“I’ve read about events like this, but to be inside, taking part…” Sabine’s voice trailed off. She was dressed formally in a black narrow-cut skirt suit. The tailoring set off her figure, the black colour brought out the arresting blondness of her hair. The Reichstag was filling fast. The galleries were loaded with TV cameras. In one corner, members of the Berlin Philharmonic were taking their position. The section reserved for diplomats, close to the front, was just behind the political elite. A by-invitation-only ceremony with tight security. More Berlin history in the making.
“I’m glad you asked me to come.” Sabine’s voice – a tremor hinted at inner excitement – was at odds with her stiff posture. Hanbury noticed it. “I’m glad you came,” he replied. He was in the royal pose, one leg crossed over the other, hands resting on a knee. On the podium von Helmholtz was giving directions. His idea, the consul supposed, a ceremony in Berlin for Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan. Who else would have conceived it?
“Mein Kollege.” A voice nearby. Hanbury half-turned. It was the Argentine consul, a short, stocky man with thick lips and eyes sad as a Saint Bernard’s. Hanbury tried to recall his name. “Darf ich Ihnen Frau Schwartz vorstellen?” he said, politely offering to introduce his companion. “But of course. But of course,” said Argentina. Sabine offered a hand. Argentina took it, bent forward and pressed his mouth against it. A slobbering Saint Bernard. A long, probing Latin look into her eyes sought a reaction, but Sabine turned away. Argentina made small talk. He had information Reagan would not be coming. “But Gorbachev will.” Another passionate glance at Sabine. “Gorbachev is reliable.” Hanbury shrugged, as if to say,Win some, lose some. Argentina wandered off. “What a preposterous little man,” Sabine said. “A colleague? Are they all like that?”
“They vary.”
Sabine could see that for herself. Others were arriving. Hanbury greeted them with perfunctory nods. Some came over to shake hands. The affable Finn lingered. Hanbury told him he had heard Reagan might not be coming. “No? That would be a pity. But I compliment you. As always, you are so well informed.” Hanbury indicated he heard this from Argentina. “Exactly. Both of you. You are both always so well informed.” Finland moved on too.
The Berlin diplomatic corps, with its morbid desire to spend time in the vault of democratic horrors, always turned out in numbers for Reichstag functions. The consul and his escort observed the influx.
It had been like this for weeks. The more Hanbury saw of Sabine’s husband, the more he saw of her. He normally approached Schwartz first. His polite suggestions amounted essentially to a question that would have sounded crude:Can I borrow your wife? The answer from the husband was steadily affirmative:It’s good for Sabine to get out. Then he’d go to Bücher Geissler to ask Sabine if she’d like to join him. She replied she’d check at home, to avoid overlapping social obligations. There never were any. In this way, Sabine began attending functions she never knew existed.
Hanbury suspected she enjoyed them even if it didn’t show. In public, such as now in the Reichstag, they behaved as a couple that’s been together so long there’s little left to say. Their mutual nonchalance towards one another confused the consul’s colleagues. Who is the elegant lady, they wondered,and why does Canada treat her with such indifference? Sabine was becoming a fringe topic on the cocktail circuit. The diplomatic corps speculated that if Canada had hidden this beauty for so long, he might well be hiding more.
Argentina was right. The Old Gipper had decided not to come. Gorbachev alone would have the limelight. The packed Reichstag erupted into sustained applause as the Chief of Protocol led Mikhail and Raisa to their places.
The program started. The Berlin Philharmonic played a solemn Beethoven movement. Speeches followed, each one about the last half-century of German penance. Then a video: the Soviet military driving through the Brandenburg gate on May Day ’ffl; footage of post-war street signs some months later – You Are Now Leaving the American Sector – and of Soviet and American tanks staring each other down at Checkpoint Charlie; the Wall rising in ’61; Kennedy there in ’63; Ronald Reagan ascending a platform in ’87 with the Wall behind him and behind it, two steps inside East Berlin, the Brandenburg Gate. Berlin celebrating its 750th birthday that year and Reagan putting on a show. The video shows him challenging the President of the Soviet Union: Mr. Gorbachev! Open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev! Tear down this Wall!
Hanbury could see Gorbachev at the front. He and Raisa were listening to the Russian soundtrack through earphones. Gorbachev was studiously impassive, watching the Hollywood President.
The video moved on: September ’89, the fortieth anniversary of the East German communist dictatorship; Gorbachev joins the celebrations in East Berlin and kisses Honecker; Honecker claims his totalitarian paradise will last forever; Gorbachev – studiously impassive then too – listens; later, he walks in East Berlin and mingles with the people; they want to know what he thinks of a regime that denies its people foreign travel. The camera zooms in. Gorbachev speaks calmly:History punishes those who act too late. Translation: Honecker is on his own, because Soviet tanks won’t roll again against the people, not like in ’53. With that remark the rug is pulled out from under forty years of German Communism. Two months later the regime is swept aside. Trabis invade West Berlin; Ossis and Wessis kiss and embrace.
The video over, after more speeches, Gorbachev (with Reagan in absentia) joined Bismarck as Honourary Citizen of Berlin. At a reception in the foyer, Sabine stood in a circle with Gorbachev who answered questions through an interpreter. She was ambivalent. She could not forgive the Communists for walling off her city. On the other hand, with his dancing eyes and dark spot on his forehead, he was a fascinating man. Upon leaving the Reichstag she described to Hanbury what she felt. “It was a remarkable event,” he agreed.
Sipping a hot drink in the Opera Café, they still talked about the ceremony. It symbolised a wrapping up of a chunk of world history that coincided with their lifetimes. They talked about the feel of the period when they lived together and the changes since. Sabine then casually asked what Tony and her husband did when they went drinking. He explained they were collaborating on a project. “It’s working out well,” he said. The dialogue paused. Sabine studied the enlarged reproductions of old Berlin prints on the walls. They portrayed a quiet, uncomplicated, orderly Unter den Linden a century and a half before. Something about that time was right, but something about the last few months was right too. She mused aloud that no one could have predicted a day would come when she and Tony would be going out like this. Or that Tony and Werner would become collaborators on a project. She told the latest stories of Nicholas who enjoyed sport, like her father. She switched to her work, talking of friends who dropped by the store, Tony now one of them.
Hanbury listened. He liked it when Sabine talked. Publicly she said little, but privately she didn’t stop. It was this way whenever they were together, she drawing him into a world where cold professional contacts had no standing, but where simpler things did.
More than the deepening friendship with Sabine was making the weeks special. The consul felt embraced by the city. He absorbed its moods, its sunny and its dark sides. He breathed the air of expectation and acceleration. He listened to the cacophony of renewal. Berlin was making up for lost time and Hanbury sensed that he, too, was on a forced march into a shimmering future.
It was the process of becoming. But becoming what? It was impossible to know. He believed that a kind of height of land had been crossed, that he was moving with the current now, not against it. An anticipation for a destination gripped him. He tried to put his finger on the moment when he crossed the divide. Was the party in his residence the turning point? He remembered the hours as if they had been filmed – the night with Gundula and the continuation the next day of the mood of fulfilment. But the afternoon – talking to Irving Heywood and seeing von Helmholtz – brought setbacks. Yet, during the evening’s drink with Schwartz some lost ground was recouped. After that day, his assignment in Berlin was different. He was coasting. Everything was working out.
The call from Heywood had been disturbing. Unctuousness traversed the ocean through the phone line and Heywood’s words jolted loose a sense of foreboding. The feeling had remained with him even as he stood next to von Helmholtz on the balcony, where it was replaced by something worse. The Chief of Protocol had been dignified. Hanbury recognized he had a crude task to perform for unknown others. Hanbury restrained himself so as not to make the situation more difficult. Upon leaving city hall, Hanbury had racked his brains to see a context for what von Helmholtz had said. Was Günther Rauch really the focus? Was being spied on in Friedensdorf a unique event, or was it part of something bigger? He thought back to Zella’s visit, her phantoms, his dismissing them. Was that part of it? Or the notation on his Stasi file? Where in all of it did that fit? And what about the timing of Heywood’s ingratiating call and the vague reference to some people having an expectation? Was all this coincidental, or was it linked? And, if so, was there a centre? Hanbury couldn’t get the pieces to add up. The end effect was that he had a sense of having been invaded, that something was at work intending to take him apart.
How ironic then that that same evening there was relief. And that Heywood’s request for reports was part of it. When Hanbury entered Das Klecksel, not wanting to talk to Schwartz about Günther Rauch, or about feeling invaded by unseen forces, he got Heywood’s remarks off his chest instead. The professor’s offer of assistance with political reporting helped focus his thoughts away from the balcony talk and onto something do-able. Von Helmholtz’s suggestion to stay away from Günther Rauch for a few months occasionally crossed his mind, but, Hanbury reasoned, the time would go by fast enough and in the interim, collaborating with Schwartz on the reporting project was proving satisfying and productive.
Hanbury made careful notes at all the Klecksel sessions. The professor talked; the consul wrote. Subject:the Nazis and the Modern German. Main Points:– lay bare the excesses; – describe the legacy; – address responsibility and objectify guilt; – draw out aspects of the national socialist agenda which could have been positive had the leadership been less parochial; – set out the main elements of a neo-conservative platform which Germans intuitively want. In a slow, sure voice Schwartz summarized books, described learned articles, drew irresistible conclusions. Afterwards, at his office computer, the consul fleshed out the notes and reconstructed the professor’s encyclopaedic verbal essays. He didn’t find the going easy. Sometimes one hour produced one sentence. He pursued the subjects elsewhere. Schwartz suggested he talk to politicians, journalists, essayists, a slice of the intelligentsia. Frau Carstens arranged appointments. When a report was done, once it had been revised, tightened and discussed one last time with the professor before the final polish, it would be dispatched with pride to the tabernacle readership.
Productive personal relations, productive professional deeds. The consul was riding high. Even the weather was collaborating. The winter gloom was lifting. The sun had delivered spring’s delights. A million snow drops stood in his garden; ten thousand blue and yellow crocuses flooded the lawn; a band of daffodils, a bar of solid gold along one side, was arrestingly beautiful.
The light worked other wonders. Sturm arrived at the residence early each morning to inspect the garden’s delights. From the breakfast nook Hanbury saw him strolling along the paths, bending over to study a flower, or lifting his head to the sound of frantic birds. Good morning, Sturm. Guten Morgen, Herr Konsul. Everything fine with the world? As good as it was in Oxfordshire, Herr Konsul. On the way to the office, Sturm contemplated the wonders of biology. Why do some birds have a happy song, others a plaintive one and still others squawk? Sturm’s theory was socialization. The least aggressive birds sing the happiest, most beautiful songs. “You’ll find it’s that way with labourers in the East,” Sturm said. “I’ve walked up and down the streets and listened to the sound of renovation. Workers in the East are happy warblers. In the West, they’re like crows. They screech.”
Beyond the resurgent vitality of spring, the consul also benefited from routine. Once a week now he had a formal evening in the residence. Guests chosen by Frau Carstens were bundled around a theme: the visual arts, the performing arts, film, literature, science or technology, third-world economics. She lifted the themes from feature sections in the paper, searched out the personalities, sent out invitations, worked with chefs on menus and arranged for after-dinner entertainment such as opera singers, instrumental soloists, or theatre personalities who would read from Goethe. The consul’s job was to smile, ask stimulating questions, charm the guests and raise his glass in a toast – to the House of Windsor, to the House that Adenauer built, and to the future of Berlin.
Visits to Bücher Geissler were part of Hanbury’s routine. Herr Geissler would be waiting. Once the doorbell finished clanging, he advanced in his awkward shuffle. Herzlich willkommen, Herr Konsul. Guten Tag, Herr Geissler. Guten Tag, Frau Schwartz. Guten Tag, Herr Hanbury. Sunny smiles all around. Geissler would drag him into an aisle, pull books off the shelf to watch the consul handle them with admiration. Afterwards at lunch, Tony and Sabine conspired about the next museum.
He continued with his walking too, supplementing it with S-Bahn rides. The bewitching inner city trains, he thought, snaked through Berlin like through a permanent exhibition. On them he often played a game. Spot the political era. Start with train design. The age of the swastika built robust carriages, first used to carry passengers to the ’36 Olympics on slatted wooden seats. Even today they were going strong. Wagons made during the period of the hammer and sickle were easily identified: tacky designs, plastic interiors, sticking doors. The new Berlin appeared infrequently on the tracks. These trains swooped in silently; their doors opened reliably with a convincing soft hydraulic swoosh. Only the ancient, worn-out trains plied the tracks from Alexanderplatz to Bahnhof Zoo. The consul liked this stretch from the centre of the East to the heart of the West and rode it whenever he had a chance. It was an incomparable inner-city experience, a journey in a time-machine, travellers moving from one world to another. Hanbury sometimes thought the trip should be slowed down to a snail’s pace – to allow the concentrated experience to be savoured fully. All aboard! S5 departing Alexanderplatz for Friedrichstrasse, Lehrter Bahnhof and the fleshpots of the West.
The train, shuddering as brakes release, creaks into motion. On board with the consul is a motley crowd: some winos, a few students, a sprinkling of pensioners out for an afternoon of Western shopping. As always, the consul sits at the end of the carriage on a bench with his back to the direction of motion. It enhances the element of surprise.
No sooner have the doors slammed shut than a beggar speaks. My name is Jochen. Three years ago I was infected with HIV and was laid off. Without a job I lost my apartment. Without an apartment I can’t get a job. My disease is coming out of dormancy. I need drugs. The Sozialamt’s pfennigs don’t pay for what’s needed. A small contribution for my condition would be helpful and I would be thankful too. Jochen does indeed look as if he’s ravaged by an early form of AIDS. Or is it make-up? He collects his pfennigs – mostly from the students because the Eastern pensioners are shivering in their seats. It has to be said – Jochen at this point is only warming up. The lucrative S-Bahn stretches are in Charlottenburg, Grunewald, the Westend. There his voice will have tremors of drama. The consul knows Jochen by now. He knows each word in Jochen’s speech. Their S-Bahn paths cross every week.
First stop, Hackescher Markt. Jochen gets off to rehearse in another carriage. The expanse of socialist heaven at Alexanderplatz has transformed into narrow streets with crumbling buildings. Everything is in scaffolding; everything has to be propped up. Too few travellers know that nearby, in Rosenthaler Strasse, the central committee of the Communist party was headquartered in the twenties. More old politics in the opposite direction, the improvised SS detention centre on Rosenstrasse. In ’43, 5000 Jewish men (with Aryan wives) were locked up here awaiting a decision to send them to the concentration camps. Their enraged spouses, devoted Berlin women, began demonstrating outside. What could the SS do to racially pure German women except yield? Destination Auschwitz cancelled for the husbands.
The next stretch of track borders a park named after an eighteenth century palace, Monbijou. When it stood, it really was a jewel, but the Communists blew it up after the war. They didn’t like the fact that the aristocracy used to dance there. Beyond the trees is the golden dome of the restored Synagogue, rising over its surroundings like a beacon. The S-Bahn would have to come to a stop for several hours to allow its story to be told, even if restricted only to Kristallnacht.
Communists. Fascists. Scenes of rampage and destruction. The S-Bahn weaves its way through history.
It crosses the river onto the island. The benefit of sitting with your back to the direction of motion now becomes apparent. The island is dotted with museums and the elevated S-Bahn pursues a narrow course between them. Were the track displaced a mere few metres to the south, the train would be creeping through the Pergamon itself, through the lovely, multi-storied temple altar from Asia Minor and the lovely friezes of gods fighting giants. Enlightenment struggling with tyranny in the centre of Berlin. As the train rumbles off Museum Island the beauty of classical antiquity recedes.
The traveller arrives in Bahnhof Friedrichstrasse, a Cold War border crossing, a place for interrogations and detention and now a cold dose of contemporary Berlin. Fifty years of soot, physically and symbolically, cling to the roof. Outside, skinheads, punks and drunks in full regalia hang around as if in permanent detention, while all around the nimble North Vietnamese peddle smuggled cigarettes.
The train moves on into a landscape with all the charm and colour of the moon. Square, brown-black elevations totter on the edge of ruin like rocks on rims of lunar craters. An earthliness returns, however, as the track begins to parallel the north bank of the Spree. Squatting opposite is the Reichstag. The Wall ran into the river here and continued on the opposite side. At first, Easterners tried to swim out through the watery opening. Good shooting practice for Communist border patrols: a decent distance, a target that moves, though not too fast. On the south bank by the Reichstag the West kept score. Dozens of white crosses sprouted up.
A barren emptiness that was once a thriving neighbourhood persists from the Reichstag to Lehrter Bahnhof. What’s Lehrter Bahnhof? It’s a little local station which sits there like a pauper. But it has a princely future. When the Tiergarten Tunnel is finished, the heap of bricks will be transformed into a shiny European crossroads. Maybe into the greatest railway station in the world. By then today’s rheumatic trains may be extinct. The tracks curve south, past Schloss Bellevue. The flag flaps on the roof: the President is in. Quick views of Golden Ilse high up on her column with her spread wings angelically protecting Sturm’s ghosts in the park below. She may be praying. May they never again experience carpet bombing and be allowed to haunt this arboreal peace forever, amen. Finally, brakes squealing, asbestos smelling, S5 pulls into Bahnhof Zoo. Another trans-epochal journey successfully completed. Loudspeakers scream out information on connecting trains. One announcement is prominently missing:Keep your hands on your wallets! Con artists enjoy the freedom of the city in this place. It’s true. The police have given up on the many pickpockets and bag-snatchers in Bahnhof Zoo. Having flooded in from eastern Europe, they face no restrictions. And since Western police precincts inherited Trabis from the East’s Volkspolizei and Western officers now drive around in tinny little cars, the thieves in BMWs outrun them easily. Cops and robbers Berlin style.
Dapper police Trabis with hectic little engines bravely racing around Bahnhof Zoo always made Hanbury think of Gundula pushing hers to the limit. She had a new bumper sticker:My other car is a Rolls Royce. Sturm once told the consul a Trabi joke based on the text of the German constitution:The dignity of a Trabi is inviolable. He tried it out on her. They were bouncing along a cobblestoned East Berlin street after an evening of cabaret. Gundula loved it. She shot right back:And all Trabis are created equal. Gundula knew about constitutions. She was also up on the latest Trabi jokes. Every Trabi has the right to exist in top condition, Sturm had quoted and Hanbury repeated it to Gundula. To respect, protect and maintain Trabis is the highest duty of the state, she glibly replied. Never mind a Charter of Rights for Trabis. These days Gundula’s Trabi had one sole purpose: putting in long hours late at night going back and forth between Dahlem and Marzahn. “He sounds happy,” the consul often said. “I hope he’ll hang in.” “I don’t see an alternative,” she remarked.
If Gundula didn’t see one, Hanbury didn’t want one. Sabine by day; Gundula by night. Part of the weekly routine. Gundula would wait a discreet distance from the diplomatic functions. When the consul came out whistling with freedom it was off to her part of town, her pubs and off-beat galleries and halls of cabaret. Fifty years of prohibition on freedom was over and the East was jumping with the kinetic energy of a spring. She, child of the latest German revolution, owned this scene. She was the celebrity here and the consul the after-thought, the tag-along.
Very late, another long haul for Trabi, back to the Greco-Roman villa in Dahlem. Inside, music might emerge from the grand piano. Then the chandeliers dim, the action moving up a floor. Somewhere near day break more commotion as Gundula departs, rousing Trabi, humming happily to herself the whole way back to Marzahn.
A closer look at the congenial hours in the mansion.
Arriving from their midnight dinner, Gundula and the consul proceed to the cosy confines of the music room. Teasingly she gets him to sit at the huge piano. Reluctantly he puts a finger to the keyboard. Pieces of music follow, an étude, a polonaise, a slavonic dance or two. Once he gets going, he keeps going, closing his eyes, swaying with the music. Concentration is written on the furrows of his brow. Sometimes his upper body rises – or collapses – depending on the passage he’s playing. Gundula in an armchair is concentrating too. He’s giving; she’s receiving. They are physically apart, but the music is a bond.
One evening Tony was playing a longer piece. Gundula rose from the chair and walked to the window where she stood in a thoughtful pose, one arm across her body under her breasts, the palm supporting the elbow of the other. With the free hand she sensually stroked her neck. Her body rocked a little. Hanbury opened his eyes as he ascended with the music and looked at Gundula. At the moment of eye contact his face transformed. She saw it fill with horror. Abruptly he ceased playing, jumped to his feet – so fast the piano stool went flying – and slammed the keyboard lid down. Two giant strides and he had left the room. “What’s happening?” she called after him.
Gundula righted the stool and caught up with him in the kitchen where he was undoing a whiskey bottle. He poured himself a shot and emptied it. Perspiration trickled down his temples. She asked if he was all right.
“Oh yes.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing. I shouldn’t play. Really, I shouldn’t.”
“Why? You played last week and the week before. Why a heart attack today?”
Hanbury wiped his forehead with a dishtowel. “No heart attack.”
“You’re dripping with sweat.”
“I’m fine,” said Tony. “Never been in better shape. I’ll prove it. Race you to the bedroom. Last one to have an orgasm is a rotten egg.” He broke into a crooked grin.
Gundula insisted on an explanation. When Hanbury shrugged as if there was nothing more to say, her eyes flashed with anger. “We’ve been sleeping together for two months. Don’t I have the right to know what’s bothering you?”
“Nothing’s bothering me. Everything’s fine. Let’s go upstairs.”
Gundula took a glass, snapped it onto the counter, poured herself some rye and drank it in one go. “Your turn,” she said thrusting the bottle back. Hanbury didn’t move. “We’ll take turns,” she said, still white hot, “until one of us pours his heart out. I predict it won’t be me.” She tipped the bottle over his glass until it held three fingers of undiluted liquor. “You’re next.” A hollow look developed around Hanbury’s eyes. He emptied it with two hard gulps. Gundula poured once more for herself.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “We’ll get sick. I didn’t feel like playing anymore.”
Gundula knocked back her glass in one smooth motion and refilled his. “I want to know.” She thrust a third whiskey tumbler at him.
“You reminded me of my mother,” he said. A sudden admission.
“I don’t believe you. You jumped up like you saw a ghost.”
“I thought I had.”
“I don’t believe you. Drink,” she ordered.
Hanbury took the bottle and the glasses. He said, “Let’s go up. I’ll tell you there.”
The tumblers on the night table remained untouched. At first there was very little talking. Gundula lay astride Tony. Under the covers he ran his hand along her back. “I can’t believe I remind you of your mother,” she said.
“You don’t,” he said in a whisper. “Of course you don’t. For a moment only, the way you stood at the window touching your face. She used to stand like that. I spent years practising with her in that pose. She was making mental notes. Afterwards she explained how I should improve.”
Gundula laid her fingertips against the side of Tony’s head. “Mothers teach their children,” she said. “No need to get jumpy about it forty years later.”
“She went mad. She wasted away. I shouldn’t play. I really shouldn’t.”
“Why did she go mad?” whispered Gundula.
“The doctor said she had an illness.”
“I hope, Chopin, that when you play now you’re playing for me, not her.” Gundula shifted her weight. Her hand slipped from his temple and continued a journey down. “An interesting idea you had in the kitchen, having a race.”
“I love competition,” he said into her ear.
“Ready for the starting signal?”
“Don’t forget the condom,” cautioned Tony.
“Damn the condom,” replied Gundula, emboldened by the whiskey.
The hours the consul spent with his day- and night-time women were blanks on the official program and Frau Carstens viewed them with suspicion. She tried tenaciously to fill them, but an equally determined Hanbury resisted. She pondered this. Was he attending secret functions? Were important contacts being allowed to slip away?
Actually, in those easy, happy downhill months Hanbury kept much of what he did to himself. Such as the long-promised dinner on Fasanenstrasse. Being a casual affair, informally staged, it would in any case have been unsuitable for inclusion in a diplomatic program. It seemed to be an innocent enough evening. Only later, when deciphering numerous inter-connected strands, did Hanbury realize it too contributed to the unceremonious ending of his Berlin career.
It was a dinner without five courses. The food was put out in advance. Neither host nor hostess got up to serve. Baskets of bread and bowls of salads stood down the middle of a table. Surrounding them were plates of cheeses, hams, salamis, smoked fish and patés. The guests took and ate and took some more. The drink was beer. Sabine and her husband had each invited two friends plus consorts. Hanbury came at the invitation of both and was seated in the middle, halfway between the host and hostess at the ends. Schwartz’s friends – two professors with earnest wives – were on the consul’s right, Sabine’s on his left. One was Martina, still going out with Professor Kraft, the other Lisa who had dragged her husband with her. All evening long, when Hanbury looked up, he was confronted by a knowing smile from Martina. If he turned his head right Schwartz winked encouragement at him, and when his gaze wandered left, he saw a radiant Sabine listening carefully to the learned anecdotes of Kraft. Confronted with so much friendship and good will, Hanbury drank quietly.
Lisa’s husband Ulrich, a mathematics teacher, was drinking faster than the others. Stray locks of thick hair fell over heavy glasses and a walrus moustache got wiped dry each time he quaffed. Lisa watched him like a hawk. Initially Ulrich looked glum, but slowly he came forward on his chair, as if the beer was helping him out of a chrysalis. Eventually he was leaning forward on the table and mumbled something which made Kraft giggle.
“What did he say?” Lisa asked Sabine.
“I don’t know. It was in Latin.”
“He only knows two Latin words,” Lisa scowled. “Pi and Theta.” A resigned Ulrich shook his black-maned head. “That’s Greek,” he said sadly to his wife.
“Ut multus e visceribus sanguis exeat,” Kraft spouted effortlessly. “Ciceros’s Disputations. We were talking about East Berliners.”
“What about them?” demanded Lisa.
“From the flesh much blood pours forth,” translated Kraft.
Lisa thought about this. Ulrich continued the hushed exchange with Kraft. “I don’t think that’s suitable for East Berliners,” said Lisa. “That’s West Berliners. We’re the ones bleeding.” Suddenly there was a yelp from Ulrich. He raised a bottle. “To mistresses,” he shouted. He had just learned that Martina and Professor Kraft were unmarried. The academic end of the table fell silent. All eyes were on Ulrich who tipped the bottle so that beer flowed freely down his throat. “And to the men that love them,” Martina added warmly. She lifted her glass too. Ulrich turned to her. “Madam, you deserve to be kissed.” The edges of his words were becoming slightly indistinct. “Ulli,” Lisa threatened. “You don’t have one?” Kraft asked, egging Ulrich on. “Of course,” Ulrich continued, his pouchy black eyes more resigned than ever. “Berlin is my mistress. She’s not beautiful, but she is intense.” “Stop it, Ulli,” Lisa said. “She is inspiring,” Ulli continued, now viewing his wife. “And she’s always there.”
The other end of the table had been shifting in their seats. Something Ulrich said touched one of the professors. He admitted he didn’t know much about it – he could only make assumptions about what it was like to have a mistress – but if they were moody and fickle and different every day, he would have to agree with Ulrich’s vision of Berlin. “Right now, though, she’s getting her plumbing readjusted,” he added, smirking.
“A temporary stay in the intensive care unit only,”proclaimed Ulrich with authority. “When she’s out, she’ll be more licentious than ever.” Here and there a titter could be heard around the table.
Martina, with eyes not quite synchronized, asked Hanbury a direct question. “Do you agree with that, Herr Konsul?” Attention around the table shifted to the consul as if a piece of exotica had been discovered.
“What fascinates me is to see the two halves coming together,” he said blandly.
“Exactly!” said Ulrich with triumph. “Berlin is coupling.” He held his bottle towards the consul in salute.
Professor Kraft was quick to pick up. “And what fascinates me,” he said, once again giggling, “is that it’s impossible to know which side is getting screwed.” Ulrich began to shake and Sabine, her husband and even the two professors’ wives were now laughing. Only Lisa remained stern.
One of Schwartz’s professor friends said he’d heard a joke about the East-West cleft. “Tell us,” commanded Ulrich.
“An Ossi and a Wessi meet under the Brandenburg Gate right after reunification. The Wall is gone. They look past each other into the other part of the city. The Ossi says:Isn’t it wonderful? We’re one People again. The Wessi replies:I’m so happy for you. That’s what we are too.” Kraft loved it and Ulrich clapped before he grabbed another beer. “You’ve had enough, Ulli,” said Lisa. “It’s good beer,” he told her. Kraft said, “We had some good stories in East Germany, but telling them was a crime.” “Tell the one about God, Helmut,” Martina prompted. “I’m not good at it,” Kraft protested. But Schwartz from the far end demanded to know about God and the GDR.
Kraft relented. He described a scene where the heads of state of the USA, the USSR and the GDR – Reagan, Gorbachev and Honecker – were having a summit with God. Each asked God about his country’s prospects for the next millennium. “Ah, yes,” said God, “early in the next millennium the USA will become socialist.” Reagan, dumbstruck, turned around, covered his face with his hands and cried. “And what will happen to the Soviet Union?” Gorbachev wanted to know. God sighed. “It won’t exist anymore.” Gorbachev’s head sank, also unable to keep his tears from flowing. Now it was Honecker’s turn. He asked what was in store for the GDR. God was silent for a moment, then turned away and wept.
Ulrich hooted. With his shoulders shaking he began polishing his glasses with his serviette. Everyone, even the two earnest wives, loved Kraft’s story. Kraft said he had one more. “Honecker is visiting the Kremlin,” began Kraft. “He sees a black telephone next to the famous red one and immediately inquires what it’s for. A direct line to Hell, is the explanation. Honecker wants to try it, but is advised not to speak long – the call costs 100 rubles per minute. Back in East Berlin, Honecker insists a phone just like it be installed at his desk. Once hooked up he wants to try it. He asks about the cost. The reply, fifteen pfennigs a minute. So cheap? he asks, adding in Moscow it was 100 rubles. A pause, then the answer:Here it’s a local call.”
When laughter subsided a second time, Martina said, “You see, Herr Hanbury, how preoccupied we are with ourselves. Is it like this in your country? Do you endlessly analyse yourselves too?” Hanbury smiled evasively. “Tell us a Canadian story,” cried Ulrich, his black hair ever wilder, his glasses askew. “Lift us out of navel-gazing.” Hanbury caught Sabine’s look. She signalled him part apology for what was being done to him and part encouragement to bear it.
“We don’t have too many good ones,” said Hanbury.
“A bad one will do,” said Ulrich impatiently.
“A Berliner’s addiction,” explained Lisa.
“I heard one from an academic once,” Hanbury said.
“His field?” asked one of the wives who believed it mattered.
“Philosophy,” Hanbury replied.
“Escape artists, every one of them,” growled Ulrich. “I bet it’s an escape story.”
“Sort of,” Hanbury said carefully. “Imagine the French Revolution. It’s in full swing. Citizens’ committees are in charge. They have taken the law into their hands.”
“Sounds familiar,” sniggered Ulrich. “Come around to our apartment when Lisa has her meetings.”
“Three men are arrested,” continued Hanbury, “an American, a German and a Canadian. They’re accused of spying, tried, found guilty and sentenced: death by guillotine. In the market square, thousands looking on, each is allowed a final statement.”
“Mercy in my apartment would be no better,” Ulrich said, but this time Sabine motioned that he remain quiet.
“The American stands tall on the platform, steps forward, rests his eyes on the crowd and shouts: Motherhood, Baseball and Apple Pie! He goes to the guillotine and puts his neck on the edge. The instrument of death sparkles in the sunlight. The blade swishes down. Miraculously, it halts just above the neck. There is a cry in the crowd: A sign! He’s innocent! Let him go! So the American goes free.
“The German is next. He comes forward, slightly dazed because everything’s been happening fast. His last chance to speak. With glazed eyes he recites:Sauerkraut, The Beer Purity Law, No Speed Limits on the Autobahn. He shuffles to the guillotine. The blade speeds down. Again, it stops just short. The German too is free.”
“Bad news,” mumbled Ulrich.
“The crowd – one last chance for blood – concentrates on the Canadian. He comes forward thoughtfully, as if working through a problem, his attention fixed on the upper part of the death machine. He begins to nod and points at the mechanism. I think I’ve figured it out, he says. If you give that screw up there a quarter turn… ”
Ulrich was the first to laugh. He couldn’t stop; tears rolled down his cheeks; he wiped his mustache without interruption. Others grinned. “Good,” said Kraft. “Admirable. What a culture. What a national type!” “Are you really like that?” asked one of the wives from down the table. “Selfless white knights, all of us. The truth first, self-preservation second,” responded Hanbury. “It doesn’t surprise me,” said Martina, “with your spectacular gene pool.” “A country of uncommon wealth,” the consul affirmed. “I do hope you’re taking steps to share them,” said Martina.
After more anecdotes, the dinner party settled into a quieter phase. Ulrich seemed to go to sleep. The academics complained about university administration. The consul was entertained with stories about the days when Sabine, Lisa, and Martina were girls. Schwartz brought out a bottle of schnapps. Sabine brought in coffee and herbal tea for Lisa. One by one, the couples produced reasons to depart. Only Lisa, who was with Sabine in the kitchen, and a quietly snoring Ulrich were left. Schwartz refilled Hanbury’s glass. “Sorry to talk business, Tony, but I’ve studied the material you obtained the other day. Fascinating. Did it take long?”
“It was slow going…” Hanbury admitted.
“I hope it isn’t an imposition. I know you’re busy.”
“Oh no. After what you’ve done for me, I’m happy to do it.”
“I appreciate it.” They clinked glasses.
Hanbury described the latest afternoon he spent in the Normannenstrasse complex searching through the files. The main problem was scheduling enough time away from the office. Schwartz said the information dug out by Hanbury contained new leads. With Stobbe’s people focussing solely on screening public figures for their Stasi links, requests like Schwartz’s for historical research wouldn’t get attention for years. “The potential information on Nazi war criminals is rich. I’d like more digging on that.”
Hanbury said it would be difficult to schedule more than an afternoon a week for the files. How long might it take to pursue all the leads?
“Full time, maybe a week.”
“I’ll take a vacation,” said Hanbury. When Schwartz protested that was going too far, Hanbury dismissed it. “I haven’t had a day off since I got here,” he said. “Anyway, it’s amusing in there. It’s sort of like exploring.”
Sabine and Lisa returned from the kitchen and brought Ulrich back to life. He stared at Hanbury. “The handyman,” he mumbled, rising onto unsteady feet. “What a story.”
“It was good,” said Sabine warmly. She stood with an arm through her husband’s.
“I’ll help you get him down,” Hanbury said to Lisa.
He held a swaying Ulrich firmly for two flights of stairs. “You were the life of the party,” Hanbury said.
“One day I’m going to visit America…” slurred Ulrich.
“You’d enjoy it.”
“…and get picked up for drunken driving.”
“Not that.”
“They’d put me in an electric chair.”
“Unlikely.”
“They would. A quick end. But first, Handyman, I’d want you to check the wiring.”
Outside, the midnight hum from the Ku’damm funnelled down Fasanenstrasse. Hanbury accompanied Lisa and her husband as far as the next U-Bahn station. “I suppose you have a gas guzzler parked somewhere,” she said severely. “North Americans are the worst in the world for energy waste and garbage production.” “He’ll fix that soon enough,” said Ulrich with conviction. “No car,” said Hanbury. “I like walking.” “See!” said Ulrich to his wife as arm in arm they disappeared.
Hanbury began the trek to Dahlem along the Ku’damm. A store window with trinkets brought him to a halt; the kind of place that would have excited Zella. Further along, a Trabi clattered by, reminding him that he was in love with Gundula’s sharp tongue. A tenderly linked couple stood waiting at a taxi stand. Sabine and her husband were like that at the door when they waved their guests goodbye – a liberating sight. All along the Ku’damm Hanbury received life’s signals and each one was set on green. Nothing held him back. The path before him had an easy downward slope and, on auto pilot, all he had to do was coast.