The Girl Behind the Wall

by Mandy Robotham

  But she’s in luck; the alleyway provides one pallet and two pieces of roughly squared-off stone that she hauls towards the window without causing too much noise, aside from her own huffing and puffing. The window is as she left it, seemingly closed but popping ajar as she prises her fingernails under it. Jutta has always been the more agile and sporty of the twins, and here it serves her well as she pulls herself up to full height and levers one leg inside the window, balancing precariously for a second before pushing herself over to part-fall and part-manoeuvre herself onto the pallets on the other side. Grazed and bruised, Jutta holds herself low on the dusty floor, motionless for several seconds. When there’s no clattering of military footsteps, no repercussions, she stands and drives her body forward through the corridor and into the kitchen, where the mama cat leaves her babies’ nest and greets Jutta with a friendly purring, inching over to offer fur and solace, gratefully received by a woman shaking visibly at her day’s endeavour.

  29

  The Knowing

  1st July 1963, West Berlin

  ‘But what do I tell Mama? Or should I keep it back for now, until I’m more certain of Karin?’ Jutta says, fingers twisting at strands of her hair, something she does only when she’s either extremely excited or impossibly anxious.

  Hugo cocks his head and swirls the ice in his brandy – Jutta had insisted meeting in a bar when she’d called him at work, her need for alcohol being unusually great.

  ‘Oh Christ, Jutta, how am I supposed to know? It’s not my mama.’ Except he’s clearly aware it’s no defence, as the decision to tell or not will affect his mother almost as much; Gerda’s love for Jutta and Karin is entirely maternal and equally intense. ‘Do you think she will be able to persuade this boyfriend of hers to defect?’

  Jutta shakes her head slowly. ‘I don’t know, and I don’t think she does either.’ In all truth, she’s not sure who she met on the other side of the Wall this afternoon, and whether it was her sister at all.

  Hugo tries another tack. ‘Well, at least you know she’s safe, and not at the mercy of any dodgy individuals,’ he says.

  She looks at him with concern, knows that he’s hinting at the stories circulating of East Berlin women – some of them Westerners – forced into prostitution as a way of earning their fake passports over the Wall to freedom. She’s heard the stories, too, and always tried to banish the image of Karin in the same scenario.

  ‘And you have plans to link up again, don’t you?’ Hugo prods.

  Jutta swallows back her brandy. ‘In a week, though I don’t know how often I can do that, go through the Wall. I was terrified on the way back.’ She scoffs and swirls the remaining ice in her glass. ‘I may well become an alcoholic if I do it too frequently.’

  The brandy with Hugo is her second since leaving the garage-house. After scrambling through the rabbit hole, she’d leapt into the nearest bar beyond Harzer Strasse that didn’t seem like a dive and ordered a brandy just that bit too enthusiastically, enough for a man alongside to turn and smile.

  ‘That bad, eh?’ His accent was American, his look entirely clean-cut, and although he was wearing jeans and a shirt, she pictured him instantly in uniform – a sergeant perhaps. Despite the endless talk of democracy, West Berlin’s foundations remain firmly military.

  After one large mouthful, Jutta had re-engaged her power of speech. ‘Something like that,’ she’d said and smiled weakly. If only you knew, soldier. She felt his eyes follow her to a table and settle for a second or two, but he was soon joined by friends and they moved to a cluster of seats across the bar.

  Hugo’s practicality brings her back from her reverie. ‘Well, why don’t you wait until you see her again before revealing all at home?’ he suggests. ‘I mean, today was weird for all sorts of reasons. Getting our mothers’ hopes up is pointless and cruel, especially as nothing is certain with … what’s his name?’

  ‘Otto.’

  ‘Yeah, well – Otto. I think you wait.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Jutta agrees, and she’s relieved to adopt Hugo’s common sense. She’s physically and emotionally exhausted, and the thought of letting Mama and Gerda down gently while facing their inevitable inquisition makes her crave sleep. Still, she’s surprised that Hugo hasn’t warned her off going again, or that he’s not more shocked – and impressed – by her bravery in going at all. On the one hand, she thinks he has the sagacity of an old man puffing on a pipe and, on the other, he’s a man-boy who floats on a wave of excitement, hooked on the city’s dynamism.

  ‘Let’s get home,’ Hugo says. ‘But I’d smarten yourself up in the toilet first. I hate to say it, Jut, but you do look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.’

  ‘And you don’t know how right you are.’

  30

  Admissions

  3rd July 1963, East Berlin

  The days drag for Karin. The vast stretches of boredom at the hospital, where she has always delved inside her head for inspiration, now become a mental battleground and a tug-of-war with her own reasoning. Has she made the right decision to stay for now? Thanks to his work, it’s two days before she can see Otto again. They watch a play, a thinly veiled portrayal of East German strength and tenacity dressed as a love story, where loyalty for the nation overrides all. Karin has to excuse herself at the interval and retch drily into the toilet, while Otto quizzes her if she’s ill. Can he do anything? Does she want to leave early? But she knows it’s an enduring sickness that will be unresolved for a long time.

  ‘You’re pale,’ Otto says, palming her forehead in the lobby before he walks her home. ‘Are you really all right?’

  Karin so wants to tell him – to begin gently sounding him out, planting the idea of a better life elsewhere. To explain about Jutta. But it’s too soon. He knows she has a sister, but not a life’s soulmate. It’s a portion of her she can’t seem to let go, as if that particular Karin doesn’t belong to the East, reserved for another life. In the small hours, she ponders whether – subconsciously – she’s clutching at her secret for a more practical reason, perhaps to aid her escape? How or why remains a mystery, but she’s learnt not to question it.

  Walter Simms, though, he’s seen the evidence now with his own eyes and Karin can no longer hide it.

  ‘So, your twin sister …’ he says a day or so later. It’s a statement of fact rather than a question.

  ‘Hmm.’ Karin grasps her fork and picks through the beef stew that his wife, Christel, has left them for dinner, having gone out to her weekly, Party-approved women’s group. Normally, Karin visits for supper on a day when Christel is in, but Walter had sought her out in the hospital corridor and asked her for an impromptu meal. Given the state of her own larder, it’s always a welcome invitation, and she guesses at the topic for discussion. At the very least, she owes him an explanation.

  ‘Does that make it harder? Missing them, I mean?’ Walter’s voice is softer in his own home, less of the commanding voice of experience he uses at the hospital.

  Karin looks up, in time for a lone tear to drop and fall into the thick gravy below. He’s at her side in an instant, enveloping her in his arms as any parent might. The stew goes cold as Karin weeps out her frustration and guilt, and then, while the food is rewarming, she tells him of Jutta, of her sister’s risk and sacrifice, and her own refusal to return home instantly.

  ‘Have I done the wrong thing? Will I live to regret it, Walter?’

  Dr Simms – a man of enviable reason and genuine kindness – shakes his head. ‘Not if it was your gut feeling,’ he assures. ‘Have you put yourself back there, on the other side, and imagined how you would be feeling – without Otto? If it would seem right?’

  She has, hundreds of times since Jutta disappeared from the Presse Café. She knows exactly how it would be: basking in Mama’s love, brimming with Gerda’s comforting food, endlessly delighted to be sleeping again at Jutta’s side. Those thoughts make her smile into the floor as she’s mopping the hospital c
orridors. Then, a sour sensation follows the joy: wretchedness that Otto is not breathing beside her, that she can’t nuzzle into the fresh smell of his neck, or run her outstretched hand through his thick, blond hair. Yes, there are the freedoms of West Berlin to consider too – the bars and clubs on Kurf’damm, enticing boutiques and access to fabrics and opportunities she can only dream of now. But they are merely things, and it’s people Karin has come to rely on – the likes of Walter and Christel, who took her in without question when she was cast afloat in the GDR sea, and Otto who refuses to bow to the pressure over his relationship with a West Berliner, a born capitalist and a traitor to communism.

  So it’s people, and not places or trinkets, which nudge Karin this way or that. They swing in her head like a pendulum that may never, ever settle. But now she must make it swing – in the right direction.

  ‘Have you told Otto yet?’ Walter spoons out the piping hot stew a second time.

  Karin is alarmed. ‘No! And you mustn’t either. Please, Walter. I can’t tell him yet. Just knowing would put him and his family at too much risk, and his father is still recovering.’ Otto’s parents, hard-working communists and firm believers, have never quite warmed to Karin, likely because of her origins. Yet again, she’s certain Otto has defended her fiercely in private. But for all their coldness, she wouldn’t wish the spotlight of the Stasi anywhere near the Krugers.

  ‘Just be careful,’ Walter says quietly. ‘Very, very careful.’ He doesn’t ask the details, though it’s clear that he suspects Jutta’s visit will not be a one-off. Like all Easterners, he’ll recognise that what he doesn’t know can’t be wrung out of him. And he’ll want to leave it that way. Though they’ve known each other such a short time, Karin senses that Walter thinks of her as family, a second daughter, but in reality he has another daughter to protect, one born from his blood, and a wife too. A job, and a good life helping people. Of all the people Karin knows, Walter Simms is not naive. He sees through the system, in the same way she’s sometimes watched him peer deep into X-rays up against the light box. He once told her: ‘In each one the heart is there, in its right place. It just needs fixing sometimes.’

  If only there was an easy remedy for her own heart.

  31

  A Welcome Distraction

  5th July 1963, West Berlin

  In the Presse Café toilet, Jutta had agreed hastily to revisit the next week, on a Monday again, knowing that if she was left to ponder over the prospect too long, she might well renege at the last minute. But if she’s promised Karin, if her sister is there waiting for her, she won’t let her down. Not now they have renewed and restrung the thread.

  At work, the time drags, and the sidelong glances from Gerda, who’s far too intuitive to hide much from, make it hard for Jutta to spend time at home. She joins the fluchthelfers again in the university refectory – though keeping herself on the sidelines – and is keen to glean any up-to-date information on successful attempts over the Wall. But there’s little news, and her own secret is in danger of worming its way out as a confession if she sits too long. She clutches at her coffee cup and presses her mouth firmly closed.

  It’s both a welcome distraction and an irritation when Irma pleads with Jutta to make up a foursome on a Friday night.

  ‘Come on, we haven’t seen each other for ages,’ Irma entreats. ‘I really like this guy, but he’s quite shy. He wants to bring a friend, assures me that he’s very nice. Please, Jutta?’

  Drinks at the Hilton are a rare event on Jutta’s budget, and seem somehow frivolous when there are more critical elements to her life. She knows also that she’ll be thinking of Karin as she sips cocktails in the relative opulence. Equally, it will make the clock hands turn and preoccupy her mind with more than thoughts of having to weave her way through the Wall again. And saying yes pleases Irma too.

  They meet in Charlottenburg, just south of the Tiergarten. The Hilton is one of Berlin’s more distinctive new builds; it’s an impressive chequerboard black and white structure that screams fashion and places West Berlin firmly in the Western world. The interior is equally vogueish, and Jutta hates herself for smiling inside at the gleam of the chrome and the clean lines of the furnishings, for even liking the luxury. Karin always wanted to come here.

  Seating themselves in a booth, Irma pulls down her too-short dress and arranges her legs at their best angle before the men arrive. Jutta’s only concession to a date is her hair, washed and backcombed, plus a light tinge of pale pink lipstick and some understated earrings. And, of course, she’s wearing a dress of Karin’s design.

  ‘Where did you meet this guy?’ Jutta says, eyes sweeping the busy bar and its clientele – chic, moneyed and not worried about the price of the cocktails, clearly.

  ‘The Hotel am Zoo,’ Irma says. ‘I was waiting in the lobby for a friend, and he came up and asked me for a light. His German accent is terrible and I knew straightaway he was from the US.’

  ‘He’s American?’ Jutta’s eyes are wide with alarm. ‘Am I to presume his friend is too?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you?’ Irma says with mock innocence. ‘Anyway, what have you got against the Yanks?’

  ‘I’ve nothing against them. I just wish you’d told me, that’s all.’ It simply means there’s less chance for Jutta to escape thoughts of her subterfuge, the cloud of risk hanging over her. The Allies are not entirely against Wall-breakers, in fact they often applaud them privately after the act. Equally, they have to be seen to be upholding some form of law, and not rubbing shoulders with those who flout the rules. Those like her.

  It turns out they are not only Americans, but servicemen too. Smart, well pressed and good-looking, but military all the same, causing an extra reminder of Jutta’s recent incursion. Irma’s date, Tom, is not in the least bit shy and makes a beeline for her, leaving his friend to make his own introductions. Not that he’s unfamiliar; Jutta recognises him instantly.

  ‘Hello again,’ he says, sitting beside her and holding out a hand. He’s smiling while gesturing at her half-drunk cocktail. ‘I see you’re not knocking back the brandy tonight?’

  ‘No, not today,’ she smiles. He inhabits the tan-khaki uniform as if he was born in it – the same all-American look she remembers from that convenient bar near the Harzer Strasse, the one where she was enthusiastically sinking alcohol to steady her frayed nerves after ghosting through the Wall. Illegally.

  ‘Forgive me, but I just have to say it,’ he adds. There’s a real glint in his blue eyes and, with his neat dark hair, he looks every inch the army boy. And yet, she detects something else too.

  ‘And what would that be?’

  ‘Of all the bars in all the world …’ He laughs. ‘A true movie moment, don’t you think? It must mean we’re destined to be together.’

  Except he says it with enough mockery, in his faux-Bogart accent, that it’s saved from being a dreadful flirtation. Jutta can’t help laughing, and a large portion of her week’s stress drops away in an instant.

  Irma and Tom are head to head in one half of the booth, and so she and the formally introduced Danny Strachan inhabit their own portion of the bar bubble. And Jutta finds, for once, that it’s not awkward, or embarrassing, or that she’s the spare part to Irma’s consistent search for a husband who might whisk her out of Berlin and Germany.

  ‘Do you make a habit of being “the other guy”?’ she asks Danny, tongue firmly in cheek, loosened by a second cocktail that he ordered with a well-practised flick of his fingers. They’ve morphed into talking English – Danny’s German is passable, though slightly wooden, and Jutta’s English easily more accomplished.

  ‘I try not to,’ he replies, ‘but Tom’s a good friend. He’d do the same for me. And really, this is not hard work.’

  He says it while sipping at his own drink, hiding a wry smile. Jutta hadn’t wanted to like her blind date, had been almost determined not to, but she finds she can’t help it. He’s undeniably attractive, mid-height and solid rather than stock
y, but, more than anything, his easy demeanour is a welcome respite.

  To Jutta, Lieutenant Strachan seems as if he was born into a uniform, and he admits his presence in Berlin is a fait accompli. ‘The military is in my family,’ he explains. ‘My dad was in the Air Force, some hot-shot in the war, and my uncle is on the Allied staff here.’

  ‘Really?’ His assertion causes that tweak of discomfort to surface in Jutta again.

  He nods. ‘I don’t mind admitting that I rather traded on my uncle’s name to get my place over here. Not that we see much of each other. But I was intrigued.’

  ‘By Berlin?’

  ‘By everything – the city, the people, the Wall …’

  ‘We’re not exhibits in a zoo, you know,’ she flashes instantly, her brow furrowed with irritation, enough that he pulls back slightly.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean it like that,’ he counters. ‘Really, I didn’t – only that I couldn’t imagine how it would be, surrounded by something most people hate, being cut off …’

  The words hack into her, a spasm in her stomach so piercing that Jutta pulls her hand to her abdomen and gulps back a cry, Danny’s words firing a memory of that first day and night without Karin by her side. Cut off. Now the incision feels like it’s stabbing with fresh purpose from the inside.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have to go,’ she says, picking up her bag and scrambling from the booth.

  ‘Was it something I said?’ Danny is blindsided. ‘I’m sorry if I offended you.’ He’s following her from the bar at a pace. ‘Really, it wasn’t my intention to …’