The Helsinki Pact (23 page)

The news of the Wall’s opening
had distressed her greatly, she remembered, and she’d wanted to
hide herself away, wanted only to come to terms privately with what
had happened and to nurse her own distress. Then Thomas had
appeared at her door, she'd let him in, reluctantly at first, and
as they’d ended up listening to Tosca she’d been able to banish the
harsh sounds of joy and excitement outside and lose herself in the
music of a language she didn’t understand, the unfamiliar rhythms
and cadences complementing the voices of the singers and the
instruments and her mood changing and lightening until she’d become
calmer and happier. She remembered then that she'd felt very alone
and had asked Thomas to stay - but surely he hadn't misunderstood
her. She had also been very tired, certainly, and had fallen asleep
almost as soon as she'd got into bed.

As she lay in bed, the smell of
fresh coffee tantalising her from the kitchen, she suddenly
recollected with a flush of embarrassment that as Thomas had been
explaining to her the sense of the aria Non la sospiri, la nostra
casetta she had found herself drifting off dreamily to explore the
life of the two of them in just such a building. He’d been too
intent on turning Italian into German to notice her absence,
however, or even her unconscious experimental sigh, and in a moment
she’d crossly repaired the breached shell around her.

The smell of coffee, now overlaid
with that of warm bread and of eggs, became too strong to resist.
Bettina stretched and yawned, scrabbled quickly out of bed, shucked
her feet into slippers, and pulling a dressing gown together, her
long rumpled blonde hair making a vivid contrast with the green
silk of the garment, wandered to the kitchen where Thomas was
preparing breakfast. She smiled as she looked at the preparations,
the table set for two, and then frowned at the small bunch of
freesias in a thin tumbler by what she took to be her
place.

“Good morning!” Thomas waved a
wooden spoon from by the cooker where he’d begun scrambling eggs.
“You looked dead to the world so I thought you could use the sleep.
How do you feel? Did you sleep OK?”

Bettina wrinkled her eyes, yawned
and stretched again, nodded, then asked, suddenly wary, “Uhhhu, and
what about you? Did you, um, sleep OK as well? Were you, were you
comfortable enough?” Thomas, intent on the eggs, nodded slowly and
let the smile broaden on his face while he looked at her. She
waited, apprehensive.

Looking up from checking the eggs
he smiled again. “I was OK. Your sofa was pretty short for me but
it was fine. I managed, thank you.”

In truth he’d passed a very
uncomfortable night. From time to time, fed up with turning and
wriggling unsuccessfully to get comfortable, he’d wandered through
the apartment, nosing around here and there and looking at
Bettina’s collection of miscellaneous objects and souvenirs,
indicative of her curiosity and eclectic outlook. Her bedroom door
was ajar and twice he’d sneaked silently into her room and stood
looking at her perhaps hoping, if he were honest with himself, that
she’d waken and drowsily invite him to stay. Seeing her lying on
her side, well tucked in under her Federbett, her back to the door
and curled slightly in a posture just made for spooning weakened
him with feelings of desire. On his second visit he’d reached out
to lift and caress her hair but had left hastily when she’d sighed
and started to turn towards him.

When daylight had begun entering
the small living room, he’d abandoned the attempts to sleep and had
got up. Once dressed, he’d walked downstairs to look for fresh
bread leaving a small wedge of paper inserted in the front door so
that it would look shut but let him re-enter. Guided by the smells
of baking he’d found a shop a few streets away and bought fresh
warm rolls as well as eggs, butter and milk. He’d paid in DM at the
official exchange rate bringing a smile of delight to the face of
the woman behind the counter. On the way back he’d passed a small
park and stolen a few flowers from one of its borders.

Thomas poured coffee and passed
Bettina a plate of scrambled eggs, indicating the warm rolls and
fresh butter. Bettina began eating, looking at her plate and saying
nothing. Thomas had hoped for, expected even, some compliments on
his preparations and thoughtfulness, perhaps an expression of
pleasure from her, but it was clear there were going to be none. He
felt the barriers had again gone up but he acted as if nothing had
changed. He was glad he hadn’t taken advantage of her fragile state
the previous evening.

The phone rang and Bettina
answered it quickly in the living room. All Thomas could hear were
a series of “yes, yes” and once an “understood” and then Bettina
returned.

“That was Dieter. He wants to see
both of us immediately, as soon as we can get there." She frowned.
"He seemed to know that you'd stayed here. We’re to go to the
Alexanderstrasse office – apparently the Normanenstrasse one is
under siege from protesters.”

She glanced at her watch and went
to her bedroom to change. When she returned she wore a dark brown
leather jacket and a long skirt matching in colour, the outfit
giving her a rigid, almost military, look.

Just under thirty minutes later
Thomas and Bettina were shown into Dieter’s Alexanderstrasse
office, two floors above where they usually met for their
briefings. It was small and stuffy, much more cramped and
nondescript than Dieter’s main office in the Stasi HQ. There was a
tall, dark-haired man of roughly Thomas’s age sitting on one of the
chairs in front of the bare desk who glanced over as they entered
and smiled briefly at Bettina. Dieter seemed agitated and looked
exhausted, as if he’d hardly slept.

“Hanno, you know what needs to be
done. Thank you for coming. Report to me tomorrow and we’ll talk
further then.”

He waved his hand towards the
young man who then unwound himself from the chair, looming a good
ten centimetres above Thomas. He moved to the door ignoring
everyone.

There was a long silence after
Hanno had left the room. Dieter kept walking back and forth in the
small space left between his desk and the window overlooking
Alexanderplatz, occasionally rubbing his eyes and at other times
standing looking out apparently aimlessly at the scene on the
street below him.

"Who was that?" Thomas
whispered.

"Hanno Wornletz, another agent.
We were quite friendly a while ago but I hardly see him now. He's
very ambitious, very pushy, good at networking, clever too, I
think. People seem to rate him, but, well, there's something ...
"

Dieter turned abruptly from the
window and sat down again at his desk.

“I called you here because of
what occurred yesterday. It wasn’t really a surprise, at least not
to us. We knew that something of this kind would happen and
probably happen sooner rather than later. Russia is in a desperate
situation economically and Gorbachev is taking a desperate gamble
to try to correct, or at least contain, this. His policies of
glasnost and perestroika – and for the times I believe they’re the
correct ones although very dangerous to the Marxist ideal if not
controlled and managed properly – have stimulated discontent among
our citizens and those of our sister republics. In Hungary and in
Czechoslovakia there has been dialogue. In Romania and Bulgaria in
contrast there has been none but that will not save their leaders.
I’m sorry to say that here in the DDR there are few with the
foresight and vision necessary to give the greater freedom that our
citizens want while at the same time securing and strengthening our
socialist model. Modrow, I suppose, Wolf maybe, although he's
supposedly retired, but precious few others if any.”

Dieter sighed heavily and looked
out of the window, deep in his own thoughts. Thomas and Bettina
glanced at each other but said nothing. A clock ticked in the
background.

“Now preserving our beliefs and
way of life will get even harder. Effectively Gorbachev has sold us
to try to buy his way out of economic collapse. In another era he
might have sold other smaller states, Kazakhstan to Iran, for
instance. Or like Kruschev in February 1954 who simply handed over
the Crimea to Ukraine, although that was of course to a sister
republic, part of the USSR." He paused and again looked towards and
out of the window.

"But those days are over.
Nowadays modern states can’t be bought and sold against the will of
their people. But, if you can change that then anything becomes
possible.” He glanced at the door and spoke more quietly. “These
are strange and difficult times. The judgement of our leaders has
been flawed and they have lacked that necessary vision and
foresight. They have missed the opportunity to show the people the
benefits of a more open society but one still governed by important
socialist principles of fairness and freedom. Now the people see
freedom as purely a Western philosophy and associate that with
German unification and so under that banner we are to be sold off.
In return Russia will receive considerable economic
support.”

“But what happened yesterday was
clearly spontaneous.” Thomas said, seeking to provoke Dieter. “I
doubt the Russians were directly involved.”

“They didn’t need to be. All they
needed to do was to order our politicians not to shoot if someone
tried to cross the border. The rest would take care of itself.
Revolutions are hardly ever spontaneous, Thomas. There’s always
someone hidden in the shadows with a match. There’s always plenty
of brushwood ready to burn.”

He reflected for an instant.
“This is only the beginning. General Secretary Krenz thinks he has
the situation under control but he too will disappear, like
Honecker before him. Revolutions, once they really get going,
become almost impossible to stop. It takes a lot of dead bodies to
halt the wheels of a runaway train.”

Dieter looked through some papers
on his desk and again there was silence for some
minutes.

“The agreement made between the
Soviet Union and West Germany is money in return for unification.
Perhaps you will say, Thomas, that I should be glad that the two
parts of Germany will become one country again. But to say that is
to forget our history, to forget that the German state, at least as
many now consider it, did not exist before 1871 and indeed that
after 1945 large areas of what earlier would have been part of that
German territory were lost. To seek to unite two sovereign
countries which have existed apart almost two thirds as long as
they were ever together is misplaced romanticism. Worse, it is a
betrayal of our socialist ideals. We have made mistakes, perhaps,
and our leaders have been wanting, perhaps letting power corrupt
them and not trusting the people sufficiently. But this last
betrayal will bring misery to our citizens as consumerism takes
hold. We’re going to disappear in ignominy. It will be an
annexation, not a unification. Nothing of our system will survive.
We will vanish like a joke of history.” He sighed
heavily.

There were several minutes of
silence. Dieter again left his desk and stood staring out of the
window, leaning heavily with both sets of knuckles on the sill.
Bettina was looking at him, her hands gripping the frame of the
chair, her knuckles white. She looked away, caught Thomas’s eye,
bent her head and suddenly drew her thumb and fingers together over
her eyes, cupped her hand on her mouth and refused to look at him.
He noticed that her shoulders were trembling.

“But I didn’t call you here to
discuss politics.” Dieter said, turning abruptly towards them and
once more sitting down. “Let’s understand what this means.
Yesterday, late afternoon, a group tried to storm and occupy our
headquarters. They were pushed back, though with some difficulty
since the guards were ordered not to shoot. I am certain there will
be more such attacks in the future. That incident caused a panic,
however, and even some people I’d held in esteem lost control and
went running around like frightened sheep. They began to burn and
destroy files. I was insistent they stop but even with the support
of my superiors it took a couple of hours to calm things
down.”

He looked from one to the other.
“I can understand that maybe some of the younger people here may
try to recycle themselves and blend into whatever new system will
emerge. I can even understand leaders who have made mistakes trying
to protect themselves. But it is morally wrong for the leaders to
wash their hands of their own doings. Even Hitler stayed in a
bunker in Berlin and killed himself only at the very end, only when
it was obvious that nothing more could be done. He was crazy
perhaps but at least he was consistent and at least he took
responsibility for what he’d been trying to do, however
misguided.”

“I have connived in actions which
I now regret.” he went on “Some of these actions had the effect of
causing harm to certain citizens without even the proper
justification of serving the greater good. Of course the needs of
the state must take priority but perhaps we should not necessarily
be as rigid about this ... ” He looked at the ceiling for a moment
or two. “As I’ve got older I’ve learned that sometimes one may even
need to question what one has been taught. Nevertheless I take full
responsibility for my actions, even if some of them are ones I now
believe to be mistaken. It’s the only honourable thing to do. And I
shall remain at my post until I’m removed by official order. What’s
more” and here he smiled thinly and looked hard at each in turn “I
expect each of you to do exactly the same until I formally release
you from your duty and from your obligations to me and to the
Firm.”