Mother gasps in horror, her hand flying to her mouth.
Herr Schiller looks bemused. “Nein, nein, mein Liebchen,” he says patting Brigitta on the hand, “we won’t have to go underground.” Mother sighs out.
“So what then?” I ask.
Herr Schiller taps his nose with his finger. “There are still one or two things I need to sort out before I’m sure it will work, so I won’t go into the details now. But if all is well, I will come for you tomorrow at nine o’clock in the evening. Can you be ready?”
I look across the table at Mother and raise my eyebrows in a question. She has always been reluctant to leave behind familiar surroundings, the apartment, her job. But things are different now. Her son is on the other side of the Wall. He can’t come here, and we can’t go there. If we don’t take this chance now, we may never see him again. Mother looks at me as if she wants me to give her reassurance. I think back to what I saw at Alexanderplatz and what Hans said about needing to get out of East Berlin. I turn to Herr Schiller.
“Is there room for two more people in your plan?”
He shakes his head. “Unfortunately not. There will be a severe limit on space, I’m afraid. That means you can bring no more than one small bag with you.”
This is hard to take, to think that we have a chance to escape but that I will have to leave my friend and his mother behind. But what can I do? My first duty is to my family. I look back at Mother. “We should try,” I say. “It might be our only chance.”
She gives an imperceptible nod.
“Gut,” says Herr Schiller, standing up. “Remember, tomorrow, at nine. I will come for you.”
Dieter
“Das ist Scheiss!” That’s bullshit.
I can hear the exasperation in my voice. Bernd just doesn’t get it. So I try to explain it one more time. “Listen, if the Americans were going to do something about it they’d have done it by now. It’s already way too late. They rolled the barbed wire out five days ago, for goodness’ sake. They’re already turning it into a solid wall. The East Germans and the Soviets are saying, Up yours, Kennedy! and the Americans aren’t going to do a sodding thing about it because they’re frightened that if they do, World War Three will break out.”
Bernd doesn’t know what to say. He doesn’t know anyone over there, on the other side of the barbed wire. We’re sitting in a Kneipe in Kreuzberg drinking beers. It’s a bohemian place, the sort of bar that attracts artists, students and political agitators. Old copies of the weeks’ newspapers litter the tables and benches.
“May I?” I say to the guy at the next table, leaning over to pick up a newspaper he is no longer reading. He pushes the paper in my direction and takes a swig of his whisky. It’s Wednesday’s edition of Bildzeitung.
“Look at this,” I say to Bernd, thrusting the newspaper in front of him.
Der Osten handelt – Was tut der Westen?
Der Westen tut NICHTS!
The East acts – what does the West do?
The West does NOTHING!
Whilst Bernd reads the Bildzeitung article, the guy with the whisky passes me a copy of Die Welt. The picture on the front page is amazing.
“Hey Bernd,” I say. “See this.” Bernd lays the Bildzeitung to one side and looks at this new picture. I study it too.
The grainy photo shows a soldier leaping over the barbed wire at one of the side streets off Bernauer Strasse. The camera has captured him poised in mid-air, right foot just touching the top of the wire, left foot following behind. His arms are outstretched for balance, his right hand holding onto the strap of the rifle that is dangling on his shoulder. It’s a real action shot – the sort of thing that will go round the world and make headlines. In the background a group of East Berliners stand chatting. They clearly weren’t expecting to see such a sight or they might have been paying more attention. I look more closely at the group in the background. They are out of focus, but one of them looks remarkably like Sabine.
“What about that then?” I say. “Even their own guards are escaping if they can. At least the ones with half a brain.”
“True,” says Bernd. “It’s a terrible situation, but surely someone will do something about it. What about the British? Or the French?” He takes a gulp of his beer.
I snort with derision. “Are you kidding? The French haven’t got the stomach or the resources for a fight with East Germany, and the British won’t do anything without the Americans to hold their hands. No, if we want to help our fellow Berliners in the East then we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”
Bernd chokes on his beer. “What are you suggesting?” he splutters. “What can ordinary people do if the American and British armies don’t want to get involved?”
“Well I don’t know off the top of my head, but it must be possible to do something.”
I feel rattled. The truth is, I don’t know what I can do to help people in the East. I just feel I should be doing something.
Bernd shakes his head at me. “If the East Germans catch anyone helping their citizens escape, they’ll put them in prison for sure.”
I ignore his comment. I know he has a point, but it’s my family who are imprisoned behind the Wall. I have to try and do something.
I catch the eye of the man sitting at the next table, the one who passed me the newspaper. He’s watching me. My God, I think, I hope he’s not a Stasi spy. I realise I may have spoken rashly in a public place. But somehow I don’t think he’s a spy; he looks too individual with his fair hair flopping over his eyes and his fashionable western clothes teamed with an ex-military greatcoat. The Stasi are all robots.
“It’s getting late,” says Bernd looking at his watch. He stands to leave.
“Hang on,” I say, picking up my beer. I’ve been arguing so much, I haven’t had a chance to drink it yet. Bernd walks towards the door whilst I swallow the last of my beer. I stand up to follow him and the man at the next table stands up too.
“Warten Sie, bitte,” he says. Wait. He’s speaking German but there’s something else in his accent. Dutch? American? I turn to face him and he holds out his hand in greeting.
“Harry,” he says in a voice that I now think is more American than Dutch.
I take his hand. “Dieter.” I’m not used to strangers introducing themselves like this and I look at him warily. He shakes my hand firmly and laughs.
“I’m sorry,” he says, “but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation just now.” He has rugged good looks and the sort of charm all the girls seem to fall for. He pushes his hair back off his forehead and regards me with steady, deep brown eyes.
I sense that he’s not dangerous and start to relax a little.
I shrug. “No matter.”
He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a piece of paper. “Listen, if you really want to do something to help get people out of East Berlin, come to a meeting on Friday.” He passes me the piece of paper with an address and a time scrawled on it. Jakobstrasse 51, Friday, 8pm. “We need people like you,” he says. Then he turns and walks out without waiting for a reply.
I stare at the piece of paper. Then I fold it and put it in my pocket. By the time I join Bernd outside, the address is already seared onto my memory.
Sabine
Before we make our bid for freedom, Mother wants to visit the graves of Father and Oma one last time. They are both buried in the Invaliden Cemetery in East Berlin. If our escape to West Berlin is successful then we will never be able to pay our respects again.
We dress in sombre clothes befitting the occasion, Brigitta in her best navy skirt and Mother in her black coat which she’s had since before the war. I have on a dark blue dress which I keep for visiting the cemetery.
Brigitta wanted to bring some flowers but the florist has run out.
Brigitta never knew Father. She was born a month before he died. But I remember him clearly as a man of strong principles who stood up for what he believed in, which was why he was out on the str
eets that fateful day when the Soviets used tanks to quash the workers’ rebellion.
The shock of Father’s death coming so soon after the birth of a new baby plunged Mother into a depression from which she has never fully recovered. Our grandmother, Oma Klara, moved to Berlin from the countryside to help look after us. She brought her book of fairy stories with her. But to me, her own life was more fraught with drama than any fairy story. She lost her brother in the Somme in the First World War, she hid Jews in the attic of her house during the Second World War, she lost her husband in a Soviet labour camp and she worked as one of Berlin’s Trümmerfrauen (rubble women), after the war, clearing the rubble of the bombed buildings stone by stone. But Oma Klara never complained, because she was a survivor. As we approach the cemetery I ask myself what she would want us to do, and I know she would want us to try and escape.
Oma Klara passed away last winter after a bout of influenza. We buried her next to Father, on the far side of the cemetery, close to the Schifffahrtskanal, one of the canals between East and West Berlin.
As we make our way across the cemetery, I can’t help noticing that it is empty. There is no one tending the graves of their loved ones, or standing in silent contemplation beside a headstone. Our footsteps seem unnaturally loud in the silence.
“Stop!”
The man’s voice shatters the silence like gunfire.
I look around, trying to locate the source of the voice. Brigitta whimpers and Mother turns pale and starts to tremble. Two helmeted border guards are marching towards us, both of them carrying rifles. One is older than the other, with a protruding beer belly and a sagging jaw. He positions himself right in front of us, whilst the younger guard, who looks barely more than a teenager, stands to the side, trying to look menacing.
“Where are you going?” barks the older man. “Don’t you know this part of the cemetery is out of bounds?”
Mother takes a sharp intake of breath. Brigitta moves half behind me, clutching hold of my left hand. This is all too reminiscent of the events at Potsdamer Platz. The guard looks at Mother but when she offers no explanation, he turns to me.
“We are going to visit the graves of our father and grandmother,” I say. “We come here every month to pay our respects.”
“That is no longer possible,” he says. “This part of the cemetery is close to the border and you are forbidden from entering it. You must not come within one hundred metres of the border. It is strictly forbidden.” At these words he stands up extra tall and thrusts his stomach out so that the buttons on his shirt look as if they are about to pop.
This is crazy. Not come within one hundred metres of the border? What does he think we are going to do? Swim across the canal? In our mourning clothes?
I glance across at the younger guard. He nods his agreement and purses his lips at us, defying us to challenge the authority of his more senior colleague. Out of sight of his superior, he glares at me and tilts his rifle in our direction.
“But…” begins Mother in a quavery voice. I lay a hand on her arm.
“It’s no good arguing,” I say. “We must leave.”
The older guard nods, pleased that I have understood his message. The younger one looks disappointed that this isn’t going to end in a shoot out.
I slip my right hand through Mother’s arm. Then I lead Mother and Brigitta back the way we came. I keep my head high, determined not to show the guards how scared I am.
It is only when we are back outside the cemetery gates that I start to shake. Mother and Brigitta are both sobbing, but for the moment I am too stunned to cry. How dare they, I want to shout. How dare they stop us visiting the graves of our loved ones. These people have no heart.
I feel as if Father and Oma have died a second time. Their graves lie in forbidden territory and we cannot visit them. We must return home and wait for Herr Schiller. He promised he would come for us tonight.
Dieter
Herr Pohl is still struggling to find enough new staff to fill the vacancies at the hotel so I’m run off my feet all day, fetching, carrying, clearing, peeling. But at the same time, I keep thinking about last night’s meeting with Harry and his idea of helping people escape from East Berlin. I’d do anything to get Sabine, Brigitta and Mother out of the East. I won’t know until tomorrow night what Harry has in mind.
At six o’clock I’ve just finished cleaning one of the bedrooms when I see Herr Pohl at the end of the corridor, heading in my direction. I’ve been on my feet for ten hours and I’m blowed if I’m doing any more. I pretend not to notice him and disappear at a run down the emergency stairs. I grab my jacket from the staff cloakroom and head outside.
I buy myself a filled bread roll from a kiosk and eat it wandering around the streets. I don’t want to go home and listen to more depressing reports on the radio so on an impulse I head down to the S-bahn platform at Anhalter Bahnhof and wait for the next train heading north to Oranienburg. I’m curious to see what will happen. The S-1 line starts and finishes in West Berlin, but there’s a section in the middle where it passes through East Berlin. Kerstin, the receptionist, said you can still travel on the S-1 line, you just can’t get off at the stations in the East anymore.
The Oranienburg train pulls into the station and I jump on board, sitting down in an empty seat by the window. There aren’t many people in the carriage, just an old woman with her shopping bags and a dozen or so bored-looking office workers on their way home. The doors close and the train starts to move forwards.
The first station is Potsdamer Platz which is in East Berlin. As we approach the platform the train slows to a crawl but does not actually stop. No one else seems bothered by this. Presumably they’ve done this journey loads of times and are used to it. But this is the first time I’ve taken this S-bahn line since the Wall went up, and I sit with my forehead pressed against the window, both fascinated and disturbed by the sight of the dimly-lit, deserted platform. Devoid of passengers, the station has a dead feel to it. Two armed border guards are patrolling the platform.
We leave the station and the train speeds up. Then it slows down once more and crawls through a deserted Unter den Linden without stopping. At Friedrichstrasse the train does actually stop but no one gets on or off; only West Germans and foreigners can go to East Berlin now. One or two people exchange nervous glances, as if stopping here makes them uneasy. But we soon move on, there being no reason to linger at Friedrichstrasse. It’s the same at Oranienburger Strasse and Nordbahnhof as it was at Potsdamer Platz and Unter den Linden: deserted ghost stations with armed border guards on the platform. Who do they think they might need to shoot? East Berliners cannot access these stations and the passengers on the train are hardly likely to try and jump off.
The train speeds up once more and a few minutes later comes to a stop at Humboldthain. We’re back in West Berlin and the platform is reassuringly packed with commuters. I feel the muscles in my shoulders relax. I jump up from my seat and get off the train.
I realise I’m quite close to Bernauer Strasse where the East German guard jumped over the wire. His picture has been in all the papers and he’s become something of a hero in West Berlin, so I start to walk in the direction of this now famous street, wondering if I’ll see any other daring escapes.
The ground floor windows of the buildings on the East side of Bernauer Strasse have all been bricked up. The sight of these grand old buildings with their windows blanked out is as depressing as the ghost stations I just travelled through. It seems crazy to me that I can walk up and down this street quite freely, but inside those buildings are people who can no longer access the pavement outside their front doors. Then I realise people are trying to escape from the houses, just not via the front door or the ground floor windows. They are jumping from the upper storeys.
At various points along the street firemen are holding aloft safety blankets and people are jumping onto them.
I join a group of spectators outside one such building. We watch in nail-bitin
g silence as a white-haired old lady in a black dress dangles precariously from a first floor window ledge, her feet about four metres from the ground. A man in the building is trying to pull her back inside, back into East Berlin. But a younger man, standing on the window ledge directly below hers takes hold of her right ankle. Another man leaps up onto the neighbouring window ledge and grabs hold of her left ankle. The Fire Brigade waits patiently below with a blanket to catch her.
The crowd holds its breath.
For what feels like an age, the old woman hangs suspended in mid-air, pulled between two opposing political systems. But in the end gravity comes to her rescue, and she slips out of the grasp of the man in the building and tumbles down onto the blanket. The crowd lets out its collective breath, and roars in triumph.
I take the train back to Anhalter Bahnhof, passing through the ghost stations once more. This time they don’t bother me so much. I feel buoyed up by the bravery of the old woman who was prepared to risk her neck jumping to freedom. I hope Mother will be as brave if the time comes.
Sabine
Back home in Stargarder Strasse the minutes tick past. Mother has withdrawn into herself and is making no effort to prepare for tonight’s escape. The events in the cemetery and the idea of escaping with Herr Schiller are clearly more than she can handle. She sits at the kitchen table staring at a photograph of Father taken in 1950 on a rare day out in the countryside north of Berlin. I leave her there and try to focus on what I need to do before Herr Schiller comes. I wish I could go and say good-bye to Hans but I feel too guilty at having to abandon him. If only he and his mother could come with us, but Herr Schiller was clear there wouldn’t be space and my first priority is to get Mother and Brigitta out of East Berlin and to re-unite us all with Dieter.
Herr Schiller said we could only bring one small bag. Escaping to the West means leaving most of our belongings behind, not that there are many of those. I find a canvas rucksack and wonder what to put in it. We should take as many clothes as we can manage but they won’t all fit into the bag. To save space I come up with the idea that we should all wear extra pairs of underwear and three pairs of socks or tights. Brigitta puts two cardigans on over her blouse. I reach out to touch my yellow dress hanging in the wardrobe, feeling its soft cotton between my finger and thumb. I wish I could take it with me but there just isn’t space. I tell myself there will be plenty more dresses to buy in West Berlin and close the wardrobe door.
Oranges for Christmas Page 5