by Robert Elmer
“Please go,” she hissed. “Or they’ll arrest you too. Go now, and don’t come back.”
But they didn’t move quickly enough. A dark-haired man in a starched shirt emerged from a storeroom down the hall — the direction Frau Ziegler had pointed with her eyes. He held several large folders stuffed with papers. An older-looking nurse with her own armload of folders matched him step for step as they came down the hall, deep in conversation.
Sabine had never seen the woman before, but she looked like some kind of supervisor. They heard her say that she would do everything she could to help out the government. And that it served those two interns right for thinking they could get away with something so outrageous. The dark-haired man thanked her and said she’d been extremely helpful, and if she suspected any others —
A chill ran up Sabine’s spine; she knew at a glance everything she needed to know about the man.
A Stasi agent!
With wide eyes and a quick nod of thanks to Frau Ziegler, Willi and Sabine turned away and hurried as fast as Sabine’s crutches would allow them. Greta and Dietrich — arrested! Sabine and Willi had to warn the others, now! Anton and Albricht worked in the cafeteria; Gerhard collected linens from all over the hospital. But Sabine had no idea whether they were working today, or in the tunnel.
Erich would know.
“Oh, great.” Willi stopped short at the top of a flight of stairs. “I left Mama’s suitcase at the desk.”
Sabine moaned. But what else could they do? She sat down in an empty wheelchair for a moment to think, then looked up at Willi.
“Push me back there,” she told him. “I look more like a patient here than you do.”
“But all the nurses know us.”
“Not the one with the Stasi agent. And I don’t think they saw our faces. They’ll just think I’m another cripple, out for some fresh air.”
Willi rolled his eyes and planted his hands on his hips. “I don’t know how I let you talk me into your plans.”
“You’re the one who forgot the suitcase, not me.”
Willi couldn’t argue with that, so he pushed Sabine back toward the nursing station. Frau Ziegler looked up in alarm, but the agent and his nurse didn’t seem to notice them as they rolled up.
“Um Verzeihung bitte.” Sabine cleared her throat and tapped the man’s leg with her crutch. “Excuse me, please?”
“Oh. Ja?” He glanced up from his papers.
“Would you please hand me my case?” Sabine smiled and pointed at the floor next to him. As he bent to pick it up, she gripped the armrests of the wheelchair to keep her hands from shaking out of control.
“Danke schön.” She smiled sweetly as she thanked him and took the suitcase from his hand. But inside she screamed: Turn this thing around, and get us out of here!
As if he could hear her, Willi spun her around and nearly sprinted away.
Once they’d gotten far enough to talk safely, Willi said, “I have to stay and help my mother.” He waved the suitcase.
“Of course you do. But I have to find my brother before the Stasi get to him too. I hope he knows where to find the others.”
Twenty minutes later, breathless, she found her brother in the hall, just leaving their apartment.
“Erich! . . . Wait. I need to talk to you.”
“Sorry, Sabine, I’m late,” Erich said, distracted by the time. He almost brushed by her. “Can we talk when I get off my shift, tonight after dinner?”
“No! You have to listen — right now!” She swung her crutch and nailed him in the leg to get his attention. “Please!”
“Hey, you don’t have to attack me.” But he stopped to listen. With each word, he looked more worried.
“You’re sure the guy was Stasi?” He rubbed his chin.
“Yes. Who else would wear a jacket like that in the middle of summer?”
“And you’re sure Greta and Dietrich didn’t just change shifts or something?” he asked.
“I told you what Frau Ziegler said! They’ve been arrested, Erich. Arrested.”
“Okay.” Erich’s shoulders fell. “I believe you. And Ziggy’s on our side. But she doesn’t know what we’re doing. She doesn’t even know who’s involved.”
“Erich, you can’t go back there. You’ll be next.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Greta and Dietrich won’t tell them anything. And I need to warn the others. The only question is — ”
“No, Erich, can’t you see? This is serious.”
The apartment door creaked open, and Uncle Heinz signaled for them to join him. How much had he heard?
“You should listen to your sister,” their uncle said gravely once they’d followed him inside.
“What are you talking about?” Erich narrowed his eyes as if seeing his uncle for the first time.
“Let’s not play games here.” Uncle Heinz ran a hand through his hair as he paced across the room and pulled down the window shade. “I can’t help you unless you cooperate.”
Uncle Heinz had heard everything!
“My poor innocent nephew,” Uncle Heinz sighed when Erich stayed silent. “The boy who disappears at night and comes home late with dirt under his fingernails. Wolfgang told me all about your comings and goings, and it’s getting embarrassing.”
The words sent chills down Sabine’s spine, and she thought back to the argument she’d had with Erich in the alley. Uncle Heinz had probably heard every word they’d said then too.
Suddenly he sprang into action, grabbing Erich by the loose collar of his shirt and pulling him closer.
“Now you listen to me,” he wheezed, as if it took all his breath to move so quickly. “I know you’re not a loyal party member, and I know you don’t pay attention to Comrade Ulbricht’s speeches. I’ve made excuses for you, and I’ve looked the other way because you’re my little sister’s boy. I promised her once a long time ago that I’d watch out for you. And I keep my promises.”
“Onkel Heinz!” Sabine reached out for her uncle’s hairy arm. “Don’t hurt him. Erich hasn’t done anything wrong.”
Uncle Heinz stared at her for a second before he laughed nervously and let Erich go.
“Nothing wrong, eh? I wish it were true. But let’s talk about your pitiful choice of friends, shall we? The ones who have gotten themselves arrested? In fact, they’re all in custody right now, charged with treasonous activity.”
All? Treasonous activity? What did that mean? Sabine stared at her uncle. He sounded so unfamiliar, so Stasi-like.
“You have no idea who my friends are.” Erich obviously wasn’t admitting anything . . . yet.
“Let’s see. How about Dietrich Spiller?” A little smile curled the man’s lip, as if he held a winning hand of cards, and he knew it. “How about Greta Rathenau, or the Lueger twins? Oh, and Gerhard Fromm has proved quite helpful. Very informative.”
He let the meaning behind his words sink in: We know what you’re doing. We know when you’re doing it. And we know whom you’re doing it with.
It seemed Uncle Heinz had connections they hadn’t even imagined. Much bigger than phone calls from the neighborhood spy.
“Oh, and by the way,” he added, “even if they’re released, your friends will stay on the state’s watch list. But here’s the good news: I’m not sure if you’re on it — yet. That of course could change, depending on what you do now.”
Erich didn’t answer, so Uncle Heinz went on.
“Look, I’m trying to give you the break of a lifetime. In fact, I’ve even promised my friends that you won’t make any more trouble. A second chance. Free and clear. What do you think of that?”
“I think you shouldn’t have made that promise,” Erich whispered back, never lowering his eyes.
“Why can’t you understand this?” Uncle Heinz’s cheeks turned flame-red. “The game you and your friends were planning, it’s all over now. Done. Finished.”
Erich silently crossed his arms.
“And because I keep my promises, h
ere’s my deal for you. You tell me you’ll stay out of trouble from now on, and we’ll forget we ever had this unpleasant conversation. Agreed?”
Incredible. Did Uncle Heinz really think Erich would agree to such an offer? Yet when he held out his pudgy hand to shake, Erich actually seemed to think about it. Finally he just shook his head and turned toward the door.
“I’ll do my best, Onkel Heinz. But I really need to leave, or I’m going to be late for work.”
“I can’t help you if you run away, boy.”
Erich left without another word. Sabine tried to follow.
“Wait a minute.” Her uncle planted his foot in front of her right crutch. “The same goes for you, my girl. Whatever you’ve been doing lately ends here and now. Verstehen Sie?”
“Yes, I understand. But I have to go too, Onkel Heinz.”
“You know it would kill your mother to find out you’re mixed up in some kind of trouble, Sabine. I don’t want to have to tell her, but I will.”
A threat? Sabine pressed her lips together. Lifting her crutch over his foot, she hurried out the door.
16
KAPITEL SECHZEHN
OUR FATHER
“The weird thing is, I think he really believes he’s doing us a favor.” Sabine stood in Willi’s window the next morning, watching for American patrols on the other side of the wall. Anything to lift her spirits after yesterday’s disaster.
Willi tinkered with his telescope, cleaning one of the lenses.
Sabine’s mind raced as she looked down at the churchyard where they had planned to tunnel up to freedom. To see it from your window, but not have it? This was the worst torture of all.
“At least we don’t have to schlep any more pails of dirt out of the tunnel.” Count on Willi to try to make a joke. She punched him in the arm.
“That’s not the point. The point is that — ”
As she gazed at the churchyard, Sabine felt an idea start to bubble. She sometimes felt this way as she fell asleep, or in her dreams.
“I know how we can get out of here, Willi. Us and our families.”
“And I still believe Snow White is a real princess.” Willi rolled his eyes. “Come on. You said yourself the Tunnel Fellowship is dead. Your uncle made sure of that.”
“No, really. I have an idea.”
“Ja, ja. Your ideas always get us into trouble. What is it this time? Dig the tunnel ourselves?”
“Exactly.”
Willi stopped chuckling at his joke. His mouth fell open when he realized she was serious. “I was just kidding, okay? We can’t do it.” He frowned. “Can we?”
She shrugged.
“You’re saying this,” he prodded, “even after the way you melted down the other day?”
She took a deep breath. Yes. Even after that.
“Well, let’s think for just a minute,” she said. “The tunnel still has about three meters to go, right? Ten feet?”
“I don’t know. Could be a little more, could be a little less. I’m not sure. I’d have to measure it again. Neither of us has gone down there for a couple of days.”
“But you know it’s close, so we wouldn’t have that much farther to dig, right?”
“I don’t understand why you’re trying to talk me into this. Sabine, the tunnel made you bawl. Don’t you remember?”
She nodded quietly. “I remember. But what choice do we have?”
“Well, we could just forget the whole thing.”
“After everything we’ve seen?” she demanded.
“I don’t know, I — ”
“After we saw that man get shot trying to escape?”
“You saw him. I heard him.”
“After the Vopos stopped you for passing out our protest flyers?”
“Well — ”
“After the wall went up in the middle of our city?”
He didn’t answer.
“Besides, if we don’t finish it now, someone will discover it. All that work will go to waste. It’s not going to stay a secret forever, especially not with all the others in the fellowship being arrested.”
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“And so far, Onkel Heinz doesn’t know we’ve been helping with the tunnel. He just thinks we’ve been hanging around the wrong people.”
“Maybe we have.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t say that. Listen, Willi, we’re the only ones who can finish this. Not even my brother can help now. They’re watching him everywhere he goes.”
Willi took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes.
“Do you know how they planned to come up exactly in the right place?” he asked.
“Not really. But you’re smart. I know you’ll figure it out.”
Willi sighed. He couldn’t argue with that, could he? He watched her. She sure knew how to put on a good face.
Most of the time.
But she couldn’t keep the brave face on a few minutes later, when the telephone rang.
“Sabine? It’s your mother,” Willi’s father said as he held the receiver out with a puzzled expression. She took it, knowing that her mother would not have called unless something was very wrong.
“It’s your grandmother, Sabine.” The voice on the other end of the line hardly sounded like her mother. “You need to come home right away.”
Sabine closed her eyes and held on to her mother’s hand as they sat in the first row of pews. Sabine had never attended a funeral in the big Zionskirche before. They’d sung a slow, solemn hymn. Then she’d watched the Reverend Karl Philip Speer ascend to the pulpit. He wasn’t the regular pastor of the Zion Church. And surely he wasn’t talking about their oma, was he?
Dedicated to our socialist ideals?
Someone who stood in the face of the capitalist West?
An example to the East German community?
Oh, she was an example, all right. But not the kind you’re talking about, Sabine thought. Who wrote this sermon — Onkel Heinz?
At least he had shown up. Well, he’d lived in Oma’s apartment for years, hadn’t he? Aunt Gertrud sat next to him, stiff, bored, and with totally dry eyes. She checked her wristwatch more than once. And Sabine guessed she was probably skipping for joy under her cool mask — Oma was finally dead. She’d most likely start moving into Oma’s bedroom as soon as they got home.
Sabine rested her head on her mother’s shoulder, and she could not stop the tears from dropping like rain. She knew without a doubt that Oma was with Jesus — though the pastor hadn’t yet mentioned their Savior’s name. Oma Poldi loved and lived her life for Jesus. Sabine smiled through her tears at a memory of her grandmother praying with her when she was a child. She’d just come home from the hospital. It seemed as if she could still feel the older woman folding her wrinkled hands over Sabine’s skinny ones, praying, “Vater unser im Himmel — ”
“Our Father, which art in heaven — ”
But that seemed so long ago. Now Sabine and her mother recited the prayer through their tears — and the memories would not stop: the little extra sweets Oma saved for her, just because. The laughs and the cookies, Berliner pretzels and Mandelschnitten — when they could find a few precious almonds. The way Oma slyly threw away socialist newspapers and then acted surprised, as if she couldn’t find them! And how she opened her worn Bible and read to Sabine. She especially loved the stories of David and his friend Jonathan, or of Ruth — the faithful woman who stayed with her mother-in-law, Naomi. And of course the stories of Jesus.
If only this pastor would tell some of those stories. Oma would have liked that.
“ — vergib uns unsere Schuld — ”
“ — forgive us our trespasses — ”
Trespasses? Sabine couldn’t help wondering why Oma had gotten so upset the last time they’d spoken in the hospital. What had this sweet, stubborn saint done to make her plead so for forgiveness? Sabine might never know. The secret had likely died with her in the hospital.
Listening again to t
he pastor, Sabine could tell he didn’t know the real Oma. She was certainly not a Communist hero —
“ — wie auch wir vergeben unsern Schuldigem.”
“ — as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Sabine knew her mother believed as strongly as Oma. She’d often talked about growing up and how her mother, Sabine’s other grandmother who had died years earlier, had shared her love of Jesus. Without moving her head, Sabine tried to glance at her uncle, just to see if he knew all the words. How could he not? Though he had rejected his mother and sister’s God and replaced him with this country’s un-god, had he really forgotten everything his mother must have taught him?
No — there! She saw his lips move, just barely.
“Erlöse uns — ”
“Deliver us — ”
Sabine peeked up at her mother. She knew that things had changed forever for her. The main reason she and her family had stayed behind in this bleak prison-city now lay in the simple wooden casket before them. And this modern-day Ruth and Naomi story would have a different ending from the one in the Bible.
In the Bible’s version, Ruth stayed with her mother-in-law, Naomi, even after Ruth’s husband, Naomi’s son, had died. “Your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” In the end, a nice rich guy named Boaz fell for the young widow, they got married, and everybody lived together happily. Sabine liked the story.
In their real-life story, the widow (her mama) remained as loyal to her mother-in-law (Oma). Maybe more. But Sabine wondered what had happened to the happy ending. Now she knew that their lives could change in just a few days, in a big way. And though she couldn’t tell her mama about it yet, pretty soon she would have to.
Very soon.
But what about Willi’s parents, sitting just one row behind her? How could she and Willi convince them to crawl through a tiny tunnel under Bernauerstrasse and escape to freedom through a graveyard? They’d have to leave their jobs behind. Their home. For what? Freedom? She shook her head. What was she thinking?
