The Berlin Crossing (2 page)

‘Yours is a most interesting background, Herr Doktor.’ The Director fingered a page from the yellow plastic file. ‘Most interesting
indeed.’

‘I’m a schoolteacher, like a lot of other Germans. It’s neither unusual nor exceptionally interesting.’

‘But what’s interesting is that you’re a teacher
of English.
’

‘It’s what I studied.’

‘It’s a bit more than that – it’s what you were
allowed
to study.’

‘So what? Everybody had to get permission to do whatever course they wanted to do.’

‘Don’t be disingenuous, Herr Doktor.’ Behind the spectacle lenses the pale eyes were flinty. ‘In the GDR, English was the
voice of America, the language of the enemy. Only the chosen few, the
trusted
few, were allowed to study the vernacular of the capitalist world – only those who could be depended upon not to succumb
to the terrible evils and temptations of capitalism.’

I met his gaze. ‘You haven’t got much idea of how we did things here,’ I said. ‘I applied to do English at Rostock University
and I was offered a place there. But you know all this,’ I added, pointing at the yellow file.

‘I also know that only card-carrying Party members were allowed to study English.’

‘That’s more than I know – and anyway I’ve never concealed the fact that I was a member of the Party.’

‘You’ve never advertised it either.’

‘Do you flash your card everywhere you go?’ I retorted hotly. ‘Social Democrat or Christian Democrat? Or does it make no difference,
just Tweedledum and Tweedledee?’

For what seemed like minutes the anger was palpable, simmering above the leather-topped desk.

‘You should realize, Herr Doktor Ritter,’ he said at last, ‘that offensive remarks are not helpful to your situation.’

‘And what
is
my situation?’ I demanded.

‘The Social Review Committee has studied your background and has made its recommendation. You were an outstanding student
at Rostock –’ another page in the file was fingered – ‘becoming a very active and successful Chairman of the
International Student Friendship Society. In that capacity you were the face of the university to all visiting students, mostly
postgrads from communist and socialist states who arrived to study German in Rostock. A few such students came from the UK
and these were paid particular attention by the Stasi, with a view to recruiting them for intelligence activities—’

‘That’s nonsense!’ But Frick’s words stung. In my time at Rostock I had chosen not to wonder about these approaches to British
postgrads.

‘Please don’t interrupt. The Committee is in no doubt that these International Friendship Societies were used in all GDR universities
as recruiting grounds for spies and informers. There is no evidence that you yourself were involved in such recruitment activities—’

‘That’s a relief!’

‘Neither is there any evidence that you were
not
a party to such activities.’

‘Strange,’ I said quietly, ‘in the GDR we operated on the principle that a man was innocent until proven guilty.’

Dr Frick stared at me.

‘You people!’ He turned back to the file. ‘When you finished your degree, you were chosen, perhaps –’ an eyebrow raised –
‘perhaps even
ordered
to continue on to doctoral studies in English.’

‘Why are you going over all this? It’s all just ancient history.’

‘It’s not so ancient but it
is
history. It’s history that shows you to have enjoyed privileges only available to the elite.’

‘Even before I’d finished my PhD I was back in this school as a teacher and I’ve been here ever since. I just hadn’t realized
that being a schoolmaster was a privilege of the elite.’

‘I’ll grant you that,’ the Director said. ‘You may not know that your old department at Rostock wanted you back to teach there
and –’ he shuffled among the papers – ‘the Head of English at Leipzig University also wanted you to work there.’

He saw the astonishment on my face.

‘Your old Director, Herr Stork, didn’t want you to go – said you were a first-rate teacher who got on well with the students
and that in time you would make a first-rate Director of Brandenburg Gymnasium No. 1.’

To cover my confusion I looked away from him. Through the tall window of the Director’s office I could see the Director’s
BMW, all gleaming West German confidence, tucked into its own special parking spot. Frau Winkler’s red Golf nestled in its
shadow. Beyond them stretched an array of cars never seen in the Brandenburg I had grown up in – Volkswagens, Toyotas, Fiats,
Fords and every car make you could think of – a roll-call of the triumph of capitalism. At the end of the line of cars stood
my own green Trabi. Martin Stork would have understood why I refused to let the old car go, even in these days of plenty,
but old Martin was gone and I knew I was about to follow him into the wilderness of former card-carrying Party members.

‘Ironically, Herr Doktor, it is Herr Stork’s enthusiastic endorsement that finally makes it impossible for you to continue
at my school.’

My
school: this place that we had laboured to build was now the property of a BMW-driving Johnny-come-lately from Cologne.

‘So now it’s clear that I can’t do my job, is it?’

‘You don’t need me to remind you that education is about more than classroom performance and examination results. Education
is about young hearts and minds – about opening those hearts and minds, and shaping them to contribute to the good of society.’

‘And just what do you think we were doing here all those years
before you arrived with your liberation flags?’ I couldn’t keep the bitterness out of my voice.

‘It seems to me, Herr Doktor Ritter,’ he said flatly, ‘that you were closing minds and hearts, just as you were closing borders
– and your own people were prepared to die trying to cross them.’

His words were the smug boast of the conqueror; there was no easy reply to them. When Stefanie used to hurl the same words
at me across the no-man’s-land of our sitting room, I used to tell her that all those who fled, or tried to flee, to the utopia
of the West, would find only a fool’s paradise. What kind of society could be founded on a vision of endless supplies of washing
machines and Levi jeans? At least the world we had striven for included a job for everybody.

I didn’t bother to reply to the Director’s goading. All of a sudden I was tired – tired of the long struggle against the tide,
tired of life without Steffi, tired of wondering how long I might last under the new regime at Brandenburg Gymnasium No. 1.
A great many of my old colleagues had already been cast into the limbo of unemployment where, it seemed, I was about to join
them.

I turned my gaze from the window to the Director. Keep your mouth shut, I told myself, don’t give the bastard the satisfaction
of hearing the fear in your voice.

‘The School Board,’ he began, ‘has accepted the recommendation of the Social Review Committee that it is no longer safe, prudent
or acceptable to allow you to continue as a member of our staff and your appointment is therefore terminated –’ he paused,
staring across the desk at me – ‘with immediate effect.’

‘Immediate?’ I couldn’t help myself: the word, creaky with fear, scrambled from my mouth.

‘Your replacement arrives tomorrow.’

‘From Cologne, or Dusseldorf, or Hamburg, or some other home of the free?’

‘Your sarcasm ill becomes you, Herr Doktor. You refuse to believe that the world has moved on, just as you refuse to get rid
of that foul-smelling Trabant – God knows, you are now being paid enough to afford something better.’

‘Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t buy into our great new consumer society,’ I said, ‘since I’m about to join the army of the
GDR unemployed.’

‘Of course, your literary skills will stand you in a good stead, Herr Doktor.’ He took my book from a drawer, threw it on
the desk in front of me. ‘
Workers’ Dawn
indeed!’ His voice dripped sarcasm. ‘
Stories of the Proletariat
by Michael Ritter! Truly a great dawn, one that inspired your countrymen to flee in their thousands.’

I could have struck him for that. The little book of stories – about men and women and children who had overcome varying personal
difficulties to work effectively for their homeland –meant as much to me as my PhD from Rostock University. It was a handsome
book, hardback, with a dust jacket that showed a young worker in dungarees, blue cloth cap tilted nonchalantly on his curly
head, facing optimistically into a rising sun. My dungareed worker looked – like me – not to a land of bananas and Deutschmarks
but to a country where every working man and woman was a contributing hero. Even my mother had admired it. My mother’s dislike
of our rulers in East Berlin was unspoken, but for all its muteness it was palpable in our silences and our occasional arguments;
in the same way, her pleasure in my own achievements was rarely expressed – no matter how much my adolescent self longed to
hear it. My book in her hands was one of the rare occasions when her mask slipped. ‘It’s lovely,’ my mother said. ‘
Gut gemacht
, Michi.’
Gut gemacht
. Well done.

My misfortune was that, just a few months after the publication of
Workers’ Dawn
, the Berlin Wall had fallen and, with it, my homeland. Yes, I
could
have struck him. It wouldn’t have made any difference to my future employment prospects, which were already nil.

I didn’t. I took the book in my hands, turned it over. It still gave me a tingle, to see my name on the front, my passport-size
photo on the back.

‘You couldn’t understand,’ I said. ‘We weren’t in it for what we could get out of it. We
did
dream of a . . .’ I wanted to say ‘dawn’ but it would have seemed both pretentious and defeated in the presence of this interloper
who wasn’t bothering to conceal his delight in firing me.

‘You’ll be paid for the rest of the school year,’ Frick was saying, ‘a very generous settlement, I’m sure you’ll agree.’

And after that, I thought, what then? A thirty-year-old Doctor of English Literature wasn’t the hottest property in the great
new reunited Germany, especially one who carried the guilt of loyalty to the state he had grown up in.

The Director seemed to be reading my thoughts.

‘You shouldn’t have any problems, not with your English-language qualifications – not like your old colleagues who taught
Russian.’

Like Fritzi, I thought, and Ursula: the Wall comes down, the Russians go home and, before you know it, Russian language and
literature are as redundant as poor Fritzi and Ursula.

‘English is all the rage now,’ the Director said. ‘New schools are starting up everywhere. You won’t have any problem finding
work.’

‘It’s a racket,’ I told him, ‘and you know it as well as I do. Bonn is pouring millions into our cities but they’re sending
their own cronies over here to collect the loot. Most of these so-called
language schools are being set up by chancers who don’t know the first thing about English. Their only reason for coming to
the East is to cash in on the fat contracts that are on offer – and they certainly don’t pay their teachers much.’

The Director shrugged. ‘Every society has individuals who exploit the system for their own advantage – you, above all, should
know that.’

Why me ‘above all’? I had done my job, I had believed in the ideals of the GDR, nothing more, nothing less.
From each, according to his ability; to each, according to his need
. But I lacked the will, the energy, to debate it with him. The society I had believed in had been betrayed and the Director
and his like had possession of the high ground. The photograph of the twin peaks of the distant Cologne Cathedral was the
proof of that particular unpalatable pudding.

I stood up. ‘I have a class in a few minutes,’ I said. ‘I must go.’

‘That won’t be necessary. It’s the last class of the day.’

‘But—’

‘It won’t be necessary,’ the Director repeated. ‘I have made arrangements.’

‘But my students—’

‘I think it’s best this way.’

‘I might infect them in some way, is that it? After all this time I don’t even get the chance to say goodbye to my students?
Is it OK if I go back to the staffroom to collect my stuff – or is that also against the new rules?’

‘I think you’ll find that Frau Winkler has emptied your locker and has all your belongings waiting for you in her office.’
He smiled thinly at me. ‘Frau Winkler naturally has a master key to all the new lockers, for both staff and students.’

The new lockers, the white metal ones that had arrived the
previous year, the same day as the Coca-Cola machines that now stood sentinel on the main school corridors.

‘Fuck you,’ I swore. ‘I’m going to the staffroom to say goodbye to my colleagues.’

I slammed the door as I left. Frau Winkler’s red mouth was open as I grabbed the two cardboard cartons from her desk and kicked
the door of her office shut behind me. I dumped the pair of cartons at the foot of the central staircase and marched up to
the first floor.

When I pushed open the staffroom door, I was confronted only by people who were strangers to me. The new Home Economics teacher.
The new Business Studies teacher. The new Economics – or was it Sociology? – teacher. Their unfamiliar faces stared expectantly
at me, standing in the doorway, breathing heavily.

‘Herr Doktor?’ It was the plump Home Economics lady who spoke. ‘Is everything all right?’

I looked at the three of them around the small table, strangers from another time and place, and knew I no longer belonged
there. I closed the door without answering and went downstairs to collect my belongings.

You couldn’t hurry a Trabi. Push it, curse it, force the accelerator pedal to the floor and the two-stroke engine pouted,
sulked and refused to budge. You had to nurse it, gentle the choke, fiddle with the accelerator and let her move in her own
time, belching clouds of petrol and oil behind her box-like rump. No, you couldn’t push a Trabi around but that didn’t matter
much on the narrow cobbled roads of Brandenburg. The road makers of the West had already invaded my home town, bringing us
the democratic blessing of new tarmac surfaces and traffic lights where nobody needed or heeded them but there wasn’t much
they could do about our narrow streets, overhung with old gothic houses which seemed to bend towards each other in some arcane
ritual of mutual obeisance. Sometimes you’d think the old houses must tumble upon each other – or on the long-serving tram
which clacked its noisy way along the centre of the street. Get stuck behind a tram on the narrow street which snaked its
way along the spine of our town and you just followed in its wake, stopping and starting, dropping off and collecting passengers
on its unhurried way. Our new masters in Bonn –soon to be transplanted to more luxurious quarters in Berlin – no doubt had
plans for our narrow streets, just as they had plans for fellows like me who didn’t fit in with their brave new vision of
a consumer-driven society.