Near to Wittstock, Josef Siehl, who had held the rank of Unterleutnant, rang at last.
Josef Siehi, on the telephone, complained that it had not been straightforward for him to take time off work, he had had to beg his supervisor. Always, he complained. He had stopped at a filling station and used a public telephone to confirm that he was driving to Rostock.
Past the Insel See, the call came from Ulf Fischer, who had never been promoted beyond Feidwebel.
Ulf Fischer, waiting for a fare on Lange Strasse, telephoned Hauptman Dieter Krause from his taxi. It was a good place to wait, near to the Radisson Hotel, which was the best in Rostock, and close to the shops of Kropeliner Strasse. A good place to wait, but the waiting was long, few enough fares to be had from the near empty hotel and shops. He telephoned from his taxi to say that he would be at the rendezvous.
South of Laage, Gunther Peters, once a junior and unnoticed Feidwebel, finally called.
Gunther Peters telephoned from his car, ordinary and not ostentatious. He hoped to be on time at the rendezvous, but he was coming from Leipzig and the radio said there would be road works near to Potsdam. He lived in the seat of his ordinary and unostentatious Volvo car. He was a minimum of ten kilos overweight, aged thirty-eight now, and he was pasty pale. He did not run when he could walk. On the telephone he said at what time he hoped to reach Rostock.
Dieter Krause drove on, powering the big car, towards the city that was his home. They were all vulnerable. Each of them was as vulnerable and at risk as himself. Because they were vulnerable and at risk, they would all come that afternoon to the rendezvous in Rostock, as their Hauptman had ordered.
‘Why?’
They were beside the old Wall, spattered with ugly graffiti scrawl and with technicolour paint sprays. A short stretch had been left for the scrawlers and the sprayers.
‘Because I say so.’
They had walked for more than an hour. He never turned to her, as if he knew that she would follow him.
‘Why are we here?’
‘Because I say so.’
Across the road from the section of Wall, narrow concrete slabs topped by a heavy rubber moon, smooth and of too great a diameter to reach over, was a small circular window with a recessed metal grille, set in the facade of an old building. White and gold lilies were fastened to it. He read the name and the dates that were carved in the stone above the window: Harro Schulze-Boysen, 2.9.1909-22.12.1942. He stood in front of the flowers, gazed at them.
‘Why are we here?’
‘We are here so that we know why we are going to Rostock.’
She snorted. ‘That’s just ridiculous. You think I don’t know why?’
He said, staring up at the memorial, ‘There has to be a reason for going. When I’ve told you the reason, we will go to Rostock.’
Chapter Seven
SO, who was he?’
‘Harro Schulze-Boysen was a member of the Rote Kappelle, the Red Orchestra. The Communists were against the Nazis, therefore they all became Communists. They spied for the Communists, for ideology. When they were arrested by the Gestapo they were brought here. Schuize-Boysen was brought here.’
‘That’s history.’
‘They were in “protective custody”. At the end there was “special treatment”, days on end of torture. Finally, execution.’
‘What is it to me?’
She stood beside him, small and playing bored. He faced the open space, large enough for three, four football pitches. There was a raised mound in the centre of the space, surrounded by sparse grass tufted yellow in the carpet of frozen snow. On the far side of the mound were birch trees, gaunt from the winter.
‘What can you hear, Tracy? Sorry, let me do that again. What can you not hear?’
‘That’s a stupid bloody question.’
‘You can hear traffic. We’re in the centre of a city, of course there’s traffic noise. There are no birds. Spring’s coming, birds are nesting. It’s big ground here, it’s where the birds should be, but there aren’t any birds. You can’t hear birdsong. It was called Prinz Albrecht Strasse. It’s where the Gestapo had their main Berlin office. It’s where Himmler worked, and Heydrich and Eichmann. It’s where they brought people who stood up, who shouted, who did not compromise. It’s when you feel the history in this country, when you can’t hear the song of birds.’
The place held him. He wanted to share the feeling of it. Gently, Josh took her arm and turned her round. She was scowling, as if she was tired and cold, as if she had no interest.
They faced the Wall. Below it, half excavated, was a sunken entrance wide enough to have taken a single car or truck. Either side of the entrance were the back walls and side walls of small, compartment rooms.
‘They were driven through that entrance. They would have been sweating with fear in the back of lorries and lying in shit and piss and vomit. The small rooms were the holding cells. The people were taken from those cells up into the main building, the top floors, for torture. They were brought back to the cells. They would have sat there, on the stone floors and they would have prayed, cried, for the release of death. They were not there by accident, Tracy. They chose to be there. They made the decision to stand up and to shout, not to compromise. They were ordinary people, from trade unions, from the civil service, from the ranks of junior officers, from the Church. For every man or woman in those cells there were nine hundred and ninety-nine men and women who did not stand up, did not shout, who compromised. If you were in the crowd, Tracy, if your mother and father were in the nine hundred and ninety-nine, would you want it raked over? Would you? You want the bulldozers out. You want it covered over. You want it hidden. Look up, damn you, look up at the Wall.’
He had his fist under her chin. He wrenched her head up so that she had to look above the cell block to the Wall.
‘Just as this place killed people, so did the Wall. Behind the Wall, again, history gestating, were those who had the compulsion to stand up and to shout, who would not compromise. Behind that Wall were more cells, more interrogators, more torturers, more executioners working in yards at night. Again, the one in a thousand stood up, shouted, did not compromise. The nine hundred and ninety-nine don’t want to know, don’t want reminding, don’t want the shame paraded. They want history buried, covered up. Look at the Wall. It’s a place for scumbags to scrawl inane messages. Shouldn’t it be a memorial? Look at the chippings, where bits have been hacked off for sale to tourists like it’s damn moon rock, but cheaper. There are places either side of this Wall where the birds don’t sing.’
He loosed her chin. He walked to the crude steps set into the side of the mound.
On the top was a viewing platform. He leaned on the rail of weathered wood. She was beside him, and quiet.
‘What we’re standing on was rubble from the bombing, bad in the February of nineteen forty-five. Prisoners were still held here in the last days, when there was no water, no electricity, but the torture functioned and the killings. Then, it was over. Was there contrition? They covered up the rubble, made the place invisible, hid it from sight. I’m getting there, Tracy. They did not want the past examined. This place was covered with buildings. How many men and women worked here, signed the papers, allocated the cells, organized the shifts of the interrogators, signed the chits for the bullets and the ropes? How many? There was no will. The men and women who worked here went free. History was wiped away. The tens of thousands who compromised did not want the history exposed. There was no will then, there is no will now.’