The Berlin Assignment by Adrian de Hoog Page A

“
Mensch! Tony! Alter Knallkopp. Was machst du hier
?” Hanbury didn’t recall being called a knucklehead in the early days, but he recognized Müller’s tone as a warm hello. The old man hadn’t changed. An electronic release buzzed. Hanbury went forwards. The front door opened. A ramrod figure lit upfrom behind hovered in silhouette. They viewed each other in the darkness. When Müller said, “You expect me to serve drinks in the cold? Come in. Come in.” Hanbury knew that at least the second of his olive branches had been delivered.
    The furniture stood in the same places; the house still smelled of air that should be changed. Müller was timeless too, except his voice had a little more sand in it, an old man’s net of tiny veins had crept to the surface of his cheeks, and the eyes stood deeper, though they were undimmed and vigorous, as full as ever with impertinence. Müller was as Hanbury remembered him. Unable to suppress his feelings, he took Müller by the shoulders, as if their roles had been reversed, as if the old man was the prodigal son unexpectedly returned.
    â€œSo,” Müller said, looking him over, “there you are. Resurrected from the dead. Did the devil send you with advice for me on what the after-life is like? You almost came too late. A lot of people think I’m at the end.” But the old man’s shoulders felt solid, far from ready to give up. Other elderly people Hanbury had known, not as old as Müller, but weaker, were long gone – a mother, a father, a neighbour called Keystone, a colleague or two. “You’re looking fit,” he said.
    â€œExercise and alcohol. Plenty of both. That’s the secret.” Müller led Hanbury into his study where a lit desk lamp showed he’d been working. “What are you doing here?” He asked, motioning to a sofa. “You should have written.”
    â€œI was worried if I wrote you wouldn’t open the door,” Hanbury said. Nothing had changed in the study either. He’d spent hours here listening to Müller.
    The old man opened a cabinet and took out a bottle. “If you had, I likely would have arranged to be away. When you stopped sending me birthday wishes, I wrote you off. You’re still written off, but that could change. You haven’t answered me. What are you doing in Berlin?” He poured two brandies. “
Prost
.” When Hanbury described he’d beenassigned to Berlin, Müller raised his glass in genuine surprise. “
Konsul? Ich gratuliere
.” But the voice was already acquiring a familiar undertone and an eyebrow began rippling with irreverence. Hanbury recognized the signs. He experienced them first when he scarcely knew Sabine’s father, when he had brought her home after a party and she had invited him in, first into the quiet house and, half an hour later, from the carpet on the study floor into her accommodating bed. In the middle of the night he went to use the bathroom. Tiptoeing back to the comfort of Sabine’s warmth, Müller came out of his bedroom. The two collided. Both were naked. “It’s you,” the father said, scarcely taken aback. “Staying nights now too? Lovely pyjamas. See-throughs, I see. Present from a girlfriend?” He disappeared into the bathroom. Sabine giggled when her devastated lover described what happened. “He likes you,” she said. Tony was worried that Sabine’s stepmother, a shadowy figure that stalked the family from a distance, would learn he was spending a good part of the night a mere two walls over, but Sabine assured him her father wouldn’t tell. The stepmother found out all the same. Some days later she read telltale signs on sheets going in for washing. A violent scene followed, the stepmother shrieking, the stepdaughter shouting. Sabine moved out, into Tony’s Savignyplatz apartment.
    Back then Müller took it all