A Dandy in Aspic

by Derek Marlowe

  “Jacques Brel,” Greff said, gesturing to the music. “He’s telling his friend Jef not to get upset over a woman. You speak French?”

  Eberlin didn’t reply. Combing his hair, Greff glanced at him and then, sensing the other man’s mood, said quietly:

  “I apologize if the setting is alien to how you imagined Breysach should be. But you must admit it is much less suspicious and anyway, I like it. Believe me, George–”

  “Don’t call me George,” snapped Eberlin and Greff gave a short embarrassed laugh and replied:

  “As you wish.” A pause, then:

  “Have you got the money?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see?”

  “When you tell me how it will be used.”

  “I see. Well, all right.”

  A further pause. One of the men outside suddenly giggled outrageously and echoed the punch line of someone else’s joke and laughed again.

  “As I said yesterday,” Greff began, walking up and down, “you will go over openly and without any silly histrionics. And may I add, in comfort.”

  “You’re sending me through in a Rolls Royce?” commented Eberlin sarcastically.

  “No,” replied Greff blandly, “it’s a Mercedes Benz actually.” Eberlin stifled a laugh but Greff was playing it straight.

  “Not an ordinary Mercedes, of course. This one will be a military vehicle. A staff car.”

  “You can’t be serious?” exploded Eberlin.

  “Perfectly. It has been done successfully many times. Military personnel as you know are allowed to travel back and forth between sectors without interference. They are neither searched nor questioned. It’s part of the Charter–didn’t you know?”

  “Yes, but–I can’t–”

  “Can’t what? My dear George, let me tell you that all the forces in Berlin have recruits, even officers, who are quite prepared to take an unauthorized person through the Wall for a small consideration, without batting an eyelid. The Americans do it, the British do it. Some diplomatic cars make a small fortune from rich defectors alone.”

  “And that’s how you intend to take me across?”

  “There’s an officer’s car leaving for the Checkpoint in fiftyfive minutes. There is nothing to worry about–they are expecting you. You sit comfortably in the back seat and let yourself be driven across. Simple, isn’t it?”

  “The Vopos may recognize my face. I can’t just sit in the car while they stare at me–”

  “You will wear a uniform, of course, and some glasses if you wish. They will never suspect because they will not be looking for you.”

  Eberlin was unsure. It was too absurdly simple and Greff was much too blasé about it. After a moment he stood up.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t like it. It’s unrealistic.” He walked toward the door.

  “Don’t be a fool, Dancer,” Greff called after him coldly. “You haven’t much of an option, have you?”

  There was a fleeting shudder in Eberlin’s body and he stopped and looked back at the other man.

  “How do you mean?” he asked.

  “Well,” replied Greff, “you are rather desperate, aren’t you?

  And with a great deal to hide.” Eberlin didn’t move.

  “What are you trying to say, Greff?”

  “Only this,” the other replied, adjusting the curtains around the window. “I know almost nothing about you but I suspect a lot. This, as I said, doesn’t concern me one bit. But I say I suspect. Let me tell you something. I’m not a very intelligent person, hardly well read. Not even talented in any way. But I have always had one attribute I pride myself on. I have a very good ear.” He tapped his ear as if to emphasize the point. “I can pick out a wrong note played in an orchestra of fifty as if it were written on the conductor’s back. When I was a child, elders pressured me to take up music but ironically, I was a failure. They expected nothing less than another Mozart and got me. It was tragic. I could hardly master Für Elise.”

  “What has this to do with me?”

  “One moment. Despite my inability to become an infant prodigy, I still retained my ear. My instinct for sounds. Not only with music but also with language. Now it’s a strange thing about accents and perhaps you don’t realize this. When someone speaks a foreign language, he naturally speaks it with an accent, which generally is very noticeable depending on his fluency. But more than this: a Frenchman, say, no matter how long he has been out of his own country, still speaks a foreign language with a French accent. My aunt is a good case in point. She is Italian. She left Italy at eleven–eleven–and moved to Germany. She is now forty-eight and has spoken German every day for thirty-seven years. Recently she learned to speak English. Of course she speaks it with an accent, but not, Herr Dancer, a German accent. But an Italian one. Odd, isn’t it, this lingual atavism?”

  Eberlin didn’t reply.

  “You’re still wondering what this has to do with you? Well, George, you tell me you’re English. You have an English name and an English passport. But when you speak German, it is not with an English accent, though you speak German very well.”

  “Oh really?” said Eberlin dispassionately. “And what accent do I have?”

  “This I’m not sure. It’s very difficult. Hungarian? Rumanian? Or perhaps”–and Greff smiled slightly–“perhaps a little farther north. Whatever it is, I know you are not telling me the truth.”

  “You’re way off your mark, Greff,” Eberlin said steadily. “I’m afraid you’ve let your imagination run away with you. Anyway I could be an immigrant, couldn’t I? Like your damned aunt.”

  “Yes, you could,” replied Greff, with a slight bow, “and now you want to emigrate again. Don’t you, Ge-org-e?”

  Eberlin stiffened for a moment. Greff had pronounced his name as if it were Russian–hardening the g and lengthening the e. There was a knock on the door and the butler entered with an anemic expression of apology.

  “Eleven forty, sir. You asked–”

  “Yes. Thank you, Kreide,” Greff said quickly and ushered the butler out of the room. “We have thirty minutes,” he said to Eberlin, “so you’d better make up your mind. I repeat, I don’t care what you are, but the scheme will work. I assure you.”

  Eberlin said nothing. The record had stopped but not clicked off and was spinning around noisily under the pickup. Greff switched it off.

  “Where is the uniform?” Eberlin asked finally.

  “In the taxi. Schmidt is meeting us outside. He’ll take us to another rendezvous where you can change and pick up the staff car. All right?”

  Eberlin was worried, but he couldn’t think clearly enough to rationalize the plan. On the surface it was feasible. He shrugged and replied, “All right.”

  There was a mercenary smile from the German and he patted Eberlin’s arm.

  “Relax, George. In one hour you will be on the other side–though I can’t see why anyone would go to all the trouble for such a dreary little place. By the way, did you pick up a nice tart last night as I suggested?”

  Eberlin didn’t reply but lit another cigarette and felt sweat beginning to trickle under his arms.

  “Well, never mind,” continued Greff. “I was going to send round Hedwig but I didn’t know your hotel. Anyway she was out all evening. Where’s the money?”

  “Now?”

  “Half of it, yes.”

  A package of dollars was taken from Eberlin’s pocket and handed over to Greff, who counted it slowly then placed it in his wallet.

  “You’ll deliver the rest to a contact in the East. He’ll meet you.

  Shall we go?”

  This was it. Eberlin nodded and followed the German out of the bedroom to the top of the stairs. Both men descended the stairs in silence, like pallbearers, then at the bottom, Greff stopped.

  “One moment. I ought to say good bye to my …” He gestured toward the rear of the house and the pool. “He’s a very–jealous–boy.”

  Eberlin nodded politely, but his
face was strained.

  “Perhaps there’s time for a drink before I leave?” he asked. Greff gave a brief smile.

  “French courage?”

  “Dutch.”

  “Ah yes. The Dutch get blamed for everything. I’ll call Kreide.” He walked to a large oaken door.

  “Kreide!”

  No answer. Greff rubbed his eye. “Kreide!”

  Still no answer. Greff swore. “Where the hell is that man?

  Kreide!”

  “Perhaps he’s in the garden.”

  “He has no right in the garden. We have another–Kreide!”

  Complete silence. Both men suddenly became aware that no sounds came from the garden, even though both doors were open. At first, Eberlin dismissed it, then noticing a puzzled anxiety on Greff’s face which rapidly turned to concern, he glanced around him uneasily and walked over to the other man.

  “Something is wrong,” muttered Greff and turned away. Then, as if struck by a sudden thought, he ran quickly to the back of the house and Eberlin heard his footsteps breaking clear of the house and running onto the tiled patio outside. Then suddenly they stopped abruptly.

  Eberlin hesitated and followed, moving faster as the light from the garden came in sight, and then he saw him. He was standing stockstill staring out across the lawn, one hand frozen in the air as if he were posing for a statue. He was looking at something, or someone, hidden from Eberlin’s view by the heavy doorframe. But with a few steps, he saw the reason for Greff’s odd behaviour. Around the pool and under the trees were seven men. They were not guests nor were they casual visitors. They were policemen. And in the pool the raft was empty.

  Immediately an explosion of sound and action erupted. Greff broke out of his paralysis and turned and ran back into the house, pushing past Eberlin and shouting at him:

  “You bastard! You bastard!”

  Then he was running across the hall and collapsing under the blows of other men, and a kick on the nose from one of the police as he fell, spread-eagled, onto the floor. And then Eberlin was being pushed aside and the whole house seemed crowded with policemen who glanced briefly at Eberlin then dismissed him, as if he were a stray glove someone had picked up and placed on a gatepost, and then he heard a voice nearby and he turned and saw Emmanuel Gatiss.

  “Wait there and don’t move,” he was saying and then he too was gone. More faces peered at Eberlin out of this sudden nightmare, until finally Gatiss returned alone and led Eberlin dumbly into the garden toward the pool.

  “What on earth were you up to?” he said.

  Eberlin blinked and for a brief second felt some vomit rising in his gullet for an unknown reason, and then he peered at Gatiss as if he were in fine print and blabbered, “What you say?”

  “Fine bloody goose chase you led us. You didn’t expect to find Krasnevin here, did you?”

  “Krasnevin?” Eberlin repeated, barely conscious of any reality. “If it wasn’t for me you’d probably be halfway to some bloody Russian prison by now. You are a damn fool and God knows why Frazer put you on this. If I have to go around dragging you out of every ditch you fall into, I might as well be back in London. What in hell gave you the idea that Krasnevin was in the East?”

  “The East …”

  “Well, that’s where Greff was taking you, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Eberlin. “Yes he was….”

  He walked over to the pool and stared down at his reflection. A million things whirled around in Eberlin’s mind. What is he talking about? he thought. And then suddenly, incredibly, he realized.

  “Stare at your reflection much longer, Dancer, and you’ll be turned into a flower.”

  Eberlin gazed at the yellow raft as it bobbed slightly against the side of the pool, and was momentarily puzzled by a dark object lying at the bottom of the water until he recognized it as a pair of sunglasses. Then he turned and without looking at Gatiss, walked back across the lawn toward the melee of policemen and stood among them, hands in pockets. No one approached him or spoke to him or even acknowledged his presence. A wagon had arrived and the guests were being loaded like squealing pigs into the dark interior, sitting on wooden benches in their pastel swimsuits, and clutching oddly snatched objects like a bottle of Ambre Solaire, or a single sandal or a glass of whisky. At one point, the young boy saw Eberlin and ran toward him, his face contorted in anger, and attempted to claw Eberlin’s face. But he was seized by two policemen who sadistically ripped off the boy’s trunks and threw him stark naked and struggling into the laps of the other prisoners, and then shut the door, sealing him in like an atheistic Daniel in the lions’ den. And then, sirens two-toning to the sky, the cars spun around on the gravel, lurching over newly planted flower beds, and drove out fast into the main street and roared away, leaving Eberlin standing alone in the middle of the drive, long after the sound of the departing cars had disappeared.

  “Get in the taxi,” said Gatiss touching Eberlin’s shoulder.

  Eberlin did, sitting in the back seat of the Mercedes. Gatiss sat behind the wheel, started the car and eased it slowly out of the lane and toward the center of the city. He didn’t speak for a full five minutes and then said, without turning around:

  “How much did you give him?”

  “Two thousand five hundred dollars.”

  “His price has gone up.” Then he added, “Did you seriously think that Greff could lead you to Krasnevin?”

  “Yes,” replied Eberlin immediately. “Greff has contacts in the East–”

  “But Krasnevin is not in the East.”

  “You can’t be sure.”

  “Can’t I?” said Gatiss. “Prentiss arrived this morning. He’s waiting to speak to you–about Krasnevin. He will show you that Breysach was a mistake for you.”

  Silence. Eberlin put his hand on the door handle and then took it away.

  “Military car?” Gatiss asked suddenly.

  “What has Prentiss to say?” said Eberlin, ignoring the question. “You’ll see. Was it military car method?”

  “Yes. I was going to pose as an American colonel.”

  “American?”

  “Well, American or British. One or the other.”

  “Didn’t you ask Greff which army it was?”

  “No, why?”

  Then Gatiss began to laugh. Eberlin felt sick again, claustrophobic in the oppressive atmosphere of the car. They were traveling at well over eighty miles an hour now down the central autobahn of Berlin, and Gatiss was still laughing.

  “Look in the box next to you,” he called to Eberlin. Look inside.”

  Lifting up the lid of the box, Eberlin saw a military uniform, neatly folded and pressed. He looked away, then glanced back in horror. The uniform was that of a colonel in the Red Army.

  “Don’t you see?” continued Gatiss, his voice rising. “You were being asked to pose as a Russian!”

  * * *

  There was a silence in the car. Neither men had said a word for quite a time now. Then just as the Kurfürstendamm came in sight, Gatiss, framing his eyes in the driving mirror, said quietly:

  “You know, if I hadn’t been informed, you’d probably be in the East by now, wouldn’t you?”

  * * *

  The Mercedes was abandoned, and Gatiss and Eberlin walked the remaining three hundred yards toward the Jensen.

  As they reached it, Gatiss said, “You meet Prentiss for late lunch in there. Give me your gun.”

  “Gun?”

  “Give it to me. I’ll put it in your room.”

  Eberlin handed over the Browning and turned to go, then stopped.

  “Who’s Oskar Greiser?” he said.

  “Never heard of him,” replied Gatiss vaguely, staring at an American tourist nearby who was clutching a recent copy of Playboy. Then he glanced back at Eberlin and said:

  “Oskar Greiser? Oh –he’s a Communist, isn’t he?”

  He walked to the Jensen without looking back. Eberlin frowned and turned away and was almost k
nocked down by a heavyset German. He was becoming paranoic. There was no doubt about it. Greiser a Communist? Greff did say that his activities were “undemocratic” but he never thought….

  “Come back to the hotel immediately you’ve eaten,” Gatiss called to him and then drove away.

  Eberlin didn’t go to meet Prentiss for about an hour. In fact it was more like an hour and a half, and when he did, he was drunk.

  “I’m still sober,” he protested to the barman, “I’m still bloody sober,” and then left quickly, knocking over someone’s glass, and ran out into the street. I’m going mad, he said to himself as he leaned against an alley wall, shaking all over. Then he realized he was making a fool of himself, and consequently straightened up and walked quite calmly and sensibly, back to the rendezvous building. “I’m still sober,” he said to a small girl in a green dress at the entrance, and gave her ten pfennigs as a keepsake.

  12

  Didactic Nude

  Life has nothing to offer anymore but me.

  –ALEXANDER EBERLIN

  AT the west end of the Kurfürstendamm there is a small restaurant specializing in Wurst of varying degrees of edibility, which had often been a rendezvous for Eberlin in his earlier stays in the city. It was perched on the seventh floor of one of those new classless buildings erected since the war, and stuck in the back of the building unheralded and out of the way, in the vain hope of collecting a chichi clientele who favored such mysterious and hard-to-find venues. Consequently, the restaurant was packed daily with multitudes of tourists, recommended to it by an aunt in Maine or a campus cousin from UCLA as a “quiet little place away from the beaten track,” who, after standing in line for half an hour, sat exuberant and smug over a chipped plate containing two nauseous sausages and a fistful of sauerkraut which they wouldn’t, on any other occasion, have offered to their dog. It was here Prentiss was waiting.

  Eberlin reached the ground floor of the building, crossed the buff-painted lobby and took the lift up. It appeared to be a rare moment of quiet, for no one else entered the lift with him except a small man with a crew cut, a Pentax camera and a recent copy of Playboy bought illegally from a back-street shop specializing in eighteenth-century Japanese prints.