by Fox J Wilde
Jakob, without seeing or attending a game in his life, was an absolute soccer-hooligan and dressed far more punk rock than even most punks did. He was a tall, tattooed, hyper attention-whore who fought, drank, and in general seemed to take an inane pride in his constant misbehavior. Not that Lena wasn’t a miscreant in her own right…but Jakob had a way of overdoing it. Yet even then, he ‘meant well’, of course, and never seemed to find himself in any actual trouble.
Vivika, in stark contrast, only looked like the vampire she pretended to be. She was otherwise just an apathetic young lady with a surprisingly killer smile that would look great on camera. Sure, she was gay, but she was stage gay—as if her ‘girlfriend’ was a secret that every idle stranger was entrusted to keep, despite the occasional (and maybe accidental?) mention of her ‘boyfriend’. Lena wouldn’t be surprised if either even existed.
And while Vortecx was strange, well, he was strange in all the right ways for the international counterculture community—exceedingly liberal, socially progressive, and artistic to a fault. Oddly enough, there didn’t seem to be any rules with him, and that appeared to be the point as far as Lena could figure—as in, ‘the lack of rules is the point’-point, while still putting a fine point on following all the rules of ‘not following rules’ to a ‘T’. Lena was a malcontent herself, yet she couldn’t quite figure out how she felt about the whole thing. For that matter, it didn’t seem like Vortecx could, either. In the end, it was just easier to accept what Vortecx said, rather than argue or question it.
No matter which way you sliced it, all three of them were the image of everything a perfectly Western-oriented band looked to be—confused, a little troubled, perfect-looking, politically progressive, emotionally abrasive and possessing of meticulous hair. There wasn’t any substance to speak of, if you really knew them, but the public wouldn’t care.
And well that they should be the image: the lyrics of the songs that ‘Lena’ wrote were contrived to a rather unfortunate degree. This was one of the few battles that Grandfather had fought hard on her behalf, and lost roundly. He wanted to write music that both the punks and rockers in the West would take to, but the State would have none of it, citing that “The rest of the world will appreciate good Socialist values when they see them.” Eventually, after a long battle that she wasn’t privy to, Grandfather and the State had finally reached an impasse: write lyrics about being generally sad for ‘the state of the world’. You would be surprised how very ambiguous such concepts could end up being.
It was something the West would likely pick up on, surely. Everyone could agree on the sad state of worldly affairs. And the Politburo could probably be convinced that it was everything except for the Wall and the Socialist/Communist experiments that the world was worried about, while agreeing completely with their lyrics. The problem was that the lyrics didn’t mean anything—not a single damn word of it. It wasn’t just that Lena hadn’t written them herself. They literally said nothing of conviction whatsoever. Sure, the songs would play in the West, but true aficionados would refuse them outright. She knew that, and Grandfather knew that. As much as Lena wanted to call this a ‘punk rock band’, well, it really wasn’t.
The only people that didn’t know that, predictably enough, were her band-mates. They absolutely loved the lyrics, believing them to be a ticket to easy street. And who was Lena to argue this with them? Jakob, Vivika and Vortecx had spent years ducking the Stasi and hiding out just the same as she had. The three of them did deserve a break. Lena did too, if she was being honest about it. Yet they were punk rock. They were supposed to be hardcore. They weren’t supposed to just abstain from giving a shit about what people thought, but to demonstrate this by giving a shit about the image they portrayed. Right?
“So what’s the plan, then?” Vivika asked, after she and Vortecx finished murdering Jakob, who now lay flat on his back playing the victim of a profound and undeserved beating.
“Well,” Lena began, “We’re gonna be playing live soon, of course. I was in touch with the producer today and he says they have a few shows they are trying to book on the other side.”
It wasn’t precisely a lie. Patrick, her handsome Stasi officer, had informed her that Grandfather was working towards this end. “Surely,” she had originally thought, “it couldn’t be easy to reach out across so many complicated channels and find a gig—doing so could take months!” But in reality, nothing could be further from the truth. The West was surprisingly disinterested in traffic crossing from the East, and booking a show required virtually the same meager phone call that anyone could make (long-distance charges notwithstanding, of course). No, Grandfather was biding his time.
Of course, he wasn’t strictly her producer. Little John had its own man, Walter, for that. Walter just answered directly to Amiga, and Amiga ran everything Little John did by the Stasi, who in turn ran everything Lena did by Grandfather. So, by proxy, Grandfather (whom Lena rarely talked to) was in control of the entire thing. She just didn’t know precisely what he had up his sleeve. Thus, she had to tell little fibs now and again. Change was on its way, however. She could smell it.
“Fucking lies!” Jakob shouted. “That’s what you always say!”
“I know,” Lena placated, “But you have to understand how difficult these things are. Walter is...”
“Walter is a worm, Lena,” Vivika spoke. “The guy looks slick and talks slick, but he’s a worm. He can barely get a decent technician in here to record us on time, and he’s almost never here to actually produce. All the other bands on Little John complain about him. He doesn’t have a thing planned for us.”
“Just a little faith and a little more time is all I’m asking,” Lena implored. “These things take time. Let’s just wrap up the album and get everything ready on our end. Walter’s got a tech coming in tomorrow and we can finally get Jakob’s parts solidified. If, after the album is recorded, we still haven’t heard anything, I’ll book us a show myself. We have the passports, anyway.”
“We aren’t going anywhere without the Stasi to babysit us,” Vortecx complained. “Unless you have a main-line to them, we’re gonna have to go through Walter.”
“Trust me...” Lena said in as authoritative a tone as she could manage, “Let’s get everything finished on our end of things. I’ll handle Walter once everything is finalized.” The group didn’t seem very satisfied, but even the drunk and victimized Jakob could see that there wasn’t a way around it. Besides, they had placed a large amount of faith in her ability to make things happen. She was, after all, an infamous punk rock starlet and new mainstream legend.
Oh yeah...that had happened.
“Two facts that every musician is doomed to learn,” Grandfather had told her, “the masses like what they are told to like, and legitimacy is completely engineered.” She didn’t believe him at first—that is, until she gave two reasonably high-profile interviews. One, for a popular underground magazine, and another on an illegal pirate radio program (that was subsequently broadcasted all over Armed Forces Radio in the West). In both of these interviews, she had described (in vivid detail) her capture by the Stasi and subsequent internment. She expounded on her brutal torture and how she had managed to escape their clutches while still sticking to her guns.
Of course, she had realized the error of some of her ways. A few Stasi officers had taken it upon themselves to graciously educate her on the meaning behind the socialist values. Certainly, she couldn’t have been expected to see the bigger picture without some teaching, and the officers had understood this. Lena was glad she had grown, despite the austere conditions.
However, she did stick to her guns on everything else. She openly trash-talked the Politburo and SED. She tore down the fallacy of the Wall brick by brick, and decried everything it stood for. She even threw in a few pot-shots at the Stasi whom she couldn’t possibly be bothered to fear, “Liars and whores, all of them!” she had said in both
interviews. She would then go on to detail her work in the underground, and about how well she had been received by the punk movement after being tortured so mercilessly (all the while sticking to her values without ratting anyone out). And despite the fact that she was forced to hide her face for safety, she was becoming a well-known installment at almost every show.
All of it was utter nonsense, of course. Lena hadn’t done a single interview since she left prison. She hadn’t even done one before prison, minus the scant few articles she wrote under her pseudonym. These interviews, much like her music, were all written for her. Hell, Lena (or Madeline Dangerbunny, as she was now better known) had practically started Little John by merely being the impetus behind it, and the underground listenership had been so quick to pick up on it that it was scary. Only a few of her very close (and very secret) friends in Leipzig ever conceived that the Stasi could (and had) released zines and pirate stations of their own.
But now the Mad Bunny (yes, even her nicknames had nicknames now) was starting to break through onto the regular airwaves. It started out with immense disapproval from the stations, of course—disapproval that Grandfather correctly assumed would have the opposite effect on the GDR youth. Once the youth were showing support, well, the radio stations just had to make a few comments to pacify them. There was no condoning, of course; just ‘tactical observations’ that quickly made her into an urban legend. Since the Mad Bunny was in hiding, she of course couldn’t be reached for comment. But in mainstream media, no news is good news and by the time the rumors started that the Mad Bunny had somehow made it over the Wall (just last week, as a matter of fact), she was practically canonized.
Her band knew they were playing with the Mad Bunny, of course, which is why they had agreed to so carefully conceal their actual identities out on the street. Sure, it felt like they weren’t being hardcore; but they had an ace up their sleeve. All they had to do was shut up and toe the line, and their fame would be engineered for them. Best of all, they would get to retain their legitimacy to the scene, so long as the legitimacy (and very possibly the scene) were similarly engineered.
She still had to work at keeping them in line. But she didn’t have to work all that hard at it. Especially since the only one who adamantly refused to see logic was Jakob, whom the two girls and Vortecx could easily keep in line just by being women and otherwise. Thus, they resolved to work for as many hours as they could before the morning. Lena was confident Grandfather would come through. He always did. All she had to do was be an absolute espionage master and complete her mission tomorrow evening.
Interhostel
Danger was everywhere, in all directions and at all speeds. Unseen enemies abounded, wielding wicked weapons of wayward warfare that sliced throats and stole the beat from unwary hearts. She knew a minor slip-up would be the end for her. Thus, Lena was compelled to maintain a calm yet hyper-aware mental state that would alert at the first sign of danger. With death assured at even the slightest bit of complacency, and enemies out for blood as she furtively sidled through the streets like the super-secret agent she was desperately trying to be, only one concern found its way to the forefront of her hyper-vigilant mind; “is my dress ‘fancy’ enough?”
Also, man, it was hard to sneak about in heels.
She had spent nearly two hours rummaging through her pile of clothing looking for the nicest item (or combination of items) she had. She had several low-cut things, and a few short things as well. Yet nothing combined into any sort of manageable or particularly pleasant motif. After trying really hard to convince herself that spikes and leather could be fancy, she decided instead to have a nervous breakdown and just give up on the whole thing. That is, until she considered that maybe Vivika might have something.
As luck would have it, not only was Vivika well-equipped for dressing to the nines, she was also a master at doing hair. So, after Vivika shooed her male ‘guest’ (it figured) out of the apartment, with vile threats of hair-curlers and lipstick, the two set to the task of discussing boys while divining the perfect attire for Lena.
They spent a half-hour or so gushing about Lena’s date and why he was taking her to the nicest hotel in the city (Vivika could hardly be trusted with the real reason). Lena was then outfitted with a very swanky black dress that prominently exhibited her shoulders, along with a pair of matching boots to die for that she was sure Vivika had stolen. When Vivika informed her that both items had been stolen, Lena realized just how very much she adored Vivika.
A few more minutes of gushing, a few more minutes of checking her own ass out in the mirror (while poorly striking poses she had seen in the movies, of course), and almost an hour of fussing with her hair, Lena realized she would be late if she didn’t leave immediately. A few awkward girl-hugs and more-awkward girl-kisses and she was off to begin the first leg of her journey.
She had made the mistake of showing up late to training just once. Really, it wasn’t even what she would have defined as ‘late’: just two minutes by her watch, and three minutes by Patrick’s. Yet his wrath (mostly at Lena’s assertion that any other watch but his mattered) forced Lena to conduct almost four hours of extracurricular surveillance training following random losers about the town until her feet felt like exploding.
In Patrick’s realm, if show-time was at nine, that meant at precisely nine you were there standing right in front of him, blood properly caffeinated and nicotined, with everything you needed hanging over your shoulder, ready to walk out the door at a word. By proxy, this meant you were to show up at 8:45, so that you could get all of your complaining out of the way and be reprimanded for all the things you forgot. Timeliness is difficult in theory for a 17-year-old. In practice, it’s even harder. But for a teenager who is also an aspiring super-spy, it takes an almost heroic effort. No one in the world of espionage simply walks directly to where they are supposed to be. No, there are proper routes you have to take, and proper actions to conduct while taking them. And god help you if you crossed paths with ‘the man in the red hat’, or ‘the man with the wart on his face’, or ‘the man in the impossible-to-see brown jacket’. Because then you had to lose him, and then take the alternate route.
By the way, that was precisely what was happening now. Patrick was being an asshole, and had put all three on her—all of them lying in wait right outside Vivika’s apartment.
Wart-face was sitting across the street ‘reading the paper’ and occasionally ‘looking around’ to make sure the color of the sky was still blue. Red-hat was a few apartment buildings down ‘checking on a few flowers’ and definitely not talking to Wart-face through a hidden radio. When Wart-face noticed Lena had stepped out, she noticed Red-hat definitely not cuing up on this by standing up and patiently waiting for a bus that had just passed. And Brown-jacket? ...well, Lena still couldn’t see him. She just noticed Wart-face nod in the opposite direction.
Brazenly, Lena began her walk to the Interhostel by trapesing straight past Red-hat, with her very-most-courteous “Hello, Sir!” He smiled at her, as if to say, “I’m telling Patrick.” and Lena sheepishly winced. She had to make the conscious effort to avoid speeding her pace, as she knew Red-hat would wait until she was at least a half-block away before taking up the tail. Wart-face would stay on the opposite side of the street so that he could see further around any corners that Lena took. Brown-jacket would, of course, remain completely unseen, thus earning Lena another week or two of training. God, how she hated Brown-jacket.
She began by ambling about, checking to make sure the sky was still blue, checking to make sure that the neighbors still had windows, and occasionally checking to make sure that the very fabric of reality wasn’t unraveling behind her. You know, as people normally do. She did this at the most normal pace she could possibly manage, avoiding nervous shuffles and weird hand-movements that would give away her knowing about her tail. She really only had one goal for this: identify Brown-jacket. Once she did this, she cou
ld initiate her avoidance protocols. Yet nothing had really appeared, yet.
She turned a corner, walked a few meters, then stopped to tie her already tied shoe-laces. This gave her another chance to casually spy on the surveillance team, “Use your peripheral vision!” Patrick would always yell at her, “You don’t need or want to look directly at your tail! If they know you know they are following you, they will just switch teams!” This was nearly impossible, however, as her peripheral vision remained frustratingly untrained, so she allowed herself a few quick peeks behind her.
She knew that Red-hat wouldn’t round the corner until she was a block or so down the street, but he didn’t have to. Wart-face had already walked further down the ‘T’ of the intersection without changing direction, so he could easily see where she was walking without her seeing him. If she decided to cross the street, out of Wart-face’s watchful purview, then Red-hat would be able to easily see her do it. If worse came to worst, Wart-face would simply become her tail and Red-hat would be the one to lag behind. They needed only one set of eyes on her at any given time, and their mission was accomplished.
Frustrated, she began walking again, making sure to take the most measured steps possible. She knew they knew, but if this were the real world, spooking on her tail would alert them that they were, in fact, following her for a reason. She had to be natural, and so she naturally stopped to catch her breath from her dawdling stroll, and naturally wiped nonexistent sweat from her brow to show her tail that she was, in fact, stopping to catch her breath, “Idiot.” she mumbled at herself.
Another few blocks, another few minutes wasted. This was an unavoidable reality and she had to stretch her time out. Another few cracks studied, another set of weeds gazed at for no particular reason. She saw a cat, and decided to call to it for a few minutes. Yes, that should burn up some time. Pause…another few blocks…stare at cracks…pause…another block or two…at one point, she considered ducking behind a building and taking a chance on an escape. But she had tried this before, and the dead-end she had run into earned her another four-hours of nonsense surveillance from Patrick.