by Brianna Hale
It’s a small, old fashioned hotel that’s seen better days but it’s surprisingly cozy once we reach our room. The wallpaper has faded and the carpet doesn’t match, but there’s a fire laid in the grate and once it’s lit it’s quite cheerful in the small room. Reinhardt lays down on the bed with his feet hanging off the edge, not bothering to take his shoes off. He’s tired, I realize. I don’t think he’s slept since he smuggled us out of Germany.
I take a bath, as hot as I can bear, trying to blast the last of the Veronal grogginess out of my system. When I brush my teeth I see that Reinhardt has put my birth control pills into my washbag.
I chew my lip, looking at them. I haven’t taken today’s yet. Wrapping myself in a bath robe I take them into the bedroom. Reinhardt’s still fully clothed and lying on top of the blankets but when I sink down next to him he slides an arm around me and opens his eyes.
“What have you got there, meine kleiner Flüchtling?” My little fugitive.
“My pills.” It’s not that I want to cause him pain but I can’t let things go that are important to me.
He frowns up at me, a hard look in his eyes. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“You also said it was a long time ago. But I think it still haunts you, what happened to Johanna and your child. I saw your face when you saw me holding Frau Fischer’s grandchild. You’re having nightmares about it, aren’t you?”
He reaches up a hand to caress my cheek, looking at me for a long time. He’s not used to this, someone questioning him, pushing him, but I hold his gaze, and finally he gives me a tired smile. “You’re not my captive anymore, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
He gives me a wry look, and then subsides into silence, thinking. When he speaks his voice is soft and far away. “I dream about her sometimes, on that train with our child, bound for the camps. It’s a nightmare but it really happened to her. Lately it’s not her face I see. It’s yours.” He pulls me down into his arms and rolls onto his side. We’re nose to nose, gazing at each other as the fire crackles and pops in the grate. “I would die for you, do you know that? I wouldn’t hesitate.”
I think of the firing squad back in East Berlin. “You were very nearly going to.” You still might.
He searches my face, and I can see the struggle going on behind his eyes. This is already a difficult undertaking for both of us and what I’m asking him will only increase his worries tenfold. Because I can see now that he doesn’t hate the idea of children at all. He loves it, but he’s afraid of that pain all over again.
“It will be dangerous enough, Liebling, even once we get to Sozopol. What if I can’t protect you both?”
Both of us. Me and his child. I don’t know how to answer that because I don’t know what lies ahead for us. We might find haven at Sozopol, or merely more fear and flight.
He takes the pills from me, examining the half-used blister packet, the foil glinting in the low light. “I took you in spite, in greed, in anger. I meant to possess you, consume you, bend you to my will. But I took the wrong girl if I wanted that. I took the girl who stared me down. Who talked back. Who defied me. Who scratched and plotted and fought. She was nothing like I expected and yet she is exactly what I needed.”
He looks at the pills again, and then sits up and throws them into the fire. Together we watch the blister pack bubble and curl in the flames, and then finally disintegrate into ashes. Lying back down he pulls me tightly against his chest. I can feel his heart thumping hard beneath my cheek.
“And she’s far more than I deserve. It’s not a second chance if we’re afraid. I will just have to learn to be as brave as you are, my Valkyrie.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Evony
Crossing from Poland into Ukraine is one of the worst moments of my life. Reinhardt has to stop the car a few miles from the border so I can get out and be sick.
He strokes my hair back from my face and hands me his handkerchief to wipe my mouth, his expression perplexed. “You’re not…already?” He glances at my belly.
Pregnant. It’s been only two days since we burned my pills and I’m fairly certain morning sickness doesn’t begin quite so quickly. “It’s not that. I’m nervous. You know I’m a terrible liar.” I keep repeating our fake names and dates of birth to myself as if there’s going to be a quiz. I’m Alisz Bauer. I’m on holiday with my husband, Franz. There’s nothing strange about us at all.
Reinhardt seems perfectly at ease but then he’s spent years surrounded by guards and soldiers of one sort or another. Uniformed men who are deferential to him, salute him, follow his orders. A very different experience to the average East Berliner.
“You needn’t speak to the guards. You can read a magazine and pretend to be very bored with the whole thing. It’s what they’ll expect.”
“They’ll still have guns and dogs and uniforms. They might have heard there are fugitives from East Berlin at large. They might have a description of us.”
“Ja, possibly. But no one is going to expect us to be trying to get into Ukraine. This is an inner Eastern Bloc border near a small city and the guards are going to be very bored. No excitement, and nothing for us to worry about.”
All the same, before he restarts the engine he produces a pistol and counts the bullets. Pushing the clip back into place he stashes the gun over his head behind the sun visor. Noticing my white face he murmurs, “Just a precaution, Liebling. We shan’t need it.”
As the border looms ahead I grab a magazine out of my bag, bought specially for this purpose. I bury my nose in the pages and pretend to be absorbed in recipes for casserole. There’s no queue at the crossing and Reinhardt pulls smoothly up to the barricade and hands our false passports out the window.
I glance over so the guard can get a look at my face. He’s younger than I am and has the smooth chin of someone who probably hasn’t started shaving yet. But despite his youth he’s still dangerous, and he has a rifle slung over his shoulder and the sight makes the back of my neck prickle. I feel an insane impulse to glance up at the sun visor where the handgun is hidden and immediately look back down at my magazine.
A moment later I feel the car accelerate through the barricade. I hold my breath, straining to hear shouts, gunshots, the sound of a car giving chase, but nothing happens. I drop my magazine into my lap and bury my face in my hands.
“Are you all right?”
I look over at Reinhardt, my expression pained. “How many more of those?”
He takes a hand off the wheel and feels for mine. “Just two, and then we’ll be in Bulgaria. Not long now, I promise.”
It takes us just a few hours to drive southeast though Ukraine and then we pass uneventfully, though stressfully for me, through the Ukraine–Romania border and stop for the night a few miles to the south.
The next day we’re back in the car first thing as we have most of Romania to traverse. As we drive I want to ask Reinhardt to describe Sozopol in detail but I don’t dare. It feels like tempting fate to picture us there too vividly. Do we deserve our happy ending, a Stasi officer and his captor who’s not only forgiven him but fallen in love with him? I want so badly to believe that there is hope for us. Germany has made us bleed, inside and out, and all we have left is each other.
In the afternoon we arrive in a large town just north of the Romanian–Bulgarian border and buy tourist paraphernalia like magazines and cans of sticky orange soda. I’m examining several postcards when beside me I feel Reinhardt stiffen. Without looking up from the German-language newspaper he’s perusing, he murmurs, “Liebling, will you do as I say and don’t ask any questions?”
I look up at him, my heart pounding in my throat. His expression is neutral but a wave of fear sweeps through me.
“Put the magazine back and walk with me. Slowly. Nothing’s wrong.”
He means pretend like nothing’s wrong, because we’re being watched. Even though he’s affecting a relaxed stance I can feel the tension rolling
off him. I dearly want to peer around the town square for the danger he’s spotted but I school my face carefully blank. Is it the Stasi? Is it the Romanian secret police? Romania has its own spies and a regime that’s controlled by the Soviet Union. If the East German authorities have alerted them to the possibility of fugitives then they will work with the Stasi to capture us. It could even be Heydrich himself, following us from country to country, hotel to hotel, dogging every mile, every step we take. Reinhardt’s betrayal must seem like all of his Christmases have come at once and I can imagine the sharp-eyed, smiling captain gloating over the thought of bringing in his hated superior.
We walk along a row of shops and Reinhardt seems to scrutinize the wares for sale. I understand what he’s actually doing—using the reflective glass to look for someone tailing us.
The shopfronts end and Reinhardt takes my hand and murmurs softly, “Next left.” We continue to stroll as if without a care in the world. We reach the street, still walking, and then he squeezes my hand and we duck quickly down the side street. There’s an alleyway parallel to the main street and we turn down that, half walking, half running. A kitchenhand is having a cigarette at the rear of a restaurant and we go in at the kitchen door. Reinhardt calls brisk apologies in Russian to the surprised kitchen staff and we go into the restaurant itself. There are a handful of diners and a surprised waiter, but Reinhardt ignores them and takes us upstairs where there’s more seating. The room is dark and silent and clearly not open for dining at this moment, but when the waiter follows us up Reinhardt pretends not to understand and he and the confused man converse in stilted Russian about the menu for several minutes.
While they’re busy I think what I can do to help us lose this tail. I’m wearing a bright green scarf and I take it off and surreptitiously stuff it behind a pot plant. Then I pull the pins out of my hair so it’s hanging down my back, take off my cardigan and stuff it and my handbag into an empty shopping tote. It’s not much but it might help. There’s nothing to be done about Reinhardt’s white shirt and tan trousers. He hasn’t even got a coat he can put on.
Finally the waiter gets angry and we have to go back downstairs. I stop Reinhardt before we reach the front door. “We shouldn’t leave together. If there’s someone following us they’ll be looking for a couple.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“You know that’s not the right thing to do. It’s safer if we split up.” I know nothing of the sort, I’m only guessing, but the flicker in his eyes tells me I’m right.
Finally, he says, “All right. The pond on the outskirts of town as we were coming in. Head there and hide in the bushes, and don’t come out until you hear me. I’ll whistle.”
I nod, feeling sick but determined, hoping that this isn’t going to be the last time I see him and we get out of this town alive and with our freedom.
He seems to be thinking the same thing as he pulls me close and kisses me hard. “Be careful, Liebling.” But the kiss is more than just a kiss, and I feel something heavy drop into my tote.
“The safety’s on,” he murmurs in my ear, and I realize he’s given me his pistol. “Flick it off as soon as you get into the bushes and shoot anyone who tries to come near you.”
I nod and then head outside, walking quickly up the street. My neck prickles with awareness, the weight of the gun in my bag feeling like a live bomb. Is there someone following me even now? Reinhardt could have been mistaken and someone might have been watching us out of boredom or curiosity. But when it comes to spy craft and surveillance I trust his judgment, and it’s better to be safe.
A cold breeze is blowing and I push a hand through my curls to get them out of my face. As I do I glance over my shoulder, and my heart thuds painfully. There is someone following me, a man in a dark brown coat about forty meters back. It’s not Heydrich, but didn’t I see someone very like this man in the town while we were buying postcards? Don’t I recognize that gray hat? I walk faster, and the pond and the scrubby park are just a short distance away. Do I dare turn now? The road curves a little and I take my chance, hoping I’m hidden from view for a moment, and dive into the bushes. They’re thick and woody evergreens and they scratch my face and bare arms, but I plunge in deeper and crouch down, breathing hard. I can’t see the road. I can’t see anything in fact, so hopefully no one can see me.
There’s nothing but silence for several minutes and then I hear someone moving through the long grass and I go weak with relief. I nearly stand up and call out for Reinhardt before I remember. Whoever it is isn’t whistling, and I clamp my hands over my mouth, horrified that I nearly gave myself away. Whoever it is walks up and down for a moment, as if they’re looking for something. Or someone. Maybe it’s just a dog walker but I feel in the pit of my stomach that it’s the man in the brown coat.
Silence falls, the minutes ticking on and on. What if Reinhardt’s been caught? What if there was more than one person on our tail? The gun is shaking in my white-knuckled hands, and then I remember that I haven’t turned the safety off. I turning the weapon over in my hands, looking for the button, when I hear it. Whistling. I nearly let out a sob of relief.
“I’m here,” I call in a cracked whisper, and then I’m plunging through the bushes, see Reinhardt, and fall into his arms. He takes my bag and holds me for a moment.
“It’s all right. Come on.” He kisses my temple and I let go of him. We walk quickly across the scrubby field, away from the road and the town. “I took so long because I had to drive around the backroads and park on the far side,” he explains. “I don’t think I was followed.”
“I think I was.” And I tell him about the man I saw.
“Yes, that’s who was watching us in the square,” he says grimly.
“But why would someone be following us? If the Stasi are after us why wouldn’t they just arrest us?”
The car’s parked beneath the branches of a spreading oak on a narrow lane, and we get in before Reinhardt answers. “Because Heydrich is waiting for us to defect, not merely to run. He wants to be sure that he’s got me on a serious charge before he makes his move. We’ve confused him by traveling east.”
The flesh at the back of my neck creeps. So he does believe that it’s Heydrich who’s after us. “But we’ve fled East Berlin together. Surely that’s traitorous enough.”
He turns the ignition and starts driving. “For you, yes. But he doesn’t understand why I’ve gone with you. If he arrests me now I might come up with all sorts of plausible reasons why we’re together. I could say that you have valuable intelligence and this has been a long, elaborate interrogation; I’m using you as bait to catch your escaped friends; or I’m not travelling with you, I’m pursuing you. He knows how much I’m trusted within the Ministry and how it could come down to my word against his. It’s not you he wants to arrest. It’s me.”
“Is he here, do you think? Was he in that town?”
Reinhardt glances into the rearview mirror. We’re the only car on this winding road. “I don’t know.”
I chew my thumbnail, thinking. “We can’t keep going into Bulgaria now. That man will be reporting into Heydrich right now if he is who you think he is.”
Reinhardt thinks, a muscle in his jaw flexing. “This is a Soviet aligned border on both sides. The security will be minimal.”
I gape at him. “You can’t be serious. After what just happened? They’ll be waiting for us. Heydrich himself might be there.”
“Then I’ll wring his goddamn neck,” he growls.
“Murdering Heydrich isn’t going to stop the rest of the Stasi from coming after us.” He doesn’t want to double back, I realize. We pass through a small town in silence and then get onto a main road that winds through some hills. On a bend, Reinhardt pulls the car to a halt, peering through the trees.
“What is it?” I ask.
He nods at the next bend. There are some people in the road ahead. “That’s a roadblock.”
“Are you—”
<
br /> But Reinhardt’s already reversing the car in a tight three-point turn and racing back up the hill.
“Do you think it was for us?” I ask.
“Maybe.”
My heart is pounding hard again and I’m starting to feel dizzy from the adrenaline pounding through my body. Nowhere’s safe. We’re pinned between that roadblock and the town. Reinhardt accelerates, and I look over at him. There’s a gleam of hard determination in his eyes.
“What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking about that black car we passed a few miles back.”
Fear clutches me anew. “Are we being followed?”
“No. There was no one in it. I want us to do something very brazen, Liebling. Are you willing?”
I don’t want to do anything of the kind but I know it’s either this or capture. “Tell me what I need to do.”
We leave the Skoda behind an abandoned barn and walk with our bags along a lane. I wait a little ways back from the road while Reinhardt goes to investigate the black car. He puts the gun into my hand again before he leaves and I look at it with distaste. Could I even use it if I needed to? I’ve never even fired a gun in my life, let alone at someone.
Reinhardt’s gone a long time, and I feel my belly rumble despite the anxiety of the afternoon. It’s been a long day already. There’s a can of orange soda in my bag and I drink half of the warm, sickly sweet beverage, hoping the sugar will even out my nerves.
Eventually I hear a car engine, and I stiffen. It’s a black car, and I breathe with relief when I see Reinhardt behind the wheel. I jump up and put our bags into the trunk, but he doesn’t let me close it. Instead, he opens his case and I watch as he changes into his Stasi uniform. “You brought it with you,” I say as he fits the cap over his head. It’s him, I think with a shiver. It’s der Mitternachtsjäger.
“Ja, Liebling. I thought it might come in useful.” He takes a length of rope from his case and holds it up. “I think you ought to be tied up for this.”
