The Moment

by Douglas Kennedy

  I sidestepped the desk clerk and went up a flight of stairs to discover a narrow corridor, lit by fluorescent tubes. Room 12 was at the end of the hall. I knocked on it lightly, hoping against hope there would be no answer. But a thick voice said:

  “Ja?”

  “It’s Dussmann,” I said.

  The door opened, and there he was. The fat man who bumped into me at the U-Bahn station yesterday. He was short, around five foot six, with a significant potbelly and a half-shaven face with a decidedly oily patina. He was in some indeterminate corner of middle age—his graying hair and brown teeth possibly making him appear more the wrong side of fifty. He had a cigarette in his mouth when I walked in. He was stripped down to a dirty white T-shirt that stretched over his distended stomach and a pair of yellowed Y-fronts.

  “Shut the door,” he ordered.

  “If I’m getting you at a bad time . . . ,” I said.

  “Shut the fucking door,” he ordered, his voice level but very threatening.

  I shut the door. The room was small and as shabby as the rest of the hotel. A sagging double bed, a naked lightbulb suspended from the ceiling, floral wallpaper peeling off the walls, a stench of mildew and cigarette smoke and male sweat.

  “Anyone follow you here?” he asked.

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “In the future you notice.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Take off your clothes.”

  “What?”

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Instantly I thought: flee. He gauged this immediately, as he said:

  “You leave now, you can forget ever seeing your cute little son again. I will make an anonymous call to those Bundesnachrichtendienst spooks who debriefed you and tell them you’re a double agent. And if you don’t think I’m serious . . .”

  He reached over to the scarred metal table by the bed and picked up an envelope, tossing its contents out onto the bed. I gasped when I saw a half dozen snapshots of Johannes. All recent. All of him being held up and clutched by a couple. Both fair haired and young and smiling. The man in the formal uniform of a Stasi officer. I immediately dived for the photographs, but the man grabbed my arm and wrenched it behind my back with such force that I let out a scream which he silenced by pulling me toward him and slapping his free hand across my mouth.

  “You never do anything without my permission. Never. You understand?”

  Now he yanked my arm up so high it felt like he was about to dislocate it. I nodded agreement many times. He let me go, simultaneously throwing me down on the bed on top of the photographs. I jumped up immediately, not wanting to crease them.

  “Now take off your clothes,” he said.

  I hesitated, still wanting to flee.

  “Now.”

  Awkwardly I took off my jacket, my sweater, my skirt, my tights, my underwear. I covered my breasts with my arms, shielding them.

  “On the bed,” he ordered.

  I reached down to first tidy up the photographs.

  “Did I give you permission to do that?”

  I began to sob.

  “You stop that crying now,” he hissed.

  I worked hard at stifling my sobs.

  “May I please pick up the photographs, sir?”

  “You’re learning. Yes, you may.”

  I scooped up the snapshots, looking for a moment at one of Johannes alone, clutching a teddy bear.

  “Did I give you permission to look at the photographs?” he yelled.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I said, scooping the rest up and dropping them on the side table.

  “Now on the bed.”

  The mattress sagged as I lay down on it, creaking loudly. I curled up into a fetal position, wanting so much at that moment to simply die.

  “On your back,” he yelled.

  I did as ordered.

  He approached me, pulling my legs apart with his two hands. Then he yanked down his Y-fronts and licked his hand, touching the head of his erect penis with it. I shut my eyes tightly as he barged into me. I was dry and so desperately tense that it felt as if he was ripping directly into me. I lay there, inert, as he thrust in and out. Happily—and that’s the wrong adverb to use here, but the only one that comes to mind—he never tried to kiss me. And he was fast. A minute or so of his thrusts and then he came in me with a groan that sounded more like an expectoration. He turned flaccid within moments. He stood up almost immidiately, pulled up his Y-fronts, and ordered me to get dressed, then said:

  “We are going to meet twice a week—and I am going to fuck you both times. If you don’t want to do that, just tell me now—and I will get word to East Berlin that you want the adoption of Johannes to be permanent.”

  “I don’t want that.”

  “Then you will do exactly what I request. If you behave like a good operative, our masters back home will get a decent report from me about you—and that should help your case. Of course, if you don’t follow orders . . .”

  And orders involve fucking you.

  “I’ll follow orders,” I said, thinking: I have no cards to play here.

  “Then put your clothes back on.”

  As I got dressed, the man reached for his packet of Camels and lit one up. As an afterthought he tossed the packet onto the bed, saying:

  “Take one.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You on the pill?” he asked.

  I shook my head.

  “You get knocked up, you deal with it.”

  “My period’s due tomorrow.”

  “Then you go on the pill this week. Understood?”

  I nodded.

  Once I was fully dressed again, he opened a wardrobe and pulled out a cheap-looking suitcase. He squatted down and flipped it open. He pulled out a small zipped bag.

  “This is for you,” he said, handing it to me. “Go ahead, open it.”

  Again I did as ordered. Inside the bag was a tiny camera—so small it could easily fit in the palm of my right hand.

  “This is the tool of your trade. Also in the bag you will find twenty-four miniature rolls of film, each with sixteen exposures. Your task is simple. You photograph both the original copy and the translation you make of everything handed to you. You find a way of secreting this camera on your person—and you bring the film back here to me twice a week. You also work out a way of getting up here without being followed.”

  “What makes you think I’m being followed?”

  “You’re a new arrival. They always keep a close eye on recent political émigrés. Why do you think I waited a month before contacting you? I was simply making sure they had reached a moment where they were becoming less vigilant about tracking you everywhere. But we still can’t be too cautious. So you must find a route that will lose them.”

  “Who’s to say they didn’t follow me up here tonight?”

  “Because we have our sources and you are now considered, by them, to be clean. Even so, we will never meet just here. And the way I contact you will be very simple. There is a bar near you in Kreuzberg called Der Schlüssel. A dive—and patronized by a young, druggy clientele. It is atrocious at night, but just about tolerable during the day. You will make it your local. I want you to stop in there at least five times a week for a beer, a coffee. You will always go to the bathroom while there. In the one and only stall in the ladies’, you will notice a loose floor tile just to the right of the toilet. I will always leave a note under this tile, stating the time and place of our next rendezvous. It will always be two days in advance. You must memorize the details, then flush the card away. You must always make our appointments promptly. You must always bring the film with you. And I will always expect new film from you twice a week.”

  He then gave me a fast lesson in how to load the film, how to photograph the documents, and how to hide the camera within my clothes.

  “Best in the crotch of your jeans when you are coming to work. There’s no metal detector at Radio Liberty, but the security people there do mak
e random searches of bags and desks. So you should only bring the camera two, three times a week and photograph your work at that time. The station is usually working on everything but the news a week or so in advance, so it is critical that we have your film promptly. Do remember: failure to make our appointments, failure to have photographed all the translations you have worked on, will be reported back. You do not want that, do you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You really are learning. Maybe you will convert to being a true believer—which, trust me, is the fastest way back to your son.”

  “Whatever it takes, sir,” I said. “Whatever it takes.”

  “I’m Haechen, by the way. Helmut Haechen. It’s not my real name, but it’s what I adopted years ago. Who needs a past, ja? You check the toilet at Der Schlüssel in two days—and there will be instructions where we meet next. Now get out of here.”

  * * *

  As soon as I was out on the street, I doubled over and began to retch. I must have vomited for a good five minutes, sinking down to my knees on the slushy pavement, sobbing and spewing at the same time, feeling beyond violated. A man—elderly, frail, but with deeply alert eyes—came by and asked if I needed his help. His decency only made me cry louder. Instead of talking in the sort of well-meaning clichés—It’s not the end of the world now, is it?—he did something so incredibly humane, so profoundly powerful. He just put one of his hands on my shoulder and kept it there until I was able to bring myself under control. When I made it to my feet, he touched my face with his gloved hand. His eyes brimming with concern and (I sensed) the understanding of someone who had known life’s more extreme horrors, he uttered one simple word:

  “Courage.”

  I got home. I stripped off everything I was wearing. I took a shower so hot it almost scalded me. I wrapped myself in a bathrobe. I stared at myself long and hard in the mirror, trying to see if the woman looking back at me—with her red, exhausted eyes, her expression of deep shock and fear etched everywhere on her face—could provide me with some sort of way out of a nightmare that I knew would just deepen with time.

  Call Frau Jochum, call Herr Ullmann. Beg for mercy . . . and never see Johannes again.

  And if you do everything Haechen asks you . . . if you spread your legs for him twice a week . . .

  They will have to reunite me with Johannes. They will owe me that. They will have to play fair.

  The worst lies are the ones we tell ourselves.

  But when you have no other options—when any decision you make will lead to grief—what other choice do you have but to hold on to the lie that might miraculously transform itself into the denouement you spend your days pleading for?

  I’ve never had a religious impulse in my life. But tonight, passing by a Catholic church on the way home, I had the urgent desire to go inside and find a priest and lay bare my soul to him and ask for some sort of divine guidance.

  Can prayers be answered, Father? I would ask him afterward. No doubt he’d tell me that miracles do happen, that the hand of the Almighty Father works in mysterious ways.

  But I also know that this Kreuzberg priest—well schooled like the rest of the populace here in the realpolitik of walls and sentries and armed snipers and secret police—would privately think: She’s up against the Stasi. And when you are up against the Stasi . . . well, even the Almighty doesn’t stand a chance.

  * * *

  I went to Der Schlüssel last night. A dump. I ordered a vodka and a beer. I drank them both down. I studied the other clientele. The usual Kreuzberg mélange of bikers and punks and junkies. I regarded them all furtively for more than half an hour, making certain that none of them was eyeing me with interest, that I hadn’t been tailed. I have been obsessed with this fear for days now, always checking if I am being followed. Just as, this afternoon, at Radio Liberty I took the English-language draft of an essay I was translating into the bathroom with me. Sitting on the closed toilet, with the manuscript piled up on my lap, I photographed each of the seven pages of this piece. It detailed an evening spent drinking with a couple of American soldiers who regularly drove to the west side of The Wall on night patrol. I was amazed that Herr Wellmann allowed this piece, as it pointed out the fact that their job was a nonevent, as nobody from the GDR ever made it over The Wall. It also was thoroughly sardonic about the marathon sessions they had in local bars after getting off duty. As I was beginning to discover Radio Liberty liked to show off its ability to send up aspects of Americanness or even let a writer openly criticize the president. Herr Wellmann felt this showed the power of free speech over here in the West, and that was the best propaganda going.

  I was photographing the text of this “propaganda” inside one of the two toilet stalls in the ladies’, desperately worried that someone might enter the other stall and perhaps hear the rustle of paper, the low click of the shutter release on the camera. Of course, I made a point, the day before I photographed documents for the first time, of spending some time alone in the bathroom during lunch hour—when most everyone else was off the premises—seeing if I could find any hidden cameras there. None seemed to be visible. I also made a point of noting if anyone’s bag was searched going in and out of the bathroom. From what I had discerned in my weeks there so far, outside of the occasional spot check from the security guards on the way out of the building, there wasn’t hypervigilance at work here. Given that, on this first day with the tiny camera, I made certain I wore a pair of boots that I bought the day before specifically because they were a half-size too large and had enough space in the right toe to hide the camera. Haechen’s idea of hiding it in the crotch of my jeans struck me as both stupid and dangerous, as there would be a telltale bulge there whenever I snuck it into work. I could live with the camera rattling around my boot for the entire day. I also never saw anyone being asked to take off their footwear.

  Bringing the documents into the toilet was easy. I walked in with a file under my arm, figuring if anyone asked me why I was carrying them in with me, I’d just explain that I was editing while using the bathroom.

  But no one questioned me. I was able to photograph all seven pages of the text in the space of five minutes, then store the camera back in the right toe of my boot, flush the toilet, step out, wash my hands, and head back to my desk, thankful that there wasn’t a sound detector on the premises that could register the insane pounding of my heart as I sat down in my cubicle, all fear and paranoia, yet also a guilty little-girl pleasure in having gotten away with something bad.

  As soon as the workday had ended, I was out the door, holding my breath in case security was about to conduct the first-ever shoe inspection I’d seen at the station. Then I made my way by U-Bahn to Kreuzberg and the Café Schlüssel. I drank my vodka and my beer. I ascertained that none of the scruffy crew there looked like obvious spooks—then again, maybe they had recruited junkies, getting them to follow me around in exchange for drug money. I went into the bathroom. It stank of blocked drains and disinfectant. The toilet itself was disgusting. But I did find the loose floor tile immediately. Beneath it there was a card. I read it quickly. Hotel Liebermann, Oldenburg Alle 33, Wednesday 7 p.m. I made certain I repeated the address silently to myself several times, then tore it up, dumped it in the toilet, flushed it away, and fled into the now-snowy streets.

  That night—and all the next day—was one of dread. Haechen—that foul, ugly little man. Repulsive beyond belief. I could smell his toxic breath, the acridity of his sweat, and I could still feel the little erect stump of a penis that he shoved into me as if it were a mechanical tool. Again I told myself that this was beyond all limits of toleration, that I should get word to Stenhammer that his agent was demanding sexual services from me. Would it be best to run before he began to demand more from me? Say he insisted on three rendezvous per week? Or even four?

  But I still showed up for my appointment as ordered. And yes, it was another grubby hotel in another backstreet. And yes, he was stripped down again to a similar so
iled T-shirt and Y-fronts. And yes, he ordered me to strip. And yes, he mounted me. And yes, it again only took him a few terrible minutes to spurt into me. Then he withdrew and barked some obscenities at me when he saw that his penis was covered in menstrual blood. I dashed into the bathroom to insert a tampon and drench a hand towel in water. I came back out and handed it to him.

  He grunted acknowledgment, disappearing into the toilet with it, peeing loudly with the door open.

  “You bring the film?” he shouted from within.

  “Of course.”

  When he came out, I handed over the two minute rolls.

  “What are the documents about?”

  I gave him a rundown of the piece. He seemed genuinely enthused that it involved the American military guarding The Wall and the fact that they liked to get smashed after an all-night tour of duty.

  “Good work,” he said. “But I will reserve judgment—and will not let them know if it is good work until I see the quality of the photographs.”

  “Can I have some more film, please? I only have two rolls and if there are more documents to be photographed . . .”

  He then quizzed me most intensely about how and where I photographed the documents. Did anyone at the station see me, were any suspicions raised, was I aware of anyone hanging around my street or following me anywhere? He seemed pleased with my responses. And said:

  “You deserve a small reward.”

  Reaching into an envelope on the bedside table, he extracted one small photograph of Johannes. Sitting on the floor, playing with a few wooden blocks. He looked a month or two older now, and was wearing that same charming half smile that always made my heart sing whenever it filled his face. I always sense he inherited that from me—as my friends told me that I was someone who never fully smiled. Curious that my son already shared that same tendency, as if he too was tentative about trusting the world. Of course, that’s reading far too much into a baby’s smile. But I still wondered if being taken away from his mother—and suddenly finding himself in the arms of strangers—wasn’t somehow disturbing to him, that even if he was far too young to be cognizant of this big upheaval in his life, he still nevertheless knew.