by Paul Grant
‘Who sent you here?’
Klaus turned his head in the vain attempt to take in some air. As he did he saw a young woman, blonde hair, pretty, at least she would have been if she hadn’t been so badly beaten. There was crying from a young child and he heard another woman, making comforting noises. The room seemed bare. He saw suitcases, at least five of them packed up, one of them open on the dining table.
The man turned to the girl. ‘Do you know this man?’
She shook her head, tears welling up in her good eye. The other was almost closed, black and purple in equal measure. Her lip was also split.
Klaus hadn’t banked on not being able to use his tongue to explain his presence there, but the pressure on his throat was becoming too much. Fortunately, somebody had ignored his earlier warning.
‘I brought him here.’ It was Eva. She was standing in the doorway.
‘Evie!’ Ursula said.
Eva seemed the only calm person in the apartment. ‘That’s my father. Could you let him go please?’
Ursula nodded to her father in confirmation. ‘It’s Ulrich’s sister.’
The man grudgingly released the pressure on Klaus’ throat. As he did, the man stared at Klaus as if he would have preferred to kill him, but eventually saw fit to let go altogether and walked into the room where Klaus could now see his family was gathered.
The room was devoid of furniture except for the table and chairs. If there had been any photographs, they’d been removed. The mother was sitting with two young children on her knee, both wide-eyed with fear. Ursula was now sitting at the table wiping the tears from her swollen face.
The father stood prowling in the background.
‘What are you doing here? My daughter can’t tell you anything, can you?’ He nudged Ursula in the back in a way that told Klaus he wasn’t only quick with his fists on strange men.
‘I just want to know as much as I can about Ulrich. I want to find him.’
‘Find him?’ he snorted. ‘Try Hohenschönhausen. You’ll find him in there, if he’s still alive. Only leave her out of it,’ he said, pointing at Ursula.
Eva gasped, and Ursula started to cry again. Klaus’ own anger with this bully of a man was starting to build, no matter how weak he had felt over the last few days.
‘I’m sure you’d do the same for your own children,’ Klaus said sternly.
‘Your son has brought us nothing but trouble,’ he said. ‘Why do you think we have to leave here?’ He pointed at the cases.
‘Where will you go?’ I asked.
‘To the west. A better life we’re told. Safer at least,’ he snapped.
The mother had remained quiet until now. As she stood up, Klaus noticed a mark below her eye. He suspected silence may have been forced upon her in the past. However, it seemed he’d struck a chord with her at least.
‘Let’s leave Ursula with them… Come on, in the kitchen,’ she said, flicking her head towards a tiny adjoining room.
‘Leave them? So she can drop us in more trouble?’ he said.
‘For God’s sake, Otto, we were leaving anyway. You can’t blame Ursula. She loves the boy. Can’t you see she’s hurting? The least we can do is let her help the man.’
Otto looked exasperated for a moment, probably fighting to control his anger. He threw up his arms in defeat and headed towards the kitchen, grumbling.
‘Thank you,’ Klaus said to her.
‘We’re leaving soon. Don’t be long.’ She placed her hand lovingly on her daughter’s shoulder, then she withdrew, shooing the children out of the room.
‘Ulrich told me a lot about you, Herr Schultz.’ Ursula paused. ‘I didn’t know you’d finally come back.’
‘It’s a long story, Ursula. Call me Klaus.’
‘I’m not sure I can tell you much, Klaus,’ she said.
‘What happened to you?’
She shook her head, her eyes focused on the table, seemingly not willing to talk.
‘Was it the police?’
‘Something like that,’ she mumbled.
‘Well, anything you know about whom Ulrich associated with would be a help.’
‘I don’t know that much,’ she said quickly. ‘Ulrich used to spend a lot of time in the Wild Boar.’ She stopped, then gasped, ‘Do you think he’s been arrested?’
‘It’s a possibility,’ Klaus said. ‘Could you think why that might have happened, Ursula?’
‘I don’t know.’
Klaus looked at the girl. He knew he needed to treat her carefully. She probably knew something about Ulrich that she may not even know was important. Looking at her condition, he had to wonder exactly what had happened to her.
‘Do you know the names of the people he associated with, especially about these protests over the targets?’
‘Bernhard is a good friend,’ Ursula said. Klaus saw Eva nodding. ‘There was a man called Hauser, but he was arrested.’
Eva knelt down next to Ursula and held on to her hand.
‘What happened to you? Who did this to you?’ Eva pleaded.
Ursula sighed, then continued, doing her best to stifle the sobs. ‘There was a man. He said he would get better care for Ilse.’
Klaus looked quizzically at Eva.
‘Your sister,’ Eva said, in explanation to Klaus. ‘She’s very ill, Ulrich told us.’
‘The doctors said she would die. This man organised better care, medication. She’s been improving.’
Klaus had an inkling where this was going and, the more Ursula talked, the more concerned he became for Ulrich.
‘He wanted me to tell him…’ She started to sob, and Eva rubbed her shoulders sympathetically. Klaus felt his stomach grip.
‘He wanted to know about Ulrich and his friends. What they planned about the protests?’
Klaus pitied the girl. He wasn’t surprised they’d used her sick sister to get to her.
Eva pressed on. ‘Who was this man? Whom did he work for?’
Ursula shrugged. ‘State Security? I don’t know, but he got Ilse a good room at the Charité. He had connections.’
Eva looked up at her father. Klaus knew she still had a lot to learn about the real workings of the country in which she lived, even though she was obviously a bright kid.
‘Now you feel you’ve got to get out?’ Klaus asked.
She nodded. ‘We’re going to live in West Germany. Dad is a train driver. He’s got a job there. There are many people leaving. They disappear daily from our apartment block. Nobody knows if they’ve been arrested or they’ve left for the West. We’re all worried what’s coming next.’
Ursula looked up at Klaus now. He knew she was feeling bad about telling the Stasi about Ulrich. He had a feeling that betrayal was at the bottom of all her heartache. As it was, Klaus didn’t blame her. She had nothing to be ashamed of.
‘And the beating? That looks very nasty.’ He noticed the other bruises around her neck, like somebody had tried to strangle her.
‘I wouldn’t tell him anything else, not that I told him much. I didn’t know.’ She shook her head in anguish. ‘I told Ulrich not to tell me anything, Herr Schultz. I didn’t want to know. I told him he was putting us all at risk.’
Klaus placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘It’s not your fault, Ursula. You cannot change these people and their ways.’ He looked towards the kitchen, knowing they’d probably used up their time. ‘I am sure Ulrich knew what he was doing.’ Klaus wasn’t really sure, but it was about making the girl feel better after what she’d suffered.
Klaus nodded to Eva and they prepared to leave.
‘Tell him I love him when you find him. I hope to God you find him.’ The sobbing started again.
Eva looked at her father with tears in her eyes. He felt his own heart sink.
‘Just one more thing,’ Klaus said, as the kitchen door opened. ‘Can you tell me anything about the man who was blackmailing you?’
‘He’s a horrible man. A local.’
<
br /> ‘What did he look like?’
‘Blond hair… and he had a terrible red scar right across his cheek.’
***
Outside Ursula’s apartment, Klaus’ mind was turning over what he’d learned. He thought about his promise to Maria. He could return to the hotel and take things easy. However, after what Ursula had told him, he felt time was running away from them. If they were to find Ulrich, they had to do it quickly. If he had been arrested he knew there was little they could do, but now he was aware the Stasi had been watching Ulrich, he had to do something. It wasn’t a time to sit around at the hotel, not that he would have been able to relax anyway.
Eva was quiet, seemingly still shocked. ‘Who are these people who do these things, blackmailing and beating people like that?’
Klaus knew there was no point in holding back the truth now. ‘State Security. The government in effect.’
‘Do you really believe they would go so far?’
‘Yes, I do, Eva.’
They started to walk on down Ackerstrasse towards the centre of town.
‘You promised Mum you’d go back.’
‘I did, but I’d like to check at the site on the way.’
She turned and smiled at him. ‘But it’s not really on the way, is it, Dad?’
For a June day in Berlin, the weather was unseasonably cool. The cars on the road were making a slick, zipping sound as the tyres rolled over the wet cobbles. They walked in silence. Klaus mulled things over in his mind, trying to work out his next steps. The work site was an obvious choice, then the Kneipe they’d mentioned, but there was no point in going there until later. Klaus wanted to learn more about the protests.
The only Berlin that Klaus had seen since his return had been cold and mistrustful. People scurried here and there, but they didn’t talk, and if they did, every word was guarded and measured. As if to reinforce his thoughts, a woman walked past them, her eyes on the floor, keen to avoid any contact. Aside from the feelings he’d had when they were last on the building site, he’d not felt one bit of the old Berlin yet. Some of the buildings were still there, not that many in fact, but something else had been ripped from the place, more precisely from the people. They were scared to be themselves.
The site at Stalinallee was in a different shape to when they’d last been there. The place was largely deserted, but something had happened.
‘Just look at this place,’ Eva said. ‘They were all here this morning, but I could tell something was brewing.’
The cement mixers, which were being studiously cleaned last time, were now overturned. The gibs and bogies had been rendered useless. Most of the lifting ropes had been cut or removed. Where the windows had been fitted, some of those at lower level had been smashed. The bricks and tiles which had been neatly packed on pallets were now strewn across the site. It seemed Stalinallee had been at the centre of a small-scale riot.
They continued to walk through the empty site taking in the destruction, the possible implications of the protest racing around his mind. Klaus was shocked when he heard the voice away to his left.
‘You’ll not find anybody here.’ He turned to see an old man resting on a makeshift bench of stacked pallets.
‘We were just cutting through.’
‘You could have fooled me,’ he said.
Klaus smiled. The man’s clothes were old and worn just like him. Probably he had nothing to lose now, so he didn’t care what he said or what people thought.
‘What happened here?’
‘They rampaged through here like an unruly mob this morning. No real surprise, if you ask me. You can’t take something from those that have nothing,’ he said, wiping his sleeve across his nose. His eyes burrowed into Klaus like he was trying to goad a reaction. He didn’t care about the implications of what he had to say, the question was, did Klaus?
‘Where did they all go?’
‘To the Air Ministry or whatever you call it now. Gone to tell them what they think about their government, no doubt. Good luck to ’em!’
Klaus laughed, cheered by his honesty. A man thirty years younger like Ulrich would have been in real trouble for saying such a thing.
‘No doubt,’ Klaus said.
‘I wouldn’t get involved, though. They’ll not stand it for long,’ he said.
Eva looked at Klaus, worry etched over her young face.
CHAPTER 29
16 JUNE 1953, EAST/WEST BERLIN
The van had driven around for some time.
Each time Ulrich tried to move, even to straighten his cramped legs, he was given a sharp dig in the ribs. Eventually they came to a halt and Ulrich could hear a large gate creaking open. The van crossed a cobbled area and Ulrich heard a gate shut behind them. The doors were flung open from the outside. He was immediately dazzled by bright lights and he heard shouts coming from all directions.
‘Raus! Schnell!’
He moved, knocked from side to side and guided roughly in the direction he was urged to go. He couldn’t see, but the voices screaming at him echoed, bouncing around like bullets. He was thrust into a room now, the door slamming shut behind him. He allowed himself to remove the hands from shielding his eyes. He could see the dark silhouette seated at a desk, outlined by a spotlight behind.
‘Undress!’
It was a simple order, to which Ulrich, still in shock, didn’t comply immediately. He felt a thud on his shoulder which made him stumble forward and reach out for the desk.
‘Hands off the desk! Clothes off!’
It was a woman talking to him, the voice harsher than any woman’s he had heard before. He took off his jacket, trying to orientate himself.
‘Schneller!’
The harsh command came from behind this time. Ulrich untied his laces and kicked off his boots. He took off his trousers and was now down to his underwear.
‘All your clothes!’
Ulrich pulled down his shorts with a sigh. He could just about make out the woman’s features now. She was dressed in the uniform of State Security. She had a long nose, dark hair and an unwavering stare.
Two people grabbed him from behind.
‘Now you will be searched!’
Hands were all over him in places he’d rather they weren’t. He went to struggle but felt something blunt strike between his shoulder blades. After thirty seconds the intimate search was complete, and the woman was seemingly content.
‘Put on the uniform. Over there, on the chair.’ She pointed uncaringly to the side. Ulrich picked up the rough grey fatigues and started to dress. He hadn’t said a word to this point, nor did he feel the need to now. He knew he wouldn’t get any answers, not one that didn’t end in a command anyway. He knew who these people were.
Once dressed, he was fingerprinted and photographed, the flash of the camera shocking him. They were on the move again, frogmarched through another door, down two flights of steps to a dark, musty corridor. They took a door to the left down a few more steps, and that was where the smell hit him; the acrid stench of puke and urine. A cell door was open. The place was narrow and dark, with wooden slats for a bed on the left and a bucket to piss in on the right. The door slammed shut behind him and he was alone.
Ulrich turned around to the door, dark grey with paint peeling. The walls were cold and damp. There was a light above the door, but no window.
He sat down. Thoughts started to flash through his mind: is this what had happened to Hauser, the others, even Gisella? Why was he here now? Was it Heissner or even Markus that had betrayed him? Why were they waiting at Ursula’s like they expected him there? Had they been watching him? What happened next?
Ulrich held his head in his hands. He wanted to cry out. His father had been back less than two days, and now he was being kept from him again.
Ulrich knew he had to get himself focused. He knew what had happened to him so far was probably only the beginning.
***
Back at the hotel, Eva tuned the radio into RIAS (Radi
o in the American Sector).
‘It’s how we find out what’s really going on,’ she explained.
Klaus raised his eyebrows, wondering if the propaganda was the same on either side. They knew the protest was real because they’d seen the site with their own eyes. According to the reports, the workers were now petitioning the government about the removal of the norms at the House of Ministries on Leipziger Strasse. From what they’d seen, and what they knew from Ulrich and Ursula about the strength of feeling among the workers, the reports were probably true.
Klaus pondered what it all might mean. He happened to agree with the old man on Stalinallee; open protest would not be tolerated for any length of time. If the streets of the Soviet zone were chaotic now, they were likely to get a whole lot worse if there was to be a clampdown by the authorities, which in effect meant the Red Army. The backdrop brought them no closer to understanding the details of Ulrich’s story. They knew he was involved in the protest to some extent. They knew Ursula had been blackmailed by State Security, East German or Russian, to reveal what she knew about Ulrich and his friends, and that it had been going on for some time.
Klaus could feel the tension in his stomach. He’d not felt tired at any stage during the morning and certainly didn’t now. He was sure Ulrich had been arrested, and that was the most positive take Klaus could throw on it. He had to get more background on what he had been up to. He had promised Maria he wouldn’t go anywhere else after Ursula’s apartment, but there was still one lead left. After that point, even if he wanted to, there was little more he could do. If he knew Ulrich was in a place like the Lubjanka, suffering even a fraction of what he had, then Klaus knew he couldn’t sit around and wait.
He took Eva for some lunch at a café close to Zoo station. When they’d finished they walked up Budapester Strasse, over the canal, and then retraced their steps back towards the hotel. Klaus’ mind was ticking. He was impatient for the end of the working day. He knew the protestors would probably head for some liquid refreshment after they’d finished at the House of Ministries, as they would after a normal working day.