Politics. Bringing the liberation of millions of East Germans. And one American corporal who doesn’t deserve it.
Justice—a blunt instrument, at best, behind the iron curtain.
And now apparently, no weight to the instrument at all.
One more aspect of the joke Grimmenkauf and I are inhabiting.
“This Corporal Miller. I assume I’m going to meet him shortly?”
“Our next stop,” smiles Grimmenkauf. “We can’t hold him. But the military has made him available to us…” he grunts, raises an eyebrow, “as a witness.”
The rest of the world hears about the Wall, sees the photos, the barbed wire, the sections made broader and thicker over the years, as if the Wall itself is growing into grim, gray adulthood, and the world knows the stories of those shot trying to cross, their bodies left to bleed out, for those on both sides to see. But in fact, it’s a sieve. How could it not be, with a border of over 100 kilometers between the countries; 43 kilometers in Berlin alone. Thousands have made it across successfully over the years. A remarkable brave few evading the guards above their heads (by glider and balloon), and many more under their feet, in the leaky maze of the subway tunnels—those subway lines that cross the border officially sealed off, but the network of repair tunnels still there. And in fact, in the years since the West Germans were allowed to cross in and out daily with the right paperwork, it became of course even tougher to police.
Hence, Corporal Miller.
He is in uniform camos. Black wavy hair grown out a little, as the U.S. military now allows. He has a smiling, cheerful, upbeat way, practically a spoof of the guileless American character. There is also a U.S. military advocate in the interview room, which the U.S. military always provides. In fact I know him, Captain Laughton, and I know the type, from dealing with soldiers stationed in West Germany who get themselves into some bit of trouble over the years. I can see that Grimmenkauf is a little surprised and annoyed by this bit of procedure. I’ve seen the soldiers inevitably get off with a slap of the wrist, with good relations maintained and unjeopardized between Western powers. Not always, but generally.
“Corporal Miller, I’m Inspector Bunder of the Berlin police department,” I tell him. Grimmenkauf has decided to listen from outside the interview room, muttering to me that his anonymity might be useful later. “We have a few questions for you.”
“Go ahead,” says Captain Laughton. Puffing out his chest. As if to say, This all goes through me. I have authority here.
“Did you know Anna Hoppler?”
“Sure,” Miller says. “Everyone knew Anna.” A slippery little smile.
I feel a twinge of anger at this. At its rudeness, at its casual, insolent carelessness. Corporal Chad Miller, operating with impunity. The American military moved liked kings. Immune. Lofty. Unassailable. Heroes, unscarred and untested. “What does that mean, everyone knew Anna?” Does that mean everyone slept with her?
“A group of guys from the base used to party with her and her friends.”
“Regularly?”
He considers. Cocks his head. “Off and on.” That slippery little smile again.
Off and on. I leave it alone for now.
“Were you partying with her on November ninth?” The night the wall fell. The night Anna died.
“Everyone was partying with everyone, man.” He smiles. “It was some wild shit.”
And though he is pretending to be a regular American dumbass GI—and doing a passable job at it—I am picking up more. And here is what I already feared, and what Chad is already confirming. It was such a wild, confusing, crazy night over here, you’ll never be able to sort out who was where, who saw what, who was doing who. Generalized insanity—the perfect cover for murder. As the murderer would know in a premeditated way—or get extremely lucky with, if it was a crime of impulse or passion.
“Do you know where Miss Hoppler worked during the day?”
He shakes his head. “Nah.” Still playing the dumb soldier.
“You don’t know she worked at the hospital pharmacy?”
He shrugs.
I look at his wrist. “That is an awfully nice wristwatch, soldier,” I said.
The arrogance, the insolence, to wear that wristwatch to a meeting like this. Or perhaps, not to even think about it? It could not have been more apparent. Chad the black marketeer. Casual or big time, remained to be seen.
There is probably no more vibrant black market in the world than Berlin’s. No surprise. All the abundance of the West on one side of the wall, all the want and need of the East on the other. It creates an irresistible vacuum, a spinning vortex of goods and desire, with everything imaginable swirling in it—jeans, TVs, computers, cell phones, watches, cigarettes, liquor, jewelry. Even chocolates and candy. And, at the center of the swirling vortex, of course, its common currency, its constant rate of exchange—drugs.
“American goods. And with them, American values,” Grimmenkauf mutters summarily, as we watch Chad saunter out of the stationhouse with Captain Laughton. “And now all of Germany can have those American values. Wunderbar.”
I look at Grimmenkauf, and stay silent, not wanting to be lured into a political argument. Is he needling me, commenting on my own values, on my American girlfriend? He seizes my momentary silence as a chance to go further.
“American-style freedom,” he snickers. “Freedom of choice. Sure. The freedom to choose who you kill, and kill who you choose.” He broods. He warns. “You watch. East Germans won’t know what to do with freedom. Won’t understand it.”
And Anna, did she want, admire, lust for, those American values too? Commerce? Freedom? Did she want to better herself, lift herself up? Did she want just a little piece of Chad’s business? To be a capitalist? To be free to choose?
And maybe Corporal Miller didn’t like that. Didn’t like it one bit.
Corporal Miller—earnest witness, thanked for his time and testimony—goes blissfully, ignorantly on with his life, full speed ahead, in the wide-open, post–collapse party atmosphere. People are celebrating, rules are changing or suspended outright, it’s Chad’s time to shift into high gear; to shine. Over the next several days, Grimmenkauf tracks Chad everywhere—limping after him, unseen, invisible, serenely and superbly professional and adept, unsuspected by the arrogant Chad, who is blind to all but the profit motive. And Chad, it turns out, is dealing everything. Swapping jewelry for pharmaceuticals, pharmaceuticals for cocaine, cocaine for cash, cash for cigarettes. Born richer and more privileged, he would be peddling institutional bonds and trading insider tips on Wall Street, but the kid is Army, so he’s doing the next best thing. He is a one-man supermarket. Operating with the impunity, access, and mobility of his U.S. citizenship and the implied might and threat of his armed military pals behind him. It was every confirmation of Grimmenkauf’s hard-line, right-wing, cynical view of the world. And worse, it could turn out to be exactly right.
Chad—what kind of name is that anyway? Has no meaning. American meaninglessness. American blandness. It itches at me, annoys me. And I realize: Grimmenkauf’s anti-American sentiments are rubbing off on me.
Grimmenkauf had recently lost both his wife and son to cancer—larynx, bladder, one year apart. He presses on alone. As if fairly certain that cancer can’t ever touch him. Can’t incubate in him. That nothing can. He is too hostile an environment, too harsh, too forbidding, for cancer. Cancer will have to nestle somewhere else.