Benchley, Peter - Novel 01 Read online

  "Simple," I said.

  "And yet of the four governments, only the Soviet Union has adhered to this agreement. It is in the West zone that the revanchists and Nazis still meet and plot subversion. It is from the West that all the trouble comes. It is only the Soviet Union that prevents war. The Germans want war."

  "Oh, now please! Don't you think it's silly to say that any people want war?"

  "So you think. You can complain to us about stopping one spy from escaping—"

  "So you admit it!"

  "No! It is hypothetical. You complain because we try to guarantee the security and sovereignty of the DDR, and yet the German militarists create such groups as the so-called 'Fighting Group Against Inhumanity' in 1949, and you condone it completely."

  "The what?" I said, weakly. I was helpless, and none of the people in the crowd seemed to know any more than I. There was silence, except for the occasional clearing of a throat and now and again the wonderful French expression of frustration, a "Mais . . /' that trails off into a whisper.

  The Russian smiled. He took off his glasses and wiped the sweat from his eyebrows and nose. "You talk about our press and say we never hear the truth. What about yours? You have never heard of the Fighting Group Against Inhumanity?"

  "No."

  "It was a group of revanchists whose sole aim it was to undermine the government of the DDR. In 1949 the group made raids on the S-Bahn and set many carriages on fire and damaged a number of construction sites. Your government did nothing. I could tell you of many other incidents, war propaganda, spy tunnels—"

  "I'm sure you could," I said. My ears were hot, and my collar felt too tight. I looked at the crowd. People were jammed together on all sides of the booth. The Russian looked, too, and he was nervous. "Let me ask you one more question," I said, in a last-ditch attempt to redeem myself. "How can you yourself, as an indi—no, you don't recognize the individual—as a human being, then. As a human being, how can you justify the forced confinement of hundreds of thousands of people?"

  He waited for a moment, looking at the crowd. Then he said, "Do Americans have to have a visa to travel in France?"

  "Only if they stay more than three months."

  "Do Frenchmen have to have a visa to travel in America?"

  "Yes."

  "You see?" he said. "It's the same thing."

  "It's what? How can you say—"

  "I must go now," he said. "It has been interesting." Abruptly, he stood up and walked away into the crowd by the space capsule.

  I sat at the table, trying to understand his last statement. In a few minutes, the crowd had dispersed, and I folded my paper and got up to go. As I left the booth, I saw the Russian standing alone under the airplane display platform, smoking a cigarette. He beckoned to me, and I went over.

  "I wanted to apologize for stopping the discussion that way," he said. "It is not a good thing to do. But the crowd was beginning to make me nervous, and I didn't know what they were going to do. There were a great many people there, you know."

  "I know," I said. "I can't blame you."

  "The French are a volatile people. A riot would not have helped matters."

  "No."

  Bob, who had spotted us as he came down the stairs, joined us under the platform. I introduced him to the Russian, who said his name was Mikhail.

  "What time do you get off work?" I asked.

  "In about half an hour," said Mikhail.

  “Would you like to have a drink with us across the street? There's a cafe nearby."

  He thought for a moment. "I would like that," he said. "I will meet you there in about forty minutes."

  Bob and I went to the cafe, and Mikhail joined us when he was through work. He didn't know what to drink, so we ordered him scotch. We stayed in the cafe, the three of us, until after dark, talking about French girls, Russian girls, American girls, Coney Island, Chicago, Moscow, and Louis Armstrong.

  7

  In November, about two weeks before I was to leave again for Spain, where I was going to spend Christmas, Bob and I decided to go to Berlin for a weekend. The infamous Wall had been erected in August, and since it was a personal concern of ours, in re not only the world situation but also our draft status, Bob and I thought we should see it.

  I had some friends who were living in Berlin, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Potter. Mr. Potter is Berlin correspondent for an American newspaper, and though I was sure he would be too busy to see us, I sent him a telegram saying we were coming and would appreciate it if he would give us even a few minutes. I received a charming reply, offering to lodge and feed us for as long as we could stay.

  We didn't know how to get to Berlin. We knew we could fly, but the plane fare was too expensive for us. Besides, we thought we should see something of East Germany on the way. We had heard that one had to get a visa from the East Germans before entering East Germany, but East Germany had no embassy or consulate in Paris. And we didn't know whether the visa requirement was for trains or cars or both. I called the American Embassy and asked if they could tell me how to get a visa to East Germany.

  "Why do you want to go to Berlin?" said the man who answered the phone.

  "To see it," I said.

  "As tourists?"

  "Yes."

  "I'd suggest that you forget it," said the man.

  "Why?"

  "It's just not a good idea to go, that's all."

  "Is it dangerous?"

  "Not exactly, no. It's just not a good idea."

  "Is there a State Department rule against it?"

  "No."

  "If we did go, would we be allowed to show our passports to the East Germans?"

  "Allowed by whom?"

  "By the U.S. I know diplomats can't, or won't, show their passports to the East Germans."

  "There's no rule against it."

  "Then would you please tell me how to go about getting the visa?"

  "I don't know." He hung up.

  Our apartment was less than a block from the Russian Embassy, so one afternoon I went there to ask about the visa. I was admitted by a short, nervous, brisk man who showed me into a waiting room. In about five minutes, a large, burly man came in and asked if he could help me.

  "I'd like to find out about getting a visa to East Germany," I said.

  "That's not our affair," said the man.

  "I know you don't issue the visas, but could you tell me how to get one? Or at least if I need one?"

  "You must see the representatives of the German Democratic Republic," he said.

  "They have no legation in Paris."

  "I know."

  "Then what do I do?"

  "Go to the Bulgarian consulate." He turned and walked out of the room.

  The Bulgarians said they didn't know anything about visas to East Germany. Bob and I decided we would get on a train and go, the hell with the visa. If they turned us back at the border, we would fly.

  We got on the train late Thursday afternoon, and spent a miserable night hunched over on hard, sloping banquettes in an unheated second-class compartment. My only coat was a light raincoat, and I used it for a different purpose every hour—first as a pillow, then as a footrest, then for whatever slight warmth it could give me. Early Friday morning we changed trains, deep in West Germany, and at noon we approached the border. The countryside was bare, spotted with an occasional farm, one or two small towns, and a few trees.

  At twelve-twenty, the train stopped. Blue-uniformed troops got on and began stamping passports with the exit stamp from West Germany. The faceless official stamped our passports without a word. The train moved on for another five minutes, then stopped again. We could see two gatehouses and the beginning of lines of barbed wire that stretched away into the distance. Four men in green uniforms came into our car. They were young, and they wore high black boots. Two of them carried Russian submachine guns. They worked in pairs, two on each side of the car, stamping passports. Most of the people on the train were Berliners returning home, an
d the troops stamped their passports automatically, checking the picture against the face of the traveler, hitting the passport once with the heavy green stamp.

  When they came to us, one of them took my passport, the other took Bob's. They both started to stamp them, then stopped, almost simultaneously. The soldier who had my passport was, I estimated, no more than twenty-one. His face was fleshy, with round red cheeks, and his long blond hair stuck out from under the back of his cap. "Amerikaner," he said. He stared at me, at my face, my hair, my clothes, my shoes. Then he turned to his companion, who was staring at Bob, and said something. The other soldier shrugged his shoulders. They exchanged a few more words, then turned to us. "Visa," said the one with my passport.

  "I haven't got one," I said.

  He didn't understand me, so I spread my hands in a gesture of emptiness, and shook my head.

  "Visa," he said to Bob.

  "Nope," said Bob.

  A woman sitting in the seat opposite ours said, "I can help?"

  I explained our problem, and she said something to the soldiers. They spoke to her, then turned and left the car, still holding our passports.

  "What to do," said the woman. "Don't know Americans.

  No visa." She was about forty, short and very thin, with gnarled, bony hands that looked much older than her years.

  I asked what the soldiers were doing.

  "Get another man," she said.

  The soldiers reappeared, followed by a stout, elderly official with gold-rimmed glasses. They stopped at our seat, and the official clicked his heels together and gave us a quick bow. "Please," he said.

  "Thank you," said Bob.

  "You have no visas?"

  We said we didn't.

  "You will buy visas, please." He took a pad from his pocket and began to copy information from our passports.

  "Will you take French francs?" I asked.

  "You have no West marks?"

  "No."

  "Very well. French francs will do. Ten new francs each."

  We gave him the money, the equivalent of two dollars, and he stamped our passports. He clicked his heels, bowed, and left.

  The soldiers remained by our seat. They spoke to each other in whispers, glancing at us. They seemed to be arguing.

  The woman leaned over to me and said, "They don't know. One wishes speak to you. Other say no good."

  I held a package of cigarettes out to the soldiers. The one who had had my passport reached tentatively to take a cigarette. His friend grabbed his arm and snapped at him. He smiled a quick, apologetic smile, and followed his friend out of the car.

  The train began to move, and Bob and I pressed our faces against the window. To both sides of the train there was barbed wire. Barbed wire, then ditches, then more barbed wire. The countryside was gray and brown—gray where the cold fall had killed the grass, brown where the land had been gouged away to make the ditches. Every mile or two, we passed a pair of guards walking up and down by the wire. They carried submachine guns, and one pair we saw had a dog.

  The woman stared silently out the window for more than an hour. Finally, as we were pulling away from a stop, she spoke. "Here there is no life," she said. "In the East zone nobody on the streets." She waved her hand at the deserted streets of a small village. "I don't know where the people is," she said. "The people is gone."

  We arrived in Berlin late that afternoon and went immediately to the Potters' house. The house is on the outskirts of the city, in the American sector. It is a modern house, comfortably furnished, and behind it are acres of grass and trees that slope gradually down toward a river. We put our bags upstairs and joined the Potters in the living room. A butler brought us a drink. Mr. Potter introduced him to us as Hans.

  "Hans is an interesting guy," said Mr. Potter. "See if you get to talk to him while you're here. He's on the list of most wanted defectors from East Berlin. He got out a few months ago, and while any other German can go back into East Berlin for a visit, if Hans ever crossed the border, they'd grab him immediately."

  I said, "Do you mean they have the name of every wanted man at every border post?"

  "There are certain crossing points for certain nationalities," said Mr. Potter, "and at the German points they have all the names of wanted Germans, yes. They have a big book, and as you go through the checkpoint, they take your passport, pass it through a window to a man who has the book, and if your name is in it, you never get your passport back. They take you away. Your official listing in the West thereafter would be 'missing.' "

  Since the next day was Saturday, Mr. Potter didn't have to work, and he offered to spend the day showing us West Berlin. He said we would have to see East Berlin on our own, since for him, an American newspaperman, to go into East Berlin was, depending on the mood of the East Germans at the time, at best unwise and at worst impossible.

  We awoke early, had breakfast, and drove to the center of West Berlin. We parked the car and walked down the Kur-furstendamm, the main street, which looked like a modern Champs Elysees. It is a wide street, gleaming with new restaurants, hotels, cafes, and stores. The neon lights, though not as subdued as the soft pinks and blues on the Champs Elysees, were attractive, not gaudy, when set against the shiny newness of the buildings. The street was as crowded as Fifth Avenue at noon, and people talked and gestured and laughed and window-shopped and sat in cafes. We sensed a great feeling of life, and we could see none of the fear that we had read held Berlin in a tight grip. I mentioned this seeming lack of concern to Mr. Potter.

  "It's really not as carefree as it appears, nor as grim as what you've heard," said Mr. Potter. "To a certain extent, the carefree attitude is a defense mechanism. They can't think about the Wall and the Reds all the time, or they'd go nuts, so they force themselves to be gayer than they normally would. It helps them forget. On the other hand, they're a hell of a lot more confident, more happy, and more secure than the papers tell you. Read some of these papers long enough and you'll think the people are about to commit mass suicide."

  On the Kurfurstendamm, and on the streets nearby, you can buy clothes and food from anywhere in the world. There are French shoes, American shirts, British woolens, Chinese silks. And though the restaurants are mostly German, showing knackwurst, bratwurst, veal, steak, and pastry in the windows, American, Japanese, and Italian foods are readily available.

  We window-shopped for almost an hour, and then Mr. Potter led us back to the car. "I'll start by showing you what the Wall is like out of town," he said. "In a way, it's more dramatic there." We drove for about fifteen minutes, through Berlin and then through the wooded outskirts. Suddenly the pavement stopped, and we saw a cinder-block wall, perhaps five feet tall, topped by two rows of barbed wire, one leaning toward us, the other leaning away. Mr. Potter parked the car in a dirt turn-around, and we got out.

  The wall was not straight, but followed the border exactly, twisting through the woods. We walked along it for fifty or sixty yards. "Look there," said Mr. Potter. We drew back from the wall, and over the top we could see a house some ten yards away. The house stood in the East sector, its back door not five yards from the wall. "Now come here." We followed Mr. Potter to a spot directly across the wall from the back door of the house. "Look where you're standing," he said.

  I looked down and saw that I was standing on a row of dead flowers. "This is the man's garden," said Mr. Potter. "This whole area." I could see the remains of the small stone fence the man had erected to mark his property. The wall cut the property in half, separating the house from almost all its land .

  "Did they have to do it this way?" I said.

  Mr. Potter nodded. "Sure," he said. "If they let the man keep his garden, they'd have had to build the wall on American territory. They do things precisely."

  ''Then why doesn't he leave?" asked Bob. "He could get over the wall right here. I don't see any guards."

  "He probably could," said Mr. Potter. "There are guards, but they make regular rounds, and the chances ar
e he could make it. But he'd have to leave all his property—his house, his furniture, everything. Would you do it?"

  "I don't know," said Bob. "I think so, if I were young enough."

  "That's another point. He's almost certainly an old man, or at least in his fifties. They're sure it wouldn't be worth it to him. If he were a young man, they'd have moved him out of there long ago."

  We drove back into town and had lunch at a cafe on the Kurfurstendamm. After lunch, Mr. Potter said we were going to Bernauerstrasse, in the French sector. "This is the place you've seen in all the papers," he said. "This is what the world knows as the Wall. And rightly, I guess. It's the most horrible."

  Bernauerstrasse is the street split by the Wall. The border runs along the fronts of apartment buildings, and the windows and doors have been bricked off, the inhabitants moved deeper into East Berlin. There are crosses on the sidewalk to mark where people have tried to escape and have died from falling to the pavement or from being shot as they shinnied down a drainpipe or lowered themselves by ropes from the roofs. One of the crosses is wrapped in barbed wire, and a pot of flowers rests at its base. At one point on the street, a church is set back twenty yards or so from the wall. It is closed, and its congregation now attends a church more than a mile away. Since there is no building in front of the church, there is a space between two apartment houses where the wall is low. The East German police, the Vopos, used to stand on platforms behind the wall, from which they could get a full view of people trying to escape from buildings up and down the street. When the West Berliners discovered this, they erected two huge cardboard barriers jutting out from the buildings toward the street. Now the Vopos have no view at all.

  When we were in the open space between the cardboard barriers, we looked down into East Berlin. Half a block into East Berlin, a young man leaned out a window and raised his arm at us.

  "What's he doing?" I said. "Waving?"

  "I don't think so," said Mr. Potter. "He's giving us the Communist salute. He's mocking us."

  "But he can't be. Look, he's waving his arm."

  "Yes, but his fist is clenched and . . ." Mr. Potter stopped. "Do you want to believe that he's waving?"