Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  I look up in surprise. “But who is watching the baby?”

  “Lea is watching Thom. She’s eleven, and a very good girl, though how she does complain when she has to babysit.”

  “You should go back to them. I’m sorry you were called away.”

  She shakes her head. “In a minute, when you’re finished your supper.”

  I’m grateful for her kindness, but I’m also curious. She’s more familiar with Volker than anyone else is as she knows his private habits. Hoping that I won’t somehow get her into trouble, I ask, “What do you think about Oberstleutnant Volker? As a man, I mean?”

  She looks baffled by my question, as though it’s never occurred to her to have an opinion about her employer. “He’s a very good man. A fair man.”

  Oh, what rot. She can’t really believe that, can she? I wonder if she’ll think I’m spying on her if I ask too many questions, but I can’t help myself. “I won’t tell him what you tell me, I promise. I’m just trying to understand him better.” I want to be able to predict his behavior. If I can predict him, I can outwit him.

  She gives me a curious look. “But you must know him quite well yourself? Though I don’t hold with people knowing everything about each other before they are married. Some things should come later. Like living together.” She looks around the room. “But you’re in here, so that’s something in this day and age. Young women have so much more freedom since the war and I can’t think that it’s good for them.”

  I nearly choke on a bite of bread. She thinks I’m going to marry Volker? Is that what he told her, or has she come up with this palatable explanation for my presence herself? I want to tell her what I told Lenore, that he’s keeping me here against my will, but if I do she might clam up. “I know a little about him. I just thought you might know more.”

  The older woman thinks for a moment and says, “Herr Oberstleutnant keeps to himself much of the time and he works a great deal. He’s not had a happy life, I think.”

  I frown down at my soup. I don’t want to sit here and listen to someone try and make me feel sorry for that monster. Oblivious to my rising hackles, she goes on. “He doesn’t talk to me, of course, but I can feel he hasn’t been happy. He’s never married before, but of course you would know that.”

  So, he keeps to himself and works. I wonder how he’s getting his kicks. “Has he had any other women here in his apartment before?”

  Frau Fischer looks scandalized. “No, he never has guests to stay.”

  I ponder this for a moment, tearing bits off the rye bread and rolling them between my fingers. “Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Doesn’t he seem like the sort of person who likes…” I struggle for a tactful way to put it. “Female company?” The way he looks at me, the way he kissed my neck, he might have done those things merely to frighten me, a way of keeping me scared and guessing. But it felt like he was doing it at least in part because he wanted to, and could.

  Frau Fischer hesitates, uncertain. “Well, there is one rumor.”

  “That he is known as der Mitternachtsjäger and people tend to go missing after he captures them?”

  She blanches, and I see that she’s heard this rumor and doesn’t like to think about it. “No. I mean, yes, I’ve heard something to that effect, but I meant—well, I shouldn’t really tell you…”

  I plaster a smile on my face, hoping it makes me look like someone she wants to confide in. “Oh, do tell me. He talks so little about himself, and if it’s just a rumor there’s no harm in sharing it. I don’t believe every rumor I hear.”

  Frau Fischer gives me a stern look. “Very sensible of you. You certainly shouldn’t believe this one as I’m sure it’s not true.”

  “Of course.”

  “And I only tell you this as you are to marry him and a woman should always be aware of these things.”

  “Oh, I agree.”

  After looking around the room as if to make sure an informant hasn’t snuck in while we’ve been talking, she leans forward and whispers, “It’s rumored he has a lover in the West.”

  If she’d told me Volker spent his weekends doing amateur acrobatics I couldn’t have been more floored. Stasi officers might be hypocrites and eat French marmalade but they do not have liaisons with Westerners. If anyone at HQ found out about it he would be accused of passing on State secrets, summarily tried and executed by firing squad.

  “It’s only a rumor of course,” she says hastily, seeing the incredulous look on my face.

  “But where did it come from? Is there any truth to it?”

  Frau Fischer is opening her mouth to reply when we hear footsteps out in the apartment. Volker is moving around somewhere. She gets up quickly, tells me to finish my supper like a good girl and leaves the room.

  I was only eating to keep Frau Fischer talking so I put the tray aside and think. The rumor might be true. Perhaps Volker is arrogant enough to believe that he’s so important no one can touch him. If it’s true and I find proof he could be dead within a week.

  I wince, as I never used to be so callous. But these are desperate times and if he can shoot Ana in cold blood and keep me captive in his apartment then he deserves whatever I can do to him. I might even escape prison: if I prove a trusted Stasi officer is a traitor the evidence might secure a pardon for my attempt to flee to the West.

  But it can’t be true. If he has a woman in the West, why doesn’t he defect? And if he has her, why does he want to keep me locked up here and look at me like he’s a starving wolf?

  No, it doesn’t make sense, but anything might be possible and I resolve to keep my eyes and ears open. The more information I gather about Volker the better chance I have of escaping this nightmare.

  Chapter Eight

  Evony

  When I wake in the morning I know where I am before I open my eyes but I want to pretend I’m still at home. It’s difficult because the bed feels different. Spongier, and bigger. The light’s different, too. At home my bedroom faced south and there’d be bright morning light shining around the curtains to wake me up. This bedroom must face north or west as the light is soft.

  I feel different, too. Weary and gritty-eyed. But I make-believe that my dad’s hanging out the window with an f6, smoking it quickly before I get out of bed because he knows I’ll make him go downstairs to smoke once I’m up. He’s got a map of East Germany unfolded on the table, and we’ll plan our first daytrip of the year, maybe to Naturpark Barnim north of Berlin. We don’t own a car but my dad will borrow one from the automotive shop and we’ll take Ulrich and Ana with us. Ana and I will sit in the back and sing songs we learned in the Free German Youth, making my dad moan his displeasure. As soon as we’re outside the city limits we’ll beg Ulrich to tune the radio to a Western station, and he will, and we’ll all sing along at the tops of our voices to Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley, muddling through the English words as best we can.

  Dad will park the car on the edge of the forest and we’ll walk miles and miles through the trees and across the fields, and Ana and I will say that isn’t this far enough? But there’ll be another field to cross, and another hill to climb, because Dad will look over his shoulder, pretend he can still see the Brandenburg Gate and holler, “No, we’re not far enough away yet!”

  Finally we’ll stop and spread the picnic rug out and all flop down, exhausted. I’ll be the first to declare that I’m hungry and I’ll dig through the basket and pass out tinned beef sandwiches, apple juice and bottles of beer for Ulrich and Dad.

  Ulrich will lay on his back and call out the animals he can see in the clouds or start a game of I spy. Dad will drink two beers and loudly list all the things he hates about the regime and the USSR that he’s been keeping bottled up in the city. “Did you know Stalin allowed five million Ukrainians to starve in the thirties while he continued to export grain? Maybe even ten million. Forced deportations. Fourteen million people sent to the Gulag labor-camps. And this is who we have to thank for our glorious GDR. Prost!” And he�
��ll thrust his beer bottle into the air and roar with laughter. And we’ll laugh too, not because what he’s saying is funny but because it feels so wickedly defiant.

  I open my eyes and the dream evaporates. Ana’s gone, Ulrich’s gone, Dad’s gone. There’s only the smooth white plaster of this strange bedroom ceiling and tears fill my eyes. I miss them so much it’s a physical pain. I hope Dad and Ulrich are together, wherever they are. I’ve considered asking Volker if they’re in prison but I’m afraid he won’t answer me and I’m afraid that he will. So I cling to the hope that they’re somewhere in East Germany and we’ll find each other soon.

  The days are as tense and unpleasant for me as the first one was. Volker always seems to be somewhere nearby, listening, watching, though thankfully he doesn’t try to touch me again. Guilt and self-loathing dog me wherever I go. I’ll be in the middle of a task Lenore has given me, like filing or typing, when a wave of it hits me and I struggle to breathe. Why did I react the way that I did when he kissed me? It must be because I’ve never been kissed before. I was caught off guard. It wasn’t that I liked it or I find him attractive.

  When Lenore and I are alone in the filing room I ask her if she’s heard the rumor about Volker having a lover in the West. Her eyes grow so wide I think they’re going to pop out of her head. “Are you mad? Herr Oberstleutnant would never betray the Party like that. He’s loyal to them above all other things.” She’s so indignant at the suggestion that Volker could be doing anything illegal that she doesn’t talk to me for two hours and I become quite annoyed with her.

  Lenore’s devotion to Volker, I soon realize, isn’t put on to ingratiate herself with him. She really does think he’s wonderful. He’s affectionate toward her in an elder brother sort of way, teasing her and making her smile when he’s in a good mood. He doesn’t attempt to tease me, though he brings us little presents now and then like Western magazines and Swiss chocolate. Whatever one gets the other gets, too, as if he’s careful of not creating friction between his two secretaries, though his fingers seem to brush mine in a way they don’t Lenore’s. Whatever he gives me I put into a drawer as soon as his back is turned and slam it shut.

  I want to dislike Lenore for being naïve about Volker but just when I think I have her figured out, she surprises me. One long, wet afternoon neither of us seem to have the energy to be good little secretaries and my fingers ache from so much shoddy typing. Volker is out somewhere, probably putting the fear of God into the populace. Lenore brings her chair over to my desk, ostensibly to teach me shorthand, but we end up flicking through magazines and eating the chocolate Volker has given us. I try not to, but it really is very good chocolate, creamy and sweet and melts on your tongue. Heaven in a little silver foil packet. The sugar makes us giggly and we end up trading jokes. Lenore tells me a political gag that I never thought could pass her lips.

  “A group of East German ministers are sent on a diplomatic mission to Austria where they are introduced to all sorts of important people. Finally, they meet the head of the Austrian Navy. One minister bursts out laughing. “But you have no coastline!” The Austrian is very offended. ‘How rude. We were very polite when the GDR’s Minister for Trade was introduced.’”

  It’s a very Lenore sort of joke because she does get so annoyed with the shortages, but I’m still scandalized she would tell it. Scandalized and delighted. I start to snort with laughter when I notice that Volker has returned and has stopped dead a few feet away from us. He’s overhead every word and there’s a hard, unfriendly look in his eyes. Lenore makes a little gasping sound when she notices him and her fingers grab mine beneath the desk.

  Volker sits on the edge of her desk, facing us, his legs crossed at the ankles. I feel my spine straighten, ready to defend her, words of protest on my tongue. It was my idea, I made her tell me. I told five jokes just like that you didn’t hear. She didn’t mean anything by it.

  “Why do Stasi officers make such good taxi drivers?”

  My mouth falls open. Volker looks back and forth between us, then leans forward, conspiratorial, and lifts his dark brows once, twice. “Because we know where you live.” He tips back his head and roars with laughter, then goes into his office and closes the door.

  Lenore looks at me, white-faced and bewildered, then buries her face in my shoulder, her body shaking with helpless giggles. I can’t quite believe what just happened.

  Another day Volker comes in from a meeting with his coat slung over his arm and he stops in front of my desk. “Liebling,” he murmurs, so quietly only I can hear. He usually calls me Fräulein Dittmar when there are people around. When I’m alone with him in his office he calls me Evony. I’m rarely in his office, though, as I can’t take dictation without knowing shorthand and I ensure I’m making very slow progress at it.

  When I look up, Volker draws a short-stemmed red rose from a fold of his coat and holds it out to me. A red rose, in January. He must know someone with a greenhouse. “Take it,” he says, a small smile on his lips, but I shake my head. He’ll get angry now, and his eyes will turn black because I’ve refused him. The magazines and chocolates I took at once, if gracelessly, but a rose? I can’t take a rose from him.

  He only smiles, his eyes a tender blue. “It’s for you, take it.”

  As with the softness of his kiss, it’s his gentleness that undoes me. Chewing the corner of my lip, I take the bloom, and as he lets go of the stem his forefinger strokes the length of mine, sending shivers up my arm. “Danke,” he says, just as quietly. He turns to Lenore and in a normal tone of voice says, “And of course there’s one for you.”

  Lenore’s exclamations of thanks are loud and effusive but he waves her off and goes into his office, closing the door. “Aren’t they beautiful?” she says, smiling down at her flower. “I’ve not seen roses like these in years. Herr Oberstleutnant is so good to us.”

  It is a beautiful flower. The petals are vivid red, like blood, and are as soft as the insides of cats’ ears. I look to the window at the far end of the corridor, of which I can see just a sliver. All is leaden and grim beyond the glass. I hold more beauty in my hands than there is in the whole city.

  Lenore finds two small vases for our roses and places mine beside my typewriter. My eyes can’t help but be drawn to it for the rest of the day.

  In the evenings after dinner I try to hide in my room, but from the third day Volker insisted I sit with him in the living room. I’m to read or do anything else I want, but I must remain on the sofa opposite him. I don’t know why, as he ignores me for hours on end, reading over reports which I think must be Stasi intelligence. Occasionally he lifts the telephone at his elbow and makes a call, presumably to one of his colleagues, questioning them about production figures at a factory or the number of new recruits among the border guards. I listen carefully, pretending to read a history of Rome or the Americas, but I don’t learn anything useful. Probably the really interesting work that he does happens behind closed doors where I can’t listen in. It baffles me why he concerns himself with things that seem far beneath him and incredibly tedious. But I begin to realize that Volker is a thorough and methodical man. Thanks to Lenore, I know that the Stasi doesn’t just amass informants and raid the houses of traitors. They do a whole host of things. Gather intel on the West, for instance. Intercept mail and communications, thwart sabotage, investigate suspected dissidents. They guard the Wall and protect government buildings and Party members. They’re responsible for documenting travelers, providing diplomats, liaising with the Soviets, running prisons. Their reach is breath-taking. I had no idea.

  Which one of these was our undoing? I wonder. The Stasi knew we planned to flee through the bakery. How?

  While covertly studying Volker in the evenings I work out that he’s looking for coincidences or inconsistencies, small things that probably don’t mean anything, but might. When he spots something he picks up the phone and arranges for someone to look into it. Despite my dislike of him I have to respect his dedication t
o his work, though I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me that der Mitternachtsjäger is good at his job.

  Every now and then his eyes wander from the typed pages and I catch him watching me, his expression thoughtful. Sometimes he looks at my ankles, crossed together as I read. Sometime it’s my neck as I flex it from one side to another, stiff from sitting still too long. My insides clench with alarm when I see him looking at me, wondering if he’s about to get up and move toward me, but he doesn’t. They’re admiring looks. Softly appreciative. I think it must be the way a man looks at a woman when he wants to touch her, but I don’t know how I know that. It unnerves me, and I find myself wishing that if he did have to look at me he would be a lecher, a groper, so I could tell him how disgusting he is.

  At night I’m sometimes woken by the click of the latch on the front door and I know he’s going out hunting. He always leaves just before midnight and when he’s gone I get up and watch him through the living room window as his uniformed figure retreats down the garden path to his car. The front door is deadlocked and there’s always a guard standing by the gate. I’ve seen from the kitchen window that there’s another in the alleyway out back. Volker is careful.

  When he goes out on these forays he takes his car and drives it himself, but beyond that I have no idea where he goes or what he does. Sometimes I’m still awake when he comes back at two or three or four am. Other nights I fall back asleep and find him standing and reading the paper in the kitchen at half-past seven. He never yawns or appears weary or acknowledges to me that he went out. I covertly study his face, wondering if der Mitternachtsjäger had a successful night or not, but he gives nothing away.

  On Sunday morning, after I’ve been his captive for nine days, I go out to the kitchen very early. It’s so early that Frau Fischer hasn’t come yet and I don’t expect Volker to be up, and he doesn’t seem to be as the apartment is quiet. There are small things moving down in the garden, blackbirds and thrushes whirring through the bare branches. I want a cup of coffee, and I stand yawning by the stove waiting for the kettle to whistle and watch a red squirrel take a few pattering steps over the frozen ground.