The Berlin Assignment (15 page)

“Since we now have access to East German files, I thought, why not peek? And behold, one seeks, one finds. The Stasi files reveal that Friend Tony entered East Berlin on several occasions. Very detailed information. No regrettable gaps; no deplorable lapses. The Stasi did so many things so much better. Our Marxist-Leninist student is followed each time he goes in. There are thorough accounts. Twice he meets a student in the East, a certain Günther Rauch, a true Marxist, a marked man, a thorn in the flesh of the Stalinist elite. Rauch develops a reputation as a trouble-maker. We have not evaluated all the Stasi information. We may not have it all; the files are difficult to penetrate. Might Friend Tony have been employed by the Stasi? A sting operation on Rauch? Or were the two students similarly politically
obsessed? If so, has he now returned to re-establish contact with Rauch? Does that explain his eagerness for Berlin? We don't know all the things we should.

“What does it add up to so far, Earl? A man with a debilitating inferiority complex and a record of left-wing activism parachutes himself into a job for which he is unqualified but conveniently in a place where former ideological comrades are enjoying the bounteous ambience of freedom and democracy.”

“He went to Spandau!” Gifford contributed heatedly. “No reason given.
I have things to attend to
, that's what he said to Sturm. What on earth could he possibly have wanted in Spandau? Attending to what? My God!”

The meta-diplomat nodded gravely. “It fits,” he said. He sank away into dark thoughts, then roused himself. “Friend Tony enjoys the access and influence afforded by diplomatic status – privileges which can be used as a weapon. A secret rendezvous in Spandau? Plans to disappear into the back alleys of Berlin? An uncommunicative bearing? A game has started, Earl. We will have to watch him closely. I shall be informing Uncle Teut.” The meta-diplomat stared intensely at his guest. “My preference would be observations day and night. Can that be managed?”

Gifford, motionless, stopped working his pint of beer. He sucked in his breath. “Day and night? That's big time, Randy.”

“'Tis. 'Tis. Normally I would contribute a spare spectator or two, but my days are numbered. I lack the means. The world is changing, Earl…” McEwen paused to swallow bitterness. “…My services are being made redundant. Friend Tony may be my final case, my last chance. I should like him to be a big one. Do your best, Earl. It's important. Pull out all the stops.”

At this moment, strangely and creatively, Frieda's taunts began exploding in Gifford's head.
Do some wheeling and dealing, Giffy.
Everybody does.
His mind churned. He no longer held the glass. His hands had come together in a prayer-like clasp and his elbows were resting on the table. Sweat formed on his forehead. Might a bargain be carved out of all of this? “I'll speak to Sturm,” Gifford said carefully. “He'll have to do it. I'll see how far Sturm can be prevailed upon. We have some control already. Everything Tony does is in the program. We know where he goes.”

“Spandau showed the program approach is a little leaky, Earl. He spent time on his own. I should like to catch him red-handed with Günther Rauch. A photo would be helpful.”

“The key, Randy, is to win his confidence. Help me with that. His mind would open. If I provide him with things he wants he would see me as an ally. Get my drift? He would open up. We would break the wall of silence. I'm making progress, but if there could be a helpful shove…”

“Girls? Boys?” the meta-diplomat asked harshly.

“Would you believe, a decent place to live?”

Outside the club, Gifford marched directly to a public telephone. “Get dressed,” he ordered Frieda. “We're going out. Champagne dinner.”

“Oh Giffy,” Frieda moaned. “Since when champagne?”

“Since the day after tomorrow,” he said huskily. “After that, you'll bathe in it. Tonight's for openers.”

“Oh Gif, how exciting. What's happened?”

“Never mind. Get some clothes on.”

“Come watch me,” Frieda urged.

“The other way around, afterwards, when the bubbles have taken us to the ceiling.”

“
Oh Gif! Ja! Weisst du, ich liebe dich.
”

When the consul insisted that time be set aside in his schedule so he could go walking, the office erupted. “Why?” demanded Frau Carstens. Hanbury shrugged, saying he wanted to see up close all the changes sweeping through the city. “
Blödsinn
,” she said scathingly. Completely silly. Consuls don't walk. They are driven by chauffeurs. How could he contemplate such a trivialization of his office? Serenely he insisted that a few afternoons each week be kept free.

Gifford was subtler. “No problem, Tony, if you want do some sightseeing. It's normal.” Quickly he added, “Sturm can take you.” Hanbury repeated he didn't wish to be driven. That was the point – he'd be doing it on foot. “Yes, I know. Sturm will walk with you. Security. On the streets, you never know.”

“It'll be broad daylight. A couple of hours only. Some people walk across Canada and think nothing of it.”

“Presumably it's not that dangerous there.”

The consul insisted Sturm would not be needed.

An exasperated Frau Carstens, encouraged by Gifford, made one last appeal. “It could be seen as eccentric,” she warned.

Hanbury showed her a pair of brand-new walking shoes, suede, in three colours – tan, olive green and maroon – with thick soles. He grinned. “Eccentric? With these I'll be incognito.” Resistance withered and Frau Carstens, biting her lip, sprinkled the undiplomatic entry –
aimless wandering
– throughout the consul's agenda.

What went through Hanbury's mind in the early days of his assignment as he criss-crossed Berlin on foot? Would he have reflected on the attributes of great cities: geography and climate, history, architecture, tradition, magnificence blending with intimacy? He'd seen enough of them to make comparisons. As the consul walked he might have thought of Paris. Remove, say, Place Vendôme. What's left? The equivalent of a fine opera, but without its best aria? Or London without Piccadilly Circus? A great symphonic orchestra stripped of the kettle drums? And what is Rome without Piazza di Spagna? Or New York without Times Square? Such glorious gathering places inspire all the generations. They are the mooring places for a city's soul.

But what about cities that had proud squares as testimonials to the human spirit and saw them disappear? What about Potsdamer Platz, a place once filled with throngs of people? Potsdamer Platz: the heart of Berlin before the bombs rained down. After the annihilation it was a collection of ghostly black and burned-out shells. The little that remained after the war was dynamited away, the bricks recovered and recycled into utilitarian structures someplace else. Greatness reprocessed into dullness.

Potsdamer Platz, although quite dead, then got dragged like a corpse over the rocks of post-war politics. The Wall, running through
the middle of the city, split it into two expanses of sand and weeds. Potsdamer Platz, now the back end of two cities moving in opposite directions, became forgotten. On the west side, the Wall was covered with graffiti:
Last coke for 10,000 kilometres,
and,
The greatest piece of socialist art the world has seen
. Generations of tourists climbed a wooden platform to peek over the barrier into communism. Before them lay a no man's land dotted with patrol dogs, armoured vehicles, automatic shooting devices, and watchtowers manned by soldiers with binoculars pasted to their faces. The bleak streets in the distance seemed in the grip of evil.

The urban land mines had now disappeared and traffic between East and West was stitched back together (after a fashion). But what next? Von Helmholtz had talked of spectacular plans, a maze of tunnels underground for new roads and fast trains. Above ground: theatres, cinemas, galleries, night clubs, all to be encased in futuristic architecture. Thrusting towers, roofs spanning new piazzas, stirring façades, boulevards and promenades, a calming, artificial lake. Standing on a little rise over the leftovers of Hitler's bunker complex, viewing the vacancy before him, Hanbury dwelled on the Chief of Protocol's excitement. From this vast urban emptiness a new city would take flight.

As he walked, Hanbury thought about the present too, and his position in it. Sabine's angry voice still echoed through his mind, though when he visited their old haunts it felt as if she was symbiotically beside him. But not in the East. She wasn't in his thoughts when he went walking in the East. There was no precedent for that. Back then, during the Savignyplatz days, she refused point blank to come along whenever he crossed over. When he walked in the East, he felt a different presence – of Günther Rauch, an ideologue, a disciple of Marx. For Günther Rauch, too, Hanbury had come carrying an olive branch.

The first time the consul wore his new multi-coloured shoes, he intuitively felt that somewhere in the East, Günther Rauch was waiting
for him. He took a train to Friedrichstrasse station. Away from the office, from Frau Carstens's grip on his agenda, he sensed a growing inner animation. Getting out of the train at Friedrichstrasse, Hanbury headed south, his senses keen, his mind ready to receive.

Günther Rauch had picked Tony Hanbury out easily back then, in the sixties. Everyone wearing fashionable jeans was from the other side. “You're being followed,” Günther Rauch advised, with the instant familiarity that is typical of students. “I've been watching them.”

Hanbury required a moment to let this sink in. He was staring at a young man on a bench with a large head and a thick wild beard who looked like Karl Marx reincarnated. Hanbury did a slow full circle, as if admiring socialism's architectural efforts around Alexanderplatz. It was true. Two men in cheap, polyester knitted jerseys and baggy trousers stood nearby, looking past each other like bored girls scouring the horizon for action. “Who are you?” he asked.

Günther Rauch had a hoarse voice, like a scraping tool working on something hollow. “They won't do anything. Not to you. It'll be different for me. Since I'm now exchanging words with you someone will be knocking on my door. Want to know what I'll tell them?” Hanbury said sure. “That I offered to open your eyes to the splendours of East Berlin.” The student from the West laughed and the one from the East joined in. “I mean it,” said young Marx. “Well, maybe not the splendours, but opening your eyes. I'll show you around if you want.”

With another shrug, a young man falling in with unscheduled adventure, Tony Hanbury set off with Günther Rauch. Rauch's exaggerated hand movements pointed at streets and places as he explained their historical significance. Generous sweeping circular motions of his arms linked the decrepitude of East Berlin to past political evil. The
sight-seeing-cum-lecture continued for two, perhaps three hours, liberally enriched with references to the thoughts of the real Marx. Eventually they were back at Unter den Linden and turned south into a grim Friedrichstrasse, aiming for Checkpoint Charlie and the visitor's freedom. The security detail never left them. Seeing evil in the distance from the safety of the Potsdamer Platz platform was one thing; having it doggedly on your tail, hour after hour, was another. Hanbury wondered whether he'd get out as easily as he came in.

Günther Rauch must have noticed the unease. “Don't worry,” he said. “They might detain you for a while to scare you. That's all. As for me. I'm in and out of jail all the time anyway. The Stasi don't know what to do with me.” He gave a deep, barrel-chested laugh. “The first time they took me in was after I stood up in a university seminar and said the Politburo was nothing but a bunch of fascists coloured red. The commotion! I was slapped into jail so fast the Gestapo could have learned from it. An interrogation followed. How to describe it? Well, imagine an orchestral suite – a gentle serenade from the strings, some pleasing notes from the harps, then a blast of percussion.” Günther Rauch chuckled. “Actually, I liked being the centre of attention. I tried to convert them to my way of thinking. When I was out I told some friends about the treatment, which was enough to put me straight back in.” Günther Rauch was suddenly sad. “One day I might find out which of my friends is not a friend.”

As Checkpoint Charlie neared, Günther Rauch opened his arms forwards. “As I see it,” he said, gesturing towards the barriers, “if I can become troublesome enough they'll jail me permanently until the day when they'll sell me to the West. They do that to my type. They doom us to a capitalist way of life.” After more steps he muttered under his breath. “Alright. Let's rehearse our lines. If they press me, I'll tell them you urged me to become a good citizen of the Great Decaying Republic, while you tell them I opened your eyes to the magnificence of Marx.”

Hanbury loved it. “Bullshit baffles brains,” he cried spontaneously, remembering the expression from Saskatoon where he once heard leftist students in debate.

Günther Rauch ignored this. “If they try to recruit you when they interrogate, you're on your own,” he said. “I can't give you any pointers there. The next time you visit, if I think you've started wearing some kind of Stasi medal on the inside of your jacket, I won't ask any questions. I just won't say much anymore. Those invisible decorations are much in fashion around here nowadays. Everybody wants one.”

As it was, Hanbury experienced little delay getting out and a few weeks later he was back on Alexanderplatz.

“Get a visit?” he asked Günther Rauch, looking him over for fading bruises.

“Sure. The both of them. They didn't appreciate my tone of voice. Three days and nights in the Stasi lair. I have to say it, the interrogation business was up. I had to wait my turn. Some strays from West Berlin kept whispering all night about their rights. That's the problem with you Westerners, you've got rarified concepts of law. You're out of touch with human nature.”