“Day Two of the Tunnel Fellowship — ” Willi held his school notebook nearly pressed to his face, his pencil nearly poking him in the glasses. “Digging begins under Bernauerstrasse.”
“I don’t understand how you can write like that,” Sabine told him. She finished off the last chunk of French bread she’d brought along as a mid-afternoon snack.
“You get used to it.”
“And besides, I don’t think it’s a good idea to write about what we’re doing. What if someone finds it, like your father?”
Willi flipped the page around to show her. “Does that answer your question?” he asked.
“Looks more like Chinese than German,” she answered as she peered at the horrible chicken scratching of tiny letters.
“It’s backward, skip a word, and . . . well, that’s the secret part of the code.”
“Hmm.” She hadn’t expected that from Willi, but then Willi kept surprising her. So he kept writing, checking back and forth between his notes and his compass. Sabine returned to the little telescope they’d set up in Willi’s window, near the curtain, so they could quickly hide it if anybody looked up.
“Don’t move it. I think I found a good spot,” he told her.
“All I see are gravestones over there. That is not a good spot.”
No matter what, she would not tunnel up through a casket, through a dead body. Nein. Durchaus nicht! No way!
“I mean closer to the church building. There’s a little spot of grass, I think. You tell me.”
Sabine squinted through the eyepiece. “Okay, I see it,” she told him. “There’s a bench, then a patch of grass, then the building. I don’t know if anyone can see it from the street.”
“Perfect. We’ll tell your brother?”
“I guess so. I don’t know if he’ll listen to us, though. We are just the lowly dirt carriers.”
Willi shrugged. “I don’t mind. I guess I’ve learned to be content with whatever’s going on around me.”
“That sounds like something from the Bible, not you.”
“Hey.” He grinned. “You caught that.”
“Yeah. But are you content enough to stay on this side of the wall for the rest of your life?”
Willi didn’t answer right away. When he did, his voice sounded softer. “My mom wants us to leave, really badly. Even lying there in the hospital, that’s all she ever talks about. For her children, she says. She makes Papa crazy.”
“But she’s getting better, right?”
“Well, the baby is still tiny, but she’s healthy. The doctor said they can come home in a few days.”
“That’s great. What about your dad, though? Why is he so — ”
“Papa . . . Papa is, uh . . . Look, Sabine, I don’t really want to talk about it.”
“But we have to talk about it. What if we dig the tunnel, and they won’t come?”
“I know, I know. But you should see Papa every time he hears about someone escaping.”
“Not like Onkel Heinz?”
“No, no. He hates it here, but he acts like . . . like they died of a horrible disease, and we can’t talk about it, or else we’ll catch the disease too.”
“So what happens if you try to say anything?” she asked.
“I can’t . . . I’m not like you, Sabine. You don’t care what other people think. Me, I — ”
Willi’s voice trailed off, and Sabine looked over at her friend. His thick lenses made his eyes look way too big for his face, sort of like fish eyes. He took off the glasses and wiped them on his shirt. She wished she knew what to say to him.
“Don’t worry about your family,” she finally managed. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Hope you’re right.” But he couldn’t know that a scared little girl hid behind all her big talk and big promises. She just put the telescope back to her eye. Looking busy and in charge was the best way to not look afraid.
Down on the street, she could actually see the tight curls, tucked beneath a somber gray hairnet, on a passing woman’s head. “This is kind of fun,” she told him. “I can see — ”
The scowl of a very irritated Vopo guard, looking straight at her, filled the view of the telescope.
“Uh-oh.” Sabine ducked. “Not so good.”
“What?” Willi obviously had no idea what she had just seen.
She pulled the curtain shut. “We have to get rid of this telescope, quick.”
“Are you kidding? My father gave me that for Christmas. It’s — ”
“It’s going to get us in a lot of trouble if we don’t hide from the Vopo who just saw me with it. Now!”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
Willi quickly looked around and pointed under the kitchen sink. They squeezed together behind a checkered skirt that hid stuff like the scrub brushes, soap flakes, and a waste bucket.
“Have you even emptied the garbage since your mother went to the hospital?” Sabine whispered, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
“Sorry.” He sneezed once, then again. “I just thought maybe no one would look here.”
Maybe the Vopo would, and maybe they wouldn’t. But Sabine knew she and Willi had to keep silent when the Vopo broke down the front door of the Stumpffs’ apartment.
“On Day Two, Willi and Sabine find a safe place for the tunnel to end,” Willi whispered, as he planned his next journal entry. “Except — ”
They expected the Vopo to break in any minute to capture them. They’d be tried as spies. And Willi had just pulled out his journal again to fill it with more chicken scratching.
“Would you put that thing away?” Sabine hissed. She stiffened when she heard the sound of boots coming up the stairway.
“There!” Willi whispered. “You hear it?”
She nodded silently.
“We don’t answer the door, right?” Willi asked, panicked.
Sabine just sat with her knees in her face, waiting for the man who had seen her to burst into the apartment and drag them off. Strangely, the door didn’t pop off its hinges; it just squeaked open the way it always did. “Willi!” a man called, followed by a whistle.
“Oh, no.” Willi rolled out of his hiding place, sending a glass vase skittering across the linoleum. “It’s my dad.”
Good thing Sabine managed to crawl out from under the sink before Herr Stumpff came into the kitchen.
“So you’re the Sabine I’ve heard so much about.” Herr Stumpff looked like a grown-up version of Willi, only bald and a little grease-stained. He smiled and held out his rough mechanic’s hand. “Willi tells me your grandmother is in the same hospital as my wife and daughter.”
“Yes, sir. Different floors, though.” She wondered what to do when the Vopo pounded on the door. Herr Stumpff looked at the mess on the floor, then at her shoulder.
“Er, can I help you find something?”
“Oh — no, sir. We were just . . . that is — ”
That’s when she noticed the week-old potato peel stuck on her shoulder. “Actually — She felt her face heating up as she flicked the peel into the trash. “I was about to help Willi . . . get dinner started.”
Which explained everything, right? Willi stooped to pick up a runaway scrub brush as his father gave them a curious look.
“That’s very nice of you, Sabine. But I thought Willi and I would eat at the hospital tonight and keep his mother company. Of course, you’re welcome to join us — if it’s all right with your mother, that is.”
“Oh.” Sabine replaced another scrub brush and vase. “I should head home. But thank you for offering.”
She resigned herself to being arrested in the hallway. But Herr Stumpff kept her from leaving.
“I’m sorry, Sabine, but you should know something before you go out there. You too, Willi.”
Sabine nearly choked on her spit. What did he know?
“There’s another empty apartment on the third floor. The police have sealed it off.”
Oh. Another one.
“Do not stop there to look,” he went on, “and don’t ask questions. Just walk on by.”
Willi’s father looked dead serious as he let her go and went to the sink to wash his hands.
“In fact,” he said, “just pretend it’s not there and stay out of trouble.”
“Yes, sir.” She nodded, but her stomach knotted up. Pretend it’s not there? That’s exactly what was all wrong with this mixed-up country!
Pretend he’s not there. And Hitler will go away.
Pretend it’s not real. And the war will soon be over.
Pretend you don’t notice. And the wall won’t matter so much.
Pretend, pretend, pretend. And the Stasi will be nice to us.
Well, it never worked that way. But she tried her best not to glare at her friend’s father, no matter how silly he sounded, as she told them good-bye and let herself out.
“Thanks again,” she called back, knowing she would run straight into the guard as he made his way up the stairs.
But the fifth floor looked deserted, just like the fourth and third floors. Oh, and she caught a glimpse of the empty apartment, the one that wasn’t really there. And though she hadn’t known the people who had lived there, she prayed for them.
On the second floor, a couple of stooped men marched home, never looking up from the worn carpet runner. So she worked her way down the last few steps to the street level, one at a time, the same way she always did — but holding her breath, ready to flee. As if a girl with crutches could have outrun a soldier with a gun.
Sabine carefully pushed the outside door open and looked up and down the street.
No Stasi. Not even any Vopos.