“Hey, you’re doing great there,” she says. I give her a grateful smile.
She takes away the full buckets, leaving me with empty ones. I’ll have them filled in no time at this rate.
Andreas appears behind me. “We need more wood,” he says. “I’ll be back in half an hour or so.”
“OK,” I say without pausing to turn around. I’m determined to dig as far as I can whilst he’s gone. Werner said we shouldn’t dig too far ahead of the shored up section, but if I don’t make real progress Andreas will no doubt give me some stick when he gets back. He clearly doesn’t think I’m up to the job, but I’ll show him.
I keep hacking at the earth. Werner’s light makes being down here a lot less depressing and the clay is becoming sandier so it’s easier to dig. I soon fill the buckets Claudia brought me. She takes those away and then returns with a fresh pair.
“Want to swap over for a bit?” she asks.
“All right,” I say. I move back to let her through. She squeezes past me. I inhale the sweet smell of her soap. She always smells nice, even in the mud and filth of the tunnel.
She pushes the spade into the soil. Werner was wrong to think she couldn’t do as good a job as the rest of us. “Go on then,” she says turning to look at me with a grin on her face. “Take the buckets away.”
“Yes, boss. Sorry.” I pick up the buckets of rubble and make my way back up the tunnel, hunched over like an old man. When I reach the vertical shaft I fix the first bucket onto the hook on the end of the pulley system and give the rope a yank.
“Bucket coming up,” I call.
Werner hauls it to the surface. I do the same with the second bucket, then start to climb up the shaft myself. I’m right at the top when I hear a thud and a muffled scream from inside the tunnel.
Werner looks at me. “What the hell was that?”
I don’t answer. I’m already scrambling back down the shaft, my feet and hands slipping on the footholds in my desperation to reach the tunnel face. I jump the last couple of metres, then run, as best I can bent double, back down the tunnel.
Where, a few moments before, I’d left Claudia digging, now there is only a pile of earth. Her right foot is sticking out of the rubble. The rest of her is completely buried.
I go into overdrive, tearing at the earth with my bare hands.
“Claudia! Claudia! Can you hear me?” I shout at her, oblivious of the East German guards above our heads. Please God, I think, let her be all right. Let her still be alive.
My fingers scrabble through the soil until they touch something warm and soft. Flesh. I can feel her arm. I grab hold of it and start to pull but I can’t get her out. The weight of the earth on top of her is too heavy.
There’s a noise behind me in the tunnel. It’s Werner. Together, we shovel armfuls of earth off her body until suddenly Claudia’s face emerges, then her neck and shoulders. We grab hold of her and pull her free.
She sits up coughing and spitting out mouthfuls of brown, slimy earth. I try to rub the dirt from her face and hair. She doesn’t say anything.
“Help me carry her upstairs,” I say to Werner.
“I’m OK,” croaks Claudia.
“No you’re not,” I say. “You could have died under there.”
I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. If I hadn’t tried to dig so far ahead of the shored up section this would never have happened. Neither Werner nor Claudia says anything, but I know this accident was all my fault.
Sabine
At school on Monday Astrid doesn’t say anything about being at the theatre on Friday night. When I ask her how her weekend was she just shrugs her shoulders and says nothing much happened. I’m puzzled by this but can’t ask her about it without giving away the fact that I was at the theatre too, so I let it drop. Knowing Astrid, she probably found the play so boring she doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning.
Anyway, I’ve got other things on my mind. Encouraged by the success with Manfred Heilmann, I plan to contact Marion Weber, Werner’s girlfriend, this afternoon as soon as school has finished. When the bell rings, I make an excuse to Astrid about needing to take Brigitta to buy some new shoes (I hate all this lying and subterfuge) and head off towards the U-bahn at Schönhauser Allee. I’m going to Biesdorf-Süd to look for Marion Weber at the factory where she works.
I find the Trabant factory easily enough from the plumes of grey smoke pouring out of the tall, brick chimneys. The main gates to the factory are closed but I peer through them and realise from the sight of the sprawling buildings that this place must employ hundreds, if not thousands, of people. I wonder if I’ve made a mistake in hoping to find Marion amongst all the workers who will be coming out at half past five.
I’ve still got twenty minutes before clocking off time and I can’t stand outside the factory that long without drawing attention to myself so I go to a café which I passed on the way here, order a coffee and sit down at a table by the window.
I return to the factory gates a minute before half past five. On the dot of five thirty the doors to the factory open and dozens of factory workers in identical blue overalls spill out onto the forecourt and make their way towards the gates. How am I going to find Marion in this crowd? I sneak a quick look at her photograph which I have in my pocket then I look back at the faces of the workers. I see tired, grim-faced men and women who are bored by the monotony of their lives and who do not smile. At first glance everyone looks the same.
Then I see her. She’s hard to miss. She stands out from the crowd because she has a spring to her step, even after a long, hard day at the factory. She manages to wear her overalls as if they were an item of fashion clothing instead of functional work wear. She looks to be about two or three years older than me. As she walks towards the gates she unties her hair and shakes out the bottle blond curls that fall over her shoulders.
I start to move towards her, wanting to catch her before she disappears from view. She sees me walking in her direction, pauses for a fraction of a second and then keeps moving. I follow her. She looks back, appears to assess me, then gives me the tiniest nod of encouragement. I run to catch her up. To my surprise, she slips her arm through mine.
“Just act normal and pretend we’re best friends,” she whispers.
I try to do as she suggests and we continue down the street in the direction of the U-bahn station.
“I have a message from Werner,” I say.
“I hoped that was what it was,” she says.
I quickly tell her about the tunnel and pass her a note which she slips inside her overalls without reading it.
“Listen,” she says, gripping my arm tighter and leaning in close, “you must be very careful around here. You know that don’t you?”
“Because of informers?” I ask.
She nods. “There are spies and collaborators swarming all over the factory. Tomorrow, if anyone asks me who you are I’ll say you’re an old friend from school and you just dropped by to say hello.”
“Of course.” I like the idea of being an “old friend” of Marion’s.
At the U-bahn we go our separate ways. She is travelling east towards Cottbusser Platz and I must return to Prenzlauer Allee. Although I’ve only just met her, I hope we really can be friends once we make it to West Berlin. I have to believe that we will make it. It’s the only thing that keeps me going.
Dieter
Claudia is resting on the sofa, bathed and patched up. Werner ordered her to take a day off after her ordeal even though she insisted she was fine. She doesn’t look fine to me. She’s covered in cuts and bruises and she’s still coughing like a nineteenth-century consumptive and complaining of a headache. I’ve taken ten minutes off from the digging to make her a mug of coffee and check how she is.
“Thanks Dieter,” she says taking the steaming mug from my hands. “You really don’t need to fuss over me, you know.”
I still feel really guilty about what happened to her yesterday and I want her to know how sor
ry I am. I kneel down on the floor beside her.
“Listen, Claudia, I…”
The door bursts open and Harry charges into the room. I’ve never seen him look so angry. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him for a couple of days.
He takes one look at Claudia lying on the sofa then turns on me. “What the hell was going on yesterday?”
“What do you mean?” I ask, getting to my feet. He might at least have asked Claudia how she is.
“This!” Harry says, indicating the prone Claudia who immediately tries to sit up but falls back with her hand on her head. I’m worried she’s suffering from concussion and should see a doctor but Werner doesn’t want to risk anyone finding out what we’re doing.
Harry ignores Claudia’s plight and addresses his comments to me. “Werner tells me the fucking tunnel collapsed because it wasn’t shored up properly.”
“It was being shored up,” I say, trying to keep my temper. “Andreas had gone to fetch more wood.”
“But you carried on digging. You should have stopped work and waited for him to come back.”
I think this is a bit rich coming from someone who is always so impatient to see progress and yet hasn’t shifted so much as a thimbleful of soil himself.
“What are you saying?” I round on him. “That this is all my fault?”
“Yes, I am as a matter of fact.”
I’m furious. Even though I do blame myself for being too keen to make progress, the last thing I need right now is Harry giving me his opinion. If I hadn’t handed over to Claudia it would have been me under that rubble. It should have been me. But I’m still not prepared to take this kind of crap from someone who doesn’t actually do any digging himself.
“Instead of criticising other people,” I shout at him, “how about you get your lazy arse down there and do some of the hard work for a change?”
The anger flares in his eyes. “You know what I do. I risk my freedom every time I go to East Berlin.”
“Yeah right,” I snort, “like you don’t enjoy swanning around like some secret agent in a war film. This is all a game to you isn’t it?”
Claudia tries to sit up. “Dieter, please…”
But I’m not in a mood to listen to reason. I take a step towards Harry and jab my finger at his chest. “Why don’t you get yourself down that tunnel and see what it feels like to spend hour after hour hacking away at the earth, living like a rat in a sewer? Or what? Too afraid of getting dirty are you?”
For a moment I think he’s going to punch me. He lifts his fist to shoulder height and his eyes are blazing.
Claudia screams at us to stop.
Harry’s fist hovers in the air. I stand my ground and look him straight in the eye. He lets his hand fall to his side. Then he turns and storms out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
Sabine
I have one more person I need to contact - Ingrid Huber, Claudia’s aunt in Pankow. So on Saturday I take the S-bahn to Pankow-Heinersdorf, leaving Mother and Brigitta at home baking a cake for Michaela Mann who is going to be seven tomorrow.
I find Ingrid’s house in a quiet street of white-washed bungalows with square patches of lawn and neatly trimmed hedges out the front. I recognise Ingrid from the photograph of the picnic on the beach. She is in the garden pruning rose bushes with a pair of secateurs. She is a small woman with her brown hair tied tightly in a ponytail. She is wearing thick leather gloves to protect her hands from the thorns. I can hear children running around in the back garden.
“Guten Tag,” I call to her over the low wall which separates the property from the road.
She looks up from her pruning, startled. I can see the suspicion in her eyes, thinking, who is this stranger?
“Sind Sie Frau Huber?” Even though I already know who she is, it only seems polite to ask.
“Ja.” She is holding herself very rigid as if she expects me to denounce her as a traitor. For all she knows, I could be from the Stasi. “And you are?” she asks in a tentative voice.
“Sabine Neumann. I have news from Claudia.”
At the mention of Claudia’s name Ingrid breathes out a sigh of relief, puts the secateurs into her pocket and takes off her gardening gloves.
“Oh, thank goodness. I thought for a moment…” she doesn’t finish what she was going to say but instead opens the garden gate. “Please, come in.”
As I enter the garden two children run round the corner of the bungalow, chasing each other. A girl and a boy. The girl looks to be about eight, the same age as Brigitta. The boy is maybe a couple of years younger. At the sight of me they stop dead in their tracks and stare. They have obviously been taught to be wary of strangers.
“It’s all right children,” says Ingrid. “This lady is a friend. Go and play until I call you for tea.” With those words of reassurance the children disappear round the side of the bungalow. Ingrid leads me inside.
Whilst she makes us both some tea, I tell her how Claudia and my brother are working as part of a team to build a tunnel so we can escape from East Berlin.
“I knew Claudia would do something,” she says, setting two mugs of steaming tea down on the table. “She’s a brave girl.”
“Yes,” I say. “We owe them a great deal.”
I stay half an hour chatting to her about Claudia and the two younger children whose names, I learn, are Stefanie and Jens. During the week Stefanie goes to school and Jens attends the Kindergarten. Ingrid is a nurse at the local hospital.
“For my own sake,” she tells me, leaning across the table and speaking confidentially, “I would probably just stay here and make the best of things. The hospital lost so many doctors and qualified nurses to the West before the Wall went up. But Stefanie and Jens deserve a better life than they’ll get in East Berlin.”
I thank her for the tea and promise to be back in touch as soon as I have more news of when the tunnel will be ready. Then I head for home.
I’m keen to tell Brigitta and Mother that I have made contact with all the people on Harry’s list and, as far as I’m aware, I haven’t been followed. I exit the S-bahn at Schönhauser Allee and walk quickly up Stargarder Strasse. As I’m nearing our building a brown Skoda drives away from the other side of the street.
Inside, I peer through the grilles of the letter box but it’s empty. No messages today. I press the light switch and start up the stairs. The Mann apartment is quiet. On the second floor Frau Lange’s door is ajar. It closes just as I turn the corner of the stairs. I have developed the habit of hurrying past Herr Schiller’s door on the third floor because the memories are so painful. I run up the last flight of stairs, trying to reach the apartment before the light times out. The top landing is eerily quiet and an unfamiliar smell catches my nose. I turn my key in the lock and go inside calling, “Brigitta! Mother!”
No answer.
The apartment is in darkness. I fumble for the light switch by the door. Somebody has been here. I can smell it. It’s the same smell I noticed on the landing, only more intense. Aftershave and cigarette smoke.
“Brigitta! Mother!”
I go to the kitchen and find the cake ingredients spread out on the table – flour, sugar, butter, eggs – but no sign of my mother or sister.
Then I remember the brown Skoda, and I know what has happened. My legs start to shake and I have to grab a chair and sit down. Whilst I was visiting Ingrid Huber in Pankow, the Stasi came calling. They have taken my mother and sister away. For questioning.
I can picture it in my mind’s eye. The knock at the door. The strange men standing there, demanding that Mother and Brigitta accompany them to Stasi HQ. But then what? Have the Stasi locked them in a cell? Together? Apart? And why?
I rush to the bedroom where I keep Harry’s letters tucked inside my notebook in the chest of drawers. The first letter ended up in the Kachelofen the day the Stasi came for me, but the second one, the one with the names, addresses and photos of the people I’m supposed to contact was still insid
e the notebook when I left home this morning.
I wrench open the drawer. The notebook has gone.
I throw myself down on the bed and weep.
~~~~
Chapter 6 - Oranges for Christmas
Sabine
I don’t leave the apartment all day. I want to be here in case Mother and Brigitta return, but realistically I don’t expect to see them again today. I blame myself for their arrests. If I hadn’t stayed chatting with Ingrid Huber I would have been home when the Stasi came. They could have taken me instead. I would have done anything to prevent them taking Mother and Brigitta.
I’m incensed that the Stasi would want to interrogate an eight year old child, but, if I’m honest, I’m more worried about Mother than my little sister. Brigitta can be resilient and resourceful as she proved at the theatre, but I dread to think what Mother might say if she’s put under pressure.
And as for the notebook and the letter inside it - how could I have been so stupid not to have destroyed that letter as soon as I’d read it? I memorised the names and addresses from the start, so I should never have kept it. I may have jeopardised the whole tunnel project. And what will the Stasi do with the notebook? It contains names and addresses of family and friends. They could track down Dieter.
Night falls and I know I should try to get some rest. I don’t undress but lie down on the lower bunk in my clothes. I lie there for ages, picturing the interrogation room at Stasi HQ. Frau Biedermeier comes unbidden into my mind’s eye, her eyebrows blacker and her lips redder than ever.
I must have fallen asleep in the early hours because I wake up shivering. I forgot to close the curtains last night and outside it’s a grey, cold morning with drizzle running down the window.
I sit up and rub my arms to warm myself up. We will need to start fetching coal from the cellar soon. I make my way to the kitchen, conscious of how empty and quiet the apartment is without Brigitta to brighten it up.
The ingredients of yesterday’s baking session are still laid out on the table. Mother and Brigitta had got as far as weighing the flour and butter and putting them together in a mixing bowl. Fortunately they hadn’t cracked any of the eggs. It had been a rare treat to find butter, sugar and eggs in the shop and Brigitta had insisted on baking a cake for Michaela’s birthday. I cover the flour and butter mixture with a cloth and make myself some tea. I don’t feel like eating. Then I take the tea to Brigitta’s favourite reading chair in the living room and sit and wait.
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