Another Kind of Country (31 page)

‘So,’ he said
again, ‘what’s our decision?’

‘We go.’ Rexin stubbed out his cigarette. ‘There’s no turning back.’ He raised his hand and, one by one, every man around the table followed suit.

‘We need to set a final date.’ Again Reder’s words drew them back to what they were about.

The timing had been discussed at length and in detail between them, but events were moving quicker than they thought and they had to move. Nothing could be done unless it was done together: the seizure of barracks across the land, of television and radio stations, of the national newspaper
Neues Deutschland
. Above all, the need to overpower and control the Stasi HQ in Berlin and the entire network of Stasi provincial stations. The need to avoid bloodshed had been agreed yet all of them knew that blood might have to be spilled – and some of it might be their own. Every man present knew that, at all levels from battalion through regimental to divisional, there was no shortage of officers whose loyalty to the Politburo was unshakeable, and these men would oppose any action that they saw as treasonable.

‘Tomorrow,’ Reder said, ‘is November the first.’

‘We need a week,’ General Filmer said. ‘Better still, ten days.’

‘In ten days’ time it will be November the eleventh.’ They all looked at Rexin.

Another 11 November
had been a day of shame for Germany, in 1918, when Allied troops had inflicted a humiliating peace on the German people.

There seemed a rightness about the date. Reder could sense it, watching the men round the table.

‘We’re agreed, then,’ he said. ‘We move on November the eleventh.’

Rexin spoke for all of them when he said, ‘A new beginning on an old date.’

The meeting began to break up. They said their goodbyes with the solemnity of men on the eve of battle. They shook hands in the knowledge that they would not meet again until after the battle had been fought. And they slapped shoulders and casually saluted one another with the mock joshing of military men who knew that not all of them might live to meet another day.

They left the basement quietly. It was unlikely that their gathering on the airbase had gone completely unnoticed but, still, there was no point in drawing attention to themselves. Their cars were parked at different points around the base; they’d made their own sandwiches and coffee in the small kitchen off the planning room.

Each man’s last farewell was to Reder. He’d picked them, drawn them together, inspired them with his vision of a socialism that set people free to serve themselves and others out of a sense of justice.

Reder watched each man go with both pride and foreboding. These were men who were ready to trade their own privilege and status for the sake of a common good. He imagined them in their cars, a couple of them with trusted drivers, journeying through the night-time land to homes and families, burdened with their secret, burdened too with the demands of final preparation for 11 November. He was glad that Dieter was hanging back to speak privately to him.

‘Let’s clean
up,’ Dieter said.

Reder smiled. Dieter couldn’t have survived in the maw of the KGB without such attentiveness to detail.

Together they carried mugs and plates to the kitchen. Dieter washed, Reder dried.

‘I wonder,’ Dieter said, placing a mug on the draining board, ‘if General Mielke will have to prepare his own breakfast now.’

They laughed together. Erich Mielke’s meticulously presented breakfast tray was well-known in senior military circles: every item – cup, plate, pot, egg, bread, butter and jam – precisely positioned on the tray which must be perfectly aligned with the corner of his Stasi desk.

‘Soon,’ Reder said, ‘no man will wait on another man in this country.’

‘If only, Hans.’ Dieter was putting the crockery away in the cupboard above the sink. ‘If only.’

‘I know, Dieter, but we have to try anyway.’

‘Maybe this is a start – an East German general and a colonel of the KGB doing the washing-up.’

There was shared warmth in their laughter.

They put their coats on, checked one last time that the planning room held no trace of their meeting. Reder put the lights out, shut the door behind them. They climbed the stone steps, walked a corridor of locked-up offices and stepped out into the night.

Dresden military airfield was quiet. There was light in the control tower; windows were lit up too in the billets at the southern end of the base. But the hangar to the west was dark and only two twin-engined planes rested on the tarmac.

‘Gorbachev
has already ordered most of the air force back to Moscow,’ Reder said.

‘And more to follow.’ Dieter held the cigarette pack out but Reder shook his head. ‘This fucking cancer,’ he said. ‘And Rosa is like a fox, she’d smell it on me.’

Dieter’s face was tired, lined, in the glow of the match. He laughed. ‘You’re scared of your daughter.’

‘There’s no harm in being scared of
somebody
.’

‘Will you send Rosa away?’ Dieter asked.

Reder shook his head. ‘She’d refuse anyway.’

‘But it might get bloody – these Stasi fuckers won’t just lie down.’

‘I know that but,’ Reder shrugged, ‘it’s her country too.’

‘Not for long if Kohl and the Brits and the Americans have their way.’

‘Fuck them.’ Reder took the lighted cigarette from Dieter’s fingers and sucked heavily on it. He exhaled noisily, gratefully, the blue smoke drifting above their heads. ‘Why can’t they just leave people alone, let people try to find their own way of doing things?’

‘Still, we can’t blame folk for wanting the things they see on Wessie television every night – cars and shop windows full of jeans and gear and,’ Dieter laughed, ‘sex.’

‘We need
time
,’ Reder said. ‘After the eleventh, we need time to show our people that it’s possible to run our own country fairly, without the Stasi, without the informers.’

He reached for the cigarette again but Dieter laughed, pulled his hand away. ‘C’mon,’ he said, ‘
some
dangerous things make sense.’

‘Doctors,’ Reder growled, ‘fucking thyroid glands.’

Dieter dropped the cigarette, stood on it. ‘Think of Rosa.’

Reder nodded. ‘You’re right – and I’m going to drive back now. I’ve been offered a bunk here but I want to get home.’ He looked around him, at the starry sky, like a sailor considering the waves. ‘What about you?’

‘I’ll go
with you,’ Dieter said, ‘if you have no objections.’

‘Of course not.’

‘I’m not expected back in Moscow for a few days,’ Dieter said. ‘I hopped a number of military flights to get here, the last leg was from Prague this morning – but you know that.’ He drew the collar of his leather coat tighter around his neck, stared past Reder into the night. ‘I want to be here when it all happens, Hans. This once I want to be there when we make it go right for the side that is right.’ He laid a hand on Reder’s shoulder. ‘They hunted us out of Chile as if we were the criminals, Hans. I’ve never forgotten that.’

‘This isn’t Chile, Dieter.’ Reder spoke mildly. ‘These are some of our own people we’re trying to get rid of.’

‘All we want to do is replace them, isn’t that what we’re planning, not to get rid of them? Moscow will let the Germans get on with it but we have to convince the Americans and the rest of them to let us try it our way.’

‘I’m just an old soldier, Dieter,’ Reder said. ‘You’re the thinker and the speech-maker.’

Dieter laughed.

‘Just don’t practise any speeches on the journey.’ Hans turned away. ‘C’mon, the car is around the corner.’

‘One other thing, Hans.’

Something in Dieter’s tone stopped him, made him turn round.

‘Yes?’

‘That fucking Wall has to come down.’

Reder nodded. ‘I’ll take a pick to it myself,’ he said.

October 1989

Charity
Hospital

Mitte, East Berlin

The young doctor was having none of it. ‘You’ll have to wait your turn,’ he said. ‘Look around you.’

Even the floor in the cavernous waiting room of the emergency department was occupied by the broken and the bleeding. The drunks were there, of course, snoring, hawking, talking to themselves, but so were the ordinary damaged and bruised of East Berlin.

‘You know there was a march,’ the doctor was saying. He looked squarely at Krug, at his general’s uniform, his braided insignia. ‘But,’ he shook his head, ‘we’ve never had casualties like this after a protest march.’

Panic, Krug thought. Mielke’s gone so the leaderless Stasi beat heads, smash limbs – and maybe the Vopos join in.

‘I don’t need to see a doctor, General Krug.’ Rosa was leaning on Miller’s shoulder, his coat buttoned across her torn clothing. ‘Really, I’m OK, these people need help more than me.’

A grey-haired nurse pushed past, turned her head long enough to glare at the young doctor. ‘Are you going to stitch that boy’s head or just leave him in there dripping blood?’

‘On my way.’

Krug reached out
a restraining hand but the doctor was already gone.

‘What’s the trouble here?’ Another doctor, older, balding, a trace of blood on the sleeve of his white coat.

Krug started to explain.

‘Please.’ Rosa laid a hand on Krug’s arm. ‘I just want to get home and – and clean myself.’

The doctor looked at her, tucked his tie between the buttons of his shirt front. ‘You’ve been assaulted and – may I?’ he opened the front of the coat, folded it again across her body. ‘Come with me.’ He took her elbow, looked back at Krug and Miller. ‘It’s not a good idea to wait there,’ he said quietly. ‘Uniforms aren’t very popular in here.’

Miller was suddenly conscious of the space that had opened about them in the waiting room, of the hostile eyes watching them from all sides. He caught Krug’s eye; they followed Rosa and the doctor along a corridor with green walls and matching floors and the smell of disinfectant.

They sat on stools with metal legs in a small room at the end of the corridor. From behind a curtain came the murmur of the doctor’s voice, the higher pitch of Rosa’s. A lot of ‘Here?’ from the doctor, ‘Yes, yes, a little’ from Rosa.

It didn’t take long. The curtain swished, Rosa stood there still wrapped in Miller’s coat. She thanked the doctor and he nodded stiffly before hurrying away in the direction of the waiting room.

‘Let’s go home now.’ Rosa’s voice seemed to come from a far distance.

‘But are you OK?’ Krug sounded sceptical.

‘I’m bruised, a bit sore.’ She took Miller’s hand. ‘I just need a bath and clean clothes and some coffee.’

‘You’re sure?’ Miller put his arm around her.

‘Patrick, look at these people.’ They were edging their way through the crowded waiting area. ‘These are the people who need help.’

She didn’t know
if she really meant it but looking at the mass of sick and wounded and drunken helped to blot out the memory of Dover bending over her. Rosa knew that when they got home she’d have to tell General Krug what had happened. She didn’t want to think about that either.

Martin had the car parked not far from the hospital entrance. They were almost there when a marked Vopo van drew to a screeching halt beside them.

Krug looked at the pair of uniformed Vopos who stepped out of the van. Watched them adjust their caps, their belts. Saw the nervousness in their white faces, in the way they twirled truncheons.

‘You’re going into the hospital?’

Instinctively they stood to attention before his general’s uniform.

‘Sir, there was trouble in the streets.’ The taller one had sergeant’s stripes but he was having trouble with his words. ‘We’re ordered to arrest any – any
troublemakers
who have gone into the hospital . . .’ He tried to say more but no words issued.

‘There are no troublemakers in the hospital,’ Krug said.

The sergeant’s Adam’s apple bobbed a couple of times. ‘But, sir.’ He looked at the other Vopo, at Krug.

‘Sergeant, go in there and both of you might get lynched.’

The sergeant’s face grew whiter. ‘Our orders, sir—’

‘Sergeant, I’m not your commanding officer but suppose I confirm for you that there are no “troublemakers” taking refuge in the Charity Hospital, will that suffice? You heard it from General Leon Krug of the National Volksarmee, OK?’ And for good measure Krug repeated his name slowly.

‘Thank you, sir.’

Even Rosa smiled as the
two Vopos got back into their van and drove off.

‘That was kind, General Krug,’ she said.

‘Somehow,’ Krug said, ‘all of us in this country must learn how to be kind to one another again.’ He looked at Rosa, at the way she leaned into Miller’s shoulder. Maybe, he thought, for my generation it’s too late to learn kindness but perhaps we can save these younger ones from repeating our mistakes. First, we have to save a country for them.

‘Let’s get you home,’ Krug said.

‘WILLKOMMEN’ on the bristle-backed floormat was facing the apartment door so Dover knew it was safe to enter. He tapped gently, three times, so Redgrave wouldn’t be tempted to do something stupid when he heard the key in the lock.

He didn’t have to use his key. The door swung open and Redgrave stood there looking at him with a schoolmasterly frown on his thin features.

Dover breezed past him, pulled the door shut. He was in a hurry. He’d spent half the afternoon and much of the evening waiting for two contacts who had to be paid for their enthusiastic roles in protest demonstrations; he’d come back to the apartment in Köpenick only because he and Redgrave had agreed to compare activities every other evening. Herbert Dover wasn’t in the mood for updates with Redgrave. He was in the mood to renew his acquaintance with little Miss Rosa.

Redgrave’s cheap East German holdall was resting on a kitchen chair beside the table. The holdall was zipped shut.

‘Going somewhere?’

‘I should be gone. I waited only to warn you.’ Redgrave was at his most imperious, his British inflexions most emphatically inflected. ‘Heaven knows what you think you’re doing, Dover. You and your,’ Redgrave made a face, ‘
appetites
have jeopardized our entire mission here.’