The House of One Thousand Eyes

by Michelle Barker

  Auntie was calling for supper, but Lena had no appetite. Had she been wrong about Bem? Had she made a mistake in warning Max? Maybe he would go back to Rita, whoever she was. A figure skater. Even if she was overweight, Lena couldn’t compete with that. She was agile, but only when it involved shoes and solid ground. Gliding on ice in a tiny skirt, with extravagant makeup on? How could she eat supper after thinking about that?

  She would need Danika’s pinking shears to cut Max out of her life—only she didn’t even have any photographs of the two of them. Maybe they hadn’t been together long enough for him to qualify as a One True Love. But he was the first boy she’d ever kissed. It mattered. He mattered. And now they’d never kiss again, and she’d grow up to be one of those angry women who owned a small yapping dog that never wanted to walk in the right direction.

  Someone was parading up and down the fourth-floor hallway in big boots. It took a minute for Lena to recognize Military Papa’s commanding voice. Doorways at attention! She entered the kitchen, where Auntie was preparing sandwiches.

  “What’s going on out there?” Lena asked. Maybe Military Papa would order the baby next door to stop crying.

  Auntie was always careful when she spoke about Military Papa. He was loud, and a bully, but he’d also been a very important man in the military, and you didn’t make jokes about very important men unless you badly wanted a job in mining. “They’ve had news. Peter has received his conscription notice.”

  Conscription. Peter would be gone for at least eighteen months. Lena hadn’t liked the turn things had taken with the purple shirt, but she was fond of Peter as a friend. She would miss him. What would the army be like for him? How would he cope with the marching and machine guns? Maybe there would be radio. Peter could be in charge of Morse code—which he wouldn’t have time to teach her now.

  The radio. “When does he leave?” Without thinking, Lena reached for a slice of salami with her fingers, and Auntie tapped her hand with the sharp end of a fork.

  “Two weeks. His father has expedited the process to get him into a special regiment.”

  Of course he has. That meant Lena had two weeks to gather as much evidence as she could and then contact Günter Schulmann on the radio. She would not be able to do that without Peter’s help.

  On her way to work she stopped in the courtyard to check on the willow sapling. It hadn’t gotten any bigger. In fact, it was droopy. Maybe the ground in the courtyard was too wet even for willow trees. She patted its thin branches and whispered, “Don’t be afraid of those shrubs over there. You won’t be small for long. One day you’ll be telling them what to do.”

  When she looked at the sad little tree, she felt a pang of despair.

  *

  That night, for the first time in Lena’s memory, Herr Dreck did not stay late. By the time she and Jutta reached the second floor, every office was dark.

  “The cheerful Slav triumphs again,” Jutta said.

  “His wife will think he got fired,” Lena said.

  “Maybe she’ll realize she needs to do more than keep his feet warm.”

  Lena thought of Auntie with the naked bricklayer and took an extra-long time to plug in her Purimix. “I’ll go back to my regular duties here, then.”

  “Yes, you will, and not a moment too soon. Working poor Jutta like a mule.” She dragged her supplies back to the elevator and thumped them all in. It creaked and rumbled and took her away.

  Lena started with Herr Dreck’s office. If there was a document that labeled Bem as a flight risk she was determined to find it—before Max and Dieter headed into an escape plan that would land them in side-by-side prison cells. And she still hadn’t come across a single thing with Erich’s name on it. She had to find something—everything—before Peter left for his military service.

  She didn’t even pretend to clean Herr Dreck’s office. He could choke on the dust for all she cared. She went straight to his desk, unlocked the drawers, and riffled through the papers. The office smelled of something spicy, maybe what he’d had for lunch. Lena felt prickly at the thought of him sitting there, presiding over people’s lives with a frown on his face. Picking up the telephone, giving an order. Ruining a life and then checking it off his list.

  Be careful. If he had even the slightest inkling she’d been through his desk, who knew what he would do? But he wasn’t here. Jutta had scared him away. Herr Dreck would no longer be part of Lena’s life. The thought settled her, like a pond where the wind has finally died.

  Quickly, quietly, she opened drawers and cabinets, flipped through files. There was nothing on Bem—if that’s his real name. But if it wasn’t, then she had no idea what to look for. Kingfisher—but there was nothing about that person either. She flipped through the People’s Theater file one more time, in case Bem’s page had been returned. Nothing.

  Then she remembered—the files on Erich’s street will be in this office. Lena searched the documents methodically. She found street names, then building numbers. Addresses. There it was, Erich’s address. Her hands shook as she pulled out the file and opened it.

  There was something gratifying about seeing it all in print. She wasn’t crazy, even though everyone had tried to make her think she was. Her body filled with so much rage she felt she could have glowed in the dark. Someone had written it all out as if it meant nothing. Someone had sat at a typewriter, clack clack clack, just like the sound of Erich’s typewriter on the table by the window—but instead of creating a world, they had destroyed one.

  There was the letter transferring the apartment from Erich to Friedrich So-and-So. Lena took out her camera and snapped a photograph of it. There was the order to remove all writing-related items from the apartment. Snap. There was the requisition for the flower-delivery van, the one Lena had seen parked outside the building. Snap. Orders to libraries and bookstores to remove all his books.

  It was exactly as she’d feared. Her uncle was in the blank space on the map. The hole people fell into if they weren’t careful—and sometimes, even if they were. The place where it took ten days to break a person, often less. And if they weren’t broken in ten days? Then what? No one ever talked about that.

  Bruno Drechsler was cracking down, was he? Lena glanced around the office, wishing there was something she could break. She tucked the camera away, gave the shelves a perfunctory dusting, and left. She had proof, of certain things anyway. She would have liked to know if Erich was still alive, and if the explosion at the factory had been an accident. But she knew enough now to contact Günter Schulmann. She couldn’t afford to wait much longer or she might miss her chance.

  The night passed more quickly than usual. There was something about cleaning that made a person feel better. You could work things out on stains and dirty floors. Whatever it was, it could be the floor’s fault, and then you could scrub and scrub until it was clean again.

  But tonight there was more. Lena’s body relished the feeling of not having been touched or forced to do anything—of not even worrying about it. This was what it felt like to be normal. No wonder the doctors made such a big deal of it. It was pleasant. A normal person could gaze into the night sky and enjoy the stars without hearing a distant buzzing, an approaching swarm—without feeling the need to run and hide.

  Lena enjoyed being normal so much that when she went to the schrullig world she decided to go into the travel agency and ask about Hawaii.

  The man behind the counter eyed her as if she wasn’t normal at all. “You want to go to Hawaii, do you?”

  “Not really.” She backed away from the idea as if it had grown teeth. “I’ve seen photographs, though. It doesn’t really look like that, does it?”

  “How else do you think they got the pictures?” he said.

  The usual way. By making them up.

  On the way home Lena lost herself in thoughts of Hawaii and being normal. What about Hawaii with Max
? Don’t get carried away—that would mean escaping, which was not going to happen, and anyway things with Max were done. She walked straight up the stairs and into the apartment, plunking herself at the kitchen table in front of an egg that was still warm.

  She chatted to Auntie about the willow tree in the courtyard, and about the plans for the vegetable garden, and she yawned and realized she was exhausted. Like a normal person. “Auntie, I’m tired,” she said, as if this were the most exciting thing.

  Auntie shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

  Eight hours later, Auntie knew. She woke Lena up by waving an envelope back and forth. It had been opened. “What’s this about?”

  It was from Günter Schulmann. Scheisse. Lena thought back to the morning, how happy she’d been—so happy she had forgotten to check the mailbox. She took the envelope from Auntie and removed the note that was inside.

  Use frequency 14.285 MHz

  What’s going on? Are you okay?

  “So?” Auntie said.

  Lena’s thoughts still wore their winter boots. “It’s a message,” she said.

  “That much I could deduce for myself, thank you. What is frequency 14.285? Who is this from?” Auntie had painted her nails orange. Her hands were her best feature too. Lena decided not to say this out loud.

  “It’s about the radio,” she said. Boots off. Wool socks out of her head. “It’s from Peter. He’s teaching me.”

  “Is that so?” Auntie tilted her head as if she was listening for the pig. “Why is he asking if you’re okay?”

  “All the things he showed me the last time. He was worried. Because I’m simple.” Ha! Mausi, one. Auntie, zero.

  “And he has to leave you a note in the mailbox? Like a thief in the silverware?”

  Lena turned to her pillow. “I think he intended it to be romantic.” What are you doing? You’ll make things worse.

  “I’m not sure I like that.”

  It’s better than being naked in the bedroom with that bricklayer. Don’t mention bricks. “It’s fine, Auntie. His parents are home when we’re there. And anyway—he’s leaving soon.”

  “I’ll be investigating that.” Auntie stormed out of the room.

  Lena would have to arrange to use the radio with Peter right away. She mentioned it to him as they walked to youth group.

  Peter was delighted. But then he said, “It will have to wait till the weekend. With everything that’s happening, my parents are keeping me very busy.”

  Lena tried to hide her disappointment. “The weekend, then. All right.” It would give her a few more days to poke around, but she couldn’t delay any longer than that.

  Behind him, Danika’s eyebrows joined in a fierce What? Lena shook her head, mouthing, Just friends.

  “He doesn’t think so,” Danika said when they had a moment alone. “He’s in love with you. You’re leading him on.”

  “He’s leaving in two weeks,” Lena said. “He’s teaching me how to use his radio.”

  Danika studied her nails. “Why on earth? Talk about Dullsville.”

  “It’s actually pretty interesting.” Lena wanted to tell Danika that she and Max had had a fight, but if she didn’t say it out loud, maybe it would fade, like a bruise. In a few days she’d never even know it had been there.

  *

  It turned out being normal was overrated. It had made Lena careless, and that was one thing she could not afford. On the way to work that evening she decided to be less normal. The days were growing shorter, and it was dark and cool now when she walked to the compound. It made her want to walk faster, but she resisted the urge.

  Night had fallen, and if she slowed down and listened she could hear the sound it made as it landed. Not a thump, like Auntie sitting down at the dinner table. It was more like water running slowly down a wall; inky water, darkening the sky as it slid down. If she listened, she could hear leaves deciding to let go of tree branches.

  And she could hear footsteps. Behind you. Lena sped up. The footsteps sped up. Don’t turn around. Lena turned around. It was Max. “You frightened me!”

  “I’m sorry,” Max said. “I needed to talk to you. I came to the building but I could see your aunt from the window. I decided I’d better not buzz up.”

  “Good thinking.” She sighed. “I looked for Bem’s page. I didn’t find anything, but maybe Bem’s not his real—”

  Max took her gently by both hands. “You didn’t find anything because there was nothing to find. You were right about him. I didn’t want you to be, but I followed him yesterday before rehearsal. He told me he was going to visit his parents, but that wasn’t where he went. It was some apartment in a strange neighborhood.”

  “A girlfriend?”

  He shook his head. “When he came out, he was with two men. The way they were standing, the way they checked up and down the street—” He stared at the ground. “When he got to rehearsal, I asked. Oh yes, his parents were fine, he’d just come from seeing them, spent the whole afternoon there, had coffee and cake.”

  The pain of Bem’s betrayal was written so sharply on his face it made Lena wince. “I’m sorry. Maybe they threatened him.” Who knew what they’d said to make Bem do it? Maybe nothing. Some people chose to be informers—to advance their careers, or because they were true believers, like Auntie.

  “It changes everything,” Max said. “Now they’ll be watching us. We’ll never get out.”

  Lena thought of the tiny tree in her courtyard, how hard it was when everything around you was bigger and stronger than you were. “Well . . . maybe it’s still possible. But you’ll have to be careful what you say to Bem from now on.”

  Max cupped her face with his cold hands and kissed her. “Come with us. Please.”

  “I’m scared.” Besides the obvious risk of getting caught, it was a tunnel: small, dark, not enough air. And besides even that, the thought of running away with a man carried certain questions in its backpack. Would they live together in the West? One bedroom? Two? What if they didn’t get along? And what would she do about Auntie?

  “We’re scared too,” he said.

  Max rested his lips on Lena’s forehead and her eyes fell shut on a terrible realization. She had imagined photographing the incriminating evidence in the House 1 offices. She had imagined handing the camera over to Günter Schulmann. But not once in all of this had she imagined what she might do when the news got out, if anyone traced it back to her.

  Flight had always been a dream, and not necessarily a good one. It was for birds and desperate people. Lena had never seriously considered leaving the Better Germany, but now she might not have a choice.

  — 25 —

  natural causes

  It was Friday, the fourteenth of October—Erich’s birthday. Lena was embroidering a blue bird next to the orange flowers on her decorative tablecloth. She’d already poked herself six times with the needle. The bird looked more like a blob with wings, but she wasn’t sure how to fix that without pulling out all the thread and starting over.

  Normally she would have been mulling over what to buy for her uncle as a gift. She would have set money aside. Auntie would have used her connections to get her brother something special from the pricey shop, Delikat—a good bottle of vodka, real coffee. They would have all gone out for lunch together on Sunday. Auntie’s entire body would be pulled tight, but she would be polite and pay for lunch, and Lena would stay longer so that she and her uncle could go for ice cream together and walk in the park.

  Republikflucht. Flight from the Republic. She’d been turning the word over in her mouth like a pill that was too big to swallow. Would it really be necessary? Would anyone suspect the secret documents had been photographed by her, of all people? It was more likely the bigwigs would point fingers at one another. All the bitter grudges and suspicions they’d been harboring for years wo
uld come out.

  You take too long in the toilet. You must be doing something subversive in there.

  I saw you talking to a man on the street corner.

  What about all those telephone calls to the West?

  Maybe even Lieutenant General Bruno Drechsler would be a suspect. Lena could fade into the background where she belonged, dusting and mopping each night, the invisible fairy that arrived to set things straight in the messy world of important men.

  Auntie bustled into the sitting room with her arms full of bags. She was so excited she had forgotten to take off her outside shoes. “You’ll never guess! I’ve gotten hold of some seeds. We’re going to have a winter garden—collards and turnips, even garlic. We’ll plant the seeds indoors to give them a good start, and then we’ll transfer them outside. We’ve got soil coming tomorrow, and Hans has found wood. He’s going to build an enclosure. Imagine that. It will be a raised garden.” Also a crying shame, but that would come later, once Auntie’s excitement had died down.

  “That’s wonderful,” Lena said. A month ago she would have put down her embroidery. She would have asked to see the seeds and the little pots they would plant them in. She would have wanted to help. Now there was a boot poised over her life, waiting to stomp on it. What was the point of planting anything?

  As soon as she gave Günter Schulmann the camera and told him what she’d learned, everything would change. If she stayed in the Better Germany, she would risk being caught and thrown into prison. If she fled, she would risk being caught and thrown into prison. And if she escaped and wasn’t caught, there was a good chance she would ruin the life of the woman standing in front of her getting so excited about turnip seeds. Was she ready for any of that?

  There was another choice. You could lose that camera in the Spree, or tell Günter Schulmann you couldn’t find anything. But Erich had been prepared to risk everything. Hadn’t he known what would happen if he got caught? Hadn’t he understood the sacrifices he’d be facing once the news became public? He must have had these exact thoughts and decided it was worth it. But it didn’t feel worth it right now.