Matilda Burnside had been surreptitiously observing Dieter Nimitz all morning. The two of them shared a large office on the fifth floor of the Berlaymont building, the headquarters of the European Commission, and from where she sat by the window Matilda could see Dieter clearly without seeming to be looking at him, though this morning she doubted he would have noticed even if she had been staring right at him. He seemed completely withdrawn, wrapped up in himself.
She had noticed when he arrived for work that he looked more than usually haggard. His face was always thin and rather grey but this Monday morning his cheeks seemed to have fallen in and his eyes were glazed. He hadn’t been looking well for weeks but now he looked positively haunted. She was uncertain whether to try to get him to talk or whether to wait and hope that he would say something of his own accord.
Her husband Peter had asked her to tell him if Dieter said anything more about his wife, but not to raise the subject herself, ask questions or seem to be prying. On the other hand, simple human kindness seemed to demand that she tried to help her colleague and friend. She sat quietly, getting on with her work but conscious of the cloud hanging over the other desk.
Finally, as the clock moved towards midday, Dieter cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since he had said a gruff ‘Bonjour’ on arrival that morning. ‘Matilda, will you come and have some lunch with me? There’s something I’d like to discuss with you but I’d rather not talk in the restaurant here.’
‘Love to,’ said Matilda. ‘Let’s go now before it gets too crowded.’
Soon they were installed at a quiet table in the little local bistro, each with a glass of wine in front of them and their lunch orders given. Dieter looked straight at Matilda and said, ‘I want to tell you a story – my story. I am putting myself into your hands. I think you will know what to do.’
She looked at him, her eyes full of sympathy, but said nothing.
‘I was born in the GDR,’ he began. ‘Not in a village between Munich and Salzburg as I have always claimed. My name then was Dieter Schmidt. My father worked for the Stasi. When I was seventeen I was visited by two men, one a Russian. They asked me a lot of questions and later I was told that I had been selected for undercover work. East Germany was in the Eastern bloc, of course, so I felt greatly honoured.
‘After my school exams were over I was sent to Moscow and given a new identity, Dieter Nimitz, and trained in all the details of my new background until I wore them like a skin.
‘That was in 1974. After six months’ intensive training, I was sent back to say goodbye to my family; then I went to West Germany with a student group on an exchange visit. I was the one member of the group who stayed behind.
‘I don’t know how it was arranged but no questions were asked and overnight I became Dieter Nimitz, freshly graduated from a Gymnasium in Bavaria. I was given a place at Hamburg University to study languages. Everything had been arranged for me, including my accommodation, and no one asked any questions or doubted my authenticity. I had learned my lessons well.
‘After I graduated I was instructed to accept a job offer I received from a small import–export firm in Hamburg. I worked there for seven years, hearing nothing at all from my controllers. I was convinced they had forgotten all about me when suddenly I received an instruction to apply for a post here at the Commission. I started here in 1987.’
He stopped and reached for the water jug to refill his glass but his hand was shaking so much that he couldn’t grasp it. Matilda reached out and gently took the jug from him and refilled both their glasses. She had a thousand questions to ask, but she knew he had more of his story to tell, so she just smiled at him encouragingly and waited. The waiter came with their food, but Dieter only poked with his fork at the plate in front of him.
‘I’ve worked here for almost thirty years,’ he went on eventually. ‘And I have heard nothing from the Russians except when they told me to apply for this job. I had no idea what their plan for me was or even if they had one. When the wall came down and the regime in Russia changed, I assumed that as everything was in turmoil I had been forgotten. Maybe priorities had changed. But recently I have wondered. Wondered whether the plan was something very different from anything I imagined and whether I have been playing a part in it all these years without even knowing.’
This was even more intriguing than the first part of his story. Matilda, who had been eating while he had been talking, mainly to cover her surprise at his story, now put her fork down and leaned forward, her elbows on the table and her chin on her hands. She spoke for the first time but just to say, ‘Go on.’
‘I met and married my wife Irma while I was working in Hamburg. Friends of the owner of the company introduced us. I hadn’t had much to do with women and when she made it very clear that she wanted to get married, I agreed right away. We were married less than a year after we met. We had a small ceremony. I said I was an orphan. It didn’t seem strange at the time as there had been so much upheaval in Germany.
‘I never told Irma about my real origins and she never asked about my past life. Frankly, I never asked much about hers. It sounds strange to say that now, but it didn’t seem so at the time. She’s always been the dominant one in our marriage.’
He gave a long sigh. ‘But recently I have begun to wonder about my marriage, and about Irma, and I have now become convinced that it was all arranged – that Irma was under instructions to marry me.’
‘Instructions from whom?’
‘From the same people who had turned me into Dieter Nimitz,’ said Dieter, as if it were completely obvious. ‘I think perhaps they decided that I don’t have the right temperament for secret undercover work, so they used me as a convenient and respectable cover for whatever they have had Irma doing instead.
‘I am now sure, from everything I have noticed recently, that she is involved in some sort of plot involving the immigrant children at the school. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but from what I have discovered now it seems to involve your country as well.’
He stopped talking and took another long gulp of water. For the first time that day he looked straight at Matilda. His face had relaxed and his eyes looked brighter. He said, ‘So, now you know my story. I have never told anyone before but it was time and I feel relieved. You must do whatever you think right with the information but please do something. I don’t want whatever Irma is doing to succeed. I am sure it is wrong and damaging and I don’t want the children to be harmed.’
‘Thank you for telling me,’ said Matilda simply. ‘I do know who to talk to and I can guarantee that we will do everything we can to find out what’s going on – and to prevent any harm coming to these children.’