Brandenburg (18 page)

‘I hope so.’

‘It will be your life’s work. A great book. A book that will be an axe to the frozen sea inside us.’

‘That’s a wonderful phrase,’ he said. ‘I’d like to use it.’

‘Then you must give credit to the author.’ She looked up from her tea enigmatically.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t recognize it. Who said it?’

‘Kafka,’ she said very quietly. ‘Franz Kafka.’

Outside the cafe Ulrike brushed stray wisps of her dark-brown hair away from her face with a gesture of irritation. ‘We don’t have much time. I need you to listen very closely to everything I say. But first, I must know how you heard about the villa in Clara Zetkin Park.’

Rosenharte had prepared his answer for when he met Kafka. ‘I did my own investigations in Dresden. I found out from Misha’s colleague in the Technical University. It was by chance that I heard that Abu Jamal stays there.’

She frowned doubtfully. ‘Nothing like that comes by chance. And please don’t use names.’

‘Trust me, it’s not important how I know.’

‘It
is
important,’ she said, ‘but I’m going to ignore it. Now listen. We’ll walk to the park. We’ll go the long way to avoid the traffic cameras. They use them to track people’s movements. It won’t take long. I’ll show you the villa, but don’t be obvious. Remember, in this city one in four of everyone you see is working for the Stasi in some way or other.’

They set off to the south-east of the city. ‘I am a fluent Arabic speaker.’ She walked quickly and spoke with head down. ‘I spent most of my childhood in Arab countries. I studied European languages at university and I was employed by the government as an interpreter and translator of documents. I also worked at the university doing the same thing, though my position now is much less sensitive than it was. I am at the Central Institute for Youth Research, which in itself requires some security clearance.’

‘Why would you need it there? They’re just another group of people adding to the paper mountain, writing reports that no one reads.’

She stopped and smiled firmly. ‘And you’re about to write a book that won’t be published. At least my work provides me with a living. I don’t want to be rude, but would you just let me talk? I need to tell you a lot in a very short time.’ He nodded and they continued. ‘We have to be vetted to work at the institute because of what we’re finding out in our surveys. Disaffection has been growing among young people. Your audience today was an example of that. Ten years ago they’d have all got up and left when Böhme told them to.’ She stopped speaking as they passed a group of Vopos and flashed them a supportive smile that was returned by their officer. ‘But this isn’t the point. I still have access to the Department of International Relations and I have a friend there.’

‘And this friend has shown you proof that the GDR is supporting Middle Eastern terrorism? That doesn’t seem very likely.’

‘Please, everything will be clear, if you listen. The bombing of the nightclub in Berlin - they knew about that though it was Libyans who carried out the attack. What I know for certain is that they’re going to do something big at Christmas in the Federal Republic and that there’ll be attacks on Western interests next year in the Middle East. The Arab has a list - the American embassies in Jordan and Egypt. Jordan will be in January, Egypt some time in March. There’s something planned for Vienna and maybe Paris, but we don’t have details.’

‘I can’t believe the Stasi would leave this kind of material lying around for you to read. They wouldn’t put anything like this in writing.’

‘Of course they didn’t put it in writing. These attacks will be enormous - as big as the truck bomb that hit the American embassy in Beirut. A lot of lives are going to be lost unless you listen carefully and then get this information to the West.’

Rosenharte stopped. ‘Why me? Why have I been chosen for this job? I’m just an academic.’

‘Like me. But we have a duty.’

‘Exactly why would an academic doing youth research know about these things? The other side will need to know how you got this information.’

‘The Arab drinks heavily. That’s why he has problems with his kidneys and liver. My friend is the woman they have assigned to look after him while he stays here in Leipzig. She has already got clearance to work with the professor and she’s a valued employee. She was the natural choice.’

‘You mean the GDR supplies a woman for him?’

‘Yes, of course! A woman who speaks Arabic.’

‘And he gets drunk and tells her everything?’

‘That was true until his operation. He’s become fond of her and she was with him in the hospital when he had a kidney transplant. He needed an interpreter. He was on drugs and it was then that she began to learn the details. We acquired two names of his associates in the Middle East and these were passed to the West in the summer.’

‘Yes, those names are what convinced them that your information was good.’

She nodded. ‘The rest we have deduced by the telexes and the movements of the professor.’ She avoided Misha’s name.

‘You’re sure that the authorities are involved?’

‘Yes, but they keep their distance from the planning, which is why the Arab is not guarded as closely as he should be. Everything goes through the professor. That’s the weak point. We know when the professor comes to Leipzig, when he goes to the villa, when he travels abroad to Yemen or Libya or Sudan. We know about his money, which all comes from the Party.’

‘Is the Arab here now?’

‘He comes next week, or the week after. We’re not sure.’

‘And he’ll stay at the villa?’

‘Maybe. There are other places he uses. We won’t know until he’s here.’

They had skirted the centre of town and now reached the park. Some children were trying to get a kite airborne and one or two couples sat on the grass. Rosenharte noticed that a number of the trees had died from pollution. It was the same everywhere, but in Leipzig the lignite smoke that was responsible seemed even worse that day. A slight taste of sulphur hadn’t left his mouth since he stepped off the train.

‘We all cough from November to the spring here,’ Ulrike said when he mentioned it to her. ‘In winter many people have respiratory problems. Is it as bad in Dresden?’

‘Nothing like this,’ he said. They had stopped at a path. She turned to face him. ‘Take me in an embrace and look over my shoulder.’ Rosenharte held her lightly by the waist and shoulder. ‘There is a large, dark green building on the far side of the park,’ she said to his right ear. ‘Next to that is the villa, but you can only see a little of it because of the high fence.’

‘I see,’ he said, thinking that it would be entirely feasible for someone to remove Abu Jamal at night. He let her go, after looking down at her face and noticing that her skin was almost translucent.

‘There’s something I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t you give all this information to the British woman who was here in the summer? Why wait?’

‘It was too dangerous for her to take this out. And anyway it wasn’t until the Arab’s medical operation in August that we had hard evidence of the plans and dates for these attacks.’

‘Why do you think I stand any better chance of getting this out?’

She looked at him. ‘You can handle this. I know it.’

‘Did you know they were going to send me? Did you choose me?’

‘You were a candidate. We knew you travelled on the train with the professor because he complained about seeing you one morning to his secretary. He said that you were just the kind of unproductive member of the intelligentsia that he despised.’

‘But you suggested me to the British. They wouldn’t have thought of me otherwise.’

‘Among other people, yes.’

‘What made you think of me?’

‘We knew you came here quite often to teach your classes and lecture. You have a pretext for being here. You seemed perfect.’

Rosenharte didn’t buy any of this, but decided not to press it. He was shooting the rapids, he thought, and it was crazy to question the only other person with a paddle. ‘What other information can I take to them?’

‘That’s all. The likely timing for the actions in Jordan and Egypt are surely enough for you.’ They had turned and were moving out of the park. She was looking down at the path ahead of them. ‘You understand we’re bound together now,’ she said. ‘We’re dependent on each other in a way that’s dangerous for us both. If you are caught, you will tell them in the end. So will I. We know that. You have to be very careful.’

She glanced up, real fear in her eyes. He had made much the same speech in Trieste to Annalise’s standin.

‘There’s one other thing I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you leave? If you took this information out yourself they’d give you a place to live and a job.’

‘Leave!’ She hissed the word. ‘I will not leave. That’s the problem at my church: the tensions between those who want the freedom to go to the West and those who want to stay and build a country where people can speak freely and meet without thinking there’s an informer in the room. They’re the true democrats. The others just want a new car and a better standard of living. I want to rid the GDR of these stinking old men who steal everything from us and give us platitudes about sacrifice in return.’

‘If you go on like that, you
will
be arrested.’

‘The time has come when everyone has to take risks, Rudolf - Rudi. You know that.’

‘But if we’re going to work together on this thing, I have to know you’re not going to put yourself in an exposed position.’

‘We’re already exposed. We’ve reached the stage when it’s no longer enough for an intellectual like you to make clever points that you hope one group of people will understand while the others don’t. We have to occupy the streets and take possession of our city.’

‘Well that’s for sure,’ he said, looking round him. They had reached a very run-down quarter where the cobblestones were loose in the road and the plaster had dropped from the nineteenth-century facades on both sides of the street. Drains had become detached and were ruptured. Bands of damp had spread three or four feet on either side of them and moss flourished in the cracks. Further down the street, one of the houses had collapsed and the two neighbouring properties were hopefully shored up with a few poles of scaffolding.

‘Ulrike.’ It was the first time he had used her name. ‘I want you to listen to me. You saw the number of police we passed on the way here. They will never let you simply take the state from them. You saw what happened in China. You read reports of Politburo members making threats about repeating Tiananmen Square in Germany. They will do it here, I promise you. You must leave. I can’t, but you can.’

‘We have to take risks. We will fight violence with non-violence. They can’t massacre us in the middle of Europe. We’re not living under Adolf Hitler.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s a pity we can’t take a proper walk out in the country,’ he said. ‘Somewhere clean and without pollution.’

She frowned, then stopped in her tracks and turned to face him. ‘We’re both old enough to know that you want two things - to sleep with me and for me to fall in love with you - the double triumph.’

He grinned. ‘I mentioned a walk. That was all.’

She returned his gaze, her eyes shining with defiance. ‘You do understand that it’s not going to be possible?’

‘I wasn’t thinking of that. I was—’

‘I have watched you in those lectures. You want people to love that elegant intellect of yours, your passion for art, your eloquence, the sense that you’re above it all. You need to seduce people.’

‘My lightness of being,’ he said, trying to humour her.

‘No, it’s much more dangerous than that.’

He smiled at her mischievously. ‘So you won’t be the axe to my frozen sea?’

She shook her head and pointed to a chimney that was leaking a trail of heavy smoke across the city. ‘I’d rather work in that factory over there or in the gravel pits outside the city. I’d rather be detained by the Stasi for a night’s questioning than lose my freedom to you.’

‘Don’t be so extreme. More than you can imagine depends on
both
of us remaining free.’

She gave him a look of surprise, letting him know that she hadn’t expected his reaction. ‘Don’t worry. Keep your cool and we shall both get through this.’

‘I will keep my cool, as you put it, but it’s not just us. My brother and his family are involved. I have a lot to lose.’

She nodded.

‘How will I get in touch with you?’ he asked.

‘By the same means as before, but don’t go to the Nikolaikirche. Sign the book at the Thomaskirche, leave any postcard at the cafe, or one wedged between those two pilasters. Then wait outside the Thomaskirche. I will find you.’

He gave her the address in Dresden, but left out the apartment number. ‘If you want to contact me, send a postcard to Lotha Frankel. Frankel used to live in my apartment. Sign it
Ruth
if you’re in trouble,
Sarah
if you need me to come to Leipzig. I will see it without it being delivered to my apartment.’

‘I’ll see you then,’ she said, turning away.

‘Be careful.’

‘I will. Now go, before you make yourself conspicuous.’ She set off down the street that would take her to the centre of town. Rosenharte watched her go. About fifty yards down the road she suddenly turned and smiled at him.

No, he said to himself firmly, he would not be swayed from his task of getting Konrad and Else and the boys out of the country. That was all that mattered.

He made his way to the station, unable to decide about Kafka. She certainly wasn’t what he’d been expecting, but the more important thing was that her story didn’t hang straight at all. No more than a handful of senior officers would be allowed to know that the GDR sponsored terrorism. It was simply unbelievable that this provincial university worker had acquired such significant knowledge from a friend.

But what did it matter to him? He’d made contact with Kafka, and she had coughed some very startling information. That was all he needed for the British. When he told them that there would be more information, and that they would have the precise location for Abu Jamal in a couple of weeks’ time, they’d have to start moving on Konrad and Else.