‘I think I know what you’re going to say, Werner.’
Werner sat down on the sagging armchair, smiled at me, and, although I knew what was coming, he said it anyway. ‘One man was the very worst scoundrel, he told us. Already rich – he amassed a second fortune in a few months. He borrowed from the central bank to buy coal mines, private banks, paper mills and newspapers. And he paid back the loans in money so devalued by inflation that this whole spread cost him almost nothing.’
‘It sounds like you’ve been looking at the encyclopedia, Werner,’ I said. ‘Hugo Stinnes. Yes, I was thinking of that long passionate lecture from old Storch only the other day.’
‘So why would some Russian bastard with a KGB assignment choose a name like Stinnes as an operating name?’
‘I wish I knew,’ I said.
‘Hugo Stinnes was a German capitalist, a class enemy, obsessed by the threat of world Bolshevism. What kind of joke is it for a Russian KGB man to choose that name?’
‘What kind of man would choose it?’ I said.
‘A very, very confident Communist,’ said Werner. ‘A man who was so trusted by his KGB masters that he could select such a name without fear of being contaminated by it.’
‘Did you only think of that now?’ I asked.
‘Right from the time I first heard the name it seemed a curious choice for a Communist agent. But now – now that so much depends upon his loyalty – I think of it again. And I worry.’
I said. ‘Yes, the same with me, Werner.’
Werner paused and, using his little finger, scratched his bushy eyebrows. ‘When the Nazi party sent Dr Goebbels to open their first office in Berlin, they used that little back cellar in Potsdamerplatz that belonged to Storch’s uncle. It was a filthy hole; the Nazis called it “the opium den”. They say Storch’s uncle let them have it without paying rent and in return Storch got a nice little job with the Party.’
I looked at the rain as it polished the roofs of the buildings across the courtyard. The roofs were tilted, crippled, and humpbacked, like an illustration from ‘Hansel and Gretel’. My mind was not on old Herr Storch any more than Werner’s was. I said, ‘Why not use his real name – Sadoff – why use a German name at all? And if a German name, why Stinnes?’
‘It raises a lot of questions,’ said Werner as his mind went another way. ‘If Stinnes was planted solely as a way of giving us false information, then the Miller woman was used only to support that trick.’
‘That’s not difficult to believe, Werner,’ I said. ‘Now that we know she wasn’t drowned in the Havel, now that we know she’s safe and well and working for the East German government, I’ve changed my mind about the whole business.’
‘The whole business? Her collecting that material from the car at the big party in Wannsee? Did she want to get arrested that night when we set it up so carefully and were so pleased with ourselves? Was that confession she gave you at some length – was it all set up?’
‘To implicate Bret? Yes, the Miller woman made a fool of me, Werner. I believed everything she told me about the two code words. I went back to London convinced that there was another agent in London Central. I disobeyed orders. I went and talked to Brahms Four. I was convinced that someone in London Central – probably Bret – was a prime KGB agent.’
‘It looked that way,’ said Werner. He was being kind, as always. He could see how upset I was.
‘It did to me. But no one else was fooled. You told me again and again. Dicky turned up his nose at the idea, and Silas Gaunt got angry when I suggested it. I even began to wonder if there was a big cover-up. But the truth is that they weren’t fooled by her and her story, and I was.’
‘Don’t blame yourself, Bernard. They didn’t see her. She was convincing, I know.’
‘She made a fool of me. She had nicotine stains on her fingers and no cigarettes! She had inky fingers and no fountain pen! She drowns, but we find no body. How could I be so stupid! A clerk from East Berlin; yes, of course. Everyone in London Central was right and I was wrong. I feel bad about that, Werner. I have more field experience that any of those people. I should have seen through her. Instead I went around doing exactly what they wanted done.’
‘It wasn’t like that, Bernie, and you know it. Silas Gaunt and Dicky and the rest of them didn’t argue with you or give any reasons. They wouldn’t believe your theory because it would have been too inconvenient to believe it.’
‘Then Posh Harry gave me documents that supported the idea that there was a mole in London Central.’
‘You’re not saying Posh Harry was in on it?’
‘I don’t think so. Posh Harry was a carefully selected go-between. They used him the way we’ve used him so often. That was probably Fiona’s idea.’
‘It’s the very hell of a complicated scenario they had,’ said Werner, rubbing his face. ‘Are you sure that you’ve got it right now? Would it be worth them going to all that trouble? When you got Stinnes out of Mexico City, you nearly got killed doing it. A KGB man from the Embassy was shot.’
‘That shooting was an accident, Werner. Pavel Moskvin was the one who gave me a tough time in East Berlin. If Stinnes is a plant, then Moskvin is the man behind it. I can’t prove it, of course, but Moskvin is the sort of hard-nosed Party man that Moscow has monitoring and masterminding all their important departments.’
‘You think Moskvin planted him without any contacts or case officer or letter drop? You think Stinnes is all on his own?’
‘“Solitaries”, the Russians call them; agents whose real loyalties are known to only one or two people at the very top of the command structure. The only record of their assignment is a signed contract locked into a safe in Moscow. Sometimes when such people die, despised and unlamented, even their close relatives – wife, husband, children – aren’t told the real story.’
‘But Stinnes left his wife. He’d even had a fight with her.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and that convinced me that he really wanted to come over to the West. But the fight was genuine – his story false. We should have allowed for that possibility, I suppose.’
‘So now you think Stinnes is a solitary?’ said Werner.
‘For them the solitary isn’t so unusual, Werner. Communism has always glamorized secrecy; it’s the Communist method; subversion, secret codes, cover names, secret inks, no agent permitted to contact more than two other agents, cells to make sure that one lost secret doesn’t lead to the loss of another. All these things are not exclusively Russian, and not peculiar to the KGB; this sort of secrecy comes naturally to any Communist. It’s part of the appeal that worldwide Communism has for the embittered loner. If my guess is right Moskvin is the only other person who knows the whole story. They probably didn’t tell the truth to the snatch team that hit the launderette. The KGB would reason that just one extra person knowing the real story would increase the risk of us discovering that Stinnes was a plant.’
‘A man who sacrificed himself? Is Stinnes that sort of man?’ said Werner. ‘I’d marked him down as a hard-nosed and ambitious opportunist. I’d say Stinnes is the sort of man who sends others off to sacrifice themselves while he stays behind and gets the promotions.’
Werner had hit upon the thing that I found most difficult to reconcile with the facts. Right from the time when Stinnes started talking about coming over to the West I’d found it difficult to believe in his sincerity. The Stinnes of the KGB didn’t come West – not as defectors, not as agents, and especially not as solitaries who’d spend the rest of their days unrewarded, unloved, and uninvolved with the job, acting out a role in which they had no belief. As Werner said, Stinnes was the sort who dispatched others to that kind of fate.
‘When Moscow wants him back, they’ll find a way to get him,’ I said.
‘I’ll go along with your theory,’ said Werner grudgingly. ‘But you won’t convince many others. They like it the way it is. You tell me London Central have practically written Bret off. The Stinnes committe
e are just getting into their stride. If what you say about Stinnes is correct they’re all going to wind up with egg on their faces, a lot of egg on their faces. You’ll need some solid evidence before going back there and trying to convince them that Stinnes is a plant. That’s a combined-services committee, and they’re telling each other that Stinnes is the greatest break they’ve had in years. You’ll have a lot of trouble convincing them that they’ve fallen for a KGB misinformation stunt.’
‘More than just a stunt, Werner,’ I said. ‘If Stinnes blows a big hole in London Central, forces the Department to compromise with Five, spatters a little blood over me, and has Bret facing a departmental enquiry, I’d call that a KGB triumph of the first order.’
‘I’ve been in front of that committee,’ said Werner. ‘They’ll believe what they want to believe. Rock that boat and you’ll be the one who falls into the water and drowns. I’d advise you to keep your theories to yourself. Keep right out of it, Bernie.’
There was more thunder, fainter now as the storm abated, and trickles of sunlight dribbled through the cloud.
‘I am keeping out of it,’ I said. ‘I told Dicky I wouldn’t go to the committee without detailed written instructions.’
Werner looked at me, wondering if it was a joke. When he realized it wasn’t he said, ‘That was silly, Bernie. You should have done what I did. You should have gone through the motions: smiled at their greetings, laughed at their little jokes, accepted one of their cigarettes, and listened to their idiot comments while trying to look enthralled. You refused? They’ll regard you as hostile after that. What are they going to think if you go to them now and say that Stinnes is a phony?’
‘What are they going to think?’ I said.
‘They’re going to resurrect all their darkest suspicions of you,’ said Werner. ‘Someone on that committee is sure to say that you might be a KGB agent trying to rescue Bret and trying to wreck the wonderful job that the Stinnes debriefing is doing.’
‘I brought Stinnes in,’ I said.
‘Because you had no alternative. Don’t you remember the way certain people said you were dragging your feet?’ He looked at his watch, a stainless-steel one, not his usual gold model. ‘I really must be going.’
He had plenty of time, but he was nervous. Werner made a lot of money from his completely legitimate banking deals, but he was always nervous before going East. Sometimes I wondered if it was worth it. ‘Where’s your car?’
‘It’s just a quick one. Some signatures to show that goods have arrived over there. The quicker I get the receipts, the quicker I get paid, and with bank charges the way they are…I’ll go over on the S-Bahn. Once I arrive at Friedrichstrasse, it’s only five minutes.’
‘I’ll walk down to Zoo station and see you onto the train,’ I said. I still hadn’t told him about Fiona and the children.
‘Stay here, Bernie. You’ll get wet.’
When we went downstairs, Lisl Hennig was sitting in the dining room. It was a large airy room overlooking the gloomy courtyard. The panelling had been painted cream and so had some of the cupboards. There was an old Oriental rug to cover worn lino just inside the doorway, and there were framed prints on the walls – scenes of German rural life – and one tiny picture that was different from the rest. It was a George Grosz drawing, a picture of a deformed soldier, a war veteran made grotesque by his injuries. It was full of rage and spite and despair so that the artist’s lines attacked the paper. Lisl was sitting near the drawing, at a table by the window. She was always there about noon. On the table there was the usual pile of newspapers. She couldn’t live without newspapers – she was obsessed by them, and woe betide anyone who interrupted her reading. Her mornings were always spent in going through them all, column by column: news, adverts, gossip, theatre, concert reviews, share prices, and even the classified adverts. Now she had finished her papers; now she was sociable again.
‘Werner, darling. Thank you for the beautiful flowers, Liebchen. Come and give your Lisl a kiss.’ He did so. She looked him up and down. ‘It’s freezing cold outside. You won’t be warm enough in that raincoat, darling. It’s terrible weather.’ Did she recognize Werner’s clothes as those he wore when visiting the East? ‘You should be wearing your heavy coat.’
She was a big woman and the old-fashioned black silk dress with a lacy front did nothing to disguise her bulk. Her hair was lacquered, her once-pretty face was heavily but carefully painted, and there was too much mascara on her eyelashes. Backstage in a theatre her appearance would have gone unremarked but in the cold hard light of noon she looked rather grotesque. ‘Sit down and have coffee,’ she commanded with a regal movement of her hand.
Werner looked at his watch, but he sat down as he was told. Lisl Hennig had protected his Jewish parents, and after Werner was orphaned she brought him up as if he was her one and only son. Although neither of them displayed much sign of deep affection, there was a bond between them that was unbreakable. Lisl commanded; Werner obeyed.
‘Coffee, Klara!’ she called. ‘Zweimal!’ There was a response from some distant part of the kitchen as her ‘girl’ Klara – only marginally younger than Lisl – acknowledged the imperious command. Lisl was eating her regular lunch: a small piece of cheese, two wholemeal wafers, an apple, and a glass of milk. Except for her, the dining room was empty. There were about a dozen tables, each set with cutlery and wineglasses and a plastic rose, but only one table had linen napkins and this was the only one likely to be used that lunchtime. Not many of Lisl’s guests ate lunch; some of them were semi-permanent residents, out at work all day, and the rest were the kind of salesmen who couldn’t afford lunch at Lisl’s or anywhere else. ‘Did you bring me what I asked you to bring me?’ Lisl asked Werner.
‘I forgot, Lisl. I am very sorry.’ Werner was embarrassed.
‘You have more important things to do,’ said Lisl, with that smile of martyrdom that was calculated to twist the knife in poor Werner’s wound.
‘I’ll get it now,’ said Werner, rising to his feet.
‘What is it?’ I said. ‘I’ll get it for you, Lisl. Werner has an important appointment. I’m walking up to the Zoo station. What can I bring back for you?’ In fact, I guessed what it was; it was an eyebrow pencil. Whatever other elements of her makeup Lisl found necessary, none compared with the eyebrow pencil. Ever since her arthritis made shopping difficult for her, Werner had been entrusted with buying her makeup from the KaDeWe department store. But it was a secret, a secret with which even I was not officially entrusted; I knew only because Werner told me.
‘Werner will get it for me. It is not important,’ said Lisl.
Klara brought a tray with a jug of coffee and the best cups and saucers, the ones with the sunflower pattern, and some Kipfel on a silver platter. Klara knew that the little crescent shaped shortcakes were Werner’s favourite.
A man in a smart brown-leather jacket and grey slacks came into the dining room and deposited his shoulder bag on a chair. It was at the table where the linen napkins had been arranged. He smiled at Lisl and left without speaking.
‘Westies,’ explained Lisl, using the Berlin word for tourists from West Germany. ‘They eat lunch here every day.’
‘The family with the grown-up sons; I saw them in the lobby,’ said Werner. Even without hearing an accent, Berliners were always able to recognize such visitors, and yet it was hard to say in what way they were any different from Berliners. The faces were more or less the same, the clothing equally so, but there was something in the manner that distinguished them from ‘Islanders’, as the West Berliners referred to themselves.
‘They hate us,’ said Lisl, who was always prone to exaggerate.
‘Westies hate us? Don’t be silly,’ said Werner. He looked at his watch again and drank some coffee.
‘They hate us. They blame us for everything bad that happens.’
‘They blame you for their high taxes,’ I said. ‘A lot of West Germans begrudge the subsidies needed to keep B
erlin solvent. But all over the world big cities are funded from central government.’
‘There is more to it than that,’ said Lisl. ‘Even the word “Berlin” is disliked and avoided in the Bundesrepublik. If they want a name for a soap or a scent or a radio or a motorcar, they might name such things “New York” or “Rio” or “Paris”, but the word “Berlin” is the universal turnoff, the name that no one wants.’
‘They don’t hate us,’ said Werner. ‘But they blame us for everything that happens in the cold war. No matter that Bonn and Moscow are making the decisions – Berlin takes the blame.’ Werner was diplomat enough to take Lisl’s side.
‘I don’t know about that,’ I said. ‘Bonn gets more than its fair share of knocks and pays out more than its fair share of money.’
‘Does it?’ said Lisl. She was unconvinced. She hated to pay her taxes.
I said, ‘Conveniently for the DDR, there is only one Germany when someone wants German money. Reparations to Israel didn’t come from both halves of Germany – only from the West half. After the war the debts incurred by Hitler’s Third Reich were not shared – only the West half settled them. And now, whenever the DDR offers to set free political prisoners in exchange for money, it’s the West half that pays the ransoms to the East half. But when anyone anywhere in the world wants to express their prejudice about Germans, they don’t tell you how much they hate those Germans in the East – who suffer enough already – all anti-German feeling is directed against the overtaxed, overworked Westies who prop up the overpaid, incompetent bureaucrats of the Common Market and finance its ever-increasing surplus so it can sell more and more bargain-priced wine and butter to the Russians.’
‘Bernard has become a Westie,’ said Lisl. It was a joke, but there was not much humour there. Werner gobbled the last Kipfel and got up and said goodbye to her. Lisl didn’t respond to our arguments or to our kisses. She didn’t like Westies even when they had lunch every day.