Authors: Paul Dowswell
He turned to Geli. ‘And you – we expected more from you. You had such drive and dedication. You were so determined. I wish I had never given you a camera.’
Geli was getting angry. ‘You are deceiving yourself, Vater. I only show the truth. Do you want me to go down to Alexanderplatz and make it look warm and vibrant . . . like they try to do on that stupid TV show? It’s a soulless place, just like this whole country.’
She stopped to gather her thoughts. No one said a word. ‘Just look at this apartment . . . this ordinary everyday building . . . It has elegance. Look at the windows and curves and lines . . .’ She opened up the curtain overlooking the street. ‘Look at our beautiful balcony . . .’ It had wrought-iron railings fashioned as intertwining leaves, in a russet-red art nouveau style.
‘Why could they do this seventy years ago and not now? It’s the same country. Do you think people will look back on Honecker’s buildings and think they’re beautiful?’
Frank would not look at her. ‘I have tolerated your false opinions long enough,’ he said in a flat, low voice. ‘Your consciousness is corrupted.’ He gestured towards the balcony railing. ‘Bourgeois art, made by good working-class craftsmen . . . exploited by capitalists for a pittance.’
Geli spoke plainly, trying to keep the anger from her voice. ‘So why can’t the State encourage our craftsmen to make beautiful things and pay them proper wages? Everything here is ugly and joyless. Grey concrete, brown lino, green curtains. The same outfits for everyone – almost like in China. Why do you think Alex and I love the Western fashions so much? They are attractive and lively and say life should be fun. I’m sick of trying to be a good socialist robot.’
A terrible silence fell on the room. Alex was spellbound in admiration for his sister. She had put his feelings into words.
‘Angela, half the country was destroyed in the war,’ said Frank. ‘It is still being rebuilt. Why do I need to tell you this?’
‘The war ended nearly thirty years ago,’ said Geli.
‘Angela, go to your room,’ said Gretchen. ‘No, both of you go.’ She was close to tears. Their father looked like a wounded animal.
It was the dreariest June any of them could remember. Berlin was covered in a perpetual grey sky – like someone had sealed the city in a vast plastic food container. The wind blew in from the East and it seemed impossible to believe summer would ever arrive. The atmosphere in the Ostermann household was very similar.
Alex felt a terrible inertia – he had real problems getting out of bed. His future – one he could imagine actually looking forward to and enjoying – had been taken away from him. Sophie was the only bright spark in his life, and he wondered how much longer she would want to go out with a lad who had such dismal prospects. Alex even began to wonder if he should play along with the Stasi – pretend to spy for them and deliver nothing of any value. But he sensed they were too clever, too ruthless, to let him get away with that.
Frank shouted at everyone these days – even Gretchen moved around him with trepidation, anxious not to set him off on a rant. So when they sat down for dinner that night, no one was looking forward to the stop-start conversations that characterised their meals these days.
‘I have an announcement to make,’ said Frank, after he had drunk a glass of the Bulgarian wine that occasionally appeared on the shelves of the local supermarket. ‘I have been thinking a lot about our life together, and I think we’d all agree it is not satisfactory.’
Geli and Alex looked at him in horror. What was he about to say? That he and Gretchen were getting divorced?
His next words were even more of a shock.
‘I think we should try to leave the DDR.’
Geli’s jaw dropped open. Gretchen looked astonished. Alex couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘There is nothing left for us here. Your mother and I are shunned by our Party comrades.’ He reached over to hold her hand. ‘You two have destroyed the future we worked so hard to prepare you for . . .’
Alex could see Geli bristling with anger. He hoped she wouldn’t say anything.
Gretchen spoke. ‘But, Frank, you know those who register to leave are treated as traitors. They’ll never let us go. They’re always saying how important engineers and teachers are to the future of our country. We are exactly the sort of people they would never allow to leave.’
Frank nodded. He looked grave. ‘That is why I have engaged the services of professionals.’
‘You mean lawyers,’ said Gretchen. ‘They won’t do any good and they’ll cost us a fortune.’
‘I mean professional escape assistants.’
There was a stunned silence around the table.
Eventually their mother said, ‘How do you know people like that?’ She was utterly astonished. Frank had spent his whole life associating with people who were loyal to the Party.
‘I have contacts at work. I hope you will understand that it is not expedient to discuss this further. Please. You must trust me. I will tell you more when our mode of operations is clear.’
‘No, tell us now,’ said Gretchen. ‘I need to know that these people aren’t going to be the death of us.’
‘You mean you’re not going to object,’ said Alex to his mother. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
‘What am I going to do?’ she said angrily. ‘Stay here on my own? We’ve tried to make our life here as a family. We’ve failed. If you’re all going, I’m not going to stop you and I am certainly not going to be left behind.’ She looked at Frank sternly. ‘Now tell us. Who are these people?’
Frank gathered his thoughts.
‘They are business people. They bring goods over from West Berlin – luxury stuff for the
Exquisit
and
Delikat
stores, and on the way back they take export goods from the East. All the kinds of things we make that have a market in the West –
Praktika
cameras, Meissen porcelain. Two of the drivers run their own little business taking people back to the West. It is a well-worn routine – the guards know them by sight now and they are usually just waved through. And if they do stop and search the lorries they have the people in a really good hiding place – false compartments and all that.’
‘So we’d have to leave everything behind,’ said Gretchen. ‘I can’t imagine we’d be allowed to bring anything more than a little bag and the clothes we stand up in.’
She put a hand on Frank’s wrist. ‘Look at this apartment. We were really lucky to get it. Geli is right. It is beautiful – especially compared to the ones they’re putting up these days. Do you really want to leave this behind?’
Geli didn’t like the way the conversation was going. ‘Mutti – there’s nothing left for us here – Vati is right. In the West we can make use of our talents. You will be able to get a job – teachers are never out of work. Vati is always going to find work with his skills. Alex will be able to play his music without the Stasi hauling him off to Hohenschönhausen. I’d go tomorrow with just the clothes I stand up in, if I had the chance.’
Gretchen was looking tearful. ‘But what about Jan-Carl?’ she asked Geli. She turned to Frank. ‘What about Grandma?’
‘She can come and visit us as often as she likes. They’d even let her go if she wanted to move to the West, you know that.’
Geli spoke next. ‘I’ll miss Jan-Carl,’ she said plainly, ‘but we were never going to get married or anything.’
‘And you, Alex,’ said Gretchen. ‘What about Sophie? What about your friends?’
‘She’ll follow us out,’ said Alex. ‘When I tell her, she’ll be desperate to come with us.’ His eyes lit up. ‘Can she come with us?’
‘No, no. You must tell no one,’ Frank shouted. He looked terrified. ‘Sophie might want to escape, but you must swear on your life that you will not tell her,’ he said. ‘I know it’s difficult but if no one knows, then no one will be able to tell anyone else. Any stray gossip will be the end for us. We simply cannot tell a soul that we are going. Not even Grandma.’
‘So when will we go?’ said Gretchen.
‘There’s a space for us next week,’ said Frank.
‘NEXT WEEK!’ said Gretchen. ‘You are joking. We’ll never be ready for next week.’
‘Gretchen, my love,’ said Frank. ‘This is not like going on holiday. We do not have to get the neighbours in to water the plants and make sure the gas bill is paid and our workmates are covering our absences. We have all got to drop everything.’
Even Alex and Geli were stunned at the implication.
‘And how are we going to pay for it?’ asked Gretchen.
‘There’s been a cancellation,’ said Frank. ‘That’s why it’s at such short notice. They said they’d do the four of us for a bargain price. We’ve been saving for a fridge, Mutti and me – and you know how expensive they are – so we’ve got just enough money.’
That night, each one of them sat in their rooms looking at a lifetime’s worth of possessions – their own little treasures. In his head Alex knew he wanted to go, but in his heart he felt empty. He decided he would have to take his little plastic Sandman, that he had loved so much as a kid. And a few clothes. But he’d have to leave his guitar. He loved that – even though he knew it was crap. It was the repository of his dreams.
Geli looked at all her art books and sketches and photo prints, all carefully archived and the fruit of so much labour. Years of going out at all hours to take shots in exactly the right light. She went through her negative files, picking out the pictures she could not bear to leave behind and cut them out with scissors.
Gretchen was looking at photographs too – in the bulky family albums that filled an entire shelf above the television. She had a whole life in those photographs – how could she possibly choose just a handful of shots of the kids when they were younger? Then she thought about all her carefully acquired kitchenware, and how hard they had worked to scrape together enough money for the washing machine and the cooker and the food mixer.
Frank was thinking of the Trabi – all the tender love and affection he had put into keeping it on the road. He thought back to their first family outing and how much it had meant to them to be able to tootle out to the lakes east of Berlin without having to wait for trams and trains and buses with arms full of food hampers and blankets and towels. Everything in their life they had had to struggle and strive to get. And now, they were leaving it all behind.
The escape was set for 1st of July, in the dead of night, and now the waiting was almost over. For Alex, it would not be soon enough. Not having Sophie would leave a huge gap, but his day to day life in the Republik was now so restricted, he felt he was being slowly suffocated. These days he only ventured out when he had to – the walk to school and back. He was sure he was being followed. He kept waiting for the moment when Kohl would tap him on the shoulder and ask if he had decided to help them.
Two days before they were due to go, Frank told them they were to meet the escape assistants at 10 p.m. in a bar close to the Meissen warehouse. Having spent so long deciding what to take, word had come down that they could only carry handbags or small rucksacks. ‘Think about it,’ said Frank’s contact. ‘A family all carrying suitcases would raise suspicion. You might even get stopped in the street by the police.’ That upset them all. The escape itself was bad enough – like taking a leap into a dark well with no guarantee that there would be any water at the bottom.
Frank made it plain to Alex that he should not spend his final evening with Sophie. He was too anxious that the boy would tell her he was going to escape. Alex was furious. ‘You have got to trust me, Vati,’ he said. ‘I, more than any of us, am desperate to get out of this place. Why would I place the entire family in danger?’
Gretchen had said, ‘You should do what Geli did with Jan-Carl and tell her it’s over. He was civil enough about it.’
Alex told them he would think about it. But every time he meant to tell her when they met up on the way to school, he’d look at her face and the way she looked at him and he couldn’t bear to think they’d never talk to each other, or kiss, or walk in the park again. In the back of his mind, he knew they wouldn’t be able to do any of these things after he escaped. But there was something so frightening about what they were about to do, it seemed to eclipse everything in the future.
Frank and Gretchen relented. They allowed Alex to go out the night before, to see Sophie one last time. Maybe Kohl only worked during the day, Alex convinced himself. And even if he did nab him, Alex could agree to anything he asked. He wouldn’t be there after tomorrow.
She met him in the park in floods of tears. Alex was immediately alarmed. How did she know?
But something else was upsetting her.
‘My father is so angry with me for going out to see you tonight,’ she said. ‘“You’re a big girl now, so you have to make your own stupid mistakes,” he said. “If you keep seeing Alex Ostermann, you are putting your entire future in peril.”’
Alex said nothing. Her father was right.
They walked along to the Soviet war memorial and then to the fair. They were both short of money and decided they would rather spend their few Marks on something to drink rather than another ride on the Ferris wheel.
They sat on a bench and watched the wheel go round. It was a bizarre situation and every moment Alex was bursting to tell her what he was about to do.