Freedom Bridge

by Erika Holzer

  Free, he thought wonderingly.

  Free, at least, to leave the building, he thought with a jolt of fear. It isn’t the West, but it’s a giant step in that direction. At least I’m free to leave the Soviet Union!

  He passed ponderous granite structures with six-story- high portraits hanging over ornate facades—comic-strip versions of his country’s “illustrious heroes,” past and present. He saw string after string of red flags waving hypnotically in the breeze. But high above the sprawling flatness of Moscow, a few tall buildings rose in self-conscious defiance. Kiril felt a moment’s kinship with them.

  There was no queue at his trolley stop, but as usual, people packed themselves into each car with the zealousness of combat soldiers embarking on a mission. As soon as the trolley car doors closed behind him, he was struck by the contrasting stillness inside.

  He stared out the window. Row after row of prefabricated apartment houses rolled past—pale yellow cinderblocks, each a shabby functional echo of its neighbor. Half an hour later, he worked his way to the front of the car, exited at the next stop, and headed for one of the cinderblocks—his home for the last ten years.

  As he climbed the stairs in the drab hallway, he was assaulted by a pervasive dinginess. The thought of never again having to walk up these stairs and down this hallway gave him an odd sense of detachment. He passed through the communal kitchen and unlocked the door to his room. It was simply furnished for simple needs. A narrow bed. A few shelves and wall hooks for clothes. A small scarred table and a couple of chairs. Apart from some medical books piled at one end of the table that provided the only spot of color, there was nothing to suggest the character or personality of its occupant. It was a suitable room for a transient-in-spirit, he thought, closing the door. He switched on an overhead light. A plastic suitcase lay open on the bed next to his raincoat. Some bottles and an eye dropper were on the table. A towel with brown stains hung over the back of a chair.

  A clock on one of the shelves reminded him that Galya was due any time now.

  Removing his dark glasses, he examined his left eye in a mirror. The redness was almost gone. He had passed inspection this morning. But he might not be so lucky if he didn’t remember to keep after it once every hour, when possible, until people stopped asking questions.

  After packing only what he’d need, he opened a small bottle, and stuck the eyedropper in. With the odor of lemon pulling at his nostrils, he put a few drops of lemon juice in his left eye and held his breath against the sting.

  He felt his scalp gingerly—still raw from the chemicals and repeated rinsing. But a mirror check drew a tight smile. His hair was just a touch darker than his natural color brown. Galya was the only one who might notice—unlikely in the dim light of a lamp. He turned off the overhead.

  On his way home he had stopped off at the hospital and retrieved his cigarette lighter. Dropping it into his jacket pocket, he sat down to wait.

  At the familiar tap-tap on the door, he called out, “It’s unlocked.”

  Galya came in. “I won’t stay long,” she said, eyeing his small open suitcase. “You must have so much to do. Not much to pack, is there?” she observed with a tinge of bitterness. “I know there’s more to life than stylish clothes and beautiful jewelry,” she said bleakly, “but even so…”

  He tuned out, not wanting to be a complicit enabler when it came to Galya’s obsessive need for pretty things. Not when she should be lashing out at the apparatchiks who blocked, not just a fun trip to Canada, but freedom to do whatever she wanted with her life.

  “—hurts the most when I go to the cinema,” she was saying. “At first I’m captivated by the glamorous heroine—her clothes, her jewelry, even her high-heeled shoes! The next thing I notice is how casual she is about her wardrobe. And then I glance at the only semi-decent item I own—a black dress that’s four years old and stylish as a muddy overshoe…”

  “Never mind,” he said gently, touching her cheek. Knowing how vulnerable she was because she had never fully grasped that the luxuries she wanted were symbolic of a much wider principle… her right to be free. “Don’t give up, Galya,” he told her. “One day you’ll have some of the things you want.”

  Kiril sounds so solemn…

  She leaned forward to kiss him. “Call me soon as you get back?”

  “You know I will,” he said, hating the lie on his tongue.

  “Know what I think?” she teased. “I think you’ve contracted a bad case of first-trip-out-of-the-country-itis. I’m told it has a very sobering effect on its victims.”

  “An apt diagnosis, Nurse Barkova. Shall we drink to it?”

  “Can’t. I’m late for an appointment.”

  She gave him a quick hug and was out the door.

  * * *

  Galya hurried inside the Metro station and headed for a row of wooden telephone booths along one wall, stopping outside a vacant one to dip into her full change-purse for a two-kopeck coin. Ignoring the envious glance of the woman behind her, Galya snapped the purse shut. This was one shortage, at least, that no longer affected her. Not for the last two years, anyway.

  She shut herself in the narrow booth and waited for her call to be put through, conscious of two competing rhythms—the tapping of her fingertips against the telephone base and the ticking of her wristwatch.

  She touched the tiny face of the watch, the elegant gold band. Beautiful. She shouldn’t have worn it. If Kiril had noticed… But he hadn’t. By the time he got back from his trip, she’d have a good story to explain it.

  “Yes?” The voice on the other end of the line was typically impatient.

  “It’s Galina Barkova.”

  “Ah, yes. What have you to report?”

  “Nothing really.”

  “Comrade Barkova.” The voice was patronizing now. “I don’t expect you to uncover some dire plot to overthrow the Kremlin. Your assignment is to observe much subtler things. An unguarded remark here. An antisocial view there. An overall state of mind. Incidentally, how is Kiril’s state of mind these days? Are his spirits unnaturally low since the death of Stepan Brodsky? Has his behavior altered significantly in any way?”

  “Not really.”

  “What about his upcoming sojourn to East Berlin in a few days? Is he looking forward to it?”

  “I think so, yes. He didn’t really say. He just…”

  “He just what?” Alexei snapped, going into alert.

  She felt trapped by the tight embrace of the phone booth. By the ticking of the watch as it counted off the seconds.

  “When I got up to leave, Kiril seemed so—I don’t know, solemn.”

  As if he never expected to see me again.

  “Oh, that.” Aleksei chuckled. “You are an attractive young woman, Galina Barkova—my most charming agent by far. To be parted from you for even half a week could upset any red-blooded man. Shall we see that Kiril is not upset for long?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “How would you like to go to East Berlin with our Dr. Andreyev?”

  “But I have no papers, no money, no exit permit,” Galya stammered. “I don’t even have proper clothes.”

  “Details, my dear. I’ll see to them.”

  “What shall I tell Kiril?”

  “I’ll take care of it. Maybe I’ll set something up so Kiril can assist Dr. Brenner in some medical capacity. That way he’d need a nurse he’s used to working with—namely, you.”

  She bit her lip. “What will I really have to do, Colonel?” she said cautiously.

  “No more than what you’ve been doing for the past two years. Keep an eye on him. Others will be watching as well, but there are things a woman can sense more easily than a man. And I promise you, Galina, do a conscientious job, and you’ll be amply rewarded. I’ve been thinking about a private flat. It could prove useful to me if you had a place of your own.”

  She closed her eyes, thinking of her roommates… someone’s eyes always looking, someone’s ears always li
stening. She said shakily, “You’re sure nothing bad will happen to Kiril?”

  “It’s touching, your concern for his welfare. But don’t lose sight of the fact that his welfare is precisely what you’ll be protecting. Remember what I told you at the start of our little joint venture? Some men have to be protected from other men. But men like my brother must be protected from themselves.”

  Chapter 21

  Plush white carpeting swallowed footsteps. Billowing silk drapes fluttered noiselessly in the air-conditioned space. Chairs of glove-soft leather encircled the room. The soothing notes of piano music distracted the room’s occupants from the repetitive sounds—part whine, part growl—of taxiing jets somewhere beyond the drapery.

  “This is so much nicer than the regular waiting areas!” enthused Dr. Max Brenner.

  “It’s Pan Am’s first-class VIP lounge,” Kurt Brenner told his father, amused.

  “For very important persons like my son,” Max countered with unabashed pride.

  “Just following in your footsteps.”

  “Ah, but you sped past my footsteps long ago.”

  Max Brenner looked around. “All these people—they’re here to see you off?”

  “Most of them. Matter of fact, I ought to be circulating.”

  “Go right ahead, it’s your party. And Kurt, don’t be upset about your mother. You should know by now that her refusal to attend your two symposiums isn’t personal. She won’t set foot in Germany—period.”

  “At least you had the good grace to see me off,” Brenner snapped, his good humor evaporating. “When are you joining her in Zurich?”

  Max glanced at his watch. “I have a connection from New York to Switzerland in about three hours. Plenty of time to get ready for a wedding,” he said brightly. “The granddaughter of some very old and dear friends. I’d wish you luck in your symposiums, East and West, son, except that I’d be doing you a disservice. It wasn’t ‘Lady Luck’ that brought you to the pinnacle of your profession. You earned it with hard work and perseverance.”

  “How can I be impatient with my greatest fan?” Brenner said, cracking a smile. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Hungry?” Adrienne asked her father-in-law as Kurt went off to mingle with his guests. “Since you have a few hours to kill, the rubber-chicken meal you’re likely to be served on Swiss Air won’t be able to compete with Pan Am Deluxe. How about a plate of hors d’oeuvres and a glass of wine? What’s your pleasure, a glass of Chardonnay?”

  “Just what the doctor ordered. But shouldn’t you be circulating too?”

  “Probably. The truth is, I’d much rather be with you.”

  He squeezed her arm. “I hope my son realizes just how lucky he is.”

  Adrienne managed a smile.

  If you knew the truth, Max dear, it would break your heart.

  After Max left, Adrienne lost track of time as Kurt mixed with the crowd, spending brief calculating minutes as he moved easily from person to person. From one small gathering to another.

  When it was time to leave, Brenner helped Adrienne into her cape, took her arm, and led her out. “As much as I enjoy this sort of elaborate sendoff,” he confessed, sotto voce, “I’m eager to board and get the hell out of here.”

  Adrienne was so fatigued that, with the aid of a sleeping pill and a comfortable seat pushed as far back as it would go, she fell asleep.

  Brenner, in no mood for small talk, let alone arguments, was relieved. He had a lot to think about, starting with the only reason he was going to East Berlin.

  He’d been summoned like a schoolboy, he thought with a flush of anger. He rang for the stewardess. When she appeared at his elbow, he ordered a gin and tonic. “Make it a double, will you?” he said.

  Staring moodily as the liquid in his glass swayed torpidly with the plane’s vibrations, he was reminded of the lethargic waters of the Elbe River as it wound its way past the camp where he’d spent the last days of the war ministering to the sick, the wounded. And the dead.

  * * *

  “Medic! Medic!”

  By March 1945, three years after he had enlisted in the United States Army to avoid being drafted, twenty-three-year-old Kurt Brenner, with a B.S (pre-med), an M.A. (biology), and a Ph.D (microbiology), had become Staff Sergeant First Class Kurt Brenner—“Doc” to the American soldiers he had served with in Germany since the invasion of Europe nearly a year earlier.

  Brenner raced across an open field, dropping to his knees beside the mangled body of a soldier who had stepped on a land mine. He held one eyelid open. The pupil stared back, unseeing. Removing the young man’s dog tags from around his neck, Brenner walked away, swamped by emotion.

  Months and months of blood and guts—literally. How much more can I take? The brass keeps saying the war will be over anytime now, but it’s already April, and we’re still not in Berlin! We’re still taking casualties!

  He was thinking about the latest intelligence—die-hard Nazis concentrated in and around Berlin—when the usual cry for help sounded.

  “Medic! Medic!”

  Shaking off his reverie, Brenner took off running toward yet another mangled GI.

  By early April, when American forces were roughly 120 miles from Berlin, Staff Sergeant Kurt Brenner was still grousing. Once Berlin was taken, he figured, the war would be over and he’d be on his way home. Time for the next step in the career he’d carefully planned before the war, he thought with a flood of relief.

  But all American units heading for Berlin were stopped in their tracks. Held back by General Eisenhower’s orders from his Commander-in-Chief to allow the Soviets to take Berlin, Brenner and tens of thousands of others waited. Toward the end of April, the waiting appeared to be over. On the 22nd, the Soviets were in the north and east suburbs of Berlin. The next day, they had surrounded the city. A week later, the Red Army had taken most of the city, although fierce fighting continued at the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. On April 30, 1945, Hitler committed suicide. In Europe, World War II was officially over.

  But not for Doc Brenner. Although the Yalta Conference had provided for the Americans, British, and French to have occupation rights in Berlin, the Communists did not allow them to enter until roughly July 4, 1945.

  * * *

  On their drive from the blood-soaked beaches of France to the former Nazi capital, American soldiers were exposed to scenes that conjured images of hell. The bloated bodies of GIs who’d stormed French beaches. The sightless, the limbless, the lame and the halt. Nor was the detritus of war limited to combatants. Dead civilians—men, women, children—were strewn about like rag dolls. GIs tripped over carcasses of dogs and horses. Churches had lost their roofs. Homes were flattened, as if the Devil’s fist had smashed them into rubble. But the camps were an unmatched chamber of horror. Prisoners more dead than alive. Rigor mortis giving corpses the look of stacked firewood. Mountains of human bones. Piles of personal items, from eyeglasses to hair.

  To these blistering images, burned into their consciousness, the advance parties of the American military added the fate of Berlin. During the war, American and British pilots had dropped 75,000 tons—1,500,000 pounds—of bombs on the city. Before the war there were a million-and-a-half dwellings in Berlin; by the end, 300,000. Of Berlin’s huge fleet of buses, only thirty-seven were serviceable, and less than one tenth of the city’s subway cars were of any use. As for Berlin’s many canals, virtually every bridge that spanned them had been destroyed by the Nazis. Worse, raw sewage was turning canal water into cesspools covered with scum that became favorite haunts for billions of flies and mosquitoes.

  Shallow graves dotted city streets, parks, and public squares. Dead bodies lay unburied under the rubble. Edible food, if any could be found, was at a huge premium. Venereal disease was rampant. Thousands of women, raped by Soviet troops, had been abandoned by their families and cast out to fend for themselves.

  Into this surreal city in early July 1945 came Kurt Brenner’s outfit. Setting up camp in the wo
ods on the outskirts of the American zone across the Havel River from Soviet-controlled East Germany, the men were tasked with providing security for American staff personnel who were starting to move into the American zone. It took a long time before Brenner’s battalion began to achieve some degree of normalcy.

  * * *

  “Yo, Doc! The CO wants you on the double!”

  Brenner sighed but took off running. He passed bedraggled German civilians headed toward the American zone as they tried to put distance between themselves and the Russian troops occupying the East. He’d seen endless streams of the poor bastards in the last few weeks as they plodded along, their miserable possessions wrapped in dirty sheets. The lucky ones were pulling wagons, household items piled high.

  “Hop on the truck, Doc,” the CO said with a cursory wave toward a canvas-roofed vehicle the GIs called “a deuce-and-a-half” because it could carry a 2½-ton load. A couple dozen soldiers were in the process of climbing into the rear. First Lieutenant Joseph Cherner stretched out his hand to pull Brenner aboard.

  “Where to, Joe?”

  “Recon close to Potsdam this side of the river,” Cherner said. “Regimental commander’s orders.”

  “What’s the CO want with me?” Brenner groused.

  “Best guess? The CO figures we could meet up with some Wehrmacht die-hards. We’d need a medic.”

  “Hope not. I’m asleep on my feet,” Brenner said with a yawn. “After these guys get off the truck I’m crapping out. Wake me if I’m needed.”

  “Roger.”

  When Brenner opened his eyes, it was dark.

  “Joe?”

  “It’s okay.” Cherner was standing just outside the truck. “There’s nothing going on. The CO just got orders to pull back.”

  “So where is he?”

  “Down the road a piece.”

  “Cherner, you speak Russian, right?” First Sergeant Al Rosen bellowed. “Move your ass, soldier!” he said without waiting for a reply. “You too, Doc. And don’t forget your stuff.”