Another Kind of Country (11 page)

He turned to Rosa. ‘Would you mind bringing us some coffee, Rosa?’

Both men watched her as she glided across the room. Without her, a sweetness was absent. Now the study was a man’s room, peopled by books and brown walls and furniture.

‘Sometimes,’ General Reder said, ‘ignorance is another word for safety.’

Miller knew he was talking about Rosa.

‘We both know, General,’ he said, ‘that nothing so far spoken here demands any need for ignorance or secrecy.’

‘I haven’t brought you here to exchange platitudes, Herr Miller.’

‘I’m a guest here in this country, General, I do my work as best I can, I keep my head down, I . . .’ Miller shrugged.

‘You keep your arse clean, Herr Miller.’

Miller spread his hands. ‘I suppose so.’

‘And you are fearful that I might say something improper – me, a decorated general of the National Volksarmee?’

‘General, I’m not sure what—’

‘You’re afraid you’ll have your ears exposed to something improper, yes?’ The dark eyes in the weathered face bored into Miller’s. ‘Have you become so German, Herr Miller, that you are afflicted by our national virus? Yes, it’s our national
virus
, our national
disease
, to close our eyes and our ears and even our noses to every smell or lie or crime that is in our midst. Can you close your eyes and your ears, Herr Miller? Can you cover your nose against the stench?’

The general got to his feet.

‘You see this?’ The general was brandishing a framed black-and-white photo of a family group. ‘My father – a small farmer in West Prussia.’ A finger stabbed. ‘My mother – a farmer’s wife.’ More finger-stabbing. ‘And my sister, Heidi, and – and me.’ Miller stared at the solemn-faced dark-haired boy, the pigtailed girl, the unsmiling parents. General Reder seemed to take hold of himself, laid the photo gently back on his desk. ‘I was the only one alive at the end of the war, even if I was in a prisoner-of-war camp. I never learned how they died, my parents and my sister.’ A silence. ‘Never even found their bodies.’

He sat again, heavily, and Miller watched him draw a hand across his brow.
For pity’s sake, Rosa, come with the coffee
.

‘They didn’t have to die, Herr Miller. They were just little people caught up in events they didn’t
understand. They knew nothing about the
camps, the killings, the confiscations. But a great many people
did
know the truth, Herr Miller, knew it from the beginning, but they did nothing, just kept their heads down and allowed the criminals to destroy their country.’ His breathing was harder, the voice harder. He lifted his head wearily, almost whispered the words: ‘Just like now, Herr Miller, just like now. Those of us who know the truth must speak and act, otherwise the deviants at home and,’ he swallowed, ‘our enemies abroad will destroy this country.’

I should be somewhere else, Miller thought, anywhere but here. I have my mother to protect from her own miseries, General Reder isn’t the only guy with a family. If Rosa comes with the coffee, that will shut him up – but Rosa’s not coming, not for a while, she’s been told to wait, to give General Reder time to fuck me up, involve me in some fuckology with the dissenters and the candle-wavers in the church in Leipzig.

Time to nail your ambiguous colours to your wobbly mast, Patrick Miller.

‘I fear you have misjudged me, General Reder,’ he said. ‘I’m happy to have been allowed to stay in this country and I simply want to do the best I can at the job I have been given.’ The general’s amused smile was unnerving, made him swallow before continuing. ‘I have no involvement with any dissenting groups and I don’t wish to have any involvement with these groups. Of course,’ Miller raised a hand, ‘I have heard nothing unorthodox here and, if you’ll forgive my saying so, General, I’d like to keep it that way.’ Miller swallowed again. It was, he felt, the longest speech he had spoken in his years in East Germany. And the most dangerous.

The general leaned back in the armchair. A wide grin spread across his face.

‘You’re good, Herr Miller,’ he said.

‘Pardon?’

‘Herr Miller, I am a general of the army of the German Democratic Republic. Do you think I have no intelligence sources? Do you think I would have invited you here if I didn’t know about you and your activities?’

The general was silent, Miller transfixed.

‘My activities are an open book – my employment—’

‘Oh, fuck your employment, Herr Miller!’ The obscenity, harshly delivered, was a reminder of General Reder’s battlefield beginnings. ‘D’you think I don’t know what you get up to on your little trips to the other side of our divided city? Yes, you buy your English newspapers and American magazines, you sip your espresso in the best cafes but we both know that you have other chores to perform, Herr Miller, don’t we? A note dropped here, a paper left there, isn’t that so, Herr Miller?’

Miller’s tongue seemed swollen, his mouth dry.

‘Little notes, Herr Miller, left in safe places for the personal information of one Warwick Redgrave, yes?’

The shadow of Normannenstrasse seemed to darken the brown study where the two men sat staring at each other.

In the German Democratic Republic you had to recognize when protest or denial was futile.

‘General,’ Miller said, ‘what do you want from me?’

The general nodded. ‘No denials, no admissions – very wise, Herr Miller. Let me ask you this.’ He paused, steepled his fingers. ‘Do you think our country is endangered by these protests and processions?’

Another shadow: in his mind Miller heard the plane swoop over the waving crowds in the embassy in Warsaw, saw the frightened look of the fellow being questioned on the island in the centre of Unter den Linden, watched
hundreds of flickering candles in St Katherine’s in Leipzig.

‘I think,’ Miller said, ‘that
attention should be paid to these developments.’

The general laughed. ‘“Attention should be paid.”’ He shook his head. ‘Forgive me, Herr Miller. You really have been too long among us.
Attention should be paid!
Would you have written such bullshit in your
Guardian
newspaper days? If you produced such crap now, would the
Guardian
print it?’

The art of listening, of hearing the truth unspoken between the words, was a necessary skill for prospering, sometimes for surviving, in the GDR.

‘General,’ Miller asked, ‘do you want me to write a piece for the
Guardian
?’ The paper printed occasional pieces about his daily life in East Germany; the last piece he’d submitted had been politely declined on the grounds that it was ‘too innocuous’.

‘Maybe,’ the general said.

‘But the paper is generally sympathetic to the demands of the protesters.’

‘Why do you say “but”, Herr Miller?’

‘I thought . . .’ Miller shrugged.

‘You thought I wanted a piece of propaganda criticizing these protesters?’

‘I’m sorry—’

‘The
Guardian
is a paper of socialist inclination?’

‘Yes.’

‘And the newspaper has a strong anti-American, anti-imperialist streak?’

Miller nodded.

He waited for the general to continue, watched the older man almost curl in the armchair, saw the spasm of pain flash across his features.

‘General Reder.’ Miller half rose from his chair.

‘It’s OK.’ The liver-spotted
hand waved Miller away, reached for a small brass bell on the desk. The bell was still tinkling when Rosa hurried into the room.

‘Papa!’

The general tried to smile, pointed at the small bottle of pills on the desk, waited until Rosa shook a couple of the white pills in his hand. Miller and Rosa watched in silence as the general swallowed the pills dry, head bobbing, Adam’s apple working.

‘Papa.’ Rosa shook her head. ‘The doctor told you to take the tablets
before
the pain gets to you.’

‘What’s a little pain, daughter? We used to say in the war that if you could feel the pain then at least you knew you were still alive.’

‘This isn’t a war, Papa.’

‘Isn’t it, Rosa?’ The general’s voice was so hoarse as to be little more than a whisper. ‘Are you sure it’s not?’

‘Papa!’ Miller could hear the alarm in Rosa’s voice. ‘We have a guest, what will Herr Miller think?’

The general closed his eyes, gathering himself.

‘Herr Miller,’ he said, ‘knows where we stand.’

‘That’s not quite true, General. I’m actually pretty confused.’

‘Then let me explain.’

‘No, Papa, that’s enough explaining for tonight.’

General Reder laughed, turned to face Miller. ‘I’d never have won a battle in the war, Herr Miller, if the enemy had been led by my daughter.’ He squeezed Rosa’s hand and Miller thought of his own father, squeezing other flesh.

‘I’ll get your coat, Herr Miller,’ Rosa said.

‘We’ll meet again, very soon,’ the general said when they were alone.

Miller nodded wearily. ‘If you wish.’ What I wish doesn’t matter.

‘I mean you no harm, Herr
Miller. And remember that your Director knows nothing of our meeting. I was banking on Hartheim giving you my manuscript to read – that old fraud knows exactly when to duck his head.’

‘And my head, General?’

‘As safe as any head can be in these troubled times, Herr Miller.’ The general stood and they shook hands. ‘Remember also, Herr Miller, that we know all about you.’

Miller could find no comfort in the general’s smile.

19 September 1989

East Berlin

German Democratic Republic

Work was a welcome relief
for Miller next morning at
the office. Although not employed by the publishing company housed next door, much of the foreign rights transactions for the publishers crossed his desk. It was begun, Miller figured, simply as a series of chores that could be entrusted to him: he was still the only native speaker of English, the lingua franca of business, in the two buildings. Over the years, as his proficiency and his masters’ trust in him had grown, Miller’s desk had become the recognized transit point for most foreign business, although all final decisions had to be approved by Hartheim or his opposite number in the publishing house next door.

Most such work concerned the sale of rights for foreign language editions of East German books. For Miller, book publishing was one of the glories of the East German state. When you got past the turgid collections of politicians’ speeches and impenetrable economic plans and surveys, you discovered a treasury of fabulous art books, reference works and scientific treatises that were the equal of anything produced in the so-called free world. It seemed to Miller like a kind of heaven: you liked a book, thought it deserved publication, and a few thousand copies of the book
were published at a non-market, affordable price. The ‘market’ did not apply here; it was doubtful if any book earned back its production cost.

Foreign business was where East Germany bared its fangs. The country’s currency – the Ostmark – was a so-called ‘soft’ currency and universally rejected in Western countries. The official rate was one to one with the West German Mark but, to find a citizen of Hamburg or Munich who’d trade you a hundred of his precious Marks for a like number of Ostmarks, you’d first have to find a fellow who believed that Santa Claus was alive and well – and living on a moon that was made of blue cheese.

Western publishers who thought they could offer a pittance, measured in sterling or dollars, were sharply disabused of their notions. A letter from one such operator – this time a UK distributor rather than a publisher of schoolbooks – now lay on Miller’s desk. The fellow, based in Welwyn Garden City and signing himself T. J. Whitacre, wanted to buy five thousand copies of a hardback German–English dictionary for a few coppers each. Mr T. J. Whitacre concluded:

The seas, Miller reflected, were full of sharks that spouted shit.

He took extended pleasure in composing a lengthy reply couched in abstruse and long-winded language which, in effect, thanked Mr T. J. Whitacre for his derisory offer and advised him to shove it.

No matter how long-winded he made it, the letter was soon done and Miller
was forced again to consider his strange encounter with General Reder.

Whether by design or the pain which had seized the general, the purpose of the meeting had been left undisclosed. The pointers to what it was about were, at best, vague. The general wanted Miller to write something; his former newspaper’s left-wing slant had been mentioned. And General Reder had made it clear that he was aware of Miller’s message-carrying to Redgrave and Co.

All of which added up to what? That the general could accuse Miller of spying activities whenever he wished? That he could produce evidence to back up the accusation? That Patrick Miller, in short, hadn’t a leg to stand on and could soon be enjoying the hospitality of the Stasi?

That Patrick Miller, if he had an ounce of sense, should use both legs right now to take himself to the Western half of this divided city and stay there?

Redgrave had explained in unnecessary detail what the consequences of flight would be.

And anyway, in his own peculiar confused way, Miller had grown fond of East Berlin.
And, admit it, you hardly know her but staying in East Berlin is your only chance of becoming better acquainted with Rosa Rossman
.

Miller got to his feet and scanned the corner of Unter den Linden visible from his window. People and cars passed in and out of the short stretch of window, short-lived figures in a foreshortened landscape. People like himself, who had learned to live with queues and shortages and cardboard dashboards and shirts and blouses and dresses that chafed your skin like over-used blades. People, unlike himself, who did not enjoy the luxury of free access to the consumer delights on the forbidden side of the Berlin Wall.