‘Is this official?’ he asked anxiously.
‘No, not official. I was passing. I brought you a packet of coffee,’ I said. ‘Are you allowed coffee?’
‘Now and again. Betti loves it. She’s a wonderful woman, Bernd.’ He looked at his watch, looked at me and then at his watch again.
‘I know she is,’ I said.
‘I do a good deal of thinking when I’m dozing here and Betti is at work. I was remembering you the other day. What was the name of that teacher who always gave you such a rough time?’
‘I forget.’ It seemed as if whenever I met someone I’d been at school with, they wanted to commiserate with me about that bad-tempered bastard.
‘He never gave you a minute’s peace, Bernd.’
‘His brother, or his best buddy or someone, had been killed in Normandy,’ I said.
‘His son,’ supplied Theo. ‘Shot dead while trying to surrender; that’s what someone told me. Do you think it was true?’
‘Maybe. I don’t know. He was a Nazi. Remember when he looked in your desk and found your collection of Nazi badges and medals? He took them away to look at them, then he gave them back and never reported you.’
‘You hated him.’
‘At the time I did,’ I conceded. ‘But when I thought about it afterwards I saw that it was his endless bullying that made me do so well at lessons. Being top of the class was the only way I could get back at him.’
‘And he was the reason why you were so popular,’ said Theo.
‘He was? How do you make that out?’
‘Didn’t you ever see that, Bernd? The more he bullied you, the more the rest of us kids wanted to be decent to you.’
‘And I thought it was my English charm.’
‘And your charm, yes.’ He managed to produce a laugh.
‘Why are you looking at your watch? Are you expecting a visitor?’
‘No,’ said Theo.
I moved a tray containing a soup bowl and a plate with some dry biscuits, so that I could sit down at the little chair at his bedside.
Theo said: ‘Remember that morning he came into the classroom with the wooden pencils?’
‘No.’
‘One by one he snapped them in half and gave the pieces out to us. Pencils are like earthworms, he said. Break one in half and it becomes two pencils.’
‘There weren’t enough pencils for us to have one each.’
‘I know, but it was a good joke,’ said Theo.
‘Tell me about the DELIUS net,’ I said.
He looked at the children and said: ‘Go and have your supper. Opa is in the other room waiting for you.’ As the kids departed, a skinny cat went slinking after them. Theo said: ‘You say this visit’s not official?’ I shook my head. ‘Better if your people stay out of this,’ he said. ‘It’s a local matter for us to solve our own way. That damned pastor is “an unofficial collaborator”.’
An unofficial collaborator was the Stasi description for people the rest of the world called secret informants or snitches. ‘Surely not,’ I said.
‘It’s the only explanation.’
‘I was with him after a job I did in Magdeburg. The pastor sheltered me after a shooting fiasco in the KGB compound. He knew Fiona when she was in Berlin; he knew she was working for London.’
‘Did he tell you that?’ said Theo mildly.
‘Yes, when I was here before he told me that.’
‘He’s clever isn’t he?’
‘It was some sort of trap for me?’
‘He never knew Fiona was working for London. It’s what he’s been told since she escaped. I doubt if he ever met her.’
‘He knew I was working for London.’
‘But the Stasi are not going to blow the cover of a wonderful source like him in order to collar a minnow like you, Bernard.’
‘Ouch, that hurt, Theo.’
I was sitting at his bedside, and now he reached out and clutched my sleeve. ‘It’s true, Bernd, he’s one of them, believe me. Maybe I can’t prove it, but we all know it. We know it in our bones.’
‘You’ve got to do better than bones, Theo. It’s a serious accusation.’
‘He snoops around everywhere. The Church has given him some sort of roving commission – standing in for clergy who are sick or on leave. He goes to Berlin. He goes to Dresden. He goes to Zwickau…’
‘Zwickau? He was never a part of the Zwickau network.’
‘On Sundays. He was conducting services in the church and assisting the pastor there.’
‘When?’
‘Two years ago. Over the busy Christmas period.’
‘You saw him there?’
‘Of course I did. It was his idea to put the antenna in the spire. The network had had radio trouble but getting the antenna really high solved it overnight.’
‘I see.’
Theo persisted: ‘The following year the whole Zwickau group went into the bag didn’t they?’
‘Not as far as I know,’ I said, not wanting to break security. ‘The last I heard they were still going strong.’
‘I must have got it wrong,’ said Theo in a voice that clearly told me that he knew he had it right. ‘I suppose a rumour like that would be bad for morale, wouldn’t it?’
‘It’s need-to-know, Theo,’ I said. ‘We shouldn’t be discussing other groups.’
‘You’re a cold fish, Bernd. Did anyone ever tell you that?’
‘Only my very close friends.’
‘My oldest brother – Willi – was one of the Zwickau net. They took him away in the middle of the night, and that was the last we heard of him. His wife has written to everyone she can think of – First Secretary Honecker even – and all she gets back is a printed form. They can’t even be bothered to type a letter for her.’
‘He may be all right,’ I said. ‘They hold people longer nowadays… Yes, I remember Willi. I forgot that he was your brother; but don’t jump to conclusions about the pastor. We can’t move against him just because you feel it in your bones, Theo. Carry on with everything as normal. As you say, if he’s reporting to the Stasi they will keep your network safe and intact indefinitely. Maybe the only reason you’ve been safe so long is because they don’t want to reveal that he is an informer for them.’
‘If London sent you to give us the pep-talk, forget it. I know the old bastard betrayed my brother. He’s a rattlesnake. We will settle it ourselves.’
‘That’s stupid talk, Theo. We don’t do it like that. No one does.’
‘And you swear this is not official? Why tonight, Bernd?’
‘I just arrived. No one knows I’m here. I wanted to come and see for myself.’
‘Get out of here, Bernd. Go now. See no one else. Leave it to us to sort out.’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ I said. ‘If the network breaks up now – and he is an informer – they’ll take you all into custody and toss you into a Stasi prison. They will have nothing to lose. The Stasi have independent powers of arrest and detention. They don’t have to provide evidence to an examining magistrate or anything like that.’
He gave me a weary smile. It was like explaining the Christmas menu to a fattened turkey. To him such facts of life were obvious, but sometimes people like Theo have to be reminded of them. ‘I know you mean well, Bernd. And I’m grateful.’
‘Then do as I say.’
‘Will you promise to go away and not contact him?’
‘What difference does it make?’
‘Please, Bernd. Please leave us alone. Give us a week. After that if we’ve failed we’ll do it your way.’
‘I doubt if your network could manage to operate without him.’
‘Don’t be stupid, Bernd. Of course we could. We’ve discussed it.’
I wondered how to reassure Theo. ‘I’ll vet him personally and if necessary London will neutralize him.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘We’ll get rid of him. But it has to be done in some way that won’t make all the
alarm bells ring. London will probably arrange that he is sent to some other job in some other place by the Church authorities. Somewhere he can’t do any mischief.’
‘Pass me that glass of water and the red pills. I have to take two of them every four hours.’
‘It’s the only way, believe me,’ I said, passing him his medicine.
‘I hate him.’ He gulped his pills and drank some water.
‘You may have got it wrong, Theo. Keep it all going until we know what’s really happening.’
‘Are you going to talk to him?’
‘I wanted to see you, Theo, to see how you were. Now I’ll go back to Berlin. Forget I came here. Tell Betti the same.’
‘She won’t say anything, Bernd. Her family were high-ranking Nazis – her uncle was the Politische Kreisleiter. She grew up keeping her mouth shut.’
‘Good.’
‘When will I see you again?’
‘Get your network people together,’ I said without answering his question. ‘Make sure they visit you here while you’re sick. It’s a perfect cover. Don’t tell the pastor what you are doing.’
‘No.’ In his worried face I could see a thousand questions trying to get out, but he didn’t ask me anything more. On his bedside table there were photographs of his wife and a portrait photo of their married son Bruno, who worked for the Schnell-Bahn, the elevated railway that was owned by the East and went through both parts of Berlin.
‘Is Bruno well?’ I asked politely.
‘We haven’t seen him for a long time,’ said Theo. ‘It’s just as well; we don’t see eye to eye about the regime.’
‘He’s trusted,’ I said. ‘He has to be careful what he says.’
‘Yes, he’s trusted,’ said Theo, for his son was one of the carefully selected railway personnel whose daily duties took them into the West.
I got up and reached for my hat. ‘Good luck, Bernd,’ said Theo. ‘Thanks for coming, and for the packet of coffee. I think a lot about the old days. I must have been crazy to stay here in the East. That damned Wall. I could see what was coming.’
‘How could you be certain?’ I said. ‘Half the kids in the class had homes or family connections in the East.’
‘But most of them knew when to get out. It didn’t seem so important then, did it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘It didn’t seem so important.’
I didn’t keep my promise to Theo. He was sick and I didn’t want to alarm him, but coming all this way without talking to the turbulent priest would have been absurd. So I went to his ‘church’ and waited until the last of the worshippers had left. The service had been held in a meeting hall that was a part of the crypt, all that remained of a church destroyed by wartime bombing. At the bottom of the steps, when I stepped into the light, the pastor looked up and smiled. He recognized me. It was only a few weeks before that I’d sheltered here with him. I was with the kid, Robin, and on the run from a grim half-hour in nearby Magdeburg. Now the pastor came forward and shook hands, gripping my arm with his free hand, like they do in Hollywood. He beamed. His rosy face was that of an elderly cherub.
‘Good evening, young man,’ he said. ‘Have you come specially to see me?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
He indicated that I should follow him into a small side-room where the smell of incense failed to cloak the stronger one of tobacco smoke. He closed the door and pulled out a chair for me, one of three hard little chairs arranged around a rickety table upon which I put my hat. Adorning the wall there were half a dozen hand-coloured photos of previous pastors and an engraving of the church as it had been a hundred years ago. The pastor opened a metal locker in which he kept his street clothes and took his time as he divested himself of his clerical garments and put on an old grey suit. He then removed his steel-rimmed glasses and polished them with that dedication that is sometimes the sign of thoroughness, and sometimes a device for delay.
‘You know what I do for a living?’ I said, more to confirm that his memory was functioning than because I had doubt of it.
‘Yes, I do. I know your name, your wife and your job.’
‘I’ve come to tell you that it’s all over: kaputtgemacht,’ I said. ‘You’ve come to a standstill.’ I was being provocative of course, I wanted to see how he would react. He looked at me, used a forefinger to push his glasses a fraction up on his nose, but gave no sign of having heard or understood. ‘This network is blown,’ I said. ‘DELIUS is coughing blood. The network can’t be salvaged.’
‘We looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold trouble.’ He paused and looked at me. ‘Jeremiah.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘I’m talking about the network. It’s blown and you blew it. You know my name and my job. Well I don’t know your name – not your real name – but I do know your part-time job. You report to the Stasi.’
‘You’ve been listening to gossip. Village gossip is the worst kind,’ he told me with an indulgent smile.
‘I came over here to pick up the pieces, but I don’t see how it can be put together again.’
‘Like Humpty-Dumpty?’
‘Yes, like Humpty-Dumpty. You’ve had a long run, but nothing lasts for ever.’ I waited for him to respond but he stood very still, his eyes staring at me, his expression calm. He showed no sign of wanting to argue or explain. For ‘an unofficial collaborator’ I found his coldness disconcerting. Informers usually lived on their nerves and were easy to jolt. ‘I’ve been authorized to offer you a deal,’ I said after a long pause.
‘Oh? What kind of a deal would that be?’
‘Everyone goes into the bag eventually,’ I said. ‘For every agent who is good at what he does… who pushes opportunities to extremes and consistently takes chances, being exposed is the inevitable career climax.’
‘Being a pastor is not a career; it is a vocation,’ he said, as if determined to bluff his way out of it.
I continued my spiel: ‘But a career’s climax doesn’t have to be a career’s end.’
‘I can’t believe you are serious. Are you saying what you seem to be saying?’
‘Think what we could do. London would put the network together again. We’d reassemble it to be even better – more productive – than before. You’d go on reporting to Normannenstrasse as usual. And drawing your pay from them.’
The pastor scratched his cheek with a fingernail and said: ‘The Gospel of St Matthew tells us that no man can serve two masters without coming to hate the one, and love the other.’
‘I thought that was putting the finger on materialism and spirituality,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that the passage that Matthew continues: “Ye cannot serve God and mammon”?’
‘You have an enviable memory.’
‘It’s a part of the job,’ I said. ‘So what’s your answer? London or Berlin?’
‘I thought I’d given you my answer.’
‘Not quite. You haven’t told me which is God, and which is mammon.’
‘You come here to my country, and you threaten me as if I was in your country.’ His voice was still calm but he was hardening and that was good. This was the nearest he’d come to bluster, but I could see now that I’d had it all wrong. He wasn’t an unofficial collaborator; this man had the resilience of a trained and experienced Stasi man.
I said: ‘You understand what I’m offering, don’t you? You see the alternatives?’
‘Why don’t you make them clearer?’
‘I can’t make it much clearer,’ I said. ‘You know as well as I do that if you don’t cooperate, London will have to eliminate you. They can’t permit you to walk away.’
‘Eliminate me,’ he said, repeating my word ‘ausschalten’, and making a movement with his fingers as if operating a light-switch. ‘Is this your idea? To give me a chance to join you in spying against my own people?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘They wouldn’t listen to me. I wanted to waste you, without the option.’
He responded with a gr
im smile. He was annoyed with himself for being stampeded into discussing a deal. The face remained as calm as ever, but there was suppressed anger to be seen around his mouth. ‘You shit-head!’ he said softly. ‘I’ll show you how we do the switching off – of filth like you.’
We had both started off this conversation with the wrong idea. It was nothing but good luck that had made my error of judgement work, while his misfired. Now, from his back pocket, he took a pigskin wallet. From a compartment in it he produced a sheet of paper and placed it on the table in front of me. I recognized what it was before he flattened it out for me to read. It was crudely printed on coarse yellowing paper. Constant folding had worn the paper so that it had almost separated into four quarters. It was a Stasi warrant. In the bottom corner there was a solemn man holding a numbered board up to the camera’s lens. The text identified him as a captain employed by the Ministry of Security and enjoined all comers to help and assist him.
‘I’ve seen one before,’ I said, pushing the paper back towards him.
‘I’m sure you have.’
‘Think it over,’ I said, getting to my feet. This was the dangerous moment; the time when he was deciding whether to arrest me, kill me, or keep me warm as some kind of insurance policy for his old age.
He smirked. It was a stand-off; the knowing smile was his acknowledgement of that fact, just as my telling him to think it over was my way of admitting as much. ‘How would we make contact?’ he said. ‘Is there a code?… I mean in the event that I thought it over, and wanted to do a deal?’
‘Usual network procedure. Ask for a dozen gold sovereigns in any context, and I’ll come and see you.’
‘Not thirty?’ He looked at his watch. Everyone I talked to kept looking at their watches; it was beginning to give me a complex.
I buttoned up my coat and picked up my battered felt hat. I wondered if he would phone to have me stopped at the checkpoint. I was pleased that I had taken the extra precaution of changing transport and identity in Berlin.
‘I have sick parishioners to comfort,’ said the pastor as he struggled into a heavy overcoat and put on a woollen hat. ‘I do my rounds every night, like a shepherd.’