“Come by U-Bahn. Innsbrucker Platz. That what you did today?”
Alex nodded again.
“And no trouble, right? So do that. Then after I’ll have a station car get you to Tempelhof. He’s flying out right afterward, yes? Good. The important thing is that they have no idea until it’s too late. I’ll set up a recording studio. Any night. I’m always here nights. Last-minute, no leaks in between. Sound good?”
“Perfect.”
“You tell him what we’re looking for?”
“Personal story-what the work is like. Treating POWs like slaves. Everyone getting sick. Not the politics of it, just the human side. Don’t worry, he wants to do this. He thinks it might help.”
“The Russians won’t like it.”
“That’s the idea.”
“I mean, they’ll have a marker out on him. As long as he’s here anyway. Any idea when?”
“I’ll call you. Need a code word? How about ‘canary’?”
Ferber looked puzzled.
“The bird. They used to send them down into the mines. To see if there was gas.”
Ferber smiled. “Erich will be fine.”
Dieter must have been watching at the window because he was in the park before Alex had finished the first cigarette.
“How is he?”
“He sleeps mostly. To stay warm. There’s no coal, so it’s easier in bed. No more fever, but the medicine is gone. You’ll need to move him soon.”
“He’s well enough for the interview?”
“Mm. He talks about it. He wants to do it. Give the finger to Ulbricht, he says.” Dieter smiled faintly. “He’s a young man.”
“We’re almost there. Are we squared away at the airport?”
“Howley’s been away. Back tomorrow. Just let me know when and Campbell will make the call. Don’t worry, you have some time. They have better things to do in Karlshorst than look for POWs. Since the news.”
“What news?”
“You haven’t heard? I thought your friend might- It’s Markovsky. We’ve got him. He’s defected.”
“What?”
“Your friend doesn’t know?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“See her, then. Interesting to hear what she knows.”
“Where is he?”
“Wiesbaden. Very comfortable from what I hear. It’s usually like that, isn’t it?”
“But why? What made him do it?”
“They sent him a ticket, for Moscow, and he started wondering whether he should make the trip. Not that I blame him. People go back and-” Campbell’s version, the one everybody must have now.
“Quite a catch.”
“We’ll see. But meanwhile Karlshorst-it’s a sight to warm the heart. So don’t worry about your young friend-he’s got a little time.” He looked over. “Except the medicine’s gone. So you don’t want to wait either.”
He walked along Greifswalder Strasse, past the cemetery, then turned up the hill toward the water tower. The planes were back, humming across the sky the minute the fog had cleared last night. Unload, three minutes, take off to the West. With Erich on board. Irene, if she’d go. He saw her eyes in the candlelight, the Russian coming toward them. I’d never betray you. After she had.
Roberta Kleinbard was waiting by the courtyard door in Rykestrasse, hands nervous, fidgeting.
“Thank God. I thought maybe you’d gone away. All night- anyway, thank God. Please. I need your help. I need somebody to talk for me.” Her voice quavering, matching the shaking hands.
“What’s the matter? What’s happened?”
“Herb. They’ve arrested him.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know. They just came and-took him. What is it, I kept asking and of course they’d answer in German and-”
“Okay, okay,” he said, calming her.
“And they wouldn’t let Herb talk-just took him. No explanation. So I went to the Kulturbund and nobody wants to touch it. I got somebody to make a call, at least find out what happened and you’d think I had the plague or something. He wasn’t the only one, that’s the thing. They’re all scared there. The Party hasn’t said anything. How can they not say anything? People just-taken like that. You’ve got to help me. Please. I don’t know what to do. You’ve got a phone-”
“Come up,” he said, opening the door.
“Oh God, finally. I didn’t know what to do.”
“Regular policemen?”
“I don’t know. I guess.”
“Uniforms?”
“No, clothes. Is that bad?”
“Let me try the police first.”
“I’ll never forget this. I swear. What do I say to Danny? Your father’s a criminal? It has to be a mistake. I mean, Herb, he’s been a Party member since-they can’t just do that. It has to be a mistake.”
It took a few minutes to be put through to the desk, a little longer to explain why he was calling, Roberta hovering, hands in her coat pockets, clenched.
“He’s in Oranienburg,” he said finally, hanging up.
“Oranienburg?” Her voice dropped, almost a whisper. “That’s Sachsenhausen. A concentration camp. He’s in a concentration camp?”
“Not like that-for political prisoners. If you want to see him you have to apply to the commandant. In person. That’s all they’d say. Do you know someone in the Party you could-?”
“My God, a concentration camp. Come with me. Please. I have to see him. I’ll never ask another thing as long as I live. Oh my God,” she said, breaking down now. “How could he be a political prisoner? What does that mean? He came to be with them, the Party. It’s a mistake.” She put a hand on his arm. “I have to know if he’s all right. Please speak for me. You’re an American-I can trust you. The others, at the Kulturbund, it’s like I had the plague.”
They took the S-Bahn north to the edges of Berlin, Alex feeling his chest tighten as they approached the last stop. In the street he looked at a passing truck, the way he’d come here before, packed in the back, standing. Then hit with clubs, climbing out. People watching. An ordinary suburb. But his prison was gone. He stood on the curb, unable to move, disoriented.
“What’s wrong?”
“It was here. An old brewery. People could see in. They leased us out in work parties.”
He asked an old man waiting for a bus.
“They closed that one in ’34. Then they built the new camp. Over there.” He jerked his head east. “The bus, you have to wait forever. You’re young. It’s not far, fifteen-, twenty-minute walk. Down there and then left at the corner.”
On the walk they were quiet, Roberta finally silenced by fear. A place she’d never thought she’d see, something in a nightmare.
They turned down a street lined with trees, the walls of the camp on their left, barracks for the guards on the right. Where the SS used to devise new tortures, boot testing, the prisoners walking endlessly around a track until their feet were crippled. What did the guards say to each other at night, stories over schnapps?
“Oh God,” Roberta said, faltering, grasping Alex’s arm for support. “I can’t.”
Ahead of them, the camp gate with a wrought iron “Arbeit macht frei,” beyond it acres of barracks arranged in a semicircle, the open roll call field, electric wire fences and guards, men shuffling in the distance. For one surreal moment, Alex felt as if they had entered a newsreel. All of it still here. Russian now. They had changed nothing, except the guards’ uniforms. His throat closed. He’d never get out. Fritz was gone. His father’s money. Nobody would buy him out this time.
A guard pointed them toward a large building in the outer courtyard. “Administration Offices,” as if the camp beyond were a factory and the white-collar bosses had to be kept away from the soot.
The clerk, a thin stubble of hair over a broad Slavic face, had only rudimentary German.
“Kleinbard?” he said, a sneer in his voice that said “Jew,” a sound as familiar to Alex as breathing. Nothing had changed. New uniforms.
The guard consulted a log. “Counterrevolutionary activities. Do you want to apply to visit?” He held out a flimsy paper form. “You can fill it out over there.” He pointed to a table where a woman, white-faced, with the tight, forced calm before hysteria, was scribbling on a similar paper.