Lora leaned so far over the balcony that Stefan feared she would tumble over, so he took her by the shoulders and eased her back. She turned and smiled. She was petite and had very blue eyes and pale skin, and her right ear poked out from behind her shoulder-length chestnut hair. For such a short woman, her laugh and her voice were surprisingly husky. Normally, she went light on the makeup, but tonight he noticed that her lips were unusually red. At this point, they were just friends, fellow adventurers who had stumbled across each other in St. Nicholas Church. He had told her everything about his past, and she accepted him. She said he had made Die Wende—the change, or the turn. Die Wende was also the phrase being used to describe what was happening throughout the country. Changes were sweeping the East. The world was reversing on its axis.
When the church reached its capacity—overflowed its capacity, actually—the doors were closed. People outside began to pound on the door, like people pounding on the doors of the sealed ark. But St. Nicholas could hold no more.
Stefan loved this ancient church—one of the most beautiful he had ever seen, painted in pastels of pink and green. He particularly loved the columns, which rose up from the floor like typical Romanesque columns. But where the columns met the ceiling, the stone rigidity blossomed out into sculptured greenery, as if the columns were living things holding up the roof, as if real plants sprouted from the tops of the columns and grew across the ceiling. Stefan didn’t know what the architect intended, but he took it to mean that there was real life in this stone structure—the church was a living organism.
Down below, the pastor began to speak—a minister with the improbable name of Christian Führer. Lora leaned over again, and this time Stefan joined her, side by side. The packed church went silent as Pastor Führer welcomed everyone to the service. He made a point of staring into the crowd of Party members when he stressed that everyone was welcome in St. Nicholas.
“Pastor Führer knows an opportunity when he sees one,” Lora whispered. “It isn’t every day you get to preach to several hundred hard-core communists.”
And preach he did. There were also prayers for the people who had been arrested during the demonstrations, as well as for the people who had been beaten just two days earlier. Then one of the congregants came to the front and began to read the Sermon on the Mount:
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Throughout the entire service, Stefan kept his eyes on the Communist Party men. Most had put away their newspapers, and many were even bowing their heads when asked to do so.
During the moments of prayer, he could hear the chants of the crowd outside—a storm raging outside the walls. He could also hear the squawk of loudspeakers. But most of all, he could hear the shrill whistling of the crowd outside—a piercing, eerie sound, like a million insects, that would rise and fall in intensity. The police were probably trying to disperse the crowd, but their pleas were being drowned out by incessant whistling. Were the crowds beginning to battle the police? If the demonstrators got violent, if there were any signs of rowdiness, the police would use it as an excuse to attack, and the extra blood being collected by hospitals would be put to good use. But Stefan heard no gunfire. Just whistling. More whistling. Occasionally, people would pound again on the doors.
Blessed are the peacemakers . . .
At six o’clock, the doors opened, and two and a half thousand people began to file out of the church.
“This is it,” Lora said, gripping Stefan by the arm. He was afraid of what they might see outside the church doors. Would they walk out into a battlefield?
The church emptied in solemn silence. When they reached the church floor, Stefan and Lora exited side by side with one of the men carrying a newspaper. An obvious Party member. He kept on a stony expression, eyes forward.
The sight that greeted them outside, in the night, took Stefan’s breath away. They walked into an ocean of humanity, a sea that parted to let the congregants exit the church. People everywhere, as far as he could see—and no signs of violence. There had to be thousands upon thousands. Many were holding candles, creating constellations of light on Karl Marx Square. The crowd was so large that it spilled onto side streets. People were chanting.
“We are the people!”
“Allow New Forum!”
“Gorby help us!”
Stefan took Lora’s hand—more out of a need to keep them from being separated by the crowd than anything else. The police were dressed in riot gear, armed to the teeth. But if they started firing, Stefan and Lora would more likely be killed in a stampede than by bullets.
Slowly, the crowd began to move forward as one, a single organism. They moved north up Ring Boulevard past the opera house and headed toward the massive train station. On every other Monday night, this was where the police had stopped the demonstrators. This was where it could get violent. This was where the Chinese solution could begin.
A small group of men started shouting, “Stasi out!” It was the kind of provocative chant that could trigger an incident. But the crowd swamped these chants with shouts of, “No violence! No violence! No violence!”
The crowd moved on, past the train station. The soldiers and the police did not make a move to stop them as the people rounded the Ring Boulevard bend and made the turn to the west. Over loudspeakers, Stefan could hear the Appeal of the Six being broadcast—an appeal for peace by six of the demonstration leaders.
Suddenly, the slow procession came to a halt.
“What’s happening?” Lora asked, hopping up and down, trying to see down the road.
No sound of gunfire. But a palpable tension shuddered through the crowd. They were hemmed in on all sides by a wall of humanity. They were caught in a hive, and the whistling began again. It was almost deafening.
“They stopped us by the footbridge!” one man shouted, barely audible above the whistling. “They’ve cordoned off the boulevard!”
But the crowd surged forward again. Still no gunfire. No water cannons. No tear gas. They turned south on Ring Boulevard, but up ahead lay the greatest test of all—Round Corner. Stasi headquarters. True to its name, the Stasi’s stone headquarters was rounded on the front as the road made a slight jog to the left.
Stefan knew the Round Corner building well. He had been brought there for questioning numerous times and had faced multiple threats. When he first came to Leipzig several years ago, he tried to foreswear his job as an informer. They ordered him to infiltrate the church, and he resisted at first, but they took away his job as a printer and threatened him with prison, so he relented and returned to snooping. He infiltrated the peace groups in St. Nicholas Church, and as Providence would have it, this assignment became his redemption. He entered the church as Judas, but he renounced that role at the end of 1988. He threw his thirty pieces of silver in the face of his handler, losing his printing job once again. But the church took him on as a maintenance man and provided him some protection from the authorities. He got by.
As the crowd flowed past Stasi headquarters, some shouted insults at the darkened building. Others placed their candles on the steps leading into the Round Corner headquarters. Some knelt and prayed.
By this time, amazement had spread through the crowd, a surge of joy. They had made it around the inner city without incident. Genuine smiles replaced taut expressions. The chant picked up volume: “We are the people! We are the people!” Stefan and Lora joined in, walking side by side, close together with an arm wrapped around each other’s shoulders. The chant became a roar as the massive crowd made the turn and began a second lap around the inner cit
y. Stefan and Lora stopped only once, as they reached the train station for a second time. They stopped to embrace and kiss, and Stefan suddenly realized that their relationship had taken a turn, every bit as dramatic as their country’s turn.
Die Wende. The Turn. Stefan’s life had made a compete reversal, and he knew, with certainty, on October 9, that he would rather die than ever go back to being an informer.
36
Berlin
August 2003
Kurt yanked the battery from the back of his cell phone and then reinserted it, hoping this would give his phone a jolt of juice so he could put a single call through to Annie. But his phone was as powerless as he felt. He looked up to see Herr Adler and the two women disappear inside the office building.
Kurt barged into the building close behind them, as if the place was on fire. The trio was already most of the way up the stairs.
“Herr Adler!”
The boss, already on the top stair, spun around. “Herr Hilst? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Is something the matter?”
“I have a file you need to see!”
Herr Adler sighed. “Can it wait? I have a phone call to make.”
“But this will only take a moment, Herr Adler. It’s very important.”
Herr Adler exchanged looks with Frau Steinweg, who just shrugged. Frau Holtzmann folded her arms across her chest, rolled her eyes, and snapped her gum.
“Herr Adler, the file is one you really need to see,” said Kurt as he reached the top stair.
Heaving another sigh and slumping his shoulders in resignation, the boss followed Kurt into his office.
The commotion had died down. Annie heard Kurt bellow the name Herr Adler several times, and she wondered if he had overdone it. She got the message: Herr Adler was in the hallway. But now everything had gone quiet, although she wasn’t sure if the hallway was entirely clear. Where were Frau Steinweg and Frau Holtzmann?
She got her answer one moment later. She heard whispering directly outside of Herr Adler’s office. She pressed her ear against the door and listened, and two women’s voices seeped through. She didn’t hear a man’s voice—not Kurt’s, not Herr Adler’s. But she did hear the women speak her name and Kurt’s. Then their voices rose, and she heard distinct words—bits and pieces of sentences.
“Herr Adler . . . thinking of splitting them apart . . .”
“Getting too cozy . . .”
“Good idea . . .”
“Things are very strange . . .”
“Herr Hilst is very strange.”
“. . . in love will do things.”
Annie knew the two women were talking about them. It sounded like Herr Adler was planning on keeping them apart, moving them to different offices. Of course, that would be a moot point if she was caught inside his office, for she would lose her job. She wondered if she could be criminally prosecuted for this. She tried to ignore the words “in love.”
The hallway went silent. She put her hand on the doorknob. Should she turn it? If the two women were still standing outside the door, they would hear the knob move, and she would be dead. But she had to take a chance at some point. Kurt couldn’t keep Herr Adler away from his office indefinitely.
She turned the handle. Paused. No reaction from the hallway. So far so good. She eased it open, just a crack. Putting her eye to the opening, she spotted Frau Steinweg and Frau Holtzmann. They were still in the hallway, but they had drifted down to Frau Holtzmann’s office. They were standing just outside the office door, still knee-deep in gossip.
Slowly, silently, Annie closed the door. Still trapped.
Herr Adler made a move for Kurt’s office door. “Let me know when you find the file. I’ve a phone call to make!”
“Wait! I found it!”
Pausing at the door, Herr Adler made a slow pivot. He tightened his tie and groaned. “I really don’t have time for this.”
“But it’s important, it’s something you need to see. It has to do with the murder case that Frau O’Shea talked to you about.”
Herr Adler scowled. “Why would you have material on the murder case? I thought all of those files were coming from Frau O’Shea’s bag.”
“That’s what’s odd about it.” Kurt snagged a random file from his stack, one holding half a dozen documents. This should keep Herr Adler busy.
Herr Adler yanked the file from his hands, tossed him a warning glance, licked his finger, and opened the folder. On the top was a reconstructed sheet of paper loaded with fine print.
“I’ll take this to my office and read it after I make my phone call.” Herr Adler made another turn for the door.
“But shouldn’t you make sure it’s the right file?”
Herr Adler’s patience had just run out. Kurt could see it in his glowering eyes. “Are you telling me you don’t even know if this is the right file?”
“No . . . I think it is . . . I just . . . just wanted you to be sure.”
Two steps forward and Herr Adler slammed the file against Kurt’s chest. “You read it. If it’s the right file, bring it to my office!”
Kurt almost blurted “Wait” once again, but Herr Adler gave him such a blistering glare that he didn’t dare push it any further.
“I’ll do that, sir,” Kurt said, following Herr Adler to the door.
Kurt poked his head out the door. The hallway was empty. But where was Annie? Surely she had taken her only chance and escaped.
“I’ll bring the file right down to you, Herr Adler!”
Herr Adler, his back to Kurt, grunted and waved his hand in dismissal. Kurt pulled back into the office and closed the door most of the way, leaving it open just a crack so he could hear what happened in the hallway.
Suddenly, his office door swung inward and slammed him in the side of his face, the edge cracking him hard in the cheekbone. Staggering backward, Kurt wondered if Herr Adler had returned with a vengeance. Instead, Annie strolled into his office with a coffee cup in one hand and a glass of Pepsi in the other. The front of her blouse was doused with spilled coffee.
“I’m sorry, Kurt, so sorry.”
He sat down on the edge of her desk, rubbing the side of his face, which stung as if he had been slapped. He maneuvered his jaw to make sure everything was still in working order.
“It’s my fault,” he said. “My fault entirely. My phone was dead . . . I thought . . . I was afraid . . .”
Annie set down the coffee and the Pepsi and then closed the office door. She rushed to his side and examined the side of his face. She kissed his cheek twice, pressing her lips against his skin for an extended time on the second kiss.
“You’ll live,” she whispered.
They embraced, and Kurt buried his head in her hair. “You’re safe. Don’t do that to me again. Not again. I love you too much.”
This wasn’t the way he envisioned himself telling her that he loved her. He couldn’t even believe he had said it. It was almost as if the words had been spoken by a third person in the room, and he was simply listening in—just another eavesdropper. They remained in their embrace for half a minute, and he wondered if the words had even registered with her. Didn’t they call for some sort of response? But he had said, “I love you too much”—rather than a simple “I love you.” Worded that way, maybe his declaration didn’t require a response.
Annie pulled away from him, and he waited for her to return the emotion. She looked down, running a finger across the palm of her left hand. Then she looked him in the eyes, and he thought this was it. She smiled. A good sign.
She raised her left hand and held it in front of his face. A telephone number was scrawled across her palm, and it looked like she had poked herself with the pen in the very center of her hand.
“What?” He wasn’t expecting this kind of response.
“It’s a telephone number for E. F.”
He didn’t know what in the world she was talking about.
“E. F. Elsa Fleischer. That’s Elsa Krauss, her married
name. I found this telephone number in Herr Adler’s planner. He met with E. F. yesterday at noon—the exact time we saw him with the woman. I say we call her.”
He stared at the number until she lowered her hand and gave him another hug. Was that her answer? What kind of answer was that?
37
West Berlin
November 9, 1989
Katarina could not believe it was happening.
When her cousin Hilde called and told her that the borders were opening, the two of them collected Peter, who was grading papers, and they all went immediately to the Brandenburg Gate to see the event with their own eyes. They approached the Wall, which bulged around the Brandenburg Gate, a massive stone structure built for emperors, and were astounded by the sight. People stood on top of the Berlin Wall itself, for the top of the Wall was flat along this stretch.
Hilde stopped and began to cry. Katarina embraced her and couldn’t hold back the tears either. She didn’t even try. Peter put a hand on each of their shoulders and didn’t say a word. It was all so surreal. One day earlier, if Westerners had climbed up onto the Wall like this, the border guards would have picked them off as if they were taking target practice.
“Tell me I’m not dreaming! Tell me!” Hilde said, smiling and wiping away her tears.
“It’s not a dream.” Katarina grabbed Hilde’s hand and pulled her forward. “Tonight, we climb the Wall!”
Hilde let loose with that delightful laugh of hers, and she let herself be dragged into the throng. Peter followed, with the biggest grin on his face that Katarina had ever seen. Katarina would not have passed this up for the world. She felt like dancing, like screaming, like singing, so she let out a whoop, and Hilde kept laughing uncontrollably, and even Peter couldn’t hold back a shout as they moved through the crowd.
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