Crazy in Berlin by Thomas Berger Page A

in the darkness, hear them—Schatzi spoke in a queer tone that was loud while pretending to be low, an undertone which must have been audible behind Lovett’s closed door a hundred meters off.
    “Yes, my good sir,” he said. “I am authorized to buy from you five cartons of cigarettes. Payment on delivery.”
    If they were overheard, it was a black-market deal—more than that, if an enemy operative lurked behind the tree, he was forced to hear what was after all the description of a crime towards which the Allied authorities were turning severe, and might ignore it in favor of the larger, for which he had insufficient evidence, only at the cost of his clear duty. The beauty of the method was Schatzi’s acting in worse and more furtive conscience than when he met Schild unmasqueraded, as at the Wannsee contacts.
    However, having gone so far to establish urgency, stealth, and a suggestion of controlled hysteria, Schatzi began to talk quite banally of Lovett’s party.
    “I have sold them some glassware, very lovely crystal glasses which I am relying upon you to guard over. Some persons may get drunken, you see, and it will be a scandal to break these glasses which cannot be replaced all over Germany. I speak not of my own convenience, since they have paid me, but namely of the uselessness to destroy pretty objects which also have their place in the world, or don’t you agree?”
    This preface out of the way, he thrust himself under Schild’s nose and in a passion of distrust asked: “What are your relations with Lieutenant Nader? I know yesterday you have seen him!”
    It was degrading that Schatzi, with his own active assistance, managed always to take him by surprise.
    “He’s Intelligence officer for the 1209th General Hospital and therefore the logical man to see about the German documents in their area.”
    “Of course, Intelligence officer —does not that mean to you something odd?”
    Schild regretted saying “German”; he was commonly careful to use “Nazi” or “Hitler,” rather than the adjective that comprehended an entire people, not only because the distinction figured importantly in Soviet policy, but also because Schatzi was a non-Hitlerite German. And finally because he could not truly believe in the separation and clung to it all the more, in an effort towards self-mastery.
    “As a matter of fact, it does.” He made a joke: “He has no intelligence.”
    Schatzi hooked into his elbow with murderous fingers. “ Was, was? I don’t understand!” And still claimed not to on repetition. “Don’t smile!” he whispered angrily. “If you do not think this is serious, something can perhaps be done about you.”
    He had never spoken this way before. True, he was Schild’s superior, but for purposes of organization rather than discipline. And he was a German. ... How easily vileness slips in when one is momentarily weak with indignation! Yes, Schatzi was a German, a good one, which in his time meant a hero it was a privilege to know, an honor to be rebuked by, and thus Schild accepted the onus: What error had he made with Nader?
    “The responsibility of an Intelligence officer is that of an open police spy, no?” asked Schatzi. “Therefore you present yourself to him conveniently. He can simply sit in his desk and you walk into his hands. This leads a person to say there are two possibilities: you might be a fool or you might be a counter-agent.” He floated an inch away, and returned to his earlier, crafty voice: “But I cannot pay more to you, since Captain Josephson of the Engineers Department has promised already to sell me all I would need for a thousand mark the carton.”
    Not until he finished did Schild hear the footfalls, deliberate, soft, and yet massive as a lion’s on the route of his bars. As they approached, the courier grew ever more spurious, and when at last the organism that made them, in his own agonizingly good time, arrived in closeup, Schatzi sprang dramatically