Hidden Depths

by Ally Rose

  A deep thinker, Felix believed life was about a series of moments. He’d managed to survive in Torgau by being in the moment, dealing with whatever life threw at him, good and bad. He’d learned to take whatever pleasure he could in small things, such as being with the family, enjoying nature, pushing his body to its physical limits of whatever he was doing at the time. He tried not to think too far forward or stay too much in the past. One of his greatest pleasures, much to everyone’s surprise, was looking after Axel. He liked nothing more than playing on the beach with him, taking a bucket and spade to build snowmen in the winter months or sandcastles in the summer, and trying to teach him how to kick a ball or swim. By nurturing his nephew he felt close to Susi, who was often in his thoughts. The handsome toddler was the image of his mother, which was some small consolation and pleased Felix more than Axel being surrounded by love, and that he adored his Onkel Felix.

  * * *

  The summer Olympics of 1992 were held in Spain, with the opening ceremony in the last week of July. In Motzen, it was a bit cooler than the heat the athletes were enduring in Barcelona. Ingrid arranged for the café and the golf club to hold weekend Spanish nights of tapas, paellas and flamenco dancing for the duration of the Games. The screen in Das Kino beamed the various sporting events live throughout the day and they’d also installed a satellite dish at the golf club to cover sporting events for the patrons to watch in the bar lounge.

  During the Olympics, Klaus and Ingrid invited Dr Jens and his family to the lake.

  ‘Hola !’ said the doctor, with Latin gusto, on arrival.

  ‘Jens was happy to come to a Spanish night to practise his language skills,’ Angele, his wife told them. ‘Please humour him.’

  Angele was an attractive, stylish lady in her early 40s and Jens was 12 years older but there was warmth and humour between them that was natural and the age gap didn’t show or matter. Jens clearly adored his younger wife and children: Martha was a pretty, 17-year-old with long auburn hair, who took after her graceful and poised mother, and her brother Friedrich was a lively 13-year-old.

  The last time Felix had set eyes on Martha was in Berlin, a few days after the Wall came down. He had the same feeling of butterflies in his stomach.

  ‘Can we go out on a boat?’ asked Friedrich.

  ‘When you’ve eaten,’ his mother told him.

  ‘I’ll take you later, if you like,’ Felix offered, unable to take his eyes off Martha.

  ‘Thank you, Felix,’ Dr Jens said. ‘Haven’t seen you since I played golf with you and Klaus back in the spring. How are you?’ Unusually tongue-tied, Felix didn’t know what to say. ‘I’m keeping busy.’

  Ingrid noticed Felix’s discomfort. ‘Yes, we keep you busy, working hard for the family business, here at the lake and up at the golf club,’ she told the visitors adding ‘He even helps me with Axel.’

  ‘Saint Felix.’ Klaus poked his nephew playfully in the ribs.

  ‘Onkel!’ Felix felt embarrassed and added, ‘Hardly.’

  ‘What do you think about the latest hand-sized mobile phones?’ Dr Jens asked Felix, thinking the subject would take the heat off him.

  ‘They’re handy!’ Felix replied.

  Dr Jens smiled. ‘You have to be German to get this joke. I think mobile phones will catch on but personally, I’ll wait till the price comes down.’

  ‘Where’s Axel?’ Angele asked.

  ‘As it’s Spanish night, my son’s having a siesta,’ Ingrid informed them. ‘Tomorrow I’ll call it a nickerchen again.’

  Dr Jens loved playing with words or language. ‘I believe the English call it a nap.’

  ‘We usually speak English with the tourists,’ Felix said and turned to address Martha. ‘I hear you don’t have to learn Russian in school any more and the second language is now English.’

  ‘That’s right… and you don’t have to go to school, lucky you!’ Martha ventured.

  So began their first, tentative conversation.

  Felix kept his word, taking Martha and Friedrich in a small motorboat out onto the lake. Friedrich draped his hand in the water as they sped around whilst Martha sat on the bow, her hair blowing behind her, as Felix steered the boat and watched her surreptitiously out of the corner of his eye.

  Before she went home, Felix got a chance to talk to Martha alone. He wondered if Dr Jens would approve if he asked to see his daughter again and wondered what Martha knew about him and if her father had told her about his background. He had decided to risk being rejected because he wanted to see her again, to get to know her and didn’t want to wait until another get-together was arranged between the families, which could take six months or more.

  ‘How long will it take you to get back to Kopenick?’

  Martha raised an eyebrow. ‘Less than an hour. Why?’

  ‘Oh, well, I was wondering…’ Felix began tentatively. ‘There’s a bus in Motzen, it goes to Berlin and stops in Kopenick.’

  ‘Really?’ Martha said, smiling inwardly.

  ‘Well, you’re welcome here any time,’ Felix told her.

  ‘Or maybe, Felix, you could come to Kopenick, to see us?’ Martha suggested, adding ‘I’d like a ride on the back of your Schwalbe.’

  ‘It’s a deal.’

  For the following two months, Felix and Martha spent a lot of time to-ing and fro-ing between Motzen and Kopenick. The long summer days when Felix worked were more enjoyable when Martha visited and she was always ready to lend a hand and even baby-sit Axel until his shift had ended. After eating with the family they’d take a relaxing walk, staying outside on starry nights to share moonlit kisses. Although Felix had, by this time, moved into Gertrude’s house, Martha would stay overnight in the cottage under Klaus and Ingrid’s watchful eyes. They were so young that they were more than happy just to hold hands, hug and kiss. It was an innocent kind of love and their sceptical guardians decided not to interfere. After all, who could stop two young, headstrong people falling in love?

  As summer drew to a close, the youngsters sat nestled in each other’s arms under a blanket on the end of the jetty with their feet dangling in the water, listening to a chorus of night owls over the lake. The night sky seemed endless and full of promise.

  Martha sighed. ‘School starts next week.’

  ‘Never mind.’

  Martha was curious. ‘You don’t regret leaving school at 16?’

  ‘Not at all, I enjoy my work,’ Felix told her.

  ‘I don’t want to think about work just yet. In two years I’ll finish school and before I go to university, I’m going to take a year off and travel the world.’

  Felix felt happy for her but at the same time, afraid to lose her. ‘What, on your own?’

  Martha squeezed his hand. ‘Are you fishing for a compliment?’

  Felix was thinking she knew him well and was comfortable with this. He believed he could trust her and tell her most things about what he thought and felt, except the darkest secrets from his time at Torgau. He tried to block out those experiences and for the most part, he was successful. The love he had for Martha made him feel vulnerable and insecure but he tried to deal with his fear.

  ‘Of course! I’m a fisherman, aren’t I?’ he said, trying to turn his confusion into a joke.

  Martha realised he needed reassuring. ‘I’d like to go travelling with you.’

  Felix’s anxiety was assuaged. ‘What, you’d travel the world with someone like me, even though I was sent to Torgau?’

  ‘I know all about what happened to you. Papa told me.’

  Felix was embarrassed. ‘What, everything?’

  Martha nodded, looking sad. ‘You were abused by those sick bastards and no one helped you. Well, Papa did, but by then the damage was done.’

  Felix was adamant. ‘I don’t blame your father. I’m not angry with him, he was kind to me and my sister. But If I ever see any of those wardens again, I don’t know what I’d be capable of.’

  ‘Who would blame you? Felix, remembe
r, it wasn’t your fault.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Do you really know it, deep inside? Say it. It wasn’t your fault.’

  Felix faltered with his words. ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  ‘Again.’ Martha insisted.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  Martha squeezed him tight. ‘Really believe it.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault.’

  And with this Felix broke down.

  Martha held his shaking body until his tears stopped falling and he could speak.

  ‘And it doesn’t make any difference to you, knowing I was an abused Torgau boy?’

  ‘Not one bit.’

  ‘I feel I could tell you anything.’

  ‘You can, you must. Let it out, don’t keep it all inside, festering and sabotaging your potential happiness.’

  ‘I’ll try not to. Martha… I love you.’

  ‘Darling Felix… I love you, too.’

  Kissing, they sealed their declaration of love.

  ‘Come on Felix,’ Martha said. ‘Let’s go to your Oma’s house.’

  In grandmother Gertrude’s house that night, Felix and Martha became lovers. Their lovemaking was soft and gentle, caressing and exploring each other’s bodies, discovering the intimate details and preferences that only lovers can share. It wasn’t the first time for either of them but it was a life-changing moment for them both, and they slept in each other’s arms that night. Returning to the cottage to sleep simply for the sake of appeasing Klaus, Ingrid and her own parents felt unacceptable to Martha.

  They returned to the cottage for breakfast, hand in hand, and it was instantly obvious to a concerned Klaus and Ingrid what had occurred the night before. Axel, however, was delighted to see them.

  ‘Fe-wix,’ Axel squealed and ran into his Onkel’s arms.

  ‘Hello, little man,’ Felix said, covering the boy with kisses.

  ‘Can we play?’ asked Axel.

  ‘Later, I promise,’ Felix told his nephew.

  Axel wandered off to play with his toys in another corner of the room.

  Ingrid shook her head. ‘What will Jens and Angele say? They’ll feel we’ve let them down, not looking after their daughter.’

  ‘We’re in love,’ Felix announced proudly.

  ‘I’ll deal with my parents, don’t worry,’ Martha said confidently.

  ‘Just because you kept our sleeping arrangements apart doesn’t mean you could have stopped anything happening,’ Felix told them.

  ‘That’s true,’ Klaus observed. ‘I just hope it doesn’t interfere with Martha’s schooling.’

  ‘It won’t,’ Martha reassured them. ‘And before you ask, I’m on the Pill.’

  Martha’s parents weren’t surprised at her news. They’d seen it coming and hoped she wouldn’t get too hurt if it all went wrong, as was so often the case in teenage love affairs. Martha’s first boyfriend had broken her heart last year when she was a much less self-assured girl of 16 and if she did get hurt they’d be there to pick up the pieces again. Jens and Angele genuinely liked Felix and felt he was a good lad at heart, but given his background they worried whether he could cope with the demands of a relationship at his young age – or with their daughter, for that matter. Only time would tell.

  Summer and romantic trysts for Felix came to an abrupt end at the golf club. A few months after the German Masters golf tournament was played in Stuttgart, the golf clubs in the Berlin area were touting for the honour to hold next year’s tournament. At his Onkel’s club, their annual open tournament began and was one of their biggest events of the year. Various personalities in golf turned up, including the winner of the German Masters, 1992, England’s Barry Lane.

  The club hired extra staff for security purposes, not only to protect the professional golf players but to keep the crowds off the greens and fairways, safely behind ropes. Bernd had arranged for the event to be televised, striking a lucrative deal with a satellite television company and opening the tournament in his official capacity of Mayor. Felix was keen not to be seen in front of the omnipresent television cameras. He was happier behind the scenes, working, repairing the divots with the ground staff.

  But on the opening day of the tournament, the world he’d built for himself that had seemed safe and full of promise was irrevocably torn asunder. Felix recognised one of the hired security stewards at the staff briefing. It was Horst Gwisdek, one of the Musketeers at Torgau.

  Chapter Eleven: Horst

  HORST GWISDEK WAS THE eldest of three boys, brought up by an authoritarian mother in a Berlin suburb in East Germany. After she had caught Horst’s father in bed with a 14-year-old boy she had divorced him, denying him any future access to his sons in exchange for her silence and not informing the authorities.

  Frau Gwisdek worked all the hours under the sun to support her three children. Horst was the eldest and a surrogate father at the age of nine, helping look after the younger children. His overworked mother often came home tired and irritable. She regularly took her frustration out on her eldest son, belittling his efforts and beating him indiscriminately for a perceived or trivial mistake. The young Horst saw brief glimpses of her love but it made for a fractious relationship when he became an adult. By then all he felt for her was bitterness, whereas she had mellowed, but he couldn’t forgive her. A strong man now, he towered over his mother and harbouring deep resentment, took a final, satisfactory retribution, hitting her so hard that he fractured her cheekbone causing her eyeball to come out of its socket. Smiling smugly, he then left the house, never to see his mother or his brothers again.

  The Russian Army was serving in Afghanistan in the 1980s and this appealed to Horst. Here, with the protective cloak of a uniform to hide his actions, he found he enjoyed torturing imprisoned men, especially the teenage militants who were captured and alongside his fellow soldiers, crossed sexual boundaries. After five years, Horst left the army and ended up as head of security at Torgau’s youth prison. Gradually, he made friends with the other Musketeers whom he soon discovered shared his proclivities for sexually abusing young boys. They formed a tight bond and if anyone working at Torgau outside their paedophile unit dared to oppose them, Horst used his considerable and formidable strength to deliver his message: ‘cross me if you dare’.

  When Torgau was closed down, the authorities began dealing with complaints from the survivors of abuse. As yet, none of the children Horst had abused spoke out against him or his fellow Musketeers and he remained at large in the community to continue his life as a paedophile. He kept in regular touch with a paedophile ring of comrades, especially the two Musketeers, but lived a solitary life in Leipzig in rented accommodation that he changed frequently, never developing personal relationships with other adults of either sex. He preferred a life of hiring boy prostitutes to share with the Musketeers during their opportune moments when they went out ‘hunting’ in Horst’s motor home. On these trips they would kidnap a young, unsuspecting kid, often a young male aged between 12 and 15, off the streets of some distant city. After days and nights of abuse too vile to document, they would dump the abused child, barely alive, onto the streets and disappear into the night.

  Horst was now a burly man in his 40s, working as a freelance security guard. He was happiest mingling with celebrities at prestigious events and jumped at the chance to work at the Motzen Mayor golf club tournament in September 1992.

  After the first day’s play, when all the crowds had dispersed, Horst was enjoying a drink in the clubhouse lounge, filled with the players, their wives and children. A blond Adonis caught his eye. It was Felix, dressed in staff overalls, chatting to the Mayor. He began thinking this lad was a little bit older than his usual hors d’oeuvres of teenage boys but gave him a second look and his curiosity grew.

  Horst went to the bar. ‘Who’s that young, lad with the Mayor?’

  The barman, Carsten Berger, looked across the crowded lounge. ‘Oh, that’s Felix.’

  ‘He’s very matey with
the Mayor. Doesn’t the Mayor own this club?’

  ‘Yeah, Mayor Felker and his brother Klaus. Felix is their nephew.’

  Horst remarked. ‘Nice to keep all that money in the family, the brothers have quite a lucrative business here. Lucky lad that Felix Felker.’

  ‘Felix isn’t a Felker. His name is Waltz,’ contradicted Carsten.

  Horst’s suspicions were confirmed. So, Felix had somehow escaped from Torgau and wasn’t dead as they had all been told. How had they allowed that to slip past them? And Felix was now in a fortuitous position. How the fates of fortunes change, thought Horst, knowing there was no alternative but to take action.

  It was twilight when Felix emerged from the party that was still underway in the clubhouse. Horst watched him unlock his Schwalbe and flashed his car headlights. Intrigued and sensing no danger, Felix crossed the car park and as he neared, Horst emerged from the car to stand in front of him.

  Felix felt his pulse race. He’d almost thrown up when he saw Horst earlier but the hectic day’s schedule had taken his mind off his anxiety. What was he to do now he’d been recognised? Felix knew the next few hours would be critical and mustered all his strength to show his Torgau abuser he was unafraid and no longer intimidated.

  The two men faced one another with icy stares.

  ‘Felix Waltz, we meet again. I thought you were last spotted drowning in the River Elbe,’ Horst said, breaking the silence.

  ‘I jumped a sinking ship.’

  Horst smiled smugly. ‘You got lucky and rode with the current, ending up here.’

  ‘I deserved my luck,’ Felix told him.

  Horst scratched his chin. ‘I think we should talk.’

  ‘I agree, but not here.’

  ‘Well, you’re on home territory young man, the balls are in your court.’

  ‘I know a place where we won’t be disturbed, about half an hour from here. Do you know Muggelsee?’ Felix asked.