“Why else would you have so many for only two nights more?”
“They’re cheaper in bulk.”
He said nothing for a minute or two. He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. I reached for the water bottle and he didn’t stop me. It was a cheap local brand, gassy and harsh, but it calmed me.
“Your father, he is a diplomat?”
He gave special emphasis to the final word, as if it were a pejorative term, or an outright falsehood.
“Yes.”
He smirked.
“In that case, you may think of me as a diplomat as well.” He snorted under his breath. “What else does he like to read? More things like this Hunt trash?”
“You’d have to ask him. He’s a collector.”
“I am sure. What are his duties?”
“At his job?”
“Of course at his job. Do you know of any special duties?”
“No.”
“You are sure of this? Do not lie to me.”
“Yes. I’m sure.”
“Has he not asked you to do his bidding while you are in the German Democratic Republic?”
“His bidding?”
“Observing things. Then reporting back to him, once you are home.”
“He didn’t even know I was coming.”
“Yes, that is a useful story for you, I am sure.” He smiled smugly. I’ve never been a violent person, but at that moment I wanted to lunge across the table and grab him by the neck. He stared a while longer and then, as if he’d suddenly grown bored, he stood and left without a word. A Vopo reentered, took away the bottle, and shut the door.
I had no idea what had prompted his questions, which at the time only seemed bizarre. In light of recent events I now wonder if “special duties” was a reference to my father’s courier errands. Had Dad been under surveillance? And why were they interested in my father’s books?
The fellow in the brown coat must have concluded I had little to offer, because he never returned. Litzi was another matter. He spent the next ninety minutes grilling her. By the time she finally emerged, just after a Vopo escorted me onto the platform, she was hugging herself for either warmth or comfort.
“Are you all right?” I asked. I stepped toward her, but a Vopo held us apart. “Litzi, are you okay? Did he-?”
Sniffling, she shook her head as if to reassure me, but she looked pale and frightened.
Another Vopo brought our bags. I later discovered that the condoms were gone. They also took the Hunt novel.
They bundled us into the back of a rattling Wartburg that was idling in front of the station. The driver was a civilian in disheveled clothes. A second car followed us for a few miles, then peeled away toward Bad Schandau. Neither Litzi nor I spoke during the forty-minute ride to Dresden. We didn’t know if the driver was a plainclothesman or some hack they’d hired off the street. He, too, remained silent. Now and then I glanced at Litzi, but she was invariably gazing out her window.
The driver dropped us at the Dresden Hauptbahnhof, more than two hours after we would have arrived by train. He sped away without asking for a fare, our gift from the German Democratic Republic. Litzi sagged into my arms.
“What did they do?” I asked. “Why did they keep you for so long?”
“The usual harassment,” she said. “I’m an Austrian national with a Czech father, so they have to take their pound of flesh.”
That was when I first learned that Litzi’s last name hadn’t always been Strauss. Her dad had chosen it after switching from Marek. He had grown up in Bohemia, a Czech national who’d fled to Vienna during the Second World War and then somehow managed to stay once the Soviets began repatriating all East Bloc nationals, just like they did with Harry Lime’s girlfriend Anna in The Third Man. No wonder Litzi didn’t like the movie.
“They can’t deport him,” I said. “Not now.”
“Not legally, no.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t want to talk about them anymore. And I don’t want to stay in Dresden any longer than we have to. I want to get to Berlin. West Berlin.”
She refused to say more about the ordeal. I’ve always assumed she would eventually have loosened up over time, but my dad and I left Vienna three weeks later, so I never found out.
From Dresden, Litzi and I caught an early train the next morning to Berlin, and spent the day moping around its sights and its museums before boarding our reserved overnight compartment for Vienna. Litzi was still in too much of a daze for us to enjoy the ride the way we’d hoped.
Our families were furious, but they let us keep seeing each other during my final weeks in town. But the jolt of the experience cast a pall over our last days together, and even seemed to darken our correspondence afterward. For a few months we gamely lived up to our promises to write regularly, but never achieved quite the spark we’d had in Vienna. By the time I started traveling to the States to pick a college, we had stopped as if by mutual consent. Then we lost touch.
Now here we were again, seated in the Braunerhof at the very table where we’d hatched our first big adventure. And damned if we weren’t planning another one.
“You’re sure you want to go through with this?” I asked.
“Of course.” Neither of us was smiling now.
I checked my watch.
“Time to go.”
“Moscow Rules,” she muttered. “Hope that that doesn’t mean we’ll see the man in the brown coat.”
“Oh, I hope it does. He owes me a dozen condoms.”
She laughed, but only briefly. Then she tightened her grip on my arm.
13
Kollnerhofgasse was a bustling little street. Number 11 was the most run-down building on the block. The lock on the main doorway was broken, and the stairwell stank of cat urine.
In keeping with Moscow Rules, Litzi and I circled the block once in reconnaissance before entering, pausing several times to check for surveillance. The passage from Smiley’s People had said the safety signal would be a pin “shoved high in the first wood support as you entered.” A yellow chalk line would indicate it was too unsafe to proceed. I looked left as we came through the entrance. A red pushpin protruded from the door frame just overhead.
But what did we do now?
“Check the mailboxes,” Litzi whispered.
There were two rows of eight, each with its own buzzer. The locks were sprung on three. The name “Miller” caught my eye, written neatly in black ink for 4-B on an immaculate slip of paper.
“That’s our man.”
“Miller?”
“Brand-new card, and it’s the name Vladimir used in Smiley’s People. ”
“Nice work, Mr. Folly. Maybe that’s how you should introduce yourself.”
“As long as you use his girlfriend’s name. Carolista.”
Litzi made a face. I pressed the button.
We waited several seconds before the buzzer sounded to unlock the inner door.
In most big old buildings like this you hear a wide variety of noises as you make your way upstairs. Babies
