But it’s too late. A detachment of border guards comes marching along the street perpendicular to the one we’re standing on, not twenty feet from us. They’re led, as I thought they would be, by a uniformed secret police officer. I feel a thud of anger at the sight of them. It’s not right that they march about the city arresting people. We’re all East Germans. We’re all Germans, for that matter, East or West.
If we’re very still he might not notice us. Unfortunately, Frau Schäfer chooses this moment to realize that there are soldiers nearby and lets out a high shriek.
The officer turns his head, sees us, and holds up a black gloved hand. The marching guards behind him come to a halt with a stamping of feet. I recognize him immediately from his height, the hard line of his jaw, the dark blond hair at the nape of his neck. Der Mitternachtsjäger. Oberstleutnant Volker. He eyes us curiously, the top half of his face in shadow beneath his peake
d cap. I’ve never been this close to him before and his features are as cold and hostile as I expected.
I hate you, I think as I look at him, unable to tear my eyes away. I hate what you do to us. I’ll never miss this place when I’m gone.
Frau Schäfer recognizes him and she begins to shake, pulling my attention away from him.
“Into the building, quickly,” I whisper to her, and finally she lets me lead her away. I glance over my shoulder and I’m startled to find that Volker has taken several steps toward us, leaving his guards standing in the middle of the street. He hasn’t called out to us. If he calls out we’ll have to stop, so I walk even faster, hoping he’ll decide we’re not worth it. It’s not late so we can’t look that suspicious.
Except that I’ve just left a secret dissidents’ meeting and both Frau Schäfer and I will be in the West by the end of the week.
But he can’t know that. Can he?
I get Frau Schäfer over the threshold and push her toward the stairs. Risking a last glance over my shoulder I see that Volker is standing in the street, staring at us. Staring at me. Maybe the stories are true. Maybe he can smell it on us when we’re traitors.
I turn and hurry into the building, praying he won’t follow. Standing in the darkness of the hall I hold my breath and listen. A minute ticks by, and then I hear marching feet receding into the night and I exhale. I shouldn’t have stared at him so. How awful it would have been to be brought in for questioning just days before we are to escape.
This is why I have to get out. I can’t live like this.
Peeling myself away from the wall I run upstairs and knock on the door to Frau Schäfer’s apartment. She’s terrified when she peers out, thinking I’m Volker.
“It’s all right. It’s Evony from upstairs.” I put a hand on her arm. “You’ll stay in tonight, won’t you? You won’t go back outside?” I talk to her quietly in the doorway for several minutes, trying to console her as best I can. The truth would be the most cheering thing but Dad’s right. We can’t risk it. I think about how happy she’ll be when we come for her in a few days’ time, then bid her goodnight and go upstairs.
Dad was the last to leave the meeting and he returns home half an hour after me, and by that time I’ve made us a dinner of roasted cauliflower and boiled mutton. There are no potatoes to be found in the shops right now, only mounds of cauliflower, so we have to make do. No one ever goes hungry in East Berlin but the supply of produce is erratic. We go a year without seeing peppers, and then suddenly we can’t move for peppers.
He scratches a hand through his messy, curly hair and grins at me. It’s all we dare in reference to the meeting, even in our own apartment. He suspects the Stasi of bugging us. Maybe that’s more paranoia but I suppose it’s better to be safe when we’re this close to our goal.
“Cauliflower, again,” Dad mutters gloomily, but tucks in and gives me a wink. “It’s good, Schätzen.” He’s always called me little treasure, on account of pulling me from the rubble of our bombed-out house when I was very small. His buried treasure.
“Danke,” I say, smiling at him.
Later, when I’m lying in bed, eyes wide in the darkness, the image of Volker standing in the street haunts me. What was the expression on his face? Curiosity? Suspicion? If only I had been able to see his eyes. Then I shudder, and I’m thankful I couldn’t as being in close proximity to a man like that can only be dangerous.
I lull myself to sleep imagining how good the sunsets will look when we’re finally in the West. Brighter and bigger than I’ve ever seen before.
In the morning Dad goes off to the mechanics he works at and I head for the Gestirnradio factory. Before I leave the building I go down to the third floor and check on Frau Schäfer. I knock for some time but there’s no answer. Cold fingers of worry clutch at my belly. She should be here at this time of the morning. Finally the next-door neighbor puts his head round the door. It’s Herr Beck, a pensioner with unruly gray hair.
“No point in knocking. She’s gone.”
I stare at him. Gone as in escaped? How could she have managed that? “What do you mean?”
“Took her, didn’t he? In the night.” Herr Beck wears the overbright expression of someone excited to impart grim news. I hate that attitude. It’s not me so isn’t this fun.
“Who took her?”
But already I know. I picture him returning to the building late last night, without his guards, and rousing poor confused and bereft Frau Schäfer from her bed and taking her away, all for the crime of being separated from her family. I’m shaking with anger. He’s a monster. How can he live with himself? How can he do this to us?
“Who do you think?” Herr Beck disappears back into his apartment and slams the door.
I leave for the factory with a lump in my throat. I don’t understand the world sometimes. It’s not right that we should be forced to choose between our family and the State. Without our loved ones, who are we?
If I keep thinking about Volker and Frau Schäfer I’ll burst into tears, so as I put away my bag and coat and tie an apron on over my street clothes I put them out of my mind. The factory is a new multistory building with designated areas for each part of the assembly process. I work on the third story, and as I emerge onto the factory floor I’m assailed by he sweet tang of melted solder. My workbench is against one wall and I take my seat and flick on the soldering iron. As I wait for it to heat up I check over the boxes of wires and transistors to make sure I have everything I need.
The work is repetitive, but today I’m grateful for the soothing monotony. I lose myself in the tedium of tiny wires and the smoke and glimmer of the melted solder. These are my hours. These are my days. But they will not be my years.