Puzzle People (9781613280126) (7 page)

9

West Berlin
December 1961

Peter buried himself in the deepest recesses of the library at West Berlin’s Free University. He burrowed into the back stacks, finding a small desk in a corner, as far as possible from the traffic of other students. It gave him a sense of insulation and isolation, a way of walling himself in. The desk was tattooed with graffiti and wedged beside a dingy window that allowed in just enough light for reading.

Peter had decided to take Katarina’s advice and read some Hemingway—
The Old Man and the Sea,
to be specific. He was surprised. He liked the novella—and an American novella at that. It was the story of a defeated old fisherman who had not caught a fish for eighty-four days. Alone at sea, the old man’s fortunes finally took a turn for the better when he hooked a monstrous marlin; and after three days of intense battle, he defeated the creature and strapped the glistening trophy to the side of the small boat. But as he made his way back toward the shore, a long distance away, the sharks began to arrive. Circling, always circling the boat, they stole small bites from the once-noble marlin, spreading blood in the water, attracting more sharks—too many for the old man to fight off. Too many predators, too much blood. Piece by piece, fragment by fragment, the marlin was stripped of its flesh, while the old man battled the sharks to the point of exhaustion.

This was the kind of weariness that Peter understood. So, finishing the final pages of the book, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He slept, but for how long, he wasn’t sure. He was jolted awake by a hand on his shoulder.

“Hallo, Herr Hermann.”

Craning his stiff neck, Peter was irritated to see a middle-aged man—the same man who had already paid him several unwelcome visits. He was thin and wore a homburg. His breath smelled of cigarettes and alcohol.

“I told you before. Not interested.”

The man smiled broadly, displaying unusually white, aligned teeth. The man liked to smile, probably more out of a desire to display his finest asset than out of any genuine joy. “You might be more interested in what I have to say today.”

“I told you, it wasn’t my idea to come to the West,” Peter said. “But it’s home now. I like it here.”

The man pulled up a chair. “Do you love the West more than your fiancée? Why don’t you want to be reunited with her?”

Peter cracked open his book, even though he had just finished it. Maybe the man would get the message. “I’ve answered your questions already. Leave me alone.”

The man craned his neck to get a good view of the front of Peter’s book and read the cover. “Ernest Hemingway? You’re subjecting yourself to American trash?”

Peter pretended to keep reading, but the words on the page didn’t register. “We have no more to discuss.”

“If you truly love your fiancée, you might desire news of her.”

Peter set his book facedown on the table, pages opened. “What are you talking about?”

“Frau Krauss is in prison.”

Peter felt an ulcerous stab in his stomach. He didn’t think they would dare lay a hand on Elsa. Her father worked in the SED, the Communist Party, as a midlevel bureaucrat, and Peter hoped this would give her some measure of protection in the wake of his defection. He was wrong.

“On what grounds is she in prison? If the Republic sees a girl like her as a threat to its very existence, then your government is in dire straits.”

The man flashed his teeth again and drew the Hemingway book across the table before picking it up and nonchalantly flipping through the pages. Then he looked up from the book, directly at Peter. “You can free Elsa, if you choose. She’s not getting much sleep in such a cold cell.”

For weeks now, the man had been trying to coax Peter into becoming an informer on the western side of the border. But every time Peter thought he had driven him away, the man was back. Why couldn’t these people leave him alone, leave Elsa alone? Peter just wanted to be left in peace with his books!

He rubbed his temples, for a headache was growing. He felt pressure internally and externally. He still hadn’t communicated with his father since he left the East, but he could sense his father’s disapproval from a hundred miles away. He had sent a carefully worded letter to Elsa, but he doubted that it ever reached her. He wished he could talk to her and explain to her why he was trying to begin a new life. He wished he could bring her across the border so they could start fresh—without all of the family pressures bearing down on them.

And now this.

“Elsa’s father will not allow you to harm her,” Peter said.

“Frau Krauss’s father is a nobody.”

Peter picked up the book and tapped one corner against the desk. He was tempted to smack this man across the face with it. He clenched his jaw and heard his teeth grind. He still had feelings for Elsa. He couldn’t just leave her defenseless in the East, for it didn’t take much for her to buckle. Her fragility was what attracted him to her in the first place—and frustrated him to no end.

Peter slammed his book down on the table, sending a bang down the long corridor of bookshelves. The man didn’t flinch.

“What would I have to do to free her?” Peter asked softly.

The man smiled. Then he told Peter exactly what was expected of him.

East Berlin

Sitting up in bed, Elsa stared at the beige telephone perched on an antique end table. She knew it was probably tapped, but at least she was out of prison and back in her apartment where she could sleep.
They
were listening, they always were; but the one concession was that at least no one could wiretap her dreams. She had been freed from prison three days before, but freedom was all a matter of degree, she thought. Elsa wondered if
anyone
was completely free, no matter what side of the border they found themselves on.

She looked around at her room, furnished with hand-me-downs from her grandparents. Her Oma and Opa, now deceased, had been wealthy, so the furniture was exquisite, although showing its age. She craved old-world comfort. Her bed was hand-carved antique French walnut, and against the wall was a finely crafted lady’s writing desk with a leather top—a piece of furniture that she used as a dressing table, set below a mirror. She savored these items because there wasn’t much in the way of luxury in her apartment. She was happy she had a phone and a private toilet, but for baths, she had to go to her parents’ home.

Elsa had no illusions. She knew that every room of her apartment was infested with bugs, and not the kind that could be exterminated with chemicals. She had always had an intense fear of insects—the more legs, the worse. But she would have welcomed a room filled with centipedes than one filled with the kind of electronic bugs she knew were all around her. In prison, she felt the constant presence of eyes peering in at her through the one peephole in the door. But in her home, it was ears, not eyes, that did the prying. She felt the constant presence of another.

Elsa had recently heard about the “smell samples” stored in jars, and she wondered if they had used them with her. Evidently, the Stasi covered all of the senses in their incessant monitoring. A friend told her that Stasi agents would hide a yellow dust cloth beneath the chairs of prisoners during interrogations, picking up the person’s scent. Using trained sniffer dogs, they then tried to match the scent to something the person had touched—such as illegal leaflets. The Stasi maintained a large “smell conserve”—rows and rows of jam jars that contained innocent-looking yellow dust rags, each one carrying the scent of a suspect.

No. She was not free, not by a long shot. Freedom was all a matter of degree.

When Elsa first returned home from prison, she immediately went to sleep. But she drifted away for only about ten hours; after all of the sleep deprivation, she had expected to be lost to the world for at least sixteen. Now she was awake, but depressed. She knew what she had to do, but she couldn’t get herself to rise out of bed.

Elsa’s mother had not been in touch with her yet, which was not surprising. But her father’s disregard was devastating. He had made only one call, a short conversation devoid of comfort. Were they afraid to be linked to their own daughter?

Then there was Peter. He had abandoned her too. At first, she kept expecting him to return from West Berlin and show up at her door and put everything right. But by now, she had no more expectations. She didn’t care. She had given up on everything, except sleep.

Peter seemed so full of life when they were younger—so kind and sensitive and strong. When she was twelve, they had their first dance together—a Pioneer dance, of course, celebrating the anniversary of the founding of their Young Pioneers brigade. The yearly dance provided the two greatest hours of the year, as far as Elsa was concerned. She remembered being dressed smartly in her Pioneer blouse and scarf, sitting primly along the wall when Peter approached her and asked her to dance—a waltz, she thought. She was so happy then. She didn’t know why people had to change.

Elsa remembered the first time that Peter’s demeanor had taken a turn and he became more serious, more adult. When his best friend’s father started working in West Berlin, he became furious. Berlin “border jumpers” were common before the Wall went up, and they stirred up resentment. Peter detested these East Germans who crossed the border every day to make better money working in West Berlin and then returned to the East, where they lived and took advantage of the free health care and free education.

Sometimes a student would vanish from her school, and classmates would start whispering that so-and-so’s family had absconded to the West. This news would infuriate Peter, even when he didn’t know the person very well. But when his best friend, Dirk, vanished to the West with his family two years ago, Peter turned bitter. Elsa still loved Peter, and he still had flashes of playfulness in him, but he also had many secrets that he kept from her. She never suspected he had any desire to live in the West.

Elsa lay back down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling for at least fifteen minutes, tracing the cracks as if they were maps of branching rivers. Then she drifted into another sleep. Eight more hours of dreamless sleep. This was the best part of her day.

10

Berlin
April 2003

“Murder?”

Herr Adler looked down at the reconstructed document that Annie had placed on his desk. His lips moved as he read silently.

While Herr Adler studied the document, Annie glanced around his office. It was surprisingly cluttered for a man coordinating such a meticulous operation. Reconstructing shredded documents required a high level of organization, but Herr Adler’s office showed no sign of German order. Then again, it wasn’t Herr Adler’s job to do any of the actual reconstruction, and he claimed to have his own mysterious system, despite the look of things. Annie also noticed a coffee stain on the front of his white short-sleeved shirt. He wore a tie, but he wore it loosely, and it looked like it had collected a few stains as well.

“You have been highly productive,” Herr Adler said before taking a sip of his coffee. “You also seem to have a knack for uncovering informational gems. You’ve been here only two months and you’ve already stumbled across a murder.”

“I wasn’t sure if I should bring this kind of thing to your attention.”

“By all means, yes. You did good, Frau O’Shea. Have you found any other documents pertaining to this person, this victim—this Stefan Hansel?”

“Yes. Yes, I have.”

“I’ll need to bring this case to the attention of the proper authorities. So I would like you to bring me any materials pertaining to people connected with this murder case, so I can pass on the information.”

“There are several people with links to the victim, including his girlfriend, who escaped to West Berlin in ’61.”

Herr Adler leaned back in his chair, his mug still in one hand; a streak of coffee slid down the side of his cup and hit his pant leg, but he didn’t notice. “That’s interesting. Make sure you bring those to my attention.” He pointed at the murderer’s reference number—5839392. “Have you encountered this number in any other documents?”

Annie came around the side of the desk and leaned over to look, even though she knew what number he was talking about. “I don’t remember seeing that number on anything else, but I’ll watch out for it.”

“Yes, do that.”

As she made for the door, Herr Adler tossed out another encouraging “Good work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Annie hurried out of the office, anxious to get back to work, to maintain her pace of reconstructing documents. Having built a reputation for speed and efficiency, she felt a subtle pressure to perform at the same level. But before heading back to her office, she stopped at the restroom, where she encountered Frau Kortig leaning over the sink and staring into the mirror, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief. Her eyes were red-rimmed and moist, and she sniffed and blew her nose. She had been crying.

“Is there anything wrong?” Annie asked.

“No.” The word was clipped and definitive.

Frau Kortig didn’t make eye contact. She put away her handkerchief and turned away from the sink.

“Are you sure? Is there anything I can do to help?”

Frau Kortig stared into space, biting her lip. She looked around the bathroom, as if making sure no one was nearby. Her chin began to quiver.

Annie felt the urge to ask questions, but she knew to be quiet.

Frau Kortig took a deep sigh and seemed on the verge of finally speaking.

That was when the door swung open, and in marched Frau Steinweg, another one of the puzzlers. She was a tall, rail-thin woman, and she came to an abrupt halt, her eyes flicking from Annie to Frau Kortig. Frau Steinweg had a reputation for being all business, and she let out an exasperated sigh.

Turning away and dabbing her eyes, Frau Kortig said nothing and rushed from the bathroom. Annie hurled a disapproving glare at Frau Steinweg before following Frau Kortig out the door.

Unable to catch Frau Kortig before she disappeared into her office and closed the door, Annie debated whether she should knock. But she received her answer when she heard the metallic click of the latch being thrown.

Shrugging and making a mental note to talk to Frau Kortig the first chance she had, Annie swung by the break room to pick up a can of Pepsi. And when she returned to her desk, Kurt was hard at work. He looked up and greeted her with a broad smile. Annie tossed her purse on the desk, plopped down in her chair, and stared into space.

It took a few seconds for her to even realize that Kurt was talking to her.

“I said you look a little distracted.”

“Oh. I do? Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. There’s no crime in being distracted.”

Kurt had been in an unusually talkative mood lately, as if he was trying extra hard to be charming. By this time, it had certainly crossed Annie’s mind that he might have intentions beyond office banter; she didn’t need Frau Holtzmann’s wink to guess what was on Kurt’s mind.

Annie had gone out on many dates since her husband died, and most had been unmitigated disasters. But a little over a year ago, she had met a man—Richard—but she wasn’t ready yet. She didn’t know if she would ever be prepared to lose herself in another man. So she was hoping that Kurt would be content with their slowly developing friendship, but she had her suspicions. In her experience, if a man took any interest in her, it wasn’t with a platonic relationship in mind.

Annie and Kurt worked mostly in silence for the next fifteen minutes, but she could sense his eyes flashing in her direction periodically. She tried to put away her thoughts of Frau Kortig or Richard or Kurt and focus her attention on the work before her. Two familiar names popped up in a couple of scraps:
Romeo
and
Juliet.
Someone in West Berlin had certainly been busy, keeping a close eye on these two people. The document came together rapidly, and Annie became so absorbed that she barely heard the next words coming from the Kurt Sector of the office.

“Would you care to go to the Pergamon Museum with me on Saturday?”

It took a moment for Annie to even realize that Kurt was speaking. This probably did little for his confidence.

“What was that?”

“Would you . . . I was thinking maybe . . . Would you like to go to the Pergamon Museum on Saturday? Then maybe have dinner afterward? With me, that is.”

Annie didn’t answer immediately, and her heart began to beat rapidly. She was afraid to mix business with pleasure, afraid of what it might do to their friendship and their pleasant workplace talk. Weren’t they safer staying in their own sectors?

“Dinner? With me?” Annie asked.

“I know a wonderful outdoor café. Would you like to go?”

Annie feared the consequences of a date gone bad. But if she turned him down, wouldn’t that mar their friendship as well?

“I really enjoy talking to you, and I just want to extend the conversation,” Kurt said. “With no distractions.”

Extend the conversation? He seemed to be signaling that this was nothing more than an extension of the office. She could handle that, she thought.

Annie smiled. “Yes. I would be happy to go.”

His eyes darting in embarrassment, Kurt smiled and went back to work, and they toiled in silence for much of the afternoon. Awkwardness descended. Already, the atmosphere had changed.