Brandenburg

by Henry Porter

  The Beatitudes had not run their course before Rosenharte’s eyes came to rest on a familiar profile on the other side of the aisle from him. Biermeier was there. Three rows behind him was a man he had seen on the plane from Ljubljana. Rosenharte sank low and watched them both from beneath his brow. Biermeier had made concessions to the event and was wearing a light blouson jacket and an open-necked shirt; moreover he seemed to know when to make the proper responses. The second man was less familiar with it all, but was not acting in the way of some of his colleagues and the cadre of Party members.

  What the hell was Biermeier doing there?

  He had hardly had time to speculate when he realized that tucked in behind a column on his side of the church, sitting as still and impassive as a piece of alabaster, was Colonel Zank. This really shook him. He listened to the remaining prayers and the beginning of the discussion. Only when he followed Zank’s gaze did he see that Ulrike had risen to her feet and was in the process of upbraiding a man who wished to leave the GDR. ‘This is not simply about your freedom,’ she said, swivelling round to appeal to the whole congregation. ‘We’re fighting for a new relationship between the state and the people which guarantees everyone’s basic civil liberties. The people who are running away now undermine our case. No matter how you look at it, their actions are selfish.’

  A man stood up and respectfully waited for her to repeat the point in several different ways. Then he spoke haltingly. It was, he confessed, the first time he had ever addressed a public meeting. ‘No man searching for the personal fulfilment that has been denied him all his life and will be denied to his children, can be accused of being selfish. It’s part of the Lord’s message that an individual should seek to make the most of all his talents, as well as to perform His work and take part in the ministry. How can a man like me - a person with no influence or contacts; with nothing to show for his life except a loving family - hope to have any effect on the Party?’

  Ulrike shot to her feet again. ‘By staying here and adding to the numbers that greet us outside this church every week; by calling on his friends and family to come to the Nikolaikirche and to stand in peaceful defiance of the state. We’re not asking you to break the law, sir, merely to assert your right to demand change here in the GDR. Stay with us. Stay here.’

  The discussion came to an end, and after the pastor had made an appeal for peaceful behaviour and said a final prayer, the congregation began to make a move towards the main doors. Rosenharte jumped up from his seat, but by the time he reached the stairway leading down from the gallery, it was packed with people who were clearly in no hurry to leave the sanctuary of the church. He pushed his way through them, mumbling apologies, but when he got to the bottom of the stairway he found that most of the congregation had left the main space. He cast around for Ulrike among the few stragglers, then squeezed through the doors to catch a glimpse of her black hat disappearing into a wheeling mass of people on the Nikolaikirchhof, the square beside the church.

  Over the next few minutes he saw her several times, before losing her completely and becoming stalled in a group trying to light candles. He worked his way round to the outer limit of the square, where the Vopos stood two or three deep to prevent the demonstration from sprawling into the city. People were keeping their distance from the area immediately in front of their lines, because the police were making random snatches from the throng.

  At the centre of the square, the crowd was in a state of heady disbelief, and it was clear in the expressions around him that each person had involuntarily given over some part of himself to the crowd. They couldn’t stop grinning at the novelty of the experience. Chants of ‘We’re staying here!’ and ‘We are the people!’ rippled through the mass; and when the light from a single camera came on, cheers, catcalls and applause filled the air.

  Rosenharte glanced up at the windows around the square and saw astonished faces looking down.

  He struggled to the eastern end of the church and decided that the only way to spot Ulrike was to raise himself above the sea of heads. He placed a foot on the moulding of the church’s apse and, clasping a bough of the tree, managed to raise himself up to scan the crowd. He reckoned Ulrike must have moved to the flow on Ritterstrasse, which was acting as a safety valve for the Nikolaikirchhof, feeding people towards the open plain of Karl-Marx-Platz. He dropped down and made for the part of the street where the current seemed to be moving quickest.

  It was then that he saw Biermeier and his sidekick moving with a steady purpose up Ritterstrasse. He crouched down, waited for them to pass ahead, and slipped in behind them. They had to be following Ulrike too. There was no other explanation.

  He lost them almost immediately they reached Karl-Marx-Platz, where a vast number of people were milling about, filling the pedestrian areas and spilling into the roads. A tram bound for Klemmstrasse had been stopped in its tracks. Someone took a photograph of the driver, who was glumly leaning on his controls, while his passengers were cheered and bidden to join in. Way off in the distance, police cars and trucks were parked at random with their lights still on. Night was falling and some kind of operation to muster the forces of the state was underway. Yet everyone seemed oblivious. A loosely defined free territory had been established in the heart of the crowd where it was possible to make an impromptu speech, brandish a slogan that would have been unthinkable a few weeks before. No doubt the undercover Stasi officers were there also, but they were powerless to do anything because of the number of people, and there was nothing in the behaviour of the demonstrators that they could possibly term rowdyism. It was clear that the crowd was trying to get the measure of its own power, probing the defences of the police even if that meant sacrificing people on the fringes.

  The light had suddenly faded and as the crowd swelled beneath the tall street lights of the square, Rosenharte reflected that it would be here that the final struggle between the people and Mielke’s forces would take place.

  A few minutes later he saw the first spout from a water cannon arc chaotically through the air and then train on the people about seventy yards from where he stood. He went forward and saw about half a dozen dog handlers and a line of police with batons and shields. They moved in a pre-planned manoeuvre: each time one end lagged, the other end waited for it to catch up. In front of them people were being skittled over by the jets from three water cannon. The ones that didn’t get up fast enough were dragged away behind the explosions of spray and beaten and kicked for good measure.

  A roar of indignation arose from the crowd, followed by the chant of ‘We’re staying here!’ They surged forward as if bent on battle, but then a second chant arose: ‘No Violence! No Violence.’

  Rosenharte swept the scene with his brother’s cinematic vision, panning through the spray of the water cannon to the people clustering under the lights and lingering over frames of individual joy and staunchness. At any other time he’d have been content to stand and watch but he had to find Ulrike.

  He jogged over to a row of benches just in front of the university building and mounted one. He watched the police line steadily approach the crowd, then stop. His eye was drawn to two men moving from beneath one of the huge streetlights towards a group of women. In the middle was Ulrike, who was gesticulating enthusiastically. Right up until the moment when one of them snatched a sheaf of leaflets from her hand, and the other took her by the arm, she seemed unaware of their presence. The other women protested and one clung to her for a few seconds, but within a very short time they had dragged her from the group and were hurrying her towards a truck parked in the shadows beside the Opera House. Rosenharte jumped from the bench and walked smartly towards them, not knowing what he intended to do, but taking some heart that neither Biermeier nor Zank was anywhere to be seen. He shouted after them with a booming military command which made them stop and look round.

  ‘Leave that woman,’ he shouted. ‘Let her go immediately!’

  ‘Who says so?’ shouted one with lank,
black hair.

  ‘I do!’ Rosenharte was within a few yards of them now. Ulrike showed no sign of recognition.

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Colonel Zank, Main Department Three. You are aware of my presence in the city?’

  Both nodded. They were young toughs who thought they knew it all, but Rosenharte could see that at this moment they were not at all sure of themselves.

  ‘And have you any idea what I’m doing here?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘I am acting on the personal orders of the Minister for State Security. So is the major here,’ he said, gesturing to Ulrike.

  Ulrike shook herself from their grip. ‘Colonel, I was told that everyone had been briefed. Weren’t the orders passed on?’

  ‘They were, Major, but evidently not to these louts.’ He looked at them. ‘Your names?’

  Neither one said anything.

  ‘Show me your MfS IDs,’ he bellowed. ‘Now!’

  One reached into his back pocket and gave it to him. His name was Pechmann, and he had been in the Stasi for three years. The man with the black hair said his was back at the regional headquarters in another jacket. He smiled sheepishly.

  ‘What is the first rule you’re taught during training?’ Rosenharte asked. ‘Never be without some means of identifying yourself to a fellow officer. The Main Department of Cadres and Training will need to hear of this lapse.’ He glanced at Ulrike. ‘Major, get back to your work immediately. I will deal with this pair.’ Ulrike moved away, but then returned to snatch the leaflets from the man’s hand, which Rosenharte thought was pressing her luck.

  ‘Why didn’t the major say who she was?’ asked one plaintively.

  ‘Operational security,’ said Rosenharte. ‘Look, there’s a lot going on tonight and I’m prepared to accept that the orders and photographs of my officers were not passed on to you. I’m willing to overlook this matter if you don’t screw up again. You saw the women she was with?’

  Both nodded.

  ‘They’re all ours - brought in from Berlin for tonight’s operation.’

  They nodded again and shuffled. Rosenharte turned and moved with a deliberate walk back to the edge of the crowd. Just as he reached it he heard one of the Stasi shout after him: the penny had evidently dropped, but it was too late. Ulrike and he melted from sight and made their way back to the dense crowds around the Nikolaikirche.

  Three hours later they reached Ulrike’s home with some people she’d met at the demonstration. They were in a triumphant mood and Ulrike - flushed, with eyes burning - insisted on telling the story of her rescue several times. When another man arrived with news of arrests and hospitals overflowing with people who had been beaten by the police, the mood became subdued.

  Rosenharte spoke little until the men drifted off in the early hours, leaving him facing Ulrike over some empty beer bottles and a couple of glasses of vermouth.

  ‘I don’t understand you,’ he said quietly.

  She gave him an odd, startled look.

  ‘After all the warnings you gave me about security,’ he continued, ‘after all the trouble you’ve taken to move yourself into a position where you can safely pass information to the West, you mark yourself out at the church and get yourself arrested. If you’re going to behave like this, what the hell is the problem with me giving your name to the British?’

  ‘I would have been all right. They let people go after a bit.’

  ‘But Ulrike! You have a responsibility to keep out of their way. All the risks that you and I have taken over the last few weeks will mean nothing if you end up in Hohenschönhausen. I need you to keep a very low profile until I get Konrad out. That’s the priority. Okay?’

  ‘You’re cross!’

  He shook his head. ‘Look, I understand how important this is to you, but let’s admit that the revolution didn’t come this evening. Nothing happened. Your cause was not advanced in the slightest way. Do you remember the talk you gave me in the park, the one about security? Everything you said then was right. We’re dependent on each other, and for the next few weeks I want you to remember that.’

  She got up and paced around the sitting room, lit up with passion. She spun round and placed both hands on the table. He noticed the veins stand out on the back of her hands and the curious consumptive beauty of her face. ‘You saw how many people were out on the streets tonight: twenty or thirty thousand. That’s incredible. Nothing like it has been seen for years in the GDR. You can’t ask me to leave Leipzig now. We won tonight and next week . . .’

  ‘Next week they will crush you,’ he said, turning from her. ‘They won’t let that happen again, because there is no element of surprise. They know what time your service ends, where people assemble and who the main agitators are. The GDR’s anniversary celebrations are over next week. After that the world’s back will be turned. The only reason you weren’t clubbed down tonight is because Gorbachev is arriving at the end of the week. Next week they won’t be so restrained.’

  She smiled at him and tilted her head to one side. ‘You’re really angry, aren’t you?’

  ‘No, just very disappointed. I can’t believe that you behaved so stupidly. Our lives, my brother’s and his family’s, depend on us keeping our heads over the next few weeks. If it had been Biermeier or Zank, you would be under interrogation by now.’

  ‘You mentioned them before. Zank is . . .’

  ‘Counter-intelligence. If Zank and Biermeier are here, we can guarantee they haven’t come just to watch you people say your damned prayers. They’re here for a reason and I think they’re on to us.’

  She shook her head. ‘If they had had the slightest suspicion about me I’d have been arrested by now.’

  Rosenharte looked at her and opened his hands in a gesture of frustration. ‘I’ll leave early in the morning. I will return once more to Leipzig when I’ll hand over my role to professional agents. Is that clear?’

  ‘That means you will give my name to them?’

  ‘Not necessarily. You can meet them without telling them your name.’ He got up. ‘I need some sleep if I’m to catch the early train.’

  ‘Why take the train when you can use my car?’

  ‘I may be away for several days.’

  ‘I don’t use it much. It’s an old Wartburg that belonged to my father. He gave it to me some time before he died. It’s running okay.’

  This was a peace offering of sorts and he accepted it gracefully. He would have to be careful not to break any traffic laws and to avoid the routine checks by the police. That was a risk but a car would make life a lot easier over the next few days.

  They went to bed after that, bidding each other good night with abrupt formality. He lay awake thinking about Biermeier and Zank, although it was the former’s presence in Leipzig that disturbed him most. Zank might be there on a reasonable pretext - perhaps on a special assignment that followed the meeting in Mielke’s office a week ago - but Biermeier and HVA had no business in the city unless it was directly related to him.

  He was still awake when she came to his bed and stood looking down at him in the dark.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to talk.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘You have to have faith in me. It will work.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s that I don’t understand you. Every time I see you, you seem to be a different person. I find you hard to assess.’

  ‘Is that what you do with your women - assess them?’

  ‘You’re not one of my women, you’re a source. I’m trying to assess you as that.’

  ‘You don’t find me attractive?’

  ‘Of course I do, but in the park it was you who said I was only interested in going to bed with you and making you fall in love with me. As it happens, neither statement was right.’ At that moment this was true. Over the evening he had consciously tried to extinguish his attraction to her.

  She mumbled someth
ing he didn’t hear. ‘You have to speak up,’ he said.

  ‘I have more information for you. I forgot to tell you. The Arab will be here for two to three weeks from next Monday. He will stay at the villa and I will see him there. It’s all settled. I heard late this afternoon.’

  ‘The information came from your collaborator?’

  ‘From a coded telex to Professor Lomieko.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ She knelt down and cupped his head in her hands. ‘Trust me and this will work out.’ She kissed his eyes and his lips then felt his face with her fingertips. ‘It’s going to be all right. Believe me.’ Then she jumped up and slipped away.

  Rosenharte shrugged and shook his head in the dark.

  21

  Sublime No. 2

  A dark Skoda saloon kept pace with him as he flogged the Wartburg southwards to Karl-Marx-Stadt. After a while he responded by abruptly accelerating to 100 km per hour and then slowing right down, just as he’d been taught in the MfS training school. The car read his movements well, keeping in touch with him but never getting close enough for Rosenharte to make out the number plate or see the driver’s face. At length, without warning, he veered off at the turning to Karl-Marx-Stadt and drove into the city, where he went through an elaborate counter-surveillance measure, doubling back on himself, slipping into parking spaces without using his indicator and slamming on the brakes at the last moment. He wished his car were fitted with a device used by the Stasi in West Berlin, which allowed the brake lights to be switched on manually. It was particularly effective at night, and could throw a surveillance vehicle very easily when the target car appeared to slow down at traffic lights, only to speed away.

  He toured through the sad, filthy city for about an hour, stopped and scanned the traffic as he ate lunch, drove a short distance, then bought a cup of coffee and filled the petrol tank on the western outskirts before heading out. He wondered if he had been worrying unnecessarily about the Skoda, but nevertheless going along the small country road towards a town called Zschopau, he repeatedly dived into concealed tracks to see whether anyone was making efforts to keep up with him. Twice he took diversions into villages on the way.