A Single Spy

by William Christie

  Sergei was getting ready to launch himself out of his seat, preparing to run. Alexsi reached behind the bench so his arm couldn’t be seen and grabbed him by the belt, so he bounced up and came back down on the bench.

  A burly German, squeezed into his blue uniform like one of the sausages, hat held down securely with the strap under his chin digging into the flesh. Pointing a huge finger that actually seemed larger than one of the sausages. “Trying to get away from me, eh?”

  Alexsi could feel Sergei stiffen up next to him. “What do you mean, Comrade?”

  “What do you think you’re doing there?” the German demanded.

  “Having a snack,” Alexsi replied calmly. “Want some?”

  “You promised to have a beer with me,” the German said.

  “You were playing,” said Alexsi. “And I was hungry. You didn’t tell me you’d have another break so soon.”

  “Another twenty minutes,” said the German.

  “No problem,” said Alexsi. “Let me finish these and I’ll meet you over there. You can tell me more about Munich.”

  “Don’t forget,” the German said, pointing that huge finger again.

  “I won’t,” said Alexsi.

  When he left, Sergei was practically shaking. “Mother of God,” he breathed, in the heat of the moment forgetting Communism entirely and lapsing back to the church. “What was that, for fuck’s sake?”

  “He was playing in the band in the beer garden over there,” Alexsi said. “Where I bought these sausages.”

  “That was a bandsman?” Sergei said incredulously.

  “Of course,” said Alexsi.

  “What a fucking country,” said Sergei, his voice deflated. “Even the musicians wear uniforms like police, and look like they can’t wait to arrest you.”

  “The Germans do love their uniforms,” Alexsi said. When he began doing his countersurveillance drills he’d been continually startled. If it wasn’t Stormtroopers with faces like losing boxers strutting along like Olympians, it was boys in the Hitler Youth uniform of brown shirt, black shorts, and that same swastika armband practicing ordering each other about on the way to school. There were so many uniforms it was actually hard to pick out the Order Police in their eagle shako hats, green greatcoats, and pistol belts. “I know what you’re thinking. But wherever I’m at I ask the Germans questions about Munich. Since I’m obviously a stranger, they all want to know where I come from, and I put the question back to them to see what my accent sounds like. They say everything from East Prussia to the Bavarian Alps to Sudeten German from Czechoslovakia. So at least I sound like a German to the Germans.”

  “They’re drinking beer and it isn’t even noon?” Sergei said.

  “The Germans even drink it for breakfast sometimes,” Alexsi replied. “They like beer almost as much as uniforms.” And you thought the Russians were bad with vodka, he almost said. Almost.

  “And what was that ‘comrade’ about?” Sergei was almost whispering now.

  “Oh, the Germans use it all the time, like we do,” said Alexsi. “But not the same way. It’s like fellowship, not ideological. Are you feeling better now?” It pleased him that Sergei had been a lot more confident and arrogant in Moscow than he was here in the lair of the fascist beast.

  “Not really,” said Sergei. He took a deep breath, and got back to business as if everything he was supposed to say was also part of a drill. Which it probably was. “Comrade Yakushev salutes you.”

  “I return his salute,” Alexsi said.

  “Good. There is money in the bag.” Sergei was referring to the paper sack between them. “For everything you might need.” He checked his watch. “I must go. Unless you have an emergency, this will be both the first and the last face-to-face meeting.”

  “Tell everyone not to worry,” said Alexsi. “I’m fine.”

  “I will. Good luck, Comrade.”

  He said that unconsciously, which made Alexsi smile.

  Sergei left, taking Alexsi’s newspaper with him.

  Alexsi didn’t linger so that no one the Gestapo questioned later would associate him with that bench. He ate the last sausage and threw the plate away. And in the public toilet transferred the neat bundles of German Reichsmarks to his underwear and threw away the sack in case anyone remembered seeing Sergei carrying it. As he emerged from the toilet, he noticed two pairs of what had to be Gestapo men sweeping through the area, trying to pick up Sergei’s trail. This was why Yakushev hated face-to-face meetings.

  28

  1937 Munich

  “How are you getting along?” Hans Shultz inquired.

  “Very well, Uncle,” Alexsi replied. “I am learning my way around the city. But with your permission, I would like to find a job. I should not be idle.”

  Though neither was smoking, the study smelled as if a century’s worth of cigars had been absorbed into the woodwork. Whereas the sitting room was dominated by the portraits of the Shultz family ancestors, the study displayed the heads and pelts of various animals Hans Shultz had dispatched during his various diplomatic assignments. Alexsi couldn’t imagine getting any work done with the glass eyes of the lion rug staring accusingly up at you from the floor in front of the fireplace. And the huge wild boar in the corner looked simply furious at being stuffed. An elephant’s foot was the ashtray, which always struck Alexsi as a sadly undignified end.

  Hans Shultz said, “When almost the first thing you did after you arrived was try to return the money left over from your travel, I said to myself, Here is a boy who is more German than Russian. Here is a boy who has been raised properly. And now you insist on working. My own son would have lain about this house until he was gray. I am proud of you.”

  “There is nothing to be proud of, Uncle. A man must earn his way.” Actually, Alexsi had always enjoyed stealing and smuggling better, but no matter.

  “You say that because you have had to work for everything. Still.” Hans Schulz paused. “Now we must speak of serious matters.”

  “Yes, Uncle?”

  “I hope you did not mind being examined by Monsignor George. I needed to determine your level of schooling.”

  “Not at all, Uncle.”

  “I confide in you that I had a priest do this because I needed someone who could keep his mouth shut.”

  “I understand, Uncle.”

  “No doubt he could not resist trying to force some religion into you. You were not offended?”

  “Not at all, Uncle. I have read of Roman Catholicism.”

  “You don’t say. From what I understand Stalin insists on being treated as a god.”

  “Yes, Uncle. I am ignorant of God, but I do know that if you offend Stalin, he will most definitely reach out his hand and destroy you.”

  At that Hans Shultz laughed so hard he had a coughing fit. Alexsi got up and poured him a glass of water from the carafe on the side table, next to the brandy. He handed over the glass and Hans drank deeply and sat back weakly. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes.

  Alexsi had been completely serious. But then you never knew what people were going to find funny, especially Germans. “I hope I didn’t give offense.”

  “No, nephew. Actually, that was the first I have laughed in quite some time.” He set the glass back down. “I lost my faith in the trenches at Verdun, but we are an old Catholic family and I still observe the forms for the sake of tradition. Make up your own mind. Just never tell a priest your private business, you understand. They are still men.”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “Tell them about your sex. They always like that. Your penance for that can cover everything else.”

  “I understand.”

  “Returning to the matter at hand. Monsignor George judges your mind to be first class. At university level. Certain gaps in higher mathematics and the sciences such as chemistry are understandable since you did not receive a German education. But he was quite impressed. And it is hard to impress a Jesuit. Clearly you would be wasted as a
laborer.”

  “But that is all I have done, Uncle. It does not bother me.”

  “And that is to your credit. Allow me to be frank. Your Russian school certificates are the next thing to worthless here in Germany. Along with that, despite your heritage and your excellent German, the authorities will regard you as first a Russian, then a Communist, and therefore always worthy of suspicion. And ordinarily this would doom you to a less than bright future.”

  “I understand, Uncle. The Russians regarded me as a German.”

  “Hear me out. I am your uncle, and I am responsible to your parents for your future. There is a way around this. You have … or should I say had, a cousin, Walter. The son of my sister Lily in Hamburg. A … peculiar boy. There was some business with … well, let us just say how it ended. A suicide.”

  If Alexsi had learned anything, it was to be still.

  “You say you have read of the Catholic Church. Well, in addition to being the act of a coward, suicide is a mortal sin. A suicide cannot receive the last rites of the Church, or be buried in consecrated ground. When Walter took his own life the family was shamed. Because of this the facts of his death were not handled in the usual open manner.”

  There was not a sound in the house except the footsteps of the maid dusting upstairs.

  Hans Schultz continued. “I propose that we make a simple change. Friedrich Shultz of Azerbaijan becomes Walter Shultz of Hamburg. With Walter’s name you can have the proper papers, and with them you can make your own way in German society without any difficulties from the authorities. And your natural talents can be put to good use.”

  Ironically enough, it was at that moment Alexsi recognized his Russian soul. Born of suspicious people, suckled on suspicious milk, raised on suspicion and intrigue and betrayal. He saw that Hans Shultz could not carry a Russian nephew along in his world, and, after all his pains, if there was war be forced to say, Here, take my nephew to a concentration camp. Alexsi saw all this, but still wondered if there was something more that he could not see. Because here was the key to his legend as a penetration agent creating another, even more perfect legend for him. “I trust you to do whatever is best for me, Uncle.”

  Hans Shultz rose up from his chair, leaned over, and slapped Alexsi on the knee. “Good. Good. This will make things much easier.” He took his water glass over to the side table and exchanged it for a snifter of brandy.

  Alexsi thought there was such finality to the way a German said “good.”

  Hans Shultz savored his brandy and his nephew’s agreement for a moment, then went on. “In combination with this, I have made a transfer to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin. Which will require a move. You are in accord?”

  “Of course, Uncle.” A change of city along with a change in identity. Hans Schultz was thorough. He couldn’t have people in Munich who knew him saying, What about that nephew of yours? Especially since he was the Foreign Ministry representative to Brown House, the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich. He would certainly have the connections to arrange a new assignment in Berlin. And, obviously, a change in official documents. Or perhaps a disappearance of certain documents. Knowing a little something about that particular subject, Alexsi was sure someone would have to be bribed.

  “I have been looking over the curriculum at the University of Berlin. Something that would be appropriate to both your interests and future prospects. There is always literature, of course, as preparation for a career in law. But Monsignor George felt that your language skills might be more extensive than you admitted.”

  “It seemed something I should not reveal without consulting you first, Uncle.”

  “And that shows good judgment. Have you other languages besides German and Russian, nephew?”

  “I can read English, Uncle, and write it somewhat less well. I barely speak it, though, and my ear is not nearly quick enough to converse. But I grew up with Azeri, which is almost identical to Turkish. And I speak Persian fluently.”

  “Most impressive. Such would be the envy of any diplomat. What would you say to a course in Oriental Studies at the University of Berlin?”

  “Whatever you think best, Uncle. Would admission be difficult?”

  Hans Shultz waved that obstacle away. “I have some influence. Let that be my problem. And despite his other difficulties with a normal life, Walter’s grades in school were actually quite good.”

  29

  1938 Berlin

  Alexsi knew it was past midnight, but he didn’t want to look at his watch until he finished the assignment. The other students at the University of Berlin moaned about the work, but it was a holiday compared to Yakushev’s spy school. He barely knew what to do with all the free time. He’d built himself a radio but the NKVD ordered it cached unless war severed his links with the Soviet embassy. As soon as Uncle Hans settled them in Berlin, he’d set up what the Russians called a taynik to pass along his reports. He wrote one a week on what his uncle talked about from the Foreign Ministry, and any interesting documents from his uncle’s briefcase. Those were the only secrets he knew, so the Russians could ask for nothing else. It was a grand, easy life.

  His professor wanted the poems of Hafiz compared to the work they inspired, Goethe’s West-Eastern Divan. Of course they had to bring a German into it. Alexsi didn’t think it would go over well if he actually put down what he thought, that the classical Iranians wrote poetry with a feather while the Germans used a hammer and chisel. Except the West insisted on calling them Persians. Which would be news to everyone who lived there and had called themselves ēran-ians for a millennium. Not that it would matter in the least to a European.

  He finished the last paragraph and made sure he had all his footnotes written down correctly. He’d type it up in the morning at home. The library typewriter room was crowded at all hours, and the racket was enough to drive you mad.

  Otherwise the Berlin University library was wonderful. The Nazis only banned a fraction of the books the Soviets did, and as always they were mostly concerned with Jewish and anti-Nazi writers. Alexsi always had to fight off the urge to wander the stacks and pluck out interesting-looking titles instead of sitting down to his coursework. And when he needed some air, he could step outside, walk down the Unter den Linden, through the Brandenburg Gate, and be right in the urban forest of the Tiergarten, where the Electors of Brandenburg had hunted animals right in the city. It was a wonderful place to take lunch by yourself. It was also the location of his taynik. The Germans, he had been told, called it a dead letter box. A hiding place where you could pass documents back and forth without personal contact. His was a waterproof piece of pipe with a screw-on top, driven into the ground next to a prominent tree beside one of the little ponds. He placed his reports in the drop and another NKVD agent, who had no idea who he was, acted as postman and sent it along to Moscow.

  Alexsi was gathering up his homework when someone began shouting at the other end of the floor, near the stairs. People were hissing, “Silence!” but the shouting kept on. Alexsi stood up so he could look over the top of his carrel and see what the disturbance was about.

  Elizabeth, who had the next carrel, said, “What do you think is happening, Walter?”

  Alexsi shrugged.

  The person who was yelling was running down the length of the floor, but Alexsi couldn’t make out what he was saying. An overtired and fed up scholar finally shouted back, “Why don’t you shut up?”

  Then finally it was close enough to hear. “They’re rioting against the Jews!”

  People were coming out of the stacks into the central aisle. “Who’s rioting?” someone demanded.

  “Everyone” came the reply. “The SA. The SS.”

  “Then it’s official?” someone else asked.

  Alexsi hid his smile away. Only a German would ask if a riot was officially authorized.

  “I knew this would happen,” someone said.

  “I heard on the radio,” said another voice. “Vom Rath died tonight.”

&n
bsp; Two days before a Jew in Paris had shot a German diplomat. Yesterday the German government had stripped the Jews of their rights as citizens.

  “Let’s go see,” a student said. And at that everyone began moving toward the stairs.

  “Do you want to go, Walter?” said Ernst, who along with Elizabeth was also in the Oriental Studies program.

  “I want to go see,” Elizabeth chimed in. She made no secret about the fact that she was at university to find a university husband. All of which made Alexsi careful to keep her at arm’s length. Though he would have advised her, as a hausfrau to be, that she ought to go easy on the potatoes until after the wedding. “You know there’s no stadium seating for a riot,” he said. “You’re right on the field.”

  “I’m not afraid,” Ernst declared.

  That’s just because you’re too stupid to realize you ought to be, Alexsi thought. Ernst was the classic blond-haired, blue-eyed German boy. A good little Hitler Youth, except he was constantly torn, to Alexsi’s constant amusement, between his love of American big bands and obedience to the Nazi line that considered it degenerate Jewish and Negro music. “Let’s go up to the roof and see what we’re getting into first.”

  “Yes, that’s a good idea,” said Ernst.

  Alexsi stacked his books and notebooks up in the corner of the carrel.

  “You’re not taking your books?” Elizabeth said.

  “No, I’m not walking into the middle of a riot with my hands full of books,” Alexsi replied.

  “Another good idea,” Ernst decided.

  Alexsi just rolled his eyes.

  They went up the stairs, and the door to the roof had a prominent sign mounted on it: ACCESS FORBIDDEN. But it wasn’t locked. Alexsi pushed it open.

  “But it’s forbidden,” Ernst said.

  “I can read,” Alexsi replied. “If you like, you can imagine what’s going on outside while you wait here for someone to give you permission.”

  Elizabeth followed him through the door. Then Ernst.

  The air smelled of fire. There were scattered pillars of smoke and flame throughout the city, but nothing like wholesale devastation. The streets seemed full of people, especially for after midnight on a Thursday. But no one was running about. It didn’t seem like any riot Alexsi had ever heard of. Not that he had any experience with riots. The Soviets had learned from the mistakes of the Tsarists, and everyone knew they would instantly machine-gun anyone who even looked like the thought of rioting had crossed their minds.