Through Different Eyes
Copyright© 2023 by Iskander
Chapter 20
September 1969 – August 1970
I left the Munich University bookshop, walking into the sunshine of an Indian summer and stood, savouring the view. I’d seen photographs of the wrecked city of 1945 and today’s cityscape astonished me. Restoration work was not yet complete, but the careful blending of old and new delighted me. Mutti and I had lived amidst the concrete bleakness of Leipzig’s reconstruction under communism. Despite this, when we visited on our return, there had been a sense of people shaking off twenty years of restrictions, seeking a new identity. Willi’s remarks about the young people he had met on his visit to east Germany seemed almost prescient.
Where are you Willi? I tried searching for your doctor mother – but still nothing. Jennifer said you’d come looking for me...
Walking away from Mrs Henderson had meant walking away from my single remaining link to Willi. Reliving that decision caused emotion to slice through me. I needed the rhythm of movement to soothe me.
I strode for a tram, my textbook-loaded bag’s gentle thud on my hip helping me contain my inner turmoil. In our apartment, I started preparing tea with Imbi threading through my legs, purring happily. Aunt Anastasia’s money had allowed me to fly him here and he was settling in, although I expected he would find the upcoming winter challenging. With the shepherd’s pie in the oven, I sat with Imbi sleeping on my lap, glancing through my Russian textbook whilst at least half my mind gnawed at the fruitless search for Willi.
Always there, coiled like a serpent waiting to strike, was Mrs Henderson’s offer: acquiesce and Willi would be mine. Jennifer’s warning of what this would do to me had been stark. I would have to ignore it if I were to succumb to Mrs Henderson’s blandishments. The endless, self-destructive lies required for Mrs Henderson carried more weight than Jennifer’s warning.
I shuddered and forced myself to concentrate on the textbook. I had chosen Russian and Polish as my specialist languages for my undergraduate linguistics degree; English and French had tempted me, but it seemed most people from the old West Germany spoke English to some extent. Mutti had suggested that having deep knowledge of Russian and Polish would probably benefit me more in the job market after I graduated. But she’d smiled, advising me to keep my French and English going. The English would be easy: Mutti and I moved fluidly between English and German in our daily conversation. French was my weakest language. I wasn’t sure how I would keep that going, let alone improve it until Mutti pointed out that France was less than four hundred kilometres from Munich. In the meantime, there were always books and newspapers.
Should I learn to drive and get a car as Alicia suggested?
Mutti opening our apartment door roused me. I carefully placed Imbi on the sofa and greeted Mutti with a hug. “How’s it going?”
Mutti smiled as she hung up the coat she’d had draped over her arm. “I’m still in the orientation and training program, but it’s feeling less bizarre to be working for the security services here in the west.”
I had felt some of that oddness, too, when Mutti told me she’d been offered a job as an analyst/translator for the security service.
Our return to a reunited Germany had been simple. Mutti joined me in London and after a few days, we flew to Berlin as tourists on our British passports. From there, we caught a train to Leipzig. But the day after we arrived there, a man and a woman from the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND)– the Federal Intelligence Service – knocked on our hotel room door before breakfast. We think it was thanks to a tip off from Mrs Henderson, but don’t know for sure. The BND agents knew our real identities and asked us – politely – to accompany them to the local BND office. We had two days of – well, let’s call it interrogation. It was civilised compared to the grilling British security had given us after we defected. They let us return to our hotel that first night, although Mutti suspects they were watching to see if we would try to abscond. Late on the second afternoon, they gave us new German identity cards in our original names. They suggested we surrender our British passports. I pointed out that I had significant assets in Australia tied to my British identity and could not abandon it – at least not yet. In the end, we both kept our British passports on the understanding we returned them ‘soon’. We kept our now useless east German identity cards.
One question of interest sat on both sides of the interrogation table: the whereabouts of my father. He had ‘dropped off the BND’s radar’.
Their interest confused me. “Why are you looking for him? Has he committed a crime?”
The two agents shared a brief sideways glance.
“There are some ... issues ... from his time during Nazi rule when he was in the Orpo that we wish to discuss with him. Then there are his more recent activities in the Stasi, particularly at Leipzig Prison.”
Mutti sighed. “You have the evidence that I assembled about his wartime activities?”
There was another sideways glance between our interrogators. “We have evidence provided by MI6.”
Mrs Henderson was trying to take credit for Mutti’s careful work.
“Mutti assembled the evidence.” My voice was angry. Mutti’s hand grasped my arm, trying to restrain me. I frowned at her. “No, you did the work and you should get the credit.”
I turned to the female agent. “Mutti left the evidence hidden in Leipzig when we defected. It was our insurance if they captured us. MI6 had it smuggled out – unwittingly – by my English friend when he visited east Germany in 1964.”
“I see.” She looked at Mutti. “Thank you for that work.” Her eyes flicked between the two of us for a second. “And what do you know about his activities at Leipzig Prison?”
I shrugged and looked at Mutti.
She glanced across the table and turned towards me. Her lips worked, finding the words. “As part of his duties with the Stasi, I ... think ... your father was involved with interrogations and ... executions there.”
I could see the pain in her eyes.
“Leipzig Prison was where all the executions took place in the DDR.” Her voice became harder. “They executed many for the crimes they committed under Nazi rule.” Her hand grasped mine and her voice dropped. “But they executed political prisoners as well.”
The man leant forward. “You knew of his activities there?” There was an accusatory undertone in his voice.
“Knew?” Mutti shook her head. “No.” Her hand tightened on mine. “But I linked some of his absences with announcements of executions.”
There was silence from the other side of the table.
Mutti’s face was grim. “It seems he had a ... taste ... for participating in such activities.”
Was this what had caused my interrogator’s strange reaction to something in my file when we defected? What did his disappearance mean? Was he dead? MI6 didn’t think so.
“Col? Col? Hello?
I shook myself into the present. “Sorry, Mutti. I was miles away.”
Her hand stroked my face. “Is everything all right?”
I sighed. “I was thinking about father.”
We shared a worried look before Mutti turned away. “Let’s have tea.”
As I lay in bed with Imbi purring beside me, the large portrait of Willi graced the wall. His eyes engaged mine as they did most nights.
Was he trying to find me? Thanks to Mr Wallis, I knew he was still alive ... somewhere.
When classes started, I found the language studies easy, but the linguistics part was almost philosophical. Within both the Russian and Polish contexts, the hand of the Soviet state had played a significant and, according to some of my lecturers and tutors, sinister role. According to them, it had warped the language to political and social ends. An academic war was playing out between several professors, with a desire for vengeance underlying the academic discussions.
That seeking for retribution for crimes committed by the east German regime and its organs of power like the Stasi played out in the wider society. Frustrations were building. The government insisted on applying the letter of the law, which resulted in a glacial slowness in dealing with what many saw as criminal oppression by the east German regime. Senior members of the east Germany regime were being investigated, but run-of-the-mill informants and Stasi officers seemed immune.
Was my father ‘run-of-the-mill’? He had Nazi war crimes to answer for as well.
As weeks passed, Mutti and I established the rhythms and rituals of our new lives. I swam in the university aquatic centre and every morning I ran in nearby Sendlinger Park as temperatures fell through Autumn. I wondered how I would cope with running in the snow.
Autumn finally shuddered into the freezing arms of winter. Mutti and I were now used to Brisbane, where winter temperatures rarely fell to ten degrees Celsius; we both felt the bite of Munich’s winter. Imbi went joyously berserk in the first snow on our balcony, leaping, rolling and lashing the powdery snow into the air with his tail. When he finally came inside, his paws clattered on the floor tiles from the ice that had frozen on them. He sat for some time, chewing it out. Mutti and I survived outside in warm coats, woollen leggings, hats, scarves and thick gloves. Thankfully, our apartment had central heating and Imbi frequently sprawled in sybaritic pleasure on the shelves above the radiators. My runs in the park stopped with the snow after a single slippery attempt. I resorted to going into the university early to swim for longer.
My fellow students regarded me as an oddball. I was by nature solitary and studious. I did not participate in their undergraduate frivolity nor engage in the seemingly endless political discussions. To make matters worse, I didn’t have a boyfriend and had rebuffed the few approaches I had received. After that, I noticed a few girls giving me interesting, covert looks.
I missed Lizzie. I stayed in touch with her, exchanging letters every few weeks. She was trying to persuade her parents to let her visit Munich for Christmas. Her mother was proving difficult, but Lizzie was working on her father.
My life in Australia still called for my attention: I had Aunt Anastasia’s inheritance to manage, however loosely. Now I was in Europe, that presented a problem: I was unlikely to return to Australia – at least to live.
Should I sell up and move the money here?
I had people I trusted looking after things in Australia and I had no-one like that here.
I’d need to work on this.
Then there was Aunt Anastasia’s bequest to the Russian Club. Extricating myself in a way that honoured Aunt Anastasia’s intentions would be hard. There had been letters going back and forth, but it was difficult to manage at a distance and that was not what Aunt Anastasia would want.
I arranged driving lessons and, much to my delight, passed my driving test in late October. I wanted to buy an E-Type Jaguar but baulked at the cost and the cost of insurance. Instead, I found myself a low mileage VW Karmann Ghia. Mutti talked me out of buying a soft top when she pointed out it would be cold in winter. With this freedom, I could spend several weekends in France before Christmas, keeping my French language skills alive. Mutti had never learned to drive and was quite happy with public transport around the city.
In late November, Mutti finished her orientation and started working as a translator/analyst at the BND. Once teaching ended before Christmas, I headed to Luban by train for a long weekend. I wanted to take photographs of what had been Mrs Jaworski’s hometown in repayment for all the kindness she had shown me. The Nazis had fought over it as the Russians advanced towards Berlin, but much of the old town remained. I shot off a roll of colour film and chose about a dozen of the best which I sent to Mrs Jaworski, care of the Polish Club in Brisbane as I didn’t have her address.
Lizzie’s mother refused to let her visit. I know they could afford the airfare – I suspected she did not want her daughter so far beyond her control. The student Christmas parties did not entice me – Christmas evoked mixed emotions, many of them sad. A day or two after a quiet Christmas, I asked Mutti if there had been any news of father.
She came and sat beside me on the sofa. “Liebling, if I heard anything, I would let you know.”
“Would the BND tell you if they heard anything?”
Mutti looked away for a moment. “Yes, I think they would. I’ve told them he holds grudges and would come after me if he could.”
“We won’t be safe until he’s locked up.”
Mutti stared at her hands before looking up. “I understand, Liebling, but you can’t spend your life like that. If he’s out there, the BND will find him.”
Mutti’s arm crept round my shoulder. There was nothing I could do about father; I leant my head against Mutti’s shoulder, drawing solace from the love we shared.
Once the snow melted, I resumed my early morning runs in the park, though it was still dark. There were occasional streetlights and I knew the paths. When I let my running habit slip in conversation at university, the other girls were horrified, giving me all sorts of dire warnings about rape. I hadn’t considered that and resolved to be more aware of my surroundings as I ran, but kept the morning runs going.
I was planning to spend the Easter long weekend in France to help keep my French up to scratch. Mutti decided to come, too. An immersive weekend would help boost her French language skills. The weekend before Easter, Mutti and I headed into the centre of Munich for some quality browsing at the Karstadt department store. Neither of us needed anything, but looking is always fun. We spent several hours viewing and commenting on the Spring fashions. I saw some beautiful clothes, but I didn’t have a good reason to buy anything; I hadn’t had another opportunity to wear the outfit I’d purchased for the Nowak’s New Year’s party at the car showroom in Herne Bay. Alicia had sent me an invitation for this year’s party, but I’d declined as flying to England for a party seemed self-indulgent. I had invited her to visit me in Munich – and sent her a picture of my car, which she liked. Mutti and I ended our visit trying fragrances and looking at makeup, something that I had a minimal interest in, despite Michelle’s endeavours in Brisbane.
We walked out into a squally Spring shower, pausing in the doorway’s shelter. People were hurrying past, battling recalcitrant umbrellas in the gusty wind. We fastened our coats and stepped out, turning left for the trams.
Right in front of us was my father – Axel Schmidt.
His gaze was predatory. I froze. He pulled his right hand from a pocket. It was holding a pistol, which he levelled at us. “Goodbye Frida, Col.”
I heard someone shouting and father’s eyes flicked past me. Mutti pushed me sideways and I heard several shots. She landed in front of me as the glass display window beside us collapsed in a cascade of glass shards. There were more shots. More glass and a display mannequin fell on us. I heard people screaming.
“Stay down.” A man with the pistol was pointing it at someone on the ground past us.
I shifted carefully, conscious of the glass all over us. There was an indistinct shout and another shot, its sound shaking out more glass from the window.
“Stay down.” A different voice growled at me from behind me.
After a few seconds, the first man walked into view, a pistol in each hand. “He’s dead.”
A gloved hand started brushing glass off Mutti and I realised blood was pooling beside her head.
“Mutti.” I screamed, scrambling towards her through the glass.
A hand grabbed my coat collar and hauled me to my feet, depositing me inside the store. “Stay there.”
I tried to push past him. “Mutti.”
He pushed me into the crowd gathered in the store’s entrance. “Hold her.”
Arms went round me, turning me.
“She’s bleeding.” Hands grasped my wrists, turning them palm up.
Confused, I looked down and pain blossomed. Blood was dripping from several deep cuts in my hands – some showing slivers of glass.
A chair appeared and hands guided me onto it. In the distance, I could hear sirens as someone wound a cloth round my hands, staunching the blood.
“She’s cut her knees, too.”
They pressed more cloths to my knees and I hissed in pain. The people around me were a blur.
What’s happened to Mutti?
A man pushed through the crowd. “Give her some air.” He crouched in front of me, staring into my eyes. “Your mother’s hurt, but alive. The ambulance is on its way.”
I tried to stand and get to Mutti, but hands pressed on my shoulders. “Stay here. Help is coming.”
Sirens howled close by and moaned to a stop. The crouching man stood and moved people away, then crunched through the glass in the entryway. I could see Mutti’s feet, but the surrounding people blocked my view. Shortly after, they lifted her onto a stretcher and disappeared.
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