Another Kind of Country (29 page)

Krug recognized the name, remembered Reder telling him of the transplanted Englishman who was vetting his ‘memoirs’, of how Reder thought his daughter was becoming attached to the fellow.
And how Miller’s newspaper contacts in the UK might be useful to their group.

Krug nodded, shook hands with Miller, looked at the pair of porters still standing at attention behind the chest-high desk.

‘And you have no information to help Herr Miller?’

‘No, General, we have not.’

You never knew with these bastards, they just might be telling the truth. Maybe they really didn’t know that Rosa Rossman had been driven at speed out of the city by a thug called Baister.

Krug wasn’t about to make them any the wiser.

‘I wish to speak with Herr Miller,’ Krug said to the porters. ‘I shall require an interview room.’

‘But . . .’ The porters looked at each other, at Krug. He was a general, yes, but of the army and this was highly irregular. ‘General Krug—’

‘
Now
,’ Krug said. He stared hard at them.

The porters bent together over their desk, consulted a diagram.

‘Room 205, General, on the next floor. I’ll take you.’

‘No need.’ Krug nodded, turned to Miller. ‘Come with me.’

A curt nod to Martin sent the driver out to the car.

Miller looked dazed as he walked beside Krug up the broad marble staircase. He’d been scared coming here; now he wondered if he had made things worse for Rosa.

‘Quickly,’ Krug said, ‘we don’t have much time.’

He could hear the phone at the reception desk being picked up, the click of buttons being pressed. Before they even got inside Room 205, Erich Mielke, the head of Stasi, would know that a general of the army was on the premises and throwing his weight about.

Room 205 was a rectangular
windowless room with a metal cupboard in one corner and a small table on which rested a black phone. Two straight-backed chairs with metal legs faced each other across the table.

Krug motioned Miller to one of the chairs while he tried the corner cupboard. Krug wasn’t surprised that it was locked. Maybe it held the chamois cloths that interviewees were said to sit on, depositing their frightened sweat and body smell for future use with hunting dogs. More likely the cupboard housed the recording machines that automatically clicked into gear when an interrogation began.

Or maybe the recording device was in the light switch. Or the leg of the chair. Or hidden behind one of the walls. The location of the bug didn’t matter. You just had to remember that every word spoken in the room was being recorded. Maybe even being listened to as you spoke.

So, proceed with caution. Ascertain if your friend’s daughter is in any peril, if she needs help, if you can give that help. And speak no word that might endanger the group, the very work that Hans Reder is engaged upon right now at Dresden airbase.

He looked at Miller, tensed upright on the chair, overcoat still buttoned, gloves choked in his hands, briefcase on his knees.

‘Would you like to take off your overcoat, Herr Miller?’

Miller shook his head. ‘What does my coat matter? I want to know where Frau Rossman is, General Krug.’

So, the Englishman is enough in control of himself to remember my name.
‘Tell me what happened,’ Krug said. ‘In your own words and,’ he pointed at the walls, at the ceiling, then cupped his hands around both ears, ‘with no unnecessary detail, just what happened, OK?’

Miller looked at the ceiling, at the general. He nodded at Krug. Krug nodded back. At least the Englishman was no fool.

It took only a few minutes, a few
sentences, for Krug to get a picture of what had happened at the Institute of English. He picked up the phone and dialled the porter’s desk.

‘This is General Krug.’ His voice gruff:
don’t fuck with me
. ‘You are sure General Reder’s daughter is not being held here?’

Miller watched him listen, watched him put the phone down.

‘They say she’s not here,’ Krug said.

‘But maybe . . .’ Miller stopped.

‘I know,’ Krug said.
Maybe they’re lying
. Lies were part of the air that everyone breathed in Normannenstrasse.

He picked up the phone again. ‘Is Corporal Baister on duty?’

Papers turning, crackling on the phone. Krug said thank you, put the phone down.

Baister was on duty at 4 p.m., in ten minutes. And Room 205, with all its unseen ears, was not the place to question him.

He stood up, motioned for Miller to come with him. Miller followed him down the stairs, stood beside him at the reception desk as Krug asked which building Baister worked out of.

‘Block Nine,’ he was told.

Krug touched his fingers to his general’s cap while the two porters saluted and clicked their heels.

Martin had the Zil’s engine running, held the rear door open for Krug.

‘Get in,’ he told Miller. To Martin he said, ‘Block Nine, we haven’t much time.’

None of it made sense, Krug thought, as Martin slammed the car door shut behind Miller. Maybe the Stasi didn’t have Rosa Rossman, maybe Baister was playing some freelance game. If so, he was a fool who might not have long to live: by now news of Rosa Rossman and General Leon Krug – not to mention
the Englishman, Miller – would definitely have reached the ears of General Erich Mielke, boss of the Stasi, self-proclaimed ‘sword and shield of the Party’.

‘Pull over to the side of Block Nine,’ Krug told his driver. Pathetic, he told himself: there was no place to hide from the hundreds of Normannenstrasse windows. ‘We’ll have to be quick, Martin,’ Krug said. ‘We have to get to Baister before anyone else does.’

‘Don’t worry, sir.’ Martin drew the Zil to a halt at the corner of Block 9; they sat there waiting, the engine idling, watching the approaches to the complex.

‘There.’ They didn’t need Martin’s pointing finger, they could see and hear the red Trabi chugging towards them across the concrete concourse.

‘Martin.’ Krug laid a hand on the driver’s shoulder. ‘No fuss, nice and quiet.’ The Trabi came to a halt at the rear of the building. There was another man beside Baister in the front. ‘Tell them both that I wish to see them immediately.’

Krug and Miller watched Martin march smartly to the Trabi. The car door was open; they saw Baister look up at Martin, saw him look across at the Zil, saw him shake his head.

Krug lowered his window, his general’s peaked cap and badge framed in the fading day.

Martin’s lips moved again, his right hand pointed at the Zil.

Baister shrugged, turned in the car seat, said something to the other Stasi.

Miller watched, puzzled, frightened, as the two Stasi marched with Martin towards the Zil.

‘I’ll do the talking,’ General Krug said.

Miller nodded.
His throat was too dry
to speak anyway.

October 1989

East German
countryside

She watched Dover watching her. He took an apple from his pocket, bit into it. Despite herself she flinched, as though it were her own flesh that had been sliced by the small white teeth.

Dover caught her movement on the mattress. His pale eyes seemed to dance above the green apple.

‘Don’t worry, baby.’ He chewed noisily. ‘You’ll get your turn, just be patient.’

He moved closer to the bed, stood looking down at her. He’d taken her coat before tying her to the bed and she felt naked under the blue, watery eyes – as though the American could see through her sweater and skirt.

Dover poked a fingernail between his teeth, studied a shred of apple speared on the nail. His jaw worked, searching, chewing, and he spat on the floor.

‘My manners are godawful.’ He shook his head, spat again, between his teeth. ‘You’d never think I’m an Ivy League graduate, would you, darlin’? Whatever I am, it’s all down to you Commie bastards, not to my old high school in Purdue or the hallowed halls of Harvard – bet you’ve heard of Harvard, Fräulein Rosa, haven’t you? Everybody’s heard of Harvard.’

Dover raised his right boot on to the edge of the bed, leaned over her. She could smell him, his animal sweat; she could see a fleck of green apple skin wedged between his upper teeth. She stared up at him, straining against her bonds.
Don’t flinch, look him in the eye.

‘My daddy
was a career soldier, a
decorated
soldier. He survived the war over here,’ Dover poked at her thigh with the toe of his boot, smiled to himself, ‘but he didn’t survive the Commie gooks in Korea. So it was just me and my mom trying to stay alive in Purdue, but I did my best, because that’s what my daddy’d expect of me and what Uncle Sam’d expect of me and Uncle Sam took care of me, sent me off to Harvard on a scholarship and when he came looking for me, wantin’ to know if I’d serve my country in special ops, I didn’t have to think even once about it. ‘Cos the man said ask not what your country can do for you and I was ready and willin’ to do what I could for my country.’ Dover sighed.

Rosa didn’t look down but she felt her skirt being pushed upwards by his boot. She wanted to spit in his mock-sad face but she lay still on the bare mattress, her legs tight together. They were miles from anywhere, enclosed in what was little more than a sealed box in an abandoned farmhouse, but you never knew. Against all odds you survived your first encounter with this American monster on the other side of the world. Stay alive, Rosa told herself, while Dover rattled on in his affected folksy style.

‘I was twenty-five, darlin’, when I went into North Vietnam to do my duty for Uncle Sam – “special ops”, they called it, but what it really meant was stopping Commies, gettin’ rid of gooks. I was good at it, little Frau, and when they needed my help to remove your pinko Allende down there in Chile, I was happy to serve there too. In America we knew it was important to stop that Communist plague spreadin’ north through South America.’ Dover paused, took another bite of the apple, went on talking with his mouth full. ‘I had the bad fortune to get my knees busted down there,’ he spat a chunk of half-chewed apple on to the earthen floor, ‘and you were dumb enough to stop that Commie shit Dieter from killing me – and I told him, lady, you heard me tell him but you just wouldn’t fuckin’ listen, would you? Like all Commie bastards, you knew better, didn’t you?’

Rosa watched in
horror as Dover began to unbuckle the belt of his workman’s trousers.

‘Until then, Fräulein, it was never personal, it was just Herbert Dover against the forces of darkness, you could say. It got personal when my legs got busted – in fuckin’ South America of all places – and that’s why it’s personal now, Fräulein Rossman.’

Dover chomped on the apple. ‘It’s personal with guys like your old man too, Fräulein. It was Commies like the old general who killed my daddy.’ His spittle landed on Rosa’s face and she blinked, turned away.

Dover laughed. ‘You could make it easy on yourself, Fräulein Rossman. Tell me what you know about General Reder. We’re hearing whispers that the old guy is up to something – you know anything about that?’ He took her face between thumb and forefinger, pressed until her mouth opened. ‘You able to tell me anything? Like I said, you could make it easy on yourself.’

Rosa swung her head violently and spat into Dover’s face.

He laughed, wiped his face with his sleeve. ‘Not a good idea, lady, not good at all.’

Dover had both legs planted firmly on the floor beside the bed; his belt hung loosely from the loops of his trousers. He winked at her. ‘It’s almost biblical, isn’t it? You know, Adam and Eve and the apple.’ He rubbed the core of the apple against her clenched lips, then dropped it beside her face on the striped mattress. ‘And the forbidden fruit just waitin’ for old Adam.’

She wanted to
shut her eyes to it, pretend it wasn’t happening, that it was happening to someone else.

Open your eyes. Watch him bend over the mattress – watch him, you never know.

He was standing on one leg, his left leg raised to climb on to the bed.

In that frozen moment she twisted on the mattress, drew her right foot and swung her boot with all the strength she could muster.

She felt her boot smash into his genitals, heard Dover roar, reach instinctively with both hands for his groin. And in that same frozen moment she pulled her right leg back, knee against her belly, and she stabbed hard against him. The heel of her boot crunched against Dover’s balls, his bellow filled the room and she stabbed again but Dover was on the dirt floor by then, groaning now, whimpering below the bed.

She was panting. Spreadeagled on the mattress, her skirt was around her hips.
He’ll kill you
. Fuck him, she told herself. He’ll rape you anyway.

The groaning, the whimpering, diminished. She watched as Dover’s hairless head raised itself beside the bed and she gathered the spit in her mouth and spat into the watery, blue eyes.

Dover grimaced, wiped the spittle from his eyes.

He laughed. ‘Oh, baby, baby.’ His head was close to hers; she could smell cigarettes on his breath. ‘I like a woman with guts, I really do.’

He got to his feet, then lowered himself gingerly to the edge of the bed. She felt his buttock pushing against her hip and she tried to squirm away on the mattress.

Another laugh, the small teeth bared again.

She saw the fist coming, felt his knuckles smash into her face. The pain had hardly begun when the fist hit her again. She felt his fingers in her hair, lifting her head, holding her head steady while he went on slapping her face with his other hand.

When he was done,
breathless, he flung her back against the mattress.

She could taste her own blood and tears leaking into her mouth.
Fuck him. You’re alive. You never know
. She stared at him and tried to force back the tears.

He slapped her face again, but then he moved away, and switched off the light. She heard the sound of the key turning in the lock. She was alone. She could taste blood in her mouth. Her hands were tied.

You’re still alive, she repeated to herself. And it hadn’t been such a long car ride in the Trabi, less than an hour. Berlin was not so distant and surely
somebody
– from her class, from the office – would get in touch with her father. Then she remembered that General Reder would not be back until next day and he had told her not to expect a call that night. She trembled, and not just from the cold air on her bare flesh: she didn’t know when Dover would be back.