Field Gray

29

Instead of pocketing this money, I’d resolved to deliver it to her myself—as the MVD assassin would have done if I hadn’t killed him first. Besides, I needed somewhere to stay, and where better to stay than with a former lover? So, when I got off the train from Dresden in the no-less-depressing ruin of Anhalter Station in Berlin, I’d quickly boarded a westbound tram and headed straight for the Kurfürstendamm.

From there I walked south, convinced that at least one of Hitler’s predictions had come true. In the early days of his success, he had told us that “in five years you will not recognize Germany,” and this was certainly true. Kurfürstendamm, formerly one of Berlin’s most prosperous streets, was now little more than a series of ruins. Even for me, a former policeman, it was hard to find one’s way around. Once, forgetting the uniform I was wearing, I asked a woman for directions and she hurried away without reply, as if I’d been the carrier of plague. Later on, when I heard about what the Red Army had done to the women of Berlin, I wondered why she’d not picked up a rock and thrown it at me.

Motzstrasse was not as badly damaged as some. Even so, it was hard to imagine anyone safely living there. One decent earthmover could probably have leveled the entire street. It was like walking through a scene from the apocalypse. Piles of rubble. Buttressed façades. Moon-sized craters. The prevailing smell of sewage. The road underfoot as uncertain as a mountain path. Burned-out armored vehicles. The occasional grave.

The window on the landing in front of Elisabeth’s apartment was gone and boarded over, but the weather-beaten door looked secure enough. I knocked at it for several minutes until a voice shouted down the stairs and told me that Elisabeth was out until five. I glanced at the dead major’s watch and realized I needed to kill some time without drawing too much attention to myself. It wasn’t that an MVD officer was unusual in the American sector, but I thought it best to avoid contact with anyone official, who might have asked what I was doing.

I walked until I found a church I almost recognized, on Kieler Strasse, although given the state of Kieler Strasse it might just as easily have been Düppelstrasse. The church was Catholic and strangely tall and angular, like a castle on a mountaintop. Inside there was a fine mosaic basilica that had escaped the bombs. I sat down and closed my eyes, not from reverence but sheer fatigue. But this was hardly the quiet sanctuary I had expected. Every few minutes an American serviceman would come in with loud, polished shoes, genuflect to the altar, and then wait patiently on a pew near the confessional. Business was brisk. After the day I’d had, I might have confessed myself, but I wasn’t feeling particularly sorry about that. I’d been wanting to kill a Russian—any Russian—ever since the Battle of Königsberg. I told Him that myself. I didn’t need a priest to come between us in what was, by now, an old argument.

I stayed there for a long time. Long enough to make peace with myself, if not God, and when I left the Rosary Church—for that was its name—I put a few of the MVD major’s coins into a collection box, for his sins, if not mine. Then I walked north again. And this time Elisabeth was at home, although she regarded my uniform with horror.

“What the hell are you doing here dressed like that?” she demanded.

“Ask me in and I’ll explain. Believe me, it’s not at all what it looks like.”

“It better not be, or you can be on your way again. I don’t care who you are.”

I entered her apartment, and it was immediately clear from the bed and the gas ring that she was living in just the one room. Seeing my eyebrows flex their surprise, she said, “It’s easier to heat like this.”

I dropped Major Weltz’s bag onto the floor and took the envelope of money from inside my gimnasterka tunic and handed it over. Now it was Elisabeth’s turn to exercise her eyebrows. She fanned herself with several hundred American dollars and then read Mielke’s note, which made everything clear.

“Did you read this?”

“Of course.”

“So where’s the Russian who was supposed to give me this?”

“Dead. This is his uniform I’m wearing.” I thought it best to keep things as simple as possible.

“Why didn’t you keep this for yourself?”

“Oh, I would have,” I said, “if it had been anyone else’s name on that envelope. After all, it’s not like we’re strangers.”

“No,” she said. “All the same, it’s been a long time. I thought you must be dead.”

“Why not? Everyone else is.” I told her, as briefly as possible, that I’d been in a Soviet POW camp and that I’d escaped. “I was supposed to be on my way to Berlin and then to the Anti-Fascist School near Moscow. All arranged by our mutual friend, of course. But I think he figured I knew too much about his past and decided the safer thing was to have me eliminated. So here I am. I thought that the woman named on that envelope might be prepared to overlook the fact that I left her for another woman and let me lie low for a couple of days. Especially when she saw those dollars.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “How is Kirsten?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen or heard from Frau Gunther since Christmas 1944. Earlier on today, I took a walk down my old street and found it isn’t there anymore.”

“I guess if it had been, then you wouldn’t be here now and I wouldn’t have this.”

“Anything’s possible.”

“Well, that’s honest, anyway.” She thought for a moment. “People who were bombed out usually leave a little red card on the ruins, with some sort of address, in case a loved one turns up.”

“Well, maybe that’s it. Loved one. Kirsten never was what you’d call loving. Unless you mean herself, of course. She always loved herself.” I shook my head. “There wasn’t any little red card. I looked.”

“There are other ways of contacting relatives,” said Elisabeth.

“Not looking like this there aren’t. It’s only a matter of time before I’m picked up. And shot. Or sent back to the POW camp, which would be worse.”

“It’s true. Maybe it’s the uniform, but you don’t look so good. I’ve seen healthier skeletons.” She shrugged. “Very well. You can stay here. The first time you try any funny stuff, you’re on your toes. Meanwhile, I’ll see what I can find out about Kirsten.”

“Thanks. Look, I have a little money of my own. Perhaps you could find or even buy me some clothes, too.”

She nodded. “I’ll go to the Reichstag first thing in the morning.”

“The Reichstag? I was thinking of something a little less formal, perhaps.”

“That’s where the black market is,” she said. “The biggest in the city. Believe me, there’s nothing you can’t get there. From a pair of nylons to a fake denazification certificate. Perhaps I can get you one of those, too. Of course, it’ll mean I’m late for work.”

“Tailoring?”

She shook her head grimly. “I’m a servant, Bernie,” she said. “Like nearly everyone left alive in Berlin. I’m the housekeeper for a family of American diplomats in Zehlendorf. Hey, perhaps I can find you a job, too. They need a gardener. I can go into the labor office at McNair on my way back from work tomorrow.”

“McNair?”

“McNair Barracks. Just about everything to do with the U.S. Army in Berlin takes place at McNair.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but if you don’t mind, I’d rather not have a proper job at this moment. I’ve spent the last eighteen months working harder than a donkey with three masters. If I never see another pick and shovel again, it will be too soon.”

“Rough, huh?”

“Only by the standards of a Russian serf. Now that I’ve lived and almost died in the Soviet Union, it’s easy to see where they learn their manners. And where they find their sunny outlook on life. There’s not an Ivan I met who could ever be mistaken for an optimist.” I shrugged. “Still, our mutual friend seems to be well in with them.” I nodded at the envelope she was still holding. “Erich.”

“You have no idea how much I need this money.”

“Presumably he did, though. I wonder why he didn’t give it to you himself.”

“He has his reasons, I suppose. Erich doesn’t forget his friends.”

“I couldn’t argue with that, Elisabeth.”

“Did he really try to have you killed?”

“Only a bit.”

She shook her head. “He was a hothead when he was younger, it’s true. But he never struck me as a cold-blooded killer. Those two cops. I never believed he did that, you know. And I can’t believe he ordered someone to murder you.”

“The two Germans I was traveling with aren’t here to tell you you’re wrong, Elisabeth. They weren’t as lucky as me.”

“You mean they’re dead.”

“Right now that’s my working definition of unlucky.” I shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably it always was.”