“You are being far too polite. May I have one of those cigarettes?”
“They are yours, so there’s no need to ask me.”
“I just feel . . . awkward about all this.”
“Don’t.”
“In the letter Petra says very little—except that she would like me to give you some photographs of her and Johannes. She also said that she had heard about my stay in the hospital and hoped I was now in a better place. And she concluded with one sentence: ‘Despite all that has happened I still consider you my friend.’”
She lowered her head as her eyes filled up again.
“The problem is, I can’t forgive myself.”
“Maybe the fact that Petra does forgive you . . .”
“They still took away her son. And she will never get over that.”
“Perhaps, in time, it will get easier.”
“You’re a young man. And, I sense, one without children. Though you may possibly be able to imagine what it must be like to lose a child—or, in Petra’s case, have one taken away from you—you still cannot imagine the true horror of it all.”
“Did you lose a child?”
“I never wanted children. Because I knew that they would just bring loss, pain. Like the pain Petra is suffering now. The pain I caused.”
“You weren’t the reason she was arrested.”
“Please stop trying to be nice to a stranger.”
“Should I try to be horrible instead?”
That raised a small smile.
“What do you do, Thomas?”
I told her.
“So Petra’s found herself another writer,” she said with more than a hint of irony.
“It looks that way.”
“Not that I would ever try to compare you with Jurgen.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Believe me, it is. Because that man . . . he was, at one time, brilliant, extraordinary. Ein Wunderkind. But then he had a few setbacks and he came completely unstuck. And started doing mad, irrational things. That’s when the Stasi moved in on me. Because someone had informed them that I was Petra’s best friend. And they had this information on me. Did Petra tell you about that?”
I nodded—noting how Judit was imparting this information in a sort of rote style, as if she had told herself these facts (“he came completely unstuck . . . and that’s when the Stasi moved in on me”) many times over, as a way of reassuring herself that other people, larger forces, had so compromised her.
“Yes,” I said, “she did tell me about the information they had on you.”
“So you now know my dirty little secret.”
“I don’t think it dirty at all.”
“My husband thought otherwise. He found out via the neighbors and he’s gone. That woman I was involved with . . . she ended things between us when the Stasi visited her and said they knew all about our ‘relationship.’ She had a husband, too. But he either never found out or chose not to react—as I gather they are still together. Whereas I am, as you can see, alone.”
The coffee had finished percolating. When I stood up to get it, she insisted on playing host. She brought out two elderly yet rather fine china cups—floral in design, but harking back to a more elegant moment in time. She also brought out a sugar bowl and a small jug, all in the same design. Seeing these rarefied objects in the midst of this personal squalor was strangely touching. Judit must have noticed me taking them in, as she said:
“They belonged to my grandmother. Dresdner Porzellan. The best, unless you are from France and think that the world of fine china ends at Limoges. Grandmother died in 1976 at the age of eighty. She survived the destruction of her home city. She refused to leave the GDR when it was still possible in 1960. She adjusted to the austerity of life here. Even toward the end she remained the very proud hausfrau who polished twice a week what little silver she had left, and actually managed to rescue a full set of Dresdner china from the family house that was destroyed by Allied bombing, and which killed her two parents, her unmarried sister, and two of her three children who were staying with their grandparents on the night the city was leveled. A very dignified woman, my grandmother.”
“What was her name?”
“Lotte. But now you are getting me to tell stories. And we have this excellent coffee to drink.”
“It might not be that good.”
She poured out a cup and lifted it to her nose, taking in its aroma with a deep sigh.
“It is so good.”
She carefully reopened one of the packets of Camel Filters, tapping two out and offering me one. I accepted it and lit both cigarettes. Judit took a long drag off of hers, letting the smoke out with a low pleasurable groan. Then she took the first sip of coffee and smiled.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “It’s been quite some time since anyone has been this kind to me. Tell me about Petra’s life in West Berlin.”
Immediately I thought: Danger. Maybe, for all her sad talk about the ruination of her life, she might still think she could win a privilege or two if she supplied the Stasi with any information that comes along her way. Or perhaps I was just being far too overcautious.
“Petra is doing well. We are very happy together.”
“Is she working?”
“Yes, she’s working.”
“What kind of work?”
“Translations.”
“Ah, that makes sense. She was always so good with languages. Is she working for a government organization over there?”
“Why does that interest you?” I asked, my tone deliberately letting her know I didn’t like where this line of questioning was going. She caught the edge in my voice and quickly said:
“I just wanted to know if she had a job she liked.”
“She has a job she likes.”
“Good.”
An uncomfortable pause followed. Judit broke it.
“You now think I was digging for information, don’t you?”
“Not at all.”
“I have nothing to do with those people anymore. Nothing.”
“It’s really not my business.”
“Were you followed here?”
“Actually I was. But I managed to lose the guy on Prenzlauer Allee.”
“How did you do that?”
“I ran.”
“Didn’t that draw attention?”
“Not so far.”
“They are probably now scouring the area for you.”
“That thought did cross my mind.”
“You think I am going to call them the moment you walk out of here,” she said, her voice suddenly overwrought.
“I honestly don’t know what to think right now.”
“I swear to you, I won’t do that.”
“All right, I believe you,” I lied.
“In fact, I will show you a side way out of the building that will bring you down an alley and into a backstreet. From there you have to walk a bit, but you’ll reach, in ten minutes, the U-Bahn at Schönhauser Allee. It will get you back to Alexanderplatz, then you change for the line to Stadtmitte and the border crossing.”
“I think they will get suspicious if I am crossing only a few hours after coming over.”
“They won’t care.”
“How can you know that?”
Again my tone was challenging, yet the question was an evident one. How the hell could she have such knowledge of what questions they posed at Checkpoint Charlie?
“Of course, this is mere speculation on my part,” she said.
“Of course.”
“This cigarette . . . it is like nectar. And the coffee. Petra is lucky. A generous American.”
“How did you know I was American?”
“I just guessed.”
“I see.”
“Well, your German. It sounded American.”
I switched into English, asking:
“And do I sound American now?”
Judit tensed, looking like someone caught
out in a possible lie.
“I don’t speak English,” she said, turning away from me. “I speak nothing but German, and have never been out of the GDR. You must forgive me. Please . . .”
“When I leave here . . . ?”
“Nothing will happen. As I said before, I am useless to them now.”
Is anyone ever entirely useless to “them”? I wondered.
This was the problem in sticking your toe into the murky waters of a highly surveilled society that operated according to the principles of fear and paranoia. You could never really know whom to believe, what to believe. Ambiguity and doubt and mistrust were the holy trinity here—and watching Judit become increasingly agitated as she sensed I was on to her signaled the fact that it was time for me to leave.
“Those photographs that Petra mentioned in her letter . . .”
“Of course, of course,” she said, standing up with the cigarette still in her lips. “I have them in a special hiding place. So if you wouldn’t mind shutting your eyes for a moment . . .”
“Why should I do that?” I asked, my voice edging into controlled anger. “I mean, who am I going to tell about your hiding place?”
I could see her entire body tense up again. I suddenly felt terrible for snapping, but I also couldn’t help but think how this woman had denounced Petra for years, while simultaneously being her best friend. Still, I had to remember Petra’s own comments about Judit being put under the worst sort of psychological strain—and remind myself that I could not engage in armchair moralizing about a system under which I fortunately never had to live.
“You’re right, you’re right,” I said. “I have no business seeing your hiding place. So I’m going to turn around and shut my eyes and open them when you say so.”
I did just that. Less than thirty seconds later she said, “You can open them now.”
As I did, and turned back toward her, I could see that she was crying.
“Thank you for that,” she said.
“I’m sorry if I was a little abrupt before.”
“Please, please, do not apologize. It is me who should apologize . . . for everything.”
I saw that she had a book of photographs in one hand—a small ring binder with a gray vinyl cover.
“Here,” she said, extending it toward me. “I managed to get a mutual acquaintance to send Petra a letter after she had crossed over, explaining that I had been able to get her photographic albums out before the Stasi sealed her apartment. I put them all together into one book. I wish I had been able to claim more of her possessions, but I had so little time and they arrived six, seven minutes after I was there. I hope she will take some comfort from—”
Once more she broke off, shaking her head, muttering to herself. I opened the book. There were snapshots of Petra holding Johannes close to her in the hospital bed, evidently just after his birth. There were photographs of him asleep in a small crib. Of Petra breast-feeding him. Of Petra tickling him on a sofa. Of Johannes holding a stuffed zebra. Of Petra pushing Johannes in a stroller along a street. Of Petra with him in a local playground—perhaps the one I happened upon in Kollwitzplatz on my first trip here some months back. Of Johannes and Petra in the middle of a double bed. Of Johannes standing up and looking bemused at being able to do just that.
Of course, he was a cute baby. What baby isn’t? But what struck me immediately about this collection of twenty or so photographs was the fact that not one showed Johannes with his father or Petra with her husband. Judit must have been reading my thoughts as she said:
“I pulled out all the photographs with Jurgen, as I know Petra wouldn’t want to see them.”
“Well, maybe we should let Petra be the judge of that. So why don’t you give them back to me and . . .”
“I can’t give them back to you. I burned them. Burned them all.”
“But why?”
“Because it was Jurgen’s insanity that brought on this catastrophe.”
“You still should have let Petra decide if she wanted them.”
“Jurgen was like a cancer that infected us all. And what do you know of anything over here? Anything?”
She was shouting—and she was clearly surprised that she was shouting, as she now turned shamefaced.
“Listen to me, listen to me, idiot, idiot, idiot. You bring me lovely things. You love my friend. You tell me my friend forgives me. And how, how, do I behave? Like the complete, total, pathetic, useless . . .”
“Enough,” I hissed. “I thank you for the photographs. I will tell Petra—”
“Tell her I hate myself for what I did. I tried to communicate this in the letter I sent her months ago. But it was all coded, not direct and honest. Tell her I am grateful for her forgiveness, and that I don’t merit it.”
“All right, I’ll tell her all that. Now, tell me about the back alley way out of here, please.”
She gave me very detailed instructions, informing me exactly how to negotiate the maze of nearby side streets and make it undetected to the Schönhauser Allee U-Bahn station.
“Thank you,” I said, putting the photo album in my daypack and standing up.
“I hope you can forgive me,” she said.
“Forgive you for what?”
She hung her head, like a convicted criminal on whom sentence had just been passed.
“For everything,” she said.
When I left a few moments later, I waited until Judit had closed the door behind me, then I took the photo album out of my daypack, spent several minutes removing all the snapshots, placed them in an envelope I had brought with me, pulled out my shirt, stuffed them in the back of my pants, and covered them again with the tail of my shirt. Then I dumped the empty photo album in a trash can and hesitated for a moment, wondering if I should follow Judit’s clandestine route to the U-Bahn or simply brave the public way back to Prenzlauer Allee. Part of me thought that if I left now I could possibly count on the Stasi awaiting me at the U-Bahn station by the time I arrived—that is, if she had already made a call to them. Whereas if I simply walked down to Alexanderplatz, using side streets to avoid the tram stop at Marienburgerstrasse which might now be under surveillance, they might still be awaiting me at Checkpoint Charlie. But I could refute any of their accusations that I was in Prenzlauer Berg this morning. That is, of course, if there wasn’t already a police car awaiting me outside Judit’s front door.
I touched the back of my shirt to make certain the photographs were tucked away. Then I spent a few moments calming my nerves by rolling a cigarette, grimly thinking this could be my last smoke for a while if the Stasi were out front awaiting me. But when I stepped out into the street there was nobody there. I looked both ways. Outside of a few parked and empty Trabbis, the street was devoid of cars. I began to walk, heading down Rykestrasse toward the ruined tower, then around a side street, snaking down a street that ran parallel to Prenzlauer Allee. Once again I kept expecting a car with tinted glass to drive up beside me and men in dark suits to hop out and bundle me into the backseat. But I walked on unencumbered, without anyone on my tail (or, at least, not to my visual knowledge), all the way down to Alexanderplatz. I checked my watch. It was just after eleven in the morning. I knew I simply wanted to jump the U-Bahn back to Stadtmitte and walk the hundred yards to Checkpoint Charlie and cross over. But I sensed that I would be inviting far too many questions about why I had only chosen to make a three-hour crossing into the GDR. So I bypassed Alexanderplatz and continued walking south, killing two hours in Das Alte Museum near the Berliner Dom, looking at a profoundly dispiriting collection of Socialist Realist art on themes such as The Workers Strike Against the Prussian Oligarchy and Children of the Democratic Republic Sing Songs of Peace Against Capitalist Oppressors. There was also an entire section of the museum consecrated to “Photographic Work from Fraternal Socialist Nations,” in which I gawked at happy peasants bringing in the wheat harvest in Bulgaria and the Cuban baseball team helping bring in the sugarcane crop on a collective farm
east of Havana.
Propaganda always casts off a spectral, sinister glow—a sense of trying not just to preach to the submissive, but also to dress up terrible realities in the raiment of gaudy fabrication. Two hours amidst such totalitarian kitsch left me stupefied, and finally made me decide: To hell with the risk. I’m crossing back over now.
I ducked into the bathroom and stuffed the photographs deeper into my jeans, so they were hidden completely. Then I headed off into the sun-drenched early afternoon. Twenty minutes later I approached Checkpoint Charlie on foot after a stroll down Unter den Linden and a turn left on Friedrichstrasse.
As soon as I arrived there, I saw a figure standing by the guards at the first checkpoint. He wore a blue serge suit, tinted glasses, a porkpie hat. Shit, shit, shit. Mr. Undercover. Since losing me in Prenzlauer Berg he had evidently doubled back here and was probably ordered to position himself at this checkpoint, through which I was obliged to pass, until I returned. From the surprised and pleased look on his face, it was clear that he was relieved I wouldn’t be keeping him loitering until 11:59 p.m., the last possible moment I could cross back into West Berlin without overstaying my Cinderella visa and landing myself in all sorts of trouble.
Which I was about to do just now.
Mr. Undercover motioned toward the uniformed guard and whispered something in his ear. I saw the guard place his left hand on the revolver holstered next to him. Though terrified, I knew I had no choice but to submit to their questions and, I hoped, be granted access to the thirty yards that separated their world from mine.
The border gate swung upward. I walked toward Mr. Undercover and the guard. As soon as I had crossed the painted line on the ground, the guard had his hand around my right arm.
“You will come with me,” he said.
I was ushered into a prefabricated hut just after the border. As the guard led me in, he was joined by Mr. Undercover and an older uniformed man with several medals adorning his two breast pockets. There were no chairs in this tiny space—just a long table in front of which I was ordered to stand.
“Papers,” he said. I handed them over.
The officer studied them, then turned to Mr. Undercover and asked, “This is the man who ran away from you?”
The Moment Page 36