Checkpoint Charlie

Short Story

(Wikipedia)

Dedicated to David S

17^th May, 1963

Berlin, Deutsche Demokratische Republik

The lungs took a drag on his Karo cigarette. It was a harsh drag that nonetheless suited the East German’s taste for enriched smog piping down their lungs. When the cigarette was almost gone, he dropped it to the ground and crunched the remaining bit with his boot. He looked out across the wide cordon between East and West, knowing that he was on the East with all of its protections against the capitalism of the West. He wasn’t sure what these protections were but knew that the Soviet Union would be there to defend them, if not explain exactly what they were. That was not Sergeant Schmidt’s area of expertise and anyway far above his grade than he could ever hope.

One of the most important ideas was to know where one’s place is and not try and go beyond it. If one tried to do so be the first chief directorate of the USSR might begin looking into why you were trying so hard. It would be like putting a man on the moon – not your next.

His job was manning the exit booth at Checkpoint Charlie. He could down Friedrichstaße, the wide-open pathway between the Germanies. Not far away was the station known as Kochstraße the last stop in West Berlin and one of the places where the circumventors tried so desperately to reach.

He did not look often because the Stasi were watching. To the Stasi, the wall was an anti-Fascist protection zone. Perhaps it was to stop soap coming from in from the west. After all, what would happen to the proletariat if they could smell as sweet as the capitalists? Rank and fowl were the approved range of sent.

He waved past the first car and then another one came up to it. The next car was a white Beetle, though it was the People’s Car in the West, in the East it was much better than the Trabant. The driver rolled down the window and came to a complete stop like an Ace. Schmidt noticed that he had a military bearing because of the precise nature that he pressed the break button. Since the driver was not in military uniform, it meant that Schmidt was going to be extra careful in the way he examined this particular vehicle.

Schmidt looked down at the driver. Where to begin my mini-interrogation? He then decided to start with the basics.

“Your papers, please?”

The papers were headed over instantaneously. On the papers, he could see that the name claimed was John le Carré. But he did not look French, which meant he was probably English or American. Schmidt checked the papers.

“British?”

“Yes.”

“What is your business?”

“I had tickets to the Komische Oper.”

“And what was the performance?” It was a simple request that would catch the sloppier agents.

“Salome by Richard Strauss. It had the young Götz Friedrich as the conductor. Do you want me to list the cast names as well?”

The ease and breeze of the reply shocked Schmidt. It was very clear that if this was an agent, he was very good. Of course, there is the chance that he was a bureaucrat watching the opera. But that would have to be determined. The problem was that the pieces were not in sync. If it were a bureaucrat he would use a more luxurious car, a Mercedes-Benz for example. An agent would have used the People’s Car.

With his flashlight, Schmidt checked around the car. Nothing that he could see.

So, the Sgt. looked down at the papers and then looked up. His watch ticked the last moments of ten and going on till eleven.

“And how did you feel the performance went?”

 The driver puffed on a cigarette,  which was East German in its manufacture. “The soprano was like a tiger, ready to do whatever the conductor wanted. And she had seven veils at her disposal.” The face of the driver was excited. Perhaps Schmidt was being too hard, perhaps the officer was having an affair and the opera was as good a place as any to hide what he was doing. Or he was doing business in black market wares. The East German authorities encouraged this: currency was king.

But things still did not add up the car was far too plain to be a bureaucrat and he did not have a good reason to stop him.

However, Schmidt made one more attempt.

“Did you do anything else other than the Komische Oper?”

“No, I did not have any other reason to.” The face had gone very bland.

At this point, Schmidt looked into the driver’s face and reluctantly through he put a mark down saying that he didn’t have any reason to be suspicious but there were irregularities which could not be explained. The man drove a tinker car but screamed rich man on his face.

-

Once the Volkswagen had turned and John made sure that no one from the East could observe them, he got out of the car, folded the driver’s seat forward, and then disassembled the rear seat. Then he folded the rear seat forward revealing a petite woman below the seat. If he had been thoroughly searched, they would have found the woman almost immediately. The woman was dressed in shorts and a sleeveless blouse and was only pretty, but she had on glasses and was looking about her.

“Please go into the passenger’s side, because we don’t want to be caught.”

Putting on her shoes and went in the passenger’s side, as John reassembled the rear seat. She did not look like a queen, but John knew her escape was a near thing.

Once inside John remarked: “When the guards get more in practice this sort of escape will not be practical.”

Then the woman spoke in a German accent: “Thank you very much for getting me to West Berlin.”

“I really did not have a choice. We intercepted a message that specifically mentioned you as one of the people that they were going to investigate.”

“You are saying that my days were numbered.”

“And the numbers were extremely small. When the Stasi want to investigate someone it is near matter of days, perhaps a week.”

The car managed to gain a little bit of acceleration and they were going down Puttkamrstasße with the traffic and with no deviation. It was the German way.

-

At Checkpoint Charlie, things were not going as smoothly. A Trabant pulled and pulled into the exit zone. The driver was wearing an overcoat and you could immediately tell that he was an officer, and probably of the Stasi.

“What is your name, Sergeant?”

The eyes of Schmidt looked into the grizzled man’s face and he immediately replied with his full name.

Then the grizzled man asked: “Did a person, through here claiming to be John le Carré?”

“Just about 15 minutes ago, I noted some oddities with him but had no reason to stop him.”

“You dummkopf. You seem to know jack.” But instead of telling Schmidt what was wrong he opened up his glove compartment and took out a carton of cigarettes. There were only two packages left and the cartoon was rather old. He threw them to the sergeant.

“Don’t you know what the curtains of cigarettes were recently named?”

A spell of amazement hit Schmitz's face. But the man continued: “While they have been named after the card suit ‘diamonds’ what were they called before, Lungentorpedo?” It was clear that the Stasi officer was well beyond being pleasant or even politic.

“They were originally named after the French word for diamonds.”

“And that word was?”

With great embarrassment, Schmidt managed to mumble: “Carré.”