Walli started to look behind him every minute or so to check whether there might be one person always in view. He did not see anyone suspicious, but he succeeded in spooking Karolin. ‘What are you doing?’ she said fearfully.
‘Checking for a tail.’
‘You mean the man in the cap?’
‘Maybe. Let’s catch a bus.’ They were passing a stop, and Walli pulled Karolin to the end of the queue.
‘Why?’
‘To see if anyone gets on and off with us.’
Unfortunately, it was rush hour, and millions of Berliners were catching buses and trains home. By the time a bus came, there were several people in line behind Walli and Karolin. As they boarded he looked hard at each of them. There was a woman in a raincoat, a pretty girl, a man in blue overalls, a man in a suit with a trilby hat, and two teenagers.
They rode the bus three stops east then got off. The woman in the raincoat and the man in overalls got off behind them. Walli headed west, going back the way they had come, figuring that anyone who followed them on such an illogical route must be suspicious.
But no one did.
‘I’m pretty sure we’re not being tailed,’ he said to Karolin.
‘I’m so scared,’ she said.
The sun was going down. They needed to hurry. They turned north, heading for Wedding. Walli checked behind him again. He saw a middle-aged man in the brown canvas coat of a warehouseman, but no one he had noticed earlier. ‘I think we’re all right,’ he said.
‘I’m not going to see my family again, am I?’ Karolin said.
‘Not for a while,’ Walli replied. ‘Unless they escape, too.’
‘My father would never leave. He loves his buses.’
‘They have buses in the West.’
‘You don’t know him.’
Walli did know him, and Karolin was right. Her father was as different as could be from the clever, strong-willed Werner. Karolin’s father had no political or religious ideas and cared nothing for freedom of speech. If he lived in a democracy, he probably would not bother to vote. He liked his work and his family and his pub. His favourite food was bread. Communism gave him everything he needed. He would never escape to the West.
It was twilight when Walli and Karolin reached Strelitzer Strasse.
Karolin became increasingly jumpy as they walked along the street towards where it dead-ended at the Wall.
Ahead Walli noticed a young couple with a child. He wondered if they, too, were escaping. Yes, they were: they opened the door to the yard and disappeared.
Walli and Karolin reached the place, and Walli said: ‘We go in here.’
Karolin said: ‘I want my mother with me when I have the baby.’
‘We’re almost there!’ Walli said. ‘Through this door there’s a yard with a hatch. We go down the shaft and along the tunnel to freedom!’
‘I’m not scared of escaping,’ she said. ‘I’m scared of giving birth.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Walli said desperately. ‘They have great hospitals in the West. You’ll be surrounded by doctors and nurses.’
‘I want my mother,’ she said.
Over her shoulder Walli saw, four hundred yards away at the corner of the street, the man in the brown canvas coat talking to a policeman. ‘Shit!’ he said. ‘We were followed.’ He looked at the door, then at Karolin. ‘It’s now or never,’ he said. ‘I have no choice, I have to go. Are you coming with me, or not?’
She was crying. ‘I want to, but I can’t,’ she said.
A car came around the corner, travelling fast. It stopped beside the policeman and the tail. A familiar figure jumped out of the car, a tall man with a stoop: Hans Hoffmann. He spoke to the man in the brown coat.
Walli said to Karolin: ‘Either follow me, or walk quickly away from here. There’s going to be trouble.’ He stared at her. ‘I love you,’ he said. Then he dashed through the door.
Standing over the hatch was Cristina, still wearing the headscarf and the gun in her belt. When she saw Walli, she threw the iron doors open. ‘You may need that gun,’ Walli said to her. ‘The police are coming.’
He took one look back. The wooden door in the wall remained shut. Karolin had not followed him. Pain twisted in his stomach: it was the end.
He scrambled down the steps.
In the cellar the young couple with the child were standing with one of the students. ‘Hurry!’ Walli yelled. ‘The police are coming!’
They went down the shaft: mother first, then child, then father. The child was slow on the ladder.
Cristina came down the steps and shut the iron trapdoor behind her with a clang. ‘How did the police get on to us?’ she said.
‘The Stasi were following my girlfriend.’
‘You stupid fool, you’ve betrayed us all.’
‘Then I’ll go last,’ Walli said.
The male student went down the shaft, and Cristina made to follow.
‘Give me your gun,’ Walli said.
She hesitated.
Walli said: ‘If I’m behind you, you won’t be able to use it.’
She handed it to him.
He took it gingerly. It looked exactly like the pistol his father had pulled from its hiding place in the kitchen, the day Rebecca and Bernd had escaped.
Cristina noticed his unease. ‘Have you ever fired a gun?’ she said.
‘Never.’
She took it back from him and moved a lever near the hammer. ‘Now the safety catch is off,’ she said. ‘All you do is point it and pull the trigger.’ She put the safety catch on again and handed the gun back to him. Then she went down the ladder.
Walli could hear shouts and car engines outside. He could not guess what the police were doing, but it was clear he was running out of time.
He saw how things had gone wrong. Hans Hoffmann had had Karolin under surveillance, no doubt hoping that Walli might come back for her. The tail had seen her meet a boy and go off with him. Someone had decided not to arrest them immediately, but to see whether they would lead their watchers to a group of co-conspirators. There had been a slick change of personnel after they got off the bus, and a new follower had taken over, the man in the brown coat. At some point he had realized they were heading for the Wall, and had pressed the panic button.
Now the police and the Stasi were outside, searching the rear of the derelict buildings, trying to figure out where Walli and Karolin had gone. They would find the trapdoor any second now.
With the pistol in his hand Walli went down the shaft, following the others.
As he reached the foot of the ladder he heard the clang of the iron hatch. The police had located the entrance. A moment later there were gruff shouts of surprise and triumph as they saw the hole in the floor.
Walli had to wait a long, agonizing moment at the mouth of the tunnel, until Cristina disappeared inside. He followed her, then stopped. He was slim, and he was just about able to turn in the narrow passage. He peeked out, looking up the shaft, and saw the bulk of a policeman stepping on to the ladder.
This was hopeless. The police were too close. All they had to do was point their guns into the tunnel and fire. Walli himself would be shot, and when he fell, the bullets would pass over him and hit the next in line – and so on: the slaughter would be bloody. And he knew they would not hesitate to shoot, for no mercy was shown to escapers, ever. It would be carnage.
He had to keep them out of the shaft.
But he did not want to kill another man.
Kneeling just inside the mouth of the tunnel, he moved the safety catch of the Walther. Then he put his hand holding the gun outside the tunnel, pointed it upwards, and pulled the trigger.
The gun kicked in his hand. The bang was very loud in the confined space. Immediately afterwards he heard shouts of dismay and fear, but not of pain, and he guessed he had scared them without actually hitting anyone. He peeped out and saw the cop scrambling back up the ladder and out of the shaft.
He waited. He knew the escapers ahead of him would be slow, because of the child. He could hear the cops discussing in angry tones what they were going to do. None of them was willing to go down the shaft: it was suicide, one said. But they could not just let people escape!
To reinforce the danger to them, Walli fired the gun again. He heard sudden panic movements as if they had all pulled back from the shaft. He thought he had succeeded in scaring them off. He turned to crawl away.
Then he heard a voice he knew well. Hans Hoffmann said: ‘We need grenades.’
‘Oh, fuck,’ said Walli.
He stuck the gun in his belt and began to crawl along the tunnel. There was nothing for it now but to get as far along as possible. In no time, he felt Cristina’s shoes in front of him. ‘Hurry up!’ he yelled. ‘The cops are getting grenades!’
‘I can’t go faster than the guy in front of me!’ she yelled back.
All Walli could do was follow. It was dark now. He heard no sound from the cellar to his rear. Regular cops were not normally equipped with grenades, he guessed, but Hans could get some from nearby border guards in a couple of minutes.
Walli could see nothing, but he could hear the panting of his fellow fugitives, and the scrape of their knees on the boards. The child began to cry. Yesterday, Walli would have cursed it for a dangerous nuisance, but today he was a father-to-be, and he felt only pity for the frightened kid.
What would the police do with their grenades? Would they play safe, and drop one into the shaft, where it might do little damage? Or would one have the nerve to climb down the ladder and throw one lethally into the tunnel? That might kill all the escapers.
Walli decided he had to do more to discourage the cops. He lay down, rolled over, pulled the gun, and raised himself on his left elbow. He could see nothing, but he pointed the gun back along the tunnel and pulled the trigger.
Several people screamed.
Cristina said: ‘What was that?’
Walli put the gun away and resumed crawling. ‘I was just discouraging the cops.’
‘Warn us next time, for Christ’s sake.’
He saw light ahead. The tunnel seemed shorter going back. He heard cries of relief as people realized they were at the end. He found himself going faster, pushing up against Cristina’s shoes.
Behind him, there was an explosion.
He felt the shock wave, but it was weak, and he knew immediately that they had dropped the first grenade down into the shaft. He had never paid enough attention to physics in school, but he guessed that in those circumstances nearly all the explosive force would go upwards.
However, he could foresee what Hans would do next. Having made sure that there was no longer someone lying in wait inside the tunnel entrance, he would now send a cop down the ladder to throw a grenade into the tunnel.
Ahead, the group were emerging into the cellar of the disused grocery. ‘Quickly!’ Walli yelled. ‘Climb the ladder fast!’
Cristina exited the tunnel and stood in the shaft, smiling. ‘Relax,’ she said. ‘This is the West. We’re out – we’re free!’
‘Grenades!’ Walli yelled. ‘Go up, fast as you can!’
The couple with the child were climbing the ladder with painful slowness. The male student and Cristina followed. Walli stood at the foot of the ladder, trembling with impatience and fear. He went up right behind Cristina, his face at her knees. He reached the top and saw them all standing around, laughing and hugging. ‘Lie flat!’ he yelled. ‘Grenades!’ He threw himself to the floor.
There was a terrific boom. The shock wave seemed to rock the cellar. Then there was a gushing sound like a fountain, and he guessed that earth was spurting from the mouth of the tunnel. Confirming his guess, a rain of mud and small stones fell on him. The hoist over the shaft collapsed and fell into the hole.
The noise died away. The cellar was quiet except for the sobbing of the child. Walli looked around. The kid had a nosebleed, but otherwise seemed unhurt, and no one else appeared injured. He looked over the lip of the shaft and saw that the tunnel had fallen in.
He stood upright, shakily. He had made it. He was alive and free. And alone.