JOHN LE CARRÉ IN BERLIN: THE
„PORTUGUESE ANGEL“.
It was around midnight, between Saturday the 12th and
Sunday the 13th of December, when I decided to check some on-line
newspapers, before going to bed, and landed on the website of Corriere della
Sera, Milan, Italy. There it stood, as first item, a sizeable headline:
John le Carré (*1931-†2020) was no longer with us. It seems to have been the only mayor
traditional press outlet, at least in Europe, which gave the English writer
full priority. None of the British papers I later consulted, The Times, The
Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, published it as first headline. Nor did the
French press. Albeit all of them were to splash out pages on the career and the
books of one of the most remarkable English writers of the last sixty years.
Perhaps the most biting and relevant
statement emerged in a column published by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo:
“John le Carré is dead, and both the Nobel
Academy and Hollywood are yet to apologise.” [1]
Why was he not bestowed with some of
the so-called glamorous literary awards in the world? Because he sold too many
millions of copies of his novels. Nota bene: Le Carré himself kept a
disdainful distance from such accolades, though he accepted many honorary
degrees.
A shock it was, to many, akin to
being informed that a cherished old-friend has passed away. Although we never
met, I was shaken as if I had just lost a true and stimulating companionship,
which emerged in the late 1970s, when I was first drawn to his novels, thanks
to the 1979 BBC television seven-part miniseries of Tinker, Taylor, Soldier
Spy (first edition1974), where Alec Guinness enacted one of the
immortal male performances in British television. I can remember sitting in
front of a huge, black-and-white television set (a rented one) in Bassett
Road, London, not far away from Ladbroke Grove tube station, my face glued to
the screen, at times as tense as a cat about to attack a mouse. Half of England
was doing the same.
Ever since, every single book published
by John le Carré was bought and read with fervour – some twice, thrice. I would
select A Perfect Spy (1986), described by great American novelist
Philip Roth (*1933-†2018) as “the best English novel
since the war”, partly because of his autobiographical elements, above all the
sojourn in Switzerland.
I do intent to come back to John le
Carré, much later on, as we are confronted now with dozens and dozens of
obituaries and relevant testimonies, all around the world. Let me then just
reproduce a short report I wrote in 2018, based on a real-life event, and a
very surprising one, in Berlin, Germany, when I was checking on some buildings
referred to in one of his latest novels, A legacy of spies (2017)[2],
which takes place mostly in Berlin during the late 1950s and early 1960s,
centred on an operation against the East German secret service (Stasi).
Herewith, hommage au grand maître.
FASANENSTRAßE, JOHN LE CARRÉ AND A PORTUGUESE ANGEL
On the 21st of March of
2018 it was still fairly cold in Berlin. According to the institutional
calendars, it was the beginning of Spring. Chronos, however, decided to
fortify the cold air while at the same time giving us a crispy sunny day, to
“keep the balance”, so to speak. I decided that my long postponed visit of the Fasanenstraße
was going to take place that very day, and I undertook the long walk from my
place, over the River Spree, through the Tiergarten, over the
floodgates, alongside the Berliner Zoo, then to the Uhlandstraße, next
the Kantstraße, to reach Savignyplatz, one of my refuges in
Berlin.
I enjoyed an invigorating espresso
at a coffee-house called “Drink your Monkey”, which despite its name offers the
passers-by a civilised drink and smiling attendants. It occupies the same
premises where the Einsteincafé used to be, which is now located about
seventy meters away, under the arch above which the S-Bahn, the
tramways, circulate. As it was late morning, I could get the sunshine full onto
my face. Had it been mid-afternoon, I would have been at the terrace of the Einsteincafe.
The day was full of vibrations, seeds of Spring floated around, people smiled and felt almost narcotised by that sudden irruption of the sun, after weeks of wintery greyness. I went to the Kurfürstendamm, shortened by the Berliner to Kudamm, a sort of Oxford Street (in those years when it was still classy and privileged), invaded by beamish people, and then I turned into the Fasanenstraße, looking for the house number 28.
That is the fictional (I suppose…) address of the British secret service hide-away in the 1950s and 1960s, as described in the latest novel by John le Carré, A legacy of spies (2017):
“Berlin safe house K2 lies in
the Fasanenstraße, at No. 28, and it is a stately and unlikely survivor of
Allied bombing. It is built in the Biedermeier style with a pillared doorway, a
bay window and a good back exit leading on to the Uhlandstraße. Whoever choose
it, had a taste for imperial nostalgia and an operational eye.” (p.83).
That episode is not mentioned
in Le Carré‘s novel, which I find rather strange, as it may have added a
relevant and poignant note to the safe-house of the British intelligence
service, then... I verified that, indeed, the backdoor of the building leads
ultimately onto the other street, Uhlandstraße, through backyard gardens
and galleries. First, to the left, below, the current entry into the
labyrinthine “hinterland”:
Then, to the right, the back-exit,
which leads into a sort of “patio”. Agents and camouflaged officers could then
“escape” unnoticed to the other street:
At the back of the “patio”, one then gets into a new “passage”, leading trough a now “modern corridor”.
One then gets into a sort of “inner
square”, harbouring restaurants and a “Cuban official travel agency”, which can
be seen, below left, behind the white board, with completely transparent
window-walls. Finally, Uhlandstraße, where another advertising board of the
Cuban travel-bureau can be
perceived. I detected
inside the office only a woman, with long black-hair, typing at her computer.
On that day I went back through the
same route. Again in front of the Fasanenstrasse 28, I stopped for a
while, taking more pictures, including the other side of the street, trying to
memorise some details.
As of sudden, while I was standing
on the side-walk, a short woman appeared from nowhere.
Her head jumped full of decidedness
in front of my nose, speaking to me directly in Spanish, with no previous
warning or greetings:
“¿Dónde queda el centro de
Berlin?” (Where is the centre of Berlin?)
I was almost shocked, and withdrew
some centimetres. I said, rather puzzled:
“Well, there are many centres in
Berlin...”(in
Spanish)
The woman –I was then able to size her up more precisely– was sort of mid-30s,
slim, short, hair black but already tinted, wearing a black trouser and a black
sweater, a little bit nervous or agitated. She repeated in Spanish:
“The centre of Berlin, just want
to know...”
“Highly respected lady, you had
the luck of meeting the person in Berlin with the best Spanish available...”
She smiled and repeated the
question:
“And how did you know that I
could speak Spanish?”, I asked, increasingly bewildered (in Spanish)
She kept giggling:
“Only want to know where the
centre of Berlin is...” (in Spanish)
I then turned to the my right, and
pointing to the Kudamm, said:
“Well, there are many “centres” in Berlin, but if you go to the Kudamm, that
is one of the main avenues in Berlin, and then turn right, you will get to the
“Church of Memory” (Gedächtnis
Kirche), and…,
etc.”
She kept looking at me and said “thanks”
in Spanish, starting to go away.
I asked
her:
“Where do you come from?”
“Portugal”, she answered
“Ah, Portugal, you are a
Portuguese…, so you speak Portuguese”, I said, in Portuguese.
“Si. Anche el italiano e il
francese”, she
said, in Italian, and disappeared in the other direction, not the one I pointed
out towards the Kudamm.
I was left under a state of shock
for quite a while, just unable to comprehend what on earth was all that supposed
to mean.
It seemed to me too much of a
coincidence. I did not even take the precaution of following her with my eyes,
just to know where she went. Initially I planned to come back with the tube,
but then I decided to walk all the way back home, which made the whole
excursion into a more than seven-kilometre stroll, just to digest the
event. When I reached a pond in the “Tiergarten”,
I sat on a bench for a while, trying to find a rational explanation, if there
were to be one, to the events.
Looking back now, there are many
possibilities:
1. A Latin woman, who after
watching a perhaps too self-assured looking Anglo-Saxon kicking around, decided
to tease him, by swamping him with phrases in Spanish. Yet she could have done
the same thing in Portuguese or Italian, or French, apparently.
2. A badly camouflaged agent of
the Cuban secret service, sent to harass me and find something more, after
they saw me taking pictures of their “Travel Agency” and the surroundings. I
suspect, however, that the Cuban government has nowadays other priorities, and
no doubt cannot afford to waste money on secret agents in Berlin.
3. A slightly better camouflaged
agent of the British secret service, which, in connivance with John le
Carré, a former employee, decided to set up a trap around the number 28 of the Fasanenstrasse,
to see who were the idiots likely to be enticed by the novel into verifying the
surroundings, hence to be listed as potential recruits, for silly and minor
tasks.
4. An angel sent by God, in
order to greet me on the first day of Spring, also giving me a hint about
forthcoming events, “...pay attention...”. I must confess that, after the
meeting, I checked trice every side before crossing any street.
5. A young woman, who knew me from
somewhere, possibly years ago, and was aware that I could speak Spanish and the
other languages too. It may have been in Berlin, though my memory, soon
afterwards, sent me back to Hamburg, in 1991, when I was living with some
German friends of mine, and to a Portuguese lady who used to come to clean the
flat. She had a daughter, who would now have the same age of the intrusive Berlin lady. We used to chat in Portuguese when she was in
the flat, and she knew I spoke Spanish and other languages. Some kind of an
encounter in Paris, years ago, with a different Portuguese lady, also emerges
as a possible source.
I feel that the answer should
oscillate between 4 and 5.
Be warned: Whenever you try to verify locations indicated in a novel by John le Carré, you are certain to
bump onto the eeriest possible encounter.
JCHK
Berlin, 03.05.2018.
