Another Kind of Country (33 page)

‘There’s something else,’ Miller said.

The others looked at him, waited.

‘This man, Dover – Rosa and I saw him with an Englishman on the night of the jubilee parade. The two of them seemed to be giving orders to a couple of Vopos.’ He stopped. Rosa nodded: go ahead.

‘An Englishman?’ Dieter asked. ‘They were speaking English to a pair of Vopos?’

Miller shook his head. ‘They were speaking German. I know he’s English because—’
what did it matter? He’d told Rosa and the general already knew
. Still, it was difficult to come out with it – ‘because I deliver messages for him.’ He looked at Rosa. ‘In West Berlin.’ He looked at Dieter. ‘His name is Redgrave.’

Dieter’s fine, almost invisible eyebrows arched above the hollow eyes. ‘Herr Miller, what an interesting fellow you are turning out to be! An Englishman in the home of General Reder – and you deliver messages for a certain
Mr Redgrave, who is not unknown to me and my colleagues.’ The words spoken lightly but Miller thought he could detect an edge of menace to Dieter’s voice.

‘It’s nothing, Dieter.’ General Reder sounded hoarse. ‘Herr Miller is also probably known to you—’ a bout of wheezy coughing, ‘it’s low-key stuff but the papers must have crossed your desk somewhere along the line although you might know Herr Miller under the name of Janus.’

Dieter nodded, warmth in the smile now. ‘I have seen the name,’ he said. ‘It is good to know you, Janus.’

Miller glared at the Russian.
Janus
: so that’s what he was called east of the Wall. Janus, the two-headed god of Roman gates and doorways, one head facing east while the other looks west.
It’s how you are seen, a fool who’s so busy looking both ways that he observes nothing – someone who doesn’t know if he’s coming or going.

Miller was angry. He could imagine the jokes made about him and the meaningless messages he carried. He told himself that at least he’d had his suspicions confirmed, that all along he’d been no more than a decoy, a diversion from others on both sides who waged their cold – and deadly – war.

‘This amuses you?’ he asked Dieter.

Dieter shrugged. ‘War is not amusing, not even a cold war, Janus.’

‘Patrick!’ Fury in Miller’s voice.

‘I apologize, Herr Miller.’

‘
Patrick!
’ Miller took a deep breath. ‘Patrick is fine.’

‘Patrick.’ Dieter held out his hand. ‘Shall we shake on that?’

Why not, Miller thought, at least now you know. Dieter’s hand in his was warm and strong.

Miller felt Rosa’s eyes on them, saw her shake her head.

‘Men,’ she said. ‘Children!’

‘I’m inclined to agree with my daughter,’
General Reder said. ‘Herr Miller, you are owed an explanation and you shall have it – at least as much as I and,’ he waited for Dieter’s nod of assent, ‘Dieter here are able to give you. But first we have other pressing matters to consider, agreed? We have work to do.’

‘Agreed, Hans,’ Dieter said, ‘but we should ask Patrick if he wishes to be here. What we are about is dangerous and it is up to Patrick to decide if he wishes to be part of it.’

‘I’m here,’ Miller said, ‘and,’ he looked at Rosa, ‘I don’t want to be anywhere else.’

His words silenced them. From the garden came the sound of birds, or maybe just the same optimistic fellow warbling away against the arrival of November. For a moment all four of them in the kitchen listened to the winter song. Then, drowning the song, came the rumble of heavy machinery on the road beyond the garden. The rumbling rolled on, trucks, maybe caterpillar tracks, growling their way north.

‘They must be sending reinforcements to Wandlitz.’ Dieter’s voice a whisper. ‘With Mielke and Honecker gone, the rest of them will be shivering up there in their luxury villas.’

Wandlitz
. Like the rest of the GDR, Miller knew of the fabled compound where the members of the Politburo and the rest of the Party elite were said to live in Western luxury with guards at the gates; like most of the GDR, Miller had never been inside those guarded gates.

‘They
should
be scared,’ General Reder said, ‘locking themselves away behind fences, away from the people.’ He shook his head. ‘Is it any wonder our country is fighting for its life?’

Rosa tut-tutted loudly, theatrically. ‘Papa!’ Her voice mocking. ‘So much talk!’ Her words softened by her smile. ‘And they say women . . .’

She left the rest unsaid, got up from the table.

‘I’m going to get dressed,’ she went
on. ‘In the meantime maybe one of my trio of heroes,’ another dazzling smile, ‘could manage to make a fresh pot of coffee.’

The men looked at one another, listening to Rosa’s footsteps padding on the stairs.

‘Rosa is right.’ General Reder drew a tired hand across his furrowed forehead. ‘The time for talking is past.’

‘It was past long before now,’ Dieter said.

‘Not quite.’ General Reder and Dieter looked quizzically at Miller. ‘Could somebody,’ Miller went on, ‘please explain to me what’s going on and what the hell I’m doing here.’

Dieter stood
up, nodded to the general. ‘I’ll make the coffee, as your daughter commanded,’ the faintest of smiles on the ascetic face, ‘while you fill Herr Miller in.’

Wednesday, 1 November 1989

East Berlin

General Reder began by reminding
Miller – and possibly himself – that the German Democratic Republic had just celebrated its fortieth birthday.

‘Which was no small achievement, Herr Miller.’ A hint of fire in the old soldier’s voice, in the faded blue eyes. ‘This was a country born out of the ruins of war, and it wasn’t even a Germany created by Germans. Nobody dared to say so – even now it’s unwise to say so – but this country, this
Germany
, was the creation of our enemy, of the very people who conquered us.’

The general was staring out of the kitchen window but Miller was certain that Reder’s eyes saw nothing of the winter garden, that his gaze was fixed upon another time, another place.

‘They conquered us and raped us and robbed us of anything of value that was left in this ruined land of ours.’ The voice mild, as though Reder were describing how a neighbour had borrowed some garden tools. ‘And when they had left us with nothing, they taught us a better way.’ The pale blue eyes shifted, blinked, saw Miller sitting in the kitchen. ‘There are flaws and weaknesses in a people’s democracy, Herr Miller, corruption too, but it’s still a better way than
the way that gave us fascism, brutes like Hitler, thugs like Thatcher and Reagan and all the rest of them in their palaces while ordinary people are deluded into thinking that their miserable lives are somehow founded upon personal freedom.’ The general laughed.

‘Listen to me, I sound like some puffed-up politician! And yet I believe in our country. Of course the Soviets wanted a bulwark here as a buffer against the Americans and their satellites but they did give us a different plan, another way of doing things – another kind of country.’ General Reder shook his head, snorted like a horse.

‘And we fucked it up, Herr Miller, which is why it’s pretty doubtful that this country of ours will be around for another forty years. We have hospitals and schools and universities that are the equal of any in the world, we have jobs for everybody, we,’ he licked his thin lips, ‘we had it all and those bastards in the Politburo . . .’ The mildness had gone:
he’ll have a heart attack
, Miller thought. Rosa will come back into the kitchen and hate me for causing her father’s death. ‘They’re no better than the scum who run the capitalist countries of the West.’ General Reder was striving for calm. ‘They steal from the people, set themselves apart, force our people to spy on one another—’

‘Hans.’

Miller had forgotten that Dieter was still in the room.

Dieter smiled at Reder. ‘Perhaps Herr Miller does not need to hear all this political philosophy.’

‘It’s OK.’ Miller looked at Dieter. ‘You
can
trust me.’

‘And who can our people trust now?’ Reder’s voice was quiet again, his anger faded like the blue eyes. ‘Mielke is gone, Honecker is gone and both of them no loss. Who can the people turn to? They’re still looking West, hankering for the trinkets of the West – and who can blame them?’ He looked at Miller as though expecting an answer.

A
time not to answer, Miller thought.

‘We have to show the people that there
is
another way.’ Reder spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘But why should they believe us if we tell them that a people’s republic – a people’s
democracy
– can work if we stick to the principles of socialism? There isn’t much principle on display in Wandlitz – a compound hidden behind barbed wire and guarded by soldiers with rifles.’

Dieter stood up, went round the table to stand beside Reder’s chair.

‘Hans.’ He laid a hand on Reder’s shoulder. ‘Have a care.’

‘I told you.’ Miller could hear the tension in his own voice. ‘You don’t have to worry about me.’

‘Herr Miller knows anyway, Dieter.’ Reder smiled. ‘Don’t you, Herr Miller?’

Miller nodded.
A coup, you’re planning a coup. And God help me, I don’t condemn you
.

He said nothing.

‘See?’ Reder looked up at Dieter. ‘Herr Miller is no fool. He knows but he says nothing.’ He smiled now at Miller. ‘Yes?’

‘Yes,’ Miller said.
And so much for my
Guardian-
fed principles: a fucking coup
.

‘When?’ Miller asked.

‘When the time is right,’ Reder said.

Miller nodded.
Soon
.

‘What can I do, General?’

‘What you
can
do, Herr Miller: write. As I asked you to before.’

Miller almost blushed at the implicit accusation: you haven’t written what I asked.

‘Use your contacts in your old newspaper. Tell the world that this country is under siege, that Thatcher and the
rest of her gang are set upon bringing us to our knees, on wiping out our way of life. And they’re in it for what they can steal from us – our streets, our old palaces, our universities, even our trains and our factories. They’ll take them over, charge us for using what is ours to begin with – and there are plenty of thieves right here ready to help them with the stealing.’

‘Like Hartheim fiddling with our book contracts,’ Miller said.

Reder snorted. ‘Hartheim is just a petty thief! Who cares about stealing a few books? You have to think big, Herr Miller. Beyond our borders there are capitalists ready to seize our railroads, our harbours, our airports. They’ll seize our streets, our hospitals, our apartment blocks.’ Reder seemed to slump in his chair. ‘It’s all about money, Herr Miller, and some of our own people want to get their snouts in the trough along with the capitalist pigs. They’re everywhere, in the army, in the police, in the Politburo.’ He paused. ‘Even in the Stasi.’

Silence settled over the kitchen table. The three men avoided looking at one another, as though afraid they might see in the other faces the carcass of a country dismembered.

Miller broke the silence. ‘I’ll write as best I can but I don’t see how my words can help much. I mean, words in a newspaper?’

‘We have to use whatever weapons are to hand.’ Dieter’s ascetic features seemed more monk-like than ever. ‘Sometimes the pen is mightier than the AK47.’

‘And it’s not just
your
words, Herr Miller.’ The general drew himself upright in his chair. ‘We have friends in France, in Bonn, in Italy and Spain, friends in newspapers, on radio and television. When the time is right, they will plead our case, ask the people of their own countries to leave us alone while we sort out our affairs.’

‘And the Soviet Union? Gorbachev?’

‘Gorbachev,’ Dieter said, ‘has washed his
hands of us. Which means the Soviet army will stay in their German barracks.’

‘I have to ask,’ Miller bit his lip, ‘who are “we”?’

Reder and Dieter looked at each other.

‘We are a small group from many fields,’ Reder said. ‘Small but not without influence. We have access to weapons and to power and we love this country.’

‘And we have a plan,’ Dieter added.

Miller looked into the garden, saw the winter trees, heard the song of the tireless bird. He looked at Reder, at Dieter, saw the marks of war in their furrowed faces, caught the whiff of gun smoke above the kitchen table.
This is your life now: that garden, this kitchen, these men. This country
.

‘Why are you telling me all this?’ he asked.

‘I’ve known you since before you set foot in East Berlin.’ Reder was staring at Miller. ‘I was still serving then, heading up army intelligence. I knew you were on your way to Berlin even before the Stasi did.’

‘You
knew
I was being sent here?’ For a moment Miller was listening to Redgrave and Shearing laying out his future in that lunchtime pub in Putney, their voices rich with the menace of power. ‘But how?’

‘It was our business to know what British intelligence was up to, Herr Miller. And where Redgrave was concerned,’ Reder made a face, ‘well, it was never too difficult to find out what he was planning.’ He turned to Dieter. ‘Was it, Dieter?’

‘Redgrave is not a serious opponent.’ Dieter waved a dismissive hand. ‘Sometimes we knew what Redgrave was going to do even before he knew himself.’

Miller looked at the two men, listened to their shared chuckling.

‘I’m
glad you find it amusing, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Having a giggle at my life.’

‘Not you,’ Reder said. ‘Redgrave. It’s hard not to be amused by his so-called intelligence activities.’

‘In which I played – am playing – some part that I still don’t understand.’ Miller was not amused. ‘Maybe you can enlighten me.’

‘Redgrave thought he was pulling off a great coup by sending you into East Germany,’ Reder began. ‘An avowed socialist-leaning journalist heads into the badlands behind the Iron Curtain and is welcomed, even celebrated, like others before him. Like the American singer, Dean Reed. Like Paul Robeson, the star of
Porgy and Bess
and a real black Othello, choosing life in our socialist country over the riches of the capitalist West. The trouble was,’ Reder’s smile was rueful, ‘the bureaucrats got hold of you and slung you into an office.’