Stasi Child (22 page)

I see Beate squeeze inside the box, sliding herself in a centimetre at a time. Accidentally on purpose, I drop the roll of packing tape and a ballpoint pen onto the floor. As I crouch down, I grab a chocolate bar and cola bottle and throw them in after her. Then I tear off two strips of tape, and seal up Beate’s box, punching a couple of holes for air through the cardboard with the pen. Then I stand again, and my heart is in my mouth as I see Frau Schettler walking towards us.

‘Are you nearly finished too, Irma? Maria? Mathias? Anyway, once you have finished you can all go and watch the game.’ She looks down at the floor. ‘I thought Beate said she’d met her target. She’s left one completed box here.’ She starts to reach down, as though to examine it. I feel my pulse racing.

Then Mathias pipes up. ‘It’s OK, Frau Schettler. Irma and I will load it onto the pallet for her, won’t we, Irma?’ I just nod. Schettler rises without paying the box further attention, and moves away.

Mathias and I move round to pick up the box. It’s so heavy I can hardly lift it. Maria sees and comes to help. The three of us manoeuvre the box towards the trolley. My legs feel like they will give way, but we get there and lower it. We wheel it over to the pallets at the side of the warehouse and lift it onto one of them. Maria whispers to me: ‘Good luck.’ I grin, and I’m glad I’ve made my peace with her. She wanders back to the workbench, and I hope her change of attitude towards me is genuine and that she isn’t helping in order to then turn us in. As I move to follow her, Mathias grabs my arm.

‘What the hell do you think you are doing? You and Beate will get into huge trouble – and anyway, I’m not letting Beate go without me,’ he whispers.

I knew something like this would happen. ‘It’s too dangerous to have three of us,’ I hiss, my voice almost quieter than his.

He grips my arm tighter. ‘You get me away in the next box, or I blow the whistle. And I need to know where we’re heading.’

Scheisse
. I thought Mathias was my friend, but of course he’s in love with Beate. I should have thought about it. ‘OK,’ I say, defeated. ‘The packages are exported to Sweden.’

‘Sweden? Are you mad? We’ll never make it to Sweden.’

Time is running out. If Mathias goes, there probably won’t be enough time for me to get away, and it increases the odds of us being detected. But if I don’t allow him, I know he will inform on us.

‘Do you want your girlfriend to end up in Sweden without you? If not, you’ll have to take the risk too.’

He doesn’t answer for a moment. His eyes have an empty look. Then he glances across at the pallet where Beate is hidden. His Beate. I can see his mind is made up. He will take the risk, for her. It means I won’t be going, but at least Beate will be free, with someone to help her.

Back at the workbench, and this time it is Mathias who ducks under. I just hope Maria Bauer will not feel she is being left out. I do the same thing with the tape, the chocolate and drink bottle, punch the holes with the pen and then stand upright again and raise my arm.

‘Frau Schettler. Can I get one of the boys to help me with this? The wood seems heavier.’ I try to laugh off my suggestion. ‘Perhaps I’m tired.’

She nods. I cajole two of the boys from the other desk to come over. We bend down and lift Mathias. They pant and groan. ‘What have you got in here?’ one of them asks. ‘It feels like lead.’ We have to put the box down. Damn Mathias! He’s ruined everything. But then Maria is there. ‘Four of us should be able to do it,’ she whispers. We try again and stagger over to the trolley. The boys return to the workbench, muttering as they go. Maria and I wheel the box to the pallet, and slide it on.

Before we walk back, she whispers in my ear. ‘Mathias took your place, didn’t he?’ I feel tears welling in my eyes. I nod. She places her hand on my arm. The girl who bullied me so often, now showing me kindness. ‘I could report you, you know that.’

I look into her eyes. She holds my gaze for a second or two, then smiles and shakes her head.

‘I don’t know why I’m doing this, Behrendt. There’s another box at your workstation. Let’s make it quickly together, and then I’ll help you.’

There’s a problem, though. Nearly everyone has gone to watch the end of the match. Word has got through that the Republic is winning with just minutes to go. Maria and I furiously finish the last double-bed box – hiding the slats and bedposts behind us in the pile with the others – so there is room for me to slide inside. She looks across. The other two boys are still there. There is a chance. She pushes me down. I squeeze myself inside and then feel Maria closing the end of the cardboard box, sealing it up and then punching the holes with the pen. I realise that was a flaw in our original plan: if Maria had not been here to help, how would I have sealed my box? How would I have moved it? I thank God that she is helping, but there’s no chocolate or drink for me – Mathias has had my share. I hear her walking off. Then three sets of footsteps walking back. And then I feel the box I’m inside being lifted, jostled, thrown around. I try to brace my arms and legs to stop myself sliding about. I feel my lungs spasm, the urgent need to breathe as panic sets in. Why did I ever suggest this? Then a different motion, smoother. But with wheels squeaking. My box must now be on the trolley. Then I feel the box lifted again, but very briefly. I’m on the pallet.

Suddenly light shines in, from the end nearest my head. The tape’s come off.
Gottverdammt!
I can see Maria and the two boys going back to their workbenches. Clearing up. Heading off to watch the end of the match. Then footsteps, and I see Frau Schettler walking towards the pallets. She seems to be checking for something. I’m sure now I will be discovered. The end of my box is almost fully open. My heartbeat thunders in my ears. Surely she will see? I close my eyes tight, not wanting to know.

Then I hear her walking away again. She must be going to raise the alarm. I risk opening my eyes fractionally, peering through the lashes. I see her pick up a roll of packing tape, cut two strips off and return. She tapes the end of my box again, without ever looking inside, and my world is plunged back into darkness.

Beate and I had, in advance, discussed what to do if the pallets didn’t get moved. We would wait for a day before trying to get out. But Mathias wasn’t in on those discussions, so I just pray he doesn’t panic and give us away. The minutes tick by. Minutes become an hour. Then suddenly noise and light coming in through the cracks in the box. The roar of the motor, the clang of metal on metal. And, at last, the pallet is moving. I try to interpret each movement, each noise. I can hear the forklift truck driver discussing the game with another man. Maybe the lorry driver taking us to Sassnitz . . . I hope so. ‘What a goal,’ he’s saying. ‘We really showed the Westlers. That’ll teach them.’

The lorry noise and vibrations tell me we’re on our way. For the first time, I allow myself to think that maybe this will really work. At the end of the journey, more sounds of what I guess is another forklift. I feel the box being lifted from the lorry, and see the port lights streaming through the cracks in the cardboard. And then there is stillness and quiet. The minutes pass by. An hour, then two. I start to panic. I hadn’t thought of this. I try to move around, but my arms, my legs, everything is wedged in tightly. We could be here for days, weeks. In some sort of holding area at the port. We could be trapped inside. Suffocated. Starved. This was a stupid plan. A stupid, idiotic plan. I’ve brought us all to our deaths. I try again to turn in the box, but there isn’t enough room. Instead I begin counting. The seconds. The minutes. The hours. Counting, counting, counting.

At some stage I must have fallen asleep, because suddenly I’m woken by more machinery noise, and what looks like daylight coming through the gaps. It must be morning. More workmen discussing last night’s game. Then I’m on the move again. The same motion as when we were put onto the lorry at Prora, so I guess another forklift. It knocks me about; the ground is rougher. I feel the old bruises from my fall ache as I’m thrown about inside the box, pain shooting down my neck and back. But then suddenly all is stillness and quiet and I notice another kind of motion that fills me with elation. I want to shout. I want to scream with joy, but I know I must stay silent. It’s an almost imperceptible rocking from side to side. From my days at the seaside at Sellin I know what it is.

The gentle sway of a boat in harbour.

31

February 1975. Day Eleven.

Rügen, East Germany.

The car the Rügen police had provided them with was a brand-new, sky-blue Trabant. Müller was aware that many citizens of the Republic waited years for one of these, despite its basic design, so she felt slightly ashamed that she was wishing they had the
Kriminalpolizei
Wartburg instead. She glanced down at the tourist map on her lap. They were just over halfway between Bergen and Sellin. She turned the map at ninety degrees, so that the two folds showing the island were pointing upwards, in their direction of travel.

‘So how much further, oh expert navigator?’ asked Tilsner.

Müller found a distance guide between two red marker points on the map, widened her fingers to that width, and then moved her fingers in three jumps towards Sellin. ‘Six – maybe seven – kilometres? Not long now.’

Within a few minutes, they were in the outskirts of Sellin resort. By coincidence, the police had booked rooms for them in the same town as the campsite that the grandmother managed. The campsite itself – Drescher had told them – was to the southeast of the resort, in a forested area by the beach. Müller looked from right to left as they drove at walking pace along the main street, the cobbled surface rattling the Trabant. On the map, where the street met the coast, a seaside pier was marked. ‘These buildings are fantastic,’ she said, admiring the facades decorated with balconies and verandas.

‘It’s a unique architectural style,’ added Schmidt from the rear of the Trabi. ‘It’s got its own name:
Bäderarchitektur
. You find it all along the Ostsee coast, but especially on Rügen.’

‘I hope our hotel is as flash as some of these buildings,’ said Tilsner.

Müller peered from side to side at the colonial-style architecture. ‘It’s not a hotel as such – it’s a union rest house. It should be one of these. The Peace Rest House is what we’re looking for.’ She pointed to one of the white-balconied buildings near the seafront. ‘There it is. Just there on the left.’

They parked the car round the back of the building, and then climbed out and retrieved their luggage from the boot. A freezing wind was coming in off the Ostsee, and the Trabant’s heater hadn’t been as efficient as the Wartburg’s. Müller rubbed her hands together to try to get some warmth into them. She fancied another luxury bath to warm herself, like the one in Charlottenburg, the one before Tilsner had gone off on his mysterious trip. She’d almost forgotten that. Müller studied her deputy as he carried his bag and hers into the rest house, his ostentatious wristwatch glinting in the last rays of the winter sun. She didn’t know what to make of him, but she could not help but notice the way she found herself drawn to him.

After a change of clothes, a quick wash and some mascara repair, Müller was eager to interview the grandmother. Her extended soak in the bath would have to wait. She wandered onto her balcony, which overlooked Wilhelm-Pieck-Strasse. Late afternoon, and the sun had already disappeared. Müller returned to the bedroom to put a phone call through to the state campsite reception just to check someone was there. A woman – presumably Frau Baumgartner – answered, but Müller immediately apologised, saying she’d got the wrong number, and hung up. She didn’t want the grandmother to be too prepared for her police visit. Catch her unawares. They might get more information.

She pulled on her coat, scarf and gloves, then collected Tilsner and Schmidt from their room. The three police officers went down the stairs, past the receptionist, and out into the bracing Ostsee air.

They walked along the seafront, above the empty beaches, which in summer Müller knew would be packed with bodies, citizens soaking up the sun’s rays, naked – the East German way. Today, though, the beach was empty, with white patches of ice where the surf had frozen.

After about ten minutes, the houses and rest homes of the resort had disappeared, replaced by row upon row of beech trees, a shroud of darkness enveloping the land right up to the cliff edge. Then the beech forest in turn gave way to a clearing, dominated by a small house, in the traditional Baltic resort architecture style, with its white clapboarding and wooden verandas and balconies. This, Müller guessed, must be where Frau Baumgartner lived, but it looked as though no one was actually camping at this time of year, with just the lights of the reception house illuminating the gloom.

From close up, Müller noticed some of the balcony’s rails were missing, and not all the window shutters were complete. She went on ahead of the other two and rang the doorbell.

After a few seconds, the door was opened by a sixty-something woman in a beige housecoat. Müller couldn’t help staring at her oddly coloured, silver-blue hair. She looked a little like an older Margot Honecker: the
Volksbildungsminister –
whose ministry of education included the
Jugendwerkhöfe –
had recently taken to dyeing her prematurely greying hair a similar shade.

‘We’ve no pitches free,’ the woman said, gloomily. ‘I’m not opening this year until after Easter.’

‘We’ve not enquiring about camping,’ said Müller, flashing her
Kripo
ID. ‘We’re here about your granddaughter, Irma.’

The woman jerked her head back. ‘What about Irma?’

‘We need to come inside and talk to you, Citizen Baumgartner. Is there somewhere we can sit down?’

The woman’s face turned a lighter shade of pale. ‘It’s not bad news, is it?’

‘Not necessarily,’ said Müller. ‘But we should talk inside.’

The woman led the three
Kripo
officers upstairs from the reception area to her apartment. In the lounge, easy chairs were arranged in a semi-circle around an open fire. Frau Baumgartner took one for herself and gestured for the three police officers to take the others. As she faced the warmth of the fire, Müller felt her throat constrict from the fumes of the burning lignite. She took her gloves and scarf off, but kept the overcoat on. Despite the fire, the room still felt chilly and damp.