Jutta wakes with a start to shouting out in the street beyond Karin’s window. She’d made herself some tea and lain back on the bed with her book, closed her eyes … in the next moment the noise is causing her heart to bound towards the ceiling. Her eyes snap to her watch as she springs from the bed. How long has she been asleep? It’s only nearing four o’clock, thankfully.
Squinting through Karin’s thin veil of curtain she scans for anything suspicious, soldiers perhaps, but there are two women in view scrapping like cats outside the building opposite, neighbours beginning to swarm at the suburban spectacle, some goading, some trying to pull them apart. Jutta breathes relief: normal life happens everywhere – love, hate, acrimony and affection. Wall or no Wall.
She refreshes herself in the cramped bathroom, irons out the imprint of Karin’s pillow on her cheek and practises a smile in the mirror. Keep going – the charade is nearly over.
Karin has little in her cupboards and Jutta is loath to use up the precious supplies. Besides, she needs to be visible as Karin again before heading for the rabbit hole. She leaves the oranges she’s carried from home and a little note – Thank you – with an inadequate drawing of a little stick woman in a triangular dress, knowing Karin will understand its meaning and smile at her sister’s poor excuse for a cartoon. She’s back in Karin’s dress, the new creation neatly tucked inside her bag.
Jutta bangs the front door shut and, as expected, feels the subtle suck of air as Frau Lupke’s door opens a few centimetres as she descends to the ground floor. Good old Frau – she doesn’t realise what an asset her snooping might yet prove.
It’s cooler outside and the sun is disappearing westwards, as if drawing her home. Somehow, Jutta feels slightly more relaxed – the sleep has done her good, after a relatively unsettled night. But she’s thirsty again, needs coffee to propel her towards the day’s last hurdle, and yet the Presse Café twice in one day may be too obvious. Suddenly, Jutta thinks of Karin’s other favourite haunt: Café Sybille. She can walk south-east to Karl-Marx-Allee and then take a bus or a U-Bahn to meet Karin. Perfect.
The streets are well populated, allowing Jutta to melt into the general shoal of bodies as she skirts Alexanderplatz and heads down the faux Parisian boulevard. Jutta quickens her pace, her mind blinkered to reaching the smell of good coffee and perhaps even a pastry.
‘Karin … Karin!’ A voice cuts through her invisible barrier. In an instant, she assesses the threat: it’s a sharp tone, though not challenging. A Vopo? Or worse? One temptation is to stop, turn and acknowledge, show the identity card of Karin’s that’s in her bag. Prove that she is Karin Voigt. ‘Look at the picture,’ she’ll gesture to the face in a uniform. ‘That’s me.’
But everything else screams. Keep going, pretend you didn’t hear, try to shake it off. Only don’t walk any faster. It’s Karin who told her that unequivocally: ‘Don’t ever run, Jutta. It’s incriminating, and they have guns. They will use them.’
‘Karin … KARIN!’ The voice is closer, almost pleading her to stop, footsteps quicker and closing in. Turn and face up. Smile.
Jutta spins and scans in quick succession. No uniform she can see, but a casual, collared T-shirt, close-cropped blond hair. More importantly, a friendly expression. And thankfully, one she recognises, if only from a static image.
‘Didn’t you hear me?’ Otto pants as he reaches her. ‘I’ve been calling your name for ages.’
‘Sorry, sorry – in a world of my own,’ Jutta manages. Oh Christ, how to play this?
‘I went to the flat, but you weren’t there,’ he says breathlessly, falling into step as she continues walking. He links his hand with hers and she has to remember instantly not to pull away. For a split second, it’s Danny who springs to mind, the two of them walking down the Kurf’damm. If only she were there now, with him.
‘Uh, no …’ Think Jutta. THINK. ‘I’ve been with Walter, choosing a present,’ she says. It’s the only name that pops into her head, but what the hell is his wife’s name? Karin has spoken of them often enough. Why won’t it come?
‘For Christel?’ Otto offers helpfully.
‘Yes, Christel – it’s some kind of anniversary. But it’s all hush-hush, he wants it to be a surprise, so don’t mention it if you see them.’ Jutta is thankful they’re walking, avoiding any need to look him in the eye while she’s unashamedly lying.
‘My lips are sealed,’ and he gives her hand a friendly tug. ‘So, no need to ask where you’re heading. How about coffee and cake at Sybille, on me?’
‘Oh, and what’s the occasion?’ Jutta asks playfully, trying to imagine how Karin would be with him, and yet finding herself not knowing. For the first time in all their years, Karin seems totally out of reach. She feels their thread pull and stretch. Intact but under intense pressure.
‘No occasion, only that I love you,’ Otto says, and leans in to kiss her cheek. It’s fleeting enough that Jutta doesn’t have time to recoil, and it’s a blessing. But he smells fresh, and his kiss is loaded with affection. That much she can tell. And that Otto seems nice. No wonder her sister has fallen for him.
Café Sybille is busier than on her last visit, and Jutta is grateful to know the layout. Her heart is still on double time, though. What is it that Karin likes most and had when they were last here? The choice of coffee is easy, but the cake? Her memory is a vortex, churning and twisting, sucking everything down and offering up nothing.
‘Your usual, then?’ Otto asks, eyeing the menu as they sit.
‘Oh yes, my usual,’ she says with relief. Otto is blindly guiding her, almost as if he knows. Does he? He can’t, surely. His expression shows nothing but contentment. And love. And Jutta has to do the same.
Once she is furnished with coffee and a slice of plum torte, he dives hungrily into his own pastry.
‘So, are you finished with being Walter’s shopping expert now?’ He looks up, pale blue eyes directly on her. ‘Can I poach you to come and see a film with me?’
Jutta’s brain spins again. Oh Lord, another excuse. ‘Um, maybe later, this evening perhaps. I said I’d go and help out a girl from work with her wedding dress at six. Some alterations.’ She dredges it from somewhere deep in her psyche and forces a smile as she chews the cake that has developed a sour taste. ‘But only for a couple of hours.’
‘Well, I can hardly deny the woman your expertise, can I?’ Otto says. ‘She’s lucky to have your skill at hand.’ He pulls at her wrist affectionately, runs his fingers over hers and squeezes her flesh gently.
Perhaps because of the injection of caffeine into her system, Jutta is galvanised to play more of a part – it’s not enough, she reasons, to sit and nod and smile. It’s clearly not what Karin would do. His Karin. Otto has to be convinced or this double life cannot continue, though she doesn’t relish any more encounters.
‘Hey, I was at Presse earlier and the barman says there’ll be some more music next week,’ she offers, laying some groundwork to the lie.
‘Oh yes, did he say which band?’
‘No, nothing certain, but he’ll get word to you.’
‘Oh, great.’ He swallows the last of his coffee. ‘Was that Dirk?’
Jutta hides a blank look behind another forkful of cake.
‘Behind the bar, I mean?’ Otto nudges.
Is he testing me? Or just making conversation? ‘I think so,’ she lies. ‘He might be new. He recognised me anyway.’
Otto nods, seems satisfied, and Jutta’s cake is finally able to slide down. She needs to move the conversation on, focus on him. ‘So what have you been up to today?’
‘Oh, Mama nabbed me to run an errand – she’d heard they were selling bananas from a stall up in Pankow and made me hotfoot it over there.’
‘And did you find any?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, a very long queue but not a banana in sight. But it was a good walk and I spied some beautiful buildings tucked away, parts of old Berlin left standing. Makes me certain we can build it back up again, a great place for people to live. And breathe.’
He smiles into the table, half of his mind elsewhere, perhaps in some layout he’s already drafting in his head. Jutta looks closely at him, thinks that he seems genuine, and she realises then how her sister has nurtured a love for this principled, honest man. Why she cannot bear to leave him, and what huge sacrifices Karin is prepared to make. And as her sister, how proud that makes Jutta feel. And how sad.
At the back of Jutta’s mind, though, a nagging doubt endures: how on earth is Karin to persuade Otto that life in the West can be better, to shed his lifelong principles? Will their love survive that particular divide?
‘Oh, look at the time!’ Jutta’s eyes stray over her watch, the same one she and Karin had been careful to swap at the changeover – and mercifully so. ‘Otto, I’ve got to go. Where shall we meet later?’
‘The Kosmos, in the lobby? There’s a showing at eight.’ She nods, committing it to memory and the lengthening list of things she needs to tell Karin.
‘I love you,’ Otto says as they part outside the café.
‘I love you too,’ she says automatically, though it sticks on her tongue. It’s clear he’s hovering, expectant. She turns her face upwards as he proffers his cheek, and she plants a light peck on it. His skin is soft and a minute wisp of something – taste perhaps – is left on her lips. He kisses her hand and is gone, his long legs striding in the opposite direction, head up and scrutinising the mock splendour of Karl-Marx-Allee.
Jutta almost crumples with relief, something she can ill-afford to do as she needs to walk quickly towards the U-Bahn, in preparation for another encounter in the belly of the Wall.
When will this day end?