Stasi Wolf

by David Young

  ‘I hope this isn’t some fallout from your investigation, Karin. You know we wanted to keep things tightly controlled. We don’t want this flaring up again at the weekend when Comrade Castro arrives.’

  ‘Perhaps if we’d done more to start with, Comrade Oberst, we wouldn’t be facing this mess now.’

  They watched as a Stasi operative clapped his hand over the mouth of a woman who’d started shouting again. Müller was shocked to see it was Klara Salzmann. Why isn’t she at home with Maddelena?

  ‘Do you know her?’ asked Jäger, who under the dim street lighting had obviously spotted Müller taking an extra interest.

  Müller nodded. ‘It’s the mother involved in the case of the twin babies who were originally abducted in July. The reason I was brought down here from the Hauptstadt to start with.’

  ‘Do you think she’s protesting too much?’ asked Jäger.

  Müller noticed that Tilsner had joined them at the sidelines, watching the Stasi agents taking the protesters into custody, bundling them into the back of Barkas vans.

  ‘Karin’s always been suspicious about them,’ said Tilsner.

  Müller sighed. ‘It’s true. But I’m not entirely sure why. It’s just something about the looks she and her husband give each other. I don’t think they’ve been entirely truthful with us. As to why she’s out with a rabble of protesters in the middle of the night – when she should be at home with her surviving baby – and as to why they’ve decided to target a Vietnamese dormitory, I’m afraid I’ve no idea, Comrade Oberst.’

  *

  The fallout from the dormitory protest the next day was left entirely to the Ministry for State Security. Jäger made it quite clear that Müller and Tilsner’s assistance wasn’t required. Instead, after a late breakfast, the two Berlin Kripo detectives set off for Silberhöhe – to the south of Halle city – to track down Georg Meyer’s ex-girlfriend, Kerstin Luitgard, who worked in a clothing factory there. She’d been briefly held by the Halle uniform division, but then allowed back to work after Müller said she and Tilsner would be delayed following their middle of the night call-out.

  The factory itself had a run-down appearance. Crumbling red bricks that looked ready to be demolished. Müller knew that that was indeed the plan – this area had been earmarked for another dormitory town of concrete slab apartments, similar to Ha-Neu. In a couple of years the place would be transformed, with apartment after apartment rising from the mud and rubble.

  The site forewoman went to fetch Kerstin, after showing Müller and Tilsner into a side room they could use for their interview and complaining that the girl had only just arrived – late for her shift.

  When Kerstin was brought back by the woman, she looked exhausted and nervously fiddled with her hair, as Müller performed the introductions.

  ‘This is Unterleutnant Tilsner of the Kriminalpolizei, and I’m Oberleutnant Müller. Do you know why we want to talk to you, Kerstin?’

  ‘Not really,’ said the girl in a quiet voice. ‘The Vopos . . . they wouldn’t tell me anything.’

  ‘Do you have a temper, Kerstin?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘Not really. No more than anyone else.’

  ‘Have you ever made any threats against anyone?’ asked Müller. She gave the girl a hard stare, until Kerstin dropped her gaze and started wringing her hands.

  ‘No. What’s this about? I don’t understand. I have to get back to my work.’

  ‘It’s about your former boyfriend, Georg Meyer,’ continued Müller.

  ‘What about him? I have nothing to do with him anymore. Not after I dumped him.’

  ‘You dumped him? That’s not what we heard,’ said Tilsner. ‘It’s our understanding that he left you. For another girl. A prettier girl.’

  ‘Anneliese Haase,’ said Müller.

  The girl said nothing, just continued to wring her hands, eyes downcast.

  ‘Is that correct?’ asked Müller.

  ‘Yes, he’s with her. What of it? We’d finished. It’s nothing to me. But she’s not prettier than me – and she’s a whore. A whore who fucks Vietnamese guest workers. He’s welcome to her.’

  ‘If that’s the case, Kerstin,’ said Müller, flicking through her notebook, ‘why did you get so angry when you saw them together the other day in Halle city centre?’

  ‘Who says I did?’

  ‘We have witnesses,’ said Tilsner. ‘Witnesses who heard you say to him: “Watch out, bastard. I’ll get you back sooner or later.” Are you denying you said that?’

  Müller could see the tears forming in the girl’s eyes. She was obviously jealous, obviously still had feelings for Georg Meyer. But a child-snatcher? Müller didn’t think so.

  When the girl failed to reply, Tilsner stepped up the pressure. ‘You got him back, didn’t you? Last night. By stealing his new girlfriend’s baby.’

  ‘What!’ shouted the girl. ‘You’re mad. What would I want with a baby? Even if I did want one, I wouldn’t want her second-hand mixed-race bastard of a child.’

  That flash of anger had revealed part of Kerstin’s true character, thought Müller. But she still couldn’t see her stealing Tanja from outside the bar.

  ‘Where were you at 7 p.m. last night?’ asked Tilsner.

  ‘Here,’ spat the girl. ‘Ask Frau Garber, the forewoman. She doesn’t like me, but she knows I was here.’

  41

  When the forewoman – as Kerstin had predicted – backed up the girl’s alibi, showing the time sheets and clocking-on information to confirm it, Müller knew the investigation was back to square one again. Only now they had another baby abduction to contend with, as well as the first hint of demonstrations and unrest – something that wouldn’t be allowed to interfere with the weekend’s visit of Comrade Castro. Things were no better at home, with Emil urging her to check out his concerns about the possible pregnancy – and Müller so far resisting, unable to believe that what she’d been told by several gynaecologists over the years was apparently wrong.

  The preparations for the visit felt much the same as those for the May Day or Anniversary of the Republic parades in the Hauptstadt. Müller and Tilsner were drafted in to help Eschler and his team on what were essentially uniform tasks of organisation and security. But Müller knew that – beneath the surface – Jäger and his Stasi operatives would be paying visits to anyone they suspected of belonging to this shadowy Committee for the Dispossessed that the Stasi colonel had warned her about. What Müller had managed to secure, from Jäger himself, was a promise that once the visit was safely out of the way, her investigation team would be strengthened again – to the level it had been before Maddelena’s safe return. The protest outside the Vietnamese dormitory seemed to have unnerved the Ministry for State Security. If it helped Müller, so much the better.

  *

  Saturday was a bright, late October day. A cloudless sky – and free, too, of pollution haze. Müller almost wondered if Leuna, Buna and surrounding plants had been shut down for the day to ensure no nasty smells upset the Cuban prime minister on what was said to be the most important day of his visit. Just to be able to welcome him in Halle-Neustadt, the Republic’s model town for socialist living, filled Müller with pride – although her pride was tempered by the dark undercurrents in the new town: the abduction of the Salzmann twins, the death of Karsten, and now the disappearance of Tanja Haase. All these things had been cloaked in secrecy to avoid undermining Comrade Castro’s visit, if that was the real reason for all the secrecy . . .

  Müller and Tilsner watched from the sweeping pedestrian bridge over the Magistrale as the parade made its way under them: lines of chemical workers – with their red flags from the various diverse parts of the giant works – and Pioneers in their crisply starched white shirts and dazzling blue and red neckerchiefs.

  ‘They’d all be thrilled to be here if it was during work or school time,’ whispered Tilsner. ‘Bet they’re not as happy doing all this on a Saturday afternoon.’

  Mül
ler screwed her face up at him. It wasn’t a day to be cynical. She genuinely hoped everything passed off peacefully. She looked back towards the end of the parade and saw a line of black limousines – looking from the distance a little like beetles, shining in the sunlight as they crossed the bridge over the Saale from Halle city. Surrounding the limousines – Volvos, of course, she could tell from their shapes even at this distance – were columns what looked like ants: the police motorcycle outriders. Müller scanned the skyline. She could see the figures of armed Stasi operatives on the top of the high-rises, no doubt giving radio messages to men on the ground, should they notice anything untoward.

  ‘Do we just stay and watch from here, then?’ asked Tilsner. ‘If anything does happen, we’re not going to be able to do much about it.’

  ‘No, let’s make our way to the central hospital. That’s where the speeches are going to be. Comrade Castro wants to see how our health service measures up to his.’

  ‘We don’t need to rush, then. I’ve heard his speeches go on for hours.’

  *

  Walking across the pedestrian bridge took them directly into Wohnkomplex IV, where the hospital was situated, without having to fight their way through the throngs of spectators lining the Magistrale. They then showed their Kripo passes to ensure safe passage through the crowd who’d lined up several deep in the hospital’s entrance waiting for the speeches.

  Müller nodded a greeting to Jäger whom she spotted on the opposite side of the lobby. Emil was there too, in his doctor’s coat, but she didn’t manage to catch his eye. It was about twenty minutes later when the murmur of voices turned into a roar of acclaim, the flashbulbs of the waiting press fired off in a series of blinding lights, and then he was there, standing at the podium, waving in greeting in his olive-green battle fatigues, with the bespectacled and civilian-suited Erich Honecker at his side. Fidel Castro. The great revolutionary and socialist hero, whose image – along with Che Guevara’s – was found on many student T-shirts and posters throughout the Republic. And, bizarrely, in the West too. Müller had seen it on Western news programmes and documentaries.

  Tilsner cupped his hand over her ear. ‘We’ve got a sweepstake on this back at People’s Police HQ. How long the bloody thing will take. You know he holds the record for the longest speech at the UN? More than four hours.’

  Müller rolled her eyes, then tapped his Western watch. ‘At least you’ll be able to time it accurately with this,’ she whispered back. ‘Your expensive, capitalist timepiece.’

  Tilsner sneered in return. Across the concourse, she could see Jäger frowning at her, probably annoyed that the two detectives were joking with each other – rather than keeping their eyes peeled for any members of this shadowy, yet-to-be-seen Committee for the Dispossessed.

  In the event, neither Honecker nor Castro started the speeches. That was left to a local Party official.

  ‘Who’s he?’ Tilsner asked.

  Müller shrugged, then a fearsome-looking woman tapped her on the shoulder. ‘It’s the Ha-Neu district Party secretary, Rolf Strobelt.’ Müller nodded her thanks.

  Standing in front of a model of the new town, Strobelt began a short speech welcoming Fidel Castro and extolling the virtues of Halle-Neustadt, punctuated by regular breaks for applause. Müller and the rest of the crowd duly clapped. Tilsner – much to Müller’s annoyance – raised his eyes to the heavens and kept his hands by his sides, rather than joining the seal-like acclaim. Doesn’t he realise Jäger and his cronies are watching us?

  Then it was Erich Honecker’s turn. Müller was surprised his wife Margot wasn’t at his side. Müller had been briefed that she was part of the visit. Having been born in Halle, it would have been a chance to catch up with her birthplace – and the labyrinthine all-new concrete city which had now been built alongside it.

  Finally – after more pauses for applause – Honecker introduced Castro. As the Cuban leader began to speak, there was a surge in the crowd behind Müller, which separated her from Tilsner. At first she just assumed it was enthusiasm, but then there was more jostling and shouting, and Müller was pushed violently forward, the collision with the person in front like a punch in the gut. She turned to remonstrate and found two leather-jacketed men wrestling with each other, as a shout rang out:

  ‘Give us our homes and businesses back. We want what’s rightfully –’

  As she clutched her stomach in pain, Müller’s eyeline switched to the source of the shouting, from her right-hand side. Another leather-jacketed man – she assumed a Stasi operative – had clasped his hand over the protester’s mouth. As confusion in the crowd grew, someone yanked up the volume of the public address system so that Fidel Castro’s voice drowned out any further dissent.

  More jostling, another push, and Müller found herself stumbling. As she did, from the corner of the eye she spotted a face she was sure she’d seen before. Flashes from her childhood, her youth. I know him. Who is it? Before her brain could compute the answer – and with Castro’s long-winded words and their German translation echoing between her ears – her head hit the floor with a sickening crash.

  42

  February 1963

  Oberhof

  It was so, so cold. The girl tried to stamp her feet in the unwieldy, specially-adapted ski boots to try to get her blood to circulate. Cloudlets formed in front of her face each time she exhaled. She clapped her hands to generate warmth, her overlong skis wedged in the crook of her arm.

  The landing area almost looked like glass, and the early jumpers had struggled to stop before the barriers of tarpaulin-covered straw bales. Hitting them would be like crashing into a brick wall. It would hurt for hours, days afterwards, and it wasn’t as though her family were here to comfort her or cheer her on. She’d gone down to feel the straw bales before getting changed: they were frozen solid, the way everything else had been for weeks, months.

  It wasn’t just here in the heights of the Thuringian forest. Cold held the whole of northern Europe in its grip. She’d seen the pictures in Neues Deutschland: the frozen waves of the Ostsee, like ripples of icing on a cake. Boats in harbours pushed into impossible angles by wind-blown sheet ice – people walking on the frozen, brackish water to get a closer look. Shop signs and trees in the Hauptstadt decorated with white whiskers that even a midday winter sun wasn’t strong enough to melt.

  Now her trainer was in front of her, warming her face with his Wurst-breath, as he talked her through the techniques she already knew by rote. The explosion at launch with the body and knees, leaning forward towards the ski tips, arms by the sides like fighter jet wings. And then the landing on bent knees, with one leg extended in front of the other She tried to concentrate on the words, but instead found her eyes following the tributaries of broken blood vessels in his weather- and alcohol-ravaged face.

  ‘Remember,’ he shouted, a fleck of undigested sausage flying from his mouth. ‘Concentrate. Concentrate. Everyone will be watching. Everyone will be cheering. You can be the champion. You’re good enough. Believe it.’

  A final clap with his giant gloved hand on her back, and then he pushed her forward to the steps which led to the platform. At the sides of the hill, the rickety wooden grandstands, filled with a sea of faces, steam rising from many as they sipped their coffees or Glühwein mit Schuss. She saw some of her school friends gathered there.

  ‘Come on, Katzi,’ they cheered.

  Why are you doing this? she asked herself. What’s driving you to prove you’re better than the others? That you’re the best. Is it your mother’s approval you’re seeking? Your brother’s, your sister’s, Pappi’s? Why? They’re not even here to watch you.

  She was at the top of the steps now. It would be her turn next to shuffle awkwardly over to the bench. The bench above that fearsome slope of white, with its twin tracks to be followed to the edge . . . of nothing. Nothing but free, mountain air, flying past your ears. The thrill of the adrenalin surge. The magic of soaring through the air – the
nearest humans ever got to matching the beauty of birds in flight.

  The girl watched as Lukas Habich prepared to push himself off. Her main rival, the junior champion of Bezirk Suhl. She knew she was better than him – could leap further, get better style points. But when it was all tallied up, hers would be discounted. Because ski-jumping didn’t have a category for females, adult women or girls. She was the best, but she wouldn’t win any prizes.

  As Lukas adjusted his goggles, he got the signal to jump. He pushed himself off, then assumed the traditional crouch down the in-run. The girl watched his take-off, at the same time as moving into the position on the bar that he had vacated moments earlier.

  The cheer from the crowd as he landed was huge. It must have been beyond the K-point, with good style marks. Lukas would have set the gold standard, as he always did.

  The girl knew that, dotted around the crowd, were not just spectators, but officials from the Republic’s Winter Olympic Committee. And they hadn’t come to see Lukas. They’d come to see her. To see if what they’d heard about the flying girl from Thuringia was really true. That she could be the spearhead of a new, women-only Olympic ski-jumping competition, and that – by getting in first – the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, the tiny communist country at the very edge of the Soviet socialist bloc, could rule the world.

  Adjusting her goggles, she tried to blinker herself. To focus solely on a smooth push-off, followed by a controlled, but explosive, take-off. But something was wrong. In the corner of her eye, she noticed one young man staring hard at her from the upper grandstand – a stare that burned with hatred, from behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. She’d seen that face before. So many times. In Farmer Bonz’s field as they practised their own version of the luge. And the last time, being pushed onto the back of a People’s Army truck, his head looking round in confusion, clouded by myopia. Johannes. It was Johannes.