The Pathfinder

by Margaret Mayhew

  He had gone from there to Nico Kocharian’s office, where the door was open and he had walked straight in. He had found the inner room empty. No desk, no chair, no telephone and bare bookshelves. No clue of any kind as to what had happened or where the Armenian had gone. The only evidence of his occupation the lingering smell of Turkish cigarettes, hair oil and exotic cologne. He thought of his father’s comment: I rather gathered they thought pretty highly of him all round. The Intelligence chaps generally knew their stuff. The whole truth about Kocharian, he realized, would probably never be known.

  In early June he learned that he was to be posted back to England. Tubby, occupying his usual chair in the Officers’ Mess bar, sighed when he heard the news. ‘I’ll miss you, dear boy. When are you off?’

  ‘First thing in the morning.’

  ‘Put in a good word for me when you get back, will you? Ask around and see if there’s a place for an ageing pen-pusher. Something nice and cushy, if you can manage it.’

  He smiled. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘I’ve reached the conclusion that there’s no place like home.’

  ‘There’s certainly no place like Berlin.’

  ‘Praise be to God for that mercy. The trouble it’s all been.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘But worth it.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that little fräulein, Michael . . .’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Well, if you want my opinion – and I can see by your face that you don’t – she did you a good turn. Best thing all round. Of course, you don’t look at it that way now, but give it time. Give it time.’

  As the Dakota took off soon after dawn and climbed into the sky, he turned to take one last look in the direction of the ruined city before it vanished.

  In London the trees were in leaf, flowers in bloom, the grass in the parks a fresh new green. It looked better than he had seen it for years. A little less war-worn, a little less weary, a little more prosperous. At the mansion flat he sorted through the accumulated post: a couple of letters, some circulars, two party invitations, another to a wedding. There was a postcard from the watchmakers: at long last his Omega was ready for collection.

  He poured himself a drink and lit a cigarette and stood at the sitting-room window, looking out down onto the Fulham Road. They were still queuing at the greengrocer’s – a patient little line of housewives with their shopping baskets over their arms, waiting for their turn – but the queue was shorter than he remembered.

  He wondered how London would have looked through Lili’s eyes. What would she have thought of it? Would she have liked it? Would she have been happy – as he had so wanted her to be and believed he could make her? He had gone through all the stages of rejection: disbelief, misery, rage, and, finally, resignation – though he would never understand. He would have risked anything and everything for her. Yet, after all, she had not been ready to do the same for him.

  He finished the cigarette and the drink, lifted the telephone receiver and dialled a number. He listened to the ringing tone and to the clear, English voice answering at the other end.

  ‘Celia? It’s Michael. I’m back.’

  Epilogue

  1961

  The newspaper boy was late with the morning paper. He heard it flop onto the mat and went into the hall. As he picked it up, the banner headline caught his eye and the photograph beneath it, splashed across the front page. The children were shouting from the garden but he read on, lost in the past.

  Celia came into the house. ‘Tom’s fallen off his bike and cut his knee. Blood everywhere but it doesn’t look too serious. Apparently he collided with Billy going round a corner – they ran slap bang into each other, silly idiots. I’m just going for the first-aid kit.’

  She came down a moment later, carrying the tin, and stopped at the foot of the stairs. ‘Is anything the matter, Michael? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’

  He dragged himself back to the present. ‘They’re building a wall.’

  ‘A wall? Who? Where?’

  ‘The Russians,’ he held up the newspaper. ‘Right across Berlin. A huge concrete wall along their sector border. No-one can get in or out.’

  ‘It sounds perfectly dreadful. Poor Berlin.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘Poor Berlin.’

  There was another yell from the garden and sounds of a furious argument. Celia sighed. ‘I’d better go and see what on earth’s happened now.’

  He smiled at her. ‘Let me know if they need their heads knocking together.’

  She smiled back. ‘Don’t worry, I will.’

  He watched her hurry off. He had always liked her and the liking had steadily deepened into love. She was a marvellous wife and mother and he was grateful to her for so many things, not the least for being such a good friend and companion.

  He looked down at the newspaper again, at the photograph of the huge wall with its guard towers and fencing and barbed wire and floodlights.

  He thought of Lili and he wondered, as he had wondered constantly over the years and would always wonder, what had become of her.

  Lili could see the wall from the window of the apartment on the fifth floor. She had watched it being built almost overnight. Troops of the National People’s Army had sealed the sector borders with barbed wire and workers had begun tearing up roads and constructing a great barricade of concrete blocks, topped by a high metal fence. The wall was cutting the city into two halves, making two separate cities – East and West Berlin. They were bricking up the doors and windows of houses along its perimeter, digging vehicle traps and putting up floodlights and sensor fences and chain-link fences. And they were building guard towers and bunkers and runs for guard dogs. She had seen it all happening.

  The door opened and Manfred came into the room.

  ‘Lili? What are you doing?’

  ‘Looking at the wall.’

  He stood beside her, putting his arm round her shoulders, and grunted. ‘That’ll keep them out all right.’

  But she knew that the wall had been built to keep the East in, not the West out: to staunch the haemorrhage of people fleeing Communist Germany. Naturally, she didn’t say this aloud. It was very likely that the apartment building was wired with hidden microphones and, in any case, Manfred would not agree with her. And he would be upset. He was a good Party member – sincere and principled. She had learned to respect that and to toe the line herself. She did what they asked. It was simply another form of survival – a lesson well taught long ago. Das überleben. In the end, that was all that mattered.

  ‘You should sit down and rest a little,’ he told her gently. ‘Shall I make you a cup of tea?’

  He was always thoughtful. Always considerate. She thanked him but instead of sitting down while he went into the kitchen, she stayed at the window. In the opposite direction, eastwards, across Berlin towards Russia, she could look at all the other ugly concrete apartment towers, identical to the one they lived in, sprouting like weeds in a flat wasteland of bomb sites and rubble. Once, soon after they had been married, she had suggested to Manfred that they might move to live in the west of Berlin. He had been shocked by the idea, dismayed that she should even consider it. ‘Our future is here, Lili,’ he had told her. ‘Not in the fascist west.’ Now it was too late. No-one could leave. They were all prisoners.

  She could hear the clink of cups from the kitchen, the spluttering hiss from the kettle on the stove, Manfred moving about. He was a good husband, a decent man, and she was grateful to him for many things – not the least, for his company and his friendship. When she had met him she had been utterly alone and lonely. Dirk was far away in America, Grandfather in his grave and Rudi at university in Hamburg. It was a kind of love. Another kind.

  The baby would be born within a month. She had stopped work to be ready, just before they had started on the wall. Later on, when the baby was older, she would be given other work to do; told what they wanted from her. Whatever happened, she
would take care of the child as she had taken care of Rudi. Do the best she could for it in a grim world. So, too, would Manfred.

  He came in from the kitchen, carrying a tray. To please him she went to sit down. ‘Your English cups,’ he said, smiling at her. ‘I know how you like them.’ She gazed at the pretty china cup in her hand. Primroses flowered in England in the spring, Michael had told her. There were lots and lots of them growing wild everywhere in the countryside. He had promised to find her a primrose path.

  She still thought of him almost every day and wondered, as she would wonder for the rest of her life, how things might have been.

  THE END