The Reunion

by Geoff Pridmore

  ‘But then she couldn’t leave either and she’s too old to find work here in Berlin. She likes the quiet life, small out of the way places. She’s not a city girl.’

  ‘No, but she can visit West Berlin and you could see her across the Wall. There is a vantage point for Westerners—’

  ‘I don’t want to wave to her, Roland! I want her to hold Johann in her arms – her grandson.’

  The remainder of their walk might have concluded with them metres apart and observing an awkward silence, not unlike their very first outing together, had it not been for the interaction of an elderly couple who approached them – Herr Wilhelm Bakker and his wife of forty years, Traudel; a friendly couple now retired from the civil service but in receipt of a decent stipend for services to the state. Near neighbours, they lived just a few houses away – their instruction being to keep a discreet eye on the young couple.

  The encounter was not a first. The Bakkers had introduced themselves very soon after Heike and Roland had moved into the neighbourhood and so it was not unusual to stop for a moment and exchange pleasantries. That particular night, the encounter helped to lighten the mood.

  ‘Good evening! How are you both? How is your beautiful little boy?’

  ‘He’s very well, thank you! Always a handful, of course!’

  ‘Aren’t they always – especially boys. May I pick him up?’

  Traudel Bakker phrased her request in a way that to refuse would have been churlish in the extreme, but Heike was only too pleased to show him off. Johann was in a very sociable mood and made not a murmur as the seventy-two-year-old former concentration camp guard lifted him from his pram and lovingly caressed his chubby flesh.

  ‘I love babies!’ she told them, looking into the distance. ‘We would have had grandchildren by now, but my son was killed on the Russian front – long before your time.’

  Heike reached out, gently placing her hand on the woman’s cold, bare forearm as if there were still a need to comfort her all these years later.

  ‘He was born in 1924, you see. Every boy born in Germany in that year died on the Eastern Front. I don’t think a single one survived. The other years were more fortunate, but not that year. I still see his old teacher, Frau Abeln. Her whole class of boys from that year perished.’ She hugged the child close to her chest. ‘Oh, but you’re beautiful, aren’t you? Life will not be like that for you, my love.’

  ‘Not unless the Americans break through!’

  ‘Ah! Wilhelm. Enough! Don’t frighten the young couple. So, he likes to joke, you know.’

  Heike held her hand out to the baby so that he could grip her finger. ‘I want his grandmother to see him, but there is a problem.’

  ‘A problem? Why so?’

  ‘She lives in the West – in Xanten. He is her first grandchild…’

  ‘My dear, where there is a will there is a way. My man and I are convinced that one day soon the West will pull out of Berlin – they can’t afford to maintain it forever, bringing in food and materials all the time. And when they pull out of Berlin they will soon pull out of all Germany.’

  This was just the sort of response Heike wanted to hear from somebody, and the old lady was not about to disappoint. She continued: ‘The Americans are isolationists by nature. They’re here to spread the dollar and cause inflation – that’s what they did when we were younger – but in time they’ll realise it costs them more than they gain. They will pull out because they’re ruled by financial gain, not by nationalism – certainly not by socialism. As soon as their shares start falling they’ll be out of here, I’m sure of that.’

  ‘You’re so right,’ replied Heike; but Frau Bakker needed no encouragement to continue her tirade against Western imperialism: ‘Vietnam has not gone their way and they’re running from there with their tails between their legs. They’ll do the same here. They won’t risk a nuclear war. And when they go, the British and French will go with them because without the Americans they are nothing! Take my word for it – you and your baby have nothing to fear!’

  For a while, the two women pulled the West apart, and particularly America, while their husbands looked on patiently and politely, keenly aware that they shared not one common thing other than to be citizens of East Berlin and a certain passivity in the company of women.

  Johann eventually broke up the party screaming, perhaps when he realised that his mother had seemingly parted company with him forever; or maybe he glimpsed the shivering, wretched ghosts that clung to the woman who had once shoved, cajoled and whipped their living bodies in Treblinka.

  ‘I want to see Mama pick him up,’ she later told Roland: ‘I want to see her pick him up and cradle him in her arms, and I want to see that more than anything in this world.’

  It wouldn’t be long before she got that opportunity.

  Making a plan

  Just two weeks after their walk in the park, Uncle Frederick came forward with a plan – a plan that would help in her quest to reunite with Kirsten. It was really someone else’s idea – someone she didn’t know and would never meet. The plan involved the following: firstly, she should write to her mother in Xanten and invite her to West Berlin where she could indeed meet with the baby. Uncle had fixed it; he understood her needs. Heike would be free to cross over into the Western sector, but with the proviso that she rendezvous with a man who would make himself known to her in a certain place at a certain time.

  He would pass to her a package – an innocuous package, nothing nasty, but something that he couldn’t cross the border with because it would set unnecessary alarm bells ringing in the West and his family would be compromised.

  ‘What if I’m searched?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, you’ll be searched alright,’ Uncle replied; ‘but they won’t find anything other than a new wristwatch that your mother will have given you. That’s what is in the package, and you will need to open it and put it on as soon as you receive it. Even if you have to stand in your underwear for a few moments the watch will be of no interest to their security people. Should they question it for any reason, you will have the packaging with a receipt and a small note saying: “With love, Mama”.’

  ‘I already have a watch.’

  ‘Then you leave it at home. I will collect the new watch from you just as soon as you return.’

  ‘What if they arrest me?’

  ‘Arrest you for what? On what charge? We’re not asking you to spy, simply to bring home a very important article.’

  ‘But, Uncle, you told me that they would know me if I returned. The girl that defected – remember?’

  ‘If you were crossing under your identity, then yes, it would be more risky. But we’ll give you an extra identity so that they won’t make any connection.’

  ‘It sounds very dangerous!’

  ‘You won’t be there for long. You have a time limit of just two and a half hours.’

  ‘And if I refuse?’

  ‘Child, it’s the only way I can think of that will enable you to meet with your mother and show her the baby. I have racked my brains trying to come up with another idea, but this is the best I can do. There is no alternative.’

  ‘Should I tell Roland?’

  ‘There is no need to tell him. You will only be gone for a few hours during the middle of the day – as much time as it takes to stroll in the park. Tell him when you’re home again.’

  The kindness of Uncle Frederick seemed to know no bounds. He was the one who’d found them an apartment in a quiet, professional district; he was the one who encouraged her links with her British cousins, the man who cleared the family photographs; the man who’d found her a new job and with it a loving husband. She would not have survived in East Berlin had it not been for Uncle Frederick.

  Now, he was calling in the favour.

  The British Café

  It was all meticulously arranged:
they would meet in the British Café for tea and cake, or scones, whichever was preferred. Prior to their meeting at 11.17 am, a man would make himself known to her. It was all very James Bond. He would hand her a package, they would kiss each other as if cousins and then he would depart. Nothing could be more simple. Kirsten need know nothing.

  How exciting to even think that soon she would be seeing everything she’d left behind – her mother, the bright lights in the shops, no queues, the colour in people’s clothes and even the colour in their faces.

  Johann would need to look his very best; it was tempting to pack his entire wardrobe. Baby formula is not so easy to handle when your hands tremble. Hugs are tighter, kisses more pronounced. ‘What’s the matter with me?’ she called out in frustration at trying to do up a button on the baby’s woollen cardigan; all this to a husband yet to leave the house, a husband quite unaware that his new wife would soon be on her way to West Berlin with his only son.

  The last time she had trembled like this was when she left home for a new life in East Berlin. That whole episode seemed a lifetime away.

  ‘What’s the matter with you this morning?’ he asked, never having quite seen her like this.

  ‘I’m fine!’ she lied. ‘It’s just one of those mornings when nothing goes right.’

  He completed the task for her, only too happy to help out. It would have been so nice to tell him the truth – tell him that his mother-in-law was in town and that she was just popping out to see her; just passing through the Wall and the gates for a coffee and a sandwich in that “other” fortress.

  Kirsten would most certainly take to Roland; Heike was sure they’d make a great family. And who knows, maybe the old lady in the park was right; maybe the Americans were close to pulling out of West Berlin and even West Germany. The Germans would get along just fine if left to their own devices.

  Roland was one for the clock – the precision of time. He knew that if he left their apartment at 8.10 precisely his walk to the tram would be a leisurely one; he hated having to hurry. East Berlin trams were always on time; he was always on time. Heike could count on him being out of the door and on his way, and sure enough this morning was no exception.

  Well, it might not have been an exception had he not realised that he had left behind a document that he’d worked on quite late the previous evening. The document was a boring information sheet on an out of town glassworks that had cost him at least three hours’ homework and faded his typewriter ribbon, so the fact that he’d paced a good hundred metres or more by the time he realised was infuriating to say the least.

  He stopped and turned, knowing that he’d have to go back to get it because his editor insisted on having the wretched paper that morning by 9 am. The editor wasn’t a bad boss; Roland had a good relationship with him, so better to remember now than at journey’s end.

  Turning the corner back onto Meyer Strasse, face down anxiously contemplating his polished black shoes getting wetter and wetter splashing through copious puddles while cursing his stupidity. By the time he might be able to get to work, he was going to look a right mess from head to foot. Won’t this rain ever stop? Roland hated getting wet. Maybe if Heike hadn’t been acting so oddly he’d have remembered the wretched document, but such was family life. Single life was simple before marriage; as a single man, he’d never forgotten anything. Whatever, Heike was a very different person now the baby had arrived.

  He was within 25 metres of the apartment when he eventually lifted his eyes from the pavement. What he saw stunned him. There was Heike with Johann in her arms climbing into the back seat of a black limousine – a broad man in a black suit holding the door open for her like some sinister chauffeur. Slamming the door, he then jumped in and the car sped away in the direction of Heinrich Strasse.

  This was always Roland’s greatest dread: a foreigner like Heike was always going to be under suspicion whether she realised it or not. Now he feared that she and the child were on their way to prison and there was nothing he could do about it.

  Editor Karl Tibitz was at least grateful for the document, despite giving it scant attention. One of life’s natural journalists, he prided himself on his observations, claiming that he never missed a trick, and dropping into conversation his belief that the police force had missed out on a great detective when he chose journalism over state security.

  Roland knew that if he asked Tibitz for confidentiality, he would get it. Tibitz was perhaps the most trustworthy of Roland’s small circle of colleagues that could be relied upon in an emergency; and this was an emergency.

  Tibitz gestured Roland to follow him, to move away from the phones and walls and lamps and ceilings, and well away from those colleagues who might loiter nearby. ‘Let’s have a cigarette, shall we?’

  Outside, the two men found a very open space where they could light up and chew the fat, safe – they hoped – in the belief that to be overheard out here in the open yard with a background noise of distant traffic and construction work would be nigh on impossible.

  Trembling slightly, Roland was clearly agitated.

  ‘What’s the matter with you, my friend? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ said Tibitz.

  ‘What do you know about Hohenschönhausen?’

  ‘Hohenschönhausen? That’s an area some kilometres northeast of here. What about it?’

  ‘There’s a prison there.’

  ‘Really? Who told you that?’

  ‘I heard it somewhere. It’s been there since the war but the authorities pretend it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Then I’m sure it doesn’t exist.’

  ‘I think my wife has been taken there.’

  ‘Your wife? What’s she done?’

  ‘She’s been telling people that she wants to see her mother in the West. She’s been saying that she won’t take no for an answer. I think someone’s informed on her and so the Polizei have picked her up.’

  ‘My dear Roland, I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation. Do you know for sure that’s why she’s been apprehended?’

  ‘I saw a man bundle her into a car this morning – the baby too. They’ll take the baby away from us! I was stupid to let her talk like that to strangers – so stupid!’

  ‘If that’s all you saw, then there could be any number of reasons. Was she struggling with the Polizei?’

  ‘No, but she had the baby in her arms.’

  ‘Did they see you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perhaps I could make a phone call on your behalf? I have contacts. I won’t mention any prison, and I strongly advise that you do the same.’

  ‘I’d be grateful for anything.’

  The air was no fresher in West Berlin; to a degree, it seemed worse, but then again there were more cars. Big cars, brightly coloured cars – Mercs, BMWs, VWs, Opels, Fords, Audis, Porsche. She’d never before in her life given a car a second glance, but now as they streamed past her they seemed to form quite a spectacular parade of bright colours.

  She looked around at the people to see if anyone was looking at her, pointing her out. She felt more exposed now than at any time in her short life. Someone was bound to recognise her and draw the attention of the Polizei, who would in turn hand her over to the American authorities.

  Hey! It’s that girl! The one who defected. She’s the traitor!

  She’s a terrorist! She’s the one who masterminded the bombing in Frankfurt!

  Like a premonition, as if on cue, in the near distance someone shouted out – a man’s angry voice. She was too far away to make out what was being shouted, but she wasn’t going to risk anything, and picking Johann up out of his buggy she walked into the nearest shop and pretended to be a customer.

  Through the shop window she could see two uniformed Polizei running towards where the shouting had come from.

  ‘That’ll be another angry shopke
eper after a shoplifter, you can bet,’ remarked a female staff member on her knees restocking the store’s hair care range. She didn’t look up at Heike or the baby; her attention was solely on pricing the new products. ‘We’ve had them in here – foreigners up to no good. Berliners didn’t steal even when they were starving to death! Send them to the East, I say. Honecker knows how to deal with them!’

  Wondering why she wasn’t getting a response, she glanced up at Heike: ‘Can I help you with anything?’

  ‘Erh, I was wondering what you’d recommend for my baby’s hair?’

  ‘All the Johnson’s baby hair care products are in the aisle marked “For Baby”. This is all adult hair care.’

  ‘Thank you, and… do you know where I might find the British Café?’

  ‘It is here on Invalidenstrasse. Turn right when you leave here and it’s down the street – just a minute’s walk – on this side of the road, on the corner of Hessische Strasse.’

  ‘Thank you!’ Heike was about to walk out, but the assistant stopped her.

  ‘Wait! I thought you wanted to buy some baby shampoo?’

  ‘Yes, I do – thank you!’

  ‘Be careful in the British Café. It’s full of soldiers – British soldiers. They can be… rude, you know.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘They see too many German blue movies and think all of us are sex crazy.’

  As Heike walked out clutching Johann, who in turn was clutching her purchase, the assistant turned to her colleague. ‘Another shoplifter, I bet. Dodged in here to keep out of trouble, but I was watching her. They use babies now to hide what they’ve stolen and for pleading innocence. They ought to be ashamed! A life in the East under Honecker would put her right!’

  On the other side of the Wall, not so many metres away, Roland was chain-smoking; his head full of visions of prisons, of a baby being brought up in an institution and the eventual return of a broken wife – beaten into submission and a shadow of her former self.