‘Evening Frau Kruger,’ she sings as she enters their small living room, the air heavy with the staleness of boiled pork and cabbage. ‘Dismal’ is Karin’s assessment of the Kruger colour scheme each time she visits: the brown armchairs, a dark wood sideboard coupled with the yellowy lighting and the predictable lace doily laid neatly in the centre of the dining table. Otto’s mother turns her head away from the tiny television set for no more than two seconds, glued as she and her husband always are at this time in the evening to Aktuelle Kamera, the GDR’s daily news reports, a man or woman against a starkly empty backdrop, barking out ways in which socialism is triumphing over all. In her musings, Karin likes to think it’s all for show and, as soon as she exits, the Krugers will hurriedly switch channels to the illicit West German news and some genuine content, as so many households are said to do. But looking again at Frau Kruger’s pained smile and slavish attention to the screen, she doesn’t think so. They are true believers, a framed picture of Walter Ulbricht and his goatee beard staring down from the mantelpiece.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Otto says as he comes in, slipping on a light jacket. ‘See you later, Mama.’ He nods at his father. ‘Papa.’
‘Don’t be late,’ Frau Kruger calls behind him, in her characteristic monotone.
He’s twenty-seven for God’s sake! Karin thinks bitterly, then recalls it’s exactly what her own mother said each time she and Jutta ventured out. And she never minded, always revelling in the emotion wrapped around such an everyday comment. Mama. There she is again, the image of her. Swiftly followed by the grey spectre of the Stasi capture-wagon.
The Presse is packed and buzzing with anticipation. There are no posters or leaflets advertising the band, but word of mouth has gathered the crowd, and the drinkers leave a small area free in the corner of the room, though it’s a stretch to call it a stage. Karin and Otto grab a small table to the side with their drinks and Otto’s eyes are immediately dancing, feeding off the buzz of the room.
In time, the general hum of conversation rises slightly and four young men – boys really – shuffle into the space with their guitars and amplifiers, each clutching one part of a small drum kit, and set up with breakneck speed. Within minutes, they are striking up the first chords of a song Karin recognises from the tiny transistor one of the porters keeps in his storeroom, tuned into Radio Free Berlin: The Beatles’ ‘Love Me Do’. It’s raw and unpolished but well received by the audience, and they follow it up with the latest Elvis hit, ‘Return to Sender’, and then a nod to Peter Kraus, the West German equivalent rock’n’roller. The young singer in front of them fancies himself in the same league, but Karin can’t help loving his bravado, the way he struts in the tiny space he’s afforded, perhaps imagining himself cool in a genuine leather jacket and carving out his own plinth in the middle of the floor.
She looks at Otto enjoying himself immensely. She is too, and yet there is a small but deep-seated seam of sorrow dragging her down, that this amateur band of hopefuls is what the entire room considers a good evening’s entertainment, the most they can aspire to. Except she’s seen far more on the other side: there can be better. And now she has the opportunity to see it again. With Otto. If only he will forego everything else in his life, including his ageing parents, his unwell father especially. She looks at Otto, tapping away to the music, and he smiles broadly in her direction; instantly, she’s wrenched back to the truth she’s been trying to hide from herself: she can’t go without him. Thanks to Jutta, she has time to make him see, to paint a picture of the West as a good future. Their life.
The music stops as abruptly as it began. A sense of unease ripples through the crowd until the bar owner strides across and pulls the plug from the wall, and with nimble efficiency the band packs up and disappears through a door in the back, the drinkers instinctively flowing into the space. The jukebox, with its more traditional music, sparks up and the chatter resumes as if nothing has happened, just as the door opens and two men walk in and up to the bar. Casually dressed, they look like everyone else in the café, but the word is Stasi, clearly. There’s still noise, but the easy conversation is at an end.
She and Otto leave soon after, linking arms as they walk towards Karin’s place.
‘Shall I stay tonight?’ he says once they reach the entrance to her block. He doesn’t always mid-week, but Karin is pleased to see a real desire in his eyes. She needs him too, close by, a hand-stretch away across the lumpy mattress as a consistent reminder that she’s doing the right thing by delaying. Because it’s for no one else but Otto. When she’s staring at her own meagre flat and the peeling plaster, with frequent black-outs in the electricity supply and hours without water, she questions why. Especially now, since Jutta, since the door back home has been left ajar. Why on earth stay?
But as she lies awake in the glow of the street light cutting across Otto’s lean chest, rising and falling while he sleeps peacefully after making love, she can find a good reason.
‘I think I can bear anything with you,’ she murmurs into his skin, her hot breath causing him to stir and his hand to probe for her presence.
‘I love you,’ he mumbles, only half-conscious, kissing her hair and cloaking his arm around her, sinking back into a deep slumber.
‘Anything,’ she repeats, and closes her eyes.
38
Distractions
25th July 1963, West Berlin
After several days during which emotions in the apartment had run high for no apparent reason, Jutta is relieved when Ruth leaves for work early, giving her time to think on her walk to the university. To ruminate properly, away from the house and the sight of relatives she feels certain she wants to see for years to come – Gerda, Hugo and even Oskar. Not to mention Mama. Eyes to the pavement, she has to face her own dread then, entirely separate to Karin’s but no less terrifying. Jutta has appreciated the risk and the gravity every time she moves through the Wall; her racing heart and the fleeting odour of her own sweat is a giveaway. So far, though, her hours in the East have felt like a day trip almost. What Karin suggests is only a few hours more, but seems like giant leap towards the unknown, a potential abyss. She balances the scales in her head, weighing the risk against Karin’s need and Mama’s elation. In every calculation, Jutta’s own sacrifice is outweighed by her family’s continuing loss.
There’s no question: she has to morph into Karin, a captured East Berliner. And she has just under two weeks to prepare; plenty of time to overanalyse and breed her anxieties.
She confides in Hugo again, because she needs to share her burden and because she’ll need his help in making sure Mama and Gerda stay put in the apartment on the appointed day for some spurious reason.
‘Is she crazy?’ he asks, as they talk from the safety of their rooftop. ‘More to the point, are you?’
Jutta groans, knowing he’s right. ‘But what else can I do, Hugo? I can’t deny her the chance, when she’s prepared to take it.’
‘Hmm.’
He must genuinely think them crazy, because Jutta knows he misses Karin like a sister and feels her absence sorely. He will lap up Karin’s company when she’s in front of him, and so his resistance to the very idea speaks volumes. Should they heed his caution?
‘Everything all right?’ Danny pushes the drinks in front of her and sits opposite. ‘Do you want to go somewhere else?’
‘No, no, here is fine,’ she says, and picks up the bottle of Budweiser he’s set down, matching hers to his with a chink.
‘Sorry, no glasses,’ he shrugs. ‘Not quite the Hilton.’
‘I like it,’ she says, staring beyond Danny’s shoulder around the busy American base bar, a testament to all things US: from the drapery of the Stars and Stripes across all four walls, to the hatches serving burgers and buffalo wings, another for ice-cream alone.
‘I liked the film, too,’ she adds. ‘You can’t go wrong with Steve McQueen on a motorbike with that gorgeous smile of his.’
‘Even if it’
s where the Americans and the British win out over the evil Germans?’ he pitches.
If Jutta was affronted by The Great Escape as the base’s popular choice of film, her mood is not showing it. She laughs, takes the hand not clutching his beer bottle. ‘Listen, if I was sensitive to every quip about Nazis, I would have jumped ship long ago. You get used to it, and besides, my father might have been a soldier, but he was never a Nazi. I do know that for sure. I’m having a really nice time, Danny. Looking at Steve McQueen for the entire evening is not exactly hard work.’
‘Oh, so you like them rough and rugged?’ He matches her flirtation.
‘I’d like him just as well if he was clutching a textbook with glasses perched on the end of his nose.’
‘Remind me to get my glasses out then.’
The feeling between them is buoyant and the evening over too quickly; Jutta is trying to decide if Danny is simply a distraction from other parts of her complicated life, or something more. Perhaps it’s the kiss to end their evening that causes her to settle on something more. It’s not her first per se, but the only one for some time, and by far the best. Yes, definitely more than a simple diversion.
He’d called a taxi to the front of the base and climbed in with her. ‘You really don’t have to come with me,’ she’d said, though hadn’t resisted too much.
‘But I want to.’
As they drew up at the Schöneberg apartment, he’d squeezed at her wrist. ‘I had a great evening,’ he said. ‘And I’d like to do it again.’
‘Me too,’ she nodded.
Lying in bed later, Jutta is unsure who had made the first move. She wasn’t aware of her mouth drifting towards his, but there it was. She laughs, in that, looking back, it felt almost like two pieces of a jigsaw slotting together: their lips perfectly aligned. He tasted lightly of beer, both of them pressing in and moving gently away, only to drift together a second time, and a third, an impromptu cough from the cab driver putting an end to the pleasure. They drew back like two embarrassed teenagers and Jutta even heard herself giggle.
‘I’d like to do that again, too,’ Danny whispered as she opened the taxi door, finally letting go of her. ‘I’ll call you. I’m out of Berlin until next week, but as soon as I’m back.’
‘I’ll be here,’ she’d said. When I’m not somewhere else.
39
Into the Cleft
3rd August 1963, the Wall
Karin steps closer to the looming shadow of the Wall; she’s not aware of a conscious effort to avoid it, but these days she rarely glimpses the stark, rough concrete and the barbed wire. Or maybe her routes around the city are like sleepwalking, an unwitting effort to blinker herself from the painful reality which can only remind her of home every time. Now, though, there is no circumventing, and from under her fringe she counts each Vopo casually patrolling. Is there a higher concentration the closer she gets, or is it just her imagination?
She’s done her best to memorise Jutta’s map, and reaches the point between two buildings where she thinks the narrow alleyways might begin. But then nothing – her mind is blank. A sheet of white, black, it doesn’t matter; it’s still a complete absence of detail, of anything. She dives into a nearby corner shop and buys a copy of Neues Deutschland, then sits on a bench with her back to the Wall, casually sliding Jutta’s hand-drawn map between the paper’s open pages and keeping it close to her face, though not too close, like a very inept spy. She stares at the detail, willing it to imprint onto her memory, feeling her fingers start to shake and having to rest her elbows on her knees, so the edges of the flimsy paper don’t betray her with their tremor. With several deep breaths, and waiting for a passing Vopo to walk by (big smile, Karin), then disappear around a corner, she rises from the bench, hoping her legs will carry her suddenly weighty form forward.
Eyes flicking left and right, Karin slides into the cleft of the alleyway. ‘For goodness sake, don’t hesitate and don’t look back,’ Jutta had told her from experience. ‘If there’s anyone following, it’s quiet enough that you will hear them, and you’ll just have to fake getting lost.’
In her disquiet, Karin overcompensates, launching herself forward at a near run and almost missing the pile of bricks acting as a marker. Is this the right place? Where is she? Her nerves are at fever pitch.
It’s worth it, she chants to herself in moving forward. To see Mama. It has to be. It’s then she thinks of the sacrifice Jutta has made all these weeks, the nerve she’s kept. Would she have been able to do the same in her sister’s shoes?
40
The Swap
3rd August 1963, the Wall
Jutta steps onto her makeshift pallet ladder and checks her watch again, the top of her head just breaching the bottom of the grubby window frame, looking out into the alleyway of East Berlin. Two minutes to ten and she’s already sweating, more than usual when she’s about to leap into the abyss. Ordinarily, she would take a breath, check the way is clear and force her heart to suspend its clamour as she climbs through the window and across her own tenuous border. Today, though, the wait is worse.
One minute past; Karin isn’t usually late, always a stickler for timing. Has she interpreted Jutta’s map properly? Did Jutta explain every detail of the turning, the stack of old bricks left in a pile by the first corner, a roll of tarpaulin abandoned by the second building? They’d met six days before, on a Sunday as has become normal, to go over the details. Under the shady cloak of tree branches, Jutta exchanged her hand-drawn map for details of Karin’s apartment, plus a few tips on good places in the neighbourhood to linger and be seen. The swap today is a Saturday, the day before Mama’s birthday, and so more shops and cafés are open on both sides of the city. More chance to blend in, Jutta hopes.
There’s a faint scrabbling below the window, and Jutta’s eyes peep over the peeling frame; she spies a grey peaked beret heading towards her and squints to see who or what is underneath. At that moment, Karin’s face tips upwards to hers, fear fixed on her features but the colour in her eyes suddenly alight with joy at finding the right place, that her sister is there to greet her instead of a Vopo with a gun and the keys to jail. Jutta reads her sister’s lips muttering: ‘Thank God.’
In a heartbeat, Jutta’s hand is out of the window and pulling on Karin’s slight frame as her feet slip and slide initially on the concrete wall.
‘Slow down, do it slow,’ Jutta whispers urgently, until Karin stops panicking and gains a foothold, and in one fell swoop she’s through the window and they both reel backwards and just manage to avoid tumbling from the pallets onto the filthy floor.
Panting, the relief is somewhere between a silent laugh and a cry. Karin rights herself eventually, and her expression says it all: Lord, Ja-Ja, how on earth do you do that, time and again?
They each take stock and slow their breathing in a tense embrace. There’s no hurry, they both tell themselves. With some bogus excuse, Hugo has seen to it that his mother and aunt will be at home for the entire morning.
Karin pulls off her cap and Jutta gasps at another transformation – the white-blonde strands have returned to a black crown of hair and, in truth, she looks like the old Karin again. In turn, Karin fingers her sister’s new cut – it’s virtually identical, as they’d planned. Jutta had gone just a few days before to a new hairdresser a short distance away in the Wedding district and showed the stylist a picture of Karin before her switch to blonde and said, ‘Like that, please.’
‘It’s perfect,’ Karin confirms. ‘I dyed mine back to dark three days ago, and I’ve made sure Frau Lupke has seen me going up and down the stairs plenty of times since then.’
Wordlessly, they exchange clothes, Jutta noting that Karin’s don’t quite hang off her frame with the same ease, her sister’s bony ribs and her meagre covering of flesh obvious as they undress. She’s glad then that Gerda will be sure to fatten her up, if only for the day.
Karin hands Jutta a roll of Ostmarks, explaining she’s exchanged a few of the dol
lars ‘with someone I know’. They swap the contents of their bags, too – Karin’s East German ID card, and a pack of Karo cigarettes with its distinctive black and white chequered design; neither could tolerate smoking the rough ‘lung torpedoes’, but plenty of women do and carrying a pack will make Jutta a more convincing East Berliner if she’s searched.
‘Ready?’ Karin says at last, and it’s then they both laugh at the ridiculousness of the entire scheme.
‘Well, it’ll be something to tell our grandchildren.’
‘If we make it that far,’ Karin shoots back, too soon to stop herself.
Jutta shifts Karin from further dark thoughts by tugging at her hand. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where to go.’
They snake wordlessly through the corridor to the house, stopping in the kitchen before the wooden cabinet and Karin’s opening to a brief freedom.
‘Just listen out for any movement before you launch out,’ Jutta counsels. ‘You can usually hear anyone clipping on the broken paving. After that, be swift.’
Karin only nods, the tremor in her fingers evident. Jutta clutches at them, hoping to absorb the fluttering and trying not to increase it with her own fresh anxiety.
‘So, six o’clock back here?’ she reiterates.
Karin’s lips barely move. ‘Yes, six o’clock.’
Jutta draws her in for another hug and feels more of the old Karin she remembers, the sense of her sister beyond her hardened sinews. She releases and stands back, cranks out a smile. ‘And hey, enjoy it? It’s for you as well as Mama.’
Karin nods again, swallows hard. ‘Thanks, Ja-Ja,’ she says, her voice croaky and weak.
‘Okay, now’s as good a time as any.’
They scrape back the cabinet to reveal the brown tarpaulin that Jutta has recently taped on the inside of the hole, the colour chosen to blend in with the brickwork. It means any curious eyes need to be very close to the hole to notice any breach. Jutta stares, heart thumping, as Karin crawls onto her knees, her ears pricked for any traffic in the other country beyond the thin boundary. For Jutta, it’s like watching her own actions from outside herself, and it strikes her how ridiculous the whole thing looks – needing to scrabble on your knees, like a criminal, just to hug your own mother. Despite living with the Wall for just under two years now, it hits home in that moment how utterly pointless and stupid it is. Absurd. And that it’s not her or Karin who are the criminals, but Walter Ulbricht and his cronies, the Soviet leaders who give credence to it, the Western politicians who refuse to tear it down. It needs breaching. It needs Wall-ghosters like them to prove what a waste of human breath it is.
The Girl Behind the Wall Page 17
