Prussian Blue

FORTY-THREE

Hugging the shadows of the shop doorway like a nervous cat, I watched Friedrich Korsch as he barked orders at his men in front of the brightly lit corner bar in Freyming-Merlebach. So close to the historic border nobody would have paid much attention to a group of men speaking German—including one particular man wearing leather shorts. The Saarland might have become an administrative part of France but, from what I had read in the papers, few people bothered to parler Français there. Even in Freyming-Merlebach there were signs for German beer and cigarettes on the steamy window of the bar and just to see these made me feel a little closer to home and safety; it was ages since I’d necked a Schloss Bräu or puffed on a Sultan or a Lasso. A long time had passed since Germany, and its old familiar habits, had felt so near to my heart.

Korsch was wearing a short, black belted leather coat that I felt sure he’d owned almost twenty years before, when he’d still been a young Kripo detective in Berlin. But the leather flat cap he was wearing looked to have been more recently acquired and added a proletarian, almost Leninish touch to his appearance, as if he was anxious to conform to the political realities of life in the new Germany, or at least in half of it. But it was his voice I recognized most: among Germans, the Berlin accent is considered one of the strongest and most abrasive in the language, and among Berliners, the Kreuzberg accent is about as strong as Löwensenf mustard. Korsch’s accent had been one of the things that had, perhaps, stopped him from making commissar under the Nazis. Senior Berlin detectives like Arthur Nebe—who was the son of a Berlin schoolteacher—and like Erich Lieberman von Sonnenberg, an aristocrat, and even Otto Trettin had always regarded Friedrich Korsch as a bit of a Mackie Knife, which wasn’t helped by the fact that he always carried an eleven-centimeter switchblade in his pocket, as a backup for the broom-handle Mauser he favored. Kreuzberg was the kind of place where even grandmothers carried a switchblade or at least a long hat pin. In truth, however, Korsch was a well-educated man with his Abitur who enjoyed music and the theater, and collected stamps for a hobby. I wondered if he still owned the twenty-pfennig stamp of Beethoven that lacked a perforation and which he’d told me would one day be valuable. Were communists allowed to do something as bourgeois as make money from selling a rare stamp? Probably not. Profit was always going to be the ideological doorjamb on which communism stubbed its ugly toe.

I pressed myself back against the door as the Stasi man in the leather shorts walked toward me lighting a French cigarette. In the dusk the cigarette lighter also lit up a boyish face with a deep scar that meandered off his forehead and down his cheek like a length of unruly hair; somehow it missed an eye that was as blue as an African lily and probably just as poisonous. Halfway across the street the man stopped and turned as Korsch finished what he was saying with the words “damned idiots,” spoken loudly and with real venom.

Then he said, “That was the comrade-general I was speaking to on the telephone. He told me his contact in the French police reported that a man answering Gunther’s description was spotted a few kilometers west of here, in a place called Puttelange-aux-Lacs, less than two hours ago. The French police lost him, of course. Idiots. They couldn’t catch a fucking apple if it fell off a tree. And he may have stolen a car—a green Renault Frégate—to help make his escape. In which case he could well be here by now. And if he is here it’s my guess he’ll dump the Renault and try and make it into the Saar on foot. Through here or one of these other shitty little towns along what used to be the border.”

“That’s a nice little car,” said another Stasi man, echoing my own opinion.

“But it looks like Mielke was right about this place,” Korsch continued. “We’re to keep an eye out in case he tries to cross over tonight. Which means constant vigilance. If I find one of you bastards sneaking in some shut-eye when you should be looking out for Gunther, I’ll shoot you myself.”

The news that Mielke had a man—possibly more than one—in the French police didn’t surprise me. The country was riddled with communists and it was less than a decade since the French Section of the Workers’ International—the SFIO—had participated in the provisional government of the liberation. Stalin might have been dead but the French Communist Party—the PCF—led by Thorez and Duclos, remained doctrinaire, hard-line Stalinists and none of the red Franzis, even the ones in the police, would have had a second thought about collaboration with the Stasi. But it did surprise me that the information being provided was up-to-the-minute and accurate. In itself this was alarming. But that the Stasi were devoting more effort to my elimination than even I could have imagined was worse; Erich Mielke wasn’t the kind of man to leave loose ends, and of course I was as loose an end as you could find outside of a string factory.

“And if we do find him, sir?”

Korsch considered this for less than a second. “We kill him, of course. Make it look like a suicide. String him up in the woods and leave the body for the local cops. Then go home. So there’s your incentive, boys. As soon as the bastard’s dead we can all go and get ourselves drunk somewhere and then head back to Germany.”

I heard the hobnailed footsteps of someone walking up the dimly lit street and, a few seconds later, a man wearing a blue boiler jacket and carrying a large shopping bag with a baguette poking out of the top like a submarine’s periscope hove slowly into view on the same side as the dark doorway I was standing in. Of course, even in the dwindling light he saw me immediately, paused for a moment, allowed his face to register some surprise, muttered a quiet “Bonsoir,” and then carried on walking until he came abreast of the Stasi man wearing the shorts and the long woolen stockings. It wasn’t unusual in this rural part of France for men to wear lederhosen. Leather shorts were popular with Alsatian farmers because they are comfortable, hardwearing, and don’t show the dirt. The man with the shopping bag would probably have ignored the Stasi man in the shorts but for the fact that the German stepped into his way with the obvious intent of checking that this was not me attempting to make my escape. I couldn’t blame him for that; the man in the blue jacket looked more like me than I did.

“Yes?” he said. “What do you want, monsieur?”

The man in shorts fired up his lighter and held it in front of the other man’s face like someone exploring a cave. “Nothing, Grandad,” he said. “I’m sorry, I mistook you for someone else. Relax. Here, have a cigarette.”

The old man took one from the offered packet and placed it in his mouth. The lighter flared again. If the old man mentioned having seen me in the doorway farther down the street I was dead.

“Who is it you’re looking for? Perhaps I can help you find him. I know everyone in Freyming-Merlebach. Even one or two Germans.”

“Never mind,” said the Stasi man sharply. “Forget it. It’s not important.”

“Are you sure? You and your friends seem to be all over this town tonight. Must be someone important.”

“Look, just mind your own business, right? Now fuck off before I lose patience with you.”

While this conversation was taking place I stepped quietly out of the doorway and started back down the street, intent on putting as much distance as possible between me and Mielke’s men. Hoping the Stasi man would assume I had just come out of the door and ignore me, I walked quickly but calmly, like someone who was actually headed somewhere in particular. I even stopped to glance in the window of a tabac before continuing and I had reached the premises of the local funeral home at the bottom of the street when a light came on at a window immediately above me. It might as well have been a searchlight designed to defeat enemy nighttime maneuvers and it marked me out like an actor on a stage. The next second there was a shout and then a pane of glass shattered near my head. I glanced around and saw the man in shorts leveling a pistol at me. I had been recognized. I didn’t hear the second shot, which made me think he was using a silencer, but I certainly felt the bullet zip past my ear and, taking to my heels, I turned sharply left and ran for about twenty meters before, next to a hairdresser’s shop, I spied a narrow patch of waste ground behind an overgrown metal fence. I climbed over it quickly, dropped into a tall bed of nettles, and ran as far as I could until I arrived at an old garage door. Fortunately it was not locked. I went inside, squeezed past a dusty motorcar, closed the main door carefully behind me, kicked open the back door, which had been locked, and found myself in the concrete yard of someone’s house. Some threadbare towels were drying on a washing line next to a small herb garden and these helped to screen my presence. A man was seated in a barely furnished parlor listening to a football match on the radio, which was loud enough to conceal the sound of me opening his own door and stepping quietly onto the brown linoleum floor of his malodorous kitchen; this was easily referable to a plate of half-eaten andouillettes that lay on the table. If ever a sausage-loving German needed a good excuse to dislike the French it was the pissy smell of an andouillette. It seemed to me there was only one thing worse than that smell and it was the stink of my own unwashed underwear. I paused for a moment and then advanced slowly through the half-lit house, unnoticed by the man still listening intently to the radio. I reached the front door, opened it, glanced outside, and saw a man running along the street. Guessing he must be Stasi, I shut the door and tiptoed up the house stairs in the hope I might find somewhere to hide. The main bedroom was easily identified and even more stinky than the kitchen, but the spare was clean and from the look of it, rarely ever used. A picture of Philippe Pétain hung on the wall; he was wearing a red kepi and a gray tunic and seemed every inch the proud warrior; his mustache looked like a prize chicken, which was also a very good description of the French army he and Weygand had commanded in June 1940. I went to the window and watched the street for ten or fifteen minutes as a car drove slowly up and down; the occupants were obviously looking for me. I could just make out Friedrich Korsch wearing his eye patch in the front seat.

It was cold in the room, and I wrapped myself in a red blanket I found on top of the wardrobe. After a while I slid underneath the bed with only a chamber pot and a few toenails for company. I told myself I was probably better off where I was, at least for a couple of hours. Gradually my heart slowed and eventually I closed my eyes and even slept a little. Not surprisingly I dreamed I was being chased by a pack of slavering wolves who were almost as ravenously hungry as I was. For some reason I was dressed as Little Red Riding Hood. If only I’d listened to my Grandmother Mielke and stayed strictly on the path.

When I awoke the radio was off and the whole house was in darkness. I slid out from under the bed, used the chamber pot, went to the window, and checked the street. There was no sign of my pursuers but that didn’t mean they weren’t around. I took the blanket and crept downstairs. A wall clock was ticking loudly in the tiny dining room. It sounded like someone chopping firewood. The smell persisted; the andouillettes were still on the kitchen table and overcoming my very real disgust I ate them, almost gagging as inevitably they reminded me of that chamber pot, and then helped myself to some bread to strangle the taste in my mouth. I drank a cup of cold instant coffee for the caffeine, which was almost as bad as the sausages, took a sharp knife from the drawer, slid it inside the leg of my sock, and then left the house.

The town was still in darkness and as deserted as if a Gestapo curfew had been in force. I would have to move carefully, like one of those French resistance fighters who were now the stuff of popular fiction. And probably always had been. Anyone moving around at this time of night would raise suspicion. I knew the old border was at the top of the hill but not much more. Somehow I had to find it and then some rough country where, for a while, I might go to ground like a hunted fox. Moving from one little doorway to another as if I were delivering letters, I made my way stealthily up the streets of Freyming-Merlebach and through the town. Finally I saw a long line of conifer trees and knew instinctively that this was Holy Germany and sanctuary. I was just about to run across the road when I caught the strong smell of a French cigarette and paused long enough to see the man in the leather shorts seated in a bus shelter. I knew I would be fortunate to avoid being shot this time. Stasi men were always excellent marksmen, and with his silencer this one was probably an experienced assassin. Korsch would have taken a strip off him for missing me with any shots he fired. Maybe even put another scar on his face with that switchblade. I’d been lucky twice and I didn’t think I’d ever be that lucky again. Somehow I was going to have to get past this man, but I couldn’t see how.