The Midnight Swimmer

by Edward Wilson

  ‘You’ve suffered a lot of pain – and none of it’s your fault.’

  Katya looked away. ‘You can’t say that. You don’t know anything about me.’

  ‘Except for what Andreas told me.’

  ‘What did he tell you?’

  ‘Intimate things, that only a lover could know.’ Catesby paused. ‘Why did you dye your hair blond?’

  ‘I was sick of being me – I deceived others, so why not deceive myself.’

  ‘Are you deceiving anyone by meeting me here?’

  ‘We haven’t much time. You said you didn’t kill Andreas, but I think you were with him when he died.’

  Catesby could see that Katya had been briefed to ask questions. He wondered whether it was by her husband or Mischa – or both. He decided to give straight answers. ‘Yes, I was with him.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He was shot – by a woman. But I suppose you know that already?’

  Katya didn’t answer.

  ‘I assumed,’ continued Catesby, ‘that the woman was working for East German intelligence.’

  ‘Mischa Wolf says that isn’t true.’

  ‘Maybe Mischa is lying.’

  ‘Maybe you’re lying.’

  ‘This is pointless,’ said Catesby, ‘we could go in circles like this for ever.’

  ‘My husband is certain that Mischa is telling the truth.’

  Catesby smiled. ‘If your husband thinks that the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit keeps no secrets from the KGB, then he must believe in Baba Yaga and her magic broomstick too.’

  Katya shivered slightly, as if the reference to the arch-witch of Russian folklore had given her a moment’s fright.

  ‘There’s a part of you that still believes in spirits,’ said Catesby, ‘that’s why you’re wearing a head-covering in this church.’

  ‘No, not really. But the worst thing about the war was not being allowed to mourn.’ Katya laughed. ‘How do you mourn twenty-six million of your fellow citizens? But that loss, as the years go by, creates a respect for the spiritual. But don’t think for a second …’ she laughed again and suddenly removed the mantilla from her head, ‘… that I’m a believer.’

  Catesby looked at her and watched her eyes flash like a cat about to leap. Her glossy black hair flowed free and sparkled in the candlelight. Catesby suddenly understood how Andreas had ended up nailed to a rosy rack of longing. Ekaterina Mikhailovna Alekseeva wasn’t beautiful – she was magnificent.

  ‘Stop staring at me. I don’t like it when men stare at me.’

  ‘Why do you think they stare at you?’

  ‘Because …’ Katya fidgeted and turned away.

  ‘Yes, I was staring at you – and I’m sorry that it made you uncomfortable. I hope you don’t think …’

  Katya laughed. ‘You don’t want me to think what? That you desire me?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘No, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want another man. My husband satisfies me.’

  Catesby sat staring in silence at the Virgin Mary as candlelight flickered across her stone face.

  ‘Are you surprised?’ said Katya.

  ‘Why should I be surprised? Your intimate relations with your husband are none of my business.’

  ‘Then you’re not a very good spy.’

  ‘I still get paid – that’s more than you can say for Andreas.’

  ‘You’re disgusting. You have no respect.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that about Andreas.’ Catesby paused. ‘You know that he loved you.’

  ‘He told you that?’

  ‘Yes, it was almost the last thing he said. Did you love him?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Katya looked away. ‘You have heard about my husband?’

  ‘There are rumours that he was badly wounded in the Battle of Berlin.’

  ‘Do you know how badly?’

  Catesby shrugged. He didn’t want to say the words.

  ‘My husband lost his manhood. He was emasculated.’

  ‘It must be awful for both of you.’

  Katya gave a sad half-smile that softened her face. ‘It’s worse for him. At first, we never talked about it, but still pretended we were a normal couple except for that. But we were a normal couple. We lived together, we shared a bed, we talked – and talked, but always about other things. Did you know that Zhenka sings?’

  Catesby shook his head.

  ‘He has a lovely voice. He could have been in the Red Army choir.’ Katya smiled more broadly. ‘One evening, after a little vodka, he was singing Katyusha – a favourite of his, because of my name of course: Pust on zemliu berezhet rodnuiu / A liubov Katyusha sberezhet.’

  She looked at Catesby. ‘You know Russian, don’t you?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How would you say those lines?’

  ‘Let him preserve the Motherland / Same as Katyusha preserves their love.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Katya, ‘those words, after what happened to poor Zhenka, are unbearably sad. I started crying, like I am now, and he put his arms around me. And do you know what my wonderful husband said?’

  Catesby shook his head.

  ‘He said, with such a big smile, “At least, my darling Katyusha, at least, I can now do all the high notes.”’ Katya wiped her tears away. ‘And it was good that he made that little joke. It broke the ice that had formed between us.’

  ‘And could he do the high notes?’

  Katya gave Catesby a playful slap on his hand. ‘Zhenka would like you. You have the same sense of humour – and no, he still can’t do the high notes.’

  ‘Was Andreas your first lover?’

  ‘No.’ Katya looked away as if ashamed. ‘It took me a while to explain things to Zhenka.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘That you don’t need a penis to satisfy a woman.’

  Catesby looked over the sputtering candles at the Blessed Virgin being drawn up into heaven. Then back to Katya, a real woman. ‘How did your husband feel about you having affairs?’

  ‘I don’t know. What he tells me and what he feels inside may not be the same.’

  Catesby looked into the black void behind Katya. What, he thought, does it mean to be a man? How much of your life did you actually spend with an erection? You don’t need one to write a poem, compose a symphony or enjoy a fine bottle of wine. You don’t need one to take a life. But you do need one to create a life.

  ‘What are you thinking about?’ said Katya.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Catesby looked at her again. ‘Do you still think I killed Andreas?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What did Mischa tell you?’

  ‘He says it may have been you, but he doesn’t think so. Neither Mischa nor my husband fully understands what happened. I know they’re not lying.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If they were lying, they would make up a more interesting story than simply, “We don’t know.”’

  Catesby smiled. Katya had obviously not spent much time in Bow Street Magistrates Court. ‘And that was the end of that?’

  ‘No. My husband asked Mischa about the woman who was with you.’

  ‘How did they know there was a woman?’

  Katya smiled. ‘Mischa knows everything that goes on in the West German Security Services.’

  Catesby wasn’t surprised. ‘So what about the woman?’

  ‘Mischa swore to Zhenka that she was no longer in Germany – either Germany.’

  ‘Are you supposed to be telling me this?’

  Katya smiled. ‘Of course.’

  ‘And they don’t know where she is?’

  ‘No, but they said it may have something to do with someone called Galen. Have you heard the name?’

  ‘Only in reference to the ancient Greek physician. Why do they want me to know these things?’

  ‘They said that you would ask that.’

  ‘And what are you supposed to say?’

  ‘That it is in
the shared interest of all our countries.’

  ‘That’s diplomat speak for telling the other side they have to give in.’ Catesby gave a weary smile. ‘It’s like preaching about peace.’

  ‘You sound hard and cynical.’

  ‘That’s a false impression. I’m neither.’

  ‘Is that really true?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘I must be going now.’

  Catesby slid out of the pew so that she could leave. He stood up and watched her disappear, like an extinguished taper, into the cathedral blackness. He waited until he heard the heavy door open and shut before he followed.

  When he left the cathedral, there were two red lights shining low in the square and the oily whiff of a Trabant two-stroke engine. As the car set off into the night, the headlamps of a second car swept across the square and followed it. In the reflected light, Catesby caught a brief glimpse of the five-pointed red star mounted on gold hammer and sickle that emblazoned the bonnet of the GAZ M21 Volga.

  PART TWO

  Bremen. December, 1961

  Domsheide was the tram stop in front of Bremen Cathedral. It was half past six in the morning and the cobblestones of the Marktplatz glistened under the freezing drizzle. A man wearing a black seaman’s watch cap and a pea jacket walked bent against the cold to the tram stop with a canvas bag over his shoulder. His codename in Moscow and East Germany was the Russian word for harlequin, Arlekin.

  The man had a black goatee and shiny brown eyes: he was obviously an Auslander, a foreigner. The other person at the tram stop was a large, thickset, middle-aged man wearing a Prinz-Heinrich-Mütze, a peaked dark wool cap, and a grey belted raincoat. He had the slightly arrogant air of a Beamte, a government official of rank. The newcomer huddled his shoulders and blew on the bare knuckles of the hand clutching the bag. ‘Sehr kalt,’ he said.

  ‘Natürlich, it is winter.’

  The pea-jacketed newcomer whispered the rest of the identification scenario as if the words were a secret spell, ‘Und frisch weht der Wind.’ The words were from a love duet in Tristan und Isolde. The liaison that had arranged the meeting must have chosen them as a joke. But Arlekin feared that other words of the duet contained a clue to his identity.

  The man in the Mütze covered his mouth with a gloved hand, an inbred precaution against surveillance cameras and lip readers. ‘I’m your controller for your time in Bremen – for a while afterwards you’ll be on your own. Is that okay?’

  Arlekin nodded, even though he was annoyed that the plan had been altered from a plane journey with false passports – and then to a rail journey, which was also cancelled. There must have been security breaches.

  ‘The important thing is that you don’t speak to anyone. Not a word, not even if they speak to you. Understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ Arlekin hid a purely personal annoyance. He wasn’t used to being spoken to like that.

  ‘Good. But for now we stay together. Follow me off the tram at Gröpelingen – it’s the last stop. Stay close behind me when I go through the dockyard gate so you don’t get lost in the crowd. Have you got a gun?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither have I – I don’t like guns. If anything goes wrong, we head for the sewers. Cops don’t like sewers. But don’t worry, nothing will go wrong.’

  A few seconds later Arlekin watched a pair of lamps appear out of the gloom as the Linie 2 tram snaked off Bismarckstrasse and hissed across the Marktplatz. The drizzle distorted the approaching lights into prickly blurs. The two men boarded through the middle door and franked their tickets in the stamping machine. Arlekin chose a seat two rows behind his controller and stared blankly out the window. The hard dark towers of the Dom, the cathedral, stabbed into the soft dark of the sky. A statue of Roland, sword at shoulder, stood like a clueless anachronism in the square – as if wondering what his Europe had become.

  The passengers who began to fill the tram were mostly Turkish Gästarbeiter, guest workers, cheap labour imported to fuel the West German ‘economic miracle’. The guest workers all looked sullen, tired and fed up – or maybe they just didn’t like the cold gloom of the North. The tram suddenly lurched to a halt where there was no stop. A man in a dark uniform boarded: the ticket inspector. The Turks stirred uncomfortably. The tram lurched off again and Herr Inspektor made his way down the aisle. Occasionally, he frowned at a ticket and demanded identity papers. He then copied details on to his clipboard before handing out a Geldstrafe, an instant fine. All the Turks had tickets, but many of them covered the ticket with a thin coating of Vaseline so that the ink from the franking machine could later be wiped away and the unfranked ticket used again. The inspector was on to this trick and disgusted by those who used it – there was a word for them, but it was no longer acceptable to use it – not since ’45. There was, finally, a Turk with a Vaseline-covered ticket who objected to being fined and refused to show his identity card. The inspector shouted at him, but the Gästarbeiter still refused to comply. The inspector then began to hit the Turk about the head and shoulders with his palm and the back of his hand. It seemed that the situation was going to end only with more violence or a police arrest. Suddenly, a voice spoke in the clear refined German of the Beamte class. ‘For God’s sake, stop hitting the man – it’s undignified.’ It was the controller. Arlekin swore under his breath. Why was he getting involved at a time like this? The inspector, however, immediately stopped striking the Turk and looked away; he was used to obeying that sort of voice.

  The controller then turned to the Turk. ‘Listen, son, you’re being a bit silly. Your ticket hasn’t been properly stamped. Give the inspector your identity card and accept the fine summons – and that’s the end of it.’ The Turk did as he was told and the inspector quietly carried out his duty. The tram official then turned to Arlekin who was already offering his ticket. The inspector thought that Arlekin with his goatee and foreign clothing was an odd fish, but merely glanced at his ticket. He didn’t want another run-in with that Beamte type. The inspector pressed the stop request bell and hopped off into the gloom.

  The tram was packed to overflowing by the time it reached Gröpelingen, but then quickly emptied into the damp dark of the waterfront. Arlekin lifted the duffel bag on to his shoulder. He and the controller were the last to leave the carriage. The roadway was a chaos of workers on foot and bicycle crushing through the gates of the AG Weser shipyard. The bicycle lamps weaved through the dark like fireflies with bells. They played a strange minimalist music: bell followed by voice; ‘Vorsicht!’, ‘Watch out!’ or ‘Pass man auf!’, the more egalitarian ‘Watch out, thou!’ The shipyard entrance was picketed by two men in leather jackets handing out leaflets condemning the 1956 law that banned the KPD, the Kommunistiche Partei Deutschland … a revolutionary party of the working class that was heir to the anti-fascist struggle and endeavoured for an anti-fascist and democratic rebirth after liberation from Hitler’s fascism.

  Suddenly, the two men turned up their collars and disappeared into the swirling throng of workers. A second later the white peaked caps of two Polizei appeared. The KPD was ‘polizeilich verboten’, ‘policely forbidden’. Arlekin smiled to himself and wondered if German was the only language that made an adverb out of ‘police’?

  Arlekin had to walk quickly to follow his companion. The controller didn’t head directly for the dock gates, but stopped at a lighted kiosk that sold newspapers and sundries. He bought two miniatures of schnapps then took Arlekin to the shadows at the back of the kiosk. ‘Here,’ he said as he offered the schnapps, ‘drink this.’ The strong liquor tasted fine and tingling warm in the damp cold. The controller then opened the other miniature and splashed it over Arlekin’s goatee and jacket. ‘You’re an absolute disgrace, my friend. Let’s go.’

  Arlekin, burdened with his bag, struggled to keep up as the controller marched through the dock gates with long sure strides. The tall German, in his expensive mackintosh and Mütze, looked li
ke he owned the shipyard.

  Most of the workers forked off to the right, towards the locker rooms to change into overalls. The Germans wore dark blue overalls; the Turkish Gästarbeiter, light brown. The foremen wore white helmets and quartered the huge yard on bicycles. But none of them seemed to take note of the two men who strode past the huge slabs of hull sections waiting to be welded into a 300,000 ton tanker, then beyond the engineering offices with blueprints pinned to easels and racks of T squares and triangles, and finally past the blue lights of the Feuerwehr, the dock fire brigade. The skyline was etched with cranes and the masts of ships, but there seemed few people in the dark corner heaped with piles of hawsers and rusting chains. The air smelled of tar and oil. The controller suddenly took Arlekin by the elbow and led him to where the cobbles ended and where there was the only dark void of the River Weser below. Arlekin suddenly pulled back sharply from the edge; for a second he thought he was about to be hurled into the river. ‘Don’t worry,’ whispered the controller, ‘they’re down there.’

  It was low water and the pilot cutter was almost hidden in the shadow of the harbour wall. The controller leaned over the wall and shouted, ‘Grenzpolizei.’ Border Police.

  An annoyed voice answered from below. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I’ve got a package for you to take to the Lech.’

  ‘Why don’t you use the Bundespost?’ A crewman laughed.

  ‘Because it won’t fit through the letter box.’

  The controller began to climb down the cold iron ladder rungs set into the harbour wall. Arlekin tied his duffel bag around his shoulder and followed down the damp slippery rungs. The pilot cutter was painted rescue orange and the big diesel engines were ticking over on low revs. It was a small boat, but built for rough seas. The last of the ebbing tide swirled around the hull with its own cargo of boxes, bottles and dead rats. The controller stepped through a gap in the guard rail on to the side deck of the cutter. A voice from inside the wheelhouse whispered to someone down below. ‘Do you know this new policeman? I’ve never seen him before.’