Anne assumed that someone had accused her, for one morning that week as she left for work, without having done anything differently, she was arrested. Polizei put her in the back of the patrol car, refusing to answer her questions and ignoring her pleas to speak with the embassy. She was taken to a crowded waiting room in BND headquarters without knowing why she’d been picked up. She was told to wait among the other West Berliners and her case would be dealt with shortly. Everyone was on edge, alternately glued to the televised news report of the tensions at the Wall, or huddled together whispering.
An hour passed. She could stand it no longer. Worry and restlessness came over her. Not immediately, but slowly, after another twenty minutes had passed, just as she seemed to be accommodating the wait, she gave into the urge to do something, anything. Cry. Scream. Walk out. She found a pay phone in the hallway and called the embassy, getting Cooper on the line after a long wait. “Something terrible has happened. I was picked up as I left home. I’m here with distraught families. Can you help me?”
“Where are you?”
“BND. A waiting room,” she looked around. “Third floor. By the elevators.”
Her day had started badly. She had been awakened at dawn by her neighbor, Chrystal, who pounded on her door wanting to share news from the all-night disco. When she opened the door, Chrystal was talking intently on the telephone, trailing the long cord behind. As an outsider to the city, Anne noticed things that West Berliners took for granted, and one of those oddities was the West Berlin flat rate, a subsidy from West Germany, that meant any call, no matter how long, had one price. West Berliners talked endlessly, staying on the line while cooking, while watching television, while looking out the window, or carrying on two conversations at once. Chrystal put off whoever she was talking to and announced that war was close at hand. Anne knew her neighbor could be dramatic, but as the morning progressed, she saw how the rumor spread neighbor-to-neighbor in a wildfire of speculation, every conversation going on at length, sharing gossip from someone who was in a position to know. Beneath the calm of her acquaintances, she heard dark humor and fear. Soviet armored divisions were massed on the outskirts of East Berlin. Recently opened borders with Hungary and Czechoslovakia were closed again, then reopened. Shootings in Leipzig. Erich Honecker forced out in a bloodless, Soviet-sanctioned coup d’état. Shoot-to-kill orders issued and then rescinded.
Anne stood at the waiting room’s window. Behind her, people were nervous, but strangely calm, and those old enough to remember recalled the Berlin Airlift forty years before. Palpable fear had settled in. One distraught man asked a policeman for information on his mother who lived in the East. People waited for more about a loved one, or a friend, hoping that details coming from the BND’s network of informants would explain why calls to East Berlin were blocked, or why they had been turned back from a border crossing. In that room, men comforted wives, and mothers coddled children. Worried faces were everywhere.
Outside, a siren wailed with startling closeness. Further along the street, Anne saw troops of the allied joint occupation force. Military police in shiny helmets blocked streets to permit Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M1 tanks to make their way past startled West Berliners.
Anne heard the noise at the same time as the people in the street, who looked up. A pair of low-flying MIG fighters streaked across the blue sky, leaving behind blossoming contrails as they circled the city’s air corridor. The powerful thrusts of their engines rattled windows and urgent conversations in the room were silenced by the sonic booms.
Anne joined others crowded in front of a television. An ARD news anchor reported on the events of the past twenty-four hours. Everyone in the room leaned in, listening, hungry for news. The anchor wore the unruffled expression of newsmen everywhere, projecting authority and inspiring calm while describing terrible events.
“It isn’t clear if the GDR’s new willingness to permit demonstrations is a genuine softening of attitudes or is a respite while the weary, overstretched security police look for ways to snuff out the opposition.”
“Anne?”
She turned and saw Cooper at the door. His face was flushed from the obvious exertion of a man who had rushed across the city. “They want you inside.”
“What took you so long?”
“There is a lot going on at the embassy.” He looked at her reassuringly. “You weren’t arrested. I spoke to Keller and he said it was a mistake. They were told to bring you here. That’s all.”
She pointed to the television. “What’s happening?”
“The press have no idea what’s coming.” He pulled her toward a door on the far side of room. “Hospitals in East Berlin have stocked extra blood transfusions. Doctors are on 24-hour call. Those aren’t preparations for a softening attitude. They are precautions for a massacre.” He looked calmly at Anne. “We’ll be fine. West Berlin will be safe. The ambassador has been in touch with Washington.”
Detective Keller held open a door for Anne and Cooper. “We apologize you weren’t informed about the interview. When you didn’t arrive, we sent police to escort you.”
“No one told me anything.” Anne refused an offer to shake Keller’s hand and pushed past him into the windowless conference room. A brace of limp flags stood at the far end of the room, placed on either side of a color portrait of the West German chancellor and a large conference table dominated the center. It had the sterility of conference rooms everywhere.
Anne watched Detective Keller take a seat opposite her, and he proceeded to place a notepad and pen on the table.
“I will be taking notes so there is an official record of your statement. Can we proceed?”
“Yes.”
“Your husband gave you a telephone number to call when he was out of town?”
“Yes.”
“Whose number was it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why would he give you a telephone number for when he was away?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he concerned about something?”
Keller motioned to a young woman who’d entered with a tray of cups, a pot of coffee, and delicate biscuits. Cooper poured himself a cup and offered to pour one for Anne, who shook her head. While the two men took biscuits, and added cream and sugar, she rested her head on the table, closing her eyes.
“Are we boring you?” Keller asked.
Anne sat up.
“This won’t take long. A few more questions. I might repeat questions that you’ve already been asked, but as I said, we are recording these. Is that satisfactory?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you meet your husband?”
“In the Netherlands. Scheveningen.”
“When?”
“Two years ago. December. Christmas. Is that specific enough?”
Keller frowned. “The North Sea in December is cold, wet, and not a very romantic spot. It’s an irregular time to visit a summer seaside resort.”
“I was divorced.” Her eyes narrowed. “It was a good place to be by myself.”
“How did you meet?”
“Why is that relevant?”
Cooper placed his hand on her arm. “Just answer the question. You’ll get out of here sooner.”
She saw no need to describe how it was a difficult time in her life. She thought it irrelevant that they hear how she was lonely and depressed after her first marriage failed. No matter how she tried to see it as a mutual decision, it was his choice to end the marriage, and she was left feeling cast off. Angry and abandoned. She put on a brave face of public indifference when friends asked what happened. It was easier to say that it had been their choice. She wanted to get away from their questions and exaggerated sympathy and be in a place where she could indulge solitude and take stock of her life. The two weeks on the North Sea in winter had been gray and bleak, which matched her mood. There were no lively, cavorting couples to remind her of her unhappiness. Then, one day at the end of her two-week stay, Stefan had appeared in her life. He had an endless budget for restaurants—the few that were open—and taxis. It had been an adventure. He’d made her laugh. Anne wasn’t ready to let that go, to let this man corrupt that time with his conspiracies.
“We were introduced,” she said. “I forget who introduced us. It’s not important.”
“You don’t remember? A German, a Dutchman?”
“No. The concierge maybe.”
“Do you know anyone who would want to hurt him?”
“No.”
“Was he depressed?”
She turned to Cooper.
“I’m asking you, not him.”
“He’s helping. He’s with the embassy.”
“I’m interested in what you remember, not what he thinks I should know.”
“Go ahead,” Cooper said.
“Suicide?” Anne dismissed the idea. “Out of the question. Unimaginable.”
“Why would anyone want to kill him?”
“He’s missing,” she snapped. “Have you found his body?” She sat back in her chair and glared. “How much more of this?”
“When did you last speak with him?”
Anne’s memory failed her for a moment. “The night before the Leipzig protests.”
Suddenly, the door opened and Inspector Praeger appeared. Erect, composed, impeccably dressed. His appearance commanded the room’s attention and Detective Keller was silent in his presence.
Finally, Anne thought, a step up in the chain of command and a step toward a responsible conversation with someone in authority. She sensed Praeger’s calculating intelligence. When he stepped into the room, she saw another man standing behind him, who then entered, too. He was tall, like Praeger, but older, and he had the confident air of a man who belonged in the room. Without saying a word, or acknowledging her, he took a seat at the end of the table. Anne waited for him to be introduced, but no one did. She thought there was something in his appearance—his silver cufflinks, the vanity in his fashionably narrow tie—that hinted he was not a policeman and possibly, not German.
“Shall we continue?” Praeger said. He removed a file from a leather case he had placed on the table. He nodded at Cooper, smiled at Anne, and ignored Keller and the new man, who remained quiet for the balance of the interview. Praeger opened a line of questions about Stefan’s work, his clients, the cities he visited, the money he earned, and the amount of time he was away. It was a rigorous pattern of observation, question, and confrontation. Anne did her best to understand what his intent was before she answered, but soon she came to think he already had his answers, and that his questions were designed to test her truthfulness.
“Who were his friends?”
“Neighbors. Acquaintances. People.”
“Where did you live when you met?”
“A small studio in Mitte. I moved in with him.”
“Friendly with the leftists and the Turks, was he?”
She didn’t dignify his question with an answer.
“You’re quiet.” He looked at her. “There are many kinds of silence. The silence of the dead. The silence of consent. And the silence of ignorance. Which type of silence should I ascribe to you?”
She said nothing.
Praeger opened the manila folder and flipped pages of a document with his finger, stopping when he found what he wanted. “Your husband traveled seven times in September?”
“I don’t remember how many. A lot. Seven? Maybe.”
“Vienna on September 3rd. Prague a week later. Bonn and Warsaw September 15th and 16th. East Berlin four times in the month.”
“Yes.”
“Many trips in a short time?”
“Pianos go out of tune quickly.”
“Do they? I don’t play the piano. I know there are different types: Steinways, Yamahas, Bösendorfers. Do they all go out of tune so quickly?”
“Call the orchestras. They’ll confirm his work.”
“My colleague is calling.”
Anne saw Praeger take out a handwritten document. The penmanship was small, cramped, and precise, almost as if it was a secret writing. “Hotel Imperial one night. Bristol Hotel one night. Grand Mark one week. Excelsior Hotel three nights.” Praeger looked up. “He has good taste in wine and books. Now, I see he has a taste for five-star hotels.”
“They pay his expenses.”
“He must be a very good piano tuner. Did you travel with him?”
“Once.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.” Her eyes were fierce. “Why are you asking these questions? You are making me feel like I’m hiding something, that somehow, inexplicably, I have answers that I don’t have. There is another type of silence. The silence of confusion. Why are you asking these questions?” Anne leaned forward, exasperated. “He didn’t come home four days ago. That’s all I know.”
Anne stood, but felt Cooper’s hand restrain her. She threw it off. “I don’t need to answer these questions. I am an American citizen. I work for JAROC.”
Praeger motioned for her to sit. “This is difficult for you. I need to gather all the information I can to move this investigation forward.” Praeger cut off Keller, who was about to speak. “Until your husband’s body is found, he is officially listed as missing. We have to consider the possibility that this case is a homicide. We would be irresponsible not to. Do you understand? I am asking these questions because we need to establish a motive. Who would gain if your husband died?”
Anne heard a kind of apology in Praeger’s explanation.
“We want the same thing,” he added. Praeger removed large black-and-white photographs from the folder and arranged them like playing cards, one row of six, then a second row, squaring each so they were aligned and facing Anne. One by one, Praeger pushed a photograph toward Anne and repeated his questions. Do you know this man? Have you seen this man? Did this man associate with your husband?
Two photographs were police mug shots of men with numbers on cards hanging from their necks. Tough men with bulbous noses and the insolent expressions of felons. The rest were photographs taken from a distance with a telephoto lens. Men in a crowd, or at a café with a woman, or at a pay phone. Some were in profile, all were grainy.
She looked from one to the next, pausing briefly on each to confirm her judgment. She didn’t know any of them. The last photograph was taken with a telephoto lens. From the perspective, she thought it had been taken from across the street, or from a building, the subject unaware he was being photographed. A trim older man in a narrow-brim, Soviet-style fedora, crossing the street, head slightly turned glancing back, as if aware he was being watched. His hat shadowed his face and the grainy composition made it hard to make out his features, except for his surprise, caught by the surveillance camera.
She handed it back. “No.”
The unintroduced man at the end of the table leaned forward and spoke for the first time. “Can I see it?” He stared at the at the photograph for a long time without any expression whatsoever, and then he pushed it back toward Anne.
“You’re sure?” he said.
American, she thought. She was uncertain she should answer a question from a man she didn’t know. She turned to Praeger. “I’ve never seen any of these men.”
Praeger presented a similar photograph to the one she’d just examined. She compared the two. Both were taken with a telephoto lens from a great distance and had a flattened, foreshortened perspective. Both were of men in late middle age, wearing a fedora, caught in a moment without knowing they were being photographed. In the second photograph, the man was stepping into a Chaika limousine, head turned slightly in the moment the camera’s shutter opened. His eyes were alert to a commotion somewhere beyond the borders of the photograph. His face was also shadowed, hardly recognizable in profile. Grim, grainy, faceless. She compared one to the other.
“We think they are the same man,” Praeger said. Praeger slipped a police artist’s pencil sketch toward Anne. “This may help. It is a composite, a likeness, but maybe not a good likeness. Have you seen him?”
She compared the sketch to the photographs. The photographs were blow-ups, grainy, taken from a distance, frustrating in their vagueness. The sketch was a caricature, the exaggerated features of an older man, which could fit any number of older men, or no man.
“I can’t tell. I doubt it. They are blurry. Who is he?”
“The Matchmaker. Your husband worked for him.”
Praeger swept his hand across the other photographs. “And these men, we believe, worked for your husband.”
The interview ended. Cooper helped Anne into her raincoat, and the tall, well-dressed American at the end of the table walked out without saying a word. Anne was slipping her arm into her sleeve when he passed. Her urge to ask him why he was there was cut short by Cooper, who stepped between them. He helped her with her other sleeve and they moved to leave the conference room, but having come to the door, Cooper stopped.
“Give me a minute. I have an unrelated matter to discuss with Praeger. I’ll find you in the hall.”
Cooper closed the door and turned to Inspector Praeger, who stepped away from Keller, so the two men were alone. Praeger’s eyes were impatient. “Well?”
“She an interpreter at JAROC,” Cooper said. “I don’t think she knows anything.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I do.”
“On what basis?”
“My gut.”
Praeger scoffed. “A good act. I don’t believe a word of it. How could she be so ignorant. So uncurious. Binoculars were found in the apartment, and her answer, ‘rabbits.’ ” Praeger’s expression disdained the idea. “She is being dishonest. Maybe she is his accomplice. At the very least she is protecting him. I will have her arrested and we’ll continue questioning her without the niceties of an interview.”
“No evidence implicates her.”
“He ran a network. He traveled under cover of jobs with orchestras. He coordinated drop points. Documents on Pershing missiles were handed off. He stayed in five-star hotels on a piano tuner’s salary. He was the handler’s handler, keeping the Matchmaker informed.”
Praeger’s eyes narrowed and his jaw was set. “She slept in his bed. Washed his clothes. Waited for him to return. Shared the intimacy of a married couple. Do you really believe she knew nothing? Suspected nothing?”
“She is an American citizen,” Cooper snapped. “This is the American sector.”
“She is on German soil. This is a German counterintelligence matter.” Praeger slapped his file onto the table, punctuating the room’s silence. “Stefan Koehler was under surveillance for three months. We have travel itineraries, hotel invoices, suspected drop points. A week ago, we uncovered the registrant of a numbered Swiss bank account. Do you know what we found? Half a million marks in his name. How does a piano tuner get such a sum? We believe he was stealing from the GDR. He stole secrets from us and money from them.”
He considered Cooper for a moment, like a wary jackal pacing the perimeter of a camp fire. “We planned to recruit him as a double agent, but someone else got to him first. His body will turn up soon enough.” Praeger stood perfectly still, his riding crop clutched in his fist. Then, like a sly cat, he smiled.
“She knows more than she lets on. Her lie. Keller told me. She was introduced to her future husband by someone whose name she couldn’t remember. That is not a thing a person forgets.”