Stealing the Future

by Max Hertzberg

  “Captain Grobe, you have been asked here today because it has come to our attention that you have not surrendered the paperwork attendant on your promotion for correct processing.” This guy had obviously been taking lessons from Frau Demnitz, and I wondered how long I’d be kept here, listening to his bureaucratic declamations.

  I concentrated on the blue sky behind his left shoulder, feeling absurdly pleased when a fluffy cloud, high up in the sky, started a slow journey across the window. When I next tuned into what the drone was saying he’d moved on to the responsibilities of a higher rank. I wished now that I had paid more attention, because if I understood what I was hearing, this suit here was actually threatening me. Of course, he made use of bureaucratic phrases, but the gist of it was that if I didn’t pull my socks up, start behaving like a captain and doing what I was told instead of phoning Dresden at every opportunity, well, what? Unfortunately I’d missed the bit where the implicit threats might have been outlined, but I certainly wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of asking him to repeat the juicy bits.

  The civil servant hadn’t even begun winding down when I got up. As I left I asked him over my shoulder whether he was finished, but didn’t bother hanging around for an answer. I closed the door on him and wondered whether to just go back to Lichtenberg without dealing with all the promotion crap. But I thought that since I was here anyway, I might as well go and sort out the paperwork at the secretariat—if I didn’t they’d just haul me back again tomorrow. I followed the corridor round to the back of the building, and used the stairs there to go down to the ground floor. The front desk at the secretariat wasn’t occupied, and all the other staff were busy typing away, steadfastly ignoring me. I looked around the room while I waited, the sound of typewriter keys and the pinging carriage bells echoed round the bare room. In the corner a dusty cheese plant was about to give up the fight for life, and next to it a door stood slightly ajar. Not enough to see into it, but over the clackety-clack of the typewriters, and the more regular chatter of the telex I could hear a woman’s voice spilling out from the room beyond. I couldn’t make out what was being said, but I could hear the accent: gentle, Mecklenburg, quite a high voice. I’d heard it recently, very recently. But when?

  “Can I help you, Comrade?” The secretary whose job it was to deal with enquiries had returned to her post.

  I handed the Minister’s commission papers over to the secretary without a word, still staring at the door. The secretary drew a new pass out of a locked drawer, along with a form. She stamped the form, then handed that and the pass to me, along with some more papers for me to scribble my signature on.

  “Here you are Comrade Captain—your new papers and a requisition slip for the dress uniform. You can get that at the Police Präsidium.”

  I took the papers, but I was still staring at that door, the one with the sign, Archiv on it, thinking about the voice coming from behind it, because now I’d recognised it. The context had thrown me, but I knew whose voice it was. Now the question was: what was Evelyn doing here, at the Ministry?

  13:57

  When I came out of the station at Ostkreuz, the first thing I saw, on the corner of Simplonstrasse and Sonntagstrasse, was a dark blue Lada. The same two goons were sat there, watching people come out of the station. They hadn’t seen me yet, I’d stopped just under the shadow of the overhead track, and hesitating only for a moment, I turned around, crossing over the tracks by the bridge, headed for the far exit. As I came down the steps off the pedestrian bridge I could see the Tram 82 just go round its turning loop. A quick sprint, and I caught it just as it was about to leave.

  I have an unfortunate character defect. At least, the Marxist-Leninists were always telling me that it was a defect, but I keep hoping that in these new times it may be seen as a positive trait. Whenever someone tells me to do something I have the urge to do the exact opposite—particularly if what they’re telling me to do seems unreasonable. And that’s probably the reason why, a few minutes later, I found myself in front of the prison in Rummelsburg.

  I went to the administrative block at the front of the prison, and after identifying myself asked first to see Fremdiswalde’s belongings. A guard took me to an office on the first floor where he barked an order at a secretary. I was handed a box containing a grubby handkerchief, a small bottle of Aminat shampoo, a red penknife, a black and white check cotton Arabic scarf, a partly squashed Fetzer chocolate bar, a KWO works pass, an empty Forum cigarette packet, twenty Marks plus small change, a set of keys and an envelope with Fremdiswalde’s name on it. The envelope was addressed to a flat in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde.

  “Is that it?”

  “Yes, sir. Accused 264721 didn’t have any further items on his person at the time of his arrest.”

  I took the keys and the envelope, put them in my pocket, and signed a receipt that the protesting secretary pushed over to me.

  I had been left alone, standing in front of a grey steel gate, five meters high. It rattled as it ground open, just wide enough to let me slip through. A prison guard in green uniform and peaked cap sat in a metal sentry box, staring at me, no smile or acknowledgement touching his face. I stood in a non-space, a space that didn’t exist—neither the outside world, nor the prison—the gate rattled shut again behind me. Looking at the steel plates of the second gate in front of me, waiting for them to open, I ignored the guard to my right as well as the watchtower that looked down on me. In my mind I was elsewhere, or rather, in another time. The last time I’d been through these gates I was lying on the floor in the back of a truck, with police boots resting on my head, neck, back and legs. So often I find myself having to forcefully remind myself of the changes this country has gone through. Just a few years, but already I take so many of our new freedoms for granted, feel resentful of the burdens we have willingly taken upon ourselves as individuals and as a society. In the old days we were expected to go to meetings and official demonstrations, but to be there in body only. Now we demanded of ourselves that we give our whole presence to meetings: No revolution without participation, the clumsy slogan to be seen daubed on walls throughout our Republic. No matter how inconvenient it may be, active participation is our guarantee that no longer will people be dragged into this prison for daring to think for themselves. And, as I reminded myself, active participation was the reason I was here now.

  The clang of the gate opening again behind me shook me out of my thoughts. Another guard came in, gesturing back through the gate to the outside world.

  “Accused 264721 is on police remand in Block B,” he announced.

  I followed the guard back out through the gate onto the Rummelsburger Hauptstrasse and around to the left, to another set of buildings outside the prison walls. We went through another grey gate, this time a mere two metres high, with iron spikes along the top, and then past some garages and up some steps into a red-brick house. Once inside we passed through several locked gates, some backed with reinforced safety glass, and down the stairs into the cellar.

  “Wait,” I said to the guard. “How long have you been here?”

  The guard and I were looking at each other. It was difficult to read his face or thoughts, the peak of his cap was pulled low to hide his eyebrows, hide his expressions. He was about the same age as me, perhaps he had been there when I was last here? Perhaps he recognised me. But he must have dealt with hundreds, thousands of politicals in his time. He knew that someone like me must have been somewhere like this at some point in the not too distant past. He continued to look at me, a reserved look, evaluating.

  “Fifteen years,” he said, just when I’d given up on getting an answer.

  So he had been here when I was bundled through those gates. I ran through a short catalogue of all the injustices, the indignities, the physical and mental cruelty I had experienced and seen here. What are we going to do with people like him? Our new way of doing things requires respect for each other, but how could I respect him? Inside myself I could feel hat
e, a desire for revenge gnawing away.

  The guard marched off, opening another barred gate to a long corridor, expecting me to follow. A quiet fuck you directed at his back, and I decided, for the moment, to put it all to one side. I wasn’t here to reopen old wounds, but to talk to Chris Fremdiswalde, see if I could bolster my doubts with some information, some real evidence. I entered the corridor, lit by dull bulbs, no natural light, cells lining one wall.

  Fremdiswalde was in one of these cells, barely two metres wide and not quite as deep. A rough wooden bench was built onto the back wall, and the front of the cell was made up of bars. The tiger cages. I’d heard of these cells from friends who had been arrested and held here by the police. Although there was a bench you weren’t allowed to lie down during the day, and even sitting on it was discouraged by the guards. Maybe that was why Fremdiswalde was hunched up against the wall, hardly noticing me and the guard standing on the other side of the bars.

  “Stand back! Announce yourself!” the guard barked.

  But Fremidswalde didn’t even flinch. He was nursing his right hand, his left eye was so swollen that it was almost shut, surrounded by tender bruising. He was putting most of his weight on his right leg.

  “Chris?” I said gently, trying to attract his attention while I moved between the guard and the bars.

  Still no reaction. Chris remained hunched against the wall. The guard, standing slightly behind me, shifted, leaning back against the brickwork behind.

  “Chris?” I tried again, “Chris, my name is Martin Grobe. I’m from the Republikschutz. I need to ask you a few questions about Hans Maier. Did you know Maier?”

  Still no reaction.

  “What was your relationship with Maier? Did you work with him? Were you friends?”

  Nothing, not even a slight movement.

  “Chris, you do know that Hans Maier is dead? I saw his body myself.”

  I thought that Fremdiswalde still hadn’t reacted, but then I caught the shine of tears gathering in his eyes. I looked over my shoulder to the guard.

  “Get this man a cup of water.”

  The guard shifted his gaze from Fremdiswalde to me, his eyes hard underneath his visored cap, a satisfied set to his mouth.

  “It is forbidden to leave accused persons in the presence of civilians,” he smirked.

  I drew myself up to my full height, turning to face the man directly, and with the hardest voice I could manage: “What is your name?”

  “Nagel.”

  “Unterwachtmeister Nagel—go and get some water for this prisoner. Now!”

  The guard hesitated for a moment, considering his options, then: “Jawohl, Comrade Captain!” before marching off down the corridor.

  I waited until he had turned the corner before looking at Fremdiswalde again.

  “Chris, you’ve got to tell me, I’m the only one who can help you in here.”

  I wasn’t holding out much hope for an answer, but then, shaking with sobs, his eyes moved to meet mine.

  “I can’t,” he stammered. “They’ll kill me–”

  “Who? Who will kill you?”

  But by now the guard was coming back, pacing along the corridor, and Fremdiswalde was sliding down the wall. I waited long enough to make sure that he got his water, then left. There seemed little point in asking any more questions. Fremdiswalde was already half-scared to death.

  I was let out through the front gate, and with a deep sigh I found myself back in the real world, on the Hauptstrasse. In the middle of the road the tram tracks stretched off in both directions. No traffic, no parked vehicles, nobody to be seen. No tail. I looked again to my right, towards the twin chimneys of the power station, I couldn’t see them over the top of the prison wall, just the white plume from one of the tall chimneys, hanging motionless in the blue sky, pointing north towards Lichtenberg. Turning left, I followed the wall of the police compound, trying to find the end of the prison complex. Where the wall of the cells turned away from the road there was a gap, then the army barracks began. I walked as far as the gate, and showing my RS papers I passed the guard and walked through the military base, down to the river.

  The camp was practically empty. Compulsory military service had been ended, professional soldiers had been drafted into the factories—only the disarmament corps and the Grepos, the Border Police, still used the site. At the jetty a launch was casting off, about to patrol the border between Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, on the lookout for smugglers crossing the river between West and East. I watched the launch steadily make way down the Rummelsburg Lake to the river Spree, the new GDR flag fluttering at its stern. Ahead of them, beyond the prison, barges and lighters were tied up along the bank, all empty, all waiting to go and fetch a new load of Silesian brown coal for the power station. Some of the barges were dead or dying, slowly collapsing into the water, timbers rotting, water stains seeping up the lifeless sides. A sapling had rooted in a wheelhouse, and was growing directly up to the sky, but it looked like it was growing sideways out of the listing vessel. It was a clear day, the sun hanging fairly low over the Kulturpark hiding in the woods of the Plänterwald off to the left. The bright light shaded the trees in their autumnal livery: more yellows and golds, less reds and bronzes now, hardly any greens.

  I sat on a bollard, looking out over the water, watching autumn emerge, trying to let the lapping water wash away the fear, the anger, the shock that I had felt in that prison. I felt somehow powerless in the face of that institution. Accompanied by the sound of the water licking the bank I could feel how my own fears from the past were gradually separating out from how appalled I felt at Chris’s treatment. No matter what Chris might have done, there was no way he should have been abused like that.

  In our enthusiasm for building a different society had we neglected the question of criminality and punishment? It couldn’t be denied that we were concentrating more on economic survival and changing the everyday lives of the majority of the population. Beyond an amnesty for political prisoners we’d hardly spared a thought for all those left behind in the cells. It was understandable, we couldn’t deal with everything at once, we’d actually come a long way in less than three years. But seeing Chris just now… Were things still really that bad? Had nothing changed? Or had Chris for some reason been given special treatment? I had seen no other prisoners, Chris had been held alone in the underground cells and I had no way of comparing their welfare with his.

  15:06

  I left the waterside and walked back to the main road. On the way I pulled Fremdiswalde’s keys and envelope out of my pocket. The envelope was empty—the police had probably kept whatever letter had been in it. I didn’t recognise the address, it wasn’t his registered address at the Thaeri squat, nor was it any of the ones listed in his Stasi files, although they’d be a few years out of date by now. The keys were normal, a mortice key and a four sided key, together on a ring. Looked like the keys to a flat, maybe I should go and have a look?

  A tram and a bus later and I was in Friedrichsfelde. I could have taken the scenic route, tried to shake off anyone that might be following me. But I guessed it was pretty obvious that I was still taking an interest in Fremdiswalde, and I was sure the prison in Rummelsburg would pass on word of my visit. Nevertheless I looked around as the bus belched off, leaving the heavy taste of singed diesel in my nostrils. I couldn’t see anyone, I was there all by myself.

  It didn’t feel like Berlin, not the Berlin I knew. Low rise houses, plenty of gardens, some of the side streets unmade, just beaten sand marked by car and bike tracks. Turning into a side street I could see that the residents had blocked it off, making raised beds to grow vegetables on what had been the road. A sign, decorated with rainbow swirls, read Colour from below, a huge pile of pumpkins grew from a single plant, surrounded by peppers, herbs and flowers.

  The house I was looking for was three storeys high, and had two front doors. I tried the mortice key in the lock of the nearest door, but the door was already unlocked,
so the key stopped after just half a twist. Good to know I was on the right track, though. I went up the stairs, checking each doorbell as I went. Up two flights, and past a toilet on the half-landing, and there he was: C.Fremdiswalde. I let myself in using the four sided key and stood just inside the hallway, quietly closing the door behind me. No sound. Just that dead feeling you get from an empty flat. Stale cigarette smoke, and another smell over the top of that. I sniffed, trying to identify it, similar to the cigarette smoke, but vaguer, and sharper.

  It wasn’t a big flat: a tiny hall, just a couple of paces long, a small cupboard, and behind that a bedsit with a kitchen-niche taking up the wall opposite the window. I stood in the middle of the bed-sitting room and looked around me. What was I looking for? I decided to look over the place briefly, then do a second, more thorough search.

  There wasn’t much here, a few clothes, a pile of papers on the table. No books, no posters or pictures decorating the walls. The kitchen area looked like it had only been used for making tea and coffee, mouldy coffee grains were to be found in a few mugs, but no evidence of any food. I started with the table in the corner: lots of notes, scribbled, scratched out, pretty much illegible. Newspapers, piled up. I flicked through the papers, in each one articles had been cut out. I checked the dates: all from the last few days, the earlier ones had holes in the front pages, more recent papers were cut up inside, the articles steadily getting shorter. He’d cut out the reports about Maier’s death, but where were they? I looked in the steel bin by the side of his desk, here they were, mixed up with letters, written on expensive western paper, but someone had tried to burn them. There was my unidentified smell: burnt paper. Whoever did it must have been in a rush, just setting light to them in the bin. Soot marks streaked up the inside of the grey steel bucket, but here and there legible bits remained: My dearest Chri… was on one charred remnant, another corner of a letter: Görlitz, d. 13 Juli 1993 the date and place written at the top of a letter, in the same handwriting. And here again on another fragment: Your ever loving Hansi. I found an envelope, and carefully filled it with the scraps of paper, the ones that still had some handwriting on. When I got back to the office I’d compare it with Maier’s handwritten statement from when he was recruited as a Stasi IM, but it certainly looked like love letters from Maier to Fremdiswalde.