by Erika Holzer
“It’s not that,” Adrienne said, smiling. “Kurt is claustrophobic. This helicopter is pretty narrow. Haven’t you noticed how my husband practically breaks into a cold sweat whenever we step into an elevator? And the elevators here are spacious compared to the ones in Paris. They’re not only tight, but maddeningly slow.”
“Why don’t I ask the co-pilot to show us around, explain how the helicopter works?” Kiril suggested. “That way I can translate our plush accommodations into English for you and Galya.”
“Thanks. I’d like that,” Adrienne said.
Kiril returned with the co-pilot in tow.
“This is a model MI-4 helicopter, manufactured in the Soviet Union since 1953. NATO’s name for it is Hound,” said the co-pilot. “When used by the military, it can carry a dozen or more soldiers and much equipment. This version, an MI-4-L, means the interior was remodeled to carry—how do you say?—VIPs. And that means it takes up to six adults, comfortably seated in the lower body of the aircraft. As you can see, three large windows on each side of the aircraft provide every passenger with an unobstructed view. The cabin, entered through a door on the left side of the aircraft is heated and sound-proofed. There is a toilet in the rear.”
The co-pilot warmed to his subject.
“Depending on altitude and load, we can cruise at 140 miles per hour. Today our flying time should be just less than an hour to the lake, then however long Dr. Andreyev needs us to fly around looking at the sights. The weather promises to be cooperative. The engine is 1,675 horsepower—more than adequate. And now,” he announced with a trace of formality, “we must board.”
Captain Gruner was already on the flight deck. His co-pilot escorted the party to the open door on the left side of the aircraft. “Ladies?” he said, motioning first to “honored guest” Adrienne Brenner.
Looking inside, Adrienne saw a row of three airline-type seats facing the rear of the aircraft, their backs against a wall beyond which was probably the engine and, above it, the flight deck. In front of the seats was an aisle as wide as the plane itself and about five feet deep. Facing the three seats were another two, with an empty space the size of one of the chairs. The East Germans had removed one of the usual six seats since there were to be only five passengers.
Very impressive.
Adrienne climbed up a short ladder and took the farthest seat in the row of three. Galya followed Adrienne in and sat next to her. Brenner took the seat opposite his wife in the row of two. When Kiril took the seat next to Galya, she flashed him a look of excitement. Luka Rogov heaved himself into the remaining seat opposite Kiril.
Leaning into the cabin, the co-pilot called out, “Dr. Andreyev, should you want to talk to the flight deck, use that wall phone on your left. You will hear us through the speaker above your head.”
As the co-pilot slammed the door, Kurt Brenner broke out in a cold sweat.
* * *
The helicopter ascended from the hotel roof as if pulled by a huge magnet, its five passengers silent as they waited for the aircraft’s blades to lift it into the air. After a few minutes of vertical flight, the co-pilot’s voice came through the speaker. “We have reached the altitude for horizontal flight over Waren and Lake Muritz. You will be able to see much on the ground. Please enjoy the view.”
Silently cursing the absence of seatbelts, Brenner gripped the armrests on both sides of his seat.
Luka Rogov leaned toward Kiril and asked in Russian, “How long we up?”
Despite the cabin being sound-proofed, Kiril had difficulty hearing him and asked Rogov to repeat his question. Kiril looked at his watch. “About an hour.”
As the helicopter flew north, Adrienne and Kiril took advantage of the large windows in the VIP aircraft to watch the landscape unfolding below… cultivated farmland and flat country with few high hills… lush green meadows studded with trees and dotted with small lakes.
The voice that came through the speaker this time was the pilot’s. “Ladies and gentlemen, in a few minutes we will resume vertical flight, slow our descent considerably, hover for a moment, and ease onto the ground.”
When Gruner climbed down from the flight deck, he announced that they were now in the Muritz National Park, only a few miles from town. “You will be picked up momentarily by a gentleman named Herr Dieter Gelb,” he told them.
Gelb was probably Stasi—Ministry of State Security, Kiril thought.
As if on cue, a ZIS-110 appeared.
The lanky man in civilian clothes and pointy leather boots who stepped out had a thin-lipped mouth and the feral look of a shark. He shook Kiril’s hand, then said in English: “Doctor Andreyev, I am Herr Dieter Gelb.” Delivering what sounded like a scripted statement, Gelb said he’d been asked by Chancellor Malik to escort them in Waren Town. He had taken the liberty of arranging an itinerary. “Unless you have objections?”
There were no objections.
“It is precisely 11:18 A.M. For the next three hours—until 2:15 P.M., that is—I will be your host,” Gelb said with an appreciative glance at the two women. “Promptly at 2:30 P.M., you will enjoy lunch on the terrace at the Hotel zum Storchen, after which you will be taken to the town beach for ninety minutes. Chancellor Malik has provided swimming attire for those of you who may lack it. Except for Sergeant Rogov, of course, who will remain in uniform.”
“Of course.” Kiril didn’t bother to fill Rogov in. It would never have occurred to his “shadow” to exchange his military tunic for a bathing suit.
“At 4:15 P.M.,” Herr Gelb continued, “I will collect you at the beach, return you here, and your helicopter pilots will have you back at your hotel between 5:00 P.M. and 5:15 P.M., when you may prepare for your dinner with the Chancellor.”
Their first stop was at two churches built in the fourteenth century. What followed proved to be a fascinating sightseeing tour—but only to Kiril and Adrienne Brenner, apparently. As they walked through a fifteenth century old town hall, followed by an eighteenth century fire station and a nineteenth century new town hall, Kiril had to admit that Gelb was a fount of information. Kiril and Adrienne flanked him as they walked cobblestone streets, asking historical and cultural questions that their guide answered knowledgeably and with alacrity.
Allowed to take photographs for a change, Adrienne used what she thought of as her boxy, pain-in-the-butt camera.
Galya, looking bored, and Brenner, long-suffering, trudged behind them. Luka stoically brought up the rear.
They passed monuments to the victims of fascism. To World War II refugees. To Communist resistance fighters.
As promised, promptly at 2:30 P.M., Herr Gelb had the six of them seated on the terrace of the Hotel zum Storchen for a sumptuous lunch. Kiril ordered for Luka. The time passed quickly. Kurt Brenner had again withdrawn into himself. Galya ate up a storm, though she was no match for Luka Rogov. Adrienne Brenner took some notes.
Somehow the conversation turned to World War II. Kiril knew that several thousand Russian prisoners of war, as well as men and women from German-occupied countries, had been turned into forced laborers in a local armaments factory. He knew also that in October of 1945, the local Soviet military commander had become the town’s mayor… and that their NKVD headquarters was known as the House of Horrors because of its well-deserved reputation for harsh interrogation and fiendish torture.
He could not resist bringing these facts into the conversation—in rhetorical fashion, of course—which, by now, was second-nature to him.
Is it not true, Herr Gelb, that…
“Surely, doctor,” Gelb said at one point, making an obvious effort to control the tone and volume of his voice, “you must know that the treatment of our German POWs by the U.S.S.R. was unconscionable, and yes, barbaric. You must know also that the NKVD was criticized for being overzealous as we worked to keep your Motherland free of capitalist and fascistic elements.”
Adrienne, who had been taking copious notes, felt a rush of fear—and not for herself; for Dr. A
ndreyev.
“This is supposed to be a holiday sightseeing trip, gentlemen,” she chided. “Herr Gelb, your knowledge of history and culture in this part of the world is what we Americans would call a real treat! Thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us.”
Gelb smiled and clicked his heels.
For a moment, Kiril thought he was going to kiss her hand.
Chapter 29
Herr Gelb drove them to the beach, organized changing rooms, and settled his charges with beach chairs and umbrellas. “I’ll have you back in plenty of time to get you to your dinner appointment with Chancellor Malik,” he assured them.
The blazing sun was low in a blue cloudless sky, the small beach filled with bathers. Lake Muritz was surprisingly blue, much like a bay adjacent to the sea, the water barely beginning to turn seasonally chilly. Children romped, parents chased after them. Men and women swam, some venturing beyond the buoys and white rope that demarked the allowable swimming area.
Adrienne walked toward the water and sank ankle-deep in warm white sand. Arching her back, she stretched luxuriously, looked around at her fellow sunbathers, and for the first time lost the tension that had ridden with her like an uninvited guest through the streets of East Berlin. Glancing at the placid blue lake, she was reminded of travel brochure clichés: picnic baskets, castles in the sand, carefree chatter—
Except that the chatter was practically non-existent, she realized. How could people compete with the blare emanating from loudspeakers that perched on long poles buried in the sand? She heard the strident notes of a military march as it oom-pahed its way into a clash of cymbals, followed by the razored cadence of carefully enunciated German.
“What are they saying?” she asked Galya, who happened to be nearby.
“I understand few words only. For me, the foreign language is hard.”
Adrienne smiled. “Your English is a lot better than my German.”
“How kind to give me compliment on my not very good English,” Galya sniffed.
Adrienne restrained a sigh. For the umpteenth time, she wished she could retract her tactless offer about the gown. But if last night’s apology hadn’t cleared the air by now, nothing would.
As the two women moved away from the shoreline, their silence assaulted by the relentless staccato of the loudspeaker-voice, a strong breeze caught fringes of the beach umbrellas they passed, snapping them with the same staccato beat.
Adrienne almost laughed when she spotted the ever-vigilant Luka Rogov. He had plopped down under an umbrella adjacent to an empty chair, even though Dr. Andreyev was sitting right next to him.
Comrade Ahab in a perspiration-stained Russian uniform, keeping a watchful eye on his Moby-Dick.
Andreyev wore the inevitable sunglasses. Interesting how they’d given him an air of mystery—but how commonplace they seemed on a beach. No, it wasn’t the glasses that were off-putting, she decided. It was his yachting cap. He wore it tipped jauntily to one side. It struck her as… unseemly and out of place on a man who had gone out of his way to pointedly show her the underbelly of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik.
The sudden blast of another marching song ended her reverie just as he half-turned in her direction. “Dr. Andreyev,” she called out, “would you mind translating—”
“Dr. Andreyev is chest deep in Lake Muritzsee,” Kurt told her, wearing a Cheshire-cat grin. “Will Dr. Brenner do?”
“I… it was the dark glasses.”
“Darling! I didn’t think you knew how to blush.”
“I’m glad you’re amused,” she said tartly. “Since your German is impeccable, mind telling me what’s coming out of those loudspeakers?”
“Lectures, announcements. That sort of thing.”
“They’re broadcasting lectures to people on a beach?”
“Amazing, isn’t it?” he said. “They’re also checking identity cards. See that uniformed guard over there?” He started to put his dark glasses back on. “Is it okay?” he teased. “Or are you apt to confuse me with our mysterious guide?”
“There is no mystery in dark glasses,” Galya remarked with a faint smile. “Dr. Andreyev must keep away light from eye infection. But is big mystery why your wife is mistaking him for her husband. I tell difference if my husband,” she purred, reaching up to adjust Brenner’s yachting cap at a more rakish angle. Looking him over with a mock-frown, she said, “Maybe Mrs. Brenner not notice this.” She touched a mole on Brenner’s shoulder. “Or this.” Her finger traced a thin line down his chest, white against deep tan. Dropping her hand, she laughed like a defiant child, then turned to face Adrienne Brenner’s anger.
Damn you!
Adrienne almost said it aloud—to Kurt, not the Barkova woman. To his arched eyebrow—a not-so-subtle sign that he was flattered. To the same half-smile that he flashed at operating-room nurses and cocktail-party hostesses.
“Having fun?” she said acidly. Turning her back on them both, she laid out a colorful beach towel, sank into it, and closed her eyes.
The sun was a lightweight blanket on her body. Surrendering to its warmth, she shut out the world—tried to anyway. Her article was practically writing itself. Entire paragraphs darted in and out of her head. The only thing she’d dared reduce to writing were some memory-jogging words that would be meaningless to anyone else. Photographs were more accurate than memory—and much more incriminating, she consoled herself. If only she could manage to take the ones she really wanted. Lugging a conspicuously large camera around for the few photos she was allowed to take was a nuisance. On the other hand, she had to admit it was a terrific distraction on the rare occasion when she could whip the tiny Minox out of her shoulder bag and snap away.
She let it all go finally and surrendered to the delicious warmth of her sun-blanket.
Until she felt the blanket slip away, as if some presumptuous cloud had crossed the almost cloudless sky. Turning lazily on her side, she reached with half-closed eyes for the terrycloth robe she’d dropped next to her towel.
Her arm stalled in mid-air as if someone had grabbed it.
Kiril Andreyev stood looking down at her. His shadow across her body had blotted out the sun.
She felt the weight of his glance. Her own tight breathing. The shock of seeing his body outside the prison of an ill-fitting suit.
Even her eyes betrayed her. She couldn’t take them off his hands as they reached for a towel. The insolent line of his legs, braced against the hard-driving wind. She was aware of the curve of her hip. Of a bathing suit that rose obediently to her neck but left her shoulders and back exposed—
The shadow ruptured like broken glass. He had turned to respond to something Kurt was saying.
She dropped back onto the towel and closed her eyes, feeling cold even though the sun was back.
* * *
When the helicopter was ready to board the passengers for the flight back, everyone resumed the seats they’d occupied before. Takeoff was uneventful.
As soon as the aircraft reached the altitude for horizontal flight, Kiril addressed the Brenners. “Before we took off, I instructed the captain to fly as low as possible as we approach East Berlin. I thought you might like to see East Germany’s newest attempt at improving its security against ‘capitalist encroachment’ on its sovereignty.”
Adrienne Brenner went into high alert, immediately grasping what Andreyev was getting at. Convinced that there was a subtext to everything he said and did, and given the worldwide headlines a month or so earlier about East Germany’s newest attempt to “improve its security,” he had to be talking about The Wall.
Before leaving New York, she had learned as much as she could about what was happening. Then on August 12, 1961, just a few weeks before she and Kurt set foot on East German soil, the Council of Ministers of the GDR had put out a patently self-serving and facially absurd statement.
“I know what you’re talking about,” she told Andreyev as she flipped to a page in her notebook. She paraphrase
d the Council of Ministers’ statement. How, in order to put a stop to the “hostile” activity of West Germany’s and West Berlin’s “attempt to regain lost territory and militaristic forces,” border controls of the kind generally found in every sovereign state would be set up at the border of the German Democratic Republic. Adrienne looked up from her notes. “What prompted the creation of those so-called border controls, Dr. Andreyev?”
“Mind changing seats with me for a few minutes?” Kiril asked Brenner. “It will make it easier for me to answer your wife’s questions.”
Brenner shrugged indifferently and took the seat next to Galya.
“Five years after the end of World War II—between 1950 and 1953—nearly one million citizens of the GDP’s workers’ paradise moved to West Germany. As the American saying goes, they voted with their feet. A quarter-million left within the first six months.”
Adrienne scanned her notes. “A million people in three years,” she said evenly. “How long did this go on?”
“A few more years. In 1957 the Communists imposed a passport law severely reducing the number of people leaving East Germany. Ironically, it was as if pressure applied to one end of a balloon forced the other end to bulge. By the end of 1958, the percentage of refugees using West Berlin as an escape hatch rose from sixty to ninety percent. And don’t forget, the subway was still running between East and West Berlin.”
“All defectors had to do was take a subway?”
He nodded, almost as if he couldn’t trust his voice. But Adrienne saw in his expression what he was unable to hide: a terrible sense of longing.
“How many people escaped?” she asked.
“By the end of 1961? Three and a half million East Germans—20 percent of the population. And because most of them were young and well-educated—physicians, teachers, engineers, skilled workers—some party officials were calling it a ‘brain drain.’ It got so bad that by 1960, only 61 per cent of East Germany’s population was of working age. It was obvious that the combined efforts of East Germany and the Soviet Union were needed to avert a crisis.”
