Another Kind of Country (14 page)

The general laughed. The years seemed to fall from his face as his features crinkled into laughter and Miller felt he caught a glimpse of the dashing young tank commander who had become a legend among his men.

‘And where d’you think
I
might be going, Herr Miller? D’you think I’d walk away from Rosa, or from the country I helped to build?’

Which was one of the unfathomable puzzles: how did a legendary soldier of the Wehrmacht become a faithful servant of the Soviet command that had overrun his own country?

Miller spread his
hands in the universal gesture of submission. ‘Like I said, General, I’m listening. I don’t know what you want from me but I’m all ears.’

‘Good.’

‘But,’ Miller looked around at the walls, at the ceiling, ‘are you quite sure these walls don’t have ears?’

A chuckle from the general, another crinkling of laughter lines in the withered face.

‘We’re in West Berlin, Herr Miller, West Berlin, where the alleged agents couldn’t tail you across a pedestrian crossing in broad daylight. I think we know more about their intelligence operations than they do themselves. And to crown it all,’ the old eyes twinkled, ‘we’re in the so-called French sector. What a joke – the
French
sector! But it’s more than a joke, it’s an obscenity. The French had fuck all to do with defeating the Wehrmacht – that was mainly the work of the Red Army – and it was an insult to put them in charge of even a side street in our beloved Berlin.’

Nothing was simple in this city: a general condones the capture of his capital by one army while he parades his contempt for another invader.

The general clamped his lips, seemed to swallow his anger.

‘Anyway, these same incompetent Frogs make our job easier here.’

Miller nodded.

‘Only myself and a trusted few know of the existence of this safe house, Herr Miller, but, just to be sure, the premises are swept regularly for surveillance equipment. And don’t forget that,’ the pale eyes narrowed, ‘in the matter of espionage and counter-espionage equipment the GDR is what the Americans call the “market leader”.’

‘I don’t think,’ Miller said, ‘that’s what you want me to tell the
Guardian
.’

General Reder sat
back in his chair, looked wryly at Miller. ‘I should remember my own advice about shooting my mouth off, Herr Miller.’

Miller felt that he was, finally, about to hear what this strange business was all about: from the way General Reder straightened himself in his chair, the way the pale eyes blinked, the way the scrawny Adam’s apple bobbed in its turkey neck as the general swallowed, caught his breath, prepared to speak.

‘These demonstrations that are tearing our country apart at the seams – the principal agitators behind it all are the Americans.’

Miller stared, tried not to smile.
The candle-lighting thousands were being organized by the Americans?

‘I can see that you are sceptical, Herr Miller, but nevertheless it’s true, the Americans are trying to undermine the GDR.’

‘But, General,’ –
careful what you say to this general, maybe the old boy is losing it
– ‘the Americans have been trying to get rid of the GDR for the last forty years.’

‘Do you take me for a simpleton, Herr Miller?’ The pale eyes flashed – with amusement, with anger? ‘What’s happening on our streets now is different. Comrade Honecker is vulnerable, the entire Party leadership is indecisive, many of them are cowed by the crowds in the streets and the flood of people streaming through the open border with Hungary and on to Austria. No one knows if even the army would obey orders.’

The general’s words posed a picture: rifles trained on demonstrators, the barked command to ‘Fire!’

Miller was uneasy. ‘General Reder, I’m a pen-pushing civil servant, I’m not sure I should be—’

The general’s closed fist pounded on the table. The table shook. The mugs wobbled. The coffee
spilled. Miller wondered if the general would be needing his little bottle of pills.

‘Do you think I’m an idiot?’ The voice low – and this time the general was using ‘
du
’, not the formal ‘
Sie
’. It was the term you used to address intimates and children – and inferiors. ‘I’ve already told you that I know about your fucking pissant operations for Redgrave, your bits of paper, your silly drops and pickups. I don’t treat you as a clown, Miller, so kindly allow me the same courtesy.’

Now the general produced his little bottle of tablets, swallowed two of them with a mouthful of cold coffee. ‘Fucking doctors,’ he said. ‘Fucking tablets.’ He glared at Miller. ‘I’ve got cancer of the fucking thyroid.’ The glare turned to a grin. ‘And don’t tell me you’re fucking sorry.’

‘I wasn’t fucking going to.’

Laughter, shared. A bridge, crossed.

‘Tell me, General, about these American agitators and what it is you think I can do.’

For over half an hour General Reder talked and Patrick Miller listened. And the more he listened, the more puzzled Miller became.

The more General Reder spoke, the less he seemed to say.

There were American agitators at work in all the cities of the GDR, especially in Leipzig and Berlin, in Rostock and Karl-Marx Stadt. The Americans and the British were intent on the destruction of the East German state. The West Germans in their toytown capital of Bonn were waiting and watching to pounce, to swallow the GDR into their capitalist craw.

None of which – apart from the claim about American agitators – was news to Miller.

‘The Americans aren’t that stupid or provocative, General.’

‘Three nights ago a demonstrator in Leipzig was picked up by the police. A hospital porter, his
papers said, a resident of Zwickau, name of Kurt Kellerman. His papers looked good but it took only a few minutes and a couple of phone calls for the police in Zwickau to establish that the real Kurt Kellerman was at home watching television with his wife and kids.’

Miller said nothing.

‘The fellow’s bluffing didn’t last long.’ The general shrugged. ‘The Stasi have their ways. The fellow was an American agent.’

Miller wanted to say it’s the way of the world –
what else would you expect?
– but it would be unwise to speak in this way to a GDR general, even a retired one like General Reder.

The general went on, ‘There are at least seven such American agitators in different police cells across the country. All of them here illegally with false papers. All of them have admitted that.’

‘Stasi methods?’

The general sipped his cold coffee, made a face. ‘
Clever
methods,’ he said. ‘Not a finger was laid on any of them – orders from the very top. None of these Americans will have grounds for any complaint if . . .’ He shrugged. ‘You know what I mean.’

It took Miller a moment to work it out:
if Stasi officers are answerable to the West Germans and their American paymasters in the near future
.

‘It hardly seems possible,’ Miller said. ‘We’re sitting here with cold coffee somewhere in West Berlin and – you said it yourself, General – the Wessies don’t even know we’re here. It’s hard to believe that – that—’

‘You don’t even want to say it, Herr Miller – that our country might disappear, just get wiped off the map as if it never existed.’ General Reder stood up, busied himself with the coffee-maker. ‘Rosa and the doctors tell me I drink too much coffee but who gives a fuck about coffee when this is where we are?’

Miller stood, rinsed out their mugs, dried them for the fresh coffee. Where would he
stand if this unthinkable new world came to pass? How could a decoy – a
dupe
– survive in such a world? And why would he want to?

The general seemed to read his mind.

‘You no longer have a British passport, Herr Miller?’

‘You know I don’t.’

‘Be wise, get one.’

‘Easier said than done.’ When his passport had run out, Hartheim had wondered aloud why a loyal servant of the GDR would not choose to apply for citizenship; Redgrave had not wondered, just ordered him to get GDR papers.

The general was still inside his head. ‘Tell Redgrave to go fuck himself.’

‘Easier said than done,’ Miller said again.

‘Redgrave fucks a fifteen-year-old once a week in a flat in North London.’ The general paused. ‘A fifteen-year-old
boy
.’ Another pause. ‘I can give you photos.’

How much does General Reder know about Redgrave and me? About the gloomy, shining house on the edge of Wolverhampton?

‘General Reder,’ he said. ‘I’d prefer to be able to go on using my GDR passport.’

‘Then help us, write something for your
Guardian
newspaper.’

‘You overestimate my importance, General, I’ve told you that. Once upon a time my byline meant something; now I’m just the weirdo who went to live in East Berlin and writes occasional pieces from behind the Wall.’

‘So write one of your occasional pieces, that’s all I’m asking.’

Miller poured fresh coffee for them both, glanced towards the closed door: ‘A cup for the driver?’

‘He has his own flask.’ There are times, the general’s look seemed to say, when it’s good for a man to sit in the dark in a curtained car, waiting.

‘Look, General, if I write that seven
American spies are in custody and have confessed to spying, then you’ll see it on the front page of most newspapers in Britain and elsewhere. But how did I come by this information? I work for the Secretariat for Socialist Correctness, remember? And what’s my Director going to say about one of his staff producing stuff like that?’

General Reder snorted. ‘Hartheim is an idiot,’ he said, ‘but that’s not what I want you to do.’

Once more the general seemed to gather himself.

Once more Miller thought: now we’re getting to the point.

‘In the next twelve months,’ the general began, ‘maybe even sooner, the GDR is going to come under almost unbearable pressure, from within and without. Reagan and his American warmongers want to see the back of us; Gorbachev in Moscow has lost his balls and wants to lie down like a castrated tomcat with his new American partners. And inside, here at home, we have these idiots demonstrating for what they see as future independence.’ He paused, sipped his coffee. ‘Independence is what we need. Independence to be ourselves, to govern ourselves.’

Miller thought: I don’t want to hear this stuff, this treason. And yet . . .

Aloud he said, ‘Maybe if the demonstrators were to hear these words . . .’ He shrugged, wondered if he had gone too far.

‘You think they’d listen? These insufferable zealots with their slogans and their candles? They want to sell their country for a few bunches of bananas and a pair of American jeans.’

‘But,’ Miller hesitated, ‘if the Council of Ministers were to promise them elections and independence . . .’ He left it there, sure he had overstepped a boundary.

‘Our leaders, Herr Miller, don’t want true independence. To stand on our own two feet would be too demanding for them, too painful. Maybe even
too poverty-stricken. Our leaders will sign our own death warrant because they’re the same as the crowds fleeing through Hungary and parading on the streets. Our leaders are also seduced by the bananas, Herr Miller.’

‘Erich Honecker has declared that the Wall will last for a hundred years.’

‘Maybe he believes it but Honecker is too old and he no longer has the backing of Moscow.’

This is madness: the Wall is solid in the near darkness, the soldiers and border guards stand ready at the checkpoints.

The general pushed on. ‘The GDR will live on for a year or so but we need to be ready for independence when it comes. Otherwise this country will disappear. We are a socialist state, a socialist people – it’s the way we’ve lived since the war. But we can make it a
better
socialist state, a truly
democratic
state, if the Americans and the Russkis leave us alone.
And
the Wessis. Otherwise they’ll gut us, carve us up like a corpse and steal the bits they want.’

‘Steal what?’

‘This is a rich country, Herr Miller.’ Anger now in the hoarse voice. ‘We have natural resources, great industries, magnificent buildings. The vultures will come in and feast on it all, steal it all. And,’ a shake of the hairless head, ‘many of our leaders want to get their own snouts in this trough of plenty.’

‘You’re saying,’ Miller’s voice almost a whisper, ‘that some of our leaders want to see the collapse of the GDR?’

‘That’s what I’m saying, Herr Miller.’

Madness.

But Miller believed him. Eight years in this crazy country taught you that anything was possible. ‘I’d be on my way to Sachsenhausen if I wrote stuff like that, General.’

‘I don’t want you to write that. Write a piece pleading for the GDR to be allowed to go
its own way if change comes. What we need to do is start a debate, mobilize public opinion. Your paper carries no torch for Moscow but it’s a good place to promote the idea of real freedom, of the right of a people to shape their own destiny.’ He stopped, looked questioningly at Miller. ‘You find this amusing?’

‘Not at all, General, I was just thinking that there’s a lot more to you than a wartime commander and a leader of soldiers.’

‘I came up the hard way, Herr Miller,’ another pause, eyes staring into Miller’s, ‘unlike some people.’

Their separate pasts hung between them like another wall above the small table.

‘Whatever our past,’ Miller said, ‘right now we’re both on the same side.’

A dismissive raised eyebrow. ‘That’s why you’re here, Herr Miller.’

‘And,’ Miller had delayed asking the question, ‘the Wall, General, and Honecker’s “hundred years”?’

‘Herr Miller,’ the voice weary, ‘surely you realize that what we’ve been talking about is a GDR without a Wall, a GDR that people are happy to stay in because it’s free and democratic?’

It was tantalizing, this image of just another country with ordinary borders and ordinary crossing points.

‘I’ll write all this up as best I can, General, but the byline will have to be “A Special Correspondent”. Even then . . .’ Miller shrugged.