Sektion 20

by Paul Dowswell

  Geli spoke plainly, trying to keep the anger from her voice. ‘So why can’t the State encourage our craftsmen to make beautiful things and pay them proper wages? Everything here is ugly and joyless. Grey concrete, brown lino, green curtains. The same outfits for everyone – almost like in China. Why do you think Alex and I love the Western fashions so much? They are attractive and lively and say life should be fun. I’m sick of trying to be a good socialist robot.’

  A terrible silence fell on the room. Alex was spellbound in admiration for his sister. She had put his feelings into words.

  ‘Angela, half the country was destroyed in the war,’ said Frank. ‘It is still being rebuilt. Why do I need to tell you this?’

  ‘The war ended nearly thirty years ago,’ said Geli.

  ‘Angela, go to your room,’ said Gretchen. ‘No, both of you go.’ She was close to tears. Their father looked like a wounded animal.

  It was the dreariest June any of them could remember. Berlin was covered in a perpetual grey sky – like someone had sealed the city in a vast plastic food container. The wind blew in from the East and it seemed impossible to believe summer would ever arrive. The atmosphere in the Ostermann household was very similar.

  Alex felt a terrible inertia – he had real problems getting out of bed. His future – one he could imagine actually looking forward to and enjoying – had been taken away from him. Sophie was the only bright spark in his life, and he wondered how much longer she would want to go out with a lad who had such dismal prospects. Alex even began to wonder if he should play along with the Stasi – pretend to spy for them and deliver nothing of any value. But he sensed they were too clever, too ruthless, to let him get away with that.

  Frank shouted at everyone these days – even Gretchen moved around him with trepidation, anxious not to set him off on a rant. So when they sat down for dinner that night, no one was looking forward to the stop-start conversations that characterised their meals these days.

  ‘I have an announcement to make,’ said Frank, after he had drunk a glass of the Bulgarian wine that occasionally appeared on the shelves of the local supermarket. ‘I have been thinking a lot about our life together, and I think we’d all agree it is not satisfactory.’

  Geli and Alex looked at him in horror. What was he about to say? That he and Gretchen were getting divorced?

  His next words were even more of a shock.

  ‘I think we should try to leave the DDR.’

  Geli’s jaw dropped open. Gretchen looked astonished. Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘There is nothing left for us here. Your mother and I are shunned by our Party comrades.’ He reached over to hold her hand. ‘You two have destroyed the future we worked so hard to prepare you for . . .’

  Alex could see Geli bristling with anger. He hoped she wouldn’t say anything.

  Gretchen spoke. ‘But, Frank, you know those who register to leave are treated as traitors. They’ll never let us go. They’re always saying how important engineers and teachers are to the future of our country. We are exactly the sort of people they would never allow to leave.’

  Frank nodded. He looked grave. ‘That is why I have engaged the services of professionals.’

  ‘You mean lawyers,’ said Gretchen. ‘They won’t do any good and they’ll cost us a fortune.’

  ‘I mean professional escape assistants.’

  There was a stunned silence around the table.

  Eventually their mother said, ‘How do you know people like that?’ She was utterly astonished. Frank had spent his whole life associating with people who were loyal to the Party.

  ‘I have contacts at work. I hope you will understand that it is not expedient to discuss this further. Please. You must trust me. I will tell you more when our mode of operations is clear.’

  ‘No, tell us now,’ said Gretchen. ‘I need to know that these people aren’t going to be the death of us.’

  ‘You mean you’re not going to object,’ said Alex to his mother. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ she said angrily. ‘Stay here on my own? We’ve tried to make our life here as a family. We’ve failed. If you’re all going, I’m not going to stop you and I am certainly not going to be left behind.’ She looked at Frank sternly. ‘Now tell us. Who are these people?’

  Frank gathered his thoughts.

  ‘They are business people. They bring goods over from West Berlin – luxury stuff for the Exquisit and Delikat stores, and on the way back they take export goods from the East. All the kinds of things we make that have a market in the West – Praktika cameras, Meissen porcelain. Two of the drivers run their own little business taking people back to the West. It is a well-worn routine – the guards know them by sight now and they are usually just waved through. And if they do stop and search the lorries they have the people in a really good hiding place – false compartments and all that.’

  ‘So we’d have to leave everything behind,’ said Gretchen. ‘I can’t imagine we’d be allowed to bring anything more than a little bag and the clothes we stand up in.’

  She put a hand on Frank’s wrist. ‘Look at this apartment. We were really lucky to get it. Geli is right. It is beautiful – especially compared to the ones they’re putting up these days. Do you really want to leave this behind?’

  Geli didn’t like the way the conversation was going. ‘Mutti – there’s nothing left for us here – Vati is right. In the West we can make use of our talents. You will be able to get a job – teachers are never out of work. Vati is always going to find work with his skills. Alex will be able to play his music without the Stasi hauling him off to Hohenschönhausen. I’d go tomorrow with just the clothes I stand up in, if I had the chance.’

  Gretchen was looking tearful. ‘But what about Jan-Carl?’ she asked Geli. She turned to Frank. ‘What about Grandma?’

  ‘She can come and visit us as often as she likes. They’d even let her go if she wanted to move to the West, you know that.’

  Geli spoke next. ‘I’ll miss Jan-Carl,’ she said plainly, ‘but we were never going to get married or anything.’

  ‘And you, Alex,’ said Gretchen. ‘What about Sophie? What about your friends?’

  ‘She’ll follow us out,’ said Alex. ‘When I tell her, she’ll be desperate to come with us.’ His eyes lit up. ‘Can she come with us?’

  ‘No, no. You must tell no one,’ Frank shouted. He looked terrified. ‘Sophie might want to escape, but you must swear on your life that you will not tell her,’ he said. ‘I know it’s difficult but if no one knows, then no one will be able to tell anyone else. Any stray gossip will be the end for us. We simply cannot tell a soul that we are going. Not even Grandma.’

  ‘So when will we go?’ said Gretchen.

  ‘There’s a space for us next week,’ said Frank.

  ‘NEXT WEEK!’ said Gretchen. ‘You are joking. We’ll never be ready for next week.’

  ‘Gretchen, my love,’ said Frank. ‘This is not like going on holiday. We do not have to get the neighbours in to water the plants and make sure the gas bill is paid and our workmates are covering our absences. We have all got to drop everything.’

  Even Alex and Geli were stunned at the implication.

  ‘And how are we going to pay for it?’ asked Gretchen.

  ‘There’s been a cancellation,’ said Frank. ‘That’s why it’s at such short notice. They said they’d do the four of us for a bargain price. We’ve been saving for a fridge, Mutti and me – and you know how expensive they are – so we’ve got just enough money.’

  That night, each one of them sat in their rooms looking at a lifetime’s worth of possessions – their own little treasures. In his head Alex knew he wanted to go, but in his heart he felt empty. He decided he would have to take his little plastic Sandman, that he had loved so much as a kid. And a few clothes. But he’d have to leave his guitar. He loved that – even though he knew it was crap. It was the repository
of his dreams.

  Geli looked at all her art books and sketches and photo prints, all carefully archived and the fruit of so much labour. Years of going out at all hours to take shots in exactly the right light. She went through her negative files, picking out the pictures she could not bear to leave behind and cut them out with scissors.

  Gretchen was looking at photographs too – in the bulky family albums that filled an entire shelf above the television. She had a whole life in those photographs – how could she possibly choose just a handful of shots of the kids when they were younger? Then she thought about all her carefully acquired kitchenware, and how hard they had worked to scrape together enough money for the washing machine and the cooker and the food mixer.

  Frank was thinking of the Trabi – all the tender love and affection he had put into keeping it on the road. He thought back to their first family outing and how much it had meant to them to be able to tootle out to the lakes east of Berlin without having to wait for trams and trains and buses with arms full of food hampers and blankets and towels. Everything in their life they had had to struggle and strive to get. And now, they were leaving it all behind.

  Chapter 23

  The escape was set for 1st of July, in the dead of night, and now the waiting was almost over. For Alex, it would not be soon enough. Not having Sophie would leave a huge gap, but his day to day life in the Republik was now so restricted, he felt he was being slowly suffocated. These days he only ventured out when he had to – the walk to school and back. He was sure he was being followed. He kept waiting for the moment when Kohl would tap him on the shoulder and ask if he had decided to help them.

  Two days before they were due to go, Frank told them they were to meet the escape assistants at 10 p.m. in a bar close to the Meissen warehouse. Having spent so long deciding what to take, word had come down that they could only carry handbags or small rucksacks. ‘Think about it,’ said Frank’s contact. ‘A family all carrying suitcases would raise suspicion. You might even get stopped in the street by the police.’ That upset them all. The escape itself was bad enough – like taking a leap into a dark well with no guarantee that there would be any water at the bottom.

  Frank made it plain to Alex that he should not spend his final evening with Sophie. He was too anxious that the boy would tell her he was going to escape. Alex was furious. ‘You have got to trust me, Vati,’ he said. ‘I, more than any of us, am desperate to get out of this place. Why would I place the entire family in danger?’

  Gretchen had said, ‘You should do what Geli did with Jan-Carl and tell her it’s over. He was civil enough about it.’

  Alex told them he would think about it. But every time he meant to tell her when they met up on the way to school, he’d look at her face and the way she looked at him and he couldn’t bear to think they’d never talk to each other, or kiss, or walk in the park again. In the back of his mind, he knew they wouldn’t be able to do any of these things after he escaped. But there was something so frightening about what they were about to do, it seemed to eclipse everything in the future.

  Frank and Gretchen relented. They allowed Alex to go out the night before, to see Sophie one last time. Maybe Kohl only worked during the day, Alex convinced himself. And even if he did nab him, Alex could agree to anything he asked. He wouldn’t be there after tomorrow.

  She met him in the park in floods of tears. Alex was immediately alarmed. How did she know?

  But something else was upsetting her.

  ‘My father is so angry with me for going out to see you tonight,’ she said. ‘“You’re a big girl now, so you have to make your own stupid mistakes,” he said. “If you keep seeing Alex Ostermann, you are putting your entire future in peril.”’

  Alex said nothing. Her father was right.

  They walked along to the Soviet war memorial and then to the fair. They were both short of money and decided they would rather spend their few Marks on something to drink rather than another ride on the Ferris wheel.

  They sat on a bench and watched the wheel go round. It was a bizarre situation and every moment Alex was bursting to tell her what he was about to do.

  Eventually, when the beer bottles were empty, he could bear it no longer.

  ‘Sophie, I’m going to tell you something you must promise never to repeat to anyone else.’

  She looked at him with trepidation.

  ‘I’m going to escape. Tomorrow night. We’re all going.’

  ‘All,’ she said, her eyes widening with shocked surprise. ‘You mean me as well?’

  ‘No – I mean the family.’

  ‘Alex, how could you do this without telling me about it?’ She had raised her voice in anger. ‘You know I want to go. Why have you done this behind my back?’

  ‘It’s something my parents have organised. Yes, I’m as surprised as you are about it. Of course I asked if you could come too, but they said there was only room for the four of us.’

  He looked at her angry face and wished he’d had the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

  ‘They made me promise not to tell a soul,’ he pleaded. ‘Look, you can imagine how difficult it’s been.’

  ‘Verdammt, Alex, you Arschloch,’ she said, and slapped him hard across the face.

  Before he could gather his thoughts she had got up and was storming off home. He called out but people were already staring at them. Alex got up to chase after her. But she was walking so quickly and so determinedly he knew he was wasting his time.

  Chapter 24

  For Alex, the final hours passed slower than a day in his cell at Hohenschönhausen. In its own strange way, he imagined it would be like the last day before your execution. Almost everything he knew would be gone for ever. The only thing the Ostermanns would be keeping from their previous life was their grandma. Alex didn’t know what she would think about them escaping. Perhaps she’d feel they had abandoned her and fret about not having them close by in case she got ill and needed help. But once they’d settled there, she could come out and join them.

  Alex sat in his room, filled with a sadness he did not really understand. Perhaps life would have been easier if he’d just kept his head down and gone along with it all? Sorting through his things he found a small box with all his enamel Young Pioneer badges, glistening gold and red, and thought how proud he’d been to receive them.

  In her bedroom next door Geli was looking at her Jugendweihe collection – the youth coming of age ceremony she had been through when she was fourteen. She had no scruples about leaving any of it behind. She told herself the most precious thing she had was her talent. Over there, in the West, it would be allowed to flourish.

  As the shadows deepened and the bright light of the day began to fade, Gretchen cooked them a final meal of roast pork and dumplings.

  ‘Why make all that washing-up?’ Frank demanded.

  ‘Why do we need to do the washing-up?’ she replied.

  They were all shocked by that. In all his sixteen years, Alex had never seen their mother leave the dishes after a meal.

  In the end Gretchen couldn’t bear to leave the kitchen looking so untidy. ‘It’s not fair to whoever comes to live here next,’ she said. Geli and Alex helped her wash and dry the dishes. It helped to take their mind off what was coming.

  Then they gathered up whatever they could carry in their coats and small bags.

  ‘Have you remembered the money?’ Alex said, almost as a joke.

  Frank never had much of a sense of humour at the best of times. ‘I have paid them already.’

  Walking out of their home for the last time felt like a strange dream. Frank locked the door behind them and they began to walk down the stairs. Then he went back to unlock the door and leave the keys on the kitchen table. He did not want the authorities to have to break into the apartment. A damaged door would be a needless expense.

  The tram stop out to their rendezvous point – Waldes Bar on the corner of Baumschulenstrasse and Kiefholzstrasse and close to
the crossing point at Sonnenallee – was a five minute walk from the apartment.

  As they waited silently for their tram, Alex thought about a lesson they’d had in school about escapers to the West and what life was like there. It was an act of political and moral depravity, his teacher had said.

  Bollocks to that, he thought defiantly. But he had never felt such a mixture of emotions in his life. Sadness that he and Sophie had parted so badly, fear for the ordeal they now faced, excitement for the future, but also a strange nostalgia for the life he was just about to leave behind. It was all he had ever known and now he might never see these streets again.

  The Waldes Bar was as seedy as expected, with a few desultory customers and dim light bulbs. Everyone turned to look at them when they walked in. But none of the customers looked especially threatening.

  A waitress came to the table and took their order – two small beers and two orange juices.

  ‘Now we wait for them to come to us,’ said Frank.

  They sat down in glum silence and Alex wondered if they ought to be talking. Why would a family of four be sitting in this bar at ten o’clock at night, just waiting? It all looked too suspicious. They should pretend they had just been to see a film or a play or a concert – anything like that. They should be talking in an animated way rather than sitting there like they were just about to have a tooth out at the dentist.

  Five minutes after they’d ordered drinks a stocky middle-aged man in a sheepskin driving coat came into the bar and approached them.

  ‘Ah, Frank,’ he said. ‘I understand you want to buy my refrigerator.’

  Frank answered as agreed. ‘Yes, you need a refrigerator at this time of year.’

  ‘Come along then, I’ll show it to you.’

  They got up as casually as possible, and followed him out, leaving their drinks unfinished. As Geli squeezed past a narrow gap between tables she dropped the photo file she was carrying inside her coat and its contents spilled out over the floor.