The Moment

by Douglas Kennedy

  But having decided on this course of action—having finally realized there was a way out of all this—a certain calm came over me. When you have a solution to something insoluble you also have hope.

  * * *

  At our next rendezvous Haechen didn’t rough me up. When he kissed me my lips didn’t contort with horror. Rather I kissed him back hard—and pumped hard with my pelvis to make him come that much more forcibly.

  He noticed this, saying afterward:

  “So you have decided to be a nice girl, ja?”

  “I will do what you ask. For my son. For my homeland.”

  He seemed to buy this.

  “You can demonstrate your patriotism by convincing your lover to run a little errand for me. Not, of course, that he will ever know who the guiding hand behind all this actually is. Do you think you could convince him to collect some photographs of your son from your friend Judit?”

  * * *

  That night I revealed to Thomas the fact that I have a son. I told him the entire story—and Thomas listened in shocked silence throughout the rendering. I didn’t embellish. I didn’t play up things in an attempt to win his sympathy. I never once cried—though the retelling of it all made me want to on several occasions. I just reported the facts—including the discovery that my great friend Judit had betrayed me. And I told him that life without Johannes was a form of living death.

  Thomas could not have reacted more wonderfully. He said that knowing all this explained so much—and he couldn’t imagine having endured what I had endured.

  I mentioned that I had received a letter some months ago from Judit, a letter smuggled to me. In it she said she was so appalled by her betrayal of me and begged my forgiveness, while also stating that she had a collection of photographs that belonged to me. Thomas immediately said he would go to East Berlin, knock on her door, and get the photographs. I felt such a stab of guilt when he said this. Because there had never been a letter from Judit. And the only reason I knew she had the photographs was that Haechen told me his “people” would be delivering them to her this week and would brief her on what to say to Thomas when he arrived at her apartment.

  “All he will have to do is bring back twenty or so photographs,” Haechen told me. “Half of them I will keep. The other half you will be able to keep. So, you see, you profit from sending your boyfriend on this expedition. You will finally have photographs of your beloved son—and trust me, the Republic will be most impressed by your assistance. This could be the turning point for you.”

  Now listening to my beloved Thomas insist that he collect those photographs for me . . . that he just had to do this . . . my guilt was bottomless. How could I do this . . . how could I involve the man I so adored in such a grubby, shadowy business?

  But as my panic mounted, it was shouted down by that reasoned voice within me. And that voice said:

  “You do what you have to do to get through the next few weeks. Then all will come right. And you will be free.”

  So—after sounding very reluctant to involve him—I told Thomas that, yes, I would be hugely grateful if he could pay Judit a visit.

  * * *

  He left early this morning for Checkpoint Charlie. I held on to him a very long time before he left, telling him to be careful. Even though Haechen informed me yesterday that I shouldn’t worry about Thomas’s safety—that it was in their interest that his trip to East Berlin was an uneventful one—I still didn’t believe a word he told me. Haechen is a man whose entire life is made up of fabrications, lies, falsehoods, the control of others through the threat of blackmail, extortion, physical injury. So who knew what games they might spring on my beloved.

  Because they are the Stasi. And their rules defy moral logic.

  I ran to the window and watched Thomas walk off. Oh God, please get him back to me tonight. Safely.

  * * *

  He was home before five! He looked tired and a little shaken up—as he had a story to tell. The border guards had held him at Checkpoint Charlie for a good two hours. They gave him no reason for this delay. And though they tore his bag apart, they didn’t make him undress—he had secreted the photographs under his jeans. I cried when I saw all the images of Johannes. He’d grown, of course. He was a little chunkier than when I last held him—which was a relief, as whoever was looking after him was feeding him reasonably. He had more hair, his eyes were more alert, but there was that ever-present half smile. Seeing that smile, seeing my son again after all these months, I couldn’t stop myself from crying. And Thomas held me until I finally did

  Much later—as Thomas dozed in bed after we had made love—I got up and collated the photographs together, feeling each one, wondering which contained the microfilm or whatever they had secreted within them. I could sense no bulge in any of them. But they were rather professional when it came to such things, weren’t they?

  * * *

  Haechen was pleased with the photographs.

  “Good work,” he said, handing me ten of the twenty that I was allowed to keep. Then: “You won’t be hearing from me for a little while. I have business elsewhere. But I might call on you to join me in a few weeks. So keep checking that loose tile in Der Schlüssel. Twice a week as normal. When I need you, I will let you know. Do not believe that this absence is a permanent one.”

  Afterward the thought struck me that he had somebody here doing part of his dirty work for him. Tailing me. Keeping tabs on all my movements. Leaving his notes. Knowing everything about me.

  * * *

  Thomas has told me we are going to Paris!

  Paris. I cannot believe it. All these years when Paris seemed like a distant planet, out of permanent reach. And now . . .

  Alaistair’s paintings continue to astonish me. I said that to him the other day, the fact that they are so extraordinary. His reply:

  “I have no damn idea if they are good or not. And even when I finish them, I probably won’t like them. But you can like them for me.”

  Much later Thomas and I joined him for several vodkas downstairs in his studio. When Thomas excused himself to use the bathroom, Alaistair turned to me and said:

  “You seem happier than I’ve ever seen you. What’s happened?”

  “Life has gotten simpler.”

  Because Haechen had vanished. For the moment.

  * * *

  I am just back from Paris.

  Paris.

  If I die tomorrow I can think: at least I was once in Paris. And with the man of my life.

  Paris.

  Where to start?

  The Rue Gay Lussac perhaps? That’s the street that housed the charming little hotel into which Thomas had booked us for several nights. He noted with amusement that it was a little run-down, a little too noisy, a little too impregnated with tobacco, and a little too “French plumbing” when it came to the feeble shower in our room. I didn’t care. We were in Paris. And Paris was overwhelming in ways that appealed to me. Yes, it had its majestic moments. Yes, it was all such a visual set-piece. But what I loved most about it were things like the little bakery near our hotel where you could buy the sort of croissants that were akin to a religious experience. Or the little cinemas where you could hide in old movies for a few francs. Or the jazz place near Châtelet where all the musicians seemed to be black American émigrés, wildly gifted and so deeply cool. Or the wonderful little café next to our hotel where all the local workmen seemed to gather for a glass of wine at nine in the morning and where, while sitting there with Thomas, I could pretend for the length of a coffee that I lived the sort of unencumbered bohemian existence that I know is nothing more than the fantasy of somebody visiting this city with a return ticket to elsewhere.

  What a wondrous fantasy. Does Paris always seduce with its sensuality and its image of life unimpeded, even though I know damn well that, like anywhere else, people here are paying rents and raising children and fighting with their spouses and dealing with jobs that leave them unfulfilled, all the realpolitik of
day-to-day life that we tend to overlook while sitting in a café on an atmospheric street in the Fifth Arrondissement, watching life go by?

  I had my decoy journal with me, recording all the films and museums and cafés we loitered in while playacting Parisians. But how I wished I’d had this “real” journal with me, to confess something that has been on my conscience for some time now:

  With Haechen absent from my life for the past few weeks, I made a decision as soon as I had my last period—and I knew that I did not risk getting pregnant anymore by him.

  I went off the pill.

  Yes, yes, I should have told Thomas immediately. Yes, yes, I shouldn’t be making decisions for the two of us. Yes, yes, I know he has spoken many times about wanting a baby with me. But the word “eventually” has always been there.

  So why have I decided to get pregnant without consulting him?

  Because I fear all the other shit coming back at me. Because I want certainty. Because I know that Thomas will not be angry about this. Bemused perhaps. Anxious, of course (aren’t all men?). But he has told me often enough it’s what he wants with me. And I want it now. I want a new child. A new life.

  Yet I feel so profoundly guilty at the same time about it all. I should have told him. But I can’t. Just like I cannot tell him about the even bigger betrayal I have perpetrated upon him.

  Does love—profound love—have to involve a degree of betrayal? I ask myself that question so often now. Had I followed my instincts at the outset I would have pushed Thomas away from me, because I knew I was a mine field of conflicting interests. And because I had to answer to the man who had announced he controlled my destiny.

  But if I had pushed him away—if I had chosen the less problematic route (even though there was hardly anything unproblematic about the Faustian bargain that Haechen had offered me)—I would never have known what it was like to feel so certain about another person, and to have that conviction validated by him.

  But, damn me, why didn’t I just tell him: I want to have a baby with you now. Why did I insist on retreating into connivance and deceit when a straightforward statement of fact would have been unquestionably met with the response I so wanted?

  Why do I complicate things so? And why do I gamble with the love of the one and only man in my life who has ever shown me real love?

  * * *

  We were sitting in a café in the Odeon, holding hands, drinking wine, when he asked me to marry him. Just like that. Yes, he’d mentioned marriage in the past, but always in the manner that one mentions some place you’ll visit in the near future.

  This was definitive. It came in the wake of me stating (again!) that I thought we should move here. He then said, “Well, why don’t we get married as well?” I thought at first he was joking. But it was clear he was immensely serious. And this threw me. I wanted it more than ever.

  But instead of expressing the joy I truly felt, I disappeared into the ladies’ room and locked myself in a stall and lit up a cigarette and talked myself out of the panic attack I was having, telling myself once again that there was a plan. Once that plan was followed all would be fine. So I went back outside and said that, yes, I would marry him. He insisted on ordering champagne—and we talked about our possible life in New York and renting a larger apartment there and me finding work . . . and, yes, the fact that I had now given up hope about ever being allowed custody of Johannes again, and Thomas saying it was best to give up hope, as hard a conclusion as that was to reach. And me thinking all the time: the fact that I have finally given up hope has allowed me to begin formulating the plan that will liberate me from Haechen forever.

  But things need to move along now. Part of me prays that, if we can expedite things—the marriage, the green card—we might be gone by the time Haechen gets back. He could have me chased to New York. But then what? More threats of exposure? Now that I accept that Johannes is gone, so too is their power over me. My son again was the last bargaining chip they had with me. Of course, they could threaten to eliminate me—but I have an answer to that as well. First things first. I need to see Haechen one more time. Just to definitively close the chapter, end the tale, turn the page, all those clichés we mouth in the hope that things can change. Then life can become good again.

  That’s the great aspiration behind everything: the vision of life as a happy, positive enterprise. Free from tragedy and pettiness and meanness and disappointment. That too is the great hope behind love: total fulfillment with another person who becomes your bulwark against everything that human existence can throw in your path, or, at the very least, can diminish the pain of it all.

  * * *

  Back in Berlin. We told Alaistair about our engagement in Paris. He insisted on champagne and looked surprisingly touched by our news. I sense he still misses Mehmet.

  I was very nervous before meeting the American consul today. Terrified, actually.

  But the meeting was straightforward. The consul was a woman. Not someone who smiled that much, but she asked all the appropriate questions. About the reasons for my expulsion from the GDR. About the death of my husband. About how long Thomas and I had known each other. At the end she said she saw no reason why my application wouldn’t be approved—but tempered this with the statement that it wasn’t her decision.

  Afterward, outside, I almost fell apart I was so tense, so frightened. I explained it away to Thomas as my ingrained fear of all bureaucracy. He kept trying to reassure me that nothing would go wrong, that there was no chance they would turn me down for a green card.

  But my nervousness was rooted in something else.

  I’m pregnant. I bought one of those tests yesterday, and while everyone else was out at lunch, I went into the bathroom at work and peed on the little chemical strip. Then I waited and watched as the paper turned from gray to telltale pink.

  I must say that I am ecstatic. But it’s a jubilation tempered by the understanding that I must break the news to Thomas at the appropriate moment, explain it away by saying I forgot to bring my pills with me to Paris, and hope that he won’t feel too aggrieved by it all. If he does . . . if he feels I’ve entrapped him . . .

  But it’s what he wants. He’s told me that several times. And he knows we will do this all wonderfully together, that having this child will be the source of so many good things, of such happiness.

  Of course, I was relieved that conception happened during that six week window when Haechen was away. I couldn’t have come off the pill if I was still being forced to service him.

  I mention this because I did have to see Haechen last night. There was a card awaiting me in Der Schlüssel, telling me where to meet him. One of his usual cheap hotels. As soon as I was in the door—and he was inside me—he said:

  “So you ran off with your boyfriend to Paris.”

  I said nothing. He grabbed my face.

  “You are never to leave Berlin again without my permission. Do you understand that?”

  I nodded, knowing that the only reason I was letting him fuck me right now was to let it seem as if all was just business as usual, that nothing was untoward. I wanted to make my move now—but knew it wasn’t the right setting, the right moment. So I just lay there, waiting for him to finish. Then:

  “We’re going away for a weekend,” he said.

  “I see.”

  “Hamburg. I have business there. But I want you along.”

  “Am I part of this business?”

  “You will see. We travel separately, the day after tomorrow. We will stay in different hotels. But I will come and find you. There is an envelope on the dresser with your train ticket and the name of the hotel. Bring your typewriter with you. You will need to do some translation work while there. Then you will have to bring some things back to a contact of mine in Berlin. And I know that Radio Liberty is about to interview those two traitorous dancers who just defected. If you can get me the transcript of that interview well before it is broadcast, it might just be the coup that wins you back y
our son.”

  * * *

  The plan is now moving apace. Being out of town is perfect. Hamburg even more so. So too are the separate hotel rooms—and the fact that in the envelope are two hundred deutsche marks to cover my hotel costs and any basic expenses, as well as a false set of identity papers, stating that my name is Hildegard Hinckel. I have now bought everything I need for the trip—and did it in a shop on the other side of the city, away from my own neighborhood. I have told Thomas that Herr Wellmann’s usual translator is off sick and that Herr Direktor has insisted I come along with him on a last-minute trip to Hamburg, where he’s giving some lecture at a big conference and needs somebody to do simultaneous translation for him. Thomas seemed to buy this. But then he told me he’s the man who’s been asked to interview Hans and Heidi Braun, and that he’ll be working on the transcript this weekend. All right, I hate doing this one more time. If all goes to plan in Hamburg, I can return to Berlin, see my beloved Sunday night, quickly photograph the transcript while he sleeps, then leave it with Haechen’s contact, and then . . .

  By the end of the week I will be Thomas’s wife. And with these much-craved documents now in their hands, who’s to say they mightn’t relent?

  Thomas commented on the fact that this is the first time we have ever been apart since everything started between us.

  And it will be the last time we are ever apart.

  * * *

  I was booked on the 12:13 from Berlin Zoo Station to the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. I changed my ticket and took the 9:47. There was a strange moment in the journey when we reached the western border of Berlin and reentered GDR territory. The border delineated by armed soldiers and barbed wire. The train didn’t stop—but actually seemed to gain speed. Perhaps this was something the GDR authorities insisted upon—the train from West Berlin to Hamburg traveling at a certain agreed high speed through their territory so nobody can attempt to jump on it. Has there ever been a state so obsessed with keeping its citizens permanently corralled and controlled?