by Joseph Kanon
“Ah.”
“He died for the Agency. Who’s to say otherwise? The Russians? They get quiet, times like this.”
Dieter looked at him, a smile at the corner of his mouth. “Amateur,” he said. “It’s lucky I was there. So you have a witness.”
Alex looked at him, a conversation in a glance. “Yes, lucky.”
“And did you find out? Whether he told them about me?”
“No. Sorry.”
“Well, but the odds are yes. And who risks his life for odds. You’re going out to Dahlem?”
“You want a lift? Markus may be arriving later.”
Dieter raised his eyebrows.
“I’ll tell you in the car. But I have one more thing,” he said, glancing toward the hospital. “I won’t be long.”
“I’ll wait for you on the other side. By the Gate. You don’t want to risk a border check with a body in the trunk.”
“But you risk it.”
Dieter shrugged. “And what do you want to do about Markovsky?”
“Can you get Gunther to bury him as Max Mustermann? The Russians love a mystery. Let’s give them one.”
“He won’t like that.”
“Nobody will ever know. Except you and me.”
Dieter looked at him. “And whoever killed him.”
“That’s right. And whoever killed him.”
“Another mystery,” Dieter said. “You ought to stay in this work. You have the nerves for it.”
“What, and work with you?”
“They’re all amateurs out in Dahlem. New to it. The Russians aren’t amateurs. For this one thing, they have a genius.” He paused. “You could be useful. I’d help you. You’re in this now.”
“I’m not in anything.”
“No?” Dieter said, glancing at the trunk. “Once you start, you know, it’s hard to turn your back. No one else understands how it is, what we have to do, unless they’re part of it too. It’s important work. You could be valuable.”
“Is this what BOB said to you?”
Dieter smiled. “No, I was easier. They got me for a letter. To wash my sins away. ‘A Nazi of convenience,’ that’s the phrase they used.”
“Were you?”
Dieter shrugged. “Everyone on the force. Now an Ami of convenience. You do what you have to do. Terrible things sometimes,” he said, looking toward the trunk again, then back at Alex. “You try to keep a piece of yourself. Something they can’t get. And then it’s over and you think, my God, I did that. I was part of it. So in the end what did you keep? And now,” he said, extending his hand to take in the car, the city beyond. “A new side. More things we don’t talk about. You think you don’t pay, but—you carry it with you.” He looked over. “If you go on with this work, keep something for yourself. Not just a piece. Otherwise they’ll take it all. And then you’re not good for anything else.”
Alex felt cold on the back of his neck.
“Well, my friend, better hurry,” Dieter said. “You still have a body to explain.”
* * *
Irene was sitting up, wearing a pink bed jacket, frilly, with girlish silk ribbons. She giggled at his expression.
“Elsbeth’s,” she said. “She dresses like a doll. So, finally. That strange man before. ‘Don’t leave the hospital.’ Why? ‘Wait for Alex.’ So now we can go?”
“Are you all right?”
“This?” she said, touching a white head bandage. “It’s better, I think. Gustav says I should rest a few days, but I could do that in Marienstrasse, no?”
“You could also go to Elsbeth. Then Erich. I can still get you a plane out.”
“Oh, again with that.”
“It would be better for you.”
“What’s wrong? Your face. They found him, Sasha?”
“No. They’re not going to. I’m taking care of it. You’ll never have to worry about that. It’s safe. It would just be better in the West, that’s all. Easier.”
“What do you mean, you’re taking care of it?”
“I don’t have time to explain. It never happened. You don’t know anything. You never did. Okay?”
“And Elsbeth’s name?”
“Just a precaution. If they checked the hospitals. After the accident. And your name popped up—”
“The accident.”
“That’s what they’re calling it. You don’t know anything about that either.”
He waited for a moment.
“I’m going to be on the radio tomorrow.”
“Like Erich?”
“Yes. Just like Erich. So I have to leave. I’ve come to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?” she said faintly, almost dazed. “You’re leaving? Where? Frankfurt?”
“No, I’m going back.”
“Back where? You can’t go back.”
“I can now. I made an arrangement.”
“Clever Alex,” she said. “Always—” She looked up. “You mean you’re leaving me.”
“I have a child. I don’t want him to grow up without me. That’s all that matters now.”
“That’s all? Not us?”
He sat on the bed, putting a hand up to her face. “Us. There is no us. It was just an idea you had.”
“I don’t believe you. It’s not the child. It’s something else.”
“No, it’s him. It’s what I came to Berlin for—to go back.”
“What does that mean? You’re not making sense.”
“I know. Never mind. I have to go. I can’t stay in Berlin.”
“But why?” she said, her voice rising, a kind of wail. “You never said—”
“The people who were following us last night were following me. Not you. You’re safe, but I’m not. I have to go.”
“But what about me? What will I do?”
“Go to Elsbeth.”
“Oh, Elsbeth. This stupid jacket,” she said, taking it off. “You’re leaving me and I’m in this ridiculous jacket. In bed. No,” she said, getting out. “I can stand. Tell me standing up. This is what you came to say? You’re leaving me? I thought you loved me.”
“I do,” he said softly. “But I can see you better now. All of you. Erich. Elsbeth. You. Before I just saw what I wanted to see.”
“Oh,” she said, flailing, clutching the bed jacket. “See me better. What does Erich have to do with anything? Elsbeth. I don’t understand—”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“What question?” she said, distracted, a kind of pout.
“When you told them things, did you tell them about me?”
“What?”
“It’s important to me. To know. I don’t blame you. I just want to know.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You should have gone with Erich. And I should have known then. You weren’t scared enough. You should have been. I was. But you weren’t afraid to stay. I thought it was the usual von Bernuth foolishness. Nothing can touch us. But it wasn’t just that. You still felt protected. Even with Sasha gone. Did it start with him? Or before? Of course, he wouldn’t just sleep with you. He’d ask you things. Nothing special. DEFA, probably. Did you report on DEFA? Tell them what people were saying? Fritsch? Which doesn’t matter much, until somebody doesn’t turn up for work.”
“Stop this,” she said, shoulders back now, standing still.
“And then I came. Somebody from the West. They’d want to know everything. What I did, what I said. And you were in such a good position to help. Maybe that’s what Leon was doing the night I came to the flat. Just getting a report. Be nice to think that’s all it was since we’d just— But probably one thing led to another. You’d want to keep the DEFA job safe. With Sasha gone. And once you start something like this, they never go away. There’s always somebody.”
“That’s why you’re leaving? Because you think this?”
“I know how it is. When I saw Roberta, I thought yes, just like that. A coffee, checking in. That’s how it’s done. But not with Markus
. Maybe that’s why he’s so angry with you—I’ll have to ask him. He couldn’t get to you, you were already in another league, with the Russians. No wonder Markovsky was so upset when he found out about Erich. Lying to him. You expect better from a source. Especially one you’re sleeping with. Feels like she’s cheating on you. An insult.”
“Stop it.”
“And after? I kept thinking they were going to haul you in for some serious questioning, but no. They never seemed to suspect you. Why would they? You were still cooperating, still one of them. In a small way, maybe, but they’d look after you. A kind of protection racket. How else to get along?”
“Alex, please.”
“I don’t care why you did it. All the usual, what else? Maybe they forced you. They don’t give you much choice. I know how it works.”
“Oh, you know,” she said, eyes flashing. “You think you know.”
“But if you stay here, they’ll never leave you alone. That’s why I thought the West—” He looked up. “Did you? Did you tell them anything about me? It’s important to me to know.”
“Why?” she said, turning her back to him, walking, then back, pacing in a cage. “So you can hate me?”
He took her by the arms. “Did you? Please. Tell me.”
“Nothing. Unimportant things,” she said, wrenching away from him. “That’s all. Unimportant things. They don’t care. Anything. They just like to collect—”
“I know. They asked me about Aaron. Unimportant things.”
“You think I wanted to make trouble for you?”
“No.”
“No. It was just, what does he say? Does he like it here? Unimportant things. So, yes, he likes it here. What’s the harm in that? All good things, what they like. They respect you. You have a position here.”
“Not after tomorrow,” he said.
“What’s tomorrow? Oh, the radio. What do you say?”
“Things they won’t like. I can never come back.”
“So it’s like before. In America. The great gesture. And where do you go this time?”
“I don’t know. Wherever I can see Peter.”
“But not me. It doesn’t mean anything to you, how we are?” She reached for him, drawing him closer. “You can’t just walk away. You can’t. I’m not like her. The one in America.”
“No.”
“This nonsense I tell them. It’s so important?”
He stroked her hair. “No. I just wanted to know. It makes things easier, that’s all.”
“What things? I can stop all that. We could—” She pulled back. “You’re not even listening. It doesn’t matter what I say—” Her voice quivering, then suddenly calm. “How can you leave? You always wanted this.”
“Yes, I always did.”
She stood taller, gathering up her pride like a skirt. “Well, then. And later, how will you feel?”
He looked at her, the same defiant eyes, Kurt’s head in her lap, feeling time dissolve. He slipped out of her arms and walked to the door, then turned.
“What?”
“I just wanted to look.” A snapshot moment, what he’d felt on the bridge.
“Alex, for God’s sake—”
“You used to think everybody was in love with you.”
She shrugged. “So maybe they were,” she said, her face soft. “In those days.”
“Maybe. I was. I wonder—”
“What?”
“How different everything might have been. If you’d been in love with me.”
* * *
He walked down Luisenstrasse and over the bridge. In the dusk, moving headlights were lighting up the Brandenburg Gate, the world divided by a few steps. Nobody was stopping traffic. A crude wooden sign. You are leaving the Soviet sector. He passed under the arches expecting to hear a police whistle, pounding feet. But in another minute, East Berlin was just a patch of dark behind him. Out of it. Through the Gate. Where everything would be different. Where he would be himself again. Dieter was leaning against the trunk of the car, smoking, waiting, indifferent to what was inside. What he would become. Maybe what he already was. You’re in this now. You do what you have to do. Then you carry it with you. But he was here, on the other side. He stopped for a second, taking a deep breath, somehow expecting the air itself to be different. But the air was the same.
JOSEPH KANON is the Edgar Award–winning author of Istanbul Passage, Stardust, Alibi, The Prodigal Spy, Los Alamos, and The Good German, which was made into a major motion picture starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. Before becoming a full-time writer, he was a book publishing executive. He lives in New York City. Visit him online at JosephKanon.com.
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ALSO BY JOSEPH KANON
Istanbul Passage
Stardust
Alibi
The Good German
The Prodigal Spy
Los Alamos
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2015 by Joseph Kanon
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First Atria Books hardcover edition March 2015
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kanon, Joseph.
Leaving Berlin : a novel / Joseph Kanon. — First Atria Books hardcover edition.
pages cm
1. Berlin (Germany)—Fiction. 2. Suspense fiction. 3. Spy stories. I. Title.
PS3561.A476L43 2015
813'.54—dc23
2014046308
ISBN 978-1-4767-0464-7
ISBN 978-1-4767-0466-1 (ebook)
CONTENTS
Author’s Note
1. Lützowplatz
2. Kulturbund
3. Rykestrasse
4. Marienstrasse
5. Spreebogen
6. Oranienburg
7. Tempelhof
8. Brandenburg Gate
About Joseph Kanon
