The victim said, “I would like to leave my wife out of…” His voice faltered and broke. The lawyer raised his hand. “That’s enough!” Grabbing his client by the sleeve—and this time Reinhardt put up no resistance—he led him quickly to a black limousine waiting at the roadside. The camera, swaying, followed the two of them. The lawyer bundled his client into the back seat and climbed in after him. The limousine began moving. The merciless camera caught another glimpse of the spy. The victim’s head was bent, and he was rubbing each eye with thumb and forefinger.
If someone hadn’t come upon his dusty file, Herr Reinhardt could have grown old in peace and quiet and died a well-respected man. Perhaps not entirely in peace and quiet. The fear of being unmasked will have tormented him for years, will have woken him abruptly from sleep on many a night, while his wife slumbered beside him, his children on the floor above, and then I imagine Herr Reinhardt wiping the sweat from his brow and staring at the net curtain as it moves slightly in the light from the street lamps.
But if even this sleeper agent, in whom the Workers’ and Peasants’ Republic had invested a certain amount, was apparently forgotten by his employers, if even he could have survived the GDR but for someone nosing through the files and stumbling across him by chance—then why should a young woman, who certainly didn’t go to the West in order to undermine capitalism, still be interesting to her employers and their ilk a quarter of a century later?
I don’t know. But I for one would have done everything in my power to keep poor, amiable Herr Reinhardt, who was sweating with fear and whose voice broke when he was asked about his wife and children, from being unmasked. I would have tried to prevent him from being thrown to the vultures to be devoured, from having to let some brash, naive representative of the public interest hold a microphone in front of his lips.
And if I could summon up great understanding and heartfelt sympathy for Herr Reinhard, then how much more so for my wife. I don’t know whether there is anything in Erika’s suspicions, but if Julia really did make a foolish mistake in her youth, I shall do all I can to shield her from the repellent self-righteousness of this decent society of ours.
Chapter 45
Herr Hochgeschurz called late in the afternoon. I was just wondering how I could question Julia without perhaps putting her under even more pressure, when the phone rang. The agent spoke in his slow voice. “Hochgeschurz here. Good day, Herr Kestner. How are you?”
My heart began hammering. The agent said he would have liked to speak to me again. Dr Schmidt was also interested in talking to me, he said, although of course he would suggest such a double appointment only if I agreed.
I asked what it was about. Herr Hochgeschurz said he didn’t like to explain on the phone. The agent took a couple of breaths and then said it was nothing that should make me feel very uneasy, but the matter was rather urgent all the same. He also wanted to ask, on behalf of Dr Schmidt, if we might perhaps meet in the beer cellar of the Town Hall for a meal, or at a restaurant of my own choice. Of course I was also welcome to go to their office in the afternoon, if I preferred that to a meeting in public.
I said that unfortunately I was very short of time and didn’t see any chance of such a meeting. “That’s a great pity,” said Herr Hochgeschurz. “But of course we don’t want to inconvenience you.” He breathed laboriously again, and then said, “Please reconsider it, Herr Kestner. What we wanted to discuss with you is something that you would find not uninteresting. If you do happen to change your mind, you can call me at any time. Did you keep my card? I think I wrote my private number on it, or I’d give it to you again for all contingencies.”
I said that wasn’t necessary, I had kept the card. Then I thanked him for calling and hung up.
I won’t be able to allow myself much time for reflection any more. This agent is more active than his phlegmatic manner might suggest.
Chapter 46
It wasn’t the managing director of the publishing firm in Darmstadt, whatever one might imagine by that term, whom Ninoshvili saw, but the editor whose name Gerd Buttgereit had given me and to whom I had turned with the Georgian’s literary offerings. At least, it turns out that he was the one who talked to Ninoshvili yesterday morning.
I called the editor, one Herr von Janowitz, on a pretext. I told him I wanted to tell Herr Ninoshvili I was offering to revise the German text of the story ‘The Woman with the Pomegranate’, and I’d like to know how much time I had to do it. Herr von Janowitz, who was suffering from either adenoids or a heavy cold, seemed rather surprised. He told me it was a very kind thought, but there was no particular hurry.
I said I hoped he would forgive my ignorance, presumably I’d had the wrong idea of a publishing firm’s production deadlines. I’d assumed that the story had to be ready to go to press very soon if the anthology was being published in the spring. Herr von Janowitz said, “Yes, yes, but whether and when we put this volume together is still in the lap of the gods.” I said I must have misunderstood then; I had thought that the contract he was going to send Herr Ninoshvili also mentioned a publication date.
Herr von Janowitz said, “We haven’t yet reached the point of a contract. For now, we’ve only asked for an option to publish the story.”
I wasn’t particularly surprised. Ninoshvili is an accomplished liar, but then I knew that already.
Since it’s impossible to say a word in our house these days without some guest barging in unexpectedly, I had to postpone any conversation with Julia until bedtime. Neither Ninoshvili nor Erika had let Julia’s yawns disturb them, and they went to bed only when Julia nodded off on the sofa for the second time.
When we were in bed at last, luckily Julia picked up her book again. I opened my own book, so as to avoid any dramatic opening to this interrogation, but soon cut short the risk that she might fall asleep. After turning the first page, I said, still looking at the book, “You do realize that Ninoshvili is lying, don’t you?”
She turned to me and looked at me in silence. I said if she was going to accuse me of spying on Ninoshvili again, very well, you could call it that, but unfortunately my suspicions had been confirmed. I told her what I had learned from Herr von Janowitz. “Empty words, that’s all our friend David got out of those negotiations. Did you know?”
“No. He told me exactly what he told you.” She lowered her book, lay on her back and closed her eyes. After a while she said, “It won’t do much good for me to defend him. But at least I understand why he’s lying.” She sighed. “He’s ashamed. He’d like to go straight home to his Matassi, but of course he has to bring results back to Tbilisi. And he thinks he needs them to keep his end up with us too. It hurts him badly to be treated like a beggar, just a nuisance. That’s why he pretends to us.”
I said, “I’m not sure whether that’s the only reason why he’s lying.”
She turned her face towards me, a question in her eyes.
I did not reply for a while. Then I said some odd things had happened during my visit to Tbilisi, and they had only just come back into my mind. Pointed questions about the activities of some of my travelling companions, and my own personal circumstances too. Obvious knowledge of a critical remark made by Herr Dautzenbacher, one of those on the trip, during a conversation between him and me in my hotel room, one that no one else could have heard unless I was being bugged. And not least, a kind of team performance put on by Ninoshvili and his wife, who even when I first saw her had looked to me like a decoy. Dautzenbacher had reacted strongly to their act as well.
At the time I hadn’t taken it seriously when the organizers of our visit to Georgia warned us to assume that our Soviet hosts, even the high-ranking people who talked to us, might also be interested in us on behalf of the intelligence services. But I had now been thinking a lot about it. And if any other reason was needed to wonder why our guest had been provided with hard currency just to pursue some hopeless cultural project here, then we could have learned from the newspaper reports. The KGB s
till plays an important part in Georgia, as we read in the papers almost daily.
I paused for a moment. Then I said that was one thing the Soviet secret service obviously had in common with the Stasi, which as we also knew was still operating.
She lay without moving for a while. Suddenly she sat up. She passed her hand over her face, shook her head and looked at me. “Do you seriously believe that David is working for the KGB? That can’t be true, Christian!”
“Why not? Doesn’t the KGB exist any longer? Or the Stasi? Did they never exist?”
She lay down on her back again and closed her eyes.
I touched her shoulder. “Julia, if that man is causing you any trouble, then tell me. Please. You can always tell me if you have problems. I want to help you.”
She said nothing for a while. Then, with her eyes still closed, she said, “What kind of problems would I have? I think you’re the one with problems. You’re jealous, Christian. And I can understand that. It wasn’t very sensible of me to stay away overnight with David, without discussing it with you first. But I had no opportunity to—you’d already gone out.”
She switched off her bedside lamp and moved closer to me. “I’m sorry, Christian.” She kissed me on the cheek. “There’s really no need for you to be jealous. You have nothing to worry about. Your love is quite enough for me.” She took my book away from me, leaned over me, and put out my own bedside light. Then she laid her head on my chest and began caressing me.
After a while I said I was sorry, but I wasn’t in the mood. Which was true. She stayed lying close, put her arm around me and said nothing. I could tell, from the sound of her breathing, that it took her a long time to fall asleep.
Chapter 47
At breakfast, which I had made, Julia said very little. She smiled at me now and then, and once took my hand and squeezed it. I went to the door with her when she set out for the courthouse, and stood there until she had got her car out of the garage and driven past, waving to me.
The house was quiet. Erika and Ninoshvili were still asleep. I went into my study and sat down at the desk. But I didn’t think for long. I had to do something, that was obvious. It remains to be seen whether I did the right thing.
I picked up the phone. Herr Hochgeschurz was already in his office. He said he could see me at once, although he suggested that I wait until about ten to arrive, because Dr Schmidt was still on his way. Or would I rather Dr Schmidt did not take part in the conversation? I said that would be fine. One secret agent more or less no longer mattered.
This time I was admitted to Dr Schmidt’s office. The boss’s room is a little more lavishly furnished than Herr Hochgeschurz’s, and the interior designer has dispensed with the fire extinguisher, thus sparing visitors the uncomfortable feeling that a Molotov cocktail might be thrown in through the window at any moment. However, the view of fat roofs and chimneys is the same, and so is the smell of the cleaning fluid. The Internal Security people probably buy it by the barrel to impress the Federal Audit Office with their economic management of their budget.
Herr Hochgeschurz in person opened the door of the communications company to me, and led me to the boss’s office. Dr Schmidt rose from his swivel chair, shook hands with me, said, “Very good to see you; I’m glad you found the time after all,” and pointed to the visitor’s chair in front of his desk. Hochgeschurz drew up another chair and sat down beside me. He opened the conversation by asking, “How is your wife?” I thanked him and said she was very well.
There was a little pause, during which Dr Schmidt kept smiling and nodding. He left his subordinate to conduct the rest of this conversation as well. Herr Hochgeschurz leaned back, said, “Well…” crossed his powerful thighs, dusted off a trouser leg, “now for the reason why we have asked you to come and talk to us.” He folded his arms and looked at me. “I am sure you know that Herr Ninoshvili is playing in a chess tournament this weekend?”
I cleared my throat. “No. No, this is the first I’ve heard of it. But it’s very likely. Herr Ninoshvili is an enthusiastic chess player.”
Hochgeschurz smiled. “He’s even an International Master.”
“Yes, I know.”
Herr Hochgeschurz nodded. “Well, to inform you of the details, which I am sure he will be telling you himself: he has enrolled for a Rapidplay chess tournament to be held in SchwitteMinnenbüren. A tournament at a high level of proficiency, prizes well worth winning. A couple of Grandmasters are going to be there. You are probably surprised to find us taking an interest in such things, but we want to be straightforward with you.”
He glanced at Dr Schmidt, and his boss nodded. Hochgeschurz said, “We know that you are a trustworthy man.” He massaged his nose thoroughly before going on. “On your first visit, I told you a little about the KGB. And the Stasi. And I mentioned that those old comrades have by no means gone into retirement.”
I was wondering more and more what Hochgeschurz was getting at. He confided, once again, that Internal Security was of course always on its guard, had to be on its guard, particularly with visitors from the former Soviet Union. For instance, the chess experts cultivated in large numbers by that state, the Grandmasters who have been coming to the West in droves for a few years now and winning prizes at tournaments. All these star players, not even excluding the youngest, have been drilled by the Soviet sports system since childhood, and as I could imagine they have been trained not only in playing chess but also in politically correct principles.
Well then, he said, of the masters hoping to win the prizes at SchwitteMinnenbüren, several were already well known to Internal Security: a Russian, also an Armenian whom they had already had to reprimand because, outrageously, he had tried to question a German MP who was patron of a chess tournament in his electoral district. But of course Internal Security was also interested in the contacts these gentlemen made in Schwitte. New contacts, yes, but also those they’d known in the good old days and whom they might try cultivating there.
Herr Hochgeschurz rubbed his nose. Then he said, “For instance, we would be interested to know whether Herr Ninoshvili has dealings with them. Close dealings.”
Dr Schmidt spoke up here. “Do you understand our meaning?”
I said, “No.” Turning to Herr Hochgeschurz, I asked, “Didn’t you tell me, when we talked in your office, that you couldn’t say whether Herr Ninoshvili had anything to do with the KGB?”
Hochgeschurz smiled. “Quite right. And I still can’t. But for that very reason we’d like to know what he does in Schwitte when he isn’t sitting at the chessboard.”
“Yes, I can understand that. But what business of mine is it? Do you think he’s going to tell me about it?”
“No, of course not.” Herr Hochgeschurz exchanged a glance with Dr Schmidt before going on. “Well, you see… your son is playing in the Youth Open in Schwitte.” He raised his hand in a placatory gesture before I could open my mouth. “Don’t worry, your son is not under observation. But along with the list of participants in the Masters’ Tournament, the list for the Youth Open landed on my desk. And naturally I noticed your son’s name.”
Herr Hochgeschurz breathed heavily again. I stared at him. He said, “We’re being absolutely open with you, Herr Kestner, because we trust you. For one thing, your son is in very close contact with Herr Ninoshvili. And for another, he would at least agree with us that if foreign agents are at work in our country, we ought not just to fold our hands and do nothing.”
He leaned forwards, placing his hands on his knees. “So we wanted to ask you if you would agree to our asking your son to keep an eye on Herr Ninoshvili. And on the contacts he has in Schwitte. Your son would be able to go around with Herr Ninoshvili perfectly naturally. The last round of the Youth Open is being played on Saturday, as I am sure you know.”
I said, “No.”
Dr Schmidt asked, “Meaning what?”
I said, “You can’t be seriously asking me this! Surely you don’t imagine you can recruit my son i
nto your service?”
Dr Schmidt shook his head, smiling. “No, no, you mustn’t look at it like that!” He adjusted his glasses. “We would be asking him a favour. And a favour that he might perhaps do us of his own accord if he knew that Herr Ninoshvili… well, that he may be working for the KGB.”
Dr Schmidt leaned back in his chair. He said, “Then again, there’s the tit-for-tat principle, something that quite often pays off in life.”
For a moment words failed me. I stared at Dr Schmidt. “What do you mean by that?”
He smiled. “Only what I said.”
I rose to my feet and nodded to Dr Schmidt. “Thank you for this conversation. I have certainly learned a few things from it.”
Herr Hochgeschurz rose and gave me his hand. “You shouldn’t draw any false conclusions, Herr Kestner. It was only a question, after all, and of course it’s your decision.”
He went to the door with me. In the corridor, he said, “And by the way, you were right in your supposition. The murder in the hotel does indeed have a background in Intelligence. The woman used to work for the Stasi. She even held the rank of captain.”
Chapter 48
In the 1930s the agents of the Soviet secret service must have been easy to recognize at first sight. Although perhaps Grigol Robakidze was exaggerating the reality slightly in order to make it easier for his readers to tell the difference between good and evil. At least, in one of his novels he describes a tavern in Tbilisi, the dimly lit haunt of the Bohemian set, where unwanted guests turn up one evening: Bolsheviks. One of them is a Georgian, but is an agent of the GPU, and that is obvious to all present. He does not, like a pure-bred Georgian, carry a noble head on his shoulders, but “a viper’s head, with sparse hair and almost no eyebrows”.
Ninoshvili looked up when I said casually at supper that I was going to drive to SchwitteMinnenbüren on Friday evening, to take a look at the chess tournament, cross my fingers for Ralf, and bring him home on Sunday, hopefully with a cup in his backpack. The viper didn’t comment, but left it to Julia to reveal his own plans.
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