Short Story Sunday: The Traitor

“What are we going to do now?”

Elise looked at the tear in her glove.

Friedrich placed a hand on her arm. “You cannot avoid looking at me forever.”

A solitary tear slid down her cheek in response. The situation was hopeless. Ever since Anton had brought Deidre into their circle, she felt unease. Deidre was too outspoken, too committed to her causes, too willing to point out that merely because things had always been done a certain way did not make it right. She spewed like a National Socialist about how she could not be free unless her country was free.

Elise had watched Anton change from a man who followed the letter of the law to someone who took increasingly greater risks, spurred on by his adoration of Deidre. It was not until others, who knew of their venture, began to whisper that Elise knew her suspicions would be proved. Deidre was a traitor whose task was to infiltrate and destroy their circle.

“Elise?”

She murmured a reply but kept her eyes downcast.

“Do you remember the Sundays after the war when we’d picnic in the Tiergarten? Our spot was at the statue of Beethoven, remember? We’d run around the ponds and try to guess how many lilies were growing on them before counting – although I knew you always cheated. And our parents would talk about everything except what happened, and for a few hours we’d ignore that my mother had been abused by the Russians or that your father lost a leg and an eye in the Allied Rheinwiesenlager POW camps. We’d eat sandwiches and be children again. And at night, when the stench of the air raid shelters overwhelmed me or the explosions of the bombs in the distance haunted your dreams, we’d open our eyes and think about those picnics.”

She nodded. The Tiergarten had been out of bounds since the Wall came up. She missed those days.

“We must not lose hope, Elise.”

She snorted. “Do you not realise, Friedrich, that hope is a vampire? It is leeching us of all that is good and teaching us that to trust is to lose.”

“Anton did not do this on purpose.”

“Yes, he did. He brought Deidre to us and told us we could trust her when we all knew about her past. We’d heard the stories of how she’d been seen in the company of the Stasi. Why did we listen to him?”

“Because he’s family.”

“He’s a traitor!”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I’m not being hard on him; I’m...” She allowed her eyes to meet his.

“Deidre may think she knows our plan for the escape at Bernauer Strasse, but nobody knows all the details.”

“She knows where the tunnel is. She knows we’re involved.”

“Yes. But she has no proof.”

“The Stasi don’t care about proof.”

Friedrich paused. “Then we need to make them care.”

The operation was simple enough. They would meet in the shadow of the scaffolding that had begun constructing Adenauer’s new “Television Tower”. Elise would meet Deidre and Anton while Friedrich watched behind a newspaper across the street. Every siren and bicycle bell made Elise jump. They arrived, just when she suspected they might be late, with coffee and cigarettes on their breaths. Elise thought she saw Deidre’s hand shaking as she asked Anton to light her another cigarette.

“What is the plan?” Deirdre gnawed on her red manicure between puffs.

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Elise. She gave Anton a pointed look.

“She means, what time is our ‘dinner’?” said Anton.

Elise smiled to hide her nerves. She was face-to-face with the Stasi bitch and wasn’t about to give the game away. “We’ve decided to make it Sunday ‘lunch’ instead. There is no way we can drop off the ‘potatoes’ in the evening, and besides, it will be harder to get them out of the ground once the light starts fading.”

Deidre nodded and dropped her voice. “What is the password?”

“Nagasaki. Oh, and you are leading the expedition.”

Deidre blanched. “Why me? I am hardly cut out for such things. Besides, I don’t do dirt.”

Elise waited. She watched Anton grapple with Deidre’s new stance. “You always said you wanted to be the first to lead people out of here. You swore that you would die before you gave up that opportunity.”

Deidre ground her cigarette with her heel and kicked the butt away. “I don’t remember saying that.”

“We all heard you. It was that night in Friedrich’s room. You swore on your life.”

She shifted her weight. “I’ve changed my mind. That sort of job is too dangerous for a woman.”

“What about spying?” They hadn’t noticed Friedrich’s approach. “Isn’t that dangerous too?”

A bead of sweat appeared on Deidre’s upper lip. “What are you saying?”

“Stasi.” Elise relished the way it felt to finally confront her with the truth.

A blush crept above Anton’s shirt collar. “Is this true?”

Deidre began to laugh. Passersby stared. Anton’s hands fell to his side and his shoulders slumped.

“The thing about traitors, Deidre, is that they struggle to put their money where their mouth is. They are happy to play along and utter declarations and pretend to care about social issues, but deep down they are as scared and pathetic as the rest of us. I hope you rot for what you’ve done.”

Friedrich placed his hand on her arm, sensing she might go too far if he did not.

“You have no proof. And I know your plans.”

“Plans change,” said Friedrich. “You’ve got nothing. I doubt very much your superiors will be quite as fond of you if you turn up empty-handed.”

“How could you?” Anton found his voice.

“I want what you have, Anton. Privilege. Money. Respectability. And you were so gullible in thinking you could save me from my situation. You lapped everything I said up like a hungry puppy and let me manipulate you in and out of the bedroom. If I liked you less, I might have pitied you.” She plunged her hands into her jacket pockets. “We’re all trying to survive here, Anton. Remember that.”

“Oh, get over yourself,” said Elise, although Friedrich was not sure whether it was meant for Anton or Deidre. She turned to them and said, “We have forty-five minutes to get to Bernauer Strasse. Let’s go.”

Nothing prepared them for the dirt or the dank smell of earth as they crawled on all fours in the tunnel. Twelve metres above them the DDR guards were patrolling, the trip wires were humming and the flood lights blasting the death strip with their accusatory yellow glow. Nobody spoke as they shuffled and sweated, scuffing their foreheads on the low ceiling and secretly hoping they would not faint from fear and excitement before reaching the other side. Elise followed the bob of Friedrich’s buttocks under his jacket and she could hear Anton breathing behind her. She cast her mind back to Sunday picnics in the Tiergarten and felt the sun and saw the greenery in her memories.

A sharp whisper cut into her reverie. “What is the password?”

“Tokyo.” They spoke as one.

“Ah, good. Welcome. You’ve made it to the West. Here. Take my hand.”

Elise bit her lip to stop herself from crying.