Midnight Hunter

I stand barefoot on the floorboards, hesitating before freedom. This is a trick. It has to be a trick. But the open door beckons and I can’t help myself—I take one step forward.

“You can leave, but you will die.”

My heart plummets through my chest. And there it is, the truth finally. I am his captive. It’s not a prison or a dungeon, this apartment, but it’s a cage just the same.

He slams the door closed so hard that the paintings on the wall rattle and he addresses me with his hands clasped behind his back. “Sensible choice, Fräulein. You live here, now. You do not leave this apartment unless it is with me. If you try to escape, you will be found, and you will be killed. Do you understand?”

There’s a militaristic ring to his voice. His previous silkiness and amusement were affected. This is the true Volker; ferocious, merciless, in control. Again I see him raising his gun to shoot Ana. I don’t doubt him when he says that if I escape he will hunt me down and kill me.

“I said, do you understand?”

Mutely, I nod.

His body seems to unclench and the furious expression melts into a smile. “Good, Evony, good. I can call you Evony, can’t I?” Without waiting for a reply he holds out his arm, as obsequious as a hotel clerk.

“Let me show you to your room.”

Chapter Five

Evony

It’s his apartment. I should have known this from the way he helped himself to whisky and sat so comfortably on the sofa, but it’s not until he’s giving me the your bathroom is here, my housekeeper comes at seven speech that the penny drops. I’m silent throughout, watching his mouth move but barely registering the words. Finally, he shuts me in a bedroom and leaves me alone.

I turn slowly, looking at the bed with its whitework comforter, the large, antique wardrobe, the dressing table with its vanity mirror standing opposite the window. There’s a print of Dresden above the bed that shows how the beautiful old city looked before it was fire-bombed in the war.

I stare at the picture for a long time, not seeing it, waiting for something to happen. To be shouted at, shot at, marched into another car. But nothing happens. Finally it dawns on me that no one’s coming for me, and I’m meant to sleep in

this room tonight.

The first thing I do is to check to see if the door has a lock. It doesn’t. There isn’t a chair to put under the door handle, either. Neither of these facts surprise me, that there’s no way to lock Volker out. I should feel alarmed, I suppose, but I’m strangely numb. All the edges of the furniture are too sharp in my vision and the lights are too bright, so I switch them off. Because it’s late I suppose I should go to bed, so I strip down to my vest, laying my clothes over the stool by the vanity, and get between the sheets. Someone is moving about elsewhere in the apartment, but then everything goes silent.

I lie awake a long time, looking at the pattern the moonlight makes on the ceiling as it shines through the net curtains. Dad captured, or maybe dead. Ana dead. Everyone else captured or dead. What’s going to happen to me in the morning? And, worst of all, what does Volker want from me? He’s as terrifying up close as I always thought he would be, with cold, unreadable eyes and a cruel smile. My eyes fly to the door handle and I strain to hear the sound of a creaking floorboard that might betray his step outside, but all is silent. I dread the dawn and try to stay awake to keep it at bay, but exhaustion overcomes me, and I sleep.

When I open them again the room is filled with light and there’s a woman standing by the stool, holding up each of my garments in turn and tutting over them. Who is she, and where…?

The events of the previous night flood back. I’m in Volker’s apartment. I sit up with a whimper and the woman turns and looks at me. She’s in her late fifties, has short, curly brown hair threaded with gray and is wearing a bright yellow apron over her blue dress. A housekeeper?

“Guten Morgen. I’m Frau Fischer.” And she scoops up all my clothes and heads for the door.

I fly out of bed after her, taking the sheet with me in an attempt to cover myself. “Nein, wait! I don’t have any other clothes.”

She turns to me in surprise. “No other clothes? Didn’t you pack anything when you left…when you came from…” She trails off and I realize she has no idea who I am and what has happened to me. I imagine Volker just told her there was a woman in the spare room and left it at that.

I shake my head, and she puts the clothes back down.

“Oh. Well. Wash up and dress, then. Herr Oberstleutnant wants you at the breakfast table at seven-forty-five.” And she leaves the room.

Panic flits through me. What time is it now? I have to get to the factory before eight. But then, where is the factory from here? I could be miles and miles away on the other side of East Berlin. In fact, I think I must be because there’s nothing as nice as this apartment anywhere near where I live. It’s got high ceilings and old plaster and I guess it’s a turn-of-the-century building. There aren’t many beautiful old houses left in Berlin since the war but the Party and Stasi have seen to it that they have the pick of them.

Feeling anxious about the factory I do as Frau Fischer says and put on my skirt and blouse from the previous day. Maybe I won’t be able to go to work as Volker said I was a prisoner here, but then I snort. An East German not work? Impossible.

When I open the bedroom door I hear voices at the end of the hall, and see Volker standing in the kitchen drinking coffee and talking to Frau Fischer. The sight of him, tall and arresting in his uniform, makes my stomach knot. I don’t head straight there but turn right and go through to the lounge and put on my shoes and stockings. They’re dry now, though my shoes are stiff and mottled from the melted snow.

I hesitate by the front door, wetting my lips. Freedom is right there. The door appears to be latched but might not be dead bolted. Frau Fischer and Volker are talking in the kitchen; I make out their voices but not the words. They can’t see me from here.

If you try to escape, you will be found, and you will be killed.

But will I? Volker’s just a man. He hasn’t got supernatural or omniscient powers. I might make it if I run, and running for freedom is better than staying here and waiting to see what he has in store for me. At any moment he might take me to prison, or hurt me. I lift my hands to try the lock—but as if Volker is omniscient he suddenly calls out, “Evony?” and I jump back from the door.