Stealing the Future (10 page)

At the bar on the corner you had to give the door a good shove to get it open. Nik tried, then gave up, looking at me expectantly, as if I might have a key or perhaps a jemmy in my pocket. I reached past him, braced my feet against the wet granite doorstep and gave the handle a sharp push. The warped wood of the door scratched across the threshold, the cracked yellow glass rattling. Behind the door was a heavy velvet curtain. Years ago it might have been deep red, but now it was a greyish pink, and it reeked of cigarette smoke and stale beer. Once we’d fought our way past the smelly, sticky curtain things didn’t really improve at all. We were in a dusty, dim room, a bar running down the wall to the right of where we stood. Oblong tables, set in perfect geometric order, ranked through the remaining space, the chairs strewn fairly randomly around them. I’d never noticed the disparity between the regularity of the tables and the untidy chairs, and wondered now whether the tables were actually bolted to the floor.

“Evening,” said Nikolai to the man behind the bar, holding up two fingers.

The barman Jens nodded and started topping up two glasses that were sitting on the bar, already half full. Nik picked a table away from the habitual drinkers staring glumly into their evaporating beer. After sitting down and stretching his long legs to the side of the table, nudging another chair out of the way in the process, Nik started rooting around in his jacket pocket, eventually pulling out a damp paper packet of Russian cigarettes. He offered me one, even though he knew I hated the acrid sharpness of the black tobacco. In an attempt at diverting my mind from becoming irritated with Nik and his cigarettes, I mused for a moment on the politics of being polite around people who smoked anti-social brands of tobacco. But Nik had another kind of politeness on his mind.

“See these?” He gestured with an unlit cigarette towards the packet. I couldn’t see the point of nodding or making any affirmative noises, so just looked at him and waited.

“You know where I got them? A Russian. Captain he is,” Nik had this maddening habit of first posing a question, then answering it himself, which was one reason why I preferred to remain quiet when he asked anything. Stay quiet and let him get on with it in his own way and his own time. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the guy, I just preferred to avoid him enough to not get too pissed off with his conversational quirks, or his cigarettes.

“This captain-” he started, but broke off again as Jens came over with the beers.

The barman carefully placed the beers on the stained
sprelakart
surface, slowly straightened up, stroked his palms down the dirty apron he was wearing then very deliberately shook hands with me and Nik.

“Food?” enquired Jens brusquely, his face the whole time immobile, expressionless.

“What’s on tonight?” asked Nik, showing hardly any more enthusiasm than the barman.

“Soljanka. Lentil soljanka.”

“Lentil soljanka?” I tried to keep the resigned incredulity out of my voice; the same farm that supplied my building obviously made deliveries to Jens’ bar. I nodded to Jens, and after a pause, so did Nik.

Jens shrugged, and went back to the bar.

“Where was I?” Nik cast around with his still unlit cigarette, as if that may help him regain the thread of his thoughts.

“The Russian. A captain. Was it Dmitri?” I sipped at my thin beer.

“Yes, dear Dmitri. That was it. The Russian captain. Do you know him?”

“No,” I shrugged, “but you’ve mentioned him before.”

“He’s one of the good ones. Well, we met up again this week. I’m still not sure how much his commander knows about all of this. Poor Dmitri is either in line for a promotion or a one way trip to Novosibirsk. Where is Novosibirsk, anyway? Is that the one I mean?” Nik looked pensive for a whole second or two, before continuing. “Well maybe they’re the same thing in the Glorious Soviet Army,” he spoke the words in capitals, in the way we all had, ever since the Victorious Red Army marched into town, back in 1945.

“Yeah, maybe promotion and Novosibirsk is the same thing, nowadays, in the Soviet ranks and cadres,” I chipped in. Nik ignored my contribution, and continued along the path his thoughts were taking.

“So there we were in the middle of some woods on the edge of Berlin. Well the Wuhlheide, you know, next to the Russian tank barracks, but you get the picture. There we were, trying to avoid the columns of Young Pioneers and Thälmann Pioneers in their red and blue scarves, marching around as if 1989 never happened. Do they still own that Pioneer Palace there in the woods? No, they don’t do they? Been taken over by the Berlin
Magistrat
, hasn’t it?”

Nik trailed off again, looking thoughtful and finally lighting up his acrid, and now rather mangled cigarette. Blowing out his first puff, the dark smoke assaulted his nostrils, his nose and eyes crinkling involuntarily.

“So Dmitri and I, in the woods, with all these red-sock kids. He’s telling me that something is up, that the Moscow cadre has turned up. They’re all over the show in Karlshorst and Wünsdorf, and they’re only taking orders over a direct Moscow radio link. KGB: that’s what Dmitri reckons. And he should know. But if it
is
KGB, then there’s only one reason why they’d be here in Berlin. OK, maybe two.”

So this was why Nik was here. He was worried, wanted to give me an informal heads up. He was right to be worried. Although the Russians were always playing politics—officers would turn up out of the blue and start bossing the troops around—but if large numbers of KGB turned up unannounced at the main HQ of the Soviet Western Group of Troops—that had to be significant, particularly if they weren’t talking to any of the KGB officers that were permanently stationed here.

“Did he have any idea about whether they’re after us or the Western Allies?”

“No. Dmitri’s in well over his head. He’s not found anything out, or if he has he’s too scared to pass it on.”

The timing was vexing—why now with a coup attempt underway in Moscow?—it was bound to make everyone involved a bit jumpy. If the KGB were planning some high level operation in Berlin that would inevitably lead to serious diplomatic pressure from the American, British and French forces based in Westberlin. And any pressure would probably be directed at us—safer to kick the mangy Eastgerman cat than the still powerful Russian bear. The four post-war allies still had nominal control over the whole of Berlin, both Eastern and Western Sectors, and that had never been a comfortable fact for any of the governments of the GDR. Strictly speaking, under international law the GDR did not even have sovereignty over its own capital city. That was fine while we sheltered under the protecting hand of the Soviet Union, but now that particular empire was collapsing, and we were going our own way—against the wishes of both East and West—the problem of sovereignty was becoming very significant. The only comforting factor in this mess was that Westberlin was in the same boat. Any moves to destabilise our country using the uncertain legal status of our capital would affect Westberlin too, something the Westgermans would want to avoid. Not to mention the Western Allies, who no doubt still appreciated being able to keep tabs on us courtesy of their listening post deep in the heart of our rogue Republic. They would want to keep an eye on us, make sure our little social experiment wouldn’t prove infectious to other countries in the eastern half of Europe, or anywhere else for that matter.

On the other hand, if the KGB had for some reason drawn up plans against us it could be much, much worse. The Russians weren’t too happy about the way we were heading, but they were a lot more relaxed about it than the Americans, the British, the Westgermans or the ever suspicious French.

I was still chewing on this thought when Nik pulled a crumpled envelope from his pocket and passed it over to me. Yellowish, thin paper, Russian. It was sealed, and there was no name or address written on it.

“From Dmitri,” was all Nik had to say about the letter.

I put the envelope in my pocket for later, wondered whether to ask Nik about it, then decided that he would have already told me more if there were more to say. I brought the conversation back to the new KGB contingent that had turned up.

“They might just be in town because of the negotiations around the demilitarisation of Berlin and the GDR?”

“Yeah, they might,” Nik drew thoughtfully on his dark cigarette, which was burning unevenly down one side, glowing strands of tobacco were floating down to the table. “And my name might be Erich Honecker.”

He was right, a peaceful and honourable KGB mission in our town was about as likely as me sitting in a dingy bar with the former leader of the Communist Party.

“These days I’m feeling more like Erich Mielke than Erich Honecker,” I sighed, referring to the general who had been in charge of the Stasi for over 30 years.

Nik looked dubious. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, nothing really. Just feels like we’re creeping around in shadows, spying on people. This isn’t what we worked for years to achieve.”

“What’s brought this on?”

I told him about what Katrin had said a couple of days before, how she’d called me a spy, no better than the Stasi. Nik was quiet for a moment, and to his credit he didn’t try to theorise about Katrin’s motives.

“OK. I know what you mean. It’s sometimes… sometimes uncomfortable, isn’t it? But we’re nothing like the Stasi. Nothing at all. We’re worlds apart. Honourable.”

“But that’s what the Stasi said too, ‘we’re honourable’. I mean Mielke, right at the end: ‘I’m a humanist, I love you all, I did it for you’, wasn’t that what he said?”

Nik didn’t answer immediately. He was staring into the dark smoke curling upwards from the side of his cigarette. I could tell that this was a subject that had been bothering him too.

“Oh yes, yes. I know what you mean. But the Minister said…”

“The fucking Minister!” I broke in, “Yes! I’ve heard it. Exceptional circumstances, social experiment under threat, blah blah blah,” I was speaking in a low hiss, but I could tell that the anger in my words was affecting Nik, who was still looking at the smoke.

“And there’s stuff happening,” I continued. “Like West Silesia, like in Moscow, like what your Dmitri’s been telling you about. So maybe the Minister
is
right. But at the same time… Oh—I don’t know! I’m feeling very uneasy about things. It feels like we’re crossing a line. And I’m not actually sure exactly where that line is! Or what that line even means. I just know I’m not happy about it.”

Now Nik was looking at me instead of his cigarette. His intense face probably mirrored my own.

“Listen—you, me, thousands of others. We worked hard over the years. At the end we were hundreds of thousands, even millions. And each one of us risked our jobs, our homes, our freedom, even our families. All to stand up and say what’s what. To say what we believed in.

“Me, you, all of us in RS, even the Minister. All of us. And we know about solidarity. We helped each other out in the old days. OK, we didn’t expect the Autumn Revolution. Fine, it took us as much by surprise as it did the Party
Bonzen
. But we kept going, we never stopped. The
Bonzen
tried to jump on our bandwagon. The people threw them off again. The Westgermans tried to pinch the wheels off our wagon. But we fought them off with sheer bloody determination. And I’ll tell you this now: no bastard Russian or American is going to stop us. Because if they want to stop this… this piece of humanity that we’re creating, this Grassroots Democratic Republic that we’re piecing together with our own blood, sweat and tears, if they’re stealing our future, Martin, we won’t let them.” His voice lowered, almost a growl: “
We. Won’t. Fucking. Let. Them
! The Russians stole our past. If they get hold of our future, then all we have left is the present. And that’s not enough. It’s got to feel worth it. All that work, the fear, the worries. All this hard work now. What else have we got left to fight for, if not the future?”

I hadn’t experienced this side of Nik before, passionate, determined, caring. But he was right. I looked at him, face lowered over the table, the cigarette burning down between the fingers of his left hand, loosely hanging over the edge. He looked tired, as if it were only his spirit that kept him going. Once we’d had an intoxicating sense of empowerment and optimism, but now there was no longer any fizz. The giddy roller coaster of events in autumn 1989 and spring 1990 had given way to lots of talking, lots of arguing, too much hard work. OK, maybe I no longer felt the heat of the revolution coming off every single person I met on the street. But there was still a sense of can-do. The whole country was rebuilding itself. The economy was getting back on its feet after years of stagnation and alienation in the workforce. People were coming together to organise and run their own workplaces, their own living spaces. Yes, Nik was right, nobody could take this away from us. Not without a fight.

“But you’re right, of course,” Nik had lifted his head, and was studying the smoke from his cigarette again, his voice almost back to normal. “You’re right,” he repeated. “There’s a line. There has to be. We can’t cross that line. If it ever gets critical, meltdown stage, with the Russians, or anyone else for that matter, we have to go public. We can’t leave it up to the Minister.”

It was good to know that Nik was having doubts about the Minister’s abilities too, that I wasn’t alone with my vague worries.

“But how?” I knew the answer, but wanted to hear Nik say it anyway.

“The Round Tables. We’d get word to them, get them to spread it out in their areas, so that everyone hears about what’s happening.”

It was a simple idea. But I wasn’t sure how easy it would be in practice. The Round Tables were only as strong as their members—they were made up of representatives of local Neighbourhood and Works Councils—ordinary people. Some were savvy, others inexperienced in dealing with difficult situations, never mind real crises. Some were dominant, seeking power, most wanted to share power, find solutions together. But direct democracy is only ever a step away from dictatorship: it only takes one determined bastard to spoil it all. If just one of us crosses that line we’ll be back to where we started.