Brecht shot him a glance. “It’s better than before. Don’t forget that. The Nazis were priests and capitalists. The worst of both. Gangsters. So it’s better.” He smiled. “Now just priests.”
Alex sat back. “Accommodate. What happened to epic theater?”
Brecht turned his palms up. “I said sometimes. Never here,” he said, tapping his temple. “You don’t accommodate there.” He looked at Alex. “And you? You’re here too. So a radio talk. A small price, no?” He finished the brandy.
“You know he’s being charged with treason. He won’t just lose his Party card. It’ll mean prison.”
Brecht said nothing, staring at the empty glass.
“What if they ask you to testify against him?”
“They won’t.” He shifted in his chair, uncomfortable. “Ulbricht wouldn’t allow it. He doesn’t trust me. He thinks I’m making jokes half the time. As if he would recognize a joke. So I’m a risk. Better to keep me as I am, a feather in his cap.”
“Whose opinion would matter. In public.”
“What are you suggesting? A letter to the editor? In Neues Deutschland? It’s begun. You remember the committee? In America? Once it started? There was nothing to do but get out of the way. Sidestep it, any way you could find. Then it goes on without you.” He poured out another glass. “And there’s the play to consider.”
* * *
He caught the Prenzlauer Allee tram, hoping to work on the lecture, but had only been home for a few minutes when the phone rang.
“Alex? You’d still like a walk? What time is good for you?”
Dieter’s voice, but gruff, pitched to anyone listening in, barely recognizable.
“Anytime,” Alex said quickly. “I could leave now if you like.”
“Excellent. Till I see you then.”
He turned left at the water tower, then down the hill past the cemetery to Greifswalder Strasse. Dieter never called. Something wrong with Erich maybe, his fever back. He waited by Snow White, expecting to have his usual cigarette, but Dieter was there almost at once.
“Erich’s all right?”
“Fine. Something else came up.”
“What?”
“A body. In the Spree. Near Bellevue.”
“The British sector,” Alex said automatically.
“Yes. In a Russian uniform. My old friend Gunther wasn’t sure what to do. So he asked for advice. For once, some luck for us. Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
“They ID him?”
Dieter shook his head. “No. But I did. He’d been in the water, but even so. Except it couldn’t be Markovsky, of course, because he’s in Wiesbaden. So I didn’t recognize him either.”
“They call the Soviets?”
“No. I told Gunther to put him in a drawer under a Max Mustermann until I could look into it. He doesn’t want to start trouble with the police here. Tell them you have a body, they start fighting over jurisdiction. Gunther thinks it’s his murder case. Coming up near Bellevue. I told him I’d help. We’re old colleagues.”
“Murder case?”
“His head’s bashed in. He didn’t slip on a rock. Now do you want to tell me what’s going on? He’s in two places how?”
“He was never in Wiesbaden.”
“Obviously. Not waterlogged like that. That was your idea?”
“Who’s Max Mustermann?” Alex said, off the point, thinking.
“What? What you call John Doe. No one. This was you, the defection?” he said again.
Alex nodded.
“So?”
“When Markovsky went missing, they were all over Irene. Naturally. I thought this would give her a little space. Be the mistress he left behind. Not somebody hiding him.”
“Was she hiding him?”
“No. No idea what happened to him.” He looked at Dieter. “I believed her. But would the Russians?”
“And now they do?”
Alex shrugged. “They’re not grilling her. They’re too busy worrying about what he’s telling us. Our defector. Anybody disappears, it’s the first thing they suspect anyway. Another one to the West. So let them assume the worst—he knows their men in the field, all of it.”
Dieter peered at him. “And when he did show up?”
“He’d have to defect. Once he already had. Not exactly a forgiving group. Would they believe him? Would you take the chance? Then we’d have him for real.”
Dieter said nothing, still staring. “And this was you?” He looked away. “Campbell knew?”
“He had to. To set up the leak.”
“But not me.”
“It was safer.”
“Mm. Except now he comes back as a corpse.”
“No,” Alex said, looking steadily at him. “He’s still in Wiesbaden. Singing. As long as we want him to, as long as the Russians think we have him.”
“And the body in the morgue?”
“Another Max—what? Mustermann. How many are there in Berlin now? Bury him and who’s to know?”
Dieter shook his head. “It’s murder. Gunther’s a little lazy, maybe, but he’s still a policeman.”
“The Soviets aren’t going to come looking. They don’t even admit he went missing in the first place.”
“He’s a policeman. He has to report it. A floater in a Russian uniform?”
“Did you take it off?” Alex said suddenly. “I mean someone might recognize—”
Dieter smiled a little. “The major’s stripes? We removed it, yes. It’s in an evidence bag. Gunther doesn’t know what he has yet. But eventually—”
“Eventually you’ll tell him about the soldier the Soviets are looking for. Nobody special, just an Ivan who probably got rough with a whore, so her pimp— And he floats down to Gunther’s sector. But if he sends the body back, he’ll have the Russians on him. Another excuse to make trouble. They’re not going to miss him. Nobody’s going to miss him. Bury him. And we keep Wiesbaden going.”
Dieter held his glance for a moment, then looked away. “You know, I’m a policeman too. A man’s killed, you want to know why. Who.”
“Markovsky? Half of Berlin would have loved to take a crack at him.”
“But only one did. You’re not interested to know?” He paused. “Or maybe you do.”
“I don’t care,” Alex said easily. “They find a wallet on him?”
“No.”
“And he’s alone at night? Anybody. Does it matter?”