Never in that night when they struggled with each other to be the next, or came into me with violence, did I wish I was dead. I knew that only God, good fortune and I could save myself. I thought love forgotten and had learned to hate.
‘I don’t understand — why are we here?’
He had been brought to the zoological garden. Luke Davies was baffled.
He was answered, ‘That you understand better where we are and what we’re doing.’
‘Mr Lawson, I haven’t been in a zoo since I was a kid.’
It was ridiculous. They had been met at the airport by the deputy station chief, Berlin. All of them had fitted snugly, or squashed, into a minibus, and the deputy station chief had driven them into the city. The vehicle had stopped in a side-street near to the old Zoo Hauptbahnhof. Lawson had climbed out, had gestured for Davies to follow him. They’d taken their bags from the tailgate and walked to the door of a small, perhaps discreet, hotel. Inside, Lawson had been greeted by an elderly porter as if a prodigal had returned. Then an old lady had come through an inner door and Lawson, with full formality, had kissed her hand. The bags were dumped and they were gone without even checking in. He had asked where the minibus was and everyone else. He had been told that Lawson never stayed at the same hotel as his team. And enigmatically, ‘They’ll take on the transport, and they’ll go to work. We’re going for a walk.’ They had been hit by a shower, and had sheltered under the arch outside the zoological garden, then Lawson — in fluent German — had bought the two tickets, an age concession on his own, and they’d gone inside.
There was a smell about the place. Luke Davies had never been inside a gaol, but men he knew had always spoken about the distinctive stench, like a zoo. Might have been the fodder, the bedding, the stale, green-tinted water in the pools, or the creatures’ droppings. The zoo’s smell was in his nostrils, and was worse when they went inside the big cats’ house. He focused on one cage. A lioness had just been fed. A great joint of pink-fleshed bloody meat was between her huge front paws, and her eyes were malevolent as she licked the meat. He could have asked a hundred trite questions. Didn’t, held his peace — and wondered what was so important about the zoo that it took priority over checking in to the hotel … He wondered too what the team, with its disparate characters and daft identification codes, were doing.
They reached the hippopotamus house. It was closed — was being refurbished — and would not open for another week. He saw a flash of annoyance pass over Lawson’s face.
‘Right,’ Davies said. ‘Can we move on along the agenda, please? I think it’s going to rain, and I don’t want to get soaked again. I’ve much enjoyed our jaunt but …’
Lawson headed for the aviary and beyond it were the penguins.
Lawson said, ‘You are in the heart of Europe, young man, not on an offshore island. Everything here is governed by the last war. Boundaries, attitudes, loyalties, all are affected. This was the finest zoo in Europe, but we bombed it to destruction. The lions had to be shot by the keepers or they would have been free to roam the streets and attack people. Elephants were crushed by the collapsed concrete of their enclosures. Deer and birds were slaughtered by citizens desperate for food. It irritates me that the hippopotamus house is shut. One great beast — Knautschke — survived the bombing and hid in the mud of its pool. It was resurrected, fed back to health, and its sperm started a new hippopotamus collection. Of five thousand animals here at the start of hostilities only ninety-one were alive when the white flag went up.’
‘What’s your point?’ Davies could see none.
‘I would have thought it apparent even to an idiot. This city breathes history. The past cannot be discarded, is a ball and chain. You must sniff at the history here if you are to comprehend the present. Is that disrespectful to the genius of youth? Are you so arrogant that you cannot find room for history, are fearful that it will dull the lustre of your glory? When you know history you will know, too, the motivation of men. A sense, warped, of history will drive forward those we attempt to challenge.’
‘Were you here with Clipper?’
‘A good place. No microphones, difficult for counter-surveillance. We met people here, talked about things … Yes, we were often here. Come on.’
‘Can’t I go to the hotel and put on dry socks?’
‘You cannot.’
They walked out of the zoological garden. Lawson set a brisk pace. They went past modern embassy constructions, where the Japanese were and the Saudis, the Mexicans, Malaysians and Indians. He asked why they walked and was told that atmosphere was gained by walking on a city’s streets, not by sitting in a car. He presumed that Clipper Reade had walked in Berlin, and Christopher Lawson merely imitated him slavishly. He resented his treatment. They reached a building faced with clean-cut grey stones. Through an open archway there was a wide courtyard, with leafless young trees in a line at the far end, and a shallow plinth in the centre with a charcoal grey statue, larger than life, of a naked man. Against the left wall, level with the statue, was a plaque and below it were a wreath and a bouquet of fresh yellow flowers.
‘You realize, of course, who this statue commemorates?’
‘No idea.’
‘Claus von Stauffenberg.’
‘Never heard of him. Sorry and all that,’ Davies said.
‘God, the ignorance of the young. At the Wolf’s Lair, he put the bomb under the briefing table. He tried and failed to assassinate his Führer, on the twentieth of July 1944. Hitler lived and von Stauffenberg, who had returned by air to Berlin and had seen his coup d’état fail, was shot by firing squad where the plaque is. I’m trying to show you the confusions under which we operate. To most, even in those dark days when defeat loomed, he was a traitor. To almost none was he a hero. Today, the best that can be said for him is that he is — now, at this late hour — respected. Myself, young man, I make no judgements. I am no crusader for democracy, not a champion of our concept of freedom, merely an observer. Very little in our world is clear cut, and that is best remembered.’
Davies wondered whose words they were, guessed they were spoken first by Clipper Reade. He tried to imagine the two of them, the gross, overweight Texan and a young Englishman feeding from an American hand. He snapped back, ‘Is there not right and wrong? Don’t we make that choice?’
‘You are, or you purport to be, an intelligence officer. Look for sugar or saccharin and you’ll be boring and pompous. Come on. More for you to see. I’ll fight my opponents tooth and nail, but I will not have judged them.’
There had been no talk in the Polonez, merely laughter puncturing the quiet, but now his old friend was silent. Yashkin drove, and wondered what new demon tormented the former zampolit. They had turned off the minor road to a village, had purchased bread at a shop and then pressed on. A range of low hills blocked their view of the Oka river, but they would meet it again when they came to Kaluga. There, the third stage of their journey would be complete and four more would remain. He saw the black soil of the fields, too wet to be ploughed yet, and his speed was seldom above forty-five kilometres per hour — and then they were behind a tractor that pulled a trailer loaded with cattle dung. An old man — older than himself — drove it, and a teenage boy was perched beside him. He thought he watched Russia, his Russia, as he slowed and tucked in behind them, and the manure stench wafted to him. They were the peasants of Russia, obstinate and stubborn, exploited and deceived. The tractor coughed fumes. If he made a victim of the peasant — as he was a victim — he could ally himself to the tractor driver.