Brandenburg (31 page)

‘As I said just now . . .’ A smile twitched at the corners of his mouth. ‘I do not like to be exposed. However, since you ask, it is V. I. Ussayamov - Major Vladimir Ilyich Ussayamov.’

‘Vladimir Ilyich - the name of a loyal communist.’

‘Yes, but also the name given to a child by two loyal communists.’ He opened the door and gestured into the corridor. ‘I will have one of our people drop you near to your home. You look as though you need a long rest, Rudi.’

A few minutes later the car left Angelikastrasse with Rosenharte lying low in the back, wondering why the Russian had told such an obvious lie about his name.

While he had been talking to Harland on the phone, Rosenharte’s eyes had strayed to a box upholstered in blue satin, where a silver medal was displayed. He knew enough of the Cyrillic alphabet to see that it was a first prize awarded in a judo tournament to a man with the initials V.V.P.

Ussayamov was his cover name.

He wanted to leave for Leipzig that day, but he succumbed to the fever again and took to his bed. It was at these times that he most hated being alone, and he tuned his little Grundig radio to a music programme, then the BBC World Service news. That day in Prague, the West German foreign minister, Hans Dietrich Genscher, visited the compound of his country’s embassy and announced that the GDR had agreed to allow 5,500 people to travel by train through East Germany to the West. The same report estimated that 25,000 East Germans had crossed from Hungary to Austria during the last month, but this was on the cautious side. Some put the figure at 60,000. Vladimir was right: it was only a matter of time before they would close the border.

Late on Sunday morning he got up, flung the windows open onto a moist autumn day and hurriedly prepared to leave. Instead of his suitcase, he chose an old rucksack that belonged to Konrad, and packed the clothes he’d need over the next few days together with a shabby waterproof anorak. He fastened his walking boots on the top of the rucksack, then put on his new shoes, momentarily taking pleasure from their square, solid comfort: it was a long time since he could remember owning anything that was so well made.

The news from Prague had swelled the numbers at the Hauptbahnhof. In some parts of the huge, cavernous terminus it was difficult to move for the people travelling south. The Vopos had their fun by dragooning the crowds first one way then the other, forcing families into queues that snaked along the platforms and had no obvious purpose. On the northern side of the station, Rosenharte noticed about a dozen People’s Army trucks, ready to bring the atmosphere of nervous carnival to an end.

Although he was planning to flee also, he felt no particular joy at the exodus, and when he arrived in Leipzig he could not help but admire the city’s sullen and immovable defiance. A man who had struck up a conversation on the train told him that a court had sat the day before and sentenced eleven protesters from the Nikolaikirche to six months in prison. They were each fined 5,000 marks. ‘Where will they find that kind of cash? Should we all put money aside in case the Stasi arrest us for walking on our own streets?’

This was new. Strangers hadn’t spoken like that to each other in East Germany for decades. He said one thing that struck Rosenharte and echoed something Konrad had once said: ‘In the East we do not trust democracy because the last time we had the vote we elected Hitler. But now it’s time we gave it another try.’

Rosenharte followed the procedure to contact Ulrike and took up a station outside Bach’s church, the Thomaskirche. The concert he had seen advertised was long ended and there were now few people about. As he waited, he realized it had been less than a week since he’d first met Ulrike. He had a very distinct memory of her presence, her voice and the expression in her eyes when he held her for that brief moment in the park, but he couldn’t summon an entire mental image of her.

He was there for an hour and a half before he attracted the attention of two plainclothes Stasi officers. He went to the cafe but it was closed, so he ambled back into the centre of town to take up his watch on one of the alleys leading to the Kirchof, the square in front of the Thomaskirche.

Nearing seven, a young couple approached him - the same pair who had come up asking for cigarettes the previous Monday. The boy told Rosenharte to follow them at a distance of thirty yards and to pass them if they were stopped. He explained that every Sunday night the Stasi patrolled the streets to prevent people posting bills for the Monday peace prayers. Twice they had already been forced to submit to a thorough search.

They walked for fifteen minutes until they reached a once prosperous area in the south-east of the city, where there were a number of squat, Alpine-style chalets, each with two or three large trees in their garden, and a flight of steps running up to a first-floor entrance at the front. The girl turned to him, gave him a look of limp curiosity and signalled to her right with an almost imperceptible tip of the head. Then she took her boyfriend’s arm and they crossed the road and vanished into the dusk, laughing.

He went on for thirty or so feet and came to a narrow gateway bridged by an ancient wisteria vine. He ducked and walked down a path, which led him to a door at the side of the house. There were no lights on. He knocked tentatively and waited. No one came. He knocked again, louder, and stepped back to look up at the house. The place had been divided into four or five apartments and was run down in the usual way: the brickwork needed repointing; the shutters were broken and suffering from rot; and the paint on the windows was peeling. Just as he decided that he must have got the wrong entrance, a bulb above him came on and the door squeaked open. Ulrike’s face appeared. She looked pale, and her eyes seemed larger and fiercer. She beckoned him in, pushed the door to with her foot and bolted it top and bottom.

‘Well, I’ve come,’ he said.

‘I know. I can see.’

‘That’s what you wanted. You sent me a postcard. I would have come sooner, but I’ve had flu and was laid up in Berlin.’

‘You must have given it to me. I was in bed for two days.’

‘I’m sorry. Is it difficult now? I can always go and find somewhere to eat and come back.’ He grinned, hoping to defuse the tension.

‘At this time on a Sunday you won’t find anywhere open.’ She stepped back and looked him up and down. ‘You’ve lost weight. And you have some nice new clothes.’

He nodded. ‘They were very impressed with the information.’

She put her hand to her lips. ‘Not now. There are people here. I will introduce you as Peter. You’re a teacher. We’ll talk after they have left.’

Rosenharte followed her into a neat sitting room which looked like a set for a 1930s film - framed photographs on the wall, two porcelain figurines, a pair of tall brass lamps and a worn-looking walnut veneer desk. Around the sofas and chairs were throws and cushions that established a colour scheme of cream and green flecked with orange. It was all very comfortable. Rosenharte liked the place and felt it displayed an elegance he would not have associated with Ulrike’s rather worthy activities at the church.

He nodded to the three men who were sitting round a table with cups of tea and a full ashtray in front of them. God, how he knew this scene - the endless circular discussion, the respectful earnestness, the lack of joy or wit. That was another thing the Party was responsible for. People had become so damned boring.

She introduced him as a friend from Dresden. They nodded. One, an intense sort with a wispy brown beard but no moustache, looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps we should—’ he began, but was cut off by Ulrike.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I can vouch for him.’

Rosenharte nodded and placed his rucksack on the ground.

A younger man wearing a shapeless green jacket buttoned up to the neck removed a pipe from his mouth. ‘But, friends, we have reached the stage when the movement is so large that we should say the same things in public as we do in private.’

‘That’s not quite the case,’ said the bearded man, ‘but I agree with the spirit of what you’re saying. Our aim is to take the private deliberations of each individual conscience to the forum of public discourse, yet we must remain conscious of the dangers. There’s still a long way to go.’

‘How long?’ asked the younger man.

‘Weeks, months, years. I don’t know. But if we continue with this strict policy of peaceful protest, we deprive them of the reason to suppress our demonstrations with violence. What we have to do now is turn the soldiers and policemen that bar our way, and appeal to each man’s conscience. That should be our aim tomorrow - to speak with these people and bring them over to our point of view.’

The third man, a stout fellow with a mass of untamed grey hair and popping eyes, leaned back in his chair smiling and shaking his head. ‘You don’t understand, Carl. We have reached the critical moment
now
. We will either be broken this week or we will be made. There were just a few thousand last Monday; we need many more this week to show that we’ve got momentum. We know that the Stasi are among us. Let’s face it, the Stasi may even have a representative around this table. What no one can argue with are the masses. If the people come out tomorrow and demonstrate peacefully, then they will have to find a way of responding.’

Ulrike turned from the table to where Rosenharte sat on the couch. ‘We’ve learned they are planning to fill the pews of the Nikolaikirche with Party members and their own people. So we all have to get there early. I hope you will come with us?’

He nodded.

They talked on for an hour, speculating on the unknowable and arguing over the fine points that separated the democracy movements. Carl and the young man drifted off and they were left with the fellow with wild hair who put out his hand to Rosenharte. ‘Rainer Frankel. It’s good to meet you.’

‘Rainer is my ex,’ said Ulrike.

‘Husband?’ asked Rosenharte awkwardly.

Frankel chuckled. ‘No, I didn’t get that far.’

‘And how is Katarina?’ Ulrike asked him.

‘Well, but we don’t get much sleep.’

She winked at Rosenharte. ‘He married one of his students and they have just had the baby boy that Rainer always wanted.’

Rainer nodded good-naturedly. ‘Well, I must be getting along.’ He kissed her on both cheeks and let his hands rest on her shoulders. ‘Be careful tomorrow, Uly. And take something for that infection! You don’t look well. Look after her, Peter.’

She saw him out and then returned to Rosenharte with an enquiring look. ‘You look as if you need something to eat.’

He nodded enthusiastically.

‘Let’s have some wine. Rainer brought me a bottle as a late birthday present, and some bratwurst too. I’ll make us dinner.’ She wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and they went into a small, draughty kitchen that was papered with a montage of postcards, recipes and pictures from magazines. Rosenharte opened the bottle of wine, a thick purplish red, and watched her with pleasure. He liked her new hairstyle, which was shorter, with the hair pushed back into a fine, electrified brush. It made her face younger and more dramatic.

‘Is it safe to speak here?’

‘Yes, Rainer checked the place before our meeting tonight. We meet in a different place each time, and it is Rainer’s duty to de-bug the venue beforehand.’

‘They
will
infiltrate your group, you must know that.’

‘They already have. We know who it is. He wasn’t here tonight.’

‘Does he find any bugs?’

‘All the time. A week ago he discovered two in a colleague’s apartment: in a table lamp and an electrical plug.’

‘The younger man, who was he?’

‘That’s Hendrik. Hendrik Deubel. He’s just finished a three-month stint in jail. Do you know why?’ She turned to him, wagging a wooden spoon in her hand. ‘Because he carried a picture of Mikhail Gorbachev at the protest against those elections that were fixed by the Party in Berlin back in the spring. He was going to leave the GDR, but we persuaded him to stay and fight.’

Rosenharte stared at her hard. ‘That’s exactly the kind of person who ends up working for them.’

‘I know Hendrik isn’t. Trust me. I know what I’m doing. I know how to survive here. You’ll have to be led by me sometimes, Rudi.’

He told her about seeing Konrad in prison as she fried up some potato and onions.

‘I know people who’ve been in there. They’re never the same. It destroys a basic faith in humanity and makes them see life in a new way. It’s irreversible.’

They ate in the sitting room, opposite each other with three candles between them. Rosenharte talked about his contacts with the Stasi: Mielke, Zank, Schwarzmeer, Fleischhauer and Biermeier were all defined for her with scientific precision as though he was identifying separate members of a species. Then he came to the point. ‘The result of all this is that I must give your name to the British and Russians.’

Her eyes flared. ‘No, not my name, Rudi. You give them some other name. Not mine.’

‘The British and the CIA are taking your information seriously, which means that they have to know where it’s coming from. They will only help me to free Konrad if they have your name.’

She shook her head.

‘But without knowing the source, they cannot assess the intelligence.’

‘You mean they say they don’t know whether to believe it?’

‘Yes.’

‘There were things I told them in July and August that they can check on, things that no one could make up. So they don’t need to know my name, because they already know what I’m saying is true.’

‘Then why did you reveal your identity to me?’

‘Because I trust your ability to survive, Rudi, though I see that you’re in a very difficult position with your brother.’

‘Which you put me in.’

She flinched. ‘I didn’t know that you had a brother until just before you made contact. That’s true.’

‘The moment I started receiving those letters from the British, they arrested Konrad and locked up his family. I’m sorry to lay this at your feet, but there’s no other conclusion to be made. You have to help me out. If I give them a fake name, they will know soon enough. They already have people here who will start checking.’