Then We Take Berlin

by Lawton, John

  As he reached for it, a hand picked it up.

  “Eh, Joe,” Yuri said. “You won’t need that.”

  He pulled off the tatty grey wig, tore the ragbag blue dress off his chest, smiled his nicotine smile at Wilderness as Wilderness slid to the ground.

  “Does it hurt?”

  Such a strange question. But it didn’t.

  “It will,” Yuri said. “Here. Take this. For the pain.”

  He took the spotty kid’s penknife. Held up a packet of coffee. Showed Wilderness the bottom, with a red sticker slapped across it. Then he slit the packet. No fresh waft of coffee beans. A talcum-trickle of white powder. A hefty pinch of it perched on the end of the knife. He shoved the knife at Wilderness’s mouth. Wilderness opened up and swallowed. A vile, bitter taste.

  “Morphine. A little morphine for the pain. Sweet dreams, Joe. Sweet dreams.”

  §155

  Wilderness was staring at the ceiling. They didn’t want him to move. He asked if he could sit up. They said “tomorrow.” He asked for a book. Any book. They said they’d bring one. They didn’t.

  He wondered if there was a guard on the door. He wondered where he was. German nurses who spoke to him in good English. A prefabricated building. The not-too-close, not-so-far sound of planes taking off and landing. A hospital in the British or American zone. One of those they threw together in the summer of ’45. All plywood and tarred felt. Looking shabby now. Out towards Gatow or Tempelhof. At least they hadn’t left him to die in East Berlin.

  He closed his eyes. He’d counted every crack in the sagging ceiling.

  When he opened them Frank was standing by the bed. Wrapped for winter. Or travel or both. A bulky, lined, green army mackintosh, a Gladstone bag in his gloved hand. A bigger, bursting suitcase at his feet.

  “I don’t have long,” he said.

  “If I could get out of the fuckin’ bed you wouldn’t have five seconds.”

  “I didn’t know, Joe. Honestly.”

  “Which bit didn’t you know? That I was smuggling drugs as well as coffee?”

  “Well . . . of course I knew that.”

  “But you didn’t bother to tell me?”

  “Would you have done the job if I had?”

  “When exactly did we become dope dealers Frank?”

  “In April. You told me not to convert to the new marks and to put everything into commodities. I bought all the coffee I could, and when that ran out I bought morphine. You didn’t want to know. All you cared about was not getting stuck with old marks by the time currency reform came around. I tried telling you. We had US depots all across the sector packed out with penicillin, vaccines, morphine—you name it—Band-Aids, Q-tips, and suppositories to shove up your ass. We’d been stockpiling ever since the day Sokolovsky walked out. And once I’d got Yuri his penicillin, it was a piece of cake to get morphine. All it took was a little paperwork. I tried telling you. You just weren’t listening.”

  “And last night?”

  “It was three nights ago. You been out for a while. Docs reckon you took enough dope to knock out a Percheron. Yuri said he wanted it all now. I told you that. You know how impulsive he can be. He had a buyer. It was sell it or lose it according to him. The risk seemed low. Bury the dope in the coffee, and then you came up with the idea of using the Rolls. Brilliant. What could go wrong? Except I didn’t figure Yuri for a rat.”

  “You’d no idea?”

  “Of course I’d no idea. You think I’d of sent you and Eddie into a trap? We none of us knew.”

  Frank set the Gladstone bag on the bed.

  “I have to be at Tempelhof in less than an hour. Uncle Sam wants me out of here. This is a third of everything we had left. Your cut. I gave Eddie his. It was like I scalded him.”

  “Everything?”

  “We have slightly less than seventeen thousand dollars. In April you told me to spend all the marks and take only dollars from then on. Seventeen grand is the balance of what we took in dollars since April. The marks are gone with the coffee and the dope. Some of the dollars too. I had to spend to make up the last load. Yuri didn’t pay up front. Yuri didn’t pay at all. Winners keepers. Siegerrecht, as the Krauts say.”

  Good grief, Frank actually knew a word in German.

  “How much did we lose?”

  “Thousands. About eighty grand.”

  “Shit.”

  “You still got five and a half. Close to six. That’s two thousand of your quids.”

  Wilderness had no idea if Frank was lying. The idea that Frank did exactly what he told him was a novelty. “I was only obeying orders” with a new, comical twist. But . . . he could have kept the eighty grand for himself. And it wasn’t scalding either of them.

  “Joe. I gotta fly. Literally. I’m on a flight back to London.”

  “Sure. Leave the money and fuck off why don’t you?”

  “Joe. Believe me, kid. I didn’t know.”

  His head turned as the door opened. Burne-Jones standing in the doorway. Not smiling.

  Frank saluted. Burne-Jones returned it without a flicker of expression.

  “I was just leaving.”

  Frank turned to Wilderness.

  “So long, Joe.”

  Wilderness hoped it would be long. Right now he didn’t care if he never saw Frank again. And then he was gone.

  Burne-Jones lifted the Gladstone bag to the floor, Wilderness praying he did not open it . . . but he showed no curiosity. Just pulled up a chair and faced him.

  “Repeat after me . . . I am a total fucking twat.”

  “I am a total fucking twat.”

  “Good. Glad we got that established. You make a twat of yourself if you want to. But you will not make a twat out of operations run by me and above all you will not make a twat out of me.”

  “Can’t be helped now.”

  “It’ll have to be. Now . . . what was in the Rolls?”

  “Coffee, maybe a thousand pounds of it. And morphine. I don’t know how much.”

  “The Russian got it all?”

  “Is the car empty?”

  “Russians found it about a mile away. Came back to us spotless.”

  “Then he got the lot.”

  “Any witnesses?”

  “They were all dead when I looked. I was only conscious for a few minutes.”

  “And him?”

  “Who?”

  “Captain Spoleto.”

  “What are you asking?”

  “I’m asking you what he knows.”

  “Can’t tell you that.”

  “Good. Perhaps you’d care to stick to that line. There are some of Spoleto’s colleagues who’d love to court-martial him. But they’ve no witnesses. Except you that is.”

  “Do you want me to testify against Frank?”

  “No. I want to save what can be saved.”

  “How do we do that?’

  “First, I think you know nothing of anyone else’s involvement . . .”

  Wilderness thought of Eddie, not Frank.

  “Of course, I acted alone.”

  “Good . . . good. And you acted under orders.”

  “If you say so. What were those orders?”

  “No one needs to know. Spoleto’s being posted to England. Your Russian chum has vanished . . . we just need to cook up a cover story . . . you can leave that to me.”

  “Why?

  “I repeat. You will not make a twat out of me. And to avoid that I have to exonerate you. Right now I’d prefer to lock you in the glasshouse and throw away the key. But that would not be expedient. I need you as spotless as that car.”

  “What . . . I get me own Persilschein?”

  “How aptly you put it, Holderness. Yes . . . in this case a promotion. Don’t even think you’ve earned it. It’s for show. A show we put on to save my arse not yours. And, Joe, there are no second chances. Fuck up again and I’ll let them have you.”

  Burne-Jones pushed back the chair, ready to leave.

  “P
romotion? Lieutenant? Second lieutenant?”

  “No, I can’t and won’t make you an officer. I told you a while back that you’d be no use to me as an altruist—you’d be even less use to me as an officer. I need you as you are.”

  “You mean as you found me?”

  “I was rather hoping for an improved version. I’ll settle for a live one.”

  “Eh?”

  “Start living in the real world, Sergeant. You almost made it into the next one. If it hadn’t been for that woman you’d have bled to death under the S-bahn.”

  That woman? What woman? Nell?

  §156

  Another night and most of a day passed. It was dark by four now. He’d realised that Burne-Jones’s scheme required that there be no guard outside his door—he could leave whenever he liked, except that he couldn’t walk. On the other hand he’d forgotten what day it was . . . for that matter, what month it was.

  A woman appeared at his bedside at last. He’d been waiting for the woman. It just wasn’t the right woman.

  “Another fine mess you’ve gotten me into, Stanley.”

  For more than a moment he did not recognise her. The uniform was wrong. An American WAC. A sergeant.

  “Is that . . . is that . . . a disguise, Major Tosca?”

  “Sure. Like they’d let me swan in here in full Moscow spook outfit. It’s mine. Had it for years. If I can get into it when needs must then I figure the years aren’t being too unkind to my ass. Which kinda brings me to the point. I saved your ass.”

  “How? Thank you, but how?”

  “’S’OK. I didn’t come here for thanks. I came to give you the explanation you’re asking for. Yuri was up to something big that day. Cat that got the cream. Suppressed glee just oozing out of the little bastard. I set one of my guys to follow him. No interference, no action. Just follow and report. He saw Yuri gun down those kids, take your car. Make off with your stash. Then he came and got me. Another five minutes you’d have bled to death. We staunched the wound, drove you here and dumped you on the doorstep.”

  “I say again, thank you.”

  “De nada. So long as you get it and you do get it don’t you?”

  “Yuri left me to die?”

  “Yep? And Frank?”

  “Frank wasn’t there.”

  “My point to a T. When the shit hits, when the bullets start flying is Frank ever there?”

  Wilderness said nothing to this. He was in for a lecture and accepted it. God knows if one more person showed up with a moral or a caveat it could be a Toynbee Hall series for the improvement of the workingman.

  “Kid, you got mixed up with a couple of bastards. Your one spark of redemption is that Eddie Clark wasn’t there too.”

  “Have you seen Eddie?”

  “No, but I can if you want.”

  “Tell him nothing’s going to get out. We’re clean as Persil. It’ll all be covered up. I’m even getting promoted to sergeant to make it look kosher. He’s nothing to worry about. He should just . . . carry on regardless. Ask him to come and see me.”

  “I’ll tell him, but if he asks me my opinion, which is not unknown, I may have to tell him he needs you like he needs an extra belly button. And you . . . you don’t need Yuri . . . you don’t need Frank. You never did need ’em. You probably never will see Yuri again. The big score was brought on by him being posted east. He was cleaning up and clearing out with his pockets lined. Hell, he’s probably a full colonel with a desk in Dzerzhinsky Square by now. But if you see Frank again, consider yourself unlucky.”

  After she’d gone, he squirmed a little, a spasm in his left arm—felt it come up against something solid. He reached his hand out of the sheets and picked it up. A book. Her book. He tilted the spine and tried to focus bleary eyes upon it: Huckleberry Finn. He knew the tale. Read it when he was twelve. He got the joke.

  §157

  Nell came.

  Two days later.

  In all the misleading ambiguity of grey, crepuscular light.

  Stiff little legs and her po-face.

  A stellar constant in the gloom.

  Said nothing.

  Just held out her hand.

  He knew what she wanted and pointed at the slim tower of utility drawers next to the bed.

  “Top one,” he said.

  She took back the keys to her apartment and left.

  He wasn’t even sure she’d looked at him.

  He thought that perhaps it was the strongest sense of certainty he’d ever known. He’d never been quite so certain of anything in his entire life.

  It was over.

  It was over.

  §158

  It was almost Christmas.

  Eddie was leaning against the staff jeep out at Gatow Field. He had another volume of Penguin New Writing, an anthology that he could dip in and out of, half a dozen pages at a time without ever losing track, but his eyes had drifted off the text to an inner focus.

  He’d joked with Joe—“You’ll be the death of me.” But he knew it wasn’t a joke. Part of him, a large part of him, was relieved that Joe was banged up in hospital. He could interpret the promotion, as Joe surely could. Part reward, part punishment in that it meant Burne-Jones had him by the balls and his magnanimity was merely a demonstration of this. Whatever it was Burne-Jones had in mind, Eddie hoped it would take Joe far away from Berlin, as far away as possible. He liked Joe. Joe had been fun, but the fun was over. Joe was pure trouble. He had to be free of Joe. He wasn’t sure how they might remain friends. And he didn’t give a toss if he never saw Frank or Yuri again.

  He could be happy again, just flogging coffee and nylons from under his greatcoat. The simple life and the safe. And no more London wide boys.

  Yet, here he was, his greatcoat lined with ladies’ underwear meeting a London copper off a plane. What was worse—that he was a copper or that he was from London?

  Eddie looked up. There was a lost-looking geezer. No bigger than he was himself, too short to be a copper, almost an elf. He was trailing an RAF flying jacket. This had to be the bloke.

  Eddie approached him. Gave him the instant once-over as he did so. This was no Joe, this was no East End wide boy. The overcoat was Regent Street or Savile Row, the shoes and the gloves were handmade . . . and he could hear the accent before the bloke even spoke . . . latent, immanent . . . it was going to be King’s English, pure bloody toff.

  “Excuse me, sir. I think I might be your driver.”

  The little chap turned jet-black eyes on him, stuck out his hand.

  “Troy,” he said. “Frederick Troy, Scotland Yard.”

  Eddie’s heart sank at the sound of the public-school vowels. The presumptuous, world-is-my-oyster-so-fuck-you RP of the English upper class. This bloke smacked of trouble too. It could no more work out than had life with Joe. But at least it would only be for a couple of days. Then he’d be free of this prick as well.

  §159

  London: Summer 1955

  The offices of Drax & Kornfeld, Maiden Lane WC2

  Arthur Kornfeld was used to letters like this. A thin brown paper envelope with HM Prison stamped in the corner. There would not be much inside, the briefest, the most courteous of notes—a request or a thank you. He slit the top edge with a paper knife and watched the flake of another’s life fall onto his desk.

  As a publisher he received up to a hundred letters a day. The other ninety-nine could wait.

  HM Open Prison

  East Blathering

  Essex

  June 11, 1955

  My dear Arthur,

  I hope you will have time to visit in the next month or so. I am in receipt of full remission and expect to be released in about six weeks. I have to make plans, but, alas, I have put off making plans. I would find it all so much easier if I could talk things through with you beforehand.

  Your loving friend,

  Karel Szabo

  convict no. 11197523

  Kornfeld flipped open his desk diary. Friday the t
wenty-fourth was largely blank—if he could just shuffle off a couple of meetings with those tedious creatures . . . authors . . .

  He stuck his head through the open doorway of the adjoining office, where his junior partner, and senior music and biography editor, sat working far harder than he ever did himself.

  “Aurie?”

  Nowak looked up.

  “Last chance to see the inside of an English prison next week.”

  Aurelius Nowak had long ceased to find this funny. Arthur, a Viennese, had seen the inside of several English prisons as an interned enemy alien during the war. He spoke of it often. It had not been wholly without pleasure. Nowak, a Pole, had been “interned” too, in Auschwitz and in Belsen. He scarcely mentioned either. They had been wholly without pleasure.

  Nowak returned his eyes to the manuscript he was marking up, pencil in hand, darting down the margin in a sequence of squiggles that for some reason always proved a source of delight to him.

  “You will understand, Arthur, if I say that I shall pass on that wonderful opportunity and hope I do not live to regret it.”

  “OK. Would you mind taking a couple of meetings for me next Friday?”

  “Of course not . . . am I to understand Dr. Szabo is about to be released?”

  “Yes. He’s in a bit of a funk about it all. I really ought to nip down to Essex.”

  How English these phrases sounded to Polish ears—“bit of a funk,” “nip down.” The art of understatement.

  “Seven years is a long time. You and I did not serve that long between us. And think how difficult the readjustment was.”

  It had taken Kornfeld less than five minutes to adjust to freedom. As far as the bar in the nearest railway waiting room, in fact. Nowak, he knew, would never adjust. It showed in the way he reacted to meeting strangers, to sudden intrusions into his office, to any encounter with a man in uniform. From the postman to the beat bobby. If he lived to be a hundred Nowak would never ask a policeman the time, whatever the old song said.

  Part of Arthur had wanted the company. Down by train as far as Chelmsford, and then a long cab ride out into the flat Essex countryside past villages with names that ended in Bumpstead and D’Arcy, thereby summing up what Arthur thought of the county, via West Blathering and Much Blathering to Little Blathering and Blathering-next-Dyke to arrive at last at Her Majesty’s Open Prison, East Blathering—home for most of his sentence to Karel Szabo, spy.