She could not stop. On and on. Over the bridge. Past the Zeughaus, past the Neue Wache, its walls blasted out. The Friedrich Wilhelm University. She was out of breath, had to rest. She paused, gasping hard. Had Vati worked there once? What had he done there? She could not see Vasily, no soldiers were chasing her. Perhaps they had lost her, or she’d shaken them off. The penalty for injuring an Ivan was death. Would they know it was her? She’d been stupid enough to boast to Greta that she had a gun, and she wasn’t sure Frau Weber wouldn’t tell. Tears were filling her head, her mind. She looked around. Who could help her? Who could tell her, You’re all right, you’re safe?
Opposite, there were more rubble gangs at work, but the street was clear. They’d had the victory parade here, the road made passable so that the British could drive along. She hadn’t gone to see it. Lieselotte had said there was no point. A couple of jeeps drove past her, Russian, but no one walked along the deadly boulevard, no one she could stop. You look kind, can you help? She didn’t want a Russian. It couldn’t be a Russian. She ran on, her breath coming in sharp, painful gusts. The Americans, or the British. They were in the Tiergarten, that’s what Lieselotte had said, and Frau Weber had said they were in the western part of the city. Ahead of her she could see the crippled silhouette of the Brandenburger Tor. Her city. What had happened to her city?
The Führer had only ever spoken of Germany as powerful, as great and good. Reborn. Righteous. Germany would defend itself, he’d said, fend off the Russians and the others. Germany would be victorious. All she saw were ruins and death. She’d lived through the bombing, the pounding and blasting that went on for days and weeks and months, the dust and stench of cordite, the buried corpses and the scavenging homeless. She hadn’t seen how wide the bombing was, how the heart had been wrenched from the body. Germany had been killed. Why did people hate Germany so much? What had her country done? To deserve this? There had been rumours, of murders, of Jews and Gypsies and others, of feeble children, of old people. Russians. Poles. Thousands. Millions. Bette couldn’t imagine. It didn’t match what the Führer told them, what she’d learned in school. She could see this. She couldn’t see his words. She didn’t know anymore. She didn’t understand.
She was close to the gates. Soldiers were strutting up and down, cockerels in the coop checking who passed through, who passed out. Bette looked down at her shoes, the blood smears on her leg that Vasily had left. Her face was bloody, filth on her hands. She hoped they would see a dirty urchin and let her through. She walked towards the side gates close to the grand hotel where she and Oma had had tea on her tenth birthday. Through the ruined Tor she could see the Reichstag, its dome burned out, its walls charred and scarred.
A soldier was walking towards her. They had found Vasily, were searching for a boy who matched her description. This soldier would stop her, shoot her on the spot. This is the criminal who did it. String her up. Let this be a lesson to you all. She hesitated. She could run away, back the way she came, find another route through. Hide in the ruins of the buildings until the coast was clear. At night. The soldier drew level with her.
‘Papiere.’
Bette shrugged, pretended not to understand, pointed to the Tiergarten. Bluff.
‘Meine Schwester,’ she said. My sister. He raised an eyebrow, tilted his gun so it pointed up, nodded his head. Go on. Skedaddle.
She guessed from the sun that it must be about ten o’clock. She crossed the road and walked into the Tiergarten. There were more women, bending, weeding, picking. That wasn’t work that Lieselotte had done, so there was no point asking them if they’d seen her. She wasn’t sure where the Kurfürstendamm was from here, whether it was far. Her legs were tired, her muscles quaking, as if she’d just run a race. She was faint, hungry, thirsty. She couldn’t go back home. She had no home. What if Lieselotte had gone back, found Vasily there? Was he dead? He’d been alive when she left him. Would he shoot her?
‘Ja?’ A man had come up behind her. ‘Can I help?’
Bette blinked. ‘Where is the Kurfürstendamm?’
He pointed. ‘That way. It’s a bit of a stretch, mind.’
She nodded. She’d come so far. Just a little further. To the Kurfürstendamm. Then she could stop, ask around. Beg for water. Ask the way to Dahlem. To Oma. Lieselotte could find her there. Oma would understand. She half walked, half ran. The Tiergarten was huge, unfamiliar now in its nakedness. At last the zoo was on her right, but it looked abandoned, empty. There were two soldiers walking. British, she thought. She asked again. They pointed. That direction. It all looked so different, as if she were walking in a moonscape, something she’d seen in the far crevices of her memory but which close up was no longer what she knew.
The single spire of the old Kaiser Wilhelm Church rose from the dead, hollowed out like a bad tooth, the nave flattened. Wind whistled through its empty windows, a ghostly melody.
Bette crossed the square and entered the Kurfürstendamm. She had expected it to be thronging with soldiers, but the street was empty save for a few women loitering by the cellars of the bombed-out shops and apartments. She saw a sign outside one. Der Blaue Engel. The door was open and she stepped down inside. An elderly man in an apron was wiping a table. He looked up.
‘Out,’ he said. ‘Get out. We don’t want the likes of you in here.’
‘Please,’ Bette said. ‘I’m looking for my sister, Liese—’
‘Clear out.’ He didn’t let her finish. ‘Ask the women outside.’
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Could I have some—’
‘Out.’ He shouted. She wanted water. That was all.
‘Bitte, Wasser.’
He threw his cloth on the table, stomped to the bar, came back with a glass.
‘Then clear off.’
She gulped it down. Her throat was dusty and dry and the cool water washed it smooth. She’d have liked some more but knew she shouldn’t press her luck. What if he called someone, and they took her away?
‘Danke,’ she said, handing him the glass. He scowled.
She went outside. Opposite her, two women were sharing a cigarette. Bette went up to them.
‘Sorry, sonny,’ the younger of the two said. She had a gold tooth and brash lipstick. ‘I only go with the big boys.’
‘And the Yanks,’ the other, an older woman with a sagging stomach, added.
Bette looked from one to the other, unsure what they were talking about. Her hand went to her face and she felt the crust of blood on her nose.
‘Have you seen my sister?’ she said. ‘Lieselotte?’
‘Does she work round here?’
‘Work?’
‘Yeah, you heard me.’
‘No,’ Bette said. ‘She was selling a clock.’
The younger woman flung her head back and laughed, a coarse, common ha-ha-ha.
‘That’s what she called it, eh?’
Bette looked, one to the other. She didn’t like that woman. Didn’t trust her.
‘What did you do to your face, sonny?’ the older woman asked.
‘I bumped into a door,’ she said. ‘And my nose bled.’ This woman’s voice had softened and Bette warmed to her. ‘I know I look a mess but, please, I must find my sister.’ She looked at the older woman’s face, saw kindness there, enough to reassure her. ‘She didn’t come home last night,’ Bette went on. ‘She went out to sell one of Vati’s clocks, and to meet a soldier, to teach him German.’ Blurted it out. The older woman looked at her, pulled out a rag from her pocket, spat on it and gave it to Bette.
‘Here. Wipe your face with that.’
Bette took the rag, wiped her face, handed it back.
‘Don’t give it back. I don’t want it.’ The older woman smiled. She was missing two front teeth. ‘There’s lots of folks come down here selling stuff,’ she said. ‘What did your sister look like?’
Bette breathed easier. This lady would help.
‘She was a little taller than me,’ Bette began. ‘Brown hair, gold eye
s. Thin.’ Added, ‘Dainty.’
‘Dainty? That could be anyone,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you go home and wait for her?’
‘I can’t,’ Bette said. ‘I can’t go home.’ She could hold it in no more. ‘There’s a Russian there. And Mutti died. I don’t know where my father is. Lieselotte said if anything should happen to go to Oma in Dahlem but I don’t know how to get there.’
The older woman looked at the younger, nodded.
‘Listen, sonny—’ she said.
‘I’m not a sonny,’ Bette said. ‘I’m a girl. Lieselotte said it was safer this way, to dress as a boy.’
‘Then what’s your name?’ Her voice had lost its vulgarity.
‘Bette,’ she said. ‘My name is Bette Fischer.’
‘Well, Bette,’ she said. ‘I’m going to take you to someone who can help.’ She smiled. ‘Follow me.’
§
The man who translated was Dutch but the officer in charge was American. They had given her water and some hard, dry biscuits and a nurse had wiped her face and cleaned her nose, gesturing, it’s not broken. She’d given Bette a mirror. There were still traces of dried blood and speckles of dark dust. Two black eyes were emerging. Her face didn’t look her own.
She spoke, a sentence at a time, so the Dutchman could put her words into English. The American nodded, raising an eyebrow, writing in his notes. She didn’t tell them that she had shot the Russian. She told them she couldn’t go home. She didn’t know the address. She told them that her mother was dead, her sister was missing, and her father hadn’t come back from the war. She had nowhere to go. Her grandmother was very old and she didn’t know if she was alive, or how to get there. Could they please give her a lift? She didn’t have the street or the number, but she’d recognise it when she got there.
‘Listen, Bette,’ the American said.
‘Hör mal, Bette,’ the Dutchman said.
‘I don’t know how we can help you,’ the American went on. ‘You’re not a Displaced Person, you’re not a Jew, or a Pole, or Ukrainian. You’re a German. Maybe you’re an orphan.’ He leaned back in his seat. ‘Maybe not. Maybe this is a trick, maybe not.’
‘A trick?’ Bette said.
‘Yeah. They send the kid out first to get sympathy, then pile in behind.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Bette said. ‘I want my sister. I want my Oma.’
‘But you don’t know where she lives. You don’t know your own address.’
She couldn’t give them that. What if they went and found Vasily? Or made her return and wait for Lieselotte? Her hands were quivering and she was shaking her head, tears of frustration welling up.
‘Please.’ Her voice was soft, fretful. ‘Please help me.’ She looked at the American, at the nurse. ‘I don’t know what to do. Where to go.’ I’m frightened.
The American leaned forward, nodded at the Dutchman.
‘How about I say you’re running away from the Russians?’ he said, as the Dutchman put it into German. ‘We can put you in temporary care for the time being, with other orphans, get you transferred somewhere else later. Maybe get you adopted if no one comes to fetch you?’
Bette nodded.
It was a house in Eisenacher Strasse, in the south of the city, a long way from Dahlem. But his voice was tender, and the place sounded safe.
He picked up the telephone. Another soldier came in, a woman, stout, with UNRRA on her armband. She smiled, held out her hand, and Bette took it. Didn’t matter she was nearly thirteen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Berlin: August – October 1945
‘How did they know? Informed guesswork,’ the major said. ‘We don’t have a mole in our outfit. The Soviets work the same way as us. Only less efficiently.’
He picked up a paper knife, tapped it against his forefinger, nodding at the officers either side of him. As it happened, Major Buchanan had called in Captain Thornton from the army garrison, and another officer John had never seen before. Major Somebody-or-other. He’d forgotten his name already. JIC. Joint Intelligence Committee. John was waiting for the bollocking, but his CO and the army officers were all smiles, as if John had excelled himself.
‘Some of the scientists they had their eye on slipped through their net. We got there first, evacuated them before they could.’
Major Buchanan put the knife on his desk, tilting the blade so the handle lifted up, rocking it like a see-saw. The JIC major leaned forward.
‘This young woman…’ He paused, looking hard at John. ‘There’s plenty of starry-eyed radicals and fellow travellers who are only too happy to ease the Russkies’ way in here.’ He nodded. ‘Our guess is that she was one of them. Used by the Soviets, dispensed with when she was of no further service. Pretty clumsy attempt to blackmail. Typical, mind you.’
He spoke sense, and yet, John thought, what he said was nonsense too. Lieselotte was young. He couldn’t see her as an agent. And even if she had been, why would they have murdered her if she could help them? Perhaps someone else had killed her, and the Reds were exploiting it? His thoughts hurtled round, ricocheting from front to back.
Unless she knew the bandy-legged Soviet officer and his skinny, spotty sidekick, had been instructed to seek John out and lure him to the bridge? It had been her idea to meet there. She knew it would be deserted. Had the Russians put her up to it? Had something gone wrong and they had eliminated her? Had she been about to blow her cover? Perhaps she wasn’t as innocent as she had seemed. The major was right. He’d know this sort of thing.
‘Wouldn’t waste tears over her,’ the major said. ‘Not worth it, women like that.’
John remembered their first meeting. There had been nothing contrived about it. A chance encounter. He found it hard to accept that he had been targeted, or that she had dangled herself as bait.
Lieselotte murdered, the imprint of the ligature fresh on her neck.
‘If you want to sacrifice your career, your reputation, perhaps, even, your life for her, that’s a choice you alone can make.’ He sniffed, twisted his mouth. You’re on your own, sir.
John stared at his hands, at the vein in his thumb. Strange how sometimes it was hidden deep beneath his skin, at other times pulsed on the surface.
‘But if you come on board,’ the JIC major was saying, ‘then SIS have a use for you. Sprinkles of brilliance there, among a bunch of amateur duds.’
An offer he couldn’t refuse, as good as an order.
‘Yes, sir,’ he said.
‘I’ll inform the funnies,’ the major went on, adding, ‘MI6 to you.’ He ran his finger inside his collar. ‘They’ll take it from there. Any questions?’
‘What do I do?’
‘Do? You do as we say.’ He leaned back, twisting his mouth into a smile. John wasn’t sure whether it was meant to reassure, or to mock. ‘When their shopping list arrives, Second Lieutenant, we get a rough idea of the gaps in their cupboard. So we help fill it. We give them solid information to start with. Nothing that damages us. To establish your credentials. Good God—’ He stood up and walked to the window. ‘Did you see that? A European roller, if I’m not mistaken. Bright blue plumage.’ He leaned out of the window, head craned to his left. ‘Gone now. Rare round these parts.’ He returned to the table, sat down. ‘Cheers my heart up no end to see a rare bird like that,’ he said. ‘Almost as good as a pretty girl. Are you into birds, Lieutenant?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Or women?’
‘You were saying, sir,’ John said.
‘Yes.’ He sighed, pulled his chair closer. ‘Well then,’ he went on. ‘As time goes on, the information becomes not so much solid as supple. We see it as a spectrum, Second Lieutenant. Verifiable truths at one end. Downright lies at the other. But clever lies. Plausible lies.’
‘And my job is to feed this to them?’
‘Do you have qualms?’
‘But if they think I’m giving them the truth’ – that made him a double agent – ‘and then they discover it’s not, what happens th
en?’
‘What happens then?’ The major looked at his colleagues, eyes left, right. ‘If you’re rumbled, we’ll deny everything, that’s what will happen.’
John could feel his knees quiver. He was on his own now, no protection, not from anyone, not even his own side.
‘They’ll interrogate you,’ the major went on. ‘Try to squeeze out all the information you have. I don’t suppose they’re too scrupulous with their methods, Second Lieutenant, so you need to brace yourself. It won’t be a cosy chat, not like this.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Then I expect they’ll shoot you, that’s what will happen.’
I don’t want to do this, John wanted to say. I can’t do it. He was no hero. He wasn’t made for spying, wasn’t duplicitous enough. Wasn’t sure enough.
The major smiled. ‘On the other hand, if we think they’re getting suspicious, we’ll try and pull you out in time. Don’t worry.’ The major waved his hand, dismissing him. ‘Your handler will take you through it. Operation Birdcage. That’s its name from now on. Rather good, isn’t it? What with the sighting of that roller…’ He checked his watch. ‘If you’ll excuse me.’
John pushed his chair back, saluted.
‘Good chap, that officer,’ Major Buchanan said, once the major had gone.
‘I’m sorry,’ John said. ‘What was his name again?’
‘Goodfellow,’ Major Buchanan said. ‘Appropriate, eh? Major James Goodfellow.’
‘Sir.’ John tipped his forehead, turned on his heel and left. He’d have liked to have had a drink with Arthur, but Arthur was already back home, and this new task was top secret. Arthur hadn’t given him advice, not in so many words. Just a name that in the end Major Buchanan called in. But the implication had been clear. Face up to it, and take the consequences.
John went into the mess, bought himself a beer, retreated to a corner. His stomach gurgled, juices and adrenalin storming inside him, while his mind saw her body, sacrificed for him.
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