Another Kind of Country by Kevin Brophy Read Free Book Online Page A

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    Frau Rosa Rossman was introducing herself, saying how good it was of Miller to see her.
    Miller tried notto stare at the wide face, the deep, sloe-black eyes, the full lips that seemed to grow fuller in speech.
    Miller said it was an honour to be allowed to read the work of her distinguished stepfather.
    Frau Rosa Rossman said that she and General Reder would be most grateful for any advice, any assistance, that would expedite the publication of the general’s book.
    Miller said that naturally he and his colleagues would be pleased to assist in any way they could.
    ‘
But don’t offer any dates
.’ Hartheim had been uncharacteristically direct the day before.
‘Remind her that the publication date is decided by the publishers.’
    The publishers, housed next door in No. 64, would not go for a piss if the Secretariat for Socialist Correctness did not approve of it.
    Miller said none of this to Rosa Rossman as they stood swapping platitudes in the marble-floored entrance hall. Most likely she already knew this. She volleyed his formulaic pleasantries back to him like a pro.
    The general, she was saying now, was most anxious to know if any publication date had been set.
    The two porters, Miller could see, were hardly bothering to conceal their interest in Rosa Rossman’s physical charms.
    ‘Forgive me,’ Miller said. ‘We shouldn’t be standing here like this, we should be in my office.’
    No. 64A had no lift. Miller knew that the eyes of the porters followed Rosa Rossman all the way up to the first landing, where they climbed out of view. He couldn’t blame the porters. In their place he’d be craning his neck too.
    Upstairs, seated inhis office, Miller wasn’t sure how he felt about the grey metal desk which separated him from General Reder’s stepdaughter. It blocked his line of vision to the long legs which were crossed, primly enough, at the ankles; on the other hand, the desk served as a kind of defence barrier against the tangible
womanliness
which emanated from his visitor. Her T-shirt and skirt were the usual nylon material, almost plastic in its hardness, worn by all of East Germany’s proletariat but, on Rosa Rossman, the utilitarian clothing seemed almost haute couture.
    Miller was about to offer Rosa a cup of office coffee when Frau Siedel entered his office, carrying a gold-coloured tray laid with china cups, a small metal pot of coffee and cream and sugar.
    ‘Director Hartheim thought you might like some coffee.’ Frau Siedel’s words and frozen smile were directed at Rosa. ‘He regrets he is not free to welcome you himself but sends his good wishes to you and to General Reder.’
    The door fell shut behind her. Miller would have thought he imagined it but for the unaccustomed tray on his desk.
    ‘Real coffee, I think.’ Rosa Rossman was almost laughing at him. ‘And sugar cubes with a silver tongs.’
    I usually make my own mug of black, bitter powdered stuff
.
    ‘I think,’ he said at last, ‘that our Director knows very well that today we have a very distinguished visitor.’
    ‘Herr Miller, I am a teacher and not a particularly distinguished one at that.’
    ‘I didn’t know you were a teacher.’
    ‘Of English at the university. I wanted to study Spanish but my father said that English is the language of the future,’ the merest hint of a downturn of those full lips, ‘and my father is a hard man to resist. So here I am, teaching English to unsuspecting students at the university.’ She smiled. ‘Where we are not served coffee on a fancy tray.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry—’
    ‘Shall I bemother?’ She said the words in English. He stared at her across the desk.
Shall I be mother?
A lifetime had passed since he had heard that expression: usually in jest, often with irony, over teacups and coffee cups in grotty student cafes and bedsits half heated with coin-operated gas fires.
    ‘I told you, I teach English.’ She shrugged, smiled. ‘The general did a little research