“‘Now you will see what happens to people who betray their Republic.’
“I still had my watch on my wrist—and for the next eleven hours the van was in virtual nonstop motion. Occasionally, we’d park somewhere for ten or fifteen minutes. But largely it just kept driving around. As there were no lights in the interior of the van the effect was completely disorienting. There was also no toilet in this tiny locked cubicle—and they didn’t bother to offer me any food, let alone water, during all the hours I was being driven to . . .
“Well, that was the big question. To where was I being driven? I knew from Jurgen’s recounting of this experience that I would probably end up in some prison at some hour of the night. But where exactly? Was I still in Berlin? Or down in Saxony, where I knew they had a women’s prison? And who was picking up my son tonight? That’s what was really terrifying me. The idea that five p.m. would come around and there would be nobody there to collect Johannes. I remember screaming repeatedly that I needed to speak to somebody in charge, that they had to call one of my neighbors—like Susanne or Judit—and tell them to pick up Johannes. But my screams were met with silence. So I screamed some more, literally asking that they stop the car and make a phone call. I even started shouting out Judit’s phone number, my screams mixing with a growing hysteria that came out of the realization: I was in a very bad place.
“Finally, I could no longer hold my bladder anymore, and I used a bucket that had been left in the corner of the cell as a makeshift toilet. But then the van hit a pothole and urine went everywhere. This is when I started to weep. Because I knew that if I was being given this treatment early on, God knows what awaited me when they got me to prison.
“My mind was racing wildly, wondering what horrible scenarios now faced me. But behind all this was also a crazed, absurd hope that somehow they would stop driving me around, drop me off in front of my apartment, tell me that I had now learned a lesson about marrying the wrong sort of man, and order me to go upstairs and comfort my son. That’s how deranged I was at this point—somehow thinking that they would let me go. I read somewhere that prisoners on death row often go through the same delusion. They’re being walked to the execution chamber and they still believe it’s not going to happen. I felt that as the van finally stopped and I heard a heavy door being pulled down behind me. Then the rear of the van opened and this yellow light streaked in. After eleven hours in the dark, even these fluorescent tubes stung my eyes. I was stinking of urine and my own sweat, so dehydrated by lack of water, and so frightened and so desperate to see Johannes, that as soon as they brought me out of the van I started to scream wildly again. These two women guards—they had faces like old cement—strong-armed me immediately, one of them yanking my hand halfway up my back while the other slapped me hard across the face and ordered me to shut up. Which I did immediately.
“Then they marched me to some reception area where they took the few valuables I had—my watch, my wedding ring. They handed me a drab gray prison uniform and rudimentary underwear, and told me that I now had a number instead of a name, and said that if I cooperated with the authorities, my stay here mightn’t be a long one. Then I was marched to a shower. The two women guards watched me as I stripped off my clothes and stood under the lukewarm water. Suddenly I started to break down again, screaming for Johannes, begging them to let me see my son. One of them told me to shut up, or she’d have to slap my face again. I finished my shower. I dressed in the rough, sandpaperlike underwear and prison uniform. I was led to a cell, perhaps two square meters in total. There was a lightbulb that was on all the time. There was a single mattress on a concrete platform, a blanket, a pillow. There was a sink and a toilet. The guards told me to sleep. But I couldn’t sleep. I paced the small floor all night. I had nothing with which to occupy myself except my thoughts. All I could think of was Johannes . . . and who was watching him right now and when I would be able to see him again and why . . . my God,
why
? . . . was I being held here? Trying to calm myself down I said:
I’m certain once I talk with the interrogator all will be cleared up and I’ll be home with my son by nightfall.
I kept telling myself,
They will be fair. They will be, as they always told us on news broadcasts and in the pages of
Neues Deutschland
, humanistic
.
But the next morning—having not slept at all and having been given a hard roll and a cup of weak tea for breakfast—I was brought down a series of corridors to another corner of the prison. They had this system of pull-cords in the corridors. The woman guard who was escorting me would pull a cord and then wait for someone in a nearby area to respond by yanking it back and thus ringing a little bell on the end of the cord. It took me a few days to work out why they used this rudimentary system of communication before walking me to my daily interrogation. They were letting other guards know that they were leading a prisoner down the corridors—and, as such, ensuring that there were no other prisoners in the hallways at the same time. That was the thing about this prison. As a captive you had no idea of anyone else who was being held there. We were all kept in isolation. Just as you had no idea if this prison was the infamous Hohenschönhausen—the Stasi’s remand center in Berlin—or another of their places of interrogation.
My interrogator was named Colonel Stenhammer. He was a man in his late thirties. Short but well built. And evidently very conscious of his appearance, as his hair was always slicked back, his face smooth, his fingernails immaculate, his uniform perfectly pressed, his boots shined to such a high gloss that the few rays of light that passed through the barred windows lit them up. He smoked Western cigarettes—Marlboros—and would keep them in a gold cigarette case that looked like a family heirloom. When I was first brought to his ‘office’—as he referred to this interrogation room—he was seated behind a desk and I was told to place myself in a chair that was located around two meters away from him and positioned so whoever sat there found himself in a corner. Officer Stenhammer informed the guard that she could leave us be. Once the door was closed behind her, Officer Stenhammer opened a sizeable file and ran through a basic checklist of questions about where I was born, my parents, my education, everywhere I had ever lived, every job I had held, even every man I had been involved with. I interrupted him once, telling him I had no idea why I was here and how worried I was about my son Johannes, especially as my husband Jurgen . . .
“‘Do you really think that, given our humanistic system, we would think of allowing a thirteen-month-old child to be left on his own?’ he asked, his tone cool, unnerving. ‘Despite the fact that his mother is under suspicion of espionage and treason?’
“‘What?’ I screamed. ‘I have never, never . . . ’
“‘Be quiet now,’ he ordered, his voice as lethal as a wielded scalpel. Then he informed me that if I continued to interrupt him, he would have me brought back to my cell. And I would spend at least five days there without any contact or exercise as a punishment for being uncooperative and antisocial.
I hung my head and started to weep, whispering ‘I’m so sorry, sir’ while trying to control the tears that were now flowing. ‘I just so miss my son and don’t understand . . . ’
“‘And you have interrupted me again, so now I have no choice.’
“‘Please, please, please . . . ’ I was wailing now.
“‘Will you remain quiet and cooperate fully?’
“I nodded my head many times.
“Stenhammer said nothing. He just sat there and stared at me for a good two minutes. I felt myself becoming unhinged again—unhinged because I was so frightened. But I also told myself I had no choice but to try to maintain a veneer of sanity—and meet Stenhammer’s clinical gaze. Then he did something unexpected. He smiled at me and said:
“‘Perhaps you would like a coffee and a cigarette. In fact, I am certain you could use both.’
“I didn’t know how to reply to this act of kindness, except to say: ‘That would be very nice, thank you.’
“He stood up and opened a cupboard, within which was a Western-style coffee machine. It looked very fancy.
“‘How do you take your coffee?’ he asked. I told him milk, one sugar. He poured me a cup, added milk and a teaspoon of sugar and actually brought it over to me. Then he offered me a cigarette—and slyly added:
“‘You won’t tell anyone I smoke an American brand, will you?’
“‘No, sir,” I said. ‘And I am very grateful to you for . . . ’
“He held his hand up.
“‘I do not need your gratitude, Frau Dussmann. I need you to tell me what you think of the coffee.’
“I took a sip. The aroma of the coffee was overpowering. So too was the sheer richness of its taste. In the GDR such coffee was unobtainable. It was like nectar. The cigarette, too. I’d smoked Western cigarettes a few times before. They were such rarities in the GDR, especially among my crowd, none of whom had contacts in the hard currency shops or in the higher levels of the Party. Of course, part of me knew that Stenhammer was now playing the Good Cop. But the other part of me that was desperate to get out of this nightmare, to get home to my son, also knew that this Stasi man was my one hope of salvation. The coffee and cigarette were meant to make me feel good at a terrible moment. Even though he was my captor, I was nonetheless beholden to him right now. So I said:
“‘The coffee is wonderful. So too is the cigarette.’
“‘Then we are finally off to a good start,’ he said and turned on a tape recorder. I noticed immediately that on the wall to the left of the chair in which I had been ordered to sit, there was a microphone positioned toward me. ‘Now I want you to tell me the story of your marriage. And I want all the details. Everything. Even the painful ones.’
“For the next hour I told him all that I sensed he wanted to know. Because I realized that I was doomed if I didn’t speak frankly and directly. Anyway, the person who had already most betrayed Jurgen was himself. I made it very clear to Stenhammer that I was never someone involved in political movements, and that Jurgen was a crisis waiting to happen.
“‘So your marriage was what exactly?’ he asked.
“‘A mistake, but with one great gift: my wonderful son.’
“‘And when, precisely, did you begin work as an American spy?’ he asked. His tone was absolutely conversational, calm, unruffled. I felt myself flinch and had to fight another sob escaping from my throat.
“‘Sir, I have never met an American, let alone ever had any contact with their security services. I have lived a quiet life. I am a loyal citizen. I have never . . . ’
“‘Joined the Socialist Workers Party, for example, which is what most ‘loyal citizens’ do. And though your parents did join the Party, according to my colleagues in Halle, they have lived rather disreputable private lives. Would you agree that your parents didn’t exactly set you the best example when it came to being a “loyal citizen”?’
“I remember taking a very long drag on my cigarette and wishing the ground would open me up and swallow me whole. The bastard was asking me to denounce my own parents as inadequate. And yet I knew that if I fought this, I would be digging myself into deeper trouble. So I said:
“‘I think they could have been more positive about the achievements of the GDR.’
“‘I don’t believe you mean that.’
“‘I love my parents, sir.’
“‘Even though they were both unfaithful during their marriage . . . your mother having had a long affair with . . . ’
“He rifled through my file until he reached a document. Then he read out loud the name of her school’s head teacher.
“‘Were you aware of this affair?’ he asked. I shook my head. He reached for another document. ‘Now I know that you are lying to me—as one of our men in Halle was observing this gentleman and your mother having an assignation near the school. For reasons of state security, which I will not divulge here, their meeting was photographed.’
“He held up a grainy black-and-white photo of Mother and the man locked in a fervent embrace. ‘And he also photographed a teenage girl watching them from behind a parked car.’
“Now he held up another photograph—and there I was, an adolescent girl, looking shocked and saddened as she watched her mother in the arms of a man not her father.
“Seeing those photographs sent a jolt of horror through me because I realized:
they really do know everything
. And because Stenhammer had just cleverly checkmated me. He could now accuse me of being fast and loose with the truth.
“‘With you having just denied something for which we have proof, how can I begin to believe anything else you tell me?’
“I hung my head. And felt tears well up in my eyes again.
“‘I was just trying to protect my family, sir. Surely you can understand.’
“‘Actually I cannot. You are under investigation here for treasonous activities against the Republic that has raised you and educated you and looked after you far better than the two crypto-bourgeois parents who were both ungrateful to the humane society that has allowed them to flourish, and who betrayed each other the way they betrayed their fealty to the state. Look at the daughter they produced—someone with the same bourgeois tendencies who admits that she started living with a self-destructive, narcissistic writer because the man had a large apartment. When your husband was off writing his anti-GDR ravings you knew the vile content of his “Ring Cycle” . . . isn’t that what he called it? . . . and said nothing. A loyal citizen would have talked to her shop steward or made a phone call to us about his recreant scribbles. But you stayed silent. You allowed him to push forward with his manic endeavors.’