Evony
I compose myself and go back out into the living room to Lenore, holding onto my old clothes like they’re a lifebelt. “Could I please have a bag for these?”
Lenore looks puzzled. “Don’t you want to throw them away? They’re rather…” But she trails off, polite to a fault. “Of course, I think I have a paper bag somewhere.”
The guard gives me a stunned look as we walk out into the hall where he’s waiting for us. I couldn’t give anyone the slip in these stupid shoes and resign myself to the fact that my escape won’t be effected today.
Volker’s office door is shut when we arrive back at our desks, which I’m intensely relieved about. We can hear him talking but the conversation is one-sided so it seems he’s on the telephone. Lenore shows me how to use the heavy Optima typewriter that’s sitting on my desk, getting me to feed the paper in and pointing out how to change from lower case to upper case letters. It’s completely baffling and hitting the keys makes my fingertips hurt, but she tells me I’ll toughen up in time. She gives me three pages of correspondence to type out and I work slowly and awkwardly, stalking letters across the keyboard like they’re prey. Why on earth couldn’t they have made the stupid machine with the letters in order?
Opposite me Lenore’s fingers fly over the keys, making a sound like machine-gun fire as she copies out a document from shorthand. She’s not even looking at her hands. It’s witchcraft.
Half an hour later we hear Volker go silent so he must have finished his phone call. After a few minutes Lenore pulls the letter from her typewriter and holds it out to me. “Would you mind taking this through to Herr Oberstleutnant?” Her face is carefully blank but I’m sure I catch a gleam in her eyes.
I’ve been nervously waiting for that door to fly open and for Volker to appear, and now my stomach clenches. I have to go in to him? I like it here behind my desk. The wood is like armor. I can’t keep the pleading note from my voice as I say, “Oh, can’t you? I don’t want to go in there.”
She flaps the paper at me, insistent. “Get it over with, like a plaster. You look lovely.”
So she’s not even going to pretend this is about her stupid letter. I get up and take it and she leans forward, dropping her voice. “Knock, wait for him to call out that it’s all right to enter, and then go in. And smile and say thank you when he compliments you!” she adds in a hiss as I turn away.
Sweat breaking out on my lower back, I raise my fist and knock. Volker’s voice mutters from within, a deep, distracted, “Ja.” I go in.
The office is large and bright and the opposite wall is all windows. The venetian blinds are up and I can see the Brandenburg Gate in the distance, the gray scar of the Berlin Wall running alongside it. On the other side is the West. I can see it, actually see it.
Volker is writing with a fountain pen and hasn’t looked up. His desk is large and empty apart from a tan Bakelite telephone, a lamp and a blotter. There’s a bookcase of bound volumes behind him and a portrait of Chairman Walter Ulbricht to my left, his small beard neat and salted.
As I approach Volker’s desk my hands are shaking. He finally looks up, expressionless, expecting Lenore. His eyes sharpen when he sees me. I expect them to travel down over my body, rude and possessive, but he looks only at my face. There’s brightness in those eyes and I’m reminded again of a predator. No one’s ever looked at me like this. What does he see that no one else ever has? Vulnerability, because he knows I’m alone and friendless? Does that excite him?
I swallow, and it’s difficult to speak because my mouth is so dry. “Fräulein Hoffman…wanted me to give you this.”
He takes the letter from my outstretched hand without looking at it. “Danke, Evony.” His voice is soft and pleasant, and he even smiles a little. But it’s his eyes that unnerve me, as they seem to see everything that I don’t want him to. That I looked for opportunities to escape today. That I’ll go on looking, no matter what. He knows this and it doesn’t concern him one whit. He’s so confident that I’m right where he wants me, and that I’ll never escape.
Heart racing, I turn on my heel and hurry out as fast as I can, closing the door behind me. When I’m behind my desk again my chest is heaving like I’ve run a race and my fingers feel cold and tingly.
Lenore is eager to hear what happened. “So? What did he say?”
That it’s hopeless. That I’ll never get away from him unless he allows it. “He said thank you for the letter.”
“Is that all? He didn’t say how pretty you look or how the new clothes suit you? And after all the effort we went to.” She scowls down at her typewriter and raps out her indignation on the keys.
At a quarter to six she leaves, telling me how well I’ve done today and giving my shoulder a squeeze. She seems to think my silence and pale face are because of first-day nerves.
I don’t know what to do once she’s gone, so I keep copying out the pages, conscious that Volker is just a dozen or so feet away behind his closed office door. My eyes flick around the alcove, the corridor that runs alongside it. I’m alone. I could run now if I chose. But will Volker have thought of that and given the people who guard the exits my description?
I’m going to do it. I’m going to get up and walk out of HQ—
And then Volker’s door opens and I see him reach for his cap and coat and flick off the light.
Little idiot, you should have run while you had the chance, I tell myself, fitting the cover over my typewriter like Lenore showed me how. The whole evening stretches ahead of me, hours alone with Volker in his apartment.
I collect my paper bag full of clothing and string bags of shopping and follow Volker to the elevator. He seems to be in a very good mood, glancing down at me with that small smile of his. “Did you have a good first day?”
As the elevator doors slide closed I think of something bland to say. “I’m not a good typist. The keys are in a funny order.”
He laughs, a delighted, full-throated laugh. “I’ve always thought so, too.”
Are we sharing a moment, me and my captor? I don’t want friendship from him, or shared confidences. I feel him tug on the string bags in my hand and nearly swing them at him, thinking he’s attacking me, before I realize he just wants to carry them for me. He tries to take the paper bag, too, but I shake my head, my heart pounding. He doesn’t get to touch these. They’re all I have left of the person I used to be.
When we arrive back at the apartment I’m relieved to hear Frau Fischer in the kitchen and I wonder how long she stays in the evenings. I hope it’s hours and hours.
Volker heads for my room with the bags of lotions and nylons, and I dump my paper bag on the hall table and cry out, “I’ll take those!” The last thing I want is him thinking he can waltz into my room whenever he likes.
Amused, he watches me prize the bags from his fingers and hurry away from him. I take my time in the bathroom and bedroom, putting away my new things. There’s plenty of space. There’s no evidence, either, that anyone else has stayed in my bedroom recently. No telltale long hairs in the corners. No half-empty tubes of lipstick or discarded bobby pins. Has he done this before? Is this how he always recruits a new secretary, by stealing a traitor, or am I the first?
When I come out into the lounge I can see Frau Fischer in the kitchen but no other movement in the apartment. Maybe Volker’s gone out. Standing in the kitchen doorway I watch the housekeeper for a moment and then say, “Can I help with anything?”
She looks up with a friendly smile. “No, dear, I’m all right. Well, don’t you look lovely. Did you have a good first day?”
I shrug. “It was all right.” I hear the front door open and close behind me and jump. Volker did go out then, but he’s back. I can’t bear to be near him so I push past him as he comes toward the kitchen, fleeing for my room. I sit on my bed and hear him talking on the telephone, the sound of Frau Fischer washing the dishes. An hour must tick by this way and I don’t move. I’m frozen and scared in a way I wasn’t at HQ. This is his home and I have no purpose here. I don’t know what he wants from me.
I jump at the sound of a knock on my door. It’s Volker. “Dinner, Evony.”
It’s been a long time since the tuna on rye at Lenore’s and my belly’s rumbling, and whatever Frau Fischer was cooking smells delicious. But eating means being close to him. “I’m not hungry.”
Volker’s voice turns cold. “It wasn’t a request. Come out, now.”
My hands clench on the bedclothes. I don’t want to do anything he says. Giving into these little things could eventually mean giving in entirely. But I look down at my clothes and realize I’ve given in a lot already. Finding a way to escape may take some time. It will be exhausting and possibly suicidal to fight Volker every minute of every day. As much as I hate the idea, I’ll have to concede to do as he asks sometimes. I take a deep breath and open the door. Volker’s smile is his sarcastic, obsequious smile, the parody of a good host.
He holds out his arm. “After you, Fräulein.”
A set of sliding doors has been pulled back on the other side of the lounge revealing a dining room. The table is set for two and laid with linen placemats and silver. There’s a decanter of ruby wine and candles in sticks and the food is in covered casseroles. Frau Fischer has gone, then. It’s so disgustingly civilized that I want to sweep it all to the floor.
Choose your battles, Evony.
On the way to the table I remember my things—I left them on the hall table. But when I go to collect them and put them safely in my room I see that the table is empty.
I turn to Volker, a chill prickling down my neck. “Where are my clothes?”
He pretends to look puzzled but he knows exactly what I’m talking about. “That paper bag? I took it down to the incinerator.”
For a moment I can only stare at him, certain he must be lying. My clothes can’t be gone. It’s impossible because I put them by the hall table and they were right there, waiting for me. But I see from his face that he’s not lying. He did burn them, and without asking me first.
I launch myself at him, my scream shattering the peace of the evening. “They were all I had left of my life! That coat was all I had left of him. It was my father’s coat. They were my clothes. You had no right.” I batter his chest and shoulders but his body easily absorbs the blows. He holds onto my elbows but doesn’t move—he doesn’t even seem surprised. When I reach up to claw at his face with my newly manicured nails he grabs my wrists, turns me around and crushes me against his chest. My arms are trapped beneath his and I shriek, thrashing about, trying to twist free, trying to bite, but I’m held as if in a vice.
“Let me go.” The memory of his hard, hungry eyes fills my vision. Are his hands going to move down over my body now, taking what I won’t give? I’ll scream so loudly the neighbors will think someone’s being murdered. I’ll bite him until he bleeds and scratch his eyes out.
“No. I will not let you go.” His mouth is close to my ear and he doesn’t need to speak above a harsh, sinister whisper. “You don’t need reminders of your old life as you are never going back. Do you understand? This is your life now. You’re mine.”
Hearing him lay it out so coldly and brutally takes my breath away. I wish his housekeeper and secretary could see him now. They haven’t felt him ruthlessly hunt them down, catch them, possess them. Take sadistic pleasure in trapping them, body and soul. “You can’t make me forget who I am. I’ll always remember, and I’ll always hate you for what you’ve done.”
“Oh?” There’s so much scorn and amusement in that one brief question. His breath is warm against my ear and I feel him looking down at me, enjoying that he has me his mercy. He plants a slow, tender kiss on the side of my neck and I feel my pulse thundering beneath his lips. It’s a kiss that belies the cold cruelty of his words and the steel of his embrace. It’s the kiss of a lover, soft and sensuous, and something clenches low in my belly in response.
I expected cruelty, and armed myself against brutality, but I wasn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t prepared for him to be gentle and I don’t know how to fight it. He shifts his arms, one hand moving to caress my throat and I draw in a soft breath of surprise and need. He feels it, and his lips move up to my jaw, trailing burning kisses.
No, please, I don’t want this. He can’t strip me of my will to resist him along with everything else. I will garb myself in hatred for him. I will steep my body in antipathy and rage. Even so, it takes every ounce of strength I have to speak. “I’ll never be yours.”
But it comes out as a breathy whisper, not the defiant shout I wanted it to be.
His lips curve into a smile against my throat. “Oh, Liebling. Yes, you will. I have not even begun to try and you are already giving in.”
My eyes fill with tears. He’s wrong. He’s wrong. But my body has betrayed me because I’m not even fighting anymore. How can this be happening, after all he’s done? I remember my father and Ana and I feel so ashamed. “I hate you.” But my voice is filled with anguish, not defiance.
Volker releases me so suddenly that I stagger, and drag breath into my lungs as if I’ve been drowning. When I turn to face him that hard, emotionless look is back in his eyes. He straightens his uniform jacket and cuffs as if he can’t bear to be in even the slightest disarray. “Go to bed. You’re overwrought.” And without another word he turns and walks into the dining room.
I stand shaking where I am. What gives him the right to do the things that he does? Is it this system which grants him so much power without restraint? Yesterday I would have said that I distrust how East Germany is organized, with its spies and secret police, but now I detest it. On unsteady feet I make my way to my bedroom, tears brimming on my lashes. I feel sick of crying before I remember that I haven’t actually cried, not properly. No longer able to swallow down my tears they break like a storm, and I throw myself down on my bed and muffle my sobs in a pillow.
My mind keeps circling back to one thing, and it’s the most ridiculous, insignificant part of this whole mess: that was the first time a man’s ever kissed me. It was my neck he kissed, but it doesn’t matter. That was being kissed. There was passion in it, and desire. Possession. I felt it, responded to it, and for that I’m so ashamed. I’m a traitor of a different sort now—to Ana and my father.
There’s a knock on my door and my whole body clenches in fear. But a moment later I hear Frau Fischer’s voice, not Volker’s. “Evony, can I come in?”
I sit up wiping my face, and my fingers come away black: the mascara. It’s everywhere, and gumming my eyelashes together. Frau Fischer opens the door, bearing a tray of something steaming and sets it down on the bedside table. “Herr Oberstleutnant called to say you are unwell. But what’s the matter? Have you been crying?”
There are black smudge marks on the white pillowcase as well. “Called?” I ask thickly.
“Ja, I live just down the street, the top apartment in the blue and white building.”
“Oh.” I know the one she means. It’s just a few doors down, and even though she’s loyal to Volker it’s comforting to know that she’s nearby.
“Have you got a stomach ache or are you homesick? I’ve brought some soup for you. Herr Oberstleutnant said you haven’t eaten yet.” She makes me get into bed and puts the tray over my lap, and I let her because it’s nice to have someone fussing over me in this motherly fashion. All my life it was just me and Dad and I looked after him for as long as I can remember.
Frau Fischer sits on the bed and tells me about herself while I eat a little of the soup. It’s very good, a clear broth with sliced sausage and mushroom. I think I taste lemon and thyme, too. It’s miles better than the food I make though I’m sure I could have bought the same ingredients. There’s a piece of rye bread, very dark and cut thickly.
She has three grown daughters and the eldest lives with her along with a baby grandson, whose name is Thom, and her granddaughter called Lea. “Their mother is working at the television station right now.”
I look up in surprise. “But who is watching the baby?”
“Lea is watching Thom. She’s eleven, and a very good girl, though how she does complain when she has to babysit.”
“You should go back to them. I’m sorry you were called away.”
She shakes her head. “In a minute, when you’re finished your supper.”
I’m grateful for her kindness, but I’m also curious. She’s more familiar with Volker than anyone else is as she knows his private habits. Hoping that I won’t somehow get her into trouble, I ask, “What do you think about Oberstleutnant Volker? As a man, I mean?”
She looks baffled by my question, as though it’s never occurred to her to have an opinion about her employer. “He’s a very good man. A fair man.”
Oh, what rot. She can’t really believe that, can she? I wonder if she’ll think I’m spying on her if I ask too many questions, but I can’t help myself. “I won’t tell him what you tell me, I promise. I’m just trying to understand him better.” I want to be able to predict his behavior. If I can predict him, I can outwit him.
She gives me a curious look. “But you must know him quite well yourself? Though I don’t hold with people knowing everything about each other before they are married. Some things should come later. Like living together.” She looks around the room. “But you’re in here, so that’s something in this day and age. Young women have so much more freedom since the war and I can’t think that it’s good for them.”
I nearly choke on a bite of bread. She thinks I’m going to marry Volker? Is that what he told her, or has she come up with this palatable explanation for my presence herself? I want to tell her what I told Lenore, that he’s keeping me here against my will, but if I do she might clam up. “I know a little about him. I just thought you might know more.”
The older woman thinks for a moment and says, “Herr Oberstleutnant keeps to himself much of the time and he works a great deal. He’s not had a happy life, I think.”
I frown down at my soup. I don’t want to sit here and listen to someone try and make me feel sorry for that monster. Oblivious to my rising hackles, she goes on. “He doesn’t talk to me, of course, but I can feel he hasn’t been happy. He’s never married before, but of course you would know that.”
So, he keeps to himself and works. I wonder how he’s getting his kicks. “Has he had any other women here in his apartment before?”
Frau Fischer looks scandalized. “No, he never has guests to stay.”
I ponder this for a moment, tearing bits off the rye bread and rolling them between my fingers. “Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Doesn’t he seem like the sort of person who likes…” I struggle for a tactful way to put it. “Female company?” The way he looks at me, the way he kissed my neck, he might have done those things merely to frighten me, a way of keeping me scared and guessing. But it felt like he was doing it at least in part because he wanted to, and could.
Frau Fischer hesitates, uncertain. “Well, there is one rumor.”
“That he is known as der Mitternachtsjäger and people tend to go missing after he captures them?”
She blanches, and I see that she’s heard this rumor and doesn’t like to think about it. “No. I mean, yes, I’ve heard something to that effect, but I meant—well, I shouldn’t really tell you…”
I plaster a smile on my face, hoping it makes me look like someone she wants to confide in. “Oh, do tell me. He talks so little about himself, and if it’s just a rumor there’s no harm in sharing it. I don’t believe every rumor I hear.”
Frau Fischer gives me a stern look. “Very sensible of you. You certainly shouldn’t believe this one as I’m sure it’s not true.”
“Of course.”
“And I only tell you this as you are to marry him and a woman should always be aware of these things.”
“Oh, I agree.”
After looking around the room as if to make sure an informant hasn’t snuck in while we’ve been talking, she leans forward and whispers, “It’s rumored he has a lover in the West.”
If she’d told me Volker spent his weekends doing amateur acrobatics I couldn’t have been more floored. Stasi officers might be hypocrites and eat French marmalade but they do not have liaisons with Westerners. If anyone at HQ found out about it he would be accused of passing on State secrets, summarily tried and executed by firing squad.
“It’s only a rumor of course,” she says hastily, seeing the incredulous look on my face.
“But where did it come from? Is there any truth to it?”
Frau Fischer is opening her mouth to reply when we hear footsteps out in the apartment. Volker is moving around somewhere. She gets up quickly, tells me to finish my supper like a good girl and leaves the room.
I was only eating to keep Frau Fischer talking so I put the tray aside and think. The rumor might be true. Perhaps Volker is arrogant enough to believe that he’s so important no one can touch him. If it’s true and I find proof he could be dead within a week.
I wince, as I never used to be so callous. But these are desperate times and if he can shoot Ana in cold blood and keep me captive in his apartment then he deserves whatever I can do to him. I might even escape prison: if I prove a trusted Stasi officer is a traitor the evidence might secure a pardon for my attempt to flee to the West.
But it can’t be true. If he has a woman in the West, why doesn’t he defect? And if he has her, why does he want to keep me locked up here and look at me like he’s a starving wolf?
No, it doesn’t make sense, but anything might be possible and I resolve to keep my eyes and ears open. The more information I gather about Volker the better chance I have of escaping this nightmare.