The Girl Behind the Wall

by Mandy Robotham

  They hardly speak as they head out into the early afternoon sunshine. Instead, their fingertips glide towards each other as they descend the hospital steps, brushing and sparking with the familiarity they might have felt in the womb, if only they could remember that far back.

  Karin walks assuredly beyond the gates and strides forward. They cross a bridge over the Spree and still she keeps going, silently. Jutta longs to hug her tightly, or to link arms at the very least, but each time she moves closer or begins a sentence, Karin caps her off: ‘Not here, not yet.’

  It’s a good while before they reach a busy interchange near to Friedrichstrasse station and Karin pilots them between two grand, old columns and under the sign that says Presse Café. Jutta is itching to simply head south and towards the portal, wary of the passing looks, which might be registering two very similar women side by side. Or maybe they look different enough now? She wants to get going, but is also desperate to sit down and drink something, thinking of the lengthy walk back to the workshops.

  Inside the café, they head into the corner, amid the jumble of old wooden tables. It’s only a quarter full, and clearly a hang-out for students, the clientele largely in their twenties.

  ‘I’ve got a few Marks,’ Jutta says. ‘Do you need …?’

  ‘No, it’s okay,’ Karin answers and goes to order, chatting to the bartender as if she’s a regular. She returns with two coffees, heavy on the milk as Jutta likes, and two bland but bulky bread rolls, a few slices of wurst slotted in.

  ‘Sorry, this is all they have,’ Karin apologises.

  ‘It’s fine,’ says Jutta, who’s starting to feel light-headed and would eat virtually anything at that moment. The strong coffee goes straight to her head at the first sip and she coughs, eyes wide.

  Karin’s mood switches and she laughs, her familiar tinkle of cut glass. ‘I always think of you when I come here,’ she says. ‘I imagined you’d like the coffee – the taste isn’t great but at least it’s strong.’ She pauses. ‘And here you are.’

  There’s so much to say, and Karin seems conscious of the time, but Jutta is keen to impress one thing. ‘I’ve got a way out, Karin,’ she blurts in a whisper. ‘I’ve found access – I didn’t come across the border. I found my own way. If we were to head there now, we’ll be back at home for supper.’ It comes in a tidal wave, breathless as she’s conscious of keeping her voice and enthusiasm in check. ‘Mama’s going to be so delight—’

  ‘I can’t, Ja-Ja.’

  Time, even on the ancient and dusty wall clock, seems to stand still.

  ‘What do you mean, you can’t? It’s not a tunnel, Karin, I promise, or the sewers – I know you couldn’t do that. It’s tucked away but above groun—’

  Karin cuts in again, clutching at her sister’s hands across the table, her own red and raw, doubtless from the harsh cleaning fluids she works with. Her voice is heavy with guilt. ‘I mean I can’t leave here. East Berlin.’

  After the Wall, Jutta imagined there was nothing much left to shock her. Yet here it is, from her sister, of all people. ‘But why not? Surely, you miss home, want to come home?’

  ‘Of course I do,’ Karin urges, low in to the table. ‘Oh Ja-Ja, you can’t imagine how many times I’ve thought about it – returning to you and Mama, Gerda and Hugo. Even Uncle Oskar. Every day. But here there is real fear. As much as any intelligent person knows it’s propaganda, they instil fear’ – as if to prove a point her eyes sweep across the room, watching for those watching them – ‘and that fear grinds into you. Not just the prospect of being shot, but the consequences if you’re not. Those that have survived an East German prison say they almost wished they’d died on the Wall.’ Her expression is grave, and Jutta sees the deep-seated terror within. ‘I can’t chance being caught. I’m sorry. It frightens me to the core.’

  For a second, Jutta runs with dread at the thought that she has to make it back across – and today. In reaching her sister, she hasn’t dismissed the journey back through the portal, but imagines it will be easier in reverse. Her entire focus so far has been on finding Karin, and returning together. For the last time.

  ‘Well, okay – now that we know how to contact you, I could get a fake passport, a good one. I know people,’ Jutta pushes, masking her intense disappointment.

  ‘There’s something else,’ Karin says quietly. ‘Another reason. Someone else.’

  For one crazy second Jutta thinks it’s the doctor who brought them together at the Charité, although he’s easily old enough to be their father. Even within minutes, she glimpsed an unspoken bond between them, the looks they exchanged.

  ‘The doctor?’ she quizzes.

  ‘Walter?’ Karin half-laughs. ‘No, Ja-Ja, though I do love him – he saved me, at the beginning.’ She takes in a breath. ‘No, it’s Otto. He’s the reason I can’t leave. I’m in love, Ja-Ja. In love with Otto.’

  Karin pulls a bent and dog-eared snapshot from her uniform pocket, a square, colour portrait of a young man. It’s a formal pose, so he’s not smiling, but Jutta thinks it could be nice when he does. His blond hair shines out, blue eyes intent on looking to the left of the camera. There’s an embossed stamp in one corner and Jutta just makes out ‘Department of …’

  ‘He’s in the Party?’ Jutta’s voice rises, incredulous.

  ‘No! No,’ Karin assures. ‘But he does work for a government ministry. He’s an architect.’ Here, her face softens, at the mere thought of him, and Jutta can’t help but detect a real tenderness in her sister’s voice. She’s never seen it before in Karin, for any man or boy, though she recognises the frisson, the way her tired eyes sparkle in just saying his name.

  ‘So, he can come too,’ Jutta urges. ‘West Berlin – the whole of West Germany, in fact – is crying out for architects. He’ll find a job easily.’

  Karin lets out a second sigh, hard enough that her breath hits their hands still clasped over the scratched wood and coffee stains of the table. ‘He wouldn’t – he won’t leave,’ she says. ‘I know Otto. His father has been sick recently, and still is. Plus …’

  ‘Plus what?’ Jutta’s voice has a sudden edge.

  Karin takes a breath, looks into the grain of the table. ‘He’s passionate about the rebuilding of Berlin, of East Germany. He believes in equality – a good life for all, somewhere safe to live. For everyone.’

  Jutta can’t help that her brow flattens with doubt, and sees that Karin catches it instantly. ‘I know you find that hard to believe, and I did at first,’ she goes on. ‘But the more I know Otto, the more I see what he envisages.’

  ‘So you believe in this way of life, Karin? You’re converted?’ Jutta pulls her hand away sharply, her irritation threatening to bubble over. This day has already been incredible enough, without what she’s hearing now.

  ‘No, of course not, not all of it,’ Karin replies. ‘There’s bits I hate …’

  ‘Not least the way a woman of your talent is made to swab floors!’ Jutta spits. But what she’s thinking inside is more personal – Karin’s decision is an affront. Her sister is not choosing the family, or Schöneberg, or their old life. Or her.

  Karin looks momentarily hurt, but her resolve has clearly grown since August 1961, and she merely blinks it back. ‘But I love Otto. He’s already sacrificed for me, had to be scrutinised for even being seen with a West Berliner. Maybe he won’t be promoted because of it. But he’s done it for me. Because he loves me. I can’t leave him, don’t you see?’

  Jutta is silenced by her sister’s passion, the deep-seated emotion she has when talking of the man she loves. But the leaden weight in her own chest is like a solid ship being dragged to the bottom of the ocean. It crushes her. When she set eyes on Karin less than an hour before in that grease-laden canteen, she thought the nightmare of the past two years would be over by the day’s end. That they would slip back through the secret opening, not to set foot in the East for years to come, all of it a horrible chapter in the past. She’s thought all day of Mama�
�s face as Karin walks back through the apartment door, of Gerda’s shriek of delight and Hugo’s hugs.

  Karin looks at the clock. ‘I have to go,’ she says. ‘It’s best you don’t walk back with me.’

  They go one by one into the toilet instead, standing outside the clean but worn stall doors, daubed with graffiti, until the room is empty.

  ‘Are you sure, Karin, that there isn’t a way to persuade him, given time?’ Jutta stands opposite her sister, perhaps not such a mirror image as they were in the past.

  ‘Yes. No. Oh, Ja-Ja, I don’t know!’ Karin peels away and turns her back, shoulders quaking as she can’t hold back her distress any longer. Jutta nestles up against her from behind, her arms circling her sister’s undoubtedly thinner frame, and holds her fast, head bowed into Karin’s neck and choking back her own sorrow.

  ‘I just know I can’t leave, Ja-Ja,’ Karin sobs. ‘I love him. I could come back but without him I would be miserable.’

  ‘I know,’ Jutta comforts her. ‘I know.’

  But she doesn’t, can’t understand why Karin won’t turn tail with her at that very minute and hurry towards their only chance of freedom together. Possibly because Jutta has never known such love, except for her family, and her sister especially. What is one man against an entire life to be lived?

  But it’s clear that Karin does know those depths now. And it’s for someone else. It had to happen, eventually. But Jutta never imagined it would hit on this day. In this way.

  Despite her bewilderment, she can see Karin’s distress is multiplied; the separation by the Wall was forced and unequivocal. It’s been agony, but easier than the divide she’s faced with now, one of her own choosing. Jutta yearns for some way to make it right, for everyone.

  ‘What if you had time, to talk Otto round gradually?’ she suggests. ‘Do you think he might see what type of life you could have?’

  Karin looks up and turns to her sister, the side of her mouth moving upwards a little. ‘Maybe,’ she says. ‘I could try. I mean, there’s his parents, but yes, if I had some time. Is that possible?’

  ‘Yes, for a while, I think,’ Jutta finds herself saying, though she has no idea how it might work in reality. ‘We can sort it out, I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh, Ja-Ja, if only it were simple,’ Karin says.

  Jutta half-laughs. ‘And if only we didn’t have a bloody great Wall carving up our city!’

  27

  Divided Again

  1st July 1963, East Berlin

  Karin walks back towards the Charité alone, her cheap shoes dragging on the pavement, mind in complete turmoil. The tender, tearful goodbye with Jutta had been up against the sour urine smell of the toilets, hugging so hard her bones felt they might break, but neither of them willing to let go. Why is the Wall severing their lives like this, forcing her to yank on her loyalties and decide? She folds her arms while walking, as if to wedge together the two sides of her heart.

  At least there is progress, since Jutta now knows where she lives, although she would be wary of having any visitors aside from Otto to her shabby, two-roomed apartment. At night, he often lies in her bed, staring at the damp patch on her ceiling with frustration, and she likes to think it forms part of his motivation to make better homes for all in East Berlin, in the entire GDR. It’s true what she told Jutta, that she’s never met anyone like him. Not a devout communist, but simply passionate about improving the lives of those around him.

  Whenever he talks about his work, his eyes are so alight and his fervour so intense that she can’t question his vision of a more equal future. Her upbringing, not to mention her current internment inside the GDR regime, made her initially cynical of his zeal. And she still is to some extent, since Otto’s version of utopia neatly sidesteps the menacing presence of the Stasi, as if putting everything right means the need for surveillance will simply melt away. But it’s also the hope that he possesses – his intellect alongside his naivety – that she loves so much. And the truth is, she’s afraid to tell him everything about herself, to offer him a chance of a different kind of freedom. He would never betray her to the authorities, she’s certain of that, but their love might not survive such a monumental shift. Not yet anyway. Otto has lived in a divided Germany almost all his adult life. If she forces him too quickly, she’s scared of which he would choose. His family or hers, his ethos or a freedom that he’s never truly known.

  So now she has a quandary of her own: how to convince Otto to defect to the West, to leave his beloved job, and his ailing father and doting mother? And in just six months. That’s what she promised Jutta, hoping her own sister will see the value of breaching the Wall again. That there is something worth waiting for. Even with the pledge, she wonders if Jutta will risk another journey into the East – if she does make it back safely today. They may both lose the precious contact before they can relish it, perhaps forever, and with it her own vital gateway to letters for Mama too.

  Though Karin hates the idea of Jutta in repeated jeopardy, the mere notion of crossing the Wall herself, either over – or worse – contained in a suffocating tunnel or in the cramped boot of a car, makes her whole being shiver. That’s before even a thought of capture and the Stasi. She yearns to be braver, to share the risk with her sister as they’ve shared everything in their lives so far. Yet now she’s seen her cherished Ja-Ja and sparked the fuse they have, she simply can’t bear to let it fizzle again.

  It’s past Karin’s allotted hour, but she’ll face a rebuke from her supervisor, she decides, and sits on a bench outside the hospital’s imposing entrance. It’s not just Jutta’s disappointed face that pushes up in front of her, but Mama’s and Gerda’s. Their hurt, at her choosing Otto over them, even for now. How can she justify it? She can’t, that’s the truth. There are no winners when it comes to this Wall; boundaries never unify, despite the GDR’s insistence that it benefits their country.

  Karin pulls herself up, wipes at the river of salt crust running into her neck and takes a breath. Her dreams of seeing Jutta have been satisfied, a wish come true. So why does she feel as if a large part of her has died inside?

  28

  Ghosting Back

  1st July 1963, East Berlin

  Jutta’s hurried steps are driven by a melting pot of hurt and disappointment, and the anger that she refuses to recognise just yet; a cauldron of simmering emotion that bubbles into hot tears as she walks, head down, allowing her hair to fall like a curtain and hide her deep sorrow. All weekend, she had dreamed of making this return journey with Karin by her side, leading the way back to the window and into a world they would resume. But Jutta is returning alone, and the sense of loneliness is tenfold. Though she has Karin’s pledge to coax Otto round, neither broached what they would do if faced with his refusal, and now Jutta tussles with that prospect. But however wounded she feels, she’s determined not to see Karin’s choice as disloyalty. More that her sister has the capacity for a steadfast fidelity towards another. It’s admirable, and so very Karin. It’s what she – everyone – loves about her. And yet, if she’s entirely honest with herself, Jutta can’t help a new sensation festering inside – bilious and ugly, a toxic green hue: jealousy.

  Despite the enduring ache in her feet, she walks on, fuelled by the trepidation that may well turn to terror before she reaches the portal if she’s not careful, cultivated by Karin’s obvious fear of capture. She glances sideways at the vehicles driving past, wary of any slowing up, even slightly; Karin had warned her of the small grey Barkas vans common to East Berlin, which are made up to look like grocery or laundry delivery trucks – sign-painted with names and wares – but are more often Stasi ‘collection’ vehicles, kitted out with cramped holding cells inside. Several greyish vans pass by as Jutta moves south, retracing her earlier route because she’s too afraid to get out her map and work out a new trail towards the garage workshops, but none stop. Women with children eye her as they pass, but it could be out of sympathy for her reddened eyes and the pinched express
ion of someone about to shed more tears. Even a young Vopo smiles at her weakly, and she manages to turn her mouth upwards accordingly; he’s barely twenty and looks out of place shouldering his gun, let alone using it. As Karin had insisted back at the café, the Stasi have made spies out of many, but not all; East Berliners, she’d insisted, are stoic and solid, ‘loyal to humanity mostly’. For a minute, Jutta had imagined Karin was on the brink of saying ‘us East Berliners’, which might have struck the day’s final blow. Thankfully, she didn’t.

  There’s a rush of alarm when Jutta’s memory doesn’t register the street she’s on, or the buildings alongside as familiar. With the well of tears blurring her view, has she missed a crucial turning? It’s not about to get dark any time soon, but any light in this side of Berlin remains shadowy, unfamiliar and definitely uncomfortable. Why hadn’t she committed the name of the street next to the workshop firmly to memory, instead of looking only towards finding Karin? How can you be so stupid, Jutta? She’s almost on the point of sidling into an alleyway and pulling out the map when she recognises a corner shop with a distinctive window display – an impending two-for-one price offer on bread that is sure to see the queues double – and her heart begins pumping again. She pushes all thoughts of her sister aside. It’s about survival now. That’s clearly what Karin has done for almost two years now: just focused on getting by.

  The edge of the industrial area comes into view and Jutta makes a sweep of the street by pretending to fiddle in her bag near a bench, noting it’s nearing three p.m. and an hour before some homeward workers begin to populate the streets. With no one obviously loitering, and no sign of the all-too-curious mechanic still lurking, she slips into the lane between the workshops, ears on alert for any footsteps behind – that’s if the noise can make it past the pounding of blood in her ears. On the way to the window, she scouts for pallets or boxes to use as a makeshift ladder, cursing herself for her own lack of planning and prompting a wave of shame. Once again, her only outward focus had been on finding Karin.