The Berlin Crossing (30 page)

‘No, sir.’

‘And that’s another thing, Fuchs, why did you have to kill the fucker before he talked?’

‘He came at me with a knife, sir.’

‘And I suppose you were taken unawares again,’ Neiber said drily. ‘I’ll give you a couple of days to follow up your line of
inquiry. Half of our units are looking for this bloody Engländer, Fuchs, but I hope you understand that there’s a good chance
you’ll soon be chasing reactionary adolescents.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The message was clear: come up with something or you’ll be reduced to hunting pimpled students who listen to fucking
Western pop music.

The colonel waved him away. He didn’t even look as Fuchs backed out of his office.

‘You!’ She was in the middle of an after-work crowd, almost at the main exit, when she heard the voice, recognized it from
the rapid-fire questions in her bedroom.

The group of women paused to look at the man standing outside the door but it was at her alone that the strange eyes were
staring. The others glanced at her, then with obvious relief turned away and hurried out into the evening.

She moved to the side of the corridor. Workers streamed past, heads studiously averted from the Stasi ID card that Fuchs was
holding up. He closed it slowly, reluctantly, then pointed a finger back along the green corridor. He said nothing but she
could feel his footsteps at her heels. In an instant the whole building seemed to have emptied: just two pairs of footsteps
echoed in the silence.

She felt his hand on her elbow and tried not to shiver. He steered her down the metal staircase, to the basement. Their footsteps
were louder on the stone floor. The ceiling was lower here, the walls blank. This was where the maintenance staff kept their
tools, behind the closed doors. The stinging smell of cleaning chemicals clung to the walls, the sour tang of old mops and
buckets. And the silence of the building seemed deeper than ever.

His fingers were on her elbow again, forceful this time, halting her at a door almost at the end of the corridor.

Fuchs pushed open the door. A feeble bulb inside a metal cage on the ceiling lent a dim light to the small room. An old printing
press had been pushed against one wall, its entrails still dark with congealed ink. Trays of faded metal print slugs were
stacked haphazardly alongside. A metal-legged table filled the corner, a chair with three legs upended on top. The room smelled
musty, as though it had not been opened for a long time.

The air of abandonment pleased Fuchs. It was a forgotten place. A place for the forgotten.

But not a place that would be forgotten. Least of all by this piece with the blue eyes and the cropped blond hair and the
violin case swinging in her hand as if she were a schoolgirl heading off to a lesson.

She’d learn a different lesson here
.

‘Sit.’ Petra felt herself pushed into the chair.

The discovery of the old easy chair had also pleased Fuchs. Its high seat of worn leather and its pair of flat wooden arms
seemed almost to have been specially designed for his purposes.

‘Now, Fräulein Ritter, we will conduct an experiment, you and I.’ He noted the look of alarm on her face with satisfaction.
‘You and I will perform our very own lie-detector test, under the strictest laboratory conditions.’

The nicotine-stained teeth he flashed at her seemed of a piece with his strange eyes; when she flinched in the chair, he nodded
in approval.

‘There is nothing to fear, Fräulein Ritter.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘The truth will set you free, as they say. Untruths
alone will keep you chained – and worse.’

As he spoke, Fuchs was securing her left arm to the arm of the chair with two short straps that he had taken from his black
briefcase. He buckled two more straps round her right forearm. He eased the straps so that the buckles did not touch her skin.

‘Comfy, Fräulein Ritter? We don’t want you hurt – at least not unnecessarily.’

Another flash of the stained teeth, another mouthful of sour breath in her face.

‘Your legs,’ he said, and she flinched again, drawing them tightly together.

Fuchs nodded. ‘Whatever is between your legs, Fräulein Ritter, is of no interest to me. I just want you firmly settled in
your seat so that we can proceed with our lie-detector test.’ His hand moved, drew the hem of her skirt further down over
her knees. ‘Better?’

She tried to swallow, nodded at him.
Humour him. Think of Roland. No, think of something else, of music, get Roland out of your mind. Lest you betray him
.

Fuchs pushed a small table against the left arm of her chair and drew her hand towards him. He looked at her slowly, deliberately,
then splayed her fingers flat on the tabletop.

‘For the detection of lies, Fräulein Ritter. Ready?’

She nodded.

‘It is necessary that your answers are spoken aloud.’ With his foot he drew his briefcase closer to his own chair, facing
her. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes. Yes, sir.’

‘Your name is Petra Ritter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Your job is?’

‘A trainee cartographer, sir.’

‘You like this job to which you have been assigned by the state?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Yes – but you were in Berlin for a test, an audition, is that not so, three days ago?’

She stammered, looked at Fuchs, at her fingers splayed on the dirty tabletop.

‘I can’t hear you, Fräulein Ritter.’

‘Yes, sir.’ A whisper.

‘I can’t hear you!’

‘Yes, sir!’

‘You are raised by our state in an orphanage, you are assigned to useful work, and you are ungrateful for this?’

‘No.’

‘But you sought an audition in Berlin – to do what?’

She looked away from the yellow eyes, saw only the discarded machinery, the abandoned tools.

‘To study the violin, sir.’

‘Ah, the violin.’ Leaning back in his chair now, arms folded, shaking his head. ‘The state assigns you to valuable work but
you
know better, Fräulein Ritter.’ Another shake of the head, mournful, disappointed with this ungrateful child. ‘Is that not
so?’

‘No, sir, it’s just . . .’ She couldn’t go on.

‘It’s just that you are lying to me, Fräulein Ritter, and this is a lie-detector test.’

She bit her lip. She had never been in a place so remote, so empty, so full of menace.

‘You like the violin?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘This is your violin?’ He picked up the case, laid it across his knees, his thumbs on the metal catches.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘You bought it?’ He snapped the catches open.

‘No, sir. A teacher at the orphanage gave it to me, he taught me to play.’

‘You fucked him, Fräulein Ritter?’ Fuchs lifted the instrument from the case, gripped it by the neck. ‘You fucked this reactionary
teacher and he gave you this violin because he liked the way you fucked him?’

‘No, sir.’

‘No? No? You lie to my face, Fräulein Ritter?’

‘No—’

Fuchs swung the violin by the neck and smashed it against the edge of the table.

She screamed.

She went on screaming until Fuchs struck her across the face with his open palm.

At her feet lay the shattered violin, its torn strings like severed arteries above a gutted carcass. She struggled against
the straps around her arms, opened her mouth as if to scream again.

Fuchs struck her once more, harder. Her nose hurt. She tasted blood on her lips.

‘We understand each other, Fräulein Ritter?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Spitting blood through her words.

Fuchs leaned over her, wiped her mouth with a dirty handkerchief.

‘Who did you meet in Berlin?’

‘Sir, the teachers at the Academy, the examiners.’

‘Who else?’

‘Pastor Bruck, sir, he gave me a lift to the city.’

‘The priest?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And coming home?’

‘Yes, sir, I came home with him too.’
It’s coming now, the question. Think about music, about your unbroken violin
.

‘Who else was in the car?’

‘Nobody, sir, just myself and Pastor Bruck.’

Fuchs had his briefcase on his knees. Slowly he drew from it a short-handled hammer and laid it on the table beside her hand.
She could feel the coldness of the grey metal hammerhead against her little finger.

‘Fräulein Ritter, who else was in the car with you and the priest?’

‘Just me and the Pastor—’

The hammer was in his grip, was swinging downwards in a blur of slow-motion speed, and her fingers seemed smashed like sausages
on the tabletop. For a split second her brain refused to countenance what her eyes saw: her hand melded to the table, shattered,
mushy, blood seeping from under her nails and spreading around her flesh, the white flesh and slender bones now blue fading
to black.

She didn’t know she was screaming.

And then she knew, when Fuchs struck her across the face.

She went on screaming anyway, even when he struck her again. She struggled with her right arm against the strap, bellowed
in her pain. Fuchs was roaring at her but the pain screaming in her brain was louder and that pain was shrilling out of her
open mouth.

She tried to stand. The chair turned over and she went with it, tumbling to the floor, the armchair strapped to her arms like
a carapace. The broken violin was at her face on the stone floor, Fuchs’s brown shoes were at her head and his voice was still
shouting, distant, angry, invading her pain.

Now there was another voice.

‘What’s this about?’ She knew the shoes, knew the voice.

‘Herr Deputy Director, this is a security matter. Stay out of it.’

‘Major Fuchs –’ She strained to hear Baumeister’s words, low, diffident. ‘Major, I would never interfere in security matters
but
please, consider, I mean, the girl will scream the building down, everyone will hear, and anyway she looks half dead . . .’

She knew they were looking down at her, on her knees, her head bent to the stone floor. The chair astride her back.

‘Herr Deputy Director, you are right.’
You don’t need Colonel Neiber asking you once more, why did you have to kill the fucker anyway?
‘You’re right,’ Fuchs said again. ‘We can continue our examination of this suspect in Normannenstrasse.’

The brown shoes and the black shoes stayed beside her head, beside her wounded hand, while the discussion went on. Remote,
in the far distance above her.

‘You wish to take her to Berlin now, Herr Major?’

‘Perhaps not.’
This is your line of inquiry, Major Fuchs? A screaming girl, who needs a fucking doctor?
‘No,’ Fuchs went on. ‘Not today. Just get the bitch out of here.’

She heard Baumeister’s grunting, smelled his face beside her own. She heard him say that he was going to loosen the belts
and help her to her feet. She shut her eyes, let him do it, was even grateful for his pudgy-fingered touch.

When she was on her feet she saw that the man with the yellow eyes was gone. Major Fuchs, Baumeister had called him. His black
briefcase was gone, so were the belts and the metal hammer.

The pain in her battered hand was not gone.

‘Here.’ Baumeister was holding out a faded white handkerchief to her. ‘Wrap it round your hand.’

She took the handkerchief in her right hand, tried to shake it open. Baumeister took it, unfolded it. Petra held her hand
out to him and she saw him flinch before the pulped mess of flesh.

‘Wrap it tight,’ she said. ‘Please.’

His own fat hands trembled as he wound the white cloth round the bloody mess.

‘Thank you, Herr Baumeister.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He didn’t look at her.
I don’t need this kind of shit in my Institute, not even if it is Stasi shit; you never know how it can come back to haunt
you
. ‘Let’s go.’

‘In a moment,’ she said.

What was the bitch doing, back down on her knees?

‘My violin.’

Christ
.

He got down beside her, gathered up the broken bits of the fucking violin and managed to squeeze them into the case.
She’ll be playing fuck-all violins with that hand
. He snapped the case shut, hauled himself to his feet.

‘Thank you,’ she said again. Her right hand was wrapped round her left, blood already darkening the white handkerchief.

He turned away and she followed him out of the room, along the corridor and up the stairs.

He held the main door open for her. The night was black, starless. Footsteps came hurrying towards them across the deserted
car park. Johannes Vos came out of the gloom, his doomed face paler than usual.

‘Vos! What are you doing here?’

The caretaker ignored Baumeister. He was looking at Petra, at the way she was cradling her left hand, at the blood seeping
through the twisted cloth.

She leaned towards him, almost fell into the arm he reached around her. With his other hand he took the violin case from Baumeister.

‘I’ve got her, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with it.’

Baumeister looked at them both, wondering. He shrugged, turned back inside the building. He didn’t need this shit. He didn’t
look back at Vos and the girl making their way across the car park to the ancient, shiny Lada.

‘Johannes,’ she said, ‘what are you doing here?’

‘I saw that weird-looking fellow taking you downstairs and I just thought I should wait around for you.’

She started to weep, her body trembling.

‘Let it out, Petra,’ Johannes Vos said, ‘let it out, it’ll do you good.’

Slowly her eyes became accustomed to the darkness, to the shapes and shadows in Johannes’ living room. She didn’t want to
switch on the light. The door to Johannes’ bedroom was half-open: she could imagine him resisting sleep, listening, in case
she needed him. He’d wanted her to take the bedroom but she’d insisted: he’d done enough, more than enough; the sofa was fine.
He’d fussed gently. He made tea, produced a flannel nightdress that had belonged to his wife, plumped the pillows on the sofa,
tucked the blankets around her. He’d kissed her on the forehead. ‘Call me if you need anything.’ She’d never had a father.
Roland had a father who didn’t know where he was. And Johannes and his dead wife had shared a childless life.
Life
.