Now it was Leuschner’s son Willi behind the bar. We’d been kids together. Not Wilhelm, not Willy, but Willi. I remembered how exasperating he’d always been about adults getting his name right. Willi had the same kind of big moustache his father had worn – the same sort of moustache the Kaiser had worn, and many of his subjects too, until people started thinking that big curly moustaches made you look like a Turk.
The young Leuschner greeted me as I entered. ‘How goes it, Bernd?’ he said. He had that manner bartenders learn – an arm’s-length friendliness that reserved the right to toss you into the street should you get drunk.
‘Hello, Willi. Has Posh Harry been in?’
‘Not for a long time. He used to come in a lot – he brought some good business too – but he shares an office in Tegel now. He likes to be near the airport, he said, and I don’t see him so much.’
It was then that Posh Harry arrived. He arrived at the appointed time; he was a very punctual man. I suppose, like me, he’d learned that it was a necessary part of dealing with Germans.
He was wearing a superb camel-hair overcoat and a grey trilby. They didn’t go well together, but Posh Harry had swagger enough to carry off anything. He could have come in wearing a baseball cap and creased pyjamas and Willi Leuschner would still have greeted him with the awed respect I heard in his voice this time. ‘I was just saying how much we like to see you here, Herr Harry.’ Even Willi didn’t know Posh Harry’s family name; it was one of Berlin’s best-kept secrets. When Posh Harry replied, it was in flawless German and the chirruping Berlin accent.
It was Willi who showed us to a quiet table at the back. Willi was shrewd; he could recognize those customers who wanted to sit near the window and drink wine and those who wanted to sit at the back and drink whisky. And those who wanted to sit somewhere where they couldn’t be overheard. To get those seats you had to drink champagne; but German champagne would do.
‘We want to set up a meeting, Harry,’ I said when Willi had served us our Sekt, written the price of it on a beer mat which he slapped on the table, and gone back to his place behind the bar.
‘Who’s we?’ said Posh Harry, toying with the beer mat in such a way as to ensure that I could see what it was costing me.
‘Not too many of those big questions, Harry. Let’s get the details right and you collect the money, okay?’
‘That’s the way I like to do it,’ said Harry. He smiled. He had the wide toothy smile of the Oriental.
‘We’re holding a KGB man; he has the working name of Stinnes. We caught him in a red-hot situation.’
‘Am I permitted to ask what is a red-hot situation?’
‘We caught him mugging a little old lady in a sweet shop.’
‘Is this on the level, Bernie?’ Now it was the serious face and low sincere voice of the professional. I could see why he did so well at it; he could make you think he really cared.
‘No, a lot of it is not on the level, but our KGB friends will know what’s what. You tell them that we’re holding Stinnes in a hard-room and that we’re kicking shit out of him.’
‘You want me to say you personally are involved?’
‘Yes, you tell them that Bernie Samson is kicking shit out of Erich Stinnes, on account of the way he was held in Normannenstrasse last year by this same individual. Revenge, tell them.’
An old man came in. He was wearing tails complete with top hat, and playing a concertina. He was a famous Berlin character – the ‘Gypsy Baron’, they called him. In the cafés along the Ku-damm he played the music the foreign tourists liked to hear – Strauss, Lehar, and a selection from Cabaret – but this was a place for Berliners, so he kept to their kind of schmalz.
‘And?’
‘And you felt they should know about it.’
‘Okay.’ He was a master of inscrutable faces.
‘Let them chew it over for five minutes and then say that London Central are finished with this character. London Central will be handing him over to Five unless some better offer came up from somewhere else – like Moscow.’
‘When?’ said Posh Harry, reaching for the dripping-wet bottle from the ice bucket and pouring more for us both.
‘Very soon. Very, very soon. There is no chance that Five would deal with Moscow, so time is vitally important. If they were interested in having Stinnes back, you could get me to a meeting to discuss his release.’
‘Here?’ He used a paper towel to mop up the ice water he’d dripped over the table.
‘His release here in Berlin. But first I want the meeting,’ I said.
‘With?’
‘With my wife. And whoever she wants to bring along.’
‘What’s the deal, Bernie? You release the Russkie – what do you want in return? Or is kicking shit out of Russkies something you’re giving up for Lent?’
‘They’ll know what I want in return. But I don’t want that anywhere on the record, so don’t even start guessing,’ I said. ‘Now, in the course of conversation, you’ll make sure they know that Bret Rensselaer has been given an important promotion and a special job. You don’t know exactly what it is, but it all came about because he was the one who brought Stinnes down. He was the one who nailed him to the wall. Got it?’
‘It’s not difficult, Bernie. It’s a shame to take the money.’
‘Take the money anyway.’
‘I shall.’
‘The meeting is to be over this side. I suggest the VIP suite on the top floor of the Steigenberger Hotel. It’s good security; there’s room to move…car parking is where you can see it…you know.’
‘And the food is excellent. That might appeal to them.’
‘And the food is excellent.’
‘They’ll probably want to send someone to inspect the room.’
‘No problem,’ I said.
‘Timing for the exchange?’
‘We’ll have their man Stinnes available in the city.’
‘I mean…you’ll want to do this immediately the meeting ends, won’t you? This is not one of those fancy setups where they come over the bridge for the TV cameras ten days later?’
‘Immediate. And complete secrecy; both sides.’
‘Your wife, you say? I’ll go over there today. Maybe I could wrap up this whole deal by the weekend.’
‘Good thinking, Harry. I’ll be at Lisl Hennig’s this evening. Phone me there anyway; let me know what’s happening. Have you got the phone number?’
‘Are you kidding? Your wife, eh?’ The concertina player finished playing ‘Das war in Schöneberg im Monat Mai…’ and took a bow. Posh Harry eased his chair back and applauded loudly. He smiled at me to show how happy he was. It was a bigger smile this time; I could count his gold teeth.
‘She’ll be the one to talk to, Harry.’
‘I think I can find her.’
‘If I know her the way I think I do, she will have planned the whole business; she’ll be sitting by the phone waiting for you to call.’ I got to my feet. I’d said enough.
‘It’s like that, is it?’
‘The script is all written, Harry. We just have to read our parts.’
Harry pulled a bundle of paper money from his back pocket and paid for the champagne. The tip was far too generous, but the Department would pay.
‘That material I gave you – was it good?’ he asked.
‘It was Spielmaterial,’ I replied.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said. ‘Some you win, some you lose, and some…’
‘…Some get rained out,’ I finished for him.
He shrugged. I should have guessed that he had had no real faith in it; he’d given it to me for nothing. That was not Posh Harry’s style.
27
Lisl sat where she could see the flowers. It was a vast display of different blooms – more than I could put names to – and arranged in a basket tied with coloured ribbon. The flowers had obviously come from some expensive florist. They were the ones Werner had brought for her. Now the pe
tals were beginning to fall. Werner was not demonstrative, but he was always giving Lisl flowers. Sometimes, according to his mood, he would spend ages choosing them for her. Even his beloved Zena was not treated with such care in the matter of flowers. Lisl loved flowers, especially when they came from Werner.
Sometimes, when she smiled, I could see in Lisl Hennig the beautiful woman I’d met when I first came to Berlin. I was a child then, and Lisl must have already been almost fifty years old. But she was a woman of such beauty that any man would be at her call.
Now she was old, and the commanding manner that had once been a part of her fatal attraction was the petulance of an irritable old woman. But I remembered her as the goddess she’d once been, and so did Lothar Koch, the shrunken little retired bureaucrat who’d regularly played bridge with her.
We were sitting in Lisl’s ‘study’, a small room that had become a museum of her life. Every shelf and cupboard was crammed with mementos – china ornaments, snuffboxes, and an abundance of souvenir ashtrays. The radio was playing Tchaikovsky from some distant station that faded every now and again. There were only three of us playing bridge. It was more fun this way, Lisl said, whenever we were bidding and deciding which hand would be the dummy. But Lisl liked company, and there were only three of us because Lisl had failed to find a fourth despite all the cajoling of which she was capable.
The counters for which we played were stacked up high. Lisl liked to play for money no matter how tiny the stakes. When she was a young girl she’d been sent to a finishing school in Dresden – a favoured place for wealthy families to send their grown-up daughters – and she liked to affect the manners of that place and time. But now she was content to be the berlinerisch old woman she truly was, and there was nothing more berlinerisch than playing cards for money.
‘It’s big business nowadays,’ said Herr Koch. ‘Since 1963 those East Germans have made almost three billion Deutschemark in ransoms.’
‘I bid one spade,’ said Lisl, staring at her cards. ‘Three billion?’
‘No bid,’ said Koch. ‘Yes, three billion Deutschemark.’
‘One heart,’ I said.
‘You can’t do that,’ said Lisl.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘No bid.’ Why had they suddenly started talking about political prisoners held in the Democratic Republic? They couldn’t have heard about Werner. Lisl finally bid two spades.
‘About fourteen hundred people a year are ransomed by the Bonn government. None of them are criminals. Mostly they are people who have applied for exit permits and then been heard to complain about not getting them.’
‘They must be mad to apply for an exit permit,’ said Lisl.
‘They are desperate,’ said Koch. ‘Desperate people snatch at any chance however slim.’
Lisl put a queen of hearts on Herr Koch’s king. From now on she’d be trumping hearts unless I missed my guess. I knew she didn’t have the ace; I had it. I played low; it was Koch’s trick. Perhaps they wouldn’t exchange Werner for Stinnes. Perhaps we’d have to pay to get Werner back. Would they sell him or would they prefer a big show trial with lots of publicity? Perhaps I’d handled it badly. Perhaps I should have let the KGB think that Stinnes had fooled us completely; then they wouldn’t risk spoiling it by publicizing Werner. Could they put Werner on trial without revealing the Miller woman’s role in framing Bret Rensselaer?
Koch led with an ace of clubs. I knew Lisl would trump it and she did, using a three. That was the way with cards and with life; the smallest of cards could beat an ace if you chose the right moment.
Lisl picked up the trick and led a four of spades. She must have had a handful of trumps.
‘You should have bid a grand slam,’ said Herr Koch sarcastically. He was smarting at having his ace trumped.
‘The people are priced according to their worth,’ said Lisl, continuing with the conversation as if to appease Koch.
‘A university don can cost us up to two hundred thousand Deutschemark,’ said Koch. ‘A skilled worker about thirty thousand.’
‘How do you know all this?’ I asked him.
‘It was in the Hamburger Abendblatt,’ said Lisl. ‘I lent it to him.’
‘The government of the Democratic Republic have a bank account in Frankfurt,’ said Koch, without acknowledging the loan of Lisl’s Hamburg newspaper. ‘Prisoners are delivered two weeks after payment is received. It is a slave trade.’ Then Lisl led a heart from the dummy hand so she could trump it. My hearts were useless now that Lisl had none. You can only fight in the currency that your opponent shares. I played my jack of hearts.
‘Play your ace, Bernard,’ she urged. She knew my ace was useless too. Lisl laughed. She loved to win at cards.
Lisl led a small trump and lost the trick to Herr Koch.
‘You lost that one,’ I said. I couldn’t resist it.
Herr Koch said, ‘She doesn’t care. The dummy has no trumps.’
‘You’ll never teach him bridge,’ said Lisl. ‘I’ve been trying to explain it to him since he was ten years old.’
But Koch persisted. ‘She brought out a trump from you and a trump from me.’
‘But she lost the trick,’ I said. ‘You won it with your jack.’
‘She removed the potential dangers.’ Koch turned over the cards of the trick and showed me the ten and the jack which we’d played. ‘Now she knows that you have no trumps and she’ll slaughter you whatever you play.’
‘Let him play his way,’ said Lisl ruthlessly. ‘He’s not subtle enough for bridge.’
‘Don’t be fooled by him,’ said Herr Koch, talking to Lisl as if I wasn’t present. ‘The English are all subtle, and this one is subtle in the most dangerous way.’
‘And which is that?’ said Lisl. She could have simply laid her hand full of trumps on the table and we would have conceded all the remaining tricks to her, but she wouldn’t deprive herself of the pleasure of winning the game one trick at a time.
‘He doesn’t mind us thinking he is a fool. That is Bernard’s greatest strength; it always has been.’
‘I will never understand the English,’ said Lisl. She trumped, picked up the trick, smiled, and led again. Having said she didn’t understand the English, she proceeded to explain the English to us. That was berlinerisch too; the people of Berlin are reluctant to admit to ignorance of any kind. ‘If an Englishman says there’s no hurry, that means it must be done immediately. If he says he doesn’t mind, it means he minds very much. If he leaves any decision to you by saying. “If you like” or “When you like”, be on your guard – he means that he’s made his requirements clear, and he expects them to be precisely met.’
‘Are you going to let this slander go unchallenged, Bernard?’ said Koch. He liked a little controversy, providing he could be the referee.
I smiled. I’d heard it all before.
‘Then what of us Germans?’ persisted Koch. ‘Are we so easygoing? Tell me, Bernard, I want your opinion.’
‘A German has no greys,’ I said, and immediately regretted embarking on such a discussion.
‘No greys? What does this mean?’ said Koch.
‘In Germany two cars collide; one driver is guilty and therefore the other is innocent. Everything is black or white for a German. The weather is good or the weather is bad, a man is sick or he is well, a restaurant is good or it is terrible. At the concert they cheer or they boo.’
‘And Werner,’ said Koch. ‘Is he a man without greys?’
The question was directed at me, but Lisl had to answer. ‘Werner is an Englishman,’ she said.
It was not true, of course; it was an example of Lisl’s impetuous delight in shocking and provoking. Werner was about as un-English as any German could be, and no one knew that better than Lisl.
‘You brought him up,’ I said. ‘How could Werner be English?’
‘In spirit,’ said Lisl.
‘He adored your father,’ said Herr Koch, more in order to reconcile the difference of opinion than b
ecause it was true.
‘He admired him,’ I said. ‘It’s not quite the same thing.’
‘It was your mother who first took a liking to Werner,’ said Lisl. ‘I remember your father complaining that Werner was always upstairs playing with you and making a noise. But your mother encouraged him.’
‘She knew you had the hotel to run,’ I said. ‘You had enough to do without looking after Werner.’
‘One day I’ll go to England and see her again. She always sends a card at Christmas. Perhaps next year I’ll go and see her.’
‘She has a spare room,’ I said. But I knew in fact that neither Lisl nor my mother would endure the rigours of the aeroplane journey. Only the very fit could cope with the airlines. Lisl had not yet forgotten her uncomfortable trip to Munich five years ago.
‘Your father was so formal with little Werner. He always spoke to him as to a grown man.’
‘My father spoke to everyone in exactly the same way,’ I said. ‘It was one of the things I most liked about him.’
‘Werner couldn’t get over it. “The Herr Oberst shook hands with me, Tante Lisl!” It would have been unthinkable for a Wehrmacht colonel to shake hands and talk so solemnly with a small child. You’re not listening, Bernard.’
No, I wasn’t listening any longer. I’d expected both of them to say I was German, but such an idea had never entered their heads. I was devastated by the rejection so implied. This was where I’d grown up. If I wasn’t German in spirit, then what was I? Why didn’t they both acknowledge the truth? Berlin was my town. London was a place my English friends lived and where my children were born, but this was where I belonged. I was happy sitting here in Lisl’s shabby back room with old Herr Koch. This was the only place I could really call home.
The phone rang. I was sure it was Posh Harry. Lisl was shuffling the cards and Herr Koch was calculating the scores for the hundredth time. The phone rang unanswered several times, then stopped. ‘Are you expecting a phone call, Bernard?’ enquired Lisl, looking at me closely.