Freedom Bridge: A Cold War Thriller (11 page)

Chapter 24

S
o far, so good, Kiril thought as he sat on a jump seat in the Mayor’s limousine, facing him and Adrienne Brenner. It was an opportunity to take the American woman’s measure. Her window was down.

When they pulled up in front of a low brick building at the airport’s exit, an East German civilian walked over and politely asked for her passport. “There will be no need for you to leave the car, Frau Brenner,” he said in English. “I will be happy to attend to the formalities inside.”

Adrienne handed over her passport. Opening her door, she said, “I’d like to have a quick look inside, if you don’t mind.” She got out without waiting to see if he did.

When the man hesitated, Kiril told him in German, “Not to worry. I’ll see to it.”

Inside was as commercial as a monastery, Adrienne thought. No gift shops. No displays of magazines and candy bars. No books or newspapers, of course. There was only one small dining area behind which a waitress with dark circles under her eyes and indifference in the shape of her mouth was serving soft drinks and sausages to a half-dozen customers.

“Our terminal is not impressive, I’m afraid,” said a voice behind her.

“You speak English.”

“I do,” Kiril replied.

But with a thick Russian accent, she noted. “I gather you’ve seen airport terminals in the West?”

“Only in the cinema,” he said with a faint smile. “Until yesterday, I was never out of the Soviet Union. Perhaps you have questions, Mrs. Brenner? If so, I’ll be happy to answer them.”

She was tempted to ask, Why are a couple of Russians—you and your girlfriend—our escorts instead of East German apparatchiks? And what’s with the man in the soiled military uniform who never takes his eyes off you? As if I couldn’t guess.

“—my job to see that your trip to East Berlin is a memorable one. We Russians have a motto,” Kiril told her. “Показывать их в наших товаров. ‘Show them the best of our goods.’ I must apologize for this inauspicious beginning. If you like, I can give you a brief preview of some of the best
the Deutsche Demokratische Republik has to offer before we proceed to your hotel.”

“I’m game, Doctor . . . ?”

“Andreyev. Kiril Andreyev.”

He waited for Luka Rogov to sit up front before giving the driver directions.

“The new civic center,” Kiril announced as they drove by. “Forty blocks of office buildings, housing units, shopping arcades. Over there, an expensive new theater. Next to it, a concert hall.”

Adrienne took in the huge circular plaza ringed with tall buildings. Spacious pedestrian walkways, but with few pedestrians. A wide boulevard with virtually no traffic. According to the most recent statistics, fewer than one East German in twelve owned a car.

“Your hotel.” Kiril pointed to a high rise with an expansive sweep of his hand. “Over forty stories and three thousand modern rooms. I think you will enjoy your stay there. Our famous television tower.” He indicated a thin tubular structure. “The second tallest edifice of its kind in all of Europe—almost twelve hundred feet high,” he said with a tinge of pride. “The People’s radio and television broadcasts come from there.”

Adrienne nodded politely, not wanting to offend her guide. If American movies were his one source of familiarity with the West, you’d think the contrast would be more than enough to dampen his enthusiasm!

“Any questions?” he asked as the limousine moved on.

She thought for a moment. “Do the women in East Germany—in the Soviet Union, for that matter—have what Americans call equal rights?”

Kiril smiled his approval. “Women in the Deutsche Demokratische Republik have many rights, Mrs. Brenner. And I assure you, many Russian women have the same. In Moscow, it is a common sight to see women directing traffic, driving trolleys, climbing telephone poles, and working alongside men on construction sites. Depending on their fortitude, they dig ditches and haul heavy equipment. Some women are nurses, like my friend Galya.” He paused. “But I think very few are physicians.”

“You are an excellent guide, Dr. Andreyev,” Adrienne said, pulling a notebook and pen out of her shoulder-bag.

You are a treasure trove of information
.

“What am I looking at over there?” she asked, pointing.

“Neue Wache. Literally, New Guardhouse.” It’s a memorial to the victims of militarism and fascism.”

She saw Greek columns and heel-clicking, goose-stepping East German soldiers.

“They change the guards every hour,” he told her.

“Unter den Linden!” he announced with a touch of awe. “The Soviet Embassy. A museum, an opera house. Over there is Humboldt University. It has a newly renovated clinic where your husband’s medical conference will take place.” Kiril ordered the driver to stop, eager to see what Adrienne Brenner’s reaction would be.

The famous Unter den Linden, Adrienne thought. A vast boulevard enlivened by four parallel rows of linden trees on each side. It was the most chillingly barren street she had ever seen. There were red flags on official black limousines parked along the street’s center island. More red flags hung from the long, thin necks of lampposts. They bent obediently over the pavement and made her think of tall gaunt men, tagged and hunched in silent agony.

The boulevard reminded her of an abandoned parking lot but with one appalling exception. Where Unter den Linden began—or ended—she spotted some people. East Germans. They were milling about aimlessly. Despite a mass of shrubbery, nothing grew quite high enough to block the stone columns of Brandenburg Gate—and beyond the columns, the just-begun new Berlin Wall. “Can we stop the car for a moment?” she asked Andreyev.

Kiril nodded. “Halt.”

Adrienne leaned out the window, wanting to see beyond the columns from the same perspective as an East German, hungry for a tantalizing glimpse of West Berlin, now beyond her grasp. She pulled out her notebook and did a quick sketch—poor substitute for a camera—but she didn’t want it confiscated.

“Marx-Engles Platz,” Dr. Andreyev said.

“Why does that sound familiar?” she wondered out loud.

“Probably because it was once part of the famous Lustgarten. Strange how history repeats itself. Hitler held huge rallies and military parades there. Now the East Germans do. Just last evening I witnessed a stunning torchlight parade of tanks and marching soldiers. Do you like parades, Mrs. Brenner?”

“Just the American kind. Kids marching with high school bands and drum majorettes displaying their legs. No tanks. They can be hell on the roads,” she said drily.

She had thought her bluntness would offend him. Incredibly, he seemed pleased. A real enigma, this Dr. Andreyev.

As the limo moved on, she couldn’t help wondering why she sensed a grim purposefulness underneath his running commentary, like a discordant musical theme that contradicts the melody.

“We’d better wrap up this
brief preview and head for the hotel before my husband thinks I’ve been kidnapped,” she said reluctantly.

Chapter 25

“Z
um Wohle aller!” Kiril said. “For the good of all!”

A smiling Galya repeated the toast in her halting English, and then passed around glasses of
champagne.

Kiril tipped his glass in a mock salute to an unsmiling Luka, who stood off to the side.

Adrienne Brenner took a single sip of champagne before setting her glass down. “I’m sure you’re eager to check out the clinic, Kurt. Give me a few minutes to unpack a few things,” she said, and walked into the adjoining bedroom.

Kiril eagerly looked around. He had never been inside a modern hotel suite before. His own room down the corridor—his and Rogov’s—was one used by the hotel’s travelling auditors. Just a couple of narrow beds with the barest essentials. The Brenner suite was spacious. And cheerful, he thought. A sitting room with a nubby couch and two matching chairs. A bedroom nearly as large, with an armoire of glossy oaken wood, flanked by dressers that took up the entire wall. An enormous four-poster bed—

An observation he quickly pushed out of his mind.

He sensed that the Brenners were not impressed—a point in Kiril’s favor. People accustomed to luxury would be reluctant to give it up. He added up the morning’s other favorable points. On the first leg of his impromptu mini-tour, Adrienne Brenner had been both genuinely curious and remarkably open about her obvious distaste for most of what he’d called to her attention. She had not felt the need to be diplomatic about what she was seeing. Nor had she made any attempt to avoid politically awkward subjects. Even in his wildest imagination he had not been prepared for a woman who was so disarmingly direct. Her candor and independence intrigued him. He mentally transported her to Moscow and tried to imagine her standing before some bureaucrat, being told what to do, how to live, what to think. He could not imagine it.

If a police state were as real to her as it seemed, there was virtually no chance she would ever consent to live in one—certainly not in East Germany, let alone the Soviet Union. Would her husband defect without her? Unlikely.

His eyes drifted to Galya, still smiling, talking animatedly to Dr. Brenner. Flirting? He watched her cut through an elaborate cellophane-wrapped basket of fruit.

“Compliments of Colonel Aleksei Andreyev,” Galya told Dr. Brenner.

Kurt Brenner felt as if he’s been hit with an electric charge.

First Dmitri Malik. Now his former subordinate. Does this Aleksei Andreyev think I’ve forgotten his name after all these years? Or is he counting on my remembering? A colonel, now, doubtless KGB, with the same last name as our “tour guide
.
” What have I gotten myself into? What in god’s name could they possibly want?

As Dr. Brenner excused himself to join his wife in the bedroom, Kiril saw Galya scan the room’s plush appointments. Her focus shifted almost imperceptibly to Adrienne Brenner’s clothes. They were casually strewn across the four-poster.

At first I’m captivated by the heroine’s clothes, her jewelry, even her high-heeled shoes! Then I notice how she acts so casual about the things I long for.

Poor dear Galya. It pained Kiril to see her listless posture. Her not-quite-lifeless eyes. The smile that never quite reached her eyes because she had not quite given up. How much longer before she did once she was condemned to spend the rest of her life in the Soviet Union?

As the five of them rode the elevator down—Galya and the Brenners in front, Kiril and Rogov in the rear—Kiril caught the faint scent of Adrienne Brenner’s perfume. While they waited for their limousine, he felt in league with the wind—urging it on as it blew the folds of Adrienne Brenner’s garment around her legs.

Wondering about the body underneath the cape.

Chapter 26

“T
he Humboldt University medical clinic!”

Kiril’s announcement had the clarion call of a trumpet.

Adrienne Brenner’s expression brightened as she liberated pen and notebook from her shoulder-bag. Even Galya seemed to perk up, Kiril noticed.

Not Kurt Brenner though. As Kiril made perfunctory introductions to some of the hospital staff, he couldn’t help noticing Brenner’s tepid response—handshakes and glib phrases that seemed to slip automatically out of his mouth.

An alarm bell went off in Kiril’s head.

Brenner is just going through the motions.

Did he dare cut through the man’s preoccupation, even at the risk of being obvious? Luka Rogov spoke almost no English and understood even less. But Galya? he thought uneasily.

Kiril held off until the five of them were walking through the medical clinic’s long, mostly empty, corridors. Whenever Brenner made some offhand remark about medicine that Kiril could use as a transition, he would jump in with an artful description of nearly a half-century of Soviet medical progress—such as how Soviet medical schools graduated some thirty thousand physicians annually in three years! “I’m forced to admit, however,” he said, “that because of such an attenuated program, our doctors would later have much to learn on the job.” Kiril made a few more not-so-subtle attempts to extoll Soviet medicine, even as he undercut it.

Adrienne Brenner, as usual, wrote notes at a furious pace.

Brenner was still along for the ride.

As their party came to an area marked off-limits to visitors, Kiril ignored the sign with a wave and led them down a narrow hall, explaining that he was eager to show them some modern x-ray equipment he’d learned about only yesterday. They entered a room where a patient lay on a hospital bed, his massive chest covered with a number of black tubular objects, two of which were moving slightly. Brenner’s eyebrow shot up—he knew immediately what he was seeing. Adrienne Brenner was staring at the patient as if memory could substitute for the cameras she’d been obliged to leave at the reception desk.

Apologizing profusely, Kiril said, “Wrong room. Sadly, leech therapy is a barbaric contrast with the modern x-ray equipment I meant to show you next door. I was told this patient is a Russian soldier wedded to the old ways. Anti-coagulation therapy is still common in some rural areas of my country, even though today’s Soviet doctors can usually clear obstructed veins in a more scientific manner.”

Their tour of the medical clinic over, Kiril made good use of the time it took to walk to their waiting limousine. He mentioned East German physicians being members of the elite. Not that East Germany’s Ministry of Health was without its own problems. Did Dr. Brenner know that since 1958 many of these physicians had left the Deutsche Demokratische Republik—luckily before the Communist Party had launched a campaign to improve the quality of political and ideological dogma in the medical profession? Did Dr. Brenner know that East German doctors—and Soviet ones as well—experienced an acute medical crisis? That hospitals and medical clinics had been forced to limit their services to emergencies? That, until recently, East German doctors had been forced to rely on inferior medicines produced in Communist bloc countries like the Soviet Union?

Dr. Brenner did not know. He did not seem to care, either.

* * *

As soon as Brenner entered the limousine, he sat back and closed his eyes. He had never felt so out of control . . . and the questions kept coming.

Where the hell was Malik? He was, after all, Chancellor of the entire University. Why invite him here in the first place? Despite that charade on their way in from the airport, I couldn’t pry anything specific out of the bastard. And why the empty excuse for not joining me in my hotel suite for a drink?

Brenner tried to break out of his reverie, but it was as if he was doing a balancing act between two different time zones!

Which, in a way, he was.

Back in the limousine, Kiril left the back seat to Galya and the Brenners, again taking the jump seat.

As the car pulled away from the clinic, Galya leaned back against the limousine’s worn velvet upholstery. The faded Oriental rug under her feet had been beautiful once—a real luxury. She had been bored to distraction during the tour of the medical clinic, only half listening as Kiril went on and on. “I am tired,” she said to no one in particular. “I would so much like to return to the hotel and make ready for dinner.”

“Good idea,” Brenner chimed in. “I could use a drink. I have a feeling jet lag is just around the corner.”

“I know of a shortcut back to our hotel,” Kiril said, and gave the driver directions before resuming his seat.

“A shortcut?” Adrienne Brenner said skeptically. “How is that possible? You arrived only yesterday.”

Clever lady.

“I’m good with maps,” he said, which was true enough.

As their limousine left the Unter den Linden area, the change was swift and dramatic. Starkly modern apartment houses gave way to seedy Stalin-like housing projects and buildings so caked with grime it was difficult to guess at their original color. Empty lots were dusted with crumbling plaster, suggesting the bombed-out ruins of World War II. Half-collapsed structures with sections of sagging walls gave evidence of being occupied. Their limousine attracted furtive, resentful stares.

Kurt Brenner emerged from his fugue long enough to mumble something about the somber architecture.

“A great nation’s progress is not always self-evident, Dr. Brenner,” Kiril said evenly. “East Germany has the highest standard of living of any Soviet-bloc country.”

Adrienne Brenner stared at him.

Damning with slight praise again, Dr. Andreyev?

When she commented on the long line of shoppers waiting patiently at a street vendor’s vegetable cart, Kiril said tonelessly, “Waiting in line for basic necessities is a way of life—and not just here. We have queues in my country as well.”

It suddenly struck him that he felt at home here—almost as if he had never left Moscow. Different streets, yes. Totally different cities. Moscow was pale yellow—washed out. East Berlin was tarnished and gray, with a kind of grittiness in the air, as if the whole place could use a good scrubbing. But the ominous familiarity was in the silence. In the absence of bright lights.

It was the way people hurried, as if their biggest concern was to get off the streets and out of sight. It was what they wore—the same ill-fitting clothes he had looked on all his life. It was their demeanor—part lethargy, part despair.

He had to stop himself from looking at Adrienne Brenner as hungrily as Galya had looked at her clothes.

Except that he had no need to look at her anymore. Unconscious pride—it was in the set of her mouth, the lift of her head. Unstated confidence—it was in the way she moved.

Adrienne Brenner was living proof that somewhere beyond the limits of his existence was another world. Another universe. He felt the empty ache of longing, followed by a searing impatience that blurred his vision. His whole adult life had been a testament to patience. He had taught himself to suppress his anger. To scoff at his bitterness. To go slowly. To  bide his time. It was this that had brought him to the edge of freedom. That had kept him alive.

Don’t abandon your oldest ally, your best weapon! Don’t fall victim to the sights and sounds of East Germany. Of the Soviet Union. Keep it intact—your vision of those poor pathetic creatures lined up for their vegetables. Of the patience stamped on their faces.

But even as he listened to his mind, he knew that his emotions were in revolt. After two decades of waiting in line for his freedom, his patience had burned itself out.