27

Lisl sat where she could see the flowers. It was a vast display of different blooms – more than I could put names to – and arranged in a basket tied with coloured ribbon. The flowers had obviously come from some expensive florist. They were the ones Werner had brought for her. Now the petals were beginning to fall. Werner was not demonstrative, but he was always giving Lisl flowers. Sometimes, according to his mood, he would spend ages choosing them for her. Even his beloved Zena was not treated with such care in the matter of flowers. Lisl loved flowers, especially when they came from Werner.

Sometimes, when she smiled, I could see in Lisl Hennig the beautiful woman I'd met when I first came to Berlin. I was a child then, and Lisl must have already been almost fifty years old. But she was a woman of such beauty that any man would be at her call.

Now she was old, and the commanding manner that had once been a part of her fatal attraction was the petulance of an irritable old woman. But I remembered her as the goddess she'd once been, and so did Lothar Koch, the shrunken little retired bureaucrat who'd regularly played bridge with her.

We were sitting in Lisl's 'study', a small room that had become a museum of her life. Every shelf and cupboard was crammed with mementoes – china ornaments, snuffboxes, and an abundance of souvenir ashtrays. The radio was playing Tchaikovsky from some distant station that faded every now and again. There were only three of us playing bridge. It was more fun this way, Lisl said, whenever we were bidding and deciding which hand would be the dummy. But Lisl liked company, and there were only three of us because Lisl had failed to find a fourth despite all the cajoling of which she was capable.

The counters for which we played were stacked up high. Lisl liked to play for money no matter how tiny the stakes. When she was a young girl she'd been sent to a finishing school in Dresden – a favoured place for wealthy families to send their grown-up daughters – and she liked to affect the manners of that place and time. But now she was content to be the berlinerisch old woman she truly was, and there was nothing more berlinerisch than playing cards for money.

'It's big business nowadays,' said Herr Koch, 'Since 1963 those East Germans have made almost three billion Deutschemark in ransoms.'

'I bid one spade,' said Lisl, staring at her cards. 'Three billion?'

'No bid,' said Koch. 'Yes, three billion Deutschemark.'

'One heart,' I said.

'You can't do that,' said Lisl.

'Sorry,' I said. 'No bid.' Why had they suddenly started talking about political prisoners held in the Democratic Republic? They couldn't have heard about Werner. Lisl finally bid two spades.

'About fourteen hundred people a year are ransomed by the Bonn government. None of them are criminals. Mostly they are people who have applied for exit permits and then been heard to complain about not getting them.'

'They must be mad to apply for an exit permit,' said Lisl.

'They are desperate,' said Koch. 'Desperate people snatch at any chance however slim.'

Lisl put a queen of hearts on Herr Koch's king. From now on she'd be trumping hearts unless I missed my guess. I knew she didn't have the ace; I had it. I played low; it was Koch's trick. Perhaps they wouldn't exchange Werner for Stinnes. Perhaps we'd have to pay to get Werner back. Would they sell him or would they prefer a big show trial with lots of publicity? Perhaps I'd handled it badly. Perhaps I should have let the KGB think that Stinnes had fooled us completely; then they wouldn't risk spoiling it by publicizing Werner. Could they put Werner on trial without revealing the Miller woman's role in framing Bret Rensselaer?

Koch led with an ace of clubs. I knew Lisl would trump it and she did, using a three. That was the way with cards and with life; the smallest of cards could beat an ace if you chose the right moment.

Lisl picked up the trick and led a four of spades. She must have had a handful of trumps.

'You should have bid a grand slam,' said Herr Koch sarcastically. He was smarting at having his ace trumped.

'The people are priced according to their worth,' said Lisl, continuing with the conversation as if to appease Koch.

'A university don can cost us up to two hundred thousand Deutschemark,' said Koch. 'A skilled worker about thirty thousand.'

'How do you know all this?' I asked him.

'It was in the Hamburger Abendblatt,' said Lisl. 'I lent it to him.'

'The government of the Democratic Republic have a bank account in Frankfurt,' said Koch, without acknowledging the loan of Lisl's Hamburg newspaper. 'Prisoners are delivered two weeks after payment is received. It is a slave trade.' Then Lisl led a heart from the dummy hand so she could trump it. My hearts were useless now that Lisl had none. You can only fight in the currency that your opponent shares. I played my jack of hearts.

'Play your ace, Bernard,' she urged. She knew my ace was useless too. Lisl laughed. She loved to win at cards.

Lisl led a small trump and lost the trick to Herr Koch.

'You lost that one,' I said. I couldn't resist it.

Herr Koch said, 'She doesn't care. The dummy has no trumps.'

'You'll never teach him bridge,' said Lisl. 'I've been trying to explain it to him since he was ten years old.'

But Koch persisted. 'She brought out a trump from you and a trump from me.'

'But she lost the trick,' I said. 'You won it with your jack.'

'She removed the potential dangers.' Koch turned over the cards of the trick and showed me the ten and the jack which we'd played. 'Now she knows that you have no trumps and she'll slaughter you whatever you play.'

'Let him play his way,' said Lisl ruthlessly. 'He's not subtle enough for bridge.'

'Don't be fooled by him,' said Herr Koch, talking to Lisl as if I wasn't present. 'The English are all subtle, and this one is subtle in the most dangerous way.'

'And which is that?' said Lisl. She could have simply laid her hand full of trumps on the table and we would have conceded all the remaining tricks to her, but she wouldn't deprive herself of the pleasure of winning the game one trick at a time.

'He doesn't mind us thinking he is a fool. That is Bernard's greatest strength; it always has been.'

'I will never understand the English,' said Lisl. She trumped, picked up the trick, smiled, and led again. Having said she didn't understand the English, she proceeded to explain the English to us. That was berlinerisch too; the people of Berlin are reluctant to admit to ignorance of any kind. 'If an Englishman says there's no hurry, that means it must be done immediately. If he says he doesn't mind, it means he minds very much. If he leaves any decision to you by saying "If you like" or "When you like", be on your guard – he means that he's made his requirements clear, and he expects them to be precisely met.'

'Are you going to let this slander go unchallenged, Bernard?' said Koch. He liked a tittle controversy, providing he could be the referee.

I smiled. I'd heard it all before.

'Then what of us Germans?' persisted Koch. 'Are we so easygoing? Tell me, Bernard, I want your opinion.'

'A German has no greys,' I said, and immediately regretted embarking on such a discussion.

'No greys? What does this mean?' said Koch.

'In Germany two cars collide; one driver is guilty and therefore the other is innocent. Everything is black or white for a German. The weather is good or the weather is bad, a man is sick or he is well, a restaurant is good or it is terrible. At the concert they cheer or they boo.'

'And Werner,' said Koch. 'Is he a man without greys?'

The question was directed at me, but Lisl had to answer. 'Werner is an Englishman,' she said.