by John Gardner
They had a meal together after the first meeting and he simply walked her to the door of her apartment and gravely shook hands with her. In the weeks that followed, as he dodged back and forth from the Russian to the British and American zones, with cover as an engineer, he learned to love for the first time—a deep, passionate emotion that went further than anything he had ever known in his life. It was not obsessive; it just was. A love that, to use the religious phrase, passes all understanding, and he did not even stop to think about it. She was the woman for whom he had been waiting and, he thought, she felt the same—as though they had been joined in life by some invisible umbilical cord. They appeared to worm their separate ways into each other’s minds, meddled with them, and exchanged lives, though it was a long time before he even thought of developing her, as the argot of those secret days had it.
When the moment came, though, she proved a willing pupil. Later, he reflected that she might even have thought she was being set up under the cover of a false love. He came to examine that possibility during the years they spent apart; and again after the great stupidity, the time when the only Mahler he listened to in his head was Des Knaben Wunderhorn, those songs which included the Sentry’s Serenade—
I am not going to the green clover!
The garden of weapons
Full of halberds
Is where I am posted.
She did not run with him when he had to get out, blown to hell and back partly through the idiocy of his own service, in 1965. But the time of the Sentry’s Serenade was later than that. The days when the secret hierarchy was fiddling around, one hand not knowing what the other was up to. When they allowed him back into Berlin. To monitor, they said. To stay on our side of the Wall and watch, even though they had left his network out there starving, with no contact, only the occasional pick up or dead drop to reassure them. Nobody permanently holding their hands and urging them on as he had done.
Herbie had given his life and all his dedication to the men and women of that network in East Berlin, and he had to stand by and watch as the dolts who were supposed to run the Secret Intelligence Service let the blood slowly drain from the people he loved.
In the end everybody knew the Schnitzer Group had been completely blown. The only question then was who did the blowing?
Big Herbie Kruger, in his blind idealism, finally disobeyed everybody, crossed the Wall and thought he had found the traitor. Too late he discovered that it was himself, for the betrayer was the love of his existence, Ursula Zunder, who led him, like a Siren, into the arms of the KGB. She even wrote to him after they had him locked up and ready to be put to the question, and he still had every word engraved on his memory: a letter which still spoke of love, but a love divided between him and the system to which she was bound. In many ways it was naive—an apologia for communism which had turned love into something monstrous. The letter ended—
I can never stop believing in communism—though it has assassinated your love for me, and rent us apart. I love you forever. Forgive me—
Ursula
Herbie realized, now, deep in memory, why, when talking of betrayal to Lou Passau on the previous afternoon, he had heard the howl of Shakespeare’s King Lear on finding his daughter Cordelia dead. It was the howl he had given, in full voice and grief, when he read Ursula Zunder’s letter all those years ago.
“Howl, howl, howl, howl! O! you are men of stones,” he repeated now, under his breath, as Naldo stood, silent, watching him as though he was violently dangerous. How old would she be? Nineteen when they had met. Early twenties when he had to go back over the Wall; midthirties when she had uncovered her true self. Now, she would be in her late forties.
“I kill the bitch,” he muttered again. “Naldo, tell Art to get me out of here. I want to see her and kill her. Watch her disintegrate.”
Naldo Railton shook his head. “You don’t mean that, Herb. Really, you don’t mean it.”
Herbie almost fell into a chair, shaking his large pumpkin head slowly from side to side. “No, I don’ mean it, Nald. Yet in a way I do. See, I think of her all the time. Every day I think what it could have been, and know it’s useless. I suppose I still love the bitch. Love her and hate her. Life and death. They’re the same thing.”
“They’re two sides of the same coin, Herb, yes.”
He raised his eyes and Naldo saw they were watery, large and round, like a child looking at its first Christmas tree, in wonder. “What I do, Nald?”
“You get on with debriefing this old reprobate musician. Art wants to talk to you. He wouldn’t say why, except I had to tell you that Ursula is germane to your current work.”
“Is not German. Ursula is Russian-born.”
“Germane, Herb, not German.”
“Ah. This means she’s relevant, yes?”
“Yes. There’s a connection. Art says she knew your old man, your conductor.”
“Ah!” As though he understood. In the seething caldron that was his mind he wondered now how Ursula felt about her beloved ideal. How did she see the world, now communism was outlawed? How could she function without the state being God Almighty? How many Ursulas were there in what was the once and future Soviet Union. Did she now feel betrayed?
“I telephone Art?”
“No, he says he’ll get in touch. You must carry on as planned, which I gather means you’re leaving here. …”
“Ja. Day after tomorrow we go.”
“I don’t want to know the details, Herb. Art says he’ll know how to talk to you.”
“Love of my life,” said Big Herbie as he stood and gravely shook Naldo’s hand. “Thanks, Nald. Thanks for coming.” He seemed to have recovered his senses. “That Pucky girl, she’s a real piece, huh? Quite a surprise to be working with a young woman like this.”
“She any good?”
“With training she could be the best. But you know how things are, Naldo. The Service is too secret for its own good. Too much paper pushing and not enough real field officers. The books of fiction make us all heroes by the last page. We know there aren’t any heroes, Nald. Just people trained in secret then buggered about by men and women who’ve forgotten what they’re there for. Paranoid, yes?”
“Pretty paranoid, Herb. You want me to take a message to Martha?”
Martha, his wife, had also been with the Schnitzer Group, and she knew the secrets. Herbie had married her to get out of the trade and Martha Kruger, née Adler, lived quite happily as second, or even third, best. They both knew it was a convenience that could end at any time.
“Just tell her I’m okay, if you can. Don’t compromise yourself, Nald. Behave proper, like the old days, eh?”
Naldo nodded, then, untypically, embraced his old friend as though he would never see him again.
When he had left, Herbie climbed the stairs and found Passau sitting in the darkening room with no lights turned on. He pulled the curtains and switched on one of the standard lamps. For a terrible moment he though the Maestro was dead in his chair.
“You want to tell me what happened after Rita died, Lou?”
“They buried her. Forest Lawn. I went to see her tomb last time I was in L.A.”
“Okay, you tell me what happened when you found out she’d left you a fortune? Or what the real truth was about you taking over as conductor at the last moment when Boris Androv came rolling in with the Manhattan Symphony Orchestra. That happened, didn’t it?”
“You know it happened. I took over from the great visiting conductor, Boris Androv. I stood in front of his orchestra, The Manhattan Symphony, and gave the performance of my life. Next day I was a genius. Overnight success, but I started a trend, Herb. You know the same thing happened to Lenny Bernstein and to others. Lots of Maestros took over when another great conductor was sick. Next day they were living legends.”
“Sure, Lou. But you were a little different from Maestro Bernstein and the others, weren’t you?”
Passau raised his head. Herbie could not te
ll if the eyes were smiling at him or mocking. “I was the grieving widower, yes. Show must go on. That kind of thing.”
“No, Lou. Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
“What the hell you talking about? What devil?”
“Is a saying. Tell the truth and shame the devil. The way you’re shlepping along we’ll never get to the good parts of your story, Lou. The real reason we’re talking at all.”
“You want just the spy story, Herb? If that’s all, send for le Carré or that other guy. With me you get the whole thing. In-depth profile.”
“Okay, so you bury Rita, and there’s an inquest, yes?”
“’Course there’s an inquest. Herb, you know already the D.A. tries to pin the whole thing on me. They’re out for my hide. If it had been the Old West they’d have lynched me.
“But you even got Gary Cooper in court to testify. …”
“Sure. A lot of other people as well. Coop stood up for me, and Stefan. Lotsa people. The D.A. didn’t have a case.”
“And you’ve now told me the truth?”
“Everything.”
“Okay, let’s talk about Maestro Androv and his visit. How the grieving young Mr. Passau managed to hold up his head and conduct a great concert.”
“Tomorrow, Herb. I want to think about Rita.”
She left you almost twenty million dollars, Lou. What is there to think of?”
“At the time of the concert I didn’t even know that. Let me listen to music now, and you get food. I’m tired. Been a long day.”
The barriers were up, and Herbie knew when not to push. Passau wanted to hear the Mahler Second. Bernstein.
“I sometimes think, Herb, when you get to the final moments, when you have lived through a brilliant performance of the Second, you can say it’s all a man needs from life. One real moment of understanding through music. If you’ve lived a bit, got sins on your conscience, doubted a lot, all you need is a good Mahler Second. At the end, you know, and nothing else matters. You can die a happy man.”
Herbie nodded as he slid the first CD into the machine. “I know what you mean, but stay with us a few days longer, Lou. I need the whole story.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll make your hair curl yet. Now, silence.”
They sat through the first two movements, and Herbie put on the second CD. They were well into the final moments of the music when he heard Pucky call out from below.
Passau did not move, so Herb went softly out and down the stairs. He had not wanted to leave the glorious sound which kept pulling his heart back to the source of all things.
He stood on the stairs looking down at her, and she must have misinterpreted the expression on his face.
“You were right, Herbie. You were one hundred percent right. He had a brother. Six years his junior, and Louis isn’t his name either … Herbie?”
“Okay, Puck. I come down.” He took one step reluctantly, as though it was a physical effort to pull himself away from the sound. Then he came close to her.
Pucky put up a hand, her fingers brushing his face. “What is it?”
“An unpleasant piece of my past came to call this afternoon,” he began, and then had to turn his face from her as Barbara Hendricks’ crystal voice cut clean through the magical still circle of Mahler’s turning world: woodwinds and strings, harbinger to the final breathless wonder of triumph, the climax of the symphony—
O glaube, mein Herz, es geht dir nichts verloren.
Have faith, my heart, for naught is lost to thee.
Pucky felt his discomfort as he took a huge breath to quieten his own heart.
From above them came the sound of the Mahler Second, the music sweeping like a waterfall down the stairs.
DURING THEIR EVENING meal there was, to use the phrase spawned by the Gulf War, the Mother of All Rows. A brace of mothers in fact. First Passau, who remained unusually taciturn, apart from the two outbursts, would not eat the fish: salmon brought back by Pucky from the supermarket on her return from Washington. She had poached it, with a delicious white sauce. The recipe for the sauce, she maintained, was an old family secret and Herbie kept badgering her to reveal the special touch that made it so good. She remained close-lipped and only the Maestro pushed the dish away.
“What’s up, Lou? I thought you liked salmon. Good for the brain.” Pucky tried to coax him, but the more she enticed the angrier Passau became. He would have a little cheese. He did not want fish. He became so blusteringly adamant that Herbie wondered if fish had a particular meaning to the day’s interrogation. He went down and did a couple of large Welsh rabbits, a specialty using a lot of powdered mustard. This Passau ate without a murmur, except to ask what Herbie called the dish. “It’s not like the usual toasted cheese.”
“No. Welsh rabbit, as in bunny. Sometimes it is wrongly spelled r-a-r-e-b-i-t.”
“So.” Passau smiled for the one and only time that evening and, under his breath began to sing—
“Be vewy quiet. I’m hunting wabbits.”
Herbie looked bemused.
Then they told Passau the move had been fixed. They were definitely leaving the day after tomorrow. He objected, putting up a series of defenses which together Pucky and Herbie demolished one by one. They were going to be more secure; he would like the surroundings; he could look out at the sea; the whole thing would be more relaxed; they would make the journey in easy stages, so that he would not be tired out.
“Music?” he said finally when all other barriers had been demolished.
“What about it?” Pucky leaned over and touched the mottled hand. Once more, Herbie noticed that the fingernails were beautifully manicured: the old man took great care of himself, proud of his personal appearance. The secret of his mien, Herbie had discovered, was that the man carried a whole series of vanity products in his luggage; there was even a superb traveling iron, and Passau used it to put the creases into his trousers. After years of living out of trunks and suitcases, Lou Passau had learned the art of grooming from the many people who must have been around ministering to his needs. It was a kind of pride which probably helped to keep him going.
“What about it? What about the music?” Pucky repeated, for the Maestro had gone into the sulks.
“You know what about it,” he said finally, chewing on the last piece of the Welsh rabbit.
“To do anything, he needs music. It soothes the savage beast.”
“Don’t you mean breast, Herb?”
“No, I mean what I say. With Lou it is the savage beast.”
“Okay, it can be arranged, Louis.”
“How?”
“Tomorrow I go out and buy a portable CD player, small speakers, and a load of CDs. Make a list.”
“You’ll never get all the things I need.”
“She’ll get what she can, Lou. The rest we’ll pick up by mail order when we get down to Florida.”
Passau made no comment, but when the dishes were cleared away he asked for paper and a pen. They left him, listening to the Mahler Second again, writing a list. “The Mother of All Lists,” Herb said as they started to clear up in the kitchen. “You had a good day, Puck?”
“I told you. You were right, and more. There was no Louis Isaak, and there were two brothers. …”
“Prove it.”
She fished in her shoulder bag and drew out an envelope. It was a copy of the information gleaned from the great mass of files at the National Archives. “It only took a couple of hours. Amazing what they’ve got in there.”
“The date’s right.” Herb peered at the photocopy—beautiful, faded handwriting that had come down the ages from 1908.
“Their names, and a brother. See, he had a brother.” She leaned against him as her finger traced along the lines which told of the Packensteiner family’s admittance to America via Ellis Island. Herbie smelled the sweet scent of her hair, and a muskiness which spoke of other things. “Joseph and Gerda, the child, Saul Isaak, aged seven years, and a twelve-month-old baby, Abraham Jo
seph.”
“For Saul read Louis, or for Abraham read Louis. On the other hand, maybe the brother died, but I don’t think so, Puck. You’re a clever girl. He never even mentioned the brother. Fishy.”
“You think it has some real bearing?”
“The brother was six years younger. By Lou’s age in Chicago—Saul’s age, twenty-five, Abraham Joseph would have been nineteen. By 1930 or thirty-one, he would have been twenty-four, twenty-five, which is what the old reprobate looks in all the early pictures taken in L.A. Makes you think. Makes you wonder.”
They got Passau to bed, though it took an unusually long time. The list of music he wanted would have cost a fortune, even if they could get it all.
“I’ll do my best,” Pucky said. Her voice seemed to have a soothing effect on the old man. It did other things for Herbie whose mind had again become much occupied with memories of Ursula.
In the kitchen, she hung around as Herbie set the alarms. “I’ll put everything back, normal, on Friday morning. If we leave around noon, should be plenty of time. You got the Lincoln town car?”
“Of course. The last thing I did in Washington.”
“And you didn’t have any friends with you?”
“Nobody, Herb. I did everything just as you told me, then more. Nobody was on my back.”
“Good, let’s keep it that way. Pucky?”
She made an expectant face without saying anything.
“I ask you the other day and you don’t give me a proper answer.”
“Asked me what?”
“Why you stuck your tongue down my throat.”
“You liked that?” Very foxy.
“‘Course I liked it, Puck. Why?”
“Because I find you attractive.”
“Is against the rules, Puck. In the field is against the rules. They ever teach you that at Warminster?”
“Yes.”
“They give you a for instance?”
“A case history?”
“You know what I mean.”
She sat at the table, and did not meet his eyes. “They had a case file with the names changed, yes.”
