I sat up in Halina’s bed and saw that my dress had been exchanged for my nightshirt. Pietrik had changed me? The previous night bobbed to the surface, and my cheeks burned there in the dark. What a fool I’d made of myself. Even before rising, I knew I’d go to Stocksee.
I walked past Pietrik’s room. He slept with one arm across his face, chest bare. Beautiful. What if I just crawled in with him? Why didn’t I have the courage to sleep with my own husband?
As dawn broke outside our window, I gathered my overnight things and pulled open Caroline’s package, careful not to make a sound. In the small box I found my transit papers. German money. Polish money. A letter addressed to Germany’s largest newspaper detailing Herta Oberheuser’s war crimes at Ravensbrück and her early release, complete with German postage. Three maps, a list of approved gas stations at which to purchase fuel, and detailed travel instructions. A note apologizing for only being able to obtain one set of travel papers, and a whole package of Fig Newton cookies. I tossed the box in my suitcase and clicked the locks. Pietrik stirred in the next room.
I froze for a second. Should I leave a note? I scribbled a quick goodbye on the paper from Caroline’s package and made my way down the stairs to the old turquoise car Papa loaned me now and then, the one Pietrik had kept alive for years. As Papa said, that car had more rust on it than paint, but it got us wherever we needed to go.
At first, I fretted as I drove. What if it really was Herta? Would she hurt me? Would I hurt her? My head cleared a bit once I was under way, one of the few drivers on the road that early. I spread a map and the driving instructions out on the seat next to me, turned the radio volume up, cranked the window down, and breakfasted on a whole cellophane sleeve of Fig Newtons. The box said, NEW TWIN-PAK STAYS FRESHER! and they did taste better than ever, soft and moist cookie outside, sweet figgy middle. Eating these helped my mood very much. Perhaps this trip was a good idea after all.
On my way northwest, I passed through one neglected village after another, the only color in the drab towns the red on white propaganda posters proclaiming the virtues of socialism and the UNBREAKABLE FRIENDSHIP WITH THE PEOPLES OF THE SOVIET UNION.
The travel arrangements were complicated, since Germany had been stripped of all the land it had taken during the war. In the East it had been returned to Poland under Russian occupation, and in the West it was divvied up between the Western Allies. Two new states had been created out of occupied Germany, free West Germany, no longer fully occupied by the Allies, and the smaller German Democratic Republic, or GDR, in the East.
It took me a whole day to make it through Poland and East Germany. The roads were potholed and often strewn with litter, and it was rare to see other passenger cars. A Soviet military convoy lumbered by, license plates painted out. The soldiers riding in the back of the trucks eyed me as if I were a circus oddity. The first night I slept in my car, one eye open, alert for robbers.
The next day, through dense fog and drizzle, I made it to the inner German border, the 1,393-kilometer boundary between West German and Soviet territories. Caroline had directed me to one of the few routes open to non-Germans, the northernmost designated transit route, to the Lübeck/Schlutup checkpoint. As I approached the guardhouse and the red-striped pole, which blocked the road, I slowed and pulled up behind the last car in line.
Light rain fell on the car roof as I waited and I studied the white concrete watchtower standing along the wall in the distance. Were they watching me from up there? Could they see my dying car spewing lavender smoke as I waited? Somewhere a guard dog barked and I considered the stark surrounding countryside and the long, metal fence that ran the length of the road. Was that where the booby traps were, beyond that fence? I would be fine as long as I didn’t have to get out of the car.
My car inched forward in line, my naked windshield wipers useless, the rubber stolen long before by petty bandits. I turned off my radio so I could concentrate. Where was Zuzanna when I needed her? Oh yes. Enjoying her new life in New York City. I rechecked my papers for the tenth time. Three pages thick and signed in ink with a flourish. Kasia Kuzmerick, Cultural Ambassador, it said. I ran my finger over the raised seal. I certainly didn’t look like any cultural ambassador but those papers made me feel important. Safe.
By the time I made it to the gate, my dress was soaked with sweat under my heavy coat. I rolled down my window to speak with the East German guard.
“Polski?” said the guard.
I nodded and handed him my papers. He took one look and turned toward the guardhouse, my papers in hand. “Don’t turn off the car,” he said, in German.
I waited and studied my gas gauge. Was the needle actually moving downward as I watched? Two more East German soldiers swept aside the guardhouse curtains and glanced out at me. At last, a middle-aged officer came out to my car.
“Get out of the car,” he said in German-accented Polish.
“Why?” I said. “Where are my papers?”
“They have been impounded,” said the officer.
Why had I not listened to Pietrik? Maybe he was right. Some people never learn.
1959
It took me some time to get out of my car at the checkpoint, for the door would not open, no matter how I tried. I climbed across and out the passenger side, much to the amusement of the border guards, standing there flaunting their rifles.
The rain was down to a fine mist, and I watched it collect and bead on the shiny cap brim of the officer who had ordered me out. I braced myself with one hand on the hood of the car, for my legs felt about to fail, then snatched it away, for the metal was hot from the engine. Was the car about to overheat?
“You have fancy papers,” the officer said. “They have, however, been replaced with a one-day pass.”
“But they are—”
“If you don’t like it, turn around,” the officer said. “Either way, get this car out of here—it’s on its last leg.”
I took the pass. Did he see my fingers trembling? The pass, soggy by then and no bigger than a pack of cigarettes, was a miserable exchange for my beautiful papers.
“Make sure you are back here by six tomorrow morning, or you will be living here in this house with us.” He waved the next car forward, signaling the end of the conversation.
Back in the driver’s seat, I broke out in a cold sweat of relief. The second checkpoint was easier, and once the West German border guards checked me through, I crossed into the West, and drove north toward Stocksee.
West Germany was like a different world, a wonderland of green fields and neat farms. The road was smooth, and modern trucks passed me on that popular trucking route, for my car refused to go over fifty miles per hour. I stopped only once, at the first telegraph office I saw, and sent a wire to Caroline saying I was on my way.
Somewhere on the outskirts of Stocksee, I heard a terrific clank and turned to see my muffler fall on the asphalt and clatter to the side of the road. I backed up and retrieved the lanky hunk of metal and hurled it into my backseat. After that, my car sounded like the loudest motorbike when I pressed the gas pedal, but what choice did I have? I had to keep going.
I chugged into Stocksee in the early afternoon and shivered as I passed the flowered sign: WILLKOMMEN IN STOCKSEE! Herta’s home base? It was a rural town close to a lake with the same name, a big lake, tranquil and dark. She always did like lakes.
I drove past rolling farmland and into the heart of Stocksee, a tidy little place. If the dress of the inhabitants was any indication, Stocksee was a conservative place too, for most wore traditional Tracht, the men in lederhosen, Trachten coats, and alpine hats, the women in dirndl dresses. I slowed my car by a sidewalk and asked a man for help in my best rusty German.