The Berlin Crossing (23 page)

Roland nodded. The other world was present again, his time-and-space capsule a figment of his imagination.

‘You had no trouble getting here?’ the priest asked.

Only frayed nerves and sweaty armpits, he wanted to say, only a lump in his stomach that made him want to vomit every time
a Vopo passed or a siren blared.

‘None,’ he said. ‘And I got rid of the stuff.’ His duffel coat deep in a communal dustbin, his bag and cap in two others.
‘Nobody questioned me.’

He felt Petra’s eyes upon him.

‘Pastor Bruck is right,’ he said. ‘It would be better to stay away from me.’

‘It’s too late now, Roland.’

She picked up the violin case and her bag of sheet music and stood beside the priest.

The priest nodded to him. ‘Read your paper,’ he said. ‘Don’t watch us go.’

He tried not to – but he did watch them, furtively, bent over the newspaper, as the priest held the door for Petra and they
stepped out of sight into the street. The cafe seemed empty, menacing.

‘Friends of yours?’ The fat bartender was standing beside him.

‘No, the girl was waiting for the old boy.’

‘Her father?’

‘No idea.’

‘She’s a nice-looking piece.’

He smiled. ‘You can say that again.’

‘I wouldn’t mind . . .’ The bartender shook his head, seemed to think better of saying aloud whatever it was he wouldn’t mind.
He pointed at Roland’s cup. ‘You haven’t drunk your coffee.’

‘I’ll have it now,’ Roland said.

The coffee was cold and it was sour but, in some peculiar way, it tasted just perfect.

He found the green Trabi without difficulty.

In the gloom of the unlit street, he pulled open the left-hand door of the car and found himself looking at Pastor Bruck in
the driver’s seat.

‘Careful, Roland,’ the priest said softly. ‘You’re not in the UK now.’

Chastened, he went around to the other side of the car. Even in the fading light, the car body shone, the bumpers gleamed.

‘It’s new,’ he said, pulling the door shut.

‘Over fifteen years old,’ Pastor Bruck said. ‘Marta’s husband looked after it like a child. Marta insisted I should have it
when he passed away.’

‘You wait so long to get a car here.’ Petra was curled up in the back seat. Her voice sounded wistful. ‘Do
you
have a car, Roland?’

‘No, my father lets me drive his.’ It was a running sore:
why can’t I have my own car?

‘It’s not a Trabant, I think.’ Her voice teasing.

‘No.’ He felt almost ashamed but didn’t want to make her ask another question. ‘A Mercedes.’

Pastor Bruck laughed.

‘It’s an
old
Mercedes.’ Roland felt sheepish, apologetic.

‘We wouldn’t get you out of here in an old Mercedes,’ Pastor
Bruck said, ‘but we just might get you away in Marta’s husband’s old Trabant. And a green Trabi is a lucky Trabi.’

‘
Lucky?
’

‘We have to believe in
something
in the GDR, Roland. So why not a
green
Trabi?’

Pastor Bruck turned the key in the ignition and the car almost purred into life.

‘
Gott sei dank,
’ Pastor Bruck murmured. Thanks be to God.

‘And to Marta,’ Roland added.

‘Amen.’ Petra’s voice was almost a whisper.

They pulled away into the road, past the bins at the back of the Turm Cafe.

‘I’ve explained a little to Petra,’ the priest said. ‘But not enough to get her into trouble if we’re stopped.’

‘Would it be better if I sat in the back – or if I hid?’ The car was a station wagon, with space behind the rear seat. ‘You
could pile papers and stuff on top of me—’

‘You’re a friend of Petra,’ Pastor Bruck said, ‘and I never met you before today. That’s the truth, isn’t it?’

Back to that again
. Whose truth? Ingham’s? John Carter’s? This priest’s?

It was getting dark. Street lights came on. They moved past bicycles, the occasional car. The pastor was winding his way along
side streets, back roads. Sometimes, when they stopped at a junction, they could see police cars and grey military trucks
hurrying along the main thoroughfare.

‘There’s a lot of activity,’ Pastor Bruck said.

‘It’s dangerous, Pastor Bruck.’ Roland could see the soldiers in the back of a lorry moving at speed. ‘I tell you I should
get out.’

The pastor eased the car across the main road into the darker sanctuary of another side street.

‘It may not all be for you,’ he said. ‘It could be this Cuban business.’

‘Cuba?’

‘The American President is threatening to invade Cuba because there are Soviet missiles there. If that happens,’ he went on
quietly, his pale face even paler in the dashboard light, ‘there’s every chance that the Russians will invade West Berlin.’

‘What’s Berlin got to do with Cuba?’

‘Not much, Roland, except that it’s in the Soviets’ backyard, just like Cuba is on America’s doorstep.’ Pastor Bruck drew
the car to a halt at a corner overlooked by tall blocks of tenement buildings, then swung left into another long street canyon.
‘Tit for tat, you could say.’

There were no street lights here, just a faint glow from apartment windows. There were lives behind these windows, Roland
thought, lives like his parents’, bound by mealtimes and work hours, birthdays, curfews,
what kept you out till three o’clock in the morning?
Lives not bordered by walls, by Cuba. Could these lorries on the streets of Berlin, the headlines in
Neues Deutschland
, threats and counter-threats from Moscow and Washington – could all this be somehow linked to Ingham’s decision to blackmail
him into this nightmare excursion across the Wall?

‘Pastor Bruck?’ It was Petra’s voice, almost timid, from the back seat.

‘Yes?’

‘We’ll have to get back on the main road to get out of the city.’

‘So pray, Petra. Pray harder than you’ve prayed before. Pray that there’s no roadblock for cars leaving the city.’

But there was. They could see the lights as soon as they swung on to the dual carriageway – lights flashing on top of police
cars alongside vans and lorries pulled in on both sides of the road.

‘Do
you
pray, Roland?’ Pastor Bruck’s face was white, skeletal.

‘Stop the car and let me out.’

‘It’s too late for that, they can see us.’ The pastor changed gears. Only three cars separated them from the roadblock.

‘I never saw you people before.’ Roland’s voice trembled with urgency. ‘I bumped into you in the Cafe Turm – I asked you for
a lift – no, I threatened you, forced you to give me a lift—’

‘Roland.’ Her voice was soft but insistent. He felt her fingers on his lips, shushing him.

They edged forward in the roadblock queue. Only one car ahead of them now, a dark van behind them. The grey lorries on either
side of the road had their headlights on, illuminating the roadblock. They could see the soldiers standing beside the lorries,
the rifles in their hands. They could see the Stasi officer bent at the open window of the car in front while his partner
walked purposefully round the vehicle.

‘I’m praying, Pastor Bruck.’ What was this, a lilt in her voice?

‘So am I, Petra.’

The Stasi officer was studying the ID of the driver in front. The other officer was examining the open boot of the car.

I could strike this priest on the head, Roland thought. I could hit him hard, make his nose bleed, then run from the car.
Why should he suffer for me? And this girl with the amazing eyes and the cropped hair and the violin case on the seat beside
her . . .

The car in front pulled away. The Stasi officer waved them forward. He stared at the registration plate, then wrote on the
wooden clipboard that he held in his left hand.

‘Papers.
Schnell.
’ The stink of stale garlic filled the car as the Stasi stooped at the car window.

Pastor Bruck produced his wallet, began to fumble through it.

‘
Schnell! Schnell!
’ From behind them came the blaring noise of
police sirens; the Stasi had to shout to make himself heard.

He took the pastor’s ID card and half turned to the lorry lights to read it. His leather gun holster shone in the beams. In
the passenger seat, Roland forced himself to be still. He was aware of the second Stasi slowly circling the Trabi; aware,
too, of the blaring sirens approaching at speed.

‘You are a priest?’ The Stasi was shouting now. You could hear the venom in his voice, sense it in the grimace he cast at
Pastor Bruck’s dog collar.

‘Yes, I am Pastor Bruck.’ The pastor was shouting too. The sirens were on top of them. Roland looked back, saw three flashing
blue lights, felt the Trabi caught in the glare of headlights. Horns blew, brakes squealed as the convoy screamed to a halt.
Run now, save this priest and this girl from a disaster that is yours alone
.

The Stasi straightened beside the car, his partner alongside him. They both looked puzzled, even frightened, blinking in the
fierce glare of the car lights.

A car door opened behind them.

A Stasi officer stood beside the open door, himself caught in the glare of lights from behind.

‘Move this shit!’ His roar seemed louder than the sirens. ‘Now! Move it!’

For a second, the entire roadblock seemed to jump – soldiers, vehicles, Stasis.

‘Now!’ The newcomer stood frozen in the headlights, his arm raised, the red cuffband on his uniform sleeve like a danger signal
in the night. Roland watched him get back into the car, heard the slam of the door, heard the thumping of his own heart above
the revving of the car behind.

‘You heard the officer!’ The Stasi threw the pastor’s ID card in through the open window of the Trabi. ‘Move this heap of
shit!’

Pastor Bruck revved the car, said something under his breath as the gears grated.

‘Get this fucking thing out of here!’ Both Stasi waving them frantically forward now, the soldiers at the roadside staring
glumly at them.

The pastor found the gear, the car lurched forward. The Stasi officers were blowing whistles, waving the convoy onwards.

The Trabi window was still open: they could feel the surge of the convoy as it swept past them in the night. A pair of military
motorcyclists, a pale blue Trabant driven by the red-cuffed officer, a black Zil, a glimpse of a red-braided peaked cap in
its rear seat, a windowless Trabant van barrelling along behind.

The priest drove slowly. It seemed that nobody dared breathe until the lights of the convoy had disappeared into the darkness.

‘Everyone OK?’ Pastor Bruck’s voice was edgy.

From the rear seat came Petra’s nervous laugh. ‘We’re safe, Pastor.’

‘For now.’ He spoke to Roland. ‘You?’

Roland picked up the ID card from where it had fallen on the floor.

‘What was that about? The fellow with the red band on his sleeve? The officer in the back of the big car? Surely they’re not
out searching for me?’

‘Maybe, maybe not. It’s more likely to be an alert about this Cuba business. Whatever it is, it’s serious. I got a glimpse
of the officer in the Zil, could be a Soviet general. The Stasi officer doing all the shouting is from the Guards Regiment,
so it must be serious.’

‘The Guards?’

‘The Felix Dzerzhinsky Guards Regiment – they’re the Stasi elite, you can tell by their red cuffbands.’

Roland stared across at the pastor’s reflection in the dark window, like a ghost in the night.

‘You know about these elite Guards?’

‘Not personally.’ Pastor Bruck smiled. ‘And I don’t want to.’

‘I want something understood, Pastor Bruck.’ Roland coughed, cleared his throat. ‘If we meet another roadblock, I’m going
to make a run for it.’

‘Let’s wait and see—’

‘No, I’ve made up my mind.’

‘Very well.’

The road narrowed, became a single track without markings. Within the car, all three were silent, scratching at their own
thoughts. Outside, the darkness deepened. Then the trees came, as if grown to order on the roadside, spaced at regular intervals,
each marked at eye level with a painted white disc.

‘It’s a neat way of marking the road,’ Roland said.

‘Even the trees are obedient in our socialist society.’ Petra’s laugh didn’t hide the sourness in her words, in her voice.

Pastor Bruck glanced back at her.

‘Your audition?’ he said. ‘It didn’t go well?’

‘I think I played well.’

‘The Beethoven piece?’

‘Yes, the Beethoven piece. But I don’t think it mattered what I played or how I played.’

‘Baumeister?’ The pastor’s tone was gentle.

‘Of course. The bastard – sorry, Pastor.’ They could hear her swallowing, the edge of tears in her words.

‘I’m sorry, Petra, truly sorry. I know how much that audition meant to you.’

She didn’t answer. Roland wondered if the girl was weeping quietly to herself. He wondered who Baumeister was, wondered what
he had done to balls up the girl’s audition, why anyone would want to bring tears to such eyes.

He held his tongue, shifted his position to try and catch a
glimpse of her in the small rear-view mirror. They rattled over a bump in the road and for a split second he saw her in the
mirror. Their eyes met and she smiled at him.
Fuck Baumeister, whoever he was
.

The poplar trees slipped by outside, painted staging posts on the road to he knew not where. For a little while, he didn’t
care about any of it: there was a warmth in the car, the promise of a tomorrow. His mind wandered home; he saw himself walking
by the sea, the white-tops washing on the shore, this girl at his side.

The pastor’s voice cut in on his daydream.

‘Not far to Bad Saarow now,’ he said. ‘We have to decide what to do with you, Roland.’

He felt like a package.
What shall we do with Roland?

‘Maybe you could just wrap me up and post me home,’ he said.

‘I think the package might be delayed in transit,’ Pastor Bruck said.

Petra laughed. ‘You might never get delivered home.’