AS WE WALKED OUT OF THE embassy I set a brisk pace, staring straight ahead, hardly daring to catch Ken’s eye. I knew that he had given up hope of dissuading me, and when we got to the car I gave him a big hug and told him how delighted I was for the way he had supported me in the consul’s office, although I knew that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be cross with me for forcing him into this corner with my stubbornness. I knew that, now he had accepted that I was going to go to Merseburg, he would be behind me every inch of the way and I loved him deeply for that. There was no way he would ever have let me go on a mission like that alone.
I also knew that Ken would be the best possible ally to have if we got into any trouble; he had proved that many times in his life. When he finally escaped from Hitler’s Germany, he was on a train with many other Jews also fleeing the regime. The train was stopped before it reached the German border, and the SS came swaggering on board, demanding to see everyone’s papers and ordering all the Jews to disembark. Ken knew that anyone who did so would be taken into custody and that if he allowed that to happen he would never get any more chances to escape. He noticed all the other passengers were humble and polite toward the strutting, bullying young SS officers, and he decided to try a different tactic.
When they burst into his carriage he looked up angrily from his newspaper as if hugely irritated at having his peace and tranquility interrupted. Despite the fact that his heart was thumping with fear, he barked at them aggressively, demanding to know what they meant by disturbing him so rudely, ordering them to leave him alone immediately so that he could continue reading his paper. Taken aback by being confronted by an aggression even greater than their own and brainwashed to obey orders like any good soldiers, the young officers were thrown into confusion and backed away, concentrating their efforts on the many others who were not putting up any sort of fight and were showing the levels of fear and humility that the officers expected.
Ken went back to staring at his paper as the train rumbled on its way across the border to freedom in a carriage with far more empty seats than before. This was exactly the sort of courage and bravado I would need on my side in the task that lay ahead, and I knew I would have to cajole him a little to get him to do what I wanted. It meant so much to me that he was such a great support, even when he thought it went against his better judgment, and I told him so. He wasn’t a man for showing his emotions—like many men of his generation and background he held a lot of it in. I protected my emotions as well, like most people who had lived in Hitler’s Germany, and I had learned to be careful when displaying them in front of Ken. He was a pragmatic man, always believing in the value of facts over feelings. He was the kind of person who believed the business of life was to go forward and to “let sleeping dogs lie” when it came to the past. I understood how difficult it was for him sometimes to accept my point of view and appreciated him all the more for going along with it. Because of the understanding we had for one another, we were always on equal terms, despite his sometimes overly cautious nature. His enthusiasm, once it had been ignited, was immense. He was a man who charged through life, regardless of any obstacles put in his way.
We rose at dawn the next morning, wanting to get as much time as possible on the other side of the wall, and headed for Checkpoint Charlie in a rented Mercedes, with Anthony driving. An American soldier on duty on the western side politely asked us to pull over while he studied our passports. I already felt nervous, frightened we were going to be stopped and sent back before we had even crossed to the other side. After what seemed like an age, the guard handed back the papers and nodded us through. We moved gently across the no-man’s land between East and West toward the next barrier, already noticing that the scenery was changing around us. So many of the buildings were boarded up and falling into disrepair, and road surfaces were cracked and potholed. These streets had once been as much a part of the beautiful, prosperous city I had been brought up in as the ones in the western sector that we were leaving, but it looked like the area had had its heart eaten out and that nobody had cared for it or had the money or will to maintain it.
We crossed the barrier that signaled entry to the East, and almost immediately we were instructed to report on foot to the registration desk in a nearby building. We did this dutifully, without any fuss, and returned to our Mercedes before traveling on to the Reise Bureau, on the Alexander Platz. Our venture could easily fall flat on its face at this point, our fate in the hands of whatever petty official waited inside. We needed a permit to travel to Merseburg and then to return to the West later. Ken, suddenly in his element, took charge, just as I had hoped he would once the chips were down. We parked the car and climbed out, aware already that we were being watched by the armed and unsmiling East German soldiers standing guard all around the area.
“Don’t say anything,” he whispered as we walked into the shabby office. He informed the man behind the desk where we wanted to go as though this was the most normal request in the world and that he had no doubt it would be granted.
“Merseburg?” the arrogant young official looked at us incredulously. “Have you an invitation?”
“Yes, we have.” Ken lied with such confidence he almost convinced me we had. He waved a copy of the letter I had written to the archive, just as he had waved it in front of the consul. “We’re expected,” he said, seeming impatient at being held up even for these few minutes when he had important business to attend to. “It’s all arranged.”
The man glanced at the letter but, unlike the consul, didn’t bother to read it. Maybe Ken’s confident manner was enough to convince him that it was indeed a letter of permission. Without the slightest hint of a smile, he issued the day permit and warned us, just as the consul had, of the danger we would be in if we didn’t comply with the conditions.
“You will be arrested,” he said handing the passports and letter back, “if you are not out of the East by eight o’clock tonight.”
Hardly daring to even look at one another, we took the papers from him and walked briskly outside, still aware of the many sets of eyes following us. We climbed back into the car and drove off before he had a chance to change his mind. My heart was thumping in my ears and I felt uncomfortably conspicuous. The plush Mercedes with its unfamiliar West Berlin number plates looked completely out of place, drawing stares from nearly everyone we passed, some curious and some suspicious or even downright hostile. It seemed endemic, and a part of the character of the East that no one dared to smile. There was no chance that our progress would go unnoticed that day: every official who needed to know would be informed of every move we made.
The bleak landscape continued to unravel along the side of the road as the Mercedes purred past. The city of Merseburg had suffered terribly in the war, losing around 65 percent of its population. It seemed like all the clocks in the East had been stopped thirty years earlier, reinforcing the sinister reputation that the secretive East had in the West. His fingers so tight on the steering wheel his knuckles were turning white, Anthony stuck meticulously to the speed limit; the last thing we wanted to do was give the police any excuse to pull us over and demand to see our paperwork. Any hitch like that could end up delaying us for the whole day or might even precipitate the arrest that the consul had warned us about.
An hour after leaving Checkpoint Charlie, the high white walls of a medieval castle loomed up on the horizon ahead of us.
“That’s the archive,” Ken said, and I felt a knot of excitement tighten inside me. Maybe, just maybe, somewhere behind those forbidding walls rested all the secrets I wanted to gain access to. If August, Emilie and Charlotte’s stories did lie hidden in files somewhere in there, as I suspected they did, all we had to do was persuade the archive’s guards to allow us access. Despite the levels of hostility that had greeted us from the few officials we had dealt with so far, I still felt optimistic that, if we were determined enough, someone might help us. They couldn’t all be embittered, brainwashed, frightened automatons, could they?