Christopher's Ghosts (35 page)

At 1:13, prompt to the second, Stutzer or his decoy appeared, more sensed than seen. Whichever he was, the man paused as instructed on a certain spot and lit a cigarette. In the flare of the lighter Christopher saw a face that might be Stutzer’s, a marionette body that might be his. He smelled cigarette smoke, not his elegant tobacco of yesteryear but coarse stuff, stronger than a caporal, a cigarette for a street sweeper. No doubt this was part of Stutzer’s new persona. Just as Stutzer’s wardrobe was different, so were his habits—he now drank raw brandy in a worker’s bar instead of aged Martell from a crystal goblet, smoked ditch-digger’s tobacco instead of Dunhill’s. In his earlier life he had impersonated an officer and gentleman. Now he played the lowly worker. Alone, unprotected, slouched instead of soldierly, he waited, smoking the reeking cigarette as if he enjoyed it, inhaling deeply so that its coal glowed red.

Christopher could make out not only Stutzer’s stork-like figure but also the outlines of the rubble and the reconstructed buildings across the street. He saw no movement. He himself did not move. He and Stutzer were no more than fifteen feet apart and if Christopher had wanted to assassinate him he could easily have done so. Stutzer could have killed him with equal convenience had he been able to see him. The fact that Stutzer had come alone, or seemingly alone, suggested … what? That against all logic he believed that he was meeting Yuri Kikorov? That he knew after seeing Christopher’s face earlier in the day that it was he who lay in wait for him? Christopher remembered Yuri’s words about Stutzer: He was so sly that he was predictable.

Stutzer flicked away his cigarette. It spun across the rubble, shedding sparks. Christopher knew immediately that this was a diversion but before he could react he was caught in the beam of a flashlight. At first he heard no shots and because he was blinded by the flashlight, saw no muzzle flashes, but he heard bullets slam into the wall beside his head and then heard others ricocheting off the rubble. He heard the popped-cork sound of the silenced pistol.

Christopher was unarmed except for his clasp knife. He dodged to his left, then to his right, in and out of the beam of the flashlight. He picked up a piece of masonry the size of a tennis ball and threw it hard at the flashlight. Stutzer fired twice more and Christopher felt one of these rounds strike his head. He saw stars as if he had been punched and felt warm blood gushing from the wound. He was conscious but his ears rang from the impact of the bullet and his head filled with pain, as if pain were a syrup being poured into his skull. He was running straight at Stutzer. This surprised him. He had no memory of having willed his body to do this. Despite the ringing in his ears he heard the sound of a magazine being ejected and that of another being snapped into place.

The flashlight wavered, beam wandering, while Stutzer inserted the fresh magazine into the weapon and pulled back the slide. Christopher was quite close now. He had a larger chunk of rubble in his hand but did not know how it had got there. He threw it at Stutzer with all his strength and heard Stutzer shriek as it hit him. The flashlight spun away. Stutzer put a hand to his face and with his other hand fired his pistol blindly into the darkness. Christopher was approaching Stutzer from the side. Then as later Christopher did not understand why he did what he did next, but he launched his body into the air in a football block and clipped Stutzer at the knees. Stutzer’s body collapsed as if it his legs had been severed from his torso. His head hit the pavement with another sound from football, that of the pigskin being kicked. The pistol flew into the darkness. The flashlight lay in the street, its beam spreading over tar pavement and reflecting from bouncing raindrops.

Christopher retrieved the flashlight and shone it on Stutzer’s unconscious face. There was no question that this man was Stutzer. Blood ran into Christopher’s eyes. It was salty. It felt like soap in the eye. He could
not wipe it away fast enough to keep it from blinding him. Stutzer was wearing a woolen scarf. Christopher pulled it off him, wiped his eyes with it, and then wound it around his head like a sweatband. He could not believe that Stutzer had come alone. There must be others, the black Volga parked around the corner, the thugs posted nearby waiting for a radio signal. If they received it they would come. If they did not receive it after a stated interval, they would come. How could they not have heard the sound of gunshots, silencer or no? Christopher stood Stutzer on his feet. He was alive—Christopher could see his breath—but the head lolled, the knees buckled, the face bled, the jaw hung loose. Christopher wondered if the second rock he had thrown had broken Stutzer’s jaw. He thought,
He can’t talk with a broken jaw
. He patted Stutzer down and found a handheld radio. He made sure it was switched off, then threw it into the rubble. He found a second pistol and threw that away, too.

He slung Stutzer’s body over his shoulder and headed toward the demarcation line. The burden was so light that Stutzer might have been a very large insect instead of a man. Christopher hurried, counting his footsteps, lighting his way through the rubble with the flashlight. In seconds he had crossed into West Berlin. He had no real sense of where he was or what was the correct direction, so he scuffled toward the nimbus of electric light that hung over the western zones of the city. To keep himself going he counted cadence in German. When had he done this before? He knew that he had and that he had been wounded on that occasion also, but he couldn’t remember where or when, though he realized that on that occasion he had been carrying a different man through a night lit by explosions. He saw headlights, a taxi. He turned and waved. The taxi steered around him and sped by. Blood ran into his eyes again. He wiped them with the back of his hand. He felt the scarf he had wound around his head. It dripped blood. He had seen scalp wounds before and knew that this one would not kill him, but he was losing a lot of blood and he knew that he was going into shock.

He began to tremble violently. He moved forward on rubbery legs. Stutzer, who had until now been as inert as a corpse, began to stir. Ahead of them the lights were much brighter. Christopher heard traffic
Stutzer uttered a wordless burst of sound, as if he were trying to talk through a gag instead of a mouthful of blood. Christopher shouted, “Silence!” Stutzer replied with another incomprehensible gargle, as if attempting to scream underwater.

They came to a small park. Among trees, Christopher staggered across its muddy lawns. Stutzer squirmed weakly on Christopher’s shoulder. He seemed to be searching his clothing for his extra pistol. Perhaps he had other hidden weapons. He was so heavily dressed, ankle-length overcoat over suit or uniform, sweaters beneath, that he might well have had a knife or a blackjack. At the edge of the park they came upon a watercourse and Christopher briefly thought that he had walked in a circle back to the River Spree and they were inside East Berlin, but there were too many lights for that to be true. He was standing on the bank of the Landwehr Canal. Christopher was tempted to dump Stutzer into the frigid water and watch him drown. The impulse was momentary. Instead, he went back into the park and shrugged the insect—in his mind he had begun to call Stutzer that—off his back. Stutzer fell heavily, with a loud tongue-tied grunt. He sprawled against a lamppost, arms and legs limp and twisted. Soft light filled with slanted rain shone down upon him. His eyes were the same eyes Christopher had seen many times before—filled with rage but this time with that new something in them as well. Stutzer was afraid. He thought he was going to die, and very soon, at the hands of someone who was unworthy of the honor of murdering him.

Christopher hauled Stutzer to his feet. He searched him again, peeling off the long overcoat and casting it aside, patting him down. He found Stutzer’s MfS credentials and put the folder into his own inside pocket. He found a short stabbing knife inside Stutzer’s left sleeve, a small glass bottle of liquid inside his right sleeve. He threw the knife into the darkness. He took the cap off the bottle, watching Stutzer’s eyes, in which terror suddenly appeared, and dribbled a few drops onto the sleeve of his jacket. Instantaneously the liquid burned holes in the fabric. Christopher smelled sulfuric acid. He held the bottle under Stutzer’s nose, then tossed that away, too.

All this happened in silence. Christopher would not speak, Stutzer could not speak. It was now obvious that his jaw was broken and that
his knees had been damaged. The pain must have been excruciating. This, too, showed in his pale eyes, so that expressions of distress and rage and fear succeeded one another. Christopher himself was deeply tired. He could hardly stay awake. His head throbbed. Blood ran less freely from his wound. He was thinking more clearly now and assumed that it was beginning to clot. He held his palms and face up to the rain, which was falling more heavily. The streetlamp glowed at the top of its post. Christopher looked at his watch: 1:24. All this had happened in a mere eleven minutes. This seemed remarkable to him.

He pulled Stutzer to his feet. Stutzer uttered a loud gargle of pain, staggered, and collapsed. By the streetlamp Christopher saw that Stutzer was indeed wearing a uniform. He could not make out the insignia of rank on the shoulder boards. He assumed that Stutzer must have been wearing a military-style cap at the beginning of the evening and that now it lay somewhere between this spot and what used to be No. 8 Prinz-Albrechtstrasse. Was one of Stutzer’s men finding it even now? Had he also found Christopher’s lost hat, perhaps with a bullet hole in it? Was he radioing the news of his discoveries and their awful portent to the swarm of thugs who were supposed to keep this insect from harm? Were the ghosts of Prinz-Albrechtstrasse following along behind Christopher and Stutzer to see if things might come out differently this time?

Christopher stood Stutzer up, bent over, and slung him onto his shoulder again. He seemed heavier now, though he must actually have been kilos lighter now that he had shed his heavy rain-soaked overcoat. He shivered as if from a malarial fever and moaned his blubbery wordless cry of pain as if appealing for help to the ghosts. These giddy thoughts made Christopher aware that he was not himself and that he must soon find a place to keep his prisoner. He had no destination in mind. He kept walking west. Now that his scalp had stopped bleeding into his eyes he saw more clearly, and he was beginning to recognize landmarks. He crossed the Potsdamer Bridge. The lights ahead were brighter now. It was not so late in West Berlin that the streets were deserted. Automobile traffic was steady. Soon Christopher was walking among pedestrians. Some stopped and stared at the spectacle of a man covered in blood carrying another, blubbering person. Some gave him
a wide berth, others laughed at the spectacle. One man with a hearty voice, a Christian evidently because he called Christopher brother, asked if they had been in an auto accident. The question sounded like an accusation, as if Christopher’s objective in going out that night had been to wreck a perfectly good car, or perhaps two. Christopher shook his head. The man said, “Someone must call the police.” But there were no public telephones nearby. Christopher said, “Thank you, but we are almost home.”

He turned into a darker street. No one followed. Up ahead he found a telephone booth. He tumbled Stutzer from his shoulders again and again Stutzer cried out in pain as he hit the pavement. Christopher reasoned—his thought process had never seemed to him to be smoother, better oiled—that the pain would immobilize Stutzer while he made the call. He put coins into the phone and dialed a number that came into his head. He knew, but did not know, whose number this was.

He heard the thick-tongued voice of a man awakened from sleep. He told this person who and where he was, but used a false name. He spoke English, so he reasoned that he must be talking to someone for whom English was a native language. He had stopped shuddering, but Stutzer, curled in the fetal position, twitched uncontrollably. Christopher approached him, meaning to pick him up and continue on his way, but then realized that he must stay where he was if he wished to be found in time.

Found in time for what? By whom?
His mind was clouding again. He felt a stab of embarrassment. He did not know whom he had called. Or rather, he knew but could not retrieve the mental records for the person in question. Stutzer writhed, shuddered, moaned. Christopher felt weak. He leaned against the phone booth and waited for the feeling to pass. It did not pass. Nausea welled up in him. He leaned over and vomited. The vomiting was convulsive. He could not stop. His legs failed him. He felt that gravity had been reversed, that he had dived into a bottomless abyss—dark, dark. He let himself fall. He could neither help himself nor save himself. He could not breathe. He heard himself gasping for breath. He believed that whatever was happening to him was the last thing that would ever happen to him. He lost consciousness.

 
 
2

Christopher awoke in a hospital room. There was nothing to be seen through the window except a blank brick wall across an alley. His watch had been removed and there was no clock on the wall. Except for a hospital gown he was naked. By the angle of the light he guessed that it was mid-afternoon. The smell of the room and the furniture and equipment were American and could be nothing else. Transparent intravenous tubes ran into both his arms. He was connected to a monitor that registered what he supposed were his vital signs. He could feel and hear a strong pulse throbbing inside his skull, but he had no pain even though the presence of pain was the first thing he had expected to feel when he opened his eyes. His ears rang loudly. He touched his head. It had been shaved and was covered with stubble except for a strip of gauze, fastened by adhesive tape, on top of his head. He felt stitches beneath the bandage. He touched his face and estimated a two-day stubble. He turned his head to the side and felt the rush of vertigo and nausea. He turned his head back to its original position so that he was again lying flat on his back. The vertigo passed. He remembered everything that had happened, including his last moment of consciousness, but nothing after that. A bell-call for the nurse was pinned to the sheet near his right hand. He did not touch it. He knew that no nurse or doctor could tell him the only thing he wanted to know: Where is Stutzer?