Chapter 19

Mid-April 1964 – September 1964

My mother closed the door behind us. “Go and unpack your bags, Will. Bring your dirty washing down and we’ll get it done tomorrow.”

“Okay. Can I ring Col to let him know I’m home safely?”

“Of course.”

I talked with Col and arranged to go round in the morning. She told me my postcard from West Berlin had arrived safely and she’d been seeing Lili most days while I was away.

Once in my room, I unpacked my case. The blue and yellow FDJ poster was wrinkled and I hoped it would flatten satisfactorily. Its bold yellow and blue colours would make a fetching addition to my room. I gathered my dirty washing and carried it back downstairs. When I mentioned the wrinkled poster to my mother, she suggested I try ironing it with a cool iron; I retrieved it from my bedroom and smoothed the wrinkles, removing almost all trace of them. I’d have to investigate getting it properly framed – perhaps Lili would know somewhere.

Once we had cleared up supper, I excused myself as I was feeling tired. Lying in bed, I tried to work out what – if any – were the implications of Mr. Watling using me as a courier. I puzzled over this for a while, coming up with all sorts of strange theories. But what it would mean for Mutti Frida now the evidence she had gathered was with British Intelligence?

Would they leave her alone or would they come up with some further plan to involve her? And what would this mean for Col?

With my mind gnawing at this, I tossed and turned myself to sleep.

*

After breakfast, I walked round to see Col. As soon as the front door closed behind me, she flung herself into my arms. We hugged and tears dampened my neck. After a minute, she pulled back. “Oh, Willi. You’re home safely.” She wiped her cheek and sniffed, laughing at herself. “Come in and tell me all about it.”

She pulled me into the kitchen where Mutti Frida was making coffee.

“Milk and cake, Willi?” she asked.

The aroma of coffee tantalised me. “Could I try some coffee, please?”

“Coffee?” Mutti Frida’s surprise was evident in her voice.

I explained how I had inadvertently picked up a cup of coffee in Leipzig and its aroma was enticing but it had tasted awful. The aroma of Mutti Frida’s coffee was even better.

“OK, Willi.” She poured me a small cup from the coffee pot on the stove: strong, dark and bitter – good, but not up to Melbourne espresso standards.

Col saw my appreciative smile and picked up my cup, taking a sip. “Ugh.” She shuddered with disgust.

I smiled at Mutti Frida. “I like it.”

Mutti Frida put slices of Mr Searle’s fruit cake on the table. “Tell us all about your trip, Willi.” She settled on her chair, sipping her coffee.

I knew this would be difficult for them. “In Leipzig, I met Oberstleutnant Schmidt.” Both of them paled. “We were at a reception and I didn’t realise he was there until I was being introduced to him.”

Their eyes held fear there but something else – suspicion? Of me?

“We talked for about a minute about my essay and the University – nothing else.” Their eyes were still drilling into mine. “And then he moved on.”

The silence dragged on before Mutti Frida shook her head. “Willi. You surprised me,” she said, and caught Col’s eye. “Us.”

Col recognised my uncertainty and reached for my hand. “Willi, I know you would not betray us.”

“Thank you.” I gave Col’s had a squeeze. “I also met Mr. Watling.”

Mutti Frida was puzzled. “In Germany?”

I shook my head. “No – on the train, yesterday.”

“Why would he want to meet you?”

“He was at the station when I left – but I didn’t know who he was. Then he sat down opposite me on the train down from London. I think my whole trip was ‘arranged’ by Mr. Watling and British security.”

“What makes you think that?” Mutti Frida’s voice held some disbelief.

“He told me they watched me in east Germany. I didn’t know, but I was bringing back a package of papers for them.” I reached across, taking Mutti Frida’s hand. “I think it was your evidence against your husband. It was hidden in a false bottom of my duffel bag.”

“It’s here? You have it?”

“I’m afraid not. I didn’t know I had it until Mr Watling told me about it and then he took it.”

Mutti Frida’s gaze was intense. “It was my evidence?”

“There were papers in the old script with a Nazi crest. Mr. Watling wouldn’t tell me what the papers were, but when I suggested they were your evidence, he was ... uncomfortable and didn’t deny it.”

“You think British Intelligence set this up so you could be a courier?” Col was disbelieving. “They somehow arranged for a prize winner to withdraw and for you to be offered the prize instead?”

“I don’t know, but it fits the facts.”

Mutti Frida’s face was pinched. “They were playing a dangerous game. What if you’d slipped up and revealed you knew us?” She paused, her mouth working. “I’ll have some hard words with Mr Watling the next time I see him.”

“No, you can’t.” I jumped in. “He told me not to tell anyone.”

Mutti Frida shook her head. “I’ll have to see what he tells me the next time we talk.” She let out a sigh of frustration and then turned to me. “Now, Willi, tell us all about your trip.”

Col smiled. “How was your first flight in an aeroplane?”

“Fantastic – apart from Ginnie getting sick.”

Col inclined her head and her eyes showed a dangerous glint. “Who’s Ginnie?”

I kept a straight face. “She’s an attractive red-headed girl I sat with for most of the trip.”

Col tensed and then I smiled. “Col. She’s much older than me, in her final year of high school and lives in Devon.”

Mutti Frida’s eyes were full of humour and she chuckled at Col’s reaction.

“I think you’d like her, Col. She wants to be a doctor.” I took a sip of my coffee. “She learned German from the wife of a German POW who stayed in England after the war, working on her parents’ dairy farm.”

Col relaxed. She leaned across and punched me on the arm, realising she had been had.

“Ouch.” I rubbed my arm, pretending she’d hit me hard – and then smiled. “Ginnie was quite nervous on the plane. I tried to help her, but her nerves got to her and she was air sick when she tried to eat lunch.”

“Oh, the poor girl,” Col empathised.

“She was fine once we landed – and we went for a walk in the Tiergarten for some fresh air once we got to our hotel.”

“Was she sick again on the flight home?”

“No. I think the trip has helped her self-confidence a heap. She had to make a number of speeches as she was the only girl.”

“How many of you were there?” Mutti Frida asked.

“There were two chaperones – a man and a woman – and five prize winners. I was much the youngest. We were hosted everywhere by the FDJ – and I got to meet a Polish delegation in Leipzig, too.”

Mutti Frida stood up. “Well, I must get lunch together – Lili’s going to join us. Why don’t you two go and sit in the lounge room and talk so you’re not under my feet?”

Col and I snuggled together on the couch, revelling in the closeness after two weeks apart. There were few words, but lots of kisses.

After a while, Col whispered, “When are we talking with Mutti about our promise?”

I was conscious of the beautiful girl I was snuggled up with. “Perhaps we need to talk about this when we’re alone. You need to be sure, then we can talk to her.”

“I’m already sure.” Col found a way to snuggle closer and leaned in to give me a kiss, her tongue sliding over my lips.

“Well, perhaps we should talk about the things we can do that won’t break our promise to her.”

Col’s eyes rested on mine but Lili’s knock on the door halted our conversation. Col’s face showed frustration as she got up to let Lili in.

We chatted about my trip until lunchtime. Unsurprisingly, Lili was interested in what the Pole had told me about the views of Polish youth and that of course led to my meeting with Col’s father. Mutti Frida called us in for lunch and I realised it was Monday, and Mutti Frida should have been at work.

“I arranged to take the day off, Willi.” She smiled. “I wanted to welcome you home and hear about your trip.”

Lili grabbed my hand. “Oh, Willi. My mother wants to invite you to dinner at our house on Wednesday evening – you too, Col and Frau Schmidt. She wants to hear all about your trip, Willi.”

Col caught my frown and elbowed me. “You’re surprised? After all the effort she put in to get you to go?”

I huffed, remembering the worry Mrs Wiśniewski had caused with the photographer and articles in the paper. “I suppose not, but I’ll have to ask my mother.”

“It’s early closing on Wednesdays,” Mutti Frida reminded us. “We can walk down together from here. Will you spend Wednesday night here, Willi?”

“I’ll speak to my mother and let you know tomorrow, Mutti Frida. Is that okay, Lili?”

She nodded.

We spent the afternoon chatting and playing cards before Lili left to be back for tea.

At home, I asked my mother about having dinner at Lili’s on Wednesday night and staying over with Col afterwards.

“You’ve been away for two weeks, Will. It would be nice if you spent some time at home.”

“I’m home now – and you’ll have surgery on Wednesday, anyway.”

My mother gave her head a resigned shake. “Okay, Will.”

The following morning, I walked round to Col’s house. Mutti Frida would not be there and we could talk. Col was waiting for me as the door opened before I could knock. She led me into the lounge room, and we sat on the couch.

She leaned in and we kissed for a while before she leaned back, a slight blush on her face. “Are you going to tell me about these things we can do ... things that won’t get me pregnant?” The blush had deepened but her eyes were shining with desire. Even in the boys’ clothes she was wearing, she was gorgeous.

“Perhaps talking is not the right way to go about this.”

I slid my hand up her arm and caressed her neck. She leaned into my hand, rubbing her cheek against it in feline enjoyment of the sensuous touch. After a while of mutual exploration, she pulled back.

“Oh.” Her eyes were languorous beneath those long eyelashes and she stretched, sinuously. “I think we’d better stop for now.”

I kissed her nose. “You’re in charge, liebling.”

We spent most of the day close together on the couch, reading and later in another gentle exploration, leaving us both breathing heavily. The following morning was filled with similar wondrous explorations – and we had yet to remove any clothing. Now the dark threat posed by my trip to east Germany was past, we both felt there was plenty of time for us, plenty of time for a slow exploration.

After we sat in companionable silence for a while, Col shifted in my arms. “Do you think it will take twenty-five years this time?”

I stared at her in confusion. “What will take twenty-five years?”

“For the Wall to come down. For the Soviet empire to collapse.”

“Oh. I don’t know.”

Col swivelled on my lap, her eyes boring into mine. “Why not? Isn’t it different this time? Can’t you tell?”

“I don’t know, Col. I’m sorry – I have no knowledge of what it was like in east Germany in my previous life. I didn’t visit, meet and talk with young people. I have no way to make a comparison.”

Col shook her head in frustration. “I don’t want to spend the next twenty-five years in hiding, pretending to be a boy.”

“There have been some differences – you know as we’ve talked about them. But I don’t know what effect they’ll have.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Perhaps the collapse will happen sooner, perhaps later. I don’t know.”

Col closed her eyes and slumped back, leaning against me. “We have to find a way to end the hiding, then.”

“I have no idea how, Col ... perhaps Mutti Frida can talk to Mr Watling about it?”

We sat for a while; our mood darkened by the situation Col was in.

“Come on, Col.” I pulled her to her feet. “Let’s go for a walk, we need some fresh air.”

Mutti Frida arrived home soon after we got back from a wander along the cliff tops and we sat down for lunch together.

Col glanced across at her mother. “Mutti, we need to ask Mr Watling if we need to keep hiding.”

“Why’s it so important, Col?”

“I want to stop being a boy. I want to be a girl again.” I could hear the frustration in her voice.

Mutti Frida nodded in understanding. “I know, Col, but we need to be safe. Safety comes first.”

“No, Mutti.” Col leapt on to her mother’s commitment to safety. “I want you to ask him. I’m fed up with pretending to be a boy, which is getting difficult.” Her voice was sharp. “I want to be a girl.”

Mutti Frida sighed. “I understand, Col. I’ll ask him – and I’ll point out the difficulties we are going to have if you stay a boy.”

Later, I changed into the smarter clothes I had brought with me while Mutti Frida and Col readied themselves. Then we walked into town as a quiet dusk settled over the sea at the foot of the Downs.

Lili ushered us into Mrs Wiśniewski’s elegant drawing-room.

“So, Willi,” Mrs Wiśniewski said, after we had settled into our chairs. “How was east Germany?”

She had caused such heartache I thought I’d tease her. “I enjoyed it.” Mrs Wiśniewski stiffened. “The people we were with were like us – and friendly.”

Mrs Wiśniewski frowned. “Friendly?”

“Yes. The FDJ escorted us around Berlin, Dresden and Leipzig, showing us the sights and talking to us about their country. They are like us.”

Mrs Wiśniewski blinked. This was not what she was expecting – or wanting – to hear. Then she gathered herself. “But Willi, I told you to read behind their words. Didn’t you do that?”

She was becoming irritated.

Time to let her know what I had heard and surmised.

“Oh, yes. I did indeed.” I told them about Fräulein Hartmann’s late arrival and Major Koch’s irritation and then about the incident in the Augustusplatz when I had attempted to visit Bach’s church. Mrs Wiśniewski nodded as this agreed with her expectations.

“They kept you under quite a close watch, then?” Mutti Frida asked.

“Yes ... but I didn’t notice it until I tried to visit Thomaskirche in Leipzig. I think Fräulein Hartmann was most concerned about how her bosses would view her if I went off unsupervised.” I peered across at Mrs Wiśniewski. “We went everywhere as a group – except when we were at the FDJ camp, helping to bring it out of winter hibernation where we worked in pairs, one of us with one FDJ member.”

“How long did you spend at the camp?” Lili asked.

“We were there for two nights. During the day we were working hard, opening the camp for the summer, but in the evening, we sat around a fire outside in the forest, talking and singing songs.” I smiled at the memory.

Mrs Wiśniewski was still on her hobby horse. “And they told you how wonderful their society was, I suppose.”

I thought about it for a moment. “That’s not the impression I came away with.”

Mrs Wiśniewski blinked and shifted in her chair, but I did not give her a chance to interject.

“Outside of Berlin, all the FDJ people I talked with were viewing their society in a critical way. They knew something about the west beyond the Soviet propaganda and did not want a society like ours, but they felt their society needed to change, to become open and modern.”

Mutti Frida and Col were both leaning in, fascinated by what I was telling them.

“You think the young people are going to be able to change things?” Col asked.

“Perhaps.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. Berlin’s control seems strong. Outside Berlin, they want to change – and it is wider than east Germany. In Leipzig I met some Poles, well one young man, and he felt the same way.”

An awful thought occurred to me. “Please, you must not talk about this. If word got back to east Germany, the Stasi would be able to track down the people we met and cause them problems. It would be the same in Poland, I expect.”

Mrs Wisnieski nodded. “The Polish government has the Urząd Bezpieczeństwa, the Security Service. They are like the Stasi and KGB.” She gave me a friendly smile. “Willi. Thank you for your information.” She stood up, smiling. “Now, let us eat.”

We had a pleasant meal chatting about school and our plans for the summer. It seemed the Wiśniewski family planned to spend two weeks in the south of France late in July. Col and I had no plans, it seemed, except a shared glance held promise of shared time together.

Once back in Col’s house, drinking hot chocolate at the kitchen table, Mutti Frida quizzed me. “You saw a difference between the youth in Berlin and out in Dresden and Leipzig?”

I thought about it for a moment. “Well, the FDJ in Berlin were, I think, part of the central organisation – I don’t know, but they came across like leaders. I don’t think it gave them leeway to say anything except the party line.” I gave her a wry smile. “There were adults around all the time in Berlin.”

“But outside Berlin?”

“It was not something you could point to – but there was not this strict adherence to whatever the party line might be. They were prepared to question and think for themselves about the answers.” I stopped for a moment, trying to put my feelings into words. “I think the Berlin FDJ would be like that too, if they felt safe.”

“And the Poles you met were questioning things too?”

I shrugged. “I talked with one – a trainee electrical technician from Gdansk – but he felt the society in Poland needed to change.” As I thought about this, everything I had seen and heard fell quietly into place, the jigsaw pieces assembling themselves in my head.

“None of them wanted revolution, to overthrow the current socialist order, but they all want to make it softer ... able to grow.” The jigsaw pieces were adopting a clearer pattern. “The society they want is definitely socialist – they did not like what they knew of the West, with its privileged class exploiting everyone else.”

“That’s not true in England.” Col interjected.

I raised my eyebrows at her. “No, it is an exaggeration – but it is an exaggeration of a truth. There is a privileged class here in England and the ordinary English worker is exploited to a lesser or greater extent, it’s why people join trade unions, why there is a Labour Party.”

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