Stasiland_ Stories From Behind the Berlin Wall - Anna Funder [109]
Herr Bohnsack kept coming back. It took nearly three years until noone was aggressive any more. ‘But there were no hangings or attempts or anything. In fact I was relieved, really, that the people reacted so sensibly.’
But the drinkers were not the only public. Herr Bohnsack got wind that a magazine, Die Linke, had managed to obtain a disk containing the names of the top-paid 20,000 Stasi employees and was about to publish it. He knew everyone would read it, find his name and address on the list and feel whatever they would feel—contempt, hatred, or self-righteousness. He knew there was only one thing for him to do. ‘I would out myself before I was outed.’
He called Der Spiegel, the famous West German news magazine, and arranged to tell them everything. ‘I really pulled my pants down, as they say,’ he says. ‘When I got the edition in my hand I felt sick. There was a photo and everything. I mean, when you are silent and you lie for twenty-six years and then all of a sudden you see yourself in a magazine, it was really…’ He pauses again. ‘I have to say it was a bit strange for me here,’ he pats his heart.
Hardly any of his former colleagues will talk about what they used to do. It is almost a sort of omerta, a code of honour that rules them. He tells me that they still meet in groups according to rank, or at birthdays and funerals. A general who remains on speaking terms with him told him that at a recent seventieth birthday, proceedings were run like a divisional meeting from the old days. There was an agenda and the men went through it item by item. It consisted mainly of passing around clippings or reporting on television programs against the Stasi. It was as if the old Stasi leaders have now found a new enemy: the media.
And Herr Bohnsack is a traitor because he went to them with his story. After he outed himself he got death threats over the phone. ‘You arsehole, how low can you go,’ and these sorts of things, he says. The calls were anonymous, but sometimes he recognised the voice. A general rang him up from a pub. ‘He said, “You motherfucker, that’s enough, your time will come.” Then he started screaming “Stop it! Stop it!” until people took him away from the phone.’
The calls have stopped now. ‘I was never frightened,’ Bohnsack says. ‘I mean I used to check my car to see if it had been tampered with, but there’s not much point doing that because if they’re any good they do it so as you can’t tell.’
I ask him who his friends are now.
‘Well, I have none,’ he says, nodding to the publican for more. He looks at me with shiny, anaesthetised eyes. ‘I’ve fallen between two stools, you might say.’
At 3 am there’s a phone call. This time it’s not Klaus. It’s home. They have found four tumours in my young mother’s head, secondaries from a cancer we had all dared to hope was gone. She says on the phone, ‘Je suis foutu, je suis foutu.’ Later what they did to her affected, for a time, her speech—and she a woman of such elegant and slicing language. But at that moment only the French would do, and she knew she was foutu.
Uwe is, unsurprisingly, all kindness. He helps me pack at the apartment, gathering up books and tapes and stray socks covered in dust. I am grateful for his sympathy, and more for the way he ignores, at the right moments, my distress. ‘We’ll take you to the airport if you like,’ he says.
‘Thank you.’ All my reactions feel unreal, slow and underwater. ‘We?’
‘Frederica and me. You know Frederica. From the Spanish translation section.’
‘Yes,’ I lie.
I call Miriam, but I know that it’s a formality. I’m not even hoping that I’ll get a live voice on the line. ‘Hi Miriam. I hope you’re well—we seem to be missing each other a lot! My time here is up, and I’m going home.’ It strikes me, suddenly, as obscene to be saying that my time is up. I think of saying ‘I’ll be back’ but that might be the last thing she wants to hear. The tape is rolling—it will stretch my silence to an embarrassing length. I’d like to say something casual and ironic to cover things here, but my German doesn’t reliably