by Ally Rose
‘Yes, Herr Doktor,’ Lotte replied and marched off. Felix yelped when Dr Wissemann applied an antiseptic gel to his ears and gave him some strong painkillers. ‘There, that’ll soothe them, although I’m sorry to say you might have some scars.’
Felix lay down in the dark of the small room that housed four single beds. The pain from his ears over-rode the pain from his body after his evening with the Musketeers and he knew sleep would only come when the pills began to work.
He heard footsteps coming into the room but didn’t dare open his eyes for fear it was that bitch warden, Lotte Holler, coming to take him away. He slyly opened one eye and saw Dr Wissemann opening a nearby window, tying a few bed sheets together and attaching them to the bed to hang out of the window. Felix was afraid. It was a long drop to the River Elbe, below. What was the doctor thinking?
‘Felix,’ the doctor whispered. ‘Wake up. The night nurse is on her break, we haven’t got long. I’m going to get you out of this place.’
There was a flight of stairs next to the escalators used for deliveries to each of the floors of the children’s wing at Torgau. In the hospital wing, Dr Wissemann used this staircase to avoid entering the main gates, preferring to come in at the electronically controlled delivery gate, for which he had a coded pass. The store room where food and medical supplies were delivered was patrolled by armed guards during the working day and there were a small number of non-uniformed staff working in the storehouse, to help log data and distribute the supplies. At night it was locked and unmanned.
Dr Wissemann had wrapped a blanket around the bewildered boy and led him down a few flights of stairs, past the storeroom and empty reception desk and into a small courtyard to where his Trabant car was parked.
‘Felix, lie down in the back, stay very still and try to sleep. I’ll return before sunrise.’
‘Dr Wissemann, what about my sister?’
‘Sorry. It’s too dangerous to get both of you out tonight and you know Susanne is three months pregnant. I insisted she wasn’t forced into a termination because she wanted to keep the baby and that means the wardens will leave her alone now. Things are changing outside these walls and when the time’s right, I’ll get her out of here, I promise.’
Dr Wissemann returned to the ward as the duty nurse was coming along the corridor.
‘Nurse! A patient has escaped. Quick, call the wardens,’ Dr Wissemann lied with ease.
Before long, an armed male warden called Jochens turned up with Lotte Holler.
Jochens looked through the open window where the sheets were hanging, blowing in the breeze. ‘It’s a long way down and difficult to survive a fall in the cold water,’ said Dr Wissemann, giving a convincing performance. ‘I saw him climbing out of the window and I shouted at him not to do it, but he jumped. The outside security lights helped me see him struggling in the water below, then he went under.’
Lotte chuckled. ‘I heard the boy’s drunk of a father drowned trying to escape over the Berlin Wall. Maybe the boy got hold of a bottle of Schnapps. Stupid boy – like father, like son, eh?’
Dr Wissemann ignored her cruel comments. ‘I only went to the bathroom and when I returned, the boy was halfway out the window!’
‘No one will miss him,’ said Lotte. ‘Felix Waltz has danced his last dance.’
‘No one’s to blame, Herr Doktor. But what if the boy did survive and got out of the water down river? Maybe we should send out a search party?’ Jochens ventured.
Dr Wissemann thought it best to flatter the warden’s authority. ‘Whatever’s best, Jochens, you decide.’
Fortunately, Jochens decided to trust the doctor and began untying the sheets. ‘No, you just write your report. I mean, it’s not as if anyone will care about a Torgau boy.’
‘We are, after all, only doing our job,’ said Lotte.
‘And no one’s to blame,’ Dr Wissemann echoed, trying not to look at Lotte with contempt. He thought some of the most despicable human behaviour has been conducted in the name of “I’m only following the law” or “I’m only doing my job”.
‘That’s right, Herr Doktor.’ Lotte had felt the doctor’s look of disapproval. ‘We’re all just doing our job under difficult circumstances. The boy didn’t suffer. It’s for the best, the kids here have no future and nothing to offer society. That boy won’t be missed by anyone, it’ll be as if he never existed or he was left comatose. Kids here are the forgotten children. Who’d want a life like that?’ Lotte believed she’d acquitted herself well in front of the eminent doctor.
Before sunrise and at the end of his shift, with no more questions asked and no suspicions raised, Dr Wissemann drove out of Torgau with Felix hidden under a blanket on the back seat of his car.
‘Don’t say a word, Felix,’ he instructed.
Felix obeyed and was silent until the doctor began talking to him. ‘You can talk now. But stay lying down for the time being. How are your ears?’ Dr Wissemann asked him.
‘I’m trying not to think about them.’
‘I’ll dress them when we get to Dresden.’
‘Dresden?’ Felix asked.
‘Yes, where I live. I’ve thought it through and I’m sure my wife will be fine about it. You can stay hidden at my house for as long as it takes.’
‘Dr Wissemann. Please, I can’t stay with you. I want to go home.’
Dr Wissemann was surprised. ‘Home? But, I thought you and Susanne were orphans?’
Felix trusted the doctor implicitly and without hesitation said: ‘I’ve an Onkel and Tante. Because of some silly family row I’m sure they never knew my mother died, but Susi and I knew if we told the wardens we had relatives it wouldn’t have made any difference.’
Dr Wissemann felt a mixture of sadness and delight for the boy. Sadness, because his relatives could have saved him from Torgau, but delight because they now offered him new hope.
‘Where do they live?’ Dr Wissemann asked.
‘South of the Spreewald.’
A few hours later Dr Wissemann, with Felix sitting in the front of the car, saw the aircraft hangar and Motzen Lake coming into view.
Felix grew animated. ‘Look! Dr Wissemann. Das Kino!’
Dr Wissemann was bemused.’ Das Kino?’
‘The aircraft hangar, that’s what we call it, Das Kino. We show films in there most weekends.’ Felix couldn’t contain his excitement. ‘And look, there’s the cottage.’
Dr Wissemann parked and looked out onto the peaceful lake. It was a beautiful spring morning with a gentle breeze and freshness to the air. Felix would do very well here, he thought, it was a perfect place to heal.
‘You’d best go,’ Dr Wissemann told him.
Suddenly Felix felt afraid. ‘What if they don’t want me?’
‘They’ll want you,’ Dr Wissemann reassured him. ‘Will you come in with me?’ Felix pleaded.
‘Best not. It would compromise your family and mine if we met face to face. I tell you what, I’ll take a walk to stretch my legs and if you’re not back here at my car in one hour, I’ll know all is well.’
Dr Wissemann gave Felix a few sterile dressings to take with him and shook his hand. ‘I’ll make sure Susanne’s OK. Once she’s had the baby, I’ll do my very best to bring her home here but it has to be our secret, just for now.’
‘Thank you, Dr Wissemann. I’ll not forget you.’
‘You should, you know. I’m a constant reminder of the hell you’ve come from.’
Felix threw his arms around the doctor, then took a deep breath, left the car and started his short walk towards the cottage. Dr Wissemann watched him go and crossed his fingers for the boy.
An hour later, he got into his car and drove home to Dresden without Felix. Feeling good about himself for the first time in ages, he started to dream of different schemes to get more kids out of Torgau. The problem was, if he helped anyone else escape, where would they go? It wasn’t viable to hide more than one kid at a time and they wouldn’t all be lucky like Feli
x and have a family to return to. Escapees couldn’t be left to fend for themselves in the outside world, leading a life on the run; the Stasi who ran the authorities would pick them up like stray dogs and return them to their kennels.
Under the pressure of torture, tongues would be loosened and that would compromise Dr Wissemann and his own family. No, he decided he should be content that he’d acted responsibly with Felix and that would have to satisfy his moral conscience for the moment. But he would safeguard Susanne during her pregnancy and try to keep his promise to return her to her family.
Motzen, in the midst of a bleak, snow-covered winter, looked vastly different from when Dr Wissemann had last been there in the spring. He had seen Susanne at the nursing home just after Axel was born. Life was going to be hard for a 14-year-old teenage mother but he had believed there was a promise of something better to come.
Jens’s wife had persuaded him to let events unfold and not have any further involvement with anyone from Torgau and to concentrate on their own children, just in case the authorities caught up them. Jens reluctantly agreed and tried to distance himself from his Torgau past and make a fresh start. He paid the owner of the nursing home out of his hard-earned savings to keep Susanne Waltz and her baby safe throughout the winter months of 1989. If the political climate allowed, Jens promised himself to return to the nursing home and help Susanne Waltz the following spring.
Klaus and Ingrid Felker welcomed Dr Wissemann into their home, their mood sombre. The ticking of a grandfather clock and its’ chimes were the only sounds Dr Wissemann could hear as he clasped Felix’s hands in his, noticing in a distracted way that they were red and flaky.
‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ he said, softly. Klaus shook the doctor’s hand. ‘I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances,’ he said.
‘Herr Doktor, would you like something to drink?’ Ingrid asked.
‘A coffee would be fine. Please, call me Jens.’
Felix handed Dr Wissemann his identity card. ‘You dropped it – it’s how we knew how to find you. I tried to give it back when you were only five metres away from me in Berlin but I lost you in the crowd.’
Dr Wissemann was surprised. ‘You were in Berlin too? How strange. Thank you. I felt quite a fool, losing my identity card.’
‘Susanne’s in the bedroom,’ Klaus began. ‘We haven’t called for an ambulance or the police, we waited for you. I hope this was OK. Felix told us how much you helped him and Susanne and we are forever in your debt.’
‘You owe me nothing. I’ll see her now,’ Dr Wissemann told them.
The sight of her lying lifeless on the bed brought tears to his eyes. ‘Dear girl,’ he whispered to her corpse.
‘Will you call an undertaker?’ Ingrid asked.
Dr Wissemann nodded. ‘Now I’ll check the baby, to make sure he’s all right.’
‘We want to keep him,’ Ingrid announced. ‘We don’t want to lose Felix or Axel.’
‘Well, you’re Felix’s next of kin and he wants to stay with you, so I can’t see there being any problem and the courts could award you legal guardianship until he’s 18. As for the baby, I don’t know.’
Ingrid frowned and shook her head. ‘I’m sure they won’t let us keep either of them when they find out what’s happened to Susanne.’
Dr Wissemann could see the fear in her eyes. ‘It’s no one’s fault. Would you like me to help you with Axel’s adoption?’
‘Would you, Jens?’ Ingrid pleaded.
Dr Wissemann reassured her ‘Yes, of course I’ll help, and with Felix’s case.’
‘When I’m old enough, I’m going to change my name to Baum. Felix Baum, my grandmother’s family name,’ Felix told them. ‘Waltz has been an unlucky name for me and I think Susi would want Axel to have the name of Felker. We’ll both have a new name and a new start.’
‘Klaus and I haven’t any children of our own. Now we have two sons and I’m so afraid they’ll be taken from us,’ Ingrid told the doctor.
‘The new Germany can’t possibly object to our family reunification,’ Klaus remarked bitterly. ‘Ingrid, don’t worry, we’ve lost Susanne but we’ll not lose our boys.’
‘I’ll sign a death certificate, deal with the police, etcetera,’ Dr Wissemann told them. ‘You said she jumped from the balcony at the top of the hangar, so there’s only one thing I can write: suicide.’
‘Couldn’t you lie for us?’ Felix implored. ‘Axel will suffer one day when he learns the truth. Couldn’t you say it was an accident?’
‘Felix!’ Klaus exclaimed. ‘You can’t ask the doctor to lie on a death certificate. He could get struck off!’
Ingrid concurred with her husband. ‘Felix, we can’t compromise the doctor. What difference does it make what Dr Jens writes on the death certificate? She’s gone.’
‘Tante! It’ll make all the difference in the world to Axel. And maybe it’ll affect your chances of adopting him.’ Felix turned his attention the doctor. ‘Dr Wissemann. I’m just a kid, what do I know? But I know about stigma from being a Torgau boy. I don’t want Axel to have any labels forced on him and live his life under a cloud or grow up thinking his mother didn’t love him or want him. How do you think he’ll feel if he learns someday she jumped to her death because she thought it was the only way out?’
Klaus and Ingrid agreed. ‘We’ll never tell him the truth.’
‘The truth’s bound to come out someday,’ Dr Wissemann began. ‘But by then, our lies won’t look like anything compared to some in East Germany. I should have realised Susanne was depressed and helped her when she was alive.’
‘Then help her son,’ Felix said, crossing his fingers behind his back.
Dr Wissemann nodded. ‘OK, I’ll do it, if it means protecting Axel. Poor Susanne’s death certificate will say “death by misadventure” and the truth remains hidden. Agreed?’
They all nodded in a tacit acceptance that sealed their collaboration.
Chapter Nine: A New Dawn
CHRISTMAS WAS A SOBER affair. Susanne’s funeral a few weeks earlier meant they weren’t in the mood for festive merriment. Grandmother – Oma – Gisela was disappointed that Klaus would not be in Rugen for Weihnachten (Christmas) but understood their family reunion would have to wait. Bernd and his family travelled to the Baltic for the festivities with his mother and sister Maria, whilst Klaus, Ingrid and Felix adjusted to life in Motzen without Susanne – yet with an intrinsic part of her: baby Axel.
The cottage was now filled with nappies and with a baby waking everyone up most nights Felix found it all too much and would run off into the woods. Alone, his thoughts usually turned to Susi. The lucid, nightmare visions of his last conversation with his sister and her flight through the air ending her short and tragic life at his feet had not abated. He felt her blood on his hands and no amount of scrubbing would make him clean. He was now free to integrate back into society but he’d become self-conscious about many things, especially his raw hands, and was summoning all his inner strength to curb his obsessions.
In the world outside Motzen, retribution was in the air. In January 1990, thousands of protestors stormed the Stasi Secret Police headquarters in East Berlin and managed to get inside. The files full of secrets and lies, stealthily gathered and assembled, were thrown out of the windows, to the delight of the crowds below. There was snow on the ground and the floating paper gave the effect of a sudden snowstorm. Those who had used their position of power and authority unwisely were challenged and motions set in place to bring them to justice.
A few months later, in March, elections were held and Lothar de Maziere became the only democratically elected Prime Minister of East Germany. As Premier, he signed the ‘two plus four treaty’ which ended the rights and responsibilities of the four wartime Allies – France, USA, Great Britain and Russia – in Berlin. For the two Germany’s, East and West, it was vital for unification. Things were changing rapidly. East Germans had more money and access to Western consumerism. They t
hrew away their outdated goods and bought into the modern world. No longer could Ossies be defined by their clothes.
In the spring of 1990, Felix started school again. He’d avoided it as long as possible by helping out Klaus in the boatyard. Felix only had to read a manual to give a project a go but at school he felt as if he’d learn more by being at home and experiencing life rather than sitting in a boring classroom. But he soon made friends and settled in, to his surprise discovering he was good at debating in class and could manipulate situations to his own advantage.
His maths master, Herr Janowicz, a tall, spindly man with a dowager’s hump, was soon to retire. A teacher of the old school, he adhered to the motto ‘Do as I say, not as I do’ and his arrogance was well known. In class one morning he cleared his throat and began a monologue. ‘The implications of substituting one Ostmark for one Deutschmark is paramount for parity between the two Germanys. Of course it will affect the economy, the budget and the national debt for years to come,’ pronounced Janowicz. ‘Changing to a capitalist system will mean the days of full employment under the socialist era are over. Unemployment will grow steadily and so will crime.’
Janowicz stopped. He had noticed a yawn from Felix and mistook it for a sign of boredom whereas in truth, Felix had been up early to help Ingrid take a delivery at the café. Determined to put the new boy in his place he shouted, ‘Waltz!’
Felix heard his name bellowed across the room and was startled into sitting upright. ‘Yes, Herr Janowicz.’
‘Waltz, perhaps you could offer the class some insight,’ Janowicz sneered.
Felix began to feel defensive. As he had grown stronger, a feeling that nobody would abuse, mistreat or belittle him ever again was developing. Perhaps this growing dislike of authority was hormonal and just his age, because at home he also wanted to please less and not always be a ‘good’ lad. Felix didn’t have many problems with Klaus or Ingrid but now he wasn’t so afraid he was ready to debate and disagree with them.
