Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  “It’s all right. It’s Evony from upstairs.” I put a hand on her arm. “You’ll stay in tonight, won’t you? You won’t go back outside?” I talk to her quietly in the doorway for several minutes, trying to console her as best I can. The truth would be the most cheering thing but Dad’s right. We can’t risk it. I think about how happy she’ll be when we come for her in a few days’ time, then bid her goodnight and go upstairs.

  Dad was the last to leave the meeting and he returns home half an hour after me, and by that time I’ve made us a dinner of roasted cauliflower and boiled mutton. There are no potatoes to be found in the shops right now, only mounds of cauliflower, so we have to make do. No one ever goes hungry in East Berlin but the supply of produce is erratic. We go a year without seeing peppers, and then suddenly we can’t move for peppers.

  He scratches a hand through his messy, curly hair and grins at me. It’s all we dare in reference to the meeting, even in our own apartment. He suspects the Stasi of bugging us. Maybe that’s more paranoia but I suppose it’s better to be safe when we’re this close to our goal.

  “Cauliflower, again,” Dad mutters gloomily, but tucks in and gives me a wink. “It’s good, Schätzen.” He’s always called me little treasure, on account of pulling me from the rubble of our bombed-out house when I was very small. His buried treasure.

  “Danke,” I say, smiling at him.

  Later, when I’m lying in bed, eyes wide in the darkness, the image of Volker standing in the street haunts me. What was the expression on his face? Curiosity? Suspicion? If only I had been able to see his eyes. Then I shudder, and I’m thankful I couldn’t as being in close proximity to a man like that can only be dangerous.

  I lull myself to sleep imagining how good the sunsets will look when we’re finally in the West. Brighter and bigger than I’ve ever seen before.

  In the morning Dad goes off to the mechanics he works at and I head for the Gestirnradio factory. Before I leave the building I go down to the third floor and check on Frau Schäfer. I knock for some time but there’s no answer. Cold fingers of worry clutch at my belly. She should be here at this time of the morning. Finally the next-door neighbor puts his head round the door. It’s Herr Beck, a pensioner with unruly gray hair.

  “No point in knocking. She’s gone.”

  I stare at him. Gone as in escaped? How could she have managed that? “What do you mean?”

  “Took her, didn’t he? In the night.” Herr Beck wears the overbright expression of someone excited to impart grim news. I hate that attitude. It’s not me so isn’t this fun.

  “Who took her?”

  But already I know. I picture him returning to the building late last night, without his guards, and rousing poor confused and bereft Frau Schäfer from her bed and taking her away, all for the crime of being separated from her family. I’m shaking with anger. He’s a monster. How can he live with himself? How can he do this to us?

  “Who do you think?” Herr Beck disappears back into his apartment and slams the door.

  I leave for the factory with a lump in my throat. I don’t understand the world sometimes. It’s not right that we should be forced to choose between our family and the State. Without our loved ones, who are we?

  If I keep thinking about Volker and Frau Schäfer I’ll burst into tears, so as I put away my bag and coat and tie an apron on over my street clothes I put them out of my mind. The factory is a new multistory building with designated areas for each part of the assembly process. I work on the third story, and as I emerge onto the factory floor I’m assailed by he sweet tang of melted solder. My workbench is against one wall and I take my seat and flick on the soldering iron. As I wait for it to heat up I check over the boxes of wires and transistors to make sure I have everything I need.

  The work is repetitive, but today I’m grateful for the soothing monotony. I lose myself in the tedium of tiny wires and the smoke and glimmer of the melted solder. These are my hours. These are my days. But they will not be my years.

  At midday I go to the lunchroom on the eighth floor. While I wait for Ana to join me I entertain myself by thinking of the life I’m leaving behind. This old Evony would continue to solder in the factory five days a week. She would attend the military parade every October 7 to celebrate the Republic. She would choose a husband from among the men who live in her neighborhood or work at this factory.

  I look around at the young men eating their lunches, sitting in small groups, laughing and talking. I know most of them by name. Some I like quite well and some very well. Many of us used to go to Free German Youth meetings together and in the summer we’d be sent out to the countryside to work on farms or go on nature walks. There would be dances, and I would have partners. Some boys even seemed to quite like me, though Ana was, and is, always preferred for her honey-blonde hair and long legs. I never wanted to leave the dances and go for a walk in the moonlight with any of the boys, or dance every dance with just one. I liked each of them, but there was never any spark.

  That’s because my husband’s in the West, I think with a smile. He’ll be unlike any of the men I’ve known in my life. He’ll have something special. I don’t know what that something will be but I’ll know it when I see it. He’ll be remarkable, the man I fall in love with.

  “What’s that smile about?” Ana plops down into the seat opposite me and starts to unwrap a paper packet of sandwiches.

  My daydream pops and I remember what I have to tell her. Leaning across the table I whisper, “Never mind that. Something happened last night. Something bad.” Immediately her face drains of color. Bad things that happen in the night usually have something to do with the Stasi. “It’s Frau Schäfer. She was taken by der Mitternachtsjäger.”

  She can’t help her cry of shock and dismay. She’s too careful to say anything out loud but I know what she is thinking: Frau Schäfer was so close to getting out. I tell her about the encounter on the street, with Frau Schäfer looking at the Wall and crying, and me not being able to get her inside before Volker saw us.

  Ana’s silent for a long time, staring at her sandwiches. “It was because she was looking at the Wall, wasn’t it? It wasn’t because of…anything else?” She gives me a meaningful look. It wasn’t because he knows about the tunnel?

  I’d considered this, but there was no way Frau Schäfer could have known about the plan and still been that upset. She’s not that good an actor. I shake my head.

  Ana picks up her rye and cheese sandwich but doesn’t take a bite. “Ugh, it’s too awful to think about, her in prison. Or someplace worse. Somewhere that awful man took her. What’s he like, up close?”

  I picture Volker standing in the street. “Unsettling. He’s a foot taller than most of his men and he was like a hungry lion, sizing us up.”

  “But he didn’t go after you?”

  “No, it was very strange. Perhaps he knew that there was no hurry, that he could come back for Frau Schäfer later. I mean, it’s not like she was going anywhere.” I mutter under my breath, “Not last night, anyway.”

  Ana takes a bite and chews for a moment, and then says, “Why just her though? Why not you? I mean, if she looked guilty you must have as well.”

  I think back to that moment and recall Frau Schäfer’s tear-streaked, terrified face. How had I looked? “I don’t think I looked guilty,” I say slowly. “In fact I think I looked angry. That was probably stupid of me, to show how much I hate him.”

  “I bet it’s been a long time since anyone looked at Volker with anything but pure terror. Schwein.” Ana tears a shred off her lunch wrapper and balls it up thoughtfully. “You know, there are some women on my floor who think he’s handsome. Can you believe it? Marta saw him outside a State reception last year and said he looked very gallant in his dress uniform. Even kissed a lady’s hand. But who cares what he looks like when you consider what he does.”

  I snort with laughter, mostly at the expression of disgust on Ana’s face. “Kiss her hand? More likely bite her
fingers off.” Volker’s a big man, broad and impressive, and he’s got strong features. The mouth I glimpsed last night was firm with purpose but if he smiled I have the feeling he could look quite pleasant. I imagine him in his dress uniform bowing over my hand and kissing it, and then shake myself. Constant daydreaming is a side-effect of the repetitive work we do but I will not start daydreaming about der Mitternachtsjäger.

  Between misery over Frau Schäfer and nerves over our impending escape, the next two days pass lightning fast and in a rollercoaster of emotion. I barely sleep at night and I can’t look at Dad when we’re out on the street or Ana when we’re at the factory because I’m sure my excited, tense face will betray us.

  Before I know it it’s Friday night, eleven-forty-five, just half an hour before we’re to meet in the basement of the bakery. Dad’s been pacing up and down our kitchen all evening, smoking cigarettes and staring at the linoleum. Frau Schäfer being taken has shaken him badly and I know he thinks he failed her. I’ve never seen him like this and I hope that he’ll find a way to calm down before we have to go out onto the street.

  Ana and my dad’s best friend Ulrich have arrived, and the plan is that Ana and I will go together to the bakery, and Dad will go separately with Ulrich. If either pair are stopped we’ll tell the Stasi we’re going to a friend’s apartment. As it’s Friday night this is plausible.

  Ana and I sit in silence at the kitchen table, and I expect that my face is as pale and tense as hers. Ulrich, a ginger-haired man with a thin but friendly mouth, is leaning against the cooker, cracking his knuckles. He’s watching Dad and frowning, and I can see he doesn’t like how rattled he is either.

  The silence is so thick and tense that when Dad speaks, we all jump. “I want Evony to come with me.”

  I gape at him. He’s changing the plan, now, at the very last minute? I want to ask him why and what he’s worried about, but fear that we’re being listened in on stops me. Instead, I say, “Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Glancing at Ulrich and Ana I see that they’re just as perplexed by this as me.

  “Yes, I want you with me. Let’s go now.” And he hustles me out of the kitchen, his face tight and closed. I barely have time to wave to Ana and mouth see you there before he closes the apartment door behind us.

  The night is dark and bitterly cold. I wait until we’re down on the street and crunching through the snow before I say anything. Dad’s walking quickly, his shoulders up around his ears. “This wasn’t a good idea. Ana and Ulrich being together will look suspicious. They’re not related and they don’t look like they’d be friends.” He doesn’t answer and I lose patience with him and hiss, “This is exactly what you warned us about, getting nervous and doing something that might give us away.”

  Dad rounds on me suddenly, a wild expression on his face. “You’re all I have left in this world and I’m not losing you at the eleventh hour. You’re my daughter and I want you with me. Is that so hard to understand?”

  I do understand, but that doesn’t mean I like it. “You didn’t fail her, you know,” I say, meaning Frau Schäfer. “Things like that happen all the time. She was unlucky.” And foolish, but I won’t speak ill of her now she’s gone.

  Dad just shakes his head. “Let’s get moving. There’ll be time for talking on the other side.”

  But it’s not as easy as that. We run into a patrol and have to hide in the shadows for a long time. I can see from Dad’s anxious face that he’s thinking what I’m thinking: if we can’t get to the bakery tonight then we’ll lose that escape route. A dozen people not turning up for work in the morning will tip the Stasi off that there’s been an escape. They’ll be out in full force tomorrow and will find the tunnel in no time.

  Thankfully the soldiers eventually march away and we’re on the move again. When the bakery comes into sight my heart leaps. Dad squeezes my arm, relief washing over his face. “Make sure you stay close to me, Schätzen.”

  “Of course.”

  All is quiet on the ground floor of the bakery as we go inside. We descend the stairs to the dark cellar. Odd that it’s so dark. I expected there to be at least one lamp giving a little light.

  “Hello?” I call softly, wondering if everyone has gone down the tunnel without us. Then I hear a scream, a long way off.

  Dad grabs me and pushes me forward. “Someone’s been caught on the street. Quickly, down the tunnel! Gehen! Go!”

  But as I scramble for the tunnel I hear running feet—not behind me, but coming toward me. People surge out of the tunnel, knocking me down. I see Ana, her face panicked. She and Ulrich must have overtaken us while we were held up by the soldiers. I run toward her, trying to reach her. There were soldiers down the tunnel, I realize, my heart in my throat. We need to get back onto the street. But there are soldiers all around us now and torches have come on, blinding me. I turn, looking for Ana and Dad but I can’t see them in the chaos.

  Someone shouts an order, and the night explodes in a nightmare of screaming and gunfire.

  Chapter Three

  Volker

  Insubordinate little shit. I’ll string him up by his balls until he begs for his mother.

  Shots are being fired inside the building and I unholster my Makarov and check that the pistol is fully loaded. Eight rounds. I fantasize about firing one of them right into Hauptmann Heydrich’s face.

  A scream echoes from the bowels of the bakery. Then again, I might not need to if the traitors get the captain first.

  Grinding my teeth together I yank open the street-level door and look around. Deserted. All the commotion is coming from the cellar and I head for the stairs. East Berlin is my responsibility and I am both possessive and protective of it. That I didn’t know about this operation is unfathomable. Inconceivable.

  Humiliating.

  A casual remark from a border guard tipped me off. Herr Oberstleutnant, I was surprised to hear that you are not leading the raid on the bakery yourself. How admirable that you put your trust in the captain.

  Put my trust in the captain? I’ll put a fucking bullet in the captain.

  When I get down into the basement it’s chaos. Guards are running left and right, taking pot-shots at the traitors. There are a half-dozen bodies on the dirt floor, at least two of them my men. How many exits are there? Where is the tunnel? Are the rats slipping away to the West even now?

  I’m searching the confusion for Hauptmann Heydrich, either to ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing going behind my back, or to wring his neck—when I see her. The dark-haired girl who was with Frau Schäfer on Jungstrasse, her eyes blazing and defiant as she’d tried to corral the older woman into the apartment building. She knew me, and for one shocking second I had known her, felt the press of bodies, heard the rattle of the train. I questioned Schäfer about her later, though the woman was so hysterical at the sight of me she couldn’t tell me much. Evony Daumler’s a good girl. She should have just left me in the street. Anyone else would have. You won’t hurt her, will you?

  Yes, anyone else would have, wouldn’t they? Self-preservation instincts run high among the residents of East Berlin. What, I wonder, has given Fräulein Daumler a death wish?

  Hurt her? Oh, I don’t think it will be necessary to hurt her. I hope it won’t be. Now, Frau Schäfer, I’m afraid you’ll have to come with me.

  Once I had dealt with the woman it was getting on for four in the morning but I went back to Stasi Headquarters to look up what we had, if anything, on Evony Daumler. The file was thin. Name and date of birth. Work records. There were a few more sheets on her father; an informant had once heard him make anti-Soviet comments and we’d had him tailed for a while two years ago. When nothing came of it the resources were directed elsewhere.

  I put the files back, uncertain. There didn’t seem to be anything for me to do, and yet I had felt I should do something. Arrest her? Question her? The feeling returned to me like a stray dog over the next few days, pestering me, and no matter how often I kicked it away it linge
red, whining for attention.

  Paying attention to coincidence has served me well as a Stasi officer. I turn over rocks that other people would ignore and out scuttle traitors who would otherwise have evaded the State. I saw this girl trying to help Frau Schäfer and now she’s here, trying to get out of East Berlin.

  This girl is a traitor, clearly, but when I picture her in a cell in Hohenschönhausen waiting for me to interrogate her I don’t feel the usual warm glow of anticipation. I don’t want what she knows, I want what she is. I want to own that look of fear and hatred in her eyes.

  I’m so lost in abstraction that I almost don’t see the gun. The barrel is shaking but a gun is a gun, and I raise my arm and shoot first. A scream rings out as my would-be attacker crumples to the ground—a blonde girl, I notice—and Fräulein Daumler is staring at me, white-faced, from across the cellar. It was she who screamed. The door to the street level is behind her and no one is paying her any attention but me. She realizes this at the same moment I do and she turns and runs up the stairs, the plaid of her skirt disappearing into darkness.

  Scheisse.

  I only have a split second to decide—stay here and mop up Heydrich’s mess, rubbing his nose in every mistake he’s made in front of the men until he’s practically bleeding from the eyes from shame, or go after the girl?

  The girl.

  Bullets are whizzing across the cellar and it takes me several minutes to manoeuver my way across without getting shot by my own men. Heydrich is screaming orders, adding to the confusion. He looks both relieved and irritated when he spots me crossing the dirt floor, assuming that I’m about to take control of the situation. But I keep going, up the stairs and out into the night.

  The night is so cold that the air is like a fist to my chest when I come out onto the street. I look left and right, searching for movement. Nothing. Where is she? Then I see them, a woman’s footprints in the snow, deep as if she was running.

  Got you.