Free The Berlin Assignment by Adrian de Hoog

the clouds turned black. “How long has it been like this?” he asked. “I expect it will improve,
Herr Konsul
.” Until the day he died Lord Halcourt expected optimism from his chauffeur.
    The official vehicle was an ageing Opel gleaming in a fresh coat of black paint. Sturm opened a rear door to stash his human cargo, then placed the luggage in the trunk. Away from the terminal they joined a traffic crawl which would continue, he said, the whole way into the city. “It’s the rain,” he added. “It frustrates people. They do strange things. It slows things down.” He believed it was not too early for a briefing on Germany’s capital. “Berlin is full of idiots,
Herr Konsul
, and most of them are behind the wheel.”
    Rain carried by gusts of wind streaked the scene diagonally in grey. It beat down on the Opel’s roof and obscured the road, the signs, the vision of drivers. It wore out their good will. Impatient motorists jerked their cars from lane to lane. Sturm shook his wise head at the futility. In a running commentary on the hopelessness that lay ahead, he compared this traffic jam, this Stau, to other recent fine examples. The slower the traffic, the faster Sturm talked. He compared the autobahn in its current state to a glacier,
ein Gletscher
, that froze all life and scoured the marvels off high tech cars.
Stau
, Sturm said, rendered all cars uninteresting. It made them common, indistinguishable, like ground-down pebbles in a moraine. “I propose,
Herr Konsul
, at the next exit we get off.”
    Sturm explained that more than rain was causing Berlin’s endless
Staus
. The Wall – that is, its absence – was a major factor. When the Wall came down, the traffic went bad. Some days the city was nothing but a
Stau
. “It’s not healthy. Look around. Ever seen so many people ready for an institution? See that woman? See her drumming the wheel? She’s going catatonic. Women like that shouldn’t be allowed to drive. They lack the necessary inner peace. But the mayor says not to worry. He says we’re becoming normal. Soon we’ll be like Paris.” Sturm changed lanes with several unusual manoeuvres, causing horns to sound and other drivers to tap their heads. Off the autobahn, winding the Opel through narrow back streets, his commentary picked up again. “
Siemensstadt, Herr Konsul
.”
    Hanbury’s tired eyes took in red-brick city blocks, much of it industrial. Sturm narrated the company’s history. “Thirty thousand workers lived here once, a company neighbourhood. Is there anything like that in Canada?”
    Hanbury was trying to stay awake. “Not really,” he said in a voice that sounded flat. “We’ve got some mining towns. Uranium City. Flin Flon.” He yawned.
    â€œFlin Flon? That sounds nice. Melodious.” Sturm became interested in Flin Flon. He pronounced it repeatedly, fast then slow, the emphasis sometimes on the Flin, sometimes on the Flon. “Are you sure it’s a place? It sounds more like a rock band.” He sang
flin-flon
a few more times, making it sound like the ding-dong of a doorbell.
    â€œI saw this area once before, but from a different angle,” Hanbury remarked.
    â€œYou could have,
Herr Konsul
.” Sturm was racing through narrow streets in an alert, stiff posture, scanning intersections for signs of danger, but his voice remained detached. “There’s a view of it from the autobahn over there.” He paused. “You’ve been to Berlin?”
    â€œIt was a while ago. The Wall was just up. I remember climbing an observation platform to look over it. The city on the other side looked dead. Empty space, soldiers with machine guns, dogs, ruins in the distance. Things like that.”
    â€œThat would have been Potsdamer Platz. Well, the communists put the East into a coma, but that’s over with. In most places you can’t