Puzzle People (9781613280126) (19 page)

26

Berlin
August 2003

When Annie arrived at Kurt’s apartment, she couldn’t believe what she found looming in the courtyard: a watchtower, straight out of the Cold War. Seven-story apartment buildings, some of them peach colored, completely encircled the gray squat, concrete watchtower—a remnant of the border system that once included several hundred watchtowers peering into West Berlin.

“You have a watchtower in your courtyard!”

Those were the first words that she spoke after Kurt had opened his apartment door. She shoved a container of chocolate ice cream into his hands.

He smiled. “I didn’t mention it because I wanted to see your expression when you arrived. It’s one of the few watchtowers left standing in Berlin.”

“And you don’t mind living right next to it?”

“It’s not like it’s still being used. It’s a landmark.” He pulled out his set of keys and jangled them in the air. “I even have a key because I give tours on weekends. If you’re lucky, you might get a free tour tonight.”

“But isn’t it . . . isn’t it an ugly reminder?”

“We need reminders, even ugly ones,” he said. “To be honest, it was one of the selling points for this apartment. You can see it from my bedroom.”

“But in the courtyard of an apartment complex? Amazing! You mind if I take a look?”

“Be my guest. I cleaned up.”

They made a beeline for the bedroom, and she tried to keep her focus on the window and not get too nosy. But she did notice that the Western theme permeated this room. A parched white skull of some sort of desert animal stared at her from the top of his dresser.

She pushed aside the curtains and looked up at the wraparound windows of the concrete watchtower from Kurt’s second-floor apartment.

“Pretty short for a watchtower, isn’t it?” she asked. “I thought they were tall and narrow.”

“This was a command post. They’re shorter than the other two types of watchtowers.”

“Creepy . . . but interesting,” she said as they made their way back to the kitchen.

The spicy smell of India filled the apartment, and Annie watched Kurt stir the curry-ketchup mixture on the stove. Bratwurst swam in another pan, this one filled with boiling water.

“The secret to currywurst is not too much curry,” said Kurt.

Annie strained to smile. She was not one for spices, but she didn’t want to spoil Kurt’s enthusiasm; after all, this was the first time she was having dinner at his apartment, and he wanted to cook the Berlin specialty. She thought she had mentioned her aversion to spices, but it must not have registered.

Kurt’s apartment was small and very old—a one-bedroom with a narrow galley kitchen. Like his bedroom and work office, Kurt didn’t hold back on the Western theme. On the coffee table sat a vase in the shape of a cowboy boot, overflowing with flowers. His clock featured the silhouettes of five cowboys perched on a fence, and the wall above the sofa featured framed posters of John Wayne from
True Grit
and Clint Eastwood from
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
Most unique of all was a framed poster showing Gary Cooper from the iconic American Western
High Noon.
Printed in the background behind Cooper was a blood-red scrawl: “Solidarity,” referring to the famed Polish union that stood up to the communist regime. In the poster, Gary Cooper wore a Solidarity badge and carried a ballot in his right hand. Below him was the following inscription: “High Noon. June 4, 1989.”

From the kitchen, Kurt noticed her peering at the poster. “You know what June 4 signified, don’t you?”

“The first free elections in Poland?”

“That’s right. It was high noon in Poland, and Solidarity overwhelmed the communists. I’m happy you remember because the elections were overshadowed by the Tiananmen Square Massacre, which happened on the very same day, and the Ayatollah Khomeini died the day before.”

“Quite a week, wasn’t it?”

“Nineteen eighty-nine was quite a year.”

Annie moved from the living room to the adjoining dining room and took a seat while Kurt finished up the preparations.

“No cowboy table settings?” she asked as she surveyed the dining room table. “Not even a Southwestern tablecloth?”

“That would be overkill.” Kurt slid a steaming plate of currywurst in front of Annie, and the aroma nearly knocked her backward off her chair. She thought he said the secret was not too much curry in the sauce that covered the sliced bratwurst. There was even curry powder sprinkled on top.

Kurt gave a blessing, during which Annie surreptitiously used her fork to clear the brats of any excess curry powder. When his “Amen” prevented her from any further spice control, her eyes drifted over to one of the few non-Western items on display in the apartment. It was a slice of the Wall, mounted on a stand and roosting on top of a Southwestern-style accent table. The piece of stone was about six inches by six inches, and it carried a splash of blue and yellow—just a dab of the graffiti that had once exploded all across the western side of the Wall.

“How did you get your piece of the Wall?” she asked.

His eyes followed her gaze to the chunk of concrete. “Three buddies and I, we were at the Wall when it came down. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. People were renting out hammers and chisels, so we took a whack at it. It was harder than I thought, smashing out a piece.”

“The first time I saw a piece of the Wall was in Chicago’s CTA station. It was a massive slice with huge lettering, if I remember right.”

“Those were the big pieces. Individuals like me had to settle for small chunks.” Kurt smiled. “The irony is that this socialist barrier wound up becoming a capitalist’s dream. In the weeks after the Wall came down, people spread pieces out on blankets and sold them on street corners.”

When dinner was finished, Annie hurried her plate to the kitchen, hoping that Kurt didn’t notice she had scraped her brats of much of the curry powder. After some idle chitchat while clearing away the dishes, they wound up side by side on the couch, directly below John Wayne, who was wearing his
True Grit
eye patch.

“Don’t mind him,” he said, looking over his shoulder at the Duke. “With only one good eye, he’s not a very attentive chaperone.”

“Good, good. I wouldn’t want to get on his wrong side. Mind if I grab a mint?” Annie had noticed the bowl of mints on the coffee table, and after the currywurst, she knew her breath was in dire need of help.

“I’m sorry, I should have offered.” Kurt picked up the bowl of mints and passed it to her, after he had plucked one out for himself. They had to be thinking the same thing. In this kind of situation, there was only one reason to be freshening breath. This was awkward.

Annie didn’t want to spoil the mood, but she had vowed that she wouldn’t leave tonight without knowing more about Kurt’s past. Frau Holtzmann’s warning still nagged at her, and she couldn’t move this relationship any farther without answers.

“Kurt? Tell me if you don’t want to answer this question, but . . .” She tried to gauge his reaction as she spoke; he looked as though he was bracing for bad news. “I’ve always wondered but been afraid to ask: Did you ever reunite with your parents in West Berlin?”

He leaned away and looked down at his hands. “My father, yes. But my mother passed away before they could get out of the GDR. She died in prison, and I never saw her again.”

She reached out and touched his hand. “I’m so sorry.”

He took a breath and paused before continuing. “I reunited with my father in 1982. It was very emotional.”

“So you reunited before the Wall came down? Then how did he come to the West?” She felt guilty asking these questions, but she had to do it. She needed to know.

He rubbed his fingers together. “For money. The East sold him to the West.”

She kept her hand on his as he explained that the GDR, strapped for money, would sometimes sell its political prisoners and other troublemakers to the West. His words came out slowly, and his voice cracked with emotion.

“I’m sorry,” Annie repeated. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Kurt interlaced his fingers with hers. “No, no, you need to know. And I need to talk. Sometime . . . sometime I’ll tell you the complete story. But not tonight.”

“I understand.” She leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. She wasn’t planning such a move, but he looked so forlorn. She rested her head on his shoulder, and they were quiet for a spell.

“Do you believe in absolute forgiveness?” he asked, leaning his head against hers.

“What other kind is there? If it’s not absolute, is it really forgiveness?”

“True.”

She couldn’t help but wonder: What had Kurt done to stir up talk of forgiveness?

“Intellectually, I can recognize forgiveness,” he said. “But I don’t often feel as if it’s cost me anything.”

Whom was he seeking forgiveness from? God? Or his parents who didn’t make it out of East Germany when he did?

“I don’t believe in cheap grace,” he added.

Annie pulled away abruptly and looked at him. “Cheap grace? You’ve been reading Bonhoeffer?”

“Rereading him, actually. Have you read any?”

“Some. But I can’t recall most of it.”

“Bonhoeffer said cheap grace is forgiveness without repentance and communion without confession.”

Confession.
Did Kurt have something to confess?

Annie waited, letting the silence expand, hoping he might say something more specific about what he had done for which he needed grace. Frau Holtzmann’s suspicions haunted their every interaction.

“Cheap grace is grace without the cross,” he pointed out.

“But it doesn’t mean you have to nail
yourself
to a cross.”

Annie felt that they kept dancing around the central issue—what he had done.

“But it should cost me something. I need to pay.”

“Pay for what?” There. She had asked it.

But Kurt didn’t answer. He looked down into his lap and ran a finger across the palm of his left hand. And when he raised his head again, she noticed that a couple of tears had escaped. She leaned up and kissed the tears, tasting salt.

Then she kissed him again, this time on the lips. It was the first time on the lips. The zone had been breached.

27

East Berlin
June 1962

Four Vopos, all of them armed, swarmed through the cemetery gate with demon speed. But still, Elsa didn’t budge. She stared at Stefan, transfixed.

“Elsa!” Stefan shouted across the cemetery. He kept firing looks at the Vopos who were rushing in his direction.

“Hurry! There’s a tunnel!” Elsa finally broke her rock-solid pose, motioning for Stefan to run.

“Frau Krauss . . . Frau Krauss . . . please . . . now.”

There was panic in the voice of the poor soul in the grave. His life was on the line as well, although he probably didn’t know the full extent of the danger. He couldn’t see the Vopos from down below.

Suddenly, Stefan took off in a full sprint toward Elsa, down a wide pathway that ran between two hedges. Small black gravestones stood at attention all along the path. Elsa watched in horror as the four Vopos knelt down and raised their guns into firing position. They tracked the running man, leading him as he flashed across the cemetery. Stefan threw a sidelong glance at the guns, and then he ducked behind one of the stone angels just as the guns went off. Bullets spattered against the angel, hitting it like hail and chipping stone.

Stefan was unscathed. But he was pinned behind the angel, which faced toward the Vopos with extended arms, as if imploring them to set aside their weapons.

Elsa shook uncontrollably, and she heard herself screaming, primal and unbridled. It didn’t even sound like her own voice. “Stefan!”

“Go! Go! Go!” Stefan shouted at her; she still hadn’t moved from the edge of the tunnel.

“Frau Krauss, there’s no time. You must come now!” The man in the tunnel had heard the gunfire, and his voice was all urgency and panic.

One of the Vopos, still in crouching position, shifted his aim in Elsa’s direction. She spotted the movement, and she realized that she too had suddenly become a target.

“Frau Krauss! Now!”

Without looking, she instinctively backed up a step, and her foot slipped on the lip of the tunnel, twisting her ankle. She heard the crack of the gun as she fell backward into a black hole.

Stefan noticed one of the Vopos shift his aim toward Elsa and saw her tumble backward. Was she hit? Had she been shot because of him? Why did he even follow her today? It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. He shot a glance around the side of the angel and saw the shooters using the gravestones as cover. They fired their guns once again. Bullets ricocheted off the wings and the waist of the angel, spraying shattered stone everywhere, and Stefan ducked back behind his guardian.

“Put down your weapon and step out where we can see you! Hands in the air!” came the Vopo’s voice across the cemetery.

Stefan didn’t move. He didn’t have a gun, but it didn’t hurt if they thought he had one.

“You have nowhere to go!”

That wasn’t true. He had an escape route. The tantalizing tunnel opening was only about twenty yards away. He could sprint, he could make it, he could dive into the opening. He could go west with Elsa. But would all four shooters miss him? He had no time to think, no time to plan, and he had to decide—now! Everything hinged on a moment’s choice, like the time when Katarina tried to get him to run through the opening in the barbed wire. He passed up his chance the first time; he wouldn’t make that mistake again.

“Stefan! Stefan!”

It was Katarina’s voice.
Katarina’s voice?
Was he going insane?

“Stefan, run!”

In the distance, on the western side of the Wall, he spotted a figure standing up on the roof of a deserted factory building. Was it a woman? Was it Katarina? Was he dreaming?

“Come over!”

The woman used the very words that Katarina had used when she tried to get him to bolt to freedom on that August afternoon. The same words that the West Germans used to get the GDR border guard to toss his cigarette aside and leap over the low-lying barbed wire and flee to the West.

Come over.

Not everything could be planned. Sometimes you just had to fling everything aside, like a spent cigarette, and run.

“Put your hands in the air!” ordered one of the Vopos. “We will not shoot! You will not be harmed!”

Stefan didn’t believe a word they said.
Just run. Come over! Come over!

Stefan bolted. He shot out from behind his guardian angel, and the guns went off simultaneously.