Christopher's Ghosts

by Charles McCarry

  Christopher set off at a run in the direction of the sounds. He felt his cold muscles, his aching bones, the scrapes and scratches he had gotten while climbing the mosque. Would the new Stutzer, a eunuch who dressed in rags and believed in the puritan virtues of socialism, be met by a polished black car at the end of his daily labor as in the old days or would he take a streetcar? Christopher ran harder, and finally, rounding a corner, he glimpsed far ahead of him a man with grasshopper limbs who was being pulled along by an Alsatian dog. A large black car followed them at walking speed. It was not so big or so shiny as the Daimlers of a different time in Germany, but its symbolism was the same. Christopher’s heart raced, he panted, he trembled and perspired. All this, he realized, was Pavlovian. He smelled the diesel fumes of the S-boat, saw Mahican afire and sailing into the blackness. He had not expected this. Even on the night he had pursued Stutzer through the rain, he had remained in the present. More than he wanted to kill him, irresistible though that urge was, Christopher wanted to talk to him, to make him confess, to see if he even remembered what he had done. That was his objective, to make the monster explain.

  Christopher watched Stutzer and his dog out of sight, then turned back and began the search for a way into his lair.

  5

  In West Berlin, Christopher recovered his suitcase from the left luggage at the railroad station and in the men’s room changed back into his usual clothes. He rolled up the damp, made-in-the-Eastern-bloc garments he had worn the night before and packed them in a canvas satchel that he carried in the suitcase. The ill-made, ill-fitting shoes stank of cat droppings. He cleaned them, wrapped them in newspaper, and put them into the canvas bag with the clothes.

  When he emerged from the booth, Wolkowicz said, “Nice cologne.”

  He stood at a urinal. Christopher was not surprised to see him. He had detected no surveillance after he passed through the checkpoint. Wolkowicz must have posted a lookout at the checkpoint, then deduced where Christopher was headed. The two men had met in this facility before. Wolkowicz favored public toilets as rendezvous points. True, the police kept an eye on men’s rooms but, knowing this, Wolkowicz’s contacts were uncomfortable and anxious to escape and would usually tell him what he wanted to know in the fewest possible words.

  For the moment he and Christopher were alone. Wolkowicz said, “Last night you broke that guy’s foot, you know. Shattered—shattered I say—the metatarsal and mangled a couple of other bones. He barely made it back across the line. He had to answer a lot of Vopo questions about his brand-new limp. He’s in a cast. Gumshoeing is all he knows. How’s the poor chump supposed to make a living? He gets paid by the hour. He’s got a family. How come you’ve got no pity for the great unwashed?”

  Christopher held an electric razor in his hand. He plugged it in and shaved by the faint natural light that was the only illumination in the big room. His beard was light, the stubble almost invisible. Moving closer and peering at Christopher’s chin, Wolkowicz said, “That’s a full day’s growth?” Christopher nodded. Wolkowicz said, “Jeez. Some people are farther up the evolutionary tree than others, I guess.” His own face, shaved only a couple of hours earlier, was blue with stubble. Christopher put his razor away.

  Wolkowicz said, “So where did you go last night after you shook the surveillance?”

  “I visited a neighborhood I knew when I was a kid,” Christopher said.

  “Which neighborhood?”

  Christopher told him.

  “That’s where MfS is, on Frankfurter-Allee.” Wolkowicz used the German acronym for the Ministry of State Security. “What was your plan, to climb the wall like a human fly and break in and photograph everything?”

  Christopher noted the reference to a human fly and wondered if one of his lookouts had watched him climb the Mosque. Not much was accidental where Wolkowicz was concerned. He said, “My father taught me to swim at the public pool next door to the velodrome.”

  “So you got dolled up like a member of the proletariat and danced all night in cat poop just for old times’ sake?”

  Christopher knew that this conversation would not be over until Wolkowicz knew more about Christopher’s mission—however much he might know already. He said, “Why do you care?”

  “This is my town. I’m the mayor. You’re my responsibility.”

  “I am? How did that happen?”

  “Everybody is my responsibility when they’re on my turf—even the ones who went to Hahvud. I’ve got a need to know.” He poked Christopher’s biceps with a stiff forefinger. “Confusion kills, pal.”

  They heard a train arriving. Christopher moved away from Wolkowicz. In moments the room filled with passengers. Wolkowicz, pretending to wash his hands, recognized one of the newcomers in the mirror and abruptly departed. His toes pointed outward when he walked and he held his arms stiffly at his sides. He swayed. From the rear in his tight coat he resembled a penguin in a travelogue. He frequently looked like something he was not.

  After checking the canvas satchel back into left luggage Christopher took a taxi to the Kempinski hotel and checked in. He ordered breakfast from room service and after eating all of it—canned fruit, cheese, ham, bread and butter, jam, coffee—showered and went to bed. Now that he was safe and relaxed he felt his weariness keenly, but he could not sleep. At last he drifted off and began to dream. In his sleep Hubbard and Lori danced in the ballroom of the old Kempinski, Paul stalked imaginary Indians through the beech groves of Rügen, Lori galloped a horse, not her Lipizzaner, across a pasture with snowy peaks in the background.

  The phone rang. Even while rising from his shallow sleep Christopher knew it could be no one but Wolkowicz on the line. He did not answer. The phone continued to ring insistently. Christopher picked up the receiver and replaced it, breaking the connection. The phone rang again and went on ringing. The Kempinski operator, he knew, would never ring more than a half dozen times unless the caller insisted and had some sort of authority. Christopher got out of bed, dropped to his knees, and unplugged the phone. Next would come knocks on the door, Christopher knew, and after that, if Wolkowicz asked his friend the chief of police to make a call to the manager, an expression of regret from the hotel management that his room was no longer available. Sleep was now impossible. Christopher, nauseated by fatigue, got up and put on his clothes. His idea was to get out of the room before the hammering on the door began. It was raining hard and the rain was mixed with hail. The soaking cold of the north European winter radiated into the overheated room through the window glass.

  It was too early in Berlin to do anything interesting, and in any case too wet and cold to go outside. The lobby was crowded with the hotel’s clientele, mostly American businessmen in expensive suits and the neckties of British regiments. Christopher waited until one of them departed, then sat down in his warm chair and read the Paris edition of the Herald-Tribune.

  The chair beside Christopher became empty. Wolkowicz sat down in it. “I’ve been thinking about what you said about the Indians,” he said.

  “What was that exactly?”

  “That they were all spies.”

  “Which Indians?”

  “The Sioux, the Cheyenne, the Mohawks.”

  Christopher, who also forgot little or nothing, recalled this conversation about Indians, but it had taken place years before in Vienna.

  Wolkowicz said, “Your theory was that they had a culture of espionage. Always sneaking around but leaving no tracks, eavesdropping, assassinating people, stealing the other tribes’ horses and women instead of secret documents.”

  Christopher said, “Was that the way I put it?”

  “Maybe I missed the subtleties,” Wolkowicz said. “So tell me what makes you so interested in Arabs all of a sudden?”

  Wolkowicz’s shrewd small eyes bored into Christopher’s. He was looking for a spark of surprise, a hint of annoyance, any all-but-undetectable sign that he had hit the mark. He saw none of these things. Christopher, silent, waited for Wol
kowicz to make the next move. If he was true to form he would offer a morsel of information and hope to get better information in return. He worked like a smart lawyer, leading the witness, playing dumb, pouncing at the right moment.

  “I did some checking,” Wolkowicz said. “A couple of weeks ago we got a cable from One-Eye asking for everything we knew about a certain officer of MfS, and then we got another cable asking for information about MfS contacts with bad-guy Mohammedans, and what d’you know, there was a connection. And then all of a sudden O. G.’s fair-haired godson pops in to say hello but won’t say anything more than that. If you were me, pal, what would you think?”

  Christopher said, “If I were you, Barney, I’d probably leap to conclusions.”

  “Yeah, probably. But you’re not me. You’re a whole lot smarter than me to begin with and you’re in full possession of the facts. How come you’re so, uh, unforthcoming?”

  Wolkowicz spoke the long word in a parody of a Saint Grottlesex drawl. Although he was surrounded by potential eavesdroppers, he was talking of these clandestine matters in a normal tone of voice, as if he and Christopher were alone in the lobby. Better here in a crowd, according to Wolkowicz’s modus operandi, than head-to-head in a room that might be bugged. An operative who acted like himself instead of impersonating an honest man was less likely to attract attention, and that the louder one talked in a public place the less likely others were to pay attention to what you said. Acting like a boor caused people to look away. It made them stop their ears. It was furtive gestures and whispers that raised suspicions.

  Wolkowicz said, “So?”

  “So what don’t you know?”

  “I don’t know anything. I’m just rubbing snot on the windowpane, watching you rich folks enjoy your dinner.”

  Christopher yawned. He was having trouble staying awake. Except for Wolkowicz, the people in the lobby were sitting so still that they might have been posing for a photograph. Christopher had not slept on the train from Paris, he had not slept on the plane from New York, he had not slept last night.

  “Wake up,” Wolkowicz said. “Are you going to go back across?”

  “Probably.”

  “When?”

  “After you let me get some sleep.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Old times’ sake, like you said.”

  “Right. But what’s the operational reason?”

  “The life-and-death struggle between good and evil for the soul of mankind.”

  “I’m going to give it to you straight, pal. I’m very uneasy about this.”

  “You, Barney, uneasy? That’s a twist.”

  “It’s not funny,” Wolkowicz said. “Broken Foot—that’s the Indian name of the guy you tromped on—said that you used Stasi credentials to get through the checkpoint last night. Is that true?”

  “Really?”

  “Did you flash any such document at the Vopos? Please tell me.”

  “How would your man know what paper I showed unless the Vopos told him? Think about that.”

  Christopher yawned again, deeply and uncontrollably. Wolkowicz glared.

  “I’m not yawning on purpose or because I’m not enjoying the conversation,” Christopher said. “I can barely stay awake.”

  “You did use Stasi ID, didn’t you?” Wolkowicz said. “Golly gee, what a nifty idea that was. Who thought it up, your one-eyed buddy? I know you’re not that stupid.”

  Christopher yawned again.

  Wolkowicz said, “I read somewhere that yawning is the body’s way of inhaling more oxygen. It helped our caveman ancestors stay awake when they were being stalked by predators.”

  “No kidding.”

  “You should watch out for predators. I’ve got something for you.”

  Wolkowicz handed Christopher an envelope sealed across the point of its flap with a short piece of Scotch tape. He could feel what was inside and knew what it must be, but he opened it anyway, so as not to spoil Wolkowicz’s pleasure. It was a well-worn East German identity card bearing Christopher’s photograph, also well-worn, and a false name. He was described as a translator.

  “Use this ID from now on,” Wolkowicz said. “It’s genuine-false in the true name of the holder, who’s a secret heroin addict we’ve been helping.”

  Christopher nodded his thanks. He put the card in his pocket and handed the envelope back.

  “So tell me, Gabby,” Wolkowicz said. “Are you going to be commuting to the GDR or what?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because if you’re going to stay over there for a while you’re really going to be sleep-deprived. It’s not a country where you can travel anywhere you want. There are very few discreet hotel keepers in the GDR. Cops outnumber civilians. Whatever they call the country now, it’s still the Russian zone and Russians are all over the place. You might need a friend.”

  Christopher said, “A friend. All right. What name, what place, what words?”

  “The person in question will be introduced when you pick up your weapon at that place I told you about. The words are, ‘Does the Museum of Natural Science have dinosaurs?’ What you say is, ‘Yeah, but they’re nothing but skin and bones.’” Wolkowicz lurched to his feet. “Watch your fanny,” he said. “It’s a jungle over there.”

  NINE

  1

  Nobody in East Berlin seemed to be interested in Christopher. He took a long walk along Wilhelmstrasse, all the way to Parisier Platz, where the American embassy had stood in O. G.’s day as a diplomat. He saw no one behind him. This half of the city was gray and subdued and quiet, with much less automobile traffic than before the war. Little dogs like Schatzi and Blümchen that were once almost as numerous as human beings had vanished with the elegant shops and restaurants of another time. Pedestrians scuttled along the sidewalks as if in a hurry to get out of sight before their permits to be seen in public expired. He remembered a snatch of a Marlene Dietrich song, Berlin will always be Berlin.

  It was mid-afternoon when Christopher reached the Red Orchestra Inn. It was a pension really, wedged between two larger buildings. Inside, the light was dim. As he entered, the young woman at the desk lifted her eyes from the book she was reading by the grimy daylight that fell through the glass above the door. She wore round steel spectacles. She waited, inert, until he spoke.

  He said, “Sepp Bauer?”

  The woman shook her head. “Not here.”

  Christopher smiled. “Then I’ve missed him. But as I am already here, I wonder if, as a matter of very great kindness, I might be permitted to use the lavatory.”

  Still smiling, feeling like a fool as he always did when engaged in such stage business, he unbuckled his wristwatch and dropped it into the left-hand pocket of his jacket.

  “Second door on the left,” the woman said, and went back to her book. It was a novel in Russian, Days and Nights by Konstantin Simonov. Christopher had read it in an Armed Forces edition English translation when he was in the Marine Corps. It was an intensely patriotic work about the Battle of Stalingrad, written while the war was still going on, a sort of Eisenstein movie set in type, not quite propaganda, not quite art. He had thought that the text must be poetic in the Russian.

  Everything in the w. c. was as Wolkowicz had described it. Christopher put his weight—all his strength was needed—against the spring-loaded windowsill and it slid back smoothly, clicked, and came loose in his hands, revealing a hidden compartment that exuded the odor of blued steel and gun oil. He found three fully loaded Makarov pistols wrapped in oiled paper. The Makarov was a powerful, dependable, accurate military weapon of simple design—Wolkowicz’s kind of gun. One of the pistols had been manufactured in East Germany, the others in Bulgaria. Christopher took the one made in East Germany, which felt better in his hand, along with three eight-round clips of ammunition and a large folding pocket knife, then closed up the windowsill. He tucked the Makarov into his waistband at the small of his back, put the knife in his jacket pocket, flushe
d the toilet, and walked out.

  At the front desk the young woman’s nose was still in her book. She did not look up, so what he saw was the top of her head. Her hair, almost blond, was pulled tight into a chignon. The ruler-straight part in her hair, her ears, her hands holding the book and her nails were scrupulously clean. Her body, or what he could see of it, was narrow, the back straight. Christopher said thank you as he walked by.

  As he reached the front door, the woman said, “One moment, please.”

  Christopher stopped and looked back.

  She said, “I am wondering something. Does the Museum of Natural Science have dinosaurs?”

  Now she was looking straight at him. Her eyes were unsmiling but friendly. She looked even more immaculately clean now that he saw her entire face.

  Christopher said, “Yes, but they’re nothing but skin and bones.”

  The woman said, “You shouldn’t be outside in daylight with such things in your pockets. We have an empty room.”

  “Who else is staying here?”

  “At the moment, no one. But we get a simple clientele here. Mostly men who travel and, sometimes in the afternoon, couples who want privacy.”

  Christopher waited for her to say something else. She understood what he wanted—her eyes showed her amusement—but she did not oblige.

  He said, “What’s the rate?”

  “Ten marks-fifty a night, breakfast included, supper available, alcohol extra. There is a bar, also for simple people.”

  “How long can I stay?”

  “Until you make a disturbance.” She took a key from the rack. “Come, I’ll show you the room.”

  He followed her up the steep narrow stairs. She had pretty legs, a lithe body. At the top she gave him a look to let him know that she realized this.

  The room lay under the sloping roof on a blind side of the building. There was no number on the door. It was small and spartan—a bed, a wardrobe, a straight chair, a washstand with a small round mirror. There was no window. A small bulb screwed into a ceiling fixture provided the only light. The woman pointed to the lavatory and bathroom down the hall. “There is no hot water,” she said. In that case how could she be so clean, Christopher wondered. Again her eyes were amused as she read his thought. She said, “Do you snore?”