Sektion 20

by Paul Dowswell

  ‘So what does it look like?’ he asked. Like most East Berliners he was fascinated to know what lay behind the blank concrete face of the Eastern Wall. They didn’t know anyone who had an apartment where you could see over it. He wondered if what he’d heard was true.

  ‘There’s one window with a perfect view,’ said Sophie. ‘Behind the Wall there’s a great wide strip with trenches – to catch vehicles I suppose, and there are runs for the dogs. And there are tripwires which you can only see if the sun is shining in the right direction, and watchtowers and a lot of barbed wire. And on the other side there are buildings right next to the Wall.

  ‘The other side’s close enough to see people wave if they catch you staring out of the window. We’re told very sternly not to wave back. The other night I spotted a little boy trundling along a side street on a tricycle, without a care in the world. I thought how nice it would be to be there on that side.’

  They walked along for a few paces then Sophie’s face lit up. ‘I wonder how easy it would be to escape from that block?’ she said excitedly. ‘There probably isn’t a better building in Berlin. I’ve been thinking about it as I dust and polish. You and me, we could hide in a lavatory after work, go up to the roof in the dead of night and get a rope over to the other side and slide down.’

  Alex could not take her seriously. But he was thrilled she had put into words what he had not dared to tell her up on the Ferris wheel the other night. He looked at her and smiled. She didn’t really mean it.

  ‘I really mean it,’ she said, suddenly serious. Alex felt a flash of fear. All at once he had a vivid image of himself, dangling like a fish on a line, being shot full of bullets as he tried to slide to freedom.

  His face gave him away.

  ‘Maybe it’s too dangerous,’ she said.

  Alex held her tight. ‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘Let’s think about it.’

  ‘There might be other ways to get away,’ she said hurriedly. ‘Maybe on the border rather than through Berlin? I heard the border security isn’t as tight as it is in the city. Then there’s a submarine that takes people through the Baltic . . .’

  Alex squeezed her hand. ‘You have been watching too much Western television,’ he said, mimicking her father. ‘Anyway, why do you want to escape? You’ve got a bright future here, haven’t you? And you don’t have to do military service!’

  Her face fell and he wondered if he’d offended her. ‘A bright, sparkling future, producing many children for the great Republik,’ she said flatly. ‘All of them exemplary socialist youth in their character and attitude and all of them destined for an identical green and brown apartment. I can barely wait. Do you want to spend the rest of your life living in a country whose politicians think putting different buttons on your jacket is “Western egotism”?’

  Frank and Gretchen were wondering what Alex was up to. He had gone off with Sophie after school to visit Grandma Ostermann. He had been gone for hours now. They hoped he was not attracting the attention of the authorities.

  They began to discuss their summer holidays. It was the perfect thing to do on a drab and cold spring day. They had their hopes pinned on the Völkerfreundschaft vacation ship. Every year, a thousand hand-picked citizens would take the luxury liner to Cuba for a fortnight in the sun. Only the most loyal and hard-working party members were selected. Frank and Gretchen always applied – they were no more or less deserving than any of the lucky few who went.

  Failing that, they could go to the Baltic. Spend a week on Rügen Island and hope the weather was nice. Frank and Gretchen were both keen naturists. On holiday, as soon as the sun came out, they went straight to the beach and stripped off. Everyone did. There were few who dared to keep their swimming costumes on. For them it was a political gesture. Frank told his kids, ‘We are all equal in society and never more so than when we are all naked on the beach.’

  Alex and Geli didn’t give it a second thought when they were younger, but they minded now. Especially when there were other teenagers about. Frank had taken to telling them they’d grow out of it.

  At suppertime, when Alex had returned home, Frank raised the question of the summer holiday around the table. Alex and Geli looked shifty. They dreaded the day the letter would arrive telling them they had been chosen to go on a cruise. It would be great to get to travel abroad and they liked the idea of going to Cuba, but the thought of spending two weeks in close proximity to a bunch of Party robots whose conversation would revolve around the achievements of their plastering brigade on some building site was not appealing.

  Alex had other things on his mind. Last year he had spent the school holiday working in an old people’s home. He had mixed feelings about the work. He’d enjoyed talking to the residents but the prospect of spending the summer emptying chamber pots and trying to convince a confused old man that it was time to have a bath filled him with gloom. In the entrance hall there had been a gold-framed painting of Lenin – immaculate in suit and tie, surrounded by a sacred halo of light. It was the only thing about the place that was immaculate. The faded wallpaper behind the portrait, blotchy with damp, looked like it would peel off in one strip if you pulled on it.

  ‘Vati, I have to get a job this summer holiday,’ he said. ‘What do you suggest?’

  Frank thought for a minute. ‘You need to talk to Herr Kalb. He’s the head of the district building programme and a very good man to get to know. We have been Party comrades for years. He will be pleased to help you, I’m sure.’

  Kalb was a staunch Party member. Alex didn’t like him but Frank had a lot of time for Herr Kalb.

  Student jobs had to be proper jobs – something messy where you got yourself dirty like real workers and peasants. Nothing namby-pamby, like working in a library. The Party insisted on it. Even for those heading for university – they might be the brightest and the best but there was nothing like a down to earth summer job in a factory, farm, or construction site to remind a student that he or she was just like every one else.

  Kalb had already told Frank Ostermann he would consider his son for a job. But Frank wanted Alex to ask himself. Show willing. Maybe he would join one of the high-rise construction projects. Kalb had told Frank you could put a whole eleven storey block up in 110 days, from muddy field to moving in. One flat every two or three days. Four families to a floor, it was a great step forward in the State’s housing programme.

  ‘The new housing,’ Frank told Alex, ‘is a perfect expression of our socialist life. All the same, no distinctions. All of us in this together.’ Alex smiled at that. They certainly didn’t live in the new housing and neither would they want to.

  Alex decided he could put off the visit to Kalb no longer. He wondered whether if he got on well at the building site they would let him work in construction rather than join the army. He had heard a few kids were allowed to become ‘construction soldiers’ instead of having to go into the military. That was two years away but it still hung over him like a great black cloud.

  They had been hearing about their army service in school just the other day. This time Alex was listening. Herr Würfel told the class about the Wall. ‘In a year or two, you boys will be called up for service in the National People’s Army. There is every chance you will be one of those chosen to man the border towers. The guards who protect us consider it their patriotic duty to shoot any traitor who tries to breach the Protective Barrier.’

  Alex had heard stories about how guards who didn’t shoot were sent to the prison at Bautzen. And how those that did shoot were rewarded with extra leave and luxury goods – or better apartments for their families. How much was true he couldn’t say, but he knew he couldn’t shoot someone who was doing exactly what he would like to do himself.

  Alex had a cousin who had recently finished his army service. ‘If you are lucky, you’ll spend eighteen months in a barracks in Dessau peeling potatoes and lighting farts for entertainment. That’s what we had to do.’

  ‘Sounds unmissable,’ Alex had s
aid, with a sinking feeling. ‘At least we don’t have a war to fight.’

  He’d heard that the regular soldiers made a point of victimising the new recruits – sticking their heads down lavatory pans and stripping them naked and tying them to lamp posts in the middle of winter. Alex knew he’d have to toughen up a bit if he was going to survive conscription. Just thinking about it made him want to escape. If he played his cards right, Kalb could be his ticket away from all that.

  Erich Kohl flexed his fingers and began tapping away at his typewriter.

  Subject shows increasingly negative attitude. Recent criminal activity includes doggerel song lyric exhibiting brazen false consciousness for unofficial music ensemble ‘Black Dog’. This attempt to spread anti-State propaganda through Western pop music plainest evidence yet of negative-decadent tendencies and clear betrayal of DDR.

  “We’re up against the Wall

  and heading for a fall

  But I’m still standing tall

  Up against the Wall.”

  Ensemble’s name ‘Black Dog’ – British folklore term for deep depression – clearly a reference to subject’s own internal psychosis regarding attitude to living in DDR.

  Suggest interventionist action.

  Chapter 14

  As Frank Ostermann approached his workplace, he was astonished to be confronted by three men who got out of an anonymous white car and asked him to accompany them. The older one, with the lank dark hair, had flashed an identity card at him, but too quickly for Frank to read it.

  The car pulled into Stasi HQ at Normannenstrasse. Frank had seen the sprawling offices from the outside – a whole block’s worth of buildings – but he had never imagined he would find himself on the other side of those road blocks and barbed wire.

  They took him to a small white-walled room and gave him an uncomfortable chair to sit in. It seemed intentionally low off the ground – as if eight or nine centimetres had been sawn off the legs.

  ‘I am at a complete loss as to why you have brought me here,’ said Frank Ostermann. ‘This is no way to treat a loyal Party member.’

  Kohl didn’t like his certainty. He’d soon put a stop to that. He showed him pictures of Alex and Geli. One was of Alex emerging from Holger Vogel’s apartment block, the other of Geli out in the street.

  ‘Why have you taken these photographs of my children?’ said Frank. His voice betrayed his anxiety.

  ‘You might be a loyal Party member, Herr Ostermann, but neither of your children have been a credit to you or your wife, Gretchen. Some might say that is ill fortune. Others might think this reflects badly on you as parents. I’m inclined to think it’s the former, but my opinion is not what matters here.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Frank. He could feel his legs swimming in sweat as he sat in the plastic chair.

  ‘Both Angela and Alexander have been under observation for some time,’ said Kohl quietly. ‘Neither has the correct socialist personality, and although there is currently no evidence of treasonable behaviour, there is strong suspicion. Enough to warrant arrest and incarceration. You have a duty to the State to ensure they become useful comrades. If you wish to discuss their behaviour with me, you may contact me here. My name is Erich Kohl.’

  As soon as Frank left the room his chair was wiped down with a thick cotton cloth, which was placed in a glass jar, sealed, labelled and filed away.

  Kohl escorted him to the exit out on Normannenstrasse and left him standing on the pavement. ‘You can make your own way back,’ said Kohl as he released his hold on Frank’s arm. ‘And not a word to anyone. Even your family. We will know if you tell them.’

  Frank stood watching the sparse traffic shoot past and wondered whether or not he should say anything to his family about what had happened. He had tried to warn Alex and Geli. What else could he do? Make them stop watching West German television? He could hardly pin Alex down and cut his hair. He felt an overwhelming sense of shame and had to bite his lip to hold back the tears that welled up inside him.

  Chapter 15

  Alex took the morning off school to meet Herr Kalb at the district housing office. It was a cold damp day and his tram smelled of wet dog. He looked down the crowded carriage at all the dowdy overcoats and fur hats, faces staring straight ahead or at the grey condensation on the windows. Was he going to look like this in twenty or thirty years’ time? They said that there would be communism in space by then and no further need for money. But nothing would have changed though, Alex thought. Everyone would still be riding dirty buses wearing the same disgruntled expressions.

  He wiped the condensation away and peered out of the window. The street was as tatty as most of the others in this area of East Berlin. Half cobble stone and half tarmac – hasty repairs after the war when the original cobbles had been blown to pieces by Soviet artillery. The older buildings – the ones that had survived the bombing and the fighting – were still peppered with bullet marks.

  Alex noticed one which was particularly badly scarred by bullets and wondered who had died in there. Maybe it had been some Hitler-Jugend boys his own age. His grandma had spoken of how they had fought against the Russians. Alex could imagine how terrifying it must have been to be trapped inside that house and then have the windows smashed to pieces by a hail of machine-gun fire. All the bullets and splinters of glass flying about. Then a grenade or the scorching tongue of a flame-thrower. He flinched at the thought. What a way to die.

  Alex reached his stop and got off. As the tram rolled away he saw a familiar face at the window caught in a sudden shaft of bright spring sunshine. He could swear it was that man. The one he had seen in the park. He was sure he’d been following him. The fellow stared straight at him – the way adults did with naughty children.

  The district housing office was a short walk from the tram stop. Kalb saw Alex at once. He had a head of thick black hair, with a great quiff at the front, held in place with some slightly whiffy oil, pompadour style. He was wearing a white nylon shirt and black tie, and he stank of body odour. They talked about football, and the chances of Dynamo Berlin being knocked from the top of the DDR-Oberliga. Alex got the impression that Herr Kalb wasn’t terribly busy.

  The meeting was a success. Kalb said he was sure Alex would be as reliable as his father and he would be pleased to offer him work in the summer break. It wouldn’t be very exciting. Mixing concrete. Carrying buckets of plaster. Heaving round prefabricated slabs. That sort of thing.

  Alex left the office feeling light-hearted. It would be great to have a job like that over the long vacation. It would be good to be out in the sunshine. And Herr Kalb seemed like a nice man. Alex felt guilty about not liking him before.

  When Alex arrived at school, he was called over by the receptionist. She sat behind an elaborate art deco iron grille inside an elegant curved portal. In contrast, the interior of her office had flaking grey paint, with a portrait of Honecker on the wall behind her.

  The woman herself was as dour as her office walls, with thinning black hair tied in a tight bun. She wore a nylon floral apron. ‘You must report at once to the Principal,’ she commanded.

  Alex went to Herr Roth’s office and knocked timidly on the door. Roth told him to sit down and then went into his secretary’s office to rummage around in a filing cabinet.

  Alex stared at the contents of Roth’s desk and wondered what was coming next. Roth had a pen set featuring a small globe resting on a red star stand with the flags of the Eastern Bloc countries arranged around the curved support. A thrusting golden fist emerged from the North Pole. That was communism all right, thought Alex. A fist punching its way right through the world, screwing everything up.

  Roth returned. Without prevarication he announced that Alex’s applications for the Erweiterte Oberschule and teacher training at vocational school had both been rejected. There was no way he would be able to train as a teacher now. ‘When the machinery is not running smoothly, we have to replace the parts that don’t work,’ he said.


  ‘You know I’m one of the brightest students in my year,’ Alex said plainly. There was no point in being modest, it was true. Herr Roth looked appalled at this.

  ‘And you know how well I have been doing, teaching the kids down in Schöneweide. My work experience reports have always been excellent.’

  Roth was unmoved. ‘You have plainly failed to show political-moral maturity, or any sense of unity with the DDR. Your false opinions and uncertainty can only be seen as moral transgressions against our country. And for that reason I cannot recommend your entry to further education. You may perform well in your work experience school under supervision but you cannot be trusted on your own with the moral and political well-being of our children.’

  ‘So what am I supposed to do?’ said Alex. He was beginning to realise the enormity of his problem. Being the son of loyal and well-connected Party members wasn’t going to help him after all.

  ‘You can go back to the careers office and ask them to find you some information on the less skilled aspects of the chemical industry. There’ll always be work for people in our country, Alex, even for someone like you.’

  That was Alex’s cue to leave.

  That day he walked out of the school with a horrible sinking feeling. The chemistry teacher, Herr Unger, had recently been telling them about the benefits of the East German chemistry industry.

  ‘Chemistry produced bread, prosperity and beauty,’ said Herr Unger just as he threw his chalk at Alex, who had not been paying attention. ‘All the things you, Master Ostermann, will find missing from your life if you carry on failing to apply yourself to your education.’

  As he went to unlock his bike Alex noticed the rear tyre was flat again. He got as far as taking the inner tube out and trying to find the puncture when he realised the valve had been tampered with. The tyre had been deliberately deflated. By the time he’d finished putting it back on the wheel and pumping it up, his shirt was stained with mud and oil and he had broken a fingernail. He cursed the whole way home.