Variant Exchange

by Fox J Wilde

  “Maybe I’ll run that by the pastor,” Lena joked, finally warming up to human contact outside of a mosh pit, “and see if he would like me to sing in the choir.”

  “Well, let me know if you do and I will wear my best jacket!” The two laughed as Hans tugged on his jacket—a dingy mix of denim and cobbled leather that looked like he had roughly sewn it together himself.

  “I have to go, though,” Lena interrupted the exchange. “If I don’t smoke a cigarette, my voice will lose its sex appeal. That and I’ll start killing people.”

  “Well then perhaps I’ll join you after you have had some time to yourself.”

  Lena genuinely hoped he would—after the cigarette, that is. Her blood was beginning to ache. The two shared a final smile and Lena, staving off her carefully cultivated don’t-touch-me-vibe, managed an awkward, one-armed hug before darting out into the cold air.

  Lena absentmindedly smoked her cigarette outside the small church. She should have been helping her band load up equipment, but they were used to it by now. Every show, she would give the music all she had, wasting her brain on the abyss of sonic warfare. By the time the shows were over she would be shaking with weakness. Now was not the time for conversation; now was the time for reflection and nicotine. Really, it was the same thing.

  The air was nippy and filled with the promises that Eastern Germany always brought in the Fall: “enjoy your smoke break while you can... it will be colder soon.” Yet despite the chill (which Lena secretly enjoyed) evening-time in East Berlin was beautiful in a stoic sort of way. The German Democratic Republic (or GDR) was a big place. Much of its landmass was lovely forests and pleasant streams, with Summer-houses dotting the landscape. Nearly everyone in the GDR had a summer-house that they used from time to time to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. When they could of course—very few people owned cars in this country and the waiting list for one could take years.

  Lena, however, actually preferred the city. It was filled with large concrete buildings that often sported a plain yet strong construction, and a plainer (yet somehow stronger) dressing that seemed comforting in a way. Perhaps it was just that it was familiar, but it also seemed to offer protection. Everything squeezed closer together the further towards the Wall that you went. This meant alleyways and a maze of fences, dumpsters and low walls to hop over for a midnight stroll past curfew. What few lights were on in the buildings added even more comfort to the locales. Everyone worked in the GDR, which meant that everyone who wasn’t throwing down in the pit had work in the morning. She knew the buildings were full of people warm and cozy in their beds, sound asleep while Lena’s people were roaming wild and up to no good.

  As she took an indulgent drag she rested her weary bones against the tarnished stones of the old church. While small on the inside it had an exterior that communicated both charm and power. It was a saggy building but resolute in its foundation. As she considered it by touching the slightly damp wood of the building’s siding, she had to laugh to herself at the irony of the ruckus it had contained only minutes before.

  This was far from Lebensmüde’s first show they had performed in a church. Hell, these days churches were the only venues willing to host ‘youth music’ of any kind. Originally punk bands and hip-hop acts had found some modicum of safe haven in the embassies, of all places. Apparently, the father of one band’s lead singer was a prodigious diplomat in the Yugoslavian Embassy and wouldn’t be bothered by the stodgy mewlings of a few stuffed-shirt glad-handers and their lack of understanding for naturally-occurring teenage angst. Of course, that was back when there were perhaps forty punks in the entire GDR; now there were hundreds in Berlin alone, and their numbers were growing every week.

  Then the Secret Police, the Stasi, had put a stop to the embassies’ collusion with youthful verve, claiming that the punks were a threat to the State. So the churches decided to pick up where the embassies left off. “They are just children!” a pastor or priest would explain. “They are merely expressing themselves! It’s only part of the growing process, after all!” Regardless of their approval of the lyrics or Lena’s hair, or Lena’s clothing, or…well, Lena in general... they felt God charging them with encouragement. And so far, they had held to this regardless of how raucous the music became or how many rafters the bassist brought down.

  Punk was hardly a controlled affair at the best of times, and East Berlin, 1981, could hardly be considered the best of times. Music was strictly controlled in the GDR. The only music that had been allowed (both on the airwaves and in the streets) were State-approved acts that represented ‘good socialist values’. Hell, you even had to get a license to perform sometimes and you certainly had to if you wanted to make any sort of money at it. Artists (just like the art they made) were looked down upon as ‘inherently seditious’– especially if the artist was young.

  It hadn’t always been like this. The Politburo had wisely realized that they were old as dirt and had long forgotten the restlessness of hormones, along with the awkward romantic yearnings (and attempts) they brought. The Politburo just didn’t wisely realize much else. In a strange attempt to ‘connect’ with the youth, a few American films had made it into movie theaters, including an especially scandalous one about the American hip-hop scene named Street Beat. No doubt, the ruling class had hoped that the youth of the GDR would see the disrespectful and unruly behavior of their American counterparts—the dancing, free sexual expression and distrust for authority—as vile and reprehensible.

  This was quite far from the case. Within months the GDR had a rather comprehensive and vivacious hip-hop scene of its own. It was a package-deal of newfound culture complete with DJ’s spinning turn-tables, hand-made ‘threads’, and wild dance parties. When this reached the Stasi’s notice, they made it their personal mission to shut it down as a public nuisance, threat to the peace and inherently ‘anti-socialist’.

  Oh sure, a few western acts still made it onto the airwaves. But the Stasi heavily enforced the 40/60 rule—40-percent Western music to 60-percent socialist tunes. Even then, every single song that was heard must have first passed a secret and exhaustive litmus test for ‘social responsibility’. Love for a woman was ok, but love for your country was better. Pride in your physical prowess was acceptable, but pride in the GDR’s recently developed and ‘internationally adopted’ corn-husking techniques was better. Promiscuity and violence were, of course, not acceptable; what would the world think if the youth of GDR weren’t joining hands in a cultish display of fatalistic nationalism? And God help you, the listener, if you were found with the (gasp!) albums of the more prodigal of the bands. The Stasi could make anyone disappear.

  Perhaps this was the reason why the Sex Pistols were so heavily lauded in the GDR among the punks. It seemed nearly ironic back when Lena had first heard their music on a smuggled record at the house of a friend. It was shocking—evil, almost. These were dastardly men, drug addicts to the last. And none of them were the least bit concerned with safety, longevity, the future, or even loyalty. They held nothing sacred—not the ruling class, not the laws, not the police, not even their country. They all wanted to watch it burn. Lena heard the message and she craved more.

  Not that Lena wanted to watch anything literally burn, mind you. She loved her country; she loved the trees, the rivers, the winters, the rocks, the birds, the animals—anything other than the government. While she didn’t put much energy into hating the government in particular, she didn’t feel like she owed it anything in particular either. Sure, her country had provided for her and her family’s basic needs. Everyone worked, no one went hungry. That was a benefit no one denied. But was that a reason for Lena to feel any sort of obligation? It was the government’s job to provide, that’s what it was supposed to do. Why should Lena thank it for doing what it was supposed to do?

  Yet Lena (like most of the German youth) wanted more. More music, more beer, more people, more, just more. But
not anything particularly awful, mind you. Drugs were non-existent in the GDR, and the rumors of Western appetites for sex raised as many shudders as they did eyebrows. Maybe she wouldn’t even like it when she heard, tasted or tried anything—music, drugs or sex—but she wanted to make that decision herself without the state wagging its finger at her, or the Stasi chasing her shadow. She shuddered at the thought of what they often threatened to do to people with radical ideas, thoughts or actions. Perhaps it was the Stasi and the State that really made her want so many different things. Perhaps that’s why her latching on to the Sex Pistol’s music was so very ironic indeed.

  The Stasi was an ever-present fact of life, much like the damned Wall they loved so much. “Oh, that wall,” Lena mused. That wall was where all of this really stemmed from.

  During the last World War, Germany had been bombed. Then it had been sacked. After the city was divided up between the former Axis and Allied powers, things only got worse. The Soviets raped and beat the women in the city, shot and arrested many of the men, and stole anything that wasn’t nailed down. In the bread lines women would talk with each other about how many times they had been raped since last seeing each other. Needless to say, East Germany had been a squalor-filled and dangerous place to live well into the late 60’s and early 70’s. People fled the city in droves destined for refugee camps in the rest of the European world. So many, in fact, that the Communist authorities put up the Wall to keep the remaining few trapped inside.

  What had begun as fences and a few guards in the 60’s were now lines of complex concrete corridors, towers with searchlights and machine-guns, minefields, razor-wire, rabid dogs running the line and (should you somehow make it past all that) automated turrets. All of this to keep the people of East Germany trapped inside where a quibbling Politburo could pretend it was providing for them.

  That was then, of course. While the wall was no less fortified in the present day of 1981, it no longer served to stem the flow of starving people leaving. People never starved in East Germany anymore. And while life here could get bloody boring for the youth, well, it was still a good life either way. The main problem (at least for the youth of east Germany) had nothing to do with the wall between East and West Germany, but East and West Berlin.

  Oddly enough, West Berlin (which was more-or-less capitalism incarnate) was also inside East Germany, separated from East Berlin only by that goddamn Wall. On the West German side, the eyesore was more of a nuisance and a joke than anything else. From what Lena had heard, the youth on the other side painted murals on the Wall and taunted the GDR guards when they were reasonably sauced. They would also hold concerts next to the Wall, or blast records with powerful speakers of musicians that Lena vaguely recognized, like David Bowie, Iggy Pop and the Rolling Stones, just to taunt the Politburo.

  In East Berlin, however, the Wall wasn’t just a nuisance—it was a symbol of oversight and stupidity. When a series of popular bands played concerts on the West side of the Wall, several of Lena’s friends had poked their heads over the concrete sections to watch through the concertina wire. All of them were summarily arrested by the Stasi and ‘disappeared’ without explanation. When her friends appeared later, they were not the same. Most were much paler and had lost a lot of weight. They would also speak in hushed tones with darting eyes when they were around her. When Lena questioned them, they would make excuses and walk away abruptly. They were nervous of her and nervous of their previous friends.

  “He is a Spitzel,” a friend told Lena concerning one of these previous friends, “A Stasi narc. Avoid that one…he will tell the Stasi about your band and about all of your friends!”

  Informants were the greatest fear in East Germany. While a few of them were professional agents of the Stasi, most were regular folks that had somehow run afoul of the government. It didn’t take much—smoking western cigarettes, speaking out against Socialism in any way or writing letters to Western associates would quickly do the trick. Sometimes merely being down in the subway at the wrong time could land you in one of the Stasi’s ‘black cells.’ Terrible things happened in those cells; everyone had heard the stories. No one lasted more than a month, she had heard, and when the prisoner finally broke, they were given a choice: a lengthy prison sentence or become an informant. Of course, no one chose the prison sentence, but once you were found out as a Spitzel you were ostracized from the community.

  Practically anyone could be an informant, this was a fact that everyone knew, and surely informants were even at her shows; but this was a fact that only Lena seemed to concern herself with. While most everyone simply ignored the possibility (believing that true members of the scene would never rat each other out), Lena often worried. Punks and hip-hoppers were prime targets as of late and with churches being the primary location they played, well, it wasn’t hard to gather dirt when you really wanted it. But so far, nothing had happened, and you couldn’t treat everyone with a sense of suspicion, after all. A person has to trust, or else what is the point of life? Still, Lena felt an overwhelming sense of paranoia at times.

  “Isn’t it a little cold out for a smoke?”

  Lena quickly hid a smile when she again heard the voice of Hans. “Every show,” she thought to herself. Indeed, every show she would perform, and he would mosh. Then she would sneak outside for her cigarette and he would interrupt her very last drag. It would have been annoying if he didn’t have that dimple in his chin. No, the dimple really made up for it.

  “My smoke keeps me warm,” Lena said sarcastically, pretending to ignore him.

  “Perhaps a jacket would keep you warmer?”

  “I know something else that would keep me warmer...” Lena stopped the thought in its tracks, “Oh, if I needed my jacket, I would have brought it out.”

  “Well then,” Hans scoffed, “I’ll just bring this back inside.”

  Hans really did know how to interrupt her, and Lena considered this before grumping, “Well, I suppose since you brought it all this way.”

  “For you, Lena, I would bring your jacket at least twice the distance! Maybe even more.”

  “Twice the distance? You mean, twice the distance from the other side of the door, right over there?”

  “I said maybe even more.”

  “How much more?” Lena raised an eyebrow.

  Hans thought about this for a moment. Actually, he probably wasn’t thinking at all, he was just toying with her. She knew it, he knew it, they both knew it. It was the long, protracted “hmmm” he uttered that gave it away along with the stroking of that perfect chin of his.

  “On second thought, perhaps I would only bring it this far. I am rather exhausted after watching you.”

  Lena felt a slight twinge of excitement as Hans crouched down next to her and wrapped her up in the jacket.

  “Oh? So, after watching everything I was doing, you are the one who is tired?” Lena joked.

  “Well yes, of course. You were just loafing around up there, goofing off while I did all the work of watching you!”

  “You bastard!” Lena shrieked, as she smacked him playfully on the arm.

  “Hey, you asked!” Hans yelled as he jumped up, dramatically rubbing his arm as if it would soon fall off.

  As they continued, playfully bantering back and forth with verbal jabs, what had seemed to be idle flirting became... well, actual flirting. Over the past month, Hans and Lena had found that they had more than just a few things in common: both had terrible fathers, and both had sickly mothers. Both also almost had their ailing mothers removed to a state-assisted living house. This meant that both her and Hans almost ended up in a foster house. Since this was practically a death sentence in the GDR, both had decided to take care of their mothers as best they could and lie about how healthy they actually were. Truly, the only major difference between the two of them was that Hans’s father had made it across the wall (and never returned), whereas Lena’s ha
d drunk himself to death. Both Hans and Lena had suffered immensely over their respective losses and both had found solace in the anger of Lena’s music.

  Until recently, however, Lena had never developed anything more than a casual friendship with Hans, or anyone for that matter. She was a creature of solitude; essentially uncomfortable outside of her natural habitat, which men definitely were. Really, she never knew what to say with the opposite sex. Boys like Hans were just too rough and too loud. Sure, Lena was loud onstage, but most guys she knew were loud all the time. Maybe this was fine for other girls, but she was not one to be pushed and shoved about in some sort of undeveloped mating dance between morons. Lena had a ‘space’ about her and she wanted it intact when she was out and about. It was all so easy with Hans, though. He had such a natural, magnanimous charm. And that chin.

  “So then, are you finished with your damn smoke yet?” Hans interrupted her musings.

  “I was thinking of lighting another one, actually,” Lena stated brazenly.

  “Well then, light me one as well!”

  “But you don’t smoke Hans,” Lena said suspiciously. She had seen Hans attempt it before. Even the coughing fit that had ensued was adorable.

  “Tonight, after that performance, I think I shall.”

  Lena handed him a smoke after lighting it for him. He took one drag and failed miserably. Almost immediately his face turned all the colors of the rainbow as his eyes watered, cheeks puffed, and chest heaved. Realizing that his masculinity was now at stake, he attempted to take another. He leaned far back, splaying one arm behind, and held the smoke with the other as if brandishing some sort of weapon. Yet both drags ended equally as bad with Hans coughing and laughing, and Lena laughing right along with him.

  “This…cough…this is really tasty…cough…”

  “You don’t have to smoke it, you, big showoff,” Lena chastised.