Little Grey Mice (8 page)

‘…
questions
?'

Elke began to concentrate, realizing the address was over. She saw, gratefully, that the secretariat official had her eyes open. The intelligence man looked hopefully around the room. No one spoke.

‘I want to emphasize the importance of what I've said,' the man insisted. ‘It's easy, I know, to believe that talks like this are irrelevant now. They're not: none of you should imagine that. The opening of the borders and demolition of the Wall
increases
rather than decreases espionage activities. Never forget that!'

There was a muttering of assent and some head nodding, throughout the room.

‘I hope you do,' said the man, disappointed at the lack of responses. ‘I thank you all for your attention. I hope to see you again …' He paused, for the prepared joke. ‘… But only in this capacity.'

Everyone smiled and sniggered politely. There was an eagerness to stand and leave. Elke managed to insert herself into the middle of the departing line. There were five logged calls waiting, none from Ida. Elke dealt with them and ensured there were no queries from the outside staff and was at the restaurant precisely on time. Ida, predictably, was late. Elke felt exposed, on view, at the table by herself and wished she had a newspaper or a book. Without either she made the pretence of studying the menu, although she had already decided upon a salad: according to the scales she had lost the weight she'd put on, and she was determined against gaining it again.

Ida flustered in fifteen minutes late, striding assuredly across the restaurant. Elke was conscious of men at two separate tables following her sister's progress: the waiter came immediately, inquiring about an aperitif. Ida said they'd have wine, without consulting Elke. It was offered without question for Ida to approve, which she did. As she sipped from her full glass Ida said: ‘Bloody sight better than what Horst serves.'

‘I was sorry you couldn't make last Sunday,' said Elke, expecting an explanation.

‘Soon, I promise,' said Ida, without offering one.

‘We walked, in the grounds. Had lunch in the conservatory. She's growing quite tall. I have to get her some new clothes.'

‘Doris might have something she's outgrown.'

‘She's much bigger than Doris,' Elke reminded, politely. The offer had been made before and always refused. There was no reason for Ursula to be dressed in second-hand clothes because she was in an institution she rarely left and where her appearance was unimportant, either to herself or to the staff. Like not bothering to knock on her door, it deprived the child of dignity.

They gave their order and as the waiter left Ida smiled and said: ‘He called.'

‘Who?' said Elke, momentarily forgetting.

‘Kurt. He called.'

‘What did you do?'

‘Talked, of course.'

‘About what?'

‘He said he hoped he hadn't offended me, at the dinner party.'

‘Which was an ideal opportunity to say that he had and put the phone down,' Elke declared.

‘Prig!' accused Ida, laughing.

‘What
did
you say?'

‘That he hadn't.'

‘Idiot! You're encouraging him!'

‘It's harmless.'

‘Don't be ridiculous! How can it be harmless?'

‘Nothing's happened!' Ida's lightness was going, although there was no anger.

‘What about the risk of hurting Horst? And Doris? And Georg?' Was it another attempt of Ida's to shock?

‘No one's going to get…' started Ida, and stopped. ‘Let's talk about something else.'

‘Did you arrange to see him?' Elke persisted.

‘Not really.'

‘What does “not really” mean?'

‘The conversation kind of drifted off. I think he lost his nerve. He certainly stuttered more than I remembered.'

‘Perhaps he came to his senses.'

‘Whatever,' dismissed Ida. ‘That was it! No plans, no nothing.'

Elke wondered if her sister was telling the truth. If she was lying it would be the first time: at least the first time that she'd suspected or found out.

‘Would you have met him, if he had asked?'

‘This is an inquisition!' Ida protested, but still without anger.

‘It's meant to be.'

Ida sighed. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.'

‘That's not an answer. You must have thought about it as soon as you realized who it was on the phone: made up your mind!'

The waiter's return gave Ida a few moments' respite before she conceded: ‘I hadn't, not really. Sure I thought about it. First I thought I might and then I thought I wouldn't and in the end I didn't know what to do.'

Again Elke wondered whether her sister was lying and an assignation really was arranged. ‘Don't see him!' she pleaded. ‘Please don't.' It frightened her to confront how important Ida was to her. She supposed she'd always known it, subconsciously – of course she had! – but now she was positively examining how it was between them and was scared. Embarrassed, too, because she conceded at once and with utter honesty that her concern wasn't for Kissel or Doris or Georg or even Ida. It was for herself. Ida was her security: the only person upon whom she could rely. She'd always felt reassured, knowing Ida was there: knowing ineffectual Horst was there. She didn't want the danger of everything being upset because Ida was bored and flattered by the attentions of another man. By the lust of another man, Elke corrected. How she hated and despised sex!

‘You're not eating your salad,' said Ida, avoiding the plea.

‘I don't want to eat my salad.'

‘I said I'm sorry: I shouldn't have talked about it.'

‘Why shouldn't you? We don't have any secrets, do we?' It was as if Ida were aware of the fears, but Elke knew that wasn't so.

‘No,' agreed Ida. ‘We don't have any secrets.'

Perhaps her sister wasn't lying, after all. Elke said: ‘There isn't anything else to say, not without going around in circles.'

‘Thank God!' said Ida.

‘Will you tell me, if there is?' said Elke.

Ida considered the demand for several moments, again looking very directly and seriously at Elke. Then she said: ‘Yes, of course I'll tell you.'

Elke didn't enjoy the lunch and didn't think Ida had either, although at the end she insisted it was fun. They filled the time talking of Kissel and the children and Elke contributed as much as she considered she could about the Chancellery, but there was a strain that was more obvious to them both because it was so unusual for there to be any barrier at all. Elke's feeling of unease, a disorientation, persisted throughout the afternoon and she was grateful that it was relatively quiet, with few telephone calls, no problems from the staff with the work they were assigned and only one request from Günther Werle. That was to arrange the visit of his wife to the health spa close to Munich.

The fully recovered Poppi bustled around her when she got back to Kaufmannstrasse and she went through the greeting procedure before walking and feeding him. Now that she had lunched, the threatening quarter kilo precluded another meal that day. She decided to do Ursula's bedroom first.

It was not complete sentimentality preserving Ursula's pink-washed room as she had, everything in place from the day the child had left to go to the institution. Ursula had come home twice, at Christmas and once for her birthday: during Elke's holiday last year she'd tried to have the girl an entire week and managed four days before Ursula became distressed at the change and had to be returned to the surroundings and the professional care to which she had become accustomed.

There was a bed with a duvet covered with brightly coloured fairy tale characters and over it a mobile of more fairy tale figures and stars and glittering shapes that Ursula had gazed at and seemed to like: certainly she'd gurgled and smiled and followed them with her eyes, when she'd been a baby. When Ursula visited now Elke removed the mobile, on the advice of Dr Schiller, because he thought it might prove dangerous. Perhaps keeping all the baby clothes and the dresses of those first years
was
nostalgic sentimentality. Like the fluffy-furred bear and the beaver toy with the bright red eyes, which also had to be removed during Ursula's visits, against the risk of her picking the eyes off to eat, as if they were sweets. There was a music box in the shape of a gingerbread house, which played a Strauss waltz when the roof was lifted, and more picture books like those in Ursula's room at the home near Marienfels.

It was quite unnecessary for Elke to clean as she had the previous week and the week before that, but the practice was entrenched. She vacuumed and dusted and polished, not simply around the things but taking them down or moving them, with no short cuts. She remade the bed which did not need remaking and as she did so disturbed the mobile, which revolved briefly, tinkling: she stopped to watch and listen, remembering when it had hung over Ursula's cot, not the bed. Ursula
had
liked it: recognized it and smiled at it. Elke was sure she had.

The small dressing table was last. Again Elke removed everything on top, first dusting, then polishing. There wasn't a lot to replace: the lace runner which stretched across its top, a hair brush and a hand mirror, and a pot-pourri dish that Elke regularly changed, and an empty bowl to hold the small things that girls collect, although Ursula had never collected small things like other girls. The china figure of a fawn was last. Elke stood staring at it, held by the reminiscence. It was very cheap and poorly made, the sort of trinket to be discarded the day after it had been picked up. They'd won it together, when Ursula was about nine: at a spring fair with sideshows and stalls. Elke had used a fishing rod with a ring on the line to hook a floating duck to win a prize. Ursula had squealed with delight and demanded it and slept with it for almost two weeks before ceasing to acknowledge or be excited by it. It was the longest the child had ever retained interest in anything, the longest Elke had ever kept the hope that somehow Ursula would ever improve. Elke came mentally to regard the fading brown figure as Ursula's talisman: despite everything, it was how she still thought of it and referred to it, in her mind. Elke held it and wiped away non-existent dust before carefully returning it to its appointed place. Perhaps, she thought, Ursula might recognize it again, on her next visit. She hadn't mentioned the possibility of a visit to Dr Schiller for a long time and he had not raised the idea with her. On her way between the bedrooms Elke glanced sideways into the kitchen and to Poppi, asleep in his basket. Perhaps another visit was something she should discuss in some detail with Dr Schiller, not propose without the fullest consideration.

Elke finished her own bedroom at nine o'clock, precisely the time she expected, as it would be eight o'clock before she finished the kitchen and bathroom the following evening and eight o'clock the night after that to complete the living room – where the bookshelves all had to be dusted – and tiny entrance hall.

She always felt dirty, after a cleaning session. She ran the bath hot, adding salts as well as foam essence, and brought the radio in to play from the far window recess. She was completely immersed, with the radio too far away to turn off, which she would have quickly done if she could, when the music started.

It was Chopin's ‘Chanson de l'Adieu' and had been played on their first outing together, when he had taken her to the Cologne concert. Which was still not sufficient reason for its meaning to her. By coincidence, and on a radio again, it had played the night they'd made love, for the first time, the night she'd lost her virginity. Elke luxuriated, felt herself floating, the perfume of the oils and the salts all around her. Her hand dipped beneath the water, as she knew it would, and she moved her legs very slightly, to make it easier, not hurrying, wanting it to last. She shuddered, legs stiff before her, at the final release, anxious for it not to end.

The remorse was instant. She had no grounds for criticizing Ida for lacking control, she told herself.

‘What's outstanding?' demanded Cherny. Because it was convenient the soldier had journeyed to the KGB headquarters in Dzerzhinsky Square from a Chiefs of Staff briefing and he'd chosen a civilian suit. He seemed uncomfortable in it, frequently shrugging the jacket around his shoulders.

‘Reimann is getting all his instructions tomorrow. The wife within days,' said Sorokin. He was a stoop-shouldered man on the point of going to fat, through middle age. He balanced his increasing baldness with a tightly clipped beard which unfortunately gave him a resemblance to the last Tsar, Nicholas.

‘When will they get to Bonn?' said Cherny, impatiently.

‘Within a week.'

‘I want results, quickly.'

‘We
want results,' Sorokin corrected.

Chapter Six

It was a large building, pre-revolutionary again, just off the main Arbat Ulitza. There was an identity check at the door by officers wearing undesignated uniforms Reimann could not recognize. Inside, the impression was of scurrying but extremely quiet activity: people passed each other in corridors without appearing to exchange any greetings – even to look at each other – and a rubberized coating on the floor minimized the sound of their footsteps. The office into which Reimann was escorted was as sterile as its outside surroundings: it was not a room in which a person permanently worked but a place set aside for this day, and tomorrow someone quite different would be using it. There was just a desk, which was quite empty apart from a telephone, and two chairs, the one behind the desk bigger and slightly more imposing than the other, although both were covered in matching buttoned leather. The telephone was so positioned on the desk that it would have been difficult for anyone in the larger chair to reach out to answer it. To one side was a film projector directed towards an already erected screen: the screen was the sort that collapsed after use around a fan of extension arms to fit neatly into a case, temporary like everything else.