Dan Fesperman - The Arms Maker of Berlin

He was also unsettled by other elements. There was an interpretive exhibit with grainy photos and thumbnail bios of the most prominent victims, plus a supposedly comprehensive roster of all 2,500 people who had been put to death here by the Nazis. Well-meaning, he supposed, but there was not a single mention of Liesl in all the fine print, for the unfair reason that she had been killed after her release. Kurt had long ago complained to the fools who presided over the place, but they merely shrugged and directed him to their equally indifferent superiors.

So he always paid his respects out in the elements, rain or shine, journeying deep into his memory while groping for contact with Liesl’s soul. At times he was taunted by the drifting fumes of his own factories, which were only a mile from here. The smoke traveled the same route that the bombers once had, swooping in from the west.

He raised the daffodils to his nostrils and sniffed, to mask the fumes. It was then that he realized he wasn’t alone after all. Someone had just stepped out of the shed. Mein Gott! It was the American, the researcher who had been working with that damned nuisance of a girl. Bauer recognized him from the surveillance photo, the one the Iranians had passed along. Helpful people, the Iranians. Kurt had been rooting for them. But they were of no further use now that the Americans had come up with the desired product. A pity, he supposed, although Kurt had learned long ago not to form emotional attachments in this sort of business. In the end, whoever could deliver the goods was always the preferable option.

The American stood in front of the shed, staring brazenly. Hadn’t he gotten the news that the whole thing was over? Stupid pest. And-oh, no-what was this now? Bauer spied a camera lens poking from behind the far corner of the building, aimed like the barrel of a sniper rifle. It could only be that damned girl, meaning she was in direct defiance of a court order.

He would have thought she would have had enough of him by now. The people he hired had apparently dug up sufficient damning material to ruin her, although Kurt had never bothered to read it. Well, if that didn’t stop her, there were other methods. Like the one he had used against Martin Göllner, once the old snoop had finally outed himself.

The American turned away and headed for the front gate, where a taxi had just pulled up. Good riddance. But, no, he wasn’t leaving. Instead, he was helping someone climb out of the back-a woman, even older than the flower vendor, her hair as gray as the skies. She was dressed like an East German, frumpy and proletarian. It had been seventeen years since reunification, but Kurt could still always tell.

The woman stood slowly. She turned toward the sun, and Kurt’s breath caught in his throat. For the briefest moment, the contours of her face struck a deep chord of memory, sharply enough to make him recall the nauseating smell of wet wool on hot tile, from a rainy morning long ago. Then the moment passed, and in relief he realized he had been mistaken. Kurt now saw that she was just someone’s grandmother, or elderly aunt. Or maybe just an old friend of the American’s. He raised the honey-scented daffodils to his face to get the stench of wet wool out of his head. His moment of panic had been a trick of sunlight and shadow, and of the strong emotions that were always at play whenever he visited this sacred ground.

Kurt cleared his throat, as if preparing to deliver a speech. He then stepped forward with his bouquet. Too many defilers here this morning. It was time to lay the flowers on the ground and move on.

HAD BAUER SEEN HER YET? Nat believed he had. The old man had even seemed to flinch, but now he was turning away and crossing the courtyard with a bunch of flowers in his hand-a memorial bouquet, just like the ones in all of Berta’s photos. And was Berta still lurking around the corner like a gremlin? Yes. There was her lens. Maybe the sight of the old woman at Nat’s side would lure her out of hiding. Everything was according to plan. Now all he had to do was keep from blowing his lines.

Nat had enjoyed a fruitful five days since his big discovery in Switzerland. On the previous Thursday morning he had arrived at a hulking gray building on Normannenstrasse in eastern Berlin, just as it was opening for business. The top floors were now a museum. You could tour wood-paneled offices and conference rooms where a grim fellow named Erich Mielke had once presided over East Germany’s Stasi, the notorious secret police. But downstairs, where linoleum and plastic prevailed, it was still business as usual in a way, because people continued to come here regularly to pry into the secrets of others. Except now the members of the public were the ones doing the snooping, by poring over the dossiers that the Stasi had once compiled on them.

It wasn’t easy getting permission to look at the Stasi files, especially on short notice, but Steve Wallace had apparently worked his magic. The only concession was that Nat wouldn’t be allowed to use his camera, although he could take as many notes as he liked.

He had been there before, of course. You couldn’t very well be a professor of twentieth-century German history and not go there. Because for all the renowned record keeping of the Nazis, it was their successors in East Germany who had created the nation’s true archival wonderland-six million dossiers in all. Load them into a single drawer and they would stretch more than a hundred miles, from Berlin to the Baltic Sea.

The files included the gleanings of as many as two million informants, from a nation of only seventeen million people. In other words, if you had attended an East German dinner party with sixteen other guests, chances are that at least two of them-possibly including you-would have been informants. The voluminous pages offered heartbreaking tales of wives ratting on husbands, and husbands on wives. Parishioners on pastors, and pastors on parishioners. Parents on children, and, as Nat already knew in Berta’s case, children on parents.

Berta was far from alone in this behavior. So far the agency had identified roughly ten thousand informants younger than eighteen. Nat knew now that Berta had come here last year to view her own file. By doing so, she had joined a procession of several million other citizens of the former East Germany who had peered through this disturbing window onto their past.

On his arrival at the front desk, Nat’s name got quick results. A supervisor was called from the back to assist him. She was dressed in black, with her hair chopped close to the scalp-a no-nonsense type who doubtless knew a string-puller when she saw one. She had set aside the requested file in advance, and now she brought it out from behind the counter and ushered him to a private viewing room.

“I hope you realize this is a very special exception,” she said sternly as they reached the door. “Normally you would not even be allowed.”

“I’m aware of that. And I thank you.” She said nothing in reply.

Nat settled in at a small table and picked up the file for Berta Heinkel, informant #314FZ. It was quite thick.

At first the contents were fairly routine. Her profile as a loyal citizen was well documented, including her membership in the Young Pioneers up to age fourteen, followed by the usual transition to the Free German Youth.

It turned out that Berta, too, had been informed on. Hardly surprising, although the list of informants was disheartening-three classmates, a schoolteacher, a principal. What an appalling way to grow up. He thought of Karen, a child of divorce, yet far more sheltered as a college freshman than Berta had been at fifteen, or younger. One girl mooned over poets and boyfriends. The other had consorted with security goons and professional snoops, thoroughly schooled in suspicion.