‘Well, this Axel is a real charmer, isn’t he?’ Hugo concludes when Jutta relays the exchange. ‘If that’s what he does to his allies, I wouldn’t like to be his enemy.’
‘What would you do, Hugo? Honestly?’ Jutta feels backed into a corner and is looking for a sliver of light – like that first chink she glimpsed in the portal. Something to lead the way.
‘I really don’t know,’ he says apologetically. ‘I would want to keep seeing Karin too. But these fluchthelfers, you know, I’m hearing stories at work about some being quite ruthless, money changing hands for helping families escape.’ He looks up from under his mop of dark hair. ‘A lot of money.’
‘I would never take so much as a pfennig,’ Jutta protests.
‘I know that,’ Hugo assures. ‘But he’s charging you a good deal of currency in risk, each and every time you go through.’
‘And if I could guarantee Karin’s safety, I would stop going,’ she says firmly. ‘I really would. But if I do what they ask, then she’s protected, at least until she makes it across for good. Do I have any choice but to say yes?’
Hugo only shrugs. At least he doesn’t diagnose her as utterly insane.
The next day, they meet on a bench at the opposite end of the campus. Axel sits, throwing off the attentions of a girl – a tall, nymph-like bean he calls ‘Bibi’, who loiters nearby, smoking and hopping from foot to foot childishly.
‘Well, I’m glad we have an agreement,’ Axel says, as if they’ve just shaken hands on a new car.
Jutta turns and glares. ‘I’m doing it purely for my sister. So I can ensure her safety.’
‘And it will. As long as we’re clear: no more twinny swaps. You can see her in the East, but she doesn’t come to the West.’
Jutta opens her mouth to protest, until he stops her with a low growl. ‘It compromises the opening too much. One-way traffic is enough. Take those terms, or we take over the access completely.’
Jutta glowers her anger. ‘And how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain? That I will be the only one to use the passage?’
Axel stands up and smiles, lights the cigarette that he’s been holding and rests one hand on his slim hips. ‘You’ll just have to trust us, won’t you?’ He blows out a lungful of smoke. ‘We’ll contact you when we have the first message.’
He walks away and links hands with Bibi, who prances alongside like a queen parading with the glittering king she’s snared, and Jutta’s stomach plummets.
In reality, Jutta has little choice but to face another set of challenges she feels ill-equipped for. And in the midst of playing spy games, how on earth will she tell Karin that her brief spell of freedom was a one-off?
50
A Journey to Consider
9th August 1963, West Berlin
They emerge from the cinema into a dusky Berlin peppered with the stream of red and white car lights, the sun’s glow retiring after a long summer’s day.
‘A drink before we eat?’ Danny says.
‘Can we go straight to the restaurant? I’m famished.’ Jutta links her own hand in his without a thought. ‘And I’m intrigued by what you say is the best Vietnamese in Berlin.’
‘No pressure then,’ Danny laughs. ‘I hope it’s good – a tip from a guy at the base, who is Vietnamese, after all.’
At last, Jutta feels the stress of her week falling away, having endured two sleepless nights and the weight of sheer exhaustion. Unwittingly, she’s given herself a breathing space by agreeing with Karin the interval of three weeks before they meet again. She plans to slip through the Wall before the weeks are up and explain, but there is time to pick her moment, to delay Karin’s inevitable sadness. She’s glimpsed Axel in the refectory only once since their agreement and avoided sitting at the table he was holding court on. Fleetingly, their eyes met as she felt him tracking her across the room – a brief stare, no movement or nod of the head. But the flash in his sooty pupils spoke volumes.
The Vietnamese is the best she’s ever tasted, and Danny’s face shows pleasure, though he gently ridicules her lack of skill with chopsticks.
‘We can’t all be globetrotters like you, Strachan!’ she chides back.
‘Speaking of which …’ he says, eyebrows arched with spirited suspense.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve been charged with an assignment next weekend, out of the country – a highly specialised job of delivering some documents and waiting for the exchange.’ He winks to show his mockery of the task.
‘Oh.’ She sags a little at the prospect of his absence, though senses a need to play along. ‘And where might this secret mission be?’
He reaches across the table and runs a finger over her hand. ‘If I tell you I could well be breaking United States law. But I figure if I take you along as my accomplice …’
‘The latter is definitely preferable.’
He sits back, relishing. ‘How about it, then? A weekend in Rome? I can swing an extra seat on the air transport. The hotels, I’m told, are very beautiful.’ His eyes sparkle at the thought. ‘And then there’s the gelato.’
Jutta is speechless. Rome. Somewhere she’s only dreamed of since reading endlessly about the Colosseum, the Pantheon and the ruins of a Roman Forum. The buildings, the history, food and the spit and hiss of genuine Italian coffee. Yes, of course she wants to go! And with Danny too. But how will she manage it, with her brain so crowded, with Karin to placate and Mama to prop up, not to mention Axel and his less-than inviting mission?
‘I will have a few hours of work to do while I’m there,’ Danny is saying, ‘but since I am only a messenger, there’ll be plenty of free time …’
‘Only’ a messenger. You don’t know the half of it.
‘You know, if it’s too soon, I’m sure we can go together later in the year,’ he adds tentatively. ‘A special trip.’
‘No, no. I’d love to go.’ Jutta snaps out of her indecision. She needs something bright and light in her world right now. And she deserves it, doesn’t she? For all the risk and angst. She’s trying hard to convince herself, and the more she thinks of a whole weekend of true freedom, with Danny, the easier it becomes.
Then a thought clouds the brightness. ‘I don’t have a passport. I’ve never been outside West Germany,’ she tells him sheepishly.
Danny seems unperturbed. ‘I’ll check, but I think your ID card will be fine. We’d be going through a military airport so, as long as I vouch for you, you won’t need anything else.’
‘And will you?’ Now she’s teasing, the exhilaration bubbling over. ‘Vouch for me?’
‘Oh, I think so, as long as you stand me an ice-cream.’
‘As much as you can stomach, Lieutenant Strachan.’
The excitement stays with her through the next seven days, until the day of departure. But there are things to sort out, most of which are in her head. First, though, announcing it to the household – Mama often speaks of her ‘getting a nice young man’, but Ruth’s plans likely don’t involve a double hotel room with an American soldier. Jutta needs to engage the loyal Irma, who understands as she’s hopelessly in love with her own military beau but hasn’t yet been offered an overseas trip.
‘I’m off to a weekend in the Lakes, though it’s not to be sniffed at,’ Irma says. ‘You go, lucky woman! It’s easy enough to cover for you if I’m out of town too.’
It’s Hugo, of course, that she charges with guarding her true secret as they sit on the rooftop confessional.
‘Rome, huh? Is it serious?’ he says with a wry look, then away across the Berlin sky.
‘Not sure,’ Jutta says with honesty. ‘But I do like him a lot.’
‘Then it’s not his US passport proving the big attraction?’
‘Hugo! You’ve become very cynical all of a sudden.’
‘Comes with the job,’ he mutters. ‘I see a good many women hanging on the arms of Allied men, all focused on escaping.’
Jutta looks at him intently, thinks of he
r time in the East. ‘But we’re not prisoners, Hugo. Not like Karin.’
‘Aren’t we?’ His skinny shoulders slump and he takes another drag of his cigarette. ‘Just be wary, Jutta. He’s military.’
‘I know, Hugo, but he’s not like …’
‘I don’t mean that. He’s probably very nice, and a fine upstanding man and all that. But he will leave, Jut. He will go back to his own home. And you will be left here, encircled behind this bloody Wall.’
Hugo sinks back in the deckchair, a puff of defeat in his movement. Jutta knows he harbours his own worries; he’s never been especially close to his father, but Oskar’s movements of late have been more erratic than usual, his mood either depressed or drunk. It’s mirrored in Gerda’s worry, spilling to anger when her husband rolls in at all hours, spreading unease throughout the apartment. They all feel it.
One more reason why Rome feels like a utopia that’s suddenly within reach.
51
La Dolce Vita
17th August 1963, Rome
Jutta fingers the delicate handle of her coffee cup and stares out among the garden terraces banking upwards, swathes of pink and purple bougainvillea dripping over the white stone balconies. She’s in a fairy tale, or a film – something unreal either way. Having already pinched herself several times, she finds she’s miraculously still here, in the middle of the eternal city, looking up at a sky that also seems unendingly blue. Cocooned by the large, ornate garden, she could well be in the courtyard of an ancient Roman villa, being tended to as the lady of the house. Faintly though, she can hear sounds of modern Rome seeping through the dense shrubbery; a soundtrack of hoots and toots, the buzz of Vespas whizzing and weaving between taxis on the ancient, cobbled streets.
She’s thinking of how blessed she is, of her surprise when the taxi drew up the night before at the Hotel de Russie’s grand but understated entrance. Danny had insisted on making the arrangements, though checking she was happy to share a double room. After their first night together in Berlin, why wouldn’t she be? They’d already breached the precipice of their own wall. Jutta would have been happy to snuggle up with Danny in a small pensione in some back street, eat arancini from street vendors and great slabs of pizza as they marvelled at Rome’s grandeur. So the luxury of the Russie, just off the Piazza del Popolo, caused her to gawp as she walked into the lobby, stock-still at the glamour. What was she doing in a hotel frequented by the likes of Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso in their day?
She’d thought of Karin in that moment, not least because she was thankful to be wearing one of her sister’s designer creations, helping her to play the part, a pair of outrageously oversized white-rimmed sunglasses perched on her head.
‘You look like a film star,’ Danny had said a few hours after they’d arrived, standing at the top of the Spanish Steps. ‘Now I really do think I’m in a movie.’
As they’d descended hand in hand down the ancient steps and drank wine in a small café at the bottom, people-watching the meandering tourists, it was absolutely true. How Karin would love this, Jutta thought then, with a warmth and a pang of guilt in unison. Was it fate or sheer luck that had marked her out as the chosen twin?
‘Another coffee, Signora?’ The waiter’s beautiful, lilted English floats in. Confused, Jutta suddenly remembers that she is ‘Signora’; for the purposes of the hotel register, Danny had signed them both in as ‘Mr and Mrs Strachan’ on his military passport. How odd it looked in ink. Could she ever imagine it in reality, let alone get used to it?
‘No, grazie,’ she returns. Danny is absent for a few hours on his ‘mission’, and much as she could spend an entire morning basking in the beauty of the hotel courtyard, Rome is waiting.
Jutta steps out under a fierce, glowing sun pushing high into the sky, feeling its intense heat on her bare shoulders. Wearing her most comfortable pumps, she heads for the ancient artery cutting through the city, the Via del Corso. She marvels at its firm direction – straight as an arrow – and Jutta wonders for a minute: if the Ancient Romans could engineer such things, why does the Wall need to twist and snake across Berlin in such an unruly direction, slicing through buildings as it does? Although, in another sense, she is inherently grateful for its wayward nature and her portal squatting in the Wall space. Inevitably, it reminds her of the tasks awaiting her back home and her bubble deflates just a little.
Don’t think about it now. For three days, you’re allowed to forget that damn Wall.
She’s happy, though, for Karin to stay in her thoughts, each time she spies a woman in chic clothing, or a shop window that she’s certain her sister would stare at in envy.
Three hours is swallowed in no time. She gazes at the intricate faces carved into the stonework, noting the Italian women who trip effortlessly out of boutiques laden with designer bags, wandering, stopping for the best coffee – Jutta is staunchly loyal to the robust German variety, but oh! The making of it is such an art – along with the theatre of street life as she sits under an umbrella sipping and watching the world go by. As much as she mocks Danny for his endless movie comparisons, she does feel a little bit like Audrey Hepburn.
They meet back at the hotel at lunchtime.
‘Mission complete?’ she teases.
‘I’m the consummate spy,’ he jokes. ‘I even managed to shake off my tail. Let me just change out of this uniform and then we’ll find somewhere for lunch.’
The weekend flies by in a dream – they walk miles in sightseeing, Jutta hungry to absorb everything of the history, with Danny’s fascination and knowledge an equal match. Under the stunning concrete dome of the Pantheon, they hold hands and marvel until Jutta’s neck aches, at its beauty and engineering entwined; surely the Berlin Wall would never be such an eyesore if the Romans had had a hand in its creation? Together, they devour pasta and pizza to satiate their hunger from so much walking, and the best gelato only a stone’s throw from the rush of the Trevi Fountain. Danny takes up Jutta’s cone and pushes a lira coin in her hand.
‘Go on, make a wish,’ he says.
She closes her eyes as it plops to the watery bottom, a future that includes Karin and Danny amid the family, all in one frantic image.
‘And?’ he quizzes, kissing her creamy lips.
‘I can’t tell you,’ she laughs. ‘Or it won’t come true.’
‘Well, just a hint – does it include me?’
‘That,’ she says, feeling flighty and flirty, ‘you may never, ever know, Signor Strachan.’
‘That sounds like a challenge – I may have to entice it out of you, Signora. I am a super spy, after all.’
They fall into bed each night with sore feet and craving sleep, but knowing that their rest will be delayed. Making love enveloped by the four-poster bed is like something out of the romance novels Jutta consumed in her early teens, teased by Karin for their illusory storylines and settings. How false and fantastic is this now?
‘You didn’t have to spend so much on this beautiful room,’ she says, lying in the crook of his arm, the pulse of his heart merging with the thrum of Rome outside. ‘I would have been just as happy in a small pensione.’
He draws in a breath. ‘I know you would, but equally I knew you would love this too. And I want to spoil you, to show you the world. I see in you a hunger for so much more, Jutta. For everything.’
She’s flooded with satisfaction, recognising his generosity for what it is. ‘Sadly, though, Danny, you can’t rescue everyone from behind the wire.’
‘It’s not like that,’ he says quietly. ‘I do this for you because I want to. Because the US army pays me enough money that I can spoil us both, sometimes. Because it’s nice.’ He lifts his chest and her with it, takes her chin between his fingers. ‘Jutta Voigt – please accept that Rome and this hotel room is all the more beautiful with you in it. And I don’t believe for one minute that you need saving.’
‘Well, that’s all right then,’ she says, kissing the hard edge of his jaw. ‘And I do love t
his hotel.’
‘And the man in your bed?’
She strokes his naked chest. ‘Hmm, he’s okay too.’
52
The Boy Vopo
21st August 1963, East Berlin
The beat is fast and furious, the band in full swing again and playing for a full half hour without signs of interruption. Karin sees Otto’s hand tap rhythmically on the table at Presse Café, and she loves that he’s enjoying it so much, swigging occasionally at his beer.
When the foursome finish and pack up, having managed a full set, he turns to her, eyes glassy with delight and alcohol.
‘That was better than some we’ve seen,’ he beams. ‘I love all that American stuff.’
Karin is suddenly hit with a distinct vision, of Otto cleaved in half – his respect for socialism (though minus its darker undercurrent), opposite the carefree and creative man with an intensely human heart. She knows he is not the only divided man in her midst, since Walter clearly suffers the same conflict. Maybe tonight, in private, it’s the right time to broach a change, she thinks, then is struck by a rush of shame at her own guile, an eagerness to take advantage of Otto’s pleasure.
‘You should have been in a band,’ she says. ‘I can see you’re desperate to get up there and strut your stuff.’
His lips spread with mischief. ‘Who says I wasn’t?’
‘Were you? Really?’ Her face lights with the idea.
He puts a finger to his lips. ‘Shh … don’t tell my boss. Lead guitar at university. I played a mean Buddy Holly in my day.’
‘Otto Kruger, you’re full of surprises! Have you still got your guit—’
‘Hey, I wondered if I might see you in here.’ Their exchange is capped off by a voice Karin half recognises, and she looks up to see the boy Vopo, minus his uniform and helmet. He appears even younger in his T-shirt and jacket, though old enough to have bought the beer he’s holding.
The Girl Behind the Wall Page 22