Free The Berlin Crossing by Kevin Brophy Page A

point.
    ‘What’s all that got to do with my father, Pastor Bruck?’
    ‘It was in that dangerous time that Petra Ritter met a young man in Berlin. God help us, I was responsible for their meeting.
     It wasn’t what I wanted, I was just trying to help a young fellow in serious trouble but then, I suppose, things happened,
     the way they do between a young woman and a young man.’
    ‘What young man? Tell me.’
    ‘The young man was a foreigner, Herr Ritter, he was on the run from the police – and God knows who else. Like I said, the
     roads were thick with the military anyway and you couldn’t tell if they were on manoeuvres or hunting your . . .’ He spread his
     hands, looked up at the wall as though enlightenment might descend from the crucifix.
    ‘Or hunting my father,’ I finished for him.
    ‘Yes,’ Pastor Bruck said, ‘or hunting the man who probably was your father.’
    ‘And they caught him?’
    The priest’s pale face became whiter than ever. Eyes closed, the skin stretched like brittle paper across the skeletal cheekbones.
    ‘They always caught their quarry, Herr Ritter.’
    Quarry. A beast fleeing across the snow-covered fields somewhere beyond the sacristy. Men and dogs in loud pursuit, the squeal
     of pain, blood on the snow
.
    ‘But why? What had the man done?’
    ‘It didn’t matter. He was guilty of whatever they said he was guilty of.’
    ‘And this man, this man they were hunting – what was his name?
    ‘Roland.’ The eyes closed, remembering. ‘His name was Roland.’
    ‘What . . . what was he like?’
    ‘He was young, Herr Ritter, younger than you are now. He was young, and he was brave and he was lost.’
    ‘And he came here to meet my mother?’
    The priest smiled at that. ‘Maybe that was the
real
reason he came, Herr Ritter. Maybe that was the real God-sent reason that brought him here, so that he and your mother could
     meet. But in terms of this earthly kingdom, no, Roland didn’t come here to meet Petra Ritter.’ He moved his stool a little;
     the metal stool leg squealed against the wooden floor. ‘Roland was sent here by others, on a mission, they would have said,
     but really, to carry out an impossible task.’
    ‘I don’t understand.’
    ‘Which of us did understand, Herr Ritter?’ He stood up suddenly, agitated, his long frame filling the small room. ‘Theworld we lived in seemed beyond understanding. That young man was lost from the moment he stumbled into this crazy world of
     ours – I imagine that your mother was the only thing in it that made any kind of sense to him.’
    ‘I wish it made sense to me, Pastor Bruck.’ I struggled for words. ‘Where is this man – this Roland? If he was my father,
     why did I never see him? Why did my mother never speak of him?’
    ‘For the same reason, Herr Ritter, that I never spoke of him, never until this night. It was too dangerous. One life had been
     lost, wasn’t that enough?’
    I knew the meaning of his words, I knew the question I wanted to ask. I couldn’t ask it. In my heart I already knew the answer.
    I felt the priest’s hand on my shoulder.
    ‘It’s not easy,’ he said. ‘You’ve just lost your mother, now you lose your father in the moment of finding him.’
    ‘Some of us,’ I said, looking directly at him, ‘have lost a country.’
    It was impossible to contemplate: how could the country I loved have taken from me the father I never knew
?
    ‘And some of us cannot share your grief about that, Herr Ritter.’ The mildness of tone took the sting out of the rebuke. ‘Come,
     I’ll show you.’
    I stood up, buttoning my coat.
    ‘Show me what?’
    ‘You want to learn about Roland – about your father?’
    I nodded.
    ‘Then come with me.’
    The cold night air filled the sacristy when he opened the door. Pastor Bruck waited until I had negotiated the stone steps
     that led down from the sacristy before switching off the lights. I watched while he locked the door with a black iron