Leaving Berlin (30 page)

“In a café. My flat. Not here. Who comes here? Unless they have to. Anyway, you’re here. It’s just as well. I was about to come see you. It’s happening quickly now. You need to be briefed.”

“About what?”

“Markovsky,” Markus said, a cat with cream. “He’s defected.”

“What?”

“You’re surprised?” He shook his head. “I’m not. A pleasure seeker. I always thought it was possible. So you can see, it moves quickly now. Such a lucky idea of mine. To have you in place.”

“But she’s here. He didn’t take her. So what does she—”

“Yes, for how long? He’ll send for her. And when she goes to him, we have him.”

“In the West.”

Markus brushed this off with his hand. “We have him.”

“So you’re having her watched?”

“Naturally. But you know she’ll be careful. She expects that.” He looked over. “The best watcher is the one you don’t suspect. You see now how important—this is your chance.”

“My chance.”

“To be of real value. But you don’t want to draw attention to yourself. Not now. Coming here for a social visit. What did you want anyway? That you would come here?”

“They’ve arrested Aaron Stein.”

“Yes.”

“And others. Herb Kleinbard, for God’s sake.”

“I didn’t know that you knew him.”

“I met them at the Kulturbund. His wife’s upset—”

“Well, yes. That’s to be expected. I would be too, in her position. So you come to me? I have nothing to do with this.”

“State Security? Who else would it be?”

Markus looked at him. “Our Soviet comrades. We don’t interfere. It’s not our role.” He hesitated. “You don’t want to get involved in matters like these.”

“I’m not involved. That’s the point. I don’t want to be.”

Markus frowned, not following.

“My little chat with Aaron? I don’t want that used against him.”

“That’s not up to me.”

“Yes, it is. Just pull it out of the file and throw it away.”

“That’s against the law.”

“What law? Arresting innocent people? Aaron Stein, for chrissake.”

“Be careful what you say. Innocent? You know this? Better than the Party does? It’s trouble, thinking like this.”

“Get rid of it. I won’t be used against him.”

Markus looked, then shook his head, smiling a little. “Writers. All dramatists. Brecht says this too. Not Aaron. It’s impossible. Before anything is known of the circumstances.” He walked over behind the desk, then leaned forward. “Now listen to me. As your friend. You don’t want to compromise your position. There is nothing I can do about this, even as a favor to a valued collaborator.
They already have Stein’s file. Not a small one, by the way. They may ignore your report, they may not. They may ask you to appear at his hearing.”

“I won’t—”

“And if they do, I suggest that you speak willingly. Your concern must be the safety of the German Socialist state. That’s why you came back. That’s why you cooperate. There is nothing you can do for Comrade Stein.”

Alex was quiet for a minute, letting this settle.

“He is charged with high treason and counterrevolutionary activities. These are very serious charges. You don’t want to get in the way of Party discipline in a case like this.”

“High treason? Aaron? And what’s Kleinbard charged with? Laughing at Stalin’s building plans?”

Markus stared, then came out from behind the chair. “Comrade Kleinbard is another matter.” He put a hand to his chin, thinking. “There may be something I can do.”

“I’d appreciate it.”

Markus looked at him. “Why? Who are these people to you?”

“I just think it’s the right thing to do, that’s all. Germany needs people like him.”

“And not people like us?” Markus said, his eyes amused. “Alex,” he said, drawing the word out, an intimacy. “Everyone has his part to play. Now you.” He walked to the door, hand on the knob. “Next time a café, yes? Like old friends. To come here—” He let it drift, unfinished, then opened the door. “You understand about Irene? Stay close. The eyes she doesn’t suspect. He’ll send for her, you’ll see. A sensualist. And then we have him.”

The door opposite opened as they stepped into the corridor, a small confusion of people, two men leading out a short old woman. She looked up at Alex and stopped, her eyes puzzled, trying to place him. His heart stopped. The woman in Lützowplatz. But he’d had
a hat then, half covering his face. No sign now that she’d actually recognized him, just some vague stirring. He turned his face away. Keep moving, don’t draw attention. He started toward the reception area, expecting to hear the voice any second, a hoarse screech, finger outstretched, pointing.

“English overcoat,” she said, low, half to herself.

Involuntarily he looked down. Why hadn’t he got rid of it, flung it in the rubble somewhere or let it pass from hand to hand in the black market? But who threw away a winter coat in Berlin? Last year’s, from Bullocks, now marking him like a fingerprint.

“English overcoat,” she said again, still working it out.

“Yes,
Pani,
you’ve told us,” one of the men said, a little weary.
Pani.
Polish. Two men, one to translate. Things got lost that way, language to language, a police form of the telephone game. A longer process, cumbersome. “A few more pictures to look at, yes? And then you can go.” Expecting nothing.

But Markus would know what she meant, ears up, alert. A woman he’d already interviewed, his only lead. He’d catch the smallest nuance. Alex felt Markus’s eyes boring into his back. He’d know. After everything, Markovsky in the river, to be tripped up by a coat. Alex turned. Markus had stopped, staring straight ahead over his shoulder, his face white. The others stopped now too, the whole room suddenly still. Alex followed his gaze. Not the old woman, someone else, haggard, prison thin, standing by the secretary’s desk, her head raised to meet Markus’s eyes. A blank expression, and then a gasp, her face crinkling.

“Markus,” she whispered, face moving now, some uncontrollable tic. “It’s you?”

“Mother,” he said, a whisper, still, not moving.

She nodded, eyes moist.

“Mutti,”
he said, another whisper, his body still rigid, the shock of seeing someone dead.

She started toward him, tentative, the rest of the room watching.

“Markus. This place,” she said, a hand open to it. “What are you doing here?”

He said nothing, still stunned, afraid even, and when she reached him she held back too, extending her arms to him and then stopping short, as if he were some fragile object, easy to break.

“Markus.” She raised a hand to his cheek, barely touching it, a blind woman forming a picture. “My God. You were just a child.” Resting her hand against the side of his face. “A child.” Her eyes, already moist, began to overflow. “What did they tell you?” she said, her hand now at his hair, Markus not even blinking. “Never mind. Tell me later.”

“Mutti,”
he said, trying to make the ghost real or go away.

There was some movement to his side, the two policemen leading away the Polish woman. Alex watched them, hardly breathing, but Markus didn’t notice, too dazed by the hand on his cheek.

“Markus. Am I so different? Let me hold you.” She leaned into his chest, her arms around him, then turned her head, so that her gaze fell on Alex. A moment of confusion. “Alex? Alex Meier?”

“Frau Engel,” Alex said, his head dipping.

“You went to America.”

“Yes.”

The sound of his voice, an outsider, seemed to snap some spell in Markus, and he began to move, disentangling himself, a kind of military correctness.

“It’s a surprise, seeing you here. Where are you staying?” he said, polite, to a stranger.

“Where am I staying?” Frau Engel said, vague, then distressed, something she saw she ought to know but didn’t. She turned, flailing, to a man standing near them.

“Comrade Engel will be at the guest house. Of the Central Secretariat,” the man said.

“Oh, not with Markus?” she said, wistful.

“Perhaps later. When you know each other better. When he has had time to prepare for you. If you both wish.”

“Know each other? Who could know him better?” Then she caught Markus’s expression, someone watching a specimen, wary. “But perhaps later would be better, yes.”

“Is she still—?” Markus started to ask the man, then caught himself. “I mean—”

“A prisoner? No. Released,” his mother said, opening her hand, an odd flourish. “I have the papers.”

“I am merely escorting her to you,” the man said. “To make sure she arrives safely. Comrade Engel’s sentence was commuted. In full.”

“They gave me papers. So it must be. I don’t know why. I was an enemy of the people. And then I wasn’t. Like that. All these years an enemy.” She reached up again to his cheek. “While you were growing up. Your whole life. They took away your whole life. And then one day I’m on a train. It’s over.”

“Comrade Engel—”

“Oh yes, excuse me. I didn’t mean—” She pulled away from Markus, almost cowering. “Such talk. Pay no attention. I can’t think—” Fluttering, wings broken.

“You were arrested for counterrevolutionary statements,” Markus said simply, a policeman’s voice. “This time away—to rehabilitate yourself—the Party must have felt—” He stopped, letting this trail off.

Frau Engel looked at him, her eyes getting wider, something she hadn’t expected.

“Yes, that’s right,” she said quietly. “To rehabilitate myself.”

Alex watched the elevator doors close on the Polish woman. She hadn’t recognized him. A tweed coat. How many must there be in Berlin? Now Markus’s secretary was coming over.

“I’m sorry, sir. It’s Major Saratov. On the phone. I told him you were—” She blushed, a kind of apology.

Markus glanced around the room, suddenly aware that everyone was still watching. “
Mutti,
I must work,” he said, almost relieved. “I’ll come see you later. We’ll talk then.”

“Yes. Later.”

“Alex will go with you,” he said, eyes brighter, pleased with himself, a way to ease Alex out too. “Get you settled. Isn’t it nice, his being here again? Like old times.”

Frau Engel stared at him, not responding, as if he were speaking another language.

“Alex, you’ll make sure everything’s all right?” Busy again, official.

“I have a car downstairs,” the escort said.

“Good,” Markus said, about to head to the waiting phone, then hesitated. A scene still public, not yet played out, people waiting for an embrace. He turned to his mother, at a loss, then put his hands on her arms.
“Mutti,”
he said. “You must be tired.”

“Tired?”

“Get some rest. I’ll come later.” And then his voice softened, private, someone else talking. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

Another second, the crack in the ice growing wider, then he dropped his hands and started for the phone.

Frau Engel insisted on taking the stairs.

“It’s foolish, I know. But it reminds me, the lift. Closed up like that. You had to stand.”

“In prison?”

She nodded. “The isolation box. It was a punishment.”

“For what?”

She looked at him, surprised. “Nothing.”

Two men in uniform overtook them on the landing, Frau Engel making herself flat against the wall to let them pass.

“What is this place? They’re police?”

“State Security. German.”

“He works here? He’s one of them?” Her eyes large, apprehensive.

Alex said nothing.

“Markus,” she said to herself.

On the street, she drew in some air, then shivered.

“I’m always cold now.” In the winter light her face was ash gray, what Berlin had looked like that first morning, lifeless.

“Where did they send you? Can I ask?”

She shrugged. “A work camp. Near the nickel mines. Norilsk. Always cold. Well, so now that’s over.” She put her hand on his wrist. “What does he do for them? He’s one of them?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know.”

“He doesn’t say. But he just got a promotion. He told me that,” he said. “So he can help you.”

“Help me?”

“Someone with influence. It’s useful.”

“I was afraid. When I saw him, his uniform,” she said simply. “How is that? To be afraid of your own child? And did you see? He’s afraid of me. Some disease you can catch.” She touched her hand. “Contaminated.”

“He was just surprised. In front of all the people. It’s a—shock. So many years. It’ll get better.”

“But he’s one of them. Not just a guard. One of them,” she said, not looking at Alex, talking to herself. “How often I thought about this, what it would be like. Was he alive? What had they done with him? But I never thought this. That they would make him one of them.” She stared at the ground for a minute, then looked over to the car, the escort holding the door. “Well, my carriage. Cinderella, that’s what it felt like. I should have known. Are you all right, he asks. Can’t he see?” She touched her skin. “Why do you think they released me? He doesn’t see that. Only the old crime. What crime?” She looked up. “I forgot to ask you—your parents?”

He shook his head.

“No, of course not. Jews. And you came back.” Not a question, brooding. She looked around “And so did I. And now what? He’s one of them. And everybody else is dead. Kurt, my friend Irina, everybody. And what was it all for? You know, it was me. I wanted to go there, after Kurt was killed. Away from the Nazis, what was going to happen here. I was right about that. So I took him, Markus, I was the one. On the train. I told him how wonderful it was going to be.”

Martin had arranged a lecture for Alex at the university and a radio talk later in the month, but now needed him as a last-minute replacement for a broadcast with Brecht. Anna Seghers was in bed with flu. “You know how difficult it is to schedule Brecht. A casual conversation only. Your life in exile. Maybe even better this way. Comrade Seghers was never in America, only Mexico, and everyone wants to know what it’s like in America.”

“And Bert is going to tell them.”

Martin looked at him, caught off guard. “What do you mean? Oh, it’s a joke? Please. You know on the radio it’s important to be serious.”