As the Lada sliced across the landscape, the distance between the factories grew. The factories were gradually replaced by miles of fields interspersed with old villages of ancient peeling houses clustered around identical churches.
They were on their way to Eisenhüttelstadt—formerly Stalinstadt—where Nina Lachner’s mother lived by the Polish border. Some people referred to Eisenhüttelstadt as Schrottgorod, or Scraptown, a combination of the German word for scrap and the Russian word for town. Peter found Scraptown to be a demeaning nickname. People didn’t realize how good they had it. Unlike in the West, no one starved, begged, or loitered around, unemployed. Eisenhüttelstadt was a model city, with lots of attractive new homes and plenty of manufacturing jobs to take pride in, and he wished people understood all the benefits they enjoyed in this country.
They could now make out the large blast furnaces that pierced the sky atop factories that processed iron ore from the Soviet Union. The city was a boiling cauldron of scorching hot iron. Judging by the enormous columns of smoke issuing from the chimneys, production was at its peak. This was the GDR at its best. The people owned the means of production, and they produced for themselves. He smiled.
Hegeler turned down a side street. After a couple miles, they came to a small farm. The Lada’s wheels jounced over the bumpy cobblestone driveway.
“This must be it,” Hegeler said, cutting the engine.
Peter checked the address. “Yes, this is it.” He gazed out the window. It was a typical farmhouse with narrow windows, thick walls, and a tile roof covered in green moss.
“Shouldn’t we have brought someone from the local municipality, since it’s about a kid and all?”
Peter glanced at his watch. In two minutes she’d be late. What a horrible signal for the authorities to send, being late. He rolled up his window. He cocked his head to study the bicyclist who appeared in the side mirror. The woman leaned her bike against a whitewashed wall, smoothed her skirt, and pulled a purse that seemed too large for her from the bike’s basket.
“Take off your sunglasses,” Peter told Hegeler.
Hegeler put them down on the dashboard, and they got out of the car. “Give the door a good slam so Grandma hears we’re here.” There was a loud thump as the car door slammed.
The woman approached them holding a folder in her hands. Her short dark hair was cut close to her ears, and her high-heeled shoes were impractical on the uneven cobblestones.
“Are you from Child Protective Services?”
“Yes, I’m Renate Koch,” she said, nodding. Peter handed her the papers, and she scrutinized them. “Seems to check out,” she said.
She walked behind the two men as they walked to the front door. Peter inhaled audibly, then knocked.
An elderly woman opened the door. Her dress was decorated with a newly ironed lace collar, and her bosom and hips stretched the material, widening the floral pattern in places. Her hair was the same color as the steel that was processed in town.
“Is Nina Lachner your daughter?”
She nodded cautiously.
“We’re with the state. Please let us in.” Peter tried to drain all emotion from his voice.
The woman hesitated. Her eyes darted between the three unexpected visitors at her door, which she held only partially open. Peter prodded it, forcing her to take a step backward.
“Where’s the child?”
The three of them moved past her into the house. They heard a baby babbling in one of the rooms. A faint voice, barely a voice at all, rose and fell like the sound of a playful young animal.
Peter entered a cramped living room. The television flickered. The volume was turned down, but the images were unmistakable: the Moscow Olympics. In one corner of the room was a playpen. He went to it and peered down at the child, who lay in a crocheted shawl, kicking her legs and flailing her arms. She had wispy blond hair, and her narrow, smiling mouth was moist; a dark stain had formed on the top sheet where she’d dribbled spit.
“Is this Stefan and Nina Lachner’s daughter?” Peter asked.
The woman nodded silently, looking fearful. Peter handed her the paperwork. “All you have to do is sign at the bottom.”
She was slow to react. Then her face fell, and she whimpered. “You can’t take her from me.” Her despair caused her chin to quiver.
Renate Koch stood next to the woman. “It’s best for the child. She’ll be in good hands,” she explained in a gentle voice.
The woman hesitated, seeming confused.
“You’re not young anymore, and you’re lucky that she wasn’t placed in an orphanage.”
“What happened to Nina?”
“Please go to the kitchen while we take care of this matter.” Peter nodded at Renate Koch, signaling that she should go with the woman.
The old woman started to object, but Renate put an arm around her shoulders and guided her to the door. Hegeler, who’d been eyeing the television the entire time, turned up the volume, and the sound boomed from the little wooden box. Just as he sat down in a recliner in front of the television, a couple of vertical lines appeared across the screen.
“Goddamn it.” Hegeler leaned forward and gave the television a good whack. The images flickered, then came back. He turned to Peter. “Check out Rica Reinisch,” he said enthusiastically. “She set a world record in the hundred-meter backstroke the other day. I’ll be damned if she isn’t about to set another for two hundred meters.”
The camera zoomed in on a woman with very short hair, much like Renate Koch’s, and broad shoulders and muscular arms. Her blue swimsuit clung to her flat belly and narrow hips. She smiled in a girlish way and waved at the camera.
Peter leaned over the playpen. The little one babbled happily, trying to catch her own feet. Peter caught himself laughing.
On the screen, the swimmers were now in the water, and Peter whispered, “What are we going to do about the girl? How are we going to take her with us?”
At that instant the starting gun went off, and the swimmers were off.
“Listen up, Hegeler. You’ve got children, right?”
“Two,” he said without taking his eyes off the screen.
Peter started to say something.
“Hang on a sec,” Hegeler shushed.
The screen was a blur of arms whipping through the water, leaving a trail in their wakes. Peter tilted his head and studied the little girl. He placed one hand underneath her and scooped her up. He was astonished to discover that he wanted to hold her close. Why this urge? Where did it come from? She was surprisingly light, weighing less than a bag of fuel, he thought, as he rocked her somewhat awkwardly. He heard the grandmother’s subdued sobs in the kitchen.
“Goddamn! She did it! Look!” Hegeler shot up from the chair. A news flash appeared on the screen: “Another world record. East Germans sweep medals.” He hopped up and down in the low-ceilinged living room, clapping enthusiastically. Suddenly he realized how inappropriate his behavior was under the circumstances and stopped abruptly. He looked at Peter, who held the little girl.
I ought to reprimand him. I can’t accept that kind of behavior. I’m the superior, and my reputation is on the line, but . . . Peter couldn’t muster the energy. He thought of the girl in his arms, of the joy he felt because of her.
Renate Koch entered the room and hurried over to Peter.
“Haven’t you ever held a baby before? How do you plan on bringing a child to Berlin?” she exclaimed as she supported the child’s head.
This irritated Peter. How was he supposed to know how to hold a child? He’d never done it before, and this woman from some small town whose name he’d already forgotten had no business correcting him. “We’ll take care of that, miss, don’t you worry.” He turned away.
Renate Koch sighed loudly. “That leaves only a bit of paperwork, then. Please fill out the name and address of the child’s new guardian.”
Peter filled out the forms as Nina’s mother watched from the kitchen door. S
he was crying softly. Tears rolled down her wrinkly cheeks like melting snow. Peter noticed the handkerchief in her hand, which hung limply at her side.
They let themselves out, and Peter got into the backseat, still holding the girl in his arms.
“Ouch! Goddammit!” Hegeler blurted as he slid into the driver’s seat.
“You’re frightening her,” Peter said quietly, so as not to disturb the girl, who appeared to be falling asleep.
Hegeler laughed apologetically. A glinting, sharp red line cut across the bridge of his nose, reflecting off the sunglasses that he’d left on the dashboard. He adjusted the rearview mirror in order to see the baby, and Peter made eye contact with him. Hegeler gave him a rueful glance.
Hegeler shifted into gear, and they headed back to Berlin. Peter was elated. He felt the warmth of the little body through the blanket. He heard his own voice, calm and gentle, and he thought about Andreas. He was four years old now. He didn’t think of him often these days, but the girl had stirred something in him. Tenderness? Love? He already felt a sort of kinship with her, and he was looking forward to passing her on. He knew she was going to a good home.
27
ANDREAS
Berlin, January 2007
Last night it snowed, and now the city is sprinkled with white. He’s standing in the window watching the back alley, where the asphalt is covered in soft snow. The tracks from a baby carriage look like the marks left by pioneer wagons in bygone days. There’s a set of small footprints next to a spot where the snow has been scraped away by a child making snowballs. Andreas felt it the minute he got up that morning: this day is going to be different, maybe even a turning point. It’s in the air. When he steps out onto Kopenhagener Strasse, the winter air is ice cold.
Fragments of last night’s telephone conversation swirl in his head. Uwe Sonnenberger had yelled at him over the phone, telling him of the pointlessness of rooting around in the past. Peter was dead, and there was no reason to drag his name through the mud. Besides, neither one of them ever had anything to do with Stasi. Andreas tried to explain that he had no intention of dragging Peter’s name through the mud, but by then Sonnenberger had already hung up.
He and Bea have given up on locating Kerstin Hopp, whose voice appears on those tapes. It is apparently a common name, and there are Kerstin Hopps scattered throughout the country. The same is true of Brank. Without a given name, it will be impossible to track him down. Thankfully, Andreas did manage to get a hold of Mrs. Hedwig Majenka. When he called her, she refused to meet with him at first, but after some consideration—once he’d mentioned he was Peter Körber’s son—she agreed to see him. Bea promised to go with him. After the visit, Andreas will head back to Copenhagen for Elisabeth’s birthday.
Hedwig Majenka is the last person on Andreas’s list, and if she cannot help him, he’ll have to return to square one.
Mrs. Majenka lives in a village. Not the kind of village that’s scattered across the provinces and surrounded by fields and meadows, but the kind that’s grown over the years to become part of Berlin. Where there were once fields, there are now concrete towers and big-box stores.
The bus plows through a snowdrift. Andreas gets out, then pulls his hat down over his ears. Veronika told him about the great frost of 1978–1979, and even though the temperature is unlikely to drop that low, the cold bites at his face, and his feet sink into the snow with a squeak. Mrs. Majenka lives in a small apartment complex that also houses an Edeka grocery store. The store’s yellow façade lights up against the gray city and dark sky. He waits for Bea outside the building, and she soon shows up on Alice’s motorcycle.
“Isn’t it icy?” he asks, when she removes her helmet and kicks down the kickstand. I sound like my mom, he thinks.
She smiles at him tolerantly.
They walk up the stairs, and Andreas knocks on the door.
“So you’re Peter Körber’s son?” He senses her curiosity as she opens the door.
He nods.
“You sounded a lot like him on the telephone.” The woman shakes their hands. She evidently believes he and Bea are a couple, and he doesn’t correct that assumption. It’s as close as I’ll get, he thinks.
They exchange pleasantries, and Mrs. Majenka tells him that she’s a widow. She moved here from Lichtenberg after her husband died. Her clothes are plain, and she wears flat, practical shoes like the undertaker at his father’s funeral. There’s something asymmetrical about her face; it looks heavier on the left side. Her head is big and round, and there’s a small goiter growing on her neck.
She drags her leg slightly as she leads Andreas and Bea into the dark living room, which is made even darker by winter. The walls hold decorative plates and framed family portraits. On the wall near the window is a clock in a mahogany case, with gold-leaf numbers and a pendulum that has ceased to function. Noticing Andreas’s interest in the clock, she retrieves a big key from a drawer in the shelving unit. There’s a metallic click as she winds the clock until it fills the living room once again with its slow, regular ticktock, ticktock.
They sit across from her at the dining table, and he exchanges a glance with Bea as Mrs. Majenka fills their cups with coffee from a carafe. They drink politely, and she begins to speak.
“Well, what can I tell you about Peter?” She considers for a moment. “He was very intelligent, always proper. Exemplary.”
It sounds like propaganda, and he knows from Elisabeth’s long political career that propaganda and lies are created from the same mold. This isn’t what he’s come to hear. He makes eye contact with her, and he knows that she’s considering how best to proceed.
He’ll have to tread cautiously. If he presses too hard, he risks frightening her off. He has come across quite a few cases of sudden-onset amnesia and convenient forgetfulness lately, so he holds back patiently. He smiles at Bea and hopes she understands. Then Mrs. Majenka starts telling them about Peter, the prison, and one particular interrogation that she recalls with remarkable clarity.
“Normally we recorded everything on tape, but because I was a woman, I had to pretend to be a secretary. We were going to interrogate one Nina Lachner, who was under suspicion for planning to escape to the West, and we imagined that she’d be more willing to talk to a woman. We just needed her to admit to planning an escape, that’s all. We’d agreed in advance that Peter and Emil Brank were going to leave the interrogation room so I’d get to talk to her on my own, but we never made it that far.”
“What happened?” Andreas asks.
“I can’t tell you.”
Yet it seems as though she wants to tell them something that she’s holding back. Should he pressure her or just wait? He hesitates, sensing that she needs to talk to someone, to tell her story.
She looks at him shyly. “I was in love with Peter.” She’s quiet for a moment. “Until the incident with the child.”
“What child?” he asks.
“No . . . I can’t, I don’t really want to say anything more, but I saw the papers when they transferred me to the central administration. After the interrogation, that is.”
She folds her hands in her lap. She hesitates again. Andreas can practically feel her pain. Then she clears her throat. “In some cases, Stasi would take the children of dissidents and place them in good families. It wasn’t something anyone ever talked about.” She pauses, then goes on to explain that parents who didn’t raise their children the way the state saw fit risked losing them. This might include people who fled to the West, as well as those who even considered fleeing or anyone who subverted the state in any way. In some cases, that even included people who’d merely applied for visas to travel abroad. “Mothers were forced to sign the adoption papers, and their children were taken away and given to families who could be trusted to raise them with the proper socialist spirit. Some children were stolen from hospital delivery rooms, and their mothers were told that they’d had a stillbirth.” Mrs. Majenka’s voice trembles. She’s clearly appalled by
what she’s telling them. “Some children are still looking for their mothers,” she says.
“How do you know?”
She shrugs her shoulders. She has said all she wishes to say on the matter.
“Why are you telling us all this?” He tries not to sound irritated, but he’s having a hard time understanding where she’s going.
She shrugs again, and then, like a child caught in a lie, says, in a slow and emphatic voice, “Peter was a good man, until he stopped being a good man. Until the incident with the girl.”
“The girl?”
Mrs. Majenka resumes her account of the interrogation. It seems she has decided to tell them what happened after all. She outlines Nina’s unfortunate death in brief, broad strokes and mentions Stefan and Nina Lachner’s daughter, Petra. She concludes, saying, “Like I said, I was in love with Peter until what happened with the girl.”
“What happened with the girl?”
“Peter gave her to his sister.”
Mrs. Majenka pours more coffee, then passes around a small plate of cookies and continues. “It was a special case. Veronika was single; her husband had fled the country. If you ask me, she wasn’t one of the good families. It was only because of Peter, but then he was special too, and he lived in Prenzlauer Berg, not with the rest of us. Do you two have children?”
Andreas shakes his head. As she continues to speak, it slowly dawns on him what she is saying. He looks at Bea, who’s staring at Mrs. Majenka. Her lips are trembling, and her face is drained of all its color; apart from her lips, she’s rigid. He wants to establish eye contact with her, but she’s somewhere else, far away. She begins to twirl her cup around on the saucer but doesn’t seem to hear the grating sound it makes. He rests his hand on top of hers. She pays no heed and keeps twirling the cup.
“If you had children of your own, you’d understand.”
It grows quiet. Andreas wants to say something, but he can’t think of anything because there are no words. No words at all. Only empty eyes and thick, impenetrable air. He wants to pull Bea close and tell her that everything’s going to be all right, but he’s not sure that’s true.
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