Sabine, Liesl and Hannelore-perfectly encapsulated his life’s work. The six of them
Liesl put down the transcript with a final sigh. Dry-eyed, she handed it back.
“Keep it,” he said. “I’ve made copies.”
“Thank you. But tell me, if you have this, what could you possibly need from me?”
“Well, one thing I’d like to know is how the hell you got away from Plotzensee Prison without anyone finding out you’d survived?”
She smiled.
“That was Hannelore’s trick. The bombs blew open her cell, of course, and I happened to be standing in a hallway at the time. I had just been released. Gollner himself had come to sign the discharge papers, which were still in my hand. One of the walls collapsed, and everything was pretty crazy, pretty frightening. Somehow I ended up outside, half in shock, and that’s when she saw me. She took me by the arm and we ran. And that might have been it, except Hannelore had the presence of mind to place my release papers in that poor girl’s hand, the one who was already half-buried in the fallen bricks. Another prisoner, I suppose. No one has ever known her name, because when the authorities found her they logged her death under my name.”
“Gollner must have realized the mistake.”
“I’m certain he did. He knew my face, and he would have seen hers. But he would have been glad to keep it a secret.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because of what he had just told me, inside the prison, while I waited for him to sign my papers. He told me all about what Kurt had done. His idea of a joke on Kurt, I suppose. I gather he was feeling ill-treated by his superiors as the result of all the pressure being applied by Kurt’s father. Telling me about Kurt’s betrayal was his only way of getting back at the Bauers. And when he heard later that Kurt thought the dead girl was me, it must have made him even happier.”
“Where did you go from there?”
“We tried my house first. But by then my family had been killed, that very morning. So we went across town, to some friends of Hannelore’s in Prenzlauer Berg. We barely survived all the bombings during the next few months, and then we barely survived the Russians. I was raped by a soldier in the Red Army. Hardly unusual, as you must know. Hannelore was a far better survivor. She killed one of them with a pair of scissors. She was also better than me at surviving the Worker’s Paradise, at least for a while. She was quite the firebrand at first. Then they put her in prison for two years, and she was never quite as vocal afterward. Nor was I. After a while I no longer had much spirit for dissent.”
“Weren’t you ever tempted to contact Bauer, or confront him in some way?”
“Hannelore and I always talked about that. In private, of course. We drafted several letters to the press, laying out our case. And I found out his phone number, the one to his home. But we never mailed the letters, and I never called.”
“Why not?”
“Only two things could have happened, and neither was satisfactory. Without proof, the West would have seen it as another trumped-up Communist attempt to smear a good capitalist. There were quite a few of those, you know, complete with forgeries. In some ways that would only have made him stronger, an object of pity.”
“Maybe.”
“Yes, maybe. Meaning maybe we could have succeeded. But then we realized what that would have meant. Hannelore and I would have been celebrated as heroes of the Worker’s Paradise. Sturdy tools in the hands of our new enemy. The very people who were making others spy on us would have been richly rewarded. Besides, part of me simply never wanted to relive those days. Those horrible executions. Discovering that my true love had betrayed us. Then learning that my entire family had been blown to pieces. All in one terrible day. Those sorts of memories don’t bear much stirring up. Even after Hannelore and I were both married, with new names to hide behind, we never said much about our days in the White Rose. Although I gather that toward the end Hannelore told some of her stories to Berta. Maybe that’s what finally inspired the girl to try and take down Bauer.”
“How often did you see Berta?”
“Only once or twice. And on both occasions Hannelore introduced me simply as Mrs. Hartz, because Berta had already heard so many wartime tales of the heroic Liesl Folkerts. Even then Hannelore suspected the girl was reporting on her. Out of love, she said, which I could never understand. All I saw in Berta was a frightening little Communist, and Hannelore knew I felt that way. So there is no way she would have ever told Berta who I really was.”
“I guess you weren’t very surprised to read in your Stasi file that Berta had informed on you as well.”
“Not at all. Although it made me want to look up Berta’s file as an informer, which I was entitled to do as one of her ‘victims.’ That’s when I found out how Hannelore had been killed. It made me furious at the girl, of course. Her stupidity had cost me my best friend. But it also made me realize that she, too, was a victim of the state. Besides, she was only a girl.”
“Kurt Bauer was only a boy.”
“But his motives were wealth and self-preservation, and he was nearly eighteen. Berta was three years younger, a far more vulnerable age, and she had been indoctrinated from birth. And as perverse as it sounds, I really do believe she was acting out of love, just as Hannelore said. Surely in your profession you can see the difference between them.”
“What are your feelings about her now?”
“There is still anger, of course. But there is also pity. I have heard through others that she has lost everything. She has paid a far greater price than Kurt ever did. And I would guess that what torments her most is the loss of her Oma.”
“ ‘Torment’ is exactly the word, and I’m hoping I can help her. I’d like to share these materials with her, if it’s all right with you. I may even let her help me prepare an article for publication. She did show me the way to your door, in a sense. I can’t say her motives were always admirable, and definitely not her methods, but I wouldn’t have succeeded without her.”
“You must do as you see fit. But I am told she no longer has a home. Do you even know where to reach her?”
“I’m pretty sure I will quite soon. Bauer, too. Which brings me to my last question. Are you busy this coming Monday?”
ON SUNDAY NIGHT, just as Nat was putting the finishing touches on his arrangements for the following morning, he telephoned Holland. The agent was at home, and sounded a little tipsy.
“Still celebrating?” Nat asked.
“Why not? You gave us plenty to celebrate.”
“You’ll also be happy to know I’ve completed my expense report. I’ll fax it tonight if you’ll give me a number.”
“I hope you took me up on that offer of a nice dinner in Bern.”
“Didn’t have time, as it turned out. Had to head straight to Berlin.”
“Berlin? What on earth for?” He sounded a little edgy.
“I had a few loose ends to wrap up. Still do, in fact, if I ever want to publish.”
“Publish?”
“Don’t worry, I’m not looking to spoil your party. In fact, the whole point of this call is to make sure I don’t. Which is why I have only one question, and if you’re smart you’ll answer it.”
“Try me.”
“This stuff you wanted from Bauer. Has he given it to you?”
“Yes, all of it. Took up the better part of the weekend. The last debriefing session ended this afternoon.”
“And it’s complete? It’s everything he promised?”
“That’s more than one question. But, yes, everything. Our experts were even a little taken aback by the bounty. Names, contact info, flowcharts, transport networks, important middlemen, the works. Even better than expected, from what I’ve been told. And after seeing what was in those folders you found, I can understand why he was willing to make the deal. Completely off the record, some people in our own government weren’t exactly sorry
