The Berlin Assignment (24 page)

The consul also saw that despite socialism's wreckage the pride of former builders still clung to the raw masonry, as Viktoria had said. Cornices from Rome, columns from Corinth, cherubs from the baroque. No wonder she had ruled that every brick would be protected. She was also right about a phalanx of artists now moving in, supported on the flanks by second hand bookstores and utilitarian drinking halls.

That same afternoon, it dawned on Hanbury that the Scheunenviertel could be a neighbourhood for Günther Rauch. Gundula said he had been famous. What did that mean? Was he dead, maybe buried five graves over from Bertolt Brecht? Or was he hiding out, living in a cellar hovel, behind a door miserably slung forward from one hinge? Hanbury also concluded that a house to house search for him in the Scheunenviertel was not really practicable. In contrast, locating Gundula after the dinner party had been easy. One ring of her extension and he was through. “Cowboy!” she exclaimed, surprised. It seemed she expected him to have disappeared into the sunset forever. He asked if they could get together. Lunch? “Why not,” she replied. “I'll invite you. The paper has a club, or is that too ordinary for you?”

Hanbury had begun reading Gundula's columns. In the Trabi she had been vivacious and on the phone she was breezy, but her columns were otherwise. Her descriptions of social problems were thoughtful, sensitive and moving. They read like a struggle to define compassion in a post-socialist world.

Sopping wet, his head full of both Günther Rauch and Gundula Jahn, Hanbury entered a dive on Auguststrasse to warm up. Stools stood around on a wood floor; dripping candles furnished light. Near the bar some locals sat around in sleeveless T-shirts, tight pants and jackboots laced up. Some had shaved scalps, others were decorated with tangles of hair in the Iroquois style and streaked green, or purple or pink. Hanbury went to an empty corner. Busying himself with mopping up his dripping head, he was a pathetic figure, a sort of shrunken postman. They took no notice of him. A girl came sauntering over from behind the bar. Her eyes were set so far back in their sockets that she resembled a survivor of the Black Death. He asked for a double espresso and a brandy. When she returned, she pointed out he was a little wet. Not smart to be out today without an umbrella, he admitted. She heard an accent and a conversation began. Where was he from? What was his business in Auguststrasse? Hanbury made up answers as they went along. He claimed he got lost walking in the direction of the University.

“You're a professor?”

“Indeed.”

“A lost professor?”

“Yes, quite lost.”

“Absent minded too?” Her laugh was hollow.

“Occasionally, yes.”

“The burden of knowing too much?”

He said he hoped that one day that might indeed be a problem. Speaking of knowing things, given this interesting neighbourhood, could she tell him something?

“What?”

“Do you happen to know a Günther Rauch?”

“
Natürlich
. But of course.” He was well-known. A legend. A fighter for freedom.

“Does he come in here to drink?”

She didn't know, since he'd never been pointed out to her, but if he did it would not be surprising. Men of greatness, huge legends in their time had lived all around Auguststrasse. Unlike some clients nowadays, she said, motioning to the jackbooted conspiracy behind her. Actually she heard Günther Rauch's name mentioned as recently as last week. There was an anniversary. Something he did, a storming of some citadel of evil.

Hanbury asked more questions, but she had no answers. He ordered more brandy. In such weather, apart from an umbrella, the next best thing is an overdose of spirits, he told her. The girl repeated the word overdose, gave a shrill laugh and went to get the bottle. Once he felt warmer in his gut, Hanbury got up to leave. At the door, he heard the girl shout from behind the bar. “Hey, professor, you writing a book on Günther Rauch?” “No,” Hanbury shot back. “I want to ask him about another legend. He used to tell me about a friend of his – Karl, Karl Marx.” “Ah, that one. He turned out to be a disappointment.” The locals looked up, sensing an alien presence, but the foreigner had gone.

Günther Rauch lives, Hanbury thought triumphantly, and this could be his habitat. But how to penetrate it? Gundula Jahn? Her columns explored life in environments similar to this one. Could she help?

Hanbury wanted to mention the Scheunenviertel to Müller, who knew such places from his youth, but it was pointless. That night in
The Tankard
the old man had been fixated on the race. Even when Hanbury promised he would take pictures at the finish, Müller had nodded gratitude, but hadn't shaken his tightness. He kept drumming the table with his fingers. And now, camera ready and the chilled champagne
wrapped in a towel in a bag slung from his shoulder, Hanbury arrived to record the moment.

The finish line on the mall before the Olympic Stadium consisted of two poles with a banner strung between showing two fierce eagles and the title of the race printed in bold letters. When Hanbury walked up, friends and families of the racers were already waiting. He had time to kill and strolled into the stadium built for the '36 Olympics. Two-thirds of it is dug into the ground. From a distance it's a low oval of repeating square columns that gives an impression of power. Inside, ground level turns into a bird-like perch high up. Rows of seats funnel far down to the track. Walking around the oval, Hanbury retraced steps he once took with Sabine. She had told him about the Games, pointed out the box where Hitler sat, and stopped before the mural with the names of the gold medal winners chiselled into stone. “Count the number of times you see Jesse Owens' name,” she had ordered.

In the distance hands began clapping. Hanbury hurried back to the mall. The crowd had grown. The first finishers were in. A wreath had been hung around the neck of the victor. A TV camera followed him. Hanbury worked his way through to the banner where ancient racers were being mobbed. He looked for Müller. Grandchildren were being hoisted onto tired shoulders, cameras clicked, home videos whirred. Admired by the young, the geezers strutted like young cocks. This was how they wanted to be remembered.

Hanbury counted the Eagles that had landed, but lost track at twenty. He proceeded to the forward fringe to watch the ones still coming in. Figures continued appearing in the distance, legs pumping, heads low, leaning into a final sprint. Some riders, nearing the finish, reared up and raised their arms in triumph. The crowd clapped; families cheered; grandchildren waved flags. In this scene of general happiness Müller stepped off his bike. He hadn't raised his arms or punched the air with a balled fist. He came in unobtrusively, looking passive, as if
he'd just completed a boring errand. Hanbury worked his camera. He took a picture from thirty meters, another underneath the banner, one or two as Müller got off his bike. Müller was out of breath and unsteady on his feet. Hanbury kept snapping. A woman and a man began congratulating the old Eagle, patting him on the back. Holding the champagne bottle ready for uncorking, Hanbury moved up to join this little circle.

“Albert. Well done. You did it,” he said. The woman holding Müller affectionately by the arm turned.

During the days and weeks that followed, this moment played itself out in Hanbury's mind so often that it broke up into a series of still shots.

Hanbury froze, as Sabine did. He recalled afterwards that his immediate thought was that she looked the same. The eyes were moody; the face had its sensuous, smouldering passivity; she seemed preoccupied with the gravity of everything. Sabine said nothing. She looked at Hanbury; she looked at her father; she let his arm go. Without a word she turned and disappeared into the crowd. The three men watched her go. Müller, still out of breath, took a moment, then made a spiralling upward motion with his finger accompanied by a swooshing sound. A rocket going up. At the apogee his hand opened and descended in an arch. Fireworks exploding. He shook his head, as if disgusted. Afterwards he said that, yes, he had been that, but it was disgust at his pathetic performance in the race, not his daughter's behaviour.

“You two haven't met,” he said at last. He introduced Consul Hanbury to Professor Schwartz. “You two should have a lot to talk about, seeing you have Sabine in common. Excuse me while I change my shirt.” Each viewed the other. Hanbury sheepishly held up the bottle of champagne. “A glass?” He worked the cork in silence until it popped, filled a plastic beaker, passed it to Sabine's husband, then did
the same with another. “To Albert,” he said. They drank with civility.

“Excuse me,” Schwartz finally said. “Who are you?”

“Not what you think.”

“What am I thinking? I'm not thinking anything. How do you know my wife? Are you a client in the bookstore?”

Hanbury said he knew Sabine a long time ago when they were students.

“She didn't seem happy to see you.”

“I imagine she wasn't expecting me. A shock.”

“A shock? I see. And why are you here?”

“To take photos.”

Schwartz ignored this. “Albert said you are a consul. British?”

Hanbury described his position.

Müller returned in a training jacket and with a towel thrown around his neck. “I see you've become friends,” he said. Schwartz excused himself. Hanbury passed Müller a beaker of champagne, which the old man downed in a gulp. “Hold the bottle high,” Hanbury said, steadying his camera. The ancient Eagle looked into the camera, but without much triumph. An element of gloom clung to the crevices of his face.

Once the Iron Curtain was gone tens of thousands of people from Eastern Europe began filtering into Germany each month to claim asylum. But, in truth, it was the prospect of welfare which drew them, more than political freedom. Spending a few weeks on the run, sleeping a night or two in a forest, crossing a river in a leaky rowboat before arriving in Germany – minor inconveniences on the way to a social stipend ten times the average wage in Romania.

The reaction of Germany's far right was a brutal whipping-up of fears that the foreigners grabbed jobs, took away good apartments and, worst of all, would eventually dilute German blood. The backlash took the form of Molotov cocktails lobbed into asylum seekers' shelters. Accompanying all this was an increase in the desecration of Jewish graves and the defilement of monuments that serve as reminders of the Holocaust. Deep inside the German forests, neo-Nazis practised occult rites. Journals around the world ran stories that questioned whether Germany reunified was slipping back into nationalism, political violence, xenophobia and all the other things that had happened in the thirties.

Von Helmholtz, grim-faced, was alone. It was late. An official dinner for the Danish foreign minister had been marred. The man made an off-the-cuff remark in his dinner speech, reminding everyone that Hitler wormed his way into power while the German elite watched from the sidelines. Hitler's treacherous invasion of Denmark was not forgotten, the minister said. He asked uncomfortable questions about the current situation. Guests shifted in their seats. Later, the Chief of Protocol took the Danish ambassador by the arm, saying the remarks were unhelpful. The ambassador nodded gravely. A digression, he explained. Not part of the prepared text. He would ask Copenhagen for clarification.

The appearance of deterioration – fire-bombings, right-wing thugs assaulting foreigners, a pattern of light sentences for convicted neo-Nazis – had to stop, von Helmholtz decided. He also knew the real right wing danger was subtler. It lay with ordinary people incapable of changing from the old way of being German. A symbol was needed, something effective, to influence German attitudes and turn the tide of world opinion. After dinner, having seen the foreign minister to his hotel, von Helmholtz went to his office to conceive a plan. Towards midnight he dictated a three-page memorandum onto a tape. One page, for the police, outlined the need to get tough; another, to the courts, urged sentences that would deter; the third was for the media. He wanted one hundred thousand demonstrators in Berlin marching for tolerance and against xenophobia.

According to the plan they would converge from East and West on the Lustgarten, which with its military-parade-square emptiness would be ideal. Nothing there for a huge crowd to destroy. The event would be light on speeches, just enough to make the purpose clear, maybe just one – by the German President – and then rock bands to get the crowd to sway and cheer.

The idea took root. Political parties, community groups, clubs, schools, radio stations, multipliers everywhere got into the act. Special fares were offered by the railway; public transport in Berlin would be free. Diplomats were invited too, so that foreigner ministers around the world would get the message. Hanbury received a note from Protocol. Attached was a map showing the VIP area that would be roped-off.

The Sunday began with the city hunkered down in a cold, clinging fog – the type that causes water to drip from trees and attacks the membranes of the nose. The consul faced a choice that morning: stay home and listen to Tchaikovsky, or go out into the graveyard weather to watch Germans declare multicultural love. Some days before, when he had lunched with Gundula in her paper's club, she became enthusiastic about the rally. Was he going? The consul said he wasn't sure. She teased his indecision and her laugh echoed (and beckoned) for days. In the end, he decided against Tchaikovsky and for the demo. When he set out, the fog was lifting, but he took no chances, not after the Scheunenviertel. He put on his new jacket, Gore-Tex,
wasserdicht
.

When the consul emerged from the underground near the Brandenburg Gate onto Unter den Linden he was overwhelmed by a flood of humanity. They made a fluttering sound, like a flock of birds in flight. It was the noise of thousands of soft soles beating the pavement, everyone going in the same direction. Families, old couples, people dressed formally in scarves and hats, and youths in scruffy jeans. All of Berlin, from Kreuzberg to Dahlem and Wedding to Wannsee seemed on the march. These were the masses streaming in from the West. The swell arriving at the Lustgarten from the East – Prenzlauerberg, Marzahn, Pankow – was no different. In his new relaxed, outback-type jacket and faded shoes, Hanbury melded in and became one of them.