“Meier? Get in.”
An American voice. For a second Alex hesitated, not reaching for the door handle, as if there were still a choice.
“Get in.” Boyish, no hat, short military hair.
In the car, he offered his hand. “Willy Hauck. Nice to have you here.” Pronouncing Willy with a v.
“You’re German?”
“Not since I was a kid. Detroit. My father took a job there and never came back. I didn’t think I’d ever be back either, but here we are. Berliner Luft.” The German accented now with a lifetime of flat lake vowels, the voice crackling and on the run, like Lee Tracy’s.
“You didn’t want to come?”
He shrugged. “Things are happening here. So they move you up faster. They recruited me out of the army. G-2. They like it better if you went to Yale, but what the hell, I had the language, so off you go—beautiful Berlin.” He gestured toward the window. “That’s how most of us got here. If you can speak Kraut. Campbell’s got Polish too. His old man.”
“Campbell?”
“It used to be something else. Lots of z’s and who the hell knows. So. We haven’t got a lot of time. You want to be at Lützowplatz same time it would take to walk there.” They were driving out the other side of the circle, toward Charlottenburg. “Anybody behind you?”
“I don’t think so. Why the big hurry? I didn’t expect you to—”
“Something came up. So, let’s do exits first.”
Alex looked at him, a question.
“In case something goes wrong and you have to exit.”
“Oh.”
“Try to remember this, you can’t write it down, okay? BOB’s at twenty-one F?hrenweg, out in Dahlem.”
“BOB?”
“Berlin Operations Base. That’s your last resort. We have to assume it’s watched, so you turn up there you’re blown and all we can do is get you out of the country.”
“Twenty-one F?hrenweg,” Alex said.
“You know who used to live across the street? Max Schmeling.” Oddly proud of this, as if it meant something. “But like I say, that’s the fire exit. Otherwise, use the regular meetings if you need to get in touch.”
“Which are?”
“Depends where they set you up. Writers, people like that, they’ve been mostly putting in Prenzlauer Berg. Not a lot of bomb damage, so the buildings are in fairly good shape. So we’re assuming there. Close to Volkspark Friedrichshain, where you’ll like to walk.”
“And bump into somebody?”
“Near the fountains with the fairy tale characters. Know it?”
Alex shook his head. “Never been there.”
Hauck grinned. “A real West Ender, huh? Berlin stops at the Romanisches.”
“We never had any reason to go there, that’s all.”
“And now it’s home.”
“I go every day?”
“When you can. We’ll set up a time. It would make more sense with a dog, but with the rationing— But you still like to get out, get some exercise, clear the cobwebs.”
“I do, actually.”
“See? So you establish a routine. If they put you further out, we’ll have to change the place. Weissensee, you walk the lake. But that’s bigger houses. They keep those for the elite.”
“Not the help.”
“I didn’t mean it that way. The Party elite. Officials. Don’t worry, they like writers. You’re at the Adlon, right?”
“In the lap of luxury.”
Willy looked at him from the side. “They’ll want you to do things. Public appearances. They had Anna Seghers at a factory. Cutting a ribbon. Major Dymshits loves writers.”
“Who?”
“I thought they briefed you. Chief Cultural Officer. Or whatever the title is. Anyway, he calls the shots for the Soviets. He’s a big fan of yours. He’s the one told them to make the offer. To bring you over. He loves German writers.”
Alex gazed out the window, blocks of ruins, as bad as in the East.
“What am I supposed to find out about him? Whether he reads Thomas Mann?”
Willy turned. “What are you asking?”
“I don’t know. Cultural Officer. Why? How is that useful?”
“Let me explain something to you. We got a couple of wars going on here right now. Not just the airlift. Dymshits runs the propaganda one and he’s doing all right. The Soviets think they’ve got the moral high ground. Don’t ask me how. They come in here and rape everything in sight and they’re supposed to be the heroes. The first victims. The ones the Nazis hated before they hated anybody else. But they won. Not us, them. We’re just passing out candy bars in France. And now we’re the ones getting into bed with old Nazis. On the radio anyway. And anywhere else they can twist a knife in. Old Nazis—is that the future you want? Or the Soviet model? A fresh Socialist start. Of course the Soviets used the Nazis too—who the fuck else was there?—but somehow that never comes out, just ours.”
“That’s what you want me to do? Find out if they’ve got Nazis in the Kulturbund?”
“Sure. If they do,” Willy said, looking away.
“What else?”
“What did Campbell tell you?”
“Whatever I could pick up. I still don’t see the point, but never mind. I’m here.”
Willy headed the car back toward the Tiergarten, then slowed to a stop, idling by the curb.
“Look, Campbell told me about it. Those fucks on the committee. Reds under every bed. If they knew what the Soviets were really up to— So we got you by the short and curlies. Sometimes that’s the way it happens. But, like you say, you’re here. You’re going to meet a lot of people. I want to know who might be—open to a little business.”
“This business.”
Willy nodded. “Maybe the future doesn’t look as bright as it used to. Maybe somebody’s beginning to wonder, maybe he needs a little money. I want to know. That’s the point.”
“All right,” Alex said quietly.
“Next, don’t get yourself killed.”