The Contract

No choice for them, only the one label, and one copy for each customer. Something discarded by the West and dumped, and picked on here with a humiliating excitement. She idled closer to the trestle table.

The name of the artist was Nana Mouskouri. Erica pulled a face, she had never heard of this woman, of this singer. But then Erica Guttmann was no longer a child, she had no feelings for the moods of the queue beside her. She would never have stood in line to buy a record. She would never have screamed if it were denied her, she would never have sulked if she had gone home without the prized possession.

There was no accommodation for such trivia in the life of Erica Guttmann.

The contented mood in which she had dawdled in front of the shop windows was destroyed.

Time to turn for the hotel because she had with docility accepted her father's wish that they should go to the Dom before dinner, another concert, another recital. And then they would meet Renate and her friend in the hotel restaurant. Renate with her man, Renate satisfied by a security policeman with a claw. She had been surprised, perhaps annoyed when it had been suggested that this Spitzer wanted to meet her father.

She had no long playing record and she had no lover. She had an old man that she must care for, and company for dinner that was unattractive.

Erica's foot stamped the pavement as she marched back to the hotel.

And it was hot and the stains from her exertion were visible at the armpits of her blouse.

Adam Percy had taken the Berlin flight. From Tegel airport he telephoned Mawby and arranged a meeting in a cafe on the Kurfusten-Damm.

Over afternoon tea in the sunshine he reported that he had spoken that morning to Hermann Lentzer, that he was assured that no difficulties had arisen and that Lentzer himself would be driving to Berlin from West Germany and arriving in the late morning of Saturday.

'Cutting it a bit fine, isn't he?'

'That's the way he wants it,' said Percy, 'so that's the way it has to be, I suppose. He does the trip pretty frequently.'

'The car, the driver, the second man to handle the pass- ports.. .?'

'I'm afraid he wasn't very specific.' Percy sipped gingerly at the warm cup. 'All he did was to tell me that everything was in hand. That's his style.'

'He's an uncommunicative swine.'

'Has to be if he's to survive in that business, and he's a survivor.'

Percy would stay now in West Berlin.

The dispositions were complete. The team was in place. A chance to catch their breath before the whirlpool broke over them at the end of the week.

'Everything all right at this end?' Percy asked.

'Couldn't be better.'

'And the Magdeburg end?'

'Carter saw our lad onto the train, said he was in fine shape.'

'Good,' said Percy, and there was a heavy flatness in his voice.

He believes in nothing, this one, thought Mawby. Almost a degree of insolence, Mawby reckoned and he'd have some- thing to say when he was back at Century House next week.

With her key Jutte Hamburg let herself into the flat. A long day in the engineering faculty behind her, a long night in Iter room ahead.

Examinations at the end of the month.. Even for second year students at the Humboldt there were examinations that had to be passed. And necessary for her to make a good show because her father was the Director of a Kombinat and much was expected.

'Jutte?' The voice spread from the living room. 'Is that you, Jutte?'

'Yes, Mother. It is me.'

'A young man was here. He came with a letter for you.'

'Who was he?' she said indifferently, hooked her plastic coat on the stand in the hall.

'A young man from the Border Guard. He said he was a friend of that boy Becker that you see.'

'He brought a letter?' Jutte dropped the bag of books onto the floor, ran into the living room.

' I put it on your bed. You did not tell me that you were still seeing the boy.' Frau Hamburg sat in front of the television with a tray and teapot and a plate of cucumber sandwiches. Between mouthfuls, she spoke.

'Your father would not be pleased to hear that you still see Becker. Your father says the boy is nothing, that he has no career. His family is nothing, not even prominent in the Party in the quarter where they live. ..'

'He pesters me a bit, there is nothing more than that. He was at a camp a few weeks back, I cannot help who else is there.' The trembling gripped her, trickled through her legs, kissed the coolness of her arms. She turned away, hid her face from her mother.

'Your father will be pleased to know that.'

'There is nothing for him to know.'

'Have you much work tonight?' Her mother asked the question in sorrow. She was from a former generation where girls did not concern themselves with engineering. A pretty girl she had wanted for her only child, someone whom she could pet and beautify and take credit from, not a daughter that slaved at a drawing board and wore stained overalls in the Humboldt's workshops.

'Enough to last me three evenings, and there'll be more tomorrow.'Jutte grimaced.