I can do nothing except stand there and stroke her hair. I look over her shoulder and see Brigitta standing at the end of the corridor watching us. Then she runs forward and throws her arms around my waist. I’m thrilled to see them. But where is Sabine?
I disentangle myself from the arms of my mother and younger sister. Brigitta puts her finger to her lips to tell me that we must be quiet. Then she pulls me into the kitchen and turns on the radio very loud. It’s an East German news channel. There’s still no sign of Sabine.
The three of us sit down at the kitchen table and lean close together so that we can hear ourselves over the sound of the radio. Mother is too upset to talk, so Brigitta explains, “We think the apartment might be bugged so we have to put the radio on to drown out the sound of us talking.”
“But why would they bug the apartment for God’s sake? And where the hell is Sabine?”
Mother buries her face in her hands.
“We don’t know where she is,” says Brigitta. “We think she’s been arrested by the Stasi.”
“What!”
“She was arrested back in September because of some defaced portraits at school. Now we think it might be to do with her role as a contact for the tunnel.”
Verdammt! Damn! This is a hammer blow to everything I’ve worked for over the last few months. The Stasi must have linked Sabine with Harry. Harry was a physical wreck after the Stasi had finished with him. I dread to think what those bastards are doing to Sabine.
Brigitta lays a hand on my arm. She’s remarkably calm in the circumstances. “How did you get across the border?” she asks.
“I came through the tunnel,” I say. I take Harry’s letter from my pocket. “These are the final instructions about when and where to meet. The escape is planned for tomorrow night.”
For the first time, Mother looks up. “We’re not going anywhere without Sabine.”
“Of course not,” I say.
Brigitta takes the letter from me. “I’ll see to this,” she says. “Even if we can’t escape, there’s no reason why other people shouldn’t get the chance.”
I can’t believe this is my little sister talking.
I wish there was something I could do for Sabine, but it’s impossible. I can’t make my presence here in East Berlin known. “I have to go back through the tunnel,” I say. “There are people waiting for me on the other side. If I don’t return they’ll think I’ve been arrested and then the whole tunnel project will fail.”
Mother nods. “We understand. And Dieter,” she reaches across the table and takes my hand, “we’re very, very proud of you.”
It’s nearly midnight by the time I emerge from the tunnel into the bakery in West Berlin. Werner and Claudia are still in the cellar waiting for me.
They pull me up out of the tunnel and I collapse onto the floor, my head resting on my knees.
“You’re back,” says Claudia. She sounds happy. “We were getting really worried about you. How did it go?”
I can’t talk. I just sit there and shake my head. I should feel happy at the success of my mission but all I can feel is anger and sorrow that Sabine has been arrested. I dug this tunnel for Sabine, Brigitta and Mother, but now it looks like it was all in vain.
~~~~
Chapter 9 - The Tunnel
Sabine
The light comes on and I sit up. My head throbs with pain and I put a hand to my face. The skin around my right eye feels swollen. Then I remember being hit and falling to the floor. I don’t know what happened after that. I suppose I was brought back here, to my cell.
I know I have sealed my fate. By refusing to sign up as an informer I will probably spend the rest of my life here. Even though I’m so tired, I am aware of the irony of the situation. I was falsely arrested for defacing the portraits in school. Now I have sprayed ink over a real life Stasi official. Hans would be proud of me.
Outside in the corridor there’s a stomping of boots, then a clanking of metal as the bolts are slid across. The door opens and I jump to my feet. Two guards enter and take hold of me. I assume they are taking me back to the interrogation room. But they march me in a different direction. Mein Gott! I think, what torture have they planned for me this time? Part of me is too tired to care, the other part of me is scared as hell.
To my alarm they take me to the loading area where the bread van which is really a prisoner transporter is parked. At the sight of that vehicle I react like a frightened animal. I shake my head from side to side and try to break free from the guards, shouting and crying, but I’m too weak and they are holding me too tight. They push me inside and I stumble on the steps, falling into the narrow corridor. This time all the cells are empty, their doors standing open.
One of the guards pushes me inside the nearest cell and closes the door on me. I collapse into the dark, airless space and shut my eyes. I’m defeated. The engine starts and I’m driven away, to God knows where.
I must have slept because the next thing I know is, the cell door opens and two pairs of hands haul me to my feet and throw me out of the van onto the hard ground. Then the van drives away.
I stay there, on the ground, stones digging into my palms. I’m waiting for someone to grab me by the arm, haul me to my feet and drag me off for further questioning. But nothing happens.
After a minute I look up and realise that I’m entirely on my own in some back street I don’t recognise. It’s not yet fully light. The first rays of a grey dawn are seeping through the darkness.
I stagger to my feet and look around. Most of the buildings here are bombed out shells. There’s no one around. Slowly, it dawns on me that I have been dumped somewhere, but I am no longer in custody.
I’m so tired, it’s tempting to lie down in the dust and fall asleep. But it’s also freezing cold, and if I lie down I’ll die. Maybe that’s what the Stasi were hoping for, but I’m determined they won’t get their wish. On shaky legs, I start walking towards the corner of the street. I keep looking to left and right, expecting to see a pale green Wartburg on the main road, or a windowless van, but there’s nothing.
I try to work out where I am. There are more apartments and a small factory. I head towards the factory, thinking it must be near to a main road. I turn another corner and find myself on Dimitroffstrasse. I know my way home from here. It will be a terribly long walk, and I don’t know if I’ve got the strength to do it. But I don’t have any money for a train fare. So I put one foot in front of the other and stare straight ahead, the thought of seeing Mother and Brigitta again the only thing keeping me going.
Dieter
It’s happening tonight; this is the culmination of months of digging; this is the day I’ve been waiting for. But without knowing where Sabine is, the tunnel seems to me a futile waste of effort. If I can’t get my family out of East Berlin then I’ve thrown away months of my life underground. I should have tried to get them false passports. But now Sabine is in custody and it’s too late. I’ve failed them.
The kitchen door opens and Claudia appears. “Hey, are you going to help us finalise the tunnel or are you going to spend the whole day up here moping?”
She looks pointedly at her watch. “It’s already ten o’clock. We could really do with your help to get this ladder fixed into place.” Werner was saying something this morning about installing a proper ladder in the vertical shaft to make it easier for the escapees to climb out. He also wants to install a slide at the tunnel entrance in Schönholzer Strasse to make it quicker and easier for people to enter the tunnel.
“Sorry,” I say, “I’m just not up to much today. I’m too worried about Sabine.”
Claudia comes over and sits beside me. “I know you are,” she says taking my hand. “But there are lots of other people hoping to escape through the tunnel tonight. You have to ask yourself, what would Sabine want you to do right now?”
When Claudia puts it like that, I realise that I’ve been selfish, wallowing in my own misery. Sabine wouldn’t want me to be s
itting here doing nothing, she’d want me to be doing everything I can to get as many people out of East Berlin as possible.
“You’re right,” I say to Claudia. “I should come and help. What do you want me to do first?”
Claudia grins. “Any good with a hammer?”
Sabine
When I reach the apartment building I’m so tired that I almost collapse on the floor of the entrance hall. But the thought of being discovered by Frau Lange gives me the strength I need to drag myself up the stairs. When I reach the fourth floor I use what little strength I have left to bang on the apartment door. There are voices and hurried footsteps from inside. Then the door opens and I fall into the arms of Mother and Brigitta. I can’t believe I’m home.
Mother insists on giving me some bread to eat and tea to drink, but I fall asleep at the kitchen table so Brigitta leads me to the bedroom and tucks me into bed.
*
I have strange, disturbing dreams where Frau Biedermeier and Herr Schulz morph into a single being - half witch, half devil. I’m trapped in the top of a tower with no way out. Dieter rides his horse through the forest to rescue me but the Biedermeier-Schulz monster casts a spell and he is turned to stone. Now the tower has become a dungeon and I’ll never escape. The dungeon is filling with water and I’m going to drown…I can’t breathe…I can’t breathe…I can’t…
I open my eyes. It takes me a moment to realise I’m not dead. I’m home in bed. Safe.
No, not safe.
Not safe at all. I’ll never be safe so long as I continue to remain in this country. The Stasi have my name on file. They have a long list of charges against me. They will never erase those charges. They will never let me go.
And yet I’m here. I don’t understand why I was released from the prison. I didn’t sign up as an informer like they wanted me to. So why did they let me go?
The bedroom door opens and Brigitta walks in.
“You’re awake,” she says, running over and sitting on the edge of the bed.
I pull myself up to a sitting position. “What time is it?”
“Six o’clock in the evening.”
Brigitta passes me a piece of paper. In big letters she has scrawled the words,
TUNNEL ESCAPE TONIGHT. DON’T TALK. APARTMENT MAY BE BUGGED.
I stare at her in astonishment and she nods her head, grinning and mouthing the word, tonight.
The fact that she suspects the apartment of being bugged doesn’t surprise me. The Stasi could easily have come in one day when Mother was at work and Brigitta and I were at school. They will have been listening in to every conversation, but since when? There’s no point trying to find the bugging devices – there are probably loads of them and they’d soon know if we tried to destroy them. Then they’d arrest the whole lot of us.
I hand the piece of paper back to Brigitta and indicate, with sign language, that she should burn it in the Kachelofen. She crumples it up and runs into the living room. Then she comes back to the bedroom.
“Come and have something to eat,” she says. “Then maybe we can…” she makes a walking motion with the two fingers of her right hand. I nod. If the apartment is bugged we can’t talk here. We’ll have to go for a walk if we want to say anything to each other, even though I’m terrified I’ll be arrested again if I step outside. But I think of the tunnel and more than ever I’m determined to make it to West Berlin.
I eat a quick meal of bread and cheese, then we walk down Stargarder Strasse towards the Ernst-Thälmann park. I’m jumpy and I find myself looking out for anything suspicious, but we don’t see anything except a few battered Trabants.
Once we’re in the park I feel a little calmer. I used to come here to play with Dieter when I was small, it being one of the few bits of green space that wasn’t a cemetery. There are benches in the park but I think it’s safer to keep walking. There is a woman pushing a pram and a man sitting on a bench reading a newspaper.
“Everything is ready for tonight,” says Brigitta under her breath. “I have made all the arrangements with Marion, Ingrid and Manfred.”
That is the best news I’ve heard for a long time. “Well done,” I say. I’d like to hear all the details but there isn’t time now. We need to keep our conversation brief. But there is one thing I’d like to know.
“What would you have done if I hadn’t come back?”
Brigitta doesn’t hesitate with her answer. “I’d have made sure the others got out, but I wouldn’t have gone without you.”
“Listen,” I say, turning to face her, “you must promise me one thing.”
“What is it?”
“You must promise me that if anything happens to me, like it did before, that you will escape to West Berlin with Mother. Do you understand?”
She frowns. “But I can’t go without you, Sabine.”
“But if you have to, you should. Do you hear me? Dieter will be there to look after you when you get to the other side. If something goes wrong and I’m…caught, I couldn’t bear it knowing that you and Mother are still here when you could have escaped. Will you promise me that you’ll go when you get the chance?”
She takes a deep breath. “I promise.”
“Thank you.”
We do another lap of the park. The man with the newspaper folds it and stands up. Suddenly I want to be back in the relative safety of the apartment. We head home and wait for night to fall.
Dieter
“I’ll go to the café and bring everyone to the tunnel,” says Claudia.
“But that’s the most dangerous job,” I say. “You should let me do that.”
“And what makes you think you’d be any better at it than me?”
“I’m not saying that, I’m just saying I don’t want you taking such a big risk.”
“You men!” says Claudia turning away in frustration and going to stare out of the kitchen window. We’ve been arguing about who should do what for the last twenty minutes.
“I think Claudia’s right,” says Harry. “She’s unknown to the East Germans. They’re less likely to suspect a woman. She can slip quickly from the house to the café. They won’t give her a second glance.”
“Thank you,” says Claudia to Harry. She gives me a told-you-so look.
I’m cross that Harry has taken her side on this. It should have been Harry’s job to bring the escapees to the house in Schönholzer Strasse, but since he can’t enter East Berlin without being arrested, and can’t go through the tunnel without having a panic attack, it has to be one of us. “And what do you want me to do?” I ask, aware of the sulky tone in my voice.
“You take this,” says Harry leaning down to fetch something out of the holdall that’s lying on the floor at his feet. He passes a rifle across to me.
“Scheisse,” I say, holding the weapon in both hands. I’ve never held anything like this before. The metal is cold and heavy. “Where the fuck did you get this?”
“Don’t ask,” says Harry in a tone of voice that’s not to be questioned.
“But what do you expect me to do with it?”
“Guard the entrance to the cellar in Schönholzer Strasse.”
“But surely you don’t expect me to shoot anyone?”
“That’s up to you,” says Harry coolly. “It depends on the situation. Werner?”
“Yes?”
“Will you stay in the tunnel and help people through? Some of them might be scared, being in such a confined space.” There’s a flicker of embarrassment in Harry’s eyes.
“Sure,” says Werner. “And what about you and Andreas?”
“Andreas can wait at the bottom of the vertical shaft for people to come through. If anyone is too weak or infirm to climb the ladder, he can give them a fireman’s lift.” Andreas grins at this. He’s the only one of us who could possibly do such a thing. “I’ll meet them at the top and have the beers ready. And when the last person is safely through, we can let Rolf go so he can go back to East Berlin and report on the success of ou
r project and the failure of his mission. Everyone happy?”
I’m not at all happy, but everyone else nods in agreement so it’s better I just shut up and go along with the plan.
“Right then,” says Harry. “Everyone into position.”
Sabine
This time there will be no bags or rucksacks. I don’t even suggest that we wear extra layers of clothes because it seems like tempting fate and makes me think of the failed escape attempt with Herr Schiller. There’s no point taking any money with us because Ostmarks are worthless in the West. The only thing I do is remove the photographs of Hans and his father from their frames and tuck them inside my sweater.
We spend the final hour in the apartment quietly. Mother is looking through the photograph album, saying her final farewells to Father and Oma. Brigitta is reading her book of fairy stories one last time. I sit and stare into open space, wondering what happened to Matthias and Joachim, wishing I could have said good-bye to Astrid but, most of all, thinking about Hans.
On the stroke of nine o’clock I rouse myself.
“It’s time to go,” I say.
Mother goes to her room and returns wearing her best dark coat. I want to say it will most likely get ruined in the tunnel, but what’s the point?
We’ve agreed that Mother and Brigitta will go first and I will follow five minutes later. It looks less suspicious if we leave separately and the Stasi are more likely to follow me than them. I help Brigitta into her coat. Mother is in the hallway putting her shoes on. I kneel down to Brigitta and speak quietly so that Mother can’t hear.
“Remember what you promised me?” I say.
Brigitta nods her head but doesn’t say anything.
I want to say more, but Mother appears in the doorway.
“Off you go then,” I say to Brigitta trying to keep my voice light. “I’ll see you in the café.”
Mother comes over to me. She looks pale and her hands are trembling. “Sabine,” she says, her voice shaking. “I…”
We haven’t got time for big emotional speeches and I would much rather Mother and Brigitta just got going. I give her a hug and push her gently towards the door. “Go. We mustn’t be late. I’ll follow in exactly five minutes.”
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