British-marked jeep in the safety of the courtyard behind the HQ. We strolled along the edge of Tiergarten. It had probably once been a great green landscape like Hyde Park, full of trees and pleasant walks. Now the trees had been scalped by shrapnel, and the open grassy areas were gouged and pitted by bombs. Expired tanks and smashed small aircraft littered the park. It would take a very long time to turn it into a lovers’ haunt again.
My stomach flipped; ahead of us loomed the very symbol of the Third Reich: the great outline of the Brandenburg Gate, looking remarkably unscathed. Vic nudged me and pointed to our left, at a series of new arches standing apart from the rubble.
“What’s that?” I asked, staring.
“It’s the Russian Monument to their dead. Opened last week. Bags of big hats and red flags.”
“Didn’t take them long. Why here? Why in our sector?”
“They didn’t expect to give up any of Berlin.”
We walked on towards the Gate. Now I could see the damage: great lumps chewed out of the stonework and one side demolished. But it still dominated the central crossroads, and framed the Unter den Linden beyond. We walked through the central arch and found ourselves gaping at a massive picture of Joe Stalin guarded by some bored Russians sweating in greatcoats. They glanced at our cards and we walked on down the avenue. They would have to change the street name or find themselves some new Linden; all that remained was stumps amid the rubble.
Vic pointed us down some side streets and we began to sink into old Berlin. The smell of bad drains increased.
We started in the few bars that were open. I had a couple of Eve’s newspaper photos pasted on to card and wherever we went, I discreetly showed it to the barman and some of his regulars. Sometimes I bought their interest with a cigarette. We had to be careful; there were usually some Russian NCOs or officers having a drink. No squaddies – they were kept leashed in their barracks. There were also quiet men sitting alone, supping coffee and watching the room over the top of a paper.
We entered one bar down a set of steps and through a leather curtain. We left the daylight outside. Inside was all gloom and dank with only dim light from some paper lanterns illuminating the dark corners. It reeked of stale beer and fags, and a faint residue of vomit. The clientele fitted in well; shabby and grey, with lifeless eyes that tracked us to the bar. My neck hairs rose.
Vic ordered me a beer. It tasted of stale water. We surveyed the room and its handful of drinkers. They looked sorry that Hitler hadn’t conquered the world.
Maybe next time.
The murmured conversations were restarting at the tables around us. I was just about to walk Vic out of this rat hole when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I whirled. He was thin and intense, wearing a coat and hat despite the warm evening. “Papers, please,” he asked in German.
The bar had quietened. The barman moved into the shadows.
“Who might you be?” I answered in English, knowing full well who he was.
His face tightened, but he stuck to German. “English? Show me your papers.”
“I say again, pal. What do you want?”
I felt Vic squeeze my arm. “Don’t, Danny. Just show him our papers.”
The man slid his hand into his coat, and I waited for the gun. I could feel the weight of the Luger against my spine but not even Roy Rogers could draw in time.
He pulled out a folded card. He opened it and I could see Cyrillic script and his ugly mug. It looked important. I assumed he was NKVD, the Russian security boys.
Vic interrupted. “Of course, sir. Danny, show him your papers.” Vic handed his over and I followed suit.
“What are you doing here?” He wanted a fight and I was tempted. Jumped-up little bureaucrats have that effect on me. Vic must have seen my look. He interceded again in German.
“We’re just having a quiet drink, sir. No trouble. This is my friend’s first time in Berlin. I’m showing him how well the reconstruction is going, especially in the eastern sector.” He smiled. The little prick didn’t return the smile.
“Perhaps it is better to continue drinking in your own sector.” It wasn’t a question. We finished our beers and left. But we didn’t head back, not immediately. We went from bar to bar, cafй to club down the darkening streets.
None of them lived down to my expectations of Berlin as the fun capital of Europe. There were one or two lamps working but not enough to join up the pools of light. I became conscious that the number of Russian two-man patrols was increasing. Sometimes they stopped us and asked for papers. Vic’s papers and his fractured German seemed to satisfy them. They reminded us of curfew at ten pm and left us with a shrug.
I tried to picture Eve in one of these dives but couldn’t. I no longer felt I knew her, far less where I might find her. Some of the bars were little more than knocking shops that Mama Mary would have been embarrassed to be seen in.
The atmosphere was a cloying mix of stale booze, fags and gallons of cheap perfume to drown out the smell of unwashed females. It wasn’t through choice I’m sure; shampoo and bath salts were as hard to find as a virgin over twelve anywhere in the Russian-occupied zone.
By nine-thirty my feet were killing me, and I’d drunk too much watered-down beer. Vic was ready for more but I needed some shuteye. I planned to strike out on my own tomorrow during daylight to see what I could see. The underground had stopped running for the night. Rather than face another walk past a line of good-time girls all hoping to pass as Marlene Dietrich in the moonlight, we found a taxi. I crawled to my room, slumped into bed and was out like a candle.
I woke with a bad head and a weak stomach. I dealt with both over a massive fry-up in the mess. We seemed to be looking after our boys out here. The locals might be starving in the street, but in here we could eat all the bacon and eggs we could manage. I noticed some of the blokes filling their pockets with hunks of bread and pats of butter, even wrapping the odd sausage in newspaper. I asked one of the other diners what was going on: saving something for a mid-morning snack? He laughed. They were feeding their girlfriends on the sly. Food and fags, and a roof over your head could buy the plainest British squaddie the most bewitching product of Hitler’s selective breeding programme.
I’d been thinking about how to find her. It didn’t seem likely that she frequented the dumps we visited last night, unless she hoped to find who she was looking for there. Maybe if I could imagine her target I could get on her wave length? Let’s assume she was a spy and let’s assume she’s looking for her spymaster, where would a senior spy locate after the spying stopped? There were several possible answers.
He – let’s call him Fritz – could go straight, get a job in civvy street and forget his past dark arts. Unlikely; there were no jobs, and spies don’t change their spots.
He could switch sides and work for one of the Allied security services. Much more likely. I replayed my conversation with Toby Anstruther. The Russians had been here longest and had already sewn up a number of senior positions. It was just the sort of rats’ nest that would suit an out- of-work spy with flexible morals. But I doubted I would get very far with that line of questioning.
The other profession that Fritz could easily turn his hand to was the black market. He’d be used to shady deals and working on the margins of society. He’d know how to run a network and would already have good contacts. He was naturally ruthless and deceitful, and could work both sides of the law. That’s where I’d start. All I had to do was find the black market.
The lovely lady who served me tea in Toby’s office gave me instructions and a short moral lecture before I fled her beautiful eyes and walked towards Potsdamer Platz. She told me that markets continually sprang up and died around the city depending on demand and the leniency of the authorities.
The nearest one tended to materialise in the wide open space on the line between the British and American zones. It could hardly be missed. With exquisite irony the black market operated in full view of the burnt out shell of the world’s largest department store. When I arrived, there was already a great crowd. A few armed MPs wandered around but didn’t interfere. The authorities recognised that when currency becomes useless, bartering is the natural order.
As I merged with the crowd it became clear what was important here among the ruins. Cigarettes were the common currency, but anything could be swapped for anything else if there was a demand for it. Soap was a luxury and required a full pack of American cigarettes per bar. But there were stalls, wheelbarrows and squares of cloth on
