The Reunion

by Geoff Pridmore

  The British Café was a tiny outpost of Empire, its walls adorned with old framed photographs of Churchill, Montgomery and, of course, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Illustrious portraits framed, as were their various letters to one another: correspondence between Churchill and King George VI; and correspondence between Churchill, the King and Montgomery.

  In the corners of the room, the colours of those regiments that had been stationed in the British quarter since the war stood like so many giant parasols, along with various union flags from Continental battles, all torn, faded and redundant.

  ‘Tea please!’ asked Heike in perfect Anglo-American. There was no need, the waitress was one hundred per cent Berliner born and bred.

  The assistant in the pharmacy had been quite right, there were a number of soldiers frequenting the café noticeably in civilian dress. Off-duty soldiers always stood out, with their short hair and immaculate casual clothes, as if the ’60s had never happened. A group of women sat across the room in a haze of smoke – clearly not Berliners, though their English was not at all like Hanne’s or Aunt Rene’s speech.

  They were discussing babies in the most base way, grumbling to one another about the cost of nappies, the problems of potty training, all the while inhaling cigarette after cigarette; it didn’t take Heike long to realise that these women didn’t like children at all, nor did they like their husbands or the army or “bloody Berlin”.

  ‘When I married my old man in Aldershot, he said we’d be in Malta and then Cyprus and then Belize. Then he’d come out, he said. What did we get? This stinking shite hole for the past four years! We were in Sennelager for two years! We either froze to death in winter or sweltered in summer. His next posting is Tidworth and that’ll be it! So much for joining the fookin’ army and see the fookin’ world – pardon my French.’

  ‘Annette’s old man left her for a Jerry! Left Annette high and dry on her own out here and not knowing anyone on camp. She’d only just arrived. He’d been here for months, and when she arrived she found out he’d shacked up with this cow in the nearby town. She had to fly back to Brize Norton and begin divorce proceedings. And do you know what? That Jerry cow was the town bike! Didn’t matter what regiment came in, she slept with every bloke who bought her a pint in the Naafi.’

  The men, supping their off-duty lunchtime beers, took no notice of the women. The only thing Heike noticed about them was that whenever one of them ordered another pint of beer, it was ordered in German – albeit very basic German – and that their comments were focussed entirely on the waitress.

  She was beginning to wonder about the possibility that the stranger who was to rendezvous with her just might not turn up. If that was the case, she feared that Uncle would somehow blame her for not being on time or for being in the wrong place. What if this wasn’t the only British Café?

  ‘Excuse me?’ she called the waitress over. ‘This is the only British Café, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes. There isn’t another with the title. The British frequent all the cafés and bars in their sector, but this is the only one with the title “British Café”.’

  ‘Thank you!’

  A youngish man, around thirty years of age, breezed in looking rather uptight. Could this be him? she wondered. He took no notice of her and made his way to a table where he sat down, stowing a bright orange plastic sports bag under his chair as if fearing someone might trip over it or even take it. He looked like a German, she thought; definitely not a British squaddie.

  For a while, she wondered whether he’d make a move towards her. She was tempted to smile or nod or wave at him just in case he hadn’t recognised her. What if he hadn’t been as well informed as Uncle had suggested? Maybe he was a novice and this was his first assignment. After all, he wasn’t behaving in the way that Uncle had said he would. According to Uncle, her contact would arrive very businesslike, go straight up to her, reach out and kiss her like a relative, hand her the package and then depart, making his apologies.

  And then there was Mama. What would she make of a strange man coming up to kiss Heike before passing her a parcel containing a gift for unwrapping that very moment?

  Mama was the other unknown. What if she was angry or moody – distant and unresponsive even to the baby? The more the minutes ticked by the more her fears began to overwhelm her.

  Thank goodness for Johann’s smiling face. He seemed to be able to take everything in his stride with hardly ever a murmur or outburst. He was her constant pleasure. No mother could be more proud of this young man; he never complained, and not one sleepless night in all these past eleven months.

  She could already picture him in the years to come – tall, athletic, with a happy disposition. Like his father, he would probably be a wordsmith, having done well at school, of course. Roland would love and nurture him in all the ways that GI Joe didn’t or wouldn’t do with her or Peter. Theirs would be a tightknit family unit with maybe another baby in a year or so: a daughter perhaps next time round.

  And perhaps the old lady in the park was right in her forecast: that the two Germanys would become one again once the Americans and their allies pulled out. After all, they couldn’t stay forever. By the year 2000 Johann would be twenty-eight with a family of his own perhaps.

  She looked back at the soldiers and the group of loud, complaining women, then bending down to Johann gently whispered: ‘Whatever you do, don’t ever become a soldier.’

  It was at that moment that another man strode into the café alone – also young, not bad looking in Heike’s opinion. His eyes scanned the room before he noticed Heike; no one else seemed to notice him.

  He strode over to her table, his face beaming with mock delight. ‘My dear cousin! At last, we meet again.’ He put a small parcel onto the table beside her. Nervously, she rose to greet him and they embraced and kissed as arranged, much to Johann’s amusement.

  ‘With my sincere apologies please accept my gift and wear it immediately – it will help you to get home. Forgive me, I can’t stay.’ His beam fading, the stranger turned on his heels and left the café, the doorbell clanging behind him as he disappeared into the maelstrom that was West Berlin.

  Thank heavens! She relaxed. Was that all it was about? At least that bit is over. She tore open the brown wrapping paper to reveal a jewellery box. Inside the box was the most delightful Swiss-made watch, its blue and red dial furnished with chrome hands and even a figure for the date. What’s more, the strap was real leather! This was no cheap watch from a department store.

  ‘Very ’70s, perversely ostentatious, very West Berlin.’ She dangled it in front of Johann’s searching eyes; he seemed fascinated by the gift. ‘Do you think Uncle will let me keep it? I hope so! Don’t you?’

  As she strapped the elegant watch to her wrist, she looked across to where the lonely young man had been sitting. He wasn’t to be seen, but his bag was still under the chair – the bright orange plastic sports bag.

  She was just about to alert the waitress to the fact that he must have left it behind—

  *

  Flying glass and wood and metal punctures and tears fragile human bodies. You need to be in just the right place if you’re to survive.

  *

  Even in the newsroom, the blast was enough to send a shockwave through the building. Windows shook. Roland and many other East Berliners stopped what they were doing to wonder just what the hell had happened. Even the mighty Wall couldn’t diminish the moment a West Berlin café was blown out into the street. Then came the sirens – the endless sound of sirens.

  Heike eventually awoke to find Kirsten staring down at her, clasping her weak hand tightly. The room was so extremely brightly lit and she had been in the dark for so long. The dream from which she had just awoken with a jolt was that of being lifted from the tarmac of a cold street by a man so strong that he picked her up as if she were nothing more than a rag doll. He’d sai
d, as if speaking through a tube: ‘This one’s alive! Be gentle now.’

  All of a sudden, the conscious world to which she’d been returned made sense. She was back in the delivery room – aching in every muscle. She turned her head for an answer.

  ‘Have you seen the baby, Mama?

  ‘Have you seen my baby?

  ‘Have you seen your grandson…? I will call him… I will call him… I called him Johann!’

  A shadowy man and Bruno

  Roland could make no headway with his wife’s recovery. Her battered and bruised body was taking time to heal, and whenever he tried to place a loving hand on her she flinched and retreated.

  The apartment was unbearably quiet. Sometimes, in a nearby room, he would overhear her talking to someone. Curious as to who it might be, he would peep round the door to find that there wasn’t anybody else at all. Heike would be on her knees talking to Johann, conversing with his spirit as if she could see or sense the boy in a way Roland could not. She would speak to Mama Kirsten, too, even though she was safely settled back in Xanten; her physical absence seemed to make no difference.

  Kirsten had been delayed in reaching the café that morning; a slow train from the west had necessitated an unscheduled change of train, then her inability to find the café had led to her arriving shortly after the bomb had detonated. Standing among the gathering crowd, trembling, she watched the emergency services go about the rescue while the Polizei tried to usher them away.

  ‘I think my daughter’s in there!’ she pleaded, though she couldn’t be certain.

  In the crowd, voices speculated as to whether it was a gas explosion – it was a café, after all – or whether it was terrorists.

  Exactly an hour after the bomb went off, the Red Army Faction called a West Berlin newspaper admitting responsibility, claiming that the bomb was planted specifically to hit British service personnel for their occupation of Northern Ireland and the killing of innocent lives during the Bloody Sunday riots. The café was an easy target.

  Heike was conscious as they loaded her into an ambulance. Kirsten, having recognised her, pushed through the cordon, heard her mumbling something about having to be back in the Eastern sector because Roland needed her and the Americans would capture both her and the child if she didn’t get home immediately.

  For two days she sat at her daughter’s bedside as Heike’s condition swung from initial improvement to decline. At one point it looked as if she was losing her battle and a priest was called with the utmost urgency, only for her to rally, much to Kirsten’s relief.

  During her long bedside vigil Kirsten would talk to her of many things, much of which was of no real consequence, but she repeated this line many times: ‘I saw my two brothers go to war and I was there to welcome them home. I’m going to welcome you home, child.’

  Of course, she could do no such thing; but she was determined to be there when Heike regained consciousness.

  The wristwatch? No one in West Berlin gave it a second thought and it was returned to Heike with a scratched face but otherwise undamaged, its Swiss mechanism as precise as ever.

  Once she had recovered enough to face him, she handed it solemnly to Uncle Frederick, who commended her most highly for the part she played in receiving it. The placing of the bomb had been tragically coincidental. No one East or West could have foreseen such an attack.

  The irony was that the watch was of no significance to anyone whatsoever. It was all a device to test Heike’s loyalties. A sleeper – as they suspected her to be – might well have attempted to inform her superiors of the transaction or try to find out if the watch contained anything. Of course, the bomb went off shortly after it was handed to her, so the test was void. She remained a suspect in the eyes of the Stasi, but at least they had no evidence to confirm that she was an agent for the West.

  *

  In the car that evening, she would tell Hanne all this – at last. One thing: she wasn’t going to talk about was the depression following bereavement. Hanne could not understand it; no one could. The cold, the sleepless nights and days of black, black depression. Those days when she so longed to walk to the Wall in order to try to break through so that someone would shoot her dead. Oh yes, that was a way out for sure, and the only thing that stopped her was the thought that whoever shot her would be someone else’s son – a beloved son. No son of any loving mother deserved to be her executioner.

  *

  Peter’s timely arrival in East Berlin brought her back from the brink: his motivation being to save his big sister.

  He’d taken the same route, entered through the same gate and said much, much the same to his inquisitors as his sister had done thirty-six months earlier. The very same (welcoming) committee, in turn, treated him with equal suspicion. They came to the conclusion that he too was part of a newly emerging information-gathering operation, that was curious to say the least because it was actually beyond their collective imaginations to even consider that in heart and spirit he was a motivated idealistic youth who railed at those unpunished Nazis who were again in charge of West German affairs.

  Following ten days of fruitless and cruel interrogation, Uncle Frederick delivered him to Heike and Roland’s door with this introduction: ‘I think you know this young man?’

  She didn’t, of course. The tall, skinny, unshaven youth standing trembling and hunched on the doorstep bore little resemblance to anyone she knew or had ever known. She glanced back at Uncle’s face as if to say, Who’s this you’ve brought us? The youth seemed vaguely familiar. He appeared to be under arrest as Uncle, with stern demeanour, was holding him close with a firm grip around the bicep. It was as if he’d been caught stealing apples and now the farmer was returning him with a reprimand.

  She looked deeper into the miscreant’s face, which was partially obscured by the evening’s grey shadow and ten days of stubble growth. Only at that moment did the penny drop: her eyes glistened, a faint smile of recognition; it was the last person she’d ever expected to see standing there on Held Strasse.

  ‘Peter?’ Her timid question faltered on the evening air. Was this really her “little” brother on her very doorstep?

  The shadowy boy nodded so gently, so submissively, whilst Uncle pushed him over the threshold before doffing his trilby and turning back toward the waiting black limousine. Heike gently took the stick of an arm that had been gripped so fiercely and led him into the warm kitchen. ‘You must be cold and thirsty. I’ll put the coffee on. Or do you want tea? Are you hungry? You must be hungry.’

  Roland stopped himself from asking stupid questions of Peter. He was sure that he knew exactly why he was here; but at least Heike was talking and, for the first time, actually smiling. Now was the moment for making up a bed. He left them to talk, but Peter was beyond talking to anyone.

  It was easier – slightly easier – the following morning over breakfast. There was porridge and fresh bread, coffee all laid out before him and, most importantly of all, warmth. He hadn’t felt warm since arriving in East Berlin. The last week and a half had unnerved him horribly, and even in the comfort of his sister’s modest apartment he was having difficulty relaxing. She wanted to say something reassuring but couldn’t think of anything so she asked bluntly: ‘Did you honestly think they’d welcome you?’

  ‘I don’t know. What did you expect when you came here first?’

  ‘I was a very naive child.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Heike! You did an amazing thing – got away from all that crap, and you did it on your own. You knew what you were doing. I wanted to follow you, but I was too young. I was the naive one, not you.’

  ‘So what changed your mind?’

  ‘I had to come when Mama told me what had happened to you. We thought you were safe and happy until then.’

  ‘I was safe and happy. I just wanted Mama to see him. It was a bad thing in the café, but it could have happene
d to us anywhere. It could have killed Mama, too. Thank goodness she was late!’

  ‘You lost your baby!’

  ‘I didn’t lose him!’ Heike was momentarily incredulous that he should even imagine such a thing: ‘He is still here – we talk all the time. Johann is always with me.’

  Peter the realist, the little brother who’d always taken a delight in bursting his elder sister’s balloons, the child who’d refused to believe in God or Father Christmas, could only glance down in silent tribute. Even Roland had not heard this from Heike, though he had suspected as much.

  ‘The Red Army Faction are crazy! It’s not the way to achieve their aims.’

  ‘Would you have thought the same thing if Heike hadn’t been there?’ Roland asked him.

  ‘I don’t know. They have a lot of support you know, especially among our generation. Germany needs to listen – West Germany needs to listen. The fascists are all still in place running government over there. Local government has been infiltrated and the big industries are controlled by them. Someone has to stop them.’

  ‘But not with bombs and bullets!’ snapped Roland. ‘Our baby is dead because of those Baader-Meinhof bastards. I nearly lost my wife, too.’

  Heike slammed the table with her fist. ‘Roland – PLEASE! Your baby is not dead!’ For a moment there was another deep, anguished silence.

  Peter continued: ‘I’m not an apologist – I’m just saying what is happening.’

  ‘The boy who planted that bomb knew I had a baby with me,’ whispered Heike, wiping streams of tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand; ‘I saw him come in… He saw me, he saw Johann. He could have said to me – something? Made an excuse for us to leave. But he didn’t. He walked out, leaving us to… He knew what our fate would be and he didn’t care!’

  She collapsed to the floor in an uncontrolled heap, shaking, heaving, gasping for breath between sobs as the world fell in on her. Roland dropped to his knees beside her, embracing and absorbing as much of her misery as he could take upon himself: ‘Let it out, darling… let it all out… Cry for Johann… cry for him, darling… cry for us all.’