After a final good night, Kurt strolled away, one very confused man. He had always had trouble picking up signals, and tonight was no exception.
13
West Berlin
February 1962
Peter had been deceived. He thought he was going to a Berlin dance hall with a group of Katarina’s friends. As it turned out, the “group” consisted of one other couple, Katarina’s cousin Hilde and her boyfriend, Eric. It looked a lot more like a double date.
Hilde was gregarious, and she laughed at just about everything that came out of Eric’s mouth. She dressed more extravagantly than Katarina—“dolled up,” as the American soldiers would say. Bright red lipstick, poofy hair, and generous amounts of eyeliner. She whispered into Katarina’s ear, laughed, and then disappeared into the dance floor with Eric, leaving Peter alone with Katarina. Had it been planned this way?
Throughout the night, he caught only glimpses of Hilde and Eric, as if they were mythological creatures who only made rare and mysterious appearances. He once saw them in a corner, their lips locked together; and then he spotted them a little later on the dance floor, doing a slow dance, even though everyone around them was jitterbugging like mad.
Peter and Katarina sat off in a corner, watching the writhing on the floor. And “writhing” was about the best that Peter could say about this kind of dancing, for many were doing the twist. His father’s words echoed in his mind as his old man vented about how rock-and-roll dancing made people look like they were being electrocuted. His father complained often and loudly about American music and American dances and American movies and American singers and American this and American that. Just the sheer repetition of his complaints had an impact on Peter, the messages burrowing under his skin.
He preferred dances like the waltz and fox-trot, proper dances where the man and the woman followed established steps. Some dance halls banned “apart” dances and blue jeans, but certainly not this one. This dance hall was obviously on the looser side. Although most of the women wore long skirts, a few wore pants. Katarina, thankfully, was not one of them. Peter had been afraid she would show up in jeans, but she wore a pink poodle skirt with a black top and a wide black belt that highlighted her small waist. Normally, he didn’t like short hair on women; but with her face, she could pull it off. She looked stunning.
“You seem happy tonight,” Peter said.
“I am. I’ve been in contact with Stefan. He’s coming to West Berlin.”
“Stefan? Your boyfriend?”
Katarina nodded, while moving her upper body with the beat, dancing in her seat. Peter remained rooted in his chair, stiff as a plank. She had insisted they sit off in a corner, far from any prying ears. In the din of the dance hall, eavesdropping would have been next to impossible.
“How are you getting him out?” Peter asked.
“I can’t tell you that.”
When he looked a little disappointed, she laughed and pinched his arm. “I’m just pulling your leg. He’ll come through the sewers—like Elsa.”
“Really? On the same night?”
“No, I doubt it. But that hasn’t been decided yet.”
“How much warning will Elsa be given?”
“We usually don’t tell them until the actual day of the escape. The less time given, the less risk of being discovered.”
“So you have no idea when Elsa will be crossing over?”
“Sorry. It takes time to make sure an escaper is safe.”
“What do you mean safe?”
“We have to make sure escapers haven’t been turned by the Stasi.”
Peter nodded slowly. “Very thorough.” He took a sip of his Coke.
“Not bad for a bunch of students, eh?”
The music began to pick up, making normal conversation more difficult. Many of the dancers had moved into the jitterbug, which Peter thought at least had some rhyme and reason to it, in contrast to the apart dances. The band, the Manado Brothers, consisted of four Indonesian men sporting white suit coats, white gym shoes, and ducktail haircuts—slick hair piled in the front and combed back along the sides. They launched into a long instrumental piece, punctuated by solos the likes of which Peter had never seen or heard before. The lead guitarist stopped to play with his left foot running up and down the neck of the instrument; the drummer walked completely around his drum set, flailing away the entire time; and one brother played the large bass while lying on his back, with his other brother standing on the bass while playing his guitar behind his back. Peter had to admit—he was mesmerized.
The next thing he knew, Katarina was taking him by the hand and yanking him to his feet.
“Let’s dance.”
Katarina was bored stiff with sitting around. She figured that Peter wasn’t comfortable with jitterbugging and probably didn’t even know how to, but she didn’t care. She had already made a major sacrifice for him, coming to the dance in a poodle skirt. He could make a sacrifice for her.
She got him to his feet before he knew what hit him, and that was a start. The Manado Brothers had ratcheted up the music.
“It’s simple,” she said, taking his two hands and showing him the basic steps. “One-two, rock back, one-two, rock back.”
Peter leaned over and whispered into her ear. “Are you sure you want to do this? I have two left feet.”
“That’s fine. I have two right feet. Just follow me. One-two, rock step.”
After checking to make sure no one was staring at him, Peter looked down at his feet and tried to mirror Katarina’s moves. One-two. He stepped on his left foot, then right foot. Rock back. He stepped backward, rocking back on his left and moving forward on his right.
“That’s it!”
Katarina was genuinely amazed and impressed that Peter moved smoothly with the beat. He didn’t show the bouncy awkwardness of a beginner. She assumed he would have absolutely no sense of rhythm, but his steps were perfectly in sync with the music.
“This is called the butterfly!” Katarina shouted as she stepped toward Peter, moving slightly to the left while throwing her arms wide open like butterfly wings and then reversing directions. She knew that he was probably embarrassed that she was doing the leading, but there was no other way to do this. Besides, from the look on his face, she thought he was actually having fun. He was loosening up faster than she had anticipated.
She had always wondered what attracted her to men like Stefan and Peter. The only thing she could figure out was that after growing up with a mother whose life was complete chaos, she craved order. Stefan was an obsessive planner, and Peter had a military precision to everything about him. But if she was drawn to their sense of order, then why was she so intent on tearing down their orderly worlds? Did she have too much of her mother in her? Did she need a certain level of chaos to feel stabilized?
Katarina knew she probably shouldn’t have even suggested this night on the town. Peter had only accepted because she was helping his fiancée, and she was well aware that he had come expecting to be part of a large group, not to be on a double date with Eric and Hilde. But she was intrigued by Peter and by his interest in literature. His blond hair, blue eyes, wide shoulders, and strong jaw also didn’t hurt.
Still, she cared for Stefan. Perhaps this night was all wrong.
Peter continued to surprise her as she added two more simple steps to their routine. Normally, he moved with scientific precision. But on the dance floor, he was beginning to flow with a surprising amount of loose-limbed freedom. In his studies, he had turned from engineering to literature, so there must be a free spirit lurking inside him somewhere.
Suddenly, the freewheeling boogie-woogie came to a screeching halt, and the band moved seamlessly into a slow dance. A waltz, of all things. This time, Peter took over. Katarina was starting to make a break for their table in the corner when he put his right hand firmly on her waist, his left hand folding into her right. He stepped into the music, as if he was a born dancer; and he was quite good as they
twirled into a series of smooth moves—running steps, parallel changes, side by sides, twinkles. Katarina could sense decisiveness in his dancing, as well as in his entire personality—a refreshing change from Stefan.
On impulse, she let go of his hands and moved out of the formal dance position. She hugged him tightly, burying her head in his chest, burying herself in him. She still moved with the music, but she pressed against his chest. At first, Peter didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, which had been locked in dance position seconds before. But she eventually felt his hands settle on her back—one on her lower back, the other on her upper back. After a few moments, he tightened his hold.
When the music ended, they stood that way for a few seconds. Then Katarina pulled back just a bit and looked up at Peter. She didn’t know who moved first; it seemed simultaneous. They kissed on the dance floor, even as the boogie-woogie began to heat up again.
Katarina and Peter left the dance hall together about an hour later. It wasn’t until another half hour had passed that they even realized they had driven away without Eric and Hilde.
East Berlin
Elsa panicked. The Stasi had returned, arriving in the middle of the night with another ominous knock on the door. Now she was back in the long, narrow interrogation room, sitting in front of a small balding man with an undersized head and black-rimmed glasses. It felt as though the room’s walls were slowly inching inward.
“Do you still think your fiancé loves you?” the mousy man finally asked after sifting through some papers.
“Of course.” Elsa couldn’t understand why they had brought her here just to ask her something like that. She felt light-headed, and it was hard to breathe. She sucked in air, but she felt as though she wasn’t getting enough oxygen. She breathed rapidly and ineffectively, and her heart began to race. If they put her in a cell and deprived her of sleep again, she would go insane. She was sure of it.
The mousy man poured her a glass of water. She needed air, not water, but maybe it would settle her down, she thought. She took a deep gulp.
“You’re sure Herr Hermann never said anything about his desire to desert the Republic?”
“No, of course not. He never intended to leave.”
“So you think he just wound up in West Berlin by chance?”
“Yes.”
“And you still think he is loyal to you?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“Then can you explain this?”
The mousy man laid an eight-by-ten glossy black-and-white photograph on his desk and slid it forward with one finger. Elsa leaned forward to look at the photo, and as she did, she lost her balance; her head was spinning so badly.
She nearly dropped her glass. The photo was of a couple on a crowded dance floor. The man appeared to be Peter, and he was kissing another woman. A beautiful dark-haired woman, from what she could tell. It was hard to see their full faces because they smothered each other in their embrace. Elsa wondered if it could be a trick—a man who looked a lot like Peter. But the mousy man slid another photo across his desk to erase any doubt. This one showed Peter—definitely Peter—walking off the dance floor, hand in hand with the same woman.
She felt like screaming, felt like slapping the interrogator. She gasped for breath.
The interrogator smiled. “I know how you feel. Peter has betrayed us all.”
Stefan doodled in his notebook as the professor droned on.
“The most important atheistic thinkers of antiquity were Epicurus and Lucretius, who developed crucial tenets for a scientific critique of religion through materialistic philosophies,” the professor said, pacing in front of the large blackboard. Stefan, a fine illustrator, did a cartoon rendition of the professor in his notebook, exaggerating his wild head of Einstein hair. “Atheistic thought made great progress during the epoch of the war of the revolutionary bourgeoisie against the societal structure and ideology of feudalism,” the professor intoned. “Atheism developed in close connection with science and materialism, and it served progressive forces as an ideological weapon of . . .”
A classmate leaned over and peeked at Stefan’s cartoon and smiled and snorted a laugh, but the professor didn’t notice. He was too busy spewing words. With boring classes like these, Stefan sometimes wondered if it was worth selling his soul for a law degree. He was back on track and working toward his degree, which seemed to be the only thing he could count on in his life. A little over a month ago, when Katarina came to him on Christmas Eve, he thought he could count on her. She brought hope that he might be able to escape all of this, and they could return to the way they were. But now he wasn’t sure. His case officer had shown him photos.
One photo showed Katarina hand in hand with another man, and a second photo showed them kissing on the dance floor. When Stefan returned to his apartment that night, he hurled a chair against the wall; and when Mrs. Wahlburg knocked on the door to find out what had happened, he told her he had fallen off the chair trying to change a lightbulb.
He had once been confident that if he could make it to West Berlin, he and Katarina would pick up where they left off. In fact, Stefan thought that she might be someone he could spend the rest of his life with—or at least he thought so back in August, just as the Wall was going up. At the time, Katarina seemed to think so too. On the Saturday after the border closed, she had spotted a bride and groom standing on the fourth floor of an East Berlin apartment and waving to people on the western side of the Wall. The bride wore a beautiful white wedding dress, and the groom wore a tuxedo with tails and top hat.
Katarina had leaned into him. “That could be us.”
He had been stunned but thrilled by her words, for the idea of marrying her was tantalizing. He had had plenty of girlfriends in the past, but none like her.
Suddenly, there was a commotion on the balcony of the apartment, and one of the Vopos barged out and grabbed the groom by the arm. There was a struggle, but the Vopo won, of course; and just like that, he put an end to any waving to family members in the West.
It was just another day along the Wall.
What they had witnessed made Katarina furious, and Stefan wondered if that was the moment when she decided she had to escape the GDR. She talked about escape that very night and for days afterward. She didn’t bring up the idea of marriage ever again.
Stefan wasn’t at all surprised that Katarina had become one of those working to bring East Berliners across the border. It was in her nature. He would have been more surprised if she hadn’t been helping in the escapes. But her involvement put him in a bind. He didn’t want to betray her, but he also knew that once a person became an informer, it was not possible to back out without suffering severe consequences. He was at a loss as to what to do, and Katarina’s own betrayal made him even more confused. The Stasi wanted information, that much was sure. The question was how much he should feed them.
When the lecture had mercifully ended, he headed out onto the main square of Humboldt University, where students scurried to their next classes. He looked down at the printed class schedule in his hands—the schedule of one of the students he had been told to follow and observe. He had already been keeping an eye on her for a week, and he was enjoying the assignment. The student was a good-looking blonde coed, easy on the eyes.
Stefan spotted her heading for her next class—art history. Her arms were loaded with books, and she looked fresh and beautiful, her hair spilling out from under her winter hat. He decided he would look for a good opportunity to meet her. What better way to keep an eye on her than to do it up close, get to know her?
He looked back down at her class schedule, just to make sure he knew her full name: Elsa Krauss. With a smile, Stefan slipped into the art history class and took a seat where he had a good view of her. Yes, he definitely was going to get to know this woman. If Katarina was going to stab him in the back, he could play with knives as well.
14
Berlin
May 2003
Annie now understood why Herr Adler’s shirt and tie were magnets for coffee stains. He didn’t sip his coffee. He drank it down in big sloppy gulps. She spotted a fresh blotch spread on his white shirt like a blood spatter, but he didn’t even seem to notice.
“I’d love to hear about your time as a journalist,” she said to him.
“Oh, don’t get him started,” said Frau Holtzmann, whose hair seemed an even brighter shade of red this day. “He’ll keep us here till nighttime with his stories.”
Herr Adler, Frau Holtzmann, Frau Kortig, Kurt, and Annie had gathered in the break room, where Herr Adler was holding court.
“Herr Adler was quite the muckraker at Berliner Morgen-post,” said Kurt.
“Really!” exclaimed Annie.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Herr Adler said with a grin, and Frau Holtzmann and Kurt couldn’t help but laugh at his false modesty.
“We’ve only heard his stories about a dozen times,” Frau Holtzmann told Annie, rolling her eyes.
“Eight times,” Herr Adler corrected, before taking another reckless gulp of coffee.
“Got any juicy examples?” Annie asked.
Without hesitation, Herr Adler plunged into a remarkable tale about how he once broke the story on a prominent member of the Bundesrat who was connected to a prostitution ring. Then he followed up with a tale of how he discovered that the minister for economic affairs was taking bribes from a major American corporation.
When their break ended, Annie hoped to make a quick call to her bank before returning to work, but she couldn’t find her cell phone. She had used it as her alarm clock to wake up this morning, as she always did, and she was sure she had put it in her purse. Back in her office, she rooted around in her purse for the phone, letting out exasperated grunts every few seconds.
“Lose something?” Kurt asked, looking up from his work.
“My phone. I was sure I had it here today.”
He came around from behind his desk. “Can I help?” He scanned the surfaces of the two desks that Annie used to reassemble puzzles, as well as the top of her filing cabinet. Meanwhile, she rifled through her desk drawers. Nothing.
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