“I didn’t do a thing,” Lothar hissed. “Take a closer look, you stupid Icelander!”
Then Lothar threw him to the floor and stormed out of the office.
On the way back to Iceland he got the news that the Soviet army was crushing an uprising in Hungary.
He heard the old grandfather clock strike midnight, and he put the letters back in their place.
He had watched on television when the Berlin Wall fell and Germany was reunited. Seen the crowds scale the wall and hit it with hammers and pickaxes as if striking blows against the very inhumanity that built it.
When German reunification had been achieved and he felt ready, he travelled to the former East Germany for the first time since he had studied there. It now took him half a day to reach his destination. He flew to Frankfurt and caught a connection to Leipzig. From the airport he took a taxi to his hotel, where he dined alone. It was not far from the city centre and campus. There were only two old couples and a few middle-aged men in the dining room. Salesmen perhaps, he thought. One nodded at him when their gazes met.
In the evening he took a long walk and remembered the first time he had strolled around the city when he arrived there as a student, and he reflected on how the world had changed. He looked around the university quarter. His dormitory, the old villa, had been restored and now served as the headquarters of a multinational company. The old university building where he had studied was gloomier in the dark of night than he remembered it. He walked towards the city centre and looked inside Nikolaikirche, where he lit a candle in memory of the dead. Crossing the old Karl-Marx-Platz to Thomaskirche, he gazed at the statue of Bach that they had so often stood beneath.
An old woman approached him and invited him to buy some flowers. With a smile, he bought a small posy.
Shortly afterwards he went where his thoughts had so often returned. He was pleased to see that the house was still standing. It had been partly refurbished and there was a light in the window. Much as he longed to, he did not dare peek inside, but he had the impression that a family lived there. A television set gave off a flickering light from what had been the living room of the old landlady who had lost her family in the war. Everything inside would be different now, of course. Perhaps the eldest child was sleeping in their old room.
He kissed the posy of flowers, placed it at the door and made the sign of the cross over it.
A few years earlier he had flown to Budapest and met Ilona’s elderly mother and two brothers. Her father was dead by then, never having discovered his daughter’s fate.
He spent all day sitting with Ilona’s mother, who showed him photographs of Ilona from when she was a baby through to her student years. The brothers, who like him were beginning to age, told him what he already knew: nothing had come of their search for answers about Ilona. He could sense their bitterness, the resignation that had taken root in them long ago.
The day after he arrived in Leipzig he went to the old security police headquarters, which were still in the same building on Dittrichring 24. Instead of police at the reception desk in the foyer, there was now a young woman who smiled as she handed him a brochure. Still able to speak passable German, he introduced himself as a visitor to the city and asked to look around. Other people had entered the building for the same purpose, and walked in and out through open and unlocked doors, free to go where they pleased. When she heard his accent the young woman asked where he was from. Then she told him that an archive was being set up in the old Stasi offices. He was welcome to listen to a talk that was about to begin, then tour the building. She showed him to the corridor leading to where chairs had been arranged, every one of them occupied. Some of the audience were standing up against the walls. The talk was about the imprisonment of dissident writers in the 1970s.
After the talk he went to the office in the alcove where Lothar and the man with the thick moustache had interrogated him. The cell next door was open and he went inside. He thought again that Ilona might have been there. There were graffiti and scratches all over the walls, made with spoons, he imagined.
He had put in a formal application to look at the files when the Stasi archive opened after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Its purpose was to help people delve into the fate of loved ones who had gone missing, or find information about themselves that had been collected by neighbours, colleagues, friends and family, under the system of interactive surveillance. Journalists, academics and people who suspected they had been documented in the files could apply for access, which he had done by letter and telephone from Iceland. Applicants had to explain in detail why they needed to study the files and what they were looking for. He knew there were thousands of large brown paper bags full of files that had been shredded in the last days of the East German regime; a huge team was employed on taping them back together. The scale of the records was incredible.
His trip to East Germany produced nothing. No matter how he searched, he could not find a scrap of information about Ilona. Her file had probably been destroyed, he was told. Possibly she had been sent to a labour camp or gulag in the old Soviet Union, so there was a slim chance that he could find some record of her in Moscow. It was also conceivable that she had died in police custody in Leipzig or in Berlin if she had been sent there.
Nor did he find any information in the Stasi files about whichever traitor had turned his beloved girlfriend over to the security police.
He sat and waited for the police to call. He had done that all summer; now it was autumn and nothing had happened yet. Certain that the police would knock on his door sooner or later, he sometimes wondered how he would react. Would he act nonchalantly, deny the accusations and feign surprise? It would depend on what evidence they had. He had no idea what this might be, but imagined that it would be substantial, if they had managed to trace a lead to him in the first place.
He stared into space and drifted back once again to his years in Leipzig.
Four words from his last encounter with Lothar had remained etched into his mind right up to the present day and would remain there for ever. Four words that said it all.
Take a closer look.
29
Erlendur and Elinborg arrived unannounced, knowing very little about the man they were going to see, except that his name was Hannes and he had once studied in Leipzig. He ran a guest house in Selfoss and grew tomatoes as a sideline. They knew where he lived, so they drove straight there and parked outside a bungalow identical to all the others in the little town, apart from not having been painted for a long time and having a concreted space in front of it where a garage was perhaps supposed to stand. The garden around the house was well kept, with hedges and flowers and a small birdhouse.
In the garden was a man they took to be in his seventies struggling with a lawnmower. The motor would not catch and he was clearly out of breath from tugging at the starting cord, which as soon as he released it darted back into its hole again like a snake. He did not notice them until they were standing right next to him.
“A heap of old junk, is it?” Erlendur asked as he looked down at the lawnmower and inhaled smoke from his cigarette. He had lit up the moment he got out of the car. Elinborg had forbidden him to smoke on the way. His car was awful enough anyway.
The man looked up and stared at them, two strangers in his garden. He had a grey beard and grey hair that was starting to thin, a tall and intelligent forehead, thick eyebrows and alert brown eyes. On his nose sat a pair of glasses that might have been in fashion a quarter of a century before.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Is your name Hannes?” Elinborg asked back.
The man said yes and gave them a probing look.
“Do you want some tomatoes?” he asked.
“Maybe,” Erlendur said. “Are they any good? Elinborg here is an expert.”
“Didn’t you study in Leipzig in the 1950s?” Elinborg said.
The man regarded her blankly. It was almost as if he did not understand the qu
estion, and certainly not the reason it was being asked. Elinborg repeated it.
“What’s going on?” the man said. “Who are you? Why are you asking me about Leipzig?”
“You first went there in 1952, didn’t you?” Elinborg said.
“That’s right,” he said in surprise. “So what?”
Elinborg explained to him that the investigation into the skeleton found in Kleifarvatn in the spring had led to Icelandic students in East Germany. This was merely one of many questions raised in connection with the case, she told him, without mentioning the Russian spying device.
“I… what… I mean…” Hannes stuttered. “What does that have to do with those of us who were in Germany?”
“Leipzig, to be absolutely precise,” Erlendur said. “We’re enquiring in particular about a man called Lothar. Does that name ring a bell? A German. Lothar Weiser.”
Hannes stared at them in astonishment, as if he had just seen a ghost. He looked at Erlendur, then back at Elinborg.
“I can’t help you,” he said.
“It shouldn’t take very long,” Erlendur said.
“Sorry,” Hannes said. “I’ve forgotten all that. It was so long ago.”
“If you could please…” Elinborg said, but Hannes interrupted her.
“Please leave,” he said. “I don’t think I have anything to say to you. I can’t help you. I haven’t talked about Leipzig for a long time and I’m not going to start now. I’ve forgotten and I won’t stand for being interrogated. You’ll gain nothing from talking to me.”
He returned to the starter cord of his lawnmower and tinkered with the motor. Erlendur and Elinborg exchanged glances.
“What makes you think that?” Erlendur said. “You don’t even know what we want from you.”
“No, and I don’t want to know. Leave me alone.”
“This isn’t an interrogation,” Elinborg said. “But if you want we can bring you in for questioning. If you’d prefer that.”
“Are you threatening me?” Hannes said, looking up from the lawnmower.
“What’s wrong with answering a couple of questions?” Erlendur said.
“I don’t have to if I don’t want to and I don’t intend to. Goodbye.”
Elinborg was on the verge of saying something which, judging from her face, would have been quite a scolding, but before she had the chance Erlendur took her by the arm and dragged her off towards the car.
“If he reckons he can get away with that kind of bullshit—” Elinborg began when they were sitting in the car, but Erlendur interrupted.
“I’ll try to smooth things over and if that doesn’t work it’s up to him,” he said. “Then we’ll have him brought in.”
He got out of the car and went back to Hannes. Elinborg watched him walking off. Hannes had finally started the lawnmower and was cutting the grass. He ignored Erlendur, who stepped in front of him and switched off the machine.
“It took me two hours to start that,” Hannes shouted. “What’s all this supposed to mean?”
“We’ve got to do this,” Erlendur said calmly, “even if it’s no fun for either of us. Sorry. We can do it now and be quick about it, or we can send a patrol car round for you. And maybe you won’t say anything then, so we’ll send for you straight away the next day and the day after that, until you’re one of our regulars.”
“I don’t let people push me around!”
“Nor do I,” Erlendur said.
They stood facing each other with the lawnmower between them. Neither was going to yield. Elinborg sat watching the standoff from the car, shook her head and thought to herself: Men!
“Fine,” Erlendur said. “See you in Reykjavik.”
He turned away and walked back towards the car. Frowning, Hannes watched him.
“Does it go in your reports?” he called out after Erlendur. “If I talk to you.”
“Are you afraid of reports?” Erlendur said, turning round.
“I don’t want to be quoted. I don’t want any files about me or about what I say. I don’t want any spying.”
“That’s all right,” Erlendur said. “Neither do I.”
“I haven’t thought about this for decades,” Hannes said. “I’ve tried to forget about it.”
“Forget about what?” Erlendur asked.
“Those were strange times,” Hannes said. “I haven’t heard Lothar’s name for ages. What’s he got to do with the skeleton in Kleifarvatn?”
For a good while Erlendur just stood looking at him, until Hannes cleared his throat and said they should maybe go inside. Erlendur nodded and waved Elinborg over.
“My wife died four years ago,” Hannes said as he opened the door. He told them that his children sometimes dropped by with his grandchildren on a Sunday drive in the countryside, but that in other respects he was left to himself and preferred it that way. They asked about his circumstances and how long he had lived in Selfoss; he said he had moved there about twenty years before. He had been an engineer with a large firm engaged on hydropower projects, but had lost interest in the subject, moved from Reykjavik and settled in Selfoss, where he liked living.
When he brought the coffee into the living room Erlendur asked him about Leipzig. Hannes tried to explain what it was like to be a student there in the mid-1950s and before he knew it he was telling them about the shortages, voluntary work, clearing of ruins, the Day of the Republic parades, Ulbricht, compulsory attendance at lectures on socialism, the Icelandic students” views on socialism, anti-party activities, the Freie Deutsche Jugend, Soviet power, the planned economy, collectives and the interactive surveillance which ensured that no one could get away with causing trouble and weeded out all criticism. He told them about the friendships that were formed among the Icelandic students, the ideals they discussed, and about socialism as a genuine alternative to capitalism.
“I don’t think it’s dead,” Hannes said, as if reaching some kind of conclusion. “I think it’s very much alive, but in a different way from what we may have imagined. It’s socialism that makes it bearable for us to live under capitalism.”
“You’re still a socialist?” Erlendur said.
“I always have been,” Hannes said. “Socialism bears no relation to the blatant inhumanity that Stalin turned it into or the ridiculous dictatorships that developed across Eastern Europe.”
“But didn’t everyone join in singing the praises of that deception?” Erlendur said.
“I don’t know,” Hannes said. “I didn’t after I saw how socialism was put into practice in East Germany. Actually I was deported for not being submissive enough. For not wanting to go the whole hog in the spy network they ran and so poetically described as interactive. They thought it was acceptable for children to spy on their parents and report them if they deviated from the party line. That has nothing to do with socialism. It’s the fear of losing power. Which of course they did in the end.”
“What do you mean, go the whole hog?” Erlendur asked.
“They wanted me to spy on my companions, the Icelanders. I refused. Other things I saw and heard there made me rebel. I didn’t go to the compulsory lectures. I criticised the system. Not openly, of course, because you never criticised anything out loud, just discussed the flaws in the system with small groups of people you trusted. There were dissident cells in the city, young people who met secretly. I got to know them. Is it Lothar you found in Kleifarvatn?”
“No,” Erlendur said. “Or rather, we don’t know.”
“Who were “they”?” Elinborg asked. “You said “they” asked you to spy on your companions.”
“Lothar Weiser, for one.”
“Why him?” Elinborg asked. “Do you know?”
“He was nominally a student but didn’t seem serious about it and went about his own business as he pleased. He spoke fluent Icelandic and we believed he was there explicitly on the orders of the party or student organisation, which was the same thing. Clearly, one of his functions was to keep an eye on
the students and try to enlist their cooperation.”
“What kind of cooperation?” Elinborg asked.
“It took all kinds of forms,” Hannes said. “If you knew someone listened to western radio, you were supposed to let an official from the FDJ know. If anyone said he couldn’t be bothered to clear the ruins or do other voluntary work, you were meant to inform on him. Then there were more serious offences such as allowing yourself to air anti-socialist views. Not attending the Day of the Republic parade was also seen as a sign of opposition rather than simple laziness. Likewise if you skived those pointless FDJ lectures on socialist values. Everything was under close control and Lothar was one of the players. We were urged to report on others. Really you weren’t showing the right spirit if you didn’t inform.”
“Could Lothar have asked other Icelanders to give him information?” Erlendur asked. “Could he have asked other people to spy on their companions?”
“There’s no question about it. I’m sure he did,” Hannes said. “I imagine he tried that on every one of them.”
“And?”
“And nothing.”
“Was there any particular reward for being cooperative or was it purely idealistic?” Elinborg asked. “Spying on your neighbours?”
“There were systems to reward those who wanted to impress. Sometimes a bad student who was loyal to the party line and politically sound would get a bigger grant than a brilliant student who had much higher grades but was not politically active. The system worked like that. When an undesirable student was expelled, like I was in the end, it was important for the other students to show what they thought by siding with the party apparatchiks. Students could gain kudos by denouncing the offender to show loyalty to the general line, as it was called. The Freie Deutsche Jugend was in charge of discipline. It was the only student organisation that was allowed and it had a lot of power. Not belonging to it was frowned upon. As was not attending their talks.”
“You said there were dissident cells,” Erlendur said.
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