Puzzle People (9781613280126) (8 page)

11

East Berlin
Christmas Eve 1961

Stefan made his way north toward Bernauer Strasse, a street that ran right along the Wall. His parents lived nearby, and he had plans to spend Christmas Eve having dinner with his mother, father, and sister Jana. But first, he had to see what was happening at the Wall. His neighbor, Mrs. Wahlburg, told him that people were flocking to the Wall to sing Christmas carols with West Berliners on the other side of the Great Divide. So Stefan put on his long black coat and trudged underneath the steel-gray sky, which was trying its best to snow but could not produce. What little snow came down whipped along the streets like ash.

Stefan was not a religious man, but he loved Christmas: the lights, the songs, the pageantry, the food, the easy comfort of a family holiday gathering. Stefan’s father was a nominal Roman Catholic, but his mother was an uncompromising atheist. His father insisted on observing two religious holidays each year when he was growing up—Christmas and Easter—but his mother would always remain home. And when they would return from the service, his mother would sit him down and interrogate him about the Mass. She picked away at any shred of faith that might have latched on to him inside the church.

As he approached the Wall along Bernauer Strasse, Stefan could hear the singing from a long distance. It was a more peaceful sound than what he remembered in the first days after the Wall rose up. Back then, GDR police lobbed tear gas over the Wall, and mobs on the western side hurled stones back over the Wall and chanted, “KZ! KZ! KZ! KZ!”

KZ: Konzentrationslager.
“Concentration camp.”

Tonight was Christmas, however, and the shouts of “KZ” had been replaced by Christmas songs, being sung by Germans on both sides of the Wall. Hundreds of people had made the pilgrimage here, for when the Wall finally came in sight, the crowd was larger than he expected. The people were being kept away from the Wall by the Vopos, and Stefan mixed in with the crowd and sang the old familiar Christmas carols, the closest he had been to a church service in more than two years. His nose felt the nip of the cold, and the breath of so many singers rose up into the air like incense.

Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen

Aus einer Wurzel zart.

Wie uns die Alten ’sungen,

Aus Jesse kam die Art

Und hat ein Blümlein ’bracht,

Mitten im kalten Winter,

Wohl zu der halben Nacht.

Lo, how a rose e’er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung!

Of Jesse’s lineage coming,

As men of old have sung.

It came, a flow’ret bright,

Amid the cold of winter,

When half-spent was the night.

The buildings on Bernauer Strasse directly abutted the border between East and West Berlin, which was why they became the center of so much drama earlier in the year. The buildings sat in East Berlin, and the residents were considered East Germans, but their front doors were on the very edge of the border; if they walked through their front doors, they were stepping directly into West Berlin. People had used the buildings as escape routes, even jumping out of windows into nets below being held by West Berliners. Today, the buildings were no longer a way out. The doors were sealed, and the windows were all bricked up, and the buildings looked down on the street like blind giants.

Although it wasn’t snowing, objects suddenly started falling from the sky. Small Christmas presents landed on the ground, along with packs of West Berlin cigarettes. West Berliners were tossing packages over the Wall, and the people were snapping them up. Stefan picked up a pack of filter-tipped Collie 62 cigarettes, so much better than the Eastern brands.

Stefan wished he could spend Christmas with Katarina. Last year had been his best Christmas, for they had spent the day ice-skating and then keeping each other warm. He was still angry with her for escaping without him, but he was even angrier at himself. He had had his chance, and he missed it. Not long after the barriers went up last August, they had a chance to bolt across the border together. They had been walking hand in hand along a street in Glienicke/Nordbahn, a municipality just north of Berlin where Katarina had grown up, when a commotion arose near the barbed-wire barrier, which had just been erected.

“Let’s move in a little closer, see what’s happening,” Katarina said, tugging on Stefan’s hand.

“I don’t know.” Stefan resisted. He was cautious. Always cautious.

“C’mon!”

On the western side of the barbed wire, a group of rowdy youths scooped up large stones and hurled them across the border. One of the stones caught a Vopo in the shoulder, and the policeman spun around and aimed his gun at the youths. His superior shouted for him to stand down, because shots across the border could ignite open conflict between East and West. Another Vopo hurled a tear gas canister over the barrier, but one of the rowdies snatched it up and heaved it back, a white plume of smoke pouring from it. The youths kept up a barrage of insults.

“Pig!”

“Hang Ulbricht!”

“Free our prisoners!”

At the sight of tear gas, Stefan instinctively stepped backward, pulling Katarina with him. But she pressed forward, still tugging on his hand.

“This is it. This is our chance,” she said.

“Our chance? Chance for what?”

“To cross over.”

Stefan planted himself firmly where he stood. “Cross over? Are you insane?”

What had begun as a romantic entangling of their hands had turned into a battle, both pulling from opposite directions.

“The Vopos are not paying attention. Look! There’s an opening. We can cross.”

Stefan stared at the youths, who had regrouped and were charging back toward the border, rocks in hand. Under the cover of chaos, two youths had slipped up to the barbed-wire tangle and were snipping it apart, creating an opening.

“Let’s cross,” Katarina said.

“Who said I want to cross?”

“It’s now or never.”

“Now or never? Who says this will be our only chance?”

“But it’ll be so easy.”

She may have been right. The five Vopos were still distracted by a dozen or more West Berlin youths, and the rocks had begun to fly.

“Come over! Come over with me!” she said.

Stefan didn’t miss the fact that Katarina used the very words that lured an East German soldier across the border only days ago. West Berliners had shouted, “Come over”; and on impulse, the soldier tossed aside his cigarette and leaped over the low-lying barbed wire, his machine gun still slung over his shoulder. The day that happened, Katarina couldn’t stop talking about it. She loved the idea of flinging the past aside like a discarded cigarette and making the jump.

“Come over,” she said again.

Still, Stefan resisted. He didn’t want to try it with armed border police so close. Katarina began to disentangle her fingers from his, but he wouldn’t let her go. She stared at him in disbelieving anger.

“Let me go!”

Let her go? Stefan would never let her go.

“Please, Katarina. Don’t be foolish.”

“Let me go!”

“Katarina . . . please . . .”

“But this is our chance. This is—”

They suddenly stopped pulling at each other and stared at what unfolded before them. A young couple with a small boy saw the same opening in the barbed wire that they had seen—the same small window to freedom. Impulsively, the young couple cast all caution to the wind and climbed through the gap in the barbed wire. By the time the Vopos spotted them, it was too late. They were through the wire and into the West.

Then just like that, the window closed. The Vopos moved in to guard the opening until the breach could be repaired. Katarina and Stefan hurried home in silence, no longer hand in hand.

The next time Katarina made a bolt for freedom, she would do it alone.

Stefan forever regretted his decision that day in Glienicke/Nordbahn, but he tried to push the memory from his mind. He sang a couple more Christmas carols, and then made his way through the neighborhood near Bernauer Strasse.

On the way to his parents’ apartment, he passed by the Church of Reconciliation, a beautiful old church that found itself on the wrong side of the Wall. Most of its congregation lived in West Berlin in the French sector, cut off from the church, so the building had no occupants outside of God. Stefan thought about the irony of the name—
Church of Reconciliation.
There was little in the way of reconciliation along the Berlin border. The church was dark and solid, and the Wall cut directly in front of its front door. A single steeple, perfectly centered, shot high above it all.

Stefan had an impulse, and this time he acted upon it. He decided to pray. He wasn’t sure where the idea came from, because he hadn’t prayed for years. Maybe it was the time of year, or the songs, but whatever drove him, he approached the back of the church, balled fists in his pockets and his head down. A Vopo stepped in front of him, as expected. Eyes on the ground, Stefan pretended he didn’t see the policeman until the Vopo put a firm hand on his shoulder. “No farther.”

“It’s Christmas Eve. Could you allow me access to the church?”

“It’s not allowed.”

“But I want to pray.”

“Not in the church.”

“But this is my church,” Stefan lied. “It’s Christmas Eve. Please. I just want to pray.”

“God can hear you outside. Pray outside.”

“But it’s cold.”

“Then pray for warmth.”

Stefan stared into the Vopo’s eyes. The Vopo was in his twenties, and Stefan could see in his face a distaste for this kind of duty. Stefan started to make a move around the guard. He had to at least try.

The next instant, he felt the barrel of the boy’s gun, placed sideways against his chest, and the Vopo shoved him backward. Stefan tumbled into a cold puddle, bruising his behind and his ego.

“I said stay away,” the Vopo snapped.

“I will pray for your soul,” Stefan growled, humiliated and angry. He got back to his feet and turned and stalked off, feeling the frigid moisture seeping through his pants.

He spent a somber Christmas Eve with his mother, father, and sister in their drab apartment on Anklamer Strasse. His mother insisted that he change out of his wet pants and put on a pair of his father’s, which was too wide in the waist and too short in the legs.

His sister Jana brought along her latest boyfriend of the month, but that only served to underscore Stefan’s loneliness. She had the kind of eyes that could tempt a saint, although most of her boyfriends were far from saintly, and this one didn’t seem to break the pattern. The boyfriend talked incessantly about his job as a car mechanic, and Stefan wished even more that he could be with Katarina.

Stefan’s mother spent much of the evening complaining about her gout, and his father relaxed all night in his favorite chair, slouched so low that it looked as if the chair was trying to swallow him. Occasionally, he would extract himself from the jaws of the chair to fiddle with the television and moan about the reception.

“I got another warning last week,” he griped after getting up to slap the TV on the side.

“About the TV antenna?”

“What else?”

“I told him he shouldn’t point the antenna to the West,” said Stefan’s mother.

“It’s those Young Pioneers in our neighborhood, always checking roof antennas to make sure they’re not pointing west,” his father grumbled. “I’m sick of it.” He got up and slapped the side of the TV. It seemed he spent more time hitting his TV and monkeying with antennas than actually watching programs.

“So what were they singing at the Wall?” his mother asked, reminding him of the way she interrogated him after every Mass he attended as a child.

“Just Christmas songs.”

“I know that. What did the words say?”

“Who cares what the words were?” his father snapped, exchanging glares with his wife.

“I heard the Wessis were throwing gifts over the Wall,” his sister said brightly.