Midnight Hunter

by Brianna Hale

  I gaze at the rows of files and archive boxes. All these Stasi records filled with secrets about the people of East Berlin. Gossip. Overheard conversations. Traitors. I think I understand what he was trying to tell me just now when he showed me the photograph of the Schäfer family. They were separated by the political turmoil between the East and West, just as he was separated from Johanna during the war. He can’t think of people like Frau Schäfer as his enemy because he saw his own pain reflected in her eyes.

  “I thought you were taking me to prison.”

  Grim humor returns to his face. “Take you to prison because you refused to tell me you love me?”

  I wonder if he’s going to press me again to say it now. He hasn’t even said it himself. What would it sound like, if he did? I can hear the words so clearly. Ich liebe dich. I love you. “It seems like something you would do.”

  Reinhardt laughs softly. “Remember what I told you? I’m not letting you go. Not for anything.” He kisses me fiercely amid all these papers, these secrets, and I think I can taste the words in his mouth.

  ∞ ∞ ∞

  From that night I go to him willingly and we take to spending hours in bed, ignoring meal times and likely scandalizing Frau Fischer. I didn’t know it was possible to want a man this much, to crave his lips on my throat, his heavy body on mine. To need him again and again like a drug. He shows me things I didn’t know my body could do, orgasms that string on and on, one after the other, as he bears down on a spot deep inside me with his fingers until I’m weak and shaking. He pulls me up and astride him, showing me how I can take the lead, my hands pressed against his chest as I slowly ease down on his length. He watches me like he’s never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

  Even after the most intense lovemaking I return to my own bedroom at night, making excuses about why I can’t stay as I extricate myself from his arms. I can’t sleep here. I’m not ready. Please be patient. He takes me at my word, kissing me before reluctantly letting me go. I worry that he’ll grow impatient and go into my room later to find me gone, but he’s too pleased by my surrender to seek me out, or even to question why I won’t spend the whole night in his bed.

  I don’t dare fall asleep in arms. He lets me go because it matters to him that I love him, out of—what? Pride? Desire? Need for forgiveness? I can’t tell, but this knowledge worms its way deep inside. It possesses me through the long hours sitting in the cold Trabant and keeps me awake when I return to my bed. Those three little words lay like a rich liquor on my tongue and I can feel them waiting to trap me here in his arms, in East Berlin, forever.

  In the mornings he lets himself into my room and kisses me awake, warm from the shower and smelling like fresh cologne and shaving cream. My arms wind around his neck and I smile up at him, lost in his blue eyes. We greet each other like continents have come between us in the night.

  I don’t know what to do, so I keep doing what I was before. I follow him at night. I watch him covertly as he drinks his morning coffee. As he rides beside me in the car on the way to Stasi HQ. As he works silently in the evening over his reports. I daydream about going to his bed and slipping my arms around his naked body. Murmuring those words against his mouth in the heavy darkness. Reinhardt, I love you. Hearing him whisper them back, fiercely exultant that I’m finally his, rolling me beneath him, pressing me down into the oblivion of the mattress. It would all be over. The heartache, the fear, the sneaking around and spying.

  I would be his. I want to be his. I admit it.

  But the sight of my city always puts an end to this fantasy. The second I see the Wall I feel the familiar hatred rise up, for this cruel division, for the Party, for the people in power in the West and East who make their citizens suffer for their ideologies. Loving Reinhardt means staying here forever, and doing so would eventually drive such poison into my heart that any shred of happiness I might find in his arms would be destroyed.

  I watch him as he shares a cigarette with the border guards at Checkpoint Charlie at one am, feeling like a jealous wife tailing her unfaithful husband, except that what has come between us isn’t another person, but this city and our roles in it. Stasi officer and traitor. I have what I need to get myself out of East Berlin. He gave it to me himself, his confession that he too is a traitor to the Party. But to save myself I have to betray him.

  Maybe he was lying about helping Frau Schäfer and others like her escape to the to West. I only have his word.

  And then, one night, I see what I’ve been waiting for.

  It’s nearly midnight when Reinhardt finally leaves the apartment. I can sense there’s something different about this night almost right away. He walks a little faster, his glance up and down the street is a shade more intense. I start the Trabi engine and follow him.

  He goes not to a checkpoint or one of his other haunts, but to an apartment building, and parks in a rear laneway in the shadows. I watch as he goes inside, and comes back a few minutes later with a young woman, a small boy clutching her hand. I don’t get a good look at her as Reinhardt’s large coat is covering her head and body, shielding her from prying eyes. She gets into the trunk of his car with the child and Reinhardt tucks the coat over them. He puts a finger to his lips, a warning for the boy, and closes the trunk quietly but firmly.

  He drives to Checkpoint Charlie and the border guards recognize his car, his face, and wave him indifferently through. I hang far back and watch his taillights disappear into the West, and then I drive back to the apartment.

  The next morning I wait for him to tell me what he’s done. He’ll want me to know that he’s been merciful, to prove to me what a good person he is. But he says nothing, merely dropping a kiss onto my mouth as I take my seat, and then drinking his coffee and reading his newspaper as if this was any other morning. I watch him through my lashes as I stir cream into my coffee, my stomach roiling. I have what I need, proof with my own eyes that Reinhardt is betraying the Party. Coupled with what I know about Frau Schäfer’s escape I’ve got more than enough to secure my passage to the West and to bring down der Mitternachtsjäger once and for all.

  Today, at last, is the day. No more excuses. But I find I can’t look at Reinhardt as we drive to HQ.

  Sitting at my desk around eleven I hear whistling. I make myself wait a few minutes before casually reaching for the stack of filing I’ve been saving up and head for the filing cabinets. I don’t have to wait very long. Out of the corner of my eye I see Peter’s freckled hands sorting through the mail.

  “Have you found anything?” he asks softly.

  I’ve rehearsed the conversation. I’ll tell Peter that Reinhardt has been betraying the State to get citizens out of East Berlin. Peter will pass the information onto his contacts and they’ll see that it reaches the ears of someone high up in the Stasi. Perhaps Reinhardt’s Oberst, or even the Chairman himself. Reinhardt will be arrested and I will be whisked away to the safety of the West. I can feel the consequences of my actions spreading like black ink across wet paper. Unstoppable, inevitable.

  I open my mouth and hear my rueful, apologetic voice. “I’ve managed to tail him several times but he hasn’t gone anywhere significant yet. Most nights he just seems to talk to the border guards.” A red flush creeps up my neck and I look away.

  Peter thumps the handle of his cart. “He’s clever, setting up innocent reasons for being out at night. But don’t worry, he’ll deviate from this eventually and then we’ll have him. Any luck finding things in his apartment?”

  I don’t want to admit that I haven’t been brave enough to search Reinhardt’s room so I shake my head.

  Peter looks downcast, but then he gives me a smile. “Not to worry, you will. And then I’ll be able to get you out.”

  His quiet assurance drives a nail of guilt through me. Why am I drawing this out? Why not just say it now? Reinhardt needs to go to prison and I need to get to out of East Berlin. But then, I still don’t know where my father is. I take the stack of letters that P
eters proffers and say, “There’s someone I’m looking for. A friend. Could you use your network to find out where he is?”

  Peter looks surprised. “I can try. What’s their name?” I give him Dad’s full name and date of birth. “When did he go missing?”

  “January.”

  “Do you know precisely when?”

  I hesitate. I don’t like the idea of everyone in Peter’s network, including possible informants, having information that identifies me. “I’m not sure. We didn’t see each other at all that month.”

  “All right. Sometime in January. But you really will have to give me something in return. My people won’t act for nothing and they’re getting impatient with you. But I know you’re doing your best,” he adds hastily.

  I remember the sight of Frau Schäfer weeping in the street. It’s all I have. Reinhardt would do whatever it takes to get what he wants. You have to be the same.

  I look into Peter’s expectant eyes. “Oberstleutnant Volker…has a lover in the West. His housekeeper told me.” I want to kick myself. This is what I’m telling Peter? I stopped thinking this was possible long ago.

  Peter looks doubtful. “Well, we’ll look into it. Thank you, Evony. I know together we’ll be able to get this done, and then we can get you out of here.”

  He walks away whistling, his cart squeaking. I want to slam the nearest filing cabinet closed. The information that Reinhardt has betrayed the State could have got me out of East Berlin and surely curried me enough favor with Peter’s group for them to discover where my father is. It’s all I want, and yet I told him that ridiculous rumor of Frau Fischer’s instead.

  In the afternoon Reinhardt calls me into his office to dictate a letter and when he’s finished I don’t leave. I go around the desk and stand before my lover. I’ll tell Peter tomorrow. Let me feel Reinhardt against me just one more time. I will drink my fill of him. What we have comes along just once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky to find it at all, and we found it in the most unlikely place, scarred by a Wall, by bullets, by razor wire. I sink down between his thighs and reach for the belt on his trousers. He watches me, transfixed, as I take him out and lick the length of him. I suck the tip of his cock slowly, caressing him with my tongue and then take him into my mouth. His hands slide into my hair, cupping my head, and he lets out a soft moan.

  “Evony, Liebling.” I can feel his eyes on me, wondering at my audacity, my willingness. I’ve never done this before but I like it, having him at my mercy for a change, and when I feel the fierce ache between my legs I understand why he enjoys doing the same to me so much.

  His breathing has become shallow and rapid and he’s hot and swollen in my mouth when there’s a knock on his office door and the sound of someone turning the handle. I start, because with Lenore outside I thought we were safe from intruders. Reinhardt swears and pushes me beneath his desk. It sits flush against the floor which means whoever’s entering won’t see me hiding underneath.

  Trapped in the cramped space I consider sitting quietly, waiting for whoever it is to leave, but something wicked steals over me and I put out my tongue and lick him, and then take him in my mouth again. Reinhardt’s voice hitches and I expect him to push me away, but he doesn’t. As he talks I slide the length of him to the back of my throat, pushing him as deep as I can and rubbing him with my tongue. I tease him, lick him, suck him, while he carries on a conversation about a Party delegation trip to Romania. I feel myself growing very aroused, and my mouth works his length lovingly. As I take him all the way down to my throat again and I hear him fumble for his cigarettes, the flick of the lighter and then a long, slow exhalation. I shake with silent laughter and his legs around me tighten in warning.

  Finally, the person leaves. The door clicks, and Reinhardt pushes back from his desk with a shuddering gasp and drags me up by the elbows. His eyes burn furiously into mine. “You little minx.”

  I lick my lips and smile up at him, not in the least sorry. He turns me and pushes me facedown over his desk and rucks my skirt up, exposing my behind. I’m half moaning, half laughing softly as he yanks my underwear to one side.

  “Is it amusing to you, trying your best to make me come while I’m having a meeting?”

  I feel the tip of his cock pressing against my sex, sliding through the wetness that has gathered there.

  I open my legs wider and look back at him, goading him, wanting him furious so that he fucks me hard and fast like I need him to.

  “Yes, Reinhardt.”

  He growls, and then thrusts hard, and I have to cover my mouth to keep from crying out so loudly that the whole of HQ will hear me. The tight angle of his thrusts and being bent over his desk inflames me and I press back against his hard, hungry strokes. Needing more of him. Needing everything.

  He fucks me with the fast, selfish strokes of a man who’s been driven to the brink of madness. He wants me to feel what I’ve done to him, half punishing, half admiring. There’s nothing gentle about the way he’s pinned me down and I know I’ll feel this tomorrow. I want to feel this tomorrow.

  He grips the nape of my neck, the weight of him trapping me exactly where I want to be. The sensations build, white-hot and overwhelming, and I bury my face in my arms as I come, struggling to remain silent, my climax going on and on, pushed higher with his every thrust. I hear him smother his own groan of release, and he presses as deep as he can, his seed spurting as he comes.

  We’re both out breath in the aftermath and he helps me woozily up. “Mein süsses Mädchen.” My sweet girl. We perch on the edge of his desk, limbs tangled, breaths merging. I rest the full weight of my heart against him and close my eyes.

  He’ll soon be in a cold cell in Hohenschönhausen. I flinch, and hide my face in his shoulder. This knowledge will be a shard of ice deep inside me once I am in the West, this lion of a man, put in a cage.

  “What’s wrong, Liebling?” he asks, caressing my cheek.

  I force a smile and shake my head, and after straightening my clothes and giving him a final kiss I go back to my desk. Lenore is dabbing at a damp patch on her skirt and frowning.

  “I dropped a whole glass of water in my lap and had to go to the restroom for paper towels. Can you believe it?”

  I give her a sympathetic smile and slip behind my desk.

  That night is my last night and I’m too restless to sleep, so I leave my room yet again to tail Reinhardt. I think I just want to see him, be with him, in this strange, watchful way. I climb up through the trapdoor at ten-forty-five and pick my way carefully along the rafters to the empty apartment, and the routine of it is soothing.

  I’m careful to keep to the shadows cast by high walls and spreading trees. The Trabant is parked two streets away and I’m fishing the keys out of my pocket when a movement out of the corner of my eye snares my attention. I look up and see the glowing red tip of a cigarette. Someone exhales slowly, letting out a plume of gray-blue smoke that catches in the streetlight. A voice speaks out of the darkness.

  “Guten Abend, Fräulein Daumler. You are out very late.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Evony

  Reinhardt steps out of the shadows, his manner ostentatiously casual as he drops his cigarette onto the ground and grinds it out with his boot. His gaze rakes me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head. But he’s not casual, or even calm. There’s fury burning in his eyes.

  “How long?” he asks.

  How long have I been sneaking out to spy on him. I swallow, my mouth dry. “Since you… Since we first went to bed together.”

  He nods slowly, his eyes dropping to the pavement but not before I see bitterness and disappointment flash through them. He believed what I told him with my body. That I was his, always. I never wanted to look into his eyes and see the painful knowledge that I’ve betrayed him.

  “How did you find me out?”

  “Too many rats in the roof. Interesting patterns in the dust in apartment 12E. Anyone else would think it was the Stasi and ig
nored it.” He takes a casual step toward me, the white light from the streetlamp shifting over the planes of his face. “But I’m the Stasi around here.”

  He holds a hand out for the car keys and I hand them over. “Danke, Liebling. Shall we go back inside?”

  He grips me firmly by the upper arm, his hand like cold iron, and marches me along the street back to the apartment. For a moment he slows, peering up at the attics above the terraced apartments, tracing the path of my escape route. He nods and says to himself, “Ja, very clever.”

  Inside he gestures to the sofas. I sit, hands folded in my lap while he stands before me. I remember that first night, sitting in this exact spot, cold and afraid and feeling all the horror of the unknown. I feel it again now because this isn’t me telling him I can’t love him because of the things he’s done. This is a betrayal of the first order.

  “Why follow me, Evony? You know why I go out at night.”

  I don’t meet his eyes. “I only know what you tell me.”

  “Where did you get the car?”

  “I stole it.” I don’t care what happens to me anymore but I have to be careful not to betray Peter and his group. I won’t drag them down with me just because I was too stupid not to get out while I could.

  I’m not sure he believes me, but he leaves the question of the car aside and says, “If I wanted Frau Schäfer to be in prison she would be in prison. Instead she is in the West, safe and happy with her family. Why didn’t you ask for more proof if you didn’t believe me?”

  “I wanted to see for myself. I had no choice.”

  Anger flashes across his face. “You could have chosen to believe me.”

  “Why should I? I have been your prisoner for months. You have all the power and I have none.”

  “Oh, you have no power? The girl who has betrayed me, lied to me, made me think that she loves me so cunningly that I can taste it every time I kiss her even if she won’t say it. And now I find she’s creeping out to spy on me.” He crouches down on his haunches, his face close to mine as he studies me. “Have I been mistaken and you have been pretending this whole time? Do you want to spit in my face, Evony, and tell me you have enjoyed playing me for the fool?”