About Marx and Engels and Lenin they never did have a sense of humour.
'There's nothing mad about it,' he said. 'The KPD's the largest communist party in the world outside the Soviet Union. You're not a Nazi, that much is obvious. I suppose you're SPD.'
'That's true.'
'I thought so. A social fascist. You hate us more than you hate the Nazis.'
'You're right, of course. The only reason I helped you back there was because I want you to die of shame when you have to tell your lefty pals that it was a cop that supports the SPD who took your pot off the stove. Better still, I want you to go and hang yourself like Judas Iscariot for the betrayal of the movement brought about by a Red being indebted to a Republican.'
'Who says I'm even going to tell them?'
'I guess you're right. What's another lie on top of all the other lies told by the KPD?' I shook my head. 'It's a low dishonest decade that's ahead of us, make no mistake.'
'Don't think I'm not grateful, polyp,' said Mielke. 'Because I am. Those bastards would have cut my throat for sure. They wanted to kill me because I'm a reporter for the Red Flag. I was doing a story about the workers' community at Felseneck Colony.'
'Yeah, yeah. Brotherly love and all that crap.'
'Don't you believe in brotherly love, polyp?'
'People don't give a damn about brotherly love. They just want someone to love who loves them back. Everything else is bullshit. Most folk would give the keys to the door of workers' paradise for a chance at being loved for themselves, not because they're German, or working-class, or Aryan, or the proletariat. Nobody really believes in the euphoric dream that's built on this book or that historic vision; they believe in a kind word, a kiss from a pretty girl, a ring on a finger, a happy smile. That's what people – the individuals who make up a people – that's what they want to believe.'
'Sentimental rubbish,' jeered Mielke.
'Probably,' I said.
'That's the problem with all you democrats. You talk such unutterable nonsense. Well, there's no time for that kind of claptrap. You'll be giving that speech in the cemetery if you and your class don't wake up soon. Hitler and the Nazis don't care for your individuals. All they care about is power.'
'And things will be different when we're all taking orders from Stalin in some degenerate workers' state.'
'You sound just like Trotsky,' said Mielke.
'Is he a Social Democrat, too?'
'He's a fascist,' said Mielke.
'Meaning he's not a true communist.'
'Exactly.'
Our route back into the centre of Berlin took us along Bismarck Strasse. At a tram stop just short of the Tiergarten, Mielke spun around in his street and said, 'That was Elisabeth.'
I slowed the car to a halt and Mielke waved over a handsome-looking brunette. As she leant in the window of the car I caught a distinct whiff of sweat, but I didn't hold that against her on a hot day. I was feeling kind of warm myself.
'What are you doing here?' asked Mielke.
'I was fitting a dress for a client who's an actress at the Schiller Theatre.'
'That's a job I'd like,' I said.
The brunette shot me a smile. 'I'm a seamstress.'
'Elisabeth, this is Kommissar Gunther, from the Alex.'
'Are you in any trouble, Erich?'
'I might have been, but for the Kommissar's enormous bravery. He chased off some Nazis who were planning to give me a kicking.'
'Can I give you a lift somewhere?' I asked the brunette, changing the subject.
'Well, you could drop me anywhere near Alexanderplatz,' she said.
She climbed into the back seat of the car and we set off east again, along Berliner Strasse, across the canal and through the park. At first I jealously supposed that the brunette was involved with Mielke, and she was, although not in the way I had supposed; it seemed that she had been a close friend of Mielke's late mother, Lydia, who was also a seamstress, and following her death the brunette had tried to help Mielke's widowed father to bring up his four children. Consequently Erich Mielke seemed to regard Elisabeth more like a big sister, which suited me just fine. That year I was keen on handsome brunettes and there and then I resolved to try to see her again, if possible.
Ten minutes later we were approaching Bulowplatz, which was Erich Mielke's preferred destination, being the location of the KPD headquarters in Berlin. Occupying a whole corner of one of the most heavily policed squares in Europe, Karl Liebknecht House was a noisy indication of what all buildings might look like if the lefties ever got into power, each of its five storeys decorated with more red flags than a dangerous beach and several bromide slogans in large white capital letters. If architecture is frozen music then this was a partly thawed Lotte Lenya telling us we must die, and not to ask why.
Mielke slid down in the passenger seat as we entered the square. He said, 'Drop me around the corner, on Linien Strasse. In case anyone sees me getting out of your car and thinks I'm a spy.'
'Relax,' I said. 'I'm in plain clothes.'
He laughed. 'You think that will save you when the revolution comes?'
'No, but it might save you this afternoon.'
'Fair enough, Kommissar. If I sound ungrateful it's because I'm not used to getting a square deal from a Berlin bull. Pork Cheeks is the kind of polyp I'm used to.'
'Pork Cheeks?'
'That swine Anlauf.'
I nodded. Captain Paul Anlauf was – among the communists at least – the most hated cop in Berlin.
I pulled up on Weyding-Strasse and waited for Mielke to get out.
'Thanks. Again. I won't forget it, polyp.'
'Keep out of trouble, yeah?'
'You, too.'
Then he kissed the brunette on the cheek and was gone. I lit a cigarette and watched him walk back onto Bulowplatz and vanish into a crowd of men.
'Don't mind him,' said the brunette. 'He's really not so bad.'
'I don't mind him as much as he seems to mind me,' I said.
'Well,' she said. 'I'm grateful for the lift. This is fine for me, here.'
She was wearing a bright print Percale dress with a heartshaped button waistline, a lacy collar and cute puff sleeves. The print was a riot of red and white fruit and flowers on a solid black background. She looked like a market garden at midnight. On her head was a little white trilby with a red silk ribbon, as if the hat was a cake and it was someone's birthday. Mine perhaps. Which of course it was. The smell of sweat on her body was honest and more provocative to me than some expensive, cloying scent. Underneath the midnight garden was a real woman with skin on every part of her body, and organs and glands and all the other things about women I knew I liked but had almost forgotten. Because it was the kind of day when girls like Elisabeth were wearing summer dresses again, and I remembered just what a long winter it had been in Berlin, sleeping in that cave with just my dreams for company.
'Come for a drink,' I said.
She looked tempted, but only for a moment. 'I'd like to, but – I should really be getting back to work.'
'Come on. It's a warm day and I need a beer. There's nothing like spending a couple of hours in the cement to give a man a thirst. Especially when it's his birthday. You wouldn't want me to drink alone on my birthday, would you?'
'No. If it really is your birthday.'
'If I show my identity card, will you come?'
'All right.'
