He puts his hand on yours and squeezes it. “You should always feel good about yourself, Magda.”
You shrug. You wonder if he’ll still be saying that when you’ve told him your side of the story. Because you’ve decided that you’re going to help him. If you can. Something in his manner strikes a chord with you. He’s been through it, just like you. That’s why he’s doing all these mad things. Watching you. Breaking into your apartment. Not that you ever dreamt he still had the key. You thought he might ‘borrow’ the key if you put temptation in his way. You wanted to see how far he’d go. Well, that’s what you get for testing people.
You light a cigarette and offer him one.
He shakes his head. “Don’t drink, don’t smoke.”
“So, how are you?” you ask.
He looks into your eyes for a moment. “Yeah, I’m okay.” Then he says, “To be honest, Magda, things have been a bit difficult lately, but it’s getting better.”
You smile. “Good. Getting better is good.” You stub out your cigarette and say, “Let’s go up to my apartment. We can talk there.”
You get him a sparkling mineral water from the fridge and make yourself another coffee. He’s looking at the books in the bookcase behind the tan sofa when you bring the drinks through to the living room.
“I remember you always had so many books at Shakespeare Street. All that West literature and all those books by Christa Wolf that were impossible to find in the shops.”
“Yes. We had our sources.”
He sits down beside you on the sofa and says, “Magda, did you go to prison?”
You nod. “Yes.”
“I’m so sorry.
“It’s in the past. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
“Was it my fault?”
“Your fault?” You shake your head emphatically. “No, it was nothing to do with you.”
It’s funny, he told you on the phone about how he hung on in West Berlin, trying to find a way to cross back over to the East after he was ejected from the GDR by the police at Sonnenallee. How he got in touch with John Bull-Halifax and got him to phone Professor Sahr. And it provided you with a strange kind of retrospective comfort. Someone was thinking about you even if you didn’t know it at the time. He could have gone home and forgotten about the whole thing. But he didn’t. He tried to help you. You hardly ever thought about the westerner when you were in prison. You only thought about Marek, who did nothing, and Kerstin, who did worse than nothing.
He leans back against the cushions. “I’m glad about that. I’m glad nothing I said harmed you.”
“I’ve thought things through,” you say. “And I’m happy to tell you whatever you want to know. You can look in my files if you want. I’ve pulled together some material I think might be useful to you, but you’re welcome to look at whatever you like. I know what it’s like to be where you are now. To have found out certain shocking things. That’s what the Stasi did. They messed with people’s biographies so they didn’t know who they were any more. You have a right to know who you are.”
“I’d rather you just told me,” he says. “You tell me your story, and I’ll tell you mine.”
You look at him. Does he understand what this will mean? “Okay,” you say at last. “But I have to warn you that some of the things I did weren’t very kind either. I’m not just a victim. Your turning up here has made me realise that. I deceived people too. I deceived you.”
He holds your gaze. “I’m ready to hear it.”
And so you tell him everything. You tell him how Kerstin betrayed you and Marek forgot you. And you tell him about all the lies you told him. All the bad things you did.
He swallows hard at certain points, and when you’re done, he looks at his hands for a long time. “Didn’t you like me even a little bit?” he asks.
“Yes, I did. You must believe that. That just made it harder. I’m sorry. I really wish it could have been different.”
“Well,” he says, “I suppose it wasn’t your fault. I suppose it was the system. That’s what John Bull-Halifax said when I told him I’d betrayed Marek.” He looks up. “I can’t believe Marek just left you sitting in prison.”
You shrug. “Neither could I.”
“Did you ever find out how he got out?”
“No. And it doesn’t really matter now.”
“That’s the missing link, isn’t it? That and my passport. I should have got Frau Martin to look up the buyer’s code name when I was in Leipzig, but I just wanted to leave by then.”
“Maybe you can call her?”
“I don’t think she’d want to deal with something like that over the phone.” He stops. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
You grab his arm. “I’ve just thought of something. Oh, Bob, it’s much worse than we thought.”
You remember the momentary beat of wariness you saw in Uncle Ivan’s eyes when you met him in Berlin after you got out of prison and he gave you Marek’s message. Marek went over a bit later, he said. But that wasn’t true.
“Do you remember what the code name was?”
“Yeah. It was ‘Lech’.”
“Shit!” You shake your head in disbelief. He must have left after the party at Shakespeare Street. Or maybe the next day. After you’d been arrested.
“Do you know who it is?” the westerner asks.
You bury your head in your hands and let out a cry of anguish. You hear Hencke’s nasal lisp in your head: And do you know what name I’ve chosen for Comrade Dembowski? Lech. Perfect, isn’t it, for a little Polack?
You nod and take hold of his hand. “Yes, I know who it is.”
“You’re crying,” he says, reaching across to touch your cheek. “I always make you cry.”
“No,” you say. “You just always end up drying my tears.”
You spend the night together but you don’t make love. You just hold on to each other. You have something in common now. You were both deceived by the same person. Marek. Beautiful, bitchy, clever Marek. That’s it, you think as you finally drift into sleep in his arms – the last surprise.
EPILOGUE
It’s a warm summer evening, and the guests are arriving for the private view. Torsten stands in the doorway in his new linen suit smiling and greeting each guest as they enter the gallery. He points them in the direction of a table covered with a white linen cloth where two smiling young women with sleek pony tails are doling out glasses of Sekt and red wine. Inside the gallery, another two waitresses circulate with canapés, weaving between the guests who are already crowding round the exhibits.
It’s a mixed crowd. Some people from the old days. Older. Chastened in one way or another. But if Torsten looks into certain corners of the room and lets his eyes drift out of focus, he can almost imagine that he’s back in the gallery on Lippendorfer Street where it all began. An innocent time, that seems like now. A simple time. When the enemy was clear. Or so it seemed. And an exciting time. Romantic.
There are of course also the absentees, those who wouldn’t dare to show their faces in a place like this these days. And the other ones. The unreconstructed comrades. Also immediately recognisable. Here to size up the enemy. See what they’re doing now. He’s spotted a couple already. (But not Pankowitcz. Not yet anyway. That’s why Torsten is standing in the doorway of his own gallery like a bouncer. To keep Pankowitcz out.)
And then there are the other guests. The people who’ve travelled over from Charlottenburg and Spandau on the S-Bahn. They sip their drinks and say, “Hmm. Interesting.” And the critics. But isn’t this theme of coming to terms with the past a little played out now?
It doesn’t matter what they say. Torsten knows this exhibition is a triumph. It’s going to make his career and it’s going to make the artist’s career.
Torsten stares up the street to the U-Bahn. That’s where Pankowitcz will come from – if he comes. And so he doesn’t see the other guest he’s detailed to look out for until the last
minute, because he comes from the other direction.
The man is crossing the road now, looking the wrong way in the traffic. He’s changed, but Torsten still recognises him from the night he first met him at The Sharp Corner all those years ago. He looks round uncertainly, checking his map. Torsten waves to him, and the westerner nods, smiles and waves back.
In the doorway, the two men shake hands. Torsten claps the westerner on the shoulder and turns to ask his wife to find the artist. But Magda is already weaving her way through the crowds towards them in her green dress.
For more great reading go to:
www.aurorametro.com
Select historical fiction to enjoy:
The Physician of Sanlúcar by Jonathan Falla
978-1-906582-38-8
Kipling and Trix by Mary Hamer
978-1-906582-34-0
Pomegranate Sky by Louise Soraya Black
978-1-906582-10-4
The River’s Song by Suchen Christine Lim
978-1-906582-98-2
The Evolutionist by Avi Sirlin
978-1-906582-53-1
Liberty Bazaar by David Chadwick
978-1-906582-92-0
Tracks, Racing the Sun by Sandro Martini
978-1-906582-43-2
The Leipzig Affair Page 23