate a tedious meal, Kraut nouvelle cuisine, so pretty and delicate. He told her stories, and she smiled dutifully but wasn’t interested—really, wasn’t listening. He was trying to figure a way to declare conclusively that he would go alone to the zoo in the morning. At last, tired of his monologue, he trailed off into silence. Now they resembled the middle-aged couple you always saw in restaurants, picking at their food and not speaking, each staring in a different direction. God, you said, what an awful life they must have. And turned away because the sight of them was depressing. The waiter brought coffee and a bill. She stared into her coffee with a vacant expression. She was thinking that he had not mentioned the boy, for no reason other than there was nothing to say that had not been said and resaid. They would meet him soon enough. She wondered whether he would speak English or German. Bill would want to meet him alone, but she would not allow that. How droll after all that the rendezvous would be in Berlin, at the zoo. She looked at him, his eyes far away.

  He came out of his reverie, smiled at her, and raised his glass, a toast. Our good luck, he said in German.

  Our very good luck, she whispered. She scarcely looked up. She was tracing a figure on the tablecloth. She moved her fingernail in slow, precise circles.

  The waiter was hovering. They were the last table. He knew they should leave. Wasn’t it necessary to have a good night’s sleep? Certainly he would want to be alert in the morning. But he made no move. He did not want to leave the table. The restaurant was familiar; even the dreadful food was familiar. He remembered it from the time, fifteen years ago, that they served heavy German food. Sumptuous sauces, roebuck and game, delicious North Sea sole, sauteed, not poached. Rockenwall’s then was a great favorite of politicians and the diplomatic community, and the spies; spies of every race and nationality. It was noisier then, riotous in five languages. Now it was a quiet restaurant for the prosperous businessmen and bureaucrats of the New Germany, muted voices and soft laughter, the tinkle of crystal and impeccable service, very expensive. Well, it had always been expensive; and the old nervous energy had turned to exhaustion. He stared at the tablecloth, sharply cornered and white as milk except where he’d spilled Champagne. In the old days the digestif trolley had been superb, rolled to tableside, its inventory unrivaled in Berlin: Armagnac, framboise, marc, schnapps, a dozen others. Everyone laughing, deciding what to celebrate, a birthday or anniversary or promotion; there was always something. He remembered that they had Armagnac as old as he was and so he smiled, touching her foot with his own.