by Robert Elmer
He stopped trying to make a joke and handed her back her notes.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t help you, Miss. You go back and ask your uncle to explain it to you one more time. There’s got to be some kind of mix-up. I couldn’t say where, but there has to be.”
He was right about that. But as Liesl waved at the marines on her way out, she knew her story wasn’t finished yet.
In fact, it had hardly started.
“Liesl!” The boy caught up to her as she crossed Kurfürstenstrasse, nearly home.
Oh! From the protest group. What was his name? He must have seen the blank look on her face.
“It’s Jürgen. Remember me? From the — uh, study group.”
“Sure I remember.” His penetrating blue eyes were impossible to forget. Like a snake charmer — she broke away from the thought with a shake of her head.
“You didn’t come back. Everybody said it was my fault for scaring you off. That’s not true, is it?”
Nothing like a direct question, eh? Jürgen had a way of making her want to run and stay at the same time. He also had a way of tying her tongue in knots. And he had to know how young she was. Or did he?
“N-no, of course not. Nobody scared me off. Something just came up and I couldn’t get there, is all.”
“That’s good. Really good. Because — ” On a sunny day, he could have used his front teeth as a bright white emergency signal mirror. “Because we could still use you.”
“Are you kidding? Why me?” She couldn’t imagine what he wanted from her. But she knew she wanted to end this conversation before she got close to home and her parents saw her talking to a sixteen-year-old boy.
“Why you? You don’t know?” Jürgen laughed, a low, easy chuckle that made her feel more at ease, in spite of the danger she felt. It almost made her forget they were only two blocks from her apartment. “Let me tell you: We need a few more people who are willing to go all out for what they believe — people who aren’t afraid to actually do something about the wall. Like Bible smugglers, for instance.”
Liesl felt an odd chill run up the back of her neck. And it wasn’t even that cold this afternoon.
“But you don’t even know me,” she answered back. “Maybe I’m not who you think I am.”
“You’re not fooling anybody, Liesl.” Again he showed his brilliant teeth, and it was hard not to be pulled in by his smile. “And you’re not at all like Katja. She’s always running around rubbing her hands together, saying, ‘Ahhh, let’s think about this. Let’s pray about that. Let’s be careful.’ Nothing against praying, you understand, but — ”
“Careful is good.” Liesl remembered the girl who had tried to protect her. “Isn’t it?”
“Careful is quark. Total baloney. Careful only gets you in trouble. If you’re careful you miss your chances in life.”
That didn’t exactly sound like something her parents would say, for sure not something Pastor Schmidt would say in a Sunday sermon. But something about the way Jürgen said it — something about his emotion — made Liesl want to hear more. Without thinking, she turned onto Genthinerstrasse and around another block, taking the long way home.
“Is it just me,” asked Jürgen, “or are we going in circles?”
Liesl didn’t answer. What if they were? She still had questions. “Tell me what happened at the — study meeting,” she said. “Did you decide what to do, or just argue some more?”
“See, that’s what I mean.” He grinned. “You’re not afraid of anybody. I knew that the first time I saw you. Fearless, right?”
Again the back of her neck tingled. But if she turned red, Jürgen ignored it.
“What about the last meeting, though?” She still wanted to know, sort of. Well, yes, of course she did. She could use it for her paper. She could use all of this. In fact, she probably should be taking notes.
“The meeting, right. Sure, I guess you could say we discussed our plans some more.”
“And?”
“And people have finally begun to see things my way.”
Liesl bit her lip as she wondered exactly what he meant. But he hadn’t finished explaining yet.
“So we’re all meeting at nine tomorrow morning in front of the wall, where it meets Leipzigerstrasse. You know the place?”
Liesl nodded. Sure she knew it.
“And you want to actually do something that makes a difference, right? Not just talk about how unfair things are?”
Again she nodded. As long as he put it that way, sure she did.
“Then you’ll come?”
“Uh, actually, maybe I should think about it.”
“Now you’re sounding like Katja. Thinking is quark.”
“But I have to write a paper. And I have to present it next week in front of everybody.”
She didn’t say everybody in grade eight. But who needed to know?
“It’s Saturday morning. No school. No excuses. Understand?”
Liesl finally nodded, maybe just so he would smile again, which he did. Well, why not? Jürgen had asked her, hadn’t he? He’d even gone out of his way.
“Good,” he told her. “I knew I could count on you.”
He turned to head back the way he’d come.
“Oh, and by the way, kid,” he tossed the comment over his shoulder like a bone to a dog, “I wouldn’t say anything to Mutti and Papa if I were you. That’ll just make things more complicated, right?”
Kid. The word stung, but Liesl swallowed hard and nodded. She could barely force out the word.
“Right.”
12
KAPITEL ZWÖLF
PROTEST
The next morning Liesl shivered in the light drizzle as she dodged the spray from passing cars and hurried to the end of Leipzigerstrasse. The rain had pounded the city during the night, filling the streets with angry gray puddles. She pulled the hood of her jacket farther over her face, but the walk from home had already soaked her.
And even when she reached the end of the strasse, she couldn’t stop shaking — maybe not just from getting soaked. She felt in her pocket for her notebook, hoped it hadn’t gotten as wet as her clothes.
A group of about thirty teens huddled under sheets of plastic and a few umbrellas just around the corner from the western side of the wall. Here, in the shadow of the wall, a person could spray paint slogans (and many had) or even shout at the guard towers. But what difference did it make? Now, if they could spray paint the other side, that would be something. But of course the machine guns and mines and barbed wire lay just over there, daring anyone to try to escape.
“Liesl, isn’t it?” Katja, the girl who had protected her at the meeting, met her with a smile. “Nice to see you again, but — ”
“Jürgen said you decided to meet here at nine. I thought I’d just stop by, see what happens.”
Katja took Liesl’s sleeve and turned her away from the group.
“Listen, are you sure you want to be here? I mean, did Jürgen tell you about our plan for today?”
“Not really, but I can guess. Some kind of protest, right? A few signs? I’ll take some notes for my paper. The one I’m writing for history class.”
Katja looked around the group, opened her mouth, and then closed it. As if making up her mind, she said, “Right. Well actually, Liesl, it’s going to be a little more than that. So if I were you, I think I would turn right around and — ”
“Hey, look who’s here!” Jürgen plowed into the group like a movie star schmoozing for the press, ready to grant autographs to an adoring public. “Is everybody ready for this?”
The group murmured and parted to either side, leaving Liesl to face their leader.
“I’ve called the press,” someone offered. “Reporters should be here any minute, if they don’t mind the rain.”
“Perfect.” Jürgen nodded. “And the ropes?”
“In my bag.”
Wait a minute. Ropes? Liesl wondered, as one of the group dropped a sack at Jürge
n’s feet. Another couple of teens arrived with protest signs shouting in big letters: Gorby: Tear Down That Wall! and The Wall Is History! And a dozen others Liesl couldn’t read, stacked in a pile.
“But — why in English and not in German?” Liesl wondered out loud.
“Oh, come on.” Jürgen grinned. “If we had just German signs, none of the Americans watching their TV news would understand what’s going on, here. Verstehen Sie?”
Yes, she understood, and she began to see that maybe this was more than she’d bargained for. Too late. A couple of shopkeepers glanced out at them through their windows, but nobody smiled. Probably they’d seen this kind of thing before. Jürgen unzipped the duffel bag, pulled out the end of a rope, and looked straight at Liesl.
“You wanted to do something to make a difference?” he asked her.
“Leave her alone, Jürgen.” Katja stepped up to the rescue once more. “She doesn’t have any idea what’s going on.”
“Makes no difference to me.” Jürgen shrugged. “I just thought she wanted to be involved.”
“Not like this, Jürgen.”
Jürgen sighed and picked up a sign.
“We don’t have time for this. Here.” Jürgen shoved one of the signs into Liesl’s hands. “Stay away from the wall and don’t get hurt. You can manage that, can’t you?”
Just then Liesl felt she could have managed to break one of the Amerikanisch protest signs over the older boy’s head. Instead she nodded and joined the others holding signs. But nothing seemed real — not the yells of the protesters, not the shouts of the small group throwing ropes weighted at one end so they’d fly over the wall. What were they thinking? Surely they’d get the attention of the East German border guards.
And they did, just as the news photographers arrived in three cars and started snapping photos of everything that happened. The East German Vopo guards fired warning shots from their towers. Jürgen and his friends tossed ropes into no-man’sland. A curious crowd gathered, watching from a safe distance. Kids held protest signs — even the petrified thirteen-year-old wondering what to do with hers. Liesl tried to turn away from a photographer but couldn’t tell whether he’d caught her. Maybe he had.
She could tell that the photographers snapped plenty of shots of West German police headed straight for Jürgen, Katja, and three others holding ropes.
“Join us and pull down the wall!” Jürgen yelled louder than anyone, as if he had a built-in megaphone. “It must come down now! Our friends in East Berlin must be heard!”
A television news crew arrived in a Volkswagen van, wheels screeching to a stop. Liesl took the chance to blend into the watching crowd, just in front of a florist’s shop. Most of the other protestors had also dropped their signs and sprinted down the street to safety, but the police didn’t seem interested in following. Liesl could only watch in horror as officers led Katja and Jürgen and a couple of others to waiting cars. She tried to look away when Jürgen made eye contact with her and winked, just as an officer shoved him into the car. What was she still doing there? And why had she really come?
“I’m so sorry, Lord,” she whispered. No one heard her above the two-tone wail of sirens. No one but God.
“Crazy kids,” said an old man in the crowd. He must not have seen her join the onlookers. “They’re on the wrong side of the wall. What do they think they’re going to prove over here?”
Yes, what? Liesl wondered how she would answer that question in her paper. Why had she let Jürgen sweet-talk her into showing up for this circus? Had they really done anything about the wall? As the flashing lights of the police cars disappeared down Leipzigerstrasse, she pressed her back against the brick wall of the flower shop, let herself slip to the sidewalk, and felt the tears of relief and frustration run down her cheeks.
Back home that night she discovered that the rain had soaked through her notebook and smeared her notes. Maybe it was just as well. She realized she had to ask herself, how did she want to focus this paper, really?
Was it about the protest, about kids throwing ropes over the wall in a strange demonstration and getting themselves arrested? She had plenty to write about that. Maybe the protest could add something to her paper, if she could sort out what had happened.
But maybe it should be about the beginning of this stupid Cold War between the East and the West, between the Russians and the Americans, between East Germany and West Germany, East Berlin and West Berlin. Or maybe she should center her report on the American grandfather she had never known — the one who had helped drop candy to the hungry kids of Berlin but had died in a fiery plane crash. At least, that’s what Oma Brigitte had always believed — the man at the American embassy must have the wrong information.
Didn’t he?
Or maybe she should write about the brave pastor, her grandmother’s first husband, Ulrich Becker, and the mysterious communion cup engraved with his name. He had died during World War 2 fighting his own walls. Surely she could get more information about him from Onkel Erich and her grandmother.
After thinking it over, she had no answers, only more and more questions. But by this time she knew one thing: it all fit together, somehow. And she also knew — I could have been taken away today, too.
And maybe she should have been. She couldn’t shake the guilty feeling. It had followed her all day as she’d gone through the motions of cleaning windows for her mother, sweeping the kitchen floor, finishing all the Cinderella chores she had to do each Saturday.
Later that evening after dinner, her mother came to check on her as she scrubbed the kitchen sink. Liesl had hoped that somehow she could scrub away this guilty feeling. But the harder she scrubbed, the worse she felt.
“Ouch!” She scraped her knuckles against the faucet and pulled her hand back in pain.
“Careful.” Her mother looked at her with concern.
“I’m okay,” Liesl said, keeping her face brave, debating once again whether she should say something to her mother about the American who might not have died. How could she keep it to herself? “Er, Mutti? There’s something I want to tell you.”
“Hmm?”
“It’s about — ” But no. Her mother had always refused to talk about him. And Liesl couldn’t bring him up without knowing for sure. Because if the man at the embassy had it wrong — “I mean, I’m almost done with the sink.”
A pause, as Sabine tried to figure out what she’d just missed.
“That’s what you wanted to tell me?”
Liesl nodded. Now it was.
“I see,” her mother told her. “Well, thank you.”
In the den the TV blared, and it was a good thing no one but Liesl was there to watch.
“A gang of young protesters were arrested near the wall earlier today,” the announcer told them, as if such a thing happened every day. “Four were detained briefly on charges of disorderly conduct and trespassing on government property, while at least twenty others fled after police arrived on the scene. Authorities say the young people are part of a growing sympathy movement with protestors on the other side of the wall, and that — ”
Liesl’s face flamed red as she prayed the cameras hadn’t caught her, too. She didn’t want to listen anymore. She finished her chores and quietly found her way to bed. She pulled the covers over her head and plugged her ears — but it didn’t help. She even listened for God but could only hear a TV commercial in her mind for a detergent that left dishes sparkling clean. An hour passed, then another, and she lost track of time. But even after the house got quiet, the echoes from that morning would not let her sleep. They just played over and over in her head — the warning shots, the Vopos, the reporters, the sirens.
“I didn’t belong there.” She began to pray, but she didn’t have much of an excuse to offer God. She thought back to the photographers snapping shots of her and the others holding their silly signs. And she couldn’t fight off her worry. “What if someone sees me in the paper? What will Mutti and Papa say?” If they
had caught her on film, well then, what would happen if the photos were actually printed in Die Welt or the Berliner Morgenpost? The thought made her almost ill, and she lay for another hour worrying whether she’d managed to avoid the photographers’ lenses.
Well, it’s too late for that now, she finally told herself, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
It was about midnight when she snapped on her reading light and pulled Uhr-Oma Poldi’s Bible from the shelf above her pillow. She realized with a start that she hadn’t even opened it since bringing it home from Onkel Erich’s.
“I’m sorry for not keeping in touch, God,” she whispered as she leafed carefully through the well-worn pages. She read some of her favorite psalms, then skipped over to the words of Jesus recorded by his friend John. And she began to hear God once more, at first in a whisper, then louder as she read the record of Jesus’ life — Jesus forgiving the woman everyone wanted to stone to death, Jesus teaching in the temple, Jesus arguing with the religious people. And the one line she found herself reading over and over and over:
“Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Free? She asked herself. Who’s free, around here? In a weird sort of way, only Onkel Erich, who had chosen to live behind barbed wire. And Liesl? Living in a nice apartment, in the “free” half of the city?
Was she free?
As if God heard her question, the answer came right back to her as she read another verse, one underlined in her great-grandmother’s wavy pencil:
“So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”
If this had been one of her great-grandmother’s favorite verses, Liesl could understand why. It made a whole lot more sense to her than trying to scrub her way to feeling better, or forgiven, or whatever she was missing. And now she knew she was missing something. She took a deep breath and kept reading.
“What’s this?” Several pages fluttered out, like pressed autumn leaves, and settled on her lap. At first she thought the Bible had actually started to come apart. Then she realized they were letters, written on thin onionskin airmail letter forms, the kind that folded up into their own envelope. And there were two — no, three.
