Bernard Samson: Faith - Bernard Samson: Faith Part 21
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Bernard Samson: Faith Part 21

'Old days when?' he said again. He kept to his German; if he was going to relate his war experiences he wanted more than a word or two.

Fedosov got up to find an ashtray for me. I could look at him more carefully now. He was small and muscular and inclined to be hunched, perhaps as the result of some injury. He had a furtive manner and a dark-complexioned face that almost hid the scars of an unstitched wound that disfigured his cheek and extended to his ear.

'The days of the airlift,' I said. 'Back when you worked with my father.' I had given up smoking; I hadn't had a cigarette in over a month. But, sitting there with a cigarette in one hand and a lighter in the other, I found that in Europe it is not so easy to maintain such embargoes. Everyone smokes, and the air of every restaurant and cafe, every train compartment and every home, is hazy with tobacco smoke. I lit up and he placed the ashtray at my elbow.

'Air Lift. That is a long time ago,' said Fedosov, his face betraying no sign that he might be guessing the identity of my father. I watched him carefully. I was in no hurry. One of the windows had been fitted with wooden shelves so that potted plants of all shapes and sizes a mostly cacti a filled the entire space. More plants crowded the wooden bench in front of us, and on the floor under it there was a bag of plant food and some empty pots. The light coming between the plants backlit his wispy white hair, making a fluffy halo.

'Nineteen forty-nine,' I said. I flicked ash into the large chinaware ashtray in the base of which the flags of the DDR and the Soviet Union were bound together with a scroll bearing the slogan: 'Freedom, unity and socialism.'

'You were not even born,' he said.

'I was very young,' I admitted. 'But I remember the planes going over a one every few seconds.'

He smoked the cigarette, letting the smoke trail from his mouth and nostrils, savouring it with eyes half-closed, as Dicky Cruyer did when he was showing you how to judge claret. 'Do you know who lives in the apartment downstairs on the ground floor?' he said.

'No,' I said.

'Klenze. Theodore Klenze, the famous conductor.'

'Oh, yes.'

'The Bruckner specialist. He conducts at the Opera and works with all the big orchestras. Leipzig, the Brno State and in London too. I have all his records.'

Why shouldn't the old man be proud to live so near him? As with every regime in the East, the earning of hard-currency royalties was the ultimate achievement in this hard-pressed communist land. Such earners were cosseted and given the best of everything, including comfortable houses. To be Klenze's neighbour was to have shared that pinnacle of success. 'Yes, he's world-famous,' I said.

'When did you last see my son Andrey?' asked Fedosov.

'He's important now,' I said, rather than reveal it was to shoot at him on a country road near Magdeburg. 'He runs his own department. Or so I heard.' It seemed like a way of getting the old man started.

'His pension will be twice mine,' said Fedosov. 'Mind you, he works hard; very hard. Did you know his wife?'

'No,' I said.

'I wish he'd get married again, but he says it's none of my business and I suppose he's right.'

Perhaps he was still hoping that, by some miracle, I would start asking him about the Red Banner and forget his former indiscretion with the British Secret Intelligence Service. I nodded to show that I had no strong feelings about VERDI's nuptial ambitions and we sat there staring at each other and smoking and thinking and nodding and watching the sparrows come to the window-sill, find no bread there and peck at the ice that had formed in the water-dish. He watched them solemnly as they flew away chirping angrily. I could see his mind was racing. All this small-talk was just a way of providing time enough to get my sudden appearance into some sort of perspective, to decide if I represented a threat or an opportunity. Or both.

'He lives downstairs. Klenze, I mean. Not my son. The door with the brass knocker.' He smiled.

I flicked ash upon 'Freedom, unity and socialism' and looked at this friendly old man so happily ensconced in his gemutlich little home. It was easy to forget that this white-haired pensioner and his hard-working secret-policeman son a helped by dedicated Party workers, apparatchiks, writers and intellectuals and musicians like Herr Klenze, who all were provided with equally comfortable environments a were propping up the whole rotten and corrupt system. It was men such as Fedosov who built the Wall and patrolled the electric fences around the work camps, and kept the communist world subdued at gun-point.

'Who was your father?' he said suddenly.

'Brian Samson. The British rezident-director in West Berlin.'

He nodded sagely. Rezident-director was a KGB concept and not an accurate description of my father's job, and still less of Frank Harrington's role, but it was enough. 'I remember him,' he said soberly.

'You worked for him,' I said. 'All through the Luftbrucke time, and long after.'

'No.'

'You gave him good and accurate accounts of all the important meetings in Karlshorst that were concerned with the air bridge and Moscow's plans to counter it.'

'Do you know what you are saying?'

'You reported to the British SIS,' I insisted.

He got up and came to stand over me, his hands clenching in anger. 'I'll send for the police,' he threatened.

'Send for the KGB,' I said. 'Send for the Stasi; send for your son.'

'What are you after?' He walked away as if he would not wait to hear my reply.

'I was in the rezidentura,' I said. 'I was just a child, but I knew my father came regularly to Pankow all through that time. And even after the Wall was up. My mother even suspected him of having a mistress here. But it was you he was meeting. I remember my parents, their voices raised in anger about him going to Pankow once a week.'

'No.'

'I've seen the documents. They are still on file in London.'

'You are lying.'

From my pocket I took the payments card. Exposed to the bright light coming through the window the card looked very old and tattered. Its yellow colour was faded almost to white, and some of the ink signatures were faint. Only the pencilled entries were unchanged. Fedosov peered over my shoulder to see exactly what it was. I passed it back to him. He looked at it for a moment before going to fetch his spectacles from a case that was alongside his library book. With his glasses on he looked again at the card.

'You bastard,' he said. 'Why wasn't this destroyed?'

'Destroy it now,' I offered. I didn't say there were plenty more where that came from, I let him figure that out for himself. He had worked for us, been paid well for his services, and now he could not deny it.

'Get out,' he said.

'I'm not getting out until we've had a proper talk.'

'I said get out!'

'Not yet, Madame Xavier,' I said.

His face froze in horror and he got to his feet and began moving about in that restless way that is a symptom of sudden shock. I hadn't fully anticipated the profound effect that my visit was likely to have upon Fedosov. He'd kept his secret for half a lifetime. Comfortably settled in his Berlin apartment a accommodation of infinite luxury by the standards of the East a he was using his ill-gotten nest-egg to furnish himself with all the little comforts that the despicable West could offer. Suddenly a bombshell had been thrown into his world. I had arrived, not just with an accusation, but with a signed piece of cardboard that had been wrenched from his shameful past.

I had not allowed for the old man's distress, his anger and his desperate resource. He went to the other room and I heard him busy in the kitchen, as if making coffee. I was sitting with my back to him when he came up behind me. I was expecting a hand on my shoulder, and the opening words of an angry scene. I was not prepared for the strength of the blow he delivered with some hard and heavy object. He hit me on the side of the head and the pain was awful. I clutched my head and toppled forward to fall into the stacked flower-pots and bags of plant food that were under the bench. My weight caused the bench to collapse, and all the potted plants arrayed upon it slid to the floor with a resounding crash. I blacked out for a moment, and I think the way that I remained full-length on the floor, eyes closed and limbs still, made the old man think his blow had killed me.

I tried to open my eyes. I could see his feet as he backed away from me, treading the spilled earth and broken pieces of cacti into the carpet. 'Bastard!' he called again and his voice revealed his fears. 'Bastard!' he said again as if it was a plea to some jury that was pronouncing on his unprovoked assault. 'You deserved it. You deserved it.'

I couldn't see properly, or hear properly either. My head was too filled with pain to leave much room for thinking. I wanted to stay where I was on the floor and be left alone until suppertime.

I heard the sound of him lifting the phone and dialling. 'Andrey? This is your father,' he said when the connection was made. 'I've had a visitor. The Englander. The one you know about. I hit him; I think he's dead.' There was a silence and then his son at the other end must have said that it was better for them to speak Russian, because the old man said it all again in Russian. Before ringing off, the old man said 'As quick as you can then' in German and I guessed that VERDI was on his way. 'Goodbye.'

Until that moment I had been hanging on to consciousness, but the finality of the farewell seemed to make my resolution dissolve. I floated for a moment and then drifted slowly upwards into darkness.

15.

I don't know how long it was before I was aware that my father was standing over me. He was wearing a fur coat and a fur hat. He had a stethoscope hanging loose around his neck. 'His pulse is strong,' my father said in German with a powerful Berlin accent. 'I think he's coming round. Look, his eyes are opening.'

It was not my father. He didn't even look like him except for the moustache. A voice belonging to someone out of sight said: 'Will he need stitches?'

'No. It's not bleeding very much. It's in his hair. The scar won't notice. He's got lots of scar tissue already.'

I was full-length on a sofa in the inner room. They must have carried me there. Far away I could see the room in which we'd been sitting. The light filtering through the plants in the window was green and shadowy. My head hurt; it really hurt.

'Are you in pain?' asked the man with the stethoscope. I tried to answer but no words came. 'He's not in pain,' he said, with that robust stoicism with which physicians confront their patients' suffering.

'Thanks, doctor,' said a man I could not see. 'Can he hear me?' It was VERDI's voice.

'I don't know. He's not fully conscious but he'll be all right. He's not badly hurt; just concussed.'

The second man came nearer. It was VERDI. I would have recognized that voice anywhere. 'Can you hear me, Samson?' It was a loud domineering voice suited for addressing the infirm and demented. 'Nod if you can hear me.'

The hell with you, VERDI. Your father has already tried to beat my head in. Nod it and it will fall off and roll under the table and I'll get it back covered in cobwebs.

I suppose he decided to give me a few more minutes to recover, for I heard him walking with the doctor to the door and saying that he wouldn't be needed any more. And then he used the phone to order an extra car. It should come immediately to Pankow he said, and the driver should have Russian Army credentials in case he had to go to the West Sector.

When the doctor had gone VERDI was less restrained: 'Why did you hit him, you bloody old fool?'

'We had such fun together when you were small,' his father said sorrowfully. 'I loved you then.'

'I said, why did you hit him?'

'Do you ever think of those days, little one?'

VERDI sighed. 'Can't you ever keep to the point? I am asking you a simple question.'

'It was the Military School,' said the old man, as if he'd never hit upon this solution before. 'You changed after that. You came back on vacation. But you were never the same. You became a little German.' There was a lifetime of resentment and regret behind that choice of words a little German a by a man who'd battled against the Germans, and then chosen one as a mother for this cherished only son.

'Mama died. You were always working.'

'Not always.'

'Or drunk. Working or drunk. That's what I remember of my vacations. You never had time to spare for me.'

'You know that's not true, little one. I gave my whole life to you. I refused jobs overseas, I lost promotions. I devoted all my life to you.'

'If only that was the truth,' said VERDI.

'It is true, little one. You just don't want to face it. You don't wish to feel an obligation. You were always like that. You even pretended you didn't like your toys.'

Perhaps the word 'toys' brought on the anger. 'Don't call me little one. I'm not your little one.'

There was a long silence then suddenly the old man said: 'The Englander was threatening me. I gave them ... This was many years ago. I gave them some papers. Useless waste paper. I was short of money. It was for you and Mama that I did it. This one came threatening me about it all.'

'What did he say?' said VERDI very quietly and calmly. I knew he was looking at me. I kept my eyes closed and remained very still.

'He brought an English payments card. I'd signed for my money. I thought they destroyed the receipts. I only did it the once.'

'You did it for eleven years,' said VERDI. 'DO you think it wasn't reported?'

'Reported?'

'In those days we always managed to get someone planted in the Berlin SIS office.'

'Just the once,' insisted the old man.

'I tell you we had someone there.'

'Who? I knew them all. It was my job building our material about the Berlin rezidentura. Who did we have there?'

'A flashy creep named Billy Walker. A homosexual. He reported on you. There was a written report sent to your battalion commander but no action was taken.'

'I was lucky.'

'Walker and Samson were at the top. The rezident was this one's father. They hated each other. Our people processing the report on you probably decided that Walker was trying to make trouble ... that it was a part of the vendetta between the two Englishmen.'

'How long have you known?'

'I saw you with the elder Samson. You were careless.'

'You didn't report me?'

'You're my father.'

'Thank you, little one. You are a good boy.'

'William Walker. The English called him "Johnny Walker" after the name of the Scotch whisky. They like that sort of joke. Smart suits and signet ring and gold cigarette case: not very English: too gaudy.'

'The bastard reported me.'

'We had to get rid of him finally. I was in the office when it was decided. We chose our most gorgeous male prostitute to do it.'

'I'm sorry, little one. I was stupid. It could have made bad trouble for you.' And then, in another voice: 'What are we going to do about this one?'

'Samson?' VERDI called loudly, bending over close to me. I pretended I was just coming round. I slowly opened my eyes and groaned and acted like one in pain. It wasn't difficult. 'Can you hear me and understand?' he said in German. He was comfortable in German; he liked the predetermined order its syntax demanded. I recognize that preference in myself at times.

'Yes? Yes? What?' I said slowly in a slurred voice. VERDI walked into view. Werner was right: I wouldn't have recognized him without a little prompting. The man I used to know was a hard-faced thug with bad teeth and frayed shirts. This one was soft and smooth and silky. Perfectly blocked soft felt hat, a dark cashmere overcoat slung over his shoulders, grey silk scarf with tassels, and hand-made Oxford shoes, even kid gloves. All looking as if it had just come from exclusive West Berlin outfitters, which it probably had. He wore it with style too, parading up and down with all the sulky mannerisms Hollywood actors use when cast as East Coast Mafia bosses. Behind him, peeking at me furtively over his son's shoulder, there was the old man, his eyes glinting and a certain anxiety on his face. His troubles were not yet over, and he knew it.

'You take a message back to your people,' VERDI said softly. 'You leave my father out of this or the deal is off. You talk to your Director-General personally. Personally. Have you got that?'