by Richard Wake
Around the bend came No. 52. It was ordinary by the standards of the neighborhood — extremely nice by the measure of an average Berliner, or even a well-above-average Berliner, but just okay if you lived on Majakowskiring.
The house was made of sandstone that had been painted white. The foundation, and the first few feet above ground level, were made of red brick, and there was a small front porch after a couple of steps. The house had no fence in front of it, and it sat reasonably close to the sidewalk. Trees along the curb line provided an illusion of privacy, but it was only that, an illusion. On a street of princes, the house was not pretentious, not secluded, not anything that would make you turn your head or even remember it. It was just there.
I crossed the street as I approached. I always came when Kitty called, and there was little doubt of the purpose, even though it was unspoken. On the phone that morning, she had said, “Hey, you want to come over?” That was all she said, and that was all that was necessary. There was no leer in her voice, if you could imagine such a thing. There was no dirty laugh, none of that — not from either of us. It was simple and straightforward, and it took about 15 seconds. Maybe 30, including the preamble about me being fired. Come over? When? Now. Fine. Click.
But that’s what it was. There was no doubt about it, and there also was no apparent concern about what the neighbors might think, seeing as how, a few seconds after I banged with the shiny brass knocker, Kitty answered the door naked — not in a towel, or an open robe, but bare-ass naked. And before greeting me, or even acknowledging me, she let the door swing open, as wide as the hinges would permit, and closed her eyes and bathed for a few seconds in the sunshine that streamed inside.
19
Sex first, conversation afterward. That was the typical agenda. Kitty knew what she wanted, and this day, she wanted it quickly and without a lot of the standard niceties. I considered myself to be at least a bit of a craftsman, but Kitty was interested in none of that. There would be no measuring twice before cutting that afternoon. She was interested only in the nailing.
After regaining her breath, Kitty said, “Norby just won't do it like that.”
“I think every man will do it like that if you ask,” I said.
“Not my Norby.”
“Then—”
“Six days a week, I appreciate his technique,” she said. “But on the seventh day, while the Lord rests, I just want to get pounded. You know?”
Actually, I didn't know. But that was Kitty in a snapshot — unvarnished, honest, demanding, kind of fun, but also kind of crazy. I was better off without her — although, like the errands for her father, these semi-monthly sojourns to her bed seemed to be a part of the divorce agreement. Neither were written down, though, and while there was no easy way to get out of her father's employ, I could easily spurn Kitty the next time she called. I didn't think there was any way she could go to her father and get me fired because I wasn't screwing her anymore. Then again, it wasn't as if her father exactly punished her for cheating on me, so who knew? At least that's what I told myself every time I heard her voice on the other end of the line.
“So, six days a week? Not a bad life,” I said.
She snorted.
“It's nothing like that. I mean, nothing close to that.”
“Is he traveling? Out of town?”
“Some,” Kitty said. “But that's not really it. He's been working terrible hours in the office lately. Just crazy hours, especially the last couple of weeks.”
“What's crazy?”
“Till nine or 10 o'clock most nights. Sometimes later.”
“That is crazy,” I said. “Remind me again what he does again for our glorious socialist state. It's like—”
“Supply.”
“Supply what?”
“Just goddamned supply,” she said. “Some of it is merchandise that they sell. Most of it, from what he says, is just making sure that whatever crap they need — you know, for construction and stuff like that — gets delivered where they need it and when they need it.”
“But still—”
“Exactly. It's just concrete and bricks and whatever else. What could possibly take till 10 at night, night after night?”
Unusual absences, night after night after night? You didn't need to have a dirty mind to have a few ideas. Then again, while I wasn't a fan of old Norbert, I didn't think he was an idiot. And looking to my left and seeing the quite naked Mrs. Hartz, her blond tresses partially covering her luscious left breast, it was hard to believe that he would find anything any better in the halls of whatever East Berlin government building he was working in every night.
Kitty read my face and said, “No, I really don't think so. He knows I'd kill him.”
Which was rich, considering our past experience as a legally married couple. I let it go, though, almost as quickly as it popped into my head. She didn't possess an ounce of self-awareness, so what was the point?
“He's just ambitious, which I like,” she said. “Daddy used to work late sometimes when I was in school, too.”
“Yeah, just busy,” I said. “Maybe we're getting more fruit in the shops. Or maybe, you know, shoes that don't look the same as last year's shoes, which looked exactly like the shoes from the year before.”
“You're silly,” she said, and of course, she was right. The truth was that women like Kitty — because of her father or her husband or both — had access to whatever western fashions they desired.
“So silly,” she said, grabbing me there. We both quickly determined that I would be staying at least a few more minutes. And it was the same again, just nailing.
After we were done, she said, “My God, it really has been days.” She counted on her fingers. “Six days since Norby came home at 11, pulled up my nighty and said, and I quote, 'And now it's time to fuck the barbed wire king of Berlin.'“
“Such a romantic.”
“Yeah, but he still, you know, took his time. But I'll take it,” she said. And all the way home, between discreet sniffs of my fingers on the train — Red Rolf only cautioned against the practice at work, after all — all I could think about was the barbed wire king of Berlin.
20
Wednesday morning, I was in the office at 6:30, an hour before I was instructed but barely early as far as my racing mind was concerned. I had been thinking for a day and a half, between the women in my life, and decided only one thing. I had to tell the boss that I needed to speak to the guy the Stasi had in Hohenschonhausen, the apparently real Kurt Braun from the identification card found in the woods in Treptower Park.
I was smart enough to sense there would be complications, though — because complications, political complications, Stasi complications, were the only possible reason that the great and cool Frederick Greiner would need a day and a half to think before making a decision. I had no idea what those complications might be, but that really didn't matter. It was another Red Rolfism: “Always be smart enough to know what you don't know.” And I knew next to nothing about politics at the upper level of the Kripo and the Stasi.
After playing out the upcoming conversation about 50 times in my head, I ultimately came to the conclusion that the coward's way was the best way. I would wait to see what Greiner said, and would only bring it up if he did not. It is what I finally decided at 7:20. I did not waver at 7:25, when Greiner walked down the hallway past my office without looking in. I almost wavered during the walk down the hallway at 7:30 precisely, but held firm.
“Boss?” I said after a perfunctory knock.
“Sit,” he said. And then, before my ass had dented the worn leather cushion, he said, “We have to get you into Hohenschonhausen to see that Stasi meat.”
My exhale of relief must have been louder than I thought. Greiner smiled.
“Well, at least we're thinking the same way,” he said.
“I just didn't want to—”
“I appreciate that, but that's my worry. That's why I have the stripes.”
&
nbsp; I really didn't have anything else to say, so I just sat there. I didn't mind the silence. It allowed me to appreciate what had just happened. I wasn't this kid who had been forced on him by some asshole on the Central Committee anymore. Somehow, through time and this particular circumstance, I had become a teammate of sorts, not exactly a partner but, well, more of a partner than I had ever been before. The Stasi, it seemed, had done me a favor. That was my first thought. My second thought was that I was out of my mind.
“Here's the problem — and I am going to confide in you a little bit,” Greiner said.
I sat up like the smartest puppy in the obedience school. Greiner smiled, despite himself.
“The problem is they want nothing to do with my case,” I said.
“A fact of which I'm well aware, especially after a few discreet inquiries.”
“So—”
“So,” he said. “I've decided to ask them for a little assistance. My approximate equivalent upstairs, I'm not going to ask him for any investigative help. I just need him to make a phone call for me. That will be the sum total of his involvement.”
“A phone call?” I said.
Greiner explained that he needed his Stasi equivalent to make the call to the guy who would get me into Hohenschonhausen to speak to Kurt Braun. Greiner said he did not know who that somebody might be, and he didn't really care.
“The building works on favors,” he said. “Now I'll owe him one. Hopefully, when the time comes, it won't be too big a favor. Just to be sure, don't get sideways with the Stasi in the next couple of months.”
He was kidding, I thought.
'So, when?” I said. I croaked out the words. I really hoped he was kidding.
“Don't know. They'll call you.”
And then he was the boss again — head down in his paperwork, no goodbye. Back in my office, I sat and stewed, which was pretty much my constant state of being, between times with the women in my life. The Stasi made me nervous. The Stasi made everybody nervous. It was one of the three constants of life in East Germany: You could always buy pork in the shops, if nothing else; bread rolls always cost five pfennings, so cheap that farmers fed them to livestock rather than buy grain feed; and the Stasi made everybody nervous.
So that was a constant — but owing the Stasi a favor made me the most nervous of all. Even if it wasn't technically my favor — Greiner was the one making the call — it was still a call being made on my behalf. And the payback — well, let's just say that I figured I was already up to my neck in the favors business when it came to my father-in-law, and one more might just push my head below the surface.
It was into that cheerful reverie that Harald Heilemann arrived with his cart.
“Tell me something funny, Harry,” I said.
“I don't even have a half of a tidbit today.” He plopped down in the chair next to my desk.
“Nothing? No rumors? No whispers about some big suit's wife banging the gardener? You disappoint me, Harry.”
“I disappoint myself. That's the only fun in this damn job.”
“The rumors or the fact that they think you're too dumb to pick up on them?”
“Both,” Harry said. “But especially the dumb part, I guess.”
“So… nothing?”
“Really nothing. Quiet as church mice up there.”
“And when was the last time you were in a church?”
“A fair point,” he said. Then he reached over to the cart and pulled out a copy of Das Volk, one of the other East Berlin papers. “Seen this?”
“Anything interesting?”
“Not unless you find photos of apartment construction projects interesting.”
“I guess they are if you're on the list.”
“I guess,” he said
I thumbed through to a letters column on the inside page. Bernie told me when we were having coffee in Alexanderplatz that this was the most interesting part of the paper, and I assumed it was the same at Das Volk.
“It's also some of my best creative writing,” he said.
“But didn't you just get done telling me that all the man-in-the-street stuff is legitimate?”
“I said they were semi-legitimate,” he said. “And the letters, some of them are real. But you know that all the editors meet with the Central Committee on Wednesdays — I've told you that before, right? Anyway, they always come back with topics the committee would like to see discussed in the letters, and the correct point of view they want to see expressed. Me and Keeler, we share a desk and have a laugh about it every week. I put on my boss's voice and say, 'Bernie, I'd like a letter from a concrete laborer from Lichtenberg. Topic is fucking dead sheep.' Then I put on my voice and say, 'Are we for or against fucking dead sheep, boss?'“
With that background in the fine art of journalism in the German Democratic Republic, I now read the letters looking for the ones about fucking dead sheep. But the one that caught my eye that day was from J.M., a housewife from Mitte.
To the editors,
It is becoming less and less possible to ignore the plight of the unfortunate members of our society who are being duped into fleeing to the decadent West. They are being made the promise of a better life and are instead discovering a world where poverty exists in the shadows of the shining neon lights, where neither the dignity of work nor the ability to pay for life's necessities is guaranteed. Many are being forced to debase themselves to survive, mostly the women and even some girls. The cases are well-documented. It is a human tragedy.
Our state must act to protect those people. A simple barrier between East Berlin and the rest of the city would deliver the message — a message aimed not as much at our great citizens but at the cynical voices on the other side.
It would speak to the traitorous guest workers from East Berlin, yes. But more than that, a barrier would say, loud and clear, that the German Democratic Republic will do everything in its power to protect its citizens from a system that appears as a beautifully wrapped gift, only to reveal an empty box when it is opened.
I read it, and then I read it a second time, and then I pointed it out to Harry, and then he read it. His response was simply to look at me and theatrically raise an eyebrow, then stand up and push his cart farther down the hall.
It was all I could think about for the next few minutes, until the phone rang. I didn't recognize the voice, not that it mattered. There were no pleasantries. The whole call might have taken 10 seconds. I was being summoned, not to the Stasi prison, but to Stasi headquarters on Normannenstrasse. The appointment was in two hours. I hung up and thought about telling Greiner, but then I decided to wait until I knew something more. And then, well, then I wasn't thinking about the letters to the editor anymore.
21
Normannenstrasse was still a construction site. I could see the main building, No. 1, and that's where I was headed. But to get there, I was forced to drive a slalom of sorts around a series of earthmoving vehicles or various sizes and shapes. There were more buildings going up along the row. If I imagined it when it was finished, there would be a massive courtyard of sorts with No. 1 as its anchor.
One of the guards at what amounted to a front gate — it wasn't even a shack, just a half-assed lean-to that would be barely tall enough to protect the guard from the rain, provided the wind wasn't blowing in the wrong direction — told me where to park, maybe 100 yards from the front door. There was a faint film of dust on my shoes, just around the edges, when I reached the reception desk at No. 1.
“Under Lieutenant Peter Ritter from Berlin Kripo, Murder Squad, here to see Captain Hans Grundmann,” I said.
The woman at the desk ran her finger down a column on the ledger open in front of her and found my name. She picked up the receiver on her telephone and, before dialing, said, “Make yourself comfortable.”
There were two benches with leather cushions, but I chose instead to look at the artwork in the atrium that was the building's lobby. It was bright and modern, as you would expec
t, with clean lines and light wood accents. There were two statues. One of them, I recognized right off — Lenin. He was leaning forward on a podium of sorts and looked very much like every picture of him that I had ever seen: the pointy beard, the eyes with the fire seeming to shoot out of them, all of it. It was as if he was preparing to fire up a crowd. The other statue, I had no idea who it was until I read the plaque beneath. The man in the overcoat was Felix Dzerzhinsky. I didn't know a lot about him, other than that he was in charge of the Cheka, way back, which was an early Soviet version of the Stasi. I wiped at the base of the statue, and there was a wisp of plaster dust on my finger, a fact of which Old Felix would not likely have approved. As for the faint but very real smell of paint, I had no idea.
As I was wiping my finger on the inside of my pants pocket, an officer came down the main staircase. Captain Grundmann, I presumed — correctly, as it turned out. He was my superior in rank, and he was from the colon-restricting Stasi, but he seemed oddly relaxed. As we walked up the stairs, I felt confident enough to attempt a bit of small-talk.
“How long—”
“It's brand new,” he said. Stasi mind-reading trick, clearly. “We've been moving in stages.”
“But do you ever get used to—”
“The paint smell? Yeah. Like I said, brand new. You won't notice it after a few minutes. It was much worse a couple of weeks ago.”
When we got to the top of the stairs, the first landing on the second floor, Grundmann leaned over and, in a kind of conspiratorial whisper, said, “The minister is out of town, so I can give you a bit of a tour.”
The minister was Erich Mielke. He was in charge of state security. I knew nothing about him, other than his title, and what he looked like from newspaper photographs — oh, and the fact that he scared the crap out of me, almost literally. Just the thought of walking down his hallways was giving me minor stomach cramps.