The Berlin Paradox

by Alain Xalabarde

  I can’t hold my breath any longer and I quickly exhale and inhale. The air is thin. Humid. The walls of the booth are covered in a thin layer of water, like the one that gathers up around a glass of cold beer. I am awkwardly crawled up on the floor. My ass is slipping against the cold metallic surface.

  I get on my feet, but my knees are shaky. In fact, my whole body is shaking, as if I had just eaten a bag of coffee beans. At least it soothes me to hear myself breathing. Deep, anguished breaths. It is dark, however. Pitch black. Have I gone blind? I tap around me, feeling the booth with my fingertips. The wheel handle should be somewhere here. Here. Here it is. My hands slip as I turn the wheel handle. I don’t remember it being so tight. Maybe I’m just feeling weak.

  The lock finally gives in and the door pops open, bringing a cold rush of air inside the booth. I wasn’t aware of how hot it had gotten in there. I stick my head outside the booth and still, I see nothing. Oh, wait. Now I can. Now I can’t. Now I can. Now I can’t. A red light is blinking beside the time booth. Every couple of seconds, for a brief moment, I get a glimpse of the room.

  I slowly and carefully make my way around the room, trying to find an exit. It looks similar to the one I just left seconds ago, but with a different layout. It also seems as if it has been abandoned for a long time. Dust and spider webs stick to my moist skin. I hear tiny rummaging under one of the counters and for a brief moment I feel something hairy crawling and brushing my feet. I don’t dare to look down. I try to keep calm.

  Slowly but steadily I begin to have a feel for the room and finally discern something that looks like an exit. I cautiously walk towards it, my eyes open wide, hungrily taking in any minuscule amount of light. I finally reach the door and open it.

  Behind it is an even darker corridor which looks like it’s in a worse condition than the previous room. Part of the ceiling has caved in and there are scattered puddles of dark water. Where the fuck am I? And most importantly, how the fuck do I get out of here?

  A loud rumble shakes the ground below my naked feet. Dust falls from the walls. I hear faraway footsteps splashing on water. Before I can even decide which way to run, an artificial ray of light cast by a flimsy flashlight shines like a curious squirrel around the corner. I take cover behind a pile of rubble. I find a small plank of wood and grip it firmly in my hand.

  The steps get closer, and the flashlight shines wider. I wait. A stranger’s voice calls my name in the loudest whisper I have ever heard. He has an accent, but I can’t put my finger on it. He calls again, adding a German curse word to the end of the sentence for good measure. His voice seems to be losing patience. I look at myself, completely naked and vulnerable. My balls dangling like wet tea bags. I can’t tell whether this person is armed, nonetheless, I have no chance against him in this state. My only option is to trust him.

  I answer back with a question. I ask who he is. He says his name is Burak. His voice has a casual tone, as if we had known each other for years. I can finally pick-out his accent. Arab. Maybe Turkish. Probably Turkish.

  He turns the corner and finally finds me, his flashlight beaming straight into my eyes, blinding me. I can’t see his face. I stand before him like a shaved rat, shielding my eyes uncomfortably. He throws some clothes at me and asks me to put them on. I gladly comply. I put on some jeans, a thin shirt, a thick jacket and a pair of hefty boots without socks. He apologizes for forgetting to bring socks. Before I’m able to acknowledge, he offers me a bag of peanuts. I tell him I’m not hungry, but he insists. I dip my hand inside and feel that it is mostly filled with salt, with only a few peanuts hidden inside. I take one out and dust it off. Burak tells me I should be eating the salt. The peanuts are just to make it easier to swallow. He knows. Who is he?

  I do as he says, shoving a peanut in my mouth and mixing it with a large pinch of salt. It’s not the pleasant snack I was hoping after a long trip. I can only discern his silhouette in the dark. His head thrashes from one side to the other as if someone else were about to walk into the derelict building at any moment. I ask him how did he know I was here. He says I told him. What?

  I’m about to ask him something else when he pulls me by the arm and leads me to the exit.

  1970

  XII

  Berlin looks pretty much the same at first glance, but I will soon find out that it isn’t the same at all.

  Burak has led me through the sewers and out into a remote alley of Kreuzberg. He seems quite young to be involved in something like this. I have the feeling he may be even younger than I. He’s surely no older than thirty. Probably mid twenties.

  We are nowhere near the cemetery I entered just minutes ago. In fact, we’re about five kilometers away from it, near what I’d later learn to be Wrangelbrunnen fountain. The sun is bright outside. I have no idea what time of the day it is. Maybe morning. Maybe late afternoon. How did I get all the way to Kreuzberg?

  Now that we’re outside I feel the unforgiving cold scratch into my scalp. I run my hand over my head and feel nothing but skin. My hair is gone. I touch my eyebrows. Nothing. They’re gone too. The doctor said nothing about this. I look at myself on the reflection of a store’s window. It’s amazing how different I look without any hair. I don’t look like the same person. I am unrecognizable even to myself.

  Burak slaps me on the shoulder and signals me to keep walking. I try to keep up with him. We walk past a couple of streets more and he enters a grey apartment block. He runs up the stairs, expecting me to be as energetic as he is. Unfortunately, I can barely bend my knees. He takes my arm over his shoulder and helps me up all the way to the second floor. He rummages in his pocket and takes out a set of keys. I hear babies crying next door. I can smell a distinct, pungent, sour food in the whole staircase, but I’m not sure what it is.

  First thing Burak does when we enter the house is shout out for his mother. He also says something in Turkish which I cannot understand. A woman appears from behind a door frame. She is covered with a long, black hijab and it’s hard to tell her age, but her voice is mature and rugged. She gives her son a quick answer and quickly disappears back inside the room.

  The corridor is packed with small boxes along the side of it that go all the way to the ceiling. Burak opens the door to a room and we both walk inside. He opens a drawer and throws me a pair of socks. The room is also riddled with small boxes. I find a couple of open ones and peek inside. They carry vinyl records, jeans and porn magazines. I ask him if all these boxes have the same contents. He nods and says that it’s his business. I don’t quite understand, but I decide it’s the least of my concerns right now. I have bigger things to ask.

  He hands me a newspaper and lands it on my thighs. He says Dr. Vodnik thought I’d like to see it. I open the newspaper up. On the front page I see a cosmonaut. At first I think it’s my old friend Gagarin - he finally made it to space after all. I guess this is the doctor’s way of telling me I made it to the future. Something doesn’t seem quite right about the picture though. I quickly notice an american flag on the cosmonaut’s shoulder and a sandy surface beneath his feet. That’s not Gagarin. I read the title. It’s in English, but I can understand a word: Moon. I search for the date at the head of the page. 1969. It’s 1969? How long have I been asleep. Burak tells me the newspaper is actually a year old. It’s 1970, and he points out that I haven’t been sleeping.

  I feel lightheaded and weak. Burak sees this, puts his hand in the pockets of my jacket and pulls out the salted peanuts. I eat a few more. He says I should eat the whole bag if possible.

  He clears his bed of crumpled clothes and invites me to take a nap. I do feel tired. As I drift off I hear him say that he’ll wake me up in a couple of hours to cross the border. I don’t quite understand which border, but before I am able to question him, I have fallen asleep.

  * * *

  Two hours later, on the dot, my shoulder is shaken. My sticky eyelids flicker open and I see Burak’s dark eyes staring at me. I carefully sit upright, regaining conscious
ness. Burak seems to be in a constant hurry, ever since I first met him. It’s like he’s always got some place to go.

  He pats me on the back and asks me to grab a box. He does too. Together we walk out of the apartment. He exchanges some indiscernible words with his mother and he closes the main door behind him.

  Outside it is getting dark already. I follow Burak down the street where a small Citroën 2CV panel van is waiting for us like an obedient dog. I would say it was pistachio-colored, but the abundant rust now dominates as the principal color.

  Burak opens the back doors and we place the boxes inside, where others have already been carefully loaded. He walks around to the driver’s seat, opens the door with a strident squealing emanating from the old hinges, and sits inside, shaking the flimsy car from side to side as he accommodates into the small seat. He opens the opposite door and I enter the car too. It is even colder in the car than it is outside. How is it possible? Burak starts the ignition and the car coughs as if it were an old man with the flu. The engine finally kicks in and roars like a lion cub.

  Burak drives down the dimly lit streets of Berlin without saying a word. I thought of striking up a conversation, but I can tell by the look on his face that he is deeply brooding about something else. I don’t think it’d be a good thing to break his concentration. It also allows for me to have some time for myself. It is then that I realize I have no idea where we are going or who this man truly is. I’d be worried if it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve gotten used to the idea of trusting strangers using basic intuition.

  He spits out a sound in Turkish that can be nothing else but a curse word. He reaches into his pocket and hands me a west German passport. I open it and find my face on it. He tells me to keep it. I take the opportunity to ask how long we’ll be driving for. He says it’ll be only a few blocks away. I’m about to ask about the border he mentioned before I fell asleep earlier, but the road ahead of us holds the answer. Not far now, I see a grey wall looming across the buildings. This wasn’t here yesterday. By yesterday I mean years ago, back in 1960.

  We reach a barricade guarded by two soldiers. Burak greets them. One of them is also of Turkish descent. They shake hands amicably. We drive only a few meters further and we stop at a second border. There, Burak’s stance is more formal, patiently waiting for the guard to walk up to the window. He then offers him an envelope and they both nod. The security bar is raised and we drive through.

  I look through the rearview mirror as the ugly cement wall disappears in the distance. I ask Burak when the wall was built. He says it was in 1961, briefly after I travelled. He attempts to quickly explain the politics behind it, but his sentences tangle into a messy construct, leaving me without any clear picture of what actually happened. He is quickly aware of his rambling and stops himself, only to point out that I cannot easily cross from one side of the city to the other anymore.

  The lights seem different in the east. It’s darker. Even the weather seems to be colder. I’m sure it’s only my imagination. But I do feel more at home here. The tenebrosity is my friend.

  As Burak drives I soak in the beauty of the city. I do notice some minor changes. New residential buildings mostly. But the essence - the spirit - is still untouched.

  After what seems like ten minutes, we arrive at the Resurrection Church. It has been partially renovated, but not enough to reflourish its former glory. Burak stops the car a few meters away from the entrance, right below a broken lamp post that now only casts a shadow on the vehicle. I take the gesture as a sign for me to get off. His engine is still running though, and his hands are firmly holding onto the steering wheel. I push myself off the low seat and onto the pavement, taking one more look at Burak before I leave. He wishes me good luck with a neutral tone. I ask if we’ll see each other again while I close the creaking passenger door. Through the open window he replies that he is certain of it. The engine coughs and he drives away.

  I am left in the silence of the night with no one around. My only choice is to walk towards the cemetery. I walk to the mausoleum and try to open the door. It is shut. I knock. Nothing. I pull the handles. They won’t budge. I knock again. No signs of anybody. I return to the church. It’s too dark, and the cemetery is creeping me out. I look up and down the street and see nowhere to go. I only wish Burak would have waited for me to enter the building before driving off.

  An unforgiving breeze forces me to curl up on the floor, besides the main door to the Resurrection Church. I close my eyes, burrow my head in between my arms and wait for morning, hoping for the best.

  XIII

  I am awoken by her. Her head blocks the sun and all I can see is her silhouette. A rim of light around the edges makes her blond hair glow like the moon during an eclipse. She whispers and caresses my face. I’m still half asleep. My eyes still sticky. I take my time to accommodate to the brightness of the new day. She doesn’t wait. She grabs me by the arm and forces me on my feet. Her soft manners suddenly turn aggressive. Or maybe it’s just me waking up and being more aware of reality.

  She asks me what I’m still doing out here. I explain her about last night. She curses Burak and assures me that this wasn’t the way it was supposed to go down. She taps my jacket with the palm of her hand, dusting it off. We leave.

  She’s obviously older than the last time I last saw her - in her forties, I’m guessing - but she stills maintains an enchanting attractiveness through the years. I ask her where we are going. She says they’ve relocated their laboratory to a safer location. I ask her if I can stay at her place tonight, or at least until the next trip. She points that her husband wouldn’t be happy about it. Ok, she’s still married.

  We get into a car. She drives. She drives south. She doesn’t speak. We drive by Treptower Park and it reminds me of my childhood. The very first time my mother brought me to Berlin. It was years after the war. Years after the death of my father. I was already in my late teens. My sister was studying and couldn’t join us on this trip. On the second day of our stay in the city, my mother brought me here, to the Soviet Memorial. I must have been seventeen at the time. I remember the feeling as if it were happening right now. It was the most impressive thing I had ever seen. She held me tightly by the arm and we walked. From the weeping statue of a mother to the heroic pedestal where a soldier held a child in his arms. My mother kept silent the whole time. She didn’t speak a word until we exited the grounds. She limited herself to reading the inscriptions and taking a deep breath once in awhile. Her eyes seem to be lost somewhere. The trip was intended for me to learn about my father. Though she never actually said a word about him. It was almost as if she just expected me to intuitively understand who he was by simply walking around the city. I desperately looked for clues, but I never got a concrete answer. A week later we were on the bus, on the way back to Kaliningrad. Back home. Having learnt nothing new about my father.

  The blond woman parks the car and asks me to follow her. She takes me through a lush park. Incidentally, there seems to be a lot of people taking the same route. Most of them holding children by the hand.

  A few meters later I understand. They’ve built a new theme park. Never seen it before, but apparently it’s here to stay. Kulturpark Plänterwald, they call it, and it’s yet another proof of East Berlin’s prosperity. However, I can’t help but wonder what the blond woman and I are doing here.

  She buys two currywursts and we calmly walk down the park. I ask her when I will get to speak to the doctor. She says the doctor has disappeared.

  I stop in my tracks. She looks at me intently but nudges me to keep on walking. I continue following her.

  I ask her what she knows. She says that, one day, he simply never showed up to work. I throw my currywurst in a garbage can and grab her by the arm. Why has nobody told me this yet? She says it’s not important. I know she is lying - it has affected her more than she would have liked. She contains her emotions and assures that the project is still functioning as usual. She is running it now.
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  I try to find out when it happened and she dismissively says it was only a couple of weeks ago. I ask her to tell me more about his disappearance, but she says it’s not a good idea. She says I could be tempted to change the past somehow. We don’t know what the consequences of something like that may be. She keeps walking forward.

  Her hope is that he is only missing temporarily, but she expresses her worry that someone may have been trying to sabotage the project. They think it may be western spies, but nothing is confirmed. The GDR themselves don’t know what we’re doing - it is very unlikely that the West would have found out. Could be an inside man. Someone working for the USSR maybe.

  She repeats that they’ve relocated the central laboratory. I know this already. She explains that they’ve found yet another portal underneath the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. The Soviet government has procured the area and turned it into a hospital for Russian soldiers, which will allow us total discretion. This newly discovered underground site has also revealed undamaged documents that may prove very helpful in our search for other portals.

  I tell her I’m not sure about travelling again. I point out the loss of my hair, my non-existent eyebrows and the fact that my stomach is still churning. She says it’s fine. She’s seen me in this state before. It’s a natural part of travelling via the booth. What does she mean she’s seen me like this before? I ask her. She sighs, shrugs and says it’s better not to talk about this sort of thing, as it may have unpredictable consequences. I guess that means I’ve seen her before too. Or, rather, that I will see her again. I can’t help but ask when was the first time she saw me. I believe that’s more important. She hesitates for a moment but finally confesses that it was in 1950.