The guards finally started letting people through, but only one at a time. It was like trying to release the pressure on a levee by letting out the water, one single drop at a time. This checkpoint was not a place for anyone with claustrophobia. There were no gaps between bodies as the crowd surged forward with nowhere to go. People began to spill out of the containment, filling up the area where cars were idling in line. The cars stretched beyond sight, but East Berliners were used to lines. If they could wait in line for hours for bananas, which were available only once or twice a year, they could wait in line for a taste of freedom.
A man next to Stefan ripped up his passport and shouted, “Freedom doesn’t need papers! Freedom doesn’t need papers!” In no time, the area for cars was overrun with people, although there remained a narrow channel for the vehicles to come through. Stefan let the current of humanity carry him into this spillway, where the only border barrier was a knee-high candy-striped bar. On the other side of the bar were a handful of befuddled guards, unsure of how to handle the swelling masses. A man reached out and clapped one of the guards on the shoulder—a friendly gesture.
The chanting picked up again. “OPEN! OPEN! OPEN!” Whistling. Waving. Two-finger peace signs rose up from the crowd. The vast majority of people at the front were men, with a scattering of women; and the roar became deafening, explosive, and Stefan began to wonder if he could be trampled or crushed. It happened at football games. Why not here?
“We will come back! We will come back! We will come back!” Thousands of voices filled the night air. Suddenly, one of the border guards shoved a curly-haired young man, pushing him backward with two hands on the chest. The man shoved back, then retreated a few steps, and the confrontation sizzled out.
“This is insanity! Let us out! We will come back!” the curly-haired man shouted, gesturing with his right hand.
Another burst of chanting arose from the crowd. “We will come back! We will come back! We will come back!”
Stefan wondered if that was true. If the borders opened wide, would the East Berliners really come back? That was why the powers that be put up the Wall in the first place—to keep East Germans from fleeing to the West and never coming back. The Wall was a tourniquet to stop the bleeding.
Stefan was only ten feet from the border barriers, and he was packed in tightly, elbows hitting him in the side, people rising on their tiptoes to keep their head above water. For a moment, he felt the crush of the crowd, and he wondered if this orderly throng was about to lose control.
Then just like that, the guards gave up. Someone must have finally decided it was ridiculous trying to check passports, one at a time, when tens of thousands of people were shoving their way forward. So the Vopos pushed aside the barriers and let the people go without bothering with the formalities of inspecting passports. They broke the levee, and Stefan was swept along by the surge of citizens pouring through the gap. An enormous roar went up from the crowd as they flooded westward across the border and into West Berlin, people pumping their arms in the air, people jumping for joy, people clapping, people whistling. Border guards stood off to the side, arms behind their backs, watching with confused and forlorn looks on their faces. The guards’ world had split apart, but Stefan’s world had just opened up. He started running, dodging people on all sides, screaming for joy.
“Ole, ole, ole!” sang a group of men, waving a German flag. “Ole Germany!”
The streets of Berlin filled with people, with cars, with noise, with champagne—a street party of epic proportions. The harsh separations were being erased, at least for one glorious night. Stefan was the happiest he had felt in a long, long time.
The next few days were like a dream to Stefan, to everyone really. Strangers would walk up to fellow strangers and hug them. There was dancing, singing, people playing violins and accordions, people drumming. Comrades from the East marched up to government buildings and hurled curses at the windows. Families were reunited. Barbed wire was ripped from fences running alongside the Wall and left in piles. Stefan walked by one man handing out pieces of barbed wire molded into the shape of hearts. Soldiers and police who had held the people in check through fear and intimidation only days before were now powerless. Many of the GDR soldiers joined the celebrations, reveling in the unified relief that it was over, finally over. Lines of East German cars—the Trabis—inched toward the Western border, belching smoke. People stood on all sides, cheering and throwing confetti or patting the tiny cars on their tops as they passed, the way one would pat a footballer on the back after a great victory. It was a parade. It was a circus. It was a rock concert. It was a dance.
Stefan was at Potsdamer Platz during the dark early morning hours of November 12 when authorities started pulling down large sections of the Wall. Potsdamer Platz was a public square in the heart of Berlin, just south of the Brandenburg Gate, and it had been severed in half by the Wall. But no more. Under the harsh glare of lights, a vertical slab of the Wall, about five feet wide, was pulled down by crews on the eastern side. Cheers erupted from the massive crowd as a soldier from the East stepped through the gap and shook hands with a Western soldier. Stefan stood on the western side, trying to get a better look. A woman, a stranger, grabbed him by the arm, turned him around, and planted a champagne-soaked kiss on his lips. They hugged, and she told him she loved him, and then she disappeared into the crowd.
A construction worker was perched on the top of the Wall with a power saw, slicing into the concrete, sending a narrow stream of sparks shooting off toward the West like fireworks. He sliced the piece from top to bottom, and then a crane lifted the slab and whisked it away like a giant tombstone. Camera flashes were a continuous photographic electrical storm. The gap in the Wall had become wider; the concrete had parted like the Red Sea, and the crowd surged through. Some climbed up the Wall and straddled it. One man stood up and walked it like a tightrope, for the top of the Wall at this location was rounded and difficult to stand up on—unlike at the Brandenburg Gate, where the top of the Wall was flat and Berliners perched on it by the hundreds.
On all sides, Stefan heard so many different languages, for it seemed as if all of Europe had descended on Berlin and everyone was out on the streets, talking, whistling, playing their radios, and setting off fireworks. Stefan saw a West German soldier exchange hats with an East German soldier. A group of college kids shot water pistols at each other, and one of the streams hit Stefan in the face. It wasn’t water, he discovered. They were shooting beer at each other.
People lined the Wall, chipping away with hammers, and some had broken all the way through, creating peepholes to the East. Someone handed Stefan a hammer, and he began chipping away and stuffing his pockets with small concrete souvenirs. Then he passed the hammer on to someone else.
Die Wende was on everyone’s mind. Die Wende. The Turn. The country was turning, the world was turning, and Stefan decided that he would turn as well. By Sunday evening, November 12, he had made a decision. He would clean the slate; he would tear down everything that separated him from his friends and family. And he would begin by getting in touch with people he had betrayed. No more secrets. No more emotional espionage. He would tell them everything. He would confess it all. He would cast out his demons. He would pour out every secret, like spilling open a sack of poisonous snakes and setting them ablaze.
On the spur of the moment, he tried to contact three people he had hurt over the years because of his work for the Stasi. He suggested that they meet on Monday night at a café, where he had every intention of confessing to them. But come Monday, not one of them showed up, and he couldn’t blame them. If he had been contacted out of the blue by someone who had betrayed him, would he want to meet with that person?
Still, Stefan felt the pressure building. Years and years of working as an informer for the Stasi pressed on his mind with all of the force of the East Berlin crowd that pushed on the border crossing three nights earlier. He needed release, just one word of forgiveness. If h
e didn’t confess to someone, he would lose his mind.
He walked down a side street in West Berlin, hands jammed in his pockets and head down. He had a sense of being followed, but he always had that feeling. Living all his life in the East, he never felt truly alone, knowing there could always be someone right behind him, someone on the other end of his phone line, someone watching his coming and going from the apartment building. Every apartment building had been assigned a set of eyes and ears.
Stefan stopped in front of a church—St. John’s Catholic Church. His father had taken him to the Catholic church when he was very young, so he knew the door was probably left open. On a whim, he hustled up the stairs and entered the darkness. He stood in the foyer for a minute, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the dark. On the far side of the sanctuary, near the altar, he saw the sanctuary lamp glowing red, like a beating heart in the darkness. He remembered the priest telling him that the light symbolized Christ’s eternal presence—ever constant, for the light was never extinguished. What did the priest say? The beeswax was Christ’s body, the wick was his soul, and the flame was his divinity, never extinguished.
Off to the left side was a row of votive candles—small white candles that one lit as a prayer for someone. Stefan reached into his pocket and pulled out a matchbook. Then he went over to the candles, hoping this would bring him some sense of peace. He lit three candles, one for each of the people he had hoped to meet this evening. Then he stared at each of the three candles, one by one, sending his prayers for them into the darkness.
Stefan turned and strode across the sanctuary, his shoes clicking on the marble, and he slid into one of the front pews. He pulled down the kneeler with a clunk, knelt down, and bowed his head. The guilt continued to weigh on him, and he wanted so badly to be free of the constant crush of remorse. His secrets were malignant, and he had to speak them, had to cast them out. He raised his head and wiped away a single tear.
Still no relief. As he stood up, with every intention of leaving the church, he spotted the confessional along the side of the sanctuary. He thought about how the Stasi had their own version of the sacraments. Instead of baptism, they put you in a room so narrow that you could only stand, and then they filled the room with ice-cold water up to your chin. And instead of voluntary confession, they took you to a small room and kept you awake until you broke apart and told everything. Bless me, Fatherland, for I have sinned . . .
Stefan was drawn to the confessional, a structure made of dark wood and topped by a carving of two horses with an angel in the middle. It had two booths—one for the priest and one for the confessor. The priest’s booth could be accessed through a curtain, while the confessor’s booth had a door. So Stefan eased open the door, slipped inside the musty-smelling booth, and got down on his knees. Maybe this would work. Maybe confessing directly to God would bring relief. In front of his face was an opaque glass through which the priest’s disembodied voice would normally address him. He remembered this detail from when he was a boy. Tonight the window was dark, for there was no one on the other side, but he didn’t need a priest. He simply needed to speak and exhale his sins into the air.
“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned,” he said out loud, remembering the old familiar way of beginning his confession. He took a breath and felt a sob building. “I informed on my friends,” he said, his voice cracking. “I betrayed my friends. Forgive me.”
Suddenly, he felt a presence. Was it God? An angel? A priest? Maybe he was going insane, but he felt as if something or somebody was on the other side of the wooden wall, inside the priest’s booth. The notion scared him, but it also thrilled him in a strange way.
“I informed on my wife,” Stefan said. “Ex-wife, but you know that. Forgive me.”
Speaking the words felt so good. The truth shall set you free.
“I spied on Katarina when she was a student in the East. Forgive me.”
Did he hear a slight movement in the priest’s booth? Who was there?
“I spied on Elsa when she was a student too. Forgive me.”
Stefan closed his eyes and bowed his head.
“I framed a minister, giving him gasoline for his car, gasoline that had been stolen, setting him up for an arrest. Forgive me.”
He felt his heart quicken, and his words spilled out. His sins poured out of him, into the darkness.
“I will speak the truth, and the truth shall set me free.”
Stefan opened his eyes and stared directly into the small opaque window that separated his booth from the priest’s booth. Was that a shadow moving on the other side of the glass? He was nearly shouting by now.
“For my penance, I will tell the truth. I will—”
The glass exploded, and the confessional lit up with lightning. Sparks flew inside his head, like the sparks from the saw cutting into the Wall. He felt himself falling, hitting the ground, and he smelled the acrid odor of gunpowder. He tried to breathe, but the air barely came. He couldn’t hear anything but a humming in his ears. He had lost his hearing! He touched his head and felt blood and mangled flesh. The liquid pouring across his face was blood, his own blood. His skull had been split, separating bone, creating a breach. The walls had fallen, and Stefan felt himself crossing a border. He crumpled on the floor of the confessional in a twisted heap, trying to move, trying to find the door handle. Bless me, Father, for I have sinned . . . The truth shall set me free. Is this freedom?
Stefan went blind, and he reached for the handle of the door, but he couldn’t find it, so he just pawed the dark. Collapsing onto his back, he thrashed and kicked at the door, trying to smash it open, trying to stay alive through sheer willpower and fury. Then he heard movement, someone inside the priest’s booth.
“Who’s there?” he called out. “Why did you do this?”
No answer. He felt himself going, sliding away like melted wax. Then light poured into his head, light poured through the breach, the crack in the Wall, expanding and exploding his mind.
8
Berlin
April 2003
Annie stared at the reconstructed document, shaken. Whoever had filed this report knew that Stefan Hansel had been murdered during the evening hours of Monday, November 13, 1989. The person even knew the murderer, who was simply identified by seven numbers: 5839392. Annie was shocked by the enormity of the secrets that could suddenly jump out at her amid all of the trivia in these files.
“Something wrong?” Kurt asked.
Annie snapped out of it. “I’m fine . . . fine. It’s just . . . I don’t know. Can I ask you a question about the contents of this file?”
“I guess it all depends on the question. Is it a broad question, something that wouldn’t give away too much about the people in your document?”
“Actually . . . it is.”
“Then I see no problem.”
“It’s just . . . I don’t know . . . If I come across a document that mentions a murder, should I take this information to another level?”
Kurt’s eyebrows shot up. “Murder? What kind of file have you stumbled across?”
Annie didn’t know how to answer without disclosing too much. Kurt quickly added, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to probe. I was just a little surprised by your discovery.”
“I know we’re supposed to bring anything that involves public figures to Herr Adler’s attention. But I wasn’t sure how to deal with a murder report. I don’t think this person, the murdered man, was a public figure.”
“If the murder happened in the ’60s or ’70s, the case must be colder than the Cold War itself,” Kurt said.
“Actually, it was a little more recent—1989.” Annie didn’t think it could hurt to mention a specific year.
“Oh.” Kurt leaned back in his chair and scratched the side of his head as he pondered. “I’d mention it to Herr Adler just to be on the safe side. There’s no statute of limitations on murder. This is important.”
“You’re probably right. I should bring this to Herr A
dler.”
“But you’ll have to do it tomorrow. He’s out of the office today.”
“Right. Thanks.”
Annie returned to work, but she couldn’t shake her thoughts loose from Stefan Hansel. So she strolled down the hall to pick up some more rolls of double-stick tape—an essential tool in their reconstruction efforts. The authorities were trying to come up with a system for reassembling these documents by computer; but for now, it was the old-fashioned way. Jigsaw know-how and lots of sticky tape.
On the way back, she couldn’t resist. She dashed into the break room, where another can of Pepsi awaited her in the refrigerator.
“Guten Tag,” Annie called out to Frau Holtzmann and Frau Kortig, who sat at one of the three round tables in the break room.
“Guten Tag,” said Frau Holtzmann, while Frau Kortig just smiled her greeting and looked back down at the crossword puzzle she was doing. Frau Holtzmann and Frau Kortig had separate offices right next to Annie’s.
The two women made an odd pair. Frau Kortig was a quiet middle-aged woman with curly blonde hair and fair skin, and she usually wore dowdy dresses. She had barely said a word to Annie in the past two months. Frau Holtzmann was a stocky woman in her thirties, and her short hair was fire-engine red with a purplish tint, a punk-style cut. Her eyeglasses were also contemporary—rectangular and bright-red-rimmed to complement her hair. She was blunt and aggressive, not shy in the least.
“Slow down, Frau O’Shea, you’re tiring me out just watching you.”
Annie smiled politely. She hated it when people told her to slow down. She never told slowpokes to pick it up.
“How are you settling in?” Frau Holtzmann asked.
Annie wanted to just grab her Pepsi and go; she had work to do. But she also didn’t want to reinforce Frau Holtzmann’s impression that she was always in a hurry.
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