Little Grey Mice (55 page)

‘We've given away nothing!' declared the President, at a full meeting of the Politburo. ‘Whenever we choose we can disclose our knowledge of the secret protocol and show the West to be the aggressors. And keep our troops where we like and abandon any conventional weapon agreement.'

The same day Dimitri Sorokin was appointed chairman of the KGB. Nikolai Turev was confirmed as deputy. Anticipating the ironic comments about General Cherny's appointment as Minister of Defence in a supposed climate of demilitarization, a statement was added that Cherny's promotion was regarded by the Kremlin as being more political than military.

The NATO reaction was bewildered confusion, which had been Moscow's intention.

Elke Meyer attended the specially convened Cabinet session from which, at Washington's urging, no public communique was afterwards issued.

‘Moscow are behaving as if they have knowledge that no one else has,' said Werle, after the meeting.

Chapter Forty-Four

It had been the conversation with the Russians that had made Reimann finally confront how he
did
feel about Elke Meyer. He'd known, he supposed, for several weeks: maybe several months. But there'd been a hundred different reasons to avoid even considering the absurdity of it: indeed, his initial feeling at the half-formed, shadowy possibility was one of positive astonishment that he could even be
thinking
like that.
Love
never entered the training or indoctrination of a raven. There wasn't a word powerful enough fully to express the nonsense of it. Despite which, despite all the self-warnings, he accepted at last that he deeply and sincerely loved her.

Reimann knew the precise moment when the recognition came to him: when he eventually let himself think the unthinkable. He was on his way home (which was how he now always regarded that part of the journey, returning to Bonn) from Berlin, looking down from about 25,000 feet at the scattered lights of unknown towns and villages of West Germany after the meeting at which he had disclosed the NATO decision. And began, logically enough, with his reflections about Jutta. There
was
no purpose in seeking any legal dissolution of his marriage: it was practically laughable for him, in intelligence parlance referred to as much as an illegal as a raven, to consider something legal! What he'd had – what little he'd had – with Jutta was over. Finished. He was a free man. Unencumbered, as he'd already decided.

Except that, still being legally married to Jutta, he couldn't legally marry Elke. After all the shadowy half-thoughts and avoidance the awareness – the true awareness that had set everything in motion in the beginning – came to mind suddenly and complete. He still tried to argue with himself, to produce more excuses and more avoidance. They
could
marry, of course. It had been little more than instinct to dodge the Russian's question. So well established was he with them now that it would be simple to argue that he would get more from her if he did go through the ceremony.

So did he want to?

Certainly – admitting it finally – he loved her. And she loved him. She'd never know the deceit at the beginning; the falseness with which everything had started, so there would never be the danger of her being hurt. They were virtually living together all the time, although they retained separate apartments. What were the professional dangers of their being together permanently in a situation where she was likely to become aware of things happening around her? There were the postcards from Rome, demanding contact. That could be simply resolved with a new meeting system: he could establish specific meeting dates and times and merely keep the card summons as the device with which to alert the Russians if he wanted to see them. What else? Nothing, Reimann told himself, positively.

So accustomed was he by now to the arrival procedure at Cologne that Reimann passed through with scarcely any consciousness of his surroundings, his concentration still absolute upon himself and Elke.

What about Elke? Every speculation, every consideration, had so far been from his viewpoint. If he cared for her so much, shouldn't he look from the other side, from Elke's side?

Reimann guessed she would move in with him permanently if he asked her, because she did whatever he wanted now. But he knew for them to live together wasn't what Elke really hoped for: what she really expected was for them to get properly, officially married. Which they couldn't do. Not properly. It would always be a bigamous union. But it wouldn't be the sort of deceit that he'd been showing, all these months. This was
for
Elke. For himself, as well, but it would make her happy, make everything perfect, for her as well. It could work, he determined, happily.
Would
work.

Or would it? Reimann was sure he could settle with Elke and create a home with her, and live without the lies he couldn't avoid becoming a barrier between them. And she would never know, never guess. But what about the time when the Russians decided, as they inevitably would at some stage in the future, that his usefulness – her usefulness – was over? Reimann didn't believe they would let him go: thank him lor work well done in the past, accord him his colonel's pension to live upon, and let him retire contentedly in Bonn. They'd move him on. Or maybe take him protectively back to the dreary greyness of Moscow: back, even, to Jutta. What was he expected to do then, simply turn his back and abandon Elke?

No, decided Reimann, with even more adamant determination. Whether they were married or not he would never abandon Elke. He couldn't. Something else high on the list of unthinkables. So what was the alternative? There wasn't one. He
wasn't
his own master, able to decide his own actions and his own future. He couldn't be, never again. He was a threadbare monkey on their organ grinder's box, dancing to a tune he couldn't choose.

There
was
a choice he could make. A nerve-stretching, gut-churning, frightening choice: the most inconceivably absurd fantasy of all. It would mean, eventually, his having to confess everything to Elke. To admit that he'd cheated her in the beginning, beg her forgiveness and convince her that he loved her and wanted to be with her forever. And then convince her further to quit the Chancellery and run with him, going somewhere where they'd assume false identities and false lives and hope the Russians would never find them to inflict the retribution they always did upon defectors. No, thought Reimann again, in another adamant decision. He could never ask Elke to do that: he could never expose her to that sort of physical danger, a danger far worse at every stage than that to which he had already put her by seducing her into doing what she was for him at the moment. And there was another preventing factor. How could she run – how could he ask her to run – with Ursula to care for? Elke would never do that: he wouldn't expect her to do that. Inexplicably Reimann felt his chest contracting, so that he had to force his breathing, like a poor swimmer suddenly out of his depth.

It had been a day of truthful acceptances, and at that moment Reimann objectively accepted the most gut-churning truth of all. He was trapped. Hopelessly and inextricably trapped. There was room to move, to exist – so there wasn't any cause to feel claustrophobic – but he was still incarcerated in a set of circumstances, a prisonlike maze, from which he couldn't possibly escape, desperate though he was to do so. And to think he'd once doodled Elke's name into the centre of a maze! The only real question he had to decide was how much further could he selfishly inveigle Elke into a maze from which there was no exit? Which automatically created another. Just how sincerely did he love her? Just how much did he want to protect and guard her?

Reimann telephoned the moment he got to Rochusplatz. ‘Do you want me to come to you?' So very few months ago that would never have been a question; always she would have had to come to him.

‘It's better at your apartment,' said Elke.

After she arrived, they'd kissed, and she'd said the piece of Meissen pottery was beautiful but that he shouldn't always buy her presents, Elke remarked casually: ‘I was thinking today. If I'd had a key I could have already been here, waiting for you, couldn't I?'

She
wanted
to live with him. No professional danger, he thought again. Presenting another gift he detached a spare apartment key from his master ring. ‘I want you always to be here when I get back.'

Elke tried to convince herself she
had
to have preference over the other woman if he was prepared to allow her access to Rochusplatz whenever she wanted. The others couldn't be permitted there at all, in fact. There were her spare clothes, always in the closet. And he surely wouldn't risk her unexpectedly entering if there was another woman there. Jutta Sneider didn't seem to be at Nord-Stadt any more. Elke had driven curiously by a total of five times now, looking for the tell-tale Audi: sometimes stopping for as long as an hour when she imagined the woman returning from whatever work she did. Jutta Sneider had never appeared. Neither had the Audi been there. Elke said: ‘That's what I'll always be: here when you want me.'

‘Which is all the time,' Reimann repeated. He'd never believed he could feel like this about anyone. It had certainly never been the feeling he'd known about Jutta.

‘You wanted to know about the secret protocol,' said Elke. ‘It's been adopted. I've brought it with me.'

It wasn't as difficult that night as it had sometimes been for Reimann to remain awake long enough to ensure that Elke was deeply asleep. He was glad he had eventually allowed the thoughts about their future: angry that he hadn't faced the reality of how he felt before now. It had been ridiculous, pretending for so long – and entirely for his own pointless benefit – that such reality didn't exist. He wasn't sure-didn't have a logical, reasoning clue, in fact – where the realization was going to lead. Everything was still far too confused and mixed up in his mind, point and counter-point. But he would sort it out. Not completely, perhaps. There were too many imponderables, too many difficulties, for his ever to resolve his life with Elke with complete satisfaction. But better than it had been, up to now. In a way to please her more; to make her feel more secure. And she
was
secure. He had to convince her of that, whatever happened. From now on, somehow, some way, he was always going to look after her. She was never going to be alone again.

Reimann did not hurry, knowing that he wasn't going to sleep that night and quite unworried about it. It was past three when he eventually, gently, slipped from Elke's side to walk soundlessly back into the main room. The Cabinet document was in her handbag. Reimann worked quickly, well practised by now with the Nikon and its special lenses, which for so long had remained unused in the drawer until these last few weeks. He smoothed the single sheet out on the desk beneath a pair of paperweights and a heavy stapler, to iron away the creases for as clear a negative as possible, then positioned and illuminated the desk lamp directly overhead, not needing any more light because of the speed of the film he was using. He made six exposures, barely altering his stance because there was no need for a range of shots: all they wanted were the official words, printed out before him in a simple, five-sentence paragraph.

Satisfied, Reimann put out the lamp and before disassembling the camera replaced the copied document in Elke's handbag. He was back at the desk, putting the proxile lenses back in their protective boxes, when Elke spoke from the bedroom door.

‘What are you doing?'

Reimann jumped, but decided at once that it didn't matter if she had seen the physical movement: it was understandable that she would have startled him. ‘I couldn't sleep. I decided to get up in case my moving about in bed disturbed you.'

‘What are you doing with the camera?'

‘Putting the bits and pieces away, after the trip. I got some pictures of the people I interviewed. I have to get them developed tomorrow.' Dear God, he'd been lucky! Minutes earlier she would have caught him without any possible explanation.

Elke came further into the room, holding the robe around her. ‘I didn't know what had happened when I woke up and you weren't there.'

Reimann was grateful that with the desk lamp turned off the sheen of perspiration would not be visible in the soft-lighted room. Striving for a casual reply he said: ‘I could hardly have woken you up and said I was going, could I?'

Elke didn't smile, as he'd hoped. Well within the room she appeared uncertain what to do, finally sitting on an easy chair from which she could look up sideways at him. She sat bent forward, arms around her knees. From Reimann she looked obviously at the handbag containing the replaced document and then back again.

Hurriedly he said: ‘Can I get you something? A hot drink, maybe?'

‘No.'

‘Are you all right?'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘You seem …' Reimann shrugged, feeling the perspiration worsen. ‘… tense. As if something's wrong.'

‘No,' said Elke. ‘Nothing's wrong.'

‘You should get back to bed. You'll be tired tomorrow – later today – if you don't get more sleep.'

‘I don't feel tired any more,' said Elke. ‘Just like you.'

Reimann used the excuse of completing the protective closure of the camera to turn his back to her. Convinced she couldn't see, he wiped the sweat from his face before twisting again to walk towards her. ‘Should have done that before,' he said, conscious of how false his voice sounded when he spoke.

‘What are you?' There was no emotion, no feeling at all, in her question. Neither was it any sort of challenge: just three, flat, expressionless words.

‘What?'

‘I think you heard what I said.'

It was the opportunity if he chose to take it. Here, at her bidding, was the moment for him at last to be honest with her – as he wanted to be honest – but try at the moment of absolute confession to make her see it on his terms, the different shelves upon which he had arranged it in his own head. But he was frightened. More than frightened. Reimann was suddenly terrified he
wouldn't
be able to make her understand and that he would drive her away, destroying what there was. Later, he told himself: later when he'd assembled all the arguments and persuasions. He said: ‘You know what I am!'