‘Can we talk now?’ Otto asked after a few steps.
‘Yes,’ she replied, ‘we can talk.’
Where to begin? What to say? There was so much to ask. A lifetime of questions.
But none so urgent as the present one.
‘Why am I here?’ he asked.
Perhaps she wasn’t expecting it. It seemed to take her aback for a moment.
‘I wanted to see you, Ottsy,’ she replied.
Ottsy. How he loved to hear her use that name. It made him feel fifteen again.
‘You wanted to see me,’ he repeated eagerly, then, lowering his tone and looking away, ‘Are you trying to defect?’
She seemed almost surprised.
‘Defect? Goodness,’ she said. ‘You think that’s why I wrote to you?’
Now it was Otto’s turn to be surprised.
‘Well, of course. You mentioned what my mum used to say,’ Otto replied. ‘
Everybody’s looking for Moses
.’
‘I wrote that because I knew it would make you come. I knew it would make you know it was me.’
‘But,’ Otto said quietly, ‘isn’t that what you want? Aren’t you looking for a way out of Egypt?’
A smile played on her lips. But it was a sad smile.
‘Oh, always, Ottsy,’ she said. ‘Always that.’
Otto’s mind was spinning. There were so
many
things he wanted to ask about. His mother, his brother … her. What had
happened
in all those years since he left Berlin? But again he knew that the present must be dealt with first.
‘Dagmar,’ he said, choosing his words carefully, ‘I’ve been told you are a Stasi officer. Is that true?’
The smile remained for a moment, before fading slowly.
‘Ah,’ she said after a moment. ‘I wondered if you would know about that. We try never to underestimate the British.’
‘So it’s true?’
‘Yes, Ottsy. It’s true.’
‘Christ,’ Otto said. ‘The
Stasi
. Never in ten million years would I have predicted that.’
‘Ten million years, Ottsy? Oh, I think it’s been longer than that since I last saw you.’
They found a bench and sat down together. Otto produced his cigarettes. Dagmar accepted one eagerly.
‘Our first shared cigarette since Wannsee,’ she said, putting a hand on Otto’s knee. ‘Do you remember?’
Remember? Of course he remembered. He remembered nothing else so clearly in all his life as that day at Wannsee. He’d dreamt about it almost every night since.
Dreaming she’d chosen him.
But despite the temptation to dive at once into the past, the present remained more urgent.
‘The Stasi, Dagmar?’ he said.
‘People change, Otto,’ she said. ‘I never picked you to end up a civil servant in Her Majesty’s Foreign Office either.’ Otto nodded, he could see her point.
‘I ended up an army translator,’ he said, ‘towards the end of the war. I did a lot of German prisoner debriefings and a bit of work for the security boys. When I was demobbed they offered me a job translating at the FO and I took it. Nothing else to do really.’
He sparked up his Zippo lighter and lit her cigarette for her, which she drew on hungrily.
‘Lucky Strikes. Your father’s brand. I don’t suppose I’ve smelt one since the early thirties. Funny, I quite often find myself thinking of Wolfgang.’
‘Yeah,’ Otto said, ‘me too.’
‘He was such a laugh. A character. He can still make me smile, even now, even after he’s been dead for nearly twenty years.’ Dagmar paused before adding sadly, ‘I don’t know anyone like that any more.’
They smoked for a moment in silence. Once more Otto found himself struggling to comprehend the enormity of the situation. After so very long, he was with her, sitting beside her. Smoking with her, just like they had used to do, in her pink bedroom in Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf, in the house the Nazis burnt.
‘So?’ he found himself saying.
‘So what?’
‘So am I here to try and get you out? Because if that’s what you want, I’ll do anything to help. You know that. They’ll help you too. The British. They want to bring you to the UK.’
‘Ah yes. I imagine they do. If I’ll talk to them. If I promise to tell them all about the Stasi.’
‘Fuck them. You don’t have to tell them anything if you don’t want. Let them help me help you get out and then fuck them.’
‘Ottsy,’ Dagmar said with a sad smile, ‘I’m not
trying
to get out. I work for the East German secret police. Believe me, they’re as ruthless as the Gestapo and a lot more efficient. If I defected they’d find me and they’d kill me. I’ll never get out.’
Otto was so confused now. ‘Then why am I here?’
‘Aren’t you pleased?’
‘You know I’m pleased.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. How could you doubt it?’
Then suddenly he said it.
‘I still love you, Dagmar. I kept my promise. I want you to know that. I’ve loved you every single day. On the ferry to England. In the hostel and the internment camp. Through the war years. Fighting in North Africa and Italy and behind a desk with the army of occupation. Then in London and for all those long, long boring years since I’ve loved you every minute of every day. I never stopped loving you and I never will.’
He hadn’t meant to say it and yet somehow he had to tell her. He wanted so much for her to know that he had kept the promise he whispered into her ear at the Berlin station in 1939.
‘And on the train?’ Dagmar said, a wicked little smile playing on her lips.
‘Train?’
‘The train to Rotterdam, Otts. When you made love to Silke.’
He was absolutely stunned. It was the last thing he had expected her to say. He could feel himself reddening. Actually feeling
guilty
. It was so unfair; seventeen years of emotional self-denial and the first thing she brought up was him and Silke.
‘Oh,’ he heard himself saying. ‘So she told you.’
‘Of course, Otts,’ she said, laughing now. ‘We were cooped up together in an apartment for years. Girls talk. Oh, don’t look so
bothered
, Ottsy. I was just teasing you. You were being so serious about how much you loved me. I couldn’t resist! She
told
me it was nothing, she told me you were tongue-tied with guilt in the morning. That all you could think about was me.’
‘Well …’ Otto said, embarrassed, ‘that’s true, actually. We were drunk, you see. And it was an unusual situation.’
He could still scarcely believe that this was what they were discussing.
‘And she
did
turn out quite pretty in the end, didn’t she? Who would have thought it back in the twenties?’ Dagmar laughed again. ‘
Please
don’t look so upset, Otts. You promised to love me, not to remain celibate. I don’t imagine you’ve been a monk since 1939.’
She stamped her cigarette out on the ground and accepted another. Otto thought of Billie doing the same thing on the Thames Embankment. Just a few days before and a universe away. For a mad moment he wondered if Dagmar knew about Billie too. She was in the Stasi after all.
‘But you
do
still love me best of all, Ottsy. That’s nice, I must say. Very nice.’
‘I just wanted you to know. About my promise. I won’t say it again.’
‘Why not? I don’t mind.’
‘Well, it isn’t relevant, is it?’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘No more now than it was then. You chose Paulus, Dagmar,’ Otto said. ‘He was the one you loved.’
As Otto mentioned his brother’s name he realized it was the first time he had done so. How could it have taken him so long?
‘Paulus, Ottsy?’ Dagmar said with a sad sad smile.
She tilted her head back and looked up at the sky. The clouds were grey but there were hints of sun rippling through them. There was no breeze and the smoke rose vertically from her mouth. After a little while she looked back at him and her eyes were glistening as if she was going to cry.
She seemed about to say something but then stopped, drawing instead once more on her cigarette. Finally her face seemed to harden a little with resolve and the words came.
‘Oh, Otto,’ she said as a tear trickled from her eye. ‘I never loved Paulus.’
For a moment he wondered if he had heard her correctly, but there could be no doubt he had. The tears now flowing down her cheeks were proof of that.
‘Dagmar,’ Otto said, aghast, ‘what do you mean? How can you say you never loved him? You told us … at Wannsee. On the beach. That you’d chosen Paulus.’
‘Yes. That’s right, Otts,’ and she could not look at him now. ‘I
chose
him.’
‘Then what are you saying?’
‘Oh, Otto.
Otto
,’ Dagmar said, and it sounded almost as if she was scolding him. ‘So
good
, so true. Just like his brother. Those terrible Stengel twins, eh? I didn’t deserve them. I always knew that. But then I never forced them to fall in love with me either.’
‘Dagmar, please tell me what you’re—’
‘Paulus was the
clever
one, Ottsy.’ Dagmar ground out her butt, then took the lighter and another cigarette from the packet in Otto’s hand, her fingers lingering for a moment on his. ‘Don’t you see? I chose the
clever
one.
Surely
you understand?’
‘Not really, no,’ Otto said, although he thought that perhaps he was beginning to.
‘I wasn’t interested in love, Otto. I didn’t have that luxury. I was a Jewess trapped in Nazi Berlin. The mob had just
burned my mother to death
. I was interested in
survival
.’ Dagmar lit her cigarette and collected her thoughts. ‘I worked it out on the night you saved my life. On
Kristallnacht
. Do you remember what you said? When we got to your mum’s apartment, me sitting there on the floor, hugging my little toy monkey. I still have it, you know. You said you were going to
kill
Himmler. That was your reaction to the Night of the Broken Glass. You were
always
saying that sort of thing. You were the boy who brought me the Brownshirt’s buttons. Pauly
never
did anything like that. Pauly was too clever, too calculating. Pauly always had a plan. He had a plan that night too. He told you to forget stupid ideas like killing Nazis. Because you had to become a good German so that you could look after me. It was a
good
plan. But sitting there listening to it, not saying a word, I could see damn clearly that the wrong twin was going to have to carry it out. I needed the clever one. The calculating one. Not the wild one who wanted to kill Himmler. I didn’t think I’d stand a chance with you.’
The cigarette packet fell from Otto’s limp fingers. He stooped to retrieve it from the ground. Some children ran past the bench where they were sitting. He glanced up to see their legs flash past.
A boy chasing a girl.
Somewhere Otto could hear a band playing.
‘You decided that night, then? On
Kristallnacht
?’ Otto said, his words emerging as if from some strange other place. ‘You decided to tell Paulus that you loved him?’
‘Don’t judge me, Ottsy.’
‘Did you tell him then? That night after I went back to school?’
‘No.’ Her voice was tense but steady, almost as if it was a relief finally to be telling the truth. ‘Pauly was dead set on his path; he was going to escape from Germany and be an English lawyer and build the future. I knew that if I was to keep him for myself I must handle him with care. I had so much to turn around and so little time in which to do it. After all, poor Pauly thought I loved you.’ The tune the distant band were playing finished. A smattering of applause drifted across the park. Then they struck up again. More marching music. Did they
never
tire of it?
‘And did you?’ Otto asked, and he was shocked to realize how eagerly he leapt upon the point. Had he won, after all? Had the pendulum to which he and his brother nailed their hearts as boys swung once again in his favour? ‘
Did
you love me?’
‘Oh, Otto, Otto,’ Dagmar replied wearily. ‘You’re a man now, not a boy. Surely you can see? Don’t you understand? I never loved
either
of you.’
Otto flinched as if he had been struck. Dagmar too looked almost taken aback at herself, shocked at her own honesty. At the pain she was inflicting.
‘I know how awful that must sound,’ she went on quickly. ‘I
adored
you. You must know that. Those crazy Stengel boys who loved me so. But even then we all knew that if it hadn’t been for Hitler, me loving you would never even have been a question. Ours was a Saturday world, that was all. One day a week. And one fine Saturday I would have been gone. Away. Abroad. I was going to marry a millionaire just like my daddy was.’