Oranges for Christmas

by Margarita Morris

  Brigitta insists that we take Oma’s book of fairy tales. I fetch my leather notebook from the chest of drawers in the bedroom and put it in the rucksack. Everything else we must leave behind.

  At seven o’clock I prepare a simple meal of bread, cold tinned meat and boiled cabbage. I encourage Brigitta to eat, even though I have no appetite myself. Mother pushes her food around the plate, barely eating a thing. In the end I give up on the meal and clear the plates away, throwing most of the food into the bin. Such a waste.

  Brigitta curls up in the armchair in the sitting room and pretends to read her book but I notice that she doesn’t turn the page for more than half an hour. I look in on Mother who is still sitting immobile at the kitchen table, in a kind of stupor. I hope we’re not going to have a problem getting her out of the apartment when the time comes. I leave her and wander back into the sitting room. I don’t want to sit down. I am on edge, listening for the sound of footsteps on the stairs and jumping every time a car passes in the street.

  As nine o’clock approaches I begin to wonder if this is all a dream. Nothing seems real anymore. I’m about to leave, forever, the only home I’ve ever known and I can’t quite take it in. The living room clock ticks loudly. Then at a minute past nine o’clock I hear the unmistakable thump of Herr Schiller’s heavy tread on the stairs. There’s a knock at the door.

  Brigitta closes her book and looks at me with huge round eyes. This is it, I think - the start of an unknown adventure which, if it succeeds, will take us to freedom in West Berlin but, if it fails…but I don’t want to think about that now. I pull myself together and go to answer the door.

  The bear-like figure of Herr Schiller stands on the landing. In his hands he is carrying a bottle of Sekt which rather takes me by surprise. I feel it’s a little premature to be celebrating.

  He walks into the apartment and I close the door behind him. He sees me looking at the champagne bottle and smiles.

  “If anyone asks,” he says holding up the bottle, “then we are going to visit my brother to celebrate his birthday.”

  “Ah, I see.”

  He follows me into the sitting room where Brigitta and Mother are waiting for us. Mother is wearing her best black coat, the one she wore to the cemetery this morning. She looks overdressed, but I bite my tongue.

  “All ready?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Gut,” he says. I lift the rucksack onto my shoulders. It feels bulky and heavy despite our economical packing. I take one last look at the home in which I grew up – the old chairs with the worn upholstery, the Kachelofen in the corner, the wallpaper that is starting to peel in places. Then we step out onto the landing. Mother locks the door and slips the key into an inside pocket of her coat.

  We follow Herr Schiller down the stairs. I pray that we won’t meet any of our neighbours in case they ask awkward questions. But to my dismay, as we descend to the second floor, we see Frau Lange coming up the stairs. I think, this could ruin everything.

  Frau Lange pauses on the landing outside her apartment, clearly surprised to find so many of her neighbours all going out at the same time. She looks at each of us in turn with narrowed eyes. I hover at the back, aware that the rucksack I am carrying could give us away more than anything. Herr Schiller breaks the icy silence that has descended.

  “My dear Frau Lange, how good to see you.” He sounds as if he’s addressing a long lost friend. He spreads his arms wide as if he’s about to embrace her, the bottle of champagne clearly visible in his hand. “We are on our way to celebrate my brother’s birthday. Would you like to join us?”

  I think, is he mad? This could risk the whole operation. I hold my breath, waiting for her to speak.

  She looks at him as if she is seriously considering the invitation, then slowly shakes her head. “That is very kind of you Herr Schiller, but I’m afraid I have things I must do this evening.”

  To my ears her words don’t ring true. Is she just being polite? Does she suspect us of trying to escape? I’m sure she must do. And when she says she has things to do, does she mean she will go and report us to the Stasi?

  But Herr Schiller shows no sign of suspecting her meaning. “Ach, it is a shame you are unable to join us.”

  “Good evening to you Herr Schiller,” says Frau Lange as she opens the door to her apartment and disappears inside. I breathe a sigh of relief that she’s gone.

  We make it down the rest of the stairs without meeting anyone else. Outside it is already dark.

  I walk in front with Herr Schiller. Mother and Brigitta follow behind.

  “Where does your brother live?” I ask Herr Schiller, not even sure if he actually has a brother.

  “In the district of Treptow,” he replies without batting an eyelid. “We will need to take the S-bahn to Baumschulenweg.” Maybe he does have a brother.

  Treptow is south of here. It’s a quieter area than Prenzlauer Berg, less built up and with more green spaces. To the west of Treptow is the district of Neukölln which is in the American sector and therefore in West Berlin. Between Treptow and Neukölln lies the Teltow Canal. As we walk, I ponder these facts, wondering what Herr Schiller has in mind.

  Just before we reach the S-bahn station I can’t help asking Herr Schiller, “Why did you ask Frau Lange to join us? Weren’t you worried she might accept?”

  Herr Schiller shakes his head. “I asked her because it seemed polite to do so, but I knew she was unlikely to accept. Frau Lange has too much of a cross to bear.”

  I want to ask him what he means but we have arrived at the station and there’s no more time.

  We board the S-bahn train at Prenzlauer Allee and sit in silence as we head south. I don’t ask Herr Schiller any more questions. I’m too afraid of being overheard by the Stasi or their informers.

  At Baumschulenweg Herr Schiller stands up, still clutching his bottle of champagne, and we follow him onto the platform and out of the station.

  He leads the way down Baumschulenstrasse, a typical Berlin street of tall tenement buildings dotted here and there with shops on the ground floor. At this time of night the shops are shut and there is hardly anyone about. We pass a Kneipe on the street corner from where there is a smell of beer and chatter of voices. Otherwise the street is empty.

  Eventually we turn off the main street into an even quieter area with detached houses and small gardens. The road narrows and we come to a rusted iron gate leading to some allotments. The allotments are shrouded in darkness. Herr Schiller reaches into his breast pocket and produces a small torch which he passes to me.

  “Put it on when we’re away from the road,” he whispers, “and keep it pointing down.” Then he pushes open the gate which squeaks on its hinges and we follow him into the allotments.

  After we’ve gone about thirty metres I switch on the torch and, as Herr Schiller instructed, shine it on the ground just ahead of us. We follow a narrow path between the gardening plots. Each plot has its own wooden shed. In the pool of light from the torch I can make out rows of neatly tended potatoes, runner beans and cabbages. I suspect this is where Herr Schiller obtains his supplies of vegetables. We reach what must be the middle of the allotments, and Herr Schiller whispers at us to stop. Mother, Brigitta and I stand very close to one another, our breathing sounding loud in the empty night.

  Herr Schiller goes up to an old wooden shed and taps lightly on the door.

  “Horst,” he calls in a voice that’s barely audible. “Ich bin’s.” It’s me.

  The shed door creaks open and Horst appears. He is unmistakably a younger version of Herr Schiller with the same laughing eyes and enormous build. He acknowledges us with a nod of his head. So the brother part of Herr Schiller’s story at least is true.

  “Is everything ready?” asks Herr Schiller.

  “Ja.”

  They disappear into the shed and reappear a moment later carrying a huge square object which only just fits through the shed door.

  “What is it?” I ask, stepp
ing forward to help them.

  “A raft,” says Herr Schiller quite calmly as if this was the sort of thing everyone kept in their garden sheds.

  A raft? I almost laugh out loud at the ingenuity of it. We are going to sail to the West like survivors from a shipwreck. But Mother gasps in horror and I realise just getting her on board will be a challenge.

  The brothers lean the raft against the shed and Horst goes back inside, returning with two oars which look as if they have been newly carved out of planks of wood.

  Herr Schiller looks at us as if deciding the best way to proceed. “Give the torch to Brigitta,” he tells me. “She can light the way and you and Frau Neumann can each take a corner of the raft at the back. Horst and I will carry the front end and an oar each.” Herr Schiller speaks quietly, but with some authority, and to my relief Mother seems willing to co-operate.

  I pass the torch to Brigitta whilst Herr Schiller and his brother lay the raft down flat. Then they each pick up an oar and position themselves at the front of the raft. Mother and I stand at the back.

  “Ready?” asks Herr Schiller.

  “Yes,” I say.

  The four of us bend down, grab hold of our respective corners and lift the raft off the ground. It’s not as heavy as it looks, but the wood is thick and rough to hold and I feel a splinter pressing into my palm.

  “That way,” says Herr Schiller to Brigitta, nodding his head in the direction he wants her to go.

  We set off at a crawl, slowed down by this large, cumbersome object. In the dim light I can see that the raft is constructed out of four empty oil barrels tied to half a dozen planks of wood which have been crudely hammered together with a couple of cross planks. There are ropes at either end to keep hold of it when it is lowered into the water. The raft isn’t heavy to carry, just awkward and bulky.

  I realise now the allotments must extend as far as the Teltow Canal. I’m grateful that Herr Schiller didn’t tell us his plan in advance because I’m sure that Mother would have refused to come if she had known what it entailed. She isn’t the strongest swimmer and the thought of escaping over water would have terrified her.

  As we make our slow, plodding progress, I wonder how Herr Schiller and his brother managed to build the raft without anyone noticing and reporting them to the Stasi. This is what he must have been doing when we didn’t see him for days.

  Eventually we reach the edge of the allotments. In front of us is a low fence, then a road which is quiet at this time of night, then the canal. The canal is the actual border between East and West Berlin. There is no barbed wire here. They probably thought the water was enough of a barrier, but it is inconceivable that the area isn’t being guarded.

  Herr Schiller indicates with a wave of his hand that Brigitta should turn off the light. She does so and we are plunged into darkness. We crouch down low behind the fence and listen.

  Silence.

  Our eyes slowly adjust to the dark and we start to discern the outline of things. A cloud moves to one side, revealing a half moon which is reflected in the black water of the canal. I try to gauge the width of the canal. I guess it’s about twenty-five metres. In the far distance are the lights of houses in the American sector. There is no sign of any border guards.

  “Jetzt,” whispers Horst to his brother. Now.

  As silently as we can we lift the raft over the fence and carry it to the edge of the water. We lower it down gently, keeping hold of the ropes. It looks much smaller now that it’s in the water and I wonder if it’s big enough to carry us all. I can see why Herr Schiller said there wouldn’t be room for anyone else.

  Herr Schiller leans close to whisper. “Horst and I are the heaviest so we will climb aboard first to stabilise it. Then each of you get on and we’ll be off.”

  I hold the ropes tight whilst Herr Schiller and Horst kneel down and clamber aboard on all fours. The raft lurches under their combined weight, which is not inconsiderable, and for a moment it looks as if they are going to topple into the water.

  Mother lets out a small cry.

  “Shhh!” I say, aware of how her voice carries in the still night air.

  Herr Schiller and his brother crawl to opposite ends of the raft and it settles down. There is just enough room for the rest of us to sit in the middle.

  “Now the oars,” says Horst. Mother and Brigitta pass them over, whilst I continue to hold the ropes.

  “Right,” says Herr Schiller, “one at a time. Be quick.”

  I transfer the ropes to my left hand and, with my right hand, push Brigitta towards the raft. Suddenly a light appears in the distance on the towpath. There’s a shout.

  “Wer ist da?” calls a man’s voice, gruff and angry. Who’s there?

  I turn around in fright and the ropes slip from my hand. Immediately the raft starts to drift away from the bank. Brigitta, who was about to climb aboard, almost topples into the water and Mother grabs her just before she falls. Border guards, still some way off, are running towards us along the towpath.

  Herr Schiller and Horst try to paddle back to the shore.

  “Jump,” calls Herr Schiller, but it is too late. They have already drifted too far and the guards will be on us in seconds.

  “Go,” I call to him. “Leave us!” I grab hold of Mother and Brigitta and pull them back across the road. We tumble over the fence, back into the allotments. Then we run. We don’t stop moving until we are far away from the canal.

  The crack of gunshot splinters the night air. We fall to the ground, hugging each other tight. We don’t move for ages.

  Dieter

  Jakobstrasse 51, apartment number five.

  It is not far from the Kneipe I went to with Bernd. I walk past bullet-scarred tenement blocks, most of them student digs, looking for number fifty-one. A group of young women dressed for a night out walk past, laughing at some joke or other. Rock’n roll music blasts from an open window. From another comes the melancholy sound of a jazz clarinet.

  I find number fifty-one wedged between a Turkish bar and a grocer’s. The main door is ajar so I enter the unlit entrance hall and search for a light switch. A naked sixty watt bulb flickers into life to reveal a graffiti covered hallway and a staircase with bare wooden treads. I start to climb, looking for apartment number five which I find on the top floor. I knock and wait.

  The door is opened by a petite young woman with light brown hair pulled back in a pony-tail. I think I must have the wrong address.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, “I was looking for someone called Harry.” I realise I don’t know Harry’s surname.

  She opens the door wider. “Come in. He’s in here.”

  She turns back inside and I follow her into a narrow corridor, glad I’ve found the right place but thinking this wasn’t what I was expecting.

  She stops by a door at the end of the corridor and turns to me. “By the way, I’m Claudia.”

  “Dieter,” I say, holding out my hand to her. She smiles at me and I notice that she has a small dimple in each cheek. Her eyes are hazel brown and framed by long lashes.

  She pushes open the door and I follow her into a room furnished with an old sofa, a battered table and half a dozen mismatched chairs. The walls are decorated with posters of American movie stars. At a quick glance I spot Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne and James Dean.

  There are two men at the table. One of them is Harry. He is leaning back with his chair balanced on two legs, his hands linked behind his head, a cigarette dangling from his lips. The other man has his chair pulled up close to the table and is hunched over a map of Berlin which is spread out in front of him. He has a pencil in his right hand which he is twirling compulsively between his finger and thumb.

  Both men look up as I enter the room. Harry jumps to his feet, takes the cigarette from his mouth and comes over to shake my hand.

  “Dieter, you came!” He sounds relieved.

  “Of course,” I say.

  “Dieter, this is Werner,” says Harry introducing me to the
other man.

  Werner tucks the pencil behind his right ear and and stands to shake my hand. He’s younger than I first thought, probably in his early twenties, with curly brown hair, cut short, and round, wire-rimmed glasses. “Guten Abend,” he says making a slight bow with his head. Good evening. He seems friendly if a little formal. He studies me for a moment before sitting back down to his map.

  “Have a beer,” says Harry, passing me a bottle from a crate in the corner of the room.

  “Thanks.”

  Claudia and I both pull up chairs and join Harry and Werner at the table. This is all much more informal than I’d been expecting, but everyone seems friendly and I want to hear what they have to say. I wonder how many more people Harry’s expecting, but he takes a swig of beer from his bottle and says, “Right, let’s get started,” and I realise, with some surprise, that it’s just going to be the four of us.

  “Some people thought Britain and America would put a stop to the Wall,” says Harry, “but of course they haven’t done a sodding thing.”

  “What did you expect?” says Claudia rolling her eyes to the ceiling and shaking her head. “You can’t rely on politicians to do anything.”

  Harry ignores her. “Whilst US President Kennedy cruised on his yacht and the British Prime Minister, Macmillan, hunted deer,” – he can’t keep the scorn out of his voice – “the East Germans quietly rolled out miles of barbed wire and imprisoned their own population. So…” he takes a breath and looks each of us in the eye, “We need to find a way of getting people out. Simply making a run for it is not realistic. I heard reports this morning that two old guys were shot last night trying to paddle across the Teltow Canal on some raft thing or other. The border guards are operating a shoot to kill policy against anyone trying to escape from East Berlin. That is what we’re up against.”