The Wall Between
Page 23
Peter rushes out of the store and nearly trips over the plastic bucket. Coins roll out onto the sidewalk, scattering everywhere. An elderly woman offers to help him gather them up, but he shakes his head and hurries off, taking long, fast strides. Halfway down Kopenhagener Strasse, he glances over his shoulder. The man hasn’t followed him. He’s trembling. It’s not the first time he’s felt stalked without reason, but this time feels different.
He rummages through his pocket for his keys. He feels the buzz of alcohol, which makes him sleepy. He thinks of coffee and how nice it would be to have a new coffeemaker. He hears the heavy wooden gate that’s covered in graffiti. He hears footsteps. The stench has returned.
He turns and spots the homeless man. He sees the beard, long and gray, and the pulsating vein in the man’s neck. He sees his dilated pupils and the broken blood vessels in his eyes. Then he sees the knife, and he sees the man raise the knife. Between this moment and the knife’s entry in his belly, Peter remembers who the man is.
He remembers the man’s name and he remembers the prison and he remembers the interrogations and he remembers the man’s proclamations of innocence. He remembers the man’s wife and the sound of her head when it struck the edge of the table, and he remembers that Stefan served a year in Hohenschönhausen and four years in Görden. He remembers the broken man who was released in 1985, without his wife or daughter, without his memory, unable to put two coherent thoughts together.
After reunification, he erased any trace that might lead Stefan back to him. He redacted his name from all the files, as well as from Renate Koch’s file on Beatrice in the registry at Child Protective Services. He thinks how paradoxical it is, because Stefan Lachner couldn’t possibly know about all that. He doesn’t know that Peter was present when Nina was killed, and he doesn’t know that Beatrice grew up with Veronika. Yet Peter can tell from his mad eyes that he knows something. Stefan Lachner wants revenge. Peter knows he destroyed Stefan’s life, and now Stefan is going to destroy his. Peter knows why he must die.
He knows why the knife violently lifts his body off the ground and toward the heavens—a heaven that he doesn’t believe in. Maybe it’s time to start believing. The knife seems to beg him to regret his actions, but he did what he had to do, and he’d do it again. A glimmer of light blinds him, and he hears his mother’s voice, loving and gentle, “You mustn’t stare at the sun. You’ll ruin your eyesight.” The last thing he sees before his head slams against the asphalt is the outline of Irene Krause disappearing behind the curtain.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I owe a huge thanks to Thomas Wegener Friis, a historian who specializes in the history of the secret service, for all his help; Dagmar Hovestädt and Elmar Kramer from the Stasi Records Agency; professor Helmut Müller-Enbergs; writer Jesper Clemmensen; Anne Marie Nielsen; Allan Nielsen; Helle Rabøl Hansen; Clemens Flämig; Mette Jensen Hayles; Thorbjørn Haslund; Rasmus Boe Hermansen; Mathilde Hermansen; Niels Rosenkvist; Anne Behr; Katrine Rastad; Ulla Therese Kræmer; Jess Dalsgaard; Søren Lind; Nanna Ask; Nicole Jessen; Simon Papousek; Marie Brocks Larsen; and Anne Krogh Hørning.
Finally, I would like to thank copyediting’s answer to Jacques Cousteau, my editor, Henrik Okkels, for diving down through the darkness and into the depths of this novel.
Any errors that may have crept into the story are entirely my own.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2016 Peter Clausen
Jesper Bugge Kold was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, and worked as a journalist before becoming a librarian and website designer. His previous novel, Winter Men, was nominated for the Debutant Prize at Denmark’s Book Forum in 2014. He lives in South Funen with his wife and two children.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Photo © Eric Druxman
K. E. Semmel is a writer and translator. In addition to previously translating Jesper Bugge Kold’s Winter Men, his translations include books by Naja Marie Aidt, Karin Fossum, Erik Valeur, Jussi Adler-Olsen, and Simon Fruelund. He is a recipient of numerous grants from the Danish Arts Foundation and is a 2016 NEA Literary Translation Fellow. He lives in Rochester, New York, where he is the executive director of Writers & Books.