— 20 —
hooligans and poets
Lena wished there were some way not to go to work that night, but Auntie wouldn’t hear of work-shy behavior and Lena had already been sick last week. She had to go, so she put on her coat, tucked the camera into her pocket along with the hairbrush, and set off. The dark sky above her felt heavy. The sound of car tires on the road flattened her into nothing.
Herr Dreck would be there, and he’d be furious. He would have a document bearing the address of the Wismut uranium mines. Or worse: a signed form admitting Lena to the hospital, where there were no sharp edges, no way to remind herself she was still alive. This time, she might be classified as someone who had wrong opinions. She’d have to go to the basement for electric shocks, or get the operation that would make her calm and put her in diapers for the rest of her life.
She wished Jutta could protect her, but there was nothing Jutta could do. Lena entered the ashtray room. She couldn’t bear to hear one more word about Jutta’s Slavic ears, or her Slavic jaw, or her Slavic fingernails, if there was such a thing—Jutta said there was. Words and more words: it was all empty noise filling the smoky room and crowding Lena’s head.
She pulled on her coveralls, slipping brush and camera into the side pocket. Fear tugged at her stomach as she trudged behind Jutta to House 1 and entered the foyer. There was the wide stairway, going up. Might as well get it over with. She couldn’t. The Purimix had become impossibly heavy. Jutta waited for the elevator, watching Lena struggle with her equipment. When Lena reached the second floor, the elevator opened and Jutta stepped out.
“What are you doing?” Lena asked. “This isn’t your floor.”
Jutta had a determined expression on her face. “We’re going to clean this one together. I’ve noticed this floor has become particularly challenging and it’s too much for one person. You stay on this end. I’ll take the other.” Where Herr Dreck worked. The light from his office puddled onto the red hallway carpeting.
Tears came to Lena’s eyes and she wiped them away. “Thank you,” she said quietly. They set to work with both Purimixes going at once.
“Good evening, Comrade Lieutenant General,” Jutta sang into the lit office. “You’re working late this evening.”
What had happened to being invisible? Lena would never have dared to speak to the important Stasi men like that. But you could get away with things when you were older, and Jutta had always seemed slightly crazy—Lena was pretty sure she wasn’t the only one who thought so.
She listened, but she couldn’t hear Herr Dreck’s response over the noise of her machine.
“I hope you get home soon,” Jutta said. “Your wife and children will be waiting for you.”
Nice one. Lena slipped into a darkened office to make sure she would be busy cleaning it when Herr Dreck left to go home—which he would surely do now that Jutta had spoiled the party. As she waited, her dust rag quivered across family photographs and another bust of Lenin. Maybe the agents used the sharp end of his beard to punch holes in paper. Was Dreck gone yet? Don’t look; don’t dare. Instead she listened.
Eventually she heard a man’s heavy footsteps—muted on the carpeting, clip-clip on the floor toward the stairs, and then, blessedly, mercifully, down and away. He was gone. One night of freedom, finally. She found Jutta in Herr Dreck’s office and hugged her.
“Enough of that, child. You get busy. I might need your help on one of my floors later.”
“Anything, Jutta. I’ll do a whole floor for you so you can look out the window and smoke, I don’t mind.”
Later, while Jutta was busy cleaning one of the higher floors, Lena slipped back into Comrade General Mielke’s office and found the key under the right boot (see?). She returned to where she’d left off her search. The files in the tall cupboards were organized alphabetically. At last, something easy. She went straight to A for Altmann. There was nothing—not on Erich, or herself, or her parents. She looked up Friedrich So-and-So. He wasn’t there. She looked up Auntie, and Max, and even Jutta. Whatever was in this cupboard, it wouldn’t help her.
Don’t be disappointed. You’ve eliminated one. And Mielke was a good one to eliminate. Lena didn’t fancy being caught photographing documents in his office. That was the sort of thing you didn’t come back from. She worked through the other offices on her floors, unlocking drawers, checking in cupboards. Everything was organized, but none of it was what she was looking for.
Was it possible no one had this information? Or maybe it was being kept somewhere else. What if it was so secret that the Comrade General kept it at his house? If that was the case, the game was over and they had won—as they always did. It was football against the Stasi team all over again. Not even the referees would help you.
She hurried upstairs to vacuum one of Jutta’s hallways for her. The night passed pleasantly, and afterward Lena visited the schrullig world to buy a pretend-orange that tasted remarkably real—stop it, Mausi, it is real and you know it. Turkish delight: she could sit there and eat oranges all day, and buy any books she wanted (except Erich’s), and pretend that this, right here, was the Better Germany. It was the Best Germany Ever.
*
Three days later it was Friday, the Republic’s birthday—a national holiday. It was a day of parades and banners and singing. Lots of red. Anyone who had a balcony decorated it with a flag, that of the Better Germany, or the Party flag. You decorated, or someone made a note of it and you got in trouble later. Lena wore her nicest outfit, a polyester dress with zigzags, and accompanied Auntie to the parade. They marched past the stands filled with dignitaries on Karl-Marx-Allee, alongside children dressed in their Pioneer uniforms waving small flags and carrying balloons or flowers. They held up the banner they had worked on, despite the wind threatening to carry it away.
“The Party, the Party is always right,” Lena sang with Auntie, and, “Our Homeland has smartened itself up!” and the song from the Pioneers that always made her feel a little silly, “Got any wastepaper?”
Auntie had arranged to meet some friends from Helmut’s time after the speeches: a small round man named Rainer Koch and his small round wife. They shook Lena’s hand vigorously and Herr Koch—Comrade Rainer—called her Comrade Lena. His wife patted Lena’s cheeks and told her she was pretty, and that Auntie had spoken highly of her—how hard she worked, and how much of a turnaround she’d made now that she was living with Adelheid.
Lena was surprised to find herself enjoying the couple, who polished off one Ketwurst and beer after the next at the beer garden. They laughed and smoked cigarillos and talked about their summer vacations at the Baltic Sea. They insisted on buying Lena a Vita Cola, even though Auntie tried to object.
The four of them walked through the park, past a fountain and a playground, past strolling couples who held hands. Lena imagined what it would be like to stroll here with Max. Until he goes through that tunnel and you never see him again. Maybe he wouldn’t go. Maybe she would change his mind. You saw his face. She knew that expression from Auntie: the mind-made-up face. No new ideas were getting past that locked door.
Soon it was time to talk business. That was what Comrade Rainer wanted to do with Auntie, because they were both active Party members. As people passed, flags and banners tucked under their arms, Lena and Auntie sat with the Kochs on a wooden bench that was nowhere near as nice as Hans’s benches. They talked about the petition to repair the swimming pool, and the lack of cloakroom space at Auntie’s school, and the younger teachers with wrong opinions who wouldn’t listen when Auntie tried to re-educate them.
One day, Lena would be inducted into this club. The process would start when she turned eighteen—the application form, the references, a detailed explanation of why she wanted to join. A yearlong probation period would prove whether she was worthy. It meant she’d have to start caring about the sorts of things Auntie and the Kochs were talking about
. What would it feel like, to be buried in sawdust every Wednesday night? Youth group was fun, most of the time. But Lena remembered her father’s face every time he’d come home from Party school—wooden, sleepy. One more Wednesday night wasted.
Lena’s attention drifted to the people in the park: how they walked, who they were with. She noticed especially the older women, who scowled as they dragged their little dogs behind them. They don’t kiss anymore. That was surely it. A good kiss could change a person forever. It had changed her, like in the best fairy tales.
“I’ll bet your problematic teachers are from Prenzlauer Berg,” Comrade Rainer said. Lena kept her eyes on the passersby, but her ears perked up at the mention of Erich’s neighborhood. “That place, it’s given the police nothing but trouble. Hooligans. Poets.” He said the last word with the face of someone who’d just stepped in dog poop.
Maybe if Erich had lived somewhere else, none of this would have happened. One of the concrete prefabs in Marzahn, for example. But you had to know someone to get an apartment in one of those big new housing developments. Auntie would never have agreed to stand for him. Anyway, he would have hated living there. He called the new developments concrete wastelands, or stone honeycombs. All his friends lived in Prenzlauer Berg.
“What is being done about the area?” Auntie asked Herr Koch. “Who’s in charge?”
“Ah, we have an excellent fellow at the helm; he’s really been cracking down. Lieutenant General Bruno Drechsler, top-notch, works in the compound.”
Lena nearly choked on her second Vita Cola. Yes, Lieutenant General Drechsler worked in the compound. Lena knew which floor he was on. She even knew which office was his. Lena knew many things about Bruno Drechsler that she shouldn’t know at all, because Lieutenant General Bruno Drechsler was Herr Dreck.
That was why she hadn’t found anything in the other offices she cleaned. All week Jutta had been cleaning Herr Dreck’s office for her so he would stop bothering her. Lena had been so relieved she’d even quit biting her nails. An entire week had passed without him pawing at her or making her touch him. Lena had slept better, eaten better, and the noises in her head had calmed down.
But the proof she was looking for would be in his office. It had to be, if he was in charge of that neighborhood. Yes, he’d cracked down, right over Erich’s head. At last she knew where to look. But how would she get in?
“Lena.” Auntie looked extra pinched in her brown rayon pantsuit. “Comrade Rainer has asked you a question.”
It was about the courtyard, the beautification project, did she think they had a chance at winning the Golden House Number plaque this year?
“Oh, yes,” Lena said. With our two paving tiles and ten grains of sand? Not even Military Papa’s shrubbery would win them that plaque.
Blah, blah about courtyards and rain, petitions and paving tiles. Think. She couldn’t ask Jutta to let her clean Herr Dreck’s office again. He still stayed late every night. Jutta would know something was up. And it would mean the Dreck, the filth, would start again. After she’d vomited all over him it would be worse. He would be angry, and rougher with her. Lena couldn’t. She wouldn’t.
If only Herr Dreck would give up waiting for her and go home when everyone else did, then Lena could go back to cleaning that floor the way she used to. Although he didn’t seem like the type to give up. Papa had gone hunting once and he’d described to Lena how they’d crouched for hours in a treestand, even though it was raining and they were hungry and tired. A good hunter never got sick of waiting—like the man in the Lada. Maybe all the men who worked at the Stasi were like that. Maybe it was the only job requirement.
Well, then. What if Lena snuck into his office after Jutta had cleaned it? It was risky. But if she was quick about it—
The afternoon came to an end, and she and Auntie took their leave of the Kochs. On their way back to the housing development, Auntie gave Lena a complete rundown of the day’s events, pinning them in place like dead butterflies, as though Lena hadn’t been there.
There was still a weekend to get through before she could search Herr Dreck’s office. The thought of going in there made her feel queasy, but there would be answers—at last. It would be hard to wait until Monday. Like Mielke’s men, she would have to learn patience.
— 21 —
rit. mem.
On Saturday, after they’d dropped the recyclables at the collection point, Peter invited Lena back to his apartment. When they walked in, Military Papa was seated at the kitchen table. In front of him was a plate, a cup, a variety of bills and receipts probably in alphabetical order, and a copy of that day’s Neues Deutschland. All of it was lined up and in its place, including Military Papa, who sat straight-backed with his arms bent at right angles.
Frau Military Papa bustled in the kitchen. She was a thin woman with lips that looked as if they’d been pulled too tightly with thread. Lena took off her shoes and straightened them at the door. She didn’t have to be told. The row of shoes already there had issued the command.
Frau Military Papa asked if Lena wanted a cup of tea, but the way she asked it told Lena the answer had better be no, so Lena said no and followed Peter toward his bedroom.
“I’m showing her the radio,” Peter called from the hallway. “We’ll leave the door open.”
His mother appeared. “You’re shouting,” she said. “Your father is reading the newspaper. You’d better keep the volume on the radio down.”
“We’ll be quiet, I promise.” Peter shrank down, and Lena felt so sad for him she wanted to step on his mother’s toe. But his mother wasn’t the problem. What Lena really felt like doing was running over to the kitchen table and messing up Military Papa’s receipts—throwing them in the air, poking him in the eye.
Your father is reading the newspaper. The newspaper was ridiculous. Important Party speeches were printed there, complete with the amount of applause each statement had elicited. Lena and her friends used to struggle through them at school. Comrades! (applause) Dear guests! (lively applause) The Socialist Unity Party (long applause) has delivered good results (prolonged applause) with the development of socialism (intense applause) in the (intense long applause) German Democratic Republic (prolonged strong applause) . . . Was Military Papa that enthralled with his newspaper, or was it just one more rule for Peter to follow?
Peter’s bedroom was small but tidy. One glance and Lena knew this room was his sanctuary. Everything that mattered to him was set up in the far corner: a desk covered in machinery and wires, with maps and diagrams and lists pinned to the wall. Peter must spend all his spare time in here, she thought. The alternative was a silent dinner table, that look of disappointment, his mother tiptoeing around as if the floor were set with land mines. At least Auntie liked listening to music, chatting over sandwiches, and thinking up new projects.
Lena was eager to see the radio. But as soon as she did, panic closed in. She had expected an on/off button, and a dial for finding the station you wanted, like on a regular radio. This? There were dials and buttons everywhere, and notes stuck here and there that were supposed to explain what they were. M1. M2. RIT. MEM.
Don’t worry. He’ll show you how it works. Peter would be right there when she needed to contact Herr Schulmann. She’d find a way to do it without him suspecting anything.
He pulled up an extra chair and patted it for Lena to sit. Then he positioned himself in front of the radio, unplugged the headphones so that they could both hear what was happening, and adjusted the microphone. His hands moved so smoothly from one button to the next; he made it seem easy. All the while he was talking. RIT was receiver incremental tuning. MEM was for memory input.
Lena loved watching anyone who was an expert at something, it didn’t matter what. An expert had a secret life. How many hundreds of hours had Peter spent in front of this machine? It wasn’t as if he’d never mentioned it. He talked about it all
the time while they went door-to-door picking up cans and glassware. But Lena hadn’t put it together—how the talk translated into time, devotion, and practice. It reminded her of Erich and his armfuls of notebooks.
When she studied Peter now, he seemed different—not quite so gangly and awkward. He wasn’t attractive, let’s not get carried away, but he was interesting. And while he was engaged with the radio, he seemed to forget all about hand-holding and cow eyes. Lena was drawn into the things he was telling her, about Q signals and offsets and channel spacings. It was a new language, an unfamiliar one, but Peter spoke it and that was all she needed.
“What would you like to do?” he asked. “You want to listen to someone in Canada? How about Hawaii?”
Hawaii was one of those places that belonged on a cake, something she’d seen on Western television at Danika’s house: pretend palm trees and icing-sugar sand, blue water so clear you could see right to the sugar bottom. How often had she imagined strolling into a travel office and saying, “I’ll have one ticket to Hawaii please, first class, leaving tomorrow.”
“Sure,” she said. “Let’s talk to someone in Hawaii.”
“No, we can’t make contact,” Peter said. “Hawaii is West. We can only monitor.” Slowly he turned the big dial, and the radio made static and a spooky radio-wave sound that brought Frau Military Papa rushing to the bedroom door with a large frown and one thumb down.
Peter turned down the volume. More adjustments, and then—there it was, faint, but someone was definitely speaking English, and ukulele music played in the background.
“Did you hear that?” Peter asked. “KH6WZ. That’s a Hawaiian call sign.”
They were listening to someone halfway around the world. Suddenly the notion of sending a message across the Wall seemed doable, even easy.
Peter pressed the MEM button. “There. It’s in memory now, in case we want to go back to it.”
The House of One Thousand Eyes Page 20