“She’s a junkie, he is her dealer and her occasional pimp,” he said as I slid in opposite him.
“Beg your pardon?”
“The couple behind you. She turns tricks and he keeps her supplied with the little white powder that fueled your roommate for so many years. But hats off to him for going clean and finishing that triptych of paintings. I always like ‘triumph over adversity’ stories—especially involving gay, drug-addled painters who still work in Abstract Expressionism, though he hates the Rothko comparison, doesn’t he?”
“Am I now supposed to wonder if he too is working for you?”
“Now you
have
finally amused me. I can categorically state that Mr. Fitzsimons-Ross has no connection with us whatsoever. But I am impressed by your concern that all the walls have ears.”
“Well, in your world, they most evidently do.”
“If I may say so, you look as if you have had one terrible night. What choice of substance rendered you unconscious?”
“That’s my business.”
“Indeed it is. And what did you think of the concert?”
“Impressive.”
“In other words, you didn’t hear a note. Who could blame you, considering the news you had to grapple with? Did you see Herr Wellmann?”
I nodded.
“Did that give you the proof that you needed?”
I said nothing but reached for his packet of Old Golds and fished out a cigarette.
“Just to further corroborate everything, I’ve brought along these photos of Frau Dussmann and Herr Haechen arriving on separate trains in Hamburg yesterday.”
He reached for the file on the table in front of him.
“No need,” I said. “I’ll do what you want, but on one condition: I want to spring the trap tomorrow.”
“And why do you want to do that?”
“Because I know I won’t be able to playact this role for very long.”
“That’s an honest answer.”
“You ask me to take her to bed and pretend that nothing has transpired. How can I even touch her after this?”
“If you don’t make love with her immediately, she’ll suspect.”
“I’ll feign food poisoning or something.”
“She still might wonder.”
“No, she won’t. Because she has no reason to wonder if I am on to her. I’m the dupe here, right? So why should she even begin to think that I know her dirty little secret?”
“And you will mention having the transcripts?”
“Absolutely.”
“And you should mention that someone at Radio Liberty transcribed the interviews for you yesterday. Tell her it was Frau Koenig. She’s one of the people who does that sort of work over there.”
“And if, as I suspect, Petra doesn’t photograph the documents . . .”
“If Frau Dussmann later mentions in passing to Frau Koenig the work that she allegedly did for you over the weekend, Frau Koenig will know what to say. So the setup is the same as before. She arrives back at five forty-three off the Hamburg-Berlin express. She will be tailed to your door. Another of our operatives will be posted down your street and will move opposite your front door once she has gone inside. I suggest you feign illness early on and tell her that you are so unwell you are going to bed early. But somewhere during the course of the evening, after asking her about her weekend in Hamburg—”
“I think I can take care of all details. When can I get the transcript?”
“It will be waiting for you here tomorrow after eleven a.m.”
“Is that a good idea?”
“The owner . . . he’s a friend of mine.”
I shut my eyes. Was this man—and his people—everywhere in my life?
“You have many friends, don’t you?” I finally said.
“That’s because I’m a very friendly guy.”
I spent the remainder of the day hiding in movies. A cinema off the Ku’damm that started showing films at one in the afternoon and the program changed constantly. I shuffled in and out of its three screening rooms for the balance of the day (and night), trying not to think, trying to steel myself for the moment when Petra returned tomorrow.
When I got home it was just after one in the morning. Thankfully, Alaistair was not yet in—and the residual hangover and lack of sleep from the previous night sent me pitching into bed immediately. When I awoke it was ten. Another fine, clear morning. Dread hit me instantly. So I threw on some track clothes and went for an hour-long run through the still-empty streets. Kreuzberg on a Sunday morning always looked hungover—the pavements dappled with rubbish and empty beer bottles and the occasional used condom. The few stragglers out now appeared themselves to be careening home after a long night’s journey into day. I was moving at a ferocious clip, trying to block out all thought through physical speed. Within twenty minutes I was in the Tiergarten. I circumnavigated the park twice, then slowed down to a jog for the return to Kreuzberg. When I reached the Café Istanbul I checked my watch and realized I had been running for more than an hour. Though now drenched from the exertion of it all, I still hadn’t been able to expunge the apprehension that I felt about seeing Petra tonight. Would I be able to play everything with a poker face? Would she immediately sense that something huge was troubling me? How would I react when she started lying about the weekend? And if she did photograph the documents?
I stuck my head into the Café Istanbul. Omar, as usual, was behind the counter.
“Somebody left you a package,” he said.
He handed over a thick manila envelope. I slid into a booth, asked for a coffee, and opened the flap, sliding out a neat pile of twenty-two pages. The first page was on Radio Liberty letterhead—and the translator’s name, Magdalena Koenig, was marked in the upper right-hand corner. My name featured at the start of the transcript—and then, after its first entry, was abbreviated as T.N. The transcript was completely in German, it was dated yesterday, and it detailed an interview I had allegedly made with a certain Hans and Heidi Braun. I read through the entire transcript, trying to absorb the details of their lives in the GDR, their political activities, the plot that surrounded their escape, the way they were now planning to speak out against the repressive regime of Erich Honecker. I thought the way the interview detailed their escape plot something of a masterstroke. Once mentioned to Petra, it would grab her attention, if, that is, she really was working for them.
That was the “truth” I still couldn’t accept—the fact that she was their agent. After all she had said about the horrors of her incarceration, her hatred of the regime, the agony of losing her son, the way she always seemed privately haunted by recent terrors . . . no, it was impossible to imagine that she had actually collaborated with them.
I went home to find Alaistair up and staring again at the blank walls of his studio. He looked me over, taking in my sweat-stained track clothes, my disheveled hair, the envelope under my arm.
“You must be in a bad way, charging through the streets at this time of the morning.”
“It helps keep all the demons at bay,” I said with a smile.
“And what, precisely, are those demons?”
“The demons we carry with us everywhere.”
“Thank you, Hieronymus Bosch. But let me ask you something: do you always go running with a large manila envelope under your arm?”
“It’s some work stuff left for me at the Istanbul. I have an essay to finish by tonight.”
“And I am heading out tonight for some dinner at the apartment of some very queeny art critic whose father was something very important at BMW and left him a very large inheritance. The gent seems to have taken a shine to me and is talking about a commission. So I might not be home until rather late. And when is Ms. Petra due back?”
“Early evening.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I’ve got to get on with things now.”
“Thomas, if you are thinking about doing something cataclysmic . . .”
“I am thinking about writing,” I said, then headed upstairs and shut the door behind me.
Was I that transparent? At least Alaistair would be out tonight. And if, as he was hinting, this potential commission also involved sexual favors, he might not be back here at all.
I stripped off my track clothes, took a shower, dressed, checked my watch, and realized that I needed to do something to chew up the hours between now and Petra’s return. So I brought my typewriter down off the shelf and positioned it at one end of my kitchen table, bringing over typing paper, a pad and a pen, and a desk lamp. Then I opened the cupboard where I had been storing all my Berlin notebooks. I pulled down the first one, flopped into my armchair, rolled up a cigarette, and read through the detailed notes I had inscribed about the conversation I had with the woman on the flight from Frankfurt to Berlin all those months ago—and the story she told me about jumping out the window of the building in Friedrichshain. Because she mentioned the word “Kreuzberg,” I ended up here on one of my first nights in Berlin. Because I happened to stop in the Café Istanbul, I saw an announcement on a bulletin board which led to this apartment—and the acquaintance of Alaistair. And on the day that I visited Herr Wellmann, if Petra hadn’t walked in at that specific instant . . . ?
Is this what is meant by the random trajectory of things? Happenstance, coincidence, being in a certain place at a certain moment, the end result of which is that now you find yourself in the middle of a terrible scenario you could have never imagined . . . but also after knowing, for the first time in your life, the full extraordinary force of real love.
There had to be an explanation to all this. Or perhaps a hidden agenda here that Bubriski was keeping out of sight. Yet I knew that if I did confront Petra the moment she walked through that door—and if she was innocent—then the landscape between us would be irrevocably changed. Just as I also knew that if I said nothing . . . well, only a deranged optimist would think,
perhaps it will all go away.
But isn’t that always the Last Chance Saloon hope of anyone facing a terminal situation?
Tomorrow I will wake up and the tumor will be gone. Tomorrow I will wake up and she will be in bed next to me.
How we always hope for something to contradict the most terrible truths we have to face. How we all privately believe in anything to counter reality at its most concrete.
But, again, what was the truth here? I simply wanted to believe another interpretation of this narrative, a version that wasn’t so chilling, so bleak. A version I could live with.
I glanced at my watch. I still had six hours before she arrived. I needed something to fill the time, kill the hours, keep my hands and brain occupied. So after reading my first Berlin notebook straight through, I moved myself to the kitchen table, opened the notebook back to its first page, rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter, and—after a sharp intake of breath—began to attack the keys. Part of me knew it was foolhardy to start writing the opening chapter of my Berlin book while still here, that I really shouldn’t even think about beginning work on it until after I had left the city, for all the evident “critical distance” reasons. But work right now was the only answer.
I wrote in a controlled fury, breaking after two hours to make myself a pot of coffee and roll another four cigarettes. Then I settled down for another lengthy sprint at the typewriter. It lasted until sometime after four, at which point I had more than twelve pages in front of me. I read through them, making a few minor adjustments with my fountain pen, knowing I wouldn’t even begin to think about doing any significant rewrites until the entire manuscript was done. Then, checking my watch, I decided I had time to slip out for a beer in a local
Stube
and gather up my jumbled thoughts before Petra arrived home.
Home
. That’s what I considered this apartment, the home I shared with the woman I adored. The first of many homes we would share together. The start of a life together, with all its attendant possibilities. And now, all was in the balance. And I still didn’t know if I could do Bubriski’s bidding, even if I discovered that she really was who he said she was.
Suddenly the front door opened. Petra walked in.
“I know I was due back later, but I so wanted to get home to you.”
She smiled at me with such love, such sheer pleasure in seeing me, that I was up out of my chair and in her arms immediately. We were in bed moments later.
“Oh God, how I missed you,” Petra said afterward as we lay together, drained, spent.
“And I you.”
“I never want to be apart from you again.”
“You mean that?”
“Can’t you tell?” she said with a smile. “And while in Hamburg, I thought: in just a few days I will be your wife.”
“A nice thought,” I said, making certain I smiled. But as I said this I was so conscious that I was now acting out a role, and one that I hoped wasn’t too transparently different from usual. The fact that she was displaying no outward signs of guilt, of concealment . . .