Midnight Hunter

Heart thundering in my ears I approach the kitchen and hover in the doorway, trying to smooth the guilty look from my face. Volker looks up from his folded copy of the Neues Deutschland and smiles, all politeness, as if I am an honored guest. “Ah, Morgen, Evony. Did you sleep well?”

I duck my head rather than talk to him, and let Frau Fischer guide me to the breakfast table. Then I remember the factory and look wildly around for a clock. There’s one above the sink and it reads ten minutes to eight. “I have to go to work, I’ll be late!”

“Nein,” Volker interjects. “I have sent a messenger to the factory to tell them you no longer work there.”

I stare at him. Anyone who refuses to work can be sent to prison. He surely knows this better than anyone. “But I have to work. Those are the rules.”

Frau Fischer approaches him with the pot of coffee and he holds his cup and saucer out to her. “Danke. Indeed, Evony. Do you not remember what I told you last night?”

You do not leave this apartment unless it is with me. When I nod, he says, “So, it is clear. You are coming to work for me.”

Work for Volker? Work for the secret police at Stasi Headquarters? No. Every fiber, every nerve, screams in protest. I might feel ambivalent about the State but I hate the Stasi. They exist only to oppress and terrify us, not protect us as they claim. They sneak, spy, torture and imprison. They pit neighbor against neighbor and make us suspicious of our own friends and workmates. They are scum, every last one of them—and particularly him.

Volker is watching me intently and I realize I have let my emotions play out for him once again. My disgust is written all over my face. He takes a sip of coffee, and when he speaks again his voice is silky and dangerous. “Did you have any questions about that, Evony?”

Frau Fischer, as if sensing the tension in the room, makes me sit and places the butter dish, rolls and a myriad of spreads and cold meats in front of me, saying, “You’ll like Headquarters. Such a smart building and very modern, not even two years old. The wood panel walls are just lovely.”

Volker and I watch each other, ignoring the housekeeper as she bustles around us. I know I have no choice in the matter but I need this small act of rebellion, making him wait for me to acquiesce. It might not be much but it’s all I have.

Finally, with exaggerated politeness, I say, “No questions, Herr Oberstleutnant.” Then I look up at Frau Fischer and smile. “Thank you, this looks delicious.” It doesn’t, as I have no appetite, but I can feel the desire for us all to get along radiating off her in waves. She probably doesn’t like the Oberstleutnant any more than I do. I’ll take any ally I can right now, even one who seems bent on making this terrible man happy.

“Marmelade d’oranges,” I mutter, reading the French label on a jar. I don’t think I’ve seen marmalade in the shops for about six years, and the people aren’t allowed produce from the West. I reach instead for the familiar brand of East German strawberry jam. He can keep his fancy imported spreads, the raging hypocrite.

Volker goes back to reading the newspaper while he finishes his coffee, and doesn’t touch any food. It’s uncomfortable having someone standing over you as if waiting for a train while you try to your eat breakfast, but I do my best to ignore him. I suspect he’s looming on purpose. Or he just has terrible morning habits.

At eight-o-five he slaps his newspaper down and clears his throat, and Frau Fischer whisks away my plate and the roll I’m still eating.

“I guess I’m done,” I say under my breath, and follow Volker to the front door. His lips thin as he picks up my old coat, as if he’s handling a piece of questionable fish, but he shakes it out and helps me into it. Such a gentlemanly monster.

The big black car is waiting downstairs for us. It’s a Mercedes-Benz, an import from West Germany. You see them now and again around East Berlin and they always belong to someone in the Party or the Stasi. The little two-stroke engine Trabants, “the people’s car”, aren’t good enough for them. The Trabis are horribly slow and are always breaking down so they’re not good for anyone, really. But as my father, the mechanic, cheerfully says, they keep him busy.

Dad. I stop dead on the pavement and for a moment I can’t breathe. Volker gives a short exhalation of impatience behind me. I force myself not to think about Dad or where he might be and I get into the waiting car.

We glide through quiet residential streets and then onto the main roads, and I realize we’re in Pankow, a well-to-do district in the north of the city where most of the Stasi and Party live. It’s a clear, frosty morning and I stare out the window at the houses we pass. East Berlin. I wasn’t meant to wake up in East Berlin this morning. I was meant to be in a refugee camp in the West, cheerfully telling a West German that I want to claim asylum and live in the free world. Instead I’m a prisoner of der Mitternachtsjäger, on my way to Stasi Headquarters. He can’t make me spy for him, can he? I’ve heard that the Stasi have all sorts of tricks to make people inform on their friends and co-workers. But who can he manipulate me with now?

The car takes us right to the front door of the Ministry of State Security building. The driver opens the door for me and I step out, looking up at the eight-floor concrete and glass edifice before me, filled with people like Volker. It’s a very new building, completed just over a year ago. Lovely, Frau Fischer called it. My chest feels tight. It’s horrific. My father loves history and he told me once about the Tower of London, built by the Norman invaders to oppress the English in their hearts and minds as well as by brute force. The Normans had their castles; the Party has Stasi Headquarters and the Wall.

Volker places a large hand on my shoulder, startling me out of my thoughts. When I look up at him he’s smiling his cruel smile. “You are not frightened are you, Liebling? There is no need. You are not a lamb who walks into the lion’s lair to face the lion. You walk in at his side.”

He places his peaked cap over his gold hair. I suppose if he was a young officer during the war he must b

e in his early forties now, but there’s no hint of gray in his hair and his face is smooth and handsome. He reminds me of a lion in his prime. A lion with blue-gray eyes that are gleaming bright in the morning light as he looks with pleasure upon the Ministry for State Security.

There’s a large, carved insignia on prominent display in the lobby, a white shield with a rifle and fixed bayonet flying the flag of the German Democratic Republic, the GDR. Around the edge of the shield is written ministerium für staatssicherheit, and the Stasi’s motto, Shield and Sword of the Party.

We take the elevator to the sixth floor and enter a long corridor. There are offices on each side, and then the space opens up into a small reception area. Volker heads toward a pair of desks standing opposite each other in front of a closed door. A pretty young woman is sitting at one desk, typing, and when she sees Volker she jumps to her feet and smiles.

“Guten Morgen, Herr Oberstleutnant.” Her smile reveals a row of even, pearly teeth.

“Morgen. Fräulein Hoffman, this is Fräulein Dittmar, Frau Hahn’s replacement.” Volker passes her his coat and cap.

My eyes snap to Volker. Dittmar? But he knows my name is Daumler. Was that a mistake, or has he decided that I’m to be someone else entirely? Volker meets my eyes, his hard gaze telling me to keep my mouth shut. It wasn’t a mistake.

Fräulein Hoffman turns to me, and her smile falters. Her eyes travel down over my father’s bulky coat, my pilled stockings and ruined shoes. I notice that her dress looks very new and smart and is made of light green wool with an A-line skirt that finishes several inches above her knees. Her legs are clad in nylons and her hair is long and golden, up in a half-ponytail and tied with a white bow. She’s a very neat, pretty girl, and I can’t help but feel self-conscious about my frayed, bedraggled appearance. New clothes are hard to come by in East Berlin and everything I wear only gets filthy in the factory.

Fräulein Hoffman quickly fixes her smile back in place and greets me kindly, but I can tell she’s thinking, You? Really?

Volker looks between us, seeming to come to the same conclusion that his secretary has: I don’t look like I belong here. He digs in his jacket pocket and takes out a leather wallet. Addressing his secretary, he says, “I want you to take Fräulein Dittmar to wherever it is you girls go for…” He gestures vaguely at Fräulein Hoffman’s dress and shoes. “She has found herself without her things.”