At the Rugen Island conference centre, the morning’s topic was ‘Material Incentives: For and Against.’ It was, Strohm thought, in many ways the crucial issue. Workers were accustomed to working for money, and deciding how hard or enthusiastically they would work according to how much they were paid, so the Party couldn’t hope to do away with material incentives in the short run. But if socialism was the goal, then a start had to be made in weaning the workers away from this way of thinking-seeds had to be sown. The question was how.
No satisfactory answers emerged, but the discussion itself was fruitful, perhaps even hopeful. Which was more than could be said for the afternoon session on ‘Central Planning and the Political Process’. This seminar made Strohm profoundly uneasy; the subheading could have been ‘Managing the People’. All in their own interest, of course. The Party always knew best, after all. It had the information, the statistics-it knew what was actually possible and what was reckless utopianism. The latter was an enduring curse-offering what couldn’t be delivered would, in the long run, lead to mass unhappiness and unrest.
The responsibility for such decisions could only be borne by the Party. An over-reliance on democratic procedures would open the door to a bourgeois resurgence, with all that that implied. The workers would again be seduced by the one big lie, that the free-for-all was fair to all, when in fact it was just a lottery, and a heavily rigged one at that.
No, they couldn’t go down that route. The Party would consult of course-no worker’s voice would go unheard-but since it alone spoke for all, it had to have the final say. There would have to be safeguards against abuses of power, but the power itself could not be questioned. Not yet.
It was a delicate balance that had to be struck and, not surprisingly, there was some disagreement as to how that should be accomplished, with some delegates arguing for more openness inside the Party, others less inclined to see the need. Strohm was in the former camp, and might have argued his case a trifle too forcibly, for that evening, after another sumptuous dinner, he was publicly taken to task by Hans Gerstein, one of the two Central Committee members who were attending the conference.
‘You people who spent the war at home,’ Gerstein began. ‘All very heroic, no doubt, but hardly a learning experience. While you were hiding from the Gestapo, those of us lucky enough to be in Moscow were learning how to run a country. Yet here you all are, looking down your noses at us!’
He was more than a little drunk, but Strohm could see he meant it. ‘Surely we can talk openly among ourselves?’
‘A naive point of view, Comrade Strohm. Any divisions weaken us. Unity is everything. We must accentuate what unites us, not what divides us.’
‘If we don’t talk things through in an open manner, how can we sure we have reached the right decisions?’
Gerstein snorted. ‘Are you no longer a Marxist-Leninist? The Party is the agency of history-its decisions have to be right.’
Strohm refused to be cowed. ‘I expect the Yugoslav Party leaders are saying much the same thing.’
Gerstein’s face turned an angry red. ‘It takes more than a few adventurers to forge a true communist party. What have these comrades ever done but kill honest German soldiers?’
Soon after six on Saturday evening a DEFA limousine arrived to take Effi and Thomas across town for the premiere of The Peacock’s Fan. With Russell away, Effi had been resigned to the lack of an escort, but when Thomas let slip that Hanna was away visiting her parents, she had successfully inveigled him into the role.
On the ride he seemed quieter than usual, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might be nervous about entering the Soviet sector.
He laughed at the suggestion. ‘God, no. The day I’m frightened to go anywhere in my own city is the day I’ll leave. What gave you that idea?’
‘You haven’t said a word since we left.’
‘Oh, I suppose I haven’t. I’m sorry. Just wretched politics-I’m beginning to regret ever standing for election.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘Why spoil the evening?’ He smiled. ‘You look fantastic, by the way.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, looking down at the low-cut burgundy dress. She had taken a lot of trouble, and for one particular reason-Tulpanov had said he would be there tonight. If she knew him, and she thought she did, then he was one who might be swayed by other things than reason.
Since Tuesday, barely an hour had gone by without her picturing Eva Kempka in a prison cell. But what could she actually do? She had telephoned everyone she could think of who might know Eva, but nobody had heard anything. She had called the police in all four sectors, and made a physical nuisance of herself at the three Western sector HQs. The only reason she hadn’t made her presence felt in the Soviet sector was a realisation that she wouldn’t help Eva by sharing her fate.
Tulpanov was the only high-ranking Soviet official with whom she was on speaking terms, and somehow or other she would make him listen. As she and Thomas were shown to their seats, she looked around for the Russian, but the rows at the front, the usual preserve of Soviet officials and guests, were still largely empty.
Surveying the scene, she had to admit that the cinema looked the part. It had been one of Berlin’s seediest in the 1930s, and the last time she’d walked down Neu Konig Strasse it hadn’t been much more than a shell. But the Russians had restored whatever grandeur it had once possessed, and added some more of their own besides. They might have given up on making better films than the Americans, but they could still out-do them when it came to glitter and pomp.
But where was the master showman? Effi was beginning to worry that Tulpanov wasn’t coming, when he suddenly appeared, striding down the aisle amidst a coterie of uniforms. As he took his seat in the front row the lights submissively dimmed.
Effi hadn’t yet seen a final cut, and the film was even better than she’d thought it would be. Watching its subtle interplay of ideas and emotions against an all too believable historical backdrop, she wondered what the officials three rows down were thinking. Could they not see the difference-the enormous difference-between this and A Walk into the Future?
When the credits rolled, Thomas turned and gave her a smile. ‘That was excellent,’ he said, like someone whose heart and mind had just been fed.
‘And how was I?’ Effi asked.
‘Oh, you’re always good.’
Tulpanov and coterie were already filing out to the lobby for the presentations. ‘Thomas,’ Effi said in a whisper. ‘I may be about to cause a bit of a stir. You might want to head straight for the limousine and wait for me there.’
Thomas shook his head. ‘What will you be making a stir about?’
‘That woman I told you about-the one who knew Sonja Strehl and thinks there was something suspicious about her death. Now she’s disappeared, and I’m going to ask Tulpanov if he knows anything about it.’
‘And why would I want to miss that?’
‘Thomas!’
‘They could hardly like me less than they do already, and they’re not going to start arresting people tonight, not after they’ve put on a show like this. But what exactly do you have in mind?’
‘I don’t know really. I was going to play it by ear.’
‘Okay, but in my experience the only way to talk to the Soviets is one-on-one, preferably with no one else in earshot. If you try and show them up in public they either get abusive or turn into hedgehogs-they certainly don’t listen.’
Which did sound sensible, Effi thought. And when the time came, and Tulpanov was standing in front of her, happily admiring her cleavage, she spoke accordingly. ‘Comrade, I need to talk to you again on a matter of some urgency. After you have finished here, in the manager’s office perhaps.’