They sped along Bismarckstrasse, turning down by the Zoo, past the Europa Centre again, east through the garish shabby lights of Hallesches Tor, the pavements busy with pimps and tarts and drag queens, acrobats and jugglers and tourists and tottering drunks, bouncers and bored policemen in cruising patrol cars. A black man lounged in a doorway grinning under a lighted sign, SEXY SNAKEPIT. Wohl swerved and just missed a monkey walking on its hind legs, led by a girl in a Stetson and cowboy boots.
‘I guess you could say this is decadent?’ Wohl grinned over his shoulder, only one hand on the wheel, scarcely touching it. ‘But y’know, funny thing is, I find it all rather old-fashioned. All rather déjà vu. La nostalgic, and so on.’
‘Looks like any other big western capital,’ Anna said with deadpan disdain: ‘Rich, ugly and dirty. So much for your Socialism, Doktor Wohl.’
‘Now don’t go and misunderstand me, Anna! Maybe you’ll see different if I explain about Berlin before the War. Before the Hitler time, when it was famous for what you call transvestites, yes? Well, I’ll tell you something — something real crazy. The ultimate in degeneration. You know what I saw here in West Berlin a few weeks back? I saw a guy, a normal guy, get on stage and dress up as a girl — a beautiful girl. Fishnet stockings, lovely legs, sexy knickers, all his equipment tucked away and disguised, very clever, very effective. Gold lamé bra, lots o’ red hair and a hat like Sarah Bernhardt. Real nice. But wait! Here’s this guy got up as a beautiful girl, and the next moment — without removing his makeup or hair — the guy dresses up as a guy again.’ He turned his head slightly, smiling: ‘You get it? A transvestite dressing up as a transvestite. Isn’t that the ultimate in craziness?’
Hawn said, ‘Almost as crazy as a fully-paid-up Party member driving around the fleshpots of the West in a brand new Mercedes, and setting up deals with shifty fat foreigners like Charles Pol, so we can all crap on one of the biggest oil companies in the world.’
‘No, no, Tom, I don’t rise so easy. Anyway, this car’s coming up to nine months old. And hell, Brezhnev’s got a dozen cars — including a Cadillac from his friend, ex-President Nixon. There’s nothing wrong with a little style, providing it doesn’t go to your head.’
Hawn saw no point in further comment. Trying to rile a man like Doktor Wohl over a matter of social conscience was about as effective as trying to spear an oyster with a fork. Wohl had heard it all before. In any case, he seemed to be only half listening.
They were past the bright lights now, driving up Zimmerstrasse towards the glow of arc lamps. They bumped over a web of tram lines and could see now the Wall — a long strip of breezeblock, flesh-coloured under the lights and freckled with furious graffiti, which included wobbly aerosol crosses and dates, each marking the spot where an escapee had been shot dead trying to climb over. The watchtowers, at every hundred metres, looked like toy signal boxes, except for the moving searchlight on the roof.
A West German policeman in a shiny black raincoat made a note of the car’s number and checked their passports. A couple of American MPs sat in an open jeep, staring at nothing. ‘Checkpoint Charlie’ was a prefabricated shed with a single concrete lane for cars, ending at a red-and-white pole. A Grepo — an East German frontier guard — in smart field green, with an AK47 machine-pistol slung at his hip, peered in, saw Wohl and straightened up with a Prussian salute, then gestured Hawn and Anna to get out.
The shed was full of glaring blue neon. There were holiday posters of resorts on the Baltic, castles and lakes, the reconstructed main square of Dresden. A lot of reading matter was spread around — pamphlets with titles like Art and Culture in the GDR, Socialism Rebuilds, Trade between the GDR and the Republic of North Korea. On the bench beside Hawn were several copies of Neues Deutschland; he noticed that most of them were several days old.
They were called at last to the desk. A young officer, whose eyes were too old for his face, handed them two pink forms, and was about to embark on his little homily, in French this time, warning of the severe penalties for currency smuggling, when a voice shouted from inside the glass cabin.
Hawn did not understand what it said, but the young Grepo came to attention, took their passports away, returned a couple of minutes later, saluted and wished them a happy visit to the German Democratic Republic. They got back in the Mercedes — Anna in the back this time — the pole swung up, and they drove across towards Friedrichsplatz.
Hawn was at once aware of an antiseptic cleanliness, scented with the distinctive bitter-sweet smell of Russian petrol. The graffiti and noisy lights on the Western side had given way to red banners turned purple under the refracted glow of the arc lamps, with white and yellow lettering that proclaimed the virtues of Peace, Work, Solidarity and Detente.
Wohl drove more slowly here, although there was far less traffic and the streets seemed wider and more orderly. ‘This your first time in a Socialist country?’
‘Only Libya and Chad,’ said Hawn. ‘Unless you count Islington and Merseyside.’
‘You don’t wanna turn your noses up at the GDR,’ said Wohl. ‘Everything you see around you was built up from nothing by the people themselves. We didn’t have the luxury of American aid. The Soviet Union helped, of course, but they couldn’t spare much. Most of it was done by the
