The Pathfinder (6 page)

Harrison repressed a retort. He was not going to discuss what the British would or would not do, at any level. Nico Kocharian might have worked for the Intelligence Corps in the war – if he was telling the truth – but he could be up to anything in Berlin. The city was a hotbed of intrigue. He wasn't the sort of chap one could trust. Or like.

The light was fading and he looked at his watch and held it to his ear. The bloody thing had stopped again. ‘Do you have the time?'

The Armenian was wearing a flashy-looking watch – gold casing with a heavy gold mesh bracelet. ‘It's nearly eight.'

He drained his coffee. ‘I ought to get a move on.'

‘Having trouble with your watch?'

‘It keeps stopping. Damn nuisance. I must get it fixed.'

‘Easier said than done in Berlin. The few watchmakers still alive and in business simply don't have the spare parts. I can find you a good replacement, if you like. As a matter of fact, I can find most things in this city – good food, good booze, good women . . . I know my way around pretty well.'

He said coolly, ‘I'm sure you do.'

‘The kid I got this watch from is a sort of Berlin version of the Artful Dodger and some of his stuff is first class.'

‘Black market, you mean?'

‘Well, naturally. Don't look so disapproving, Mike. That's the only way to get hold of anything in Berlin. It's not so terrible. Everybody trades in it, one way or another. This isn't Tunbridge Wells.'

‘I'm aware of that. Thanks, but no.'

‘In fact, Dirk comes from a perfectly respectable family. Professional middle class, we'd call it. They've had to survive somehow. You've no idea what it's been like for them and the rest of the population. You really should meet them and see how these people are living and coping against the odds. I could introduce you to the Leichts. Have you actually met any Berliners? Talked to them?'

‘No.'

‘Rather a special breed. They are
Berliners
first, Germans second. Fearfully proud of their city – even in its present sorry state. Always cracking jokes. A bit like the cockney Londoners. As I say, you really ought to get to meet some of them. It might help you to understand them better, Mike, old chap.'

He looked round for the waiter to pay his bill. ‘I'm afraid I'm not particularly concerned about understanding any Germans. And it's Michael, not Mike. If you don't mind.'

‘Sorry. Silly of me. Of course it is. And probably
Sir
Michael one of these fine days when you're an air marshal, or something exalted, which I'm quite sure you will be. Your father was knighted, wasn't he? I remember that happening when we were at school. He's a general.'

‘Retired now, actually.'

‘And expecting equally illustrious things of you, no doubt. It often runs in families, doesn't it?'

‘Not necessarily. And the RAF is rather different from the army.'

‘Same fine military tradition, though. Service to the Crown, and all that. King and Country before everything else. All mapped out since birth.' Nico Kocharian smiled at him. ‘No, I suppose you wouldn't be at all interested in meeting any wretched Huns.'

It was said without apparent irony, but he knew that he was being mocked for being stuffy and bigoted. ‘Frankly, I don't see any point, and fraternization is discouraged.'

‘That's rather old hat now.'

He said stiffly, ‘Not as far as I'm concerned.'

‘A bit of a narrow view, Michael, if you don't mind my saying so.'

He
did
mind. Quite a lot. He'd never thought of himself as narrow-minded. In fact, he rather prided himself on having a pretty fair and open mind on most things; on being somewhat different from his father in that respect. He stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Where is this family then?'

‘Only a stone's throw from here.'

It proved to be rather more than that – several throws, in fact – and he regretted his capitulation every step of the way. Penetrating deeper into the Russian sector, he saw that it was in even worse shape than the western ones: a squalid wasteland of abandoned ruins and evil-smelling rubble. The cobbled side streets were deserted except for one old woman, bent double, and dragging a homemade cart behind her, full of what looked like filthy rags. He could see no traces of the pre-war vitality that Kocharian had spoken of. The light was going rapidly and the street lamps, few and far between, were still unlit. He wondered uneasily how safe the area was. They crossed a bridge over the River Spree – a narrow stretch of dark and scummy water, choked with rubbish – and as they walked beneath a railway arch one of the city S-Bahn trains thundered overhead. The archway bricks were marked with trails of green slime slithering into pools of water and there was a stink of urine. What a hell of a place to live in, he thought. Mean and drear.

They turned into a narrow, cobbled street where a few buildings were apparently inhabited. Upper storeys were wrecked and open to the weather but he could see lights burning in ground-floor windows and down in the basements. At the far end of the street an old flak tower rose black and menacing into the skies. Odd to think that he must have been on the receiving end of those guns. The Armenian beckoned him through a door in a wall which led into a courtyard flanked on three sides by the burnt-out shell of a red-brick apartment building. Here again, a small part of it, in one corner, appeared habitable. A short flight of steps led to an elaborately panelled double door with a carved wolf's head, lips drawn back in a snarl, in the centre panel of each door. The brownish paint, faded and peeling, was peppered with shrapnel marks. A dark blue and white enamel plaque on the lintel bore the number 8. Nico Kocharian tugged at an iron bell pull.

While they waited, Harrison looked round at the courtyard. It might have been rather a pleasant place once. He could see the remains of stone-embrasured windows with iron balconies and there was a stone fountain and basin in the centre and urns that had probably held flowers. Were there any flowers now in Berlin? None that he could remember seeing. No living colour. Nothing to lift the spirits and cheer the heart. All grey, grey, grey. Devastation and desolation. He thought of the bombs cascading down, of the blazing inferno he'd witnessed from thousands of feet above.
Oft have I struck those that I never saw and struck them dead
. The Shakespeare line learned long ago for a school performance of
Henry VI
seemed apt. One side of the double door had opened and he turned.

The girl standing there was small and slightly built – very different from his mental image of the typical German woman – and her hair was dark, not blond, and held back with combs behind her ears. No Gretchen plaits. Kocharian was addressing her in rapid German. His name and rank were spoken and she glanced at him. He sensed her hostility. Nico Kocharian said to him. ‘This is Fräulein Leicht. She speaks very good English.'

She held out her hand, but reluctantly. ‘How do you do, Squadron Leader. I am pleased to meet you.'

She clearly wasn't. ‘How do you do,' he said. ‘I'm sorry we're intruding like this.' Her hand felt unexpectedly rough.

‘You don't mind us calling on you, do you Lili?' Kocharian was all smiles. ‘Is Dirk at home?'

‘No. Did you want to see him?' She seemed wary.

‘If possible. Do you think he'll turn up soon?'

‘I'm not sure. I never know.'

‘May we come in?'

She nodded and stood back to let them in, obviously unwilling. Harrison couldn't blame her. They went from a small, dark hallway into a large room which, like the courtyard, must have seen much better days. Bare electric bulbs gave a dim and grim light, showing strips of lath and plaster dangling like stalactites from a high ceiling. Planks of wood had been nailed across one of the four large windows, a threadbare carpet across another. The furniture consisted of a single armchair, wooden beer crates, upended and containing books, and a large old-fashioned couch with a screen standing beside it. There was also a dining table, one leg broken and supported on bricks, and four odd chairs. In another part of the room, he noticed an enamel-topped work table and, beside that, a pot-bellied stove, much the same as those found in every Nissen hut in wartime England. A hole for the flue pipe had been clumsily punched through the outside wall. There was a smell about the place that repelled him. An odour of decay that he would always associate with Berlin. More than ever, he regretted letting Kocharian drag him there.

He could see the girl better now. She wore a jumper and skirt, both darned in several places with thread that did not match. Her stockings were darned too, and she wore clog-like shoes. ‘My grandfather is sleeping,' she said, indicating an old man sunk in the depths of the armchair, chin on chest, dribble sliding from the corner of his mouth. ‘I will not disturb him. This is my brother, Rudi.' A skinny, white-faced boy of about eight or nine, sitting at the table, stood up politely. Harrison nodded to him and the boy grinned. ‘Royal Air Force. RAF. I am most interested, sir. What aeroplane do you fly?'

‘I don't actually fly any at the moment.'

‘But you have the wings.' The boy tapped his own chest. His hand was almost skeletal – bone with a transparent covering of skin. ‘That means that you are a pilot. In the war, perhaps? You fly Liberators?'

‘Liberators are American.'

‘
Ach
, I am stupid. Lancasters, I mean.'

Harrison hesitated. He said crisply, ‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I flew Lancasters.'

The boy looked delighted. ‘I have pictures of these bombers.'

‘Really?'

‘He's plane mad,' Nico Kocharian said, amused. ‘I should have warned you.' The German hat had been removed. Underneath his black hair was glassy with oil.

‘
Ya
, I make a collection of pictures. Especially I like the Messerschmitt 109 and the Spitfire. You have flown a Spitfire?'

‘No. I'm afraid not.'

‘Only the bombers?'

He was spared from answering by the old man, who woke up with a start and struggled to his feet. He tottered across the room and began fiddling with a wireless up on a high shelf, turning the tuning wheel fretfully to and fro and muttering to himself. The set crackled and shrieked and whined and suddenly a stream of Russian blasted their ears. The girl went over and reached up to switch it off. He saw then how workworn her hand was, with broken nails and cuts and bruises. She said something quietly to the old man in German and led him back to his chair.

‘My grandfather forgets sometimes that the war is over. Towards the end we listened to the BBC broadcasts. He is trying to find the station.'

The old man nodded eagerly. ‘BBC. We hear English news. From London.'

Kocharian said in a low voice, ‘They took a hell of a risk. It was a crime to listen to foreign broadcasts. The Gestapo punished anyone they caught at it.'

I'll bet they did, he thought. ‘Where was that Russian coming from?'

‘Radio Berlin. It's controlled by the Russians. They broadcast from the
Rundfunkhaus
in the British sector.'

‘What was it all about?'

Nico smiled. ‘They were putting their point of view to the general population.'

‘Propaganda, you mean. Against us.'

‘Rather amusing considering their location.'

He didn't find it remotely amusing.

The girl said to him, ‘I am sorry but we have nothing to offer you to eat or drink.'

He could feel himself flushing. The whole thing was crazy and extremely embarrassing. These people didn't want to meet him any more than he had wanted to meet them – except for the boy, who was gazing at him as though he was some kind of hero. Kocharian was watching him, too – with sly enjoyment, he fancied – and he was suddenly furious at being put in the situation. He turned to the girl.

‘We are inconveniencing you, Fräulein Leicht. We should be leaving. I have to be getting back in any case.' He moved firmly towards the door. But as he reached it, it opened and a youth entered the room. He saw at once that it was Kocharian's Artful Dodger.

He was small and slightly built, dressed in a shabby raincoat about two sizes too big for him and he wore it tightly belted with the collar turned up around his ears, like some film gangster. He stopped, his eyes widening. ‘The Royal Air Force visits us again.' An exaggerated bow. ‘Good evening, sir. Welcome to what you have left of our home.'

Kocharian said, ‘This is Dirk – the one I was telling you about.'

‘What were you telling, Nico? Everything good, I hope.'

‘Squadron Leader Harrison needs a watch, Dirk. His old one has broken. What have you got to offer?'

‘Actually, I don't need one at all,' Harrison said curtly. ‘And I really must be going.'

The youth blocked his path. ‘Please stay for a moment more, sir. I may have just the watch for you. All work very well. I make sure of that.' He smiled disarmingly. ‘And, of course, for you to buy is food for us.'

He was trapped. Common decency obliged him to stay and probably pay through the nose for some dubious watch that he didn't want in the least. His service Omega had seen him through the war and he was sentimentally attached to it. He had every intention of getting it mended and keeping it. He waited, fuming inwardly, while the youth left the room. The girl said, ‘Please do not feel you must buy anything, Squadron Leader. Please leave, if you wish.'

She seemed sincere, discomfited even, but he did not trust her either. The younger brother started asking him more questions. What plane did he like best? Which was the fastest? How long did it take to learn to fly? What were the medals he was wearing? He answered them all with as good a grace as he could muster. The kid looked more than undernourished: he looked ill, as though there was something chronically wrong with him, and he kept coughing.