Life Behind the Wall

by Robert Elmer

  “You don’t need to worry about me, Mom.”

  “I still don’t like the idea of you wandering all over the city. It’s not safe these days.”

  “Safer than before. I was thinking of going to see Oma again tonight.”

  She started to say something, then nodded quietly, took a half-cup of flour, and poured it carefully into a handkerchief-sized piece of clean brown wrapping paper she’d saved. Everything was saved, used again and again. She folded up the corners and tied it off with a loop of string, also saved.

  “Then, my good pastor’s son, you will take this to her, as well.”

  4

  KAPITEL VIER

  UNDER THE FENCE

  “But it says ‘No Trespassing,’ Erich.” Naturally Katarina would feel the need to remind him. Cautious Katarina. She ran her finger along the big block lettering in the early evening shadows. The sign was wired crookedly to the eight-foot chain-link fence, just below the coil of barbed wire. “By order of — ”

  “I can read English as well as you can, Katarina.” He found a hiding place for his bike behind a tombstone, good enough for a few minutes until he got back. Through the fence and across the runways he could make out the glow of floodlights at Tempelhof Airport, where twenty-four-hour crews unloaded emergency supplies from American and British cargo planes. Around them, the city circled the airport, forcing pilots to come in low and slow over bombed-out neighborhoods.

  “Well, I think we should just turn around and go home, before we get in trouble and it starts pouring rain. This place is creepy.”

  “Yeah, the monsters and the spies are watching us, huh?”

  Everyone knew about the spies. Men who watched everything the Americans did and reported it all to the Russians, in exchange for a few ration cards. Men who counted the planes taking off and landing, and probably a lot more than that besides.

  “You just make it into a joke, Erich. But it’s not — ” Katarina started to leave as a jeep carrying two American soldiers bumped toward them across the huge expanse of landing strip on the other side of the fence.

  “Down!” he hissed and pulled her behind a taller tombstone. Without warning, they tumbled blindly into an open pit.

  “Oh!” Katarina scrambled to her knees. The jeep whined past them, its headlights casting long shadows across the graveyard for a brief moment.

  “Bomb crater,” Erich decided. Good thing for them no one had yet repaired this end of the St. Thomas Kirchof, the St. Thomas Cemetery. He hadn’t seen it before, even in the daytime when he’d come to scout the place out. This would make a good hiding hole, though it seemed a bit weird, considering where they were. He realized he’d have to move fast before another patrol came by.

  “You sure you won’t come with me?” He rolled out of the waist-deep crater and crept over to the fence. This was the fence post, if he remembered right. He yanked at a corner of the chain-link wire where it attached to the metal pole. No luck. Had someone fixed the loose piece of fence? He moved on to the next one. It had to be here.

  “Seriously, Erich, I still don’t think this is a good idea.”

  He would expect her to say that. Meanwhile, he found the right spot and peeled the corner of the chain link back a couple of feet. He looked up at her and pulled the little package of flour from his shirt pocket, the one his mother had wrapped.

  “You think this half-cup of flour is going to do Oma any good?” Erich held up the package.

  “That’s not the point.”

  “It isn’t?” Erich felt the back of his neck redden. “Why don’t you tell me the point?”

  She crossed her arms before answering. “I don’t think this is about trying to survive, Erich. I think it’s about . . . trying to get even. You want to do whatever you can to get back at the Americans. This is the private war of Erich Becker.”

  “That’s crazy.” Erich crossed his arms to match hers. “Wahnsinn.”

  But why did she always have to be so under-his-skin right?

  “Look, Erich. We both know we have to do something to help Oma. But this isn’t the way.”

  “You said that before. But I’m not just going to sit around waiting for her to starve to death while we figure out plan B. Is that what you want?”

  “That’s a dumb question. I just can’t go along with your plan this time.”

  Erich sighed and ran a hand through his light, short-cropped hair.

  “Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do. So I guess you can come with me, or not. I think I have it figured out this time, but I could still use your help.”

  She looked at him and swallowed hard, but finally pressed her lips together and shook her head no.

  “You may think you have it figured out, Erich, but that doesn’t make it right.”

  “Fine.” He tossed the little package at her and turned back to the fence. “If you could just deliver this for me, I’d appreciate it. Tell Oma I’m coming back with a crate of Hershey bars.”

  That’s right. And maybe no one else had noticed this loose piece of fencing; it wasn’t quite big enough for an adult to skinny through. But an underfed German kid like him?

  He ducked as another big American cargo plane took off. He felt his chest rumble as the huge bird gathered speed and roared east over the bombed-out apartment buildings, shaking any glass windows left in the Neuköln neighborhood. The supply planes left Berlin every three minutes, as regular as a good Bavarian cuckoo clock. He couldn’t help smiling — before he remembered his mission.

  No! He gritted his teeth and reminded himself how much he hated the men who flew those planes. The same men who had dropped the bombs. The same bombs that had killed his father. The same father who had always promised that God would protect them.

  And then he didn’t smile anymore.

  Instead, he took a deep breath and held it, looked up the runway and back. All clear.

  “Hold it open, please,” he told her. “I’m going in.”

  “No, Erich.” She crossed her arms. “I can’t help you steal.”

  “Come on, Katarina. You make it sound like I’m some kind of criminal.”

  Her shoulders fell when she sighed.

  “You’re not a criminal, Erich. But you don’t need to do this.”

  “And if I don’t, we line up for our one lousy loaf of bread for five people, and Oma gets skinnier and skinnier. If the Americans hadn’t — ”

  “Don’t start blaming the Americans for our problems again.”

  “But can’t you see what fakes they are? First they try to kill us all, and now . . . now they think they’re our new best friends, just because they toss a few cigarettes to the beggars on the street corners. You ever tried to eat a cigarette?”

  Katarina made a face. “They’re the ones bringing the food, Erich. They didn’t have to do that.”

  Erich smacked his forehead with the palm of his hand.

  “Don’t you get it, Katarina? They’re still the enemy. They will always be the enemy. And when they’re the enemy, the old rules don’t work.”

  “But for how long, Erich? And we’re supposed to love our — ”

  “Don’t preach at me. Besides, it doesn’t matter. You’re too worried about the rules, when we need to be worried about helping Oma.”

  “Okay, but that doesn’t mean you can just sneak in there and steal whatever you want. What about everybody else in Berlin who’s hungry? Can you look me in the eye and tell me this is the right thing to do?”

  Erich closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

  “I don’t know if it’s the right thing or not. I only know that I have to try.”

  “We’ll get the food some other way.” She wasn’t giving up so easily. “My mother gets some more ration cards in a few days. We can share, the way we’ve been doing. If they catch you — ”

  “Nobody is going to catch me.”

  Yeah, but if he didn’t hurry over to the supply planes, he’d lose his chance.

  An
d his nerve. So he would crawl under this fence, with Katarina’s help or not. He flattened himself out like a worm, poked his head under the chain link . . . and the wire caught like a trapdoor, square on his back.

  “Ow!” Great. Now he couldn’t move forward, couldn’t back up, couldn’t quite reach back. The wire had skewered him pretty well. “Katarina! I’m stuck. The wire’s digging into my back. You have to — ”

  He didn’t have to finish; she lifted the corner of fencing so it unhooked from his shirt.

  “Thanks.” He wriggled through the rest of the way on his belly. Getting his only shirt dirty didn’t matter. He dusted off and straightened up on the other side.

  “I’ll be right back.”

  “I still don’t think — ”

  He didn’t let her finish. Instead, he hunched low and sprinted along the edge of the fence. As long as the jeep patrol didn’t come back too soon.

  “Can I have your bike if you don’t make it?” she called after him.

  “Sure. Sell it for a thousand reichsmarks.” He grinned. There’s the old Katarina. “You’ll be rich.”

  But he almost tripped over his own feet when he glanced back one last time. In the distance, just behind the kirchof, he noticed a light flicker in the window of one of the apartments. Nothing unusual about that, only —

  “What?” Katarina must have seen the look on Erich’s face, and she turned to see for herself. Too late, of course.

  But before the light went out, Erich was sure he saw the shadow of a man bringing a pair of binoculars to his eyes. Even in the dark there was no mistaking.

  Someone was watching them.

  5

  KAPITEL FÜNF

  CORNERED

  Don’t breathe . . . Erich blended into the shadow behind the American transport plane, waiting for just the right moment as the pair of American mechanics strolled by, their heels clicking on the tarmac. One told a mumble-mumble joke, and the other laughed.

  Erich waited.

  But this time he knew who to look for, when to look for them, and where the floodlights would betray him. Mechanics hurried by as the planes came rumbling in, right on time, while flight crews and unloading crews scurried from plane to plane. He was pretty sure even Andy, the friendly black American with the chocolate, would not be very happy to see him again so soon.

  “Ready to roll again in twenty minutes?” one of the flight crew asked his pilot. The two men paused in front of a truck, barely three feet from where Erich hid.

  “Yeah, if we can get the ground crew to get the lead out. This one’s full of food.”

  This one was called the Berlin Baby, a name painted on the side by some soldier-artist who had included a funny picture of a diapered baby with wings on his back and coal smudges on his face. Hadn’t he seen this one before?

  But Erich didn’t have time to admire the artwork; he knew he would only have a matter of seconds before the unloaders arrived. So as the men moved away he slipped under the plane and clambered up the rope ladder, as if he belonged there.

  Slip in, borrow some groceries, slip out.

  But he paused in the airplane’s doorway as Katarina’s words echoed in his mind.

  You may think you have it figured out, Erich, but that still doesn’t make it right.

  Oh, brother. He gripped the side of the door, trying to take the next step, but he couldn’t get his feet to move or his hands to stop shaking. What? And out of nowhere a thought popped into his head.

  What would Dad have thought of Erich the Thief?

  He knew the answer and sighed. After all these years, the conscience he thought had died with his father . . . well, maybe it hadn’t died all the way. It wasn’t because he was scared, but —

  “I can’t do this,” he whispered, and for an unguarded moment he rapped the inside of the dark airplane with his fist.

  50 But that didn’t help. And it didn’t help that a jeep was heading right for his plane. Too late! He dived into the plane’s belly and out of sight behind a dark pile of crates, wondering what he was going to do now. This wasn’t the plan.

  Even worse, another worker must have found his way to the plane, right on Erich’s heels. Give me a break! Once more Erich held his breath; he was getting pretty good at that. He heard a grunt as someone hauled up inside the plane, then a shuffling sound as the worker came nearer.

  “Erich?” came a voice. “Erich, I know you’re in here.”

  Erich blinked back the surprise. Katarina?

  “Shh! Back here!” He tried to signal her deeper inside, but he wasn’t sure she could see him in the dark.

  “Back where?” She stumbled toward him just as the engines turned over and fired to life.

  What in the world?

  “This one’s done, guys.” An American bellowed from just outside the door as the engines revved. Americans seemed to do that extremely well. Bellow. Erich had no problem hearing the orders: “Button it up and get on out of here.”

  What had happened to all the food the men had been talking about outside?

  “Wait a minute!” Katarina turned to the door, but Erich caught her wrist just in time and pulled her down to his hiding place.

  “We’re dead if they find us in here,” he shouted into her ear over the roar of the engines.

  “We’re dead if they don’t,” she shouted back. “We have to — ”

  “Hold still for a minute.” His mind raced. “We’ll think of another way.”

  Meanwhile, another American shoved a large wooden crate through the double doors and hopped aboard. He pulled the doors shut behind him and threw a strap around the crate before hurrying through the near-empty cargo hold to the forward compartment. The food flight must have been some other plane. Erich held a hand over his cousin’s mouth, just in case she had any ideas of calling for help. Maybe they could get back to the door before they took off.

  “Whoa! Hang on,” he told her. The plane jerked forward as engines revved and they started down the runway. And instead of nearly reaching the door, Erich tumbled and slid through the empty hold, a bowling ball flung down the alley.

  “Easy for you to say.” Katarina joined him as they tumbled into a heap in the tail section. But by that time they couldn’t have bailed out of the plane even if they’d wanted to. All they could do was steady themselves as the plane gained speed, turned, gained even more speed. And it must have been enough for the crate to work itself loose and tumble against the inside of the plane. A moment later he could hear it sliding back to crush them.

  “Your legs!” It was the only thing Erich could think of. “Stop it with your legs!”

  So they both sat in the tail of the American plane, legs out, waiting for the crushing blow that never came. Instead, the plane lifted off and banked left. The box must have hung up on something halfway back through the plane.

  “Let’s just keep an eye on it.” Erich sat ready to catch the loose cargo with his shock-absorber stance. So did Katarina.

  “How did you ever find me here anyway?” he wondered.

  “You weren’t hard to follow. I thought maybe you needed somebody to keep you out of trouble.”

  Erich might have laughed if they hadn’t been in so deep. Sneaking onto an American cargo plane? Bad enough. Flying off in one? He wondered what the soldiers would do to them when they finally landed at the other air base, or when he and Katarina were found out. It would be nothing compared to what his mother would do to him when he got home.

  If he got home.

  Right now, though, they had to deal with the Americans. One of them appeared at the door to the cargo hold a few minutes later, probably looking to see what had fallen. He pulled a dark blue baseball cap a little lower over his forehead and carefully made his way toward the back of the plane, gripping handhold loops as he did.

  “I thought we tied this stuff down!” he yelled back at the open door. Erich couldn’t tell how many others there were — probably at least two flying the plane — but they had al
ready lit a couple of dim overhead lights in the main cargo hold. Nicht so gut. Not so good. Katarina looked over at him, and neither of them said a word.

  “A wonder we didn’t lose these crates through the back end when we took off.” The airman talked over his shoulder as if the others could hear him, which they most likely couldn’t. From a few feet away Erich could barely make out the man’s words.

  In any case, the soldier’s eyes followed the pile of boxes, still half-secured, back to the loose box snagged on a side door handle, and finally farther back to the two young Berliners huddled in the shadows. Okay, here it came. For a moment Erich thought the guy might jump out of his skin.

  “Lieutenant!” He never took his eyes off the kids. “You’re not going to believe this. I think we’ve got us a couple of passengers.”

  6

  KAPITEL SECHS

  THE DEAL

  “You want to explain to me what you two are doing aboard this airplane?” the pilot growled, and Erich knew that no jokes were allowed here. A younger co-pilot studied them from the right seat, while the man who had discovered them stood guarding the cockpit door, arms crossed.

  Not that they had anywhere to run.

  “It was — ” Erich wanted to be sure he used the right English words. It was one thing to listen to the Americans and British speak, quite another to speak for himself.

  “It was all a mistake.” Katarina finished the sentence for him. “I was looking for Erich. He is my cousin. We were getting off the airplane, but the plane started moving. We didn’t know what to do. We didn’t mean to be on the airplane when it took off.”

  Which was a pretty good try, Erich thought.

  “Yeah, I can see how a person might get confused between a C-54 and the S-Bahn tram downtown.” The co-pilot pulled a checklist from behind his seat, as if this sort of thing happened every day. “Can’t you, Lieutenant?”

  “Humph.” The lieutenant wasn’t smiling yet, just gripping his steering wheel and staring straight ahead. “Still doesn’t explain what you kids were doing on the plane in the first place.”