Brandenburg (37 page)

A flicker of worry crossed her eyes. ‘Sure. I remember him. He was a Czech or a Pole, I forget which.’

‘A Pole,’ said Rosenharte. ‘I believe he left something for me: a letter?’

‘I don’t remember. Maybe he left it with one of the other girls.’ Her cheeks betrayed a slight flush and she looked away.

‘It’s okay,’ he continued gently. ‘I know the pressures. Did you give the letter to the Stasi?’

She nodded. ‘They told me that if the man showed his face again that I should call a special number.’

‘Do you know what was in the note?’

‘Yes, something about your family. It wasn’t clear. There was an address and a telephone number at the bottom. Oh yes, I remember now. The man wanted to know something which he could only ask you personally, face to face. That’s how he put it.’

‘What was the name of the officer you gave it to?’

‘Someone from Berlin - a cold bastard called Zank. A real Nazi.’

Rosenharte put his hand on hers. ‘Thank you. It’s good you told me.’

‘I didn’t tell them about the phone call you made from the professor’s office,’ she said, her eyes pleading forgiveness.

‘Good, let’s keep it that way. And don’t tell them that you have spoken to me about this. Act ignorant.’ He saw she wanted to say something else. ‘What is it?’

‘They’re going to fire you at the end of today. They had a meeting of the committee on Monday. They decided then. I’ve already been told to tell you that you should report to the director’s office at five.’

He was only surprised because Biermeier said everything had been squared with the gallery. ‘Why? What’s their reason?’

She tipped her head to one shoulder. ‘You’re never here. They say you come and go as you please. They say you drink.’

‘Yes, but they know I’ve been doing something important that I can’t talk about. They were warned that I would be away a lot.’

‘Zank told the director that you were an undesirable. I heard part of the phone call.’

He got up. ‘Well, I’d better make use of this afternoon.’

‘What are you going to do with your life?’

‘When certain things in my life are resolved, I will write a book I’ve had in mind for some time. It’s come to me very clearly this past week.’

‘What’s it about?’

He looked up at the side of the Zwinger. ‘The pictures that were saved in the war - in other words the collection here and how it has affected the way I see things.’ He saw her expression glaze. ‘It’s not an academic book. It’s about the war, and culture in the GDR.’

‘Sounds really exciting,’ she said unenthusiastically.

He gave her a sideways look, then returned to the gallery where he went to the restoration room in the basement and began to make notes. He could see these works as a private visitor to the gallery, but he would never again have contact with them - the freedom to pore over the paint surface with his magnifying glass and examine the back of the paintings.

At five he presented himself in the committee room to find Professor Lichtenberg at a table, stroking his little grey goatee beard and peering over his glasses. He had always reminded Rosenharte of Walter Ulbricht, the first secretary ousted by Erich Honecker. Three other members of the gallery’s committee were also there. Rosenharte smiled pleasantly and sat down on the chair in front of them.

‘Certain things have come to our notice, Dr Rosenharte,’ said Lichtenberg after clearing his throat.

‘Oh? What things?’

‘Your repeated absences.’

‘But you know that I have been doing work for the Ministry of State Security. It has required me to travel to Berlin and to the West.’

‘We were aware of that,’ said Lichtenberg, who was evidently rather enjoying the solemnity of the occasion. ‘But there are other matters that affect the reputation of this institution and the people who work here. They cannot be overlooked.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Your lectures, in particular the talk you gave at the University of Leipzig ten days ago. Professor Böhme has written to us to complain about your attitude. He said it was very surprising that you had not come to the notice of the authorities given your negative decadent views.’

‘It was an aside that caused the offence, one which he wilfully misunderstood. It was nothing to do with the main body of the lecture.’

‘Dr Rosenharte, we have
quotations
! He took notes during the lecture. Are we to believe that such a distinguished man invented the whole incident?’

‘Believe what you like, but it was a serious lecture that seemed to be received well and was applauded.’

‘Applauded by impressionable young people who saw an important member of the Party humiliated while defending the ideals of Marxism. That is not a state of affairs that any of us will condone.’ They all nodded.

‘I don’t care if you condone it or not. These are my views and I have a right to express them whether they offend a pompous fool like Böhme or not. I invited him to debate the matter, but he was incapable of uttering anything but Party slogans.’

‘Better than the decadent nonsense that rots the brains of our youth,’ said the woman. Rosenharte seemed to remember that she had something to do with one of Dresden’s cultural committees. She was still only in her thirties but had already acquired the prim, desiccated look of the apparatchik. This was the third such woman that he had faced across a table in the last month.

‘Free and open discussion of intellectual matters does not rot anyone’s brain,’ he said, aiming his rage at her. ‘Genuine debate is what young people of the GDR have been starved of these past forty years.’

The woman recoiled as though she had been slapped across the face.

‘It is not as if this was the only occasion that we’ve been informed about,’ said Lichtenberg, leaning forward and dispatching a sympathetic look in her direction. ‘We have a report about the lecture you gave in Trieste. It is said to contain a hidden meaning, an oblique but nonetheless corrosive attack on the criminal justice system of the GDR.’

‘You read that paper yourself and approved it.’

Lichtenberg looked flustered. ‘I was, perhaps, unaware of your motive . . . blind to the coded message that lay beneath the surface.’ He again looked at the woman who was furiously scribbling a note to herself.

‘There was no coded message. It is a fact that artists in the late Renaissance looked about them and recorded the heartlessness of their age in their private drawings.’

‘That may be so,’ said Lichtenberg, plainly not wishing to be drawn into a debate about art history. ‘But these things cannot be ignored. The offence you gave was far too great. We have our reputation to think of. When you give these lectures you represent all of us. You must understand that, Doktor.’

Rosenharte rose and approached the table. Lichtenberg retreated in his chair. ‘I represent no one but myself.’

‘Exactly - an individualist through and through,’ said the woman triumphantly.

‘Not an individualist, but an individual. Maybe you don’t know the difference.’

Lichtenberg had raised a hand. ‘There’s little point in continuing this discussion further. The Gemäldegalerie no longer requires your service, Dr Rosenharte. Is that clear enough for you? You will leave at the end of this hearing and remove your personal possessions from your desk.’

‘You’re throwing me out?’

‘Yes, if you want to put it that way, Rosenharte. You must remember that I’ve the whole gallery to think of. You have done immeasurable damage to its reputation.’

Rosenharte moved to the door, then stopped and turned to them. ‘Look around you. Barely a day goes by without a demonstration. People have had enough. The world is changing.’

Lichtenberg put on a hurt expression. ‘Why this sudden defiance? These are the views of a rebellious teenager!’

‘Why? My brother is in Hohenschönhausen. Maybe you have heard of the place where the Party crushes its opponents. He is being held without trial there and he may be dying. In his life he has never expressed anything remotely as controversial as I have just uttered in this room. That explains my change of attitude.’

The woman shot up. ‘I will not listen to this. If he’s anything like you, your brother deserves to be in prison.’

‘What you need, madam, is a damned good screw,’ said Rosenharte. He regretted the profanity, but the effect was truly worth it. It was as though an electric current had passed through her. She sat down and rose again; her hands clenched and unclenched and the blood drained from her face.

He closed the door behind him and went to collect the books from his office and say a few goodbyes to his staff on his way.

There was usually a thin crack of daylight under Rosenharte’s office door. In the days when Sonja waited for him he could always tell when she was there by a smudge of shadow on the left. Now as he approached, he saw that his office was occupied. He paused outside the heavy wooden door, then opened it to find Colonel Zank standing at the window with the two men he’d seen with him in Berlin.

‘What are you doing in my office?’ he demanded.

‘Your office?’ said Zank. ‘Surely it’s no longer yours?’

‘Until I leave it is.’ He moved to take the books from the shelves and began to pile them on his desk.

‘I’d like your full attention,’ said Zank.

‘You’ve got it,’ Rosenharte said, his eyes fixed on the volume about Giorgione.

‘We were concerned to ask you some questions about your trip to Trieste.’

Rosenharte turned from the bookshelf. ‘What?’

‘There’re things that do not satisfy us. For instance, how Annalise Schering knew that you were at the restaurant by the canal.’

This threw him. ‘Why are you asking this now? Surely the Stasi has got better things to do.’

‘We do, that’s for sure. But please answer the question.’ He folded his arms and let his eyes run over Rosenharte’s possessions.

‘I don’t remember. I think I told someone at the front desk that I was going there. No, wait, they recommended the place and I told them I would be there if anyone called for me.’

‘That’s odd,’ said Zank. ‘Because we had two people try the same thing - as an experiment, you understand. They reported that the hotel recommended an entirely different place. On both occasions they said the restaurant on the canal was too expensive. A tourist trap.’

‘All I can say is that the man in the red and black jacket told me that it was a fine place. Maybe he got a kickback for sending people there. I remember now that the maître d’ in the restaurant asked me how I had heard of the place.’

Zank’s lips parted, but there was no hint of a smile. ‘I don’t believe you,’ he said.

‘Then don’t, but it’s the truth.’ Rosenharte returned to the bookshelf to control himself.

‘We went to the hotel where you stayed with your friend, not your hotel but the Hotel Sistiana. ’

‘You’re obsessed,’ said Rosenharte.

‘No, just thorough,’ said Zank. ‘They call it a
bijou
hotel in the guide - small, comfortable and very good service. You know, Rosenharte, many of the staff have been there twenty or more years. It’s a family concern.’

‘So?’

‘We talked to the maids there. Their memories are still quite fresh. After all, it was not long ago. They knew that you had tipped the night porter who brought you food and champagne late that evening. But they were unable to recall you leaving any money for the maid service, which is customary and was certainly expected by them after they had heard how you treated the night porter.’

‘That’s right. I didn’t leave them any money.’

‘Exactly, that’s why they remember Fräulein Schering’s occupation of that room. The other reason is that there were no signs of love. You are a man of the world. I do not have to explain what I am referring to.’

‘Sorry, I don’t understand.’

‘Well, maids, being what they are, tend to speculate on the level of passion enjoyed by a couple from the evidence in the bed. In yours there was none.’

Rosenharte shook his head. ‘Is that what you’re reduced to - sneaking around looking for semen stains?’

‘Don’t be frivolous, Rosenharte. This is an important matter.’

‘You’re trying to frame me to discredit General Schwarzmeer’s operation. I will not be used in the internal battles of the ministry. Last time I saw the general - you were not there, of course - he expressed his pleasure with the intelligence from the West. His scientists are looking forward to the next delivery. But there won’t be one unless my brother is released, and you’re the man who’s keeping him there. You’d better be sure of what you’re doing, Zank.’

Zank walked to the desk and picked up the top volume of a pile of books and read out its title: ‘
Art and Illusion
by E.H. Gombrich. It might have been written by you, Rosenharte, because art and illusion are your two specialities. The question we have to decide is what is real and what is illusion in your life. I confess I’m beginning to think that most of your life is an illusion.’

‘That is not General Schwarzmeer’s view and I don’t have to remind you that this is his operation.’

‘It is, but we at Main Department Three like to keep an eye on things.’ He put the book down. ‘The man who died on the quay in Trieste was called Franciscek Grycko. Does that mean anything to you?’

‘I had no knowledge of him. I’ve said that before.’

‘He was once an operative of the Sluzba Bezpieczeństwa, the Polish state security service.’

‘You’re joking,’ said Rosenharte.

Zank shook his head. ‘I never joke. I believe the same man visited this office. Subsequent to his death a person using his name also came here.’

‘I heard someone was looking for me here,’ said Rosenharte. ‘The woman who works for Professor Lichtenberg told me.’

‘Ah yes, Sonja. I don’t have to tell you what a pleasant girl she is, do I, Rosenharte?’

Rosenharte stared at him.

‘We will return to her later, but now I want to ask how Mr Grycko knew that you were going to be in Trieste. What did he want? Evidently this fascination for an obscure art historian continued after his death. Is the second man who came looking for you here related, or merely using Mr Grycko’s identity? And how does he fit into the business of Annalise Schering? At the Main Department Three we are trying to make sense of it all, Rosenharte, and we want your help.’