Angry words nudged Adrienne out of her somber reverie.
“Are you denying what we both know? This is a burial ground!”
The angry words came from a short muscular man dressed in laborer’s clothes who was addressing a Vopo. Three other men stood next to the laborer, looking uncomfortable in their neatly pressed suits. One of the men had a protective arm around the shoulder of an old woman in black shawl and babushka.
… Not so old, Adrienne realized, moving closer. Just tired, bent, and weary, with deep crevices running down her parched cheeks.
“Can I help?” Dr. Andreyev asked in German, to the consternation of the Vopo.
“My name is Zind, Albert Zind,” the laborer said. The man’s hair was the color of sand. His blue eyes were expressionless.
“Erich and Gunther, my brothers. Our friend, Otto Dorf.” He pointed them out. “Our mother. We were told my sister’s body was here so we came all the way from Potsdam to visit her grave.”
Kiril translated for Adrienne.
“Our papers.” Albert Zind handed them to Kiril, who looked them over. “You can see they’re in order. And still they refuse to help us.”
“These people are a pack of fools,” grumbled the Vopo. “They claim to have special permission to visit some grave. Where do you see graves around here? Where are the headstones? Let them visit every cemetery in Berlin for all we care,” he said with feigned indifference.
“My mother is not well,” Zind persisted. “The trip has been grueling. I promised her she could say a few words at her daughter’s grave. Only a few words. Then we will leave.”
Again, Kiril translated for Adrienne. For once he was grateful that Luka Rogov was dogging his footsteps. The grim authority of Rogov’s military tunic, the red star emblazoned on his cap, spoke volumes to the East German Vopo.
With a friendly gesture in Rogov’s direction, Kiril said, “We insist that you allow this family to mourn. Unless, of course, you can prove to the appropriate authorities that their papers are false? If you cannot, my associate and I will file a report that you refused to follow our orders.”
The Vopo turned sullen, but he backed off.
“How did you learn of this place?” Kiril asked Albert Zind.
“I’m in bridge construction. Foreman on the repair work being done on Unity. That’s what they’re calling Glienicker Bridge these days, at least in Potsdam,” he said, making no attempt to mask his contempt.
“The bridge between Potsdam and West Berlin?”
“That’s the one. A Russian crashed into the bridge recently,” Zind said, looking at Kiril curiously now. “Poor bastard tried to make it across in some diplomat’s limousine. Almost did, from what I heard,” Zind added, making no attempt to mask his sympathy. “The minute word got out about burial arrangements, I asked a few discreet questions. That’s how I knew where to find my sister. Turns out she and your Russian friend had the same idea except that Eva tried it through a place not yet closed by the wall.”
This time when Kiril translated, Adrienne gasped.
Zind’s mother tugged at Albert’s sleeve. “But where is Eva’s gravestone? You promised me, Albert!”
“She’s here, mama. We don’t know exactly where. I told you how it would be, remember? I kept my promise. Now you must keep yours. Say a prayer for Eva and—”
She shook her head, uncomprehending.
Kiril dropped to his knees.
Adrienne watched, fascinated, as Kiril removed a tiny gold scalpel from a chain around his neck. Watched him smooth a patch of soil with his hand and outline the shape of a headstone.
At the very top of the “headstone,” Kiril carved four words in German: HERE LIES EVA ZIND.
“Eighteen years old,” Albert Zind said tonelessly.
“Number 13 Hollandische Siedlung, Potsdam,” said one brother.
Kiril bent to his task—tiny letters so Eva Zind’s age and address would fit inside.
“Beloved daughter of Frieda. Adored sister of Albert, Gunther, and Erich,” said Erich Zind.
“Beloved by Otto,” said another voice, husky with unshed tears.
The mother had already dropped to her knees beside Kiril, her lips moving in silent prayer. When he finally rose, Zind’s mother crossed herself and got to her feet without assistance.
Albert Zind gripped Kiril’s hand. His blue eyes were no longer expressionless.
Chapter 31
Drizzling water landed unceremoniously on Aleksei Andreyev’s head. He wiped it away, oblivious to the rain. In the last sixteen months he had been on and under Glienicker Bridge at least a dozen times since Stepan Brodsky died there while trying to defect.
The pressure from General Nemerov had been intense. Unrelenting. Aleksei could understand why. As he’d reminded Emil von Eyssen soon after the incident, Brodsky had been a Captain in the Soviet Air Force who had worked for Aleksei. Worse, it was Aleksei who’d put Brodsky in charge of security for the Four-Power summit! So what was Brodsky’s final act? Pushing a cigarette lighter into the Havel River before von Eyssen could confiscate it.
“Did you really think there was only cotton inside the lighter?” Aleksei recalled asking von Eyssen sarcastically.
No, Aleksei thought, Nemerov had every reason to be concerned that day and all the months since. He had to find the damnable lighter. Especially after reading Luka Rogov’s report about what had happened near the Treptower Park cemetery on the way back from Waren. About his brother’s strong reaction after learning that his friend Brodsky was doubtless buried in a mass grave. Would it so enrage Kiril that he’d throw caution to the wind and try to defect?
Quite apart from General Nemerov’s interest in the cigarette lighter, Aleksei had spent many a sleepless night worrying about the lighter’s contents. What if it contained something that might incriminate him in some way?
All of which motivated him, after several unsuccessful attempts with East German dredging equipment and operators, to bring in Soviet engineers and equipment.
They had systematically dredged the water on both sides of the bridge, then under it, then down and up the Havel River. Mud was sucked up and strained. Debris was examined. The detritus of decades, if not centuries, of dumping was sorted. Divers searched the muck by hand. And came up with nothing.
So here he was again. He had expected to be bored and irritable but, surprisingly, he found himself fascinated by the dredging. By the scooping device at the end of the boom that came up from the river looking like a giant dripping clamshell with a mouthful of mud.
A lanky man in a windbreaker stuck his head outside the door of the East German guardhouse. Aleksei barely noticed his approach. He was watching a sleek gray-green East German patrol boat pass underneath the bridge, its diesel engines belching clouds of black soot.
“What is it now, Mueller?” Aleksei asked, glancing up.
As Mueller cupped a hand to his ear, obviously straining to hear, Aleksei realized the noise from the dredging equipment and the patrol boats beneath the bridge were drowning out their voices.
“You’ve been working on repairing this bridge for how long, Mueller?”
“Nearly sixteen months. But it’s not fair to blame me, Colonel,” he said defensively. “The damn bridge was built in 1906 and nearly destroyed during the war.”
Aleksei cut him off. “This isn’t about blame. Is that Vopo around—the one who was on duty the night of Brodsky’s attempted defection?”
“I’ll send him out here right now, Colonel,” Mueller said, relieved.
The door of the guardhouse flew open and banged against a stone wall. The man walking toward Aleksei in long impatient strides had a raw, seething vitality not unlike Luka’s, Aleksei thought. But unlike Luka, the East German resented Russians. Pity. Men like Luka Rogov were becoming extinct.