The House of One Thousand Eyes

by Michelle Barker

  Was Erich in trouble? If he was, it would happen at night, when he was home in bed—caught unaware. That was what he always said.

  The apartment was silent. Lena glanced at the clock: nine-thirty. She got up, one noiseless movement at a time. She put on the clothes she’d left folded on a chair: a pair of Shanty jeans Danika wouldn’t be caught dead in because they weren’t Western, a polyester shirt, and her sweater. Wait. Wait longer, because even if Auntie was used to Lena moving around at night, Lena was not under any circumstances supposed to leave the apartment after bedtime by herself—though she often did, to walk.

  But she’d promised to go to sleep. Things would be much worse if she was caught lying. Auntie would sit very still and fix Lena with those dark eyes above her reading glasses. “I believe my pig is whistling,” she’d say, which meant whatever story Lena had concocted, it hadn’t worked.

  Lena made herself count to one hundred, then she put on her coat. What was lucky was that her bedroom was the one closer to the front door, so she didn’t have to pass Auntie’s room on the way out. What was less lucky was the noise of the front door lock when she turned it. Lena turned it slowly—once, twice—opened the door, and stepped out into the hallway.

  And there she found something even less lucky than the lock: her neighbor Peter, probably coming home from an amateur radio meeting. Scabby Peter, Danika called him, because he had eczema on his arms. Lena wished she’d thought to take out the kitchen scraps. At least then she’d have a reason for being in the hall. But Auntie would have noticed they were gone. I felt like taking out the kitchen scraps in the middle of the night was just the type of story that would start the pig whistling.

  “You’re sneaking out.” At least Peter had the decency to keep his voice down. “Where are you going?”

  “Nowhere.” Lena thought quickly. “We’ve run out of milk. I’m going to borrow some.”

  “At this hour?” Peter was tall, and walked like he was made of the wrong pieces put together at the last minute to meet a deadline. “We might have some at home. Do you want it?”

  Lena wasn’t sure what to say. If she borrowed the milk, Auntie would ask questions.

  “Peter, are you coming?” a man’s voice called from down the hall. It was his father.

  Lena felt a pang of jealousy. No man except Erich ever used her name anymore. Not even the men in House 1—they called her Fräulein. None of them seemed to know her name, not even Herr Dreck. But the anxious look on Peter’s face doused that feeling. “Are you in trouble?” she whispered.

  He scratched his arm but didn’t answer. With his military father he was liable to be in trouble just for breathing.

  She glanced at her door. “Please don’t tell your parents you’ve seen me.”

  “I won’t.”

  Peter hurried down the hall, his shoulders hunching as he got closer to home. Military Papa with all his medals and the thrown-together son: in a flash Lena knew their suppers were silent, and they did not sit together afterward on the couch discussing man things like football or mathematics, and even though Peter had feet as big as his father’s he would never fit into those tight black boots.

  Lena tiptoed down the hall into the stairwell and then into the darkness, where the nighttime gathered and settled her. All the hectic daytime sounds were gone, as if darkness were a hood pulled over the world. For a long time, she listened to the sounds inside her body—river of air through her lungs, river of blood pulsing from top to bottom and back again.

  Was that how she ended up back in Prenzlauer Berg? By not paying attention? Sometimes feet did that—her feet, anyway. Led her onto trains that took her places before she’d fully thought out the consequences and then, surprise, there was Erich’s window and the lights were off. Obviously, because he was still out with his friends; it wasn’t even ten-thirty yet.

  Lena stood with her back flattened against the building across the street, one hand tracing a shell hole. She looked up. The lights were off, but the curtains were open. The lights were off, but when Lena looked hard, and harder, she could see a shadow moving around inside. And then on the street someone coughed, and she nearly jumped out of her shoes.

  That was when she realized the dark street, which had seemed empty and sleeping, was neither. The cough came from a man standing in the doorway of Erich’s building. There was a flower-shop van parked in front and a man sitting at the wheel as if he planned to make an urgent delivery of roses. Eyes. Everywhere, eyes. Lena made herself small, pressing as hard as she could into the wall and wishing she’d thought to hide herself better.

  In Erich’s apartment, a window opened, and a man made a signal, but the man was not Erich. He had a bushy beard, and he had the wrong hair to be one of Erich’s friends. The flower- delivery man started the van and drove away.

  Another van pulled up, and more men entered the building—where had they gotten the key? The front door was locked every night at ten p.m. Now they were coming out with Erich’s things: his typewriter, his books, a suitcase, what was happening, where was Erich, what would he think when he came home and all his important things were missing?

  Another suitcase, and then came the notebooks. The men must have found them at Steffi’s apartment. Was she in trouble too? Lena wanted to run out and stop them, but she couldn’t do that. You didn’t get in the way of men like this or you ended up in the blank space on the map. Erich said the blank space was really the Stasi prison, and that terrible things happened there, but how could it be? Weren’t spaces left blank on city maps because nothing was there?

  What had he done?

  All his notebooks. The Stasi men would sit with their cigars and beer steins, and read the notebooks out loud to one another, and laugh. What if they didn’t give them back? The men gathered in the doorway of Erich’s building, three of them, speaking in voices too low for Lena to overhear. Two got into the van and drove away. One got into a Lada, and didn’t. He rolled down the window, lit a cigarette, took out a newspaper, and sat there.

  Find Erich and warn him about what’s waiting for him when he comes home. That was the most important thing. He must be at the pub. Lena edged away from the man in the Lada. He wouldn’t notice her anyway, she was just a girl. No one ever noticed her, which sometimes made her sad, but there were advantages. Except Auntie. Auntie had eyes all over her head when it came to Lena.

  The pub was on another street a few blocks away. A dark, run-down place that smelled of beer, tobacco, and underarms, it stayed open until the last people left, which was often Erich and his friends. Lena braced herself before opening the door. There was the barman with his fat face and pinched pretend-smile.

  “We don’t serve warm milk here, Fräulein,” he said. A glance at some of the patrons sitting on tall wooden stools, yes, that was very clever, there were the deep man-chuckles designed to shrink Lena down to mouse-size.

  “I’m Erich Altmann’s niece.” Erich had introduced her once, but Lena knew the barman wouldn’t remember her, on purpose. “Is he here?”

  “Haven’t seen him.” The barman wiped a glass with a grimy towel and Lena was grateful she wouldn’t be drinking out of it. He pointed into a dark corner. “His friends are back there, if you’d like to go keep an eye on them.”

  Don’t let him bother you, Mausi, but her body didn’t listen. Heat rushed to Lena’s face as she moved toward the back of the pub, and the chuckles receded. There was dark brown wainscoting halfway up the walls, and plastic flowers on each table, and candles that Erich said were for atmosphere. Four of his friends were gathered around a dimly lit table, a haze of bluish smoke above their heads. Assis, Auntie would have called them, anti-socials, the sort who drank in the workplace and brought down morale.

  Lena had to stand beside the table for a whole minute listening to them argue about a line of poetry before they spoke to her.

  “Do you want something, little g
irl?” one said. He had layabout hair, like Erich.

  One of his friends punched him in the arm. “That’s Erich’s niece. The one who works at . . .”

  Lena gazed at her shoes. She hated that this was the first thing anyone said about her, the only thing they associated her with. Not Lena who loved to swim when the pool wasn’t closed for repairs, or Lena who was learning photography. Instead, it was Lena who couldn’t be trusted.

  “I’m looking for my uncle.” She searched each face, and each one closed like a box, first the forehead, then the cheeks, then the chin. “Please. It’s important.” How much could she say? Yes, these were Erich’s friends, but she didn’t know them, and she wasn’t sure how well Erich knew them either. People could surprise you with their secrets—the ones they kept, and the ones they didn’t.

  One of them gave a head shake that Lena wasn’t supposed to have noticed. “He’s not here.”

  Lena could see that for herself. “Do you know where he is?”

  “How about at home. Sleeping.” That one had a thin face, like a sparrow.

  They don’t know. They couldn’t know what was happening at Erich’s apartment if they thought he was home asleep—if that was what they actually thought. The head shake had meant Don’t tell her anything. When it came to opinions, there were personal ones, and public ones. Only a fool would say how they really felt about something to strangers.

  “I’ve been to the apartment. He’s not there. Could there be somewhere else?” The faces around her were blank. “Please.”

  They turned back to their conversation as if she had disappeared. All she could do was leave the pub, but at least she could do it without looking at the barman.

  For a while she walked. Walking was the best way to figure out what to do next. She ended up back at Erich’s apartment, where the man was still in his car reading his newspaper as if this were the most normal thing to do in the middle of the night. If Lena had done that, Auntie would have called the doctors. The window of Erich’s apartment was still dark. The man who’d made the signal had left it open, and one of the curtains blew in and out, waving goodbye.

  She wanted to wait a while longer, but her feet had already decided: Go home, Erich is not coming back tonight. She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she did. Besides, if she didn’t leave soon, she’d miss the last trains home. She would return tomorrow, as soon as she could get away. Erich couldn’t hide forever; he’d have to go home eventually. His bed was there, and his favorite plate with the schnauzer on it, and his mountain posters because Erich loved to ramble.

  That was it. Maybe he’d gone on a ramble and hadn’t told anyone.

  She decided to believe in that story as she took the trains home. She believed in it while she walked along the wide street, past the cardboard mushrooms that Erich said would melt if it rained hard enough. She believed in it as she reached Auntie’s building and took the stairs up to the fourth floor. Slowly, slowly, she turned the noisy lock once, twice, and let herself in, creeping to her bedroom.

  The night had worn down her wide-awake edges and she barely had the energy to put on her nightdress before falling fast asleep, forgetting that Monday was meat day and there was going to be a line-up, and she was supposed to be in it. Before she knew it, there was Auntie, standing at the door saying, “I suppose you’ve already been to the butcher’s then.”

  “Yes, Auntie.” Lena’s head felt full of wool.

  “And the meat? Did they have pork loin? Is it in the fridge?”

  Wake up. Where is the meat? “They ran out.”

  “What’s that sound?”

  Lena screwed up her face, trying to listen. “Is it the baby next door?” If there was a sound, it was almost always the baby next door.

  “No,” Auntie said. “It’s a pig. And it’s whistling.”

  — 3 —

  a headache called lena

  Auntie wasn’t happy about the lack of meat, and her not being happy was like the brown coal dust that had hung in the air in Magdeburg. It covered everything. Get out of bed was Why didn’t you get the pork loin? Make sure you tidy up while I’m at work was You were supposed to get the pork loin. Get to your photography class on time this afternoon was Every other girl who gets sent to line up for pork loin comes home with pork loin.

  Let Auntie be angry. It meant she had no idea where Lena had been last night.

  Anyway, Lena was choking on her own coal dust. Warn Erich. Warn Erich. What if he came home while the man in the Lada was watching? What if he went upstairs and saw they’d taken everything he cared about? The typewriter, those suitcases—Lena didn’t even know what had been in them. And wait till Steffi told him what had happened to the notebooks.

  If he came home, they would arrest him. Erich and his friends had said terrible things about the interrogations. “Hohenschönhausen,” they would whisper—that was the name of the prison. The blank space on the map. The secret police would lead you into a little office and make you sit on a milking stool. One man would yell, and the next would give you coffee and a cigarette and make you think it would all be okay. Meanwhile you hadn’t slept in days. Meanwhile you were sweating onto fabric that would be stored in a jar with your name on it, so the dogs could find you if you ran.

  “Is there something the matter with the porridge?”

  Auntie’s question startled Lena. “No, I just forgot about it.” She picked up her spoon and forced down a mouthful.

  “She forgets her breakfast. I don’t know. I really don’t.”

  Straighten up. Normal people didn’t forget their breakfast when it was sitting right in front of them. You don’t want Auntie to put that in her progress report. Anyway, Auntie would leave for work soon, and Lena would have the whole day to herself until she had to go to headquarters that evening. There would be plenty of time to find her uncle and warn him.

  “I’ve arranged for the work brigade in the courtyard today,” Auntie said as she peeled an egg. “Peter will be there, and that loafer Hans, and Danika. They’ll be expecting you.”

  Monday was the best day for a work brigade. Peter didn’t start work at the automobile factory until late on Mondays, and Danika, through some quirk of her employer, had Mondays off. No one really knew what Hans did; he was always available.

  So much for having the whole day to herself. Lena’s head was getting that stuffed noisy feeling that came from sleeping at the wrong time—and nowhere near long enough. Erich was stuffed in there too, and Sausage Auntie. If only her parents—

  “Can you make solyanka for supper?” Lena asked. A bowl of sweet-and-sour soup was almost as good as a blanket.

  Auntie gave her one of those looks that stopped the clock from ticking. “Oh, I see. My sister-in-law’s dish. This is what comes of visiting your uncle. Do I look like I’m made of meat?”

  “Yes.” The word was out before Lena realized she’d said it.

  Auntie stood up in a clatter, her face blooming red, hands clenched as if she could unzip her body and step right out of it.

  “Sorry, Auntie. I didn’t mean it.”

  Sausage hands rested on sausage hips. “I’ll give you solyanka in the eye if you’re not careful.” Auntie didn’t like it when Lena mentioned her parents because it meant Lena wasn’t happy, which meant she wasn’t grateful for everything Auntie had done for her.

  Lena rose and washed her dishes in the sink, while Auntie finished getting ready for work. “They’ll be starting downstairs soon, so you’d best get your work clothes on,” she said.

  Lena was washing her face when Auntie called her into the sitting room. She wore her navy-blue no-nonsense teaching dress, which was buttoned and belted and stiff. It was the same dress that was in the photograph on the sitting room wall from the day Auntie had become a Party member. In the photograph she stood starched into place with an armful of red carnations and her Party membership
book, looking proud and serious and ready to talk about the glorious mining industry or her achievements in the collection of wastepaper.

  She pushed her glasses down her nose to study Lena over top of them. When she bent forward like that it showed all her wrinkles and made her look dangerous, like she might ram Lena with her head if Lena said the wrong thing. Wouldn’t she be happier with that ring off? It cut so deeply into her finger.

  “It’s not just your smart mouth, you know.” Auntie patted the sofa, which meant there would be confidences and important lessons, and Lena must sit next to her and listen hard. “Your parents’ accident happened three years ago. It’s time to move on.” She put an arm around Lena’s shoulders and squeezed. “You can’t spend your life asking for extra sausage because you’re an orphan.”

  “No, Auntie, I wouldn’t dream of it.” There’s never extra. You eat it all.

  “You know how important it is to show improvement, don’t you?”

  Lena knew. She’d been released from the hospital only because Auntie had promised to give the doctors periodic reports on Lena’s progress from one hundred pieces back to one.

  “Well, then. Let’s overcome our inner pig-dog and start fresh.” Auntie leaned forward and squeezed the bridge of her nose, which meant a headache was coming on—a headache called pork loin, or solyanka, or why not make it easy, Mausi; it was a headache called Lena.

  Auntie stood up, gave Lena a military kiss on the cheek, and told her to be good, and not shirk her duty in the courtyard, and not forget the tidying up. I will, Auntie. I won’t, Auntie. I will. I mean, I won’t. And then Auntie left for work.

  Lena picked up the telephone, then put it down again. If only she could call Erich and warn him. It was fun to have a telephone, but it would have been even more fun if other people she knew had one as well. Telephones only came to those who waited. Erich didn’t have one.