The Moscow Sleepers

40

Dieter had lived a lie for so many years that it had become his companion and his security blanket. The truth of his background had long ago faded. If someone had flourished a magic wand and said, ‘You no longer have to pretend. Now you can be Dieter Schmidt again,’ he would have been terrified. As far as he was concerned, Schmidt no longer existed. For Dieter, his lie was his real life.

That his masters had never pressed Dieter Nimitz, their creation, into service had previously never bothered him; he had always been sure that one day they would appear like a tailor with a long unpaid bill and expect him to pay up. The payment could be anything, he had reckoned, though since they had been the ones who’d pushed him to take the job at the European Commission, he had always assumed these long-time masters of his would want him to supply information about the EU. How he would respond when they did appear was something he had asked himself from time to time, but the question was always left hanging in the air; he didn’t know the answer.

All these assumptions now seemed utterly misconceived. To have accepted the destruction of one’s real identity to live as someone else was a betrayal of oneself. It had seemed worth it while it had a purpose. To find out now that there was no purpose at all to a lifetime of deceit was too much to bear. Especially when it turned out that the role he had for so long thought was assigned to him had actually been given to his wife, Irma.

He wondered what would happen now that he had confided in Matilda and she in turned had talked to her husband, who was part of British intelligence. It seemed impossible that he would be allowed to stay in his Brussels post. The British intelligence people would feel obliged to discuss his case with their German counterparts, and one of these services would in turn speak with the security people at the Commission. The best outcome he could envisage for himself was early retirement, though probably without a pension, and the thought of returning to live in Hamburg with Irma seemed almost as bad a punishment as a prison sentence. Irma. The mere thought of her now filled Dieter with disgust. His disaffection with his wife had been tolerable only because he always had Brussels to look forward to. Without that, his life would be hell.

It was a tradition of the house in Blankensee that on Saturday evenings Dieter cooked supper, the only occasion on which he was allowed in Irma’s kitchen. This afternoon he shopped locally, while Irma stayed at home doing her paperwork. He bought chicken and vegetables, ingredients for a stir-fry, something Irma didn’t like very much, which in his new-found fury and despair made him all the more eager to prepare it. ‘Too spicy,’ she would complain when Dieter made a hot sauce to liven it up. This evening he found himself adding even more spice than usual.

He was wearing a long striped apron and using his favourite knife, a Japanese chef’s enamel blade with a deer horn handle that had been given to him by a delegation visiting the Commission. Chop chop chop it went through the carrot he was cutting into batons, then chop chop chop through the three heads of garlic he would add to the stir-fry. The two chicken breasts were thick, and he hacked them into pieces, venting his frustration and anger on them.

‘You’re making a lot of noise.’ Irma had come downstairs and into the kitchen without him hearing her. She was dressed as for work, in a grey jacket and skirt, a pair of carpet slippers the only concession to the weekend. With her short cropped hair and stocky figure, she was a dour sight.

He shrugged. ‘Sometimes I think I’ve been silent for too long.’

‘What do you mean?’

He turned towards her, holding the knife in one hand. Unaccountably, Irma laughed. ‘What is so funny? he demanded, incensed.

Irma put a hand over her mouth, though her shoulders still heaved. Struggling to stop laughing, she said, ‘Forgive me, dear. It’s just that you look ridiculous – the apron, I mean, and that idiotic Japanese knife you like so much.’

Dieter shook his head angrily. ‘I am sure you find many things ridiculous about me. What I don’t understand is why you have stood it all these years.’

‘Stood what?’ She was trying to sound baffled, but he could see it was an act.

‘Being married to me. A man you have no respect for. Don’t play with me, Irma; you know perfectly well there’s no point in pretending any more. I know exactly who you are and what you’ve been up to. I’ve been a fool, but at least now I know the truth. I feel sorry for these children you are sending abroad. They’re all refugees, aren’t they? Just when they feel settled you send them off again to God knows what and where.’

Irma shrugged. ‘They will be grateful to me and the Freitang Gymnasium one day. They are learning a lot – German children their age would kill for such an opportunity.’

‘But do they know who they are doing this for?’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Irma, widening her eyes in an effort at innocence. But she was also watching him carefully.

‘You know perfectly well what I mean.’ Dieter was not going to stop now.

‘How do you know anything about this?’ Irma’s voice was curt now, and she took a step back, as if to gather some perspective on what Dieter was saying. On the rare occasions when Dieter got angry, Irma usually ignored it, treating him as a parent would a petulant child, waiting for the tantrum to pass. But not tonight. ‘Is that what you’ve been doing in my study, poking around my papers?’

‘That doesn’t matter. I know.’

Irma considered this for a moment, stroking her chin with her hand. Finally she said, much more softly, ‘I think it’s best if we don’t talk about this any more this evening. Let’s have supper, and then we can listen to a concert on the radio afterwards – the Berlin Symphony Orchestra is playing Brahms tonight, and I know you love Brahms. We can talk about things tomorrow, when each of us is calmer. But do remember that we have been married a long time. I would not want some little misunderstanding to jeopardise all that we have together.’

She was smiling at him, with a saccharine expression he found repulsive. In the past he always accepted her efforts to calm any dispute, telling himself, Irma knows best. Had she not always been the strong one in the household? Had he not looked to her to bolster him up during moments of self-doubt, even though – quite unnecessarily he now knew – he’d never told her the truth about his past?

But something had changed, and now he couldn’t just nod meekly and say, Of course, darling, and lapse back into being the servile husband he had been for so many years. It had all become too much. The burden of the past – his own, both the fabricated and real versions, and the past that the two of them shared – had all become overwhelming in the light of Peter Burnside’s revelations.

For once, he would not let it go. Watching him, Irma seemed to sense this; her face began to alter from patronising to anxious. ‘You’re not going to do anything silly, are you, Dieter?’ Her voice was trying to resume its usual commanding air.

‘Silly?’ he asked, his voice rising. ‘Silly?’ He was shouting now. He had had enough of her sneering. ‘You mean silly as in – talk to someone else about all this?’

He was hoping Irma would be shocked, but her face was expressionless now. She said, sounding quite calm, ‘I take it that means you already have.’

‘And what if I have? What you are doing is wrong. It must be stopped.’ He hesitated. ‘It will be stopped.’

She nodded as if she were expecting this. ‘Who was the lucky beneficiary of your revelations? I doubt it was the police, and I doubt you have contacts with the German secret services. That leaves work – someone in Brussels. Perhaps your friend Matilda? You’ve mentioned her often enough.’

Had he? He doubted it, though certainly he had dropped her name on occasion, to serve as cover were Irma ever to discover what good friends they really were.

‘And her husband,’ Irma went on. ‘He’s with the Embassy, if I remember. Some kind of attaché, I think you said. You smiled when you told me that; I think you thought he was a spy. In which case, who better to talk to about your perfidious wife?’

The uncanny accuracy of her deductions, the contempt with which she looked at him as she made them, stunned Dieter. But he fought back. ‘The performance is over now. Over. Soon you will be talking to me through the bars of a prison visiting room.’

‘Do you really think so?’ she asked him, her tone sardonic. She seemed oddly undisturbed by what he was saying. ‘You’re such an idiot, Dieter. No wonder they never activated you but thought your most useful role would be as cover for me. Far from a prison cell, if what you tell me is true, I will be living in a nice flat in Moscow within weeks.’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘And even if they swap you, I wouldn’t fancy your prospects in Russia. Not when your entire programme for subversion has been stopped in its tracks. You can’t blame anyone but yourself for that.’

She looked him straight in the face, then she burst out laughing. He didn’t understand this at all. He wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d kept quite calm when he’d told her what he’d done, but why was she laughing at him? He felt his anger growing – why didn’t she understand that he had blown her whole game out of the water, that he had finally taken his revenge? That he had won not only the battle but the war?

She was still guffawing, pausing only long enough to say, ‘Oh, Dieter, you are an even bigger fool than I thought you were.’

‘How dare you?’ he shouted, and took an angry step towards her. ‘I have uncovered a vile conspiracy. God knows what will happen to me, but your plans have been ruined. Do you hear me?’ He only dimly realised how loudly he was yelling. ‘Ruined!’

‘You sure of that?’ she replied mildly, then she was giggling again. Soon her broad shoulders were heaving and she sat down at the little kitchen table, as if it was all too funny to go on standing up. ‘Oh, Dieter, you’ve got it all wrong.’ She gave a final chuckle and stood up. ‘I think I’ll just go to bed.’

‘No you won’t!’ Dieter shouted, and he was glad to see surprise on Irma’s face.

But she recovered almost at once, saying sarcastically, ‘It is a little late to assert yourself, Dieter. As I said, I’m going to bed. Stay up if you like.’ She added with a taunting laugh, ‘And keep your apron on. It suits you.’

It was too much. Something gave way in Dieter, and he felt released from the ties that had bound him for years. He rushed at Irma, determined to slap her sneering face. He swept his arm towards its target, and he only realised halfway there that he was still holding the Japanese knife.

Flinching reflexively, Irma jerked her head back from his approaching hand, but in tilting it back she exposed her throat. The knife in Dieter’s extended hand sliced through the protruding jugular as if it were soft butter.

Irma brought her hands up, eyes agog, and clutched her throat. But the wound was wide and deep – blood spurted through her fingers like water gushing from a broken pipe.

Dieter stood stock still while Irma tried helplessly to block the blood’s flow. Her lips moved in an effort to speak, but only gurgling sounds came out. Dieter stared at her. He felt totally detached and made no move to help her.

Irma’s eyes were terrified as she tried to sit down on the chair, her hands still pressed to her throat. But her legs seemed to give way and she collapsed on the floor. The blood was gushing from her neck now, and Dieter stepped back. It wouldn’t do to get Irma’s blood on his shoes, he thought, as he watched without concern as the blood streamed towards the stove and his wife stopped breathing.