The Girl in Berlin (27 page)

Berlin accents; they were discussing a football team. Laughing. It was humiliating, pressed double against some man’s knees. One of them poked him. The gun shifted against his head. He heard a tram pass. The car slowed down, turned, stopped. There was shouting; a gate clanged open.

He was pushed out onto concrete. One of them hauled him roughly to his feet. Seized by the arms. Still blindfolded. One on each side of him, frogmarched until there was a creaking door. Clanged shut behind them. Another door. He was pushed forward. The blindfold whipped away. They slammed the door. He was alone.

The interrogation room had grey cement walls and no window. The only furniture was a table and three chairs. He tried the door, but it was locked, as of course he’d known it would be. He sat down at the table. He held his hands clasped in front of him to stop them shaking. He knew he had to stay calm. Whatever was coming would be unpleasant. A pulse seemed to twitch all over his body, jumping from place to place like a flea. He tried to concentrate on what he might say, but his thoughts kept slithering away to what had just happened. The visit had been a set-up, an obvious trap – a trap set by Feierabend or Hoffmann or both. Both. Hoffmann – he must have alerted the East Germans. But what use was he, Jack McGovern, to them or the Russian military?

Harris. Had Hoffmann contacted Harris? Had Harris betrayed him?

They’d taken away his watch. The lack of time disoriented him. He already seemed to have been in this room for a very long time.

The key turned in the lock. The mixture of relief and dread knotted his stomach.

The two men looked like bureaucrats. Each had the greyish skin so many Germans had, each wore spectacles, each had receding hair, each wore a cheap suit made out of material that looked more like cardboard than cloth, one blue, the other shit-brown. The only difference was the blue suit was thin, the brown suit was paunchy and fat. McGovern knew they were German, not Russian, before they spoke – to say that they would speak in German since Herr Roberts knew the language so well. They seated themselves opposite him.

‘I’m a British citizen. I demand—’

‘A British citizen has no right to spy on the citizens of another country, you’d agree, wouldn’t you, Kommissar McGovern?’

They knew who he was. This was bad. Harris had told them. Must be Harris.

‘My name is Roberts. I’m not a spy. I have not been spying on anyone. I’m a journalist.’

‘But you have been in contact with Colin Harris. The two of you are both spies, perhaps.’

Not Harris, then. Unless it was a bluff.

‘My reason for meeting Mr Harris has nothing to do with Germany. It is an internal British matter.’

‘Both you and Mr Harris have been in contact with Ulrich Hoffmann. We should like to know about your connection with Dr Hoffmann and what your business with him was.’

‘I don’t have to answer any questions. You’re holding me here illegally.’

‘You’re not aware that Hoffmann is under judicial investigation in West Germany?’

Instinct and training told McGovern to let nothing escape, to tell them as little as possible, not to show his surprise at this news, not to betray his fear, not to show any emotion, not to engage at all. He stared at the table, trying to appear calm.

‘What was the purpose of your meeting Dr Hoffmann here?’

‘You’ve seen my papers.’

‘You claim to be a journalist, so why has no-one heard of you? The foreign press agencies in Berlin. No-one knows anything about you.’

They must have rung round. While he waited in this tomb they must have made enquiries. Or perhaps earlier. Soon after he’d arrived in Berlin. Well, he had only himself to blame for that. He should have contacted the press, made himself known, strengthened his cover.

‘Why pretend, Herr Kommissar McGovern?’

If his cover was blown, all the more reason to stay silent.

‘We were told you claimed to be reporting on aspects of
cultural life in postwar Berlin. Well, Herr Dr Hoffmann would hardly have been of help there.’ The thin man in blue smiled. They were just taunting him now. ‘Who introduced you? The Americans?’

‘No comment.’

‘What happened then? He turned up at your hotel and introduced himself? That sounds very improbable. How would he have known you were there? How would he have known about you at all?’

So perhaps it was Feierabend who’d got him into this mess:
we’ve been told
… McGovern mentally raced through the possibilities: that Feierabend was some kind of double agent; that Harris was involved; that Hoffmann was behind this and that he was, after all, trying to get him kidnapped, a possibility McGovern had previously dismissed as absurd. ‘I have nothing to say. I’ve done nothing wrong. You have no right to detain me.’

The two Germans looked at him. Then they suddenly stood up and left the room without a further word. The door clanged again. This was disconcerting. McGovern stood up too and walked around the cell. He was thirsty and in need of a piss.

The silence was profound. He walked up and down. At least his footsteps broke the blanketing silence, but he decided that sitting down would be a better way to control the ever more urgent pressure in his bladder.

He rested his head on his arms and tried to doze off. Perhaps he had, but he couldn’t be sure, for when he became aware of his surroundings again there was no change.

It wasn’t that time dragged. There was no time. There was just a vacuum, airless, suffocating.

Eventually he got up again and looked round in desperate hope of a basin or a drain. But he already knew there was none. He had reached the point at which he knew he was soon going to have to urinate on the floor, which would be humiliating
and would increase the power of his captors over him, when they returned.

He sat down again, rested his head on his hands.

The sound of the key. He raised his head jerkily.

Now there was a third man with them. The third man had broad shoulders and arms as thick as telegraph poles.

‘You can go, Herr Kommissar McGovern. We’re taking you back to the British sector.’

He could hold on until then.

The third man shoved him along a corridor and out into a yard. McGovern saw to his astonishment that it was now quite dark. A van was parked by the door. McGovern was shoved inside and the third man followed him in. In his relief McGovern relaxed and lowered his guard. He was utterly unprepared for the vicious punches as soon as the motor started. The first caught his jaw, the second landed on his stomach. His bladder opened, his trousers were soaked, he buckled with the pain and humiliation. He was punched again as he lay on the floor of the van in his own pee and the stranger kicked him repeatedly, shouting obscenities.

The van drew to a halt. ‘Get out!’ screamed the German, but as McGovern painfully tried to move, to crawl to a sitting position, he was seized from behind and flung from the back of the van. A final vicious kick and punch. He vomited, dizzily hearing the van rev up. He raised his head from the ground. The van accelerated forward, gained speed, but then abruptly went into reverse, back towards him. It was going to run him over. A surge of panic: he rolled away – not quick enough – dragged himself sideways and knocked against a sack of rubbish. The van jolted backwards, was almost upon him as he frantically managed to kick the sack under the wheels. Within inches of his head. He lay as if dead, waiting for the driver to get out and examine his handiwork. But the driver didn’t get out. The van bumped over the rubbish and at once began to move forward again.

As McGovern listened to it driving away into the night his terror folded into exhaustion. He must have passed out. He became aware of the darkness of the empty, unlit street. He didn’t know where he was. He dragged himself to his feet. His sodden trousers clung uncomfortably to his legs and crotch. The pains in his shoulder, jaw and back were acute, he had a splitting headache. He could barely limp. He staggered along the empty street, past the ruins and shells of buildings until he came to a wider but still deserted avenue. He limped on and saw the giant Red Cross candle Hoffmann had shown him on that first visit, which seemed like years ago. At least then he was in the West … but of course they’d dump him this side of the city as a message to the Western authorities for which the East would deny responsibility. He struggled towards the woman in the kiosk … and tried to speak to her. His tongue seemed thick. He could hardly say the words. The woman looked at him in disgust.

‘Bloody drunk. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Look at you – German manhood, what a rotten joke – you men, you got us into this mess and now you can’t get us out of it.’

‘The Hotel Am Zoo,’ he croaked.

‘Hotel Am Zoo! That’s a laugh. They won’t let you in there. That’s for the profiteers and the Amis, not for scum like you.’

‘The Ku’Damm – please—’

She looked at him more closely and seemed finally to take pity on him. ‘You’re in a bad way, aren’t you. You’re not far off – it’s just a way further on, ten minutes’ll get you there.’

In the state he was in it took him closer to half an hour. He managed to pass through the lobby without attracting attention, his hat pulled down to conceal his face, and was glad he’d kept his room key with him. The East Germans had returned it with the rest of his possessions – his wallet, passport, watch and fake press card.

He peeled off his filthy clothes, every movement agonising.
He moved like a man of ninety. He ran a hot bath and soaked for a long time. It was only when he lay on the bed wrapped in a towel that he realised the room had been searched. Nothing was quite as he’d left it. It could have been the maid, but he didn’t think so.

Lily had insisted he bring a basic first-aid kit, as if you couldn’t obtain plasters and aspirin in Berlin, like anywhere else. Well, perhaps you couldn’t; things like that were probably in short supply here. Now he was glad he had them to hand as he gingerly rubbed antiseptic ointment on his face and swallowed some codeine. He dropped naked into bed and fell into a feverish sleep.

The following day he stayed in his room. He felt too ill and was in too much pain to move. He locked his door, dozed, drank a lot of water and towards evening, when he felt slightly better, telephoned Victor Jordan.

twenty-seven

T
HE NEXT DAY HE STILL FELT TERRIBLE
. He feared the sinister pain in his back, where the gorilla had kicked him, could indicate damaged kidneys, but he hadn’t passed any blood, and was thankful that although his jaw was slightly swollen, it wasn’t broken, nor had he got a black eye, which would have been horribly conspicuous. He knew he’d actually been very lucky. He was just bruised and sore all over but no longer felt sick and dizzy. He struggled down to the hotel dining room, where he tried to swallow the German breakfast of hardboiled egg, cheese and cold sausage. The coffee was real, but came with evaporated milk. He read the
Berliner Zeitung
he’d purchased from Kurt in his kiosk, but it was difficult to concentrate when his mind was in turmoil, a slightly hysterical feeling of relief at war with a sense of ongoing danger and threat.

A waiter approached his table. ‘Someone to see you, sir. They’re waiting in the lobby.’

‘Ask him to join me here, please.’

‘It’s a young lady, sir.’

She crossed the dining room uncertainly, watched by the few guests, mostly solitary men, still eating breakfast at this late hour.

‘Frieda!’ He clambered painfully to his feet and manoeuvred stiffly round to pull out a chair for her.

She glanced nervously around, conscious perhaps that her shabby clothes looked out of place. But, he thought, they only enhanced her beauty.

‘Coffee?’ He looked round and took a cup and saucer from the next table.

‘Real coffee?’ she said. She drank. ‘It’s good.’ She leaned forward. ‘I need your help, Mr Roberts.’ She hesitated. ‘But – what happened to you? Did you have a fall?’

‘You could say that.’

She looked at him, a look he couldn’t interpret. ‘Do you know who did this?’

‘Never mind about that. I’ll survive. But why have you come to see me? How can I help you?’ He looked searchingly at her. She gazed back. Her eyes were deep as a well. The faint frown that twisted her winged eyebrows made her look severe.

‘You saw Colin, didn’t you? Before he and my father went away? Did he say anything to you?’

‘About why he went, you mean?’

She shook her head. ‘They have gone for some stupid reason.’ Her head drooped. ‘No, I wanted to know what Colin said to you, whether he still doesn’t want to go back to England, whether he really wants to stay here.’

‘Has he not talked to you about it?’

‘He has got so involved in what is going on down there, or in what he thinks is going on. He is not interested in me.’

McGovern watched her. For all her gloomy, almost sullen manner, she had a very direct appeal. She was surely just profoundly unhappy. He couldn’t believe the whole story about England was because she was a spy. ‘I don’t know that much about it, but I’m not thinking it’d be so very difficult for you to get work in England, to emigrate on your own. It should be possible, at least.’

‘Is that really true?’ She looked doubtful. ‘I don’t know,’ she muttered, ‘I don’t think …’

McGovern let the silence linger on. He continued to watch her, now again assailed by doubt, wondering if she was really as desolate as she seemed and if it was only that she wanted to get away from Germany. Perhaps she too was playing a double game, like the other Berliners he’d met, who played ambiguous roles, roles that were sometimes poorly rehearsed and unconvincing, as if the actors themselves had little belief in them, but which still managed to generate a fog of uncertainty over everything.

‘Tell me how I can help you,’ he said. ‘But you must be honest with me. You’ve not told me much so far.’ He spoke softly. ‘That your father worked at Buchenwald, for instance. You didn’t tell me about that.’

‘You know about him? Who told you? Colin doesn’t really know. At least, I never told him.’ She stared at him speculatively and for the first time McGovern wondered if her every word, her every move was calculated. She shrugged dismissively as if she despised his ability to be so easily shocked. ‘Do you think there’s anyone who hasn’t some dirty little secret from the war?’