The House of One Thousand Eyes

by Michelle Barker

  “If your friends are going to leave a note,” Lena said, “tell them to do it late in the evening. That way I’ll be the first to get it in the morning.” It was only too easy to imagine Auntie bustling down to check the mail after work and finding an envelope without any stamps on it, then storming back into the apartment and waving it at Lena so hard it made wind.

  Her stomach tightened at the idea of all this adventure, but it was also rather exciting. Don’t be a fool. Do you think prison is an adventure? How about dogs?

  “We’ll do what we can to get your uncle out of this mess, all right?” Herr Schulmann said. “But you—you must be careful, at all times. No more questions about Erich. No offhand comments. No friends with dangerous leanings. You don’t want to give the Stasi any reason to bring you in.”

  An autumn wind rattled the remaining leaves on the trees. Lena felt suddenly chilled. “I think they’re watching me,” she said.

  “I’m sure they are,” Herr Schulmann said. “They’re hunters, Lena. They know how to watch and wait, and they know big game when they see it. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t get caught.” He shook her hand. “You’re a brave young woman. Your uncle is lucky to have someone who loves him this much. We’ll be in touch.”

  Lena headed back to the S-Bahn station, lost in a memory of Erich. When she was younger and they’d lived in Magdeburg, her parents were often so tired on the weekends after a full week’s work—and still rushing off to committee meetings and Party school, all incredibly dull, according to Papa—that Erich would sometimes come from Berlin for the weekend to look after Lena. He’d take her to the cinema, or the Eiscafé, or the park. Sometimes he’d bring her a new book, something guaranteed to keep her sitting quietly while he wrote in his notebook for hours.

  Afterward he’d tell her stories. It took a while before Lena realized what he was really doing—working out his stories by describing them to her. This happened, and then that happened. “But why, Uncle?” she would ask. “That doesn’t make sense.”

  He’d clap himself on the forehead and say, “By God, you’re right.” He would ask what she thought should happen next, and they’d discuss it. And he would listen as if the advice of a nine-year-old girl was the most important thing; as if she mattered to him.

  One Christmas she and her parents had gone to Berlin, and Erich had taken her to the Christmas market. There’d been a Ferris wheel, a train, even a merry-go-round. There were games and lights, roasted almonds and hot chocolate. Erich bought a cup of warm, sweet glühwein and gave Lena a sip while they listened to the choir. It had been her first ever taste of mulled wine.

  She hated the thought of him in a cell, forced to stay awake for days. Ten days, he had said once; ten days was all it took before someone broke. Has it been that long? Lena counted backward. Yes, it had been longer. What if they weren’t feeding him? The cells would be cold. He would be cold—or worse. There was worse. Absolute darkness, or constant bright light. Isolation. Cells where people lost their minds, or their lives.

  That’s why you’re going to do this. You’ll do it, and you won’t get caught.

  It wasn’t until she was walking home from the U-Bahn station that she realized she’d forgotten to see Max.

  — 16 —

  factory: a love story

  Lena turned away while Peter changed into his swanky purple shirt behind some bushes. The last thing she wanted was to see him half-naked. He’d be skinny, maybe with eczema on his chest. Don’t be unkind. She couldn’t help it. He had been scratching at his coat sleeves from the moment he’d appeared at her door. It seemed worse now that his nails were short.

  “No dawdling after the theater,” Auntie had warned. “You bring her straight home, Peter.”

  How Auntie had fussed at the door, adjusting Lena’s hair, her scarf, while Peter stood there watching and scratching. “Your first date.” She patted Lena on the cheek, looking as if she might cry.

  Lena had been embarrassed, and surprised. She cares about you. She just forgets sometimes. But Lena had also been horrified. It’s not a date, she wanted to say, just two friends going out. So you can see another boy, the one you really like. How had this happened?

  She would have preferred to be honest with Peter—but there was a problem, and the problem was the radio. Peter was the only person she knew who had one. There was no possibility of gaining access to one herself. The Society for Sport and Technology was one place to learn amateur radio—while you were also learning how to clean a machine gun. But to join it, you had to be a boy. Even if you became a member of a ham radio society, you still had to get a radio license, and that took months. Peter had told Lena many club members were restricted to listening only. “We’re all supervised by the government,” he said. Military Papa must have had something to do with Peter getting his own radio. If Lena upset him, that would be the end of her plan to help Erich.

  You’re going to use him. Yes, Mausi, that was what she was going to do. You are a despicable human being.

  While she waited in the dark for Peter to come out of the bushes, she considered that human beings were truly capable of anything—good, or bad. There was no way to exempt yourself from a particular category, to say I would never do that. Given the right (or wrong) circumstances, you might not have a choice.

  It would be slightly less horrible if she could tell Peter why she needed to use the radio. But Herr Schulmann had been adamant: no one was to know about this. And there was Military Papa to consider—if he found out. . . .

  Peter had buttoned the shirt right up to his neck. Erich would have said he looked like a Sitzpinkler—a man who peed sitting down. Even so, Lena said, “The shirt looks good on you,” and Peter smiled. Despicable.

  They rode the trains sitting side by side like packages bound with twine—elbows tucked in, no chance of a leg or shoulder touching. Eyes forward, no talking. The closer they drew to Prenzlauer Berg, the worse an idea the whole thing seemed.

  The train clack-clacked along, then stopped, and someone came on eating a Fetzer bar. The Better Germany did many things better than the Other Germany, but chocolate bars weren’t one of them. No one knew the exact cocoa content of the chocolate they used in bars like Fetzer. Erich said they were only brown because of the addition of lentils.

  By the time they reached their stop, it had begun to drizzle. It made Lena walk faster, even though she didn’t want to get to the theater—ever. Except she did, because of Max.

  “Have you heard anything interesting on your radio lately?” she asked.

  “Australians.” Enthusiasm made Peter’s voice crack. “Do you believe that? I mean, I didn’t talk to them, I just listened. Father doesn’t want me talking to Westerners. I have to follow the rules, or he’ll take the radio away.”

  Lena kept her hands firmly in her pockets so there was no way Peter could try to hold one. “Is it hard, using the radio?”

  “Not at all. It just takes patience. There’s a lot of chirp and AC hum to deal with, but that’s because my radio is a homebrew. And there’s the damned Woodpecker.”

  Bewilderment must have pinched her face, because Peter started laughing.

  “Right, I forgot, you’re not a ham. Chirp and AC hum are just radio noises. A homebrew means I built it myself. And the Woodpecker is this terrible tapping sound, some kind of Soviet radar that no one can get rid of. It’s very annoying.”

  “How long did it take you to learn all that?”

  Peter seemed both embarrassed and pleased by the attention. “I guess I’ve always been interested in radio, so I don’t know.”

  “Could you teach me?”

  His cheeks went raspberry red. “Of course. I mean. Your aunt. You think—?” It sounded like he was talking in Morse code.

  “She wouldn’t mind.” As long as a parent was home and the bedroom door was left ajar. Not that she follows those rules—not with the
bricklayer.

  Up ahead was the theater. There was a line-up of patrons and, as Peter and Lena drew closer, a drone of conversation. What would Max be doing right now? Dressing in his costume, probably. Practicing his lines. Would he look for her in the audience? She and Peter joined the line, showed their tickets, and went inside.

  The theater felt damp. People had brought the odor of their suppers with them on their coats, onions and black pudding mixing with tobacco and sweat. Many of the theatergoers mingled in the foyer, but Lena didn’t like mingling. Her attempts at conversation with strangers always led the other person to complain about something: their car if they had one, or if they didn’t, the food at the canteen at work, a physical ailment, the poor cuts of meat at the butcher shop, the telephone they were still waiting for.

  “Let’s find seats,” Lena said. If they got in early, they could choose a place near the back and Max would never see her.

  “I like to sit close.” Scratch, scratch. “So I can feel like I’m part of the action.”

  The stage was set up in the middle of the theater with seating all around. If an actor tripped, he would land in someone’s lap. Max would see her for sure. “I don’t think—”

  “Oh yes, you must sit close,” said a man with a bushy white mustache. He led Peter and Lena down the stairs to the front. Did he work at the theater? Was he an overbearing stranger? Auntie would have pulled people down the stairs too, if she thought it was good for morale.

  On one side of the stage there was an assembly line; on the other, a canteen table. Who was going to fall in love in Factory: A Love Story? Would it be Max? What if he kissed a girl onstage?

  Lena sat there with stiff legs and read her program so many times she had it memorized. Every time she glanced at Peter he was staring straight ahead, seeming unsure of what to do with his arms. Finally the lights dimmed, and the play began.

  It turned out no one was going to fall in love in Factory: A Love Story, at least not the kind of love Lena had imagined. Everyone fell in love—with the factory. It was the best place ever to work. The machinery was modern and never broke down. No one showed up to work drunk. The lighting was superior, the air quality first class; even the food at the canteen was excellent. It was one of the dumbest things Lena had ever seen. Erich would have walked out. Auntie would have taken Lena to see it a second time.

  Lena stopped listening and her mind wandered. Had the accident at the munitions factory been caused by a malfunction in the machines? Was that how her parents had died? Scheiss Osten. But that was hardly news. Everyone knew the truth about the working conditions in factories, no matter how many slogans General Secretary Honecker made them learn.

  But whether or not it was an accident—that was what Herr Schulmann had wondered. Which meant Erich suspected it wasn’t. Had someone blown up the factory on purpose?

  The lights went on in the canteen corner of the stage. A man with a beard and a large round belly came on wearing a big white chef’s hat. It was Max. Lena didn’t recognize him at first. He was dressed in a dirty apron and he danced around the kitchen holding oversize knives and spoons, talking about how to make a good borscht.

  Don’t look at me. Don’t look at me.

  But he was staring straight at her. He gave a tiny smile. Then he must have spotted Peter beside her, with the purple shirt that screamed first date buttoned to the neck. On her other side sat an older couple who clearly didn’t belong to her. The smile disappeared. When Max stumbled on his lines, Lena wanted to run right out of the theater.

  “Cabbage and beets, beets and cabbage,” Max kept saying. He was the cook. He was supposed to know what went into a borscht.

  “Onions,” Lena wanted to call out. “Carrots. Potatoes.” He’ll never speak to you again.

  Peter reached over and held Lena’s arm.

  Lena went rigid. “What are you doing?”

  “Quiet!” The older woman sitting next to her swatted her with a program. “Show some respect.”

  Max started banging on the pot with his soup spoon. The factory workers got a this-wasn’t-in-the-script look on their faces, until big-nosed Bem said, “Come on, Comrades, let’s take lunch early. The boss doesn’t mind, he knows how hard we work.” And then, pointedly to Max, “The cook will serve us some borscht right now.”

  Max seemed to snap back into what he was supposed to be doing. He ladled out the soup and everyone commented on how good it was, and the play dragged on for another hour. The moment it was over, Lena shot out of her seat.

  “What’s the hurry?” Peter said. “If we hang around, maybe we’ll get to meet the actors.”

  “No.” You’re being too aggressive. Calm down. “I mean, Auntie was very clear. We’re to come home as soon as it’s over.”

  “All right.”

  Lena pushed past the others making their way up the stairs. She had ruined the performance for Max. She had ruined her chances of ever seeing him again. And if you don’t start being nicer to Peter, you will lose the only chance you have of saving Erich.

  “I’m sorry,” she said when they were out in the cold night air. “I’m really hungry. You want to stop somewhere on the way home for a Ketwurst?”

  “Sure,” Peter said. “I know a good place not far from our building.”

  *

  Auntie wanted all the details: the lighting, the story line, where they sat. “Did he hold your hand?” As Lena lay in bed that night, all she could think of was that tomorrow was Sunday, the day she had always reserved for her uncle, and she would not see him.

  Go to the theater tomorrow. Find Max. Explain. Explain what? That she was using Peter to communicate with a Western book editor to help save her uncle who had been erased? Which part of that could she tell him?

  She thought back to her life in Magdeburg. In the Better Germany’s schools, classes were matched up with factories, and every two weeks students were sent to work there so they could get a taste of that life. Probably no one had ever been assigned to work in the freight car factory.

  On Sunday, after their roast lunch, Auntie went to visit a neighbor. Lena had intended to see Danika and listen to Western music, but it never happened. Her feet were to blame. They were contrary, walking her onto a train instead of up the stairs to Danika’s apartment.

  She made it all the way to the theater without thinking about what she was doing. The front doors were locked, but the actors must have been rehearsing. After last night’s performance, they would have to make sure Max knew how to make borscht.

  Circling the building, she found a worn brown door. It too was locked, but she knocked just in case. No one answered. She turned around, and there was Max, across the alley.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Lena’s head grew crowded with noise. She took a deep breath. “I came to apologize. I’d meant to warn you yesterday afternoon, but—”

  He took a few steps toward her. “That would have been nice. Who was he? Your date, I mean.”

  “It wasn’t a date.”

  He swiped at his hair. “Sure looked like one.”

  “He lives down the hall from me, that’s all.”

  “And you had to bring him, of all people? You understand when I asked you, I meant—” But he wouldn’t say what he’d meant.

  “It wasn’t like that. It was an accident.” That word. It just happened. It was no one’s fault. “And then my aunt insisted we go together.”

  He moved closer. “You could have said no.”

  Lena felt the warmth coming off his body. There was that lemony-soap scent. Her knees went watery. “You haven’t met my aunt. She’s like a tram without a driver. Once she’s on the tracks there’s no stopping her.”

  Somehow his hands found their way to her face, and they were large, and warm, and he tilted her chin up and kissed her gently on the lips. It was something she had imagine
d many times—her first kiss—but she was unprepared for the rush of sensations that came with it. Not only the softness of his lips, but also the way every bone in her body had decided it was no longer needed. The way every connection in her brain lit up. It was Erich Honecker’s lamp shop up there—the Palace of the Republic and its thousands of lights.

  Max pulled away and smiled. She wanted him to kiss her again. How do you ask for the second kiss? And if the first kiss had lit a thousand lights, what would the second one do?

  He wrapped his arms around her and held her. “There’s something about you,” he said softly. “You’re brave. And I like the way your mind works.”

  She leaned into him, and her whole body relaxed. And then the spell was broken by footsteps and voices.

  “The others are coming.” Max let go of her. “We have to rehearse.”

  Lena waited for him to say something about the play, its awfulness, the sheer boredom of rehearsing it—but he didn’t. “When will I see you again?” she asked.

  Max pulled a play ticket out of his pocket. “This time, I’m only giving you one.”

  Lena laughed. Thank God. Nothing between them had been damaged. “I mean really see you.”

  “I could come visit you at your place tomorrow before rehearsal.”

  In the afternoon. “My aunt will be at work. She’s a teacher.”

  “Is it all right,” Max said, “to visit while she’s not home?”

  Lena hesitated. The voices and laughter drew closer. “Sure. It will be fine.” Auntie will lock you inside for a month if she finds out you had a boy over, alone, without permission. You better make sure she takes her headache medication to school.

  — 17 —

  blah, blah, rudolph gypner

  Lena decided to surprise Sausage Auntie by waking up on time to line up for meat. Meat seemed like a good way to keep her happy.