Philip Kerr - Field Grey

The window on the landing in front of Elisabeth's apartment was gone and boarded over, but the weather-beaten door looked secure enough. I knocked at it for several minutes until a voice shouted down the stairs and told me that Elisabeth was out until five. I glanced at the dead major's watch and realised I needed to kill some time without drawing too much attention to myself. It wasn't that an MVD officer was unusual in the American sector, but I thought it best to avoid contact with anyone official, who might have asked what I was doing.

I walked until I found a church I almost recognised, on Kieler Strasse, although given the state of Kieler Strasse it might just as easily have been Duppelstrasse. The church was Catholic and strangely tall and angular, like a castle on a mountaintop. Inside there was a fine mosaic basilica that had escaped the bombs. I sat down and closed my eyes, not from reverence but sheer fatigue. But this was hardly the quiet sanctuary I had expected. Every few minutes an American serviceman would come in with loud, polished shoes, genuflect to the altar, and then wait patiently on a pew near the confessional. Business was brisk. After the day I'd had I might have confessed myself, but I wasn't feeling particularly sorry about that. I'd been wanting to kill a Russian – any Russian – ever since the battle of Konigsberg. I told Him that myself. I didn't need a priest to come between us in what was, by now, an old argument.

I stayed there for a long time. Long enough to make peace with myself, if not God, and when I left the Rosary church – for that was its name – I put a few of the MVD major's coins into a collection box, for his sins, if not mine. Then I walked north again. And this time Elisabeth was at home, although she regarded my uniform with horror.

'What the Hell are you doing here dressed like that?' she demanded.

'Ask me in and I'll explain. Believe me, it's not at all what it looks like.'

'It better not be, or you can be on your way again. I don't care who you are.'

I entered her apartment and it was immediately clear from the bed and the gas ring that she was living in just the one room. Seeing my eyebrows flex their surprise, she said, 'It's easier to heat like this.'

I dropped Major Weltz's bag onto the floor and took the envelope of money from inside my gimnasterka tunic and handed it over. Now it was Elisabeth's turn to exercise her eyebrows. She fanned herself with several hundred American dollars and then read Mielke's note, which made everything clear.

'Did you read this?'

'Of course.'

'So where's the Russian who was supposed to give me this?'

'Dead. This is his uniform I'm wearing.' I thought it best to keep things as simple as possible.

'Why didn't you keep this for yourself?'

'Oh, I would have done,' I said. 'If it had been anyone else's name on that envelope. After all, it's not like we're strangers.'

'No,' she said. 'All the same it's been a long time. I thought you must be dead.'

'Why not? Everyone else is.' I told her, as briefly as possible, that I'd been in a Soviet POW camp and that I'd escaped. 'I was supposed to be on my way to Berlin and then to the Anti- Fascist School, near Moscow. All arranged by our mutual friend, of course. But I think he figured I knew too much about his past and decided the safer thing was to have me eliminated. So, here I am. I thought that the woman named on that envelope might be prepared to overlook the fact that I left her for another woman and let me lie low for a couple of days. Especially when she saw those dollars.'

She nodded, thoughtfully. 'How is Kirsten?'

'I don't know. I haven't seen or heard from Frau Gunther since Christmas 1944. Earlier on today I took a walk down my old street and found it isn't there any more.'

'I guess if it had been, then you wouldn't be here now and I wouldn't have this.'

'Anything's possible.'

'Well, that's honest, anyway.' She thought for a moment. 'People who were bombed out usually leave a little red card on the ruins, with some sort of address, in case a loved one turns up.'

'Well, maybe that's it. Loved one. Kirsten never was what you'd call loving. Unless you mean herself, of course. She always loved herself.' I shook my head. 'There wasn't any little red card. I looked.'

'There are other ways of contacting relatives,' said Elisabeth.

'Not looking like this there aren't. It's only a matter of time before I'm picked up. And shot. Or sent back to the POW camp, which would be worse.'

'It's true. Maybe it's the uniform but you don't look so good. I've seen healthier skeletons.' She shrugged. 'Very well. You can stay here. The first time you try any funny stuff you're on your toes. Meanwhile I'll see what I can find out about Kirsten.'

'Thanks. Look, I have a little money of my own. Perhaps you could find or even buy me some clothes, too.'

She nodded. 'I'll go to the Reichstag first thing in the morning.'

'The Reichstag? I was thinking of something a little less formal, perhaps.'

"That's where the black market is,' she said. 'The biggest in the city. Believe me, there's nothing you can't get there. From a pair of nylons to a fake de-Nazification certificate. Perhaps I can you one of those, too. Of course it'll mean I'm late for work.'

'Tailoring?'

She shook her head, grimly. 'I'm a servant, Bernie,' she said. 'Like nearly everyone left alive in Berlin. I'm the housekeeper for a family of American diplomats in Zehlendorf. Hey, perhaps I can find you a job, too. They need a gardener. I can go into the labour office at McNair on my way back from work tomorrow.'

'McNair?'

'McNair Barracks. Just about everything to do with the US Army in Berlin takes place at McNair.'

'Thanks,' I said, 'but if you don't mind I'd rather not have a proper job at this moment. I've spent the last eighteen months working harder than a donkey with three masters. If I never see another pick and shovel again it will be too soon.'

'Rough, huh?'

'Only by the standards of a Russian serf. Now that I've lived and almost died in the Soviet Union it's easy to see where they learn their manners. And where they find their sunny outlook on life. There's not an Ivan I met who could ever be mistaken for an optimist.' I shrugged. 'Still, our mutual friend seems to be well in with them.' I nodded at the envelope she was still holding. 'Erich.'

'You have no idea how much I need this money.'

'Presumably he did, though. I wonder why he didn't give it to you himself.'

'He has his reasons, I suppose. Erich doesn't forget his friends.'

'I couldn't argue with that, Elisabeth.'

'Did he really try to have you killed?'

'Only a bit.'

She shook her head. 'He was a hothead when he was younger, it's true. But he never struck me as a cold-blooded killer. Those two cops, I never believed he did that, you know. And I can't believe he ordered someone to murder you.'

'The two Germans I was travelling with aren't here to tell you you're wrong, Elisabeth. They weren't as lucky as me.'

'You mean they're dead.'

'Right now that's my working definition of unlucky.' I shrugged. 'I don't know. Probably it always was.'

On Monday morning we drove out of East Germany and back to Hannover, where I spent another night in the safe-house. And early the next day we drove south to Gottingen and checked into an old pension overlooking the canal on Reitstallstrasse. The pension was damp, with hard wooden floors, even harder furniture, high ceilings and dusty brass chandeliers; and about as homely as Cologne Cathedral. But from there it was only a short walk to the VdH office in a half- timbered building on Judenstrasse that looked like it was home to a family of three bears. Everywhere in Gottingen was a bit like that and quite a few of the people, too. The director of the local VdH, Herr Doctor Winkel, was a mild, bespectacled type who might once have been the court librarian to some ancient king of Saxony. And he told me what we already knew, that a train carrying a thousand German plenis was due in Friedland the following week. For form's sake we decided – myself, Grottsch and Wenger – to pay a visit to the refugee camp at Friedland.