Father Nicodem slowly sat down. He pointed towards the door.’ signalling his defeat and consent. I told him I’d be back in a week.
4h. 13
The Shoemaker had agreed, he said. I named the day November 1st. The place: the grave of Prus. The time: six in the evening. I left him and went to the dustbin in the back yard. In it, ready for collection, was the last edition of Freedom and Independence. Its theme was mercy and justice.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Anselm took the Metro Line 1, south bound. Clutching his old duffle bag he sat with his head against the window, feeling the jolt ride down his spine. His thoughts drifted to Roza’s statement. John’s mother had died. He’d never told him and yet he’d listened to Anselm’s disclosure, glancing when he could at the drama on a cricket square. He’d come to Warsaw with a personal story which even now Anselm did not know Anselm let the matter drop. Apprehension stirred deep in his guts: someone on the train was probably watching him.
Fifteen minutes later, after a short walk in the rain, a spectacled manager, hunched and kind, asked for Anselm’s passport and credit card details.
‘You’re very welcome, Father,’ he said in English, handing him the key to room 43. ‘Turn right at Saint John.’
At the top of a gentle ramp Anselm passed a large statue proper to a cathedral. He slowed, knowing that this was Frenzel’s joke. He’d picked this place on purpose, knowing the decor, knowing the manager’s public devotion. His contempt seemed to echo down the corridor.’ all the way to the locked door.
The room had a single bed with a deep blue cover. An old television on a wall bracket had been angled like a spotlight towards two chairs and a table. White gleaming floor tiles ran from wall to wall. The lights were low and yellow Abstract paintings hung slightly askew There were no saints on the lookout. He put his duffle bag in the bathroom. What on earth am I doing here? Frenzel’s taken a decent man’s hotel and made it into an expensive brothel for the sale of cheap information. And here am I, a punter with money in his back pocket.
After five minutes a knock sounded.
Riding a surge of agitation, Anselm slowly turned the door handle.
Standing outside like a janitor on his day off was a podgy man in his late twenties dressed in a tracksuit. Gloved fingers gripped a shopping trolley filled with bulging refuse sacks. His face was red and flabby, still wet from the rain. Anselm couldn’t imagine him doing anything more athletic than opening the fridge door. He waved him in, thinking this was the first act in some TV prank. Instantly, as if attached to the man by a thread, a hooded woman appeared, brushing past into the room. When Anselm turned, the man was squatting on the edge of the bed, his arm resting on the parked trolley The woman, hood removed.’ was standing beneath the television, arms tightly folded. She was fifty or so. As if following his cue, Anselm took a chair.
‘You have the money?’ she said in German.
She’d seen his habit and it had unsettled her. Why hadn’t Frenzel told her? To keep her on the leash in case she had misgivings?
‘Yes.’
She seemed unable to ask for it. A glance begged Anselm to cut short her embarrassment. But he didn’t move. So, Sebastian thought Anselm didn’t have it in him? He thought a monk was too self-righteous to take lessons from Frenzel? He’d show him how fast he could learn. The first lesson was already under his belt: snatch the advantage from the weak.
‘Show me the file,’ he ordered.
Her hair was greying and frizzy, her facial bones fine. Wire glasses flashed as she opened her shapeless damp coat to reach the brown envelope held to her side. Anselm didn’t move. Lesson Two: wait for them to come to you. After hesitating, she walked over, holding out the packet. Her jaw was incongruously strong, without undermining an essential delicacy Her eyes were blue, the lips dry and full. She wouldn’t look at him. Lesson Three: show no gratitude.
The envelope contained four sets of documents, held at the corner by tags of green string. Swinging to his side, he placed them on the small table and started reading, whipping through the pages one after the other. He had a few questions to ask. He spoke while reading.
‘Is there nothing else?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I took them in the first place.’
Anselm looked up, unsmiling, clouding his face with judgment and disapproval. He’d done that in the Old Bailey with the more intractable witnesses. The jury had loved it. Not caring, Anselm noticed that this was probably Frenzel’s Lesson Four.
‘Tell me how the archive was structured,’ said Anselm. ‘Why is all the material in German?’
‘That’s how Colonel Brack worked.” she replied. ‘It meant he could control what the Stasi knew He decided what got translated and put into the files… and it wasn’t much. He kept the rest to himself… with Polana.’ Anyway. The last thing he wanted was interference from the Stasi so he kept them in the dark.’
Lesson Five: pretend you haven’t heard and that you’re not that interested anyway.
Lesson Six: let ‘em stew when you’ve got ‘em hanging in the air.
Anselm slowly examined the first batch of papers. It was a series of interviews carried out with known associates of Roza Mojeska (RM). Few had anything worthwhile to say One said she worked, another said she prayed. A third, while keen to co-operate, was judged half mad. She’d taught her parrot to scream, ‘I’m free’.
Anselm turned to the second bundle.
The weekly bulletins from FELIKS made pitiful reading. He’d grovelled and scraped. He’d scoured Warsaw looking for RM. He’d followed his wife. He’d finally come up with a good idea. But they’d have to let his son out first. No, he wasn’t making a threat, he just thought that RM would do anything for the boy End of the trail. There were no more reports.
Anselm glanced up. The squat man was eyeing the television, as if wondering what his mother might say if he asked to put it on. His designer shaved head was wet from the rain. He had his mother’s fine nose. One foot tapped the ground. The trainers were squeaky new and white, like the floor.
‘The reports from FELIKS aren’t complete.” said Anselm, his voice smooth but accusing.
‘That was Colonel Brack,’ said the woman, wringing her hands. ‘I’ve already told you, he ran the operation himself, he picked what went to the Stasi. He wanted to keep them in the dark. We were all in the dark. That’s what he was like, especially with Polana.’ it was his baby, he-’
Anselm shut her down with a raised finger, settling his attention on the third set of papers.
Error, Frenzel seemed to say, with a hitch to his trousers. You went too far. You should have listened to what she was about to tell you. You’re interested in Brack aren’t you? Lesson Seven: don’t enjoy yourself too much. Keep your eye on the ball. When they start blathering, let them hang themselves. That’s fun, too; they do all the work… Anselm had listened enough. He made a mental dash away from the tutorial; he raced over the operational detail for a planned arrest of RM on the 1st November 1982. A well-placed agent had reported that she would be making an appearance at the monument to Prus. Brack would deal with the matter personally, assisted by Lieutenant Frenzel… Anselm skipped to the end, looking for a name, and then.’ finding nothing, threw it aside. He opened the fourth and final bundle.
In his hands was the missing correspondence between the Stasi and the SB. Anselm, still running, went straight to the back page. Brack had originally refused to disclose the names of any agents, indicating that an accommodation might be found at the termination of the operation. That accommodation, it seemed, had been found.
A cough sounded. It was his own, though it seemed to come from someone else.