by Brianna Hale
The dreadful old bat. I’m not his girlfriend or a tart. Does he send a lot of women here? Through clenched teeth, I say, “Just work clothes, danke.”
Frau Schneider shoots an annoyed look at Lenore. “When is that man going to send some proper business my way? Or does it go to another dressmaker? Is it Frau Werner?”
“Well, he’s spoilt for choice, I assure you. Don’t worry, as soon as he picks someone I’ll make sure she comes to you.”
“He’s not…Andersrum, is he?”
Lenore shakes her head. “Legs, remember? I’ve seen him looking.” She sniffs. “Not at mine, though. I think he likes brunettes.”
I follow this exchange, completely bewildered. Andersrum. Different, other. Frau Schneider seems to be annoyed because Volker never sends girlfriends to her for dresses, and she wonders if this means he’s homosexual.
Please be wrong, Lenore, I silently beg. Please let Volker be gay. But then, why would he want me in his apartment and look at me in that hungry way if he didn’t like women? I watch the dressmaker work, feeling bereft, as I know she’s trying to turn me into something Volker wants to look at.
“Dark hair and brown eyes,” the woman says, looking up from the measurements she’s marked on a chart. “Cream would suit you. Mauve. Some tawny browns. Black.”
Lenore shakes her head. “Herr Oberstleutnant doesn’t like his secretaries in black.”
“Black, please. I want black,” I immediately say. Everything in black, preferably. I’m not going to sit around looking like a pretty doll for his benefit. Perpetual mourning would suit me better.
Lenore shoots me a look of disapproval and to my annoyance Frau Hoffman makes a note on the paper. “No black. So. Three dresses, three skirts, four blouses and a good coat. All winter weight and the blouses with long sleeves. How does that sound for a start?” She doesn’t say this to me, but to Lenore.
“Can you do two berets and two scarves, as well? Light and dark. Oh, and make the skirts short, won’t you?”
I jump in here. “No. Knee length, please.”
“Evony,” Lenore says, exasperated, holding up the magazine she’s reading and showing me a color picture of two models in very small skirts. It’s definitely a Western magazine. “Minis are in.”
In what? All I know is that Volker likes dark girls and their legs so I’d opt for a nun’s habit if I thought I could get away with it. “Knee length,” I insist to Frau Schneider, but I don’t think she’s paying attention to me.
The dressmaker waves at my clothes lying on the arm of the sofa. “You can get dressed now and then I’ll show you some designs.”
I reach for my blouse, suddenly feeling very tired. The stress of last night is catching up with me. “Look, you don’t need to. Just make them as you see fit. Simple and plain—and long.”
She stares at me, her eyebrows creeping up her forehead. “If you’re sure, but… Colors? Prints for the blouses, or plain?”
I’m fast running out of energy not to scream about how much I don’t care. “It’s fine. Whatever you think best. Where’s the bathroom, please?”
Frau Schneider points out the door and to the right, shaking her head slightly as if she still can’t comprehend me not wanting to pore over designs.
“Do you have anything Evony can wear now? I’d like to take her back to the office this afternoon looking…” Lenore trails off, seeming to search for a diplomatic way of saying that I look awful as I am. “Fresher.”
“I can probably dig something out that a customer didn’t come back for…”
I head out and find the bathroom, lock the door, and sink down onto the closed lavatory. I feel like I’m in one of those dreams where you talk and talk and no one listens to what you’re saying, except all the words are in my head and I have no one to whom I can scream them. I feel my gorge rising and struggle to breathe—
Calm down. You need to keep your wits about you if you’re going to spot the right opportunity. Where’s the guard? Does this apartment have a back door? I take a few steadying breaths, get up and open the bathroom door slowly.
And feel a thud of disappointment. The guard is right there, waiting for me. All right, now is not my opportunity. But soon. It will come soon, I have to believe it will. I will get lucky and Volker will be unlucky. He can’t keep me captive forever.
Head held high I push past the guard and go back to the living room. Frau Hoffman has several skirts and blouses for me to try on, and a lilac silk shirt and camel A-line skirt fit best. Lenore holds out her hands for the garments. “Take them off again and let’s go and get the other things you’ll need. There are some shops near here. I’ve paid Frau Schneider for the order.”
“Can’t I just wear these now?” I’m tired of pulling clothes on and off.
“No, later. We’ll go back to my apartment and get you fixed up properly. Herr Oberstleutnant won’t know you.” Lenore gives me a broad smile.
Not know me. That would be nice. But I do as I’m asked.
Frau Schneider puts the skirt and blouse into a bag, along with another blouse of white silk, and gives it to me. “May as well take that one, too, as the fit wasn’t so bad. I’ll have what I can delivered to Herr Oberstleutnant’s apartment in two days’ time, and the rest within the week.”
Lenore bids her goodbye and we head back down to the car, but we don’t get in as she says we can walk. The sun is shining feebly, though it’s still bitterly cold. Lenore huddles in her cream wool coat with its fur collar. The guard trails a few paces behind us and I feel his gaze prickle the back of my neck.
Seeming determined to get me talking, Lenore asks. “So tell me, how well do you know Herr Oberstleutnant?”
“I don’t.”
She frowns, puzzled. “At all? How did you meet?”
I don’t know what to say and I look away, but this only seems to pique Lenore’s interest. She could be an informant or may report anything I say back to Volker. Would this be such a bad thing, though? I’d dearly like to tell him to his face what I think of him, but by proxy will do. “I don’t like him. He frightens me, and he’s making me stay with him in his apartment.”
Lenore’s eyes widen in surprise. “Making you?” Seeing her astonishment I feel tears fill my eyes. It’s just how Ana would look if I confessed the same thing to her and it makes me miss her so much.
“Oh, you poor thing, don’t cry. Here.” Lenore digs a handkerchief out of her handbag and gives it to me. While I wipe my face and try to compose myself, she talks on, briskly. “These are strange times we’re living through what with the Wall and the shortages and the border closing. But the Party has our best interests at heart and we have to make the best of things, don’t you think?”
No, I don’t think, but I don’t want to say so to her and with the guard listening in.
“You’re lucky that he’s interested in you. Oberstleutnant Volker is…a difficult man.” Lenore gives me a quick, wry smile, as if he’s a poorly trained but loveable hound. “But he’s very handsome, too. Most of the secretaries at HQ have tried to catch his eye but he keeps to himself most of the time. If you can grow to like him and make him fall in love with you, he might marry you.”
The suggestion makes me want to be sick. I know Lenore is trying to be helpful and I am grateful for that, but like Frau Fischer Lenore seems only to want to please Volker. And he’s difficult? He’s a cold-blooded killer.
The fact that Lenore doesn’t ask why Volker is keeping me in his apartment doesn’t surprise me. We don’t know each other and the world we live in doesn’t invite easy confidences. Prying isn’t just considered rude, it’s suspicious, and plainly she thinks I’ve landed on my feet so what could I gain by questioning things?
I refold the handkerchief and hand it back to her. “Thank you for being kind to me. I know you don’t have to be.”
“Oh, don’t be silly! I’ve been dying for Herr Oberstleutnant to get another secretary so I’d have some company again, and you’re miles
better than old Frau Hahn who had the job before you. She retired a few weeks ago. Dry old bat. Smoked horrid f6s all day and made me do all the work.”
Despite everything, I manage a watery laugh. “I’m afraid I won’t be much better. I only know how to solder radios.”
She links her arm through mine, as if determined that we shall now be the best of friends. “Yes, but I will have fun teaching you and I know you’ll put some energy into the job. And you needn’t smoke f6s. A few smiles at Herr Oberstleutnant or another officer and you can get Kents or Marlboros.”
I’d sooner die than smile at Volker or any other Stasi officer. “Oh, I shan’t bother. I don’t smoke.”
“Even better—you can trade with them. Do you know that three boxes of Kents will fetch a pair of silk stockings, or a little bottle of French perfume? A tiny bottle, but it lasts for ages.”
I listen as Lenore explains the unofficial bartering that goes on around Stasi HQ. Though the items are different, the system is familiar. We would trade for things in the factory and our apartment building, like exchanging apples for string. Silk stockings didn’t come into it.
She takes me into one small, understocked store after another, the indifferent wares laid out on dusty shelves. Everything has a picked-over look and we have to rummage to find anything decent. Lenore asks me what I already have. “Lipstick? Nylons? Underwear?” I shake my head at each query and she grows more and more incredulous. I can feel her wanting to ask me how this could be, but in the end she seems to decide it’s better not to know. “Well, we’ll just have to get you everything.”
I let her choose the stockings, lipstick, powder and nightclothes for me. She tells me which shoes to try on, and she decides on two pairs of pumps with two-inch heels, one brown and one black. Only the black ones are leather, and Lenore had to go through a mountain of boxes to find them. I can tell she’s pleased with herself as her cheeks are pink with accomplishment.
There’s a pair of white patent leather heels that she looks at for a very long time, but then puts back, her expression pained. I notice they’re her size, not mine. “Don’t you want those?”
She shakes her head, lips tight, and I guess the reason she put them back isn’t that she doesn’t want them, but that she can’t afford them. Despite her adoration of Volker, I like Lenore. I think Ana would have liked her too. I pick the white shoes up along with my black and brown shoes and head toward the register. “We’ll pretend they’re for me.”
“No, Evony, don’t—” She tries to take them back but I don’t let her. The look in her eyes is so grateful that I might have just snatched her firstborn from the path of a speeding car. “Danke. It’s like finding hen’s teeth, shoes like that in East Berlin. If I waited until my next paycheck they would have been sold for sure. I’ll pay you back.”
Doing this for Lenore is the only good thing about today, and I shake my head. I saw the stack of bills he gave her and it’s more than enough to cover all this. “No, you won’t. It’s not my money.”
We move onto buying bras, briefs and garter belts, and here Lenore insists that I take some interest. I tell her I want the plainest ones that will fit me: no lace, no satin, and no pretty colors. In this the store is against her as it stocks almost exclusively ugly tan garments.
Putting down a black satin garter belt, she sighs. “Fine. But you’re getting cream, not the tan. I’m holding the money, remember?” Lenore gathers up the underthings that I’ve chosen, along with a basketful of lotions, soaps and other bathroom supplies, and goes to pay.
Carrying string bags full of shopping we head back to the car, the now thoroughly bored guard trailing in our wake.
“It’s only midday so we’ll go back to my apartment, have some lunch, and get you fixed up in your new things.” Lenore smiles, but my heart plummets. I loathe the prospect of being presented to Volker for inspection. I’m not a willing participant in any of this and I don’t want him getting the impression that I am.
Lenore’s apartment is just a short drive away and she shares it with another secretary who works in a different government building. The apartment is small and plain but they’ve made it cheerful by putting up fashion photographs from Western magazines and draping bright cloths over the furniture.
“Go and shower, and I’ll get some lunch ready. Use whatever you find in the bathroom. Soap, shampoo, help yourself. There are towels under the sink.”
I didn’t have time to wash properly this morning and I linger under the spray, washing my hair, enjoying the solitude and gentle fragrance of the unfamiliar products. Bartered for on the black market system, I presume. Examining the conditioner I wonder how many boxes of Kent cigarettes it cost.
Emerging after twenty minutes swathed in towels I find Lenore has laid out the new skirt, blouse and undergarments for me on her bed. The clothes are stitched neatly and the fabric is pristine and soft. I’ve never owned anything like them before and I’m sure they’ll get dirty or torn. But then I don’t work in a factory anymore, I work in a clean, hushed office with nothing more dangerous than a pair of high heels to navigate.
And Volker. What will he see when he looks at me in these clothes? Someone he’s conquered and made into what he wants of them? Or will he see the truth in my eyes—that I might look the part he wants me to play but I’m an unwilling, resentful participant. How long until he tires of my bad attitude and he sends me to Hohenschönhausen? Will I have to start pretending that I like being his secretary and his captive? How will I manage such a thing?
Going into the kitchen Lenore exclaims over my appearance, telling me how improved I am. She’s made sandwiches from tinned tuna fish and rye bread and I sit down and attack them, suddenly starving. I feel comfortable here. It’s a friendly, inviting apartment, and I wish I could remain here forever.
But I push that thought away. I won’t be staying here, because I’m going to find a way to escape.
After we’ve eaten Lenore puts what she calls the finishing touches on my appearance: cutting and filing my nails into neat ovals, dusting my nose and cheeks with powder, painting my lips with a shade of pale rose lipstick and curling and darkening my lashes. I sit quietly throughout, listening to her talk about her brother, who is a border guard, and a sister who’s married to a baker.
“Your hair is beautiful,” she says, feeling the texture of my curls, which are nearly dry now. “What do you usually do with it?”
I glance up at her, amused. “Do with it? I tie a scarf over it so it doesn’t get dusty, and then wash it when it does.”
She laughs. “Well, we can do better than that.” After brushing it through she starts to twist it and pin it up, and arranges a few curls to fall by my ears. “There. Take a look at yourself in the big mirror in my room.”
I go through, unsteady in my new shoes. They’re making my injured knee hurt and the bright purple bruise is visible through the sheer tan nylons. Lenore saw it, but averted her gaze and didn’t say anything.
Taking a deep breath I raise my eyes to the mirror, and I don’t know myself. The girl I was is being steadily erased and there’s an imposter in her place. She’s painted and neat in form-fitting clothes and has soft, impractical hair. The skirt finishes mid-thigh, showing a long length of my legs. He’ll probably like this. Tears burning my eyes, I gather up my clothes, the last remnants of my old life, and hug them to my chest. I miss Ana. I miss Dad. I even miss the factory.
You’ll find a way out of this, I tell myself, blinking quickly. I can’t let the mascara run or Lenore will know I’ve been crying. Dad didn’t pull you from the rubble of a bombed-out house just for you to give up now.
Chapter Six
Volker
“And you didn’t know about this, Volker?”
I turn to my commanding officer with a frown that conveys the gravity with which I’m taking this matter. On the inside I am brimming with spiteful glee. It’s been a most satisfying morning. “Nein, Herr Oberst. Hauptmann Heydrich did not see fit to
bring his information about the tunnel to me.” I flick my eyes up at Heydrich, who is standing to attention before us both and facing the Oberst. “As he knows he should have.”
Lounging to one side of the Oberst’s desk I have the perfect view of Heydrich’s whey-colored profile. He mutters something about not having had enough time. I’m sure that’s a lie. What motivated him to try and show me up? Angling for early promotion, I presume, by trying to prove that he can flush out traitors as successfully as I do. I’ll enjoy keeping him right where he is, a lowly captain, for the rest of my career.
The Oberst folds his hand over his stomach. He should really get himself out from behind that desk more often. “Hauptmann Heydrich, I am sure I do not need to tell you what a farce the raid was. Three border guards were killed.”
“Such a sad loss of life,” I murmur, reaching for my cigarettes. I wonder what Evony Daumler looks like under those worn-out clothes. I picture her with her long curls brushed out, sliding silk stockings up her legs. Yes, for all that she’s a traitor she’s a very pretty young woman. I don’t like her being out there in the city without me but in addition to the guard that she can see there are four plainclothes officers tailing her. That should be enough to keep an eye on a slippery little rat such as her.
“Four dissidents were shot dead, three are in prison and another five to seven are unaccounted for. We don’t know how many for sure. Could they have escaped back into East Berlin?”
“Ja, Herr Oberst.”
“Or could they have escaped down the tunnel to the West?”
Hauptmann Heydrich winces. “Ja…it’s possible, Herr Oberst.”
Yes, quite possible. I think it’s probably a mix of the two: some made it to the West and the others escaped back into the city, as Evony attempted to do. By now they’ll be wondering who betrayed them.
