A Night Divided

by Jennifer A. Nielsen

  "What's the matter?" I called while descending the ladder.

  My answer came as soon as I entered the tunnel. Water trickled beneath my feet and sank into the soil, creating a dense mud. The farther I walked, the more water there was. At the back of the tunnel, Fritz had exposed a pipe that was now spurting out pressurized water like a fireman's hose. The hole in it wasn't large, but it was enough to cause significant damage and was getting worse. The streams of water tore dirt from the walls and sent it in chunks to the ground. Our tunnel was flooding, and if we didn't find a way to stop the water, it would collapse entirely.

  "How did this happen?" I cried.

  "I nicked it with the shovel. Didn't even know it was there until water shot out at me!"

  "What do we do?"

  Fritz wrapped his hands around the pipe, which helped, but water leaked down his arms, and we knew it would burst again as soon as he let go. Maybe even break open and flood the entire tunnel before we could escape.

  "I have an idea!" he said. "But it'll take some time to get what we need. You have to stay here and hold this pipe!"

  "How long? I can't --"

  "However long it takes! Come on, Gerta. You can do this!"

  So I stood on tiptoes, then reached up and replaced my hands with his. The water pushed at me with a force I didn't expect and it took effort to keep my grip on the pipe.

  "Hurry," I told him. "Just hurry!"

  He ran from the tunnel and left me in absolute darkness. The flashlight was somewhere at my feet but already buried in mud, and I couldn't let go to search for it. The water dripping down my hands was cold, and the wetter I became, the more I shivered.

  Fritz said it would take him some time. How long did that mean? An hour, two hours? Until evening?

  I couldn't hold on until evening. With water still dripping from the pipe, I wasn't even sure the tunnel would be here that long. If it collapsed, it'd take me with it.

  In the darkness, a chunk of dirt or maybe rock fell somewhere behind me. I instinctively ducked, protecting myself from whatever might fall next. It terrified me to wonder how much had just fallen, and if more was about to come down. The only thing I knew for sure was that the mud at my feet was getting deeper.

  Occasionally, when my hold slipped, water would spurt at harsh angles, inevitably bringing down more chunks of dirt. At one point, it loosened a rock overhead. I heard something start to fall and backed away from the sound, but when it came down, it grazed my arm. From the sting, I was sure it gave me a deep cut, though I couldn't remove my hands from the pipe to check it.

  It wasn't much longer before I was entirely soaked through. My wet clothes clung to my body, my feet were sinking in mud, and my hair was in my face and over my eyes, but I supposed it didn't matter because there was nothing I could see in here anyway. I was shivering and my fingers and toes were already numb, but I knew if I let go of the pipe, everything we had worked so hard for was finished.

  So I held on, doing whatever I could to distract myself. I solved long-division problems, recited poems, and prayed for a stronger willpower, though it'd be the last trait my mother would want me to strengthen. When those didn't work, I sang songs in my head. Ironically, the only ones I could think of were the patriotic songs of the Pioneers. But their rousing tunes didn't help for long. Time was crawling by and I'd lost any sense of how long Fritz had been gone.

  Was it an hour? Was it more?

  He would come back, I was sure of that. Unless ... he had been arrested for some reason. Maybe Frau Eberhart had caused us trouble again -- she was obviously capable of it. Or what if the tunnel was already collapsing from the outside? Maybe that's why it was so dark in here, and why he hadn't come back. Maybe he couldn't.

  That terrified me, and I tried to shake the worst thoughts from my mind. All I knew was that Fritz had said to hold on. So I held to the pipe and to my senses and to my courage, bundling them together and knotting them within my heart. I closed my eyes and repeated his last words to me: "Come on, Gerta. You can do this!"

  Fritz did return, eventually. I wasn't sure it was him at first, not until I heard his voice calling for me.

  "Where's the flashlight?" he asked.

  "Somewhere below me. It fell."

  Fritz dug for that first, and when the light finally returned to the tunnel, I began breathing easier. He was fine, and I would be after a while. But for now, I was exhausted and freezing and my numb hands ached from the pressure and the cold. I'd held them up for so long, I doubted any blood was left in them.

  "What happened to your arm?" he asked.

  With the light on it, I saw the cut was much worse than I had expected. It ran in a long, jagged line that would probably leave a scar and stung like it had been attacked by wasps, but at least it wasn't bleeding anymore. I shrugged it off and asked, "What do you have for the pipe?"

  "Not much, but it'll have to do." Fritz held up a clamp and an empty bicycle tube. "Papa once fixed a pipe in our apartment this way. It's not permanent, but it will work for now."

  "Where'd you get those?"

  "The clamp came from Herr Krause. He had a few people at his place for some sort of meeting, so he told me to go in his back room and take what I needed from his gadget collection. Didn't ask any other questions. The bicycle tube came from Claudia. She has extras in the shop where she works and I hoped she wouldn't ask questions either."

  "Claudia? Your girlfriend?"

  "Ex-girlfriend, remember? Now move your hand. It's going to spurt water, but I've got to wrap this tube around the leak."

  I obeyed and caught a powerful spray of water to my face before Fritz got the tube over it. But he pulled it tight and then began wrapping it around the pipe. With every layer, the water sealed up tighter.

  "Hand me the clamp," he said. "It's in my back pocket."

  I grabbed the clamp and while he worked to get it pinched around the pipe, I said, "What do you mean you 'hoped' Claudia wouldn't ask questions? Did she?"

  He paused for only a moment and then said, "I went into her shop filthy and wet, and you and I are both thinner than we ought to be right now. Yeah, she had questions."

  "What did you tell her?"

  "Only about the garden. I said I fell into the pond and that we needed the bicycle tube to prop up some plants."

  "And did she believe you?"

  Fritz finished sealing the clamp and then patted at the pipe. When he was convinced the leak was fixed, he glanced down at me and said, "Probably not. But she used to like me. I hope it'll be okay."

  That wasn't good enough, not after all our other close calls. But as things became more dangerous, simply hoping for anything good was probably the best we could do.

  A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy, US President, 1962

  With the mud and standing water, there was nothing more we could do in the tunnel that day. I suggested working on the garden beneath the warming sun, but after we got into the light and each saw how filthy the other was, we abandoned the idea of doing anything useful. We took a quick swim in the pond and let ourselves dry off somewhat before walking home. And we checked for Frau Eberhart around each corner before rounding it. I couldn't even imagine the nosy questions she'd have for us tonight, especially if she noticed the cut on my arm.

  Despite our appearances, it was an uneventful walk home. The people who did see us were used to us being dirty and understood we were working a garden, so they barely seemed to notice we were dirtier than usual. But once we got inside our apartment, something was different.

  "Fritz and Gerta Lowe! I want explanations!"

  Mama had come home.

  My first thought was for the hidden microphones. Mama had been gone for a few weeks to a place where she didn't have to think about them. Hopefully she remembered that was always a concern here. Every word we said mattered, and the way we said it mattered just as much.


  My second thought was for what Mama must be thinking as she stared at Fritz and me. Nothing about us looked good. Beneath the layers of dirt, we were too thin, and our clothes were soiled and ragged. I had become deeply tanned, and my hands and knees were calloused. In only three weeks, we had gone from being respectable young people to looking more like workhouse orphans.

  Fritz smiled warmly, walked forward, and gave Mama a kiss on the cheek. I thought I saw him whisper into her ear when he did, but it was so quiet I couldn't be sure.

  I walked forward next and wanted more than anything to hug her, but she was so clean, I only reached up to kiss her too. When I did, she grabbed my arm and saw the long cut from the rock. "What --" she started to ask.

  "It's just a scratch," I told her, for the microphones. "From a brambly weed. We've been gardening. It was supposed to be a surprise for you."

  Mama was surprised, all right. She pursed her lips together and then told us both to get washed up. Fritz allowed me the first bath and I took my time in it. Better here than anywhere near Mama's temper. When the water got cold enough to force me out, I could've sworn more dirt than water ran down the drain.

  When I got into the front room, I expected to see Fritz beside a fire, having written out explanations to Mama. Then everything would be better. But it was too warm outside to justify a fire without creating suspicion. Mama clearly knew we were up to something much bigger than gardening, yet we couldn't freely talk about any of it.

  While Fritz went to bathe, I asked Mama about Oma Gertrude. I figured that was safe enough.

  "Oma is well enough to get around now, but she'll have a cast for several more weeks. She misses both of you and wondered why you didn't come with me. Where's all our food?"

  Mama had been poking around in the kitchen. There were some things -- a cup of flour and half a bottle of vinegar in the cupboards, some sausage grease in the refrigerator, and something far in the back of the refrigerator that neither Fritz nor I recognized.

  "We haven't had time for the store," I said.

  Mama opened her mouth, closed it, and then marched over to the table, where she began unpacking a bag.

  "Oma Gertrude insisted on sending me home with food. Some things are easier to buy out in the country and she wanted me to bring them back to you. While I'm cooking, go to your room, Gerta, and get it cleaned up. You could probably garden in there, with how dirty it is."

  "Yes, Mama."

  Less than an hour later, warm, wonderful smells began coming from the kitchen. Sausage and potatoes and biscuits. Whatever Oma Gertrude had sent back with my mother, I loved them both all the more for it.

  Fritz and I didn't need to be called for supper. We were both in our places at the table when Mama served it. Food had never before tasted so good, I was sure of that. I ate greedily and remembered my manners only when I caught a glimpse of Mama's disapproving stare.

  "The two of you have turned to savages," she muttered. "And someone had better tell me where all the sheets in this home have gone!" Mama didn't sound terribly angry yet, but then she probably hadn't noticed the missing hinges on our coat closet door either. Fritz and I had a lot of explaining to do.

  We invited her for a walk around the neighborhood that night. We kept ourselves as far as possible from any of the crowds, then our story started to unfold.

  We started with the picture of the Welcome Building Papa had sent to me. Mama said my father knew it well. During the war, it had been a clothing shop where his mother used to work. As I had suspected, he had sometimes hidden in the air-raid shelter of that basement when the sirens went off.

  "We need to tell you about that shelter," Fritz said.

  We started with the easier part first, about the garden on the surface, and about the clothesline set up for me to do laundry in the pond.

  "You'd wash my sheets in a dirty old pond?" Mother had always prided herself on her white laundry. "Gerta, that will ruin them!"

  "They are ruined now, Mama, all of them." I took a deep breath. "But we needed an excuse to be at the pond, so we could dump the dirt."

  "Dump what dirt?"

  Fritz took her hand, and in that moment I was glad that he was the older brother and that telling her was his responsibility more than mine. He leaned in to her and very quietly said, "The dirt from our tunnel. Beneath the wall."

  To her credit, Mama took the news better than we had expected. She didn't yell or faint, neither of which would've surprised me. But it took her a long time to start breathing again, and when she did, it was in loud, shallow gasps. She shook her head in disbelief and let Fritz hold her shoulders to keep her calm.

  "What have you done?" she whispered. "Oh, my children, why would you do this?"

  As the reality of our confession sank in, she pulled us into a quiet alleyway and faced each of us with horror in her eyes. I hated seeing that expression from my mother. It was one thing to see fear from Fritz, or to feel it myself. But we had handled our fear and were managing our troubles as they came. To see so much worry from Mama was something else entirely. It meant that maybe everything wasn't as safe as we had let ourselves believe.

  "What will happen when that tunnel is found?" she whispered. "Because it will be. They always are."

  "We'll be gone by then," Fritz said.

  "How do you know? You are working in the shadow of the wall! Do you think the guards aren't watching you, aren't curious about what you're doing? A garden is a nice excuse and maybe they'll ignore the laundry. But for how long?"

  We hadn't told her about Officer Muller, nor did we intend to. If she knew that one of the Grenzers had already discovered us, it would only strengthen her argument.

  "Papa wanted us to dig," I said.

  "Your father would never have asked this," Mama said. "No matter how much he misses us, he would never put us at this much risk."

  "But he did!" I insisted. "I saw him!"

  "Enough of this nonsense. Starting tomorrow, you will bury up that hole and all the tools with it. You will abandon the garden, and, Fritz, you will find a respectable job until you join the military."

  "I can't get a respectable job, or any job!" Fritz hissed. "And I won't join their military! What's done is done. Our only choice now is to leave."

  "What about Oma Gertrude? Who would take care of her?"

  I felt awful for having forgotten about my grandmother. We couldn't leave her behind, of course. And with a broken leg, she couldn't make the walk through the uneven and narrow tunnel.

  "I never understood the way your father thought, and I don't understand it in you two either." Mama was shaking her head again. "We have a good life here."

  "No, Mama," I said. "We don't. So much of what we tolerate is just wrong, even if nobody wants to think about it. We can't keep living this way!"

  "But at least we will live! It's what your father would've wanted."

  "Don't talk about him as if he's dead!" My words came out just as sharp as if I'd yelled them. "I know what Papa wanted, for all of us to come to the west with him that night. You said no! If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have to build a tunnel, and we'd be safe and all together. This is your fault!"

  "Gerta, that's enough!" For a moment, Fritz's tone had sounded the way I remembered my father's voice. And I thought about how disappointed Papa would be if he had heard me speak so rudely to my mother.

  "I'm sorry," I whispered to her. "That wasn't true."

  "Some of it is," she said quietly. "I'm sorry for that too, that I wasn't brave when I needed to be."

  Mama's face seemed to have aged years during our conversation in that alleyway. I felt older too, as if the things I spent so much time thinking about were light-years away from what other girls my age were doing. I no longer cared about dolls or dresses or even smuggled Beatles records. What a silly rebellion that was compared to my actions now, near treason in the eyes of my government.

  "We'll take you to the tunnel tomorrow," I said. "You'll see."

  "Only if it'
s dried out by then," Fritz reminded me. "It got a lot of water today."

  He shouldn't have said that. Mama's back stiffened and I knew she was picturing Fritz and me swimming for our lives. That hardly helped our cause.

  "Let's go." Mama shook off a shiver that ran through the length of her. "I feel too exposed out here. We're safer at home."

  But as we neared our apartment, I doubted that was true. Stasi vehicles were in front of our building with armed officers on the street. Mama instinctively got us behind her while Fritz and I looked at each other. My heart lurched into my throat. Were they there for us?

  "Oma Gertrude gave me her car," Mama said cautiously. "There's not much gas left, but we'll go as far as we can. I parked it in a lot behind us. You and Fritz go get inside the car and hide on the floor. I left the keys on the table upstairs. I'll come back for you soon."

  "No, Mother." Fritz put a hand on her shoulder to guide her away with us. "If they're here to arrest Gerta and me, then they'll arrest you too."

  Before we could act, a woman's screams caught our attention. Stasi officers were leading her outside in handcuffs. I immediately recognized her as the beautiful woman I had seen the night I stole the pulley. She was trying to fight the officers, but once she got onto the street and saw the crowd, she yelled, "It's no crime to think, or to speak, or to be me."

  They were nearly the same words that had been on Herr Krause's handmade stamped papers.

  Even after being arrested, Herr Krause must've found another way to get his message out. Maybe with small meetings in his apartment, like those he used to hold with my father.

  Herr Krause was brought out again, but this time his body was on a gurney and perfectly still. And since Stasi officers were carrying him out, I figured it was safe to assume his death wasn't an accident. Herr Krause had received his punishment for daring to think, and for getting others to think too.

  Sadness stabbed at my gut for how wrong this was, how unfair. Yet I couldn't cry. I wanted to, but in that moment, fear was overwhelming every other sense in me.

  Whatever crimes Herr Krause had committed, it was safe to assume that Fritz and I had done far worse. If we couldn't get Mama to change her mind, soon we would face Herr Krause's punishment too.