The Day of the Lie

Chapter Twenty-Three

The ambience was plush; the seats an ivory white; the carpet a fractured pattern of different red and black squares. Frenzel had booked a table in a corner. Dressed. in a grey pinstripe with a Burberry check tie, he’d already drunk half a glass of champagne and was busy trying to prise apart an oyster. Scowling contentment, he dragged the knife along the sealed lips, feeling his way towards a weakness.

‘First class, Father,’ he said, as it snapped open. ‘The taste of the sea. Nothing like it. Do you get these at Larkwood? No matter, I’m sure you dine well when you’re not sucking blood, and why not, hey?’

Anselm sat down and Frenzel paused, his eyes rigid and severe, as if some social sin had taken place. Anselm passed over the envelope and Frenzel’s mouth started working again. He slipped the money inside his jacket pocket and began talking.

‘I can’t remember everything,’ he said, pulling the bottle out of its cooler. ‘I had other fish to fry and Brack, well, he kept things to himself. This was his case. Only case he cared about. My view? I thought it was chicken slit.’

He dabbed his lips on the white towel and hung it back over the bottle.

‘He wanted the Shoemaker. He’d been after him since… God knows when. You don’t mind the theological references, do you, Father? Sure you don’t. Well, he’d had an agent in place since fifty-two. A wimp named Kolba. Edward. Date of birth, third of August nineteen twenty-three. Don’t write anything down — ’ he pointed with his oyster knife at Anselm’s hand as it moved towards his pocket; his eyes were unseeing and severe again — ‘that’s not meant to happen in confession, is it? Maybe that’s what you get up to, when you’re all boxed up in the dark. I wouldn’t be surprised. But not here.’ He snatched an oyster off the ice bed. He locked his thumb against the shell and twisted the blade in a crack. ‘He’d come on board to get his wife out of custody Stupid idiot. They’d have let her out if he’d waited. But that’s love for you. Said he’d keep an eye on Mojeska — the slut, not the hubby. Pavel. You don’t want the date of birth. He’d been seen to by the… shall we say. the properly constituted organs of state security Not sure he had one of you lot in his final moments. Gray’s Inn, wasn’t it? Roddy Kemble’s Chambers? Anyway. he could’ve done with a lawyer and a priest. But there you go, times change. We didn’t need ‘em back then. Where was I?’

Anselm didn’t reply He didn’t even touch the stiff white tablecloth for fear of having some kind of connection to this man. Frenzel was sucking the juice from the shell, holding it like a spoon at an English tea party He smiled, happily distracted, ‘The taste of the sea. Nothing like it.’ Anselm flinched. This pantomime of life’s pleasures, held in the palm of one strong hand, wasn’t the only salt that Frenzel savoured. It was power. Even though the Wall had come down, he still licked his fingers, knowing he could point at anyone and have their life delivered on a plate. His mocking eyes flicked over Anselm as if he hadn’t been worth a single phone call — except that it was good fare, afterwards, to show your biceps to the weak. Part of the saltiness was other people’s fear. That, too, had the taste of the sea.

‘FELIKS was next to useless,’ he resumed, pouting at his glass. ‘According to the monthly reports he cried every time he clocked in. Imagine that. A grown man. Ponce.

‘Wanted out. Said Mojeska did nothing but work and pray — she was your sort, you know, diligent and reflective — that she had no dealings with anyone, blah, blah. No mention of the Shoemaker. He produced nothing in over fifteen years.

‘We had to put the screws on him in sixty-eight. The son, Bernard, date of birth second of May forty-six, was running amok. Ungrateful swine. We educated that little runt. But he stood up for Kolakowski. To keep him in at his books Daddy agreed to watch a childhood friend of Mojeska’s, a Zionist, Samovitz.’ Magda, date of birth-’

Anselm closed his ears, mind and eyes. He’d met some seriously bad men in his life — calculated murderers, blackmailers, pimps and thieves — but there was something unique about this boor slurping salt water from a shell: he spoke with authority; the confidence and carelessness of someone once backed by a system. Instinctively, Anselm jolted back his chair.

‘You’re not off, are you? I haven’t finished yet.’ He sipped his champagne and, tilting his head, halted naturally, as if he’d touched the wall in his office. ‘After a year or so the Jew cleared off of her own accord… well, to be fair, we’d kicked her out of a hospital job. Surgeon. Ears, nose, throat. Anyway, the kid went too far. Started chucking stones in the street, 1 suppose. I don’t know Don’t care. He didn’t know which side his bread was buttered. He’d hooked up with other Jews and pro-Zionists who hadn’t seen the light — not your Light, Father, ours, the light put on this land after years of toil and sacrifice and dedicated service to raise something permanent out of the darkness, something enduring…’ He half-smiled, mocking his own remembered passion; puzzled perhaps that he’d cared that much. Lost love, he seemed to say, raising his glass, nothing quite like it. The tide comes in, the time goes out. That taste of the sea again. Wonderful.

Frenzel had joined the Shoemaker bandwagon in eighty-two when a special unit was set up with the Stasi to stamp out underground printing. German speakers only need apply, He’d been assigned to Brack, effectively being second in command and taking all the noise from the Germans. He didn’t like Germans. Then or now He’d only learned the language because his stepfather had beaten it into him. He didn’t like the English, or, no offence, the French… anyway, first off.’ Brack told him the Shoemaker had turned up again. Freedom and Independence had appeared, first with lists of names, of terrorists and mob leaders, extremists… and then there’d been articles about tomorrow When — listen to this — there’d be justice, rule of law, fairness. What a bloody joke. Frenzel refilled his glass and held up the bottle to check how much was left.

‘Brack was obsessed with the Shoemaker. You’d have thought he mattered. Christ — oops, sorry — all he had was words. Nothing else. We had the sticks and stones. Who read the thing anyway? Who cared about ideas? Don’t get me wrong, if I’d caught him I’d’ve put him and Mojeska against the wall and pulled the trigger myself, the point is, there were bigger fish in the sea. Big ones with teeth. But Brack wanted him, and he knew Mojeska was the way to his door.

‘So Frenzel went to have a chat with FELIKS. He was worse than useless. More tears and hand wringing. Is there anything more pitiful than a man who pities himself? The country was falling apart. They’d even dragged school kids on to the streets, and here was this selfish, spineless piece of… I won’t say it, Father. He gave us weekly reports on his wife and the daughter-in-law but there was no meat on the bone. We had him over a barrel, of course. The bolshy son was where he should’ve been since the sixties — locked up. He’d just become a father himself and the granddad, well, he was beside himself.

‘But we still got nothing.’ He held his breath and seemed to lose colour round his loose cheeks, but seconds later he let out a low belch and sighed relief. ‘Rien — your mother was French, wasn’t she? — just a last sighting before Mojeska vanished. She walked out of the door after the birth of the child. A couple of weeks later, the rag appeared.’

From a tangent, Anselm noticed that there were no other diners near them; that the waiter didn’t check on his customers; that Frenzel’s power reached right up to Anselm’s feet. Nothing had changed in his world, just the furniture. It was plush, now He was very much at ease. He’d never had it so good. Unable to bear the man’s presence any more, Anselm found his voice. He wanted out.

‘Could you just confirm that Edward Kolba was the only informer? That he brought about Roza Mojeska’s arrest in November nineteen eighty-two?’

Frenzel didn’t seem to have heard. There was no response. He’d turned the champagne bottle upside and down and was pretending to wring its neck, squeezing out the remaining drops. One by one, they fell into his glass.

‘You know, my memory’s beginning to fade,’ he moaned, reading the label, head back to angle his glasses on to the tiny writing. ‘Must be my age. You begin to forget the good times. Fact is, I didn’t only work for Brack. I helped out against you lot.’

Anselm didn’t allow a trace of interest or confusion to flicker on his face. And there was nothing wrong with Frenzel’s memory. Shortly, he’d be asking for more money.

‘I said you lot. Department Four. The Church. We had a file on every one of you. Got a lot of inside help, too, thank you very much. And not always unwilling. But that’s another story.’ His sneer moved like a wave as his tongue slid beneath his upper lip. ‘But if you want my opinion on how things stood before I moved to sunnier climes, I’d have said FELIKS wasn’t your man. I’m sure he’d have told us how to get Mojeska if he knew, but the bitch wasn’t stupid. She kept away from everyone she knew You’ve got to keep things simple. Don’t they teach you that when you’re learning about sin and the sinner? Back then, I’d have put my money on the son. The runt we educated. He hadn’t even seen his child. He was locked up. If anyone could get to Mojeska.’ it would have been Bernard but — ’ he held up splayed fingers, admitting the limitations of his humble view — ‘I was a busy boy with lots of things to do. And you can’t always trust your memory, do you know what I mean?’

Looking over Anselm’s shoulder Frenzel made a nod. Dabbing his lips with his serviette, he became confidential. ‘You know, Brack was never… swoj czlowiek, one of us. I even wondered if he fancied Mojeska. It happens, you know Sleeping with the enemy Nothing like it. Forbidden Fruit. It tastes good. You should know that. And Brack’s banging on about the Shoemaker just didn’t add up. Sure we all believed in socialism, but come on, get a life. He was too… involved.’

He drew out the last word as if he were trying to remember its flavour. Shaking his head, he pointed at Anselm. The waiter had emerged and come to Anselm’s side, one hand behind his back. He placed a large plate on the table.

‘Pierogi,’ said Frenzel, waving away the young man. ‘Dumplings. A speciality of the chef. I was going to eat them myself but, frankly, I’m bored.’ He eyed Anselm from afar, perhaps with a few of those files in mind. ‘You’re not good company. You don’t say anything. You sit there thinking you’re better than me…’ He held himself in check, his bottom jaw moving lazily He stood up and dropped his napkin on his plate. With big hands, he tucked his shirt back into his trousers and hitched his groin. Anselm hadn’t noticed, but he was a thick-set man, with heavy, lumbering movements. ‘To find out who pulled in Mojeska, you’d have to look at the file on Polana. I understand the payout on that baby is two and a half grand. Used notes. Worth every centime to a man like you, I’d say Think about it and keep a pen and paper by the phone.’ He nodded assurance and competence. ‘Thanks for the lunch, priest.’

Anselm slowly worked his way through the pierogi,’ drinking lots of water, unable to forget the creamed hair, the imposing glasses, the delicate lips. Having signed for the bill, he went to his room and was violently sick.