by Len Deighton
‘You’ve been across recently? You’ve seen Max?’
‘I see Max from time to time. He has a good job now. He’s in the customs service – chief clerk.’
There was something in Werner’s voice that caught my attention. ‘Are you in some racket with Max?’
‘With Max?’ Nervously he poured himself more coffee.
‘I know you, Werner, and I know Max. What are you up to?’
‘It’s Max’s office that handles the paperwork for some of my forfait deals, that’s all.’
‘The avalizing, you mean. The guarantee that the money will be paid. So that’s it.’
Werner made no attempt to deny that there was some sort of fiddle going on. ‘Look, Bernard. I saw Zena last week. She’s promised to come back to me.’
He wanted my congratulations. ‘That’s good, Werner.’
‘She was in Berlin…just a quick visit. We had lunch together. She wanted to know how I was.’
‘And how were you?’
‘I want her back, Bernie. I can’t manage without her. I told her that.’
‘And?’
‘I told her I’d have more money. Money was always the problem with us. If I make a bit more money, she’d come back to me. She more or less promised.’
‘I’ll try again to get London to approve the money, Werner. Forget this mad idea of forging the avals or whatever it is you’re doing. If you get into trouble in the East, they’ll toss you into the cooler and throw away the key. It’ll be “defrauding the people” or some such all-embracing charge, and they’ll hammer you to make sure no one else pulls the same trick.’
Werner nodded. ‘I’m just going to do it a couple of times so I have enough cash not to have to go crawling to the banks any more. Those money-market bastards are squeezing me, Bernie. They take the cream off every deal I do.’
‘I said forget it, Werner.’
‘I promised to take Zena to Spain for a really good holiday. Ever been to Marbella? It’s wonderful. One day I’ll buy a little place there and settle down. Zena needs some sunshine and a rest. So do I. Something like that would give us a new start. Maybe South America, even. It’s worth taking a chance for a new start in life.’
Werner had finished two cups of black coffee and now he was holding the pot and shaking the last few drips from the spout. I said, ‘Does Frank know about your import and export racket?’
‘Frank Harrington? Good God, no. He goes out of his way to avoid me. Last month I was in that change office in Zoo station cashing traveller’s cheques. Frank was there already. When he caught sight of me, he left the line and walked out. Frank Harrington is avoiding me. No. Hell, he’s the last person I’d discuss it with.’ He picked up the second coffee pot, swirling it to find out if there was coffee in it. ‘Can I have the rest?’
I nodded. ‘Why not tell Frank?’
This time Werner put cream into his coffee. He had the compulsive desire to drink and nibble that is often a sign of nervousness. ‘I don’t want him to know I’m going over there frequently.’
‘Is there something you’re not telling me?’
He became very concerned with his coffee, unwrapping another sugar cube, breaking it and putting half into his cup. Then he put the unused half in his mouth and chewed it noisily while he smoothed the wrapper flat with the edge of his hand. ‘Don’t mother me, Bernie. We grew up together. We both know what’s what.’
‘You’re not playing footsie with those people in the East?’ I persisted. ‘You haven’t come to some damn-fool arrangement with them?’
‘So I can give away all your secrets, you mean?’ He folded the sugar wrapper carefully and neatly to make a tiny paper dart. He flew it towards the salt and pepper in a test flight. ‘What could I tell them? That Frank cuts me dead in the change office, that you come into town and stay at Lisl’s? Shall I tell them that rumours say that London’s chosen you to take over Berlin from Frank but Frank won’t approve you as his successor?’
I looked at his paper dart. ‘You could be useful to them, Werner. You’ve got an ear to the ground.’ I picked up the dart and threw it back at him, but it didn’t fly for me.
‘Can’t you understand?’ he said in a low voice. ‘No one gives me work any more. Frank has put the boot in. I used to get jobs from the Americans and your military intelligence people were always having something come up they couldn’t handle. Now I don’t get any of those jobs any more. I don’t know enough to be a double, Bernie. I’m out of it. Your jobs are the only ones I get these days, and you only give me those for old times’ sake – I know it and so do you.’
I didn’t remind Werner that only a few minutes earlier he’d been insisting that it was ‘only fair’ to tell him everything I knew about the leaks in London. ‘So they’re saying that I’m to get Berlin? Maybe they are even saying who will get my job when I move.’
Werner picked up the dart. It flew well for him but only because he took his time refolding the wings and adjusting everything for optimum aerodynamics. ‘You know what it’s like in this town, people are always gossiping. I don’t want you to think I believe any of that stuff.’
‘Come on, Werner. You’ve got my attention now. You might as well tell me what you’ve heard. I’m not going to break down and weep about it.’
Those words appeared to have more meaning for him than I ever intended. We were speaking German and it is in the nature of German syntax that you have to compose the sentence in your mind before you start to say it. You can’t start each sentence with a vague idea and change your mind halfway through, as people brought up to speak English do. So once Werner began he had to say it. ‘There are rumours that your wife is taking over your job from you in London.’
‘Now that’s a neat twist,’ I said. I still didn’t guess what poor old Werner was trying to tell me.
He held the dart up to his face so that he could see it properly in the poor light of the café. He gave all his attention to it as he spoke rather hurriedly. ‘They say you’re splitting up, you and your wife. They say…they say that Rensselaer and your wife are…’ He launched the dart, but this time it spiralled down into his saucer and the wings went brown with spilled coffee.
‘Bret Rensselaer,’ I said. ‘He’s nearly old enough to be her father. I can’t imagine Fiona falling for Rensselaer.’
The expression on Werner’s face let it be known that the failure of imagination was entirely mine. ‘If Rensselaer felt guilty about giving Cruyer the German desk and taking your wife from you, he’d be smart to get Berlin for you. It would get you out of his way. The money is good and the unaccountable expenses are the best in the business. It’s a job you’d dearly like, and be damned good at. You’d never turn it down, Bernie, you know that.’
I thought about it. It made me feel sick, but I was determined not to reveal that. ‘And I wouldn’t stand in Fiona’s way if she got the chance of a senior post in Operations. She’d be the only woman on staff level there.’ I smiled. ‘It’s neat, Werner. Like all good rumours it’s neater than the truth. The fact is that Fiona can’t stand Rensselaer, and the old man would never allow a woman in there, and no one’s going to offer me Berlin when Frank goes.’ I smiled, but my smile got stuck and he looked away.
‘How can you be sure?’ said Werner. ‘I never thought my wife would go off to Munich with that Coca-Cola driver. I met him a couple of times. She told me he was the brother of a girl at her office. She said he sometimes gave her a lift home. He was in the apartment when I got back one evening. He was having a beer with her. I never suspected a thing. I was like you are now. She said he was a bit stupid. That’s all it took to convince me there was nothing between them. It was just like you said just now. I thought she couldn’t stand the guy, like you say your wife can’t stand Rensselaer.’ He unwrapped another sugar cube and began to fold himself another flying dart. ‘Maybe the fact is that you can’t stand him – just like I couldn’t stand that truck driver – and so you can’t imagine your wife go
ing for him either.’ He abandoned his half-made dart and drifted it into the ashtray. ‘I’ve given up smoking,’ he said mournfully, ‘but I fidget a lot with my hands.’
‘You didn’t get me over here just to tell me all this stuff about Rensselaer having an affair with Fiona, did you, Werner?’
‘No. I wanted to ask you about the office. You’re the only person I know who sees Frank Harrington to talk to him on equal terms.’
‘I don’t see him on equal terms,’ I said. ‘Frank treats me like I’m a twelve-year-old child.’
‘Frank is very patronizing,’ said Werner. ‘In Frank’s day, they were all Cambridge pansies or Greek scholars, like Frank, who thought a little job in the intelligence service would be a good way to earn money while they wrote sonnets. Frank likes you, Bernard. He likes you very much. But he could never reconcile himself to the idea that a tough little Berlin street kid like you could take over the job he’s doing. He’s friendly with you, I know. But how do you think he really feels about taking orders from someone without a classical education?’
‘I don’t give him orders,’ I said, to correct the record.
‘You know what I mean,’ said Werner. ‘I just want to know what Frank has got against me. If I’ve done something to make him annoyed, okay. But if it’s a misunderstanding, I want a chance to clear it up.’
‘What do you care about clearing it up?’ I said. ‘You’ve got some racket going that’s going to give you a villa in Marbella and Rioja and roses for the rest of your days. What the hell do you care about this clearing up of misunderstandings with Frank?’
‘Don’t be dumm, Bernie,’ he said. ‘Frank could make a lot of trouble for me.’
‘You’re imagining things, Werner.’
‘He hates me, Bernie, and he’s frightened of you.’
‘Frightened?’
‘He’s frightened at the idea of you taking over from him. You know too much – you’d ask too many questions, awkward questions. And all Frank cares about these days is keeping himself pure for his index-linked pension. He’ll do nothing to prejudice that, never mind all that stuff he gives you about how friendly he was with your father.’
‘Frank is tired,’ I said. ‘Frank has got the “Berlin blues”. He doesn’t hate anyone. He doesn’t even hate the Communists any more. That’s why he wants to go.’
‘Didn’t you hear me tell you that Frank Harrington has blocked your appointment here?’
‘And didn’t you hear me tell you that that was all bloody rubbish? I’ll tell you why they don’t use you any more, Werner. You’ve become a gossip, and that’s the worst thing that can happen to anyone in this business. You tell me stupid rumours about this and about that, and you tell me that no one likes you and you can’t understand why. You need to pull yourself together, Werner, because otherwise you’ll have to add me to that long list of people who don’t understand you.’
Werner was hunched over the table, the bulky overcoat and fur collar making him look even bigger than he really was. When he nodded, his chin almost touched the table. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘When I first realized my wife had betrayed me, I couldn’t say a civil word to anyone.’
‘I’ll call you, Werner,’ I said, getting to my feet. ‘Thanks for the coffee.’
‘Sit down,’ said Werner. His voice was soft, but there was an urgency that transcended our bickering. I sat down. Two men had entered the café. The younger Leuschner had been checking the levels of the bottles of drink arrayed under the big mirror. He turned round and smiled the sort of smile that is the legacy of ten years behind a bar. ‘What’s it to be?’ Nervously he wiped the pitted marble counter, which was one of the very few things in the café that had survived the war as well as the Leuschner brothers. ‘Would you like to eat? I can give you Bratwurst with red cabbage, or roast chicken with Spätzle.’
The men were thirty-year-old heavyweights, with robust shoes, double-breasted raincoats and hats with brims big enough to keep rain from dripping down the neck. I caught Werner’s eye. He nodded; they obviously were policemen. One of them picked up the plastic-faced menu that had been put before them. Young Leuschner twirled the end of the big Kaiser Wilhelm moustache that he’d grown to make himself look older. Now, with his balding head, he didn’t need it any more. ‘Or a drink?’
‘Chocolate ice cream,’ said one of the men in a voice that dared anyone to be surprised.
‘Schnaps,’ said the other.
Leuschner chose from one of the half-dozen varieties of strong clear liquor and poured a generous measure. Then he put two scoops of ice cream into a dented serving dish and supplied napkin and spoon. ‘And a glass of water,’ mumbled the man, who’d already begun to gobble the ice cream. His companion turned to rest his back against the edge of the counter and look casually round the room as he sipped his drink. Neither man sat down.
I poured milk into my cup, in order to provide myself with something to do, and stirred it with care. The man eating the ice cream finished it in record time. The other muttered something inaudible, and both men came across to the table where I was sitting with Werner.
‘You live near here?’ said the chocolate ice cream.
‘Dahlem,’ said Werner. He smiled, trying to hide his resentment.
‘That’s a nice place to live,’ said the ice-cream cop. It was difficult to decide how much was pleasantry and how much was sarcasm.
‘Let’s see your papers,’ said the second man. He was leaning all his weight on the back of my chair and I could smell the Schnaps on his breath.
Werner hesitated for a moment, trying to decide whether anything was to be gained by making them prove they were policemen. Then he brought out his wallet.
‘Open up the case,’ said the ice cream, pointing to the document case Werner had placed on the seat beside him.
‘That’s mine,’ I said.
‘I don’t care if it belongs to Herbert von Karajan,’ said the cop.
‘But I do,’ I said. This time I spoke in English.
He glanced at my face and at my English clothes. I didn’t have to spell it out that I was an officer of the ‘protecting powers’. ‘Identification?’
I passed to him the Army officer’s card that identified me as a Major Bishop of the Royal Engineers. He gave me a bleak smile and said, ‘This identification expired two months ago.’
‘And what do you think might have happened since then?’ I said. ‘You think I’ve changed into someone else?’
He gave me a hard stare. ‘I’d get your identification brought up to date if I was you, Major Bishop,’ he said. ‘You might find the next policeman you encounter suspects you of being a deserter or a spy or something.’
‘Then the next policeman I encounter will make a fool of himself,’ I said. But by that time both men were moving off across the room. The ice cream dropped a couple of coins onto the counter as he passed.
‘Bloody Nazis,’ said Werner. ‘They picked me because I’m a Jew.’
‘Don’t be a fool, Werner.’
‘Then why?’
‘There could be a million reasons why a cop asks for papers. There could be some local crime…a recognized car nearby…someone with a description like you.’
‘They’ll get the military police. They’ll come back and make us open the case. They’ll do it just to show us who’s the boss.’
‘No, they won’t, Werner. They’ll go down the street to the next café or bar and try again.’
‘I wish you weren’t so damned obstinate.’
‘About what?’
‘Frank Harrington. This is the way he keeps the pressure up.’
‘Have you ever stopped to think how much it costs to keep a man under surveillance? Four men and two cars on eight-hour shifts working a fiveday week. We’re talking about a minimum of six men and three cars. The cars must be radio-equipped to our wavelength, so that rules out rented ones. The men must be trained and vetted. Allowing for insurance and special pensions and medic
al schemes all Department employees have, each man would cost well over a thousand Deutschemark. The cars cost at least another thousand each. Add another thousand for the cost of backup and we’re talking about Frank spending ten thousand marks a week on you. He’d have to hate you an awful lot, Werner.’
‘Ask him,’ said Werner sullenly. I had the feeling that he didn’t want to be disillusioned about Frank’s vendetta lest he have to face the fact that maybe Frank sacked him because he wasn’t doing the job the way they wanted it done.
I raised my hands in supplication. ‘I’ll talk to him, Werner. But meanwhile you cut it out. Forget all this stuff about Frank persecuting you. Will you do that?’
‘You don’t understand,’ said Werner.
I looked at the document case that I’d pretended was mine. ‘And just to satisfy my curiosity, what is in “my” case, Werner?’
He reached out to touch it. ‘Would you believe nearly half a million Swiss francs in new paper?’
I looked at him but he didn’t smile. ‘Take care, Werner,’ I said. Even when we’d been kids together, I never knew when he was fooling.
11
I remembered Frank Harrington’s big parties back in the days when my father took me along to the big house in Grunewald, wearing my first dinner jacket. Things had changed since then, but the house was still the same, and came complete with a gardener, cook, housekeeper, maid, and the valet who had been with Frank during the war.
I shared Frank’s ‘just wear anything, it’s only potluck’ evening with a dozen of Berlin’s richest and most influential citizens. At dinner I was placed next to a girl named Poppy, recently divorced from a man who owned two breweries and an aspirin factory. Around the table there was a man from the Bundesbank and his wife; a director of West Berlin’s Deutsche Opera, accompanied by its most beautiful mezzo-soprano; a lady museum director said to be a world authority on ancient Mesopotamian pottery; a Berlin Polizeipräsidium official who was introduced simply as ‘…from Tempelhofer Damm’; and Joe Brody, a quietly spoken American who preferred to be described as an employee of Siemen’s electrical factory. Frank Harrington’s wife was there, a formidable lady of about sixty, with a toothy smile and the sort of compressed permanent wave that fitted like a rubber swimming hat. The Harringtons’ son, a British Airways first officer on the Berlin route, was also present. He was an amiable young man with a thin blond moustache and a complexion so pink it looked as if his mother had scrubbed him clean before letting him come down to the dining room.