Berlin Letters, page 22
A variety of small plates soon arrive. While I can’t name a single one, from one that looks like pale peanut butter to what I suspect are pickled onions and olives in tomatoes to something grilled brown and incredibly flavorful, I try every one.
One of the chefs pours batter onto the grill, and I think he is making a pancake. The pancake rises to the size of a football and is only slightly deflated by the time he slides it over the counter to us. I watch the couple next to us and soon know to pull the bread apart and dip it through our many dishes.
The atmosphere works a kind of magic. I feel full, energized, calm, and even hopeful as our meal progresses. Our conversation turns from the night ahead to the past and what brought us to this point. We cover college courses we never talked about when we knew each other, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, professional achievements and disappointments (the ones we can share), and what we want from our futures.
“Do you love it?” I ask.
Daniel gives me a small smile, one sincere but full of other emotions as well. I sense regret, even disappointment in it. “I do. It matters. But it doesn’t come without sacrifices. I didn’t realize how many back then.”
The meal ends with a dessert unlike anything I’ve ever tasted. Our waitress calls it baklava and it’s heaven. Like a hundred layers of heaven made of pastry dough with nuts between the layers and oozing with a honeyed syrup. It takes all my willpower not to lick my plate clean.
Daniel’s indulgent laugh lets me know he’s well acquainted with baklava.
Around 11:00 p.m. we pay the bill, and after our hostess-turned-waitress hugs us goodbye, we find ourselves standing on the sidewalk on a cold, dark, windy night. I glance to Daniel and can tell by his clenched jaw, he feels it too. Reality.
“Come on.” Daniel, hands shoved deep into his pockets, points a shoulder down the street. “It’s time to get to the club.”
SO36, Robert told us, is one of West Berlin’s most famous clubs—and even I know that’s saying something. West Berlin is a city with hundreds of clubs and no closing times. A city that never sleeps and where the party never ends.
We walk several blocks and soon find ourselves crossing Oranienstrasse. The sign for SO36 glows blue above a black double-wide opening into an old building two blocks down and across the street.
We stand on the corner and stare at it. After our next step, there is no turning back.
Daniel faces me. “We should cover a few things before we go inside. We won’t be able to hear much in there. What’s the band leader’s name?”
“Panzer. And I’m swapping places with Willow, the drummer. But is that his real name?” I can’t imagine a mom, no matter her nationality or loyalties, naming her son after a Soviet tank.
“None of them use their real names, not even with each other. It’s both a sign of a new identity and protection. You can’t rat a guy out if you don’t know his name.”
“Good point.”
“Now remember, only Panzer and Willow know about this. None of the other band members do and one of them could be a Stasi snitch. Willow will be with me, so you only talk to Panzer when you get over there, got it?”
“Daniel, I got it.” I can’t decide if I find his nerves endearing and oddly reassuring or patronizing. But as I’m not sure I really do “got it,” I appreciate his care. He’s seen and done things over the years, honing every instinct, and, as I’ve come to realize, I’ve fallen asleep at the wheel of life.
“Take this.” He hands me a slip of paper. “Tuck it someplace safe.”
I unfold the small corner of paper. It’s a long series of numbers, but I’m not sure what they mean.
“It’s a phone number. Those are the exact numbers you dial. Don’t add a country code or anything. It’ll get across the Wall, I promise, and I’ll be on the other side. While you find your dad, I’ll work on a way to get you out.”
I tuck the paper in my bra. I want to ask what he’s got in mind or who else he can tap without official CIA cover, but before I form the full thought behind any question, much less ask one, he pulls at my arm.
“Come on. Showtime.”
We hear the pulsating music a full block away. Once we’re outside the open doors of the club, it’s so loud I can’t hear the people talking around me. As we’re about to enter, Daniel pulls me close and yells in my ear, “You ready?”
I’m not sure I am, but I nod anyway.
“Okay then,” he yells again. “Let’s get you punked.”
Chapter 21
Wednesday, November 8, 1989
It takes time for my eyes to adjust. It doesn’t take time for my ears, however. They are accosted at a decibel I’ve never encountered before, and I pray they simply shut down before they’re damaged for life.
Daniel smiles down at me. He says something, but it’s lost in the noise. He pulls me behind him and leads us forward through the packed crowd. The club’s center is a mash of people jumping and twisting to the music. It feels claustrophobic with everything crowding in—sound, sweat, heat, people, pressure, with the black walls and the low black-painted ceiling broken up and lit by a single flashing neon white light.
At the far end of the room on a low stage I find Außenseiter. The band’s name translates to “Outsiders,” and I’m learning that it’s the defining aspect of punk. To be outside.
I look at each of the band members in turn.
Panzer, the lead singer, is huge, and I guess that’s why he chose a tank for his moniker. He looks to be well over six feet tall with his jet-black spiked hair towering another solid foot above him. His black eyeliner streams down his cheeks as sweat flies off him.
I glance past the other three band members in ripped black clothing and crazy-colored hair to land on Willow, the single girl, seated behind the drums.
She looks a little taller than I am, though it’s hard to tell with her sitting, but she’s definitely younger. A lot younger.
I yell into Daniel’s ear, “I look nothing like her.”
“You will,” he yells back.
I gasp, though no one hears me, as the crowd starts to throw beer cans at the band. The bass guitarist dodges the flying projectiles and, against one hurling can, swings his guitar handle like a baseball bat and sends it soaring back into the crowd. The place roars its approval.
“Why doesn’t anyone stop them? Someone could get hurt.” Although I cup Daniel’s ear with my hand, I still yell.
“They’d be more insulted if cans weren’t thrown.” He does the same, using both hands, but I sense he’s not yelling.
“I don’t understand.”
Daniel merely shrugs. We watch for a few minutes before I feel his hands around my ear again. “Remember, they’re an East Berlin band. It’s rage, discordance, anarchy, and destruction. It’s meant to be all that, as well as angry and alien. Punk in Eastern Europe is nothing like what you hear out of London, New York, or even here in West Berlin. This is political opposition aimed straight at the dictatorship.”
I want to ask why the government lets them out if they’re so oppositional, but I can’t as Panzer releases a final growl, screams a last high, searing note into the microphone, and then proceeds to smash his guitar to flying shards of wood against the stage floor. The crowd goes crazy—again.
We stand at the edge, pressed against the wall with our feet sticking to the floor. My head is near exploding from the strobe lights and the horrible smell of sweat, marijuana, alcohol, and who knows what else. It’s cloying and suffocating. But through the smoke and frenzy, I catch glimpses of the band shuffling to a rear door behind the stage.
I pull at Daniel’s sleeve and tilt my head to the stage. He notices too and nods.
We push our way forward and body-slam open a metal side door. The contrast to the club blinds me. I close my eyes, then start to blink slowly and methodically to let my eyes adjust. Bare bulbs hang from the ceiling, and the unpainted cement walls feel sterile and glaring. But it’s quieter and that’s a relief.
There’s an open doorway several feet away with shouts spilling into the hallway. I head that way, assuming it’s the band congratulating themselves on a great set. The crowd certainly seemed pleased. Turning into the room, I find I’m right. They are clustered together high-fiving, screaming, slapping at each other in a kind of frenzy. All motion stops the instant one of them notices us. They stare.
“This is her?” Willow looks to Panzer.
“Yes.”
Close up, I see how young Panzer is. He looks around twenty years old. From a distance I thought his clothes disheveled and crude, but close up I see how much care has gone into each item. Although ripped, his leather pants have been stitched in bright threads. His jacket, torn, has been carefully reconstructed with both safety pins and staples. The chains between his buttons and pockets have been secured by clips and thick threads.
Panzer and Willow step toward us, leaving the other band members feet behind them. They continue with their celebration, hovering around a table laden with bottles.
“Are you sure about this?” he asks in German. He’s not speaking to me. He’s speaking to Willow, standing only a few feet away and staring at me with unblinking eyes. She nods in a single minute motion.
Panzer snaps his fingers at me. I don’t know what he wants until Daniel nudges me. Money.
I reach into my tights and pull out the five thousand dollars I agreed with Robert to pay them. I slid it down the left leg of my tights back at the hotel room. Fifty one-hundred-dollar bills. It feels oddly light and unsubstantial in my hand. I’m afraid Panzer will demand more.
He doesn’t. He tucks the money into an inside pocket of his jacket and gestures to a side door.
“Get going. The rest of us will load the equipment onto the bus. Schmidt will be here soon.” Panzer turns back to the band. “We got about a half hour. Move!”
Daniel puts a hand to my back and we follow Willow through the door. She can’t be more than a teenager. Perhaps a little over half my age. She shuts the door behind us. The room is quiet and empty with a mirror and a sink but no toilet.
“It’s not about the money, and he’ll use it to print samizdat,” she says in German. I cast a glance at Daniel, wondering if he understands. It’s not the time to ask and I suspect he does anyway.
She talks on. “We’re doing this because we’ve all been there. Arrested. Our parents too. Both of Panzer’s parents lost their jobs when he turned punk. The Stasi pressured them and they wouldn’t snitch. My parents . . .” She doesn’t finish her sentence as she pulls off her jacket and holds it out to me. “I hope you find your dad.”
“Thank you.”
Without the bulky jacket hiding her frame, I realize Willow and I are about the same size. She’s a few inches taller, but her clothes will fit me and mine her.
“Do you want me to wait outside?”
Willow startles as if she’d forgotten Daniel. “Better not. Panzer told Splinter, but Fuzz and Dragon don’t know what’s really going on.”
“Ich werde bleiben,” Daniel replies. I will stay. It’s formal but correct and flows off his tongue with ease.
I throw him a wide-eyed glance. He bats it back with a smirk.
Willow pulls off her skirt and tights. I do the same, handing the rest of the money tucked within them to Daniel to hold. I pass Willow my new black tights, and she hands me a fishnet pair with runs all throughout. I struggle not to make the runs worse as I put them on. I then slide the remaining money into the waistband before zipping up her tiger-print skirt.
I speak because I find the silence terrifying. It allows me to imagine all the things that can and probably will go wrong. “How are you allowed to be here?”
“We earned an Einstufung.” Willow narrows her eyes at my brown wool skirt, a new one I bought at Ann Taylor only a month ago. “It’s a government license that allows us to play in public. A lot of the older punks say we’re sellouts for applying for one. They call us traitors and lots worse, but there are other ways to fight than write lyrics so dangerous they’ll only get you arrested.”
She sets the skirt aside and yanks on my tights. “It was Panzer’s plan. Tamp the lyrics down a little, earn a license to play in the West, and get our message outside the Wall. Let the world know what’s going on. This is our third concert over here. I think the Ministry of Culture keeps sending us in hopes we won’t come back.”
“They’d let you go?”
“They want us to go.” Willow steps into the skirt. “It would save them five headaches and probably a lot of Stasi man-hours spent following us. But we don’t want to leave. That’s not what we’re after. We want our own home to be better.”
I remember a line from one of my father’s letters, the encrypted version. “We shouldn’t have to flee. Home should be better.” What does he think of punk?
Willow stares at my white blouse for a moment with almost as much disdain as she regarded my skirt, before she slides her arms into the sleeves and starts buttoning it up. I keep myself from staring at her mustard T-shirt with the same expression. I shrug on her leather jacket and stand for inspection.
She smiles at me and Daniel nods his approval. I can’t help but match their expressions. Despite the danger, there is something funny about this moment, empowering even. I feel like we’re Jodie Foster and her mom in that old Freaky Friday movie, and despite some hilarious mishaps in the middle, all is going to turn out well—just like the movie.
“Here.” Willow grabs a slip of fabric off the sink’s edge and shoves it into my hand.
I uncurl it. It’s a black glove with the fingers cut off. For my left hand.
“It’s soft so it’ll work on your other hand. I usually wear it when I play, but it got so hot tonight, the drumsticks were already slipping in my hands at warm-up. You can wear it to cover that.” She points to my right hand, still wrapped in gauze.
I wiggle on the glove. The fingers don’t quite line up, but she’s right. It’s soft, workable, and hides both the gauze and my burns.
I move toward the door.
“Not so fast.” Daniel’s voice holds a teasing note that feels incongruent with what’s about to happen.
I look to him. He circles a finger at my head. “The real work begins.”
He reaches into the messenger bag that’s been slung across his body all evening and pulls out a long blonde wig. I almost reach for it, but he hands it to Willow. “You’ll need this to wander the city with me until Luisa returns.”
He reaches back into his bag and pulls out a can of black shoe polish.
“What else is in there?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” He winks.
“You’re keeping it secret?”
“Not everything. I just thought knowing the extent of this transformation might derail you.” Daniel has the decency to look sheepish.
I scrunch my nose but say nothing. I can’t get angry because I’m not sure he isn’t right. I look to Willow. My guess is her hair is about chin length. It’s hard to tell as it’s spiked up in about thirty points that cover her head. The tip of each is dyed black. Hence the shoe polish. I now suspect the order of events. “You’re kidding.”
Willow reaches to the sink, and that’s when I notice the scissors. Not nice thin scissors, but huge cutting shears.
“You’re using those on my hair?”
“Unless you want to.” Willow waits for me to reply.
After a pause that feels like forever, I simply shake my head.
She hacks at my hair. It takes only four cuts and ten minutes with a can of shaving cream to make my hair almost look like hers. The numerous spikes are at least eight inches high each. Daniel dabs his fingers into the shoe polish and coats each one. He stands so close I smell the coffee and baklava from dinner and the starch of his pale blue Oxford shirt.
“Is this going to work?” I whisper to him.
“You have to trust it will.”
While Daniel applies the finishing touches to my hair, Willow washes her face in the sink. When she finally lifts her head and turns back, she is scrubbed pink and looks so very young that I almost don’t see Willow in this girl any longer. Her eyes are wide and clear blue. I want to hug her, but I resist. She may be young, but she is tough and independent.
“Your turn.” She holds up a thick black eye pencil.
I take the pencil and press close to the mirror. She stands next to me and guides my work. I’m grateful for the help, as I wear little makeup normally. Lip gloss, powder, a hint of pink blush, and mascara and I’m out the door most days.
“Thicker on the outer part.” She taps my temple with a light finger. “And the lower line needs to go out to your temple. All the way to here.”
In a few minutes, I hardly see myself in me either.
We all nod to each other and Daniel opens the bathroom door.
Only Panzer and, I think, Splinter are in the room. Panzer gestures for him to leave. He obeys without question. “Fuzz and Dragon are almost finished loading the equipment. They can only occupy Schmidt a few minutes more.”
The way he spits out “Schmidt” catches my attention. “Who’s Schmidt?”
“He’s from the Ministry of Culture. He always comes with us when we cross the border, but as he’s the only one who does, I suspect he’s Stasi too. He’ll be on the bus. Don’t look at him, don’t talk to him, nothing. You let us load you on the bus as if you’re too drunk to see straight. Borderline passed out. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Panzer looks to Willow and his expression softens. “Never thought I’d see you look like that again.”
She blushes. “It’s for a good cause.”
His eyes narrow and his expression changes as he turns back to me. “You’re missing something. Something that’ll get you arrested. Willow too.”
“What?” I glance between us.
