Berlin Encounter

by T. Davis Bunn

  There was a long moment’s silence, then he sighed, “No, despite my desire to argue and battle, I agree. There was no excuse.”

  There was a stirring from the bedroll across the fire. A dark tousled head rose to enquire, “Do my ears deceive me?”

  “I have always prided myself on my intellect,” Hechter replied. “I cannot continue to do so and yet ignore what lies all around me.”

  Rolf looked from Jake to Hechter and back again. “Wonder of wonders.”

  “The war was wrong,” Hechter went on, his eyes hidden within shadows of two caves carved from years of banked-up exhaustion. “The camps . . . have you seen a camp, Colonel?”

  “Survivors,” Jake replied, remembering faces behind the wires of the Allied internment camp at Badenburg. “I never want to see any more.”

  “No, nor I. I have received a letter from a colleague, a man who was employed by the research division of a Bavarian company. He worked in a village called Dachau. He wrote to say that when the Americans arrived, they forced the entire village to walk through the concentration camp outside town. He told me that he did not think he would ever sleep well again. Not ever.”

  “You mean he didn’t have any idea what was going on before?” Jake snorted his disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “Of course he knew,” Hechter replied impatiently. “We all knew. We all had heard stories of places where in wintertime the sky would rain a white ash that would lay inches thick in the roads. But we all chose to turn away. Not to see. Not to believe that our beloved Fatherland had truly sunk to this level. Such things were unthinkable. They could not be. They could not. They . . .”

  The man could not go on. He turned and stared out over the ruined building, the wall’s jagged edge pointing like wounded fingers toward a star-studded sky. He searched the heavens in silent appeal. Then he lowered his face and sighed at the ground, shaking his head slowly, his eyes showing haunted depths.

  Jake glanced across the fire to where Rolf now sat and took in the scene with silent caution. Jake found himself agreeing with the man’s calculating watchfulness. This change in Hans Hechter was too startling to easily believe. But Jake did not want to let the moment pass. Not yet. “You were going to tell me a story.”

  Hechter started, as though drawn from a nightmare, and turned his way. “You truly want to hear this?”

  Jake nodded, his eyes watchful, unable to commit himself more than that.

  “Very well,” Hechter said, and straightened his shoulders with visible effort. “I agree that the war was wrong. But it is hard to see where the first step of a new turning will take you. All we knew when the Nazis swept into power was that a firm hand was finally restoring us to a semblance of order. After ten years of growing chaos, this was a tremendous achievement. And remember, Colonel, I am speaking to you as one of the privileged classes. I cannot myself imagine how it must have been for those whose families were worse off.”

  “Horrible,” Rolf said quietly. “My father was an electrician. There were weeks, months even, when we honestly did not know if we would survive. All I remember of two entire years is a constant, raging hunger. And anger.”

  “The whole nation was angry,” Hechter said quietly. “Even to a child that mood was clear. We had been beaten to our knees, and then beaten again. I myself had not fought in the Great War, and neither had my father. Why was I being forced to pay and pay and pay? I hated all those who had done this to me. Americans and Frenchmen and Russians and all the others, they were just names to me, but names to hate.”

  “It was easy to hate then,” Rolf admitted. “The Communists were the first to use that hatred. The Nazis came later and mixed fury with patriotism, a mixture which proved too heady for some.” Rolf stopped, as though waiting for an explosion from his companion. When none came, he raised questioning eyebrows at Jake, but said only, “The Communists were specialists at weaving spells with the magic of rage. That is why I did not join them. I was tempted by their ideals, there was much that they said which I agreed with. But I was frightened by how everything was woven together, not with brotherhood as they said, but with hatred.”

  “But there were many who did join,” Hechter said. “Many. And the anarchists were gathering together many others who hated even more than the Communists, who hated so much that they could not believe in any government. By my tenth year, I had learned never to walk along a main boulevard after school by myself, because several times a week they would be overrun by marches, and the marches always ended up in running street battles. Always.”

  “The Weimar government was a sham,” Rolf offered from his place across the fire. “They had no response to any of the people’s demands except the barrel of a gun. The streets of almost every city in the nation ran red with the blood of people who called themselves patriots and whom the government banned as dissidents or criminals or traitors. It was an evil time.”

  “Especially for a child,” Hechter agreed. “I remember one Friday, I believe I was twelve by then. My father came out of the university office, and he was carrying two great sacks, one in each hand. I ran up to him and asked what he had. ‘My salary,’ he said, handing me one. ‘Come, we must hurry.’

  “The sack was not heavy, but it was very bulky. Inside were stacks and stacks of bills. I wanted to ask him about this, but he was rushing ahead. My father seldom hurried anywhere. To see him run like this troubled me more than the sacks of money.

  “Soon I saw why we were hurrying. I stopped to pull up my socks and saw that behind us was a crowd of other people, all carrying sacks, and all running in the same direction as us. I raced to catch up with my father, truly frightened now.

  “Just then we crossed the first main thoroughfare leading to the center of the city, and there was a riot. Policemen and soldiers were shooting at a great mob of people carrying banners for bread. I remember reading that one word, bread. My father always avoided these scenes, especially when I was there. That time he simply cried, ‘Not this too! Why do they have to riot on Fridays?’

  “He gripped my shoulder, and together we skirted the worst of the fighting, then ran across the street. Only then did I realize we were headed for the market district. I glanced behind me and saw that all the others were racing along behind us. One man, somebody I knew vaguely because he worked in the same department as my father, was caught by a policeman’s truncheon and went down hard. All the others, people he had worked with for years and years, simply raced over and around him.

  “My father stopped in front of the butcher’s, reached inside my sack, and transferred two great handfuls of notes to his own bag. Then he turned me around and shouted, ‘Go to the baker. Buy all the bread you can with that. Don’t come outside. Wait for me there. Now run!’ I ran.

  “There was already a line when I arrived, but not long. Beggars were working the lines as they always did, and I hugged the sack with both arms, ready to kick anyone who came close. But today their plea was different. I came to hear it a lot in the coming days, but this was the first time, and it gave me nightmares. ‘A crust, a crust for my babies,’ they cried. ‘Remember me when you come out.’ They did not want my money. They wanted bread.

  “When it came to be my turn, I did not need to say anything. There was a sign above the counter, with a number bigger than I had ever seen, and just as I was to be served someone came rushing in the door. I was shoved to one side as the sweating baker and his helper started handing one great sack after another over the counter. I was very worried that perhaps they would run out of bread with such an order, but then I realized it was only money. The man shouted something to the baker, who took a thick pencil and added another zero to the giant number on the placard. I realized then it was the price of bread, and it had gone up by another ten times just while I was standing in line.

  “I bought my bread. It almost filled the sack the money had been in. Then I stood at the far corner and waited for my father to arrive. People were carrying their money in
almost everything—knapsacks, bulging briefcases, even a couple of wheelbarrows. Every few minutes the runner would come back, collect the money, and another zero or two would be added to the price of bread.”

  “Hyperinflation,” Rolf said quietly. “It is one thing to hear the word and another thing entirely to try and survive it. Toward the end, when inflation was running at over a hundred percent an hour, my father would insist on being paid before he started a job. My mother would collect the money each morning and race to the shops because by evening his pay was worth half what it had been that morning.”

  “So you see, Colonel,” Hechter said tiredly, “when Hitler arrived and began establishing order, there were many sane and intelligent people who thought the Nazis were saviors, not villains. I was one of them.”

  Jake stared at the scientist, wondering at all he had heard. Wondering also why his own heart remained so hardened. “And now?”

  “Now. Yes, now.” Hechter’s body had gradually collapsed in upon itself. “How hard it is to admit that my entire life has been built around a lie. Does that give you satisfaction, Colonel, to hear me admit that I was wrong, that I have been wrong for fifteen years, that my entire life has been wasted propping up an evil lie?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  The next morning found Jake making the hardest decision of his life.

  “I can’t go,” he told the others quietly. “It is one thing to have an assistant who takes off for a while with a friend. If we’re being watched, though, and they see me do something strange, they may stop me from coming back. And this marketplace is the only point of contact I have for the man who met us yesterday.”

  He looked from one to the other, willing them to object, to demand that he come with them. “You’ve seen her note. I don’t know why she’s there, or what she can do for us.”

  “She will be expecting you,” Rolf said doubtfully.

  “I know.” Jake sighed into his coffee cup, watched a glorious dawn turn faded and dismal as it rose over the ruins of what had once been the national capital. From his position leaning on the side of the truck, Jake looked out over an endless display of destruction. Those buildings which remained intact showed sightless eyes to the rubbled streets, their windows boarded over, their doors often barricaded. Jake reached into his pocket and handed over a folded paper. “I have written her a note. It explains that we are supposed to meet our contact here today, that he had something urgent to tell me. Something vital. Those were his words.”

  “But what—”

  “If she can take you through the border, go,” Jake said. “That was my first objective, getting you to safety.”

  Rolf and Hans exchanged glances. “How will you know if we get through?”

  “I won’t,” Jake said grimly. “But that can’t be helped. If there’s something vital that man with the bad eye needs to tell me, then I have to wait. I have no choice.”

  The smell of coffee and frying bread drifted from one of the early morning stalls. Across the open space came the sound of footsteps scuffling over the rubble. Jake watched the first patrons scurry toward the traders selling black-market food. “She said nine o’clock. You need to get there early, hide yourselves well. Make sure there is no one observing. If there is, wait until she moves toward you, don’t go to her.” He glanced back at them, nodded once, ached with the desire to go with them. “Good luck.”

  ———

  Theo’s first words to Sally when he stopped to pick her up in front of her hostel that next morning were, “Something’s wrong.”

  She felt her stomach zoom down below street level. “You can’t go?”

  “Of course I can go. Who said anything about not going? I said something is wrong.”

  She reached up for the side railing and climbed on board, then shut her door. “Theo Travers, you are about to catch some of what has been called my bad side.”

  He grinned. “A kitten like you?”

  She started to snap, then realized there was a worry there beneath his smile of greeting. “What’s the matter?”

  His smile disappeared. “Easier to show than tell. Let’s get started.”

  Their way took them back along the Kurfurstendamm. Even in the early morning, she saw signs of the growing difference between the city’s eastern and western sectors. There was activity here in the west. Makeshift signs decorated the few buildings still intact, advertising everything from clothing to cooking oil. Besides the trundling military carriers, a number of antiquated private cars and trucks puttered about, most loaded to the gills with wares of one kind or another. The people she saw looked tired, but they lacked the haggard hopelessness of those in the east. There was a sense of purpose to their step, an awareness of having somewhere to go.

  “It all looks the same to me,” she said.

  “No it doesn’t,” Theo replied, and pointed through the windshield. “Up there. Tell me what you see.”

  She peered, decided, “A police jeep.”

  “Right. Only the Russkies aren’t there anymore.” Theo watched the jeep pass before continuing, “I’m quartered over near one of the border crossings. Only place they could put us on short notice. Last night all the Russkies just up and vanished. Not a word. Just weren’t there.”

  Sally felt her nerves draw to humming tautness. “So?”

  “So all military police, vehicles and borders and foot patrols, all of them are supposed to have one guy from each of the four sectors. That’s part of the plan, see. Four sectors, one city. Only the Russkies have all disappeared.”

  A sense of foreboding tolled deep within her. “What does it mean?”

  “I wish I knew.” He rubbed the stubble on his chin. “From what I saw around HQ this morning, it’s got some others worried. It’s been bad ever since they started erecting their border checkpoints here in the city. That was strictly against regs. But this is something more. This morning the brass were scurrying around like somebody stepped on their anthill.”

  “Did they make problems about you going over?”

  “Naw.” The now-familiar grin returned. “Those guys, they know as much about construction as I do about brain surgery. I gave them a song and dance, got them eating out of my hand. Told them how this sand is tons better, which it is, and heaps cheaper, which it oughtta be if those political joes’d get their thumbs out. Never knew buying a few loads of sand could be so much trouble.”

  Their day yesterday at the site had been almost as frustrating as Sally’s trip to the market. A long line of suspicious political officers and their Russian counterparts had come by, each insisting on beginning the negotiations over from the start. Theo had handled it with remarkable calm.

  “Heads up,” Theo said. “Border check.”

  Instead of being passed through the American side as was customary, the guard-sergeant stepped in front of the barrier and waved them to a halt. He walked around to Theo’s window and saluted. “You Major Travers?”

  “The one and only. What can I do for you?”

  “Got a call from HQ. Told us to have a jeep escort you over.”

  “That won’t be necessary, soldier.”

  “It wasn’t a request, sir. Orders came straight from General Collins. If they aren’t let through, you can’t go, sir.”

  “Eating right out of your hand,” Sally muttered. “Better watch out or they might decide to take a couple of fingers.”

  Theo ignored her, kept his head stuck out the window. “Are my eyes deceiving me, or have the Russkies moved their border station?”

  “Yessir. Been at it almost all night. Pushed it back a coupla hundred feet or so.”

  Theo opened his door and stepped onto the running board. “That a tank?”

  “Looks like one to me.” The sergeant looked up at him. “You sure you need to be going over there this morning, sir?”

  “I’m sure.” Theo climbed back on board and shut his door. “Round up your men, sergeant. Let’s go see what they’re up to.”

&nbs
p; “If you say so, sir.” The sergeant signaled to a waiting jeep, then turned back and said, “Just make sure my buddies all get back in one piece, will you, sir?”

  “Right.” Theo edged the big truck forward, muttered to Sally, “Stranger and stranger.”

  The Russian border post had been transformed. Barriers formed from rail cross-ties had been erected in a long forbidding line, with strands of barbed wire strung between them. The long, ominous snout of a tank poked out from a tent of camouflage netting. Armed men were everywhere.

  Their arrival was met by a phalanx of stern-faced soldiers with guns at the ready. The same political officer as the morning before came around, saluted them nervously, demanded, “Why are you traveling with an armed escort?”

  Sally leaned across and retorted, “Why did you move the guard station? And why the tank?”

  The officer reddened. “I will ask the questions here!”

  A hand signal from Travers caused Sally to back down. “We have no choice. The major’s superior has commanded us either to travel with guards or not to travel at all.” She saw the man hesitate, and she pleaded, “We are very interested in beginning these shipments this afternoon. The major has received authorization for immediate payment.”

  Once again, the offer of dollars softened the man’s resolve. “Wait here,” he snapped.

  He was gone almost an hour before returning and announcing, “There has been a change of plans. The materials will be transported on our trucks. You will pay the costs, of course.”

  “Of course,” Sally said, and turned to translate.

  “Tell the guy he can bring it to us by Chinese sampan if the price is right,” Travers responded. “But I still need to go collect those samples and talk to the guy responsible for the dig. So how about letting us get out from under the eye of that big gun.”

  They were eventually let through, but only after they were joined by two Soviet jeeps. Their extended convoy made its way through streets void of life. Sally watched as one boulevard after another appeared, devoid of even the first glimmers of activity. “Something’s really wrong.”