Stasi Wolf

by David Young

  Sometimes now I’ll pretend. If Frau Becker says her footballer has been kicking again, sometimes I’ll say: ‘Oh. I felt a little nudge then. Only a very gentle one. I don’t think mine’s a footballer. She must be a baby girl.’ I did that this morning, and Frau Becker laughed. It’s so nice to be meeting these new friends. I haven’t had many friends these past few years.

  Frau Becker of course suffers terribly from morning sickness. I don’t feel left out about that. Hansi gives me these little pills to prevent it. He’s so clever. He works at the chemical factory at Leuna, you know. Has a very good job. Went to university. I was never clever enough for that. And he does some work for the Ministry too – he’s quite important. Sometimes he gets me to help with his official Ministry business. You know, if I see anything that doesn’t look quite right. If anyone’s acting oddly, and might need the authorities to help them.

  Anyway, that’s enough daydreaming. That’s my trouble, always daydreaming. Try to stay calm, think of the future, the future with the new baby. We’ve so much to look forward to, that’s what Hansi always says.

  *

  There’s a new shop they’ve just opened in Schkeuditz so I’m popping out this afternoon to pay a visit. I won’t buy anything, of course. I’ve promised Hansi I’ll try not to buy any more. But it’s so exciting. All the tiny, brand new clothes. I love the smell, the feel of them. I’ve got quite a collection in the chest of drawers in the apartment. Two drawers full. I don’t think Hansi knows quite how much stuff I’ve already got. But it’s best to be prepared. What would happen if there was a sudden shortage of baby girls’ clothes, just after she was born? And it’s only a couple of months away now.

  I’m one of the lucky ones who doesn’t show that much. I don’t like to gossip, but if you had a really obvious bump like Frau Becker’s, well, it must be so uncomfortable, mustn’t it? I wonder how she gets to sleep at night? I expect she has to sleep on her back. That’s another thing that did worry me for a while. But Hansi said the doctor told him that I’m a big girl, and baby bumps don’t show so much on big girls. That made me chuckle. I’m not so very big, but I do admit I am rather partial to a slice or two of apple mousse cake. What expectant mother wouldn’t be?

  *

  There was such a rude woman on the bus to Schkeuditz just now. Who did she think she was? We’re all supposed to be equal now, aren’t we? But she was tutting and sighing as she sat next to me, claiming I was taking up two seats in the bus, not the one I was entitled to. I said I was expecting, though, and started rubbing my stomach, faking a bit of pain. That soon shut her up. Stupid woman.

  *

  The bell that rings as I enter the shop startles me, and just for a moment I wonder where I am. Sudden noises sometimes do that, you know, after . . .

  Anyway I soon collect myself, and start to look around. I spot a lovely pink all-in-one, and wander over to take a look. The material is so soft, like brushed wool. I stroke it for a moment. That’s the wonder of our new country. We can produce materials that are even better than the real thing. They’ll last longer, I know. Not like the stuff in the throwaway West.

  ‘Can I help you, citizen?’ the young shop assistant asks. She’s a pretty thing, barely out of school. I expect this is her first real job.

  ‘Ooh, I don’t know,’ I sigh. ‘It’s so lovely, but I’m not sure I can afford it.’

  ‘They’re the latest style, just in. They’re proving very popular,’ says the girl. ‘Is one of your friends having a baby?’

  I feel a bit affronted by this, and point to my stomach. ‘I’m expecting. Surely you can tell? Just two months to go.’ The girl reddens. So she should. But then I smile at her. After all, she’s not the first to make that mistake. I lower my voice to a whisper. ‘I must admit it is lovely, but my husband says I shouldn’t buy any more baby clothes.’

  ‘He won’t know, though, will he?’ she whispers back, as though we’re two schoolgirls sharing a secret. ‘Can’t you just hide it away somewhere until the big day?’

  Well I suppose I can, I think. I give her a small nod, and we take it to the payment counter.

  7

  Ten years later: July 1975

  Halle-Neustadt, East Germany

  Back in the incident room in Ha-Neu, Schmidt busied himself with his railway findings – searching for fingerprints on the cigarette butt and lighter – while Müller got ready for her meeting with Malkus. She looked in the mirror on the back of the door, adjusting her minimal make-up – little more than retouching her black eyeliner – and straightening her short coat. The recent sunny days, first in Berlin, now here in Ha-Neu, had given her skin tone a healthy glow. The trauma of the previous case, her break-up with Gottfried, all had seemed to leave their mark earlier in the year. Now she looked more her usual self. Perhaps too youthful-looking for a murder squad head.

  That was the reason for her choice of coat colour. The heat was stifling, but Müller had brought a lightweight red jacket with her from Berlin, and she took it now from the back of the door of the small temporary office Eschler’s team had provided her with. She’d deliberately chosen it to make herself stand out, not in meeting the public, but for her dealings with other officers. The red made her feel more powerful. It was only psychological, perhaps, but she sensed from her earlier meeting with Malkus that winning – or at least competing in – psychological battles might be the key to their relationship.

  Malkus might have summoned her to this meeting, leaving her little choice but to attend. But she planned to use it as an opportunity to push for a full and open search for Maddelena. If – as Eschler and his team claimed – the Stasi were resisting this, then she wanted to know exactly why. A desire to avoid panic seemed trivial, set against the welfare of a baby girl for whom time was almost certainly running out.

  She grabbed the Wartburg’s ignition keys from the table and made her way towards the People’s Police car park. As she did so, Eschler rose from his desk to follow, a shopping bag in one hand, a piece of paper in the other.

  As they descended the stairs, their footsteps echoing like handclaps on the bare concrete, he handed her the piece of paper. It turned out to be a colour-coded map.

  ‘I thought this might be useful. You’re not the only one who gets confused by the numbering system for addresses. I find this helps me. It has all the Wohnkomplexe shaded in different colours, similar to the one on the incident room wall. Sometimes it’s not easy to see where the boundaries of each residential area are. This should do the trick.’

  Müller took the map and nodded her thanks. Hopefully this was a small sign that she was winning the uniform captain over to her side, rather than him treating her as an unwelcome imposter.

  Once they were in the car park, Müller got into the Wartburg’s driver’s seat, and – to her surprise – Eschler climbed into the passenger seat to her right, placing the shopping bag between his legs in the footwell.

  ‘Were you planning on coming with me, Comrade Hauptmann?’

  Eschler laughed. ‘No.’ He leaned towards her, took the map from her clasped hand and unfolded it. ‘I just thought I’d point out the Stasi regional headquarters for Bezirk Halle, which is where Malkus will be meeting you. It’s here, easy enough to find, on the eastern edge of the new town. At the edge of Wohnkomplex VIII – the one that’s shaded blue.’

  Müller’s eyes followed his finger as he traced the route on the map, then were drawn once more to his bag.

  ‘And while I go to meet Malkus, are you planning a shopping trip?’

  Eschler grinned, the smile softening the features that – just a few hours earlier – Müller had found unfriendly, even threatening. ‘No, no,’ he laughed. ‘These are for you.’ He opened the bag so Müller could see its contents. ‘Some vegetables from my family allotment. I realise you won’t have access to anything like that while you’re here, and, well, we had a good crop this year.’

  ‘That’s really kind of you . . .’ She paused for a second
. ‘. . . Bruno. Can I call you Bruno?’

  Eschler shifted in the seat and extended his hand to shake Müller’s. ‘Of course, Comrade Oberleutnant. But in front of the team –’

  ‘Don’t worry. In front of the team, I shall make sure I use your full title, Bruno. And you . . . you must call me Karin.’

  Eschler nodded. ‘I’m sorry if I was a little offhand and unwelcoming today at the briefing. I’m sure you appreciate, it’s difficult having to relinquish control to a team from outside the local area. But I want us to work together in a friendly, cooperative way, as much as possible.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Müller. ‘I understand.’

  ‘The vegetables are my little way of saying sorry.’

  Müller smiled warmly. ‘Much appreciated. Jonas Schmidt and I are off our usual patch. We’ll need your team behind us. The gift is very welcome.’

  Eschler climbed out of the car, but then ducked his head back in again before closing the door. ‘One thing, Karin. Be careful what you agree to with Malkus. I know we’re all on the same side, and by and large want the same thing. But they’re a funny pair, him and Hauptmann Janowitz. The major’s OK if you stay on the right side of him. Janowitz, however . . . well, you’ll probably find you’re dealing with him day to day. And he’s a cold fish. It’s very hard to stay on the right side of Hauptmann Janowitz, take it from me. I would be very careful in your dealings with him.’ The police captain gave a gentle bang on the vehicle’s roof. ‘Anyway, I shouldn’t be keeping you. Good luck.’ He slammed the door and wandered back towards the incident room.

  *

  Müller had left more than enough time to get to her meeting, and now had about twenty minutes to spare. She decided to use it to get her bearings around Ha-Neu in the daylight. The previous evening she and Schmidt had been too busy finding – and settling into – the apartment.

  The lack of street names was something that – coming from Berlin – would take a lot of getting used to, but she managed to navigate by referring to Eschler’s colour-coded plan and comparing that to the numbering of the apartment blocks. What struck her – from the children cooling off in the fountains, mothers in their short dresses pushing their prams over pedestrian walkways, and Pioneers in their white, blue and red uniforms – was a general air of carefree summer happiness. There was no sign that word of what had happened to the twin babies had affected people’s everyday lives. Perhaps the Stasi’s policy of a news blackout was the right way, thought Müller. But she couldn’t shut out the nagging voice in her head that told her that – for the sake of missing baby Maddelena – house-to-house inquiries were necessary. She glanced at another mother with a pram, getting a fleeting look at the baby’s face as she drove past. Although she’d nearly pulled him up for it, what Fernbach had said about most babies looking very similar did have an element of truth. If anyone wanted to steal a baby, perhaps the best way of hiding it would be to pretend it was your own. Was that conceivable?

  Müller suddenly slammed on the brakes to avoid an elderly woman weaving about on a bicycle, the weighed-down shopping nets attached to each handle causing the old dear to wobble alarmingly. The woman’s angry glare reminded Müller of a chore she would rather not face. It was the same sort of thunderous look she’d often been on the receiving end of from her mother. She wouldn’t be able to put off the overdue visit to the family home in Thuringia for much longer. It wasn’t something she was relishing. Her police career had provided her with an escape from the stifling atmosphere of the family home and those angry looks whenever she did the smallest thing wrong. The angry looks that never seemed to be directed towards her younger sister, Sara, and brother, Roland. Why? she wondered. Surely any parent should want to treat their offspring similarly, yet her relationship with her mother had always been fractious at best – occasionally downright hostile. Was that Müller’s fault, her mother’s fault, or something else?

  She’d driven for another few hundred metres almost on autopilot, but now she pulled sharply to a stop and consulted the map. Here, the apartments were newer, uncompleted, with building rubble and dried-up mud between the blocks, and despite trying to follow Eschler’s colour codes, she realised she was lost. Not only that, but in this section of the town the people, the citizens of Ha-Neu, all seemed to have disappeared. No proud mothers pushing prams. No Pioneers in their smartly starched uniforms. Müller felt herself give an involuntary shudder. Panic began to constrict her stomach: she’d be late for her meeting with Malkus, and the psychological protection of her red jacket wouldn’t be much use. Not the best way to start if she really was having her performance monitored.

  Something made her look in the rear-view mirror. Perhaps she was looking for the previous night’s red Lada – the one that may or may not have been following her and Schmidt. That particular car was nowhere to be seen, but some hundred metres or so behind her, a black Skoda was parked on the same side of the road, with a figure at the driver’s side. Had that been following her this time? If it had, she hadn’t noticed. In the sharp shadow thrown by the nearest apartment block, she couldn’t make out if the occupant was male or female. But she hoped they would be able to help her – Stasi observer or not.

  Müller got out of the Wartburg, and – with Eschler’s street map in her hands – made her way towards the Skoda. As she entered the same cloak of shadow that was partially obscuring the car and its occupant, she saw it was a man inside – staring straight at her. Something about the look was unfriendly, even though he had no way of knowing she was a police officer. She was in plain clothes, her car was unmarked. Unless, of course, he knew exactly who she was, and that was why he was here. Keeping tabs on her.

  For a few seconds, Müller held the man’s gaze as she closed the space between them. But then he broke off the stare, looked down at the Skoda’s dashboard, and Müller heard the roar of the engine starting up. She raised her arm with the map as he drove past, but the man ignored her.

  She put her hand to her brow, feeling the thump of a headache starting, her body battling the fierce, dry heat and her mounting anxiety. But as she drew her hand down across her face, her eyes focussed on the apartment block itself. It was one of the few in this newly built part of Ha-Neu which had its block number assigned. Relief flooded through her as she matched the block number to her map: she had her bearings once more. The towering concrete apartments – which had seemed to be closing in on her, trapping her in a maze of nameless streets – now once again seemed benign, inanimate.

  *

  Müller checked her watch as she studied the map. She’d drifted into the far west of the town, near the apartment assigned to her and Schmidt, although until just now she hadn’t realised that. Twenty minutes had been wasted by her unnecessary detour and panic about getting lost. Even if she drove at speed back to the eastern side of town, and the Stasi HQ, next to Wohnkomplex VIII, she knew she would be late.

  As she turned off the Magistrale, Müller glanced into the Wartburg’s rear-view mirror again. Her heart rate quickened when she saw the black Skoda making the same turning towards Stasi HQ. At first, she told herself to stop being so paranoid. That it might just be coincidence that the other vehicle was taking the same route. She decelerated ahead of the barrier at the gated and walled Ministry for State Security compound. As she did so, the Skoda passed her and entered the Stasi zone without stopping.

  *

  By the time her pass had been examined and the guard had rung to confirm her appointment, Müller’s tardiness verged on being reckless. Not the best way to start what already promised to be a difficult relationship with Malkus and Janowitz. As soon as she was out of the car and had put her red jacket back on, a plain-clothes officer was at her side as her escort, whether she wanted one or not.

  ‘Good afternoon, Comrade Oberleutnant. I’m here to take you for your meeting with Major Malkus. This way, please.’

  As she walked alongside the Stasi operative, Müller looked up at the outside of the bu
ilding. It was much like the other high-rise blocks of Ha-Neu. Almost brand new, with seven storeys and bands of terracotta-stained render underneath each floor’s line of windows – giving the building a horizontally striped appearance. The headquarters was cut into thirds by two towers made up of decorative concrete screen blocks, adorned by a repeating pattern of the Stasi’s emblem in the same dull cement grey: the Republic’s flag attached to a rifle, held up by a muscular worker’s arm.

  The entrance towards which the officer was guiding her was under one of the towers. It looked to Müller almost identical to the entrance of the main Stasi HQ in the Hauptstadt at Normannenstrasse. But this would be the first time she’d actually set foot inside a Ministry for State Security premises – other than the jail at Hohenschönhausen where Gottfried had been held earlier in the year. The memory of that, the way they’d tried to use manufactured evidence against her former husband, and her more recent encounter with the agent in the Skoda, made her shiver despite the heat. Malkus had talked of offering her and the team any ‘assistance’ they needed. In her experience, assistance from an agency like the Ministry for State Security was often a poisoned chalice.

  *

  Malkus appeared to greet her warmly, rising from the leather chair behind his desk, shaking her hand, and then inviting her to sit on a low corduroy sofa at the side of the room. He retook the desk seat, his bald head shining as the afternoon sun streamed through the window. His eyeline was a good metre or so above hers. No doubt deliberate, thought Müller, the height differential putting her at an immediate disadvantage.

  ‘Thanks very much for coming, Comrade Oberleutnant,’ Malkus began, as though she’d had some choice in the matter. ‘And don’t worry about being late, I realise you and the team must be busy getting to grips with things.’ He said this with a thin smile – but it was an admonishment, and Müller knew it.