Brandenburg (51 page)

That evening after Flammensbeck left she pulled a chair in front of Rosenharte. He was mildly drunk and the fury had left him.

She held out her hands to touch his. ‘I need to go back to Leipzig,’ she said, ‘back to my old life.’

‘You’ll be arrested.’

She shook her head. ‘No, Rudi. I won’t be. Things have changed; Biermeier told me Zank’s under investigation himself. Since Zank was found in the villa he hasn’t been seen in Normannenstrasse. By some miracle all this seems to have reflected badly on Zank.’

‘But there is still a risk.’

Slowly she shook her head. ‘That stuff you said about relationships when we were painting the car makes me, well, doubt who you are. You made yourself out to be a misogynist.’

‘Perhaps I am. Perhaps it’s because I have been disappointed.’

‘Or perhaps
you
were disappointing,’ she said quickly. ‘Perhaps
you
didn’t give enough and expected too much. Have you thought of that, Rudi?’

‘I was thinking about the deception I’ve encountered recently. There was a woman I knew in Dresden. We had an affair, and after it was over she ended up informing on me. She used the friendship to gain leverage with the Stasi.’

‘That was the Stasi’s fault, not hers. We all make compromises in this shitty system. Look at me and the Arab! These things have to be done to survive.’

‘And what you did to me, the way you lied to me about your involvement . . . I mean how can I trust you after that?’

‘You don’t have to trust me. You can go your own way, although I hope you don’t. I think we had something that . . . it could last. And . . .’ She stopped and looked up at him. ‘And, well, I feel I must say this, Rudi. You need to become a whole person without your brother. I know you worshipped him and plainly he was a remarkable human being but you make him out to be a saint and that can’t be true. He had faults too. You know that. Tell me what his faults were, Rudi.’

Rosenharte didn’t like being pressed on this but the wine - he had never tasted the like - and the look of candid appeal in her eyes had mellowed him. He put the glass down and shifted in his chair to look at a distant corner of the room. ‘Well, he could sometimes be rather strait-laced, a bit of a pedant. He always knew he was right. But that was because he was right most of the time.’

‘Not the most humble person, then.’

‘Oh, he could show humility in the face of great art or intellectual achievement but he could also be very dismissive and he had a bad temper.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘It was terrible. I saw him lose it just three or four times but it was unforgettable.’

‘And you don’t lose yours?’

He shook his head. ‘I lose control - as you’ve seen - but I don’t have a temper. I always wondered where it came from.’

‘Which of you was born first?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. We don’t have that sort of detail about our birth. But we both agreed that Konrad must have been. He used to be slightly taller, too.’ He picked up his glass again. ‘You should have some of this and stop trying to analyse me. It’s Château Margaux 1928.’

She nodded appreciatively, then fixed him with a look of appraisal. ‘You see we all have faults and secrets and shoddy episodes in our lives. Me? It’s not the spying and the deceit that I regret but the loss of my baby.’

‘You had an abortion?’

‘As good as. I was ill. I didn’t look after myself and I kept on working in a temporary post I’d got myself. I had been told by the doctor that I needed to take things easy because there were complications. Then I had a miscarriage. At the time I thought it was a good thing and didn’t regret my behaviour, but I do now - bitterly.’ She looked at him intently for a few seconds. ‘You see, now that he’s gone, you have to become a complete person so you can stand on your own. You’re clever and funny and kind, but you have to go on without comparing yourself to your brother.’ She paused again. ‘And by the way, you should stop thinking about yourself. Call his wife, comfort her and her sons instead of wallowing in your own grief. Do it now.’

‘Enough of the lecture. I’ll do it tomorrow.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Because it’s late and I need to think what to say: to offer her some hope.’

‘Hope? There’s no hope. Just say that you’re going to be there with her. Forget this obsession with Zank. Men like Zank aren’t worth your time. Zank means nothing.’

He leaned forward to touch her face, but she avoided his hand. ‘I’m dreadfully sorry about what happened out at the lake,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I can’t stand not knowing where I am with you. You’ve deceived me so much. You’ve lied and lied and lied.’

‘No, I dissembled. It was necessary by our lights and of course we had no idea that Konrad would die in prison. How could we?’

‘I accept that and I want to apologize.’

‘Okay, but forget Zank.’

‘I can’t. Konrad died primarily because of him. Zank must pay for that.’

‘You’re going to try to shoot him with that gun? You’re not the type. You’re an intellectual, an aesthete: you know that killing him will only harm you. And what would Konrad think? He would say you’re behaving like a child. Imagine his disdain if you shot Zank. He’d say you’ve lost your mind.’

‘Maybe I have.’

‘No, Rudi, you’re just very, very sad. And that won’t be cured by killing Zank.’

He shook his head, got up and made for another open bottle - a Cos d’Estournel from 1934. Having rinsed his glass he poured a fraction, held it to the candle and marvelled at the amber glow at the edge before giving some to Ulrike. They sat in silence drinking and listening to the pine kindling wood snap in the fire. Eventually he set down his glass and leaned forward to peer under her brow. Her eyes avoided his but he took her chin and turned her face to him. Then he kissed her rather tentatively, just grazing her unmoistened lips with his. Her face was almost totally in shadow but he could see the whites of her eyes and the deliberation that was going on in them. She pulled away to read his intent, and after a few seconds seemed to settle something and offered her cheek. He brushed his lips across the patch of down in front of her ear and she murmured her pleasure. Again she looked into his eyes. ‘You know, the thing with the gun is very childish.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s enough from you,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I need to take something from Schwarzmeer.’

‘You already have - the wine.’

‘No, that’s my inheritance. The gun is Schwarzmeer’s.’

She shook her head but smiled and began to kiss him with increasing urgency. He stood and she started to fumble at his trousers but he picked her up and carried her to the bed they’d surrounded with old boards and doors to defend them against the vicious draughts that whistled round the building. He let her down on the odd assortment of sheets and sleeping bags. Her eyes no longer searched his for reassurance, but held them with pure animal need. He undressed her slowly, removing bits of his own clothes too, and turned her on to her stomach to run his hands over her back. She clawed the bedding and her body arched as he began to kiss the backs of her thighs and buttocks, his lips moving inch by inch to her centre. When she could stand it no longer she turned on her side and held his face to her and began to move rhythmically over his lips until she came with a shudder. He entered her and they lay almost motionless, watching the pleasure in each other’s eyes. Then he shifted on top of her and she came for the second time, holding on to his head until finally she pulled his face into the fine brush of her electrified hair.

‘The axe to my frozen sea,’ she whispered eventually, stroking his back.

Next morning he saw her standing in a huge old bath, bending down with a pail to scoop up the warm water they’d heated on the range. Things were easy between them now. As she emptied the pail over her the light from the mottled glass of the bathroom windows fell across her slim white body. He watched her do this several times before she caught him smiling and flung some water in his direction. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s just that I saw a painting in my mind - the picture Rembrandt did of his wife Saskia in that exact pose. You know the one?’

‘No.’ She stepped out of the bath and wrapped herself in the length of sheet they used as a towel. ‘I know the exact moment when I completely fell for you. It was when you looked at that bird by the phone box and talked about your brother. When was it for you?’ she asked rather earnestly.

‘I felt something in the cafe that first day but resisted it.’

‘What!’ She came over and pinched him on the leg. ‘God, I love you. I have never meant it like this before and it feels so wonderful to be able to say it without the usual doubts and qualifications. I’m like a teenager. I’m weak with pleasure when I watch you.’

He took her hands and held them. ‘I can only say this: that I’ve never loved a woman like I love you. In fact I barely credited the existence of such a state. I am . . .’ He searched for the right words. ‘Your raging glory, your conviction and tenacity, your brilliant, eccentric courage and your beautiful, beautiful body which leaves me helpless with desire. You simply overwhelm me, Ulrike.’

She held his hand and stroked it with pleasure shining in her eyes. ‘This is too much,’ she said.

‘The hibernation is ending,’ he said.

Later he walked to Schwarzmeer’s house and broke in again. He dialled Harland and was put through to Else very quickly. They spoke for fifteen minutes, which included some long, painful silences. He did not tell her about the cremation, because he judged she wasn’t up to hearing about the East German state’s final indignity to her husband. He would have to break it to her later that there was no body for her to weep over, no place where Konrad lay. He read her Konrad’s letter - the letter that he’d wept over so many times in previous days - and apologized for not giving it to her before. She listened in silence, and when he came to the end, said that Konrad never wrote anything that better caught his nobility and generosity. She told him Harland had been to see them three days in a row and had set up a bank account for her. She had been in touch with Idris and was arranging for him to get a visitor’s visa. He was so good with Christoph and Florian that she wanted him to stay for a few weeks and help them settle down. He said goodbye and told her he would be with her as soon as circumstances allowed, an odd phrase that she didn’t question because she was too busy telling him to be careful.

He lit a cigarette and thought guiltily how much he could do with a drink. He looked down at the chair where he’d collapsed and put the idea to the back of his mind. It was too early and he was too damned old to go on behaving like this. In a few weeks he was going to be fifty.

He picked up the phone again and dialled the number on the piece of paper that had fallen from his pocket with Konrad’s letter - the number that had been left with Else by the Pole.

‘It’s Dr Rudi Rosenharte,’ he said when the call was answered.

‘This is good,’ said a man in German. ‘I need to meet you or your brother about a most important matter.’

Rosenharte drew breath. ‘My brother is dead.’ There was a silence at the other end. ‘Hello? Are you there? My brother died nearly four weeks ago.’

‘I’m very sorry to hear that news. It’s tragic - very shocking.’

‘Well, can
I
help you?’

‘This is a delicate matter . . . er . . . I must talk to you in person. I cannot speak of these things over the telephone. It concerns your natural mother.’

‘My natural mother? Why would you want to talk about her . . .’ He stopped and crouched down. The top of a man’s head had passed the window at the far end of the house. ‘I can’t talk now,’ he whispered.

‘It’s very important I speak to you, for your sake as well as mine.’

‘Not now,’ Rosenharte hissed and replaced the receiver.

He took the gun from his pocket, slipped the safety catch and checked the clip, then crawled noiselessly to one of the windows and looked out. He guessed the man had come from the direction of the storehouse, in which case he would know that someone had been there. He waited in silence, then heard a noise to his left. Whoever it was would soon notice the broken door latch and investigate. Inwardly cursing his own stupidity, he got up and moved on to the veranda, where he perched on the edge of one of the cane chairs. A second or two later a large man wandered round the corner of the house. He had a beer gut, a powerful, slow-moving gait and rather mean, unintelligent eyes. This was clearly Dürrlich, back from his spell of driving Schwarzmeer in Berlin.

‘Good morning,’ said Rosenharte cheerily. ‘I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.’

Dürrlich did a comic double-take. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I might ask you the same question.’

‘I have a right to be here. You don’t.’

‘Don’t be so sure about that. And anyway I’ve got a gun and will have no compunction in blowing your head off.’

This didn’t seem to affect the man. He moved to the bottom of the steps and placed his hands on his hips. He was breathless and sweating from his walk.

‘I mean it,’ said Rosenharte calmly. ‘To kill you would not be an unpleasant way to start the day.’

The man absorbed this. ‘What have I done to you? You’re on the property of the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit. This is part of a restricted zone. Maximum penalty ten years for trespassing. It’s you who is in the wrong.’ He paused and squinted at Rosenharte. ‘I know you. You were the man they brought here in September. They kept you locked up in one of the guest houses.’

‘That just shows me how stupid you are, doesn’t it? I mean, if you wanted to get away with your life this fine morning you wouldn’t say you knew who I was.’ He rose and approached him with a two-handed aim. ‘You have a choice: you can die or cooperate with me. Which is it to be?’

‘There are other officers here. You won’t get away with this.’

‘Call them. We can have a party.’ Rosenharte waved the gun towards the storehouse.

The man said nothing.

‘You people are all washed up. You’ll be out of a job soon. You might as well do as I say and save your wretched life. Now, start walking to the storehouse carrying this above you.’ He moved a heavy oak dining-room chair to the edge of the veranda, which Dürrlich reluctantly hoisted over his head.