by David Young
She found the maps on the bottom shelf, piled horizontally; they were being used as a bookend. Müller leafed through them until she found what she wanted: a folded sheet of yellowing paper, with a forest-green and black front cover. Harz Wanderkarte für Wernigerode und Umgebung. She sat down in an armchair next to the coffee table, and spread the map out carefully. The paper was brittle, and Müller suspected the map dated back to the Nazi era, possibly before. There was no border barrier marked in the valley to the west of the Harz’s highest peak. It was illegal to have this, surely? In Berlin, this would have meant confiscation, possible arrest. Here in the mountains, they seemed to do things differently.
Looking around the room, she spotted what she wanted on the mantelpiece: a magnifying glass. She rose to retrieve it, and used the convex lens to enlarge the detail of the map. She concentrated on the Brocken, and the area that Baumann had pointed to. It took her a couple of minutes before she saw it, hidden in the forest, just a few hundred metres from where she knew the border ran: a circle, possibly just a millimetre in diameter, with a solid black rectangle alongside.
She looked at the map’s key, tracing her finger down it, feeling her breath coming in short, sharp bursts.
Near the bottom, she found a small black circle with a white centre. She knew what it would say alongside, and she was correct. Stillgelegten Schacht. Disused shaft.
44
March 1975. Day Sixteen.
Wernigerode, East Germany.
Müller found herself regularly waking and going over the case in her head throughout the night. If Neumann had dumped Mathias’s body near the state border just beyond Elend, if it was he who’d daubed the boy’s T-shirt with wildcat blood, then surely he still had to be in the area. The subalpine seedling pointed to the Brocken. The lead ore in Mathias’s head wound did, too. What perplexed her, though, was why one teenager’s body had been dumped in the Hauptstadt, the other left here in the Harz. It made little sense.
Throwing the heavy duvet aside, Müller got up, walked along the landing and went to the toilet. She didn’t do it particularly quietly or subtly, banging the toilet lid down after herself. Maybe she wanted him to hear. Maybe she wanted another early-hours encounter in the washroom.
As she wiped her hands on the towel after washing them, she heard his footsteps on the creaking floorboards of the landing. She could hear his breathing behind her. Then warm air on her ear.
‘Couldn’t sleep again?’ Tilsner whispered. Then his teeth nibbled her earlobe, she felt his strong arms envelope her and she backed against his growing erection. She felt him lifting the back of the nightdress, his fingers in the waistband of the western knickers she’d kept from the West Berlin assignment. Easing them down. She grabbed his wrists to stop him, and turned.
She raised her index finger, and put it to his lips, rubbing it up and down fractionally to feel the resistance of his stubble. ‘Not here,’ she whispered. ‘My room.’
An early breakfast found them smirking at each other. Müller felt no shame, and it surprised her. As far as the authorities were concerned, she was a single woman now – her husband an enemy of the state, a pervert and a murderer. But although she’d just been unfaithful, she wasn’t prepared to completely give up on Gottfried just yet.
So what about Werner Tilsner? She looked up as he stuffed a piece of Brötchen into his handsome mouth. He was married with kids. Should she feel guilt about that? But he was the one who’d made the marriage vows to Koletta, not her, and she hadn’t exactly had to do much seducing.
Tilsner took a last sip of coffee, and wiped his mouth with his napkin. ‘Ready, beautiful?’
She nodded. ‘But it’s Karin, or boss to you, please. Unterleutnant.’
Kitted out in the warmest clothes they could find, Müller and Tilsner made their way in the Wartburg to Wernigerode police headquarters. At the entrance to the car park, Vogel stood smoking a cigarette, as though waiting for them.
Tilsner wound the window down. Vogel blew the smoke out to the side, then leant his head into the car.
‘A little warning,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t come in here if I were you. And today’s joint reconnaissance exercise up the Brocken is off.’
‘Why’s that?’ asked Tilsner, frowning.
Müller saw Vogel flick his eyes towards her.
‘Oberleutnant Müller here. The Stasi have asked us to detain her.’
‘What?’ shouted Tilsner. ‘But we’re investigating this case on the highest authority, of the Stasi. Show him, Karin.’
Müller reached into her jacket pocket and withdrew the letter of authority, signed by Mielke. Tilsner handed it to Vogel.
The young officer shrugged. ‘I don’t understand; this appears genuine. Can I take it to show Comrade Baumann?’
Müller stretched her hand out for the document to be returned. ‘No, I’m afraid not, Comrade Vogel. But once we’re back later today you can take a photocopy.’ She grabbed the letter, refolded it and placed it carefully back in her pocket.
‘In any case, Hauptmann Baumann doesn’t like being told what to do by the Stasi, and tries to keep out of their way whenever possible,’ Vogel continued. ‘But if you cross his path, especially in the police station, he’ll have to act. So I’d stay out of the way. And if you want to go up to the Brocken you’ll need to go on your own. The road’s been cleared now. Oh, and here’s something you left behind last night.’ Tilsner took the proffered papers and examined them. Authorisations to enter the Brocken restricted area, dated from the previous day.
‘Much appreciated, Unterleutnant Vogel,’ said Tilsner, grinning.
Vogel nodded, a serious expression on his face, and walked off.
Before he started the car, Tilsner turned to Müller. ‘What’s all that about the Stasi?’
Müller wouldn’t meet his eyes. ‘It’s Reiniger. He’s suspending me because they’ve charged Gottfried with murder, and a whole heap besides.’
Tilsner didn’t reply at first, and had a strange expression on his face. Almost as though he looked slightly guilty – maybe because of their night-time liaison. Perhaps he’s not the super-cool player he thinks he is.
‘Was that what the radio call was about?’ he finally asked.
‘Exactly. And now, because I’ve ignored an explicit instruction, he’s ordered my arrest. I claimed I couldn’t hear him due to the poor reception.’
‘So do I take over?’ asked Tilsner.
‘No, Werner. You don’t. You start the car. And you drive. To the Brocken.’
Tilsner grinned. ‘Yes, boss.’
45
Three months earlier (December 1974).
A forest in East Germany.
Six months have passed, but Neumann’s expression when he turned round in his chair is still imprinted on my brain. Even though now I see his mangled face nearly every day, even though I want to tear it open again along his ugly scar, the image I always see is the way he looked when that chair swivelled round, and all my hopes and dreams were snuffed out in an instant.
I am still alive, but it’s a living death. Six months down here in the near blackness of the mine. I never dreamed there was anywhere worse than Jugendwerkhof Prora Ost. People whispered about Torgau, of course. But I cannot believe that even the Jugendwerkhof at Torgau could be worse than this.
What about Mathias? What does he think as he works with me in this freezing underground hole, hacking away at the rock loosened by Neumann’s explosives? It’s his job to load the trolley with the rock scraped out by the others. We’re not sure who they are. About four or five muscular, thick-set men alternately guard the compound and work at the rock face.
My job is to wheel the trolley back along the level and the old rails, round the corner by the stone steps, to the bottom of the shaft. I’m not sure what we’re digging out, or why.
Mathias says he’s been cheated, but he won’t tell me why. All I know is that he and Beate no longer speak. The great love affair is well and truly ove
r.
I jump back as part of the roof loosens. The dust stings my eyes, attacks my lungs. Already when I’m above ground I spend most of the time coughing up my guts, but my worst nightmare is that we get buried alive, or that there’s an explosion. I remember from school lessons years ago about gas, and mines, and canaries. We have no canaries here.
I get my shovel, and spoon the fallen debris into the trolley, and then push it along the rails, iron groaning against iron.
Oh, Mathias, I think, you poor boy. Your lover doesn’t want you, and the people you thought were your friends have deserted you. Hah! Serves you right. Because as well as remembering Neumann’s expression at the Grenzübergang, I remember the look on Mathias’s face. For him it was no surprise that we were being taken back to the Republic. Oh Mathias, Mathias. You’ve got it coming to you. Just you wait. And if I ever get the chance, even the slightest opportunity, then Neumann has it coming to him too. But it’s not just Neumann. There are the others who work down the mine and guard us. And then a couple of high-ups, very high-ups. Not many, but certainly at least two. People’s Army officers – stripes aplenty, and stars on their interwoven gold epaulettes.
I force my aching arms to tip the trolley until it empties its contents into the bucket. Then I pull on the rope to alert Beate at the top of the shaft. The rope tautens and the bucket finally lifts as she uses the pulley system to haul it up.
Beate. The pretty one. She gets the easy job above ground, but I’m not jealous, because now I know the hell they’ve put her through. The big secret she would never tell me at Prora Ost, and the reason for her tears each night. After we’d been here in the mine for three months, she finally told me.
It was the field trip when it all began. The evening field trip to the Soviet base at Gross Zicker on Rügen – part of our re-education programme, showing us the brave Soviet servicemen defending us against fascist and capitalist aggression. I remember at the time thinking it was odd that only girls were allowed to go, but put it down to the fact that – other than in the workshop and at mealtimes – we weren’t really allowed to mix with the boys anyway.
It wasn’t much of a field trip. We got a quick tour of the facilities in the bus. Then we were taken into a large room, where we were given a talk and shown a film by one of the Soviet officers – a German coastal border force officer translated, although we could understand some Russian from our school lessons.
At the end of the talk, they announced that the group was to be split into two for the remainder of the field trip. Another Soviet officer walked down the rows of chairs and nodded towards certain girls, who were told to stand and move to the front of the room. There were fifteen of them – fifteen of the prettiest. Though there were around forty in total; so not exactly a fifty-fifty split.
Then a senior German officer entered the room, and walked up and down that line of girls. Ten were sent back to their seats, five remained. Those five weren’t just pretty, they were beautiful, and they included Beate. I put up my hand to ask if I could go with my friend, but the officer laughed cruelly, and told me not to be so insolent.
The chosen five were marched away. We didn’t see them again that night. The remaining thirty-five of us were sent back on the bus to the Jugendwerkhof. Beate’s bed remained empty. And the next day her tears began.
Mathias’s shout from the end of the level brings me back to the present. ‘Irma. What are you doing? There’s stuff waiting here to be cleared.’
What am I doing? I am sitting here, on my arse, on the cold stone by the bucket, which Beate has now lowered again, watching occasional flakes of snow helicopter down to the bottom of the shaft.
With a sigh I get to my feet. I wheel the trolley back along the rails, round the corner by the stone steps and back down the level towards Mathias. To fill it up once more.
As I say, Beate reminded me of the Gross Zicker visit about three months ago, give or take a day, or a week. They’re all pretty meaningless down here, though we count them at night upstairs in the old silver-mine house, scratching marks on the timber walls. But she didn’t reveal everything. She let me think about it all for a few weeks; how being ugly red-headed Irma perhaps wasn’t so bad after all.
At night, though, as we tried to get to sleep next to each other, chained to the floor, lying on lumpy, stinking old mattresses, I would nag her to tell me more.
Finally she did.
From the lecture room where we’d been shown the film, Beate had been taken down corridors with the other four girls, until they reached another large room. There the German officer had directed them to rails of party frocks, boxes of stockings and underwear, rows of fancy shoes. They were shown showers at the side of the room, fresh fluffy towels. And on one table, bottles of opened champagne, stemmed flute glasses and canapés. The girls were told to shower and then pick whatever clothes they fancied. They were going to a party.
‘I was so excited. So excited, Irma. I felt like a young woman, I felt special. Not like an awkward Jugendwerkhof girl,’ she whispered to me as we lay in the pitch-black of the mine house.
‘We got out of the showers and dried ourselves. I was a bit embarrassed because the German and Soviet officers were lounging at the side of the room, sipping champagne and watching. I wrapped myself in the towel and moved over to choose some clothes. The German had his eyes on me; he came across and handed me a dress. I took it and asked him to turn away again. There was a stand-up mirror. As I shuffled into the dress, I admired myself. I really did look good, like a princess. And then the German officer came up behind me, looked over my shoulder into my eyes. He was old, old enough to be my grandfather. But as he zipped me up, he gently stroked my back and I shivered. Then he led me over to where the Soviet officer was drinking champagne. “Doesn’t she look gorgeous?” he said, in German. The Russian nodded, passed me a glass of bubbly and then offered me something to eat – little pieces of bread and toast, covered with fishy black beads. I asked him what it was. “Caviar,” he said. “Only the best for girls like you.” ’
She broke down in tears again and – although I prompted her – that was all I would learn that night.
For the next few days, Beate didn’t want to talk anymore. But eventually I managed to persuade her to open up again. In the dark one night, with Mathias able to hear everything if he wanted, Beate continued her story. She didn’t seem to mind that Mathias could listen in. He was nothing to her now. They never spoke. There had been a huge shouting match one night, and then that was it. I had my own suspicions about Mathias Gellman, pretty-boy Mathias. He didn’t hold any attraction for her now.
Beate continued: ‘All five of us were standing around, drinking champagne. You can imagine, it went to our heads quickly. I think I was the oldest at fifteen. The other four were all fourteen. That’s what makes it so sick. But they, like me, were caught up in the moment.
‘The officers brought us all military-style overcoats – to cover up our pretty dresses – and then led us out into the night, to a quayside where a boat was waiting, all lit up. I wasn’t nervous. If anything, going on a boat trip seemed even more exciting. Imagine the contrast between that and daily life in the workshop at the Jugendwerkhof.
‘We set off. The water was quite calm. That bit of the Ostsee is protected by Rügen. The boat was quite a powerful speedboat, I’m not sure what type. Maybe it belonged to the Soviet navy. Anyway, I could see we weren’t going out towards Sweden. We were staying in the lee of Rügen, hugging the coastline. I could see lights to our right-hand side.
‘After a few minutes, the boat’s motor slowed, and we glided in towards a jetty on a small island. I now know that island to be –’ Beate had to pause as she swallowed back her sobs. ‘– to be . . . Vilm.’
Vilm! I knew of it, I was sure. Maybe Oma had told me once. Important people from the Republic holidayed in Sellin. But I’m sure she told me once they also went to Vilm.
I tried to calm Beate. She was shaking with tears again.
‘Shut up, pig,’ she spat towards him. ‘You’re just as bad as the rest of them.’ I stroked her hand, trying to calm her down. She was my friend. I had loyalty to her. Not to him.
‘Anyway, we reached the island, where there were men waiting to escort us. One of them took my arm, walked me from the jetty to a low building. And inside it was laid out for a banquet. It was so exciting. The meal was fantastic – food I’ve never had before. Lobster, goose, meringue.
‘I’m sure you can guess how the evening ended, though. The man I was with, well I’m sure I recognised him from the government. It wasn’t Honecker. It wasn’t Mielke. But it was someone in the second rank. He said he could get me out of the Jugendwerkhof. Get me back in a normal school. Let me take my Abitur. Get me a place at university. And all the time, under the table, he was moving his fingers up the inside of my thigh. I’m so ashamed that I didn’t stop him, but you know what it’s like in Prora Ost. This was a chance to get out. To escape . . .
‘And then he took me to his bedroom. He ripped the pretty dress off, the one I liked so much. He forced me down on the bed. And he took me. Again, and again, and again.’
I was holding Beate’s hand so tightly, I thought I might break one of her bones. I wanted her to know I was there for her, that it wouldn’t happen ever again. But really, I was powerless. She was powerless.
She gave a little sob. ‘But did he help me get out of the Jugendwerkhof ? Did he keep all his promises? Well, you know the answer. I was back there, and crying every night. So you see, Irma, I owe you a lot for helping me to escape. I’m so, so glad you got me away from the Jugendwerkhof. I owe you my life, and I will never forget.’
I was the one who was crying now. I couldn’t help it. I was pleased for her, of course, if she was happier. But for myself? No. I hated it there, and I hated our slavery here. In fact, for me, here was worse – we didn’t even know where we were, or the significance of our digging.