Thoughts Are Free

by Max Hertzberg

  The bag was pulled off my head, and I found myself in a room I’d been in before. Maybe not this exact one, but definitely one like it: a small room, lino, desk, a few chairs. You can find this room in any police station, or in the old days, any Stasi building.

  Opposite me was an old man. Grey suit, grey hair combed over the top of his bald head, the smell of Atoll deodorant emanating from his armpits. I’d met him before too. Him or one of his many clones.

  “Why are you here?” he asked. Pleasant enough, but with just the right dose of menace to make the situation clear to even the most stubborn punk. It probably took years of practice to get it just right.

  “Cos I was dragged here!”

  “Miss Rengold, I think we should start again, don’t you? Why are you here?”

  God, some things never change! What do we have to do to get rid of pricks like this? We already started a revolution and they’re still here!

  “I’m here because I need to get in touch with Evelyn Hagenow.”

  “Now that wasn’t difficult, was it, Miss Rengold?” The prick smiled, wiping his hand over his head, making sure his comb-over was holding.

  God, I wanted to punch him! Shout in his smug face, tell him his time was up, his time was over—the future belonged to us, not fucking Stalinists! A swallow, keep calm Karo, I told myself, this is for Martin, and he’s going to owe you for this. Big time.

  But Martin already owed me big time, I’d already saved his arse more than once! Another deep breath.

  “You know my name already, so who are you?” I asked, civilly enough.

  “Why do you wish to speak to comrade Hagenow?” the prick demanded, as if I hadn’t spoken.

  This was hard work. I didn’t know what was worse, being kidnapped off the streets, or having to deal with Mr. Prick.

  “Martin Grobe’s gone missing. We think the fascists have got him. We know they were after him, and he left town to get away from them, but now he’s gone missing and the place where he was staying has been trashed.”

  “Miss Rengold, or may I call you Karoline? Well, Karoline, I think you need to tell us how you know about comrade Hagenow, and exactly what it is you want of her.”

  “I was told about the operation, about Evelyn going undercover. They told me after Martin went missing.”

  “They? Please do try to be precise. Who are they?”

  “His colleagues. At RS.” I didn’t want to tell the Prick anything, but if he could help Martin …

  “I see. Not too difficult is it now? And perhaps you can tell me why you wish to speak to comrade Hagenow?”

  “We’re hoping she can find Martin. If the fash have him then who knows what they’ll do to him-”

  “We? Who is this we? Who thinks comrade Hagenow might be able to help?”

  “His colleagues. And friends.”

  The prick made a note, then nodded to himself.

  “His colleagues. I see, how moving. Well, we’ll be in touch, Karoline.”

  This time I screamed when the bag went over my head, trying to lash out at whoever was behind me. A sharp jab to the kidneys and I went over, retching and moaning on the floor. I couldn’t see it, but I definitely felt the prick’s smile as I was bundled along the corridor, dragged down the steps, back to the van.

  Day 15

  Monday 28th March 1994

  Berlin: Far-right groups have registered demonstrations in each of the Regional capitals for this evening. Counter-demonstrations have also been announced under the motto “We are the people!”

  Martin

  What can I tell you?

  I blacked out, I must have done. I remember being hit. The ears, they aimed for the ears: once, twice, once again. After that, nothing. It must have been a blackout. There’s no other way of describing it. If I try to concentrate on that moment, remember when I was next conscious, the memories just skitter away, and all I can see are crowds of people. We’re standing shoulder to shoulder in the streets, candles lighting hands and faces. Standing, waiting. The fear, that fear again. Men in green uniforms and white helmets running towards us, shields raised, truncheons raised, running, running, running towards us; running away from them. The silence, no noise. Was it because they hit me on the ears? Or did we not scream and shout in our terror? Being hit, back of the head, a truncheon, a fist. On the floor, boot to the stomach, dragged along the road, by the hair, screaming. Yes, there was noise, they were screaming at us, swearing at us, threatening us. Lifted, thrown onto a lorry, kicked again, move, move, move avoid the boots, avoid the fists, move back, further into the truck. Movement, truck rumbling, shouting get off, get down, get out. Down the steps, stumbling, falling onto the backs of others, Katrin, where’s Katrin? Is she safe, is she in a hole like this? Down the steps, face the wall, legs spread, arms up, hands on head, shouting, shouting, fall over, boot to the back of the head, stand up, stand up, screaming, shouting can’t stand must lie still can’t move stop just stop please stop.

  Please.

  A fever? Concussion? My mind delivering the wrong memories to cover the confusion, the blankness, the blackout? 1989. So long ago, so recent. Whatever you want to call it I saw a different future that day, in the cellar. We were there, with our candles, every night, we went out, we faced down the dogs and the pigs of the Party. They beat us and we didn’t back down. But bit by bit the Party did: they crumbled, capitulated. They were leaderless, they had no plan, no scientific socialism to guide them any more. Grasping at straws, they take their cues from the West. Propaganda flooding the country, Deutschland einig Vaterland, the promises, the Deutsche Mark: whatever you want to buy, you buy it with your Westmarks. Work: we’ll have all the work we want—well paid, good clean jobs, short hours, long holidays. Join the West, West is best, test the West. Let them tell us what to do and they’ll see us right. They promise the Earth. Currency union, the Westmark comes, destroying industry, jobs, communities in its wake. And soon after that, the coup de grace for our all our hopes: unification with West Germany.

  Feverish hallucination? A dream?

  Nightmare, more like. Another universe. One I wouldn’t want to be in.

  Karo

  Katrin was still in my room. She’d been really quiet since yesterday, but I guess I hadn’t said much either. There wasn’t much to say. I didn’t want to tell her about my trip to see the Stasi and what else was there to talk about?

  We spent the night lying next to each other, just holding each other. Exactly like last Sunday. We were making a habit of it.

  But now it was morning and I was in the kitchen, Schimmel was making a pot of coffee, and Antifa Bert and Antifa Rex were at the table.

  “Look guys, it’s really straightforward. The fash are organising demos all over the country. We’ve been mobilising for counter-demos, and after last Friday I reckon we can get enough people-”

  Bert had been nodding to everything I’d said so far, but now he broke in. “Precisely. We need to outnumber them, make it clear to everyone that there’s a vast majority of people who don’t agree with the Nazis and who aren’t going to let them spread their poison.”

  “No!” I banged my cup down on the table. “We need to take it to them. Mass demonstrations aren’t going to do the job, we need lots of small groups. While they’re busy marching down Frankfurter Allee and Unter den Linden or wherever, we need to be hitting all the different places they hang out—including Weitlingstrasse! When they come back they’ll have been evicted. Game over. Martin is probably in one of those places—he’s in danger!”

  “And that’s why we can’t do that—it’s too dodgy. They’ll fight back, it’ll get nasty. You’re talking about putting normal people without any experience into a dangerous situation!”

  Martin

  They were holding me by the shoulders. I was sitting on the cement floor, a skinhead to each side of me, and another one standing behind me, holding my head, making me look at a figure in the shadows. It was the size of a person, the approximate shape of
a person. But it was lying on the floor in a way that looked like no human body could. Arms and legs were bent in an attitude that no person could achieve. Not without broken bones.

  “Don’t worry, Zecke. He’s probably dead already.” The skinhead behind me had a slow, deliberate way of speaking. There was no sense of emotion in how he talked. “But we need you to give us a hand.”

  My head was released from the tight grip, and the skin holding my right shoulder let go, but grabbed my hand instead, holding it up. The speaker came into sight, dressed much the same as the others: stonewashed jeans, a t-shirt and denim jacket, shorn head. He was wiping something on his t-shirt, a gun. He held the barrel through the material and placed the grip in my hand. I tried to make a fist to stop him, but the skin holding my wrist squeezed a pressure point. My hand went limp and the pistol was placed inside it.

  My index finger was forced into the trigger guard, my arm extended, gun pointing at the body, and with a sharp strike on my knuckle they made me squeeze the trigger.

  Karo

  “Karo’s right.” Rex poured another cup of coffee for himself. “It’s time to take the fight to them. This feels like the right time. People will join in. People are pissed off, and they’re scared. The attacks all over the place, the way the fash are mobilising for the referenda next week—people can’t ignore them any more. And that’s our chance.”

  “It’s this afternoon we’re talking about! We’ve left it too late.” Bert wasn’t about to give in.

  “It’s not. We can still do it.” Schimmel spoke up for the first time. “This is what we’ve got phone trees for. We can reach nearly every Antifa group in the country in a matter of hours. And we’ll get Martin’s colleagues to start sending telexes to the Round Tables and Works Councils that are likely to be up for it—like the Berkmann Brigade at SKET. We’ve already started the mobilisation, the people are coming already—we just need to redirect them.”

  Bert shook his head. “It’s not going to work.”

  Martin

  The strip-light quivered into life.

  I started to move my hand up to my eyes, shielding them from the glare. The dull ache in my chest changed to a sharp pain. Without instructions from my brain my movements were slowing down. A gasp, heard as from someone else’s throat, a scrape as a door opened. Instinct demanded that I turn my head, look towards the door, see who is coming into the room. Slowly I turned onto my side, ribs stabbing into my lungs, panting in pain. I lay there waiting until I could breathe again, waiting for the burning in my side to recede. More aches began to make themselves known. Left knee: throbbing. Right eye: swollen, restricting vision. Right ear: nagging pain, dampness.

  Enough.

  I moved my concentration away from my body, towards my situation. A cellar. In a Nazi house. Weitlingstrasse maybe. Perhaps they’ve moved me somewhere else. Perhaps I was no longer even in Berlin.

  Another scraping noise: a boot against grit. I lifted my head, turning it slightly, ignoring new messages of pain coming from my neck. A pair of para-boots, soles worn on the inside edges. Toe caps scuffed, marked with dark stains. White laces, above them white socks. Then the turn ups of stone-washed jeans, cut tight. My eyes carried on up the body. Green bomber jacket hanging open over white Lonsdale t-shirt. Above all of that, the head. Hair shorn, a fringe around the neck and face. A face I recognised. Blue eyes, pointed chin. But I didn’t recognise the hardness to the eyes, the determined set to the chin, making it appear more prominent. But it was still her: Evelyn.

  I gasped her name as she advanced, she checked over her shoulder, nobody behind her, then hissed at me: “Shut it!”

  She put her hand over my mouth, with the other she pushed my head back on to the floor. Thoughts whirred through my mind: Why? What does she want? Revenge?

  I struggled, feeble, muscles aching. I could feel my energy slipping away. My lungs fought for breath. A fight I lost as I slipped back out of consciousness.

  Karo

  There were already loads of people at Lichtenberg station, and more kept arriving every time an U-Bahn train rolled in. The fash were starting their march a couple of stops away, down the road at Frankfurter Tor, and they must have wondered where our counter-demo was. Well, we were here, and we were going to take back their precious fucking Weitlingstrasse 122.

  Schimmel was pushing his way through the crowds, ducking under banners, looking around, trying to find me.

  “Hard to say how many,” he panted, out of breath. “But there’s definitely someone in the house—it’s not empty. We need to be careful.”

  We’d wait a bit longer, see how many more people came. The more the better, because Bert was right—it could get dangerous.

  Martin

  A pulling on my wrists, constant, nagging. I still couldn’t breathe, my throat scratching, making me want to cough, but coughing would hurt too much. My shoulders ached. I opened my eyes, Evelyn was above me, she was holding my arms, pulling me up, making me sit up.

  “Where were you? Evelyn, where were you?”

  Evelyn looked down, breathing heavily.

  “Saxony. I got word and came back to get you, you fool. Now shut it.” She looked up, talking to someone else. “Let’s get him up the stairs before they find us.”

  Hands grasped my wrists, my ankles, my back was scraped against steps as I was carried up the stairs. My eyes closed, it was too much.

  The bang of a door, shouting. I’m lowered onto the floor, none too gently. Forcing open my eyes: two skins, shouting, pushing Evelyn around, punching her in the belly. There was another man there, another skin, the one who’d had hold of my feet, he was trying to pull the others away from Evelyn. She was screaming at them, spittle flecking her lips, her eyes wide in fear and hate. I turned over, and got to my knees, crawling away, into the corner. The screaming had stopped, I could hear grunts and whimpering.

  “That’s enough! We don’t want to kill them. Not yet.” A strong Berlin accent, sounding disinterested.

  I propped myself up against a wall. The two skins were standing over Evelyn, she was lying on the floor, not moving. The other guy, the one who had been helping her, was slumped against the wall. Close enough that I could see the blood flowing from his nose, his eyes tight shut. But he was breathing. One of the fascists aimed another kick at Evelyn. Right in the stomach. She whimpered again, but didn’t move.

  “Lock ’em in the storage room, the boss will know what to do with them when he gets back.”

  The other skin grunted, grabbing Evelyn under the arms and dragging her across the floor, towards a doorway. He returned and did the same to Evelyn’s friend. His colleague just stood there, watching while the work was done. Finally they came for me.

  “Awake are you? Too soft on you, were we?” This time both skins took hold, pulling me up by the arms, then pushing me into the same room as Evelyn and the other guy.

  I stumbled as they let go, nearly falling onto a pile of placards. Leaning against the wall, I watched as the door was slammed shut.

  Karo

  We were about forty or fifty people now, plus Rex and the Friedrichshain Antifa group. There was no way of knowing how many people had turned up at the other meeting places, but there were enough of us here to take over a nearly empty house. I was about to say that when Schimmel and this kid who should have been at school dashed up to me and Rex.

  “It’s all kicking off at Frankfurter Tor—a bunch of people turned up for the counter-demo, they didn’t hear about the change of plan. They’re getting their heads kicked in! We’ve got to go there, help them out!”

  A few people had heard what Schimmel had said and were already moving towards the U-Bahn entrance.

  “Wait!” I yelled, but nobody took any notice. “Shit, Schimmel, get them to wait just two seconds will you? Rex, do you reckon your lot can deal with what’s happening at Frankfurter Tor?”

  “Yeah, get everyone to stay here, we’ll sort it.” Rex was already on his way. “We’ll be back
in thirty.”

  “Wait here! Wait! Everything is under control!” I bawled.

  The crowd was already dispersing.

  Martin

  I staggered over to Evelyn, then sank down next to her. I shook her arm, but there was no reaction. I put my fingers on her wrist, her pulse was slow, much too slow. Running my hands over her body, checking for blood, they came away dry. Didn’t mean there wasn’t any internal bleeding or broken bones though.

  Turning to the man lying next to Evelyn I did the same thing. Similar results, except for his nose and the fact that his pulse was stronger. There was movement beneath his eyelids. I slapped his cheeks gently, he groaned, his eyes twitched.

  Good, that counted as progress. They were both alive.

  I sat between Evelyn and the stranger and looked around the room: the pile of placards that I’d nearly fallen onto, several boxes of leaflets, another box with what looked like black, white and red striped armbands. On the other side of the room was a neat stack of torches, the kind that the FDJ used to have for their torch-lit parades past the tribune on which the Bonzen stood smiling down at us.

  Uncalled for, a child’s song came into my head: Am Kindertag, beim Fackelzug, da darf ich auch mitgehn—‘on Children’s Day, on the torch-lit parade, I can go with the others’.

  Shaking my head, trying to clear it, I stood up again to look at the window. A normal window, but the kind that doesn’t open. I was sure we were on the ground floor, but the frosted glass meant there was no way to tell how far the drop from the window sill to ground would be.