‘How could I forget?’
‘You could forget, I am sure. There must have been so many other things going on in your life.’
‘Nothing like that year in Berlin.’
‘You saw us at our best. After you left …’ He laughed. ‘Not because you left, but after you left, we were not quite so heroic.’
‘You fell ill.’
‘Is that what you heard?’
‘Yes. You had a nervous breakdown.’
Paul nodded. ‘I suppose you could call it that.’
They came to a low, one-storey house, indistinguishable from any of the other houses in the village. Paul led Francesca into the narrow hallway. There was the smell of cooking.
‘I don’t want to impose myself,’ said Francesca.
‘My mother will be expecting you,’ he said. ‘She will have seen you in the church.’
They walked down the short hallway to the kitchen. A frail old woman stood at the stove, a look of suffering and distinction on her thin, pale face.
‘Mother,’ said Paul Meissner. ‘This is my American friend from ten years ago, Francesca McDermott.’
Frau Meissner wiped her hands on her apron and then reached forward to greet Francesca. ‘Paul has often spoken about you,’ she said.
‘I am so sorry to surprise you like this.’
‘We are delighted. Our life is mostly rather quiet.’
‘I didn’t mean to turn up for lunch.’
‘It is an old tradition,’ said Paul, ‘to cook enough for an unexpected guest.’
He turned and led Francesca back into the small living room of the little house. At once, Francesca recognized some of the furniture and pictures from the flat in the Wedekindstrasse ten years before.
‘Do the children visit you?’ asked Francesca.
‘Yes. From time to time. They find Bechtling a little dull.’
‘It must have been hard to lose them.’
‘Of course. But in the DDR, given who I was, I could not hope to win custody.’
‘And you were not well.’
Paul hesitated. ‘I was not perhaps quite so ill as we thought at the time.’
‘Sophie said that you were in the clinic’
‘Yes. That is certainly true. But we have now discovered that some clinics in the DDR were not there to help their patients get well.’
Francesca looked puzzled. ‘I read something about harassment …’
‘The Stasi had a way of dealing with dissidents which they called Zersetzung. It was a programme for the annihilation of anyone who opposed the regime. They preferred not to arrest us or imprison us: that earned them bad publicity and produced martyrs. They preferred to wear us down with petty privations, and above all to demoralize us so that we would lose faith in ourselves. We know this now, because we have had access to their files.’
‘Have you seen your file?’ asked Francesca.
‘I will come to that in a minute.’ Paul had always had a slightly pedagogic manner, like a university teacher in a seminar. ‘At the time, we had no idea of how thoroughly we were being manipulated by the Stasi. Every now and then, I would be called in for questioning, and threatened with prosecution for speaking out against the state. They were particularly enraged because of my success with students, but it was difficult for them to pin anything on me because, as you will remember, I was always careful not to speak out against the state. I always insisted that we must render unto Ceasar the things that are Caesar’s, reserving for God only the things that belong to God.’
‘Sure.’
‘But they were clever at twisting what I had said to make it sound seditious. What was demoralizing for me was not the number of times that I would be called in for questioning, but the discovery under interrogation that they were so well informed about what I had said. I began to feel paranoid, imagining that there were radio transmitters in my living room, my bathroom, even under our bed. The alternative – that it was not secret microphones but our closest friends who were relaying everything that we said to the Stasi – seemed too dreadful to contemplate. We were also on our guard against disinformation. We knew that the Stasi would do what they could to sow distrust in our group. It was therefore essential, to preserve our sanity, to be open with one another within our inner circle of friends. We sustained one another by holding prayer meetings and readings – reciting poems and stories that could not be published; by finding work for those who lost their jobs because of their political opinions. But all the same, the pressure was sometimes intolerable. I was not given much support by my bishop. His secretary was of the opinion that we should avoid all open criticism of the regime. It now emerges, from the files, the he was a Stasi IM – Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter, unofficial collaborator – reporting back after each meeting everything I or the bishop had said.
‘Inevitably, the strain took its toll on our marriage. You will remember how Sophie was in those days – cheerful, brave, very loyal, but not at heart …’ Paul groped to find the right word. ‘Not so much interested in intellectual or spiritual ideas. She sometimes felt, I know, that I put my conscience before my wife and family, that life would be so much easier if I would only compromise with the regime.
‘As you can imagine, the fear that there were radio transmitters under our bed, and perhaps cameras hidden behind holes in the walls, poisoned the physical expression of our conjugal love. I must also recognize, in view of what happened, that Sophie was always more appreciative than I was of the carnal side of our married life – something for which I, not she, was to blame. My anxiety led to long periods of abstinence which, St Paul warns us, permits the devil to do his work. Frustration made Sophie irritable, and her irritability made me anxious. I felt that she did not support me in my work. Persuading young people to put God before the state, to prefer confirmation in the Evangelical church to the Communists’ pagan ceremony, the Jugendweihe, was setting them off on a path that would entail great suffering. It was an awesome responsibility. My nerves suffered. I slept badly, and started to have persistent headaches. Sophie urged me to go to a doctor, a particular doctor, recommended by one of our closest friends.
‘I believed, of course, that one should try and bear suffering as Christ bore His cross on the path to Cavalry, but in the end I was persuaded. I went to see the doctor – a Dr Friedemann – who recommended a course of pills. These made me feel worse. On top of the headaches came long periods of black depression. My inner doubts grew about my work. To my friends – you will remember – I was something of a hero, and in West Germany stories were written about me as a dissident leader and a champion of democracy. This gave ammunition to the Stasi. Time and again I was brought in for questioning and threatened with prosecution and imprisonment in Hohenschönhausen or Bautzen. Time and again my bishop warned me to take care. The irony, of course – and you may remember this, too – was that in my homilies to the students I preached as vigorously against Western materialism as against Marxist materialism. I was emphatic in my criticism of the greed and injustice that sustain the market economies of the West. That enraged the Stasi for whom only Communism could be permitted to hold the moral high ground; it also irritated visiting West Germans, and Sophie too. I would never accept gifts from Western visitors such as cigarettes or toilet water. Sophie accepted my decision; she accepted everything I said; but she was got down by my depressions, and started to suggest that perhaps they had a psychological cause. So did Dr Friedemann. He had read Freud and Jung, which was unusual in the DDR, and thought that perhaps I lived in the shadow of my father, that I drove myself too hard to win his approval, or perhaps to do better than he had done to win my mother’s love. To me this was nonsense, but Sophie thought that there might be something in it, and so did our friend, that closest friend, the one who had recommended Dr Friedemann. They urged me to trust Friedemann, and so when he suggested that I go for treatment to a clinic, I agreed.
‘There, dear Francesca, there …’ Paul stopped. His face, which until th
en had held the benign expression of a patient teacher, became twisted for a moment as if the memory rekindled some kind of terror. ‘There, I was given a course of injections, supposedly part of a therapy which …’ He shook his head. ‘I cannot describe the effect of those drugs on my mind. When I slept, I had grotesque nightmares; when I awoke, they continued, and if anything became worse. I was pursued, I was tormented; all my anxieties grew out of all proportion. I began to fear that there were microphones hidden in my pillows and mattress, and so took a knife and cut them to shreds. They put me in a straitjacket and tied me to the bed. I raved. I was deranged. But all the while I kept a kernel of sanity, not by thinking of liberty or democracy or of the Church or even of God, but by remembering Sophie and the children. It was for them that I was determined to pull through.
‘The course of injections came to an end. The nightmares ceased. I became calm. Whatever fears remained, I kept to myself. All I wanted was to go home. In time, they agreed. A date was fixed. They said that Sophie had been informed, and had arranged for a friend from Leipzig to come and fetch me in his car. He came. He drove me back into Berlin and carried my small overnight bag up the stairs to our flat. He had a key – many of our friends had a key. We went in. It seemed to be empty. The door to our bedroom was ajar. I pushed it open. On our bed was a naked couple making love, Sophie and our closest friend.’
‘Stefi?’
‘Yes. Stefan Diederich.’
‘And the man who brought you to the house?’
‘The friend from Leipzig? Günter Westarp.’
Francesca was silent. She could think of nothing to say. The story he had told, and told with such conviction and apparent pain, was not only horrifying in itself but quite as terrible in its implications. ‘But does that mean that Sophie was working for the Stasi?’
‘Sophie? No. She was weak but innocent.’
‘But Stefan? And Günter?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘In your file …’
‘My file has not been found. Nor has a file been found as yet for Stefan or Günter, even though the three of us were prominent dissidents.’
‘Why not?’
‘It seems that someone removed them in good time.’
‘But who? And why?’
‘When the regime collapsed, gangs of skinheads broke into the Stasi headquarters on the Ruschestrasse. A committee was formed by the dissidents to take charge. One of their first resolutions was to destroy the files. They said the Soviets would intervene and the Stasi return. Later, of course, they realized that they were destroying the evidence against the Stasi.’
‘Stefan was on that committee?’
‘A leading member.’
‘So he could have destroyed the files?’
‘Mine, Sophie’s, Günter’s, his own.’
‘Is there no reference to him in any of the files that have been found?’
‘Investigators are going through them now. Dr Friedemann’s file has been found. He was working for the Stasi. So was the director of the clinic. In several files, there are references to an unofficial collaborator among the dissidents code-named Chameleon. It is possible that this is Stefan.’
‘But … has no one exposed him?’
‘There is no proof.’
‘Surely the West Germans suspect?’
‘I am sure. But they are in a difficult position. Stefi is an elected member of the regional assembly. He is a leader of the New Grouping upon which the Christian Democrat government depends. There is also a growing resentment among the East Germans against the highhanded behaviour of the officials from Bonn. And a feeling, which I share, that it is best for us all to forgive and forget.’
‘To forgive? After what you went through? Can you bring yourself to do that?’
‘Me? No. But for God, nothing is impossible. I love my children. I must think of their future, not my past.’
‘But a future with a Stasi spy as their stepfather, and a minister in the regional government?’
‘As a stepfather, he has not done badly, and as a minister of culture he can do no harm.’
EIGHTEEN
Francesca drove back to Berlin with her mind in some confusion. Could what Paul had said be true? Or was he creating a myth in his mind to explain Sophie’s leaving him for Stefan? Paul himself had said that he had no proof, yet the more Francesca thought about Stefan Diederich, the more plausible Paul’s story became. There had always been something shifty about Stefi and Sophie was as gullible as a goose.
Before she had left Bechtling, Paul had asked Francesca not to tell Sophie what he had said. It would only make her unhappy and destroy the stability of his children’s home.
‘But you,’ Francesca had said. ‘How can you bear to see them flourishing in that way?’
‘God rewards us for our suffering,’ said Paul, ‘in a way it is sometimes difficult for others to understand.’
Francesca was not a Christian, but she could see that from a Christian perspective it might jeopardize Paul’s terminal bonus in the next world if he was now to seek revenge. However, she had to consider the implications of what she had learned for the here and now. If both Stefan Diederich and Günter Westarp had been unofficial collaborators for the Stasi, what bearing had this on their decision to put on a major exhibition of Russian experimental art? Francesca remembered her first meeting with Stefi nine months before when he had talked with such enthusiasm about the cultural rehabilitation of Eastern Europe after almost half of a century of Communist rule. Had it been bogus or sincere?
When Francesca had put the question to Paul Meissner, he had come up with no satisfactory answer. Perhaps Stefi had had a genuine change of heart and wished to atone for his past wrongdoing. Or perhaps he had thought an exhibition like Excursus would help cover his tracks. It seemed to Francesca, as she drove through Neuruppin, that there must be more to it than that. Paul’s judgement was distorted by compassion. She needed the advice of someone she could trust. But who was there? Only Andrei, and he was in Moscow. Francesca cursed herself for not getting a telephone number from him before he left.
There remained Sophie. Whatever doubts she might have had about Stefi, Francesca was convinced that Sophie was straight. She was naive, and perhaps had cultivated her naiveté to avoid resolving painful contradictions or facing up to disagreeable truths; but if she knew more than she let on, it would be more than she let on to herself. She had to talk to Sophie and, remembering that Stefi had flown to Bonn, Francesca decided to look in on the flat in the Wedekindstrasse on her way home.
When she saw Francesca at her door, Sophie kissed her without embracing her because her hands were covered with flour. ‘I’m making pastry,’ she said, leading Francesca into the kitchen where her two children were eating their supper. ‘I always cook when Stefi’s away so that I can spend more time with him when he returns.’
Once the children left the table, Francesca helped Sophie clear up. Then Sophie opened a bottle of wine and, while filling two glasses, asked Francesca how she had spent her day. For a moment Francesca hesitated, then she told Sophie that she had been to see Paul.
Sophie turned to Francesca. ‘Paul …’ she repeated in an almost reproachful tone of voice. ‘How was poor Paul?’
‘He was … fine. I mean, as well as can be expected.’
‘You should have told me that you were going to see him.’
‘I went on impulse, and anyway, I thought that you wouldn’t want me to go.’
Sophie said nothing.
‘But I had to go, Sophie. He was also my friend, after all, and once we start hanging there just won’t be time.’
‘What did he say?’ she asked.
‘Nothing special.’
‘About me …?’ Her brow wrinkled as if she was preparing herself to rebut some terrible slur.
‘He was very nice about you, Sophie. He seemed to me to be extraordinarily … understanding.’
‘Yes.’ She said this as if it was not nec
essarily a good thing to be.
‘He is a good man,’ said Francesca.
‘Yes, but he is not the only good man.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Stefi is a good man, too.’
‘I dare say.’
Sophie’s face went a shade pinker. ‘He thinks of others, does kindnesses that no one knows. He got Günter his job …’
‘I know.’
‘And he insisted that you should be the one to organize the exhibition when everyone said it should be a German.’
‘I appreciate that, Sophie.’
‘And only today, before he left, he said that if anyone asked, I was to say that the Excursus exhibition had been your idea.’
‘My idea?’
‘Yes. Because he is now sure it will be a success and he wants all the credit to go to you.’
Francesca was dumbfounded. She sat, silent and frowning, trying to work out what might be going on in Stefan Diederich’s mind. ‘Sophie,’ she said eventually, ‘are you sure … are you absolutely sure …?’ Her voice petered out.
‘Yes, I am sure. He is a good man. He was always our friend and when he saw how terrible things were for me, he … he …’
‘He made love to you.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you let him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even though Paul was still your husband?’
Sophie’s face was now flushed, either from emotion or from the wine. ‘He was not my husband, not really. How could he be my husband or anyone’s husband when he was so ill, so depressed?’
‘Didn’t you ever suspect, Sophie, that it was the Stasi who made him ill?’
Sophie appeared confused. ‘Now, yes, because we know that the doctor was an unofficial collaborator, it is possible that they made him worse, but he was always so gloomy and spiritual, worrying about God and Hell, and never any fun …’ She started to sniff.
‘He was serious,’ said Francesca, ‘but he wasn’t always gloomy.’
‘Stefi was fun.’
‘Yes, but …’ It was too late to turn back. ‘Paul told me that what finally broke him – what pushed him over the edge – was coming back from the clinic to find you in bed with Stefi.’
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