Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night (40 page)

‘Everything is the business of the state. That is how we build socialism. Everything belongs to everybody. There is freedom and equality for all.’

‘I have not seen this yet.’

‘Because we are still building. It needs time.’

‘And when will you achieve this dream?’

‘As soon as people like you start telling the truth.’

The interrogation lasted an hour and Sidney had no idea whether he had done well or badly. He had hesitated before answering the question, ‘Is the Master of your Cambridge college a spy?’ and did not know whether he had been caught out or not. He felt that he was in the middle of a novel by Kafka; not that he had read any Kafka.

He was taken back to his cell and given a small bowl of
Soljanka
, a traditional Russian working-man’s stew. Then, without any warning, the door slid open and his briefcase and suitcase were placed on the floor.

‘Change,’ the guard said.

‘What is happening?’

‘You are free to go.’

Sidney could not believe his luck. ‘Why?’ he asked.

‘You want to stay? Don’t ask questions. Change and go.’

The guard led him out back through the traffic-lit corridors. Every signal was at green. Sidney finally found himself in the entrance hallway that he had entered he did not know how many days previously. Fechner was waiting to greet him.

‘Here are your papers. I am sorry to have inconvenienced you.’

‘I am free?’

‘It was never in doubt.’

‘Then what was I doing here?’

‘Oh, Canon Chambers, you ask so many questions when it would be better to remain silent. You have a powerful friend. That is all you need. I only wish you had told us earlier.’

‘I did.’

‘You should have been more believable. I found it so hard to have faith in you.’

‘But I told you the truth.’

‘I see that now. But sometimes it is hard to believe in the truth, don’t you think? I find it particularly difficult, for example, with the clergy. They are so keen to tell me their version of the truth and it often has no relation to reality. I am sure they mean well but you cannot expect me to believe what they say. Perhaps you should teach me.’

‘I think you may be making one of your famous jokes.’

‘I think not.’

‘Perhaps in England, then.’

‘I do not think the English can tell me very much about morality. A pity. I enjoyed our conversations. I hope that you did too.’

Sidney knew that he had to be careful. He reminded himself that this could still all be a trap. He had to remain on his guard no matter how tempting it was to be rude. ‘I found them stimulating.’

‘Then I hope you will remember them.’

‘Believe me, Herr Fechner, I will find it very hard to forget.’

They shook hands, and Sidney was shown to the front door of the Runde Ecke. Outside, he could see Hildegard standing by a light-blue Trabant. As he made to greet her, she looked at him sternly and spoke in English. ‘Wait. Don’t touch me. They are watching. Get in the car.’

Sidney obeyed.

‘Don’t look at me,’ Hildegard continued. ‘Concentrate on the road ahead.’

She turned the key in the ignition but put her other hand on his thigh. ‘Keep looking forward,’ she said.

Sidney obeyed. ‘Was it you who secured my release?’

Hildegard smiled briefly, then checked her mirrors and pulled away. ‘I imagine we will be followed.’

‘I thought they would have had enough of us.’

‘It’s normal.’

They drove into the outskirts of Leipzig. There were few people out on the streets and the trams were almost empty. No amount of sunlight could warm up the brutalist architecture. A farmer’s wife was selling watermelons from a rough wooden cart attached to a motorbike. A string quartet, their members already dressed in dinner suits, stopped at a street corner to discuss directions. The female cellist was shouting, annoyed at having to carry around such a large instrument in the heat when they were lost. After braking suddenly to allow a group of young Pioneers to cross the road, Hildegard reminded Sidney that this was the first time she had driven him.

‘Are you a good driver?’ he asked.

‘Terrifying,’ she replied.

They were heading for the Hotel Merkur: a rectangular building that looked like a giant wireless, dominating the old city centre with its incongruous modernity. They passed the Hauptbahnhof, the station at which Sidney should have alighted. He asked whether he should look out for Bach’s church.

Hildegard had other things on her mind. ‘Did they torture you?’ she asked.

‘No. I had a lie-detector test.’

‘Fechner told me.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘My father taught him when he was a student.’

‘He didn’t tell me that.’

‘He has been trained not to tell you anything.’

‘And did your father train him as well?’

‘It is best that you do not ask too many questions, Sidney. The answer is no, but you cannot be as curious here as you are in England.’

‘I have noticed. I presume it is all right to ask about your mother?’

‘Of course. And that is kind of you.’

‘It is the reason I am here.’

Hildegard drove through a red light. ‘I am sorry. There was nothing I could do. I am grateful to you for coming. I should have started by thanking you.’

‘There’s no need.’

‘I think there is.’

‘How is your mother?’

‘You will see her tonight. It is not as serious as people thought. She collapsed but it was not a stroke. Now she is frightened. I am sorry to have been away when you arrived. If I had still been in Berlin then none of this would have happened.’

‘It’s been quite an adventure.’

‘Is that what you call it?’

‘Now the ordeal is over I can look on the bright side.’

‘The ordeal is never over, Sidney. Not in this country.’

‘Shouldn’t you be careful what you are saying?’

‘I see you are learning. But I do not think you are a member of the Stasi unless, of course, they have recruited you already?’

‘I don’t think they would want someone like me.’

‘You’d be surprised.’

‘I think I’ve learned not to be surprised by anything.’

‘Then you haven’t spent long enough in the DDR.’

They were now in a residential area. Hildegard’s childhood home, she told Sidney, had been on the eastern side of town, in Gustav-Mahler Strasse (even though, she said, neither of her parents had much time for Mahler). A few last-minute shoppers were bringing home jars of Spreewald gherkins, Filinchen and bottles of Vita Cola. Posters hung from government and municipal buildings displaying images of Walter Ulbricht, Secretary of the Communist Party, Wilhelm Pieck, President of the DDR, and Otto Grotewohl, the Prime Minister.

Sidney was still adjusting to the visible signs of communism. ‘The shops are still open, I see.’

‘We do have them here. Although sometimes they close early. You know we have a joke?’

‘In the DDR?’

‘We say that Yuri Gagarin could find more milk in the Milky Way than he could in the DDR.’

‘That is a joke?’

‘It is the best we can do.’

Hildegard parked the car outside the hotel and helped Sidney to check in. She told him to wash, shave and shower before the hot water ran out. She had prepared supper at her mother’s and would wait in the lobby. Her sister Trudi was out with friends and so it would just be the three of them.

Sibilla Leber lived on the second floor of a modernist building off Konradstrasse. It had one bedroom, a small living room where she ate, and a little kitchenette. The communal bathroom was outside and down the corridor. ‘At least it’s cheap to heat,’ she explained. ‘Not that I need to get any warmer.’

Sidney remembered his father giving him a piece of advice. ‘If you’re thinking of marrying a woman you need to take a good look at her mother because that’s what you’re going to get in the end.’

Sibilla Leber had the same short blonde hair as her daughter but it had begun to grey as it curled down to the level of her dark-green eyes. Her nose was slightly more upturned, her face thinner and gaunter, and her mouth, while still appealing, had gathered lines around it; the result of smoking, Sidney thought. She was smaller than her daughter and wore a blue cotton suit that looked like a uniform that had seen better days. Nevertheless, she had a definite presence. Now in her late fifties, she had had both her daughters when she was very young, and been widowed at the age of twenty-seven.

The evidence of her husband’s life was all around them. Hans Leber had been a prominent member of the KPD, refused to give the Nazi salute and wrote for
Red Flag
, the communist newspaper. Then, after the Reichstag fire and the Leipzig Trial, the persecutions began. The Blackshirts raided newspaper offices, smashing typewriters and duplicating machines, confiscating propaganda. Although communist activities were declared illegal Hans Leber continued to resist. ‘He used to say, “It’s easy to call yourself a communist if you don’t have to shed any blood for it. You only know what you really believe when the hour comes and you have to stand up for it,” ’ Sibilla Leber explained.

A propaganda poster showing the martyred Hans Leber hung from the wall. He was a pioneer of freedom, marching at the head of an endless queue of new recruits stretching back across a long road that led from the storm clouds of fascism and capitalism to the new dawn of communism. ‘It was April 1933. My husband died as he lived; as a fighter in the class war.’

‘You must have been very proud of him.’

‘It is different today, but I will never abandon what he fought for. Even if the movement has changed. There will always be bad communists, just as there are incompetent priests. But the solution is to purge the undesirables and stay true to the ideals.’

Sidney was not sure he agreed but tried to keep the conversation going. ‘You need to replace bad faith with good people.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Even if we all fall short.’

Hildegard asked a question. ‘Do you think it is easier to be a good communist than a good Christian?’

Her mother leaned back in what was clearly her favourite armchair. ‘Communism is for this world. Christianity is for the next. I have two loyalties.’

Sidney could see that Sibilla Leber had been, and could still be, a formidable woman. Then he remembered something his mother had told him in response to Alec Chambers’ perceived
bon mots
. ‘I wouldn’t take your father’s advice too seriously, if I were you, son. If there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to infuriate a woman it’s to tell her that she’s turning into her mother.’

Supper was served and Sibilla Leber explained that it was part of communist ideology to eat well and eat lots; especially fatty food. She had no real interest in who Sidney was or why he had come. Instead he was merely the audience for the recounting of her life story and her political beliefs. She hadn’t even asked about his recent ordeal, presumably because she considered there had been nothing wrong with arresting a perfectly innocent priest on a suspicion of espionage.

When they had finished their main course, Hildegard cleared the plates and served up
Rote Grütze
: a fruit compote made from red berries, topped with vanilla custard. ‘This is a special treat,’ she said, ‘because it is the summer. Normally we have just the one course.’

‘I am honoured,’ Sidney replied.

Hildegard rested a hand on his shoulder. ‘Of course you are.’

Sibilla Leber reminded Sidney that Karl Marx was German. ‘This has been Germany’s dangerous century,’ she warned as she spooned
Rote Grütze
into her mouth. ‘But we still have time to redeem ourselves. Out of the evils of National Socialism will come the refining fire of revolutionary equality.’

After supper Hildegard began to play the piano. Her mother carried on talking. Leipzig was the home of pianos, she told Sidney. The town had one of the first ever to be made, by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1726, and, at the beginning of the century, the Zimmerman company in Leipzig was the largest piano factory in Europe, producing some twelve thousand instruments a year.

‘This has always been my favourite piano,’ Hildegard called out as she played. ‘It has the perfect action for Bach.’

‘I thought your piano was in Berlin?’ Sidney asked.

‘That is borrowed.’

She was playing the Partita No. 1 in B major. She knew it was one of Sidney’s favourites and had played it for him one of the first times they had met. He listened for a while before asking, ‘And what is the perfect action for Bach?’

‘It must be sensitive and responsive, but still have some tension.’ Hildegard continued to play with a lightness of touch that concealed the strength of her forearms. ‘A bit like you, Sidney.’

‘I don’t know about that.’

Hildegard stopped. ‘There is no need to blush. I paid you a compliment. What is wrong with that?’