Midnight Hunter

I nearly choke on a bite of bread. She thinks I’m going to marry Volker? Is that what he told her, or has she come up with this palatable explanation for my presence herself? I want to tell her what I told Lenore, that he’s keeping me here against my will, but if I do she might clam up. “I know a little about him. I just thought you might know more.”

The older woman thinks for a moment and says, “Herr Oberstleutnant keeps to himself much of the time and he works a great deal. He’s not had a happy life, I think.”

I frown down at my soup. I don’t want to sit here and listen to someone try and make me feel sorry for that monster. Oblivious to my rising hackles, she goes on. “He doesn’t talk to me, of course, but I can feel he hasn’t been happy. He’s never married before, but of course you would know that.”

So, he keeps to himself and works. I wonder how he’s getting his kicks. “Has he had any other women here in his apartment before?”

Frau Fischer looks scandalized. “No, he never has guests to stay.”

I ponder this for a moment, tearing bits off the rye bread and rolling them between my fingers. “Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Doesn’t he seem like the sort of person who likes…” I struggle for a tactful way to put it. “Female company?” The way he looks at me, the way he kissed my neck, he might have done those things merely to frighten me, a way of keeping me scared and guessing. But it felt like he was doing it at least in part because he wanted to, and could.

Frau Fischer hesitates, uncertain. “Well, there is one rumor.”

“That he is known as der Mitternachtsjäger and people tend to go missing after he captures them?”

She blanches, and I see that she’s heard this rumor and doesn’t like to think about it. “No. I mean, yes, I’ve heard something to that effect, but I meant—well, I shouldn’t really tell you…”

I plaster a smile on my face, hoping it makes me look like someone she wants to confide in. “Oh, do tell me. He talks so little about himself, and if it’s just a rumor there’s no harm in sharing it. I don’t believe every rumor I hear.”

Frau Fischer gives me a stern look. “Very sensible of you. You certainly shouldn’t believe this one as I’m sure it’s not true.”

“Of course.”

“And I only tell you this as you are to marry him and a woman should always be aware of these things.”

“Oh, I agree.”

After looking around the room as if to make sure an informant hasn’t snuck in while we’ve been talking, she leans forward and whispers, “It’s rumored he has a lover in the West.”

If she’d told me Volker spent his weekends doing amateur acrobatics I couldn’t have been more floored. Stasi officers might be hypocrites and eat French marmalade but they do not have liaisons with Westerners. If anyone at HQ found out about it he would be accused of passing on State secrets, summarily tried and executed by firing squad.

“It’s only a rumor of course,” she says hastily, seeing the incredulous look on my face.

“But where did it come from? Is there any truth to it?”

Frau Fischer is opening her mouth to reply when we hear footsteps out in the apartment. Volker is moving around somewhere. She gets up quickly, tells me to finish my supper like a good girl and leaves the room.

I was only eating to keep Frau Fischer talking so I put the tray aside and think. The rumor might be true. Perhaps Volker is arrogant enough to believe that he’s so important no one can touch him. If it’s true and I find proof he could be dead within a week.

I wince, as I never used to be so callous. But these are desperate times and if he can shoot Ana in cold blood and keep me captive in his apartment then he deserves whatever I can do to him. I might even escape prison: if I prove a trusted Stasi officer is a traitor the evidence might secure a pardon for my attempt to flee to the West.

But it can’t be true. If he has a woman in the West, why doesn’t he defect? And if he has her, why does he want to keep me locked up here and look at me like he’s a starving wolf?

No, it doesn’t make sense, but anything might be possible and I resolve to keep my eyes and ears open. The more information I gather about Volker the better chance I have of escaping this nightmare.

Chapter Eight

Evony

When I wake in the morning I know where I am before I open my eyes but I want to pretend I’m still at home. It’s difficult because the bed feels different. Spongier, and bigger. The light’s different, too. At home my bedroom faced south and there’d be bright morning light shining around the curtains to wake me up. This bedroom must face north or west as the light is soft.

I feel different, too. Weary and gritty-eyed. But I make-believe that my dad’s hanging out the window with an f6, smoking it quickly before I get out of bed because he knows I’ll make him go downstairs to smoke once I’m up. He’s got a map of East Germany unfolded on the table, and we’ll plan our first daytrip of the year, maybe to Naturpark Barnim north of Berlin. We don’t own a car but my dad will borrow one from the automotive shop and we’ll take Ulrich and Ana with us. Ana and I will sit in the back and sing songs we learned in the Free German Youth, making my dad moan his displeasure. As soon as we’re outside the city limits we’ll beg Ulrich to tune the radio to a Western station, and he will, and we’ll all sing along at the tops of our voices to Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley, muddling through the English words as best we can.

Dad will park the car on the edge of the forest and we’ll walk miles and miles through the trees and across the fields, and Ana and I will say that isn’t this far enough? But there’ll be another field to cross, and another hill to climb, because Dad will look over his shoulder, pretend he can still see the Brandenburg Gate and holler, “No, we’re not far enough away yet!”

Finally we’ll stop and spread the picnic rug out and all flop down, exhausted. I’ll be the first to declare that I’m hungry and I’ll dig through the basket and pass out tinned beef sandwiches, apple juice and bottles of beer for Ulrich and Dad.

Ulrich will lay on his back and call out the animals he can see in the clouds or start a game of I spy. Dad will drink two beers and loudly list all the things he hates about the regime and the USSR that he’s been keeping bottled up in the city. “Did you know Stalin allowed five million Ukrainians to starve in the thirties while he continued to export grain? Maybe even ten million. Forced deportations. Fourteen million people sent to the Gulag labor-camps. And this is who we have to thank for our glorious GDR. Prost!” And he?