Philip Kerr - Field Grey

'Does he live in the East?'

'In Potsdam. But he's always complaining. Odd how your suggestion of him coming back to live in West Berlin is so nearly true. But then you are a Berliner. You know how these things are. "I've got no friends in Potsdam," he says. That's always the big complaint. "Look, Pa," I say, "there's nothing to stop you from going into West Berlin and seeing your mates and coming home again." Incidentally, the mates – his mates – they thought I was dead. That's what I told Pa to tell them, as early as 1937. I say, "See your friends quietly in the West and live quietly in the East. It's not like there's a wall or anything." Of course since the inner border was closed he's started to suspect the same would happen here in Berlin. That he'll be trapped on the wrong side.' Mielke sighed. 'And there are other reasons. Father and son reasons. Is your old man still alive?'

'No.'

'Did you get on with him when he was?'

'No.' I smiled sadly. 'We never learned how.'

"Then you know what it's like. My father is a very old-fashioned kind of German communist, and believe me they're the worst. It was the workers' strike of last year that really did it for him. Troublemakers most of them. Some of them counterrevolutionaries. A few of them CIA provocateurs. But Pa didn't see it that way at all.'

I flicked my cigarette onto the ground and was leaving it there but Mielke ground it under the heel of his hand-made shoe as if it had been the head of a counter-revolutionary.

'Since we're being honest with each other,' he said. 'There's something I don't understand.'

'Go ahead.'

'Why you did it. Why you betrayed them. To me. You're not a communist any more than you were a Nazi. So, why?'

'You asked me a question like that before, don't you remember?'

'Oh, I remember. I didn't understand it then, either.'

'You might say that after spending six months in one American prison after another I began to hate them. You might say that but it wouldn't be true. Of course the best lies contain some truth, so that's not entirely false. Then you might say that I don't share their world view, and that wouldn't be entirely false. In some ways I admire them but I also dislike the way they don't ever seem to live up to their own ideals. I think I might like the Amis a lot more if they were like everyone else. One might forgive them more. But they preach about the magnificence of their fucking democracy and the enduring power of their constitutional freedoms while at the same time they're trying to fuck your wife and steal your watch. When I was a cop we gave the people of whom more was expected severer sentences when they turned out to be crooks. Lawyers, policemen, politicians, people in positions of responsibility. Americans are like them. They're the crooks who should know better.

'But you might also say I'm tired of the whole damned business. For twenty years I've been obliged to work for people I didn't like. Heydrich. The SD. The Nazis. The CIC. The Perons. The Mafia. The Cuban Secret Police. The French. The CIA. All I want to do is read the newspaper and play chess.'

'But how do you know I'm not going to oblige you to work for me?' Mielke chuckled. 'Since you sent that letter to me, you're halfway to working for the Stasi right now.'

'I won't work for you, Erich, any more than I'll work for them. If you make me, I'll find a way to betray you.'

'And suppose I threaten to have you shot? Or send you to prison to await a delivery of wholemeal bread? What then?'

'I've asked myself this question. Suppose, I said, he threatens to kill you unless you work for the Stasi? Well, I decided that I'd rather die at the hands of my own countrymen than get rich in the pay of some foreigners. I don't expect you to understand that, Erich. But that's how it is. So go ahead and do your worst.'

'Of course I understand.' Mielke smacked himself proudly on the chest. 'Before everything else, I am a German. A Berliner. Like you. Of course I understand. So. For once, I am going to keep my word, to a fascist.'

'You still think I'm a fascist, then.'

'You don't know it yourself, but that's what you are, Gunther.'

He tapped his head. 'In here. You may not ever have joined the Nazi Party but in your mind you believe in centralised authority and the right and the law and you don't believe in the left. To me, a fascist is all you'll ever be. But I have an idea that Elisabeth has some hopes of you. And because of my high regard for her. My love for her-'

'You?'

'As a sister, yes.'

I smiled.

Mielke looked surprised. 'Yes. Why do you smile?'

I shook my head. 'Forget it.'

'But I love people,' he said. 'I love all people. That's why I became a communist.'

'I believe you.'

He frowned and then tossed me a set of car keys.

'As we arranged, Elisabeth has quit her apartment and is waiting for you at the Steinplatz Hotel. So say hello from me. And make sure you look after that woman. If you don't, I'll send an assassin to kill you. Just see if I don't. Someone better than the last one. Elisabeth's the only reason I'm letting you go, Gunther. Her happiness is more important to me than my political principles.'

'Thanks.'

'There's a car on Grenz Street. Go right and then left. You'll see a grey Type One. In the glove box you'll find two passports in your new names. I'm afraid we had to use your picture from your time as a pleni. There are visas, money, and air tickets. My advice would be to use them. The Amis aren't stupid, Gunther. Nor are the French. They'll each come looking for you both. So get out of Berlin. Get out of Germany. Get out while the going is good.'

It was good advice. I lit another cigarette and then left without another word.

I turned right out of the shop and walked around the edge of the cemetery. All of the graves were gone and, in the misty darkness, it wasn't much more than a grey-looking field. Was it just the tombs and the headstones that were gone, or had the corpses been moved, too? Nothing ever lasted the way it was supposed to last. Not any more. Not in Berlin. Mielke was right. It was time for me to move on, too. Just like those other Berlin corpses.

The Volkswagen Beetle was where Mielke had said it would be. The glove box contained a large thick manila envelope. On the dashboard was mounted a little vase and in it were some small flowers. I saw it and I laughed. Maybe Mielke did like people after all. But I still checked the engine and underneath the chassis for a car bomb. I wouldn't have put it past him to send funeral flowers before I was actually dead.

As it happens, those are the only kind of funeral flowers I've ever really liked.