The Berlin Assignment (39 page)

Günther Rauch started laughing. He laughed so hard he nearly wept.

Hanbury and Gundula walked back to Trabi in silence.

“I can take a taxi,” Hanbury said. “It's out of your way.”

“No,” Gundula said coldly.

She drove a few blocks. Without warning, on Kollwitzplatz, she pulled over and cut the engine. “There's something I have to say.”

Hanbury glanced at Gundula. She was nearly hidden inside her jacket collar.

“Tonight was good,” she said. She had her hands on the steering wheel and looked through the windscreen at the square's feeble lights. “You handled him well. From what I've heard, Günther Rauch doesn't warm up to people. But you told him things and asked him questions and
got him going. Well done.”

“Not me. It was you. You two did all the talking.”

“He wouldn't have tolerated me for thirty seconds if it hadn't been for you. He toyed with me, but he wanted to impress you.”

“I don't think so, Gundula.”

“But now what? Will you see him again?”

“Well, yes. Occasionally. Of course the air in
Friedensdorf
is bad. And, well, you noticed too. He does go on.”

“Occasionally, you say. You'll go see him occasionally. Not too often. When you consider it suitable, then you'll go see Günther Rauch?”

“I imagine so. Gundula, what is this?”

“I ask because it seems to be your general approach.”

Hanbury said nothing. He also fixed his eyes on the emptiness of Kollwitzplatz. In the little park, he knew, stood a statue of Käthe Kollwitz. He had seen it on his walks. She sat on a pedestal, calm, stripped of illusions. Some minutes passed in silence. He tried to come to grips with an inner agitation. Finally he asked, “What are you driving at?”

“Look at you. You make an attempt to find Günther Rauch. You let him know you've gone to some trouble. You get him going. He falls in love with you all over again. I imagine that's what happened twenty-five years ago. What will happen next? Because the air in
Friedensdorf
is irritating, you may not bother to see him again until you're both seventy. I want to know if that, generally, is how you treat people.”

“Günther Rauch in love with me? That's absurd.”

“I don't think it's far off. He called you his best traitor. It sounded like he was joking, but he wasn't. He missed you all those years.”

Hanbury thought about this. “I don't think that's fair. And it has nothing to do with you.”

“No? Another question then. Why did you take me to the ball?”

Hanbury's confusion deepened. “I thought it would be fun. I don't know many women.”

“But you know some.”

“I suppose, yes.”

“Then why me?”

“Gundula. This is odd.” He felt as if she was forcing him to cross a river covered with broken ice: one misstep would send him under.

She pressed on. “You could have taken others, but decided on me. Why?”

Hanbury shifted his weight in the narrow confines of the Trabi. “I invited you because I like you,” he admitted glumly.

“You like me?”

“Yes.”

“But you want to keep it a secret.” Hanbury sighed, but held his tongue. “Well then, what do you like about me?”

“Gundula, for heaven's sake!”

“Tell me. We need to get to the bottom of something.”

“Bottom of what?”

“First tell me why you like me.” She still gripped the steering wheel, but was turning slowly towards him as if she was giving in to a terrible anger.

Trabi, in the cold fog on Kollwitzplatz, was not a warm place. Yet Hanbury was sweating. He took a deep breath to keep his voice from trembling. “I like your eyes when they flash.”

“That's all?”

In the middle of the perilous river Hanbury had no choice but to go forward. “I like it when you tease…I like it when you teach me how to dance…” He was close to faltering. “I don't understand. What does this have to do with Günther Rauch?”

“Nothing. It has to do with me. When you asked me to the ball, it meant something. It was a lovely evening. But how did it end? First, you insist on going back to Marzahn.
I want to take you home
, you said.
I hear you saying it. When we got there, you instruct the taxi to wait. You shake my hand. Very professional. Why? A sign that the consul's duties are done? Proof of a well-tempered diplomat?”

“No!” he cried. “The ball had nothing to do with my duties. You're wrong about that. We could have gone to a pub to drink beer. I would have enjoyed it more. I'm not much of a dancer.”

“A cosy beer? Like tonight? You put on a professional performance? Think of how you treated Günther Rauch. Asking, probing, smiling, nodding. Your interest
appeared
genuine. Perfect diplomacy. Well done, Herr Konsul!”

“You're reading too much into nothing,” Hanbury protested blandly. “I was tired after the ball. I scarcely recall what happened. I fell asleep in the taxi on the way home.” The view into Kollwitzplatz was disappearing because the windscreen was fogging up. “What should I have done?” he asked, resigned.

“You could have sent the taxi away. You could have
tried
to stay the night.” Gundula's voice was subtly changing, away from the volleys of accusation. “I don't know whether I would have asked you up. Probably not. But there would have been no harm in trying. What I want to say is, don't treat me like a professional contact.”

Gundula started Trabi's motor. They drove off in silence.

“I'm really sorry about the ball.” Hanbury said. “I felt great on Sunday. I tried to call you to say that. I would like to try some of those dance steps again.”

“The music was good,” Gundula agreed.

“Those guys from Harlem were terrific. They opened my eyes. They really did.”

On the city autobahn Trabi went calmly. Gundula explained why the Harlem band impressed her. She hummed a few notes to demonstrate her point. At the bungalow, Hanbury asked, “A drink?”

Gundula looked him over, head shaking, eyes back to teasing. “No thanks. You need time alone to study that book of cowboy manners.”

“It's thick. Suppose I never finish it?”

“Let's put it this way – once you have, let me know.”

Hanbury stood on the sidewalk thinking this over. Trabi's engine roared. Gundula popped the clutch, but the engine died on the spot. Hanbury opened the door. “If you're gonna hang out with cowboys, get yourself a decent horse.”

“Get away!” she laughed and tried again. With some coaxing Trabi, that dapper creature, disappeared into the fog.

Inside, he put a new disc into the stereo, a compilation,
The Best of Soul
. He set the volume loud and listened critically for a while. His thoughts wandered – to Gundula, furious with him for reasons he found deeply fascinating – to Günther Rauch, to whom an olive branch had been delivered – and to
Bücher Geissler
, an unknown place he felt compelled to explore.

Wrapping up her father's affairs, Sabine found, was a full-time job which lasted weeks. Inheritance formalities, an apartment to be cleared out, organizing donations of his things: a bleak converse, she thought, to preparing the Fasanenstrasse apartment for Nicholas's arrival. Settling the estate was not merely a disentangling and redirection of objects. It was also a separating out of the physical from the spiritual. In the end little of her father remained, except what she carried of him in her head.

Everyone was supportive. Werner drove back and forth to Spandau for the things the family would keep. Lisa, who knew charities that supplied Russia, helped with the clothes. Martina arranged for a second-hand furniture dealer, who warned on the phone he paid only for antiques. Herr Geissler, throughout, was strangely understanding. “It needs to be done,” he whispered, staring into the distance. “It needs to be done well.” Sabine had never seen him look more disturbed. Had his tunnel vision become fixed on a looming question with no answer: who one day would settle
his
estate?

The weather didn't help. Every day Sabine recalled an opinion of her father's. No one should be allowed to die in winter, he once said. Winter deaths are too tough on the ones left behind.

When sleepless nights are spent staring at the darkness, and when the day ends in the middle of the afternoon and the mornings are so dull you can't make out the street from a second-storey window, some moodiness can be excused. For weeks on end, Sabine and Herr Geissler were in this respect peculiarly synchronised. The melancholy Geissler had taken to standing more motionless than usual near the front of his store to stare at the January fog. One day he saw it end. The agent – a cold wind – began pushing a few snowflakes around, and hour upon hour he was mesmerized by the white flecks that died upon impact with the sidewalk.

Geissler was so transfixed by the snow that he almost missed the arrival of an unimposing customer. The man halted in front of the store and paused to read the name in metal letters glued in a semi-circle on the window. The door was opened diffidently and closed gently. The string to the bell scarcely moved, so the jangle was subdued. Geissler felt less animosity towards customers who entered without arrogance.

“Good day,” the customer said softly. Geissler indicated he was welcome with a severe nod. He observed the customer unzip a waterproof jacket, shaking off the wetness. Underneath, he wore a pin-striped suit. The shoes didn't match either. The colours clashed and they were badly faded, as if the wearer had trekked through acidic swamps. “May I have a look around?” the customer asked politely. “
Bitte
,” Geissler said brusquely.
Please
. He waved his left arm towards the shelves rising to the ceiling. The customer handled the books with respect. He surveyed a row, title by title, occasionally pulled one out, holding it like a treasure before slipping it back. Different, Geissler thought. Most customers came in with questions barked out as orders. He adjusted his view away from the snowflakes. The customer's slow progress from aisle to aisle was inspiring. Why couldn't everyone browse like that?

Frau Schwartz was re-arranging titles in a far aisle. Geissler watched the customer turn into that aisle. He saw him address Frau Schwartz and how she dropped a book which hit the floor with a loud clap. The customer knelt down to pick it up. Geissler had never seen Frau Schwartz so agitated. She had been withdrawn these last weeks, mourning her loss, although she still dealt with customers well enough, correctly if impassively. But this one, dressed formally and informally at once, polite, educated, he changed all that. She became flushed, looking around as if she wanted to escape. The customer, as he talked, paged through the fallen book. They talked in hushed voices for five minutes. On the way out, the customer gave Geissler a genteel nod.

Geissler took a few hobbled steps into the aisle. “Who was that?” Frau Schwartz's countenance was once more morose. “An old acquaintance.” She went back to ordering books.

“He is a foreigner.”

“Yes.”

“English. Only an Englishman would wear a banker's suit with shoes like that.” Geissler was excited. His eyes behind the thick lenses flicked wildly.

“Not English,” Frau Schwartz replied.

“He's not German,” Geissler insisted.

“No. He's a consul. From Canada.”

“
Der Konsul von Kanada!
” Geissler said with soft wonder, returning to the window.

The next day the customer was back, just before midday. He entered with less hesitancy. This time he wore a dark top coat and dress shoes, disappointing Geissler. The previous day's version, more eccentrically clothed, had better fitted his concept of the fearless adventurers who once upon a time explored a frozen north. When the customer greeted him, Geissler blurted, “I have a cousin in Canada. In Whitehorse. Have you heard of Whitehorse? A wonderful name. Who wouldn't like to live
there?” The consul slipped into a professional demeanour. “Whitehorse? Surrounded by the mountains of the Yukon. A lovely part of the country. What does your cousin do?” Geissler fixed his stare at the consul. “He wrote he panned for gold.” “Ah, yes, flakes in mountain streams. I hope he found some. But I'm sure you're more successful. This is a wonderful store.”

Geissler gave a pained smile. Eyes full of pride flitted back and forth between the customer and the dusty books. “Your shoes are different today,” he said awkwardly.

“I was out walking yesterday and happened to be in the area. Today I have invited Frau Schwartz for coffee.”

Geissler jerked his head back to the street, sinking into himself, thinking of a Yukon river gravel bed glistening with a million specks of gold. Hanbury randomly took a book off a shelf. Paging through it, he waited for Sabine. When she appeared she asked if he had met Herr Geissler. Hanbury said they had chatted. Nonetheless she introduced him. The consul took a step forward to Geissler who half-turned. Hanbury saw the right arm was missing and without hesitation extended his own left hand. “I'm honoured to meet you,” he said. “The same,” Geissler muttered. Few people intuitively acknowledged his war wound.

A week later, the customer showed up again. He took time to talk to Geissler, asking questions: about the difficulties of maintaining a specialty book store and about the books – where did he get them? Geissler gruffly replied he had thousands of them stockpiled in the cellar. “It sounds like you have a treasure,” said the consul.

Once the consul and Frau Schwartz had left, Geissler thought about the gold in the consul's country's rivers being taken out by his cousin, and about his hoard of books one floor below. A treasure? He decided next time he would invite the consul down.

Despite the many years with Geissler, Sabine was unaware her father's death had shaken the bookstore owner profoundly. She had no reason to think Geissler had deep anxieties about death. He never mentioned it. Her father, on the other hand, guided as he had been by a happy unconcern, was always glib about it. Even on his deathbed he had been convinced it would be a matter of days only before his strength would rush back. Reclined deep in the hospital pillows, he had important things on his mind. He was breathing hard, with more difficulty all the time, but he claimed that's what it was like in the
Tour de France
, especially in the gruelling uphill heats in the Pyrenees that test endurance. Sabine was next to the bed. Whatever her father was thinking, she could see he wouldn't win. Pneumonia was doing the winning. Yesterday he spoke in sentences. Today he gasped between each phrase. It broke her heart, being helpless as he struggled.