The Girl Behind the Wall

by Mandy Robotham

  As Otto slows and stops in front of a newspaper stand, Karin draws closer, near enough that she can almost smell him, even over the dense fug of exhaust fumes. Or is that her imagination? Her own intense longing?

  ‘Hello Otto.’

  He spins at the first syllable, almost rocking off his own axis, righting himself as he looks at her with startled features.

  ‘Karin.’ He stops. Stares. Pushes out a single, long breath through his nose, causing Karin to question this confrontation, as she has again and again, all of the previous sleepless night and the whole day cleaning floors in a daze, ever since she met with Jutta.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ he says finally. ‘Are you all right?’

  Clearly, she’s not, and less so when he utters those words. Much like Jutta, Otto has the ability to stir emotions in Karin that she struggles to keep under wraps. Today, they won’t be confined. Not when he’s in front of her looking beautiful and strong, and so like the Otto she fell in love with. Is in love with.

  ‘Karin, please tell me,’ Otto says when they are seated in a bar nearby. He’d offered brandy, then coffee, but her stomach lurched at both and she’s settled on a soda.

  ‘I will,’ she assures him. ‘Just give me a minute.’

  ‘Is it your family? Some bad news?’ he explores gently. His hand hovers on the tabletop, inches from hers, itching to make contact.

  Now or never. He has a right to know, doesn’t he? Deserves to know.

  ‘I’m having a baby.’

  He cocks his head and she virtually sees his brain spinning inside. Lord knows what’s happening down in his chest.

  ‘It’s yours,’ she qualifies, in case the pause is a question, his suspicion.

  Another epoch ticks by, his hand frozen midway towards hers.

  ‘Say something, Otto. Please.’

  He eyes her, searching, penetrating. ‘Did you know? When you ended it, with us, I mean?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t.’ She can see how it might look to Otto then, in the light of their recent break-up; having discovered she’s pregnant, Karin has effected a swift U-turn, viewing the baby as her meal ticket, her automatic marriage to an up-and-coming architect, and a life made a little easier by the little privileges his position brings – despite the so-called equality of the GDR. His expression in that moment seems fogged with confusion and shock. But is he angry, too? That she should come to him now, after leaving him so cruelly?

  ‘I don’t expect anything from you, Otto,’ she assures him. ‘Really I don’t. I just feel you have a right to know. And to see your child. I couldn’t keep that from you.’

  Try as she might, Karin can’t hide the look that says it’s love as well as duty driving her to seek him out. That she does crave Otto for himself, and not simply paternity for their child.

  His finger twitches and moves across the rough wood made sticky with use. Now she sees only delight dawning on him, and no flicker of anger.

  ‘It’s our baby,’ he says, quietly but firmly, raising his eyes up to hers to gauge a reaction. ‘I don’t want a child from afar, Karin. I want it with you. I’ve never not wanted to be with you.’

  The relief inside Karin is instant, swilling alongside the day-long nausea that has dogged her since a week after she walked away from him, the first sign to alert her of something other than sorrow inside her. They were always careful, but accidents happen. Children are tenacious and life is determined.

  She walks her finger to link with his, and issues the first real smile to cross her face in weeks. Her courage mounts and she thinks now is the time to broach it – raising their child in the West, telling him of Jutta’s access and how easy it would be. But Otto’s excitement can’t be capped, and he’s already bubbling over with plans.

  ‘My parents are going to be so delighted – to have a grandchild nearby,’ he says, clasping her hand tightly. ‘I would have asked this anyway, in time – I promise you. But, Karin Voigt – will you marry me? Please?’

  Karin’s nerve shrinks, both with surprise and her own deluge of joy. It’s not the proposal either of them dreamed of, but it is heartfelt and real, in the smoky, ugly bar. Karin knows she will always harbour the worry, the danger she poses to Otto by association, and she will have to live with it, nudging at her now tumbling heart, jabbing at her sleep in years to come. But life has decided – the tiny bean nestling in her belly has chosen for them, that love, or circumstance, or the sheer bloody-mindedness of survival, will keep them together. Wall or no Wall. East or West.

  ‘Yes, Otto Kruger, I will marry you.’

  59

  The Right Thing

  18th September 1963, West Berlin

  ‘Oh Christ!’ The rooftop sessions with Hugo have come to resemble a perpetual confessional; each time they steal away, Jutta seems to have some new drama to reveal. Hugo’s reactions are rarely muted – and they aren’t now – but he is the only person she can unburden herself to with such momentous news. What with work and life, she’s already kept Karin’s secret inside for a full two days and it’s burned a hole in her resolve.

  ‘What on earth will she do now, and you?’ he asks.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jutta sighs. ‘Karin plans to tell Otto. It’s only right, but I have no idea what his reaction will be.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll do the right thing?’

  ‘And what would that be, Hugo?’

  ‘Firstly to marry her, of course.’ Her cousin’s face distorts, signalling any other route would be complete madness.

  ‘But is it?’ Jutta questions. ‘Even if he chooses to stay in the East, she can come back. Women do it, these days. Have children on their own.’

  Hugo stares his disbelief. In the darkness, his eyes widen. ‘And you know how they live, Jut. Shunned. Ignored. Sure, women are pushing at the boundaries in a lot of ways, but they haven’t bashed through the gate yet. Not to mention what it does to the family.’

  ‘Mama and Gerda would stand by her, I know that for certain,’ Jutta pushes.

  ‘Yes, they would,’ Hugo agrees. ‘But at what cost to them?’ He pauses. ‘Not forgetting the other element.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘She loves him, Jut. She loves him a lot. Even I can tell that.’

  Jutta lays her head back on the hard edge of the deckchair and blows out a breath with enough force to move the stars above. For someone young, male and just dabbling with his first girlfriends, Hugo talks a lot of sense. He sees the harsh side of life in his job, the struggles that others face. But there’s a yearning inside her own self which makes Jutta think it could all be possible: Karin as the mother at home, she as the dedicated aunt. Doing it together, they could put up with idiots looking down their moral noses. To have Karin near her again. It’s selfish, she knows, but she can’t help it – it’s what she dreams of.

  And then Jutta thinks of being in Karin’s shoes and having to make that decision, possibly to leave without the man she loves. It pained her to say it, to side with Karin that Otto has a right to know about the baby, but on reflection it is the right thing. It’s his baby too. Saying goodbye to the East is easy for her sister, waving away Otto another thing entirely. In the same way she might have to part from Danny at some point. Soon? He’s never said for certain how long his posting will last, more that it’s ‘flexible’. But some day, she might be in Karin’s unenviable shoes. And how will she feel then?

  Why does this life have to be so damned messy?

  ‘Look, we don’t have to go to the movies,’ Danny says, fishing for her hand as they leave the restaurant.

  ‘It’s fine, I’m happy to.’ Jutta is realising her acting skills have a limit, with Danny especially. She is delighted to be with him and finds his company both enticing and soothing, but Karin hovers inside her twenty-four hours a day, an image just behind her eyelids, tapping at intervals at her insides, rolling in her stomach, much like she imagines the tiny dot of a child somersaulting within her sister. Jutta has never believed in
all the talk about twins feeling each other’s pain or instinctively sensing danger, but for a brief moment it does cross her mind. Then, she dismisses it. It’s simply worry. Pure concern for her sister who is pregnant and separated from her by a deadly concrete divide.

  ‘Sure you’re okay?’ he nudges. ‘You just don’t seem yourself.’

  ‘No, I’m fine really,’ she lies again. ‘Probably just a cold coming on, Mama’s had one brewing all week.’

  What makes it worse is that she feels Danny trusts her to be herself, to be what’s in front of him. And the more involved they become, the bigger fraud she feels. She’s a walking deception. There are only two options open to them, and both painful: that he will be recalled to the US and they will say a tearful goodbye at some draughty airfield, or that he discovers her mendacity and ends it, hurt and wounded. Somehow, the former seems less painful to all.

  ‘Hey, I forgot – I have a surprise for you,’ Danny says as he walks her home after the film. It’s chilly and late but Jutta has waved away the offer of a taxi, eking out their time together.

  ‘Oh, and what’s that?’

  He pulls out two slips of card from inside his jacket. ‘How do you like opera?’

  ‘I haven’t seen a great deal, to be honest, but I’m always keen for something new.’

  ‘Next week, good seats.’ He waggles the tickets in front of her, with gleeful anticipation. ‘I can borrow a base vehicle and we’ll cross on my pass.’

  Cross? Did he say ‘cross’?

  ‘Oh, where is it then?’ Jutta frames it casually.

  ‘State Opera House, just over the border. Wait until my mother hears I’ve been there, she’ll be so jealous.’

  ‘You do know I have no entry pass to the East, Danny?’

  ‘Yeah, but it won’t matter if we have military plates. They have no right to check credentials with an Allied vehicle.’

  Danny wasn’t in Berlin when the same petty issue over documents almost brought the entire world to the brink of conflict back in ’61, with US and Russian tanks nose to nose at Checkpoint Charlie, their heavy guns trained on each other in a tense stand-off. But he’s right in that, nowadays, vehicles with diplomatic and military plates roll across the border frequently without rigorous checking. Very possibly with Eastern fugitives hidden in a secret compartment in the back, but that’s another story.

  The question is: how will Jutta feel about crossing in a legitimate way? Strange, certainly. And if she’s spotted, it could compromise her work for Axel and impact hugely on Karin, at a time when it’s crucial to keep the portal active. Jutta is furiously calculating for valid excuses when Danny squeezes her hand tight.

  ‘I’m so glad you can come – it’ll be my best birthday yet.’

  60

  Happy and Free

  21st September 1963, East Berlin

  Otto’s finger traces a delicate line around Karin’s belly button, lightly touching her skin, as if afraid to push down any further. Already he’s questioned if they should have made love, but Karin has combed furtively through textbooks in the doctor’s rooms to reassure herself it can do no harm. Besides, she feels this baby has a tenacity that almost nothing can blight. This child wants to survive.

  He plants a tender kiss on her abdomen. ‘When did you know?’ he questions. ‘I mean, not in the obvious way, but inside yourself? When did you feel it?’

  She strokes at his tousled hair lying alongside her hip bone, sighing with satisfaction at his touch. ‘Well, the throwing up was a good clue …’ he flicks a finger at her thigh in a playful reproach ‘… but before then, I suppose I felt something like an itch travelling up and around. No, not an itch. A presence. It’s hard to describe. I wasn’t certain until the obvious clues.’

  ‘And then?’ He pulls up his head and looks at her, an innocent craving on his face.

  ‘Happy, sad. Scared, desperate. Delighted. All those things.’

  ‘And now?’ Otto has been ravenous for all of her since their reunion, the physical and emotional, as if clawing back those lost weeks.

  ‘Happier,’ Karin says, noting her voice does not commit to the emotion entirely. Over the weeks, she has thought long and hard about having a child on either side of the Wall. In the East, there will be good, free childcare, enabling her to work, as per a good socialist citizen. As a couple, they will have free healthcare, a home, and more likely one that Otto has a hand in designing. They will be provided for, possibly better off than some. But with the cocooning, there are caveats; does she want her child to learn its numbers by counting toy soldiers, or trained in throwing with the aid of fake grenades? Does she want them to grow up alongside the spectre of the Stasi as normal, schooled into looking over their shoulder from infancy?

  In the West, there is liberty to move and think freely. And her family, of course. But possibly no Otto. With the strands of his soft hair under her fingers, teetering in her mind on the top of that concrete blockade, she is resigned to the fact there’s only one way – if pushed – that she will jump.

  Now it’s her turn to delve. ‘Otto, what do you dream of, now this has happened?’

  He traces another contour with his finger over her flesh, rolls onto his back and props his head on his elbow. ‘Oh, that we’re in a house, somewhere green, maybe not in central Berlin, with our children …’

  ‘Children!’ Her eyes widen in faux alarm.

  ‘Maybe … and we’re happy, always. We have enough to eat and live, and we’re fulfilled in our jobs.’ He pauses. ‘You’re an amazing designer who’s in demand across the whole of the East, of course.’

  ‘And that we’re free?’ She can’t contain the question.

  His brow wrinkles. ‘Yes, free. Of course. Free to determine our destiny as a country. To prosper, make things better.’

  She grabs at his hand and weaves her fingers into his, in part as a way to end the discourse. She knows it now, for certain; he still believes. It’s not like Santa Claus, where children are bound to discover the truth with age and over time. Some who don’t know Otto might label him credulous, the product of propaganda, but Karin only sees belief in this clever, loyal and beautiful man. Possibly, he’s misguided, but, like a child with innocent dreams, it seems almost cruel to face him with the stark reality. He loves the only country he’s ever known, and he’s neither duped nor blinkered: merely a hard-working man who believes in the good of others. How can she love him as anything else? Or force him from what he loves?

  ‘How will we tell your parents?’ Karin ventures later, as they make supper in her tiny kitchen. The Krugers are traditionalists, and there’s the question of not being married yet.

  ‘Perhaps I should say something first,’ Otto offers diplomatically. ‘They’ll come round but, you know, they’re not so used to change. They will be delighted – they’ve always wanted grandchildren. And since he became ill, my father talks of it more and more.’

  Karin is warmed by Otto’s faith that his parents will come round, learn to like and accept her. But there’s another hurdle only she can face. How to tell Jutta that, without a sudden and dramatic turnaround in Otto, her life could be here, on this side of the Wall? There’s still time for persuasion, but like sand in an egg timer, that opportunity is disappearing, faster and faster each day. How much should she push for her own ethos, that the West is the better option? She feels doubly selfish then – for Jutta’s sacrifice and the peril her sister is enduring, and for putting her own desire and happiness with Otto first. Inside, she’s physically torn in two.

  Anger, too, twists in Karin’s breast, not towards Otto or Jutta, but the faceless bureaucrats who fail to see the resulting pain of their politics – pain suffered by their own people. Families continue to be sheared apart by an ugly canker, so that heartless men can score points over each other. Arrogant and unfeeling is how she sees them. And yet still powerful enough to hold her happiness in their palms.

  61

  Into the East

  27th Septe
mber 1963, East Berlin

  The throaty engine idles noisily, throwing out clouds of exhaust smoke as the car sits behind another at the Friedrichstrasse crossing, otherwise known to the world and its media as Checkpoint Charlie. Jutta gazes purposefully into her lap. She feels exposed in the front seat next to Danny, her face visible through the side window and the vast windscreen of an American sedan. It’s more than two years since she pleaded and pestered the border guards for access to the East and Karin, lying unwell at the Charité. But these men are trained to remember faces, and she keeps her eyes lowered, pulling her arms tight to her chest both to stop her heart from bounding outwards and to hide the visible quiver of her hands. The ghosting is bad enough, but now she is crossing to the East in plain sight, and it feels worse. Surely, her picture is on a list somewhere? Her mugshot – one not to let through, to detain, retain. Imprison.

  But Danny was right; there are no guards leering into the windows or demanding passes, and they trundle through with ease, like crossing a set of traffic lights. As if it is one city after all.

  ‘Do you know this part of Berlin at all?’ he asks casually.

  ‘No, not really,’ she lies. Again. ‘I barely came across after the GDR was formed in ’49.’ The memories of pounding the dowdy streets in recent months are swallowed back with her guilt.