The Berlin Assignment

by Adrian de Hoog

  The office of Berlin’s long-serving Chief of Protocol was on the building’s south side. Tall window doors accessed a narrow balcony. They would eventually become, in Hanbury’s mind, a portal to odd twists of fortune. Who would have predicted during his first visit that a day would come when von Helmholtz would usher him onto the balcony a second time, for a conversation in the rain, claiming that speaking in his office ran a risk of being listened to? Listened to! How? By whom? A sinister notion. And ridiculous too, because already this first time Hanbury noticed that sound dissolved there. The office had infinite room for it to disappear. Upwards, sideways, in all directions. Its sheer size made you feel confidentially alone.

  Hanbury’s first view of von Helmholtz was of him rising from his desk, removing reading glasses and inquisitively coming forward. Silver hair combed back sharply, a strong nose with a slight beak, and an aristocrat’s erectness. “Konsul Hanbury,” he said in a voice accustomed to command. “I’m pleased to meet you.” The consul expressed gratitude that time had been found for him in a most demanding schedule. “I wanted to see you earlier,” the Chief of Protocol replied. A slight shake of his head spoke of the inevitability of many things. “Innumerable visitors. Every one wants to see Berlin. They come and go, but our good fortune is that you will stay.”

  The phrases born of good breeding stuck in Hanbury’s mind. He remembered being flattered. He also remembered making a fatuous reply. He commented on the impressiveness of the building and so much going on outside. “Dust storms in the middle of a city!” he exclaimed. Von Helmholtz nodded politely. “The task of rebuilding the city is enormous.” The consul described his own observations and ones he borrowed from Sturm: the stitching together of two public transport systems, bridges being reconstructed, two electricity supply systems being meshed. He made it sound as if technical details fascinated him. This interest delighted von Helmholtz. “For decades Berlin was the centre of German Communism,” he said, “but also the focus for the fight against it. Such dichotomy isn’t bridged in a few months. It almost seems now that we are back together we have a sense of loss. Berlin as ideological battleground no longer exists. Instead, we are the laboratory for German reunification. Less exciting and more painful.” On an impulse, he took Hanbury by the elbow and led him to the balcony doors which stood slightly open. The muffled rattle of traffic drifted up from below. “Let’s step out.”

  Opposite the balcony in the distance were sad grey buildings without architectural coherence. Helmholtz identified each one. Some had dishevelled Roman columns of pompous proportions. Others were in the socialist style of pre-fab concrete cells stacked up. Interspersed were a few ruins dating back to the days of carpet bombing by the Allies. “This was once a fine view,” the Chief of Protocol said of the diseased cityscape. “Twelve years of Fascism, a war, forty-five years of Communism. See what it does to physical heritage. East Berlin received a terrible dressing-down. We are determined to make it great again.”

  Holding the balcony railing, they surveyed the scene. Nearby jackhammers sounded like flat, toneless instruments of percussion. The Rathaus trembled. A dust cloud welled up and obscured the view before a gust of air carried it off in the direction of Karl Marx Allee.

  “Is the city hall being torn down?” the consul asked with alarm.

  “New foundations only. The war weakened them. When the Rathaus was rebuilt, like so much else in East Berlin, the footings were left porous. Now we have to retrofit.” He nudged Hanbury back inside, closed the doors and led him to two sofas at right angles around a glass-top table. Two cups of coffee had been poured.

  Hanbury began the formal part of the call. “You’re a Berliner,” he said. “I’m interested in your view of what lies in store.” A deep and complex question was made to sound as if there was a simple answer.

  Von Helmholtz smiled knowingly and ephemerally. He answered slowly to provide context. He started with the Berlin of the twenties, touched on the thirties, forties and fifties, went deeper into the pump-primed West Berlin of the sixties and seventies and the plateau of the eighties. He admitted the gloss was off now. “We hope to regain a spark, a vibrancy,” he said, “as in the twenties. We’re not planning to be mediocre. But the truth is we don’t know what Berlin will be. We need a pioneering outlook, I suppose.”

  Hanbury nodded. He knew about pioneers. Their will to triumph on the prairies had been special. They wouldn’t have survived without it. Dust storms, blizzards, grass fires, cloudbursts, spring floods, locust clouds, mosquitoes in pestilential numbers and the brutal reality of distance. “People usually rise to the challenges they face,” he said with optimism. “Our pioneers made it. Why won’t you?”

  It came out sounding a little absurd, but that’s not how the Chief of Protocol took it. He asked some serious questions about the prairie spirit. He wanted to know what so much space does to people; do they feel at nature’s mercy, do they sense humility? He became reflective. He explained that when he was young he longed to break away, to be a geographer and cross continents. But the war came along. Afterwards he entered public life. Since then he had managed only pin-point visits to other countries. He had not seen the Prairies, nor for that matter the Steppes, or the Pampas. One day, an optimistic von Helmholtz claimed, he would.

  The consul’s courtesy call was taking on an unusual tone. A series of signals jumped between the two men and rapport intensified. They told each other more about their pasts. Hanbury described how he had grown up in the vise-grip of his mother’s ambition; four hours a day at the piano, at least. The Chief of Protocol said that when he became a teenager he became a soldier.

  The story von Helmholtz told was difficult to forget. When the bombing of Berlin began in earnest von Helmholtz was thirteen, old enough for anti-aircraft work, so he was soon manning a searchlight on one of Berlin’s flak towers. Thick posses of bombers droned in; the beams on the flak towers searched out and held the intruders. The guns went after them. The sky filled with the spectacle of tracer bullets as bombs rained down. All around, night after night, the city was in flames. For a thirteen year old, not fully understanding, the pyrotechnics were engrossing. The next step was to operate the guns. Leaning back, swivelling, the helmet a little big, Gerhard concentrated on the beams now operated by boys younger than himself. He was good at keeping the sights steady on a bomber and got a few hits. When the bombing stopped, the Red Army was closing in. The boys were next organized into anti-tank commandos. With their grenade launchers – Panzerfausts – they were sent into positions on the eastern outskirts of the city. As soviet tanks rumbled in the agile boys sneaked into perfect positions. They couldn’t miss. Gerhard knocked out four. It would have been more, but ammunition ran out.

  The Soviets were taking Berlin house by house, slowed down by a lonely Panzerfaust operator here, some snipers there. In the last days, when German resistance was crumbling, deserters, whether fourteen or sixty, were hanged on the spot. In one of the last nights of the war von Helmholtz also vanished from the scene of battle. The game then was to get from one end of town to the other without getting caught by the SS. Dashing, hiding, zig-zagging, he made his way to Charlottenburg. The family apartment was bombed out, von Helmholtz recalled. His mother, an aunt and two cousins were in the cellar. They quickly burned his uniform. Short pants turned him back into a boy. The family packed some things and left, walking west, picking their way through the lines, arriving three days later at family friends in the country. A Soviet victory orgy was beginning in Berlin; mass rape went on for days, thousands of women being repeatedly violated. Once the Americans had taken control of their sector in the south-west, the family walked back and joined in clearing the rubble. Four years later von Helmholtz became logistics coordinator for the Berlin airlift, which was how his public career began.

  Hanbury was slowly digesting all this when a secretary interrupted, saying the French ambassador was waiting. The consul stood up to leave, but the Chief of Protocol gestured that he stay.
The French ambassador, his expression said, could wait. Hanbury sat down again. Von Helmholtz didn’t dwell long on the ’49 airlift, or even the building of the Wall. That was interim history now. It was the current plans for grafting a new city onto the old which excited him. Would the immensity of the destruction be matched by the rebuilding? Friedrichstrasse, Potsdamerplatz, the barren stretches around the Reichstag – renewal would have to be massive and historic. “We must find the will. Get out of your office,” he counselled. “Walk around. Feel the moment. It’s unlike anything that’s happened.” He made it sound as if Berlin was defying gravity and taking flight.

  The secretary reappeared. “Sie können den Französischen Botschafter doch nicht so lange warten lassen, Herr von Helmholtz.” No French ambassador has ever lived, she was in effect saying, who could be kept waiting without it turning into an affair of state. The consul checked his watch. “I really ought to go.” “Bring the ambassador in,” von Helmholtz ordered. Getting up, he said, “The man’s mildly pretentious. A little wait will do him good. I enjoyed our chat, Herr Konsul. We must continue it. I talked too much and learned too little.” He escorted Hanbury to the door where a glowering ambassador stood waiting.

  “Monsieur l’Ambassadeur,” Hanbury said gracefully.

  “Vous avez parlé beaucoup,” the ambassador said, his voice cutting like a knife. “Grandes affaires d’état, sans doute.”

  “Oui, oui. Bien sûr,” the consul confirmed agreeably.

  The ambassador cocked a disbelieving eyebrow.

  “Think about it,” von Helmholtz reminded the consul. “Buy yourself some walking shoes.”

  The ambassador snorted.

  “Au revoir,” a polite consul said.

  The Chief of Protocol turned to the ambassador and, silky smooth, said, “Excellency, I kept you waiting. My apologies.” Then the padded door clicked shut.

  Outside, because of the long wait, Sturm had lost his concentration. He observed, however, that when the consul finally emerged he was excessively cheerful. Sturm thought he acted like a lottery winner. He shook the hand of the pretty escort and plopped into the back seat with a satisfied bounce. Out of character entirely, as far as Sturm could judge. Still, a relaxed and happy human cargo relaxed him too. “Went well?” he inquired, driving off. In the rearview mirror he saw that the consul was waving like a lunatic at the girl in the silly uniform.

  “Very well,” replied the back seat smugly. “That man is perfect for that job.”

  “Von Helmholtz? He should be. He’s been at it for a century.”

  “Sturm, do me a favour. Stop at a shoe store.”

  “A what?”

  “I need a pair of walking shoes.”

  The chauffeur pondered this. “No you don’t, Herr Konsul. Forgive me, but getting you around is my job. Leave your feet out of it.”

  “I’ll be doing more walking from now on. Reconnoitering. I think it’s time.”

  Sturm shook his head. A consul in hiking boots? Preposterous. Still, with the back seat seemingly at ease and sounding human, he was inclined to overlook the implications. Slowly he dawdled back to West Berlin. On Unter den Linden a woman in a Porsche flitted by, but he didn’t let it bother him. From shoe stores, Sturm’s thoughts moved on. He mentioned he’d seen the Chief of Protocol on TV. “Next to foreign visitors he looks good, very good,” Sturm observed. “Some of those visiting heads of state look like circus clowns.”

  “Now, now,” the consul tut-tutted.

  But Sturm was warming up. “Some have jaws so wide you’d think they were trained to eat spaghetti sideways. One African President we had was so cross-eyed that on Wednesdays he probably saw both Sundays. Then there was an Asian who had a pimple on his neck, except when the camera zoomed in, it turned out to be his head. Beside that crowd, Herr Konsul, our Chief of Protocol is a standout.”

  “The very word, Randy. Reconnoitering. I asked Sturm to repeat it. He also said,I think it’s time. Something’s happening. He’s been activated.”

  Randolph McEwen nodded darkly. He was in a foul mood. The club had been invaded by a horde of Huns – an official dinner hosted by the Brigadier General – and his table had been requisitioned. He and Earl were crammed into a tight corner upstairs with not much of a view. All they had before them was a line of backsides squirming at the bar like horses in a stable. A meta-diplomatic crankiness was taking hold. McEwen snorted at the news that the consul was planning to engage in undisclosed reconnaissance. “It doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “Not at all. It fits with other things I know.”

  “He hit it off with the Chief of Protocol,” Gifford added brightly. “He came back quite bouncy.”

  “Von Helmholtz? That Wehrmacht type? What did they discuss?”

  “Told each other their life stories. Hanbury talked about prairie horizons. Von Helmholtz described shooting down Allied pilots and sending a Soviet tank corps into oblivion. Remarkable, Randy, how friendship develops, but that’s what happened. But more difficult to grasp is why he’s decided to go walking.”

  “Friend Tony has decided to go walking?” McEwen took a notebook from his jacket, licked a stubby pencil and began taking notes.

  “That’s what he said.”

  “And the reconnoitering part, the I think it’s time statement?”

  “He said that to Sturm.”

  “Friend Tony told Sturm he was going to reconnoiter, but said nothing about it to you?”

  “Perhaps it was an oversight.”

  “Nothing is an oversight, not with Friend Tony.” McEwen’s voice was turning soft and malignant. “Something is up. A clever act so far, Earl. Quite difficult to read.” He put the notebook away and took a key from a small leather pouch, inserted it methodically into each end of a black case and turned the locks with a calm, deliberate precision. A thick folder emerged.

  Earl Gifford sipped his ale. These moments, when all-knowing files emerged from McEwen’s briefcase, enticed him. His palms went sweaty. He had the same contracting sensation in his groin as when Frieda stepped onto a coffee table and, hovering over him, disrobed. Gifford licked his lips. He stared at the folder, but he saw Frieda’s folds of flesh.

  “I’ll start out by saying, Earl, that what we have on Friend Tony so far is cause for worry.” McEwen surveyed his surroundings slowly, severely, like a hawk on a perch. Ascertaining that no German waiter was observing, he flipped casually through the folder, reviewing the contents in his mind, playing the case through once more, giving his argument a final sharpening. McEwen relished knowing; he loved the power it brought. “Superficially,” he said slowly, controlling each syllable, “what is here may seem thin, but my instincts tell me these facts have tentacles. Friend Tony, I suspect, runs silent and he runs deep.” Gifford nodded confirmation. Sturm often complained about the consul’s deep silence.

  “First, the Beavers,” the meta-diplomat announced, as if they were a headline. “We know from elsewhere they are eager, hard working and love cooperation. We happily keep an eye on their people abroad. A duty we have, Earl, towards all countries that love the Crown. Likeable chaps, the Beavers. They did their best with Friend Tony. They admitted to some gaps and said they were embarrassed. I admire that. It’s not something Uncle Sam would ever do. Still, gaps are gaps. Gaps cause regret. Record-keeping on that side of the pond is not yet an art form. I shall share with you what they had.” McEwen flipped to a marker half-way down the folder. “Personal History: Anthony Ernest Hanbury, born 19 March 1943 in Indian Head, Saskatchewan. Father born in Moose Jaw: profession – soil scientist. Mother born in Montreal: née Cadieux, music teacher, housewife. No siblings. The psychological profile concludes his upbringing was sheltered. The father often absent, the mother with the boy full-time. She taught him piano. She believed he would be a world class soloist. Mothers, Earl, love them for being that way, always convinced their children will be the best. Schooling in Indian Head routine. A note from the principal expresses worry the boy sees himself as an ou
tsider. Then off to university in the big city. Saskatoon.”

  Gifford knew McEwen wasn’t solely a schemer. Sometimes, unpredictably, he would relax, which happened now. After pronouncing Saskatoon, a impish smile passed over the meta-diplomat’s face. “What’s the expression used at rodeos, Earl?” he said. “Whoopee! I think.” They both chuckled for a moment. McEwen resumed his sombreness. “Friend Tony reads political science at the university. He is an average student and goes unnoticed. In the final year he writes an essay with a telling title:The Evolution of Marxism and Leninism: The Future of East Europe. The title is extant, but no copy in the archives. The first gap, Earl, a regrettable gap. What would Friend Tony have been prognosticating thirty years ago? Did he have a political ideal? Does he have one now? It would be nice to know.

  “Skip a few years, Earl. Riveting years we’ll come back to. When Friend Tony joins the Canadian Service, he is psychologically screened. Fortunately, the Beavers have it on record. Friend Tony is asked, What caused you most unhappiness when you were young and what is your happiest memory? The answer to the second question…” McEwen flipped through the folder to a page marked with a blue clip. “…I quote, Vacations on my uncle’s ranch. We accept that, Earl. I liked the farm, too, when I was young. I look forward to owning one when I retire. But listen to the answer to the first question. Being passed over for the high school basketball team. How revealing. Why didn’t he make the team? Can we assume he was too short?”

  “He is rather slight, yes, quite slight,” replied Gifford. Fresh pints arrived, but McEwen was busy digging deeper in his folder. “Cheers,” Gifford said.