“I like the room here, Herr Konsul. Four lanes each way. Nothing wrong with that even if it’s on account of Stalin. People treat each other better when there’s room for traffic. Have you noticed? In the West we’re always shouting at each other. A woman in a Ferrari called me a navel-fucker the other day.”
“And you, what did you call her?”
“A blown-up paper bag. What else? Women in cars like that are pumped up with smelly hot air that arrives courtesy of rich old farts.”
“Maybe it isn’t the streets, Sturm. Maybe Ossis learned not to shout. Suppose the Stasi heard you shouting? They would have picked you up, right? And given you a dose of psycho-torture.” This idea forced Sturm to reflect.
The Stasi were preoccupying Hanbury. He was thinking of Günther Rauch. Kurt Stobbe had invited him to the Normannenstrasse, but Günther Rauch was the motivation. Günther Rauch and Gundula. Both of them. He wanted to see the files. He didn’t want to see their files. He just generally wanted to see how lives like theirs were sitting on a shelf. In Friedensdorf, when they shared the dark side of their backgrounds, he had been a bystander. Seeing the files, Hanbury reasoned, might change that. It might allow him to contribute next time to their rapid fire dialogue.
He also believed, having heard Günther Rauch on the subject, that he could now speak with some modest authority on the methods of the East German secret police. His ideas about Stasi psycho-torture, for starters. Now he went further. “To keep you in line,” the consul enlightened Sturm, “the Stasi might have blackmailed you into signing a phony letter, maybe to someone outside the country, in which you would hint you worked for the CIA. Once you’d done that they’d have you by the throat. Forever. They could use it to charge you with treason anytime. Then they’d deepen their relationship with you, force you to inform on your friends, your in-laws, your family. Maybe that’s why people here don’t shout. They learned it was better to get by unnoticed.” To tease his chauffeur further, he added, “Perhaps it got in their genes.”
Sturm thought this over too. The consul was being fairly talkative. Again. A change had come over him in the last weeks. He was often away for mysterious lunches, but came back talkative. He talked to everybody, not just to Herr Gifford. He even made jokes to Frau Carstens. It was inexplicable, but Sturm wasn’t complaining. A talking consul was better than one entombed. But that wasn’t all. When the consul talked, like now, he was also making sense. The conclusion – the existence of an Ossi gene that made them quieter than Wessis – was sound. Sturm wished he’d made that observation. On the other hand, on matters like genetics, or Stasi practices, he couldn’t take a back seat to the consul. Sturm owned this territory. He felt compelled to stake it out. “My brother-in-law knows someone who had that happen,” he said matter-of-factly, “you know, getting framed, accused of links to the CIA. From what he told me – and I know this for a fact – I believe it was worse even than you think.” That silenced the consul. At the Normannenstrasse complex, the gate swung open and the Opel rolled in. Hanbury got out and looked around.
So this was the scene of Günther Rauch’s finest hour? Hanbury wished Gundula were along to share the moment. He hadn’t seen her for weeks. Getting through to her had become impossible, although the reason for it could be seen in each edition of the paper. A breathless rush of columns was appearing. Gundula seemed to be writing as if her time was running out. Hanbury suspected the contents were inspired by their evening in Friedensdorf. Everyone was talking about her. Half the city was in an uproar. If she could get so much inspiration out of a few hours in a smoky pub, Hanbury thought, imagine what she would do if she spent time roaming around the Stasi complex. In the macabre stillness he drew himself up and entered the building with defiance. OK Stasi, his body language seemed to say,he who laughs last laughs best.
A guard, detached from the world with his feet up and a nose stuck in a tabloid, took scant notice. He must have thrown an electric switch, however, maybe with a wriggle of his foot, because a security door opened. A rheumatic woman with a bent back and stiff hips soon shuffled up. “Für Herrn Stobbe, nicht?” Hanbury nodded. They plunged into a dark hallway that smelled of cheap disinfectants. And every four paces, a door. Endless halls and endless doors, all sealed, the remnants of absolute bureaucracy having gone down to absolute defeat. St. Günther drove the vermin out and preserved the catacomb for future generations, the consul proudly thought.
The woman knocked on a door with Stobbe’s title marked on it in black felt pen. Hanbury found himself in a small ante-room with straight-backed chairs and a surplus interrogation table. Another woman, more mobile than the first, came in. Dr. Stobbe would be there shortly, she announced. Did Herr Konsul want coffee? “Please,” he replied pleasantly.
Hanbury could feel Stobbe arriving. A shock wave preceded him which progressively transformed into noise. A determined step, a loud voice issuing orders, a door handle snapping. The consul rose and when they shook hands he thanked the archivist for seeing him. “No problem,” Stobbe said in English. “By the way, it’s Kurt.” He seemed a different man from the Wintergarten, less reserved, a German imitation of an American. “I studied in the States,” he said. “So with you, here, I’m Kurt. And you?” His secretary arrived with a tray. “We can speak free,” he assured Hanbury. “She doesn’t understand. How’re things state-side?”
“Canada,” the consul reminded Stobbe.
“Canada? Right. Canada. We’re honoured by your visit.” When the archivist said Canada, the spheres of his head – the gleaming scalp, bulging cheeks, round nose, large eyes and second chin that dropped down like a halo – connected up in merriment. He waved the secretary out. “Sit. Sit,” he said. “So, you’ve come to see the files. Good, good. Cream in your coffee? We need your interest. I want you to know that. Sugar? No? I knew it. You look it. You know…” He bent forward towards Hanbury over the once-serviceable interrogation table. “…the documentation the Stasi put together has no parallel. Some goes back to the Nazis. Many wrongs need to be put right and the information for it is here.” Stobbe jabbed a finger towards the floor. “Beneath us,” he whispered. He leaned back, plunked multiple sugar cubes into his coffee and grinned. “By the time we finish some wicked folks will have stood up to admit guilt.”
“Sounds like you need a body guard,” the consul said.
“I’ve got two.” Stobbe said with pride.
“No bodyguards before?”
Stobbe chuckled. “Before Berlin I was curator of the Gutenberg Museum. Mainz. Know it? The first printing press in the world. I looked after early printed books, mostly bibles. Not a bad transition, leaving the Bible for the Devil.” Hanbury had not counted on meeting up with a wobbly sense of humour. Getting insight into the Stasi files could be an uphill fight. But Stobbe switched his mood. The spheres on his face stopped playing. He turned grim. “My job is to put the files in order so we can get at what’s in them. What we’ve seen so far isn’t pretty. Ever heard how you make rats paranoid? Give ’em unexpected electric shocks. That was the Stasi approach. Keep everybody off balance. People usually knew they were being listened to, but no one knew who did the listening. That does funny things. Have you been reading that woman, Gundula Jahn, in the paper?”
“I read all her columns,” said the consul.
“She’s an Ossi you know. And she’s got her spot here.” Stobbe’s finger pointed down again. “Not a small one either. Big.” He spread his hands about a metre wide. “The Ossis love her for what she writes. The Wessis hate her. I’m a Wessi. But knowing what I know about the files, I think Jahn is right. I’ve become a fan of hers.”
“So am I,” Hanbury affirmed.
“Extortionists, thieves, blackmailers, informers. They were everywhere. The Stasi probably screwed around in your country too.” Stobbe’s mirth was coming back. Hanbury could tell by the way he puckered his mouth. “Buggering Canuckland!” He laughed. “Spies, Nazi war criminals, folks like that. If you’ve got suspicions, we c
an help you pursue them. I guarantee cooperation.”
“Thank you.”
“OK. A tour.” Stobbe gulped the last of his coffee, spooned out the remains of the sugar cubes and stood up. They proceeded along empty hallways, down some stairs, through thick prison-like doors and down more stairs. Hanbury lost his orientation. How had St. Günther mastered this maze?
“When the Stasi were here, this place hummed like a central railway station,” Stobbe said. “Twenty thousand of ’ e m in this complex alone. Organized like the military. Generals, colonels, captains, that kind of thing. There’s about a hundred of us now. So it seems a little empty. A little haunted.” He punctuated this with a fiendish laugh.
“Is it true the Stasi began to burn the files?” the consul asked.
“Sure,” the archivist said with a dismissive wave, “but they didn’t get far. They tried a little shredding too, but their shredders weren’t too good. So they started tearing the files up by hand. There’s a few thousand bags of torn up papers. We’ll get all that glued back together. But mostly everything is in top shape. We’ve got a hundred and eighty kilometres of material to go through. That’s a hundred and fifteen US miles, Canuck. Not far in your country, but a damn good distance for us.”
In a public area in another wing, Stobbe took Hanbury to an old woman sitting behind a large desk. She was knitting. The weathered granny resembled a maligned little doll. “Frau Rommelsberger,” Stobbe said, “dieser Herr ist Kanadier.” Frau Rommelsberger, hard of hearing, looked up, smiled sweetly, but kept on knitting. She didn’t miss a stitch. The remorseless needles continued clicking. “He is a consul,” Stobbe said more loudly. “He needs a badge.”
“Yellow, green or blue?” Frau Rommelsberger asked with instant accommodation. She turned her perky eyes on Hanbury who asked about the difference. “Yellow for day visitors, restricted to the reading room. Green is general access for one day. Blue means you’re one of us.” She made it sound like a colour code for tickets to a circus.
“Green for now,” said Stobbe. “If the Consul ever comes around and needs a blue, give it to him, Frau Rommelsberger. He’s here to help.”
“There’s a new procedure for blue. Herr Schmidt decided last Friday. There’s a form. Two photos are needed.” She pulled an application from a drawer.
“New head of security,” Stobbe explained. “The staff is growing. Last month ten. Today a hundred. Next year a thousand. Then we won’t know who’s who.”
Frau Rommelsberger heard this. “I was the first one,” she said triumphantly. “When they stormed the complex, my daughter went to see. She took me along. The place was messy. I stayed to clean-up. Then they asked me to sit at the door to check who’s coming. Then they said I was hired. Imagine. Part of the revolution. In charge of passes! Never had better work.” She giggled, still not believing her good luck. “We had a revolution in ’53 too. My brother threw a bottle at a Russian tank. They shot him. In this one no one got shot.”
“If the consul comes in for a blue, don’t bother Herr Schmidt,” Stobbe ordered. He handed Hanbury the application. “Fill it out and bring two pictures.” To the granny he said, “The consul’s good as gold.”
“Well, I know that. Got identification?” Hanbury gave the reliable Frau Rommelsberger a calling card. She used it to write out a green pass, made a note on the back and filed it. She pinned a piece of green cardboard on the consul’s lapel. “Have a nice time,” she said, dotingly brushing some lint off his shoulder.
Stobbe led the way back down into the cellar and explained that the Stasi had a devious way of keeping track of information. It was done by a system of cross-referenced indices. The Stasi trusted nothing, not even themselves. Each index was managed by a different group. Several indices were required to locate a file. Names led to numbers, numbers led to codes, codes led to file slots. Agents and agents’ contacts – the informants,die Spitzel, ordinary people ratting on their neighbours – were registered under cover names: Vulcan, Fox, Racer, Moonlight, Perfume, Rocket. Other cards linked cover names with themes – Olympic doping or terrorist support – and with periods, like the Munich Olympics or the rule of Willy Brandt. The process that yielded information was tangled. “Over a hundred thousand worked in the Stasi organization, all told,” Stobbe claimed, “and the brass didn’t want any one of them to know too much. F16 is a general name index where the process starts. Everyone is in it. Over six million entries. Most of ’em are victims, but a couple of hundred thousand were rats. Ratting was an industry in East Germany, except you couldn’t tell who did it. Even now it’s tough to distinguish them. Well, here’s the starting point. F16. Everybody’s here, the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Stobbe threw open a door. Rows of filing cabinets under banks of weak lights reached towards the far corners of a cavern. A solitary researcher was fingering through a cabinet. After making a notation he left. “This is the heart of a security machine characterized by Prussian thoroughness, Bolshevik zeal and Fascist ruthlessness.”
“Are you in here?” the consul asked.
“No,” Stobbe declared. “I’ve looked. They left me out. I never visited the GDR.”
“I did,” Hanbury said.
“I remember you saying that. Let’s have some fun. Let’s look.”
Stobbe walked down an aisle with half a million H’s. “OK,” he said. “H, A, N.” He flipped through a drawer. “Not here,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we’re finished. Sometimes they ordered phonetically. How would your name sound in the Saxonian dialect? HON? HIN?” “Maybe HUN,” Hanbury joked. “Or Huhn,” said Stobbe, laughing as he used the German word for a chicken. For a while he clucked like one. A few yards along, HIN drew a blank, as did other phonetic variations. Stobbe worked his way back, now checking out possibilities with the umlaut. Hanbury believed they were on a fruitless expedition, but why not see it through, he thought. “Well, well.” Stobbe grinned. “Here you are. Under HAEHNBURY between Haehn and Haehne.” He eased a card out. “Anthony Ernst.”
The consul looked over Stobbe’s shoulder. “A mistake. Not Ernst. Ernest. After my mother’s father. Ernest Cadieux.”
“Too late to fix it. Can you live with Ernst?”
“It’s been that way since ’67. I guess, a few more years won’t matter.”
“You shouldn’t have said that, Canuck,” the archivist said with disappointment, “I hoped to figure out when you visited.” He looked at the back of the card. Something held his attention. “Someone looked for you in F16 not that long ago,” he said. “When there’s a modern search, a notation gets put on the back. Look, last October.”
“October?” Hanbury thought back. “That wasn’t long after I arrived. Something to do with my accreditation?”
“Sure. I guess. That must be it. OK. Well, we know you’re one of the six million. Bet you didn’t expect it. Stage two. See that notation in the corner. That’s the F22 number. We’ll write it down.”
Departing the index room, the consul was intrigued. The bizarre kinship between Gundula and Günther Rauch was no longer beyond his reach. He was part of it too. He could mix in next time. The idea buoyed him, as if he now had membership in an exclusive club. But as they moved deeper into the underground labyrinth along ominous shafts, a disorientation set in. Was it the poor ventilation, or the confusing hallways? Or was he beginning to sense that, like all memberships, there would be a price? As they walked he developed a faint anxiety which did not mix with fascination. A nagging feeling developed that, as happened to Gundula and Günther Rauch, an unseen corruption had been festering for years inside his private life.
Around a corner the passage widened. A light bulb hung from a wire over a wooden partition. A gate stood open. “This was as far as the F16 crowd could go,” the archivist explained. “They brought the F16 numbers here and the F22 battalion took over. F22 wasn’t allowed to know the names in F16, while F16 didn’t know what the F22 numbers implied. Only someone higher up could put the two toget
her.” Beyond the gate, they entered into the F22 hall, which was smaller than F16. Stobbe quickly found the next card. “As I suspected. You were an F17 case,” he said critically.
“And what did F17 do?”
“F17 is the foreign enemies index. There are a couple of dozen subject indexes. F47 is control officers. F77 is cover names for the Stasi collaborators, the spies, the rats, you know, your friends and neighbours. F80 kept track of the places they bugged and the places used to debrief the rats. Others dealt with artists, scientists, athletes, terrorists. Quite a bit is cross-referenced. But F17 is foreign enemies and that’s you. Had enough? Sometimes at this point, people get queasy. They get worried about the truth.”
“I want to see my file.”
“You want to see it through. I understand that. Let’s see where to look. CZ70654, WPG66, GINHD, BSAV. Looks like gobbledygook, but it isn’t. Let’s note that down. We could find you in any one of several spots in F17. Which one makes most sense?” Stobbe pursed his lips and pondered.
Hanbury studied the notations too. “That first number – CZ70654 – could have been my passport. I look at numbers like that everyday. WPG66 is Winnipeg 1966, where that passport was issued. GINHD… I don’t know.”
“G is often Geburtsort, place of birth.”
“Of course. Indian Head. And BSAV…. Maybe Berlin, Savignyplatz. Why…it’s information straight off my visitor’s visa!” exclaimed Hanbury.
“We’re gonna hire you tomorrow to run our foreign inquiries section,” beamed Stobbe. “Off to F17. We’ll look under BSAV. Indian Head would have given the Stasi archivist a cramp of the tongue. Berlin Savignyplatz would have made him salivate. Nice place to live as a student. Non-stop drinking. Easy West Berlin girls. Am I right?”
“I was busy with other things,” said Hanbury. He thought of Sabine – as she was then and how she was now. At their last lunch she was as talkative as in the old days. A museum next week? she had suggested. He immediately agreed, as he had back then. Strange, how some things were forever changed, but old patterns were starting to return.
The Berlin Assignment Page 31