Another Kind of Country (44 page)

‘I owe you my life, Dieter,’ Rosa said.

‘You owe me nothing, Rosa.’ He looked at Miller. ‘Be happy, you two,’ he said. ‘Look after each other.’

‘Time to go, Dieter, unless you want to walk to Moscow.’ The brusqueness of his words could not conceal the emotion Reder was feeling. He turned to Miller. ‘You’ll go to Pankow with Rosa, Patrick?’

‘Of course, General.’

‘No more “General”, Patrick.’ Reder grimaced. ‘Back to “Major” now.’

Miller looked puzzled. ‘I don’t understand.’

Reder shook his hand, couldn’t speak for a moment. The look he gave Dieter was hurt, wounded.

‘Please, Dieter, you explain it,’ Reder said.

‘Your new masters in Bonn,’ Dieter said, ‘have outlawed the use of all titles and ranks from the National Army of the GDR.’

‘Our army is being disbanded,’ Reder said. ‘We are not fit to serve.’ He couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice.

‘Why “Major”?’ Miller asked.

Reder snorted. ‘It was my rank in
Hitler’s army.’

‘You mean—’

‘Yes, Patrick, titles from Hitler’s army are allowed but ours are “repugnant” – or something – to the Chancellor of the Federal Republic.’

‘I’m sorry, General.’ Even to Miller’s own ears his words sounded limp.

Rosa kissed her father on the cheek. ‘You’ll always be my general, Papa.’

‘And mine.’ Dieter smiled. ‘And Colonel Kulakov would say the same.’

Kulakov: a name from the wartime snow, from Rosa’s story of Reder’s survival and conversion. Miller shivered as though he were caught up in that horror.

And Reder saw him tremble, allowed himself a smile. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘it was a time of madness, Patrick, a time when you wondered if you’d survive for just the next few minutes. I said yes to Colonel Kulakov simply to stay alive, that’s true, but in time I came to understand our own madness, the Führer’s madness, and I came to believe in what we were trying to do in the GDR. We got it wrong,’ Reder went on, ‘but I’m not convinced that our new masters have made our world any better.’ He stopped, a spasm of pain shuddering across his lined face.

He eased Rosa’s hand gently away from his arm, turned towards the exit. Dieter went with him. The two men were at the door when the shout came from the cafe counter.

‘Sir!’ The waiter was waving.

‘Young man?’ Reder’s voice husky with cancer and tiredness.

‘Thank you, General Reder.’ The waiter’s voice cheerful, awed. ‘Goodbye, General!’

The general smiled, waved, and the door closed on him and Dieter.

Once more they were alone in
the windowless cafe.

‘They’ll keep leaving until the entire population has gone West.’ Miller was smiling. ‘What used to be the GDR will be left to you and me and a few pensioners.’

‘But you’re smiling.’ Rosa was smiling too.

‘As long as you’re in my world, I’m happy.’

‘You’re a rogue with a honeyed tongue, Patrick Miller.’

‘You put the sweetness into my life, Rosa.’ He’d never told her about the despair in his heart after Sophie dumped him, saw no reason to tell her now. ‘Honestly, Rosa, just being with you makes me feel more alive than I’ve ever felt before.’

She kissed him on the lips. ‘Thank you.’ She laughed. ‘It must be these romantic surroundings, the lush music.’

He said nothing; she knew he couldn’t find the right words.

‘I’ll stop teasing,’ Rosa said. ‘I know you mean what you say and I’m happy about it. I love you – in case you haven’t heard that enough already. But I think I know what has you feeling a bit raw, exposed.’

Miller looked at her, waited. He knew that she knew: Rosa
always
knew.

‘We’re all facing a different world here,’ Rosa said, ‘just as you have a new situation back home in England – in your old home, I mean. It’s another adjustment, another kind of beginning.’

‘It’s been a long time,’ Miller said. ‘I really must go back.’

‘So, Patrick, you’re not thinking of heading off to Wolverhampton on your own?’

‘You’ll come?’

‘You think I’d let you loose among those scheming English women on your own?’

‘Oh, yeah.’ Miller’s expression was rueful. ‘I’m such a catch!’

‘You’re just fishing for compliments.’ Rosa’s smile grew wider. ‘And fool that I
am, you’ll get them. You’re worth having, Patrick Miller. Never forget that we’re lucky:
we
are worth having. Besides,’ more briskly now, ‘you have a job and I intend to see you keep it – somebody has to support me!’

They kissed. They could feel the waiter’s eyes on them and they didn’t care.

‘One other thing,’ Miller said. ‘If they take the house from General Reder, we can easily find a flat big enough for all three of us.’

‘You think I’m going to go on living with you, Patrick Miller?’

‘Well, I suppose I could search for a replacement in Wolverhampton.’

She was giggling, kissing him.

‘Seriously,’ Rosa tried to look serious, ‘what are your parents going to think of me? Of us?’

‘You know,’ Miller said, ‘I think my mother will love you but I don’t know what I’m going to make of her. I never knew her. She was always this half-pissed woman, always made up, always polishing and shining.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe I can get to know her, maybe it’s not too late.’

‘And your father?’

‘I’m not sure I want to know him.’ Miller shook himself, as though caught in a chilly draught. ‘Maybe I can learn to forgive him.’

‘We all have to learn to forgive,’ Rosa said, ‘not least ourselves.’

As though by unspoken agreement they got to their feet together. Miller helped her into her coat, kissed her neck, her hair. The waiter waved, called goodbye and they waved back before stepping outside.

The sky was bright over Berlin; for once, the narrow alley was lit by the slanting rays of the October sun. From beyond the alley came the growl of traffic, the hum of a people at work, at play. Miller clasped Rosa’s hand in his and, hip to hip, they walked together into the living, undivided city.

First, the obvious: this
book is a work of
fiction. Although the framework of my story of the last days of the German Democratic Republic is built on historical fact, I have taken certain liberties here. For example, Erich Honecker’s retirement as boss of the GDR was announced on 18 October 1989 while Erich Mielke’s span as head of the Stasi came to an end later, in early November.

The notion of an internal coup to create a kinder, socialist East Germany is fictional. Nevertheless, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, certain East German intellectuals and activists wished for the opportunity to create a separate, new kind of society. That brief vision was soon overtaken by events and within a year the GDR had become part of a reunified Federal Republic.

A number of books have been at my elbow while writing this novel, more for dipping into than for studied consumption.
The People’s State
by Mary Fulbrook is a comprehensive account of life and work in the GDR.
The Berlin Wall
by Frederick Taylor gives a detailed account of the birth, life and death of the city and the infamous barrier. William F. Buckley Jr’s
The Fall of the Berlin Wall
describes that event in detailed, journalistic fashion.

Probably the book which seemed my best companion in writing this novel was a second-hand volume I picked up for a pound in one of the last pavement ‘barrows’ on London’s Charing Cross Road.
Guide to East
Germany
by Stephen Baister and Chris Patrick was conceived and written in the lifetime of the GDR; events moved with such speed that, by the time of scheduled publication, East Germany was in its death throes but, happily, the publishers went ahead anyway.

Uniforms of the German Soldier
by Alejandro M. de Quesada is the kind of book that a writer consults at his peril. More than once, dipping into this handsome, illustrated volume, I’d discover that an hour or more had passed as I was admiring the photographs and comprehensive captions while my own blank page still remained blank . . .

General Reder, in my story, would have worn more than one of these uniforms, from the Wehrmacht of the Third Reich and Nationalen Volksarmee of the GDR. And, as General Reder discovers, the use of his GDR rank in the reunified Federal Republic is forbidden, while he can happily continue to use his Wehrmacht rank.

Finally, the usual: any errors here are mine alone.