Stealing the Future (11 page)

“Maybe it’s us who are stealing the future,” I said.

“Then we better fucking hope we get away with it,” Nik was growling again, “because this is the only chance we’re ever going to get.” He looked over to Jens, holding up two fingers, and then pointing at me and himself. Another beer and a glass of
Kornschnaps
each were on their way, and, thankfully, would probably get here before the lentil soljanka did.

Görlitz:
Over ten thousand people protested against the exclusion of direct representation in the political process in West Silesia. The demonstration was called by the Regional Round Table yesterday. Meanwhile the Westgerman Federal Ministry of Intra-German Relations has described the death of the WSB politician Maier as ‘alarming’. West Silesian police investigating the death are being assisted by officers from Saxony.

Moscow:
The Russian Orthodox church has offered to mediate between the Soviet President Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, President of the Russian Federation. Yeltsin is believed to be behind the Soviet of the Republics’ attempts to impeach Gorbachev, who is still under house arrest in the Crimea.

06:55

I was lying in bed, nursing my hangover, trying to persuade myself there was no need to go into the office today. I needed water, but water was two whole rooms and two narrow doorways away, and I knew that if I moved, the ball bearing that was currently pressing against the inside of my skull would go rattling all the way down to my legs, taking all my soft organs with it. My stomach was already unsteady—it really didn’t need an oversized steel marble passing through it. On the whole I felt it was just fine to suffer in bed.

The telephone had other ideas. The phone was still a relative novelty—it had only been installed after I started working for the Ministry—and this was my first encounter with a ringing phone whilst in the first stages of a hangover.

So far I really wasn’t pleased with the experience.

I moved, more to shut it up than out of any sense of duty. The ball bearing kindly stayed up high, in my head, pressing against my skull, but upsetting my sense of balance. Two more, smaller, ball bearings had materialised somewhere in the lower body, but still being slightly drunk from my meeting with Nik, I couldn’t work out exactly where. I stumbled, crawled and lurched towards the screeching phone in the hall.

“Yeah?” I didn’t even answer with my name, no longer sure I could manage to pronounce it.

“Oh Martin! It’s you! How lovely to speak to you again!”

It was a soft voice, a northern accent, from somewhere along the coast. Warm, inviting. Flirtatious even. And youthful, lively. Despite the pitiful state I was in I straightened my back, attempting to project a positive image of myself down the phone line, even though I still had no idea who was on the other end. The result wasn’t pretty—I slid down the wall, my head feeling like there was riveting work going on inside it. Perhaps someone was busy closing up the hole left behind by the lobotomy I had doubtless acquired the night before.

“Martin, are you OK?” A sensitive voice, again warm. A cuddle on a winter’s day sort of warm. I wished I was in a better position to appreciate it.

“Eurch. Long night,” I managed.

“Oh, really sorry, dear Martin—I’ve caught you at a bad time! Look, it’s not important, I’ll call you later.”

This person was causing me to visit new tortures on my brain. I pushed some energy into my shrunken grey cells, asking them to come up with a name to match this gentle voice that seemed to like exclamation marks rather a lot. Come on, a name, any name to fit this voice!

“But I’m glad I spoke to you, speak later!”

“Evelyn…” I said, but I was too slow. Evelyn had taken her voice and gone.

Feeling strangely better after these painful efforts, I allowed my desiccated tongue to feel its way round the corners and curves of her name:
Evelyn
. I said it again.

Since I’d already got as far as the hall, I decided my bed was now just as far away as the kitchen where the mirage of taps beckoned.

Glass of water in hand, sip, swallow, grimace as the ball bearing banged around my head. Try the soundscape of Evelyn’s name out again. The thought of her made me smile, which did something awful to my facial musculature. Grimace again.

Trying not to move my mouth, I concentrated on the magic lantern show provided by my mind. Individual scenes were flickering past my internal eye, Overexposed and crumpled by frequent handling and time, some details in clear focus, others just a suggestive shading. Evelyn’s blue dress the first time we met. Her smile, her penetrating but soft blue eyes, her pointed chin.

It had been an outing to the State Opera, on the Unter den Linden, my work-brigade plus husbands and wives. It had been during the interval when I first saw her, holding a tray of drinks for the Party
Bonzen
sitting upstairs. I could see her from the bottom of the stairs, where we’d been hemmed in by the crowd. She glanced over, and that’s when I noticed her eyes, framed by a blonde bob, her dress matching their exact, impossible hue. Katrin’s mother noticed me looking up the stairs and followed my gaze towards the young woman. She gave her one of those disapproving, assessing and thoughtful looks that wives and girlfriends seem to reserve for other women who might sleep with their men.

I took the cue from my wife’s reaction to the existence of this waitress, and sheepishly looked away. Knowing me, I probably blushed, even though there had been absolutely nothing significant in the fact that I had noticed Evelyn.

In fact, had it not been for the way my wife had assessed the situation, I probably wouldn’t even have recognised the woman the next time I saw her. It was winter: I remember picking my way across the snowy yard in front of the factory, trudging through the wet sawdust put down over the grey snow when I noticed her at the gatehouse talking to the works security. She glanced towards me as I passed, and waved me over. I changed direction to see what she wanted, still not sure who was beckoning to me. I was concentrating so much on not slipping on the slush that I didn’t pay any attention to the figures at the gate. When I got close enough, I looked up and saw her eyes. The woman from the opera house. She was wearing a red parka—she must have dyed it somehow, because I hadn’t seen one in that colour before, even though it was obviously made here in the GDR. The bright colour lent the cheap fabric an elegance it didn’t deserve. Under the parka she had on a brown woollen skirt or dress, woollen stockings and decent brown boots, stained by the snow.

“How nice to see you again! It’s all right Comrade, this Gentleman will see me to the BPO offices.” She said the word Gentleman in English:
tschändlmann
, and even though I had no idea how the word ought to be pronounced, the soft G and the feel of the word rolling over the high D and the low M and N gave her such an air of charm and grace that even the surly security guard was confused, and let her go with me.

“So it’s the Works Party Organisation you’re needing?” I asked, using the familiar form of you, as if we were both Party comrades or close friends, but I was neither a Party member, nor a close friend of this intriguing woman. Even as I said it I realised my mistake, and blushed. I hoped she would put my red face down to the cold wind blowing over the yard, but then realised that she too had used the familiar form,
du
, when she’d greeted me just now. By this time we were halfway across the yard, and the security guard was still standing there, staring after us. He shouldn’t have given this woman access without a reliable chaperone, and I certainly wasn’t counted as reliable.

“Thank you for saving me from waiting in this cold,” she said, still using the familiar
du
, “I believe that guard wasn’t even going to let me into the gatehouse: the brute would have made me wait out here!” She threw a deprecative look backwards. “And may I ask you your name? I’m Evelyn,” she held her hand out before adding her surname: “Hagenow.”

“Martin, Martin Grobe. Pleased to meet you.”

I showed her my right hand, hardened and dirty from the workshop. She looked at the hand, raised an eyebrow slightly, bit her bottom lip, then gave me a broad grin while she firmly took my dirty paw. Taken together, all of these actions were enough to make me blush again.

“Where do you work?”

“Over in building B4, in the assembly hall,” I gestured with my chin, so that I wouldn’t have to look at her while my blushes subsided.

“Well I do hope to meet you again! It’s a shame—we’re like ships passing in the night!”

“Well, Evelyn, your ship is brightly lit,” I heard myself saying. As the words came out of my mouth and reached my ears, my neck and cheeks reddened yet again. Even by my poor standards of flirting, that was a clumsy attempt at a compliment. In my embarrassment I turned brusquely away, mumbling a short
Tschüss
. But I still caught Evelyn’s answer a split second later.

“How sweet! Well, I look forward to seeing you again, Martin!”

After Katrin’s mother had gone, Evelyn turned up again. One day she appeared at the church where we were holding our meetings, down in the crypt. She quickly became involved in our work, bringing supplies of paper, stationary and even a newish typewriter. On one occasion she managed to get access to an Ormig copier—not at all easy in those days when all reproduction and printing was strictly controlled by the state.

Despite our semi-flirtatious early acquaintance, nothing had ever happened between us. No doubt she was as charming and attractive as ever, but I was stressed and exhausted—working all day, queueing up outside shops every lunch break, trying to buy enough food to feed myself and the young Katrin. At home I was cooking, cleaning, trying to sort out coal deliveries in the winter. The daily grind of life in a broken economy was tedious and tiring. A dirty, dusty and depressing business, even without a child to look after, not to mention the involvement in the group that met in the crypt. And I was still hurting over my wife’s absence. I doubt I would have noticed if Evelyn had danced for me, naked, on the rickety tables of the cold church hall.

And here she was again. Evelyn. I had no idea how she had got hold of my number, or what she wanted. I hadn’t seen her for about five years—I think she must have disappeared after the mass arrests in the wake of the Rosa Luxemburg demonstration in January 1988. It was a depressing time, we were all disheartened, and a lot of people dropped out. Although I’d seen pretty much everyone from the old group at irregular intervals, Evelyn never came into my life again. I hadn’t really noticed it until now, even though I’d heard all sorts of rumours: she’d moved south, to Saxony, or to Westberlin, perhaps even to the Federal Republic. But now she was phoning me up.

Despite my hangover, the lingering memory of Evelyn’s voice made the whole day seem a little brighter.

07:13

Now that I was on my feet and had a litre of tap water inside me I decided to keep moving. A painkiller, swigged down with strong coffee and I began to feel like I could possibly function again. As the throbbing in my head eased, a feeling of disquiet grew in my belly. I was excited about Annette, and all the promise, the possibilities and hopes that she represented, but suddenly there was Evelyn on the scene again. Evelyn belonged to another time, a very different time: the old days.

By now I was back in my bedroom. I picked out my trousers from the heap of clothes in the corner, held them up and sniffed the crotch. They’ll do for another day at least. Pulling them on, I did them up, then looked at myself in the mirror. Grey skin, large pores. Bags under the eyes. I pulled in my paunch, trying to persuade myself that I looked OK for my age, and stood there, studying the reflection. Then I let my shoulders drop, and my tummy sag, pushing my hands into my pockets. My left hand crumpled some paper. Rough, scratchy. Soviet paper. I pulled out the envelope that Nik had given me, and ripped it open. It was empty. Pushing my forefinger in, I poked around. No, completely empty. Squeezing it open, I peered inside. There was faint writing in there, lightly written with a soft pencil. I tore the envelope and folded it out to read the words:
Tue. 17.00h Woltersdorf Lock
.

Was all this really necessary? I had no idea, but I wasn’t exactly reassured by the thought that a KGB captain clearly felt a need for such discreet messages. Would I meet him? Again, no idea. I decided that was a question that could wait a bit longer, at least until I was feeling a bit more human. For now it was enough to get to the office.

It was a cold, clear morning, golden sunshine feeling its way uncertainly over the rooftops, leaving the deep streets in damp shade. I walked unsteadily, meandering along the pavement. Stopping only at the baker’s to fill my shopping bag with bread rolls, I made my way to the offices.

The stairs nearly finished me off, and I stood on the landing for a moment, getting my breath back before opening the door and going in. Bärbel was already at her desk, and she gave me a slight nod. I wasn’t sure whether to say anything about what had happened at the potluck, and decided it might be simpler to keep quiet. Bärbel seemed to see things the same way—by the time I’d pondered this minor problem of social etiquette, standing in the middle of the front office, she had inserted several pieces of paper and carbon sheets into her typewriter and had begun pecking away. More than anything else, the hammering of the keys drove me into my office. I shut the door, knowing I’d only have a few minutes of peace before the others came in for the morning meeting, and I sat down with a heavy sigh. Feet up on the desk, move some paperwork out of the way: the report on Maier’s death, due at the Ministry this afternoon, and currently minus any references to both the British major’s curious comments and the police report from Saxony.

I tossed the papers back onto the desk just as Erika and Laura came in, talking about the demo on Saturday. Klaus followed, thankfully without a cigar, holding instead a cucumber in one hand and a stack of plates clutched to his chest. Bärbel brought up the rear, holding a pot of coffee.

“You look like you’ve been up all night! Was it that Wessi?” Erika’s opening shot.

I didn’t bother to reply, just groaned, and carefully moved my feet off the desk and onto the floor. The others didn’t comment, Klaus just clattered the plates onto my desk, placing the cucumber on top before going to his usual chair in the corner, Bärbel was already sitting, pencil poised over paper, and Laura deposited a tub of
Marella
margarine and a jar of home-made lentil spread before moving a chair fussily into position and sitting down, back as straight as a Prussian general’s. They all sat there, staring expectantly at me.