by Philip Kerr
'Naturally, I've read this. Several times. But now that you're here, I'd prefer it if you told me, in person, what you have written to Agents Scheuer and Frei in this letter of yours.'
'So that you can see if I deviate from what I wrote before?'
'We understand each other perfectly.'
'Well, the facts are these,' I said suppressing a smile. 'As a condition of my working with the SDECE-'
The Chief winced. 'Exactly what does that mean, Phil?'
'Service de Documentation Exterieure et de Contre-Espionage,' said Scheuer.
The Chief nodded. 'Go on, Herr Gunther.'
'Well, I agreed to work for them if they permitted me to visit Berlin and an old friend of mine. Perhaps the only friend I have left.'
'She have a name? This friend of yours?'
'Elisabeth,' I said.
'Surname? Address?'
'I don't want her involved in any of this.'
'Meaning you don't want to tell me.'
'That's true.'
'You met her how and when?'
'1931. She was a seamstress. A good one, too. She worked in the same tailor's shop as Erich Mielke's sister, which was also where Mielke's mother, Lydia Mielke, worked until her death in 1911. It was pretty hard for Erich's father bringing up four children on his own. His elder daughter went to work and cooked for the family meals, and because Elisabeth was her friend, sometimes she helped out. There were even times when Elisabeth was like a sister to Erich.'
'Where did they live? Can you remember the address?'
'Stettiner Strasse. A grey tenement building in Gesundbrunnen, in north-west Berlin. Number twenty-five. It was Erich who introduced me to Elisabeth. After I'd saved his neck.'
'Tell me about that.'
I told him.
'And this is when you met Mielke's father.'
'Yes. I went to Mielke's address to try to arrest him and the old man took a swing at me and I had to arrest him. It was Elisabeth who had given me the address and she wasn't very happy that I'd asked her for it. As a result, our relationship hit a rock. And it was very much later on, I suppose it must have been the autumn of 1940, before we became reacquainted; and the following year before we started our relationship again.'
'You never mentioned any of this when you were interrogated at Landsberg,' said the Chief. 'Why not?'
I shrugged. 'It hardly seemed relevant at the time. I almost forgot that Elisabeth even knew Erich. Not least because she'd always kept it a secret from him that we were friends. Erich didn't like cops much, to put it mildly. I started seeing her again in the winter of 1946, when I came back from the Russian POW camp. I lived with Elisabeth for a short while until I managed to find my wife again, in Berlin. But I was always very fond of her and she of me. And recently, when I was in Paris, I got to thinking of her again and wondering if she was okay. I suppose you might say I began to entertain romantic thoughts about her. Like I said, there's no one else in Berlin I know. So I was resolved to look her up as soon as possible and see if she and I couldn't make another go of it.'
'And how did that go?'
'It went well. She's not married. She was involved with some American soldier. More than one I think. Anyway, both men were married and so they went back to their wives in the States, leaving her middle-aged and scared about the future.'
I poured a glass of schnapps and sipped it while the Chief watched me closely, as if weighing my story in each hand, trying to judge how much or how little he believed.
'She was at the same address as she'd been in 1946?'
'Yes.'
'We can always ask the French, you know. Her address.'
'Go ahead.'
'They might reasonably assume that's where you've gone,' he said. 'They might even make life difficult for her. Have you thought of that? We could protect her. The French aren't always as romantic as they're often portrayed.'
'Elisabeth lived through the battle of Berlin,' I said. 'She was raped by the Russians. Besides, she's not the type to give a man an injection of thiopental on the streets of Gottingen, in broad daylight. When Grottsch tells his story I imagine the French will think the Russians pinched me, don't you? After all, that's what you wanted them to think, isn't it? I wouldn't be at all surprised if your men were speaking Russian when they grabbed him. Just for appearance's sake.'
'At least tell me if she lives in the East or the West.'
'In the West. The French gave me a passport in the name of Sebastian Kleber. You'll be able to check me coming through Checkpoint Alpha at Helmstedt, and into Berlin at the Dreilinden Crossing. But not leaving it to enter East Berlin.'
'All right. Tell me your news about Erich Mielke.'
'My friend Elisabeth said she'd seen Mielke's father, Erich. That he was still alive and in good health. He was in his early seventies, she said. They went for a coffee at the Cafe Kranzler. He said he'd been living in the DDR but that he didn't like it. Missed the football and his old neighbourhood. While Elisabeth was telling me this it was clear she had no idea what Erich junior had been doing. Who and what he was. All she said was that Erich visits his father from time to time and gives him money. And I assumed, given who he was, that this must be in secret.'
'From time to time. How often is that?'
'Regularly. Once a month.'
'Why didn't you say so?'
'I might have done if you'd given me enough time.'
'Did she say where Erich senior had been living? In the DDR?'
'A village called Schonwalde, north-west of Berlin. She said he told her he had a nice enough cottage there but that he was bored in Schonwalde. It's rather a boring place. Of course she knew that Erich senior had been a staunch communist and so she asked him if living in the West meant he had left the Party. And he said that he had come to the conclusion that the communists were every bit as bad as the Nazis.'
'She said he said that?'
'Yes.
'You know we checked and there's no record of an Erich Mielke living in West Berlin.'
'Mielke's father isn't called Mielke. His name is Erich Stallmacher. Mielke was illegitimate. Not that the father's using the name of Stallmacher either.'
'Did she tell you what his name is?'
'No.'
'Give you an address?'
'Stallmacher isn't that stupid.'
'But there is something. Something you'd like to trade.'
'Yes. Stallmacher told Elisabeth the name of a restaurant where he regularly likes to go for lunch on Saturdays.'
'And your idea is? What exactly?'
'This is your area of expertise, not mine, Chief. I was never much of an intelligence officer. I didn't have the kind of dirty mind to be really effective in your world. I was a better detective, I think. Better at uncovering a mess than creating one.'
'I see you have a low opinion of intelligence.'
'Just the people who work in it.'
'Us included.'
'You especially.'
'You prefer the French?'
'There's something honest about their hypocrisy and self- regard.'
'As a former Berlin detective what would you propose?'
'Follow Erich Stallmacher from his favourite restaurant to his apartment. And lay a trap for Erich Mielke there.'
'Risky.'
'Sure,' I said. 'But now that you've pulled me you're going to do it all the same. You have to, now that you've partly undermined all that black propaganda I'd been giving to the French about Mielke being your agent; and before that, an agent of the Nazis. Without the cherry on the cake - me identifying de Boudel for them - maybe they won't find all those lies I told about Erich so persuasive any more.'
'It's true that we would like to get our hands on Mielke. With his father in our back pocket we could even perhaps turn him into the spy you told the French he was. Of course, then we'd have to blacken your name to the French. To make sure they formed the correct impression about Mielke again. That he was and always had been a perf
ect communist bastard.'
'You see, I knew you'd think of some way around these problems.'
'And you. What will you want to help?'
I frowned. 'I can show you where the restaurant is. Maybe even get you a table.'
'We shall want more help than that. After all, you've met Erich Stallmacher. He took a swing at you. You arrested him. You must have got a good look at him that day. No, Herr Gunther, we shall want more than your help in obtaining a table at this man Stallmacher's favourite watering hole. We shall want you to identify him.'
I smiled wearily.
'Something funny about that?'
'You're not the first intelligence chief to have asked me to do this. Heydrich had the same idea.'
'I've often wondered about Heydrich,' said the Chief. 'They said he was the cleverest Nazi of the bunch. You agree with that?'
'It's true he had an instinctive understanding of power, which made him a very effective Nazi. You like facts, sir? Then here's a fact about Reinhardt Heydrich you might appreciate. His father, Bruno, was a music teacher and before that a composer of sorts. Ten years before his son was born, Bruno Heydrich wrote an opera entitled Reinhardt's Crime. Oh yes, and here's another fact. Heydrich was murdered on Himmler's order.'
'You don't say.'
'I was the investigating detective.'
'Interesting.'
'More interesting to me right now is the money that was taken from me when I was arrested in Cuba. And the boat that was impounded. That's part of the price for my help. Actually it was the price of the deal we had in Landsberg in return for me bullshitting the French, so you're only agreeing to what your people have already agreed. I want the boat sold and all of the money paid into a Swiss bank account, as we agreed. I also want an American passport. And, for delivering Erich Mielke, the sum of twenty-five thousand US dollars.'
"That's a lot.'
'Given that I'm about to deliver the deputy head of the East German State Security apparatus, I'd say it was cheap at twice the price.'
'Philip?'
'Yes, sir?'
'A price worth paying, would you say?'
'For Mielke? Yes, sir, I would. I've always thought that, since the beginning of this whole intelligence effort.'
'Because you know I shall want you to play the ringmaster at Herr Gunther's show, don't you?'
'No, sir.'
'Then I guess you know it now, eh Philip?'
Scheuer looked uncomfortable at being put on the spot like this. 'Yes, sir.'
'You too, Jim.'
Frei raised his eyebrows at that but nodded all the same.
I poured myself another glass of schnapps.
'Why not?' said the Chief. 'I think we could all use a drink. Don't you agree, Phil?'
'Yes, sir. I think we could.'
'But not schnapps, eh? Forgive me, Herr Gunther. There's a lot about your country I admire. But we're not very keen on schnapps at the CIA.'
'I imagine it's rather hard to spike a glass this small.'
'Don't you believe it.' The Chief smiled. 'Hmm. Yes, that's quite a sense of humour you have there, for a German.'
Philip Scheuer produced a bottle of bourbon and three glasses.
'Sure you won't try any of this, Herr Gunther?' said the Chief. 'To toast your deal with Ike.' 'Why not?' I said.
'Good man. We'll make an American of you yet, sir.' But that was exactly what I was worried about.
* * *
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN: BERLIN, 1954
Most people go through life accumulating possessions. I seemed to have gone through mine losing them or having them taken away from me. The only thing I still had from before the war was a broken chess piece made of bone - the head of a black knight from a Selenus chess set. During the last days of the Weimar Republic this black knight had been constantly in use at the Romanisches Cafe, where, once or twice, I'd played the great Emmanuel Lasker. He'd been a regular at the cafe until the Nazis obliged him and his brother to leave Germany for ever, in 1933. I could still picture him crouched over a board with his cigarettes and cigars and his Wild West moustache. Generous to a fault, he would give out tips or play exhibitions for anyone who was interested; and on his last day in the Romanisches Cafe - he went to Moscow, and then to New York - Lasker presented everyone who was there to wish him goodbye with a chess piece from the cafe's best set. I got the black knight. The way I'd been played over the years I sometimes think a black pawn would have been more appropriate. Then again, a knight, even a broken one, seems intrinsically more valuable than a pawn, which was probably why I tried so hard to keep it through one adversity after another. The little bone base had become detached during the battle for Konigsberg and was lost soon afterwards; but somehow the horse's head had remained in my possession. I might have called it my lucky charm but for the salient fact that one way or another I'd not always had the best of luck. On the other hand I was still in the game, and sometimes that's all the luck you need. Anything - absolutely anything - can happen so long as you stay in the game. And, lately, as if to remind myself of this fact, the little black knight's head was often held tight in my fist the way a Mohammedan might have used a set of beads to utter the ninety-nine names of God and bring him closer during prayer. Only it wasn't being closer to God I wanted, but something more earthly. Freedom. Independence. Self-respect. No longer to be the pawn of others in a game I wasn't interested in. Surely that wasn't so much to ask.
The flight to Berlin from Frankfurt aboard a DC-7 took just under an hour. Travelling with me were Scheuer, Frei, and a third man - the man with the heavy-framed glasses who had kidnapped me in Gottingen: his name was Hamer. A black Mercedes was waiting for us in front of the airport building at Tempelhof. As we drove away Scheuer pointed out the monument to the Berlin airlift of 1948 that occupied the centre of Eagle Square. Made of concrete and taller than the airport building itself, the monument was supposed to represent the three air corridors that were used to fly in supplies during the Soviet blockade. It looked more like the statue of a comicbook ghost, arms raised, leaning over to scare someone. And as I glanced back at the airport I was rather more interested in the fate of the Nazi eagle that surmounted the centre wall of the airport building. There could be no doubt about it: the eagle had been Americanised. Someone had painted its head white so that now it looked more like an American bald eagle.
We drove west, through the American sector, which was clean and prosperous-looking, with lots of plate-glass shop windows and garish new movie houses showing the latest Hollywood movies: Rear Window, On the Waterfront, and Dial M for Murder. Ihnestrasse, close to the university and the new
Henry Ford Building, looked much the same as it had before the war. Lots of chestnut trees and well-kept gardens. The American flags were new, of course. There was a large one on the flagpole in front of the American Officers' Club at Harnack House - formerly the guest quarters of the famous Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. Scheuer told me proudly that the club had a restaurant, a beauty parlour, a barber shop and a newsstand, and promised to take me there. But somehow I didn't think the Kaiser would have approved: he was never very fond of Americans.
We stayed in a villa further down the street from the club. From my dormer window at the back you could see a small lake. The only sounds were the birds in the trees and the bicycle bells of students going to and from the Free University of Berlin like little couriers of hope for a city I was finding it hard to love again, in spite of the instant service that came with my room in the shape of an obsequious valet in a white mess-jacket who offered to bring me coffee and a doughnut. I declined both and asked for a bottle of schnapps and some cigarettes. Worst of all was the music: hidden speakers playing some honey-voiced female singer who seemed to follow me from the dining room, through the hall and into the library. It wasn't particularly loud or obtrusive but it was there when it didn't need to be. I asked the valet about it. His name was George and he told me that the singer was Ella Fitzgerald, as if that made it
okay.
The furniture looked like it was original to the house, so that was all right, although the water-cooler in the library seemed somehow out of place, as did the periodic eructations of air that passed through the water like an enormous belch. It sounded like my own conscience.
The Am Steinplatz restaurant was at 197 Uhlandstrasse, south-west of the Tiergarten, and dated from before the war.
The dilapidated exterior of the building belied a restaurant that was good enough to warrant inclusion in the US Army's Berlin booklet, which meant that the place was popular with American officers and their German girlfriends. There was a bar with a dining room serving a mixture of American and Berlin favourites. The four of us - me and the three Amis - occupied a window table in the dining room. The waitress wore glasses and had her hair shorter than seemed right, as if it was yet to grow back following some personal disaster. She was German but she spoke English first, as if she knew that there were few Berliners who could have afforded the prices on the extensive menu. We ordered wine and lunch. The place was still more or less empty so we knew Erich Stallmacher wasn't yet there. But it quickly filled up until there was only one table left.
'He probably won't come,' said Frei. 'Not this time. That's always been my experience of stake-outs. The target never comes the first time.'
'Let's hope you're not wrong,' said Hamer. 'The food in here's so damn good I want to come back. Several times.'
Rain hit the steamed-up window of the restaurant. A cork popped from a bottle of wine. The officers on the next table laughed loudly, like men who were used to laughing in wide open spaces, possibly on horseback, but never in small Berlin restaurants. They even clinked their glasses with more panache and noise than was properly required. In the kitchen someone shouted that an order was ready. I looked at Scheuer's watch - my own was still in a paper bag back at Landsberg. It was one-thirty.
'Maybe I'll check the bar,' I said.
'Good idea,' said Scheuer.
'Give me some money for cigarettes,' I told him. 'For appearance's sake.'