Walls

by L. M. Elliott

  She wanted to go to Midnight Mass. Cousin Marta’s mouth dropped open in astonishment.

  “Of course!” Drew’s mom popped to her feet. “We can take you to Mass, can’t we?” She motioned for everyone to get up, to hurry before the spell broke. “Grab your coats.”

  Linda shook her head. “Mom, I can’t go. I can’t leave Heidi the first night she’s mine.”

  Matthias shook his head as well. “I cannot go. The FDJ says church is superstition. A weapon of the ruling class to dull the minds of workers.”

  Everyone froze. The magic hanging in the air grew as fragile as spun glass.

  Aunt Hilde walked to Matthias and gently pinched his cheek. He stared at her, stunned.

  Then she took Linda’s hand, patting it as she asked, “Wirst du dich bei Matthias sicher fühlen?”

  Linda nodded. “I will feel safe with Matthias here.”

  “Das ist gut.” Nodding, indicating things were all settled, she took Cousin Marta’s hand. “Komm.”

  Spellbound as he was by it all, grateful as he was to Matthias for bringing Linda that dog, Drew still couldn’t forget the fact that Matthias had snooped in his bedroom. If his cousin thought like Bob, that any contact was a chance to dig up intel—and who was to say Matthias didn’t, given his Jugendweihe pledge—what might that kid be tempted to do? What might he dig up, left alone except for Linda in an American sergeant’s apartment?

  “Mom.” Drew tugged on her sleeve. “What if—”

  Slipping her arm through his, she stopped him. “I know what you are about to say,” she whispered. “Have a little faith, honey. ’Tis the season.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  JANUARY

  1961

  “Careful, son, don’t go against the hair growth. Not until you’re more practiced at this.” Drew’s dad was coaching him through his first real shave before Matthias arrived for a sleepover.

  Drew dunked his new razor in the sink full of water to rinse it. He’d dealt with a peach-fuzz moustache and a little scruff along his jaw since summer, but the past month had wrought a full-on invasion. Like his face had made some sort of New Year’s resolution, a whole lawn of red bristles was growing on his cheeks atop his splotch of freckles. Bob had announced in the cafeteria that Drew could pass for a leprechaun if he let it grow until St. Patrick’s Day. He might as well have called Drew a freak.

  Then, trying to be all friendly, Bob had elbowed Drew and joked that he could use his wild red beard as great cover someday, shaving after going on a spy mission to avoid being identified. Of course, he’d followed that by asking whether Drew had learned anything worthwhile over Christmas from his “commie cousin.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” Bob had shot back when Drew said he hadn’t.

  Drew had just walked away, not wanting to admit that the idea of gathering intel on Matthias was making him feel like a total creep since Matthias had brought Linda that dachshund on Christmas Eve.

  Sighing, Drew began on the other side of his face.

  “That’s it. Slow and short.”

  “Dad”—Drew rinsed again—“did you ever think of joining intelligence?”

  His dad laughed. “Is that your way of saying I’m stupid?”

  “No, I meant . . .” Drew hesitated, thrown off a bit by his dad’s joke. “Did you ever think of being CIA or an intelligence analyst?”

  “No, never did,” said his dad. “I prefer a unit command—straightforward job. Hold the wall for democracy. Really important, though, our intelligence officers. They’re the ones who assess threat levels and let us know what we’re walking into during combat.”

  “What about counterintelligence?”

  “Don’t have the patience or the poker face for that. CI requires slow-boil coaxing and watching, piecing together little clues until you see the big picture. But those guys are vital, too. They watch for signs of foreign sabotage, enemy infiltration of our ranks, and attempts to recruit and turn Americans. And they devise ways to push back.”

  Leaning against the tiled wall, Drew’s dad crossed his arms. “Truth is, son, the Russians are constantly trying to plant spies among us. Here in Berlin, they exploit East German refugees to do it. Your mom was telling me about two East Berlin mathematicians processed through Marienfelde a year ago. After clearing them, we sent them both to Cape Canaveral—they were that good at calculating equations for space launches. But just this week, the FBI was tipped off that those guys have been sending info about our astronauts back to the Russians!”

  “Seriously?” Drew gasped a little. NASA was sacred! “Why would the Germans do that after we helped them escape?”

  “Blackmail. You know how hell-bent the Russians are on beating us into space—they wanted inside info. So the KGB had the GDR threaten family members that the two mathematicians left behind in the East.”

  Drew thought fleetingly of Cousin Marta talking about the doctor’s sister who’d been imprisoned after he fled to the West, accused of helping her brother escape. Had that been a ploy to get the doctor to spy as well?

  “Hell, the Russians and their Stasi flunkies are really good at that kind of insidious stuff,” his dad continued, “putting the squeeze on innocent people to manipulate others. They also spread conspiracy theories, smear American leaders to undermine our elections, and generally gin up arguments among us—anything to fuel division. A house divided against itself and all. Things like that also deflect attention from what jerks like Khrushchev might be doing.” He cocked his head. “Why all the questions?”

  Shrugging, Drew stayed casual. “Just wondering. That’s what Bob’s dad does, right?”

  “He works in the Berlin Brigade’s intelligence office, but I couldn’t divulge whether that involves any espionage, son, even if I knew. But I will say Jones definitely has a BTO streak in him. Not sure that’s what intelligence really needs.”

  Big-time operator. The closest Drew’s dad ever got to calling someone a blowhard.

  “Well, you’re not a bragger, Dad. So you’d be good at intel gathering.”

  His dad laughed. “I’m proud to be protecting Germans who want democracy. And frankly, part of that job is providing cover for intelligence guys so they can keep an eye on the Russians’ ulterior motives in Europe. That’s why the Soviets are always trying to pressure us out. The free sector of Berlin is the proverbial thorn in their greedy guts.”

  “Bob was saying I should keep my eyes open whenever I’m over in the East visiting Matthias.” Drew stopped short of sharing how anxious Bob was for information to pass along to his dad.

  Drew’s dad reached over and turned on the hot water faucet. “You want to keep that warm, son.” As the water ran and steam rose, he added, “Yeah, it’s important to know our enemy, so to speak, even just details of daily life over there. But that’s the job of grown-ups, son. Not for high school kids to worry over.” He nodded toward the razor. “Keep going.”

  His answer made Drew smile in relief. And nick the heck out of his chin.

  When Matthias arrived, Drew answered the door with three small squares of toilet paper stuck to his chin. His stupid shaving cuts were still bleeding.

  Matthias deadpanned, “Taking it on the chin? Is that the saying?”

  It took a beat for Drew to catch that Matthias was joking again. “Nah. Keeping my chin up.” He motioned with his thumb.

  They laughed.

  “A strange language, English,” Matthias said.

  “Say whaaat? German is the strange one. Your words are so long! Like . . . like Freund-sch-schafts-bejesus. However you say it.”

  “Freundschaftsbezeugung,” Matthias corrected him. “But they are specific. Clear in meaning and . . . poetic. Freundschaftsbezeugung means demonstrations of friendship. Friendship takes more than words. Action. Yes? Mere words can be . . . empty. Meant to . . . mmm . . . zwingen?”r />
  “Coerce.” Drew provided the English word, feeling a flicker of discomfort. He wondered what the German word would be for I don’t trust you, but my mom wants me to encourage you to defect by becoming your friend, and the guy across the hall wants me to spy on you as an enemy.

  Matthias kept talking, much more open than usual— enthusiastic, even. About words, of all things!

  “An English word can mean so many different things.” Matthias paused, thinking. “Like current—a water tide or a trend. Or bark—for a dog or a tree. Or . . . or . . . play—a drama like Brecht’s or a game. Worse—when two different words sound the same. Descent—going down—and dissent— to disagree. It is most confusing. In conversation, how am I to know which you mean?”

  “Okay, hold on.” Drew held up his hand. “I just heard a whopper from my German teacher. Your way of saying, ‘Let’s put an end to this.’ Klappe zu Affe tot. He said its literal meaning is—”

  Matthias finished for him: “Close the lid, the monkey is dead.”

  “Right! What the heck?”

  The boys laughed again.

  “Your English is much better these days,” Drew complimented his cousin.

  “Your German, as well.”

  Drew nodded. “My German teacher’s great. He’s helped my comprehension a lot. He’s really nice, too. He’s going to coach our soccer team, actually. Baseball’s my thing, but he needs some bench players as backup. It’s a different season, so I can do it. I’ve been trying to dribble a little with the ball you gave me, but I don’t think I’m doing it right. Can you show me?”

  Matthias smiled, pleased. “Yes! I will school you.”

  As Drew trotted to his room to retrieve the ball, it occurred to him that Matthias might know the other American meaning to that phrase—to show him up—and be joking with him again. He chuckled.

  In the living room, Matthias demonstrated. “Most important—control the ball.” He dropped the ball to the floor and immediately trapped it under his foot before it rolled an inch. Then he pulled it backward up onto his toes and flicked it into the air, bouncing it off his head to land with precision on his knee, where he popped it up to chest height, then off the other knee. “This is the beginning. You learn possession. Touch. Then to dribble, to pass, to match your teammates’ stride. But first, you must be able to handle the ball.”

  Matthias let the ball fall back to his upheld foot, where he balanced it, cradled atop his shoelaces. After a few seconds, he tossed it up again, circled his leg around it as it sank back to earth, caught it atop his other foot, and repeated the juggle. In a final flourish, he trapped the ball between his calves and then hop-flipped it over his back and head to catch it in his hands.

  Whoa. Drew applauded.

  Linda, too. “You’re just like Uwe Seeler!” She’d come out of her room to watch, Heidi at her heels.

  Turning, Matthias and Drew stared at her. “You are a Hamburg fan?” Matthias asked with surprise.

  “I read the newspapers.” She tilted her chin up, a bit defiant. “Hamburg just won the German championships, didn’t they?”

  “Of West Germany, yes.”

  “And Seeler scored thirteen goals during the championship series, the paper said.”

  “Yes.” Matthias nodded, a smile growing on his face.

  “Isn’t that a lot?”

  Matthias laughed. “Yes!”

  Linda smiled back shyly. “Do you really think you can teach Drew to play like that?”

  Again, Matthias laughed. “Let’s see.” He bounced the ball to Drew. “You try, now. Pull it back with your foot. Pop it up and catch in your hands to begin.”

  Drew pulled back and kicked. The ball hit him in the face.

  He tried again, more gently this time. The ball puttered off under the sofa, sending Heidi yapping into a corner.

  He tried more force, and the ball flew, bouncing off the keys of his mother’s piano—pling, plang, thud-thud-thud-thud.

  “Hey!” Drew’s father appeared from the kitchen. “You two will get me in deep doo-doo with the missus if you hurt that piano! Go outside with that ball. You’ve got an hour before the sun goes down. Vamoose!”

  Linda started to follow.

  “Not you, cutie. I need your help, please, pulling together what Mom set up for me to cook tonight.”

  With a heavy sigh, Linda hung her coat back up.

  Outside, Drew was hopping along, cursing, trying to walk off the pain of a throbbing toe, while Matthias shouted, “I said use the inside of the foot. Not the tip of your toe!”

  The cousins had been passing the ball on the grassy medians of the apartment parking lot, moving farther apart each time Drew managed to boot the ball back to Matthias. Drew was now well out of Matthias’s hearing unless he shouted.

  That’s when Bob showed up. He made a beeline for Drew. “So, whatcha got?”

  Drew couldn’t be sure, but he thought he caught the same sweet scent of booze in the cloudy vapor of Bob’s words that he’d smelled at the Sadie Hawkins dance. “Matthias is teaching me some soccer skills,” he answered.

  “I mean, whatcha got for me from this guy?” Bob stepped in close.

  “Leave off, okay?”

  Bob frowned. “Who’s gonna make me, Mac? You?”

  Back to being called Mac.

  They glared at each other.

  “Here’s the deal, Mac. If I don’t feel like you’re serious about looking for intel to report to me, I might need to tell my dad that I’m worried your dad is letting things slip to your buddy over there.” He nodded toward Matthias. “And who knows who that card-carrying commie cousin of yours talks to . . .”

  Drew felt the blood drain from his face. That kind of rumor could ruin his dad’s career. Bob was as bad as the frickin’ Stasi! “Are you trying to blackmail me, you KGB knockoff, you son of a—” Drew’s hand curled into a fist.

  Bob stepped up to loom over Drew, toe-to-toe. “You calling me—me!—some kind of commie fink?” He drew back his hand, balled, ready to strike.

  But before he could land a blow, the soccer ball came hurtling toward them and glanced off Bob’s shoulder hard, knocking him back a step.

  “Entschuldigung! Sorry!” Matthias called, waving. He jogged toward them. “You trying for soccer, too? Need schooling?”

  Instantly, Bob planted his feet, ready for a brawl.

  Bob was almost a head taller than Matthias and probably had twenty-five pounds on him. Drew had seen how quickly Matthias moved, how wiry he was. But he’d be no match for Bob if it came to blows. Drew started to wave Matthias off, but then he saw that a hand-to-hand fight was not Matthias’s plan.

  With an almost imperceptible flick, Matthias lofted the soccer ball over Bob’s head. He skittered around Bob in time to pop the ball off his own forehead and over Bob again, then ran round to face Bob, stopping the ball with his chest and dropping it back to his foot. He grinned, his eyebrow shooting up in challenge. “Play?”

  “You’re on,” Bob growled.

  Matthias pushed the ball to the left, leaning like he was about to sprint in that direction, then struck it to the right with the outside of his right foot, darting around Bob again.

  Bob swiveled and kicked out, hoping to steal the ball, but Matthias faked left, right, booted the ball between Bob’s legs and ran to catch up to it, dribbling away.

  Furious, Bob pursued him. Matthias slowed, waiting. As Bob thundered up behind him, Matthias suddenly stopped the ball so Bob overshot it. Again, he seemed to wait for Bob to steady himself. Then Matthias knocked the ball backward with his heel, waltzed it around and around in two balletic turns, lightly switching feet, flipped the ball into the air, and kneed it over Bob’s head again, darting past him to dribble it away.

  Bob head spun round trying to follow. He twisted and lurched, and then he fell—right on hi
s butt.

  “Damn it!” he bellowed.

  Matthias trotted back, pulled Bob to his feet, and brushed him off, apologizing. “Entschuldigung, Genosse. Nicht dein Sport, denke ich.”

  Sorry, comrade. Not your sport, I guess.

  Comrade. Drew had to bite his lip to keep from guffawing.

  Before Bob could gather his wits, Matthias walked away toward the apartment building. Drew quickly joined him. Throwing his arm over his German cousin’s shoulder, Drew said, “That—that ‘play’ was a high drama of Freundschaftsbezeugung. Thank you.”

  “We have bullies in the East, too,” Matthias answered. “I have learned that to confuse them is best.”

  “That was some pot roast your mom set up for us.” Drew’s dad patted his stomach and pushed back slightly from the table, tipping his chair backward to stretch.

  After a moment, Matthias did the same, awkwardly balancing his chair on its back legs.

  Linda imitated Matthias.

  “Wonder how the ladies are enjoying the performance,” Drew’s dad mused. Joyce and Drew’s mom were with Cousin Marta and Aunt Hilde at a Berlin Philharmonic concert—part of the reason Matthias was there for the night, and all part of an Emily McMahon grand plan for family bonding. Drew had seen right through her.

  “Mrs. McMahon is very excited to meet the conductor,” his dad continued, talking to Matthias. “I mean, very. I don’t know anything about classical music, but she must have all the recordings Herbert von Karajan has made with the orchestra.” He gestured to the big record player console under the window. “It was very kind of your grandmother to offer to introduce them. How does she know him?”

  “I am not sure. From before the war.” Matthias looked uncomfortable. “She does not talk much.”

  Drew’s dad smiled. “Still waters run deep.”

  Matthias frowned, not understanding.

  “A woman of few words,” Drew’s dad explained. “She sure spoke volumes through the piano at Christmas, though.”