The Berlin Assignment (10 page)

“When was he in Berlin? Which year? Did he say that?”

“No.”

“And why does he want to go to Spandau? Did he say that?”

“No.”

“Odd, Sturm. He's odd.”

“Not too odd, I hope. I wouldn't mind if he said more. A corpse in the back seat? It gives me the shivers.”

In its day the British Officer's Club in Berlin, tucked in behind the exhibition grounds, had the same nostalgic atmosphere as similar institutions sprinkled around Africa and Asia. In Berlin, the pool could only have been better had attention been given to the water by finicky Asian servants. And on the red clay tennis courts, alive before the dinner hour with restrained exclamations of a game in heat –
Well served old boy
– the one ingredient missing was Africans scampering after stray balls. Inside the club, more anomalies: waiters with Teutonic names struggling with the Queen's English. But some universal props kept appearances up. The pictures on the walls were of horses stumbling in the steeplechase and of the English hunt. The sound was genuine too: a hush, as in any Oxford senior common room.

Randolph McEwen was a club regular. With his upper lip motionless, he would describe his line of work, if asked, as
meta-diplomacy
. His corner table, appropriately, had a sweeping view of everything going on. The club was McEwen's anchor. It afforded continuity. It substituted for family. For four decades establishments like it around the world, the vital outposts of his civilization, had been provisioning him. In Berlin he particularly liked the local peculiarity of Teutonic tongues addressing him
as
Sir
. Given the century's events – Britain being the persistent winner of the wars – it was fitting, McEwen believed, that the Hun address him with reverence.

McEwen and Gifford met at the club routinely. Their interests had overlapped when Gifford worked for the British Council, where he watched and listened, reporting observations to McEwen. After he jumped ship from the Council to the Consulate, Gifford soldiered on, continuing as a McEwen contact and receiving a modest stipend for the effort. So now too, an hour or so after concluding in front of Sturm that the new consul was an oddball, Earl was joining Randy for a pint. Their talk seemed gossipy and random, but was in fact quite purposeful.

“Your new chap arrived safely, has he, Earl?” McEwen asked, his lips scarcely moving. His eyes did all the moving. Every drink served in the club was registered. Outwardly, motionless and grandfatherly, the white-haired meta-diplomat radiated peace, but inwardly, he churned with uncontrollable suspicions.

In McEwen's presence, Gifford didn't rest his elbows on the table as in the consul's office. With McEwen his hands were humbly squeezed between his thighs. He freed one only when he sipped his bitter. Nor did he look into McEwen's attacking eyes. His attention was fixed on the Union Jack, that is, on a little pin in his host's lapel. It was always like this when they drank – McEwen restless as a bird of prey, Gifford stationary as a salt pillar.

Gifford dutifully informed McEwen that the new consul had arrived safe and sound, but so far he had seen rather little of him.

“What's he like? Any early conclusions? Married I suppose.”

“No, not married.”

“I say. A wilting pansy?”

“Don't think so, Randy. An odd chap in some ways all the same.” When McEwen asked why he thought so, Gifford presented a few thin
facts between sips. “He appears to be acquainted with Berlin. And he speaks better than passing German. Might have lived here once, though nothing mentioned on his CV. Begs a question, I think. Don't you? Not sure why he's odd. One moment he sort of sleepwalks, hands stretched out, feeling his way, that sort of thing. Soon after he's seems fairly sharp. Most odd, Randy. Hiding something?”

“Lacks transparency, does he?” asked the veteran observer of other people's lives.

“Rather. I shall keep an eye on it. Sturm will help.”

The random gossip moved to other subjects. The meta-diplomat asked Gifford about recent news in other diplomatic missions. The spectator listened to McEwen repeating hearsay about the scaling back of foreign military units in the city. The military withdrawal bothered McEwen, Gifford could tell. When he talked about it, McEwen's eyes turned lifeless and cruel, like a fish. He loathed all signs that his empire was disappearing. As the session ended, McEwen put in a last word. “I'll inquire into your new consul,” he said. “The world is full of wanderers. If he's one it's best we knew.”

“What's in Spandau,
Herr Konsul?
Sturm asked pleasantly as they neared Berlin's western district. He was trying hard to be amiable, but the whole way the back seat was deeply silent. It made the task formidable. Chauffeuring a sarcophagus around, Sturm thought, would be more convivial.

“A citadel,” answered a voice, unexpectedly, like an echo from the far side of the grave.

“I know that!” Sturm countered with irritation. “I mean, why are you going? There's nothing there, not for a consul. They've torn down that prison where they kept the Nazis.”

Sturm was following instructions.
I would like to know why Spandau
, Herr Gifford had instructed.
Keep him talking. Sooner or later, he'll drop a hint
. Keep him talking? Sturm carried the conversation, the whole way down war alley: Bismarckstrasse, Kaiserdamm, Heerstrasse, past the Commonwealth War Cemetery. He tried topic after topic, but not a peep from the back. Trabis as investment, he tried that first. “Little stinkers, those GDR cars,” he said. “Belched like power stations. When
the Wall came down Ossis switched to western cars. That cleaned the air fast. Not many Trabis around now. Becoming collector's items. Buy Trabis, Herr Konsul. Store them. Last year you could get one for two hundred marks. This year, they're up to five. In a few years they'll be worth a fortune.” But nothing from the back, not a word, not even a grunt. When Sturm saw in the mirror that the consul looked out the window at a bus, he tried public transport. He described how Berlin's U-bahn lines were being reconnected after decades of multiple dead ends. And what a joy to see the trams again. Trams went out of fashion in West Berlin, but not in the East. The East maintained traditions. “I love those trams,” he said. “I hope they'll come back everywhere.” A wait by Sturm. Bait taken? No. More silence. He next explained the problems of the city's electricity supply – why electric clocks in West Berlin had gone berserk when the two grids were connected. “Powerful stuff, that Eastern juice,” Sturm concluded.

As this and other East-West subjects floundered in the shoals of taciturnity, Sturm gave up. It was then that he decided to ask a straightforward question:
What's in Spandau
? He considered the answer –
a citadel
– more than condescending and in a huff he fell silent too. “Take me there. Take me to the citadel” the back seat suddenly commanded. “Then you can stand down.” “No I can't,” argued Sturm. “I have to take you back to the hotel.” When the voice, resonating as if from the inside of an urn, answered that wasn't necessary, he could not suppress derision, “And how will you get back? It's getting dark. And look up. Those are rain clouds, Herr Konsul. A downpour isn't far off. You visit the citadel, I'll wait.” “I'm not here to visit the citadel,” the voice informed the chauffeur. “I have other things to do. To the citadel, Sturm. Then let me out.”

After the citadel stop, the Opel lurched back into the traffic with tires squealing. Pedestrians looked up. Had the driver seen a ghost, or was he in the grip of a catatonic fit?

Hanbury, in contrast, was serene as he left the car. Gripping him was nostalgia. The citadel, the river, the locks, the foot paths, Sabine's sunny voice instructing him in Spandau history. He recalled how, when it came to the history of her own time, her voice hardened. She described the day the Wall went up around the western edge of Spandau not far from where she lived. Through barbed wire they watched the torment of neighbours on the other side. Then came concrete blocks and the view – and sense of neighbour – disappeared. The sinister permanence of the Wall made everyone feel violated. The communists, Sabine said bitterly to Tony, had sealed her in. “Maybe not sealed in,” he replied, pointing at a bright side. “Maybe the other side got sealed out.” Sabine didn't argue. “Sealed in. Sealed out,” she said with resignation. “Sealed off.” Hanbury wasn't much affected by such local history. He enjoyed Sabine doing the talking as they walked along the river. In their cocoon he liked the feel of their arms around each other and of their hips moving as one. And now, walking through unchanged streets to where she then lived, still hearing their past merriment, he was thinking of phrasing an apology.

At a gate with a familiar, small bronze sign,
Albert Müller – Rechtsanwalt und Notar
, he pressed a bell. At first, no answer. He pressed again, longer. A speaker built into the gatepost crackled. “
Schon gut. Schon gut
. Alright, alright. No need to bring the house down. Who is it?” Hanbury leaned forward to the gate. “
Albert? Tony Hanbury hier
.” There was a silence, then Müller came back on. “
Mensch! Tony! Alter Knallkopp. Was machst du hier
?” Hanbury didn't recall being called a knucklehead in the early days, but he recognized Müller's tone as a warm hello. The old man hadn't changed. An electronic release buzzed. Hanbury went forwards. The front door opened. A ramrod figure lit up
from behind hovered in silhouette. They viewed each other in the darkness. When Müller said, “You expect me to serve drinks in the cold? Come in. Come in.” Hanbury knew that at least the second of his olive branches had been delivered.

The furniture stood in the same places; the house still smelled of air that should be changed. Müller was timeless too, except his voice had a little more sand in it, an old man's net of tiny veins had crept to the surface of his cheeks, and the eyes stood deeper, though they were undimmed and vigorous, as full as ever with impertinence. Müller was as Hanbury remembered him. Unable to suppress his feelings, he took Müller by the shoulders, as if their roles had been reversed, as if the old man was the prodigal son unexpectedly returned.

“So,” Müller said, looking him over, “there you are. Resurrected from the dead. Did the devil send you with advice for me on what the after-life is like? You almost came too late. A lot of people think I'm at the end.” But the old man's shoulders felt solid, far from ready to give up. Other elderly people Hanbury had known, not as old as Müller, but weaker, were long gone – a mother, a father, a neighbour called Keystone, a colleague or two. “You're looking fit,” he said.

“Exercise and alcohol. Plenty of both. That's the secret.” Müller led Hanbury into his study where a lit desk lamp showed he'd been working. “What are you doing here?” He asked, motioning to a sofa. “You should have written.”

“I was worried if I wrote you wouldn't open the door,” Hanbury said. Nothing had changed in the study either. He'd spent hours here listening to Müller.

The old man opened a cabinet and took out a bottle. “If you had, I likely would have arranged to be away. When you stopped sending me birthday wishes, I wrote you off. You're still written off, but that could change. You haven't answered me. What are you doing in Berlin?” He poured two brandies. “
Prost
.” When Hanbury described he'd been
assigned to Berlin, Müller raised his glass in genuine surprise. “
Konsul? Ich gratuliere
.” But the voice was already acquiring a familiar undertone and an eyebrow began rippling with irreverence. Hanbury recognized the signs. He experienced them first when he scarcely knew Sabine's father, when he had brought her home after a party and she had invited him in, first into the quiet house and, half an hour later, from the carpet on the study floor into her accommodating bed. In the middle of the night he went to use the bathroom. Tiptoeing back to the comfort of Sabine's warmth, Müller came out of his bedroom. The two collided. Both were naked. “It's you,” the father said, scarcely taken aback. “Staying nights now too? Lovely pyjamas. See-throughs, I see. Present from a girlfriend?” He disappeared into the bathroom. Sabine giggled when her devastated lover described what happened. “He likes you,” she said. Tony was worried that Sabine's stepmother, a shadowy figure that stalked the family from a distance, would learn he was spending a good part of the night a mere two walls over, but Sabine assured him her father wouldn't tell. The stepmother found out all the same. Some days later she read telltale signs on sheets going in for washing. A violent scene followed, the stepmother shrieking, the stepdaughter shouting. Sabine moved out, into Tony's Savignyplatz apartment.

Back then Müller took it all philosophically, and he was philosophic now. He asked where Hanbury's last ten years were spent. “Your last letter was from some place on the edge of the known world. Kuala Lumpur I think. I assumed a snake got you, or a revolution, or that you fell into the clutches of an Asian woman.” He tipped his brandy glass convincingly, emptying it with one smooth gulp.

“It was tough going,” agreed the diplomatic adventurer, “I was lucky to survive. Sorry I stopped writing, Albert. No good reason for it.”

“Don't have a breakdown over it,” the prickly old man said. “I didn't consider it a loss.”

The letter writing to Berlin went on for fifteen years. Hanbury wrote his mentor more often than home. Müller's replies were short and factual – a legal tone – except when he described his marathons. Details were always included on the last and the next race. Claiming he'd soon win, he'd write:
It's in the bag. All I need to do is train.
A postscript in one letter informed Hanbury that Sabine had married. Hanbury recalled it gave him a shock, a sense of loss, a dull ache that lasted weeks. He had studied the postscript closely.
One never knows, he may turn out to be a stand-out as a son-in-law, but I won't hold my breath.