valuable foreign currency. The rouble was useless, unconvertible, of course.
‘It all started pretty crudely with Schmidtke’s thugs combing East Germany for works of art the Nazis hadn’t hidden–antiques and so on. They just confiscated stuff from their owners and sold it through various dealers from Switzerland and Belgium, London and other places. Schmidtke set up a secret financial pipeline from East Germany to Switzerland in order to launder the money and he learned from Soviet sympathisers and illegal financial operators in the West how to set up offshore accounts, wash money, avoid tax. What he learned about capitalism was how all the grimy underside of it worked, the illegal side, the side used by organised crime. So his main contacts in the West were by and large criminal. But there were bankers too, and lawyers, who operated above the line.’
Finn looks up to the ceiling at this point, as if to make sure that the microphones are picking up his every word.
Nana disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a tray of pelmeni –thin dough pancakes filled with minced lamb–that she’s made, despite dinner being so recent, and puts it on the table next to Finn. She shakes flour from her apron on to the crackling logs in the fireplace and holds on to the mantelpiece for a moment.
‘Are you all right, Nana?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m all right. Just a dizzy spell, Anna. They come and go quickly.’
‘Sit down, Nana,’ Finn says and stands up to plump a cushion on the chair opposite him, but she remains standing. In the corner of the room the Russian flag still flutters on the televison in front of the Kremlin’s cameras, but I’ve turned the television down. Nana can hear only if there’s no background noise.
‘So, in the West, did nobody ask where these artworks came from?’ Nana says.
‘No. There was money to be made. On all sides. In 1961 Europe was in disorder after the Wall went up. There was a lot of movement across the line still and we were encouraging people to come over. Of course, that’s when the KGB put many of their people in place in the West. It was the end of free movement and everyone was trying to get their pieces in position.’
Finn looks at the clock on the wall over the mantelpiece. It is half an hour before the New Year. He gently touches the side of my face in a gesture that Nana says later is the one that wards off evil spirits. Nana has all kinds of superstitions like this from God knows where. To me, Finn’s hand on my cheek feels like protection of sorts too, so maybe Nana is right.
‘You want me to continue?’ Finn says, and a line of worry creases his eyes. He says it as if we are going through some door, some magic portal of no return, or over the brink of a precipice. And in a sense we are.
‘Yes, why not? Go on.’
He brushes the hairs on my temple as he takes his hand away and then continues, as before, carefully laying the words down as if they are a ball of string along which we can find our way back.
‘Well, soon, of course, Schmidtke’s theft of art ran out of steam. There wasn’t anything left. Who knows how much money KoKo made? Millions? Certainly. But new ways had to be found to fund the KGB’s increasing presence in Western Europe and elsewhere. They were funding the Communist parties in France and Italy, for a start. But that’s another story. So Schmidtke turned to what was practically the only thing the Soviets had to offer of their own. Arms.’
Finn now spreads out on his back as if the smallest effort of movement might result in the end of the world. To me, trained observer that I am, it is a position of deliberate vulnerability, of ‘I’m taking a big risk.’ It is the psychiatrist’s couch and the ‘patient’ is peeling off one layer of the onion of his hidden self to test the effect it has.
The fact that we all know about the microphones adds a surreal touch, I suppose. We’re all playing, to some extent, to the third ear in
‘It all started pretty crudely with Schmidtke’s thugs combing East Germany for works of art the Nazis hadn’t hidden–antiques and so on. They just confiscated stuff from their owners and sold it through various dealers from Switzerland and Belgium, London and other places. Schmidtke set up a secret financial pipeline from East Germany to Switzerland in order to launder the money and he learned from Soviet sympathisers and illegal financial operators in the West how to set up offshore accounts, wash money, avoid tax. What he learned about capitalism was how all the grimy underside of it worked, the illegal side, the side used by organised crime. So his main contacts in the West were by and large criminal. But there were bankers too, and lawyers, who operated above the line.’
Finn looks up to the ceiling at this point, as if to make sure that the microphones are picking up his every word.
Nana disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a tray of pelmeni –thin dough pancakes filled with minced lamb–that she’s made, despite dinner being so recent, and puts it on the table next to Finn. She shakes flour from her apron on to the crackling logs in the fireplace and holds on to the mantelpiece for a moment.
‘Are you all right, Nana?’
‘Yes, yes, I’m all right. Just a dizzy spell, Anna. They come and go quickly.’
‘Sit down, Nana,’ Finn says and stands up to plump a cushion on the chair opposite him, but she remains standing. In the corner of the room the Russian flag still flutters on the televison in front of the Kremlin’s cameras, but I’ve turned the television down. Nana can hear only if there’s no background noise.
‘So, in the West, did nobody ask where these artworks came from?’ Nana says.
‘No. There was money to be made. On all sides. In 1961 Europe was in disorder after the Wall went up. There was a lot of movement across the line still and we were encouraging people to come over. Of course, that’s when the KGB put many of their people in place in the West. It was the end of free movement and everyone was trying to get their pieces in position.’
Finn looks at the clock on the wall over the mantelpiece. It is half an hour before the New Year. He gently touches the side of my face in a gesture that Nana says later is the one that wards off evil spirits. Nana has all kinds of superstitions like this from God knows where. To me, Finn’s hand on my cheek feels like protection of sorts too, so maybe Nana is right.
‘You want me to continue?’ Finn says, and a line of worry creases his eyes. He says it as if we are going through some door, some magic portal of no return, or over the brink of a precipice. And in a sense we are.
‘Yes, why not? Go on.’
He brushes the hairs on my temple as he takes his hand away and then continues, as before, carefully laying the words down as if they are a ball of string along which we can find our way back.
‘Well, soon, of course, Schmidtke’s theft of art ran out of steam. There wasn’t anything left. Who knows how much money KoKo made? Millions? Certainly. But new ways had to be found to fund the KGB’s increasing presence in Western Europe and elsewhere. They were funding the Communist parties in France and Italy, for a start. But that’s another story. So Schmidtke turned to what was practically the only thing the Soviets had to offer of their own. Arms.’
Finn now spreads out on his back as if the smallest effort of movement might result in the end of the world. To me, trained observer that I am, it is a position of deliberate vulnerability, of ‘I’m taking a big risk.’ It is the psychiatrist’s couch and the ‘patient’ is peeling off one layer of the onion of his hidden self to test the effect it has.
The fact that we all know about the microphones adds a surreal touch, I suppose. We’re all playing, to some extent, to the third ear in
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