The Wall Between

by Jesper Bugge Kold

  “You’re not capable of doing your job if you take it personally.”

  “My wife asked me for a divorce this morning,” he said quietly, clearly seeking to justify his actions.

  Peter ignored the remark. “I had the situation under control. If I’d been able to tell her that we’d taken her daughter, she would have talked. You ruined it!”

  “I’ve never heard of anyone dying from striking their head on the edge of a desk.” Emil Brank rubbed his knuckles.

  The two men regarded Nina Lachner, who sat slumped in the chair. Her nose was broken, and one of her temples was caved in. What would Peter tell Sonnenberger? The woman he’d spent so much time investigating was dead because of an interrogator reeling from the prospect of divorce, and how could she have died from a harmless fall? They called in a prison doctor.

  “If the edge of the desk had been soft, a beveled piece of wood, she’d still be alive. What can I tell you? It’s dumb luck. Case closed.” As if to show his discomfort at this situation, the doctor began furiously packing up his kit.

  Peter ran his hand across the sharp edge of the desk; the metal frame felt cold against his fingertips. Hard to believe that so little could do such damage.

  When he emerged from the interrogation room, Ms. Majenka was still standing in the corridor. She clutched him pleadingly with both hands.

  “I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again. I’m sorry, but when she mentioned the child, and the punches . . . I . . .” She tried to regain her composure. “Will you report me?”

  “No,” Peter replied.

  25

  ANDREAS

  Berlin, January 2007

  The cold follows him like a stray dog. At the intersection of Alexanderstrasse and Karl Marx-Allee is an epicenter of biting cold air, which swirls around him as he waits for the lights to turn. The icy wind penetrates his clothes; he isn’t wearing enough layers. It’s hard to respect winter in a big city; only when the cold reaches down between the buildings is it taken seriously. Maybe his subconscious is just trying to distract him from the appointment he’s going to, one he’s been dreading ever since he made it.

  Bea had explained to him how Stasi kept meticulous records, writing reports about even the most insignificant incidents. After reunification, the truth tore families apart, caused marital rifts, and broke up friendships. People started reading the reports with perhaps a hint of doubt and often finished them with a look of stunned disbelief. Andreas will now have access to all of that information, and he’s scared. What if he emerges hating his father, whose genes he shares?

  The Stasi Records Agency is located in a gray building only a few minutes from Alexanderplatz. He’d hoped it would be a longer walk; he’s not ready. He pauses for a moment and braces himself, but the cold soon gets him moving again. He ascends the stairs slowly, takes a deep breath, and opens the door. He stops just inside the door, trying to get a sense of the place. The silence is striking, almost terrifying. If silence could be measured, this could be described as gigantic. Behind him, on the other side of the door, is Karl Liebknecht Strasse, one of the busiest streets in the city, but inside this building it might as well not exist.

  At first glance, the lobby seems deserted. Then a woman wheels a cart filled with colored files past him. The sound of the wheels on the shiny tile floor momentarily breaks the silence. His eyes dart around the room. A pair of eyes catches his and hold his gaze, kindly. Andreas walks to the reception counter.

  A man is standing behind the counter, next to a woman who is seated beside him. They’re wearing uniforms consisting of a white dress shirt and navy-blue vest. The woman wears an orange scarf that matches the color of the man’s tie. They are quiet, their conversation low.

  When he speaks to them, Andreas’s voice has lost its heft, and he has to clear his throat to explain his business. The man asks to see his passport, then slowly flips through the pages. He turns it sideways and switches to English.

  “Just a moment, sir.”

  He makes a telephone call. A minute later, a middle-aged woman arrives to assist Andreas. After introducing herself as Lena Hofmeister, she asks him to have a seat in a leather chair in the lobby. She sits down opposite him. She reminds him of the undertaker at his father’s funeral. She explains the procedures, and as she talks his mind drifts. He thinks of a barrel organ player who keeps playing the same tune over and over yet still can’t overcome the melancholic atmosphere. He considers cracking a joke to lighten things up, but he can tell that she wants to maintain a somber tone. Just to say something, he asks whether a lot of people still come to learn about their next of kin.

  She tells him that they get more than five thousand inquiries every month. “So we won’t be out of a job anytime soon,” she says with a practiced smile.

  It sounds to Andreas as if she has said this many times before.

  “Let’s go to the reading room.” She rises, then swipes a key card to pass through a turnstile. They head down the hallway and stop next to a door. “Reading Room 01,” a sign reads.

  In a soft voice, she explains, “You’ll find the files you’ve requested on the table. Take your time, and if you don’t finish today, you may return another day. I’ll come get you whenever you like. Just let the archivist know.”

  They enter the room. The carpet absorbs the sound of their footfalls—in fact, the room absorbs all sound. It is very quiet. The tables are numbered, and most are occupied by people reading files. Lena Hofmeister seats him at table 12 and leaves the room.

  He looks around, discreetly observing the others. Their faces are solemn. One woman at table 5 carefully wipes tears from behind her eyeglasses. She’s no longer reading her files but gazing out the window, probably imagining a distant past, remembering what once was. Maybe she’s kissing a bearded man or feeling the wind in her hair on the backseat of a Jawa 350.

  A man with a comb-over stares in what looks like disbelief at the papers before him. His thick eyeglasses look like a magnifying glass waiting for the sun to set the old records aflame; they shout at the pages: It can’t be true! It can’t be true! Others turn pages carefully as though the files were rare documents from Bologna’s Biblioteca Salaborsa. They flip a few pages, then go back, reading more slowly. Like typewriters, their eyes work their way across the page, left to right, then jump to a new line. Are they reading about themselves? Their family? Or maybe about Peter’s doings? All sound is sucked into the carpet—except for the gentle riffle of pages: swush, swush, swush.

  The stack of files on Andreas’s table is short. On other tables, he sees two or three stacks. At the far end of the room, deep shelves hold countless files. The numbers correspond to the tables, but the shelf that corresponds to table 12 is empty. All of Peter Körber’s files are already in front of him.

  He takes a deep breath and grabs the thin light-blue file on top: Reg. No. MfS/1664/83. He opens it and begins to read. Name: Peter Körber, Hauptverwaltung Aufklärung (HVA). Main Directorate for Reconnaissance. Transferred to HVA in 1983 from Department XX/5. There are only three or four pages of information about where and when Peter worked. Dates corresponding to his medals, distinctions, and promotions. There is nothing notable, nothing that makes Andreas any wiser.

  He opens a new file, Department XX/5, and browses through it. There’s a summary data sheet on top followed by forty-three pages that include a resume of Peter’s career in the department and his promotions, bonuses, family members, and health. The level of detail is striking, and it’s evident that this department had vast insight not only into the country’s citizens but also its own employees. He reads about Peter’s successful cases, several of which are marked “OPK Files.” He turns more pages, and now they’re called “OV Files.” Names have been redacted with fat black lines across them.

  The first reports are signed by Sergeant Peter Körber. Later, he signs as Second Lieutenant Peter Körber, and beginning in 1980, as lieutenant. On several pages, the name U. Sonnenberger appears next to hi
s signature: U. Sonnenberger, Department Chief. Andreas makes a note of this and continues reading. One case is thicker than the others: Operation Dremler. Several surveillance reports are signed by Peter. Many of the files are incomplete. They suddenly stop in the middle of one case or start in the middle of another. It’s clear that the Stasi Records Agency has been unable to obtain all of the documentation.

  At the end of the folder is one final report. Although the names have been redacted, Andreas senses that the person being interrogated in the report is a woman. It seems that she had planned to flee the GDR with her husband and her husband’s brother. Over page after page, she is asked the same question and gives the same response, but then the report takes an unexpected turn. The woman suddenly dies. The cause of death is recorded as pneumonia, and the case is sealed. Three signatures appear at the bottom: Lieutenant Körber, Sergeant Brank, and Sergeant Majenka. A small sheet of paper is stapled to the back of the report, and Andreas recognizes his father’s handwriting: Miss Majenka is unsuited for these types of assignments, and I advise that she be transferred to a less demanding unit. Andreas jots down the names of Sonnenberger, Brank, and Majenka, then closes the file.

  The woman at table 5 sniffles and wipes her eyes behind her glasses.

  Andreas nods at the archivist, who makes a phone call. In the hallway Lena Hofmeister awaits his reaction. She knows from experience not to ask questions; he senses that quite clearly. He asks her about the incomplete HVA file. She gives him an apologetic look, then explains that it was all they could find. During the period between the fall of the Wall and the spring of 1990, some HVA departments removed nearly everything from the files. She smiles tentatively. She’s not sure whether it’s true, but she’s heard that employees left their data sheets as documentation that they’d worked for the state and were therefore entitled to a pension.

  He inquires about Department XX/5, and she tells him that it was considered the core of Stasi. Department XX/5 was the unit that monitored dissidents, the unit that repressed citizens and decided whether to make their lives miserable. Andreas takes it all in, and she falls silent. As he’s leaving the building, he’s not sure how he feels about all this. Then he finds himself overwhelmed by a deep disappointment. All he got out of this trip was three names: Sonnenberger, Brank, and Majenka.

  He heads straight to Bea’s apartment. On his way, he wonders what he’d expected. That it would turn out to be a misunderstanding? That Peter Körber would suddenly turn out to be the father he’d always imagined as a child? It is difficult for Andreas to reconcile the man who was so cold and cruel at work with the man who was so affectionate toward his sister and niece and who helped his brother-in-law, Wolfgang, flee to the West. How many contradictions can one person contain?

  Some days he feels that he’s wasting time. Why does it matter so much to him anyway? Wasn’t his childhood a happy one? But he supposes that it’s human nature to seek out one’s roots. Life is one long journey of discovery, and maybe that’s what’s driving him—the fact that he now has a concrete objective for his search: to know his own father.

  When Bea opens the door, he’s struck by how giddy she seems. It’s as though she’s forgotten where he’s been, but then she seems to remember and adopts a more serious tone.

  “How was it?”

  Once he shows her the note with the three names, she gets angry.

  “That’s all?”

  “I’m afraid so.” As he says it though, a thought occurs to him: “Can I apply to see their files? Maybe I can find out something more from them.”

  “No, you can’t. It says on the Stasi Records Agency’s website that only relatives can access the files.” She reads the names out loud and exclaims in surprise, “U. Sonnenberger. That must be Uwe Sonnenberger, the manager of the security company where Peter worked. He shouldn’t be hard to find.”

  “This could be a significant lead,” Andreas says. “Sonnenberger obviously knew Peter both before the Wall came down and afterward.”

  “So that means we have two things to celebrate then,” Bea says. “Come join me at Serene Bar tonight.” Andreas notices moving boxes behind her and understands what the other thing is. Alice is moving in.

  “We haven’t known each other very long, but we’re in love,” she says as though apologizing for her news.

  “Okay,” he says. He wishes it could be just him and Bea, but he doesn’t want to be alone tonight.

  As he walks home, he thinks about Lisa. He hadn’t been entirely truthful when he told Bea about his relationship with Lisa. At the time, he’d wanted to be in the role of victim. He wanted Bea to take his side, and his account had brought them closer, but the fact was that he and Lisa hadn’t gone into a slump together; he’d gone into a slump on his own. Or rather, he’d never really gotten going, while Lisa changed before his very eyes. She’d grown tired of his lack of ambition, she’d told him, but of course that was easy for her to say. Lisa had always known what she wanted to be. He admired her for her determination, her ability to set goals and reach them, and that’s how she’d become a journalist. She didn’t want to be in a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere, but Andreas didn’t have anything to give her.

  26

  PETER

  East Berlin, July 1980

  Uwe Sonnenberger narrowed his eyes and squashed his cigarette. He pressed it down into the push-down ashtray, sending the cigarette butt into rotation; with a flickering metallic sound, it spun down to the others. He’d begun smoking again, off and on, correlating with his wife’s condition: the worse she was, the more he smoked.

  The carp in the photograph behind him stared at Peter. In the photo, Sonnenberger was standing on a wooden pier near Lake Balaton. He held the big, glistening fish with both hands, his muscles bursting out of his sleeveless tank top from the weight of it, and wore a huge smile on his face.

  The conversation was over, yet Peter remained standing.

  Sonnenberger glanced up as though only now realizing that Peter was still in his office. “Was there something else, Peter?”

  “We interrogated a woman three days ago.”

  “Yes, it’s most unfortunate,” Sonnenberger said and lit a new cigarette.

  Peter wondered how much time Sonnenberger’s wife had left.

  The major looked at him. “The doctor who examined her said it’s almost impossible to die that way.” Sonnenberger took a deep drag on his cigarette. “If you only knew how much paperwork that death has generated for me.” He pointed at a pile of papers on his desk. “But what’s done is done.”

  He tapped his fingertips together, and his facial expression was meant to convey sympathy for Nina Lachner’s family.

  Peter didn’t move. “She had a child.”

  Sonnenberger raised an eyebrow, and Peter began to explain, but the major seemed uninterested in what he was trying to tell him. Before the words poured out of his mouth, Peter hadn’t even realized the scope of what he was proposing, but as he spoke, everything crystalized for him.

  “Go ahead and do the necessary paperwork. I don’t want to get involved in it.” His hand located the knot of his tie and loosened it slightly.

  “Thank you,” Peter said.

  Sonnenberger waved him off, making it clear that it was time for Peter to leave.

  The white Lada glided out of the city, its windows wide open; it was going to be a hot day. Peter had brought a driver, Jens Hegeler, who was whistling contentedly behind the great mustache that nearly concealed his mouth. His thick sideburns were already damp with sweat.

  Peter noticed smoke billowing over the roofs like a gray-yellow fog and looked over at the nearby towering factory chimneys. They were pulsing like a two-stroke engine, belching gray-white clouds and forming an increasingly dense haze that threatened to cover the entire sky. The sun suddenly burst through a frayed hole in the smoke cloud and blinded him in the mirror.

  Hegeler looked at him with a delighted expression. Though Peter didn’t share
his same passion for cars, he knew that was why Hegeler was so upbeat today. With his foot on the accelerator, his hands on the steering wheel, his back against the warm leather, and the knob of the stick shift in his hand, his joy was written all over his face. A childhood memory flashed through his mind.

  They’d waited seven years. Because of Georg’s past as a cyclist on the national team, the family got special treatment. Georg had never had a driver’s license, and his daily intake of alcohol made him unfit for driving, but he’d ordered a car for his wife’s sake. When they were told they’d be getting one, Peter’s mother immediately started taking classes in order to obtain her license. The driving instructor was a patient man and, after a great deal of hard work, she got her license. Finally, one day, a sand-colored Trabant 601 was delivered from the factory in Zwickau.

  His mother’s first trip was to pick up Peter and Veronika from school, after which they planned to surprise Georg at the factory. She drove very slowly, and the car trembled unsteadily as she turned her head in all directions to avoid all the unaccustomed dangers. The children were hooting in the back seat. They reached an intersection, and their mother hit the brake too hard, sending Peter and Veronika bouncing over the imitation leather seat with shrieks of laughter. She found the biting point of the clutch and dropped it into first, and the car lurched forward. She inched cautiously along. As they approached their father’s factory, a semi honked right beside them, and they swerved straight into a light pole. The hood was ripped open, blocking the windshield. Thankfully, they were all unharmed.

  Their mother sighed in resignation, as if this was what she’d expected all along. She took Peter and Veronika by the hand and marched them to the nearest police station. The officer behind the counter was mystified when she returned her license.

  “I’ll never need this again. Please confiscate it.” The look on her face made it clear that she was serious.

  They sold the car, and she never drove again.