Midnight Hunter

Surprised at the sight, my eyes rove around the room. A fireplace. Bookshelves. A pianoforte. This is an apartment. What’s going on? I stare at the dark wood paneling, the brass ornaments, the printed maps on the walls. There are so many things. I’m not used to things. We only have what is functional, not decorative, besides the little box of my mother’s—

My hands clench on my skirt. My mother’s family heirlooms were in Dad’s rucksack. Some photographs of Oma and Opa on their wedding day, a locket and my mother’s wedding ring. They’re gone now, wherever Dad is. I picture the Stasi pawing through her things while my father looks on, trembling and alone in Hohenschönhausen.

Please let him be in Hohenschönhausen. He can’t be dead. I’d know if he was dead, wouldn’t I, by some instinct? I search my memory for the last moment I saw him but there were too many people, too much confusion. And then Volker is lifting his pistol and aiming at Ana.

I clench my eyes shut. No. Don’t think about that. You have to keep your wits about you if you want to survive this. Think. Watch. Discover where you are.

Volker puts a log on the fire and red sparks fly up the chimney. This brings me back into myself and I unhook the sodden stockings from my garter belt and peel them off my legs. There’s a swollen purple bruise on my right knee from where I smacked it against the icy pavement.

Volker turns and surveys me, his hands clasped behind his back. Then he points to a sofa adjacent to the fire. “Sit.”

I go, my bare feet leaving

damp footprints on the floor. The sofa stands opposite another on a Turkish rug. As I sink into its softness the fire basks me in its warmth.

Volker starts to speak, his voice slow and precise. “Your name is Evony Adalita Daumler, wireless radio factory worker. Daughter of Adalita Käethe and Heinrich Michel Daumler, born in Kreuzberg, Berlin on March 14, 1940. Your mother died on April 21, 1945 when a Russian shell destroyed your home.”

Hearing their names makes me feel bleak and alone. Dad’s told me the story of the bombing many times; how he returned home to find the terraced house we lived in blown apart. He and the neighbors searched through the rubble for our bodies and he couldn’t believe it when I was pulled out alive, wailing and covered in plaster dust. His Schätzen. He thinks I must have been asleep in one room, protected by a heavy door, while the room my mother was in received the worst of the blast. The Red Army arrived in Berlin just days later. I’ve always wondered if that’s why he hates the communists so much, because he blames them for my mother’s death.

Volker knows so much about me. Has he been looking into my background before tonight? The futility of our attempted escape breaks over me. We thought we could get out, but the Stasi were watching us the whole time. But why am I here? Where is here? I should be in prison or dead, not sitting by a warm fire.

He walks to a small table and pours a measure of what looks like whisky into a tumbler. Then he returns to the sofas and sits down opposite me. He takes his time, sipping the liquor, putting it aside, digging in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes. He even offers me one, and after a moment of confusion I shake my head. I don’t smoke. The bitter, tarry smell of cheap East German f6s has never appealed to me. But the packet in his hand isn’t the familiar off-white color with the green band around the top and an orange and brown logo. It’s a crisp white box with gold embossing and the word kent printed in heavy black letters. Western cigarettes.

My eyes dart back to the whisky bottle. It’s a brand I don’t recognize and I wonder if it’s Western, too. Could I be—is this the West? My heart thumps with excitement, but then slows. No. Don’t be stupid, Evony. Volker is a high-ranking Stasi officer. He’ll have access to West German marks and be allowed to shop in the Intershops that sell Western goods to foreigners. For all they bleat that East German products are superior to those found in the West the Stasi and Party members prefer imports.

I realize Volker is watching me closely as he smokes and every emotion I experience, every thought I have is flickering across my face for him to see. I look hastily at my hands lest I give away something I’ll regret.

Suddenly, he asks, “Who was the leader of your group?”

My insides clench—so he does mean to interrogate me. But what a strange interrogation. I should be in a prison cell, sluiced with icy water, kept awake for days, beaten with electrical cables. Mutely, I defy him. I will not betray my group. If by a miracle someone escaped I will not implicate them.

Volker doesn’t seem bothered by my silence and is still watching me with speculative gray eyes. Even at rest there’s something predatory in his gaze, like a lion who isn’t hungry just yet but is beginning to think about his next meal. He exhales a cloud of blue smoke out of the corner of his mouth. The Kents smell different to f6s and I realize it’s one of the scents that filled my nostrils as he pulled his coat around me, that and the woodsmoke from the fireplace. We don’t have a fireplace at home, only radiators.

Home. “Where is my father?”

He smiles a slow, gloating smile. “You mean you don’t know?”

Anger churns through me. I wouldn’t ask if I knew. Does he mean Dad’s in Hohenschönhausen, or dead? Volker seems to be enjoying my confusion, and with effort I smooth my features into blandness. Stop giving him so much. You don’t know what he’s able to infer from your words and expressions.

There’s a clock somewhere in the room and it ticks out the seconds. I lower my eyes to the carpet and fist the pile with my toes. My feet are dry now in the warmth from the fire and no longer white with cold.

“Whose idea was it that you tunnel beneath the bakery?” Volker brings the tumbler of whisky to his lips and his last words are muffled in the glass. He’s not even looking at me. It’s like he’s not trying to interrogate me properly and I feel oddly disrespected.

“I’m not going to tell you anything, Herr Oberstleutnant.”

Self-satisfaction gleams in his eyes, as if he’s pleased I’ve said this. As if he’s manipulated me into it. “If you say so. But it hardly matters, as that’s not why I brought you here, Liebling.”

I feel the blood turn to ice in my veins. How caressingly he says that word, like a lover might. I shudder at the thought of him touching me with his large hands. I can’t face what he intends to do to me, so I ignore it, pretending it’s not occurred to me, not occurred to him, like I’m a pathetic child hiding beneath the blankets from an intruder who can plainly see her.

“Then—then if you’re not going to question me, let me go.”

Volker grinds out his cigarette in an ashtray and puts his whisky aside. He stands so suddenly that I flinch away from him. But he doesn’t try to touch me. He puts one hand behind his back and holds the other out. The gesture is so well-mannered, as if we’re at a ball and he’s asking me to dance.

“Oh, you can leave. Please,” he says, brisk now, making a come here gesture with his outstretched hand.

I don’t move. It’s clearly a trick and all my nerves are screaming at me not to touch him, not to let him get close. I stare at his hand as if it’s a snake about to strike.

“You don’t believe me?” Volker grabs my wrist, pulling me to my feet. He takes me over to the front door, unlocks the latch and opens it. Then he lets me go and steps back. “Go.”