Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  Nine days. There haven’t been any opportunities to escape as almost every day is the same: I go to Stasi HQ with Volker and then I return with him. If he leaves me alone then there are always soldiers nearby to make sure his prisoner doesn’t get away. But something will happen and I’ll get my chance, I’m sure of it. Volker will let his guard down or he’ll take me somewhere where I can get away from him. Or one of my friends will find me, one of the people who was in the bakery that night who got away. I can’t have been the only one to run back out onto the streets of East Berlin. It was chaos down in the bakery. I was captured because I was unlucky enough to have drawn der Mitternachtsjäger’s attention but that means others could have evaded him. We’ll pass on the street and our eyes will lock, and they’ll know I need help.

  I remember Dad and how jumpy he was the night of our intended escape. Maybe it was because of Frau Schäfer being taken, or maybe he had some premonition that it was all going to go wrong. Animals are said to seek shelter hours before a thunderstorm hits through some sixth sense, so maybe that happens to people, too. Or maybe he was just rightly terrified because we were about to attempt something dangerous.

  Prison, dead, East or West? I wonder, my mind revolving over where Dad might be. Four possibilities, and Volker knows the answer. He can’t be in the West as he’d never leave me behind in a country he hates, and I will not countenance him being imprisoned or dead. I pray that he’s in the East, biding his time until we can escape together. But I don’t know. I can’t know. So until I ask the possibilities are all true, and none are true.

  Once I’ve made my coffee I stand where I am, sipping it, my hands clasped about the mug and enjoying a rare moment of solitude.

  Except I’m not alone. A movement out of the corner of my eye makes me turn and I see Volker in the doorway, leaning against the frame, watching me. He’s in his shirtsleeves, his hands deep in his trouser pockets. I don’t know why but I find him even more unnerving when he’s not in uniform. The nights when he takes his jacket off, throwing it over the sofa and rolling his sleeves back I find it hard to concentrate on my book. My eyes keep drifting up from the page to look at his forearms, which are strong and roped with veins. His skin has a faint golden cast to it even in the depths of winter and his hands are large and square. His bearing is confident. The people I’ve known all my life don’t look like Volker. I prefer him in uniform because it reminds me of what he is: a Stasi officer, not a man.

  He steps forward, his eyes on my hair. I normally keep it pinned up but this morning I haven’t bothered yet and it’s hanging in long curls. He lifts his hand and brushes the back of a finger down one strand and I feel it as keenly as if he were caressing my face. It’s so intimate, so private in the post-dawn hush. We might be anyone. We might be lovers. I feel an awful compulsion to angle my cheek toward the warmth of his hand. But he’s Volker, not my lover, and not someone I should be letting my guard down around let alone wanting him to touch me. I jerk away like he’s burned me.

  And he looks hurt. Breathing my anger in and out through my nose, all the words I don’t dare say to him blare in my head. You don’t get to be hurt that I don’t want you to touch me. You stole me, you’re keeping me prisoner. I’m the one who reproaches you.

  Smoothing out the taut expression on his face, Volker looks back at my hair. “You should wear it down sometimes, Liebling.” He leans past me and grasps the coffee pot, and I hurry out of the room.

  Anger boils through me for the rest of the day and I can’t take to anything. I almost wish it wasn’t Sunday and I was at Stasi HQ so I could lose myself in work. Why I should be so unreasonably furious about what happened in the kitchen I don’t know, until I realize that I’ve gradually begun thinking of Volker not as a Stasi officer, and not as der Mitternachtsjäger, but as a person. I don’t want him to become a person to me. I don’t want to admire the verve with which he works or enjoy the low rumble of his voice as he talks on the telephone, twisting a fountain pen in his long fingers. He’s a cruel, cold-blooded killer who—

  And then I remember. How could I have forgotten? He’s a Nazi on top of everything else. I held the picture in my own hands: Oberstleutnant Reinhardt Volker of the Staatssicherheit was once Hauptmann Reinhardt Volker of the Wehrmacht. Someone in the factory got a hold of the photo and we passed it around furtively, this evidence that the man we most feared was once a hated Nazi. Some people, especially the men of my father’s age and older who’d been conscripted, were circumspect, saying that not everyone who fought for Germany was a Nazi. They were in the minority, though. He was an officer, most said. He wasn’t like us. Those that had power then have power now. The bastards in charge have merely changed their uniforms.

  By evening I’m thoroughly enraged, with both him and myself, and I decide that this bizarre attraction I have to him stops now. I should have made more of an effort to get to know the boys at school and the young men at the factory instead of holding out for a ridiculous fantasy. Then I could have experienced what normal attraction was like. This close proximity to Volker is making me crazy.

  After a silent dinner, we sit on the sofas as usual and he works, but I can’t keep my eyes on my book. They flick up every few minutes to glare at him and my heel bounces on the rug.

  Finally, Volker looks at my feet and puts his papers aside. Folding his hands together, he asks, “Is there something you wish to say, Evony?”

  Oh, you bet there is. I can’t hold it in any longer and the words come out like bullets. “What did you do during the war?”

  He raises his eyebrow in surprise. “The war? I was in the Wehrmacht, an officer in the Afrikakorps. Why?”

  “Were you a Nazi?”

  Something flickers in Volker’s eyes, almost as if he’s flinched. “No. I was in the armed forces, not the Waffen-SS.”

  I’ve heard this distinction before but I don’t know enough about the two divisions to understand what that means. I do know that the SS were more brutal and terrifying than the regular army. They ran the secret services and the concentration camps and were closer to Hitler. But Hitler and his subordinates commanded the Wehrmacht, too.

  “Where were you born?” We were taught in school that there were never any fascists in East Germany, that they all came from the West. I don’t know whether this is true or not but it’s all I have to go on.

  “Dresden. Evony, why all the questions?”

  Dresden is in East Germany and he could be telling the truth. After all there is a picture of Dresden in my bedroom and an antique, gold-rimmed Dresden porcelain dinner set displayed in a glass cabinet not six feet from where I’m sitting. I examined it late one night when he was out hunting, looking for more clues as to who this man is.

  Instead of answering his question I ask another of my own. I don’t know where this newfound bravado has come from but I’m determined to use it before it dries up. “Did all the fascists come from the West or is that just what the Party wants us to believe?”

  Volker laughs, a genuine, amused laugh. “They still teach you that? Germany was divided down arbitrary lines after the war. East Germany is geographically close to the USSR so this eastern sector now answers to the USSR. Of course some Nazis were born and bred in what is now East Germany.”

  Is that the extent of his loyalty to the Soviets and communism, the fact that he found himself in a part of Germany closer to the USSR? If he can base his loyalty on something as flimsy as geography then I can very well believe he was once a fascist. “So you were a Nazi.”

  His face hardens. I know I should stop talking but I’m tired of all this hypocrisy and pretense. I jump to my feet, no longer able to control my emotions. “Why can’t you just admit it? You exchanged one regime for another, one uniform for the next. If China invaded tomorrow you would probably be wearing their uniform by sunset. You love power more than you love what is good and right, and you always have.”

  Volker stands too, looming over me, his eyes dark and flashing. I seem to ha
ve gravely offended him. “Call me a Nazi again, Liebling, and I will make you regret it.”

  He’s standing very close, too close, and even with his jaw set in anger he’s handsome. “You’ve already taken everything from me. You’re a Nazi. So go on, hit me, send me to prison, do your worst. Do you think I care?”

  But he only shakes his head slowly, frowning like he’s puzzled. “I don’t think you really believe that. So why are you…?” Then his face clears and a smile dawns on his lips. “Ah, I see what you are doing. You were hoping I was a Nazi, weren’t you? Is it easier for you to think of me as a monster?”

  His sudden change of attitude catches me off guard. I prefer him to be angry so I can be defiant. I don’t know what to do when he smiles at me. “You are a monster. You’re keeping me here against my will.”

  “I’m keeping you safe. Do you know where you’d be if any other Stasi officer had caught you? In Hohenschönhausen. They’re not all as merciful as I am.” He hooks an arm around my waist and draws me closer to him. I feel the heat coming off his body and my hands come up to press against his chest. I stare up into his face, too shocked to react or pull away. When he speaks his voice rumbles against my fingers.

  “I’m not a monster, Evony. I’m very nice if you get to know me better. Would you like to get to know me better?”

  I open my mouth to protest that it’s the last thing I want, but he kisses me. His arms wrap around me and his lips are soft but insistent. It’s just like that first night in his apartment, my head screaming that this is wrong but my body not listening. So this is what it’s like to be kissed. Every place he’s touching me, his lips on my mouth, his hands on my back, feels over-sensitized.

  “No, I wouldn’t,” I say breathlessly when he pulls away to look down at me.

  “I know when you’re lying to me, Liebling.”

  His mouth descends on mine again, harder this time, and his hands smooth down to my behind, squeezing lightly. Being touched there makes my mouth open in surprise and his tongue slides against mine, questing, probing. My body responds to his without conscious thought and I’m kissing him back, wrapping my arms around his neck and rising on my toes, wanting to get closer to him, needing more of him. It’s not gentlemanly what he’s doing with his hands, kneading my flesh and beginning to ruck up my skirt, but I don’t want him to be a gentleman. My tongue flicks his top lip and he makes a sound in the back of his throat, a little growl, and it sends a ripple of fire through me. I made him do that. Him, Volker—

  Volker.

  It’s as if a basin of cold water has been dumped over my head. I tear myself away from him and swipe the back of my hand across my mouth. I’ve been kissing Volker. That’s disgusting. What’s worse is I enjoyed every second of it and there’s a fierce pulsing between my legs. “Why did you do that? I don’t like you. I hate you.”

  He reaches for me, but I step quickly away. His eyes are gleaming like a prowling animal’s. “Ja, you hate me. But you don’t dislike me, do you, Liebling?”

  I don’t know why the distinction is important. Hate, dislike, I just want him not to make me feel the way that he just did. “There are plenty of other women in East Berlin who would be happy for your attentions. Why me? Don’t you care that I hate you so intensely?”

  “Not really, no.” And as if to prove his point he kisses me again, wrapping one arm around me and squeezing one of my breasts with his other hand, rubbing the hard nipple and making me whimper against his mouth. My body is on fire and he’s the only thing I want to be touching me. My clothes feel tight and restrictive; his shirt feels too rough against my hands and I know that if it was just skin against skin it would be so, so much better. He breaks the kiss and looks down at my flustered face. “You don’t dislike me, do you?”

  The heat from his body is scorching me. I’m fully aware of who he is and yet I can’t seem to pull away. He begins unfastening the buttons at the front of my blouse and I’m struck by the dangerous reality of the situation. I need to stop this now before I totally lose control. Volker is a killer. Volker murdered your friend and probably put your father in prison. He doesn’t need to be a Nazi—isn’t that enough for you?

  A sob rises in my throat and finally the spell is broken. I pull myself out of his arms and run. When I reach my bedroom I throw myself down on the bed and pound a pillow with my fist over and over again until my hand aches.

  What have I done?

  Chapter Nine

  Evony

  Over the next week delegations of ministers from other Soviet-controlled countries visit East Berlin, which means Volker’s constantly in meetings with other uniformed, medaled, braid-festooned men. Lenore and I take endless trays of coffee into his office while they smoke and talk, presumably about the amusing ways they oppress people in their own countries. Volker has State dinners and receptions every evening and he either drops me back at his apartment himself or gets Hans to take me under guard. Even though he barely has time to eat or read a report he never forgets to remind me that there’ll be soldiers outside his apartment “for my protection”. On Wednesday morning he even apologizes for leaving me alone so much, a regretful expression on his face as he helps me into my coat. I have to bite the inside of my mouth to keep from laughing. He thinks I’m missing him?

  In the evenings there’s nothing much for me to do at the apartment but listen to the radio or read the books in Volker’s history and politics collection. Biographies of Marx and Lenin aren’t my idea of fun and I leave them on the shelves. He doesn’t own a television but I don’t find that to be much of an inconvenience as I hate the bland, government-approved programming. I’ve poked into all the drawers and cupboards, not looking for anything in particular but just out of curiosity. I’m like a cat, sniffing in the corners of an unfamiliar room. The one place I haven’t investigated is Volker’s bedroom. I dread the thought of him coming home suddenly and finding me in there. Just how angry that would make him I’m not sure, but I don’t want to find out.

  Frau Fischer comes to the apartment between seven and eight every evening to prepare dinner. I’m perfectly capable of making my own meals on the nights that Volker is out but she insists that he wouldn’t like it, it’s what she’s paid to do, and it’s what he expects.

  By Thursday night I’m almost crying from boredom. Volker was entertaining Bulgarians in his office for most of the day, three unattractive, oily-haired men with ill-fitting uniforms that wore them rather than the other way around. Volker looked markedly different, broad shouldered and long limbed, his uniform perfectly tailored as always. And I learned a new thing about him: he speaks another language. Presumably Bulgarian, as they were all speaking it. He had the smallest of smiles for me as I passed him his coffee cup, and my traitorous heart leapt into my throat when our eyes met.

  Does the gazelle tell the lion he’s handsome as he’s eating her up? No. Get a hold of yourself, you stupid girl.

  Having glared around the neat, comfortable, empty apartment, almost wishing that Volker was there as resenting him is at least something to do, I wander into the kitchen and find the housekeeper making soup. “Can I help you with that, Frau Fischer?”

  Predictably, she says, “No, dear, I can manage. How was your day?”

  “Oh. Fine.” I slump into a chair and pick at the hem of my skirt. Lenore had me memorize twenty shorthand symbols and I obediently did, despite my intentions of being useless at it. I couldn’t help it. I was so bored. It’s not as if I was used to endless fun and games in my past life, but I had friends. I had people who loved me. I miss them.

  Frau Fischer frowns at me, slicing up sticks of celery. “Anything the matter? You’re not feeling unwell again, are you?”

  I grimace. Unwell. A pretty euphemism. “Just lonely, I guess.”

  Her lips compress in sympathy. “That’s understandable with the Oberstleutnant being so busy. Would you mind stirring this while I pop downstairs for a moment? I’ll be right back.”

  I bite back my
retort that I do not miss Volker and do as I’m asked, swirling the stock and vegetables in a half-hearted manner while staring out the window. The nights are slowly getting longer but the days are still freezing and wet. It will improve a little in the spring, but even in summer East Berlin is an unlovely place. The sunshine is never bright enough, the sky is never blue enough for me. The heat makes me feel restless and hemmed in as if the Wall is making the humidity rise. Families often take trips to Hungary or Bulgaria in the summer but even before the Wall Dad never liked to. “Swap one communist regime for another? We may as well stay here.”

  Frau Fischer is back a few minutes later, but she’s not alone. There’s a beautiful baby boy on her hip, chubby-limbed and with one fist stuffed into his mouth. “This is Thom,” she says, smiling broadly. “Would you like to hold him?”

  I’ve already got my arms out for him. “Yes please. Aren’t you a sweet boy?” I sit down on a chair with Thom and hold him up facing me, his feet pressed against my lap. His blue eyes are very wide as he stares at my unfamiliar face, then he gives a gurgle and grins at me, still chewing on his fingers.

  Frau Fischer smiles and goes back to her cooking. “I thought he might cheer you up. Thom’s a good baby and Lea will be glad to be free of him for a little while.”

  He is a good baby, and I tell him so repeatedly as I bounce him on my knee. When I bury my nose in his curls he smells like soap and applesauce.

  “Do you want children?” the housekeeper asks me as I’m reading the label of the pickle jar to Thom.