The Moment

by Douglas Kennedy

  I would end up living much of the time in the Istanbul. Courtesy of my age back then, I didn’t have to concern myself with such pedestrian matters as diet or weight gain or the damage I was doing to my cardiovascular system with the cigarettes that seemed such an essential component of the writing process. The Istanbul had a cheap and cheerful food menu. The “we cook everything” staples it served (spaghetti Bolognese and carbonara, lamb kebabs, stuffed vine leaves, Wiener schnitzel, kofti, assorted pizzas, and even that most Greek of dishes, moussaka) had two essential qualities: (1) they were always, at worst, edible, especially when washed down with two half-liters of Hefeweizen beers and a Turkish coffee to follow; (2) the meal would never cost me more than six deutsche marks. As I hated to cook back then—and even now, as a middle-aged man on my own, prefer not to expend a great amount of time in the preparation of something to eat (maybe I’ve just never fallen in love with the so-called poetry of food)—the Istanbul was an ideal refuge for me.

  On that first early afternoon—as I settled myself down for a plate of pasta at what was to become my corner table—I surveyed the small confines of the café: the coughing, diminutive proprietor behind the bar; the elderly man, his face expressionless, who sat at a table in the window, smoking, staring blankly ahead at the street; the sweaty behemoth with a beer belly the size of a bowling ball who was currently drinking shots of raki, his face awash in tears, singing an aria of woe to the impervious barkeep. I smoked three cigarettes, and scribbled away about discovering Fitzsimons-Ross with the needle in his arm, then recording this scene around me in the Istanbul, and thinking: so many residents of Berlin were refugees—if not from totalitarian regimes or impoverished countries, then from lives they wanted to flee, or things that trapped them elsewhere, or even, quite simply, themselves. It took work to land yourself in Berlin. Once you were here you were geographically boxed in. Even though residing in the western sector gave you the right to travel, it meant taking a train that went nonstop through the German Democratic Republic. Otherwise the only other option was a plane west. That was, I sensed, the inherent contradiction of life here. West Berlin stood as an island of individual and political freedom amidst a landscape of dictatorship. The city afforded those who came here a degree of personal latitude and flexible morality. It allowed you to construct whatever variation on life you wanted within its confines. But “confines” was the operative word. For you found yourself boxed in by geopolitical realities and a barrier that could not be breached. As such, you were free and caught at the same time.

  I went to the small Spar supermarket located near the Kottbusser Tor U-Bahn station and bought some basics: cereal, milk, orange juice, and coffee and sugar, a selection of cold meats and two loaves of pumpernickel bread and mustard, two bottles of Polish vodka (cheap) and a half-dozen bottles of Hefeweizen beer (I actually wrote this entire shopping list down in one of my notebooks, as I was that obsessed back then with recording every detail). Later that night, as I climbed into bed for my first-night sleep at the apartment and began to doze off, I had an interesting wake-up call. Loud driving orchestral music, with a gypsy edge to it, blaring from downstairs. It was so full-volume, so deliberately deafening, that I couldn’t help but think (once I had cast off middle-of-the-night sleepiness): he’s doing this to test me, to show me who’s boss around here. I sat on the edge of my bed, rubbing sleep from my eyes, trying to think about my next move. I grabbed my robe and put it on over my T-shirt and pajama bottoms, then took a deep steadying breath and headed downstairs.

  Fitzsimons-Ross was standing in the studio area, dressed in a paint-splattered T-shirt and jeans, bare paint-splattered feet, a cigarette sticking out of his mouth, applying an azure-blue paint with hyper-rapid brushstrokes to an otherwise empty canvas. The effect was like watching a brilliant Greek sky being created in front of you—and I was mesmerized by his bravura technique, the assertive skill with which he wielded his brush, the force of his evident concentration. Part of me was furious at being awoken by this blast of music—and wanted to play the prickly lodger, ready to take on my equally prickly landlord. But the other part of me—the writer who knew those moments when a creative reverie suddenly subsumed the world outside of me—knew that to interrupt the flow of his work now by ripping the tone arm off the record would be nothing short of monstrous. So I simply retreated back to my room, leaving in such a stealthy manner that he was never aware of my nearby presence. Once upstairs I did what I always did when sleep eluded me: I worked. Opening up my notebook, I sat down on the hard bentwood chair by my desk, uncapped my fountain pen, and started to write. I checked my watch. It was 2:15 a.m. The orchestral music (was it Bartók?) ended and was replaced by Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter and then John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, that long dark journey into the spiritual blur. Whatever I felt about this middle-of-the-night roar, I had to concede that Fitzsimons-Ross’s musical taste was high-end.

  The music abruptly stopped at four. There was a long silence, during which I put down my pen, rolled up another cigarette, plugged it in my mouth, grabbed the half-full bottle of wine and two glasses, and went downstairs. But when I reached the studio area, Fitzsimons-Ross was otherwise engaged, as he was seated on the sofa, an elastic tourniquet around his upper arm, a needle sticking out of his bulging vein. He was just depressing the plunger as I came into view.

  “The fuck do you want?” he said in a hoarse, extraworldly voice. “Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  I retreated upstairs, smoked my cigarette, drank a glass of wine, then fell into bed. When I woke it was eleven in the morning—and from downstairs came the loud telltale grunts and moans. Drifting into consciousness it took me a few befuddled moments to realize that I was listening to two men having sex. As wake-up calls go, this was a first-of-a-kind for me. After a minute or so of this graphic sexual soundtrack, I reached over and turned on my radio, spinning the dial until I found a rock station. I blared The Clash as I got up and made coffee and smoked two pre-breakfast roll-ups and thought: today is the day I contact Radio Liberty and tomorrow is the day I cross over to nose around East Berlin.

  After I had finished breakfast and washed up the dishes, I snapped off the radio and was relieved to hear that the performance downstairs had also ended. Grabbing my parka and scarf, I scooped up my notebook and pen and tobacco and ventured out.

  When I reached Alaistair’s studio area I started heading directly toward the door. But I was stopped by a voice saying:

  “So be a rude little fuck and don’t say good morning.”

  I turned around and saw Fitzsimons-Ross sitting at his long kitchen table, sipping coffee and smoking a Gauloises with a thin, olive-skinned man who I guessed was in his late twenties. He had close-cropped hair, a small earring in his left earlobe, and a gold wedding band on his left index finger. He was dressed in a light brown distressed leather jacket trimmed with white fur—the sort of jacket I always associated with low-level thugs. Naturally I wanted to know everything about him, given that he had just been sharing a man’s bed and was also wearing a symbol that informed the world: I’m a married man. I saw him as another component of the ever-expanding narrative of my time in Berlin, and wondered what sort of involvement or arrangement he had with my landlord.

  “Good morning,” I said.

  “The cunt speaks.” Then, switching into impressively fluent German, Fitzsimons-Ross told his companion:

  “He’s American, he’s my lodger, but he’s not really that odious.”

  In German “odious” is abstossend. Fitzsimons-Ross spat that word out with such relish that his friend seemed to almost flinch as the word landed in his ears.

  “This is Mehmet,” he continued on in German. “Say hello to Thomas.”

  A quick “morgen” from Mehmet, then he stood up and said:

  “I must go.”

  “Really? So soon?” Fitzsimons-Ross asked.

  “You know I start work at one.”

  “See you in two days then?”

/>   Mehmet simply nodded. Then, still not making eye contact with me, he gathered up his coat and walked quickly out the front door. When it closed behind him, Fitzsimons-Ross asked:

  “Tea? There’s still a cup left in the pot.”

  I accepted the offer and sat down in the chair that Mehmet had vacated.

  “I sense you surprised the poor boy,” Fitzsimons-Ross said. “As you may have noted . . .”

  “He’s married . . .”

  “My, my, you are the observant one.”

  “A wedding ring is a wedding ring.”

  “And these poor Turkish boys, they have families who essentially map out their lives for them from the moment they emerge into the world. Mehmet’s wife is his second cousin—and a most plump girl. Mehmet told me he knew he liked boys from the age of fifteen onward—but imagine if he had admitted such a thing to his father. Especially as he works for his father at the laundry the old man runs right off Heinrich Heine Strasse . . .”

  “Am I right to presume that you didn’t meet Mehmet there?”

  “My, my, Tommy Boy, your deductive reasoning is so impressive. No, I met Mehmet in far more romantic circumstances . . . in the toilets at Zoo Station, which is a well-known pick-up spot for those of us who practice ‘the love that dare not speak its name.’”

  “So you know your Oscar Wilde.”

  “I’m an Irish Protestant shirt lifter. Of course, I know my fucking Oscar Wilde. Did we wake you up this morning, Mehmet and me?”

  “Actually you did.”

  “And were you shocked, horrified?”

  “You forget—I’m from New York.”

  “Ah yes, a worldly American, even if the sound of that phrase has a profoundly oxymoronic feel to it. Well, you’d best get used to Mehmet’s presence here, as we have a rendezvous three days a week. Usually in the late morning. And he’s always gone after ninety minutes. He comes at no other time, as that might cause suspicion among his all-knowing, all-fascist Islamic family. Anyway, the arrangement perfectly suits me. Mehmet and I get exactly what we need from each other within carefully delineated boundaries. That means there’s no fuss, no trouble, no ties that bind.”

  “Speaking of fuss . . . we need to talk about the music . . .”

  “What music?”

  “The music you were playing last night.”

  “You object to my taste?”

  “What I object to is being woken at two in the morning . . .”

  “Well, I’m afraid that I do my best work from midnight to four. And I can’t paint without music blaring. So . . .”

  “When we discussed this earlier, you assured me that there would be no blared music here if I moved in.”

  He reached for his cigarettes and fired one up.

  “I lied,” he finally said.

  “Evidently. The thing is, I cannot sleep if you blare music like that.”

  “Change your sleeping habits then. Keep vampire hours like me.”

  “That’s not a satisfactory answer.”

  “Do you expect me to care?”

  “I want my seven hundred marks back.”

  “It’s all spent. I had debts, you know. And now . . .”

  “Now you have to keep your end of the deal.”

  “I don’t have to do a damn thing, Tommy Boy.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “Are you going to get all legal on me, American? ‘ You’ll be hearing from my attorney’ and some such shit.”

  He uttered that “attorney” line in the sort of reedy version of an American accent that a certain type of Brit always turns on whenever he wants to cut us colonials down to size. At that point I found myself getting angry—but anger with me is never expressed. Instead I go all quiet and begin to plot.

  “The deal we had,” I said in a voice just barely above a whisper, “is that there would be no music playing while I’m here. I’m holding you to it.”

  I turned and left the apartment.

  Outside I had to fight off the desire to punch a window out with my fist. I get overly aggrieved when crossed—especially when I sense I have been treated unfairly or have been simply looked upon as a dupe. Standing outside my new abode, I pondered how to deal with Fitzsimons-Ross and his duplicitous tactics. There were several options here. I could return to the Pension Weisse and ask Madame if she was still willing to cut me a long-term residency deal. The problem with this was twofold: I would lose the seven hundred marks that I had already forked over to Fitzsimons-Ross, and I would also lose the chance of bearing eyewitness to all that went on at his place and in Kreuzberg. I could find another apartment in the district, but the fact was that my set of rooms here were absolutely ideal. Fitzsimons-Ross was right: I had been naïve handing over that sum of money to a junkie. But I think a very large part of me subconsciously knew I was asking for trouble by paying so much rent up front—and did so just to see how everything would play out. Now I had to find a way of getting what I wanted—silence at night—yet not compromising Fitzsimons-Ross’s work. So that afternoon, while taking an extended hike through the rarefied streets of Charlottenberg, I happened upon a hi-fi shop and bought a pair of decent headphones and a huge ten-meter extension cord for them. The shop assistant looked at me warily when I asked for such a long lead.

  “It’s a big room.”

  Then, toward the end of the afternoon, I stopped in at the Istanbul and asked Omar if I could use their phone . . . and, indeed, if I could have people leave messages on their number (as I sensed it best to not have anyone trying to contact me fall into conversation with Fitzsimons-Ross).

  “You willing to pay a little money for the service?” he asked.

  “How much?”

  “What I charge the five or six other people for whom I take messages: five marks a week. You get good service, I promise that. And you get to make five local calls a day, no extra charge.”

  “That sounds like we have a deal then. Can I make one of those five phone calls right now?”

  Omar motioned for me to come over to the bar, where he pulled up a heavy black Bakelite phone from the lower depths behind him. I dug out my notebook, into which I had copied the name and phone number of Jerome Wellmann, the Radio Liberty station head in Berlin. Dialing the number I reached the switchboard and was put through to Mr. Wellmann’s secretary—who was very no-nonsense.

  “Does Mr. Wellmann know what this is about?” she asked.

  “Huntley Cranley suggested I call.”

  The fact that I answered her back in her language and also dropped the name of a very serious honcho at Radio Liberty back in Washington seemed to make her pause for thought.

  “Anyone can mention Herr Cranley’s name. We have people looking for jobs here all the time, and they always tell us the same thing: that they met with someone high up in the organization in Washington, whereas the truth is . . .”

  “Mr. Cranley informed me that he was writing Mr. Wellmann himself on my behalf.”

  “Then I will read through all telexes that Herr Wellmann received recently from the head office. If it turns out you are telling the truth . . .”

  “Are you implying that I might be lying?”

  “For reasons that I am certain are evident to you, were you to ponder them with care and intelligence, we must be very careful when it comes to vetting any potential employee, or indeed anyone who simply wishes to see Herr Wellmann for an appointment. You should understand that, given the nature of our work, we must be vigilant at all times . . . especially in this city.”

  “Point taken,” I said, then added that messages could be left for me at the following number—and I read off the six digits printed in the plastic holder on the center of the phone.

  “And what is this place where we are to leave messages . . . that is, if we even do leave a message for you?”

  “It’s a café in Kreuzberg called the Istanbul,” I said, knowing immediately that the very name and locale of this joint probably sounded like some sub-Cold War spy rendezvo
us center.

  “Why are you having messages taken for you there?”

  “Because it’s around the corner from where I’m living . . . and because I don’t have a phone.”

  “If you don’t hear from us within forty-eight hours, then this means that Herr Wellmann has chosen not to get in touch with you. Good day.”

  So much for that avenue of possibility. The woman made officiousness her creed, her raison d’être. If she had her way I was certain she would block any work possibilities at Radio Liberty—and, as such, access to an entire world of narrative possibilities for my book. Naturally, I would inevitably fall into other worlds while here in Berlin. But I so wanted the chance to work among Cold Warriors playing the propaganda game for the West.

  “Doesn’t sound good,” Omar said as I handed him back the phone.

  “You’ll let me know if they phone back,” I said, handing over the first four marks for the Café Istanbul telephone exchange.

  “You pay for a service, you get a service.”

  And, I could have added, a deal is a deal. Or, at least, that how I viewed the world . . . and, more specifically, the arrangement I had with Fitzsimons-Ross when I rented his upstairs rooms. So when I returned back to the apartment that night, I discovered him still out and deposited the headphones and the ten-meter lead by his stereo, alongside the following note: