Brandenburg

by Henry Porter

  ‘Me too. You see, my brother’s in prison. That’s the way they do things.’

  ‘Really, your brother?’

  ‘Did you tell them about that phone call I made the other day?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And what about . . .?’

  She saw what he was thinking. ‘No, I didn’t tell them about us. Look, I wasn’t going to admit to sleeping with an old guy like you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, remembering being ambushed by Sonja’s bluntness so often before.

  ‘It didn’t seem so strange when we were doing it because I adored being with you, Rudi. But it does seem odd now.’

  ‘Okay, okay! Let’s talk about something else, shall we?’

  She leaned forward and put a hand on his knee. ‘I didn’t mean to hurt you, Rudi. You’re a wonderful man and very funny. The best talker I know. By the way, where’s all that gone? You don’t laugh like you used to - the drinking and the humour. You’ve become so serious.’

  Rosenharte gave her a bleak smile. ‘Things on my mind, you know? My brother . . .’

  ‘Yes.’ She paused to drink some beer and looked away. ‘Anyway, I love Sebastian. For the first time I understand what people are talking about. You know, I really love him. Love him!’

  Rosenharte nodded. For a brief moment he saw an image of Annalise sitting on a bench in the centre of Brussels saying much the same thing.

  ‘When they take you in again, I don’t want you to tell them about me at all. Do you understand? Say I’m a bore - whatever you need to.’

  ‘Some people came before that. Different people from the ones I’ve just seen. I had to tell them about the guy who was looking for you.’ She touched her chin with her middle finger and pressed it. ‘They took down an exact description of him and asked me to phone a special number if he came back. They also wanted to know if I’d seen you with another man. He was older - a short, plump guy in his fifties.’

  ‘Who wore a straw hat?’ said Rosenharte, thinking of the dead Pole.

  ‘Yes, that one. So who are these men?’

  ‘I don’t know. When did they ask you about him?’

  ‘Just last week. When they searched your office.’ She looked down and revolved a plain silver ring on her right hand. ‘I’m sorry, I should have told you, I know. They may have put a microphone in there too.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He glanced at Idris, who was feeding small pieces of driftwood into an opening at the front of the stove and revolving a number of pans around the heated plate on top. He whisked and stirred and mopped his forehead with increasing urgency.

  ‘And you’re sure that the professor’s phone isn’t tapped?’

  ‘I can’t be sure. But they ask me who he calls, so maybe not.’

  ‘Or maybe they’re testing you. Look, it’s very important that you don’t tell them about that call, Sonja. My freedom depends on it.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re in worse trouble than Sebastian.’

  ‘If they find out about that call, I will be. I’m relying on you.’

  She put up her hand as though taking an oath. ‘I won’t tell them.’ And then she produced that broad, shy smile he had always loved. It was quite distinct from the mischief that played on her face most of the time and was reserved for moments of intimacy or when she found something really funny.

  ‘Thank you. I won’t tell them anything.’

  Idris emerged from the shed and hung four small brass lanterns on the trees around them. ‘Now we have a feast,’ he said. ‘And this lady must reconsider her decision not to become Frau Rosenharte.’

  ‘Why are you persisting with this?’ asked Rosenharte, laughing.

  ‘Because you need wife. Your life means little without the children.’

  ‘I’ve been married!’

  ‘But no children,’ said Idris.

  He started ferrying small dishes of food from the shed, giving their Arabic names and describing their ingredients: adas, a lentil stew with garlic which he had reheated; fule, dried broad beans, cooked and served cold; tamia, deep-fried chick peas; and tabika alyoum, a mutton dish. There were salads of mint and lettuce and hot breads baked on top of the oven. After the meal, Sonja moved, without saying anything, to a dilapidated chair in the shed and curled up. Idris threw a large piece of white cloth over her like a fisherman casting a net, and returned to finish the beer with Rosenharte.

  ‘Where do you get all this food from?’ asked Rosenharte idly. ‘I’ve never seen any of these things on sale in Konsum. How do you do it, Idris?’

  ‘People brings it for me. Anyone who goes to Middle Eastern countries knows to bring back Idris foods.’

  ‘But this is all so fresh.’

  ‘Yes, a friend of mine he return from Yemen a few days ago. He bring me the meats. I am happy to share it with you, Rudi.’

  ‘Do you hope to go back to Sudan sometime soon?’

  ‘Even now I can go in my homeland, I am not paying for the airplane ticket. Ticket very, very expensive.’

  ‘That’s a shame. If I had the money I’d give it to you.’

  Idris smiled enigmatically - gratitude for the unhoped-for kindness, mixed with regret. Not for the first time, Rosenharte wondered what went on behind his obliging eyes. Then something occurred to him. ‘This man who went to Yemen and brought you the food, is he the man at the university? Michael Lomieko? His friends call him Misha.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ answered Idris, as though it was the only answer that Rosenharte could have expected. ‘He has many, many Arab friends also and he goes to many, many Arab countries. He visit Sudan and he come back and tell me in July that I can go in Sudan. It is safe for me there now.’

  ‘I’ve travelled on the train to Leipzig with Misha. He seems a good man.’

  ‘Yes, he is a good man,’ said Idris. He was plainly thinking about something else.

  Rosenharte decided to take a risk. ‘He knows an Arab gentleman called Abu Jamal. Have you heard of him? I think he stays in Leipzig sometimes.’

  This gained all Idris’s attention. He turned to Rosenharte so that his face was lit by the lantern. ‘Why do you ask these questions? You do not want to know this man. He is very, very dangerous, this man.’

  ‘In what way is he dangerous?’

  ‘You could die even for knowing his name in this country.’

  ‘But how do you know him, Idris? You’re a lecturer in irrigation. Why would you know these things? Has Misha asked for your help?’

  ‘I can ask the same question to you, Rudi. How do you know this man? All day you look at pictures in your gallery. This is not your business.’ He lowered his voice. ‘This is business of terrorist and killers. Do not say his name again.’

  Rosenharte poured the last of the beer into the glasses. ‘I need to find out where he is.’

  ‘That is why you come here?’

  Rosenharte shook his head. ‘I didn’t come seeking your help. It was only when you mentioned Yemen that I thought of asking your advice. It was a shot in the dark.’

  There was a long silence while Idris turned from him and cupped one hand over the other to pick his teeth. A few minutes later he said to the night, ‘The woman - Sonja - is she part of this inquiry that you make?’

  ‘No, she just let me use a phone the other day.’

  ‘I am no donkey. Flies do not sit on me.’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Rosenharte smiling.

  ‘She will tell them.’

  ‘Did you overhear what she was saying?’

  Idris gave him a furtive look.

  ‘Then you will understand that she was put in an impossible position. She had to do what they asked.’

  Idris shook his head as though hearing of a great disaster. ‘But you must not tell her anything more. This woman loves another man and she will do anything to save him. Beware of this woman, Rudi.’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ He wished that the light allowed him to see Idris’s face properly. He was now aware that something had
altered in Idris’s manner: his tone was more deliberate, and the subtlety, which Rosenharte always knew was there, began to display itself. ‘You seem preoccupied, Idris. Have I offended you?’

  ‘Everything is very, very good. Do not worry, dear Rudi.’ His attention had moved to some moths that were batting into one of the lanterns.

  ‘Can you help me on this man Abu Jamal?’

  Instead of replying, Idris got up and crept to the shed to look at Sonja. Satisfied that she was genuinely asleep, he came back and pulled his stool towards Rosenharte, so that his face was just a few inches away. ‘When you help me, Rudi, you expect nothing in return. So now I will help you. But first you must tell me why you need to find this man.’

  Rosenharte explained about his brother and his family and said he had a chance of freeing them if he acquired some information about Abu Jamal, who was suspected of terrorist acts in the West. He left out all mention of the trip to Trieste and the Stasi ‘debriefing’ and did not specify the interest of the British and American intelligence services, although he assumed that Idris would suspect their involvement. When he finished, Idris stroked his chin and asked, ‘Are you a Marxist, Rudi?’

  ‘I am a socialist, yes, but not like Lenin or Stalin or Honecker.’

  ‘Herr Gorbachev - you think he is a good man?’

  ‘He seems a decent man, yes. I think he is doing the right sort of things in the Soviet Union. Reform is needed everywhere in the East, not least in the GDR.’

  ‘I am a Marxist and a Muslim,’ said Idris. ‘Does a man do the will of God or of the state? This is very, very difficult question.’

  ‘It is,’ said Rosenharte, feeling chilled through and stiff after sitting for so long in the same position. ‘Tell me, Idris, why are we having this conversation?’

  ‘Because there are other people like you and me who want reform in communist countries, but remain socialist. They do not believe in terrorism either. It hurts us in the East and it hurts Arab countries.’

  ‘Can you help me with hard information?’

  ‘I will send someone, a younger man. His name is Vladimir. He will help you.’

  ‘A Russian?’

  ‘He’s a good man and very, very clever man,’ said Idris, tapping his forehead.

  ‘Is he a Russian?’ Rosenharte repeated.

  Idris conceded a nod.

  ‘Has this Vladimir been trying to find me before?’

  ‘How is that possible?’ asked Idris, as though Rosenharte was being incredibly stupid. ‘I have not told him about you, so how can he look for you?’

  Rosenharte got up and thanked him. Idris snatched at the air and found Rosenharte’s hand, held it loosely for several seconds and looked up at him. Rosenharte thought how much he liked the man - a true affection that bridged every possible cultural and ethnic difference. He grinned.

  Idris acknowledged the sentiment with a wink. ‘The Russian will find you and he will help you soon, Rudi. Soon.’

  9

  An Axe to the Frozen Sea

  He drifted back to the city with Sonja clinging on to him, drowsily insisting that he should kiss her, which he eventually did, experiencing the familiar pleasure. Then she wanted to make love and pulled him behind some bushes, feeling him and squirming in his arms. He reminded her of Sebastian, she said.

  ‘It’s you I want now,’ she said, folding her arms around his neck and looking up at him with petulant need. ‘And I will make you do it.’

  ‘No,’ he said, pulling away. ‘I can’t. I’d love to but I just can’t.’ He wanted her and it would be so easy but something was holding him back: the sense that he had to stay focused.

  ‘Come on. I need you.’

  ‘You don’t,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Please understand this would be wrong for both of us.’ He was surprised at himself.

  She scowled at him but seemed to accept that it wasn’t going to happen.

  They walked to a large, desolate apartment block on the south side of town, where he left with a murmured apology and kiss of genuine tenderness. She shook her head and without a word slipped through a door that banged behind her. Feeling lousy he hurried off to a dive he knew in the crypt of a bombed-out church and sat alone at a table, methodically draining one beer after another among half a dozen Dresdener nighthawks. His mind moved through his predicament more frantically than he liked.

  By one o’clock he reckoned that he looked drunk enough to persuade his Stasi surveillance that he had been on a bender all day. He downed the last of his beer and prepared to leave. As he made his way to the door of Die Krypta, two men slipped from a table in the shadows, took hold of his arms and moved him expertly through the narrow entrance and up the flight of steps. Rosenharte allowed himself to be borne along and only when they emerged into the dimly lit street did he protest. Neither of the men spoke until they reached a car, where there was a third man waiting at the wheel. ‘Good evening, comrade. My name is Vladimir. We want to talk to you. Can you come with us to a safe place?’

  ‘You’re the man my friend spoke of?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Vladimir. ‘We found you soon after you left your girl at her apartment. We had to make sure you weren’t being followed.’ His German was good but his accent heavy. The car moved without haste, as if making for the Stasi headquarters in Bautznerstrasse, but then veered off to a building in Angelikastrasse, the KGB residence in Dresden, which stood just a hundred metres away from the Stasi. The three men took him to a basement where Vladimir offered him a drink. Rosenharte asked for coffee.

  ‘You were quick to find me,’ said Rosenharte, thinking that Idris must have sped to a phone on his bicycle soon after he’d left.

  The Russian smiled. ‘It was a coincidence: we already knew about you. When the Stasi mounts this kind of operation we take an interest. But there’s something we don’t understand: why are you so important to them?’

  ‘It’s a long story.’ He paused to examine him. ‘Idris said you could help me. Is that true?’

  ‘It depends how,’ said Vladimir. He had an interesting face, pale and unmistakably Slav, with a good deal of authority in his expression. He took his time to respond and had a rather expressionless young voice. The other two men plainly deferred to him.

  ‘I want news of my brother. He and his family have been arrested.’

  ‘And your brother is?’

  ‘A man who makes films - a broken man who was once a dissident. His name is Konrad Rosenharte. My twin.’

  ‘And they took his family as well. That’s unusual.’

  ‘His wife Else is under investigation for violations of emigration laws.’

  ‘And yet the whole of East Germany seems to be travelling to Czechoslovakia to apply for visas at the West German Embassy in Prague. It’s not difficult to leave. You can even go via Poland if you wish. The GDR is like a sieve at the moment.’

  ‘She wasn’t even trying to leave the GDR. They’re using her detention to gain a hold over me.’

  ‘Why would they do that? Your brother is the troublemaker, not you.’

  ‘I cannot say. But I’ll tell you everything I know if you help me.’

  ‘Do you have a lot to tell us, Doktor?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Vladimir circled him, with his hands thrust forward in the pockets of his leather bomber jacket. Rosenharte took him to be completely ruthless yet also someone whom he might be able to deal with. The KGB could be very useful to him. It was the second intelligence power in the land with a vast station in Berlin and satellites in every major city. Theoretically there to watch over the Soviet Union’s interests, particularly the 400,000 military personnel stationed in the GDR, the KGB also still had something of a supervisory role which had been established after the war when Stalin’s men constructed the East German state. During Rosenharte’s time in the Stasi, Normannenstrasse deferred to the KGB in everything from training to the broad strategy of intelligence gathering in the West. To some extent the Stasi still looked for insp
iration from one of the KGB’s earliest antecedents, the Cheka. But while the Chekist spirit was still very much alive in the Stasi, the KGB had moved on from its obsessions with fascists, class enemies and imperialist agents to make a reluctant accommodation with the new Russia of glasnost and perestroika.

  At length Vladimir spoke. ‘Idris is a friend of ours and I trust his judgement, but it’s difficult to see how I can help you. We have no access to people in Stasi jails and they don’t share information with us like they used to before Herr Gorbachev came to the Kremlin. But maybe we can open up some avenues. We’ll see what we can do for you.’ He looked at Rosenharte thoughtfully. ‘Idris said you were interested in a man named Abu Jamal. Now why would you ask him about that?’

  ‘I wanted to know his relationship with Michael Lomieko - Misha.’

  ‘Ah, Misha!’ said Vladimir. ‘Everything always comes back to Misha. I repeat the question: why do you want to know about him?’

  ‘I travel on the train with him to Leipzig, that’s all.’

  Vladimir gave him a broad grin and shook his head. ‘Don’t take me for a fool, Rosenharte. I know that you went to Italy a week or two ago because we have done our research on you. I cannot guess at the relationship you have with the Western intelligence services, or whether the Main Directorate for Foreign Intelligence knows what you are up to, but that is why you want to know about Abu Jamal and Misha, is it not? Come on, let’s be straight with one another.’

  Rosenharte felt out of his depth, but he did have a glimmer of an insight. Idris must be watching Misha for the KGB. That meant the KGB were interested in Misha’s relationship with Abu Jamal and the Stasi for exactly the same reasons as the British. That could mean the KGB disapproved of East Germany’s support for terrorism.

  Vladimir stood with a look of deep contemplation. Then he nodded encouragingly. ‘Tell me your problem, Rosenharte.’

  ‘This is difficult,’ he started. ‘I have been given hope that if I gain information about Abu Jamal I may be able to get my brother released. The slightest information could help.’