by Robert Elmer
“Oh, ja. Of course.” She lit up a smile and bobbed politely, as she might in a ballroom, only this was no dance. She must have said the right thing; his hollow-cheeked expression thawed a couple of degrees as he released the papers.
“Gut,” he told them as he glanced once more at the mess on the table. “Enjoy your stay here in East Berlin.”
There. Almost like a travel agent — only his words didn’t fool anyone. He pivoted like a robot and stepped toward the exit, pausing only a moment as he reached for the doorknob.
“And,” he added, still facing away from them, “Happy birthday.”
Pardon me? Liesl was too startled to say “thank you.” And she couldn’t have brought herself to say anything like that to the nasty guard anyway. Not even when she was pretending to be Cher, her favorite American singer and actress. Her hands shook as she shoveled her things off the table and back into her purse. Right now they had to get out of that dirty border-station checkpoint, past the dreary shops on Friedrichstrasse, and on to her uncle’s flat.
She fought the temptation to check her smuggled cargo, to touch the bulge in her sock. No one must know, not yet. Not even her mother.
“Mutti,” she whispered as they turned the corner. “What did I agree to back there?”
Frau Stumpff shook her head as she continued limping along with her crutch. Liesl was used to walking at half speed.
“Oh, just that you should go through the Jugendweihe ceremony while you were here.” She held a glove to her face, partly because of the chill wind, partly because of the other people on the street. “Just like all the other good young socialists, dedicating their lives to the state.”
Oh, bombig! — Great! Liesl groaned at what she’d done without knowing. But she was an actress, just like Cher. An actress played the part.
“You’d better be careful what you agree to around here.” A smile played at the corners of her mother’s lips. “Or you’ll be defending socialism and the Soviet Union before you know it.”
Liesl nodded. After what they had just been through, she couldn’t help jumping when she heard a man’s voice boom at them, “You two!”
Liesl turned and saw the guard who had searched them. He raised his hand as he ran closer. “Stop right there!”
2
KAPITEL ZWEI
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
“Stop right there.”
Nick Wilder did as he was told. He gripped the end of the loose control cable and inspected the instrument panel of the big C – 54 Skymaster cargo plane as he waited for the next instruction.
“You got it?” he wondered aloud.
Fred grunted as he always did. But the sixty-something man got away with all kinds of rude noises as they worked on the old airplane.
“Keep your shirt on,” Fred mumbled.
So Nick waited while Fred fumbled a little more. Who knew getting caught a year ago in the belly of the old C – 54 would lead to this unlikely friendship?
And who knew Nick would get to help resurrect one of the ancient warplanes parked on the edge of the Bighorn County Airport in the Middle of Nowhere, Wyoming? Someday, when they got the proud old bird off the ground again, they would look back at all the grunt work and know it was worth it. But for now . . .
“There!” Fred finally announced his success. “Now pull me out of here. I mean all of me, not just the legs.” Fred had two artificial legs, a war injury, Nick thought.
Nick grinned and gently grabbed the man’s plastic ankles to help him inchworm out from beneath the panel. In a car, this would be the dashboard. A moment later, they both leaned against the wall and surveyed their day’s work.
“Too bad we can’t recruit your dad to help with this.” Fred wiped his brow with a pink rag. “Would go a lot quicker.”
Sure, but the airport’s chief mechanic didn’t have time to mess with the old museum airplanes — not with all the smoke-jumper planes and small jets he had to work on. But that was okay with Nick and his older friend.
“Not that I don’t appreciate your help, you understand,” Fred said.
Nick nodded. Fred didn’t need to explain. But what help was he really, showing up after school and weekends, in restoring a fifty-year-old transport plane?
Oh, well.
“How much longer do you think it will take, Fred?” Nick looked at the impressive panel of dials and gauges in front of them. Thanks to their hours of effort, some worked — though many still did not. Fred just ran his greasy hands through his bristle of gray hair and shrugged the way he always did. He gave Trouble, Nick’s mutt, a scratch behind the ears.
“Like I said, kid, I’m not too good with the future. That’s why I stick to the old stuff. Like these planes.”
Not that Nick expected an answer. But still it was his job to ask — like a kid in the backseat who had to whine, “Are we there, yet?”
As far as he could tell, they might not be there for a long time. But in a strange way he felt okay with that.
“Anybody home?”
Nick recognized his father’s voice coming up through the plane’s belly hatch.
“Hey, stranger,” Fred greeted him, wiping a hand on his shirt before offering it to Nick’s dad. “Decided to join us, after all?”
“Well, I am joining,” Mark Wilder grinned as he pumped the older man’s hand, “but not the museum staff. Sorry.”
Nick sized up his dad from the worn leather pilot’s seat, his favorite spot in the airplane. His father didn’t usually act all smiley and weird like this.
“Dad?”
“Here, read this.” Nick’s dad pulled an envelope from the pocket of his coveralls and held it out. Nick noticed the return address — Department of the Air Force.
“I don’t get it.” But his stomach knotted as he pulled out the letter and began to read.
Pleased to inform you . . .
Reinstated to your former rank . . .
Assigned immediately to . . .
Nick didn’t need to read it all the way to the end. He handed back the letter, feeling as if someone had punched him in the gut.
“I thought you were done with the Air Force, Dad. Just weekends and that summer thing you do.”
“Your mom and I have talked about this for a long time.” For a moment Mr. Wilder’s forehead furrowed. “It’s a chance we can’t pass up.”
“We?” Nick didn’t mean it to sound as snotty as it came out.
“Of course we. You read the letter. They’re assigning me to the Rhein-Main Air Base, which is near Frankfurt, West Germany.”
Nick said nothing, just let his father go on. The guy seemed so excited, after all.
“And besides, how many kids your age get a chance for an experience like this? Don’t you think it could be a good move for us?”
“Join the Air Force, see the world,” Nick said. But by this time he felt totally numb. And instead of backing him up, Fred only chuckled. This was funny?
“Good for you, Mark. Backwoods Wyoming, here, probably wasn’t a great step on your career ladder.”
“Right. I mean, no. It’s not that.” Mark Wilder stumbled over his words. “This place has been great for our family. It’s just that — ”
“Hey, don’t apologize on my account.” Fred held up his hands. “Believe me, I understand.” Both men gave Nick a curious look.
You expected me to jump up and down? But Nick couldn’t say it out loud, not here in front of Fred. Instead, he pretended to adjust one of the loose throttle handles while the two men chatted. Trouble snoozed behind the co-pilot’s seat.
“He’ll get used to the idea,” Fred said. How did he know what Nick would get used to? “Course, I’ll miss his help here on the plane. Sure you won’t let him stay?”
Really? Nick looked over at his dad, hoping for an instant that it might be so. But both men were smiling at Fred’s joke. Oh.
“I report in four weeks.” Mr. Wilder turned serious. “With my wife and kid. Nobody’s staying behind.”
So that was it. Just like that, no questions asked. Not even a “What would you think if we . . .” No nothing. Just “We’re leaving in a month whether you like it or not.” Nick would have punched his dad in the nose, if he could have. Instead, he turned the wheel until it jammed to the side. What would it take to get this bird flying, right here, right now — in the opposite direction of this Main Rhyme or whatever that silly air base was called?
Fred snapped his fingers as if he’d just remembered something.
“Wait right here.” He started for the rear of the plane, hobbling slightly as he always did. “I’ve got something I think you should have, considering where you’re going.”
Whatever. Nick didn’t answer. He just sat in his pilot’s chair staring out at the runway, saying nothing, scratching Trouble’s ears and trying not to cry. His dad studied the instructions on the side of a half-assembled radio set as if his life depended on it. And Nick let himself wonder how this Wyoming airfield had looked when filled with wave after wave of military planes, filled with crew after crew of military men like his dad. Now it only welcomed the firefighters in the summer (who strutted around the tarmac like soldiers), crop dusters in the spring, and the little private planes when the weather allowed. No matter who they were, though, they always seemed to be passing through on the way to somewhere else. And, as it turned out, so was Nick.
The story of his life, right? Passing through on the way to someplace else. Funny thing was, Nick really should have been jumping up and down. And maybe he would have been a few months earlier. Now? He stared at the Bighorn Mountains shimmering in the distance and gripped the steering wheel. Now Fred would have to finish this job alone. Truth was, the older man would probably die before that ever happened.
Fred emerged a minute later from the back of the plane and held out a small, newspaper-wrapped bundle.
“What’s this?” Nick took the package and held it up to the light.
“Okay, so it’s more of a favor, actually.” Fred scratched his head, as if he were still thinking it through. “It’s not a present, if that’s what you’re thinking. Take a look at it.”
Nick unwrapped the yellowed newspaper to find a tarnished old cup with a stem — like a small, old-fashioned wine goblet. Very fancy. The side was engraved with a delicate swirly pattern and some funny writing. Nick couldn’t make out the words; all the letters looked doubled over with too many elbows. Not a present, though? Fred would have to explain this.
“I got it a long time ago,” Fred told them. It was his turn to stare out the window, and his eyes seemed to go misty. “It’s a communion cup out of a German church.”
“So how did you get it?” asked Mr. Wilder.
“Long story. I won’t bore you with all the details.” His shoulders sagged as he sighed. “But I didn’t steal it, nothing like that. It’s just that I can’t keep it anymore.”
How odd. But Fred had a little more explaining to do.
“See, I could have sent it there myself, only I wasn’t sure exactly where to send it, or who to send it to. I’d feel a lot better if . . .”
Fred’s voice trailed off as he seemed to dip into some old emotional well.
“What do you want us to do with it?” Nick wondered.
Fred still stared outside. “Give it to a church over there if you can, would you? Or just give it to somebody over there. I don’t care. Maybe they’ll appreciate it.”
Nick turned the communion cup over in his hands, afraid to ask anything else. But he couldn’t help feeling curious about how this piece of silver had come all the way to the Bighorn County Airport in Greybull, Wyoming.
And he figured he’d probably never find out.
3
KAPITEL DREI
UNEXPECTED GUEST
“I think he liked you, Mutti,” Liesl told her mother as they headed up the stairs to her uncle’s flat. “Maybe that’s why he kept us so long at the checkpoint.”
“Please, Liesl. Not even joking. It was bad enough without him coming after us.”
“But weren’t you happy he returned your makeup mirror?”
Her mother dismissed the teasing with a wave.
“I’m sure someone else could have used it. And they were more than welcome to it.”
How clumsy, really. Had he truly found it on the floor, the way he’d said, or had he kept it in his pocket as an excuse to follow them? Liesl couldn’t be sure. But she grinned with relief when they finally knocked on her uncle’s door.
“I don’t know, Mutti. A Vopo friend at the border? Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.”
“Shh! Enough, Liesl. Sometimes you don’t know when to stop!”
The door opened with a click and Erich Becker gave them a puzzled look as he greeted them.
“Is there a problem here?” He opened his arms wide and greeted his “two favorite girls in all the world.”
“No problems, big brother.” Sabine Stumpff returned her half brother’s hug.
And naturally Liesl would expect her mother to say so. But Onkel Erich probably heard every word they’d said before he opened the door. So did the nosey neighbor, who pulled quickly back in her apartment when Liesl glanced down the hall. Welcome to East Berlin, where every wall has ears, and neighbors care so deeply that they will report everything you do to the Stasi — the secret police. Even now Frau Nosey was probably calling the authorities at the Ministry for State Security to warn them that Herr Doktor had visitors from the West — again — and that they looked awfully suspicious.
Liesl waved down the hall, just for fun, as her uncle pulled them inside. She always thought he smelled of the hospital where he worked — of operating rooms and disinfectant — even through the pleasant tang of his Tabac cologne.
He would not be in danger — not as long as he promised to live in East Berlin, the way he always had. As in, forever — he would die here. That’s the way things worked on this side of the wall.
“So nothing happened at the checkpoint?” he asked. Perhaps he sensed his sister and niece were more flustered than on other visits.
“Just the usual.” Liesl’s mother shrugged off the question and her coat, and yes, she said, it was very warm in this apartment building. Liesl could have laughed, and her uncle gave her a big smile.
“Is that true, Liesl?”
“Sure, if you call a full-scale shakedown ‘usual.’ The only thing the Vopo didn’t do was ask Mutti out for dinner.” It was a good enough joke. But as Liesl thought more about it, she knew what could have happened. Her knees began to shake, and she quickly sat down so no one would notice.
Too late.
“What’s wrong, mein Liebling?” No use trying to hide anything from her mother. Frau Stumpff kneeled by the chair and took hold of Liesl’s feet. “You look like you are about to faint.”
“No, no.” Liesl couldn’t pull away. “Nothing like that.”
But her mother had discovered the stash of booklets bound tightly around her ankles.
“Liesl.” She patted her daughter’s legs for more. “What is this all about?”
But she knew — she must know. Liesl pressed her lips together and looked away.
“Is this what I think it is?” asked Frau Stumpff, and the storm clouds gathered on her face. She looked over at her brother. “Erich, have you been talking to her again about smuggling these things?”
“Don’t look at me!” Onkel Erich held up his hands in surrender. “I thought she looked a little well fed, but I wasn’t going to say anything. Not polite, you know.”
“Oh, come on!” Sabine rose to her feet and planted her hands on her hips. “You two act as if this is some kind of game. Liesl, you know what could have happened to you if the guards had searched you. To us!”
Liesl unpacked twenty-two of the slim New Testaments from her socks, with more to come from her other hiding places.
“It’s not the way it used to be, Sabine.” Onkel Erich could usually calm his younger sister. “Now they ju
st throw you in the same jail cell with heroin smugglers and — ”
“Erich!”
Erich nodded and led his sister to the window. “I know what you’re saying. But I didn’t ask her to do this.”
“And that makes it all right? Because it was a surprise?”
“You know the government still has us in a straitjacket. Even today, when people say communism is dying. Glasnost and Gorbechev. But is it really any better? We can still use all the Scriptures we can get. And right now we just can’t get them over the border or printed fast enough. There’s too much red tape.”
“And you would put your own niece in danger to get them?” Her voice cracked and Liesl knew her mother would start crying if they didn’t do something.
“Mutti,” Liesl said quietly. “Nobody was going to find out.”
“That’s easy for you to say now!” Her mother’s tears began to overflow.
Onkel Erich tried to wave Liesl off with a little shake of his head, but she was determined. “I’m sorry, Mutti.” She put her arm around her mother. “I was just — just trying to do the right thing. Obeying God instead of people, right? Isn’t that what you’ve always said I should do?”
“But not like this — ”
“Then how?”
Well, that pretty much stopped the conversation in its tracks. That, and an urgent knock on the door. Liesl’s mother jumped and her uncle sprang into action.
“Liesl!” He pointed at the pile of smuggled Bibles, then motioned with his finger for her to stash them under his threadbare sofa. His expression told her now!
“Coming.” Her uncle answered in his usual relaxed voice, though Liesl could tell from his face he felt anything but relaxed. “Who’s there, bitte?”
Bitte. Please. And that was just like her uncle, polite to anyone who pounded on his door — even to the men with guns who guarded this prison city. Would the Vopos announce their visit or just push their way in? Or could it be the dreaded Stasi, even? Frau Stumpff grabbed her daughter’s hand and perched on the edge of the only other chair in the room. Try to look casual.