This, too, had been precipitated by Ida. Which was not in any way a criticism, not like the other criticisms Elke held against her sister. Rather, it was an acknowledgement of the other woman’s harsh honesty, after their visit to the home. She’s not going to get any better. Ida’s words. Which, with little variation, was what Dr Schiller had been telling her for months. But somehow, from Ida, the assessment had brought home the truth: illogically, she had found it easier to believe Ida than she had the clinic’s principal. Not that she had intended to raise it so directly. It had been Schiller who talked about the need to prescribe stonger tranquillizers and quietly recounted the increased tantrums and difficulties they were experiencing with the child, making such dosage essential. There is a deterioration, Frau Meyer. You must recognize, make yourself face, the inevitable deterioration I have always warned you would occur.
Elke thought everything was moving too quickly: too many changes were all occurring far too abruptly. She felt buffeted, as if she’d been caught in a strong wind; at the weekend, after Bad Godesberg and then hearing words she did not want to hear from Dr Schiller, she’d been positively breathless. She’d have to prepare against it becoming as bad as that: against almost physically giving way. That would be weakness, and Elke was determined against openly showing weakness, not like Horst Kissel, even if she was churning inwardly.
Gerda Pohl’s complaints were dismissed by her union on a Wednesday. The summons from Günther Werle came earlier than normal the following morning, before Elke had completed the customary brief for that day. Her instant anxiety was that she had forgotten a schedule change, which for her would have been devastating. Hurriedly she checked the itinerary which was lying on the desk before her and saw at once there was no change: in fact he had fewer appointments than usual.
She went into the Cabinet Secretary’s office frowning, and began to apologize before she reached his desk and her accustomed chair. ‘I’m sorry. I was not expecting you. I don’t have everything ready yet.’ She had not had to make such an admission for years: so long ago, in fact, that she couldn’t call the occasion to mind.
‘I wasn’t expecting it,’ Werle dismissed. Nodding towards her place, he said: ‘Sit down. I want to talk.’
Elke did so, regarding the man curiously. ‘Is there something wrong?’
The immaculately neat man looked down at his blotter, fumbling one of the desk pens between his fingers: with his head bent it was more difficult for the practised Elke to hear the softly delivered words. He said: ‘You must not think this is criticism. It’s not. It’s concern. But I’ve had the feeling over the last few weeks that you are distracted: that something is worrying you.’
A coldness, a definite physical sensation, engulfed Elke. Her job – her unquestioned ability to perform it – was the only thing about which she was sure: the responsibilities didn’t frighten her and the daily contact with men in important positions didn’t overawe her. The Elke Meyer who worked and operated with competent efficiency in the West German Chancellery was a quite different Elke Meyer from the one who lived alone, apart from a pet dog, in a spinster’s flat off the Kaufmannstrasse. Elke consciously considered the two existences quite apart from one another, just as, almost without realizing it, she had come to think of the two personalities as separate – even deciding, without too much difficulty either, which she liked better. Surely that wasn’t being taken away from her! Surely, all this time, she hadn’t been deluding herself! It wasn’t possible: couldn’t be possible. Stumbling, Elke said: ‘I am extremely sorry … I didn’t know … I don’t …’
The man’s head came up. ‘Stop it, Elke!’ he said, unusually curt. ‘I told you, I’m not criticizing: I’ve never had cause, ever.’
Through her confusion it registered that he had called her Elke and not Frau Meyer, but in that confusion it was not an awareness she wanted to examine. ‘I don’t understand.’
Werle smiled and said: ‘I have thought… would like to think … of us … as something more than merely working colleagues.’
Elke was not sure she understood that, either. ‘Yes?’ she said, doubtfully.
‘As a friend I’m asking you: is there anything outside of here, outside the Chancellery and what you do here, that is worrying you? Ursula, for instance? If there is … if there is anything I could possibly do … anything at all… then I’d be very willing to help. I would like to help.’ Towards the end of the offer Werle had looked away again, not meeting her look. He desperately hoped that at this late stage there wasn’t going to be an unforeseen problem to upset the plans he had so carefully made.
It would be lowering a barrier, to admit the man into her sheltered other life. Unthinkable, in any circumstances whatsoever, even if he had been a close friend. Elke didn’t want intruders: people encroaching on her privacy. Always a division between the Chancellery and Kaufmannstrasse, she thought again. The reflection at once incurred an irksome self-accusation. If the two were compartmented as she’d believed them to be, how had Günther Werle guessed something was wrong, outside? Elke said: ‘I appreciate your concern.’
‘So?’
With thought pursuing thought in her mind, Elke had difficulty in precisely remembering Werle’s original questions. ‘There’s nothing,’ she said: ‘Ursula is …’ She stopped at the automatic lie. ‘Ursula is as well as we can expect.’
‘You’re sure?’ he pressed.
‘Absolutely.’
Werle smiled across the desk at her again, nodding like a man to whom suspicion had been confirmed as fact. ‘I knew I was right!’
Elke’s head whirled further. ‘I’m not following you here, either.’
‘It’s this continuing stupidity with Gerda Pohl, isn’t it!’
Oh no! thought Elke. She had no reason to protest or defend the woman, but it would be wrong for Gerda Pohl to be accused of something in which she was not involved. Hurriedly Elke said: ‘That’s all been settled.’
‘No,’ insisted Werle. ‘She’s a disruptive influence throughout the department. As well as being inefficient. I allowed you to persuade me before but it’s not going to happen again. She’ll be transferred.’
How could she stop it happening! She had to try! Quickly, allowing the man his misunderstanding, Elke said: ‘It was foolish of me, reacting as I did. And for doing so I apologize. The fault’s mine, not Frau Pohl’s. She’s been corrected once more, by the union inquiry. That’s enough, isn’t it?’
‘No,’ said Werle again and just as forcefully. ‘And you must stop assuming the blame of others. She is to go.’
‘She’s a widow,’ Elke argued. ‘A transfer could mean demotion: create difficulties for her.’
‘She created her own difficulties,’ Werle insisted. ‘And it doesn’t automatically follow that she’ll be demoted.’
Elke accepted there was nothing she could do. Every complaint about the woman was justified. And objectively she recognized that Gerda Pohl had tried constantly to undermine and harm her, in every way possible. So she had no cause to feel guilt if the necessary transfer stemmed from a misconstrued reason. But guilt was Elke’s feeling, nevertheless. Resigned, she said unhappily: ‘Will you officially inform her? Or shall I?’
‘I will,’ Werle decided.
Elke was relieved. Gerda Pohl’s transfer would remove a constant irritation, and that could only contribute to the better working of a secretariat of which Elke was the head, so that it was upon Elke that better working would ultimately reflect. She should be careful – sensible – and not allow the guilt to assume unnecessary proportions.
A silence settled. The routine of the morning was hopelessly disorganized and Elke wanted to excuse herself to re-establish some order. She was virtually moving to do so when Werle resumed talking. He bent over the blotter again, the desk pen revolving and turning between his fingers, eyes averted.
‘I was wondering …’ he started, then stopped.
Elke waited. Finally she said: ‘What?’
&nb
sp; ‘… Frau Werle has decided to stay on, at the Munich health spa. She feels much improved …’
‘That’s good.’
‘… before I learned … before she told me … I had bought tickets for a performance here of the Berlin Philharmonic. They have a new conductor, an Italian. The critics say he’s every bit as good as Herbert von Karajan.’
‘I hadn’t heard that,’ said Elke. There was a warmth of nervousness, a dampness upon her face, and she felt ridiculous. She hoped it wasn’t as obvious to him as it seemed to her.
‘… I was wondering … you’ve mentioned music in the past … whether I could suggest, ask, if you’d like to make use of the ticket?’
Elke made no reply.
‘… You probably have another engagement, of course …’ Werle started, retreating, and Elke seized the respite and said: ‘It’s extremely generous of you … I’ll have to check …’
Werle’s fleeting smile came as he looked up. ‘There is no urgency,’ he said, quickly. ‘No urgency at all. I would be very honoured, pleased, if you were able to accept.’
So what was she going to do? Elke wondered.
‘Why not?’ demanded Ida. She poured the wine, which once again she had ordered without reference to Elke.
‘He’s married.’
Ida looked pained at her sister, the expression changing to become quizzical. ‘I believe you think more about sex than I do!’
Elke glanced anxiously around the restaurant. ‘Why say that?’
‘His wife has extended her stay at a spa, right?’
‘That’s what he said.’
‘And he’d already bought tickets for a concert?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is Günther Werle a liar?’
‘Certainly not!’ said Elke defensively.
‘So why can’t it be a perfectly ordinary gesture, with no strings or hidden meaning attached, from a man whose wife is away?’
There was no reason whatsoever, Elke conceded. She felt admonished. ‘It just seemed … not right.’
‘It could only not be right if you let it develop otherwise,’ said Ida, with relentless logic if difficult syntax. ‘I think you’d be a fool, not to go. You like music and it’s not often you get the chance to hear it performed by an orchestra as good as that.’
‘I suppose …’
Ida added to their glasses and said: ‘What’s the attraction of living as you do, practically as a recluse?’
There isn’t any attraction at all, thought Elke: I hate it. She said: ‘I don’t live practically as a recluse. I just don’t get the opportunity all that often to go out in company.’
‘So now you have!’ said Ida, triumphantly. ‘Take it!’
Elke guessed that Gerda Pohl had led the gossip about a relationship between herself and Günther. But now Gerda wasn’t in the department any longer: not that there would have been any likelihood of Gerda or anyone else learning of the outing anyway. Still reluctant to make a positive, personal decision, Elke said: ‘I’ll see.’
‘Go!’ urged Ida. ‘Where’s the harm?’
Ida was wearing the suit and shawl she had worn that night to Kaufmannstrasse, and Elke thought her sister looked elegant. ‘How’s Horst?’ she asked.
Ida shrugged. ‘He claims to have started to write something. I don’t expect it’s anything more thanb “Chapter One”. ’
‘Don’t ridicule him all the time,’ urged Elke, in a sudden plea. ‘I don’t want to hear any more about what’s happening between you and Horst and anyone else and I think the way you disregard and diminish him as you’re doing is wrong.’
Ida sat with her glass suspended halfway to her mouth, openly surprised by the outburst. Elke was surprised at it herself. Ida said: ‘Forgive me, if it distresses you!’
There was a brittleness in her sister’s voice and Elke thought, further surprised, that it could become an unprecedented dispute between them. ‘My distress isn’t important,’ she said. ‘It’s Horst’s distress that matters.’
‘I doubt that he notices,’ said Ida, uncaring.
‘Of course he notices!’ said Elke, exasperated. ‘Remember what you accused me of, for visiting Ursula every Sunday? You said I did it because I felt guilty of something. Don’t you think there’s a lot of guilt at what you’re doing with Kurt in the way you’re behaving towards your husband?’
‘Quite the little analyst!’ said Ida.
Their roles were reversing again, Elke decided. She hadn’t liked it on the previous occasion but she did not feel so discomfited now: maybe it was because Ida was not collapsing, as before. Whatever, it was probably the time for her to withdraw. ‘I don’t want to debate it. It was just something I wanted to say.’
‘Bravo!’ said Ida. The sarcasm did not work and they both knew it. Ida flushed.
Elke decided the lunch was ruined and that it was her fault. Did it matter? It had been an opinion she’d wanted to express, rare though such an experience was for her. She tried to think of a subject to raise between them but couldn’t: they’d talked about the children before she’d mentioned the invitation to the Berlin Philharmonic concert and there was nothing more to say about Horst Kissel. There was the business of Gerda Pohl, but Elke didn’t think her sister would be genuinely interested in that. Who else would be?
Elke imagined her sister was having the same difficulty, but Ida abruptly confessed: ‘It’s getting pretty serious between Kurt and me.’
‘On whose part? Yours? His? Or both?’
Ida considered the demand. She smiled, but only slightly, shaking her head. ‘His, I guess.’
‘How?’
‘He wants us to go away together. Only for a vacation: a week, something like that.’
‘How could you do that?’ Elke decided, positively, not to be judgemental. If she were the only person to whom Ida could talk then that was the role she’d play. A sounding board. Adviser, maybe, if advice was sought. But not a judge. What criteria did she have to judge morals?
‘I don’t see how I could,’ admitted Ida, at once.
‘Do you want to?’
Ida shrugged, uncertainly. ‘I don’t know.’
‘What about him?’ asked Elke. ‘What family does he have, apart from a wife?’
Ida stretched across the table, taking Elke’s hand. ‘Use his name,’ Ida asked, her face very serious. ‘It wouldn’t hurt to use his name, would it?’
Elke was dismayed at the anguish on her sister’s face. She said: ‘What family does Kurt have?’
‘A daughter. Twelve. I’ve seen a picture. She’s very pretty.’
‘What about the wife you met at dinner? Is she pretty, too?’
‘You really think that reminder was necessary?’
‘Why not?’ Where was the decision not to judge?
‘I think you could easily …’ started Ida, but stopped.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Ida had almost accused her sister of envy: her stomach knotted in horrified awareness of how such a charge would have sounded against someone like Elke.
‘What?’ insisted Elke, again.
Ida fervently sought a way out. ‘I was going to say I think you could easily be risking what there is between us. Which would have been absurd. It was silly anger: not thinking. I’m sorry.’
Elke relaxed, smiling. ‘I shouldn’t have said it, either,’ she conceded. It had, she supposed, been an argument of sorts.
‘I don’t think I’ll do it,’ said Ida. ‘Try to get away, I mean.’
‘It’ll just make things even more difficult,’ Elke told her. ‘Do you really want that?’
‘No,’ said Ida, sincerely. ‘I certainly don’t want any more difficulties than I’ve already got.’
That night, walking Poppi, Elke made the decision definitely to accept the concert invitation. It was positively ridiculous, ever to have had doubts: she simply didn’t have the experience.
‘Moscow considers it’s dangerous,’ Jutta insisted. ‘You’ll have
to come into direct contact with the police.’
‘That’s the whole point!’ argued Reimann, frustrated by the objections. ‘The police will give me inherent credibility: honest men seek assistance from the police, not dishonest ones!’
‘Too much can go wrong.’
‘Have Moscow agreed?’ Reimann demanded. In Jutta’s thin-walled apartment they were both speaking quietly and playing the stereo loudly as an additional precaution against being overheard.
‘They want to know if there couldn’t be another way.’
‘If I believed there had been another, more effective way I would have suggested it instead.’ In his impatience, Reimann wondered if the reluctance was entirely from Moscow. To Jutta this would be his moment of contact with Elke, the very moment when his relationship with the woman would hopefully begin.
‘You’re sure?’
Reimann refused to argue any further. ‘Do they have enough men available?’
‘Yes,’ she conceded.
‘And they’ll be in place, ready, as I’ve ordered?’
‘Yes.’
Reimann smiled, satisfied. It was good being the person able to dictate the action, after so long being the obedient subordinate. He wondered how long it would be before Jutta recognized the change.
Chapter Twelve
Elke felt inexplicably happy; happier than she had for months. And at the same time calm. She decided that the calmness – the absence of any baseless apprehension or tension – contributed largely to the other more obvious feeling. There were other factors, of course. After the initial instinctive unease, the unwillingness to accept any change in established patterns, she was coming to enjoy the shifting relationship between Ida and herself. It was no longer one-sided. Now Ida needed her, as a confidante and an adviser, and Elke liked the reversal of dependence. She didn’t want the cause to last – and hoped she’d correctly detected a cooling of the affair on Ida’s part when they lunched – but didn’t believe things would ever go back to how they had been before, with herself forever subservient and forever led by her elder sister. They were more equal now. Equal in what? Mistakes, perhaps. She’d made a mistake. And now Ida was making hers. Just as easily Elke found that a sober reflection, a temporary dip in her unusual happiness. If this was the equalizing mistake, she hoped Ida’s was not as irreparable as hers had been.
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