The Reunion

by Geoff Pridmore

  ‘What do you feel, Bruno?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What does my hand feel like?’

  ‘Warm…’

  ‘And…?’

  ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Is it a tight grip?’

  ‘No… it’s a nice grip, like you’re a friend. There’s a boy in our school who is very strong and he grips people until they hurt. He’s really bad.’

  ‘What else does my hand feel like?’

  ‘It’s rough, like Papa’s hand.’

  ‘Good.’ He released Bruno’s hand, took out a pen and scribbled something on the back of a card.

  ‘Is that okay, Herr Doctor?’ asked Heike, anxious.

  ‘Yes, nothing to worry about. His sensory ability appears quite normal, but I do need to carry out some tests with Bruno.’

  ‘Will it hurt, Herr Doctor?’ asked Bruno.

  ‘No, Bruno, we’re not going to hurt you at all. No needles. I just need you to play ball with me, so to speak.’

  ‘I like playing ball – football, tennis, catch. Those sorts of games?’

  ‘Yes, those sorts of games.’

  There was no choice now but to do the march. They were stuck in Leipzig, and what else was there?

  It concerned Roland particularly that Heike was showing signs of something bizarre – something he hadn’t heard for over fifteen years. Heike would turn to look and talk to a chair or some other object as if she were addressing Bruno in person.

  ‘No, Bruno, I’m not going out in that coat. You know I don’t like that coat.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything,’ Roland would reply, astonished as there had been no discussion, no aim of going out at that time or what best to wear. Why would she mistake him for Bruno?

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you, I was talking to Bruno. Bruno?! Do as Herr Doctor tells you. He has your best interests at heart, remember.’

  Roland took hold of her and pulled her tightly into his body, stroking her light brown hair, tears streaming down his cheeks, burying his cheek against the top of her head. ‘That bullet hit you, too, didn’t it?’

  ‘Do you want to know about my nightmare?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, tell me about your nightmare.’

  ‘It’s where I climb a mountain and my legs are really tired because the path winds round and round, but it’s a beautiful mountain and eventually I reach the top and I can see everything and it’s all so truly beautiful.’

  ‘Why is that a nightmare?’

  ‘It’s a nightmare because neither you nor Bruno are with me – I’m alone, completely alone.’

  On Monday evening they marched without Bruno through Leipzig, placing themselves in the middle of the middle of the middle; if there was a middle, which, of course, there wasn’t.

  ‘WE ARE THE PEOPLE!’

  ‘WE ARE THE PEOPLE!’

  ‘WE ARE THE PEOPLE!’

  ‘WE ARE THE PEOPLE!’

  Roland shouted in an effort that Heike might hear, even though she stood right beside him: ‘THIS IS GOING TO CHANGE GERMANY, BUT MOST OF ALL IT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD!’

  It was impossible to hear him – impossible because 70,000 people – so closely packed together that they were stepping on one another’s toes – were shouting as one. ‘THANK GOODNESS BRUNO ISN’T HERE!’ she yelled back to Roland, but he could only nod and smile as the collective shouts of the crowd drowned out every other noise.

  ‘NO VIOLENCE!’

  ‘NO VIOLENCE!’

  ‘NO VIOLENCE!’

  ‘GORBI! GORBI!’

  ‘GORBI! GORBI!’

  ‘GORBI! GORBI!’

  The stillness that eventually came with dawn banished the night into the pages of history. Voices universally hoarse; hearts filled with a collective happiness no one had dared believe possible.

  The normally inert East Germans had at long last marched in unison, roused like all revolutionaries by a gathering passion of naked aspiration to be free from the control of the unelected.

  The Wall was beginning to crumble: cement dust falling at their feet.

  ‘Your boy is free to go. I’m done with him – thank you!’

  ‘Will he be alright, Herr Doctor? In the future?’

  ‘The future is yet to be written, Frau Bermann. Bruno? Your head is fragile. Use it for creative thinking but don’t think you can become a boxer or a football player. Stay away from mad axemen and those maniacs with guns.’

  He pointed Bruno in the direction of a neighbouring room.

  ‘So, you go away and amuse yourself while I give your parents a prescription. Okay?’

  Bruno shook Luft firmly by the hand, stepped back, saluted him, wiped a tear from his eye, turned and marched out – the perfect soldier guard.

  ‘He’s been watching Volkspolizei all his life!’ joked Heike.

  Luft gestured for them to be seated. Taking out a notepad from a desk drawer, he began to scribble a note.

  ‘When you leave here this morning, make your way to the Czech border; I hear that certain opportunities are opening there; and then you can make your way to Hungary and onward to Austria. I’m writing out a route for you to take, and I’ll wish you the very best of luck.’

  ‘And Bruno?’

  ‘If he doesn’t play rough and uses that brain of his for more cerebral pursuits, he’ll improve his cognitive ability, but, as you will already be aware, he’s not the bright child you once knew.’

  ‘Will he improve given time?’

  ‘Of course, I have no doubt. With the twenty-first century just around the corner there will be advances in drugs and treatment. Time is on his side. He’s lost brain tissue that he alone can’t replace, but technology may well provide an answer in the years to come. Our research, as I’m sure you know, is producing results every year, but as yet we can’t grow human tissue. Be patient; don’t shelter him. Let him live his life to the full. There’s nothing to stop him leading a normal life, but if you try to protect him you’ll stifle him and that will rebound on you. Bring him back to see me two years from now. Write to me if you think anything significant is affecting him, but I’m confident in his ability.’

  The map almost obscuring the car’s tiny windscreen, Heike navigated them out of Leipzig while Roland coaxed the little Trabant to go yet another kilometre and another and another. Each kilometre was a miracle in the Trabant: uncomfortable, claustrophobic and frequently unreliable.

  Because of its small petrol tank and no petrol gauge, they had to stop frequently to refuel. When Roland turned off the ignition at a petrol station it would often not restart with a hot engine, so they would get out and with the help of others push it away from the pumps and sit patiently while it cooled down like some exhausted donkey.

  Once cooled, it would tease them. Each time the key was turned the little motor would turn over one – two – three times, giving every expectation of firing into life, but then promptly give up the ghost, leaving the starting motor spinning, whirring and engaging sweet nothing.

  Each time this annoying little habit happened, they’d sit patiently and play a little game: ‘Count, Bruno – come on!’

  ‘We’ll count to thirty then try again, Papa.’

  ‘No! Wait until that other car’s pulled off the forecourt – then try.’

  ‘Give it two minutes next time,’ and so on.

  Always, Roland would jump out, having grabbed his plug spanner from under the seat, and unscrew each charred plug, whereupon he’d wipe any surplus liquid and carbon from the sparking end. He’d learned from his father – who’d learned from a US Army motor pool driver in 1946 – to use a pencil to apply lead to the base and contact end of each plug. The very act of doing so gave the “stubborn donkey” a breather, which helped in a small way and prevented him from going completely mad.
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br />   Once, the Trabant had been Heike’s pride and joy, and it was on this very bonnet that she’d leaned back and posed for a picture that would be posted to Cornwall and her favourite cousin – Hanne.

  She thought of Hanne a lot during the journey, because Hanne had often told her of the long drive to reach Bavaria from their farm in Cornwall. How it would take days and days, and that when they eventually reached Oma’s she and her little brother Marco would be ill for days and days; and that Oma would be sympathetic for five minutes, before losing her patience with them if they remained in bed when there were things to be done.

  Oma never liked the idea of children being spoiled, and allowing too much by way of recovery was spoiling them rotten. What could you expect of the English? They’d never starved!

  The little Morris van was like the Trabant in that it was a people’s car, not a Mercedes, Jaguar or Cadillac but a true car of the proletariat. It was a gutsy little vehicle, simple in form and the way it was engineered, but able to do its job without any fuss or nonsense. Hanne had written to say how she remembered the Morris Minor van with tremendous affection despite the travails of the journey; and how sorry she’d been that Hugo had eventually got his big Mercedes – the car he’d craved for so long.

  In Heike’s opinion, Hanne would have made a good communist. She’d have been happy in the East; Heike was sure of that. The British were almost “communists” – the ordinary people were anyway and some of the politicians definitely were. They weren’t like the Americans because they had a true, natural understanding of socialism brought about by centuries of abuse of power and their invention of the industrial process.

  Britain was the home of the welfare state and nationalised industries like steel, coal and railways. British people were known the world over for their patience and egalitarian nature; they queued for everything. London was where Karl Marx was buried and people visited his grave every day, such was their affection for him and his ideas. Even Ho Chi Minh had lived and worked in London.

  One day, she and Roland and Bruno would visit Britain and they would make Marx’s tomb the focus of their pilgrimage. Then they would go to Cornwall via Stonehenge.

  ‘Where is Cornwall? Where is Stonehenge?’

  Not so much questions from Bruno, more a complaint about his cramped conditions in the back of the car and his mother’s endless chatter.

  ‘Cornwall is on the Atlantic coast and Stonehenge is an ancient ring of stones built by people long before the time of recorded history.’

  ‘Who cares, for God’s sake?!’

  ‘Bruno! I’m trying to keep your spirits up.’

  ‘I’ve got no room here, Mama. All this stuff! Why did we have to bring it all? Why didn’t we stay in Leipzig? I liked it there.’

  No one had envisioned the journey continuing well into the East German hinterland.

  ‘We can swap places if you like? I’ll sit in the back. You can help Papa with the map reading or hold the steering wheel for him when he cleans his spectacles or blows his nose.’

  ‘Should I put the gear lever knob back on the stick when it falls off?’

  ‘Yes, that too.’

  The tasks succeeded in keeping Bruno occupied, for this was a very different young man to the one before the shooting.

  Bruno could become – at times – very moody and withdrawn; it wasn’t just the journey, he’d been this way ever since returning from hospital. Nor was he the quick-witted boy of old. He had trouble remembering the most simple and mundane of subjects.

  For example, he would try to put together a sentence about a person or animal and then become aggravated because he couldn’t remember the species of animal or the person’s name. This would make him particularly frustrated:

  ‘You know, the animal that lives with that man and woman in the house near our street.’

  ‘What animal, Bruno? A cat? A dog?’

  ‘Yes, a cat. The man likes it, but the woman chases it away. But it comes back when she’s not looking.’

  ‘Does the man feed it?’ But Bruno’s mind immediately forgot the subject only to replace it with some other question.

  ‘Will we have to go to the shops when we arrive at the place we’re going to?’

  ‘Yes, we’ll have to eat.’

  Misfiring, the Trabant’s tiny two-stroke engine was in bad need of serious attention. ‘We need to find a garage otherwise we’re going to be walking the rest of the way,’ Roland warned them.

  ‘But we’re nowhere near the border.’

  ‘I can’t help that. Our little donkey doesn’t have four legs – it has two – and it’s limping.’

  By the time they reached the next petrol station, the isolated roadside premises was closed for the evening, and with no sign of accommodation in the neighbourhood they would have to spend the night in the car.

  With nowhere to eat or get a drink it would be a long night. Heike had packed a gas stove and a camping kettle, so with a container of water they were at least able to boil some water for black coffee that they could have with some biscuits they’d picked up in Leipzig. A kind woman from the Lutheran Church hostel had pushed a bag of bread rolls at them just before they left.

  ‘You were going to refuse them!’ said Heike out of the blue. But that conversation had passed 500 kilometres back.

  ‘Who are you talking about?’ asked Roland.

  ‘Doesn’t matter. The woman at the hostel in Leipzig. These rolls made me think… I don’t know!’

  Ironically, this unexpected deprivation of comfort seemed to excite Bruno who now began to view it more as an adventure than a never-ending car journey. ‘Maybe we could walk the rest of the way,’ he said. ‘I could run ahead of you and come back to pick you up with a truck.’

  Again, Heike recalled Hanne telling her about the journey to Oberwinkel in 1963. ‘Uncle Hugo would insist on making progress, so they rarely stopped. They had bread rolls like this and would stop overnight to sleep in the car. Then the next morning they’d be on their way again. Now I know how it was for them all those years ago.’

  ‘The difference being they weren’t trying to escape the country,’ Roland reminded her.

  It was still dark when Heike awoke from a safely-home-in-Berlin dream to see a man’s bearded face peering at them through steamed-up windows. Built like a mountain and every bit as craggy, his appearance startled her so much she almost screamed. Having gained her attention, he tapped on the misty window with the edge of a small steel hexagon nut held deftly between large, oily, nail-bitten fingers. ‘Do you want some fuel?’

  His soft enquiring voice did not match his grizzled appearance.

  ‘Yes please!’ Heike replied, winding down the window to see him clearly.

  Waking, Roland leaned across. ‘We also have a problem with the motor.’

  ‘That’s not surprising. These tiny boxes on wheels were never made for long journeys. Come on, I’ll have a look for you.’

  ‘Thank you! We’re most grateful. We’ve got money.’

  ‘Why don’t you freshen up in there,’ said the man, gesturing to the now open door of the garage. ‘Make yourself a cup of coffee and my wife will be over shortly. She’ll find you something to eat.’

  ‘That’s most kind – thank you!’

  The man peered at the battered registration plate. ‘Berlin? You’ve come a long way! I’m surprised the little car has got this far.’

  ‘We’re having a touring holiday,’ said Roland.

  ‘Please! I understand. I may live and work out here in the sticks, comrade, but I’m not unaware of what’s happening. All of Germany seems to be on the move. There are a lot of people on the road at the moment, some of whom are getting stuck like you because their little boxes won’t make the distance.’

  ‘The motor was misfiring, otherwise it’s been fine.’

  The man o
pened the bonnet and took the fuel cap off to dip the tank with a hinged measure that he kept in the top pocket of his overalls. Wiping the measure with a cloth and inspecting the lack of fluid, he told them: ‘No wonder it’s misfiring; the tank is very low and all the dirt is going into the carburettor. That’s no good now, is it? What say I quickly take the tank off, wash it out and put some fresh in? Won’t take a minute or two and that will give you time to have a drink and a bite to eat.’

  No sooner had he made his invitation than his wife arrived with the cheery promise of putting together a little breakfast for their journey.

  ‘Good morning!’ Frau Humboldt was every bit as friendly as her husband, with a mop of greying hair that was unruly and dry as tinder. He tall and broad, she only as tall as his waist, both past retirement age – at least five years past.

  On seeing Bruno she reached up, cupped her right hand around his head to caress his fine, chestnut brown hair, before gently pulling him towards her for a hug as if he were a long lost grandson. ‘What a handsome young man! You must be so proud of your boy.’

  ‘I’m Bruno.’

  ‘I’m pleased to meet you, Bruno!’

  ‘I was shot in Berlin. Can you see the groove in my forehead?’ He bent forwards and brushed back his fringe to show Frau Humboldt the 2 cm long scar on his left temple.

  ‘And you survived to tell the tale? Not many do.’

  ‘He was very… We were very lucky!’ beamed Heike.

  ‘Then you deserve a special breakfast! I have some eggs.’

  Outside they could hear the tinny engine of their Trabant being revved. ‘That sounds hopeful,’ said Roland.

  ‘My man has always been good with motors and anything mechanical. There was a time when he worked for Mercedes Benz, you know, and Porsche.’

  After a few minutes the sound of revving stopped and all was quiet again. ‘Perhaps I ought to go out and see what the situation is.’ Roland was anxious.

  ‘Finish your breakfast. My man will tell you soon enough.’

  Frau Humboldt had made them a simple breakfast of fried eggs on toast, ‘a little speciality and a ritual,’ she said, something the couple enjoyed every working morning.