The Helsinki Pact (3 page)

Opera in East Berlin had a good
reputation, he'd remembered. Visitors to West Berlin liked to visit
the East, gawking at the Wall, shivering slightly from being in a
communist country, asking how people set about escaping, and even,
a few of them, admiring and curious about the history of that now
separate part of the region. His eye for the main chance had
alerted him to the opportunities that existed when a country’s
exchange rate was held at a wholly artificial level.

His venture had started slowly
but was now going well and bringing him enough money to take more
regular singing lessons and generally to enjoy life more. He
focussed particularly on opera lovers, of whom there were many. He
could put them at ease through his enthusiasm, knowledge and
upbringing and by letting them deduce that his own voice was well
regarded and that he was being encouraged to perform. He would hint
at La Scala but modestly refuse to elaborate when pressed. His
character of impoverished student from a good family and with a
burning desire to succeed on the stage went down particularly well
with visiting wealthy widows and divorcees from the US eager to
spend their money on deliciously alarming excursions they could
describe later at home to their less adventurous, or simply less
rich, friends. Later each one would dwell nostalgically on the
special relationship they, and only they, had developed with their
handsome, well bred and attentive young guide. They sighed. If only
they had been half a century younger.

His clients understood that an
evening at the opera was incomplete without dinner in one or other
of what passed as fine restaurants in the East. He would settle up
in Ost Marks but charged his clients in DM at the official rate of
1:1 less a small discount he offered. This discount sweetened the
deals and bound his clients more tightly to him both because they
took pleasure in their cleverness in getting Ost Marks at a
preferential rate and because the implied minor illegality
heightened the thrill of visiting this curious and alarming
country. He was entirely transparent as to his costs, showing
openly restaurant bills and ticket prices, explaining that he got a
small commission for bringing custom. He accepted tips only after
an elaborate show of refusing, but did so graciously, bringing an
additional glow to the giver. That he bought his Ost Marks at
between 12 and 15 to the DM gave him sufficient room for
generosity.

Only rarely did it cross his
mind, still less trouble him, that some of his clients might not be
what they seemed.

The Ephraim Palais was his
favourite restaurant for this. He enjoyed the atmosphere and though
it had lost some of its former glory he liked bringing clients
there and watching them marvel at its faded opulence.

Axel was in his office, more
baroque salon than modern business powerhouse and complete with
ornate mirrors and overstuffed easy chairs in dull green velvet.
Thomas took a long draught of the pils Axel offered, set it down on
a mat on the Empire side table, and approached his mission
obliquely.

“Axel, you know I bring tourists
here and how much they enjoy it. And you make out separate bills
for everyone at the end.”

Axel nodded. He liked Thomas but
wondered what scam he was going to suggest now.

“Suppose we offer them a fixed
price menu? That would make things easier, wouldn’t it? And suppose
I paid in advance? You set up a kind of reverse tab and I’ll
preload it, maybe four or five thousand marks. You charge whatever
number of meals it is against it and let me know how the balance is
going and when it needs more. It would save time, make life easier
for everyone.”

Axel thought. There was something
odd here but he couldn’t work out what it was and the idea of cash
up front was attractive. If Thomas kept a credit balance with him
that meant he’d keep coming back to spend it. And if anything went
wrong he could simply pocket what was left.

“Hmm. Maybe 50 to 60 marks a head
would work.” said Axel. “That’s about the average spend, I
guess.”

“You could give me a discount on
the menu prices.” added Thomas. “What? 25% perhaps?”

Axel laughed. One of the things
he liked about Thomas was that he was always on the make but had no
embarrassment about it and didn’t let a refusal dent his good
nature or stop future attempts.

“OK! Let’s do it – 55 Ost Marks a
head for dinner on the menu with one glass of wine and anything
more to drink to be paid for. Some of your clients drink like fish
and the wines cost me enough as it is. Once you’ve set the tab up
I’ll charge the meals against it at 50 marks each and the wine at
menu prices.”

They shook hands. Axel waved his
hand at the door. “Now finish your beer, I’ve work to get on with.”
He laughed again.

Thomas sauntered down the street,
pleased with the good start to the evening. Now he’d get paid in
the West as usual but by banking his East German cash at the
restaurant would avoid the risk of bringing currency out of the
country illegally.

He'd become hungrier and so
decided to eat and have another beer or two. Setting off for a
nearby kneipe he liked he noticed four young women approaching from
a side street, one of them slightly apart from and trailing her
companions as if disdaining their evident good spirits. He slowed
down, ostensibly looking at the Parliament building ahead, to let
them catch him up. As the first ones overtook him the young blonde
trailing the group stopped and asked him for a light.

"I'm sorry, but I don't
smoke."

"Oh, well, it can wait. I only
smoke very occasionally." She pushed the pack into the breast
pocket of her denim jacket, tured to leave then glanced
back.

"Wait! Uh, would you like to go
for a beer?" he said.

She stared levelly at him,
holding his gaze until he dropped his eyes.

"I don't know my way around here
and I don't know anyone so I just thought, well, I suppose thought
there might be somewhere lively we could have a drink."

Again she stared at him, saying
nothing.

"So you thought you'd try your
luck. You're from the West. Whereabouts?"

"Frankfurt. But I live in West
Berlin now. I'm Thomas, Thomas Wundart. How did you guess I'm not
from here?"

“Your clothes, your accent, your
air of superiority, the way you said ‘There might be somewhere
lively’ as in ‘Yeah, there's surely a decent bar somewhere even in
a dump like the DDR’, your general cocky manner … What else would
you like me to say? Doesn’t take much, does it?”

She again looked steadily at him,
this time with the slightest of smiles on her face.

Women in the West didn’t talk to
Thomas that way and this woman’s manner and confidence made him
suddenly very interested in her. He’d already been attracted by her
shape and the lights on her hair when he first saw her and although
he still wanted her physically there was now something more that
he’d rarely experienced, part irritation, part excitement, a sense
that he was being tested to see if he was more than his surface,
was worth getting to know, was at least her equal. But he sensed
interest beyond the lightly hidden contempt and he had to build on
that, not seem vacuous, boring or a typically materialist
Westerner.

There was a silence while he
struggled to think what to say and then she spoke again.

"Look, Thomas, I'm sick of
tourists from the West patronising us. Maybe you didn't mean it in
that way, though. I won't go for a beer with you, not now anyway,
but you can come to this gig we're all off to if you want. That's
if you've any interest in music." She nodded toward the Parliament
building where her friends had gone and where three young men in
jeans that moment pulled open the orange doors and disappeared
inside. "I'm Bettina." she added.

She set off without waiting for
an answer and Thomas hurried after her. There was no one in the
long corridor just inside the door but as they walked to the end
Thomas heard faint music getting louder. They descended some stairs
and as Bettina pulled open a door marked Freie Deutsche Jugend he
was hit by a crude cover blast of OMD’s
Enola Gay
. The room
had couples dancing energetically under strobe lights and Thomas
smiled, thinking that even when partying members of the communist
Free German Youth were making political statements about nuclear
war and the perfidious USA.

“Who’s the band?” he
shouted.

“Ficken den Westen. They’re from
round here, student group, mainly do warm-ups, play covers. Then
there’s a DJ for a bit and the main band comes on at midnight.
Shame you’ll miss that – they’re from Leipzig. Really, really good.
But – if you will live in the West … ” Again there was the hint of
a smile.

"Well, I know you had Bruce
Springsteen here, last year wasn't it?"

"July. Quarter of a million at
the concert, maybe more. It was OK, but I'm more interested in what
we do ourselves."

She shrugged and her eyes
flickered down his body, lingered briefly, then returned to his
face, the pupils widening almost imperceptibly. Thomas ached to
hold her but, uncharacteristically, decided not to risk suggesting
dancing. That, and perhaps more, would come later.

They stood at the bar, looking
out over the crowd, saying nothing. He bought a couple of beers and
placed one carefully by her hand and then, testing, lifted his own
bottle and held it out to her, pleased when she took her own and
clinked the two briefly.

"So, Thomas, what do you do? And
why are you in East Berlin tonight?"

"I'm a student, economics, but
what I really want to do is become an opera singer. I'm taking
lessons. What about you? What do you do?"

“Interesting mix! Me? I study
history, here at the Free University. Modern European stuff mainly.
And I work part-time at the History Museum." She slid her empty
bottle along the counter. "Ever been there? Maybe you should visit
it if you haven't seen it.”

“Once, but perhaps I need to
visit it again. I could do with understanding more about different
views on recent events, what others think happened during this
century.”

Again there was that long level
look denoting an awareness of the gap between what he’d said and
what he really meant but this time it was she who glanced away
first. She hooded her eyes, opened her mouth and tapped it lightly
twice with the opened fingers of her right hand, and then looked
straight back at him. Again that hint of a smile.

His face felt warm and he glanced
at his feet. “When do you work there? Every day, regularly or just
sometimes?”

“Wednesday to Friday afternoons,
usually. I get in about three, stay for a bit, usually till it
closes. Mostly it’s indexing and sometimes moving books up from the
stacks.”

A figure in torn jeans and tee
shirt, a cigarette hanging from a wispily bearded mouth lurched
from the crowd and stopped in front of them, swaying slightly as he
tried to focus on Thomas. “I need a light, man.”

Irritated, Thomas was curt. “I
don’t smoke.” He turned, shutting out the figure and trying to
rekindle the feeling growing between them which the student had
interrupted. He glanced at his watch.

“I need to go.” he said “But I
would like to look round the Museum again, perhaps next week,
Thursday probably."

“Well, ask at the desk in case
I'm there. My surname is List.”

They left the room together and
as he walked up the stairs away from her he saw that she'd lifted
the handset of a public phone along the downstairs corridor in the
other direction.

"Colonel Dieter, please." she
said and after a moment added "Yes, I've found him." and then spoke
quietly for a short period.

Chapter 2

Friday September 1and
Saturday September 2 1989

WHEN Ulrike returned from work
about seven in the evening Kai fetched out from their hiding place
under the kitchen floor the documents Thomas had brought. Not even
giving her time to remove her coat, let alone eat, he turned on the
ghetto blaster to drown out any conversation, sat her down at the
table and spread the documents out with a flourish.

“Just look at this! Look at what
Thomas has found for us. Isn’t it wonderful? Look – here’s our
apartment block, right here, and here’s Alexanderplatz and here ...
”

She stared at the finely drawn
diagrams and at the blueprint, wanting to match Kai’s enthusiasm
but unable to share what he was saying. Well, they’d finally got
her, she reflected bitterly. That’s what came of refusing the shop
manager’s advances. Not that it was unexpected. Ever since she’d
slapped him hard in the storeroom after it became clear that merely
wriggling away from his grasp and saying ‘no’ wasn’t enough she’d
realised that it was only a matter of time. Herr Wagner was known
to be capricious and to become mean and vindictive when thwarted.
It had been a month ago now but when she saw her name entered as
item 8 on the agenda for the works council meeting she knew what
was coming.

He’d been clever, she conceded,
very clever, but then he always was. He spoke in sorrow, told the
meeting how he’d tried frequently to give friendly advice to her
about her work, her timekeeping on breaks, even - and here he
hesitated but finally spoke with the air of someone pained by
having to do what he knew was his duty to the organisation and to
his country – even her attitude. Had it not been for that, he’d
said, there might have been a way back, a way for her to learn to
become a trusted and valuable employee. But everyone was in it
together and the state depended on proper support from its people.
He’d shaken his head slightly in despair at his own failure, saw to
it that the meeting understood how hurt he was and left it to
others to propose her dismissal. She couldn’t help but notice the
glance of triumph that flashed between Wagner and the pretty new
trainee who, she understood immediately, was to be her replacement
in a week’s time. It was then she’d slipped out to oil the squeaky
hinges of the outer door to the storeroom, a small revolt which
gave her a flare of amusement and satisfaction as she thought about
how Wagner had relied on its warning.