‘I do too, for their family,’ Irving said. ‘My mother was not an Austerlitz. But I would still like to see the house where they lived. My father and mother may not have met there, but it is the nearest place I can get to them now. If it’s a lie then it’s a lie.’
Sara smiled. ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But before we go there, you must, I think, go to another place first. Without that place you will never understand the house in Niederschönhausen, or rather its resident now. And believe me it is important that you know who he is.’
ELEVEN
As a child, one of the few cultural icons that had affected the rather moody kid Lee Arnold had been was James Bond. The actor who played Bond during his youth was the urbane and slightly wooden Roger Moore. Back then, Bond films had been larky – full of gadgets, girls and exotic locations. Lee clearly remembered truly believing that if he worked for MI5 he would automatically get laid. And now here he was in the office of someone who had once been a real spymaster.
Wood-panelled, the vague sunlight outside filtering through thick, dusty net curtains into what looked to Lee like a TV office from the 1970s, Erich Mielke’s lair was anodyne. The man himself, head of the Stasi from 1957 until the fall of the Berlin Wall, had been anything but. Spymaster, murderer, blackmailer, Erich Mielke had held power of life and death over East Germany for over thirty years. A literal reign of terror, all orchestrated from an office that looked as if it belonged on the old television comedy show ‘The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin’ about a middle-aged middle-manager having a nervous breakdown. It was so ordinary.
Sara Metzler, their attentive guide, was outside the building drinking coffee and smoking. Lee would have preferred to be doing the same, but he had to admit that this stroll he was taking with Mumtaz and Irving Levy through a place that had once seen men with unimaginable power sign away the lives of the helpless was thought-provoking. He could feel it too. The malevolence was in the walls.
Irving, who had been silent for a long time, said, ‘This Herr Beltz worked here.’
‘I don’t know about here,’ Mumtaz said. ‘This was Mielke’s office. He may have come here. I don’t think he was very high up in the Stasi.’
He shook his head. ‘We have no idea in Britain,’ he said. ‘To spy on your fellow citizens! Didn’t anyone learn anything from the Nazis?’
‘This form of communism was imposed by the Soviets.’
He waved a dismissive hand. ‘It’s all the same.’
‘Of course.’
A group of Germans were ushered into the office by a guide who told them a lot of facts and figures that Lee and the others couldn’t understand. When he’d finished, they stayed for a minute at the most and then left.
Lee noticed there were two grey telephones on what had been Mielke’s desk. They looked exactly the same as the phone his parents had in his house when he was a kid.
‘Frau Metzler wants me, I think, to reconsider going to the home of the Austerlitz family,’ Irving said. He’d brought a stick to help him walk, which he now leant on.
‘The current owner was in the Stasi and so he might not be open to visitors. He may even now fear reprisals,’ Mumtaz said. ‘And even if he doesn’t, I can’t believe that someone who was once involved in denouncing and imprisoning people is going to be the most welcoming host.’
‘But if his father owned the house before him then he may know something,’ Irving said. ‘You are right, Mumtaz, he may not be welcoming or pleasant, but this is an opportunity to maybe find a clue to my mother’s real identity. It may not be, but if I don’t try, I will never know.’
He left the room. Alone with Mumtaz, Lee said, ‘Even if we manage to get in, this is going to be tough on him.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘But if you don’t take risks in life, how can you ever achieve anything?’
He couldn’t help himself. He said, ‘Maybe you should think about that too.’
But she looked away.
The woman was called Sara Metzler, a volunteer at the Centrum Judaicum. The daughter of a single mother, Rolfe had been right inasmuch as she’d had a file. Only those from the old East ever sought him out. Sometimes it was to reminisce, but sometimes they had other purposes. As a Jew, Metzler was probably in the latter camp. Or so Rolfe said, but then his father had also been a ghastly anti-Semite.
Gunther Beltz despaired. How many people had he come across who held such views? Of course, their old Soviet masters had a whole folklore of evil that revolved around Jews, rather in emulation of their old enemy Hitler. Didn’t these idiots know it was the Jews who had invented Socialism?
The DDR would have been like paradise if it hadn’t been for its ignorant people who didn’t know what was good for them. Gunther had done his bit, but what did that matter when you were surrounded by idiots?
Had the Metzler woman come to see the house? Was she a relative? Her surname wasn’t Austerlitz, but what did that show? Maybe she’d married or changed her name for some other reason? People did. In the new, unified Berlin you could be anyone you wanted to be – provided you could forget your past. Or ignore it, or get therapy, or kill yourself …
Had the woman, assuming she was connected to the family in some way, been to the cemetery at Weissensee? Even if she had, what of it? And if she came back, he’d just send her away. It was hardly fair and, considering what the Austerlitz family had been, could be construed as disrespectful. But what could he do?
Gunther Beltz didn’t want to be disturbed. Not by anyone. It was too frightening. Or was it? Could it not also be illuminating?
Everything was new, which was a good thing. An old chemist’s shop could be filled with old medicines that could damage people. But what the Rosen Apotheke made up for in hygiene, it lost in character. There was nothing, as far as Mumtaz could see, that gave even the slightest hint about a history.
‘This area was very Jewish before World War II,’ Sara said. ‘My place of work is not far. But not all buildings have yet been acknowledged as having a place in Berlin Jewish history. This, what was the Austerlitz Apotheke, is one of them. Had the family been more prominent, this would be different, but I imagine it’s the same as everywhere, it is only the rich and the famous who make history.’
Mumtaz saw Lee shake his head.
‘Christ!’
It was true. The hovels his ancestors had lived in hadn’t survived, but Buckingham Palace was probably still good for another hundred years.
Mumtaz watched Irving Levy watch customers come and go. Taking things down from shelves and paying for them at the counter, handing over prescriptions, empty medicine bottles and names of things scribbled down on bits of paper. The sick seeking relief. Today from a man who looked as if he came from Pakistan, in the past from local Jewish gentleman Dieter Austerlitz. Then as now, did the sick really care where their medication came from? Or from whom?
In the Rosen Apotheke, people smiled or grimaced, talked with their hands or remained impassive, just as they had always done. And yet there was not a shadow of the Austerlitz family and, after Sara made some enquiries, which came to nothing, they left.
Out in the early autumn chill of Rosenstrasse, Irving Levy came to a decision.
He said, ‘I think I want to see the Austerlitz house now and, if possible, meet its owner.’
‘He may not let us in,’ Sara said.
‘No. But what is the purpose of my being here unless I find that out?’ he said. ‘You told us this man’s family have lived in the house a long time. If that’s the case then he may know something.’
Mumtaz hoped that he did, while fearing what would happen if he didn’t.
The child would ask questions!
‘The Dobos family are liars and thieves,’ Bela said. ‘Don’t listen to them.’
‘But Misty’s my friend,’ Amber said. ‘I just want to know why she doesn’t want to be Hungarian.’
‘Because people in this country look down on you,’ Bela said.
�
�Why?’
‘Why?’
Where did she want him to start? The snobbery of the English? The fact that all Eastern Europeans were looked on with suspicion? He could talk for hours about what Misty’s grandfather Ferenc Dobos had done and why a very talented wire-walker had left his country in 1945 to hide himself in a wretched British fairground, but he wouldn’t.
‘If you don’t like what she says then stop talking to her,’ he said.
Amber pouted. But Bela didn’t care. Let the child wonder. That stupid little bitch Misty didn’t know anything. He doubted even her father did. Bela himself had warned Ferenc that if he ever broke his silence, he would kill him. He’d worked too hard to put his own family beyond reproach to let some wire-walker ruin what was already a most imperfect life.
And family came first. Always.
It wasn’t the size of the house that struck Irving first. It was large, but what really stuck out for him was a small curved alcove between two windows at the very top of the building containing a statue. It looked like a man, but he could be wrong about that; whoever it was wore long, flowing robes. To have a house with its own statue was something, wasn’t it? Like the really great Jewish families – the Rothschilds and the Montefiores.
But Grabbeallee No. 67 wasn’t a palace. It was a big house, which stood in the middle of a small garden, a large nineteenth-century villa with tall sash windows, stucco-encrusted balconies and a strange wooden entrance that looked a little like a detail from an Alpine hotel. It was clearly middle European. It was the house of people who had done well, who were accepted and, more importantly, were entitled. That didn’t, in Irving’s experience, often apply to Jews.
‘Looks empty to me,’ Lee Arnold said.
‘Maybe he is out,’ Sara said. ‘Stay here, I will go and ring the bell.’
She walked up the stone steps to the ‘Alpine’ entrance and pulled a large bell chord. They all heard it clang and reverberate. In fact, as its sound died away, Irving imagined he could hear it chiming softly and endlessly in every last room. But no one came.
‘He must be out,’ Mumtaz said.
She was probably right; the trusting, practical voice of Mrs Hakim frequently was. But Irving had his doubts. What would he do if strangers came to call and he’d once belonged to a hated organisation like the Stasi?
Sara Metzler called out. A stream of German he didn’t understand, although he did manage to recognise some words. ‘Austerlitz’, ‘haus’, ‘England’. Then she wrote a note and put it through the door.
When she joined them in the street, she said, ‘I have to admit to you that I may have upset Herr Beltz when I found this place some days ago. He didn’t like me standing outside. I’ve just told him that some relatives of the previous owners would like to come and see the house if that is possible. He may or may not allow it.’
They moved away. But Irving stayed. Silent and dark the house looked dead to him now and he had the sudden notion that what he was looking at wasn’t anything to do with him at all. It made him shudder.
It was like looking at the corpse of someone he didn’t know.
And so the ‘new’ Germany where everything went was trying to open up another sore. What good did such things do?
Gunther had stood well back from the drawing room window. He knew he hadn’t been spotted. He also knew that Sara Metzler had lied about why she had come to see the house that first time. She’d come for those English people. The tall man, the Jew and the Muslim woman. The Jew had to be the relative. He wanted to see the house and where was the harm in that? If that was the real reason.
But then how could the Jew be a relative? The entire family had died. That was what his father had told him. That he knew himself for a fact.
Gunther turned away from the window. They’ve come because of me, he thought, because of things I have done.
I will not let them in.
TWELVE
‘Your brothers and sisters are the only people you can trust when I am gone. Blood is all that matters. It is only blood that will guard your honour and catch you when you fall.’
The words of his late mother always came into Wahid Sheikh’s mind whenever he had to go and visit his brother Rizwan. Since his stroke, Rizwan Sheikh lived with his daughter, Saadia, and her husband and children in Dalston. Like her father, Saadia was mean and ill-tempered and her house, even in winter, was like a vast empty chest freezer. Wahid went there reluctantly, usually only, like now, when Rizwan summoned him.
It hadn’t been much fun for Wahid being one of only two brothers in a family of ten daughters. The women, including his mother, had all idolised the favoured elder boy, Rizwan. Wahid they’d used as a servant, fetching and carrying for all of them, especially the sainted little rajah, the eldest son. Stupid and cruel, Rizwan had led his brother a dog’s life. He still did. Wahid had never wanted to join his brother’s admittedly considerable organisation in London but, when Rizwan could no longer take care of business, he had come. Now he was summoned again, for an ‘update’.
What was he supposed to say?
Yes, Rizwan-ji, your thuggish sons and stupid henchmen are still trafficking women, collecting protection money and taking care of your illegal gambling clubs where people lose their shirts every day. Your enemies are still being tormented – oh, and by the way, I may have prostate cancer …
Saadia let him in and took him up the stairs to her father’s bedroom. Fat and pasty, Rizwan Sheikh lay on a chaotic bed covered in DVDs, pens and paper, empty teacups and crumbs. By way of explanation, Saadia said, ‘Won’t let me tidy up, will you, Daddy-ji?’
Rizwan made a growling noise and then motioned for his brother to sit down. Although his brother was unable to speak, Wahid knew what he wanted and so he gave him his report, omitting any sort of criticism or allusion to his own health issues. However, when he got to the place where he was required to speak about the Hakim family, his brother stopped him and wrote something down on one of his pieces of paper. When he looked at it, Wahid said, ‘Of course I’ve not forgotten. How could I?’
He watched his brother try to smile and was slightly hurt by the fact that he had made him happy. But then that was what blood did …
The hotel bar was in the vast atrium in the middle of the building. And although it wasn’t particularly inviting – the decor was rather sterile – it did have comfortable chairs.
Lee bought the drinks, none of which were alcoholic. He felt the barman viewed him with suspicion. But then what else can a recovering alcoholic, a Muslim and man on medication drink but lemonade or Coca-Cola?
Irving looked pale and gaunt and Lee was in two minds as to whether to bring up ‘business’, but he did.
‘Have you had a chance to think about Miriam’s toys?’ he asked.
Mumtaz and Irving took their drinks, and then he said, ‘You mean the special toy you told me the police had looked for?’
‘Yeah.’
Tommy Askew hadn’t been able to remember what the toy was and so Lee had asked Irving if he could remember.
‘Still nothing comes to mind, I’m afraid,’ he said. ‘In fact, I don’t remember her having toys. She must have done, but nothing I remember. She slept in my parents’ room, I think, and so I suppose she must’ve had her toys in there. Back in the sixties children didn’t have many toys. Not like now.’
‘Seventies weren’t much better,’ Lee said.
Mumtaz smiled. ‘I was very privileged,’ she said. ‘I had a Cabbage Patch Doll before anyone else.’
Lee remembered seeing those dolls. Every girl wanted one in the early nineties and yet, as he recalled, they were ugly-looking things.
‘You know,’ Irving said, ‘I think that maybe never having had children of my own, the subject of toys may have passed me by. I struggle to remember even my own toys. I know I had a train set and Meccano, but I don’t remember anything else. I wouldn’t have had – what do they call them? – action figures.’
‘Why not? I had
Action Man,’ Lee said.
‘Dad only approved of educational toys, where you build or make. Even as a young child I spent much of my time in the Garden with Dad’s colleagues. It was and remains a very masculine world.’ Then he changed the subject. ‘Frau Metzler seemed to think that Herr Beltz was in.’
Lee had felt that too.
‘He’s ex-Stasi,’ he said. ‘God knows what he did in the old days of the DDR. Maybe he killed people?’
‘Surely if that were the case he would be in prison?’
‘The way I understand it, there’s a lot still not known about the Stasi,’ Lee said. ‘You saw that museum. It was part of a whole complex of buildings that used to belong to the Stasi. Stuffed with files that are still unread.’
‘And the Stasi themselves destroyed many of them when the Wall came down,’ Mumtaz said. ‘Maybe Herr Beltz’s was one of those.’
‘And yet he must still live in fear, because if people like Frau Metzler can find out he was an agent so can others,’ Lee said. ‘The Wall came down in living memory and so if he did, at the very least, snoop on his neighbours there are going to be people out there who have it in for him.’
Irving put a hand to his head. ‘So what do we do?’
The night air was cold and the street largely deserted. Irving had gone to bed after he’d finished his drink and, not wanting to be alone with Mumtaz, Lee had left the hotel to have a smoke.
Sara Metzler, God love her, had gone back to her office at the Judaicum to see what else she could unearth about the Austerlitz family. Finding that unrecorded grave of Rachel Austerlitz had hit all of them hard, even though, given the evidence from Irving’s DNA test, it was to be expected. Was the house on Grabbeallee a red herring? There was no real evidence that Irving’s dad had ever been there, and in view of the fact that it had been in the Soviet sector, that seemed unlikely. But also there had to be a reason why Irving’s parents had told him they had met in Niederschönhausen in the house of a family called Austerlitz. Was the clue in what Manny Levy had done in the war? Had he, in spite of being a mere private, had some sort of job that meant he had a connection with or to the Russian forces? Had he spoken Russian?
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