The Helsinki Pact (21 page)

“Consistent, yes, and
persuasive.” said Thomas slowly. “You think this is what Herren’s
been setting up, getting ready for the Berlin Purchase, as you
called it. Gorbachev gets the money he needs and he works behind
the scenes for German unification or, at least, does nothing to
stop it.”

“Well, it’s pure speculation,
obviously, but, yes, I think that’s probably it. The facts back it
up but nobody’s ever going to find proof of it anywhere. Herren is
now sending me over to East Germany to scout for potential banking
acquisitions, to start building a banking network for us there.
That also points in the same direction.”

“You say the financing deal’s
been closed, the loans are in place. What happens next?”

“What do you think this opens the
door to? Suppose all this is actually true, that it’s going to
happen soon, next year I’d guess. What’s going to follow from
that?”

Stephan sat back with an air of
satisfaction and took a long pull of the Tsingtao beer they’d each
ordered to complement the richness of the duck. For a short while
there was silence. Stephan leaned forward again, closer to Thomas.
“Isn’t this going to be the biggest economic shock wave ever to hit
the West European economies, at least in times of peace? And think
of the opportunities if you know in advance what’s going to happen!
Just what could you do if you were in that privileged
position?”

Thomas nodded.

“You’re right about that. There’s
hardly anything would compare in terms of impact. And the
opportunities for investment and speculation ... You could make a
killing on practically anything you got involved in.”

“Exactly! But how?” He look
closely at Thomas. “What would you do, for instance?”

“Land values are dramatically
lower there so I would buy land in Dresden or Leipzig, even Berlin.
They’ve some good production and manufacturing plants in specialist
areas like optics but most of it is all over the place, lurching
from famine to glut and back again at the whim of the Party it
seems. Anything to do with infrastructure would be worth investing
in. Machinery. Communications. Some factories. And the government
would be paying for it all so there would be no credit risk. I can
see the West German companies having a field day and their stock
values would soar.”

“You’re right. The government
would be paying and interest rates would rise to hold off
inflation. Bond prices would fall. So would the Deutsche Mark.
That’s another thing. There has to be a common currency but how are
the two Marks going to be valued? I know there’s an official
exchange rate of parity but that’s just absurd. Then there’s the
black market rates, which are astronomical, well, you probably know
that anyway. My guess is that the DDR will push for as near parity
as they can, that really helps them, while we’ll want to keep as
high a multiplier as we can get away with as otherwise it’s just
going to cost too much. And Kohl really wants unification so he’s
going to use his political muscle to make sure nothing derails
that. Either way, though, there should be pretty good returns. Safe
returns too! Absolutely gold plated safe, guaranteed by the
Bundesbank.”

Thomas whistled slowly, his food
forgotten. “Yes, I suppose you could expect all the financial
variables to be turned on their heads.”

“Absolutely! It’s the financial
opportunity of a lifetime.” Stephan checked his watch and signalled
the waitress for the bill. “Hey, we need to head back to the bank
for your meetings otherwise in the meantime you might miss out on
the job opportunity of a lifetime. Let’s talk more about this
later. You're staying over tonight, aren't you?”

Chapter 17

Thursday November 9
1989

THOMAS’S last two economics exams
were scheduled for January. With the option of joining Deutsche
Bank for an internship in February, passing them became critical,
complementing the earlier ones which he’d passed brilliantly. Now
that the Stasi was paying him a regular stipend his economic
troubles were greatly reduced and he was able to focus more on his
work. Latterly he’d been attending classes regularly and had spent
the past weeks studying, sometimes even for up to fourteen hours a
day, driven and taking time off only for the concession to himself
of singing lessons.

He’d spoken to Bettina with
increasing frequency, at least daily during the past week. These
calls were supposedly on account of their roles as informer and
monitor but in the past few days neither of them had mentioned
anything to do with his work for the organisation. Most of the talk
had been about developments in the DDR and where the country was
headed.

Honecker had been deposed three
weeks earlier but this had done nothing to stem the rising tide of
protests. If anything their intensity had grown. On the previous
Saturday a demonstration in Alexanderplatz initiated by actors and
theatre employees and grudgingly permitted by the authorities had
brought out well over half a million people, some said a million or
even more, now the largest demonstration ever in East German
history.

People were now protesting
openly, careless of Stasi or police retribution, and their numbers
and their demands were growing. Two days earlier the man who was
the Stasi, Mielke, had resigned, tearfully protesting his love for
the people and his desire to protect them. To his apparently
genuine surprise and distress these claims made in parliament had
been met with ridicule and derision.

The government itself had fallen
on the same day although Egon Krenz, Honecker’s replacement, had
remained as Party leader. “He’ll be gone by Christmas if this keeps
up.” Dieter had said.

People went about their usual
business, mostly ignoring the fractured and conflicting news
reports from the radio or television, particularly when the gap
between the report and what could be seen happening not only in
Dresden or Leipzig but in smaller towns and cities throughout the
country, even in Berlin itself, was evident. There was a feeling of
imminent change, of pressure building up which would be impossible
to contain, yet few ordinary people, even the most vigorous
protesters, could have said with certainty what would happen. There
was optimism but simultaneously a sense of fear and gloomy
foreboding.

"What's that quotation?" Thomas
had said to Bettina one day "Something about things falling apart
and the centre no longer holding."

"I don't know" she'd replied "but
things certainly are falling apart. And perhaps the worst is the
passion so many of us blindly have for what's going to destroy us.
They don't understand what they'll get with this freedom they're
chasing so hard. These coming changes terrify me."

He'd thought of this conversation
again. How could she be so pessimistic about the future when all
this ferment was happening? It could mean the end of his nightmare
and surely she would welcome that for him. It was now almost ten in
the evening and he had a sudden longing to hear her voice, to talk
with her. He raced down the stairs and on to Gneisenaustrasse but
no phones were free and two people were already waiting. He headed
over to the Museumskneipe, one of his favourite haunts close to the
Europacenter, deciding to have a few drinks and call from
there.

Thomas loved the kneipe for its
absurd decoration: all sorts of old objects hung down from the
ceiling, old tubas and trumpets through to life-sized pieces of an
old warplane. The kneipe’s seats had come from a 1920s train. He
was sitting underneath an early industrial spinning machine and had
just finished his second beer when he decided to try calling
Bettina again. Again the line was engaged. He waited, tried again,
waited, tried again, then after several more attempts gave up. A
queue had formed behind him and people had started making barbed
comments.

It was a cold, early November
evening. He left the kneipe and was wandering aimlessly when he
began noticing more and more people running as if fleeing for their
lives, focused but distracted as if concentrating on saving
themselves or watching some extraordinary, dramatic spectacle.
Cars, forced to slow down or stop suddenly to avoid hitting people
in the swirling crowds streaming on to the roads, were honking
angrily, their brakes squealing and the drivers leaning out and
shouting in fury. Thomas caught up with a young couple on
Budapesterstrasse and asked them where everyone was heading, and
just what was happening.

“The Wall! It’s the Wall!” the
girl answered, panting, trying to catch her breath and then
bursting into tears. Thomas looked at her, puzzled by the tears
flowing down her cheeks and the wide smile on her face. She grabbed
him suddenly, kissed him exuberantly, and ran off, shouting
something that Thomas couldn’t understand, briefly deafened as he
was by the desperate honking of a car about to run him over. He
thought he heard something like “It’s finished!”

Despite himself he found that he
was running with the growing crowd towards the Brandenburg Gate,
still a good fifteen minutes’ away. People poured in from the side
streets and the houses, the rivers of people becoming a turbulent
flood of humanity. Traffic on the 17 Juni Strasse was practically
at a standstill, unable to part the crowd. Thomas kept running
until he was in full view of the Gate, part of the mass of people
filling the Pariser Platz and pressing up against the eastern
section of the Wall.

Thousands were now gathered on
the western side of the Wall, on the other side of the Brandenburg
Gate, shouting and chanting. Word had spread that Günther
Schabowsky, the East Berlin Party Secretary, had announced on
television the lifting of the travel ban and the immediate opening
of the Wall. Thomas squeezed up on an observation turret together
with four others and could see that nobody was yet risking crossing
over. However, a growing mass of people was pressing the VoPos, the
East German police, to be let through. An elderly woman was
shouting and gesticulating close to a young officer’s face though
Thomas couldn’t hear over the noise of the nearby West
Berliners.

The crowd swelled and got noisier
on both sides of the Wall. The VoPo officers in their sludgy green
uniforms were half-heartedly holding back the crowd, sometimes
shouting and displaying flashes of anger but usually exhibiting a
kind of passive acceptance of what was happening, something very
different from their usual arrogant behaviour. No one raised a
machine gun or threatened the increasingly restive and daring crowd
on the eastern side. A few from the west had clambered up and were
sitting on the Wall itself, cheered on by those in the east. A VoPo
raised a rifle towards the group but the eastern crowd howled with
rage and surged towards him knocking the weapon out of his
hands.

This broke the dam. Scores of
East Berliners stormed the first barrier, then ran through the Gate
and climbed up as best they could on the second part, reaching for
the hands of the westerners sitting on top, some of whom were now
even letting down ropes. With shouts and tears of joy they landed
on the other side, hugging everyone in sight. In the controls
turrets of the East the guards were standing impotently by,
watching this dramatic shift in the ordered scheme of things, doing
nothing.

Thomas felt an immense surge of
pure joy and the thought that this could be the start of Germany
unification flashed into his mind. The Stasi would disappear. Life
would return to normal. Any hold that Dieter had over him would
vanish. He’d wake up, the bad dream realised for what it was, and
forgotten.

Thomas managed to negotiate his
way through the maelstrom of people and get closer to the Western
part of the Wall. A young man landed almost on top of him, then
sank his face on his shoulder, crying. There was a confusion of
sounds, of laughter, shouting, crying, singing, all merged into a
single confused roaring as of a sea, excited at having covered
hundreds of miles of open ocean to now pound on a promised beach. A
small group of Easterners was whirling in a complex dance, buffeted
by the crowd, approaching closer to the turrets and then whirling
away before returning again like a dust storm and shouting insults
at the guards, one of whom reached for his gun and then dejectedly
put it down and looked elsewhere, diminished. On the western side,
Easterners started running as if any moment they’d be pursued and
hauled back. Some collapsed with exhaustion and lay sobbing on the
ground.

Some Westerners had arrived with
sacks of hammers and Thomas grabbed one, pounding at the Wall until
some chips came away. With the help of others he climbed to the top
of the structure, eager hands helping him up.

Although the former crossing here
remained firmly closed, as it had been since mid-August, thousands
were massing on the eastern side shouting for it to be opened, old
and young and middle aged, men and women, children and even some
still in uniform and with others pushing small carts or prams
filled with sad possessions. Some were trying to force open the
check point or attempting to climb up and over the barriers.
Hundreds more were constantly running from Unter den Linden and the
other side streets. Many of the guards were now abandoning their
turrets and mingling with the raucous crowd.

Thomas now desperately wanted to
see Bettina, to be with her and celebrate the happiness and
euphoria which must surely now be gripping the whole country. He
had a vague idea of how to reach her and thought he could manage it
in less than an hour. Judging from the mass of people on both
sides, this unprecedented spectacle of joy and brotherhood would go
on for the whole night.