A Night Divided Read online

  Well, I was greedy and selfish, then, because I could never help but to look. I couldn't see much, but it somehow seemed brighter across the wall, as if the sun gave more of its light to the west. Maybe the people there were more selfish, I thought. Because we needed that sunlight far more than they did.

  Then some movement at the wall caught my attention, and when I saw what it was, I laughed. A rabbit had become trapped in the Death Strip -- they often did. But it was always amusing to see the Grenzers come running to try chasing it away. They didn't like the prints the rabbits left behind in their perfectly smooth dirt.

  Over the past four years, what started as a simple barbed-wire fence had evolved into an entire system designed to stop, capture, or kill anyone who tried to get through. In most places in East Germany, even before reaching the wall there was an open border area that nobody would dare get close to unless they had a death wish. People who encountered the Grenzers there on patrol often disappeared, sometimes for days. Sometimes forever.

  Behind it was the Backland Wall, which I passed each day. It was a simple concrete wall that surrounded West Berlin, making that free half of the city an island within Communist East Germany. What I knew of the area behind the Backland Wall came only from the glimpses I saw from my window, or occasionally from Anna's bedroom if she didn't catch me looking, and from what Fritz told me he had seen while out on bricklaying jobs. Beyond the Backland Wall was another barbed-wire fence that might have been electrified, which I figured was bad enough, but Fritz thought it was something else. He believed touching that wire sent a signal to the guards in the watchtowers. If it was true, that would be worse.

  Past that was what we called the Death Strip. The government hadn't given it that name, but they didn't discourage its use either. Soldiers and fierce dogs often patrolled it, barriers and deep trenches were set up to stop any vehicles that tried to crash through, and the dirt was left smooth so on the rare chance that someone did get that far, it would be easy to follow him.

  Soldiers were ordered to shoot on sight, and shoot to kill -- they never hid that fact. And they had done it before. Western television broadcast the pictures of border guards carrying dead bodies out of the Death Strip or pulling them from the water. I'd seen it myself, at least when we could catch the television signal here. Our government would then respond with ridiculous excuses such as heart failure or a swimming day gone bad. Well, heart failure didn't cause bleeding wounds ripped through a person's gut, and nobody ever swam the Spree River for fun. They had tried to escape, and had failed, reminders of our own fate should we try it too. There were some successes, no doubt, though we didn't hear about them as often. Those who escaped usually kept quiet about it. They didn't want their loved ones left behind in the east to be punished.

  Eventually, the rabbit hopped away, or perhaps someone I couldn't see chased it off. I never could figure out how the rabbits got inside in the first place. Since they couldn't pass through solid concrete, they would've had to dig a tunnel underneath. Even the animals wanted to leave East Berlin, I supposed.

  I would've kept watching for the rabbit, but Mama called me in to supper. I came in and plunked down beside Fritz, but right away it was clear his mind was somewhere else. He picked at the food until Mama finally set down her spoon and said, "You're quiet tonight. What's wrong?"

  He shrugged. "Just a hard day, that's all."

  No, that wasn't all. I knew it, even if she didn't. Since the wall had gone up, Fritz never told Mama anything that made her more worried or sad than she already was. So if he went as far as admitting it had been a hard day, that meant something awful had happened, or would soon.

  Fritz met my eyes and offered a grim smile, but he looked away when Mama turned to me and asked, "What about your day, Gerta? You had a Pioneer meeting?"

  "Yes." I reached for another slice of bread. "They had an announcement. A few days ago, the first person ever to do a space walk was outside the spacecraft for over twelve minutes. He's Russian. They want us to be proud of that, though I don't see how it has anything to do with Germany."

  "They want us to be proud because it means the east beat the west. Nothing more." Fritz's tone was more biting than usual. Something was definitely bothering him.

  I decided to leave it alone. After all, sometimes I didn't want to talk either.

  "Where's the butter?" he asked.

  I shrugged. "Food shortages." Butter never lasted long on the shelves.

  Trying to distract us both, Mama asked, "Did anything else happen today, Gerta?"

  Immediately, I thought of having seen Dominic. Ever since that moment, I had debated whether to tell them. Would Mama be happy that I had seen him? Or sad because she had not?

  I didn't know the answer to those questions, but I was certain of one thing: If either Mama or Fritz had been the one to see Dominic, I would want them to tell me.

  I hesitated a moment, then in only a whisper, I said, "I saw Dom this morning."

  The room became as still as the grave, and I almost wondered if Mama thought that's where I said he was. Shouldn't she be asking how he looked, whether Papa was with him, and how I had felt in that moment?

  But with a stiff voice, she only asked, "Where?"

  "On my way to school, on one of the platforms in the west. I think he was waiting for me. He knew I would be there."

  Mama frowned and the lines in her face deepened. "We've talked about this before. You shouldn't be looking over the wall. If the Grenzers caught you --"

  One had -- I still got a pit in my stomach when I thought about Muller's rifle against my cheek -- but I certainly couldn't tell her that. Instead, I faced her scolding with my own anger. "We wouldn't have to worry about the Grenzers if you'd let us leave with Papa that night!" It wasn't the first time we'd had this fight.

  "We all want to be together again." Mama's voice was tired. "But it's not possible. You know that."

  Yes, I did. Some days, all I thought about was ways to get my father back here, or how we might get over to him and Dominic, but never once could I come up with an answer. The wall was larger, stronger, and far more deadly than anyone my age could challenge. I hated that wall, and resented my mother every time she tried to make me accept it.

  "Did you hear me?" I almost shouted now, but that was better than tears. "I saw Dom today! Your son!"

  Fritz tried to calm me. "Gerta, you don't --"

  But it was too late. I slammed my fork back on the table and ran to my room. My father would've understood why I waved at Dominic, but Mama didn't. Sometimes I thought she was just like everyone else here: blind to the fact that there was an entire world out there beyond the wall. Maybe Mama no longer cared about Papa and Dominic, or had forgotten them entirely. I never would.

  The Wall will be standing in fifty and even in one hundred years if the reasons for it are not removed. -- Erich Honecker, first secretary of East Germany, 1971-1989

  It was a Beatles night.

  Fritz lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling, while I sat cross-legged on the floor with a book I had given up on reading. In the background, John Lennon harmonized with Paul McCartney as they sang philosophies of love in a language I barely understood. If it weren't for the Beatles, I wouldn't have known any English at all.

  "For me, it's the lyrics." Fritz had taken an English course in school and spoke it much better than I did. "The things they write could never be played here."

  "Of course not," I said with a smile. "It'd corrupt us."

  Personally, I preferred the tunes, although mostly I liked the Beatles simply because we weren't supposed to like them, or for that matter, even know about them. But all the kids did, Fritz's friends especially. The boys smuggled in albums we weren't supposed to have and pictures of shiny Ford Mustangs we'd never own, and the girls got fashion magazines, and colorful beaded necklaces to hide under their mattresses.

  Even though she never stopped Fritz and wouldn't turn anyone in, Mama disapproved. She wanted us to buy th
e censored albums instead, but that missed the whole point of rock and roll. Nobody wanted "approved music."

  I wondered if maybe Mama wasn't angry that I had seen Dominic. Maybe it made her sad. Because nothing she could do would bring him home again. I never should've told her about Dom at supper, and never should've yelled.

  Fritz must've been thinking about that too. "Mama loves them as much as you do, Gerta. She misses them so much it hurts her to talk about them. You can't be angry with her that Father is gone."

  He was right, of course. I didn't want to be angry, but sometimes it was the only emotion I understood. I missed my father singing to me at bedtime and the earthy smell of his coat before he left for work each morning. Sometimes, he snuck a kiss from my mother when he thought no one was looking and it always made me giggle. I even missed Dominic. The way he used to tease me and hide my dolls and jump out from behind corners to scare me -- those were good memories now.

  Our family was like a house of cards in a stiff wind. And when it became too much to feel the pain of our collapse, all I could do was become angry.

  "We need to get to the west, to be with them," I said. "There's got to be a way through that wall."

  "Of course there is. But the only way to know for sure is to try, and there's a high price for being wrong. Are you so certain there's a way through that you'd risk dying for it?"

  I wanted to say yes. More than anything, I wanted to be the kind of person who dared to say yes. Papa would take the risk, maybe Fritz too. But I wasn't sure about myself.

  "If I knew we'd make it, then yeah, I'd try to cross." Then I added, "But that's all the bravery inside me."

  "That's not how bravery works," Fritz said. "Courage isn't knowing you can do something; it's only being willing to try ..."

  His voice trailed to silence and the record player spat out static in the gap before the next song began. The needle on the player was going dull. It would be a long time before Fritz lucked into finding another one. Shortages. Always shortages.

  Once the music began again, Fritz rolled over to face me and rested his chin on his hands.

  "I gotta tell you something," he said. "I wasn't going to, but if you really believe there's a way through the wall, you ought to hear this."

  I leaned forward, certain this was the secret he had kept from Mama at suppertime.

  "Do you know Peter Warner? Anna's older brother?"

  "Sure." I didn't know him well because he was so much older. He was away at the university, but I saw him occasionally on weekends. As the first in his family to attend a university, Peter made their parents very proud, and they talked about him all the time.

  "Peter is going to the west tonight. Nobody knows about it but me."

  I sat up straight. "Not even his family? They'll be furious."

  "He hopes they'll understand, and maybe even be happy for him."

  I paused, letting that sink in. Then I asked, "How is he getting out?"

  "Some students in the west got a pass to come to East Berlin for a museum tour. They're going to smuggle him out in their car -- it was specially designed just for that reason."

  I shook my head. "It sounds dangerous."

  "It is. But where we live, walking can be dangerous. Talking is dangerous. For you and me, being the children of Aldous Lowe is dangerous -- that's why he never sends letters. Just because of who our father is, they probably watch you from the moment you step out of this apartment until you get inside again. If the chance came for me to leave the same way Peter is leaving, I'd take it."

  I felt a pinch in my chest. It was one thing to think about Anna's brother leaving, but I couldn't imagine if Fritz left too. Would he just disappear, like Peter?

  I was about to ask when a knock came to our door. Fritz looked over at me and with a stern voice said, "Don't say a word about this. Don't make Mother responsible for knowing." When I agreed, he got up and opened the door.

  Mama pushed past him and turned the volume down on the record player. "They'll hear you on the streets."

  "Not with the windows closed," Fritz said irritably. "Besides, the police have better things to do than confiscate teenage music."

  "And how do you know that? Only because they haven't come here yet to do it, that's all."

  Fritz nodded and then switched off the player. Neither of us was enjoying it now anyway.

  "Off to bed, Gerta," Mama told me. "You too, Fritz."

  I got up off the floor and gave Fritz a long look before leaving. Mama stopped me in the doorway and put her hands on my shoulders.

  "I'm sorry I became upset before," she said. "I was only worried that you might've been caught by one of the border guards. Can you understand that?"

  Yes, that I understood.

  "I am glad you saw Dominic," she said. "I wish I could've seen him too."

  "He looked good," I said. "He's as tall as Fritz is now, and he looked healthy."

  "Did he seem happy?" she asked.

  I didn't know how to answer that. He must've ached about the divide in our family, just as all of us here did. But he was also free, and I wasn't sure he would give that up, even to be back with us again. So I only shrugged the question away, which seemed enough for her.

  She kissed my forehead, then said, "Now, good night and sleep well."

  I wished her a good night too, but I knew there was no chance of sleeping well. Sometime in the next few hours, the brother of my best friend would vanish into the west. I whispered a prayer that God would see him there safely, and then carry his family through the storm that was sure to follow his disappearance.

  There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous. -- Hannah Arendt, German political theorist

  Anna said nothing about her brother on the walk to school the next morning. I didn't think she would -- he lived at the university and it would probably be a while before anyone in her family knew he'd left. I wondered if Peter had left behind a note of explanation, or if he would send word to them once he was free. I wondered how they'd feel afterward: proud of his courage, or ashamed that he'd abandoned them? And I wanted to know if Peter would ever look back with regret for what he had done. Would I, if it were me who left?

  I glanced at Anna's cheerful expression and felt a rash of guilt for knowing what she did not.

  "It's just as cold today," she said. "Hopefully it will begin to feel like spring soon."

  The weather was trivial. So were the books in her hands, and her annoyance with the boy who pulled her hair when the teacher wasn't looking. Anna wasn't even thinking about her brother today. And all I could think about was whether he was still alive.

  "Are you feeling okay, Gerta?" Anna often preferred to interpret my moodiness as illness. It was the way she tried to understand me.

  "Springtime. Sure."

  Was that even what she'd asked? My mind was at Checkpoint Charlie, where Peter would have crossed into the west. Fritz said the car had been specially designed to hide him, but the border guards always searched carefully, and they had dogs, and maybe other detection devices as well. I tried to picture Peter sitting in a coffee shop with the other students right now, laughing at how easy it had all been.

  But I couldn't laugh. Not yet.

  "What if you had the chance to go to the west?" I suddenly asked Anna. "Would you?"

  Anna stopped and glanced around to see if anyone was nearby. When she was sure we were alone she started walking again, then said, "Don't ask questions like that. Don't even think questions like that."

  It was wise advice, though I never could stop my thoughts from coming. They just did, all the time. Maybe I wasn't trying hard enough to stop them. I knew I wasn't.

  As we approached the same area where I had seen Dominic yesterday, I looked around for any border police. At least for now, the street was empty. Then I turned toward the platform on the west, but nobody was there. Still, I shuffled my feet and walked slower, just in case.

  Anna seemed to know what I was doing and gr
abbed my arm. "Please don't, Gerta. He won't come back after seeing you get in trouble yesterday."

  Maybe not. But I still had to hope. "Help me keep an eye out for guards and we won't get in trouble," I said.

  Anna huffed, but she began looking around.

  We couldn't walk as slowly as I wanted. Other students were on our heels, trying to get to school before this cold rain turned to snow. I kept my head down, except for the occasional peek to my right. There was nothing, and then nothing again. And then just before we passed by, Dominic's blond head rose into sight.

  I stopped but didn't wave. Anna gasped and told me not to look.

  I ignored that and replied, "He's my brother. I'll bet Officer Muller has family on the other side too. You can't split a city in half and not divide everyone in some way."

  Dom didn't wave this time. Instead, he motioned at someone below him to come up. I barely breathed as I anticipated who it must be.

  My father.

  His head rose higher with every step up the platform ladder. He wore glasses now and his light brown hair seemed thinner. It seemed odd to finally see him, looking much as I remembered him, yet it had been so long I felt I scarcely knew him anymore.

  He waved only once and wiped a tear from his eyes with the back of his hand. I think I needed to see that, to know he missed me as desperately as I missed him. But then he did something I didn't expect.

  He danced.

  Not the formal dances the adults knew, but the silly dance he used to do for me all those years ago, the one from "The Farmer in March." He started by pantomiming the farmer's wife telling the maids to get back to work. His movements were from the song's second verse. We had sung this so many times together when I was younger that the lyrics and actions were etched into my brain. It still ran through my head sometimes at night, when he wasn't there to tuck me in.

  "They have a lot to do in the home and the garden," the song went. "They dig and they rake and they sing a song." My mouth formed the words even as he performed, and the cheery tune rang in my mind.

  With that second line, my father pretended to hold a shovel and dig, but when he should've moved to the rake, he only continued the digging motions, looking up at me very deliberately, and then made a silly bow, just as he had when we used to do the song together years earlier.