“But, they didn’t ask—” Newkirk fell silent, suddenly aware of the trap into which he had been led. He got down from the car slowly, reaching into his pocket even more slowly, knowing that any quick move on his part could result in a bullet from the husky rock-faced sergeant. The Volks Polizei were known to be irresponsible at times. “There’s no need to search me. I have some DDR marks. I bought them at the airport at Schönefeld in case I needed gasoline, or—” He knew he was wasting his time, but he had to play the silly charade to the end. “I’m sorry. The man at the barrier didn’t ask and I simply forgot. I’ll go back now and turn them in for West German money.”
“No,” the sergeant said. His voice was totally expressionless. He looked and sounded like an automaton. The effect was a bit frightening. “You are aware of the currency regulations. You have attempted to take DDR money into West Germany. This is not permitted. It says so clearly on the papers you received when you entered the Democratic Republic. You will come with me.”
“Now, wait a minute, damn it!” Newkirk said testily. He made no attempt to glance in the direction of the Zis and the white-haired major he knew was watching, probably with secret amusement. “Look,” Newkirk said, and then paused. Was it possible that Ulanov had no idea who he was, but was merely retaliating against a car he thought had been following them, or a car he suspected might have been following them? In that case the best bet was to act the innocent and see where it took him. “Look,” he repeated, “I’m a reporter for the Paris edition of the Herald Tribune. I was in a hurry to get to West Berlin to file a story. So I forgot to declare a few DDR marks! My Lord!”
Sergeant Wolper might not have heard one word. “You will turn your car around and follow me. Is it understood?” He shifted his weight as he spoke, allowing his jacket to swing open; the butt of the revolver in his shoulder holster glistened momentarily under the arc lights.
“But, this is ridiculous—”
“You were smuggling currency,” the sergeant said evenly. “You will turn your car—”
“Smuggling!” Newkirk exploded; not all of his irritation was acting. “Who would want to smuggle DDR money out of East Germany? What would you use it for? Outside of this country it won’t buy anything, it has no exchange, it’s only paper!” He took one look at the sergeant’s rigid face, with the jaw muscles tightening as the diatribe went on, and sighed. “All right,” he said, and added with a touch of grave-side humor, “Where are we going, in case we get separated?”
“You will follow me,” the sergeant said, not amused, “and a motorcycle policeman will follow you. He is waiting now at the barrier. Come.”
“You say you are a newspaper reporter?” the magistrate asked.
“You have my press credentials on your desk, together with my passport.”
“Of course, so I have. You have visited the Democratic Republic before?”
“Many times. I cover cultural affairs for my paper. I’ve visited all of your museums, and plan on seeing the exhibit next month in Leipzig on the ancient—”
“Have you ever purchased DDR marks before?”
“Of course. It’s the only money you can use for—”
“And when you left the German Democratic Republic in the past, did you exchange these DDR marks in accordance with the currency regulations?”
“Of course! But this time, you see—”
“This time you did not. Is that correct?”
“But, you see—”
“I asked you, this time you did not, is that correct?”
“Technically, yes. But—”
“Not technically. Actually.” The magistrate eyed Newkirk sternly. “Do not take the attitude that you are being persecuted, Mr. Newkirk. We have laws. You have broken them. The degree of punishment will depend upon your purpose in so doing. That is yet to be determined. That will be all.” He signaled to a uniformed policeman who had been standing rigidly to one side.
Newkirk heaved a great sigh. “May I make a telephone call?”
“Of course. All rights are respected here,” the magistrate said magnanimously. “The switchboard will connect you.” He came to his feet. “I will leave you alone if you wish privacy.” He tipped his head toward the policeman. “The guard does not speak English.”
“You can stay,” Newkirk said. He knew that whether the magistrate or anyone else was in the room, his call would be thoroughly monitored in any event. He took a deep breath and put through his call. When at last it came through and he was finally connected with the man he had requested, he knew exactly what he wanted to say. “Hello, Mike? This is Jim Newkirk. I’m in East Berlin. What? In jail. That’s right. The Volks-Polizei headquarters. Some silly mix-up with the currency regulations. It’s all a mistake, but you know how these things are. I’m afraid I’ll have to miss Aunt Betty’s birthday party, but it can’t be helped. Tell her I’m sorry. And get somebody from the paper’s legal staff to start working on getting me out of here, understand …?”
“Aunt Betty’s birthday party!” Ulanov said, with a grin, and ordered another beer. He and Sergeant Wolper were having dinner at the Panorama restaurant on the thirty-seventh floor of the Stadt Berlin Hotel. Below them, spread out on both sides of a barbed-wire-topped wall that fortunately was hidden in the night, the lights of the city spread to the horizon. The sergeant had informed the barman at Colonel Müeller’s club that any call from the colonel should be relayed here. In the meantime the two men were enjoying a pleasant meal, with the sergeant making up for his forced abstinence during the day.
The sergeant put down his stein of beer and wiped foam from his lips. “Aunt Betty’s birthday party?” he asked, mystified.
“To advise his control he stepped into dung,” Ulanov said. “We use Uncle Vanya’s fiftieth wedding anniversary, ourselves.” For a moment he thought of asking the sergeant what the East German security forces used, but felt it would be better to ask the question of Colonel Müeller, if the question had to be asked at all. He also felt that German beer was stronger than Russian beer, and yawned at the very thought.
The reply did not seem to satisfy the sergeant’s curiosity, but before he could delve into the question more deeply, the head waiter was at his elbow with a telephone. The sergeant verified the source of the call and handed the instrument across the table. Ulanov took it, watching the waiter place their meal upon the table as he did so.
“Ulanov here.”
“Major? Colonel Müeller. We’re in Rostock, up near the Baltic. Kovpak and the girl are staying at the Warnow Hotel. So am I. I’m fairly certain they’re settled here for the night. They put their car in the hotel garage, and I have my driver in my car in the same garage, so they won’t go anywhere without my knowing it.”
The effects of the beer, of the beers, instantly disappeared. “They went directly to Rostock?”
“No. As you surmised, they went to Bad Freienwalde, but they didn’t even get out of the car. They sat across the street from the railroad station for about five minutes, consulting a road map, then they turned around and started back the way they had come. They went back on Route 167, across E-74 to E-6, took E-6 north to Neubrandenburg, and then took the road directly to Rostock.”
“One second.” Ulanov cupped the receiver and looked at Sergeant Wolper. “How far is Rostock from here?”
“About a three-hour drive.” The sergeant consulted his watch and looked at the lovely meal on the table with regret. He had a feeling he would never get to enjoy it. “If we leave now, we could be there by midnight.”
“Thanks.” Ulanov went back to the telephone. “Book me a room at the same hotel, and get me the room numbers of both Kovpak and the girl. If they have separate rooms, that is—”
“They do.”
So at least nothing had been consummated as yet, Ulanov thought with a wry smile. Poor Gregor! He wiped the smile from his face. “We’ll be there by one.” He disregarded the gleam of joy that suddenly lit Wolper’s eye; he also was hungry. “S
ergeant Wolper and your driver can spell each other keeping an eye on Kovpak’s car.”
“Right,” Müeller said. “But I wasn’t finished.”
Ulanov looked at his meal, getting cold while he spoke on the telephone, while his beer got warm. He shrugged fatalistically. “You weren’t? Then go on.” He leaned back and lit a cigarette. If he couldn’t eat at least he could smoke.
“When the two of them got to Rostock,” the colonel said in his best reportorial manner, “they stopped at the hotel and checked in. Then they got back in their car and drove off. I was wondering where they might possibly be going in Rostock on a Sunday evening—believe me, if you think Berlin is dead on a Sunday, you should see Rostock! Not even a beer hall—” He seemed to realize he was wandering and came back to his story. “Anyway, they drove to Warnemünde—”
“How far is that?”
“Not very far. Maybe eight miles, along the estuary, to the Baltic.”
“I see. And exactly what did they do when they got there?”
Colonel Franz Müeller’s voice became slightly hesitant, as if he was not quite sure how to explain the strange actions of the two.
“Well, Major,” he said slowly, “that is what is so curious. They drove along the docks, slowly, nothing special, and then stopped and got out of the car and just stood there, facing the sea and staring about them. They actually seemed to be just two more tourists, enjoying the view of the water. And then—”
“Then?”
“Then,” the colonel said, and it was obvious from his tone that he did not understand it, “then what they did was to burst into laughter. Yes, they laughed like idiots. And there wasn’t anything I could see to laugh at, at least not to my eye.”
“And then?”
“Then they got back into the car, still laughing, and drove back to the hotel where they are at the moment, eating dinner in the restaurant.”
Which is what he wished he were doing, Ulanov thought. “You say they laughed? Just that?” Ulanov asked, now as perplexed as the colonel.
“Just that. Like maniacs,” Müeller said, happy not to be alone in his mystification. “Like loons …”
And what was so comical in Warnemünde? Ulanov asked himself as he put down the telephone, crushed out his cigarette, and attacked his meal. He thought about it a moment and then desisted. That would be for tomorrow. Tonight was to enjoy a meal, even if slightly cold.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
ROSTOCK—July
Across the street from the Warnow Hotel a circus was playing on the small dock that fronted the estuary. It was the only activity that seemed to be open that Sunday, and its colorful banners and cheerfully painted charabancs were a lure to the Russian in Gregor. He thought it might be fun to see, to compare with the circuses he had been raised on in Russia. Ruth McVeigh did not. While it pleased her that her Gregor—for she had come to think of him as “her” Gregor, at least for as long as she could keep him with her—while being a noted scientist could still retain traits of childishness, which gave her a slight feeling of control which was welcome, at the same time she had the feeling that if she didn’t come up with at least something in some way related to the Schliemann treasure and their search for it, that her Gregor might decide that enough was enough and return to Leningrad and the Hermitage. It was a frightening, almost a sickening thought, and one that added a slight touch of emergency to her voice.
“We didn’t come here to see circuses,” she said, and tried not to sound like a mother lecturing a child. “It stays light until ten at night here this time of year, and Warnemünde is only a few miles away. Let’s go.”
“If that’s what you want,” Gregor said, and shrugged. He had parked the car before the Warnow while they had registered, turned over their passports, and carried their own bags to their respective rooms in the standard procedure of East Germany. Now, reassembled in the hotel lobby, they had been discussing their plans. Gregor didn’t really care whether they went to the circus or not, as long as Ruth was with him. His fear was simply that the sooner they got to Warnemünde the sooner Ruth would realize her quest was not only quixotic but futile, and the sooner she would go back to New York and the Metropolitan. It was a disturbing thought, as disturbing as the realization that she wanted to end their trip as soon as possible. He had thought she was enjoying herself with him.
They got back into the car and started off along the road that curved through the town over tram tracks set in cobblestones to come out on a macadamed road along the south side of the estuary leading to Warnemünde and the Baltic Sea. Ruth McVeigh leaned back and closed her eyes, trying to picture exactly the kind of dock they would have to look for, a small dock with small fishing boats, the sort of dock Petterssen and his unknown accomplice would have had to sail from. In her mind the picture became a sort of Winslow Homer scene, with weather-beaten wrinkled sailors sitting around a dilapidated dock in sou’westers, scratching their chin whiskers, and puffing on their pipes, with nets drying against the weathered shacks and a few small boats rising and falling slowly at dockside, their sails furled, awaiting Monday and the time to go back to the sea and to their fishing. Warnemünde had to have several docks like that, she told herself. It was a small town and would be sure to have more than one. And she knew she would recognize the right one when she saw it. And those ancient mariners sitting around and smoking, possibly—no, surely—one of them would remember something that would be useful to her in her search, even though it had all happened so many years before. Sailors were known for their long memories …
The car braked gently to a stop. “Warnemünde docks,” Gregor said in an enigmatic tone.
She opened her eyes and climbed down, staring about her incredulously. In each direction huge dock cranes stretched for miles, looking like giant gaunt prehistoric birds, their snouts bent down, frozen in varying positions of feeding by the rite of no-work Sunday. Behind them, rather than quaint fishing shacks with drying nets, stood large impersonal warehouses, and between the concrete monoliths were all the welter of cases, crates, boxes, and casks in mountainous stacks that made up the life-blood of maritime commerce. On the other side of the many docks that jutted into the water, rather than worn fishing vessels bobbing lightly on the sea, were huge ocean freighters, rigid as rock, warped to the heavy dock bollards with thick rope cables. Not a soul was in sight. The only living creatures were the sea gulls that soared overhead, crying raucously, their wings startlingly white against the blue evening sky, or swooped low over the gray, choppy sea.
Gregor turned to look at Ruth, feeling sorry for her, knowing how disappointed she had to feel at seeing one of her dreams disappear, knowing that obviously this could never have been the port from which the two thieves with the treasure had sailed in 1945. Ruth’s face was wrinkled as if she were fighting tears, and he wanted to go and put his arm about her to comfort her, but rather than tears a huge bark of laughter came, followed by peal after peal of laughter. He stared a moment and then saw the humor in it and joined her, the two of them staring at the huge cranes and whooping with laughter. They climbed back into the car still laughing and Gregor put the car into gear, starting back toward Rostock.
“What a scene!” Ruth said, wiping her eyes. “I pictured Warnemünde as a little fishing village like those tiny towns along the coast in Portugal, where everyone in town comes down to help haul in the nets and hang them up to dry, and then everyone goes down to the local cantina for wine, and then sing all night. I figured we’d join in with them, and when they were all mellow with us strangers, they’d tell us what we wanted to know.” The very thought brought another crow of laughter. “This place looks like the New York docks, the Boston docks, and the Baltimore docks all rolled into one. If there was anyone to ask, it would have to be a committee!”
“They’re big docks, all right,” Gregor conceded, comparing them in his mind with the Leningrad docks which were, indeed, huge. He glanced across the car. “Ruth, tomorrow would you like to drive to
Sassnitz? It isn’t very far, and they might have gone from there to Sweden, you know. At least it may be worth a try …”
Ruth shook her head, her laughter now completely gone. “No,” she said quietly. It had come to her that falling in love was painful, and the sooner cured the better. “Don’t humor me. I know when I’m wrong. It was only a dream in the first place, a silly notion.”
There was a long silence, each busy with their own thoughts. The edge of Rostock came; they were back on the cobbled streets, swaying in the tram tracks.
“It wasn’t silly,” Gregor suddenly said. He kept his eyes rigidly on the street. “I doubt if anything you ever did, or ever could do, would be silly. I mean silly in the foolish sense, not in the sense of doing things that are absurd. We all do that at times and I wouldn’t want you ever to stop doing them. It’s part of living, of enjoying life and making it enjoyable to others.” He knew time was slipping away from him, that he had to do or say something that would at least hint to her how he felt, pointless as it would be. He also knew that in all probability, now that the quest was finished, Ruth would be leaving for home very soon. And he would go back to his lonely apartment in Leningrad, an apartment that would now be lonelier than ever. He wet his lips. “Ruth—”
“Yes?”
He turned to look at her, studying the beloved features, not knowing what he had intended to say, but the words came without volition. “Do you know that you are very beautiful?”
“Do you know that you are very handsome?”
He brushed that aside impatiently. “No. I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” Ruth said quietly. “You mean I’m attractive. Thank you.” She turned to stare from the car window. They were approaching the hotel. She knew she had to speak now or keep quiet, but she could not leave him forever without his knowing. She spoke without looking at him. “You said before you didn’t think I could ever do anything silly in the foolish sense. Well, I have. Something very foolish.”
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