A Patriot in Berlin

  ‘There are Russian workers,’ said Ivashenko, ‘who would be only to happy to work for Krupp and Thyssen …’

  ‘Of course,’ said Perfilyev, an angry look now in his eyes. ‘Because they are enticed by the thought of riches, and imagine that the higher their standard of living, the happier they will be. But there are some things that matter more than money, Comrade Major. Justice. Dignity. Honour. We may have been poor under Brezhnev. There may even have been cases of corruption. But what comparable country was better off? Thailand, where a quarter of a million children work in brothels? India, perhaps, where children are mutilated to make more effective beggars on the street? Or Mexico, its people admitted over the Rio Grande to work as helots in cities with the sacred names of Los Angeles and San Francisco, now the Sodom and Gomorrah of the modern world?’

  It was late. The bottles were empty. The officers were sobering up, their moods sinking from joviality into melancholy. The future seemed grim. Even those like Ivanshenko who did not agree with Perfilyev found it hard to contradict him, above all because here was a rare Russian who appeared to have seen something of the world.

  ‘So what’s to be done?’ asked Nogin, accepting a cigarette offered by Perfilyev.

  ‘Another coup!’ said Sinyanski. ‘And next time, no scruples!’

  ‘Things must get worse before they get better,’ said Perfilyev. ‘But when the moment comes …’ He clenched his fist, as if catching and then crushing a mosquito hovering in the air.

  ‘And in the meantime?’ asked Nogin.

  ‘We should learn from the Germans,’ said Perfilyev. ‘After World War One, they were only permitted an army of a hundred thousand men. They therefore made officers serve as NCOs, and NCOs serve as privates. That way, they kept the nucleus of an army ten times the size.’

  ‘But can the Americans dictate the size of the Russian army?’ asked Nogin. ‘Has it come to that?’

  ‘It is not so much the army that has to be prepared,’ said Perfilyev. ‘It is the Party.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Why do you think Yeltsin suspended it, straight after the coup, with the stroke of a pen? Because the Americans, who helped him to defeat the coup, knew that without the Party the Soviet Union was ungovernable and would fall apart.’

  ‘But now that the Party has no state to support it, how can it survive?’ asked Sinyanski, also accepting a cigarette offered to him by Perfilyev.

  ‘It will go underground once again,’ said Perfilyev, ‘as it did before the Revolution.’ He struck a match and lit first Nogin’s cigarette, then Sinyanski’s, then his own.

  Nogin inhaled and then sighed as he blew out the smoke. ‘I don’t pretend, comrade, that I was ever a good student of Marx or Lenin, and I joined the Party because it seemed the thing to do. But there’s no doubt in my mind that it was the Party, as you say, that held the Union together and so was the guarantee of the greatness of Russia. Without the Party, well, it’s as you say, and quite evident for anyone to see. We’re going down to God knows what depths of poverty, chaos and degradation …’

  ‘It’s worse than you think,’ said Perfilyev darkly.

  ‘Worse?’

  ‘Take the job our team is doing, here in Jena. Our ministry of Medium Machine Building had some top-secret projects with our German comrades, first-rate military research. We’ve been told to dismantle the equipment so that it can be sent back to Moscow, but I happen to know that some of Yeltsin’s people in the Defence Ministry mean to sell it to the Americans …’

  ‘Impossible!’

  ‘You can’t imagine what it’s like back in Moscow, Comrade Colonel. Anyone will do anything for dollars.’

  ‘Can’t you denounce them?’

  ‘To whom? Everyone is getting a cut.’

  ‘Then stop them!’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I … you could … couldn’t you destroy the equipment? That would surely be better than letting it fall into the hands of the Americans.’

  Perfilyev pondered. ‘Where? In Germany, now, we are watched …’

  ‘Bring it here.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘To the base. Why not?’

  ‘It is bulky …’

  ‘We have plenty of space.’ Nogin turned to Sinyanski. ‘Don’t we have space enough, comrade?’

  ‘Of course. The hangars, where the tanks used to be.’

  ‘And to destroy it?’ asked Perfilyev.

  ‘Burn it. We have some gasoline. Or we can use it for target practice for the tanks. The one thing we’re not short of is shells.’

  PART THREE

  1993

  January–May

  NINE

  In the first months of 1993, Francesca McDermott worked harder than she had ever worked before. The challenge she faced was not so much how to make the Excursus exhibition a triumph, but how to save it from becoming a fiasco.

  From the first, Francesca had been warned by friends and colleagues in the United States that she had bitten off more than she could chew. A major exhibition could not be arranged in less than a year. At first, she had reassured herself that the back-up provided by the Germans for a show on the limited scale she envisaged could be mounted by the following July. By the time the decision had been made to make Excursus a mammoth, two-site exhibition, it was too late for Francesca to pull out.

  Even then, she did not believe they would be lent all the works they had requested. However, Excursus had been endorsed at the highest political level. It aroused enthusiasm wherever it was mentioned. Pledges of backing were pressed upon the organizing committee by banks, conglomerates and foundations. In December, the Museum of Modern Art in New York agreed to lend all the works of art that had been requested. By January, it had become clear that where MOMA had led, every major national gallery was now eager to follow. Directors and private collectors wrote from all over the world offering works that Francesca had not known existed.

  Many of the practical arrangements were handled by Dr Kemmelkampf and his civil servants in the Prussian Ministry of Culture; however, it became quite clear to Francesca that they had little experience in mounting exhibitions of this kind. The timetable presented particular problems. Günter confided in Francesca that a fierce dispute had broken out between the ministry and the gallery directors. The latter had already had to cancel the exhibitions they had planned for July and the first half of August. Those that went before had also to be curtailed to make way for Excursus, provoking considerable ill-feeling in members of the museum staffs who had been working on these projects for several years.

  The differences had come to a head, according to Günter, over the issue of where the Excursus works of art should be stored upon arrival in Berlin. Normally, they would be sent straight to the gallery with the best facilities, in this case the New National Gallery; but because of its commitment to a major retrospective, it had not the space to handle even a part of the Excursus works of art.

  ‘But surely there is space in one of those galleries or museums in East Berlin,’ said Francesca, discussing the question with Günter one morning in his office.

  ‘Of course there is space,’ said Günter, ‘but the facilities are too primitive to satisfy the lenders or, for that matter, the people in Bonn.’

  ‘What does the ministry propose?’

  ‘The ideal solution would be a secure warehouse where the paintings could be held until the moment came to hang them.’

  ‘Does such a warehouse exist?’

  ‘Of course. There is one in Tegel.’

  ‘Then why don’t we use it?’

  Günter shrugged. ‘You may well ask. It is all to do with budgets and precedents. Exclusive use of the warehouse would be expensive. Kemmelkampf has told Stefi that if the galleries are given this facility on this occasion, they will regard it as their right in the future.’

  ‘But surely they realize that Excursus is exceptional?’

  ‘Of course. But you must know about such bureaucratic wrangles. We a
re now in a position where everyone knows that an outside warehouse is the only solution, but no one feels able to suggest it.’

  ‘Why don’t you suggest it?’

  ‘I have suggested it. I have even offered to pay for it through an additional grant from the New German Foundation. But still Kemmelkampf is worried by this question of precedent.’

  ‘To hell with Kemmelkampf,’ said Francesca. ‘I’ll tell him that the lenders will pull out unless the paintings go to that warehouse.’

  ‘Perhaps you should look at it first.’

  ‘Do I need to?’

  ‘I would feel more confident. We are not as experienced as you are about this kind of thing.’

  They drove out to Tegel the next day in Francesca’s Golf. It was only a short way up the Stadtring, but it took them some time to find the warehouse belonging to Omni Zartfracht GmbH (Omni Fragile Freight Co.). The manager of the company’s Berlin office was there to show them round.

  Francesca was enormously relieved. The warehouse was ideal. It was newly built behind a chain and barbed-wire fence with state-of-the-art temperature and humidity controls and the security of a Fort Knox. It was large enough to store all the works of art if they could stipulate exclusive use until the exhibition was over. Günter, too, seemed impressed.

  At the next meeting of the organizing committee, Francesca proposed storing the works as they arrived at the OZF warehouse. There followed the anticipated argument by Kemmelkampf about the precedent, which seemed of less interest to the gallery directors than Francesca had been led to suppose. Francesca argued forcefully that the American lenders would insist upon the very highest standards. Günter pointed out that it would certainly be expensive but if the committee felt there was no other solution, then the money could be found. Dr Kemmelkampf hoped that the company would make an allowance for the prestigious publicity they would gain if a contract was agreed. Stefi said that the Federal government would have to be satisfied as to the competence of the company and measures taken to protect the works of art. Francesca agreed. ‘But I imagine that all concerned would feel as I did that we are extraordinarily fortunate to have something like this on offer at such short notice.’

  Only Dr Serotkin made an objection: he said the Soviet galleries would find it irregular to entrust works of art from public collections to a private company.

  ‘Perhaps only because there are no private companies in Russia,’ said Francesca tartly.

  ‘I defer to your superior experience,’ said Serotkin with one of his ironic smiles.

  ‘Are there any other objections?’ asked Stefan Diederich. There was none. ‘Then I suggest that it be minuted that at the suggestion of Dr McDermott the committee authorizes Herr Westarp and Dr Kemmelkampf to enter into negotiations with the Omni Zartfracht company for the use of their warehouse in Tegel.’

  With no dissenting voice, the motion was carried.

  After this satisfactory solution to the problem of storage, Francesca’s chief task became the preparation of the catalogue – a major document that would not only survive for years after the end of the exhibition, but would also carry Francesca’s name and her achievement all over the world.

  It was the catalogue that obsessed her. Every now and then, she would have to have lunch with some visiting cultural dignitary – a museum director from Paris, a cultural attaché from Tokyo – and although she behaved properly on such occasions, her mind never left her office where, with Frau Dr Koch, she was assembling illustrations and information for the catalogue from the different galleries and collectors.

  It was a tormenting task. The major galleries, by and large, were able to provide Francesca with what she wanted; but even they often had no suitable photographs of the paintings they planned to send, and only a hazy idea of who had owned their paintings before them. Some private collectors were entirely ignorant of the provenance. Francesca made calls and sent faxes to such far-off places as Nagasaki and Bogotá. Her own and Frau Dr Koch’s research into the history of the paintings was frequently frustrated by the professional envy of scholars and experts. Some had to be flattered into cooperation and asked to contribute to the catalogue, but then would fail to send their copy.

  A large number of works were in galleries in the former Soviet Union. For these, Francesca was at the mercy of Andrei Serotkin. When Stefi Diederich had first told her that he was to be a member of the organizing committee, she had accepted him with some reluctance; later, she had come to see the advantage of enlisting someone with contacts in Russia; and finally, she had had to acknowledge to Stefi that Serotkin was indispensable, having got the agreement from the Tretyakov in Moscow and the Russian Gallery in St Petersburg for the loan of all the works she had requested, including Tatlin’s The Sailor, Goncharova’s The Cyclist and Popova’s Italian Still-Life.

  By February, however, Francesca began to wonder whether or not she could rely on Serotkin’s assurances. She had only his word for the galleries’ consent, usually based on no more than a telephone call, occasionally backed up by an indecipherable fax. When she asked him for letters from the galleries concerned, confirming their consent, Serotkin would laugh without saying what his laugh denoted. She would send him memos, asking, say, if colour slides were available from the Tretyakov of Malevich’s Dynamic Suspension, and, getting no answer, she would go to his office and ask if there was any news about the slides.

  ‘Ah, that …’

  ‘We’ve got beautiful slides of the early Maleviches from the Stedelijk, and his Yellow Quadrilateral on White. It would be a pity if we couldn’t illustrate any of those in Russian collections.’

  ‘It’s not so simple. In Moscow, good colour reproduction is not always possible.’

  ‘If it can’t be done, Andrei, it can’t be done. But we have to know.’

  To compound Francesca’s frustration, Serotkin would absent himself every now and then, sometimes for as long as a week. He never said where he was going, or when he would return. Francesca suggested to the committee that they take on another Russian-speaking researcher, but this was vetoed by Günter Westarp on the dubious grounds of cost. She therefore had to wait for answers to her queries until Serotkin chose to come back.

  She complained about Serotkin’s absences to Stefi. Stefi said he suspected that Serotkin had a mistress whom he visited from time to time. Sophie said he probably got drunk ‘like Yeltsin. All Russians do.’ Their explanations only added to Francesca’s irritation. It was intolerable that Serotkin should leave his post without a good cause. On occasions, upon his return, she asked him where he had been but he would always make an evasive reply such as: ‘Ah, well, you know, we Russians are not used to hard work’; or he would say in German, ‘Geschäft ist Geschäft’ (business is business), without explaining what his business was.

  Julius Breitenbach, who overheard this exchange, confided to Francesca that most Russians in Germany went in for a little import-export on the side, and it was perhaps to some enterprise such as this that Serotkin had referred. ‘They have so little money,’ said Julius. ‘Quite possibly he is investing his stipend in fax machines or video recorders and is shipping them back to Moscow.’

  Francesca found this explanation degrading but she could not be sure that it was not true. Part of the irritation caused by his unexplained absences was that it added to the mystery of Serotkin. She had never had any reason to revise her first impressions that he was ‘dashing’, even handsome; earnest, yet with a twinkle in his eye. She noticed that the secretaries, Dora and Gertie, and even Frau Dr Koch, became downcast whenever he was absent and perked up whenever he returned.

  After almost six months in the same office, Francesca still could not make him out. Was he intelligent? He spoke English and German with a remarkable fluency, but his knowledge of Russian Experimental Art was merely adequate for someone who was supposed to be an expert in the field. Was he amusing? It was hard to tell. After the first discussion in the canteen about the position of women, their only exchanges
had been about Excursus. He was always courteous and correct, but at times his politeness seemed almost ironic. At the meetings of the organizing committee, he always spoke with a certain wit, and he often smiled when Francesca spoke, but she had the impression that he was amused by who she was rather than by what she said.

  Of course, it was Francesca herself who had drawn the line of demarcation between their professional and private lives, and she had been relieved that Serotkin had respected her decision, limiting their contacts to the office and their exchanges to matters concerning the exhibition. But as the months passed, it began to irk her that Serotkin made no attempt to question the rules she had laid down. She became curious, not just about his absences but about what he did at weekends or during his spare time. It even occurred to Francesca that since they were both alone in Berlin, it might make sense to go to a play or a movie together, but it was difficult to think of an unobtrusive way to change the pattern she had established.

  Francesca hinted to Sophie that she and Stefi might ask them over one evening, but Sophie said that Stefi hated Russians, and preferred to see as little of Serotkin as he could. It was therefore up to Francesca to get across to Serotkin that, so far as she was concerned, the time had come to change the rules; but whenever she made up her mind to say something to him, she backed down at the last moment, finding that she was unwilling to risk the embarrassment of his turning her down. She was humiliated by the memory of how she had thought Rasputin the writer was Rasputin the monk; in fact, to try to make up for that gaffe on some future occasion, she had found a book by Valentin Rasputin and had read a number of his stories. However, conversation with Serotkin in the Excursus office never turned towards literature from art, and Francesca was on the point of abandoning the idea of getting better acquainted when fate intervened in an unexpected way.

  Francesca McDermott and Andrei Serotkin lived in the same block of flats. They rarely met in the lobby: Francesca did not even know on which floor Serotkin had his flat. Each morning, Francesca went jogging in the Englischergarten and she knew that Serotkin did too. She had seen him from the window of her living room, and estimated that he rose half an hour before she did, and so had usually done his round before she set out.