The Diplomat's Wife

by Ridpath, Michael

  ‘I haven’t heard of any,’ I said. ‘My understanding is that the British government is a lot less suspicious of Russia than they were a few years ago.’

  ‘That’s not the way it is. The Munich agreement shows how the British government is willing to ally with the Germans against the Soviet Union.’

  ‘I didn’t know that,’ I said. ‘In fact, I think that’s wrong.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Kay said. ‘It’s just well hidden. Which is why we would be real happy for you to find evidence of it.’

  ‘All right,’ I conceded. ‘I’ll see what I can unearth. Where do we meet?’

  ‘I’ve gotten a flat in Kreuzberg. We meet there.’ She gave me the address and a date and time the following week. ‘By then, I’ll figure out fall-back procedures and so on.’

  ‘I’ve started going to the Staatsbibliothek,’ I said. ‘It’s right next to the university. We can work something out there.’

  Kay grinned. ‘Trust you to find a library. But it’s a good idea. I’ll see you next week. And be sure to get your husband to tell you something about the plans to undermine the Soviet Union.’

  Thirty-Six

  I took the U-Bahn to meet Kay. It was a relief to get underground. Above ground, on the streets, groups of men and some women were gathering. In the distance I could hear shouts. There was trouble in the air.

  I had expected to see signs of anti-Semitism when I arrived in Berlin, and I saw plenty of them. Graffiti on Jewish businesses in the shopping streets. Signs of the petty bureaucracy which was designed to entrap Berlin’s substantial Jewish population at every turn: the yellow benches for Jews only in the Tiergarten, the special number plates on Jewish-owned cars. It was with some discomfort that I had learned we were renting our flat from a Jewish lawyer who had decamped with his family to Amsterdam. But in the month that I had been in Berlin, I hadn’t seen any attacks on Jews directly.

  I had a feeling that was about to change.

  Two days before, an angry seventeen-year-old German–Jewish student had marched into the German Embassy in Paris and shot the ambassador’s private secretary, a young man named vom Rath. I hadn’t met him myself, but Roland knew him. I assumed Kurt Lohmüller would have known him well.

  Germany was in uproar, goaded by Goebbels’ propaganda machine. The newspapers were full of demands that something must be done about the ‘Jewish question’. It seemed that the gangs I saw roaming the street near our flat were planning to do just that.

  Things were quieter in Kreuzberg, just south of the city centre where Kay lived. It was a neighbourhood full of numerous small shopkeepers who displayed their wares on the pavements: greengrocers, butchers, bakers, coal and potato sellers as well as tailors and cobblers. Bed linen hung out to air from apartment windows higher up. Kay’s place was three floors above a printer’s shop: in those days most of Berlin’s newspapers were located in the area. She welcomed me in. The flat was small and clean, but devoid of any personal touches: no books at all, apart from a large German–English dictionary. A scuffed wireless set stood to attention in the centre of the room.

  I was pleased to see her, but also worried about her. Did she look Jewish? It was hard to tell. She didn’t conform to the grotesque stereotypes that the Nazi posters proclaimed: the hooked noses, the grasping hands, the greedy leers. But then her hair was dark. Yet so was mine.

  I hoped her American accent and passport and her Scottish name would protect her.

  We got down to business straight away. I had arranged for the daughter of a French diplomat to look after Caroline three afternoons a week, and I intended to spend most of those at the library, which Kay had now joined. We agreed that if I left two pencils crossed on my desk, that meant I needed to contact her. Similarly, if she left her pencils crossed, she needed to contact me. Three pencils lined up meant that we were blown and shouldn’t contact each other.

  I liked Kay, but she wasn’t the same as Lothar. Lothar had managed to instil in me a feeling of reliability and trust. We would often talk about the subtleties of international politics, or of my relationship with Roland. It had felt like I was working for Lothar personally, that he was the one who decided what was important, and that I was earning his approval when I provided it. I knew that there must be people behind him in Moscow, but somehow they seemed subservient to him, rather than the other way around.

  It quickly became very clear that things were different with Kay. Although there was no doubting her sincerity, or her devotion to the cause, she was following instructions, and those instructions were to dig up dirt on British operations against Russia.

  The trouble was, there weren’t any, or none that Roland knew of, and he knew a lot. I had had two conversations with him about Russia, which had seemed natural enough since he knew of my fondness for the country. He assured me that the British no longer saw the Soviet Union as a threat, and became impatient when I pushed it.

  Kay became equally impatient when I told her I needed to be careful about pushing it further. Lothar would have understood immediately. For him, protecting me from suspicion, especially Roland’s suspicion, was his top priority. But Kay was insistent. Someone was leaning on her from Moscow.

  In the end, I had to agree to question Roland again, a promise I intended to ignore, at least for a while.

  It was dark by the time Kay and I finished. We could hear shouts outside.

  ‘Be careful out there,’ Kay said. ‘How did you get here?’

  ‘U-Bahn.’

  ‘Well, take a taxi back.’

  So I did. My taxi driver was a jovial fellow with a fine walrus moustache, and a couple of folds of skin at the back of his neck.

  ‘Are you English? Or American?’ he asked when he heard my accent.

  ‘I’m English.’

  ‘And what are you doing in Berlin?’

  ‘My husband works at the British Embassy.’

  ‘Oh, interesting. He must have been very busy recently?’

  ‘I believe they were. But we arrived from Paris just after the agreement was signed.’

  ‘Thank God you British agreed to peace at Munich,’ the driver said. I recognized his classic Berlin accent – the ‘g’s became ‘y’ sounds. ‘For a couple of days there, I thought we were going to be at war.’

  ‘So did I.’

  ‘Well, I am very glad we are not, gnädige Frau.’ He turned as he was driving and gave me a huge grin, the tips of his moustache pointing upwards. It was quite charming.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Notabene, no one in Berlin wants to fight the English,’ he said. ‘We are too similar. All we want is to bring Germans back into the Fatherland. It’s good your Herr Chamberlain understands that. Of course, the golden pheasants may feel differently; they want a war.’

  ‘The golden pheasants?’

  ‘The Nazis. The ones who love to dress up and push people around. I was in the last war; I know what it’s like, not like these popinjays with their fancy uniforms. Uniforms should be for fighting in, not for preening yourself on the Kurfürstendamm.’

  ‘We don’t want to fight you either,’ I said, even though I was afraid we might have to.

  ‘The Sudetenland is like if Cornwall was occupied by the French and they were all forced to eat snails and brush their teeth with garlic. That wouldn’t be right. Do they really eat snails in Paris?’

  ‘They do. And they like garlic. I’m not sure they brush their teeth with it.’

  ‘Anyway, now we have brought the Rhineland and Austria back into Germany and reunited the Sudetenland, we can live in peace with our neighbours.’

  I prayed he was right. It was good to hear that that was what at least one Berliner thought.

  The car slowed as a group of young men crossed the road in front of us. The driver raised his hand over the horn and then thought better of it. A moment later we heard the sound of shattering glass.

  I peered out of the taxi, and in the light from the streetlamps I saw a man holding a broomst
ick and thrusting it at the window of a greengrocer. The word Juden was scrawled on the wall beside the shop. A group of about a dozen men cheered, and began chanting something I couldn’t make out.

  ‘Where are the police?’ I asked.

  ‘In their police station playing cards.’

  ‘Won’t they stop this?’

  ‘The Jews have it coming to them. You read about how they assassinated that German diplomat?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Well, then? It’s only going to get worse unless we do something about them.’

  ‘But you can’t let people roam the streets and destroy other people’s property!’

  ‘Why not? The Jews do it. Of course they are much craftier about it. They take your money without you even noticing. It’s the Germans who do all the work, and the Jews who take all the money. It’s always been like that.’

  I knew it was pointless to get into an argument with a taxi driver, but I couldn’t let it pass. I think it was because he had seemed such a genial soul that I wanted him to change his mind. I wanted to believe in the good of the Berliners.

  ‘There are plenty of Aryan businessmen,’ I said. ‘They are just as wealthy.’

  ‘But they don’t go around shooting German diplomats,’ said the driver. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t have as many of them in your country as we do. But you should learn from us. Look around you. See what they are doing. Do something about it.’

  We both heard the crash of another window shattering.

  ‘Like those guys. They are doing something.’

  I’d had enough. ‘Stop the car,’ I said. ‘I’d like to get out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t recommend that, madam. It’s only another kilometre to your house.’

  ‘I’ll walk.’

  The driver sighed. ‘Suit yourself.’

  As I opened the car door he called out to me. ‘Gnädige Frau!’ He smiled. ‘You don’t understand. You’ll see, I’m right. We have to do something to stop them.’

  I scrambled out of the taxi and slammed the door.

  Out on the street, the noise was louder. The shouting, the yelling, the sound of breaking glass. There was even laughter and jeering. And to the west, above the rooftops, an orange glow flickered.

  I moved towards it.

  I wasn’t sure what it was, but I thought there was a synagogue in that direction. I resolved to see for myself.

  A couple of years before, there had been incidents where British and American nationals had been arrested, usually for not performing the Nazi salute when troops marched past. This had proved a problem for all concerned, both the Berlin authorities and the foreign consular officials, so a tacit agreement had been reached. The authorities would try not to arrest foreign nationals, and the foreign nationals would try to avoid putting themselves in a situation where they were in public and expected to salute. Diplomats and their families were warned to walk away from Nazi trouble rather than towards it.

  But I headed towards that orange glow. The wind was blowing from that direction, and I could smell it. Burning. Burning wood. And something more acrid.

  I was walking along a short residential street between two larger thoroughfares. Towards the end of the road, a group of about half a dozen people were crowded on the pavement. I stopped and watched; partly I was nervous about passing them, partly I was curious. A small blond-haired man of about twenty was hammering on the door of an apartment building, a woman of about his own age urging him on. I noticed an arrow painted in red on the pavement pointing to the house, a letter ‘J’ scrawled above it.

  There was no reply. The man hurled himself at the door in an attempt to bust it open, but bounced back into the street and hit the ground with a cry, amidst some laughter. Then one of his mates, a bigger man, pushed past with a crowbar. After a few seconds of tussling with the door, it split with a loud crack, and then swung open. Three of the crowd ran in, and a minute later they emerged with a young woman and an old man, to cheers from those waiting for them on the pavement.

  I backed away as they started pushing and shoving the two terrified people. A third, much smaller person ran out yelling ‘Mama’, but he couldn’t get through the crowd.

  The old man and the young woman were pushed to the ground. I couldn’t see clearly what was happening, but I could see from the way the crowd was stooping and jerking that they were kicking the silent bodies.

  The boy stood a couple of yards back from the crowd, unsure whether to run forward to his mother and grandfather, or to run away. He was about five years old, wearing shorts. Under a pool of yellow light from the street lamp, I could see his chubby face stricken with incomprehension, horror and fear, his mouth open, his brows knitted. No one took any notice of him, even when he filled his lungs and wailed.

  I should have stepped forward and tried to comfort him. Perhaps I should even have tried to stop them, however fruitless an effort it might have been.

  But I didn’t do that. I turned and ran all the way home, up the stairs to our flat where Roland was waiting for me home early from work, his face full of concern at where I had been, and I flung myself at him and I held him tight, so tight.

  That little boy is with me still.

  Thirty-Seven

  June 1979, West Berlin

  * * *

  The offices of the Detektei Pöpel detective agency were above a launderette on a street only a couple of hundred yards from the Wall. Emma and Phil climbed narrow wooden stairs to a cramped cubbyhole, where a young secretary asked them to wait for Herr Pöpel on a sofa only a few feet from her desk.

  After ten minutes Herr Pöpel called them into his office. He was a small man, whose face bore the marks of decades of exhaustion. A cigarette drooped from the corner of his mouth, a scrappy moustache sagged on his upper lip, and enormous bags underpinned his small eyes.

  He ushered them into an office almost overwhelmed with paper. After instructing Trudi to get them both cups of coffee, and offering them each a cigarette, he sat down.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he asked, his Berliner accent so strong Phil struggled to understand his words.

  ‘It’s quite simple, really,’ Emma said. ‘We would like you to find the address of a woman named Kay Ortmann. She lives in East Berlin.’

  ‘And of all the private investigators in Berlin, why pick me?’

  Herr Pöpel looked suspicious. Which, Phil supposed, was what you wanted in a private detective.

  ‘You are the second detective we have seen today,’ Emma said. ‘I offered a fee to the first man to recommend someone who could help us, half up front, and half payable when we had found Kay Ortmann. That way he would only recommend someone who he thought was capable of the task.’

  Herr Pöpel’s lugubrious face cracked into a laugh. ‘I like that. Smart. Well, whoever you spoke to chose well. I make it a bit of a speciality to deal with the Ossis. I have contacts there.’

  ‘So you can find Kay?’ said Emma. ‘I realize Ortmann is a fairly common name, and I don’t know her husband’s initial.’

  ‘I’m sure I can help you,’ said Herr Pöpel. ‘Whether I will help you is something else. And it depends largely on how you answer the following question. Is there anything I should know about this Kay Ortmann?’

  Phil wondered what story Emma would trot out, and was a little surprised when she opted for the truth.

  ‘We suspect she worked for the Stasi. We know her husband did. He may still. She is in her seventies, by the way.’

  Pöpel nodded. ‘I have heard of Klaus Ortmann. A colonel in the Stasi. Mostly worked overseas. Not a nice man, but by no means the worst. Why do you want to find this woman?’

  ‘I knew her before the war. She’s an old friend. I’d like to see her again.’

  Pöpel stubbed out his cigarette and lit another one. ‘I have my reputation to protect, so I will be discreet. Where I can. But I also need to keep my licence. In cases like this, you should know that if the authorities ask me about your en
quiry, I will tell them everything they want to know. Is that all right with you?’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Emma.

  ‘Good. Give me any other clues you can, and I should have an answer for you tomorrow morning.’

  * * *

  When they left Herr Pöpel’s office it was nearly lunchtime.

  ‘Shall we take a look at the Wall?’ Emma suggested.

  It wasn’t far. They turned a corner and it was right there, a ten-foot-high barrier of white concrete topped with smooth concrete piping. Layers of graffiti had been scrawled on every surface, the words an indistinct jumble.

  As they walked parallel to the wall, they passed a row of tacky tourist shops selling Berlin Wall tat, and an observation deck, which was open to the public.

  From there they could look over the barrier to a flat strip of tarmac and grass two hundred yards wide, on the far side of which stood another wall. Watchtowers gave the East German border guards a clear sight over the no-man’s-land; tall posts planted at regular intervals bore powerful lights to illuminate the ground after dark. Phil shuddered at the thought of desperate East Berliners trying to creep or run between the walls and being gunned down. And all in the middle of one of the largest cities in Europe.

  ‘That death strip used to be the Potsdamer Platz,’ said Emma. ‘The heart of the city, with shops and restaurants and hotels. The busiest junction in Europe. The first traffic lights in the world were installed here. And now look at it.’

  Phil looked. The Nazi Germany on the eve of Kristallnacht that Emma had just described had sounded deeply unsettling, but then so was this.

  ‘There’s the Brandenburg Gate,’ said Emma, pointing to the north.

  The mighty columns of the gate stood alone and proud, penned in on the western side by the outer wall, which flexed outwards into the woods of the Tiergarten at that point. On the eastern side there was nothing.

  ‘The Adlon Hotel, the smartest place in Berlin, was right there,’ said Emma, pointing to the emptiness behind the monument. ‘And behind that, the British Embassy on Wilhelmstrasse, where many of the government buildings were, including the Reich Chancellery. Now there’s nothing except a car park.’