The Helsinki Pact (29 page)

The faces around the room were
grim. Eight hundred thousand was roughly twice what most of them
got as bonuses each year. Split between them, it was
peanuts.

Erwin laughed. “Let’s not worry
about the market value. We're not chasing money from futures. We’ll
get the real currency and exchange it at whatever official exchange
the government sets. I promise you, we’ll get each pfennig of our
theoretical value. Two million marks could start being worth the
effort, but I think we’re all convinced the exchange rate will move
further down. I heard the government is under a lot of pressure,
especially to set up a fixed exchange rate for Eastern
travellers.”

He turned to Rainer, tall and
balding, who looked considerably older than his thirty-three years.
Working at the Bundesbank seemed to have this effect on
people.

“Anything new on the exchange
rate and the ceiling?”

“The situation keeps changing
every day.” Rainer said. “The politicians are arguing with the
Bundesbank for a very low exchange rate, assuming unification
happens. They want to create consensus in the East, worry that too
punitive an exchange rate could cost them votes. On the other hand,
the Bundesbank is scared stiff of the consequences that uniting the
currencies will have on the DM. Too high an exchange rate could
lead to devaluation of the DM and hyperinflation. And inflation is
what the BuBa has been fighting against all these years. It depends
on who gets the upper hand.”

“Let’s hope it’s our politicians,
then. Any rumours on what kind of rates are being discussed?” Erwin
asked.

“I’ve heard the Governor say he
wouldn’t sign anything lower than four to one. But other people
I’ve spoken to talk about conversations with the government where
even a one to one exchange was discussed.”

Klaus stared at Rainier. “One to
one? The old official exchange in the East!”

“Exactly. The point seems to be
that the large majority of East Germans never had any reason to
exchange their Ost Marks into DMs, or anything else, for that
matter. But everyone knew that the exchange with the DM was one to
one. If, all of a sudden, unity comes along and the exchange is
actually eight to one, they’ll all be feeling a helluva lot poorer,
and probably pretty angry as well. That doesn’t make for a great
electoral base ... so in all likelihood, the exchange rate is set
to move lower.”

The door opened and the young
waitress, slim and pretty, Saxon-blonde and with her hair gathered
in a pigtail thrown over her shoulder and nearly to her waist,
looked in. "Can I bring the food in now, sir?"

Erwin grunted and beckoned with
his hand while Klaus stared at her, nakedly appraising her, so that
she coloured and hurriedly left. "Mmmm!" he said "What an aperitif!
Very tasty! I can see she really fancies me too." He reached into
his pocket and slapped his wallet on the table, daring the others.
"A thousand DM says she's knickerless! Or if she's not she will be
before dinner's over."

“And what about the ceiling?”
asked Erwin.

“That’s the other side of the
same old Ost Mark.” Rainer continued, smiling smugly at his own
joke. “Heads we win, tails we don’t lose. It’s possible the
Bundesbank may be forced to accept the government’s argument that a
lower exchange is necessary. But at that point they’ll pull the
brake elsewhere. The only lever they have left is the
ceiling.”

The waitress returned wheeling a
trolley laden with plates of lobster and steak and steaming tureens
of vegetables. As she bent over to collect a plate for Klaus from
the lower shelf he ran his fingers quickly up an inner thigh then
pulled her by her pigtail on to his lap to kiss her. One hand still
up her skirt, he used his other to acknowledge the frenzied
hooting, table slapping and whistling of his colleagues, noise
which turned to laughter as the waitress struggled free, turned and
slapped Klaus hard across the cheek and ran from the room leaving
him smiling broadly, closing his eyes in feigned ecstasy and
passing his fingers ostentatiously back and forth under his nose.
"You'd have lost, guys! You'd have lost!"

“What do you mean by ceiling?”
Patrick asked after everyone had calmed down and begun eating. His
was the only non-finance background of the group and he’d been
sweating to understand some of what had been said. His role was to
help cover their contacts in the East.

“By ceiling he means that the
Bundesbank will set a preferential rate of exchange, establishing a
maximum amount of money that each individual resident in East
Germany will be allowed to change into DMs at that rate. It’s the
whole reason we’ve created this network of people in the East,
spinning them the story of consumer financing.” Klaus said with
annoyance. He had only met Patrick once before and had taken an
instant dislike to him. "Thick as pigshit!" he'd thought to himself
at the time.

“The grid is likely to be set
according to the age of the individual." he added. "Older people
will get to exchange more. That's because they’ve had more time to
save and so should have more money. The good news is that it should
be a per-head allocation − even babies and small children will
count. We’ll give our contacts the money and all they need to do is
go to the bank and exchange it into DMs at the preferential
exchange rate. We pay them a small commission and we keep all the
rest.”

“But why don’t we just exchange
the money ourselves?” Patrick asked, his fork raised. "Isn't that a
lot easier, and safer?" Seeing the look of contempt on every face
made him wish he hadn’t asked. The seconds passing felt like hours
until Rainier lifted his head from where he'd dropped it on his arm
resting on the table, sighed noisily, and answered.

“Westerners won’t have access to
the preferential rate. And the maximum amount for the preferential
exchange will be very low, probably three to six thousand marks
range.”

Patrick looked blank. The
intricacies of exchange rates were clearly well beyond his capacity
to understand. Klaus sighed, swivelled his eyes to the ceiling,
then sighed again more loudly.

“The most anyone can change at
the preferential rate will be what Rainer said, maybe three to six
thousand. We're trading millions! Do you know what a million is?
It's a thousand thousand. Work it out! At those limits and with the
cash we have you'll need thousands of people to get the
preferential rate, the highest possible return for the Ost
Mark."

Patrick’s face still hadn’t
registered understanding. “Jesus, Patrick, just take our word for
it! This way is how we make a lot of money.” Patrick stared at the
table, aware of the subdued sniggering and conscious of the
prickling in his eyes. He blinked hard and pushed fingers over each
lid hurriedly.

“When will they decide the
terms?” Erwin asked Rainier.

“It’s unclear. Sometime after the
elections.”

“How about the network, Klaus?
How's that developing?" Erwin dug into his surf'n'turf.

“We’re on a roll - in the hay!"
He grunted a couple of times, jerking his clenched fist upwards in
time to the noises. "We’ve got over a thousand direct contacts all
over the country. That means we could have anywhere between seven
and ten thousand people to be financed. At let’s say four thousand
marks each that would get us to thirty or forty million Ost Marks
to exchange. We still have a few months to go and the phone keeps
ringing and ringing.” Klaus bragged. “By the way, a few people in
the network are starting to ask intelligent, difficult questions.
We need to plan a meeting to present the details.”

“Good job there, Klaus. A final
point.” Erwin added. “We still need to finalise how we keep control
of the money once it’s exchanged. The government will set a fairly
short window in which to exchange and, anyway, people in one town
or village just aren't all going to go to the banks on the same
day. So there’s no way we can be present in a hundred different
cities to check in person that the exchange gets done as we want
and then get our hands on our DMs by the next day. That's why we
needed help from some organisation which is everywhere in the DDR,
including the smallest towns. There’s only two of them, the SED and
the Stasi. How are we doing on that front, Patrick?”

“It’s not easy.” Patrick replied.
“We need high level people involved to ensure we have the right
backing. And the country is melting," he hesitated, thought of his
earlier humiliation, then went for it, "the country is melting like
chocolate on a, onawhore'stwat." He reddened and blinked. "The
SED’s power base will vanish right after the elections.” He leant
back, blew out his cheeks, looked at the ceiling and crossed his
arms.

“They’re walking zombies.” Klaus
said. “All those damned communists are.” he said, emphasizing the
“all” and looking at Patrick.

“Anyway,” Patrick added, ignoring
his tormentor, “we’re making better progress with the other group.
They're more street-wise, and more ready to act. But they want a
major slice of the cake.”

“How much?” Erwin
asked.

“The first meeting I had, the guy
made no commitment and asked a lot of questions. After a couple of
weeks I decided to contact someone else. But the other contact said
half a million − and that’s Deutsche Marks − was the minimum to
even start discussions. That’s when I told him I would have to talk
directly with the people in charge. Then yesterday I heard that the
Stasi, it's called the ANFS as of last month, is being disbanded.
In fact, maybe that's already happened and it's become part of the
Ministry of the Interior. I called him again this morning and he
says that for the deal to work it's now a million. DM. That's
because he's got to keep the network going on a private basis and
that costs, he says. And he wants at least a third of it upfront,
and with no guarantees. Trouble is, there's not much we can do to
shift him and he's probably the best person to sort things out
anyway.”

“Actually, if our information's
correct the exchange rate should move further down. If it does we
can give them their million and still have a boatful for ourselves.
But you'd better act fast to get it agreed before things get
obvious. And we need to make sure we retain control or else this
whole thing falls apart. Make sure you understand that Patrick and
get back to me immediately if you have any doubt.”

Erwin smacked his hand hard on
the table and, standing, raised his glass in a toast. “To the
common Fatherland!”

"And to pretty little knickerless
waitresses!" smirked Klaus, as everyone murmured and
drank.

Chapter 23

Sunday January 14
1990, evening and on to early morning

BETTINA had driven back slowly
and carefully from Henkel’s house, the nervousness of the earlier
drive subdued. Again, neither she nor Thomas had said much,
spending the time instead mulling over what had happened, trying to
sort out in their minds what Henkel's death might mean. Grabbing
sandwiches and drinks in the Dornbusch kitchen, lit only by a small
lamp standing by the kitchen range, they'd sat in companionable
silence long after they'd finished eating as if the idea of lying
in full darkness and ending this fraught day had to be delayed, as
if sleeping and waking would make Henkel's death certain, make it
more absolute. Once she’d stretched her hand across the table and
with the tips of her fingers stroked the back of Thomas's hand
lightly for a moment. He looked at her and smiled complicitly but
when he rotated his hand to take hers she rose abruptly and stood
at the window looking out into the solid darkness of the
yard.

They’d trudged upstairs. When
Bettina returned from the bathroom Thomas was lying staring at the
ceiling and as she approached he turned on his far side and curled
tightly into himself. In bed she propped herself on her elbow for
some moments looking at him, then switched off the light and lay
down well away on her own side of the mattresses listening to his
breathing soften and become more regular. She lay on her back, as
Thomas had first done, staring upwards as if the meaning of
Henkel’s suicide would suddenly loom out of the darkness, bringing
understanding to her racing mind.

“He was just sitting there,
looking at us. Just, just staring. And smiling, almost smiling.”
The voice had cracked and there was a catch to it.

She was nearly asleep but his
voice jerked her awake.

“Thomas, I thought you were
asleep. Yes, it was awful, wasn't it? You never really get used to
it, I suppose, but the first time is always pretty bad.”

The sob, turned quickly into an
extended cough, made her turn and stretch out her hand to Thomas’s
waist. He said nothing further and continued to present his back
but edged closer so that her forearm was now across his belly and
chest, her covered breasts just brushing his back until she angled
slightly away. He freed and moved his arm, trapping hers on his
waist in turn and letting his forearm rest along her thigh, his
fingers light round the curve of her leg above her knee, bare where
her nightdress had rucked up. She did nothing to stop him, changing
her own position slightly to better fit the curve of his buttocks
in her lap. He could feel on his skin there a slight springiness
under the fabric and he pressed back. Again they lay silently in
their mutual warmth, more comfortable in each other than for a long
time.