whether to let slip a few details about life at Larkwood. He opted for mute submission; the subject was just too big.
‘… self-sacrificing, unswerving… but for all that he was hollow His emotions had been poured out somewhere… that’s why I found him such a frightening man. He was all ideas, simple ideas.’ without feeling… cold… hard… terribly, terribly sure about everything… about what he was doing and why But as far as I could see, he felt nothing. He used to look straight through me. I was there for a purpose, not as a person. He was like that with everyone… they had a function rather than any value. For that reason I couldn’t imagine anyone loving him. The stuff that love latches on to just wasn’t there, he was like a ladder without rungs; somehow he stayed together without falling apart, but I had no idea what kept him upright.’
She paused to clear the plates and Anselm made a flap, trying to help, but there wasn’t much to be done. Irina’s back was towards him again. She’d switched on the kettle and was spooning out coffee.
‘You know, I met his wife, once,’ she said, still following the stream of her previous reflections.
‘Brack was married?’
‘Yes.’
‘What was she like?’
‘I only met her once. There’d been a final party after all the shredding and this overweight brunette on the other side of the room kept giggling at someone’s jokes, shoving his shoulder and spilling her drink. All I knew was that she was married to some top brass who was a son of even higher brass. Then Mr Frenzel came over and whispered that she’d once been Mrs Brack.
‘Couldn’t take him any more, he’d said, laughing. Who could? She’d divorced him for… get a hold of this — Kyrie eleison — a go-getting careerist higher up the SB ladder. The best part: the new hubby’s father had been stumping Brack’s promotions ever since the second wedding. Does it get any better than that?
‘Mr Frenzel had done his homework,’ said Irina, her face soured by the reproduction of his voice and manners. She came to the table and laid the cups of coffee between them. ‘But he didn’t know everything and that bothered him. He hadn’t found out why Polana was so important to Colonel Brack, or why Roza appeared to be significant. It frustrated him. He liked to know things, to have information on people, no matter how insignificant, but especially about their mistakes. He used to say that mistakes were currency for the future — ’ she slowed a fraction, and Anselm instantly realised that this was part of Frenzel’s continued hold on her; he had something jingling, deep in his pocket: her past — ‘that mistakes never go away and their value always goes up… and he knew that Polana wasn’t what it seemed. That’s why he cleaned the file himself. He reckoned Colonel Brack had made some big mistake.’
In August 1989 the Stasi, unhappy about the scale of shredding, had arrived with a truck to collect all the joint operations material — a concession made by some high-ups who hadn’t cared where it all went anyway Sensing an opportunity Frenzel had let them take Roza’s interrogations, which should, by rights, have been returned to the main SB archive. ‘Your right hand shouldn’t know what your left is doing, isn’t that how it goes?’ he’d said with a smile, holding up most of the contents lifted from the Polana file. ‘Everything comes down to give and take, doesn’t it, my girl?’ Frenzel might not have known everything about Colonel Brack’s past but he knew enough to make an investment.
‘When I found Colonel Brack at his desk with that gun in his mouth,’ said Irina, ‘I think he’d just found out that Roza’s file had gone missing. Now I understand what must have been going through his mind. He’d glimpsed the future… that someone, someday would uncover those executions, that they’d go to Roza with questions, that all he’d have to rely on was her willingness to protect an informer.’ She looked up suddenly at Anselm, smiling broadly with amusement in her eyes. ‘To think… I saved his life so he could stand on trial.’
The plastic clock ticked, slicing up the quiet between them. It was dark outside now Anselm noticed that there’d been no gunfire. The Afghans had either called it a day or their nemesis was planning a surprise attack. There hadn’t been a sound from the living room, and no used plate had been brought back into the kitchen. It was as though Anselm and Irina were completely alone. The sensation prompted him to push the boat out.
‘Irina, did you ever read Roza’s file?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
She leaned her cheek on the back of her hand, eyes cast down. One finger drew a circle on the Formica table, going round and round. ‘She was a woman, like me. I wondered why we were so different… what it was I lacked.’
‘Did you read each and every page?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even the blue one?.’
Irina’s finger stopped dead. She slowly straightened her back, appraising Anselm with a surprising but unmistakable coldness.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘even the blue one.’
‘But it was blank. There was nothing to read. But that didn’t render it meaningless, did it?’
The clock’s ticking seemed to grow louder.
‘I’m not Marek Frenzel,’ said Anselm. ‘Information isn’t my kind of money Usually, people give me secrets for nothing. They know I won’t spend them. But in this case I came across one by accident. Roza removed that piece of paper from the file — no one knows, except me and you. I’ve said nothing to the powers that be. But I suspect that it’s important… only I don’t know how’
Irina chewed her bottom lip, wondering what to do. Keeping a secret was part of her dignity, the last vestige of self respect: the woman who’d sold out to work amongst the information gatherers had discovered something by herself and she’d kept schtum. To give her a gentle push.’ Anselm said ‘Can’t you tell me about the infirmary?’
Irina’s finger began another circle on the table. ‘Is this why you came here?’
‘No. I came to say that I was profoundly sorry. I didn’t expect to ask you anything about Roza because I didn’t expect to trust you, but I do, entirely’
Watching the circle grow smaller, Irina said, ‘There was more than one infirmary in Mokotow. They were at different ends of the building. The first was for the sick, the second was for mothers.’ She nodded at her hand, assuming Anselm was unbelieving. ‘That’s right, in those days, during the Terror, some women gave birth in prison. They didn’t let you go just because you turned out to be pregnant. They kept you for as long as they wanted. I don’t know if Roza had a child or not. When I worked at the ministry I knew there were registers in the archive that had been brought over from Mokotow in the sixties, but I wasn’t allowed to see them… I was just one of the administrative staff and I didn’t have the clearance. ‘She laughed to herself, sadly ‘In a way, I didn’t care if Roza was one of those secret mothers or not. For me, it was just something important that I would never reveal to Mr Frenzel; and when I looked at Roza’s prison photographs, wondering why we were so different, I just thanked God that while I’d lost everything that Roza had preserved, I’d at least kept my child. The comparison was a kind of comfort… it made sense of my situation in life.’
A certain transparency comes with shared confidence. One can sense things that haven’t yet been said. And when Anselm rose to leave, he vaguely knew the answer to his own question. It had grown at the back of his mind during the soft lulls in conversation, when he’d pitied Irina Orlosky.
‘Who owns this building?’
‘Mr Frenzel.’
Always that ‘Mr’; that appellation controlee of respect.
‘He’s my landlord.” she continued, leading Anselm into the corridor. ‘The whole block has been sold to developers. Everything’s going to change for the better… They’re going to build a football stadium for the opening match of the European Cup.’ there’ll be a metro station for the fans, and an Olympic swimming complex… There’ll be lots of other changes and all for the better. Mr Frenzel calls it his favourite investment because he bought the place with his SB pension.’
She drew back the door chain but Anselm involuntarily paused, looking to his left. The son for whom so much had been sacrificed lay fast asleep or sedated on the floor, one arm around the cushion, his Kalashnikov by a plate of uneaten pizza crusts. He’d lost the battle. He was one of the nameless fallen, known only as Irina’s child. Her voice roused him.
‘Mr Frenzel didn’t take my identity,’ she said, evenly ‘I lost it on the day I entered the ministry building. I can’t get it back… I tried, and it didn’t work out. But if Colonel Brack stands trial… if I really have helped to bring about
