Freedom Bridge

by Erika Holzer

  But her resistance had become a challenge. The more she fought each wordless demand on her flesh, the more she was convinced that Kiril’s eyes were wide open.

  She jammed hers shut and concentrated on her first glimpse of him at an airport terminal. The look on his face as he crossed a banquet room to meet her. She pictured the morning his shadow had fallen across her body and blotted out the sun. His tortured expression as he kissed her passionately in the privacy of an airport lounge in Zurich—

  Despite the hay, the floor was cold against her back, the night air colder. Neither were cold enough to bank the liquid heat that rushed into her limbs.

  Oh no, she thought, realizing too late that the images of Kiril had betrayed her senses. Wanting him, not the man who was forcibly entering her body. Her fingers dug into the hay, her body arching, pushing past her protesting mind, greedily reaching for the unreachable and, with a shudder, finding it.

  Afterward she lay on the cold ground, eyes open to the sky.

  Kiril, she whispered, but only in her mind.

  She wept as silently as she had fought.

  * * *

  It was dawn when the farmer rapped his knuckles on the barn door.

  “You can change clothes in the house while I’m getting the bicycles,” he told them.

  The room they entered was all wood—floor, ceiling, walls, furniture. But no firewood to spare, Adrienne realized. The stone fireplace was pristine. The place smelled of raw potatoes. An old woman, indifferent to their presence, was slicing the potatoes at a pitted sink. Adrienne turned her back and slipped into the clothes Kiril handed her. The hem of the long dress—a faded yellow—stopped just below her knees, the fabric straining under her arms and over her breasts. “I have my own scarf,” she told Kiril, turning around—then smiled mirthlessly even as Kiril shook his head.

  A designer scarf from Bloomingdale’s? Yes indeed, Adrienne.

  She folded a square of rough yellow cotton and tied it, babushka-style, on her head.

  “Good fit, even if they’re slightly threadbare,” Brenner remarked as he examined the trousers he’d just pulled on.

  Kiril wore a similar pair—coarse serge, wide and gathered at the waist.

  Both he and Brenner put on formless grey caps.

  “Ready?” he asked, holding the back door open.

  A tall dignified man with thick steel-gray hair waited outside. He looked more like a businessman than a farmer, Kiril thought.Three bicycles leaned against the back of the house, their scrawny tires and tinny-looking bodies giving them the look of pre-war relics. The old man rattled off a few sentences in German and went back into the house.

  “He wished us good luck,” he told Adrienne. “He said this is a good hour to enter the town because people will be leaving work.”

  “Let’s hope he meant it,” Brenner said drily.

  “They need the money. The jewelry’s worth a lot on the black market. They won’t turn us in,” Kiril reassured him.

  But will you? Adrienne wondered silently as a man on a motorbike with slicked-back hair and no helmet fixed them with a curious stare as he passed.

  Will you turn us in? she asked a shabbily clothed family who examined them closely before pedaling off in the opposite direction.

  Will you be the ones? she wondered, her question aimed at a couple of Vopos who stood just inside the Potsdam city limits while she tried to ignore a sign too prominent to miss:

  UNDYING FRIENDSHIP AND ALLIANCE

  WITH THE SOVIET UNION!

  Don’t turn us in, she pleaded whenever Kurt or Kiril paused to ask directions, leaving her to envy them their flawless German.

  They walked their bicycles down narrow cobblestone streets, every face, every frown, looming as a potential threat. Even the unbroken gray stucco on both sides of the street seemed less like rows of connecting houses than solid impregnable walls.

  Only when gray stucco gave way to red brick did Adrienne’s fear give way to hope. She saw signs of a cheerful Dutch influence in the high rounded tops of the attached houses. In the black shutters with their white trim.

  It was she who spotted the sign on an iron post: Hollandische Siedlung.

  She who spotted number “13.”

  When Kiril pulled the bell cord, she slipped her hand into his. The tightness of his answering grip became a substitute for breathing.

  The door opened. A pair of expressionless blue eyes looked them over, curiously at first, then intently.

  “Come in. Quickly!” Albert Zind said.

  Adrienne was stunned. Not because she thought Albert Zind and his family wouldn’t help them. After taking his measure in East Berlin, she had felt sure that he would.

  What she hadn’t expected was that he spoke English!

  As soon as all three of them were inside, the door was closed and bolted behind them.

  Chapter 46

  Albert Zind sat in the cab of an ancient truck parked on the middle of the bridge. It was a huge 1942 Studebaker, one of thousands sent by the United States to the Soviet Union during World War II.

  It had four sets of double wheels in the rear, and two more up front. It could carry up to 2½ tons of cargo, had heavy springs and shock absorbers, and boasted a powerful diesel engine. The height of the Studebaker’s sides was increased by six horizontal slats around all three sides, making the cargo area roughly six feet high. The height of the bed’s sides were increased even more by U-shaped struts that could be fitted to them. A tarpaulin, if tossed over the top, would completely enclose the rear of the truck.

  Zind had built an armoire-like structure in the bed of the truck just behind the cab for storing tools and other supplies. The vehicle’s front and rear bumpers were massive. And though not fast, the truck was a veritable juggernaut when rolling. Its front windshield could be raised, removing any impediment to the driver’s line of sight in inclement weather. The glass window in the rear was roughly four feet wide and two feet high.

  For a man like Zind, who was in the construction business, it was the ideal vehicle to own.

  For a tough-guy type like his Vopo “pal” Bruno, who drove Zind and his crew on and off the bridge every day, it was pure pleasure—an opportunity to change seats with Zind, get behind the wheel of the powerful ’42 Studebaker, and drive!

  Seemingly absorbed in thought, Zind was acutely aware of what was going on. Bruno had tried—unsuccessfully—to start the engine. Three times the diesel motor almost caught. Three times it died. Bruno was well aware that if he continued to crank the heavy-duty battery, he would kill whatever power the truck still had.

  Shooting a sideways glance in Albert Zind’s direction, Bruno said, “Cat got your tongue, Zind?”

  “Just wondering what the foreman will say when he finds out I pulled the crew off an hour early.”

  Bruno shrugged. “Who could work in all this rain? Those twenty guys in the back of the Studebaker are already soaked. You’re a foreman same as me, Zind. Foremen are supposed to take care of their men, am I right?” he said good-naturedly.

  “The problem is that my foreman is nervous about completing the repair job on this bridge,” Zind said. “He’s being pressed, so naturally he’s in a big hurry to get it done. Glienicker Bridge handles way too much traffic—particularly going from East to West.”

  There has to be some way to take advantage of that.

  This time when Bruno hit the starter, the engine struggled to life and turned over—barely. Bruno revved it for a few minutes until the battery was charged, then left the bridge and pulled to a stop at the cobblestone square between the East German and Soviet guard houses. Yanking the hand brake, Bruno killed the diesel engine and got out of the truck.

  “You better check that battery, Zind,” he chided.

  “Will do.”

  “See you Wednesday. Tomorrow I’m off duty,” Bruno reminded him.

  “Wednesday it is,” Zind acknowledged as he slid behind the wheel.

  The bridge crew scramble
d off the back of the truck and lined up for the headcount.

  The “headcount” triggered a reminder of its own… How the Wall was being haphazardly thrown together, and what desperate East Germans were doing to escape. During the past several weeks, some would-be defectors were leaping from windows and rooftops to freedom even as other windows and doors were being bricked up, other rooftops sealed, entire buildings demolished.

  Sewers were one way out, Zind mused, but there was a price tag attached—the risk of drowning from a sudden rainfall, like today. Or suffocating from accumulated gas. Or being blocked by iron grates and manhole covers that had been welded shut.

  Elsewhere throughout Germany, the East and West had always been separated by fences and barriers, he thought. Checkpoints and guard shacks. Barbed wire and land mines. Scrutiny by watchtowers that were manned by Vopos with machine guns. Swimming across a lake or a river even in darkness was problematical.

  Yet according to the grapevine, a handful of would-be defectors had made it out not long ago. The student who’d buried his fiancée in a trunkful of clothes. Two heavily-clothed families, eleven kids between them, who’d flattened themselves under a refrigerated truckload of frozen meat. Some electrician who had scurried hand-over-hand across a disconnected high-tension cable. Four East German soldiers who’d bulled their way through fences and mines in an old armored Cadillac.

  Such incidents were unique, unrepeatable—ideas that worked only once because the border patrols hadn’t anticipated them.

  The Zind brothers, Erich and Gunther, climbed into the front seat. “Crew’s all counted,” Gunther said to Albert.

  “Come up with any ideas?” Erich asked him.

  “Not yet.”.

  He headed for the marshalling yard. When he pulled up, his foreman was pacing outside the engineering office.

  “I know, I know,” Albert grumbled as he and his brothers emerged from the truck. “We just cost you an hour out of your schedule. But everyone is soaked to the skin.”

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Mueller groaned. “Those new steel supports I ordered? They’re being delivered on Wednesday. Day after tomorrow.”

  “So?”

  “So I need to be on the bridge when they get here! But they want me in Berlin that day so they can grill me about the delays on repairing this godforsaken bridge. How can I be in two places at once?”

  “What are you worried about? I’m an engineer too. I’ll handle it.”

  Mueller was visibly relieved. “Then do,” he said.

  As Albert and his brothers waited in the rain for the bus ride home, a torrent of water rushed down the gutter heading for the sewer—prompting Albert’s thoughts to turn to tunneling. A lot of tunnels would be built—eventually. But not yet. Lousy timing, he thought as he replayed what Kiril had told them last night…

  Any minute now this whole town can be subjected to a house-by-house search by Vopos—maybe even Russians. We’re running out of time.

  * * *

  That Monday evening as everyone sat around the dining room table, Albert raised a troubling question. “Is it time to relocate the three of you?”

  “Where to?” Kurt Brenner asked.

  “A place far from the border until I can come up with a plan.”

  “No,” Kiril said with quiet emphasis. “The time is now. The place is Glienicker Bridge.”

  Albert’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you think you’ll have better luck than your dead friend?” he asked solemnly.

  “I’m not irresponsible, Albert,” Kiril said, not taking offense. “It’s just that we’re too close to run. We’re only meters from West Germany. But run deeper into East Germany? I’m convinced that the risk is much worse. Is there any chance we could pose as members of your construction crew?”

  “Not with the share-the-work policy,” Erich said.

  “Which means what?” Brenner asked.

  “A labor pool. Albert has to choose a different crew every morning. It’s for security reasons. The idea is to keep everyone off balance. Make it harder for anyone to plan an escape attempt in advance—like hiding under the truck after a head count,” he said drily.

  Albert stood up. “There is a way to switch crew members,” he said as the room went quiet. “Kiril and the Brenners could take the place of Erich, Gunther and our friend Otto Dorf. My foreman expects delivery of new bridge supports the day after tomorrow. But Mueller has to be in Berlin. I promised I’d take up the slack—get the new supports to the bridge early in the morning. Do whatever engineering work comes up until he gets back.” He cracked a smile. “But when we finish work, I won’t leave the truck at the marshalling yard like I usually do. I’ll take it to Otto’s uncle’s warehouse. We’ll build a false wall in the tool cabinet, creating a hidden space about six feet wide by three feet deep to hide all three of you—close enough to the middle of the bridge to make a run for it.”

  Kiril knew why Adrienne looked alarmed. Brenner was claustrophobic.

  Would he be able to keep from panicking?

  Chapter 47

  “Let’s run though it one more time,” Albert said as they ate breakfast Tuesday morning. “Today and tonight, the three of you sit tight here. Wednesday, we’ll hide you behind the false wall in the cabinet while I drive the truck to the yard to pick up the bridge supports.”

  Brenner’s jaw tightened.

  “Once we’re loaded and the crew is on the truck, Erich and Gunther will ride with their backs against the cabinet—”

  “Why?” Brenner cut in.

  “An excess of caution. We want to be sure no one else goes near it. Not a single member of the crew, and no one else. No one.”

  Erich and Gunther nodded.

  “Agreed,” Otto chimed in.

  “What about the tear gas on the bridge?” Erich wondered out loud.

  Brenner paled. “Tear gas? You people must be crazy!”

  “Not a problem,” Albert said calmly. “When we get to the bridge, the truck will appear to be empty. Even though the Vopos routinely spray front to back and top to bottom to smoke out anyone who’s hiding, we’ll have already sealed the compartment where the three of you will be standing.”

  “Bottom line, Kurt, no gas will seep in,” Adrienne said impatiently.

  “So all three of us are on the bridge,” Kiril said. “Then what?”

  “We create a diversion. Maybe a fire from the hot rivets. Maybe a fight. Someone could fall into the river.” Albert shrugged. “We’ll figure out something plausible to distract the guards. It’s only about ten yards.”

  “That’s one helluva lot of ‘maybes,’” Brenner said frostily. “This brilliant plan has more holes than a slab of Swiss cheese.”

  Adrienne could only roll her eyes at Kurt’s unseemly outburst.

  As she started to help Frieda Zind scrape remnants of sausage and scrambled eggs from the breakfast plates, she was rewarded with a tentative smile on that ravaged face.

  “Level with me,” Kiril said as Albert stood up to leave. “Even if we do escape, aren’t you and your family in jeopardy?”

  “We knew the risk when we took you in.”

  “I guess what I’m really asking is whether there’s a way we can do this without your being exposed.”

  “You know there isn’t. Sure, we might be arrested and interrogated, maybe beat up some. But it’s capitalism that’ll save us.”

  Kiril and Adrienne were stunned. Instead of just cracking a smile, Albert actually grinned.

  “For years, the East German regime has done a brisk business with West Berlin swapping relatives and friends,” Albert explained. “We don’t have either. What we do have is something that’s in short supply in West Berlin—skilled workers. In our case, a structural engineer and a couple of iron workers.”

  “And in return, East Germany gets what?” Kiril asked.

  “Consumer goods that are practically unobtainable in this so-called worker’s paradise. Coffee, butter, spare parts, electronic equi
pment. As for our Soviet comrades taking it out on us for helping you, there’s one thing we can count on. It won’t be a Soviet affair because everything we’re doing takes place here in East Germany. So if you make it out—and I think your chances are excellent—the regime won’t want any publicity about a single defection, let alone three, two of them Americans.”

  “So it’s on to the Dorf family’s warehouse,” Albert said cheerfully.

  “Hold on a minute,” Kiril said, following Albert and his brothers out the front door. “I just thought of something—”

  The door swung shut.

  Brenner headed for the stairway leading to the bedrooms.

  Adrienne put out a hand to stop him. “You’ve been acting like a snob ever since we got here, Kurt.”

  “Don’t lecture me,” he snapped.

  “Even Mrs. Zind, who doesn’t speak English, is nervous just being in the same room. Your attitude jumps the language barrier like an Olympic pole vaulter,” she said coldly. “Can’t you show a little gratitude?”

  “I thanked the older brother for what they’re all doing.”

  “I know the German word for ‘thank you’. You said it once, maybe twice. The point is how you said it. Like a condescending employer to the hired help. And by the way, the older brother has a name. It’s Albert.”

  “You’re coming unstrung.”

  “And you’re in denial. If the accommodations here are too modest, you can always return to that affluent Brenner hotel suite in East Berlin.”

  “You have an irritating sense of humor.”

  “And you have a callous side to your nature that’s even worse than I suspected. You can be affable to people in New York who, if you needed them, would slam their collective doors in your face. Yet you’re barely civil to a family who took us in without question and are trying, at great personal risk, to save our lives.”

  “I think you’re enjoying this little melodrama, Adrienne,” he said slowly. “It’s just your style. All these people you can feel sorry for and identify with.”

  “It’s maddening how your mood shifts. You seemed so different when things fell apart in East Berlin while we listened to Anna—”