Walls

by L. M. Elliott

  “Yes.”

  “Bet she’s enjoying the music. Some important guest artist is performing a Mozart piano concerto, right?”

  “She did not go.”

  Dropping his chair legs back to the floor, Drew’s dad asked in surprise, “Why not? I hope she isn’t ill.”

  Matthias looked down at his plate, fidgeting with obvious embarrassment. “She was afraid to leave the apartment when Cousin Emily came with Joyce. She had . . .” He searched for the English word and resorted to German. “Ein Anfall von Hysterie. At the door.”

  “Oh no! We were hoping that Christmas Eve had cured her of those panic attacks.”

  “Nein. They are worse. She shrieks.” Matthias turned to Drew, accusation in his expression. “It was Elvis.”

  Drew shook his head, confused. “Elvis?”

  “The record you gave me. The Vopos saw it. In the S-Bahn, on the way home I . . . I pulled it out of my coat to look at it.” He stopped and damned himself—“Dummkopf!”—then started fiddling with the silverware as he continued. “The Vopos were young and . . . mmm . . . dienstbeflissen . . . leidenschaftlich.”

  Drew’s dad looked to him for translation.

  “Zealots.”

  Matthias nodded. “They are the most dangerous. They pulled us off at the station. They said I was guilty of smuggling Western filth. They started to search Mutter. I was very afraid. She carried your other gifts—things that are contraband. That book—that slanders the Party.”

  “Animal Farm,” Drew exhaled. Just as Joyce had predicted.

  “Yes. Having that in her bag, she could be accused of treason, of bringing in capitalist propaganda.”

  Drew heard his dad mutter, “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”

  “But meine Oma,” Matthias continued, astonishment replacing his embarrassment, “she . . . she stepped in front of Mutter. She took hold of the Vopo’s coat sleeve. She asked how they could be so . . . mmm . . . respektlos.”

  “Disrespectful,” Drew offered.

  “Yes. Disrespectful. Of elders. That was not the German way, she said. She told them she knew they were good boys, no matter their uniforms.” Matthias’s voice cracked. “They stopped. Because of her. They kept Elvis. But they wished us a happy Christmas and let us go. Because of meine Oma . . .” He paused to let that wonderment hang in the air. “But at home, the terror returned to her.”

  Drew had felt his face flush hot, then ice cold as Matthias told his story. That near arrest was his fault. “Matthias, I am so sorry to have caused trouble. I . . . I wasn’t thinking.”

  Abruptly, Matthias stood and carried his plate to the kitchen. Drew’s father held up his hand to stop Drew from saying anything else. “Okay, troops,” he said, using his army voice, “time to do the dishes.”

  Linda, Drew, and their dad were listening to Gunsmoke on the radio when Matthias finally emerged from the bathroom. He’d been standing in the shower forever.

  When Drew had complained that there’d be no hot water left for his own shower, his dad answered, “That kid can take as much of our hot water as he wants, son. Your mom told me that all she saw in their apartment was a deep old tub with a large kettle attached to its pipes and a tiny coal oven. That’s how they have to heat their water. And they sure don’t have a shower.” He grinned. “Who knew our army-issue apartment was the lap of luxury?”

  Rubbing his blond crown of hair with a towel, Matthias came down the hall to join them just as the next program, Dr. Sixgun, was announced:

  Tonight, Dr. Ray Matson, the hero of Frenchman’s Ford, roaming the Wild West with his medicine bag strapped on one hip and a pistol on the other, will need to defend a mail-order bride in distress . . .

  “Is this a Western?” Matthias asked.

  “Yes!” Linda answered excitedly. Then she blushed and hugged Heidi.

  “It’s pretty old. They don’t play it in the States anymore,” said Drew. “But AFN runs it every weekend. It’s primo.”

  “That’s right—saddle up for a great program, pardner.” Drew’s dad adopted a ridiculous Texas twang. “Dr. Sixgun is a man of justice and mercy in the outlaw West.”

  Matthias plunked himself down right in front of the console. “Cowboys and Indians. Neato.”

  Drew stared at him.

  Matthias flushed. “That is the right word?”

  Drew’s dad grinned. “It is indeed. I think you need some All-American popcorn, Matthias. We’ve got that new Jiffy Pop I can cook on the stove.” He stood and winked. “I’ll be back in a jiff. Get it? Jiff—jiffy.”

  Linda and Drew both rolled their eyes. But Matthias chortled.

  Later that night, lying in a sleeping bag on the floor of Drew’s bedroom, Matthias said, “I like your father.”

  “Yeah. He’s a good guy.” Drew’s dad had been his best self that evening—goofy, relaxed. Lying very still, Drew asked the question he’d been wondering about ever since he’d met Matthias. “What happened to your dad? Did he die in the war, like your brothers? During the bombing?”

  Wrapped in the darkness, Matthias was invisible to Drew except for the lump of his silhouette. “He never came home from the Eastern Front.”

  So Matthias’s father did fight for Hitler’s army. Drew weighed that information. Maybe the guy was career military, which would mean he might not have been a member of the Nazi Party. Although it was more likely he’d had to join. Even if he’d been halfhearted about it, that was a heck of a family bloodline.

  Matthias rolled over. “Thank you for the very nice day. Gute Nacht. Schlaf gut.”

  “Yeah,” Drew responded quietly, “you too, man.” But his head was full of confusing thoughts that were sure to keep him awake for a while. A commie cousin with a Nazi father. Swell. But Drew had to be honest—he liked Matthias.

  The distant sound of grinding metal and sharp scrape-squeaking woke Drew and Matthias at sunrise.

  “Was zum Teufel?” Matthias shot up and crawled to the window to look out.

  Drew rubbed his eyes and listened, recognizing the sound. “It’s just a field drill of our armored divisions in the Grunewald.”

  Running along the edge of the British and American sectors, the forest was enormous—more than seven thousand acres—and the perfect place for military exercises to keep Allied troops on their toes. Hearing troop movements at dawn always unnerved Drew a bit, too. It was a harsh reminder of the deadly backdrop of their lives in Berlin.

  Drew knew that Matthias might say the exercises were evidence of the Soviet claim that the Allies were warmongers, posturing and threatening the East. Of course, his dad and everyone else in the Berlin Brigade would say the practice maneuvers were to counter the regular exercises done by the Russians who surrounded Berlin and vastly outnumbered the combined American, British, and French forces. Tensing, Drew sat up, awaiting some political barb.

  But Matthias turned away from the window and sniffed. Sniffed again. “Bacon!” he said with hushed excitement. He got to his feet and padded to the kitchen.

  “Good morning, boys!” Drew’s mom trilled, putting plates overflowing with eggs and biscuits and bacon in front of them and Drew’s dad. As she did, she kissed them all—including Matthias—on the head. Matthias blanched but didn’t protest.

  “The concert last night was glorious, and oh—meeting the maestro,” she sighed, as starstruck as any Elvis fan. “Even though Aunt Hilde didn’t come, we still got to go backstage afterward. Von Karajan was as charismatic in person as he is on the podium. And oh my goodness, boys, another friend of his came backstage—Elizabeth Grummer!” She looked at them expectedly.

  They gazed back at her blankly.

  “The opera singer! She was nice as could be. She offered to give Joyce lessons!” Drew’s mom plopped herself down across from them. “Isn’t that amazing?” She looked from one to another, waiting.

 
Drew’s dad held up his empty cup. “Um, is there any coffee this morning?”

  “Oh! What am I thinking? Of course!”

  As she swept to the stove to retrieve the pot, Drew’s dad explained to Matthias, “Mrs. McMahon’s enthusiasm and joy is why I fell for her. But sometimes I need a cup of joe to keep up.” He grinned at Drew’s mom as she poured. “Now, please start over, honey.”

  It had snowed about two inches during the night—nothing unusual for Berlin, but Drew’s dad offered to drive Matthias home rather than making him wait in the slushy S-Bahn rail station. The Bonneville fishtailed a bit through the streets, but Drew knew it cut a pretty blue streak through the fresh snow.

  They swung south and then due east through the American sector, coming to the border and Zimmerstraße by way of Schöneberger Straße. Down the long block, they spotted two young West German policemen pacing back and forth, mirroring two East German Vopos on the other side of the street. Matthias leaned forward from the back seat and asked, “Can you pull over, please? I wish to walk from here.”

  “Sure, kid.”

  Before last night, Drew might have sniped, “Ashamed to be seen with us?” But now, given the terrifying shakedown Matthias had described at dinner, Drew understood Matthias not wanting to call attention to his American ride.

  Pulling over to parallel park, Drew’s dad announced that he was going to check out the tobacco shop on the corner. A series of shacklike booths dotted the Western edge of Potsdamer Platz, selling magazines from London and Paris and American cigarettes, toothpaste, shoes, and razor blades. East Berliners hovered nearby until the Vopos rounded the corner, then rushed to purchase a few items and darted back to their houses just as the East Germans reappeared.

  The boys stood beside the car, watching the four enemy guards approach each other as they patrolled, then stop and talk for a moment—friendly—before splitting up to continue walking their beats.

  “That was weird,” Drew murmured through the scarf he’d pulled around his face against the January cold.

  “Oh, they do that.” Matthias shrugged. “They grew up together. That line”—he nodded to the white streak painted down the middle of Zimmerstraße—“means little in this neighborhood. Each summer, the mayor of Kreuzberg—the borough we stand in now—hosts a festival. He invites all of us living across the street in the Russian sector to celebrate childhood with those on the Western side. A Kinderfest.” He smiled at Drew. “There is a carousel, puppet shows, fireworks. You should come.”

  “I’d like that,” Drew answered.

  Their breathing wreathed them in cloudy vapors. It was hard for Drew to tell which exhale belonged to him, which to his cousin.

  “Do not mistake me,” Matthias said slowly, considering each word. “I still believe our society is more just than yours, more fair to workers.” Then he added, totally straight-faced, “You fascist, petty bourgeois,” before he punched Drew’s shoulder and smiled wryly.

  Drew laughed.

  “But . . .” Matthias watched the Vopos pace. “I begin to see how . . . mmmm . . . unjust is the way . . .” He paused.

  “The way they threaten and police you?” Drew offered quietly.

  Matthias nodded, turning to go home.

  “Hey, Matthias?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thanks for your help with Bob yesterday.” Drew knelt and packed snow into a tight ball. “I can’t do squat with a soccer ball, but if you ever need me to return the favor, I can do this.” He pointed to an empty, dilapidated house a good hundred yards away. “See that building?”

  Matthias eyed it. “No way you hit that.”

  “Oh yeah?” Drew flexed. “Watch this.”

  He pulled his arm back and whipped it forward with force. The snowball lofted, spinning fast toward the building, a beautiful missile rocketing toward its target. But just before hitting the dingy brick wall, its arc curved down. The snowball dropped. And splatted on the back of a Vopo’s head!

  “Scheiße!” Matthias dropped to the ground and hid behind the Bonneville’s enormous front bumper. “Get down,” he hissed at Drew.

  The Vopo whirled around, fumbling to yank his Russian-issue AK-47 rifle off his shoulder. “Wir werden angegriffen!” he shouted to tell his comrade that they were under attack.

  But his patrol partner bent over, belly laughing at him, and gestured toward the West German guards, obviously assuming they were the culprits. The communist youth knelt and made his own snowball, vaulting it at one of his friend-enemies for a direct hit.

  “Was zum Teufel!” The West Germans guffawed and quickly packed snowballs to hurl across the line, each landing with a terrific splatter on the Vopo’s chest.

  “Du willst es nicht anders, Bruder!” Another gleeful throw. Another hit.

  And another.

  People on the street tensed, ready to sprint and scatter. Worried faces appeared at the windows. But all they saw were four German teenagers bombarding one another with snowballs, slipping in the snow, and shouting playful taunts in sheer joy.

  And for those few moments, Drew witnessed everyone on that corner of Berlin laugh—together.

  He walked with Matthias to the corner and then watched his cousin disappear down the street before going back to the Bonneville. His dad got there at the same time. “Dad, did you see those guards throwing snowballs at each other? That was so funny. It all started when I pitched a—”

  They both froze. On the windshield, carefully tucked under the wipers, was a sealed envelope addressed to Sergeant Major James McMahon, U.S. Army.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FEBRUARY 1961

  “They’re still there, Mom.” Drew was staring out the living room window at the Volkswagen bus parked across from the building’s front entrance. It’d been there almost three weeks, ever since the night Matthias had slept over.

  “Try not to notice.”

  “Try not to notice? It’s a VW bus sitting right in front of our apartment. It’s kind of hard to ignore.”

  Getting up from her piano, Drew’s mom gazed out the window. “It’s just a precaution, honey. They’re going to give the surveillance another week or so more for good measure. Then things will go back to normal.”

  After having a team of MP bodyguards keeping watch over them round the clock, Drew’s definition of normal would never be the same again.

  “I should really make those boys some cookies,” his Mom mused. “It’s so cold here in February. I hope they have something hot to drink.”

  Drew threw his hands up in exasperation. “How can you think about snacks when the army thinks we’re in enough danger to need a round-the-clock protective detail?”

  “Oh, it’s not that big of a deal, sweetheart.” She tried to pull him into a hug.

  But Drew dodged her. “Mom, I don’t know anyone else who’s had a mysterious envelope left on their windshield by the Stasi, or the KGB, or whoever it was.”

  “You’d be surprised.” His mom lowered her voice, as if someone could overhear. “Mrs. Jones told me her husband has received a number of recruiting letters just like that one, left willy-nilly on their car or in their mailbox. She even found one in her grocery bags one time—at the commissary. On an American post! That’s how audacious they are. Russian intelligence and the Stasi are perpetually fishing.”

  “Offering an officer ten thousand dollars a month to turn traitor?”

  Drew’s mom quickly reached out and took his arm. Her face paled. “How did you know that, honey? Were you eavesdropping on Dad and me?” She pulled him over to sit on the sofa beside her. Taking both his hands, she waited until he was looking her full in the eye before she spoke. “I’m going to talk to you right now like the man you almost are, and I need you to listen carefully to every word.”

  She didn’t continue until Drew nodded. “Berlin is a complicated place, sweeth
eart. It’s riddled with suspicions and the hardest of choices—like having to leave behind everything you love to escape a police state that claims to be all about helping workers but is really about exploiting them. All while the Communist Party leaders get rich and fat off their labor, just like those pigs in Animal Farm.

  “Frankly, Stalin was as bad as Hitler in terms of purging entire groups of people. And Khrushchev may not be that much better. He was the one who ordered Russian tanks to roll into East Berlin to crush the workers’ protests here a few years ago. And he’s the one who is now threatening to ignore West Berlin’s right to exist and to forcibly annex the city to be the capital of East Germany. He could order tanks into the city again any minute, but this time against us.”

  Drew squirmed. Thanks for reminding me, Mom, he thought.

  She softened. “I’m sorry that life here is a perpetual standoff, honey. But we should be proud of helping Dad and the United States hold an outpost of freedom against communism and its oppression.”

  She squeezed Drew’s hands. “Now, this is the most important part for your dad. Because the stakes here are so high, American personnel in Berlin have to be squeaky clean, above any kind of rumors or questions of loyalty. You remember that your dad did not open that envelope when you two found it, correct?”

  Drew remembered. He couldn’t believe his dad hadn’t torn it open on the spot.

  “He took it immediately to his CO.”

  “Yes.”

  “So the only way your dad knows the letter’s contents, or that the Russians or East Germans tried to recruit him, is because his commanding officer told him. The CO even kidded that your dad could be a very rich man if he took the bribe. That’s what you overheard your dad telling me.”

  “Yeah, Mom—so?”

  “Soooooooo, if your dad had opened the letter himself without a superior officer present, HQ might have worried that your dad had already read the offer, been tempted by the bribe, decided to become a Soviet mole, and only then turned in the letter to his CO as cover.”