by Alex Cugia
“Fantastic!” Stephan said as they exited, the crowd slowly dispersing in the nearby streets. “It’s the first time I didn’t fall asleep in one of these opera thingies!”
“Probably because you didn’t listen.” Thomas snapped. “You seemed to spend the whole time talking. Didn’t you notice the people behind you? They’d have killed you gladly, given the chance.”
Bettina and Camille were chatting chatting animatedly but as the men followed them Stephan, surprised by Thomas's mood, glanced over and stopped in astonishment.
“Jesus! What’s happened to your face?” Thomas, initially resisting, let Stephan turn him round so that the light fell better on his lacerated forehead and swollen nose while Camille and Bettina strolled ahead. “You look like Jimmy Durante – Schnoz Wundart, that’s what we’ll call you now.” He laughed and lowered his voice. “Look, I know how you like to get right into things with a new girlfriend but ... ” he opened his eyes wide in mock surprise, sucked in his breath noisily, and spoke in a stagy whisper “ ... did you really turn her on that much? Wow!”
Thomas jerked Stephan’s hands from his hunched shoulders with a brusque shrug. “Well, funny you should say that, because ... ” he started, then, “Oh, just leave it, will you? It was a stupid acquaintance of mine who crashed his car when I was in it.”
“I couldn’t work out why Fidelio seemed to be a woman until Bettina told me it was really Larana, I think that was her name, pretending to be a man to get her husband out of jail. Imagine that!" said Camille as Thomas and Stephan caught up with them. "And she made all these snarky comments about how all these big ideas like freedom and liberty get spoilt when some people have too much power and that really brought it all to life for me.”
She turned to Bettina. “And I loved that story you told me about the swan.”
“What story?” Stephan asked. “I didn’t hear that.”
Bettina smiled. “Something that happened in a performance of Lohengrin. The tenor had just finished his aria and was supposed to be spirited away by this mechanical swan. But the swan wasn’t there. By mistake it had been moved during the aria and had disappeared off stage. No sign of it! So there he was, standing around, meant to leave the stage but not knowing how to manage it. Finally he turns to the soprano and asks ‘Excuse me, but when’s the next swan?’”
Stephan and Camille roared with laughter and even Thomas chuckled despite himself.
“So, where next?” Stephan asked, wiping his eyes. “I think we should avoid Thomas’s nouveau riche traps and head for a real local place. Bettina, any ideas?”
“Sure. I know a good place. But we’ll be better accepted if you two take your ties and jackets off.” She caught Thomas’s eye. “Your face won’t be out of place anyway.”
“Oh, and before I forget, Thomas, I’ve talked to the personnel department.” Stephan added.
“It’s called Unter den Linden because of the lime trees lining each side of the street." Thomas broke in wildly, gesturing around him. "They were planted sometime in the 17th century. Look how regular and even they are. People walk under them, you see.” He walked over and smacked the trunk of one a couple of times proprietorially and gazed up into the crown. "Come and look at this Stephan."
“I do know that, Thomas! We learned it in school, for heaven's sake. Anyway, there’s a couple of dates available for your interviews, though not immediately I'm afraid – either a fortnight today, Friday 29 it must be, or the following Monday, 2 October.”
“Great!” said Thomas, trying to sound enthusiastic, as he noticed Bettina’s interested gaze and slight smile. “Thanks very much. I’ll, I'll let you know soon. As I can.”
Stephan’s new BMW 7 looked increasingly out of place as they left the town centre and headed north through the generally unlit streets. Ruined buildings stood next to others which had been rebuilt carefully after the war. There was very little traffic and the roads were a mix of potholed streets with broken pavements and stretches of sometimes irregular asphalt. Thomas realized they were in Prenzlauer Berg, formerly an elegant residential area of the city. Eventually Bettina told Stephan to pull in and park.
"It’s maybe half a kilometre away from here but it’s probably better not to park too close. Generally people here are alright, but sometimes they resent seeing a West German luxury car and things can happen. Especially if they’ve had one beer too many!”
The building was old, built of stone and with a raked roof of thick grey tiles. The sign on the wall above the door read ‘Restauration 1900’. The room they entered was stiflingly hot and packed with people and Thomas’s eyes stung in the pall of smoke which hit them. There was a strong smell of beer and sauerkraut laced with occasional sharp aromas of fruit schnapps.
Bettina eased their way through the crowd, stopping every few paces to greet one person or another, people of all ages and sizes. "Heinz, Ingrid, good to see you." She smiled and shook hands, sometimes introducing the others. "Klaus, these are my friends Camille and Stephen, from Frankfurt, and Thomas is a student in West Berlin. Klaus was an economics student as well, Leipzig wasn't it, Klaus?" The hubbub of chatter and the background music made it difficult to make any sense of the conversations and Thomas stared gloomily around as they jolted their way through. They squeezed into a second and larger room which was somewhat emptier.
“This is the restaurant part. There’s another room downstairs which is usually quieter. Used to be a bomb shelter so it’s maybe a bit bleak, though. Best stay here, I think.”
The smell of beer and the vinegary tang of sauerkraut remained but were now muted, overlaid by the scent of roasted meat and baked potatoes which made Thomas realise how hungry he was.
“I hope no one’s vegetarian – this place is noted for its pork.” Bettina said as she managed to find some unoccupied space at one of the long refectory tables with their plain wooden benches.
"Just so long as the pigs don't come in." Thomas muttered morosely. "I've had it up to here with that lot."
The waitress brought them beers and returned shortly with steaming plates of roast pork and crackling and for a time no one spoke, being too occupied in eating heartily.
Stephan turned to Bettina. “So, are you from East Berlin?”
“No, I moved here about four years ago. My dad was from a small town near Dresden, so that’s where we lived. And you’re from Frankfurt, aren’t you? Like Thomas.” She snapped off a piece of crackling, dipped it in apple sauce and crunched a bite.
“That’s right. We were at school together. Known each other since this high.” He held his hand maybe half a metre above the table surface. “Our families were good friends and lived fairly close so that’s how we got to know each other. Are your parents still in Dresden? And what does your dad do?”
“He was in the export business, electronics, and he had to travel a lot, including in the West, the Ruhr mainly I think it was. That got more difficult when the Wall went up, 1961, but because of his work he could still get permits. Then after one trip in 1970, I’d just turned five, he was away for a long time and almost immediately he came back he went off again. That was the last we saw of him. He wrote to my mother on different occasions saying each time he had to stay a bit longer and then a few months later told her that he’d decided to settle in Essen and that he’d find a way to get us there. What is Essen like anyway? It’s close to Frankfurt, I think, isn’t that right?”
“Not too far. Industrial, coal and steel. Not really my kind of town though there are parts that are OK. I sometimes have to go there to visit one or other corporation to discuss things. So, what happened? Didn't your dad send for you? Could you not get out? Have you ever been there at all?”
Stephan thought for a long moment that Bettina hadn’t heard what he’d said, that the noise of the restaurant was too much. But then she spoke, quietly and looking away, so that they all had to strain to hear.
“After a bit the letters stopped. My mother heard he’d moved in with someone
else. I guess that having to choose between his family and his money he just couldn’t part with his money, that’s all.” She took a long pull of her beer.
There was silence. Thomas and Stephan stared into their beers and Camille reached out a hand and briefly touched Bettina’s. Despite his continuing fury with her Thomas remembered Bettina’s reaction at the Ephraim Palais and now understood it better. He could see better why she was so strongly contemptuous of that kind of selfish consumption and thirst for luxury. The Western world placed money and consumption above everything else, in her view, and it was the lure of this that she blamed for her father's betrayal of his family.
Perhaps it wasn't quite as simple as that, thought Thomas, but as he thought of the five year old Bettina wearying her mother with questions as to her daddy's return, today?, tomorrow?, soon?, then growing progressively more puzzled and sad, more silent, until she came to accept that he'd gone for good, came to understand later that he'd chosen living in the West against his wife and children, he saw how hurt she'd been by someone she'd relied on unquestioningly. He was silent as the mood changed and the others started chattering and ordering more beers.
Bettina drained her beer and looked at her watch. “We need to get going − we’ve got to get back to the car and it will take you at least another fifteen minutes to get to the closest border crossing from there. And you’ll need to allow some extra time in case you get a bit lost.”
Stephan called the waitress and paid for everyone, with both Thomas and Bettina protesting that they should divide evenly. They fought their way back through the now even more crowded outer room to the street and, shivering and pulling their coats tighter round them, set off for the car.
Bettina pointed across what had presumably earlier been an apartment block but was now a surrealist urban garden with small trees growing on tops of ruined walls and others showing behind shattered window openings, the ground covered with now dying down rose bay willow herb and other vegetation. “There, look, that apartment block is where I live, third floor at the back.”
Even at a hundred metres or so away it was easy to see that the building looked run down though not as derelict as some others nearby. At first they’d been walking abreast, Camille’s arm in Stephan’s and tucked closely to his side, but as the streets narrowed Stephan dropped back to walk with Thomas who was slouching along behind them, as Bettina and Camille went ahead, talking animatedly.
“What’s the matter with you? You’ve been obnoxious all evening. Bettina is simply fantastic. Camille and I both think that. She’s intelligent, lively, caring, beautiful ... we like her a lot. She seems to really like you too but if you don’t watch out you’ll lose her. I don’t understand why you were ignoring her so completely." He stopped and looked at him as Thomas grunted and shrugged. "Have you had a fight or something? It really wasn’t her that hit you, was it? I can’t believe that. But you’ve just been blocking her out all evening.”
Thomas sighed. “It’s a long story, Stephan. Let’s just say there are reasons. And, no, she didn’t hit me, that was really a car crash, like I said.” He swallowed. “She had nothing to do with my face.”
He felt guilty. He was going to betray Stephan to get his liberty back. And he had no idea what price he ultimately might have to pay. He had a dread that his involvement with the Stasi could even ruin his best friend’s life. And now he was forced into close contact with someone he detested and feared but couldn’t helping wanting as well. Then there was Kai. The Stasi almost certainly knew of his visits to Kai’s apartment and perhaps even their meetings elsewhere. Would they would think it worth checking further on why Thomas and Kai had become friends, whether there was some hidden secret there that needed investigating? Perhaps they already knew about Kai’s escape plans and would just pick him up when they felt like it.
What a fucking mess! He wished he could just say that he’d had enough, that he wasn’t going ahead with what he’d agreed, that he'd take what would be coming to him. But he knew that he simply couldn’t face jail in the East and there was no way he would avoid that if he refused to cooperate. Let others be heroes. He lashed out at a stone in his path, connecting and sending it flying wonderfully, swooping down and narrowly missing Stephan's car in its trajectory, and felt better.
Chapter 10
Saturday September 16 through Sunday September 17 1989
“I'M so sick of this place!” said Kai as they bolted themselves into the basement room on the Saturday morning. “Nothing but backbreaking digging and humping damp earth around every night, every weekend. And it’s clammy in here and stinks. Look, there’s mould on that wall over there. You’d think old Schwineschwein would notice the smell even in the corridor but I guess it’s all those fags she smokes, probably can’t smell much.” He laughed. "Not even herself, obviously, or she’d do something about that!”
“We’ll be out soon. In the West. Think of that! Then you can lie around and do nothing all day, drink, go to clubs, whatever you want, without worrying about someone snooping all the time.”
“If only! And you’re not the one she’s chasing for rent, Bernhard. You know I promised to get it to her Monday evening. I can’t give her the money by then, obviously, and if I don’t she’ll have the police on to me straight away and I’ll be turfed out." He laughed again. "But I'd just love to see their faces when they open the door to check the cellar's empty!"
“OK. So we’ll just have to finish it before then and get out of here then, won’t we? We’ve got the whole weekend, Monday too if we need it. Tell Ulrike to get her stuff ready and we can go as soon as we break through.”
They dug and shifted earth steadily throughout the day and by late evening had added just over a metre to the tunnel length. The next morning, Sunday, they began early and again made good progress until just after midday during one of Kai’s shifts. He crawled out of the tunnel, frustrated and angry.
“It was going fine and then I hit what I thought was another big rock. It’s not a rock but I don’t know what it is and how big and what we can do about it. At the start it was just on the floor and so I thought I could get over it but it seems to be getting higher and higher as I dig. Have a look. Come and see what you think. Fuck! Just what we need!” He kicked one of the lowest bags of soil hard, dislodging a couple stacked on top which fell and tipped earth over the floor. "Shit!"
Bernhard crawled to the end of the tunnel, followed by Kai, and probed and scraped at the object in their way, digging experimentally in different directions. He motioned Kai back and shortly both of them sat on the floor, legs dangling into the hole in the floor.
“That’s concrete, not rock. Did you see how it continued out on each side of our tunnel and how it seems to curve up in front. We’ve hit the tunnel roof . We’ve made it! We’re almost there!” He beamed at Kai and they embraced.
“But, and it’s a big one.” Bernhard continued. “Looks like we’ve hit the tunnel at the wrong position. We’re too high up. That’s the curved roof. We can check this but I remember from looking at the plans that the walls were brick, rendered in the tunnels and faced with tiles in the stations, and that the roof was reinforced concrete, thick concrete at that. I can’t remember if it was just curved rebar or steel mesh but either way we can’t get through that, not in the time we have anyway and using these hand tools. And even if we could we’d be something like four and a half, five metres above the ground and without a rope and something to tie it to one of us is going to break a leg dropping down.”
“Shit! So what do we do?”
“We’ll have to backtrack a bit and down to find where this curve ends and then goes straight down, that's the brick wall. We can break through that. It really depends on where we’ve hit the roof as to how far back and down we’ll need to go. I think the wall was maybe three metres, three metres something anyway, when the roof started so maybe it’s not far back. Let’s go and see what we can find out.”
They crawled back into the tunnel and
Bernhard began poking experimentally with the pickaxe in the floor of the tunnel. Initially there was resistance as he investigated every ten centimetres or so, the point going in deeper each time. Just short of a metre from where the slope of the roof emerged from the tunnel floor the pointed blade went in up to its shaft without meeting anything.
“I don’t know. Maybe that’s the end of it or maybe it’s just lower than I can reach now. Anyway, it’s got to be back to at least here so let’s dig a bit and find out. I’ll do that, Kai, you fill the bags and move them.”
For nearly an hour, twice the length of an ordinary shift, Bernhard shovelled and probed with the pickaxe, caught up in fury at the misjudgement and working as if the tunnel were a malign force intentionally checking them and he fighting to defeat it. Kai didn’t dare speak, filling and carrying bags silently and standing around unsure of what he could do to help. He returned to find Bernhard standing in an excavated sump about a metre and a half from the blocked end of the tunnel, beckoning him and waving the torch, shining it towards his own feet.
“This is the point. Look. Here’s the end of the roof and the top row of bricks. I reckon we’ll need to go down another metre and that should do it, expose enough of the wall to make a big enough entrance. We’ll need to cut the hole back a bit too to give working room. The earth here isn’t bad, hardly any stones, so it’s doable quite soon I think. Your turn, Kai!”