A small cross—an olive-wood cross made in Nazareth—hung above her dresser. She had found it at a little store nearby the farmers’ market that sold souvenirs and religious books and artifacts. Marlene rediscovered the good Lord only in her old age, years after it had all come to an end, years after her retirement from the Stasi at the age of sixty-five. A modest yet moving ceremony was held in recognition of all the staff members who retired at the same time; but the ceremony couldn’t hide the fact that the retirement had been forced upon them, just a few months after the collapse of the DDR, the Deutsche Democratic Republic, after huge bulldozers were rushed there from West Germany to begin tearing down everything expendable and rebuilding it all anew.
Marlene closed her eyes and her thoughts drifted back to Gunther. Gunther, the legendary handler from the Special Ops Division of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance. He was best friends with Markus, the division chief, and Markus alone would sometimes address him by his real name—Werner. All the others, aside from Markus and herself, knew him and referred to him only by his field name, Gunther—until it seemed that even he had forgotten his real name and chose not to remember his mother whispering, Werner, Werner, as she caressed his feverishly hot forehead, when he came down as a child with winter’s bronchitis and the thin walls of their tiny apartment were as cold as ice and dripping with freezing damp. Marlene loved all her boys, and she could see their faces flashing by one by one when she closed her eyes. But her love for Gunther (she’d sometimes pluck up the courage to call him her Werner) was different. He was a few years younger than she was, and she knew him primarily through the reports he’d write that came to her for filing. There was something special about his reports, something that allowed even her—so far away from the field, from the meetings with the agents—to sense the agents themselves, to smell the sweat of their fear, to recognize their reckless drunken arrogance, to inhale the fumes of alcohol and coffee that accompanied their meetings. Above all, the reports confirmed that each agent in question, each miserable traitor, was firmly in Gunther’s clutches, was being propped up by him, purposefully and lovingly manipulated into doing the things Gunther wanted him to do. Through the reports, she could sense Gunther’s strength of character, his self-confidence, the scope of his compassion and empathy, which allowed him to thus take command of another individual and turn him into a secret weapon in the service of the revolution.
On rare occasions, Gunther would show up at the Archives in person, hanging up his heavy coat at the door, a bearish and ungainly figure but exuding strength and inexplicable charm, his blond hair still full but starting to turn silver. And when she saw him, a strange yet delightful sensation that she dared not name—but knew nevertheless could be love—would flutter momentarily through her heart, like an elusive little minnow. A woman’s love for a man, different from the love she felt for all the other boys. They spoke sometimes, she and Gunther, though not much. Mostly he’d ask for files that he needed and she’d retrieve them for him, get him to sign the required papers, and say to him: “Tell me if you need anything else.” But sometimes he’d share a few words about something he was going through, the terrible train ride from Prague, or some inappropriate joke about his mother-in-law (and Marlene would wonder if he even had a mother-in-law at all). Now and then he’d show her a book he was reading, retrieving a crumpled copy from his jacket pocket and saying to her: “Read it, Marlene, read it, if your soul isn’t too delicate for this kind of material,” and he’d smile, wrinkles appearing next to his eyes, his good smell, the smell of a man returning from a long journey, would hit her, and she’d offer a smile in return and feel all flustered.
Later on, during the few years in which she served as head secretary in the bureau, she’d see him a little more often, always bursting in like a whirlwind, awe-inspiring, intimidating the young secretaries, joking back and forth with her flirtatiously, charmingly audacious, always in a hurry to see the division chief, his good friend. And she, who had learned to open her mouth a little—after all, you can’t manage such a bureau without being able to hold your own with important and arrogant individuals—knew how to respond to her Gunther and to give as good as she got, and it was only the truth itself, buried there in her heart, that she couldn’t speak. Marlene knew that the young secretaries gossiped about her behind her back, saying that she was desperately in love with Markus, and that there was a story going around that there was something between them, a long time ago, during the initial years after the war, and that thanks to that fleeting romance from the past, she, an old woman like her, almost sixty, had now landed the position of head secretary. What foolish young girls, she said to herself. Foolish and insubstantial. Yes, she admired Markus a great deal, adored him sometimes, and was willing to serve him loyally with all her heart. But love? Don’t be crazy! What nonsense, nonsense and a waste of time.
Everything happened quickly in early 1984. Markus suddenly lost his charm. He was too independent. The intelligence provided by his agents ruffled the feathers of senior officials once too often. The reports filed by the agents indicated a clear change in the West’s viewpoint vis-à-vis the Soviet Union and its allies. The image of a militarily powerful Warsaw Pact was now being accompanied by more and more talk of the economic frailty of the Soviet Union and its allies, of deterioration and a loss of control, of a fossilized and detached leadership, of centrifugal forces (Marlene remembered the fascinating and frightening term from the reports) that could end up tearing the Eastern bloc to shreds. That was how the West viewed the Soviet Union, and thus, too, the German Democratic Republic, her country. The agents of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance reported everything meticulously and precisely. Marlene remembered deliberating fiercely with herself while filing the reports in perfect order. Could there perhaps be a grain of truth in the things they were reporting? Could they be seeing things that Moscow and Berlin couldn’t see? Or didn’t want to see? In any event, it all turned more and more sour. And Markus managed to get himself into trouble, again, with one of his love affairs, and the rumors reached someone or other among the party leadership, and Markus in early 1984 found himself deposed from his position of significant power and appointed to the post of senior advisor on the Industrial Efficiency Council. Her eyes welled up with tears when she recalled the brief and formal farewell ceremony held in his honor—one of the heroes of the Democratic Republic who had done more for the revolution than all of the dry and stiff nobodies who made up the party leadership. But Marlene didn’t allow herself to think like that, a wrong word after all would slip out eventually, and then she’d also be thrown out of the Special Ops Archives in Dresden, to which she had returned, with all due respect, a few weeks later, after the new division chief had assembled his bureau staff to his liking. Still, she had said to herself, she had more than seven years to go before retirement.
Three years before her retirement, one of Gunther’s operations was handed over to the comrades in the KGB. Gunther stuck it out somehow, following the ousting of his commander and close friend, and continued to handle his agents, professionally and in earnest, albeit with a sullen and grim demeanor. The operation was one of the most classified under Gunther’s control, and she recalled that the seeds had been planted back in the days when she was working in the bureau of the division chief. The agent’s name didn’t appear in the dossier at all and there was only a code name, the nickname they had given him. Marlene couldn’t forget him, particularly in light of what happened later on. They called him Cobra. Gunther was his handler, under the assumed name of Martin for that particular operation. He had explained it to her: “In my dealings with Cobra, I play the part of an American. It’s essential. But I chose a name for myself that’s also a German name. So that if something doesn’t seem right to him all of a sudden, not perfectly American, I’ll have a cover story to offer.” Gunther would often share his little secrets with her. And from time to time, he sought her advice, too, wanted to know what she was thinking. After
all, she was just as familiar with the operations as they were, the handlers, and even a little more so sometimes, precisely due to her remoteness from the field. Because, he explained to her, she saw them through the paperwork, via the reports, with a degree of objectivity they lacked.
And then came the day when Gunther turned up at the Archives in the company of two KGB officers. She had never seen KGB officers at her Archives, despite knowing, just like anyone else with eyes in his or her head, that the KGB was involved in one way or another in most of the operations. Evidence of this could also be found in the dossiers on the various operations, which included all the intelligence communications relayed to KGB headquarters in Moscow. But seeing those officers, those foreigners, in her basement? Gunther was stern-faced, there was no smile for her this time, and that spirit of adventure, that sense of faraway places that usually enveloped and accompanied him, was gone. “Comrade Schmidt,” he said to her, “in keeping with orders from the head of the Main Directorate for Reconnaissance, we’re required to hand over Operation Cobra and all the dossiers pertaining to the operation to our comrades in the KGB. Nothing must remain in the Archives, not even a single document related to the operation. From this day forward, the operation is no longer ours, doesn’t concern us, doesn’t interest us. I’ve already forgotten its existence, and I’m relying on you, Marlene”—addressing her by her first name this time—“and it’s an order, to forget entirely about it, is that clear?” Gunther waited, and she nodded, unable to utter a single word. He was so official, stiff and lifeless. From an inside pocket in his coat, he pulled out a printed document bearing the signature of General Heinrich Krueger’s bureau chief. The document was a written version of the instructions Gunther had just given her verbally. And she went, ran almost, to the shelves on which the Cobra dossiers stood, and gathered them up, six thick ones, and carried them to the counter. She laid them down, and one of the two foreign officers opened a large bag, resembling a military duffel bag, and placed the dossiers inside without a word. She remembered wondering at the time if bags like that were fashionable in the Soviet Union, and wondering even more about how such foolish and worthless thoughts could be going through her mind at such a time. After closing the bag, the officer attached it to his person with a steel chain that closed in a handcuff of sorts around his wrist, thanked her in German with a hint of a Russian accent, appeared to her to click his heels, turned, and began walking, with the second officer in his wake. Gunther waited for a moment before leaning toward her and whispering: “You see, my dear, that’s how it ends. Little by little. They’ve lost faith in us.” He rested a large and warm hand on hers for a moment—and left.
Some two months later, in early October 1987, Marlene heard that Gunther had been hit by a truck and killed on the highway north of Berlin. One of the bureau clerks whispered, at lunch, that Gunther was out walking—yes, walking—by the side of the dark road. There was no way the poor truck driver could have seen him. The driver was in custody, but he was still in shock and wasn’t able to offer any information about the incident. The Human Resources Department issued an announcement about Gunther’s death, noting his senior rank and providing details of the funeral, which was to be held four days from then. The funeral took place on a gloomy and rainy Monday at the military cemetery in East Berlin. Marlene took a day’s leave and went alone, her eyes overflowing with tears, on the train from Dresden to Berlin, and stood at the edge of the small group of people who had come to bid farewell to Gunther for the last time. There were no eulogies, and no prayers were said. From afar, and through her tears, Marlene caught sight of Markus’s face—she hadn’t seen him for two years, and he appeared cold and angry. A dry whimper grazed her throat, a knife dragged across her heart, and her hands reached up to firmly tighten the scarf around her neck.
10
DRESDEN, OCTOBER 2012
Marlene didn’t think she’d have the strength to open the church door. A feeble autumn sun painted the narrow street in a yellowish light and long shadows. Reddish-brown leaves were piled up on the edges of the sidewalk. Winter would soon be upon them, without warning; the temperatures would plummet and the trees would stand bare, their branches black and their appearance two-dimensional against the backdrop of an opaque sky. Inside the houses, despite the terrible cold outside, people would get on with their lives, enjoying the warmth of their heating systems, the taste of sweet wine, being close to one another. Christmas by then wouldn’t be long in coming, relatives would gather from afar, small families would get together, a glowing aura of light around their heads, bent forward close together in humility and love. She, Marlene, wasn’t going to be around any longer to enjoy it all. Her days were over. She could feel it in her aching bones, in the ever-increasing withering of her soul. Her physician, Dr. Baumberger, had looked at her during her last visit to the clinic with sad brown eyes and said, “Marlene, there’s nothing more we can do other than alleviate your pain. If there’s anything you need from me . . .” he trailed off, not completing his sentence. “Is there a family member you’d like to notify, perhaps?” he asked, and she quietly responded, “No, no,” and could think only of one person she’d like to have with her, by her side, in the same room, having a drink, sitting there quietly or telling her his stories, a young smile that belied the age on his face; after all, he, too, would be old by now, if only he were still alive. But he was dead, had been murdered, to be exact. A large truck had run him down on a rainy night, her Gunther, her Werner, she allowed herself to whisper silently, aware of the fact that her weakness and solitude made it possible for her to say those words without anyone hearing.
Weak and fragile, like wood filed down thin, that’s how she felt as she stood in front of the church’s large wooden door, pulling it toward her, opening a gap just wide enough for her to press through, wrapped in her heavy coat. The church was empty. It looked larger from the inside than it did from the street. Patches of color cast by the stained-glass windows dotted the floor. A strong smell of wax filled the air, and she, whose sense of smell had sharpened the more her illness ate away at her, could also detect the fragrance of incense, which had survived somehow in the dim expanse since Sunday. Marlene made her way forward slowly, dragging her feet. Nearing the altar, she felt drained of strength. She sat down on the wooden pew closest to her and leaned back, feeling small and shriveled in her large coat. She rested her hands, in their woolen gloves, in her lap. The dull glow of copper implements flickered at the edge of her field of vision, and her head fell forward and rested on her chest.
She didn’t know how long she had dozed for when she shook herself out of her reverie and lifted her head. The patches of light on the floor were gone and Marlene saw the priest’s face close to hers, his hand resting on her shoulder. “Marlene,” he said to her softly, “Marlene. Are you okay? I haven’t seen you in quite a while.” She looked into the priest’s wrinkled eyes, felt his hand weighing heavily on her, and said, “I’m very ill, I couldn’t come. But I’ve come today, I have something to tell you.” The priest looked at her, his eyes reflecting sorrow and warmth, and asked her: “Would you like to talk, or perhaps make Confession? Both God and I will listen in any event. Whatever you like.” He smiled, a soft expression on his face. He sat beside her on the bench and took her hand. “No, there’s no need for Confession,” she said. “Like this is good.” She released her hand from the priest’s grip, removed the glove, and then took hold of his hand again, a large and warm hand. The priest could feel the brittleness of her bones, their fragility, and he knew she was right, that not only was she very ill, but she would be dead soon, in just a few days perhaps, certainly before Christmas Mass.
“You don’t really know me, Father Jacobs,” she said. “You only know that I’m an old and lonely woman who’s been coming to your church for the past few years, always alone, always alone. You know nothing about my past, about the things I did before everything changed . . .”
“Those were different times,”
the priest said. “We’ve all been there, we all have a past. No one is judging us, neither you nor me. How can . . .”
“I want you to listen,” she said softly. “I want to tell you about a sin of mine, the sin of cowardice. About someone to whom I wasn’t able to say even a single personal word, a single word of intimacy, someone who I wasn’t able to show, or even hint of the fact, that my dry heart loved him.” She paused for a long silence. “I had a lot of boys,” she whispered, pulling herself together for a moment. “They were all my boys. But he, his name was Gunther, and Werner sometimes, too, he . . .”
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