A Patriot in Berlin

by Piers Paul Read

  They reached the van. A third thug sat at the wheel of the Mercedes. Georgi slid back the door of the van. ‘Was it a diesel?’ he asked Partovsky.

  ‘Yes.’

  Gerasimov looked in the glove compartment. It was empty. ‘No documents,’ he said.

  Georgi laughed. ‘Not likely.’

  Gerasimov pulled the lever that opened the bonnet, then went round to the front of the van. The plates with the engine and chassis numbers had been chiselled off. ‘No numbers,’ he said to Partovsky.

  ‘I never noted them anyway,’ said Partovsky. ‘But it’s the van, all right.’

  ‘How can you tell?’

  ‘Come and look.’

  Gerasimov walked round to the back of the van. Beyond the car park he could see four men in a Lada peering in their direction.

  ‘Those scratches, on the inside. I remember them because the van was more or less new.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘There are two empty Fanta cans under the seat and some sandwich wrapping. Those were mine.’

  ‘They file off the numbers,’ said Gerasimov, ‘but don’t take the trouble to clean it out.’

  ‘And the name of the garage,’ said Partovsky. ‘I remember that. On the back window. Look. Autohaus Bedaur, Leipzig. There can’t be two white VW diesel vans in Moscow from the same garage in Leipzig.’

  ‘So you’d swear to it?’

  ‘Yes. This is the van.’

  Georgi had been following their examination of the Volkswagen. He now turned away to find himself facing two plainclothes detectives from the militia.

  ‘We have reason to believe,’ said the first, ‘that you are in possession of stolen state property.’

  Georgi darted a look over their shoulders: his three men were already handcuffed to uniformed policemen. He turned to Gerasimov. ‘Tell them.’

  Gerasimov shrugged. ‘You’re asking too much, I’m afraid.’ He turned to the detective and shook his head. ‘Inflation. The prices people ask, and for stolen goods!’

  With a roar Georgi lunged at Gerasimov, but before he could reach him he was seized by the two detectives, handcuffed and led away. The older detective said nothing but merely nodded to Gerasimov before turning to follow his men.

  Gerasimov took Partovsky by the arm. ‘Thank you, comrade. You have been a great help. The militia have been after that scoundrel for years. It’s been hard to get evidence against him but this, I should say – state property, after all – should put him away for quite a while.’

  TWELVE

  Francesca McDermott, who had been a junior squash champion in Madison, Wisconsin, and a member of the women’s team at Harvard, anticipated that her skill might make up for a man’s natural advantages when playing Andrei Serotkin. So it proved in the first couple of games. He was good but she was better, or so she thought.

  In the third game, her presuppositions were shaken by a defeat. Francesca was puzzled. She could not quite make out what had gone wrong. Perhaps unconsciously she had been unwilling to humiliate the man she loved by winning three games in a row. She tried harder in the fourth game and won. She tried equally hard in the fifth game and was beaten. It was only then that she realized that Serotkin far outclassed her. He had been playing with her like a cat with a mouse, letting her win only when he chose to do so.

  ‘My God, Andrei,’ she said, panting, ‘this just isn’t fair. You must have played in the Soviet team.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So where did you learn to play like that?’

  ‘There were courts at the ministry. And in Washington, of course.’

  ‘You were at Washington? You never told me that.’

  His expression did not change. ‘Briefly, in the embassy. I stood in for the cultural attaché.’

  ‘No wonder your English is so good.’

  Francesca thought no more of it. As Stefi had once pointed out, Russians had learned the hard way the importance of keeping themselves to themselves. She knew she was only going to get to know Serotkin little by little, and she did not want to jeopardize these friendly meetings by appearing too inquisitive.

  Francesca also recognized that a measure of mystery was a necessary ingredient in love, and she was in love: there was no question about that. When Andrei Serotkin entered the room, her heart lifted; when he left it, her heart sank for the few moments it took to conjure him up once again in her imagination. That they were not lovers did not dishearten her while the exhibition brought them together every day, and while she felt confident that his feelings, although undeclared, were nevertheless engaged.

  The games of squash were the proof. Andrei had suggested them, and he seemed to enjoy the opportunity they provided to compete with Francesca and win. She had known competitive men before, and she had known some who had appreciated her ability to give them a good run for their money. All sports bind players together with the mixed strands of rivalry and friendship. With Andrei, however, the games seemed to be more than a game, and the objective was not just to win. It was as if he felt challenged by her in ways that possibly he did not fully understand, and that he must establish not just that he could beat her, but that he could tease her and manipulate her – physically in the squash court, intellectually in the office.

  Francesca always rose to the bait. Her mind was out of kilter with her emotions and, though ready to surrender her body should he choose to take it, she was not prepared to defer to his judgement when they disagreed on art.

  Serotkin had defeated her in the early days on the scope of and the title of the exhibition. Now they joined battle on the question of ‘texts’. At an earlier meeting, Frau Dr Koch had proposed that blown-up photographs should be displayed alongside the paintings, either portraits of the artists or pictures of places pertinent to the exhibition such as the church at Abramtsevo or Tatlin’s model for a monument to the Third International.

  Francesca had argued against this on the grounds that the place for photographs of this kind was in the catalogue, not on the walls. Rival images among the exhibits would dissipate the impact of the art. The committee had agreed. Defeated on this issue, Frau Dr Koch regrouped and mounted a new offensive on the question of displaying excerpts from the manifestos of the different artistic schools – the Futurists, the Constructivists, the Suprematists – as well as quotations from the writings of Kandinsky. Here again, Francesca argued, large placards would distract from the paintings: they would make visitors feel that they were there to learn rather than enjoy. The gallery directors and Dr Kemmelkampf agreed; Stefan Diederich had no view; Günter Westarp was undecided. It seemed that the texts would go the same way as the photographs when Andrei Serotkin raised his hand.

  ‘Dr Serotkin?’ asked Stefan Diederich.

  ‘I should like to ask Dr McDermott whether she is confident that, without texts of the kind proposed by Frau Dr Koch, those who look at the works of art will understand what their creators had set out to achieve?’

  ‘I believe they explain themselves,’ said Francesca.

  ‘I was thinking, for example,’ said Serotkin, ‘of Larionov’s “Rayonnist” Manifesto of 1914.’ He looked down at a book open on the table in front of him.

  We declare that the genius of our days to be: trousers, jackets, shoes, tramways, buses, aeroplanes, railways, magnificent ships … We deny that individuality has any value in a work of art … Hail nationalism! We go hand in hand with house painters.

  ‘Or there is Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, the bible of the modern movement. Don’t you feel that we should at least display some quotations from that?’

  ‘I am not sure,’ said Francesca.

  ‘Perhaps we could use the opening. “Every work of art is the child of its time: often it is the mother of our emotions.”’

  ‘Isn’t that a truism,’ asked Julius Breitenbach, ‘and so comes across as somewhat banal?’

  Andrei Serotkin turned to Francesca. ‘Perhaps Dr McDermott could tell us whether or not it is ba
nal.’

  Francesca cleared her throat. ‘I think that Kandinsky’s writing is very interesting, but more as an adjunct to his art than in itself. To display excerpts like that would only tend to confuse people …’

  ‘Because they are too stupid to understand them?’ asked Serotkin.

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  ‘Or because the writings themselves are nonsense?’

  ‘Because, as I said, the writings are not really theories as such, but more the expression of the kind of ideas that inspired Kandinsky; not so much the philosophy of art or aesthetics, more like the prose poems he was writing at the time.’

  ‘Ah yes,’ said Serotkin. ‘The prose poems.’ He read from the book.

  A circle is always something

  Sometimes even a great deal.

  Sometimes – seldom – too much.

  Just as a rhinoceros is sometimes too much.

  Sometimes it sits in compact violet – the circle.

  The circle the white circle.

  And becomes indisputably smaller. And smaller still.

  ‘Perhaps this,’ suggested Serotkin, ‘should be exhibited on a board?’

  Francesca frowned. Was Andrei sincere in what he said, or was he mocking Kandinsky? ‘We have put some of his poems in the catalogue,’ she said. ‘I should have thought that was enough.’

  ‘And speaking for us Ossies,’ said Günter Westarp, ‘I think we have had quite enough of slogans pinned up on walls. Let’s just have the paintings with some labels and have done with it.’

  Serotkin raised his hands in a gesture of capitulation. ‘Very well. My suggestions are withdrawn.’

  On the following Wednesday, Francesca and Andrei Serotkin played squash after work and then went to a nearby café for a drink.

  ‘You know, Andrei,’ said Francesca, ‘I sometimes think you have a mischievous side to your character.’

  ‘Mischievous? How?’

  ‘At Monday’s meeting. Were you serious about putting those texts on the walls?’

  ‘Were they serious when they wrote them?’

  ‘Probably … But that doesn’t mean that they should be taken seriously. In my experience, artistic talent and intellectual rigour rarely go together.’

  ‘Yet artists have ideas, and if their works of art are really the mother of our emotions then they have influence too.’

  ‘I should have thought the influence was largely subliminal and imprecise.’

  ‘That had not been the view of those who have used art to promote their interests.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘The dominant classes throughout history, in particular the clergy and the bourgeoisie.’

  ‘That theory denigrates the genius of the artists,’ said Francesca.

  ‘Not their genius, no. Their integrity, perhaps, but even then … An artist had to live.’

  ‘And what interest is promoted today through modern paintings?’ asked Francesca. ‘What are they meant to do to our emotions?’

  Serotkin’s eyes darted a quick look of anger, even contempt, towards Francesca but when he spoke he chose his words with care. ‘The argument would go, I think, that with the collapse of Communism, and the worldwide triumph of pluralism, capitalism and democracy, we see not just the end of history but also the end of art.’

  ‘From where I sit, there’s never been more interest in art.’

  ‘Of course. Art is revered as never before. It has replaced religion. In Western Europe, and above all in the United States, the great art galleries are the temples where people come to revere the icons of their age. But what are these icons? The squiggles of Jackson Pollock, the daubs of De Kooning or the monochrome canvases of Rothko. When you look at contemporary American paintings, you marvel not at the skills of the artist, not at the beauty of what he has depicted – because in essence he has depicted nothing – but at the fact that these empty canvases are sold for millions of dollars. It is this that gives them their status as icons of the new religion. They could have been painted by anyone – even by machines. They bear no trace of the human hand, let alone the human mind or the human eye. When you revere a work of abstract art, you are worshipping capitalism in its purest form: added value for added value’s sake!’

  ‘Is this what you believe?’ asked Francesca.

  ‘These were due ideas that were put forward by some of the people in the ministry in Moscow.’

  ‘And what did they say about contemporary realists whose paintings also go for millions of dollars – Francis Bacon, say, or Lucian Freud?’

  ‘My colleagues would argue that if these are the mothers of the emotions of the Western world, then no wonder it is so diseased, degenerate and depraved.’

  ‘Artists cannot look at the world through rose-tinted spectacles.’

  ‘Of course not. But when Grünewald portrays the cruelty of the crucifixion, or Goya the horrors of war, the works are protests against what they portray, and there is the implicit promise of redemption. The paintings of Bacon and Freud hold no such promise. They are the icons of despair.’

  ‘It almost sounds as if you agree with your colleagues.’

  Serotkin smiled. ‘If I did, would I be here?’

  Francesca, who went on to have supper with the Diederichs, told them what Serotkin had said about modern art. ‘And at the end of it all, I still can’t make out what Andrei himself actually believes.’

  ‘He may not believe anything,’ said Stefi.

  ‘But it’s his speciality, isn’t it?’

  ‘You have to understand the way things worked under the Soviet system. Most of them only wanted to find a well-paid sinecure, and then keep their heads down. Serotkin would never have been allowed to specialize in experimental art if he had actually believed in it. That would have made him a dissident on cultural matters. He most certainly would not have been given a post in the Ministry of Culture. He probably drifted into the job because it gave him the chance of occasional foreign travel.’

  ‘Yes. He said he’d lived in Washington for a time.’

  ‘Did he? I didn’t know.’

  ‘Apparently he stood in for the cultural attaché.’

  Stefi shrugged. ‘There you are. A second-rank cultural bureaucrat.’

  ‘I think he’s worried,’ said Francesca, ‘that there may not be a job for him when he goes back.’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘Couldn’t you find him something here? He really is very knowledgeable and he speaks both German and English so well.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you rather he got a job in America?’ asked Sophie with a smirk.

  Francesca blushed, ‘I was only thinking that if there was some way we could help him …’

  ‘I get the impression,’ said Stefi, ‘that Dr Serotkin is quite capable of looking after himself.’

  ‘And sometimes others,’ said Sophie. ‘Even damsels in distress.’

  Again, Francesca blushed. ‘He certainly did me a good turn, so I’d like to do one for him in return.’

  Sophie giggled. ‘The easiest way would be to marry him. Then he could get an American passport.’

  ‘He hasn’t proposed,’ said Francesca.

  ‘I’m sure he will,’ said Sophie. ‘You work together. You play squash together. You live in the same block.’

  ‘But we don’t live together,’ said Francesca emphatically. ‘I’ve never been into his apartment.’

  ‘But he’s been to yours.’

  ‘Only once, after the attack, to call the police.’

  Stefi frowned. ‘I would advise you,’ he said, ‘not to get romantically involved with Serotkin.’

  ‘You would say that,’ said Sophie, ‘but it’s only because you hate Russians. But he wasn’t reponsible for the DDR, and Francesca isn’t an Ossie, so there’s no reason why she should feel the same.’

  ‘Russians are deceptive,’ said Stefi. ‘They look like Europeans, but under the skin they are Asians, as cruel as Mongols and as contemptuous of women as the Turks.�
��

  ‘I have always found Andrei very considerate,’ said Francesca.

  Stefan shrugged. ‘You are grown up, Francesca. You can make your own judgements. But I advise you to be cautious.’

  ‘And where would we be if we had been cautious?’ asked Sophie. ‘You take a risk when you fall in love.’

  Later that evening, Stefi told Francesca in confidence that Bonn had let it be known that the President of Germany, Richard von Weizsäcker, might be willing to come to Berlin to open the Excursus exhibition on 1 July. It was a tentative offer because the President realized that the exhibition’s organizers might not want a political leader, or, if they did, might prefer an East German, or even a prominent Russian dissident. Stefan asked her to think about it, and perhaps discuss it in the strictest confidence with Andrei Serotkin and Günter Westarp.

  When Francesca saw Günter in the office the next morning, he took her aside and lobbied against the idea. It would be insulting for Gustav Kiepert, the Minister President of Prussia, who had been asked to open the exhibition six months before. ‘It’s typical of the Wessies. When they think something is going to be successful, they want to take it over and make out that the idea was theirs all along.’

  Francesca could see why Günter should think this, and she pretended to agree, but she was somehow irritated that he could not shake off his Ossie inferiority complex and rise to the occasion. From where she stood, it could do no harm to her reputation if her name was associated with an exhibition opened by the President of a major nation, rather than by the Minister President of a minor province. Who in the United States had heard of Kiepert? She was sure that Andrei would feel the same, or that she could persuade him to feel the same, and she waited impatiently for him to arrive at the office.

  He did not come. She grew fretful and, late in the morning, went to the secretaries’ office and casually asked if anyone knew what had happened to Dr Serotkin.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Gertie. ‘He called in sick.’

  ‘You might have told me,’ said Francesca.

  ‘I’m sorry. There was no meeting so I thought …’

  ‘Did he say what was wrong?’