The Reunion

by Geoff Pridmore

  They agreed that it was strange to be able to walk and explore where they could not back in 1963. Now they could walk all around the tower examining it from every angle. The dog exercise area had gone – the large, brick-built kennel and the extensive grass run.

  ‘Do you remember the guard dog?’ asked Hanne.

  ‘Trude? Yes, she was a lovely dog.’

  Of course, Heidemarie remembered the dog. She would! That’s just the sort of thing she’d know, and commit to memory – the dog’s ruddy name!

  Heidemarie was already beginning to irritate Hanne. She wanted to talk to Heike again without Heidemarie, and the only way to do that was to be rude and speak only English and, for the sake of a few hours on a windy hill, that was not going to happen.

  Instead, she replied in faltering German: ‘Father had one just like her – “Tascha”. She would guard the money he paid to the flower pickers. No one would go near the van when Tascha was in there – only Father. He loved that dog maybe more than he loved us.’

  ‘Look at the view, Hanne.’ Heidemarie had moved on, leaving the dog subject behind. ‘You can see everywhere from here.’

  ‘It must have been so cold in winter,’ remarked Hanne, pushing her hands deep into her coat pockets and thinking it was already cold enough for an autumn day. The sky was a low, heavy grey, so unlike the cloudless blue summer sky of 1963 when the guard had greeted them. Then, the tall grass had been blowing in the breeze and Hanne had thought it all looked like a wavy green ocean.

  Today was cheerless, the soaking wet grass causing her feet to be horribly wet, and that fact alone caused her to empathise with the men who had been sent here – like the kindly guard. What had been his fate, she wondered? Poor man sent out to this outpost of the Soviet empire!

  She remembered him as a handsome man – tall and dark, not unlike the Hollywood star Clint Walker, whom as a child she had watched every week and adored.

  Pre-pubescent feelings had been stirred all those years ago yet she hadn’t been able to make sense of it then. Now she could; it made perfect sense. She’d met in real life a “star” and that was probably Heidemarie’s memory too. Not the dog – fine though she was – it was the dashing man behind the dog. Unobtainable, remote and utterly safe behind that gigantic, endless chain-link fence that went on and on forever.

  She’d imagined that all the many hundreds of posts only ended (or began) once they reached the Baltic.

  Suddenly, Heike dropped to her knees near the base of the tower, her eyes scanning the long grass as if she too was searching for something. Looking up in desperation she cried out: ‘This is a sad place!’

  ‘What do you mean, Heike?’ asked a startled Heidemarie.

  ‘I mean it is sad – full of ghosts. We were children then. Times change.’

  The walk back to Oberwinkel was, to say the least, sombre. Gone was the sense of adventure. Heike was subdued whilst Heidemarie tried too hard to chivvy the group along; but something had spooked Heike. This is one for the memoirs, thought Hanne – three daft, middle-aged women climbing a hill in the wet to relive their past.

  Sensing the change, Heidemarie was clinging to the group, afraid that it was something she’d done to upset the status quo, so there was no opportunity for Hanne to get Heike alone. Hanne sensed a story was beginning to emerge, a story she didn’t want to leave until she knew the full facts of Heike’s time in East Berlin.

  Heike, too, would be leaving for home and had a long way to go – Lubeck. Soon the reunion would be over for another two years. Much of the family had already left Oberwinkel; it was always a brief get-together, an opportunity on just one day to say hello and exchange notes, update contact details, realise just how quickly time was passing for the “children” of the war generation. Where it would go in time, no one knew.

  Nobody attending, with the exception of Marco, was a “Mauer” by name. Oberwinkel was a very pleasant little village, but it was merely a stopping-off point for an ancestor. With the exception of Heidemarie, the “family” were not to be found here anymore. Even Oma’s grave would soon be gone.

  Heidemarie was the motivator – the power behind the reunion – and though she showed no sign of retiring from her role, there would come a day when it would all be too much. Who would come then from England, Canada, Austria or the Baltic to remember a gathering of a Bavarian family that had, by name, at least, become so rare in their native homeland?

  Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe the job was done. Connections had been made and fostered over these past fifty years. The Wall was gone and history marches on regardless. The Western powers had found common goals and new objectives for their commercial expansion. The likelihood of them ever turning in on themselves for a third time was simply implausible. “British PM embraces German Chancellor” ran the front-page headline of a Bavarian newspaper that Hanne had picked up on her arrival two days ago in Frankfurt and was now spread across the rear floor of her black Opel hire car. She didn’t care for politicians of any nationality.

  She wasn’t sure just how many more reunions she’d attend. It was always interesting to see the cousins, but it was only Heidemarie and Heike who regularly kept in touch, sending cards at Christmas and the occasional email. Her sons had no interest in the reunion; though one day they still might, she thought. And there were so many places to see on the Continent – why come back here all the time?

  She’d keep an open mind.

  For now, her thoughts were of the journey home. Drive back to Frankfurt, drop off the car and catch the train for Brussels. She’d be home by the middle of the week. There was just one more day to enjoy, so she wanted to fill it with a variety of little activities. She wanted to take a walk by herself this time to the haunts she’d established as a ten-year-old. She particularly wanted to see the deer lookout where she’d loved to climb and sit for hour upon hour. Hopefully that would still be in place. She’d look at the stream, too, where her father had almost drowned as a boy. Hopefully that wouldn’t be diverted or polluted.

  Sandy wouldn’t be with her; he’d already gone – pressing business, not at home but in Provence, followed by a week in Andalusia. His job as a sales consultant now working in a freelance capacity gave him more freedom but required more of his time; both of them resented the need for money, but his retirement drew ever closer and that’s what kept them going.

  She had the rental house all to herself that evening and maybe Heike would be able to join her for dinner so they could resume their conversation.

  The house, or “cottage” to use an English term for that’s how it would have been described had it been in an English village, was relatively easy to find due to its round tower annexe situated on a bend in the road that climbed away from the medieval village toward more modern residential estates that were no less pleasant but lacked the character of the old village. Either the tower had been added to the house or the house had been joined to the tower. Hanne wasn’t sure as to the history of the building, but it was a feature that helped to secure rentals – a fairy-tale Rapunzel tower that would have appealed immensely to the ten-year-old Hanne. If only Oma had lived in a tower in Rip van Winkle all those years ago. She’d have taken home scores of photos as proof to the kids in Cornwall who might otherwise never have believed it.

  Hanne also thought it very novel to be playing host to her German cousin in a German village in a German house. She would cook a German meal, pour some schnapps and be German for one last evening.

  ***

  Chapter 5

  Heike’s Story

  (Landshagen, Bavaria)

  A pleasant enough hotel set at low level so as not to disturb the view from a popular spa town, it was quite modern and well equipped, but nothing special. The postcards could remain in the desk drawer – not worth taking. Ironically, it was very close to where Heike had grown up; her mother’s home was a walk away, or would have bee
n had history played out differently.

  Getting ready, having accepted Hanne’s invitation, Heike fussed over what to wear, which wasn’t like her at all, and she was in two minds about what she would say if Hanne wanted to pursue the Berlin subject.

  How silly to even mention it! Hanne didn’t even know that much. For a moment that afternoon everything flooded back because of that wretched visit to the monument. Perhaps it would have been good, even cathartic, to tell Hanne what was in her head, but now that time and feeling had passed. She’d buried it all again, locked it away in the glove compartment of her mind.

  It had been nothing more than a “moment” and now that moment had gone.

  She no more wanted to go there than look at the old family house just up the road. In one respect, she appreciated Hanne’s interest, but this was ancient, personal history and talking about it would open old wounds. If she did open up, then Hanne would want to analyse it, chew it over with her, look for a solution, recommend someone to see or some well-meaning organisation. That was the kind of person Hanne was: she facilitated such things for people; helped them to find answers. But most of all, she didn’t want Hanne to take it home to Cornwall and discuss it with Sandy and the “boys”.

  Heike hardly knew Hanne’s children; they’d only met on a couple of occasions, the most recent being when Hugo died and Heike attended the funeral. From Cornwall it would spread across the wider family and be discussed by Heidemarie and Heidemarie’s in-laws, who were close. It would be discussed in Canada and South Africa and God knows where else.

  Like Hanne, she saw little of the wider family, and that was something of a self-infliction because she preferred the distance that Lubeck offered her – a distance from her past. In Heike’s mind she was the rebellious black sheep – the half-American communist who turned her back on the “Fatherland” to embrace the cause of communism because she was so vehemently anti-fascist.

  Where to begin with this one? Not everyone was so anti-fascist. Start with the lipstick – lipstick for fair skin and hair, so nothing extravagant. Hanne was so fortunate with her thick, auburn hair! The mirror is a good listener. Start with the mirror. The mirror will reflect everything…

  *

  Donnerstag, Januar 6th (Epiphany), 1972

  Landshagen, Bavaria

  Heike couldn’t bear the post-war legacy; the weight on her young shoulders she felt was too much to bear. Her intolerant American father, absent for much of the time and becoming more absent by the day, had raised her to believe that the only way was the American way – this, from a man who was spiteful and intolerant.

  He hated communism in all its forms and therefore was as good a recruitment sergeant for communism as anyone could be. To rid the world of communism was his stated aim as a military man and it was the only thing keeping him in the military. Without it, he’d have hightailed it out of “Krautland” on the first transport heading Stateside – wife and children or no wife and children. He applauded American involvement in Vietnam and cheered loudly whenever a “gook”, as he and his chums called the Vietcong, was pictured in the media either dead or captured.

  Heike had seriously considered taking a heavy hammer to his collection of handguns in a bid to render them useless, but most of all with a view to letting off steam. It infuriated her that he would clean them on the kitchen table as if they were cutlery, yet he never polished the cutlery. Mama was too easy-going, too tolerant.

  So communism was retaliation. She embraced the East like a Victorian orphan brought up in the workhouse who longed to return to their natural mother.

  That New Year, she was in the midst of hatching a plan: a plan that would take her across the Wall and into East Germany – forever.

  The plan involved packing two cases, buying a train ticket for Berlin then somehow taking a city train into the Eastern sector; if that wasn’t possible then she’d present herself to the guards at Checkpoint Charlie and request asylum. It was a given that she’d have to cross some heavily guarded barrier, and research (through membership of the DKP – the German Communist Party) had shown her that some Germans did go the other way and that they were “most welcome” on the other side. She wasn’t naïve, she wasn’t expecting to receive a heroine’s welcome, but she was sure the authorities would be honour bound to accept her application just as soon as they realised how genuine she was.

  Her plan did have consequences; it wasn’t going to be a victimless flight. Mama was going to be heartbroken. If Heike were to tell her, then that would be the end of everything because there was no way that Mama would let her go. Once behind the Iron Curtain, the curtain would come down. There would be no turning back.

  A well-meaning lie might just soften the blow. The lie was this: she had a job to go to – an appointment with a prominent West German employment agency that would find her secretarial work. After all, no young woman could stay in a backwater such as Landshagen all her life. Move with the times; people are mobile; youngsters are expected to move onward and upward. What’s more, she was bilingual – any city agency would give their eye teeth for someone with language ability. Who knows where she might end up? She might even be assigned to an embassy of all places.

  Since leaving school she’d worked as a waitress and a receptionist – small town jobs for those who were content with their lot – but the infrequent arrival home of her American father, often unannounced, meant that she was rarely content. He never said ‘Hi’ or even ‘Goodbye’. He’d just turn up with a dark menacing cloud hovering over his close-cropped square head, demanding this or that; it was all too much for a young woman who was now old enough to go her own way.

  “Operation Lie” would be acted upon at the very first opportunity. First, she would apply to a genuine agency, as it was vital that Mama should see for herself a written invitation. Mama was no fool.

  Operation Lie would be the utmost secret. Not even Peter, her younger brother, with whom she shared everything and protected like a mother hen, would be informed of this one. Sad, too, that she would have to leave him behind, as he’d be good company and, like her, showed every sign of becoming a good communist. Maybe, when she was settled in the East, she could sponsor him to join her.

  Peter’s belief – from which she drew much comfort – was that their real father was in fact a Russian soldier – Valentin Petrick – a mysterious friend of Mama’s who had remained in contact. They knew that Mama thought highly of this old friend, that she’d visited him on occasion before the Wall went up, and that they weren’t to mention his name in the (rare) presence of “Papa” aka “GI Joe”.

  It was Peter’s opinion that “Joe” had taken their mother on in the years after the war because he’d got her pregnant but the baby was stillborn. Under pressure from his superiors he’d reluctantly married Kirsten. They were allocated married quarters until such time as he bought the house at Landshagen with the intention of housing his new wife well away from camp.

  When asked how he might know all this, Peter simply said, ‘Oma hinted at such; and when I asked Mama whether we were Papa Joe’s children, she wouldn’t answer.’

  For the wider family, American blood in the Mauer line was one thing; it had brought food and some money during desperate times of hardship; but Russian blood was not acceptable under any circumstance. Russian blood would have resulted in suspicion and being ostracised, and these were just the good points.

  It had not been an easy life for young Kirsten Mauer during the war, fearing for her elder brothers, trying to run the farm along with her widowed mother, and then the stinking, savage bitterness of the post-war years with all its scarcity of basics: food, clothes, essential materials, and all without a man to support them. Kirsten’s war had begun in May 1945.

  Heike had always suspected that her mother had married out of necessity, not love. She often wondered who on earth could love the obscenely gruff and dirty GI sergeant who made no attem
pt to learn a word of German and whose language was peppered with cursing and contempt for those around him.

  He openly hated the Germans but actually hated the British more. ‘At least you’re not an Limey bitch!’ he’d shout at Kirsten during some of his more “colourful” moods. He would claim to anyone who would listen that he’d “rescued” Kirsten from “Hitler’s rat-infested garbage dump”. That Eisenhower should have “nuked” Germany and later Britain, then marched into Russia to finish off the commies. That the US should have gone to war against the British Empire in 1935 when the time was right and then none of this “godawful stink would ever have happened”.

  None of this did Hanne know, and Heike preferred it that way. Uncle Hugo might have suspected. He was never an “admirer” of Sgt “GI Joe” Savers.

  Heike had originally tried to find excuses for her American father – if father he was. According to his account, related solely by Mama, he’d been a witness to the uncovering of the Malmedy massacre. He, and he alone, according to his story of that bitter Ardennes winter of 1944, lifted the frozen bodies of no less than eighty dead comrades from the snow and ice.

  Later, with the war over and those guilty parties brought to book, Joe had blown his top when the commanding SS Officer responsible for the massacre, Obersturmbannfürher Joachim Peiper, escaped the death sentence along with every other participant – spared, it is said, because the US needed the support of anti-communist Germans in a divided country and the support of German-descended Americans at home.

  Joe also claimed within the family to have been photographed surveying the tragic scene and to have witnessed dead children also massacred by Peiper. By sheer coincidence, Heike had seen the photo he referred to in Time magazine many years later while she was waiting for a doctor’s appointment; and yes, remarkably the man surveying the awful scene did indeed look like Joe.