The Girl Behind the Wall

by Mandy Robotham

  Yes, I AM lying on my back. Just let me sleep. PLEASE. I will give you anything, the nylon shirt off my back, my blanket, my hunk of tasteless bread if you’ll just LEAVE ME ALONE. Let me escape from these thoughts, shut down, roll over, curl up, let me sneak under my coverlet of dreams and smell the stale eiderdown on Karin’s bed, draw in her scent so that I can fill my nostrils with joy and memories. Let me run a hand over her rounding belly, kiss the soft, downy top of her baby’s head. But you animals won’t let it happen, will you? You deny us, because you want something that we have, that you will never ever own. Because you want to know it all, but you will never know the love. The love that’s possible, between sisters. Between people. Her and me. Her and Otto. Me and Danny. Oh Christ, Danny. He’s so nice and yet I’ll never see him again. I’m soured, tainted, forever to reek of this sweat-brown place and they’ll keep me here until I’m old and wizened and my hair is matted and grey and I squawk like a mad old crow, and they can because there is another one of me out there and her name is Karin and so no one will ever know.

  Oh Christ, when will this ever end? If I say anything and everything, can you promise to let me sleep?

  67

  Breaking

  November (Possibly), East Berlin (Maybe)

  In her lucid moments, Jutta can sense that she is mad. Or that it’s creeping up on her. In one way, she feels it’s a good thing to recognise when lunacy is imminent; it means she still has part of her mind intact. Part of the old Jutta remains. For now.

  Sleep. She’s never imagined it has such currency, that she could crave it so much, that she would have a waking delusion about being able to dream for a full eight hours. That she might actually trade her life for it.

  They have her up again and out in the corridor, eyes down. If she is to be awake at least it might be to see Herr Brown, who is the only one who talks to her in words of more than one syllable at a time, who so far has not made any real demands other than she stay awake to listen to his stories and tales of her betrayal. Who calls her by her own name, and not a number.

  ‘Hello, Fräulein Voigt, and how are you today?’ he says, more cheerily than usual.

  The dark welts around her eyes are the biggest clue, but at least he asks, Jutta thinks. And he’s nothing if not consistent – same suit, shirt and tie, and Jutta wonders if he buys those beige shirts in bulk or whether they’re issued by the Stasi, for the full dowdy, depressing effect.

  This time, the stool is absent and he offers her a chair in front of his desk, like a bank manager. In fact, there is a piece of paper in front of her, with lots of typed words, much like a contract. Her vision is so skewed she can’t make out the meaning, or even read the top line, but no matter, because Herr Brown is ready to help her in translating.

  ‘I have enjoyed our little chats,’ he begins. ‘But I think, Fräulein Voigt, now is the time for us to come to some arrangement.’ He looks up and smiles, exactly like a bank employee. ‘We could go on doing this for a good while – I mean, I’m here most days, but frankly, it’s exhausting.’ He says this with no hint of irony.

  ‘So what I’m proposing is that you sign this declaration, agreeing to give us what information you come across, and then you can go home.’

  Home? Did he say home? To Mama and Gerda. To Hugo … and Danny?

  The vision of her stepping through her front door in Schöneberg threatens to overwhelm, causes a hot brick to lodge in her throat. Then, in a flash of lucidity, Jutta sees beyond the vision, thoughts jangling and coming to a resounding halt, the true meaning. Herr Brown is proposing she tells him things: that she in turn betrays those around her. Becomes a Stasi informer. It’s a club with a big membership, so Karin has hinted, on both sides of Berlin. She will report on Axel, Oskar and Danny and anyone else who is planning, proposing or even thinking against the East. And she also knows from Karin that everyone says yes to this proposal eventually. It might be weeks or days, but everyone caves in the end, Karin told her once with a grave face. Herr Brown’s patience confirms it. So why not do it now? At least she’ll be allowed to sleep before the madness crushes her.

  The battle rages within; Jutta raises a finger towards the pen, forces it down physically with her other hand. The words on the page swim again, with no hope of reading or absorbing what it says, other than that she will be their slave. Again, she forcibly slaps down at her writing hand under the table.

  A second flash of clarity. ‘What about Karin?’ Jutta says.

  ‘Your sister? What about her?’ Herr Brown’s hands are clasped over the buff file like a church minister’s.

  ‘I’ll do it, but I want some reassurances.’

  ‘And they would be?’

  ‘That Karin is left alone. With Otto. To live a good life.’

  Herr Brown sighs with a hint of theatrics. ‘But we have no way of knowing how loyal they are – surely you can see our dilemma?’

  ‘She is loyal. Otto too – he knew nothing, I promise you. Not the access, or my visits. Or even that Karin has a twin. She’s made a new life with him, and she wants to stay.’

  He looks less than convinced.

  ‘If she isn’t in love with Otto, and willing to give up everything, then why is she still in the GDR?’ she pushes. ‘She could have left with me easily. Her heart is here.’ Jutta wishes then the statement wasn’t so, but she knows it is. Quite bizarrely, she’s telling the truth to the Stasi. ‘I will be your eyes and ears in the West, but my sister is part of the deal.’

  Jutta sits back, lips pursed in defiance, though she is bluffing wildly, with no aces – in fact no cards – in her hand. If she doesn’t agree to sign they can simply keep her here, claiming quite rightly that she is a Wall-jumper and to be punished as such. She’s banking solely on the Stasi needing legitimate spies in the West.

  Herr Brown looks into her face directly and Jutta strives hard to match his stare, when her lids are screaming to droop.

  Perhaps he’s equally weary of this stand-off, because he says: ‘This is not something I can agree to readily.’ His voice is colder, more businesslike. ‘I will need to—’

  The grey phone next to him trills, and he stares at it for a few seconds, as if he’s shocked it rings at all. That it’s been a mere prop all along.

  ‘Yes?’ he says into the receiver, brow furrowed. ‘Hmm, are you sure?’ Irritated now. ‘Wait there. I’m coming.’

  Herr Brown is now not the human soul with a wife and child in their East German allotted apartment, with his beige shirts and brown suit. He is cold, hard Stasi, and he’s just turned grey. ‘Stay here, Fräulein Voigt.’

  He disappears through the side door, and Jutta hears his voice, angry and raised at times, clearly talking into another receiver. The slam of it being replaced jolts her from sinking into a minuscule sleep and he’s suddenly in front of her.

  ‘Come with me,’ Herr Brown says tartly and opens the padded door, where a guard waits on the other side. Instinctively, she lowers her eyes to the floor, though no one tells her to do it. Herr Brown leads them down the corridor, but not in the direction of her cell, and the guard follows silently. When they descend two flights of stairs, Jutta’s fear brews again – she has no recall of climbing upstairs since her arrival. Or does she? To her, the bowels of any building conjure basements, dungeons, torture and death. Each word feeds greedily off the other, breeding images of blood and pain and horror.

  Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

  They stop descending and Herr Brown walks the length of another corridor and, to her relief, Jutta can see daylight bleeding through, even glimpsing a slice of pure light in a clear window. He leads them into a large office, a brown desk spanning most of the vast window space, behind which is a man in a uniform, the gold braiding on his shoulders outshining the dull image of material and his stormy face combined.

  ‘Good day, Fräulein Voigt,’ he says icily from his chair.

  Should she speak? Is she allowed? Jutta opts to nod instead, her blurred vision fixed o
n him.

  ‘It seems there’s been a development,’ he begins. Instantly, she assumes they have Karin. And Otto too, possibly. The GDR now has no need of her, or her petty snippets of information from the West. She will disappear to that castle in Saxony, under the vast cloak of the Iron Curtain, a victim of the Wall like so many others. Jutta is stone-like, through despondency and fear and being schooled so well not to move.

  ‘Fräulein Voigt?’ The voice of the military man prods her back into the room.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It seems you have …’

  It’s then she locates a sliver of something, in or around the room; a shard of goodness and light amid the grim spectre of this entire mausoleum. A movement to her left, and she daren’t believe it’s anything other than a guard to take her away to a different hell, but she has just enough left inside to hope.

  ‘… friends in high places.’

  The faint scent marries with the sight to her side then.

  ‘Miss Voigt.’ He says it formally. That unmistakable Yankee lilt, the short dark hair, the tan trousers of his uniform.

  He came.

  ‘Colonel Strachan has made a personal request,’ the military man prattles on, and she has to restrain herself from pushing her head into Danny’s chest and weeping with relief. ‘And in the interests of political relations, all charges will be dropped …’

  The rest floats above her head, but she takes it to mean she will leave. Here, today. With Danny. But to where?

  ‘We will call for Fräulein Voigt’s belongings to be brought,’ someone says.

  ‘No, no need,’ Danny says formally, diplomatically. ‘You will appreciate her family is anxious to see her as soon as possible, and I have a car waiting. I’m sure there will be nothing she needs urgently. Am I correct, Miss Voigt?’

  Through her haze of fatigue, Jutta struggles to read between Danny’s lines. Agree with me, she thinks he’s saying. She nods, dutifully.

  ‘Very well. Colonel Strachan,’ the military man nods, ‘I hope we may conduct business again in the future.’

  ‘I’m sure we shall, and the US government thanks you for this human act of decency,’ Danny recites. It’s all so surreal that Jutta half-expects him to nudge her in the ribs and start laughing, revealing the prankster he’s suddenly become. Or the Stasi snitch. Then she can be marched back to her cell and begin her day of staring at the ceiling and counting the window bricks.

  Instead, she and Danny are led out of the office and up a flight of stairs to an entrance, and then out into a courtyard, faced with a prison wall, a watchtower to the left and right, barbed wire coiling above the barrier, like the Wall she knows so well.

  Even the bleak autumn sun on Jutta’s face feels like fuel, and the breeze brings her round fully. The sky! She can’t believe how much she’s missed the definition of clouds as they drift in grey shapes across an infinite ceiling. Danny nudges lightly, herding her with his body and his pace towards the gate, where they pass through without delay. Can it really be this easy? That self-same doubt washes through her weariness.

  Danny opens the front passenger door of a dark American sedan, slipping into the driver’s side. She goes to speak, the temptation to fling her arms around his neck almost too much.

  ‘Don’t say a thing,’ he says through clenched teeth, sparking the engine. Confusion tumbles inside Jutta, butting up against the torture of sleep deprivation and paranoia: is he angry with her? Why is he here? How is he here?

  ‘I’ll explain when we’re out of sight.’ Danny’s gentler voice breaks into Jutta’s bewilderment. It takes only a second’s glance, his eyes on hers, she trawling his crystal blue for the truth, and even in her fog there is certainty. He came for her. Properly. Fuelled by love. She is safe now.

  The huge engine revs and he pulls away, his eyes flicking nervously left and right, the prison walls falling away behind.

  ‘Danny, how on earth …?’

  ‘No time for that now,’ he says hastily. ‘Listen, we’re in the north-east part of the city. Which direction is your opening? Please tell me it’s not far away.’

  Jutta’s haze magnifies. ‘We’re still in Berlin? But surely we’ll be going through the Allied crossing, Checkpoint Charlie?’

  ‘Not when they discover who I am,’ he says. ‘Or rather who I’m not.’

  Jutta looks at him then, at his uniform and the rainbow of braids across his chest. A dawning claws through the fog. ‘Since when did you become Colonel Strachan?’ she utters.

  ‘Oh, about an hour or so ago, when I gave myself a rather hefty promotion, starting with my uncle’s uniform. Then a fake phone call and a bit of precocious ranting to pull rank in high places.’

  ‘Danny!’

  ‘Well, what else could I do? Listen, no time for that now. They’re not stupid. Any minute, they will put in a phone call to Allied command or the bush telegraph will begin to sing, so where the hell is that access of yours? From what I can gather, I’m fairly sure they haven’t found it yet.’

  Jutta has to concentrate then, physically shaking her head to hurl away the lack of sleep. She directs him south, using Karl-Marx-Allee to orientate herself towards the portal neighbourhood – the bright yellow sign of Café Sybille catches the edge of her vision and she forces herself not to think of Karin in that moment. Stealth now is everything. Danny’s eyes are flashing, scouring his mirrors for signs of a tail.

  ‘Anything?’ Jutta asks.

  ‘Not that I can see. Although if it’s Stasi …’ He doesn’t need to elaborate. She’s aware of his foot hovering over the accelerator, eyes roaming for Polizei or any other vehicle too close. Her mouth is sour and dry, pulse jabbing into her throat in double time.

  Then it becomes faster, in line with their speed. ‘Hold onto your hats,’ Danny says suddenly, swinging the car around a corner, tyres squealing like a scene from a gangster film. ‘We’ve unwanted interest.’

  Jutta twists her head round – a black Mercedes is keeping pace, near enough that she can see the expression of the two men in front: dark and determined.

  ‘Find me a side street,’ Danny says, thrusting a map at her as he taxes the car’s engine. She pulls the print close, struggling to pin down their position, then flicks up. On flying around the Nöldnerplatz near to a place where Karin once hauled her to a very dull exhibition, there’s a sudden recognition. With relief, she spies a familiar café, then a bakery.

  ‘Next left!’ she cries suddenly, just as a long horn sounds angrily behind them and the Mercedes’ pursuit is cut by a truck veering across its path. Danny seizes the chance and swipes the wheel hard left, and left again into a tiny side street, swerving into a dingy parking space behind a large parked lorry. He cuts the engine instantly, and they suspend breathing. Ten, twenty, thirty seconds. Beyond the lorry, they detect the distinctive throb of the Mercedes slowly trawling the street, searching. Air seeps from Jutta’s lungs as they hear the car reverse, idle, and move off again. Silence then, save for their suspense; Jutta swears she can hear the thump of Danny’s heart.

  ‘Close enough?’ he says at last, though in a whisper. And he’s still smiling through it.

  ‘I’ll give it to you – this is some date, Colonel Strachan.’

  Bathed in relief, they drive warily south towards Treptower Park and the Spree, two sets of eyes scrutinising vehicles and people as they go past. Thankfully, no one gives them a second look.

  ‘Pull up alongside the park and we’ll walk the rest of the way,’ Jutta instructs. ‘There’s very little traffic here and it will look odd if we drive up.’ She’s aware too of the observation tower nearby – if the word is out, as Danny suspects, the guards will have been notified of the fugitives.

  Danny reaches in the car’s back seat for a plain, grey jacket and sheds his colonel’s uniform, his tan trousers making up a casual two-piece. His military tie is also cast off, and he gives Jutta a pair of trousers to slip on, with black pumps that are slightly too large and a woman’s bu
tton-down coat, the thick material hanging off her lean frame. It covers her Stasi pyjama top at least.

  ‘Right, which way?’ He grabs at her hand and she feels his warmth; Jutta is reminded of that early date on the Kurf’damm when she felt like they were a regular couple for the first time, and the comfort it gave her then. Now, there’s more than a pleasant feeling at stake, and they have to be the perfect couple, or the GDR’s ruthless shoot-to-kill policy will add them to the numbers of Wall dead.

  The energy pulsing through their interlocked limbs is electrifying, but the couple focus on projecting a public calm: talking and smiling, lost in each other and meandering through the ruins of residential blocks. They could easily live there, be on their way home to cook dinner or make love in a post-war shell of an apartment. Anything but ghost across the Wall, breaking the law and risking life and limb.

  Jutta is tightening her grip on Danny’s fingers with one hand and gesturing that they’re approaching the maze of industrial alleyways with the other, when he spies a Vopo casually patrolling on the opposite side of the road. Swiftly, he pushes Jutta into a tobacconist’s, slips her a few Ostmarks, and she buys a copy of Neue Deutschland, rolling it up and holding it under her arm.

  ‘Home to a warm fireplace?’ the shop owner asks. ‘Chilly tonight.’