The Girl Behind the Wall

by Mandy Robotham

  Jutta keeps on walking, knows that her manners are wanting, but she needs to get home, to sink her face into her pillow and block out the memory. Or sob it out.

  Danny Strachan, however, is insistent, and he follows her out of the bar. ‘Jutta, please. Hold on.’

  She stops, if only out of politeness, turns and fiddles with the handle of her bag.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what I said to offend you but, whatever it was, I apologise,’ he urges.

  ‘It’s not you. It’s me,’ she replies flatly. ‘I’m … I don’t know what I am, but I need to leave. Now. I’m sorry.’

  His eyes are even bluer out of the darkened bar: vibrant and friendly. Too intent to ignore. ‘Can I least see you again, start off fresh? C’mon, give a Yank a chance, eh?’

  She can’t help but consider. Just his bright, open face is easing the twist inside. ‘Yes, of course. Let’s do that,’ she nods.

  He walks her through the lobby to the front entrance, hails a taxi from under the awning and slips the driver several notes. ‘Here’s looking at you, kid,’ he says through the taxi window.

  She angles her head.

  ‘Casablanca? Rick and Ilsa? Remember – we’re destined.’

  What was that? Jutta stares out of the taxi window as it draws away from the Hilton. The agonising torque of her gut has left a soreness beneath the dress that Karin stitched for her, a cool jersey cotton she remembers her sister battling to control under the machine’s needle. She holds her hand firmly there. Oh, Karin, why didn’t you come back, to drink cocktails at the Hilton? Just a taste of the luxury that you deserve. To laugh with me again. To feel normal. Whole. Why, Karin?

  ‘You’re home early,’ Mama says from her armchair in front of the small television. ‘Was your evening good?’

  ‘Fine,’ Jutta lies, and plants herself on the chair opposite. ‘Where is everyone?’

  ‘Oh, Hugo is with his friends, and I’ve persuaded Gerda and Oskar to go out for dinner. It’s about time.’

  ‘Are they all right, those two?’ Aside from their occasional walks to work, Jutta and her mother rarely seem to have time alone to talk, especially in the apartment. Once Jutta retreats to her bedroom and shuts the door, her mother respects her need for space.

  ‘You know Gerda, she’s always fine,’ Ruth says. ‘But Oskar – no, he isn’t himself. Not since … well, that time.’ She can’t bring herself to say ‘since the Wall, since Karin’, but Jutta nods an understanding.

  ‘Is he ill? He looks it sometimes,’ she presses.

  ‘Well, if he is, he hasn’t told Gerda, and she tells me everything. I suspect it’s something to do with his business, which he does not tell Gerda about, that’s for sure.’ Ruth wraps her cardigan around her body in a gesture of disdain, even though the evening is still warm.

  The television voice twitters into the silence between the chairs.

  ‘Are you all right, my love?’ Ruth says eventually.

  Jutta looks up, disguising alarm. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, you seem a little distracted recently.’

  Unease takes flight again inside Jutta’s gut. ‘Do I? Sorry, I don’t mean to be. Stuff at work, that’s all. I’m fine, Mama. Really.’

  They chat about almost nothing for half an hour – a new member of staff at Ruth’s work, someone who’s leaving to have a baby – each aware they are skirting the issue of the anniversary fast approaching: the date that has a dual significance, for the city and the family in unison. Soon, it will be two years since the Wall, and Karin. How can I not tell Mama? And yet, how would she begin to understand Karin’s delay?

  Jutta pushes back the urge to confess, saved also by Gerda coming through the door alone, weary but resigned to the fact that Oskar has sloped off to the local kneipe after being forced to have dinner with his wife. She and Ruth settle in for a lengthy moan about the limitations of the male race and Jutta takes the opportunity to sidle away.

  Lying in her room, she reflects on the week; not in the least taxing at work, but elsewhere it feels as if she’s living in either a novel or a parallel universe. She has become – officially – a Wall-jumper, a ‘border violator’, a rule-breaker and a risk to the family. She saw, touched and held Karin, and yet she has to reach deep down inside herself to recall the intimacy. Her sister’s choice delivered a crippling disappointment, though it’s been alleviated slightly by something nice in meeting Danny. She cringes with embarrassment at her own behaviour and the abrupt end to the evening, which was not his fault, and came entirely from within her. Hopefully, she’ll be able to make it up to him, especially as his face, and those eyes, insist on nudging unexpectedly into her vision.

  The next morning, the weekend continues to wax and wane, the hands on the clock seemingly stuck and then circling impossibly fast. On one of his rare weekends off, Hugo senses Jutta’s agitation and pulls her out of the city centre. They borrow some bikes and cycle out to the lakes at Havel, ending up exhausted and starving on the grassy banks.

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’ her cousin asks, as he bites into a chunk of his mother’s apple cake. ‘For Monday?’

  With the effort of pedalling and the ache in her legs, Jutta has forgotten for a second and is jerked back to her dilemma, though she can’t be irritated with Hugo for his concern.

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ she says, lying back on the grass and squinting at the drift of snowy clouds. ‘I mean, I want to see her, of course I do. But can I go back and forth for six months?’

  ‘It’s risky, Jut,’ he murmurs.

  ‘I know it is. And I’ll be careful. But how can I keep away, when we have this window?’

  Silence signals his agreement. Thank God she has Hugo to confide in; the crossing is bad enough, but if she had to suppress her secret from everyone, it might be her undoing.

  Still, Jutta is surprised that Hugo hasn’t posed the obvious request, either to go with her, or for the exact whereabouts of her gateway. His curiosity as a reporter is keen enough, and it occurs to her for a second that his restraint is down to fear. He’s afraid of being caught, of being a young man in the Stasi’s grasp. And that’s good. He should be. Gerda should not go through the loss of her only child. And Jutta has to make doubly sure her mother does not lose another.

  The respite over, she wakes in the early hours of a new week with a familiar twist in her stomach and massages it away with reason. She will not be caught, it’s as simple as that. At the same time, there is no avoiding the Wall; she has to see Karin. There is only one way forward, and that is to ghost through again.

  32

  Twins Entwined

  8th July 1963, East Berlin

  Karin wakes suddenly, her eyes snapping open suddenly like a porcelain doll’s, and she stares in the half-light at the patchy ceiling, Otto’s breathing deep and steady beside her. He stays over almost every Saturday and Sunday night, and perhaps once in the week now, Karin having long since soothed her own conscience over sex before marriage – she’s been deprived of too much to believe in the higher morals of the church anymore. Besides, she loves him, and he tells her he loves her often enough, and they allude to a future together. She can picture herself at the altar, though perhaps not in ostentatious white, even if she could get the material to make it herself. But try as she might, Karin can’t make out the scene of where they are, where they will call home, perhaps where their babies will be born. Will it be dull, or bright? Will they feel free? And whose version of ‘free’ will that be? And now, since seeing Jutta: East or West?

  The hands of her clock signal 4.45 and she wills herself back to sleep, keen to be alert for the day ahead. There will be no lengthy shift at the hospital wielding her cleaning cart, not today. But she’ll go through the motions of preparing for work, hoping Otto will leave for his office before she normally does, so she can get ready. Inside, she is conflicted. How can excitement sit alongside fear, when she’s thinking of her own sister?

  Otto seems not to suspe
ct as he prepares for work, making coffee and eating the rolls he brought the night before, then kissing her tenderly on the lips. ‘Have a lovely day,’ he says on leaving. ‘Keep safe.’

  Does he normally say that? Karin thinks back. Or does he suspect something different?

  There’s no time to ponder, though. She scrapes back her hair in the bathroom mirror speckled with age and opens the carton she’s brought from the shop, costing almost a third of her week’s wages and an hour’s queueing time.

  33

  Differences

  8th July 1963, East Berlin

  Jutta spots Karin’s familiar gait skirting the edge of the sprawling Alexanderplatz and notes her sister’s contented expression. By contrast, her own face turns to wide-eyed surprise.

  ‘My God, Karin! What have you done to your hair?’

  ‘I dyed it.’ Karin pulls off her peaked beret to reveal the near white blonde of her bob, her sharp and freshly cut fringe trimmed in the mirror. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Well, it’s certainly different,’ Jutta ventures. ‘And it makes us look distinct.’

  ‘That’s the whole point,’ Karin replies. ‘We couldn’t spend the day walking around like a mirror image of each other. That would attract attention.’

  Jutta doesn’t like to point out their resemblance is the least aligned at this moment, and not due to any dramatic hair transformation. Karin’s drawn features make her instantly different. Or am I being too judgemental?

  But Karin isn’t wrong – as they link arms and head purposefully out of the square, Jutta feels a short blonde bob next to her long black hair makes them distinct enough. Unless anyone cares to look closely, they are not the twins of the past.

  ‘How was the crossing?’ Karin asks

  ‘Surprisingly all right,’ Jutta says. If she discounts the hammering heart and grating nausea, today’s passage through the house was uneventful. ‘Easy’ would be going too far. Again, there were few people about to hear her footfall in landing on East German soil, and she had swiftly brushed herself down and walked with false bravado through the alleyways into the main street. One of the Vopos had even smiled at her again, and she’d returned his friendly look, flooded with an inner satisfaction.

  ‘So, where are we going?’ Jutta asks.

  ‘There’s a large park about twenty minutes’ walk away,’ Karin says. ‘It’s got a woody area, and a small coffee booth. I’ve brought a few bits for lunch.’

  ‘Me too,’ Jutta holds up a linen bag triumphantly.

  ‘Then we’re all set.’

  For a second, it’s like being twelve years old again and marching towards the Tiergarten for a Sunday treat in one of the cafés hugging the small lakes. Until a green and white Wartburg rolls by on the street, its side emblazoned with Polizei, and Jutta feels Karin’s grip tighten. Her sister’s eyes dart left and right without the slightest shift of her head, and only when the patrol car turns the corner do her fingers relax on Jutta’s arm.

  The park is large and sparsely populated, though they steer clear of the clusters of mothers with small children and head into a small copse of trees, where the sun fights its way through the branches, creating a mosaic of colours on the mulchy floor. They spread out a thin sheet and, with the finesse of a magician pulling a rabbit from a hat, Jutta produces a large slab of Gerda’s dense fruit cake from her bag.

  Karin’s eyes are as wide as any child’s, her smile from ear to ear. ‘No!’ she cries. ‘I’ve been dreaming of Gerda’s cooking for so long.’ She marvels at all the dried fruit before pushing it into her mouth, spilling crumbs with her fervour.

  ‘And now, for my next trick …’ Jutta rummages for a large orange, holding it in the palm of her hand and readying to peel it.

  ‘No, no!’ Karin stops her, girding it with her hands. ‘Not here.’

  ‘Don’t you want it?’ Jutta’s voice betrays a slight wounding.

  ‘Of course I do, but if anyone should smell it …’ Karin looks almost embarrassed. ‘We shouldn’t attract attention, that’s all. I’ll enjoy it later.’ And she goes back to devouring her cake, washed down with the insipid, frankly foul coffee they bought from the booth at the entrance to the park, though it’s still the best picnic both of them can recall.

  ‘Oh Karin, what are we going to do?’ Jutta pitches the question lazily into the rustling trees. Their picnic is just crumbs and Karin’s newly blonde head is lying on her flattened belly, Jutta twizzling the thin strands in her long fingers, sensing the thread between them grow stronger again as Karin’s sinews melt into hers. Their dilemma is not about now – the day is already planned out, and they will lie here and talk and reminisce until Jutta begins to feel slightly feverish about the journey back through, and then their time will end. The bigger issue remains: can they keep doing this until Karin is ready to leave? Is it plainly stupid to not expect the portal to be bulldozed in the next few months? Or worse, discovered?

  But Karin’s silence says she can’t, or won’t, face it just yet, her breathing steady and relaxed against Jutta’s abdomen. It’s clear there’s only one other person who can make Karin feel so content inside – and his life is here, in East Berlin.

  Jutta, though, wants to understand Karin’s choice. She needs to. ‘So, where did you meet Otto?’ she begins.

  ‘At the hospital ironically,’ Karin says. ‘He almost bumped into me while visiting his papa.’ She smiles at the memory. ‘I think he must have some magical ability to see beyond the surface, because he asked me for a drink, despite that dreadful overall and me in a shocking state.’

  A short pause.

  ‘Is it the real thing?’ Jutta says.

  Karin’s head shifts, and she laughs; the two of them spent hours talking as teenagers in the dim light of their bedroom about which man would represent ‘the real thing’, someone to relinquish everything for.

  ‘Do you mean will I have his babies and live happily ever after?’ Her playful tone only just disguises a hardness that Jutta can now hear, that her sweet sister Karin has become worldly-wise.

  ‘Well, will you?’

  Another pause, shorter. ‘Yes, I hope. Probably.’ She twists her head to look up at Jutta’s face. ‘But we are careful now.’

  Jutta feels the knot in her stomach roll against Karin’s head. To her knowledge, Karin hadn’t slept with anyone before being engulfed by the East. Boyfriends, yes, kisses probably, but no one she felt ready to give herself to entirely. Otto must be different. Truly the real thing.

  ‘What about you?’ Karin asks. ‘Any nice academics at the university?’

  ‘No, they’re all very intense and take themselves far too seriously.’ For a second, she holds back about ‘her American’, as Hugo has labelled him, then feels embarrassed at her own arid love life. ‘But I have met someone recently.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ Karin sits up, suddenly curious.

  ‘Just once. He’s nice, so far.’

  ‘Nice?’ Karin wrinkles her nose and Jutta can see plainly why this Otto has fallen in love with her. ‘Come on, Ja-Ja. Spill!’ Her eyes sparkle with intrigue.

  ‘All right. He’s American. Military.’

  Karin throws back her head with glee. ‘Oh, what a pair we are with our men! Between us we’ve got one dreamy socialist and an all-American Red-hater. Should we make up a foursome, do you think?’

  Jutta surveys her sister. She has changed, her humour still playful, but it’s developed a sharper edge. Is it any surprise, considering what she’s been through? Karin, of all people, has every right to be cynical.

  They lie for hours under the trees, Karin hungry for information about the family, and talking of all the letters they’ve written and never received, before moving on to Hugo and his new confidence at the radio station.

  ‘Ironic, isn’t it, that the Wall has given him that?’ Karin says, though without bitterness. ‘Robbing so much from so many others.’ Jutta is urged to give a blow-by-blow account of Kennedy’s visit, and Karin lies with her
eyes closed, so obviously stitching together each description in her mind; more than ever, it’s the way she sees the world now, weaving dreams inside her own head.

  ‘Has your American got lots of hair and a big smile like JFK?’ Karin giggles to herself, causing Jutta to pinch her in response. ‘Ow!’

  But Jutta isn’t deterred by her sister’s teasing. Strangely, she can only recall Danny’s eyes, deep and ice blue, and she forces herself to think. ‘No, but it’s a nice smile. Listen, Karin, it’s not true love, I only just met him.’

  Then it’s her turn to pump her sister for information over the beloved Otto. ‘Have you been introduced to his parents yet?’

  Karin shifts and deflates slightly. ‘He lives with them for now, so yes.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘They’re nice enough people, though entirely duped by, or afraid of, the regime.’ Karin fidgets, sits up and looks at Jutta face on. ‘They have no oomph, Ja-Ja. I understand how people want to be cared for, how the system makes them feel safe in one way. But it’s like they’re wearing blinkers …’ here Karin swivels her head side to side, in what’s become an entirely automatic move when speaking such words ‘… and they don’t even see that they are. I know they think I’m bad for Otto, for his future in the East. The truth is, they’re just hoping that we’ll tire of each other.’

  Jutta doesn’t punctuate the silence.

  ‘We won’t, you know,’ Karin adds defensively. ‘Get fed up.’

  ‘I didn’t say you would.’

  ‘But you thought it. You might even want it.’ Karin looks hurt, crestfallen. Jutta reaches out and clasps both her hands, noting their roughness, the calluses in different places to the ones caused by hand-stitching. Wizened work hands.

  ‘Oh Karin,’ she sighs. ‘I’m trying to understand, really I am. But it’s not just for me – although God knows I miss you like crazy. It’s for Mama and Gerda too. I haven’t told them yet, about seeing you … I wouldn’t know how. You can see how they might struggle to understand the delay, can’t you?’