The Leipzig Affair

by Fiona Rintoul

  If it had been Jürgen’s accident that made her like this, you could understand it. But it wasn’t. It happened before that. Your father had her kicked out of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra after he found out about her affair with the second violinist, and that’s what broke her. It’s not fair to think she loved playing the cello more than she loved her children, but sometimes you do think that. But you know too that the cello wasn’t just her profession and her purpose. It was where she went when the frustrations of living in this country got to be too much. Your father took that away from her. For that you’ll never forgive him. There are no unemployed in the German Democratic Republic. Instead, there are people like your mother who have nowhere left to go.

  You drink your coffee, while Kerstin chats to your mother about her studies. After three quarters of an hour, you can stand it no longer. “We have to go, Mama. Kerstin has an appointment.”

  “So soon?”

  “I don’t need – ” Kerstin begins.

  “We have to go,” you interrupt, slamming down your cup on the coffee table.

  *

  The following morning, you and Marek meet Uncle Ivan by the Soviet War Memorial in Treptow Park. Uncle Ivan beams and hugs you, but briefly – he doesn’t want to attract attention. You run through the details as quickly as possible, walking while you talk.

  “Hungary is the best route,” says Uncle Ivan. “It’s not so tightly controlled.”

  “The idea is that we travel together to Budapest in the normal way,” says Marek. “It’s going to take a bit of time to organise everything, but we should be able to leave by the summer holidays.”

  “We often go to Hungary then anyway.”

  “Exactly. So the trip shouldn’t arouse any suspicion.”

  “The Austrian couple will be in Budapest too, staying at a hotel,” says Uncle Ivan. “My contact will collect the passports from them and leave them in a luggage locker at the train station along with some western clothes and your tickets to Vienna.”

  “We basically then meet up with Ivan’s contact, get the key off him, collect the passports and so on, get changed and get on the train,” says Marek.

  “Once you’re safely in the West, the couple will report their passports stolen,” says Uncle Ivan.

  “Won’t the border guards know the passports aren’t ours?” you ask. “It’ll be hard to find a couple that looks just like us.”

  “I know someone who can fix that,” says Uncle Ivan. “Which is why I need you to bring passport-sized photographs of yourselves to Budapest. Get a haircut beforehand so you look a little different than normal.”

  “Goodness,” you say.

  “Don’t look so worried,” says Uncle Ivan. “My contact in Budapest has done this many times. With him on board, our plan is foolproof.”

  “Thank you,” you say. You know this must be costing Uncle Ivan a fortune. And it’s because of you that it has to be this way, not because of Marek.

  “You’re welcome,” he says. “And guess what? I have some exciting news. Even Marek doesn’t know this yet. I’ve already found a couple in Vienna who are interested in helping.”

  After the meeting, you and Marek head to Café North to celebrate. You order a bottle of sparkling wine and laugh as you clink glasses. It’s finally happening. You’re getting out. When people ask what you’re celebrating, you say it’s a secret and laugh harder.

  “Uncle Ivan has been good to me,” says Marek. “He’s not even my uncle. He’s my mother’s cousin. Or second cousin. I’m not even sure.”

  “He wants to help,” you say. And it’s true. He does. He’s driven by an ideological zeal you don’t entirely share. But beggars can’t be choosers.

  Soon Torsten and the others arrive for the launch party of Not Only But Also. The lights are dimmed and the music starts. After a time, a jazz singer in a long blue dress comes on and starts to sing Mack the Knife, one of your favourite songs. You grab Marek’s hand and pull him on to the dance floor.

  Just a jack-knife has Macheath, dear, she sings as Marek bends to kiss you. And he keeps it out of sight.

  And just then you spot the westerner standing at the bar watching you.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Sally and I came to an abrupt end the week after the session when I showed her the photos of Magda. There was an incident. I’d rather not talk about it. It’s embarrassing, painful. Well, you can probably guess. I made a pass at her. It was a stupid, stupid, stupid thing to do. But I do get lonely. I know everyone does, but I really have no one now. My friends have disappeared. Chris stuck it out the longest, but I haven’t heard from him in ages. My ex, Annabel, used to text from time to time, but that all stopped when she met a new man. How am I supposed to meet a new woman? Believe me: chatting up women stone-cold sober is not easy.

  My main social contact these days is the occasional phone lecture from my sister. Have you done this? Have you done that? Why not? And my mum still rings every week. We don’t talk about my situation.

  “How are you, son?” she says, and before I can reply she’s on to the weather. “Oh, it’s been terrible. The rain has been torrential. What’s it like down there?”

  Now that I’m officially in recovery, I’m supposed to pick up because not picking up is a kind of lying; it’s pretending you’re not there when you are, in fact, there. But I hardly ever do. There’s a note of brave disappointment in my mum’s voice that I can’t stand.

  I do think Sally over-reacted. There was no need to stop the sessions. I apologised straight away. But she got all take-no-prisoners with me. You’ve broken the bond of trust, Mr McPherson, she said. In the space of a nanosecond, I’d stopped being Robert and started being Mr McPherson. I’ll never forget the look on her face. All the kindness was gone. Her counsellor mask had slipped. She actually looked quite hard. She got up, pulled her blouse down and marched out of the room without another word.

  I didn’t know what to do. Whether to stay or go home. In the end, I sat down on the orange plastic bucket chair and just waited, though I didn’t know what I was waiting for. Sally had left everything in the room: her coat, handbag, case notes. Maybe that’s why I waited. Part of me thought she’d come back, and we’d laugh it off. After a minute or two, I couldn’t resist. I bent down, opened her handbag and looked inside. It was a mess: sweet wrappers, loose make-up, coins, scrunched-up tissues. But the smell of it was wonderful. It smelt of a woman, of all the mysterious, intimate things that women do. I was about to take her make-up bag out to inhale the scent when Phil, the other counsellor, came in.

  “Put that down at once!” he yelled.

  He’s gay. I have no problem with that, but he does tend towards the melodramatic.

  “All right,” I said. “Keep your hair on.” Then I had a brilliant idea. “I thought I heard Sally’s pager.”

  “Hmm,” he minced.

  He took me to another room, and we had a ‘chat’. He didn’t pull his punches. Strange how they understand about your having a drink problem at places like the South Islington Alcohol Advisory Service. They don’t judge. You’re a person too. But any sign of a sex drive and they’re down on you like a ton of bricks.

  “Ms Cormack is quite upset at the moment,” he said. Just as I was now Mr McPherson, Sally was now Ms Cormack. “I’m sure you’ll understand that we can’t at this moment in time make any decision as to how your treatment might proceed.

  “For now you should go home. Phone us in a week or so. We should be in a position by then to advise you if your sessions here can continue, and if so, under what conditions.” He brought his hands into prayer position. “Please allow me to assure you that we’ll make every effort to accommodate you despite today’s unfortunate incident.”

  Unfortunate incident. I wondered what Phil did for kicks.

  On my way home, I came within a millimetre of buying a bottle. In the local shop I stared at the whisky shelf for so long that Murat, the shopkeeper, started chatting to me about the different br
ands.

  “My father-in-law likes Glenfiddich,” he said. “Buy him a bottle and you’ll be in his good books for weeks. But me, I prefer The Macallan. It’s smoother.”

  They had a good selection: a couple of island malts and a few Speysides, the usual blends and then the rubbish stuff. When I was drinking regularly I used to take the Low Flyer. No point in buying single malts when you’re knocking it back the way I was.

  The words “A bottle of Grouse, please” were forming in my mouth when I caught myself on. “A bottle of sparkling mineral, please,” I said to Murat.

  “Water’s in the fridge, mate,” he said, looking confused.

  When I got home, I made a decision: no more Leipzig. It was delving into all that old stuff that had got me into trouble. In future, I was going to look forward, and if I were allowed back to the South Islington Alcohol Advisory Service, I was going to talk about my addiction to alcohol and nothing else. Christ, I’d a good mind to file a complaint against Sally. She was the one who’d broken the rules and taken us off-piste.

  But, of course, it was too late. I’d opened my Pandora’s box, and there was no shutting it again.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  You sip your second glass of sweet Russian Champagne and stare out of the concert hall’s tinted windows at the Neptune Fountain, which has been turned off to save water. Snowflakes drift down on to the people trudging across Karl Marx Platz. Where are they going? What are they thinking? What will they do when they get home? Do they sometimes scream with frustration, as you do, or is everything okay for them? Or are they happy simply to eat sausages, drink beer and watch West TV? Millions are Party members if official statistics are to be believed, one in four a Stasi informer if the rumours are true. Ninety-eight per cent voted ‘Yes!’ to the Socialist Unity Party candidates at the last elections, according to the newspapers.

  The foyer of the famous Gewandhaus concert hall is filling up for this special concert to mark the anniversary of the February revolution. A new work is to be played by a composer from Jena: three pieces for viola entitled February. But you’re not here for the music; you’re here to be seen.

  You wander over to the buffet and take a meat paste canapé. You know that Jana is behind you, dressed in a floor-length skirt and a frilly yellow blouse that emphasise her plainness, talking earnestly to a female friend: a dialectical discussion of great import, judging by what you caught of it earlier.

  Jana thinks she’s very clever. Her surprise when she bumped into you in the foyer earlier was quite convincing. “Magda, how nice to see you! And what a surprise! I thought you were away.”

  You watched her take in your clothes: the miniskirt made from Aunt Vladka’s old velvet curtains, the boots you bought from the West German girl, the black chiffon blouse purchased last year in a department store in Budapest.

  “I was away.”

  “Berlin?” she asks. You shake your head and smile. You were in Brandenburg at the rehabilitation centre, visiting Jürgen. Is Jana obvious enough to say: “Where were you then?” Not quite. But you’re pretty sure she’s here because you’re here. She’s no longer simply the class snoop. Someone, you don’t know who, Frau Aner maybe, or Hencke, has given her the special task of watching you. There’s been a change since your showdown with Hencke. Well, that’s fine by you.

  As you turn away from her, you catch sight of the westerner striding across Karl Marx Platz towards the concert hall, dressed in the Russian army greatcoat and sheepskin hat with ear flaps he bought in Konsument. He blends in better now, but you can still tell he’s a westerner at a hundred paces. He glances up at the vast ceiling fresco that dominates the concert hall’s interior, then spots you and waves. You run over and fling your arms round him. “Hello!” you pipe.

  He flushes with pleasure, squeezes you to him and kisses you on the mouth. “Hello there you,” he says.

  He’s pleased to see you. Well, you’re pleased to see him too. You slip your arm through his and guide him over to the buffet, where he chooses some canapés and accepts a glass of Russian fizz. You can feel Jana’s eyes on you. You imagine her writing it all down later. Unauthorised contact with capitalist elements.

  After the concert, a cacophony that is booed by some members of the audience, there is the problem of how to get to Shakespeare Street. You want Jana to know about the westerner, but you don’t want her to know about Shakespeare Street.

  “I’m going to take you back a different way tonight,” you tell the westerner.

  “Why?”

  “I think Jana’s watching us,” you whisper.

  He glances round with the supreme nonchalance of someone who doesn’t know what it is to be watched.

  “She was staring right at us,” he says. “If she is watching us, she’s got all the finesse of a rhinoceros.”

  “Let’s just go,” you say. “If she follows us, you get off at 18th October Street. I’ll get off at Taro Street and meet you on the path by the railway tracks half an hour later.”

  Sure enough, Jana and her friend are on the tram, and so the westerner gets off at 18th October Street. You travel on with them to Taro Street, where you and Jana get off. Her friend lives near the end of the line in Lößnig and stays on.

  “You should be careful,” Jana says, as you walk together towards the hall of residence. “Western contacts are not desired for interpreters.”

  “I just bumped into him. I didn’t want to be rude.” You reckon this obvious lie will give her more ammunition than the truth ever could.

  “Hmm.” She purses her lips. “All the same.”

  On the second floor, where your shared room is, you wish her good night. “I’m going to have a night cap in the bar upstairs. Would you like to join me?”

  “No, thank you. I need to get to bed.”

  You take the stairs to the top floor, where the late-night student bar is, but don’t go in. You wait on the landing and watch the street. Sure enough, Jana appears a couple of minutes later. There’s still time to take a tram to the station and catch a train back to her parents’ house in the suburbs.

  The westerner is waiting for you by the railway tracks. You take his hand and lead him into a little-used tunnel, half concealed by bushes. It’s dark and stinks of piss, but it takes you through to Shakespeare Street.

  “How did you find this?” he asks.

  “I use it all the time. It connects my two worlds.”

  “Does it now?” he says, and there’s an edge in his voice. He’s never said anything about what he saw at Café North, and later, back at Marek’s apartment, you did things for him that made him forget all about it. But every now and then, he makes a cryptic remark that lets you know he’s not stupid.

  Perhaps because what you said about the tunnel reminded him of Café North, the westerner is fierce that night. His pale, freckled face is a mask as he steers you from the cold hallway at Shakespeare Street into the main room, which is warmed by the tiled stove. He tips you on to the divan and pushes up your skirt. His hands are all over you, pressing, pinching, probing, and his mouth bruises your lips.

  “You’re beautiful,” he mumbles, turning you over on to your stomach. He parts your legs with his knee and grabs your waist. He’s on fire. And so are you. You lift your hips towards him, pushing back against him as he moves inside you. Losing yourself. Melting into him.

  Afterwards, you pull away from him and light a cigarette. He strokes your arm and lights one too. You want to push him away. You’re frightened now. When did you last feel this way? When you were first with Marek? That was so special. But lately, it’s been different. Sometimes you have the kinds of boring arguments any couple might have. And sometimes, you look at the boys he hangs out with and feel something close to disgust.

  The westerner stubs out his cigarette and strokes your face. “What’s the matter?” he says. “You seem preoccupied.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Tell me. Are you worried about Jana?”

  “No.
It’s not that,” you say too quickly. And then because you can’t tell him what’s on your mind, you say, “I visited my brother earlier this week. He’s not very well.”

  “I’m sorry. What’s wrong with him?”

  There’s something about the simple concern in his voice that breaks you’re heart.

  “He had … an accident. He – ” Suddenly, tears well up in your eyes, and you can’t continue.

  “Hey.” He reaches over and brushes them away.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Tell me about it. John Bull-Halifax told me your brother had an accident, but I didn’t realise he was still unwell.”

  “Did he? He shouldn’t have.”

  “Why not?”

  Why not? Everything is so simple for the westerner. The tears come again. You don’t want to cry. Crying is weak. But you can’t stop.

  He pulls you to him and hugs you, stroking your hair. You don’t want this either. You don’t want love. But he’s strong and kind, and it feels good to be close to him. He runs a finger down your cheek, kisses you softly on the lips and tips you over on to your back. You grip on to his shoulders as he moves inside you once more. And it’s there again. That melting feeling.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Spring came quickly to Leipzig that year, almost overnight. One day a freezing wind was whistling down the streets; the next, the sun was high in the sky and temperatures were hitting 25 degrees.

  The sunshine changed things. Not only did the city look shabbier in the bright spring light, suddenly there was nowhere to hide. Roaming Leipzig’s dark streets muffled in winter coats and hats, it had been possible to feel anonymous. In winter time, John Bull-Halifax’s warning about no western contacts had made my relationship with Magda seem thrillingly subversive. Now his words rang in my head like a threat.

  Spring also brought a flurry of political activity that made it harder for us to forget where we were. Magda had to travel to Berlin for a cousin’s Youth Initiation ceremony, a secular coming-of-age ritual with 19th-century roots that had been adopted by the regime to replace confirmation.