for miles. Soon it’s joined by others, by chimes from church bells all around, near and far. Ramona untangles her arm from the rope when she’s done, but the echo continues long after it has any right to.
Here’s the thing: it’s no echo, and it’s not Christmas. It’s the middle of August. It’d better not be World War III.
In the languid state that follows the ecstasy, thinking doesn’t come naturally. It takes its sweet time, and only now do the lovers start to worry about what they’ve started. Church bells haven’t been heard for months and years. Good socialists don’t need God — religion is too decadent, too addictive. What if the villagers find them here, half naked, bathed in lustful perspiration, happy and exhausted?
It’s too late to run. People are already gathering outside, curious about the racket. What will the Party do to them? Brand them class enemies? Send them to Siberia?
Worse?
But then comes the miracle. Lady Luck is with the lovers tonight — her timing impossible to improve on. A courier arrives from Delitzsch with news. He’s a busybody who’s not supposed to say anything until the next morning, but when he sees all the people and hears the church bells all around he can’t keep his trap shut, spurts out the news that rocks the entire nation to its foundation.
August the thirteenth is the day that the right and honourable Leadership, the SED, the Party, erects a Wall around the country, a Wall to keep the others out, capitalists and carpetbaggers who come over, buy our produce cheaply and resell it for a huge margin in West Berlin. Thanks to the Party we have the Wall. Thanks to the Wall, the West will take us seriously now and the profiteers, the exploiters, can no longer exploit us, can no longer profiteer from us.
They are locked out for good.
For a moment there is silence around the old church. Then the questions begin and the lovers mingle with the crowd, make their getaway unseen.
‘And us? Are we locked in?’
‘We are safe from the capitalist-imperialists, and now stop asking questions.’
It was a conversation oft repeated in seventeen million minds in the days and months and years following the day, August 13, 1961.
Yes, we are safe from them.
But are we safe from ourselves?
*
Karl opens his eyes. Something has brought him out of his state, back to this room.
Is he really safe here, safe from himself at least? Has he likewise built a wall around himself to shield against the outside when the real danger is – and has been always – inside?
And about the anguish, when did that start? He doesn’t remember feeling it in August 1961. But hey, wait a minute. He felt it earlier than that, around this tenth birthday. Mum – Mamochka – drunk again, repeating some slogan or other like a scratched record, over and over. She got like this whenever lovers jilted her, and sometimes when they didn’t. Sometimes it took nothing to trigger it, or almost nothing. Sometimes seeing Karl’s reflection in the mirror sufficed to set her off.
He never knew whether she would push him away or shower him with affection. The latter happened rarely, was precious beyond compare even when her breath stank of booze, she slurred her words and her cough became an endless hacking.
No, let’s focus on the good. Horny is good; focus on horny. Let’s remember Ramona, her fiery hair and temperament, her blue eyes and her freckled face. Whatever happened to Ramona?
Today, like other days, Karl has an erection when he slips out of his trance-like state. Usually he takes care of it, satiates the lust. But not this time. He is tempted, but he dreads the emptiness that follows the rush. Emptiness, the mere thought of it, is too much for now, too much for his anguish.
And then something else expands and it is not his genitals. It’s something in him, bigger than him, stronger. It’s the desire to see daylight and people and plants and buildings. He wants to be among the living, talk to someone, anyone. What time of the day is it? Evening? Morning? Night? Is winter over, has spring already sprung? Surely it can’t be summer or autumn yet, or can it?
‘Surely’ ceases to exist. It could be anytime. Not anywhere – he knows this is the West, the Wild Wild West. But anytime. Definitely.
Karl approaches the metal door and sniffs the air.
‘Are you there? Are you watching? Man in the wig, HELLO?’
He gets down on all fours, presses his nose to the tiny gap and can’t detect anything but dust. No fresh breeze today.
For the first time since he was locked in the room, Karl panics. He feels it surge inside of him. Before he knows it, becomes aware of it, he throws himself against the door, hollers, screams at the top of his lungs.
‘LET ME OUT!’
His fists are soon covered in blood, but the metal doesn’t budge.
The silence doesn’t answer. The vacuum doesn’t echo. It’s all in his head.
His voice breaks. His vocal chords have atrophied like most muscles in his body, out of practice from lack of use.
He is alone and he knows it. His jailor is not coming, can’t be spirited into this room — into existence — by sleight of hand. This isolation ward, this sterility, is devoid of any life from that could react to him, prove that Karl exists. There’s no rat, no worm, not even an ant.
I think, therefore I am, he thinks.
But is he really thinking or is he merely thinking that he is thinking it? Maybe he died on his last bender and everything since then has been letting go, shuffling off the mortal coil, taking leave.
That’s it. This is nothingness. This is worse than the Stasi.
And then Karl knows what to do. He doesn’t sob anymore, but wipes his face dry with his shirt-sleeve and takes a determined step towards the cupboard. He finds the cookie tin and opens it. He counts. There are seven cookies, big ones, in there. Seven.
They should suffice.
Now he is calm. He knows what to do. He opens the fridge and decides he doesn’t want any milk. Instead he finds a bowl, a big, beige bowl, and fills it with water. Next he takes a spoon. He knows what to do. He crushes the cookies into fine crumbs. A voice inside him wonders if the man with the wig is watching in spite of everything. And, if he is watching, does he know what Karl is planning, is doing? It doesn’t matter. Karl knows what to do. He doesn’t care anymore about the man, watching or not. He pours the crushed cookie crumbs into the beige bowl, spills some but gets most of them into the water. And then he stirs the mix. He knows what to do. He opens the tap to add water to his crumbly cookies. Otherwise he’ll never get them down. He stirs and finally he has a thick broth, sticky and slow like cough syrup but liquid enough to drink. He knows if he doesn’t drink enough he’ll just wake up with that horrid chemical taste in his mouth; he’ll just wake up again. No, he’ll need to drink all of it, as much as he can get down. The bowl is almost filled to the brim. He knows what to do. He takes one last look around and then he drinks the liquid, gulps it down greedily in huge swallows. If he doesn’t drink enough of the stuff…He has to drink it all. There. He fills the bowl again as he can hardly breathe. He drinks more water, sends the bolus, the contents of his mouth, down into his stomach, tries hard not to heave it back up and out again. Stay down where the drug can do its job.
There. His consciousness is beginning to slip away already. This is fast. His knees give way, his eyes flutter and close. He starts to fall, to drop, to fade.
He doesn’t hear the metal door open, not even faintly. He is too far gone.
*
When he wakes up again he is in the room, still or again, he has no way of knowing.
His eyes take a long time to focus and his brain is slower still. The cotton, the fuzziness. His brain spongy, befogged and befuddled. He detects the taste, faint,