Chapter Text
“We don't live in a universe of rules, we live in a universe of chances.”
(Sir Reginald Hargreeves, The Umbrella Academy Season 2: Valhalla)
“Freundschaft,” she said, raising her hand, touching the thumb to the crown of her head. The passing border guard eyed her for a mere second, nodding as he continued on his path without a word. A rifle hung from his shoulder, swinging from side to side with each stride. After a few seconds, the trod of the soldier’s boots died away.
She kept walking.
To her right, Altbau apartment buildings lined the street, doors and windows walled up, façades crumbling where they’d been hit by bombs and gunfire during the war. The upper three floors had been demolished to prevent people from jumping to their freedom.
To her left, a twelve-foot wall of concrete slabs rose from the ground, topped off with a mess of barbed wire.
Ines was born and raised in the borough of Friedrichshain, East Berlin, German Democratic Republic. The only child to father Werner and mother Uta, she’d spent most of her life in a three-mile radius within the 155 square miles comprising the Soviet sector, cooped up in a tiny P2 apartment. The small space became less cramped when her mother passed away six months ago. Shortly after, her uncle smuggled himself, his wife and their two daughters out of the country, a scandal that almost cost her father his job.
In contrast, to this day, Ines’ most exciting excursions consisted of trips to the closest Konsum to queue for bananas.
She followed Bernauer Straße past the ghost station which no underground train had stopped at in over twenty years, heading west towards her destination: the Chapel of Reconciliation. She adjusted her rucksack as she approached the looming red brick church, running through the list of its contents one last time. There was no going back after tonight. Her entire life was literally sitting on her shoulders.
A few days ago, she would have been looking for Micha’s red and blue mohawk, its shape fixed with sugar water that somehow defied the light on-and-off drizzle of the past month. That same method did nothing to tame her own frizzy curls. He was a couple of years older than her, hair now trimmed to little more than a buzz cut, dressed in tattered third-hand clothing and the same scuffed safety boots he’d worn the day they’d met at the Haus der Jungen Talente five months ago. On days she couldn’t bear to be home, she’d visit him in the run-down house he and a bunch of goths were squatting in. Micha was the one who pierced her ears, taught her about the autonomist movement, and opened her eyes to the brainwashing she had undergone by way of her Stasi father. He was basically the coolest guy ever. And he had just been conscripted to serve in the National People's Army.
More border guards crossed her path as if the wall that had been erected only a few feet from the church’s entrance wasn’t obstruction enough. From her vantage point, Ines could spot two watchtowers and their sharpshooting occupants monitoring the area.
She relaxed only when she crossed the church’s threshold. Not that anyone looked twice at the sixteen-year-old in the blue-shirt-red-scarf uniform of the FDJ on her way here. Free German Youth, what a joke. No one in the zone was free, much less its teenagers. A schoolmate’s friend’s brother was arrested for the crime of distributing copies of Orwell’s 1984 last year, in an act of political irony the ruling party did not seem to appreciate.
Micha nodded to the right, leading the way through a side door into a short hallway connecting to the nave. A flight of stairs led up, presumably to the gallery, and another down into the basement. It was Ines’ first time in this particular church but others she’d been to had had rooms for their kitchen and youth groups in similar locations. Today, they weren’t here to attend a talk or concert, though. Today, they were meeting Ulrike, whom Micha had been introduced to by some acquaintances. Ulrike, who would help them escape the GDR.
People had fled the Republic since its establishment. So many crossed the border to the FRG in fact that in 1961, the late head of state, Walter Ulbricht, uttered the famous words "Nobody has the intention of building a wall" two months before he started building the wall now cutting through the heart of Berlin. Rather than keeping people out, though, this one was designed to keep them in. It did not stop those desperate enough from continuing to flee the country. The difference was that now, anyone attempting to “desert from the republic” got shot on sight.
Successful escapes were strictly kept under wraps but unlike the fictional government in 1984 , the SED could not prevent thought crimes and the whispers spreading information behind closed doors. They tried, by way of their Stasi operators, to pressure people to tell on their neighbors, colleagues, even family members. Her own father tried to force Ines to spy on her new friends after he discovered she had been hanging out with people associated with the autonomist movement. During the day, she played the dutiful student, wore her uniform and followed the rules. Once evening rolled around, she went to punk gigs and unofficial FDJ meetings at local churches and reported back that nothing whatsoever nefarious had been discussed or listened to. Her father did not believe a single one of her lies. All the more reason she couldn’t get out of here soon enough.
Ulrike was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs, eyes flicking past them as if she expected unwanted guests. She was in her twenties, the daughter of the custodian, and dressed like someone who had been brought up in a church. A pin of a stylized fish adorned her lapel. Ines passed Ulrike’s visual inspection and was led down a corridor further into the church’s underbelly, followed closely by Micha.
Bernauer Straße had seen many people attempt to dig a tunnel underneath the death strip, Ulrike said, only a couple of which were successful. One of them had been closed off at its halfway mark by border guards five years ago, which made it useless when taken from its original entrance. The tunnel she was leading them to now, however, was a much shorter one that connected to an old subway tunnel that had been closed down by the Stasi around the same time the original escape tunnel was discovered. The subway connected to the old tunnel a couple hundred yards after its blockade and had been finished by a few brave deserters only recently. All Ines and Micha had to do now was follow it from Brunnenstraße, East Berlin, to the basement of apartment building number 136 on Brunnenstraße, West Berlin.
The entry to the escape tunnel was hidden by a few crates stacked on top of each other, which in turn were obscured by boxes filled with donated clothing scattered along the walls. It was a short drop, the tunnel itself struck through the concrete foundation and then carved into the earth beneath. The walls were rough, reinforced with thick wooden beams and PVC tubes running along the ceiling for fresh air. Lamps were attached to those tubes every six feet or so, as well as yards upon yards of extension cord wound around them. Ulrike gave them a torch regardless as the lamps in the old tunnel were not connected to electricity anymore. Neither did the field telephone the original builders used for communication so there would be no way to confirm they made it out at the other end. Micha promised to send a postcard.
The tunnel’s circumference measured barely five by three feet, claustrophobic even for Ines despite the fact she only had to bow her head slightly, unlike Micha who was bent over at the hips. At least it wasn’t a sewer, but those had all been closed up over a decade ago.
Being the shorter of the two, Ines took the lead, having an easier time navigating the space while holding the torch. She’d studied diagrams she’d found in her father’s documents depicting the apparatus making up the death strip. They helped her build a rough map in her head once they traversed the subway tracks and squeezed through the small hole pounded into the wall that initially separated the escape tunnel from the tracks. Only a few feet into the old tunnel, they would pass underneath the rear wall of concrete slabs, followed by the sentry path and signal fence that would alert the watchtowers if anyone tried to jump it. Then ninety yards of the actual so-called death strip with its anti-tank barriers to stop vehicles from breaking through, and plenty of street lamps so that the guards could shoot any escapees who made it that far. Finally, the outer wall.
Before she knew it, her torch illuminated a ladder leaning against some rubble, reaching into a shaft in the ceiling that led to a manhole about eight feet above them. She twisted her body as much as the narrow path allowed to exchange a triumphant grin with Micha, handing the torch to him so he could light the way as she positioned herself below the cover and pushed against it with her hands and shoulder. It wouldn’t budge. Micha climbed up behind her and with their combined effort, the heavy cover finally moved. Ines pushed off the rung, cursing her lack of upper body strength and impatience as she pulled and clawed her way out of the shaft, hurrying to make way for her friend. Before he’d even managed to stick his head through the hole, though, she held out a hand. In front and right behind her, sharpened metal beams rose from the ground at forty-five-degree angles, repeating every few feet left and right as far as she could see.
It was a trap. And they were sitting ducks.
The sky was dark now, the sun having set an hour ago, but the floodlights positioned along the length of the wall illuminated every inch of the death strip. She could hear shouts from the nearest watchtower a mere fifty yards to her right, and behind her, Micha uttered a curse as he quickly pulled himself and then the ladder through the hole. He nudged her to move – there was no sense in going back now.
It wasn't far, only twenty or so yards to the outer wall, and she had never run faster in her entire life. But time had broken, simultaneously nonexistent and ticking along in slow motion, as around her, bullets buried into the ground. Micha all but threw the ladder against the outer wall, foregoing all polite convention as he pushed her up the steps. She reached for the rounded concrete pipe running along the top, her hands struggling to find hold so Micha, only a few rungs below her, grabbed her right leg and lifted her up. It would be the last act of kindness he'd ever do for her. As she got one leg over the top of the wall, he let out a surprised gasp before losing control over his limbs, falling six feet into a crumpled heap. There was no time to call out. Gravity claimed her body and she toppled over the wall, his wide-open eyes the last thing she saw before being welcomed with a rib-shattering impact on the "other side”.
Freedom.
She’d made it. From here on out, neither guards nor government were allowed to chase and prosecute her any longer. She was a refugee now, at the mercy of the FRG and the Allied Powers.
Volunteers would be nearby, according to Ulrike – but she'd also claimed the route was safe. Had she betrayed them knowingly? Ines' father's voice sounded in her head, calling her a disgrace, a traitor, insisting the only way to make it up to him was to become an informant. Ulrike must have been another one, planted before or after her.
On this side of the wall, the stone had been vandalized with graffiti – song lyrics, anarchy symbols, a parody of the famous Sex Pistols’ cover with Erich’s instead of the Queen’s face and name. She saw familiar slogans – “Solidarność” and “Does work make you free?". Memorials left by previous deserters no doubt.
With difficulty, Ines rolled to her knees, one arm cradling her midriff where it felt like she may have broken something from the fall. Pain spread through her chest, and less metaphorically from her left hip to her tummy; a deep-seated ache similar to her period cramps. It came in waves and she thought she might be sick. Looking around, she saw the apartment blocks mirroring those on the other side of the wall, only these ones had been renovated after the war and kept in good repair. One of them was supposed to lead her and Micha to freedom. About a hundred yards to her left, she spied the entrance to the abandoned subway station. Fighting the nausea, she started running for the second time in as many minutes. The staircase was closed off but she could still access a small, empty restroom just in time to sink to the floor with an involuntary cry escaping her throat. A bulge pressed against the arm still wrapped around her stomach, her tummy bloating as if something inside of her was trying to get out.
Nothing made sense anymore. Five minutes ago she was crouching in a narrow escape tunnel hoping for a new life waiting for her at the end of it. Now she was kneeling on a grimy bathroom floor, having just watched her friend die right in front of her, and wondering if the border guard had done something to her that now made her body explode.
Another bout of nausea hit her and with a strength she didn’t know she still possessed, Ines pulled herself inch by inch towards the nearest toilet stall. She didn’t notice the trail of blood she smeared across the white tiles, trickling from between her legs despite having just finished her last menstruation cycle a week ago. With difficulty she shrugged off her bag – there was a bottle of water in there somewhere, maybe it would help–
Another guttural groan pushed out of her, stopping her a mere two feet from her destination. Before her eyes, her tummy bloated to the size of a small pumpkin, and popped the last three buttons on her shirt. She felt something else between her legs now and with panic, she unbuttoned her pants as well, pushing them down to a sight more horrifying than anything she could have ever imagined. This couldn’t be happening.
She had barely even kissed Uwe Jankowski from the year above her, had been on a couple of maybe-dates with him to an ice cream parlor she liked, too scared of what would happen if her father found out she was seeing someone – but this…
Minutes later, it was all over. In the distance, Ines thought she could hear the church bells ring six times but other than that and her labored breathing, the bathroom was silent. She lay on her back, legs wet and shaking, and the thing that had just been inside of her motionless between them. She had never seen a newborn before. It looked like an alien more than human, and its skin was an ashen white. There was a blue tint to its lips and face and the neck where the umbilical cord was wound tightly around it.
Ines stifled the sob pushing past the rawness of her throat. She had not been brought up religious but she could not help but wonder if this was divine punishment. The last remnant of her old life, killed by her decision to flee her country for a brighter future.
There was no telling how long she would stay undiscovered. She had a swiss army knife in her bag – Always ready! like any good FDJ youth. She cleaned herself up as fast and best as she could, grateful for the change of clothes she had packed in a haste. Bathroom sinks did not make for more than a cursory cat wash but it was all she could do, hands shaking so much more water went down her blouse than her face as she cleaned off the tears and sweat and snot.
Eventually, she had to deal with the inevitable.
There was nothing she could do for the thing on the floor. Ines picked it up with her ruined pants, not wanting to touch its slimy skin with her bare hands. She didn’t know what to do with it. She couldn’t take it with her – people would be asking enough questions as it was, if she carried a dead baby around, she’d never be able to start her new life. Her gaze fell onto a bin in the corner, next to the sinks, half-filled with paper towels. She couldn’t tell if she was shaking from the adrenaline and exertion, or because the horror of her situation and the last few minutes finally caught up with her.
Ines dropped the baby and turned away, deliberately ignoring the blood stains on the white tiles as she staggered back out out onto the street.
Freedom.
She’d never know that only a few minutes later, as a woman entered the small public bathroom on the other side of the wall, a stillborn baby hiccuped and started to cry.