Gerald Seymour - The Contract

The pastor poured more tea, took another slice of meat to his plate and cut it with neat and precise movements.

'You do not have those chains on you, Otto. Neither you, nor your daughter. You are free to go. There is no shame in withdrawing from persecution, no disgrace. Your time runs quickly, you have deserved a latter peace. You should go to the comfort of your family. You have the right to find your happiness. There is no duty that obliges you to remain.'

They went together from the pastor's room and into the high, vaulted cathedral, past the tombs topped by stone carved knights, past the shrapnel pocked figure of Christ, past the place where the leaking roof threw water down on the flagstones. They went to the front line of chairs arrayed in front of the altar. For several minutes they prayed in silence.

Outside in the sunshine they shook hands.

The pastor smiled. ' I will think of you, my friend, I will think of you often.'

His engine idling, his radio playing, a packet of sweets close to his hand, Hermann Lentzer sat in his car at the head of the queue at the Marienborn checkpoint. A kilometre behind him and barely visible up the hill were the fluttering flags of the United States of America and France and Great Britain. He was close to a square-based, tall watchtower, he was hemmed in by the wire that enclosed the checkpoint.

He was impatient because it was some minutes since they had taken his passport, and those of other drivers in the queue who had been behind him had already been returned. They had been free to drive away on the autobahn.

He drummed his fingers irritably on the steering wheel and tried to show his annoyance by staring out the young face of the Border Guard who stood in front of the bonnet of his car. Usually it was quick, usually only a formality to gain clearance for the autobahn corridor. Behind him a driver hooted as if to protest that Lentzer by his own choice was blocking the road… stupid bugger.

The fright came slowly, nagged at him gradually, gathered in his stomach. There should not have been this delay. He had never waited so long before at Marienborn. The driver who had hooted passed him and Lentzer scowled at the man's enquiring glance.

Alone in his car, the business of the border around him, a warm lunchtime, the sun high, and the sweat gathering in his armpits, running underneath his vest. There had never been a delay like this at Marienborn. Two hundred metres back towards Helmstedt were the steel barriers that when dropped lay at windscreen height, they could lower them in 6 seconds… no going back, and the Border Guard in front with the sub-machine gun slung from his shoulder and his eyes never leaving the Mercedes.

He wiped his forehead, and fiddled with his radio, and took another sweet. Not until they were all around the car and a pistol held hard against his ear was he aware of the Border Guards. They pulled open the door and dragged him from his seat. His hands were first flung across the car roof while they frisked him for a weapon, then pulled behind his back for the handcuffs. Never upright nor still enough to protest, he was frogmarched into the administration block.

A Border Guard, unable quite to conceal his fascination in the finish and fittings of the Mercedes drove Hermann Lentzer's car behind the building and parked it amongst the unit's lorries and jeeps.

An inexact science, wasn't it? No bloody text book to tell Johnny the technique necessary for the persuasion of a man to abandon the life of 35 years and turn his face towards strangers. Willi was the bludgeon in his argument, but Guttmann had shown a resilience that he had not expected. The girl was different, strange that, as though Willi had talked of a casual friend and not of his sister. The girl would bend her father, perhaps.

Now Johnny could waiit no longer for his answer.

Again it was Erica Guttmann who opened the door to him. Again the old man was sitting in the chair beside the window. Erica moved to stand beside her father.

'We will come with you,' Erica said quietly.

A great smile split his face. God, he could have shouted, lifted the bloody ceiling off the room.

'Thank you.'

' It is not because of anything you have said. It is for a reason that you would not understand.'

' It doesn't matter.'

' It is not just because of Willi that we are going with you.'

' It's not important why.'

'We put our trust in you. If anything were to harm my father after the promise that you have made, then it would lie with your conscience for the rest of your life.'

He was taking them to the bloody autobahn, packing them into a car with only forged papers to protect them, and all the skill and all the vigilance of Marienborn waiting for them, and the shield they looked for was Johnny Donoghue's conscience. The bombast in him peeled. God, who'd chance as much as their freedom on Johnny Donoghue's word?

'Nothing will harm you.'

'What do we have to do?'

Johnny clenched his fist so that the fingernails cut at the palms of his hands. Trust was devastating, trust could crucify. A brave old man, a brave and pretty girl, and both watching him in naivete, hanging on his words.

'You should have dinner tonight in the hotel. After that you must walk across to the Hautbahnhof and you must take the train on the local line to Barleber See… there is one just after eight, another 20 minutes later, you can take either. At Barleber See you must walk along the path towards the camping site. Before you reach the tents you will find a cafeteria and a place where people sit in the evening. You wait there and I will come to you.'

'There are many things that we should know.'

'None of them necessary,'Johnny said drily. 'Do you sew, Miss Guttmann?'

A hollow, shy laugh. 'A little.'

'In the drawer of the room desk you will find the hotel's needles and cotton. All the labels on your clothes show them as made here or in Moscow, they must be removed and replaced.' Johnny handed her a small plastic bag filled with the identification of manufacturers in West Berlin and Frankfurt.

'Will we be searched?' The nervousness narrowed her lips.

'It's a precaution,' said Johnny.

The telephone rang from the hallway, called through the door of the darkened bedroom. An insistent, howling whine. It stripped the provocation and the tease from the face of the woman. It drew an obscenity from the man who drove his gloved fist into the softness of the mattress to lever himself better from her body. He rolled beside her, his face clouded in the shades of frustration. The telephone was a prior claim on him and he shrugged away her reaching arms, and strode naked and white-skinned to the door.

No sheet to cover her, Renate screamed at the broad back, 'Tell the bastards to go to hell… you said they would not call you on a Saturday..'

She watched him through the open door. The anger withered, the giggles rose. Her lover in profile at the telephone, thin and spindly legs, only the glove to clothe him. She shook with quiet laughter.

'Spitzer… I will come immediately… nobody is to talk to him… the SSD should be informed that I have taken personal charge of him… that is all.'

The telephone was slapped down. He made for the heap of clothes around the bedside chair, pulled on his underpants and vest.

'Aren't you going to finish…?'

No response. Preoccupation with the shirt buttons, with the trouser zip, with finding a missing sock.

'What's so important…?'

He laced his shoes, retrieved his knotted tie, slid his jacket from the back of the chair.

'When are you coming back…?'

' I will not be coming back tonight.'

'On a Saturday…?'

'A man has come to see me and I have waited 7 years for the meeting.'

She saw the excitement bright in his small blue eyes, and not for her.