Evony
I’m restless at my desk for the rest of the day, the inside of my underwear damp and hot and the places Volker licked me over-sensitized. I have to type his pointless letter out three times because I keep making mistakes, every other sentence punctuated in my head by his sardonic Or are you falling in love with me already? Hateful man.
When he comes out of his office to collect me at the end of the day he’s in that irritating mock-obsequious mood, helping me into my coat and calling me Fräulein Dittmar even though there’s no one else about, while my face burns with shame. “And did you have a good day, Fräulein Dittmar?”
I ignore him and stalk to the elevator.
Throughout the evening he’s his usual self, absorbed in reports and work. Frau Fischer has brought me some novels to read, to apologize for getting me into trouble for bringing Thom to the apartment. “There’s nothing to apologize for,” I told her. “Herr Oberstleutnant was very rude to you.” But she just shook her head, looking contrite.
I read a little, but mostly I stew. They’re romance novels and I’m not in a very hearts and flowers sort of mood. At ten o’clock I get up off the couch without a word and go to bed, but I’m not sleepy and Volker’s voice is still revolving through my head. Do you touch yourself thinking about me? Thinking about how I most certainly don’t makes my mind wander in that direction and soon I’m imagining all sorts of scenarios. Volker kissing me in his car while he gently twists my nipples. Volker coming up behind me in the filing room, his lips on my neck and getting his fingers inside my underwear. Volker stealing into my room and—but here I turn over in a huff and try to think about sheep, lots of sheep, jumping over a gate.
In the morning Volker seems subdued and I feel, if not calmer, then a little more removed from yesterday’s events. Lenore and I spend a quiet morning at our desks, typing up memos and answering letters. The methodical work is soothing.
Just before lunch Volker comes out of his office putting on his cap and coat. There’s a weary cast to his face that I’ve never seen before, even after the nights I know he’s been out hunting. But his eyes alight on mine and warm a little as he says, “I’ll be back at three.”
I turn my attention to my typewriter, which is jammed, and tug on the stuck paper. He can come and go when he chooses, what do I care? Volker hovers for the merest fraction of a second and then strides away.
Lenore, who is leaning over my shoulder trying to help with the jam, lets out a gusty sigh. “I wish someone would look at me the way Herr Oberstleutnant looks at you. Well, not anyone. An officer.”
I give another sharp tug on the paper but it doesn’t budge. Stupid typewriter. “Don’t be ridiculous. We don’t even know each other.”
Lenore’s been tactful about what my relationship with Volker is but I can feel the curiosity rolling off her in waves. “No? But you’re living in his apartment.”
“He works all evening. We don’t talk and we have nothing in common. Oh, drat this thing.” I thump the keys, making all the type bars fly up and stick together.
She shoos me out of my chair. “Let me fix it. You’re making it worse.” With deft fingers she releases the jammed paper and the stuck keys in minutes. “There. Try it now.”
I sit down and feed a sheet of paper into it and it goes in smoothly. Good, now we can get back to work.
But it seems she’s not done talking. “Maybe it’s like what we read in Brigitte magazine. He recognizes something in you because you’ve met in a past life.”
I snort. Recognizes something in me? Yes, a traitor to the Republic. “Oh, Lenore. You don’t believe in that sentimental nonsense, do you?”
She shrugs, annoyed. “I don’t know. It’s nice to think about sometimes. I can’t always be thinking about shorthand.”
“Real life’s not like that. Real life’s complicated.” It’s not complicated to Volker, though, is it? You hate the Stasi but you want me to touch you. Simple, ja? But I don’t think it’s simple and I don’t understand how he can be so sanguine about separating the two things.
Because she’s the only person I can ask, I say, “Lenore, have you ever been attracted to someone even though you think they’re a terrible person?”
She raises her eyebrows at me and goes back to her desk. “You think Herr Oberstleutnant is a terrible person?”
“Could we at least pretend I’m speaking generally?” I beg.
“What would be the point? I know you’re talking about him. What I don’t understand is why you dislike him so much. Yes, he’s moody and difficult, but he’s also clever and good-looking, and so sweet to you.”
And a Stasi officer! I want to shout. But it would be crossing a line with Lenore. She’s too faithful to the regime to understand how I feel about it, for all her seditious jokes about trade ministers.
Looking at me over the stack of papers she’s shuffling she asks, “Has he kissed you?”
I look away quickly. When I came out of his office yesterday she was at her desk and gave me a bland smile before turning back to her typing. Later in the afternoon she noticed my legs and said with a wink, “Ooh, silk. Who’s a lucky secretary.” I flushed red to the roots of my hair but I quickly realized she was simply admiring the gift, not telling me she knew what had happened in his office.
Her eyes are wide and shining. “He has kissed you. Tell me! What was it like?”
Awful. Repulsive. Heavenly. I felt it right down to my toes and I never wanted him to stop. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t like the Oberstleutnant.”
Lenore aligns a piece of paper in her typewriter and begins to rap out the address from an envelope. “All right, put it this way: if it was from someone you liked, was it the sort of kiss that would make you think, I could fall in love with you?” Her fingers hover over the keys and she gives me a sharp look.
How is it that everyone but me can be happy compartmentalizing their feelings? This box for the kiss, this box for who it was from.
“Never mind,” Lenore says in a sing-song way, resuming typing. “I can see from your face that it was a very good kiss and all I can say is what a waste it is that you don’t like him. With connections like his you could have had a proper gold engagement ring.”
Volker comes back at three-thirty and disappears into his office, but less than an hour later he appears again, looking even more tired than he did this morning. Wordlessly he nods his head toward the elevator and I take this to mean he’s done for the day and we’re leaving.
“You go too, Fräulein Hoffman. Get some sunshine.”
Lenore beams at him and collects her things. It’s a lovely day outside, the first blue-sky day of the year. Volker doesn’t seem to be in the mood to enjoy the good weather, though, and we sit in silence in the back of his car. I’ve never known him to be so downcast. What happened to him between last night and this morning? Maybe he did leave the apartment at midnight and I just didn’t hear, and something happened?
Hans is changing lanes on Frankfurter Allee when a powder blue Trabant cuts in front of us. The driver either didn’t see the black car or thought he could out-pace a Mercedes-Benz travelling at forty-five miles an hour while the little two-stroke Trabi was still accelerating.
He can’t. Hans swears and slams on the brakes, making Volker look toward the front of the car and automatically reach for the grip above his door. It all happens too fast for me, though, and when we crash into the Trabant I’m thrown against the driver’s seat with barely time to get my arms up to shield my face. Pain explodes in my lower lip as it smacks against the lumpy bone on my wrist.
The engines cut out and it’s eerily silent.
“Evony. Evony, are you all right?” I feel Volker’s hands on me, gentle, as if he’s wary of broken bones. He turns me toward him.
“I’m all right,” I start to say, but I taste blood in my mouth and it hurts to speak. Something warm drips onto my blouse.
“Scheisse. Here.” He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and holds it carefully over my mouth. “Have you broken any teeth? Let me see.” I wince as he tugs my lip down, his large fingers gentle. Now that the shock is passing my face really starts to throb.
Volker’s mouth twists, sympathetic. “Bitten on the inside and split on the outside. Bleeding a lot, but it looks like nothing’s broken.” He presses the handkerchief back over the cut. “Keep that there. Press firmly.”
Blood. I hate blood, and tasting it and seeing it on my shirt makes the world start to slide sideways. He takes my cold hand in his gloved ones and rubs his thumbs over my knuckles. “Liebling? Are you all right? Christus, don’t faint, look at me.”
I do, and his blue-gray eyes are steadying. I could see the accident happening, the car cutting in front of us and Hans slamming on the brakes, but I didn’t do anything. There’s a handle over my head, too, but I didn’t think to grab it. Idiot. You’re meant to be aware of your surroundings so you can try to escape. And you will not faint just because you cut your mouth.
Meanwhile, Hans and the other driver have got out of their cars and are gesticulating wildly at each other, the road and the vehicles. Volker’s expression of tender anxiety hardens. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
I feel sorry for the Trabant driver, who pales as Volker bears down on him, six-feet-five of enraged Stasi officer. The man should have known better than to cut in front of an imported car. I can see the pistol glinting at Volker’s hip and from the way his gloved hand is clenching I think he’s sorely tempted to use it.
My mouth fills with blood again, and when I swallow a wave of nausea rolls up. I need fresh air. There’s a bench a few feet to the right and I get out of the car and walk unsteadily toward it.
A man’s voice says, “Evony?”
I freeze. I know that voice. It belongs to someone from another life. My former life as a factory girl and Heinrich Daumler’s daughter. I turn toward it, my head spinning, and see Ulrich. He’s got a week’s worth of ruddy beard on his face and his clothes are smeared with grease. I’ve never seen a more welcome sight in my life. “Ulrich, you’re alive!”
He looks startled by my face and the blood-soaked handkerchief but pulls me into an alcove. “You’re alive. Where’s Heinrich? What happened to you?”
I don’t want to talk about me, I want to talk about Dad. “You mean you don’t know either? I haven’t seen him since the bakery.” My voice cracks. If not even Ulrich knows where Dad is, that’s bad. But sudden hope fills me—I can get away from Volker while he’s distracted. Together Ulrich and I can find Dad somehow and get to the West, and these past few weeks can recede like a nightmare.
I clutch his arms. “Please, we need to go now before he notices I’m gone.”
But Ulrich’s not listening. He’s staring at the tailored clothes I’m wearing, the black Mercedes-Benz with its passenger door still open, der Mitternachtsjäger arguing with the Trabant driver. His eyes grow cold, suspicious. “Were you in that car?”
“I’ll explain later, we need to go.” Any second Volker’s going to look around and see that I’m gone. This chance won’t come again.
But Ulrich’s not listening to me. “Were you in that car? Answer me!”
He thinks it was me, I realize. That I’ve been working for Volker this whole time and I’m the one who betrayed everyone. “Yes, but I’m not—”
His face transforms into something frightening, this man who was once my friend. “You traitorous bitch,” he snarls. “You Stasi whore. No one’s been able to discover who sold us out, but it was you.”
“I didn’t, I swear—” I try to pull out of the sudden death grip he has on my arms. How could he think I would betray the group like that, and my own father?
“Geh zur Hölle, du Stasi Schlampe.” Go to hell, you Stasi slut. And he wraps his hands around my throat and squeezes. I pull at his wrists, desperate to explain, but he doesn’t care what I have to say. The pain and burning pressure of his hands are intense, making my eyes bulge and the blood thunder in my ears. I can’t breathe, and I can’t look away from his face as I start to choke. Fury blazes from his eyes. He’s demented with it. He’s wrong and I can’t tell him. Why won’t he let me tell him? My nails scrabble at his hands, clawing him in my panic. The world is starting to darken. I’m going to die. I got ten feet away from Volker, I almost managed to escape, and now I’m going to die.
Distantly I hear shouting and Ulrich’s hands are ripped from my throat. I grasp the door jamb, bent double as I drag air into my lungs. I still feel like I’m choking. Through streaming eyes I see figures move in front of me, Ulrich on the ground and Volker standing over him. He takes out his pistol and aims it at Ulrich’s head.
No. I call out but can only make a wheezing sound that Volker doesn’t hear. Pushing away from the door I grab his gun arm, pulling it down. Ulrich will not die for this. He doesn’t understand. A shot rings out, blasting a hole in the pavement.
“Evony!”
Ulrich looks up, sees me grappling with Volker, scrambles to his feet and runs.
“Don’t…hurt him,” I wheeze between coughs.
“Evony, let go.” Volker tries to extricate himself from my grip but I cling onto him as hard as I can. Ulrich runs past Volker’s car—and Hans dive-tackles him and they both hit the ground. Ulrich’s head cracks against the bitumen and he groans and lies still.
For the second time in ten minutes an eerie silence falls. The driver of the Trabant is watching me, open-mouthed, the girl with the blood all down her front who just prevented der Mitternachtsjäger from performing his duty.
Volker holsters his gun and gathers me into his arms, his chest heaving. His hands smooth my hair back and his stricken eyes run over my face and raw throat. Then he pulls me closer and his lips are warm against my temple. “Just breathe. I’ve got you.”
I shudder against him, sucking in uneven breaths. This is Volker I’m pressed against, the man who stole me and kept me prisoner. But in this topsy-turvy world where my friends try to kill me it makes sense that my captor protects me. Noticing how I’m shaking he takes off his coat and wraps it around me, just like that first night when I was so afraid of him. I burrow into the warmth, the familiar scent of him.
When I’m breathing easier he pulls away and leans down a little so he’s looking into my eyes. “Evony. Who is that?”
But I shake my head. I won’t betray Ulrich.
“He’s in custody. I’m going to find out anyway.”
Tears fill my eyes. Of course he will. He’ll take Ulrich to Hohenschönhausen and interrogate him. “His name’s Ulrich Weber. He’s—he’s my father’s closest friend.” I duck my head and swipe at the tears falling down my cheeks, trying to hide my face from the people who are watching us. “I thought he was my friend, too.”
Volker pulls me into his arms again. “Es tut mir leid,” he whispers into my hair. I’m sorry.
I look up at him, perplexed. “Why are you sorry?”
His thumb caresses my cheek, wiping away my tears, and his eyes are bleak. “Because he nearly killed you while I was standing a dozen feet away. You are under my protection and no one should be able to hurt you.”
Volker’s the one I need to be protected from but my arms are wrapped tightly around him and I don’t think I can ever let go. He glances toward Ulrich, who is handcuffed and supported by two policemen; the Volkspolizei have finally arrived. Ulrich’s looking with loathing at me in der Mitternachtsjäger’s arms. I turn away and bury my face in Volker’s shoulder.
“Liebling, I have to go.”
He’s the only thing keeping me afloat. I’ll drown without him. “No, please—”
“Sei ruhig. Hush. It’s all right.” He waves to Hans and the driver walks over to us. “Take Fräulein Dittmar to my apartment and fetch the woman in 12D to sit with her until I return.”
They help me toward a police car and I try to give Volker his coat back. “No, you keep it. Don’t get cold, and don’t let Frau Fischer give you any brandy. It’s not good for shock. Have her make you sweet tea.”
Before he turns away I grasp his arm. “Please don’t hurt him.”
Volker’s eyes grow dark and hooded. “You are not to think about him anymore. Now, go with Hans.” I notice how his gloved hands flex and a sick feeling spreads through my belly.
“Wait, Herr Oberstleutnant, please.”
He turns back to me, jaw tightening, expecting me to beg for Ulrich’s life. But instead I ask, “Where is my father?” If he’s dead I need to know. He can’t exist in limbo for me any longer. Volker presses his lips together and from the look of regret in his eyes I can tell he’s not going to hide the truth from me.
But it’s not the truth I was expecting.
“I’m sorry, Evony. I don’t know.”