by Adam Johnson
I look down at Prinz. He is looking up at me.
“Do not be dispirited, Hans,” Grünwald says. “The video is a good thing. You are the only one telling the truth. All these former inmates make me sick. They have turned themselves into little celebrities, writing books, appearing on chatty talk shows, and believe me, they know what the TV people want to hear—horrible stories of torture and tales of secret cemeteries. I heard one say we had turned him into a living puppet. A puppet? What were we, then—Guantánamo Bay, a North Korean gulag?”
Two women are heading our way, looking at a map. Grünwald immediately engages them. His wife, like most Stasi wives, left him right after the Wall came down, and I admit I’d long felt superior that my marriage had survived.
“I’m afraid we’re lost,” one woman says. We can hear she is Austrian.
“How may we help?” Grünwald asks. Even though his hair is white, he parts it dramatically, allowing him the opportunity, which he takes now, to correct the fall of his hair with a sweep of his long, sleek fingers.
The other woman adds, “We’re trying to get to the torture museum before it closes.”
Grünwald winces. “Torture museum?” He turns to me. “Have you heard of such a thing?”
I shake my head.
“Who would make such a museum?” Grünwald asks. “Who would want to visit one?”
The first woman stands her ground. “It’s in a prison,” she says. “This is a famous place.”
She lifts the map so we can see. Marked are Holocaust memorials, Nazi deportation camps, extermination sites, and right in the middle, our prison.
“Is this some kind of atrocity tourism?” Grünwald asks.
The second woman takes the map back.
“This is history,” she says. “This is how respect is paid.”
“If you don’t know the past,” her friend says, “you have to repeat it.”
“We know the place you’re looking for,” I say.
Grünwald interrupts. “Yes, yes, I remember now the prison you seek,” he says and points the wrong way. “To get there, you must take the M5 tram five stops. No, six. Six stops. Your historical prison is exactly six stops in that direction.”
The women offer suspicious glances, but they turn and walk away.
When they’re gone, Grünwald rakes his hair as if to rid himself of what just happened. “Come to the local tonight, Hans. Let your old friends buy you a beer. We’ll celebrate your new fame. And let me tell you, there are a few ladies who join us that prefer the company of a GDR man. I’ll introduce you. They like the type who lights the cigarettes and buys the drinks. They crave our authority, Hans. They desire a man who takes charge. What do you say? You can bring your pooch if you like. There is a blind man who brings his.”
I can imagine what it’s like to spend a night drinking with Grünwald in his Stasi speakeasy—endless talk of the GDR days, when the beer was stronger, the orgasms were longer and the coins were cast from pure silver. By midnight, they’d be practically singing in Russian. And the thought of talking to a woman other than my wife makes me ill.
“The video has you upset, I can tell,” Grünwald says. “Pay no mind to how the girl mocked you. You were an admirable and respected warden. People would know that if these lying inmates didn’t hog the media. Has one of them ever told an interviewer, ‘The prison was clean and well ventilated and my meals came right on time, three times a day’? Do they ever mention their access to a state-of-the-art prison hospital with a medical staff of twenty-eight? Remember the blizzard of ’84, when all of Berlin went black? Only you kept the lights on, Hans. Hohenschönhausen Prison alone had heat and power, and that was because of you.”
I see the Austrian women have stopped at the end of the block to reexamine their map. They cast doubtful looks our way.
“Grünwald,” I say, “you forgot to mention why you were following me.”
“Yes, yes. It’s because you were speaking with the curator of that place. I have to tell you, Hans, you must be careful with him. He bankrolls the former inmates. He books their television appearances. You must tell me what it was he wanted.”
“He wants me to make a video. He wants me to talk about the prison and tell our side of the story.”
“Why would he want that?”
“First there is a question I must ask you.”
“Of course, Hans. For you, anything.”
I want to ask about those hidden bugs in my office, about the secret files they must have compiled, the calls they recorded, how right now, in that little mind of his, he must know every secret thing about Gitte and me.
Instead, I ask, “Have you been receiving any packages? Things from our prison days, neatly wrapped and delivered at night?”
He’s intrigued. “Would you call these packages gifts?”
“They are things I once possessed. Sentimental things.”
Prinz grows impatient and barks. From a bag in my pocket, I remove a goldfish, but Grünwald stops me. “It is affection that the little fellow craves,” he says, and lifts Prinz from the ground. “It is by giving and denying that you condition his response.” He scratches the dog’s small ears. “So you have a prison curator who desires something from you. And you have possessions from your prison days that suddenly appear.”
Grünwald smiles. It comes with a glimmer of menace and intrigue, his eyes narrowing, not without a hint of delight, as he imagines various scenarios unfolding before him. This is the look that earned him the Black Shield. It’s easy to forget, even for me, that thousands of inmates once lived in fear of him, that people hanged themselves rather than spend an afternoon in his presence.
—
The following morning the curator delivers the portrait. I rise from the couch when he knocks, and even I can smell the old upholstery on me. He wears a suit, and the frame he holds is cloaked in a black hood, as if the portrait is awaiting some kind of debut.
“I have it,” he says.
He lifts the dark fabric a moment, and there are Brigitte and Hans, man and wife.
“The archivists undertook an examination,” the curator says. “They believe this is the work of the photographer Sibylle Bergemann.”
“My wife once modeled for Sibylle, back when they both worked at Praktica Kamera Werke. Back when there was a Praktica Kamera Werke. Everyone was let go when the Wall came down. Three hundred people.”
He extends the portrait. “The archivists believe the photo is quite rare, and of course, it is public property. Can we call this a long-term loan? A remote exhibition, perhaps?”
The curator is quite classy. He does not let his eyes wander to the interior of my home, appraising, as others have, the kind of housing many might wish for. He makes no mention of my wife, of the video he desires or of the fairly obvious trip wire strung across the lawn.
I decide that he can’t be the one leaving packages. I don’t even ask about it.
“Thank you,” I say. I accept the portrait and shake his hand by way of farewell.
Inside, I set aside the picture, draped in dark fabric. For some reason, I cannot lift its veil.
Prinz and I share a sausage. Leaning against the sink, I eat with my fingers. Gitte liked a single slice of bread for breakfast—in the morning, it was all her hangovers would allow. On the counter is her old East German toaster. I plug it in and toast a slice, just for the smell. I open the freezer and there are the frosted vodka glasses, frozen facedown to the bottom of the icebox. I decide to clean myself up, to shave, at least, but in the bathroom, I only stare at the second sink, hers, unused and overbright under a circle of white bulbs.
We head away from the prison today, Prinz and I, away from the school buses and the 256 line and the M6 tram. On the sidewalk, the shadows are frosted, so Prinz zigzags in the sunlight, paying tribute to everything of interest with three drops of urine. We pass through neighborhoods and business strips, and soon we find ourselves gazing into the front windows of a liquor store. T
his is where I bought her daily bottle. In long rows and neatly stacked towers, the displays showcase bottles of every variety—some clear, some caramel-colored, some the green of unripe citrus. I know the weight and cost of these bottles. In their clear faces and strong shoulders, I feel the physicality of my wife, her presence, the shape of her day:
Her awakening. A long, silent, eyes-closed soak in the tub. Toast and tea, shades drawn. Rousing some, she made for the hothouse, where, almost ceremoniously, she concentrated on bulbs and transplants, her hands mixing soil as if she had no concerns. Midday, recovery under way, she would peer into the housings of the cameras she fixed. Afternoon brought to life the distant settings of her Der Spiegel articles, but a restlessness was already building. I could see an absence rise in her eyes, a perennial unhappiness. It was only with the first gimlet that she would take leave of these problems, whatever they were. Shaker froth, lemon rind, the wine-red velvet of the hours—these were our evenings, the drink bringing her back to me and then slowly taking her to a place where she alone could go. In bed, I was left only with her vessel. But the body I embraced was tethered to her spirit—this I believed. When I spoke, I knew that far away she could hear my words. When I parted her legs and entered her, her head would occasionally roll from the pillow to face me. Eyes closed, she would align her face with mine, and I knew that wherever it was she had traveled, her eyes were open there. A version of me was also in this place, and Gitte’s gaze, for the first time that day, was meeting mine. That’s the great irony—that she needed liquor to transport her to a location where we could connect in a pure and unclouded way. Her face in this faraway place was lit by embers. Their heat warmed us. For all my imagination, for all my powers of perception, I could never lay eyes on these embers. It was like looking across the lakes of Schwerin to the campfires of advancing Russian soldiers—with what intent they were drawn toward flame, only daybreak would reveal.
—
That night I wake from a dimly lit dream to discover Prinz standing on my chest. He does not bark, but the little dog is so rigid, his coat bristles. I follow his gaze from the couch to the curtains in time to see a shadow stir outside. The Polaroid flashes, and I rise.
On the lawn, I discover my daughter, clad in a heavy coat. “Nina?” I ask.
She looks toward me, startled. Something is in her hands.
“Nina, what’s the meaning of this?” I ask.
“I’m sorry, Papa,” she says, and sets a small package on the lawn. “We keep discovering these artifacts. Mama can’t have them around.”
“Your mother—is this where they’re coming from?”
Nina says, “She says she will contact you when she reaches Step Nine.”
“Step Nine?” I ask. “What does this mean, Step Nine? What step is she on now?”
My daughter glances toward the street, where a car is waiting. There is a figure inside.
“Is that your mother?” I ask. “Is that her in the car?”
My daughter takes a step backward. “Papa, I wish it weren’t this way,” she says. “She will write you a letter soon, when she’s ready. For now, she’s healing.”
I step toward her. “Healing from what?” I ask. “Is this about the war? Or how those damned nuns treated her?”
She begins moving away. “I’m sorry, Papa,” she says. “I must go.”
I race to cut her off. “Is it her photographer friend? Does he put her up to this?”
She shakes her head, tries to move around me. But I don’t let her.
“Do they talk their stupid sober talk together?” I demand. “Or did he dump her, is that what she’s healing from?”
My daughter tries not to listen, but I know I’m onto something.
“The photographer was cruel to her, wasn’t he? He left her, and now she has no one. Now she’s completely alone, isn’t she?”
“There’s no photographer,” my daughter says. “It’s you. You’re the one she recovers from.”
“Me?”
“Don’t you remember?” she asks. “Don’t you recall anything?”
“The past, those days when we were a family—that’s all I think about.”
“What about the dairy wagons?” she asks. “Do you think about that?”
“What?”
Nina points toward the street where my wife idles. “I grew up with milk wagons driving down our street,” she says. “No one told me there was no milk, that they were really dressed-up prison vans delivering new inmates. Protesters, students, teenagers. People soon to be stripped and violated, their possessions confiscated.”
“But that wasn’t us,” I say. “I’m talking about family. You’re talking about work. These were duties I had to perform.”
“You gave me gloves!” This she practically spits at me. “I wore them everywhere, showing them off, their softness, their perfect fit! How could I know where they’d come from? Why would no one tell me they’d been taken from a girl just like me, a girl who went into that house of crimes?”
She turns and hurries away.
My daughter, practically running from me. My wife, driving the getaway car.
—
At the dining table, I stare at the Polaroid of my daughter bending to place the package on the lawn. Her gaze is cast warily toward the house where I’m fast asleep. Her own house, the house where she grew up.
“It was no house of crimes,” I tell Prinz.
Then I lift the package. My little dog is filled with nervous energy. He stands on his stool, looking from me to the package and back, his eyes wet, tongue flashing in and out.
A prison is not a pretty place, this we know. Perhaps it would be easier on a wife and daughter if a man were a farmer or a folksinger. But someone must run the facilities, someone must undertake the unpleasant tasks. It’s not like, with a father who’d been imprisoned by the Soviets, I could advance in the Party. It’s not like, with a mother who’d nursed Germans and GIs alike, I was welcome at any universities, which I’d dreamed of attending. And Nina forgets that she went to the best schools because of my service.
I snip the twine, tear away the brown paper.
Inside the box is a pair of calfskin gloves. There is no story behind them—I simply discovered them in the “lost and found” box and thought they’d fit my daughter.
Also in the box is a pen. This object I remember well. This the curator would deeply desire. It was found in the possession of a dissident writer. You can probably guess her name, as she had been in a relationship with another famous dissident writer, a Russian, and this was the pen he had made in prison and, upon his freedom, given to her. The pen is heavy and pointed and fashioned from pot metal. The Russian prisoners were allowed the use of pens, and these they created for self-defense, the irony being that this one was used for novels.
I brought the pen home, and when Nina saw it, she loved it, so I made it hers. She wrote all her school papers with it. Tell me, if there was something wrong with the pen—how was it that Nina received such high marks? If I was so terrible, how was it that Nina excelled in singing and dancing and scholastics, how did she star in three consecutive school plays?
“I wasn’t such a bad father,” I tell Prinz. “I was no horrible man.”
I set aside the gloves and pen and ashtray and bracelet. It’s the keys to the prison I take in my hand. Prinz sniffs them once. “I’m not a criminal,” I tell him. I flip through the keys, one by one, pausing to conjure in my memory the image of each door they open.
—
I decide to make the video but to do it my way. It takes an entire day to prepare. To modify my appearance, I buy a new vest and a fashionable shirt, both very modern. Next I purchase a toupee, and I am surprised at how natural it looks. To top this off, I invest in a sporty cap. At an electronics shop, I am shown eyeglasses with a miniature camera mounted in the frames. It can record hours of footage, everything I look at, and is nearly invisible.
The next morning, across from 66 Genslerstrasse
, Prinz and I watch as the school buses arrive. Eventually, we spot a smaller bus, older, a bus from the countryside. One by one, Ossi high school students emerge. They all wear similar jackets, as if they are in some sort of Blaskapelle group.
Prinz and I approach. We find the driver sitting on a memorial planter, smoking.
“Visiting from Gera?” I ask.
“Zwickau,” the driver says.
“How long do these tours take?” I ask.
“Fifty-five minutes,” he says.
Despite looking generally worn-down by life, he is clean-shaven and wears a wedding ring.
“I need someone to watch my dog for fifty-five minutes,” I say, and show him a twenty-euro note. “You must wait regardless, yes?”
He looks at the dog and nods. He takes the money.
“There’s only one duty,” I say, removing a bag of goldfish from my pocket. “The dog must receive one of these treats every three minutes.”
The driver takes the orange treats and shakes his head. “Berlin” is all he says.
I kneel down to Prinz. “I must make this journey alone,” I tell him.
His eyes flick back and forth, looking into mine. I know what he means to say.
I purchase a ticket and wait in the maintenance yard with a dozen teens from Zwickau, the children of auto factory workers. Across their matching maroon jackets are embroidered music notes of gold. A guide approaches, a man in his forties. His hair stabs in different directions from some type of styling, and he looks mildly hungover. What a libertine life—a fat salary for giving an occasional tour to high school kids. I bet he spends his days smoking hemp and listening to Volksmusik. But he veers toward a group of Wessi kids who I can tell at a distance are from Frankfurt—loud and entitled banker-babies with test scores that have already gotten them into colleges in California.
