Stasiland_ Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall - Anna Funder [0]
Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall
Anna Funder
Dedication
For Craig Allchin
Epigraph
‘…a silent crazy jungle under glass.’
The Member of the Wedding,
Carson McCullers
‘The two of you, violator and victim (collaborator! violin!), are linked,
forever perhaps, by the obscenity of what has been revealed to you, by
the sad knowledge of what people are capable of. We are all guilty.’
The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist,
Breyten Breytenbach
‘Let the jury consider their verdict,’ the King said,
for about the twentieth time that day.
‘No, no!’ said the Queen. ‘Sentence first—verdict afterwards.’
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,
Lewis Carroll
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Map of Germany 1945–90
Map of Berlin Wall 1961–89
1 Berlin, Winter 1996
2 Miriam
3 Bornholmer Bridge
4 Charlie
5 The Linoleum Palace
6 Stasi HQ
7 The Smell of Old Men
8 Telephone Calls
9 Julia Has No Story
10 The Italian Boyfriend
11 Major N.
12 The Lipsi
13 Von Schni—
14 The Worse You Feel
15 Herr Christian
16 Socialist Man
17 Drawing the Line
18 The Plate
19 Klaus
20 Herr Bock of Golm
21 Frau Paul
22 The Deal
23 Hohenschönhausen
24 Herr Bohnsack
25 Berlin, Spring 2000
26 The Wall
27 Puzzlers
28 Miriam and Charlie
Some Notes on Sources
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise for Anna Funder and Stasiland
Also by Anna Funder
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
1
Berlin, Winter 1996
I am hungover and steer myself like a car through the crowds at Alexanderplatz station. Several times I miscalculate my width, scraping into a bin, and an advertising bollard. Tomorrow bruises will develop on my skin, like a picture from a negative.
A man turns from the wall, smiling and zipping up his fly. He is missing shoelaces and some teeth; his face and his shoes are as loose as each other. Another man in overalls, with a broom the size of a tennis-court sweeper, pushes disinfectant pellets along the platform. He makes arcs of green powder and cigarette butts and urine. A morning drunk walks on the ground like it might not hold him.
I’m catching the underground to Ostbahnhof to board the regional line down to Leipzig, a couple of hours from here. I sit on a green bench. I look at green tiles, breathe green air. Suddenly I don’t feel too good. I need to get to the surface quickly and make my way back up the stairs. At ground level Alexanderplatz is a monstrous expanse of grey concrete designed to make people feel small. It works.
It’s snowing outside. I move through the slush to where I know there are toilets. Like the train lines, these too are cut into the ground, but noone thought to connect them to the station they serve. As I go down the steps, the sick smell of antiseptic is overpowering.
A large woman in a purple apron and loud makeup stands at the bottom. She is leaning on a glass-paned counter guarding her stash of condoms and tissues and tampons. This is clearly a woman unafraid of the detritus of life. She has shiny smooth skin and many soft chins. She must be sixty-five.
‘Good morning,’ I say. I feel awkward. I’ve heard stories of German babies having their input in food and their output in faeces weighed, in some attempt to get the measure of life. I have always found this kind of motherly audience inappropriate. I use the toilet and come out and put a coin in her dish. It occurs to me that the purpose of disinfectant globules is to mask the smells of human bodies with something worse.
‘What’s it like up there?’ the toilet madam asks, nodding to the top of the steps.
‘Pretty cold.’ I adjust my little pack. ‘But not too bad, not too much black ice.’
‘This is nothing yet,’ she sniffs.
I don’t know if it’s a threat or a boast. This is what they call Berliner Schnauze—snout. It’s attitude: it’s in your face. I don’t want to stay here, but I don’t want to go up into the cold either. The disinfectant smell is so strong I can’t tell whether I am feeling sicker or better.
‘I’ve been here twenty-one years, since the winter of ’75. I’ve