The Girl Behind the Wall

by Mandy Robotham

  Jutta grips at Karin’s hands, sensing the thread weave itself. Strong again.

  Karin’s lip trembles. ‘But you understand, don’t you Ja-Ja? You know why?’

  ‘I’m beginning to.’

  It’s the cue Jutta needs, to relay details of her day to Karin, recounting where she’s been, who she’s seen – Frau Lupke, the barman at Presse Café. And Otto.

  ‘You’ve seen him?’ Karin’s eyes are wide and white with shock. ‘I told him I’d be busy all day. He’s never come looking for me at Sybille before.’

  ‘Well, just remember you were shopping with Walter, and then with a friend adjusting a dress. And it’s the Kosmos lobby at eight.’

  ‘You’re a genius, Ja-Ja – definitely missed your calling as a double agent.’

  ‘Not me. I’m exhausted. I couldn’t keep that up for long.’

  They dress again, breathless, though with no real urgency now, aside from Karin’s cinema date.

  ‘All right, so three weeks tomorrow?’ Jutta suggests. ‘Just for me to come through, for us to spend the day together?’

  Karin’s face can’t hide a slight disappointment at the lengthy wait.

  ‘I don’t think we should push our luck, that’s all,’ Jutta explains. ‘And it’s time for you to … well, be with Otto.’

  Karin’s fretful look says she catches the drift: to work her charms, to persuade him the grass really is greener on the Western side.

  They face one another, each aware they share the same thought – not only about the bizarre nature of the day, but how creative and crazy their lives have become. And simply because a bunch of old men in suits decided that walling off an entire city was good for their portion of humanity.

  ‘Go on, you should go,’ Jutta urges, with her hatred for lingering goodbyes.

  There’s a final hug and a kiss, and Karin is gone. Jutta thinks about waiting for a few more minutes, but she’s desperate now to be on home soil, not to be part of the East anymore. To breathe again.

  She takes time to listen though, cocking her ear to the tarpaulin, and slipping between the smallest space possible behind the cabinet, feeling more and more like a contortionist.

  Back in the West, she has the luxury of laughing at the sheer insanity of it all, walking away from the strange nature of a covered rabbit hole in a brick barrier to another world.

  With each step away, Jutta feels the tension falling away, taking in the sights of an early Saturday evening, of people milling about, home from shop work or heading out for the evening. Blissfully familiar and normal. But she doesn’t stride towards her own home. Not yet. There will only be the inquisition waiting, with the inevitable guilt and angst, and for now, she needs a different kind of contact. Jutta had surprised herself in how much she craves it as comfort, how much it’s pushed its way into her thoughts through the day. She walks towards the same bar where she’d sunk a much-needed brandy after that first, nerve-wracking journey through the Wall. Now, she orders a beer and asks for change for the phone, tapping out the number that she’s memorised.

  ‘Hello.’ The voice on the other end isn’t his, presumably his flatmate.

  ‘Is Danny at home?’ she says in English. Please let him be there. I need him to be.

  ‘Hey, this is a pleasant surprise.’ His voice comes on the line, exuding delight, and it’s what Jutta needs to calm the doubt twisting slowly within her. ‘Is everything okay?’ he goes on. ‘Nothing wrong?’

  ‘No, everything’s fine,’ she breathes into the receiver. ‘I just wondered if you were free, either tonight or tomorrow, to do something?’ There’s a slight pause, opening up a sinkhole in which her confidence plummets. ‘I mean, don’t worry if you can’t. We can always …’

  ‘No, no, I’m just thinking,’ Danny says hurriedly. ‘There’s another darned reception this evening. But I can show my face for half an hour and leave.’

  ‘No, really if you’re busy …’

  ‘I’d rather be busy with you,’ he cuts in. ‘Believe me.’

  It’s exactly what she needs to hear.

  ‘So, nine at that Italian restaurant?’ he says. ‘I’ll book a table.’

  ‘Perfect.’

  It’s as she’s replacing the receiver that her moment of perfection reveals a glitch; Karin’s old watch still on her wrist, hers presumably on Karin’s. It’s not a problem for Jutta, she can discard it when she’s home and keep it safe until their next meeting. But will Karin notice, in time for Otto not to?

  45

  Shadows of a Changeling

  3rd August 1963, East Berlin

  ‘You look tired. Was all that dressmaking a lot of hard work?’ Otto teases her in the dim glow of the cinema.

  She raises a weak smile in return. Can he really see her fatigue in the darkness, waiting for the inevitably grim film to begin, the one written by an earnest socialist and approved by some GDR ministry as being Good For Morale? Still, if you see enough of them, you can glean some light amusement from the perfect, clichéd life of a good socialist, as she and Otto have discovered. But yes, she is weary, though happily so, given what the day has brought.

  Karin’s journey back to the East side (back home? she wonders now) had been marred only by a slip as she lowered herself from the window, the splintered wooden frame scraping on her upper thigh. She’d bitten down on her lip to suppress the sharp sting and rubbed away at tiny bobbles of blood sprouting on her grazed skin. The rest had been uneventful, and she’d surprised herself at how normal it felt to be back pacing through the streets still in half ruins from the war. She’d noted a familiarity in the faces, slightly pinched in comparison with the pink and abundantly fed West Berliners, though her stomach was more than full and she’d filled with guilt at the sight of a skinny little lad running in front of her, his big head on a waifish body and spindles for legs. Or is that just how some children are before they begin to fill out? In one day alone, she’d felt her reasoning becoming slightly skewed, the lingering shadows of a changeling.

  At home, Frau Lupke had been out on the landing, fussing with the plants she pretends to keep alive.

  ‘You’re busy today, Fräulein Voigt,’ she’d said, though not casually enough. ‘In and out a lot.’ The old woman likes to regularly allude that she’s on the lookout, keeping everyone guessing whether it’s official Stasi business or just innate nosiness.

  ‘Yes, Frau Lupke,’ Karin had sung. ‘It’s been such a lovely day, and lots to do.’

  If only she knew.

  Inside, Karin had time only to sponge off the grime and the sweat of angst, washing the graze on her leg that felt increasingly sore and applying the GDR’s home-grown panacea of Nivea cream. At least the wound sits high enough on her thigh to be hidden even by a short dress.

  She’d unfurled two old dresses brought from Mama’s and laid them on the bed, but in the two years since her leaving they’d become out of date, at least to Karin’s fashionable eye. She resolved to enjoy picking them apart later and recreating a new outfit.

  It will all work out, she schooled herself firmly, purging her doubts into her grimy bathroom mirror: ‘This is your choice, Karin Voigt. Live with it.’ And it was okay, wasn’t it? She’d seen Mama, Gerda and Hugo, had some small fix of their love. And now there is Otto. His love. And their life. Wherever it might be.

  It’s dark when they emerge from the cinema and Otto doesn’t suggest going for a beer, as they often do afterwards.

  ‘I’m thirsty for you,’ he whispers into the strands of her hair, a move guaranteed to cause a tweak of desire in her pelvis, enough to ensure frantic lovemaking the minute they break through the door of her apartment.

  Karin is weary, and part of her wants to go home and rerun the day under the strands of sulphury street light casting across her pillow, alone. But another part of her needs Otto next to her, as a reminder of why she is back in East Berlin and not in Schöneberg, under her duvet next to Jutta, in comfort and safety.

  ‘Then let’s go h
ome,’ she says to him.

  His hunger is evident and they are undressed by the time they reach Karin’s bed, though Otto woos her slowly, gentle and considerate as always. Again, she has to bite back the pain when he sweeps a hand unwittingly over the graze on her thigh, now angrier and more raw than she’s felt so far. After, as they lie panting and turned towards the ceiling, he reaches out and runs a finger innocently over her skin’s scored surface, and Karin can’t help flinching.

  ‘Where did you get that?’ he quizzes, pushing himself up on his elbow and facing her. ‘It looks painful.’

  The skin is pulsing, and Karin is sure now she needs more than Nivea cream to calm it. ‘It’s nothing,’ she lies, ‘something I did at work. I had a reaction to something I put on it, that’s all.’

  Otto looks concerned, though whether it involves suspicion, she can’t tell. More so when he weaves his fingers into hers and pauses.

  ‘Is that a new watch?’ he asks.

  Her heart stops. ‘Um, yes, mine broke, so I borrowed it from the friend I saw today.’ Karin winces inside at her bad lie, feels her stock of untruths well and truly used up. ‘Hey, look what Walter and I found today!’ She springs off the bed and holds up an orange in each hand. ‘You may not have found any bananas, but we tracked down these.’

  ‘You dark horse!’ Otto’s eyes are alight in the gloom.

  ‘I’m happy to share my treasure, but it’ll cost you,’ she goads him impishly.

  ‘Oh yeah? What’s your price?’

  ‘Two coins’ worth of kisses and a whole hundred of pure love.’

  ‘Well, it’s a good job I have plenty of that in my wallet.’ Her flirtation seems to have distracted him successfully from the watch. ‘So you’d better come here while I count out the amount.’

  ‘I think that’s a very fair deal, Herr Kruger.’

  46

  Champagne and Pleasure

  3rd August 1963, West Berlin

  Jutta falls back onto the sheets, breathless and satisfied, as Danny does the same, the sweat and pungency of sex oozing from them both. In unison, they laugh, both from a delicious release and partial embarrassment – that look where we ended up type of noise. Surprise more than regret, or at least that’s what Jutta hopes.

  He rolls his body back to face her, reaches down for her hand and cups it in his still hot palm. ‘That was wonderful, Miss Voigt.’

  ‘And I liked it very much, Lieutenant Strachan.’

  She won’t tell him it’s only her second time, and a great improvement on the first – a frantic, panting fondling from her student days that in hindsight went way too far. Consented but unwise, she later reflected. She never saw the boy again and was relieved.

  Danny leans towards the phone on the side table and dials one number. ‘Oh hello, can I please have a bottle of champagne?’ he says into the receiver. ‘Room 214. Yes, that’s perfect. Thank you.’

  She laughs again. ‘Extravagant, Mr Strachan.’

  ‘It is a very special occasion,’ he says.

  ‘Making love to a woman in Berlin?’

  But he clearly senses she’s joking, Jutta squealing as he digs at her playfully.

  ‘You doubt me, Miss Voigt,’ Danny says. ‘It’s making love to you – not just any beautiful woman. Being with you.’

  She’s sure then, looking at the animation on his face, that this is not a recurring event in the life of Danny Strachan. She does feel special, and he’s responsible. After all, it’s not every week or month that she ends up in bed with a man she’s known for a handful of dates. Far from it.

  He gets up to answer the door to room service, casually taking dollar bills out of his trouser pocket to tip. Jutta exhales heavily – a good sigh, though. A satisfying end to an altogether bizarre day.

  After calling Danny from the bar, she had braved the brief trip home to Schöneberg, tentatively pushing her key into the door. She heard Mama’s crying on walking down the hall, saw Gerda’s sideways glance as she entered the parlour.

  There was no row, though that might have been preferable, and she’d been ready to noisily defend her duplicity in working towards the longer plan – today’s swap, for instance. Instead, Mama had drawn her into her hold, and she could smell the tang of dried and fresh tears, delight and regret.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mama,’ she said. ‘I did what I thought was best.’

  As Karin had already hinted, Ruth’s disappointment proved harder to absorb, that her girls had conspired against her, albeit for the good of the family. Gerda’s hurt, too, was evident: ‘I thought you might have said something,’ she hissed through gritted teeth, kneading the next day’s bread as if it were the enemy. Even Hugo hadn’t been there, to take her up onto the roof and reassure her that she’d been right to keep it under wraps. After all, what other option had there been?

  As she slunk to her room, the hole left in Jutta’s chest was replaced in part by a fresh irritation, that she’d risked everything, sweated and sacrificed to bring them one day of Karin. And for such a reaction, almost ungrateful. She knew their sorrow was fuelling the frustration, and that Mama and Gerda would see sense in time, but it did soothe her guilt about going out again to spend the evening with Danny.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ Mama had quizzed, surprised and perhaps affronted again.

  ‘Out with a friend,’ Jutta muttered. ‘I need to wind down.’ And then honestly: ‘It’s been hard for me too.’ Emerging from the kitchen, Gerda extended an arm, a white flag, nodding her apology. Their eyes and understanding met briefly before Jutta disappeared through the door to her respite.

  She’d meant it to be a straightforward date, had no intention of ending up in a nearby hotel room with Lieutenant Danny Strachan of the US army. And it was no seedy hotel, either – it was a four-star affair that he led her to, though not so confidently as to suggest that he had predicted or expected it. The talk at dinner, and the laughter, sometimes at himself – it all stripped away the anxiety of the day. He made her feel lighter. Jutta was relaxed, and deeply attracted to Danny in every way.

  It was she who had hinted over the table with her eyes locked on his and her fingers crawling for his hand that the night wasn’t to end with kissing in a cab. For a second, she’d imagined herself in another world, inhabiting another body, someone else mouthing the words. But no, it was true – she wanted to be intimate with him, craved his body close to hers. His eyebrows had gone up, in surprise and delight, Jutta hoped. She’d made a call home in the hotel lobby and unusually Oskar was the one to answer, his voice slurred by alcohol, as it seemed to be every Saturday night now, and more. Ruth and Gerda had gone to bed but, yes, he would pass on the message that she was staying with a friend. It was the truth, Jutta justified to herself. Perhaps with shades of a white lie to protect Mama, but not outright deceit.

  And then they got in the lift and went upstairs.

  After it pops and fizzes with celebration, the champagne is nectar. Danny turns on the radio and tunes into a music station, twirling with his glass now that he’s put on his boxer shorts.

  ‘I feel like I’m in a Doris Day film,’ Jutta giggles.

  ‘I’m very glad to announce you are a lot sexier and less chaste than she is,’ he says, planting a kiss on her cheek and running his hand over her taut belly.

  Am I sexy? Jutta thinks. She’s never allowed herself to imagine something so real before, content to be happy in her work, though her thoughts of any kind of future have been interrupted by Karin. By that blasted Wall.

  But finally, she senses some light pushing through the cracks of her life. Is this how Karin felt when she first met Otto? Light and love when she needed it most?

  PART THREE

  47

  Red-Handed

  5th August 1963, West Berlin

  The glow had stayed with Jutta throughout the weekend, even after she’d crept back into the apartment at lunchtime on Sunday, trying not to radiate guilt like the cat that had spent the night on the tiles, though
lying outright that she had stayed with Irma. Mama, for her part, was intent on building bridges with her daughter, referring to Karin’s visit with a new optimism rather than loss.

  ‘Your sister seemed to think we’ll be able to do it again,’ she babbled while chopping vegetables for dinner. ‘Maybe meet her on and off, until these politicians see sense at least and tear down that monstrosity.’

  The room was still for a second, Jutta catching the knowing looks traded between Hugo, Oskar and Gerda: the Wall is concrete, and so is the GDR’s conviction. Though Ruth is no fool, either. It was simply wishful thinking, her self-protection from the unthinkable: that it might conceivably be forever. It makes Jutta wonder if Karin made any mention of her pledge – six months to convince Otto.

  ‘Let’s see, Mama,’ was all Jutta had said in response. ‘We have to be careful. In the meantime, we can swap letters now.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ she’d agreed. ‘But it was the best birthday present, just to see her … and I know how much you helped. I do, my darling.’

  Now, walking towards work, Jutta has time to properly take stock of the weekend and its black and white nature – the hazards of ghosting and potential capture, alongside Mama’s joy and the unexpected pleasure of Danny. She thinks of his parting words as he kissed her goodbye: ‘That was fantastic – please can we do it again?’ She’d barely suppressed the sparks threatening to leap from every pore, nodding in agreement. Absolutely.

  Jutta is dragged from her musings by a shadow falling into step beside her as she enters the university campus, the bulk of a body soon catching up.

  ‘Morning, Jutta,’ the man says. ‘You’ve got a real spring in your step today.’

  She snaps up her head to see that it’s Axel Walzer, one of the crowd she often sits with in the refectory, the unappointed leader of the fluchthelfers. He’s never spoken to her directly before, always seeming quite aloof – an older graduate student cultivating that rock-star aura around himself, both in his dress and manner.