A metal filing cabinet had been left open, probably by accident, behind the desk in another agent’s office. He would have been in huge trouble if there’d been a security check that night. Lena didn’t notice the dividers, which were labeled with street names. She didn’t think of Erich’s street, or the ones that intersected it. She didn’t look, really. You didn’t see anything. You don’t say anything.
At the end of her shift she and Jutta went through the portal together and entered the schrullig world. If they’d been in a story, they would have held hands as they crossed the threshold, but this wasn’t a story—even if Lena had wanted to pretend it was for Erich. She and Jutta walked inside single file, businesslike, and went their separate ways.
Lena wandered over to the place where they made magic keys. A locksmith was always working, grinding keys that would grant a person entry into any place they wanted, even Erich’s apartment. Mausi! These are keys for magical places, not people’s homes. Then how did the men in suits get in? They knocked—the way they did. Not a polite knock. A bang bang bang designed to bring down the door if necessary. Lena had heard it once, down the hall in her building.
“Do you still have a set of my keys?” Erich had asked. He’d given them to her long ago, after she’d come to visit once and he had been delayed coming home, and she’d had to wait on the stairs for an hour. He had held her, and said he was sorry, and had the keys made for her by a locksmith like these ones. “From now on, if I’m not home, you let yourself in and take a Vita Cola and find something to read while you wait for me,” he’d said.
The grinding of the schrullig locksmiths set Lena’s teeth on edge. She moved along: orange space helmets, shiny shoes, crescent-moon bananas, as many as you wanted—but not in the regular world of the Better Germany. When Lena had lived in Magdeburg, they’d lined up twice a year and gotten one banana per person per household, then sliced them into tiny round full-moons and made them last just long enough that the moons didn’t turn brown.
What was the schrullig world even doing here, hidden away in House 18? If you’re going to have subversive thoughts, you might as well go home.
She was on her way out of the compound when it began to pour—a hard, cold autumn rain that would turn the not-yet-beautified courtyard into a swamp. She hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella, but she remembered there was one in the ashtray room, folded in the corner behind a chair, dusty and forgotten.
Lena ran back to House 24 and burst into the ashtray room, rainwater dripping off her hair and coat, her shoes squeaking across the floor. The small room was empty and smelled of stale smoke. Jutta’s favorite copy of Sibylle sat on the table, still open to the women in their winter coats.
Why did Jutta like this magazine so much? Everyone was always saying Lena was the simple one, but from what she saw every person had a weakness—an inner pig-dog to overcome, as Auntie would have said.
Lena flipped backward through the magazine until she reached the cover. She decided she would play a trick on Jutta. She’d put another magazine on the table in place of this one and see what happened. Where’s my Sibylle? she imagined Jutta barking in her cigarette voice. Where are my women in winter coats telling each other the best secrets ever?
When Lena picked up the magazine, she almost missed it—the bump. She wouldn’t have noticed anything if her fingers hadn’t grazed over it. She stared at the table for a long time. The bump was tucked beneath the vinyl covering that had been glued to the table. An easy way to wipe it down, Jutta had said, although no one ever bothered. The stains on that vinyl had been there for the entire two years Lena had worked at Stasi headquarters. But why a bump? Why beneath? It was almost not there. Almost, but not quite.
Lena bent down and crawled under the table. She didn’t want to see what she was looking for. Then why are you on your knees? Don’t look. Just go home. She looked. There it was: a bird’s nest of wiring, rows of batteries. She stared, and looked away. And looked back again.
Black is white. But batteries were batteries, and wiring was wiring. And the bump beneath the vinyl was a listening device.
And Jutta had known.
She couldn’t have known. She just likes Sibylle. She loves Sibylle. She loves it so much that she reads the same magazine every single day.
No, Mausi. She was told not to move the magazine. Because if she moved the magazine, Lena might get the same idea, might pick it up to get a new one, might notice the bump. If Jutta never moved the magazine, Lena would understand that the magazine was not to be moved. Jutta was the older one, a staff sergeant, the one in charge of the two of them, and if she wanted Sibylle to stay on the table, then Sibylle would stay on the table.
Lena crawled out and stood holding on to the back of a chair. Her legs felt as if they were made of cardboard. She picked up the copy of Sibylle and placed it carefully where it had been, opening it to the women in their winter coats. What was the best secret ever? They’re listening. They’re listening to you.
She walked backward out of the ashtray room, as if turning her back on the device would put her in even more danger. Then she went out into the rain, having completely forgotten about the umbrella until she was halfway home and too soaked to care.
“Look what the cat dragged in,” Sausage Auntie said when she arrived. “You’re late. Your egg is cold.”
“I’m sorry,” Lena mumbled, and sat down. Next to her egg was a piece of paper. Lena recognized the handwriting. It was the last of the letters she’d written to Erich Honecker, the one she’d been thinking of sending.
Auntie didn’t sit down. “Would you like to tell me about that?”
“No.” Lena banged the top of the egg on the table and peeled away the shell, wishing yet again for Peter’s or Danika’s fingernails.
“There’s nothing wrong with writing to our General Secretary, you understand. He wants to hear from his people. And writing to him about the swimming pool is laudable. Do you know what laudable means?”
Lena knew, but she said no, because she also knew Auntie cherished every opportunity to teach her something. If she was going to be a new girl, she had better be teachable.
“It means it’s a fine idea. But we’re going to cut the bottom of the letter off. It’s unsuitable. It makes you sound unstable.”
Lena chewed on a mouthful of egg. She had to swallow hard to make it go down.
Auntie sat next to her. “You know, Lena, I saw your school records in Magdeburg.”
Uh-oh. She’s using your name. Will she take off her reading glasses? If she takes them off, you’d better stop eating that egg.
She took off her reading glasses. Lena folded her hands in her lap and braced herself.
“You were a good student. The doctors did everything they could to help you after your parents’ accident.”
Lena remembered school, the notebooks filled with her careful handwriting, the common sense of numbers and equations. In the early grades, whenever she’d done good work, the teachers would stamp a buzzing bee on her assignments. Never a wasp. She used to be so proud to show those bees to her parents.
She hadn’t liked the doctors at the mental hospital, though.
“They’re not trying to help you,” Uncle Erich used to whisper when he came to visit. Lena didn’t think so either. She had wanted to remember her parents. They were trying to make her forget.
“If you ever want to get out of here,” Erich had said, “you’d better submit. Tell them what they want to hear.”
It had meant shutting a part of herself down, putting it to sleep. And that part had slept so well it had forgotten to wake up—until last week.
“It was Uncle Erich who helped me,” Lena said now. “Not the doctors.”
“Is that so?” Auntie puffed up like an angry goose. “Let me tell you something about that layabout brother of mine.”
Lena clenched her fists. “
So now I have an uncle?”
Auntie glared at her and turned the radio on loud. It was a song by October Club called “Tell Me Your Standpoint.” Lena hated it, and so did the baby next door. He would start to howl in three, two, one, go.
“Do you understand how you got the job at headquarters?” Auntie asked. “Not because of Erich, I’ll tell you that much. Because of me. And Helmut’s Party connections, which I have taken great care to maintain.”
Look up. Look left.
“Otherwise you might have ended up in a textile factory, or they would have kept you in the hospital. I got you out. Me. I’m the only one who can get anything done around here. You don’t apply for a job at headquarters, you understand? They come to you. Well, they came to me.”
“Because of Helmut,” Lena said.
“That’s right. I had to show them your school records, hospital records. I assured them you wouldn’t be a nuisance. And then”—smack went her meaty hands onto the table—“when they asked around for character testimonials, what did they discover? She’s the niece of the celebrated author Erich Altmann. Well.”
“What’s wrong with that? Everyone loves his books.” Loved. When his books had existed.
“He chose to serve as a construction soldier in the People’s Army.” Auntie’s voice dropped. “Then he was work-shy. When he finally got a job in the mines, he caused trouble. Grew his hair long, listened to Western music. The men from State Security didn’t trust him. I even offered to put an end to your Sunday visits—”
“What?” Lena leaped to her feet, rattling her spoon on the table and almost overturning her egg.
Auntie motioned for her to sit. “The men from the Stasi were generous. They said no, a simple girl should get to spend time with her uncle once a week.”
“But you said I wasn’t simple.” Not simple. Two words. They fit funny, like a beautiful new pair of shoes that hadn’t yet formed to her feet; shoes she wanted so badly but wasn’t yet convinced she deserved.
“Don’t you see? Simple is why they’ve left you alone. Please, Lena, you must listen to me.” Auntie’s voice softened, and Lena began to panic. “I told them you were simple; it’s what I’ve been telling them all along. You must let this business of my brother go. Show gradual improvement in the progress reports, and move forward.”
Auntie poured Lena a glass of apple juice. “Finish your breakfast and go to bed. I need to get ready for work.” She shut off the radio.
“Are you going to have a headache today?” Lena asked.
Auntie glared at her. “I have one already.” She left the kitchen to get dressed, and Lena sat at the table alone. The baby’s crying had become rhythmic, wave upon wave of howls that showed no signs of stopping.
Simple is why they’ve left you alone. But the bump under the vinyl in the ashtray room meant they hadn’t. And she had asked Jutta about Erich—and they had heard every word.
How long had the bump been there? Well, how many Mondays—without fail—has Jutta asked about your weekend? The visits with your uncle. Lena couldn’t quite remember, but it was possible Jutta had known about those visits before Lena had ever mentioned them.
You’re not simple. She’d read every book Erich had ever given her, many of them twice. In class, she used to raise her hand often, not the limp-noodle arm of a student who wasn’t sure of the answer, but a ruler-straight, I-know arm.
Then came the accident. The principal had called her into his office in the middle of Geometry—all the straight lines running crooked, all the balanced equations slipping off the table and piling up on the floor. There was that closed-in feeling, like the room was too small to hold what he was telling her. Then came the way her head had grown noisy with wasps. First a few, sensing a sugary drink, then the call to families, friends, distant cousins in flower beds and trash cans to come, come quickly, there’s something big to sting.
A nervous breakdown, that was what it was. Then when it wouldn’t go away, they called it other things: severe depression, prolonged traumatic stress.
The doctors had advised against continuing with her schooling. They’d said it would be too hard on her. She was fragile; she might break. They’d kept her in the hospital for a year, had warned Auntie if there was no improvement they would consider surgery. The accident at the freight car factory had happened right before the end of eighth grade. Lena had missed her Jugendweihe—the ceremony when all the young people, all her friends, had become adults, had their first glass of wine. There’d been speeches, new dresses, vows to recite—but not for Lena. She had never been recognized as a young adult.
She took her dishes to the sink to wash them.
Maybe they’re afraid of you.
Of her? Lena Altmann, who counted Erichs every night, and had a voice called Mausi inside her, and liked the sweet and sour of Vita Cola and solyanka, and (shh) the yeah yeah yeah music? Who could be afraid of her?
If they weren’t afraid, why had they bugged the ashtray room?
But if they were afraid, why was she still working at Stasi headquarters? Maybe Auntie’s relationships were very special indeed. Or had Herr Dreck insisted? Did he think she had a special relationship with him? That left Lena with a sick feeling in her stomach.
No, that’s not it at all. They’d come to Auntie. They’d hired Lena, even though they had known about Erich. They had allowed the visits to continue. Jutta asked about them every Monday, in the ashtray room that was bugged.
When it finally clicked into place, Lena was so stunned she dropped the soapy mug she’d been holding and it landed in the sink with a thud.
She was an informer. She’d been one all along and hadn’t even known it. It was the thing Erich’s friends had warned him about; the reason Steffi didn’t like her.
She set her dishes to dry on the counter. She went into her bedroom, got undressed, and pulled the gray nightdress over her head. You have the advantage. You know about the bug. They don’t know that you know. It meant she’d have to be careful how she spoke, what she said. Not another word about Erich in the ashtray room, and no more questions about being crazy. If she sounded unbalanced, they would send her back to that hospital. And if she got sent back a second time, not even Auntie would be able to get her out.
— 10 —
hot off the press
It was noon on Thursday, and Auntie was at work. Lena should have been sleeping, but instead she sat on the sofa and stared at the audience of porcelain dogs. Whatever Erich had done, it must have been serious to make the authorities react in the way they had. She remembered when the news had spread that a Lutheran minister in her neighborhood had syphilis, which later turned out not to be true. And it had all been because he and his family had applied to leave the country. You’re allowed to leave the Better Germany. All you needed to do was apply. Then wait. Then watch your life, and the lives of your family members, be destroyed.
You said destroyed. Where was the Wall in her mind? Destroyed needed to be on the other side. But Lena was on the other side now too. It was too late for that. Think. The Stasi hadn’t erased the Lutheran minister, so that wasn’t what this was about.
Writing is trouble. Erich used to say that. “Unless you’re writing Party Chinese”—the language of the newspapers. Then it was just boring. Had he written something that was trouble? If so, he would have hidden it. If you were Erich and you wanted to hide something—well, Erich was clever. The regular hiding places—under the bed, between the sofa cushions—would have been too ordinary for him. Remember all those notebooks you saw under his bed? Yes, but he’d moved them. He’d known that hiding spot was no good.
If you were him, if it was writing, where would you put it?
In the lining of a coat. But she had a feeling if she checked in Erich’s closet she would only find the larger clothes that stretched over Friedrich So-and-So’s fat belly. All of Erich’s clothes would
be gone. Because he’s on vacation.
Stop that. You didn’t take everything you’d ever owned when you went on vacation. You weren’t erased when you went on vacation. Your birth record didn’t disappear.
A picture popped into Lena’s head of the men carrying armloads of notebooks out the front door. There’d been three or four of them combing through the place. They would have taken everything. Once, though—
Wind back. Think.
Erich often gave her things to read that he had written, but one time it had been different. “Hot off the press,” he had said with a laugh. The page had been cold—so cold it had made Lena’s fingertips feel funny. So cold, she realized, that he must have kept it in the freezer. Of course! Who would ever think to look for his papers in there?
“My freezer might need defrosting.” It was almost the last thing he’d said to her. His beloved freezer, now in the hands of Friedrich So-and-So.
Lena leaped up. She had to go back to his apartment and find out. She dressed in comfortable clothes, and wore her Zehas in case she had to make a run for it. Barring another headache, she had several hours before Auntie might be home. And Auntie had gotten into trouble for her frequent headaches at work. They were bad for morale. Lena was quite sure she was safe.
Erich’s keys were hidden at the back of a kitchen drawer full of odds and ends. They seemed like junk, something from long ago that had been forgotten. If Sausage Auntie had known what they were, she would have confiscated them. Lena put them in her pocket.
The House of One Thousand Eyes Page 10