Gerald Seymour - The Waiting Time

He had flown from Cologne. Julius Goldstein had been driven east through Berlin to Normannen Strasse. He was met at the heavy barred doors of the Archive, his visit cleared ahead by telephone from the senior official of the Bf\7. He had priority status.

It was said that, over the forty-five-year life-span of the old regime, the files collected, if put spine to spine, would stretch over a distance of 180 kilometres. The betrayal of family, friend and work colleague by the 175,000 informers listed the names, habits, thoughts and actions of six million of the GDR’s population. There were card-index cross-references by the million, photographs by the million, recordings from microphones and telephone intercepts on magnetic tape measured in metres by the million. The several levels of the Archive floors in the subterranean chambers were shored up with coal-pit timbers to take the weight of the files. The Minister for State Security had not trusted the modern invention of the computer, had believed it possible for power cuts to wipe an electronic archive. Yellowed low-quality paper filled the files, tired and thin, and on the paper were the reports, typed through tired, thin, low-quality ribbons.

He gave the name of Hauptman Dieter Krause, the service number, and date of entry into the MfS. He was offered the help of three assistants. When Krause had first come to them, had first arrived in Cologne, the files had been searched. He thought his answer, when he telephoned Raub that evening, would be the same answer as it had been then.

The Chancellor of reunified Germany had said the files gave off a ‘nauseous smell from which nothing good can be gained’. There were, more often now, cries for them to be closed and destroyed. More frequently now, they were accused of ‘destroying reputations, wrecking marriages, breaking friendships, ruining careers’. Former President von Weizsacker accused the German media of ‘smearing’ politicians with the rumour that they figured in the files. The files were about guilt. Guilt was history. Guilt ran with the history of the state. Guilt could not co-exist with the rebuilding of ‘greater’ Germany. The little people who figured in the files, the betrayers and the deceivers, who had sold out to the regime’s police, shouted, more raucously now, for the files to be closed. Only the little people were named on the tired, thin, low-quality sheets of paper. The files on the big people were long gone or destroyed. The big people’s files had been crated and shipped by air to Moscow in the last days, or they had been burned, shredded and pulped in the last hours.

‘The loss of the agent is the past, Tracy. The attack on Hauptman Krause is the present, Tracy. Marry the past and the present, and the offspring of the union will be the future, Tracy. I am only concerned with the future. But, to make a future that interests me, I must have evidence…’

He heard the light knock. The cell door opened.

‘What do you want?’

‘We need to speak,’ Johnson said.

Perkins stood, rocking with exhaustion, and left her hunched on the bed, her knees against her chest, her arms around her knees.

‘What I’m telling you, you shift that motor.’ The sergeant had come from the block-house and shouted across the road.

‘What I am telling you, Sergeant, I can be an impatient man.’

‘It’s a secure area. Shift that motor – and now.’

‘I am happy for you to inspect my driving license, which will show you that I am not from the Falls Road, and for you to inspect my car, which will show you it is not loaded with mortar tubes or explosives. You weren’t listening, Sergeant, I was speaking about my impatience.’

‘I’ll have you done for trespass.’

Josh Mantle gave him a sweet smile. ‘Know the law, Sergeant? You establish legal ownership of this road verge, have a meeting with the council’s highways committee, get a judge in chambers, win an eviction order, employ bailiffs… How long will that take, Sergeant? Ten minutes or two months? Get back on the phone.’

The sergeant hesitated. The sentry watched his sergeant. Face was at stake, and dignity.

Josh sat on the bonnet, took his mobile from his pocket and held it up. ‘When you telephone tell them I’m an impatient man. Tell them that in twenty minutes from now, unless I am granted access to my client as the law demands, I will start to ring the yellowest of the tabloids, some real shit-stirring MPs and the civil-liberties crowd. Tell them it’ll be a proper old circus down here.’

He held up the mobile and pointed to his watch.

He watched the sergeant trudge back to the block-house.

Perkins yawned.

He walked out of the guardhouse and into the sunshine. He blinked. He stepped over the sign that forbade walking on the grass, and went to the middle of the road leading to the gate. Cars went by him both ways. He gazed through the gate at the man who sat easily on the bonnet of a car.

‘That’s him,’ Johnson said. ‘That’s the cause of the headache. The Colonel wants to know what you -,

‘He’s worn quite well, considering everything.’

– what you suggest should be done. The popular press, to the Colonel, is a definition of a nightmare. Throw in maverick MPs and the civil liberties rent-a-mob and he could have a coronary… Do you know him?’

He stood beside Johnson and held his hand over his eyes as if to shade them from the sun.

‘That’s Mantle, Joshua Frederick. Yes, I once took a look at him. Started here as a clerk, as I remember – I’ve a good recall on files – went to Aden in the “gollie”-bashing days, then here again, then Osnabruck. Keen, his file said, anxious to please. He was a staff sergeant in ‘eighty-two, when it all went wrong for him. Were the Guatemalans going to invade Belize? was the burning question of the hour. I Corps sent a captain and Mantle. It was a pressure situation. There was a difficulty, people were squeamish… Did they want the Guat Army turning up unannounced for breakfast in Belize City, or did they want advance notice, the artillery sited and the Harriers armed up? The squeamish people won the day and shouted for a court-martial. If Mantle had testified against his superior then the officer was for the high jump, but he was leaned on, held his tongue. The deal was that the officer retired, doing rather well now and running a charity, and Mantle was transferred, well balanced with an equally weighted chip on each shoulder, to the Military Police. The Service was involved because of the political implications, but I was in the shadows, knowing him when he didn’t know me, the way I like it. I saw him again, a few years later, Tidworth Camp. He’d been given a commission. He was a cuckoo in the mess, twenty years older than the others of his rank. There’d been a dirty little business in the camp, some missing funds but a minimal sum, and the consensus opinion was that it should have been papered over, but he went after a rather popular officer, and the officer had to resign. He was ostracized after that, just ignored. When the cuts started I fancy half of the mess would have written in suggesting he was top target for the heave. I meet that sort of man from time to time, obsessed with legality, a hatred of anything that smacks of privilege, looking to champion the disadvantaged, bleeding the creed of principle on his sleeve. A couple of years back I was talking with a chap from the police who knew of him, said he’d been married and was working with delinquents, that his wife had died, that he’d dropped out, gone derelict. Obviously someone’s given him another chance, a last chance. I’d say he’s obstinate, awkward, bloody-minded…’

‘What are you going to do about him?’

Perkins turned away and began to walk back to the guardhouse. ‘I’m going to send him home, and when he goes he can give little Tracy a lift.’