Sabine
There are quick footsteps in the corridor. They stop outside the room. Then a woman’s voice addresses Herr Stein.
“Danke. Sie können gehen.” Thank you. You can go.
For some reason I had been expecting a man so this comes as a bit of a surprise. I’m curious, but I daren’t turn round to see.
The woman closes the door, walks to the front of the desk and sits down opposite me. Her appearance does nothing to calm my nerves.
She is tall, middle-aged and with close cropped black hair which looks dyed. Her eyebrows have been plucked to nothing and redrawn with black kohl arches that give her a questioning look which, I suppose, befits her job. Her lips, plastered in a dark red lipstick, compete for attention with her eyebrows. She looks artificial, like something produced in a laboratory. She doesn’t smile but introduces herself as Frau Biedermeier. There is no need for me to introduce myself because she already knows who I am, where I go to school, where I live and no doubt many other facts about my life.
As she shuffles her papers and prepares to begin the interrogation, I give myself courage by thinking of Dieter and the tunnelers in West Berlin. As far as I’m aware even the Stasi haven’t yet mastered the art of mind-reading. What wouldn’t she do for that information? Sell her own grandmother, I imagine, if she hasn’t already.
She reaches out a finger and presses a button on the tape recording machine. Her nails are painted the same shade of red as her lips. The reels start to turn, making a whirring noise which I find very distracting. She brings the tips of her fingers together and assesses me with cold, grey eyes.
“So,” she says, “you were discovered by Herr Schmidt, your politics teacher, standing by some portraits of great socialist leaders, holding a black pen with which you had shamefully and crudely defaced the portraits, thereby showing your contempt for our socialist system. What do you have to say?” She raises her kohl eyebrows and waits for me to speak.
“It wasn’t me. I didn’t draw on the portraits.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It’s too thin and quiet. The tape recorder whirrs.
“Nonsense. You defaced those portraits and the sooner you admit it the sooner this interview will be over.”
“I didn’t do it.” My voice is louder this time. She’s not going to get me to admit to something I didn’t do.
“Then how do you account for the fact that you were holding the black pen?”
“I went back into the classroom to collect my cardigan which I had left on my chair.” Just stick to the facts, I tell myself. “As I entered the room I startled some students who left in a hurry. One of them dropped the pen. I went to pick it up and that’s when Herr Schmidt reappeared.”
“So you picked up the black pen. This must have been the same pen that was used to deface the portraits, yes?”
“I suppose so.”
“And you’ve already said that someone in the room dropped the pen.”
I nod my head miserably, wishing I hadn’t said that much.
“Could you speak up please.”
“Yes,” I mumble.
“So you agree that one of the students in the room was holding the black pen. Therefore it seems logical that the student holding the pen is the person who defaced the portraits?”
“Possibly.”
“Did you see this person defacing the portraits?”
“No.”
“But you noticed that he or she had dropped the black pen?”
“Er, yes.”
Frau Biedermeier leans across the desk, her eyes glistening with the thrill of the hunt. “Who was it?”
I bite my tongue. I’m not going to give her the answer. “I don’t know.”
The kohl eyebrows go up even further. “Surely you don’t expect me to believe that. You’ve been at that school for years. You must have recognised the person concerned. Who was it?”
I shake my head. “I told you, I don’t know.” My voice wobbles. I’m sure she knows I’m lying. I’m perspiring and my throat is dry. I can feel the beginnings of a headache.
She glances across at the tape recorder. Only about a quarter of the tape has spooled from one reel to the other. There’s plenty more recording time left. Frau Biedermeier sits back in her chair, leans her head to one side and prepares to launch her next question.
“How many students were in the room when you went back in?”
She’s using a different tack, trying to catch me out. “Er, I don’t know. Maybe two or three. I couldn’t say for sure.”
“But you must have seen them when you entered the room.”
“I went in to pick up my cardigan, so I wasn’t looking in their direction.”
“But you must have realised there was someone else in the classroom as soon as you walked into it. Didn’t you look to see who it was?”
“Well, not really, I was in a hurry to fetch my cardigan. My friend was waiting for me in the corridor.”
“Yes, you’ve mentioned your cardigan numerous times now, but I repeat my point, you must have seen who was in the classroom when you went back in.”
I’m starting to feel dizzy. When I speak I can hear there’s a note of desperation in my voice. “No, I didn’t see who was there. I wasn’t looking in that direction. I’d been sitting at the front of the classroom and the boys were at the back.”
“So it was some boys who did this?” She pounces on my words like a cat springing on a mouse. The silence that follows is filled with the whirring of the tape recorder.
Scheisse! I realise I’ve made my first big slip and I try to back-peddle.
“I’m not saying it was boys who did it, just that they were sitting at the back of the classroom during the lesson.” It sounds pathetic. “There may have been some girls involved.” I stop myself. What am I saying? In my efforts to protect Matthias and Joachim I’m doing a pretty good job of incriminating other innocent people.
“But you indicated a moment ago that they were most probably boys.”
“Maybe.”
Frau Biedermeier is like a Rottweiler that refuses to let go of a bone. She is relentless in her questioning and is starting to wear me out. I have to stay focused and stick to my story.
“So,” says Frau Biedermeier, “since you can’t or won’t say who did it, I have to come to the conclusion that you defaced the portraits.”
“I didn’t do it.” We’re back to where we started and I just know we’re going to go over all the same ground as before. There’s still plenty of tape left.
After another half hour or so of being grilled, I haven’t given her any new information. She fixes me with a stare, then appears to come to a decision.
“Maybe you need a little time to jog your memory of who was in the classroom,” she says.
I don’t know what she means by this. She stops the tape recorder and presses one of the buttons on her phone. There are footsteps in the corridor, the door opens and Herr Stein appears. Frau Biedermeier addresses him.
“Fräulein Neumann needs some time to think,” she says.
“Certainly,” says Herr Stein.
He takes me by the arm and leads me out into the corridor. I have no idea where he’s taking me, but I’m under no illusion that I’m being allowed to go home.
We return to the Paternoster lift and this time jump into the one going down. When we reach the ground floor, Herr Stein once again takes me by the arm, his thumb and fingers pressing into my flesh, and leads me outside. We walk across the courtyard to one of the other buildings and go inside. This building has an eerie quiet to it which I don’t like. The door clangs shut behind us.
A uniformed guard steps forward to meet us and that’s when I really start to feel frightened.
We follow the guard up some stairs and along a corridor. The guard stops in front of a steel door and unlocks it with a key on a chain tied to his waist. He stands aside as Herr Stein escorts me inside.
“You can stay here,” says Herr Stein, “until you r
emember a few more details. Use your time wisely.”
Then he walks out and the guard closes the door, locking it with his key.
I can’t believe they have locked me up. And all because I refused to tell Frau Biedermeier what she wanted to hear. Suddenly fury wells up inside me and I run to the door, banging on it with my fists.
“Nein!” I scream. “Let me out!”
No one comes.
I let my forehead fall against the door and close my eyes. I must calm down and try not to lose control. I take a deep breath, open my eyes and walk away from the door.
It’s a small room with a window of frosted glass, high up. There is a narrow camp bed; a toilet and a sink; a table and chair. Nothing else. I notice a spy hole in the door. Herr Stein or the guard could be watching me right this minute. I am determined not to break down and cry. I won’t give them that satisfaction.
I sit down on the edge of the bed and try to think rationally about my situation. Frau Biedermeier is obsessed with finding out who defaced the portraits. I’m glad I didn’t give her any useful information. And the knowledge that I have a far greater secret, namely the tunnel, gives me strength. I will continue to deny all knowledge of who drew on the portraits. What Matthias and Joachim did might have been ill-judged, but I don’t want to become the sort of person who betrays her friends, like an informer.
Dieter
“Siebzehn Studenten.”Seventeen students. Harry rocks back on his chair, looking pleased with himself.
“That’s fantastic,” says Claudia smiling at him. “Where did you find them all?”
“At the Technische Universität,” I say, hoping that she’ll acknowledge my part in helping to recruit so many extra pairs of hands, but she keeps her eyes on Harry.
“The uni is swarming with people keen to help in a project like this,” says Harry airily. He pulls a sheet of paper out of his coat pocket. “We signed up twelve guys and five girls, so with you three that makes twenty people to do the digging.”
I think, shouldn’t that be twenty-one with Harry? But Werner doesn’t say anything so I keep quiet. I guess Harry sees his role as a supervisory one.
“How do you know they’re all to be trusted?” asks Werner, looking up from a map of the underground sewer system which he’s been poring over all evening.
“We questioned them intensively,” I say. “About their motives.” Actually Harry charmed most of them into joining with his charismatic personality.
Harry tosses the piece of paper over to me. “Can you draw up a twenty-four hour rota Dieter? We need four shifts of six hours around the clock. If we have five people on each shift that will mean two to dig, two to remove the buckets of rubble and one on lookout duty on the roof.”
“Sure,” I say, looking down the list of names. I’m as keen as anyone to get started and will make sure I’m on the first shift. Tomorrow we start digging.
Sabine
I wait for someone to take me back to the interrogation room, but no one comes. The guard brings me bread and thin, watery soup. I don’t have much of an appetite, but I force myself to eat. I will need to keep my strength up if I’m to face another round of questioning.
The light at the window starts to fade and eventually turns dark. I had hoped to be home by now, not still stuck here, helpless and alone. I imagine Brigitta telling Mother about the two men who came to take me away. This could push Mother right over the edge.
I stay awake long after it has turned dark outside. The light is still on in my room. I start to feel tired. It must be well past midnight, so I lie down on the bed and close my eyes. As soon as I do, the cell door opens and the guard stomps in.
“Get up!” he shouts.
I sit up, feeling scared. Then he grabs me by the arm and marches me back to the interrogation room for another round of questioning.
Frau Biedermeier must have reapplied her lipstick because her lips are redder and angrier than ever. I take a deep breath as she rests her elbows on the desk, fingertips together, eyebrows arched. What has she got in store for me this time? The adrenalin pumping through my veins is keeping me awake.
“I hope you’ve used your time to reconsider your answers to my questions.”
I say nothing.
We go over all the same questions as before - Didn’t you see who was in the room when you went back in? Didn’t you even bother to look? How many of them were there? Were they boys or girls or both? Why did you pick up the pen? It was you who defaced the portraits wasn’t it? – and some new questions designed to test my socialist credentials - Do you consider yourself to be a good socialist? Do you listen to RIAS radio? Do you believe in the German Democratic Republic?
I stick doggedly to my story about what happened in the classroom, that I didn’t see who it was, and I do my best to sound like a true and faithful member of the socialist state, even trying to remember some of the phrases about the class struggle that Herr Schmidt regularly spouts.
By the time Frau Biedermeier draws this interview to a close the adrenalin rush I experienced at the start has drained away, leaving me feeling weak and exhausted. It must be about four or five in the morning.
The guard takes me back to my cell where I collapse on the bed. The light is turned off and I am permitted to sleep. But it’s not enough. Before I know what is happening the light is switched back on and the guard shouts at me through the spy-hole to wake up.
I open my eyes with a groan. Outside it’s already light. I think I’ve had about two hours’ sleep, no more. I continue to lie there, my whole body aching from the lack of sleep and the hard mattress. The cell door opens and the guard marches over to the bed, grabs hold of my wrists and pulls me to my feet.
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” he shouts. “You have to wake up. That means get up. No lying down, no sitting. Stand there.”
He pushes me into the centre of the room, then walks out, slamming the door behind him.
I’m so shocked at this behaviour, I just stand there, staring at the door. My body is screaming at me to lie down, but I tell myself to be strong and stay awake. Don’t let them beat you, Sabine.
A few times my eyes close and I sway on my feet, almost falling over. But I always wake up just before I lose my balance. When I think I can’t stand there a second longer, the door opens and I am taken back to the interrogation room.
Frau Biedermeier repeats the whole performance as before and I give her the same answers as previously. There’s a new reel in the tape recorder.
I’m so tired I can hardly concentrate on Frau Biedermeier’s questions. I wonder what she hopes to achieve. Then I realise this is part of her plan. To disorientate me, so that I let slip the names of the perpetrators. Or just give in so they’ll let me go to sleep. I tell her nothing.
I’m taken back to the cell and given some bread and water. It’s going to be another long day.
Dieter
I’m up early, keen to make a start on the tunnel. A couple of the new recruits arrive just before nine o’clock and I let them into the bakery, locking the door behind them. We can’t risk anyone wandering in and discovering our plans. Werner was saying only last night that a half-built tunnel in another part of Berlin had to be abandoned when the team digging it was infiltrated by Stasi spies from the East.
The pair who’ve come to help dig today are students that Harry and I recruited from the university. Andreas is an engineering student who looks as if he could single-handedly dig his way out of Colditz. I wish we had more like him. Thomas is studying maths and, if I’m honest, doesn’t look as if he’s built for hard, physical labour. Still, we need all the hands we can get, and I’m not exactly Hercules either. Neither of them have friends or family in East Berlin, but they volunteered their services out of hatred of the totalitarian regime in East Germany.
“Right,” says Andreas, rubbing his hands together. “Show us where to dig.”
I take them both down to the cellar to meet Claudia and Werner. Werner is kneeli
ng at a couple of upturned crates he’s using as a makeshift desk. He’s still studying the plans. He must have gone over them a hundred times, measuring distances on the map and working out angles. Last night he even asked me to check them. I never dreamt, when I was at school, that one day I’d be using Pythagoras’ Theorem for something useful. Claudia is busy examining the tools, weighing the pick-axes and shovels in her hands.
“This is Andreas and Thomas,” I say. “They’re here to help with the digging, so let’s get started.”
Werner looks up, removes his glasses, rubs the bridge of his nose and puts his glasses back on. Then he claps his hands together and another, more decisive Werner suddenly seems to appear. “Right, first we need to decide who’s doing what.” He turns to Claudia. “I thought you could do the first lookout duty.” He picks up a pair of binoculars and a radio transmitter and holds them out to her.
Claudia has a pick-axe in her right hand and is tapping the handle against her left palm. For a moment she looks at Werner as if she’d like to attack him with it. Then she rolls her eyes to the ceiling, and drops the pick-axe on the floor.
“Sure, I’ll do lookout duty,” she says taking the proffered binoculars and radio transmitter. “Just give me a shout when you guys get tired digging.” She stomps up the stairs. I make a mental note to check she’s all right later.
“OK,” says Werner, “the first task is to dig a vertical shaft. I’ve marked out where we’re going to dig on the floor over here.” He walks over to the middle of the cellar and shows us a chalk circle, one and a half metres in diameter. “We won’t know how difficult it is to dig until we get started so I suggest we just get on with it.”
“Great,” says Andreas. Thomas looks a little less confident.
We each choose a pick-axe and shovel and position ourselves around the chalk circle.
Werner lifts his pick-axe over his shoulder and swings it into the ground. “East Berlin, here we come!”
Oranges for Christmas Page 11