The Berlin Assignment (32 page)

The next day Frau Carstens, not having found a reference in any of her sources, queried him on the name of the deceased VIP.

“It was a bird,” a muted Hanbury replied, “which became a spirit and flew off.”

This ticked Frau Carstens off quite thoroughly. The consul's tendency to acquire a look of religious serenity when she asked direct questions drove her to distraction anyway, and now this: a bird turning into a spirit! What next? Visions of a white dove carrying an olive branch? Fiery chariots racing to heaven? “Shall we review your social obligations?” she said.

She began with the Wintergarten opening. The old variety theatre had been bombed and after more than forty years its revival
would be a big event. “Sturm
must
drive. If you arrive by taxi you won't be photographed.” Hanbury, his mind still full of the funeral, still calculating what to read into Sabine's sparse words, nodded absentmindedly to Frau Carstens. She moved to a luncheon event the next day where politicians and diplomats were to discuss ways of bringing foreign culture into Berlin's desolate eastern neighbourhoods. There was more – dinners, concerts, receptions, parties – all of it tying him down until he felt as immovable as Gulliver. Frau Carstens, having arrived at the bottom of his social balance sheet, eventually ran out of steam.

Suppose she knew about the hidden ledger, Hanbury asked himself. Would she explode? Müller's funeral, drinks with Schwartz, Zella's upcoming visit, Gundula escorting him to the Press Ball: strange, unreal, illegal entries, thin slivers of privacy in the vast wasteland of his public life.

On the way to the Wintergarten, the consul reflected on human nature and its capacity for transition. Solemn funerals one day; frivolous night life the next. Would Sabine allow herself a night out? He doubted it. She would be home writing thank-you notes for the wreaths and the flowers. He had thought it over and, in retrospect, he recognized that a stark finality marked her voice when she thanked him for writing her a note. It was best to assume that what she'd really said was that she didn't want a scene and would he now please leave. Yes, the funeral was the absolute end of the line. Hanbury resolved he would not talk to Schwartz about being at Müller's service.

Instead, he listened to Sturm. The day had been damp and sombre once more, but inevitably sometime during the Berlin winter an immunity sets in. No doubt that was the reason why Sturm talked with
the happy release of someone who knows he's recently received an effective vaccine. His mind as always was on the East. “Know where Cottbus is?” he asked, knowing the answer would be no. “Near Saxony. Nice place. Enriches Brandenburg in my opinion. I wasn't sure I should go. I worried my car would be newer than my cousin's and it might look like I was showing off. Turns out he ditched his Wartburg long ago. He's got a Passat now – new – makes my Fiat look dated. Wonderful to see him in his first real car. My cousin used to be a truck driver, except he didn't drive much. The truck was always breaking down and spare parts took weeks. His happiest dreams before the Wall came down were of a world in which spare parts were always instantly available. Imagine his joy, landing the job of parts manager at a new Volkswagen dealer. He's in heaven. He's won all the company prizes for dedication. He's worried about his neighbours though. He said they aren't doing so well. All the neighbours think their neighbours are worse off. That's what's nice about the Ossis, Herr Konsul. They care about their fellow man.” Sturm rambled on: new TVs, modern washing machines, microwaves, stereo systems, state-ofthe-art video recorders – all now available in Cottbus, all being stacked up everywhere in tight, socialist-built flats. He continued rattling off the long list of new Eastern modernity even as the Opel swung into Potsdamerstrasse.

In the street ahead were a thousand lights attached to a façade. Powerful, rotating beacons on a flatbed truck in front played hide-and-seek with the clouds. Under a canopy over the sidewalk, red-suited doormen stood at the ready. “Nuvoh Riesch,” said Sturm in an imitation Oxfordshire accent. “That's what Lord Halcourt would call it. He didn't like to be seen in company like that. Keep one hand on your wallet in there, Herr Konsul. With the other cover your face. Lord Halcourt would have.”

Frau Carstens's prediction notwithstanding, no photographer took a blind bit of notice of the black Opel when it drove up. Two enormous Mercedes limousines held greater promise. One of the red-coats did open the Opel door, but mainly to plead with Sturm to move along quickly. Hanbury, looking elegant enough in his evening suit, stepped out and proceeded up the thick red carpet. But all eyes were on a couple behind him, a tennis player maybe, or an Olympic runner, accompanied by a leggy fashion model. In the foyer he took up a position in a corner. TV cameras on pedestals swept over the party. Celebrities were being interviewed. A matron with long, fluttering eyelashes leaned into a microphone. How heady, she was chiming, to see the Wintergarten get a second wind. To loud cheering and much clapping she predicted the city would soon regain the giddy mood of the twenties when it had been chock-a-block with the avant-garde.
It's intoxicating
, she sang. It rang out like a bell in a magnificent carillon.

Hanbury, tirelessly nodding to acquaintances, drifted into the performing hall. Memorabilia on the walls – costumes, posters, blown-up photographs – portrayed the great days of Berlin cabaret. Under a ceiling twinkling like the Milky Way, the champagne flowed, the women looked ravishing and friends embraced. A giant victory party, sure, but for what?

Having shaken hands with others at his table, the consul sat down to gape about at the rest of them. Who was accompanying whom? Which tables had the heavy hitters? Hanbury noticed the Chief of Protocol at the front, reviewing arrangements. He disappeared, coming back moments later with the President of the Republic amidst a scattering of applause.

The lights dimmed. A medley of Berlin tunes came from the musicians' gallery. Waves of colour, clever stage sets, blasts of music, a chorus line of four obscenely fat but funny energetic ladies, sad clowns, amazing magicians. The audience, happy that a sugary fairy tale had
been reborn, even if it lacked real spice, loved the show.

During the intermission an attendant asked the consul to follow her to the front where von Helmholtz waited. “I want to introduce you to the President,” he said. The Chief of Protocol took three steps, whispered to the head of state and gestured to the consul to approach.

“I understand you're a fellow casualty,” Germany's President said.

“I'm not good at ducking flying eggs,” the consul laughed.

“I'm not either. I'm sorry you were hit. It does not reflect well on us.”

“It can happen anywhere. In my country people in one province have been known to walk over the flag of another. A couple of flying eggs isn't much compared to that.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps not. It depends on the depth of the motivation.” Hanbury was about to make a positive remark on the conduct of the crowd at the demo, but others pressed in. His audience was over.

“I hope you aren't disappointed with the show,” von Helmholtz remarked, accompanying him back to his table. Hanbury replied neutrally that some of the acts were good, but von Helmholtz's opinion was firmer. He believed something was missing. “The Wintergarten is
in
Berlin again, but it's not yet
of
Berlin. Am I too severe? By the way, Gundula tells me you two are going to the Press Ball. We should discuss her some time. She may need your help.” Hanbury was about to say that was most unlikely, that it was the other way around in every conceivable way, but the Chief of Protocol had spun off.

Glasses at the table stood refilled.
Prost
, he said to the other guests. They studied him closely. “You know the President?” The man who asked had bushy eyebrows, a gleaming scalp and strands of hair that hung from the sides over his neck like a silky curtain. “We saw you talking to him.”

“We only met just then,” Hanbury explained. “We had a misfortune in common.” He described the ruckus at the rally.

“I saw that on TV,” said an ample woman in a gaudy floral dress. “I saw the eggs fly. You were hit?”

“Right here.” Hanbury pointed at his shoulder near his chin. “A bad aim. Five centimetres this way and I would have had it in the face.”

“Scandalous, what happened,” she said. She believed the authorities should come down hard on hooligans. “It didn't used to be that way.”

The man with the devil's eyebrows slipped Hanbury his calling card. The consul dutifully replied in kind. Each studied the other's, as if the bits of paper contained secrets. Hanbury read the name: Dr. Kurt Stobbe, the chief archivist for the Stasi files. But Stobbe vocalized his discovery. “A consul!” Immediately he came around the table to a vacant chair beside the diplomat. “Would you object if we talk?”

“You have a fascinating position,” Hanbury countered gracefully. “The Stasi files?”

Stobbe regarded the consul intently from under his great eyebrows. “We're just beginning to scratch the surface. When the state plays peeping Tom and writes down what it sees, the archive becomes gargantuan. We're finding interesting things: Olympic doping, terrorist support, money laundering, arms smuggling, cover-ups for war criminals. The entrails of a nasty regime. We want to share what we have with foreign governments. Come see me sometime. I'll explain what I mean and give you a tour.”

“Well thank you. Maybe there's a file on me,” the consul joked. “I went into East Berlin as a student. I was usually followed.”

“Sure. We'll do a search. I'll show you how they organized their information. My door is open.” Hanbury was about to ask Stobbe whether he'd ever heard of Günther Rauch, the reported saviour of the files, but the theatre was dimming for the second half and Stobbe circled back to his side of the table. A spotlight caught his smooth scalp, making it look like a chunk of gold. It added to his air of drama. In the semi-darkness Hanbury gave him a thumbs up.

The second part of the gala was imported too. Top acts from around the world. The highlight was an American who grunted, smoked cigarettes and set his insides on fire. Smoke puffed out from everywhere – nostrils, ears, his shirt collar. The audience laughed until tears flowed.

Once the curtain was down, guests lingered. Stobbe and his frumpy wife left first. He waved to the consul to reconfirm the offer. Hanbury answered with another upward jab of his thumb. That same moment he felt a touch on his shoulder. A corpulent woman had come up. “We know each other,” she said. Hanbury studied her a moment, nodding to win time. He was acquiring a habit of forgetting people faster than he was meeting them, but blonde hair streaked with platinum and heavy lipstick belongs to a type not easily overlooked. Even so, nothing was connecting. His mental search must have been written on his face. She said, “Yesterday. At the funeral. You were talking to Sabine Schwartz.”

“Yes. Of course,” Hanbury replied, still racking his brain out and alarmed at the reference to Sabine.

“My name is Martina Ravensberg, and you?”

He said his name.

“An English name.”

“Yes.”

“And a friend of Sabine. I am a friend of Sabine.”

“Not a friend. I knew her father.”

“But she went to you. I've known Sabine since we were children and I could tell there is something between you. She's never mentioned an Englishman. How strange.” The voice's accusatory undercurrent made Hanbury shrug, as if to say, Am I responsible? His mind was skipping back to Savignyplatz. Had Sabine ever mentioned someone called Martina? “Are you in business? Real estate? I love London,” he heard the woman say.

“An English name, but not an Englishman,” he corrected. More pushy questions assailed him. Despite a growing irritation, Hanbury identified himself more fully.

Sabine's friend was instantly rapturous. “A consul! Delightful! What a discovery. Could we have lunch? Tomorrow? The next day?”

“My secretary keeps my schedule.”

“Of course. A busy man.” Hanbury spread his hands and brought them together as if to apologize for the tyranny of his diary. “Here is my card,” she said. “Call me.”

Hanbury gave a quick nod and moved to the exit.

Where was the evening's magician, he asked himself. Where are the sorcerers when they're needed? He could use one now. Get him to deploy occult power. Ask him to erase the last two minutes out of the continuum of time. Hanbury felt his inner space had been defiled, that the purity of the previous day's moment with Sabine had been stained. Outside, he scowled, crumpled the platinum blonde's calling card and chucked it to the side.

At ease behind the wheel of hisMercedes, inspired by twelve cylinders of power, Gifford was weaving his way aggressively up a busy Kaiserdamm. Other motorists, respectful of the outward urgency of his mission, made room. Beating others to the lights, getting there first – like winning a medal at the Olympics, thought Gifford.

Lunch with McEwen at the club.

“Earl?” McEwen had exclaimed on the telephone. “I say. Come down for a nibble. Been reading reports. Rivetting. Want to tell you about them.”

More than some pre-Christmas socializing, Gifford speculated. New information? Must be good to justify a lunch. He took a peek at the consul's C-drive before he left. A command copied the contents silently to his own computer. A second later, a laser printer ejected sheet after sheet. Love this modern technology, Gifford said to himself.

The guard touched his cap as the big car passed the barrier. Arrive in a Mercedes, Gifford thought, then they salute. His response, a slight
nod from deep inside the chamber of luxury, confirmed he always knew a day would come when it would be like this. But not even the makers of the Mercedes can do much about the sudden drop in dignity an owner suffers when he vacates the immaculate interior. A quick attack of cold rain mixed with sleet made Gifford lumber, inelegantly, as fast as his great weight allowed, from the car park to the club entrance. With his squirrel's head stuck to a fat bear's body, he resembled a figure carved onto a totem pole.