Field Gray

25

You knew all along.”

“There was a moment when I didn’t. The last time I saw you, Erich, you looked like me.”

For a moment Mielke looked grim, as if he was remembering. “Fucking French,” he said. “They were as bad as the Nazis in my book. It still sticks in my throat they get to be one of the four victorious powers in Berlin. What did they do to defeat the fascists? Nothing.”

“We can agree on something, anyway.”

“Le Vernet was the second time you pulled my bread out of the oven. Why’d you do it?”

I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“No, that won’t do,” he said firmly. “Tell me. I want to know. You were dressed like a Gestapo officer. But you didn’t act like one. I didn’t get it then and I don’t get it now.”

“Between you and me and these four walls, Erich, I’m afraid the Gestapo were rather a bad lot.” I told him about the murders committed by Major Bömelburg and the SS storm troopers on the road to Lourdes. “You see, it’s one thing taking a man back to stand trial. It’s something completely different just to shoot him in a ditch at the side of the road. It was just your good fortune that we went to the camp at Gurs first, otherwise it might have been you who was shot while trying to escape. But given what I’ve seen since of your friends in the MVD, it’s probably what you deserved. Rats are still rats whether they’re gray, black, or brown. I just wasn’t cut out to be much of a rat myself.”

“Maybe a white rat, eh?”

“Maybe.”

Mielke chucked a packet of Belomorkanal across the table at me. “Here. I don’t smoke myself, but I brought these for you.” He tossed some matches after the cigarettes. “It’s my opinion that smoking is bad for your health.”

“My health has got more important things to worry about.” I lit one and puffed it happily. “But maybe you didn’t know. Russian nails are better for your health than American ones.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Because there’s so little tobacco in them. Four good puffs and they’re gone.”

Mielke smiled. “Talking about your health, I don’t think this place is good for you. If you stay here long enough, you’re liable to grow two heads. That would be a waste, in my opinion.” He came around the table and sat on the corner, swinging one of his polished riding boots carelessly. “You know, when I was in Russia, I learned to look after my health. I even won the sports medal of the Soviet Union. I was living in a little town outside Moscow called Krasnogorsk, and I used to go hunting at the weekend on a sporting estate once owned by the Yusupov family. Prince Yusupov was one of those aristocrats who murdered Rasputin. There was all sorts of rubbish talked about the death of Rasputin, you know. That they had to kill him three or four times before he was actually dead. That they poisoned him, shot him, beat him to death, and then drowned him. In fact, they made it all up to make their futile deed seem more heroic. And the prince didn’t even do the deed himself. The truth was that Rasputin was shot through the forehead by a member of the British Secret Service. Now, I mention all of this to make the point that a man, even a strong man like Rasputin, or you perhaps, can survive almost anything except being killed. You, my friend, will die here. You know it. I know it. Perhaps you will be poisoned by the uraninite. Perhaps you will be shot, attempting to escape. Or when the mine floods, as I believe sometimes it does, then you will drown. But it doesn’t have to be that way. I want to help you, Gunther. Really, I do. But you’ll need to trust me.”

“I’m all ears, Erich. Just two of them at the last count.”

“We both know that you would make a very poor officer in the Fifth Kommissariat. First, you would have to attend the Anti-Fascist School in Krasnogorsk. For reeducation. To be turned into a believer. From our one meeting and everything I’ve read about you, Gunther, I’m quite convinced that it would be a waste of time trying to convert you into a communist. However, that still remains your best way out of here. To volunteer for K-5 and reeducation.”

“It’s true, I’ve rather neglected my reading of late, but…”

“Naturally, this would only be a smoke screen for your escape.”

“Naturally. I suppose there’s no chance of me being shot through this smoke screen.”

“There’s a chance of us both being shot, if you really want to know. I’m sticking my neck out for you, Gunther. I hope you appreciate that. Over the last ten or twelve years, I’ve become something of an expert at saving my own skin. I imagine it’s something we have in common. Either way, it’s not something I do lightly.”

“Why do it at all? Why take the risk? I don’t get it the same way you didn’t get it.”

“You think you’re the only rat that’s not cut out for it? You think a Gestapo officer is the only man who can develop a conscience?”

“I was never a believer. But you—you believed it all, Erich.”

“It’s true. I did believe. Absolutely. Which is why it comes as a shock to discover that party loyalty can count for nothing, and everything can be taken away again at the stroke of a pen.”

“Why would they do that to you, Erich?”

“We all have our little secrets, that’s why.”

“No, that won’t do,” I said, parroting his earlier speech once more. “Tell me. I want to know. And then maybe I’ll trust you.”

Mielke stood up and walked around the room with his arms folded around himself in thought. After a while, he nodded and said:

“Did you ever wonder what happened to me after Le Vernet?”

“Yes. But I told Heydrich you joined the Foreign Legion. I’m not sure if he believed me.”

“I was interned at Le Vernet for another three years after I saw you in 1940. Can you imagine that? Three years in hell. Well, perhaps you can now—yes, I suppose you can. I was posing as a German Latvian called Richard Hebel. Then, in December 1943, I was conscripted as a laborer into Speer’s Ministry for Armaments and War Production. I became what had previously been known as a Todt worker. Effectively, I and thousands of others were slave labor for the Nazis. I myself was a woodcutter in the Ardennes Forest, supplying fuel for the German army. That’s where I became the man you see now. These are woodcutter’s shoulders. Anyway, I remained a so-called relief volunteer, working twelve hours a day until the end of the war, when I made my way back to Berlin and walked into the newly legalized KPD headquarters on Potsdamer Platz to volunteer my services to the party. I was extremely lucky. I met someone who told me to lie about what I’d been doing during the war. He advised me to say that I hadn’t been a prisoner at all, and certainly not a relief volunteer for the fascists.”

Mielke frowned a big, puzzled frown, like a bear gradually realizing that it had been stung by a bee. He shook his head.

“Well, this didn’t make any sense to me. After all, it was hardly my fault that I’d been forced to work for the Nazis. But I was told that the party wouldn’t see it that way. And against all of my instincts, which were to have faith in Comrade Stalin and the party, I decided to put my trust in this one man. His name was Victor Dietrich. So I told them I’d been lying low in Spain and then fighting with the French partisans. It was just as well I did say this, for without Dietrich’s advice my honesty would have been fatal. You see, back in August 1941, Comrade Stalin, as People’s Commissar for Defense, had issued an infamous order—order number two-seventy—which, in essence, said that there were no Soviet prisoners of war, only traitors.” Mielke shrugged. “Of almost two million men and women who returned from German and French incarceration to the Soviet Union and its zones of control—many of them loyal party members—a very large percentage have been executed or sent to labor camps for between ten and twenty years. These included my own brother. That’s why I no longer believe, Gunther. Because at any moment my past might catch up with me and I could be where you are now.

“But I want a future. Something concrete. Is that so unusual? I’m seeing this woman. Her name is Gertrud. She’s a seamstress in Berlin. My mother was a seamstress. Did you know that? Anyway, I’d like us to feel that we might have a life together. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. I don’t have to justify why I’m helping you, surely. You saved my life. Twice. What kind of man would I be if I forgot that?”

I stayed silent for a moment. Then his face darkened with impatience.

“Do you want my help or not, damn it?”

“How is it going to happen?” I asked. “That’s what I’d like to know? If I’m going to put my soul in your hands, you can hardly be surprised if I want to check that your fingernails are clean.”

“Spoken like a true Berliner. And fair enough. Now, then. The Central Anti-Fa School is in Krasnogorsk. Every month, we send them a bag of Nazis on a plane from Berlin for reeducation. There’s quite a number of them there now. Members of the National Committee for a Free Germany, they call themselves. Field Marshal Paulus is one of them. Did you know that?”

“Paulus, a collaborator?”

“Ever since Stalingrad. Also there is von Seydlitz-Kurzbach. Of course, you’d remember his propaganda broadcasts in Königsberg. Yes, it’s quite a little German colony over there. A regular Nazi home away from home. Once you’re on the plane to Krasnogorsk from Berlin, there’s no getting off. But on the train between here and Berlin—or better still, between here and Zwickau—that’s where you could make your escape. Just think. From this camp to the Ami zone of occupation is less than sixty kilometers. If my lady friend, Gertrud, was not in East Berlin, I might be tempted myself. So what I propose is this: I will inform Major Weltz that I’ve persuaded you to change your mind. That you are prepared to undergo reeducation at the Anti-Fa School. He’ll speak to the camp commander, who’ll take you out of the pit and put you back on the sorting. Otherwise, everything else will appear as normal until the day you leave this place, when a clean uniform and new boots will be provided for you to wear. By the way, what size boots do you take?”

“Forty-six.”

Mielke shrugged. “A man’s body weight can fluctuate dramatically, but his feet always stay the same size. All right. There will be a gun inside the leg of the boot. Some papers. And a key for your manacles. You’ll probably be accompanied on your journey by that young MVD lieutenant and a Russian starshina. But be warned. They won’t give up easily. The penalty for allowing a pleni to escape is to take the prisoner’s place in the labor camp. And the chances are you’ll have to use the gun and kill them both. But that shouldn’t be a problem for you. The train won’t be like previous convict trains you’ve been on. You’ll be in a compartment. As soon as you’re moving, ask to use the toilet. And come out shooting. The rest is up to you. The best thing would be if you took the uniform of one of your escorts. Since you speak Russian, that shouldn’t be a problem either. Jump the train and head west, of course. If you’re caught, I shall deny everything, so please spare me the embarrassment. If they torture you, blame Major Weltz. I never liked him anyway.”

Mielke’s ruthlessness made me smile. “There’s just one problem,” I said. “The other plenis. My comrades. They’ll think I sold out.”

“They’re Nazis, most of them. Do you really care what they think?”

“I didn’t think I would. But oddly, I do, yes.”

“They’ll find out you escaped soon enough. That kind of news travels fast. Especially if that major gets the rap for it. And I’ll make sure he does. There’s just one more thing. When you get to the Ami zone, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to go to an address in Berlin and give someone I know some money. A woman. As a matter of fact, you met her once. You probably don’t remember, but you gave her a lift in your car that same day you saved me from those SA storm troopers.”

“I wouldn’t want to make helping you a habit, Erich. But sure. Why not?”

How much of what Erich Mielke told me was true was neither here nor there. He was certainly right that if I remained at the camp in Johannesgeorgenstadt I would probably die. What Mielke didn’t know when he offered me a way to escape was that I had been about ready to throw in the towel and join K-5 in the hope that much later on, after I had become a good communist, I might find an opportunity to escape.

Almost immediately after my meeting with Mielke, I was, as he’d promised, transferred back to the sorting of the rock. This raised some suspicions that I’d agreed to collaborate with the German communists and I was subjected to some close questioning by General Krause and his adjutant, an SS major named Dunst; however, they seemed to accept my assurances that I remained “loyal to Germany,” whatever that meant. And as the days passed, their earlier suspicions began to diminish. I had no idea when I would be summoned to the office and given my clean uniform and the all-important boots, and as yet more time passed, I began to wonder if Mielke had deceived me or even if he had been arrested himself. Then, one cold spring day, I was ordered to the showers, where I was allowed to wash and then given another uniform. It had been boil-washed and all of the badges and insignia removed, but after my own lousy clothes it felt like it had been tailored at Holter’s. The pleni who gave it to me was a Russian besprisorni—an orphaned boy who’d grown up in the Soviet labor camp system and was regarded by the Blues as a trusted prisoner who needed no supervision. He handed me my boots, which were made of rather fine soft leather, and then kept a lookout for me.

The money was rubles and, in an envelope addressed to Mielke’s friend, several hundred dollars. The papers included a pink pass, a ration card, a travel permit, and a German identity card—everything I’d need if I was stopped on the road to Nuremburg in the Ami zone. There was a small key for a set of manacles. And there was a loaded gun that was almost as small as the key: a six-shot Colt .25 with a two-inch barrel. Not much of a gun, but enough to make you think again about disagreeing with the person who might be holding it. But only just. It was a joy girl’s gun, hammer-less so as not to snag her stockings.

I tucked the papers and the money inside my boots, the gun under my waistband, and walked toward the gate, where Lieutenant Rascher and a Blue sergeant were waiting for me, as predicted. The only trouble was that Major Weltz was waiting for me as well. Killing two men was going to be hard enough. Three looked like a much taller order. But there was no going back now. They were standing beside a black ZIM saloon that looked more American than Russian. I was halfway there when I heard someone call my name. I glanced around to see Bingel nod at me.

“Sign the pact in blood, did you, Gunther?” he asked. “Your soul. I hope you got a good price for it, you bastard. I just hope I live long enough to have the chance to send you to hell myself.”

I felt pretty low at this. I went to the car and held out my wrists for the manacles. Then we got in and the Blue drove us away.

“What did that man say?” asked Rascher.

“He wished me all the best.”

“Really?”

“No, but I reckon I can live with it.”

In the little railway station in Johannesgeorgenstadt there was a train already waiting. The steam locomotive was black with a red star on the front, like something from hell, which, in the circumstances, was entirely suitable. I couldn’t rid myself of the feeling that even though I was planning to escape, I was doing something inherently shameful. I almost couldn’t have felt worse if I really had been intending to join the Fifth Kommissariat.

The four of us climbed up into a carriage with the word for Berlin in Cyrillic chalk-marked on the side. We had it all to ourselves. The train had no central corridor. All of the carriages were separate. So much for coming out of the toilet with all guns blazing. The rest of the carriages were full of Red Army soldiers headed for Dresden, which hardly made things any easier.

Our own Russian sergeant was sweating and nervous-looking, and before he boarded the train behind me I noticed that he crossed himself. Which seemed a little curious, as even in the Soviet zone, rail travel was really not that hazardous. By contrast, the two German MVD officers appeared composed and relaxed. As we sat down and waited for the train to move, I asked the starshina if he spoke any German. He shook his head.

“The fellow’s Ukrainian, I think,” said Major Weltz. “He doesn’t speak a word of German.”

The Ivan lit a cigarette and stared out of the window, avoiding my eye.

“He’s an ugly sonofabitch, isn’t he?” I remarked. “I imagine his mother must have been a whore, like all Ukrainian women.”

The Ivan didn’t flinch at any of that.

“All right,” I said. “I really do think he doesn’t speak German. So. It’s probably safe to talk.”

Weltz frowned. “What on earth are you driving at?”

“Listen. Sir. All our lives could depend on us trusting each other now. We three Germans. Don’t look at him. But how much do you know about our smelly friend here?”

The major glanced at the lieutenant, who shook his head. “Nothing at all,” he said. “Why?”

“Nothing?”

“He was posted to the camp at Johannesgeorgenstadt just a few days ago,” said Rascher. “From Berlin. That’s really all I know about him.”

“And he’s going back already?”

“What’s all this about, Gunther?” said Weltz.

“There’s something about him that’s not quite right,” I said. “No. Don’t look at him. But he’s nervous when he shouldn’t be nervous. And I saw him crossing himself a minute ago—”

“I don’t know what you think you’re playing at, Gunther, but—”

“Shut up and listen. I was an intelligence officer. And before that I worked for the War Crimes Bureau in Berlin. One of the crimes we investigated was the murders of twenty-six thousand Polish officers, four thousand of them at a place I’m not going to mention in case it makes this dog prick up his ears. They were all of them murdered and buried in a forest clearing by NKVD.”

“Oh, that’s nonsense,” insisted the major. “Everyone knows that was the SS.”

“Look, it’s vital you believe that they weren’t killed by the SS. I know. I saw the bodies. Look, this man, this Blue sitting next to us, is wearing several medals on his chest, one of which is the Merited NKVD Worker medal. Like I said, I was an intelligence officer, and I happen to know that this medal was commissioned by the Council of the People’s Commissars of the USSR—in other words, Uncle Joe himself—in October 1940, as a special thank-you to all of those who did the killings in April of that same year.”

The major tutted loudly and rolled his eyes in exasperation. Outside our carriage, the stationmaster blew his whistle and the locomotive expelled a loud cloud of steam. “Where are you going with this conversation?”

“Don’t you get it? He’s an assassin. I wouldn’t mind betting that Comrade General Mielke has placed him on this train to kill all three of us.”

The train started to move.

“Ridiculous,” said Weltz. “Look, if this is the beginning of an attempt at escape, it’s a pretty clumsy one. Everyone knows that those Poles were murdered by the fascists.”

“You mean everyone except everyone in Poland,” I said. “There’s not much doubt there who was responsible. But if you don’t believe that, then maybe you’ll believe this: Mielke’s already screwed you in the ass, Major. He gave me a gun that I’m supposed to use to help make my escape. But my bet is that the gun isn’t going to work.”

“Why would the comrade general do such a thing?” asked Weltz, shaking his head. “It makes absolutely no sense.”

“It makes a lot of sense if you know Mielke as well as I do. I think he wants me dead because of what I could tell you about him. And he probably wants you both dead in case I already have.”

“It couldn’t hurt to see if he’s telling the truth about the gun, sir,” said Lieutenant Rascher.

“All right. Stand up, Gunther.”

Staying exactly where I was, I glanced quickly at the Russian sergeant. He had a large Stalin-size mustache and one continuous matching eyebrow; the nose was round and red, almost comical-looking; the ears had more hair on and in them than a wild pig’s.

“If you search me, Major, the Ivan will figure something’s wrong and draw his gun. And it will be too late for us all when he’s done that.”

“What if Gunther’s right, sir?” said Lieutenant Rascher. “We don’t know anything about this fellow.”

“I gave you an order, Gunther. Now do as you’re told.”

The major was already unbuttoning the flap on his holstered Nagant. There was no telling if he was about to pull the gun on me or the MVD starshina, but the Ivan saw it and then met my eye, and when he met my eye he saw what I had seen in his—something lethal. He reached for his own pistol, and this prompted Lieutenant Rascher to abandon the idea of searching me and fumble for his own gun.

Still wearing handcuffs and with no time to decide if the major was with me or not, I swung my fists at the Ivan as if I had been driving a golf ball, connecting hard with the outside of his porcine head. The blow knocked him onto the floor between the two rows of seats, but the big thirty-eight was already in his greasy fist. Someone else fired and the glass in the carriage door above him shattered. A split second later, the Ivan fired back. I felt the bullet zip past my head and hit something or someone behind me. I kicked at the Russian’s face and turned to see the major dead on the seat, the lieutenant aiming his revolver at the Ivan with both hands but still hesitating to pull the trigger, as if he’d never shot anyone before.

“Shoot him, you idiot!” I yelled.

But even as I spoke, the more experienced Ukrainian fired again, punctuating the young German’s forehead with a single red full stop.

Gritting my teeth, I stamped at the Russian’s face with the heel of my boot, and this time I kept on going, as if I were stamping on something verminous. One last uppercut of a kick caught him under the jaw and I felt something give way. I stamped again, and his throat seemed to collapse under the force of my boot. He made a loud choking noise that lasted as long as my next kick, and then he stopped moving.

I collapsed back onto the seat of the railway carriage and surveyed the scene.

Rascher was dead. Weltz was dead. I didn’t need to check for a pulse to know that. When he’s shot dead, a man’s face wears a certain look that’s a mixture of surprise and repose—as if someone stopped a movie in the very middle of an actor’s big scene, with his mouth agape and his eye half open. There was that and there was the fact that their brains and what these had been swimming in were all over the floor.

The MVD starshina made a long, slow gurgling noise, and adjusting my balance against the movement of the railway carriage, I kicked him hard—as hard as I could—against the side of his head. There had been enough shooting for one day.

My ears were still ringing from the shots and the carriage smelled strongly of cordite. But I wasn’t disturbed by any of this. After the Battle of Königsberg, nothing like that bothered me much, and my mind was disposed to interpret the ringing in my ears as an alarm and a call to action. If I kept my nerve, I could still complete my escape. In other circumstances, I might easily have panicked, jumped off the train, and tried to make for the American zone, as I’d originally intended; but a better plan was already presenting itself, and this depended on my acting quickly, before the blood spreading on the floor spoiled everything.

Both the German MVD officers had luggage. I opened up the bags and found that each man had brought a spare gimnasterka. This was just as well, as there was blood on both of their tunics. But the all-important blue trousers were still unmarked. First I emptied their pockets and removed their decorations, their blue shoulder boards, and their portupeya cross-belts. Then I pulled their tunics up and wrapped their shattered heads in the thick cloth to help staunch the blood. Weltz’s skull felt like a bag full of marbles.

You have to be a certain type of man to clean up efficiently after a murder, and no one does that better than a cop. Maybe what I was planning wouldn’t work, maybe I’d get caught, but the two Germans had bigger problems. They were both as dead as Weimar.

I took off their boots, unlaced the legs of their blue breeches, and then hauled those off, too. I put both pairs carefully up on the luggage rack, well out of the way of what I was going to do next.

It would have been a mistake to have opened the carriage door. A Red Army soldier in one of the other carriages might have seen me doing it. So I slid down the window, balanced the major’s naked body on the sill, and waited for a tunnel. It was fortunate that we were traveling through the Erzgebirge. There are lots of tunnels for the railway line that runs through the Erzgebirge.

By the time I had defenestrated the two dead Germans I was exhausted, but working down in the mine shaft had given me the capacity to go beyond the limits of my own exhaustion, to say nothing of a wiry muscularity in my arms and shoulders, and in this respect I was also fortunate. I might add that I was also desperate.

I wasn’t sure if the Ukrainian was dead, but I hardly cared. His NKVD assassin’s badge did not inspire my sympathy. In his pockets I found some money—quite a lot of money—and, more interesting, a piece of paper bearing an address in Cyrillic, and a note in German; it was the same address as on the envelope Mielke had given me for his friend, and I guessed that, my assassin once he had killed me, was detailed to deliver the dollars and the note in the envelope himself. That envelope had been a nice touch, partly allaying any fears of a double cross on Mielke’s part. After all, who would give an envelope full of money to a man he intended to have killed? There was also an identity document that gave the Ukrainian’s name as Vasili Karpovich Lebyediev; he was stationed at MVD headquarters in Berlin, at Karlshorst, which I remembered better as a villa colony with a race-course. He worked not for the MVD but for the Ministry of Military Forces—the MBC—whatever that was. The Nagant revolver in his apparently lifeless hand was dated 1937 and had been well looked after. I wondered how many innocent victims of Stalin it had been used to kill. For that reason, I took a certain pleasure in pushing his naked body out of the carriage window. It felt like a kind of justice.

I used the Ivan’s tunic and my old uniform to mop the floor and wipe the walls of any remaining blood and brain tissue, then threw them out of the window. I put the pieces of glass into the Russian’s cap alongside his decorations and threw that out of the window, too. And when everything apart from me looked almost respectable, I dressed carefully in the lieutenant’s blue breeches—the major’s were too big around the waist—and his spare tunic, and prepared to face down any Ivans who might come aboard at Dresden. I was ready for that.

What I wasn’t ready for was Dresden. The train went straight past the ruins of the city’s eighteenth-century cathedral. I could hardly believe my own eyes. The bell-shaped dome was completely gone. And the rest of the city was no better. Dresden had never seemed like an important town or one with any strategic significance, and I began to worry about what Berlin might look like. Did I even have a hometown that was worth returning to?

The Red Army sergeant who came aboard the carriage at Dresden and asked to see my papers glanced at the broken window with mild surprise.

“What happened in here?” he asked.

“I don’t know, but it must have been some party.”

He shook his head and frowned. “Some of these young lads they have in uniform now. They’re just kolkhozniks. Peasants who don’t know how to behave. Half of them have never even seen a proper passenger train, let alone traveled on one.”

“You can’t blame them for that,” I said generously. “And for letting off a bit of steam now and again. Especially when you consider what the fascists did to Russia.”

“Right now I’m more concerned about what they’ve done to this train.” He glanced at Lieutenant Rascher’s identity document and then at me.

I met his gaze with steady-eyed innocence.

“You’ve lost a bit of weight since that picture was taken.”

“You’re right,” I said. “I hardly recognize myself. Typhus does that to a man. I’m on leave back to Berlin after six weeks in hospital.”

The sergeant inched back a little.

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’m over the worst of it now. I picked it up in the POW camp at Johannesgeorgenstadt. Full of fleas and lice, it was.” I started to scratch for added effect.

He handed me back the documents and nodded a quick good-bye. I expect he washed his hands quite soon afterward. I know I would have.

I dropped down on the seat and opened the major’s bag again. There was a bottle of Asbach brandy I’d been looking forward to all morning. I opened it, took a swig, and searched through the rest of his stuff. There were some clothes, some smokes, a few papers, and an early edition of poems by Georg Trakl. I’d always rather admired his work, and one particular poem, “In the Eastern Front,” now seemed to match the time and, more especially, the place. I can still remember it by heart.