The Berlin Assignment (53 page)

“The Stasi did. He spent years in jail.”

“It was harmless then. It's harmless now. And the Stasi don't exist anymore.”

Von Helmholtz had not previously seen the consul so assertive. If you find yourself fencing with a diplomat, the Chief of Protocol once advised a trainee, feint as much as he does. “Our preference,” he said carefully, “is not to have more Stalinists on our hands.”

“Günther Rauch's a Marxist, not a Stalinist.”

“One turns into the other.”

The consul scowled. “In Günther Rauch's case that's rubbish.” A pause, then, “Can I ask something?” Von Helmholtz nodded. “Do you check the Stasi files for people like me?”

“Of course not.”

“I have a Stasi file. I came across it by chance.” Hanbury described it. For a long time von Helmholtz listened to what he already knew. Why the file was started; how reports continued to be added. “Someone looked into it recently. Somebody checked me. If it isn't a standing procedure, then who would do that, and why?”

“I don't know,” von Helmholtz answered as if the subject annoyed him. How far from, or close to a lie is a denial of knowledge? Von Helmholtz had never found a satisfactory answer. He took only the slightest comfort from the fact that he was now denying things he knew to protect the consul's peace of mind.

“Was that file search connected to being overheard in
Friedensdorf
?” Hanbury pressed. “Is the Cold War still on?” he said sarcastically. “Are the spies still out?”

Von Helmholtz didn't like the questioning. He might endlessly have to repeat,
I don't know, I don't know, I don't know
. Suppose Hanbury
asked about the twenty-four-seven operation? Suppose he explored the link to Gundula and learned of the theory that she was acting on behalf of a former lover in charge of a nuclear plant in the Ukraine, and that Hanbury stood accused of abetting plutonium trafficking? Denying he knew all this, denying he'd read it in a file – it would be like repudiating honour.

The consul was thinking many questions. Von Helmholtz could tell. It was obvious from the way he gripped the railing with growing agitation. To forestall them, he said quietly, “You may be right in part. Remnants of that period are still about. There's people who can't let the past go. In six months it will be different. Leave Günther Rauch alone for half a year. Can you do that?” He met Hanbury's stare and knew that somewhere in the middle of a further stretch of silence he obtained consent.

“He'll think I betrayed him,” Hanbury said at last. “Gundula predicted it would happen. She thinks making and dropping friends is something I do for a living.”

“Then don't drop her,” von Helmholtz advised. He steered the consul back into his office. “Do you still have a few minutes? I'm worried about her.”

Sitting on the two leather sofas at right angles in the poise of statesmen, they talked about her as if she was their ward. The Gregor Donner Reich columns
had
damaged Gundula, von Helmholtz feared. Her new work lacked fire. She needed a fresh challenge, something that played to her strengths. With her special style and ability to breathe life into complex issues, she should become a foreign correspondent. But to get started she needed help. Hanbury was a friend. Had he discussed it with her? Von Helmholtz recalled having once or twice suggested he do so. Could the consul work on it? “You'll be with us for a few years yet…unless you have other plans.” Hanbury's careful smile said,
I hope to stay forever
. The Chief of Protocol rose. At the door the consul impishly
said, “Let me know when the Cold War leftovers are in the garbage.” The Chief of Protocol laughed. An agile performance, he thought, right down to the witty end.

An hour later Schwartz entered
Das Klecksel
where a miasma of tar and nicotine seeped out of the walls and curtains. But what public house doesn't reek of cigarettes, stale air and yesterday's grease smoking off the oven? Despite the mingling of disagreeable odours, the professor and consul were regulars because Hanbury liked the place. Schwartz wondered whether it was because of the pub's name.
Das Klecksel
. All newcomers were taken by it.

Some said the name was homage to Wilhelm Busch, poet and caricaturist, who created an epic work in 1884 about a delinquent student of art called
Maler Klecksel
. The pub went back to 1885. The dates meshed. Others said the name was a Berlinerization. What would a Berliner do with the word
Klecks
, a blotch, or stain? He would corrupt it, into
Klecksel
, a term for a minor stain, or disfigurement, something misbegotten. The pub's name, by this analysis, was chosen to capture the essential nature of the lives of its clients. Did not each of them have a reputation that was smudged? Did they not all have consciences as convoluted as blots in a Rorschach test? A variant to this approach was that the pub's founder, through the name, had wanted to draw attention to the fact that each of the regulars was no more than a speck of colour, a dreary little blotch on the complex canvas of Berlin life.

The first time Schwartz and Hanbury drank in
Das Klecksel
, the waiter, a fill-in, a student, eloquently presented the theories of the origin of the name. Once finished, he said he could do it in English too, for the place was often full of tourists. The professor popped him a five-mark piece for the effort and waved him off. From that point on the consul
loved the place. It possessed something special, as had
The Tankard
.

Schwartz slid behind a table with a view of the door. The plank floor made a hollow sound whenever someone entered, like jackboots on a wooden bridge. But this was audible only in the early evening. Later a cannon would have to go off to rise above the tumult. Or a bomb. The current owner swore that happened once in 'ffl. A forty-pounder sliced through the building's upper floors, going off the moment it came to rest next to the piano. The player, as well as the current owner's mamma and papa behind the bar, along with a few dozen regulars, all of them defying the screaming air raid sirens, were instantly ripped apart.

A few years later, human stains duly scrubbed away,
Das Klecksel
was restored, as was the clientele. The piano again punched out songs worshipping Berlin's air, the cafés on the Ku'damm and the seduction of Emma on a bench by the Krumme Lanke. Once more the floor looked as if for centuries it had been absorbing gobs of mustard, portions of sauerkraut and spilt beer. And the walls sported the same mixture of Berlin memorabilia that graced them prior to the blast: photographs of city life in the 1890's, assorted Prussian military decorations, random newspaper headlines from all the decades, drawings by Busch of
Max und Moritz
and prints of the rawer strata of society by Heinrich Zille. For the regulars,
Klecksel
history was world history and it came to be divided into two main epochs, pre- and post-big bang. Only the erection of the Wall in '61 was grudgingly admitted as also epoch-defining.

The woman tending the bar this evening was a direct import from one of Zille's seamy drawings: a busty, big-boned, round-bottomed creature, with rapacious lips and a crude tongue. Schwartz occasionally listened to her. How Berliners love to belittle, he thought, and how readily they move to other arts they keep well-polished, those of berating, humiliating, moralizing. How the city functioned at all was an enduring mystery for the professor. Take something basic, take a saleslady whose job it should be to talk sweetly to customers. In Berlin she would normally begin with
a reproach – that her attention was being sought – following up with a show of high frustration that a customer had dared enter the store. Rudeness next, especially if the customer asked to look at something on a shelf. It was no different in the banks, the post office, the car repair depots, the hospitals, the police. The Police! Try phoning them!
A car theft? I don't do car thefts. Colleague Horst does; he's away at a spa recovering from stress. Call back the day after tomorrow. Even better, try next week
. Is it any wonder, Schwartz reflected, that after listening to the standard early morning rebukes, the first one from a bus driver, followed by one at the post office, and then from a teller at the bank, that people feel anger stirring? Is it any wonder their aggravation gets transferred, first to other customers in the queue, then to people on the street? And doesn't it stand to reason that they react in kind? Doesn't that explain why every day the whole city starts to snarl? Schwartz visualized how a thousand epicentres of aggression each sent out pugnacious waves that soon engulfed the city. Even the caring souls, who really did begin the day intending to treat the world with charity, would join the ranks of the haranguing. In such circumstances, how does anything positive get done? The energy was there, but the aggression misdirected. The professor considered it a monumental waste. What was needed was discipline, a finer sense of order. “What d'yuh want?” glowered the barmaid. “A beer,” said Schwartz. “Really? Now
that's
different.” She plodded back to the bar.

The professor looked at his watch. Where was the consul? Five minutes late was usual, but fifteen was pushing it. The article on the social page had been a surprise, Schwartz admitted it. It showed he and the consul were not as friendly as he believed. He needed to get closer still. What bargain could they make? What might Hanbury accept in return for Schwartz's use of the consul's access to places from which he was barred? Schwartz wasn't sure. Perhaps an outright request for a favour, as with Geissler's book, was best. Some people enjoy doing other people favours. Hanbury arrived the moment the barmaid banged a glass down on the
table. “Another,” Schwartz told her. She huffed. Couldn't he have ordered two at the start? Schwartz observed that Hanbury, easing onto the bench against the wall, was preoccupied and for a while the conversation was all one way.
A fine splash this morning, in the paper. A brilliant party you had. You're on the map now. Part of the landscape. You must be pleased
.

The professor dropped compliments in a steady rhythm, but the consul was unresponsive. He actually seemed melancholy. Schwartz finally inquired if anything was wrong. “It's been a rough day.” “A pressure cooker?” Schwartz inquired. Why wouldn't the consul's staff go easy on him after a large party? It's human to need time to recuperate. “Oh, that wasn't the problem,” Hanbury said listlessly. Schwartz asked more questions and offered understanding. Meeting people all day long must be tiring. No, not too many at all, not really, not today. Of course, nothing is more tedious than staff problems. In the university the academics are like dogs going for each other's throats. Was that a problem? Not at all. Far from it. Today, in fact, the staff was in high spirits. Perhaps the mail. A heavy burden. Letter upon letter. All wanting something. There were some letters, yes. Mostly invitations. Four out of five had to be regretted. The usual. Not so challenging. Isn't the telephone miserable? An invasion of privacy, the bearer of bad news.

“You can say that again,” said the consul with undisguised disgust, adding that transatlantic calls were the worst. “It got so bad today I threw the receiver down.”

“Family?” Schwartz wondered, to keep momentum going.

“Not family. Headquarters. Monstrous people.”

A little more coaxing and the main features of Heywood's call came out. “Why don't you do some reporting then?” Schwartz said.

“I can't compete with the wire services. Heywood knows that. He's setting me up, but for what?” The consul, obviously rattled, was drinking fast. For Schwartz, Hanbury's crisis as it unfolded was like a gift being
unwrapped. But he was amused too. He had never seen anyone so upset by the need to do some writing. “Maybe you can't compete in speed,” Schwartz said encouragingly, “but in sensitivity, depth, accuracy…you could beat the wire services every time. Wire services don't think.”

Hanbury laughed darkly. “I did political reporting in Kuala Lumpur. The ambassador went through bottles of red ink improving my drafts. It's true. I admit it. I don't have a knack for it, not for writing. My mind doesn't work that way. Not like yours. You have a talent for thinking things through.”

Schwartz bowed cordially. “But you're the diplomat. You have the better position.” He lifted his glass. “Well, to our respective strengths.” Their glasses clinked. “You're too hard on yourself,” he added. Hanbury shrugged. What's there to report on, he asked. What subjects could he write about that would interest headquarters? “Why don't we pool our strengths?” Schwartz suggested. He began to develop a line of thought. “If I were in your shoes, knowing what I know, what would I report?” Hanbury said he'd like to know that too.

A slight sneer formed on the edge of Schwartz's steady gaze. “In your shoes, I would report on Germany's prospects. First set the scene; a look back; what has shaped the Germans? Then an analysis of where they are today; are they fulfilling themselves as a nation? Finally, the future. What's Germany's destiny? Fifteen, perhaps eighteen reports. Your foreign policy makers ought to value work like that.”

“I doubt I could do it.”

“That's the point. I'm the academic. You're the man of action. I work with you; you assist me. We both gain.” The consul, continuing to grip his glass, wanted to know what he could bring to a process like that. “Several things,” Schwartz said easily. “A perspective for one. What do you consider important? Historians don't think like diplomats. Also, you have access to influential people. You could explore their thinking. That
would help me. I've been asked to give some lectures in this area next year; I'm working on them now. As I said, we pool strengths.”

“Well, eighteen is too many. I doubt headquarters could cope with six.”