“Komm,” I say, jumping to my feet. “Let’s find out what’s going on.”
We leave the train along with the other dozen or so passengers. They are as confused as we are. A man says something about a radio announcement this morning but I don’t catch exactly what. We head towards the exit. A large crowd has already gathered in the station concourse. Everyone is talking and shouting at once. I hold onto Brigitta’s hand because I don’t want to lose her in the crowd. We squeeze our way to the front. I see a uniformed S-bahn employee trying to make himself heard above the noise of the crowd, and gesticulating with his hands. I make my way towards him, dragging Brigitta in my wake. I have a bad feeling about this but I don’t want to say anything to Brigitta until I’m sure. When we are close enough I hear the S-bahn employee telling people to go and buy a newspaper if they want to know what’s going on. Some people have already done so and are waving copies of Neues Deutschland around, crying and shouting. I go cold all over when I hear what they are saying.
“Die Grenze ist geschlossen!” shouts a man. The border is closed!
“Mit Stacheldraht!” cries a woman, tears streaming down her face. With barbed wire!
Dieter
The coffee has gone cold.
I push it to one side and bring my fist down, hard, on the table.
“Verdammt!” Damn! My voice sounds unnaturally loud in the empty kitchen.
There is only one thing on the radio today. The thing I feared most has happened; the border between East and West Berlin has been closed. With barbed wire. And not just barbed wire through the middle of the city but all the way around West Berlin making it impossible for East Berliners and East Germans alike to access West Berlin. According to the radio, armed guards are manning the checkpoints between East and West and armed Factory Fighters, those East German workers trained for combat, are guarding the barbed wire. The Communist Party didn’t like the fact that so many people were leaving for the West, so they have plugged the hole which was West Berlin. The border is now closed. No one can cross it, in either direction.
But what I don’t understand is, how the hell did they manage to pull off a stunt like that? Nobody had any idea, although maybe we should have guessed something like this might happen.
I think of Sabine and Brigitta getting up this morning, looking forward to the picnic. Will they have heard the news on the radio? Or are they at this very moment at the border, being refused entry to West Berlin? If they don’t know about the barbed wire then they could be on the train heading towards Friedrichstrasse right now. The radio announcer said that no trains are allowed to cross the border.
I’m so angry I think I might explode if I sit here any longer. I throw the cold coffee down the sink and grab my jacket from a hook on the kitchen door. Bernd, my flatmate, is still asleep in bed. I don’t bother waking him, but go out slamming the apartment door behind me.
Outside, the streets of Kreuzberg are just waking up. Bleary-eyed students blinking in the bright morning sun; old men shuffling on their way to the kiosk to buy the morning paper and their daily supply of tobacco. The debris of Saturday night - beer bottles and cigarette stubs - litters the streets. When I returned home late yesterday evening, the streets were packed with the usual throngs of students, drinking and partying. Bernd was going out and tried to persuade me to join him, but I knew I had to be up early to meet Sabine and Brigitta, so I went to bed.
I head up to Zimmerstrasse which runs along the border between East and West Berlin, and stare in disbelief at the sight in front of me. Yesterday, this was an ordinary street. Now there are huge tangled coils of barbed wire, at least a metre high, running down the middle of the road. On the other side of the wire armed Factory Fighters are standing guard.
I follow the path of the barbed wire, around Potsdamer Platz and along the edge of the Tiergarten until I reach the Brandenburger Tor, the old city gate. With its enormous six stone columns crowned with the statue of Victory riding her chariot, the Brandenburger Tor is Berlin’s most famous landmark. It lies at the western edge of the huge park, the Tiergarten. The park is in the British sector of Berlin, the gate is in the Soviet sector, hence on the other side of the border. Today East German soldiers are standing in a line in front of the gate, rifles at the ready. The message is clear: Keep away!
Crowds of angry men and women have gathered on the Western side. They are shouting abuse at the East German guards across the border.
I try to see past the soldiers into Pariser Platz on the eastern side of the gate. I can just make out handfuls of East Berliners over there. Are Sabine and Brigitta amongst them? It’s impossible to say from this distance.
It feels as if the world has gone mad. Berlin is one city. You can’t just divide a city in two by rolling out barbed wire, can you? Some small part of me hopes that the East Germans are just trying to make a point, a symbolic gesture, trying to assert their sovereignty. Maybe, it’s partly our fault for not taking them more seriously; for buying up all their cheap petrol until they run dry; for going to the East for a haircut that costs peanuts; for laughing at their crappy cars. But even so, this is going too far and they need to be told enough is enough.
So I join in with the angry crowds for a while, shouting abuse and throwing stones, even though I know that sort of behaviour never really does any good. And then the West Berlin police arrive to try and calm things down. I don’t want to be arrested so I distance myself from the crowds and wander disconsolately back towards Potsdamer Platz, wishing more than anything I could crush the barbed wire flat.
Sabine
Barbed wire – Stacheldraht - the word has always filled me with horror. Ever since I was six, and Dieter was nine. We were spending the summer with Tante Bettina and Onkel Thomas on their farm in the countryside south west of Berlin. Every morning Tante Bettina sent us outside with a basket to collect the eggs. The chicken run was surrounded by barbed wire to keep the foxes out. The grass was left to grow long around the edge of the chicken run, obscuring the barbed wire, but it was there all the same and you had to be careful not to scratch yourself on it. We let ourselves into the chicken run through a small wooden gate that Onkel Thomas had built himself. One morning as we were about to enter the chicken run, I caught a movement in the long grass out of the corner of my eye. Curious, I went to see what it was and sprang back in horror. A rabbit was caught on the barbed wire, its fur matted with blood. It was feebly kicking its hind legs, trying to free itself. I dropped the basket and ran to find Onkel Thomas. We must free the rabbit and save its life. Big, kind Onkel Thomas would know what to do. I had visions of myself nursing the injured rabbit back to health, maybe even keeping it as a pet. But when I told Onkel Thomas what I’d found, he fetched a gun from the shed and shot the rabbit between the eyes. The sound startled all the chickens who squawked with fright and ran for shelter into their hut. The rabbit lay lifeless on the ground. That night Tante Bettina served rabbit stew for dinner. I refused to eat a thing.
I see that rabbit in my mind’s eye as we head towards the station exit, and I imagine people caught on the wire, bleeding to death, like so many defenceless rabbits, waiting to be shot in the head. I feel dizzy at the thought.
“Where are we going?” asks Brigitta.
“I want to see what’s going on,” I say. Despite my horror of barbed wire, I have to see this for myself.
As we climb the stairs, Brigitta is bursting with questions.
“What does it mean?” she asks. “Why are those people” – she points back towards the crowds in the station – “saying there is barbed wire at the border?”
“They’re saying that the border between East and West Berlin is closed,” I say. “We can’t travel to West Berlin. We can’t go to the British, French or American sectors. We can’t leave the Soviet sector.”
“Just today?” asks Brigitta, frowning in puzzlement. “Or forever?”
“I don’t know.”
“But what about Dieter? Can he come here?”<
br />
“I don’t know that either.”
I don’t know anything right at the moment. I can’t think straight. The idea of the border being closed like that, overnight, is bewildering. Yesterday we could have travelled to West Berlin and today we can’t. A line has been drawn through the middle of the city and we are not permitted to cross it. Our brother is on the other side of that line. They can’t just separate us like that can they? There are lots of families who live between both halves of the city; parents in the East, grown up children in the West; grandparents in the West, grandchildren in the East. Berlin is, after all, one city. At least it was until this morning.
We leave the station and set off towards the nearest border point, the Brandenburger Tor.
Walking west down the broad avenue of Unter den Linden I look up at the stone figure of Victory on top of the gate. She is driving her chariot pulled by four galloping horses and in her right hand she is brandishing the Iron Cross of Victory. If only she were real, I think, she would ride roughshod over any barbed wire. On the other side of the gate, through the archways, is the British Sector of West Berlin; so close and yet so far.
We stop some way from the gate. We daren’t go any closer because there are tanks and rows of Factory Fighters with rifles slung over their shoulders. The men are lined up in front of the gate ready to shoot anyone who tries to break through their defences.
We can’t see through the archways of the gate with all the soldiers and tanks in the way, but we can just make out the shouts of people on the western side. They’re not frightened of protesting over there, in West Berlin. I wonder if Dieter is amongst them.
We walk on, hand in hand, towards Potsdamer Platz and all we can see is miles and miles of barbed wire, great tangled coils of it snaking through the city. Where has it all come from? How could all this barbed wire be kept hidden until it was rolled out last night? There’s just so much of it, and it’s far too high and wide to climb over. Besides, armed men are patrolling along its path so it would be suicidal to try.
At Potsdamer Platz we are closer to the wire than we were at the Brandenburger Tor. We do our best to ignore the armed soldiers standing in front of it. Suddenly a voice calls our names.
“Sabine! Brigitta!”
We turn at the sound, startled, but also excited because we’d know that voice anywhere. It’s Dieter. He’s on the other side of the wire, frantically waving at us.
Before I can stop her, Brigitta’s hand slips out of mine and she runs towards him, runs towards the barbed wire.
“Stop!” A harsh voice shouts at Brigitta.
A guard leaps forward and stands in front of her, aiming his rifle at her chest. I scream and run towards her.
“Bitte! Don’t shoot! For God’s sake please don’t shoot!”
Brigitta is frozen to the spot, turning her head wildly to look for me. She is terrified beyond anything I’ve ever seen.
“No closer to the barbed wire!” shouts the guard. He has a thick Berlin accent and an angry looking face. She is about ten metres from the barbed wire. I catch up to her and throw my arms around her.
“She’s not trying to escape!” I shout at the guard, my voice cracking. “She just saw a…a friend over there.” I don’t want to admit to this man that we have a brother living in West Berlin.
The guard shrugs his shoulders as if to say, why should he care about our friends. “You must not approach the anti-fascist protective barrier.” He sounds like he’s reciting a phrase learnt in school and his language strikes me as ridiculous. Is that what they’re calling the barbed wire? An anti-fascist protective barrier? I would laugh if the situation wasn’t so serious.
It’s no laughing matter for the guard who keeps his rifle pointed at Brigitta. I look past him and see Dieter standing on the other side of the wire. His face is a picture of terror at the sight of the rifle being aimed at his little sister.
I take Brigitta’s hand in mine. “Komm,” I say pulling her aside. The guard mutters under his breath. I stare helplessly at Dieter. More than anything I want to run to him. If I could I would lift Brigitta over the wire and tell Dieter to take her to safety, but the guard is still watching us. I shake my head at Dieter to tell him we can’t come any closer. He nods his understanding. I think he’s crying.
Brigitta and I wave to Dieter across the barbed wire. There is nothing else we can do. Brigitta starts to cry and I hold her close to me. I give Dieter one final wave, then I turn and lead Brigitta away. Twice I turn around. Dieter is still there watching us go. He looks bereft.
It breaks my heart to leave Dieter, but I must take Brigitta home and check on Mother. If she has heard the news, she will be worrying about us. We catch the train back to Alexanderplatz and hurry up Prenzlauer Allee. By the time we reach Stargarder Strasse we are hot and out of breath.
The street is livelier than it was when we left it this morning. People must have heard the news and come outside to talk about it. They are gathered in clusters, arms folded, shaking their heads. The grocer, Frau Maier, is standing outside her shop, talking to her neighbours. I want to stop and tell her what happened to us at Friedrichstrasse and Potsdamer Platz, but I also want to get home, so we carry on.
At our building, the Mann children from the first floor have been sent outside to play in the Hinterhof at the back of the building, but they are standing still, looking confused. They know something bad has happened but they don’t understand what.
Brigitta presses the light switch on the ground floor and runs to the stairs. We climb the stairs even faster than we descended them this morning. There is crying coming from the Mann apartment on the first floor. We don’t even give Frau Lange a thought as we dash past her door on the second floor. By the time we reach Herr Schiller’s door on the third floor I have fallen behind. Brigitta is running ahead of me, like a bird flying effortlessly to the top of the building. When I catch up and enter our apartment, she is already standing there with her arms around Mother who is sitting at the kitchen table, listening to the radio, her head in her hands.
I sit down opposite Mother. She looks frail and much older than her forty-one years. Her hair, which is streaked with grey, is falling limply around her face. There are dark rings under her eyes as if she has not slept well. She pulls her brown cardigan close around her. I know she must be reproaching herself for not listening to Dieter and leaving East Berlin when we had the chance. I lean across the table and take hold of her hand.
She looks at me with red, swollen eyes. “What will we do now?”
The question hangs in the air. I don’t know the answer. I don’t think there is one. But I want to stay positive because hope is the only thing we have left.
“The Western Allies won’t let them get away with this,” I say doing my best to sound confident. “The British, Americans and French will put a stop to it. They must.”
Mother shakes her head. “And where were the Americans, British and French when the Soviets crushed the uprising in ’53? I don’t recall them rushing to our assistance.” Her voice sounds harsh and resentful. It is unusual for her to speak so bitterly of Father’s death.
“But Berlin is a single city,” I say. “You can’t just build a wall through the middle of a city. It’s absurd.”
“I’m afraid that is exactly what’s going to happen,” says Mother. “We’ve left it too late. We are prisoners here now.”
A single tear runs down her face and lands on the table.
Dieter
I wipe the tears from my face, staring at the spot where Sabine and Brigitta were. I don’t know how long I stand there. I want to run after them but I can’t get through the barbed wire. And anyway, who would cross from West to East? Only an idiot. No, the only thing to do is to escape from the East, but how?
I still can’t believe that I saw them, Sabine and Brigitta. They were so close, no more than twenty metres away. Sabine was wearing her bright yellow dress, as if she wanted to enjoy herself today. I can only assume tha
t they didn’t know anything about the barbed wire when they set off from home this morning.
And Brigitta – I couldn’t believe how much she’s grown since I last saw her. She likes me to pick her up and swing her around in the air as if she’s flying. But when she ran towards me today that monster shouted and pointed his rifle at her and I couldn’t hear anything except the blood pounding in my ears and all I could see were Brigitta’s eyes, wide with fear. I will never forget that look on her face as long as I live. The guard is standing with his back to me now, rifle at the ready, watching the East Berliners who are gathering on the other side of the wire. I feel such a raw hatred for him, I swear if I had a gun at my disposal, I’d shoot him here and now in cold blood.
“Arschloch!” I shout at him. Arsehole! He doesn’t respond. I turn away in disgust, not wanting to spend another moment anywhere near him.
I turn down Stresemannstrasse and aimlessly follow the line of the barbed wire as it turns left into Niederkirchnerstrasse and on into Zimmerstrasse. I come to Checkpoint Charlie, the border crossing point for foreigners, including West Germans, going in and out of East Berlin.
An American patrol car has pulled up at the checkpoint. The border guards are trying to turn it away. The American in the passenger seat winds down his window, leans out and announces in a booming voice, “We have the right to cross this border.”
“No one can cross the border,” says a German soldier.
The American is having none of it. A crowd gathers on the west side and watches the altercation with a growing sense of alarm. If the Soviets and East Germans start arguing with the Americans, who knows where it could lead? World War Three?
I turn away and start making my way back through the streets of Kreuzberg. I’ve seen enough barbed wire this morning to last me a lifetime. The city has been torn in two but the barbed wire has also torn a hole in my family and right now I don’t know if it can ever be mended.
Oranges for Christmas Page 2
