“Thank you.” Now? No, Mausi, not yet.
“Was it a stomach bug?” Jutta asked.
What would happen if she told Jutta the truth about Herr Dreck? Who was listening? Would they care? If it got back to him that she’d told—then what? He knew about the telephone call to the West. He had the power to send her to a place she might never come back from.
Jutta watched her, waiting for an answer.
“Must have been something I ate.” Lena went to put on her coveralls. There, the larger pocket down the leg. Jutta was smoking and staring into space. Do it now. Lena took both camera and hairbrush and stuffed them into the pocket.
“What’s that?” Jutta said.
Lena forced herself to look at Jutta. “What?”
“You plan to style your hair while you’re vacuuming? Put it away. That’s more than enough silliness for one night.”
“My friend Danika says I have to be prepared at all times in case I meet my One True Love.”
“Mein Gott,” Jutta muttered. “They don’t pay me enough.”
Lena held in her sigh of relief.
They gathered their supplies, crossed the compound under a sky full of stars, and entered House 1. Hello, three red flags. Hello, silent communist statues. And there was that smell: Lena couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Hair tonic? Yes, but. Cigars? Yes, but. It was more like the corner of a cupboard that didn’t get enough air.
Maybe if she didn’t turn on her Purimix he wouldn’t know she was there.
No. He’ll wait.
Lena could wait longer. He had to go home to his pretty pink wife eventually.
He’ll tell his wife he had to work late. Important men always work late.
He couldn’t stay here all night. She could do his office last.
Jutta will be mad that you did things out of order.
What did Jutta care, anyway? She worked on different floors. The only time it mattered was when they met to do Mielke’s rooms. Then and there, Lena decided. She dragged the Purimix and her other supplies to the office at the far end of the hall, as far away from Herr Dreck’s office as possible. She entered, shut the door, and began with quiet things—wiping, dusting, lifting paperweights and gently, so gently, setting them down again. She was the fairy she sometimes imagined herself to be, setting the room right with a wave of her magic wand. No one would know she was there.
The key to this agent’s cupboards was hidden behind a family photograph. Her hand trembled as she reached for it. Her whole body knew she shouldn’t be doing this. Silently she fit the key into the lock, and turned. The cupboard opened with a loud click. When she pulled the large door open there was the dry smell of paper. So much of it—thousands of pages. The wasps in her head opened their eyes and wiggled their antennae, and Lena felt small, and smaller.
“The cupboard was left open,” she practiced saying, in case someone walked in. “I thought the agent meant for me to dust it.” Really? That’s what you’re going to say? If you get caught with the key in this lock, you will win that one-way ticket to smartening up. She’d be placed in solitary confinement: no sleep, no proper toilet, no egg in its eggcup ever again.
Close the cupboard. Lock it. Put the key back where you found it. Just as she was setting it down behind the photograph, the office door opened. There, in the doorway, stood Herr Dreck. Lena was so startled she dropped the duster she’d been holding in her other hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?” His voice was low. Jutta wouldn’t hear it. No one would.
Think quickly. You are innocent, so act innocent. Think like an actor. “Cleaning.” Lena settled the tremble in her voice.
Did he hear the cupboard lock click open? What is he doing here? Lena’s heart raced. She couldn’t ask him; it wasn’t her place. There were prescribed areas where she was allowed, or not allowed, to go. Herr Dreck could go wherever he pleased.
“Fräulein, I was expecting you.” His cheeks were pink.
“I needed to start here first,” Lena said.
“Is that so? You didn’t start here because you figured I would eventually have to go home?” A smile played on his face. “I’ll be waiting for you. Finish up here, please, and come down the hall.”
She had no choice. She finished up. She went down the hall. What if he noticed the hairbrush in her pocket? What if he put his hand in and fished out the camera? Oho, what have we here?
But Herr Dreck wasn’t interested in the hairbrush. He stood behind his desk, hands flat against the wood. “Do you remember what I did for you last week? Do you remember how I covered for you with the Comrade General?”
Lena nodded. So much for acting. She didn’t trust her voice.
“Close the door.” He moved toward her and unzipped his pants.
It was big in her mouth. She had to breathe through her nose, which meant taking in the smell of him, a sharp sweaty odor that disgusted her. Her stomach roiled. He pushed himself in harder, and that was all it took. She gagged. Up came dinner, all over his crotch. All over his underwear, and his pants. He let out a cry: “You little Sau!” and backed away. “What am I supposed to do now?”
“I’m sorry.” Lena’s voice was smaller than small. You did it! Your timing was spot-on. But even though there was something satisfying in that, she did not feel anything resembling happiness.
“Get me some of your rags, or toilet paper, or some goddamned thing.” He was wiping himself with tissue, but it only made things worse, the tissue sticking to the vomit and coming apart in pieces.
Lena stood up unsteadily. “I can’t go into the toilets, sir. They’re for men.” Lena and Jutta only cleaned them when they were sure there was no one left in the building.
“I stink! Son of a bitch. How am I supposed to go home like this?”
There was a knock at the office door.
“Lena?” It was Jutta’s voice. “Lena, are you in there?”
“Yes.” Her voice sounded choked.
Trousers still around his ankles, Herr Dreck scrambled behind his desk. The door burst open and, one second too late, he thunked into his desk chair. Lena steadied herself against the wall. Her eyes were watery, her face bright red. The room reeked of vomit.
Lena wanted Jutta to yell at Herr Dreck, to call him names and say she would report him. But that was the sort of thing that happened in other worlds—like in Narnia, where a lion was in charge. In House 1, Jutta was the cleaning woman, and it didn’t matter what she saw, or thought, or wanted to say. What mattered was that Lena was in a high-ranking Stasi agent’s office while he was still there, and she was not doing her job. Not even pretending to do her job.
“Forgive me, Comrade Lieutenant General,” Jutta said, “but I’m in charge of this girl, and she is tardy tonight. Lena, you must come with me immediately. We’ll never finish the building at this rate, and it will be my job at stake, and all because you’re work-shy. I won’t tolerate it.”
Lena caught Jutta’s eye. Jutta knew.
“That’s fine,” Herr Dreck said, looking fully dressed but not quite normal. “She’s finished here.”
Jutta hooked Lena by the arm and pulled her out, shutting the door behind her with more force than she should have. She rushed Lena to the coffee room, where they were not allowed to be unless they were cleaning, but hardly anyone was left in the building now.
“Is this what happened last time?” She dipped a handkerchief in warm water and wiped at Lena’s eyes.
Lena nodded.
Jutta filled a glass with water and handed it to her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid.” Lena took small sips. Her jaw was sore.
“Of what, child?”
Everything. You. Him. The World.
Jutta held her face with both hands. “I don’t think he’ll bother you anymore. He knows I saw. And he’ll
have to go home tonight, somehow, and explain it to his wife.” Jutta’s smile was wry. “I’d love to be around to hear that one, wouldn’t you?”
Lena tried to smile back. She wanted to believe everything would be that easy.
*
At midnight they met to do the Comrade General’s rooms. Lena wiped down his prized red telephone and the photograph of his beloved Yorkshire terrier, Airen. She dusted the pictures of Stalin, Mielke’s hero, even though Stalin wasn’t supposed to be anyone’s hero anymore. She dusted the photographs of Mielke shaking hands with various dignitaries. He was a small man, smaller than everyone. He knows what it means to be small. And yet—he was huge. How had he made that transformation? There must be a trick to it. Lena wished she could sit him down and ask him.
Jutta was talking about the South Korean airplane that had been shot down in September. There were a lot of stories going around about who had shot it down and why, and Jutta went through all of them. It was a regular scheduled flight full of innocent people that had gone off course by accident. Don’t be ridiculous, it was an undercover spy plane. The Soviets shot it down. No, the Americans did it. Obviously. They were responsible for everything bad that happened, with their washed-up actor of a president and his crazy outer-space defense plans.
On and on she went, while Lena dusted and did her best to poke around for Mielke’s key. Under vases, behind photographs. She managed to check her entire side of the office without finding anything other than cobwebs. It was hard not to be discouraged. The key is hidden on Jutta’s side. It must be. Not necessarily. It might be in the Comrade General’s briefcase. Wouldn’t he keep a spare? Lena could only hope.
Carefully, while Jutta was cleaning his secretary’s desk, Lena tucked her duster behind a chair. She would have to come back later, alone. It would be dangerous, but at least if she’d left something behind she would have a legitimate reason to return. They finished up, took a break, then did the men’s toilets—which was Lena’s suggestion, good thinking, because toilets did not require dusters.
Time passed.
Lena wished she could put it off. If anyone found out she was in the Comrade General’s rooms alone—if anyone caught her with her hand in an open drawer, or worse, taking photographs. Stop it. Jutta was busy doing the fifth floor. It was now or never.
Lena climbed the stairs to Mielke’s floor, walked through the conference room and into his office, where she turned on a small desk lamp. Find that key. Under. Behind. Inside. It was always the ugliest creatures that lived on the underside of things.
Under the radio. Behind the shredder. Inside planters. She was running out of places to look. Finally she lifted a pair of boots sitting on a mat, and there it was: a small silver key. A world of secrets, under his boot. Blood rushed to Lena’s head as she pressed the key’s sharp end into her palm.
She went straight to Mielke’s desk—his personal desk, top secret, my goodness, what are you doing?—and fitted the key into one of his locked drawers. One turn, a click—and slowly, slowly, she pulled it open. Remember. Herr Schulmann told you to remember. She had to put things back exactly as she’d found them.
There were pens, a bottle of hair tonic, a stack of documents—which she pulled out and went through one by one. Her hands trembled so much that the pages sounded like the wings of a large moth. Mostly they involved things she didn’t understand—permits and maps, reports about Such-and-Such or So-and-So. There were lists, diagrams. The names were unfamiliar.
By the time she’d made it halfway through the pile, she still hadn’t seen anything that seemed relevant. It’s only the beginning. You didn’t expect to find answers right away, did you? The truth was she’d wanted it to be in the first drawer she opened, right on top. She’d wanted it to be easy. Snap a photograph, send a message on Peter’s radio, and Erich would be home the next day, moving out Friedrich So-and-So and his collection of undershirts and his cat—if he’d ever managed to catch it.
She finished with the first stack of papers and replaced them exactly as she’d found them. A second drawer. A third. You’re taking too long. You’ll never get your work done at this rate and Jutta will be suspicious. But she couldn’t afford to look too quickly. If she missed something—she didn’t want to have to backtrack.
She opened one of the tall cupboards, and her stomach felt like broken eggs: the cupboard was full of files. She was about to thumb through them when she heard a noise in the hallway. It was the rumble of the elevator, which meant Jutta was on her way. Lena shut the cupboard, made sure to lock it, and returned the key to its place beneath the boot. Was it the left one? No, it was the right, I’m sure. Almost sure. Lamp off. Duster in one hand. Take the stairs down. Down, fast. Into an office, any office, and dust.
Was it the left one?
Calm yourself, Mausi. Dust.
“Please don’t tell me this is all you’ve done.” Jutta stood in the doorway.
Lena wiped the sweat from her nose before turning around. “This was my last office. I’m going downstairs to do the foyer in a minute.”
“Some of the windows need cleaning. You’ll have to make time.”
The eyes. Thank goodness they couldn’t talk.
*
Lena had never been to the secret ward in the mental institution. She only knew about it because she’d overheard the nurses talking. They thought she was simple, meaning stupid, meaning deaf. They assumed they could say anything in front of her.
“Two more brought in yesterday,” one whispered. “The forms weren’t even signed by a doctor. It was a Major General So-and-So.”
“From the Stasi.”
The first nodded. “They’ve recommended electric shock.”
“Is there anything even wrong with those patients?” asked the second. She was younger, with rosy cheeks, and chewed GDR gum, even though by then you could buy Western gum. If you chewed GDR gum for too long, it crumbled into pieces. She was forever complaining about the bits that got stuck in her teeth.
“Wrong opinions,” said the first, an older woman with a boxy face. She was one of the nurses who checked Lena’s mouth with her finger after giving her a handful of pills, to make sure she’d swallowed them. Holding wrong opinions was like not swallowing your pills—it was against the rules.
“Be careful what you say,” Erich used to warn her. “Don’t get in arguments with the other patients.” Even Auntie used a hospital voice when she came to visit, extra cheery and socks pulled up and do you know another song—as if the doctors were watching her too.
— 19 —
a young man and some monika
There was nothing in the post when Lena checked the next morning. She hadn’t taken a single photograph that night, though she wished she could have taken one of Herr Dreck covered in vomit and bits of tissue.
On the way upstairs she met Peter coming down, heading to work. You have to say something. “About yesterday—” she began. But there were so many things wrong with what had happened in the courtyard yesterday she didn’t know where to start.
Peter stood there waiting, his back hunched.
“I’m sorry,” she said at last.
“For what? Your friend came by. It’s allowed.”
Had he realized Max was in the play? Lena couldn’t read Peter’s face. She glanced up the stairwell to make sure no one would overhear. “Your father wasn’t nice to you.”
The way Peter shrugged made it seem as if the bag he was carrying was full of cement. “I’m used to it. I’m not the son he wanted. Once I’m in service we’ll be able to write to each other about guns and tanks, and he won’t have to sit through dinner with me anymore.” He tried to laugh.
No wonder he had eczema. He must have wanted to climb right out of his skin and be someone else.
“Would you still like to show me your radio?” she asked. Right. Pretend to be nice. She wasn’t pre
tending. Oh, so your motives are pure?
Peter brightened. “Absolutely. Tonight? No, you’re working. Tomorrow is youth group, and we’re having that talk about Republic Day. Our schedules are so different, aren’t they? I’m days, you’re nights, except on Mondays—but then we work in the courtyard.”
Lena wondered how long he would continue this conversation with himself. She thought about her egg getting cold while Peter counted days on his fingers.
“How about later this afternoon, after you get home from work?” she suggested. Max was supposed to be coming over, but he’d be gone long before Peter (or Auntie) got home.
“Sure, yes. All right, then. Well.” He stood there, arms at his sides, looking as if he couldn’t remember whether he was supposed to go up the stairs or down.
“My aunt is waiting. I have to go.”
“Right.” Peter bumbled down the stairs, nearly falling at the bottom and catching himself just in time. Was that what she looked like with Max? Why did Peter have to like her? Why couldn’t things be the way they’d always been? He could go back to being the boy down the hall, the one she collected recyclables with.
She entered the apartment and took off her coat to the egg-getting-cold song and dance, which went like this: Where have you been? Your egg has been sitting, it’s no good when it’s cold (even though Lena had never minded a cold egg). Why are you so late? Would you like a roll with butter? I have cream for our coffee.
Butter! Cream!
Lena sipped the coffee slowly, forcing her mind to concentrate on the taste, which was as rich and deep as a sunset. Don’t think about Herr Dreck and what might be waiting for you at work tonight—if you even have a job anymore. Don’t think about the uranium mines, or the textile factories, or the doctors with soft voices. Don’t think about Erich. Would they punish him for her misbehavior? They might. She’d heard the stories. It happened most often when someone fled the Republic—by sneaking out, or even with a legitimate visa. The consequence was called Sippenhaft, kin liability, and it meant that whoever had been left behind—parents, children, or siblings—would pay. But it didn’t have to be because of flight. Collective punishment could be applied to any crime. And while it didn’t always happen—there was no predictability to the system—the threat of it was enough to keep most people in line.
The House of One Thousand Eyes Page 18