Dr Berlin

by Francis Bennett

  He drives her to the students’ hostel in Malaya Gruzinskaya Street. The streets are too dimly lit to see much. Moscow under the cover of night retains its mystery. The morning will reveal it in all its expected awfulness. She is met by a Czech girl, Pryska, with limited English who has been deputed to show her round. She goes to bed that night in a room she will share with another student, a singer from Volgorod called Natasha who has not yet arrived, with her suitcases unpacked, her clothes hanging in the wardrobe leaving, she hopes, enough space for her companion. She lies in an unfamiliar bed, exhausted by her fears but still sleepless, wondering why she agreed to come here. Her father was right. Why did she listen to the siren voices of her teachers? She hears the noise of other students talking late into the night. Someone plays a piano. She is disturbed by sudden laughter. She sleeps uneasily. The fearful city inhabits her dreams. She is miserable and alone; her passport lost, she is unable ever to return home. She has got what she wanted but she is not sure of the wisdom of her decision.

  The following day she is collected by the same unsmiling driver, still smoking what looks like the same cigarette. She trusts him now and greets him with a smile that is not returned. The morning is clear, the light sharp and the cold has gone. Her journey takes her through tree-lined boulevards. The leaves are already on the turn. How many trees there are, and parks: so much more green than she had expected, though she is surprised by the lack of flowers. Where are the brutal buildings, the huge posters, the dark streets deprived of sunlight, the smoking factories she expected? The Moscow that she sees is unexpectedly a nineteenth-century city: there are very few cars in its wide streets. Occasionally she sees a gigantic lorry rumbling its way along the enormous highways of the city, or a black official car racing down the central reservation. A number of buildings are topped by an illuminated star; on others a hammer and sickle have been carved out of stone or made in brick, or a red flag hangs limply in the warm air. In the middle distance she spots three tall chimneys, painted in thick red and white stripes, gushing white smoke. There are no other signs of Soviet industry close by.

  Suddenly she passes the ancient citadel on its hill, the Kremlin with its dazzling golden domes, its flags and stars, surrounded by its blood-red wall of swallowtail battlements looking out over the Moscow River. In the months that follow she will come to know these buildings that as yet have no name: the Trinity Tower, the Palace of Congresses, the State Armoury, the Patriarch’s Palace, the Cathedral of the Assumption, and beyond, the Mausoleum in Red Square where Lenin and Stalin are buried. Her spirits rise. It is a magical vision, and she can imagine music being played inside these walls.

  ‘Kremlin,’ her driver says, pointing. It is the first word he has spoken to her. Still there is no smile.

  Vinogradoff is as she remembered him, tall, grinning and dressed in a baggy black suit at least one size too big. He comes out to greet her on the steps of the Conservatoire. He holds out his arms and kisses her warmly on both cheeks.

  ‘Welcome,’ he says in English. ‘We are so pleased you are here. This is a great day for all of us.’

  He applauds her suddenly and a few others join in. A young student, a girl her own age, comes forward and presents her with a bouquet of flowers. Vinogradoff grins possessively, puts his arm through hers and leads her into the Conservatoire. She hears a singer practising her scales. Someone is playing a violin. This is familiar territory. She is back in a world she knows. She feels at home. Her Moscow adventure has begun.

  3

  Gerard Pountney, ex-Foreign Office lackey, ex-leader writer on a national daily, briefly ex-Moscow correspondent for the same newspaper, sits alone in front of the editing machine and watches his reincarnation on the monitor. His former lives have mercifully been jettisoned into a past that, with each day that passes, slips ever further into a memory that can be harmlessly suppressed. On the screen he sees a reinvented and revitalised version of himself, and he congratulates himself on his good fortune. He experiences a pleasing glow of satisfaction.

  ‘Behind me,’ his screen image is saying, ‘is the famous Brandenburg Gate that separates East from West in the divided city of Berlin. On one side is the Kurfürstendamm, a street of well-stocked shops, cafés full of people, cars, bicycles, a street teeming with life as we in the West know it. Plenty to buy, plenty to eat, plenty to do. Over there is the Unter den Linden, its buildings mostly empty, many still carrying the unrepaired scars of a war that ended more than fifteen years ago. Its streets have few shops or cafés, and fewer people. It presents a desolate spectacle. This is where East meets West, and it is not a happy encounter.’

  The camera, travelling secretly in a car along the eastern sector of the city, records the empty streets, the uncared-for buildings blackened with age, fleetingly picks up huge and brightly painted posters with incongruous images of healthy young men and women striding towards the ‘radiant future’ of socialism, their example exhorting the local population to a life of ever greater dedication and sacrifice. It is a forlorn message playing to an empty house.

  ‘Is this the socialist paradise that the posters proclaim? Is this the promised communist Utopia? Well, the citizens of the German Democratic Republic don’t think so. They give their verdict each day by crossing the border to the West in their thousands, never to return. We are witnessing a massive migration. On this evidence alone, capitalism and democracy are an irresistible combination.’

  Pountney is walking down the Kurfürstendamm now, and the camera retreats in front of him. ‘Who are these people who are voting with their feet? They are drawn from the entire spectrum of East German society: scientists, teachers, doctors, labourers, engineers, economists, accountants, students, the very people on whom a modern economy depends. These men and women are the human resources East Germany can ill afford to lose. Between 1949 and today, nearly two million people have migrated west from the GDR. Nearly two hundred thousand have left in the last year alone. That is why the streets are empty, and why the national economy underperforms. The consequences of this stunning rejection of communism for the future of East Germany are grim.’

  The camera sweeps past a line at the Marienfeld Camp in West Berlin, showing people of all ages, complete families in some cases, staring steadfastly into the lens, their patient expressions betraying none of their fears. They are in transit between one world and another. Their futures are blank sheets waiting to be filled with the hopes and dreams that drove them to gamble with their lives escaping from the GDR and which, for the present, they dare not allow themselves to revive. While they have no official identity, their lives are suspended. They are powerless to do anything but wait, the fate of refugees everywhere.

  ‘These people are typical of those who have fled. Young and old alike, disillusioned by the communist experiment, unable to see a clear future for themselves or their families, all now seek a better life in the West.’

  He is standing in front of the crowd, talking to the camera once more. ‘Imagine the agony of taking the decision to leave your roots and your possessions, in some cases elderly members of your family whom you may never see again, a decision based on the hope that what awaits you can surely be no worse than what you have left behind and will probably be much better. These people at this camp represent two million such decisions. For the courage of those decisions they must command our respect.’

  The angle changes. The camera looks over Pountney’s shoulder at a panorama of Berlin.

  ‘If that is the personal story, what about the political? The people are demanding a better standard of living from their government. They will wait no longer. They want it now. That is precisely what East Germany’s command economy is unable to deliver. Unless the East German authorities can stop this exodus of people on whose skills their future must be based, the situation can only get worse.’

  He turns to the camera. ‘The propaganda has failed. The poster platitudes urging you to sacrifice the present in return for the promise of a better future
are no longer believed. How long before the GDR acts? Can the authorities close the border? Can those who want to leave be stopped by force? These are the questions preoccupying both the East and the West. The answers, when they come, could prove dangerous for us all.’

  The programme’s theme music rises as the image of Gerry Pountney fades under the closing credits. He stretches in his chair. Not bad. Not bad at all, even though he says it himself. He looks at his watch. Time for lunch. A good morning’s work. He smiles to himself. He is indeed a fortunate man.

  4

  ‘I have to tell the committee that I’m not happy with the choice of Andrei Berlin,’ Bill Gant said, making his first contribution to the afternoon’s discussion. ‘I’m not disputing his academic reputation. That, as we all know, is well established. It’s simply that I find myself unable to shift the feeling that he’s not the right man.’

  Until his intervention, Marion Blackwell had assumed Bill Gant’s brooding silence signalled assent, and that the meeting was going her way. After all, he’d supported her proposal when they’d talked about it last Wednesday, and she’d had no reason to suppose he’d shift his position in the days that followed. His sudden change of heart was unexpected and the damage to her case potentially great.

  ‘You were in favour when we talked before, Bill. What’s changed your mind?’

  The hint of intimacy in her reference to a previous conversation was a slip that Michael Scott’s sensitive antennae would not miss. He gave her a sidelong look. She must be more careful in future. Especially where Bill was concerned.

  ‘When all’s said and done, the man’s a communist.’ Gant was looking down at the table. Was he deliberately avoiding catching her eye? ‘He stands for everything we oppose. That’s what I’m wrestling with. Berlin’s a risky choice.’

  ‘Isn’t that the point?’ Marion addressed her appeal to the other members of the committee. ‘We want to revive these lectures, not send them to an early grave, which is where they’ll end up if we don’t do something about them. Let’s have a speaker who’ll stir up a bit of controversy. Let’s have someone whose ideas will make us sit up and test our own beliefs. Isn’t that why we’re all here? To kick some life into this event?’

  ‘Bravo, Marion.’ Michael Scott smiled mockingly at her. ‘Very passionate, dear. Very con brio.’

  She’d known all along that Michael Scott would be difficult. She hadn’t expected him to take pleasure in her discomfort. She felt herself colouring. Her neck always went red and blotchy when she was angry. She should have worn a scarf with her shirt.

  ‘Am I alone in being sceptical of his academic distinction?’ Scott continued. ‘I see it as a smokescreen intended to obscure the fact that Berlin is a loyal apologist for a vile regime. We’re fooling ourselves if we imagine his hands are clean.’

  ‘How can you say that, Michael? Berlin’s an academic with a growing reputation who’s not regarded as an apologist for anyone.’

  ‘A successful historian in the Soviet Union who is not in thrall to the regime is a paradox, Marion, and as you know better than most, having attended my lectures when you were an undergraduate, paradox became a casualty of Soviet society in 1917 along with irony, compassion, freedom of expression, truth and so many other attributes of the civilised world that Lenin took exception to. Bill’s got it right for once. Berlin is as much a part of that obnoxious regime as the head of the KGB or the governor of one of their slave camps. Why should we invite a spokesman for a political system we openly condemn and provide him with a platform to preach Bolshevism to our impressionable young? It’s asking for trouble.’

  Her scheme was disintegrating before her eyes. It wasn’t difficult to do the mathematics. Two definite votes against. She had to get Bill to change his mind or her position was desperate. Her candidate would be voted out.

  ‘You’re keeping your counsel close to your chest, Peter,’ the chairman said, turning to Peter Chadwick. ‘Where do you stand on this issue?’

  Chadwick drained his cup of tea with a theatrical gesture. She didn’t know him well enough to be sure of his support. He was an elusive man, a medievalist, with a couple of good books to his name. Their paths had hardly crossed. Where he stood on the Berlin issue was hard to predict.

  ‘Michael’s theory about contaminating the young doesn’t hold water for a moment,’ Chadwick replied dismissively. ‘I think we can trust our pupils to know their own minds and judge Berlin accordingly.’

  He was on her side. She could have kissed him for it. Michael Scott was furious. He leaned across the table in his anxiety to put Chadwick right.

  ‘If you’d been at this university as many years as I have, Peter, you wouldn’t fall into the trap of making a generalisation that can be so easily refuted. The point to remember about the young is that that is precisely what they are. To be young is by definition to lack judgement. Take them too close to the fire and they will always burn themselves.’

  ‘Marion’s position is valid, Michael,’ Chadwick replied. Beneath his unemotional demeanour, she sensed his deep dislike of Scott. ‘We must either have a speaker who’ll put the Blake-Thomas lectures back on their feet, or we must drop this event from the university calendar, dissolve this committee and call it a day. Berlin’s a courageous choice and I commend Marion for proposing him. I don’t agree with his ideas but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be heard. Surely we’re all strong enough to cope with a challenge to our beliefs, particularly from a Marxist historian? You make it sound as if we’d crumble after a paragraph, Michael. I can only assume you’re being mischievous.’

  ‘Bill?’ The chairman turned to Gant. Marion could tell from Gant’s expression that he hadn’t been swayed by Chadwick’s arguments. Her heart sank.

  ‘Nothing I’ve heard makes me want to change my mind,’ Gant said nervously.

  ‘I think we know where you stand, Michael.’

  ‘I’ve said all I need to say, Chairman.’

  They were split down the middle. Two for, two against. The casting vote would go to Eastman as chairman. This was an outcome she hadn’t banked on. Well, if you’re going to go down, better to go down fighting.

  ‘Andrei Berlin would be a splendid choice,’ she said, addressing her remarks to Professor Eastman. ‘Michael and Bill are showing a great lack of imagination. I think we’d find undergraduates queuing all the way up Mill Lane to get in to hear him. Why not create a little controversy for once? Why not challenge a few beliefs? Where’s the harm in that? Perhaps some of us have become too comfortable in our habits of thought’ – this looking at Michael Scott – ‘and a bit of stirring up might be good for the system.’

  Bill wouldn’t like that, but so what? She’d show him she wasn’t going to be crushed by the reactionary opinions of men like Michael Scott.

  ‘Marion’s right,’ Chadwick said. He was doing his best to get Eastman into Marion’s camp. ‘It would do the Department good to have such a controversial speaker. Show the world that historians are not all deaf to contemporary issues.’

  The clock in First Court struck four. Eastman reached for the leather-bound minute book which lay in front of him. He opened it and flicked through the pages. Marion knew he was looking for the Articles of Association.

  ‘Well, Chairman,’ Michael Scott said sourly, ‘it looks as if the future of the Blake-Thomas lectures lies in your hands. What do you say to that?’

  Professor Eastman was approaching eighty. He remained chairman of the committee because he was the last surviving member of the university to have known Blake-Thomas’s daughters. They had lived in spinsterly splendour in a sandstone mansion in Madingley Road, devotedly protecting their father’s reputation. They had entrusted their father’s bequest to Eastman’s care because, before his death more than fifty years ago, Blake-Thomas had declared that the then youthful Eastman was the best historian of his generation, which meant he was nominating Eastman as his heir. Time had not been kind to Blake-Thomas’s approach to social histo
ry, nor to Eastman’s reputation. He was now regarded as unfashionable. Therefore hardly likely to support Berlin. Marion felt depressed.

  Eastman took his pipe out of his mouth and looked thoughtful.

  ‘The Blake-Thomas lectures are an important platform from which over the years men of all creeds and beliefs have spoken their mind. In this university we are rightly proud of our traditions of independence of thought and freedom of speech. We have the intellectual courage to listen to unfamiliar arguments with an open mind, submit them to rigorous scrutiny and to judge them on their merits. I’ve followed your positions with great care this afternoon. It cannot be denied that Berlin is a Marxist, nor that he is one of the leading younger historians in the Soviet Union. His work is coloured by the dubious philosophy, not to say dogma, of a regime to which we are totally opposed. Although I don’t agree with much of it, I consider Dr Berlin’s Legacies of History to be a major interpretative work, and I am not alone in my verdict.’

  He paused for moment, drawing as much drama as he could out of the situation.