That afternoon, Stefan Koehler was alone in his Engeldamm apartment following the unfolding events on television with no flattering delusion that the changes afoot would mean an end to his troubles. He was a marked man. In every alternative he imagined, Stefan came to the conclusion that he was condemned to the guillotine in the GDR’s National Execution Facility. He fully understood that his escape was the only way forward and the raucous upheaval in the streets was at best a temporary respite from the regime’s manhunt.
Nevertheless, when his beloved son entered the apartment with Petra, it was easy to ignore the dangers of what he had set in motion. It had been his decision, but she had agreed, and their son understood the perils of staying. It was better to risk escape in the tunnel under the Wall than to suffer the type of separation that would come if his rebellious son was detained. There was urgency in his thoughts, too; a turbulent desire to take advantage of the demonstrations to make their escape.
In that moment, he accepted his son’s embrace, but he looked at Petra standing in the doorway and saw only caution on her face.
“Was Dr. Knappe there?” Stefan held his son affectionately, mussing his hair playfully.
Petra was motionless in the doorway. She met his eyes without answering. When he became confused by her silence, she stepped to the side, revealing the person standing behind her in the hallway.
Anne Simpson stepped forward. She faced the family gathered in a tight knot. Her face was calm, but also resolute, a woman who moved cautiously into an uncertain moment.
“No one saw me,” she said. “They are all watching the latest news of the protests on their televisions.” Anne wore her sudden appearance with dignity, nodding at Petra. “She didn’t know that I was waiting in the stairwell. She was as surprised as you are.”
Anne saw Stefan with his arm around his son’s shoulder. She recognized the bond of father and son that she first saw in the beach photograph, and in the moment of their reunion there was no mistaking the boy’s attachment and the father’s concern. It was a bittersweet thing to see, and it reminded her of what she wanted for herself. But none of that was in her conscious mind. She stood before them, aware of being watched.
“Why are you here?” Stefan asked.
“You need to ask?”
Petra quickly invited Anne in, and pulled Stefan to one side. Anne removed her scarf, but kept on her raincoat and remained standing by the television. They faced each other, awkwardness hung in the air. She stared at Stefan, taking him in all at once, the dead man come to life. He wore the handsome leather jacket she bought him on their second wedding anniversary.
Anne nodded. “You have no idea the excitement your disappearance caused and how much interest there is in your miraculous resurrection.”
Stefan laughed nervously. He hit a cigarette pack on his arm, popping two, and offered her one. “I’ve quit,” she said, accepting one anyway. He drew on his cigarette compulsively and blew smoke from the corner of his mouth, but his eyes stayed on her like a wary fugitive.
“What do you want?”
She opened her handbag and produced two forged West German passports. “These will help them cross the border. Passports with new names.” She watched him examine the documents, flipping the pages, studying the ink and names. He handed them back.
“I have my own way.”
“And risk them?”
Stefan drew deeply on the cigarette and kept his eye on her, judging her. “My plan is a good plan.” He waved at the documents, dismissing them. “Who made these? The CIA? Who is on the other side waiting?”
“They’ll be safe. It was a favor. I had them made.”
“I’ll be arrested.”
“You’ll be alive.”
“I am prepared to take my chances.”
Tension filled the silence that followed. Without being asked, but in the spirit of hospitality to lighten the mood, Petra said that she would make tea. She forced a smile, looking from one to the other. “I think we all need something to warm up with. To mark this occasion. Who would have thought we’d all meet?” Petra looked at Anne. “I want to hear what you have to say.”
Two wives, no longer widows, sharing the same concern. It was a somber moment among them, and then Petra was gone to the kitchen with her son.
Anne faced Stefan across the coffee table without Petra to adjudicate their reunion. Her knee was folded over her leg, bouncing slightly, and she gazed at him. She had questions that she wanted to ask, but she wasn’t certain she would believe his answers. His first lie had been part of a world of lies and she wasn’t certain how she would know if he was being truthful. His compounding lies had become an ungainly artifice, drawing attention to itself, but she had been blind to it.
“You were good at remembering your own lies,” she said. “I was taken in.”
He nervously drew on his cigarette and then stood, pacing the room. In a moment, he sat again and looked at his feet. She waited for him to look up.
“You owe me an answer.”
“What do you want me to say? I’m sorry? Of course, I am. I didn’t choose you. They did.” He muttered something the she couldn’t hear. He pulled nervously on his cigarette.
She hated him, but she had once loved him. Those conflicting feelings left her uncertain whether to accost him or embrace him. She met his eyes and, for a moment, she thought he would unburden himself.
“Here.” Petra had suddenly entered from the kitchen. She set down the electric kettle and arranged the teacups she’d brought on a tray. “Did I interrupt? Should I leave?”
“Stay,” he said.
The two women exchanged a quick glance and Petra poured the hot tea while the silence among them hung on. “Chamomile is calming, and we need calm.”
She was returning to the kitchen when suddenly the muted television was alive with pictures of street demonstrations across the GDR. Petra turned up the volume and everyone in the room listened to the newscaster. Hated General Secretary Honecker was out, replaced by a new man. Ominous pictures of a human tide entering Alexanderplatz filled the screen. The small personal drama in the living room was overshadowed by the excited emotions on the demonstrators’ faces, which tested the amassed Stasi’s fickle tolerance for protests. The two halves of the divided family witnessed history in the making, aware that neighborhood reservists had been called up to active duty. Television cameras looked past the vast crowd with their candles toward heavily armed riot police on the side streets, waiting to strike.
Sipping tea, they anxiously watched to see if the attack would start.
“What will happen?” Petra asked. “Will it be worse than 1953?” They had all heard the stories of the Soviet Union’s brutal suppression of the worker’s uprising. Cudgels swung indiscriminately at women and children and the frightening chaos in the streets when Soviet tanks rolled into a crowd, crushing students.
“We are leaving tomorrow night,” Stefan said. He set down his cup. “The Stasi will be concerned with the protests. We will go unnoticed.”
“They are closing the border.”
Stefan shrugged. “There are other ways.” He looked at the documents. “These will be helpful when we’re on the other side.”
“How will you cross?”
Stefan judged her. “Better that you don’t know. Your ignorance can’t betray us.”
“Stop!” Petra set down her cup. “She is here to help.” Petra looked at Anne. “There is a tunnel. You will come with us. It will be safer for us, and you, if you join us.”
“Did they send you?” Stefan demanded.
“No one knows I’m here.”
Stefan crushed his cigarette in the ashtray, grinding it slowly, and then he looked at her. “You don’t know what they know.” Stefan went to the window and drew aside the blinds. He looked down into the street where the buildings curved along Engeldamm. He motioned to Anne.
“Look.” Stefan pointed to a man leaning against a lamppost, self-conscious with his newspaper open. “He’s been there for thirty minutes reading the same page. He followed you.”
Anne was shocked to see Cooper, but then she came to see how lucky it was that Cooper was outside and not some stranger. She knew him well enough to be confident in how to proceed, but she also understood how she’d been deceived. Knowing that Cooper had followed her was a turning point.
“He will be a problem,” Anne said. She looked at Stefan. “When I leave, I will take him with me. The documents will be helpful when you get across.”
“You’ll help us?” Peter asked.
Anne smiled. “Of course. Is the tunnel safe?”
“Safer than staying,” Stefan said. “He’s watching the apartment. How long before others arrive?”
“We’re leaving tomorrow night,” Petra said. “Dr. Knappe has arranged it.”
Anne paused. Now she understood. The eager witness with his false charm, he’d been a part of it all along. She handed Stefan the passports. “Take them.”
Petra studied the new names and the picture of her son, dressed in his Pioneer’s uniform before he’d spiked his hair. “Who made these?”
“Someone I trust at JAROC.”
Stefan shook his head. “They’ll see these and know who they’re looking for.”
“They don’t want you,” Anne said. “They want the Matchmaker.”
Stefan considered her comment and then laughed dismissively. “Rudolf Kruger is like a dead man to them. We talk about the dead to remember them and keep them in our thoughts. The more people talk, the more that is said about the dead, particularly by people who are good with words, the further away from life the dead person becomes—like a hologram. An invention of their fears and paranoias to whom they attribute all sorts of unlikely accomplishments. They can have Kruger if they can find him.”
“And you?” Anne asked.
“I’m not dead yet.” Stefan mussed his son’s hair. “I’m alive. I prefer it that way. We can do this ourselves.”
Petra put her arm on Anne’s shoulder, comforting her, and turned to Stefan. “Why are you stubborn?”
“You don’t need my help.” Anne moved to the door.
“We do.” Petra’s hand on Anne’s arm stopped her. “I need your help. My son needs your help.”
Anne saw the plea in Petra’s eyes. In that moment, Anne was moved by her rival’s concern. Her red hair, hazel eyes, her dignity, and her plea. Anne could only imagine what Petra’s life had been like in those two years—her fears, the deprivation, her son’s rebelliousness; she wondered if the tall confident woman asking for help had felt the terror of jealousy.
Anne turned to Stefan. “And you?”
She recognized his stubborn German pride and there, too, behind his smug assurance, the remoteness that had always been between them. The person who’d been so close, but also so far away. Even now she didn’t know him.
“We accept,” Petra said. “We leave tomorrow. I will dress like I’m going to work. Peter will have his backpack as he does every day when he goes to school. Everything normal.”
Petra nodded at Stefan. “He will leave after us. You will drive with him—a couple together won’t attract attention. The Stasi are looking for a single man. Together you will be safer. We will all meet at the address.”
“Whose car?”
“Dr. Knappe parked across the street. Stefan has the keys.”
Stefan pushed aside the venetian blind and looked down at the pale-green Trabant parked near Cooper. “Tomorrow there will be another protest,” Stefan said. “We will drive in the opposite direction. If we are stopped, we will say we’re going to Charité hospital.”
“The address?”
“When we are in the car.”
Anne said goodbye and moved to the apartment door. Upon stepping into the hallway, she heard her name called and she turned.
“You should be careful,” Stefan said.
“What do you expect?” she asked. “And what about your neighbor?”
“No one has seen her.”