Bettina snatches her up, breathes in her daughter’s sharp, musky odor. But when she turns to race back down the stairs, Werner is standing in the shade of the doorframe, and in his hands he is holding a gun. The room is so quiet that she can hear the wash snapping on the clothesline at the back of the house.
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Annaliese lays her head on her father’s shoulder and closes her eyes. She does not understand that in his right hand he’s holding something designed to kill and that he is pointing it at her mother.
Werner lurks behind Bettina as she packs her things. Time and time again she clumsily drops her clothes to the floor. Her brain cannot function properly; she has no idea what she will need. How can she, when she does not know where she is going? Her breath is short, as though it’s losing its way before reaching her lungs. “You can’t just take the house,” she says. “It belonged to my grandparents!”
“Pack,” he says, waving his hand toward her.
“You have no right. She’s my child too. You can’t take her from me . . .”
But he’s not listening; in fact, he seems almost unconcerned. The muscles of his face are relaxed, his expression neutral. How can he be so sure she will do as he says? The fury inside her is a small screaming voice, silenced by the roar of her fear. She wonders if he would dare hurt the child. Does he suspect that he may not, in fact, be her father?
There is a fickle current in the air, something that quivers with menace, and it makes her wilt. She has one suitcase, and it is filled with all her clothing.
“Go downstairs. Take what you want of your family’s things.”
“Please, no . . .”
“You don’t get a say in this. Take your things now, or leave them here; I don’t care.”
Downstairs, she surveys the long narrow front room, crammed with furniture and knickknacks collected over decades. Books are shoved against one another, as watchful as sentries. There’s a black-and-white sketch Bettina made of her mother, the eyes as big as sinkholes. Her sharp gaze appears to assess her daughter and find her sorely lacking. Should Bettina take her grandmother’s stag plates, stacked in the breakfront? Ridiculous—she cannot carry them, and anyway, they will certainly break. But she loves them! They are a part of her childhood. The tiny stags leaping over tufts of grass, the trees arching in toward each other—as a young girl she memorized these patterns while eating her sauerbraten. Extracting a linen napkin from the bureau, Bettina wraps one blue-and-white plate inside it and pushes it into her case.
The camera sits on one of the higher shelves, and Bettina thinks she will leave it there. What good has art done her these last few years? It seems frivolous and foolish, a hobby for people who have nothing better to do than amuse themselves. But then she remembers that there’s a roll of film in it, and one day after seeing Peter some months ago, she took photos of Annaliese while she was in the bath. Even though she cannot believe—not at that moment, not yet—that she won’t see her child again, she rises on her tiptoes and grabs the camera. There are some rolls of film on the shelf, and she grabs a few of those too.
What will become of Annaliese? The cat meows disconsolately. Bettina grabs him and holds him close to her face, his thick, silky fur pressing against her nose. “Eberle,” she whispers. “Eberle!” He lets out a long, drawn-out wail and scrambles out of her hands, skittering across the floor.
Footsteps betray Werner’s approach, and when Bettina sees that his arms are empty, she cries out. “Where am I supposed to go?” she asks.
“Go to your sister. Get out of Germany.” His voice is flat, uninflected. The gun looks puny in his hand, pointing down at the floor. Maybe it’s a toy—black, shiny, snub nosed. He would never pull the trigger, would he?
“This can’t be legal. It’s my house.”
“Bettina, I had no idea you could be so stupid. It’s not your house. It’s not in your name. And who would care even if it were? You’ve lost your rights. Your behavior has cost you all of this. And I thought you were clever . . .”
She will take every invective he hurls at her. She will swallow it all gladly, if only he stops behaving in this strange, measured manner. Let him hear her out; let him soften his heart toward her. “I know, Werner—I’ve been so—”
“You’ve got five minutes, and then I’m calling the police.” He makes a sound with his pursed mouth like a professor disgusted with an especially moronic student. “Tsk, tsk. The house belongs to the state. You do not own it, you cannot claim it, and who do you think they will allow to inhabit it? Comrade Werner Nietz, part of the Directorate for the Protection of Public Property—or you, a philandering agitator?” His laughter is thin and mean. He raises the pistol and points it at her. “That’s it. Your time is over. Leave.”
At the door, she says, “Can I at least say good—”
“Leave. Now!” And that’s what she does. The lock turns over behind her with a hefty click.
Bettina runs to the youth center and finds both doors locked. It is almost six o’clock, and the sun is suspended in a gauzy haze. The leaves on the trees lining the street make an insidious rustling noise that slithers into her ears, and it won’t stop. The bus—still four or five blocks away, down the street—is so loud it seems to be thundering alongside her, every turn of the wheel and application of the brake reverberating in the thick evening air. The sounds are invading her body like a virus, pushing her breath, her energy, out of the way. Her coat, boots, wool hat, and mittens are all back at the house, waiting for wintertime to arrive. But where will she be when winter comes? The money she stashed away in an envelope in the rice jar in the pantry remains there, dusty and useless. If only they’d had more forethought, more self-control.
The idea of leaving Annaliese behind is ludicrous: Bettina will never willingly do that. What does Werner think he’s going to do with the child when he goes to work? What would Werner tell her about her mother, why she has disappeared? Of course, Bettina doesn’t have her sister’s letters with her, so even if she wanted to find a way to leave the country, she wouldn’t know where to go. On the street corner close to the town hall is a phone booth, and she slips inside, leaving her battered leather suitcase on the curb. She dials the number of the Pfarrhaus in Bobbin. It has been over two hours since she and Peter parted ways, and he’ll surely be home by now.
The phone rings and rings.
The walk to Bobbin is endless, unshaded. Dust creeps into her shoes and granulates under the soles of her feet, making her skin blister. Two vehicles pass her, and neither stops, even though she is a woman on the street alone, lugging a suitcase. The band of her skirt is tight, and the sweat gathers there, trickling down her thighs. Already she is covered in sweat and dirt. Stunned, she does not cry or panic; it does not seem possible to her that this can be anything more than grandstanding on Werner’s part.
When she finally reaches the church in Bobbin, the purring sound of idling cars emerges from the woods. She stumbles. Entering the deep black shade of the trees, she leaves her case and clambers up a small rise and down a slope covered in tangled vines. Her foot gets stuck, and she must dig around the undergrowth to retrieve her shoe. At the edge of the trees, she gets a clear view of the Pfarrhaus. Two police cars are parked by the front door.
Of course. Of course Werner would never have allowed her to leave and have also given Peter his freedom. Werner knew full well she would instantly go to her lover, that kicking her out would push the two of them together. She squeezes her eyes shut: How long has he been planning this?
She slogs her way through the overgrown meadow toward Johann the butcher’s farmhouse, arriving so drenched in sweat it’s as though she’s been dipped in the sea. But the house is locked, and she slides to the ground by the entrance, sitting in the dirt, waiting. The sun is lowering in a sulfurous sky, and with the encroaching darkness she panics.
Christa’s house is at the foot of the hill, and when Bettina stands at the door, she begins to feel as though the air around her has tu
rned to water. It is pressing on her from all sides; it is rushing at and around her, emitting a sound like static. It is warm, too warm, and has a muscular sort of power that makes her knees want to buckle.
There is a small window in the door covered from the inside with a patterned curtain. A hand pushes the curtain to one side, and Christa’s face appears.
The two women look at each other blankly. Then, frowning, Christa drops the curtain, and she does not open the door for her friend; instead her footsteps fall—barely audible in the sickening roar of the strange, pressing air—and she walks away.
The next morning the sand is cold under her cheek, and Bettina’s eyes are plastered shut. Dawn is breaking, and the sky is a pulsing, luminous pink tinted with orange streaks. Before she registers that she has slept on the beach, that she is shivering, her skin covered in sand and goose bumps, she remembers that Werner is in her house with her child.
In the cold morning air, she no longer feels woolly-headed or numb or as though she is drowning. Instead she is filled with a crystalline fury, one that shoots through her veins sharp as a dagger. No one can take her life away from her.
She dusts off the sand from her shins, slipping her feet back into her polymer shoes. Sweat from the long walk yesterday has dried on her skin, and she smells unclean, and this further infuriates her. Who does Werner think he is?
Back at Apolonienmarkt, Bettina sits on her suitcase in the crevice of an alley opposite her cottage. She will wait as long as she has to. Werner will leave for work, and she guesses that he will have hired Alma or Elise from next door to watch the baby for the day. All Bettina has to do is wait, and when he is gone, she will take the child and the money; she will try calling Peter again; she will slip him a note under the door of the youth center. They will figure it out. She will never, ever give up.
Just before eight o’clock, Werner exits the house. In his hand he carries a rag, and he runs it along both flanks of the Tatra, stepping back to study it before climbing in and backing the car out. A long time passes. Patience is what Bettina needs now, patience and determination. The sun has already edged past the thatched roofs, and its rays are spilling over the cobblestones as she makes her way to the front door of her home.
It is locked. There is no answer when she knocks. The spare key is not under the rock by the Rosa rugosa where they’ve always kept it. She heads to the rear and tries the back door. It is also locked. After digging up a rock from the border of the vegetable garden, she smashes the window on the door and hooks her arm around the wooden frame to reach the handle from the inside. Glass scrapes her forearm, but she feels nothing. Fat drops of blood splatter the tile floor, the red so intense it is like a living thing.
The house is silent. It makes no sense. Where did Werner take Annaliese? Bettina’s calm begins to shred at the edges, but she hangs on to the core, because if she loses her ability to think, she will lose everything. The glass jar with rice in it stands in the pantry among the sugar and flour and baking trays, and she digs into it with two fingers to retrieve the envelope that is stuffed inside, folded in half. With this money maybe she can hire a lawyer—even if she loses possession of the house, she can at least fight for her daughter. She has rights as a mother. Adultery does not make you a criminal. Two of Clara’s letters are in the drawer of the sideboard, and she grabs them.
A dull thud comes from the front of the house, and she holds her breath. It could be kids in the square, or maybe even the clack of her neighbor shutting her door. Before Bettina has a chance to put away the glass jar, just as she realizes that it is actually the sound of footsteps—multiple footsteps, inside the house—three men enter the kitchen. They are dressed in white cotton overcoats and brown shoes, and one is holding a large laundry bag. Two of the men grab her, fingers slipping on her bloody arm, and yank her wrists behind her back. The glass jar drops to the floor and shatters. Metal encircles her wrists and shuts with a click.
Her brain hasn’t caught up yet—what are these men doing in her house?—when they begin to drag her through the kitchen and down the hall. In the mirror, she catches sight of a crazy woman with thick brown hair, wild and unkempt, flanked by grim men. They jostle against each other, her soft curves banging into their sharp hips, elbows and hands grappling, shoving, pulling. One of the men looks out the front door and then motions the others to follow. He opens a door in the side of a small white van, and there is her leather suitcase, already in the back. Just as she thinks, I should scream—someone will help me! she catches sight of a woman standing in the front garden next door.
It is Irmgard Bandelow, her neighbor. Her blonde hair is in rollers, her lips painted red. She is as pale as milk and appears to be crying. In her arms she is holding Bettina’s child.
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The men shove her into the van, release her hands, and cuff her to a rail along one side of the interior, where a metal bench is attached. Only after they have been driving for a while does it dawn on Bettina that they are not taking her to Bergen—she’d assumed they were delivering her to Werner—but must be taking her off the island. There are two small vents in the back through which she tries to peer out, but she can see nothing but a blur of browns and greens.
Banging on the partition elicits no response. She sobs so uncontrollably that at one point she chokes on her own breath and begins to cough violently. The van speeds up and slows down, and occasionally low and steady murmurs from the front cab become audible. They stop for a while, maybe as long as twenty minutes, and the need to go to the bathroom is so urgent that Bettina begins banging again, screaming to be released. She is not released. Urine runs down her legs. After that she is calmer. Nothing she does will change what is happening to her.
When they finally arrive wherever it is they were headed, the men find her slumped on the bench, half-asleep. One of them lets out a snort. “Ugh,” he says, unlocking her from the rail. “I told you we should’ve let her out.”
“Orders were to get here before dark. Who cares?” the other one says. The smell of dried urine is cloying, and the men’s faces are pinched in disgust. They have taken off their white coats and are dressed in uniforms with red epaulets and multiple pockets, belted at the waist. “She’s a goner, anyway.” His face is narrow and feline, handsome in a stingy way, his long blondish hair slicked back. One eyebrow is dissected by a scar.
“Please tell me what’s happening,” she says. “Where are we? Where are you taking me?”
“Halt’s Maul,” the first man tells her. Shut up.
The third one, a rotund fellow, hands her a small roll.
“What the hell, Franz?” the first guy complains. “That’s fraternizing.”
“She’s gotta be hungry,” he says.
Bettina bites into the roll, which is thickly buttered and has a pale slice of cheese in it. Her mouth is so dry the bread barely makes it down her throat. “Water?” she says. “Please, can I have some water?”
The tubby officer hands her a can of Asco Cola.
By the look of the sky, it is sometime in the late afternoon. They are standing on a wide street flanked by large buildings, with jagged edges where the bricks were blasted away during the war. A weary patina covers everything. A teenage boy rides by on a bicycle, cap low on his forehead, trousers tucked into boots. Down at the end of the street, a group of people stand outside a supermarket, and an old man is walking a dog. It is dirty and cold, a city packed with people. In the near distance, a sign reads, HALT! HIER GRENZE—“Stop! Border crossing.” In the far distance, behind a squat white building, three enormous flags stir slightly: the United States, France, and Britain.
It can’t be, Bettina thinks. We’re in Berlin.
The policemen lead her into the white building. One of them brings along her valise, a file tucked under his arm. They place her in a windowless office and shut the door behind them.
The officer sitting behind the desk has the suspended look of a man dragging himself through an enormous list of to-dos
. He regards Bettina with no curiosity, pale-brown eyes taking in her attire and her fallen features. Absently, he fingers the file the guards gave him and then flips it open and breaks his gaze. There is a stack of papers clipped together inside, an envelope, and a small blue booklet, which he holds up between thumb and forefinger: her identity card.
Bettina sucks in her breath.
There follows an exchange that she will later remember with searing shame. The officer’s lack of interest in her situation is in direct contrast to her desperation. She is being expelled from East Germany. Werner Nietz has initiated a mandate to release her to Western authorities and revoke her right to reenter the country. Should she attempt reentry, she will be arrested immediately. “You may indeed choose to stay in this country, Frau Nietz, but if you do, you will be rounded up and sent to Hohenschönhausen,” the officer tells her. Even Bettina has heard rumors about this prison: a vast complex tucked away in some Berlin neighborhood where dissidents are rumored to disappear for years on end.
Her desperate pleas gain no purchase. There is no trial, no judge, no justice. “Why not let me stay? I don’t understand.”
“Why would we want people like you in this country?” he asks lightly. “It’s a privilege to live in the DDR, a privilege you don’t deserve. You belong in the West. We don’t want your type.”
As Bettina sobs into her filthy hands, the officer breaks his detachment. “Woman, control yourself. It’s the price you pay for your bad decisions,” he snaps. He raises himself to his full height and leans over the desk to hand her the envelope and her identity papers. “Read this.”
The letterhead is from the Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, Bergen, Rügen. It has been signed by her husband and his superior, Franz Josef Bieder. It lays out conditions for her release to West Germany: Bettina Heilstrom Nietz will renounce her marital and maternal rights. She will leave the DDR and in so doing agrees to never return. Should she be apprehended anywhere at any time in the East, she will be arrested immediately, as will Peter Ludwig Brenner, age thirty-one, domicile Bobbin, Rügen.
This Terrible Beauty: A Novel Page 24