The Berlin Paradox

by Alain Xalabarde

  She continues speaking about mom and dad, about the Air Force, about our new life here, about my new life. It’s the same old thing. I’m tired of hearing it again. We’ve been here for over a year now. Repeating it over and over doesn’t make it better. I get angry and I almost speak out, but I keep it in. It’s not her fault. It’s my life. It’s my problem. I have to deal with it.

  I think she understands. She gets up, walks to the other room and returns with a blanket and a pillow. She puts the blanket over me and rubs my head again, like a stray puppy. I feel ashamed to admit that it felt good. It felt good to know somebody still cared that I was here.

  She exits the living room and it suddenly feels empty. Finally, silence. I close my eyes. I quickly fall asleep.

  VIII

  It’s morning. The smell of something burning wakes me up in a fright. I have a sudden flashback of something I’ve been trying to forget, but I quickly suppress it and it goes away. It’s breakfast. She made it. Katya is an angel. I hope she meets the right guy, she deserves it. Maybe I hope she doesn’t. Maybe I want to be the only man in her life. Have someone who still needs me.

  I keep still. Looking out the window, blinding myself with the morning’s first light rays. I know I need to move, but I can’t find the energy.

  Soon Katya walks in. She brings a plate with a toast and a boiled egg. Not much, but still better than what I’m used to having lately. She puts it down in front of me, as well as a cup of coffee. The coffee is steaming hot. I can see little strips of vapour dancing above it.

  Her voice ignites my ears. I finally hear the busy street outside; the cars, the people, Katya… wait. What did she say? She says it again. Shit! I’m supposed to work today! I have to be at my post in less than an hour, and I’m still two hours away from Wünsdorf!

  I jump from the couch. I grab the boiled egg and devour it in two bites. I grab the slice of toast and begin to put my boots on. She continues speaking to me. She wasn’t expecting this sort of reaction from me. I sense disappointment in her posture. She asks me to take it easy. As soon as my boots are on, I pull her towards me and hug her. I make it last. I know she will like that. She does. She keeps silent. I make an awkward half-attempt to kiss her head. It’s enough for her. More than enough. She smiles, but I can’t tell if it’s real. I don’t have time to find out.

  I run downstairs and dash out into the street. Fuck, it’s cold. Why is it still cold?

  After running a few blocks down and dodging cars, I find a U-Bahn station. It’s so bright in this neighbourhood. I jump on the subway and hope I don’t get into any trouble. It’s the safer choice.

  When I reach the train station, I sprint to the platform and barely jump on the train in time. I got lucky I guess, but not lucky enough. I’m still going to be extremely late. I’m sure my students will be fine without me, but tardiness is not kindly looked upon by my superiors. Seems like in the end I took my mother’s steps and found a calling in teaching. However, unlike her, I hate my job. I hate the repetitiveness, the meaningless social encounters with the rest of the staff, and the sense that all those I teach will reach further than I ever have.

  I should have called the office from my sister’s house. Made up some excuse to explain why I’m not even in town. Too late now. I’ll have to deal with it when I arrive.

  My heart is still beating agitatedly during the first half hour of the train ride, but I finally let the scenery outside the window soothe me. I think of my new life. How much things have changed. Only a few months ago I was ready to be shot into space. Now I’m living in a completely different country, working as a military flight instructor at a town in the middle of nowhere.

  I do wish I could have stayed closer to Berlin. Not because it’d be near my sister, although that should be my first instinct, but because I’d actually feel closer to my father. Although he is dead, I still feel his presence every time I set foot in the city. Maybe I’m just becoming melancholic. I guess it comes with age. At the very least, Wünsdorf is buzzing with comrades. In fact, it’s the largest Soviet Military Camp outside of Russia. Passing by the statue of Lenin every morning makes me feels a little closer to home. I have spent most of my modern life in military bases. Maybe I wouldn’t fit in the city after all.

  It’s only when the train finally arrives that I realize I need to go back home and change. It doesn’t take me long to reach the military base. Having an apartment only meters away from work actually turned out to be very convenient.

  I unlock the main door to the building and run up the stairs, two steps at a time. I reach my apartment door and stop in my tracks.

  The door is partially open. Did I leave the door open? How could I be so stupid? I couldn’t have.

  I cautiously enter my apartment. My heart jumps when I find a young officer sitting on my armchair. He stands up in a rush, as if I had caught him doing something he shouldn’t. I don’t recognize him. I ask him who he is. He speaks, but does not answer my question. Instead he hands me a letter.

  The bile in my stomach burns and I taste this morning’s coffee in my mouth. I grab the letter, the young officer bows and exits my apartment.

  I open the letter and the first thing I read is the signature: Heinz Kessler, deputy minister of defence. Fuck. I had heard about Herr Kessler. He was a fierce German supporter of the communist party. He was first assigned to the Wehrmacht, the nazi air force, but then defected to the Soviets in 1940, with whom he fought till the end of the war. Now he was deputy minister. Our leaders truly know how to reward their most loyal members. It’s therefore strange that I still had to feel ashamed of my father. According to my mother, he was a defector, just like Herr Kessler, but we were never allowed to speak of it.

  I’m afraid to read the rest of the letter. But the text is surprisingly short and I can’t help but read it. I must make my way to his office immediately.

  I blew it. Again, I blew it. But why are my hands shaking? It just seems like an excessive measure. Are they planning something worse than getting fired? I haven’t given them reasons for harsh treatment. Then again, that hasn’t always been necessary. Was my father’s nationality going to emerge again? That has always been my first thought when I was about to get into trouble. Relax. Just take a breath. Follow your orders. Do your best to defend your stand and let fate take its course.

  I quickly change into my military uniform and make my way to the address detailed on the letter. It’s hard to step into the building. My chest hurts as soon as my foot walks through the main door. I feel like everyone is looking at me. I feel like everyone knows I’m getting fired. It’s ridiculous, I know. It’s just my imagination.

  Someone grabs my arm. My instinct is to pull away, but I remember that I am in a safe place. Am I? I turn around. It’s a man wearing a high-ranking uniform. I’ve never seen him before. He asks for my name. I state it fully. He then continues in Russian. Strange. He’s wearing an East German uniform. He doesn’t look Russian. He doesn’t sound Russian either.

  He asks me to follow him. I am hesitant. I have a bad feeling about this. We reach a meeting room and there I find Herr Kessler. He’s busy talking with other people. I salute him. He acknowledges me. I try to apologize for my misconduct and skipping work today. He interrupts me and tells me I am not needed here any longer. Did I just get fired? It feels worse than that. He tells me to go with the man who has brought me to this room. With that, our encounter is over. Herr Kessler continues speaking to the other men in the room.

  I follow the man, as ordered. Why are they taking me? What have I done? What do they think I’ve done? I remind myself that I have nothing to hide. I try to sound convincing in my head, but I am not completely sure.

  I’m afraid of asking where we are going. Just follow him. Don’t make it any worse. Show them you still have discipline. Don’t look suspicious. Why would I look suspicious?

  A car awaits for us. I get in. At first I think they will drive me back to my apartment so I can pack my things, bu
t that’s not the case. We drive away from the site. Out of town. Too far for my comfort. The man keeps silent. So do I. I prefer it that way.

  We drive south. My thumbs are fiddling with each other. After an hour of driving I finally summon the courage to ask where we are going. The man who guided me to the car says he is not authorized to answer that. He is just following orders.

  I finally start putting the pieces together and realize we’re driving to Berlin. Back to Berlin. I can’t believe I had been here this morning and I was now returning for no apparent reason.

  Once in the center, we pass by Volkspark Friedrichshain. We stop right beside it. This seems like an odd place to stop. I get off the car and follow the stranger. He tries to walk with me, side by side, but I keep allowing him to stay a step ahead of me. We reach the end of the trees and the broken-down Resurrection Church rises before us. It was heavily bombed during the war, and it’s still in ruins. Hasn’t been touched. Obviously, Berlin has other more important things to worry about than God.

  We walk right by it and enter the cemetery beside it. What are we doing here? I follow obediently, but alert. Looking at the gravestones reminds me of my mother. It’s sad that this will now represent her.

  We reach a small mausoleum with a pyramidal cupola and two infant angels mourning melancholically. He opens the door to the mausoleum and we enter the humid interior. They’ve dug up the floor and a ladder leads further down into the ground. I am nudged to climb down. We reach the bottom, and I set foot on what seems like a hidden chamber, where two soldiers are standing, patiently waiting for us. They let us in through a large, crumpled hole in a cement wall. It seems out of place, as if someone was trying to cover something up. Unlucky for them, someone found a sledgehammer and I can tell they had a blast breaking through the dubious-looking wall. Inside of it, on the other side, is a heavy metal door. It also looks like it doesn’t belong in a mausoleum. The man presses a button resembling some sort of bell, but it is silent. He waits. I wait with him. Where the hell is he taking me? What is this place?

  The metal door screeches and finally opens. The uniformed man turns around and leaves. Should I follow him? What is this place? Why am I here? Why did I let myself get taken all the way here? My eyes follow the stranger as he walks away.

  I turn my head forward. The door is now fully open. Behind it is an attractive, blond, German woman in her late thirties. She welcomes me in German, but wears a serious face. Behind her is a long, rudimentary tunnel, lit only by working lights hanging from the sides.

  I step inside. But why? Maybe it’s because she’s a woman and I’d like to be polite. Maybe it’s because I find her attractive. I don’t know... yes, I do know.

  The door slams behind me. She turns her back to me and walks deeper into the tunnel. I follow her cautiously, trying to avoid tripping over the uneven floor. She wears very casual clothing. It’s hard to make out what she is doing here or what her role is. I thought I would be able to find some clue as to what was happening at this point. I still don’t. It is getting too weird. I feel uneasy. Too uneasy. I reach my limit. I realize how bad this situation is getting - it might even be too late. I stop walking.

  The woman notices and stops too. She turns around and asks if there’s a problem. I reply with a question. I demand some explanation before I continue. She says that I need to speak to the Doctor for that.

  The Doctor? What Doctor? Before I am able to react, she has already turned around and continues walking down the eery tunnel.

  IX

  It’s humid. It smells like this tunnel has been closed for decades. I lose count of the corridors and corners we take, and of the metal doors we cross. I am trying to make a mental map, but it is very disorienting. I would never have expected this sort of structure built under a graveyard. Although, at this point, I’m not even sure we’re directly under the cemetery anymore.

  Finally, we enter a bright room. Looks like an office. My eyes adjust and I make out another person in the room. A slender man is standing with his arms crossed. He is clearly waiting for me. His casual clothing is made up of at least five different tones of brown. I get a glimpse of a smile on his face. I think it’s a smile. I’m not sure.

  He takes a step towards me and stretches out his hand. I shake it politely. His hand is freezing cold, like a cadaver. He pronounces my first name with a perfect accent. He is Russian. I can tell.

  He pulls up a worn-out chair and lets me sit on it. I suddenly realize that the female I walked in with is not in the room anymore. I look around for her, but she has vanished.

  The man leans against an old desk, crosses his arms and stares down at me. I wait for him to start talking, but he doesn’t. His eyes are scanning over every detail of my body. It makes me very uncomfortable. Even more uncomfortable than I already was. I need to stay strong. I stare back at him, defiant.

  I win the battle. He talks. He speaks to me in Russian. He introduces himself as Doctor Vodnik. He doesn’t look like a doctor. He doesn’t speak like a doctor either. He explains that he is a scientist. He came from Russia to work exclusively on a very important project. Sure. It’s always an important project. He stops there and lets his words linger.

  He grabs some papers from beside him, puts on a pair of glasses and reads from them. He mentions my hometown, my military training, my mother and even my father’s full name. It’s at that point that he looks back up at me. He asks me what happened to my father. I would imagine he has this information already and is probably testing me. I have nothing to hide, so I give him the answer he wants to hear. I tell him my father died in Königsberg, fighting for the red army. The doctor asks me where I got this information from. I pause for a moment, confused by his unusual inquisition. Before I am able to reply, he asks me if my father had ties to the Nazi government. My blood boils. How dare he? I’ve had to put up with these accusations my whole life. I’m about to give my many-times-rehearsed speech on how my father was a hero when he stops me in my tracks. He fiddles through the papers and says there are no records of my father fighting for the red army. I am speechless. That can’t be true. He must be missing some documents. However, the doctor doesn’t seem to give it any importance. Instead he says he knows the remote Russian town my mother was born in. He has been there. I take a breath and try to calm myself down.

  He assures me that I need not to worry about my father’s past. He holds the papers up in front of me. He can ask the KGB to forget about all this if this meeting goes well.

  Why is he telling me all this? Is he blackmailing me? A moment ago I had nothing to be blackmailed for. Has the KGB fabricated claims about my father in exchange for something?

  He asks me about my experience in the Soviet Air Force. I don’t answer. I don’t want to talk about it. I definitely don’t want to talk about it with him. I want to find out how much he knows. He asks me how I like my current job at the GSSD (Soviet Armed Forces in Germany). That comment painfully hits me straight in the lungs and I don’t know how to react. He asks me if I like working there.

  I choose to keep silent.

  He asks me if I like it back here in Berlin. He asks me if my father’s hometown is everything I expected. He asks me if I’d rather be in Moscow. He asks me if I rather be back there training. How does he know this last bit? Or rather, why does he know this? The space program is top secret. What does he want with it? My palms are sweaty, but my stern face shows no emotion. He asks me if I am disappointed that I wasn’t given a chance to prove myself. He asks me if I would like another chance. I feel like my whole body is shaking, but I’m sure it isn’t.

  He reminds me about all the extensive medical tests, and how they didn’t give me any coherent explanation for my expulsion. I look away. He tries to convince me it wasn’t political, but that just reinforces my doubts.

  Where is he going with this? I haven’t said anything in a long while and I am getting very annoyed at his blabbering. He asks me if I ever had any blood problems? I don’t know wha
t he’s referring to. He explains that my blood test results showed a very unusual blood behavior. They thought it wasn’t safe to send someone off into space with such an anomaly.

  I remember the moment I was given this speech.

  However, he says my blood is exactly what they are looking for. I am worried. No one knows where I am. How could I be so stupid? How did I get myself in this spot? A fugitive drop of sweat runs down my forehead and hides behind my eyebrow. I think he can begin to tell I am getting nervous.

  He lightens the tension by changing the subject. He mentions that, back at the space program, Gagarin seems to be the favorite. Yuri and I got to know each other well during our training. Good guy. I’m happy for him. Maybe not happy. But I agree with their decision. The doctor tells me that I may not be suitable to travel through space, but I am still a quintessential specimen for an even more extraordinary program. I don’t like the fact that he uses the word ‘specimen’. He tries to add something else but cuts himself early, as if he were trying to censor his own words. What did he want to say?

  Dr. Vodnik calls me by my last name and tells me if I would like to be part of what he jokingly calls, “Soviet Time Program”. He says it is highly confidential and he can’t give any more details until I accept. He knows it is an unreasonable offer to accept without knowing any further, but describes it as a risk I’ll have to take. If I’m interested I’ll have to join blindly. He doesn’t reiterate the fact that the KGB is in possession of my family history, and the fact that all of that could go away if I only accepted his offer. But the thought lingers in my mind, and he knows it. I am intrigued, but also skeptical, and scared.

  The doctor says he knows my answer already. The way he says it doesn’t seem to be a figurative speech. However, he adds that he will give me a day to come to my own conclusion, but not without reminding me that it’s a chance to change history. This last sentence strikes a chord inside of me, and he smiles, as if he knew exactly what words to use.