32

GERMANY, 1954

On Saturday, Grottsch and Wenger drove me back to Berlin, as agreed; and on Sunday, I returned to Motzstrasse, only this time my two companions insisted on accompanying me to Elisabeth’s door.

I let her kiss me chastely on the cheek, and then made the introductions.

“This is Herr Grottsch. And Herr Wenger. They’re responsible for my safety while I’m in Berlin, and they insist on looking around your apartment, just to make sure everything is kosher.”

Elisabeth frowned. “Are they policemen?”

“Yes. Kind of.”

“Are you in any trouble?”

“I can assure you it’s nothing to worry about,” I said smoothly. “It’s not much more than a formality. But they certainly won’t leave us alone until they’ve had a good look around.”

Elisabeth shrugged. “If you think it’s really necessary. But there’s no one else here. I can’t imagine what you think you’ll find, gentlemen. This isn’t Hohenschönhausen, you know.”

Grottsch stopped and frowned. “What do you know about Hohenschönhausen?” he asked suspiciously.

“I can see your friends aren’t from Berlin, Bernie,” said Elisabeth. “My dear man, everyone in Berlin knows about Hohenschönhausen.”

“Everyone except me,” I said truthfully.

“Well,” she said. “You remember the Heike factory?”

“The meat-processing factory? On the corner of Freienewelder Strasse.”

She nodded. “That whole area is now occupied by the State Security Service of the DDR.”

“I thought that was in Karlshorst,” I said.

“Not anymore,” she said.

“You seem to know a lot about it, Fräulein,” said Wenger.

“I’m a Berliner. The communists pretend the place doesn’t exist and the rest of us pretend not to see it. It’s an arrangement that suits us all very well, I think. A very Berlin kind of arrangement. It was the same with Gestapo headquarters on Prinz Albrechtstrasse. Remember?”

I nodded. “Of course. It was the building that no one saw.”

Elisabeth looked at Grottsch and Wenger and frowned. “So? Go ahead and search.”

The two men walked through the apartment and found nothing. When they were quite satisfied at finding nothing, Grottsch said, “We’ll be outside the door.” And then they left.

I moved her away from the door in case they were listening and into the kitchen, where we embraced fondly.

“What were you thinking of?” I said. “Mentioning the Stasi like that?”

“I don’t know. It just sort of came out.”

“Still, you recovered it pretty well, I thought. I’d forgotten about Heike’s meat. In the army, we lived on that stuff.”

“That’s probably why they shot him. Richard Heike.”

“Who? The Russians?”

She nodded. “Who are those two characters?”

“Just a couple of thugs who work for French intelligence.”

“But they were German, weren’t they?”

“I think the French rather enjoy making us do their dirty work.”