by Joseph Kanon
“My friend, everything means something with them. It’s a chess game, Moscow, one move here, another there. Except in this game the king is never put in check. Never.” He looked up. “This is valuable, Herr Meier. A pity Willy isn’t here—a feather in his cap. To know this before it happens.”
“So should Markovsky be worried? He had a lot to drink.”
“Well, that doesn’t mean much with them. But it’s interesting, yes. Worried about a promotion. We’ll look some more at the tea leaves, see what they say. Your friend, she was with you?”
“That’s why I was there. A drink at the Möwe. Well, drinks. He had a pal with him. Ivan.”
“His flunky, yes. So what else did they talk about?”
“There was a story about Leuna. The heavy water plant there.”
“Leuna?” Dieter said. “Just like that they mention Leuna? You must have a gift for this,” he said, then grinned, an unexpected gesture, his whole face different. “We’ve been trying to find the exact location for months, and now—just like that.”
“They had a lot to drink.”
“Among friends,” he said, nodding to Alex. “It’s working. He trusts you.”
“Not for much longer. He’s leaving whenever Saratov gets here.”
Dieter frowned, then looked up. “The evening went well? You might see him again? A dinner before he leaves?”
“I could ask Irene.”
“A sad occasion for her,” Dieter said, thinking. “She might prefer a dinner alone.”
Alex shrugged. “She might be relieved. The POW’s her brother.”
Dieter stared at him. “And when were you going to tell me this?”
“Does it matter?”
“Amateur. Such foolishness. You’ll get us all—” He looked up. “Markovsky knows this?”
“No. At least, he didn’t say and presumably he would have.”
“Presumably,” Dieter said, sarcastic.
“And he’ll be gone. Not his problem.”
“No. Ours.”
“Look, Erich might have gone to her. Or me. So they’ll check. But he doesn’t know you.”
“And that makes it safe,” Dieter said, dismissive. “When did he escape?”
“Two, three days ago.”
“Then you’re already on borrowed time. You should have your head examined.” He looked back at the statues, scanning the empty fountain. “All right, get him. I’ll find a place.”
Alex looked at him, a question.
“Somewhere safe, but not with me. No connection.”
“Where?”
Dieter shook his head. “The fewer people know, the safer he’ll be. No links to break. No chain.”
“Part of the training?”
“No, I know how these things work. I was for many years with the police.”
“The Berlin police? During—?”
“Yes, during the Third Reich.” The hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. “A conversation for another day. Better have him come alone.”
“But—”
“A little trust, Herr Meier. Even in this business.” He glanced down at his watch. “Is there anything else you’re not telling me?”
“No,” Alex said, his face suddenly warm. “Isn’t that enough?”
“For one day, yes,” Dieter said, another smile. “So. I’ll expect your friend. Alone. And you? What’s on the agenda today?”
“A meeting at DEFA.”
“Such a life. Film stars. Say hello to Fräulein Knef for me,” he said, turning to go.
“One last thing. Quick question. What does it mean if the Party calls your membership book in for review?”
“This has happened?”
“To an émigré. From America. I just wondered—”
“If it’s only one, it could be anything. A travel request. Some personal problem. If it’s several, many, then maybe a sign.”
“Of what?”
“One of the great Russian spectacles. A purge. A great sport for Stalin, before the war. And now for us. We sit back and watch them pick each other off. They haven’t tried it here yet, too busy stripping the factories. But an opportunity for us if they do. You’ve heard of only the one?”
“An opportunity how?”
“To recruit. A test of faith, even for the strongest believers. No sense to it. Why him? Why me? Think of the exiles, dreaming of their Socialist Germany. Here? No, in Mexico.” He looked over at Alex. “America. So they come, still in their dream. And then they see what it’s really like. A bloodletting. To cleanse the Party? Yes, to cleanse it of them, terrify them. And now where is your faith? An opportunity.” He nodded. “Interesting times. Keep your ears open.”
* * *
Fritsch offered to send a car, but Alex took the S-Bahn instead, a little time to think on the ride out. Charlottenburg, streets of charred, hollow buildings, as bad as anything in the East. Westkreuz. The big railway yards at Grunewald, a maze of switches and platforms, where the Jews had been collected to be shipped east, rounded up in trucks or simply told to report to the station. Had his parents brought suitcases? All of it open, in broad daylight. Everybody saw. Everybody knew. Then the trees of the Grunewald itself, the lakes. Somewhere after that, no sign, they crossed back into the Soviet zone, the western sectors an island again.
He got off at Babelsberg, crossed over the tracks, and started the long walk to the studio. In Hollywood the soundstages were giant rounded adobes, baking in the desert sun. Here they were brick, tucked into the suburban woods, even the gates shaded by giant overhanging trees.
Fritsch was in a rush, darting around his office in a kind of blur, then stopping short and looking down, as if he were trying to remember something.
“I’m sorry, so rude, but I didn’t know. I have to meet with Walter. Yesterday everything’s wonderful and now suddenly a meeting. So. Irene can show you around, yes?” He looked over to her. “And we can meet for coffee later. You’ll forgive me? Irene, why don’t you start with Staudte’s set. You want to see where the money goes? And he used to shoot in the rubble. Now—” He stopped, searching for something in his head, then looked at Alex. “He wants to call it Rotation. What do you think? You like the title?”
“Rotation. As in the planets?”
“What planets? No, like a printing press.” He made a cranking motion with his hand. “For the Völkischer Beobachter. You see?” he said to Irene. “I told you it was confusing. What’s the first thing you think of. He says planets. A film about a Nazi newspaper. So what good is that? Talk to Staudte, will you? He doesn’t want to sabotage his own film with a title nobody—” He looked over his desk and picked up a piece of paper. “So let me get him some money. Then maybe he changes it. Herr Meier, you’ll forgive me? I shouldn’t be long. It’s always quick with Walter. Yes. No. Never maybe.”
“Who’s Walter?” Alex said when he’d gone.
“Janka. The head. Matthias ignores the budget and then he’s always surprised when— Come.”
She led him out of the admin building, across the grounds to one of the soundstages.
“Did they come this morning?”
“Twice,” she said, glancing around. “First Ivan and some driver from the pool. Where is he? Isn’t he with you? I said. No. Ivan’s still confused, of course, from all the drink. He left here hours ago, I said. I thought he was with you. Now more confused. Then, a few hours later, another two. From Karlshorst. One I recognized—he worked with Sasha—so he knew me too. What time did he leave? Early. I was still half asleep. Not yet light. Well, maybe just getting light. Vague, the way we agreed. He didn’t call for a car? I don’t know, didn’t he? Is something wrong? He’s all right? Now concerned. And the friend tries to calm me down. It’s probably nothing. And I say, but where is he? And they want to know, what did he say? When he was with me. Well, sad, of course, we were both sad. He’s leaving. But we always knew this would happen one day. And then they want to know the time again—when did he get there, when did
he leave.”
“You didn’t say anything about how he felt, about going back?”
“I didn’t have to. Ivan already had. To make himself important, I think. How he told Sasha it wasn’t a trick, but Sasha was worried. So they asked me did he seem all right to you, the same? And I said, well, there was something on his mind, yes, but I thought, he’s thinking about leaving me. What else would it be? And of course they don’t answer that. Anyway, now I’m very upset so they’re not asking questions, just telling me everything’s all right.”
“Good. So they don’t suspect?”
“Me? No. They suspect him. They’re not sure of what. But when Ivan says he’s probably sleeping it off somewhere they just look at him, like a fool. Oh, and they asked me, how did he say good-bye, what did he say? And I said he didn’t say anything, he just kissed me here.” She touched the back of her head. “He didn’t want to wake me. He was so quiet when he left. So we’re all right, do you think?”
“So far. But they’ll come again. You have to be ready for that.”
“Again?”
“You were the last person to see him. So where did he go? If he’s hiding somewhere, the most likely person to be helping him is you. Unless he’s afraid they’ll tail you, so he’s safer on his own. But they’ll watch you. You have to be careful.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
“So I don’t see you?”
“Only like this.”
She looked over at him. “You think it’s so easy, once you start? That’s how it is with you? Like a switch. On. Off.”
He looked away, not answering.
They went in through a small stage door to a hangarlike space, busy with carpenters and gaffers shouting to each other as they positioned lights overhead. Against the wall were giant newspaper presses made of wood and painted plaster.
“So, the Völkischer Beobachter,” Irene said. “They worked from photographs. The dimensions are accurate.”
“You can see through the paint,” Alex said. A set patched together with rationed materials.
“But the camera can’t. Look over there. The way it’s painted, the lines. On film, the depth comes out—not canvas, loading docks. You can make the camera see what you want it to see.” She glanced around the soundstage. “You know, when it was bombed here it was the only time I thought, that’s it, that’s the end. The set was just a silly room, for one of the mountain pictures, antlers and copper pots, stupid. And then it was bombed and I wanted to cry. A set like that. Well, that’s all we were making then, Heidi pictures. And Kolberg. Months and months of Kolberg.
“Propaganda.”
“Oh, propaganda. By then who was listening? Zarah Leander and her pilot? What’s the harm? Think what was going on out there.” She nodded to the door, the real world, then looked up at him. “I don’t want to lose this. Now that Sasha’s gone. I don’t know if Matthias can protect—” She stopped, then put her hand on his arm. “They say Dymshits wanted you to come—a personal invitation. He’d do it for you, a favor, and I’d be safe.” She hesitated, toying with it. “You’ll be Sasha now.”
He said nothing, taking this in.
“Isn’t it funny. To be together again. After all these years. I never thought—”
“I’ve moved Erich, by the way. Somewhere safe.”
“Where?”
He shook his head. “You can’t see him. You’d lead them right to him.”
She looked down. “So. This is what it’s going to be like?”
“Not for long. Don’t lose your nerve. Not now.”
“My nerve,” she said. “I survived Goebbels. Everything. Don’t worry about me.” Bravado with a quaver behind it, nervous.
“They have to think he’s still alive. So we have to think it too. Act as if.”
“Why?”
“Right now they’ve got a missing officer. Maybe a deserter. An embarrassment. If they have a body, they’ve got a homicide. A police case. And—” He stopped.
“And I’m the last one to see him alive.”
Fritsch met them for coffee in the commissary, preoccupied, the meeting with Janka evidently not an easy one.
“You know, in the Ufa days there was a hierarchy here, a special table for the bosses, the directors, the technicians. Now it’s democratic—sit wherever you like. And where do they sit? The directors’ table. The technicians’ table.” He attempted a smile. “It’s not so easy to change a society. Whatever Lenin might say. So, what did you think? The rebuilding, it’s impressive, no?”
“Irene says you’re back at full production.”
“Almost. The Russians gave us a priority, for building materials. Otherwise—” He stopped, his mind drifting elsewhere.
“It’s okay? The Staudte budget?” Irene said, reading him.
“The Staudte—?” he said, confused for a second. “Oh, that’s fine. Something else.” He hesitated, glancing quickly away from Alex. “You haven’t heard from Herschel, have you?”
Irene shook her head. “Why?”
“He didn’t turn up. A shooting day, the set’s already lit and no Herschel.”
“He’s sick, maybe.”
“Walter sent someone to his flat. You know he’s here, in Babelsberg, so it was easy to check. No one. And the landlady says she heard people in the night.”
Irene looked up at him.
“At his door. She’s one of those types, if you ask, I don’t know anything, but she listens.”
“Maybe some whore from the bars. He’s done that before.”
Fritsch ignored this. “You remember when they were looking for Nazis? Right after the war? Always at night.”
“Nazis?”
Fritsch shrugged. “Whatever it is this time. A message maybe to DEFA. Walter’s worried. Once it starts—”
“And maybe he’s drunk somewhere,” Irene said, her voice not believing it.
Fritsch looked at her. “A shooting day.”
Alex watched them, back and forth, a tennis volley of unfinished sentences and code words, the way people talked now. He had forgotten where he was, a city where people could be snatched in Lützowplatz and disappear. He looked over at Irene. Face drawn, talking in glances to Fritsch. Don’t worry about me. Now the inevitable suspect. How much time had her story really bought them? A man like Sasha couldn’t just disappear. They’d never allow that. They’d have to hunt him down. Question the last person to see him. Over and over until she broke. The way they did things. Unless they could be convinced Sasha wasn’t with her. He peeked at his watch. Was Campbell already here? When he looked up he felt Irene’s eyes, trying to read his thoughts. Keep Sasha alive. Somewhere else.
“Maybe he left. For the West,” Alex said, almost blurting it.
Fritsch sat back, a slight wince, as if the words themselves had made him uncomfortable.
“Herschel?” Irene said, dismissing this. “You remember how Tulpanov liked his work? He was a favorite of Tulpanov’s.”
“Yes,” Fritsch said, still uneasy, “a favorite. Well, maybe some misunderstanding. The landlady.” Eager now to move away from it. “So. What are you going to do for us? I know, I know, a book to write. But a film, it’s time for you. I was thinking—you don’t mind?—maybe something personal, from your own life? Would that interest you? Not the exile,” he said quickly. “That’s very difficult for film. But your parents, for instance. Your mother stayed with your father. Even to the camps.”
“She had no choice.”
“By then, no. But earlier. She wasn’t Jewish and yet she stays to the end.”
“She loved him,” Alex said simply, glancing over at Irene. What did it mean to love someone that much? Something from another time.
“Yes, of course, a love story, but also a heroic one. He was a Socialist, yes? So imagine—take one step—a young Communist couple, who have to go underground when the Nazis—”
He began using his hand for emphasis and suddenly Alex was back in
California, a producer pointing at him with a cigar, rewriting the world.
Irene, watching his reaction, interrupted. “Or maybe an adaptation. We have a list of possibilities. We could meet to go over that. Discuss things,” she said, meeting his eyes.
“Good, good,” Fritsch said before Alex could answer. “A meeting. You know the food here is off ration. So that’s another thing. And now, you’ll excuse me again?” He stood up, shaking hands, then stopped, remembering something. “Irene,” he said, tentative, thinking out loud, “would you check with the gate? See if there’s anyone else who didn’t report today?”
* * *
Markus was waiting when he got back to Rykestrasse.
“You don’t mind I let myself in? It’s suspicious, waiting outside. People wonder.”
“Yes,” Alex said, thrown, not knowing what else to say. Had he already searched the flat? Poked through drawers?
“You’ve been ill?” Markus said, indicating the bedroom, a medicine vial left on the nightstand.
“I just felt a cold coming on. Better to catch things before they catch you. Would you like something to drink?” A quick scan of the room, the other medicines gone, no clothes left behind, just a rumpled bed.
“Where did you get it, may I ask? The medicine? Such a shortage just now.”
Alex looked at him. Thrust, parry. “Where does anyone get it?”
Markus took his time with this, then sighed. “Yes. But could I suggest, given our association, that in the future the black market—we must respect the law in these matters. Otherwise—”
“What association?”
“Well, our cooperation, let’s say. Our informal arrangement.”
“Markus—”
Markus held up his hand. “Yes, I know. You prefer to leave the work to others. Protecting Socialism. But now such a unique opportunity to help. Think how grateful—”
“What opportunity?”
“You saw Irene at DEFA today?”
“Fritsch asked her to give me a tour.”
“And did she tell you that her—what? friend? is missing.”
“She said Ivan came looking for him this morning. And then some other people. Your people?”
