somehow from the new world. A few had been prosecuted, a few of the most prominent had committed suicide, but many of them were still flourishing, in precisely the same sort of occupation they had pursued under the patronage of the state. Often, they had managed the transition by banding in cliques, small groups the Ossis dubbed Seilschaften, after the teams which roped themselves together to climb steep rockfaces. Looking round Liebl’s office, George was willing to bet that among the members of his Seilschaft there were men who owned nightclubs and promoted pop concerts.
‘It wasn’t so difficult to adjust,’ Liebl said. He shifted his balance in the chair so that he could look into George’s face. ‘Why are you here?’
‘I need a name.’
Liebl raised his eyebrows, the two bushy clumps of hair giving the impression of crawling upwards towards his naked scalp. Without pausing George went on to explain that he had a valuable object which had to be sold discreetly, to someone who would have the ready cash.
‘How much?’ Liebl interrupted.
George plucked a figure out of the air.
‘Ten, maybe fifteen thousand marks.’
‘Show it to me.’
‘No.’
George had replied without thinking. Now that he was talking to Liebl he felt none of the boiling rage which he had associated with him for so long, and he had the odd feeling that the man in front of him was somehow different, an impostor who had been substituted for the person he had known. At the same time he knew that he could never do business with the man.
‘Why do you come to me?’
‘Because you can tell me what I want to know.’
‘I know this,’ Liebl said seriously, ‘but why should I help you?’
A memory flashed through George’s mind. It was a touch, the soft smooth feel of hair, black and glossy like a bird’s wing. At the back of his mind was the crazy thought that perhaps Liebl might want to atone somehow, to make up for the things he’d done. The other thing was that they’d almost been friends at one point, and if Liebl hadn’t been what he was, perhaps they would have.
‘The same reason I used to help you,’ George replied. ‘Call it payback.’
‘You can’t threaten me,’ Liebl told him. ‘Everyone’s read the files.’
This wasn’t true and they both knew it. At the moment that the students were hacking at the Wall many of the files were burning in the courtyards of the complex in Frankfurter Allee.
‘So call it business,’ George told him.
‘Ten per cent,’ Liebl said.
Later that evening Liebl telephoned with the name of a dealer he said was reliable. He owned a shop off the Dresdenstrasse which sold antiques and memorabilia. It wasn’t far from where Valentin lived and they went there the next day.
The place was tiny, sandwiched in between a dingy pizza parlour and a video market. When the door opened it set off an electronic chiming somewhere inside, but it was difficult to tell the source of the sound, because the shop was crammed with objects, old furniture stacked up the walls, stuffed birds mounted in transparent bells, heaps of uniforms in neat piles, a giant bear skin, and a line of glass cases displaying coins and jewellery. Standing motionless behind them was a small man wearing a beard and a black Armani suit, and for a moment George had the feeling that this was another exhibit.
‘Gunther?’
The man nodded.
‘We spoke. On the telephone,’ George said.
The dealer nodded again, then came from behind the counter, squeezed past George and locked the door.
‘You have something to show me?’
Valentin was carrying the painting wrapped in a copy of the Tagespiegel, and he tore the pages away carefully before propping it up on the counter. The dealer studied it without expression. After half a minute he touched the signature with his finger, grunted softly, and went back to looking at the painting. Valentin raised his eyebrows at George, who ignored him. The shop seemed to be holding its breath.
‘Wieviel?’ Valentin said suddenly, losing patience.
The dealer didn’t answer, and he didn’t move.
‘How much? How much?’ Valentin repeated.
The dealer looked at him, smiling.
‘Russian?’
Valentin stared back at him, unsettled by the question. In this city the Russians had no friends, and it must have been obvious what he was.
‘I am Russian,’ he said irritably. ‘The painting is Russian. How much?’
The dealer smiled again.
‘Five thousand marks.’
‘That is shit,’ George told him. ‘This is by Levitan, a great painting of the nineteenth century.’ He had determined to refuse the first offer in any case, but he also guessed that if the painting was genuine, this was a derisory sum. The dealer shrugged.
‘A minor work, probably very early, or a fake. His best work is in Moscow or the museum at Plyos. But he was a great painter. You are right. So take it to a gallery, then. Go to Dahlem.’
He laughed, and for a moment George felt like hitting him in the middle of the tuft on his chin. Dahlem was where the big galleries were, but a black man who showed up trying to sell a painting which had no documentation would be looking for trouble. As the thought crossed his mind, it struck him that the dealer was needling them, subtly and deliberately. After all this was only the start of what might turn out to be an extended negotiation. Losing his temper would simply hand the initiative to the other man. The realisation was like a dash of cold water, and he forced himself to smile.
‘It’s genuine,’ he repeated.
Half an hour later they had struck the bargain. Gunther upped his offer by another two thousand marks, and as if to sweeten the deal he told them, as he counted out the money, that he would take as many of the paintings as George could deliver. If they had a regular pipeline and once the market had been locked up he could pay five, maybe ten times as much. Valentin voiced no objections but, once outside the shop, he looked at George and made a face of alarm. It would be, he said, a difficult business to locate the other paintings and bring them out.
‘I should have guessed,’ George said. ‘You’re full of shit.’
At this point they were walking side by side up the Dresdenstrasse towards the bustle of the Oranienstrasse. Valentin stopped abruptly, and when George looked back he was standing in the middle of the pavement, glaring, his face crimson under the yellow hair which, in the last few days had begun to sprout in a peak over his forehead. George gestured, on the verge of apologising, but his cousin, instead of responding, spat out one word – ‘mershavets’. George had a dim memory of having heard the word before, but he wasn’t sure what it meant and while he was working out that his cousin had called him a bastard Valentin turned his back
