Secret Father (30 page)

A noise told me the guard had reappeared. I turned. Instead of the soldier, I saw a gaunt young man in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie. Horn-rimmed glasses gave him the look of a graduate student, his gray pallor that of a patient in a sanatorium. On second look, he was not so young, and there was nothing weak about him. He was interrogating Krone. My passport and Krone's visa were in his hand. As I stepped toward them, I realized the man was speaking Russian.

A surprise. Moscow overlords usually stayed behind the scenes in East Berlin, their armored divisions in the suburbs, their troops in the Soviet compound in Karlshorst. Was Stasi different? A KGB subsidiary for sure, but was Stasi under overt Soviet supervision? Or was it surveillance? Was the Russian's presence related only to the pressures of May Day, or was this a hint of the coming border crisis?

And what was I to make of it that Krone was answering fluently? He pointed toward me, and it was clear that I was the subject of the exchange. Krone had given himself over to the role of an American VIP's toady, and I sensed it as he exaggerated my importance. The complete sycophant, he had drawn his hands together, even bobbing forward as he spoke. The only words I recognized in what he said were "Chase Manhattan," "Rockefeller," and, after a quick insistent exchange, the German phrase "
Arbeitsgruppe Ausländer.
"

After the Russian looked me over—his eyes were frog-like behind his lenses—he led us through a doorway and up a broad, brightly lit stairwell. The soldier followed behind. Our steps echoed up the shaft.

At the third landing, the top floor save one, we went through a door into a wide corridor filled with bustling men and women. The Stasi bureaucracy was one of the largest in Soviet Germany, and at last was showing itself. Dozens ofpeople—some in uniform, some not; some carrying accordion files, some wire baskets; some pushing wheeled trays laden with boxes—were toing-and-froing from room to room, up and down the length of an apparently endless hallway. The civilian men wore baggy serge suits and scuffed shoes The women wore heavy pleated skirts, sweaters over blouses, hair on the upper lip. I heard snatches of German, yet intuitively I knew, here again, that some of these functionaries were Russian. Although if Russian, they would not be mere functionaries.

Once I adjusted to the sight of the Stasi workers, such a contrast to our isolated approach till then, I relaxed some. This must be like a corridor in the Pentagon, or in Whitehall in London. It was what I expected. Never mind what nightmare each brown case file represented, each folder in its tray, each dossier. Abstracting from its actual outcome, what was more mundane than a bureaucracy at work? Now, to ind Michael in its maze. Michael, whom I pictured grinning at the wheel of the car.
Where are you?

Our Russian escort led us down the center of the corridor, his authority implicit both in the way the sea of workers parted for us and in the way they avoided looking at him. He acknowledged no one.

Every door we passed was closed except for the occasional one that happened to open as someone went in or out. Even then, we could glimpse only interior vestibules off which, presumably, other doors opened into the offices proper. All the doors were marked just with numbers. There was nothing to be learned from looking.

What they weren't able to keep from us, however, were the motes of dust in the air. As we made our way along, I noticed—overriding the general aromas of mildew, body odor, cheap cologne, and rose water—an intensifying smell of ash.

Finally the Russian stopped, opened a door, and held it for us. We went through and found ourselves in a narrow inner hallway, perhaps thirty yards long. At its far end, toward what I realized would be the corner of the building, was an ancient tapestry that had been hung to serve as a blocking wall. We approached it. The tapestry was threadbare in places, and if the colors were ever bright, they had long since bled together into a faded gray-green. It showed a hunting scene, a cornered stag, hounds, horses, a man with a horn. The tapestry was hung to come within three or four feet of the floor, and in that space I saw a stretch of the same canvas tarp I had seen outside. The stench of ash was coming from here, from whatever rooms the tapestry sealed off. Now I recognized it: the smell of a doused fire.

The Russian stopped again, knocked once on a door, and, without waiting for acknowledgment, opened it. He stepped aside for us. We entered a cluttered work area with halfa dozen men at desks and typing tables. They ignored us.

The room seemed to press in from the sides: the walls were lined with metal file cabinets, which were themselves stacked with cardboard file boxes. In front of the window, facing away from it, was a tattered leather couch. The man gestured toward it. We went there and sat. The armed guard remained by the door through which we had come, and the man disappeared through another door.

Krone, beside me, adjusted himself restlessly on the couch, a large man at the mercy, as it were, of pinched underwear. Then I realized he was maneuvering to come closer to me. He coughed and kept his hand at his mouth, and I leaned toward him.

"With the Russian here, Erhardt and I can never have met. It is up to you." He coughed again and edged away from me, but I snagged his arm.

"That fire," I said, nodding in the direction of the sealed-off corridor.

"Yes. The fire is why the Russian is here. The KGB is watching Erhardt." He coughed again and moved away.

Two feet separated us on the couch, and we did not speak again. The light washing in through the high window behind us faded quickly. Soon twilight gave way to evening, and evening to night. One by one, the typists and clerks in front of us yawned, closed their drawers, covered their typewriters with towels, and pulled the strings on their little lamps. They retrieved their thermoses and lunch cans and snapped shut their satchels. Without a glance at us or our guard, they left the room, having bid no one good night. Heading home to their dismal flats after another day of serving the cause of world revolution.

Without the desk lamps, a dusty low-wattage bulb in a ceiling fixture did little to fend off the gathering darkness. I wouldn't have been able to read by this light.

An hour passed. When I thought another had, I checked my watch, but could not see it. By then, Krone and I and the soldier, still at the door, were the only ones there, each in his silence, each in his personal shadow.

When Erhardt's office door finally opened, the man who showed himself was in uniform, the uniform of a senior officer—braid at his shoulder, beribboned medals at his breast, gleaming brass buttons. The officer was short and bald. His face was thin, cut at an angle set by an ax-like nose. He actually clicked his heels and bowed slightly in our direction, a movement that drew attention to the right sleeve of his tunic by setting it swinging. The sleeve was folded in half and pinned up. He'd lost an arm.

Krone and I stood. When the officer looked at Krone and said "Herr Montgomery," I saw at once that he was Colonel Erhardt, pretending not to know who Krone was—a message for Krone. It was all I needed to know that what Krone had claimed about their surreptitious relationship was true.

I said, "I am Montgomery." I stepped forward, indicating Krone. "This is Herr Krone, my associate."

Erhardt remained at his door but stepped aside for us. As we crossed the threshold, he offered his left hand, like a bishop offering a ring to kiss. However much business he and Krone had done together, it was as if they had never laid eyes on each other. Yet we were here, weren't we? Erhardt had found a way, even with a Kremlin falcon on his shoulder, to meet Krone's demand. Krone was good. As I went past Erhardt, I realized that he was good, too.

The dark-paneled office was large and better lit. A conference table with eight chairs dominated one end of the room, and in one of those chairs sat the Russian. He was holding a pencil poised above a notepad on the table in front of him. How it must infuriate these Stasi big shots, I thought, when Moscow swoops in to jerk the leash. The Russian's relative youth, and even his gauntness, I saw, were to the point of the insult being delivered, and the function of that insult was control. It wasn't only that the Russian was here to watch. He was here to make a show of watching. In how many ways, and how mortally, I wondered, was Erhardt being squeezed? And what a nightmare for him now to have Krone show up out of nowhere.

At the other end of the room, by the window, was Erhardt's desk, one end of which was taken up with half a dozen telephones. How could these people threaten us, I thought, when they haven't figured out the multiline phone?

Erhardt went behind his desk and sat.

There were no chairs for me and Krone. As we stood before his desk, I realized how this arrangement would make a petitioner of everyone who came before Erhardt in such a way. He had been a man with real power, but now? The deputy director of the office in charge of all matters concerning foreigners: What would a sealed border mean to him? What did the fire in the adjoining office mean? What did it destroy? And if that fire killed Erhardt's chief, Sohlmann ... My mind leapt sideways and back. Why had Charlotte flinched at Sohlmann's name? Why had she refused to come here? My questions tumbled over one another.

Erhardt glanced at a one-page brief that was centered on the desk before him. Then he looked at me.

"Your son, he is absent?" he said.

"My son, Michael Montgomery," I replied with what calm I could muster. For some seconds it was as if the interview were occurring underwater. Words bubbled out of me, and I could barely breathe. "Age seventeen, a student in the American school in Wiesbaden. He came to Berlin for the weekend, a school excursion. I am told he was detained with two other American students at the station."

Erhardt eyed me with studied indifference. "That is under the authority of the
Volkspolizei,
the East German People's Police—the
Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung,
the main administration for border security. If your son violated border procedures, it has nothing to do with this office."

To my surprise, Krone spoke up. "That is my mistake, then, Colonel. I was under the impression that the
Arbeitsgruppe Ausländer
is concerned with all matters involving noncitizens of the DDR."

Erhardt shook his head. "Not border violations. Certainly not. NVA also has authority.
Nationale Volksarmee.
Stasi is not concerned with borders."

"But what possible violations are we talking about?" I asked. "Three American teenagers are here for a parade. And now they are arrested. In custody. Where? Charged with what? I demand to know what's going on."

"Herr Montgomery—"

"No, wait a minute, Colonel. I have come to you to keep this thing simple. I have not as yet contacted the American authorities. I have not involved the consulate, nor have I been in contact with my associates in Washington. That is because I assume there is a mistake here, the bad decision of a minor functionary at a crossing point under high pressure because of May Day.
Vopos,
NVA, Stasi—I don't care who. A small mistake that can be quickly corrected by
you.
Corrected without becoming an incident. It serves my purposes no more than yours for this to become an incident."

"I have told you my situation, Herr Montgomery. My office has nothing to do with your son's circumstance, whatever it is."

"It does now, Colonel. My next stop from here is the American headquarters in Dahlem, and you are the person I will name as responsible for the kidnapping of three American children."

"Children?" Erhardt's one hand went to the empty sleeve, where he hooked his forefinger into the fold.

"Yes, children. Minors. Ineligible to vote. Unable to buy a drink."

"Old enough to serve in the Army, I believe." His glance went to the corner of the room where the Russian was sitting, then back to me. "Although I understand your son would not be a conscript, for other reasons."

"That's right, Colonel. My son's being a cripple will be a big part of the story when this becomes public." Cripple. A word I never used about Michael. Why had I used it now? Because of the German's missing arm? I veered from the thought. "Now perhaps you can explain to me how you know that about my son, ifthis matter is of no concern to you."

Erhardt smiled and looked at Krone. "Your associate, Herr—?" He was making a point not to know the name.

Krone touched my arm. "I told them that, Paul. Downstairs."

"And you, Herr Montgomery," Erhardt said. "You departed for Berlin when?"

"Today. This morning."

"But
before
your son had been, as you say, kidnapped. No? Why is that, sir?"

He had me, and I knew it. I found a way to say, with dead calm, "I have business with Herr Krone. You can understand that."

I let my eyes shift to the right, toward the Russian. Would the KGB distinguish between run-of-the-mill black marketeering and treason? Not after a fire in the Stasi inner sanctum, which had the Russian sitting on Erhardt's one good shoulder. You, too, Colonel, have business with Krone, I said in every way but words.

Erhardt said, "I am a father myself. I know what it is, the worry you have." He leaned forward, openly consulting the page on his desk. "That is why I troubled to learn what the situation is. As a father." He reached his one hand to the corner of his desk, to punch the button on the base of a gooseneck lamp. It threw a wedge of golden light onto the paper, and he began to read aloud the German text while Krone leaned toward my ear, translating.
Two Americans, Hackescher Markt, currency violation, detention pending appearance before the people's magistrate, which will not take place until Monday.

When he looked up at me, he smiled again, but still without warmth. He resumed his English. "It is inconvenient, Herr Montgomery. But also insignificant. Dozens of these each month. There will be a—what do you say?—financial penalty."

"Fine," Krone said.

"Yes, fine. A small amount. Your son will be released on Monday."