“I take pride in saying, ‘Ich bin ein Berliner.’ ”
Liesl sat at the kitchen table. She stopped her cassette tape player and hit rewind once more to hear the famous last line of that speech from the American president. Only this speech didn’t come from Ronald Reagan. Twenty-four years earlier, John F. Kennedy had stood in front of the city hall to deliver his own bit of history.
She studied her history book for a minute — the one with the old photo of Kennedy and his wife — then began to write her paper.
Even after President Kennedy told us he was a Berliner, she scribbled, the wall still stood. And even after President Reagan asked General Secretary Gorbechev to “tear down this wall,” it continues to stand today. But now the question is not if, but when it will come down. How much longer? And who will finally give the wall that push it so deserves?
She chewed on the end of her pencil, wondering how many others in her class would write the exact same stuff. Yeah, it was okay for starters. She liked the last line especially. Nice touch. Trouble was, everyone knew about Kennedy’s speech in 1963. And for sure everyone knew about Reagan’s challenge two years ago. She still remembered the crowds that pressed around her and Papa. Most of the kids in her school were probably there, too. So what was new about any of this? If she wanted to be a good news reporter, she had to learn to find another angle, something new that no one else would have. A personal story, maybe?
She leaned back in her chair and glanced at her mother, knitting in the den. No. Mutti would never talk about that sort of thing, even though Liesl knew her mother could probably tell all kinds of great stories, if she wanted to. But she always said, “What’s past is best forgotten, dear.” And then of course there was the scene on her birthday at Onkel Erich’s. Mutti wouldn’t even let Liesl say her grandfather’s name.
Yeah, whatever. What was he, some kind of Mafia crime boss? Liesl crumpled up her first try and tossed the paper at a wastebasket in the corner. Close.
Her father, on the other hand — he might be talked into helping her. Once in a while he’d slipped and told her little bits and pieces about the tunnel they’d dug to escape from the East, the secret bomb shelter her mother had discovered when she was Liesl’s age.
But only bits and pieces and only when Liesl’s mother wasn’t listening. Otherwise —
“Liesl, could you turn that oven on, please? Your father should be home any minute, and he’s going to be hungry.”
Liesl looked up at the kitchen clock. By eight-fifteen, well, he ought to be. In a way it served him right for working late so often. And as if he could smell the bratwurst, five minutes later Willi walked through the door with his usual bird-chirp whistle.
“How are my girls?” He leaned down to kiss his wife, then stepped into the kitchen and mussed Liesl’s hair the way he always did. Never mind how many times she’d told him that she was too old for that sort of thing. She would never admit it, but she didn’t move away fast enough on purpose.
“What’s the project?” he asked as he retrieved his plate and nearly dropped it on the table.
“Careful.” Liesl pushed her papers out of the way so her father wouldn’t splatter them with mustard. “That’s hot.”
“Now she tells me.” But Herr Stumpff was smiling, and he bowed his head for a moment to pray before digging in. A few moments later he looked up and studied her through his thick glasses. “History, right?”
“Mutti says not to talk with your mouth full.” She could get away with that kind of teasing once in a while. He pointed his fork at her and winked, as in, you got me. But she quickly explained the paper to him before her mother had joined them.
“Sounds to me like you’re looking for family stories again.” His low voice matched hers. “But you know how sensitive your mother is about — ”
“But it’s not like he was her husband. He was her father. Why does she have to make everything so mysterious and — and terrible?”
Her father shrugged. “I think it was just hard for her, not having a father when she was growing up. Kids used to give her a rough time. And not just because of her polio and needing crutches to walk.”
“What, then?”
“Oh, you know, all the bad jokes about GI Joe, the American. Her father who was never there. You know what I mean, don’t you?”
“But her parents were married!” Liesl knew that much, at least. “It wasn’t like that!”
“Ja, even so. But silence is just the way your mother has learned to deal with it.”
“Was she always like this?”
“Maybe not always.” He shook his head and took off his glasses to clean them on the edge of the tablecloth. “I think she used to try to make up for her legs by being sort of a tomboy.”
“No way! Mutti, a tomboy?”
“People change.” He smiled and replaced his glasses. “Especially when they have kids of their own.”
Yes, but that much? Liesl tried to imagine her mother as a tomboy (and couldn’t) as Frau Stumpff joined them in the kitchen.
“Either I’m going deaf,” Sabine said, resting on her crutch, “or two people are whispering in here.”
Liesl’s father moved his mouth as if speaking, but nothing came out. Liesl took up the joke, gesturing with her hands, as well.
“Very funny.” Frau Stumpff looked over Liesl’s shoulder to check out her paper but said nothing.
“It’s for history,” Liesl explained once more. “Our teacher is letting us write about the wall.”
“That’s good, dear.” Frau Stumpff nodded as if she had a hundred other things on her mind. “But — ”
“I mean, what’s better?” Liesl rambled on. “It’s history. And here we are, right in the middle of it. Kind of like your church society stuff, right?”
“Well . . .” Her mother sighed. Something obviously weighed on her mind. “It just seems like there are so many other things to write about, without getting into — ”
She didn’t finish her sentence.
“You mean without getting into all the trouble you did when you were my age?” Liesl knew she shouldn’t push it, but still she did. “That kind of stuff?”
But Frau Stumpff merely pressed her lips together. Papa signaled Liesl with his eyes and a shake of his head to stop before she said something she would regret. But she was just getting warmed up.
“Well, even if I can’t find out much about when the wall went up, I thought I might write something about the groups protesting the wall today.”
Whoops. Why did she say that last part? Big mistake. Her father stopped chewing for a moment and studied her through his thick glasses, as if he expected something to blow. The room felt eerily like her uncle’s kitchen had on her birthday.
“You mean the groups of criminals we see on the news, I assume,” said Liesl’s mother, the fire growing in her eyes.
“No, I don’t mean criminals, exact — ”
“Then you mean the people who throw beer bottles at border guards or pose for the American news cameras, making big, violent scenes, is that it? That kind of protest?”
Well, at least they were doing something. And Liesl didn’t think it was like that, at all. She felt her face turn a light shade of pink before her father came to the rescue.
“You know, dear,” he told his wife, “you shouldn’t be so shy. If you have an opinion, maybe you should just come right out and express it.”
“And you think you’re so witty sometimes.” Sabine grabbed a dishtowel and swiped him over the head. He held up his hand to defend himself.
“Watch out for this woman, Liesl. She always says her society is against violence, but she’s armed with knitting needles!”
Liesl smiled with relief. She’d put her foot in her mouth, badly, again. She was a master at saying just the wrong thing at just the wrong time. But she still had a paper to write, and obviously her parents (meaning, her mother) wouldn’t help much. But she couldn’t stop digging until she found out what had really happened in her family. Even the parts her mother refused to talk about. If it ended up that she couldn’t use her history for this paper, well, she still wanted to know.
And if her parents wouldn’t tell her, she knew someone who might.