The Girl Behind the Wall

by Mandy Robotham

  There it is again. Not in pain as such, but constant. Hungry. She pushes her ear as close to the brickwork as she can without catching her hair on the barbs. Yes, it’s inside the building. Trapped perhaps? Cats are known to manoeuvre themselves into the smallest of holes without a thought as to how to get out. Especially if the building is shored up firmly on the other side.

  Jutta scans the brickwork high and low and her eye settles on a small breach near to the ground, ample for a dog to squeeze through, or maybe an urban fox. A large enough animal could have displaced the crumbling bricks, bit by bit, and slipped between the wire. There’s something dark behind, perhaps wood, helping to camouflage the existence of a hole unless you’re up close.

  The mewling continues: needy and desperate. Unlike Karin, Jutta has never been soppy over animals, but she can’t ignore suffering of any kind. And that’s what it sounds like to her. She scrabbles in her bag for an elastic band and scrapes back her hair into a rough ponytail. Checking there’s no one in sight, and that the Wall guards can’t see, she crouches down, bends up the razor wire firmly and carefully, hooking several strands together over a nail, and eases her head and slight shoulders through the hole, pushing against the wood. It gives way with some force, though Jutta feels the coarse brick scraping at her bare arms and chafing against her thin dress material; she imagines soon having the battered kneecaps of a child, but the constant mewling keeps her going.

  The brickwork is double thickness and has a layer of plaster behind, but it’s not a tunnel as such – Jutta gives a forceful shove and the wood yields, enough for her to crawl through and into the room, where she discovers it’s actually a small cabinet butting up against the inside wall. The mewling stops instantly as she replaces the cabinet again, and there’s a shuffling to her left. She’s in the kitchen of the old house, with signs of habitation, though not recent. Scouting around in the dimming light, Jutta finds the source of the squeaking: a cat, along with three kittens – a family of mini grey and black-striped tigers. Wide-eyed, wary and staring, the mother looks up with alarm, but firmly refuses to leave her babies.

  ‘Hey there, how are you doing?’ Jutta bends and holds out a hand for the mama to investigate, rummaging in her bag for the ham roll left over from lunch. It’s squashed in the paper bag but the mother leaps on the meat, pushing it towards her babies, purring loudly. Jutta has no idea if cats eat bread, but she places it in the makeshift nest anyway.

  Leaving the cats with their spoils, she picks her way around the bottom of the house. The furnished rooms are frozen in time, the family clearly having packed their personal possessions in a frenzy, and there’s still evidence of their lives – cupboards half-filled with tinned food, a single, lost shoe in one corner and a small toy car on the shelf, which surely must be missed.

  Jutta is nervy and on edge, being in the cavity of the Wall itself, but her curiosity is too heightened to leave immediately. For some inexplicable reason she thinks of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and the suspense of reading as Lucy pushes through the back of the wardrobe for the first time. If she’s thinking in fables, any door in this house might open onto an entirely different universe. Except, in this world, each one is likely barred, bricked or plastered up against any breach. The front door is – bricks just visible through the opaque glass panel – but there’s a side door from the kitchen, and she’s surprised to find the handle turns and it opens with a small nudge. The doorway leads to a sizeable garage, more than a domestic car space but big enough for a small business, hinted at by a pungent odour of grease and engine oil. Again, she thinks of the family and the livelihood they’ve had to leave behind, the throb and rev of Volkswagen Beetles with their rear engines exposed, the mechanic father washing his hands after a day’s work and joining his family for dinner. Another family torn, and she wonders if they retreated to the West or were propelled Eastwards on that fateful day. There’s what looks like a small office leading off the garage, and although it’s almost dark with the boarded windows, Jutta can see enough to feel her way in, half with her eyes, the rest with the pads of her fingers, all on alert.

  In the darkness, her eye is caught by something. Beyond the office, at the end of what looks like a dingy tunnel, and in the direction of the German Democratic Republic, she sees it: small, circular and not in the least bright, given the natural dimming of the day. But it’s there.

  A chink of light.

  Jutta leaves the partially satisfied cat family and goes to squeeze back through the hole, recoiling swiftly on seeing the wheels of a bicycle whizz past, gasping as air is stolen from her lungs. Listening intently for any more traffic, she propels herself, heart racing as the top of her head hits the air on the West side, praying no one happens to be looking in the direction of the garage complex and witnessing the near-comical sight of a woman being birthed from a hole in the brickwork. She replaces the wire, dusts herself off and finds the nearest grocery store, knowing that a return into the Wall is foolhardy, and yet unable to bear the thought of starving animals. Under cover of near darkness, and taking advantage of a broken street light, she hurries back in through the hole, to fresh surprise from the mother cat, who laps up the extra food and milk.

  Back out in the quiet of Harzer Strasse, Jutta finally breathes. She strides towards the nearest tram stop, wiping the plaster dust from her eyelashes while smiling to herself. She’s eager to reach home and the solitude of her bedroom. She needs to think, alone and without interruption. Her mind is racing, alive with possibilities. She’s on fire.

  23

  A Glitch

  27th June 1963, West Berlin

  Jutta’s night is restless and filled with dreamlike fantasies. Tiny circles of light feature in every scenario – on waking, one episode she’s able to recall distinctly is a tiny flaw in a children’s cardigan Gerda once knitted, identical to Karin’s. As much as she’d tried to resist, Jutta had picked at the wool on the sleeve, scratching at it like an itch until it grew larger and more obvious. She marvelled in how it opened up like a sunburst, the solid weave simply falling away to nothing. It was Karin who’d saved her from Gerda’s hurt and wrath, finding scraps of the wool and expertly darning the hole, deft with a needle even then.

  Now, it’s that process of the opening getting larger – being made bigger – that she thinks about intently. The light at the end of the corridor clearly came from outside. However dim, it had that quality of daylight, and not an artificial bulb. But from where? Her curiosity is at full stretch, though she tries to temper it with common sense. It might simply lead to the no-man’s land of the Wall and the dreaded death strip.

  But what if it doesn’t?

  Hugo is cutting slices of dark brown bread as she hurries into the kitchen.

  ‘Hey, what happened to you yesterday? I looked for you after the rally.’

  She tests the heat of the coffee pot with her hand, and pours herself a cup. ‘I thought you needed to work, so I went for a walk and a coffee.’

  ‘Hmm, yeah I suppose I was busy,’ he says. ‘It was amazing, wasn’t it? I got some great audio from the crowd.’ He slants his head to one side. ‘Do you think what he said will make a difference? Shift the GDR’s thinking?’

  Jutta is surprised he’s asking, and with such naivety. ‘Honestly? No, Hugo, I don’t. I think it was great to watch, great for Berlin and our profile in not being forgotten. But no. Look at the Wall: every day they build it higher. They’ve no intention of taking it down. If anything, after JFK’s words they’ll be slapping on a bit more cement and concrete today.’

  She realises her tone is petulant, and it shouldn’t be directed at Hugo. She gets up, scraping her chair, and heads towards the bathroom. She has no idea where her cynicism or the thinly veiled anger comes from but it silences her cousin, who simply munches on his bread in deep thought.

  All Jutta can think about is that hole, an aperture that might, if pushed, get bigger. And she’s already proven to be adept at squeezing through holes.


  Jutta and Ruth walk half the way to work together, Ruth mildly interested in hearing of JFK’s showmanship and the feeling among Berliners on the streets, even though she’d heard his entire speech on the radio. But there’s no hope in her voice that it will change anything, enough to see Karin. That’s all the politics any of them are able to focus on.

  ‘So, I’ll see you at dinner later,’ Ruth says, kissing Jutta on the cheek as they go their respective ways.

  ‘Oh, um … I said I’d meet Irma after work, and I’ll probably grab something to eat with her,’ Jutta says. It’s a split-second excuse, her subconscious taking the reins.

  ‘Oh well, don’t be too late,’ Ruth says. ‘I’ve hardly seen you lately.’

  ‘I won’t. Love you, Mama.’

  The day at work drags, inevitably. She can think of nothing else but that blasted ring of light. One minute she tells herself it’s fool’s gold; in another second, the prized pot at the end of the rainbow. One thing Jutta knows for certain: she is unable to keep away from Harzer Strasse. It’s the only chance we have.

  She lingers in a café after work before taking a tram south-east towards Treptower, where she buys a small torch and some tins of cat food. Then, she walks to Harzer Strasse, arriving after the work crowds have cleared, and likely while plenty of residents in the area are holed up eating their supper. It is quiet again, although this time Jutta is naturally more guarded in approaching her destination; she wants to look directionless rather than suspicious, to stop anyone wondering why a well-dressed woman is loitering in a near wasteland.

  The portal looks unchanged and she hovers for a minute, her back tight into the concrete of a half-fallen wall opposite, its cool, porous texture a relief against the heat of her anxiety. In an instant, she launches towards the disguised opening, levering up the wire and then bending down onto her knees, pushing her bag through like a snowplough and the cabinet with it, her body slipping in more easily this time.

  Inside, it’s unchanged, thankfully, and the mother cat seems pleased to see her, looking up from tending her babies and purring. Jutta rifles in the kitchen drawers for a tin-opener, wondering how many mouths it had helped to feed before 1961 and abandonment. But she can’t be distracted by sentiment, and the mama cat is soon feasting away.

  Jutta steps into the darkened corridor beyond the garage’s office, switching on the torch but keeping the beam directed towards the floor, wary of any eagle-eyed border guards within sight of the house. It’s just enough light to allow her to dodge the debris underfoot where some of the plaster has peeled away. She inches forward, wincing at the sound of her footsteps, terrified that a line of Vopos or Stasi could be just feet away, hearing every crack or crunch.

  The pinprick brightness ahead grows larger with each step, and she stops, listening out for any reaction. There’s none. Suddenly, she’s in front of it – up close the light isn’t rounded, but a two-inch square pushing through wooden boards, which cover the glazed top half of a door. Warily, Jutta puts an eye to the white light, seeing more glare beyond: not the grey concrete of the death strip or even the street, but what looks to be another room or corridor with a larger beam flooding into it.

  Surely that opens directly onto the Wall’s inner strip? It must do. She braces herself for inevitable disappointment. Still, it’s human nature and innate curiosity that makes Jutta try the door handle, which gives with a firm push. There’s no breath of open air, though she looks left and right before bobbing her head swiftly into the void. It’s another abandoned room, perhaps once a small warehouse built onto the garage, this time empty save for a pile of pallets and the sweepings of a once used but neglected space. All but one of the windows are above head height and boarded up – that precious light source is oozing from one just above her head, smeared and cracked.

  Despite the unease quivering through her entire body, Jutta cannot stop now. She gathers several pallets and stacks them under the window, teetering as they bring her eyes to the bottom of the ledge. It’s not what she expects. Beyond is not gravel or even the jumble of breeze-block indicative of the Wall, but a corrugated building opposite – perhaps another garage – and below it a rutted and neglected path. If she’s not mistaken, it’s an alleyway, strewn with assorted debris, bricks and planks of wood. Can she have come far enough across the divide to reach the East? Has this warehouse attached to the back of the garage acted like an extended limb, nestled into the turn of the Wall? The realisation almost causes Jutta to wobble from her wood pile, and she has to grip onto the window fitting to steady herself. Unbelievably, it gives too, affording a swift rush of air. East Berlin air, if she’s right.

  For a second or so, Jutta pushes her ear against the gap, hearing only a faint sound of car exhausts in the background, no shouting or military-style barking. Could she have stumbled across a glitch in the GDR’s mighty edifice? A back-door anomaly? And why hasn’t anyone, aside from the maternal cat, found it before?

  The window is big enough for Jutta to climb through, and, as much as she hankers to test it out, to satisfy her growing curiosity, she knows now is not the time. She is not prepared, either for success or capture, and she needs to think, plan and gather every ounce of courage. It’s all very well her landing in the East, but what does she do then? And how will she find Karin?

  The cat family are sleeping as Jutta returns to the kitchen, and for a second she envies their simple comforts. But then the mama cat has her family close by, doesn’t she? It’s the sheer empty space left by Karin that drives Jutta to even contemplate something both so daring and possibly stupid, the same void that, no doubt, has fuelled many a dangerous quest in history.

  Emerging back out onto the West side feels like coming out of a fog, as if she’s been on a lengthy voyage. But everything is the same – the Wall is just as ugly, with people skirting around it just as they were half an hour previously. Only Jutta is significantly changed. She’s dipped a toe into the other side and she wants – no, she needs – to dive in. It could be dangerous, with shark-infested waters on the other side, but, as she strides towards home, she knows she has no choice but to plunge in head first. Knowing there is a way in, how can she possibly hold back?

  24

  Light at the End of the Tunnel

  1st July 1963, East Berlin

  Karin wakes to a dull ache in her stomach, which twists to pain when she moves. She palms her lower belly and groans inwardly – it’s not like the hot, searing pain of her appendix in revolt, simply that time of the month. She’s not ill, just a woman. Still, she would love nothing more than to call in sick for work; it’s what she would have done back in West Berlin, where most of the boutique girls had at least one day off per month. But here, it’s not the done thing. Workers of all ages haul themselves in to their shifts day after day, healthy and pink or weak and ashen; it’s what you do for the good of all, for the glory of the GDR. And she owes it to them, the other workers, because didn’t they save her life?

  From across the room, Karin eyes the half-sewn garment lying on her table, her fingers itching to get back to her needles and thread and her rusty sewing machine. This month’s copy of Sybille magazine is open on the page offering the inspiration for her latest creation, her own paper pattern cut from old newspapers. She could spend the entire day finishing the dress, blissfully in her own world. Easy then, to imagine she is back home in Schöneberg, at the window of her and Jutta’s room, the treadle of her more modern machine ticking away to a steady rhythm, her mother or Gerda clanking dishes in the kitchen down the corridor.

  Karin shakes the memories away. Sometimes they lift her, but equally they can have the opposite effect of pitching her into a darkened cave of despair. She rolls herself from her bed and her feet hit the cool, bare boards of her room. In the echoey bathroom, she reaches for an aspirin to get her through the day; at least she has something to look forward to, something to pull her through eight hours of her shift. A date, a bar, some music. Bad beer, but at least i
t has that liquefying effect after several glasses. It’s time away from work and the tiny room where the walls often close in, but where, if she closes her eyes, the privacy allows infinite space to dream. That – and Otto – are the only elements keeping her going. A light at the end of what is often a deep, dark tunnel.

  25

  Looking to the East

  1st July 1963, West Berlin

  Jutta wakes to a dull ache in her stomach that she recognises as anticipation, wrapped around a solid nugget of fear. Today is the day.

  The weekend seemed endless, even though she’d been flushed out of the apartment by Irma to a bar in Charlottenburg, where they listened to a band trying their best to emulate any four-piece ensembles from England. The latest single from The Beatles echoed through the tinny speakers; ‘From Me to You’, the band sang jovially, and it took on a whole new significance for Jutta. Nothing could take her mind off that corridor and the window, her own gateway through the back of the wardrobe, into a different land entirely.

  After some thought, Jutta decided not to chance going into the East at the weekend – too many people milling about on Harzer Strasse, curious children playing out on their bicycles. And she has no idea what a weekend looks like in the East anymore. Are people holed up in their homes, or out enjoying the sunshine? It might as well be the moon, for all she can predict. Monday seemed to her the best option: a day when people are at work, cafés and shops open, with hopefully enough bodies to blend in, not stand out as the woman who asks odd questions.