He was about to walk away but Lothar stopped him. This time he was more menacing and gripped his arm tighter, pulling him close and whispering in his ear.
“We need to talk.”
“We have nothing to talk about,” he said and tried to tear himself loose. But Lothar held him fast.
“We just need to have a word about your Ilona.”
He felt his face flush suddenly. His muscles slackened, and Lothar felt his arm go powerless for an instant.
“What are you talking about?” he said, trying not to give himself away.
“I don’t think she’s good enough company for you,” Lothar said, “and I say that as your Betreuer and your comrade. I hope you’ll forgive me for intruding.”
“What are you talking about?” he repeated. “Good enough company? I don’t think it’s any of your business what—”
“I don’t think she associates with the likes of us,” Lothar interrupted him. “I’m afraid she’ll drag you down into the mire with her.”
Speechless, he stared at Lothar.
“What are you talking about?” he blurted out for the third time; he did not know what else he ought to say. His mind was a blank. All he could think about was Ilona.
“We know about the meetings she organises,” Lothar said. “We know who goes to the meetings. We know that you’ve been at those meetings. We know about the pamphlets she circulates.”
He could not believe what he was hearing.
“Let us help you,” Lothar said.
He stared at Lothar, who fixed him with a serious expression. Lothar had dropped all the charades. His false smile was gone. He could see only unflinching harshness on his face.
“Us?” he said. “What us? What are you talking about?”
“Come with me,” Lothar said. “I want to show you something.”
“I’m not coming with you,” he said. “I don’t have to come anywhere with you!”
“You won’t regret it,” Lothar said in the same steady voice. “I’m trying to help you. Try to understand that. Let me show you something. So you understand exactly what I’m talking about.”
“What can you show me?”
“Come on,” Lothar said, half-pushing him along in front. “I’m trying to help you. Trust me.”
He wanted to resist, but fear and curiosity drove him on and he yielded. If Lothar had something to show him it might be worth seeing it, rather than turning his back on him. They left the university building for the city centre, heading across Karl Marx Square and along Barfussgasschen. Soon he saw that they were approaching Dittrichring 24, which he knew was the city headquarters of the security police. He slowed, then stopped dead when he saw that Lothar intended to go up the steps into the building.
“What are we doing here?” he asked.
“Come on,” Lothar said. “We need to talk to you. Don’t make this more difficult for yourself.”
“Difficult? I’m not going in there!”
“Either you come now or they come and get you,” Lothar said. “It’s better this way.”
He stood still in his tracks. He would have liked to run away. What did the security police want of him? He hadn’t done anything. From the street corner he looked in all directions. Would anyone see him go inside?
“What do you mean?” he said in a low voice. He was genuinely afraid.
“Come on,” Lothar said, and opened the door.
Hesitantly, he walked up the steps and followed Lothar into the building. They entered a small foyer with a grey stone staircase and brownish marble walls. A door at the top of the steps led to a reception room. He immediately noticed the smell of dirty linoleum, grimy walls, smoking, sweat and fear. Lothar nodded to the man at reception and opened a door onto a long corridor. The walls were painted green. Halfway down the corridor was an alcove, inside it an office with the door open and beside it a narrow steel door. Lothar went into the office where a weary middle-aged man was sitting at a desk. He looked up and acknowledged Lothar.
“Hell of a long time that took,” the man said to Lothar, ignoring the visitor.
The man smoked fat, pungent cigarettes. His fingers were stained yellow and the ashtray was crammed with minuscule cigarette butts. He had a thick moustache, discoloured by tobacco. He was swarthy, with greying sideburns. He pulled out one of the desk drawers, took out a file and opened it. Inside were a few typed pages and some black-and-white photographs. The man removed the photographs, looked at them, then tossed them across the desk to him.
“Isn’t that you?” he asked.
Tomas picked up the photographs. It took him a while to realise what they were. They had been taken in the evening from some distance and showed people leaving a block of flats. A light above the door illuminated the group. Peering more closely at the photo-graph, he could suddenly see Ilona and a man who had been at the meeting in the basement flat, another woman from the same meeting and himself. He leafed through the photographs. Some were enlargements of faces — Ilona’s face and his own.
After lighting a cigarette, the man with the thick moustache leaned back in his seat. Lothar had sat down on a chair in a corner of the office. On one wall was a street map of Leipzig and a photograph of Ulbricht. Three sturdy steel cupboards stood against another wall.
He turned to Lothar, trying to conceal the trembling in his hands.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“You ought to tell us that,” Lothar retorted.
“Who took these photos?”
“Do you think that matters?” Lothar said.
“Are you spying on me?”
Lothar and the man with the burnt moustache exchanged glances, then Lothar began laughing.
“What do you want?” he said, addressing Lothar. “Why are you taking these photographs?”
“Do you know what this gathering is?” Lothar asked.
“I don’t know those people,” he said and was not lying. “Apart from Ilona, of course. Why are you photo-graphing them?”
“No, of course you don’t know them,” Lothar said. “Apart from pretty little Ilona. You know her. Know her better than most people do. You even know her better than your friend Hannes did.”
He did not know what Lothar was driving at. He looked at the man with the moustache. He looked out into the corridor where the steel door confronted him. There was a small hole in it with a shutter across. He wondered whether anyone was inside. Whether they had anyone in custody. He wanted to get out of the office at whatever cost. He felt like a trapped animal looking desperately for an escape route.
“Do you want me to stop going to those meetings?” he offered. “That’s no problem. I haven’t been to many.”
He stared at the steel door. Suddenly he was overwhelmed by fear. He had already started to back down, already started to promise that he would mend his ways, despite not knowing exactly what he had done wrong or what he could do to appease them. He would do anything to get out of that office.
“Stop?” said the man with the moustache. “Not at all. No one’s asking you to stop. On the contrary. We’d like you to go to more meetings. They must be very interesting. What’s their purpose?”
“Nothing,” he said, struggling to put on a brave face. They must be able to tell. “No purpose. We just talk about university matters. Music. Books. Stuff like that.”
The man with the moustache grinned. Surely he recognised fear. Must see how obvious his fear was. Almost tangible. He had never been a good liar anyway.
“What were you saying about Hannes?” he asked hesitantly, looking at Lothar. “That I know Ilona better than Hannes did? What are you talking about?”
“Didn’t you know?” Lothar said, faking surprise. “They were together, just like you and Ilona are together now. Before you appeared on the scene. Didn’t she mention that?”