“DO YOU REALLY want to try it?” Katja asked when Adam opened his eyes. Lying there staring at him, one hand under her cheek, she looked like a child. He rolled over to hide his erection. He had slept almost nine hours. The turtle was nibbling at breadcrumbs.
“Feeling better?” he asked.
“I think so.”
“Why can’t you get into Hungary?”
“I never applied. Nobody I know ever got a visa, except for one person. And they came and took it away from her the next day. Sitting at home, the doorbell rings, and poof! it’s gone, no reason given.”
“How about where there’s no official crossing?”
“That’s called the Danube.”
“How about where there’s woods or fields, isn’t that the longer section?”
“It’s difficult there because it’s guarded better, fences everywhere, nobody knows the territory. Why do you think they’re all here? But they’re all scared shitless of the Danube.”
“And if they nab us?”
“They won’t.” Like Adam, Katja had now propped herself up on one elbow.
“The Hungarians are no problem, they just wave you through. And the Czechoslovaks only look at your papers. They’re not ransacking cars anymore.”
“How do you know that?”
“Everybody here will tell you that. If there’s one thing they know here, it’s that.”
Adam got up and opened the door. The sky was clouded over. He could hear kids’ voices coming from a tent. A man in rubber boots was carrying a full jerrican of water back to his trailer.
“Am I the first person you’ve asked?”
“Yes.”
Adam went to the washroom. On the way back he bought two bottles of milk, six hörnchen, and a jar of strawberry jam. Katja took the jar from him. The turtle lumbered through the sparse grass.
“Go get washed up, I’ll take care of the rest.”
“There’s no rush. This early is not a good idea.”
“I thought they only check your papers?”
“By ten o’clock there’s usually a line, they aren’t paying that much attention. People have been watching from this side, through binoculars.” Adam sat down beside her on the wooden bench at the front of the cabin.
“Cheers,” he said. They toasted with milk bottles.
“I want to thank you.”
“Let’s not talk about it. Best thing’d be just to forget it.”
“Forget it?” Katja stared at him.
“Keep your voice down,” Adam hissed. “That’s not what I meant. I’ve already stopped thinking about it. That’s the best way. They can tell if you’re thinking about anything like that.”
“We can wait till tomorrow.”
“For your laundry? It’s almost dry.”
“To prepare ourselves.”
“But not here, not with this bunch of jackasses. That’s even riskier.”
“There are idiots everywhere.”
Adam dipped his hörnchen in the jar. The jam fell off the tip. He gave it a second try, hunching over to take a quick bite.
Katja opened the big blade of a Swiss Army knife and took the hörnchen away from him.
“Oh, so the lady’s got her contacts in the West?”
“A friend.”
“Swiss?”
“No, Japanese.”
“Japanese? Aren’t those guys a little small for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s got to be something of a fit. And when you’re a head taller, for most men that’s always—”
“Baloney. My friend is about your size, a little taller in fact.”
Katja had slit the doughy roll open, spread it with jam, and handed him half.
“Do you want to go to Japan?”
“Have to wait and see.”
“Can’t he just marry you? Wouldn’t that be easier?”
“He’s already married.”
“Well, congratulations. And it’s because of him you want to leave?”
“You don’t?”
“Not me. I’m on vacation.”
Katja laughed. “An A-plus in conspiracy.” She stretched out one leg, the tips of her toes looming up right in front of the turtle. “Don’t run away,” Katja said.
“I don’t want to cut and run,” Adam said. “Wouldn’t work anyway. Do you think the Hungarians are going to open their border?”
“They already have, they all ran right across.”
“Who ran across?”
“Our guys. Don’t you know about that? They opened the border, and a couple hundred people ran and ran and they were gone.”
“When’s this supposed to have happened?”
“The border isn’t open!”
“At any rate it was open. What’s wrong? Does that upset you? The ones in the embassy, they’ve all left now too.”
Adam shook his head and drank his bottle of milk down to the last swallow or two.
“Why the West—or Japan?”
“What sort of question is that! A better life. To be able to live, period.”
“So you haven’t lived till now?”
“I’ve had it, had it with being nailed inside a coffin until retirement. Nothing—you can’t do one damn thing.”
“Is that how you see it?”
Katja stared at the ground. “There’s something I have to tell you.”
“That’s always a great starter.”
“I was alone in the Danube.”
“You mean, the other two—nobody disappeared, is that it?”
Katja nodded. “I just thought …”
“What?”
“I wasn’t even thinking—I don’t know myself why I said that.”
“Have you got anybody over there who can help you out?”
“All our relatives are over there. I want to study. And I’ll find some kind of job while I do.… What’s so funny?”
“Well, see, when you invite somebody to climb into your trunk—it’s good to know if it’s just a spur-of-the-moment, crackpot idea.”
“And you, have you got somewhere to stay in Hungary?”
“Yes, in Badacsony, on Lake Balaton, friends of Evi’s.”
“Your wife?”
“One way to put it.”
“And where is she?” Katja held out the other half of the hörnchen to him.
“She’s waiting for me there.”
“So you actually are on vacation?”
“Yeah, sure. Evi has to go back to work in September. And I still had lots to take care of. So she and a girlfriend took off.”
“Got it.”
After they’d been eating in silence for a while, Adam asked, “What makes you trust me?”
“I didn’t give it much thought. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Sure you did.”
“I spotted you. Everybody was looking outside, at your Wartburg. Spies never drive up in an old heap like that.”
“Just the opposite. Never heard of camouflage, of mimicry?”
“Oh, please, I’m not quite that stupid. And then there’s Elfi—that’s pretty wacky, you must admit.”
“Just like I said, mimicry.”
“And why do you believe me? Maybe I’m the spy. Young woman latches on to man traveling alone and pushes him straight into the knife as a trafficker. You see? That caught your attention.”
“What a load of crap.”
“Why? Who spoke to who first?”
“You mean the old maiden-in-distress trick—”
Katja shrugged. “Why not?”
Adam screwed the lid back on the jar, drank the last of his milk, wiped his mouth, and looked at Katja.
“I know what’s really going on here. We’re both from the Stasi and are checking up on the trustworthiness of a coworker.”
“That doesn’t change a thing.”
“Does it ever. Nothing can happen to us either way. I take you across because I want to find out how it develops from there, who your contacts are once you’re over the border, while you—”
“Oh, stop it. Right now.” Katja ran after the turtle and put it back in its box.
“Well then, just think about Lake Balaton or Kilimanjaro.”
“Kilimanjaro?”
“What’s the name of that mountain, the one with the snow on top?”
“You mean Fuji?”
“Yeah, think of Fuji.”
“Are you going to take care of the tent? I’ll go fetch my laundry. They need to refund your money, half of it at least.”
“I’ll give them the message,” Adam said and watched her go, watched her walk off in his sweater and pants and her hiking boots.
After a few kilometers, right after the village of Nová Stráž, they stopped beside a country road lined with high grass and bushes. Adam drove in reverse as far as a slight curve. Then he opened the trunk, took out the two jerricans, and stored them up against the backseat, laying them lengthwise and draping them with air mattresses, sleeping bags, the suitcase, and some sacks, so that they were no longer recognizable as jerricans.
Katja folded the blanket in half and spread it between the semicircles of the two wheel housings. She made herself a pillow out of the two plastic bags with her laundry in them, but stuffed some of it along the sides as if caulking the trunk.
“So, think of Fuji.” He held out a hand to help her climb in.
“I need to go first,” she said and walked up the road a little farther. “You have to turn around.”
Adam walked into the high grass and took a pee himself as he watched what few cars were passing by.
When he came back Katja was already lying in the trunk with her knees pulled up. She first rolled on her back and then on her other side. “Roomier than I thought,” she said.
“It’ll get smaller,” he said, and handed her the blue backpack in its frame.
Katja banged her chin as she tried to press the backpack tighter to her.
“That’s not going to work,” he said.
Adam set the backpack down beside the car, covered Katja with underwear from one of the bags, and as a finishing touch laid a raincoat over her shoes. “Nobody’ll find you here,” he said.
“Adam, I’ll say it now, ahead of time. Thank you!”
“No singing, no yowling, no rocking the boat. Okay? And no fear—it’s gonna get dark now.” He closed the trunk. The car was tilted down over the rear axle. “You’ve got to slide farther forward,” he said when he opened the trunk. “As far as you can, up in here.”
“Like this?” Katja asked, pressing her back and shoulders farther into the trunk.
“Can I give you Elfi for company?”
Katja pulled the T-shirt away from her face and nodded. “Give her to me, that’s a great idea.”
Adam added the open box with the turtle. Katja pressed it to herself.
“Adam?” She blinked a little. “If something goes wrong, tell the truth. Truth is always the best.”
“The truth and nothing but the truth.”
“You got it.”
“See you soon,” Adam said. He slipped behind the wheel and started the engine. “Can you hear me?”
“What?”
“Can you understand me?”
“Let’s get a move on!” Katja shouted. Adam nodded and drove off.