The Berlin Crossing (22 page)

‘Pastor Bruck, I’m grateful but I’m going. Maybe if I get a move on, I can make it back through the checkpoint before the
shit hits the fan – I’m sorry, I mean, before they know about me at the checkpoint—’

‘Herr Feldmann, Roland, they know already at the checkpoint. They know at
all
the crossing points into West Berlin. This is the Staatssicherheitsdienst, one of the most effective security and surveillance
organizations in the world. Believe me, they already know at the checkpoints about what happened here.’

Roland looked at the priest, at Marta’s grey face in the bed.

‘Then I should give myself up. There’s no point in implicating you also, Pastor Bruck.’

‘They’ll be expecting you to try to cross into West Berlin.’

‘But what else can I do?’

‘We can try to get you out of the city.’

‘Where?’

‘To Bad Saarow, maybe to Brandenburg.’

‘Deeper into East Germany?’

‘I can’t think of anything else, young man.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then we wait. We hide you and we wait.’

A draught stirred unexpectedly in the room and the two men turned to watch the flickering candle flame. ‘We wait and try to
get you out somewhere else along the border. Maybe we’ll get you into Magdeburg or Leipzig and try to get you out from there.’
He laid a hand on Roland’s. ‘At this stage, all you can do is try to be like Marta – have a little faith.’

‘And wait for the mountains to move.’ Roland shrugged. ‘Very well. So what now? You said they’ll be back.’

‘We have only a few minutes so listen closely.’

Roland listened to the hoarse voice, trying to concentrate, but his mind wandered, to the old lady in the bed, to Yellow-eyes’
bleeding ear, to the hammering on doors, to Ingham in the bus-shelter flat in Charlottenburg. To the Vopo on the tram.

‘Now,’ Pastor Bruck was saying, ‘repeat it back to me.’

And somehow he was able to. It was like listening to a lecture at college and somehow the gist of the droning lecturer’s words
stuck while your attention drifted, to the girl at the end of the row in front, to the white-clad figures on the tennis courts,
to the workshop in the House of Feldmann.

He repeated the priest’s instructions. Past the row of garages, through the side streets, on to Schonhauser Allee. Walk, take
the tram, take a chance.
Only luck and Marta’s intercession will get you through this, young man
. East to Alexanderplatz and head south
from there. Make for the Turm Cafe in a side street off Heinrich-Heine Strasse.

It sounded to Roland like a long shot and he said so.

The priest nodded. ‘Like I said, with luck and a little help from Marta, you might make it.’

And then what?
But he kept the thought to himself. Sometimes you just had to be satisfied with one step at a time.

‘The coffee is lousy at the Turm Cafe,’ the priest said, ‘but it’s used by students so you’ll fit in.’

The priest held out his hand and Roland took it.

‘Keep the heart up, Roland.’

‘I will. And thank you.’

‘And take this with you.’ He handed Roland his duffel coat and cap. ‘Dump them somewhere, maybe not all together. They’ll
find them, of course, unless somebody else takes them home first. ‘And,’ he pointed at Roland’s bag, ‘that should go too.’

Roland nodded. Right now this apartment, with this unlikely priest and dead woman, seemed safe; the candle at the bedside
seemed like a beacon of hope. Outside, the unknown waited.

‘Thank you,’ he said again.

‘I’ll meet you at the Turm Cafe,’ Pastor Bruck said. ‘I have to look after Marta first.’

Roland gathered up his folded coat and cap and stepped out into the corridor. He ran lightly along the stone floor. No door
opened, yet he knew that ears were listening to his fleeing footsteps. He was in the open, past the row of garages, when,
in the distance, he heard the sound of sirens. He quickened his pace. Maybe Pastor Bruck was right, maybe old Marta would
guide him.

Cigarette smoke: blue-grey tendrils lingered above the crowded tables, searching for a home. The stained walls and ceiling
of the Turm Cafe looked as if they couldn’t absorb any more. The cafe itself seemed the same: huddles of students on wooden
chairs clustered around small wooden tables and not an empty chair in sight.

A few heads turned when Roland pushed open the door, dallied a moment to take in the late Marta’s late husband’s tweed overcoat
and peaked cap, then turned back to more interesting fare among the clustered heads and cigarettes. A radio was playing at
the innermost end of the cafe: a newsreader, Roland thought, it was that kind of self-important, official voice, but the carefully
delivered words were lost among the din of competing sounds. He heard the word Cuba, then laughter drowned the radio voice.

He made his way to the counter between the crowded tables, thankful that nobody showed the slightest interest in him.

The fat fellow behind the counter did.

‘Haven’t seen you in here before.’ There was a question in the words. Roland thought the fellow wasn’t much older than himself
but his hair was thinning and his huge stomach strained against the navy apron.

‘Just passing, then I remembered somebody told me you had a good cup of coffee in here.’

‘Typical.’ The fellow grinned toothlessly. ‘We get nothing in here except liars.’

Roland shrugged, wondering how to digest the words.

‘Like to try it then?’ The fellow was holding up an empty cup.

‘
Bitte.
’ He watched the coffee-making procedure: a large spoonful of powder from a bucket-sized tin produced from under the counter,
add boiling water to the cup, stir vigorously.

‘Enjoy.’ The fat fellow managed to plonk the cup of coffee heavily on the counter without spilling a drop.

Roland paid, wondering where to sit, wondering how long before Pastor Bruck arrived, or if the Polizei might arrive first.

‘There’s a stool over there.’ His coffee-maker was pointing at a girl sitting alone on a high stool beside a small shelf.
The tooth-free gums were bared again. ‘You never know, you might get lucky.’

She was sitting with her legs crossed on the stool.
Perched
, Roland thought,
perched
, the stool looks too tall for her. Her head was bent over the shelf, reading something. He could see only the back of her
head, blond hair, cropped unevenly, as though it had been blindly snipped.

‘
Entschuldigung. Hier ist frei, kann ich?
’ Excuse me, is this place free?

She lifted her head from the magazine and he blinked at the huge eyes, green, aquamarine, maybe turquoise, the irises dashed
with tiny flecks of grey. Huge eyes, regarding him now with a hint of amusement.

‘
Klar, bitte.
’ Of course. She waved a hand over the empty stool as if to demonstrate beyond doubt that the stool was certifiably unoccupied.

He thanked her, put his coffee on the shelf, eased himself on to the stool, half facing her. She had a soft, wide mouth and
soft, creamy skin that looked almost white above the black crew-necked
sweater and the black skirt.
Idiot: in deepest shit in East Berlin and you’re ready to swoon over a pair of big eyes and creamy skin
.

And yet.

And yet he couldn’t help himself, side-eyeing her as she went on reading. It wasn’t a magazine, he could see that now, but
a folded newspaper.
Neues Deutschland
, the title clear when she spread the pages to turn them. The pages spread over his coffee cup and she hastily gathered them
in again.

‘I’m sorry, these pages—’

‘Cuba,’ he said, pointing at the headline on the front page.

She turned the paper round to read it. ‘Warmonger Kennedy Accuses USSR.’ A photo of Fidel Castro under the headline.

The girl shrugged. ‘It’s hard to know what to believe.’

Her words hung there in the smoky air, above the coffee cups, above
Neues Deutschland
, what Ingham, in the kitchen at Kingston, had termed the mouthpiece of the East German Communist Party.
Ignore her words
, the voice said in his head.

‘It’s always hard to know the truth,’ he said.

‘Like Pontius Pilate.’

He had been thinking just that.

He stared at her then.
It’s as if she’s inside my head
.

‘“What is truth?”’ he quoted.

‘You could write a letter to the editor.’

‘We could write one together.’

‘They’d probably put it on the front page.’

That gave him pause.
If the Polizei walk in here now, I’ll be on the front page anyway
.

‘You don’t want to be on the front page,’ she said. ‘I can tell by your face.’

‘Maybe it’s not such a good idea.’

‘OK, we’ll have to settle for the back page.’

They laughed together at that. The grey flecks danced in the turquoise pools of her eyes. The cafe around them receded; they
were set apart in their own bubble of time and space.

‘I’m Roland,’ he said.
Sod John Carter and his thesis on German poets
.

‘I’m Petra.’

Their smiles were for themselves in their sound-proofed capsule. The fat fellow behind the counter saw the smiles and winked
at Roland but he was unaware of it, he saw only the chopped blond fringe above the fabulous eyes and the rich wide lips smiling
only at him.

And then he could think of nothing to say.
Idiot, empty-brained idiot. Not a word in his head
.

He dropped his eyes from those deep seas, saw the wide bag on the floor, beside her stool, saw the big pages of sheet music
sticking out of it. And beside it, against the wall, a black violin case. Salvation for his numb brain and dumb tongue.

‘You’re a musician,’ he said. ‘You play the violin.’

Another shrug. ‘I’d like to be,’ she said. ‘Right now they’re training me to be a cartographer.’

It took him a moment to get the word.

‘Maps? You make maps?’

‘They’re training me but I’d rather play my violin.’

It wasn’t the time to say anything. He went on looking at her and he sensed a kind of uneasiness in the way her eyes looked
down into her lap. She shifted on the stool, looked around the smoke-clouded cafe as if searching for something. Her eyes
came back to him, stared into his. It was, he thought, as if she were trying to decide on something.

‘I had an audition in the city this morning.’ A decision had been made. ‘To study at the conservatory here. I don’t think
I’m going to make it.’

‘But then – you haven’t been told yet. You don’t know, do you? You’re waiting for a decision?’

Her shrug seemed neither eloquent nor elegant now: just a tired slumping of her shoulders.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘I just know.’ Even her voice sounded tired.

‘Maybe—’

‘No,’ she interrupted him. ‘What about you? Are you a student in Berlin?’

What about you?
He wanted to tell her about Ireland, about the house he lived in, about his German parents. He wanted to tell her about playing
for the seconds on a wintry Sunday afternoon, about the freezing cold showers in the dump of a dressing room at the Sportsground,
about how he’d like to take her for a drink with the gang after the game—

‘What’s so funny?’ she asked.

‘What – why?’

‘You’re smiling to yourself about something.’

‘I was thinking about home.’

‘Tell me – please.’

And he was about to.

Until, from the corner of his eye, he spotted Pastor Bruck entering the cafe, closing the door behind him, scanning the crowded
tables.

‘You’ve met.’ Pastor Bruck’s voice was low, standing beside them. ‘How?’

Roland looked from the priest to the girl. He saw the same confusion in the deep blue eyes.

‘I just sat beside Petra—’

She started to say something and thought better of it.

It was to her that Pastor Bruck spoke.

‘I arranged to meet this young man here, Petra. I did not tell him I had already made an arrangement to meet you here.’ The
priest looked quickly over his shoulder towards the counter. ‘I’m afraid we’re a bit too noticeable like this, an older man
with two young people.’

Roland glanced at the counter in time to catch the bartender staring at them.

‘So we should leave,’ Roland said.

‘Not together,’ Pastor Bruck said quietly. ‘And I’m not sure if Petra will wish to travel with us.’

The girl looked at Roland, at the priest. ‘There’s a problem?’

‘There’s no need to involve you, Petra.’ Urgency in the priest’s voice now. ‘You can get home to Bad Saarow on the train.
I know I promised you a lift but – but I need to help this young man.’

‘Roland.’ She spoke his name softly. ‘You’re helping this Roland fellow?’

‘It’s better to stay out of it, Petra.’

‘Has he murdered someone, Pastor Bruck?’

‘Petra—’

‘Or sold the secrets of the GDR to the Americans?’

‘Petra—’

‘I’ll travel with you, Pastor Bruck, and with Roland. Unless you forbid me.’

The priest gave a wry smile. ‘It might even look better, three of us in the car, my son, perhaps,’ he looked at Roland, ‘and
his girlfriend. Maybe we can get out of the city.’

‘With Marta’s help,’ Roland said.

‘You know Marta?’

‘Intimately.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Petra looked at Pastor Bruck.

‘I’m sorry,’ Roland said quickly. ‘I shouldn’t have said that, it was – disrespectful.’

‘Yes, it was,’ the priest said, ‘but Marta will forgive you.’

‘How
is
your friend Marta?’ Petra asked.

‘She passed away while I was with her.’

‘I’m glad she wasn’t alone.’

‘So am I,’ the priest said.

‘I’m sorry for what I said,’ Roland repeated.

‘It’s all right,’ Pastor Bruck said, ‘it’s just nerves.’ Once more he glanced at the counter. ‘We need to move. I’ll go first
with Petra, then you follow in ten minutes. The car is around the corner, Roland, at the back of this cafe, a green Trabi.
We’ll watch out for you. OK?’