He’d meant it as a joke but Gerlinde, it appeared, took the suggestion with all seriousness and was already walking across the room, her steps resolute and loud against the music playing softly in the background. Her voice was just as loud and sure of itself when she addressed the GIs after a well-mannered, excuse me, Sir.
“My friend and I were wondering why we haven’t had elections in Berlin yet? The people of the American Zone just had theirs.”
The room fell suddenly silent. From the Americans, two beaming smiles. “You want the elections?”
“I consider it would only be fair if we had our say as well. As of now, it appears as though the opinion of Berliners doesn’t particularly count for anything even though we do fall under your jurisdiction and deserve to exercise our right for free elections as your Military Government had initially promised.”
The cut-glass English accent and the confident look in her eyes produced the desired effect. The Americans threw themselves on their new poster child, interrupting each other and offering simultaneous explanations and assurances that Berliners would definitely have their elections as soon as the city occupation forces’ affairs were sorted with the Soviets; that they were delighted to learn that the new generation was so eager to demand their voting rights even though their particular age group weren’t allowed to vote just yet but next year – then, it was definite and she mustn’t worry—
Tadek hid his grin behind the paper cup of hot cocoa. Gerlinde took the mandatory offering of chocolate (democracy – good), handed it to some youngster drowning in a much-too-big coat and took her place next to Tadek once again. “They said, later this year. Something to do with the Russians. After they sort it out, we’ll have our own city elections here.”
He didn’t know what moved him but, on the spot, he confessed that Morris was working on an American visa for him. Gerlinde gave him a long wistful look but nodded her acceptance and declared that he would be better off there.
“You have no one in Poland anyway, do you?”
“No.”
“Any property?”
“It’s all Soviet property now.”
“Then, go.”
“Not at once. I still have—”
He stopped himself but it was much too late. She saw that, unfinished business, written loud and clear in his eyes.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she said softly. “I don’t think Morris will rush you.”
“I have to take my exams next summer anyway.”
“Yes.”
“And I would miss Erich and you.”
“Yes.”
The name of her father hung in the air between them, transparent yet thoroughly ignored by both parties. With a stone in the pit of his stomach, Tadek realized that it would always be there, a barrier, invisible, like the Soviet demarcation line, yet treacherous and deathly; a silent promise and a silent threat, all wrapped into one.
The bus was stuffed and thick with breath but Erich’s former comrade from the Wehrmacht had just made it back to Berlin from the camp in the French zone and Erich would be damned if he didn’t greet him properly and clap him on his bony back, like in the good old times. He chattered incessantly and pressed the box, in brown wrapping paper, to his chest.
“Sardines and coffee. Four packs of cigarettes and lemons,” he recited its contents to his companions. “A bar of soap. A very good wrist-watch I found clearing the rubble last summer – the Soviets trade them on the black market for just about anything. He’ll buy himself and his Mutti whatever he wants. His mother was in the Frauenschaft – a muss-Nazi, joined just for the sake of the benefits but who now cares? Ration card category five and that’s that. Eat your own shoe soles, if you want to survive.”
“Someone did,” a woman’s voice chimed in from somewhere behind Gerlinde’s back. The bus was much too packed to allow any privacy and Berlin was hungry not only for food but for news and for gossip as well. “In Leningrad, during the blockade. People boiled their belts and shoe soles and ate the soup.”
“What nonsense! Whoever told you such a thing?” a man’s voice boomed from somewhere further back.
“My sister and her mother-in-law live in the Soviet sector. The Soviets told them. They saw the films, too, the documentary ones. Frozen corpses lined up on the streets of Leningrad. Hundreds of them. Starving children…”
“Mhm. Just like the ones about the concentration camps they showed at Nuremberg and here, until they were blue in the face. Hollywood nonsense.”
“Someone ought to report you for what you’re saying!”
“I’m only saying what everyone else is thinking.”
The entire bus was suddenly in an uproar. Tadek stared at the faces around him, each screaming their own truth about what precisely had happened and who was at fault and what ought to have been done to prevent it and why they were being punished now – justly—
“Not in the slightest! Victors’ justice! A ridicule!”
“The Jews have suffered—”
“And we didn’t? Incendiary bombs! Forgotten already?”
“Justified!”
“Un-justified!”
“We started it!”
“They started it with Versailles!”
Amid the shouting and shoving, Gerlinde stared at Tadek and only at him. In her Krupp-steel eyes, the fire was raging. Tell them! Tell them at once! Why are you silent? You’ve been there, you are the living proof! Tell them or I will…
The bus swayed to one side as it took a sharp turn and he, thrown against her body, could almost hear himself whispering in her ear a miserable and frightened, “please, don’t.”
The stop was announced. It wasn’t theirs but Gerlinde was already shoving her way out of the crowd with her elbows. In the doors, she swung round and clasped them with her gloved hands, her foot wedged firmly on the first step to prevent the driver from closing it.
“You know nothing at all, you miserable herd! People did die and they died in the millions! We, our own armies and government agencies and whatnot; it was us, who did it! My own
