The Lieutenant's Lover

by Harry Bingham

  Hollinger went silent. But Misha knew he hadn’t finished. He sighed before continuing.

  ‘But when did that ever stop them? We’ve lost contact with her. We have had people watching her place of work and her barracks, and found nothing. She has had instructions, naturally, on fall-back meeting places, emergency drops, all that sort of thing. We’ve had no indication from her at all. That’s all we know. The only bright spot is that the Soviets haven’t announced anything. You know the sort of thing. Comrade Whatnotovich found guilty of trading on the black market. Sentenced to three years’ hard labour in Novaya Zemlya. There’s been nothing like that. Nothing that we’ve heard anyway, and our ears for that sort of thing are normally quite good.

  ‘And that’s it. That’s all I know. I don’t want to assume the worst, but it’s clear that there is a problem. If I had to guess, I’d say she was still in Germany somewhere. Her German was first-class. As good as yours. Better than mine. That’s the sort of skill that Brother Ivan doesn’t give up so easily. In the absence of any real evidence against her, I’d say they’d be likely to keep her here, maybe shift her somewhere less sensitive. I don’t know, but it’s a fair guess. I came here because I wanted you to know everything.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The Englishman wasn’t done. He pushed a hand through his thick blond hair, turning it from one shape of mess to another. He still hesitated. He reached for a slice of ham, then remembered that the ham would be very precious to any ordinary German and pulled his hand back again – then thought better of his own politeness reached for it again, took it, and ate it.

  Speaking as he munched, he added, ‘I feel responsible in two ways. One, I recruited Antonina and promised to look after her. Two, I made an error in procedure, a small one, but maybe significant. Our German liaison agent certainly thinks so. In any case, I also want you to know that we will do anything we can to help her. Our first difficulty will be finding her. Our second problem will be getting her out.’

  Misha didn’t know what to think or feel. On the one hand, he had just heard what was possibly the worst news he could possibly have imagined. On the other hand, there was a man, an Englishman, here in the room, who had seen Tonya, spoken to her, known her, perhaps even cared about her a little.

  ‘How did you know to come here?’ he asked.

  ‘Ha!’ The Englishman grimaced for a half-second, before looking serious again. ‘That’s easy. I asked Antonina what she wanted in exchange for her services. The question surprised her. She wasn’t used to being given things. I offered her a British passport, naturally, and she was thrilled at the idea. She hadn’t thought to ask for anything at all. Then, that evening, just as I was leaving, she stopped me to ask for one further thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘For you. She asked for you.’

  Misha opened his mouth, but couldn’t find words to fill it. So Tonya too had been looking for him. It felt like news of the most wonderful sort. He felt an uprush of love, so strong it caught him by surprise.

  Hollinger paused, then continued. ‘I did what I could to find you, or thought I did anyway. We tracked Malevich here, but only found a Müller. I blame myself. I sent someone when I should have come in person. Then after we lost touch with her, I went back to thinking about the mysterious Herr Müller and I thought it worth a second try. I see from your posters that you’ve been trying to find her.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A clever idea. I expect it would have worked.’ Hollinger shifted in his chair. He was the same height as Misha, but much squarer across the shoulders. He looked like the very prototype of the unsophisticated rural Englishman, but Misha wasn’t fooled. Then Hollinger added, ‘I know almost nothing about you. All I know is that Antonina wanted to find you more than anything else.’

  Misha nodded. ‘We were lovers. I was a bourgeois, a class enemy of the revolution. There was not much future for me in the country. We spent about a year together. That was all. I last saw her in 1919. I escaped Russia in 1921. I hoped she’d find a way to join me, but…’

  Hollinger looked shocked. ‘Good God. It’s been twenty-five years, then. More’

  ‘Twenty-seven years. Almost.’

  Hollinger nodded, then bent forward. The lamplight caught the shape of his head and projected it onto the wall alongside the comical little cartoons.

  ‘I am very sorry, Herr Malevich. I had wanted to bring the two of you together. I am afraid that, unwittingly, I’ve pulled the two of you apart.’

  Misha nodded and at the same time released a long, juddering sigh. He realised that he had been waiting for an apology. The apology enabled Misha both to acknowledge his feelings and to accept Hollinger’s offer of help. Something perceptibly relaxed in the room. The door from the bedroom swung open and Rosa stood there in her night-things, with Willi looming behind her. Misha invited them in with a wave. He poured a glass of schnapps for Willi and let Rosa climb onto his lap and snuggle in.

  He told them a potted version of what had happened. Something had happened to Tonya. No one was quite sure what, but this English captain was going to help them look. Rosa was upset, and cried a little. Once Misha would have been worried for her and would have tried to pet her out of her tears, but he knew her better than that now. He knew that, with Rosa, grief and other emotions came and went as easily and naturally as changes in the weather. The grief was essential, but it would pass. Not for the first time, Misha found himself learning something from his little Knospe.

  Once the two children were settled, Misha said, ‘You said you would help look for her. I don’t know what that means. As for me, I don’t even like to cross into the Russian zone if I can help it. My papers aren’t bad, but they’re still fakes.’

  Misha’s papers lay on a low cupboard within reach of Hollinger’s long arms. He took them and examined them under the light.

  ‘They’re good actually. You used that chap up by the Schlasisches Tor, did you? He’s the best.’

  Misha was astonished. ‘You know him? You don’t mind?’

  ‘Ah, well, it helps us really. All these lesser Nazis running for South America. Why not? It cleans this country up on the cheap. And every now and then, when some more important villains come his way, he lets us know and we pick them up, very discreetly of course. The arrangement works well for us both.’ Hollinger tossed the packet of identity documents up in the air, then tossed it back towards the cupboard. He didn’t bother to look where he was throwing, but his aim was perfectly accurate all the same. ‘We can get you proper documents though, of course. Official ones. Any name you like. Stick with Müller, if you’re happy with that.’

  ‘Müller’s good enough for me. While you’re at it, you could do me a favour.’

  ‘Yes?’

  Misha indicated Rosa, by now fast asleep against his chest. ‘I’ve sort of adopted Rosa – or to be quite honest, she adopted me. But I don’t have any papers for her. I just took her from her orphanage. I expect UNRRA are still trying to work out if she’s missing or if they’ve just miscounted.’

  ‘Rosa Müller. Very good. Why not?’

  ‘And that’s not all. I don’t have a reason for entering the Soviet zone. It’s all very well having the papers, but—’

  ‘But, poppycock! You’re an engineer, aren’t you? A businessman?’

  ‘Yes. A businessman who owns three hand-made looms, no savings and all in a country with no money.’

  ‘Brother Ivan is short of everything,’ said Hollinger. ‘He’s stripped Germany of its industrial assets, but hasn’t the faintest idea of what to do with them. They need people like you.’

  Misha nodded. ‘Of course they do, but…’

  ‘Forget the buts,’ Hollinger interrupted. ‘If you had the capital to set up in business – a business which would give you the freedom of the east zone – what business would you choose?’

  ‘That’s easy. Castings. Every manufacturer in the world needs castings. It’s a business I know well enough from
before.’

  ‘Castings?’

  ‘Yes, industrial castings. We make a mould, pour in molten metal, and take a cast of anything at all. We can make spare parts, industrial prototypes, components for larger assemblies. As I say, there won’t be a factory in Germany, east zone or west, that doesn’t need them.’

  Hollinger smiled, sudden, brilliant, transformative. ‘Good. Castings it is. And to get started with castings, you’d need…?’

  ‘A blast furnace, of course, and then metal handling equipment…’ Misha began to list the things he’d need, excited at the idea of restarting in industry. Then he checked himself. ‘It’s not cheap. What are you asking in exchange?’

  Hollinger pinched another slice of ham. ‘Mostly, to get Antonina back. She was our best agent. We owe her.’

  ‘And?’ Misha prompted.

  ‘And if you travel the east zone with your eyes and ears open, you will learn things. Economic. Military. Political. Social. Anything. If you choose to tell us, we will always listen with gratitude.’

  ‘That’s all?’

  ‘It’s plenty. As I say, we owe Antonina.’

  And that was that for the evening, or almost.

  As Hollinger left, Misha stood up with him gently setting down the sleeping Rosa without waking her. Outside the front door, the air was still below freezing, but there was a weather front rolling in from the west, a wad of thick cloud that obscured the stars and was lit from beneath by the faint glow of the city. Misha noticed the cloud and his Russian bones felt the coming thaw, the irrepressible upthrust of spring. The two men shook hands, but Hollinger didn’t leave. He looked uneasy.

  ‘Listen, I haven’t quite been open with you. There’s one other thing, perhaps two. The first is this. Just before we lost contact with Antonina, we received a packet from her. Some documents. Carbon papers actually. She didn’t know who to send them to, I suppose, but she happened to pick a major-general who happened to possess more than the ordinary military ration of grey matter. He understood that the carbons might be of interest and passed them to us. The documents are – they are simply of the highest possible value – I can’t tell you more – but suffice to say that if Antonina wanted to save Germany from her countrymen, then she couldn’t possibly have given us more help than she did.

  ‘That’s the first thing. The second is this. I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe nothing. Maybe it’s not connected. But I happened to hear of an incident that took place on the same day that the major-general received that envelope. A Red Army sergeant, a woman, was walking past the Brandenburg Gate, when she was stopped and picked up by an NKVD jeep. When she saw it coming, she tried to run. All this was reported by some of our men, who happened to be on the spot.’

  Misha heard his words against a background of sudden buzzing in his head. He jutted his head forwards, as though trying to poke through the noise. ‘You say she was walking past the gate…?’

  ‘Yes. From the Soviet sector into ours. If it was Antonina – which we don’t know – then she was heading in this direction. It may be that she was trying to come to you.’

  2

  Snatched in the shadow of the Brandenburg Gate, Tonya was shoved and frogmarched to the waiting jeep. She saw some British Tommies nearby. One of the men had come running over, shouting angrily. He was armed, of course, but so were her captors. And in any case, what was the man to do? Start shooting? Tonya was thrown into the jeep. Konstantinov drove. In the back, Tonya was obliged to sit in between two NKVD men she didn’t recognise. Nobody spoke.

  She wanted to cry. Freedom had drifted so close, she’d been able to smell it. Another half-hour and she could have been in Charlottenberg, perhaps even in Misha’s arms. Even if she’d just been a few hundred yards deeper into the British sector, perhaps Konstantinov would have thought twice about abducting her. At the same time, she knew tears would be taken as a sign of guilt. She remembered Hollinger’s instructions. Never assume they know what you fear they know. Admit nothing. Talk only about the violin lessons. She sat tight-faced and rigid as the jeep tore through the streets, never stopping and hardly even slowing except for corners. The cold wind whipped at her eyes. They stung and watered, but didn’t cry.

  The jeep headed for Karlshorst. Tonya felt the chilling certainty that her last act of treachery had been uncovered. What a fool she’d been! She could see herself being presented with the evidence of her deeds. She could see the envelope, those lethally incriminating carbons being unfolded in front of her. No crime could be greater than the one she had just committed. Would they kill her instantly? Tonya could bear death, she thought, but never torture, and not the Gulag again. The car whirled on towards Karlshorst and Tonya’s worst nightmares.

  But the car didn’t stop there. It carried on to an NKVD barracks and regimental headquarters a short distance beyond. Konstantinov killed the ignition and the noise of the engine died. With the car motionless at last, the rush of wind had died to nothing. The sun was still shining, but without warmth, an empty promise, a Stalinist smile.

  Konstantinov flung open the rear door. The guard on Tonya’s right got out. Aside from the three men who’d been in the car, nobody gave her more than a passing glance. Konstantinov indicated an ordinary side door part-way down a brick passage way. This wasn’t Karlshorst. It wasn’t the NKVD’s central headquarters. As Tonya followed her captors, she could hear the clack of typewriters and the sound of crockery being stacked. Whatever her supposed offence, Tonya realised that she was being treated in a very routine, a very ordinary way.

  Then why arrest her at all? Why snatch her so abruptly?

  Hope and tension flickered and fought. She held tight to Hollinger’s advice. Don’t assume they know what you fear they know. Admit nothing. Say little.

  White-faced and tense, Tonya allowed herself to be led to an interrogation room. Konstantinov and one of the men followed her in. She was given a chair and allowed to sit.

  The interrogation began.

  3

  What did Misha feel?

  There was so much to take in, he hardly knew. He was angry with Hollinger, of course. It seemed certain that it had been Tonya’s covert activities which had caused the problem. If her last, most daring act of espionage had been uncovered, then Hollinger had been suggesting that Tonya’s punishment would have been of the severest sort: Siberia or death. On the other hand, there was something in Misha’s anger which was ultimately unconvincing, even to him. Misha knew that Hollinger owed him nothing. On the contrary, he knew that Hollinger was a good man, doing a necessary job. He had been candid about things he hadn’t needed to be candid about. And man to man, Misha had liked the Englishman. His anger flared in short and savage fits, but never for long. It was already fading.

  Another emotion was admiration. Admiration and love. Tonya had been to the Gulag. She’d been released, most likely into a shtraf battalion. Then, all alone in Berlin, a strange Englishman had asked her to run a risk of the very highest kind, and all for an objective – a free Germany – in whose freedom she would never share. She had accepted the risk and excelled at her task. Misha could think of nothing more important, nothing braver.

  And the third dominant emotion of the many which surfaced was an odd one; one that he would never have predicted. And the feeling was this: he felt clarified, resolute, certain. He felt an old optimism, amounting almost to certainty, that things would turn out all right. The feeling made no sense. Hollinger had gone as far as to mention the arrest, in front of witnesses, of a Russian Red Army woman of the right age, by a jeep full of NKVD men. How much worse could it be?

  Yet Misha wasn’t in a mood for logic. Up till now, he hadn’t quite believed in Tonya’s real existence. It was as though that face he’d half-glimpsed through the window of a speeding car had existed only in some parallel universe, not quite connecting with this one. Now that had changed. Harry Hollinger had seen her, spoken with her, worked with her, become a friend to her. Tonya now felt like a real part of h
is world – and if that was the case, then he would find her. His belief was as simple and implacable as that. He didn’t yet know how he would do it, or where he would find her, but his mood was one of resolution and hope, even expectation.

  And thus far, at least, he was right to keep faith.

  Just four days after Hollinger’s visit, Misha received a letter addressed to ‘Herr Müller’. The letter was from the Displaced Persons Identity Confirmation Office (MilGov, British Sector), asking him to present himself and his ‘adopted daughter, Fräulein Rosa Müller’ at the earliest convenient opportunity so that ‘replacement papers’ could be issued for himself and his family.

  And the same day, towards evening, a motorbike pulled up. The driver dismounted and knocked at the factory door, holding two large cardboard boxes. Misha signed a chit acknowledging receipt and tore open the envelope that was taped to the lid of the first box. Inside was a short handwritten note which read, ‘Unfortunately, my nearest friendly quartermaster didn’t happen to have any blast furnaces in stock. He did have these, though. I hope you know what to do next. I wouldn’t have a clue. Good luck, old man,’ – this last bit in English – ‘Hollinger.’

  Misha opened the boxes. They each contained ten thousand cigarettes in sealed cartons. It wasn’t a blast furnace, but it was a start.

  4

  ‘You ran.’

  Konstantinov spoke the words with a light smile, as though he were mentioning the weather or indicating a scenic view. The captain had set his cigarettes and matches on the table. He fiddled with the matchbox, opening and closing it, getting pleasure from the neat movement of the tiny drawer.

  Tonya shrugged. ‘Some fools came chasing after me. I didn’t know who. You were driving like a madman.’

  Somehow the relationship of interrogator and prisoner had supplanted the pre-existing military one. Tonya dropped the ‘sir’ and Konstantinov didn’t notice or didn’t care.